This is now, quite apparently, what we’ve come down to in the United States.
We all know about Fake News courtesy of Leftist “journalistas.” There is now, courtesy of Leftist judges and attorneys, Fake Law.
I can’t believe I’m reading the article correctly but, sadly, I am indeed. From Breitbart.com:
Neal Katyal at 9th Circuit: If Trump Says ‘Islam Is Peace’ He Can Have a Travel Ban
by Ian Mason
Neal Katyal made oral arguments for maintaining the injunction against President Donald Trump’s executive order banning migrants from certain Muslim-majority countries Monday before the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
“He could say, like President Bush did right after September 11th, ‘The face of Terror is not the true face of Islam, that’s not what Islam is about, Islam is Peace.’ Instead, we get ‘Islam hates us’,” Katyal told the bench, answering Clinton-appointed Judge Richard Paez’s question on what, if anything, Trump could do to make the executive order acceptable.
Really? All President Trump has to do, according to Katyal, is cry “uncle” and all is forgiven? Really?
Katyal, former President Barack Obama’s one-time acting Solicitor General, has taken on the representation of the plaintiffs who stopped the executive order’s implementation in March when a federal court in Hawaii ruled in their favor. The Justice Department has appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit, seeking to vacate that injunction.
Do you believe Katyal will actually relent and back off the lawsuit if President Trump but says the “magic words”?
Me neither.
The most controversial element of Obama-appointed district court Judge Derrick Watson’s ruling was its justification of the injunction based not on the text or effect of the executive order, but on statements President Trump made during the 2016 campaign.
Precisely. Fake Law. Predicated not upon the documents in front of the court, but on mostly everything but.
According to that ruling, speaking about a “Muslim ban” and speaking negatively about the religion’s relationship with the West meant that the plaintiffs had a high enough likelihood of proving a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause to block the order. This is true even though the actual order does not take any action based on people being Muslim because, “[A] reasonable, objective observer—enlightened by the specific historical context, contemporaneous public statements, and specific sequence of events leading to its issuance—would conclude that the Executive Order was issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion[.]”
Meaning, again, that the issue was not what was immured on paper but what was said in the ether and not supported by paper. A logical question was then asked.
The argumentation led naturally to the question of what, if anything, could be done to save such a facially neutral order. “Does that mean that the President is forever barred from issuing an executive order along these lines?” Judge Paez asked Katyal. “What does he have to do to issue an executive order that, in your view, might pass constitutional muster?”
What indeed? Twenty-three Hail Marys? Genuflect towards Mecca? Tap a wrist? Provide evidence of stigmata?
Trump might gain more power to issue executive order if he “disavows,” Katyal argued. “One example would be what Judge Hawkins said about disavowing formally the stuff before.”
You can’t make this stuff up. But wait, there’s more. Let’s just excise whatever unappetizing elements actually exist within Islam, shall we?
In addition to suggesting Trump could save his order by telling the country “Islam is peace,” Katyal also recommended removing references, in the text of the order, to the unsavory elements of Islamic society. “It could eliminate the text which refers to honor killings,” he told the court.
Of course. Let’s just eliminate those niggling little female genital mutilation issues, the misogynist issues, the beheading issues, the Borg issues, the bacha bazi issues, the pedophilia of Islam, the internal combustion of Islam.
By the way, who is Neal Katyal? He’s the man who said this about Neil Gorsuch at Gorsuch’s hearing:
He’s also the man with the god-like endless CV. Superbly humble.
Katyal is the recipient of the very highest award given to a civilian by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Edmund Randolph Award, which the Attorney General presented to him in 2011. The Chief Justice of the United States appointed him in 2011 to the Advisory Committee on Federal Appellate Rules, and again in 2014. Additionally, he was named as One of the 40 Most Influential Lawyers of the Last Decade Nationwide by National Law Journal (2010); One of the 90 Greatest Washington Lawyers Over the Last 30 Years by Legal Times (2008); Lawyer of the Year by Lawyers USA (2006); Runner-Up for Lawyer of the Year by National Law Journal (2006); One of the Top 50 Litigators Nationwide 45 Years Old or Younger by American Lawyer (2007); and one of the top 500 lawyers in the country by LawDragon Magazine for each of the last ten years. He also won the National Law Journal’s pro bono award.
Family’s private investigator: There is evidence Seth Rich had contact with WikiLeaks prior to death
by Marina Maracco
WASHINGTON – It has been almost a year since Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was murdered in the nation’s capital. There have been no solid answers about why he was killed until now.
Rich was shot and killed last July in Northwest D.C and police have suggested the killing in the District’s Bloomingdale neighborhood was a botched robbery. However, online conspiracy theories have tied the murder to Rich’s work at the DNC.
Certainly, DC has its share of crime — not nearly like that of Chicago, however. Still and all, the timing was what many would term suspicious, though the DC Metro Police concluded that Rich was involved in a robbery that took his life.
Just two months shy of the one-year anniversary of Rich’s death, FOX 5 has learned there is new information that could prove these theorists right.
Is there a “there” there?
Rod Wheeler, a private investigator hired by the Rich family, suggests there is tangible evidence on Rich’s laptop that confirms he was communicating with WikiLeaks prior to his death.
Now, questions have been raised on why D.C. police, the lead agency on this murder investigation for the past ten months, have insisted this was a robbery gone bad when there appears to be no evidence to suggest that.
Not having the investigatory report in my hands I cannot personally draw that conclusion. However, I do know that DC Metro does not have the most sterling reputation for immutable investigations on the east coast, as witness the rather shabby handling of the Charnice Milton case, daughter of my fellow broadcaster Ken McClenton, following her murder in 2015.
Wheeler, a former D.C. police homicide detective, is running a parallel investigation into Rich’s murder. Wheeler said he believes there is a cover-up and the police department has been told to back down from the investigation.
“The police department nor the FBI have been forthcoming,” said Wheeler. “They haven’t been cooperating at all. I believe that the answer to solving his death lies on that computer, which I believe is either at the police department or either at the FBI. I have been told both.”
There is one way to find out. Access the laptop.
When we asked Wheeler if his sources have told him there is information that links Rich to Wikileaks, he said, “Absolutely. Yeah. That’s confirmed.”
Is that the reason neither agency will confirm or deny possession of the laptop and, further, will not release it? Moreover, just how does Wheeler know anything about the allegation of the involvement of Wikileaks?
Wheeler also told us, “I have a source inside the police department that has looked at me straight in the eye and said, ‘Rod, we were told to stand down on this case and I can’t share any information with you.’ Now, that is highly unusual for a murder investigation, especially from a police department. Again, I don’t think it comes from the chief’s office, but I do believe there is a correlation between the mayor’s office and the DNC and that is the information that will come out [Tuesday].
Murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich had sent 44,000 internal emails to WikiLeaks: Report
by Kyle Feldscher
The Democratic National Committee staffer shot and killed in Washington, D.C., last summer leaked more than 44,000 emails to WikiLeaks before his death, according to a report.
The Fox News report implies that Seth Rich may have been the one who leaked information about the DNC to WikiLeaks that showed, among other things, that the DNC favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the presidential primary. While it’s not clear, the report does note that WikiLeaks posted that information just 12 days after Rich was killed.
However, U.S. intelligence officials believe Russia hacked into the DNC and allowed that information to be sent to WikiLeaks.
The report states federal law enforcement investigators found 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments between DNC leaders from January 2015 to May 2016 were sent by Rich to Gavin MacFayden, an American reporter and WikiLeaks director based in London who is now deceased. That information was found in a FBI forensic report on Rich’s computer done within days of his murder.
If any of this is true, that a person was murdered for leaking information, DC will be torn apart.
BZ
P.S.
57 minutes after this revelation, the Washington Post reveals leaked information about classified information. Co-inky-dink? Wag the WaPo?
Hillary Clinton Launches Unlimited ‘Dark Money’ Group
Two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton officially launched a new organization on Monday, “Onward Together,” with the stated goal of “advancing the vision that earned nearly 66 million votes in the last election.” Put more bluntly, the group’s mission is to advance Clinton’s agenda, which was unable to defeat Donald Trump.
The devil’s usually in the details, is it not? The detail that is smashed to the bottom in fine print is this.
Contributions or gifts to Onward Together, a 501(c)(4) organization, are not tax deductible as charitable contributions or as business deductions.
Translated: you can’t write that off and we take all the profit, thank you very much, you ignorant dupes, you useful tools. Because, after all, we deserve it and we are much smarter than you.
By listing itself as a 501(c)(4), Clinton is able to take so-called “dark money,” or money from donors who legally do not have to be disclosed, in unlimited amounts.
Anyone remember this, below? Of course you don’t. Just what Hillary Clinton is counting on.
One of the classic character actors of our time, Powers Boothe, passed away Sunday morning in his sleep, of natural causes according to his publicist, at age 68 in Los Angeles.
In my opinion, he was an absolute joy to watch.
Mr Boothe received a 1980 Emmy for his portrayal of Jim Jones in Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones. By the way, Boothe beat both Henry Fonda and Jason Robards that year for the award.
One of my most favorite portrayals of his was that of Cy Tolliver in the HBO series Deadwood, as well as his roles in Red Dawn and By Dawn’s Early Light.
In my estimation, he was a quite under-utilized actor who lacked a good agent.
Mind you, the mid-and-upper level managers aren’t. They were too busy aligning themselves and slashing at each other in order to grasp a small piece of the bottom of former FBI Director James Comey’s cape, hoping to climb over whatever corpses necessary to kiss the Comey Ring.
Now that Comey is gone, thanks to President Trump, management is in a bit of a kerfuffle to say the least. Whose ring or arse to kiss now in management? Certainly not acting-Director McCabe. He’s — well — acting director. And Andrew McCabe is rife with sufficient conflicting baggage himself that the next FBI director may just kick McCabe to the proverbial curb. Which would be quite appropriate. McCabe reeks, in my opinion, of Leftist/Demorat corruption.
Here is Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe not actively campaigning for his Demorat wife. All is well. Nothing to see here. No corruption, no conflict of interest. Just ask former FBI Director James Comey. Just don’t ask the line-level agents.
Let’s cut right to the chase: James Comey should have been fired immediately following his disastrous press briefing last July, in which he candidly laid out the case against Hillary Clinton over her mishandling of classified information and then refused to recommend charges. Overstepping his authority while radiating sanctimony, arrogating power while clumsily intervening in the election, Comey deserved to be sacked on the spot.
Absolutely. Comey’s press conference about his decision to do nothing about Hillary Clinton was right out of Kabuki Theater if you know something about the law and its application. Or if you could simply read and understand a few paragraphs of English.
Everything since has been one long slow twist in the wind for Comey, a former US attorney in Manhattan, where his most notable accomplishment was sending Martha Stewart to jail.
Ignore for the moment Comey’s series of missteps resulting from the Clinton investigation and his increasingly erratic and unconvincing public fan dance as he sent the nation into electoral paroxysms over the past 10 months.
Precisely. And unnecessarily so. Former Director Comey set a terrible precedent for the FBI. He couldn’t keep himself out of camera lenses or shut his mouth.
Now the bureau’s tied up and bogged down in the almost certainly chimerical “Russian hacking” fantasy, which bubbled up out of the leftist fever swamp in the wake of Clinton’s loss in November, and for which there is exactly zero evidence.
Now there’s an accurate analogy. Wish I’d thought of it.
The American Media Maggots insist that FBI agents are in full lacrimal duct mode after Comey’s firing. The truth is that the FBI is a tight-knit and proud organization that seldom admits to internal turbulence in public. It is anathema to the institution.
The American Media Maggots also conveniently forget this from 2016. From the UKDailyMail.com:
EXCLUSIVE: Resignation letters piling up from disaffected FBI agents, his wife urging him to admit he was wrong: Why Director Comey jumped at the chance to reopen Hillary investigation
by Ed Klein
James Comey revived the investigation of Clinton’s email server as he could no longer resist mounting pressure by mutinous agents, sources say
The atmosphere at the FBI has been toxic ever since Jim announced last July that he wouldn’t recommend an indictment against Hillary
He told his wife that he was depressed by the stack of resignation letters piling up on his desk from disaffected agents
Comes was also worried that Republicans would accuse him of granting Hillary political favoritism after the presidential election
When new emails allegedly linked to Hillary’s personal server turned up in Abedin and Anthony Weiner’s computer, Comey jumped at the excuse
James Comey’s decision to revive the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server and her handling of classified material came after he could no longer resist mounting pressure by mutinous agents in the FBI, including some of his top deputies, according to a source close to the embattled FBI director.
‘The atmosphere at the FBI has been toxic ever since Jim announced last July that he wouldn’t recommend an indictment against Hillary,’ said the source, a close friend who has known Comey for nearly two decades, shares family outings with him, and accompanies him to Catholic mass every week.
‘Some people, including department heads, stopped talking to Jim, and even ignored his greetings when they passed him in the hall,’ said the source. ‘They felt that he betrayed them and brought disgrace on the bureau by letting Hillary off with a slap on the wrist.’
According to the source, Comey fretted over the problem for months and discussed it at great length with his wife, Patrice.
He told his wife that he was depressed by the stack of resignation letters piling up on his desk from disaffected agents. The letters reminded him every day that morale in the FBI had hit rock bottom.
“Stack of resignation letters piling up on his desk.” Disaffected agents. Poor morale. Lack of confidence in leadership. Betrayal. Disgrace. Spoken to singly, the narrative of agents is different than that of the American Media Maggots.
DailyCaller.com printed quotes, following Comey’s firing, from agents who didn’t wish to be named to include “we don’t need a political hack” to “good riddance” and “It should have been expected because he was not doing a good job. He had it coming to him.”
Personnel who have spoken to me on both coasts say roughly the same thing, indicating they believed Comey was an embarrassment to the agency who started well but began seeking the limelight behind decisions that reflected political and not legal motivations.
Of course, the agents didn’t want to be named and wished to be publicly quiet because that’s not what they do and it’s not what they believe their director should do either.
Overall, one said, it was like a big pressure valve had been opened at 935 Pennsylvania; you could almost hear the collective sigh of relief. Confidence in leadership will likely return. I personally suspect, bit by bit, you’ll begin to hear just how lacking in leadership and confidence the agency had been under James Comey.
James Kallstrom, former Assistant Director for the FBI, summarized best.
Even when things were good, they weren’t fabulous under James Comey. In three-and-a-half years of his admin , Grabien.com documented the Top 10 Scandalous Low Points for the FBI:
1. Before he bombed the Boston Marathon, the FBI interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev but let him go. Russia sent the Obama Administration a second warning, but the FBI opted against investigating him again.
2. Shortly after the NSA scandal exploded in 2013, the FBI was exposed conducting its own data mining on innocent Americans; the agency, Bloomberg reported, retains that material for decades (even if no wrongdoing is found).
3. The FBI had possession of emails sent by Nidal Hasan saying he wanted to kill his fellow soldiers to protect the Taliban — but didn’t intervene, leading many critics to argue the tragedy that resulted in the death of 31 Americans at Fort Hood could have been prevented.
4. During the Obama Administration, the FBI claimed that two private jets were being used primarily for counterterrorism, when in fact they were mostly being used for Eric Holder and Robert Mueller’s business and personal travel.
5. When the FBI demanded Apple create a “backdoor” that would allow law enforcement agencies to unlock the cell phones of various suspects, the company refused, sparking a battle between the feds and America’s biggest tech company. What makes this incident indicative of Comey’s questionable management of the agency is that a) The FBI jumped the gun, as they were indeed ultimately able to crack the San Bernardino terrorist’s phone, and b) Almost every other major national security figure sided with Apple (from former CIA Director General Petraeus to former CIA Director James Woolsey to former director of the NSA, General Michael Hayden), warning that such a “crack” would inevitably wind up in the wrong hands.
6. In 2015, the FBI conducted a controversial raid on a Texas political meeting, finger printing, photographing, and seizing phones from attendees (some in the group believe in restoring Texas as an independent constitutional republic).
7. During its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified material, the FBI made an unusual deal in which Clinton aides were both given immunity and allowed to destroy their laptops.
8. The father of the radical Islamist who detonated a backpack bomb in New York City in 2016 alerted the FBI to his son’s radicalization. The FBI, however, cleared Ahmad Khan Rahami after a brief interview.
9. The FBI also investigated the terrorist who killed 49 people and wounded 53 more at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Despite a more than 10-month investigation of Omar Mateen — during which Mateen admitting lying to agents — the FBI opted against pressing further and closed its case.
10.CBS recently reported that when two terrorists sought to kill Americans attending the “Draw Muhammad” event in Garland, Texas, the FBI not only had an understanding an attack was coming,
Continuing, from the New York Post.
What’s needed now is a restoration of what should be the FBI’s primary mission, as it was in the early Hoover days: counterterrorism. Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it’s far less important for the bureau to be chasing bank robbers in Burlington and Butte than it is for it to function as the nation’s first line of homeland security defense.
Sad but true. I made my bones on the reactive Squad 3. Those days may be over. But even with the FBI’s newest sea change, who should lead that ship in those turbulent seas following James Comey?
In a conciliatory gesture to the Demorats I believe, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s pick would be Merritt Garland. From FoxNews.com:
McConnell thinks Garland as FBI director ‘fantastic idea,’ ex-adviser says
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is behind the idea of Judge Merrick Garland, whose Supreme Court nomination McConnell squashed, becoming the next FBI director, a former adviser to the Kentucky senator said Sunday.
“I think the senate majority leader thinks that’s a fantastic idea,” former adviser Josh Holmes, who now runs the strategy firm Cavalry LLC, told “Fox News Sunday.” “He certainly thinks (Garland) will be qualified. And (McConnell) certainly thinks he would be somebody that he could support.”
Garland was former President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016.
However, McConnell infuriated Democrats by declining to hold Senate confirmation hearings on Garland, saying the next president should have that choice.
The idea of Garland as the next FBI director was posed by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee after President Trump on Tuesday fired agency Director James Comey.
Some are considering Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn as well. Politico.com writes about some serious complications, however.
If President Donald Trump selects Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn as his next FBI director it would accelerate a major shift in Republican politics with implications for both the Senate and the national GOP.
If Cornyn were to accept the position as director, it would leave a GOP leadership vacuum in the Whip position.
Further, ABCNews.com indicates there are 11 candidates in the running besides John Cornyn:
Rep Trey Gowdy;
Former Rep Mike Rogers;
Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly
Former 4th DCA Judge J Michael Luttig;
Former Deputy AG Larry Thompson;
Current FBI official Paul Abbate;
Former Assistant AG Alice Fisher;
Current Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe (worst choice);
Former Manhattan US Attorney Michael Garcia;
Former US Attorney John Suthers.
At this point I think I’m safe to say that, no matter who President Trump selects, there’s going to be a fight in confirmation.
This is now, quite apparently, what we’ve come down to in the United States.
Apparently something did. This from the 
How clever and how craven, simultaneously.
One of the classic character actors of our time, 
Mind you, the mid-and-upper level managers aren’t. They were too busy aligning themselves and slashing at each other in order to grasp a small piece of the bottom of former FBI Director James Comey’s cape, hoping to climb over whatever corpses necessary to kiss the Comey Ring.