RUTHFULLY YOURS

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.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/portlands-antifa-impunity-11564348707

Portland, Ore., thinks of itself as a tolerant progressive city. Yet four weeks after a left-wing mob severely beat journalist Andy Ngo, there have been no arrests or charges for the assault.

Mr. Ngo was battered on June 29 as he reported on dueling protests. One demonstration included the far-right Proud Boys, and the counterprotest featured leftist groups associated with the extremist Antifa movement. Mr. Ngo has been a critic of Antifa’s militant tactics and its failure to disavow violence and vandalism, and that made him a target. Video footage shows Mr. Ngo being punched and kicked by people in black attire including hoodies and face masks, Antifa’s preferred uniform.

Mr. Ngo was hospitalized for his injuries, which included a brain bleed. A month later he’s still experiencing complications. Mr. Ngo says he sometimes has trouble finishing sentences or remembering common words, and he’s shown symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. He’s undergoing neurophysical and speech therapy, including for a cognitive communication deficit.

The assault “was brief, but it did end up being really traumatic,” he says. Mr. Ngo adds that far-left activists also spread his home address online, and he has continued to receive threats.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/07/the-olc-guidance-against-indicting-a-sitting-president/

After Mueller, it is worth another look at its role in the report and its fallout.

T his is Part Two of a two-part series. In Part One, we took a look at the OLC guidance that bars the indictment of a sitting president. (The OLC is the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.) In particular, we looked at (a) how, in investigating President Trump for purported obstruction, special counsel Robert Mueller’s staff distorted the guidance into a prohibition against even considering whether an offense occurred; and (b) the futile hope of congressional Democrats, during Wednesday’s hearings, that Mueller would contradict his final report on this point.

In Part Two, we explore why Mueller’s staff of very able lawyers, many of them activist Democrats, twisted the OLC guidance. (Spoiler: Their priority was to get their evidence to Congress, intact and as quickly as possible, in hopes of fueling an impeachment drive, or at least damaging Trump politically.) We also analyze how attorney general Bill Barr deftly dealt with the Mueller staff’s gamesmanship.

As we observed at the end of Part One, Mueller’s report makes the whopper of the claim that prosecutors construed to OLC guidance to forbid them to make a charging decision on obstruction because they were trying to protect President Trump.

How’s that?

Well, Justice Department protocols prohibit prosecutors from prejudicing suspects by publicizing the evidence against them unless and until they are formally charged. The idea is that the government must refrain from speaking until it files an indictment. For at that point, the person becomes an “accused” under the Constitution, vested with all the due process guarantees our law provides: assistance of counsel, confrontation of witnesses, subpoena power — the full array of rights to challenge the government’s indictment.

https://www.steynonline.com/columns-essays
Not sure it’s possible to tally up how many times special counsel Robert Mueller claimed he couldn’t say, wouldn’t say or simply didn’t know during his testimony yesterday before congress. Odd that a guy who’s supposedly been looking under every rock and behind every door for evidence of Russian collusion now sees everything as “outside of my purview.”

Front and center during the testimony, in particular during Republican congressman Jim Jordan’s questioning of Mueller, was the role of Maltese “professor” Joseph Mifsud, who disappeared from public view in 2017. Of course, Mueller couldn’t get into it.

Mifsud’s part in all this is also central to what happened to George Papadopoulos, whom Mark interviewed earlier this year.

Given the renewed relevance of the Papadopoulos affair, we’re also making the transcript of Part 1 of the interview available below to all our readers.

Transcript:

Mark: Hey welcome along and my guest today is the author of the book, Deep State Target, the subtitle’s worth reading too: How I got caught in the crosshairs of the plot to bring down President Trump.

And if you watch a lot of the media, read a lot of the big mainstream newspapers you’ll be thinking “Hey that’s crazy talk.” And what makes this book such a great read is because most of us would think that was just crazy talk until the slow dawning realization that we’re in the middle of a terrible setup.

My guest today is the man who was at the center of that setup, George Papadopoulos. George is an ex-convict; he’s actually served time in jail for a phony baloney non-crime, the crime of misremembering to the FBI, which in fact should not exist as any crime at all. When they can’t get you on anything they get you on misremembering and as a result George went to jail for a fortnight but he got two days off for good behavior so he was out in 12 days and we are thrilled to have him with us.

George I’d like to ask you because basically it’s because of your involvement with the Trump campaign that all this happened to you and you were very unusual because you were working at a Washington think tank and you saw Donald Trump come down that escalator at Trump Tower in June 2015 and unlike a lot a swamp dwellers you were pro-Trump from that first appearance, correct?