RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/john-boltons-testimony-quid-pro-quo-waste-time-joseph-klein/

The New York Times leaked what President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton allegedly claimed in his forthcoming book about an August 2019 meeting he held with President Trump regarding Ukraine. Bolton is said to have written that President Trump “wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens.” Senate Democrats and a few Republicans such as Senator Mitt Romney would like to hear Bolton’s first-hand testimony. However, it is much ado about nothing. Bolton’s testimony would prove nothing of relevance to the Senate impeachment trial.

One legitimately can be skeptical about the timing of the leak, which happened contemporaneously with the Amazon product page for the book going live. One can argue, as Robert Spencer has done, that Bolton sold the president out because “Trump represents a strong challenge to the foreign policy establishment views that have failed again and again, and of which Bolton is a foremost exponent.” But it does not really matter. Even if, for the purest of reasons, Bolton wants to tell what he knows at the Senate trial about his direct interactions with President Trump concerning the temporary hold on the release of the security assistance, it would not be worth prolonging the Senate trial to hear him.

John Bolton, a long-time neo-conservative hawk, left office following sharp disagreements with President Trump on a variety of foreign policy issues. Keeping security aid to Ukraine flowing without even a temporary pause was just one of those issues that Bolton felt strongly about. Bolton aired his opinions to the president, as he was obliged to do as the presidentially appointed national security adviser. President Trump rejected Bolton’s advice, as the duly elected president is entitled to do.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/28/ig-report-proves-obama-administration-spied-on-trump-campaign-big-time/

The IG report established that the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign, and the spying was much worse than previously thought.

Last week, President Trump triggered the left when he tweeted a Photoshopped picture that portrayed former President Barack Obama perched midair outside Trump Tower, binoculars and listening device in hand.

The liberal outlet Vox condemned the president for his “increasingly bad tweets,” before declaring “there’s no evidence the Obama administration spied on Trump.” Vox then regurgitated the false narrative that, while the FBI did surveil former Trump foreign policy advisor Carter Page, “that didn’t happen until after Page left the campaign.”

For years, conservatives tried to correct the record, noting that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) order gave the government access to Page’s past emails and other electronic communications with members of the Trump campaign, but the mainstream media ignored this reality. That the liberal and legacy press continue to push this narrative now, following the release of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on FISA abuse, is beyond baffling, because the IG report established that the Obama administration spied on the Trump campaign, and the spying was much worse than previously thought.

Spying on Carter Page Was Spying on the Trump Campaign

https://pjmedia.com/trending/the-line-for-trump-rally-on-jersey-shore-is-insane-100000-seeking-tickets/

Ryan Fournier ✔ @RyanAFournier

There are literally thousands of people waiting in line for a Trump rally that doesn’t start until tomorrow evening…In 30 degree weather…In the state of New Jersey… OUTSTANDING!

RT

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/when-there-is-no-normal-radicals-eventually-need-what-theyve-gleefully-destroyed/

History lesson: Radicals eventually will need the norms and safeguards they’ve gleefully destroyed.

O ne of the ancient and modern critiques of democracy is that radicals destroy norms for short-term political gain, norms that they themselves often later seek as refuge.

Schadenfreude, irony, paradox, and karma are various descriptions of what happens to revolutionaries, and unfortunately the innocent, who suffer their collateral damage when radicals of any stripe use any means necessary to achieve supposedly exalted ends.

Three of the most moving — and terrifying — passages in Greek literature involve such ironic payback. In the third book of Thucydides’ history, the historian relates a murderous civil war (stasis) between oligarchs and democrats on the island of Corcyra (modern Corfu). He laments how morals and laws are destroyed in a cycle of madness, all to achieve short-term gain while depriving both parties of sanctuary when the tide one day turns against them.

When extremism becomes normal, there is no prior normal. In his fifth book, Thucydides describes the destruction of the small island city-state of Melos, in a riveting dialogue between the Athenian invaders and the Melian defenders. After concluding his account with the Athenians’ destruction of Melos, Thucydides immediately, in books six and seven, describes the Athenian catastrophe on Sicily, in which the invading and soon-to-be-trapped Athenians play a similar role to that of the doomed Melians, and the victorious Sicilians are no more magnanimous to the defeated than were the once-victorious Athenians.