"After Trump was elected, the FBI realized that Trump was soon going to have access to government intelligence files. If they honestly told the president-elect that they had been investigating his campaign in hope of making a case on him, they had to be concerned that he would shut the investigation down and clean house at the FBI and DOJ. So, they misleadingly told him the investigation was about Russia and a few stray people in his campaign, but they assured him he personally was not under investigation.

"This was not true. The investigation was always hoping to find something on Trump. That is why, for example, when director Comey briefed then-President-elect Trump about the Steele dossier, he told Trump only about the salacious allegation involving prostitutes in a Moscow hotel; he did not tell the president-elect either that the main thrust of the dossier was Trump's purported espionage conspiracy with the Kremlin, nor that the FBI had gone to the FISC to get surveillance warrants based on the dossier. The FBI was telling the president-elect that the allegations were salacious and unverified, yet at that very moment they were presenting them to a federal court as information the judges could rely on to authorize spying."

Read entire article here.

"Like generals fighting the last war, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are fixated on the last presidential election. Their refusal to let it go and get on with governing in a divided Congress is a shameful sign of how radical their party has become since President Trump's election.

"This is the crisis America faces -- Democrats still do not accept the legitimacy of his victory. And so anything he says is treated as unworthy and untrue, even when Americans can see with their own eyes that much of the southern border is essentially wide open for anyone who wants to cross it. ...

"It is indeed painful to see so many destitute people looking for a better life, and the recent deaths of two young children who made the hazardous trek -- illustrate the dangers.

"But it is also extremely painful to watch America dissolve into a borderless society where laws and order are sacrificed out of bitterness and hatred for a president who won an election fair and square.

"Not so long ago, Democrats, including Schumer and Pelosi, believed that borders meant something. Trump shouldn't stop reminding them of that and speaking up for the many Americans who still do."

"Building a wall is kind of an obvious idea for protecting a border. Not only have walls been used from time immemorial to defend borders, but those precise three words have been used to describe what should happen at our specific border thousands of times before Trump used them, according to a quick Nexis search.

"The current DNC talking point against a wall is that it is a 'medieval solution to a 21st-century problem!' Turn on MSNBC or CNN right now, and you'll hear someone saying it.

"So are wheels. Are Democrats taking tires off their cars?

"A roof is a medieval solution. How about Nancy Pelosi replace the one over her house with 'new technology' -- like a drone! Drones won't keep anything out, but at least she can see what's coming in seconds before it drops on her head.

"Medievalism:1; Pelosi:0."

"The federal government remains shut down for one reason and one reason only: because Democrats will not fund border security. My administration is doing everything in our power to help those impacted by the situation, but the only solution is for Democrats to pass a spending bill that defends our borders and reopens the government. ...

"Some have suggested that a barrier is immoral. Then why do wealthy politicians build walls and fences and gates around their homes? They don't build walls because they hate the people on the outside, but because they love the people on the inside. The only thing that is immoral is the politicians to do nothing and continue to allow more innocent people to be so horribly victimized. ...

"To every member of Congress, pass a bill that ends this crisis. To every citizen, call Congress and tell them to finally, after all of these decades, secure our border. This is a choice between right and wrong, justice and injustice. This is about whether we fulfill our sacred duty to the American citizens we serve.

"When I took the oath of office, I swore to protect our country. And that is what I will always do, so help me God."

"Very soon, news from the trail will overtake the goings-on in Congress. House Democrats won't just have trouble changing laws. They also will have difficulty promoting their message. Especially considering the third and greatest difference between 2007 and 2019: the presence of Donald Trump. There's no evidence that Pelosi has any better an idea of how to deal with him than her predecessors. Whenever Trump focuses his attention on reelection and sets the agenda of cable news coverage by attacking his rivals on Twitter, Pelosi will be less than powerless. She will be irrelevant.

"The partial government shutdown is a prelude to an unpredictable two years of conflict, deadlock, breakdown, acrimony, dissatisfaction, and annoyance. At the end, Democrats will be reminded that, thanks to congressional delegation of authority, the House doesn't count for much. What matters is the presidency. Ask the GOP.

"Even there, Republicans will tell you, be careful what you wish for."

"The US embassy in Havana more than halved its staff in 2017 when diplomats complained of headaches, nausea and other ailments after hearing penetrating noises in their homes and nearby hotels.

"The mysterious wave of illness fuelled speculation that the staff had been targeted by an acoustic weapon. It was an explanation that appeared to gain weight when an audio recording of a persistent, high-pitched drone made by US personnel in Cuba was released to the Associated Press.

"But a fresh analysis of the audio recording has revealed what scientists in the UK and the US now believe is the true source of the piercing din: it is the song of the Indies short-tailed cricket, known formally as Anurogryllus celerinictus.

"'The recording is definitively a cricket that belongs to the same group,' said Fernando Montealegre-Zapata, a professor of sensory biology at the University of Lincoln. 'The call of this Caribbean species is about 7 kHz, and is delivered at an unusually high rate, which gives humans the sensation of a continuous sharp trill.'"

"Thursday was a strange day in Washington. There was the changing, not of the guard but of half of the Congress, and Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats acted as if she were Franklin D. Roosevelt (in drag) and it was 1932 and 'happy days are here again.'

"She told The New York Times that the Constitution considers her to be the president's equal, which was news to everyone else, but, to be fair, Nancy was confused all day long. At the conclusion of what she regarded as her inaugural address before the House of Representatives, she said to herself (caught on an open microphone), 'I think I skipped a couple of pages, I'm not sure.'

"Such slips of pages, tongue and consciousness have become standard fare with Nancy's speeches. She's only 78, but an old 78, and the party's old folks think she's entitled to one last hurrah, but someone will have to take Nancy aside to explain that the Constitution's prescribed equal division of government into executive, congressional and judicial branches does not extend to individual persons, important as they may be, and she is not entitled to a room or sleepover privileges at the White House, nor can she show up at Andrews Air Force Base and expect to hail Air Force One for a weekend trip to San Francisco. It's still commercial air for the peasants in the House.

"Life will only get harder for Nancy and the Democrats as they discover the limits of taking over only one house of Congress, thrilling as Election Night was."

"Democratic lawmakers brought a border security briefing at the White House to a screeching halt Wednesday, refusing to even listen to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, a White House official tells The Daily Caller.

"House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy echoed this version of events to reporters outside the White House immediately after the briefing, saying, 'Once the secretary started, Schumer interrupted her and didn't want to hear it.'

"Republican and Democratic lawmakers after the meeting indicated little progress was made toward ending the partial government shutdown and that they agreed to reconvene Friday. The White House official says there was a consensus in the room that negotiations would be put on hold until Pelosi officially assumed her expected role of Speaker.

"The White House official told TheDC that both Pelosi and Schumer refused to hear out Nielsen's briefing and instead advocated for two solutions to end the government shutdown. Neither of the Democratic options would provide the additional funding for border security requested by The White House."

"This year, the United States government will have spent more than $4 trillion. Right now, the government is shut down for a dispute over funding for the border wall proposed by Trump, amounting to $5 billion, or 0.125 percent of total federal expenditures. The shutdown has been going on for two weeks, and there is as yet no indication of any resolution.

"Normally, government shutdowns are over major disputes on spending. Think of the 1995/96 shutdown, as Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich squabbled over the extent to which constraints on Medicare spending were necessary to get the deficit under control. The shutdown in 2013 was due in part to historically unprecedented levels of deficit spending during peacetime, and substantive disagreements about what to do about it. But not in 2018. Right now, nobody in Washington, D.C., seems to care about the deficit. This is all about $5 billion to build a wall. Yet $5 billion is a pittance in terms of overall federal spending. Politicians in recent years have knowingly signed off on much more for purely political purposes.

"This is beyond bizarre -- or at least it would be in any other time except the Age of Trump.

"What to make of all this?

"Far be it from me to predict what will come from any of this. Still, I think this fight is the triumph of symbolism over substance in the squalid politics of our age, and it is a prelude to the brutal fight that awaits us as we near the 2020 presidential election."

We wish you a Merry Christmas filled with holiday cheer and all our Best Wishes for a Happy New Year!