FDL Review

On Monday morning, CNN broke the news that Paul Manafort, who served a short stint as the Trump campaign chairman, had surrendered himself to special counsel Robert Mueller. He arrived at the FBI's Washington field office, and at 1:30pm, he will appear before a magistrate. Long a center of Mueller's probe, Manafort has been seen as the most likely target by many pundits. He has deep connections to the Kremlin, and BuzzFeed published a shocking article on the past investigations of his alleged money laundering schemes. Paul Manafort & President Donald Trump However, on Monday, it was revealed that Manafort wasn't the only one facing jail time. Rick Gates, a longtime business associate of Manafort, and George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign foreign policy whiz, were also charged. Earlier this month, Papadopoulos pled guilty to making a false statement to the FBI concerning his Russian contacts. Mueller made this revelation shortly after the charges were un...

In the Republican primary for U.S. Senate from Missouri, three candidates are grabbing the most attention: Austin Petersen, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, and Courtland Sykes. Sykes is an Iraq war veteran, a Harvard graduate, and a defense contracting business owner. He has a track record of accomplishments and general success, making him the best choice for primary voters seeking to defeat incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill. While Sykes' stances on the issues are uniformly conservative (more so that either Petersen or Hawley), his position on gun control sets him apart. Courtland Sykes, Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Without apology, Sykes announced in a Q&A style policy statement that he is "totally" opposed to gun control. He continued, writing, The right of Americans to keep and bear arms is constitutionally inviolate. No compromises on this. I am an NRA life-member. I hunt, conceal carry, collect guns, do competitive shooting, and attend gun ...

Due to concerns that were echoed by the judiciary along with citizens across North Carolina and the United States, the North Carolina legislature passed redrawn maps to correct perceived gerrymandering. While it is difficult — some say impossible — to ascertain whether a district is gerrymandered, the legislature complied with public opinion and brought forth a reformed map. Regardless of the legislature’s hard work, the judiciary still had complaints. A panel of three unelected judges took offense to nine districts in particular, which they claimed exhibited racial bias, and appointed a Stanford professor to redraw the lines. The professor, Nathaniel Persily, will be paid $500 an hour to reconstruct the nine districts. He has previous experience drawing lines in four states: New York, Maryland, Georgia, and Connecticut. Senator Jeff Tarte (R-Cornelius) At an event on Saturday evening, Jeff Tarte, a North Carolina state senator, announced his contempt for the prospect of a...

A recent FDL Review Twitter poll shows that support for Democratic California Rep. Maxine Water's challenger Omar Navarro, is surging. Waters is a frequent Trump critic who has pressed for the impeachment of the 45th president. During a October 21, 2017 speech, Waters declared that she seeks to "take out" Trump . Navarro, quickly took to Twitter to decry Waters' comment. He declare that the "Secret Service should call for Maxine Waters immediate resignation after these comments." In another tweet, Navarro wrote, "Let’s arrest her." Congressional candidate Omar Navarro Navarro's bid is also assisted by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington's announcement that Waters is "one of the most corrupt members of Congress." They wrote, In the midst of a national financial catastrophe, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) used her position as a senior member of Congress and member of the House Financial Services Committ...

According to a report published by CNN Politics, a Washington, D.C. federal grand jury approved charges brought forth by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Mueller, who was appointed by the Justice Department, is investigating Russia's role in tampering with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He is also to probe "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation." CNN's report read, "Reporters present saw a flurry of activity at the grand jury room, but officials made no announcements." Robert Mueller Due to the orders of a federal judge, whose identity was not disclosed, the details of the charges are sealed. While Judge Sol Wachtler said that a grand jury would "indict a ham sandwich," the fact that Mueller's charges were approved is significant. An article published by Axios reads, "Any charges would be the first public disclosure of the results of Mueller's investigation." This sealing of...

Over the past several days, major media outlets have reported that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) paid out $12.4 million to Perkins Coie, a law firm headquartered in Seattle, Washington. At least some of this huge sum of money – figures between $6 and $9 million have been cited – was spent with Fusion GPS, a Kremlin-connected research firm, to compile the Steele dossier. What is the Steele dossier? The Steele dossier is a collection of memos written by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent. Cited as being a “verified” source by the mainstream media, the dossier’s origins are less than optimal. Christopher Steele Some of these sources were high up in the Russian government. According to Mollie Hemingway, a writer for The Federalist, one was a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure and another was a former top-level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin. Steele’s employer, Fusion GPS, also has eerie tie...

President Ronald Reagan took the oath of office on January 20, 1981, inheriting a bad economy. It had been stricken hard by years of inflation and stagnation, exacerbated by the liberal economic policies of President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat. According to Grolier's Encyclopedia (2000), [A]fter four years of the Carter presidency, both inflation and unemployment were considerably worse than at the time of his inauguration. The annual inflation rate rose ... [to] 12% at the time of the 1980 election campaign. Although Carter had pledged to eliminate federal deficits, the deficit for the fiscal year ... 1980 was nearly $59 billion. With approximately 8 million people out of work, the unemployment rate had leveled off to a nationwide average of about 7.7% ... but it was considerably higher in some industrial states.   InsideGov.com reports that top tax rate for regular income in 1981 was 69.125%. Reagan slashed this figure down to 50% by 1982 and to 28% by 1988. Reagan also slas...

On Sunday evening,  Stephan Dinan of  The Washington Times  published a big scoop : an outline of President Donald Trump's 70-point immigration plan. If these demands are met, Trump is willing to provide amnesty to the 800,000 DACA enrollees. According to Dinan, Trump's proposal includes the "stiffest reforms ever offered by an administration — including a massive rewrite of the law in order to eliminate loopholes illegal immigrants have exploited to gain a foothold in the U.S." Dinan continues, saying that the plan has "27 different suggestions on border security, 39 improvements to interior enforcement and four major changes to the legal immigration system." The top demand included in the plan was the border wall that Trump campaigned on, which is expected to cost about $25 billion. Trump seeks for a wall that provides a "meaningful physical barrier on our southern border is vital to prevent infiltration by cartels, criminals, traffickers, smuggle...

The GOP stormed the House, the Senate, and the presidency based on voter resentment again the Affordable Care Act (ACA). On May 4, 2017, the House of Representatives took the first step by passing replacement legislation, but the Senate was unable to pick up the slack. As of now, the Senate has failed to pass any repeal and repeal measure, whether a full repeal or a skinny repeal. Graham-Cassidy, a federalist plan, wasn't even put up to a vote. President Donald Trump, who campaigned heartily on the GOP promise to repeal and replace the act, was furious at the Senate for not accomplishing what they promised that they would do. Now, with the help of Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), the president is taking the problem into his own hands. President Trump and Senator Paul According to Kimberly Leonard of the Washington Examiner , President Trump will sign a transformative executive order on healthcare next week. It will direct the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor,...

Yesterday, I posted an article on the transformative effect that Joseph Farah, editor-in-chief of WorldNetDaily since 1997, had on the alternative news field. However, it was Jim Hoft, the head of The Gateway Pundit , who revolutionized political blogging. Jim Hoft, who is a lifetime resident of St. Louis, Missouri, received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Loras College. He worked as a chemist and in human relations, managing hiring and firing along with training for a corporation, for several years. Jim Hoft Over the course of the 2004 presidential election, Hoft was disturbed by how virulently the mainstream media pounded George W. Bush, the Republican incumbent president. For example, in September 2004, Dan Rather of CBS News pushed falsified documents that put Bush’s military service in question. Seeking an alternative to the hyper-liberalized news networks and papers, Hoft started reading conservative online blogs. He was refreshed by the fact that they t...

I bought a hardcover copy of Joshua Green's Devil's Bargain this summer, expecting a dull biographical read on Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist and the current chief of Breitbart News . The book sat on my shelf for several months, and I begrudgingly started to read it on Thursday evening after completing The Fall of the House of Dixie . Devil's Bargain  was so good that wasn't able to put it down. After carefully making sure to absorb every word that Green wrote, I finished the 286-page text on Saturday morning. Green, who is the senior national correspondent at Bloomberg , managed to write a riveting page-turner on not just Steve Bannon, but also on the movement that swept Donald Trump into the White House. Joshua Green Green started the book with the Election Night scene at Trump Tower, presenting behind-the-scenes scoops from the real-estate mogul's presidential bid. Green proceeded to outline the story of how Steve Bannon went fro...

When I decided that I wanted to do a series on new media, I knew that I had to start with Joseph Farah. The longtime editor-in-chief of WorldNetDaily, Farah has led an illustrious career in journalism. At the 2018 Western Conservative Conference, which will be headlined by President Donald Trump, his contributions to the field will be honored with the initial M. Stanton Evans Lifetime Achievement for Excellence in Journalism award. A longtime independent journalist, Farah is well-deserving of the honor. Joseph Farah Farah was born on July 6, 1954 in Paterson, New Jersey, a medium-sized city that boasts about 150,000 residents. The son of a schoolteacher of Middle Eastern descent, he was duped into supporting the liberal cause as a young man. The con was a result of the tremendous amount of leftist propaganda that circulated during the Vietnam War, which was raging when Farah was coming of age. According to Farah, the propaganda “convinced me America was committing genocide...

On Thursday afternoon, CNN's headline read, "President Trump plans to 'decertify' Iran nuclear deal next week." The article reads, "By decertifying the deal, Trump [will] kick the matter to Congress, which [will] then have 60 days to determine a path forward." This move represents the best foreign policy decision made by President Donald Trump thus far. The Iran Deal, which Obama made without the necessary senatorial approval, was packed with concessions to the Ayatollah and his regime. It was demonstrative of the weakness of the Obama administration's foreign policy as a whole, but even worse, it put national security at risk. President Donald Trump Firstly, the deal gave Iran short-term aid and assistance, funds which were used to fund anti-Israel terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. According to Slate , "Hamas is an acronym for the Arab words for Islamic Resistance Movement; the word itself means 'zeal.' It was founded ...