RUTHFULLY YOURS

Once upon a time, Dan Rather — the fallen CBS celebrity anchorman from the evening news and at 60 Minutes – was the master of “gotcha” journalism. Rather would play up his populist credentials, do ambush interviews with supposedly self-important grandees, and then pull out an unknown memo, an embarrassing quote from one’s past, or some sort of previously unexamined hypocrisy. And, presto, down went the high and mighty, as Rather grinned that he had taken down another enemy of his middle-class viewers without power and influence.

Rather became a multimillionaire celebrity himself, and forgot the very rules of ethical journalism that he so often preached to his victims. Nemesis finally — she is often a slowcoach goddess — caught up with him at 73, in the heat of the 2004 campaign and furor at the Texan-twanged, evangelical, Iraq War promoter George W. Bush. Rather’s producers got hold of faked memos purportedly proving that the commander-in-chief had once gone AWOL while serving as a twenty-something pilot with the Texas National Guard.

There is an insidious meme afoot that in the Obama era Democrats have been heroically restraining themselves by clinging to moderate policies while ideologically extreme Republicans have gone hog-wild in the pursuit of conservative purity.

Today’s Democratic Party makes common cause with the criminals who burn down poor people’s neighborhoods in American cities. And yet the Right is somehow alleged to be more susceptible to “extremism.”

Sharpening her class-warfare guillotine, Hillary Clinton calls for the “toppling” of the one percent. She copycats her potential rival, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), claiming that “the deck is stacked” in favor of the wealthy and powerful.

“My job is to reshuffle the cards,” Clinton says.

In a newly surfaced video from 2011, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is seen testifying before Congress about the benefits of the controversial Export-Import Bank.

At one point during her testimony, Clinton boasts, “I would like to put Ex-Im Bank on steroids because I think it does so much good work for American companies. And I want American businesses to know that.”

As reported by The Daily Signal last month, Ex-Im Chairman Fred Hochberg has been a longtime supporter of Clinton, personally donating $8,600 to her campaigns for the U.S. Senate and president, and serving as a bundler for her 2008 presidential run.

http://www.openthebooks.com/

A new report that takes a deep dive into the Export-Import Bank’s transactions found that in addition to heavily subsidizing large corporations, the government agency benefited some small businesses while pushing others out of the market. It also rewarded a former employee who pleaded guilty for bribery with a six-figure salary and bonuses.

Open the Books, an online database of local, state and federal spending founded by Adam Andrzejewski, examined data from the Export-Import Bank available from 2007 and 2014. It found that the bank backed more than $172 billion in loans, loan guarantees and insurance contracts provided to close to 7,000 exporters. Taxpayers, according to the report, are on the hook for $140 billion in financing.

Ex-Im provides taxpayer-backed loans and loan guarantees to foreign countries and companies for the purchase of United States exports. The bank’s charter expires at the end of June, and Ex-Im’s reauthorization has created a sharp divide between congressional Republicans.

This week Hillary Clinton, when confronted by an adoring supporter for an autograph while in a receiving line in New Hampshire, haughtily instructed the woman to “go to the end of the line.” This trait of royalty hasn’t been adding to Hillary’s favorability ratings, particularly when the current trend-lines have been bad for her.

According to this week’s CNN/ORC poll results [2], despite her overwhelming dominance amongst the Democratic primary voters, of whom 60% say they will vote for her, Hillary’s negative ratings have soared to their highest level in 15 years.

What is Islam? The obvious dictionary definition answer is that it’s a religion, but legally speaking it actually enjoys all of the advantages of race, religion and culture with none of the disadvantages.

Islam is a religion when mandating that employers accommodate the hijab, but when it comes time to bring it into the schools, places that are legally hostile to religion, American students are taught about Islam, visit mosques and even wear burkas and recite Islamic prayers to learn about another culture. Criticism of Islam is denounced as racist even though the one thing that Islam clearly isn’t is a race.

Islamist organizations have figured out how lock in every advantage of race, religion and culture, while expeditiously shifting from one to the other to avoid any of the disadvantages.

Two new polls released this morning show that Hillary Clinton is losing the trust of the American people, other than Democrats, who remain committed to her. Both the polls by CNN/Opinion Research Corporation and ABC News/Washington Post show the presumptive Democrat nominee under water on trustworthiness and favorability ratings.

CNN summarizes:

More people have an unfavorable view of Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton now than at any time since 2001, according to a new CNN/ORC poll on the 2016 race.

While Clinton remains strikingly dominant in the Democratic field, the poll shows that her numbers have dropped significantly across several key indicators since she launched her campaign in April.

A growing number of people say she is not honest and trustworthy (57%, up from 49% in March), less than half feel she cares about people like them (47%, down from 53% last July) and more now feel she does not inspire confidence (50%, up from 42% last March).

In head-to-head match-ups against top Republicans, her margin is tighter than it has been at any point in CNN/ORC’s polling on the contest.

Some very strong, very welcome statements on Second Amendment rights from actor Vince Vaughn.

Vaughn, currently starring in HBO’s True Detective, outlined his passionate belief in gun rights in the British edition of GQ magazine.

“We have the right to bear arms to resist the supreme power of a corrupt and abusive government,” Vaughn told British GQ. “It’s not about duck hunting; it’s about the ability of the individual. It’s the same reason we have freedom of speech. It’s well known that the greatest defense against an intruder is the sound of a gun hammer being pulled back.”

Vaughn went on to call for armed defense of children in schools, arguing elites have security for their kids and criminals ignore “gun-free zone” laws.

A federal judge last week excoriated the State Department for sitting on Hillary Clinton’s emails, ordering it to release batches every 30 days. The State Department deserved the rebuke, but then it is merely following the rules laid down by the least transparent Administration in history.

The House Oversight Committee on Tuesday began a two-day hearing into the extraordinary ways the Obama Administration keeps undermining the Freedom of Information Act. Enacted in 1966, FOIA allows anyone to request information about any matter from a federal agency. The agency has 20 business days to respond (10 more in unusual circumstances), and the bar is set deliberately high for what government may withhold or redact.

Shootings are up in New York this year over last, as they are in many big American cities. So are murders. But not to fret, says Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“I think it’s clear that what we have primarily here is a gang and crew problem,” the mayor said last week. “You know, for those of us who were here in the bad old days—when we had 2,000 murders or more a year—a lot of everyday citizens were getting caught in those crossfires.” He added it’s “equally troubling when, you know, individual gang members shoot other gang members, but it’s a different reality.”

Translation: If young, largely minority men are killing each other over gang turf, then the violent crime revival is no big deal. It won’t hit the trendier corners of Brooklyn.

So whatever happened to Mr. de Blasio’s campaign that “black lives matter”?