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Ruth King

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Andrew McCabe Seeks Immunity for . . . What? By Andrew C. McCarthy

By on June 7th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/andrew-mccabe-seeks-immunity-judiciary-committee/The Judiciary Committee shouldn’t give it to him.

Timing is everything in life. House speaker Paul Ryan has decided to back Representative Trey Gowdy’s (foolish) suggestion that there was nothing irregular about the FBI’s use of an informant to investigate the Trump campaign. Ironically, Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director who was deeply involved in that investigation, picked the same time to make it known that he will not testify before Congress unless he is granted immunity from prosecution.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, to which McCabe’s lawyer made the request, should tell him “No thanks.” McCabe should be reminded that he is free to assert the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination if he believes truthful answers would put him in jeopardy, but there should be no immunity.

Besides the Russia probe, McCabe oversaw the Clinton-emails investigation after being appointed deputy director in February 2016. As the bureau’s No. 2 official, he had very broad supervisory responsibility over investigations nationally and globally. But his oversight of the Clinton case was much closer than usual for a deputy director, because the FBI took the highly unusual step of running the investigation out of headquarters. The FBI generally avoids doing that for a variety of prudent reasons, not least that its field offices across the country are removed from Washington’s intense political environment.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Haley to UN Human Rights Commissioner: Border Policy on Children Is Our Business By Bridget Johnson

By on June 7th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/haley-to-un-human-rights-commissioner-border-policy-on-children-is-our-business/

WASHINGTON — UN Ambassador Nikki Haley lashed out at the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for trying to dictate U.S. border policy after criticism from the world body on the Trump administration’s deterrence policy of separating children from parents at the border.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended the policy on Hugh Hewitt’s show Wednesday, noting “we are having more people coming bringing children with them entering between the ports of entry, between the ports of entry illegally, and they’re not, you cannot give them immunity.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Thomas Homan told the Center for Immigration Studies in D.C. on Tuesday that “it’s sad to see children cry when you take a parent out of a home, but because it’s sad doesn’t mean that we ignore the law.”

In a briefing this week on human rights issues in Egypt, the United States and Ethiopia, Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, said the office is “deeply concerned that the zero tolerance policy recently put in place along the U.S. southern border has led to people caught entering the country irregularly being subjected to criminal prosecution and having their children – including extremely young children– taken away from them as a result.”

“The practice of separating families amounts to arbitrary and unlawful interference in family life, and is a serious violation of the rights of the child,” Shamdasani said. “While the rights of children are generally held in high regard in the US, it is the only country in the world not to have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. We encourage it to accede to the Convention and to fully respect the rights of all children.”

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel Shows What Alliances Are For By David P. Goldman

By on June 7th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/israel-shows-what-alliances-are-for/

A residual rancor against America’s $3 billion military aid budget to Israel still can be detected in the corners of the conservative movement. Yes, Israel is the only democracy in the region, and yes, Israel is an American ally, but Israel is out for Israel’s interests just as America is out for America’s interest — so why should American taxpayers subsidize the powerful and prosperous Jewish state?

Never mind that the $3 billion in military aid amounts to a Pentagon subsidy for American arms manufacturers. Never mind also that Israeli military technology and intelligence make an enormous (and largely untold) contribution to American security.

There’s a reason to maintain alliances in the cold light of Realpolitik which conservative isolationists refuse to consider: Allies can do things that we want done at much less risk to us and at far lower cost than if we were to do them directly.

Israel has substantially reduced Iran’s military capacity in Syria, for example, and has done so without provoking a confrontation with Russia. If the United States were to use its own planes to bomb Iranian installations in Syria, that would constitute a direct challenge to Russia’s presence in the country, and lead to a strategic confrontation that we do not want (and the isolationists want least of anyone). But Israel can do so, because Israel is no threat to Russia, and Israeli bombing raids in Syria do not humiliate the Kremlin. Israeli action keeps the matter on the local level, rather than escalating it to a matter of global tension.

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Pre-Dossier Carter Page: Russian Spy … or FBI Honor Scout?By Paul Sperry

By on June 7th, 2018

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/06/07/carter_page_russian_spy__or_fbi_honor_scout.html

The FBI’s interview with Carter Page in March 2016 is one of the seminal events of the Trump-Russia probe. Democrats have long pointed to it as evidence of the bureau’s longstanding fears that Page might be a Russian spy and to downplay the role of the Clinton-financed dossier compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele in securing a FISA surveillance warrant against Page.
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, ranking Democrat on the House intelligence panel. Top photo: Carter Page at a Moscow press conference in December 2016.

“The FBI interviewed Page multiple times about his Russian intelligence contacts, including in March 2016,” Rep. Adam Schiff and other Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee argued in their 10-page memo defending the Obama Justice Department’s monitoring of Page. “The FBI’s concern about and knowledge of Page’s activities therefore long predate the FBI’s receipt of Steele’s information.”

But new information challenges that account. In an interview with RealClearInvestigations, Page insists that the interview in question – held at then-U.S. attorney Preet Bharara’s office in New York — had “absolutely nothing” to do with the Trump campaign or Russian collusion. Instead of being grilled about shadowy ties, he says he answered questions “related to events in 2013, in a case where I had served as a witness in support of the FBI.”

In 2013, a Russian national working as an unregistered foreign agent at a Russian bank in Manhattan sought information from Page, a longtime energy consultant, related to U.S. efforts to develop alternative energy resources, according to court papers filed by the FBI. Although Page thought the man was a legitimate banker after meeting him at an energy symposium in New York City, he was a Russian agent under federal investigation. He was later caught on surveillance dismissing Page as an “idiot.”

The FBI informed Page in 2013 that the Russians might be trying to recruit him.

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Trump signs VA law to provide veterans more private health care choices Donovan Slack

By on June 7th, 2018

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/06/trump-signs-law-expanding-vets-healthcare-choices/673906002/

WASHINGTON — President Trump signed legislation Wednesday paving the way for a major overhaul of the Department of Veterans Affairs and expanded access for veterans to VA-funded care in the private sector.

The measure, which passed both chambers of Congress last month with overwhelming bipartisan support, delivers on a key campaign promise for Trump, who pledged to provide veterans with more non-VA health care choices.

“What a beautiful word that is — choice — and freedom to our amazing veterans,” Trump said at the signing ceremony. “All during the campaign I’d go out and say, ‘why can’t they just go see a doctor instead of standing in line for weeks and weeks and weeks?’ Now they can go see a doctor.”

Working out the details of exactly how and when that will happen is now up to agency officials tasked with drawing up regulations under the law.

If confirmed, Trump’s pick to lead the VA, Robert Wilkie, would lead that effort. Criteria to be considered include wait times for VA appointments, quality of VA care and distance from a VA facility.

Known as the VA MISSION Act, the law directs the VA to combine a number of existing private-care programs, including the so-called Choice program, which was created in 2014 after veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix VA.

Two veterans from Texas who traveled to Washington to be at the signing said the Choice program has been extremely helpful for them. Laura Vela, who served in the U.S. Army, and Air Force veteran Antonio Garcia said they previously had to drive nearly four hours each way to reach the nearest VA hospital in San Antonio.

“To me, it’s the perfect program,” said Garcia, who had his knee replaced last year by a health care provider about a half mile from his home in Brownsville.

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The Swamp Strikes Back by J. Christian Adams

By on June 7th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12033/swamp-strikes-back

The culture of the D.C. metropolitan area is one of wealth, privilege and self-proclaimed sophistication. The bureaucrats and insiders know what is best for you, best for your business, best for themselves, and they can make a nice living without being disrupted. Trump campaigned on disrupting this comfortable power perch; that is what they most hate about him.

The Russian collusion investigation has not found any collusion because the investigation was never about collusion. It was always about an out-of-control federal government, emboldened by the lawless age of Obama, and flexing its newfound muscle. The Russian collusion investigation is about a clash of cultures, with one culture being the culture of D.C. insiders, and the other being the folks who pay their salaries.

Each week, Robert Mueller’s Wonderlandian investigation into “Russian Collusion” appears “curiouser and curiouser”. Each week, it appears that the entire investigation never really had anything to do with Russian collusion, at least in the Trump campaign; only in the Hillary Clinton campaign, where all the investigators have been conscientiously not looking.

First, Mueller indicted General Michael Flynn for not telling the truth to an FBI squad that appeared unexpectedly at the White House to question him, when now it turns out that Peter Strzok, who interrogated him, said he had not lied. It also now turns out that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe may later have altered Strzok’s interrogation notes, and then destroyed the evidence.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Palestinians: “Burn the Jews!” by Bassam Tawil

By on June 7th, 2018

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12467/palestinians-burn-the-jews

There are two important factors that the international community needs to notice regarding the fire kites that the Palestinians are sending to Israel from the Gaza Strip. First: those who are launching the kites are making it clear that their ultimate goal is to kill as many Jews as possible and bring about the obliteration of Israel. Second: the Palestinians see all Jews living in Israel as “settlers.

The Palestinians are now also telling us that the terror kites they are sending to Israel accord with what the Quran orders Muslims to do in the fight against the “infidels.” They apparently see the flaming kites as part of the jihad (holy war) against the enemies of Allah and Islam.

“We want to set fire to Israel so that the Jews will be burned or forced to leave their country.” — Abu Al-Majd, terrorist.

The jihad of the Palestinians against Israel is the same jihad that ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamic jihadi groups have also been waging on the “infidels” and “enemies of Islam” in the US, EU and other non-Muslim countries. We are witnessing a well-organized campaign of terror orchestrated by terrorists and activists belonging to Hamas and other Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinians, who have been sending flaming kites from the Gaza Strip into Israel the past few weeks, say that their real goal is to “burn the Jews” and destroy Israel. They see the kites as a new weapon to achieve their goal. They are disappointed, they say, that no Jew has been hurt yet as a result of the fires triggered by the flaming kites.

The kites have ignited dozens of fires in Israeli fields and forests adjacent to the border with the Gaza Strip, much to the satisfaction of the Palestinians and their supporters in the Arab and Islamic countries, who took to various social media platforms to celebrate the “success” of the Palestinian terror kites.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Video: Antifa Public School Teachers Indoctrinating — and recruiting — in America’s classrooms.

By on June 7th, 2018

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270382/video-antifa-public-school-teachers-frontpagemagcom

Editor’s note: Below is Sean Fitzgerald’s new video exposing Antifa radicals in America’s public schools and their efforts to indoctrinate students with their violent ideology.

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Europe’s Vanishing Calm By Victor Davis Hanson

By on June 7th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/06/06/europes-vanishing

AVIGNON, France—The Rhone River Valley in southern France is a storybook marriage of high technology, traditional vineyards, and ancestral villages. High-speed trains and well-designed toll roads crisscross majestic cathedrals, castles, and chateaus.

Traveling in a Europe at peace these days evokes both historical and literary allusions. As with the infrastructure and engineering of the late Roman Empire right before its erosion, the Continent rests at its pinnacle of technological achievement.

There is a Roman Empire-like sameness throughout Europe in fashion, popular culture and government protocol—a welcome change from the deadly fault lines of 1914 and 1939.

Yet, as in the waning days of Rome, there is a growing uncertainty beneath the European calm.

The present generation has inherited the physical architecture and art of a once-great West—cathedrals, theaters, and museums. But it seems to lack the confidence that it could ever create the conditions to match, much less exceed, such achievement.

The sense of depression in Europe reminds one of novelist J.R.R. Tolkien’s description of the mythical land of Gondor in his epic fantasy “The Lord of the Rings.” Gondor’s huge walls, vaunted traditions, and rich history were testaments that it once served as a bulwark of a humane Middle-earth.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

You Don’t Get To Re-Write The Constitution Because You Dislike Donald Trump The ‘rule of law’ is in no worse shape today than it was two years ago

By on June 7th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/06/06/no-donald-trump-hasnt-especially-bad-rule-law/

If your contention is that Donald Trump has the propensity to sound like a bully and an authoritarian, I’m with you. If you’re arguing that Trump’s rhetoric is sometimes coarse and un-presidential, I can’t disagree. I’m often turned off by the aesthetic and tonal quality of his presidency. And yes, Trump has an unhealthy tendency to push theories that exaggerate and embellish small truths to galvanize his fans for political gain. Those are all legitimate political concerns.

Yet the ubiquitous claim that Trump acts in a way that uniquely undermines “the rule of law” is, to this point, simply untrue.

At National Review, Victor Davis Hanson has it right when he argues that “elites” often seem more concerned about the “mellifluous” tone of leaders rather than their abuse of power. “Obama defies the Constitution but sounds ‘presidential,’” he writes, “Trump follows it but sounds like a loudmouth from Queens.”

But while Obama’s agreeable tone had plenty to do with his lack of media scrutiny, many largely justified, and even cheered, his abuses because they furthered progressive causes. But not only did liberals often ignore “the rule of law” when it was ideologically convenient, they now want the president to play by a set of rules that doesn’t even exist.

Partisans always tend to conflate their own policy preferences with “rule of law” — or “democracy” or “patriotism.” Even taking that tendency into consideration, the pervasive claim that Trump undermines law typically amounts to little more than questions of how he comports himself. Rarely, if ever, does it have anything to do with the Constitution.

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