"So Peter Strzok wasn't just a top investigator for Special Counsel Robert Mueller until he was axed for anti-Trump and pro-Clinton bias: He was also a major player in the Hillary e-mail probe and the FBI work that led to the 'collusion' investigation.

"And Mueller and the FBI both dragged their feet on sharing key info about all this with Congress. ...

"The public doesn't know just how egregious Strzok's bias was, and won't until the release of his texts with his mistress, an FBI lawyer who (sigh) was also on Mueller's team.

"But as things stand, it now looks like the fix was well and truly in on the Hillary probe. Far worse, it also looks like the 'collusion' probe was a partisan hit from the start -- which undermines the basis for Mueller's own investigation.

"What a mess."

"Washington (CNN) -- A former top counterintelligence expert at the FBI, now at the center of a political uproar for exchanging private messages that appeared to mock President Donald Trump, changed a key phrase in former FBI Director James Comey's description of how former secretary of state Hillary Clinton handled classified information, according to US officials familiar with the matter.

"Electronic records show Peter Strzok, who led the investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server as the No. 2 official in the counterintelligence division, changed Comey's earlier draft language describing Clinton's actions as 'grossly negligent' to 'extremely careless,' the sources said. ...

"The shift from 'grossly negligent' to 'extremely careless,' which may appear pedestrian at first glance, reflected a decision by the FBI that could have had potentially significant legal implications, as the federal law governing the mishandling of classified material establishes criminal penalties for 'gross negligence.'"

"[D]espite the banner headlines calling the Flynn guilty plea a 'thunderclap,' I think it may be a show of weakness on the part of the special counsel rather than a sign of strength. So far he has had to charge potential witnesses with crimes that bear little or no relationship to any possible crimes committed by current White House incumbents. Mueller would have much preferred to indict Flynn for conspiracy or some other crime directly involving other people, but he apparently lacks the evidence to do so.

"I do not believe he will indict anyone under the Logan Act. If he were to do so, that would be unethical and irresponsible. Nor do I think he will charge President Trump with any crimes growing out of the president's exercise of his constitutional authority to fire the director of the FBI or to ask him not to prosecute Flynn.

"The investigation will probably not end quickly, but it may end with, not a thunderclap, but several whimpers."

"A jury has found Jose Ines Garcia Zarate not guilty in the murder of Kate Steinle, the woman whose shooting death on a San Francisco pier in 2015 ignited an immigration debate.

"Garcia Zarate was acquitted of first-degree murder, second-degree murder and manslaughter. However, he was found guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

"Garcia Zarate, of Mexico, had been deported several times and has previous convictions for re-entry after deportation. Before the killing, he had been released from a San Francisco jail after a minor drug charge was dismissed. While U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had issued a detainer for Garcia Zarate, he was released under the city's sanctuary laws."

"The New York Times editorial board took over the paper's opinion Twitter account, which has around 650,000 followers, 'to urge the Senate to reject a tax bill that hurts the middle class & the nation's fiscal health.' By urging the Senate, it meant sending out the phone number of moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins and imploring followers to call her. In others words, the board was indistinguishable from any of the well-funded partisan groups it whines about in editorials all the time.

"Perhaps I'm forgetting instances of similar politicking, but I don't think I've ever seen a major newspaper engage in the kind of partisan activism The New York Times is involved in right now -- not even on an editorial page. The Times' editorial board isn't saying, 'Boy, that Republican bill is going to kill children,' it's imploring people on social media -- most of whom don't even subscribe to their paper or live in Maine -- to inundate a senator with calls to sink a tax reform they dislike. (It's worth pointing out that most of the hyperbolic contentions the board makes regarding the bill are untrue or misleading, but that's another story.) ...

"What makes this kind of activism (which is likely to be ineffective, anyway) particularly hypocritical and distasteful, though, is that the Times has long argued in favor of empowering the government to shut down corporations -- just like them -- that engage in campaigning by overturning the First Amendment via Citizens United. This is worth remembering as the board turns into the equivalent of a super PAC."

"My favorite Elizabeth Warren story involves a cookbook. Warren, who was at that time posing as a trailblazing Cherokee, actually contributed recipes to a recipe book with the name, I kid you not, 'Pow Wow Chow.' But here's the best part of the story. She plagiarized some of the recipes. Yes indeed, her version of 'pow wow chow' came directly from a famous French chef."

Read entire article here

"The House Judiciary Committee plans to mark up the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act this Wednesday. The bill would certify that each state recognize the concealed carry firearm credentials of other states.

"Additionally, the bill mandates that states allow their own residents to carry firearms through 'non-resident' permits they obtained from another state.

"The House bill was introduced back in January by North Carolina Republican Rep. Richard Hudson and the corresponding Senate bill was introduced by Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn."

"On November 24, 2017, Richard Cordray resigned as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. His final year in office, and especially his exit, revealed the true nature of the agency Democrats created through the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. ...

"Since 2010, Republicans have argued that the CFPB's unique structure -- an independent agency whose single director the president can fire only for cause, with guaranteed funding through Federal Reserve Bank profits rather than the congressional appropriation process -- is a recipe for government abuse, if not unconstitutional. Cordray proved them right.

"[Sen. Elizabeth] Warren built a political battleship, and Cordray deployed it. The bureau's powerful media division dictated policy to its regulatory professionals and relentlessly exaggerated the agency's achievements in daily press releases and social-media posts. Political operatives used the CFPB's super-independence to stonewall congressional subpoenas and hide unethical investigation tactics, internal discrimination problems, and other inconvenient facts. Republican critics were dismissed as Wall Street sycophants.

"Meanwhile, millions of dollars were diverted from the CFPB to Democratic allies. From 2014 to 2017, the bureau paid $11 million a year to rent office space in an Obama fundraiser's building. The Dodd-Frank Act allowed the CFPB to send the civil money penalties collected in its enforcement actions to a trustee of its choice, who, after taking a healthy cut, distributed the funds to ostensible victims in unrelated matters. The maneuver both enriched Democratic trustees and transformed fines extracted from defenseless businesses based on their deep pockets rather than actual consumer harm into 'over $12 billion in damages returned to 29 million injured consumers.' To spread such propaganda, the bureau paid over $43 million to GMMB, the liberal advocacy group that created ads for the Obama and Hillary Clinton presidential campaigns."

Read entire article here

Thanksgiving has always been a special holiday, an opportunity for family reunions, bountiful feasts, marathon football games and the traditional kickoff of the Holiday Season. We travel home by car, train, plane and bus to come together with loved ones. As Americans gather with friends and family this week, let us not forget those brave men and women who put themselves in harms' way to protect our freedoms. They won't gather with their families. They'll be enjoying their Thanksgiving dinner on bases, in tents and aboard ships far from home. So, this Thanksgiving, please take time to let our troops know how grateful we are for their service and that they are in our thoughts as we give thanks.

The Center for Individual Freedom offices will be closed on Thursday, November 23rd and Friday, November 24th in observance of the Thanksgiving Holiday.

The Liberty Update will return next week.

"'Gifts to cultivate friendship are not bribes,' Abbe Lowell said in his closing in defense of Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez -- and enough jurors agreed to result in a hung jury and a mistrial. ...

"Even if the criminal law has been so diminished that private jets and luxury resorts don't constitute bribes, any reasonable standard of ethics tells us taking and concealing such gifts is wrong. Especially when they're being given by a friend who runs a Medicare fraud scheme for which the senator actively lobbies.

"A jury of Bob Menendez's peers heard the evidence and the arguments, and some of the jurors agreed with the 'just a friend' defense. Now the impetus is on the Senate Ethics Committee to do its job and, failing that, for the voters of New Jersey to conduct an act of political hygiene in next year's Senate election."