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Ruth King

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A Feeble Pushback Against the Inspector General’s Whitewash By Karin McQuillan

By on June 20th, 2018

https://amgreatness.com/2018/06/20/a-feeble-pushback-against

For even the most cynical among us, there is a Baghdad Bob aura of unreality about the Justice Department Inspector General’s report absolving the FBI of partisan wrongdoing in the Clinton email investigation. The IG report follows in Comey’s footsteps: enumerating appalling and illegal behavior, and then concluding there is nothing to prosecute.

There’s no such thing as being too cynical when it comes to our government. Yet once again, Americans have had to suffer through the cycle: assurances that while the FBI investigation of Clinton was crooked, the honest Inspector General Michael Horowitz would bring us justice. This from the same press that assured us Robert Mueller is an honorable man.

The contrast with the treatment meted out to President Trump, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and camp Carter Page, is turning people’s stomachs.

Alan Dershowitz, who has emerged as the only Democrat on the national stage with any principles, explained what should be plain to see, in an interview with Maria Bartiromo:

“We’ll stop him.” That is not an expression of bias . . . It’s a message to the American people that the FBI is going to interfere in an election . . . . How can Strzok remain an FBI agent? The red line was crossed . . . you’re not allowed to try to use your office to try and stop somebody from being elected president of the United States.

Horowitz’s report supports Dershowitz’s view that a red line was crossed:

The inspector general concluded that Strzok’s text, along with others disparaging Trump, “is not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.

But the report exonerates Strzok anyway.

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Border Politics and the Use and Abuse of History By Victor Davis Hanson

By on June 20th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/border-politics-family-separation-debate-abuse-of-history/

Much has been written — some of it either inaccurate or designed to obfuscate the issue ahead of the midterms for political purposes — about the border fiasco and the unfortunate separation of children from parents. Rich Lowry’s brief analysis is the most insightful.

The media outrage usually does not include examination of why the Trump administration is enforcing existing laws that it inherited from the Bush and Obama administrations that at any time could have been changed by both Democratic and Republican majorities in Congress; of the use of often dubious asylum claims as a way of obtaining entry otherwise denied to those without legal authorization — a gambit that injures or at least hampers thousands with legitimate claims of political persecution; of the seeming unconcern for the safety of children by some would-be asylum seekers who illegally cross the border, rather than first applying legally at a U.S. consulate abroad; of the fact that many children are deliberately sent ahead, unescorted on such dangerous treks to help facilitate their own parents’ later entrance; of the cynicism of the cartels that urge and facilitate such mass rushes to the border to overwhelm general enforcement; and of the selective outrage of the media in 2018 in a fashion not known under similar policies and detentions of the past.

In 2014, during a similar rush, both Barack Obama (“Do not send your children to the borders. If they do make it, they’ll get sent back.”) and Hillary Clinton (“We have to send a clear message, just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay. So, we don’t want to send a message that is contrary to our laws or will encourage more children to make that dangerous journey.”) warned — again to current media silence — would-be asylum seekers not to use children as levers to enter the U.S.

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EDWARD CLINE: IF HILLARY HAD BECOME PRESIDENT

By on June 20th, 2018

Had Hillary Clinton won the 2016 election – by hook or crook, but mostly by crook – the country would have continued its decline and continued the cliff jumping leap begun by Barack Obama (2008-2016). This is the kind of thing you would be in store for.Exempli gratia:

There would have been no ClintonInvestigation. The country would not have learned about President Clinton’s secret email server. The Supreme Court of the U.S. would have found such an investigation a “blatant invasion and violation of privacy.” James Comey would have returned as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, specially appointed by Clinton on the day of her inauguration in January 2017, some say in perpetuity, although this would be denied by both President Clinton and Director Comey.
Bill Clinton would have been appointed as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.
No special Inspector General Report would have been required.
Director Comey would not have ordered an investigation of voter fraud in all fifty states related to the count of the national election, taking the lead from a federal district judge, Comey declares that all state voter registrationlaws are illegal, except in connection to Republican candidates and voters.

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The Mullahs and Hanging By Nikoo Amini

By on June 20th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/06/the_mullahs_and_hanging.html
The Iranian government is using execution as an instrument for spreading fear among its citizens.

“I am innocent and I had to confess under the torture.”

These are the last words of Mohammad Salas, who was executed by the Iranian regime authorities at dawn on June 18, 2018.

Mohammad Salas was a 51-year-old bus driver from one of Iran’s largest Sufi communities, the Nemattolah Gonabadi. He was arrested on February 19, 2018 while taking part in a protest against Sufi repression which turned violent after regime security forces resorted to beatings and the use of live ammunition, water cannons, and tear gas to disperse the crowd.

Accused of killing three policemen during the protests, Mohammad Salas’s attorney, Ms. Zaynab Taheri, stated several times that “We have many documents indicating Mohammad Salas is innocent.”

The sole piece of evidence used to convict him was a “confession” that Mohammad Salas said was forcibly extracted after he was severely beaten by police officers. He later retracted his “confession,” but the Supreme Court rejected his request for a judicial review.

In spite of an international campaign by human rights organizations, Amnesty International in particular, calling for Sala’s sentence to be dropped, it appears that the Iranian authorities have been more interested in vengeance at any cost than in justice.

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Why We’re Leaving the So-Called Human Rights Council Allies said U.S. participation was the last shred of credibility left in the organization.By Nikki Haley

By on June 20th, 2018

There is an international organization whose members include the repressive regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and China.

This organization recently added the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is obstructing an investigation into the murder within its borders of two United Nations human-rights experts.

In the past decade, this organization has passed more resolutions to condemn Israel specifically than to condemn Syria, Iran and North Korea combined.

Most people would not imagine that such an organization would be dedicated to protecting human rights. Yet all of these details describe the misnamed U.N. Human Rights Council. In truth, the council provides cover for governments with awful human-rights records, and it refuses to eliminate its Agenda Item 7, which targets Israel unfairly by mandating that each session include a discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

After more than a year of unsuccessful efforts to fix these fundamental defects, the U.S. delegation announced Tuesday our withdrawal from the council. Our country will no longer be party to this deeply flawed institution, which harms the cause of human rights more than it helps it.

There are two major reasons that so many countries have resisted U.S.-led reform efforts. The first is baked into the council’s composition. One look at this rogue’s gallery explains why the organization has such appalling disrespect for the rights Americans take for granted. A credible human-rights council would pose a threat to these countries, so they oppose the steps needed to create one. Instead they obstruct investigations and reports, while interfering with the council’s ability to name and shame the perpetrators of the world’s worst atrocities.

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Gaza Strip “Militants” Fire Rockets Into Israel Rockets from Gaza began after Israel first struck three targets in the strip By Felicia Schwartz

By on June 20th, 2018

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gaza-strip-militants-fire-rockets-into-israel-1529474115

TEL AVIV—Militants early Wednesday fired a volley of rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip, puncturing a tacit three-week cease-fire, in the latest flare-up in tensions between the two sides.

The rockets from Gaza began after Israel first struck three targets in the strip in what the military said was a response to repeated launches of flaming kites and balloons with explosives, low-tech weapons that have damaged thousands of acres of Israeli farmland.

Over several hours, Gaza militants fired 45 rockets into Israel and the Iron Dome system intercepted seven of them, the Israeli army said. The fresh barrage triggered sirens in several Israeli towns near the border. There were no immediate official reports of deaths or injuries from the attacks.

As of 6 a.m. local time, the Israeli military said it had targeted 25 targets in the Gaza strip overnight in response to what it described as a “severe rocket attack” from the 25-mile-long enclave, which is densely populated.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said Wednesday in a statement on Twitter that the large number of rockets was meant to “set the rules of the engagement” after the Israeli airstrikes.

The escalating tensions show how Israel’s high-tech military is grappling to respond to the basic incendiary balloons that have burned thousands of acres of Israeli farmland and damaged nature reserves. Israel said it targeted Hamas military compounds with airstrikes—including an underground training site—to pressure the group to halt the arson attacks.

Egypt has quietly mediated between Israel and Hamas during the surge in violence that stems from clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli military forces at the border fence separating the Gaza Strip and Israel. Since March 30, more than 120 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces at the border. CONTINUE AT SITE

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Border Games The Left’s dishonesty about families disguises its real intentions. Bob McManus

By on June 19th, 2018

https://www.city-journal.org/html/border-games-15977.html

New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced this week that he will refuse to deploy National Guard troops to assist in border control—though no one asked him to, and no one is ever likely to ask. Cuomo is a master of the political non sequitur—last month, he promised to send a Dunkirk-style small-boat flotilla against offshore oil rigs that don’t exist—and he’s also pretty good at twisting the English language to serve his interests.

In this, he is not unique—hence the rhetorical riot generated by the Trump administration’s so-called “family separation” policies—but the governor’s National Guard posturing is at once over the top and instructive. “In the face of the federal government’s inhumane treatment of immigrant families, New York will not deploy National Guard to the border,” Cuomo announced Monday. “We will not be complicit in this ongoing human tragedy.”

Well, again, nobody asked. But the Guard diversion is a useful tool, deflecting attention from the fundamental dishonesty of the governor’s full statement. That is, the federal government is treating no one inhumanely; the “families” involved are not so much immigrants as they are economic migrants with no inherent right of entry into the United States—and to the extent that there is an “ongoing human tragedy” on the border, responsibility for it resides with those attempting to enter the county illegally.

It is true that Americans love children. The Clinton administration discovered that in 2000, when it sent heavily armed immigration agents storming into a Florida home to remove a screaming seven-year-old boy. The reaction was furious. That same instinct underlies the current controversy, as well as the politicized reaction to it. Just as most people don’t want bad things to happen to children, even fewer want to be perceived as agents of harm, and not just to children. That’s why disingenuous rhetoric such as Cuomo’s can be such an effective tool.

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Report: Agent Peter Strzok Was Escorted from FBI Building Friday By Mairead McArdle

By on June 19th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/report-agent-peter-strzok-escorted-from-fbi-building/

FBI agent Peter Strzok was escorted from the FBI building Friday as part of the internal investigation into his conduct during the bureau’s probes of Hillary Clinton and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, CNN reported.

Strzok, whose controversial texts to FBI lawyer Lisa Page, his colleague and lover, landed him in the middle of an internal FBI investigation, worked on both the Clinton and Russia probes. He was one of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators before texts showing bias against President Trump got him removed from the team.

Last week’s bombshell report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, found a previously undisclosed text by Strzok assuring Page that they would “stop” a Trump presidency from coming to pass. The damning text “cast a cloud” over the agency’s investigation and undermined the FBI’s credibility, Horowitz said.

“Pete has steadfastly played by the rules and respected the process, and yet he continues to be the target of unfounded personal attacks, political games, and inappropriate information leaks,” Strzok’s attorney, Aitan Goelman, said in a statement to CNN. “All of this seriously calls into question the impartiality of the disciplinary process, which now appears tainted by political influence.”

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‘Future Pres’ Hillary — the Font of all the Scandals By Victor Davis Hanson

By on June 19th, 2018

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/clinton-email-investigators-broke-rules-to-please-hillary/The investigators assumed their new boss would reward them for going to extremes to help her.

Review the Clinton email scandal, the Steele dossier, the insertion of at least one FBI informant into the Trump campaign, the misleading of the FISA court by FBI and DOJ officials intent on monitoring U.S. citizens, and, now, the inspector general’s report. There emerges a common denominator: the surety by all involved that Hillary Clinton would be president, and the need to prepare for that fact.

Examine the IG’s transcript of a random, pre-election series of electronic chitchat between high-ranking FBI employees:

15:07:41, Agent 1: “ . . . I’m done interviewing the President — then type the 302. 18 hour day . . . ”

15:13:32, FBI Employee: “you interviewed the president?”

15:17:09, Agent 1: “you know — HRC” [Hillary Rodham Clinton]

15:17:18, Agent 1: “future pres”

15:17:22, Agent 1: “Trump cant win”

“Trump can’t win” explains the salty language also of the Page-Strzok text trove, where the two paramours talk of Trump supporters that they “can smell” and an “insurance” plan to preclude Trump’s nearly nonexistent chances. (“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration . . . that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”)

Perhaps the most iconic example of deep-state bias was the following Page-Strzok exchange:

Page: “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!”

Strzok: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”

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RAYMOND IBRAHIM: THE FOLLY OF MULTICULTURALISM

By on June 19th, 2018

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/the-folly-of-multiculturalism/

Exactly how beneficial to a society is multiculturalism, this word that is so celebrated in the West?

First one must first define the word: It is “the view that cultures, races, and ethnicities, particularly those of minority groups, deserve special acknowledgement of their differences within a dominant political culture.”

Note the immediate inaccuracies within this standard definition. “Races,” which indicate a people’s innate physical makeup, are conflated with “cultures” — which are neither innate nor physical, but learned and metaphysical.

This mix-up explains why for many in the West, the word “culture” often conjures at most physical, surface differences — “exotic” food or dress. In reality, cultures are nothing less than entire and distinct worldviews with their own unique sets of right and wrongs, often rooted in a religion or philosophy. Cultures bring much more than, say, the convenience of having Indian cuisine down the street.

As Anglo-French historian Hilaire Belloc once explained it:

Cultures spring from religions; ultimately the vital force which maintains any culture is its philosophy, its attitude toward the universe; the decay of a religion involves the decay of the culture corresponding to it — we see that most clearly in the breakdown of Christendom today.

Put differently, all values prized by the modern West — religious freedom, tolerance, humanism, gender equality, monogamy — did not develop in a vacuum but rather are inextricably rooted to Judeo-Christian principles which, over the course of some 2,000 years, have had a profound influence on Western epistemology, society and, of course, culture. CONTINUE AT SITE

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