Marine joins kid who is runningbehind.
Window cleaning company dresses employees for
kids in hospital.
Gina Haspel, Trump's nominee for Director of The CIA, is catching hell from Democrats because she obeyed the law and allowed harsh treatment of terrorists.
What I find interesting is that Democrats are attacking a woman, the first ever, to run the CIA, and not a peep from all those women out there who bash Trump for his treatment of women.
Meanwhile Deputy Atty. Gen.Rosenstein continues to allow his own Justice Department to drag it's heels in releasing documents Congress is seeking and when the Agency agrees to release them they are so black-lined Devin Nunes must then issue subpoenas to get the redacted documents released.
Why is the Justice Department acting in this manner? It has little, if anything, to do with state secrets. It has to do with the biased, bungling by the FBI's investigation of The Russian Collusion claim. Senior members of the FBI have egg on their face and do not want the facts to come out because it would be increasingly embarrassing. (See 1 below.)
We know from history this tactic does not generally work but bureaucrats never learn and believe they can outlast the elected and the public will lose interest.
Finally, the New York Attorney General is catching the same hell he has sought to mete out to others. He is finished but does not know it because we try accused in the press before they can get to a court just as the Democrats did to the Admiral who Trump nominated to head The V.A.
Those who read my memos know I am cynical, I am distrustful and generally come out on the side of pessimists. So let me try this on for size.
Perhaps what our nation is currently witnessing is because Trump decided it was time to drain the swamp and the swamp is actually resisting and consequently, might end by draining itself. What I am getting at is our nation is undergoing an act of self-purging. It is painful and disturbing to watch but after it has been put behind us perhaps we will benefit from the cleansing, our public servants will act better, our institutions will serve as they were supposed to and citizens will be able to place a bit more faith in government.
Do I really believe this prediction? Not really, but it costs nothing to have hope.
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Strange deaths of those connected with The Clinton's just does not seem to stop. (See 2 below.)
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Sent to me by a friend and fellow memo reader and highly successful and generous conservative businessman.
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Mexico can do it with impunity but not America. What nonsense: https://tiny.iavian.net/mtnq
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Additional ways Trump could wish Israel a Happy 70th birthday. (See 3 below.)
And:
To all my girl friends far and wide and who also happen to be mothers The Happiest and Best Ever of Mother's Days.
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Dick
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1)
The Two Rod Rosensteins
Limiting Congress but letting the special counsel do pretty much what he pleases.
In federal court last Friday, Robert Mueller’s prosecutors claimed it was no big deal if they didn’t abide by the Justice Department’s own regulations in their prosecution of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Before a manifestly skeptical judge, they argued their real authority to do what they did is rooted in (secret) “discussions” with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Three days earlier, Mr. Rosenstein had himself taken a distinctly different approach when the authority in question belonged to Congress. When asked about nascent efforts to impeach him because of dissatisfaction with the way he has responded to congressional subpoenas, Mr. Rosenstein’s choice of words was arresting. “The Department of Justice,” he said, “is not going to be extorted.”
Meet the two Rod Rosensteins.
The first Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the special counsel, seems to have signed off on everything Mr. Mueller has done, from his choice of a prosecutorial team devoid of any Trump supporter to the expansion of Mr. Mueller’s authority well beyond his public mandate. The president may bellow about witch hunts, and federal Judge T.S. Ellis may complain that no special counsel should have “unfettered power,” but if Mr. Rosenstein believes there are limits on what Mr. Mueller can do, he isn’t letting on.
By contrast, Mr. Rosenstein has been less than accommodating in signing off on documents Congress has demanded. The documents are essential to informing lawmakers about what went on in the 2016 presidential election. Today Congress is rightly frustrated, at not only the pace of production but also the heavy redactions.
This is why congressional requests for documents have turned into subpoenas, and why subpoenas are now turning into calls to hold Mr. Rosenstein in contempt or impeach him. At stake is the ability of Congress to fulfill its oversight responsibility.
The transcript from Friday’s oral argument in Judge Ellis’s courtroom illuminates another area of Mr. Rosenstein’s contributions to accountability. Specifically, the judge was dealing with a motion from Mr. Manafort contending that the bank- and tax-fraud charges lodged against him are illegitimate because they a) had nothing to do with the 2016 election and b) didn’t “arise” from the Russia-collusion investigation (the charges originated in an earlier and separate Justice investigation picked up by the special counsel).
The big question—which Judge Ellis also raised—is whether “the special prosecutor has unlimited powers to do anything he or she wants.”
In theory Mr. Mueller’s powers are limited in two ways: He reports to Mr. Rosenstein, and he operates under two 2017 Rosenstein memos (of May 17 and Aug. 2) authorizing and clarifying his investigation. It isn’t clear, however, that Mr. Rosenstein has in fact imposed any limits. And Mr. Mueller’s own team told Judge Ellis they don’t consider themselves limited by the two Rosenstein memos.
David Rivkin, a constitutional lawyer who has served in the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s Office, says what matters isn’t whether Mr. Mueller technically reports to the Justice Department but whether he actually operates under any real limits. “A special counsel with unlimited jurisdiction, who cannot be removed but for ‘cause’ and isn’t effectively supervised by an attorney general, is completely unaccountable and therefore constitutionally unacceptable,” he says.
In his courtroom, Judge Ellis characterized the Mueller team’s claims about the initial Rosenstein letter authorizing the special counsel investigation this way: “We said this is what the investigation was about. But we’re not going to be bound by it, and we weren’t really telling the truth in that May 17 letter.”
Ditto for the argument that Justice can defy a lawful congressional subpoena if the release of documents might compromise a criminal investigation. Certainly Congress should not seek to wreck a criminal investigation, and should be open to acceptable compromises. But Congress shouldn’t let the mere fact of a criminal investigation lead it to step aside and shirk its core constitutional responsibility: holding the government accountable to the people.
Impeachment is a perfectly appropriate means to this end, which is why the Constitution provides for it. True, the last appointed federal executive impeached by Congress was a cabinet member in the administration of Ulysses S. Grant. But Congress impeached a judge as recently as 2010, and there are no constitutional exemptions for deputy attorneys general.
The bar for impeachment is set high, and for good reason. The process requires Congress to act as a co-equal branch of government, which means acting collectively as a body. If Congress ever does hold an impeachment vote to express its displeasure with Mr. Rosenstein’s actions, Republican and Democratic members alike will have to calculate the risks knowing that, however they voted, the American people would judge them by their decision.
Which would be more political accountability than we’ve seen since the Russia-collusion investigation started.
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US Surgeon, Who Exposed Clinton Foundation Corruption In Haiti, Found Dead
Dr. Lorich was found by his 11-year-old daughter on the bathroom floor of his tony Upper East Side apartment with a knife in his chest at around 1 pm on Monday.
The knife missed the surgeon’s heart, leaving him to bleed out and be found by his daughter. Despite the fact police were called to the property regarding an “assault“, they instantly registered the death as “suicide” and closed the case.
One of the United States’ leading surgeons, Dr. Lorich was part of the relief effort sent by the U.S. to assist the relief effort led by the Clinton Foundation in Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake. However, Dr. Lorich was disgusted by the “shameful” Clinton Foundation operation and voiced his concerns to Hillary Clinton directly.
Unsatisfied with her response, he went public, writing an article published by CNN, accusing the Clinton Foundation of widespread corruption and malpractice in Haiti that cost the lives of thousands of children.
CNN article co-authored by Dr. Lorich exposing the extent of Clinton Foundation malpractice and corruption in Haiti.
Billions of dollars were raised by the Clinton Foundation to help the Haitians, but the vast bulk of this money was funneled to Clinton friends and associates, according to Dr. Lorich, who described in harrowing detail what this meant for the children of Haiti.
Dr. Lorich argued that, in essence, Clinton greed left Haitian children to die painful deaths:
“We expected many amputations. But we thought we could save limbs that were salvageable, particularly those of children. We recognized that in an underdeveloped country, a limb amputation may be a death sentence. It does not have to be so.“
“Shameful”
Considering billions of dollars had been donated to the Clinton Foundation with the express purpose of helping the Haitians, Dr. Lorich and his team expected to have full support when their plane touched down.
Instead, Dr. Lorich described the situation on the ground as “shameful” and he witnessed Clinton Foundation corruption in action. The Haitians were receiving no help whatsoever.
According to Dr. Lorich, a paltry 0.6% of donations granted by international donors to the Clinton Foundation with the express purpose of directly assisting Haitians actually ended up helping citizens of Haiti. 9.6% ended up with the Haitian government. The remaining 89.8% – or $5.4 billion – was funneled to non-Haitian organizations.
Dr. Lorich’s WikiLeaks emails
Unable to perform his duties – and disgusted by the rampant corruption – Dr. Lorich sent an email to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff Cheryl D. Mills to report what he had seen. The email was then forwarded to Hillary Clinton which meant it eventually found its way into WikiLeaks’ possession and can be read here.
Dr. Dean Lorich on the ground in Haiti where he was disgusted to witness Clinton Foundation corruption first hand.
Unsatisfied with the lack of response from Hillary Clinton, Dr. Lorich went public, co-authored the CNN article that exposed the Clinton Foundation’s corruption and malpractice in Haiti:
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3)
How the U.S. Should Wish Israel a Happy 70th Birthday
To counter Iran, Washington should raise the Jewish state’s intelligence clearance and speed up promised military aid.
By James Stavridis and Mike Makovsky
Happy birthday.
Photographer: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
Israel is commemorating its 70th anniversary next week, and the U.S. Embassy is moving to Jerusalem to coincide with the independence celebrations. It's a strong symbolic gesture -- but there are several more concrete steps Washington should take right now to help ensure Israel's security and protect its own interests in the Middle East.
Over the long term, Israel’s very existence is threatened by Iran’s nuclear program, which continues in the form of expanded atomic research and ballistic missile development, which are unfortunately permitted by the 2015 nuclear deal. The intelligence trove revealed by Israel last week confirms Tehran’s determination to acquire nuclear weapons capability -- not a surprise certainly, but a clear warning of potential danger ahead.
President Donald Trump is expected to address this matter Tuesday, and most observers believe he will walk away from the nuclear agreement. This would ratchet up the tension is an already volatile region.
But the most immediate threat to Israel and U.S. interests isn't Iran's nuclear program, but rather Tehran’s stunning expansion of influence. Its entrenchment in Syria, for example, generates ever-greater prospects for a major Iranian-Israeli conflict. Iran and its proxies also threaten America's Sunni Arab allies, seek sway from Lebanon to Yemen, create more jihadists and refugees, put energy supplies at risk, and target U.S. ships and Saudi cities with missiles.
Gripped by “Middle East fatigue,” the U.S. remains reluctant to increase its military engagement in the region and is inadequately positioned to counter any of these threats, especially if Trump makes good on his rhetoric about abruptly pulling U.S. forces from Syria.
Israel, meanwhile, is responding to Tehran’s dogged efforts to establish a permanent military presence in Syria through a series of air and missile strikes. It has an unlikely ally in Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who compared Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei unfavorably to Hitler and acknowledged the Jewish state's right to exist.
The U.S. must support its allies in the growing confrontation with Iran. It should seize upon Israel’s longstanding ethos of self-defense, and the newfound readiness among Sunni Arab states to defend their own interests and work quietly with Israel against Iran.
Alone, neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia can fully curtail and eventually roll back Iran’s adventurism. After fact-finding visits to Jerusalem and other regional capitals supported by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, it is clear to us that the U.S. should bolster its regional partners, particularly Israel, and drive cooperation between them.
Foremost, Washington should consider elevating Israel’s official standing as an ally to that of the U.K. or Australia in terms of sharing intelligence, weapons technology and other vital information. This would mean raising Israel’s information-sharing clearance to the level enjoyed by signatories of the “Five Eyes” agreement on signals intelligence, and issuing an executive order creating a presumption of approval for sharing information, military equipment and technology with Israel.
Washington also has a legal obligation to ensure Israel’s qualitative military edge over its neighbors. This would best be done by "frontloading" the 2016 memorandum of understanding under which the U.S. is providing $38 billion in foreign military and missile-defense funding, spaced evenly over 10 years.
A fast-tracked MoU could allow Israel to acquire a host of weapons earlier than initially planned to meet growing threats from Iran and elsewhere. They might include F-35 fighter-jet squadrons; KC-46 air-refueling tankers; mobility capabilities like V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft; small-diameter bombs and Hellfire precision munitions; Joint Direct Attack Munition kits that turn unguided bombs into smart weapons; drones; and semi-submersible naval vessels. The U.S. should also replenish Israel's precision munitions and other critical wartime stockpiles, and consider making Israel a prepositioning base to support American and allied operations region-wide.
The Pentagon should also consider relocating two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers from Rota, Spain, to a new homeport in Haifa, Israel. These ships, with their cutting-edge Aegis combat systems, would be well positioned to defend Europe against an Iranian missile attack, balance the new Russian naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, and reinforce Israeli deterrence.
The U.S. also needs to coordinate closely with Israel to support its ally’s legitimate security interests in Syria against Iranian encroachment. This will require not only deeper intelligence sharing but more cooperation in cyber operations and missile defense and strike planning.
Finally, Washington should encourage higher levels of Israeli-Arab security cooperation, acting as a hub between spokes in Riyadh and Jerusalem, as well as Amman and Cairo. The priority should be regional missile defense and shared early warning that synchronizes U.S., Israeli and Arab capabilities.
Cooperation is also possible against Iranian influence on the Arabian Peninsula and Red Sea. By facilitating Israeli intelligence-sharing and operational coordination with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the U.S. could enable more effective action against Iranian arms transfers and Hezbollah operations in Yemen. Much of this can occur at sea between the Israeli, American and Arab navies.
By ensuring that Israel can defend itself and facilitating tacit cooperation between Israel and our Sunni Arab partners, the U.S. can bolster the anti-Iranian coalition, lay the foundation for a more stable Middle East and restore its regional leadership -- all without putting significant numbers of American boots on the ground.
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