Image 01 Image 03

March 2018

Remember last year when the left became obsessed with the removal of Confederate statues? Critics warned that it was a slippery slope and were assured that it was just about Confederate monuments. Today, a battle is brewing over a statue of Thomas Jefferson at Hofstra University. It doesn't matter to campus activists that Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence or the third president of the United States. All that matters is that he was a slave owner.

The breaking news last night was that the DOJ Office of Inspector General announced it was launching an investigation of possible Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court abuse. The presumption, though not literally in the OIG announcement, was that it concerned the FISA warrant to surveil Carter Page based on the Steele dossier.

The trial of Noor Salman, widow of the Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen, has made public a handful of startling revelations. Salman is accused of aiding late her husband who murdered 49 people. She's also, "charged with obstruction and providing material support to a terrorist organization." Mateen pledged allegiance to ISIS and was killed by police after the attack. The incident was used by anti-gun activists to push for more gun control.

Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg has spent the last month and a half criticizing 2nd Amendment supporters in the most grotesque terms. His latest tirade accused those who disagree with him as "sick f**kers":
"I’m beyond exhausted," Hogg said. "I get to a certain point where I just get so tired that I keep going. It creates a positive feedback loop in some ways — the more stress and work I put on me, the more stress and work I can deal with."

I've never seen the Israeli series "Fauda," but it certainly has received a lot of buzz. The series, in Arabic and Hebrew, details Israeli undercover units operating in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) against terror suspects. From the few clips I've seen, it's something along the action level of "24" though not on a 24-hour timeline.

A latest incident of school bullying has again highlighted the issue of antisemitism among Germany's Muslim youth. The case involves a second-grade Jewish girl at a Berlin elementary school who was bullied by her Muslim classmates.

I was a big fan of the original Roseanne during its original run from 1988 to 1997. So, when I learned that Roseanne Barr would be reviving the show and portraying a very vocal Trump supporter, I made sure to catch it.

The surveillance of Carter Page, based in part on the Steele Memo, has been the subject of a House Intelligence Committee memo authored by the Republican majority, and a Democrat counter-memo. The heart of the dispute is the failure to inform the FISA court that the Steele memo, which is almost entirely unverified, was paid for by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, and that Steele was hostile to Trump. Carter Page, however, clearly was not the target, he was the excuse, as I wrote last month:

Terry James Albury was charged by the Department of Justice under the Espionage Act this week. Albury, who worked as a counterterrorism liaison for the Minneapolis--St. Paul International Airport was, "charged this week by the Justice Department's National Security Division with one count of "knowingly and willfully" transmitting documents and information relating to national defense to a reporter for a national news organization. Albury was also charged with a second count of refusing to hand over documents to the government," according to MPR.