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August 2018

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Where is Carter Page’s Exoneration by the FBI? By Julie Kelly

By on August 5th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/04/where-is-carter-pages-

Two years ago this month, President Obama’s FBI began investigating Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Four campaign associates were targeted: campaign manager Paul Manafort; Trump’s foreign policy advisor and Obama’s former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Michael Flynn; and foreign policy aides George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.

The timing was not coincidental. Polling in late July 2016 showed the presidential race tightening following a relatively successful Republican National Convention and a messy Democratic National Convention marked by intraparty strife. The FBI was still under fire after James Comey exonerated Hillary Clinton from any wrongdoing related to her private email server.

Although the reigning political wisdom at the time was that Hillary Clinton would easily defeat Trump in November, top FBI officials wanted a backup plan in the event their favored candidate lost. In August 2016, then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe reportedly met with lead FBI investigator Peter Strzok and FBI counsel Lisa Page to concoct an “insurance policy” in case of a Trump victory.

And so began the first known federal investigation into a sitting president’s political foe and potential successor in U.S. history.

No Charges
Two years later, three of the four original suspects remain in legal trouble. Paul Manafort is now on trial and being held in solitary confinement, indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in two separate jurisdictions for charges unrelated to alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. Michael Flynn, Trump’s short-lived national security advisor who resigned after being set-up by Obama holdovers, is awaiting sentencing for pleading guilty to one count of lying to federal agents. And George Papadopoulos is scheduled to be sentenced next month on one charge of making false statements to federal investigators.

The only man still not charged with any crime is Carter Page. Two years later, the Trump campaign volunteer who was accused of being a secret agent for the Russians is a free man. And the FBI has yet to explain why.

Page—an Eagle Scout and Naval Academy graduate—arguably has suffered the greatest personal price. After helping the FBI nab a Russian foreign agent in 2016, Page suddenly became an FBI target when then-candidate Trump announced Page would serve as one of his foreign policy advisors. (Page has never met Trump and was not paid by the campaign for his work.)

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Organic Industry Is Lying to You Normally a strict regulator, the FDA gives advertisers a complete pass. By Henry I. Miller

By on August 5th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-organic-industry-is-lying-to-you-1533496699

In the mold of “Mad Men’s” Don Draper, clever ad execs know a thing or two about manipulating consumer ignorance, confusion and even fear to sell a product.

Nowhere is this truer than modern food advertising, where dubious health claims and questionable scientific assertions abound. The Food and Drug Administration is supposed to police such deceptive practices, as it sometimes does with ridiculous zeal: Witness the FDA’s warning letter sent to a Massachusetts bakery for including “love” in its ingredient list.

But when it comes to the $47-billion-a-year organic industry, the FDA gives a complete pass to blatantly false and deceptive advertising claims. Consider the Whole Foods website, which explicitly claims that organic foods are grown “without toxic or persistent pesticides.” In fact, organic farmers rely on synthetic and natural pesticides to grow their crops, just as conventional farmers do, and organic products can contain numerous synthetic as well as natural chemicals. As observed by UC Berkeley biochemist Bruce Ames and his colleagues in 1990, “99.99% (by weight) of the pesticides in the American diet are chemicals that plants produce to defend themselves.”

Pesticides are by definition toxic, and many organic pesticides pose significant environmental and human health risks. One is copper sulfate, a widely used broad-spectrum organic pesticide that persists in soil and is the most common residue found in organic food. The European Union determined that copper sulfate may cause cancer and intended to ban it, but backed off because organic farmers don’t have any viable alternative.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Harvard’s Education in Discrimination A lawsuit is revealing the secrets of race in admissions.

By on August 5th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvards-education-in-discrimination-1533502018

The Trump Administration in July withdrew Obama-era guidance that gave colleges a wink and a nod to racially discriminate. This means that colleges like Harvard that use racial preferences in admissions will receive more legal scrutiny, and the examination should be instructive.

Between 2011 and 2016, the Obama Education Department issued seven notices advising colleges how they may legally promote racial diversity. The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits racial discrimination by institutions receiving federal funds. But the Supreme Court has held that colleges may consider race in admissions as long it isn’t the “decisive” factor. Quotas and point systems are forbidden.

The Obama department advised colleges to consider race as part of what it called an “individualized, holistic review of all applicants.” Colleges also were urged to consider race-neutral alternatives, but that they need not be adopted if they are “unworkable.” In other words, it’s the thought that counts. Many colleges took the guidance as cover to discriminate.

Harvard’s practices will be the first to be examined under this new spotlight. Students for Fair Admissions has sued the school for discriminating against Asian-American applicants and unconstitutionally favoring other minority groups. The case hasn’t gone to trial, but the plaintiff group’s legal filings based on discovery and depositions are revealing the secrets of Harvard’s use of race.

Consider Harvard’s “holistic” admissions review. Applicants are rated on a scale of one to six on academics, extracurricular activities, athletics and highly subjective “personal” criteria. Admissions officers also assign applicants an overall score.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

How British Jailers Abused Tommy Robinson The Muslim grooming gang whistleblower finally wins his freedom. Matthew Vadum

By on August 5th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270920/how-british-jailers-abused-tommy-robinson-matthew-vadum

The jailers of newly freed human rights activist Tommy Robinson deliberately subjected him to inhumane treatment behind bars in England, according to independent journalist Ezra Levant of the Canadian news website, TheRebel.media.

The goal of the authorities seems to have been to silence Robinson, perhaps permanently.

“Tommy has endured two months as a genuine political prisoner, and I say that thoughtfully,” Levant said. “I don’t want to throw around the word political prisoner. Britain is still a great liberal democracy, but not in the case of Tommy Robinson, they weren’t.”

Robinson’s lawyers, Carson Kaye of London, released a statement celebrating his release: “The rule of law and the right to a fair hearing are fundamental to every individual and this ruling [is] an example of the procedural safeguards of our system, and its potential for protecting every citizen equally.”

Robinson, a tanning salon owner and anti-Islamization activist whose real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, was taken into custody May 25 when he reported outside Leeds Crown Court. Robinson had been trying to bring transparency to an opaque legal system distrusted by the public. The 35-year-old married father of three used his smartphone to live-stream on Facebook the arrival of accused rapists on trial for acts allegedly committed while being part of a so-called Muslim grooming gang.

The filming of the alleged pedophile rapists infuriated trial judge Geoffrey Marson Q.C. because he had imposed a ban on publishing news from their criminal proceeding. Within five hours Robinson had been railroaded and sentenced to 13 months in prison.

But on Wednesday a judicial panel headed by Baron Burnett of Maldon, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, quashed Robinson’s contempt of court conviction and ordered him released on bail. The Court of Appeal ordered that Robinson be released pending a fresh trial on the contempt charges before a different judge.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Britain Welcomes Radicals – Again and Again by Douglas Murray

By on August 5th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12801/britain-radicals-rehman

How expert are these two clerics at ‘interfaith relations’? Well, they are so good that their main credential is their enthusiastic support for the murderer of somebody accused of ‘blasphemy’.

Despite criticism from Shahbaz Taseer… the UK government had no problem allowing into the UK these two men who, as Shahbaz Taseer said, ‘teach murder and hate’.

In the past year, the UK has banned a fair number of people from entering the country. It has, for example, barred the Canadian activist and blogger Lauren Southern. It has also banned the Austrian activist and ‘identitarian’ Martin Sellner. Whatever anyone’s thoughts on either of these individuals, it is not possible to claim that either has ever addressed a rally of thousands of people which they have used to extol a murderer… Yet Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman has done these things – and yet has been allowed into the UK three years in a row.

It is more than a year since the UK suffered three Islamist terrorist attacks in quick succession. It is also more than a year since the Prime Minister, Theresa May, stood on the steps of Downing Street and announced that ‘enough is enough’.

Yet the striking aspect of the last year has been how little has changed.

Consider, for instance, the lax controls on extremist preachers that the UK had in place in 2016. As reported here at the time, in the summer of that year, two Pakistani clerics performed a tour of the UK. Their seven-week roadshow took in numerous UK hotspots including Rochdale, Rotherham, Oldham and the Prime Minister’s own constituency of Maidenhead. The two clerics — Muhammad Naqib ur Rehman and Hassan Haseeb ur Rehman — began their tour by visiting the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, at Lambeth Palace for a meeting on ‘interfaith relations’.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Is Israel rejecting right-wing European support it can ill afford to lose? Many in Israel are against dealing with Europe’s right-wing parties, arguing that they haven’t really abandoned their anti-Semitic past, and that Israel’s acceptance will only legitimize them. By David Isaac

By on August 5th, 2018

https://www.jns.org/is-israel-rejecting-right-wing-european-support-it-can-ill-afford-to-lose/

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told an ethnic Hungarian audience in Romania on July 28 that “there’s a general shift towards the right in the whole of Europe,” predicting a wave of “Christian Democracy” that will sweep away the old European multicultural elites. Orbán was warmly received by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu less than two weeks earlier, the first Hungarian premier to visit the Jewish state.

Many in Israel are against dealing with Europe’s right-wing parties even if Europe’s right does have the wind in its sails. They argue that these parties haven’t really abandoned their anti-Semitic past, and Israel’s acceptance will only legitimize them. This was the main reason given at two conferences in Israel to combat anti-Semitism, in February and March, where there was near unanimity against any dealings whatsoever with Austria’s Freedom Party (FPO).

Michael Kleiner, a former Knesset Member and currently president of Likud’s Supreme Court—the Likud’s highest judicial body, which decides all intraparty matters—has worked to build bridges between Israel and European right-wing politicians. He says “today, the more malignant, the more dangerous, the more effective anti-Semitism is from the left.”

He cites as examples the ruling Social Democratic Party of Sweden, which recognized Palestine as a state, and Britain’s Labour Party leadership, which recently jettisoned parts of a widely accepted definition of anti-Semitism to allow for attacks on Israel—i.e., claiming that Israel is a “racist endeavor” and likening it to Nazi Germany.

In comparison, Europe’s right-wing parties are strongly pro-Israel, Kleiner says, rattling off a number of them, including Holland’s Party for Freedom, Poland’s Law and Justice Party, Italy’s Northern League, Austria’s FPO and Orbán’s Fidesz Party (all but one are part of ruling coalitions).

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Hamas-Israel Military Confrontation Looks Likely BY: David Isaac

By on August 5th, 2018

https://freebeacon.com/blog/hamas-israel-military-confrontation-looks-likely/

Since March, Israel and Hamas have been in a war of attrition that neither wants to escalate into a full-blown confrontation. Ironically, that is exactly where things are leading. Netanyahu just announced the cancellation of his visit to Colombia due to tension in the south.

Incendiary kites and balloons not only light up thousands of acres of Israeli crops and forests, but also Israeli television screens. During the periodic rocket barrage, the last one two weeks ago, Israelis are also treated to the sight of families huddling in bomb shelters.

This week marked a shift in tone from southern residents who so far have shown remarkable patience. Their regional representatives took to the airwaves to say that the Army must do more. Adding an exclamation point to their anger was news that a balloon bomb made it as far as the city of Beersheva—a distance of 30 miles, raising fears about just how far these aerial attacks can go. (The balloons were filled with helium, which Israel allowed into the Gaza Strip for medical purposes.)

Their frustration is fueled by the unfulfilled threats of Israeli government leaders. Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said on a July 3 tour of the area: “A kite at the Gaza envelope should be treated like a rocket on Ashkelon.” On July 14, Education Minister Naftali Bennett said, “Restraint creates escalation … The IDF must be ordered to act with force, sophistication, and thoroughness.” On July 20, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, speaking in the southern town of Sderot, repeated warnings he had made months earlier: “If they continue pushing us to a wide-scale operation, then we will have a large-scale operation, on a wider scale and more debilitating than Operation Protective Edge,” referring to the 2014 IDF action that earned the south three and a half years of relative quiet.

On Thursday, for the second time Lieberman ordered the Kerem-Shalom border crossing closed to gas shipments. In May, he had ordered the crossing closed for an “indefinite” period only to reopen it six weeks later. To close it and open it and close it again so quickly re-enforces the feeling of Israelis that the government’s response has been tepid.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump vs. Mueller: Bill Clinton’s Starr Strategy Meets Twitter By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on August 5th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/trump-versus-mueller-bill-clinton-starr-strat

The Clinton playbook works. But that does not commend it.

President Trump is using an interesting strategy. Interesting, not novel. It is the same “scandalize the prosecutor” strategy that the Clinton camp used against Ken Starr in the 1990s. Far from being condemned back then, it was aided and abetted by the same media-Democrat complex that today clutches its pearls in anguish.

One aspect of this strategy has many legal commentators aghast: the bombastic performance of my old boss, Rudy Giuliani. He has always been brash, but in the role of Trump’s lead lawyer, he no longer seems like the meticulous pro of yesteryear. Thus, he’s been lampooned: a cartoonish figure who can’t keep his story straight. But have you seen the approval polls of the Russia investigation since he took over the president’s defense team? Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe is now viewed unfavorably by 45 percent of Americans, according to a recent Washington Post/George Mason University poll. That’s up markedly from 31 percent at the start of the year.

We’ll come back to that in a second.

First, let’s assess the latest iteration of this strategy: President Trump’s tweet storm on Wednesday. Clearly, all the tweets (seven in total) had one objective: to attack the Mueller probe. But we must split them into two groups because their ramifications are different. Group 1 (the firstthree tweets and the last one) presents a full frontal assault on Mueller and his staff, with a sideswipe at Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s recusal, which paved the way for the special counsel’s appointment and remains a stone in the president’s shoe. Group 2 (here, here, and here) addresses Mueller’s prosecution of Paul Manafort, in which a trial is underway in a Virginia federal court.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Derangement Syndrome: A Prelude to Anarchy by Linda Goudsmit

By on August 5th, 2018

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/21466/trump-derangement-syndrome-a-prelude-to-anarchy http://goudsmit.pundicity.com http://lindagoudsmit.com

The election of President Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to the emotional stability of those living in subjective reality because they cannot tolerate the threat of objective reality that President Trump represents. The clash between subjective reality and objective reality has launched what is now known as Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDR) or more recently Trump Anxiety Disorder (TAD). The incursion of objective reality is so threatening to anti-Trumpers that they break down psychologically and require medication and psychological services.

In times of severe emotional stress such as death, divorce, loss of a job, it is not uncommon for individuals to have a period of adjustment when they need time to come to terms with the reality of their new situation. In extreme cases of traumatic stress individuals may even withdraw from reality until they are strong enough to deal with the facts of their new situation. What is different about anti-Trumpers is that their coping mechanisms are so underdeveloped that they are traumatized by election outcomes and refuse to accept the loss of their preferred candidate. What happens? They suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDR).

Mark Alexander posted an article he wrote 8.1.18 titled, “Therapists Rebrand ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome'” exploring the subject:

“The pop culture Urban Dictionary defines Trump Derangement Syndrome as “a mental condition in which a person has been driven effectively insane due to their dislike of Donald Trump, to the point at which they will abandon all logic and reason. Symptoms for this condition can be very diverse, ranging from hysterical outbursts to a complete mental break. . . I would suggest that the increasing frequency and intensity of hysterics associated with TDR is greatly exacerbated by the unmitigated, constant consumption of hateful Democrat/mainstream media propaganda, 24/7/365. The result is a mass movement of those so intent on undermining Trump that they are now far off the reality reservation and utterly obsessed with defeating peace and prosperity.”

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

THE DACA SWORD OF DAMOCLES: A solution worse than the problem is hanging over America’s head.Michael Cutler

By on August 5th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270929/daca-sword-damocles-michael-cutler
On Sunday morning, July 22, 2018, Congressman Steve Scalice, the Republican Whip in the House of Representatives was interviewed on Fox News about the Republican agenda, particularly in light of the upcoming midterm elections. He understandably touted the booming economy, plans to create more jobs and then, in response to the question of “protecting the DACA recipients” he expressed determination to secure the border and “protect DACA recipients.” He bemoaned the refusal of the House Democrats to join with the Republicans to protect those supposedly “young” illegal aliens.

My immediate thought, “Not again!”

The original effort of the “Gang of Eight” to pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform, employed the scam that since we cannot deport the millions of illegal aliens who are present in the United States America should first secure the border (with Mexico) and then get the millions of illegal aliens “out of the shadows.”

On May 5, 2005 I testified at a hearing conducted by the House Immigration Subcommittee on the topic, New “Dual Missions” Of The Immigration Enforcement Agencies.

Republican Congressman Lamar Smith, a former Chairman of that subcommittee, participated in that hearing. His prepared testimony laid to waste the argument that there were too many illegal aliens to deport them all. Here is the relevant segment:

In other words, we make it very, very easy in many, many ways for individuals to stay here who are here illegally. That is not the right signal to send if we are, in fact, serious about reducing illegal immigration in America.

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