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Shot by a friend and fellow memo reader. Wish I could have enlarged: The view is from directly south of Sedona airport looking north. The airport is in the lower right quadrant and down the slope from airport mesa is Oak Creek wending its way south to where it joins the Verde river.
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I like much of what Trump does but all too often, when he opens his mouth, he comes across like a horse's ass. It would be politically astute if he quit reminding voters he was once a brash New York Real Estate Developer, now that he is president. Also why drown out the stupidity of what the Democrats are saying? Trump slams Kentucky Derby result as 'political correctness' after disqualification
U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday blasted the result of the Kentucky Derby horse race, saying the controversial disqualification of first-finisher Maximum Security could only happen in "these days of political correctness."
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You always save the best for last. (See 1 below.)
And:
There once was a time that you were innocent until proven guilty and then along came Democrats and Mueller. They now have designed a "guilty suit" which you try on first.. (See 1 a below.)
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Other op eds:
Will the economy drive more Democrats into Trump's Arms? (See 2 below.)
Uhler & Ferrara, Washington Times
Matt Ford, The New Republic
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Is Comey an Hamlet soon to have an omelet all over his a face?
Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness
Are there ever an end to witch hunts or can harassment go on forever?
James Reston, New York Times
Is this racist or just in poor taste when responding to a Muslim anti-Semite?(See 3 and 3a below.)
Ilhan Omar Won't Be Quiet: 'Clearly, I Am A Nightmare' Maxwell Strachan, HuffPost
Dems Play the Anti-Semitism Projection Game Deroy Murdock, FOX News
Dick
1) When Will Trump Finally Drop the Hammer on the Deep State?
Now that the Mueller witch hunt has reached its final conclusion, are those of us who are fully awake finally going to witness some justice regarding the various deep state actors and their attempted coup d'état against President Trump? We currently hear the Huber and Horowitz reports are coming soon. Will these reports finally shine some much-needed light upon this huge scandal?
This country has been put through a holy hell the last two years, a hell based upon a promulgation of a myth by a leftist propagandist media.
“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - JFK
The current Pravda-like media enjoys the comfort of existing within their own leftist echo chamber. Creating and perpetuating false narratives have become the accepted method of all those who are involved in attempting to destroy this president and ultimately our nation. "Orange man bad."
Unfortunately, this has now become the repetitive mantra of those firmly entrenched within the warped mentality of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
It should be quite interesting to finally see how deep and wide this corruption seeped into our government. Every concerned citizen should demand to know if the leftist media and certain members within the higher echelons of our government were colluding with each other to take down President Trump. How many leaks were carried out in full coordination by those within the media and those within the various US intelligence agencies? A nefarious plot orchestrated by the various Washington DC swamp creatures, all those involved who seemed to have had a politically motivated agenda of preventing Trump from becoming president. And then after he was elected, they all continued to go out of their way to remove Trump from office, by any means necessary. This attempted coup appeared to be something so unimaginable, one might safely assume it could only be manufactured in some sort of a spy novel.
We as Americans need to fully comprehend the seriousness of this matter. If this DC cabal could do this to a duly elected president of the United States, what could they do to you or me? How dangerous can rogue actors within a corrupt government become when they have unfettered access to highly sophisticated surveillance tools? What happens when deceitful men in power weaponize these tools for political purposes? Do we all wish to exist in a society where unelected government bureaucrats and heavily biased leftist "journalists" take it upon themselves to have a desired effect upon a presidential election and overrun the will of the American people? Were these people so arrogant and brazen to surmise they knew better than the American people?
A recent poll, by CNN of all outlets, shows a huge majority of the American people are in favor of launching an investigation into this spying by the Obama administration. The current US attorney general Bill Barr agrees with the majority of Americans and he has launched an investigation with a wide scope. Some pretty revealing thoughts from Bill Barr:
- To the extent there was overreach, what we have to be concerned about is a few people at the top getting it into their heads that they know better than the American people," said Barr.
- We now know that he was being falsely accused," Barr said of Trump. "We have to stop using the criminal justice process as a political weapon.
This country needs to get to the bottom of how this nightmare all started. We have to find out who was responsible for putting these corrupt wheels of injustice into full motion. If it leads all the way to the top and Barack Obama, so be it. What did Obama know and when did President Obama know it? And if he did know, to what extent was he involved? All those who participated in this malfeasance must now be held fully accountable. If these deep state actors are found guilty, then all of these people must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
This is no game; President Trump has basically been robbed of the first two years of his presidency by the corrupt people in Washington and their leftist pawns in the media. This must not stand; these corrupt politicians must not be allowed to run out the clock. There are just too many people currently awake right now thirsting for the truth. We are all champing at the bit to finally see Trump declassify all the pertinent documents regarding this attempted coup. Could this necessary declassification be only weeks away?
The Summer of 2019 will soon become a defining moment within our lifetime; what will soon be revealed probably will shake the collective soul of this nation. Will we all finally see the truth regarding the attempted coup d'état against President Trump? Or, by contrast, will we continue to see more endless and unwarranted investigations by the Democrats and their propagandists within the leftist media?
The aftermath of the Summer of 2019 should tell us a great deal about what we have left in our souls as human beings and whether or not our nation still adheres to the rule of law. Hopefully, reality will finally TRUMP the last two years of leftist fairy tales.
President Trump must finally declassify all the pertinent documents regarding this attempted coup d'état against him. It is time to declassify and let justice roll.
1a) Mueller Rewrites Jurisprudence – Guilty Until Proven Innocent
American jurisprudence is based on the presumption of innocence -- in other words, innocent until proven guilty. The accused remains innocent unless and until the prosecution can convince a judge or jury that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Exoneration is not part of this equation for it represents the exact opposite principle, namely guilty until proven innocent. This is an impossible standard as it requires proving a negative. How does one prove that he or she didn’t commit a crime? How does one prove that Elvis or JFK aren’t still alive, conspiracy theories aside? Exoneration is an impossible standard and turns the American judicial system upside down.
This is just what Special Counsel Robert Mueller did in his final report on Russian collusion. The 400-page report could have been summarized in four words – no collusion, no obstruction.
White House Special Counsel to the President, Emmett Flood, laid it all out in a recent letter to Attorney General Barr. The purpose of the letter was a rebuttal, an on-the-record response to the Mueller report.
Flood began by saying that the Mueller report “Suffers from an extraordinary legal defect. It quite deliberately fails to comply with the requirements of governing law.” This is a roundabout way of saying the report is illegal.
Exoneration is not part of this equation for it represents the exact opposite principle, namely guilty until proven innocent. This is an impossible standard as it requires proving a negative. How does one prove that he or she didn’t commit a crime? How does one prove that Elvis or JFK aren’t still alive, conspiracy theories aside? Exoneration is an impossible standard and turns the American judicial system upside down.
This is just what Special Counsel Robert Mueller did in his final report on Russian collusion. The 400-page report could have been summarized in four words – no collusion, no obstruction.White House Special Counsel to the President, Emmett Flood, laid it all out in a recent letter to Attorney General Barr. The purpose of the letter was a rebuttal, an on-the-record response to the Mueller report.
Flood began by saying that the Mueller report “Suffers from an extraordinary legal defect. It quite deliberately fails to comply with the requirements of governing law.” This is a roundabout way of saying the report is illegal.
Flood went on in his four-page letter to the obstruction component, which as an aside was not the original intention of the special counsel. Remember Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein’s letter from May 2017 appointing a special counsel? In that letter, Rosenstein tasked Mueller with investigating, “Any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.”
That was the collusion component and definitively addressed in part one of Mueller’s report. Interestingly, as we are learning now, there was no basis to investigate Russian collusion in the first place. The premise of Trump campaign surrogates conspiring with Russians was all a set-up, based on “spies” inserted into the Trump campaign as begrudgingly reported recently by the NY Times.
Or as Byron York reported, “There are indications that special counsel prosecutors mostly knew by the end of 2017, and certainly by a few months later, that the evidence would not establish that conspiracy or coordination had taken place.”
This entire investigatory spectacle could have ended well over a year ago with a “no collusion” verdict, allowing the President to function without the cloud of Mueller and predicted indictments shadowing Trump’s every move and decision.
How might foreign leaders have been more amenable to working with the Trump administration knowing Trump wasn’t a Russian agent, as asserted repeatedly by high ranking Obama justice and intelligence officials claiming just that on cable news shows? Would the midterm elections have turned out differently? Would dozens of Republican members of Congress not have retired if they knew for certain that the leader of their party wasn’t a traitor, as they were hearing daily on the news?
Instead Mueller and his team pivoted to obstruction, and without Whitaker, then Barr, telling Mueller to wrap things up, the investigation would have dragged on for up to six more years, an albatross hanging around the neck of the Trump administration, in essence nullifying a presidential election.
This alone violated two constitutional amendments. The President lost his Fourth Amendment protections regarding “probable cause.” If the entire collusion premise was based on a phony unverified dossier and spies inserted into the Trump campaign to entrap George Papadopoulos, there was no “probable cause” to investigate collusion.
Then there is the Sixth Amendment, which provides a trial “without unnecessary delay,” not an endless one-sided investigation. There is also the “right to an impartial jury,” in this case the media acting as jury, reporting daily on the investigation, including material leaked to the media from investigators, with media coverage being 90-plus percent negative toward the President.
Finally, there is the presumption of innocence. As Emmett Flood explained,
What prosecutors are supposed to do is complete an investigation and then either ask the grand jury to return an indictment or decline to charge the case. When prosecutors decline to charge. they make that decision not because they have “conclusively determin[ed] that no criminal conduct occurred,” but rather because they do not believe that the investigated conduct constitutes a crime for which all the elements can be proven to the satisfaction of jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Prosecutors simply are not in the business of establishing innocence. any more than they are in the business of "exonerating" investigated persons. In the American justice system, innocence is presumed; there is never any need for prosecutors to “conclusively determine” it. Nor is there any place for such a determination. Our country would be a very different (and very dangerous) place if prosecutors applied the SCO standard and citizens were obliged to prove “conclusively . . . that no criminal conduct occurred.”
Boom! The entire second part of the Muller report has turned American jurisprudence upside down. Mueller’s job was to investigate and either find the evidence to bring obstruction charges against Trump or not. If no charges, then the accused is presumed innocent. Exoneration is not part of the equation.
Instead Mueller used, as Flood described as an “inverted-proof-standard” with so-called exoneration as a “political statement.” Meaning Mueller did not do his job. “The inverted burden of proof knowingly embedded in the conclusion shows that the Special Counsel and his staff failed in their duty to act as prosecutors and only as prosecutors.”
It’s now blatantly obvious that the purpose of the obstruction portion of the report was to provide a “roadmap to impeachment” for Congress. Mueller did an investigation using resources and powers that Nadler and Schiff don’t have within their committees. Basically, Mueller did their homework for them and handed them a completed assignment.
Impeachment is a political remedy and the obstruction case is all laid out for them should they choose to pursue it, which is a political decision for Democrats. Given the recent news of the blockbuster economy and Trump’s approval numbers, Democrats can cry obstruction all they want, but for impeachment they will be playing a pair of kings against Trump holding a straight flush.
Mueller’s legacy, besides coming up empty, is inverting the presumption of innocence. Aside from, as Flood described, “causing immense and continuing interference with the function of the Executive Branch”, this is setting a dangerous precedent.
Justice Kavanaugh was presumed guilty with demands that he prove his innocence. Nick Sandmann was also presumed guilty by partisan media outlets eager to push a particular narrative. Fortunately, justice prevailed. Kavanaugh is on the high court and several media organizations are facing nine-figure lawsuits over their deliberate deceptive reporting of Sandmann.
Trump too will have his day as Team Barr and declassifications open the curtain on this entire sordid mess. And if the wrong doers are not severely punished and publicly shamed, the big loser is American jurisprudence. The opposite of “innocent until proven guilty” is the KGB and the Stasi. Is that the kind of power we want our justice system wielding?
Image credit: Donkey Hotey (croppped)
Brian C Joondeph, MD, MPS, a Denver based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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2)
2)
$2 to hear Hillary and still a ripoff
When the news broke that Hillary Clinton's speaking tour was not drawing much of an audience, and ticket prices for her events had plunged to $2 for some seats, it might have been possible to pity her. After all, it used to be a big deal to get 'access' to her. To come to her fundraisers, to fill her audiences and board rooms. The same access today now costs less than the price of a Starbucks.
Until you find out just what that audience got for it whopping two dollars.
PJMedia has a report from Matt Margolis:
In the same week that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that Donald Trump might not accept the results of the 2020 election if he loses, Hillary Clinton told an audience at “An Evening With The Clintons” event in Los Angeles that the 2016 election was “stolen” from her.As both the 42nd president and the former secretary of state wrap up their North American speaking tour, they continue to address the circumstances surrounding Clinton's electoral defeat in 2016."You can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you," Clinton said, alluding to Russia's election interference efforts.
So Clinton is still regurgitating the tired old saw that Donald Trump conspired with the Russians to steal the election from Hillary Clinton and now she's there for you for the discount price of $2 to complain about it.
That's too much, actually.
Because a stance this Miss Havisham-y suggests that for Hillary, there's nothing new on offer. The Mueller report never happened. The fact that she didn't go to Wisconsin doesn't figure. And the perspective of time brings no wisdom - she's frozen in time like a bug in amber, repeating the same talking points from late 2016 ... and charging you to put a few nickels into her to say it.
It's a market indicator of sorts, showing just how far her stock has fallen, given the prices she used to charge for access back in the days when she had power. In those days, Hillary drew in millions in 'donations' from the world's princelings to her foundation in exchange for access to her. Her emails showed the direct connection - pay to play - and donations as large as $145 million surged in. When she lost power, her foundation's donations plummeted, too. Seems that being out of power hasn't been good for her bank book.
Which may be why there have been reports claiming that Clinton might still be in the running for president for 2020, regardless of her claims to be out. Those reports, if true, would make her speaking tour a collection of disguised campaign stops and a money indicator. But the fact that she can't even sell herself for $2, suggests that the gig is up, her marketing value has hit bottom, the $2 price is inflationary. People pay money, after all, for things of value.
And even $2 for this tripe is a ripoff.
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3) The Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamophobia trap
Claims that the Trump administration’s effort to designate the Brotherhood as a terrorist group is an expression of prejudice are dead wrong.
As far as administration critics are concerned, U.S. President Donald Trump is about to do it again.
His plans to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group has the foreign-policy establishment wringing their hands at what they consider a blunder that will undermine U.S. influence in the Middle East and throughout the Islamic world. Even worse, some other members of the anti-Trump resistance think that this is just one more example of the administration’s rampant Islamophobia that has made religious prejudice official government policy.
But this is actually another example of how Trump’s instinctive distrust of the so-called “experts” has allowed him to do what needs to be done. Like U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the administration’s insistence that the Palestinian Authority stop funding terrorism and the withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Trump’s move against the Brotherhood is long overdue.
Of course, it is tainted in some eyes by the fact that it comes right after a White House meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. The Egyptian leader led a coup that overthrew a Muslim Brotherhood government that had won an election the previous year. Since then, Sisi’s regime has cracked down on the Brotherhood and committed widespread human-rights violations in the process.
That has led figures like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) to demand the release of its leaders from Egyptian prisons and to call for normalizing relations with the group.
Some of the experts also think the Brotherhood is more of an Islamist political party than a terrorist group. They see it as a loose-knit association not unified in support of terror, and which can, in the right context, become a force for stability in some nations. Along with leftist figures like Omar, they also see the designation as a blunt instrument that seeks to brand a broad-based movement with millions of supporters as terrorists in a way that is inherently intolerant of Muslims.
However, the truth about the Brotherhood is that it is the granddaddy of all Islamist terror groups. Founded in 1928, it has always seen itself as being a social movement within the Muslim world, and when necessary, it presents itself as a political party. But at its core is an Islamist worldview that sees its purpose as an effort to reject liberal, democratic and more moderate strains of Islam, and to enforce a strict vision of the faith that is rooted in jihad and intolerance for modernity, seeking to impose Muslim religious law (Sharia) everywhere it can. While it sometimes eschews violence to advance its goals, its commitment to jihad has made it the main force behind the creation of terror groups like Hamas. It links Islamists throughout the world to practitioners of violence in a way that makes that a distinction without a difference.
While El-Sisi’s abysmal human-rights record makes him an unsavory character, events in Egypt during the last decade illustrate the true nature of the Brotherhood.
After President Barack Obama acquiesced to the deposition of longtime Egyptian authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak, the United States also gave its approval to elections that brought the Brotherhood to power in Egypt. Though it had represented itself to gullible foreign diplomats and the international press as representing moderate Islam, its rule provoked widespread opposition from Egyptians, who realized that the Brotherhood had no intention of ever allowing itself to be voted out and was on its way to establishing its totalitarian Islamist vision. When the military moved against it, tens of millions of Egyptians went into the streets to support the coup. While El-Sisi and his government are far from exemplary, it is a vast improvement on the Brotherhood, which has now resorted to terrorism.
The Brotherhood’s core beliefs have never been a secret. Its long-term goal is universal Sharia law and the overthrow of the West, as well as of Israel. It spawned groups like Hamas and influenced the creation of Al-Qaeda. More to the point, its chief ideologue, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, is an exiled Egyptian cleric who currently helps run the Qatar Foundation, which spreads Islamist teachings in support of terror around the globe. The Brotherhood is the glue that unites Sunni Muslim terror groups in terms of ideas and action.
While Hamas and like-minded groups are the tip of the spear, the effort to maintain a distinction between the terrorists and the rest of the Brotherhood remains entirely artificial. The Brotherhood’s social-action and political wings operate in such a manner as to support the same violent goals as the terrorists.
The Brotherhood has also sought to establish the same false distinctions in its operations in the United States. Brotherhood supporters set up the Holy Land Foundation to fundraise and organize for Hamas in the 1990s. Before the Treasury Department shut it down, that Foundation founded the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). That group today masquerades as a respectable civil-rights group dedicated to protecting Muslims. Trump’s designation of the Brotherhood will limit the ability of extremists to operate in the United States and elsewhere in the West.
Claims that this move is an expression of Islamophobia are not merely wrong; they are also a slander of law-abiding American Muslims. The extremists of CAIR and others with links to the Brotherhood have hijacked the leadership of American Muslim groups. While many millions across the Middle East do back the Brotherhood and its terrorist goals, the notion that an effort to limit the ability of radicals to operate freely harms all Muslims is false.
Trump’s designation of the Brotherhood is commonsense security policy that aims at protecting all Americans, no matter their faith or background. Efforts to cloak support for this Islamist group in the language of civil rights or of realpolitik don’t stand up to scrutiny. The president should follow through on his vow, both for the sake of American interests and security, as well as those who hope for a better future for a Muslim world freed from Islamist tyranny and terror.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS—Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
3a)
Omar, Tlaib Support Gaza Terrorists in Onslaught Against Israel
By Clarion Project
Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib both supported Hamas and the other Gaza terrorists in their onslaught against Israel.
The United States declared Hamas a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. In 2007, Hamas declared its intention to to destroy America and called on Allah to annihilate every American.
At press time, Palestinian terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jiahd have fired over 700 rockets into Israel in 48 hours, killing four and injuring at least 234, not including the trauma the rocket barrage the has brought upon the Israeli civilian population – including children.
In support of the Palestinain terrorists, Omar tweeted:
Cycle of violence? In the past year, Israel’s southern communities have endured a constant volley of incendiary devices – mainly balloons filled with explosives – from Gaza that have burned fields, greenhouses and homes, causing untold destruction.
Occupation and humanitarian crisis? Israel left Gaza in 2005, but has continued to supply goods, services and medical supplies to the people of the Gaza Strip who chose to be governed by Hamas in a democratic election. In the midst of this latest missile barrage, Israel still allowed a fuel shipment from Israel into Gaza “to avoid a humanitarian crisis.”
When Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, communities left their hothouses intact, representing what could have been a thriving business for the Palestinian people as it had been for the former Jewish farmers of the Strip. The hothouses were promptly burnt down by baying mobs along with the synagogues that were also left behind.
Massive economic assistance by world powers, which has poured into Gaza by the millions over the years, has been hijacked by Hamas for its terror operations.
In supporting the Palestinian terrorists, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, for her part, saw fit to criticize a factual headline by The New York Times, historically and currently one of the most anti-Israel and anti-Semiticnewspapers on record.
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