Rep Tom McClintock (R) 4th, weighs in on CA’s hiring of Eric Holder

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It was discovered yesterday that California taxpayer dollars will be funneled into the pockets of ex-US Attorney General Eric Holder and his firm, Covington & Burling, in order to fight the Trump administration on behalf of the State of California. For background, please see this.

SHR Media, of which I am a part, discussed the issue Wednesday night on the Sack Heads Radio show. Before the show, however, I attempted to acquire a response from the California Attorney General’s office but was unsuccessful.

I next contacted the office of my former 4th District representative, Tom McClintock, first speaking to Bill George in Rocklin, and followed with an email in order to see if I could solicit Rep McClintock’s opinion on the hiring of former AG Eric Holder.

Representative McClintock was kind enough to respond the very next day, and had this to say:

1.     This is a huge vote of no confidence in Xavier Becerra, who as incoming Attorney General would otherwise be responsible for representing the state government’s perspective in the courts.  Implicitly, legislative leaders are saying they don’t trust Becerra’s competence and need to bring in outside counsel.  I don’t disagree with them in this assessment.  Normally, the Attorney General would decide whether he needed additional legal counsel for a specific case – it looks like legislative leaders have made this decision for him.

2.     Since the administration has not taken office and therefore has not yet taken any official actions, it is hard to see specifically what Holder et al are being hired to contest.  Placing them on general retainer once again voices no confidence in Becerra and, given the partisan political connections involved, has the appearance of a political payoff.  Holder is also a curious choice as the only Attorney General to be held in contempt of Congress.

3.     An essential component of federalism is the ability of a state to assert its constitutional powers and prerogatives and to challenge federal authority through our legal system.  If they have no confidence in Becerra, they have every reason to hire outside counsel and every right to challenge federal actions.  Although I obviously strongly disagree with them on policy, I think state legal challenges to federal action are healthy.  This is certainly preferable to recent Democratic attempts to nullify federal law by refusing to obey or enforce it.   Democrats started the discredited and defeated doctrine of nullification in the antebellum era and have revived it with “sanctuary” and non-enforcement policies in recent years.   

I wholeheartedly concur with Rep McClintock’s assessment of incoming AG Becerra. It’s, to me, something of a resounding slap in the face. Particularly in light, as Rep McClintock aptly points out, of the fact that Holder was held in contempt of Congress in 2012.

This is, essentially, the State of California posturing for the Leftists within and without; chest-puffing if you will. Holder’s retainer comes directly out of the budgets of the Senate and Assembly. Will Holder’s consultancy extend beyond the “initial” three months? Quite possibly.

Thanks kindly to Tom McClintock and Bill George for assisting me in the matter and their rapid response.

BZ

 

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California hires former AG Eric Holder to fight Trump

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The rampant insanity continues unabated in the state of the insane.

I truly am “behind enemy lines in Occupied Fornicalia.”

My taxpayer dollars are going to be used to fight taxpayers. Meaning, I’m funding the state to fight my philosophy.

From SacBee.com:

California Legislature to pay Eric Holder to challenge Trump administration

by Taryn Luna

The California Legislature has hired the firm of former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder as outside counsel to assist legal challenges posed by conflicts with the Trump Administration, Democratic leaders announced Wednesday.

Holder’s firm, Covington & Burling, will advise the Legislature “in our efforts to resist any attempts to roll back the progress California has made,” said Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon in a joint statement on Wednesday.

As I said, my taxpayer dollars going to fight me. $75,000 in fact.

The Assembly and Senate have agreed to split the firm’s $25,000-a-month fee for an initial three-month period. “Given the urgency, intensity and complexity of the work, these terms are eminently fair and consistent with industry standards,” Assembly spokesman Kevin Liao said in a statement. “The initial agreement extends for a minimum of three months, at which time the parties will mutually and more specifically assess the evolving federal landscape and determine what overall scope of work will be required to meet California’s challenges going forward.”

Fornicalia politicians admit that illegals voted for them.

“This is a critical moment in the history of our nation,” Rendon and de León said. “We have an obligation to defend the people who elected us and the policies and diversity that make California an example of what truly makes a nation great.”

Note: “We have an obligation to defend the people who elected us.” Why would lawful Fornicalians require defense?

State legislative leaders have struck a defiant tone against President-Elect Donald Trump. The day after the election Rendon and de León issued a statement praising California, which voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton, and pledging to protect the state from Trump policies that may hurt the economy or infringe on the rights of people living in the state.

“I am honored that the Legislature chose Covington to serve as its legal advisor as it considers how to respond to potential changes in federal law that could impact California’s residents and policy priorities,” Holder said in a statement, “I am confident that our expertise across a wide array of federal legal and regulatory issues will be a great resource to the legislature.”

But wait. Do I detect some potential conflict of interest here?

De León has connections to Covington that extend beyond Holder.

Really? In what fashion?

Dan Shallman, a partner in the firm’s Los Angeles office, is the brother of John Shallman, whose Southern California-based political consulting and advertising agency serves as the longtime consulting house for de León and several other California elected officials. It is paid a $10,000 a month retainer by the California Democratic Party. This summer, Shallman Communications hired de León’s daughter, Lluvia de Milagros Carrasco, a recent graduate of Saint Mary’s College in Moraga, to work as an account coordinator.

There is going to be, clearly, a fight. First, a court fight. But possibly, in time, a civil fight that will extend across the nation.

Either the rule of law wins, or the rule of law loses.

If the rule of law loses and entire states can flaunt laws, then why should any other state — or, for that matter, you and me — obey state or federal laws? If the rule of law loses, the precedent will have been set.

This is a place that, trust me, California and Leftists nationally do not want to go.

BZ

P.S.

Can you now see the vital importance of the Second Amendment and the First Amendment?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” – John F. Kennedy

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Regulated to death under Obama

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Not only has Barack Hussein Obama defecated in the upcoming punchbowl of President-elect Donald Trump, he has done so to America for years but even more pointedly in the past month.

The situation can be issue-dependent as it is with Israel — Obama despises both Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu — but in general Obama fully expected Hillary Rodham Clinton to waltz into office on November 8th. When that didn’t occur, Obama knew he had to jack up the pace of his “legacy” geometrically because he expected HRC to continue his social engineering in the form of a proverbial third Obama term. To Obama these last-minute actions serve dual purposes: to kick the upcoming Trump administration in the crotch and to realize more Leftist objectives.

If you look closely, however, you realize that not only did Obama not just “allow” but push for the federal government to remove the rights of citizens and then sell them back, but it gave stellar influence, authority, dominion and unbridled power to faceless and unaccountable bureaucrats, none of whom were elected in any fashion, unlike Congress, and who are essentially answerable to no one.

From the WashingtonExaminer.com:

Obama unleashes 3,853 regs, 18 for every law, record 97,110 pages of red tape

by Paul Bedard

President Obama‘s lame duck administration poured on thousands more new regulations in 2016 at a rate of 18 for every new law passed, according to a Friday analysis of his team’s expansion of federal authority.

While Congress passed just 211 laws, Obama’s team issued an accompanying 3,852 new federal regulations, some costing billions of dollars.

The 2016 total was the highest annual number of regulations under Obama. Former President Bush issued more in the wake of 9/11.

Gosh. Nothing like micro-managing. Have you ever had a micro-manager for a boss? Did you enjoy it? Admire them? Or was every day a piece of festering crap?

This cartoon from the New Yorker is a perfect illustration of how Leftists feel about us rabble, us commoners, proles, serfs, groundlings.

“These smug pilots have lost touch with regular passengers like us.
Who thinks I should fly the plane?”

The point being that the passenger represents you, me, the unwashed conservative populist rabble, and the pilots represent your highly trained and competent Leftist US government under Obama. Leftists mandate that we must have complete confidence in the pilot because, as the government, it can give us snacks, drinks. Pilots require actual skills, training, education, experience. The pilot makes all that Free Cheese happen.

In other words: you morons, you step into the cockpit and you jeopardize everyone’s safety. Our Free Cheese. Our snacks. Our drinks.

Leftists insist: we’re making these rules, these regulations, away from Congress because we absolutely must have them and that damned silly Constitution, Bill of Rights and “checks and balances” keep getting in the way.

The annual “Unconstitutional Index” from Clyde Wayne Crews, CEI’s vice president for policy, said that it was much higher under Obama than under former President George W. Bush.

“The multiple did tend to be higher during Obama administration. Bush’s eight years averaged 20, while Obama’s almost-eight have averaged 29,” said his report, first provided to Secrets.

His index is meant to show that it is the federal bureaucracy, not Congress, that levies the most rules. “There’s no pattern to any of this, since the numerators and denominators can vary widely; there had been 114 laws in 2015, and a multiple of 39. The multiple can be higher with fewer laws, or with more regulations, holding the other constant. The point is that agencies do the bulk of lawmaking, no matter the party in power,” he wrote.

Holy mother of God. Read that again: “The point is that agencies do the bulk of lawmaking, no matter the party in power.”

Let’s just look at a few of the EPA rules.

And so much more.

All of this foolishness and micro-managing has to stop. Because, with just a pen — like Obama — Trump can remove this:

■ Many environmental mandates, including limits on formaldehyde use and stricter truck fuel efficiency rules;
■ A Food and Drug Administration ban on the sale of antibacterial soaps;
■ A requirement that federal contractors provide paid sick leave for their workers;
■ Stricter consumer protections on prepaid debit cards;
■ Federal loan forgiveness for students at schools that shut down;
■ A rule that bars nursing homes that receive federal funding from requiring residents to resolve all disputes through arbitration, rather than in court.

Just a start. Please read this piece from the Cato Institute about Executive Orders.

I repeat, direct from the Department of Redundancy Dept: Obama gave stellar influence, authority, dominion and unbridled power to faceless and unaccountable bureaucrats, none of whom were elected in any fashion, unlike Congress, and who are essentially answerable to no one.

And it would seem that is part and parcel of Obama’s Legacy.

A legacy that Donald Trump can and should overturn.

BZ

 

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Austria bends to Islam

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Islam does not bend to Austria.

How daft, shallow and capitulative. First, watch the video.

I particularly enjoyed the young Caucasoid female Vienna Polizei smiling for photos with the young Caucasoid female citizen who seems to be so terribly pleased to be the recipient of the device, as though it her were her own personal IUD against assault from both sperm and “refugees.”

Police spokesperson Paul Eidenberger explained that the alarm is meant for women “so that possible danger situations can be cleared at the beginning.” He added that “Of course it is not coincidence that we are doing this on New Year’s Eve. [This is] Because of what happened last year on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, the abuse, the sexual-abuse.”

Here’s a novel idea: provide a sufficient number of Polizei in order to protect your women so that they don’t have to resort to a bit of plastic for comfort. Be seen. Have a massive presence. Make arrests. Make many public arrests. Then start massive deportations of any of the detritus causing problems or committing crimes. There’s a start. Do your jobs.

Is it true that Austrian Polizei cannot seem to do their jobs? Or is it true that certain administrative personnel or politicians do not want the line-level troops doing their jobs because it might be seen as judgmental, harsh or impolitically correct?

Stop a moment and think of the implications, what this says to the Austrian people.

Which is why I say and continue to say: it doesn’t matter if there are Syrian women and children perishing in the Middle East. Simply because there is civil war in the Middle East, the Western world, Austria or the United States is not the panacea to the globe.

It cannot afford to be psychically, physically or budgetarily. Our resources and our lands are finite. We cannot save the entire planet.

No more “Syrian refugees” to the US, no more illegal immigrants to the US. It is time to hit the PAUSE button in order to assess our national damage and plan for our own sovereign future.

When the US is weak, the rest of the planet suffers.

BZ

 

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“Everyone” knows Russia hacked the elections

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“Everyone knows the Russians hacked the election.” Right?

 

Technical analysis: Malware “Russian hacking” sample provided by US government is common malware.

Please note this from WordFence.com, on Friday, December 30th.

Overall Conclusion

The IP addresses that DHS provided may have been used for an attack by a state actor like Russia. But they don’t appear to provide any association with Russia. They are probably used by a wide range of other malicious actors, especially the 15% of IP addresses that are Tor exit nodes.

The malware sample is old, widely used and appears to be Ukrainian. It has no apparent relationship with Russian intelligence and it would be an indicator of compromise for any website.

You can find a public repository containing the data used in this report on github.

This is not a political analysis in the slightest, but a technological examination of the facts as yet known. The article is lengthy and of interest if you’re well-versed in technical digital matters. Please read if you are so inclined.

Techie comments include:

unity100 December 30, 2016 at 6:19 am • Reply

Long story short, it doesnt have anything to do with Russia. ‘May have’ used by anyone indeed, however Russia being able to use datacenters located especially in Germany to hack against US is quite unlikely, with the German intelligence practically being subservient to US intelligence as recent leaks showed.

Steve Maughan December 30, 2016 at 6:24 am • Reply

What you appear to be saying is there is no “smoking gun” link even to Russia, nevermind the Russian Government!

mark December 30, 2016 at 6:27 am • Reply

Hi Steve,

It does appear that way. Unless FBI/DHS shares some additional IOC’s, there’s not really anything here we can use to make the connection.

Rusty December 30, 2016 at 6:34 am • Reply

Interesting what you find when you are on a non-political quest for the truth. I appreciate the work you did digging into this. It’s hard to find a source that doesn’t lean one way or the other, and just provides cold, hard facts. Thanks!!!

David Bennett December 30, 2016 at 6:42 am • Reply

Great article but don’t you think it is a confusing headline because if anything, your article shows there is no smoking gun that leads back to Russia as a state actor?

“US Govt Data Shows Russia Used Outdated Ukrainian PHP Malware”

Then Aaron hits a Commenter’s Home Run:

Aaron Miner December 30, 2016 at 2:01 pm • Reply

The problem with that reasoning is that this is also exactly what a non-governmental hacking job would look like. The burden of proof lies with those attempting to demonstrate a Russian plot to affect the election, which means they need to find evidence that distinguishes the a Russian hacking attempt from the null scenario. In the absence of such evidence, we must assume the null hypothesis (that it was more likely any of the many non-Russian, non-governmental actors capable of such an attack) until further evidence is presented.

Otherwise, we’d have to assume that the lack of evidence for aliens crash-landing in Roswell, New Mexico is evidence of a government conspiracy, because a government conspiracy would leave no evidence of an alien crash-landing in New Mexico. That would be circular reasoning, and therefore a fallacy.

It is claimed that “everyone” knows the Russians hacked the DNC, John Podesta’s emails, Hillary Clinton’s emails, et al, and turned them over to Wikileaks. Because it serves a political end for the Demorats — that is, it provides a ready and convenient excuse for Hillary Clinton’s having lost the election — the American Media Maggots have picked up on the theme as well. Therefore, “everyone” knows the Russians are responsible for the hacks and throwing the election.

However, what about the Sony hack two years ago? The FBI concluded after a few weeks that North Korea was responsible. It was convenient to say so, so it was so. Many people were not so sure. Why? Because determining a cyber attack is more of an art than a science. And intelligence agencies frequently rely on what is called “fourth party collection.” Even the NSA. Which was hacked.

But guess what?

For reasons delineated in prior posts, I think I’d consider the weight of the propeller-heads above over the input of others at this point, who are motivated by — well, let’s just say “self-interests.”

BZ

 

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