https://mashable.com/video/
And
Really Dumb Americans who pay a fortune to be classified college educated. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tiger's interview: Tiger Woods Winning Interview - YouTube
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Bret Stephens take. (See 1 below.)
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When it came to the matter of obstruction, apparently Mueller applied legal concepts that sought to turn the tables on Trump who basically had to prove his innocence rather than Mueller proving he broke the law regarding obstruction.
We know there were Mueller staffers who had it in for Trump and perhaps pressed Mueller beyond what Mueller might have otherwise decided. Most of Mueller's staff were biased and poor choices because of their previous affiliation with Hillary etc. They wanted to basically frame Trump and they proceeded to do so.
Trump aggrieved but not criminal.
Consequently they have provided political meat for Democrats who still want to impeach Trump but might simply settle for using it as campaign fodder.
Democrats will get nowhere with the American people and will continue to do themselves political harm but their hatred and zeal continues to prevent them from seeing reality.
Again winning over attending to the nation's problems is more important to Democrats. What's new?
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Closed door meeting White House Meeting Re Administration's forthcoming Middle East Plan.. (See below.)
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Dick
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1)
Ilhan Omar, Harbinger of Democratic Decline?
With political power comes rhetorical responsibility.
By Bret Stephens
Spot the problem with the quoted remarks:
(1) The Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 was “something some people did.”
(2) Last month’s attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, was “something someone did.”
(3) The 2015 massacre at a black church in Charleston, S.C., was “something someone did.”
Now imagine that a public figure with a history of making racially inflammatory remarks — someone like Representative Steve King of Iowa or, better yet, President Trump — had said any of this. (Neither of them did.) Would you not be appalled?
Of course you would. You’d be insulted by the evasiveness of the something and someone. You’d be revolted that a right-wing politician would fail to speak forcefully against the bigotries too often found among his followers and fellow travelers. You’d be disgusted by the deliberate attempt to conceal the scale of the horror, the identity of the perpetrators, and the racist ideology that motivated them.
And you’d make no allowances for the possibility that the politician in question might have merely misspoken, especially if he failed to apologize, clarify or correct himself. With political power comes rhetorical responsibility.
So it is that one should think about the furor — and counter-furor — over the Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar’s claim, in a speech last month in California, that the Council on American-Islamic Relations “was founded after 9/11, because they recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.”
The bulk of Omar’s speech was devoted to preaching political empowerment for American Muslims and denouncing Islamophobia.
That’s fine as far as it goes.
But contrary to claims by some of her apologists, the remark is not taken out of context, it is not contradicted by anything else she says in the speech, and it is not marred merely because it is factually mistaken. (CAIR was founded seven years before 9/11.) Nor is the problem a matter of inapt phrasing: Omar is a confident public speaker with a precise command of language and a knack for turning a phrase.
The problem is that the remark is foul, in exactly the same way that the hypothetical remarks listed above are foul. I live in lower Manhattan, near the 9/11 memorial and museum. No decent person can look at the portraits of the 2,983 victims of Islamist terrorists and say, by-the-by, that this was “something” that “some people did.”
The problem is also that the remarks didn’t come from just anyone. Just as Trump has repeatedly made his ethnic prejudices plain, so has Omar. She has demonized Israel, and American supporters of Israel, in terms that are unmistakably anti-Semitic. She has been reproached by fellow Democrats, claimed ignorance by way of apology, and then slurred Jews again — without apology. And despite claiming to be a champion of human rights, she has been oddly selective about the human-rights issues that elicit her outrage.
Now Omar’s defenders are keen to paint her as a victim of Islamophobia, which no doubt she is. In this case, however, a victim of bigotry is also a major and unflinching bigot in her own right. That the president has chosen to target Omar may smack of rank hypocrisy, but it would be political malpractice for him not to pick the fight. Her views as a public figure, and what they signify for the party she represents, are fair game.
All the more so as progressives rush to her defense. Omar is not a significant figure in her own right. And the House of Representatives has never lacked for cranks, knaves, fools and bigots.
What is significant is that Omar’s defenders don’t consider her prejudices about Jews as particularly disqualifying, morally or politically, at least not when weighed against the things they like about her (and hate about her enemies). As for her views about Israel, she’s practically mainstream for her segment of the Democratic Party — a harbinger of what’s to come as the old guard of pro-Israel liberals like Majority Leader Steny Hoyer gives way to the anti-Israel wokesters typified by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
What is all this reminiscent of?
Oh, right: the early days of Trump, when millions of Republican primary voters heard the candidate denounce Mexicans as drug dealers, criminals and rapists, and said to themselves, “We like that.” The central lesson of the moral collapse that followed for the G.O.P. isn’t that conservatives are a uniquely perfidious bunch. It’s that partisans of any stripe are always susceptible to demagoguery, particularly when the demagogue refuses to back down in the face of outrage. Shamelessness has a way of inspiring a following, and Omar is in the process of cornering the market on the left.
Still, let’s not be entirely negative about the congresswoman. Toward the end of her speech, she said it was vital “to make sure that we are not only holding people that we don’t like accountable: We must also hold those that we love, have shared values with, accountable.”
Those words, at least, are wise. The best thing Democrats could do now is apply them to Omar herself.
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2)
Ten post-Mueller questions that could turn the tables on Russia collusion investigators By John Solomon,
Posted By Ruth King
Soon, the dust will settle from special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, and Americans will have a fuller understanding of why prosecutors concluded there wasn’t evidence to establish that Donald Trump and Russia colluded to hijack the 2016 election.
At that point, many voters exhausted by the fizzling of a two-year scandal, once billed as the next Watergate, will want to move on like a foodie from an empty-calorie shake.
But a very important second phase of this drama is about to begin, as Attorney General William Barr, Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) put the Russia collusion investigators under investigation.
Their work will be, and must be, far more than just a political boomerang.
It must answer, in balanced terms, whether the FBI was warranted in using the most awesome powers in the U.S. intelligence arsenal to spy on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign at the end of the 2016 election.
Investigators must determine, with neutrality, whether the bureau improperly colluded with paid agents of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign — Fusion GPS and its British operative, Christopher Steele — and then tried to hide those political ties and other evidence from the nation’s secret intelligence court.
For the likes of FBI castoffs James Comey, Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok, or Obama-era intelligence bosses John Brennan and James Clapper, there will be the additional uncomfortable reality that the Russia collusion narrative that they so publicly weaved through testimony, TV appearances, for-profit books and leaks, turned out to be as unsubstantiated as the Loch Ness monster.
The process of meting out accountability has begun.
Horowitz, my sources tell me, has interviewed between 50 and 100 witnesses in his exhaustive probe. Graham and his predecessor as Judiciary chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), laid out the most important investigative issues they saw in a letter last year. This month, former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) sent a letter to DOJ identifying eight potential criminal referrals. His committee last year also released a memo on abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that may have occurred during the Russia probe.
And President Trump reportedly is readying an order to declassify five key buckets of documents on alleged FBI abuses.
My sources agree these 10 questions are the most important to be answered in the forthcoming probes:
1.) When did the FBI first learn that Steele’s dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party and written by a partisan who, by his own admission, was desperate to defeat Trump? Documents and testimony I reviewed show senior DOJ official Bruce Ohr first told his colleagues about Steele’s bias and connections to Clinton in late summer 2016. Likewise, sources tell me a string of FBI emails — some before the bureau secured its first surveillance warrant — raised concerns about Steele’s motive, employer and credibility.
2.) How much evidence of innocence did the FBI possess against two of its early targets, Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page? My sources tell me that agents secured evidence of the innocence of both men from informants, intercepts and other techniques that was never disclosed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judges in the case. I’m told learning exactly the sort of surveillance used on Page also may surprise some people.
3.) Why was the Steele dossier used as primary evidence in the FISA warrant against Page when it had not been corroborated? FBI testimony I reviewed shows agents had just begun checking out the dossier when its elements were used as supporting evidence, and that spreadsheets kept by the bureau during the verification process validated only small pieces of the dossier while concluding other parts were false or unprovable. And, of course, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page admitted that, after nine months of investigation, the dossier’s core allegation of Trump-Russia collusion could not be substantiated.
4.) Why were Steele’s biases and his ties to the Clinton campaign — as well as evidence of innocence and flaws in the FISA evidence — never disclosed to the FISA court, as required by law and court practice?
5.) Why did FBI and U.S. intelligence officials leak stories about evidence in the emerging Russia probe before they corroborated collusion, and were any of those leaks designed to “create” evidence that could be cited in the courts of law and public opinion to justify the continuation of a flawed investigation?
6.) Did Comey improperly handle classified information when he distributed memos of his private conversations with Trump to his lawyers and a friend and ordered a leak that he hoped would cause the appointment of a special counsel after his firing as FBI director?
7.) Did the CIA, FBI or Obama White House engage in activities — such as the activation of intelligence sources or electronic surveillance — before the opening of an official counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016?
8.) Did U.S. intelligence, the FBI or the Obama administration use or encourage friendly spy agencies in Great Britain, Australia, Ukraine, Italy or elsewhere to gather evidence on the Trump campaign, leak evidence, or get around U.S. restrictions on spying on Americans?
9.) Did the CIA or Obama intelligence apparatus try to lure or pressure the FBI into opening a Trump collusion probe or acknowledge its existence before the election? Text messages between alleged FBI lovebirds Strzok and Page raised concerns about “pressure” from the White House, the “Agency BS game,” DOJ leaks and the need for an FBI “insurance policy.” And, as Strzok texted at one point in August 2016, quoting a colleague: “The White House is running this.”
10.) Did any FBI agents, intelligence officials or other key players in the probe provide false testimony to Congress? McCabe already has been singled out by the inspector general for lying about a media leak to an internal DOJ probe, and evidence emerged this year that calls into question Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson’s testimony about his contacts with Ohr.
If Barr, Horowitz and Graham can answer these questions and release the still-secret evidence underlying their conclusions, Americans finally will have the wherewithal to answer the most troubling of all the questions raised about the Russia collusion narrative:
Was this a case of bureaucratic bungling, or an intentional effort to use the U.S. intelligence community for a political dirty trick aimed at defeating Trump at the polls and, later, delegitimizing his election?
It’s a question we all should want to be answered.
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill.
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By JNS.org
The Trump administration held a closed-door meeting with more than 70 Jewish and pro-Israel leaders at the White House on Tuesday ahead of the highly-anticipated public release of the administration’s Mideast peace plan between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The meeting was “a feel-good thing” where the administration’s support for Israel was celebrated, an attendee told JNS.
U.S. Ambassador Ron Dermer said that he is not afraid of the peace proposal, saying that “we know we have a friend here” at the White House in U.S. President Donald Trump.
“I know a lot of people are concerned that the peace plan is going to be coming out soon,” said Dermer, reported Jewish Insider. “But I have to say, as Israel’s ambassador, I am confident that this administration — given its support for Israel — will take Israel’s vital concerns into account in any plan they will put forward.”
“I will never blame any American president or secretary of state or envoy for the failure to achieve peace — anyone who does that doesn’t understand why we don’t have peace. The Palestinians have to cross the Rubicon. It’s going to be up to them,” he added. “But what you can be is better or worse facilitators to get them to that point. And I could not think of better facilitators, with better relations both with Israel and the Arab world, to take advantage of this historic opportunity. I know that you all join me in wishing the best for the initiative that will come in the weeks and months ahead.”
The administration’s accomplishments have included recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017 and relocating the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv in May 2018, the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal as well as both reimposed and fresh sanctions against Tehran; and recognizing last month Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
In attendance from the administration were U.S. Special Envoy for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt, U.S. Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism Elan Carr and deputy assistant to the president Avi Berkowitz, according to two people who were in the room, who said Greenblatt and Berkowitz did not address the audience.
In addition to talking about the Trump administration’s fight against Jew hatred, Carr announced that he will travel to Eastern Europe and the United Kingdom after Passover. Anti-Semitism has been on the rise throughout Europe.
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The meeting did not consist of a question-and-answer session, according to an attendee, who mentioned that afterward there was a reception with kosher-for-Passover food.
The leaven-free holiday begins at sundown on Friday and ends at nightfall on April 27.
However, the meeting was criticized for not including major non-Orthodox Jewish groups, such as those representing Reform, Constructionist and the Conservative movements, although, a Washington, D.C. area Conservative rabbi was invited. Also not invited were the Anti-Defamation League and other liberal organizations such as J Street.
“Tonight, President Trump convened a narrow portion of the Jewish community viewed as his political allies at the White House,” the Jewish Democratic Council of America wrote on Facebook. “Since 79% of Jews supported Democrats in the last election, Trump has apparently closed the door to Jewish organizations, denominations and movements representing the overwhelming majority of the Jewish electorate.”
Ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, a coalition of 20 pro-Israel organizations sent a joint letter on Tuesday to Trump, asking him to let Israel decide on sovereignty.
This was in response to nine Jewish groups calling on the president on Friday to stop Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was re-elected to a record fifth term last week, from carrying out his campaign promise to annex parts of the West Bank.
In reiterating Netanyahu’s pledge, Tuesday’s letter to Trump stated, “Throughout your presidency, you have done everything possible to keep your own campaign promises — with the move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, pledged by every President since Bill Clinton, being a prime example.”
“It is unfair and unreasonable to hold these Jewish communities hostage to the continuing intransigence of the Palestinian Authority,” added the letter. “And it is outrageous to suggest setting policy to kowtow to the anti-Semitic, terrorist-financed effort to boycott the world’s only Jewish state.”
Signatories on the new letter included the Endowment for Middle East Truth, the Rabbinical Alliance of America, the Republican Jewish Coalition, the Zionist Organization of America and Turning Point USA.
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