RUTHFULLY YOURS

Nearly a year-and-a-half into Donald Trump’s presidency, Trump Derangement Syndrome continues to rage. No number of successes––from tax reform and low unemployment rates not seen since 2000, to bringing North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to the bargaining table––can lower the fever of the anti-Trump disease. Even those few who are willing to give grudging recognition to Trump’s achievements feel compelled to add snarky asides about his person and style in order to assert their anti-Trump bona fides.

How can we explain this bizarre obsession with image and style in the teeth of successful substance?

I’m not talking so much about the progressive Dems. Like the scorpion in the fable, poisonous slander is in their nature. Their slogan has always been “by any means necessary,” a dogma at home in the breviary of every looney cult. So too is their aggressive belief in their own self-righteousness and entitlement to rule, which the election of Trump has challenged. This certainty of their own purity allows them to excuse any number of inconsistencies and double standards. That’s why they will complain hysterically about Trump’s past sexual peccadillos, while shrugging off Bill Clinton’s sexual assaults and sordid adventures on the Lolita Express; or they will hyperventilate at Trump’s vulgar tweets while enjoying Michelle Wolfe’s mean-girl insults and pornographic “humor” at the media’s nerd prom, aka White House Correspondents Dinner.

More interesting is the continuing resentment and anti-Trump animus on the part of self-proclaimed Republicans and conservatives. Even when acknowledging Trump’s successes, they too can’t resist some attack on Trump that signals their lofty virtue. They still reflexively insist that “principle” and “values” lie behind their disdain, that Trump has violated the “norms and traditions,” as serial liar and Democrat toady James Comey put it, that previous presidents have honored. Trump’s lack of decorum and his braggadocio, we continually hear, is “not who we are.”

Explosives require careful handling. Sometimes they blow up in your face.

After the 2016 election, the so-called deep state was confident that it had the power easily to either stop, remove, or delegitimize the outlier Donald Trump and his presidency.

Give it credit, the Washington apparat quite imaginatively pulled out all the stops: implanting Obama holdover appointees all over the Trump executive branch; filing lawsuits and judge shopping; organizing the Resistance; pursuing impeachment writs; warping the FISA courts; weaponizing the DOJ and FBI; attempting to disrupt the Electoral College; angling for enactment of the 25th Amendment or the emoluments clause; and unleashing Hollywood celebrities, Silicon Valley, and many in Wall Street to suffocate the Trump presidency in its infancy.

Silicon Valley likewise has lost its luster. Once upon a time, America loved a hip Steve Jobs, decked out in black, fiddling with a new Apple gadget on stage in front of an entranced televised audience of millions. Jobs appeared as a brilliant and typically American entrepreneur, not a partisan talking down to hoi polloi.

Things have radically changed since then. The reputation of Big Tech is one of hyper-partisan politics, data miners, snoops, Bowdlerizers and censors, monopolists, progressive multibillionaires, and adolescents in arrested development who exempt themselves from the consequences of what their ideologies inflict on others.

If the deep state really wanted to dismantle and disarm Donald Trump, it would have been wise first to carefully learn how he was constructed and wired — and thus why he was especially dangerous to them.

It seems only yesterday the press was writing that in the near future many people would have to seek jobs as software coders. Not to knock coding, but how much more interesting a stronger economy looks today.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that the U.S. economy has arrived at this remarkable juncture: There were 6.59 million unemployed Americans in March, and the number of jobs waiting to be filled that month was 6.55 million. That is, there are almost as many job openings as job seekers, a near match not seen for many years.

The reality is more complicated but still encouraging. A primary reason for unfilled jobs remains the problem of people with deficient or inappropriate skills. We know about the manufacturers who need welders and other skilled craftsmen. But the greatest job growth in March came in business services, with 193,000 openings. Many of these employers are looking for people with presentation skills or the ability to navigate a spreadsheet.

Oliver North, the retired Marine lieutenant colonel convicted in connection with the Iran-Contra affair, has been named the next president of the National Rifle Association, the group announced Monday.

“This is the most exciting news for our members since Charlton Heston became president of our association,” NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre said in a statement, referencing the Second Amendment activist and actor, who famously said his guns could only be taken from his “cold, dead hands.”

“Oliver North is a legendary warrior for American freedom, a gifted communicator and skilled leader. In these times, I can think of no one better suited to serve as our president.”

North served as a National Security Council staff member under President Ronald Reagan and was investigated for his participation in the illegal sale of weapons to Iran in exchange for the release of Americans held hostage in Lebanon. North was convicted on multiple charges but the convictions were later reversed on appeal, and all charges were dismissed in 1991.

The decision comes amid heightened national scrutiny of the gun industry and a widespread push for significant gun-control reforms in the wake of the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla. that claimed 17 lives on Valentine’s Day.

What does a Democrat have to do to invalidate his social justice warrior credentials? Does letting a woman drown in a river cancel his SJW privileges? No, not where Teddy Kennedy was concerned. What about if he did unspeakable things with an intern and a box of cigars in the Oval Office? No problem there when President Clinton was involved.

But in this era of “#MeToo,” the rules have changed. No longer can even liberals like Anthony Weiner sext and babysit at the same time. That’s an ominous sign for New York State attorney general Eric Schneiderman, known to be a tireless fighter for women and minorities – and, most recently, for keeping a brown slave girl on the side:

State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman called his Sri Lankan girlfriend [Tanya Selvaratnam] his “brown slave” and wanted her to refer to him as “Master,” the woman says.

“Sometimes, he’d tell me to call him Master, and he’d slap me until I did,” Selvaratnam said. “He started calling me his ‘brown slave’ and demanding that I repeat that I was ‘his property.'”

She said that as the violence grew, so did his sexual demands.

New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman abruptly resigned Monday night after the New Yorker published an article in which four women alleged he physically abused them.

Mr. Schneiderman denied the allegations and said they were unrelated to his work as attorney general. But he said in a statement that the accusations “will effectively prevent me from leading the office’s work at this critical time.”

His decision followed calls from New York leaders including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a fellow Democrat, to step down. The governor said he would ask a district attorney to begin an investigation immediately.

As the top law-enforcement officer in the state of New York, Mr. Schneiderman, 63 years old, was one of the leading regulators of Wall Street and has been a prominent critic of the Trump administration.

He also presided over efforts for the Weinstein Co. to be acquired and condemned co-founder Harvey Weinstein following allegations that he sexually assaulted women. Mr. Weinstein has said he didn’t engage in any nonconsensual sex.

The office of the New York attorney general represents one of the most powerful prosecutorial positions in the nation. The office has significant oversight of the financial and banking industries, both of which are largely based in and around in New York City. A spokesman for the office declined to comment. CONTINUE AT SITE

Taxpayers should soon be receiving some good news from Washington. President Donald Trump and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) appear to have found a way to enact modest federal spending restraint, despite resistance from some GOP senators. Faced with a number of Republicans who claim they cannot repeal their 2018 spending surge because they made a deal with Democrats, Mr. Trump and House GOP leaders instead aim to cut funding approved in previous years. This amounts to billions of dollars that bureaucrats never got around to spending, and now perhaps they never will.

The idea that Republicans were honor-bound to continue all the spending that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) recently extracted probably makes little sense to those outside of government. This is especially true because, to secure his new budget buster, Mr. Schumer had to break his own previous agreement with Republicans to abide by reasonable limits on discretionary spending.

The opportunity to impose some small measure of discipline now exists because spending rules make it easier to rescind federal spending than to approve it in the first place. Republicans needed 60 votes on the first go-round so they had to deal with Mr. Schumer unless they wanted another government shutdown. The result exceeded the 2018 and 2019 spending caps under the Budget Control Act by a total of nearly $300 billion. CONTINUE AT SITE

Gina Haspel reportedly offered last week to withdraw her nomination as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The White House declined and now must stand behind her as she faces an unjustified assault involving the Bush administration’s enhanced-interrogation program.

Shortly after 9/11, the administration concluded that it needed to obtain as much actionable intelligence as possible to avert future attacks. It decided to explore, and ultimately adopted, the use of interrogation methods against some al Qaeda operatives far more rigorous than would have been permissible against lawful prisoners of war.

The administration was properly mindful of U.S. statutes and obligations under the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Even unlawful enemy combatants may not be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. Where to draw the line? It was not for the CIA, much less Ms. Haspel, to answer that question, but for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which advises federal agencies on the law.

OLC’s guidance, in the form of several memos issued in 2002 and 2003, was communicated through the CIA’s general counsel to agents in the field and was the basis on which the enhanced-interrogation program was carried out. The guidance was precise and unambiguous. It listed all the legally permissible interrogation techniques, backed up by appropriate safeguards. The details of this program were fully and repeatedly briefed to the so-called congressional Gang of Eight—the House and Senate majority and minority leaders and chairmen and ranking members of the intelligence committees. None raised a word of objection.

Liberals tried to criminalize contacts with Russia. What’s the excuse for their hypocritical silence about the former secretary of state’s “strategizing” with Iran?

If there is one word that has widened the gap between Democrats and Republicans in the past 16 months, it is “collusion.” Many on the left believe that the Donald Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton. Proof of any such plotting has yet to be produced and may never surface (perhaps because it didn’t happen). We can hope the probe being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller will ultimately get to the bottom of the affair. The suspicion that Trump’s apparent soft spot for the Vladimir Putin regime is somehow linked to what we do know about Russia’s attempts to interfere in the election has cast a shadow over his presidency in the eyes of his opponents.

But it’s clear that whatever the truth of the allegations about Trump, another prominent political figure has been colluding with a hostile foreign power. As the Boston Globe reported last week, former secretary of state John Kerry has been engaged in secret talks with Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, as the two have “strategized” about how to preserve the nuclear deal the pair helped negotiate. If true — and Kerry has not only not denied this activity but has reportedly discussed it with members of Congress and others whom he hopes will assist him in thwarting the Trump administration’s apparent intent to either junk or revise the pact — this crosses an important line between legitimate advocacy and illegitimate efforts to sabotage the actions of a sitting U.S. government.

If allegations about that sort of behavior sound familiar, it’s because similar charges were lodged against Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national-security adviser, who resigned after a few weeks in office because he lied about contacts with Russia. Flynn pled guilty to lying but will apparently not be prosecuted because of when he held talks with the Russians: after Trump’s election though before his inauguration, when the Obama administration was still in charge.

Judges in Virginia and Washington have the special counsel reeling.

Well sure, we filed an indictment. And yeah, we took a victory lap in the big bells-n-whistles Main Justice press conference. But that doesn’t mean we, like, intended to have a trial . . .

That seems to be the Justice Department’s position on its mid-February publicity stunt, the indictment of 13 Russians and three Russian businesses for interfering in the 2016 election.

Let’s back up.

The courts were not kind last week to the Justice Department’s gamesmanship on the Russia probe, also known as the Mueller investigation, an investigation in which the cases prosecutors want to try are not about Russia, and the case about Russia prosecutors don’t want to try.

Judge Ellis and the Manafort Case in Virginia

First, in the Eastern District of Virginia, where Paul Manafort is facing one of the two indictments against him, Judge T. S. Ellis hammered Mueller’s prosecutors over the issues we have been hammering for a year:

(a) In appointing Mueller on May 17, 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein failed to comply with federal regulations that control special-counsel investigations; and

(b) The secret August 2 memo, by which Rosenstein attempted to paper over this dereliction, is so facially uninformative and heavily redacted that the subjects of the investigation, the courts, and the public are still in the dark. The factual basis for a criminal investigation is still unknown, as are the boundaries of Mueller’s jurisdiction — with Mueller’s prosecutors paying lip service to the notion of limits, even as they argue that, essentially, there are none.