RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272289/democrat-appointed-judge-lambastes-flynn-matthew-vadum

A Democrat-appointed federal judge lashed out at former National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn Tuesday, suggesting the defendant was guilty of treason as he postponed the scheduled sentencing for three months.

Meanwhile, The Hill newspaper reports, the judge’s tirade came after two of Flynn’s Turkish associates were indicted:

The Department of Justice indicted Flynn’s two Turkish lobbying business associates on Monday for conspiracy and acting as foreign agents. The indictment spells out in sharp detail how Flynn was paid thousands of dollars to allegedly lobby for the Turkish government through a conduit while he was working for Trump.

Although federal prosecutors say Flynn committed ethical lapses they have long maintained they could not make a successful treason case against Flynn, but grandstanding Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, appointed in 1994 by President Clinton, suggested without evidence that they could have done so.

At a federal courthouse in the nation’s capital Dec. 18 Sullivan pressed prosecutors, asking if what Flynn did rose “to the level of treasonous activity” or if he could be prosecuted under the archaic Logan Act which forbids unauthorized U.S. persons from negotiating with foreign countries. Prosecutors present in the courtroom refused to answer. No one has ever been successfully prosecuted under the Logan Act, which was enacted in 1799.

Flynn has pled guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations he had with the then- Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak during the transition period following the 2016 election and regarding the lobbying he conducted on behalf of Turkey while he worked on the Trump campaign and on the transition.

“I’m not hiding my disgust, my disdain for your criminal offense,” Sullivan told Flynn. “Arguably, you sold your country out. … In the White House! In the West Wing!”

“You were an unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the national security advisor to the president of the United States,” the judge said during his outburst.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/senate-passes-bipartisan-criminal-justice-reform-bill/

It is a first tiny step but real reform must include bail reform- persons awaiting trial fill national jails because they cannot afford bail, and second…a good reform bill must address the problem of jailing mentally ill persons instead of providing supervised shelter elsewhere….rsk

The Senate on Tuesday passed the most significant criminal-justice-reform package in recent decades by an overwhelming and bipartisan margin.

The FIRST STEP Act, which passed the Senate 87-12, aims to reduce mass incarceration and high recidivism rates by expanding the pool of inmates eligible to participate in early-release programs and increasing judicial discretion with respect to sentencing.

Members of the House on both sides of the aisle have vowed to pass the legislative package this week and President Trump has publicly endorsed and pledged to sign it.

The legislation received endorsements from a wide array of political advocacy groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Koch brothers’ Right on Crime, and lawmakers from across the political spectrum.

Despite benefitting from broad bipartisan support, the legislation brought the intra-Republican divide over criminal justice into sharp relief, as hardliners led by senator Tom Cotton (Ark.) accused their fellow Republicans of jeopardizing the public safety by reducing the sentences of violent criminals and major drug traffickers.

Cotton and senator John Kennedy (R., La.) proposed a series of amendments to the bill that reduced the population of inmates eligible for early release, among other amendments, all of which were voted down by a narrow margin Tuesday night.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-flynn-fiasco-11545182606

Well, that was bizarre. We’re referring to the fiasco Tuesday of what was supposed to be the sentencing of Michael Flynn. The sentencing was postponed until next year, but not before federal Judge Emmet Sullivan damaged his own reputation with an extraordinary public attack on the former national security adviser for a crime he’s not been charged with or admitted to.

Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty a year ago to a single count of lying to the FBI. Yet after being assured that the former three-star general is sticking with his plea, Judge Sullivan unloaded on the defendant over his supposed violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA.

“All along, you were an unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the National Security Adviser to the President of the United States. That undermines everything this flag over here stands for. Arguably you sold your country out,” said the judge. He also used the words “treason” and “treasonous.”

But Mr. Mueller has never charged Mr. Flynn with violating FARA, though the former general did represent the government of Turkey before he joined the Trump Administration. A judge isn’t supposed to lose his cool on the bench and berate a defendant for crimes that haven’t been adjudicated in court, much less spread false information.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2018/12/18/who-wants-to-be-a-millionaire-on-mayor-bill-de-blasios-new-york-city-workforce/#38472f3b6a99

How to make $1 million? Spend five years or less on the NYC public employee payroll.

There are 1,400 NYC public employees on pace to clear $1 million in total income over the next five years.

The newest members of the New York City millionaire class aren’t television stars, coaches, quarterbacks, tech entrepreneurs, or even Wall Street financiers. The newest millionaires are blue-collar city employees such as mechanics, plumbers, welders, engineers, oilers, prison and fire captains, tractor operators, and more.

Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com analyzed city payroll data for fiscal year 2017, and found 83,400 employees bringing home $100,000+ incomes. That’s a 10-percent increase from fiscal year 2016.

Search the entire 2017 NYC payroll, click here.

Despite his promise to reform to pay and perquisites, Mayor Bill De Blasio showered the city workforce with billions of dollars in overtime and extra pay. Last year alone, this amounted to $3.2 billion.

Compensation in NYC is more than huge salaries. Last year, 162,000 city workers reaped $2 billion on 34 million hours of overtime. In addition, the city doled out $1.2 billion in extra pay, a category of compensation that includes bonuses, lump sums, allowances, retroactive pay increases, settlement amounts, differentials, and more. Read the mayor’s office’s comment on city overtime, click here.

It’s a citywide problem. We found carpenters nailing down $192,711; plasterers amassing $184,521; and city painters canvasing $168,804. A thermostat repairer can heat his bank account with $213,904.

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/who-is-michelle-obama-read-her-princeton-thesis-and-shell-tell-you/

Michelle Obama raged against the risk of her “integration and/or assimilation into a White cultural and social structure” in her Princeton University thesis. I reviewed this document, remarkable for its rancor as well as for its orthographical dysfunction, during her husband’s first presidential campaign ten years ago. Now that Mrs. Obama has emerged as a prospective candidate for the 2020 presidential election, her radical rant is worth another look.

Below is my 2008 Asia Times essay.

Sing, O Muse, the Wrath of Michelle By Spengler

The wrath of swift-footed Achilles, of which Homer called his muse to sing, nearly lost the Trojan War for the Greeks. The wrath of swift-tongued Michelle Obama well might lose the White House for her husband. We had a peek into her diary last week when the Obama campaign finally made public her undergraduate thesis, titled “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community.” The contents of this remarkable document sharpen the profile of Obama’s women that I offered last week (“Obama’s women reveal his secret” Asia Times Online, February 26.)

Barack Obama, I argued, evinces a preternatural sangfroid, for he is in America but not of it, a Third World anthropologist profiling Americans. But his wife’s anger at America will out, for it is a profound rage amplified by guilt.

Mrs Obama averred that she could not recall the contents of the thesis she composed in 1985, but that cannot be quite true, for it is a poignant cry from the heart. It explains her controversial outburst during the campaign to the effect that she felt proud of her country for the first time in her adult life in 2008, after “feeling so alone” in her “frustration” and “disappointment” at America.

Princeton both humiliated her and corrupted her, Michelle Vaughn Robinson complains in an undergraduate prose that is all the more touching for its clumsiness. By condescending to the young black woman from a Chicago working-class family, the liberal university made Michelle feel like an outsider. Worse, by giving her a ticket to financial success, Princeton caused her to feel that she was selling out to the institutions she most despised.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-12-18/michael-flynn-sentencing-washington-owes-him-an-apology

Remember when Michael Flynn was a traitor? It was early 2017. Democrats were still stinging from their defeat at the hands of Donald Trump. Every day, it seemed, brought news of another contact between Trumpworld and Russia.

Flynn, a retired three-star general, was forced to resign after serving less than a month as Trump’s national security adviser. He was said to have colluded with Russians during the presidential transition. For this he was defamed as a Russian agent and mocked as a bumbling Benedict Arnold. Former officials of Barack Obama’s administration hinted that Flynn had been compromised.

As it turns out, none of this was true. On Tuesday Flynn will receive a sentence for the one count to which he has pleaded guilty, lying to the FBI. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has recommended no jail time. Flynn will have a chance to get on with his life.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/17/is-sergey-kislyak-central

During an unhinged, fact-free meltdown on Fox News, anchor Shepard Smith wrongly accused Lt. General Michael Flynn of calling the Russians after sanctions against that country were announced in December 2016. “So the U.S. places sanctions on Russia, Michael Flynn calls Russia, Michael Flynn lies about calling Russia, and tells others to lie for him about calling Russia,” Smith ranted on Friday.

Aside from noting that the U.S. placed sanctions on Russia, Smith is flat-out wrong. The truth, according to the charging document filed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, is that Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak called Flynn on December 28, 2016, the very same day the sanctions were publicized. So as pundits—and a federal judge—take a closer look at the circumstances surrounding Flynn’s fateful January 2017 interview with the FBI, it’s important to take another step back in time and scrutinize the calls that landed Flynn in legal trouble.

Further, who is Sergey Kislyak? Why does he figure so prominently not just in the Flynn matter but also the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the framing of Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page, and yet unsubstantiated accusations against Trump’ son-in-law Jared Kushner? His longtime ties to the Obama White House may offer some clues—and raise legitimate questions about whether Kislyak himself was a central player in the set-up of Michael Flynn.

Flynn, the incoming national security advisor, and Kislyak exchanged several calls in late December 2016. At the time, the Obama Administration was retaliating for the Kremlin’s alleged interference in the presidential election with those sanctions; Flynn and Kislyak spoke numerous times between December 28 and December 31. One subject discussed during those calls was how Vladimir Putin might respond to the tepid punishment Obama imposed for the so-called “national emergency” caused by Russia’s “significant malicious cyber-enabled activities.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272269/visamastercard-and-assault-civil-rights-wallace-nunn

Every day there is a new report about how Facebook, Google, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and other giants of social media censor content, banish certain commentators for incorrect views, and otherwise work in a steady if unsystematic way to homogenize political opinion within an acceptably progressive bandwidth. Ideas are scoured for “racism”—as contentiously defined by the intellectual stylebook of the hard left Southern Poverty Law Center, which the media have set up as an “authority” on hate speech; freedom of speech is seen a nuisance rather than a guarantee of personal liberty and true diversity of opinion.

But there is an even more sinister threat to the first amendment than the social media, a threat that operates in a stealth way in the most crucial arena of our economic system. It is corporate giants Master Card and Visa, which now use their unparalleled financial power to determine what speech should be allowed and what speech should be silenced.

Most Americans use a credit or debit card everyday and take these two corporations as much for granted as the light switch or the automobile ignition. We buy things with their cards ranging from the annual vacations to the daily groceries. These two interlocked corporations are the drum majors marching us into a cashless society. They are powers unto themselves, but their eminence rests on our money and the fees they exact to accommodate our transactions.

The cards they issue are even more critical to the vendors whom they pay. Without the ability to accept charges to these cards as payment many businesses would in effect be out of business.

Unlike the comparatively clumsy and very public efforts of the social media to erase “offensive”—all too often a synonym for conservative—opinion, the cognate machinations of Visa/Mastercard take place more remotely and without response in the dark space of the mundane financial transaction.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/12/comey_ducks_question_about_his_memos_leaking_classified_information_turns_away.html

Following his closed-door testimony yesterday, James Comey held an impromptu 8-minute news conference to spin the media with his attacks on Trump, Republicans, and even Fox News. I found his smug self-righteousness nauseating, to be blunt. If you want to watch the whole thing, I have embedded MSNBC’s video at the bottom of this blog.

But first, take a look at how he handled the one probing question that (of course) came from Catherine Herridge. She asked if there was any “spill” of classified information from his leak.

Comey’s response:

“I’m not gonna talk about something like that.”

The he turned away from Heridge with a grim smile, closed his eyes briefly, and moved on, asking for another question. Nobody in the press corps tried to follow up.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/with-fbi-misconduct-against-flynn-revealed-mueller-obstruction-probe-evaporates/

The FBI set former national security advisor Michael Flynn up.

That is about all we can make of the latest revelation that the FBI made serious breaches of protocol when it set up the Jan. 24, 2017, meeting with Flynn to ask him about his Dec. 2016 conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kisylak. We now know the FBI did not go through the White House counsel first, suggest Flynn have a lawyer present, or advise him of his rights prior to the interview. Former FBI director James Comey even appeared on MSNBC to brag about the breach, stating:

[This was] something I probably wouldn’t have done or wouldn’t have gotten away with in a more organized administration. … In the George W. Bush Administration or the Obama Administration, if the FBI wanted to send agents into the White House itself to interview a senior official, you would work through the White House counsel, there would be discussions and approvals and who would be there. And I thought, it’s early enough let’s just send a couple guys over.

The Justice Department and the FBI engaged in misconduct in the questioning of Flynn, and it ought to result in overturning Flynn’s conviction. We’ll see what Judge Emmet Sullivan does for Flynn’s sentencing.

In the meantime, it seems useful to retrace our steps to how we got to this point.

The only reason Flynn was questioned in the first place is because somebody in the Obama administration illegally leaked his conversation with Kislyak to the Washington Post’s David Ignatius on Jan. 12, 2017. Conducting damage control, Vice President Mike Pence appeared on CBS to say sanctions were not discussed. So what crime was the FBI investigating on Jan. 24, 2017? Why question Flynn at all about his conversation with the ambassador — other than to see if he’d lie or had forgotten the substance of the conversation, that is?

The Washington Examiner’s Byron York reported on Dec. 3, 2017:

Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates has told Congress that the Logan Act was the first reason she intervened in the Flynn case — the reason FBI agents were sent to the White House to interview Flynn.

But it wasn’t the Logan Act, an unenforced ancient U.S. law that — unconstitutionally — forbids private individuals from undermining U.S. foreign policy abroad. Just the day before the interrogation on Jan. 23, the Washington Post published a big report on Flynn’s conversation with the ambassador, stating that the FBI had investigated and found no crime. Were they just trying to lull Flynn into a sense of complacency?

It seems improper for the FBI to interrogate somebody for something the FBI didn’t even believe was a crime. Ultimately, as it is, Flynn was never charged by Mueller with any Logan Act violations — probably because they could not be supported. Americans have First Amendment rights, after all. CONTINUE AT SITE