RUTHFULLY YOURS

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.

Professional politicians have produced a breed of humanitarian hucksters selling policies and products that benefit themselves rather than the American public they are entrusted to serve. Politicians are necessary in our representative government but career politicians are not. Term limits are necessary to protect the public against abuses of power created by career politicians living insulated lives inside Washington where their self-serving deals have become normative.

Historically politicians were citizen legislators who provided short term patriotic service to the country without remuneration. They were citizens from all walks of life bringing a variety of perspectives to Washington in service to their constituents. What happened? LOBBYISTS.

Lobbyists spent 1.45 billion dollars in 1998. In 2017 lobbyists spent 3.34 billion dollars. How is that money spent? What do lobbyists expect to receive for the billions of dollars they spend? Who benefits? LOBBYISTS, CLIENTS, and POLITICIANS with policies “for our own good” of course.

Opensecrets.org reports data on lobbying, lobbyists, and lobbying recipients. There is a lot of money changing hands. In 2016 Hillary was at the top of the list. Lobbyists are not charities distributing to the poor – lobbyists spend billions of dollars on politicians to convince the politicians to vote in favor of whatever the lobbyist is peddling. Here is the problem.

What the lobbyist is selling is rarely beneficial to the public but always beneficial to the lobbyist, the lobbyist’s client and to the politician. The longer the politician remains in office the longer he/she is tempted by the myriad of enticements offered by the lobbyist to provide favorable outcomes for the lobbyist’s generous clients. Lobbying is a business and lobbyists are extremely candid and unapologetic about their business goals.

Howard Finkelstein, the Broward County public defender whose office is representing Nikolas Cruz, the suspect in the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., puts it bluntly:

This kid exhibited every single known red flag, from killing animals to having a cache of weapons to disruptive behavior to saying he wanted to be a school shooter. If this isn’t a person who should have gotten someone’s attention, I don’t know who is. This was a multi-system failure.

Specifically, the FBI admits that it received two separate tips about Cruz. Last fall, a frequent YouTube vlogger noticed an alarming comment left on one of his videos. “I’m going to be a professional school shooter,” said a user named Nikolas Cruz. The vlogger alerted the FBI and was interviewed. But the agency subsequently claimed its investigators couldn’t locate Cruz, despite the highly unusual spelling of his first name.

Then, just six weeks ago, a person close to Cruz warned a call taker on the FBI’s tip line that the expelled student had a desire to kill and might attack a school. The bureau said that the information was not passed to agents in the Miami office. Florida governor Rick Scott has called for FBI director Christopher Wray to be fired. So has NRO’s Kevin Williamson in a powerful piece: “Fire the FBI Chief.” Other officials are calling for FBI heads to roll, but at a level below Wray’s. Florida attorney general Pam Bondi told Fox News, “The people who had that information and did not do anything with it, they are the ones that need to go.”

For his part, Director Wray is promising that his agency will conduct a full probe. Congressional oversight committees are skeptical about how complete that will be given the recent evidence of the FBI’s politicized role in the probes of Russia and the Trump campaign, along with the infamous anti-Trump “Steele dossier,” which the FBI relied on without verifying,

“The fact that the FBI is investigating this failure is not enough,” Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) said in a statement. “Law enforcement personnel constantly remind the public that ‘if you see something, say something.’ In this tragic case, people close to the shooter said something, and our system utterly failed the families of seventeen innocent souls.”

When Democrats talk about evil “Republican billionaires” like Sheldon Adelson and the dreaded Koch Brothers, it’s always in apocalyptic terms. They are trying to “buy” elections and hide their influence with “dark money” schemes.

Somehow, Democrats never get around to mentioning their own billionaires and the massive amounts of money contributed to Democratic causes by the likes of Tom Steyer, Mark Cuban, and J.B. Pritzker, who is running for governor of Illinois.

And, of course, George Soros.

Soros’s reach is international. He has a huge network of international do-gooder organizations that promote his pet causes. And he is a reliable, if sometimes shadowy, contributor to Democratic Party causes in the U.S.

But Soros’s son Alexander is emerging as a major player in Democratic politics. According to the Federal Election Commission, Alexander contributed $650,000 to Democratic campaigns and various committees in 2017.

Washington Free Beacon:

Alex’s generous contributions spanned across a number of liberal party committees and campaigns, including two donations totaling $203,400 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) recount and building funds, while providing an additional $33,900 to the committee during the primary period.

Alex also gave large amounts to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). Like his contributions to the DCCC, Soros gave the DSCC $203,400 for its recount and headquarters account, with another $33,900 going towards the primaries.

President Trump said Sunday Russia accomplished its goal of creating “discord, disruption and chaos” in the United States and now Russians are “laughing their asses off” at the U.S.

“If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S. then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!” Trump tweeted.
Donald J. Trump

✔ @realDonaldTrump

If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S. then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!

Trump spent the early part of Sunday morning tweeting thoughts about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, criticisms of the Obama administration made by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and a $1.7 billion payment to Iran made by the Obama administration as a part of the nuclear deal.

Friday’s grand jury indictment in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election destroys Democratic claims that the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russia to win the race, and that the Russian interference cost Hillary Clinton the election. It is now time for Mueller to look into real election interference and collusion with the Russians by the Democrats.

The grand jury indicted 13 Russians and three Russian entities for their alleged efforts to interfere with the 2016 election. The indictment says the Russians hid their involvement in this scheme and communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign. There was no allegation in the indictment that any American was a knowing participant in the scheme.

Boom. The Democratic Trump-Russia collusion narrative is dead.

But the left will continue to argue that Russia handed the presidency to Donald Trump. Expect them to claim this is proven by two things: the sophistication of the election interference effort; and the allegation that the accused Russians promoted the Trump campaign and worked to disparage Hillary Clinton.

Don’t be fooled. The indictment says the Russian election interference effort started in 2014. It says that the Russians staged rallies for and against Trump after the election and also promoted the Bernie Sanders campaign.

These facts strongly indicate this was a Russian campaign to sow confusion in the United States and to undermine Clinton, who Russian officials expected to win the election.

If you ask after every latest mass shooting why the US won’t ‘do something, anything’ about guns, a refresher course in American law and history is in order. Also worth bearing mind is that Americans, unlike Australians, don’t see themselves as submissive subjects of the State.

Apparently, there are some 300 million legally-held guns in the United States. Who knows how many illegally-held guns there are? Lots I imagine. In the wake of the latest horrific school shooting in Florida, the usual suspects are calling for tighter gun control. The Republicans and the NRA are blamed for having always resisted such calls.

For the first two years of Obama’s presidency, the Democrats had an overwhelming majority in the House and close to a filibuster majority in the Senate. For four months, they had 60 votes in the Senate and therefore absolute control. Why did they not act to impose additional controls on gun ownership, if the current laws are such a burning affront to public safety? There are, I suggest, two principal reasons.

First, beyond emotional cheap talk, it is very difficult to identify specific amendments to the law which would both reduce the risk of gun violence and be enforceable.

Second, it’s not the Republicans in Congress or the NRA that represents the biggest obstacle to imposing anything which smacks of seriously restricting gun rights, it is gun-owning voters. The latest Gallup poll (Oct 2017) reported that 42% of US households had a gun. That would clearly mean well over 50% of adults have access to guns. Moreover, many of those gun owners are passionate about their right to bear arms. “Out of my cold dead hands,” the late, great Charleston Heston put it, while holding up his rifle.

One further complication is that federal law overlays state laws, which differ from state to state. Federal law bans a convicted felon from owning a firearm, also someone who is involuntarily committed to a mental institution or declared mentally incompetent by a court or government body. The interpretation of this law can vary from state to state, which perhaps creates an opportunity for legislators at a federal and state levels to close off any obvious loopholes. Though this would have made no difference in this most recent school shooting.

Closing loopholes aside, the difficulties of taking substantive measures should not be lost from sight. Take mental illness, which has occupied the attention of commentators urging that something more be done.

Lewis Carroll once wrote in praise of adjectives, saying that “adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs.” That is certainly true with the latest indictments by special counsel Robert Mueller of 13 Russians for interfering with the 2016 presidential election. For the White House, the entire report comes down to a single adjective. Let’s see if you can spot it: The Russian defendants “communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign.”

Despite a 37-page indictment with a long narrative on a coordinated Russian campaign of interference, the most newsworthy fact comes from the carefully placed adjective “unwitting.” It confirms that the special counsel has found no knowing coordination or collusion between these hackers and Trump officials. The indictment names 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities in alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election. It describes a coordinated effort by Russians, including the shadowy Internet Research Agency, to wage “information warfare” against the United States.
The charges themselves are not particularly novel or exotic. They involve identity fraud, wire fraud and other conventional charges. However, the context is anything but conventional. This is the largest indictment of a foreign effort to interfere with our elections, and the clear import is that the hand of the Russian government was behind this effort. Moreover, it is clear that the Russians were acting to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton.

While the indictment is historic, it is hardly a surprise. Few people were questioning the Russian interference with and hacking of the election. Both Democratic and Republican leaders were in agreement on this fact, as were all of the administration’s top intelligence figures. The one hold-out seemed to be the president himself. He routinely referred to the “fake news” of the Russian investigation.

On Friday night, Dr. Sebastian Gorka gave Special Counsel Robert Mueller some unsolicited advice regarding his ongoing investigation.The former deputy assistant to President Trump and now Fox News contributor insisted that “nothing’s going to happen” as a result of the recent indictments of 13 Russian nationals because they’re already in Russia and “we can’t extradite them.”

Well, Gorka came up with an alternative for the special counsel.

“I’ve got a tip for Robert Mueller,” Gorka said. “Some other people messed with our elections, and they’re right here in America. It’s Hillary Clinton. There’s the DNC. There’s Fusion GPS. And there’s Hillary’s lawyer. They messed with the election. They stole the candidacy from Bernie Sanders and then they gave false information to a FISA court. So Mr. Mueller, if you want to actually put some people in prison, start with the Americans that perverted our election here in America.”

“Well said,” Sean Hannity reacted.

Fox News contributor Sara Carter piled on with the politicization of the Justice Department, citing FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page as well as former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, accusing them of “having an agenda.”

Thirteen people living in Russia were indicted today by the Department of Justice for conspiring to impact our elections, apparently over the Internet. No link to any American citizen and no impact on elections were found. Is that it?

When the real scandal was still being uncovered by the Nunes Memo, James Comey said “That’s it?” Now it is we the people who are saying “Is that it?” regarding the Russia collusion scandal.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions must have been happy today, having recused himself from the Russia investigation, when he left the job of reporting to the American people on “the greatest collusion scandal in American history” to his Deputy Rod Rosenstein.

Is that all that has been found in the “Russia collusion investigation,” which put our country, our President and political system in non-stop daily political turmoil for close to two years? If that is all, thirteen Russians on the Internet, the American people should be really more than disappointed. Is that a good reason for our federal law enforcement to put our whole system on hold, keep our administration hostage under a cloud of suspicion while the media was having daily field-day assault and hate speech against our “treasonous” President? This did not just hurt Trump, but it hurt our country, our priorities, our ability to fix what is necessary and our reputation in the eyes of the world.

If that’s all they have on this supposed scandal, the American people should feel scammed and cheated with the fake news, not only from the media, but worse, promoted by US law enforcement, which leaked information (by Comey) to get this investigation started by a special counsel.

It has become more urgent to ask: Why is there a special counsel in the Russia investigation? At this point, that question should be put to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel — in the federal government, it’s the lawyers’ lawyer. To get down to brass tacks: May the president of the United States be charged with obstruction based on non-criminal discretionary acts that are unquestionably within his constitutional authority as chief executive?

Readers of these columns may recall that I opposed the appointment of a special counsel and have argued that the appointment was illegitimate. This has nothing to do with Robert Mueller, who has had a distinguished law-enforcement career for which he is justly admired. It has to do with first principles and clear regulations. As a matter of principle, the law-enforcement arm of government must operate on a presumption of innocence. Therefore, in this country, a prosecutor should be assigned only if there is strong evidence that a crime has been committed; in the absence of such evidence, a prosecutor should never be assigned to investigate whether an American may have committed some unknown crime.

This, as we’ve repeatedly observed, is reflected in the regulations that control when the Justice Department may appoint a special counsel. The question should never come up unless there is some “criminal investigation or prosecution” that creates a conflict of interest for Justice Department leadership. A special counsel may be appointed only for purposes of this “criminal investigation or prosecution.” In the absence of strong evidence of a crime, there is no basis for a criminal investigation or prosecution.