RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Since he is Jewish, he agrees that people should not be comparing the refugees of today with the Jewish refugees escaping the Nazis. “For me it’s like two completely different subsets, apples and oranges. Some of the refugees today seem to have no allegiance to the U.S. Constitution and do not assimilate well. There should be experts trained to determine a high threat, medium threat, and low threat. Just look how this administration processed illegal immigrants who were supposed to be deported, but were granted illegal status here.”
Retired Navy SEAL Ryan Zinke is running for re-election as Montana’s sole congressman. He is in a tight race against a Democrat liberal enough to make Hillary Clinton appear like a conservative. Recently, those who served in the U.S. armed forces, like Zinke, have decided to extend their service by becoming the new leaders in Washington DC. He interviewed with American Thinker, sounding off about issues important to him and this country.

Once elected, Zinke knew he must wade through the waters once again, but this time as the first Navy SEAL to go to Congress. Having to maneuver through the Washington bureaucracy has been a lot harder than performing his duties as a SEAL. “I went to Congress to give veterans a voice and because we understand what it takes to get the job done. We are less Red or Blue, but more Red, White, and Blue. Having been overseas we understand the importance of how national security/defense are critical in keeping this country free.”

A twenty-three-year veteran, he ended his military career as a commander and trainer. This propelled him to understand what it takes to become a U.S. representative, bringing character and leadership to Washington. He told American Thinker, “When you go out on the field, when you’re in battle, then you have to operate as a team and understand you’re doing it for a higher purpose. I think we should re-establish what the higher purpose is. We were all sent here, Republican or Democrat, to represent our district and also look at what’s in the best interest of this country.”

One of the most important issues to him is the vetting of Middle Eastern refugees. He helped to sponsor the American Safe Act, which passed the House of Representatives with a bipartisan vote in November 2015. The bill’s purpose is to bolster the refugee screening process. After hearing the FBI director’s testimony he knew that it is very difficult to vet these refugees because there is no database. Having fought in Iraq he understands “In Iraq and Syria you’re looking at a country that doesn’t have indoor plumbing. And yet we think that we have a database where we can determine who is a terrorist, who is a terrorist sympathizer? And who is not and who is an innocent victim? Quite frankly, we don’t have the database because a database doesn’t exist. So I think the right path is to make sure we have a vetting process where we can identify the threat. And we need to stop and pause. Provide more transparency. And when we do have refugees, we need to ensure those refugees are not terrorists. I see it as extremely dangerous since we are still at war.”

Since he is Jewish, he agrees that people should not be comparing the refugees of today with the Jewish refugees escaping the Nazis. “For me it’s like two completely different subsets, apples and oranges. Some of the refugees today seem to have no allegiance to the U.S. Constitution and do not assimilate well. There should be experts trained to determine a high threat, medium threat, and low threat. Just look how this administration processed illegal immigrants who were supposed to be deported, but were granted illegal status here.”

It’s bad enough that FBI Director James Comey agreed to pass out immunity deals like candy to material witnesses and potential targets of his investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s illegal private e-mail server.

But now we learn that some of them were immunized despite lying to Comey’s investigators.

In the latest bombshell from Congress’ probe into what’s looking more and more like an FBI whitewash (or coverup) of criminal behavior by the Democratic nominee and her aides, the Denver-based tech who destroyed subpoenaed e-mails from Clinton’s server allegedly lied to FBI agents after he got an immunity deal.
That’s normally a felony. As a federal prosecutor, Comey tossed Martha Stewart in jail for it and helped convict Scooter Libby for it as well. Yet the key Clinton witness still maintained his protection from criminal prosecution.

With Comey’s blessing, Obama prosecutors cut the deal with the e-mail administrator, Paul Combetta, in 2015 in exchange for his full cooperation and honest testimony. But the House Judiciary Committee revealed Wednesday that he falsely told agents in a Feb. 18 interview that he had no knowledge that e-mails he bleached from the server were under congressional orders to be preserved as evidence.

In a second interview on May 3, Combetta admitted he, in fact, did know. But he still refused to reveal what he discussed with Clinton’s former aides and lawyer during a 2014 conference call about deleting the e-mails.

Instead of asking Attorney General Loretta Lynch to revoke his immunity deal and squeezing him, Comey let him go because he was a “low-level guy,” he testified at the House hearing. It’s yet another action by Comey that has left former prosecutors shaking their heads.

The head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation sparred repeatedly with Republican lawmakers Wednesday as they questioned the handling of the FBI’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State.

The FBI announced in July that investigators found extremely careless conduct in Mrs. Clinton’s handling of sensitive government information under the email arrangement, but also concluded that no reasonable prosecutor would have brought a case under the circumstances. Conservatives have been highly critical of the FBI for not pursuing the case more aggressively and for not recommending prosecution of Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president.

That criticism has intensified in recent days when it was revealed that the Justice Department granted partial immunity to some witnesses, including Clinton aide and attorney Cheryl Mills, to get access to data or testimony.

Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, James Comey bristled at times when lawmakers suggested his agency gave Mrs. Clinton or her people a pass on conduct that would have merited charges for low-level government employees.

“We are not on anybody’s side. This was done exactly the way you would want it to be done,’’ Mr. Comey said. Partial and limited grants of immunity were given, he said, to get a laptop from a lawyer or testimony from a technology worker who otherwise refused to talk to investigators.

“You can call us wrong, but don’t call us weasels. We are not weasels,’’ said Mr. Comey, who served as deputy attorney general under President George W. Bush.

FBI Director James Comey appears Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee. The big question is why—if he believes Hillary Clinton committed no prosecutable offense—he has given immunity deals to no fewer than five Clinton associates. A Journal editorial cites Beth Wilkinson, who represents Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, saying the immunity deals were designed to protect her clients against “classification” disputes. “This is an admission that both women knew their unsecure laptops had been holding sensitive information for more than a year,” adds the editorial board.
Donald Trump is right about the “stop and frisk” police tactic and on Monday night he was “unfairly second-guessed by a moderator who didn’t give the viewing public all the facts,” notes a separate editorial. NBC’s Lester Holt and Mrs. Clinton called the tactic unconstitutional. “They are wrong,” adds former prosecutor and New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani . “Stop and frisk is constitutional and the law of the land,” based on an 8-1 decision of the Supreme Court, Terry v. Ohio .

Speaking of Monday night’s debate, Jason Riley saw it as a clear Clinton victory and so did William Galston. But Holman Jenkins says the event helped clarify that this election “will resolve into very flawed outsider vs. very flawed insider—and will be decided by the American people in that vein.”

This column has long argued that the journalistic genre known as “fact checking” is a corruption of journalism. “The ‘fact check’ is opinion journalism or criticism, masquerading as straight news,” we wrote in 2008. “The object is not merely to report facts but to pass a judgment.”

Eight years later, we’d amend that slightly. “Fact checking” doesn’t pretend to be straight news exactly, but something more authoritative. The conceit of the “fact checker” is that he has some sort of heightened level of objectivity qualifying him to render verdicts in matters of public controversy.

Lately the “fact checkers” have been waging a campaign to portray Donald Trump as a contemporaneous supporter of the Iraq war, contrary to his assertions that he was an opponent. In Monday’s debate, Hillary Clinton pleaded for their help: “I hope the fact checkers are turning up the volume and really working hard. Donald supported the invasion of Iraq.” Moderator Lester Holt obliged, basing a question to Trump on the premise that the matter was settled: “You supported the war in Iraq before the invasion.”

Trump somewhat inarticulately rebutted the claim: “The record shows that I’m right. When I did an interview with Howard Stern, very lightly, the first time anybody’s asked me that, I said, very lightly, I don’t know, maybe, who knows.”

What Trump actually said on Sept. 11, 2002, when Stern asked him if he favored an invasion, was: “Yeah, I guess so.” That was an affirmative statement, but a highly equivocal one. Is it fair or accurate to characterize it as sufficient to establish that Trump was a “supporter”? In our opinion, no. He might well have had second thoughts immediately after getting off the air with Stern.

He certainly had second thoughts in the ensuing months, and he came to oppose the invasion long before Mrs. Clinton did. Even FactCheck.org was unable to come up with any other Trump statement supportive of the decision to go to war. By December 2003, according to the site’s timeline, Trump was observing (in an interview with Fox News Channel’s Neil Cavuto) that “a lot of people” were “questioning the whole concept of going in, in the first place.” Five years later, according to PolitiFact.com, Trump was calling for President Bush’s impeachment because, as he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “he got us into the war with lies.” CONTINUE AT SITE

The pundit class seems to agree that Hillary Clinton, if she did not actually ‘win’ the first presidential debate, did better than Trump, while online polls suggest the wider public gave the nod to her rival. What’s certain is that the Republican has plenty of ammunition at hand for their next two encounters.
I cannot deny that I was disappointed at the end of the first presidential debate. Trump ought to have put her away with so many issues opened up for which there are answers aplenty. He went after her in the first half and drove her to the edge of the field but then let her back.

So let me think about this a bit more. First, the totally one-sided “moderating” really irritated. The issues that will matter, looking forward for the next four years, do not include where Obama was born or what Donald Trump shows on his tax form. These are not policy matters and do not much matter. What counts are the things that were not touched upon — Benghazi, her public email server which has allowed every foreign intelligence agency to read every email she sent, the open border that is not being sealed and would not be by Clinton, and her inveterate lying about everything large and small. These were not brought into the mix by the moderator.

Second, I think Trump is conscious of the Romney experience. Mitt Romney won the first debate, then didn’t win the election. If there is anything that Trump has shown, it is that he gets his timing right. I thought he let Clinton off the hook in a number of places which he ought to have driven an armoured column through, but didn’t. I don’t know if it was deliberate but, on purpose or not, he will be back for the second and third events. What did Hillary learn from this? Nothing that I think can help her, while Trump learned a lot.

Third, the Trump I saw was not the Trump I believe he can be. The Trump others saw for the first time was, however, someone who does not scare the horses and had as presidential a look about him as one could wish. That Trump has won every one of the online polls which asked who won the debate says something about the common expectation which he more than seems to have filled.

Fourth, Hillary’s desire to raise taxes on “the rich” and increase the minimum wage are massive disasters that would ruin the working lives of many, especially those at the bottom. Trump, on the other hand, wants to lower taxes and remove regulations on business. Hillary panders to the ignorant while Trump has a more sophisticated view of how a capitalist system works. It is not a zero-sum game in the way it is discussed by Clinton. Adding to that, his aim to re-negotiate the various trade deals, and have other nations contribute to the cost of their defence by the United States. These are the kinds of changes that really can make the American economy succeed. Nothing that Hillary says (or has ever done), makes you think she has much of an idea how things work, other than via various forms of patronage and corruption.

In all, I wish it had been more of a win for Trump. But on that very day the polls suggested the Electoral College for the first time rolled in his favour. He has until the start of November to build on what he has achieved, and there is no reason to think he cannot do what needs to be done. And there is always the possibility that the people who are voting understand that they are not selecting a debating team but the person who will lead their nation through one of the most perilous times in its history.