"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is happy to play rank politics with the federal coronavirus response. Exhibit A is the absurd $3 trillion 'relief' bill she's set for floor vote on Friday.

"It's the first emergency bill written by one party with zero input from the other. Some Dems say it's just an 'opening bid,' but why waste time crafting 1,800 pages of legislation full of poison pills for the opposition?

"It seems Pelosi thinks virtue-signaling to her base is worth the trouble.

"The bill is packed with junk that has nothing to do with the pandemic or the economic chaos the response to it has created. It would, for example, end the cap on state and local tax deductions enacted in the 2017 tax reform, putting more money in the hands of the rich in high-tax states.

"It also has no-way-Republicans-will-agree provisions on abortion, immigration and other hot-button issues irrelevant to the crisis."

"The list released Wednesday by acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell of top Obama officials who asked to 'unmask' former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's name from NSA reporting is the latest bombshell in the story of how the Obama administration weaponized intelligence to undermine and destroy the incoming Trump administration.

"But it also suggests this conspiracy began earlier and was much broader than previously believed.

"By releasing this list, Grenell did a great service to his country to protect the principle of the peaceful transfer of power. But the intelligence community needs to release much more information to get to the bottom of this conspiracy. This should include information on the content of the NSA reports and which officials made unmasking requests of them.

"Intelligence officials also need to provide a broader list of all unmasking requests made by senior Obama officials during this time period because it is likely that other Trump campaign and transition officials also were targeted. ...

"The lists of requesters to unmask Flynn's name from intelligence reports after the 2016 election is not a smoking gun, but it does strongly suggest some coordinated effort by senior Obama officials to target Flynn and undermine the incoming Trump administration."

Read entire article here.

"Candidates backed by President Trump were outperforming expectations in two closely watched congressional special elections on Tuesday night, as former Navy combat pilot Mike Garcia inched closer to retaking Democrat Katie Hill's California seat and Republican Tom Tiffany easily prevailed in Wisconsin.

"Garcia grabbed a substantial early lead Tuesday in the fight for the open U.S. House seat north of Los Angeles in the swing 25th District, giving California Republicans a chance to claim a Democratic-held congressional seat in the state for the first time since 1998. With 76 percent of precincts reporting and approximately 143,000 ballots counted, Garcia was leading Democrat Christy Smith 55.9 percent to 44.1 percent.

"But, California routinely counts large numbers of votes after election day, and mail ballots can arrive as late as Friday and still be counted as long as they were postmarked by Tuesday. An unknown number of ballots remained uncounted and Los Angeles County, where most of them are located, was not expected to update its tally again until Friday. ...

"The contest is the only competitive House race in the country in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. It's seen nationally as a proxy vote on Trump's leadership and a possible harbinger for November elections."

Read entire article here.

"Richard Grenell, the acting director of national intelligence, has declassified documents related to Obama administration officials' unmasking of Michael Flynn in transcripts of phone calls he had with Russia's ambassador, a senior intelligence official told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

"Grenell visited the Justice Department last week to meet with officials there to discuss releasing the documents, which include names of Obama-era officials involved in unmasking Flynn's name in the phone call transcripts. ...

"Unmasking refers to a process where top U.S. government officials can request information on American citizens picked up during electronic surveillance of foreigners. Flynn was unveiled as taking part in a Dec. 29, 2016 phone with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador.

"It is not illegal for U.S. officials to make unmasking requests. But the information on Flynn was leaked to The Washington Post, opening up the possibility that someone in the Obama administration illegally disclosed classified information.

"An unidentified senior U.S. official provided details of the Flynn-Kislyak phone call to The Washington Post for a column published on Jan. 12, 2017."

"No wonder Barack Obama is 'pretty darn invested' in making sure Donald Trump doesn't win re-election. The former president knows his Teflon coating is wearing thin.

"With his nemesis, Gen. Michael Flynn, suddenly exonerated, he also knows that Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr are closing in on the truth of his role in the whole dirty Russia-collusion lie.

"'There's more to come,' President Trump told 'Fox & Friends' on Friday, the day after the Justice Department dismissed its case against Flynn, having found that the FBI had laid a 'perjury trap' for his short-lived national security adviser.

"'I believe [Obama] and Biden -- Sleepy Joe was involved in this also, very much.'"

Read entire article here.

"The collusion house of cards has finally and fully collapsed.

"In a stunning turn of events Thursday, the Justice Department dropped its case against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Exculpatory documents concealed by the FBI and federal prosecutors for more than three years showed that the retired Army lieutenant general never lied or committed a crime.

"The FBI knew Flynn did not collude with Russians. He is a patriot, not a traitor.

"The notion that candidate Donald Trump conspired with Moscow to steal the 2016 presidential election was always an implausible phantasm built on a foundation of Russian disinformation commissioned by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democrats.

"The malevolent James Comey, fired director of the FBI, knew this but it didn't deter him. He and his lieutenants sedulously stacked the cards, one by one, against Trump by exploiting the bogus allegations and pursuing an illicit investigation designed to drive him from office.

"House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and his sycophants in the media propagated the Russia hoax by insisting there was 'solid evidence' that Trump was a secret Kremlin asset and predicting the imminent demise of his presidency. Except no such evidence ever existed. Collusion was nothing more than an illusion and a delusion.

"Tragically, people like Flynn became collateral damage amid the carnage of corruption, dishonesty, abuse and injustice."

Read entire article here.

"Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Wednesday predicted that a 'tidal wave' of lawsuits against reopening small businesses would flood the courts if there is no liability protection legislation passed by Congress.

"The Texas senator told 'The Hugh Hewitt Show' that he agreed with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that liability protection for small businesses that are reopening after the pandemic is necessary.

"'If we do nothing, there will be an onslaught, a tidal wave of lawsuits going after every small business in America for opening up and risking COVID-19,' he said. 'That's not an acceptable course of action.'

"Cruz said he expects Democratic lawmakers to 'protect trial lawyers' by excluding the liability protection because they are funders of the party. He said Democrats' priority during the pandemic has been political to 'take care of their partisan wish list.'

"'And so I fully expect that [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will go to the barricades to protect the ability of the trial lawyers to sue everyone and try to extract billions from the system,' he said. 'I don't know how that will shake out.'"

"Dr. Neil Ferguson, director of the prestigious MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London, published an explosive report on March 16 predicting that without intervention coronavirus deaths in the U.K. could reach 550,000 and American fatalities could be as high as 2.2 million.

"Alarmed by Dr. Ferguson's predictions, the British government scrapped its original plan of allowing its population to acquire 'herd immunity' to the virus naturally in favor of a strict lockdown. The U.S. government fell into line with similar guidelines shortly thereafter.

"On Monday, the epidemiologist whose projections guided the imposition of strict stay-home measures resigned his position when it was reported that his married lover visited him at his home -- twice -- in defiance of social distancing rules."

"BEIJING (Reuters) - An internal Chinese report warns that Beijing faces a rising wave of hostility in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that could tip relations with the United States into confrontation, people familiar with the paper told Reuters.

"The report, presented early last month by the Ministry of State Security to top Beijing leaders including President Xi Jinping, concluded that global anti-China sentiment is at its highest since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, the sources said.

"As a result, Beijing faces a wave of anti-China sentiment led by the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic and needs to be prepared in a worst-case scenario for armed confrontation between the two global powers, according to people familiar with the report's content, who declined to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.

"The report was drawn up by the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of State Security, China's top intelligence body. ...

"Reuters couldn't determine to what extent the stark assessment described in the paper reflects positions held by China's state leaders, and to what extent, if at all, it would influence policy. But the presentation of the report shows how seriously Beijing takes the threat of a building backlash that could threaten what China sees as its strategic investments overseas and its view of its security standing."

"Had the Department of Justice (DOJ) released the newly disclosed documents related to Gen. Michael Flynn three years ago, instead of fired FBI Director James Comey improperly leaking his 'memos' on President Trump, there definitely would have been a special counsel -- only it would have been investigating the FBI for gross abuse of power, not the Trump administration.

"The new documents are in effect the 'smoking gun' proving that a cabal at the FBI acted above the law and with extreme political bias, targeting people for prosecution rather than investigating crimes. ...

"It is all coming out now, but it is way too late. Attorney General William Barr seems to see this all very clearly, but the time to act with tough indictments is truly now, with the release of these explosive documents."

Read entire article here.