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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Tehran Threatens a Think Tank The regime targets a U.S. group for opposing the 2015 nuclear deal.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/tehran-threatens-a-think-tank-11567205715

As Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif negotiates with Europe to keep the 2015 nuclear deal alive, he sells the Islamic Republic as a normal government wronged by a rogue Trump Administration. This is a sham, and Tehran has proved it again by targeting an American think tank for retribution.

Last week the Iranian Foreign Ministry accused the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and CEO Mark Dubowitz of “economic terrorism” and “actively trying to harm the Iranian people’s security and vital interests.” Tehran claimed that the independent think tank “is in fact the designing and executing arm of the U.S. administration.”

As Mr. Dubowitz wrote Friday on these pages, “according to the law cited against us, Mr. Zarif has already coordinated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] and Iran’s Intelligence Ministry in developing sanctions against FDD.”

The regime’s apologists draw a false equivalence between these sanctions and U.S. restrictions placed against Iranian officials and the IRGC. But producing research, lobbying lawmakers and educating the public is not the same as spreading terrorism around the Middle East. FDD has been an important critic of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but the group’s only influence is with ideas.

Trial of Accused 9/11 Masterminds Set for 2021 By Mairead McArdle

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trial-of-accused-9-11-masterminds-set-for-2021/

The trial of five men charged with planning the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 will begin in 2021, a military judge ruled Friday.

The selection of a military jury for the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four others accused of planning the attacks will commence on January 11, 2021, the judge in the case, Air Force colonel W. Shane Cohen, said in a ten-page trial-scheduling order. Cohen has also ordered prosecutors to provide certain materials to the defense teams by October 1 in an effort to start the trial by the scheduled date. The trial will take place at the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay.

 

The five men are accused of masterminding and orchestrating the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in which terrorists hijacked commercial airliners and crashed them into New York City’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. A third hijacked aircraft was downed by passengers in a field in Pennsylvania en route to its target. All told, the attacks killed 2,996 people and injured over 6,000 more.

Mohammed, the Pakistani al-Qaeda leader named “the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks” in the 9/11 Commission Report, is charged with a slew of crimes involving terrorism, hijacking aircraft, and murder in violation of the laws of war. He was arraigned along with the other four men in this case on May 5, 2012 at Guantánamo.

Former Canadian PM Openly Roots for Destruction of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago During Storm By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/trending/former-canadian-pm-openly-roots-for-destruction-of-trumps-mar-a-lago-during-storm/

Whoever said Canadians were nicer than Americans?

Former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell, who served for 5 months in 1993, let loose her inner Freddie Krueger when she daydreamed about the horrific destruction that could very well be visited on Florida during Hurricane Dorian.

New York Post:

“I’m rooting for a direct hit on Mar a Lago!” Campbell, who served as the 19th Canadian prime minister for less than five months in 1993,  tweeted on Thursday.

Dorian could become a Category 5 hurricane by the time it makes landfall Monday — with current projections indicating that the Palm Beach property remains in the “cone of uncertainty” about where it strikes.

Campbell faced backlash for her tweet, with many calling it “embarrassing” and “disgusting,” but she doubled down on her wish and told critics to “get a grip.”

Her critics “get a grip”? What kind of subhuman piece of flotsam wishes destruction anywhere? No doubt Campbell enjoyed pulling the wings off of flies as a child.

New report details Comey plan to ambush Trump with Moscow sex allegation by Byron York

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/new-report-details-comey-plan-to-ambush-trump-with-moscow-sex-allegation

A just-released Justice Department inspector general’s report provides new details on a January 2017 plan by then-FBI Director James Comey, top bureau officials, and the nation’s intelligence chiefs to spring a scandalous allegation on President-elect Trump, quickly record his reaction, use a prearranged secure videoconference to discuss the information, and fit it all into the FBI’s ongoing (but unknown to Trump) “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation.

The allegation came from the Steele dossier, the collection of unverified tales about Trump and Russia compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. The story was that in a Moscow hotel room in 2013, Trump had watched as prostitutes performed a kinky sex act — and Russian intelligence service cameras rolled. This is what the Steele dossier said:

TRUMP’s (perverted) conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he knew President and Mrs. OBAMA (whom he hated) had stayed on one of their official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a ‘golden showers’ (urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSB control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to.

James Comey wants an apology? This is myth becoming madness By Jonathan Turley,

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/459320-james-comey-wants-an-apology-this-is-myth-becoming-madness

Two years ago, former FBI Director James Comey came out with a book that celebrated himself as a paragon of “ethical leadership,” a subject that he later taught at the College of William and Mary. Comey declared, “Ethical leaders lead by seeing above the short term, above the urgent or the partisan, and with a higher loyalty to lasting values, most importantly the truth.” If that is the case, the new Justice Department inspector general report released on Thursday establishes that Comey is the very antithesis of the ethical leader he described. Comey was found to have violated both federal law and regulations for his own gain, and he made critical decisions that put personal over institutional interests.

Nevertheless, Comey released a statement portraying the scathing report as a type of victory and encouraged his critics to send their apologies to him. It was a “Captain Queeg” moment when myth borders on madness. Rather than rave about who stole his strawberries, as Queeg did in “The Caine Mutiny,” Comey claims someone stole a reputation that he tossed away two years ago. The report states that Comey not only knowingly violated rules governing all FBI employees, but his decisions “set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees.”

It details how Comey removed FBI memoranda and then used his friend, Columbia Law School professor Daniel Richman, to leak the contents of one memo to The New York Times. Several of the memos were later found to contain privileged, sensitive or classified information. The FBI seized the memos and had to “scrub” the computer of Richman to remove the unauthorized material provided by Comey. The report also says Comey later acknowledged that some of the classifications were “reasonable.”

Why Is The FBI Obstructing The Release Of James Comey’s Memos?By Adam Mill

https://thefederalist.com/2019/08/30/fbi-obstructing-release-james-comeys-memos/

Whatever harm releasing these memos might cause to the FBI’s crime-fighting ability is surely offset by the lack of accountability for one of the most controversial episodes in its history.

On August 27, the FBI scored another temporary victory to maintain the secrecy of the James Comey memos. It convinced a federal judge to delay his own order and has again thwarted the Freedom of Information Act passed by Congress to force government agencies to account to the voting public.

Former FBI director Comey is gone, and nobody within the government should be trying to protect him. Because of his recklessness, the nation is still grappling the aftermath of the most serious constitutional crisis of recent memory.

Why is the FBI obstructing the release of its disgraced former director’s memos? As they say, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Whatever harm releasing these memos might cause to the FBI’s legitimate crime-fighting ability is surely offset by the lack of accountability for one of the most controversial episodes in the bureau’s history. The public must know that the FBI is not operating as a government unto itself.

Trump Was Always the Target of the Russia Investigation By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/trump-was-always-the-target-of-the-russia-investigation/

The IG report confirms it.

Donald Trump was always the target.

The point of the Russia investigation was to make a case against Donald Trump. Preferably, the case would drive him from office. At a minimum, it would render him unelectable by the 2020 stretch run. The kind of case was less important than the objective: criminal prosecution or impeachment. In accordance with the collusion narrative, the latter would mean trying to show that Trump was compromised by the Kremlin.

That is the astonishing takeaway from Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on former FBI director James Comey’s handling of his memos.

In truth, it’s not that astonishing. It happens to be the theory of my new book, Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency. Obviously, if a book can show that Donald Trump was in the FBI’s crosshairs all along, that fact had to have been knowable for some time.

Still, if you’re going to write a book about a mind-blowing theory, it is gratifying to have that theory confirmed — notwithstanding how alarming it may be for the state of our republic.

It is an offhanded confirmation. The burden of the IG report is not to break news about the true purpose of the Trump-Russia investigation. It is to assess former director Comey’s conduct in generating, maintaining, and disseminating information in the memos he made about most of his interactions with President Trump. On that score, the IG report is scathing.

Jim Comey’s Higher Virtue The righteous former FBI director thinks the rules don’t apply to him.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/jim-comeys-higher-virtue-11567121926

Beware the righteous man with power. That’s the great lesson of James Comey, as the 79-page report released Thursday by the Justice Department Inspector General makes clear. The former FBI director willfully violated multiple rules as he sought revenge against Donald Trump while pursuing his own self-interest in the name of higher virtue.

The report focuses on how Mr. Comey handled seven memos he wrote in 2017 about his interactions with Mr. Trump. IG Michael Horowitz finds that in treating his memos as personal documents rather than official FBI records, improperly storing them at home, failing to inform the bureau he had them, or leaking them to the press, Mr. Comey ignored FBI and Justice protocols and broke his employment agreement.

“By not safeguarding sensitive information” and “by using it to create public pressure for official action,” Mr. Comey “set a dangerous example” for every FBI employee, the IG says. Mr. Comey admitted that he violated the rules to cause the appointment of a special counsel after Mr. Trump fired him in May 2017.

“Comey said he was compelled to take these actions ‘if I love this country . . . and I love the Department of Justice, and I love the FBI,’” the report says. But the IG concludes that if everyone violated the rules “to achieve a personally desired outcome” as Mr. Comey did, “the FBI would be unable to dispatch its law enforcement duties properly.”

Translated from the bureaucratic prose: Mr. Comey thought he was above the rules because he wanted to save the country from Mr. Trump. No doubt J. Edgar Hoover felt a similar afflatus as he wiretapped Martin Luther King.

Sneaky, Leaky James Comey The inspector general takes apart the former FBI director’s excuses for his actions. By Kimberley A. Strassel

https://www.wsj.com/articles/sneaky-leaky-james-comey-11567121062

Of all the tall tales James Comey has told, none compare to the line he fed President Trump at their infamous January 2017 dinner. As recounted in the former Federal Bureau of Investigation director’s memo about that evening, “I said I don’t do sneaky things, I don’t leak, I don’t do weasel moves.”

The Justice Department’s inspector general begs to differ. In a new report about Mr. Comey’s handling of those memos, Michael Horowitz demonstrates that Mr. Comey in 2017 was consistently leaky and sneaky. The report refutes any claim that the then-director was justified in taking these actions. He repeatedly, and knowingly, broke the rules.

For more than two years, we’ve heard Mr. Comey’s characterization of his actions, popularized by an adoring media: He felt compelled to memorialize his private discussions with the president, to protect the FBI. He had no choice but to use an intermediary to leak memo contents, to save the nation by forcing the appointment of a special counsel. He was entitled to do so because the memos were his personal papers, and by that time he was a “private citizen.”

The inspector general calmly and coolly dismantles these claims. There’s good reason to suspect Mr. Trump was the focus of the bureau’s counterintelligence probe from the start, since that is the only way to explain the FBI’s outrageous decision to hide the probe from the president. The inspector general reports that Mr. Comey’s first briefing of the president-elect, on Jan. 6, 2017, was partly done in the hope that “Trump might make statements about, or provide information of value to,” that probe. That may be the real reason everyone on the FBI leadership team agreed “ahead of time that Comey should memorialize” what happened.

Mr. Horowitz’s report methodically skewers Mr. Comey’s claim that his memos were “personal” and therefore his to keep and use.  CONTINUE AT SITE

ADL FAILS TO PROTECT JEWS and HURTS AMERICA

Conference of Jewish Affairs 90 Washington Valley Road, Suite 1261 Bedminster, NJ 07921

(212) 252-6861   conferenceofjewishaffairs@gmail.com

For Immediate Release

Contact: Rabbi Aryeh Spero (212) 252-6861

ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE IS, ONCE AGAIN, FAILING THE JEWISH PEOPLE.

AS ATTACKS AGAINT JEWS IN NY INCREASE IN VIOLENCE AND NUMBER, ADL FAILS TO NAME THOSE GROUPS BEHIND THE ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACKS.

AND TONIGHT… ADL WILL GIVE COVER TO ANTI-SEMITIC, ANTI-ISRAEL CONGRESSWOMAN RASHIDA TLAIB 

BY APPEARING WITH HER AT DEARBORN, MICHIGAN ADL-ENDORSED EVENT:

August 28, 2019 — This past weekend brought another series of dangerous assaults against Jews in Brooklyn, first in Crown Heights and later in Williamsburg. The attacks came on the heels of an already accelerated pace of violent attacks targeting Jews in the New York City area. Police reports indicate that anti-Semitic assaults are up 55% this year, which is atop an already increased rate from the previous years.

All evidence indicates that the bulk of the New York City attacks are coming from members of the Black, Hispanic, and Muslim community. Perhaps that is why the national ADL, under the new leadership of Jonathan Greenblatt, has been relatively silent in identifying and bringing to light these individuals, in contrast to its vociferous and specific condemnation when the perpetrators are labeled by the ADL “right-wing” or “white” individuals. Further, there have been attacks recently against rabbis and others in Berlin, severe physical attacks, by those speaking Arabic or those chanting Allahu Akhbar.

We understand that condemning perpetrators from minority groups that have expressed hostility to Jews is an uncomfortable endeavor for the ADL given its on-going political alliance with many of the leaders of these groups. Acknowledgment of anti-Semitism within these groups runs counter to the ADL template. Nevertheless, the national ADL must be honest by equally spotlighting and condemning perpetrators no matter what their background.

Public condemnation is a vital mechanism in focusing leaders of groups on ostracizing violent members and denouncing bigoted attitudes within their respective community. Ignoring realities and not holding people accountable allows the prejudice to remain.  Having a lower level regional ADL office express alarm or focus simply on hate and intolerance is woefully inadequate, especially now that anti-Semitism coming from prominent segments of those groups has reached a tipping point.

Now, the ADL in the Detroit metro area has signed-on to and endorsed an event against “hate” at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, knowing full well that many of the participants – including Rashida Tlaib — and groups are notoriously anti-Israel and have expressed anti-Jewish feelings. The ADL was willing to partner with these groups in behalf of what it considers a greater concern, namely condemning what it labels hateful to Islamic groups.

Conference of Jewish Affairs believes that the purpose of the ADL, with its budget of over $65 million* a year, should be, as was its historic mission, to prioritize the safety and security of Jews.  Indeed, many groups the ADL calls minorities are no longer minorities in relation to a shrinking Jewish community, which now, population-wise, is far smaller than those groups. Fighting general bigotry and intolerance is very worthwhile, but cannot supersede what should be the ADL’s foremost mission of defending Jews, no matter who their attackers.