Money

Dialing For Dollars: Members Of Congress Are Instructed To Spend 4 Hours A Day On The Telephone Raising Money

When I made the decision to run for Congress, I figured that I better learn how members of the House of Representatives actually spend their time, and what I learned chilled me to the core.  It turns out that both parties instruct their members to spend approximately four hours a day on the telephone raising money.  As a new member of Congress, I would be expected to raise $200,000 for the National Republican Congressional Committee, and that would require me to spend enormous amounts of time away from the job that I was actually elected to do.  Of course I have already pledged that I will not “dial for dollars”, and the establishment is not pleased about that at all.  To me, it is absolutely disgraceful what our system has become.  Today, members of Congress are essentially mid-level telemarketers for the NRCC or the DCCC, and it is time that we said enough is enough.

As I have traveled around Idaho’s first congressional district and shared how members of Congress spend much of their time “dialing for dollars”, many people have had a difficult time believing that it is true.  But of course many current members of Congress have spoken out about this, and that includes U.S. Representative Rick Nolan.  During a recent interview with CBS News, he explained that new members of Congress are expected to spend 30 hours a week “dialing for dollars”…

Rep. Rick Nolan: Well, both parties have told newly elected members of the Congress that they should spend 30 hours a week in the Republican and Democratic call centers across the street from the Congress, dialing for dollars.

Norah O’Donnell: Thirty hours a week?

Rep. Rick Nolan: Thirty hours is what they tell you you should spend. And it’s discouraging good people from running for public office. I could give you names of people who’ve said, “You know, I’d like to go to Washington and help fix problems, but I don’t want to go to Washington and become a mid-level telemarketer, dialing for dollars, for crying out loud.”

If you divide 30 hours a week by 7 days, that comes to more than 4 hours a day.

Is that how you want your representatives in Congress spending their time?

Not too long ago, U.S. Representative Ken Buck was interviewed by award-winning journalist Sharyl Attkisson, and he explained that a new Republican member of Congress would be expected to raise around $200,000 for the party, but that is just the base level.

In his recent book, Buck went on to share that committee chairmen are expected to raise far more than that.  The following comes from an article published by the Hill…

In his recently published tell-all book, Colorado Republican Rep. Ken Buck (R) exposed how these fundraising quotas have soared. Chairs of the so-called “A” committees — such as Appropriations, Financial Services, and Ways and Means — are now expected to raise $1.2 million for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). All the while, chairs of the so-called “B” committees — such as the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee — are expected to raise $875,000.

When you start learning how things really work in Washington, it makes perfect sense why Congress only has a 15 percent approval rating at this point.

No member of Congress should ever have to “buy” a spot on any committee.

Fortunately, there are a few members of Congress that have spoken out against this very corrupt system.  One of them was former U.S. Representative David Jolly…

It is a cult-like boiler room on Capitol Hill where sitting members of Congress, frankly I believe, are compromising the dignity of the office they hold by sitting in these sweatshop phone booths calling people asking them for money. And their only goal is to get $500 or $1,000 or $2,000 out of the person on the other end of the line. It’s shameful. It’s beneath the dignity of the office that our voters in our communities entrust us to serve.

This is why we should ask every single person running for Congress to take a pledge that they will not participate in this system.

I have publicly taken such a pledge, but not a single one of my six opponents has done so.

Could you imagine being elected to Congress and then spending 30 hours a week cold calling people like some sort of crooked telemarketer?  This is precisely what is happening, and it is absolutely disgusting.  Here is more from former U.S. Representative Jolly…

Simply by calling people, cold-calling a list that fundraisers put in front of you, you’re presented with their biography. So please call John. He’s married to Sally. His daughter, Emma, just graduated from high school. They gave $18,000 last year to different candidates. They can give you $1,000 too if you ask them to. And they put you on the phone. And it’s a script.

Since members of Congress are forbidden by law from making fundraising calls from their offices, they have to go somewhere else to make these calls.

Right across from the U.S. Capitol there are two very large call centers – one for Republicans and one for Democrats.  CBS News was able to get a hidden camera into one of these call centers, and it does not sound like a pleasant environment…

No photos exist of the inside of either the Democratic or Republican centers. But with the help of a staffer, we were able to get into the Republican center with a hidden camera.

About a dozen tiny offices, equipped with a phone and computer line a corridor. This is where members of Congress sit behind closed doors and plow through lists of donors dialing for dollars. Outside in the main hallway is a big board where the amount each member has raised for the party is posted for all to see and compare.

When I go to Washington I am going to introduce legislation to end this system.  Every member of Congress should be focusing on doing the job that they were sent there to do, but the current system will persist until we stand up and take action.

Like I have said so many times before, I am going to Washington to turn things upside down.  We are going to drain the swamp and clean up the corruption.

If you believe in what we are trying to do, please consider supporting us.  We are being supported by small grassroots donations from all over the country, and we believe that now is the time to take our government back.  If you would like to make a contribution to our campaign, here is how you can do it…

Donate By Credit Card Online: https://secure.anedot.com/michaelsnyderforcongress/donate

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Donate By Check: Make your check out to “Michael Snyder For Congress” and send it to the following address…

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We plan to cause so much chaos in Washington, but we have got to win this Republican primary on May 15th first.  Right now we are in an extremely close race with a couple of other candidates, but we have all the momentum on our side.

We have a great plan for pulling ahead during these final two months, but we need your help.

Thanks again for helping us fight for the future of our country.  Together we got Donald Trump into the White House, and together we can take Congress back.

Michael Snyder is a pro-Trump candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District.  If you would like to help him win on May 15th, you can donate online, by Paypal or by sending a check made out to “Michael Snyder for Congress” to P.O. Box 1136 – Bonners Ferry, ID 83805.  To learn more, please visit MichaelSnyderForCongress.com.

The Mainstream Media Doesn’t Want To Talk About #ReleaseTheMemo, But This Could Be The Biggest Scandal In D.C. Since Watergate

Republican members of Congress are pushing for the release of a memo that reportedly shows that government surveillance powers were illegally used against Donald Trump during the presidential campaign, and that the Obama administration, the FBI and Hillary Clinton illegally colluded in a concerted effort to try to destroy Trump’s chances of winning the presidency.  If these allegations turn out to be true, this will be the biggest scandal in American political history, but so far the mainstream media doesn’t want to talk about it.  Other than Fox News, it is hard to find any coverage of this memo on any of the mainstream news networks.  But as you will see below, Republican members of Congress are making a tremendous amount of noise about it.

Only certain members of Congress have been able to read this memo so far.  In order to take a look at it, these members of Congress have had to go to a secure room in the depths of the Capitol, and they are not permitted to reveal the details of what they have read.

But some Republican members of Congress that have seen it are speaking out, and what they have revealed so far is extremely alarming…

“It’s troubling. It is shocking,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) told Fox News. “Part of me wishes that I didn’t read it because I don’t want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so much.”

“The facts contained in this memo are jaw-dropping and demand full transparency. There is no higher priority than the release of this information to preserve our democracy,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a member of the Judiciary Committee, which oversees the DOJ and the FBI.

Another Judiciary Committee member, Rep. Steve King (R-IA), called what he saw in the memo “sickening” and said it was “worse than Watergate.”

Actually, Representative King had a whole lot more to say about the memo than that.  Here is the full quote that he posted on Twitter…

I have read the memo. The sickening reality has set in. I no longer hold out hope there is an innocent explanation for the information the public has seen. I have long said it is worse than Watergate. It was & .

A sitting member of Congress says that this is “worse than Watergate” and the mainstream media doesn’t want to talk about it?

Once upon a time the mainstream media at least tried to be fair, but at this point they are extremely hesitant to publish anything that does not fit with the narrative that the Democrats are good and the Republicans are bad.

This memo could be the thing that causes all hell to break loose in Washington.  According to Representative Matt Gaetz, “people could lose their job” once this memo gets out…

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz said he believed people could lose their jobs after the memo is released.

“I believe the consequence of its release will be major changes in people currently working at the FBI and the Department of Justice,” he said, referencing DOJ officials Rod Rosenstein and Bruce Ohr.

“You think about, ‘is this happening in America or is this the KGB?’ That’s how alarming it is,” Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry said.

And not too long ago, U.S. Representative Jody Hice added his voice to those calling for the release of this memo…

Earlier this morning, I examined the classified, four-page memo from @HouseIntelComm regarding the FBI, DOJ, and the so-called . To put it simply, “WOW.” I joined the call to . Americans deserve truth and transparency.

I know that most people have such short attention spans these days, but this is one scandal that we cannot let go.  Even though members of Congress are not supposed to reveal the contents of this memo, Representative Gaetz says that it reveals “horrific abuses” that were committed during the Obama administration that will “shock the conscience of this country”…

When asked about the contents of the memo, Rep. Gaetz replied, “There are 4 pages of a memorandum prepared by the Intelligence Committee that will shock the conscience of this country when it comes to the horrific abuses that occurred during the last admin. and that I believe continue to pose a threat to Donald Trump’s presidency.”

Later in the interview, Rep. Gaetz hinted the memo outlines how the U.S. government may have committed fraud by presenting the courts with “false information,” to obtain FISA warrants.

We need to make as much noise as possible until the American people are allowed to see this memo.

And if it is as bad as many people believe that it is, a whole lot of people from the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign need to go to prison.

Fortunately, there are already indications that we are going to get to see this memo soon.  According to Representative Dave Joyce, the process of getting this memo released to the public has already begun…

Great news! Our efforts to have been effective and the HPSIC plans to begin the process to release the FBI/FISA/Russia memo. This may take up to 19+ Congressional work days but Americans deserve to know the truth.

As I have been stressing repeatedly in recent weeks, we must restore the rule of law in this nation if we want the American people to have faith in the system.

President Trump is fighting tirelessly to do the right thing, but there are dark forces inside the government that desperately want to keep the truth from being exposed.  I really like how Tom Luongo described this struggle in one of his recent pieces…

Trump’s continued needling of the establishment; playing the long game and demonizing the media which is the tip of the Shadow Government’s spear while strengthening the support of both the military (through his backing them at every turn) and his base by assisting them destroy the false narratives of globalism has been nothing short of amazing.

As a hard-core, jaded politico, I can tell you I never thought for a second he had the ability to what he’s already done.  But, as the past few months have pointed out, the real power in the world doesn’t rest with the few thousand who manipulate the levers of power but the billions who for years stood by and let them.

And those days of standing by are gone.

If Hillary Clinton had won the election, we would have never learned about any of this corruption that is going on behind the scenes.

The Trump presidency is our golden opportunity to take our government back, and I plan to be a big part of the solution once I get to Congress.  Nobody is above the law, and I believe that this memo could be a tipping point.

It is time for Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and the rest of that crowd to go to prison, and the American people should accept nothing less.

Michael Snyder is a pro-Trump candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

More Than 100 Are Dead As The Worst Flu Epidemic In Years Sweeps Across The United States

This flu season is already off to a record-setting beginning, and many believe that it could ultimately be the worst that we have seen in decades.  In fact, it has been reported that if we stay on this current pace that this could truly be the worst flu season in more than 50 years.  As you will see below, the CDC is reporting widespread flu activity from coast to coast, and the death toll has already crossed 100.  Here in the United States, flu season usually begins in October and ends in May, and so we still have a long way to go before it is over.

Normally the mainstream media tries very hard to keep the public calm about these things, but even the Washington Post admits that we are having “a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad flu season”…

The nation is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad flu season.

Flu is widespread in 46 states, according to reports to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nationally, as of mid-December, at least 106 people had died of the infectious disease.

Usually a flu outbreak is centered in one portion of the country, but this one is different.  According to the CDC, this outbreak is affecting the entire nation, and the number of cases climbed another 5.8 percent within the past week…

“Flu is everywhere in the US right now,” said Dr. Dan Jernigan, director of the CDC’s influenza branch. “This is the first year we’ve had the entire continental US at the same level (of flu activity) at the same time.” It has been an early flu season that seems to be peaking now, he said, with a 5.8% increase in laboratory-confirmed cases this week over last.

Most people that get the flu don’t die, but it is very important for all of us to understand that this is a very serious outbreak.

In California, things have already gotten so bad that some hospitals have started to run out of Tamiflu…

California has been particularly hard hit, with at least 27 deaths of people under 65 attributed to the flu, according to reports. As the number of cases continues to climb there, hospitals are beginning to run out of Tamiflu, the anti-viral medication used to treat the illness.

If you live in an area where the flu is running rampant, it may be wise to avoid public areas for a while.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of us cannot do that.  Most Americans have work or school commitments that cannot be avoided, and the flu can often spread very rapidly in those environments.

Back during the bird flu scare a few years ago, some schools actually closed for a time, and we are starting to see that happen again.  For example, one school down in Texas had a “flu day” on Friday…

A school in San Antonio will be closed Friday for a “flu day” amid an outbreak of influenza.

“While closed, our school will be launching a Super Clean of each classroom for the health of our faculty, staff and students,” San Antonio Christian School posted on Facebook.

Texas has been especially hard-hit by the flu this season, topping Walgreens’ Flu Index, which compiles data from prescriptions used to treat the virus’ symptoms.

Every year the authorities relentlessly promote the flu shot, but large numbers of people that got the flu shot this year are getting sick anyway.

Sadly, the flu shot is not likely to protect you from the very powerful strains of the flu that are dominant this flu season.  In fact, the experts are telling us that the flu shot was only “around 10 percent” effective during the flu season in Australia this year…

U.S. flu specialists say they won’t completely know how powerful this present season’s antibody is until the point that the season is finished. In any case, Australia’s experience recommends viability was just around 10 percent. In the United States, it is 40 to 60 percent powerful in a normal season. Immunizations are less defensive if strains are not the same as anticipated and if sudden transformations happen.

Hopefully everyone out there is stocking up on Vitamin C and echinacea.  We still have more than two months of winter left, and the spread of the flu appears to be accelerating.

If you do get sick, please stay home and don’t expose others.  Many of us like to try to battle through an illness, and in the process we can inadvertently share it with others.

Eventually this flu epidemic will pass, but for now we need to be smart as we weather this storm.

Michael Snyder is a pro-Trump candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Strong Earthquakes Hit San Francisco And Mount St. Helens And Experts Warn They May Be Foreshocks For ‘Something Larger’

Just when it seemed like things may be settling down, two very unusual earthquakes have hit the west coast within the past couple of days.  A 4.4 magnitude quake struck Berkeley, California just prior to 3 AM on Thursday morning, and a 3.9 magnitude earthquake hit Mount St. Helens in Washington state on Wednesday.  Overall, there have been 68 earthquakes in the vicinity of Mount St. Helens since New Year’s Day, and there have been a total of 629 earthquakes in the state of California within the last 30 days.  Could it be possible that all of this activity is leading up to a historic seismic disaster on the west coast?

The 4.4 magnitude earthquake along the Hayward fault very early on Thursday jolted people out of bed all over the San Francisco area…

A strong 4.4 magnitude earthquake has rattled the Bay Area shortly before 3 a.m.

USGS is reporting the quake was centered in Berkeley. On KRON4’s real time earthquake map it shows the epicenter.

The quake struck at 2:39 a.m. and was centered near the Claremont hotel. The earthquake had a preliminary depth of 8 miles, according to USGS.

This wasn’t a soft and gentle earthquake that everyone kind of laughs about after it is over.

Rather, this was the kind of extremely intense earthquake that puts the fear of God into people.  In fact, one Bay area resident said that it “felt like a truck hit my house”…

“I was actually awake putting my shoes on for work. It felt like a truck hit my house from the back which pushed my against the staircase railing, the walls were cracking and threw my cell phone and keys down the stairs. Pretty scary”

If this was the worst quake in this particular swarm, it won’t ultimately be that big of a deal.

However, USGS Geologist David Schwartz is warning that this 4.4 magnitude earthquake could potentially be “a foreshock of something larger”…

“It is centered on about a five-mile-long section of the Hayward Fault that in the past 10 years has produced 30 earthquakes of magnitude between 3-4,” he told KPIX 5. “So it is a hot spot along the fault and this morning’s earthquake was the largest of that group.”

Schwartz said the real question in the hours after the quake was “is this a foreshock of something larger? That’s the concern.”

I have been writing about the shaking that has been happening on the west coast quite a bit lately, but I don’t think that people understand the seriousness of what we are facing.

Scientists assure us that the “Big One” is coming, and when it does arrive the devastation will be absolutely off the charts.  Just consider the words of seismologist Peggy Hellweg…

Speaking to Daily Star Online, seismologist Peggy Hellweg, from the University of California, said the region is not prepared to deal with the fallout from such an earthquake.

She said that a magnitude 7 or greater earthquake could kill “tens of thousands of people”.

In financial terms, such a quake would likely cause “tens to hundreds of billions of dollars in damage”, she said.

And remember, she is talking about a magnitude 7 earthquake in her scenario.

A magnitude 9 earthquake would be many, many times more powerful, and it would easily be the worst natural disaster in the recorded history of the United States.

Meanwhile, Mount St. Helens was hit with a very unusual 3.9 magnitude earthquake on Thursday, and some believe that this could be a sign that the volcano is “recharging”…

A series of 68 tremors, peaking with a magnitude 3.9 quake, have been detected in Washington state by scientists since New Years day.

The 3.9 quake is the second largest since 1981, the year after the natural disaster which killed 57 people and came minutes after a magnitude-5.1 earthquake.

Last month, seismologists at the University of Washington logged more than 80 quakes, four times as many as the average.

Earthquake swarms at Mount St. Helens are not unusual, but what we have seen over the first four days of 2018 has definitely gotten the attention of seismologists.

They are hoping that things will calm down at the volcano, but one seismologist did warn that “a larger quake could follow within 48 hours”.

We haven’t had a major volcanic eruption in the United States in a very long time, and so there is a lot of complacency out there right now.

But we should remember that the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 was “the deadliest and most economically damaging volcanic event in the history of the United States.”  The following comes from Forbes…

Mount St. Helens is most commonly known for its major eruption in 1980, the deadliest and most economically damaging volcanic event in the history of the United States. The stratovolcano is situated just 96 miles from Seattle and 50 miles from Portland, making an eruption especially dangerous.

And Mount St. Helens is certainly not the only threat.  Personally, I am so concerned about a potential eruption of Mount Rainier that I even included one in my novel.

With each passing year it appears that our planet is becoming increasingly unstable.  Many believe that we have entered a time when seismic activity will be much higher than it has been previously, and that is going to have dramatic implications for our society.

Our tech industry is very heavily concentrated along the west coast.  When the “Big One” does finally strike, it could literally crash our economy overnight.

What the day arrives, are you ready for what will happen next?

Michael Snyder is a pro-Trump candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

President Trump Is Right: Huma Abedin, Crooked Hillary And James Comey All Belong In Prison

If you mishandle classified documents, you go to prison.  That is how the law is written, and that is how the law is supposed to work.  But up until now top members of the Democratic Party have been immune from prosecution for mishandling classified documents even though evidence that they are guilty is publicly available for everyone to see.  On Friday, we learned that there were classified documents among the 2,800 work-related emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop.  Huma Abedin regularly forwarded documents to her husband’s laptop, and every time she sent a classified document to his laptop it was a violation of federal law.

On Tuesday, President Trump got on Twitter and expressed his desire to see Huma Abedin sent to prison…

Crooked Hillary Clinton’s top aid, Huma Abedin, has been accused of disregarding basic security protocols. She put Classified Passwords into the hands of foreign agents. Remember sailors pictures on submarine? Jail! Deep State Justice Dept must finally act? Also on Comey & others

President Trump is exactly correct.  Nobody is supposed to be above the law, and Huma Abedin is clearly guilty.

If she isn’t prosecuted, then what is the point of even having any law to protect classified documents?

To say that Abedin was grossly negligent would be a severe understatement.  According to the Daily Caller, she was even using her personal Yahoo email account to transmit “passwords to government systems”…

Huma Abedin forwarded sensitive State Department emails, including passwords to government systems, to her personal Yahoo email account before every single Yahoo account was hacked, a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of emails released as part of a lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch shows.

Abedin, the top aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, used her insecure personal email provider to conduct sensitive work. This guarantees that an account with high-level correspondence in Clinton’s State Department was impacted by one or more of a series of breaches — at least one of which was perpetrated by a “state-sponsored actor.”

This is what Trump was talking about when he accused Abedin of putting classified passwords “into the hands of foreign agents”.  There is no telling how much damage was done because of Abedin’s carelessness, and she must be held accountable.

Another part of Trump’s tweet that many of you may not get was his reference to “sailors pictures on submarine”.  Trump was referring to a former member of the U.S. Navy named Kristian Saucier that was found guilty of mishandling classified information.  The following comes from Business Insider…

Trump’s reference to “sailors pictures on submarine” is most likely about the case of Kristian Saucier, who was a machinist’s mate aboard the Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarine USS Alexandria from September 2007 to March 2012.

In July 2015, Saucier was charged with taking photos of classified spaces, instruments, and equipment inside the USS Alexandria on at least three occasions in 2009.

Court papers also said Saucier attempted to destroy his laptop, camera, and camera memory card after he was interviewed by the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service in July 2012.

Saucier ended up spending a year in prison for what he did.

So why shouldn’t Abedin suffer the same fate?

Well, you can thank James Comey for the fact that Abedin has gotten off the hook so far.  According to Comey, Abedin did not understand that “what she was doing was in violation of the law”…

Comey said the FBI completed the investigation into Abedin and couldn’t prove there was any criminal intent, which is required in order to classify something as a criminal act in this situation.

“We didn’t have any indication she had a sense what she was doing was in violation of the law,” Comey said.

This makes me so mad I want to scream.

As I discussed yesterday, intent does not matter in these types of cases at all.  In order to get Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin out of trouble, Comey essentially rewrote the law.  The following comes from the National Review…

In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.

Ultimately, my hope is that Comey goes to prison along with Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin.

He was caught red-handed lying under oath, and according to Sean Hannity he could also potentially be guilty of obstruction of justice…

Fox legal analyst Greg Jarrett told Hannity that agent Peter Strzok, who had sent and received some of the anti-Trump texts, Comey “and others” may be guilty of obstructing justice if it were proven that they wanted to clear Clinton of wrongdoing for political reasons.

“Meaning, if the fix was in, Greg, Comey should go to jail,” Hannity said.

As for Hillary Clinton, there are a whole host of crimes that she needs to be prosecuted for, and I went over several of these in the article that I posted yesterday entitled “Why Hillary Clinton Needs To Go To Prison In 2018”.

If I win my race here in Idaho, I am going to go to Washington and push as hard as I can to bring Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Huma Abedin, James Comey and John Podesta to justice.  And as we peel back the onion, there could potentially be dozens (or even hundreds) of individuals associated with the Clintons that could end up in prison.

Either this nation is going to be governed by the rule of law or it isn’t.

If we are just going to ignore all of the very serious crimes that Hillary Clinton has committed, then the same rules should apply to everyone else as well.  We’ll just have a society where nobody ever goes to prison, and we will see how well that works out.

It is time to restore the rule of law in the United States, and I greatly applaud President Trump for speaking the truth.  We are in a battle for the heart and soul of America, and it is a battle that we cannot afford to lose.

Michael Snyder is a pro-Trump candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

44 Numbers From 2017 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

2017 went by way too quickly.  Donald Trump’s first year in the White House shook up the entire planet, and nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.  Personally, as 2017 began I was still having a hard time actually believing that Trump was going to be our president.  Once he was finally inaugurated on January 20th I was able to relax a little bit, but at that point I had no idea that I would soon be running for Congress here in Idaho as a pro-Trump candidate.  As 2018 begins, I think that it would be good to look back and remember some of the most important things that happened over the past 12 months.  The following are 44 numbers from 2017 that are almost too crazy to believe…

#1 During Donald Trump’s first year, ISIS lost 98 percent of the territory that it gained while Barack Obama was in the White House.

#2 The price of Bitcoin rose more than 1,300% during 2017.

#3 According to the Washington Post, one out of every ten young adults in the United States has been homeless at some point over the past year.

#4 The United States has lost more than 70,000 manufacturing facilities since China joined the WTO in 2001.

#5 On Donald Trump’s first full day in office he was 70 years, 7 months and 7 days old, and it happened in year 5777 on the Hebrew calendar.

#6 The all-time record for the number of retail store closings in the U.S. was absolutely shattered in 2017.  According to the latest figures, a total of 6,985 store locations were shut down last year, and we are expected to break the record again in 2018.

#7 Incredibly, the number of retail store closings in 2017 was up 229 percent compared with 2016.

#8 When Ronald Reagan entered the White House, the federal government was about one trillion dollars in debt.  Now we are 20 trillion dollars in debt with no end in sight.

#9 Prominent names in the financial world such as John McAfee and James Altucher are predicting that the price of Bitcoin will eventually reach one million dollars.

#10 According to the most recent numbers that we have, 41 million Americans are currently living in poverty.

#11 A recent CNN poll found that only 37 percent of Americans have a favorable view of the Democratic Party.

#12 Ever since the beginning of April, Congress has had an average approval rating of less than 20 percent.

#13 The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up more than 5,000 points in 2017, and that absolutely shattered the previous record of 3,472 points in 2013.

#14 At one point in 2017, the total market cap for all cryptocurrencies combined (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, etc.) surpassed the half a trillion dollar mark.

#15 Wildfires burned an astounding 9,791,062 acres over the past year.

#16 It is being reported that less than 50 percent of all third, fourth and fifth grade students in the state of California meet minimum standards for literacy.

#17 At one very poorly performing elementary school in California, 96 percent of the students are not proficient in either English or math.

#18 Back in 1960, an average of $146 was spent on healthcare per person for the entire year, but today that number has skyrocketed to $9,990.

#19 Thanks to Obamacare, an appendectomy is ten times more expensive in the United States than it is in Mexico.

#20 Thanks to Obamacare, a family of four in Virginia is now facing the prospect of paying $3,000 a month for health insurance.

#21 It is being projected that the average rate increase for Obamacare plans will be 37 percent in 2018.

#22 In 2017, we found out that 264 cases of sexual harassment involving members of Congress have been settled for a grand total of $17,250,854 since the start of 1997.

#23 Economic growth is starting to pick up under President Trump, but the U.S. economy only grew at an average rate of just 1.33 percent over the 10 years prior to 2017.

#24 It is being reported that homelessness has become so pervasive in ultra-liberal Seattle that “400 unauthorized tent camps” have popped up around the city.

#25 One survey that was conducted in 2017 discovered that 78 percent of all full-time workers in the United States live paycheck to paycheck at least part of the time.

#26 According to the Federal Reserve, the average U.S. household is now $137,063 in debt, and that figure is more than double the median household income.

#27 A staggering 59.8 percent of younger Millennials (18 to 25) are now living with relatives, and overall an all-time record 38.4 percent of all Millennials are currently living with family.

#28 Boston University professor Larry Kotlikoff says that the federal government is facing a fiscal gap of 210 trillion dollars over the next 75 years.

#29 According the National Center For Health Statistics, nearly 40 percent of all U.S. adults are now officially obese. That is an all-time record.

#30 Our obesity epidemic is now costing us 190 billion dollars a year.

#31 Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, and Warren Buffett now have more money than the poorest 50 percent of the U.S. population combined.

#32 At this point, 20 percent of all U.S. households have “either zero or negative wealth”.

#33 U.S. stocks have have increased in value by more than 5 trillion dollars since Donald Trump was elected.

#34 For the season, NFL television ratings were down about 9 percent, and many believe that the anthem protests were the primary cause for the ratings decline.

#35 One very disturbing survey found that less than one out of every four Republican members of Congress support building Trump’s border wall.  This is just one reason why we need to vote out the RINOs and replace them with pro-Trump candidates that will support President Trump’s agenda.

#36 Another survey discovered that 50 percent of all Americans favor a pre-emptive strike on North Korea even though many of them cannot even find North Korea on a map of the world.

#37 Last year criminals were able to hack into Equifax and make off with the credit information of 143 million Americans.

#38 Venezuela, the 11th largest oil producing country in the entire world, decided to stop using the petrodollar in 2017.  This was one of the biggest news stories of the entire year, and yet the mainstream media in the U.S. didn’t want to talk about it.

#39 It has been reported that only 25 percent of all Americans have more than $10,000 in savings right now.

#40 A study conducted by the Federal Reserve found that 44 percent of all U.S. adults do not even have enough money “to cover an unexpected $400 expense”.

#41 In the early 1970s, 70 percent of all men in the United States from the age of 20 to the age of 39 were married, but today that number has fallen to just 35 percent. Instead of getting married and starting families, a lot of our young men are still living at home with their parents. Today, 35 percent of all young men from the age of 21 to the age of 30 “are living at home with their parents or a close relative”.

#42 In 2017, the federal government spent more than 4 trillion dollars for the first time ever.

#43 Our government continues to waste money in some of the most insane ways imaginable. For example, in 2017 we learned that the U.S. military actually spends 42 million dollars a year on Viagra.

#44 One survey discovered that 40 percent of all Americans now “prefer socialism to capitalism”, and so we have much work to do if we intend to have any chance of turning this country around.

Michael Snyder is a pro-Trump candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Deep State Takedown In Progress: Is Trump About To Start Arresting Top Democrats And Bringing Them To Justice?

When Donald Trump gets hit, he always hits back even harder.  So when the deep state decided to conduct a legal witch hunt against President Trump and his family, they should have expected that Trump would return the favor.  In recent days, there have been all sorts of rumblings about sealed indictments, pending arrests and a “deep state takedown”.  Many believe that we are on the verge of seeing some of the most prominent Democrats in the entire nation being arrested and thrown in prison.  We shall see how all of this plays out, but in this article I am going to focus on the things that have been confirmed so far.

First of all, let’s talk about the documents that are going to be released on Friday.  According to Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, the State Department is scheduled to release 2,800 government documents which were found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop…

.@StateDept will publish releasable portions of 2800 government docs that @FBI found on Anthony Weiner laptop tomorrow (Dec. 29th). Again, thanks to @JudicialWatch lawsuits. Will @RealDonaldTrump DOJ finally take action on Clinton/Abedin misdeeds?

Remember, this is just a portion of the documents that were found on his laptop, and the really juicy stuff is almost certainly not going to be found in these government docs.

There are persistent rumors that the really juicy stuff on his laptop contains evidence of sexual misconduct by top Democrats that would far surpass anything that has come out about members of Congress so far.  We are potentially talking about the type of stuff that could send people to prison for life, and we need to keep demanding for that material to be released to the public as soon as possible.  I understand that there are ongoing investigations that cannot be compromised, but there is no excuse for things to drag on for this long.

But without a doubt, there could potentially be some gamechanging material in the docs that we will get to see tomorrow.  The following is what Judicial Watch previously had to say about these documents…

“This is a disturbing development. Our experience with Abedin’s emails suggest these Weiner laptop documents will include classified and other sensitive materials,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “When will the Justice Department do a serious investigation of Hillary Clinton’s and Huma Abedin’s obvious violations of law?”

Judicial Watch previously released 20 productions of documents in this case that show examples of mishandling of classified information and instances of pay to play between the Clinton State Department and the Clinton Foundation. Also, at least 627 emails were not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over, and further contradict a statement by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails had been turned over to department.

Based on just the evidence that we have so far, Hillary Clinton should clearly be going to prison, and let us hope that this latest development will move things in the right direction over at the Department of Justice.

Meanwhile, one of the other pieces of the puzzle that has been confirmed is a very curious executive order that was just issued by President Trump.  The following comes from Zero Hedge…

The Trump Administration quietly issued an Executive Order (EO) last Thursday which allows for the freezing of US-housed assets belonging to foreign individuals or entities deemed “serious human rights abusers,” along with government officials and executives of foreign corporations (current or former) found to have engaged in corruption – which includes the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, and corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources. 

Furthermore, anyone in the United States who aids or participates in said corruption or human rights abuses by foreign parties is subject to frozen assets – along with any U.S. corporation who employs foreigners deemed to have engaged in corruption on behalf of the company.

Many believe that this executive order is directly related to ongoing investigations into corruption within the Democratic Party.

More specifically, the wording of this executive order definitely sounds like it could have been written with Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Tony Podesta and Uranium One in mind.  Here is more from Zero Hedge…

Now consider that if reports from The Hill are accurate – an FBI mole deep within the Russian uranium industry uncovered evidence that “Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow (the Uranium One approval)” – a deal which would eventually grant the Kremlin control over 20 percent of America’s uranium supply right around the time Bill Clinton also collected $500,000 for a Moscow speech, as detailed by author Peter Schweitzer’s book Clinton Cash and the New York Times in 2015.

A very dangerous game is being played behind the scenes, and I believe that Trump is going to come out the big winner in the end.

Many on the left had been anticipating that 2018 would be the year when Donald Trump is finally taken down, but they will be bitterly disappointed when some of their most cherished heroes end up in shackles instead.

If the elite had not gone after Trump so brutally earlier this year, perhaps he would have been willing to let some things slide.  But once Robert Mueller was appointed as special counsel and given an unlimited amount of time, money and resources to dig up dirt on Trump, it was inevitable that Trump would try to find a way to strike back even harder.

We have never seen anything quite like this in the history of American politics, and I have a feeling that 2018 is going to be one of the most “interesting” years ever.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Major Scandal: U.S. Congressman Says That There Was A ‘Concerted Effort’ Within The FBI To Help Hillary Clinton Win The Election

Did the FBI attempt to swing the outcome of the 2016 election in a certain direction?  I know that question sounds completely outrageous, but this is exactly what one member of Congress is now claiming.  For a long time we have known that elements within the Deep State have been actively working to undermine the Trump administration, but now solid evidence is emerging that the interference by the Deep State actually began during the presidential election.  As more details come out, this could easily become one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history.

If you think that I am exaggerating, please consider what U.S. Representative Jim Jordan told Lou Dobbs just the other day…

Rep. Jim Jordan: Listen you can’t make this stuff up. It gets worse each and every day… What deep down scares me, if this actually happened the FBI had a concerted effort with the people at the top to go after one party’s nominee to help the other party’s nominee. If that actually happened in the United States of America and everything each and every day points to more and more likely that that is what took place, it is sad for our country if that took place. And I think it did based on everything I am seeing. All the evidence points to that.

You can watch Jordan making these comments on YouTube right here…

So what kind of evidence are we talking about?

Well, I am sure that Jordan has access to evidence that we currently do not, but one thing that we do have are extremely chilling text messages sent between FBI agent Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page.  The following comes from Paul Joseph Watson…

Amidst the 10,000 text messages sent between anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page is a bizarre exchange revealing how the two, almost certainly with Deputy FBI Director Andy McCabe, discussed an “insurance policy” in case Donald Trump won the presidential election.

“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” Strzok wrote to his mistress, adding, “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

Strzok needs to be brought before Congress as soon as possible so that he can explain exactly what he meant in those messages.  Because there is no way that an FBI agent should ever make statements like that, and even those in the liberal media are saying that this “looks very bad”…

What kind of “insurance policy” were high level members of the FBI discussing to prevent Trump from winning the election less than three months before it took place?

As the Daily Beast’s Lachlan Markay, hardly a Trump cheerleader, notes, “This looks very bad.”

As Congress digs into this scandal, I would expect more shocking details to emerge.

It is imperative to remember that the establishment absolutely loathes Trump.  The hate everything that he stands for, and they are not willing to wait around until the 2020 election in order to get rid of him.

For the establishment, the goal is to personally destroy Trump and the movement that he represents.  In the past, it would have been unthinkable for television news anchors to talk hopefully about the possibility of the president and his team going to jail, but that is precisely what happened on MSNBC just a few days ago…

As the “noose” of Robert Mueller’s probe into the Trump team’s contacts with Russia is “tightening,” members of the administration are starting to understand they’re going “to jail … for the rest of their lives,” MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski said Tuesday.

“Knowing them, I think they’re shocked that the noose is tightening,” Brzezinski said. “I don’t know if they were arrogant or incredibly un-self aware and really dumb about what the job was about, how important it was, and how under the microscope every move you made would be. I think they just thought they’d go in there and riff through it. And I think they’re shocked that the noose is tightening and that people might go to jail.”

“You’re exactly right,” her co-host and fiancé, Joe Scarborough, agreed.

“For the rest of their lives,” Brzezinski added, perhaps hopefully.

President Trump is not going to prison, and the entire Russian collusion investigation is a giant witch hunt.

Everyone knows this, but the establishment is so desperate to get rid of Trump that they will grasp at anything that even sounds remotely plausible.

And at this point, the entire Republican Party has become fair game for the psychopaths at MSNBC.  For example, during one recent segment Democratic pollster Fernand Amandi actually referred to the GOP as “a domestic terror group”…

“And I think Joy, this is emblematic, this CHIP scenario, where you mentioned 9 million children, children, without health insurance. I think if you take a step back, one has to ask themselves, and I think the American people should ask themselves the broader question, what has the Republican Party, in the last 10 years, done to help the American people? What have they done? This is not a political party. This is a domestic terror group.”

This kind of hateful rhetoric has got to stop.

Does Amandi really believe that Republicans should be rounded up and put in prison?  Because that is what happens to people that commit acts of domestic terror.

Or maybe he would like to see us all shipped off to Guantanamo Bay.  It is this sort of tyrannical thinking by the radical left that resulted in tens of millions of deaths in Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China.

We are literally locked in a battle for the future of this nation, and if we lose, things are not just going to go bad for Trump and other high level members of the Republican Party.

If we ultimately lose this struggle, it will be a nightmare for all of us that truly love liberty and freedom, and America as we know it today will cease to exist.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

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