Trump / FBI / Russians

The United States may be on the seeming precipice of war with the jihad-exporting terrorist regime that has governed the Islamic Republic of Iran since the fateful Islamic Revolution of 1979, but apparently that hasn't stopped the notoriously authoritarian regime-friendly Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) from recently meeting with infamous Iranian regime mouthpiece Mohammad Javad Zarif — foreign minister for the terrorist mullocracy.

Per Politico's "Playbook":

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CALIF.) had dinner with IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER JAVAD ZARIF when he was in the United States a few weeks ago, several sources told us. Last week, Playbook reported that Feinstein was walking around the Capitol with Zarif’s contact information pulled up on her iPhone -- we spotted it in an elevator.

FEINSTEIN’S team tells us that the dinner was "arranged in consultation with the State Department." "The office was in touch with State in advance of the meeting to let them know it was happening and to get an update on U.S.-Iran activity," Feinstein’s office said. A State Department official told us that they did not ask Feinstein to go to the dinner with Zarif, a smooth-talking, American-educated Iranian diplomat who worked on the nuclear deal with John Kerry.

OF COURSE, the United States and Iran are in the middle of a high-wire diplomatic and military staring contest. The United States has moved additional military resources into the region, and has indicated it has intelligence that the Iranians were readying to attack American interests in the region.

Politico also casually referred to Feinstein's "dining with the foreign minister of an adversary" as "a bit unusual."

As the Washington Examiner notes, Zarif was one of the preeminent public-facing Iranian regime figureheads during the Obama administration's negotiations that led to the United States' entrance in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (i.e., the Iran nuclear deal):

Zarif was also one of the Iranian officials who met with former Secretary of State John Kerry about salvaging the Iran nuclear deal. This led to accusations by the Trump administration that Kerry violated the Logan Act, a more than 200-year-old law that prohibits unauthorized private citizens from acting on behalf of the U.S. in disputes with foreign governments but has never been used to prosecute anyone.

The Logan Act routinely comes up in discussions regarding non-presidential governmental figures and foreign government officials, but it is never actually invoked. Conservative commentator and radio host Erick Erickson actually once referred to it, during the context of the Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)-led Republican senator pushback against the Iran deal, as a "talking point of hacks and morons":

The Logan Act originated in 1799. Not a single person has ever been convicted under the Logan Act. Ironically, the namesake of the law, George Logan, after compelling John Adams to get the act passed, became a United States Senator. The Logan Act serves mostly as a partisan tool to throw at opponents who dare to contradict a sitting President’s foreign policy. ...

It’s a stupid talking point used by unserious people who want to avoid having to deal with the fact that the President of the United States is giving away the farm to Iranians who, given the chance, would gladly kill him, you, me, and everyone complaining about a Logan Act violation.

 

Jenni Monet, a self-styled “award-winning journalist” and Native American activist, claimed she was racially profiled both at a liquor store and by responding police officers and was the victim of police brutality. But released surveillance video from the night of her arrest for aggravated DWI in Santa Fe, New Mexico, captures the other side of the story, which includes Monet making obscene gestures at liquor store employees and screaming obscenities at law enforcement.

 

In a stinging reproach to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her cohorts who scuttled the deal by which Amazon would have built a headquarters in Queens, Ocasio-Cortez’s district, Amazon is reputedly going to place its headquarters in Manhattan instead.

According to The New York Post, Amazon is communicating with Brookfield, the owners of the One Manhattan West building and its impending partner, Two Manhattan West, starting with securing “at least 100,000 square feet or much more.” Although Two Manhattan West won’t be equipped for tenants until 2022, 67-story One Manhattan West will be ready by autumn 2020 and boasts a 250,000-square-foot space inside. The massive space is not available in perpetuity, but it can fit Amazon’s needs until Two Manhattan is ready, according to the Post’s sources.

The Post noted, “Brookfield, which owns the two Manhattan West towers (and another at 5 Manhattan West, where Amazon is already a tenant), denied through a spokesman that it was leasing to the Seattle company. But multiple sources pointed to the company’s strict confidentiality agreements as a potential reason.”

Sources told the Post that Amazon is also thinking of renting space in the U.S. Post Office building across from the Brookfield buildings.

Amazon had originally planned to construct a four-million-square-foot campus in Long Island City. Queens residents were delighted with the prospect of the rumored 25,000 jobs that were mentioned, as well as the effect on local businesses. Alfredo Ortiz, president & CEO of the Job Creators Network told the Post that for every job Amazon would have created, a multiplier effect would have affected five or more other local jobs.

The Post noted, “The Long Island City deal would also have seen Amazon invest in a 600-seat public school; a workforce development and training space; an artists’ workspace; and 149,650 square feet of public open space, among other projects — all of which is now lost.”

In February, The Daily Wire reported that Amazon had canceled its plans for building in Queens. CNN reported:

"After much thought and deliberation, we've decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens," Jodi Seth, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement. In the statement, Amazon noted that "a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the type of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City."

Ocasio-Cortez celebrated the demise of Amazon’s plans, tweeting, "Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world."

State senator Michael N. Gianaris chortled, "Rather than seriously engage with the community they proposed to profoundly change, Amazon continued its effort to shakedown governments to get its way. It is time for a national dialogue about the perils of these types of corporate subsidies."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo took a shot at Ocasio-Cortez and her cohorts, issuing a statement in which he said, "A small group politicians [sic] put their own narrow political interests above their community -- which poll after poll showed overwhelmingly supported bringing Amazon to Long Island City -- the state's economic future and the best interests of the people of this state."

 

Joe Biden bashed President Trump while standing on foreign soil earlier this year in Germany.

But unlike the Obama-Biden administration, which failed to make any progress with North Korea, President Trump has actually increased pressure and gotten them to the negotiating table.

If you want an example of 'siding with a murderous dictator,' how about the disastrous Iran nuclear deal? Or failing to follow through on the 'red line' with Syria? From the Iraq war to the Russia reset, Joe Biden has been wrong on virtually every foreign policy call in the last four decades. Just ask former Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates."

 

It might surprise many Americans to learn that, per Department of Justice statistics, a whopping 43% of all federal offenses are committed by non-citizens. Tragically, as then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions put it last year, every single crime committed by an illegal alien is, by definition, a readily preventable crime:

Every crime committed by an illegal alien is, by definition, a crime that should have been prevented. It is outrageous that tens of thousands of Americans are dying every year because of the drugs and violence brought over our borders illegally and that taxpayers have been forced, year after year, to pay millions of dollars to incarcerate tens of thousands of illegal aliens.

Washington state has been experiencing an upsurge in crime committed by illegal aliens. Earlier this month, The Seattle Times noted how a 51-year-old Seattle-area man charged with luring and second-degree assault after he allegedly tried to force a 14-year-old girl into his pickup truck turned out to be a twice-deported illegal alien. Seattle-based radio host Dori Monson opined on the lawless sanctuary city laws that mollycoddle criminal aliens throughout Washington state:

We have the most lax laws. We are attracting drug vagrants, and we are attracting illegal immigrants. We are seeing the ramifications of it on the streets with all of the women who are being sexually assaulted, from the woman at the Ballard car dealership to Kelly Herron at Golden Gardens, to this teenage girl in Burien.


Washington is the best place to be if you’re an illegal immigrant. We’ve got sanctuary everything and a governor who tells you you’re a pillar of the community when you come into this country illegally and commit crimes. What a great place to come and abduct 14-year-old girls.

Now, as The Daily Caller reported last week, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has taken it upon itself to hone its crosshairs upon and utterly excoriate Washington state's lax sanctuary city regime:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement ripped Washington for becoming the latest state to enact policies that protect illegal immigrants from local law enforcement and federal authorities.

"ICE maintains that cooperation by local law enforcement is an indispensable component of promoting public safety. It’s unfortunate that current local and state laws and policies tie the hands of local law enforcement agencies that want and need to work with ICE to promote public safety by holding criminals accountable and providing justice and closure for their victims," the agency said Thursday in a statement to The Daily Caller News Foundation. ...

"Sanctuary policies not only provide a refuge for illegal aliens, but they also shield criminal aliens who prey on people in their own and other communities," ICE stated. "When ICE officers and agents have to go out into the community to proactively locate these aliens, it puts personnel and potentially innocent bystanders at risk."

According to The Daily Caller, "The newly-enacted legislation largely prohibits local law enforcement from asking about an individual’s immigration status or place of birth, with an exception if it pertains to a criminal investigation."

 

On Wednesday, Planned Parenthood’s new president Leana Wen was smacked with four Pinocchios — the worst possible rating — from a Washington Post fact check over the abortion leader’s repeated false claim concerning abortion in the days before the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.

But the claim is false. As highlighted by Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that the number of deaths from illegal abortions in the United States pre-Roe (1972) was 39 — miles away from the executive’s “thousands” claim. Moreover, in that same year, the number of deaths from legal abortion was 24.