RUTHFULLY YOURS

On Monday Bowe Bergdahl pleaded guilty to charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. He will be sentenced next week. To all but a mendacious Administration and its accomplices among the court eunuchs of the Obama media, the truth about this man was obvious from the day of his release by the Taliban three-and-a-half years ago.. Me on June 3rd 2014:

In years to come, when archaeologists are prowling through the ruins of our civilization and wondering how it all happened, I would offer this snapshot. Here’s the history of America’s longest war in two anti-American losers, John Walker Lindh and Bowe Bergdahl, confused young men with a gaping hole at the heart of where their sense of identity should be, stumbling through the Hindu Kush trying to “find themselves”.

In the fall of 2001, the first confused anti-American loser trying to find himself, John Walker Lindh was on the enemy’s side – and was tried, convicted and jailed for life [CORRECTION: 20 years].

By the spring of 2014, the last confused anti-American loser of the Afghan war, Bowe Bergdahl, was on our side – and was honored by the President with a family photo-op in the Rose Garden and declared by the laughably misnamed “National Security Advisor” to have “served the United States with honor and distinction”.

That remains one of the most disgusting images of the last eight years: A deserter who betrayed his comrades being celebrated as a man of “honor” at the People’s House by the highest officials in the land. Me again, from later that week:

On last night’s Hugh Hewitt Show, Hugh and I discussed the continuing fall-out over the Bergdahl/Taliban deal, of which every aspect – whether you come at it from the terrorist end, the deserter end, the legal end, the pajama-boys-with-the-keys-to-the-White-House end – gets more revolting as the days go by. Apropos the President’s determination in his remarks in Brussels to dig in deeper, I said this:

MARK STEYN: ‘Obama’s words in Brussels today, for example, saying “Well, this was a father and his child, his 28-year old… whatever that is, Grade 23 child. You know, every parent wants to get their Grade 23 child back …and we don’t leave anyone behind. The fact is he walked out and he left America behind, this guy – and he did it, by the way, on the advice of his father. He wrote to his father saying, ‘I hate America, it’s a horror, I want to renounce my citizenship.’ And his father emails back, ‘Follow your conscience.”‘

HUGH HEWITT: ‘Oh, my God.’

I don’t think this point has been emphasized enough. Yes, one can argue that it’s appropriate to cut Bergdahl Jnr some slack – thankless war, out on the front line, the strain of it all beginning to tell… But what’s the father’s excuse? He gets communications from his son indicating he’s about to crack. He knows that out there, beyond their vulnerable encampment, is a primitive tribal society where pretty much everyone would either ransom his boy or cut to the chase and saw his head off to make a blockbuster jihadist snuff video for the bazaars of Jalalabad. Surely any responsible parent would say, “Look, I know it can’t be easy for you out there. But there are people who wish to do you harm beyond the fence. Stick with it, talk to your platoon leader… You’re serving honorably in a worthy cause…” You don’t encourage him to take a one-way ticket into the badlands of Afghanistan.

And just to underline that: the justification for Bergdahl Snr’s wacky behavior – the Taliban beard, the invocations of Allah, the Arabic and Pushtu, the pledge that the death of every Afghan child will be avenged – the justification for all this is that, well, he’s also been under a lot of strain. He hasn’t seen his kid for half-a-decade. That could unhinge anyone. Give the guy a break…

But the point is he was pulling this strange stuff before his son was kidnapped.

Which makes that Rose Garden ceremony even more bizarre in its weird optics – the President of the United States embracing a Taliban sympathizer at the White House. There was no need to hold such an intimate photo-op. Yet Obama chose to do it. Why?

“Any chance justice will finally come a-callin’ for the Clintons? I suppose anything’s possible. To get away with the “Foundation” scam for as long as Bill and Hill did would be a challenge for most of us. To do it under a six-year Mueller/Comey FBI investigation testifies yet again to the uniquely charmed lives these two lead…”

The big story this week is that the FBI uncovered a Moscow bribery plot just before the Obama Administration approved the transfer of 20 per cent of American uranium into the hands of the Russians.

And who precisely were the Russkies trying to bribe?

They also obtained an eyewitness account — backed by documents — indicating Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.

The racketeering scheme was conducted “with the consent of higher level officials” in Russia who “shared the proceeds” from the kickbacks, one agent declared in an affidavit years later.

Fancy that! A racketeering scheme centered on the Clintons! Who’da thunk it? Other names in the story have a weary familiarity, too:

The connections to the current Russia case are many. The Mikerin probe began in 2009 when Robert Mueller, now the special counsel in charge of the Trump case, was still FBI director. And it ended in late 2015 under the direction of then-FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired earlier this year.

Unlike the current “Russia investigation”, where details of dawn raids on Paul Manafort are gaily leaked hither and yon, Mueller and Comey managed to keep the lid on this one for the six-plus years it was active. And happily it doesn’t seem to have obstructed either the Clintons’ or the Russians’ mutually beneficial relationship:

The first decision occurred in October 2010, when the State Department and government agencies on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States unanimously approved the partial sale of Canadian mining company Uranium One to the Russian nuclear giant Rosatom, giving Moscow control of more than 20 percent of America’s uranium supply.

Hmm. Uranium One… Rosatom… Where have I heard those names before? Oh, yeah. From me, two-and-a-half years ago – April 27th 2015:

One of the lessons learned by the Clintons back in the Nineties is that, if you’re gonna have a scandal, have a hundred of ’em. And then it’s all too complicated and just gives everyone a big headache, and they go back to watching “Friends” or “Baywatch” or whatever it was back then. When a scandal gets too easy to follow, that’s where the danger lies.

As things stand, Vladimir Putin has wound up with control of 20 per cent of American uranium production.

That’s almost too funny an update of the line variously attributed to Lenin, Stalin and others: “The capitalists will sell us the rope by which we will hang them.” In this case, we’ve sold Putin the uranium by which he will nuke us. As the Russian news agency TASS reported two years ago:

‘MOSCOW, May 22 (Itar-Tass) – Russia’s nuclear power corporation Rosatom controls 20 percent of all uranium reserves in the United States, the corporation’s chief, Sergei Kiriyenko told the State Duma on Wednesday…

‘”I am pleased to inform you that today we control 20 percent of uranium in the United States. If we need that uranium, we shall be able to use it any time,” Kiriyenko said.’

Great! By the way, before he became America’s fastest rising uranium executive, Mr Kiriyenko was Prime Minister of Russia.

In return for facilitating the transfer to Putin of one-fifth of US uranium, the Clintons were given tens of millions of dollars by Vancouver businessman Frank Giustra (the founder of “Uranium One” in its pre-Putin days) and various of his associates. In 2006, Mr Giustra told The New Yorker:

“All of my chips, almost, are on Bill Clinton,” he said. “He’s a brand, a worldwide brand, and he can do things and ask for things that no one else can.”

Ah.

Oh, my mistake. When I said Giustra and his pals had given over $100 million to “the Clintons”, I meant they gave it to “The Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation” – or its Canadian subsidiary, established after Hillary had signed a disclosure agreement for the US foundation with the Obama Administration and, being Canadian, thus exempt from the disclosure agreement. At least as Bill and Hillary’s lawyers read it.

There is no Clinton “Foundation” – in the sense of a body that engages in charitable activities and does good works. As I said to Hugh Hewitt on the radio all those years ago:

Well wait, but just a minute, Hugh, there is no ‘Clinton Foundation’… The only purpose of this foundation is to enable this family to lead the lifestyle of a head of state after it has ceased to be head of state.

And the only reason anyone ponied up money to the “foundation” is that it was assumed a Clinton would be head of state again in a couple of years – just as the tedious requirements of the Russian constitution required Putin to take a break (albeit entirely nominally) from being head of state for a couple of years. After November 8th, the price for Clinton speeches mysteriously dropped 98 per cent – so the Clintons closed their “foundation”. But by then it had served its purpose.

Everybody who knows anything about charity knows the truth about the Clinton “Foundation” – as The New York Post reported, also all those years ago:

The Clinton Foundation’s finances are so messy that the nation’s most influential charity watchdog put it on its “watch list” of problematic nonprofits last month.

The Clinton family’s mega-charity took in more than $140 million in grants and pledges in 2013 but spent just $9 million on direct aid.

The group spent the bulk of its windfall on administration, travel, and salaries and bonuses, with the fattest payouts going to family friends.

Indeed. Me again, from April 2015:

For example, Chelsea’s chum Eric Braverman was paid $275,000 for five months’ work. In Clintonworld, charity begins at home. So, if, like all these big-hearted Saudi princes and Canuck uranium execs, you give money to the Clinton Foundation because you care about starving Third World urchins, for every million bucks you hand over, a full 64 grand goes to the Third World urchins and the remaining $936,000 is the processing fee. Paul Mirengoff cautions:

‘It’s important to note that the Clinton Foundation’s status as a problematic charity is distinct from the “Clinton cash” issue that Peter Schweizer and others have highlighted. “Clinton cash” focuses on the fundraising methods used by the Clintons. Specifically, there are substantial allegations that they raise money in part because nations and wealthy individuals hope to influence U.S. policy through their donations, and very possibly have succeeded in doing so.

It has always niggled me as to what the always arrogant 44th President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, actually meant when he was caught on an open microphone telling Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that he needed more “flexibility” from the Russians. They needed to give him “space” since “it was [his] last election” but “after ‘[his] election, [he] would have more flexibility.”

Medvedev’s retort was “I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.”

While Medvedev may have understood what Obama was saying, most Americans were left quite bewildered by this cryptic message.

Until now.

Enter the breathtaking information that the most intricate and shady backroom deals were happening both nationally and internationally while Congress and the American public were deliberately kept in the dark, not only by the Obama administration, but also by Obama’s Department of Justice and the very same FBI officials who are now attempting to concoct a fictitious collusion story about Trump.

John Solomon and Alison Spann have discovered that

Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States.

And even though it would have been an unbelievable law enforcement achievement “to have brought down a major Russian nuclear corruption scheme that compromised a sensitive uranium transportation asset inside the U.S. and facilitated international money laundering,” nary anything substantial was done to expose this deep-seated corruption.

For those who have, over the years, watched with horror and ire as Obama usurped power and ran the government like a dictator, the latest revelations are not especially surprising. For in our hearts we always believed that Obama was intent upon destroying this country in as many ways as he could. Now the facts have been established with incontrovertible evidence and they confirm what we always felt given Obama’s unending anti-American stance. An extremely serious national security breach was permitted under his watch.

But now that the smoking guns are being exposed, we also wonder if the few good people who have the power to effect change will now use that power. Will they recall the Psalmist who cried out

“O God, keep not Thou silence; Hold not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.

For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.

They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.

When will “righteousness and peace” come together again? When will our country be restored and our faith in our leaders be re-gnited? “How long shall the wicked exult” and “speak arrogantly” as the “workers of iniquity bear themselves loftily”?

Until the swamp is truly cleaned out and our elected officials “stand up for ‘us’ against the workers of iniquity” and ensure that “the right shall return unto justice,” Obama and his ilk (Hillary Clinton, Lois Lerner, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Bill Clinton, Samantha Power, James Comey, and Robert Mueller) will continue to wreak their evil. And we cannot look to the mainstream media to faithfully execute their job.

Today is the anniversary of former president Ronald Reagan signing into law the Tax Reform Act of 1986. The act was the second major law he signed to reform the tax code for the American people.

Republicans and Democrats came together to cut taxes for hardworking families in 1981, and again in 1986 to simplify the tax code, so that everyone could get a fair shake. The rest, as they say, is history.

The economy boomed, launching into one of the largest peacetime economic expansions in history. Dormant small businesses and factories sprung back to life. The famed American Worker produced at unprecedented levels. The median family income rose. And more American products than ever before reached foreign shores, stamped with those four beautiful words: “Made in the USA.”

The 1980s also saw extraordinary ideas transformed into reality by American inventors and entrepreneurs. Many of those creations dramatically improved our quality of life. Others connected us like never before and put an entire universe of information at our fingertips. Still others, like the space shuttle after its first launch in 1981, stretched the bounds of what we thought was possible for humankind.

It was a time of extraordinary optimism — it was truly “Morning in America,” an economic miracle for the middle-class.

A lot has changed since then, especially when it comes to taxes.

While our economic competitors slashed their taxes in hopes of replicating America’s success, our leaders remained complacent or, in some cases, reversed course.

We are now among the highest taxed nations in the developed world. Our tax code and laws have nearly tripled in length since the 1986 reforms. They now span 2,650 pages, with another 70,000 pages of forms, instructions, court decisions, and other guidance.

We have watched our leaders allow other countries to erode our competitive edge, take our jobs, and drain our wealth. And, for the first time in our history, Americans have feared that their children will not grow up to be better off financially than they are.

That era of economic surrender is now over.

In the nine months since I took office as president, we have removed intrusive, job-killing regulations at a record pace. We are leaving lopsided international deals that hurt America like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Paris Climate Accord. We have unleashed American energy by ending the war on coal and approving major projects like the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines. And earlier this month, I signed an executive order to take important steps to free our people from the grip of Obamacare.

And now, unemployment is at a 16-year low. Wages are rising. Manufacturing confidence is higher than it has ever been. The stock market is soaring to record levels. And GDP growth climbed to more than 3% in the second quarter.

The optimism has returned — the sun is once again rising over America.

But our economy cannot take off like it should unless we transform our outdated, complex and burdensome tax code, and that is exactly what we are proposing to do.

Revising our tax code is not just a policy discussion — it is a moral one, because we are not talking about the government’s money – we are talking about your money, your hard work.

According to the Tax Foundation, taxes cost Americans more out-of-pocket than housing, clothing, and food — combined.

Somehow, this has become “normal” in the Land of the Free, but it should not be.

American families should not have to send more money to the government than they spend on building a better life for themselves and their children. You are the ones who carry this nation on your back, and it is time for you to get the relief that you deserve.

That is why we are taking action to dramatically reduce the burden that the sprawling federal tax code has become on our citizens.

Our plan will transform the tax code so that it is once again simple, fair and easy to understand. We want you to spend your valuable time pursuing your dreams, not trapped in a tax compliance nightmare.

We will cut taxes for hardworking, middle-class families.

We will double the standard deduction, which means the first $24,000 of a family’s income will be tax-free. We will also expand the child tax credit. And we will lower rates so that families will keep more of their hard-earned money.

We will also restore our competitive edge so we can create better jobs and higher wages for American workers.

Our plan will provide tax relief to businesses of all sizes, and deliver our small and medium-sized businesses the lowest top rate in more than 80 years.

Finally, we will bring back trillions of dollars in American wealth currently parked overseas.

Today’s tax system foolishly penalizes companies that bring foreign profits back to the United States. Our plan encourages companies to bring this money home, where it can be invested in American companies, American jobs and American workers.

If Congress comes together to enact this commonsense plan, the Council of Economic Advisers estimates that it will raise the annual income of a typical, hardworking American household by an average of around $4,000.

Just imagine the possibilities.

We have the benefit of hindsight as we look back at the three decades since our country’s last major tax reform. We can see what worked and what did not. And most importantly, we can apply the lessons learned to the challenges of today.

The tax cuts and reforms of the 1980s show that when we empower the American people to pursue their dreams, they will not only achieve greatness and create prosperity beyond imagination, they will build an entirely new world.

It is time to ignite America’s middle class miracle once again.