RUTHFULLY YOURS

Rarely has such a naturally rich and scenic region become so mismanaged by so many creative and well-intentioned people.

In California, Yuletide rush hours are apparently the perfect time for state workers to shut down major freeways to make long-overdue repairs to the ancient pavement. Last week, I saw thousands of cars stuck in a road-construction zone that was juxtaposed with a huge concrete (but only quarter-built) high-speed-rail overpass nearby.

The multibillion-dollar high-speed-rail project, stalled and way over budget, eventually may be completed in a decade or two. But for now, California needs good old-fashioned roads that don’t disrupt holiday shopping — before it starts futuristic projects it cannot fully fund.

California’s steep new gasoline tax — one of the highest in the nation — has not even fully kicked in, and yet the cash-strapped state is already complaining that the anticipated additional revenue will be too little.

Now, some officials also want to consider taxing motorists for each mile they drive on the state’s antediluvian roads.

Nature this year is predictably not cooperating with California.

In most areas of the Sierra Nevada, the state’s chief source of stored water, there is not a drop of snow on the ground. The High Sierra so far this year looks more like Death Valley than Alpine Switzerland.

The last two months of California weather were among the driest autumn months on record. Unless 2018 is a miraculously wet year, California will find itself on the cusp of another existential drought.

Yet California politicians are currently obsessed with the usual race/class/gender agendas, as Sacramento broadcasts that California is a sanctuary state exempt from federal immigration laws.

Periodically, Governor Jerry Brown, in prophetic Old Testament style, offers rebukes of President Donald Trump, as Brown tours the globe as commander in chief of California.

It is probably the most important date in United States history, but to most people Dec. 23 signifies only that there are two shopping days left until Christmas.

On that date in 1783, however, a remarkable event occurred.

After victoriously leading an army for more than eight years against the mightiest military force on the planet, Gen. George Washington walked before the Continental Congress and announced, “Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theater of action …”

He had commanded an army clothed in rags, its soldiers so hungry they ate tree bark to fill their stomachs. They died from dysentery and starvation.

Here’s how author Ron Chernow describes it in his biography of the general: “There was scarcely a time during the war when Washington didn’t grapple with a crisis that threatened to disband the army and abort the Revolution. The extraordinary, wearisome, nerve-racking frustration he put up with for nearly nine years is hard to express. He repeatedly had to exhort Congress and the 13 states to remedy desperate shortages of men, shoes, shirts, blankets and gunpowder.”

Each year his army would simply disappear as their enlistments expired meaning Washington had to start training them from scratch.

After the fighting had ended and before the peace was signed, King George III of England asked an acquaintance whether Washington would remain in charge of the army or become the new nation’s monarch. When told Washington’s aim was to simply give up his power and return to his farm, the king replied, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”

He resigned in Annapolis, Maryland, and immediately set out for home. For the first time in eight years Washington returned to Mount Vernon for Christmas. It would be six years before he was elected the nation’s first president and once again called away from home.

In the history of the world there are a multitude of heroic military leaders who have led successful revolts against oppressors only to seize power themselves, becoming dictators and despots.

Put simply, this government of the people and by the people exists only because George Washington voluntarily gave up his power, first as the military leader and later as its chief of state.

Yet, there is no national holiday marking the occasion. No fireworks light the skies. The calendar does not even designate Dec. 23 as a day to fly the flag.

Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s closed-door interview with House Intelligence Committee investigators on Tuesday did not go well for him, Fox News’ James Rosen reported in an exclusive on Wednesday.

According to congressional sources, McCabe’s answers during his seven-hour interrogation conflicted with the testimony of previous witnesses, prompting one House investigator to tell Fox News, “It’s hard to know who’s telling us the truth.”

The discrepancies have spurred Republican majority staff of the intel committee to issue fresh subpoenas next week for other Justice Department and FBI personnel.

Fox News reports that those personnel are likely to be “demoted DOJ official Bruce G. Ohr and FBI General Counsel James A. Baker, who accompanied McCabe, along with other lawyers, to Tuesday’s HPSCI session.” Ohr — whose wife Nellie worked for Fusion GPS through the summer and fall of 2016 — is set to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee later this week, as well.

The questioning on Tuesday was led by Rep. Trey Gowdy, (R-SC) with several other lawmakers participating, according to Fox News. Gowdy, in particular, has been very keen to find out whether the FBI relied on the anti-Trump dossier to secure a FISA warrant to spy on President Trump and his associates. “I want to know whether the nation’s premier law enforcement agency relied on a document that looks like the National Enquirer prepared it,” Gowdy said in October.

In what has to be a blow to the #RussiaGate crowd, the number two official in the FBI was apparently unable to cite which specific details in the dossier had been actually corroborated, after he told investigators that the bureau had verified some of the allegations. He also seemed to suffer from an attack of amnesia when asked about the Democratic funding of the dossier.

Sources close to the investigation say that McCabe was a “friendly witness” to the Democrats in the room, who are said to have pressed the deputy director, without success, to help them build a case against President Trump for obstruction of justice in the Russia-collusion probe. “If he could have, he would have,” said one participant in the questioning.

Investigators say McCabe recounted to the panel how hard the FBI had worked to verify the contents of the anti-Trump “dossier” and stood by its credibility. But when pressed to identify what in the salacious document the bureau had actually corroborated, the sources said, McCabe cited only the fact that Trump campaign adviser Carter Page had traveled to Moscow. Beyond that, investigators said, McCabe could not even say that the bureau had verified the dossier’s allegations about the specific meetings Page supposedly held in Moscow.

The sources said that when asked when he learned that the dossier had been funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, McCabe claimed he could not recall – despite the reported existence of documents with McCabe’s own signature on them establishing his knowledge of the dossier’s financing and provenance. CONTINUE AT SITE

Alternative remedies like homeopathic treatments have become popular in recent years and now make up a $3 billion industry. But the Food and Drug Administration will begin scrutinizing products that could be dangerous to vulnerable populations.

Many homeopathic remedies are derived from plants and claim to treat everything from the common cold to serious diseases. But the FDA fears that these products can “bring little to no benefit in combating serious ailments, or worse — may cause significant and even irreparable harm because the products are poorly manufactured, or contain active ingredients that aren’t adequately tested or disclosed to patients,” according to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.
In 1988, the FDA allowed for drugs that are labeled “homeopathic” to be marketed and sold without the agency’s approval, according to USA Today.

But recent issues concerning products for babies, including popular teething tablets, have led the agency to issue warnings. As a result, alternative treatments targeted at young children and those suffering from cancer, heart disease, and other serious ailments will be under heavier scrutiny by the agency.

Mark Land, the president of the American Association of Homeopathic Pharmacists, is concerned that this move by the FDA will affect “the ‘vast majority’ of homeopathic remedies available in the United States, according to NPR, but Gottlieb feels it is important to “protect the public from products that may not deliver any benefit and have the potential to cause harm.”

The new guidelines will be subject to a 90-day public comment period before becoming final. CONTINUE AT SITE