RUTHFULLY YOURS

Although favored in recent polls Nunes’s efforts to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigations has encouraged Democrats.

“Nunes’s hometown newspaper, the Fresno Bee, dubbed him “Trump’s stooge.” One associate called him “an overeager goofball” and creepy Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) compared him to Inspector Clouseau.”

If you wish to contribute to his campaign coffers here is the site: https://www.devinnunes.com/

And just for the record The Arab American Association gave him a minus 2 for his support for Israel. rsk

Devin Nunes, the eight-term Republican congressman from California, is taking on the world’s most powerful law enforcement and intelligence apparatus to uncover exactly what happened before and after the 2016 presidential election. Although Nunes is undoubtedly earning some formidable enemies, he seems undaunted—perhaps even emboldened—by the anti-Trump mob on the Left and the Right trying to discredit his investigation and destroy his reputation.

Nunes, 44, goes about his business in a way that only a politician who doesn’t owe his career to billionaire benefactors or a privileged pedigree can: He is fearless, well-informed, and slightly snarky. The descendant of Portuguese immigrants, Nunes has a background in agriculture (a profession that has been mocked by some of our well-fed betters) and got his start in local politics. Since he was first elected to represent his San Joaquin Valley district in 2002, he’s never won less than 60 percent of the vote. (Jim Geraghty has a solid profile of the congressman.)

As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes has been relentless in exposing how top officials in the Obama Administration corrupted our most trusted federal agencies in order to spy on Trump’s presidential campaign, hoping then to undermine his nascent presidency after he won. What is unfolding now will be the biggest political scandal in U.S. history and Nunes is a central figure in exposing it.

The hard-fought release of his memo in February—which was opposed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray but sanctioned by President Trump—gave the American public its first glimpse into how Obama’s DOJ secured a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to wiretap Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page just days before the election.

Nunes revealed that James Comey’s FBI did not inform the court that the Christopher Steele dossier, the primary evidence cited on the application for the warrant, had been produced and funded by Trump’s rival campaign. Further, the FBI didn’t disclose that Steele had been terminated by the FBI for lying to federal officials prior to Election Day although the agency continued to use his work to reauthorize three more FISA warrants on Page. (The Senate Judiciary Committee referred Steele to the Justice Department back in January for a criminal investigation of charges that he misled FBI investigators.)

Lately, we have been seeing lots of stories about how voters who supported President Trump are moving away from supporting Republicans because of Trump’s policies and that they are going to vote for Democrats in the midterm elections. Isn’t it amazing that as Trump’s approval ratings gradually go up, we get these stories of Republicans running away?

A huge majority of the journalists writing these stories don’t like Republicans or Republican policies, and the purpose of the stories is to push Republicans to change their votes instead of inform.

The latest theme is that Republicans are going to lose big, and one of the major storylines being repeated over and over again is that Midwestern farmers will vote against Republicans because of Trump’s trade policies.

Are farmers going to go back to Democrats and have their top income tax rate on their farm income raised to 39.6% from 29.6%? Are they going to embrace the party of endless regulations? Would they really give up the tax cuts and the reduced regulations because of temporary tariffs meant to finally pressure China? My guess is most farmers recognize the long-term benefit of Trump’s policies and will vote accordingly.

I believe that worldwide demand for soybeans and corn will be the same, and somehow the product will be shipped to other countries and then shipped to China without the tariffs. Have Democrats traditionally been free traders? Here is what the press is reporting:

From his dairy farm in southeastern Nebraska, lifelong Republican Ben Steffen believed Donald Trump meant what he said on the campaign trail about ripping up U.S. trade agreements.

So Steffen, who produces milk, beef, soybeans, corn and wheat, wasn’t shocked when Trump pulled America out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact, began renegotiating NAFTA or announced his intent to impose aluminum and steel tariffs on China that have drawn the threat of retaliatory sanctions on American products.

In Washington a picture is emerging of an eerie and lack-of-candor railroading of Donald Trump conducted by the likes of James Comey and Andrew McCabe. The abuse of power by government officials who refuse to acknowledge the authority of the duly-elected chief executive is not limited to the FBI. And such abuse has inspired one of the President’s harshest critics to raise an alarm.

Warnings about an out-of-control “deep state” of bureaucrats who resist constitutional political authority have become standard fare in conservative media; this week brings a compelling new addition to the genre from a media outlet on the other end of the ideological spectrum.

Writing in the left-leaning British publication The Guardian, Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith affirms that the improper exercise of executive authority by government officials pursuing their own agendas is not merely a figment of red-state imagination. According to Mr. Goldsmith:

America doesn’t have coups or tanks in the street. But a deep state of sorts exists here and it includes national security bureaucrats who use secretly collected information to shape or curb the actions of elected officials…

Since Trump was elected, unusually sensitive leaks of intelligence information designed to discredit him and his senior leadership have poured forth from current and former intelligence officials in the deep state.

It’s worth pausing here to note that while Mr. Goldsmith is not nearly as far to the left as most Guardian editors, he has been among the establishment Republicans most hostile to the President. CONTINUE AT SITE

The facts about America’s prison system are startling. The U.S. has 4% of the world’s population, but roughly 25% of the world’s prisoners. Federal and state prisons hold some 1.5 million inmates, and 6.2 million people are in local jails, on parole or on probation. Of the 650,000 people who leave prison every year, two-thirds will commit a new crime within three years.

By reforming federal prisons, Congress has the opportunity to help give former inmates a second chance to become successful, contributing members of society. This is an issue that could unite Americans across the ideological spectrum. Sensible and just prison-reform legislation would direct government resources toward reducing crime, enhancing public safety and increasing opportunity.

Prisoners face significant barriers to re-entering society in a meaningful way, and they have too few tools to help them succeed upon release. After years or even decades in prison, inmates often are disconnected from their families, have no place to live, lack relevant job skills, and need counseling for addiction or mental-health problems. Many don’t have even a photo identification, much less the skills necessary to succeed in a job interview. To help solve this problem, lawmakers can promote comprehensive and proven rehabilitation strategies. They include expanding access to prison work programs so that inmates can develop job skills. CONTINUE AT SITE

Operations when death is all but assured are called suicide missions, and it’s beginning to look as if Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson was sent on a political version. The nominee to run Veterans Affairs has been under siege from the agency’s bureaucracy, anonymous press leaks, and on Tuesday even friendly fire from the President who nominated him.

The Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs on Tuesday postponed Dr. Jackson’s Wednesday confirmation hearing amid allegations of misconduct during his nearly five-year tenure as physician to the President. The charges have been mostly vague and anonymous, such as running a hostile work environment, which could mean anything or nothing.

Late Tuesday afternoon news leaked about a 2012 Inspector General report that found “unprofessional behaviors” from Dr. Jackson and another physician in a power struggle. But if this is accurate, why did President Obama promote him? Senator Jon Tester (D., Mont.) in a press interview said some of Dr. Jackson’s colleagues alleged he had been “repeatedly drunk” while on duty, among other claims.

The public has little way to evaluate the merits, and Dr. Jackson deserves at minimum to know who is shooting at him. Committee Chairman Johnny Isakson and Ranking Member Mr. Tester wrote to the White House requesting more information, including communications with Defense Department IGs. There may be more to learn from the documents the White House produces.

The reality is that Dr. Jackson wasn’t vetted or adequately prepared for the VA post, and by all accounts wasn’t seeking it when President Trump chose him. Dr. Jackson also doesn’t appear to have a background in Washington’s treacherous politics of veterans.

Just as the first casualty of war is truth, so, too, the first casualty of hyper-partisan politics is civil liberties.

Many traditional civil libertarians have allowed their strong anti-Trump sentiments to erase their long-standing commitment to neutral civil liberties. They are now so desperate to get Trump that they are prepared to compromise the most basic due process rights. They forget the lesson of history that such compromises made against one’s enemy are often used as precedents against one’s friends. As Robert Bolt put it in the play and movie A Man for all Seasons:

Roper: So now you would give the Devil benefit of Law!

Thomas Moore: Yes, what would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that?

Thomas Moore: And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man’s laws, not God’s — and if you cut them down — and you’re just the man to do it — d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

But today’s fair weather civil libertarians are unwilling to give President Trump – who they regard as the devil — the “benefit of law” and civil liberties.

Consider the issue of criticizing Robert Mueller, the Special counsel. Any criticism or even skepticism regarding Mueller’s history is seen as motivated by a desire to help Trump. Mueller was an Assistant US attorney in Boston, the head of its criminal division, the head of the criminal division in Main Justice and the Director of the FBI during the most scandalous miscarriage of justice in the modern history of the FBI. Four innocent people were framed by the FBI in order to protect mass murdering gangsters who were working as FBI informers while they were killing innocent people. An FBI agent, who is now in prison, was tipping off Whitey Bulger as to who might testify against him so that these individuals could be killed. He also tipped off Bulger allowing him to escape and remain on the lam for 16 years.

What responsibility, if any, did Robert Mueller, who was in key positions of authority and capable of preventing these horrible miscarriages, have in this sordid incident? A former member of the parole board – a liberal Democrat who also served as mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts – swears that he saw a letter from Robert Mueller urging the denial of release for at least one of these wrongfully convicted defendants. When he went back to retrieve the letter, it was not in the file. This should surprise no one since Judge Mark Wolf (himself a former prosecutor), who conducted extensive hearings about this entire mess, made the following findings:

“The files relating to the Wheeler murder, and the FBI’s handling of them, exemplify recurring irregularities with regard to the preparation, maintenance, and production in this case of documents damaging to Flemmi and Bulger. First, there appears to be a pattern of false statements placed in Flemmi’s informant file to divert attention from his possible crimes and/or FBI misconduct….

Second, contrary to the FBI’s usual policy and practice, all but one of the reports containing Halloran’s allegations against Bulger and Flemmi were not indexed and placed in an investigative file referencing their names. Thus, those documents were not discoverable by a standard search of the FBI’s indices. Similar irregularities in indexing and, therefore, access occurred with regard to information that the FBI received concerning an extortion by Bulger of Hobart Willis and from Joseph Murray concerning the murder of Brian Halloran, among other things.

When legal bloodhounds and baying critics fail to take out Trump, what’s next? The Resistance wants Trump’s head — on the chopping block.

On the domestic and foreign fronts, the Trump administration has prompted economic growth and restored U.S. deterrence. Polls show increased consumer confidence, and in some, Trump himself has gained ground. Yet good news is bad news to the Resistance and its strange continued efforts to stop an elected president in a way it failed to do in the 2106 election.

Indeed, the aim of the so-called Resistance to Donald J. Trump is ending Trump’s presidency by any means necessary before the 2020 election. Or, barring that, it seeks to so delegitimize him that he becomes presidentially impotent. It has been only 16 months since Trump took office and, in the spirit of revolutionary fervor, almost everything has been tried to derail him. Now we are entering uncharted territory — at a time when otherwise the country is improving and the legal exposure of Trump’s opponents increases daily.

First came the failed lawsuits after the election alleging voting-machine tampering. Then there was the doomed celebrity effort to convince some state electors not to follow their constitutional duty and to deny Trump the presidency — a gambit that, had it worked, would have wrecked the Constitution. Then came the pathetic congressional boycott of the inauguration and the shrill nationwide protests against the president.

Anti- and Never-Trump op-ed writers have long ago run out of superlatives. Trump is the worst, most, biggest — fill in the blank — in the history of the presidency, in the history of the world, worse even than Mao, Mussolini, Stalin, or Hitler.

Next was the sad effort to introduce articles of impeachment. After that came weird attempts to cite Trump for violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution. That puerile con was followed by plans to declare him deranged and mentally unfit so that he could be removed under the 25th Amendment. From time to time, Obama holdovers in the DOJ, National Security Council, and FBI sought to leak information, or they refused to carry out presidential orders.

As the Resistance goes from one ploy to the next, it ignores its string of failed prior efforts, forgetting everything and learning nothing. State nullification is no longer neo-Confederate but an any-means-necessary progressive tool. Suing the government weekly is proof of revolutionary fides, not a waste of California’s taxpayer dollars.

Anti- and Never-Trump op-ed writers have long ago run out of superlatives. Trump is the worst, most, biggest — fill in the blank — in the history of the presidency, in the history of the world, worse even than Mao, Mussolini, Stalin, or Hitler. So if Trump is a Hitler who gassed 6 million or a Stalin who starved 20 million, then logically Trump deserves what exactly?

A seismic shift in the cultural and political American landscape this weekend emanated from an unlikely epicenter: superstar rapper Kanye West, who tweeted a controversial endorsement of black conservative commentator Candace Owens. Nothing triggers leftist anger quite like blacks thinking for themselves, and not like they do. So the left erupted with predictable fury toward both West and Owens.

Kanye, whose ubiquitous wife Kim Kardashian was a prominent supporter of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, has drawn leftist fire before. First, he incurred online scorn from the left and right in 2015 for announcing his serious intention to run for President in 2020. Then shortly after the 2016 presidential election, he shared with a California audience that he didn’t vote, but if he had, he “would’ve voted for Trump,” an admission that was unusual to say the least for a celebrity of his stature, black or white. It angered and bewildered fans so much that they actually expressed concern about Kanye’s mental health.

In December of 2016, he met briefly with Trump, who referred to Kanye at the time as his “friend,” to discuss “multicultural issues,” primarily the topic of violence in Chicago where Kanye was raised. This showed some surprising independence of mind and considerable courage on Kanye’s part, considering that black-on-black violence in blighted urban centers controlled by Democrat politicians is a scourge the left is silent about.

Then this past Saturday morning, Kanye dropped a bombshell tweet, declaring, “I love the way Candace Owens thinks.” As of this writing it has been retweeted over 21,000 times and “liked” over 81,000 times. A few minutes later he followed up with another seemingly supportive message, “only free thinkers,” which holds similarly high numbers of retweets and “likes.”

Owens is a millennial black conservative commentator known to her 183,000 subscribers on YouTube as “Red Pill Black.” Her recognition factor was increased last September by an interview with fellow former lefty Dave Rubin on his immensely popular YouTube talk show, The Rubin Report. In that interview she discussed her journey from left to right, her issues with the left’s corrosive identity politics, and her thoughts on activist journalists essentially serving as media “hitmen.” Rubin has continued to be a big supporter of Owens.

WASHINGTON – Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said Facebook’s 20,000 content reviewers bring their political “bias to work” and have blocked content that’s not related to issues such as terrorism.

Blackburn mentioned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called Silicon Valley an “extremely left-leaning place” during his recent Senate hearing under questioning from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

“We don’t ask people their political affiliation when they are hired,” Zuckerberg said at the hearing.

Blackburn said Congress should examine “guardrails” that could be put in place to prevent content that might offend certain people for political reasons from being blocked.

“He has 15-20,000 content reviewers and managers. So one of the things we have to realize is they bring that bias to work and then, as they develop an algorithm, how are they manipulating that algorithm?” Blackburn said during a Family Research Council discussion last Tuesday, “Losing Our Voices: Who Owns Free Speech on the Internet?”