George Soros Cartoons

Hannity: Media Throwing 'Temper Tantrum' After Being Called Out by Trump

Sean Hannity reacted to the media's meltdown after receiving a "historic beating" at the hands of President Donald Trump yesterday.
He noted that NBC News' Chuck Todd compared Trump to Richard Nixon, CBS' Scott Pelley called out the president for "bluster, bravado, exaggeration and few loose facts," ABC News' Matthew Dowd said he came off as "small and insecure," and CNN's Jack Tapper told Trump to "get to work and stop whining."
Hannity said that Trump has been working, and he simply used Thursday's press conference to defend himself from an "out of control media bias."
"Not only was he being presidential, not only was he being honest, but he was being funny," Hannity said.
He said the press' reaction is just "one huge temper tantrum," because they finally got called out for their bad behavior.
"All the members of the media, they can be bad all they want. It doesn't change the fact how biased, how lazy they are, and how abusive they've been toward the 45th president."

F-15s scramble to intercept unresponsive aircraft over restricted airspace over West Palm Beach

Two F-15s caused a ‘sonic boom’ as they raced from their base in Homestead, Fla., Friday to intercept an unresponsive general aviation aircraft that flew near Palm Beach during a stay by President Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
The jets flew at supersonic speeds and residents were startled by the loud boom, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, said in a statement. The two fighters were able to establish communication with the aircraft. This incident occured at about 7 p.m. ET.  No further details were immediately available.
"The intent of military intercepts is to have the identified aircraft re-establish communications with local FAA air traffic controllers and instruct the pilot to follow air traffic controllers' instructions to land safely for follow-on action," the statement read.
TRUMP HINTS AT 'BIG ORDER' OF F/A-18 SUPER HORNETS
Earlier this month, a private plane got within 2 nautical miles of Air Force One, which is closer than permitted, while flying over Florida and the incident is being investigated by authorities, Bloomberg reported.
The planes were flying on a parallel route and there was no risk of a collision during the incident, which occurred 30 miles out on Feb. 3,  sources told the news agency. President Trump arrived safely at Palm Beach International Airport.
The report said that when Air Force One is in flight, Secret Service agents work with FAA supervisors and monitor for threats.

Lawmakers probe US funding for Soros groups, left-wing causes in Europe

Report alleges George Soros is meddling in foreign affairs

George Soros' alleged meddling in European politics has caught the attention of Congress.
Concerns about Soros' involvement most recently were raised by the Hungarian prime minister, who last week lashed out at the Soros "empire" and accused it of deploying "tons of money and international heavy artillery."
But days earlier, Republican lawmakers in Washington started asking questions about whether U.S. tax dollars also were being used to fund Soros projects in the small, conservative-led country of Macedonia.
Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., led a group of House lawmakers in writing to Ambassador Jess Baily -- an Obama appointee -- demanding answers. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also expressed concerns about USAID money going to Soros' Open Society Foundations as part of a broader concern that the U.S. Embassy has been taking sides in party politics.
“I have received credible reports that, over the past few years, the US Mission to Macedonia has actively intervened in the party politics of Macedonia, as well as the shaping of its media environment and civil society, often favoring groups of one political persuasion over another,” Lee said in his letter.
Together, the concerns reflect growing conservative pushback against Soros' operations in Europe.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban last week ripped the Hungary-born billionaire's "trans-border empire." Orban has been one of the central European voices speaking out against the push by E.U. leaders to absorb Syrian refugees and has been criticized for his hardline stance.
Soros' Open Society Foundations -- one of the billionaire's biggest groups operating across the globe -- fired back, saying Orban was trying to deflect attention from other issues.
“The Open Society Foundations for over 30 years have supported civil society groups in Hungary who are addressing profound problems in education, health care, media freedom and corruption," Laura Silber, the organization's chief communications officer, said in a statement to The Associated Press. "Any attacks on this work and those groups are solely an attempt to deflect attention from government inability to address these issues."
The group's stated goal is “to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens” but critics claim it's a front for Soros’ hard-left political maneuverings.
Former Macedonian PM Nikola Gruevski says Soros has a "decisive influence" on his country’s politics.
“If it were not for George Soros behind it with all the millions he pours into Macedonia, the entire network of NGOs, media, politicians, inside and out ... the economy would be stronger, we would have had more new jobs,” he said in a recent interview with Macedonia’s Republika newspaper.
Macedonia, while small, is a broadly conservative country. It has a flat rate tax of 10 percent, a small-government philosophy and a ruling conservative party (VMRO-DPMNE) that has greeted the election of President Trump warmly and pledged to work with him.
Lee’s staff recently met with Macedonia lawmakers, who also passed on a white paper from a citizen’s initiative called “Stop Operation Soros” which alleges U.S. money has been funding hard-left causes in the country -- including violent riots in the streets, as well as a Macedonian version of Saul Alinsky’s far-left handbook “Rules for Radicals.”
In an extensive 40-page dossier, the group alleges USAID money is being used to fund activists and exclusively left-wing media groups as a way to sway the country’s politics.
The Open Society Foundations did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News.
On the Soros connection, Lee’s letter asked if the Mission has “selected the Open Society Foundations as the major implementer of USAID projects in Macedonia” and if the group has been perceived to have political bias in Macedonia.
In a reply dated Feb. 9, the State Department told Lee that the Mission in the country has worked to advance U.S. interests “in a non-biased, non-partisan, objective and transparent manner.” The letter claimed U.S. government assistance has not funded partisan political activities in Macedonia, but noted that from 2002 to the present, USAID had provided three grants to Foundation Open Society – Macedonia (FOSM).
One of these grants is outlined on the USAID website. Between 2012 and 2016, USAID gave almost $5 million in taxpayer cash to FOSM for “The Civil Society Project,” which “aims to empower Macedonian citizens to hold government accountable.” USAID’s website links to www.soros.org.mk, and says the project trained hundreds of young Macedonians “in youth activism and the use of new media instruments.”
The letter from the State Department to Lee said USAID also recently funded a new Civic Engagement Project which partners with four organizations, including FOSM. It was not clear how much this project would cost, but Smith put the figure at $9.5 million.
“The money is very significant, in fact there is still money in the pipeline, from 2017 to 2021, 9.5 million,” Smith said in a recent radio interview with the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins. “It’s one thing to do election monitoring, which is a very noble cause to make sure there’s free and fair elections, but it’s quite another thing to be backing parties that Soros and his gang want to see in control of that country.”
It isn’t the only time Soros has worked with the State Department. Among the emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta released by Wikileaks was one from 2011 in which Soros urged Hillary Clinton to take action in Albania over recent demonstrations in the capital of Tirana.
Soros asked Clinton to “bring the full weight of the international community to bear on Prime Minister Berisha and opposition leader Edi Rama to forestall further public demonstrations and to tone down public pronouncements” and appoint a senior European official as mediator.
Within a few days, an envoy was dutifully dispatched.
Former Macedonian PM Gruevski cited the WikiLeaks emails as proof “[Soros] can go visit top leading American officials whenever he wants to, arranges meetings day in day out and has significant influence.”
While Soros has often been a bogeyman for the American right, the liberal businessman has kept a steady pressure and funding of left-wing causes within America as well.
“This guy is a spider with lots of webs,” GOP strategist Brad Blakeman told Fox News' "Strategy Room." “He controls numerous third-party groups, where he uses his influence. We’ve seen it internally with Black Lives Matter, the demonstrations taken place after the inaugural -- this is what he does.”
After violent left-wing activists rioted at Berkeley in protest of a lecture by Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos, The Daily Caller reported that the main group behind the protests -- Refuse Facism -- was backed by The Alliance for Global Justice -- which in turn is backed by The Tides Foundation, a Soros-funded group.
Soros also has donated to Media Matters and has been a major financial contributor to the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank founded by Podesta.

Hunt is on: Leakers pursued by Team Trump could face hard time

President Trump has vowed to hunt down whoever is leaking classified information about him and his team, and if he succeeds in unmasking the sources of illegal disclosures, they could face hard time.
Trump himself has been plagued by leaks about his meeting schedule and phone calls to heads of state. But the most damaging leaks to his month-old administration have been those that cost retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn his post as national security adviser. Flynn had to resign after information came out about his December phone call to a Russian ambassador.

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Flynn had to step down after leaks exposed his talks with a Russian diplomat. (Associated Press)

Trump pulled the plug on Flynn for misleading Vice President Pence about the substance of the call, but said the discussion itself was not improper. It was the current or former government officials who he suspects turned classified information over to the press that broke the law, the president said.

" ... the leak environment has just kicked into hyper drive.”
- Thomas Dupree, former deputy assistant attorney general

“The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by ‘intelligence’ like candy,” Trump tweeted this week. “Very un-American!”
In recent years, even leakers who claimed to be whistle blowers and cloaked their motives in patriotism have found the law takes a dim view of their activities. Trump on Thursday said the Justice Department will look into the issue, and it is a good bet that Flynn’s replacement, who has not yet been named, will also be charged with rooting out loose-lipped bureaucrats.
“Leaks are prevalent in Washington, [but] I think what makes this different is the leak environment has just kicked into hyper drive,” Thomas Dupree, former deputy assistant attorney general, told Fox News. “In the first few weeks of this administration, we have seen a multitude of leaks on a variety of subjects – from national security to immigration, to the conversation that Flynn had with the Russians – it’s just every direction.”

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Chelsea Manning served hard time, but her sentence was commuted by President Obama. (AP Photo/US Army)

While some may see leaks as part of the Capitol Hill game, and “whistleblowers” to be admired, what’s happening now seems to have moved beyond giving background information to reporters and into the realm of criminality.
Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., have written to the Department of Justice Inspector General requesting an official probe into how classified information has been handled.
“The release of classified information can, by definition, have grave effects on national security,” Chaffetz wrote in the letter.

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Chaffetz says national security is at risk. (Associated Press)

Any leakers who are exposed could face serious time in prison.
“They [the penalties] can be pretty serious,” said Dupree “There are a number of provisions in the federal, criminal statutes – Title 18 and elsewhere – that provide everything from fines, to even jail time, for people who leak classified, highly sensitive, national security information.”
Some recent examples:

• Chelsea Manning, who was sentenced to in 2013 to 35 years in prison for providing more than 700,000 government files to WikiLeaks. Manning’s sentence was later commuted by President Obama.
• Jeffrey A. Sterling, who was sentenced to 3 and ½ years in prison for disclosing national defense information and obstructing justice after disclosing classified information to a New York Times reporter.
• Shamai K. Leibowitz, a linguist for the FBI, who was sentenced to 20 months in prison for leaking secret documents to a blogger.

Although suspicion has swirled around a handful of former Obama administration insiders, no one has been identified as a leaker of information damaging to Trump. And none of the leaks themselves have been proven illegal. But Trump, who vowed during his campaign to “drain the swamp,” is finding the first order of business is plugging leaks.

 

'UNWAVERING' COMMITMENT: Pence tries to assure Europe that US will support partnership

Vice President Pence on Saturday worked to assure NATO allies that the United States would be “unwavering” in its commitment to the trans-Atlantic alliance.
Pence, in his first overseas trip as vice president, told the Munich Security Conference that President Donald Trump intends to "stand with Europe." He sought to calm nervous European allies who remain concerned about Russian aggression and have been alarmed by the U.S. president’s positive statements about his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
"Today, on behalf of President Trump, I bring you this assurance: The United States of America strongly supports NATO and will be unwavering in its commitment to our trans-Atlantic alliance," Pence said.
MCCAIN IN GERMANY SAYS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IN ‘DISARRAY’
During his address to foreign diplomats and security officials also sought to reassure international partners who worry that Trump may pursue isolationist tendencies.
Pence said the U.S. would demand that Russia honor a 2015 peace deal agreed upon in Minsk, Belarus, to end violence in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Russia-backed separatists.
"Know this: The United States will continue to hold Russia accountable, even as we search for new common ground which as you know President Trump believes can be found," Pence said.
Pence met afterward with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who addressed the conference just before the vice president. Merkel stressed the need to maintain international alliances and told the audience, with Pence seated a few feet away, that NATO is "in the American interest."
The vice president’s comments come just weeks after Trump called NATO obsolete, according to a Bloomberg Politics reports about an interview the then-president elect gave to a German paper.
 “It’s obsolete, first because it was designed many, many years ago,” Trump said. “Secondly, countries aren’t paying what they should” and NATO “didn’t deal with terrorism.”
On Saturday, Pence said the U.S. would demand that Russia honor a 2015 peace agreement aimed to end fighting in Ukraine between government forces and Russian-backed separatists.
"Know this: The United States will continue to hold Russia accountable, even as we search for new common ground which as you know President Trump believes can be found," Pence said.
Pence also reinforced the Trump administration's message that NATO members must spend more on defense.
NATO's 28-member countries committed in 2014 to spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense within a decade. But only the U.S. and four other members of the post-World War II military coalition are meeting the standard, Pence said.
Failure to meet the commitment, he said, "erodes the very foundation of our alliance."
"Let me be clear on this point: The president of the United States expects our allies to keep their word, to fulfill this commitment and, for most, that means the time has come to do more," Pence said.
James Jeffrey, a U.S. ambassador to Iraq during the Obama administration, said Pence looked "like an adult.” The question is will Trump listen to him?"
The visit, which will include a stop in Brussels on Sunday and Monday, comes amid worries in Europe about Russian aggression and Trump's relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Pence has also scheduled meetings Saturday with the leaders of the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko — countries dealing with the threat of Russian incursion. Pence also planned to meet with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim.
"The vice president has sent reassuring messages through his own engagement but that hasn't been enough to dispel the concerns that you see in many parts of Europe," Jeff Rathke, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said. "There are such grave challenges that the U.S. and Europe faces that it only heightens the desire for additional clarity from Washington."