RUTHFULLY YOURS

We’ll admit to being gobsmacked by the latest revelation. We always assumed that it would be somebody like Carter Page who’d eventually be discovered to have participated in an ill-advised email chain showing that even Team Trump noticed the Hindenburg-size fact of Russian delight in the Trump phenomenon.

Now the press has its gotcha, and it’s Donald Trump Jr. Golly.

Yet, after the first flush of hysteria, Don Jr. may be only half a rube for not being more sensitive to the Russian connection, which would explode in Hindenburg fashion only with the DNC email hack a few days later.

Bloomberg News suggests that Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya wasn’t bringing secrets gleaned from Russia’s “crown prosecutor,” but news she read in the Russian press. Not the Russians but a Russian was trying to peddle this info to Trump Tower, as a pretext to lobby on behalf of a wealthy Russian client.

And it wasn’t any Russian but a tubby British music publicist who babbled fourth-hand, or perhaps was apple polishing all on his own, in claiming “Russian government support” for the Trump effort.

The farcical element continues to predominate in Russiagate, including with the mostly ignored Russian influence on FBI chief James Comey’s actions.

But real trouble can flow even from a farce. Thinkers for whom Russia was just one problem in a world full of problems, who previously did not identify Moscow as the No. 1 enemy, now do so, vociferously, for fear of being lumped in with Mr. Trump as a traitor to America or some such.

A mob is a machine for mass-producing cowards and bullies. That’s where we are now. Just turn on cable TV.

Even the estimable Anne Applebaum, author of a book on the Soviet gulag, fulminates in the Washington Post against every recent president for failing to heed Russia’s “peculiar dangers.” With all due respect, U.S. presidents are better informed than anybody about the nature of the Russian regime. They read the intelligence. George W. Bush looked in Mr. Putin’s eyes and didn’t see his soul. He saw a potential nightmare that would have to be managed somehow. Ditto President Obama.

But neither are U.S. presidents equipped with magical powers to make such facts go away. The world is stuck with Mr. Putin, an authoritarian who cannot afford to modernize, whose quest for survival inevitably drives him down a funnel of deepening hostility toward a superpower where the rule of law prevails.

In the U.S. election, what began as Mr. Putin’s vendetta against Hillary morphed into his cynical promotion of Mr. Trump, and now is coming up roses a third time as a way to discredit the U.S. government and its new president.

A respected Russian journalist, Mikhail Zygar, in the New Yorker, dismisses the idea of some Putin “master plan. . . . There is no plan—it’s chaos.”

Another, Roman Shleinov, apropos of supposed payoffs to Mr. Trump via his real-estate business, explains that it has nothing to do with Trump: “Money is fleeing Russia in all directions, people are trying to invest anywhere they can, to get their assets out.”

If there was a conspiracy to put a Trump in the White House, let’s face it, Don Jr. would never have been fielding a blind email about it in June 2016 from a Miss Universe hanger-on.

Here’s another secret: Most U.S. reporters know they are overplaying the Trump-Russia connection, even as they revel in the Don Jr. gotcha moment, even as they play up the circus of legal and political jeopardy the administration has created for itself. CONTINUE AT SITE

“For many in the media and elsewhere, the collective grievances that they have against Trump personally, the White House as a whole and Trump’s policies somehow justify their zealous promotion of the “collusion scandal.” But not because the story is valid. Rather, the media know that they are not getting to Trump with anything else. Today, much of the “news coverage” of Trump and Co. is about payback. The media thinks they aren’t getting the truth and so they don’t have to deliver it either. It is a bad cycle that is not working for the White House or the media. With this much intensity, it is hard to see how this ends well.”

Hysteria among the media and Trump opponents over the prospect of “collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin may have hit its crescendo this week. That’s right: The wailing from the media and their allies about Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with some “Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer” (whatever that means) may be the last gasp of this faux scandal. Good riddance.

Predictably, the New York Times started the ball rolling with front-page coverage, going so far as to argue, “The accounts of the meeting represent the first public indication that at least some in the campaign were willing to accept Russian help.” As if this were some breakthrough moment. The Times followed up with a headline yesterday that the meeting request and subject matter discussed in the prior story were transmitted to Trump Jr. via an email. Holy cow. The Times is so desperate to move the story that the meeting’s arrangement over email is being made into Page 1 news. You would have thought it had come through a dead drop under a bridge somewhere.

And, of course, CNN has been apoplectic in its breathless coverage, running one story after another about this “development” on the air and online. But Politico takes the prize for the most over-the-top, made-up news, claiming that Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting could amount to a crime.

As I have written before, there are always people hovering around campaigns trying to peddle information and traffic in supposed silver bullets. There should be nothing to report on when a private citizen who works at a campaign takes a meeting with a friend of a friend offering information about an opponent. And yet, the media wants to make it a smoking gun.

If taking meetings with such people is a crime, then I hope there is a statute of limitations — because I would have been a repeat offender.

Don’t get me wrong. Trump Jr. should not have taken the meeting. These offers of information on the down-low are greeted with eye-rolling, and red flags are almost always clearly visible. No senior campaign official, much less a family member of the candidate, should take such a meeting.

Having the meeting was a rookie, amateur mistake. Between human curiosity and a campaign professional’s duty to get the dirt when you can, Trump Jr. likely felt that the person had to be heard. In a normal case, the meeting should have been handed off to a lackey. Said lackey would have then reported the scoop — or lack thereof — and awaited further instruction.

However, after seeing today’s email exchange dump from Trump Jr., it is easy to see that the meeting should have never happened. Period.

I double down on the idea that this meeting was a rookie, amateur mistake. Even the lackey should not have taken this meeting. It was bad judgment, but not collaboration with the Russians.

Just imagine: Trump Jr. is sitting there when he gets an email — from a music promoter — screaming with red flags and some comical language (does Russia even have a “Crown prosecutor”?) and he takes the bait. Wince! Anybody should have known better.

From the fever swamps of the Left, the unsubstantiated, over-the-top Russian electoral collusion conspiracy theory now includes President Trump’s son who now stands accused of a 20-minute meeting with a Russian lawyer who allegedly has Kremlin ties.

This is merely the latest part of the Left’s rolling coup attempt against President Trump.

According to the New York Times, Natalia Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr. at the Trump Tower in Manhattan in June last year after his father had secured enough delegates to win the GOP presidential nomination. She got the meeting by claiming she had dirt on Democrat presidential contender Hillary Clinton.

The newspaper breathlessly added in a separate report that young Trump was sent an email by acquaintance Rob Goldstone cautioning that “the Russian government was the source of the potentially damaging information.” The paper acknowledged the email “does not elaborate on the wider effort by Moscow to help the Trump campaign.”

Nor is it clear if Trump Jr. read the email. Of course, the sources to the New York Times are not named. The newspaper adds:

There is no evidence to suggest that the promised damaging information was related to Russian government computer hacking that led to the release of thousands of Democratic National Committee emails. The meeting took place less than a week before it was widely reported that Russian hackers had infiltrated the committee’s servers.

The meeting was set up by Rob Goldstone, a music publicist, the Washington Post reports. Goldstone is involved with the Miss Universe pageant and manages Russian pop star Emin Agalarov.

“President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.”

Then-campaign manager Paul Manafort and presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, reportedly had a meeting with Veselnitskaya who has ties somehow to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

That’s it. A so-called scoop in journalistic parlance.

The Trump campaign apparently did nothing but listen to the woman.

Donald Trump Jr. now says the woman’s offer of opposition research on Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton and other Democrats was a ruse.

“After pleasantries were exchanged, the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton,” Trump Jr. told the Times. “Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”

As Michael Walsh observes at the New York Post:

The real reason, it seems, was that Veselnitskaya wanted to lobby for the repeal of the Magnitsky Act, an Obama-era law that allows the US to deny visas to Russians thought guilty of human rights violations. In retaliation, the Russians promptly ended the adoption of Russian orphans by Americans.

When CNN brought in Jeff Zucker, it wasn’t for his journalistic acumen. Zucker was best known for his work on the Today Show. After billions in losses at NBC, his new Comcast bosses wanted him gone.

CNN and Zucker were perfect for each other. Both were sinking ships looking for an easy way out.

Zucker’s plan for CNN was simple. Get out of the news business.

Or as he put it, “news is how you define it.” Fake, real; it’s all a matter of definition. And Zucker was going to “broaden” the definition of what news is. And the definition was reality shows.

CNN was going to edge away from the news business under its new boss of fake reality television.

Zucker’s plan made sense at the time. MSNBC had the lefty demographic locked up and FOX News spoke to the right. CNN wasn’t going to compete with them. And it wasn’t going to do “vanilla” reporting. Instead it would jump into the reality dogpile. Food shows. Edgy documentaries. “More shows and less newscasts.” If there had to be news, Zucker wanted it to have an “an attitude and a take.”

Before President Trump called out CNN as fake news, its new boss had already turned it into fake news.

But that was a different world. Obama was in the White House. Hillary was going to succeed him. Nothing interesting was going to happen in the world of politics. CNN could just focus on infotainment.

And then Trump emerged and everything changed. Suddenly CNN was going to have to do news again and Zucker, the gimmick guy who had bet big on reality shows on NBC and then on CNN, was completely out of his depth. He understood entertainment, but he didn’t have the faintest clue about journalism.

In the summer of ’16, he had ridiculed BuzzFeed as not being a real news organization. That gave BuzzFeed a whole lot in common with CNN. By October, he had hired on Andrew Kaczynski and his BuzzFeed team of trolls. And it’s that team of trolls that is now at the center of CNN’s latest scandal.

CNN had already lost 3 reporters from its investigative unit over a fake news Trump-Russia hit piece. Instead of enmeshing President Trump in scandals, its investigative unit is deeply enmeshed in scandal.

Zucker was not a journalism guy, but he understood numbers. He lived and died by them. His philosophy at CNN was to stay on anything that its viewers were watching whether it was a missing Malaysian plane or Trump. CNN’s old strategy of “flooding the zone” with meaningless non-coverage of a breaking event was merged with Zucker’s own preference for reality television to create a constant coverage circus.

Hiring a ton of reporters from across the spectrum, from a New York Times Pulitzer Prize winner to the BuzzFeed trolls, would flood the zone with Trump scandals. CNN would have the most Trump scandals and the most viewers. It was a great strategy for manufacturing a whole bunch of fake news scandals.

“Wow. CNN had to retract big story on ‘Russia,’ with three employees forced to resign. What about all the other phony stories they do?” (tweet from President Trump, June 27.)

Start with practically everything from CNN’s Havana Bureau for the past twenty years, Mr President. But don’t take it from me. Take it from the mass-murdering terror-sponsors who graciously bestowed CNN their platform to spread communist propaganda:

“Propaganda is vital—propaganda is the heart of our struggle.” (Fidel Castro.)

“Much more valuable than rural recruits for our Cuban guerrilla force were American media recruits to export our propaganda.” (Ernesto “Che” Guevara.)

“Fidel Castro is one hell of a guy!” Ted Turner gushed to a capacity crowd at Harvard Law School during a speech in 1997. “You people would like him! Most people in Cuba like him.”

Within weeks CNN was granted its coveted Havana Bureau, the first ever granted by Castro to a foreign network. Though Tuner officially relinquished his vice chairmanship of (CNN parent) Time-Warner in 2003, the network’s role as subsidiary of the Castro regime’s propaganda ministry remains as shameless as ever—a “shining” legacy!

A genuine (but hopelessly naive) Spanish reporter who took his job title seriously and (very foolishly) attempted to practice his profession in the Castro-Family-Fiefdom, explains the issue very succinctly:

“The Castro regime assigns 20 security agents to follow and monitor every foreign journalist. You play the regime’s game and practice self–censorship or you’re gone.” (Vicente Botin, reporter for Madrid’s El Pais who was promptly booted from Cuba for refusing to play the same sniveling, cowardly game as CNN’s cuckholded –perhaps even black-mailed–“reporters” play every time they file a “story” from Cuba.)

Retired U.S counter-intelligence officer Chris Simmons also explains the issue: “The vetting procedure starts the minute the (Cuban) regime receives a visa application,” says the man long-regarded as America’s top Cuba spycatcher. “When those smiling Cuban “guides” greet you at the airport they know plenty about you, and from several angles.” (Chris Simmons, the Defense Intelligence Agency’s top Cuban spycatcher, now retired.)

In brief, you’re not getting and keeping a Cuban journalist visa (much less a Havana Bureau) unless you shamelessly (and genuinely) collude with Cuba’s KGB-founded and mentored ministry of propaganda. This isn’t rocket science, amigos.

According to a recent story where CNN’s Havana-based reporter Patrick Oppmann (SURPRISE!) bemoans President Trump’s proposed Cuba policy, Uncle Sam has no better, more honorable or more trustworthy friend in the war on drugs than the Castro family, those noble purifiers of Cuban society–because according to CNN’s Oppmann:

“Cuban officials told CNN that, despite political differences with the United States, they have provided key intelligence to help capture smugglers,” among many other heart-warming modes of selfless cooperation.

Let’s have a look at some of the fruits of this co-operation, shall we. (please carefully note the dates.)

News reports claiming that 44 states have refused President Trump’s Election Integrity Commission’s request for voter data are “fake news,” the vice chairman of the commission declared on Wednesday.

In a statement released by the White House, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said only fourteen states have actually refused thus far.

“At present, 20 states have agreed to provide the publicly available information requested by the Commission and another 16 states are reviewing which information can be released under their state laws,” Kobach wrote. “In all, 36 states have either agreed or are considering participating with the Commission’s work to ensure the integrity of the American electoral system.” The vice chairman concluded:

While there are news reports that 44 states have “refused” to provide voter information to the Commission, these reports are patently false, more “fake news.” At present, only 14 states and the District of Columbia have refused the Commission’s request for publicly available voter information. Despite media distortions and obstruction by a handful of state politicians, this bipartisan commission on election integrity will continue its work to gather the facts through public records requests to ensure the integrity of each American’s vote because the public has a right to know.

News outlets that made the “44 states” false claim include CNN, NBC, The Week, Forbes, Vox, NY Daily News, Mic, CBS, and Yahoo.

On CNN’s “New Day” Wednesday morning, co-host Chris Cuomo said that Trump’s allegation of voter fraud is “B.S.”:

“Is there a second line to this story in terms of what this commission is about other than the obvious, which is trying to put meat on the bones of a B.S. allegation?”

CNN Political Commentator Errol Louis agreed, saying it is worse than that. The real objective of the administration’s voter fraud commission is voter suppression.

After the election Trump claimed that he would have won the popular vote if “the millions of people who voted illegally” were deducted.

Democrats really want that to be a “B.S. allegation.” But is it? From NewsBusters:

The Daily Signal has reported on the many cases of voter fraud and other studies have found that there are potentially large amounts of noncitizens registered to vote.

An Old Dominion University study found that noncitizen voting “is at times substantial enough to change important election outcomes including Electoral College votes and Senate races.” As Tom Fitton points out, using this study’s math, 1.41 million noncitizens would have voted in 2016.

The Pew Center’s 2012 election survey found that:

“Approximately 24 million—one of every eight—voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate.”

“More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as active voters.”

“Approximately 2.75 million people have active registrations in more than one state.”

Additionally, as the Washington Times reports, investigations in Maryland and Virgina have found thousands of aliens registered to vote.