GREAT MOMENTS IN OCCUPATIONAL SELF-AWARENESS:
● Shot: Actor Bradley Whitford’s Advice to Fellow Libs: ‘We Need to Project Our Political Purity.’
—NewsBusters, yesterday.
—Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, today.
● Hangover: How #MeToo Has Undermined the #Resistance — The steady drumbeat of sexual scandal is eroding the Left’s moral authority.
—David French, NRO, May 16.
Why are leftwing-dominated industries such cesspits of sexual abuse and exploitation?
WHEN THEY GO HIGH… DO THEY EVER GO HIGH? Co-Founder of Vox Media Calls Ben Shapiro ‘The Jew Who Helps Other Jews Onto the Train.’ “Topolsky deletes tweets but isn’t sorry: ‘I didn’t apologize lol’.”
How droll.
WEIRD HOW WHEN YOU STIGMATIZE AND MARGINALIZE PEOPLE THEY’RE LESS LIKELY TO VOTE FOR YOU: Survey Finds Among White Millenial Men, 23% Move From Dems To GOP In Last Two Years.
THAT WAS UNEXPECTED: Bill Gates Praises GOP-led Congress, Says World ‘Far Better Place’ Than Ever Before.
GEORGE KORDA: Immigration, Elections, and Insanity.
IN THE MAIL: From John Braddock, The 24th Name: A Thriller.
Plus, fresh Gold Box and Lightning Deals.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS ON ALL THE COURT-PACKING ENTHUSIASM OF LATE, AND TAKES THINGS A STEP FARTHER: Make the Supreme Court lots bigger. It’s not a priesthood, and it should represent America.
MINUS THE COOL HERBIE HANCOCK SOUNDTRACK, THOUGH. Roger Simon: The Democratic Party Has a Death Wish.
BREAKING: Terror Attack in Cleveland Planned for July 4th Thwarted.
Patrick Poole has the details.
THAT SEEMS A BIT EXTREME: Neighbor calls police on a 12-year-old boy for mowing the wrong lawn.
In a written follow-up statement to the Associated Press, the NSA said it is “following a specific court-authorized process,” but technical irregularities resulted in the production of some call records that the NSA “was not authorized to receive.”
The NSA faced a legal battle surrounding its Internet surveillance data collection program in 2017, when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a challenge brought by the American Civil Liberties Union could move forward.
David Kris, a member of the Justice Department during the Obama administration, told the New York Times that the agency’s announcement represents a “failure” of the Obama administration to properly implement the Freedom Act, a surveillance law passed in 2015 after the controversial Patriot Act expired.
That seems like kind of a big deal to have happened under a “remarkably scandal-free” administration.
ELITE EDUCATION IS SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD BECAUSE IT FOSTERS CRITICAL THINKING: Princeton editor compares Trump policies to Holocaust.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: The Morning Briefing: Some Democrats Try and Moderate and Much, Much More. “The Democrats are trying to moderate in time for the midterm elections but they are not well-positioned to do so. Their base is fired up against Trump, but the rest of the voters are turned off by the Democrats extreme political views. So if they tune down their rhetoric, the nutters won’t be motivated to show up at the polls, but if they don’t tone it down the rest of the voters won’t show up. What to do?”
“Lose” has a nice ring to it.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN IS ON ALL THE COURT-PACKING ENTHUSIASM OF LATE, AND TAKES THINGS A STEP FARTHER: Make the Supreme Court lots bigger. It’s not a priesthood, and it should represent America.
AUF WIEDERSEHEN? Angela Merkel fights for survival as interior minister Seehofer says he will turn away migrants at the border.
After an “ineffective” two-hour meeting on Saturday night between Mrs Merkel and Mr Seehofer, the two leaders met with their respective parties for separate meetings in Munich and Berlin on Sunday night.
According to information from the German press agency, Mrs Merkel has spoken to her executive committee of a “very serious” situation.
If Mr Seehofer is not satisfied he could now make true to his threats and close Germany’s borders, forcing Mrs Merkel to sack him, which would tear apart Germany’s already shaky coalition government.
This could lead to fresh elections, which would likely further embolden the far-Right and lead to political crisis in both Germany and Europe.
Personally, I’m much more comfortable with “far-Right” Germans closing the nation’s border than with irredentist leftist Germans marching through the Polish border.
IF TRUMP PROPOSED THIS, THEY’D CALL HIM HITLER: In Denmark, Harsh New Laws for Immigrant ‘Ghettos.’
Starting at the age of 1, “ghetto children” must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in “Danish values,” including the traditions of Christmas and Easter, and Danish language. Noncompliance could result in a stoppage of welfare payments. Other Danish citizens are free to choose whether to enroll children in preschool up to the age of six.
Denmark’s government is introducing a new set of laws to regulate life in 25 low-income and heavily Muslim enclaves, saying that if families there do not willingly merge into the country’s mainstream, they should be compelled.
For decades, integrating immigrants has posed a thorny challenge to the Danish model, intended to serve a small, homogeneous population. Leaders are focusing their ire on urban neighborhoods where immigrants, some of them placed there by the government, live in dense concentrations with high rates of unemployment and gang violence.
Politicians’ description of the ghettos has become increasingly sinister. In his annual New Year’s speech, Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen warned that ghettos could “reach out their tentacles onto the streets” by spreading violence, and that because of ghettos, “cracks have appeared on the map of Denmark.” Politicians who once used the word “integration” now call frankly for “assimilation.”
Can you imagine?
SCENES FROM WEIMAR LATIN AMERICA: Venezuela’s inflation hits more than 40,000% as everyone dumps its currency ‘like a hot potato.’
Economists point out that Maduro runs the unorthodox policies they say have pushed the country into economic crisis. The socialist leader has repeatedly refused international aid to Venezuela.
“It’s internal,” Hanke said. “Government spending continues to accelerate and the sources of revenue start drying up.”
The government has defaulted on a majority of their outstanding bonds, which economists estimate add up to about $60 billion. Foreign exchange reserves have fallen by about $2.5 billion in the last three months, according to analysis by Capital Economics.
As state-run oil industry PDVSA falls apart, economists say a rise in global oil prices is adding to the pain. Brent crude oil is up more than 64% this year. And as President Donald Trump cracks down on Iran via zero-tolerance oil sanctions, the international benchmark has rallied more than 8% this week.
Production at PDVSA — which accounts for 95% of export earnings in the country and a quarter of gross domestic product — was cut in half from January 2016 to January 2018, according to the US Energy Information Administration. And as the crisis deepens, operations are continuing to wane.
Venezuela began its “experiment” with Bolivarian Socialism when crude oil was about $17 per barrel. Now it’s closing in on $80. And the country is broke, teetering on being a failed state.
That’s some awfully bad luck.
BUT TRUMP’S RHETORIC: Capital Gazette mass shooting suspect swore ‘legal oath’ to kill staff writer years ago.
JONATHAN TURLEY: If Rod Rosenstein feels conflicted, he should simply recuse himself.
The recent reports describe conflicting emotions of Rosenstein, ranging from anger to rationalization to despondence. Indeed, the dogged reluctance of Rosenstein to recuse himself is itself concerning. The controversy over FBI investigations has been fueled by the key role of figures like FBI official Peter Strzok, who harbored clearly antagonistic views against Trump. Strzok was eventually removed from his senior position, but long after critical decisions were made in the Clinton email and Russian investigations. This taint has now undermined the integrity of the investigation and the bureau itself.
Where Strzok’s failure is based on personal bias, however, Rosenstein’s failure is based on personal interest in the investigation. The New York Times reported that, according to multiple close associates and friends of Rosenstein, he “appeared conflicted” in the aftermath of the Comey firing. Consider this passage: “He alternately defended his involvement, expressed remorse at the tumult it unleashed, said the White House had manipulated him, fumed how the news media had portrayed the events and said the full story would vindicate him.”
If true, it is astonishing that Rosenstein did not recuse himself, or that his colleagues did not strongly encourage it. It is obviously problematic that Rosenstein selected and then supervised a special counsel in an investigation that he hoped would “vindicate him.” Rosenstein also will play a key role in the scope and release of the eventual special counsel report, which will by necessity touch on his actions and role.
There is no reason for such an apparent or actual conflict to exist, as Rosenstein is not essential to the investigation. He can recuse himself and leave the supervision of Mueller to a designated subordinate, in the interests of the integrity of the investigation.
The answer to the question “Why won’t Rosenstein recuse himself?” might lie in the final clause of that last sentence.
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