RUTHFULLY YOURS

For this week’s Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten podcast, I had Sean Bigley, a national security attorney who prosecutes intelligence community whistleblower retaliation cases — and is representing Pentagon whistleblower Adam Lovinger in his chilling case that has garnered national attention amazingly involving both a Clinton confidante and Stefan Halper — on the podcast to discuss among other things:

The historical politicization and weaponization of national security clearances
How the politicization and weaponization of national security clearances by holdovers meant to block President Trump’s nominees and appointees from coming into the administration is an entirely new pernicious tactic
The remarkable story of how the highly rated 12-plus year Pentagon analyst Adam Lovinger has had his career destroyed after blowing the whistle on malfeasance within the Department of Defense’s in-house think-tank, the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), including:

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271180/smoking-gun-memo-laid-out-lefts-assault-matthew-vadum

A strategy memo compiled by George Soros-funded activist groups as President Trump was being inaugurated last year foretold and seemed to lay the groundwork for many of the political difficulties Trump now faces and the politics-related strife now roiling the nation.

The memo takes on a heightened importance as the politically-driven censorship of conservatives by the gigantic, unregulated social media corporations controlled by the Left is moving into high gear while the crucial midterm congressional elections of Nov. 6 approach.

The intensely anti-conservative animus in the memo may have inspired MasterCard and WorldPay’s attempt on Aug. 21 to strangle the fundraising efforts of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, publisher of FrontPage, by refusing to complete its financial transactions. On that day MasterCard informed the Freedom Center that it would no longer process its transactions because it had been labeled a “hate group” by the radical leftist groups known as the Southern Poverty Law Center and ColorOfChange.org. The Freedom Center stood falsely accused of being “hateful in nature” and “advocating for violence.”

Only a massive outcry by conservative groups and prominent conservatives like Rush Limbaugh forced MasterCard to back down days later and restore the Freedom Center’s online fundraising facilities. But other conservative websites haven’t been so lucky. Many have been shut down or seen their traffic slashed as leftists have manipulated algorithms and limited the reach of conservative content.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/30/the-truth

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation was star-crossed from the start. His friend and successor as FBI director, James Comey, by his own admission prompted the investigation—with the deliberate leaking of classified memos about his conversations with President Donald Trump to the press.

Mueller then unnecessarily stocked his team with what the press called his “dream team” of mostly Democratic partisans. One had defended a Hillary Clinton employee. Another had defended the Clinton Foundation.

Mueller at first did not announce to the press why he had dismissed Trump-hating FBI operatives Lisa Page and Peter Strzok from his investigative team. Instead, he staggered their departures to leave the impression they were routine reassignments.

But Mueller’s greatest problem was his original mandate to discover whether Trump colluded with the Russians in 2016 to tilt the election in his favor.

After 15 months, Mueller has indicted a number of Trump associates, but on charges having nothing to do with Russian collusion. They faced inordinately long prison sentences unless they “flipped” and testified against Trump.

We are left with the impression that Mueller cannot find much to do with his original mandate of unearthing Russian collusion, but he still thinks Trump is guilty of something.

In other words, Mueller has reversed the proper order of jurisprudence.

https://nypost.com/2018/08/28/these-are-the-real-scandals-plaguing-our-country/

Not so long ago, editors and reporters dreaded the dog days of August because news took a vacation. Now the news never stops.

The challenge today is to make sense of the gusher of apocalyptic-sounding eruptions, claims and predictions. Here’s my view of what’s happening to our country.

America is being scandalized by four enormous events that are happening simultaneously. By scandalized, I mean that people are shocked and outraged at what they regard as breaches of acceptable behavior or morality.

That wouldn’t be a problem if the vast majority were scandalized by the same things. That’s not the America we have. The vicious polarization stems from the fact that the country is split almost exactly in half over what people are outraged about.

The first scandalizing event is Donald Trump — his candidacy, his election and his presidency. And, on some days to some people, his existence.

They have a point — up to a point. Trump is unlike any president in history, taking the Oval Office after a notorious business career and personal life. And it’s not as if he folded into the mold once he got elected, though his policies are more conventional that his personality.

http://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/404073-lanny-davis-is-more-proof-2018-is-year-of-lawyers-living-dangerously

For lawyers, it has been a year of living dangerously. The scandals swirling around Washington have left a pile of attorneys accused of false statements, leaks or other improper conduct. The latest casualty appears to be Lanny Davis, who just admitted to not only spreading a false story but then lying about being its source.

Only recently, Davis — a Democratic stalwart who has been a close adviser to the Clintons — announced that he would represent President Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, free of charge. Davis has steered Cohen into a 180-degree turn from Trump loyalist to chief accuser. He suggested that Cohen could implicate Trump in crimes touching on obstruction, collusion and campaign-finance violations. He caused a firestorm nationally when he suggested Trump knew in advance about Russian hacking of Clinton campaign and Democratic Party emails and also approved the infamous meeting with Russian representatives in Trump Tower.

At the same time, Davis attacked Trump and his counsel as liars, proclaiming that his defense of Cohen is powerfully simple — “it’s about truth, and the power of the truth is what Michael Cohen now has no matter what … Mayor (Rudy) Giuliani invents for a president who’s been known to lie.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271142/deep-state-winning-bruce-thornton

By any reasonable standard, the presidency of Donald Trump has so far been a success. After eight years of Barack Obama’s sluggish recovery from the 2008 Great Recession, the economy is “blistering,” as MarketWatch put it, its vigorous growth creating jobs, raising incomes, and lifting the market’s “animal spirits.” Abroad, the “kick me” sign Obama and the progressives hung on America’s back is gone, with allies, rivals, and enemies alike now taking us seriously as the indispensable world power to treat with respect, rather than a daft rich uncle to bully and fleece.

Yet despite all these reasons for feeling good about the country’s getting its mojo back, the current mood is one of crisis and hysteria. We’re consumed by a special counsel’s show trials of marginal Trump associates whose actions had no material impact on the election or the public weal. Appointed to investigate “collusion” with Russia and foreign interference in our election, all that the two-bit Javert Robert Mueller can come up with are paltry financial crimes and duplicitous perjury traps. Consequential developments abroad, such as Turkey’s implosion and a war brewing on Israel’s northern border, are ignored so we can pick over the carcasses of a couple of bottom-feeding swamp-fixers like Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen.

This lack of seriousness and failure to recognize this government’s successes have many reasons. Partly it’s a consequence of just how good we have it. Like most of our political dysfunctions, we are so rich and comfortable that we think we can afford to obsess over payoffs to porn stars and Playboy bunnies, and ignore more important issues. Our attention is hostage to a 24/7 virtual carnival and freak-show on social media, cable news, and the internet. We’re in the third generation of a failed educational system that exists not to teach basic skills, cultural knowledge, and critical reasoning, but to create the new Progressive Man who mouths social justice pieties as he keeps up with the latest fads and fashion. We live in a world of noisy, kinetic distractions, like mice in a maze scurrying to snatch the latest bit of cheese from Apple, Facebook, YouTube, and Hollywood.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/yahoo-admits-it-scans-emails-to-collect-data-to-sell-to-advertisers/

While the tech companies harvest our data to sell ads, in recent years email services have been off limits. That limit has just been crossed with the disclosure that Verizon is now promoting a new service to advertisers where they continually scan the 200 million inboxes of Yahoo Mail users. Yahoo Mail is a part of Yahoo that Verizon recently acquired under their Oath brand. Oath/Verizon told advertisers that they search the mail for clues about what people might buy or be interested in buying. They are doing the same with AOL Mail, which Verizon also owns.

Among all of the U.S. email providers, these are the only mail services being exposed to this intrusion. In the past, Gmail also scanned users’ emails but terminated that practice last year. Of course, Google has many other ways to gather our personal data. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/toxic_antibiotics.html

Urinary tract infections affect millions of women, and often they are prescribed Ciprofloxacin (Cipro), Gemifoxacin (Factive), Levofloxacin (Levaquin), Moxifloxacin (Avelox), Norfloxacin (Noroxin), or Ofloxacin (Floxin). These are fluoroquinolones, antibiotics, and have been on the market for more than 30 years. They are also routinely prescribed for a range of infections – sinusitis, cystitis, prostatitis, bronchitis, and skin infections.

For some people, what is supposed to be a helpful medicine has turned into a medical nightmare, and many are still unaware of the dangers posed by these antibiotics.

Fluroquinolones, when used as tablets, capsules, or injectables, are associated with disabling and potentially permanent serious side-effects that can occur together.

The concerns about the antibiotic fluoroquinolone drugs are not new. In fact:

The FDA first added a Boxed Warning to fluoroquinolones in July 2008 for the increased risk of tendinitis and tendon rupture. In February 2011, the risk of worsening symptoms for those with myasthenia gravis was added to the Boxed Warning. In August 2013, the agency required updates to the labeling to describe the potential for irreversible peripheral neuropathy or serious nerve damage.

Then, on May 12, 2016, the FDA warned that fluoroquinolone antibiotics (emphasis added):

… are associated with disabling and potentially permanent side effects of the tendons, muscles, joints, nerves, and central nervous system that can occur together in the same patient. …

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12935/flipping-witnesses

It is already illegal for a lawyer to offer a witness a valuable consideration for providing testimony — if the lawyer is a defense attorney. If any defense attorney offers a witness an inducement to testify favorably to his client — even if his testimony is 100% truthful — that lawyer will be disbarred, prosecuted and imprisoned. But it is perfectly legal, indeed widely regarded as commendable, for prosecutors to offer major inducements in order to get witnesses to testify against their targets.

Here is what the statute says: “Whoever… directly or indirectly, gives, offers, or promises anything of value to any person, for or because of the testimony under oath or affirmation given or to be given by such person as a witness” is guilty of a felony. [U.S. Code § 201 (c)(2), emphasis added]

Every day, these tactics are being used against ordinary Americans caught up in our deeply flawed criminal justice system that relies far too heavily on the testimony of flipped witnesses.

Recently President Trump said that “flipping” a witness to incriminate a prosecutorial target “almost ought to be outlawed,” saying that individuals who flip are often untruthful.

This statement raises the important question of whether it should be illegal to offer a witness a valuable consideration for providing testimony, as prosecutors allegedly did with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn.

Interestingly, it is already illegal for a lawyer to do that — if the lawyer is a defense attorney.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/donald-trump-impeachment-unlikely-unwise/

Removing him would only make things worse — for his opponents & the nation.

It has been quite a ride since Inauguration Day — or, rather, from Michael Wolff to Omarosa and Michael Cohen, or from the Emoluments Clause to the 25th Amendment, or from talk of decapitating Trump to talk of blowing up the White House.

Yet what might happen should Trump be removed from office, either by impeachment leading to conviction or resignation or by federal indictment from Robert Mueller?

Given the evidence so far, the results could be civil chaos, and for a variety of reasons:

The Trump Record
Had Trump misled his base and not fulfilled his campaign promises, he would have little popular support. Had he tanked the economy and started a war, he would be polling in the 20s rather than the mid to lower 40s.

Trump also polls about 85 percent among Republicans. He is even more popular among blue-collar “Trump voters,” largely because of efforts to equalize trade, restore U.S. deterrence, end illegal immigration, and jump-start the economy, as evidenced by a record-high stock market, near-record peacetime unemployment, and likely annualized GDP growth of 3 percent or more. Minority joblessness is also at a near-record low. The startling fact is that a so-called buffoonish real-estate developer hit upon a calculus to restore robust economic growth in a way that all the degreed experts of the prior administration had not.

His judicial picks belie predictions that Trump would not keep his vows to appoint strict constructionists. There have been no David Souter–like or Harriet Miers–like nominations to the Supreme Court. His national-security team at Defense, State, the National Security Council, the CIA, and the UN is better than any seen in prior postwar administrations. Mike Pompeo is not Hillary Clinton, H. R. McMaster and John Bolton have not been Susan Rice, and Jim Mattis is not Chuck Hagel. Nor is Nikki Haley playing the role of Samantha Power at the U.N., or sending in countless requests to unmask the names of those swept in FISA warrants.