No One Is Above The Law? Give Me A Break By: David Harsanyi

https://thefederalist.com/2023/04/04/no-one-is-above-the-law-give-me-a-break/

Lock Donald Trump up, or don’t lock him up, but don’t tell me that “no one is above the law.” It’s one of the most ludicrous fantasies peddled by the left.

Plenty of people are “above the law.” James Clapper, who lied under oath to Congress about spying on the American people, is above the law. John Brennan, who lied about a domestic spying operation on Senate staffers, is above the law. Unlike Trump advisor Peter Navarro, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder was never going to be handcuffed and thrown in prison for ignoring a congressional subpoena. He is above the law.

Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, is also above the law. The then-Secretary of State set up a private server in her home to circumvent transparency surrounding her slush-fund foundation. She sent 110 emails containing marked classified information, and 36 of those emails contained secret information. Eight of the email chains contained “top secret” information. Every one of those instances was a potential felony punishable with up to ten years in prison.

We learned all of this from James Comey, then FBI director, who noted that Hillary had been “extremely careless” in conducting her business. Comey didn’t recommend charges because, he claimed, the state couldn’t prove Clinton’s intent — even though “gross negligence,” not intent, was the only standard he needed. Gross negligence and extreme carelessness are synonyms. Comey concocted a new standard to protect Clinton because she is above the law.

When Hillary’s husband, also above the law, perjured himself under oath, Democrats argued that puritanical conservatives were only pursuing Bill because of some trumped-up charge over “sex.” Using that logic, Trump’s campaign finance charges related to Stormy Daniels’ “hush money” are also about sex. This is different because Trump is the boogeyman, and everyone knows he’s guilty of something. The important thing is getting that mug shot.

A Cautionary Example for Those Cheering the Trump Indictment Those cheering the Trump indictment should look to Latin America for a cautionary example. By Daniel Raisbeck

https://www.wsj.com/articles/where-political-prosecutions-are-common-south-america-brazil-mexico-venezuela-colombia-peru-supreme-court-trump-indictment-prosecution-931305ea?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

As Donald Trump faces indictment, many of his opponents are losing sight of a warning they issued in 2016. Then, Mr. Trump spoke of prosecuting Hillary Clinton and his supporters chanted “Lock her up!” Critics accused him of subverting a crucially important norm against political prosecution. They said that would be a dangerous turn, and they were right.

In much of Latin America, the use of the judicial apparatus as a means to sideline electoral opponents is part of the political culture. In a particularly egregious example, the autocratic Nicaraguan regime of Daniel Ortega arrested more than a dozen of his rivals just months before the November 2021 presidential election, many under treason charges created by a law Mr. Ortega’s government had enacted in December 2020.

Under international pressure—mainly from the U.S.—the regime released 222 political prisoners this February and had them flown to Washington. Under yet another treason law, however, they were stripped of their Nicaraguan citizenship and effectively expropriated.

Along with Nicaragua, political imprisonment is rampant in Latin America’s other full-blown autocracies, Venezuela and Cuba. These socialist regimes hold more than 250 and 750 dissidents, respectively, in arbitrary detention according to nongovernmental organizations Foro Penal and Justicia 11J. Like their sister regime in Managua, they often resort to the tactic of liberating political prisoners on specific occasions to obtain some short-term advantage.

REFLECTIONS ON PASSOVER 2023

Tonight, I will gather with my family to celebrate and commemorate the Exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt to Israel the locus of our faith. It was a major link in the unbreakable chain that sustained us through millennia of dispersion and persecution and harassment and forced conversions and genocide. While mighty empires have fallen, we are still here.
We will hail the revelation of the Ten Commandments during the Jewish wandering in the Sinai- the first guide for decent behavior which has inspired people of all faiths for centuries.
We will recall how on Passover 1943 hungry, cold and wretched Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose up against the Nazis and with no military training, using stolen guns, iron rods, knives and crafted explosives they held off the Nazis for twenty-eight days.
But this year I am filled with rue and misgiving.
The youngest member will then ask the four questions. The first should be: “Why have so many of our faith violated the Second Commandment and worship the “graven images” and false idols of radical “progressive” and “woke” policies which threaten democracy the cornerstone of our religious freedom, continuity and protection?”
In Israel there is a civil war waged against a leader elected by the majority in a scrupulously monitored election. Protesters, like the Hellenist Jews of antiquity embrace partisan ideology and hypocritical virtue signaling at a time of greatest danger and threats from modern Pharaohs and their allies.
Conor Cruise O’Brien, the late Irish politician, writer, historian and academic lamented: “Antisemitism is a light sleeper.” Indeed! It has awakened with gale force throughout the world, and alas, in the corridors of power in America our beloved nation.
But hope, Tikvah in Hebrew, has sustained our faith and continues to do so.
So, we will eat and be merry and hope for better days. Happy and sweet Passover to all who observe.

Passover Guide for the Perplexed 2023-Yoram Ettinger

https://bit.ly/3ztGe7h

1. The Passover Exodus, in general, and the Mosaic legacy, in particular, inspired the US Founding Fathers’ rebellion against the monarchy, which evolved into a concept of non-revengeful, non-imperialistic and anti-monarchy liberty, limited (non-tyrannical) government, separation of powers among three co-equal branches of government and the Federalist system, in general.

The goal of Passover’s liberty was not the subjugation of the Egyptian people, but the defeat of the tyrannical Pharaoh and the veneration of liberty throughout the globe, including in Egypt.

2. The Passover Exodus catapulted the Jewish people from spiritual and physical servitude in Egypt to liberty in the Land of Israel.

3. The Passover Exodus highlights the Jubilee – which is commemorated every 50 years – as the Biblical foundation of the concept of liberty. The US Founding Fathers deemed it appropriate to engrave the essence of the Jubilee on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Thus, the Liberty Bell was installed in 1751 upon the 50th anniversary of William Penn’s Charter of Privileges with the following inscription: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof (Leviticus, 25:10).” 

Moses received the Torah – which includes 50 gates of wisdom – 50 days following the Exodus, as celebrated by the Shavou’ot/Pentecost Holiday, 50 days following Passover. Moreover, there are 50 States in the United States, whose Hebrew name is “The States of the Covenant” (Artzot Habreet -ארצות הברית).

4. The Passover Exodus spurred the Abolitionist Movement and the human rights movement. For example,  in 1850, Harriet Tubman, who was one of the leaders of the “Underground Railroad” – an Exodus of Afro-American slaves to freedom – was known as “Mama Moses.” Moreover, on December 11, 1964, upon accepting the Nobel Prize, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said: “The Bible tells the thrilling story of how Moses stood in Pharaoh’s court centuries ago and cried, ‘Let my people go!’” Furthermore, Paul Robeson and Louis Armstrong leveraged the liberty theme of Passover through the lyrics: “When Israel was in Egypt’s land, let my people go! Oppressed so hard they could not stand, let my people go! Go down Moses, way down in Egypt’s land; tell old Pharaoh to let my people go….!” 

5. According to Heinrich Heine, the 19th century German poet, “Since the Exodus, freedom has always spoken with a Hebrew accent.”  

Biden’s Anti-Israel Policy Empowers Iran, Palestinian Terrorists by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19564/biden-anti-israel-policy-iran

US President Joe Biden appears more worried about the Israeli government’s plan for judicial reform than the growing support among Palestinians for terrorism against Israel.

He seems more concerned about a plan to fix the deeply broken judicial system in Israel than about Palestinian threats to destroy Israel and kill as many Jews as possible.

We did not see Biden raise any objection over the Palestinians’ “Pay for Slay” policy, which rewards terrorists and their families for the murder of Jews. We did not see Biden raise any objection over the Palestinian leaders’ glorification of terrorists, who are being celebrated as “martyrs” by a majority of Palestinians. We did not see Biden raise any objection over the thousands of Palestinians who regularly take to the streets to celebrate the murder of Jews in terror attacks perpetrated by Palestinian terrorists.

As Biden was criticizing the democratically elected prime minister of Israel, senior (unelected) Palestinian officials were continuing to use every available podium to spread more libels against Israel.

Has Biden ever shown any concern that the Palestinians are living under highly undemocratic regimes, with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip? Has Biden or anyone from his administration ever asked the Palestinians why they do not have a functioning parliament?

The crisis Biden has triggered with Israel because of his recurring criticism of a badly-needed judicial reform plan is great news for Iran and its Palestinian proxies, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), two of the many Islamist terror groups that openly call for the elimination of Israel.

By sparking a crisis with Netanyahu and the Israeli government, Biden has succeeded in bringing happiness to the enemies of both Israel and the US, perhaps in an effort that will be fruitless, to appease them. The message the Biden Administration is sending is that you are rewarded if you are an enemy of the US but punished if you are a friend.

Biden has placed himself alongside the mullahs of Iran who are expressing hope that the protests against the Netanyahu government will lead to the “collapse of the Zionist regime.”

The mullahs are clearly happy to see Biden’s attacks on the Israeli prime minister, who has been spearheading efforts to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

The mullahs are also undoubtedly delighted to see the Biden administration turn its back on its major ally and the only democracy in the Middle East: Israel. In the view of the mullahs and most of Israel’s enemies, the US has always been the “Great Satan” that stands in the way of achieving their goal of destroying the “Little Satan” Israel.

Basically, Iran does not want any democratic presence in the Middle East and has presumably been attacking US interests in the area to force the US to pull out.

In reality, it looks to many in the Middle East as if the Biden Administration’s objection to long-overdue judicial reforms is really just a pretext for trying to bring down the democratically-elected Israeli government and replace it with a new government that will allow the US to accept that Iran may have all the nuclear weapons it wants, perhaps with some feckless “compromise,” such as “so long as it does not field them.” This would be a deeply terrible plan that the Biden Administration might, alarmingly, decide to accept.

The current US anti-Netanyahu approach will do nothing except empower Iran and its proxies, Hamas, PIJ and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and incentivize them to carry out more terror attacks – not only against Israelis, but against Americans as well.

The Israeli government’s judicial plan is probably not perfect, but it could not be more dangerous than Iran’s continued effort to produce nuclear weapons or the Palestinians’ rising support for terrorism.

The Biden administration would do well to understand that those who want to kill the Jews also want to see dead the friends and allies of the Jews. That is why it would be most helpful for America’s national security if Biden and his officials immediately defused the tensions and ceased their rhetorical attacks against a small country that is in reality America’s only true friend and most trusted ally in the Middle East.

The Indictment of America Theoretically a grand jury has indicted President Trump, but in truth the indictment is of the American regime itself. By Vincent McCaffrey

https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/03/the-indictment-of-america/

Like all of us, Donald Trump is a flawed man, but he has become a symbol to those who vested him with a sacred trust. He was made president by us to lead our nation. He fulfilled his part of that bargain, as far as he was able. But too late. The government we asked him to administer was already too corrupt to allow him to do the job, lest they themselves be held to account. Now his persecution for doing what voters asked him to do is breaking the very covenant of government under which we live.

The political drift of the last 100 years has, with a few brief exceptions, been toward authoritarian rule. With the subversion of the English Common Law that had been our foundation, the last bastion of the Republic has fallen. The why and how are worth considering, but the “what” is now before us.

Nancy Pelosi gave away the game (yet again) last week when she said that President Trump had every right to “prove his innocence,” a sentiment applauded by her fellows, who share a total lack of understanding of just how this reverses the presumption of innocence as well as the foundational direction of our nation. When she tore up the president’s State of the Union speech behind his back after he spoke, it was enough to make her sense of the world clear. Her haughty response to a question about the details of the Affordable Care Act—“we have to pass the [health care] bill so that you can find out what’s in it”—was another. And her mocking laughter in the face of a query about the constitutionality of Obamacare was still another.

A grand jury in New York City has indicted President Trump, but this is problematic. The allegations against him are unworthy of grand jury attention, even after the penalties for these so-called crimes were increased, post facto, from potential misdemeanors to felonies by the wave of a single judicial hand. Laws are now made that way, as if by magic, and not by legislatures as the Constitution once demanded. We are now ruled by men, not laws, and the struggle for power amongst them will ruin us.

A Spring of Leaks Judge Aileen Cannon knew the Justice Department’s recent history of bad behavior related to all things Donald Trump would repeat itself. How right she was. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/03/a-spring-of-leaks/

Judge Aileen Cannon was right.

In her controversial order authorizing the appointment of a neutral third-party to review the classification status of documents seized during the FBI’s pillage of Mar-A-Lago last summer, Cannon cited as a main concern the Justice Department’s chronic habit of leaking to the news media. Leaks hinting at what FBI investigators allegedly found, including perhaps nuclear secrets, were reported by reliable media apparatchiks just a few days after the FBI’s unprecedented raid of a former president’s home. 

Clearly aware that federal prosecutors already were collaborating with the media to spin the raid as legitimate amid a public outcry, Cannon granted Trump’s request for a special master to “ensur[e] the integrity of an orderly process amidst swirling allegations of bias and media leaks,” she wrote in her September 5 ruling. A proper investigation, she continued, “does not demand unquestioning trust in the determinations of the Department of Justice.”

Cannon, a Trump-appointed district court judge in Florida, at one point confronted prosecutors about the illicit leaks. “Government’s counsel stated that he had no knowledge of any leaks stemming from his team but candidly acknowledged the unfortunate existence of leaks to the press.”

A pile-on ensued against Cannon; the Justice Department appealed her order and prevailed in the appellate court. But Cannon foresaw exactly what has unfolded in the press over the past seven months. And as Trump prepares to fight his very first indictment handed down by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, leaks are springing up all over the corporate media to bolster the appearance of Trump’s criminality.

A lengthy piece in the Washington Post over the weekend gave a detailed account of the obstruction side of the classified documents investigation now led by Jack Smith, the special prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland last year to give the false impression of investigative impartiality. If the Post’s reporting is accurate, the obstruction inquiry seems as weak as the original case; recall of the 13,000 items of evidence stolen by FBI agents during the lengthy raid, the government later claimed only about 100 papers contained classified markings.

“The additional evidence comes as investigators have used emails and text messages from a former Trump aide to help understand key moments last year, said the people, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation,” Post reporters Devlin Barrett, Josh Dawsey, and Perry Stein wrote.

The reporters specifically named Molly Michael, a former White House assistant who followed Trump to Florida after his term ended, as the aide whose communications are under scrutiny. Investigators also have “witness statements, security camera footage, and other documentary evidence” that purportedly proves Trump was involved in inspecting boxes of materials after receiving a subpoena last May to produce more classified records, the Post further disclosed.

It is highly unlikely those specifics were leaked to the Post by Team Trump—particularly since the carefully timed leak worked in the government’s favor.

Save Stanford: Appoint Scott Atlas or Jay Bhattacharya as President By Stella Paul

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/04/save_stanford_appoint_scott_atlas_or_jay_bhattacharya_as_president.html

Stanford University’s reputation is in freefall as this once-revered university makes headlines for all the wrong reasons. Recently, a mob of law school students shut down a conservative judge’s speech, screeching insults at him to the approval of a Diversity Dean and the disgust of the country. Then there’s the FTX fiasco, in which a Stanford-linked cryptocurrency company collapsed amidst lurid charges of fraud and money laundering. Victor’s Davis Hanson’s lament “What Happened to Stanford?” adds other disasters to the list, including the arrest of a Chinese agent and the disclosure of $64 million in Chinese donations.

I’ve been studying Stanford’s decline for a while, and I think I have a partial explanation: the fish rots from the head.  Stanford’s president is a renowned neuroscientist currently under investigation for scientific fraud. Dr. Tessier-Lavigne made his reputation studying Alzheimer’s, but evidence has emerged that has critics alleging that he may have manipulated images in multiple influential papers published in Science and Nature.

Americans are losing faith in their institutions, and the story of Dr. Tessier-Lavigne exemplifies why. His first problematic study dates back to 2001, but that didn’t stop his meteoric rise through biotech pioneer Genentech to the presidency of Rockefeller University and then Stanford in 2016. Now that his alleged frauds have come to light, Stanford’s Board of Trustees has opened an investigation, but it’s being conducted by Board members, instead of outside experts. To many observers, it appears that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne may be getting the privileged treatment awarded those with favored credentials and opinions.

Soros’s Justice in U.S. and Israel By Rachel Ehrenfeld

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/04/soross_justice_in_us_and_israel_.html

George Soros must be tickled pink. He is living out his childhood fantasy of being “some kind of god, the creator of everything,” as he told the British Independent in 1993, shortly after pocketing at least $2 billion after betting against the British pound. That allowed the megalomaniac billionaire “to live it out,” to meddle in domestic affairs and finances of many countries, lead numerous “color revolutions,” and promote his incoherent interpretations of Henri Bergson’s and Karl Popper’s philosophies on the Open Society, giving it an Orwellian twist by so naming his mega political foundations. 

Imagine the gleeful Soros watching the much-despised former president Donald Trump arrested on trumped-up charges. At the same time, his lavish (mostly indirect) funding to progressive-Left groups in Israel is creating chaos and division, threatening the unity and national security of the Zionist Jewish State.

Soros denies funding the election of Manhattan’s progressive-left District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who concocted the inditement. The New York Times reported, “A spokesman for Mr. Soros said that the two men had never met, nor had Soros given money directly to Bragg’s campaign.” Perhaps. But keep in mind that in 2016, Soros’s Open Society Foundation (OSF), which serves his global network, was judged the least transparent (rated 0) not only among U.S. major think tanks but… “200 think tanks… in 47 countries” worldwide that Transparify ranked.

So, how did Soros contribute to Bragg’s election?

In May 2021, Soros contributed $1 million to Color of Change, the leading online “racial justice” Political Action Committee (PAC). Most of Soros’s contribution, “a significant portion of the money [went] to support Bragg in his 2021 campaign.” In addition, Bragg was funded indirectly by large contributions Soros and his OSF gave to other Democrat PACS and not-for-profit organizations, which, in turn, funneled money to advance Soros’s progressive agendas and candidates, including Manhattan’s DA. 

Is This WaPo’s Worst Fact-Check Yet? Rebecca Downs

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/rebeccadowns/2023/04/03/is-this-wapos-worst-fact-check-yet-n2621465

Questionable fact-checks that are almost certainly partisan in nature are nothing new from The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler. They may as well be par for the course at this point. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the ability to stun once in a while though, as he did when it comes to a fact-check on Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg indicting former and potentially future President Donald Trump.

“The incendiary claim that George Soros ‘funded’ Alvin Bragg,” read the headline. Though it was published and updated on April 1, it does not appear to have been an April Fool’s Day joke, as Kessler doubled down. In response to reaction over Twitter, and even being slapped with a message for added context that actually fact-checked the fact-checker, Kessler remained stubborn.

Kessler’s fact-check took issues with claims from Trump that Bragg is “handpicked and funded by George Soros,” though it’s worth reminding that Trump is hardly the only person to raise such a connection when highlighting the DA’s–and others like him–soft-on-crime positions. Though Kessler is fact-checking Trump’s specific remarks, he goes on to acknowledge that others have picked up on it, though it could very well be to throw the party as a whole under the bus. 

As the fact-check claims:

But the intense focus on Soros is misplaced. Soros never directly funded Bragg, but instead contributed to a group that supported Bragg and other liberal candidates seeking to be prosecutors.

Moreover, the repeated mention of Soros plays into antisemitic conspiracy theories that Soros, a Hungarian American Holocaust survivor, is a wealthy puppet-master who works behind the scenes to manipulate elections and further his goals. The Anti-Defamation League found in 2018 that Soros figures in a significant number of antisemitic tweets.

The Trump campaign defended Trump’s focus on Soros. “It’s not antisemitic to point out Soros funded/supported Bragg,” said spokesman Steven Cheung. “What world are you living in?”