RUTHFULLY YOURS

Donald Trump is a naturally polarizing figure. His bread and butter is brazen attacks on those who challenge him. As a media figure and as a business promoter, that worked well. As president, however, Trump needs to pick his fights carefully and avoid needless political bloodletting. Changing people in his administration when he feels that things have gone wrong suggests that he picked the wrong people to begin with, especially in the first six months of his administration.

In some cases, like Comey, a holdover from the Obama administration, Trump should have cleaned house right at the beginning of his term of office, when people naturally understand Trump’s need to have his own people in key positions. When Trump gets rid of people who have been his supporters and who have interviewed for the job Trump gives them in his administration, it is a different matter.

Jeff Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump in his run for the Republican nomination. Sessions is also a man who during his political career has stood up to the Establishment and done what he has believed to be the right thing even if it was not the most politically expedient. Sessions has a reputation among the Republican caucus in the Senate as a particularly honorable and decent man. He also gave up a safe Senate seat as a member of the majority party to serve on Trump’s team.

If President Trump fires Attorney General Sessions or if Trump continues to harass Sessions with dumb tweets, then the president runs the risk of alienating honest, genuine Senate conservatives who are immune to threats from Trump but who can give him headaches and problems he cannot imagine.

Almost everything Trump does, except for executive orders, must go through the Senate – legislation, appointments, and treaties. If Trump alienates conservative Republicans in the Senate, it is hard to see how he will be able to do anything during his term as president. Why should these senators trust Trump? Why should they believe he is really conservative, particularly if he taps Rudy Giuliani as the next attorney general, a decent man on the wrong side of nearly every social issue?

When every single Republican Senate vote is vital in repealing Obamacare, why in the world would President Trump risk offending those conservative senators whose support he desperately needs? While pressure from McConnell and Trump have doubtless switched some votes, every single vote in the Senate is necessary to beginning the repeal process.

When the investigation of Trump and his family bubbles into allegations that suggest the need for congressional investigation, why would Trump go out of his way to outrage conservative senators who will be on the very committees interrogating his family and his staff? Does Trump grasp that these senators could garner rave reviews from the mainstream media by asking tough questions in these hearings?

Trump behaves as if he were the head of a corporation called the federal government and everyone were his employee subject to firing at his wish. His influence over senators in conservative states, however, is limited. (The same is true of House members from safe districts, which is to say nearly every House member.)

The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

Obama, the humanitarian huckster-in-chief, weakened the United States by bullying America for eight years into accepting his crippling politically correct policies as altruistic when in fact they were designed for destruction. His legacy, the Leftist Democratic Party with its “resistance” movement, is the party of the Humanitarian Hoax attempting to destroy American democracy and replace it with socialism.

The Leftist Democrat Party under Obama embraced a hypocritical anti-bullying campaign with religious fervor. Presenting himself as the agent of change to make schools safe from bullying Obama launched his anti-bullying campaign at the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention in 2011 saying:

“If there’s one goal of this conference, it’s to dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up. It’s not. Bullying can have destructive consequences for our young people. And it’s not something we have to accept. As parents and students; teachers and communities, we can take steps that will help prevent bullying and create a climate in our schools in which all of our children can feel safe.”

Sounds great – an anti-bullying campaign designed to make schools a safe space for students. Who could object?

Obama’s popular anti-bullying campaign of kindness was expanded to engage the public and private sectors to combat bullying together. Private, non-profit, and federal commitments were made and millions of dollars were spent on the effort to stop bullying. The Humanitarian Hoax of bullying prevention was launched.

Instead of providing safety and protection for all students the bullying prevention campaign was the ideal vehicle for left-wing liberal indoctrination in the schools that promoted the Leftist intersectional agenda exclusively. Feelings were prioritized over facts and curriculums were overhauled to adhere to the Leftist tenets of political correctness, moral relativism, and historical revisionism. Student feelings were “protected” from averse ideas.

Jake Tapper, CNN’s chief Washington correspondent, recently slammed Linda Sarsour and other progressive leaders of the anti-Trump Women’s March for honoring a convicted cop killer — Assata Shakur.

In response, Sarsour proceeded to dismiss Tapper as a member of the “alt-right.”

Of all the possible ways to describe Tapper, “alt-right” is not one. Tapper is one of President Donald Trump’s most vocal critics. And he’s Jewish. Someone should tell Sarsour that this likely disqualifies him from membership in any white supremacist group. But Sarsour’s “resume,” Tapper’s condemnation of her, and their subsequent Twitter exchange all illustrate the extent to which Sarsour — and some of her progressive Left followers — are unhinged.

Shakur is a felon, and was convicted in 1977 for murdering a New Jersey police officer, assaulting another police officer, and committing a bank robbery. In 1979, she escaped prison and fled to Cuba. She remains on the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorist” list to this day.

Sarsour’s idolizing of Shakur follows on the heels of her presentation at the 54th annual convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), where she called on Muslims to commit jihad against the American government.

“I hope that we, when we stand up to those who oppress our [Muslim] communities, that Allah accepts from us that as a form of jihad,” Sarsour said. “That we are struggling against tyrants and rulers, not only abroad in the Middle East or on the other side of the world, but here, in these United States of America.”

In an interview soon after with the Washington Post, Sarsour was quick to clarify that her speech at ISNA was advocating solely for peaceful, nonviolent dissent, and that her call for jihad only meant the use of words. In a later op-ed for the publication, Sarsour doubled down on her claim that she was only calling for “nonviolent” jihad.

“Yeah, and the swastika is just a Tibetan good luck charm,” as the late comedian Robin Williams so eloquently put it.

Sarsour began her ISNA presentation by thanking her “favorite person” in the room, Imam Siraj Wahaj, praising him as her “mentor, motivator and encourager.” Wahaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, has called for violent jihad, and for replacing the US government with an Islamic caliphate. Sarsour’s mentor has also denounced homosexuality as “a disease of this [American] society,” noting that the penalty for homosexuality under Islamic law is death.

But this doesn’t seem right. How can such a self-declared progressive like Sarsour have such a violent, homophobic bigot for a mentor? Maybe the history of ISNA can shed some light on this glaring contradiction.

Federal prosecutors have said that ISNA is part of the US Muslim Brotherhood network set up to funnel money to the terrorist group Hamas. ISNA conferences have long featured radical Islamists, antisemites, Holocaust-deniers and homophobes as keynote speakers.

WASHINGTON—Senate Republicans overcame a range of internal fissures in narrowly voting on Tuesday to begin debate on their health-care overhaul, but the party suffered a setback hours later when a proposal replacing major portions of the Affordable Care Act failed to attract enough votes to pass.

In a dramatic day at the Capitol, Vice President Mike Pence broke a 50-50 tie, allowing Senate Republicans to clear a procedural hurdle and setting up a days-long stretch of debate and amendment votes on the GOP effort to dismantle and replace much of former President Barack Obama’s 2010 Affordable Care Act.

The two GOP defections came from Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who joined all Senate Democrats in voting against proceeding to debate the legislation.

The vote, punctuated by an emotional last-minute appearance by Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), who was diagnosed recently with brain cancer, delivered a come-from-behind victory for President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), who persuaded Republicans skeptical of the GOP bill to band together long enough to begin debate.

Mr. Trump said after the vote that his party had taken “a big step” that would “move forward to truly great health care.

Even with their surprise win on the procedural motion, which seemed a long shot just last week, Republicans were subdued Tuesday about their prospects of passing a sweeping overhaul of the ACA by week’s end.

“We knew this wasn’t going to be easy, and there’s a lot of work ahead of us,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a member of the Senate GOP leadership.

On Tuesday night, the first of Senate leaders’ health-care options, a bill toppling and replacing major portions of the ACA, gained only 43 votes to 57 against. That measure included a much-debated proposal from Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) allowing insurers who offer one ACA-compliant health plan to also sell cheaper insurance options that don’t meet ACA rules.

Senate leaders had expected the measure to fail, as Senate rules made it ineligible to pass on a simple majority vote. But the defection of nine GOP Senators—enough to sink the bill even under a simple majority—underscored the lack of support within the party for the ACA replacement that leaders had cobbled together.

On Wednesday, the Senate is expected to take up a separate bill that would largely repeal the ACA with a two-year expiration date, to give lawmakers time to craft a replacement.

During a recent appearance at a forum in Aspen, Colorado, former CIA Director John Brennan said that if President Trump moves to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, executive branch officials should refuse to follow the president’s orders, effectively calling for mutiny against the president should the occasion arise.

“I think it’s the obligation of some executive branch officials to refuse to carry out” such orders, Brennan told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer at the Aspen Security Forum on Friday.

Brennan was joined by fellow swamper James Clapper, the former director of National Intelligence, who called the appointment of Mueller as special counsel “an inspired choice.”

Both men said they had full confidence in Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference and possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign.

“They don’t come any better,” said Brennan.

“Nobody better than Bob Mueller, who is a straight shooter and will not be intimidated by anything,” Clapper added.

Mueller has hired at least seven Democratic donors to work on his legal team, including one attorney who has reportedly donated $34,000 to Democrats.

“If he is fired by Mr. Trump or attempted to be fired by Mr. Trump,” Brennan continued, “I really hope our members of Congress — our elected representatives — are going to stand up and say ‘enough is enough’ and stop making apologies and excuses for things that are happening that really flout, I think, our system of laws and government.”

Blitzer reminded Brennan that, as president of the United States, Trump can tell Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to fire Mueller if he wants.

“If he’s fired, what would you want Congress to do?” Blitzer asked.

“First of all, I think it is the obligation of some executive branch officials to refuse to carry out some of these orders that — again — are inconsistent with what this country is all about,” Brennan answered.

He added, “I would just hope that this is not going to be a partisan issue. That Republicans and Democrats are going to see that the future of this country is at stake and there need to be some things done for the good of the future.” CONTINUE AT SITE

When an outlet like PJ Media points out that saying “speech is violence” justifies actual violence, it gets dismissed because, after all, it’s our speech that’s supposedly violent. We’re the ones who stand up for the First Amendment on a daily basis, and the Left doesn’t like that.

Of course, claiming “speech is violence” can be used to justify violence isn’t controversial. Anyone with half a brain knows that. At least now an outlet that’s generally on the Left, The Atlantic, is pointing out the idiocy of that line of thinking:

This is why the idea that speech is violence is so dangerous. It tells the members of a generation already beset by anxiety and depression that the world is a far more violent and threatening place than it really is. It tells them that words, ideas, and speakers can literally kill them. Even worse: At a time of rapidly rising political polarization in America, it helps a small subset of that generation justify political violence.

A few days after the riot that shut down Yiannopoulos’s talk at Berkeley, in which many people were punched, beaten, and pepper sprayed by masked protesters, the main campus newspaper ran five op-ed essays by students and recent alumni under the series title “Violence as self defense.” One excerpt: “Asking people to maintain peaceful dialogue with those who legitimately do not think their lives matter is a violent act.”

The implication of this expansive use of the word “violence” is that “we” are justified in punching and pepper-spraying “them,” even if all they did was say words. We’re just defending ourselves against their “violence.” But if this way of thinking leads to actual violence, and if that violence triggers counter-violence from the other side (as happened a few weeks later at Berkeley), then where does it end? In the country’s polarized democracy, telling young people that “words are violence” may in fact lead to a rise in real, physical violence.

Free speech, properly understood, is not violence. It is a cure for violence.

That last sentence is key. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Trump-Russia “collusion” farce gets everything bass-ackwards.

As we’ve pointed out many times, collusion is not a crime; conspiracy is. To prove a conspiracy, you need more than mere association and collaborative action; you need an agreement to commit a specific statutory violation of penal law. Thus far, there is no indication that an actual crime has been committed.

Under the regulations for special-counsel appointments, there is supposed to be cause to believe a crime has been committed before a prosecutor is appointed. Yet, we have a prosecutor assigned to the case even though there is, as yet, no crime. The Justice Department has given this special counsel, Robert Mueller, carte blanche to hunt for a crime, notwithstanding that his jurisdiction is supposed to be circumscribed by the crime(s) that the Justice Department first specifies in appointing him – i.e., the suspected offenses trigger the appointment, the appointment is not supposed to trigger a search for suspected offenses.

Notwithstanding the lack of probable cause that a crime has been committed, much less any indication that the special counsel contemplates filing formal charges, two new premature questions have arisen: (1) May a president be indicted, and (2) may a president pardon himself?

INDICTMENT

The split in opinions over the first question was well summarized back in May by the New York Times’s Adam Liptak. I must say I don’t see this as a complex question: There is no legal reason why a sitting president should not be indictable. The complexities that attend the question are practical, not legal.

The president is in charge of the executive branch. The Justice Department answers to him. All U.S. attorneys are appointed by him and may be dismissed at will by him. It seems inconceivable, then, that a president would authorize his own indictment; he’d more likely dismiss any federal prosecutor who attempted to indict him. That includes any special counsel. As we have observed, there is no such thing as an independent prosecutor in our federal system. The special counsel is beholden to the attorney general (or the deputy attorney general when, as in the case of Mueller’s investigation, the attorney general has recused himself); the attorney general, in turn, is beholden to the president.

Still, even though these practical hurdles to a president’s indictment seem insuperable, there is no legal bar to the indictment of a president. The Constitution explicitly states (in article I, section 3) that an official who is impeached may be indicted in the justice system for any crimes committed. Some legal experts infer from this provision that a president must be impeached before he may be indicted. But the clause does not say that; it simply says that if an official is impeached, that is not a bar to prosecution.

The upshot is this: The status of being president does not provide immunity from prosecution.

As I explained in Faithless Execution, when executive misconduct is at issue, the Constitution’s main check is impeachment. But impeachment is a political remedy, not a legal one. It provides no double-jeopardy protection against criminal indictment. The political proceeding is vitally different from the legal one. Impeachment is about removing political power from a public official. Prosecution is about punishing an individual – i.e., depriving him of liberty or property – for violations of law, regardless of whether he also happens to be a public official.

Because the status of being president must not be construed to confer an immunity that would permanently foreclose prosecution, it seems to me that the statute of limitations demonstrates why sitting presidents cannot have immunity from indictment.