RUTHFULLY YOURS

After a lifetime of radical anti-American activism and passionate legal advocacy for foreign and domestic terrorists, cop-killers, and gangsters, convicted terrorist enabler Lynne Stewart died at her home in Brooklyn – instead of in prison where she was supposed to be.

Her son said Stewart, 77, expired Tuesday from complications related to cancer and a series of strokes. Mourners who run the website of “Democracy Now!” ran a headline describing her as the “People’s Lawyer & [Former] Political Prisoner.” The article called her “[a] former teacher and librarian, [who] was known as a people’s lawyer who represented the poor and revolutionaries.”

That represents only part of the life story of the self-described “radical human rights attorney” and cheerleader for totalitarianism.

This outspoken, persistent, quick-witted woman didn’t look like a zealous subversive. She may have been a bit too extreme for many liberals but they gave her a pass because, after all, her heart was in the right place. To the Left, this Maoist who said she favored “violence directed at the institutions which perpetuate capitalism, racism, sexism, and at the people who are the appointed guardians of those institutions,” was an endearing, grandmotherly figure blessed with a disarming honesty.

“I’m not a pacifist,” she once said. “I have cried many bitter tears. There is death in history, and it’s not all rosebuds and memorial services. Mao, Fidel [Castro], Ho Chi Minh understood this.”

“I don’t have any problem with Mao or Stalin or the Vietnamese leaders or certainly Fidel [Castro] locking up people they see as dangerous,” Stewart told Monthly Review in 2002. “Because so often, dissidence has been used by the greater powers to undermine a people’s revolution.”

This lovable, folksy ball of fluff hailed the Black Lives Matter-inspired killers who gunned down police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge last year as noble freedom fighters.

“They are avengers,” Stewart said. “They spoke for some of us when they did that.”

“They are not brazen, crazed, you know, insane killers,” she said. “They are avenging deaths that are never and have never been avenged since the ’60s and ’70s.”

Stewart likened American conservatives to the theocratic totalitarians of the Islamic world who abuse women, treating them as chattel. “The American Right,” she said, “is certainly anti-woman, anti-inclusiveness, and I certainly oppose that here in my own country for my own sake, for my children’s sake, for the way I want to live.”

She was simply misunderstood.

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/cate-blanchett-on-stephen-colbert-my-moral-compass-is-in-my-vagina/news-story/b6c1f0f3e5501d7379f18bf91f59265d

OSCAR-WINNING actress Cate Blanchett has joked about the surprising location of her moral compass.

The Australian star was a guest on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, where she was promoting her debut in a Broadway play, Anton Chekhov’s The Present.

Describing the themes of the play, she said: “It’s all about as you move forward in life, what’s your moral compass. Where does kindness and humanity sit in a really brutal world.”

When Colbert asked her where her moral compass lay, she said: “It’s in my vagina.”As the audience screamed and applauded, Blanchett pretended to leave the set while an embarrassed Colbert shook her hand.

In Monday’s Morning Jolt, Jim Geraghty usefully outlined some intriguing statements made by former Obama national intelligence director James Clapper regarding the FISA surveillance controversy. Clapper’s remarks, in an interview by NBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press on Sunday, are being taken as a blanket denial of the allegations that the Obama administration used the Justice Department and FBI to investigate Trump-campaign figures, potentially including Trump himself.

But what Clapper said is far from a wholesale rejection of the allegations. To be sure, General Clapper’s statements convincingly shoot down the claim that Trump himself was wiretapped by the government. But to my knowledge, no one has made that claim other than President Trump, in a series of controversial tweets on Saturday morning. Clapper’s statements do nothing to undermine the overarching allegation that the Obama Justice Department investigated associates of Trump who had varying connections to his campaign.

I’m going to assume the truth of General Clapper’s statements. Understandably, many commentators stress that, in the past, he has been caught testifying to things that were untrue (denying bulk metadata collection by intelligence agencies) or ridiculous (asserting that the Muslim Brotherhood is “largely secular”). Making false or misleading statements under oath is serious business, so obviously this history weighs on Clapper’s credibility.

Still, I’ve never believed he was fundamentally a shady character. On the metadata issue, he gave an untrue answer to a senator who intentionally asked an unfair question about classified information in a public setting (though that, of course, is no justification for answering falsely). On the Muslim Brotherhood, he was dutifully toeing the Obama line — not admirable, but not shocking. Those things aside, Clapper is a longtime soldier and intelligence pro, generally well regarded by his peers. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that, in the Sunday interview, he was trying in good faith to walk the difficult tightrope of answering questions accurately while not compromising sensitive or classified information.

Now, before parsing General Clapper’s statements, let’s rehearse the allegations that have been made about Obama-administration investigative activity against the Trump circle — understanding (as I underscored in yesterday’s column) that we are necessarily speculating based on reporting that we cannot verify because the relevant documents (if they exist) have not been disclosed.

Khizr Kahn, the Gold Star father whose speech at the Democratic National Convention became a sensation when he accused Donald Trump of never having read the Constitution, says he was forced to cancel a speech in Canada because his travel privileges were being “reviewed” by the U.S. government. Now, after several attempts by news outlets to clarify how it is possible that a U.S. citizen could be denied travel, it has become an open question whether Khan is lying.

Washington Post:

Ramsay Talks, the organizer of the event Khan was to speak at, seemed to take Khan at his word on Monday and included a statement from him in a cancellation post on Facebook. “This turn of events is not just of deep concern to me but to all my fellow Americans who cherish our freedom to travel abroad,” said Khan, according to the post. “I have not been given any reason as to why. I am grateful for your support and look forward to visiting Toronto in the near future.”

The claim, which does not state which U.S. agency contacted him, immediately raised doubts about how it was possible that a U.S. citizen was being prevented from traveling abroad.

On Tuesday, Bob Ramsay, who runs Ramsay Talks, said he didn’t know the specifics of Khan’s predicament. “I don’t know exactly who conducted the review, but in speaking with Mr. Khan, it was certainly U.S. authorities,” Ramsay said. “That’s all I know.”

As questions about his motivations for making the claim swirl, Khan has refused to elaborate on his initial statement to The Washington Post and other publications. A more detailed request for clarification did not receive an immediate response Tuesday afternoon.

It is unclear whether Khan has previously traveled outside the United States since he was naturalized.

U.S. citizens don’t need visas to enter Canada, or even the electronic travel authorizations required of all other foreign visitors there. As a general rule, the United States cannot prevent passport-holding citizens from traveling if they have not been charged with a crime. Public records indicate that Khan has no criminal history, either at the federal level, in Charlottesville, where he lives, or in Silver Spring, his previous place of residence. Furthermore, U.S. Customs and Border Protection told Politico that, as a rule, it does not contact travelers before their trips.

The Canadian foreign ministry also denied issuing any review of Khan’s ability to travel there.

“We are unaware of any restrictions regarding this traveler,” said Camielle Edwards, spokeswoman for Canada’s Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen.