This Week's Top Five Stories

Your weekly update of the most popular content from The Federalist. Be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray [View this email in your browser]( 1. REVEALED: Peter Strzok Had Personal Relationship With Recused Judge In Michael Flynn Case By Mollie Hemingway Newly discovered text messages obtained by The Federalist reveal two key federal law enforcement officials conspired to meet with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) judge who presided over the federal case against Michael Flynn. The judge, Rudolph Contreras, was recused from handling the case just days after accepting the guilty plea of President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser who was charged with making false statements to federal investigators. The text messages about Contreras between controversial Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) lawyer Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, the senior FBI counterintelligence official who was kicked off Robert Mueller’s special counsel team, were deliberately hidden from Congress, multiple congressional investigators told The Federalist. In the messages, Page and Strzok, who are rumored to have been engaged in an illicit romantic affair, discussed Strzok’s personal friendship with Contreras and how to leverage that relationship in ongoing counterintelligence matters. [Full Article]( 2. Beto O’Rourke Just Showed Everyone How To Lose An Election In Texas By John Daniel Davidson The Democratic congressman aiming to unseat Ted Cruz in November told a panel at SXSW that he'd like ban AR-15s. --------------------------------------------------------------- There are two ways to guarantee you’ll lose a statewide election in Texas: campaign for abortion or campaign against guns. Texas Democrats accomplished the first in 2014, when Wendy Davis lost the governor’s race to Greg Abbott by 20 points. Now they’re determined to do the second. Beto O’Rourke, the photogenic Democratic congressman from El Paso hoping to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in November, declared at a SXSW event Monday that there’s no reason an AR-15 should be sold to a civilian. According to Politico’s Michael Calderone, O’Rourke, who’s not shy about swearing on the campaign trail, added, “I have no idea how that polls and I should give a shit what the NRA thinks about it.” [Full Article]( 3. ‘Wrinkle In Time’ Is Getting Panned By Critics, And Director Ava DuVernay Is Not Taking It Well By Ellie Bufkin DuVernay is blaming white men who she thinks just don't get it for poor reviews of the movie that are giving it a poor score on sites like Rotten Tomatoes. --------------------------------------------------------------- Critics are largely panning “A Wrinkle In Time,” and Director Ava DuVernay is not taking it well. According to her twitter feed, white journalists of either gender simply don’t understand her vision for the movie. Vulture editor Kyle Buchanan pleased DuVernay, when he said in a tweet “one of the most subtle, resonant” threads in the film that he discovered after interviewing her was … the character Meg’s insecurity about her hair. Reminder: This is a film based on a Christian-inspired book about an epic battle between darkness and light. But according to DuVernay, Buchanan nailed it. [Full Article]( 4. ‘Backwards’: Hillary Clinton Apparently Still Has No Clue Why She Lost By Holly Scheer Her condescending words targeted voters in states that twice voted for Obama, and show she still doesn't understand why Americans didn’t vote for her. --------------------------------------------------------------- Hillary Clinton isn’t ready to let go of her election loss to President Trump. Clinton is in Mumbai, India, at the India Today Conclave, a “a meeting point for the best minds from India and around the world to map the geopolitical and economic future of the country.” But instead of keeping her focus on the complex and numerous problems facing India, Clinton took aim Monday at Americans who voted for Trump. Her patronizing and condescending words targeted voters in states that twice voted for Obama, and show she still doesn’t understand why Americans didn’t vote for her. [Full Article]( 5. San Francisco Is Suffering From The Excesses Of Its Own Liberalism By Erielle Davidson The astounding level of mismanagement and general deterioration of public decency will continue to plague the city until reasonable measures are taken to combat vagrancy. --------------------------------------------------------------- About two years ago, I moved to San Francisco from Manhattan in order to pursue a position in economic research at the Hoover Institution. I had originally been working in finance, but welcomed with a special eagerness the opportunity to enter the realm of public policy. My only interaction with California had been limited to a week in the Piedmont-area of Oakland, California during my junior year of college. Over the course of that first visit, I experienced the “quintessential” San Francisco that characterizes most people’s expectations of the city. I bought colorful groceries at a quaint farmer’s market. I ate an In-N-Out burger with the “special sauce” and donned the silly hat as I scarfed it down. I gawked at the sheer amount of tie-dye I witnessed in Haight-Ashbury. I even braved the earthquake simulation at the California Academy of the Sciences. In short, I developed a quick affection for the city that was only to be challenged severely upon my move. [Full Article]( Copyright © 2015 The Federalist, All rights reserved. You are receiving this e-mail because you opted in to receive e-mail updates from TheFederalist.com. 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