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August 2018

The Truth Will Set Us All Free By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/30/the-truth

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation was star-crossed from the start. His friend and successor as FBI director, James Comey, by his own admission prompted the investigation—with the deliberate leaking of classified memos about his conversations with President Donald Trump to the press.

Mueller then unnecessarily stocked his team with what the press called his “dream team” of mostly Democratic partisans. One had defended a Hillary Clinton employee. Another had defended the Clinton Foundation.

Mueller at first did not announce to the press why he had dismissed Trump-hating FBI operatives Lisa Page and Peter Strzok from his investigative team. Instead, he staggered their departures to leave the impression they were routine reassignments.

But Mueller’s greatest problem was his original mandate to discover whether Trump colluded with the Russians in 2016 to tilt the election in his favor.

After 15 months, Mueller has indicted a number of Trump associates, but on charges having nothing to do with Russian collusion. They faced inordinately long prison sentences unless they “flipped” and testified against Trump.

We are left with the impression that Mueller cannot find much to do with his original mandate of unearthing Russian collusion, but he still thinks Trump is guilty of something.

In other words, Mueller has reversed the proper order of jurisprudence.

Who’s coordinating the sudden loony leftist lionization of Stormy Daniels? By Monica Showalter

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/08/who_coordinating_the_sudden_looney_leftist_lionization_of_stormy_daniels.html

Stormy Daniels is big and getting bigger. The left-wing press all of a sudden just can’t get enough of her.

They’re slathering the two-bit porn “star” with heroicism these days, with several more major media outfits positively lionizing her in what looks like a bizarrely coordinated campaign.

On the surface, it goes to show just how desperate they are to Get Trump. But the timing suggests something more organized.

It started a few days ago, when the New York Times ran an op-ed calling Daniels a “new feminist hero.” According to the Times:

She is a vastly imperfect person by any standard, at times brave and at times venal, obviously admirable and obviously self-interested. These complications, of course, exist in most human beings. But most human beings could not survive the scrutiny she is under, nor so deftly dodge efforts at simplistic caricature. What’s incredible is to see Ms. Daniels embody so many human extremes – so much boldness, so many flaws, and so many taboos broken – and to see her story nonetheless believed and acted upon.

Now it’s spread to CNN, which is lionizing the raddled old pornie in its broadcasts with a straight face.

Italy: Interior Minister Accused of Kidnapping Migrants “Being investigated for defending the rights of Italians is a disgrace.” by Soeren Kern

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12936/italy-interior-minister-kidnapping

“The investigation notice sent to [Interior Minister Matteo] Salvini could in fact be seen as a direct attempt to prevent a minister from carrying out his political activity in accordance with the vote expressed by the majority of Italians on the basis of precise electoral commitments.” — Gianni Alemanno, former Mayor of Rome, denouncing the investigation into Salvini as unconstitutional.

“I am amazed at the astonishment of a political left that now exists only to challenge others and believes that Milan should not host the president of a European power, as if the left has the authority to decide who has the right to speak and who does not — and then they wonder why no one votes for them anymore.” — Matteo Salvini, Italian Interior Minister.

Opinion polls show that Salvini’s anti-immigration stance has boosted his League party’s approval rating.

Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Salvini is under formal investigation for “kidnapping” after he refused to allow illegal migrants to disembark from a ship at a Sicilian port. The investigation, a political move aimed at blunting the government’s hardline stance on illegal immigration, has threatened to plunge Italy into a constitutional crisis over the separation of powers.

Sicilian Prosecutor Luigi Patronaggio said that the investigation into Salvini, the head of the anti-immigration League party, would focus on “kidnapping, illegal arrest and the abuse of power.”

Salvini responded:

“If he wants to interrogate me or even arrest me because I defend the borders and security of my country, I am proud and I look forward to it with open arms. Being investigated for defending the rights of Italians is a disgrace.”

Salvini added that we could not be “cowed” and that he would not reserve his right to immunity from prosecution: “I only did my job as minister and I am ready to do it again.”

Antisemitism in France Has Moved ‘From Streets Into Homes,’ Says Head of French Jewish Community

https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/08/29/antisemitism-in-france-has-moved-from-streets-into-homes-says-head-of-french-jewish-community/

Antisemitism in France has moved “from the streets directly into the homes of Jewish people,” the head of the country’s 465,000-strong Jewish community told The Algemeiner on Wednesday.

“The Jews in France feel threatened in their own homes,” Francis Kalifat — president of CRIF, the French Jewish communal body — said during a discussion of the antisemitism that has resulted in several deaths and injuries among French Jews over the past decade.

Kalifat underlined that “what used to be attacks on buildings, or insults thrown in the street, has evolved into the most violent acts.”

In the last eighteen months, two elderly Jewish widows in Paris — Sarah Halimi in April 2017 and Mireille Knoll in March 2018 — have been murdered in brutal antisemitic assaults, while several incidents of violent raids on Jewish homes involving gangs of mainly Muslim youths have also been reported.

Sadly, as Kalifat acknowledged, the problem is not new — though the pattern of Jewish response is changing.

Following what Kalifat called “the paroxysm” of antisemitic violence in 2012-13 — a year that witnessed the murders of a rabbi and three young children during a terrorist attack at a Jewish school in Toulouse — French aliyah to Israel climbed precipitously, with 8,000 Jews emigrating to Israel in 2015 alone. That trend has now slowed, Kalifat said, overshadowed by what some call an “internal aliyah.”

Democrats just confirmed lots of Trump’s judges so they could skip town Jennifer Bendery

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/08/29/democrats-just-confirmed-lots-of-trumps-judges-so-they-could-skip-town/23512171/

Senate Democrats just gave a huge gift to President Donald Trump: They agreed to expedite votes on 15 of his nominees to lifetime federal court seats because they wanted to go home.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) had lined up votes for all those district court nominees last week. Normally, Senate rules require up to 30 hours of waiting time for each nominee ― something Democrats typically take advantage of to delay action on confirming Trump judges. But Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) cut a deal with McConnell on Tuesday to bypass the wait times and let them all get through.

Why? So Democrats could get back to campaigning and focusing on winning re-election in November. The Senate is now out of session until next Tuesday.

Of the 15 nominees, six were confirmed by voice votes on Tuesday. Another one was confirmed on a recorded vote. The remaining eight will get quick votes next week.

It’s a major win for Trump and McConnell, whose No. 1 priority is filling up federal courts with conservative judges ― many of whom are incredibly anti-abortion, anti–LGBTQ rights and anti–voting rights. Trump has gotten 26 circuit court judges confirmed, more than any other president at this point in his term. Another way of putting it: 1 in 7 U.S. circuit court seats is now filled by a judge nominated by Trump.

Add that Trump put Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court and is poised to get another justice through, Brett Kavanaugh, and you’ve got a president drastically reshaping the nation’s courts for generations.

Is Canada Prepared for the Threat of Returning Jihadists? by A. Z. Mohamed

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12921/canada-returning-jihadists

Canada’s intelligence service stated that some 60 “returnees” — fighters who had returned to Canada — “have the potential to pose a significant threat to our national security.” In other words, there are dozens of jihadis roaming free in Canada, without being apprehended or charged by authorities.

The noise surrounding the debate over jihadist returnees has been drowning out the country’s intelligence service assessment about the threat they pose to Canada’s national security — a threat that the Trudeau government is ill-prepared, ill-equipped and ideologically ill-suited to confront.

Prevention, investigation and prosecution of terrorists should be the top priority, ahead of rehabilitation and reintegration.

According to the website of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), under the section “National Security Threats – Terrorism”:

“Terrorism, including terrorist travel and the radicalization of Canadians, is the most prominent threat to Canadian interests and our national security. The intelligence community has never before faced a terrorist threat of this scope, scale, and complexity.”

The CSIS text, last modified on January 27, 2017, also notes that, despite ISIS’s huge losses, “its ideology continues to hold global appeal, including among susceptible Canadians,” and Canadians with extremist Muslim views “continue to engage in a range of terrorist activity, in Canada and abroad.”