RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trey-gowdy-claims-fbi-relied-on-clinton-ally-sidney-blumenthal-to-corroborate-steele-dossier/

Former South Carolina representative Trey Gowdy said Tuesday that the FBI relied on information provided by longtime Clinton-family ally Sidney Blumenthal to corroborate some of the explosive allegations included in the controversial Steele dossier.

Gowdy told Fox News’s Martha McCallum that when he was serving in Congress he reviewed an FBI spreadsheet listing specific assertions included in the Steele dossier along with independent information investigators believed corroborated those unverified claims.

“I’ve seen the spreadsheet, Martha. I have seen each factual assertion listed in that dossier, and then I’ve seen the FBI’s justification. And when you’re citing newspaper articles as corroboration for a factual assertion that you have made, you don’t need an FBI agent to go do a Google search,” said Gowdy, a former member of the House Intelligence Committee who now serves as a Fox News contributor, in remarks first noted by the Daily Caller. “When the name Sidney Blumenthal is included as part of your corroboration, and when you’re the world’s leading law-enforcement agency, you have a problem.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/05/what_are_the_odds_that_the_durham_investigation_is_for_real_and_will_bring_the_bad_actors_to_justice.html

Following the disclosure that U.S. attorney John Durham has been tasked with investigating and prosecuting potential crimes in the origin of the Russia Hoax, we learned some very encouraging facts that suggest that the Russia Hoax will be fully aired and miscreants brought to justice. Like Howie Carr, who had a front-row seat when John Durham went after corruption in the FBI Boston office, I am “cautiously optimistic” (Howie’s term) that Durham and his boss A.G. Barr want to get to the bottom of the hoax and put those who may have committed crimes in prison.

In Boston, Durham faced a gigantic scandal that was very damaging to the FBI and did not blink. He got John Connelly, Whitey Bulger’s protector, sentenced to 40 years in prison. This does not sound like a prosecutor who can be persuaded to lay off getting to the truth in order to protect the reputations of important people and institutions.

But we must concede that there are plenty of reasons to worry that that the biggest political scandal in American history — the political weaponization of both the federal intelligence and law enforcement communities to spy on political opponents of the sitting president and remove a duly elected president from office — will be swept under the rug. Even a sober-minded man of integrity like William Barr might be persuaded that the harm to public trust in our system would be too profound and that our allies and foes overseas might see us as so weakened that they would take actions inimical to our interests.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dispute-erupts-over-whether-brennan-comey-pushed-steele-dossier-as-doj-probe-into-misconduct-begins

A high-level dispute over which senior government officials pushed the unverified Steele dossier amid efforts to surveil the Trump campaign has broken out into the open again, after it emerged that Attorney General William Barr appointed a U.S. attorney to examine the origins of the Russia investigation and determine if the FBI and DOJ’s actions were “lawful and appropriate.”

Sources familiar with the records told Fox News that a late-2016 email chain indicated then-FBI Director James Comey told bureau subordinates that then-CIA Director John Brennan insisted the dossier be included in the intelligence community assessment on Russian interference, known as the ICA.

Fox News was told that the email chain – not yet public — referred to the dossier as “crown material,” but it was not clear why this apparent code was used. On Tuesday night, former GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy said on Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum” that “Comey has a better argument than Brennan, based on what I’ve seen.”

A day earlier, Gowdy told Fox News, “Whoever is looking into this, tell them to look into emails” from December 2016 involving Brennan and Comey. Gowdy, who is now a Fox News contributor, said his assessment was based on sensitive Russia records he reviewed as then-chairman of the Republican-led House Oversight Committee.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/05/the_real_omar_suleiman_.html
On Sunday, the Dallas Morning News published an op-ed by Muslim Brotherhood linked anti-American Omar Suleiman. In this editorial, the Dallas-based imam claims that the accusations of anti-Semitism by Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York, Fox host Lou Dobbs, and others following Suleiman’s delivery of the invocation last Thursday, May 9 are motivated by hate and are comparable to the hate that led to the New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pittsburgh, and San Diego massacres.

After giving the invocation in Congress last week, I have been attacked online and threatened with violence. This hate is similar to the hate that led to the other massacres above. It’s a hate that seeks to fracture the communities it targets. It’s a hate that takes the most vulnerable communities in the country and intimidates them into silence so that the only thing they can do is brace for another attack.

From his rhetoric it’s easy to forget that Suleiman has provided no direct evidence of any threats of violence and that he has also neglected to mention that the criticisms lobbed against him are based on his social media footprint. In other words, the “haters” are using fact-based evidence to make an argument.

It’s also easy to forget that, in terms of growing influence, Suleiman has had a pretty good year. He has 1.3 million Facebook followers and just last year he was able to convince Google to alter its algorithm on searches related to Islam and Muslim-related issues. This year his fellow Islamists Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar occupy seats in congress. And on Thursday, May 9, 2019, Suleiman, by the request of Texas Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, delivered the invocation from the House floor.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/john-durham-for-accountability-11557876040?mod=cx_picks&cx_navSource=cx_picks&cx_tag=collabctx&cx_artPos=2#cxrecs_s

Attorney General William Barr has assigned U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate possible abuses by law enforcement and intelligence officials in the 2016 election campaign, and the reaction has been predictably partisan. Trumpians are demanding heads on pikes while liberals are calling it a hunt for conspiracies that didn’t exist. We see it as a necessary step toward accountability and restoring public confidence in America’s enforcement agencies.

Mr. Durham comes with more experience than even special counsel Robert Mueller in navigating U.S. law enforcement, including the FBI and intelligence services. He uncovered rogue FBI behavior in the case of Boston mob boss Whitey Bulger, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey tasked him to look at the CIA’s destruction of videos of its terrorist interrogation program.

As a U.S. Attorney, Mr. Durham will have the power to convene a grand jury and subpoena people outside the government. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been looking into some of the same questions, but he lacks similar power. Mr. Durham can also pick up any criminal referrals from Mr. Horowitz’s looming report.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/liberals-who-cry-roe-11557876134

Who would have thought that a Supreme Court ruling in an interstate tax dispute would devolve into a brawl over abortion politics? Such are our political times as the four liberal Justices on Monday chided their conservative colleagues for overturning a 40-year precedent, which progressives warn will create a stare decisis slippery slope to banning abortion.

At issue in Franchise Tax Board v. Hyatt was whether states enjoy sovereign immunity in other states’ courts. California urged the Court to overturn its Nevada v. Hall (1979) precedent, which held that states aren’t required to grant legal immunity to other states. Most do for comity purposes, and state courts have entertained only 14 cases by private citizens against other states in the past four decades.

The Court reasoned in Hall that states have a sovereign interest in protecting their citizens, and the Constitution doesn’t explicitly require interstate sovereign immunity. But there are strong opposing constitutional arguments, which Justice Clarence Thomas explained in the 5-4 majority’s opinion overturning Hall.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/barr-assigns-us-attorney-in-connecticut-to-review-origins-of-russia-inquiry/ar-AABjF9U

Attorney General William P. Barr has assigned the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut to examine the origins of the Russia investigation, according to two people familiar with the matter, a move that President Trump has long called for but that could anger law enforcement officials who insist that scrutiny of the Trump campaign was lawful.

John H. Durham, the United States attorney in Connecticut, has a history of serving as a special prosecutor investigating potential wrongdoing among national security officials, including the F.B.I.’s ties to a crime boss in Boston and accusations of C.I.A. abuses of detainees.

His inquiry is the third known investigation focused on the opening of an F.B.I. counterintelligence investigation during the 2016 presidential campaign into possible ties between Russia’s election interference and Trump associates.

The department’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, is separately examining investigators’ use of wiretap applications and informants and whether any political bias against Mr. Trump influenced investigative decisions. And John W. Huber, the United States attorney in Utah, has been reviewing aspects of the Russia investigation. His findings have not been announced.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/13/you-suck-mayor-de-blasios-green-new-deal-rally-inside-trump-tower-backfires-badly/

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s bright idea to hold a Green New Deal rally inside the lobby of Trump Tower Monday, backfired badly when a crowd of Trump supporters showed up carrying signs that read “Worst Mayor Ever,” “Trump 2020, “Failed Mayor,” and “LGBT for Trump.”

The rally was supposed to be held outside, but due to inclement weather, the mayor had to go inside the Trump Tower lobby, which is considered a public space. The purpose of de Blasio’s rally was to promote his new Green New Deal, which seeks to reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030 according to Fox News.

De Blasio, who is mulling a Democratic presidential run in 2020, also took the opportunity to blast President Trump’s rollback of Obama-era environmental policies, and threaten his business with millions of dollars in fines if his buildings don’t comply with NYC’s new environmental standards.

But a group of raucous Trump supporters threw a monkey wrench in his plans, repeatedly going up and down the escalators waving their signs and jeering “you suck!”

Someone at Trump Tower also took the liberty of turning up the music in the lobby at the start of the rally, making it hard for de Blasio to be heard.