RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12507/aclu-leftist-partisan

The director of the American Civil Liberties Union has now acknowledged what should have been obvious to everybody over the past several years: that the ACLU is no longer a neutral defender of everyone’s civil liberties; it has morphed into a hyper-partisan, hard-left political advocacy group. The final nail in its coffin was the announcement that for the first time in its history the ACLU would become involved in partisan electoral politics, supporting candidates, referenda and other agenda-driven political goals.

The headline in the June 8, 2018 edition of The New Yorker tells it all: “The ACLU is getting involved in elections – and reinventing itself for the Trump Era.” The article continues:

“In this midterm year, however, as progressive groups have mushroomed and grown more active, and as liberal billionaires such as Howard Schultz and Tom Steyer have begun to imagine themselves as political heroes and eye Presidential runs, the A.C.L.U., itself newly flush, has begun to move in step with the times. For the first time in its history, the A.C.L.U. is taking an active role in elections. The group has plans to spend more than twenty-five million dollars on races and ballot initiatives by Election Day, in November.”

Since its establishment nearly 100 years ago, the ACLU has been, in the words of The New Yorker, “Fastidiously nonpartisan, so prudish about any alliance with any political power that its leadership, in the 1980’s and 90’s, declined even to give awards to likeminded legislators for fear that it might give the wrong impression.” I know, because I served on its National Board in the early days of my own career. In those days, the Board consisted of individuals who were deeply committed to core civil liberties, especially freedom of speech, opposition to prosecutorial overreach and political equality. Its Board members included Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, right-wingers and left-wingers — all of whom supported neutral civil liberties.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270466/fbi-ig-report-slap-wrist-joseph-klein

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz has released his 500 plus-page report, which purports to shine a light on the mishandling at top levels of the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation of the 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server while she served as Secretary of State under former President Obama. Such mishandling included violations of Department of Justice standards and FBI protocols. The report from the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (“OIG”) criticized certain actions and decisions of former FBI Director James Comey, together with those of other senior FBI officials who were involved in the probe, including former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. Mr. McCabe is already the subject of an earlier criminal referral from the OIG for his alleged unauthorized leaks to the media and lying to federal investigators about his media contacts. Special FBI agent Peter Stzrok and Lisa Page, an attorney who has since left the FBI, were targeted in this report for their blatantly anti-Trump text messages. Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch was also criticized for exercising bad judgment in connection with her infamous tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton.

Mr. Horowitz’s report focused on process and procedures. The inspector general made clear when he launched his investigation in January 2017 that “his review will not substitute the OIG’s judgment for the judgments made by the FBI or the Department regarding the substantive merits of investigative or prosecutive decisions.” Moreover, this report did not address whether the Department of Justice or FBI abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to obtain a surveillance order against former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, or the government’s reliance on former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele’s salacious and unverified “dossier” in its FISA court application, which the OIG is investigating separately.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/americas-progressive-slumlord-1529019608

Affordable housing is a progressive mantra these days, and taxpayers are exhorted to put more money into public housing. But then we learn that America’s great progressive political hope, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, is essentially the nation’s pre-eminent slumlord.

That’s the sorry truth exposed this week in a scathing civil complaint and consent decree released by U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman over the New York City Housing Authority (Nycha). The complaint exposes how the authority neglected basic repairs and upkeep while taking active steps to deceive inspectors and cover up its ineptitude and wrongdoing.

This is no small agency. Nycha runs 176,066 public housing apartments in 2,462 buildings in 326 developments across the city. One of every 14 New Yorkers—400,000 people—calls Nycha home. Nycha is the largest public housing agency in America, larger than the next 11 agencies combined.

The federal complaint reads like something out of Upton Sinclair. On lead paint, for example, it finds that “since at least 2011, Nycha senior managers have known that Nycha was violating [federal Housing and Urban Development] lead paint requirements.” Nineteen children have been found to have lead poisoning, and in 2016 alone Nycha logged more than 38,000 complaints related to paint and plaster issues.