RUTHFULLY YOURS

He has come to America’s college capital this weekend to watch two of his grandsons walk across finely appointed stages to collect their degrees: a pair of life’s milestone moments that Andrew Burian will treasure like none other.

Commencement season is a time of hugs and handshakes and high-fives. Everywhere you look there is a story. Under every cap and gown, through the sometimes glistening eyes of every mom and dad, there are personal tales ranging from utter relief to absolute triumph.

Andrew Burian, now 86, has a story like that. Except his is stunning, horrific, and life-changing.

And even though his body and his memory are not what they used to be, as he cheers his beloved grandkids’ academic accomplishments on Sunday, his mind will doubtlessly carry him back to those darkest of days when a future of sunshine and splendor — any future at all, really — seemed beyond imagination.

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“It’s extremely powerful,’’ said Jordan Anhalt, 23, who will receive his bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Brandeis on Sunday. “I grew up with the duality in which other people recognized him as a survivor. He is a hero. But to me, he’s always been my grandfather. I’m so grateful he’s here.’’

He’s here.

It’s such a simple thought. But it belies an unspeakable, awful history that makes Burian’s presence all the more powerful. The blue-ink tattoo on his arm — B 14611 — helps tell his story.

He grew up in the shadow of the Carpathian Mountains in a small town in Czechoslovakia, where his father ran a lumber company and young Andrew lived an idyllic childhood surrounded by cousins, aunts, and uncles, and a loving extended family that circumscribed his little world.

And then a madman named Hitler, whose maniacal voice blared from loudspeakers, tightened his grip. Burian’s family home was confiscated and converted into a police station. Curfews were enforced. Jews were forced to wear yellow stars that made them targets.

What followed, recorded on the pages of history books, is forever seared into Burian’s memory.

At the tip of a bayonet, his family was deported to a ghetto in Hungary. Ahead lay cattle cars with barbed-wire windows, the brutal searches of women, the screams of small children — and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

His mother, grandfather, and great-uncle were murdered immediately upon arrival. Young Andrew’s survival would depend on wit and courage in the face of German soldiers who shot into the ranks of concentration camp crowds just for the sport of it.

In his memoir, “A Boy from Bustina. A son. A survivor. A witness,’’ Burian recalls the moment when he was separated from his father and brother.

“My blood drained to my feet as I realized that I was left alone in Birkenau without parents and without a sibling,’’ he wrote. “All I could do was attempt to stifle my sobs and hold my hand across my mouth as I called for my mama, papa, and Tibi” — his brother.

Before he was forced to leave his son, Ernest Burian gave instructions to him that the boy remembered for the rest of his life:

“My child, I have three things to say to you: Keep yourself clean so you don’t get sick; be a mensch and don’t let them make an animal out of you; and remember, whoever lives through this inferno goes home and waits for the others. God willing, we will all meet at home.’’

Andrew Burian, who was reunited with his brother and their father, after the camps’ liberation, arrived at Ellis Island in New York Harbor in the spring of 1948. He was 17 and had $10 in his pocket.

‘A jackass can kick down a barn,” said the legendary Speaker Sam Rayburn. “But it takes a carpenter to build one.”

Democrats should reflect on that wisdom as they consider the special counsel now appointed to investigate President Trump’s alleged ties to Russia. In the short term, the inquiry will probably hurt Mr. Trump and feed attempts to drive him from office. But in the end the president’s attackers will pay a price.

The political and media hysteria surrounding the Trump administration lies somewhere on the repulsiveness scale between the Jacobin excesses of the French Revolution and the McCarthy era. Thus far the public knows of no presidential action that would justify impeachment. Never mind, the crowd cries, let us have the verdict now. We can do the trial later.

What about discussions between Trump campaign advisers and Russian or other foreign leaders? Don’t they count as high crimes and misdemeanors? No, such conversations take place all the time in national campaigns.

What about the firing of FBI Director James Comey ? Wasn’t that suspicious? No, Mr. Comey disregarded the Justice Department chain of command and the normal proprieties of his office. He made public statements about ongoing investigations. He allowed it to leak that the president had suggested leniency for Mike Flynn, the former White House adviser now under investigation. A presidential suggestion of that nature would be neither illegal nor unprecedented.

What about Mr. Trump’s disclosure of classified information during a meeting with Russian leaders? It’s a tempest in a teapot. The president has the authority to classify or declassify information as he wishes. I have witnessed other presidents doing it.

What about Mr. Trump’s executive order declaring a short-term pause on immigration from countries with active terrorist movements? It may have been poorly handled, but other presidents have done similar things.

What about all Mr. Trump’s flip-flopping? Shouldn’t a president be trustworthy and reliable? Yes, but when Mr. Trump has reversed his campaign pledges it has been mostly for the good.

If Mr. Trump were a conventional president, these missteps would be shrugged off as growing pains or considered worthy of only mild reproof. President Trump, it is true, lacks the knowledge, experience and temperament for the office. His crude narcissism is grating. He has carelessly contributed to his problems with heedless public statements. He nonetheless was duly elected and should be given the leeway that new presidents are traditionally afforded. CONTINUE AT SITE

“There are lots of reasons why an election like this is lost, [but] our analysis is that Comey’s

letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be [sic], stopped our momentum.”

Hillary Clinton in a call to donors,

As reported in the NY Times, Nov. 15, 2016

It had been universally acknowledged that FBI Director James Comey over-played his hand last July when he, essentially, indicted Mrs. Clinton, but then exonerated her. In doing so, he acted as investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury. He did it again on October 28, when he re-opened the investigation. His meeting with the President regarding Mr. Flynn was the day after the latter had been fired. Then, with crocodile tears, he claimed to be “mildly nauseous” that he might have “swayed” the election; but, he assured us, he would do it all over again. He played first for the Left, and then for the Right. He may be a qualified investigator, but his power grab was reminiscent of J. Edgar Hoover.

When I first heard that he had been fired, I thought it a “dog bites man” story, something expected. However, the righteous indignation from the supercilious and hypocritical Left has turned it into a “man bites dog” story. Rarely have so many morally bereft politicians, along with their obsequious media accomplices, invoked so virtuously their vexations.

One could argue that the optics in Comey’s firing were bad. But when, with the press Mr. Trump has received, would have been a good time? Perhaps he could have alerted Congressional leaders as to his intentions? But surely that information would have leaked. Could he have prepared his staff, so that a replacement could have been named within a day or two? Perhaps. But, to Washington’s establishment, Mr. Trump is a pariah, an outcast who arrived at the White House without their help; and he belittles them – unforgivable sins for those who work along the banks of the Potomac.

Democrats have made much of the fact that the FBI is investigating possible “collusion” of the Trump team with the Russians. That investigation will go on regardless of Director Comey presence. Four Congressional committees are looking into the same allegations, suggesting redundancies, especially since some investigations have been underway for almost a year, without any proof of “collusion.” The hiring of Robert Mueller should assuage members of the “Resistance,” though the process will be long and won’t necessarily find an answer. Delay, however, will be injurious to Republicans’ agenda.

This strategy of the Left entails risk for democracy. The goal is to render Mr. Trump rudderless, to cause him to resign or be impeached. They take pleasure in the effects their efforts have produced. Should they succeed, they will widen divisions. They will hurt institutions. My guess is they misinterpret the consequences of what they do. Thanks to Harry Reid and, now, Mitch McConnell, implementation of the “nuclear option” has already meant that political bipartisanship and reconciliation are less likely. Would a forced resignation of a duly elected President for political and retaliatory purposes help heal our wounds? I think not. It would aggravate them. It’s a perilous game they have chosen to play.

“July 3, 2013 Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom speaks during the Intelligence and Security select committee hearing at Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand. Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom wants to livestream his legal battle against the United States on YouTube. Dotcom’s lawyers have asked if they can film his extradition appeal, which began Monday, Aug. 29, 2016, at New Zealand’s High Court in Auckland. The U.S. opposes the plan. (Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald via AP, File)”

Infamous internet entrepreneur/hacker Kim Dotcom has offered to give the United States Congress “written testimony with evidence that Seth Rich was Wikileaks source” — if Congress agrees to include the Seth Rich case in their Russia probe.

Seth Rich is the Democratic National Committee staffer who was gunned down in Northwest D.C. near his home last July. Police have called it a “botched robbery,” but — curiously — nothing was stolen from him, including “his wallet, cell phone, keys, watch or necklace worth about $2,000.”

On July 22, just twelve days after Rich was murdered, WikiLeaks published emails that prompted the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz from her role as DNC chairperson on the eve of the Democratic National Convention. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has insisted all along that the DNC emails were not hacked by the Russians, and he has implied that Rich was indeed the source of the emails. On August 9, WikiLeaks offered a $20,000 reward for information on the murdered DNC staffer.

The founder of Megaupload.com and Mega.co.nz on Saturday claimed that he knows Seth Rich was the source of the DNC email leaks because he himself was involved.

Dotcom said that he would be meeting with his legal team on Monday and would issue a statement on the matter on Tuesday.

Fox News host Sean Hannity expressed interest in having Kim Dotcom on his Fox News radio and television shows this week.

Probes, spurious confections, bogus dossiers … and all in regard to what exactly? No one really knows, other than what should be obvious to all who have watched the Left and its media auxilliaries in action: their trade is lies and distortions in which no conservative should invest an ounce of credence.

I have just finished reading a piece by Melanie Phillips on Donald Trump. It was good piece and she was on his side. But how many conservatives are willing to praise Trump without succumbing to the obviously overpowering urge to distance themselves from his faults. Very few and Ms Phillips is not one of them.

Where Trump is concerned almost all conservatives suffer from delusions of moral superiority. They shouldn’t. The miners whose jobs he is saving don’t care about his etiquette.

This is another kind of ‘supportive’ conservative response. I heard this kind of thing after The Washington Post reported anonymous sources claiming that Trump had recklessly shared classified information with the Russian foreign minister. “He’s not a politician and makes missteps.” “He’s not the only senior politician who has let out information he shouldn’t have.”

The problem with these kinds of excuses for his behaviour is that there is no evidence that he shared information inappropriately. His national security advisor, General McMaster, who was in the room, categorically explained on separate occasions that the sharing was appropriate. Does that not matter?

Imagine being accused of doing something you claim, with authoritative backing, that you didn’t do and your putative friends respond by making excuses for your misstep. Has intelligence plummeted in recent years? I would say that it has.

Then there is the unseen Comey note of a meeting he had with Trump in February, reported in The New York Times, courtesy of yet another anonymous source. Were the contents leaked by Comey? Would he sink so low so quickly? Who knows?

If the note exists and is a faithful recording, Trump apparently expressed a hope that Comey would let any investigation of General Flynn pass because he was a good guy. “I hope you can see your way to letting this go,” he said, according to the anonymous source.

Expressing a hope isn’t obstructing an investigation and, crucially, Comey is on the record in May as saying that there had been no attempt made by anyone to interfere with any FBI investigation. End of story, or it should be among conservative commentators.

Conservative supporters of Trump can’t afford to be only half-in. The left are one hundred percent in to destroy Trump. And the never-Trumps, like bitter and twisted John McCain and numbers of precious conservative journalists, like, say, Jonah Goldberg of National Review, chip away whenever the opportunity arises. Death by a thousand chips is in the offing.

Make no mistake; Trump presents a threat because his policies and his determination and resolution have a chance of bringing America back from the brink of entrenched tribal divisions and economic malaise. Democrats and their media pals cannot afford to let that happen. Too many voters might see the light. Destroying Trump is the way to prevent it. How to do it? Come up with a big fat lie. Invent a Russian connection.

For almost a year the FBI and other agencies have laboured over the possibility of collusion between Trump’s campaign staff and the Russians. A trumped up lurid dossier of sexual exploits in a Russian hotel underscores the fictional tabloid narrative. Not a scintilla of evidence has been found. And, in any event, what is the crime under investigation? The standard, as under Stalin, appears to be back: “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.”

WASHINGTON – Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) thanked the media for advancing the investigation of connections between Russia and the Trump campaign, arguing that Congress has not done its job.

“If it was not for the media, we wouldn’t be as far as we are now in understanding what has been going on. The Congress of the United States has not done their job. We have not been the balance, the check and the balance on the executive,” Waters said during the Center for American Progress Idea Summit on Tuesday. “Media, thank you. Dig in there, keep doing what you are doing. Keep unfolding and making it very apparent to all of the American citizens that something is tragically wrong with the president of the United States of America and his allies.”

Waters said she believes there was collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

“Just to think about the way that he gave up this classified information and the way that he has tried to obstruct the investigations by firing folks. You can’t find any better person than Sally Yates. Give her a big round of applause. And, of course, while I thought that [former FBI Director James] Comey should have been fired when he first got in, if he was really concerned about him – he wasn’t concerned about him. As a matter of fact he praised him all over the country. It was only when he asked for additional resources to be able to do a credible investigation that he got fired,” Waters said.

“So here you have the president of the United States, ladies and gentlemen, this is not normal. It’s something very wrong with this picture, and I don’t know when Americans are going to get so outraged that they will say to all of the elected officials, Republicans and Democrats and everybody, you have to do what you know you should be doing. You have to identify and lay out for the American public everything that he has done, these firings, these obstruction of justice, etc., and then the final analysis, Maxine Waters was right, you have to impeach him,” she added.

Waters said Congress should not wait until the 2018 midterm elections to seek impeachment.

“I know that there are those who are talking about we are going to get ready for the next election. No, we can’t wait that long. We don’t need to wait that long. He will have destroyed this country by then. We cannot wake up every morning to another crisis, to another scandal,” she said.

“We don’t have to be afraid to use the word impeachment. We don’t have to think that impeachment is out of our reach. All we have to do is make sure that we are talking to the American public and that we are keeping them involved and that we are resisting every day and challenging every day, and we are calling this president to account for what he is doing and what he is saying. I believe in this very strongly,” she added.

Waters argued that following the “money” and the “oil” would lead to connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. However, last month, Trump’s Treasury Department declined to issue Exxon, where Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was CEO, a waiver to drill in Russia.

UPDATED:http://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/3559/A-Seth-Rich-Chronology-Part-1.aspx

June 14, 2016: The Washington Post reports “Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee.” On what did the paper base this claim? The Post cites “committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach.”

These “security experts” are with CrowdStrike, a private cyber security firm hired and paid by the DNC.

While reading the following chronology, it is important to bear in mind that the FBI has never examined the DNC computer network because the DNC prohibited the FBI from doing so. Also, that the FBI, under former Director Comey, not to mention President Obama and the “Intelligence Community,” thought this was perfectly ok.

In the June 14, 2016 story, DNC chief executive Amy Dacey explained to the Post what happened after she received a call from “her operations chief” about “unusual network activity” noticed by the IT team in “late April.”

That evening, she spoke with Michael Sussman, a DNC lawyer who is a partner with Perkins Coie in Washington. Soon after, Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor who handled computer crime cases, called [CrowdStrike president Shawn Henry], whom he has known for many years.

I highlight “that evening” “DNC lawyer” “Perkins Coie” “Crowdstrike” and “many years” to highlight the political nature of this chain of damage control. Dacey spoke with Sussman, the DNC lawyer, that evening — instead of say, the FBI cyber crime unit that day. As a Perkins Coie partner, Sussmann is with the leading Democrat law firm: Perkins Coie has produced an Obama White House Counsel; a lawyer to ferry that copy of Obama’s “birth certificate” from Hawaii to the White House; and it has represented the DNC, Democrats in Congress, Obama’s presidential campaign, and, at that moment in June 2016, the Clinton presidential campaign.

With all of those Democrat interests in mind, the DNC and Perkins Coie choose to turn to CrowdStrike. Who, what is Crowdstrike? Here is one hair-raising theory. It is a fact that CrowdStrike’s Moscow-born co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council, a globalist, interventionist and swampist think tank, which gave Hillary Clinton its Distinguished International Leadership Award in 2013.

The political nature of the DNC’s choice of a politically connected cyber-security firm itself is not too surprising; what is five-alarm-shocking, though, is that the FBI has never verified the firm’s “Russian hacking” findings.

July 10, 2016: DNC staffer Seth Rich, whose title is reported as “voter expansion data director,” is murdered in the street near his home in Washington, DC. The police will attribute his murder to robbery, although nothing was stolen from Rich. His murder remains unsolved.

July 12, 2016: Bernie Sanders endorses Hillary Clinton

July 22, 2016: It is three days before the start of DNC convention, and Wikileaks starts releasing 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments from the Democratic National Committee. The emails document the DNC’s efforts to sink Bernie Sanders’ primary run against Hillary Clinton. DNC chairman Wasserman Schultz will resign over the election-meddling scandal within the week.

July 23, 2016: A spate of Trump-Putin stories begins to appear about now, including FP’s Julia Ioffe’s piece titled, “Is Trump a Russian Stooge?” A deflection to “Russian hacking” from DNC primary-rigging is immediately apparent, at least on the Left: “So what was once dismissed out of hand — that the DNC was actively working against the Sanders campaign — is now obviously true, but not a big deal.”

July 25, 2016: Sanders supporters boo DNC chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz off the stage at national convention event over Wikileaks revelations of DNC collusion in Hillary Clinton’s favor. W-S resigns from the DNC on July 28, 2016.

August 1, 2016: Peter Schweizer publishes “From Russia with Money,” a stunning report on Clinton cronyism and corruption detailing multiple and profitable connections between Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, John Podesta, and Russia. (More info on Podesta and his Russian business dealings will follow from Wikileaks.) Hillary-tanked MSM ignore evidence of “Russian influence” on Clinton and Podesta both.

On or about August 9, 2016: During an interview (video above), Julian Assange brings up the recent murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich while discussing the great risks Wikileaks sources take. Wikileaks will contribute $20,000 to what grows to more $125,000 in reward money for information leading to arrest of the murderer(s) of Seth Rich. According to private investigator Rod Wheeler, no one has come forward to try to claim the money.

September 5, 2016: Washington Post reports DNI James Clapper is leading an investigation into Russian efforts to “sow distrust” in the presidential election and U.S. institutions.

The Kremlin’s intent may not be to sway the election in one direction or another, officials said, but to cause chaos and provide propaganda fodder to attack U.S. democracy-building policies around the world, particularly in the countries of the former Soviet Union.

U.S. intelligence officials described the covert influence campaign here as “ambitious” and said it is also designed to counter U.S. leadership and influence in international affairs.

October 7, 2016: Washington Post: “US government officially accuses Russia of hacking campaign to interfere with elections.” The story reports on a joint statement released by the DNI and DHS. The paper only quotes this much:

“The U.S. Intelligence Community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations,” said a joint statement from the two agencies. “. . . These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process.”

Also of October 7, 2016: The Washington Post releases Access Hollywood/Trump tape, although the published story is dated October 8, 2016.

Also on October 7, 2016: Wikileaks releases the first cache of Podesta emails.

October 17, 2016: Julian Assange accused a “state party” of severing his internet connection.

October 19, 2016: Hillary Clinton turns the DHS-DNI statement into “17 intelligence agencies” during a debate with Donald Trump:

CLINTON: We have 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military, who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin, and they are designed to influence our election.

I find that deeply disturbing. And I think it is time —

TRUMP: She has no idea whether it is Russia, China or anybody else.

CLINTON: I am not quoting myself. I am quoting 17, 17 — do you doubt?

TRUMP: Our country has no idea.

A former news anchor, who was a cub reporter for the AP back the early 1960s, tells a story: One night, he was assigned to wait at the Carlyle Hotel in New York, where President John F. Kennedy was staying, and report back to his desk when the president returned for the night. This was done with a dime in a phone booth.

While waiting, the cub joined the other reporters and some off-duty secret service agents for a drink at the bar. Everyone was laughing about the code names the agents used for Kennedy’s different girlfriends. He says it is inconceivable that reporters and agents could have that conversation today, and even if he wanted to write about it back then, which he didn’t, his editor never would have allowed it.

What different times.

It’s not just this story that makes Kennedy, who would have been 100 years old next week, distinctly part of a by-gone era. His images on YouTube are mostly grainy black-and-whites. The majority of Americans today were not even born until well after his administration ended abruptly in November, 1963. Washington, the Executive Branch, the press and technology have changed so much, it’s hard to even remember.

Kennedy has been labeled the first “television president.” He was not. That was Truman, while Eisenhower presided over television’s exponential growth in the 1950s. The Kennedy reference refers to the fact that he was simply younger and more photogenic than his two grandfatherly predecessors.

Compared to today, Kennedy actually wasn’t even on television all that much — there weren’t many opportunities. All-news, 24-hour cable channels didn’t arrive until 1980. With no cable and antiquated technology, there were only three networks back then. Their major evening news shows ran just 15 minutes, five nights a week (as if there were no news over the weekend).

The Columbia Broadcasting System and the National Broadcasting Company expanded to the present half-hour format just two months before Kennedy’s death. In Donald Trump’s first four months in office, he has probably surpassed all the television time of Kennedy during his entire presidency.

“Sir,” was the most common honorific used by reporters when addressing the president. There was greater respect for the office. Knowing certain secrets were kept, it was easier for Kennedy to be more forthright, as well.

In an interview with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley of NBC News in September 1963, Kennedy was caught off guard when Brinkley informed him that Harry Truman had criticized his proposed tax cuts that morning. “What did he say?” Kennedy asked Brinkley, genuinely surprised.

Instead of sounding defensive or upset that his staff hadn’t warned him, Kennedy laughed. “They catch him on those morning walks …” and Kennedy just shakes his head, smiling, as if to continue “the old man will say damn near anything,” showing a sense of humor and self-confidence at the same time.

In 1960, Kennedy was asked by Time magazine correspondent, Hugh Sidey, if he really understood how average Americans suffered in the 1930s. Kennedy admitted, “[I] really did not learn about the Depression until I read about it at Harvard. We had bigger houses, more servants and traveled more,” with no shame in his lack of awareness or his privilege.