RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/fbi-trump-collusion-investigation/

The FBI should brush up on the powers of the chief executive.

The FBI took it upon itself to determine whether the president of the United States is a threat to national security.

No one had ever before thought that this was an appropriate role for the FBI, a subordinate agency in the executive branch, but Donald Trump isn’t the only one in Washington trampling norms.

The New York Times reported the astonishing news. “Counterintelligence investigators,” the paper writes, “had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security.” U.S. presidents over the decades have made many foolhardy decisions that have undermined our security; never before have they been deemed a fit subject for an FBI investigation.

The proximate cause for the probe into Trump was his firing of FBI director James Comey, which the FBI considered both a potential crime and a national-security matter because it might shut down the investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election.

Even if they were shocked by the treatment of Comey, top FBI officials should have been able to quickly ascertain that the Russia investigation continued unimpeded — indeed, it is still ongoing today.

If the Times reporting is correct, the FBI grew more suspicious of Trump’s conduct based on comments that have been widely misunderstood. Among the bill of particulars:

—During the campaign, he urged the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s email. Trump clearly meant this line sardonically, though.

—The GOP platform allegedly was softened toward Russia. Never mind that, as Byron York of the Washington Examiner has demonstrated, this didn’t actually happen.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/trumps-popularity-rose-despite-90-percent-negative-media-coverage-in-2018/

Despite constant one-sided negative news coverage by the big three TV networks, President Donald Trump’s public approval rating rose slightly in 2018, according to a new report from the Media Research Center (MRC). MRC analyzed the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening newscasts, which were seen by approximately 23 million people each night.

“The tone of coverage remains incessantly hostile: 90% negative, vs. just 10% positive (excluding neutral statements),” MRC’s Rich Noyes reported Tuesday. “Yet despite the media’s obvious disapproval, public opinion of the President actually improved slightly during 2018, from an average 40% approval on January 1 to 42.7% approval on December 31, according to RealClearPolitics.”

According to MRC’s monitoring, coverage of the Trump presidency slightly declined in 2018. In the first year of the Trump presidency, ABC, CBS, and NBC spent 99 hours covering the president, while this past year they dedicated 87 hours to his tenure, which still accounted for 28 percent of all evening news airtime.

“As has been the case since the President took office, the tone of network coverage has been exceptionally hostile, ranging from 82% negative in April 2017 (after Trump was praised for a missile strike punishing Syria for a chemical weapons attack) to 96% negative in February 2018 (when the news agenda focused on the Russia investigation, demands for gun control, and a White House aide accused of domestic abuse),” the report noted.

MRC also referenced the Pew Research Center’s finding that during Trump’s first 60 days in office, 62 percent of network stories were negative while only 5 percent were positive and 33 percent were neutral. “If you remove the neutral stories and look at just the stories with a clear spin, Pew’s bottom line looks like ours: 93% negative spin, v. just 7% positive.” CONTINUE AT SITE

https://pjmedia.com/trending/the-coup-against-trump-has-failed-is-the-worm-about-to-turn/

It is now obvious that for two and a half years, Democrats and their friends in the deep state have been peddling an elaborate hoax: the spurious charge that President Trump conspired or colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 election.

The entire enterprise from the beginning was always about defeating Trump — either by planting smears in the media in 2016 to prevent his election or if that didn’t succeed, by doubling down on the investigation in an effort to keep the president from uncovering their election-year espionage malfeasance.

But the honey-badger president didn’t care and said he did nuthin’ wrong and didn’t try to stop it. So the “rigged investigation” led by “13 angry Democrats” lumbered on for nearly two years, racking up several process crimes and unrelated financial crimes in the process — all while trying the nation’s patience.

Then The New York Times’ “bombshell” report last Friday confirmed that the FBI’s case against the president was scandalously flimsy.

Trump’s former attorney John Dowd told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade on his radio show Monday that he believes the president was facing a “coup” and accused Mueller, former FBI Director James “Cardinal” Comey, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe of conspiring against the president.

“Little did I know that it appears that they were all in it together,” Dowd said. “I mean Rosenstein, Comey, Mueller, McCabe, the whole crowd and they were out to get this president no matter what. I don’t think they sincerely believed anything about Russia.”

“This is our worst nightmare that someone with that kind of power would then decide to go after the president. I mean, it’s a coup,” Dowd added. “That’s what it is — an attempted coup by Comey and his crowd. And the evidence is all over there. I take the New York Times article as an admission of their bad behavior.”

Dowd isn’t alone.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/14/the-medias-trump

This week’s confirmation hearings for William Barr, the former U.S. attorney general nominated by President Trump to serve in that post once again, are expected to focus mostly on the most powerful man in Washington, D.C.: Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Democrats and Republicans have signaled they will demand Barr’s loyalty to the unelected lawyer who, for the past 20 months, has politically handcuffed the Trump Administration, Congress, and, to an extent, the American people. As the investigation into whether Donald Trump and his campaign colluded with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 presidential election drags on, the incoming attorney general must convince the Senate Judiciary Committee that his fidelity to Robert Mueller is unwavering before he gets the nod.

According to the news reports, Barr will tell the committee in hostage-tape fashion on Tuesday, “It is vitally important that the special counsel be allowed to complete his investigation. I have known Bob Mueller personally and professionally for 30 years. We worked closely together throughout my previous ensure at the Department of Justice. We’ve been friends since. I have the utmost respect for Bob and his distinguished record of public service.”

Well, that’s reassuring!

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/14/the-celebrated-fake

When President Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the top constitutional lawyers in the country shared one predominant hope and expectation. Before the hearings, I spoke with five of the men who fought and won hard Supreme Court battles for religious freedom, property rights, and freedom of speech. All of them told me the same thing: the Kavanaugh court will take on the administrative state.

Recently, I received an email from the Pacific Legal Foundation that their hopes are coming true. It is a comic tale of frogs, mice, and deep state overreach, but far from trivial for America’s future.

President Trump, we are often told, is not a principled man, certainly not a constitutionalist. These critics mistake a habit of abstract thinking for principles. President Trump has a patriotic grasp of the essentials. He ran on the promise to appoint top quality, conservative judges, and unlike the GOP political class, he takes pride in keeping his pledge to voters over donors. Trump used the constitutional experts at the Federalist Society to draft his list of candidates, unlike the politically safe Bush appointments, which irresponsibly added to the liberal court majority.

President Trump’s appointees, Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh, are now showing their mettle.

With liberals dominating the federal agencies and the courts, the Environmental Protection Agency’s power has grown decade by decade—that is, until President Trump appointed these two strong constitutionalists to the Supreme Court. The EPA is on the front lines of this battle because its rulings directly impact private property and economic freedom.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/01/what_the_fbi_was_willing_to_do_to_take_out_trump_with_no_evidence.html

For almost three years bureaucrats from the Obama administration, including those at FBI and Justice, have tried to take out candidate and then President Trump with no actual evidence. Robert Mueller knew that Michael Flynn didn’t violate any laws by talking with a Russian after the election, knew that Comey tried to entrap Flynn, knew that FBI agents didn’t think he lied but badgered and sought to destroy and bankruptFlynn and his family until he caved to plead to perjury. Now, we learn from an article in the New York Times that the FBI started a secret investigation into whether President Trump worked for Russia even though there was no evidence that he did.

F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia

In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.

And, of course, they found nothing.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/tamika-mallory-defends-decision-to-praise-farrakhan-as-the-greatest-of-all-time/

During a Monday morning appearance on ABC’s The View, Women’s March co-chair Tamika Mallory defended her past praise for notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan by drawing a distinction between his hateful rhetoric and his political advocacy on behalf of African-Americans.

“I didn’t call him the greatest of all time because of his rhetoric. I called him the greatest of all time because of what he’s done in black communities,” Mallory said when asked about a February social-media post in which she labeled Farrakhan the “GOAT.”

The post in question captured Mallory’s attendance at the Nation of Islam leader’s 2018 Saviour’s Day address in Chicago, during which he described Jews as “satanic” and dubbed them his “enemy.”

Pressed by the The View’s Meghan McCain to explicitly denounce Farrakhan, Mallory repeatedly stated that she disagreed with some of his views, but refused to broadly condemn him and insinuated that asking her to do so amounted to sexism.

In response to the controversy created by Mallory’s Instagram post, the Women’s March issued a statement condemning bigotry in general without mentioning Farrakhan specifically. A number of regional Women’s March chapters, as well as the original Women’s March founder Theresa Shook, disaffiliated from the organization in response to the group’s perceived sympathy for anti-Semitism.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/de-blasio-says-the-wrong-people-have-all-the-money/

As in many major cities in the U..S run by Democrats, you have to be fabulously rich or wretchedly poor to live in New York City. Either you have the money to live in the rent-controlled, gentrified neighborhoods or you need government assistance.

If I lived in the Big Apple and were rich, I’d start looking at properties in Connecticut.

Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced the most ambitious health care plan in America, covering the 600,000 New Yorkers who don’t have health insurance — including illegal aliens. How will the city pay for it? Bill is a little fuzzy on the details but he made it pretty clear where his thinking lies.

The Daily Caller:

Tapper opened the segment by quoting Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum — who had proposed a similar plan for his state, but noted that unless other states joined the program, it would be financially impossible. “He was saying in Florida they could do it only if other states joined him because otherwise, all sick people would just come to Florida,” Tapper explained.

“What’s to stop sick people from flocking to New York and overburdening the system?”

De Blasio shrugged off the question, saying, “I don’t see that happening.”

Of course he doesn’t see it. Liberals never see any negative consequences from their schemes. You should read how the debate unfolded in the 1960s about Medicare. What could go wrong?

That said, de Blasio daydreams about how to fund his fantastical health care program by taking money from people he thinks don’t deserve it.

Tapper pressed de Blasio further, referencing an earlier quote from the mayor. “You said something pretty radical this week that I want to ask you about. You said there’s plenty of money in the world. There’s plenty of money in the city. It’s just in the wrong hands.” CONTINUE AT SITE

https://pjmedia.com/trending/veterans-administration-will-spend-billions-on-private-health-care/

The Department of Veterans Affairs will redirect billions of dollars toward the private health care sector in an effort to reform a broken system.

Recent years have seen several scandals involving the V.A.’s waiting lists, which can deny care to veterans for months and even years. By allowing veterans to seek treatment in private facilities, it is hoped that some of the serious deficiencies in the system can be addressed.

New York Times:

Under proposed guidelines, it would be easier for veterans to receive care in privately run hospitals and have the government pay for it. Veterans would also be allowed access to a system of proposed walk-in clinics, which would serve as a bridge between V.A. emergency rooms and private providers, and would require co-pays for treatment.

Veterans’ hospitals, which treat seven million patients annually, have struggled to see patients on time in recent years, hit by a double crush of returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and aging Vietnam veterans. A scandal over hidden waiting lists in 2014 sent Congress searching for fixes, and in the years since, Republicans have pushed to send veterans to the private sector, while Democrats have favored increasing the number of doctors in the V.A.

If put into effect, the proposed rules — many of whose details remain unclear as they are negotiated within the Trump administration — would be a win for the once-obscure Concerned Veterans for America, an advocacy group funded by the network founded by the billionaire industrialists Charles G. and David H. Koch, which has long championed increasing the use of private sector health care for veterans.