RUTHFULLY YOURS

Chuck Schumer started a government shutdown he couldn’t finish.

The New York Democrat, among the shrewdest operators in national politics, stumbled badly because he succumbed to the siren song of the anti-Trump resistance. He believed that any charge could be made to stick to President Donald Trump, no matter how implausible, and chose the dictates of an inflamed Democratic base over common sense.

His embarrassing climbdown after a short, mostly weekend shutdown shows the limits of the resistance. Yes, an anti-Trump midterm wave appears to be building, and Democratic activists — marching in the streets by the tens of thousands and badgering Republicans at town-hall meetings — are energized. But this doesn’t mean that Democrats can act with impunity so long as they are fighting under an anti-Trump banner.

Schumer sought to attach an extraneous matter, an amnesty for so-called Dreamers, on a must-pass government-funding bill and, when Democrats inevitably didn’t get what they wanted, blame President Trump for the ensuing government shutdown. This effort depended on gravity-defying spin that proved sustainable for less than three days.

The fact is that the Republican House handily passed a bill to keep the government open, with the support of the Republican president. Almost every Republican in the Senate voted to pass that bill through the upper chamber — where it required a supermajority of 60 and therefore some Democratic votes — while almost every Democrat in the Senate opposed it. Republican leaders said they didn’t want a shutdown and urged Democrats not to force one.

It was always going to be true that people, even reporters, were going to notice all this.

There is serious talk on Capitol Hill about the appointment of a second special counsel amid several new bombshell revelations swirling around the Trump/Russia probe. First, there are the allegations of shocking and substantial government surveillance abuses under President Obama outlined in the FISA abuse memo. Secondly, the FBI lost five months of key text messages between the anti-Trump/pro-Clinton FBI officials Peter Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page.

And now there’s talk of a “secret society” of officials within the FBI that apparently met the day after the election of Donald J. Trump to plot against the president-elect.Top Republicans now believe there may be real grounds for a second special counsel, Fox News reported Monday evening.Reps. Devin Nunes (R-CA), Trey Gowdy (R-SC), and Bob Goodlatte (R- VA) met on Saturday to discuss the FISA memo and the text messages. On Monday, the trio put out the following statement:

Over in the department of futile and stupid gestures, the Senate on Monday voted 81-18 to end the government shutdown that Democrats had insisted on late last week. The politics apparently didn’t turn out to be the winner the Democrats anticipated, so they bailed out and called retreat a victory.

The Senate and House passed a resolution to fund the government through Feb. 8. Both parties will continue to negotiate a deal on the status of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the law-abiding young adults who came to the U.S. as children. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would bring some immigration measure to the floor, and Democrats are calling this a shutdown triumph. But the negotiations were already underway, and President Trump has said he wants a deal to legalize the Dreamers. The shutdown needlessly roiled immigration politics.

Some 15 Democrats plus Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) voted to keep the shutdown going. They include several of the multitude of Democratic presidential aspirants in addition to Mr. Sanders : Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. This crew wants to tout their credentials as fighters for the Dreamers, and they’d rather have a wedge issue than a solution.

Also voting against opening the government were Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah. This is a reminder that the 51-seat GOP majority is really a 49-seat minority given that those two might stage a protest vote at any moment for no useful purpose.

The College of William & Mary in Virginia announced last week that James Comey will teach a course on “ethical leadership” starting this autumn. The former FBI director would not have been our first choice for such an assignment, but upon reflection maybe his experience as a federal prosecutor, deputy attorney general and FBI director is ideal for the task.

Mr. Comey said in a statement accompanying the news that “ethical leaders lead by seeing above the short term, above the urgent or the partisan, and with a higher loyalty to lasting values, most importantly the truth.” In that spirit, here are some suggestions on how Mr. Comey can structure his course to help students confront these profound questions.

Week One case study: The FBI is investigating a presidential candidate for mishandling classified emails as Secretary of State. The director decides on his own to violate Justice Department rules and exonerate that candidate in a public statement to the media, letting an aide replace the legally potent phrase “grossly negligent” in a draft of his statement with “extremely careless” in the final version.

Students will examine when a public official can choose to ignore rules and standards of conduct for what he considers to be higher purposes. Required reading: Former Deputy Attorney General and federal Judge Laurence Silberman’s February 2017 speech to the Columbia Law School chapter of the Federalist Society.

Breakout session topic: Having exonerated that candidate, the FBI director intervenes in the campaign again only days before Election Day, saying new evidence has required him to reopen the email case. Two days before the polls open he says that the new evidence turned out to be nothing of consequence. Was the FBI director protecting the rule of law, or his own reputation?

Ethical guides Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner will visit each breakout session to steer the discussions. (Thanks to the federal prison system for letting Mr. Weiner appear by video from Federal Medical Center Devens.)

The “Palestinians” are a hate group. Across the board in Gaza and the West Bank and elsewhere, they call for killing Jews and destroying the State of Israel.

The #Resistance is a hate group. It refuses to acknowledge the election of Donald Trump, even to the point of questioning his physical and mental fitness to be President, and includes in that mantra the implied accusation that Dr. Ronny Jackson, who examined Trump, is lying. It is willing to say anything to damage Trump, no matter how irrational and unproven.

Antifa is a hate group. The visual evidence is ample. Masked thugs attack individuals who want to see and hear someone the group disapproves of; destroy property with glee, and calls “fascist” (as though the thugs knew what real “fascists” were in the past) anyone who opposes them. Antifa thugs should take Pogo’s complaint to heart;”We have seen the enemy and he is us.” Not that doing such would give them second thoughts. Their minds are the property of leftist ideology.

Democratic congressmen who oppose President Trump comprise a hate group.

Any group that does not disavow its unremitting, obsessive hatred for Trump is a hate group.

Yet it will not be classified as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty LawCenter (SPLC). This and other groups get a free pass because they hate Trump and spew their hatred to another level of ranting insanity. My argument is that any government authority that suppresses freedom of speech across the globe is a “hate group,” any group that offers “resistance” to freedom of speech is a “hate group,” any individual who rants irrationality against President Trump is a one-man “hate group” and could said to be in the grip of “Trumpophobia.”

Like the saliva of an IndonesianKomodo dragon injected into a bite victim, the toxin is supposed to cause a fatal and a certain, helpless death. The dragons are attracted to the putrefaction of the bodies of their victims. Much as the Democrats are.

Articles have surfaced that claim that the SPLC is by definition a “hate group” itself, because its chief purpose today is to establish and publish lists of names that hate groups can target for hateful action. This is a charge which cannot be denied by the SPLC. Virtually the only time it makes news headlines today is when it has declared certain individuals – such as Pamela Geller, Richard Spencer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali – and numerous blogs that critique Islam, as “Islamophobes” or as “hate groups.” They commit “hate crimes” and must be sent to the slammer. Never mind that Geller is under a constant fatwa to behead her, that Spencer was poisoned in Iceland, and that Hirsi Ali survived the worst of Sharia for a woman, female genital mutilation.

So, what is a “hate crime”?

In 1959 I made a record, a song that reflected the virtues of bourgeois culture: “We’re Not Going Steady.” The lyrics were pure “bubblegum,” silly yet nostalgic. “We’re not going steady because we’re never alone, I can’t even love you, love you on the telephone.” I was reminded of my foray into the rock world as I watched Kendrick Lamar and the half time entertainment at the College Football Championship. All I could think is how culture has been debased in six decades.

During the 1940’s-50’s Sinatra sang “Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage” and Lloyd Price sang, “I Want to Get Married.” At the height of the cynical sixties, a generation later, when middle class values were under attack, Dusty Springfield sang, “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me” and Meat Loaf argued “I want you, I need you but I’m never goin’ to say I love you. Two out of three ain’t bad.” The tie between love and sex was severed.

Still it is hard to imagine how far down the proverbial rabbit hole we have gone. For rappers sex is raw. Women are objects, to be treated as ho’s. Deviancy has been defined down to kindergarteners who mouth vile lyrics as if they are the Gettysburg Address.

Ten years ago, at the home of Robert Agostinelli, the financier and National Review trustee, I met Bill Browder. Browder, too, is a financier, and he was soon to be famous as a truth-telling foe of the Putin regime. “Any relation?” I asked him. He said, “To Earl Browder?”

I thought this was puzzling, because who else could I have meant? Anyway, it transpired that Browder was indeed related — he is the grandson of Earl Browder. “My grandfather was the biggest Communist in America,” Bill remarked, “and I became the biggest capitalist in Russia.”

Earl Browder was head of the CPUSA — the American Communist party — in the 1930s and ’40s. Bill Browder created his hedge fund, Hermitage, in 1996. The Kremlin turned on him hard in 2005, declaring him persona non grata. He had been a thorn in the side of Putin’s oligarchs. In 2008, the authorities arrested Browder’s fearless and whistleblowing lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky. They tortured him to death. Real slow, over the course of a year.

That began Browder’s career as a human-rights activist.

At the end of 2016, I read an obituary of Felix Browder, Bill’s father. I then realized why Bill had asked me, those years ago, to be more specific — to be more specific when I asked, “Any relation?” Felix Browder was one of the greatest mathematicians in the world. I don’t know from mathematicians. But others do, and they sometimes ask Bill, “Any relation?”

Earl Browder and his wife, Raisa, had three children, three boys. The first, Felix, became chairman of the math department at Chicago. The second, Andrew, became chairman of the math department at Brown. The third, William, became chairman of the math department at Princeton. And there is more Browder talent where that came from.

Let’s go back to Earl. He was born in 1891 in Wichita, Kan., which is also the home of the Kochs, those illustrious capitalists. America obviously gives birth to many types. Earl’s father was a schoolteacher and a populist — who was kicked out of the school system on account of his populism. He then opened a café. This establishment served, among other people, black people, which was uncommon and scandalous at the time.

Browder went bust, and his children had to leave school and go to work. Earl did this before he was ten. He would educate himself in other ways.

A radical, Earl first went to the Soviet Union in 1921. The dream of Communism excited people from all over the world. He was in the Soviet Union in 1926 when he married Raisa — Raisa Berkman, a lawyer from Leningrad. Their first two sons were born in Moscow. In 1932, Earl returned with his family to America, setting up shop in Yonkers, N.Y. The third son, William, was born in ’34.

Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch already knew that ex-FBI Director James Comey would not recommend charges against Hillary Clinton when she announced she would accept any FBI recommendation, according to new documents turned over to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC).

Comey announced that he would not recommend charges against Clinton during a press conference on July 5, 2016.

Lynch had previously stated that she would the accept the “determinations and findings” of the FBI’s investigation, suggesting she was completely out of the loop.

That revelation and others were found in 384 pages of text messages exchanged between FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page that the Justice Department turned over to HSGAC on Friday. Strzok and Page are the two FBI officials who made pro-Clinton and anti-Trump comments while working on the Clinton email and the Russia collusion investigations. In one particularly damning text, the two discussed needing an “insurance policy” in the event Trump were to become president.

Unfortunately, in the cover letter accompanying the texts, the FBI notified Congress that they “failed to preserve” five months’ worth of the pair’s text messages exchanged during the period between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017.

The texts that we have are illuminating. As Sharyl Attkisson reported at The Hill, the timeline of the text messages indicates that Lynch knew that Clinton would not face charges “even before the FBI conducted its three-hour interview with Clinton, which was supposedly meant to gather more information into her mishandling of classified information.”

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of 9/11, arrives in court dressed in a headdress, tunic and short white trousers (strict fundamentalist style, purportedly emulating Muhammad). His overgrown beard is dyed orange. He sits smugly, legs dangling, and talks with his attorneys while prosecutors play video footage of the Twin Tower attacks in the ultrasecure courtroom.

Walid bin Attash, who helped select and train hijackers, and Ramzi bin al Shibh, a member of al Qaeda’s Hamburg cell, wear camouflage jackets and headdresses, as if they were still in the Afghan mountains. But the camo is hunting gear from Sears—the Guantanamo Military Commission won’t let them wear anything realistic enough to be confused with the guards’ uniforms.

Ammar al Baluchi, KSM’s nephew and a courier for Osama bin Laden, dresses like a prince in a fictional epic: maroon, fez-like headcap, fancy, dark velvet vest. A richly embroidered prayer rug is slung over the back of his chair.

Mustafa al Hawsawi, a money man, looks like a martyr dressed for the grave, in white linen and a shawl embroidered with Palestinian flags. One way or another, all five are projecting versions of the fantasies common to radical Islamists.

This weeklong December hearing, which I attended as an observer, marked the U.S. government’s first formal presentation of evidence against the five living men most culpable for 9/11. It came during the fifth year of pretrial motions. The trial, now projected to take place in 2019, will no doubt be followed by many appeals. By the time it’s over, justice will have been delayed by decades. CONTINUE AT SITE

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Kenneth Marcus has worked for years inside and outside government to advocate for civil liberties. He has also been involved for years in Jewish community advocacy.

Now Marcus, the founder and president of the Louis S. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, is up for a prestigious job at the Department of Education — assistant secretary for civil rights. On Thursday, the Senate Health and Education Committee approved Marcus along party lines, and now his nomination goes to the full Senate.

In recent weeks, my inbox has been cluttered with statements pushing a narrative that what’s keeping Democrats from backing Marcus is his role in fighting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel.

What’s remarkable is that both sides of the BDS equation — the movement’s supporters and opponents — are colluding unintentionally in advancing the narrative.

Groups that back BDS have argued against Marcus’ nomination, pointing to his aggressive tactics while heading the Brandeis Center to counter anti-Israel activities on campus by defining them as an attack on the civil rights of Jewish students. Two organizations, Palestine Legal and Jewish Voice for Peace, have lobbied hard against Marcus.

“Marcus not only poses a danger to those who advocate for Palestinian human rights, but to all students and to the spirit of the university itself,” Jewish Voice for Peace said in a statement following the committee vote.

Which makes sense — interest groups nudging their issue to the center is not new. What is not immediately clear is why organizations ostensibly committed to making BDS go away are giving their issue oxygen.

A coalition of 60 pro-Israel groups wrote a letter Jan. 15, before the committee vote, urging the panel to approve Marcus across party lines. It included a statement from Jeff Robbins, a Democrat and Clinton-era U.S. delegate to what was then the U.N. Human Rights Commission, noting that the nomination “has been bitterly criticized by the fringe and unhinged groups who operate something of an anti-Semitism lobby. Democrats in the Senate would do well not to fall for it.”

But why bring it up when Democrats in the Senate barely seem to be paying attention to criticism of the nominee’s posture on Israel or anti-Semitism? Notably, no major centrist or liberal group signed on to the letter; the signatories trend conservative and hawkish in Israel, including Americans for a Safe Israel, CAMERA and the Zionist Organization of America. I asked the publicist who is touting the letter why the groups are making Israel a central issue when there is little evidence it is a central issue. She said she would canvas the signatories, but by press time she did not come up with a reply.

On Dec. 5, I logged into the Senate Health and Education Committee website and listened to hours of Marcus being grilled and praised. Not once did BDS come up.

Yet now The New York Times has taken up the narrative, framing Marcus’ Israel advocacy as central to the controversy over his nomination. “An Advocate for Israel Draws Fire as He Nears Confirmation to Civil Rights Post” was the headline Thursday on its website.

Only twice did I hear a reference to Marcus’ Jewish advocacy during his committee appearance. The first time, in introducing Marcus, the committee’s chairman, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., picked from a pile of endorsements before him a letter from Hillel International describing Marcus as “a longtime champion for civil rights and for college students.”