RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-economy-trump-gdp-growth-unemployment-20190428-story.html

The U.S. economy is growing at such a fast clip and the unemployment rate is so low that … there must be something terribly wrong. Does that make sense? No, but the healthy state of the country seems to be too much for some economists, talking heads and others in the chattering class. They struggle to find something nice to say about 3.2 percent growth accompanied by 3.8 percent unemployment.

We’re puzzling over the negativism because we’re certain everyone will miss the good times when they inevitably fade. The debate we’d like to see is how to extend this era of prosperity — and delay the next recession — as long as possible. Instead, there’s skepticism in the air, which is potentially damaging because part of what drives economic growth is confidence. If business owners and consumers turn skittish, they’ll invest and spend less. Fear of recession could hasten one.

Here’s what we’re talking about: The Bloomberg consensus estimate for first-quarter annualized GDP growth was just 2.3 percent, meaning the experts had undershot the actual result by nearly a full percentage point. That happens, given that forecasting is an inexact science. But when Friday’s numbers were released, a scramble ensued to downplay the results to justify previous pessimism. That 3.2 percent growth figure? It was illusory, due to a host of one-time factors, such as companies boosting inventories as a precaution against escalating trade friction with China. This fast growth can’t last, said the experts. “The first-quarter number is overstating the strength of the economy,” Ben Herzon of Macroeconomic Advisers told The Washington Post.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/04/29/why-are-clapper-and-brennan-not-in-jail/

The clearest of all the laws concerning U.S. intelligence is Section 798, 18 U.S. Code—widely known in the Intelligence Community as “the Comint Statute,” or “the 10 and 10.” Unlike other laws, this is a “simple liability” law. Motivation, context, identity, matter not at all. You violate it, you are guilty and are punished accordingly.

Here it is:

(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, . . . any classified information—

(1) concerning the nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic system of the United States or any foreign government; or

(2) concerning the design, construction, use, maintenance, or repair of any device, apparatus, or appliance used or prepared or planned for use by the United States …or

(3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; or

(4) obtained by the processes of communication intelligence . . .

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

On December 9 and 10, 2016, the New York Times and the Washington Post independently reported that anonymous senior intelligence officials had told them that, based on intercepted communications, the intelligence agencies agreed that Russia had hacked the Democratic National Committee to help Donald Trump win the election. Their evidence was the fact of their access to U.S communications intelligence. A flood of subsequent stories also cited allegations by “senior intelligence officials” that “intercepted communications” and “intercepted calls” showed that “members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election.”

Incontrovertibly, the officials who gave these stories to the Times and Post violated the Comint Statute, and are subject to the “10 and 10” for each count. There is no clearer instance of what the governing law is, of how it was violated, and of the punishment that this incurs.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/04/29/the-real-bombshells-are-about-to-hit-their-targets/

The next bombshell report to drop from the Justice Department likely will earn none of the breathless fanfare and media coverage that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report received, but it could be far more incriminating.

In the next several weeks, Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to issue his summation of the potential abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by top officials in the Obama Administration and holdovers in the early Trump Administration who were overseeing the investigation of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

And the perpetrators of the so-called FISAgate scandal now are scrambling for cover as the bad news looms.

Horowitz announced last March that his office would examine the Justice Department’s conduct “in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) relating to a certain U.S. person.” That U.S. person is Trump campaign associate Carter Page. In October 2016, just two weeks before the presidential election, the Justice Department submitted an application to the FISC seeking authorization to wiretap Page. The court filing accused Page, a Naval Academy graduate and unpaid campaign advisor, of being an agent of Russia.