Attorney General Bill Barr responds to SDNY U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman who announced his refusal to leave his position last night:

…”Because you have declared that you have no intention of resigning, I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so.”…

Shorthand: You’re fired.

As we noted last night all the right resistance members have gone bananas. However, despite all the pearl-clutching, there’s no doubt in my mind Barr has this well in hand.

UPDATE 6:30pm ET: Geoffrey Berman Responds:

Common sense would tell us the attorney general knows House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler is attempting to have him impeached.  AG Bill Barr would not make any controversial personnel move -that provides Nadler ammunition- without having every angle of the removal covered.

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The Big Con.

What Senator Josh Hawley called the fraud of “the conservative bargain” is taking on an entirely new light thanks to the work of The National Pulse in what should be a game-changing expose’ on just who is funding, or should we say ‘controlling’, key aspects of expressed U.S. conservatism.

President Trump, in a tenuous alignment with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has previously said the list of judicial nominees presented, considered, nominated and confirmed, were assembled and vetted by two specific groups: The Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation; both of whom claim to hold conservative outlooks.

As a result, it’s a little more than concerning to discover that both organizations are being funded by the ultra-left wing Google ideology.   Yes, the same Big Tech outlet currently working on an advanced directive to block, control, censor and eliminate conservative speech on-line, is financing the organizations who claim to support conservative speech.

That revelation should get some attention…. but it won’t… because the same conservative pundits who are in place to get the attention of conservative Americans, and ultimately control what outrages should garner the attention of conservative thinkers, are financial benefactors of the same organizations under the control of their left-wing financing.

Think about that carefully.

Let that sink in.

Things starting to make sense now?

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A supreme court ruling today has blocked the termination of a court-admitted unconstitutional executive action known as DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals).  The background of the DACA controversy, and the prior position of the court on the sister program DAPA, makes this ruling the most political ruling yet by Chief Justice John Roberts.  [pdf link to ruling here]

The court decision was a 5-4 ruling.  Justice Roberts sided with the four liberal justices in blocking the termination of the executive program.  What makes this ruling outrageous is within the majority opinion of the court they recognize the Trump administration has the legal and constitutional authority to terminate the program; but the court, specifically John Roberts, doesn’t like the way in which the administration might do it.

The crux of Justice Roberts’ opinion is openly political.  The majority admit there is no constitutional protection for DACA recipients, and the Trump administration has the authority to dissolve and reverse the protections under the previous executive action; however, Roberts specifically cites his concern with deportation.

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Representative Devin Nunes appears on FOX Business’ with Elizabeth MacDonald to discuss how conservative voices are being censored and targeted by the ideology of Big Tech, against the backdrop of latest examples of Google targeting websites.

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Timing is everything…

When NBC published their background conversation with Google yesterday the media outlet made a big legal mistake.  NBC not only outlined the mechanics of a racketeering and antitrust violation, via Google’s power to control on-line ad revenue as a weapon to target NBC’s competition, but NBC outlined the actual collaborative communication.

NBC did the worst thing possible, they published the quotes from Google’s response to them where Google willingly accepted the request from NBC without pause.  The collusion was not only clear, it was self admitted.  What made the issue more explosive was the NBC article explained the motives of both organizations; the targeting was intentional and specific.  The goal was to take-down The Federalist news outlet by removing their revenue. There was no ambiguity of purpose, and Google knowingly agreed with the intent.

Within hours of realizing the consequences of the publication, the legal offices of NBC and Google both activated and attempted damage control.  The NBC article was completely rewritten and the communication between them and Google –as quoted– was removed.  For its part Google published a statement saying no action had been taken, and later they professed no action would be taken.  However, the damage was already done.

NBC’s hubris put both Google and NBC in the sunlight of their own admissions.

Google’s monopoly control of internet ad revenue made their agreement with NBC to target a competitor a transparent, and admitted, antitrust violation.  Without question, that stark admission is what triggered the timing of the DOJ public statement today.

The DOJ needs congress to take action, modify the law, and update the outdated immunity for online platforms under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

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This hearing might be a little too wonky for some, but not too many other policy issues touch 100% of American lives.   U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer will be delivering testimony today outlining the 2020 trade policy agenda.

The testimony is before the House Ways and Means Committee, and will be livestreamed on the committee website [SEE HERE] and below at 10:00am ET from the Longworth House Office Building.  USTR Lighthizer is the sole witness.

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Lighthizer will also be testifying to the Senate Finance Committee at 3:00pm. [LINK]

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U.S. Senator Josh Hawley delivered a speech on the floor of the senate that deserves some attention.  The larger issue outlined by Senator Halwey surrounds the recent Supreme Court Bowstock decision authored by Justice Gorsuch.  However, in overlaying the judicial outcome, Hawley hits on the central issue he calls the “conservative bargain.”

The entire speech is worth listening to, as the senator encapsulates many of the frustrations within the recent decision; but the segment at 07:15 cuts to the heart of the distinction between MAGA-Trump republicanism and the pathetic GOPe wing of the Mitch McConnell UniParty. We have previously called this “The Decepticon”  WATCH:

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In his opening monologue today Fox host Tucker Carlson took on the subject of Google and their control over 70% of all on-line advertising revenue.   Within the very accurate segment, Carlson noted that Utah Senator Mike Lee is in charge of the antitrust subcommittee and yet does nothing, absolutely nothing, to stop the authoritarian demonetization and deplatforming action carried out through the monopoly Google holds.

No single issue will do more damage to the reelection efforts of President Trump than allowing Google to carry out their political agenda. However, that accepted, that’s also the motive for the Senate and DOJ to do nothing. This is a good, honest and painful segment:

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Earlier today the DOJ filed a civil action [see pdf here] against former National Security Advisor John Bolton for refusing to comply with the classified intelligence review prior to publishing a book.  [DOJ FILING LINK]  Perpetual warmonger John Bolton worked as NSA to President Trump from April 2018 to September 2019.

Bolton was always an odd pick for National Security Advisor given his propensity to advance mid-east wars and advocacy for military strikes against North Korea.

…”On June 7, 2020, without Defendant giving any prior notice to the NSC, press reports revealed that Defendant and his publisher had resolved to release the book on June 23, without completing the pre-publication review process. Subsequent correspondence with Defendant’s attorney confirmed that public reporting.

Simply put, Defendant struck a bargain with the United States as a condition of his employment in one of the most sensitive and important national security positions in the United States Government and now wants to renege on that bargain by unilaterally deciding that the prepublication review process is complete and deciding for himself whether classified information should be made public.”… (pdf)

An embed of the lawsuit is below:

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There is considerable conversation, on all sides of the issue, surrounding a 6-3 supreme court decision today recognizing “gay” and/or “transgender” persons as being protected by the 1964 civil rights act under the definition of “sex”.  Factually, the decision authored by Judge Gorsuch writes those terms into the legislative definition; that’s a problem.

However, that said, for all practical purposes and intents, sexual orientation has been a protected employment category -as viewed by the Dept. of Labor and EEOC- since the mid-90’s. So some of the over-the-top exclamations, in both directions, are moot amid the world of practical application.

As to the issue of SCOTUS usurping the legislative responsibility for the practical wording of law, yes, this ruling is an issue, and Judge Alito is absolutely correct in all corners of his dissent.  Justice Gorsuch has opened a can of worms for downstream consequences unrelated to employment eligibility; and a myriad of potential future cases based on gender orientation are likely to flow to the court; so the big picture is problematic.

All arguments surrounding the issue of SCOTUS writing legislation through the delivery of opinion are merited and worthy.  However, on the specific application of ‘gender’ to employment eligibility, today’s ruling was already in place.  Amy Howe has a good encapsulation at SCOTUS Blog:

“Today the Supreme Court, by a vote of 6-3, ruled that even if Congress may not have had discrimination based on sexual orientation or transgender status in mind when it enacted the landmark law over a half century ago, Title VII’s ban on discrimination protects gay, lesbian and transgender employees. Because fewer than half of the 50 states currently ban employment discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation, today’s decision is a major victory for LGBT employees.”

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