RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Israel learned the hard way. A terrorist school shooting forty years ago took the lives of over a hundred elementary school children. Since then, any school in Israel with a hundred students or more has armed guards and staff with concealed weapons. Why do we in America value our air travelers, our congresspeople, celebrities, the employees and contents of all public buildings, museums, etc. more than we treasure our schoolchildren? Given the world we now inhabit, it seems that our schools would and should have the best security available today. Those of us with little Ring doorbell cameras on our front porches have more security than most of our schools. ”

Not only is it hard to imagine the anger and grief the families of those killed by Nikolas Cruz are in at their Florida high school; it is impossible. We can sympathize and empathize, ache for their loss and be grateful that our own children were not there, and then feel guilty for being relieved that our children are safe.

An event like this one focuses all parents and grandparents like laser beams on their own young people. That such a thing has happened yet again in our country is unacceptable, and yet it happened…again. Despite years of flashing neon lights that this boy was not only mentally ill, but potentially dangerous, he apparently had no formal record of mental illness. Even though he had been told he could not enter his school with a backpack and was later expelled, even though the police had visited his home thirty-nine times between 2011 and 2018, he was able to buy that AR-15 at age 18! Even though we have laws meant to prevent persons who are mentally ill from acquiring guns, this kid passed a background check! This is yet another catastrophic failure of a whole panoply of law enforcement agencies, social services, and school authorities.

Adding insult to injury, the FBI barely bothered to check out the YouTuber who reported Cruz’s comment about becoming a “professional school shooter,” and the bureau completely ignored a second, specific warning in January about his intentions to kill people. Both tips to the FBI included his full name. As Jeanine Pirro reported on her program, Judge Jeanine, there are only thirteen Nikolas Cruzes in the U.S.! The FBI did not even bother to do a database search, and now seventeen people are dead.

Given the bare facts above, it is hardly surprising that the American people want to blame someone for the colossal failure of law enforcement. Mistakes were made, to put it mildly. But now many of the young survivors, their parents, and the usual suspects on the left are blaming Trump. Why? Because he supports the NRA? Because he did not immediately speak out about gun control?

“The attacks on free speech on college campuses have just gotten so great that we couldn’t continue to sit idly by and do nothing abut it,” she said. “The freedom to test the merits of a position and sharpen one’s own views by debating opposing viewpoints is really at the core of a liberal arts education, and yet at too many colleges around the country administrators find it more important to make sure that students feel comfortable and affirmed.”
WASHINGTON – Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand said leaving the Department of Justice is “bittersweet” and she “would have been happy to stay much longer” but could not pass up a leadership opportunity at Walmart.

“I have loved working at DOJ, both in the Bush administration and now, and I would have been very happy to stay much longer but sometimes in one’s career, as many of you have experienced, no doubt, something comes up unexpectedly and you just can’t pass it up and that’s all there is to it. So, moving on,” Brand said to laughter from the audience at a Federalist Society luncheon on Thursday.

Brand is formally leaving DOJ this week to become Walmart’s executive vice president of global governance and corporate security.

NBC News reported last week that Brand decided to step down due to “fear” of being asked to oversee the Russia probe should President Trump decide to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein, according to anonymous sources.

Brand said on Thursday that it’s been “a pleasure” serving with Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

“Jeff Sessions is focused every day on protecting us from foreign terrorist threats, from violent crime in our cities,” she said. “He’s tackling the opioid crisis, he’s fighting gangs like MS-13 and, importantly, he’s focused every day on ensuring everything DOJ does promotes the rule of law, and that commitment is carried out every day by all of us at the department.”

Brand told the audience her prayers go out to the victims’ families after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla., on Wednesday. The FBI was warned about a YouTube comment that the shooter had allegedly posted last year, which referenced carrying out a school shooting.

“Im going to be a professional school shooter,” read Nikolas Cruz’s comment.

After the tip, the FBI reportedly did not coordinate with local law enforcement. Separately, the FBI received a tip a month before the shooting from someone close to Cruz.

“The AG has already directed our office of legal policy to work with other agencies to study the intersection of mental health and criminality to try to prevent these kinds of crimes from happening again in the future,” Brand said during the speech.

Following her remarks, PJM asked Brand to explain what policy changes DOJ is exploring after the shooting but she did not respond.

Brand told the audience that DOJ has been using its “litigation authority” to protect First Amendment freedoms, particularly on college campuses.

“The attacks on free speech on college campuses have just gotten so great that we couldn’t continue to sit idly by and do nothing abut it,” she said. “The freedom to test the merits of a position and sharpen one’s own views by debating opposing viewpoints is really at the core of a liberal arts education, and yet at too many colleges around the country administrators find it more important to make sure that students feel comfortable and affirmed.”CONTINUE AT SITE

On Friday, Judge Emmet Sullivan issued an order in United States v. Flynn that, while widely unnoticed, reveals something fascinating: A motion by Michael Flynn to withdraw his guilty plea based on government misconduct is likely in the works.

Just a week ago, and thus before Sullivan quietly directed Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team to provide Flynn’s attorneys “any exculpatory evidence,” Washington Examiner columnist Byron York detailed the oddities of Flynn’s case. The next day, former assistant U.S. attorney and National Review contributing editor Andrew McCarthy connected more of the questionable dots. York added even more details a couple of days later. Together these articles provide the backdrop necessary to understand the significance of Sullivan’s order on Friday.
What’s Happened in the Michael Flynn Case So Far

To recap: On November 30, 2017, prosecutors working for Mueller charged former Trump national security advisor Flynn with lying to FBI agents. The following day, Flynn pled guilty before federal judge Rudolph Contreras. Less than a week later — and without explanation — Flynn’s case was reassigned to Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.

One of Sullivan’s first orders of business was to enter a standing order, on December 12, 2017, directing “the government to produce to defendant in a timely manner – including during plea negotiations – any evidence in its possession that is favorable to defendant and material either to defendant’s guilt or punishment.” Sullivan’s standing order further directed the government, if it “has identified any information which is favorable to the defendant but which the government believes not to be material,” to “submit such information to the Court for in camera review.”