RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/trending/judicial-watch-doj-says-no-fisa-court-hearings-held-to-get-warrants-against-carter-page/

Judicial Watch announced that documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request shows that the Obama Department of Justice did not request a formal FISA court hearing to obtain warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

While a court hearing is not necessary to obtain a FISA warrant, it’s shocking that a request to spy on the campaign of the opposition party did not trigger extra caution that a court hearing would have demonstrated.

In the filing the Justice Department finally revealed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Page FISA spy warrants, first issued in 2016 and subsequently renewed three times:

[National Security Division] FOIA consulted [Office of Intelligence] … to identify and locate records responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request…. [Office of Intelligence] determined … that there were no records, electronic or paper, responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request with regard to Carter Page. [Office of Intelligence] further confirmed that the [Foreign Surveillance Court] considered the Page warrant applications based upon written submissions and did not hold any hearings.

The Department of Justice previously released to Judicial Watch the heavily redacted Page warrant applications. The initial Page FISA warrant was granted just weeks before the 2016 election.

The arrogance of these people is astounding, as JW President Thomas Fitton points out:

“It is disturbing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance courts rubber-stamped the Carter Page spy warrants and held not one hearing on these extraordinary requests to spy on the Trump team,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Perhaps the court can now hold hearings on how justice was corrupted by material omissions that Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the DNC, a conflicted Bruce Ohr, a compromised Christopher Steele, and anti-Trumper Peter Strzok were all behind the ‘intelligence’ used to persuade the courts to approve the FISA warrants that targeted the Trump team.” CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/impeachment-over-porn-star-payoffs-is-just-a-liberal-fantasy/2018/08/30/809d75b8-ac68-11e8-8a0c-70b618c98d3c_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.08d997d01288

Michael Cohen’s decision to plead guilty for making hush-money payments on Donald Trump’s behalf has raised the prospect that if Democrats take control of Congress, they might try to impeach the president over a matter completely unrelated to a criminal conspiracy with Russia. Good luck with that: Even if Democrats win back both the House and Senate, there is zero chance a two-thirds majority of senators will convict President Trump for paying off an adult-film star.

It would be the height of hypocrisy if Democrats tried to remove the president over allegations of illegality relating to extramarital affairs. During the Monica Lewinsky scandal, congressional Democrats told us the private sexual conduct of a president does not matter, and that lying under oath to cover up a “consensual relationship” is not an impeachable offense. Then-Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said President Bill Clinton’s lies about his sexual relationship with a White House intern might have been illegal, but declared the scandal “a tawdry but not impeachable affair” — right before heading off to a fundraiser with Clinton. At the time, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declared that the Starr investigation “vindicates President Clinton in the conduct of his public life because we’re only left with this personal stuff” and that Founding Fathers “would say it was not for the investigation of a president’s personal life that we risked our life, our liberty, and our sacred honor.”

But now that a Republican president is accused of covering up an affair, suddenly Democrats are channeling their inner Kenneth W. Starr.

Today, Democrats are outraged and appalled when Trump attacks special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and calls his inquiry a “witch hunt.” But back then, then-Sen. Joe Biden called the Starr investigation . . . wait for it . . . a “witch hunt.” Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) declared Starr was “out of control” and accused him of having a “fixation of trying to topple the president of the United States.” Rahm Emanuel, then a White House senior adviser, accused Starr of engaging in “a partisan political pursuit of the president” while White House special counsel Lanny Davis (who is now representing Cohen) said Starr was a “desperate prosecutor who can’t make a case on Whitewater” and who should face “possible removal because of his conduct.”

https://pjmedia.com/video/vicious-anti-trump-diatribes-mar-aretha-franklins-memorial-service-orange-apparition-leech/

Continuing a sickening Democratic tradition of politicizing public memorial services.

The late great Aretha Franklin demanded R-E-S-P-E-C-T, but that didn’t stop at least a couple of speakers at her funeral service in Detroit on Friday from trivializing her memory.

Democrats Michael Eric Dyson and Al Sharpton both took the opportunity to blast President Trump during their eulogies, continuing a sickening Democratic tradition of politicizing public memorial services.

Former presidents and preachers and legendary singers took to the stage at Greater Grace Temple to pay their respects to the Queen of Soul during the farewell extravaganza.

Marring the event, was the hateful and partisan tone taken by Dyson and Sharpton, who whipped the mourning crowd into a frenzy at every mention of Trump.

Dyson lauded Aretha Franklin for being socially conscious and politically active throughout her life — before viciously laying into the president.

“Then this orange apparition had the nerve to say she worked for him! You lugubrious leech!” he bellowed, apparently meaning that President Trump is a sad and mournful bloodsucker. “You dopey doppelganger of deceit and deviancy!” he continued, sticking with the alliteration theme. “You lethal liar, you dimwitted dictator! You foolish fascist!!!”

His use of the word “fascist” brought many in the cheering crowd to their feet.

“She didn’t work for you! She worked above you!” he howled angrily. “She worked beyond you! Get your preposition right! CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-to-sign-executive-order-on-retirement-savings-1535673624?mod=trending_now_1

President Trump signed an executive order Friday directing the government to review rules requiring retirees to start taking annual withdrawals from retirement funds after they turn 70 ½ and to consider making it easier for small businesses to offer employees 401(k) plans.

The action, signed during a ceremony in Charlotte, N.C., ahead of the Labor Day weekend, was billed by the White House as a push to better prepare workers for retirement.

As part of the initiative, the Treasury Department would review the rules on required minimum distributions from retirement plans to see if investors can keep more money for a longer time in 401(k)s, individual retirement accounts and other tax-sheltered savings plans. If successful, it could allow retirees to spread retirement savings over a longer period.

The executive order also would direct the Treasury and Labor departments to consider issuing regulations that could make it easier and cheaper for smaller employers to band together to offer 401(k)-type plans for their workers.

“Such a big thing—they’ll be banding together,” Mr. Trump told an auditorium of supporters in Charlotte. “Small businesses will be able to pool their resources so that they can have the same purchasing power or even more, frankly, as large businesses.”

The arrangement has been available, but only to employers with an affiliation or connection, such as members of the same industry trade association.

“We will try to find policy ideas that will make joining a 401(k) plan a more attractive proposition for small employers to the ultimate benefit of their employees,” said Preston Rutledge, assistant secretary of labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration.

Dan Kowalski, counselor to the secretary of the Treasury, said the initiative aims to make multiemployer plans more understandable and useful for employees and less costly and burdensome for employers. It will also look to modernize the life-expectancy tables that are used to determine required minimum distributions. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.wsj.com/articles/anatomy-of-a-fusion-smear-1535757026

Cleta Mitchell is a top campaign-finance lawyer in Washington, D.C. This year she’s also been the target of a political and media smear that reveals some of the nastiness at work in the allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

A partner at Foley & Lardner, Ms. Mitchell was astonished to find herself dragged into the Russia investigation on March 13 when Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee issued an interim report. They wrote that they still wanted to interview “key witnesses,” including Ms. Mitchell, who they claimed was “involved in or may have knowledge of third-party political outreach from the Kremlin to the Trump campaign, including persons linked to the National Rifle Association (NRA).”

Two days later the McClatchy news service published a story with the headline “NRA lawyer expressed concerns about group’s Russia ties, investigators told.” The story cited two anonymous sources claiming Congress was investigating Ms. Mitchell’s worries that the NRA had been “channeling Russia funds into the 2016 elections to help Donald Trump.”

Ms. Mitchell says none of this is true. She hadn’t done legal work for the NRA in at least a decade, had zero contact with it in 2016, and had spoken to no one about its actions. She says she told this to McClatchy, which published the story anyway.