RUTHFULLY YOURS

As President, Donald Trump will have many chances to help the nation. His ego and his mercurial disposition may interfere, but opportunities abound. He can help the economy get back on track and, in doing so, help lessen income and wealth inequality that have risen the past eight years. He can help re-build the Middle East and, with a show of strength, help repair relations with Russia and China, which are necessary for long-term global growth. He can help reverse the polarization that has divided our nation, so that we will be able to judge people “… for the content of their character” (as Martin Luther King once said), not for their race, sex or religion. Such tasks should be doable, assuming Mr. Trump’s temperament doesn’t intervene, or the Left does not erect roadblocks.

His most important priority, however, should be to restore democracy – the inherent freedom a liberal, democratic-capitalist republic requires. It is the fount from which all opportunities rise. For eight decades, an expanding administrative state has eroded principles of government laid out by our Founders. In times of war, national security interests allowed Presidents to assume powers alien to our precepts of liberty: Lincoln and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus; Wilson and the Espionage Act of 1917: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the internment of 80,000 Japanese-Americans. But war-time powers lapse when hostilities end. More insidious has been the trend, since the Progressive movement of the late 19th Century, toward increasing the power and reach of the federal government at the expense of Congress, individuals and states; and, within the federal government, the expansion of the Executive over the Congress.

Can Mr. Trump reverse this trend, or at least slow it? I don’t know, but I hope so. Expectations are low. He will enter office despised by those who oppose him – a group that includes opinion makers: mainstream media, educators, Hollywood harlequins and political and business establishment-types from both Parties. Their candidate, Mrs. Clinton, was defeated by a man they scorned. Mr. Trump has none of the goodwill extended President-elect Obama in early 2009. Today, Mr. Obama scores high on personal approval ratings, but, keep in mind, his policies helped defeat Democrats. Even the generally sober David Brooks depicts Mr. Trump as a man who is “inattentive, unpredictable and basically uninterested in anything but his own status at the moment.” But, if Mr. Brooks and his ilk are right, how do they explain his business success? How did he win a Presidential primary that took out 16 other Republican candidates and beat a woman who has been around politics her entire life? And how did he do so while spending less than half the amount of money she spent? Mr. Trump will not get the “honeymoon” usually accorded new Presidents. But conservatives understand that Mr. Trump has provided them the best opportunities for change in a century.

In 2009, America experienced a genuine coup d’état, exquisitely formulated and flawlessly executed after decades of planning by the socialists, communists, and jihadists among us who loathe America and have wished for nothing less than transforming our great country into a mecca of far-left, anti-American policies, punctuated by preposterous liberal constructs like political correctness and multiculturalism, and ultimately subservient to Sharia law.

As strange, indeed mind-bending, as this seems, remember that anything that is alien to American values and promises to undermine America’s passion for freedom and strength is considered a good thing and heartily embraced by the America-hating left. Hence, their fetish with Islam, a political system-cum-“religion” that is antithetical to every value that sane Americans hold dear.

As proof, the policies and laws enacted over the past eight years have consistently militated against America’s well-being. This is the proverbial drop in the bucket:

An eviscerated military and favor-the-enemy Rules of Engagement.
Porous borders over which tens of thousands of unvetted illegal aliens have swarmed, many of them violent criminals and, no doubt, stealth jihadists.
A Big Government mentality that encourages unemployment (95-million) and therefore dependency on government from cradle to grave.
Massive debt––currently pushing $20 trillion––which weakens our country’s ability to pay for essential needs like infrastructure, Medicare and Medicaid, et al., again with the goal of dependency on government.
A horrific healthcare system (Obamacare) that alienates doctors, punishes patients with sky-high premiums and inferior care, and simply doesn’t work–––hence its inevitable implosion (taking place right now).
The most dumbed-down educational system in American history––Common Core––that is based on the fantasy of fairness but in fact deprives every public-school student of even a minimally decent education and a chance to succeed…more government dependency.
Implanting operatives from terrorist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood into every branch of our government, including (to name a few) the State Dept., the Pentagon, Homeland Security, the Attorney General’s office, the EPA, the FBI, the CIA, on and on and on––all of them intent on subverting the U.S. Constitution and replacing it with Sharia law, the animating force of Islam, which dictates not only that gays be executed and women who are raped be tried and convicted for infidelity, but that a failure to embrace Islam be punished with either a hefty tax or death.
A foreign policy that supports our enemies and spits in the faces of our most faithful allies, for instance Israel, England, Egypt, the list is long.
Handing over control of the Internet to the United Nations––the most corrupt, tin-pot-dictator-driven, anti-American, anti-Semitic, American-resource-draining cesspool in our country. If I had one piece of advice for President-Elect Trump, it would be to kick this rancid organization out of the United States! Nothing they’ve ever done has been good for our country. Talk about “draining the swamp”!

AGENT OF CHANGE––GIMME A BREAK!

Americans were both horrified and dumbfounded when the former community organizer, Barack Obama, turned out not to “transform” America for the better, but to be the figurehead––no one would accuse him of being a leader––who left our country in devastating debt, largely unemployed, perceived as the prototypical 97-pound weakling by our allies, and viewed by our own citizens as a lazy but golden-tongued puppet who preferred non-stop golfing vacations and entertaining rap stars and police-hating performers like Beyoncé in the White House to even a remote semblance of governing.

It is so frustrating to observe news coverage of Thursday’s announcement that the Justice Department’s inspector general will review the conduct of FBI and Justice Department officials tangential to — but, as I’ve explained, not at the core of — the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal. As usual, the Left understands exactly what they are choreographing, beginning with Friday’s screaming New York Times page-one headline that “Comey” is the subject of a new Justice Department probe. As always, the Left is setting the parameters of the controversy and the terms by which it will be discussed.

And as night follows day, Republicans are at sea, not knowing quite what is being investigated. Precisely because of the way Democrats have teed things up, Republicans have been hoodwinked into thinking that they must figure out where to come down on FBI director James Comey’s rollercoaster announcements during the campaign stretch run.

In other words: The Democrats are more than halfway home. Republicans figure nothing important has really happened yet. The Left knows it has already set the table. By the time the GOP grasps what’s happening, the public’s understanding of the controversy will be set in stone.

Let me try, again, to help.

Please understand: The charade now underway has nothing to do with determining whether Justice Department protocols were violated by the statements of FBI and Justice Department officials who revealed non-public investigative information — in Comey’s case, to the public at large. That’s the pretext for convening something that can be called a “Justice Department investigation” (which sounds like we’re looking to identify a culprit) by the inspector general (which sounds like the investigation must be non-partisan, even though the IG is an Obama appointee who works with, although often not under the supervision of, Obama’s chosen attorney general).

To the contrary, what is going on here is a battle, which Democrats are hell-bent on winning, between two competing narratives.

There’s nothing quite like a change of power to expose hypocrisy. Yesterday, the Washington Post ran a long and flattering discussion of fashion designers who are just in anguish that their artistic talents could be abused in the service of a cause they despise. In other words, they don’t want to “dress” Melania or Ivanka Trump.

In an open letter rejecting the idea of working with the Trumps, designer Sophie Theallet said, “We value our artistic freedom, and always humbly seek to contribute to a more humane, conscious, and ethical way to create in this world.” She said, “As an independent fashion brand, we consider our voice an expression of our artistic and philosophical ideas.”

Post fashion critic Robin Givhan doesn’t just report on this choice, she goes out of her way to justify and explain it:

Like other creative individuals, Theallet sees fashion as a way of expressing her views about beauty and the way women are perceived in society. Fashion is her tool for communicating her world vision. In the same way that a poet’s words or a musician’s lyrics are a deeply personal reflection of the person who wrote them, a fashion designer’s work can be equally as intimate. In many ways, it’s why we are drawn to them. We feel a one-to-one connection.

You see, “clothes are commodities, certainly, but they also have an artful point of view that is distinctly personal.” That’s why, Givhan says, refusing to dress the Trumps “is not the equivalent of refusing service.” And so, Givhan concludes, “for those designers for whom fashion serves as their voice in the world, they should not feel obligated to say something in which they do not believe.”

I agree with Givhan. Don’t make anyone “dress” political figures they don’t like. Don’t make any artists use their talents to advance viewpoints they find offensive. There are designers who are happy to work with Trumps. Others aren’t. Big deal. Life goes on.

But if there is a single person who thinks that Sophie Theallet, Marc Jacobs, Derek Lam, and others have a right to refuse to dress the Trumps, but also believes that Christian bakers, photographers, and florists have to use their talents to celebrate gay weddings — there’s a word for you: Hypocrite. Indeed, you’re likely worse than a garden-variety hypocrite. You’re almost certainly malicious and elitist to boot.

Consider the parallels. Photographers, bakers, and florists are using their individual artistic talents not just to document but to celebrate an event. Many of them enter their profession to express their own views about “beauty” and do their work to glorify God. Their art is their best tool for “communicating their world vision.”

But all too many on the Left just don’t care. All that matters is that they refused to use their artistic talents for a gay couple. And aren’t LGBT people protected from discrimination? But wait, aren’t Melania and Ivanka also women? And aren’t women a protected class under nondiscrimination law also?

In the heat of the fall campaign, the commentariat got its knickers twisted over Donald Trump’s vow that, if elected, he’d have his Justice Department appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton, his political rival. How remarkable, then, that the media is so indifferent to the revelation that, at the very same time, the Obama Justice Department was actively conducting an investigation of Trump.

As I recounted in Wednesday’s column, the FBI reportedly had suspicions that Trump, or at least members of his “team,” might be violating financial and banking laws. Upon poking around, the Bureau determined there was no “nefarious purpose” in the connection of a server in Trump Tower to at least one bank.

Yet the case was not dropped upon the finding of no criminality. Instead, apparently because the bank or banks involved were Russian, the matter was pursued as a national-security investigation under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Indeed, the investigation may well be ongoing.

Reporting indicates that surveillance warrants were sought from the FISA court in June and October 2016. The first one is said to have “named” Trump himself (we don’t know if that means the government was targeting Trump for surveillance, or if his name was merely mentioned in the FISA application). That application was apparently so lacking that the FISA court refused to authorize it, even though that court is generally quite accommodating of government requests to conduct secret searches and eavesdropping. The court is reported to have granted a narrower application in October — one that appears not to have named Trump. The court’s proceedings are secret, so this reporting cannot be confirmed.

I want to draw attention to a fact I did not dwell on in Wednesday’s column: The FBI is not authorized to seek a national-security surveillance warrant from the FISA court — just as it is not authorized to seek such a warrant from a U.S. district court in an ordinary criminal case. Only the Justice Department is permitted to do that. The FBI could not have sought FISA warrants against Trump without the Obama Justice Department’s approval and assistance.

Interesting contrast, isn’t it?

Throughout the criminal investigations of Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information, the Obama Justice Department would not use the grand jury or help the FBI obtain search or surveillance warrants. As a result, the FBI had no power to compel the production of evidence. Suspects had to be cajoled into cooperating. The only thing the Justice Department was willing to do was grant highly unusual immunity deals, ensuring that suspects could not be prosecuted if they disclosed incriminating evidence.