What Are Those Truthless Lefty Extremists Up To These Days?

Trump isn’t out there with a gun, but he’s enabled this war against black people

Cornel West at the Guardian:

White supremacy is as American as apple pie, as the latest killings in Buffalo show. Biden needs to take a stand against neofascists

Mourners at the scene of a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, 19 May 2022. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP

Sat 21 May 2022 03.00 EDT

Last weekend, just as I finished a live performance in California of Four Questions, the Grammy award-winning jazz collaboration for which I provided spoken words, word reached me about the racist killing of 10 people as they shopped in Buffalo, New York. I try never to be surprised by evil and never paralysed by despair. Instead, my immediate reaction was “here we go again”, with the horror, the suffering and then the now familiar routine of rhetorical gestures and superficial posturing.

On Tuesday, Joe Biden described white supremacy as a poison, and he is right, but – as ever – he fails to understand the gravity of his failure to make racial justice a priority; to see this cowardly white supremacy as a threat to American democracy.

The simple truth is that you cannot see this latest neofascist attack in isolation. Think of the attack on the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, when a white supremacist terrorist killed nine African Americans during their Bible study in 2015. Think of the attack on the American Asian community in Atlanta last year, when four people were murdered amid assertions from prosecutors that the attack was fuelled by race and gender hatred. Or the attack on Chicanos in El Paso, Texas, in 2019, when 22 people were killed in an allegedly hate-motived shooting; and the murder of 11 Jewish Americans at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh the same year by a man who said Jews “were committing a genocide to his people”.

Don’t believe those who say ending Roe v Wade willleave society largely intact | Laurence H Tribe

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.517.2_en.html#goog_541192138

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.517.2_en.html#goog_1148670382

https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.517.2_en.html#goog_111892294

White supremacy is as American as apple pie. It was constitutive of the founding of our nation, like a serpent wrapped around the legs of the table on which the Declaration of Independence and constitution were signed. What we saw in Buffalo at the weekend is another manifestation of it.

From what we know, the alleged shooter was a young and gullible man who got caught in the web of neofascist propaganda. But it is important to look beyond him – to look to those who have created this atmosphere of anger and hate.

After the death of George Floyd, there was a marvellous display of multiracial solidarity, not just here but around the world. But the US has been unable to fight against this neofascist challenge. The Trump forces have got stronger. They have become the public face of US neofascism, and their targets are black people and indigenous people and LGBTQ people.

Trump is not out there with a gun, but he is leading a campaign continuing what Malcolm X called a war against black and coloured people. He is doing it within the electoral political system. He is not killing folks. But he bears responsibility in terms of the context. Have no doubt, he is still the dominant figure.

The campaigning and reflection after the death of George Floyd should have made things better in the US. And, for a beautiful moment, it did. But that moment passed. The press is fickle, the pandemic started to kick in, and other issues such as Ukraine and inflation captured attention. Look at the polls and see how issues of race have fallen down the list of people’s priorities.

The impact of the George Floyd marches was blunted. Congress was unable to enact any meaningful legislation, including the George Floyd bill itself, which would have given us some mechanism with which to address police misconduct and brutality. The Democratic party was not even able to act decisively to uphold voting rights for black people. That is a colossal failure of the Biden administration, but then Biden bears a lot of responsibility when it comes to the position and arrogance of these white supremacists.

Last year Biden said America was not a racist country, and his vice-president, Kamala Harris, backed him on that. But these are lies, and those lies have their effect. If we operate on that level, how can we ever address the vicious legacy of racism and white supremacy?

To the president and Democrats in power, I say: “Shame on you, you dropped the ball.” They must be vigilant and stop acting as if these murders are something they can address in a couple of weeks and then move on. Race is the most explosive issue in the history of this country: from war to civic strife to Buffalo.

The president can’t stop a rightwing gangster killing black people, but he can send a message. He can say: I am being consistent because one of my major priorities is to ensure black people have their rights. If, after all the demonstrations and the campaigns, racists pick up the message that politicians don’t really care about black people, we end up exactly where we are today.

Neofascists and the far right have momentum with their narrative of the great replacement, but someone – and ideally it would be Biden – needs to explain to them what is really going on: that in some places there is replacement in the name of fairness. That sometimes they are seeing visible black folk where they did not previously see them. The racists need to know that they are living in a changing society and we are concerned about them being treated fairly, just as they should be concerned about others being treated fairly. There is a fascist story about replacement and a progressive story about replacement. The neoliberal story cannot counter the fascist story, and we on the left have been unable to get our story out.

So how should black America respond? Since the shootings, I have spoken to so many people and appeared on so many radio stations. People are devastated. The answer is to be a love warrior of the highest sort, a justice warrior, to never give in and never give up. The anger is there, and I don’t aim to calm it down, but I want to rechannel it. Our organisation must be perennial. But counter-terror in the face of terror and counter-violence in the face of violence are not the moral and spiritual options that we need.

It is for us to respond with the same grace and dignity as the people who were killed in that store last weekend: they were very dignified people. Think of Ruth Whitfield. She was 86, a strong member of her community, and had just been visiting her husband in his nursing home. We have to be continuous with the best of our history.

Above all, remember Mamie Till, the mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old black boy abducted and lynched by Mississippi racists in 1955. She said: “I don’t have a minute to hate, I’ll pursue justice for the rest of my life.”

• Cornel West is an American philosopher, author, critic, actor, civil rights activist and Dietrich Bonhoeffer professor of philosophy and Christian practice at Union Theological Seminary (NYC)

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com

You’ve read 7 articles in the last year

Article counton

… we have a small favour to ask. Tens of millions have placed their trust in the Guardian’s fearless journalism since we started publishing 200 years ago, turning to us in moments of crisis, uncertainty, solidarity and hope. More than 1.5 million supporters, from 180 countries, now power us financially – keeping us open to all, and fiercely independent.

Unlike many others, the Guardian has no shareholders and no billionaire owner. Just the determination and passion to deliver high-impact global reporting, always free from commercial or political influence. Reporting like this is vital for democracy, for fairness and to demand better from the powerful.

And we provide all this for free, for everyone to read. We do this because we believe in information equality. Greater numbers of people can keep track of the global events shaping our world, understand their impact on people and communities, and become inspired to take meaningful action. Millions can benefit from open access to quality, truthful news, regardless of their ability to pay for it.

If there were ever a time to join us, it is now. Every contribution, however big or small, powers our journalism and sustains our future.

Remembering That Woman Better!

Bulwark: That Alfa Bank story is a still a bit of a mystery

JOHN SEXTON May 23, 2022 3:27 PM ET

 Share  Tweet  

Democratic National Convention via AP

The Alfa Bank story pushed by the Clinton campaign was always nonsense. It was so clear it was nonsense that two days after Slate published it they published a follow-up noting that there were a lot of problems with the story.

In a detailed post critiquing my piece, cybersecurity expert Rob Graham wrote, “The evidence available on the Internet is that Trump neither (directly) controls the domain trump-email.com, nor has access to the server.” This echoes the point raised by Vox, the Intercept, and others that the server was not operated by the Trump Organization directly. Rather, it was run and managed by Cendyn, a vendor that organizes email marketing campaigns for hotels and resorts. This suggests that most of the emails that emanated from this address were mass emails, related to loyalty programs, discount offers, and the like. At first, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks told me the server “has not been used since 2010.” She continued, “To be clear, The Trump Organization is not sending or receiving any communications from this email server.” The Intercept has since turned up at least two examples of a Trump email, promoting hotels, being sent from that server in 2015 and 2016.

Philip Bump, to his credit, wrote a story for the Washington Post about the Alfa Bank story the day after it appeared. He compared it to a conspiracy theory.

For all of Foer’s exegesis of the situation — culminating, he admits, with a lack of certainty about what it all means — it seems likely that the simplest answer isn’t that someone affiliated with Trump or his campaign set up a backchannel method for contacting someone at Alfa Bank in Russia. It seems more likely that the human tendency for pattern-seeking is extracting a conspiracy theory from the automated clunkiness of the way the Internet works…

On Monday, the paper reported that the FBI had looked into and dismissed the idea that the two servers represented a secret communications channel. Investigators “concluded that there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for the computer contacts,” the Times’ Eric Lichtblau and Steven Lee Myers reported.

As mentioned, it wasn’t just media outlets on the left and right criticizing this at the time. The FBI decided fairly quickly that there was nothing to it. And after Sussmann shared a version of the material with the CIA, they also decided it was nothing.

And yet, 5 1/2 years later, the Bulwark’s Tim Miller is still arguing that maybe there is some truth to idea that this computer promoting Trump’s hotels was secretly communicating with a Russian bank.

Whether there was anything nefarious going on between Alfa and Trump remains a bit of a mystery. The FBI eventually closed the book on this lead—more on this a moment—resulting in a presumption that any suggestion of impropriety was false. But a satisfactory explanation for the DNS pings has never really been provided.

If Miller really believes this then he’s one of the few who still does. But his real goal here is to defend Hillary Clinton from allegations that she approved a “hoax” story. Because, hey, if the story might still be true then she definitely didn’t promote a self-serving hoax.

The part of Sussmann’s trial that has the Trump crowd rubbing their nipples is testimony from Clinton 2016 campaign manager Robby Mook in which he revealed that the candidate was briefed on the potentially dubious Alfa Bank accusations and was fine with the campaign’s decision to share the information with reporters. (Point of fact: Many in the Trump orbit have stated that Clinton approved the Alfa Bank oppo’s dissemination, but Mook testified that he told her only after the campaign had shared it with a reporter.)

Adam Goldman, who was covering the Sussmann trial for the NY Times, reported Mook’s admissions about Hillary Clinton this way.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NlbnNpdGl2ZV9tZWRpYV9pbnRlcnN0aXRpYWxfMTM5NjMiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiaW50ZXJzdGl0aWFsIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd190d2VldF9yZXN1bHRfbWlncmF0aW9uXzEzOTc5Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InR3ZWV0X3Jlc3VsdCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1527673873092730880&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fhotair.com%2Fjohn-s-2%2F2022%2F05%2F23%2Fbulwark-that-alfa-bank-story-is-a-still-a-bit-of-a-mystery-n471357&sessionId=12bf86940a4a42d171f2be8810886ae09ad48a58&siteScreenName=hotairblog&theme=light&widgetsVersion=c8fe9736dd6fb%3A1649830956492&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-1&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NlbnNpdGl2ZV9tZWRpYV9pbnRlcnN0aXRpYWxfMTM5NjMiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiaW50ZXJzdGl0aWFsIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd190d2VldF9yZXN1bHRfbWlncmF0aW9uXzEzOTc5Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InR3ZWV0X3Jlc3VsdCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1527674288324616195&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fhotair.com%2Fjohn-s-2%2F2022%2F05%2F23%2Fbulwark-that-alfa-bank-story-is-a-still-a-bit-of-a-mystery-n471357&sessionId=12bf86940a4a42d171f2be8810886ae09ad48a58&siteScreenName=hotairblog&theme=light&widgetsVersion=c8fe9736dd6fb%3A1649830956492&width=550px

I’ve looked at a few stories about this testimony and it’s not exactly clear what the timeline was. The Alfa Bank data was initially given to Eric Lichtblau at the NY Times sometime in August or September. But when Lichtblau was asked to sit on it by the FBI, the campaign pushed it out again to Franklin Foer at Slate. CNN reports Hillary’s approval came in between the two efforts to get the story published:

Robby Mook said he attended a meeting with other senior campaign officials where they learned about strange cyberactivity that suggested a relationship between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which is based in Moscow. The group decided to share the information with a reporter, and Mook subsequently ran that decision by Clinton herself.

“We discussed it with Hillary,” Mook said, later adding that “she agreed with the decision.”

A campaign staffer later passed the information to a reporter from Slate magazine, which the campaign hoped the reporter would “vet it out, and write what they believe is true,” Mook said.

In other words, if CNN’s account is accurate, Hillary approved her campaign giving the story to the media before the campaign gave it to Slate. Her campaign then reacted to the resulting story and she tweeted about it from her account, promoting the idea that it was possible evidence of Trump’s ties to Russia.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-2&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NlbnNpdGl2ZV9tZWRpYV9pbnRlcnN0aXRpYWxfMTM5NjMiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiaW50ZXJzdGl0aWFsIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd190d2VldF9yZXN1bHRfbWlncmF0aW9uXzEzOTc5Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InR3ZWV0X3Jlc3VsdCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=793234169576947712&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fhotair.com%2Fjohn-s-2%2F2022%2F05%2F23%2Fbulwark-that-alfa-bank-story-is-a-still-a-bit-of-a-mystery-n471357&sessionId=12bf86940a4a42d171f2be8810886ae09ad48a58&siteScreenName=hotairblog&theme=light&widgetsVersion=c8fe9736dd6fb%3A1649830956492&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-3&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NlbnNpdGl2ZV9tZWRpYV9pbnRlcnN0aXRpYWxfMTM5NjMiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiaW50ZXJzdGl0aWFsIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd190d2VldF9yZXN1bHRfbWlncmF0aW9uXzEzOTc5Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InR3ZWV0X3Jlc3VsdCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=793250312119263233&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fhotair.com%2Fjohn-s-2%2F2022%2F05%2F23%2Fbulwark-that-alfa-bank-story-is-a-still-a-bit-of-a-mystery-n471357&sessionId=12bf86940a4a42d171f2be8810886ae09ad48a58&siteScreenName=hotairblog&theme=light&widgetsVersion=c8fe9736dd6fb%3A1649830956492&width=550px

And yet, here’s Tim Miller’s take:

Mook’s admission didn’t come close to proving any scheme orchestrated by Hillary. The only new information he provided is that the candidate said she was okay with her campaign having shared research with reporters about potential ties between Trump and Russia amid an unprecedented cyberattack on her which had been perpetrated by Russia and, at minimum, weaponized by her opponent…

In short: The MAGA crowd’s big gotcha is that Hillary was okay with her campaign sharing rumors of questionable veracity about her political opponent with reporters and then tweeting the published information.

If there’s a big gotcha here it’s that Hillary approved passing “rumors” to reporters which were being spread by people paid by her campaign. In other words, the problem wasn’t that there were rumors. The problem was that her own people were the ones spreading those rumors which the FBI and the CIA quickly determined were just junk and yet she reacted to the story as if it had nothing to do with her. To me it was a pretty obvious attempt to gin up an October surprise, but I guess some people would rather keep believing it might be true.

Invading Our America!

May 23, 2022

Want to Visit America? Forget Getting a Visa. Just Walk Across the Border.

By Brian C. Joondeph at American Thinker:

The United States is one of the most popular tourist destinations worldwide. In 2019, only Spain and France had more visiting tourists, likely due to the rich history, architecture, cuisine, and culture that these European countries provide.

The U.S. offers iconic cities such as New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco, as well as abundant national parks, and entertainment meccas like Las Vegas and Nashville. The visitors they draw bring a huge bump to the U.S. economy.

According to Statista:

In 2019, the number of international tourist arrivals to the U.S. stood at almost 80 million after being on the rise for over a decade. Thanks to this influx of visitors and a boost in U.S. travel spending, the travel and tourism industry contributed over 1.1 trillion U.S. dollars to the country’s GDP and supported millions of jobs in 2019.

COVID, of course, put a temporary halt to tourism worldwide, with many countries closed to visitors during much of the pandemic. Those that remained open had ever-changing rules and requirements, not only to enter these countries but other rules for those attempting to return to their home countries.

Tourist visas are technically called B1 or B2 visas and are used for non-U.S. residents desiring to travel to the U.S. to conduct business, attend a professional conference, visit family, or simply take a vacation. Residents of 39 specific countries are eligible for a visa waiver, allowing a 90-day stay in the U.S. for business or tourism without having to apply for a visa.

These countries are mainly first-world countries as in most of Europe and a few in Asia and Oceania. Notably absent are countries in the Middle East, Africa, or South America. One might consider this racist or xenophobic but there are also practical concerns over potential terrorism or visitors wanting to travel to the U.S. and never return to their home countries.

Interestingly there are no such concerns over those entering the U.S. through our porous southern border.

Missing from the visa waiver program are the 155 remaining countries where most residents want to simply visit family, take in the Grand Canyon, or enjoy a few shows in Vegas. How can they get to the U.S.?

An interview at a U.S. embassy or consulate is required to obtain a travel visa. This should be easy and straightforward, but it is anything but, a nightmare for those applying for a visa. The average wait time for an appointment is 344 days, almost a year. And that’s only the average.

If a Nigerian woman wants to visit her boyfriend in Atlanta, or Denver, for example, she will have to wait 760 days just for an embassy appointment. A family from Colombia hoping to visit Disney World will wait 696 days for their visa appointment. A physician in Mexico wanting to attend an American medical conference won’t get an appointment for 570 days, long after the medical meeting is over.

Yet the irony is that if that same physician, family, or woman made their way to the U.S. southern border, they could sashay across, and if even apprehended crossing, they could claim persecution, ask for asylum, and be granted entry into the U.S. They would also receive a welcome basket of goodies including food stamps, Medicaid health insurance, Social Security income, and other forms of assistance, including free education for their children.

A real-life example of how these delays affect visitors is a semi-retired Australian international businessman invited to a friend’s wedding in Seattle with 160 days advanced notice.

He was told he would have to wait anywhere from 216 to 300 days for a visa interview, meaning, he could not attend his friend’s wedding despite having spent a decade traveling around the world, including the U.S., on business.

Why is there such a long wait for a visa interview appointment? Of course, COVID is blamed, staffing issues, lockdowns, and so on, despite COVID mostly being over. Will monkeypox be the next excuse? Why is the U.S. having such problems? What about someone from the U.S. wanting to travel to Australia?

An Australian visa can be obtained online. Per their visa website, “It is not necessary to make an appointment with an Australian embassy/consulate.”

Why can’t the U.S. follow a similar process? Or hold interviews virtually via Zoom or another similar platform, clearing the backlog, allowing foreigners to travel to America to visit, celebrate, holiday, and spend their money on American goods and services?

Is the U.S. economy doing so well that American businesses are turning away customers? “American consumers are already cutting back on spending”, according to a new CNBC survey. So why are we making it so difficult for foreigners to visit America and spend their money here?

Illegal immigration costs U.S. taxpayers over $100 billion a year, yet tourism nets the U.S. more than $1 trillion a year, a ten-fold plus to the U.S. economy. Why are we making it so difficult to visit and stimulate our economy?

We have foreigners from who-knows-where streaming across our southern border. NBC News reports, “More than 234,000 migrants tried to cross southern U.S. border in April, a new high.” That’s only those who were apprehended and counted. How many more crossed undetected? Twice as many? Three times as many?

Currently, 450,000 individuals are waiting, some for years, for a visa interview to travel legally to the U.S. That’s the equivalent of two months of illegal border crossers. Only 28,000 of those waiting for their interview will have an interview in May 2022, a tenth of those attempting to cross illegally. Is anything wrong with this scenario?

For an interview lasting 3 to 5 minutes, an embassy could perform 10 interviews per hour, 80 per day, 400 per week. More than 100 embassies, or 40,000 interviews, could be conducted each week, clearing and eliminating any backlog. The U.S. actually has more than 250 embassies and consulates around the world.

Individuals from foreign countries, seeking to visit the U.S. legally, playing by the rules, and spending their own money while in the U.S. are told to wait in a multi-year line. At the same time, those entering the country illegally, not playing by the rules, not stimulating the U.S. economy, are enjoying the largess of U.S. taxpayers, and are shuttled to the front of the line.

Is this incompetence? Or a planned and coordinated Cloward-Piven strategy to undermine and eventually destroy America? Draw your own conclusions.

Brian C. Joondeph, M.D., is a physician and writer. Follow me on Twitter @retinaldoctor. And on Truth Social @BrianJoondeph.

Shame….For the War Beginning…or the War Losing?

“Never have I been so ashamed”: Russian diplomat resigns in protest over Ukraine war

ALLAHPUNDIT May 23, 2022

An act of moral courage deserves acclaim even when it’s unlikely to alter the course of the war.

Boris Bondarev is a mid-level Russian liaison at the UN’s mission in Geneva, Switzerland. His crisis of conscience isn’t as newsworthy as, say, Sergei Lavrov’s would be (in reality, Lavrov has no conscience) but it’s a shot in the arm for the Ukrainians ahead of a hard summer of war at a moment when the west’s commitment is beginning to sag. If Russian officials are tiring of the war, that’s a strong argument to Ukraine’s sponsors not to give up yet.

And some Russians clearly are tiring of it:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NlbnNpdGl2ZV9tZWRpYV9pbnRlcnN0aXRpYWxfMTM5NjMiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiaW50ZXJzdGl0aWFsIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd190d2VldF9yZXN1bHRfbWlncmF0aW9uXzEzOTc5Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InR3ZWV0X3Jlc3VsdCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1528745418699313153&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fhotair.com%2Fallahpundit%2F2022%2F05%2F23%2Fnever-have-i-been-so-ashamed-russian-diplomat-resigns-in-protest-over-ukraine-war-n471312&sessionId=9d7067ab8f3ddef5f3ac8d46238d78f60f6c9099&siteScreenName=hotairblog&theme=light&widgetsVersion=c8fe9736dd6fb%3A1649830956492&width=550px

Hillel Neuer of UN Watch got a copy of Bondarev’s farewell statement. It’s a banger. And Lavrov’s name is mentioned.

“Bondarev should be invited to speak in Davos this week,” Neuer said afterward. That’s a fine idea. Zelensky addressed the World Economic Forum being held there this morning, pleading with the west’s movers and shakers for more aid and tighter sanctions on Russia. Having Russia’s newest dissident follow suit would turn up the moral pressure further.

He’s not the first Russian diplomat to quit in protest over the war, you may remember. Putin’s climate envoy, Anatoly Chubais, resigned and bugged out of the country in March. But Chubais said nothing when he departed, possibly hoping that keeping a low profile would ease Putin’s desire for revenge. Bondarev’s cri de coeur is designed to embarrass the Kremlin, by contrast, so now he has to watch his back. “Am I concerned about the possible reaction from Moscow? I have to be concerned about it,” he told the AP, adding that he’s not the only Russian official with misgivings. “Not all Russian diplomats are warmongering. They are reasonable, but they have to keep their mouths shut.”

Maybe Putin will let him slide, as he has more important things to worry about nowadays. And I don’t mean the war.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-1&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NlbnNpdGl2ZV9tZWRpYV9pbnRlcnN0aXRpYWxfMTM5NjMiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiaW50ZXJzdGl0aWFsIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd190d2VldF9yZXN1bHRfbWlncmF0aW9uXzEzOTc5Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InR3ZWV0X3Jlc3VsdCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1528741431539650572&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fhotair.com%2Fallahpundit%2F2022%2F05%2F23%2Fnever-have-i-been-so-ashamed-russian-diplomat-resigns-in-protest-over-ukraine-war-n471312&sessionId=9d7067ab8f3ddef5f3ac8d46238d78f60f6c9099&siteScreenName=hotairblog&theme=light&widgetsVersion=c8fe9736dd6fb%3A1649830956492&width=550px

Ironically, Bondarev is leaving at the very moment Russia has finally begun to see some modest success on the battlefield. I wrote last week about their “breakthrough” in the village of Popasna, which has given them an opportunity to seal off the Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk. Ukraine has had control of Sievierodonetsk since 2014 despite gains by Russian separatists in other parts of the Donbas but the city is now at risk of falling. And even if it doesn’t fall, the Russian army’s proximity means that all that’ll be left of it when the battle is over is a pile of rubble. It’s Mariupol 2.0:

Because Russia lacks officers capable of leading effective offensives against Ukraine, they are trying to get such a victory in Severodonetsk by overwhelming the Ukrainians with firepower. Schmidt said the Russians are “bludgeoning their way through” in a way that could have dire consequences for civilians, as in Mariupol.

“They’re just pounding Ukrainians with artillery,” Schmidt said.

“Every day they are trying to break the line of defense,” Haidai said in a Ukrainian media interview that he posted to his Telegram channel Sunday. “Round-the-clock there is shelling, and unfortunately the Russian army chose the scorched earth tactic against the city of Severodonetsk: They are simply systematically destroying the city. Everywhere is being shelled constantly.”

One of Michael Weiss’s intelligence sources in eastern Europe believes the battle could have upsides for the Ukrainians. Their strategy for the next several months is simply to wear down Russia’s forces in the east ahead of an offensive this fall. They know that Putin is having trouble finding the manpower he needs to advance so they’re quite logically focused on exacerbating that problem. If the Russians are prepared to funnel troops into the effort to take Sievierodonetsk, the Ukrainians will be happy to turn them into targets:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-2&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NlbnNpdGl2ZV9tZWRpYV9pbnRlcnN0aXRpYWxfMTM5NjMiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiaW50ZXJzdGl0aWFsIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd190d2VldF9yZXN1bHRfbWlncmF0aW9uXzEzOTc5Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InR3ZWV0X3Jlc3VsdCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1528757165321756673&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fhotair.com%2Fallahpundit%2F2022%2F05%2F23%2Fnever-have-i-been-so-ashamed-russian-diplomat-resigns-in-protest-over-ukraine-war-n471312&sessionId=9d7067ab8f3ddef5f3ac8d46238d78f60f6c9099&siteScreenName=hotairblog&theme=light&widgetsVersion=c8fe9736dd6fb%3A1649830956492&width=550px

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-3&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NlbnNpdGl2ZV9tZWRpYV9pbnRlcnN0aXRpYWxfMTM5NjMiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiaW50ZXJzdGl0aWFsIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd190d2VldF9yZXN1bHRfbWlncmF0aW9uXzEzOTc5Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InR3ZWV0X3Jlc3VsdCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1528757167330889728&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fhotair.com%2Fallahpundit%2F2022%2F05%2F23%2Fnever-have-i-been-so-ashamed-russian-diplomat-resigns-in-protest-over-ukraine-war-n471312&sessionId=9d7067ab8f3ddef5f3ac8d46238d78f60f6c9099&siteScreenName=hotairblog&theme=light&widgetsVersion=c8fe9736dd6fb%3A1649830956492&width=550px

The ferocity of the fight around Sievierodonetsk might lead you to assume that battles are raging all across the eastern front. Not so, writes Phillips O’Brien. If anything, the war has grown a bit calmer in the rest of the Donbas as the Ukrainians sit back and prepare for several months of artillery warfare. The key questions about the battle of Sievierodonetsk are (1) how much will it cost each side to assert themselves there, and (2) if the Russians succeed in taking the city, will Putin seize upon it as an off-ramp and offer a peace deal? I assume he’s eager to put Zelensky in the position of having to choose whether to continue the war or not, as divisions in the west on that topic might fracture the coalition supporting Ukraine.

I’ll leave you with Eva Braun here warning the world that if Russia doesn’t “win” in Ukraine then bad things are in store for the human race.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-4&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NlbnNpdGl2ZV9tZWRpYV9pbnRlcnN0aXRpYWxfMTM5NjMiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiaW50ZXJzdGl0aWFsIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd190d2VldF9yZXN1bHRfbWlncmF0aW9uXzEzOTc5Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InR3ZWV0X3Jlc3VsdCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1528745905381380096&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fhotair.com%2Fallahpundit%2F2022%2F05%2F23%2Fnever-have-i-been-so-ashamed-russian-diplomat-resigns-in-protest-over-ukraine-war-n471312&sessionId=9d7067ab8f3ddef5f3ac8d46238d78f60f6c9099&siteScreenName=hotairblog&theme=light&widgetsVersion=c8fe9736dd6fb%3A1649830956492&width=550px

The Wish of the Day FOR AMERICANS WHO LOVE TRUTH AND KNOW NEIGHBORS!

I received the above pictorial note from old friend, fellow high school teacher, Mark Waldeland in Minneapolis. Mark taught English. Glenn taught Russian and MODERN PROBLEMS!!

I used to vote Democrat when I wanted to please my Southern family wife. I even worked for candidates competing for our America’s Presidency.

President John F. Kennedy was one of my favorite American Presidents……’

Yet, my American favorites however, are Ronald Reagan and Donald J. Trump!!!

(MAY GOD BLESS AMERICA!)

GHR

WHAT HILLARY, AMERICA’S WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST, HAS STARRED AT!

MAY 23, 2022 BY SCOTT JOHNSON IN 2016 ELECTION, DONALD TRUMP, FBI, FISAGATE, MEDIA, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

CLINTON DID IT, WSJ EDITION

I took the occasion of the testimony in the Sussman trial last week to weigh “Watergate in the balance.” John reviewed what we already knew in “Hillary did it.” On Saturday, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal — I think this is Kim Strassel’s beat as a member of the board — plays it straight in the editorial “Hillary Clinton did it.”

The Journal editorial lays out the template of the Russia hoax, minus the active participation of the FBI in pursuing the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, promoting the Steele Dossier in the FISA court and the Comey briefing of Trump as well as the conditions that led to the crippling Mueller investigation. We should probably add the setup of Michael Flynn, the incredibly fruitful “collusion” of the FBI and congressional Democrats with the prestige press, and a few other items, but here are the basics of the Russia hoax in its Alfa Bank iteration:

The Russia-Trump collusion narrative of 2016 and beyond was a dirty trick for the ages, and now we know it came from the top—candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. That was the testimony Friday by 2016 Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook in federal court, and while this news is hardly a surprise, it’s still bracing to find her fingerprints on the political weapon.

Mr. Mook testified as a witness in special counsel John Durham’s trial of Michael Sussmann, the lawyer accused of lying to the FBI. In September 2016, Mr. Sussmann took claims of a secret Trump connection to Russia’s Alfa Bank to the FBI and said he wasn’t acting on behalf of any client. Prosecutors say he was working for the Clinton campaign.

Prosecutors presented evidence this week that Mr. Sussmann worked with cyber-researchers and opposition-research firm Fusion GPS to produce the claims on behalf of the Clinton campaign, and to feed them to the FBI. An FBI agent testified that a bureau analysis quickly rejected the claims as implausible. (Mr. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty.)

Prosecutors asked Mr. Mook about his role in funneling the Alfa Bank claims to the press. Mr. Mook admitted the campaign lacked expertise to vet the data, yet the decision was made by Mr. Mook, policy adviser Jake Sullivan (now President Biden’s national security adviser), communications director Jennifer Palmieri and campaign chairman John Podesta to give the Alfa Bank claims to a reporter. Mr. Mook said Mrs. Clinton was asked about the plan and approved it. A story on the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations then appeared in Slate, a left-leaning online publication.

On Oct. 31, 2016, Mr. Sullivan issued a statement mentioning the Slate story, writing, “This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow.” Mrs. Clinton tweeted Mr. Sullivan’s statement with the comment: “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.” “Apparently” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

In short, the Clinton campaign created the Trump-Alfa allegation, fed it to a credulous press that failed to confirm the allegations but ran with them anyway, then promoted the story as if it was legitimate news. The campaign also delivered the claims to the FBI, giving journalists another excuse to portray the accusations as serious and perhaps true.

Most of the press will ignore this news, but the Russia-Trump narrative that Mrs. Clinton sanctioned did enormous harm to the country. It disgraced the FBI, humiliated the press, and sent the country on a three-year investigation to nowhere. Vladimir Putin never came close to doing as much disinformation damage.

I would like to enlarge the context for assessing what we have learned to date. Putin “never came close to doing as much disinformation damage” and, I would add, Nixon never came close to doing as much harm to the objects of his criminal misconduct. However, Hillary Clinton will never face the consequences. That much I can tell you.

The Journal editorial observes that “most of the press will ignore the news” introduced at trial last week. Why might that be? Well, of course, the New York Times and Washington Post brought home the Pulitzer Prizes for their hard work promoting the hoax (“For a distinguished example of reporting on national affairs, using any available journalistic tool”). The Pulitzer board specified the nature of the work for which it awarded the 2018 prize for national reporting to the staffs of the two papers:

For deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration. (The New York Times entry, submitted in this category, was moved into contention by the Board and then jointly awarded the Prize.)

“Relentless” is right, if not exactly as stated. You can see why papers might not want to look back in much detail and reassess their performance. They disgraced themselves. They might have to acknowledge that, all in all, they badly misled the country they purported to inform, fomented hysteria like Salemites of old, and themselves have much for which to apologize. Of course, that will never happen either.

WAS Hillary Clinton THE CAUSE OF TODAY’S CORRUPT, VULGAR, ANTI-AMERICAN DEMS?

May 22, 2022

CNN’s Eye is on the Sparrow

By Clarice Feldman at American Thinker:

Jack Sparrow, that is, the movie pirate played by Johnny Depp, whose defamation suit against his ex-wife Amber Heard is full of the kind of meaningless salacious nonsense CNN’s declining viewership is capable of focusing on. For grownups, another trial in nearby Washington, D.C. is of far greater import, the trial of Michael Sussmann, but as Professor Charles Lipson notes on Facebook:

I scanned through 2 hours of CNN coverage. No mention of the Sussmann trial at all (as usual) and no mention of Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook’s unexpected revelation that Hillary herself approved spreading the false Alfa bank story….  If CNN covered the revelation on other shows, please let me know. Otherwise, it looks like they are news undertakers, not reporters.

For those whose local press is as focused on nonsense as CNN, let me recap the significance of this week’s proceedings instituted by special counsel John Durham after a lengthy investigation into the origins of the Russian hoax, which was generated and promoted by Hillary Clinton to advance her election and which, after she lost, served to tie up President Trump and his administration with investigations and impeachments. The indictment was a detailed 26-page outline indictment of the case which is now ongoing. It is precise and limited — Sussman is accused of lying to the FBI’s General Counsel in September 2016 when he asserted that he was not representing a client at the time he claimed that Russia’s Alfa Bank was a direct conduit between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. 

Hot Air summarizes the week’s revelations — “revelations” may not be the word exactly, as there was plenty of evidence already that this is what occurred, but this week, it was nailed down in documentary and sworn testimonial evidence:

Prosecutors asked Mr. Mook about his role in funneling the Alfa Bank claims to the press. Mr. Mook admitted the campaign lacked expertise to vet the data, yet the decision was made by Mr. Mook, policy adviser Jake Sullivan (now President Biden’s national security adviser), communications director Jennifer Palmieri and campaign chairman John Podesta to give the Alfa Bank claims to a reporter. Mr. Mook said Mrs. Clinton was asked about the plan and approved it. A story on the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations then appeared in Slate, a left-leaning online publication.

On Oct. 31, 2016, Mr. Sullivan issued a statement mentioning the Slate story, writing, “This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow.” Mrs. Clinton tweeted Mr. Sullivan’s statement with the comment: “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.” “Apparently” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

In short, the Clinton campaign created the Trump-Alfa allegation, fed it to a credulous press that failed to confirm the allegations but ran with them anyway, then promoted the story as if it was legitimate news. The campaign also delivered the claims to the FBI, giving journalists another excuse to portray the accusations as serious and perhaps true.

Marc Elias, another Democrat election lawyer who was then general counsel for the Clinton campaign, admitted that the Russian hoax was a Clinton operation — orchestrated from the top and without any factual basis.

James Baker, at the time the FBI’s general counsel, testified that he trusted Sussmann’s statement that he was not there on behalf of a client because of

Sussman’s background and their own friendship.  He added that had he known Clinton was behind the Sussmann visit he’d have made a different assessment of the credibility of the claim and “he would have rethought his dealings with the news media,” that he was ”aware of and wary of’ the fact that the existence of an F.B.I. investigation could be used by reporters as a way to report  on something that is ‘flawed or incomplete.’

Well, that is exactly what happened, by Clinton design.

The Hill has the most detailed description of how the Clinton team lied about the false allegations and their role in generating and promoting it. Here’s a sample of the “bag of tricks”:

The Clinton team denied involvement in the creation of the Steele dossier throughout the 2016 campaign despite direct media inquiries. It was only after the election that mysterious expenses for its legal counsel led reporters to discover the truth. The payments for the dossier were masked as “legal fees” among the $5.6 million paid to the law firm. According to New York Times reporter Ken Vogel, Elias categorically denied involvement in the anti-Trump dossier; when Vogel tried to report the story, he said Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman later wrote that “folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”

According to the indictment, Sussman told the truth — and contradicted what he’d originally told the FBI general counsel — when interviewed under oath in December 2017 before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, telling them he did not hold the meeting of his own volition but at the request of a client.

Notably, another Clinton figure pushing the Alpha Bank conspiracy was Jake Sullivan, who now weighs intelligence reports for President Biden as his national security adviser. Sullivan, a senior policy adviser to Clinton, declared in an official campaign press statement that the Alfa Bank allegation “could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow” and portrayed it as the work of independent experts: “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank. This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia. … This line of communication may help explain Trump’s bizarre adoration of Vladimir Putin.”

So the “very useful narrative” was delivered to the media and the FBI and, along with the dossier, was used to launch the Russia investigation, which led to the appointment of former special counsel Robert Mueller. The “bag of tricks” was supposed to be buried with the involvement of the Clinton campaign — until Trump Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham as a second special counsel.

This Clinton game was not without national consequences:

Most of the press will ignore this news, but the Russia-Trump narrative that Mrs. Clinton sanctioned did enormous harm to the country. It disgraced the FBI, humiliated the press, and sent the country on a three-year investigation to nowhere. Vladimir Putin never came close to doing as much disinformation damage.

Where do we go from here?  Once again, Democrat wrongdoing is being tried before partisan judges and juries in the capital. Professor Jonathan Turley, in a series of tweets, points out that Sussman’s trial is “in stark contrast” to the trial of General Flynn in D.C. Among other things, the Flynn judge refused to immediately close the case even after the prosecution moved to drop it.  

In contrast, Sussman’s judge, Obama appointee Christopher Cooper, refused to strike from the jury pool  a woman whose daughter is a teammate of Sussman’s daughter; and three other jurors who donated to Clinton, “including one who could only promise to ‘strive for impartiality as best I can.” On the Hill site Turley elaborated on this, detailing the judge’s restrictive rulings and concluding: 

The treatment given to Sussmann is in stark contrast to how Trump associates were treated in this same court. In the Flynn trial, Judge Cooper’s colleague, Judge Emmet Sullivan, conducted a series of bizarre hearings, including one in which he used the courtroom flag as a prop to accuse Flynn of being an “unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the national security adviser” and to suggest that Flynn could be charged with treason — crimes not brought against him. Sullivan then declared: “I cannot assure you that if you proceed today, you will not receive a sentence of incarceration. I am not hiding my disgust and my disdain.” 

Likewise, another judicial colleague, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, refused to grant Trump associate Roger Stone a new trial despite disturbing reports of juror bias. 

While the judge in Flynn’s case was eager to remove obstacles from the prosecution’s path, the judge in Sussmann’s case seems to have created a virtual obstacle course for Durham. Durham may be able to jump the legal hurdles, but he will do so without much of his evidence. To paraphrase Charles Dickens in “A Tale of Two Cities,” for a prosecutor D.C. can be the best of venues or it can be the worst of venues. 

Judge Cooper, incidentally, is married to Amy Jeffress, a former Justice Department official and national security counselor to former United States Attorney General Eric Holder.

There’s much discussion online of the likely next path for Durham — will miscreant FBI agents be next in the dock, for example?

Clearly, despite many handicaps, the Special Prosecution team has done a thorough job of it and has amassed considerable probative evidence to warrant convictions.

But while these FBI agents (and others who colluded with Clinton) in this nefarious scheme would appear to be reasonable targets of the Special Prosecutor, as long as partisan judges in the District of Columbia continue to condone sociopathic behavior by their party through biased rulings that make successful prosecution iffy, that next step — or any other by the prosecutor — is problematic.

Most of the press will ignore this news, but the Russia-Trump narrative that Mrs. Clinton sanctioned did enormous harm to the country. It disgraced the FBI, humiliated the press, and sent the country on a three-year investigation to nowhere. Vladimir Putin never came close to doing as much disinformation damage.

Where do we go from here?  Once again, Democrat wrongdoing is being tried before partisan judges and juries in the capital. Professor Jonathan Turley, in a series of tweets, points out that Sussman’s trial is “in stark contrast” to the trial of General Flynn in D.C. Among other things, the Flynn judge refused to immediately close the case even after the prosecution moved to drop it.  

In contrast, Sussman’s judge, Obama appointee Christopher Cooper, refused to strike from the jury pool  a woman whose daughter is a teammate of Sussman’s daughter; and three other jurors who donated to Clinton, “including one who could only promise to ‘strive for impartiality as best I can.” On the Hill site Turley elaborated on this, detailing the judge’s restrictive rulings and concluding: 

The treatment given to Sussmann is in stark contrast to how Trump associates were treated in this same court. In the Flynn trial, Judge Cooper’s colleague, Judge Emmet Sullivan, conducted a series of bizarre hearings, including one in which he used the courtroom flag as a prop to accuse Flynn of being an “unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the national security adviser” and to suggest that Flynn could be charged with treason — crimes not brought against him. Sullivan then declared: “I cannot assure you that if you proceed today, you will not receive a sentence of incarceration. I am not hiding my disgust and my disdain.” 

Likewise, another judicial colleague, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, refused to grant Trump associate Roger Stone a new trial despite disturbing reports of juror bias. 

While the judge in Flynn’s case was eager to remove obstacles from the prosecution’s path, the judge in Sussmann’s case seems to have created a virtual obstacle course for Durham. Durham may be able to jump the legal hurdles, but he will do so without much of his evidence. To paraphrase Charles Dickens in “A Tale of Two Cities,” for a prosecutor D.C. can be the best of venues or it can be the worst of venues. 

Judge Cooper, incidentally, is married to Amy Jeffress, a former Justice Department official and national security counselor to former United States Attorney General Eric Holder.

There’s much discussion online of the likely next path for Durham — will miscreant FBI agents be next in the dock, for example?

Clearly, despite many handicaps, the Special Prosecution team has done a thorough job of it and has amassed considerable probative evidence to warrant convictions.

But while these FBI agents (and others who colluded with Clinton) in this nefarious scheme would appear to be reasonable targets of the Special Prosecutor, as long as partisan judges in the District of Columbia continue to condone sociopathic behavior by their party through biased rulings that make successful prosecution iffy, that next step — or any other by the prosecutor — is problematic.

It’s The Ugly GODLESS USA We Live In Today! Whatever Happened To Loving Families AND THE HONORED OLD MAID TEACHER GENERATION?

 MAY 22, 2022 BY JOHN HINDERAKER at PowerLine:

GUNS, GUNS, GUNS

First of all, via InstaPundit, the tweet of the day:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=powerlineUS&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NlbnNpdGl2ZV9tZWRpYV9pbnRlcnN0aXRpYWxfMTM5NjMiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiaW50ZXJzdGl0aWFsIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd190d2VldF9yZXN1bHRfbWlncmF0aW9uXzEzOTc5Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InR3ZWV0X3Jlc3VsdCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1528473444907724802&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.powerlineblog.com%2Farchives%2F2022%2F05%2Fguns-guns-guns.php&sessionId=71c43d00b8f77dff89551e51fc072dce5cbb29e7&siteScreenName=powerlineUS&theme=light&widgetsVersion=c8fe9736dd6fb%3A1649830956492&width=550px

Predictably, the mass shooting in Buffalo has precipitated another round of gun control hysteria. What gun control? Who cares? The specifics are unimportant.

You likely have read in the press that the United States has an unparalleled number of mass shootings due to our “lax” gun control laws. Such assertions are rarely challenged, but in fact they are untrue. I haven’t seen more recent numbers, but I am sure little has changed since this 2019 post. On a per capita basis, our mass shooting rate is quite low. Quoting John Lott and Michael Weisser:

Of the 86 countries where we have identified mass public shootings, the US ranks 56th per capita in its rate of attacks and 61st in mass public shooting murder rate. Norway, Finland, Switzerland and Russia all have at least 45 percent higher rates of murder from mass public shootings than the United States.

As I wrote several years ago:

Why does the U.S. have a relatively low incidence of mass shootings compared with most other countries? One possible answer is our widespread gun ownership, combined with liberal concealed carry laws. Would-be mass shooters in the U.S. tend to gravitate toward “gun-free” zones like schools, where they know they will have the only weapon. In most public places in the U.S., unlike most other countries, a would-be shooter faces the material possibility that he will not be the only one with a firearm. If we did away with the folly of the “gun-free zone,” our numbers would probably be even better.

Years of Hillary’s CORRUPTION Will Take Years OF PUTTING HER TO JAIL WHERE SHE BELONGS!

MAY 21, 2022 BY JOHN HINDERAKER at PowerLine

HILLARY DID IT!

In the ongoing Sussman trial, campaign manager Robby Mook testified that Hillary Clinton personally approved spreading the lie about Donald Trump and Alfa Bank. This has been treated by some as a revelation. Jonathan Turley, for one, finds it significant:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=powerlineUS&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NlbnNpdGl2ZV9tZWRpYV9pbnRlcnN0aXRpYWxfMTM5NjMiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiaW50ZXJzdGl0aWFsIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd190d2VldF9yZXN1bHRfbWlncmF0aW9uXzEzOTc5Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InR3ZWV0X3Jlc3VsdCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1528052005234778113&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.powerlineblog.com%2Farchives%2F2022%2F05%2Fhillary-did-it.php&sessionId=d04bab64930a9ba7ac91ec9a4402fbc2c7128851&siteScreenName=powerlineUS&theme=light&widgetsVersion=c8fe9736dd6fb%3A1649830956492&width=550px

Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m not sure why Mook’s testimony on this point is considered newsworthy. Hillary wasn’t exactly in the background on the Alfa Bank branch of the Russia collusion hoax:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=powerlineUS&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NlbnNpdGl2ZV9tZWRpYV9pbnRlcnN0aXRpYWxfMTM5NjMiOnsiYnVja2V0IjoiaW50ZXJzdGl0aWFsIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd190d2VldF9yZXN1bHRfbWlncmF0aW9uXzEzOTc5Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InR3ZWV0X3Jlc3VsdCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=793250312119263233&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.powerlineblog.com%2Farchives%2F2022%2F05%2Fhillary-did-it.php&sessionId=d04bab64930a9ba7ac91ec9a4402fbc2c7128851&siteScreenName=powerlineUS&theme=light&widgetsVersion=c8fe9736dd6fb%3A1649830956492&width=550px

Note the role played by the appalling Jake Sullivan, who is still on the scene as a senior member of the Biden administration.

More broadly, we have long known that Hillary personally directed the Russia collusion hoax. Indeed, the Obama administration knew this virtually from the hoax’s inception. We wrote about this a year and a half ago, based on handwritten notes by John Brennan, then CIA Director, dated July 28,2016. At that time the notes were newly declassified, although heavily redacted. This is how DNI John Ratcliffe described them, along with another memo:

According to these documents, Hillary approved the plan to smear Donald Trump with the Russia collusion hoax on July 26, 2016. (The Fusion GPS/Christopher Steele “dossier” fabrication was under way by this time.) Her action was immediately picked up by Russian intelligence. At almost the same time, U.S. intelligence, spying on the Russians, got the story. On July 28, just two days after Hillary allegedly green-lighted the smear, Barack Obama, James Comey, Susan Rice and Denis McDonough assembled to be briefed by John Brennan on the situation.

Brennan told them, according to his notes, that:

CITE alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on 26 July of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.

From the very beginning, top U.S. government officials, including President Obama, had every reason to believe that the Russia collusion allegations were a fraud dreamed up by Hillary Clinton and her campaign. U.S. intelligence officials wrote in another memo dated September 7, 2016, that Hillary wanted to use the Russia hoax “as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private mail server.”

We know now, based on multiple investigations, that the Russia collusion hoax was the most successful disinformation campaign in the history of American politics, despite being an implausible fabrication that the relevant government officials were told, in the very beginning, was false.

Someday we will know more. For example, most of Brennan’s July 28 memo is redacted. No doubt the missing parts will be of interest. But the basic facts of the scandal have been known for a long time. Nevertheless, neither Hillary nor her top lieutenants are likely ever to be held accountable.