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October 2017

The Humanitarian Hoax of the Lone Wolf: Killing America With Kindness Linda Goudsmit,

The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

For 55 years Americans have been expected to believe the “lone wolf” theory of murder. From President Kennedy’s shocking assassination to the savagery of radical Islamic terror and now the horrifying mass murder of concert goers in Las Vegas. In art and entertainment there is a term “suspension of disbelief” which is defined as the willingness to suspend one’s critical thinking faculties and believe the unbelievable. Suspension of disbelief is a participatory and voluntary experience of sacrificing logic for the sake of enjoyment.

Suspension of disbelief in the fifties happened when we went to the movies and allowed ourselves to believe that Clark Kent was Superman. Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Clark Kent, the mild-mannered reporter was fighting a never-ending battle for truth, justice, and the American way.

Suspension of disbelief in 1963 was believing that President John F. Kennedy was killed by “lone wolf” Lee Harvey Oswald who shot a magic bullet that changed trajectories in mid-flight. Oswald was then conveniently murdered by terminally ill Jack Ruby. Skeptical Americans were very suspicious. After all, this was real life not the movies. The government doubled down on suspension of disbelief and the public was expected to believe the Warren Commission’s dubious conclusion that it was that “lone wolf” again shooting his magic bullet. The public was considered far too fragile to handle the truth. Suspension of disbelief applied to real life was rationalized as an altruistic act of kindness. Really?

On September 11, 2001 the United States was attacked by Islamic terrorists who hijacked passenger planes and flew them into the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon killing over 3,000 Americans. No one could seriously posit the lone wolf theory so instead Americans were expected to believe the lone group theory – Al-Qaeda was the first enemy group to be identified. As the Islamic terrorist movement expanded more groups were created and terrorist attacks that could not be linked to a specific group were dismissed as lone wolf attacks.

Over and over again experts in Islamic theology and men and women who had lived in Islamic countries told America that there are no lone wolves. Even the terrorists themselves announced that Islam is Islam. There is no moderate Islam. Islamic terrorism is inspired by the commandments in the Koran that unite jihadis in violence against all infidels. Islamic terrorism is one of several jihadi tactics being used to re-establish the Islamic caliphate and impose sharia law worldwide.

Western left-wing liberal politicians and the colluding mainstream media continue to insist that Radical Islamic terror is not an existential threat. Instead they insist upon public suspension of disbelief and the belief in the lone wolf theory of murder. Why? Because it works!

Although it strains credulity – people WANT to believe the lone wolf theory because it calms their fears and makes them FEEL safe and secure. The problem is that feelings are not facts. We are not living in a Hollywood movie that ends in two hours. Suspension of disbelief is dangerous in real life. Islamic terrorism is a real fact of 21st century life and is an existential threat to the American way.

Muslim Brotherhood Political Infiltration on Steroids By Janet Levy

In 2008, during the largest terrorism funding trial in U.S. history, United States v. Holy Land Foundation, a document published in 1991 outlined Muslim plans to take over America. An Explanatory Memorandum: On the General Strategic Goal for the Group, seized in a 2004 FBI raid of the Virginia home of a Muslim Brotherhood operative, was presented during the trial as evidence of “a Civilization-Jihadist Process.” It outlined the Muslim Brotherhood goal to conduct a “grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated.”

For several decades, this well-organized and well-funded effort to subvert our constitutional republic and replace it with an Islamic government under Islamic law has focused on infiltrating all levels and branches of the U.S. government. More recently, the Muslim Brotherhood presence within the American political landscape has intensified, accelerated, and become more visible with the establishment of several nonprofit political action organizations. The Muslim Brotherhood stated goal of transforming American society from within in preparation for an eventual takeover is clearly moving forward fueled by the efforts of these groups and their burgeoning success within the umma or Muslim community.

As early as 1987, a declassified FBI confidential informant document described the Muslim Brotherhood as “political action front groups with no traceable ties to Muslim groups” that are organizing external political support to influence both public opinion in America and the U.S. government and its leadership. The informant who disclosed this information told authorities that the MB acknowledged the need to “peacefully get inside the United States Government” for the purpose of meeting “the ultimate goal of overthrowing all non-Islamic governments.”

In 2010, one such “peaceful” group, Project Mobilize, was created by M. Yasser Tabbara to empower and engage the political potential of the Muslim community. Its mission statement called for the exploitation of the growing political capital of the umma, the promotion of issues important to Muslim Americans and the development of strategies for political advocacy on their behalf. In 2011, Project Mobilize began fielding its first Muslim candidates for political office.

Project Mobilize’s founder, Tabbara, is a former executive director the Chicago chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate and unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas funding trial. Other board members include Safaa Zarzour, the secretary general of another unindicted co-conspirator and Muslim Brotherhood front, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and Oussama Jammal, vice president of the Mosque Foundation, a known center for terrorism fundraising and haven for Hamas operatives.

In 2014, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., representatives from eight Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups announced formation of the United States Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), a political party for Muslims and the first religion-based political party in U.S. history. At the meeting, the founders disclosed their plans to expand Muslim participation in the American political process by encouraging more Muslims to vote, work on political campaigns and run for office themselves.

Oussama Jammal, who was involved in fundraising for convicted terrorist Sami al-Arian and serves as director of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliate, the Muslim American Society (MAS), headed the new organization. MAS, created in the early 1990s, was itself begun as the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and was designated a terrorist group by the United Arab Emirates. Mazen Mokhtar, another USCMO founding member, also had MAS ties, having served as its executive director. An Egyptian-born imam, Mokhtar served as webmaster for a site that solicited funds for Taliban and Chechen jihadists. In 2007, he was indicted by then-New Jersey Attorney General Chris Christie for tax evasion and filing false tax returns.

Former NYT Editor Warns Paper to be Careful About Trump Coverage There’s a certain type of commentary that can be twisted by critics as ‘gloating’ or ‘overkill.’ by Diana Crandall see note please

As a Wall St. Journal reporter Abramson wrote a maliciously biased book about the Anita Hill/ Clarence Thomas controversy, air-brushing and obfuscating evidence that contradicted Hill’s claims. rsk
Abramson, the former executive editor of the New York Times, used White House reporter Glenn Thrush as an example of how reporters shouldn’t talk about President Trump.“On Twitter, Glenn Thrush, an otherwise great reporter, has tweeted that Trump had ‘breathtaking chutzpah,’ that he ‘will never get over the shock of waking up and seeing the leader of the free world spouting demonstrably false information,’” Abramson recounted in a recent analysis of the paper’s political coverage. While Thrush’s observations may be true, Abramson wrote, they are opinions — and it’s exactly that type of commentary that can be twisted by critics as “gloating” or “overkill” — and that can hurt the paper’s historic, unrelenting and overall accurate coverage of the administration.

The column:

https://www.cjr.org/special_report/when-all-the-news-that-fits-is-trump.php

Jill Abramson is a former executive editor of The New York Times. She also writes a political column for The Guardian and is finishing a book on the transformation of the news industry. She is a senior lecturer in the English department of Harvard University.

Since the election, The New York Times has toughened everything about its coverage of Donald Trump, from the choice of words it uses to describe what he says to the number of reporters assigned to cover and investigate him. Like everyone else, the Times underestimated his chances of being elected. Although it published impressive investigations of his taxes, treatment of women, and real-estate deals, it was only after his surprise victory that the dimensions of Russia’s interference in the election and ties to Trump were examined and revealed.

In recent months, the Times has been in a running one-upmanship battle with The Washington Post, a thrilling journalistic display that has reinforced the importance of the few national news organizations left that still have the muscle to do this kind of reporting. “The role of the press is clearer now than it’s ever been,” said Executive Editor Dean Baquet on CBS’s Face the Nation in February. The quixotic nature of the new administration, the president’s serial lies (the word Baquet was right to use on the front page), and the false narratives that tumble out of the White House daily cry out for this kind of accountability journalism.

Farewell, Valedictorian: High Schools Drop Tradition of Naming Top Student More institutions are naming multiple valedictorians—or none at all By Tawnell D. Hobbs

Ryan Walters has loaded up on advanced classes, studied until the wee hours and composed possible graduation speeches in his head as the high-school junior worked to be valedictorian at Heritage High School in Wake Forest, N.C.

But neither he nor any of his classmates will hold the title.

The Wake County Public School System, the 15th-largest in the nation, won’t have valedictorians after this school year, joining other districts that have moved away from lauding a single-highest performer.

“I think it’s pretty stupid, and I don’t think it’s fair,” says Mr. Walters, 16 years old. “Wake County is instilling in us that we shouldn’t try to be the best.”

It’s getting lonely at the top of the class in high school—or very crowded—as more schools alter or do away with the traditional role of valedictorian. While some schools no longer hail a single student with the best grade-point average, others are granting the distinction to anyone who gets at least a 4.0 GPA. And that is increasingly common as certain honors, or advanced-level classes, tend to grant higher than a 4.0 for an A.

At least half of U.S. states have schools that have stopped naming valedictorians, or now name multiple, to head off what school officials say has become unhealthy competition among students.

In recent weeks, Brown County Schools in Nashville, Ind., and Mehlville School District in St. Louis, decided to phase out naming valedictorians. Other districts around the country are discussing similar moves.

Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Va., had 178 valedictorians last school year, or 1 in every 3 graduates. Valedictorians are those who achieved at least a 4.0 grade-point average. Every valedictorian is ranked No. 1 in the class.

Murfreesboro, Tenn.’s Central Magnet School had a record-breaking 48 valedictorians last school year, a quarter of its graduating class. Awardees achieve the highest grade point average, take a minimum of 12 higher-level courses and meet state requirements to graduate with honors and distinction.

James Evans, spokesman in Rutherford County Schools, where Central Magnet is located, said the school has a lot of high achievers. “We’re pretty proud,” he said.
Ryan Walters, a junior at Heritage High School in Wake Forest, N.C. Photo: Jessica Cannon

More schools also no longer calculate numerical rankings for students—information still used by some colleges—out of fear that students missing higher rankings by a few points could be hurt in the college-acceptance process, or passed over for scholarships.

“We found that it’s shutting our students out from some really positive opportunities,” said Scott Martzloff, superintendent of the Williamsville Central School District in western New York, where the school board in September approved the elimination of class ranking. “I think it causes a lot of stress and unhealthy competition.”

But backlash is growing in some areas of the country, with students at the top of their class as well as their parents saying that high performance is being cast aside or diluted in the name of fairness.

“If everybody is called valedictorian, it doesn’t mean anything,” said Deborah Morley, whose daughter attends Exeter Union High School in Exeter, Calif., where all students with at least a 4.0 GPA can be valedictorian starting this school year.

At least one school, Melrose High School, outside of Boston, recently bucked the trend by going back to naming valedictorians after hearing from students. The new rule, approved in April after a school year without a valedictorian, awards the title to the student with the highest GPA.

“That was really important to people, especially the kids,” said Principal Jason Merrill.

Gunman Attacks Saudi Royal Palace; 2 Guards Killed Three other Guard members were wounded; gunman was killed at the scene

—A gunman opened fire outside a Saudi royal palace on Saturday, killing two members of the Saudi Royal Guard, an official Saudi news agency reported.

The gunman exited a vehicle and attacked the western gate of the Al-Salam Palace in Jeddah early Saturday morning, the Saudi Press Agency reported, citing the security spokesman for the Interior Ministry. Three other Guard members were wounded, and the gunman was killed at the scene, the report said.

The ministry identified the attacker as Mansour bin Hassan bin Ali bin Al Fahid al-Amri, a 28-year-old Saudi national, the report said.

The Harvey Weinstein scandal and the silent left’s stunning hypocrisy

“Who is Harvey Weinstein?” is a perfectly acceptable question in light of a bombshell story The New York Times broke Thursday that reports decades of his alleged serial sexual harassment and settlements with women in Hollywood.
Putting it bluntly, Harvey Weinstein, for a time, was the most powerful producer and studio head in Hollywood. He is almost singlehandedly responsible for the indie-to-mainstream film explosion in the 90’s (backing “Pulp Fiction,” “Good Will Hunting” and “Shakespeare in Love” to name just a few examples). His influence in Hollywood is unparalleled.

But it’s his influence out of Hollywood that has parts of media and the political left flummoxed to the point of silence. Weinstein, fresh off producing a media-hailed documentary titled “The Hunting Ground,” about sexual assault on college campuses, has also taken a leave from his production company, The Weinstein Company. Who would have guessed the only real hunting ground, according to women interviews by the newspaper, was Harvey Weinstein’s casting couch?

Actress and dedicated liberal women’s rights activist Ashley Judd went on record for the New York Times story, which states: ‘Two decades ago, the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein invited Ashley Judd to the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel for what the young actress expected to be a business breakfast meeting. Instead, he had her sent up to his room, where he appeared in a bathrobe and asked if he could give her a massage or she could watch him shower, she recalled in an interview.

“ ‘How do I get out of the room as fast as possible without alienating Harvey Weinstein?’ Ms. Judd said she remembers thinking.”

Weinstein has amassed a small army of professional political spin doctors, image consultants and PR wizards to help blunt any damage from the allegations of settled lawsuits involving several actresses. He has even gone so far as threatening legal action against the Times for its report, calling in favors from the highest ranks of Democratic party operatives.

After fundraising almost $650,000 for Barack Obama and a few thousand more for Hillary Clinton, Weinstein was bound to earn some favors, including advice to blame the NRA for his transgressions.

Lawyer Lanny Davis is defending Weinstein, which is great because Davis has experience in defending important people from sexual abuse allegations – most prominently President Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Also advising Weinstein is Democratic powerhouse PR firm SKDKnickerbocker Managing Director and former Obama White House Communications Director Anita Dunn.

SKDK ran interference for Planned Parenthood when undercover videos inside the organization hit the media last year. SKDK also ran promotions for the Women’s March against Donald Trump’s inauguration this past January, where Ashley Judd was a prominent speaker. SKDK insists Weinstein is not a client in any capacity, which is technically true, as Dunn has stated she is advising Weinstein pro-bono. That’s neat.

Another attorney advising Weinstein is Lisa Bloom. If that name sounds familiar it’s because Bloom has made waves recently both organizing the campaign against Bill O’Reilly when he was at Fox News and representing victims against comedian and actor Bill Cosby.

Casting Stones from Casting Couches By Boris Zelkin

The New York Times on Thursday published a withering expose of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s long history of sexual harassment against women. No one in Hollywood is shocked. He’s tried to get out in front of the story by stating, “I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it.”https://amgreatness.com/2017/10/06/casting-stones-from-casting-couches/

Well there you have it. Done.
Of course he only came forward after hiring a phalanx of attorneys in what I can only imagine was an attempt to stop the story from appearing in the first place. In Weinstein’s bizarre non-apology apology, he blamed the 1960s and ’70s—as if every man who came of age during that time turned out to be a lecher or a rapist.

But don’t worry. Weinstein, a huge supporter of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, was “With Her” and, despite making movie after movie glorifying gun violence, plans to spend the rest of his days going after the real enemy in all this, the NRA. So it’s all good.

Nice one Harvey. And here I thought you might spend the rest of your days learning the difficult and subtle art of how to not use your power to extort young women into having sex with you.
In other entertainment news, brilliant director and fugitive rapist Roman Polanski is “over it.” Polanski, a man to whom none other than the conscience of Hollywood, Meryl Streep, gave a standing ovation and who many Hollywood luminaries—including Weinstein himself and the ethically challenged Woody Allen—want “freed,” is “over” the nuisance of being reminded of his rape in 1977 of a 13-year-old girl.

He’s over having plied her with Quaaludes; he’s over having invited her into a bedroom “to take pictures.” And he’s definitely over repeatedly sodomizing her, despite her continued vocal objections.

Ironically, news of Polanski’s ability to move on breaks at the same time as yet another woman—the fourth—steps forward to accuse him of underage rape.
I wonder if Whoopi Goldberg will consider this one rape-rape.

If these weren’t enough, let’s take a moment to reflect on the pharmacological stylings of Bill Cosby or the complicated family life of Woody Allen. Then there’s Jeffrey Jones, the actor who played principal from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” who, like Weinstein, apparently came of age in the ’60s and ‘70s, which must have been what led him to pay a 14-year-old boy to pose for nude photos. Former child actors complain that the industry is full of pedophilia and child grooming, yet the industry takes no notice. As if to ensure that the trend remains current, Glee Star Mark Salling, who most definitely did not come of age in the 60 and 70’s, recently pleaded guilty to possession of 50,000 images and videos of child pornography—with victims as young as 3 to 5 years old.

But not to worry, as Harvey Weinstein himself proclaimed, “Hollywood has the best Moral Compass.”

And if we need to know anything about the way in which the powerful in the industry view those at the bottom, we need only to look at what George Clooney said of Steven Bannon’s attempt at screenwriting. You don’t have to like Bannon to see very clearly how Clooney views the artists below him who struggle to get their work made: “Steve Bannon is a failed fucking screenwriter,” spat Clooney. “Now, if he’d somehow managed miraculously to get that thing produced, he’d still be in Hollywood, still making movies and licking my ass to get me to do one of his stupid-ass screenplays.”

That’s right. They expect people to “lick their asses.” I’m assuming, of course, that Clooney meant that figuratively, but considering the culture of the industry outlined above, who can really say? Regardless, the powerful in Hollywood relish obsequiousness at every level. They are all too happy to let everyone in their orbit know about the power dynamic between struggling artists who are moved to create and those who have landed at the top. And what’s more is the unspoken understanding, even the expectation, that they might use that power for lecherous ends.

Harvey Weinstein isn’t an aberration, he’s just the most prominent and current example.

I’ve worked in this industry for more than 20 years. This isn’t easy for me to write and I’m pretty sure it won’t help my career. But it must be said. I bristle at the nerve of an industry that tolerates and even praises the likes of Polanski and Weinstein having the temerity to lecture the rest of the country about morality and the meaning of a good life. It’s beyond chutzpah or hypocrisy. It beggars belief.

So when prominent entertainers and Hollywood executives stand there and lecture the rest of the country about any moral issue, it’s good to take a step back and realize who it is doing the talking.

Every time a talk-show host, actor, producer, director, or executive opens his mouth and pontificates on this or that national moral failure, we ought to respond loudly and with one voice:

Enough!

You stand there and you lecture us about morality? You tell us how to vote? Or who deserves generational and cultural praise? You give standing ovations to admitted rapists, to men that would do harm to children and women—and you would indict the rest of the country as immoral?

Why Georgetown University Students Want More Conservative Professors on Campus The student newspaper’s simple request that the school introduce more diverse thought is one many universities should heed. By Mark Judge —

Editor’s Note: This piece originally appeared at Acculturated and is reprinted here with permission.

In a recent editorial in the Hoya, the official student newspaper of Georgetown University, students called for more conservative professors on campus.

The editorial is a refreshingly reasonable voice in the ongoing culture and free speech wars that are roiling America’s college campuses. The editors of the Hoya do not demand that a circus act like Milo Yiannopolous be allowed to come and disrupt the campus, or that the left continue its dominance of the country’s universities.

Instead, they make a straightforward case that the dearth of conservative professors at Georgetown is leaving students unprepared for the genuine diversity – that is, the diversity of thought – that is part of the real world. Georgetown’s homogeneity, they argue, is leading to an atrophying of their skills for debate and reasoned argument. In other words, without conservatives, they have no one to test their ideas against.

“One of the hallmarks of higher education is the opportunity to understand and grapple with a wide range of ideas,” the editorial notes. It goes on:

Yet, Georgetown falls short on its commitment to this ideological diversity in the makeup of its instructional corps. The university must work to remedy its lack of politically conservative professors by considering a diversity of viewpoints when hiring instructors, from assistant professors to those with tenure, and by ensuring that no bias exists against conservative educators in the hiring process.

The editorial cites a 2016 article in the Wall Street Journal by John Hasnas, who wrote that Georgetown faculty search committees often blackball conservative candidates. The Hoya editors also cite the Higher Education Research Institute, whose research has shown what even the Washington Post called “a dramatic shift” in recent years toward hiring faculty that leans left. In 1990, 42 percent of college professors identified as liberal or far-left, according to the HERI survey data; by 2014, that figure had risen to nearly 60 percent, while only 12 percent of professors identified as conservative.

Pop Goes the Liberal Media Bubble Trump drives the mainstream press to abandon the pretense of objectivity. By Matthew Continetti

For years, reporters were content to obscure their ideological dogmas and partisan goals behind the pretense of objectivity and detachment. Though the Washington Post, New York Times, and CNN practiced combat journalism against conservatives and Republicans, they did so while aspiring to professional standards of facticity and fairness, and applying, every now and then, scrutiny to liberals and Democrats worthy of investigation.

Donald Trump changed that, of course. He is so unusual a figure, and his behavior so outlandish, that his rise precipitated a crisis in a profession already decimated by the collapse of print circulation and advertising dollars. The forces that brought Trump to power are alien to the experience of the men and women who populate newsrooms, his supporters unlike their colleagues, friends, and neighbors, his agenda anathema to the catechism of social liberalism, his career and business empire complex and murky and sensational. Little surprise that journalists reacted to his election with a combination of panic, fear, disgust, fascination, exhilaration, and the self-affirming belief that they remain the last line of defense against an emerging American autocracy. Who has time for dispassionate analysis, for methodical research and reporting, when the president’s very being is an assault on one’s conception of self, when nothing less than the future of the country is at stake? Especially when the depletion of veteran editors, the relative youth and inexperience of political and congressional reporters, and the proliferation of social media, with its hot takes and quips, its groupthink and instant gratification, makes the transition from inquiry to indignation all too easy.

There is still excellent journalism. I would point, for starters, to the work on charter flights that led to the resignation of Tom Price. But the overall tone of coverage of this president and his administration is somewhere between the hysterical and the lunatic. Journalists are trapped in a condition of perpetual outrage, seizing on every rumor of discontent and disagreement, reflexively denouncing Trump’s every utterance and action, unable to distinguish between genuinely unusual behavior (the firing of Comey, the tenure of Anthony Scaramucci, the “fine people on both sides” quip after Charlottesville) and the elements of Trump’s personality and program that voters have already, so to speak, “priced in.” Supposedly authoritative news organizations have in one case taken up bizarre mottoes, like “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” and in another acted passive-aggressively by filing Trump stories under “entertainment,” only to re-categorize the material as news with the disclaimer (since dropped) that Trump is “a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, and birther.” The mode of knee-jerk disgust not only prevents the mainstream media from distinguishing between the genuinely interesting stories and the false, partisan, and hackwork ones. It also has had the effect of further marginalizing print and broadcast journalists from middle America.

The other day, for example, Bob Schieffer observed on Face the Nation that one in five journalists live in New York, D.C., or Los Angeles. The news is manufactured by residents of the liberal bubble, where conservatives are few and far between (and certainly do not sound like Sarah Palin), jobs are plenty, education is high, and the benefits of globalization manifest in cheap prices, exotic restaurants, and a reserve labor force of cleaners, contractors, and home-care specialists. Can’t say I was shocked when Schieffer’s finding passed barely noticed, the consciences of the press untroubled by the fact that their experiences and backgrounds are so unlike the majority of the public whose interest they presume to uphold.

Collusion and the Trump Dossier If the Trump dossier is a tissue of lies, why are the Justice Department and FBI, now controlled by Trump appointees, concealing information about it? By Andrew C. McCarthy

It is an article of faith among the president’s most ardent supporters: The Trump dossier is a completely discredited piece of garbage. Hence, its relevance is limited to one matter and one matter alone: The dossier’s suspected use by the Obama administration (specifically, the Justice Department and the FBI) as a pretext to spy on the opposition party’s presidential campaign — a ruse that included cribbing the dossier’s sensational allegations in secret court applications for wiretap warrants.

It appears that this Trumpist tenet is going to be tested. The dossier that did so much to fuel the collusion controversy is assuming center stage once more.

The dispute over the 2016 election has stalemated. The Trump-deranged are convinced that the president is a Putin puppet; Trump boosters are just as certain that “collusion” is a fictional narrative dreamt up to delegitimize their man and explain away Hillary Clinton’s defeat. For a long time, I’ve thought the latter camp had the better argument. President Trump and the FBI director he fired, James Comey, may not agree on much, but they both say Comey provided repeated assurances that Trump was not a suspect in the FBI’s probe of Russia’s 2016 campaign meddling. It makes no sense that Comey would do that if there had been solid evidence of collusion between Trump and Putin.

That still seems incontestable. But neither do I believe Director Comey would have countenanced an investigation based on nothing — a “collusion” investigation conducted solely to camouflage political spying. Something is not right here. If we’re ever going to figure it out, the dossier is the roadmap.

So, is the article of faith true? If the Trump dossier is just a tissue of lies, why are the Justice Department and FBI, now controlled by Trump appointees, concealing information about it rather than anxiously volunteering disclosure?

If I had to bet on it, I’d wager that the dossier is like many reports compiled by investigative bodies whose motives are dubious and whose sources are of varying levels of credibility — similar to what you get after investigations by politicized congressional committees, law-enforcement agents who are less than first-rate, or private detectives who, lacking subpoena power, often rely on multiple hearsay. That is, I think the dossier will turn out to be a mixed bag of the true, the false, and the shades of gray in between.

Questions about the dossier are pressing for two reasons.

First, it was leaked this week that investigators working with Special Counsel Robert Mueller have interviewed Christopher Steele. He is the former British spy who composed the so-called dossier during and after the 2016 campaign. At the time, Steele was a private contractor conducting political opposition research on behalf of Trump’s adversaries. The dossier, formatted to resemble official spy-agency intelligence reports, is a set of investigative summaries, based on Steele’s interviews with sources.

We don’t know the whole story at this point, but claims from Trump supporters that the dossier is a Clinton campaign project are overstated. Steele runs a private intelligence firm in London (Orbis Business Intelligence, Ltd.) and was retained to dig up dirt on Trump by the Washington-based opposition-research firm, Fusion GPS. Fusion does a lot of work for the political Left, but it was originally hired by anti-Trump Republicans, not the Clinton campaign. Only later, when it was apparent that Trump would win the nomination, was the project handed off to Clinton backers.