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July 2019

Insinuendo: Why the Mueller Report Doth Repeat So Much . By Eric Felten

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/07/03/insinuendo_why_the_mueller_report_doth_repeat_so_much_140692.html

The Mueller report should have been a knockout blow to anti-Trump forces who invested their hopes in the special counsel. With Robert Mueller’s finding that the Trump campaign did not conspire with Russia to steal the 2016 election and that there was no clear path to indicting the president for obstruction, the enterprise should have shuddered to a stop.

Instead, those who were at first dumbfounded by the special counsel’s report have since found reasons to be buoyed by it – by its grudging tone, its sly assertions resembling proof, and its insistence that not being found guilty should not be confused with innocence. If you had to pick a single sentence that captures the style and substance of Mueller’s tome, you’d find it on page 2: “A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.”

Democratic members of the House have secured Mueller’s agreement to testify. They will encourage him to offer a sort of informal indictment of the president, something to justify impeachment. Something that can be winkled out of the Mueller report.

All of which calls for a closer reading of the 448-page document. What becomes clear is that the special counsel used a number of rhetorical devices to couch evidence and craft a narrative so that a document that ultimately clears the president can also be read as an indictment.

Russian oligarch’s story could spell trouble for Team Mueller By John Solomon

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/451413-russian-oligarchs-story-could-spell-trouble-for-team-mueller

Sometimes it is the quiet, elusive ones who come back to haunt you. And for ex-special prosecutor Robert Mueller, one of those might be a Russian billionaire named Oleg Deripaska.

The oligarch who once controlled Russia’s largest aluminum empire has been an international man of intrigue in the now-completed and disproven Trump collusion investigation.

Deripaska was a disaffected former business client of Donald Trump’s fallen campaign chairman Paul Manafort. He also was a legal research client of Trump-hating, Clinton-aiding British spy Christopher Steele. In his spare time, he was an occasional friendly cooperator with the FBI and its fired deputy director, Andrew McCabe.

And, at the height of the Russia collusion hysteria, Deripaska was sanctioned by the Trump administration to financially punish Russian President Vladimir Putin for his meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

With the Russia case, in which he had so many connections, now completed, Deripaska is breaking his silence. And what he has to say could impact Mueller’s July 17 testimony before Congress.

In a wide-ranging interview with me, Deripaska confirmed a story told to me more than a year ago by law enforcement sources: He was indeed interviewed by FBI agents in September 2016 during the early Russia probe, and he told them he strongly doubted the bureau’s theory that the Trump campaign, through Manafort, was colluding with Moscow to hijack the 2016 election.

Dems Want to Insure Illegals, Don’t Care About Vets and Middle Class . By Betsy McCaughey

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/07/03/dems_want_to_insure_illegals_dont_care_about_vets_and_middle_class_140698.html

It’s official. Democratic Party Chair Tom Perez confirms the Party fully endorses free health care for illegal immigrants. That puts illegals ahead of veterans struggling to qualify for civilian care, middle-class working stiffs priced out of Obamacare and baby boomers facing the likelihood of Medicare cuts.

At last Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate, all 10 candidates on the stage flung up their hands when asked whether they’d cover illegal aliens.

Not one of the debate moderators went on to ask the obvious: How much will it cost, and who will pay for it? Why spoil a Kumbaya moment?

The costs would be huge. According to Pew Foundation researchers, there were 10.5 million illegals in the nation in 2017. In 2018, Yale University and MIT demographers estimated there are double.

If the entire illegal population were enrolled in Medicaid, the tab would range from a whopping $84 billion a year (10.5 million times $8,015 per person Medicaid cost) to more than double that, $176 billion. But that estimate needs to be pared to reflect the millions of illegals who work and already get insurance through an employer. Covering uninsured illegals is likely to cost $40 billion to $80 billion a year.

Buttigieg Proposes National-Service Program to Fight Climate Change, Addiction By Jack Crowe

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/buttigieg-proposes-national-service-program-to-fight-climate-change-addiction/

Southbend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttigieg on Wednesday proposed the creation of new voluntary-service programs to combat climate change and increasing rates of mental-health issues, among other objectives.

The plan, released by Buttigieg’s presidential campaign, calls for the recruitment of 250,000 young people in the coming years with a possible expansion to 1 million by 2026. It would expand programs such as AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps, while also creating new programs, to fight climate change, treat mental illness, and reduce rates of addiction.

Buttigieg has emphasized the power of national service throughout his upstart bid for the Democratic nomination, returning often to his service as a Naval Reserve officer in Afghanistan during stump speeches and interviews.

“At a moment when our social fabric is being torn apart, where people increasingly only hear voices that are like their own, it’s a really important time to build social capital through giving people opportunities to work in service in ways that are also going to deliver value to the country,” Buttigieg told the New York Times . “I also think you shouldn’t have to go to war to have that experience.”

A spokeswoman for the campaign said the program would cost $20 billion over ten years.

Democrats Embrace Lawlessness at the Border in Response to Family Separations By Jack Crowe

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/democrats-embrace-lawlessness-at-the-border-in-response-to-family-separations/

Decriminalizing unauthorized entry as most Democratic presidential candidates propose won’t end the separations; it will only worsen the crisis at our border.

During the first Democratic primary debate last week, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro succeeded in creating the viral moment that all second-tier candidates hope for when he challenged all of his opponents to support the decriminalization of illegal border crossings.

Castro, having deftly identified the separation of migrant families as the issue that has most exercised the Democratic base, stormed into his first debate performance with a ready-made solution: repeal section 1325 of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which makes “improper entry” into the U.S. a federal misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail, thereby ensuring that no migrants would be detained unless they’d committed another, ostensibly more serious offense.

“The reason that they’re separating these little children from their families is they’re using Section 1325 . . . to incarcerate the parents and then separate them,” Castro said to applause.

MY SAY: THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

In 1776,  this magnificent document was crafted…..

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Read it all: http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

Have a glorious and proud Independence Day!!!! rsk

It Wasn’t Force that Made America Great. It Was Freedom By John Stossel

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/it-wasnt-force-that-made-america-great-it-was-freedom/

Happy Fourth of July!

We have reason to celebrate.

The Fourth honors the founding of America. It’s the anniversary of the day in 1776 that the Declaration of Independence was approved.

The Declaration was important.

It didn’t say that America would be the best country because it would have the biggest military, toughest leaders, most government giveaways or tightest borders.

The great innovation that day in Philadelphia was the declaration that the United States would have a (SET ITAL)limited(END ITAL) government, rooted in the idea that every individual has inalienable rights.

In other words, we do not get our rights from government. They already exist. The government’s job is to (SET ITAL)protect(END ITAL) our rights.

It’s a good thing to say out loud while watching the fireworks with your family.

The world took notice when American colonists told their king: “Bug off. We will trade with you and respect your borders, but no longer will we allow you to rule us.” Revolutions in France and elsewhere took their cues from America.

It was America’s emphasis on limited government — wanting to make sure no one in government would ever again wield power like that of the British king — that made our revolution the greatest and most lasting success of recent centuries.

The Palestinian Authority Hated the Bahrain Conference Because It Was About Helping Palestinians The preferred steady diet of anti-Israel indoctrination. Caroline Glick

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274194/palestinian-authority-hated-bahrain-conference-caroline-glick

The Palestinian leadership didn’t boycott the Trump administration’s economic meeting in Bahrain last week because it denied them a future political horizon. They oppose the Trump Prosperity to Peace plan because it gives them an open road to success.

The footage of the administration’s workshop last week on developing the Palestinian economy made for surrealistic viewing. Sitting in Manama, Bahrain, were representatives of most Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Egypt, and Jordan. There were also leaders of international economic institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. And there were business leaders from the U.S., the Arab world, and Europe. They were hosted by a U.S. delegation led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, as well as by President Donald Trump’s Middle East negotiations team, headed by senior presidential advisor Jared Kushner and senior presidential advisor for negotiations Jason Greenblatt.

All of these leaders came together to discuss a detailed U.S. plan to bring $50 billion in grants, loans, and investments to the Palestinians in the West Bank, (i.e., Judea and Samaria) and the Gaza Strip, as well as to neighboring Arab states: Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon.

The stated purpose of the plan is to end Palestinian economic privation and suffering by transforming the Palestinian economy from a negative growth, high-unemployment economy into a prosperous high-growth, low-unemployment economy.

Yet despite the money involved and the power the participants packed, the Palestinians didn’t show up. The Palestinian Authority (PA) announced in May that it was boycotting the conference and appealed to all those invited to boycott the conference as well.

After the conference convened last Tuesday, the PA sent mobs out to riot throughout the West Bank. They burned effigies of President Donald Trump. The youth wing of PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction called for a renewed terror campaign against Israel. And together with Hamas, Fatah branded Palestinian businessmen who braved the boycott and travelled to Bahrain “traitors” and vowed to punish them “with full force” for their treachery. Indeed, at least one Palestinians businessman who participated in the Bahrain conference was arrested upon returning home. Others escaped arrest by running away from their homes when they were alerted that PA security forces were en route to arrest them.

France: The Real Emmanuel Macron by Guy Millière

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14477/real-emmanuel-macron

Charles de Gaulle refused to speak of the many French who had collaborated with the authorities of the German occupation. He refused to commemorate D-Day. He even went on to claim that the Normandy landings had “not been the beginning of the liberation of France,” but “the starting point of an American attempt to colonize France”.

President Emmanuel Macron went one step further, saying that France and Germany should create a European army to “protect themselves against Russia, China, and even the United States”.

France also supported the PLO at a time when it was openly a terrorist movement, unreservedly dedicated to destroying Israel and murdering Jews….. Macron continues the same policy as his predecessors. He never misses an opportunity to invite the current Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to the Elysée Palace and he never forgets to kiss him.

President Donald Trump now knows Macron. Trump probably remembers that during Macron’s visit to Washington 14 months ago, Macron seemed friendly toward him; then, when he went to the Congress, spent his whole speech running down the essential decisions of the Trump administration.

June 6, 2019. Normandy, France. The remains of 9,387 American military dead are buried at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial; 9238 Latin crosses for Christians and 149 Stars of David for Jews are aligned on the bluff overlooking Omaha Beach, one of five sectors on the Normandy coast where 132,000 soldiers of the Western allies landed on June 6, 1944. US President Donald J. Trump delivers a speech praising heroism, duty, honor and freedom, and pays tribute to the young Americans who gave their lives; he also speaks of the other soldiers who fought in the Normandy landings: Canadians, British, French. He behaves as a great statesman.

Just before he spoke, French President Emmanuel Macron also paid tribute to those brave soldiers. He added some remarks — that immediately were seen as a way to lecture the American President:

“America is never as great as when it fights for the freedom of others. It is never as great as when it is faithful to the universal values defended by its founding fathers when two and a half centuries ago, France came to support its independence”.

The Crackup of the Israeli Left A new book details how the Left chose to surrender to the Arab enemy. Mark Tapson

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274177/crackup-israeli-left-mark-tapson

In recent weeks the mostly left-leaning news media have published articles about the turbulence of this year’s elections in Israel with such handwringing titles as “Is the Israeli left doomed to marginalisation?,” “The Decline of the Israeli Left,” and “Whatever Happened to the Israeli Left?” But if one really wants to educate oneself deeply and broadly about this shift in the tiny democracy’s political landscape, one can hardly do better than to read Mordechai Nisan’s new book, The Crack-Up of the Israeli Left, published by Mantua Books. In it, Dr. Nisan brilliantly dissects the rise of the Right and the decline of the Left in the Jewish state. To quote from the book cover’s description, it details how “the Left detached its moorings from reality and principle, raised its voice against the Zionist enterprise, and chose surrender to the Arab enemy.”

If anyone is qualified to expound upon Israel’s political and cultural battlegrounds, it’s Mordechai Nisan. Dr. Nisan (with a doctorate in Political Studies from McGill University) has been a teacher and consultant for a number of academic and public institutions in Israel, including Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he taught Middle East Studies for 35 years. Among his many books are Toward a New Israel: The Jewish State and the Arab Question (1992), Only Israel West of the River: The Jewish State and the Palestinian Question (2011), and Politics and War in Lebanon (2015). He has written articles for The Jerusalem Post, Israel National News, Global Affairs, Middle East Journal, and many other publications. He has also been an activist for Jewish settlement in the territories of Judea and Samaria.

Dr. Nisan was kind enough to take time to answer some questions for FrontPage Mag.

Mark Tapson: You begin your book by describing Israel as “a fable and a myth, but also a Great Truth.” What do you mean by that?

Mordechai Nisan: Myth as an expression of inner thoughts and memories mobilizes people to action. Fables arouse children’s imagination, as myths do for adults. Israel was born from a great myth rooted in the Biblical story of liberation and conquest, awakening the Jewish people to relive their past through the medium of Zionism and reconstituting their freedom and sovereignty in modern times. This is a revitalized myth actualizing an ancient truth of God and Jewish peoplehood in history.