RUTHFULLY YOURS

Never in my 53 years have I seen people so casually and cavalierly advocate the murder of the president of the United States. Trump haters are eager to make assassination great again.

Such comments are not just muttered by demented vagrants as they relax on subway grates. Those who say such things too often are prominent, powerful people with platforms from which they publically spew their potentially lethal venom.

Calvin Broadus, Jr., alias Snoop Dogg, recently released a music video for a rap song called “Lavender” in which he aims a handgun right at the skull of a clown dressed as President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Dogg — who pled no contest to felony gun possession in April 2007 — pulls the revolver’s trigger. Out pops a red and white flag that reads: “Bang.”

Hilarious.

Imagine the national collapse that would have ensued if, say, a country-music star released a video in which he leveled a shotgun at an Obama-like clown, only to have sawdust fly from the barrel.

In response to muted criticism of Mr. Dogg’s video, rapper Clifford Joseph Harris Jr., a.k.a. T.I., called Trump a “F***ing Tangerine Tanned Muskrat scrotum skin, Lacefront Possum fur Wig wearing, Alternative fact, Atomic Dog diarrhea face a** man!!!!”

Also from the relentlessly tasteful world of rap “music,” Big Sean’s freestyle number contributes this to the national debate:

I know Jay proud of me, he put this ’round my neck/ And I might just kill ISIS with the same icepick/ That I murder Donald Trump in the same night with.

Madonna, the global pop star whose albums have sold 306 million copies, erupted at the January 21 Women’s March in Washington, D.C.: “Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.”

Meanwhile, Adam Pally, star of Fox TV’s Making History, told TMZ that if he could travel through time and spend an hour with anyone, “I’d have to kill Trump or Hitler.”

Soon after Trump was elected, British journalist Monisha Rajesh remarked, “It’s about time for a presidential assassination.”

Matt Harrigan former CEO of PacketSled, a San Diego-based cybersecurity company, was eerily specific about his desire to whack Trump.

“I’m going to kill the president. Elect,” Harrigan posted on Facebook last November. He added that he was “getting a sniper rifle and perching myself where it counts. Find a bedroom in the whitehouse that suits you m*****fucker. I’ll find you.”

In light of how controversial the matter has become, it’s unfortunate to find so much uniformed commentary, especially in cable-TV land, about foreign intelligence collection and its so-called minimization protocols — particularly, the guidelines about revealing, or “unmasking,” the identities of Americans whose communications are “incidentally” intercepted.

The question arises because of reporting — most recently, the coverage of disclosures last week by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes — that the communications of figures associated with the Trump campaign were intercepted “incidentally” by U.S. intelligence agencies because they had some interaction with people connected in some way to foreign powers, principally Russia. The Trump associates subjected to such intelligence-agency monitoring certainly include former national-security adviser Michael Flynn, who was intercepted when speaking with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. In addition, the intercepted individuals probably include at least three others: Paul Manafort, who ran the Trump campaign until being ousted in July (when reports surfaced of payments to him by the former government of Ukraine — a Putin puppet regime); and two others, Roger Stone and Carter Page, who had informal connections to the campaign (but longstanding ties of varying degree to Trump and Manafort).

Nunes’s disclosures further suggest that the communications of others associated with Trump’s campaign (perhaps even Trump himself) were also intercepted. During the press conference, a reporter asked, Nunes, “Was the president [i.e., Trump] included in that incidental collection — his communication?” Nunes responded, “Yes.” Based on the little that has been reported, the interception and handling of these communications seems more disturbing because, according to Nunes, they have nothing to do with any known government intelligence investigations of Russia. Unless there is some legitimate connection to foreign activities, the specter of political spying hovers.

The reported intelligence collection efforts raise four separate questions that are too often conflated in the commentary:

1) Should the communications of Trump associates (all of whom are U.S. citizens, so far as we know) have been intercepted in the first place?

2) Regardless of whether the interception was proper, should the identities of the American citizens have been “masked” in order to protect them from, among other things, being smeared as subjects of government investigations?

3) Regardless of whether masking was called for, should the fact that the American citizens’ communications had been collected and reviewed in connection with investigations — presumably, intelligence investigations, not criminal probes — have been disclosed throughout the “community” of U.S. intelligence agencies?

4) Should that fact have been publicly disclosed, including in leaks to the media? (Spoiler alert: As my use of “leaked” indicates, public disclosure is a major no-no. In fact, it’s a felony no-no.)

The Anti-Defamation League has disgraced itself, and defamed a friend of Israel and the Jews. By blaming President Trump for the wave of telephone threats to Jewish organizations, an organization that once defended Jews from unjust attacks has turned into a purveyor of unjust attacks. Like many Jewish organizations, the ADL seems to have substituted liberalism for Judaism as the prime mover of its activities.

A “J’accuse” article has been published by the normally progressive JTA (originally “Jewish Telegraph Agency”) news service, and it is devastating:

Many Jewish groups blamed white supremacists, emboldened by Donald Trump’s campaign, for the bomb threats that have plagued Jewish institutions since the beginning of this year.

It appears the groups were wrong.

The news that one Jewish teen — an Israeli, no less — was behind most of the approximately 150 bomb threats that have hit Jewish community centers since the start of 2017 is a shocking twist in light of months in which the Anti-Defamation League and other groups pointed their collective finger at the far right.

“We’re in unprecedented times,” said Oren Segal, director of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, at a March 10 news conference on the bomb threats. “We’ve never seen, ever, the volume of bomb threats that we’ve seen. White supremacists in this country feel more emboldened than they ever have before because of the public discourse and divisive rhetoric.”

The ADL has repeatedly charged Trump with emboldening extremists, anti-Semites and far-right groups in the U.S. Other groups were even more explicit in linking rising anti-Semitic acts this year to the new president. On Jan. 10, following the first wave of JCC bomb threats, Bend The Arc, a liberal Jewish group, said that “Trump helped to create the atmosphere of bigotry and violence that has resulted in these dangerous threats against Jewish institutions and individuals.”

In February, the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect said in a statement to Trump that “Rightly or wrongly, the most vicious anti-Semites in America are looking at you and your Administration as a nationalistic movement granting them permission to attack Jews.”

But the perpetrator of the anti-Semitic acts, while his political opinions are not known, does not fit the profile of a white supremacist. According to Israeli reports, he’s a mentally ill Israeli-American Jewish teenager.

He worked from home, using a computer lab with sophisticated equipment, encryption and transmission systems, and a powerful antenna, according to reports. And his father may have known what he was doing.

Israel’s anti-fraud squad arrested the 19-year-old suspect at his home in southern Israel and searched the premises on Thursday. He was brought to court and ordered held until March 30.

The average Antifa recruit is a sociopath. He’s in the “resistance” irrespective of the “cause.” He’s in the mob because of his basic nihilism; freedom of speech means nothing to him. He would “oppose,” while carrying a stick or wearing steel-toed shoes or knuckle busters, a speech about the chemical composition of cow paddies. It could be about immigration, Brexit, Trump, pro-Trumpers, or MiloYiannopoulos. It matters not. He is an empty vessel. There is the chance to chant with countless others to feel “one” with them is that is his driving motive to physically assault demonstrators and be paid for it. Alone he is a non-performer, a non-entity. Antifac gives him a chance to vent his malevolent universe soul, to lash out at anyone who stands for something.

The mentality of an Antifa “soldier” is parallel with that of an Islamic jihadist. The latter’s end is his own death, or arrest, or “martyrdom.” They have said that in so many instances. But maybe it is also, if he survives being shot, the five minutes of TV fame as his carnage is televised and he is shown being led away by the police. But it is not “mental illness,” which is what European authorities invariably ascribe to Muslim attacks on non-Muslims. It is plain, unadulterated nihilism. Islam is a nihilist, death-worshipping “creed.”

Antifa “soldiers” are impervious to the charge that their “anti-fascist” mantra allows them to behave like fascists, just as Hitler’s brown shirts behaved.

The word “leaks” does not begin to describe President Donald J. Trump’s problem. “Geysers” is more like it. He should apply a giant wrench to this deluge.

The latest apparent leak involved two pages of Trump’s 2005 tax return. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow hyperventilated Tuesday night over this “absolutely historically unprecedented” news. She looked absolutely historically foolish when these records confirmed that Trump earned some $150 million that year and paid $38.4 million in federal taxes. His 25.3 percent effective rate trumped the 22.5 percent average for his income level, the 18.7 percent that Obama paid in 2015, and the 13.5 percent that Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist, Vt.) chipped in for 2014. So, Trump actually is rich and pays more of his “fair share” than do these two leftists who have denounced people like Trump as “the top 1 percent.”

While this presumed leak benefited Trump, it still reeks of stolen goods. If, in fact, an IRS staffer or another federal employee swiped Trump’s return, he perpetrated a felony under 26 U.S. Code § 7213. Punishment could include a $5,000 fine, five years in the slammer, or both.

President Trump should instruct the Justice Department to investigate how this document surfaced. Anyone at the IRS or elsewhere in the swamp who released it should be handcuffed, tried, and, if convicted, catapulted into a federal penitentiary.

Even more worrisome are the leaks that have scattered state secrets to the winds. Since Trump’s inauguration, the entire planet has read details about his phone calls with the leaders of Mexico and Australia, the communications of former National Security Council chief Mike Flynn with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, the CIA’s possible reopening of overseas interrogation sites, its eerily high-tech surveillance methods, and much more.

Trump haters in the bureaucracy may think they are harming him. In fact, they are wounding America.

Why would foreign leaders want to call Trump, knowing that their confidential words might get splashed across the world’s front pages within days? Why should Great Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, or Japan’s PSIA share intelligence with Washington? Why not skip the middleman and simply hold a press conference on such matters?

Never mind heads of state. Why should pro-American chauffeurs, secretaries, or soldiers abroad approach or cooperate with U.S. intelligence agents, given the risk that their identities might be exposed?

The Clintons are like cockroaches. If there were a nuclear war, after the fallout the only survivors would be Bill, Hillary and Chelsea who would climb out from under a pile of radioactive corpses to start working on their next book. And with the entire human race dead, they would have their pick of ghostwriters.

Since Hillary’s defeat, no amount of bribes, intimidation and glass ceiling rhetoric will give her a third act in politics. So the Clinton crime family has everything staked on a dim daughter who couldn’t manage to successfully interview an actual sock puppet on NBC. So they’re all writing children’s books. Because child abuse is the final Clinton frontier.

Chelsea Clinton has written a children’s book, with a sharply worded title.

The book is called “She Persisted” and comes out May 30, Penguin Young Readers announced Thursday. Clinton will honor 13 American women “who never take no for an answer,” including Harriet Tubman, Sonia Sotomayor and Oprah Winfrey. “She Persisted” will also feature a “special” and unidentified cameo, presumably Clinton’s mother, Hillary Clinton.

So the Clintons stole Warren’s publicity stunt, but won’t be including her in the book.

Grifters gotta grift.

Also who can even tell the difference between Harriet Tubman, Oprah and Hillary. They’re all in the same category.

Chelsea Clinton introduces tiny feminists, mini activists and little kids…

Tiny feminists. Because they’re never too young to be brainwashed. That’s the bottom of the left. Also they’re never too young to give the Clintons money.

Vermont Democrats have something else to celebrate besides the creation and failure of the first statewide socialized medicine system in America. Recovering from that glorious triumph, Vermont Democrats have elected their first Muslim state party chairman.

The lucky fellow is Faisal Gill who called his victory a rebuke of President Trump. “To have a Muslim and immigrant to be the state party chair sends a really strong message to Trump and his type of politics that this is not where the country is at.”

Gill’s election doesn’t send much of a message about where America is at. But it certainly sends a message about where the Democrats are at.

Back when Gill was playing a Republican, courtesy of Grover Norquist, left-wing media outlets like Salon were willing to report on his troubling Islamist ties. But Faisal Gil has been reborn as a supporter of Bernie Sanders and Keith Ellison. The left has become a warm and moist safe space for Islamists. The Salon article which Gill blamed for many of his problems would be nearly inconceivable today. Could anyone really imagine a leftist publication today describing the Muslim Brotherhood as a terror nexus?

But did Faisal Gill really go from Norquist Republican to Sanders Democrat? Did he shift from believing in free enterprise to embracing Socialism? Or did Gill always hold to an overriding ideology in whose shadow the distinction between Capitalism and Socialism becomes pointless infidel quibbling?

When revelations first emerged that Faisal Gill had been under FBI surveillance, he blamed Islamophobia. When Snowden’s enemy espionage operation exposed national security documents which were published by left-wing terror apologist Glenn Greenwald and The Intercept, a site whose former writer is now charged with some of the terroristic bomb threats aimed at Jewish centers, Gill’s email appeared on a list of alleged terrorist suspects and supporters, including Al Qaeda leader Anwar Al-Awlaki.

Glenn Greenwald had claimed that the Al Qaeda leader’s only crimes were “speak[ing] effectively to the Muslim world about violence that the U.S. commits in [Yemen] and the responsibility of Muslims to stand up to this violence.” Examples of this could include Anwar Al-Awlaki quotes such as, “Jihad against America is binding upon myself, just as it is binding on every other able Muslim”, “Don’t consult with anybody in killing the Americans, fighting the devil doesn’t require consultation” and “We will implement the rule of Allah on earth by the tip of the sword.”