Trump's FOX Friends suggest he cool it. (See 1 below.)
The mass media are Trump's enemies and they are also failing the public but the sentiments of the FOX folks are justified and wise.
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The WSJ is a newspaper worth reading. Their editorials are informative, cover a range of topics and I find myself posting a large number of them. (See 2, 2a , and 2b below.)
The first op ed below talks about bad leadership. The Palestinians certainly have been poorly led but so have the Germans. Now that they have shed Merkel, it will be interesting to see what direction Germany takes with new leadership.
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I had lunch today with one of my dearest friends who happens to be a bleeding heart and also a fellow memo reader.
He takes what I write personally and believes I am writing about him and I told him I generalize too much and only if the shoe actually fits should he wear it.
He asked me to be more balanced and I told him he had his New York Times, Washington Post and all those national TV stations to give him balance. I considered that I have no job, was not paid to write memos and did so simply as an act of free expression. I had no goal other than to spout off and I loved using satire to expose hypocrisy which exists on both sides of the aisle but I chose to highlight that emanating from the "despicable's" side.
I urged him to watch FOX at 6PM if he wanted an old fashioned news broadcast and forget about the rest of FOX which was mostly op ed stuff. I also told him I would post about our lunch as I have just done.
Now back to satire!
I find it interesting Dems harpooned GW for trying to engage America in nation building in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now these same Dems are critical of Trump for not helping Nicaragua solve its domestic problems.
It is so delicious to have life both ways!
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When will Mueller unload? (See 3 below.)
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Dick
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1)Trump's Favorite Show Openly
Condemns His Rhetoric
Fox & Friends may have the undivided attention of President Trump weekday mornings, but its hosts openly criticized the president this morning, fed up with his incessant attacks on the media. (Mediaite)
Replaying a clip of the commander in chief’s interview from the previous day with the network’s Laura Ingraham, Trump’s infamous “enemy of the people” line was once again heard as he defended his use of the phrase, which is widely seen as dangerous to the press.
In a candid moment, Brian Kilmeade then said he wanted Trump to drop the remark altogether.
“I really wish he would lose that term,” Kilmeade said. “It doesn’t help anybody. It doesn’t push back on the media that he wants to push back on.”
...
“Some of the things they say and the way they stack their shows — the president could look as though they are targeting him and he’s got a case, but that broad statement does a lot of damage,” he said.
Steve Doocy agreed with Kilmeade's sentiment, suggesting that while he understood the president's frustration, his reflexes don't do him any favors.
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2) The Palestinians’ Worst Enemy Is Their Own Leaders
Human Rights Watch takes a break from Israel-bashing to examine abuses by Fatah and Hamas
There’s a rule of thumb for journalists reporting on the Palestinians: If it can’t be blamed on Israel, it isn’t news. But some rules demand to be broken.
After a two-year investigation and nearly 100 interviews with detainees, Human Rights Watch released a report last week documenting the Palestinian leadership’s gross violation of its people’s human rights. Both Hamas, which rules Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority, which governs in the West Bank, are implicated. The two groups conduct arbitrary arrests for offenses as ludicrous as critical Facebook posts and regularly torture detainees.
Titled “Two Authorities, One Way, Zero Dissent,” the report details cases of horrific violence and repression. Hamas kept Fouad Jarada, a journalist accused of “harming revolutionary unity,” in a notorious room called “the bus” for a month, forcing him to stand blindfolded on a small child’s chair days at a time and whipping him with a cable. In the West Bank, detainees tell of being punched, kicked, beaten with batons, slammed against walls, and electrically shocked until they confess.
Both Palestinian organizations said they reject torture and consider the incidents Human Rights Watch compiled to be “isolated cases that are investigated when brought to the attention of authorities, who hold perpetrators to account.” But Human Rights Watch couldn’t find a single official in either jurisdiction convicted of mistreating detainees or making arbitrary arrests.
“The habitual, deliberate, widely known use of torture, using similar tactics over years with no action taken by senior officials in either authority to stop these abuses, make these practices systematic,” the report concludes. “They also indicate that torture is governmental policy for both the PA and Hamas.” Since this likely constitutes a crime against humanity, Human Rights Watch recommends the International Criminal Court open an investigation.
Fatah, the party that controls the Palestinian Authority, may be more “moderate” than Hamas in its approach to Israel, but it is brutal to Palestinians in the West Bank. The report explains that even when the authority releases detainees, it often refuses to drop charges, leaving behind a pretext for repeated punitive arrests to harass critics into silence. Vaguely worded laws also empower officials to detain Palestinians for calling for free expression on Facebook or reporting on unemployment. The offenders are then held in custody for weeks for provoking “sectarian strife” and insulting “higher authorities.” Similarly in Gaza, the wrong post on social media can result in persecution for “misuse of technology.”
In January the Trump administration suspended tens of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority, but in March Congress exempted $70 million in security assistance. The report calls on the U.S., Europe and the United Nations to suspend all funding for the Palestinian Authority’s Preventative Security Forces, General Intelligence Services, and Joint Security Committee until the agencies cease arresting critics and torturing detainees. It also asks Iran, Qatar and Turkey to stop funding Hamas. Good luck with that.
No one can accuse Human Rights Watch of anti-Palestinian or pro-Israel bias. For years the group has disproportionately focused its criticism on Israel, accusing it of war crimes and other violations of international law. The lead author of the Human Rights Watch report, Israel and Palestine Director Omar Shakir, has on several occasions accused Israel of practicing “apartheid.” The group has even raised money off the opposition it attracts from pro-Israel groups.
Instead of further demonizing Israel, this report is pro-Palestinian in the best sense: It defends the Palestinian people from their predatory authoritarian leaders. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, was democratically elected in 2005 for a four-year term. He never allowed his people to vote again, and still rules almost 14 years later.
Abuse and corruption aside, all the Palestinian leadership offers is angry rhetoric or violence against Israel. “Calls by Palestinian officials to safeguard Palestinian rights ring hollow as they crush dissent,” said Human Rights Watch’s deputy program director Tom Porteous. It has been 25 years since the Oslo Accords instituted some Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and 13 years since Israel vacated the Gaza Strip. Where Palestinians have autonomy, Mr. Porteous says, “they have developed parallel police states.” Naturally, Human Rights Watch and other critics castigate Israel for failing to give the Palestinians more autonomy.
Amid the pressure to create a Palestinian state, the easiest thing to do is ignore the warning signs that statehood today would result in even more tyranny and bloodshed.
Mr. Kaufman is the Journal’s Joseph Rago Memorial Fellow.
2a) Backlash Builds Against Beijing
China wants to displace the U.S. as leader of the world, but it faces dissent at home and abroad.
By
China will remain an integral part of the global economy. Its strengthening military will give it influence beyond Asia. And its political voice will be heard in international councils. Yet the world now understands the dark side of doing business with Beijing, while Chinese citizens chafe against Mr. Xi’s increasing domestic repression. With the Chinese Communist Party unwilling to reform, Beijing faces major strains ahead.
The Chinese government has linked economic aid to its strategic objectives. In particular, its Belt and Road initiative has promised $1 trillion of infrastructure spending throughout Eurasia. But Chinese aid increasingly is seen as a “debt trap” ensnaring less-powerful nations. They often surrender key facilities or agree to a greater Chinese presence in their countries after they becoming unable to repay development loans.
Malaysia and longtime Chinese ally Pakistan have announced they will be cutting back on Sino-funded projects for fear of indebtedness to Beijing. A recent election in the Maldives oriented the small Indian Ocean nation away from China. Expect more skittishness on the part of potential Chinese partners in vital locations around the globe.
Beijing’s heavy hand against foreign corporations—for example, demanding they list Taiwan as part of China or risk repercussions to their businesses—also is wearing Western patience thin. And the U.S. and Europe are angry over decades of rampant intellectual-property theft. Many companies are playing along for fear of losing China’s market, but they will take the first opportunity to rebuff Beijing’s demands.
Another blow has come courtesy of Mr. Trump. However much criticized at home, his tariff war is hitting China’s economy hard. Its stock market is around a four-year low, while Beijing’s bluster is offset by repeated overtures to resolve the confrontation. Thanks to China’s $350 billion trade surplus with the U.S., Washington can target a broad range of Chinese goods with tariffs. The damage to American firms from the current trade war may be significant, but China can’t weather a prolonged battle nearly as well.
The trade war has highlighted other weaknesses in the Chinese economy. Doubts about the country’s official 6.7% economic growth are widespread, while its massive debt burden, estimated at 300% of gross domestic product, raises alarms, especially within the private and state-owned-enterprise sector. Some Chinese businesses have gone on foreign spending sprees and now seek to unload their holdings. Insurance giant Anbang, for example, wants to sell its $5.5 billion real estate portfolio, which includes the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Beijing has clamped down on other big spenders, due to fears of corporate failures as well as an overheated property market. Rampant speculation has led to regional bans on corporate property purchases amid concerns of a real estate bubble.
All these problems come on the heels of increased repression in China. Mr. Xi, now president for life, has created a cult of personality unseen since the Mao era. He dominates his putative co-leaders, and his anticorruption campaign served to eliminate potential elite opposition figures. He has clamped down on civil society with impunity.
The country also is poised to become the world’s first total surveillance state. It already has 200 million surveillance cameras and plans to operate more than 600 million, all using the most advanced facial recognition software. This even extends to special glasses worn by the police.
Despite Mr. Xi’s repressive policies, the first signs of discontent have emerged. Mr. Xi’s ambitious reform program, first unveiled in 2013, has resulted in little change. A critique of the government from a professor at the prestigious Tsinghua University recently went viral, while Chinese officials have begun to walk back their boastfulness about the state of the economy. Mr. Xi has had to defend his propaganda blitz.
There are still hundreds, likely thousands, of protests every year against official corruption and the government’s heavy hand. Then there is the severe yet largely hidden repression of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, where as many as one million are reported to be held in modern concentration camps. Combined with its repressive policies in Tibet, the Chinese Communist Party has engendered a seething hatred from the country’s minorities.
No one should expect a revolution soon in China. And as shown by El Salvador’s recent switch of diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, its economic pull remains attractive to many poor nations. But China’s road ahead is increasingly rocky. Far from adopting many of the norms of the postwar world, Beijing has attempted to rewrite them in its own favor. Now the question is how far will China’s leaders go in curbing their assertive behavior and rapacious policies. Sticking to the current path will lead to greater tension between China and the world and risk more unrest at home.
Mr. Auslin, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, is author of “The End of the Asian Century” (Yale, 2017).
2b) Democrats Struggle to Confront Trump-Era Reality
Come Tuesday, we’ll find out whether Democrats have learned anything from Hillary Clinton’s shocking defeat two Novembers ago. No, Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot this time, but that’s a technicality. There’s no doubt these midterm elections are about our current president.
2b) Democrats Struggle to Confront Trump-Era Reality
Many learned the wrong lessons from 2016 and can’t handle the successes of the administration.
By
Come Tuesday, we’ll find out whether Democrats have learned anything from Hillary Clinton’s shocking defeat two Novembers ago. No, Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot this time, but that’s a technicality. There’s no doubt these midterm elections are about our current president.
Two years ago Mrs. Clinton focused to the max on her opponent’s character flaws and then famously extended those criticisms to his supporters, the “deplorables.” What the Clinton campaign missed is that voters in battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were well aware of Mr. Trump’s shortcomings but had different priorities. While she was harping on his behavior, he was harping on the issues they cared about most. Mrs. Clinton lost because millions of people who had supported Barack Obama refused to back her and swung to Mr. Trump.
There’s no shortage of liberals who remain in denial about why Mrs. Clinton lost and who refuse to accept the outcome. Instead, they credit Mr. Trump’s triumph to James Comey or Russian interference or white nationalists. The question is whether Democratic candidates in the current cycle have accepted political reality, and the answer is that it depends. Last Friday found Mr. Obama campaigning for Democrats in Detroit and Milwaukee, two places Mrs. Clinton gave short shrift in 2016. He seems to understand that it was the Democratic nominee’s flawed campaign strategy, not the alt-right, that cost her the election.
Similarly, Democrats running for Senate seats in states Mr. Trump carried have used the final weeks of the campaign to focus on issues rather than the president’s Twitter feed. In Arizona, Florida and Missouri Democratic candidates have been talking nonstop about health care, a top concern for voters in both parties. Four years ago, ObamaCare’s unpopularity helped to defeat incumbent Democrats in red states like Arkansas and Louisiana and deliver control of the Senate to Republicans. But support for the law has risen steadily since Mr. Obama left office, and Democrats now see an opening. The upshot is that voters in some parts of the country are being treated to a substantive debate about the costs and merits of single-payer health care and how best to insure people with pre-existing conditions. This is progress.
One week out, polls predict Republicans will add a few seats to their Senate majority and Democrats will (barely) win control of the House. In the Mach-speed political news cycles of the Trump era, however, a week is an eternity. Moreover, there remains a critical mass of Democrats and left-wing commentators who are eager to give the Clinton strategy of character assassination another go. These are the folks trying to link the president’s rhetoric to the synagogue shooter in Pittsburgh and the mail bomber from Florida. They’ve speculated that the White House is involved in covering up the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. For them, the Koch brothers’ political activism can be denounced from the floor of the Senate, while criticism of George Soros is rooted in anti-Semitism.
It’s possible that what didn’t work for Democrats in 2016 could win the day next week, but thus far the strategy seems to be doing more harm than good. The enthusiasm edge Democrats enjoyed for most of the year has disappeared. Maybe upending Brett Kavanaugh’s life based on unsubstantiated allegations about his behavior in high school more than 30 years ago wasn’t such a good idea.
The Central American caravan stunt is unlikely to turn out any differently for Democrats, who are either misreading public sentiment on immigration or think voters are fools. The caravan didn’t develop organically or spontaneously. To the contrary, liberal activists have rounded up thousands of people, coached them on what to say to journalists and immigration officials, and sent them on a dangerous journey north with the intent of causing a scene at the U.S. border. It’s a bald flouting of America’s asylum policies—an attempt to manufacture a crisis for political gain—and the president has a duty to intervene.
To some extent, the Democratic behavior on display of late is born of desperation. Policy wise, the Trump presidency has been largely successful. The business tax cuts and deregulation are paying dividends. Economic growth has accelerated, unemployment is low, salaries are increasing, and consumer confidence is strong. The trade war is a mistake but one that most liberals support, alas. And to the extent that Democrats have offered policy prescriptions, they are of the Obama variety and were rejected when voters rejected Mrs. Clinton. Democrats want to put a Trump fright mask on their opponents. But after two years, who’s afraid of Donald Trump?
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3) Has Mueller Subpoenaed the President?
A careful reading of court filings suggests the special counsel hasn’t been quiet. Far from it.
Nelson W. Cunningham has served as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York under Rudy Giuliani, general counsel of the Senate Judiciary Committee under then-Chair Joe Biden, and general counsel of the White House Office of Administration under Bill Clinton.
These months before the midterm elections are tough ones for all of us Mueller-watchers. As we expected, he has gone quiet in deference to longstanding Justice Department policy that prosecutors should not take actions that might affect pending elections. Whatever he is doing, he is doing quietly and even further from the public eye than usual.
But thanks to some careful reporting by Politico, which I have analyzed from my perspective as a former prosecutor, we might have stumbled upon How Robert Mueller Is Spending His Midterms: secretly litigating against President Donald Trump for the right to throw him in the grand jury.
As a former prosecutor and Senate and White House aide, I predicted here last May that Mueller would promptly subpoena Trump and, like independent counsel Kenneth Starr back in 1998, bring a sitting president before his grand jury to round out and conclude his investigation. What Trump knew and when he knew it, and what exactly motivated his statements and actions, are central to Mueller’s inquiry on both Russian interference and obstruction of justice.
As the summer proceeded, we certainly heard a great deal from Rudy Giuliani, the president’s lawyer, about purported negotiations with Mueller’s office regarding the propriety and scope of Trump’s potential testimony. On August 15, Giuliani said Trump would move to quash a subpoena and went so far as to say, “[W]e’re pretty much finished with our memorandum opposing a subpoena.”
And then—nothing. Labor Day came and went without a visible move by Mueller to subpoena the president, and we entered the quiet period before the midterms. Even the voluble Giuliani went quiet, more or less. Mindful of the time it would take to fight out the legal issues surrounding a presidential subpoena, and mindful of the ticking clock on Mueller’s now 18-month-old investigation, many of us began to wonder whether Mueller had decided to forgo the compelling and possibly conclusive nature of presidential testimony in favor of findings built on inference and circumstantial evidence. A move that would leave a huge hole in his final report and findings.
But now, thanks to Politico’s reporting (backed up by the simple gumshoe move of sitting in the clerk’s office waiting to see who walks in and requests what file), we might know what Mueller has been up to: Since mid-August, he may have been locked in proceedings with Trump and his lawyers over a grand jury subpoena—in secret litigation that could tell us by December whether the president will testify before Mueller’s grand jury.
The evidence lies in obscure docket entries at the clerk’s office for the D.C. Circuit. Thanks to Politico’s Josh Gerstein and Darren Samuelsohn, we know that on August 16 (the day after Giuliani said he was almost finished with his memorandum, remember), a sealed grand jury case was initiated in the D.C. federal district court before Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell. We know that on September 19, Howell issued a ruling and five days later one of the parties appealed to the D.C. Circuit. And, thanks to Politico’s reporting, we know that the special counsel’s office is involved (because the reporter overheard a conversation in the clerk’s office). We can further deduce that the special counsel prevailed in the district court and that the presumptive grand jury witness has frantically appealed that order and sought special treatment from the judges of the D.C. Circuit—often referred to as the “second-most important court in the land.”
Nothing about the docket sheets, however, discloses the identity of the witness. Politico asked many of the known attorneys for Mueller witnesses—including Jay Sekulow, another Trump lawyer—and each one denied knowledge of the identity of the witness. (What, of course, would we expect a lawyer to say when asked about a proceeding the court has ordered sealed?)
But for those of us who have been appellate lawyers, the brief docket entries tell a story. Here’s what we can glean:
- The parties and the judges have moved with unusual alacrity. Parties normally have 30 days to appeal a lower court action. The witness here appealed just five days after losing in the district court—and three days later filed a motion before the appellate court to stay the district court’s order. That’s fast.
- The appeals court itself responded with remarkable speed, too. One day after getting the witness’ motion, the court gave the special counsel just three days to respond—blindingly short as appellate proceedings go. The special counsel’s papers were filed October 1.
- At this point an unspecified procedural flaw seems to have emerged, and on October 3, the appeals court dismissed the appeal. Just two days later, the lower court judge cured the flaw, the witness re-appealed, and by October 10 the witness was once again before appellate court. Thanks to very quick action of all the judges, less than one week was lost due to a flaw that, in other cases, could have taken weeks or months to resolve.
- Back before the D.C. Circuit, this case’s very special handling continued. On October 10, the day the case returned to the court, the parties filed a motion for expedited handling, and within two days, the judges had granted their motion and set an accelerated briefing schedule. The witness was given just 11 days to file briefs; the special counsel (presumably) just two weeks to respond; and reply papers one week later, on November 14 (for those paying attention, that’s eight days after the midterm elections). Oral arguments are set for December 14.
At every level, this matter has commanded the immediate and close attention of the judges involved—suggesting that no ordinary witness and no ordinary issue is involved. But is it the president? The docket sheets give one final—but compelling—clue. When the witness lost the first time in the circuit court (before the quick round trip to the district court), he petitioned, unusually, for rehearing en banc—meaning the witness thought the case was so important that it merited the very unusual action of convening all 10 of the D.C. Circuit judges to review the order. That is itself telling (this witness believes the case demands very special handling), but the order disposing of the petition is even more telling: Trump’s sole appointee to that court, Gregory Katsas, recused himself.
Why did he recuse himself? We don’t know; by custom, judges typically don’t disclose their reasons for sitting out a matter. But Katsas previously served in the Trump White House, as one of four deputy White House counsels. He testified in his confirmation hearings that in that position he handled executive branch legal issues, but made clear that apart from some discrete legal issues, he had not been involved in the special counsel’s investigation. If the witness here were unrelated to the White House, unless the matter raised one of the discrete legal issues on which Katsas had previously given advice, there would be no reason for the judge to recuse himself.
But if the witness were the president himself—if the matter involved an appeal from a secret order requiring the president to testify before the grand jury—then Katsas would certainly feel obliged to recuse himself from any official role. Not only was the president his former client (he was deputy counsel to the president, remember) but he owes his judicial position to the president’s nomination. History provides a useful parallel: In 1974, in the unanimous Supreme Court decision United States v. Nixon, which required another witness-president to comply with a subpoena, Justice William Rehnquist recused himself for essentially the same reasons.
We cannot know, from the brief docket entries that are available to us in this sealed case, that the matter involves Trump. But we do know from Politico’s reporting that it involves the special counsel and that the action here was filed the day after Giuliani noted publicly, “[W]e’re pretty much finished with our memorandum opposing a subpoena.” We know that the district court had ruled in favor of the special counsel and against the witness; that the losing witness moved with alacrity and with authority; and that the judges have responded with accelerated rulings and briefing schedules. We know that Judge Katsas, Trump’s former counsel and nominee, has recused himself. And we know that this sealed legal matter will come to a head in the weeks just after the midterm elections.
If Mueller were going to subpoena the president—and there’s every reason why a careful and thorough prosecutor would want the central figure on the record on critical questions regarding his knowledge and intent—this is just the way we would expect him to do so. Quietly, expeditiously, and refusing to waste the lull in public action demanded by the midterm elections. It all fits.
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