RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2019/07/30/why_the_mystery_of_joseph_mifsud_is_the_mystery_of_russiagate_119761.html

For many, trying to follow Robert Mueller’s testimony was like someone whose Italian is limited to grazie and ciao taking in an opera in Venice: You might grasp the action but sorting out the story through the lyrics is another thing altogether.

The former special counsel was peppered with questions phrased in a shorthand of names – Veselnitskaya, Simpson, Kilimnik – each with a backstory it was assumed viewers, or at least the witness, would know. One of the most significant and dramatic – but also cryptic – exchanges occurred when Rep. Jim Jordan (R, Ohio) fired off a series of heated questions about a name few viewers are likely to have been familiar with: a Maltese professor invariably described as “mysterious,” Joseph Mifsud.

Rep. Jim Jordan on Joseph Mifsud, top photo: “Three times, he lied to the FBI; yet, you didn’t charge him with a crime. Why not?”
AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Jordan began: The “FBI interviewed Joseph Mifsud on February 10th, 2017. In that interview, Mr. Mifsud lied. You point this out on page 193, Volume I. Three times, he lied to the FBI; yet, you didn’t charge him with a crime. Why not?”

Mueller was still looking for the page in his binder: “Did you say — I’m sorry, did you say 193?”

“Volume I, 193,” Jordan repeated impatiently. “He [Mifsud] lied three times, you point it out in the report, why didn’t you charge him with a crime?”

Mueller found his footing: “I can’t get into internal deliberations with regard to who or who would not be charged.”

https://amgreatness.com/2019/07/29/trump-speaks-the-politically-incorrect-truth/

In an otherwise slow news week, President Trump again commanded national attention. Using his preferred medium of Twitter, he exposed the hypocrisy of major Democrats, who wax poetic about the poor people on the border, even as their own districts persist in crime and decrepitude. 

Unlike almost all of his predecessors, Trump is not afraid to counterattack his critics, nor is he cowed into silence by unfair claims that attacking his nonwhite critics is automatically racist.

Representative Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who has been a frequent critic of President Trump, was in the crosshairs of the latest tweetstorm, in which Trump pointed out the appalling conditions in Cummings’ Baltimore district.

“Elijah Cummings spends all of his time trying to hurt innocent people through ‘Oversight,’” Trump said. “He does NOTHING for his very poor, very dangerous and very badly run district!” As with his “go back” attack on “the squad” several weeks ago, Trump’s latest remarks evoked feigned surprise and horror. It also prompted a fact-free defense of conditions in Baltimore (reminiscent of the defense of squalid Haiti last year) and, of course, many said this his observations were simply racist.

Many American Cities are Hell-Holes
Trump said something that everyone who has spent any time in America’s cities knows. Many of them are poor, dirty, badly governed, and dangerous—often the worst conditions are in black neighborhoods and majority-minority cities. These combined phenomena create a feedback of “white flight” and capital flight, as businesses, the tax base, and the middle class flee. Over the years, things have only gotten worse.

These majority-minority districts frequently elect useless demagogues, who deliver little, other than the rhetoric of flattery and blame. Cummings and his colleagues Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) are all archetypal cases. Not infrequently, extensive corruption is the handmaiden of these politicians—Detroit’s Kwame Kilpatrick comes to mind. Trump’s message in recent weeks is straightforward: those who purport to represent these poor and desperate people provide little in the way of good government or service to them.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/07/29/democrats-attack-machine-revs-up-against-ratcliffe/

Twenty minutes before President Trump announced Sunday afternoon on Twitter that Representative John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) would be his choice to replace Dan Coats as the director of national intelligence, the Democrats’ attack machine already was in action.

“John Ratcliffe, by one measure the second most conservative member of Congress, appears to believe that the Russia investigation was cooked up by Democrats who ‘committed crimes.’ Now Trump reportedly is considering placing atop the US intelligence community,” tweeted NBC News analyst Ken Dilanian, pejoratively known as “Fusion Ken” for his ties to the infamous opposition research shop, Fusion GPS.

(Take note of Dilanian’s scare quotes around “committed crimes” as if the whole thing was legit and not under criminal investigation by a U.S. attorney or a separate probe by the Justice Department inspector general.)

Trump then confirmed the pick on Twitter, saying Ratcliffe will “lead and inspire greatness for the Country he loves.”

Ratcliffe, a member of both the House Intelligence and House Judiciary committees, earned plaudits last week during the disastrous Robert Mueller hearings for his verbal vivisection of Mueller’s claims about not exonerating Donald Trump on alleged obstruction of justice offenses.

“The special counsel’s job, nowhere does it say that you were to conclusively determine Donald Trump’s innocence,” Ratcliffe told the bewildered prosecutor. “It’s not in any of the documents, it’s not in your appointment order, it’s not in the special counsel regulations, it’s not in the OLC opinions, it’s not in Department of Justice manual.”

Pointing out that the president, like any other American, is entitled to a presumption of innocence immediately caused the Left to brand Ratcliffe a Trump shill, lackey and suck-up.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274468/finally-american-president-stands-sharpton-john-perazzo

Al Sharpton has been in the public limelight for just over 30 years – ever since he first burst upon the scene by promoting the fake story of a white-on-black gang rape in upstate New York in 1987. But not until now has America had a president with enough courage to tell the nation exactly what Sharpton is: “Al is a con man, a troublemaker, always looking for a score,” said Donald Trump on Monday.  In response, Sharpton did the only thing he’s ever really learned how to do: He accused the president of harboring “a particular venom for blacks and people of color.” What a surprise. “Trump says I’m a troublemaker & con man,” Sharpton added. “I do make trouble for bigots.”

Let’s take a brief look at some of the career highlights of this self-anointed “troublemaker for bigots” shall we?

Supporting a Communist Front and Angela Davis

The February 9, 1971 edition of the Communist Party USA newspaper Daily World, noted that Sharpton had recently addressed a White Plains, New York rally in support of a CPUSA front group called The Committee to Free Angela Davis. At that time, the Marxist revolutionary Davis was in prison for her role in abetting the murder of a California judge.

Sharpton Praises the Marxist Holiday, Kwanzaa

On December 24, 1971, the New York Times quoted Sharpton praising Kwanzaa, the race-centered winter holiday that had been recently established by Maulana Karenga, a Marxist black nationalist who had once been arrested for assaulting and torturing two women. The philosophy underlying Kwanzaa is known as Kawaida, a variation of classical Marxism that also includes enmity toward white people. Practitioners of Kawaida believe that one’s racial identity “determines life conditions, life chances, and self-understanding” — just as Marxists identify class as the determining factor of one’s life conditions.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-cummings-pelosi-and-baltimore-11564433687

“For example, a Member of Congress named Elijah Cummings said at a House subcommittee hearing in June of 1999: “I live in a drug-infested neighborhood. I know people who have been trying to get treatment for years.” Rep. Cummings elaborated on the horrific conditions in Baltimore:

I’ve known… little girls who I’ve watched grow up from babies and they’re selling their bodies for $5, at 14 years old. I see them everyday. I know the pain of coming home and seeing my home ransacked. My car broken into. Because people are in so much pain they don’t even know they’re in pain…”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosisuggests that President Trump is launching “racist attacks” when he points out the mess Democrats have made of Baltimore. At some point Democrats may have to explain why the city they’ve been running since her brother became mayor in the 1960s consistently fails to protect public safety.

This latest ugly Beltway argument began after Rep. Elijah Cummings (D., Md.), who has represented part of Baltimore for 22 years in the House, berated the acting head of the Department of Homeland Security for the condition of illegal immigrants detained by the Border Patrol. In a series of tweets last week, Mr. Trump compared U.S. border facilities favorably with Mr. Cummings’ congressional district, which the President called “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” Mr. Trump added that if Rep. Cummings “spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place.”

It certainly is dangerous. Mr. Cummings’ ideological allies at New York University’s Brennan Center recently issued a report on violent crime last year in the nation’s 30 largest cities. Citing data from the Baltimore Police Department, the liberal Brennan crew reports that Baltimore has by far the highest murder rate of any of the 26 big cities for which 2018 data are available. Despite a decline in murders since Baltimore’s horrific 2017, Brennan reports that Baltimore’s 50.7 murders per 100,000 people add up to more than ten times the rate in New York City or San Diego.

The Brennan report makes the understatement of the year in calling Baltimore a “city that continues to struggle with violence.” And President Trump isn’t the only person who has noticed this tragic situation. Some people have been raising the alarm for years.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/07/robert-muellers-feet-of-clay/

If your knowledge of the Robert Mueller fiasco in the United States is informed by any news service in Australia then you are ignorant of the facts. Therefore, let me give you the unvarnished facts as I see them.

First fact: Donald Trump is the most innocent politician in the world. How do I know this, you might ask? Nineteen, Hillary-loving, radical Democrat activists with law degrees, posing as impartial lawyers, investigated the heck out of him for two years on an unlimited budget and with the power to coerce witnesses, to threaten their families, to financially ruin them and to jail them. And yet they came up with squat. There is no other politician in the world who would have survived this kind of inquisition. None. Hence my conclusion that Trump is cleaner than Mother Teresa.

Second fact: Mueller had nothing to do with his own probe. He was titular. He came in each day to have coffee and engage in sheltered-workshop activities. Andrew Weissmann led the probe. He was the de facto Special Counsel. He hired all of the conflicted activists to assist him. He oversaw the writing of the report and the public statement that Mueller made after the report came out; sensibly instructing the doddery Mueller to take no questions about the report of which he had only passing acquaintance.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/07/trump_to_nominate_rep_john_ratcliffe_to_replace_dan_coats_as_director_of_national_intelligence.html

The appointment of a former US Attorney, who is also a master of the details of the attempted plot to oust Trump, signals that the “investigate the investigators” phase of the biggest political scandal in history is moving into high gear.

Jonathan Swan of Axios published a scoop, now confirmed by presidential tweet, that Rep. John Ratcliffe will be nominated to replace Dan Coast as the Director of National Intelligence. This almost certainly means that the “investigate the investigators” phase of the biggest political scandal in American history is going to get very serious, with the intelligence community cooperating rather than stonewalling.

Two guys who like each other. A lot.

Ratcliffe has deeply impressed me with his questioning of witnesses and comments on television interviews. He is right up there with Devin Nunes in terms of his mastery of the details of the plot.

Swan writes:

President Trump announced on Twitter Sunday that he will nominate Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) to replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence, confirming Axios’ earlier reporting that Ratcliffe was favored for the job. Coats will leave office on August 15.

Behind the scenes: Trump was thrilled by Ratcliffe’s admonishment of former special counsel Robert Mueller in last week’s House Judiciary Committee hearing. “The special counsel’s job, nowhere does it say that you were to conclusively determine Donald Trump’s innocence or that the special counsel report should determine whether or not to exonerate him,” Ratcliffe, a former prosecutor, said to Mueller.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/29/condemning-reverend-al-sharpton/

The text of this resolution, sponsored by Joe Scarborough, was introduced 03/08/2000.

Whereas the Congress strongly rejects the racist and incendiary actions of the Reverend Al Sharpton;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as “bloodsucking [J]ews”, and “Jew bastards”;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has referred to members of the Jewish faith as “white interlopers” and “diamond merchants”;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton was found guilty of defamation by a jury in a New York court arising from the false accusation that former Assistant District Attorney Steven Pagones, who is white, raped and assaulted a fifteen year-old black girl;

Whereas, to this day, the Reverend Al Sharpton has refused to accept responsibility and expresses no regret for defaming Mr. Pagones;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton’s vicious verbal anti-Semitic attacks directed at members of the Jewish faith, and in particular, a Jewish landlord, arising from a simple landlord-tenant dispute with a black tenant, incited widespread violence, riots, and the murder of five innocent people;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton’s fierce demagoguery incited violence, riots, and murder in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York, following the accidental death of a black pedestrian child hit by the motorcade of Orthodox Rabbi Menachem Schneerson;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton led a protest in the Crown Heights neighborhood and marched next to a protester with a sign that read, “The White Man is the Devil”;

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has insulted members of the Jewish faith by challenging Jews to violence and stating to Jews to “pin down” their yarmulkes; and

Whereas the Reverend Al Sharpton has practiced the politics of racial division and made inflammatory remarks against whites by characterizing the death
of Amadou Diallo as a “racially motivated police `assassination”:

Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That the Congress–

(1) condemns the practices of the Reverend Al Sharpton, which seek to divide Americans on the basis of race, ethnicity, and religion;

(2) expresses its outrage over the violence that has resulted due to the Reverend Al Sharpton’s incendiary words and actions; and

(3) fervently urges elected officials and public servants, who have condoned and legitimized the Reverend Al Sharpton’s incendiary words and actions, to publicly denounce and condemn such racist and anti-Semitic views.

(Hat tip @ReaganBattalion)

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/07/29/trumps-attack-on-baltimore-doesnt-go-far-enough/

Say what you want about President Trump’s Twitter habits, he has a way of suddenly bringing an issue to the surface that people have long known about, but never wanted to confront. The only problem with his latest tweetstorm about Baltimore is that he hasn’t gone far enough.

On Friday, Trump attacked Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, who had been complaining about conditions at the border, by saying “his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous.” Trump called it “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”

He’s right about the rats. Last year, the pest-control service Orkin rated Baltimore as one of the “rattiest cities,“ behind Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Cleveland.

Naturally, Trump’s tweets are being labeled as racist. Never mind that Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders was saying far worse things about the city a few years ago, when he said that when you go to west Baltimore you “would think you were in a Third World country.” 

Trump, meanwhile, extended his attack to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home town of San Francisco. 

He should widen his lens even further. 

Take a look at the eight other cities that beat Baltimore on Orkin’s rattiest cities list. What do they all have in common? We’ll, let’s see:

Chicago hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1931. Philadelphia last saw a Republican mayor in 1952, Detroit in 1962. San Francisco has been Democrat-controlled since 1964. Washington, D.C., has never had a Republican mayor.

In Los Angeles, Democrats have run the city in all but eight of the past 58 years, in New York, it’s eight in the past 74 (not counting John Lindsay, who switched parties while in office). Cleveland’s been run by Democrats in all but 16 of the past 78 years.

https://nypost.com/2019/07/28/trump-is-right-about-baltimore-and-the-democrats-know-it/

“The operative rule in politics these days seems to be that any criticism of a non-white politician from anywhere to their right is, by definition, a racist attack. Nothing Trump said pertained in any way to Elijah Cummings’s skin color or ethnicity, only to his failure as a legislator and political leader to do anything to improve his district. The real question is: Is he right?”

President Trump blistered Representative Elijah Cummings on Twitter, calling out the chairman of the House Oversight committee for raising the hue and cry over conditions on the Mexican border, “when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA.” Trump went on to describe Cummings’s West Baltimore constituency as “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place.”

Predictably, the Left—including most of cable news—rushed to condemn Trump as a racist. Speaker Nancy Pelosi — whose father was once mayor of Baltimore — called Cummings “a beloved leader in Baltimore, and deeply valued colleague. We all reject racist attacks against him and support his steadfast leadership.” Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted, “Donald Trump’s tweets are ugly and racist.” Beto O’Rourke called him “the most openly racist president we’ve had in modern history.” Senator Bernie Sanders chimed in, too.