NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

DOJ Defends Barr’s Summary of Mueller Report from Critics By Mairead McArdle

Posted By on April 4th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/doj-defends-barrs-summary-of-mueller-report-from-critics/

The Justice Department on Thursday defended Attorney General William Barr’s short outline of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report, hours after the New York Times reported that some members of Mueller’s team were concerned Barr had downplayed the results of the investigation to make it seem more favorable to President Trump.“Given the extraordinary public interest in the matter, the Attorney General decided to release the report’s bottom-line findings and his conclusions immediately – without attempting to summarize the report – with the understanding that the report itself would be released after the redactions process,” read a statement from DOJ spokesperson Kerri Kupec. “The Department continues to work with the Special Counsel on appropriate redactions to the report so that it can be released to Congress and the public.”Barr’s four-page outline of the report’s conclusions stated that Mueller had found no collusion between the Trump team and the Kremlin but left open the question of whether the president had obstructed justice during the investigation. It also made clear that Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had concluded there was not enough evidence to charge Trump with obstruction.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Dem. Rep. Bashes Green New Deal: ‘There’s No Need to Lie to Voters’

Posted By on April 4th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/dem-rep-bashes-green-new-deal-theres-no-need-to-lie-to-voters/

Representative Max Rose (D., N.Y.) lambasted fellow New York freshman Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Wednesday for using the threat of climate change to advance a “massive socialist economic-policy platform” via the Green New Deal plan she introduced earlier this year.

Rose, during a Wednesday interview on New York’s local Metro Focus program, agreed with Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow progressives that climate change is an existential threat that requires a commensurate response, but argued that the federal-jobs and housing guarantees included in the plan are not necessary to combat climate change.

“This is not the time for milquetoast incrementalism,” Rose said. “It just isn’t. But with that being said, nothing about what I just said would provide a justification for a massive socialist economic-policy platform. [It’s] just not needed.”

“There’s no need to lie to voters right now,” he added. “We don’t need the Democratic version of ‘repeal and replace.’”Rose, who earned a Purple Heart and a bronze star for his Army service in Afghanistan, dared Ocasio-Cortez to back a primary challenger against him when asked about her threat to unseat any Democrat who refused to back her progressive vision.

“She’s going to keep a list,” Rose said, referring to reports that Ocasio-Cortez threatened to make a list of uncooperative Democrats to provide to liberal activists. “This is very simple because I’m not one to deal in subtleties. I think it’s best not to be passive-aggressive. If she wants to primary me, if the Justice Democrats want to primary me, I’ll lay out the red carpet. We can settle this at the polls.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

California AG: Illegal Immigration Should Be Decriminalized By Mairead McArdle

Posted By on April 4th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/california-ag-illegal-immigration-should-be-decriminalized/

California attorney general Xavier Becerra called Thursday for unauthorized immigration to be decriminalized, saying those crossing the southern border are “not criminals.”

“They haven’t committed a crime against someone, and they are not acting violently or in a way that’s harmful to people,” California’s top cop told HuffPost. “And I would argue they are not harming people indirectly either.”

“If you call them criminals, it’s a lot easier to get people to turn against them than if you call them undocumented immigrants,” he added.

Becerra’s comments came just as President Trump on Thursday issued a “one-year warning” to Mexico to control the flow of migrants and illegal drugs before he closes the border.
3

Several prominent border-state Democrats have echoed the California AG’s calls for illegal entry to be decriminalized, including Representatives Raúl Grijalva of Arizona and Veronica Escobar of Texas. Former representative Beto O’Rourke, who hails from the border town of El Paso, Texas and is seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, said during his Senate campaign last year that he, too, supports decriminalizing illegal immigration.

“These asylum-seekers — penniless, at wit’s end, after surviving three weeks on the road, very often with their children — then attempt to do what I think any human would do, which is to request asylum in between the ports of entry,” O’Rourke said. “We should not criminalize that.”

POLITICS Comments turned off

Beto O’Rourke Is Fauxbama By Kyle Smith

Posted By on April 4th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/beto-orourke-is-fauxbama/

Obama’s platitudes are still platitudes in the mouth of the less-talented O’Rourke.

Only once did I sit in a medium-sized room with Barack Obama. It was May 19, 2006, and the then-senator was speaking at a BookExpo America breakfast to promote his book The Audacity of Hope. He warmed up by noting that some people were cynical about politics. “At best we just hope it does us no harm,” he said, which was true enough. But then he kept going.

There has always been this other idea, and the idea can be described very simply. The notion that we all have a stake in each other, and that my success is directly tied to the success of my neighbors…for all of our much-vaunted individualism, there is also this sense that we are tied up in a mutual destiny, and every once in a while that sense, that interpretation, expresses itself not only in our families, in our churches…but it also expresses itself in our government, in our collective lives. And it’s that sense that propelled me in politics.

Winding down, he deployed Martin Luther King Jr.’s remark about how “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice” and said, “I look forward to working with you guys to spread the hope.”

The place went bananas. In a room full of booksellers and librarians, I was the only one not applauding. I was the only one who didn’t leap to my feet as though I had just received a life-altering revelation. As my success is obviously not tied to that of my neighbors, I am obviously not caught up in a mystical mutual-destiny tour with 300 million Americans and never have felt any rhapsodic “collective life” created by the nurturing bonds of government, Obama’s speech struck me as completely false, not to mention vapid, platitudinous and void of all meaningful content. (Tell me, at what capital-gains tax rate does the epiphany of “collective life” kick in?)

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Land of the Rising Unease Japan’s economy shows signs of sputtering on the eve of a tax hike.

Posted By on April 4th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/land-of-the-rising-unease-11554333457

Japan is joining much of the world in facing weaker economic growth, but in one respect it’s unique. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seems determined to make it worse by imposing a tax increase later this year.

This week’s survey of business confidence from the Bank of Japan makes for bracing reading. Confidence among large manufacturers fell to 12 from 19 in December, the steepest decline since 2013. Smaller manufacturers shared the gloom. This follows anemic retail sales and weak growth in industrial production in February after several months of contraction. The economy eked out GDP growth of 0.8% in 2018 and may struggle to match that this year.

Foreign pressures aren’t helping Japan, including President Trump’s trade war with China, which has Asian economies caught in the crossfire. Japan’s export-dependent economy remains vulnerable to slower growth in Europe and China.

Yet domestic problems are also in play. Mr. Abe’s economic revival program, Abenomics, still hasn’t fully launched as it enters its eighth year. He delivered more government spending and an unprecedented monetary blowout, but the policy reforms intended as the “third arrow” of the plan never took flight. This is weighing on investment and productivity growth.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trolling the Mueller Report Democrats lost on collusion. Now they’re inventing a coverup.

Posted By on April 4th, 2019

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trolling-the-mueller-report-11554333841

Democrats are still reeling from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s conclusion that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russians in 2016. But they’ve now hit upon a political comeback strategy: Accuse Attorney General William Barr of a coverup.

That’s the context for Wednesday’s decision by House Democrats to authorize subpoenas, on a partisan vote, demanding that Mr. Barr immediately hand over the entire Mueller report and its supporting evidence. This is intended to give the impression, abetted by a press corps that was fully invested in the collusion story, that Mr. Barr is somehow lying about Mr. Mueller’s real conclusions.

That’s preposterous, since Mr. Barr’s four-page letter quotes directly from Mr. Mueller’s report. The AG surely understood on releasing the summary of conclusions last week that he would be open to contradiction by Mr. Mueller if he took such liberties. Mr. Barr also knew he’d be called to testify before Congress once the rest of the report is released.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Mueller Waiting Game by Alan M. Dershowitz

Posted By on April 4th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14005/mueller-report-waiting

We can reasonably expect that those investigators who favored accusing the President with obstruction will lay out their case against Trump. This raises the legal and ethical question of whether it is proper for prosecutors publicly to disclose the evidence and arguments against the subject of a criminal investigation who is not being charged.

The law cannot be ignored. The law requires the Attorney General not to disclose grand jury evidence without a court order. It also requires the non-disclosure of privileged material, including executive privilege, and of legitimately classified material. The public, and even Congress, will therefore have to wait until the Attorney General completes his legal review. The courts should not shortcut that review by enforcing subpoenas from partisan Congressional committees.

Remember that the report, however redacted, will be a one-sided document, based on uncrossexamined witnesses selected by prosecutors. No witnesses favorable to the subjects of the investigation will have testified before the grand jury. An investigation by a special counsel is not a search for objective truth. It is a search for incriminating evidence sufficient to charge.

The waiting game is on as politicians and pundits try to read the tea leaves regarding the soon-to-be-released Mueller Report. We know the major conclusions: no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia; and no charges of obstruction by President Trump, based on a division of opinion among the investigators and a decision by the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General. What we do not know is how critical the report will be, especially with regard to obstruction. We can reasonably expect that those investigators who favored accusing the President with obstruction will lay out their case against Trump. This raises the legal and ethical question of whether it is proper for prosecutors publicly to disclose the evidence and arguments against the subject of a criminal investigation who is not being charged.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Russia’s Military Must Leave Venezuela Immediately by Jiri Valenta

Posted By on April 4th, 2019

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13994/russia-venezuela

Russia was considering deploying strategic bombers full-time in Venezuela, according to the Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, as reported by Moscow Times. The Russian media outlet also reported that an agreement had been reached between Moscow and Caracas to allow the deployment of Russian aircraft at a military base Venezuela’s Caribbean island of La Orchila, where Russian advisers were dispatched in December.

It is urgent for Washington to act before Russia and Venezuela reach their imminent formal military agreement. At the same time, NATO membership should be offered to Brazil, a major ally, and economic aid should be provided to Columbia.

“[China and Russia] back Maduro to the hilt because they have much to lose if his leftist government falls. Both maintain crucial military facilities in the country… In recent months, China, the regime’s largest creditor, has been digging itself in deeper. In September, Beijing extended Venezuela another $5 billion in credit. Russia has also loaned the country billions.” — Gordon G. Chang, Gatestone Institute.

After the landing of two Russian aircraft in Caracas on March 23 — one an Ilyushin Il-62 passenger plane transporting 100 ground forces and the other an Antonov An-124 military cargo plane carrying 35 tons of materiel – U.S. President Donald J. Trump said that “Russia has to get out” of Venezuela.

In January, two months before this arrival of Russian military personnel and equipment in Venezuela, two Russian Air Force Tu-160 strategic bombers flying over the Arctic region near the North American coastline were detected and escorted out of the area by Canadian and U.S. Air Force jets.

Although it was not clear where these Russian bombers were headed, a similar incident had occurred a few weeks before, when two of the same type of Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers landed outside Caracas — sorties indicating that these, too, were headed to Venezuela.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION, POLITICS Comments turned off

GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw: BDS supporters operate in ‘fantasy world’ Jackson Richman

Posted By on April 4th, 2019

https://www.jns.org/gop-rep-dan-crenshaw-bds-supporters-operate-in-fantasy-world/

“I personally got to see the magic of Israel and the real sense of the Jewish people there. It really does change you. It’s really such an experience, and I can’t wait to go back.”

Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who was wounded in Afghanistan, says those who are supporting the BDS movement “are operating in a fantasy world where they actually don’t understand what the Middle East is all about.”

Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who was wounded in Afghanistan, says those who are supporting the BDS movement “are operating in a fantasy world where they actually don’t understand what the Middle East is all about.”

HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Illegal Alien, Twice Deported, Raped and Killed Jogger in Sanctuary State

Posted By on April 4th, 2019

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/273381/illegal-alien-twice-deported-raped-and-killed-daniel-greenfield

Governor Phil Murphy’s transformation of New Jersey into a sanctuary state has left a trail of blood across its wounded communities. Support for illegal migration is a crime against humanity. But the same people crying fake tears on MSNBC or CNN over illegal aliens care nothing for the mounting death toll of their victims.

The man charged with raping and strangling a jogger in Jersey City’s Lincoln Park had already been deported twice, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.

Jorge Rios, who was identified by ICE officials as Jorge Alberto Rios-Doblado, is from Honduras and “has been removed from the country on two prior occasions, in 2003 and 2004,” according to ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operation (ICE-ERO) in Newark. ICE officials also said Rios initially entered the country illegally.

ICE-ERO said that it has placed a detainer on Rios following his arrest on Sunday on charges the 33-year-old kidnapped, raped and murdered Carolina Cano, 45, of Gautier Avenue in Jersey City, on March 24. The nanny’s body was found in the lake near the Casino in the Park building that day.

Cano is from Peru and worked as a nanny. A resident of the building where she lived off West Side Avenue said she had been in the United States for about two years. Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop has said that it appears Cano and Rios were strangers.