RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/08/obama-biden-oval-office-meeting-on-january-5-was-key-to-entire-anti-trump-operation/

Susan Rice’s bizarre Inauguration Day email about that meeting helps explain the campaign of leaks, lies, and obstruction that followed.

Information released in the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case it brought against Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn confirms the significance of a January 5, 2017, meeting at the Obama White House. It was at this meeting that Obama gave guidance to key officials who would be tasked with protecting his administration’s utilization of secretly funded Clinton campaign research, which alleged Trump was involved in a treasonous plot to collude with Russia, from being discovered or stopped by the incoming administration.

“President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia,” National Security Advisor Susan Rice wrote in an unusual email to herself about the meeting that was also attended by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, FBI Director James Comey, and Vice President Joe Biden.

A clearer picture is emerging of the drastic steps that were taken to accomplish Obama’s goal in the following weeks and months. Shortly thereafter, high-level operatives began intensely leaking selective information supporting a supposed Russia-Trump conspiracy theory, the incoming National Security Advisor was ambushed, and the incoming Attorney General was forced to recuse himself from oversight of investigations of President Trump. At each major point in the operation, explosive media leaks were a key strategy in the operation to take down Trump.

Not only was information on Russia not fully shared with the incoming Trump team, as Obama directs, the leaks and ambushes made the transition chaotic, scared quality individuals away from working in the administration, made effective governance almost impossible, and materially damaged national security. When Comey was finally fired on May 9, in part for his duplicitousness regarding his handling of the Russia collusion theory, he orchestrated the launch of a Special Counsel probe that continued his efforts for another two years. That probe ended with Mueller finding no evidence of any American colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 election, much less Trump or anyone connected to him.

https://nypost.com/2020/05/07/michael-flynns-prosecution-was-a-travesty-of-justice/

It has long been obvious that the case brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller against Michael Flynn stunk to high heaven. That has been copiously confirmed over the last three weeks as the Justice Department made a series of stunning disclosures that undermined whatever vestige of propriety remained.

General Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, served fleetingly as President Trump’s first national security advisor. At the time, in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s stunning defeat in the 2016 election, the media-Democrat complex fueled a “collusion” narrative — purportedly, Trump had schemed with Russia to hack Democratic email accounts, and would now do the Kremlin’s bidding from the Oval Office.

Flynn was caught up in this fever dream because, as a top Trump campaign adviser and transition official, he had some conversations with the Russian ambassador — just as he was speaking with many foreign dignitaries.

Although the FBI and the Obama administration had recordings of these calls and knew Flynn had done nothing improper, the fact that they occurred was used to stoke the claim that Flynn may have agreed on Trump’s behalf to drop sanctions Obama had imposed on Russia. He had not, but the mere mention of sanctions was politically explosive.

There was no basis to believe Flynn, a decorated former US combat commander, would ever be Moscow’s mole, much less that he had committed a crime. But Obama officials speculated that perhaps they could nail him for violating the Logan Act. On the books since 1799, this provision purports to make it a crime to engage freelance diplomacy without government authorization. It is almost certainly unconstitutional, no one has ever been successfully prosecuted for violating it, and the government hasn’t even tried to indict anyone on it since before the Civil War. It would be absurd to try to apply it to any American, but to contemplate doing it against a transition official slated to become national security adviser was particularly ludicrous.

https://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2020/05/stealth-fascism-ii-dissalution-of-civil.html

I wrote the following just to illustrate a term I invented to capture the character of what is happening today, in 2020, because of the coronovirus and about the changing character of America:

Stealth Fascism

Taking my cue from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead , what would Howard Roark do or not do? Imagine he is faced with the likes of the Coronovirus in the 1920s and 1930s. He would laugh.

He would touch his face, while scratching his head over a designing problem.

He would not regularly disinfect his architectural drawings to show to prospective clients or employers.

He would take occasional trips to shop.

He would not constantly wash his hands, using a disinfectant; or a hand sanitizer.

He would go out, not stay at home, and wonder what the hell ws “discretionary” or “essential” travel.

He would go to work.

He would not use his elbow to sneeze into.
He would not wear a mask.He was already in conflict with the collectivism of his time.

He would eat and drink in a speakeasy, when he had the money.

He would not maintain a social distance from Dominique Francon.

 He would perform other actions or non-actions we should take for granted, as sane behavior, as normal in his world.

I’m really surprised and disappointed by how readily Americans are to submit to stealth fascism. It’s not a world I want to live in. It’s becoming less and less tolerable for me.

I have a good mind to order a Lone Ranger mask from Amazon.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15997/michael-flynn-innocent

From a legal and policy point of view, encouraging the FBI to misuse its legitimate authority to investigate past crimes, solely to create future crimes is both immoral and illegal.

Let us hear now from the former civil libertarians for whom any violation of law is permissible, as long as it is directed at a Trump associate.

Anyone who knows how the system works in practice would understand why an innocent man—or a defendant in a close case—might be coerced into pleading guilty…. in this case, it is alleged that the government threatened, if Flynn did not plead guilty, to indict his son.

There must be a single standard of justice and civil liberties — including the presumption of innocence — that transcends partisan politics. This message has been forgotten by both parties.

More than a year ago I wrote that it was clear General Michael Flynn should never have pleaded guilty because he did not commit a crime. Even if he lied to the FBI, his lie was not “material.” For a lie to be a crime under federal law, it must be material to the investigation – meaning that the lies pertain to the issues being legitimately investigated. The role of the FBI is to investigate past crimes, not to create new ones. Because the FBI investigators already knew the answer to the question they asked him—whether he had spoken to the Russian Ambassador—their purpose was not to elicit new information relevant to their investigation, but rather to spring a perjury trap on him. When they asked Flynn the question, they had a recording of his conversation with the Russian, of which he was presumably unaware. So his answer was not material to the investigation because they already had the information about which they were inquiring.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/07/is-the-cdc-meddling-with-the-2020-election/

The coronavirus crisis is reaping big political benefits for Democrats. President Trump’s signature achievement—a booming economy with record low unemployment, rising middle-class wages, and a sky-high stock market—lies in tatters. At least 33 million Americans abruptly and without warning are out of work. Second-quarter gross domestic product estimates are horrifying, a double-digit dive that the country has never experienced even in the direst economic times.

Americans are scared for their health and fearful of the future. Neighbors are turning on each other; the inner tyrant of every state governor, mayor, and police officer has been unleashed. And President Trump has been denied access to his only stimulant—energetic political rallies where he connects directly with supporters across the country.

Instead, the president has been stuck in Washington, D.C., listening to the advice of “experts” who used fraudulent models to convince him in late March to “shut down” the country.

Trump’s rival, Joe Biden, has been safely shuttered away in his home studio where he struggles to read teleprompter scripts or offer articulate responses to softball questions from late-night hosts. The Democratic National Convention has been canceled so the American electorate won’t be able to assess Biden’s frailty and incoherence on a national stage a few months before Election Day.

At the same time, near-daily disclosures confirm that corrupt federal prosecutors and cops loyal to Barack Obama targeted Trump associates to sabotage his 2016 candidacy and then derail his presidency under the ruse of Russian election collusion.