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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

‘No Evidence’ Trump Was Aware of Don Jr.’s Meeting With Russian Lawyer By Jack Crowe

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/no-evidence-trump-was-aware-of-don-jr-s-meeting-with-russian-lawyer/

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month investigation failed to produce evidence that then-candidate Trump was aware that his son, Donald Trump Jr., and other high-ranking campaign officials met with a Russian lawyer offering damaging information on Hillary Clinton in June 2016, according to the special counsel’s report released Thursday.

Donald Trump Jr., campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, and at least five other people met with Kremlin-linked attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in Manhattan in order to obtain damaging information on Hillary Clinton from Veselnitskaya.

After news of the meeting broke in July 2017, Trump dictated a statement to be released on Trump Jr.’s behalf in which he falsely claimed the meeting was held to discuss sanctions that restricted the U.S. adoption of Russian children.

“The president then dictated a statement to Hicks that said the meeting was about Russian adoption (which the president had twice been told was discussed at the meeting). The statement dictated by the president did not mention the offer of derogatory information about Clinton,” the report reads.

Barr Press Conference: No Obstruction on the Facts of the Case By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/william-barr-press-conference-no-obstruction-on-the-facts-of-the-case/

The most interesting new disclosure to come out of Attorney General William Barr’s press conference on the Mueller report was about obstruction of justice.

As I pointed out in a Fox News column this morning, the obstruction issue was one of the main reasons why the media-Democrat complex’s caterwauling about Barr’s unremarkable decision to hold a press conference was ludicrous. Special Counsel Mueller declined to render a prosecutorial judgment on whether obstruction charges should be brought against the president. Since it is the attorney general who made the judgment, for that reason alone it was worth hearing from him this morning.

The attorney general stated that the special counsel evaluated ten incidents with an eye toward whether they amounted to an obstruction offense. Barr elaborated that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein disagreed with Mueller on whether these incidents even could have amounted to obstruction as a matter of law.

It is important to grasp what that means, and what it doesn’t, because I’ve heard some inaccurate commentary. Barr was not saying that Mueller found one or more of these incidents to constitute obstruction; Mueller was saying that the incidents involved actions that could theoretically have amounted to obstruction.

“President Trump Responds to Omar Accurately and Truthfully” Rabbi Arye Spero

https://nationalconferenceofjewishaffairs.org

 The following letter to President Trump was hand-delivered at the White House by Rabbi Spero, who was attending a special gathering for key Jewish leaders:

“President Trump tweeted the appropriate response to Rep. Omar, who described the bombing of the Twin Towers as merely ‘some people did something.’ Omar trivialized 9/11, referring to it in a cavalier fashion.

The President correctly demonstrated via his video the enormity and the devastating catastrophe of 9/11. This has nothing to do with racism, rather the correct response to a disrespectful statement made by Omar regarding this country, demonstrating her gross indifference to the suffering of Americans.“Those that impute racism to the President’s tweet are living in their own make-believe world or, worse, are themselves trying to incite an issue of racism where such is not the case. People of truth and historical awareness cannot remain silent out of fear that their opposition will fabricate claims of racism.

“Freedom of expression is a two-way street. Patriotic Americans are as equally free to respond and give their opinions as are those, like Omar, who weekly express some type of hateful indictment of America. Let us not forget that Omar repeatedly agitates and incites her audiences to go out and ‘make people uncomfortable’.“Thankfully we have a man of President Trump’s candor and stature, who is willing to fight against the rewriting of history and protect the free speech of Americans defending their country.

Mr. Trump has issued an Executive Order protecting free speech from the politically-correct censorship prevalent on campuses and is, by his example, giving support to all those who wish to exercise their right to tell historic truth.”

A LETTER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP FROM AMERICAN JEWISH LEADERS….SEE NOTE

One of the sponsors of this letter is Americans for a Safe Israel, an organization that I am proud to belong to since 1973.rsk

Dear Mr. President,

Thank you for your friendship towards the Jewish community in the United States and around the world, especially in Israel. Your unprecedented affinity for the Jewish People is all the more commendable, given the inexcusable and deplorable false accusations of Antisemitism which have dogged your presidency since its earliest days. We encourage the continuation of a warm relationship with the Jewish community built upon mutual respect.

We were distressed to read an open letter publicized by several American Jewish organizations, many of whom “boycotted” some of your previous overtures to the Jewish community, encouraging you to pressure Israel to compromise her rights as an independent democracy. One of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledges, made while campaigning for his recent re-election, was to extend Israeli sovereignty over Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
Throughout your presidency, you have done everything possible to keep your own campaign promises — with the move of the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, pledged by every President since Bill Clinton, being a prime example.

For decades, Israel has attempted to nurture coexistence with Arab communities which desire to live outside Israeli governance, while retaining control over its borders and national security in that very hostile part of the world. Both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama recognized that Israeli sovereignty would extend to Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria in any final peace agreement. It is unfair and unreasonable to hold these Jewish communities hostage to the continuing intransigence of the Palestinian Authority. And it is outrageous to suggest setting policy to kowtow to the Antisemitic, terrorist-financed effort to boycott the world’s only Jewish state.

Coalition of Pro-Israel Organizations asks President to Let Israel Decide on Sovereignty

https://coalitionforjewishvalues.org/2019/04/coalition-of-pro-israel-organizations-asks-president-to-let-israel-decide-on-sovereignty/

Twenty-one diverse pro-Israel organizations sent a joint letter to President Trump today, urging him to permit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a free hand to extend Israeli sovereignty over Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. The letter comes in response to one from left-wing groups, dominated by arms of the American Reform and Conservative Jewish movements, calling upon the President to indicate that he will “not support any Israeli proposals to annex the West Bank, in whole or in part.”

The new letter was organized by Rabbi Pesach Lerner and Rabbi Yaakov Menken of the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV) and Rabbi Yechezkel Moskowitz of the Jewish Heritage Preservation Society. “It is important for those who believe in traditional values, who believe in a strong and safe State of Israel, who appreciate the actions of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, to speak up,” said Rabbi Lerner, President of the CJV. “We cannot allow the liberal left to be the only voice.”

Ilhan Omar: A Hostage Situation By Kevin D. Williamson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/ilhan-omar-comments-criticism/

When the ‘victim’ is the victimizer

‘I t has to stop,” says Representative Ilhan Omar.

No, it does not.

Representative Omar, the Jew-hating Minnesota Democrat, is engaged in one of her usual games of misdirection, a pattern of hers that by now is familiar enough to be predicted: She says something outrageously stupid, offensive, anti-Semitic — or all three at once — and then attempts to parry the thrust of inevitable criticism by characterizing it as an attack on Muslims, women, women of color, Muslim women of color, etc.

In this case, Representative Omar characterized the events of September 11, 2001, this way: “Some people did something.” Someone assembled a video intercutting her blasé account of mass murder with images of that day’s events, and Donald Trump, who serves simultaneously as president of the United States and the nation’s social-media intern, tweeted the video, along with some vintage all-caps emoting: “WE WILL NEVER FORGET!”

The New York Times stepped on Representative Omar’s cue and uttered her lines itself, insisting that the criticism of Representative Omar is necessarily part of an attack on Muslims categorically. Trump of course has on more than one occasion treated Muslims categorically, for instance in calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” which, like so many of President Trump’s blustery promises, never came to pass and never even was given serious consideration. (The actual policy consists of restrictions on travel from six predominantly Muslim countries, along with North Koreans and officials of the Venezuelan government.) Representative Omar is not all Muslims, and she is not Muslims categorically: She’s a loopy left-wing identity-politics entrepreneur whom the Democratic party has carried to the U.S. House of Representatives. Criticism of elected officials is not only permissible but necessary.

The Progressive Revolution: From Democratic to Liberal to Progressive to Socialist By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/progressive-revolution-ends-in-socialism/

Obama kick-started a cycle that moves ever farther left — even he now seems passé.

Americans voted for Barack Obama in 2008 despite, not because of, his most partisan voting record in the Senate. They were once willing to look past his earlier dubious associations with abject anti-Semites such as the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, former terrorists like Bill Ayers, and unhinged characters such as Father Pfleger. They also averted their eyes from Obama’s often quite offensive commentary, in his autobiography and during the 2008 campaign (e.g., “typical white person” and “they cling to…” speech).

Instead, voters were tired of the Iraq War (which was over for all practical purposes by the time of the November 2008 election).

They were, of course, terrified by the September 2008 financial meltdown (which had been mostly stabilized four months later by the time of the inauguration) and irate at the kid-gloves treatment accorded often conniving banks and investors.

They were convinced that Obama might be healing and transformative as the first African-American president, supposedly only slightly to the left of a far steadier and more qualified Condoleezza Rice or Colin Powell. And half the Democrats were already becoming sick of Hillary Clinton once they became reacquainted with her on the 2008 primary-campaign trail.

Behind the Obama administration’s shady plan to spy on the Trump campaign By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://nypost.com/2019/04/15/behind-the-obama-administrations-shady-plan-to-spy-on-the-trump-campaign/

In Senate testimony last week, Attorney General William Barr used the word “spying” to refer to the Obama administration, um, spying on the Trump campaign.

Of course, fainting spells ensued, with the media-Democrat complex in meltdown. Former FBI Director Jim Comey tut-tutted that he was confused by Barr’s comments, since the FBI’s “surveillance” had been authorized by a court.(Needless to say, the former director neglected to mention that the court was not informed that the bureau’s “evidence” for the warrants was unverified hearsay paid for by the Clinton campaign.)The pearl-clutching was predictable. Less than a year ago, we learned the Obama administration had used a confidential informant — a spy — to approach at least three Trump campaign officials in the months leading up to the 2016 election, straining to find proof that the campaign was complicit in the Kremlin’s hacking of Democratic e-mails.

Five Times The Obama Administration Investigated Itself By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/trending/five-times-the-obama-administration-investigated-itself/

Each time they cleared itself of any wrongdoing.

Last week, Twitter declared that their own study of tweets by Democrats and Republicans last year proved there was no anti-conservative bias on their social media platform. It was amusing to see how the folks at Twitter considered this definitive proof that they don’t hold a bias against conservatives. It reminded me of how so many times the Obama administration attempted to control the narrative of their own scandals by investigating themselves and then clearing themselves of wrongdoing, with the expectation that the matter would be settled. Here are five examples of times the Obama administration investigated itself in the hopes of burying a scandal.

5. The Senate Seat For Sale Scandal

Few people seem to remember that even before Obama took office his presidential transition was under a cloud of scandal. Just over a month before he was to take office, Obama was implicated in a scandal involving his soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich had hoped to get a Cabinet position or ambassadorship in exchange for appointing an Obama-backed individual to replace him in the Senate. Obama’s top choice had been Valerie Jarrett, and offered to appoint Jarrett “in exchange for the position of Secretary of Health and Human Services in the President-elect’s cabinet,” but she eventually opted to follow Obama to the White House as his top advisor.

Horrific Honor Killings in Phoenix By Meira Svirsky

https://clarionproject.org/honor-killings-in-phoenix/

A Muslim man in Arizona was arrested for four honor killings — his wife, two daughters and the man with whom he believed his wife was having an affair.

According to Phoenix Police Sergeant Tommy Thompson, “[Austin Smith] said that the reason he shot these individuals is because in God’s eyes, it was all right for him to deal with someone in this manner who had been involved in adultery, extramarital affairs.”

Smith also told police he killed his seven-year-old daughter because she was “weeping for the wicked.”

According to court documents, he said spared his three-year old who was found hiding under a bed because she reminded him of himself.

As in many cases of honor crimes, some will protest this was merely a case of domestic violence (not withstanding the horrific nature of the crime). And in truth, what is the difference?

Quite simply, even though we don’t know Smith’s psychological profile, we can surmise someone capable of killing his children in cold blood – not to mention his wife and her suspected lover – has to be deranged on a certain level.