Tag Archives: Fusion GPS

Jul 5 2018

Very interesting theory on Trump’s Success


The mayor of Livermore California explains Trump’s popularity and success.   This is perhaps the best explanation for Trump’s popularity ….

Marshall Kamena is a registered Democrat and was elected mayor of Livermore, CA.. He ran on the democratic ticket as he knew a Bay Area city would never vote for a Republican. He is as conservative as they come. He wrote the following:

Trump’s ‘lack of decorum, dignity, and statesmanship’ By Marshall Kamena, Mayor of Livermore, CA.

My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of decorum. They ask if I don’t think his tweets are “beneath the dignity of the office.”

Here’s my answer: We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency.

We tried statesmanship.

Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized “collegiality” as John McCain?

We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney?

And the results were always the same. This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.

I don’t find anything “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper” about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party.

I don’t see anything “dignified” in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks.

I don’t see anything “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent.

Yes, Obama was “articulate” and “polished” but in no way was he in the least bit “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper.”

The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the ‘60s. To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale.. It has been a war they’ve fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery and lies from day one – the violent take-over of the universities – till today.

The problem is that, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war. While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality and propriety.

With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end. Donald Trump is America ’s first wartime president in the Culture War.

During wartime, things like “dignity” and “collegiality” simply aren’t the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors. Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming.

Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today.

Lincoln rightly recognized that, “I cannot spare this man. He fights.”

General George Patton was a vulgar-talking.. In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank. But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum then, Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich.

Trump is fighting. And what’s particularly delicious is that, like Patton standing over the battlefield as his tanks obliterated Rommel’s, he’s shouting, “You magnificent bastards, I read your book!”

That is just the icing on the cake, but it’s wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, he’s defeating the Left using their own tactics. That book is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals – a book so essential to the Liberals’ war against America that it is and was the playbook for the entire Obama administration and the subject of Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis.

It is a book of such pure evil, that, just as the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.

Trump’s tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do. First, instead of going after “the fake media” — and they are so fake that they have literally gotten every single significant story of the past 60 years not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the truth, from the Tet Offensive to Benghazi, to what really happened on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri — Trump isolated CNN.. He made it personal.

Then, just as Alinsky suggests, he employs ridicule which Alinsky described as “the most powerful weapon of all.”… Most importantly, Trump’s tweets have put CNN in an untenable and unwinnable position. … They need to respond.

This leaves them with only two choices. They can either “go high” (as Hillary would disingenuously declare of herself and the fake news would disingenuously report as the truth) and begin to honestly and accurately report the news or they can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice their usual hysteria and demagoguery. The problem for CNN (et al.) with the former is that, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would be the end of the Democratic Party they serve. It is nothing but the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left alive.

Imagine, for example, if CNN had honestly and accurately reported then-candidate Barack Obama’s close ties to foreign terrorists (Rashid Khalidi), domestic terrorists (William Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn), the mafia (Tony Rezko) or the true evils of his spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright’s church.

Imagine if they had honestly and accurately conveyed the evils of the Obama administration’s weaponizing of the IRS to be used against their political opponents or his running of guns to the Mexican cartels or the truth about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the Obama administration’s cover-up.

So, to my friends on the Left — and the #NeverTrumpers as well — do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be “collegial” and “dignified” and “proper”? Of course I do.

These aren’t those times. This is war. And it’s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.

So, say anything you want about this president – I get it – he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don’t care. I can’t spare this man. He fights for America!

Jul 5 2018

Should Mental Tests be Required for Politicians?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics

Re-Posted Jul 5, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

Sheila Jackson Lee is a politician of the Democrat Party. She is currently the U.S. Representative for Texas’s 18th congressional district, serving since 1995. The district includes most of central Houston. There are no qualifications to be a politician and the degree of incompetence seems to be more of a disease in government over the past 20 years which is getting worse by the year. There are no words to even explain the type of statements coming from some of them. Lee confuses Japan with Korea and then said Nix bombed the Germans at Pearl Harbor? This is getting completely insane.

Diane Feinstein said that post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, “is a new phenomenon as a product of the Iraq War” and therefore veterans perhaps should be tested to have a gun in any new legislation. Here is what she actually said without taking it out of context.

Feinstein, March 7: If I understand this, this adds an exemption of retired military. As I understand our bill, no issue has arose in this regard during the 10 years the expired ban was in effect and what we did in the other bill was exempt possession by the United States or a department or agency of the United States. So that included active military.

The problem with expanding this is that, you know, with the advent of PTSD, which I think is a new phenomenon as a product of the Iraq War, it’s not clear how the seller or transferrer of a firearm covered by this bill would verify that an individual was a member, or a veteran, and that there was no impairment of that individual with respect to having a weapon like this.

So, you know, I would be happy to sit down with you again and see if we could work something out but I think we have to– if you’re going to do this — find a way that veterans who are incapacitated for one reason or another mentally don’t have access to this kind of weapon.

Perhaps it is time that we require a mental examination to hold public office

Jul 5 2018

White House Trade and Manufacturing Policy Director Peter Navarro Discusses U.S. -vs- China Trade Confrontation…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on July 4, 2018 by

Last month the White House presented a 36-page outline of the U.S. position toward trade with China (full pdf below).  White House National Trade Council and Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Director Peter Navarro delivers a presentation to discuss that report.  Very well worth watching:

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Report below:

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/382162398/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-gEdfSI4PozPzxh25Eaz0

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Jul 5 2018

WHY INDEPENDENCE MATTERS


Published on Jul 4, 2018

Happy Fourth of July! Now what the heck are we celebrating?
Jul 4 2018

Unfortunately Every Investigative Trail Comes Back to the Dead End of FISA Abuse…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on July 4, 2018 by

Way back when CTH first began the deep dive into the systems and processes that were deployed in the 2015/2016 election cycle we eventually came to the conclusion that everything of substance, within the larger intelligence abuses, revolved around DOJ and FBI abuses of the FISA process.

As an outcome of multiple research deep-dives we then focused on a specific foundational block of that usurpation, the fraudulent application presented to the FISA Court by officials within the FBI and DOJ-NSD (National Security Division).  The October 21st, 2016, application to the FISA Court for surveillance authority upon U.S. person Carter Page; and by extension the Donald Trump campaign.

Throughout all further inquiries this central component remains at the center of the issue.  Unlawful surveillance is the originating principal behind Operation Crossfire Hurricane; it is also the originating issue within the Peter Strzok “insurance policy”; additionally, it is the originating aspect to the Clinton/Steele dossier; etc. etc. the list is long.  Chase any of the corrupt threads back to their source of origin and you eventually come back to the surveillance authority within the FISA processes.

As an outcome of those concentric circles CTH continued to say: stay focused on the FISA fraud, and by extension the FISA application, and by extension the dossier.  Every outbound surveillance ripple can be traced back to the use of FBI and NSA databases to conduct unlawful surveillance of political opposition.  Not a scintilla of discovery within the past two years modifies that reality.

Why is that important?  Here’s where things get FUBAR.   FISA is a process, and when used appropriately, within all guidelines, is essentially a surveillance tool.  However, it is a tool that is entirely subject to the honor of the user.  If the user is corrupt, or holds corrupt intent, the tool easily becomes a weapon.  That’s what happened in 2015, 2016 and likely long before that.  The weaponization is so easy to initiate that NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers admitted the intelligence community could not adequately prevent it.  So Rogers went about eliminating massive aspects to it, completely.

NSA and FBI database surveillance and monitoring is like HAL 9000.  The only way to ensure it does not become weaponized is to deconstruct it; remove some of the functions that are available to users.  The elimination of FISA-702(17) “About Queries”, was one such deconstruction.  Removing the (17) “about” search option entirely was the only way to stop human beings from using the tool.  However, that said, it only takes another presidential election, and a new NSA director, and the system can be reactivated once again.

The movement of the U.S. Cyber Command, literally into another combatant command, essentially merging NSA into a functional branch of the U.S. military, is clear evidence that people like Admiral Mike Rogers took action, in hindsight, knowing the Obama administration weaponized data collection, a function of government, for political benefit. Now, in hindsight, the action they took in May of this year all begins to make sense.

I don’t know House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, and I hold no insight into his thinking; however, looking at what actions were taken in the 2017 FISA re-authorization legislation it looks to me like he has structured this reality into the program.  How?  By timing the next FISA reauthorization to coincide with the 2020 Presidential Election.

Right now all of the administrators, the key-holders, of the Intelligence Apparatus database are honorable and generally safe; meaning they are trustworthy.  ODNI Dan Coats, through his action specifically related to the FISA process, has exemplified this.  Former NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers definitely showcased his trustworthiness on these intensely precarious issues.  Mike Pompeo and now Gina Haspel also appear solid on this issue.  We must, ‘trust’…. but demand verification and transparency.

However, all it takes is one Presidential election and the switch can easily be flipped back toward weaponizing those systems.  All it takes is political operative like John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and Eric Holder to reappear and reconstitute the system to allow weaponized political abuse/targeting.  Really, and scarily, it is that simple.

So long as the current process of data collection remains a part of the intelligence gathering operations within the institutions of government – every vote you make for the office of the President will ultimately be a vote for who you, as an individual, trust to have ownership of your most sensitive information.  So long as we accept this level of surveillance gathering, every election decision from now until the end of time is ultimately an election with a consequence that the victor could weaponize that information to enhance ideological power.

All of that said, this backdrop lies at the heart of the testimony recently given by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.   I could write 10,000 words on this specific segment, but it is not my intention to drag everyone through hours of nuance [Jeff, from Marketswork has a strong play-by-play] just watch the last two minutes:

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Let me cut to the chase.  Rod Rosenstein told congress the physical content of the FISA renewal application he signed does not align with the briefing explanation, from DOJ officials, that accompanied the signing.

…We sit down with a team of attorneys from the Department of Justice. All of whom review that and provide a briefing for us for what’s in it. And I’ve reviewed that one in some detail, and I can tell you the information about that doesn’t match with my understanding of the one that I signed, but I think it’s appropriate to let the Inspector General complete that investigation. These are serious allegations. I don’t do the investigation — I’m not the affiant. I’m reviewing the finished product, sir.

I’m not a Rosenstein apologist, and I’m not trying to convince you of his motives or intents. My personal opinion of Rosenstein (just to frame reference), is that he’s a coward. He’s kicking a MASSIVE problem over to Inspector General Michael Horowitz because he is afraid of it.  Rosenstein doesn’t want to be ‘that guy‘ who confronts deep state corruption of this scale…. so he insufferably shirks that responsibility over to the IG.  In my opinion, that makes him a coward; then again, it could be more accurate to say it makes him a bureaucrat – he is.

However, focus on the substance, not the insufferable parseltongue.  First, the public information about the FISA application is: the Nunes memo; the Schiff memo; and the Grassley memo. All direct sourced from the actual application.  Second, all members of the House and Senate intelligence committee have been allowed access to the “full and unredacted” FISA application since April 6th, 2018.  So there is no way for Rosenstein to hide behind the customary opaque nature of this specific FISA issue to congress. In short, he can’t lie about it.

Deputy AG Rosenstein is essentially saying he was mislead by “a team of attorneys from the Department of Justice.”  That’s a fanciful way of saying the DOJ-NSD briefing officials lied to him about the content of the reauthorization application.

OK, so in response we might initially say: ‘well if they lied to you, then prosecute them damnit’…. and our voices would be righteous.   However, the weasels have an out that President Obama helped create….

Remember the Susan Rice, James Comey, James Clapper and Loretta Lynch meeting in the Oval Office that Rice wrote down in her inauguration day memo-to-self?   Remember the “by the book” instructions.

Well, it would be “by the book” for the DOJ-NSD officials to lie to the Deputy AG about a counterintelligence operation, if the Deputy AG was within linear authority to the subject or target of the counterintelligence operation.  They are allowed to lie to him.

Setting aside the inherent malicious motive of the usurping officials within the DOJ-NSD during this entire aspect of their “insurance policy” deployment; the DOJ-NSD was investigating Trump; Rosenstein was an appointee of the Trump administration…. under this construct, and accepting this is a counterintelligence operation of the U.S. government unto itself; and accepting that President Trump could ask Rosenstein at any time about the underlying nature of the investigation; the DOJ-NSD lying to Rosenstein is reconciled/allowed  under the “by the book” permissions.

Yes. Anger. Me too.   But that doesn’t change the dynamic.

The 2015/2016 FISA abuse, search-engine surveillance and the underlying sketchy FISA application against Carter Page, is the lynchpin to the entire unlawful enterprise.  In the bigger picture, what happened is also dangerous as heck.  That’s the reason why Chairman Devin Nunes and Chairman Goodlatte keep chasing the story behind it.

However, even when chasing the story behind the FISA issues – what you discover is the FISA process itself is based on opaque fraud that is almost impossible to hold accountable.

The FISA surveillance system inside the intelligence apparatus is unaccountable by construct and design.  The users, and in these examples the ‘abusers’, of the surveillance system are essentially protected by the scale, scope and structure of the process.

The institutional nature of the system, the “by-the-book” per se’, is why Rosenstein now kicks the FISA can to IG Horowitz.   The “by-the-book” also protects the corruption contained within it. The system is, in essence, set up to protect itself. The only way to eliminate the protections is to eliminate the underlying process and stop collecting information.  That’s almost impossible to see happening.

As a consequence, there will likely be some prosecutions; but they will not be for the institutionally corrupt behavior we can clearly see.  Those who engaged in leaking stories to the media will be prosecuted for the leaking.  Beyond that aspect there is not likely to be any technical way to prosecute those who can hide behind the system.

Think of it another way….. I don’t mean to raise blood pressure, but taking new information and applying it to historic reference leads to this:

Many of those DOJ-NSD officials who participated in the Rosenstein briefing, or assembled the underlying briefing material, left after the time-period in question (June 2017).  Additionally, almost all of the FBI officials left, retired, resigned after this time-period.  There was also massive exit of all of corrupt support officials from inside the DOJ-NSD and FBI when the Page/Strzok text messages surfaced (December 2017) and the evidence of the political operation became public.

However, as all of these *inside* officials left the DOJ and FBI, another entire set of *outside* DOJ and FBI officials replaced them; and the originating counterintelligence operation was rebranded and handed over to Robert Mueller.

The inside government usurpation operation became an outside government usurpation operation, essentially using contract agents hired by the inside group prior to exit.  The remaining fragments of the ‘insurance policy‘ are in the hands of Robert Mueller’s team.

Jul 4 2018

President Trump and First Lady Melania Celebrate July 4th – White House Independence Day Speech (video)…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on July 4, 2018 by

President Donald J Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence host an independence day picnic at the White House for administration officials and military families.

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Jul 4 2018

President Donald Trump Independence Day Message…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on July 4, 2018 by

Earlier today President Donald Trump tweeted a video message to celebrate the Fourth of July, our Independence Day.

Jul 4 2018

Senator Rand Paul Independence Day Message…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on July 4, 2018 by

Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky delivers a message to celebrate the Fourth of July, Independence Day.

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Reflecting on liberty through Senator Rand Paul’s last year (2017 through 2018):

♦ Shot at while practicing for a congressional baseball game.
♦ Attacked in his front yard while mowing his lawn; hospitalized.
♦ Family threatened by mad man with an axe; recently arrested.

Jul 4 2018

Why We Celebrate The 4th Of July


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on July 4, 2018 by

The colonies had been in conflict with England for over a year in June of 1776. A Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia on June 7 of that year. Richard Henry Lee from Virginia offered up a resolution with these now famous words:

“Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

Lee’s words spurred the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. A committee of five was appointed to draft a statement making the case for the colonies, a statement to the world of the intent and the reason behind that intent.

Members of the Committee were John Adams of Massachusetts, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert R. Livingston of New York and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. Jefferson took on the task of actually drafting the document as we know it today.

The Continental Congress reconvened on July 1, 1776, and on the following day, the resolution for independence by Lee was adopted by 12 of the 13 colonies, with  New York not voting. Minor changes were made to the Jefferson document.

Work on the document continued through July 3 and into the afternoon of July 4, when the Declaration was officially adopted by the Congress. Of the 13 colonies, nine voted in favor of the Declaration, two — Pennsylvania and South Carolina — voted No, Delaware was undecided and New York again abstained.

As we all know, John Hancock, President of the Congress made his signature large enough for King George to read “without his spectacles.”

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. – Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The complete list of those who signed were:

John Hancock (president of the Continental Congress), Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery, Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott, William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris, Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark, Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross, Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean, Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn, Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, and George Walton.

Check out this link for the sobering fate of many of those who so pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. H/T to TheOriginalG-d&Country for this source.

Those are the facts about our Declaration of Independence, the history that we as school children have learned since the creation of this great nation that we celebrate, that we love and honor so.

Usually we humans can’t adequately find words to express our own sentiments, let alone those of a nation and successive generations to come, but Jefferson and that Continental Congress did just that.

The words have stood throughout several centuries as a clarion call for freedom, for breaking free of tyranny, for men to put aside their individual causes and join together to battle for the right of every man, woman and child together to become a people united in goal and resolve.

Today as we celebrate, today as we pledge allegiance to a flag that has gone from 13 stars to 50, may we remember not only the sacrifice, but the resolve. May we honor not only the words, but the unity and deeds of our forefathers. May each of us dig deep into our hearts and work out our differences for the betterment of our nation and our children and grandchildren.

Say a prayer for America today. Rekindle hope today. Honor the past by determining the future.

Please remember that this is a post in honor of our Independence Day. No political content, no rants, so slamming the other side. Today we are just Americans, honoring our country and each other.

Thanks to asawasa for posting this on another thread. I wanted to add it here.

Jul 4 2018

Chairman Devin Nunes Discusses List of Officials For Questioning…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House  on July 4, 2018 by