RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/nation-now/2018/07/11/how-went-donald-trump-critic-president-trump-supporter-column/774925002/
I admit that I was wrong about Trump. He’s not a clown, and he is delivering on his promises.

Over the years, my caricatures of Donald Trump have evolved but not as much as my opinion of him.

When Trump announced he was running for president, I admit that I didn’t take this millionaire, hotel magnate, reality TV show celebrity as a serious candidate. I doubted his ability to do the job. So I drew him as a clown. In fact, my cartoons were as critical of him as many of my liberal cartoonist friends.

Then Trump started a war with the news media, tagging major news outlets as “fake news.” Ahem, I’m in the media.

And while Trump promised to pursue conservative policies, this conservative cartoonist doubted his sincerity. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that he was on the left.

In the crowded primary field, Trump got the most attention by being the loudest. His tweets could not be ignored by the media and resulted in Trump dominating news coverage.

I found his personal attacks sophomoric. I mean, calling his opponents “Low-energy Jeb,” “Lyin’ Ted,” “Little Marco,” “Crazy Bernie” and “Crooked Hillary” was not presidential. It was childish, but it worked. He won and they lost.

In this braggadocios “I’m the greatest” culture, Trump became the Muhammad Ali of politicians. His claims of, “I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created,” “I’m really rich,” “I’m very highly educated,” “I’m the best (fill in the blank)” stretched credulity but was certainly entertaining.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2018/07/11/catalyzing-innovation-via-centers-labs-and-foundries/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

The cornerstone of collaboration is based on knowledge transfer; sharing of research tools, methodologies and findings; and sometimes combining mutual funding resources to meet shortfalls necessary to build prototypes and commercialize technologies.

Collaborations often involve combinations of government, industry and academia who work together to meet difficult challenges and cultivate new ideas. A growing trend for many leading companies is creating technology specific innovation centers, labs, and foundries to accelerate collaboration and invention.

As the development of new technologies continues to grow exponentially and globally, collaboration has more value as a resource for adapting to the rapidly emerging technologies landscape by establishing pivotal connections between companies, technologies and stakeholders.

In the US Federal government, the National Labs (including: Lawrence Livermore, Oak Ridge, Argonne, Sandia, Idaho National Laboratory, Battelle, and Brookhaven, and Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDC’s), and federally funded Centers For Excellence have been outlets for innovation and public/private cooperation. The benefits of the Labs’ role include experienced capability in rapid proto-typing of new technologies ready for transitioning, showcasing and commercialization. The Labs are a reservoir of specialized skills and capabilities with the best state-of-the art facilities for testing and evaluation of technologies.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/07/gunning_for_judge_kavanaugh.html

It’s not just the wrongly decided Roe V. Wade decision that liberals fear is in jeopardy with the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. They also fear their crusade against “semi-automatic” weapons may be exposed as the semantic, visual, and judicial fraud that it is:

“If you care about common sense gun violence protection, Judge Kavanaugh is your worst nightmare. If you want background checks, a ban on assault weapons, or any of the other common sense measures that we have in Connecticut, or California or New York, Judge Kavanaugh will strike them down.” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, who used to clerk on the court. “That’s in his record, it’s indisputable.”

“Give him a seat on this court, and you can say good-bye to the common sense measures in Connecticut, California and New York that have helped save lives,” he added.

President Trump may very well have picked Brett Kavanaugh to be his second nomination to the Supreme Court based on his clear-thinking opinion that there is no asterisk next the phrase “right to keep and bear arms” that says it is okay for that right to be infringed based on a “scary” appearance or advancements in technology:

Kavanaugh, who has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit since 2006, dissented from a 2011 decision in which a three-judge panel upheld the District of Columbia’s ban on so-called assault weapons and its requirement that all guns be registered. Kavanaugh disagreed with the majority’s use of “intermediate scrutiny,” saying an analysis “based on text, history, and tradition” is more consistent with the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment precedents.

http://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/396307-Did-FBI-get-bamboozled-by-multiple-versions-of-Trump-dossier%3F

Like dandelions in an untreated lawn, the now infamous Russian dossier apparently multiplied in numbers — and emissaries delivering it to the FBI — the closer Donald Trump got to the White House.

We know from public testimony that dossier author and former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele shared his findings with the FBI in summer and fall 2016 before he was terminated as a confidential source for inappropriate media contacts.

And we learned that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) provided a copy to the FBI after the November 2016 election — out of a sense of duty, his office says.

Now, memos the FBI is turning over to Congress show the bureau possessed at least three versions of the dossier and its mostly unverified allegations of collusion.

Each arrived from a different messenger: McCain, Mother Jones reporter David Corn, Fusion GPS founder (and Steele boss) Glenn Simpson.

That revelation is in an email that disgraced FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok wrote to FBI executives around the time BuzzFeed published a version of the dossier on Jan. 10, 2017.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/07/brett-kavanaugh-mueller-insurance-trump-no/

Senate Democrats are misrepresenting a 2009 law-review article.

Yes, the judicial-confirmation silly season surely is upon us.

In 2009, Brett Kavanaugh wrote the following words in a characteristically well-reasoned article for the Minnesota Law Review: “No one is above the law in our system of government. I strongly agree with that principle.”

It is based on this article that Senate Democrats claim— I kid you not — that President Trump’s nominee is unfit to serve on the Supreme Court because he believes the president is above the law.

This is so barmy it is difficult to know where to start. I do have a suggestion, though, about where not to start. In rebuttal, Kavanaugh supporters have been quick to remind us that the judge served as a prosecutor on Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s staff in the criminal investigation of President Clinton. This, they say, makes it self-evidently silly to say that Kavanaugh is against such investigations.

To the contrary, Kavanaugh’s article (only a small part of which deals with this topic) is a reflection on lessons learned from his experience not only in the Starr investigation but also as a staffer in the Bush White House. He observed the grind up close, the relentless pressures and constant life-and-death decision-making that makes the presidency like no other office. Having been seasoned by that experience, he now believes “in retrospect” that it “seems a mistake” to take a doctrinaire position that presidents should be treated like any other person when their duties are unlike any other person’s — and when we routinely make accommodations for persons with far less consequential duties.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-senate-deadline-for-kavanaugh-1531265850

Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination now heads to the Senate, and the most important fact to understand is that the debate in the world’s greatest nondeliberative body is not about the future of the Supreme Court. That’s a sideshow. The real debate is about the future of the Senate—specifically, which political party will control that now narrowly divided chamber in 2019.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has already said he will “oppose Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination with everything I have.” Nice to know he’s given it such careful thought. But Mr. Schumer knows defeating the judge is a long shot, especially after Maine Senator Susan Collins made encouraging comments Tuesday about Judge Kavanaugh’s lower-court opinion on ObamaCare and his statement in 2006 that Roe v. Wade is a binding precedent.

In any case, what Mr. Schumer cares about more than defeating Donald Trump’s nominee is to be the next Majority Leader. Toward that end he wants to help his 10 incumbent Senators running in November to navigate between a political base that demands opposition to all things Trump and broader state electorates that might come to think that Judge Kavanaugh is an excellent nominee.

The best way to do that is to postpone a confirmation vote beyond Nov. 6. That way Joe Donnelly in Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota and Joe Manchin in West Virginia wouldn’t have to take a politically difficult vote before Election Day.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2018/07/10/supreme-court-nominee-brett-kavanaugh-penned-healthcare-dissent-focused-on-tax/#72fd0b0f4d6c

President Trump has announced his nomination to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) created by Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement. On Monday, the President gave the nod to District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh has close ties to the Supreme Court. He clerked for Kennedy in the 1990s with another Supreme Court Justice, Neil Gorsuch. For the past dozen years, he’s been a fixture in the D.C. courts, which have produced other SCOTUS Justices, including Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Chief Justice John Roberts.

SCOTUS Justices typically don’t cut their teeth on tax cases, and Kavanaugh would be no exception. There is one tax-related case in his career, though, that stands out: Seven-Sky v. Holder (Susan SEVEN–SKY, Also Known as Susan Sevensky, et al., Appellants v. Eric H. HOLDER, Jr., et al., Appellees, No. 11–5047).

The case was a challenge to the Affordable Care Act (also called “ACA” or sometimes “Obamacare”). The Act was passed by Congress on March 21, 2010, and signed into law by then President Barack Obama two days later. A number of lawsuits followed, including Seven-Sky, which involved a challenge to the “minimum essential coverage provision.” The minimum essential coverage provision required that folks purchase and maintain healthcare insurance. It’s more commonly known as the individual mandate, and if you don’t have coverage—and don’t qualify for a waiver or an exemption’you’re subject to a penalty. (Er, tax? Keep reading.)

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270704/trumps-stellar-supreme-court-pick-joseph-klein

President Trump has nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to fill the seat vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced his retirement late last month. Judge Kavanaugh, 53, who has served on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for 12 years, said that he was “deeply honored” to be nominated to replace Justice Kennedy, for whom he once clerked. If confirmed by the Senate, where the Republicans hold a razor-thin majority, Judge Kavanaugh, a principled strict constructionist, will help solidify a reliably conservative Supreme Court.

The left is in full resistance mode. It believes that the judiciary should serve as an additional but unelected political branch, whose duty it is to enact the left’s progressive policy agenda. They want activist justices who will treat the Constitution as a malleable instrument that can be twisted into the image of what the left thinks society should be.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, kowtowing to his base, wasted no time in viciously attacking Judge Kavanaugh, claiming that his nomination puts abortion rights and health care protections for women “on the judicial chopping block.” Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon declared, “There can be no mistaking Trump’s Supreme Court nomination for anything but what it is: a direct attempt to overturn Roe. v. Wade.”

This is only a small taste of the demagoguery, outright lies and outrageous ad hominem attacks against Judge Kavanaugh we can expect in the weeks ahead. Those who revere the Constitution, and who believe, like Alexander Hamilton, that the “rules of legal interpretation” should apply the laws in “conformity to the source from which they are derived,” must get out in front with the truth about this eminently qualified “judge’s judge.”

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kavanaugh-visits-capitol-hill-as-durbin-predicts-wild-west-d-c-if-confirmed/

Senate Dems vow to “look into what went on and what assurances were made that brought this name to the top of the list.”

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats vowed today to try to use deep investigation and grassroots activism to stop President Trump’s pick for the Supreme Court as federal appeals court judge Brett Kavanaugh began making the rounds on Capitol Hill to meet GOP lawmakers.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) declared in a press conference in front of the Supreme Court this morning that “anyone who gets the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval from Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society and from the Heritage Foundation is not moderate, is not mainstream, is hard right and wants to move America back decades.”

Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), who has been in the upper chamber for the past 17 Supreme Court nominations, protested that “the Constitution doesn’t direct the president to nominate justices with the advice and consent of the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation; the Constitution gives that role to the Senate.”

“But I think the president looks at our independent courts like he does the Justice Department,” Leahy added. “He thinks the courts, as well as the Justice Department, should be an arm of the White House.”

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) charged that “Washington, D.C., where he grew up, would be Wild West D.C. if Judge Kavanaugh had his way,” with views on the Second Amendment “straight out of the gun lobby’s playbook.”

http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/10/14-times-republican-officials-viciously-harassed-
n the past couple of months, Republicans and government officials who work for President Trump have received death threats, been run out of restaurants and stores, and followed to their cars.

Throughout the past couple of months, Republicans and government officials who work for President Trump have received death threats, been run out of restaurants and stores, and followed to their cars. The uptick in harassment coincides with increasingly aggressive rhetoric from leading Democrats.

Here are 14 times Trump administration officials and Republican lawmakers have been threatened or run out of establishments recently.
1. Protestors to Mitch McConnell: ‘We Know Where You Live!’

Protestors followed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to his car outside of a restaurant in Kentucky on Saturday. In a video recording of the encounter, protestors are seen walking behind McConnell and shouting at him: “Vote you out!”

Hundreds of protestors were demonstrating outside of a nearby Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office on Saturday, when the senator was spotted dining at a restaurant just a few miles away, CNN reported.

“We know where you live too, Mitch!” the group of protestors are seen yelling. “Abolish ICE!”
2. Protestors Follow Elaine Chao To Her Car

Two weeks ago, protestors followed McConnell and his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, as they were getting into a vehicle. These demonstrators played audio of border-crossing foreign children whose parents were reportedly apprehended and heckling the senator for the Trump administration’s border enforcement policies.

“Why are you separating families?” the men ask.

“Why don’t you leave my husband alone!” Chao responds.

The day before this showdown between Chao and protestors, Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters called for Democrats to “create a crowd” whenever they see a Trump administration official at a restaurant or shopping mall and to “tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
3. Liberals Wish Rep. Steve Scalise Was Dead

In response to Water’s call for mobs of protestors to heckle and crowd around Republicans, Rep. Steve Scalise, who survived an anti-Republican shooting last year, called for civility among all Americans, from both sides of the aisle. His call for civility was met with pushback from people who said they wished he had “succumbed to his wounds.”
4. Liberal PAC Fundraises For Billboard Encouraging Passersby to ‘Take Out’ Scalise

In May, a liberal PAC was raising money to erect a poster encouraging passersby to “take out” Scalise. The wording of the billboard, combined with a comment from the PAC chairman saying his group was planning to “toss mortars” at Republicans, was sloppy, to say the least.
5. Man Arrested For Threatening To Kill Republican Supporters

On Saturday, a man was arrested in Suffolk County, New York, for threatening to kill supporters of Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin and President Donald Trump. The Daily Caller has more:

‘Martin Astrof was arrested after he threatened to kill supporters of Congressman Lee Zeldin and President Donald Trump,’ Suffolk PD said. ‘Astrof went to the campaign headquarters of Congressman Zeldin and became irate with a campaign worker at approximately 11:15 a.m. After threatening to kill the campaign worker and other supporters, Astrof backed his car up in an aggressive manner nearly striking the worker.’

6. Cynthia Nixon Calls ICE a ‘Terrorist Organization’

“Sex and the City” star and gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon, who campaigned in Suffolk County over the weekend, called ICE a “terrorist organization,” and called for the “monstrous Trump-Pence administration” to be abolished.

7. Woman Screams Out Steve Bannon at a Bookstore

On Saturday, a woman reportedly screamed at former White House advisor Steve Bannon, who was shopping at a bookstore in Richmond, Virginia. The woman called Bannon a “piece of trash” and continued to yell at him until the bookstore owner called the cops, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
8. Woman Confronts Scott Pruitt At DC Restaurant With 2-Year-Old Son On Her Hip

Last Monday, a woman eating with her two-year-old son at a restaurant in Washington DC confronted former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt and urged him to resign.

“This is my son, he loves animals, wants clean water, clean air,” the woman said. “I’m urging you to resign before your scandals push you out.”
9. Mob of Protestors Swarm DHS Secretary at DC Restaurant, Yell ‘Shame! Shame!’

Days earlier, a group of protestors swarmed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen at a Mexican restaurant in Washington DC and shouted “SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!” at her repeatedly until she left.
10. Restaurant Owner Kicks Out Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Two weeks ago, the owner of a restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave her eatery because the White House press secretary works for the Trump administration.
11. Net Neutrality Supporter Threatened to Murder FCC Chairman’s Family

In late June, a man was arrested and charged for threatening to kill Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and his family. Earlier this year, Pai, had to cancel appearances because of bomb threats aimed at him after the chairman voted to repeal Internet traffic regulations last December.
12. Protestors Left A Burnt, Decapitated Animal Body On DHS Employee’s Front Porch

In a recent threat assessment, DHS officials reported an uptick in the number of threats made against employees at the department since the increased attention to Trump’s enforcement of U.S. immigration policies. In one case, a DHS employee who lives in the Washington DC area found a body of a burned, decapitated animal on his front porch, ABC News reports.
13. Idaho State Rep. Threatened With Death, Rape

Idaho State Rep. Priscilla Giddings has been threatened with rape and encouraged to kill herself by people who disliked a Facebook post in which she explains how having a gun saved her life while fighting the Taliban overseas. Giddings, a former combat pilot and current major in the Air Force Reserves, says that disarming women in the U.S. is a step backwards. You can listen to the vile voicemail messages she received here.
14. Protestors Hand ‘Wanted’ Posters With Stephen Miller’s Face On Them To His Neighbors

Several weeks ago, White House senior advisor Stephen Miller’s face was slapped onto “Wanted” flyers found circulating among his neighbors at an apartment complex he reportedly lives in.

Miller reportedly told his colleagues that a bartender at a restaurant flipped him off when he went to pick up a sushi order at a nearby restaurant and repeatedly yelled at him. This confrontation prompted Miller to throw away $80 worth of sushi for fear that it had been tampered with.
Bre Payton is a staff writer at The Federalist. Follow her on Twitter.