RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/07/16/the-lawfare-against-trump-is-falling-apart/

It has been a truly crazy few days in the American political news cycle. While nothing could quite top former president Donald J Trump dodging an actual bullet, which clipped the top of his ear at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, on Monday he dodged a huge legal bullet as well.

Florida judge Aileen Cannon dismissed perhaps the most serious federal charges that Trump faced – 40 felony counts for possession and destruction of classified documents. This included crimes under the Espionage Act and the ‘willful retention of national-defence information; conspiracy to obstruct justice; false statements and representations’. ‘Each of the more than 30 willful-retention counts carry a maximum 10-year sentence’, the Associated Press reported back in April.

Judge Cannon’s bombshell ruling was a rebuke to the Biden Justice Department and attorney general Merrick Garland. Her decision centred around funding and oversight of the Special Counsel, an office originally constituted by congressional act following Watergate.

‘Cannon chose to dismiss the federal case because Garland unlawfully appointed [special counsel Jack] Smith, whom the president did not nominate nor did the Senate confirm for his prosecutorial position. Moreover, Congress did not appropriate funds to Smith’s investigation as required under federal law’, the National Review explains. At the heart of the matter is who has the authority to investigate federal crimes. By law, they must be ‘officers of the United States’, and that designation can only be given two ways – by being ‘nominated by the president and then confirmed by the Senate’ or ‘appointed to a position that “shall be established by law”’ – which is to say, by congressional statute’, as Andy McCarthy notes. Smith was not appointed via either of these democratic procedures.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/07/unanswered_questions_about_the_trump_assassination_attempt.html

Donald J. Trump didn’t have to run for president in 2015, or in 2020, or in 2024. He had a magnificent life. Why subject himself to the barbs and arrows of a political class and their media allies well-versed in the politics of personal destruction?

Only one reason: because he loved his country to the extent he was willing to sacrifice his wealth, livelihood and even his life to serve it.

Donald Trump is the only president to have left the White House poorer than when he took office.

I believe God himself protected Donald Trump on Saturday. Just a few millimeters in either direction, and the many bullets his would-be assassin fired at him would have blown his brains out.

I believe that God sends His guardian angels to protect those He chooses. Don’t ask me why or how He chooses whom to protect. But in my own life, I know I have been saved in so many times of great peril by a higher force, certainly not by my own hand. I have recounted some of those “close calls” in my book, And the Rest is History. After a while, saying you have been lucky is just not enough.

God extended a hedge of protection around Donald Trump. He saved him from a would-be assassin’s bullets for a purpose – His purpose. And that purpose can only be to turn His people back to Him.

The morning after the assassination, a blogger I have never met sent me Isaiah 54:17, which reads: 

No weapon that is fashioned against you shall prosper, and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, says the Lord.

It’s remarkable to watch leading Democrats preach to the nation about forgiveness and tolerance and coming together, when the hate-filled rhetoric they have employed non-stop since Donald Trump descended the escalator in Trump Tower in July 2015 has engendered the very intolerance they now berate.

Just days before the assassination attempt, Joe Biden himself told donors, “we’re done talking about the debate. It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pro-palestinian-group-with-alleged-terror-ties-ordered-to-provide-donor-lists-to-virginia-ag/?utm_

A Virginia court ordered the American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) organization to produce documents detailing organizational structure, employees, and donors, among other pieces of information, state attorney general Jason Miyares (R.) announced Tuesday.

Miyares and his office opened an investigation into AMP in October 2023. The attorney general hopes to determine whether AMP has solicited contributions without having registered with the necessary state agencies, as well as the veracity of allegations that AMP has offered support to terrorist organizations.

In the civil investigative demand Miyares issued to AMP in October, the attorney general’s office wrote that, based on its investigation, it has reason to believe the organization may have “knowingly used or permitted the use of funds raised by a solicitation of contributions to provide support to terrorists, terrorist organizations, terrorist activities, or family members of terrorists.”

AMP has received attention for its role in supporting the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) organization, which has established chapters on college campuses across the country. Those chapters, in turn, have been behind waves of anti-Israel, pro-terror protests in higher education and on American streets since October 7.

http://www.swtottd.blogspot.com

Identity politics have divided us into warring camps. While it is terrible to accept the fact that we live in a time of such hatred, we do. The attempted assassination of Mr. Trump was the most recent and most violent. The intention of those who promoted identity politics may have been well-intentioned, but the consequences have been disastrous. Where division is sown violence is reaped.

I write as a conservative. I believe in family, tradition, the rule of law, limited government, free markets, a balanced budget in time of peace, and the freedom to follow one’s dreams, so long as one does no harm to others. I believe that government has a responsibility to keep us safe, our borders secure, to educate youth, and to provide for those unable to care for themselves. As well, we live in a global world; we cannot hide in isolation. Mr. Trump has never been my preference, but he served as a good President – at least in my opinion – for four years, and he did so under circumstances that would have undone most politicians. Elected President in 2016, he was deemed illegitimate by mainstream media and by most Democrats. With the help of a weaponized justice department, he was falsely accused of colluding with the Russians, with investigations interrupting his Administration. Four years later the intelligence community deliberately ignored the fact of Hunter Biden’s laptop, accusing Mr. Trump of being a Putin puppet. While never tarred and feathered, he has been investigated, denigrated, penalized, impeached and indicted. And now some nut has tried to kill him. He has been called a liar, fraudster and a threat to democracy – by those who misuse instruments of democracy to destroy him. Hollywood and social media elites have called for his death. The hypocrisy has been breathtaking, especially by those who inflict division, but then claim it is their desire to unite the country. While most politicians go to Washington and see their wealth increase, Mr. Trump saw his net worth decline by over a billion dollars during his four years as President.

https://www.thefp.com/p/yuval-levin-assassination-attempt-america-choice

At first glance, Saturday’s terrifying assassination attempt on Donald Trump seems like an obvious extension of our depressing political drift. 

We have grown more divided in this century, we use more militant rhetoric, and political violence has escalated. In the last 15 years, there have been shootings of members of Congress of both parties, a foiled assassination attempt of a Supreme Court justice and his family, a mob storming the Capitol to disrupt the certification of a presidential election, and rising levels of threats against public officials of all sorts. A near assassination of a once and perhaps future president might seem like all too natural a next step. 

And yet, this moment feels like a sharp break. Maybe because it was by far the highest profile act of domestic political violence in this century, directed at the highest profile figure in our politics, in front of television cameras, that it struck even our cynical culture as a shock. It gave us a terrible glimpse into what it would feel like to live beyond the bounds of our constitutional republic.

We have tested those bounds pretty aggressively in the last few years. Our leading politicians have called each other fascists and enemies of the people, deployed or threatened to deploy the justice system against their opponents, declared that election results were illegitimate, and insisted that our society’s very existence would be imperiled if the other party were in power. Donald Trump himself has been the worst offender on this front, but his opponents and critics have frequently come close. Both sides have seemed incapable of criticizing one another’s violations of essential norms without engaging in their own. All of this has shown contempt for the character of our republic. 

But what Trump’s would-be assassin did on Saturday was different—and not only by degree. 

https://www.racket.news/p/the-surrender

The decision was announced at a White House briefing Monday morning. “In light of this weekend’s events, the president has directed me to work with the Secret Service to provide protection to Robert Kennedy Jr.,” was the quote from Homeland Security Director Alejandro Mayorkas.

It’s difficult to read the line “in light of this weekend’s events” and not see an admission on the part of the White House that Secret Service protection was previously being denied to Kennedy, Jr. for political reasons, or out of spite, if those are even two different things in this era. Whatever the original prerogative was for pushing the envelope with that denial, it seems to have been removed by series of paradigm-shattering news events, leading to a flurry of real and symbolic surrenders.

MSNBC likewise made an extraordinary decision Sunday night to pull Morning Joe, with CNN saying the network wanted to “to avoid a scenario in which one of the show’s stable of two dozen-plus guests might make an inappropriate comment on live television.” As with the Secret Service decision, MSNBC was making a major admission, essentially telling audiences its lead morning news show is either not really a news show, or that its format only holds up under something less than maximum scrutiny. I can’t recall a similar act of self-sabotage in media.