RUTHFULLY YOURS

Here’s the last word Democrats wanted to hear at their Philadelphia convention this week: emails. But there it was after WikiLeaks released 20,000 internal emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee revealing, among other things, that party officials had favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders.

That wasn’t news, but it gave the Sanders legions a new opening to vent their frustration with the establishment. Their fury brought down Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the party chair, who on Sunday announced her resignation at the end of the convention but by Monday had been strong-armed by the Clinton campaign to abandon any convention role.

Remember those Casualties of Bill (Clinton) from the 1990s? Ms. Wasserman Schultz is the first Casualty of Hillary in this Clinton comeback. She had to go for the sake of party unity but also because the DNC emails remind Americans of another batch of emails, those belonging to the former Secretary of State.

On that score, it was startling to hear the Clinton campaign respond to the email leak by blaming Russia. Campaign manager Robby Mook accused Russian “state actors” of divulging the emails for “the purpose of helping Donald Trump,” and even suggested several pro-Russian provisions in the recent GOP platform were behind the leak. The media is now noting that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort once worked for a Vladimir Putin crony.

Nothing is beyond Mr. Putin, especially since he is already trying to influence European elections. His allies are bankrolling France’s National Front leader, Marine Le Pen, they supported Britain’s exit from the European Union and fabricated stories this spring to undercut Chancellor Angela Merkel in regional elections. Vlad the Election Impaler might well prefer Mr. Trump in the Oval Office, even if Mrs. Clinton was an architect of President Obama’s 2009 “reset” with Russia.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s newly-announced running mate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, has a history of embracing Islamists. He appointed a Hamas supporter to a state immigration commission; spoke at a dinner honoring a Muslim Brotherhood terror suspect and received donations from well-known Islamist groups.

Appointing a Muslim Brotherhood Front Leader Who Supports Hamas

In 2007, Kaine was the Governor of Virginia and, of all people chose Muslim American Society (MAS) President Esam Omeish to the state’s Immigration Commission. A Muslim organization againstIslamism criticized the appointment and reckless lack of vetting.

Federal prosecutors said in a 2008 court filing that MAS was “founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” AChicago Tribune investigation in 2004 confirmed this, as well as MAS’ crafty use of deceptive semantics to appear moderate. Convicted terrorist and admitted U.S. Muslim Brotherhood member Abdurrahman Alamoudi testified in 2012, “Everyone knows that MAS is the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Read our fully-documented profile of MAS here.

According to Omeish’s website, he was also president of the NationalMuslim Students Association (click there to read our profile about its Muslim Brotherhood origins) and served for two years on the national board of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which the Justice Department also labeled as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity and unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-financing trial.

His website says he was the vice president of Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, a radical mosque known for its history of terror ties, including having future Al-Qaeda operative Anwar Al-Awlaki as itsimam and being frequented by two of the 9/11 hijackers and Nidal Hasan, the perpetrator of the Fort Hood shooting. Omeish’s website says he remains a board member.

Omeish’s website also says he was chairman of the board of Islamic American University, which had Hamas financier and Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yousef Al-Qaradawi chairman of its board until at least 2006.

Omeish was also chairman of the board for the Islamic Center of Passaic County, a New Jersey mosque with heavy terrorist ties and an imam that the Department of Homeland Security wants to deport for having links to Hamas.

Omeish directly expressed extremism before Kaine appointed him. He claimed the Brotherhood is “moderate” and admitted that he and MAS are influenced by the Islamist movement.

Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt person ever to get this close to becoming president of the United States. Aaron Burr was corrupt, but his treason didn’t occur until after his presidential possibilities had dried up. Ulysses Grant was a great man whose administration was riddled with corruption, but he wasn’t personally involved. Warren Harding wasn’t a great man, but he wasn’t party to the corruption in his administration either. Hillary Clinton stands alone.

Her corruption has many dimensions. It encompasses her personal, professional, and political life. There are lots of overlaps. Her use of a private email server engulfs all three aspects. With Clinton, one never has to exaggerate. Her malfeasance speaks for itself, loudly. She lies to get out of trouble and fool the press and voters. But she also lies gratuitously—when it’s not required to avoid trouble. Face to face with the parents of CIA commandos who were killed in Benghazi while protecting Ambassador Chris Stevens, Clinton lied. She said an anti-Islam video had prompted the fatal attack, which she knew wasn’t true, when she could have simply expressed her condolences. Clinton has a masochistic relationship with the media. She spurns them. They protect her.

Is there any public figure who lies as routinely as Clinton? Not in my lifetime in Washington. Not Richard Nixon. Not LBJ. Not Donald Trump. Not even Bill Clinton. She skillfully, though probably unconsciously, spreads out her lies to lessen the impact. But when you pack them together, as Rep. Trey Gowdy did while questioning FBI director James Comey at a House hearing, they’re shocking. The Gowdy-Comey exchange went like this:

Gowdy: Clinton said she never sent or received any classified information over her private email. Not true?

Comey: Right.

Indiana Governor Mike Pence will reportedly run with Donald Trump as his vice presidential nominee, with the selection to be officially announced shortly. Prior to his election as governor, Pence served in Congress as a member of the House of Representatives and had an excellent reputation as a very strong and knowledgeable supporter of Israel. Many Jewish Republicans hoped that he would run for the White House. Now, a key question going forward will be whether having Pence on the Trump ticket will enable more Jewish Republicans and some “never Trumpers” to back the ticket and financially support the campaign.

A sizable number of prominent Jewish Republicans and other mainstays of the pro-Israel cause have been unenthusiastic about Donald Trump as the GOP nominee. They have been put off both by some of his policy positions, and the way he ran his campaign for the nomination — including the personal attacks on other candidates. Others consider him insufficiently conservative — a former Democrat who successfully engineered a hostile takeover of the Republican Party. Trump has also had to deal with accusations that he has not been quick enough to criticize and separate himself from members of the “alt-right,” which includes nasty anti-Semites who have harassed some Jewish writers that were critical of Trump. His most recent controversy was over his sending out a tweet about Hillary Clinton accompanied by a graphic created by someone who did not belong to his campaign. The graphic called her the most corrupt candidate ever and showed a six-pointed star over a large amount of cash. Trump was accused of sending out an anti-Semitic tweet because of the association of the six-pointed star (the Jewish star of David) with mounds of money. Trump argued that the star was not a Jewish star, and could as easily have been a sheriff’s badge. In essence, he maintained that this was an example of politically correct hypersensitivity at work and that many Americans were sick of it. Trump is very uncomfortable with appearing to cave to this kind of pressure. His campaign has been built on an image of strong leadership, and bowing to critics could damage this appeal.

There is no evidence whatsoever in his long background in business and media that would lead one to believe that Trump is an anti-Semite. He has worked with, hired and been friends with many prominent Jewish people, and contributed to Jewish and pro-Israel causes. This is perfectly natural for a successful businessman in the New York area. His daughter Ivanka married a Modern Orthodox Jewish man, underwent a conversion, and is now leading a traditional Jewish lifestyle, keeping kosher at home, and observing the Sabbath. Whatever one thinks of Trump, he appears to have very close relationships with his adult children and relies on them for support and guidance in both business and in his political efforts this year. His Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner took to the pages of the weekly newspaper he owns, the Observer, to defend Trump against charges of anti-Semitism and bias in general.

With the Republican Party’s convention next week, Republicans are about to publish their 2016 platform. Unfortunately, a major new infrastructure plank calling for maintaining and upgrading our infrastructure will be missing.

This despite the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) giving American infrastructure a grade of D+, http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/a/#p/home, and despite U.S. families losing in aggregate about $428 billion in disposable income this year (based on ASCE estimate), or about $3,400 per American family, because of lost productivity and higher costs due to our crumbling and outdated infrastructure.
This $3,400 in estimated lower annual disposable income per American family is expected for each of the next ten years, http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/asce-news/the-high-cost-of-underinvesting-in-infrastructure-9-a-day/.

Without aggressive and prompt infrastructure investments—to prevent bridges from becoming unstable or collapsing, highways from buckling, and outdated highways and airports from causing further congestion, delays, lost productivity and extra costs for everyday goods—Congress and, by extension, the GOP with majorities in both chambers risk voters’ physical safety, their incomes, and their anger.

Voter anger will only increase if delays to repairs continue, because replacing infrastructure is much more costly than simply repairing it. In addition, costs may grow even larger if interest rates rise from current levels. Interest rates on 10- and 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds reached all-time lows last week, 1.32% and 2.10%, respectively. These levels are much lower than even those under Eisenhower. By comparison, April 1954 yields on 10-year notes reached as low as 2.29%.

What mystifies this registered independent, and proud American, about GOP intransigence is that such infrastructure investment yields large returns and that such investment is part of the GOP’s historical DNA.

The ASCE estimates a $1.4 trillion investment gap will need filling over the next decade, http://www.asce.org/failuretoact/. Were the federal government to borrow the required $1.4 trillion by issuing 10-year bonds at today’s extraordinarily low interest rates, the U.S. government might pay only about $21 billion each year in interest.

For purposes of illustration, aggregate family disposable income would increase by about $428 billion. If families were to spend this additional income each year, federal tax receipts could increase by up to about $107 billion each year (assuming a 25% tax rate). These tax revenues over ten years could cover all related interest and repay just over 60% ($860 billion) of the debt incurred. But that’s not all.

These increased tax revenues can be expected to continue for longer than ten years because infrastructure improvements generally last decades.

Bill Whittle is back with another Firewall video commentary. It takes Bill only 93 seconds to show Hillary Clinton guilty of violating three separate Federal Statutes. It takes him another three minutes to explain why she and Obama simply DO NOT CARE.

Let’s start by getting one thing out of the way right at the top: there is no questionthat Hillary Clinton committed multiple violations of federal law.

U.S. Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 101, Section 2071, Paragraph a:

[ TITLE: COMPLETE TEXT OF A ]

says that anyone who removes — and doesn’t return — ANY Federal records regardless of classification has committed a felony.

GOWDY: Secretary Clinton said that all work-related emails were returned to the State Department. Was that true?

COMEY: No, we found work-related emails – thousands – that were not returned.

[TITLE: COMPLETE TEXT OF B ]

Paragraph B says that anyone who attempts to conceal or destroy these records has committed a second felony, which specifically bars the offender from holding any office in the United States government.

GOWDY: Secretary Clinton said that neither she nor anyone else deleted work-related emails from her personal account. Was that true?

COMEY: There’s no doubt that there were work-related emails that were removed electronically from the email system.

And finally let’s talk about 18 U.S. Code § 793: Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information

In order to clear the legal bar for prosecution on that statute – that part of the United States code — the prosecution would have to prove “gross negligence” on the part of Mrs. Clinton.

GIULIANI: He said during his long statement that she was “extremely careless.” The first definition of “gross negligence” that comes up when you take out the legal dictionary is being “extremely careless.”

Here are five things you need to know about the Indiana Governor.
1. He has a long history in politics.

In the 1990s, Pence had a radio talk show called The Mike Pence Show, and did a Sunday TV show in Indianapolis. He described himself as “Rush Limbaugh on decaf,” meaning he’s not quite as bombastic as Rush, but just as conservative.

Pence served in Congress for 12 years (2001-2013), before becoming governor of Indiana in 2013. According to Roll Call, of the 90 bills and resolutions he sponsored, only 21 passed one house, and zero became law. Pence was a stalwart conservative who opposed President George W. Bush’s big government policies, such as No Child Left Behind.

As a Congressman, Pence reached the number three post in House Republican leadership, as chairman of the House Republican Conference. His fellow Republicans encouraged him to run for Senate against Evan Bayh, but he declined.
Indiana Democratic Shakeup: Will Evan Bayh Turn the Senate Blue?

He was elected governor of Indiana in 2012 and has served over three years as executive of that state.
2. Pence is an outspoken evangelical Christian.

Pence has described himself as “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order.” He grew up in what he described as a large Irish Roman Catholic family which celebrated the 1960 election of Democratic President John F. Kennedy.

In a 2010 interview with CBN while he was still a congressman, Pence described his conversion experience in college. “I began to meet young men and women who talked about having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and while I cherish my Catholic upbringing and the foundation that it poured in my faith, that had not been a part of my experience.”

“Standing at a Christian music festival in Asbury, Ky., in the spring of 1978, I gave my life to Jesus Christ and that’s changed everything,” Pence confided. “For me it all begins with faith; it begins with what matters most, and I try and put what I believe to be moral truth first. My philosophy of government second. And my politics third.”