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Ruth King

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EPA’s Scott Pruitt, Fallen American Hero How Soros and Van Jones character-assassinated a grave threat to the Left. Matthew Vadum

By on July 6th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270657/epas-scott-pruitt-fallen-american-hero-matthew-vadum

Radical environmentalists claimed a Trump cabinet member’s scalp yesterday as they forced out a great American patriot, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, under a cloud of largely invented ethics scandals.

Nothing Pruitt did in office was unforgivable. Nothing he did was even particularly bad.

Pruitt, previously attorney general of Oklahoma from January 2011 to February 2017, was the victim of a sustained, well-funded leftist assault aimed at crippling him and removing him from office. It succeeded. The Left, emboldened by its success, will now use this blueprint again and again against Trump administration officials. Pruitt’s expected successor, EPA’s second-in-command, former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, will feel the Left’s wrath soon enough.

President Trump had reportedly grown weary of the unending stream of bad publicity Pruitt brought with him.

“I have accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency[,]” the president tweeted perfunctorily Thursday at 3:37 p.m. “Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this.”

The official line is that Pruitt didn’t want to be a distraction. This may be true but it doesn’t excuse the lack of resources put into defending him.

Consistently the voice of reason, Fox News contributor and Federalist senior editor Mollie Hemingway, said the massively funded “Boot Pruitt” campaign by green groups was “very effective.”

Hemingway is right.

Boot Pruitt was apparently created by admitted communist and 9/11 truther Van Jones, a so-called social entrepreneur who is extremely adept at generating the illusion of grassroots activity in furtherance of his radical goals. The campaign was slick leftist astroturf manufactured by pressure groups beholden to George Soros and Tom Steyer.

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Will Our Current Political Conflicts Turn Violent? Do today’s “woke” leftists really have the guts? Bruce Thornton

By on July 6th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270655/will-our-current-political-conflicts-turn-violent-bruce-thornton

President Trump’s recent string of wins ––especially the victories in the Supreme Court decisions and the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy–– has incited the Democrat “resistance” to even loonier excesses of rhetoric and rudeness. Celebrities indulging juvenile vulgarities, boorish protestors harassing cabinet members in public spaces, the twitterverse smoldering with calls for violence and a “summer of rage,” and the buffoonish Representative from California Maxine Waters calling for even more public harassment: all have some people worrying that we are on the track of escalating violence that will turn the “cold civil war” hot.

Count me as skeptical for now. As bad as today’s political discord may seem, American history from its beginnings has been filled with worse political conflict and violence, from Shays’ Rebellion to Bleeding Kansas, from the Wall Street bombing to the Haymarket Riot. And having spent more than forty years in the university, the nursery of leftism and today’s parlor pinks, I see few people with the gumption to actually back their blustering threats with risky action.

Any claims that we are living on the brink of civil conflict inflamed by violent political rhetoric must answer the question, compared to when? The Sixties and Seventies saw urban riots that killed hundreds, wounded thousands, and caused millions of dollars in damages. Politically motivated kidnappings and shootouts were endemic. The 1968 protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago featured televised vicious battles between the police on one side, and antiwar protestors and left-wing groups like the Yippies and Students for a Democratic Society on the other. A jumpy national guard contingent killed four student protestors at Kent State. During this same period, thousands of bombings from a plethora of radical groups took place ––according to a 1970 Senate investigation, more than 4,300 just between January 1969 and April 1970, killing 43 and inflicting $22 billion in damage. And presidential primary candidate Robert Kennedy and civil rights icon Martin Luther King were assassinated.

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Mueller Expands The Witch Hunt Time to put up or shut up — and shut down. Joseph Klein

By on July 6th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270656/mueller-expands-witch-hunt

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is planning to expand his witch hunt. According to a Bloomberg News report, he is “tapping additional Justice Department resources for help with new legal battles as his year-old investigation of Russian interference with the 2016 election continues to expand.” He already has 17 prosecutors on his staff, many of whom have clear anti-Trump biases. From the investigation’s start in May 2017 through March of this year, Mr. Mueller’s own office has spent $7.7 million, on top of the $9 million spent by permanent Department of Justice units involved in the investigation.

Mr. Mueller evidently wants to absorb some of the career prosecutors from the offices of U.S. attorneys and from Justice Department headquarters into his own operation or to outsource some of his work to them. Either way, instead of finishing his investigation “the hell up because this country is being torn apart,” as Republican Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina told Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein during a June 28 hearing, Mr. Mueller is busy growing his empire. The Justice Department has “reportedly budgeted $10 million for Mueller’s team to spend in the next fiscal year, which begins in October,” Time Magazine reported.

The Mueller probe is over a year old. The Special Counsel’s office has shown nothing to the taxpayers funding its operation that it has made any real progress in fulfilling its original mandate to uncover evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. The most significant indictment to date, the one against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, is a ridiculous sideshow involving accusations that have nothing to do with the Trump campaign. While Judge T.S. Ellis III, of the Eastern District of Virginia, denied Mr. Manafort’s motion to dismiss an indictment against him on the grounds that Special Counsel Mueller had exceeded his authority, the judge questioned the objectivity of the whole Mueller enterprise. Judge Ellis expressed concern about “the danger unleashed when political disagreements are transformed into partisan prosecutions.” The judge further warned, “To provide a special counsel with a large budget and to tell him or her to find crimes allows a special counsel to pursue his or her targets without the usual time and budget constraints facing ordinary prosecutors, encouraging substantial elements of the public to conclude that the special counsel is being deployed as a political weapon.”

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Unaccountable Big Media Personified By Julie Kelly

By on July 6th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/06/unaccountable-big-media

As Americans were finalizing their holiday plans on July 3, the New York Times quietly announced that Ali Watkins, the reporter caught up in a federal investigation into illegal leaks of classified information, would be reassigned rather than fired.

Executive editor Dean Baquet confirmed Watkins, 26, would be moved from the paper’s D.C. bureau to its New York headquarters, “where she will be closely supervised and have a senior mentor.”

“We hold our journalists and their work to the highest standards,” Baquet said in a statement. “We are giving Ali an opportunity to show that she can live up to them. I believe she can. I also believe that The Times must be a humane place that can allow for second chances when there are mitigating circumstances.”

Get that, all you ambitious J-school students? Even though Baquet admits his reporter flouted the basic ethical standards of journalism as well as the paper’s internal conduct guidelines, she can keep her job. You can cheat, lie, break the company’s rules, embarrass an entire profession and you will still get to work at one of the nation’s top newspapers! Polish up those résumés, kids!

Press Complicity
The Ali Watkins matter exposes everything that is wrong with the American media. A young reporter trades sex-for-scoops with a powerful man more than 30 years her senior and it’s excused as business-as-usual; the man, James Wolfe—who is responsible for safeguarding classified documents for the Senate Intelligence Committee—illegally leaks government secrets to her to slander Trump associates and boost the politically motivated Trump-Russia collusion hoax; editors at other news organizations not only know about the affair, but hire her because of it so she can continue to access secrets about the Trump-Russia probe; when her tawdry, unethical behavior is disclosed only after Wolfe is arrested for lying to the FBI about their relationship, her peers in the press rush to her defense; and arrogant media overlords apply a different set of standards to their own profession and expect the government to consider reporters a protected class.

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History’s Bad Ideas Are an Inspiration for Progressives By Victor Davis Hanson *****

By on July 6th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/06/historys-bad-ideas-are-an-inspiration

What we now consider stupid and dangerous ideas of the past, progressives see as useful in the present.

Even liberal historians usually label as disastrous two decisions by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration: the adoption of the Earl Warren-McClatchy newspaper inspired plan to intern Japanese-American citizens and the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937—better known as FDR “court-packing scheme.”

The latter was a crazy scheme to remake the Supreme Court, given that Roosevelt wanted no more judicial interference in the implementation of the New Deal. And yet he had no recourse until slow-coach judicial retirements opened up new appointments of compliant progressive justices. In the interim, the convoluted proposal would have allowed Roosevelt to select a new—and additional justice—to the Supreme Court for every sitting judge who had reached 70 years, 6 months, and had not retired. And in theory, he could pack on 6 more judges, creating a 15-member court with a progressive majority.

The embarrassing plan properly died.

But progressives once again are advocating something like it, now that they fear Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee might cement a 5-4 hard conservative majority—and with a possible third appointment opening up in the next 30 months. Democrats nonchalantly talk of the Kennedy slot as a “swing” vote, which in these supposedly dark times must for now be institutionalized.

They are without any self-reflection that they never entertained any such notion that a Democrat-selected justice might “evolve,” “mature,, or “grow” into become a swing Kennedy-like apostate from Left, much less that a Kagan or Sotomayor would ever evolve into a right-wing mirror image version of a Justice Brennan, Souter, Stevens, or Warren.

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Report: Mueller Calls on More Prosecutors to Help with Expanding Russia Probe By Mairead McArdle

By on July 6th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/report-robert-mueller-asks-doj-fbi-for-assistance-in-russia-probe/

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly calling for more manpower to assist him with the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Bloomberg reported Thursday that Mueller is asking veteran prosecutors from the Justice Department and U.S. attorneys’s offices, as well as FBI agents, for help with new legal battles that have cropped up as a result of his investigation. Though he is not adding to his team of 17 federal prosecutors, he has called on investigators in New York, Alexandria, Va., Pittsburgh, and other cities to help him.

Permanent Justice Department units have actually spent more money ($9 million) on the Russia probe than Mueller’s team ($2.3 million). Mueller was tasked by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein with investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election, and “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”

Other such matters have indeed arisen, including financial crimes by former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mueller is also reportedly looking at Trump’s personal financial records from well before the campaign began. He has so far handed down 20 indictments, and five of those charged have pled guilty, including former national-security adviser Michael Flynn, who admitted lying to the FBI.

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IRAN’S ECONOMY IS TANKING: JED BABBIN

By on July 6th, 2018

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jul/5/sanctions-can-ruin-the-economy-but-wont-free-iran-

To the surprise of no sentient person, North Korea is dissembling instead of disassembling its nuclear weapons. It is making no move toward denuclearization and instead is finishing the expansion of a key missile manufacturing facility. President Trump’s summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un served only to demonstrate Mr. Kim’s intractability.

Mr. Trump is having much more success with Iran, North Korea’s partner in developing nuclear weapons and missiles. After the president exited the 2015 Obama-Iran deal in May he has taken a hard line by re-imposing economic sanctions on Tehran which are proving effective in weakening Iran’s economy and the ayatollahs’ regime.

Most importantly, for the first time since 2009, large violent protests against the regime are occurring in many of Iran’s big cities, including Tehran.

Unemployment is up, inflation is soaring and the Iranian currency has lost half its value this year. In 2017, the Iranian rial traded at about 43,000:1 against the dollar. It began to weaken leading up to Mr. Trump’s action in May and the rial is now trading at about 75,000:1 against the dollar.

The currency crash is clearly driven by Iranian panic buying of dollars in response to Mr. Trump’s actions. Unlike North Korea, Iran doesn’t have China acting as a sugar daddy to prop up its economy and its regime. The Obama-Iran agreement served to do that by undoing the economic sanctions against Iran and freeing Iran to sell its oil.

Because Iran’s economy is supported primarily by oil sales to South Korea, India, China, Japan and Turkey, the president wants to cut those sales. He plans to slap sanctions on any nation that doesn’t cut off Iranian oil imports by Nov. 4. Mr. Trump reportedly wants to give buyers of Iranian crude time to reduce their imports (which accounts for the delay until November) and may grant temporary waivers of sanctions to nations that make a significant effort to reduce them by that date.

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Expose the Palestinian ‘Refugee’ Scam Obama concealed a myth-smashing report. Trump can reveal it to the world. By Richard Goldberg and Jonathan Schanzer

By on July 6th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/expose-the-palestinian-refugee-scam-1530833146

If President Trump wants to promote peace in the Middle East, his first step should be to declassify a key State Department report that would end the myth of Palestinian “refugees.”

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency is singularly devoted to the Palestinian refugee issue. Unrwa labels more than five million Palestinians “refugees”—an impossible figure. The first Arab-Israeli war, in 1948, yielded roughly 800,000 Palestinian Arab refugees. Perhaps 30,000 remain alive today, but Unrwa has kept the refugee issue alive by labeling their descendants—in some cases great-great-grandchildren—as “refugees,” who insist on the “right of return” to their ancestors’ homes. Israel categorically rejects this demand.

Unrwa’s operations run counter to the broader mission of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which is to resettle those displaced by war. Unrwa’s mission, on the other hand, keeps the conflict’s embers glowing by refusing to resettle Palestinians in neighboring countries or even in the Palestinian territories.

If Mr. Trump wants his peace plan to have a chance, he has to challenge false Palestinian narratives. He did this by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving the U.S. Embassy there. For decades, Palestinian leaders issued maximalist claims on Jerusalem. Mr. Trump’s move sent the message that making peace requires accepting reality.

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Peter Wales Fascists, Faux and Real

By on July 5th, 2018

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/07/fascists-faux-real/

We all know about projection and the human inclination to perceive one’s own frailties, flaws and follies in others. These days the concept is reradily observed. Look at those on the Left so loudly denouncing as ‘fascists’ all and sundry who disagree and you will find the genuine lovers of jackboots.

Wikipedia is not always the most reliable of sources, but its definition of fascism is a reasonable starting point for discussion. A fascist is a follower of a political philosophy characterized by authoritarian views, desire for a strong central government, and no tolerance for opposing opinions. All forms of socialism, including Germany’s national socialism, are inherently fascist. They embody the two key identifying factors of fascism; strong central government and no tolerance for opposing views.

So what about the US president the media consistently denounce as a fascist, an idiot, and “literally Hitler”?

The Trump administration has removed red tape as fast as practically possible, repealing twenty-two regulations for every one enacted. This removes the brakes on private effort and enterprise, and shifts power away from government to the people. The opposite of fascism.

One of the first actions of the Trump administration was to reduce taxes. This gives more wealth and more freedom of choice to the people, while reducing the power of government. The opposite of fascism.

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It’s Preposterous To Put The United States In The 10 Most Dangerous Countries For Women To equalize the plight of the American woman to that of a woman living in Syria or warring countries in Africa is absurd.

By on July 5th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/05/preposterous-put-united-states-10-dangerous-countries-women/

The Thomson Reuters Foundation recently published a contrived poll of 550 experts in women’s studies about the most “dangerous” countries for women, and the result seems to suggest facts no matter so long as whatever is said fits the prescribed narrative. The United States astonishingly made the top ten “most dangerous countries in the world for women” in the survey, and was tied for third with Syria in terms of sexual assault and rape.

To claim that the United States would make the list of top ten most dangerous countries for women is beyond disingenuous; its outrageous. There are more than ten war zones in the world right now (Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, the Congo, Myanmar, Mali, Afghanistan, Somalia, Ukraine, Nigeria, Yemen, and Iraq). In these war zones, women are regularly and routinely raped, murdered, and enslaved.

Syria alone has claimed almost half a million lives. The Islamic State gained international infamy for routinely enslaving women and using them as sex slaves. Yemen, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Egypt, Somalia, and Iraq are also plagued by similarly brutal insurgencies. In Yemen, more than seven million starve to death as a civil war rages on. In Libya, militias run migrant camps and auction off women and children at slave markets they have created. The Congolese government is accused of using rape as a terror weapon on its own population. Government soldiers were ordered to rape mothers and daughters on top of the bodies of their husbands.

Beyond the brutal war zones and hotspots, violence and oppression are still horrifically imposed on the world’s women. In the Middle East and several other countries, women are restricted to second-class citizens. These countries sentence women to death for adultery and apostacy. Honor killings are widespread across the Gulf States and South Asia. In many Mideast and North African countries, a man can escape penalty for rape by marrying the victim. Dozens of nations from North Africa to the Philippines, which wasn’t mentioned, also hold that same loophole. In Egypt, a country the list fails to mention, the government is disappearing tens of thousands of men and women. Its police force is using rape to torture its kidnapped victims.

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