Copy
View this email in your browser

June Newsletter

Table of Contents

 
President's Note
VRW June CHAT
Save the Date
Campaign Activities
Ways & Means
Americanism
Legislative
Notices
Membership
Minutes

Meeting Notice


NO GENERAL MEETING THIS MONTH

Houston Racquet Club, 10709 Memorial Drive 11:00 AM Registration
11:30 AM Program and Lunch
Lunch $30.00

Given uncertainties surrounding COVID-19
and government guidelines,
our next general meeting will be
September 30, 2020.
President's Note

Pent-Up Energy for Politics

Heading into the Summer of 2020









Deanna Harrington, VRW President

Our energy has been pent-up, and we’re ready to move past the pandemic shutdowns and get to work!  We’ve got a lot of energized and qualified Republicans on the ballot all the way from the top of the ticket to the bottom.  Our job as grassroots activists and leaders is to get our neighbors, friends, and family to the polls to vote for ALL of our Republicans. 

Traditionally, Village has taken the summer off.  Not this summer, though!!  We will be active on multiple fronts, so stay on top of your email.

Look for notices from VRW about VRW’s Strike Force events.  We’re also looking at some summer happy hour CHATS for Village members.  The pièce de résistance to officially kick-off our fall 2020 election season will be our “Centennial Celebration of the Women’s Right to Vote” on Saturday, September 12, followed by our first regular general meeting of the fall on Wednesday, September 30.

Not only has your board been working hard to take our newsletter to the next level, we’re also looking to use social media more.  If you’re not already following us on Facebook, please do that.  We’ll be posting more frequently, so “like” us, and invite your Facebook friends to like us too.

Need some inspiration?  Take two minutes and watch this video produced by TFRW when our very own Theresa Kosmoski was TFRW president.  You might just see a few familiar faces!

Victory Requires Women.  Village is on it.  Let’s do it!

VRW June CHAT
Save the Date
  • June 12 - 13 - TFRW Board of Directors Meeting, Sheraton Georgetown. Patron Event, Roots Bistro on the Square, Georgetown
  • July 16 - Texas GOP Convention, Houston
  • July 16 - TFRW’s RPT Convention Kick-off at Home Plate Bar & Grill, Houston
  • Aug 24 - 27 - Republican National Convention, Charlotte, NC
  • Sept 12 - VRW’s Centennial Celebration of Women’s Right to Vote
  • Sept 30 - VRW General Meeting
Campaign Activities


Campaign Hours
Be Informed
Get Involved






Anne Trousdale, VRW Campaigns Chair
Your time counts! Second quarter is April, May, June. For example, you can could the time for attending the online sheriff's debate and the CHAT with Mary Nan Huffman. 
 
Be an informed voter.  Learn about run-off candidates. Get involved and volunteer.

Sheriff:
     Joe Danna    joe@dannaforsheriff.com
     Paul Day    Pauldayforsheriff.com
Justice of Peace Pct. 5 -1:
     Russ Ridgway    JudgeRuss.com
     Mike Wolfe    Wolfe.texas@gmail.com
Justice, 1st Court of Appeals:
     Terry Adams     Adamsforjustice.com
    James Lombardino    www.1stcourt.com

Election 2020 Important Dates and Volunteer Opportunities
June 20 - SD 17 Convention Norris Center at City Center
     Volunteers: Contact   Anne Trousdale c 713-492-4334
June 29-July 10 - early voting for run-off
July 14 - Run-off election
July 16-18 - State Convention at George R Brown*
      *to volunteer click here
Ways & Means

Centennial Celebration of Women's Right to Vote







Julie Jaehne, 3rd VP, Ways & Means
The Centennial Committee for Votes for Women is planning a fun and joyous event!

Be on the look out for registration and sponsorship information.
Save the Date for September 12, 2020
 
Comparing Pandemic era photos: Now (circa May 2020) and Then (circa 1918).
Americanism

American Minute






Mary Grace Landrum, VRW Americanism Chair
If you ever traveled abroad you have carried a symbol of American pride and an official document of America, our passport.  Imprinted upon that passport is the Great Seal of the United States. Here is the story behind the Great Seal.
In June, 1782 the U.S. congress officially adopted the Great Seal of the United States of America.  Charles Thomson, secretary of the Continental Congress, presented the Great Seal. 

On the front of the Great Seal is the national coat of arms. Foremost is a shield, or escutcheon, in front of an American bald eagle. It has 13 red and white stripes (pales) to represent the unity of the original 13 states below a blue chief. The chief is said to represent congress which unites the states. The motto in the eagle’s beak alludes to this union.

The eagle holds 13 arrows in one talon and an olive branch in the other. These items, according to Thomson, symbolize that the United States has a “strong desire for peace, but will always be ready for war.”  This is further supported by the eagle’s head turned toward the olive branch, indicating a desire for peace. Over the head of the eagle is a glory with 13 stars on a blue field. “The constellation of stars symbolizes a new State taking its place and rank among other sovereign powers,” according to Thomson.

The reverse of the seal depicts an unfinished pyramid above which sits an eye in a triangle surrounded by a glory. The mottoes, Annuit Coeptis (providence favors our undertakings) and Novus Ordo Seclorum (a new order of the ages) encircle both figures.

The official physical seal is kept by the United States Secretary of State.  Since 1935 both sides of the Great Seal appears on the back of the one dollar bill. 
Legislative

Sydney Powell Schools 
Our Former President on
Abuse of Power







Joanie Bain, VRW Legislative Chair

Smart strong women are a force to be reckoned with.  Sydney Powell, attorney for former National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn, has proven herself to be a CAT 5 hurricane for the Barack Hussein Obama “alumni” in the Department of Justice.  Now she has the former president in her sights.

As many of you recall, former president Obama recently “leaked” a conversation in which he attacked the decision to dismiss all charges against General Flynn.  The leaked conversation was in a tape of a web talk between the former president and members of the Obama Alumni Association. Obama claimed there was no legal precedent for dismissing the charges. In the law, the term precedent means binding authority, whether by statute, prior court decisions or both. 

Specifically, Obama claimed: “And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic – not just institutional norms – but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk.”

In truth, General Flynn was never charged with perjury, and it has now been established that he did not lie, and that the FBI knew he wasn’t lying.  This case is a frightening example of abuse of power for political gain.  Fortunately for General Flynn, and for all of us, Sydney Powell took over his case.  The disgraced DOJ prosecutors were forced by their own misconduct to seek dismissal of the charges against General Flynn.

Sydney Powell immediately took Mr. Obama to school on the precedent that requires dismissal, and took the opportunity to remind him of the numerous cases of misconduct during his administration that went unpunished. The article is educational, very well written, and quite frankly, spot on. It is reprinted below for you in its entirety.  You can also link to the Michael T. Flynn Case documents and important briefings from the case from her website.

A quick update on the case before you read the article below.  Sydney Powell has filed a petition for writ of mandamus in the DC Court of Appeals asking that the appellate court order Judge Sullivan to dismiss the case.  Judge Sullivan has until June 1st to respond.  See here..

Now for Sydney’s article:
 
OPEN MEMORANDUM
 
To: Barack Hussein Obama
From: Sidney Powell
www.SidneyPowell.com
Date:  May 12, 2020
 
Re: Your Failure to Find Precedent for Flynn Dismissal

Regarding the decision of the Department of Justice to dismiss with prejudice the information filed against General Flynn and the concern you expressed in your phone call with alumni: “that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk.”

Apparently, you need more help than you realize as your statement is entirely false. However it does explain the damage to the Rule of Law you allowed throughout your administration.
First, General Flynn was not charged with perjury—which requires a material false statement made under oath with intent to deceive.1 A perjury prosecution would have been appropriate and the Rule of Law applied if the Justice Department prosecuted your former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for his multiple lies under oath in a leak investigation.

McCabe lied repeatedly under oath in fully recorded and transcribed interviews with the Inspector General for the DOJ. He was fully informed of the purpose of the interview and he had had the benefit of counsel. He knew he was in trouble. McCabe even lied about lying—and to his own agents which took their investigation on a “wild-goose-chase” because McCabe was himself the source of the leak they were investigating. Attorney General Barr declined to prosecute McCabe for these offenses.

Under the Rule of Law, after declining McCabe’s perjury prosecution, there are no circumstances pursuant to which DOJ could continue to prosecute General Flynn who was not warned, not under oath, had no counsel, and whose statements were not only not recorded, but falsified by the agents.

Second, it would seem your “wingman” Eric Holder is missing a step these days at Covington & Burling LLP. Indelibly marked in his memory (and one might think, yours) should be his Motion to Dismiss the multi-count jury verdict of guilty and the entire case against former United States Senator Ted Stevens. Within weeks of Mr. Holder becoming Attorney General, he had to move to dismiss the Stevens prosecution in the interest of justice for the same reasons the Justice Department did against General Flynn—egregious government misconduct by prosecutors who hid evidence and made up purported crimes.
As horrifying as the facts of the Stevens case were, they pale in comparison to the targeted setup, framing, and prosecution of a newly elected President’s National Security Advisor and the shocking facts that surround it. This case was an assault on the heart of liberty— our cherished system of self-government and the right of citizens to choose their President.

Third, the inability of “anybody” in your alumni association to find “anybody who has been charged [with anything] just getting off scot-free” would be laughable were it not so pathetic.
Many of your alum are featured prominently in the non-fiction legal thriller published in 2014: Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice. A national best-seller, it focusses on the egregious misconduct of your longest serving White House Counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler; your counter-terrorism advisor Lisa Monaco; Loretta Lynch’s DAG for the Criminal Division Leslie Caldwell; and Mueller protégé Andrew Weissmann. While they worked as federal prosecutors on the Enron Task Force—under the purported supervision of Christopher Wray, they destroyed Arthur Andersen LLP and its 85,000 jobs; sent four Merrill Lynch executives to prison on an indictment that criminalized an innocent business transaction and hid the evidence that showed they were innocent for six years. Both cases were reversed on appeal for their over-criminalization and misconduct. Indeed, Andersen was reversed by a unanimous Supreme Court.

Fourth, even if your many alumni don’t remember multiple reversals and cases that had to be reversed or dismissed for their own misconduct, we’re guessing Judge Emmet Sullivan will remember tossing the Stevens case. Judge Sullivan is the judicial hero of Licensed to Lie. It is that case and the resulting 500-page report of Henry Schuelke that caused Judge Sullivan to enter the strong Brady order the Mueller prosecutors violated repeatedly in the Flynn prosecution.

Fifth, your alumni Weissmann and Ruemmler are no strangers to guilty pleas being tossed. At least two guilty pleas they coerced by threats against defendants in Houston had to be thrown out—again for reasons like those here. The defendants “got off scot- free” because—like General Flynn—your alumni had concocted the charges and terrorized them into pleading guilty to “offenses” that were not crimes. Andersen partner David Duncan even testified for the government against Andersen in its trial, but his plea had to be vacated. Enron Broadband defendant Christopher Calger had his plea thrown out also.

Sixth, should further edification be necessary, see Why Innocent People Plead Guilty, written by federal Judge Jed Rakoff (a Clinton appointment) in 2014. Innocent people are forced to plead guilty by abusive prosecutors with painful frequency. The Mueller special counsel operation led by Andrew Weissmann and Weissmann “wannabes” specialize in prosecutorial terrorist tactics repulsive to everything “justice” is supposed to mean and designed to intimidate their targets into pleading guilty and punishing them with the process and financial ruin.

Most important, in truth, General Flynn was honest with the FBI agents. They knew he was—and briefed that to McCabe and others three different times. At McCabe’s directions, Agent Strzok and McCabe’s “Special Counsel” Lisa Page, altered the 302 to create statements Weissmann, Mueller, Van Grack, and Zainab Ahmad could assert were false. Only the FBI agents lied—and falsified documents. The crimes are theirs alone.

Seventh, the federal circuit in which you reside threw out a Section 1001 case for a legal failure much less egregious than those in General Flynn’s case. United States v. Safavian, 528 F.3d 957 (D.C. Cir. 2008). Safavian sought advice from his agency’s ethics board and didn’t give them all the relevant info. The jury convicted him on the theory it was a 1001 violation to conceal the info from the government ethics board. The court disagreed: “As Safavian argues and as the government agrees, there must be a legal duty to disclose in order for there to be a concealment offense in violation of § 1001(a)(1), yet the government failed to identify a legal disclosure duty except by reference to vague standards of conduct for government employees.” General Flynn did not even know he was the subject of an investigation—and in truth, he was not. The only crimes here were by your alumni in the FBI, White House, intelligence community, and DOJ.

These examples are obvious and well-known. Perhaps you will soon find some remarkably good “jailhouse lawyers” to consult for further assistance on your search for precedent.
Finally, your “leaked” comments on the call with your alumni further evinces your extraordinary obsession with destroying a distinguished veteran of the United States Army who has defended this country “from all enemies, foreign and domestic,” with the highest honor for thirty-three years.
————————————————————————————–
1 As a “constitutional lawyer,” surely you recall that perjury (or false statements) also require intent to deceive. In Bronston v. United States, 409 U.S. 352 (1973), the Supreme Court reversed a conviction of perjury. In Bronston, the defendant’s answer was a truthful statement, but not directly responsive to the question and ultimately misled federal authorities. The Court determined: “A jury should not be permitted to engage in conjecture whether an unresponsive answer, true and complete on its face, was intended to mislead or divert the examiner; the state of mind of the witness is relevant only to the extent that it bears on whether “he does not believe [his answer] to be true.” To hold otherwise would be to inject a new and confusing element into the adversary testimonial system we know.” Id. at 359. The FBI agents who interviewed General Flynn specifically noted that his answers were true or he believed his answers to be true. Furthermore, General Flynn knew and remarked they had transcripts of his conversations.

VRW 60th Anniversary

VRW Celebrates 60 Years!










Carolyn Hodges, VRW 60th Anniversary Chair
Start spreading the news!  Village Republican Women will celebrate its 60th Anniversary in 2021.  Sixty years full of politics, fund raising, campaigns and camaraderie have made a vibrant history. We will celebrate in numerous ways culminating with a special event in April 2021!  All of you should plan to be a part of the festivities.  Details will be forthcoming.
Voter Registration Recruitment
Help us register new voters from the comfort of your home.  You’ll need internet access, a phone, and one hour to make calls to prospective voters.  

Contact Rhonda Anderson, randerson@gregabbott.com, to volunteer and for training.  The automated system is easy to use – just 15 min. to become an expert.  

June 13 and 20 from 9-12 will start with a zoom kick-off meeting featuring different legislators. Call Mary Landrum, 713-722-8307, for more details. 
Membership

Join VRW Today!







Karen Houke, VRW Membership Chair
Victory requires women!  We need YOU to join Village Republican Women. 

CLICK HERE for a membership form

Questions? Email Membership Chair Karen Houke at karenh718@sbcglobal.net or call her at 281-513-1353.  
 
Minutes

 

Due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak, the April General Meeting was cancelled.  



Nolia Rohde, VRW Recording Secretary
 
Facebook Facebook
Website Website
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Pd. pol. ad. by Village Republican Women PAC, Nancy Scott, Treasurer.
1014 Arrow Hill Rd. Houston, TX 77077.
Contributions are not federal tax deductible as charitable contributions.
Corporate contributions are not permitted.