RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/brett-kavanaugh-character-assassination-by-democrats/

There are honorable ways to oppose a nominee with whom you disagree. Kavanaugh’s Democratic critics have chosen to go the dishonorable route, instead.

There is certainly an honorable way to oppose the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. It’s simple. A progressive senator can simply declare that he or she does not agree with Kavanaugh’s judicial philosophy, explain why, and vote against him. There is no constitutional rule that declares a senator must vote for every qualified Supreme Court nominee.

There’s also an honorable way to investigate Kavanaugh’s fitness for the bench, regardless of his judicial philosophy. A judge at any level — much less the Supreme Court — should exhibit a basic and enduring commitment to honesty and integrity. So, yes, scrutinize his record. Diligently investigate his background. If a serious character issue emerges, expose it.

But it’s low and dishonorable to skip the principled opposition and simply smear a good man, engaging in cheap character assassination as Judge Kavanaugh’s Democratic opponents have this week.

For those keeping score at home, millions of Americans have now been exposed to false and ridiculous claims that Kavanaugh is a slippery perjurer who surrounds himself with racists and a cold, dark soul who deliberately snubbed a murdered child’s father.

The latter two claims date back to the first day of his hearing, when the online Left erupted with claims that former Kavanaugh clerk Zina Bash had flashed a white-power symbol during the hearing. It turns out that Bash is a Mexican-American immigrant with a Jewish father, a descendant of Holocaust survivors. So, no, she’s not a white nationalist.

The same day, activists claimed that Kavanaugh actively refused to shake Fred Guttenberg’s hand. Guttenberg is the father of a student murdered in February’s Parkland, Fla. school shooting, and he approached Kavanaugh in the scrum following a break in the hearing. Just as Guttenberg, a complete stranger to Kavanaugh, stuck out his hand, security arrived and ushered Kavanaugh away. This was then cravenly spun into an outrage by the progressive Internet.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271264/times-op-ed-definitive-proof-nevertrump-moral-bruce-thornton

The New York Times’s just published an anonymous op-ed from a “senior official” in the Trump administration. This self-righteous combination of clichéd anti-Trump tropes and arrogant moral preening puts the QED on the proof of the NeverTrumpers’ moral idiocy.

The stalest complaints involve Trump’s personality and style, although the only difference between Trump and, say, Lyndon Johnson is that Johnson with the help of the media knew that most of his vulgarisms and epithets would never be made public until he left office. And he wasn’t monitored 24/7 by a barrage of reports and images from internet news and blogs, hundreds of cable channels, and social media.

As for crudity and vulgarity, if you insurgent White House employees want vulgarity, just look around you. We are saturated with a culture of vulgarity, self-promotion, and crude sexualization. At least Trump hasn’t besmirched the White House with Clinton-style sexual antics, or like Obama brought foul-mouthed rappers who celebrate the murder of judges to socialize in the White House. But to Anonymous, the worst of Trump’s affronts is that he, with the help of deplorable uppity citizens, has “allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.” This charge bespeaks an ignorance of the Constitution and its founders’ understanding of human nature. Given the variety and volume of colliding “passions and interests,” “civility” was a luxury. More important was protecting political freedom by preventing factions from joining forces to increase their power.

The catalogue of Trump’s shortcomings are stale, subjective epithets from nearly two-years of Trump-hating screeds, without any awareness that in terms of actions, progressives like Barack Obama have been much worse. For example, the brave anonymous resister says Trump’s behavior is “detrimental to the health of our republic.” Exactly how have excessive Tweeting, braggadocio, or insults of rivals done more damage to the Constitution’s separation of powers than Obama’s politicizing of the IRS, the EPA, two AGs, the Department of Education, the FBI, and the DOJ?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cory-booker-and-democratic-norms-1536276103

When he was mayor of Newark, Booker was considered to be the light at the end of the Lincoln Tunnel….now he’s just another political hack….rsk

Democrats have been acting out at Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, but Cory Booker is distinguishing himself in a crowded field. The New Jersey Senator released confidential documents in what he admitted was a violation of Senate rules, and his distortions need correcting.

Questioning Judge Kavanaugh on Wednesday evening, Mr. Booker referred to an email the judge sent while in George W. Bush’s White House counsel’s office. Republican Mike Lee interjected that Judge Kavanaugh didn’t have a copy of the email, which was marked confidential. The papers are shielded from the public under the Presidential Records Act, but Mr. Bush has allowed Senators and staff to read them.

Mr. Booker complained that an email with the subject line “racial profiling” shouldn’t have been withheld. “This wasn’t personal information. There’s no national security issue whatsoever,” he intoned. “The fact that we’re not allowing these emails out, as we have asked, as I have asked,” is evidence that “the system is rigged.” On Thursday Mr. Booker released the documents to TV fanfare and dared Republicans to punish him for it.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-anonymous-resistance-1536276239

One consequence of having such a polarizing and personally flawed man as President is the degree to which his opponents justify their own destructive excess in response. An example is Cory Booker consciously violating Senate rules Thursday in an attempt to deny Brett Kavanaugh a Supreme Court seat. (See nearby.) Another is the decision by a “senior official” to publish an op-ed in the New York Times describing the internal government “resistance” to Donald Trump.

Let’s stipulate that publishing an article with an anonymous byline is sometimes worth doing, and we have done it ourselves. In 1991 we shielded the name of a woman who was raped amid the debate over publishing the names of victims. We have published op-eds protecting the identities of writers who could face arrest or worse at the hands of dictators or terrorists, while informing readers that the author was using a pseudonym.

We don’t recall offering anonymity to someone in government or American politics, though perhaps we have and we can’t say we would never do so. It would depend on the circumstances. The op-ed in this case doesn’t meet those standards, not least because it isn’t news. The fact that senior Administration officials have been trying to block Mr. Trump’s uninformed policy impulses, and mute his self-destructive anger and narcissism, has been reported hundreds of times.

Using funerals for political purposes has a long, but not distinguished, tradition. In 44 B.C. eulogist Mark Antony claimed to Roman mourners that he came to bury Caesar. But his speech created a frenzy and ended up ensuring a death warrant for the once “honorable” Brutus.

In contrast, aside from the commemoration of the deceased, Americans mostly have seen funerals as solemn reminders of how frail and transitory life is for all of us, and how our shared fates should unite even the bitterest of enemies.

Sixteen years ago, on the eve of the 2002 midterm election, and at a time when the United States was beginning to divide over the Afghanistan intervention and a looming Iraq war, Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) tragically died in a plane crash.

Wellstone’s Minnesota funeral was meant to be a commemoration of a life of public servant well lived. But the funeral service was soon hijacked by partisan speakers and ended up a loud and often grating political pep rally.

The message to mourners of all beliefs and persuasions was to translate their grief into votes for progressive candidates like Wellstone. Popular discontent over news of the politicalized funeral may well have explained why, two weeks later, the in-power Republicans actually picked up seats in George W. Bush’s first midterm election.

At the recent eight-hour, televised funeral of iconic singer Aretha Franklin, many of the speakers such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson turned the event into a political wake—calling for everything from increased voter registration to tighter standards on drinking water.

Activist and professor Michael Eric Dyson embarrassed himself with adolescent hits against President Donald Trump: “You lugubrious leach, you dopey doppelganger of deceit and deviance, you lethal liar, you dimwitted dictator, you foolish fascist.”

On the next day, the televised state funeral for Sen. John McCain likewise soon became just as political.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/kamala-harris-harasses-kavanaugh-on-robert-mueller-charlottesville-white-supremacist-terms/

On Tuesday, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of speaking with President Trump’s lawyer’s law firm about the Robert Mueller investigation. She did so without evidence, and while refusing to provide a list of lawyers at the firm. After this, the senator jumped down Kavanaugh’s throat with a question about the white nationalist riots in Charlottesville last year.

“Judge, have you ever discussed Special Counsel Mueller or his investigation with anyone?” Harris asked. After the nominee responded that he had, the senator asked, “Have you discussed it with anyone at Kasowitz, Benson, and Torres, the law firm founded by Marc Kasowitz, President Trump’s personal lawyer? Be sure about your answer, sir.”

Kavanaugh, perplexed, could not remember if he knew anyone at that law firm. “Is there a person you’re talking about?” The senator responded, “I’m asking you a very direct question, yes or no.”

“I’m not sure, I need to know anyone who works at that law firm,” the nominee explained. As the senator continued to push him, he said, “I’m just trying to think, do I know anyone at that firm.” Kamala Harris cut him off, saying, “That’s not my question.”

“I would like to know the person you’re thinking of,” Kavanaugh said. “I think you’re thinking of someone and you don’t want to tell us,” Harris countered. Can she read his mind?!

“Who did you have a conversation with?” Kamala Harris asked, acting as though the nominee’s perplexed face revealed his complicity.

At this point, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) chimed in with a point of order, explaining that Washington, D.C. is full of law firms, that law firms are full of people, and it is not reasonable for Harris to assume Kavanaugh automatically knows everyone who works at this one specific law firm. He joked, “They’re like rabbits, they form new firms.” CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/atlanta-mayor-announces-city-jails-no-longer-hold-ice-detainees/

Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms signed an executive order Thursday requiring that all Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees be transferred out of city custody immediately.

“Atlanta will no longer be complicit in a policy that intentionally inflicts misery on a vulnerable population without giving any thought to the horrific fallout,” Bottoms said at a City Hall news conference, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “As the birthplace of the civil-rights movement we are called to be better than this.”

The announcement comes roughly two months after a previous executive order, issued in the wake of the Trump administration’s adoption of a “zero tolerance” immigration-enforcement policy, declared that city jails would not accept any new ICE detainees.

The number of ICE detainees in Atlanta jails has fallen from 205 in June, when the initial executive order was issued, to just five as of Wednesday. Of the 200 detainees removed from Atlanta jails in the interim, some have been released, some have been deported, and some have been transferred to various nearby detention centers.

Georgia secretary of state Brian Kemp, the state’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, issued a harshly critical statement in response to the order.

“The City of Atlanta should focus on cleaning up corruption and stopping crime — not creating more of it,” Kemp said.

A number of other localities, including Sacramento County, Calif. and Springfield, Ore. previously discontinued, or chose not to renew, federal contracts that required they imprison ICE detainees.

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/405242-the-mueller-probes-troubling-reliance-on-journalists-as-sources

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has sent a subpoena to veteran writer Jerome Corsi — the first publicly known effort to compel a journalist’s testimony in the Trump-Russia collusion investigation.

Corsi, whose work has been showcased for years in conservative outlets such as Human Events, World Net Daily and the InfoWars conspiracy site, says he will not fight the subpoena and plans to appear before the grand jury on Friday.

The subpoena is a not-so-subtle reminder of just how much prosecutors, FBI agents, and the government’s confidential sources who launched and sustained the Russia probe all targeted, courted and leveraged the news media.

Mueller’s team reportedly wants to question Corsi about his contacts with longtime Trump friend Roger Stone and whether Stone ever asked Corsi to try to get WikiLeaks to release damaging emails on Hillary Clinton before the 2016 election ended. It’s expected that Corsi will tell prosecutors he did not bite on Stone’s overtures, in part because he suspected Julian Assange and WikiLeaks were monitored by U.S. intelligence after their past publications of classified U.S. secrets.

An anonymous op-ed published in The New York Times, penned by “a senior Trump administration official,” contends that a cabal of senior staffers have secretly schemed to undermine Donald Trump in an effort to protect the American people. “I work for the president,” claims the purported senior official, “but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”

The problem with the much-discussed op-ed isn’t only that it fails to offer a single example of officials actually “thwarting” the Trump agenda or saving the republic from his capriciousness. It’s that it celebrates the idea of nullifying an election.

While I’m sure much of the op-ed is thematically accurate, it’s difficult to believe the author is a selfless public servant letting us know that our democratic institutions are safe in their nameless hands. Any member of the administration legitimately concerned about reigning in the president’s outbursts—and doubtlessly there are a number of them—would never have sent an article guaranteed to generate more White House chaos and paranoia.

It would make no sense. Trump, after all, is already dealing with interminable leaks. The piece will only further confirm his suspicions that a Fifth Column is undercutting the presidency, which will make him less likely to listen to advisors.

To be fair, if you were informed that a faction of “senior” staffers was actively subverting your “agenda”—not merely your tweeting or hyperbole about the media, but the policy items that you promised the electorate you would pursue—you might have some valid reasons to be suspicious, as well.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/06/christopher-steele

Who exactly is Christopher Steele? The answer depends on who you ask.

According to our media overlords, he is simply a former British spy, well-regarded by the international intelligence apparatus for his skill and deep connections, and someone whose “integrity, excellence and diligence” should not be questioned. Reporters portray him as an honest broker who tried to warn U.S. law enforcement officials about the Trump campaign’s ties to the Kremlin via his infamous dossier. Steele, we are warned, now is a victim of congressional Republicans desperate to undermine the special counsel’s investigation.

But as the real story emerges about who Christopher Steele is, it raises troubling questions about his influence in the 2016 presidential campaign and in the highest echelons of the U.S. government.

Who Really Colluded with the Russians?
During the 2016 election cycle, Steele was paid by three conflicting sources: The Hillary Clinton campaign; the FBI; and a Russian oligarch tied to Vladimir Putin. This confluence of fiduciary events is the closest evidence yet about legitimate collusion between a presidential campaign and Russian interests, aided by Steele’s pals in the U.S. Department of Justice and helpful reporters in the American news media.