Happy Tuesday Morning!
Here is what’s on President Trump’s agenda today:
- In the morning, President Donald J. Trump will speak with King Abdullah II of Jordan by telephone.
- The President will then welcome President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey.
- In the afternoon, the President will meet with President Erdogan. The President will then give a joint statement with President Erdogan.
- Later in the afternoon, the President will have a working luncheon with President Erdogan.
- The President will then meet with Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney.
Enemies within Trump administration continue to leak to eager, Trump-hating media
The big story yesterday evening will continue to be a big story today: The Washington Post published leaks from nameless “officials” that President Trump shared classified information with the Russians during a recent visit to the White House.
The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump’s decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency.
“This is code-word information,” said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”
The Washington Post says their information came from “current and former U.S. officials.” Former officials? Why do former officials know what went on inside a diplomatic meeting in the White House? Perhaps this is the kind of thing that ought to be investigated. Start with the NSC, where there are still Obama appointees operating, and the intelligence community, where we already know Trump is being sabotaged.
Yesterday, I wrote about the political war the Democrats and the left have waged on the right, a war the right fails to recognize and fight. This is that war.
LifeZette’s Laura Ingraham tweeted yesterday that the WaPo did not contact any of the people in the meeting about what took place. This seems terribly irresponsible for a legitimate news organization to do.
WH source with direct knowledge just told me @washingtonpost didn't talk to ANY U.S. official at mtg w/ Lavrov. "It's Fake News"
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) May 15, 2017
NSC honcho McMaster made a public statement saying the Washington Post story was false.
Can you imagine this happening under Obama? Of course you can’t. If this administration doesn’t get this leaking under control, it will be the end of them.
President Trump just tweeted the following statements:
As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017
…to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017
Expect this story to continue for a few days.
Deja Vu: Jeff Sessions is a racist
Last week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo to his staff about tough criminal sentencing. We could have a conversation about the criminal justice system or we could instead just call him a racist. That’s the path an opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune, written by David Shapiro, takes.
This is a well-known tactic of the radical left: shut down conversation by name-calling to avoid having an exchange of ideas—mainly this is because they have no ideas.
The piece opens with this inflammatory and provocative statement: “If a racist were in charge of criminal justice for the U.S., what would he do? Exactly what Attorney General Jeff Sessions is doing.”
This “move” by Sessions is “centered on hurting people of color.”
The screed closes with the statement: “From trivializing police abuse to defending racist immigration policies and doubling down on mass incarceration, Session demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has a single-minded focus to attack people of color.”
Session gets no “good faith” considerations. Instead, we are to believe that his directives for the DOJ are based only on racism and not treating crime seriously, not from a desire to make our streets safe from criminals, not to protect minorities from criminals who torment them and ruin their lives and ravage their communities. No, instead this stems from racism. Conversation over.
It’s tiring and it’s shameful. I think many voters have tuned this type of “argument” out.
How to fix our universities
We complain plenty about the ridiculous and clownish institutions America’s universities have become. But how do we fix them? Or can they even be fixed?
Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, has some answers over at The Federalist.
Wood writes:
The greatest difficulties are in our dispirited acceptance of colleges and universities for what they are: self-serving, illiberal, culturally corrosive, luxuriously expensive mediocrities that pretend to an “excellence” they do not have. Complaining about this helps only to the degree that it is a way of finding others who recognize the aptness of the complaint. Complaints are signal lanterns in the dark night. But the real work is to present compelling ideas for how to fix things—and then actually fixing them.
Read the entire piece. I’s worth your time.
Final morsels:
U.S./EU to meet Wednesday about laptop/airplane threat
Trump hotel in D.C. vandalized
Hillary Clinton launches new revenue stream
Report: murdered DNC staffer had contact with WikiLeaks
Cosby says assault allegations based in racism
Syria burning people in homebrewed crematorium
Evidence NorKs responsible for ransomware attack
Here’s the procedural deal with Obamacare and what you can do.
That’s all I’ve got, now go beat back the angry mob!
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