Study: Taxpayers Funding Costly Federal Grants for the Arts

A study by the Illinois based group, Openthebooks.com found millions of dollars in federal arts grants is going to wealthy non-profits, all paid for by taxpayers. The group is one of the nation’s largest private database of government spending and broke down the numbers on the National Endowment of Arts and Humanities. Their findings suggest the majority of the grants go to wealthy nonprofits, some of which already have endowments already over 1 billion dollars. 

Openthebooks.com CEO Adam Andrzejewski is  a classical violinist and a strong supporter of the arts, but he said he takes issue with the public funding. “My daughters dance in the pre-professional ballet. But, when it comes to public funding of the arts and prestigious organizations with billion dollar balance sheets, there needs to be reform in the funding.” 

Andrzejewski  said,  according to the study, in terms of non profit grant making there was ” 183 million dollars granted in fiscal year 2016 and much or this, about 100 million dollars of it went to organizations with over 10 million dollars of existing financial assets. They didn’t need taxpayer money but they took it anyway.” 

The group looked at 3,200 organizations that received 441 million dollars in federal grants last year. Organizations with assets greater than 10 million dollars received 84 million of the designated money. Those worth 1 million dollars  received less than half that. 

Among those also includes those in the more obscure category, like a sightseeing tour for saguaro cactuses in the Arizona desert.  “They green lit a ten thousand dollar grant so people can go on a tour  to see the saguaro cactus,  to listen to the cactus, to hear the cactus speak to them, and then share their findings on social media.” 

Andrzejewski said the purpose of the report is to elevate the debate for both sides by providing transparency. 

President trump’s 2018 budget proposed doing away with the National Endowment of the Arts and Humanities. He’s received criticism for leaving “starving artists” out to dry. 

However, Congress’s version slightly increases art funding by roughly 5 million dollars. 

“What’s the purpose to compel working and middle class taxpayers to continue to fund the [Metropolitan Museum of Art]” asks Andrzejewski. “The Met has nearly 4 billion dollars in their bank accounts and financial assets.” 

Pres. Trump Speaks Out on Son’s Meeting With Russian Lawyer

President Trump is speaking out about his sons meeting with a Russian lawyer last year.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the president said his son, Donald Trump Junior, is a high quality person and he “applauds his transparency.”
This comes after his eldest son released the entire email chain setting up the meeting.
He says he agreed to meet with a woman who supposedly had information that would be helpful to the Trump campaign.
Don Junior said that woman did not have anything useful to say at the meeting, and he and other members of the Trump campaign left when she started talking about a sanction put on Russian adoption.
The woman later admitted she was not an operative for the Kremlin.

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Gregg Jarrett: If Comey's in legal jeopardy, will Mueller ride to his rescue?

Hillary Clinton, thanks to James Comey, escaped criminal prosecution for violating the Espionage Act. 

Now it is Comey who may have violated that same law.  If he did, will Comey escape prosecution, courtesy of his good friend, Robert Mueller?

The fired FBI Director’s legal predicament comes as The Hill reports that Comey authored seven memorandums reflecting the contents of his conversations with President Trump and that four of the memos “have been determined to contain classified information.”
If this is true and Comey kept these documents in his personal possession upon leaving government service and conveyed some of them to another individual without authorization, then it would appear that he committed multiple felonies under the Espionage Act.
It is a crime to mishandle classified information:  18 USC 798 and 1924  prohibit a government official from removing a classified document from its proper place of custody to a location which is unsecure and disclosing it to an unauthorized person.  Is this what Comey did?  It sure looks like it.

How can Mueller discharge his responsibilities in a fair, objective and impartial manner? Will the mentor investigate and, if warranted, prosecute his protégé? Doubtful.

Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, stored 110 emails containing classified information on her home computer server, an unauthorized place.  Yet, Comey misinterpreted the criminal statute by claiming she did not “intend to violate the law.”  This is not the legal standard, as any knowledgeable lawyer will tell you.  Clinton was never indicted, though she should have been.
David Petraeus, former Director of the CIA, was not so fortunate.  He pled guilty to removing classified documents to his personal residence where he stored them in an unsecured drawer.  He also gave them to his biographer who was not authorized to receive them.
John Deutch, also a former CIA Director, agreed to plead guilty to keeping classified material on his unauthorized laptop computer, but was pardoned by President Bill Clinton just days before the formal charges were filed.
Comey insists the information contained in the memo he gave to his lawyer friend who leaked it to the media was unclassified.  If true, it is not a violation of the Espionage Act.  But if Comey gave his friend, Columbia University Professor Daniel C. Richman, any of the four documents containing classified information, then he committed one or more crimes.
Richman now claims he received four memos from Comey, but none were marked classified.  The good professor may not realize that the “marking” in no way determines its classified status.  The content dictates classification, as Fox News Chief Intelligence Correspondent Catherine Herridge has consistently pointed out.
Importantly, if Comey maintained these four documents in his personal possession, as his Senate testimony suggests, then he may have committed at least four more crimes in the same way that Clinton, Petraeus and Deutch did.  Again, it is a felony to keep documents containing classified information in an unauthorized place, such as your personal possession, home or private unsecured computer.
As explained in an earlier column, Comey likely violated another law.  All of his memos are, unquestionably, government property under the Federal Records Act and the FBI’s own Records Management regulations.  They were composed by him in the course and scope of his employment as the Director of the FBI.  In meeting with President Trump, Comey was not acting as a private citizen.  Both Congress and the FBI agree on this obvious point.
Therefore, the memos were not Comey’s to keep in his possession.  It is a crime to convert government property to your own personal use and then give it to another person.  18 USC 641 makes it a felony to “steal, sell or convey” such property to someone else without permission.
Comey’s conduct and whether it constitutes numerous crimes should be investigated by Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.  Yet, that is not likely to happen.  Why?
In a previous column, I described in detail how Mueller and Comey have been long-time close friends, allies and partners.  They have enjoyed a mentor-protégé relationship.
This is precisely why Mueller should have disqualified himself from serving under the special counsel statute (28 CFR 600.7 and 28 CFR 45.2).  His strong relationship to Comey creates a genuine conflict of interest and, at the very least, the appearance of impropriety.
How can Mueller discharge his responsibilities in a fair, objective and impartial manner?  Will the mentor investigate and, if warranted, prosecute his protégé?  Doubtful.
The prospect of prejudice and favoritism this case presents is anathema to the fair administration of justice.
The American people expect and deserve something better than a legal charade.
Gregg Jarrett is a Fox News Anchor and former defense attorney.

Cruz: Congress shouldn't recess until ObamaCare repealed, replaced

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, joined the growing chorus of lawmakers calling on Congress to forego its August recess until it passes legislation to repeal and replace ObamaCare. 

"It’s crazy that we would be taking a recess," Cruz told Fox News' "Hannity" Monday night. "There are a bunch of us, myself included, that have been urging leadership back from January [to] not take any recesses.

"Let’s work every day, let’s work weekends, let’s work until we get the job done," Cruz added. "We have a job to do and a short window of time, and so we ought to stop taking recesses, stop taking time off and just keep going until we get it done."
The former presidential candidate has found himself at the center of the Senate GOP's internecine warfare over healthcare legslation after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., postponed a vote on legislation he had written largely in secret.
Cruz has proposed an amendment letting insurers sell any policies they wish, so long as they also offer polices that cover a list of services required by ObamaCare. Vice President Mike Pence endorsed the amendment Monday on Rush Limbaugh's radio show.
Cruz told host Sean Hannity Monday night that his amendment was "the knob of the battle" in the Senate. "[It] says you, the consumer, you have the right to choose what health insurance you want to buy."

Lawyer for Donald Trump Jr. says new NY Times report 'much ado about nothing'

A lawyer for Donald Trump Jr. late Monday dismissed a New York Times report that the president's eldest son knew that potentially damaging information on Hillary Clinton was offered as part of a Russian government effort to assist his father in last year's election.

The paper reported that music publicist Rob Goldstone indicated in an email to Trump Jr. that the Kremlin was the source of information about purported illegal campaign contributions to the Democratic National Committee provided by attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya.

"In my view, this is much ado about nothing," said attorney Alan Furtefas, who said that Goldstone had contacted Trump Jr. late in the Republican primary campaign and "suggested that people had information concerning alleged wrongdoing" by Clinton.
"The meeting [with Veselnitskaya] lasted about 20-30 minutes and nothing came of it," Furtefas went on. "His father knew nothing about it. The bottom line is that Don Jr. did nothing wrong."
The White House referred questions to the president's son. Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the president's outside legal team, would not comment on the Times story, reiterating only that the president "was not aware of and did not attend the meeting."
Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said the Times report proved "Donald Jr. was willing to accept the help of a hostile foreign government to sway the election. In the ensuing months, the Trump family watched as news of the Kremlin’s hacking campaign developed and they did nothing but celebrate and encourage it to continue.
"It is time for Donald Trump, his family, and his team to stop lying and come clean about their contacts with Russia, what they knew about the Kremlin’s effort to help them, and when they knew it," Watson added.
Goldstone confirmed earlier Monday that he had set up the meeting between Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya on behalf of his client, singer Emin Agalarov.
In a statement Sunday, Trump Jr. acknowledged taking the meeting to learn damaging information about Clinton, but claimed that Veselnitskaya allegations were "vague, ambiguous and made no sense” and it “became clear that she had no meaningful information.”
The Times story, which cited three unnamed people with knowledge of Goldstone's email but did not relate the actual email text, was the third report in as many days concerning the meeting between Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya.
In response to an Times report published Saturday, Trump Jr. said the meeting was primarily about allowing Americans to adopt Russian children and “mentioned nothing about Mrs. Clinton.” Responding to the paper's Sunday report, Trump Jr. acknowledged that he was told Veselnitskaya "might have information helpful to the campaign."
The Veselnitskaya meeting, which was also attended by Trump's then-campaign manager Paul Manafort and adviser Jared Kushner, is the first confirmed private meeting between members of President Trump’s inner circle and a Russian national. If the content of Goldstone's email is confirmed, it would be the first public word that Trump Jr. had been made aware the material could have been emanating from the Kremlin.
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Monday the Kremlin doesn't know Veselnitskaya and "cannot keep track" of every Russian lawyer who holds meetings in Russia or abroad. Although she has not been publicly linked with the Russian government itself, Veselnitskaya represented the son of a vice president of state-owned Russian Railways in a New York money-laundering case settled in May before a trial.
Trump spent time with Agalarov during his visit to Moscow for the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which Trump owned at the time. The real estate mogul appeared in a music video with Agalarov and several pageant contestants. Agalarov's father, Aras, is a Russian developer who sought to partner with Trump on a hotel project in Moscow and tried to set up a meeting between Trump and Putin during the Miss Universe contest.
Earlier Monday, Trump Jr. tried to brush off the significance of the meeting, tweeting sarcastically, "Obviously I'm the first person on a campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent ... went nowhere but had to listen."

Trump Jr. also said on Twitter he was willing to work with the Senate intelligence committee, one of the panels probing possible campaign collusion, "to pass on what I know."

Lawmakers on the committee from both parties said they indeed wanted to talk with the president's son. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the panel "needs to interview him and others who attended the meeting." Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., agreed, saying, "Based on his own admissions, this is an attempt at collusion."

Marine aircraft disaster: FBI seeks answers in Mississippi crash that killed at least 16

The FBI has reportedly joined local and state agencies to investigate what caused a U.S. Marine Corps KC-130 to corkscrew out of the sky and into a soybean field in Mississippi, killing at least 16.

The search for additional victims is continuing. The Marine Corps said the aircraft “experienced a mishap.” The plane spiraled down at about 4 p.m. in a field about 85 miles north of Jackson. The plane’s debris were scattered in a radius of about five miles.

Leflore County Sheriff Ricky Banks told The Associated Press that officials were still searching for bodies after nightfall.
"We're still searching the area," Banks said. "It's hard to find bodies in the dark."
Banks earlier told the Greenwood Commonwealth that 16 people were believed to be on board but would not confirm that information to the AP.
The Marine Corps says it operated the plane but has provided no information on where the flight originated or where it was going.
Alan Hammons, an official at Greenwood Airport, told WNCN that the aircraft suffered a “structural failure” at 20,000 feet. The Clarion Ledger reported that the plane departed from Naval Support Activity Mid-South Base in Millington, Tenn.
An intense fire fed by jet fuel hampered firefighters, causing them to turn to unmanned devices in an attempt to control the flames, authorities said. There were several high-intensity explosions.
Aerial pictures taken by WLBT-TV showed the skeleton of the plane burning, producing plumes of black smoke visible for miles across the flat landscape of the delta.
Austin Jones, who owns a neighboring farm, said the fire continued after sunset.
"It's burning worse now than it was early in the afternoon," said Jones. He said his son watched the plane go down while working on the farm and said it was smoking as it descended.
Officials did not have information on what caused the crash or where the flight originated.
Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

De Blasio skips slain NYPD cop's vigil to praise police in Germany

Mayor de Blasio flew all the way to Hamburg, Germany, to praise that city’s police in a speech — while cops back home continued to mourn, without him, the assassination of one of their own in The Bronx.

“Our right to protest is directly related to the fact that our police protect us,” Hizzoner told a crowd of thousands at the outdoor Hamburg Shows Attitude rally protesting the G-20 summit Saturday. “So help me by joining in applause and thanks for the police,” he said as the crowd cheered.

“There have also been great acts of bravery and restraint,” he said. “Remember, our police are working men and women, too.”
But Hamburg police weren’t feeling the love, despite the praises of “Burgermeister de Blasio.” By Saturday night — after two days of rioting — more than 200 Hamburg cops had been injured by a rowdy minority of bottle- and firebomb-tossing protesters, according to CNN.
And back home, the mayor missed an evening vigil honoring slain NYPD Officer Miosotis ­Familia at the 46th Precinct station house where she worked in The Bronx.
Familia, 48, a mother of three, was shot in the head early Wednesday by a cop-loathing ­parolee as she sat in a police command vehicle.
“It’s disgraceful that the mayor is anywhere but at this ceremony right now,” vigil attendee Maria Rinaldi, 53, of University Heights, told The Post.
“I get where he’s at right now,” said precinct neighbor Caesar Montez, 61. “But this is your city. You need to be here when a tragedy like this happens.”
De Blasio gave two speeches Saturday during his all-expenses-paid junket to Hamburg.
The first was in the morning, at the city’s Thalia Theater, where he avoided any mention of filth or delays as he praised the New York City subway system, calling it a metaphor for a harmonious society.

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Riding the subways are “people of all faiths and people of all backgrounds,” he said.
“You have the rich and the poor, people of all faiths and all backgrounds, cramped in close together.
“And I like it as a metaphor because it’s not perfect, it’s not necessarily the way you want to live, to be the sardine in the sardine can. But what you notice is there is a working harmony.”
The mayor spent much of his second outdoor rally speech ­distancing himself from US conservatives.
“My nation isn’t broken, but my nation is going through an identity crisis,” he said. “It’s on its way somewhere, and I know it’s somewhere good because I see what happens in the neighborhoods in my city . . . I see the process of change underway.”
De Blasio was accompanied at both speeches by his 19-year-old son, Dante, a Yale University ­undergrad who is spending the ­summer in Berlin.
After the rally, de Blasio gave a series of softball interviews to local media, who asked him how much German he could speak and how he and Dante were ­enjoying their visits.
But he refused to take any more questions when a Post reporter approached to ask for a response to the criticism he has received — from police, political opponents and New Yorkers — for leaving the city just one day after Familia’s assassination to grandstand on a global stage.
“It seems the mayor hasn’t learned anything from the men and women [in blue] who turned their backs on him in the past,” said Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association — in a reference to angry cops turning their backs on the mayor at past events.
“No one in uniform is surprised” by de Blasio’s show of disrespect, said Pat Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association.