In a radio broadcast recorded 18 March 2021, Drew Nickell discussed several issues including the dangerous political agenda being sought by academia, our schools and our elected leaders, the creeping intrusion of socialism, the critically-important distinction between equality and equity, set-asides and reparations, and how these developments threaten the survival of America as we know it. Recorded on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads, Virginia.
In a radio broadcast recorded 18 February 2021, Drew Nickell and Nora Firestone discussed several issues including the passing of Rush Limbaugh, the creeping intrusion of socialism, the issues of wealth redistribution, set-asides and reparations, and how these developments threaten the survival of America as we know it. Recorded on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads, Virginia.
Left unchecked, the “cancel culture” of today will spell the death knell of our Constitution, tomorrow, and this will happen in the flash of a moment, sooner than we might have otherwise thought.
Cancelled by Linked-In, Twitter, and Facebook seven months prior to the latter’s cancellation of America’s forty-fifth President, these big tech social media monopolies erased my profile irretrievably and entirely, as though I never existed in the first place. Linked-In and Twitter did so with neither notice nor explanation, and at the same moment (June 14th), followed by Facebook a fortnight later (July 4th). At the time I thought that it was the on-line equivalent of capital punishment. Soon, I came to realize it was as if they had also erased my birth certificate, as though I never existed in the first place. Twelve years, five thousand Facebook “friends,” another sixteen hundred followers by others who hadn’t “friended” me, and all vanished in a moment, gone for good.
That’s what the cancel culture seeks- extermination and erasure of any and all viewpoints which stray from the orthodoxy of globalist and leftist ideology…
…and make no mistake, the cancel culture is a cancer on our Constitution and the rights guaranteed in that document are imperiled as never before.
Within the next ten days, the Senate is expected to take up the second impeachment of President Trump- this time after he had already vacated the office from which they were attempting oust him, ex post facto. Never mind the fact that forty-five Republicans of all stripes in the U.S. Senate voted not to consider the Article of Impeachment. The usual suspect and predictable horses’ asses- Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME), Mitt Romney (R-NV), Ben Sasse (R-NE), and Pat Toomey (R-PA)- none of whom can resist an opportunity to take yet another swipe at Donald Trump- joined with that oh-so-moderate Joe Manchin (D-WV) who once again voted unanimously along with his Chuck Schumer (D-NY) -led caucus, to proceed with an impeachment trial. Why these five Republicans don’t change their party affiliation boggles the mind, but there it is… the last vestige of the go-along-with, get-along-with, milquetoast, middling and mindless establishment Republicans whose cross-the-aisle entreaties only serve to make them the laughingstock of Democrats who will never come to love them as they would otherwise wish.
Taken another way, Trump’s post-presidential impeachment stands a mere twelve votes away from what would amount to a first-ever disqualification from seeking a second term or other political office- the ultimate cancellation of a former president and a ceremonious “f@%* you” to the man they never accepted as President in the first place. The deployment of tens of thousands of National Guard troops to seal off the U.S. Capitol has far less to do with the January 6th breach of the Capitol, and far more to do with a contrived theatrical production designed to convince a watching nation that it is Trump and his supporters who pose the biggest threat to our national security.
Meanwhile, politicians in both parties continue to use the China coronavirus as an excuse to keep schools and places of worship closed, businesses shuttered and masks mandated, despite the fact that none of these draconian assaults on individual freedom serve to contain the spread of this pandemic. Continuation of these policies will inevitably lead to more and more restrictions on our liberties, liberties which now dangle on the precipice of forever being taken away from us…
…and the cancer of the cancel culture will metastasize and spread to bring death to our Constitution and all the attendant freedoms entailed therein.
author of Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times, published 2016, All That Rendered Trump- and What Led Up to His Election, published 2020, and The Broom, published 2020, available at amazon.com.
In a radio broadcast recorded 28 January 2021, Drew Nickell discussed several issues surrounding media maleficence, with regards to their perpetuating intentional misinformation on Coronavirus COVID-19, as well as both the 2016 and 2020 elections. Recorded on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads, Virginia.
In a radio broadcast recorded 12 November 2020, regarding the 2020 Presidential Election on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads, Virginia, Drew Nickell discussed the corrupted presidential election besetting this nation and how this corruption impacts not only this, but future elections, as well.
Interviewed by Nora Firestone on her Thursday, October 22, 2020 radio show, author Drew Nickell discusses the launch of his two new books- “All That Rendered Trump… and What Led Up to His Election” (historical commentary) as well as his first novel “The Broom” (historical fiction) and discussed critical issues surrounding this fall’s election.
Drew Nickell, Broadcast on 8 October 2020, Discusses Current Events and the Presidential Election
Broadcast on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads, Virginia on Thursday, 8 October 2020, I discussed the current events and recent developments surrounding this year’s presidential election.
Drew Nickell, Broadcast on 24 Sept 2020, Discusses Presidential Election
Broadcast on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads, Virginia on Thursday, 24 September 2020, I discussed the confluence of stressors and the emerging truth of this year’s presidential election.
Election 2020- the Confluence of Stressors and its Emerging Truth
In the not-so-coincidental confluence of dissimilar stressors, the greater truth of the 2020 Presidential Election emerges… and the truth which emerges shows more and more clarity, with every passing day.
To wit:
Coronavirus- The culpability of the communist Chinese government in the worldwide spread of the coronavirus has long been suspected since that government took measures to silence the growing calls from doctors- connected with the government-owned and operated lab in Wuhan- that a dangerous virus had been set loose and was rapidly spreading. Almost immediately, that government shut down flights- within that nation- to and from the Wuhan, but continued to allow international flights, regardless. That government almost immediately shut down Wuhan, the largest city in the Hubei Province, while simultaneously insisting that the virus was not communicable between humans, and then lied about its very origin- blaming it instead on “wet markets” not exactly known for their sanitary nature. These lies were then echoed by the World Health Organization, which gave cover to the Chinese government while insisting that President Trump’s decision to shut down incoming flights from China was “over-reactionary,” “xenophobic,” and bordered on “racism.” Democrats, including their eventual nominee for president, Joe Biden, echoed these same sentiments, but even Biden was reluctantly forced to admit later, that the President acted wisely in his decision to stop inbound flights from China, and later Europe, but not before they had already planted the seed of mis-information that it was all Trump’s fault in the way he responded to the emerging pandemic. Throughout Trump’s actions, both during the initial and subsequent developments of this pandemic, Democrats continued to second-guess the President, yet offered no real alternatives to what the President was doing to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic. President Trump, along with his Coronavirus Task Force, unleashed all of the engines of the nation’s government and corporate entities, to quickly ramp up production of sorely-needed ventilators and the development of therapeutics aimed at combating the effects of the virus- particularly among the old and infirm. Trump launched Operation Warpspeed to dramatically accelerate the development of a vaccine to prevent coronavirus infection, by removing all of the usual regulatory and certification burdens which can slow the process of a new such launch to three years, or more. In doing so, no less than five different pharmaceutical companies are now in the third and final stages of testing, and the President has already unleashed the logistical expertise of the U.S. Army’s Transportation Corps to be at the ready to distribute the vaccine, just as soon as final approvals occur- all within the next several weeks, according to reports. So, within the space of nine months, the public and private sectors have come together to both treat coronavirus patients and protect the public from further infection with effective inoculation- a feat which knows absolutely no equal in the annals of pandemic history.
In responding to the coronavirus, President Trump did all of this, yet what do we hear from Democrats, now that a victory over coronavirus in in sight? “Oh, Trump was slow to recognize the dangers of the virus…” “oh, Trump is dangerously rushing the development and launch of the vaccine, just in time for the election, and doesn’t care about its safety or effectiveness…” and “no one should ever trust any vaccine coming from Trump…” Democrats insist that much of the economy remains shuttered, insist that schools remain closed, and insist that masks and social-distancing protocols remain in place for the foreseeable future- some even insisting that Trump be impeached, yet again, this time for his response to the coronavirus. When asked, albeit seldomly, just how they would have handled the response differently from how Trump handled it, they quickly change the subject by either suggesting a non-existent rift between Trump and the scientists and doctors on his task force, or by condemning the President for conducting campaign rallies before large audiences without requiring that they wear masks. Given the great difference in enthusiasm between the two campaigns, it’s no wonder Democrats carp about these rallies because, deep down, they know fully well that Biden could never draw such attendance nor much enthusiasm for his own candidacy.
Unrest in the Streets- While no one could have foreseen the sudden onslaught of the virus, unrest from leftist radicals- in the streets of cities where they are given such leeway by Democrat mayors and in states with Democrat governors- began to emerge in the second term of the Obama administration. First, there was Ferguson, Missouri, followed by Baltimore, Maryland- both cities in which an African-American suspect died at the hands of local law enforcement. The riots those incidents unleashed resulted in far more deaths, and millions of dollars in destruction and looting- a harbinger of what was to follow George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis six years later. Ever since Floyd’s death, many other cities have erupted in violence- some as the result of similar incidents where police officers were forced to take lethal means to subdue suspects and effect arrests. Since this latest eruption of violence, which began in June, Democrat governors have refused to seek the deployment of their state’s National Guard units to put down the riots- a deployment repeatedly offered and encouraged by President Trump- while Democrat mayors have put the kibosh on local and state law enforcement to bring their streets under control.
Yet, the Democrats seek to blame Trump for all of this unrest, while completely dismissing the feckless inaction of their own gubernatorial and mayoral administrations which have allowed this violence to continue. Police officers and civilians alike have been assaulted and even murdered in the weeks which have followed Floyd’s death. Many thousands of businesses have been looted and damaged beyond repair, while many of these same businesses which provide jobs to minorities have been forced to permanently close. How any of these actions help to end “white privilege,” or combat “endemic racism,” or even “bring justice” at the behest of the relatively few incidents where unarmed black men are actually killed by white police officers- typically not more ten or eleven each year- when tens of thousands of black Americans are killed by other black Americans each and every year, are far beyond any rational discussion. While blame for the unrest, which was originally unleashed and even encouraged by the Obama administration, was never laid at the foot of Barack Obama administration, all we hear is that the riots taking place in 2020 are the direct result of Donald Trump and the deep divisions that he purportedly sows, in his tweets and rhetoric. Never at a loss for words- words which abide criminals in the crimes they commit, words which absolve violent felons from the life-changing results of their own assaults and even murders- Democrats seek to explain the inexplicable and transfer responsibility and culpability for violence away from those who commit this violence.
In other words, never under-estimate the power of Democrats and their co-collaborators in the media to exonerate their own, while at the same time, bring condemnation on Trump as well as their own Republican counterparts. It happens again and again and again.
International Relations- While the arrival of coronavirus and the death toll that has emerged from it (over 200,000 in the United States and just under a million deaths worldwide, as of this writing) have clouded other developments on the international front, we nevertheless see a drastic change in the status quo ante.
ISIS and their infamous caliphate, which the Obama administration said “that we would have to live with for the foreseeable future” has since been destroyed with all of their “territory” reclaimed by Syria and Lebanon. Thanks, in large measure, to President Trump removing Obama’s suicidal rules of engagement, which had hampered the effectiveness of our forces to lay waste to this radical Islamist regime, we haven’t heard any more of beheadings, and other brutal acts of violence, once perpetrated by these radicals against Christians, Jews and non-adherent Muslims, alike.
The ludicrous and ill-conceived Iran deal, which Obama and his second Secretary of State John Kerry put together to appease that nation and its criminal regime, has been effectively cancelled by the Trump administration- drying up the financial resources Iran then used to foment terrorism throughout the world. Arab states throughout the Middle East are taking note of these developments and are slowly but surely isolating the Iranian regime and recognizing the disruptive influence which Iranian mullahs have, and are, subjecting the world.
In September, President Trump successfully negotiated the first peace treaty between Israel and Arab nations in more than twenty-six years. In the so-named Abrahamic Accords, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have formally recognized the State of Israel, joining Egypt (1979) and Lebanon (1994) in the formal diplomatic and trade relations with the Jewish state. As many as nine other Arab states are soon to follow suit- further isolating the Islamist regime in Iran. Trump has won worldwide recognition for this treaty and, along with the peace treaty he previously negotiated between Kosovo and Serbia, has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize- this time in recognition for all that he has accomplished to bring peace where once there was war.
Trump accomplished this latest treaty to the absolute dismay of globalists in the Obama and in former administrations, most notably John Kerry, who insisted that the only way such a treaty could happen was by first settling the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians- long promised, but perpetually short in realization… for this lifetime, anyway. So, Trump bypassed that conundrum completely, and then deployed his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to enter into back-door negotiations between the U.A.E. and Israel. Once achieved, Bahrain quickly signed on, and thus history was made on the south lawn of the White House.
Yet, all we hear from Democrats and other globalists, as well as their co-conspirators in the media, is condemnation for an elusive peace treaty which they say excludes Palestinians- yet no one, most certainly not the Trump administration nor the Israelis, have prevented the Palestinians from signing onto the Abrahamic Accords, but then again, Trump has accomplished what all of the so-called experts in Washington and New York could not have accomplished, by thinking outside the box, and that is what bothers the living hell out of them.
“How dare he go where they were unwilling to go!”
Domestically, aside from the coronavirus and the uptick in urban unrest, Democrats are pulling out all the stops to deny Trump a second term. Where once they failed to prevent his uncanny nomination and election, and at the same time, failed to destroy his presidency with a $45 million dollar Mueller investigation followed by an impeachment attempt, they are now resorting to seize electoral victory through fraudulent voting, by means of mass distribution of unsolicited ballots via the U.S. Mail. They have even gone so far as to promise an escalation in the violence we see in our streets if Trump is re-elected- a modus operandi of voter extortion not seen in the history of these United States.
The passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsberg- regrettable, yet altogether expected given her age and commendable battle with terminal cancer- has opened up another vacancy on the nation’s highest court. Expressing absolute outrage that this president dare exercise his constitutional mandate to name Justice Bader-Ginsberg’s replacement with a constructionist (read “conservative”) justice- not to mention doing so in an election year- how dare he – they would presume to tell the American people that Trump has no right to fill her seat. After all, they say, Bader-Ginsberg’s “seat” should only be filled by a woman who shares her activist (read “liberal”) judicial philosophy, and their candidate for president insists that the woman be African-American, as well.
So, in a country governed by a Constitution, which gives a President an entire four-year term to exercise his explicit powers, and in a country which promises that all are created equal, such platitudes somehow don’t apply when it comes to President Trump, as well as the selection of a Supreme Court Justice. Trump should be proscribed from exercising his duties, while only a liberal African-American woman, nominated by a Democrat president, is qualified to replace the late Justice Bader-Ginsberg.
Democrats are even threatening to “pack” the Supreme Court, with the addition of six more justices- presumably of their own philosophical, liberal and activist bent- if Trump is allowed to select a third Supreme Court justice, just as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once tried to do in 1937, when the Supreme Court decided then that certain elements of his New Deal were unconstitutional. Ever since Trump was elected, and in the wake of Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh being appointed, Democrats have clamored for this packing, so their latest threat to pack the Court is nothing new in the passing of Ruth Bader-Ginsberg.
That aside, the increasing likelihood of a disputed presidential election ending up at the steps of the Supreme Court, just as it did so in Bush vs Gore twenty years ago, will require a full compliment of nine justices to finally settle the election. Such a contingency cannot be settled without nine justices, and therefore, a new justice must not await this year’s election, because the continuation of our nation may well hang in the balance. President Trump knows this. Republicans in both houses of Congress also know this, as well as all of their Democrat counterparts.
So, this begs the question “Why do Democrats, their nominated candidates Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, as well as Republican Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) insist that the selection and confirmation of a new Supreme Court Justice wait until after the election? The answer is quite simple- none of them, Collins and Murkowski included, want Trump to be re-elected and it is simple as that. They would rather see the nation suspended in the uncertainty of its future, and even further divided, while being subjected to the trauma of public litigation that would surely attend to such an extended and drawn-out, contested election- the longer the better.
At this moment, in the final week of September, it looks like Republicans in the Senate will be able to proceed with the confirmation hearings which follow Trump’s selection, albeit without the help from Senators Collins and Murkowski, now that Senators Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Cory Gardiner (R-CO) have given their assent to proceed. Trump has indicated he will announce the selection on Saturday, September 26th at 5:00 PM, EDT. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has already slated the week of October 12th for confirmation hearings, thus enabling a floor vote before Hallowe’en, and before this fall’s election takes place. Let us hope and pray that there is a fully-functional, nine-justice compliment to the Supreme Court, prior to November 3rd, because it looks like that’s where this election is headed… one way or another.
Coronavirus, urban unrest, race relations, international relations, the potential for fraudulent balloting and the Supreme Court vacancy are but six dissimilar but altogether confluent stressors from which the emerging truth of this year’s election is revealed, despite the efforts of the media to disguise this truth and camouflage the real differences between Biden and Trump.
Tuesday’s debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump will reveal evenmore differences between these two candidates- and show one who solves problems while the other pontificates platitudes, just as he has for forty-seven years.
author of Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times, published 2016, All That Rendered Trump- and What Led Up to His Election, published 2020, and The Broom, published 2020, available at amazon.com.
With little more than seven weeks to go until the 2020 Presidential Election, Democrats have revealed, intentionally or not, the ultimate modus operandi of election tampering- the threat of violence if their nominee Joe Biden doesn’t win. The Democrat nominees have, themselves, so much as admitted this- again, whether intentionally or not.
Vice-Presidential nominee Kamala Harris (D-CA) said, during a televised interview a couple of months ago, that “…the level of unrest we see in the streets is a good thing, and that’s not going to end with the election… nor should it…”
Think about that… The running mate of a major party’s presidential nominee not only endorses looting, arson, assault and worse, but believes it should continue.
Then there was 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton who said, “If I were advising Joe Biden, I would tell him not to concede the election- regardless of the outcome.”
So, the most poisonous, most corrupt, and most pathologically dishonest presidential nominee in history, Hillary Clinton, is openly saying to her successor to the Democrat nomination, to essentially reject the will of the people. Remember that it was Hillary Clinton, who once wagged her finger at Donald Trump, because he refused in one of their debates, to unconditionally accept defeat at the polls, saying “…we’ll see what happens …” (Trump has also said the same regarding this year’s election). Clinton, who never accepted his election in 2016, is now advocating sheer rejection of the will of the people to determine their own destiny- essentially advocating for open revolt.
Then there’s Joe Biden himself, who just this past week said that “violence… (which only recently, Biden has condemned)… we see in the streets will only get worse if Trump is re-elected…”
You heard it. The Democrat nominee for the nation’s highest office has promised an escalation in violence if his Republican opponent is re-elected- a level of unrest that his running mate has endorsed as not only a “good thing,” but inevitable.
With feckless failure to condemn the violence taking place in Democrat-run cities across the land, cowardly Republicans are just as culpable as their Democrat counterparts in tacitly aiding and abetting this violence, through their silence… and why? …because they fear being labeled as “racist.’’ The media labels all Republicans as racist, anyway, so Republicans who stay silent on the issue are doing just as much as Democrats to encourage the unrest in these cities.
Only President Donald Trump is standing up for law and order, and he has promised to immediately end this violence, on request, from the affected state’s governors (that’s our federal system). Yet, these Democrat governors and mayors who refuse to do so are evidently fine with allowing further death and destruction, so long as Trump isn’t re-elected… rest assured, that that’s what really is at work here.
With Democrats encouraging continued mayhem in our streets, their nominees Biden and Harris advocating more violence if the election doesn’t go their way, and their party’s 2016 nominee openly advocating rejection of any result that keeps Donald Trump in office, the modus operandi of constitutional overthrow and the plan for violent coup d’état (if that’s what it takes) is therefore revealed for all to see, if they will only pay attention…
Drew Nickell, Broadcast on 3 Sept 2020, Discusses Presidential Election
Broadcast on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads, Virginia on Thursday, 3 September 2020, I discussed the manufactured misery besetting this nation and how this misery impacts the upcoming presidential election, as well as other topics of the day.
Following the Conventions, the Race is On for the Presidency of the United States
Now that the Democrat and Republican nominations are formalized, and their respective conventions have come to a close, Americans are starting to pay closer attention to the presidential elections which are less than nine short weeks away.
Exactly sixty days from today, Americans will be deciding who will lead this nation through the years 2021 through 2024, when we will be saddled with the next presidential election, once again. If sixty days of suffering through endless campaign commercials, the cacophony of commentators posing as journalists, and the never-ending litany of “scientific polling” which predict little more than wishful thinking on the part of pollsters- if that seems like an eternity, give a thought to sixty days before today.
Sixty days ago, it was July 4th, 2020- the two hundred forty-third Anniversary of our nation’s founding. Perhaps, you were venturing out into the world- masks at the ready- to celebrate the nation’s birthday by firing up the patio grill, placing the stars and stripes outside your doorstep and getting ready to watch the fireworks on your television. In some small towns across the fruited plains, you might have been preparing to watch or participate in the few Independence Day parades still taking place in our quasi-quarantined, semi-sequestered nation. As we listened to the sitting President give one of his most effective and beautifully-constructed speeches at the foot of Mount Rushmore, followed by a magnificent fireworks display over the enormous sculptures of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt in South Dakota, we were reminded of an America we knew before the Chinese pandemic- an America which celebrated its freedom and independence as something to be proud of, something to be cherished, something for which we owe much to those who gave their lives, so that this nation might live.
To many of us, how we spent and what we did on this most unusual July 4th, seems like it was merely a fortnight ago, and yet our calendars tell us that sixty days have passed, since.
So, the sixty days remaining in this year’s quadrennial exercise in presidential politics will pass with the same velocity that the preceding sixty days have passed, but will this passage of time put a final end to this year’s presidential campaign?
Not hardly- given the fact that the 2016 presidential campaign didn’t really end with President Trump’s election. No, the Democrats and the media saw to it that that election would be re-litigated, on a daily basis, ever since the night of November the 8th, 2016.
First, we were told that it was the Russians who interfered with our election and caused Trump to be elected against the wishes of the American people. Three sweltering years, and $40 million dollars later, we learned that there was absolutely no merit to such an outrageous claim. Then, we were told that the President tried to use the power of his office to leverage the newly-elected Ukrainian president, in terms of financial and military assistance to that government, in exchange for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, in a July 2019 phone call. For that whopper, the Democrats moved forward with their impeachment plans- three years in the making.
Once again, the Democrats ended up being smeared by their own baseless allegations, when it was revealed that Joe Biden’s son was paid millions of dollars by a Ukrainian energy company, to serve on their board of directors, for no reason other than the identity of his father. The hefty payments continued right up until the younger Biden resigned from his lucrative position- the day before his father announced his candidacy for President.
Now, they have turned their tactics into blaming the President for arrival of a pandemic which has cost more than 180,000 American lives, despite the fact that millions of American lives were saved by the President’s early actions to shut down flights from China, and later Europe, when these very same Democrats chided such actions as racist and xenophobic.
Never doubt the ability of Democrats to revise history- both recent and not-so-recent- just as long as it serves their own partisan interests. The same goes as well for their blaming the violence and destruction taking place in cities across America on Trump, where Democrat governors and mayors aid and abet this same violence with little if any resistance, or make an effort to stop, or even quell, this violence.
Yes, it’s true- Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media will stop at nothing to end Trump’s presidency- even if doing so costs many lives, destroys businesses, and ravages communities, alike.
Truth be told, this unrest began long before George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police, long before Donald Trump’s presidency, and all the way back to the first term of Barack Obama’s presidency. It was Obama who set off the war on cops- from Black Lives Matter, whose aim is to usher in a communist insurgency, to Antifa, whose goal is to unleash widespread anarchy in the streets of our nation.
Yet, all we hear is that the nation’s unrest is what we see in “Donald Trump’s America,” as if all of this is due to the President’s divisive rhetoric, and is being stoked by Trump just to scare Americans into re-electing the nation’s forty-fifth President.
Only this week have some Democrats begun to speak out against this violence, when throughout the entirety of their own Democrat National Convention, nary a word was spoken to condemn the looting, destruction, assaults and even murder which has been unleashed on our cities, large and small. Yet, even in this condemnation, Democrats can’t resist the temptation to turn reality 180 degrees on its head- blaming all of the violence on right-wing extremists who, at the encouragement of Trump, are perpetrating the violence as a means to scare us into re-electing him.
Well there are liars, there are damned liars, and then there are Democrats, who have taken prevarication to an all-time low, and are helped by willing accomplices in the media who have made common cause with Democrats to defeat Trump in November.
They are even screwing around with how we cast ballots, with some states mailing out millions of unsolicited ballots to names and addresses, many of whom are known to be inaccurate and unreliable, and which provide no means of ensuring ballot legitimacy. This is not to be confused with absentee balloting, which must be specifically requested by duly registered voters in advance of an election, and with which voter eligibility is pre-determined before the absentee ballot is sent.
Moreover, a full third of our nation’s voters will begin casting ballots in early and mid-September, beforethe first presidential debate even takes place at month’s end.
Speaking of debates, the moderators for the three presidential debates, and the lone vice-presidential debate, were announced this week and they all share one common trait- they all hate President Trump and will spend their respective evenings fact-checking the President and blunting any and all criticism of Biden and his running mate.
So, Donald Trump and Mike Pence will be debating the moderators as well as their nominal opponents, and post-debate coverage will score their own respective performances as such- while exaggerating the respective performances and effectiveness of their Democrat opponents.
This isn’t so much a prediction as much as much as it is a certainty. Write it down and hold me to it, if you like, but rest assured that this cake is already baked, and frosted, too.
Hillary Clinton recently said that, under no circumstances, should Biden concede the election regardless of outcome. What a glaring admission from the ultimate DC insider! This is their plan- to cast fear, uncertainty, and doubt into our presidential election, so as to further engulf the nation into post-election discord and further division.
Prognosticators are even predicting that this year’s election will portend what they have described as a “red mirage,” where Trump appears to gain an electoral victory on election night, only to be reversed with the discovery of millions of ballots, well after the fact. Some “blue” states, like California, are even making allowances for mailed-in ballots containing postmarks weeks after November 3rd. In other words, Democrats are already planning to overturn the results of the election in ways that heretofore seemed unimaginable even four years ago.
As we said, this year’s Presidential Election won’t be over on election night.
Former Vice President and Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden even promised that violence in our streets will continue with Trump’s re-election, thereby unwittingly revealing what is really behind this unrest, and it goes part and parcel with the fact that it is the Democrats who are encouraging this unrest.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, tells us all we need to know about the real issues surrounding this election.
What is not so obvious, but nevertheless is absolutely true, is that this year’s presidential election will also be a cognitive intelligence test for America’s electorate… that is to say, “Are we stupid enough to elect Joe Biden president?”
Drew Nickell Radio Broadcast recorded Thursday, 13 August 2020
What follows is the recorded broadcast of Thursday, 13 August 2020, guest hosting on the Nora Firestone Show on WKQA -AM Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads, Virginia.
Manufactured Misery- the Enemies of America Collude with Democrats to Oust Trump
In taking inventory of the last four years or so, the truth was staring us all in the face, all along. Had we only stepped back and taken a hard look at a much broader picture- a broad picture of deceit that might have been unimaginable, prior to the election of President Donald Trump- we might have averted potential disaster.
Just think of it.
The media, along with Democrats and establishment Republicans, completely trashed and scoffed at the candidacy of Donald Trump. None of them had even considered the possibility that Trump was serious about running. From the get-go, they treated Trump’s candidacy as a joke- a stunt designed to further market his own name, much as he had done so for decades. Trump, ever the “master of media management“ (that is to say, managing his own self-promotion through media exposure and attention), seemed to be playing the very same game he had always played, before.
But then, the unexpected happened.
One by one, Trump’s sixteen opponents seeking the Republican nomination for president began to fall in the wayside of his juggernaut, through the primaries and caucuses, despite the media attempts to derail his candidacy through print, broadcast, and even debate moderation. In the weeks and months that preceded his nomination, Trump took an early lead winning primaries and caucuses alike, and never looked back as the rest of the Republican field, who foundered in the same waters through which he waded, with much ease and abandon, no less.
Just as they had prior to his nomination, the media condescendingly drummed it into our heads that Trump stood nary a chance of winning the November election, citing poll, after poll, after poll indicating Clinton led him by as much as double digits, in some cases, and insisting there was absolutely no electoral path through which victory could be his.
The Obama administration, alarmed at Trump’s success, didn’t want to take any such chances, and determined to bring his candidacy down, at all costs. There was simply no way this man was going to be allowed to short-circuit all that Obama perpetrated during his own presidency, and there was no way he was going to be allowed to deny Hillary Clinton the presidency for which she had schemed, fought for so long, and therefore deserved. So, Barack Obama orchestrated an elaborate, multi-departmental assault on the Trump candidacy. At the same time it completely exonerated Hillary Clinton on charges of subpoenaed evidence tampering, destruction of documents and wireless devices, and espionage though the unauthorized use of private e-mail servers, the Obama Justice Department then authorized and initiated illegal surveillance of Trump and his campaign associates, by obtaining illegal FISA surveillance warrants- warrants based upon fictitious dossiers, paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC.
Yet, despite all of this, Donald Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States.
Now, that made all of the Washington establishment, all of the entrenched Washington “Deep State,” all of the Democrats and establishment Republicans, and all of the national media incensed with anger- irate at the idea that one brash and irreverent political novice could attain the highest office in the land, in spite of all their coordinated efforts to prevent this from happening.
And so, the efforts to impeach President Trump began the very night he was elected president.
During the time between the election of Trump and his inauguration, the Obama administration stepped up their efforts to sabotage his presidency, by expanding their surveillance of Trump operatives and engulfing his political allies- Roger Stone, Michal Flynn, Carter Page, Paul Manafort and many others, in a web of process crime entrapments and concerted, draconian threats of severe punishment from Democrat-appointed judges sympathetic to these efforts. Trump’s enemies, both in the Obama Administration and in the Washington “Deep State,” even went so far as to plant “moles” within his administration, tasked with leaking damaging stories about the President, and sabotaging his presidency from the start. These included one-time Trump cabinet members and staff- highly-placed men such as Mike Kelly, Anthony Scaramucci, Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, and many others. Also aiding in Trump’s attempted destruction, were holdovers from the Obama Administration- James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, Sally Yates, Dana Boente, and others, until their respective positions could be filled with the new President’s appointees.
Through three agonizing years, Democrats in Congress, with silent help from anti-Trump/NeverTrump Republicans, took this nation through a divisive and horrible “hell” of a national nightmare with baseless accusation, contrived and perjurious testimony, and daily diatribes on Trump’s supposed lack of character and his disloyalty to the American people. The media joined in, in the free-for-all, with fantastic story after story, that Trump’s days as president were numbered- gleefully predicting with certainty, his inevitable conviction at impeachment and even his eventual imprisonment.
Democrats in the Senate confirmation hearings did their level best to sabotage the Supreme Court nomination of Neal Gorsuch, and when that failed, went all out to subsequently slander and libel, with false accusations of sexual assault and even gang rape, Brett Kavanaugh- the most vicious of these coming from Kamala Harris, herself. Both men would eventually be confirmed and seated on the nation’s highest court, but not before any shred of decency and decorum left the institutions of our government, when all was said and done.
In the wake of all these machinations, and constant abuse from the Washington press corps, President Trump went about his business keeping every promise he made during his campaign.
It seemed as though Trump was impervious to such well-coordinated and unprecedented resistance to, and assaults on, his presidency.
One by one, Trump ticked off the checklist of these promises like a grocery shopper ticks off the items on a shopping list. Border wall construction, immigration enforcement, elimination of burdensome business regulation, income tax reduction, elimination of the ObamaCare individual mandates, not to mention the single greatest economic expansion in U.S. history- all came into fruition during the first three years of his presidency.
Internationally, Trump coerced members of NATO to start paying their committed and fair share of expenses, providing for their own security, and ever since, billions have been anted up by these nations, despite their grumblings about having to do so. Trump withdrew from the ridiculous Iran deal that Obama and his second Secretary of State John Kerry cooked up, withdrew from the job-killing NAFTA and Trans-Pacific trade agreements, and abruptly withdrew from the contrived and self-destructive Paris climate accords.
In a matter of a few months, Trump completely obliterated ISIS- a feat that the Obama administration, who had initially thought ISIS to be a “J.V. group” of Islamic insurgents, told us that ISIS was something we would all have to live with, for the foreseeable future. All Trump had to do, on the other hand, was to unshackle the military might of our nation- beset with Obama’s suicidal rules of engagement- and allow them to do what they do best- kick ass and take names. Again, and again, the Trump administration facilitated the deaths of the world’s most wanted and ardent Islamic extremists, and in short order put the Islamic world on notice that they behave themselves, accordingly, or else. Trump even did what no president since Harry Truman had done- fulfill the commitment of the United States to relocate their embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing that ancient city to be the uncontested capital of the State of Israel.
More consequentially, Trump did what no president since Richard Nixon had done, and confronted the Peoples Republic of China with their own unfair and un-reciprocal trade practices. Put quite simply, Trump put the communist Chinese government on notice that the days of playing the United States for fools, and stealing our intellectual property, had come to an end.
All of this rankled the Washington-based globalists in both parties, as well as the power brokers and legislators in our nation’s capital, who had become exceeding wealthy, thanks to pharmaceutical, environmental and foreign lobbyists who purchased their betrayal of U.S. workers, along with a progressive weakening of our national security. They dangerously allowed the Chinese to acquire 97% of the manufacture of prescription drugs- not to mention the manufacture of steel, automotive and electronics, on a wholesale basis. The requisite blue-collar jobs and other means of production were exported to China, all in the name of the World Trade Organization’s insistence that China was among other impoverished and developing nations needing U.S. assistance. Those congressmen and senators, who had grown fat on the backs of the middle and working classes, quickly realized that Trump posed a threat to their gravy train, so something had to be done- something so devastating that Trump’s economic success would come crashing down to an unprecedented halt… but how?
Well, China provided the ultimate means to crash Trump’s economy by intentionally unleashing a dangerous and virulent pandemic on the entire world, with a virus manufactured in their own state-run laboratories. The Chinese lied about the nature of their own coronavirus, and with help from the World Health Organization, denied its human communicability until long after the disease had crossed oceans and continents the world over.
Trump wisely cut off flights from both China and Europe, early on, and against the advice of all the “medical experts” who insisted that such measures were over-reactionary and overly precautionary. In fact, such measures ended up preventing millions of U.S. deaths and, while the total of number of Americans succumbing to the virus- primarily the old and infirm- remains high, at over 168,000, that is nevertheless a fraction of what might have happened, had the President not taken such actions. Trump also launched “Operation Lightspeed,” pulling out all of the stops to manufacture an effective vaccine against the deadly virus, and in record time. Already in the third phase of testing- unimaginable only a year ago, given the slow and onerous process of approving vaccines, prior to this initiative- the promise of widespread delivery of effective vaccinations looms on the very-near horizon, while effective treatments are being developed which are vastly reducing the mortality of the Chinese virus. Millions of quality tests- more than the rest of the world taken together- have already been administered here in the United States, and there are undeniable signs that we are getting a handle on dealing with this deadly pandemic, once and for all.
The President had no choice but to shut down the nation’s commerce at the onset of this deadly pandemic- driving the nation’s economy to a screeching halt with the virtual cessation of all business activity, along with the closing of schools across the land. As the nation began to come to grips with this sudden stoppage, doubtless gains have since been made towards recovering 42% of the jobs lost in the late winter/early spring of 2020, and the engine of the nation’s economic might has restarted anew- due in large part to the tax and regulatory policies that Trump had implemented prior to, and the subsequent to, the pandemic.
So, it looked like Trump was once again stepping up to the “plate” of his presidency, and stood a good chance of successfully dealing with yet another crisis, not of his own making, with a “home run” hit out of the proverbial ballpark.
Yet, Democrat governors across the nation insist on the continued closure of schools and businesses, insist on the continued restrictions against church services, insist upon requiring people to wear masks in public- despite scientific evidence to the contrary that they work- all merely to continue the misery to which we have been subjected now, for almost six-months, and counting.
All the while, a teeming and angry sentiment which had been initiated and accelerated in the early days of the Obama administration, began to bubble up and overflow into the streets of our cities.
At a moment in history when the nation had seemingly overcome its troubled past in race relations- by electing its first black president- Obama kept his promise to “fundamentally transform the United States of America” through the same well-practiced and well-worn modus operandi of Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Pol-Pot, Noriega, Chavez, and countless others, just to name a few… that being the politics of division. In his words and actions, Obama effectively set back race relations sixty years, and threw gasoline on the passions, resentments and hatreds which were long thought to be put asunder… All it took was one incident to set loose the mayhem and anarchy, espoused by Antifa and the BLM movements, one that would bring an abrupt end to any sense of domestic tranquility, in the minds of an American electorate. All it took was one final coup-de-gras, reinforced by the deception and the collusion of a mainstream media, to drive one final nail into the coffin of the Trump presidency… and that came in the form of George Floyd’s death at the hands of the Minneapolis police.
Suddenly, statues across the country were hauled down by angry mobs, stores were looted, and people were assaulted and even killed, in the wake of mob violence. Democrat governors, Democrat city councils and Democrat mayors alike, seizing on an opportunity to exploit the unrest as a means to defeat Trump, offered no resistance to the angry mobs, and aided and abetted in the destruction of their very own cities. They hamstrung local law enforcement, refused to seek the assistance of their states’ National Guard, and insisted that the Trump administration was the cause of all this unrest. The media went along with this deception, largely because it served their collective narrative that Trump was/is a racist and that he was the only reason that all of this mayhem took place.
None of that is true… none of it… but what is truth when what we really need is to “get rid of Trump?” Isn’t that really what is at play here?
In many states, the wholesale mailing of ballots has already begun- ballots which can be fraudulently returned without any safeguards to ensure their legitimacy, all in an effort to either overturn an upcoming election by treacherous deceit, or by dragging out the election results through months or even years of needless delays and countless court challenges.
As the months pass, and an absolute determination of presidential electors remains in doubt, what would have been and should have been Trump’s Second Inaugural, will be suspended indefinitely. Does this mean that Trump remains in the Oval Office in the meantime? No, in such a scenario, none other than the current Speaker of the House would temporarily serve as the nation’s chief executive, giving Nancy Pelosi temporary charge of two of the nation’s three branches of government, until such time as the election results are deemed official. So, now we see what’s really behind mail-in balloting, the hidden agenda, and it’s got nothing to do with coronavirus… nothing.
So, let’s resume this inventory of all that we have been subjected to:
Obama and his administration’s attempt to sow division in the country, thwart Trump’s election, sabotage his presidency and bring about fraudulent warrants against American citizens;
Planting moles in the Trump administration to sabotage his presidency;
Attempts to impeach Trump on a complete Russia hoax and massive resistance to his presidency by members of Congress;
Resistance against the Trump presidency and its “America First” initiatives, and his foreign policy, by members of the Washington Establishment and other deep state globalists who don’t want to see him upset their own lucrative “apple carts;”
The Chinese pandemic and resistance to Trump’s attempts to address the pandemic enacting proactive policies with which to deal with the pandemic;
The effort to continue draconian measures, with which to use the pandemic, to force compliance with government dictates and achieve continued stoppage to American commerce and education;
Facilitating riots across the country to encourage urban unrest, racial division and the destruction of law and order in our cities;
Thwarting the fidelity of the upcoming election, through widespread dissemination of mail-in balloting which invites fraud, abuse and last minute ballot-harvesting, going hand-in-hand with creating fear, uncertainty and doubt in our nation’s institutions;
and
The wholesale collusion and cooperation of the mainstream and social media to spread the lie that this is all Trump’s fault.
Take all of this together, and you see a ceaseless, never-ending, and determined effort to make this country so miserable, as to force the election of Joe Biden as the nation’s forty-sixth President. In doing so, we see the “manufacture of misery” all designed to ensure the end to Donald Trump’s presidency.
Then, look at Biden- the obviously senile and pathetic personage who won’t face media scrutiny, to the extent that there is such scrutiny, has as his running mate, the most radical, calculating and altogether dangerous member of the United States Senate, one Kamala Harris.
Harris, who in her mid-20s, got her start into California state politics by being the mistress to political power broker Willie Brown- married and more than thirty years her senior, no less. Brown facilitated her appointments to two powerful California committees and served to enable her election to statewide office. By the time their extra-marital relationship ended when Brown was elected Mayor of San Francisco (Harris was in a long line of Brown’s extra-marital relationships), Kamala Harris was well on her way to becoming the state’s Attorney General and ultimately, the junior United States Senator from the Golden State. In a recent interview, Brown- now in his mid-80s- cautioned against her selection as Biden’s running mate and encouraged her to “gracefully step aside,” instead. He evidently knows something about her that we will never know, and the media will not allow any level of scrutiny into her candidacy, based upon the presumption that doing so will be deemed sexist, racist or both.
Yet, no one can match the calculating and all-consuming ambition that is, and always has been, Kamala Harris to the core, as she has proved again and again, from the time of being Willie Brown’s protégé and “play toy.” Harboring already-stated positions favoring reparations, nationalized medicine, elimination of the Second Amendment, open borders, unrestricted immigration, extending the right to vote and to receive government-provided health care to illegal aliens, and even entertaining the idea of allowing 16-year-olds to vote in national elections, Harris has been rated the most-liberal member of the United States Senate. She fully intends to implement the “Green New Deal,” thereby effectively ending energy production in the United States and making us once again dependent on foreign oil.
Doddering old Joe Biden will hardly be in a place to stop her, and may well step down following his inauguration, as he has promised to only be a “place-holder” and not seek re-election… and this is supposed to be what America wants?
Cognitively Challenged? “Hidin’ Biden” Shrugs Off Cognitive Assessment Testing
In a recent interview with CBS News reporter Errol Barnett, former Vice President Joe Biden scoffed at the notion that he should submit to the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) Test, in order to dispel any doubts about his cognitive abilities.
“No, I haven’t taken a test. Why the hell would I take a test?” Biden answered, in an interview scheduled to air Thursday at the convention of the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Biden went on, turning the question around on the unsuspecting Barnett, saying “C’mon, man… that’s like saying you, before you got on this program, you take a test where you’re taking cocaine or not. What do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?”
Biden’s response, which some have claimed reveals his own stereotype against people of color, didn’t seem to mesh with an earlier claim he made to Fox News’ Doug McKelway in June, when answering a similar question regarding his own mental acuity.
“I’ve been tested, and I’m constantly tested.” Well, that was then, and this is now, six weeks later… we s’pose…
Tested or not, one could reasonably claim that the need for the former Vice President to be cognitively tested is perhaps long overdue, given his peculiar penchant for malaprops and misstatements. Let’s face it… former President Barack Obama’s “number two” seems to step in “number two” anytime he is faced with a question for which he isn’t previously scripted. Biden also has a nasty tendency to get his dander up at any question which, in his mind, seems the least bit critical in nature. This lack of loquaciousness, coupled with his minimal fuse, makes Biden far different than the icy Obama, who was quite precise in the words he offered up, and who quite adeptly used his oratory to conceal hidden agenda within his own lofty rhetoric.
Not that his former boss was ever really challenged during the eight years of his extended honeymoon with the White House press corps (that’s “corps” Barack, not “corpse”). Imagine just five minutes, of either Biden or Obama, under the identical questioning to which President Trump is regularly subjected. Obama would walk away at the first hint of critical interrogatory, and it’s no stretch to suggest that Biden, under Trump’s daily ordeals with the media, would someday snap and physically accost the media member who lit his “fuse.”
As for the current President, he will answer any question posed with neither regard for prose nor subterfuge- we all know exactly what President Trump thinks, whether we like it or not. No one can accuse “the Donald” of trying to hide what he really means, after all.
Be all of this as it may, the fact is that Trump shows absolutely no sign of age-related cognitive deterioration, as he is essentially the same Donald Trump we all first saw back in the late 1970s when he was making a name for himself in commercial real estate and self-promotion. Millions of dollars and decades later, the President is still just as brash and, okay, just as “cocky,” as he was forty-some years ago. More to the point, Trump passed MoCA, the “gold standard” of cognitive deterioration assessment, with a perfect score during his yearly physical at the Bethesda Naval Hospital, earlier in the spring.
Biden, on the other hand, is clearly not the same Joe Biden that whispered in Obama’s ear- loud enough to be overheard- that passage of his Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) in 2010 was a “big f#@*in’ deal.” He still retains the penchant for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, but anyone other than an ardent Biden supporter is lying if they say he hasn’t lost quite an edge in the ten years that have followed.
Perhaps, the obvious deterioration of his abilities is the result of his age, or perhaps it is the result of two surgeries on aneurysms (one on each side of his brain) back in 1988. Perhaps, the combined effects of losing his first wife and daughter to a tragic automobile accident in 1972, and the loss of his son to brain cancer in 2015, has proved to be far too much personal tragedy for this one man to endure. Then again, it might well be that all of these factors have played a cumulative role in making the Joe Biden that we see, today, and there is no doubt that he has had much to deal with in his personal life- far more than most fathers and husbands.
Our sympathies aside, we also realize that the United States presidency is one office which rises above even personal tragedy and tribulation- the one office whose occupant must be able to set aside personal strife and shoulder on in a hostile world. Presidents must be able to intelligently assess problems and crises which arise, and form effective plans of action with which to address these challenges. The current President, Donald Trump, has shown again and again, that he has the “goods” to effectively respond to such challenges, for he is nothing, if not a problem-solver.
Yet, as long as the Democrat nominee for President of the United States refuses to leave his Delaware residence- all under the guise of coronavirus- “Hidin’ Biden” will continue to arouse suspicions that he is no longer “all there.” Even far beyond the wide divide that separates the platforms of these two candidates, the question of national security- as it relates to this fall’s election- has never been so profoundly prescient, the ramifications of which are unlike any we have ever seen, before. While some may be flirting with the desire for a change in leadership, such a flirtation may end up resulting in the demise of our nation- one that would assuredly accompany Joe Biden’s election.
Yes, it’s all about November… It’s all about November.
Reclaiming Their Time- House Democrats’ “Why We Also Hate Trump’s Attorney General” Orgy of Invective
In a five-hour orgy of slanderous invective, hurled at Attorney General William Barr during Tuesday’s hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Democrats on the committee took turns bashing Barr, on everything with which they find themselves in opposition to Barr’s boss, President Donald Trump.
Partisan opposition against a sitting President is nothing new in the halls of our nation’s capital, but the Democrats’ opposition to Trump has taken on a whole new meaning, based not in ideology but in sheer hatred of the man, himself.
Even when several Democrats would preface their “questions” with “Under oath, do you here and now testify…?” Barr was surreptitiously cut off in answering the allegations when Democrats interrupted his response with “I am going to reclaim my time…” over and over and over, again.
Barr’s first Judiciary Committee hearing, since his appointment as President Donald Trump’s second Attorney General in February 2019, and twice delayed due to corona virus, began more than an hour later than scheduled, because House Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) was involved in a minor traffic accident (some reports indicate two such accidents) on his way to the Capitol.
Nadler didn’t waste any time upon his arrival and immediately set the tone for the hearing in his opening address saying, “…shame on you, Mr. Barr, shame on you…” after accusing the Attorney General of subordinating his office by acting as Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and interfering with justice in his handling of the Roger Stone and Michael Flynn convictions and sentencing. The accusations didn’t stop there.
The Attorney General was also accused of exceeding his authority in the June 1st, 2020 confrontation between U.S. Park Police/Secret Service officers and so-called “peaceful protesters” in Lafayette Square, following a night where federal officials were assaulted by these so-called “peaceful protesters” and nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church was set afire. When the Attorney General decided that the barricade preventing protester approach to the north lawn of the White House, needed to be extended from H Street to I Street, in order to protect the square as well as St. John’s, he was accused of doing so just to set up a “photo op” for the President, holding a bible in front of the church.
Nadler went on to deny Barr a late afternoon, five-minute break insisting the hearing was “almost over.” In fact, the hearing would continue for almost another hour, but not before Nadler was shamed into granting the request by House Republicans on the Committee.
Barr was also accused of instigating/aggravating “peaceful protester” unrest in deploying federal reinforcement officers to aid in protecting the U. S. District Courthouse in Portland, Oregon, under siege since riots began in that city two months prior. One of the Committee members, Steve Cohen (D-TN), has already called for Barr’s impeachment on these “offenses” while his fellow partisans took turns making baseless accusations against Barr, including that he supposedly was harboring systemic racism in the staff he brought with him into the job.
None of the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee joined in condemning riots taking place in cities around the country, insisting instead that peaceful protests are being intentionally aggravated by supposed right-wing groups attempting to create footage to be used in Trump’s campaign commercials. No evidence, not a shred of it, has come forth to substantiate such claims, but these are supposedly the fault of Barr, as well.
While most Americans are struggling with their own problems- in the wake of corona virus, its attendant layoffs, business shutdowns and urban unrest- had far better things to do than watch this spectacle, the shame of it is that they missed an opportunity to see first-hand, the absolute and possibly-psychotic level of hatred on the part of Democrats towards Trump as well as his supporters. In the televised reports following Tuesday’s Judiciary Committee hearings, they would be told how Barr was grilled by Democrats, and how he supposedly refused to provide the testimony they sought. What wouldn’t be mentioned in these reports is the sheer hatred that became all too obvious in the Democrats’ questioning, accusing, and then refusing to allow the Attorney General to answer these charges, which finally led an exasperated Barr to ask,
“Isn’t it the purpose of a hearing to hear what the witness has to say?”
No, we are sorry to say that Democrats- well expertized in the art of re-definition, have changed the meaning of their “hearing” to be “hearing” them spout off the most egregious invective against a sitting President and his Attorney General, just because like everything else, it’s all about November.
The real danger lies in the control of information stemming from these proceedings, and that most Americans will be going to the polls to vote as they have been systematically led to do so, by a mainstream media set on defeating President Trump at all costs (most precipitously being their own credibility), but then again, what the hell is media credibility when Donald Trump might be re-elected?
One might ask a member of the media, or for that matter a Democrat, that very question… then again, they would answer by merely reclaiming their time…
God willing, their “time” will be up- come November. Otherwise, we are in for the hell that will follow.
Politics in the United States- the Low that Keeps Getting Lower
Going low is nothing new to politics in the United States. Ever since I can remember- and that goes back to the early 1960’s- there is something about presidential elections that brings out the worst from politicians and political operatives, who might otherwise seem to be decent people, even if their ideas often belong to the denizens of the insane.
When I was a six-year old, I remember well Lyndon Johnson’s television ad depicting a young girl, plucking the petals of a daisy, saying “He loves me, he loves me not…” and then looking up, with the camera micro-focusing on the pupil of her eye, shows the detonation of an atomic bomb. The message was quite clear: vote for Goldwater and this is what will result- pretty low, even by LBJ’s standards.
Then, when I was thirteen, I remember Edmund Muskie (D-ME) crying on national television after the Manchester Union-Leader posted a forged letter from the Senator, referring to Canadians as “canucks,” (as it turned out, the letter was created by Nixon operatives Donald Segretti and Ken Clawson). Then, the next day, that same paper contained accusatory references to Muskie’s wife, Jane, as a drunkard who was also racially intolerant. That was too much for the long-time Senator, destined to become President Carter’s second Secretary of State. When he broke down in front of the TV cameras, his presidential campaign sank, which then led to George McGovern’s (D-SD) nomination. Sure enough, McGovern’s pick for Vice-President, Tom Eagleton (D-MO) was then effectively gas-lighted, when he was forced to admit that he was under psychiatric care for depression in the early 1960s, and had received electro-shock therapy on two occasions.
The nastiness continued well into the next decades, with Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) actually colluding with operatives in the Soviet Union, to thwart Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign in 1984, with promises to the Soviets he would seek the presidency in 1988, and thereby be more accommodating to the troubled USSR, in the mode of Jimmy Carter. After all, that was no surprise, when the truth came out, as the younger Kennedy brother’s corruption wasn’t limited to Chappaquiddick and the cover-up of Mary Jo Kopechne’s murder.
Then, during George Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign, CBS News long-time commentator Dan Rather ran a bogus story on 60 Minutes, supposedly documenting Vietnam-era deferments that George W. Bush supposedly received, and having had his service record scrubbed while serving in the Texas Air National Guard. It turns out that Rather, and his 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes, knew before the broadcast that the documents they cited were bogus, but what are bogus documents when the real target was Bush’s re-election?
Such an inventory of dastardly deeds could go on and on, but taken together, along with all of the nastiness, slander and libel, done during the entire history of all this country’s presidential elections- all of it pales in comparison to the 2016 presidential election.
First, there was a baked-in guarantee that Hillary Clinton would receive the Democrat Party’s nomination, thanks to the enormous number of super-delegates, pledged to vote for her, well before the nominating contests began. Yet, that was not enough for Clinton. Then-DNC Chairman Donna Brazile provided her with advanced questioning, prior to her debates with socialist Bernie Sanders, so she was able to come into those debates having been prepared with her answers in advance.
Yet, compared to what President Barack Obama and his administration did to Donald Trump’s campaign, such Democrat designs were only starting. Once Clinton secured her nomination, and once she was effectively cleared from further investigation and indictment by FBI Director James Comey, Democrat dirty-dealing took on an entirely new low- illegal wiretapping, warrants for spying on Trump and his operatives being obtained from the FISA courts (all based on fraudulent documents), and planting “moles” within Trump’s administration, tasked with sabotaging his presidency.
A bogus, three-year investigation, under titular leader Robert Mueller and costing over $40 million, into fabricated charges that Trump had colluded with the Russians to deny Hillary Clinton the presidency, proved to be the concocted fantasies of Clinton and Obama operatives across a myriad of DC departments and their allies across the media. Federal charges may still be in the offing against several perpetrators serving under Obama, with the Durham investigations reportedly being wrapped up as this is written. We’ll see.
After all of that, one is tempted to ask, “How much lower can it get?”
Well, just take a look around:
A global pandemic was sent here from communist China, which resulted in an entire shutdown of the strongest economy in American history- built and credited to President Donald Trump’s tax and regulatory reforms. The resulting, albeit necessary recommendations of his task force unwittingly provided the means for Democrat governors to deny constitutional guarantees of worship, of expression, of assembly and other draconian measures which continue to keep schools closed and mandate the wearing of masks;
Then, on the excuse provided by George Floyd’s death at the hands of the Minneapolis police, anarchists and revolutionary socialists, along with garden-variety felons, quickly turned demonstrations into looting, wanton destruction of private property and public monuments, rape and other assaults, along with murder. Happening across the country, all with the aiding and abetting by Democrat governors and mayors who refuse to put an end to the mayhem, this goes hand-in-hand with creating an America where citizens can no longer assume that police and other first responders will be there to protect them from danger.
Add it all up and we see a coordinated effort to deny Trump a second term, by making this country so miserable and so volatile, that even a total dunce like Joe Biden (D-DE) now has a slight chance of defeating Trump… and just to make sure, several Democrat-run states are allowing mail-in ballots, with deadlines as long as three weeks (California) following the November 3rd election, with no verification of citizenship or ballot validity, whatsoever. Then, there are polls indicating that the former Vice-President and longtime Delaware Senator is ahead of Trump (in some cases by double-digits) on all of the meaningful issues, and across all of the several states. Such polls are about as reliable as one-gallon azaleas- bought on clearance.
The treachery doesn’t end with Democrats- no, not by any means.
Several Republicans- some covertly and some overtly- are going out of their way to make sure that former Vice-President Biden, a long-time DC insider with whom they can work to fatten their cash-rich coffers (and who has no intention of draining the fetid swamp than is our nation’s capital), replaces the one man who they cannot control… their fellow Republican and incumbent President Donald Trump. While the President enjoys a record level of Republican voter support, that alone won’t keep Republican politicians of undermining the leader of their party.
After all, how else are such Republican legislators going to ever again, gain the love of their Democrat counterparts and the mainstream media, unless they work to deny Trump a second term? Well, the truth is they won’t ever gain such love, no matter how desperately hard they try, but then again, they will never learn, will they?
Meanwhile, the country and its very future hangs in the balance. While in the national nightmare in which it finds itself, the United States continues to founder on the rocks of those who seek its destruction, and only one man can save this country… a president who wants to make our country strong and prosperous… but will they let him?
Hence, that is the issue of the 2020 Presidential Election Campaign.
The Honorable Donald J. Trump, President of the United States
Dear Mr. President,
I am writing you today in the hopes that what I am about to tell you will serve as a textbook example of how one citizen was effectively “cancelled,” surreptitiously removed from the three largest social media sites- Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In.
My profiles in each of these cases were completely deleted, and without warning nor any notice, in a concerted effort to “cancel” me. The Twitter cancellation happened in the wee hours of Sunday, June 14, and then the LinkedIn cancellation happened in the wee hours of June 15th. Then, on the afternoon of Saturday, July 4th, the same thing happened to my Facebook profile, with a message that my profile- a profile I have had and maintained since 2009- “no longer met their community standards,” and thus twelve years of history- written, recorded and posted for posterity all vanished with a stroke of a keyboard, by some determined leftist apparatchik at Facebook. Why? Because in all my writings, I have consistently and fervently supported you and your presidency.
For the last decade I have written literally hundreds of essays which I have shared first to Facebook, then from my own webpage (http://www.drew.nickell.com), and subsequently to Twitter and Linked-In, as well. I also published a book Bending Your Ear-a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times in 2016 containing many of these essays, and in which I predicted your Republican Presidential Nomination as early as the late summer/early fall of 2015 in several essays which followed and are published in my book.
Because I correctly predicted your nomination and election, I was able to build up a large following on Facebook- almost 5,000 friends and another thousand followers regularly read my essays and viewed my Facebook live recordings, when I was on the air locally in Hampton Roads. Also, my website acquired upwards of 10,000 subscribers and my essays have been read in over 90 countries across the world. Similarly, I had amassed more than 400 followers on Linked-In and just as many on Twitter, largely because the essays I wrote put words into what my followers felt inside, but could not precisely articulate these feelings, themselves.
My readers also knew of my steadfast, early and continued support for your presidency and all you are trying to accomplish for the American people, and all in the face of what I know to be the greatest push-back against any President in our nation’s history. I have been studying national politics, first as a hobby and then as an avocation since I was ten years old, so I know that of which I speak, as I also read the entire 1959 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia during my youth, prompting a lifelong love of history.
Essentially, Mr. President I have thus been given a “death sentence” by the “cancel culture” that is today’s social media, which is bound and determined to silence me- just so that no one will ever again see anything I have written, and will continue to write, so that the country I love will be left into your hands for the next five years. I wholeheartedly support you, and for all that you stand, against the very formidable powers- of media and of politicos of all stripes, with which you must grapple on a daily basis.
If anyone ever asks you or your staff, just what is the “cancel culture” and/or how social media giants use their own authority to cancel the voices of reason with which they happen to disagree- I hope you and your staff will feel free to use my unfortunate example as a teaching moment to all who would suggest that these platforms allow diversity of opinion- for that, sir, is their big lie, and I sincerely hope you can put a stop to this type of abuse.
May God bless and keep you, Mr. President. I am, sir,
(authors note- In the run-up to the Fourth of July national holiday weekend, we are re-posting this essay updated from 2015, calling for a true Independence Day, which appeared in our book, Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times, released c. August 15, 2016)
Why we need a true Independence Day
July 4th, 2020 will mark the 244th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. To commemorate America’s birthday, there would have been the customary parades and fireworks displays and bar-b-ques and picnics all across the land, just as there should have been.
But a virus, residing in a human, aboard an inbound flight from the Wuhan Province of China, brought what would become a worldwide pandemic to our northwest mainland. Within three weeks, it came to our largest city, aboard an inbound flight from Italy and, effectively, the American populace was hit with the same virus, on both coasts, and spread across the land within a few weeks. We suppose two oceans no longer protect us in the jet age and, in that same jet age, pandemics spread much more quickly than they ever did in the past- so quickly that they are here before we even know what hit us.
Americans- the TRUE Americans who are not swept up in the anti-Americanism that seems to be the “cause celebre du jour” that has taken hold of the political left- will no doubt find some way to celebrate America’s birthday and all for which it has stood, and still stands, today.
This is the Independence Day which most of us revere, and which most of us are familiar.
However, there is a grievous need for another type of Independence Day- a TRUE Independence Day- the type of Independence Day which will reaffirm all that has made us independent, and thereby, has guaranteed the freedoms that we all-too-often take for granted. In essence, we need an Independence Day which will revive the slumbering spirit of independence, before we finally lose this spirit.
The spirit of independence has little to do with governmental largesse. In fact, it is this same sense of governmental largesse that has come to threaten our very freedoms and sense of independence as we know it.
This spirit of independence is thwarted by the demands for welfare and the transition to a welfare state. This spirit of independence evaporates with every new user added to the growing rolls of public assistance- EBT, extended unemployment benefits, pre-retirement social security distributions attributable to growing and specious disability payments, aid for dependent mothers, and other such programs, all of which have grown exponentially in the last decade. For every person thus put on the public dole, there is one less person who is independent, and one more person who, albeit unintentionally, weakens our nation.
This spirit of independence is threatened by the growing clarion calls for universal (meaning government-provided) cradle-to-grave health care- as though good health were something that should be not only guaranteed as a right, but provided for, by right, when such an ideology does more than anything else to increase the burden on healthcare providers and take ever more earnings from those who still work for a living, by transferring their wealth to those who refuse to work for a living.
This spirit of independence is under attack by those who favor open borders, to those who believe that suffrage (the right to vote) should be extended to non-citizens who increase dependency on social programs, the cost of which is already spinning well out of control. The costs of uncontrolled and illegal immigration, when measured in terms of the crimes being perpetrated by many entering illegally through our porous southern borders, are enormous- and exponentially growing, year by year.
The spirit of independence is assaulted by those who believe that post high school education should be “free”- meaning that it should be paid for by increased corporate taxation, despite the very fact that the United States already has the very highest corporate tax rate in the entire world. The strains that this ideology places upon those who pay their own tuition, and those who must borrow money to pay for their own tuition does more than anything else, to astronomically increase the cost of education to ridiculously high levels. These costs are increasing at such an a alarming rate that we are quickly approaching the day that we will see the margins of diminishing returns apply to the demand for college education- in essence, a college education will be deemed not worthy of the costs of acquiring a college education.
It has been said that a nation in which people depend upon government for everything is a nation of servants- that to depend upon government for everything will produce a system where the people are subject to the loss of personal freedom…in essence, we become enslaved to our masters in government, who would seek to control all aspects of our lives, in exchange for the largesse they provide.
This dependence is NOT that upon which our forefathers risked their lives, their property and their sacred honor, as stated in the Declaration of Independence. They did not fight a war with Great Britain to create a nation of “suckling pigs” permanently attached to the teats of a massive “sow” that is government largesse. No, these patriots were the very expression of self-sufficiency and independence that once made this nation the greatest in the world. Yet now, those very things that made us so strong and independent are threatened, to the point of extinction, by the ever-increasing dependence on the state for everything we want, and determine to be our entitlement.
On this, the 244th anniversary of American independence, let us resolve to reincarnate a spirit of TRUE independence. Let us endeavor to revive the spirit of self-sufficiency, and reacquire the can-do determination to make for ourselves a more perfect union, without having to depend upon someone else to do this for us. Let us, as a nation, once again project a righteous indignation to persevere on, without having to depend upon a state that would seek to further enslave and constrain our desire to pursue our birthright for this day, and for all time.
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio on Thursday, 2 July 2020 at 1:00 PM, EDT
I was back on the radio sitting in on the Nora Firestone Show, on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110, where I discussed where my generation failed, the Black Lives Matter movement, efforts to de-fund our police departments, what is behind the destruction of our monuments, redistribution and social justice, and why we need a true Independence Day.
This show will also appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast, but because I was broadcasting remotely, the picture quality may be someone diminished. Nevertheless, I hope you will enjoy the replay of this broadcast…
Today, the Theft of History, Tomorrow, the Theft of a Country
All across our blessed land, statues erected in the past by those who felt strongly enough to erect these statues, are being desecrated, vandalized, and otherwise destroyed by mobs. Sadly, these same mobs know even less about history than they do about the fact that they are being played by those who want to destroy the United States of America.
It started with statues and monuments to heroes of the Confederacy (http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=1451 ) being defaced and destroyed, then this destruction proceeded to include Union generals, past presidents, explorers, missionaries, abolitionists and virtually anyone else from the nation’s past. The angry young mobs- totally ignorant of the nation’s history due to the “politically-missioned” indoctrination they received from their union-member teachers (in place of actually teaching our nation’s true history)- are now the play children of those who nefariously stage these demonstrations with an intent to divide the country and destroy its tenets.
Once the monuments are gone, then the next target (already coming into scorn by leftist professors in our publicly-funded universities) will be the nation’s founding documents- the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, and the Federalist Papers which constitute the mindset and intent behind these documents, and why they were crafted thusly. Once these have been marginalized to become the mere musings of white men who owned black slaves, then the whole structure of our representative democracy comes crashing down in the wake of political correctness and historical revisionism.
Make no mistake- that is what all of this is about. Destroy the very fabric of a nation, tear down its reminders of how we got to where we are, destroy its institutions, and so divide its populace that the entire nation comes tumbling down.
Democrats, in their refusal to unconditionally condemn these actions and even enforce existing laws designed to protect these monuments, are just as complicit in this destruction as the angry mobs, themselves. In truth, Democrats all want these monuments to come down, but they lack the political mandate and the intestinal fortitude to make their intentions known, so they silently sit back and let the mobs do their own dirty work for them.
Republicans, in their reticence to speak out against this same destruction for fear that their adversaries and the media (one and the same) would label them “racist,” abide this wave of violence out of the same feckless cowardice shown by their Democrat opponents.
Yes, all of these attempts to destroy these monuments and, in turn, our nation- along with the refusal of our elected representatives and governmental officials to stop this from happening in the first place- are inherently political and are taking place, not coincidentally, in a presidential election year.
Yes, it is all about November, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
So, while we are then left with a single man- the President of the United States Donald J. Trump- to stand in the way of those intending to take this nation, as well as its monuments, down for good, we are also standing on the precipice of national suicide…
…and those who hate our nation and all it stands for, wouldn’t have it any other way.
In the Run-up to Fathers’ Day- to Our Children and Their Children, Nostra Culpa
An open letter to those under 35 years of age-
I am writing to you representing your parents’ and grandparents’ generation because we, in our generation (those of us over 55), find that there was something very important lacking in your upbringing- something that was passed down to us from our parents, but that we failed to pass along to you.
In explaining to you what we failed to pass along to you, I will need to tell you of a time in our own recollection- a time when we ourselves were children, and describe what those times were like. In each case, I will show you exactly where we came up short in facilitating your overall deportment.
First, we grew up in neighborhoods where we knew every house by the people who lived there- dozens of names and faces and homes where they lived. In those days, our parents would exchange waves and hellos with them, and taught us to do the same. We knew everyone by name, and they knew us by name, and so our neighborhoods became external extensions of the family, and thus we felt part of a larger community.
I am sorry to say that this was not the case when you were young, largely because we were distracted from passing along these customs to you. The unfortunate legacy of this omission has contributed towards your estrangement with those who live in close proximity to you. In many cases, you don’t know even your closest neighbors’ names and your own sense of community has devolved to where you work, and associations made within your kids’ school groups.
Second, we grew up in an age where we as children pretty much knew what was expected of us. A thorough cleansing on Saturday nights, dressing in our finest on Sunday mornings and being hauled off to Sunday school and church services was the norm that we could set our calendrer weeks by- practically never fail. Even if we didn’t pay close attention to our Sunday school teachers or the clergy who delivered these services, somehow the notion of something larger than ourselves, as well as an absolute understanding of right and wrong, got hammered into our distracted heads and there was little question of shades of gray between the two.
Sadly, we grew lax in these efforts, when taking you to Sunday school and church services became an occasional thing for some of you, and non-existent for others of your generation. The absolutes of right and wrong on which we were raised somehow became pragmatic and situational when it came to your own upbringing. Gone was the certainty of the eternal salvation that we were so anchored in as the result of our own upbringing.
Third, we were educated in our country’s history and in how our government works, without the dense fog of cynicism so prevalent in the indoctrination to which you have been subjected. We knew, for instance, that many of our nation’s founders were slave holders, but we also knew that what they created was a system of government that put the rights of the individual first- something no other country had ever attempted, before. We were taught that our country’s history, imperfect as it most certainly was, was nevertheless a continual journey towards a more perfect union, and that all of us shared in that journey towards making our country a better place. We also were taught the virtues of patriotism, respect for the flag, respect for each other, and were shown how the United States were a nation which other nations looked to with hope. Hardly a house in our neighborhoods failed to fly the flag on our national holidays, and invariably were taken in before nightfall. Being an American was special, and our parents and schools taught us just why.
Regrettably, your own education often focused its attention on the shortcomings of our nation’s founders, and in always focusing on how people of color were treated by those in power, you were not taught the larger, lasting legacy of what these founders left for us. You were taught that most of the world’s problems were the result of our own country’s shortcomings abroad- never knowing how the United States saved the world from annihilation twice in the twentieth century, and the sacrifices that were made in pursuit of peace the world over. As parents, we gave in to the professionals staffing your classrooms, with nary a clue as to what you were being taught. Oh, we were diligent in getting you to your soccer practices and dance classes, and made sure your slate was filled with after-school activities but again, we had no idea what the kids we were taking to these activities were being taught in the hours preceding. When you were young, perhaps watching professional sports with us, we didn’t tell you to stand up and place your authentic major league ball caps over your hearts and show respect to our anthem and our flag.
Please don’t get the idea that the times in which we were young were somehow devoid of challenges and social upheaval. Nothing could be further from the truth. We recognize that for many people- women, the handicapped and impaired, the people of color, in particular- great strides have been made to ensure that access and opportunity are extended to all on a level playing field, that was not the case in our youth.
Yet, I can say with absolute certainty that most all of us in our generation found happiness in our lives, pride in our country, an abiding sense of belonging to a neighborhood and a community, and the comfort to know that God loves us all. We believed that the possibilities of the future were boundless, as long as we showed respect to one another and did the right thing.
For all these many things and the values that we did not pass along to you, on behalf of our generation, please accept my sincere apology, in the hopes that you will not do with your children as we did with you. Their future depends on it.
De-funding the Police: The Democrats’ Race to “Out-Stupid” One Another
Just when we had come to the conclusion that Democrats, only recently having nominated Joe Biden (D-DE) to oppose President Donald Trump in this fall’s election, had hit “bottom” on the intelligence scale, we now see a serious movement afoot by Democrat mayors and Democrat city councils to de-fund their cities’ police departments.
Across the country, many of the nation’s largest cities have seriously taken up initiatives to de-fund, if not deconstruct and outright dismantle, police departments at the very time these same cities have witnessed rioting, wholesale looting as well as destruction of private and municipal property, in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland OR, Seattle, just to name a few, including an almost-contiguous string of northeastern coastal cities- Richmond, Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston and Hartford, CT are all seriously looking to implement drastic reductions in funding for their police departments. Some even seek to replace their cities’ trained police professionals with “community policing,” which seeks “restorative justice” in lieu of criminal justice.
Here’s the difference:
A man breaks into your home with an attempt to steal your valuables…
In criminal justice, an arrest is made by local law enforcement, and the perpetrator is taken into custody. He is arraigned and a trial to determine his guilt or innocence, based on evidence found at the crime scene, takes place. If found guilty, sentence is then rendered at a sentencing hearing. It’s called due process.
In restorative justice, no arrest is made, no one is taken into custody, no arraignment takes place, no trial is docketed, and no criminal sentence is rendered. Instead, a mediating session takes place between the man who broke into your house and yourself, overseen by a social justice “worker,” to arrive upon some kind of agreed-upon compromise which recognizes your own “privilege” vis-à-vis the societal justification for his breaking into your home. It’s called “community policing.”
So, this is the altar upon which the Democrat party seeks to slay itself, for all time?
Despite Joe Biden’s and Nancy Pelosi’s claims to the contrary, that they are not for de-funding police departments, rest assured they will stand solidly behind these efforts- just as soon as the message of their party’s left fringes makes its way to their old, tried and tired ears, that this is where their party’s voters demand they go.
It is as if the Democrats are in a race to “out-stupid” one another.
All of the talk about “suburban soccer moms” opposing President Trump’s re-election, because he tweets and “he is mean,” will go out the window once their homes are broken into and their cars vandalized. There is nothing that these women fear more- not even four-and-a-half more years of Trump– than the idea that their children, their homes and their own safety would be placed in harm’s way, without a police department to protect and serve their communities.
It’s not enough that Democrats oppose the wall on our nation’s southern border. It’s not enough that Democrats want instead to facilitate an open border, with unlimited and unrestricted immigration. It’s not enough that Democrats want to instantly confer citizenship on everyone who has entered this country illegally. It’s not enough that Democrats want to completely dismantle CPB- Customs and Border Protection and ICE- Immigration and Customs Enforcement…
…now, they want to de-fund and/or bring an end to local law enforcement…
…and we are supposed to believe that the majority of people in this country would support all of these ends, and thereby elect Joe Biden as the nation’s forty-sixth President?
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio on Thursday, 4 June 2020
I was back on the radio today, sitting in on the Nora Firestone Show, on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110, where I was discussing the truth about wearing masks, holding China accountable for the coronavirus pandemic, continued revelations about the about corruption in the Obama Administration, the unlawful death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police, and the rioting that has come on its heels.
This show also appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast, but because I was broadcasting remotely, the picture quality may be somewhat diminished. Nevertheless, I hope you will enjoy the replay of this broadcast
All throughout these United States, a festering sore has erupted into full sepsis, and its poison is coursing through the veins of our very fabric as a nation. Long teeming in the hearts of those who purportedly seek justice, all that was needed was a spark to set ablaze the passions of those who have never been taught to quell such passions, and the spark that ignited this passion came in the form of a single encounter between George Floyd and Derek Chauvin.
George Floyd, a man arrested for passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a Minneapolis delicatessen on Memorial Day, ultimately died at the hands of the arresting officer, Derek Chauvin. In a video of the incident, Chauvin was shown kneeling on the side of Floyd’s neck, after Floyd was lying on the street with both hands cuffed behind his back. Chauvin maintained this restraint on Floyd until, after several pleas that he couldn’t breathe, Floyd asphyxiated and died. As soon as the video became public, there went outcries for justice and demands that Chauvin be charged with murder. Four days later, Chauvin was arrested and was taken into custody on third degree murder and manslaughter charges, following his firing a few days prior to his arrest. Also fired, were three other officers on the scene who failed to come to Floyd’s assistance. (Since the initial arrest, the charges on Chauvin have been increased to include second degree murder charges, and the three other officers present have been arrested and charged with aiding and abetting second degree murder, while each of the four has been placed on a $1 million bond.) In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice, on orders from the President and Attorney General William Barr, is investigating the incident and further federal charges may soon result.
Protests in Minneapolis, demanding justice for George Floyd, led to the looting of several stores, as well as further acts of vandalism, arson and even the destruction of police cars and ultimately setting that city’s third police precinct ablaze. In an all-too-often repeated scenario (i.e. Ferguson, Baltimore, etc.), police were ordered to stand down and allow the riot to intensify, unabated. Finally, a parade of police vehicles was seen abandoning that precinct, effectively surrendering to the mob violence taking place and leading to its destruction. Similar outbreaks have taken place in several cities throughout the United States since, and this trend has become more widespread in the two nights which have followed.
The mainstream media, always quick to misrepresent the truth of what is taking place across the streets of our nation, conveniently lays the blame of this outbreak on the “systemic” racism endemic to law enforcement. While it is without question that there are many examples of young black men and women dying at the hands of white police officers, there is just as much evidence of young white men and women dying at the hands of black police officers. There are as well many instances where young men and women are killed by police officers, of their own respective races, and far too many police officers have also been killed by people of all races.
That’s the ugly truth that the media does not like to acknowledge because it flies in the face of their narrative that a “systemic” bias against young black men exists across police departments nationwide. This narrative has been taken up by politicians, eager to prove their own politically-motivated and politically-expedient civil rights bona fides. While there is no question that abuse of police authority takes place, and all-too-frequently, the idea that this is a “systemic” problem affecting the nation’s law enforcement community is complete and utter nonsense. We do not live in a “police state” as some on the political left would have us believe, and chanting oft-heard phrases like “black lives matter” and “no justice, no peace” doesn’t make it so, either.
To get to the truth of urban unrest in the United States, we must divorce the looting and violence taking place in our cities, with the tragic death of George Floyd and the criminal actions of former Officer Derek Chauvin. Neither of these two individuals have much to do with what is now taking place on the streets of our country. To be clear, this is because we have seen this scenario played out again and again in Ferguson, MO, in Baltimore, MD, and in dozens of other American cities, ever since the advent of Black Lives Matter, Antifa and other such radical leftist movements during the early months of Barack Obama’s second term as President.
It was Obama who dragged out and rekindled the horrible history of Selma, Alabama in the early 1960s, the Watts (Los Angeles) riots in the late 1960s, the rioting which took place in multiple cities following the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Los Angeles riots, following the police beating of Rodney King in the early 1990’s. Following these L.A riots in 1992, we mistakenly thought that the worst of race relations in these United States were at long last put asunder, but sadly it only took one man- a President of the United States- to rekindle the fires of racial hate and resentment and that president was Barack Obama, following the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in 2003.
This time, however, things are very different.
Stoked by more than two months of imposed social isolation and social distancing, with people largely being confined to their homes, the natural urge to break free from such constraints only added to the frustration of all Americans yearning to venture outdoors and resume their normal activities. The insistence by state governments, on the mere recommendations of the White House Coronavirus Task Force that we all wear masks venturing out, legitimized the wearing of masks most often seen on paid radicals, who are bussed into potential “hot spots” and tasked with stirring up trouble and causing mayhem. The coordinated tactics of these incendiary malcontents is not accidental, but rather by design, and it is no accident that staffers of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign are funding the actual release of rioters who have been arrested, before federal charges can be brough against them.
This begs the question as to whether or not this latest upheaval has more to do with the elections coming up in November, than anything to do with either civil rights or justice. To suggest otherwise, as politically incorrect as it may seem, can only be answered within the hearts of each one of us.
As for Derek Chauvin and the other officers who stood by while George Floyd died, the ultimate verdicts of guilt or innocence by a jury of their peers remain to be seen. Regardless, these verdicts- and all of the attendant implications of these verdicts- will no doubt hang with all of the rest of us for the foreseeable future.
At the end of the day, our “race to the end”- that “end” being the color-blind society that most all of us truly seek- will never enduntil we reach an end to “race,” in terms of the way each of us, white, black, Asian, Hispanic- view ourselves and our neighbors. Until that day comes, we are all screwed.
There is an insidious truth about covering our faces with all variation and manner of masks that the media doesn’t like to acknowledge, but nevertheless is an absolute, undeniable, and irrefutable empirical truth. These masks cannot nor will not prevent someone from contracting coronavirus COVID-19, and the reasons for this are quite simple. The cells of this virus, or any virus, are far too small for any manner of mechanical filtration to prevent its passage through the filter medium. In order to understand this absolute truth better, we must consider the rudiments of respiratory protection- and we need look no further than the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health- NIOSH.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, should not be confused with OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is part of the Department of Labor. As we all know, OSHA regulates the provision for occupational safety and personal protective equipment (PPE) in the workplace, primarily dealing with hazards we can see… falling objects (why some must wear hard hats), flying objects (safety glasses and face shields), corrosive substances (protective gloves and clothing), working from heights (safety belts and harnesses), etc. NIOSH, on the other hand, deals with more insidious workplace hazards- hazards not so easily seen with the naked eye, but are very real, nevertheless. NIOSH establishes threshold limit values (TLVs) for virtually any contaminate in the workplace, as well as thresholds for allowable workplace noise. Both are based upon an average 8-hour workday, five days a week.
If, say, a given noise level in the workplace is above 90 decibels, hearing protection is then required by OSHA. If a specific airborne contaminate in a given workplace is higher than the TLV established by NIOSH, then respiratory protection is required by OSHA. Whereas the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) establishes the Noise Reduction Rating (NRR) on each noise-attenuating earplug and earmuff approved to reduce harmful noise exposure, NIOSH assigns a Testing and Certification (TC) approval number to each respirator approved for specific hazards and specific concentration of those hazards. These approvals are fragile in that they assume the respirator is being worn properly, that the wearer has been quantitatively or qualitatively fit-tested on the device, that the wearer has received required training in the use and limitations of the respirator, and that nothing (a long moustache or any beard) interferes with the peripheral seal of the device being worn. Any one of these variables, falling short of these assumptions, voids the NIOSH approval and renders respiratory protection impossible.
Yet such variables are not the only reasons masks will not protect the wearer of contracting coronavirus COVID-19.
All airborne contaminants, for the purpose of air filtering/air purifying respirators approved by NIOSH, are classified into five categories, ranging in size and constitution, from largest to smallest: dusts (most of which we can see), mists (where dust particles attach to water droplets in the air), fumes (created by heating metals), organic vapors (present in nail polish, paint and gasoline), and acid gasses (such as carbon monoxide or hydrogen sulfide). As the particular size of these hazards’ units drop, or a specific hazard contains poor warning properties (as in the case of carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide), so increases the requirement for air-supplied respirators as opposed to air-filtering or air-purifying respirators, which is why insulation installers wear NIOSH-approved dust masks and fire-fighters entering burning buildings wear self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA).
Viruses are so very small that no air-filtering or air-purifying respirator can begin to be effective in preventing their passage through any breathable medium, whether the device be a NIOSH-approved respirator (for another hazard), a nuisance dust mask or, for that matter, a bandana tied around the face- none, period. To understand further, if one were to imagine that a single particle of dust was the size of our solar system, a virus would be the comparative size of our moon. At best, wearing such masks might only contain the bodily fluids expectorated in a cough or a sneeze by the wearer, within the mask, but that is not an absolute, either. So, the efficacy of wearing such masks basically amounts to wishful thinking, at best.
State governors, like Virginia’s Ralph Northam (D-VA), who are now mandating the wearing of masks in public are overstepping the recommendations of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, simply because mandates are compulsory while recommendations are voluntary. While wearing masks can partially inhibit the spread of the virus by those infected with it, they provide no protection to the wearer. So, in the case of Northam, who strolled the Virginia Beach boardwalk on Saturday the 23rd of May- neither practicing social distancing nor even wearing a mask, all the while having “selfies” taken with complete strangers also not wearing masks, is now requiring Virginians to wear masks in public spaces, effective Friday the 29th. Go figure. It’s not the first time this governor has made a horse’s ass of himself (remember his medical school yearbook photo wearing blackface?) and it won’t be the last time either, until he leaves office in January of 2022, which can’t get here soon enough for those Virginians who happen to cherish individual liberty and personal freedom.
Perhaps, what requiring the wearing of masks, and enforcing requirements for personal distancing, really amounts to is, in the end, a test of wills- a struggle between the limited authority of the government and the governed who put them in office. Eventually the courts will declare such initiatives, however well-intentioned, to be unconstitutional but that won’t happen before Election Day, which is really what all of this has come to be about…
“Can we make the public so miserable that they will blame it all on Trump?”
Memorial Day 2020- “I Hear the Echoes of the Fallen”
I hear the echoes of the fallen… From Bunker Hill to Hamburger Hill, From the deserts of North Africa to the deserts of Fallujah From the jungles of Bataan to the jungles of Vietnam, I hear the echoes of the fallen…
I hear the echoes of the fallen… From the slopes of Arlington to the slopes of Normandy, From the snows of Valley Forge to the snows of Bastogne, From the fields of Virginia to the fields of Flanders I hear the echoes of the fallen…
I hear the echoes of the fallen… From Havana Harbor to Pearl Harbor, From the trenches of Petersburg to the trenches of Belgium, From beneath the Atlantic to the bottom of the Pacific, I hear the echoes of the fallen…
I hear the echoes of the fallen… From Inchon to Pusan, From Argonne to Saigon, From Long Island to Wake Island I hear the echoes of the fallen…
The echoes of the fallen who gave it their all, Now sound again the echoes of that clarion call: “Our message to you, who now live in this land, Must never forget why, we all took a stand, To defend for our children, what was our obligation, To give you this free and independent nation, So, on this final weekend in May, Remember all we gave, on this Memorial Day.”
Hopin’ to Reopen: Confessions from an At-Risk Senior Citizen
Full disclosure… I am, by designation, an at-risk senior citizen with several additional risk factors which would most likely entail that I would not recover from contracting coronavirus COVID-19. A compromised immune system, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, hypertension, total poly-peripheral neuropathy in both legs below the knees (and now beginning in the hands)- not to mention a propensity to catch just about anything and everything floating around in the air… and you get the picture.
That said, I believe it is time to re-open my city and state (Virginia Beach, VA), along with my country, even if doing so drastically increases the chance that I will contract the coronavirus, and die as a result. On the lives of my children, I mean every single word of this.
Given the immeasurable damage that this pandemic has placed upon the entire world, in terms of human suffering from both the disease itself and the financial impact of shutting down the world’s economy, is bad enough. That its global spread was the direct result of the Chinese communist government’s attempt to hide the truth of this virus, and thereby enable its international “seeding,” is in and of itself, a crime against humanity the world over. If intentional, then this would constitute an act of biological warfare, as well. Either way, that rogue government must be held criminally and financially responsible for what it has cost the entire world, period.
The citizens of this country have, by and large, shown admirable patience with their state governments in response to shutting down large segments of the economy, which have resulted in the loss of 40 million jobs. For at least two months, life has come to a virtual standstill with closed schools and churches, shuttered saloons and spas, and even halted hospital operations and procedures.
Yet, what were once objective and altruistic attempts to curtail the spread of the virus have now become increasingly subjective and arbitrary attempts by several of the nation’s governors to outright control people’s lives and regulate just about all activities outside the home. In New Jersey for instance, people are allowed to stroll the beaches on wet sand but are prohibited from doing so on dry sand. Across-the-board limits on boat occupancy- irrespective of the size of the vessel- show well the subjective and arbitrary nature of such regulations. Proscribing residents from mowing their lawns in a state like Michigan, but insisting that abortion clinics remain open makes about as much sense as outfitting a submarine with screen doors, yet there it is….
Here in Virginia, our Governor Northam (the nincompoop) who somehow managed to complete medical school- all the while donning blackface in his senior yearbook, no less- has stubbornly refused to re-open beaches, while those states bordering north and south have gone ahead and done so. An unusually mild May has resulted in widespread disregard for the governor’s dictates, as the sandy beaches of Virginia Beach have even more beachcombers than the city’s police can even begin to prohibit- not that they’d really want to. After all, in a city of a half million (Virginia’s largest independent city) there are other things, beside baby-sitting beachgoers, which far more need the attention of local law enforcement.
By retaining arbitrary and draconian “close” orders, more and more damage is being done to our economy- so much damage that citizens are beginning to wonder if such damage is politically motivated. It seems a bit beyond coincidence that the most draconian and arbitrary measures of closure regulations are being continued by Democrat governors in primarily “blue” states. Could it be that there is an ulterior motive in perpetuating economic ruin?
After all, it’s all about November, isn’t it?
Granted, the school year in all of our states has pretty much been smashed. Yet states which refuse to allow their schools to re-open in August/September of this calendar year, are badly serving the needs of their young people and quite possibly causing damage and irretrievable interruption to the educational and intellectual development of future voters- pray that this is not intentional, for their sake as well as our own.
If completely re-opening my city and my state ultimately results in my own demise, then so be it.
I should rather leave this world knowing that America is strong and vibrant, than remain in a world that keeps my country closed, albeit for my own sake. To be quite honest, I haven’t really so much value as an individual human being to expect otherwise. Because of this reality, I urge my governor, and all our governors, to remember that they govern the rest of us on the consent of their citizens who bear the burden of paying their salaries. If they refuse to do so, then they risk popular insurrection- a place no sane person wants to go.
So, it’s time to re-open, folks. Let’s just do it before our rights as individuals completely disappear.
Holding China Accountable for Crimes Against Humanity the World Over
It is becoming ever more obvious that the government of the People’s Republic of China has perpetrated crimes against humanity across the entire world and ultimately must be held to account for these crimes, just as high-ranking officials of Germany’s National Socialist Party were held accountable for their own crimes against humanity.
Following the end of the second world war, an international military tribunal was convened in Nuremberg, Germany, in order to hold prominent members of the political, military, judicial and economic leadership of Nazi Germany accountable for war crimes perpetrated against humanity. Presiding over the prosecution in the case was Associate Justice Robert H. Jackson. The trial began in November 1945 and the ultimate verdict was rendered on September 30, 1946. Twelve of the twenty -four defendants were sentenced to the gallows and ten were ultimately hanged, as Reichsmarschall Herman Göhring was found dead in his cell, having swallowed cyanide, on the morning of the execution (Nazi party secretary Martin Bormann was convicted and sentenced to death in absentia, as he had died while attempting to escape Berlin in May of 1945).
That coronavirus COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan Province of China, and from there spread across the world, is without question- save for anyone stupid enough to believe the outright lies and attempts at blame-shifting coming out of that country. The Chinese communists, well-practiced in the arts of deception and media manipulation (WHO, anyone?), have lied since the inception and initial spread of the virus, with changing stories and outright fabrications related to its origins, its spread and its death-toll within that country. They allowed the coronavirus to escape the Wuhan Institute of Virology- a laboratory which had received $ 3.8 million from the Obama administration- where a zootrophic virus originating from a non-regional bat was engineered to become even more virulent and deadly. Yet, the Chinese have repeatedly lied about this, too.
The very fact that their government halted all airplane traffic from and to the Wuhan Province within China and yet allowed international flights from that province to continue, shows the People’s Republic of China- at very least- has committed criminal and contributory negligence in doing so. Evidently, they did this to give that country requisite time to hoard and corner the market on personal protective equipment, including the N95 disposable respirator masks needed to protect people from spreading the disease. Assuming that this biological, weapons-grade and re-engineered virus was accidentally released, speaks of a government-operated lab lacking the requisite security and safety measures… again, assuming its release and spread was accidental. If found to be intentional, then the Chinese have deliberately killed more people outside their country and around the world, than any such pandemic in as short of a period of time, and thirteen times more Americans than the number of Americans killed in the September 11th and Pearl Harbor attacks, combined.
As of the morning of May 6, 2020, we know that almost four million people in the world have contracted the coronavirus, including more than 1.2 million Americans, and that more than one quarter million people worldwide, including 72,000 Americans, have perished as the result of becoming infected. While the spread and death-toll of this pandemic has reached across the entire world, we may never know the true death toll from the virus, because the numbers of infection and death being reported out of China seem to be revised daily and yet remain impossibly low, given the virulence and communicability of this invisible enemy.
What we do know is that the government of the People’s Republic of China must be held accountable for what they have perpetrated on the entire world. That may well happen once the effects of this virus have subsided, and once the Trump administration concludes its investigation on the origin and spread of the virus.
In the unlikely event that President Trump isn’t re-elected, then all bets are off on holding the Chinese accountable, since the Democrats and the mainstream media would rather blame Trump for the outbreak, instead of blaming those who are truly responsible for these biological war crimes against humanity. To them, hating Trump and preventing his re-election is more important than even the death of so many and the destruction of a worldwide economy.
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio, on Thursday, 30 April 2020
I was back on the radio today, sitting in on the Nora Firestone Show, on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110, where I discussed the truth about coronavirus, the stories about corruption in the Obama Administration, Joe Biden’s candidacy, the echoes of history that might figure into this fall’s election and what will happen when we emerge from our sheltered existence.
This show also appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast, but because I was broadcasting remotely, the picture quality may be someone diminished. Nevertheless, I hope you will enjoy this broadcast, which can be found at:
Despite Coronavirus, the Stories that Just Won’t Go Away
With the month of April waning away, we are reminded of all that happened before the Chinese created and facilitated the spread of coronavirus throughout the world, bringing our nation to a virtual halt. Before we suddenly saw our jobs evaporate into thin air, before we were told we cannot go to the beach, before we were forced to wear masks across our faces, as though we were disguised (take your pick) as surgeons or outlaws in a nationwide costume ball, there was a country awash in the drama of another presidential election.
As we recall, the current President survived almost four years of harassment, not to mention surveillance, by the Obama Administration, including the FBI and the Justice Department, among others. Following Donald Trump’s election, we witnessed a bevy of Obama holdovers during the first year or two of Trump’s presidency, along with globalist saboteurs like former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former Chief of Staff John Kelly, plot out Trump’s demise while supposedly serving the new President. Couple all of that with an unceasing effort by the media and Democrats in the House and Senate, along with an inherently corrupt Mueller Commission- one staffed with none but Hillary supporters- to find some reason, any reason, to impeach a duly-elected President of the United States, in what amounted to a concerted and coordinated attempt at coup d’état. That the Trump presidency was able to survive all of that was and is quite remarkable in and of itself- and all of that was before the President was forced to shut down the greatest economy the world had ever seen…
On the Democrat front, we saw a labored and coordinated effort to select a presidential nominee who would guarantee a place at the table for both the Clintons and the Obamas. In order to do this, they had to select a well-known but thoroughly empty “suit,” who could bumble and stumble his way towards a nomination already orchestrated and coordinated well in advance, by the powers to be in the DNC. Joe Biden, the former Vice-President and one-time Senator from Delaware, proved to be exactly who they were all looking for. Never mind the “creepy” Joe, who raised even the most partisan eyebrows with the way he would routinely invade the personal space of girls and young women, sniffing their hair and planting unwelcomed kisses on the sides of their necks and the backs of their heads. To them, the Clintons, the Obamas and the DNC, they found their perfect “dupe” in Joe Biden. All they had to do was get Bernie Sanders out of the way- easy enough, as it had been, four years before- and engineer some campaign withdrawals both before and after Super Tuesday’s primaries and voila, their man is (forgive the term) “in, like Flynn.”
So, all of these stories seemingly faded into the sunset with the onset of coronavirus. Presented with a whole new opportunity to malign and besmirch President Trump for the way he and his administration have managed the pandemic, all of the talk about the past sins of the Obama Administration, the FBI and the intelligence community seemed to subside, just as all of the suspicions surrounding Biden’s nomination seemed like yesterday’s news, destined for the ash heap of history. Efforts to impeach the President have continued in the House, unabated, as the only other thing the House has been able to do is to load their own pet projects into needed funding measures and other forms of relief for the American people- even causing these relief efforts to be needlessly delayed. After all, the Speaker of the House, one Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) must be given an opportunity to show off her ice cream freezer. Along with coronavirus arrived a whole new opportunity to launch investigations, designed to bring down the Trump presidency, if there is anyone who wants to know the true motivations of Democrats in Congress…
Yet, the stories about corruption in the Obama Administration and concerns about Joe Biden regressing from a well-known propensity to gaff, to obvious signs of old age dementia, though seldom mentioned, never really went away. Such stories were merely set aside- just long enough for the media to concentrate its efforts on bringing down the President in the wake of coronavirus. Behind the scenes, however, investigations undertaken by Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham have continued to reveal the great extent to which rogue senior-level officials in the FBI and Justice Department sought to defraud the FISA court with bogus documents, deny civil and constitutional rights to Carter Page, and commit criminal conspiracy to frame Michael Flynn. Flynn, a retired Lieutenant General with thirty-three years of service to the United States Army, was set up by former FBI Director James Comey and his underlings, just as the Trump Administration was getting under way. Denying General Flynn the right to legal counsel, agents from the FBI interviewed him in a coordinated effort to force a bogus confession out of the retired general, so that the President would have no choice but to fire him.
Documents released yesterday by the Justice Department, confirm that this was a set-up from the get-go, but not before Flynn expended all of his own personal wealth just to fund his own legal defense, for an indictment so fraudulently sought and an investigation which should have never taken place.
So much for how Comey and his henchmen, not to mention former President Obama, show their respect to a man for more than three decades of service to the Armed Forces of the United States… Regardless, this is just the tip of the iceberg that is slowly, but inexorably rising to the surface and exposing just how deeply and how high up corruption in the Obama Administration reached, during the attempt to bring down Trump and his presidency.
Now, back to Joe Biden…
Back in 1993, the then-Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) had a staffer, one Tara Reade, who was allegedly and sexually assaulted by the Senator in the halls of the United States Capitol. Reade went so far as to file a police report following the incident, but then failed to pursue prosecution against the Senator and report his behavior to the press, out of some sort of strange loyalty for the man who had assaulted her. Soon afterwards, during a call into the CNN broadcast Larry King Live, Reade’s late mother purportedly referred to the incident, without naming names, when Larry King was interviewing the late Senator Howard Baker (R-TN) on the subject of senatorial misconduct.
Now, there have been no less than four corroborations to Reade’s story. Backed up by the fact that the incident was first reported to the authorities back in 1993, the former Delaware Senator’s response to these charges have conveniently been locked away in a vault at the University of Delaware, along with all of the other papers belonging to the former Vice-President and one-time Senator, until such time as Biden authorizes their release.
Not surprisingly, all of those Democrats who were so quick to convict Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his Senate nomination hearings, on spurious allegations of rape made by Christine Blasey-Ford which supposedly occurred more than three decades before, have now jumped to the defense of the former Vice-President, insisting that he is innocent and that Reade’s allegations are not to be believed. Unlike Blasey-Ford, who had no corroborating witnesses to her own allegations, Reade has four- in addition to the time-stamped recording of her mother’s phone call to Larry King twenty-seven years ago.
So, the moral to that story is simply this…
…if you are a Democrat like Bill Clinton or Joe Biden, or your last name is Kennedy, accusations of sexual assault and/or forcible rape are either excused, ignored or denied outright, in spite of very credible and documented evidence that these sexual crimes occurred…
…but, if you are a Republican like Donald Trump, or are connected with him in any way (or appointed by him to the nation’s highest court), no accusation of wrongdoing- no matter how fantastical or suspicious in its nature- is to be questioned on its merits or validity.
The problem of course for Biden, and his supporters, is that these accusations by Tara Reade are not going away, despite the abject failure of the media to pose the question of Reade’s allegations to the former Vice-President and current candidate, himself. While his campaign has vehemently denied these allegations outright, the candidate himself has remained mum- not that he has been asked directly, since hiding out with the Mrs. in their Delaware home.
Assuming that Biden is still nominated for his party’s top spot when Democrats convene in August (and that it a BIG assumption), he will have to be confronted with the allegation, sooner or later- either by the media who desperately wants him to win in November- or by his Republican opponent on a debate stage. That the Democrats would ever allow the bumbling Biden anywhere near a debate stage with a President Trump is laughable, because doing so would risk a fifty-state sweep in the general election, once the voters see first-hand, just what they would be getting with a Biden presidency.
As to the early polls of this year’s presidential election, the problem with pollsters… you know, the ones that told us back in 2016 that:
a) Donald Trump had no chance to win the Republican nomination;
b) Donald Trump had no “path” to win the electoral college;
c) and that a majority of voters thought Hillary Clinton was more trustworthy than Donald Trump ;
…now would have us believe that Joe Biden beats Donald Trump across the board… and (get this) that voters would have more confidence in Joe Biden to manage the coronavirus pandemic than they do President Trump…
We would sooner believe an invitation to dine with President and Mrs. Trump, privately at the White House, before I would believe that Biden is leading Trump, anywhere… or on anything…
If you believe otherwise, then please stop watching television, place your own head deep down into your own toilet, and pull the handle…
…for maybe, just maybe, doing so will flush such fake news from out of your brains…
When America is at its Crossroads, What is Needed Most, Today… Intercourse
With the evolution of language, it is not surprising that the subject of this tome is misleading… anyone tempted to think that what follows is sexual in nature, will be grossly disappointed, to say the least. Yet, within such a provocative and racy headline, there are lessons to be learned and thoughts to consider…
The first lesson should be to ignore sensationalistic and contrived headlines, such as illustrated in this example, which either purport fake news, or mislead a cursory reader to an ill-informed conclusion. Headlines are to news stories what attractive people are to advertisements, or do all people of a certain age believe that using a product will make them look like those portrayed in the ads?
At one time, one of the many uses of the word “intercourse” included what we would refer today as “intersection” and/or “interchange.” Essentially, where two principal roads cross one another, as in the case of the small village of Intercourse, Pennsylvania (pop 1,296), located in that state’s picturesque Lancaster County (situated where the Old Philadelphia Pike intersects with an old road connecting Erie, Pennsylvania and Wilmington, Delaware), an “intercourse” was often used to describe such a place- hence the naming of the village. So, it can be argued that “crossroads,” with regards to where we are as a nation, and the word “intercourse,” with regards to this definition, is redundant.
“Intercourse,” as defined in Webster’s, is a noun describing “communications or dealings between or among people, countries, etc.: i.e. the interchange of products, services, ideas, feelings, etc.” Isn’t it reasonable, if not crucial, that we people- in our neighborhoods, in our localities, in our country and across the world’s nations- begin to communicate with one another, as opposed to past one another?
At the very moment when we are beginning to emerge from our domiciled isolation, and re-emerge out into the world outside, it is crucial that we learn, and perhaps re-learn, those interpersonal communication skills which enable a free and independent society to thrive in its openness, rather than shrivel and die in the darkness of speech codes, shadow banning and prevailing political correctness…
Simply stated, the inability of people and nations to openly communicate with one another, today, can only lead to widespread and armed conflict, tomorrow. History vouchsafes this admonition, but are we wise enough to learn from mistakes we have made, throughout the course of human history, time and time again?
There is an adage from wedding ceremonies which says, “Speak now, or forever hold your peace…”
Failing to do so, in this day and age, may well prove to mean “Speak now, or the future will hold no peace…”
R. I. P. #32 Mike Curtis- Next to Unitas, Our Favorite All-time Baltimore Colt
The news this morning hit me, so much like the subject of this news hit so many unsuspecting players who had the misfortune of being hunted by Mike Curtis, the “Mad Dog” middle-linebacker of the Baltimore Colts. Curtis was, next to Johnny Unitas, my favorite Baltimore Colts’ player of all-time.
Drafted out of Duke as an offensive back in 1965, he was in his rookie training camp, running an out pattern that Unitas knew was incorrectly run, so Unitas passed the ball, striking the rookie in the back of his head. Curtis went after the then two-time MVP and future hall-of-famer, and had to be stopped by the members of Johnny U.’s offensive line. He then screamed at Unitas telling him that if he “ever did that again, all of his lineman wouldn’t be enough to keep him from getting killed…”
At that point, Baltimore head coach Don Shula wisely assessed the situation, and realized that Curtis had the temperament of a linebacker. Curtis then became a perennial fan favorite, first as an outside linebacker to middle linebacker Dennis Gaubatz during the upset loss to the Jets, and then, as a middle linebacker in his own right. It was Curtis who went on a personal rampage during the 1970 season run-up to winning Super Bowl V over Dallas. It was in that Super Bowl that Curtis intercepted a late fourth quarter Craig Morton pass, setting up the winning field goal by rookie Jim O’Brien with five seconds left in the mistake-prone deadlock. It was also Curtis who, in his own words, “enforced a city ordinance,” by decking a drunken fan who ran onto the field trying to steal away the football in a game where the Colts had just gained momentum against the Shula-led Dolphins.
The only player in the entire league who crossed the picket lines during a brief pre-season players’ strike earlier in the 1970 season, Mike Curtis set his own path to individuality and dedication to the game to become an all-time great. Ask any long-time Baltimore fan about the greatest linebacker in that city’s history, you’ll hear two names- Ray Lewis and Mike Curtis.
Our heroes of a bygone era loomed larger than life- larger than the notoriety so many of our professional athletes seem to mire themselves in nowadays. Both the late Unitas, and Mike Curtis, seemed to embody the youthful worship of a young Baltimore Colts fan who writes this eulogy, today.
Whether their passing, or the passing of a golden era of NFL football, is more poignant than painful is a question of relativity, in the end. Yet the sense of loss is very real, regardless.
Rest in peace, “Mad Dog,” and thanks for the memories…
Slow and Steady- a Plan to Re-open the Nation’s Economy
At his daily coronavirus briefing on Thursday, April 16th, President Donald Trump presented to the nation his recommendations on who, how, when and where our shuttered economy can once again reopen its doors and see the light of day. In slow and measured steps, the plan presented mapped a pathway in which our several states can ease their way back into the state of “normalcy” which existed prior to the arrival of the coronavirus. Stressing that the states’ governors would be deciding on the “when,” the president’s plan laid out a three-staged format based upon well-defined thresholds, or gateways, of bi-weekly and consecutive reductions in the numbers of those diagnosed with COVID-19.
Essentially, the first threshold is met when a state has two consecutive weeks of reduced diagnoses and would then make that state eligible to enter the first phase. If, two weeks later, the state has not seen a bounce-back in the numbers of those diagnosed, and has continued to see a consecutive drop in those numbers, then the state could progress to phase two. Similarly, a continued reduction for another two weeks would qualify the state to advance to the third threshold and, from there, they would be essentially back to where they had been prior to China’s most unwelcomed “gift” to the world.
With each advancing threshold and phase, restrictions are gradually lifted with regards to everything from social distancing and self-sequestration to workplace and retail re-opening. The president stressed that the attainment of each threshold is to be “data-driven,” and not “date-driven.” By far, the best news of the evening was when the President indicated that several states were well along the way into the progression and could begin proceeding along its structured guidelines, immediately.
Critics of this plan fall into two basic categories.
Libertarians feel that a “light-switch” approach of suddenly opening everything at once is what is needed most, and that the President is giving far too much control to task force Drs. Brix and Fauci. Yet, the problem with the libertarian argument is that such an immediate and sudden re-opening of the nation’s economy would very much risk the sudden resurgence and rising death toll, which would result from the widespread infection that would ensue. Such a resurgence would fall on the President’s shoulders for enabling such a recurrence to take place.
Conversely, Democrats and other liberals decry the lack of a single, nationwide, and continued quarantine until such time as a vaccine be made available to everyone, across the nation. Democrats think that the President is acting with reckless abandon, with only his own re-election in mind. The problem with the Democrat argument is that waiting for a vaccine- one that is still a year off- would place this country into a depression far worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s. With the nation immersed into such an economic calamity, it is hard to see how Donald Trump could win re-election, and so such duplicity on the part of Democrats becomes easily transparent.
Essentially, both positions hold little regard for the overall well-being of a nation which has witnessed over twenty million layoffs in the last three or four weeks- numbers which rival the jobless numbers of the early 1930s, though as a percentile, not as pervasive…not yet. Politically speaking, Trump would be crazy to follow either approach, by risking a widespread resurgence of the virus or condemning this nation into the worst depression in its history.
So, instead of following the cacophony of his critics on both sides, the President has put forth a reasonable, balanced and yet careful plan to re-open this nation’s economy in a way that at once protects the health of the American people and steadily reinvigorates a dead economy. Realizing that there is an undeniable difference between the densely-populated and crowded northeastern states, which have not yet reached the threshold to phases one and two, and the less densely-populated and more spacious western states, which are well along the way to reaching phases two and three of the plan, the President and his administrative task force have devised a scheme which at once recognizes the broad diversity of our states and localities, and yet still protects the public at large. It provides a balanced and steady approach to unleashing the nation’s pent-up economy, over a period of several weeks, instead of several months.
In our youth, we spent a couple of summers managing a swimming pool throughout its summer season, which went from Memorial Day through Labor Day. Closing down the swimming pool, and storing the pool’s furniture, occupied the Tuesday after Labor Day. Preparing the swimming pool, and re-setting and repairing the pool’s furniture invariably took the better part of a week, prior to the Memorial Day weekend re-opening, as anyone familiar with pool operations can readily attest.
So, comparatively speaking, if the nation’s economy is to once again thrive and prosper, safely and steadily, does it not make sense to follow along the same lines?
Critics of the President are as “thick as thieves” in the night, but we have yet to see any semblance of a better approach than the one the President has proffered. So, what it comes down to is this- do his critics hate Trump more than they love their country?
With Coronavirus and the 2020 Election, Will History be Repeated?
God willing, this day after Easter and week after Passover will witness the beginning of the denouement’ of coronavirus COVID-19. Thanks to the president’s urgent and prompt response to its late January arrival, and the draconian, albeit wise and considered recommendations for its containment from his task force, the early fears of “modeled” estimates, in terms of contagion and mortality, have drastically fallen to a fraction of what were originally forecast, which had been based on the sketchy and unreliable numbers coming from the place of its creation- China. Had President Trump not so acted on these recommendations, millions would have been infected and hundreds of thousands would have perished, so for all those who think he over-reacted, based on the advice he was getting from his task force, better the cautious to lead down such an uncertain path, than to willfully ignore the threat of a new and dangerous pandemic.
Now, by his own admission, the president is indeed beset with the most difficult and crucial decision he has ever faced- one that has the potential of far-reaching consequence in the months and years ahead. On Tuesday, he will be formally announcing the creation of a second task force- one tasked with making recommendations on who, when, where and how this national shutdown will be unwound. Theirs will be the easy part… the hard part is on President Donald Trump, and on him alone. Too early, and the president risks a dangerous and more widespread resurgence of the pandemic virus. Too late, and the economy will be wrecked far beyond repair, and far beyond the election, this fall. Either way, he will face second-guessing and “Monday morning quarterbacking” from the media and his political adversaries, alike, but that’s largely beside the point. Indeed, it is the safety and the overall welfare of the American people, which is at stake- political considerations be damned.
A brief look back into history portends a lesson from the not-so-distant past, about leadership in times of crisis, as it relates to an electorate. It is recalled that Winston Churchill was swept into becoming Great Britain’s Prime Minister, following the failure of Neville Chamberlain in dealing with the emerging threat of Adolf Hitler. Chamberlain, who had been placed into the position of negotiating “peace for our time,” was ultimately played by the Nazi “Fuhrer,” who had no such intentions in the first place. When war came, Chamberlain was tossed from office, and it was “Winnie” on whom it befell to shepherd that nation through a horrific bombing campaign known as the “London Blitz,” (which killed many thousand civilians), then during the Battle of Britain taking place over the skies of that country, and ultimately to victory in World War II. The ink on the German surrender, in the spring of 1945, wasn’t hardly dry when his countrymen turned on him two months later and voted his party out from holding a majority of the House of Commons. Churchill would return to lead his country six years later, but not before Clement Atlee and his Labour Party almost wrecked the postwar economy of Great Britain.
Consider Trump coming into the presidency, following thirty years of failed globalist/ internationalist presidencies- including the single term of the elder Bush, and three consecutive, two-termed presidencies (Clinton, the younger Bush and Obama). Taken together, their failed and disastrous policies cost this nation trillions of dollars, and thousands of American lives, wasted in overseas wars without any tangible accomplishment. Worse, these failed presidents watched, facilitated and enabled the emergence of the People’s Republic of China, as a threat to America’s preeminence in its own military and financial hegemony on the world stage. Still worse, is the fact that we “offshored” to China the vast majority of critical pharmaceuticals, as well as steel, making our nation vulnerable to hostilities from that country. Trump brought back the steel, rebuilt the military and led the nation’s economy to heights never before imagined (prior to the coronavirus pandemic), but bringing back the pharmaceuticals was a far more complex problem, which could not have been done prior to the arrival of coronavirus.
Just as Churchill was early in detecting and warning his country about the growing threat of Nazi Germany, so Trump was very early in detecting and warning our country about the growing threat from China. Both men would end up being put into office when the very things they had long warned about came to full fruition, though no one saw what was coming from China, in the form of this pandemic, until after Trump had been in office for three years.
So, with God’s good grace, let’s assume that the worst is mostly behind us with regards to this pandemic, and that we are able to unlock and reopen the critical gates and doors to our economy, before it’s too late to repair the damage that’s been done.
If this re-opening begins in May, the economy should have bounced back, come Election Day in November. In such a scenario, it would be hard to imagine anything but a landslide victory for Donald Trump, not to mention the fact that his opponent will be the bumbling Joe Biden, whose biggest burden is stringing together a cogent and coherent thought in the form of a single sentence. Thanks to the behavior we have seen from Democrats in the House and Senate, since his election in 2016, the sitting president would just as surely cruise to re-election victory while retaining his Senate majority and winning back the House.
Conversely, Biden’s unlikely election would accompany a swing in the power of the Senate, and retention of the Democrat majority in the House. Just as assuredly, Biden’s vice-presidential running mate would soon take over his presidency- assuming that his administration will not have turned over the reins of all its power to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer- all nightmare scenarios we all must consider before we decide to change horses, at this juncture.
Will the American people, three decades following the beginning of those failed globalist/ internationalist presidencies, repeat the mistakes of their British counterparts, almost three decades into the beginning of their own naïve and isolationist governments (which enabled Hitler’s rise to power), and turn out the very man who led them out of the abyss?
That would only be possible if President Trump re-opens the economy too late to prevent a severe recession (recession defined as two consecutive quarters of slowing activity), or if the re-emergence of the viral threat is enabled as the result of doing so too early. Yes, it’s indeed a lonely place where Donald Trump finds himself but, after all, that is why we have elections, isn’t it?
We elect presidents to make decisions in times of national crisis, based largely on the advice coming from those surrounding him, just as we elect our legislators to enact laws which we don’t have the time or interest in studying up on, and enacting, ourselves. When our leaders make good decisions, and follow the dictates of their electorate, we reward them by returning them to office. When our leaders do not follow the dictates of the electorate (Paul Ryan, anyone?) we turn them out of office- it’s really just that simple.
While there is no shortage of advice, coming from within and from without any presidential cabinet, the final decisions presidents make, rest alone with the president we elect. In this particular crisis, only those who truly loathe this country, would hope that President Donald Trump fails in leading us through this particular crisis…
All that said, once the corona crisis finally leaves us, and once the Election of 2020 is behind us, we will ultimately know the verdict of our nation on the presidency of one Donald John Trump.
Given the fact that 2021, and beyond, will determine whether or not the Chinese government is held to account, financially and otherwise, for the biological war crimes against humanity it has perpetrated on the entire world, this fall’s presidential election has now taken on a whole new meaning. Assuming the president is successful in his management of the pandemic and its economic aftereffects- and, God help us, we hope that he is- crazier things with regards to national elections have happened in the past… just ask the Brits…
Here’s hoping that, in such regards, history doesn’t repeat itself.
It has oft been said that somewhere between the two extremes of an argument, therein lies the truth. It has also oft been said that, eventually, all truth comes out in the end, given enough time.
Largely, both of these statements hold up under scrutiny- at least, more often than not.
Thanks in large part to the fact that overtly-biased news reporting, during a span of forty years, and growing worse every year, and thanks to an overall distrust of government going back to the Johnson Administration (Gulf of Tonkin/Warren Commission, anyone?), we Americans have grown to be quite a skeptical lot and yet, all the more gullible, too.
Given all of the misinformation with which we are beset, both from our mainstream media as well as our social media, one might be tempted to believe that we would become ever more discerning about what we read and what we hear but, sadly, just the opposite seems to be occurring.
Though this writer is far from qualified to be the absolute arbiter of truth- on any topic- there is much myth that must be set asunder, if we are ever able to see the very light of day, once the pandemic has subsided and our lives return to some state of normalcy, if not sanity.
Coronavirus COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan Province of the People’s Republic of China. While the very first cases began towards the end of October 2019, it was not acknowledged until the very end of last year. Since that time, the Chinese government has repeatedly lied- lied about its origin, lied about its number of cases and deaths, and lied about its nature and its spread- albeit with criminal aiding and abetting on the part of the World Health Organization. Those lies, on the part of the Chinese communists, continue to this day and, whether or not the release of this virus was intentional or accidental, their culpability in the worldwide spread of this disease is unmistakable. The fact that, only recently, officials in their government have threatened to withhold antibiotic formularies such as penicillin and other such antibiotics from the United States (97% of which come from the People’s Republic of China), reveals that nation’s criminal mindset. The fact that they sold back to Italy, the very same protective masks Italy had previously donated to help them, also reveals a complete lack of ethical behavior, not to mention any semblance of international cooperation and respect. Intentionally or not, the government of the People’s Republic of China has committed biological war crimes against the rest of humanity, and they should well be held to account for this assault, one way or another.
The fact that our mainstream media has taken to cloak this culpability, whether out of corporate or political considerations, makes them accountable as well, for aiding and abetting a foreign adversary. The fact that this same mainstream media seeks to sow division within the President’s Task Force on Coronavirus, and lack of faith in that task force’s recommendations to contain the spread of this virus, shows just how far off they have drifted in their responsibility to keep the public informed and reinforces the oft-held view that the press is largely anti-American. Consider how they constantly suggest a division between the President and the medical professionals on his task force, when in reality, there is none.
For example, they point to Dr. Tony Fauci’s scientific skepticism of the efficacy of a regimen of hydroxychloroquine combined with Zithromax Z-Pak, which is based on achieving an exhaustive study of this efficacy in a controlled, double-blind study- usually required for FDA approval. They also point to the President’s full-throated endorsement of its widespread use now, while we are in the midst of peak infection, in the knowledge that this may be the only treatment at present to both contain the virulent spread of this virus and curtail its fatality. These two positions are not mutually exclusive of one another, for both speak the truth- albeit from opposite approaches. Trump no more seeks to disdain further research, than Fauci seeks to prevent saving countless lives, but no one would know this, based on the reckless reporting of these two facts, which begs the question as to the political motives behind sowing such seeds of misinformation and malcontent.
Others will tell us that the numbers of both confirmed cases of, and deaths from, coronavirus COVID-19 are inflated, which defies all logic…
Why?
Well, confirmed cases of coronavirus infection are based upon positive results of COVID-19 testing, while confirmed deaths are based upon the mortality rates of confirmed cases. Given the fact that tens of thousands go untested entirely can only suggest that these numbers are vastly deflated, not inflated. Many throughout the world are dying of a myriad of causes- but whether or not coronavirus is present or, for that matter, causational in these deaths can only be absolutely known in post-mortem testing. Yet, the high demands for testing of suspected infections amongst the living, prevent this post-mortem testing, ex post facto. The fact that the United States has conducted more such tests than the rest of the world, also demands the realization of the fact that worldwide numbers being reported are also understated- perhaps vastly so. Only the naïve can possibly believe the Chinese assertion that there have been no more cases of the coronavirus in China during the last two or three weeks- once a liar, ever the liar… person, state or country.
Another erroneous assumption is because the H1N1 virus of 2009-2010 resulted in far more American deaths than the coronavirus has thus far, the seriousness of this pandemic is being overstated. Well, the ugly and undeniable truth is that the Obama administration failed to recognize the seriousness of that epidemic for more than six months, before finally taking action on it. Had they acted with anywhere near the urgency of the Trump administration, the death toll from H1N1 would have been far lower.
There will be plenty of time to evaluate the actions taken by this government once this pandemic has run its course, and we have returned to that seemingly far-off, but sooner-than-we-think concept of normalcy. Though hindsight is usually 20/20, it is our personal opinion that the President’s actions and his administration’s management of this crisis will stand well the tests of scrutiny and time but, again, such judgements are for a later time and date. That said, the heavy ounce of prevention in which most of us are presently engaged is far better than the potential ton of cure that would result from paying attention to those who would risk far worse, by insisting we return to this normalcy right now. Economies recover, but lost livesneverdo, and all of us would do quite well to remember this. There is no doubt that our lives will see much drastic change- some good and some not so good- when the pandemic has passed but, again, ours is the task of living and surviving today, and letting tomorrow take care of itself, and in its own time.
Nibblin’ on fritos Ran out of cheetos Stuck in the house with nothin’ to do Watchin’ a movie, but not feelin’ groovy But I got me a blender ‘cause I’m just outta brew
Wastin’ away again in Coronavirusville While the country has ground to a halt Some people claim that it’s the White House to blame But I know it’s all China’s fault
Don’t know the reason I’m stuck here all season Nothing to do but sit on my ass… But it is my duty, Tho’ not “Constituty” So I stay at home and fill up my glass
Wastin’ away again in Coronavirusville While the country has ground to a halt Some people claim that it’s the White House to blame But I know it’s all China’s fault
The boss had a meeting I learned from his tweeting That we’re put on furlough until May or June But a check is a comin’ While my fingers are drummin’ So I sit on my ass and bang out this tune…
Wastin’ away again in Coronavirusville While the country has ground to a halt Some people claim that it’s the White House to blame But I know it’s all China’s fault
There has never been a time in human history where millions of people have been veritably grounded- forced with rare exception to remain within their confines, and only allowed to venture out for state-sanctioned purposes- purchasing food, prescriptions and supplies, getting medical attention or exercise. The schools at every level have closed, as have the non-essential stores, and wherever work still continues it is largely done remotely, for only those places of economic exchange or financial transactions- those again being the ones that are state-sanctioned– are permitted to continue, status quo ante. Across the fruited plains and majestic purple mountains and from sea to shining sea, we are being told essentially to stay at home and avoid interpersonal contact at all costs- even if such costs border on the absurd, if not insane. That any of us ever thought we would be so sequestered and restricted, even in our wildest sci-fi fantasies, and yet here we are and there it is…
…and then, there are the very severe economic impacts of grinding the economy to a halt.
Even during the very depths of the Great Depression (1929-1940), there was never a fortnight where more than 10 million people lost their jobs in this country, and there was nary a day where the entire economy ground to a halt. Both then and now, Americans saw relatively low gasoline prices but, unlike back then where for a few quarters, one could at least go for a drive and take in a picture show for another quarter, there’s nowhere for us to really go today, save for running, again, state-sanctioned errands. The beaches are closed, save for locals wanting to jog, the national parks may soon be closed and playgrounds in major cities are being closed to discourage close-contact sports like basketball. Moreover, churches and synagogues, during the most holy week in the respective Judeo-Christian calendars, are having to resort to parking lot congregating, drive-by confessionals and on-line services. For others, eating out means curbside pickup and bringing home, while spectator sports are over and done with for the foreseeable future. Even my favorite karaoke provider has had to resort to “sidewalk karaoke” for a fraction of what he made before and is now figuring out a virtual karaoke platform. But where’s the money in that for a guy who makes his living as a karaoke jockey, and had heretofore expanded his business to two locations per night with hired help? For the record, he and his staff have been careful about wiping down microphones with anti-septic wipes, but there’s only so much one can do in those regards.
And yet…
We all know why we are being asked to sacrifice our freedoms, our employment and, yes, even our sanity all to prevent millions of potential deaths. The President and the experts on his Coronavirus Task Force are telling us that if we take the guidelines that have now been extended through month’s end seriously and if we practice an almost-alien protocol of social distancing, we could possibly hold the number of deaths down to somewherebelow a quarter million.
Well, if the country was needing a bucket of ice water to be thrown in our collective faces, regarding the seriousness of this pandemic, that certainly filled the bill.
Aside from the garden variety sociopaths and psychopaths, who relish the arrival of this horrible and hidden enemy- including most of the White House press corps, and not to mention the ridiculously partisan partnership of pathetic personages in the form of Pelosi, Schumer and Schiff (who smell yet another whiff of impeachment before we get too close to the November election), the rest of our sorry lot who has to deal with the loss of personal freedom and economic security, wish like hell they’d all just shut up and, for once, pull together for the country’s sake. Even a President Donald Trump, loathed as he is by those on the left and their collusive friends in the media, should be allotted some semblance of national unity in such times as these, or are there prurient and ulterior motives at play in all this?
That these times will come to an end is a certainty and, for the sake of our nation, the sooner the better. As mightily strong as our economy was prior to the pandemic, this forced stop can only go so long without irreversibly damaging the economy beyond repair, and only the most extreme socialist/communist would wish this upon our country. Sure, we can always print more and more cash, and dole it out to folks how we will, but that cannot continue without causing catastrophic disruptions in our supply chains, a severe devaluation in the dollar and the hyper-inflation that would attend to this devaluation along with widespread reduction in crucial supplies.
Setting all that aside, there is potentially a greater danger that may follow the “pandemic’s period of pause”, as it were. Once the restrictions are finally lifted, and once the engines of economic activity are restarted, and the people they employ return to work, will we as a freedom-loving people have unwittingly set a dangerous and pernicious precedence- one that enables the state to shut down the economy and confine us to our homes?
In the hopes of our eventual deliverance, we pray that all of our personal freedoms to life and liberty and pursuit of all happiness will not have been abridged in the pursuit of containing a COVID-19 coronavirus, created in the People’s Republic of China, and allowed to spread across the globe. Such a lost legacy would be the single most tragic, and most far-reaching consequence, that could possibly result.
With
procrastinators like myself, and other late income tax filers, the month of April
is usually consumed with racing to meet the April 15th deadline.
Completing and filing our own income tax returns (cheap bastard that I am) is
like having to retake my SAT exams each and every year (though it’s been forty-three
years, since I did so). The news regarding
this annual bit of bother is that my unfortunate tendency to procrastinate has now
been further enabled by a ninety-day extension, thanks to the very thing that
stands in the way of creating taxable revenue- COVID-19. Thank you, Mr.
President…
…and speaking of the President, now that the President’s “15 Days to Slow the Spread: Coronavirus Guidelines” (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/coronavirus-guidelines-america/ ) have also been extended an additional thirty days, the month of April 2020 will subject the entire nation to its very first behavioral examination- a test that we as contemporary Americans are woefully unprepared to take.
Telling
Americans to stay at home and just sit on their…umm…infernal regions for two
weeks is one thing…but then telling Americans to stay at home for five
more weeks is the closest thing on
earth to finding out that your immortal soul has to spend an extended time in Purgatory
before it can join our eternal Father in Heaven.
That is, except for the parents of school-aged
children whose schools have been closed and are
closed for the foreseeable future. Their predicament is more closely associated
with an eternity in Hell…for both themselves and
for their kids, as well.
Never before has a situation come to pass, where
the entire American nation–
a nation of explorers, of pioneers, of inventors and innovators and entrepreneurs-
has been subjected to a nationwide behavioral
pandemic…cabin fever.
Cabin fever, the manic form of anxiety brought on
by extended isolation and confinement, is a more extreme version of
claustrophobia that has been known to make otherwise sane people, crazy…crazy
enough, for instance, to pull a stunt like Jack Nicholson’s lead character in the Shining…So, while it might be prudent for
parents trapped at home with their children to place their axes and hatchets in
a locked gun safe for the time being, the limits of their collective patience
will be put to test, as never before.
For that matter, all of our collective patience
will be tested, as never before.
Americans are, for the most part, an active and outward and friendly people. We shake hands with complete strangers, commune amongst them in arenas and ballparks and other stadiums, and aren’t exactly averse to striking up conversations with people we have never met, before. Just ask anyone who has ever attended a college or professional level sporting event, or has been to a music festival. Since none of these activities are presently within reach- at the very time when theentire nation ordinarily comes out of its wintry dens of hibernation and renews its romance with the great outdoors- we are left with the same seasonal limitations of internet, television (and moaning and groaning) more indicative of being snowed-in…and without the winter white scenery to behold just outside our windows.
In
other words, there’s a limit to just how much alcohol a grown man or woman can
consume, for cryin’ out loud…
So,
“March Madness,” usually a reference to the sudden and pervasive interest in
all things college basketball, has now taken on an entirely new meaning of
almost universal sequestration, or if you will, being told by our national “parents”
that we’ve been “grounded” for a month…now that having been “grounded” for a
fortnight before didn’t teach us the lesson we all needed so desperately to
learn…
…and who would have ever thought that this rebellious man of sixty-one years, be told that, now, he has been grounded?
Time for all of us to take the national test, as it were…
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio, on Thursday, 26 March 2020 at 1:00 PM, EST
I was back on the radio, sitting in on the Nora Firestone Show, on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110, where I discussed all things corona virus, and a touch of all things politic.
This show also appeared as a
“Facebook live” broadcast, but because I was broadcasting remotely, the
picture quality may be someone diminished. Nevertheless, I hope you will
enjoy the re-broadcast located at the following link:
If silence is the absence of communication, and if censorship is the obfuscation of knowledge, then surely political correctness is the enemy of truth…
…and
now, more than ever, we need to seek the truth in all things.
Today,
we are awash in information. Never in the history of humankind, has there been
more information so readily accessible at our fingertips, than today. Time was, in the not-so-distant past, when we
would have to schlepp off to the library if we wanted to broaden our knowledge
about anything. Nowadays, we merely have to open up our laptops or other smart
devices, and all of the known information about any topic is as far away as the
click of a mouse or the tap of our thumb.
Problem
is that there is as much misinformation out there in cyberspace as there is
information, and segregating the truth from the lie on any topic presents its
own challenge.
For
instance, go to the Professional Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. There
you’ll see that Johnny Unitas is listed as an Indianapolis Colt. Yet, in truth,
Johnny Unitas was never an Indianapolis Colt. His last year with the
Baltimore Colts came eleven years before the franchise stole away to the
Hoosier State.
More
to the point, look how the President of the United States is routinely called a
racist. Anyone who understands the meaning of “racist” knows that this
is a lie. Whether seeking to secure a porous and insecure border, banning
inbound flights from certain countries to contain the spread of a virus, or
calling that virus by the country of its origin does not and will not ever make
President Donald J. Trump a racist, no matter how hard the mainstream media and
his political opponents try their level best to convince us that he is one.
Oddly
enough, those same meddlesome ministers of misinformation and those same professional
purveyors of propaganda are as much the enemy of America as any foe we have ever
faced in time of war. Worse, the lies spewing forth from such dubious sources
and other such entities are just as assuredly going to resist any effort by our
government to protect its people from a worldwide pandemic.
So,
what are the hallmarks of such a lie?
Denial- Denial of where the virus originated (China) why the
virus was allowed to spread across the globe (communist Chinese government
censorship) and whether or not this is a real pandemic (our friends and social
media contacts who continue to insist that this is just a “hoax”);
Misappropriation of Blame- blaming the coronavirus COVID-19
on any entity (i.e. Trump, the Clintons, the Democrats, the media) other
than the People’s Republic of China, who caused this virus to spread;
Whining and complaining- Seventy-eight years ago, the “greatest
generation” who had already weathered the worst economic calamity ever to hit
this nation was asked to accept frozen wages, commodity rationing on certain
foodstuffs (sugar, coffee, fresh meat) and other goods (tires, stockings), and to
sacrifice personal freedoms (nighttime blackouts, conscription) all to defeat the
axis powers in World War II. Today, how many of us are whining about having to
sit at home while curtailing visits to restaurants and bars and foregoing our leisure
cruises, international travel and spring break vacations?
Hypocrisy- Some of the very same people who vociferously complained
about the President stopping all inbound flights from China in late January,
and labeling such measures as “reactionary,” “xenophobic” and “racist,” now
have the unmitigated gall to tell us that the administration hasn’t been as expeditious
and urgent as necessary to combat the spread of the virus;
Hoarding and speculation- Whether a Senator (Diane Feinstein D-CA, Richard Burr R-NC, Kelly Loeffler R-GA, James Inhofe R-OK) who, with advanced “insider” information, dumps shares of stock at the onset of an impending financial crisis, or whether an ordinary consumer who attempts to hoard commodities such as toilet paper, anti-bacterial hand lotion and disinfecting wipes… especially those who then try to resell these items at exorbitant prices…such societal parasites are beneath contempt and those who fail to call them out are just as culpable.
So, in this the hour of our collective discontent, let us resolve to look within ourselves and seek the truth- the absolute and empirical truth- in all things, lest we allow the lie to overtake and ultimately destroy us…as a people and as a species.
Responding to Coronavirus- Appropriately and Inappropriately
Panic is an ugly sight…primarily because it makes those
who are otherwise sane do something(s) crazy- like rushing out to a Wal-Mart or
a Sam’s Club or a Costco and clearing those stores out of their supplies of
bottled water and toilet paper.
Think about this for a moment…bottled water and toilet paper
as the result of a respiratory virus advisory! Well, considering the fact that the very thinking
which generates such behavior, must come from the specific part of the human
anatomy that toilet paper is designed to “service,” one can only marvel at the
stupidity and gullibility of people who are driven to bedlam at the urging of
the mainstream media.
Now, given that one should always keep abreast of the news, stay informed and remember that bad decisions are made in the midst of a panic, we should always hope and pray for the best, prepare and have a “plan B” for the worst, and in all cases keep calm, even if we have to lower our pants and slide on the ice…
At the beginning of this past week, we published an essay (http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=3056)
about the previously unforeseen effects of coronavirus COVID-19 on our schools
and places of work, both of which could contain the spread of the contagion by
enabling students and employees to attend virtual teacher-led internet-based classrooms
and telecommute to their jobs, respectively.
With greater frequency, since two presidential addresses (http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=3064)
were delivered in the week that followed, both school and workplace closings
have taken place, along with university and certain government services across
the country. Furthermore, MLB, NBA, NHL,
MLS, PGA, NASCAR and NCAA sporting events, including “March Madness,” have
either since been cancelled or indefinitely postponed, while theatrical
productions and church services have seen similar cancellations.
Essentially, any place where large groups gather has become “empty
space,” and with warnings to the elderly- especially those who live with
chronic, immunity-deficient medical conditions- to stay in their homes and
avoid outside contact, has startled all of us into the sudden awareness that
this one is no joke. People really are dying by the hundreds in Italy,
and other continental European countries, in Iran and, with what we are
permitted to know by their own government, which is not much, in China as well.
Here in the United States, just in the
last five days, the cases of coronavirus have spread from half a dozen states,
to every single state, Hawaii and Alaska, included. More than fifty of us, here
in the States, have perished from the virus, twenty of whom lived in a single
nursing home in Kirkland, Washington, just outside Seattle. Small numbers
perhaps, compared to the yearly onslaught of influenza and its tens of
thousands of fatalities, but noteworthy all the same.
The surrounding uncertainty of how virulent this coronavirus
will spread (despite the President’s prescient actions to battle this spread),
and the extent to which coronavirus will affect the availability of hospital
beads and requisite respiratory therapy devices, not to mention how many of the
vulnerable segments of our population will fall to the illness, are presumed to
be the drivers of Wall Street volatility and consumer unease. Greatly improving
the availability of COVID-19 test kits, and broadening the ease of getting tested
with “Drive-Through” testing and other such initiatives as “tele-medicine” will
go far to ameliorate this uncertainty and unease. After all, knowledge is the
enemy of panic, and being informed is the best defense against uncertainty-
especially in troubling times.
So, while being constantly aware of changing circumstances- circumstances which seem to be changing every few hours- doing so only seems prudent that we keep a watchful eye on what’s going on… Such is the mark of an intelligent person…as opposed to clearing the entire consumer supply of toilet paper and getting into fisticuffs over a single package…For those same idiots who today respond to a respiratory illness alert by buying up all the toilet paper, will likely respond to an e-coli advisory tomorrow, by buying up all of the Tylenol…
…and so, the ugly face of panic will rear
its ugly head, yet again…
In the meantime, keep calm and carry on…the
future will take care of itself.
The
Virus that is Social Media: Scrutiny of One’s Source is the Best Defense
On
the evening of March 11, 2020, President Donald Trump addressed the nation from
the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office- a rare occasion for a president who is
accustomed from doing so at a lectern, or out on the South Lawn waiting to
board the Marine One helicopter. The subject of the President’s address was the
coronavirus COVID-19, which the World Health Organization declared to be a “pandemic”
earlier in the day. This pandemic declaration was of no surprise since the
virus, which originated in the Wuhan Province of the communist People’s
Republic of China (China’s government wants the rest of the world to forget
this fact), has spread throughout the world causing widespread contagion in China,
continental Europe and elsewhere. Many deaths are starting to number in Italy,
Iran and in other locales, and despite their respective governments’ best
efforts to contain the spread of this virus, the spread of this virus continues
unabated.
In
very measured and somber tones, the President told people what they can expect,
the precautions that need to be taken, and steps the government is taking to
ameliorate the spread of the virus and minimize its impact- financially as well
as medically.
Noting
that the members of the European Economic Community failed to halt inbound
flights from China, when the President decided to do so back in January-
against a chorus of charges that doing so was somehow deemed to be “racist” by
those who “know better,” like globalists on both sides of the Atlantic- the
President said that the EEC’s decision not to follow his lead enabled the virus
to become entrenched in Europe, most particularly in Italy, where their own
government has now decided to quarantine the entire country.
In
an effort to further protect Americans in this country to the extent that he
can, President Trump announced in his address that effective midnight, Friday
March 13, all inbound flights from continental Europe would be cancelled
for the next thirty days and, subject to conditions on the ground, further
cancellations may take place. Last night’s announcement excluded flights from
the United Kingdom, as well as cargo flights throughout the world.
So,
what gets posted on Facebook and other social media?
“Trump
Stops All Planes for Thirty Days”
It’s bad enough that television networks, cable news channels and newspapers regularly pump out fake news and present it as unvarnished truth. Coverage of the President’s address was no exception, as these so-called “journalists” focused in on the President’s “apparent unease” with the subject matter based on, get this, his “breathing patterns” (so now, everyone is a licensed rhinologist/behavioral psychologist). Nevertheless, anyone who watched the President’s address knew that he clearly said, “all flights from Europe…” not to Europe…not all flights…just all fights from Europe.
But
never mind that. The social media providers, so anxiously concerned about
misinformation and fake news being generated by individuals and campaigns alike,
presumably because it affects the way people vote, continue to turn the other
direction and ignore the ignorance being routinely churned out by those who don’t
know a coronavirus from a computer virus.
So while we are washing our hands and wiping down our countertops with disinfecting wipes, can we all just step back and ask ourselves what level of stupidity does it take for a populace who, on an advisory concerning the spread of a respiratory illness, decides to clear the entire consumer market of toilet paper?
Well,
perhaps, it is because of thinking that originates from the exact part of the
human anatomy that toilet paper is designed to specifically service.
So the next time we decide to go and believe all we see on Facebook, and all we hear from our friends and colleagues and associates, about the coronavirus and, for that matter, the President, perhaps we would all do well to consider the source, first, before we pull out of our holster, and wantonly point, the finger of blame…
“The
fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are
underlings…”
Act I, Scene 2 of “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare
Coronavirus-
the Unforeseen (?) Consequences on Work and Education
A
little over two years ago, I wrote an essay where I predicted the demise of the
school room as we understand the meaning of the term, in the wake of the
Parkland, Florida school shooting ( http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=1814
). In citing the issues surrounding
challenges to providing safety and security in our school buildings, and the
enormous costs to federal, state and local government in the construction,
upkeep, maintenance and modernization of these facilities, I proffered the
alternative, out-of-the-box and seemingly inevitable solution to these problems.
Largely as the result of having telecommuted for almost two decades, where subject matter training, team meetings and even corporate conferences were all held in virtual classrooms, on-line meeting rooms and auditoriums broadcast on virtual private networks (VPNs), respectively, I argued that issues of child safety and school security would be eliminated by children attending virtual, teacher-led classrooms from home. Since the technology to do so has been in place, as well as in use, for some time, it seemed inevitable that this is where childhood education is heading. The essay fell short in that it didn’t even consider the issues of pandemic and the spread of new and deadly viruses as a justification for heading in the direction of remote access education. Even the most draconian efforts to rid school buildings of communicable germs is, when all is said and done, impossible to achieve and fruitless to attempt.
Now in the wake of a global pandemic, likely created in and released from labs located in the Wuhan province of Communist China (the Chinese government denies this, is anyone surprised?), the latest strain of coronavirus (COVID-19) is rapidly spreading on six continents, as well as here in these United States, and the death toll from this virus is beginning to mount. Most susceptible to surviving the virus appears to be the elderly and others who are compromised due to unrelated illness, but whole regions of entire countries are now being quarantined as they never have, before. With efforts to prevent the widespread onset of the disease here in the U.S., including President Trump’s decision to cancel inbound flights from China early on- and in the wake of recommendation by most all of the experts to the contrary– the disease was stymied in its approach to the U.S. mainland, but only for a time… Regardless, it gave the CDC and supporting pharmaceutical companies the requisite time to isolate the virus, study it, develop test kits for it and formulate possible and promising vaccines to prevent it. While the vaccines won’t be fully tested in a controlled environment, and then released for widespread use, for at least another year, at least virologists and other related healthcare experts in the United States were given a head start by this delay.
Yet, the virus will inexorably become widespread and will kill many more Americans, before it has run its natural course, just as influenza claims tens of thousands of Americans each and every year in the same manner. Primarily due to the fact that this particular strain of coronavirus can be present, and also easily communicable, in people for up to two weeks before symptoms start to present, that this will reach widespread infestation is nothing short of certainty. Add to this the fact that many millions who contract this disease- the young and strong, in particular- but who are able to deal with its symptoms and recover from it having never seen medical professionals, will guarantee almost universal exposure and infection. Worse, COVID-19 will eventually mutate into yet another deadly strain, just as new and deadly strains of influenza and other illnesses ravage their humans and animal hosts, alike.
The
coming weeks will see the closure of more and more school systems and specific
industries, ranging from cruise ship tourism and international air travel to convention
hosting and spectator events, will no doubt be adversely affected and
financially impacted due to the spread of this illness. Nursing homes and other
assisted living facilities who house the elderly will be particularly hit with
the ramifications of this illness, while corporate headquarters with office
cubicles in close proximity to one another will start to see those cubicles
emptied, as more and more employees are encouraged to stay home and telecommute
to work, instead.
In
a televised Fox News town hall with President Donald Trump last week, the
question was asked about the custom of shaking hands with one another. The
president said, “If ever there was a time when all of us would stop shaking
hands, you’d think it would be now…” Ever the germaphobe, Trump admitted that
he had to get past his reluctance to shake hands in order to pursue political
office, but nevertheless the President might be onto something with what he
said.
After
all, how can a science community which advises all of us to constantly wash our
hands and avoid touching our faces, ultimately coexist in a culture so steeped
in the exchange of handclasps and bodily embrace? It’s as simple as I cough or
sneeze, then later shake hands with you, then later still, you rub your eyes or
nose, and “presto” you’ve got what I have, long before either one of us knows
we’re sick. In such a scenario, prevention amounts to good intentions at best,
and we all know where any road paved with good intentions, leads…
Eventually, coronavirus COVID-19 will run its inevitable course, and the rest of us will move on to bigger and better things to worry ourselves about- like elections, retirement, the costs of living, paying our taxes and maintaining our precious lifestyles…not to mention keeping up with the Kardashians and rooting our favorite sports teams onto victory. No, this coronavirus won’t be the pestilence (and other ills) that are brought to the world by the apocalyptic “fourth horseman astride the pale horse,” as described in Revelations 6: 7-8 of the New Testament. That said, we are foolish to ignore the very real implications that the spread of this virus, and future viruses, portend for humanity.
So,
the issues surrounding communicability of lethal disease will remain in place, once
memory of the 2020 coronavirus COVID-19 fades into the forgotten past, just as
other viruses from the past few decades have slipped from our collective consciousness.
Yet, the societal and socio-economic repercussions of providing for safety and
security, and then also having to prevent the spread of infectious disease, will
spell the ultimate demise of school buildings, corporate offices and perhaps any
place where people assemble in large groups. Retail establishments built of
brick and mortar, already so hit with Amazon and the availability of other
on-line shopping sites, will have one more threat to their own viability and
the rationale for keeping them open will become all the more reason to close stores.
Taken together, the potential impact of all these variables on a global economy
cannot be over-stated.
In the end, then, people will have to ask themselves what’s so special about keeping the school buildings opened when, in the final analysis, they have become little more than large petrie dishes swimming with threats we can’t even see- be they microscopic or criminal in nature…?
“Johnny,
it’s time to log on, sweetheart…I’m already late to work, and school starts in
just a few minutes…”
Think about it, folks…it’s closer than you might otherwise imagine…
“Super Tuesday?” No, it was more like “Mysterious Monday”…
Presidential
campaigns in these United States require a lot of planning, a lot of strategy
and yes, a lot of money. Essentially, all such undertakings are not “on the fly,”
as it were. If otherwise, then a whole lot more Americans would be running for
President every four years…
Take
Donald Trump, for example.
On
Election Night 2012, “the Donald” watched television as Barack Obama sailed
easily to re-election, over the inept and impotent Mitt Romney…a textbook example
why selecting the most “electable” candidate is a surefire way to lose an
election, in either party. Remember the (twice, was it?) “unstoppable”
Hillary Clinton? That night in 2012, as Donald Trump sat alone watching the
proceedings, he decided that he would run for the presidential nomination in
2016, in what he saw as a broken Republican party, and even thought up his
future campaign slogan “Make America Great.” He called his attorney to see if
he could have it trademarked. The next morning, in thinking it over, he decided
that the phrase sounded like it was a criticism of his country, so he called
his attorney again, and had him revise the slogan to what would appear on
millions of baseball caps four years later- “Make America Great Again.”
For
the next thirty months, the once and future president carefully and skillfully
promoted himself to media outlets, speaking about political issues- most
notably trade imbalances, and teasing them with the prospect that he might
decide to launch a campaign for the nation’s highest office. As 2014 turned
into 2015, the suspense about his possible run was the very talk of television,
despite the fact that the coverage of him was largely skeptical. After all,
here was a man who for thirty years mastered the media for all its worth. So,
when he descended with his wife, Melania, down the escalator of Trump Tower and
announced he was running, few could have foreseen the history that was made
from that very moment, on. Strategically campaigning in blue collar, rustbelt
states and holding countless rallies in stadiums and arenas, Trump outworked
his heavily favored opponents, in both the Republican nominating contests and
in the general election, to become the nation’s forty-fifth President.
Compare
Trump’s quest for the White House to the Democrats who have run, or are running,
in this 2020 election.
Many,
like Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Julian Castro,
Corey Booker, Pete Buttigieg and Tulsi Gabbard, began their campaigns by
launching exploratory committees, building organizations and raising money
throughout the country. Experienced politicians, after all, know that campaigns
are built from the ground up, and are continued to be built until they either
succeed or fail.
An
early favorite to win the nomination was Obama’s former Vice President, Joe
Biden. Yet, as his campaign appearances mounted, it became obvious that Biden’s
well-known and oft-excused propensity to misstate and stumble over his own
words took on new and impactful concerns by party insiders who felt that maybe,
just maybe, the former Vice President was starting to show what many believe to
be age-related dementia, This was certainly not out of the question for any man
knocking on the door of his ninth decade, but it seemed that Joe’s gaffes went
from laughable to pitiful during the past few months.
So, into the fray waltzes billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose diminutive size belies his lofty ego. Thinking that he could charm a country with his intelligence and well-produced TV spots, Bloomberg miscalculated the American people. Erroneously falling into the same lurid and presidential trap as his fellow and current New York City mayor Bill DeBlasio, he thought that the entire country would see in himself, what their own populous but geographically small constituencies presumably see in them. Bloomberg spent in excess of $700 million to launch his quest and the only thing he managed to accomplish was gaining the lion’s share of available television time slots.
Skipping
the early caucuses in Iowa and Nevada, along with skipping the early primaries
in New Hampshire and South Carolina, Bloomberg figured that Democrat voters-
wary of the apparent decay in Biden’s faculties- would give him a delegate
sweep on Super Tuesday…only he figured wrong. Curiously, it was reported the week before,
that he purchased no ad spots following Super Tuesday- an indication that he
saw the writing on the wall, prior to the balloting.
On the very night before Super Tuesday, fellow candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar suddenly suspended their campaigns and joined former candidate Robert “Beto” O’Rourke in his home state of Texas, to announce they were suddenly “all in” for Biden. With their dropping out, Bloomberg lost any chance of gaining any ground and Democratic voters across the country, fearing that a Bernie Sanders nomination would automatically mean Trump’s reelection, coalesced behind Biden and gave him primary victories in states from Maine to Texas, and most all of them in between. That Klobuchar and Buttigieg would throw their support behind Biden, aside from their timing, came as no surprise to watchers. O’Rourke, assuming he still had any followers, joined in the jubilation in Texas, largely because it afforded him what he wants most- attention. Biden, ever the one to screw up an otherwise opportune moment, embraced the flashy skateboarder, saying O’Rourke would be put in charge of his gun policy- “Beto,” notoriously not a defender of the Second Amendment. Think about this for a moment…Biden actually said this, in Texas.
Interestingly
enough, Elizabeth Warren who still seeks to find a racial identity and
grievance group with which she feels comfortable, waited until the day after
Super Tuesday to suspend her own campaign. In her narcissistic and wholly
self-aggrandizing way, which seems to be her forte’, “Liz” announced the suspension
of her campaign, but failed to throw her support behind Bernie, her closest ideological
ally. In waiting until after Super Tuesday to quit the race, most of her voters-
who would have thrown their support behind Sanders- threw away their votes on
her, instead. Had she pulled out on the night before, Sanders would have
prevailed in Massachusetts and Maine, and would have come out of Super Tuesday
with a delegate lead over Biden. To a watching world, it appeared once again that
the fix was in- by Democrat party “super delegate” power brokers, operatives
and financiers, to deny the Vermont socialist a chance at the nomination, just
as they had four years ago, when Hillary Clinton’s nomination was rigged from
the get-go.
Putting
all of these machinations together- what with Klobuchar’s and Buttigieg’s
sudden love for Joe Biden, Bloomberg’s financial boondoggle and very sudden
whole-hearted endorsement for Biden, and Elizabeth Warren putting the screws to
her fellow socialist, Bernie Sanders- that something engineered, almost
sinister, is going on in the Democrat party. All of which begs the question, who is behind
the kabuki that is this nomination process? More importantly, who is pulling
the strings attached to the bumbling Biden? A trio of ex-presidents- Bush,
Clinton and Obama- who won two terms, but who also shudder at the thought of
yet another Trump turn, certainly come to mind. That Bush was a
Republican president is irrelevant, for like Clinton and Obama (and his father,
for that matter). George W. Bush is a die-hard globalist who finds common cause
with his Democrat counterparts.
The
latter two, Clinton and Obama, whose wives Biden has said he would consider
possibly naming as his running mate(s), have more power in their own party,
than any Republican, even the Bushes, ever had in their own party. Furthermore,
it has become obvious that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama certainly had much to
do with engineering these maneuvers and putting the requisite pressure on
Klobuchar, Buttigieg and Warren to do what they did to obstruct Sanders, and
pave the way for Biden, who unquestionably lacks the intellect to pull off such
a stunt, on his own.
So,
the possibility of a brokered Democrat National Convention looms large- even
with the party elders rigging it for the former Vice President. In the event
Biden fails to gain a majority of Democrat delegates, a possible yet altogether
plausible scenario is set for a former first lady, whose first names are Michelle
or Hillary, to swoop into Milwaukee and grab the trophy that eludes
their favorite dunce, Biden, and their “commie” nemesis, Bernie.
The
only thing left to determine is who exactly, whether or not the Clintons or the
Obamas- taken together or separately- are pulling the strings on Joe Biden…and given
the inherent lack of transparency and ethos that seems to be their frequent modus
operandi, it’s once again…
One
sunny afternoon, Donald Trump went into a mid-town Manhattan bar, not realizing
that there were all of the contenders for the Democrat nomination, inside-
There
were Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, sitting at the bar, while Michael Bloomberg
and Tulsi Gabbard were sitting at a table- both engaged in deep conversation. Hillary
was alone, off to the side with a stack of unsold books, while Michelle was
just exiting the men’s roo-… er… I mean, the ladies’ room (whew!).
Pete Buttigieg was there with Amy Klobuchar, each with a beer and were busy in a game of darts. Tending the bar were Julian Castro and Cory Booker, who himself was wearing a ‘Spartacus’ t-shirt, while Tom Steyer was checking the cash register and counting the money. Andrew Yang had just ordered a drink, while Elizabeth Warren stood alone by the door, donning a magnificent, floor-length Apache headdress…
So,
as Donald Trump entered and noticed Elizabeth Warren standing still by the
door, numb and speechless (for once) at the thought of Trump entering this bar,
Trump said to his aide, “Go back to the limo, open the trunk and bring me a box
of ‘Trump’s Premium Cigars’…I think Liz might be more useful holding the box
with an open lid, and with a sign that reads ‘Cigars $10.’”
Trump
then exchanges cordial nods with Yang and sits down next to Joe Biden.
Biden
turns to him and says, “Donald, I wanted you to come by so I could thank your
for contributing to my Senate campaign this year… I’m sure the people down in
Delaware love you, man!”
To
that, the President replied, “Sleepy Joe, for cryin’ out loud, that was
thirty-some odd years ago!”
Then, Bernie interrupted, saying, “You see what I’ve been saying? You billionaires- you with all your ill-gotten gains- buy elections away from the working men and women who can’t even set aside enough money to buy a ’Che’ Guevarra t-shirt, or contribute to my campaign.”
Donald
turned to him and said, “Bernie, don’t you have tickets to the Bolshoi ballet
tonight, or are you hopping on a private jet to go see some baseball with your
buddy, Raul Castro?”
At
that point, Booker looks at the president and says, “Whatta’ you have?” with
eyes wide open… In fact, they were opened so wide, that the President became a
little suspicious and said, “uhhh…nothing for right now, thanks.”
Trump
then left Biden and Bernie at the bar and went over towards the table where
Tulsi and “Bloomby” were having a conversation.
Bloomberg
said to Tulsi, “I don’t know how you do it. I spend more than $100 million for
each delegate I received, and I did manage to pick up American Samoa,
where I have never been, and here you have more delegates than I do…what’s your
secret, Tulsi?”
The
Hawaiian Senator said, “Well, Mike, I have been to the American Samoa, and know
many of the 175 people who voted there…the only advice I could give you is that
you need to be likable…do you see that woman sitting over there, trying to sell
her books?… She never learned that lesson and still wonders how she
spent twice as much money, only to lose to Trump.”
Trump
turned to see Hillary, alone at a table stacked high with her books, and said
to her, “You know, Hillary, I once had a bestseller called ‘The Art of the Deal’-
so I know something about…well, you, know…about how to sell a book (and win an
election, by the way)…and this is no place to try to sell books– I mean
how many people…even my people…great, great people…go into a bar to buy a book?”
Mrs.
Clinton just glared at him with steely eyes and said, “I’ll bet you conspired
with Russia to launch an on-line Facebook campaign panning my book sales, you
mean lousy son-of-a-…”
The
President quickly interrupted her, smiled and said, “Hey, there’s no need to
get nasty…that’s just sick…I mean these people are sick…listen, I’ll talk to my
son, Eric, and see if he can’t give you a discount on an ad spot to plug your
book on trump.com…who knows, maybe just maybe, you’ll sell a book or two…?”
Then,
walking over to Buttigieg and Klobuchar, Trump said, “What’s with you two,
pulling out of the race on the night before ‘Super Tuesday’… was there a quid
pro quo with Joe?”
“No,”
said Klobuchar, “of course not…Joe said something to us about us pulling out of
the race three days before ‘Super Thursday,’ so we were happy to oblige…”
Then, Buttigieg said, “Mr. President, how come I never see you wearing any kind of glasses- even reading glasses- don’t you ever read?”
To that, Trump smiled, winked and said, “Pete, I read all the time, and as far as your question is concerned, I’ve already got 2020, thanks…”
Approaching the door, Trump handed a $10 bill to “Liz” Warren, saying to her “No, thanks, I don’t smoke, but by all means give it to your hubby when you go home, you know, when you get yourselves a beer…”
Leaving
the place, Trump once again turned to his aide and said, “It’s a good thing I
don’t drink…I mean these people…these horrible, horrible people…I mean they’re
sick…I mean sick…”
Getting
into his limo, the President was driven away and, turning around for one more
glance, he smiled and said, “So long, losers, see you in the funnies…”
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio, on Thursday, 27 February 2020
I was back on the radio today, sitting in on the Nora Firestone Show, on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110, where I discussed corona virus, the state of politics within the Commonwealth of Virginia, the fallacy of electability and how the media is helping, yes helping, Donald Trump to achieve greatness.
This show also appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast, but because I was broadcasting remotely, the picture quality may appear somewhat diminished. Nevertheless, I hope you will enjoy watching this recording of the live broadcast, on the following link:
Unintended
Consequences: How the Media is Helping Trump to Achieve Greatness
Let
us start with the supposition that no one has ever achieved greatness without
doing so in the face of adversity.
This is certainly true in sports- think of the greatness Johnny Unitas achieved when everything seemed to be going against him- his father dying when he was five while his mother began working two jobs and managing to schedule his older brother, Lenny, to deliver coal from the truck his father once drove, just to keep food on the table. Drafted in the ninth round by hometown Pittsburgh, but never given a chance to call signals in training camp and then summarily cut, the young graduate of Louisville instead played semi-pro ball on fields of cinder and broken glass for $6 per game, that fall. When the Baltimore Colts picked him up on waivers the following winter, no one could have foreseen then, that he would go on to achieve greatness as the best quarterback to ever play the game.
This
is true in science and technology- think of how man conquered the barrier of sustained
flight through the determination and persistence of two bicycle mechanics from
Dayton, Ohio, one Orville and Wilber Wright, brothers who designed one of the first
operational wind tunnels to test their contraption, in preparation for their
historic flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina- all during a time when the prevailing
thought was that, if man were meant to fly, he’d have had wings. Within a dozen
years, the first warplanes appeared in the skies over Belgium. Within thirty
years, rockets started to be developed by the Third Reich- rockets that would
take American men to the surface of the moon, sixty-five years after the Wright
Brothers first achieved a sustained flight of twelve and a half seconds.
Greatness
in the face of adversity has appeared in individuals throughout history.
Think
of the trials and tribulations facing a Genoese sailor, who travelled
throughout Western Europe, in search of a monarch who would fund an exploratory
voyage westward, across the Atlantic Ocean, in an attempt to find a shorter
route to India- having no idea that an entire hemisphere of unknown continents
and uncharted lands constituted a world far larger, than anyone had ever thought,
up to that point. When Spain’s regents, Ferdinand and Isabella, finally agreed
to bankroll Columbus’s voyages, they began a stampede of future colonial aspirants
throughout Europe- Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Britain and later Russia,
who sought to lay claim to various parts of the New World, desiring the riches
and powers it afforded.
Think of the greatness of Mohandas Gandhi who, in the face of warring factions within his own country and a determined British Empire, achieved the very founding of an independent statehood for India- now the world’s largest representative democracy. His modus operandi of non-violent resistance, often in the face of deadly opposition and desires for vengeance, would go on to inspire political movements in South Africa and in the Americas, movements to achieve racial justice, institutional change and societal transformation.
Think
of the highly unlikely but ultimate victory of General George Washington who
managed to take a band of farmers, frontiersmen and unskilled laborers, and transform
them into a fighting force that would defeat the greatest army the world had
ever known, up until that point in time. He would go on to become the nation’s
first president, all while having to abide a warring cabinet who often schemed
behind his back, all in pursuit of personal and partisan interests… something
that another president, Abraham Lincoln, would have to overcome to achieve his own
historical greatness, seventy years later.
While
political opponents, scheming insiders and putative political pundits have
always stood in the way of political greatness, these formidable forces have
largely been overcome by very few, in particularly challenging times. Often
mocked and second-guessed by legions of those who claimed that they knew
better, Washington and Lincoln achieved and attained greatness in spite of the
fact that they often had to “go it alone,” when it seemed that all the world was going
against them.
Conversely,
how could one say Barack Obama achieved greatness during his own presidency, when
he was almost universally adored by the entire mainstream media and by almost
all of the world’s power brokers? Facing absolutely no real opposition from his
political opponents, in both the Republican and Democrat parties, Barack Obama
was able to skate through eight years of a presidency that achieved relatively little
in the grand scheme of things…very little, aside from a so-called Affordable
Care Act which no sane politician would dare to embrace even a decade later,
and an Iran “deal” that ultimately used taxpayer funds to finance terrorism
throughout the world, by an Iranian regime bent on bringing the world towards
an apocalypse. No, given all of the
adulation and adoration heaped on him by the mainstream media, and even
supplication by his political opponents, it was practically impossible, and ultimately
proved unattainable, for President Obama to achieve greatness- aside from the
fact that he also managed to drive the entire country to the very divisions and
discordance we face, today.
Enter
one Donald J. Trump, the flashy and often over-stated real estate tycoon from
the 1970’s who was the irresistible and undeniable “click-bait” for tabloids
and talk shows in the ensuing four decades- who he was dating, what he was
building, and the deals he was making all made him a media sensation, who was almost
universally adored and promoted as a marketing genius, that is until…
…he
decided to run for president.
In
the flash of an instant, the one-time media sensation suddenly became a pariah,
a misogynist, a racist, a homophobe, a xenophobe and an Islamophobe all
because, like so many of his predecessors, he chose to run as a Republican. The
last sixty years of presidential politics have witnessed the very same slander
and libel foisted on every Republican running for president, and yet “the
Donald” was still different. Trump was even undercut by members of his
own party, who resented this “upstart” who threatened to shake a tired, unimaginative
and neo-conservative and globalist Republican Party to the very core of its
foundation. Unlike his predecessors, Trump was the penultimate outsider- but
one who also knew the ins and outs, and the “who had dirt on whom,” from politicians
in both parties who at one time, sought his own financial support. Here was the
man “who knew too much,” elected on a promise to drain the swamp of corruption
that took hold in our nation’s capital during the course of his own lifetime. With
almost universal opposition from Democrats, Republicans, the mainstream media
and bureaucrats throughout government and even in the courts, Trump did the unthinkable
and impossible- he defeated Hillary Clinton in an election thought to be far beyond
his reach.
Worse,
he has persisted in pursuing this agenda while members from within his own
cabinet sought to undercut the new president through treachery, guile and a
determination to see him fail. The opposition to his election and presidency,
which was first evidenced in the boycott of his inauguration, continued as
Democrats attempted to manufacture reasons for his impeachment and removal out
of their sheer hatred for the man. Aided and abetted by a mainstream media who
shares in their hatred of this President, a three-year $40 million investigation
into charges that his campaign was in collusion with Russia, came up with
absolutely no corroborating evidence. Meanwhile, the efforts to impeach and
remove him from office continued in a desperate search to find some reason- any
reason, to warrant the effort. On a flimsy and, yes, flatulent claim that the
President tried to illegally gain assistance from Ukraine to help him in his
re-election efforts, the stink that they themselves created all fell back on
Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff who saw their efforts to impeach and
remove the President, go down in flames…not that their efforts have so abated,
they just need to find some other new reason to proceed.
Say
what you will about President Donald J. Trump, but given all of the forces
allayed against him, all of the treachery that has been heaped upon him by members
of his own party, and even by some members of his own cabinet, no one could
reasonably accuse Trump of having the same adulation afforded to his predecessor(s),
by either Washington insiders or the political press. With that, along with the
machinations of Democrats determined to stand in the way of his success, both
here and around the world, the seeds of greatness have thus been sown on the
fertile fields of Donald Trump, just waiting for an historic, life-changing challenge
that will ultimately make, or break, his presidency.
Whether
this challenge comes from a new and virulent corona virus that might prove to
become the pandemic plague of the twenty-first century, or whether this
challenge comes as the result of a military threat from without, or from domestic
upheaval from within, President Donald J. Trump will be dealt the cards of unseen
and foreboding challenges that will either prove his mettle, or ultimately
prove to be, his own undoing, in the months and in the years ahead…
…and
the potential for President Trump to achieve greatness in the very face of
universal adversity, is being unwittingly and yet inexorably facilitated by a
mainstream media who intends to achieve quite the opposite.
The
News out of Richmond- the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Although
I usually provide commentary on national issues, to the exclusion of state and
local issues, some news taking place in my hometown of Richmond, Virginia warrants
some attention…
First the Good: On February 17th, the Virginia Senate rejected a bill endorsed by Democrat Governor Ralph Northam, that would have placed severe restrictions on so-called “assault” weapons and curtailed the rights of Virginians to keep and bear arms. This was the latest measure proposed by Democrats to strictly curtail Second Amendment rights in the Commonwealth, in a state where Democrats control both houses of the General Assembly as well as all three executive offices- governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. Largely the result of protests taking place in January, the bill ultimately failed, with the help of four Democrat legislators joining a united Republican caucus.
Next
the Bad: On February 11th, both of the Democrat-led Houses of the Virginia
General Assembly passed measures that would authorize cities and
counties the autonomy to “remove, relocate, contextualize, cover or alter” Confederate
monuments in their respective public spaces. Forget about the subtleties in the
language, for it is nothing less than an assault on our history. In Richmond,
the bill would allow local politicos to remove five monuments- those of Confederate
Generals J.E.B. Stuart, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, and Robert E. Lee, as
well as Naval Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury and Confederate President
Jefferson Davis- that are the very namesake of Monument Avenue. Once compared
to the Champs Elysée in Paris (World Book Encyclopedia- 1959), Richmond’s
Monument Avenue was, at one time, one of the most beautiful tree-lined
boulevards in America, if not the entire world. Since the late 1980s and early
1990s, however, politicians in Richmond City have systematically and incrementally
taken this recognition down, and now it appears they’ll have the authority to finish
the job. Never mind the fact that, technically, the statues on
Monument Avenue were gifts to the Commonwealth of Virginia (and not city-owned
property), erected during the turn of the nineteenth into the twentieth
century…and from monies raised by Confederate widows and other beneficiary
organizations. None of that seems to matter in this
era of revisionist history, academic indoctrination and political correctness.
Now, the Ugly: It never ceases to amaze me
how freedoms so preciously won in terms of treasure and bloodshed can be taken
away with the mere stroke of a pen, by short-sighted nincompoops who seek power
and incumbency by signing away our constitutional rights and historical legacies.
Although the motion to strictly curtail and, in some cases, eliminate our right
to keep and bear arms here in the Old Dominion, ultimately failed this
time around, the one-time medical student in blackface and now Governor Ralph
Northam, has vowed to bring the legislation back in the Assembly’s next term.
Richmond, where Patrick Henry once delivered
his “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech, where religious liberty in the new
world was first codified into law, and where television was first broadcast in
the South, has fallen on hard times in these last decades. The federally
employed population overflowing the confines of the Capital Beltway, have
brought their love of big government, with its trappings of largesse and governmental
oversight, to Virginia’s capital and the once reliably red state has thus turned
absolutely blue within the last decade. Once known as a conservative,
pay-as-you-go state which detested both deficits and debt, Virginia has become swollen
with federal dollars (primarily defense-related spending) to the extent of
being the top spender of federal tax dollars on a per capita basis. Along
with this spending has arrived the blue-nosed elite of wealthy opportunists who
think they know better- far better than the “rubes” who have made Virginia home
for generations. They have neither respect nor reverence to abide honors once
afforded by locals to their heroes of the past- honors bestowed by those local
Virginians who fought with, personally knew and later raised funds to erect the
monuments to their fallen comrades in arms. These political opportunists took
advantage of traditionally reticent Richmonders, far too genteel and far too
reserved to put up an honest fight- until it was too late. Once a statue comes
down, after all, it will never be put back up.
All in all, it is very sad that the Old
Dominion- once known as the birthplace of self-governance in the new world and
the “mother of states” has now become the “New Domain” of D.C. insiders who
seek to eliminate the power of the several states to govern themselves in
accordance with the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Remember that rights either surrendered or
taken away can never be retrieved, but by blood…
…and God forbid, that may be where we are
headed, yet again…
Since the
first time we voted as an eighteen-year-old in 1976- just three days after our qualifying
birthday- a host of Republican presidential hopefuls who have gained their
party’s nomination based upon their supposed electability, have gone on
to join the pantheon of Election Day losers.
In that
bicentennial year of 1976, it was President Gerald Ford who staved off a close
challenge from California Governor Ronald Reagan, based largely on his
incumbency, but also on the assumption of party insiders that Reagan was just too
conservative to beat out an up and coming Governor from Georgia named Jimmy
Carter. The moderate and supposedly more electable Gerald Ford then went
down to defeat to a governor no one had heard of, prior to that year. We recall
that voting in our first election caused us to be a few minutes late to our
first period government class, taught by a grouchy old spinster who was
vehemently opposed to the 26th Amendment, ratified six summers
before. Upon finding out just why we were late to class, she rewarded our civic
duty with two weeks detention…but enough of this trek down memory lane.
In the
presidential elections which followed- aside from 1980 when the “unelectable”
Reagan trounced Jimmy Carter’s bid for reelection, and aside from the 2000
election when Texas Governor George W. Bush edged out Vice President Al Gore-
every supposedly electable Republican
presidential nominee lost soundly to their Democrat opponent. Incumbent President
George H.W. Bush in 1992, Kansas Senator Bob Dole in 1996, Arizona Senator John
McCain in 2008, Massachusetts Governor and future Utah Senator Mitt Romney in
2012- all of these “highly electable” Republican nominees rendered us the
presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Then, as we all know, the most unelectable Republican, out of seventeen vying for their party’s nomination, handily defeated the heavily favored Democrat, Hillary Clinton in 2016. So incensed was the mild-mannered, moderate milquetoast Mitt Romney at his own loss, he went on a televised diatribe against Donald Trump accusing the future President of being a charlatan, a counterfeit, a con-artist, and worse. Romney, who couldn’t even stand his ground when Barack Obama and debate moderator Candy Crowley teamed up against him, on his assertion that the Obama administration lied about the causes of the infamous Benghazi raid, went “nasty” on the future nominee of his own party- the only time Romney ever showed some “courage” in his entire career. That is if one were to believe the mainstream media who rejoiced at his supposed takedown of then-candidate Trump. The same mainstream media trotted out the “courage” canard about Romney, yet again this week, when the backstabbing, two-faced, attention-seeking Romney broke with his party to vote for Trump’s conviction on one of the two counts of impeachment against the President.
So, it could
be argued that so-called electable Republicans tend to lose elections,
which is just fine with Democrats and their echo chamber that is the mainstream
media. When a Republican presidential hopeful is labeled “electable,” or is
tagged with the title of “most electable,” you can bet your infernal regions
that such a candidate is:
the
least likely to advance bold solutions to address the issues at hand;
the
least likely to fight back against fallacious and libelous assertions by their
opponents and so-called journalists;
and
therefore…
…the
most likely to go on to be defeated by the Democrat nominee.
Having
endured then, the insufferable presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and
Barack Obama for twenty of the preceding forty years, not to mention a dozen more
years of unfulfilled promises of conservative governance from both Presidents
Bush, father and son, is it any wonder how half of the American electorate
chose a brash and bold and feisty non-politician to finally pick up where his
last four predecessors ultimately fell down on the job?
Donald
Trump’s presidency was not only the inevitable result of eight years of Barack
Obama, but the inevitable result of four decades of frustration, disappointment
and failure to rein in the terrible beast that is the deep-stated,
internationalist/globalist government of Washington, D.C.
Not even
Ronald Reagan, perhaps the best-loved Republican to hold the office, could make
a dent in doing so, primarily because “the Gipper” could not bring himself to
effectively fight back against the mainstream media and D.C. insiders who
despised him for his conservative credentials and midwestern ideals.
The
undeniable truth is that we have known Donald Trump since the 1970s, when the
brash and bold and flashy frequenter of the New York nightclub scene- always
present with a beautiful lady on his arm- graced the pages of tabloids and
newspapers aplenty, with every major talk show clamoring to interview the real
estate tycoon. He never failed to serve up precisely what they were all
looking for- the exciting and noteworthy headlines guaranteed to sell print and
airtime, alike.
As the 1970s
turned into the 1980s, and beyond, it was Trump’s name and image that broadened
its scope from real estate and casinos to apparel and golf courses, all the
while serving up “sizzle,” concerning failed marriages and speculation about who
would become the next “Mrs. Trump.” Never one to turn down a request for an
interview, Donald Trump only exceeded his fortune and fame with accessibility
and moxie, always promoting himself and his enterprises with reckless abandon
and undeniable charm.
When the century turned, the casinos that failed didn’t deter “the Donald,” and he launched yet another career hosting beauty pageants, boxing and wrestling events, football teams and, most successfully, a new “reality” show called The Apprentice, making the phrase “You’re fired” into a national sensation. Hence, the penultimate ability of Donald Trump to take the very simple and understandable and transform it into the latest hot fad for mass consumption. It wasn’t until he launched his campaign for the presidency when all of the “pressies” and politicians seeking his money, suddenly turned on him and recast his image as a horrible and intolerant man seeking to create something short of a return to Jim Crow. In particular, this was and is a detestable lie about a man who was just previously lauded by the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton for advancing the cause of civil rights and black ascendency.
Trump wasn’t
the first Republican nominee tagged as a racist. Each and every Republican
nominee, going back to Barry Goldwater in 1964, has had that treacherous tag
foisted on them by the media and their Democrat allies because that is
how Democrats have secured the support of African-Americans. Never mind that it
was the party of Lincoln who emancipated the slaves, who secured voting
suffrage for black men fifty-five years before white women, and who
opposed the periodic ebb and flow of the Ku Klux Klan, which was originally the
creation of disaffected and disenfranchised white southern Democrats who
resisted Reconstruction after the American Civil War. The media decided that it
was the Republicans who were the racists, not the Democrats.
The nasty
but undeniable truth about Donald Trump is that he would just as likely have been
elected as a Democrat, as he was elected as a Republican, because the American
people have grown weary of lofty promises and stirring oratory that ultimately
ended in disappointment and failure. Trump wisely chose to run as a Republican,
because he saw an opportunity to seize the mantle of a party that had grown too
blue-nosed, too deferential, too inside-the-beltway, and too unable to fight
back against the “big lie” perpetrated by the mass media and their Democrat
cronies.
While
Democrats today still fail to recognize this, and while all of the
mainstream media also fail to either acknowledge or recognize the sheer
inevitability of one Donald Trump, the President has shown an uncanny ability
to “keep calm and carry on,” (as the British say), the trappings and the trials
and the tribulations of his office. Through phony, very costly and
time-consuming investigations of his alleged Russian collusion, repeated (and,
yes, ongoing) attempts to impeach and bring down his presidency by Democrats in
Congress, President Trump shoulders these burdens with much aplomb, and “soldiers
on” in his quest to save the country he loves…
…and that is what infuriates his enemies most of all, each and every day that he remains President of the United States. By the way, that is also why his re-election is now as certain as it is inevitable.
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio on 6 February 2020
I was back on the radio today, sitting in on the Nora Firestone Show, on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110, where I discussed the corona virus, the impeachment, the President’s State of the Union, political polarization and other current events which have taken place, since the new year began
This show also appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast, but because I was broadcasting remotely, the picture quality may appear somewhat diminished. Nevertheless, I hope you will enjoy watching the replay of that video, here:
Trump’s Third State of the Union and Acquittal- Setting the Table for November’s Election
Setting
aside for a moment the outlandishly immature and visceral behavior on the part
of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and many of her fellow Democrats in the
House and Senate, during and immediately following President Donald Trump’s
third State of the Union address, the table has been set for November’s election
in a way that remains unnoticed by the mainstream media.
That the President delivered one of the finest State of the Union speeches in the last half century- especially when one considers the political climate of the nation’s legislature in 2020, not to mention the fact that it was the evening before the Senate vote on his own impeachment- is almost beside the point.
This is not to take away the substantive achievements this President enumerated, for they are many and almost miraculous, given the overtly hostile opposition he has faced in all corners of the nation’s capital. From the still-seething members of the Democrat Party who still despise him for defeating Hillary Clinton in 2016, through the bloated and entrenched halls of the permanent deep state, to even members of his very own cabinet who have sought to tame the beast that they see in Donald Trump’s determination to drain the swamp of corruption in Washington, the President has faced strident opposition from all quarters and most all of the mainstream media, too. Yet, in the midst of all of this, Trump has ticked off the checklist of the campaign promises he has made and kept, ever since he launched his campaign in June of 2015.
To
a greater degree than any President in at least three generations, he has kept
his word far more often than not. Even his harshest critics cannot accuse this
President of subterfuge and secrecy when it comes to his true thoughts and
feelings about any issue. When Trump says something, it is a consummate and honest
reflection of what the man truly thinks. Fault him though they might, no one
can accuse Donald Trump of misleading rhetoric. This was reflected in last
night’s State of the Union address, just as he has in his last two SOTU addresses
to joint sessions of Congress. In no misleading and uncertain terms, he has told
the American people where we were prior to his presidency, what he has achieved
in the three years of his being in the White House, and has outlined a vision
of what he seeks to do in the remainder of this term, as well as his next. President
Trump’s is a stunning record of accomplishment in the face of almost universal
opposition has ensured that no Democrat, running or not, has the goods to defeat
him this fall- none, period.
Insanely
jealous of the fact that Donald Trump has achieved far more than he would have
ever achieved, had he prevailed in his own campaign(s) to be President, Senator
Mitt Romney (R-NV) pulled out his demonic dagger and has thus stabbed the
President in the back, by joining with Democrats to vote to convict the
President in the most partisan and divisive impeachment in U.S. history. Romney
is essentially a rat bastard who has been on a teeter-totter of two-faced
dealings with the President, for years. In 2012, Romney sucked up to Trump
seeking contributions to the Mitt’s failed presidential campaign. Then, after
Trump’s campaign launch three years later, Romney delivered a despicable and
slanderous diatribe on national television, excoriating Trump in vicious and
venal attacks on Trump’s character. Once Trump was elected President, Romney slovenly
courted Trump’s selection to be Secretary of State, thinking he could play
Trump for a fool on the international stage. Failing that, he ran for a Senate
seat vowing to take the place of Anti-Trump/NeverTrump Republican Senators John
McCain (R-AZ) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ)- two men who behaved like the Western
Diamondback rattlesnakes so prevalently found in the Grand Canyon State they
both represented. McCain is dead, and Flake is quickly fading away into
irrelevance- just like Romney will do, once Utah voters replace him in 2024. In
fact, there are already calls in Salt Lake City to amend the state’s constitution
allowing the recall of an elected U.S. Senator, because of Romney’s repeated
treachery when it comes to how he has treated the duly elected President of his
own party.
Look
for the national media to praise his “courage” – yeah, right.
“Mittens” didn’t have the courage to challenge Barack Obama and debate-moderator Candy Crowley in 2012, when they teamed up against him on his assertion that the Obama administration lied about the impetus that led to four Americans being slain in Benghazi, that same year. Same for the so-called “courage” of Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) who just had to go out of their way to slam the President, even though they announced their intention to acquit him, along with the remainder of Senate Republicans. Anyone who thought that Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) would oppose his party on impeachment, is naïve enough to think that Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) might have also done so. Jones’ announcement to vote for conviction surprised no one with any brains and ensured his ouster when he comes up his own re-election this fall. Watch for both of them to call for “bipartisanship,” along with other so-called “moderate” Democrats- the same Democrats who still voted to remove the President.
Juxtapose all of this to how inauspiciously and hatefully Democrat legislators behaved on the one night they are supposed to set aside rank partisanship and respect the institutions of our republic. Their intransigence was displayed for the entire country to witness first hand and the leader of their party, Pelosi, iced their corrupt and corrosive cake when she demonstrably tore up the official copy of the president’s address- technically a crime because the law proscribes the destruction of official documents, like a Constitutionally-mandated annual State of the Union.
No
matter.
While
the stupid and petulant House Speaker thought she would help the candidacy of former
Vice-President Joe Biden (D-DE), by dragging out the delivery of impeachment
articles for more than a month, following the rush to impeach the President in
the House, her efforts failed miserably. By doing so, she effectively albeit
unintentionally caused Biden’s overt corruption during his term in office to
come to the forefront for all to see. His entire candidacy has crashed on the
rocks of his own party’s impeachment effort, and Democrat voters know it- hence
his poor performance in the Iowa caucus.
So,
the table has been set for President Donald Trump’s re-election, thanks to his
own performance last night, and throughout his three years as President. Thanks
to the behavior of Democrats during the last three years- not to mention the
churlish and childish behavior displayed before a national audience last night-
they themselves have set the table for their own defeat in this fall’s election.
Republicans will keep the Senate and flip the House, all the while riding on
the coattails of the most highly regarded (in their own party) Republican
President in United States history.
Approaching the End of Impeachment: the Inevitable Polarization
As a
ten-year old desperately seeking some form of escape in 1968, I poured myself
into the 1968 presidential campaign and the interest it sparked in me led to a lifelong
study of national politics. Ever since, the study of national politics has been
an avocation which resulted in numerous editorial columns, letters to newspaper
editors and, in the last decade, a published book Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times, along with some 450 essays on contemporary
political issues which have been posted on Facebook and other social media
sites. I always take great interest in the reactions and in the replies to
these posts, which gives me a greater “feel” for the national electorate in a
way that statistical polls never will. Aside from writing about national
politics, I have also engaged in all levels of verbal political discourse with
those who agree with my own views and with those very much opposed to these
views. Like many of you, the discussion of national politics has unfortunately
resulted in the loss of some friends- personal and otherwise. A half century of
studying the subject, and a decade’s worth of seeing the reaction to what I
have written has taught this 61-year old a few things…and here is what I have
learned:
People first learn their political leanings from
their parents. but these political leanings can radically change as the result
of academic education from primary through university years;
When leaving whatever level of formal education one
attains, entry into the real world of working, drawing paychecks, paying taxes
as well as other elements of adult life can also refine and, in some cases, even
re-define political views;
The sources of information which people utilize to learn about what is going on in the world can very much affect their opinions on given issues, as well as other non-political elements in their daily lives;
People will believe what they are absolutely determined to believe, even in the very face of empirical evidence to the contrary- and will not be swayed away from their own core convictions.
In the first three of these instances, we see that external entities- parents, schools and universities, and what I will call the “stressors” of adult life can and will shape political beliefs. In particular, the education and mass media entities know this…all too well. The baby boomer generation witnessed only the beginning of “outlook-based” education (read indoctrination) that has firmly and inexorably taken hold in the two generations which have followed. This explains the unusual attraction of younger voters to the oldest man currently running for president- Bernie Sanders. Add to this the century-long bias of most of the mass media, which has consistently favored Democrat candidates over Republican candidates, and it is no wonder that there is such an enormous divide between liberal and conservative voters- and this shows in their attitudes about the impeachment of President Trump.
In the last of these instances we see that there are also inherent core beliefs which are the only bulwark against the intrusion of these external entities- and the degree to which they are effective varies from person to person. It could be argued that one’s character and conviction can be measured as to how strongly one’s inherent core beliefs stand against the outside influences seeking to alter them. Consider the reality that many students who enter university with religious convictions, exit the university with agnostic or even atheistic beliefs about God, faith and redemption. By the same token, many students who enter university with conservative political beliefs gain their degrees and exit university with “progressive” (read “socialist”) beliefs. This is what indoctrination looks like.
That is why people today are more polarized and more divided than they have been in the past 160 years, and the presence of social media and bias of mass media does nothing to ameliorate these divisions. In fact, these division are inflamed and encouraged by the mainstream media and by politicians who drive, and are driven by, the political press…that’s the bad news.
The worse news is that we are slowly but surely losing the skills
required in conflict resolution. As children, baby boomers who spent afternoons
playing outdoor games like kickball and tag learned first-hand how to resolve
conflict. Can the same be said of later generations who spent their afternoons playing
video and computer games, where any conflict which arises can ultimately be resolved
by simply selecting a “reset” or “restart” button? Even the abundance of supervised sports and
other activities available today don’t help youngsters in these regards,
because conflicts which arise are resolved by parents, coaches and referees-
not the kids, themselves.
Those who wish to place the point of this polarization on politicians and politicos in the media would be far better served to look within themselves and consider how the effects that these external influences stoke the flames of our own division…for ourselves, for our progeny and for our posterity.
Otherwise, we as a free society are headed into the abyss.
Back in the 1890s, in the era of the “Gibson Girl” and straw boaters for men- back when my grandparents were small children- there was a very popular song from Tin Pan Alley called, “After the Ball is Over” whose refrain was:
“After the ball is over, after the break of morn,
After the dancers’ leaving, after the stars are gone,
Many a heart is aching, if you could read them all—
Many the hopes that have vanished after the ball…”
-Charles K. Harris, 1891
I
remember my parents singing this, usually at the end of a substantially imbibed
evening along with their friends, but I digress…
Anyway,
the song comes to mind when I think of the aftermath of the impeachment drama
taking place in the United States Senate- after the verdict is in, and after
the election which follows.
That Trump will ultimately be acquitted of the charges brought by Nancy Pelosi’s House of Representatives is but a foregone conclusion. Whether or not the drip-drip of alleged witnesses continues to surface, whether or not witnesses are ultimately called to testify, and whether or not the Senate trial ends at the end of this week, the end of next week, or the end of next month, the President will remain in office.
Mathematically speaking, there simply aren’t enough back-stabbers, like Mitt Romney (R-UT), in the Republican caucus to reach anywhere near the threshold of two-thirds (67 Senators) to convict the President of bribery, treason, high crimes or misdemeanors, assuming that all 47 Democrats in the Senate go along with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to vote for removal.
The
Republicans know this, the Democrats know this and yes, even the most biased
left-leaning media all know that Donald Trump will not be convicted and removed
from office…as they say in the south, “ain’t gonna happen.”
There
may not even be enough votes to call for witnesses, at this point, but with a
threshold requirement of only 51 Senators, the call for witnesses might happen,
nevertheless. It’s of no matter…the President will not be removed, end of story…
…or
is it?
You
see, the real effort behind this sham of an impeachment is to overturn
the results of the 2016 election, interfere with the 2020 election (by removing
Trump from the ballot) and, since neither of those can happen, tarnish his re-election
efforts so as to elect a Democrat, instead.
Despite
what all of the polls are saying (as if any of these are trustworthy), Donald
Trump is going to win re-election, and by an even larger electoral margin than
he did in 2016…I will repeat this…Donald Trump will win re-election by an
even larger electoral margin than he did in 2016…
Why?
Simply because all of the voters who took a chance on the unknown quantity of Trump in 2016, desperately hoping that he would do all of what he promised to do on a host of issues- the economy, trade, ObamaCare’s individual mandate, defense, unemployment, etc., have now seen a President who has delivered. Now that he has delivered on these (more often than not), all of his 2016 voters, as well as those who didn’t vote for him but now see the results of his efforts, are going to keep Mr. and Mrs. Trump at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for the next four years. This will happen regardless of who he runs against in the fall, because the American people are not going to risk all of these successes on a member of the opposite party- regardless of which Democrat wins their nomination- Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, Sanders and, yes, Hillary Clinton. They will all lose…bank on it.
That said, Donald Trump still won’t be out of the woods on impeachment…that is unless the House of Representatives “flips” to Republicans. If Democrats were to retain their majority in the House, rest assured that they will continue to impeach the President, for however many times it takes, just to stymie his second term and stand in the way of his legislative initiatives. Some, like Maxine Waters (D-CA), have already promised that they will do just that- impeach, impeach, impeach- country be damned.
So, if the voting citizens across the 435 House districts decide that they want four more years of this “bullschiff,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, committee Chairmen Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jerry Nadler (D-NY), and all of the other ass-clowns who have subjected this country to three (or four) years of trying to overthrow the will of the people, will remain in place.
If however, the voters have had enough of this, Republicans will retake the majority in the House, retain their majority in the Senate, and the Democrat holdovers from bygone eras- like Pelosi and Schiff and Nadler, et al, will slip away and join the likes of Harry Reid (D-NV) into their taxpayer-funded retirements. They will choose to hang it up because they won’t abide not having the power they have had these last few years…and maybe, just maybe, the country will get back on the right track and Trump can complete his plan and promise to “drain the swamp” that is our nation’s capital.
So,
“after the ball is over” and “after the break of morn,” on the 4th
of November, 2020, we’ll all know whether or not the Democrats’ “hearts are
breaking“ yet again, whether or not these ill-attempts at removing the duly-elected
President will continue, and we will know whether or not, as Benjamin Franklin
once said, we can “keep” our Republic…
Forty
Years in the Making- Trump Responds to Iran while Democrats Dither
It was November 1979, and we were in the first semester of our third year at university, just twenty-one years of age. After two attempts earlier that year, student followers of the Imam line, who supported the Iranian revolution overthrowing Shah Reza Pahlavi, stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran taking fifty-two American diplomats and citizens hostage, and keeping them captive for 444 days, only to release them on the inauguration of Ronald Reagan as the fortieth President of the United States in January, 1981.
What
ultimately doomed the Carter presidency, under whose watch the takeover took
place, proved to be the start of a forty-year long standoff with the newly
formed Islamic Republic of Iran, ruled by a series of fanatic ayatollahs. Their
hate-filled doctrine of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism spilled over into
adjacent countries, where the Iranian Islamist regime spread their jihadist
dogma in pursuit of a twelfth imam, who would bring on the apocalypse once the
entire world submitted to Islam. That is what “Islam” literally means…submission.
In financing and provisioning terrorist attacks throughout the world, the Islamist regime was opposed by the United States, but in its opposition the United States mired itself in a trap of seeking international cooperation and approval in an effort to quarantine Iran from the world’s financial community. In doing so, our foreign policy essentially waited on our nominal allies in Europe to follow suit, but the lure of Iranian oil undercut our efforts to gain such cooperation, and establish international pressure against Iran. Because they would rather continue to purchase oil from Iran, our European partners were all too eager to sign onto a flawed treaty with Iran, where the United States, under Barack Obama, transferred $1.8 billion in unmarked bills to Iran, in exchange for an unverifiable promise on the part of Iran not to develop a deliverable nuclear weapon for ten years. Never mind the fact that ever since the transfer of the cash, the Iranian regime has violated the terms of the treaty by continuing to build and operate centrifuges which enable the regime to produce weapons-grade uranium en masse. As predicted by those who opposed Obama’s disastrous “treaty” with Iran, the money has been used to finance terrorism throughout the world and produce extremely effective IEDs, which have cost hundreds of Americans their very lives and many more their arms and legs. Amongst much scorn from the international community, as well as from the globalist/internationalist deep state apparatchiks in Washington, President Trump pulled out of Obama’s raw deal, insisting that a new agreement be drawn up that would forever ban Iran from possessing nuclear weapons, which they have vowed to use to destroy Israel and the United States.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force Commanding General Qassem Soleimani, a man only second in power to the ayatollah in Iran, has been coordinating the Iran-supported terrorist activities in adjoining Iraq and supplying these terrorists with deadly weapons used to maim and kill innocent civilians and U.S. troops, alike. Having pinpointed the general’s location at the Baghdad airport, President Trump ordered a drone strike on his position Thursday killing six, including the general and the man who coordinated the protests against the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, earlier this week.
While
the mainstream media and Democrats, alike, have roundly scorned the President
for both launching the attack, and the fact he wisely chose not to
inform Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, prior to launching the attack (the Democrats
would have surely botched the attack by blabbering to the press beforehand),
Trump has now served notice to the Iranian regime that the time for playing the
U.S. for a fool, as they did under Obama, has come to an end. In back-channel
communications with the powers to be in Tehran, Trump has promised the regime
that should they choose to further escalate hostilities with the United States,
they will get the war they have been seeking for four decades, knowing all-too-well
that they could face obliteration should such a war commence.
Critics
insist that Trump is getting mired in yet another ground war in the region,
which goes against the President’s oft-stated policy of avoiding endless
entanglements with no clear objective or winning strategy. That would be true
under Obama’s suicidal rules of engagement, hamstringing the military in how
they conduct such operations. That would most certainly be true under the
constraints of the Bush(s) and Clinton administrations, who insisted on limited
engagements which avoided direct conflict with Iran.
In
this maelstrom, Trump realizes that the time has come to end Iranian attempts
to seek hegemony over the region, now that Iran is conducting military and naval
exercises with both China and Russia. While he desperately seeks to avoid an
all-out war with Iran (and China and Russia, by proxy) by showing them, at long
last, the consequences of their actions- both in the region and wherever they
spark terrorist activities around the world, Trump is effectively putting the
regime on notice that this must all stop, or else…and isn’t it about time,
after forty years?
And
yet, while Trump is leveraging further sanctions and military operations
against the regime, like Thursday’s attack on Soleimani, the Democrats in
Congress dither about an absurd impeachment farce that will ultimately fail and
the promise of ever more and more hearings…
…and
these are the same stooges who think they know better!
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has thrust upon the country (not to mention the Congress, her Democrat party and the majority it presently holds) the poisoned pill of impeachment for all of us to swallow.
The
formulation of this poisoned pill began more than three years ago, by deep-state
insiders wishing to concoct a toxic insurance policy in the unlikely event that
attempts to sabotage his campaign would fail to prevent Donald Trump from being
elected. Former FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok confirmed this in a
text message sent to his paramour, former FBI Attorney Lisa Page, in September
2016 when she informed him that President Obama wanted to be updated on their
activities in these regards.
On election night, these efforts were put into motion in a last-minute, desperate effort to prevent Trump’s inauguration, when the Obama Administration continued illegal wiretapping and other means of surveillance on President-elect Trump and his campaign associates. All of this was an effort to find anything that would support their concocted fantasy that Trump had somehow colluded with Russia to deny Hillary Clinton’s almost-certain election. Hence the inception of a false Russian collusion narrative that led to the Mueller Investigation that following spring.
When former Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from an investigation into alleged collusion with the Russian government, a succession of former Deputy Attorneys General, Sally Yates, Dana Boente and Rod Rosenstein all signed off on FISA warrant requests to spy on lower level associates of the Trump campaign. Each of them knew fully-well, along with FBI Director James Comey and Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, that the Steele dossier, which was at the heart of the FISA Warrant request, was nothing more than unsubstantiated dirt on Trump, paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. Yet each failed to disclose any of that to the FISA court, which was presided over by an Obama-appointed judge. Former FBI Director James Comey then met with the new president and lied to his face when he told Trump that he was not being investigated, when in fact he was.
In the two-and-one-half
years which followed, a $40 million investigation by Clinton and DNC lawyers,
under the protective reputation of former FBI Director Robert Mueller, did its
level best to find evidence in this “collusion concoction.” Yet, despite these
efforts, they failed to find anything that would support the allegation.
Instead, they composed a list of ten instances whereby the Trump administration
supposedly obstructed justice in the Mueller investigation, despite the fact
that over one million documents were turned over to Mueller’s team and the fact
that President Trump told the members of his administration to fully cooperate
with the investigation, itself. Keep in mind that this investigation was an
investigation into something that never even happened.
This fall, Adam
Schiff’s House Intelligence Oversight Committee then paraded a series of Anti-Trump
apparatchiks in the State Department who have expressed their animus against President
Trump. In their testimony, which essentially outlined why they didn’t approve
of Trump’s handling of a July 2019 phone call to the newly-elected Ukrainian president,
in that he was somehow leveraging financial and military assistance to the
Ukrainian government in exchange for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden
and his son, Hunter, all failed to provide first or even second-hand evidence
that the president actually committed “bribery, treason, high crimes or
misdemeanors,” offenses that are impeachable
under the United States Constitution.
If that
weren’t bad enough, on Wednesday, December 4th, Jerry Nadler’s Judicial
Oversight Committee brought in three extremely leftist constitutional “scholars”
who dispatched their Anti-Trump vitreous in an effort to try and rationalize
the irrational effort to impeach Trump, having to fall back on the Mueller
report in spewing their angered venom at the direction of the president. So
desperate were they to spread their poison, they even invoked President Trump’s
thirteen-year-old son, Barron Trump, which prompted a tweeted reply from First
Lady Melania Trump:
“A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of
politics. Pamela Karlan, you should be ashamed of your very angry and obviously
biased public pandering and using a child to do it.”
Another
constitutional scholar, one who also voted for a succession of Democrats in
recent presidential elections, Jonathan Turley, was brought in by Republican members
of Nadler’s committee to testify that proceeding with impeachment for these
reasons, and at this hurried pace, would irrevocably harm the United States,
its presidency and the sanctity of presidential elections.
To wit, these
efforts have already resulted in NATO leaders making fun of the president at a cocktail
party during the NATO summit in Great Britain and has created strain on the
president’s ability to conduct foreign policy. Bear in mind that overseas, most
people are only able to get American news from CNN, and it is their overtly-biased
coverage of Trump’s presidency that feeds the misconception that Trump is a weakened
president who might not even finish out his first term, let-alone being re-elected
to a second term. It is this media bias that completes the circle of Obama-Clinton-Democrat-media
collusion in the attempted coup d’état and subsequent destruction of Trump’s
presidency.
So, this is the poison that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has prescribed for an angry, divided country that is the illegitimate offspring of false accusations, an abiding hatred of a president who had the nerve to beat the Clinton dynasty, the Bush dynasty, the Obama legacy, and who seeks to drain the lurid swamp of corruption that has taken hold of our nation’s capital going back decades. In railroading the president towards a trial in the United States Senate, for an impeachment built upon innuendo, opinion and disdain for a duly-elected U.S. president, the chances of Democrats retaining the House in next-year’s general election have now been lowered to somewhere between “slim” and “nil,” with “Slim” having just left town. Far worse, at this Christmas season, the poisoned pill of impeachment has been dumped into the digestive tracts of all Americans, from all sides of the political equation, who will only be further divided and angered as a result.
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio on Thursday, 21 November 2019
I was back on the radio , sitting in on the Nora Firestone Show, on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110, where I discussed how one of the two major political parties wants to change the rules of how we elect a president, how the “deep state” has pervaded the inner-most circles of the Trump administration, and of course, impeachment…
This show also appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast, and here is a link to the replay of that broadcast:
In the
unending hours of testimony by government employees who support the efforts to impeach
and remove President Donald Trump, who in closed, secret session must pass an “audition”
before Adam Schiff will allow them to testify on television, there are revealed
some sad and perilous truths that no one in the media, or on either side of the
aisle, ever intended to reveal. Moreover, once this impeachment farce is
finished, and the Senate ultimately acquits the President of wrongdoing, the
implications of these revelations will remain, and therein lies the larger problem.
For instance:
Given
the many thousands of career personnel in the State (and other) Departments, it
has become quite obvious that any incoming President is expressly at their
mercy to carry out his policies.
Given
the swelling ranks of federal employees across all departments, there is a
permanent government establishment in all sectors who utilize the complexity of
their own rules and regulations to stymie political opponents and enable
political allies. Consider, for instance. the State Department during the Obama
administration under Secretary Hillary Clinton versus the same State Department
during the Trump administration under Mike Pompeo, following the “planted” Rex
Tillerson, who attempted to thwart the President at every turn.
Undoubtedly,
there is a globalist/internationalist mindset that has become so entrenched in
the State Department, over several decades since the end of World War II, and one
that has largely been supported by every President from both parties, since
Franklin Roosevelt was president. While presidents come in with their own
agendas, in the grand scheme of things, there has been little variation in much
of what we call foreign policy, but then…
In marches President Trump on a new wave of nationalistic fervor- borne from long-held and simmering anti-establishment sentiments percolating in the heart of conservatives who have repeatedly been lied to and have grown weary of a double-standard which exonerates Hillary Clinton and James Comey, and yet destroys the lives of Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort and, most lately, Roger Stone. Trump’s voter base is fed up with the trillions of dollars and thousands of lives spent in policing the world from the “crazies” trying to effect jihadist revolution or totalitarian hegemony. With nominal financial and military assistance from allies, too many of whom commit to supporting these efforts, but in specious and unreliable platitudes that promise much and deliver little, Trump’s voter base has grown weary of the tweed-jacketed and finely-suited “experts” who have a tendency to defer to international group-think. On that and other bases, Trump and his supporters are instinctively and reflexively against almost every established “norm” that has been set in stone by these globalists, who viewed his election as a threat to all they hold dear and understand to be the only way to secure the world in the way they deem fit, and without prioritizing our own national security in the process.
The way all three of these career apparatchiks so desperately tried to parlay their own misgivings about such radical change into aiding Democrats and other establishment Anti-Trump/NeverTrump politicos, all in an effort to remove him or sully his re-election, is revealed in the way each has testified for the committee. It’s as if they are saying, “How dare he?” Yet, despite this, none can say with any clarity exactly what “treason, bribery, high crime or misdemeanor” that the President himself has actually committed that would warrant impeachment and removal from office- other than the fact that he is pursuing policies not to their own liking.
All of which brings the larger, constitutional question that we never hear about and that is whether or not our government is truly run by three equal branches or is it really run by a permanent embedded class of federal employees, never elected to anything and whose real priority is protecting their tenure to ensure their pension. When a bureaucracy grows so bloated that it takes on the trappings of a permanent, shadow government entrenched in their own agendas, irrespective of the will of the people to effect change, the power of the vote becomes diminished to the point of irrelevancy. This is why the Democrats seek to “correct” the results of the 2016 election, and “correct” those who voted for Trump, by removing a duly-elected President or making sure he will not be re-elected, in the end.
Worse,
the Democrats in the House are permanently damaging the office of the presidency
by subjecting it forever more to the heavy-handed and overtly-partisan scrutiny
of a legislature which has thus effectively emasculated the powers of the President.
Further, any future President would have to serve at the imprimatur of the
permanent ruling class of a federal establishment pursuing its own agenda- the
will of the people be damned.
So, while the buffoonish machinations of Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, his fellow Democrats on the committee and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, designed to besmirch the President and make his re-election unthinkable to voters who get their news from CNN, MsNBC and the networks, the real damage that results will mean a less secure country for the rest of us- especially in times of peril… Why?… because a president who must gain the approval of a legislature for every single solitary course of action, in such times of national emergency, will be hampered in his ability to protect the country, through legislative delay, committee consent and the bureaucratic boggling that’s sure to follow.
In essence, we
must ask ourselves who sets foreign policy? An elected President or the
permanent federal bureaucracy empowered to pick and choose which candidate they
will support and which candidate they will oppose? The United States
Constitution has weighed in on this quite specifically, as expressed in Article
2, but it appears that the denizens of D.C. have their own ideas on the subject,
and that is what threatens our nation more than anything else.
In their quest
to “dump” Trump, are the Democrats in Congress prepared to destroy the presidency
itself, and so further divide a country that they have polarized to the point
of possible civil war?
On the day
before “open” public testimony begins, regarding Democrat attempts to impeach
President Donald Trump, comes a tale of treachery far beyond the pale of anything
close to acceptable behavior.
No, in this
instance we are not talking about Obama or Clinton holdovers in the CIA, FBI or
State Department, who have been beside themselves since Donald Trump had the unmitigated
nerve to beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Nor are we talking about career
apparatchiks, residing in the District of Columbia or in its suburbs of
Virginia and Maryland, who have never voted for a Republican in their entire
adult lives- much less a Republican who has the “cojones” to fight back in a
way no Republican has since Teddy Roosevelt used the bully pulpit to fight
against the corruption endemic to the Democrat Party of his own era.
Granted,
there have been many instances in both of these regards, of deep state insiders
who have colluded and conspired to sabotage Trump’s candidacy, and subsequently
bring down the forty-fifth President or marginalize his presidency in an effort
to prevent his re-election. Such people (and there are hundreds) checked their
ethics and sense of propriety at the door many years ago, all in the service of
globalist leaders, going back decades, who ensured their continued employment
and all its perks at the expense of taxpayers.
No, what we are talking about here are individuals in whom the duly elected President of the United States entrusted to carry out his policies and support his initiatives to the very best of their abilities. Both former Chief of Staff John Kelly and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson came highly recommended by members of both political parties and their respective nominations sailed through Senate oversight committees with relative ease. Yet, there was something sinister and treacherous in the ways these two individuals chose to carry out their responsibilities that are more reprehensible than anything Democrats in the House are doing in the conduct of their impeachment inquiry.
In her new book,
With All Due Respect, former South Carolina Governor and Trump’s former
Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley tells of an instance where both
Kelly and Tillerson approached her with a request to aid in their clandestine
efforts to work around and thus subvert President Trump in the pursuit of his
own foreign policy. Haley, who is not afraid to criticize President Trump, and
has on several occasions, nevertheless rejected the entreaties proffered by
Kelly and Tillerson, telling them that if they object to what the President is
doing, they should take their concerns directly to the President himself.
“It was their
decisions, and not the President’s, that were in the best interests
of America, they said and the president didn’t know what he was doing,” wrote
Haley.
Talk about arrogance in the pursuit of policy. Neither Tillerson nor Kelly were ever elected by anyone, and now we know fully well how and why their nominations faced minimal opposition from Democrats who almost jerk their knees to take down any Trump nomination.
In a word, they were “plants.”
Whatever honors
that Mr. Tillerson and General Kelly accrued during the course of their
respective careers in corporate America and in the United States Marines, have
now been sullied in the muck of their own making.
To put it
plainly, John Kelly and Rex Tillerson are pond scum, not worthy of respect by
anyone with an ounce of ethical or moral decency, nor anyone who believes in
the rule of law or the Constitution of the United States.
That
President Donald J. Trump has been able to accomplish anything, in light
of all of the many forces allayed against him during the last three years, is incredible
in and of itself. The fact that he has accomplished so very much, in the face
of almost universal opposition from the deep state of Washington insiders and
their minions in the mainstream media, places him at the pantheon of Presidents
who have put God and country, first.
Moreover,
considering the degree to which President Donald Trump is hated by so many on
both sides of the aisle- and even in his own White House, no less, tells me that
his is an altruistic fight of good versus evil, calling to mind what Jesus faced
with the Pharisees twenty-one centuries ago.
Over the millennia,
the times may change but the hearts of men and women, for better or worse,
seldom do, sorry to say. May God bless this President in his crusade against
corruption, both here and abroad.
Trump’s “Impeachment” -a Step Back from the Insanity in the Pursuit of Clarity
As the media fills the airwaves with the latest “bombshell” regarding the supposed “impeachment” of Donald Trump, it might behoove all of us to step back from the daily minutiae of wishful thinking on their part in pursuit of a greater clarity as to what is really going on.
Sure, the Democrats in the House of Representatives are traveling down “Impeachment Avenue,” to the fullest extent that they can. That said, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi(D-CA) realizes that in the autumn prior to an election year, impeaching a sitting president who seeks re-election amounts to nothing more than an attempt to cast mud on his prospects of being re-elected. The American public, more specifically the American electorate, values fairness in any fight- be it boxing, bashing or baseball, and recoils at the idea that a House Speaker (Pelosi) can achieve an actual Senate referral of impeachment without gathering substantial bi-partisan and overwhelming support for such a drastic undertaking.
In the two hundred and thirty odd years since George Washington took the oath of office, there have only been three such referrals, and the second of these three (Nixon) resulted in the president’s resignation prior to the Senate’s undertaking. In each of these three proceedings, substantial bi-partisan support for impeachment “legitimized” each referral. Based on last week’s House vote to codify the existing, one-sided investigation- a vote which lacked even a single Republican vote- Nancy is nowhere near taking an actual floor vote on an impeachment referral to a Senate held by a Republican majority. Despite his own wet dream that he is somehow still relevant, by favoring impeachment of his party’s president, there are simply not enough NeverTrump/Anti-Trump Republicans like Mitt Romney who are apt to join a unified Democrat caucus in a vote to convict Donald Trump in a Senate trial.
Nary a person in either house, save for the wild-eyed radicals of “the squad” (Ocasio-Cortez D-NY, Omar D-MN, Pressley D-MA and Tlaib D-MI), thinks that removing Trump prior to next fall’s election will happen. There’s not a national correspondent who can honestly predict Trump’s removal with a straight face, despite the fact that both Democrat legislators and the media with whom they collude to purport a lie to the American public, desperately would wish it to be so.
So, what is really
going on here?
Sure, there
are a lot of sour grapes on the political left that their candidate lost to the
one man they hate so very much. Democrat hatred of the president is palpable to
the point of irrationality, but this hatred has more to do with Trump’s
personality than with his policies. While his predecessor Barack Obama was
loquacious, uplifting and almost inspirational in communicating his lies to the
American people, Donald Trump is brutally honest, and sometimes crude, in
delivering to Americans the truth- despite claims to the contrary by a biased
and slanted press. In an alternate universe where Trump would have run as a
Democrat, all of these accusations of racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia and
homophobia on his part, and on the part of his voters, would evaporate into
thin air, as the forty-fifth president enjoyed all of their good graces prior
to his June 2015 entry into the race, and back when he was writing checks to
their campaigns.
Yet this is
only a partial explanation.
The preponderant and unspoken truth about the state of national politics today is that a civil war is being thrust upon the American people by a Democrat party and a media intent on dividing the country to an extent not seen since the last civil war one hundred sixty years ago. This second civil war will not be based on geography and comparative economies as was the case in the 1860s, but rather on ideology as to the eternal question of the proper role of the state. Because the media has done a tragically-effective job in widening the philosophical breach, to the extent that the “middle” exists no more, domestic conflict aggravated to the point of no return is the price Democrats and the media are willing to pay in order to achieve a political revolution to transform the United States into a socialist, Soviet-style government. If you think that the mention of a second civil war based on ideology is a trifle far-fetched, a recent survey found that a whopping 67 percent- that’s two out of three Americans- believe we are headed to towards a second civil war. The Democrats and their allies in the media know, all-too-well that such an endeavor to radically transform the country cannot win at the ballot box, so they seek to force it on us, instead, through subterfuge and deep-state sabotage of the current administration. In their attempts to bring down a duly elected president, by whatever means necessary, what they are really doing is attempting to overturn the results of the last election in hopes that the next election will overturn these results. Make Trump so distasteful and smeared with the scourge of impeachment, that the voting public will turn against him and elect any Democrat, instead.
Yet, therein
lies the problem.
The
bi-coastal embrace of all things anti-Trump is a stance not favored in America’s
heartland. These people who ply their trades with hard work and devotion to the
family have grown to mistrust politicians from both parties, because
hard-working people don’t like to be lied to- by Democrats who seek to destroy
the values they hold dear, and by Republicans who talk a good game of government
reform and national renewal but, alas, fail to deliver on the same. Despite
what the media and the Democrats would have us believe, Trump supporters are
neither racist nor sexist nor misogynistic nor xenophobic nor homophobic. They
just want to clean up a corrupt government and have thus entrusted their
support to the one American who was rich enough and savvy enough and gutsy
enough to take down a decades-old corrupt establishment and drain the swamp in
which the deep state dwells. They go to church, stand for the national anthem,
live by the code of self-sufficiency, respect both the language and the meaning
of the Constitution and cherish the independence and freedom that is the basis
of what it is to be an American…
…and this is
something that the ivied walls of academia, the bustling newsrooms of the
media, the hallowed halls of Congress, the deep-state Washington insiders who remain
in place by virtue of tenure and the bloated bureaucracy that this creates will
never, ever understand…and this is also the key to Trump’s inevitable re-election.
In their twenty-four seasons of competing in the NFL, the Baltimore Ravens have had…get this…three place-kickers. Only three talented men, Matt Stover, Billy Cundiff and Justin Tucker, have lent their legs to the Ravens’ scoreboard in two dozen years- quite an amazing feat for a franchise in today’s free-agency NFL.
Yet, how successful would Messrs. Stover, Cundiff and Tucker have been if the leagues’ goalposts shifted back and forth following the snap from the Ravens’ center to the Ravens’ holder?
In that same
way, the Democrats have been completely absorbed with the impeachment of
President Donald Trump since the very afternoon of his inaugural on 20 January 2017,
and they have been changing the goalposts of impeachment ever since.
Consider their
supposed grounds for the illegitimate impeachment of President Trump:
First,
there was Trump’s alleged collusion with the Russian government, except for the
fact of a $40 million dollar, two-year investigation by Democrat lawyers who,
under the supposed purview of Robert Mueller, failed to find any evidence that
Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government to steal the 2016 election
away from Hillary Clinton.
Second,
there were charges of obstruction of justice on the part of the President,
except for the fact that Trump turned over all of the one million plus
documents to the Mueller investigation and ordered that his staff provide
complete co-operation with Mueller’s team, as well as co-operating with …count ‘em…four
investigations into his campaign, all of which produced not a single iota of
obstruction of justice.
Then
there were attempts to have the President removed from office for accusations
of racism, misogyny, mental dysfunction and worse, all of which failed to
produce a reason for evoking the 25th Amendment to have the
President removed from office.
Now,
we have a so-called impeachment of President Trump on charges that the
President made a quid pro quo threat to withhold military funding for
the Ukraine, while talking to their newly-elected president in a July telephone
call, unless that country assisted Trump in digging up dirt on former
Vice-President Joe Biden. These accusations stem from a so-called “whistle-blower”
who was not even a party to the phone call, but who was nevertheless a Democrat
activist once in the service of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
The only
problem with this latest tactic is that the official transcript of the call was
turned over within twenty-four hours of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA)
announcement of an official impeachment investigation of the President- a transcript
that refutes all of the charges that the President offered any quid pro quo to
the Ukrainian president.
Worse, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), in whom Pelosi entrusted this latest investigation of the President, has already lied about his involvement with both the whistle-blower and the actual complaint weeks before the story went public. Additionally, Schiff lied to his committee’s hearing about what the President actually said on the July phone call, prompting House Republicans to draft articles of censure against Schiff, requesting that the California congressman be expelled from the committee he chairs. Predictably, Speaker Pelosi has tabled the resolution and refused to call an actual vote on the measure.
It’s bad enough that this so-called “impeachment inquiry” has been launched without securing a floor vote from the House. Add to this the facts that the hearings are being held in secret, that Republican committee members are not allowed to call witnesses, that Republicans not on Schiff’s committee are not allowed to witness the hearings, that the accused (President Trump) is not afforded the right to legal representation, and that the public is only entitled to the selective leaks coming from Democrats on the committee. Essentially what all of this describes is a “kangaroo court,” typical of third-world totalitarian governments but most assuredly not in keeping with a representative democracy governed by constitutional law and the due process it requires.
So while the
Democrats and their ever-shifting goal posts persevere in their attempts to
undo the election of 2016, ensure that a tarnished President won’t be
re-elected, and cause an ever-increasing breach in the divide that they have created
with the help of the media, Americans will have to decide whether the President
who has accomplished so much deserves removal from office or re-election in a
2020 race that will only grow nastier with each passing month.
My late maternal
grandmother, a first generation American born of two Italian immigrants who
hailed from Perugia, was as superstitious as they come…
Spilling
salt, toss it over your left shoulder;
Break
a mirror, seven years of bad luck;
Always
exit a home from the same door you enter (in other words, never “cross” a home);
Step
on a sidewalk crack, break your mother’s back;
A
black cat crossing your path, turn around before you get to that spot;
Arch
your eyebrows and stare into another’s eyes- a Mallochio (evil eye);
Point
at another with the first and fourth finger outstretched (thumb holding the
middle and ring fingers) another Mallochio;
Wear
a new outfit for the first time when attending Mass gains indulgence for your
sins…otherwise you’ll stain or tear the new clothes;
Friday
the 13th, always bad luck…throw in a full moon, and look out!
I could go
on and on listing all her superstitions and this missive might never end…
Every
nationality and/or culture has its superstitions about what constitutes bad or good
luck, and I suppose that in this modern age of enlightenment (so-called, that
is to say), such superstitions are more likely something to smile about than
either portending doom or good fortune. For my grandmother, such superstitions
were a governing force that always, always were at the forefront of her conscientiousness.
For her generation (she was born a few years before the twentieth century
began) I suppose they also provided a convenient way to explain the inexplicable.
My wife’s
family had an unusual superstition that if the first word out of your mouth on
the first day of the month is “rabbits,” you will receive a present sometime during
the ensuing month. Since we have been together, it has been a tradition in our
own home, which provides a moment of merriment (or dread) depending on whether
or not we remember to say it.
Do people
experience bad luck on Friday the 13th? Why of course they do, just
as they experience bad luck on any other day of the year, because ours is not a
perfect existence and even animals experience bad luck on any given day (i.e. roadkill).
So, while we
indulge ourselves with a host of superstitions, like making a wish before
blowing out a birthday cake’s candles or scanning a patch of clovers in the
hopes of finding a sprig with four leaflets, the degree to which we take such
frivolities seriously determines to what extent we inhabit the real world- full
of fortune, good or bad.
So, on this
day of Friday the 13th, full moon and all, I’ll extend to you my
best wishes for only good luck…knock on wood!
“The great masses
of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.”
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf 1925, 1933
“At that time,
many will turn away from the faith and hate and betray each other, and many
false prophets will appear and deceive many people” the Gospel of Matthew
24:10-11.
Folks, as much as
I am loathed to say it, we are living in the age of the Great Apostasy.
From religion to politics to commerce to academia to the media and,
ultimately, unto contemporary society in general, what constitutes a lie is
presented as truth, and what actually is truth is said to be a lie.
The examples of
these lies are boundless, and America is falling prey to the great deception
that threatens our very survival…as a people and as a nation. To wit:
Pope Francis, whose offices devout Catholics are taught to be the vicar of Christ on Earth, and whose teachings are supposedly infallible, is encouraging and proselytizing doctrines not found in scripture, but rather in 20th Century revisionism and socialist dogma. In the process of doing so, he has taken issue with long-held teachings of Christ’s infallibility, Christ’s birth of the Virgin Mary, and even the resurrection of Jesus Christ following His crucifixion. To question these truths is nothing short of an attempt to sabotage Christianity in general, and the Catholic faith, specifically. Also, many Protestant denominations are swimming in a cesspool of post-modern revisionism and are falling away from the Gospels and other teachings in the Old and New Testaments.
On a daily basis, we are told by politicians of both major parties, that President Donald Trump is a racist, that he is a misogynist, that he is a white supremacist, a neo-Nazi and a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan, who will lead this country into the great abyss and bring on a third World War if he is re-elected in 2020. There is absolutely no truth to any of this and nothing can begin to substantiate the validity of these libelous and slanderous accusations, but we hear these same outlandish claims day after day, after day.
Tech giants, such as Facebook and Google are manipulating what people see on the internet and are even going to the extremist position of silencing the opinions of conservatives, generally, and Trump supporters, specifically. In other areas, large swaths of corporate and commercial interests use money to spread influence with the “connected” powers of the Deep State, and who pays the price of all this? We do…
Academia has long been a place where leftist, agnostic and atheistic ideology is indoctrinated into the minds of young people, but now we see hard evidence that this mindset is being implanted into the thinking of the very young, starting in the earliest years of elementary education. At many universities across the nation, any thought or expression of thought that is in direct conflict with liberal and socialist dogma, is censured and can result in poor grades, social isolation, and threats to the personal safety and well-being of those students who don’t toe the ideological line.
The media, all of the media, is spreading the lie that that (pick your candidate- Biden, Sanders, Warren, Harris, Buttigieg, Booker) will trounce Donald Trump in the next election, that the country is headed into recession of the worst proportion, and that Trump is advocating the use of concentration camps for all immigrants, legal or otherwise. In fact, there is scant difference in what the media reports as truth and what Democrats express in their rhetoric.
The fact that a majority of Gen-Xers and millennials are falling away from religion, that to these younger Americans, patriotism and national identity are quaint and unimportant relics of the past, and that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with socialism speaks loudly and clearly that we are headed into perilous times ahead. Ignorance on a small scale is pathetic, but such ignorance on a large scale can doom society into the darkest of places where the forces of evil (and, yes, these forces are quite real) can pursue an agenda designed to destroy humanity, itself.
As we enter into
this Labor Day weekend of 2019- a weekend designed to honor the American worker
and the very fruits of his and her labor, let us also determine for ourselves
that there is much work…hard work…to be done to deliver this nation and this
world from the consequences of those who would deceive and demagogue us into
oblivion.
May God bless us
all and may He deliver us from all of the evil that abounds in our nation and
in this world.
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio Thursday, 29th August 2019 at 1:00 PM, EDT
I was back on the radio today, sitting in on the Nora Firestone Show, on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110, where I discussed the slippery slope of cultural decline, the decay of America’s once great cities, the creeping and yet ever-pervasive “nanny state,” the absolute lack of logic in what Democrats are espousing and how their delusions will effect next year’s presidential election, and beyond.
This show also appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast, so here is the link to that video
Today’s
Democrats – Riding the Trolley to Make Believe Land
For
Generation Xers who followed their older sibling Baby Boomers, Mr. Roger’s
Neighborhood was a morning staple that practically rivaled Sesame Street
on PBS. A daily feature of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood involved riding
a virtual trolley car into “Make Believe Land,” which brings to mind today’s
Democrat Party and the fantastical places that they would seek to take us.
In Democrat
Make Believe Land:
Hillary
Clinton actually won the 2016 Presidential Election. After all, it was the
Russians who interfered with the election balloting that gave Donald Trump an
Electoral College win;
Donald
Trump is a racist, a neo-Nazi and a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan who only
seeks to make America white again, and completely undo sixty-five years of
civil rights gains for people of color…the same holds true for every single person
who voted for Donald Trump…they are, by definition, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic white
supremacists who want to bring America back to the days of Jim Crow;
Donald
Trump wants to round up every single immigrant who came into this country
during the last four decades and return every single one of them to the country
of their origin. Therefore, all barriers, borders or otherwise impediments to
those who wish to enter this country should be immediately removed, and voting
rights should be extended to anyone who wants to cast a ballot, regardless of
where they are from and how they managed to get here;
Donald
Trump and his Republican Party want to deny every single American any access to
healthcare unless they are among the very rich who don’t pay enough taxes to
ensure that every person in America, citizen, legal immigrant, or “undocumented
worker” (there is no such thing as an illegal immigrant) get access to “free” healthcare;
College
education should be a universal right and therefore tuition free. All outstanding
student loans should be considered “paid in full” …after all the greedy banks
and lending institutions can easily absorb such a waiver of payment;
The
continued use of fossil fuels here in the United States poses an existential treat
to the survival of the planet. Babies born this year will never reach adulthood
unless the United States gives up its addiction to coal, natural gas, oil and
all related petrochemical-based fuels immediately. Never mind the pollution caused
by emerging countries, such as India, China and Russia…they are not the ones
imperiling the future of humankind…its only Americans who are “raping” the
environment and no one else;
There
is no reason why the United States should continue to squander billions and
billions of dollars trying to prop up national defense, when we are the
ones who are the only threat to world peace. We should take all of the money we
spend on defense and provide every country in the world the economic stimulus
needed to level the playing field across the globe;
President Trump and all Republicans want every person in the United States (which is to say every white person in the United States) to be armed with a fully automatic machine gun so they can mow down undesirables and people of color who threaten the American way of life (code-speak for racial, religious and ethnic intolerance). Therefore, all such weaponry should be confiscated and Americans who seek to defend their homes should be issued slingshots- provided, of course, that they complete the requisite slingshot safety certification course and registration;
The freedoms of speech, the press and the right of assembly should be curtailed for anyone who is not in lock-step conformity with those standards as established by a consortium of university professors who, after all, know better what is good for us than we do;
President Trump should not be allowed to hold any political rally in any venue larger than an elementary school auditorium. Furthermore, such rallies must guarantee equal access to those who are opposed to Donald Trump, and any resulting demonstration should not be impeded in any way;
Free housing, free food, free medical care, free education and the guarantee of minimum basic income should be guaranteed to any person in the United States…if there is not enough money to pay for this, the United States Treasury is more than able to print enough money to pay for all of this, once 100% of all of the private and corporate wealth is exhausted;
Donald
Trump will lose the election of 2020 by ten percentage points if any of the
following candidates (Biden, Sanders, Warren, Harris, Booker, Buttigieg) win
the eventual Democrat nomination. Any of the other Democrats would stand an
even chance of winning the election over Trump, if they are the nominee.
“Ding-Ding” (it’s time to take the trolley back to reality, folks)
For the
record, I was born in Richmond, Virginia, raised in adjacent Henrico County and
now make my home in Virginia Beach. Save for four glorious months spent as an
exchange student in London, Virginia is and always has been my home.
Yet, for reasons of ancestry and the many cousins who live there, I always regarded Baltimore as a “second” hometown and felt an affection towards the city as though it were my own. Although I never knew my paternal grandparents, we would frequently travel up I-95 to see my mother’s parents, who lived in a house my grandfather built near the intersection of York Road and East Cold Spring Lane. From my earliest memories, I remember being pushed in a stroller around the Guilford Reservoir which to my young eyes appeared to be a large swimming pool surrounded by a high wrought iron fence. Occasionally, I would walk with my grandmother from her house in Kernewood down to York Road and shop with her- that was back when streetcar tracks went down the middle of that north-south artery.
I was a rabid
Baltimore Colts fan from the time I knew what a football was, and my father
would take me each December to Memorial Stadium to see my heroes- Johnny
Unitas, Mike Curtis and company- ply their trade on the muddied field that was
their home. In the spring and summer, I would follow the Baltimore Orioles and
their great teams of the 1960s and 1970s- the golden age of Orioles baseball
and came to the youthful conclusion that Memorial Stadium was indeed heaven on
earth.
The first time Baltimore broke my heart, was when the heavily favored Colts lost to the New York Jets in the biggest upset in NFL history- that was January 1969. I cried and cried, not unusual for a ten-year-old. Later that same year, the Orioles lost the World Series against the New York Mets, again breaking my heart. (1970 would bring a World Series championship to the Orioles and the Colts would be on their way to winning Super Bowl V the following January, making me the happiest kid in all of America.)
Later in the
decade, following my grandfather’s passing, someone broke into their home and
knocked my grandmother out cold, while stealing her valuables in a robbery that
was never solved. At the time, it occurred to me that something dreadful was
taking place in Baltimore that I never saw coming.
My father
had spent much of his childhood in a rowhouse on Clifton Avenue, and worked to
support his family at an Amoco filling station located at Gwynn Oak Junction. My
mother- a native of Highlandtown, grew up in another rowhouse at the corner of
Boarman Avenue and Pimlico Road- a stone throw’s away from the famed racecourse
that was home to the Preakness Stakes. Both of them bemoaned what happened to
their once-thriving neighborhoods, and that was back in the 1970s!
Once I attained adulthood, the City of Baltimore continued to break my heart. After my grandmother passed away in February of 1983, my beloved Colts left Baltimore in March of 1984- a travesty of greed and poor ownership that I have never fully gotten over. It was later that year, while attending an Orioles game at Memorial Stadium, I happened by the house that my grandfather had built only to find its first story windows festooned with wrought iron barricades and its windows covered on the inside with newspaper. The homes in which my parents had grown up were also in dilapidated condition, and no amount of urban renewal- Charles Center, Harborplace, and revitalized Fells Point ever stretched to northwest Baltimore.
The riots
which followed the death of Freddie Grey actually took place on the streets
where my father had once worked to support his family. I was glad he was no
longer alive to see what had become of the city he once loved, and I began to
feel that my “home away from home” was disappearing before my very own eyes.
The ensuing
decades would witness the wrecking ball that leveled Memorial Stadium, the closure
of shops once visited by me and my grandmother, and a fundamental change in the
overall psyche of a town that once was regarded with deep pride and civic
appreciation.
The
locations I have referenced in this missive are all located in the seventh
congressional district represented by Elijah Cummings (D-MD) for the last
twenty-three years, and I can say without reservation that his representation
has done nothing for those areas of a city that my family once knew as home…
…and that,
ladies and gentlemen, is the biggest heartbreak of all.
Despite Trump’s Success, a Brewing Storm that Awaits
On the
surface, given the unprecedented economic strength that is the hallmark of the
Trump presidency, and that his reelection is all but certain, a vicious and
potentially dangerous storm lurks on the far horizon of the next decades.
The signs of
this storm are all around us. We see evidence of it each and every day, coming
in small measures but nevertheless constantly taking us to a place where we
will have lost the very traits that are uniquely American and set us apart from
the rest of the world.
In essence,
while we can look toward a Trump victory in 2020, the cultural war that has
been waged over the last few decades is a war that is being lost before our
very eyes. Just consider, for a moment, the following harbingers:
Surveys
amongst those under thirty years of age increasingly show that socialism is
preferred to capitalism as the favored means of production and that the pursuit
of “economic justice” is more important than economic prosperity…so much for
the concepts of hard work and upward mobility that have made the United States
the most prosperous nation in human history;
For
the first time ever in the history of the United States, those under
thirty believe that certain forms of speech should not be tolerated under any
circumstances- specifically, those which offend the sensibilities and norms of
political correctness which have been established and fostered by the political
left…so goes the idea of free speech and freedom of the press;
Regular
attendance at religious services, which has been waning for decades, is
particularly lowest among those under thirty and, in the next decade, will
constitute a substantial minority of the populace;
Abortion,
which was once preferred by Democrats to be “safe, legal and rare” has taken on
a whole new and ghoulish aspect with regards to an increasing number of states
which allow the procedure right up to and following the full-term birth of a child;
In
pursuit of LGBTQ rights, an increasing number of young people favor
lowering the age of consent for sexual activity- some advocating that it be
lowered to the age of twelve for young boys;
An
alarming and increasingly insidious trend among those under the age of thirty
consider patriotism and the concept of American exceptionalism mere relics of
past generations “who just don’t get it” anymore;
Commodities
such as food, housing, education, healthcare and even access to cellular
services are deemed by those under thirty “human rights” which should be
guaranteed for all persons living in the United States, regardless of whether
or not such persons are citizens of this country. California has in fact become
a sanctuary state and only yesterday has now guaranteed health care for all
people in that state, including illegal aliens. The first-year projected cost
of this initiative is slated to cost upwards of $100 million;
As
the result of the high cost of living, young people are increasingly opting to
remain at home, living with their parents and are delaying marriage and
childbirth until their thirties. While their parents clamored to have drivers’
licenses issued at sixteen, an increasing number of young people simply have no
interest in getting these permits, ever;
An
increasing trend among those under thirty consider themselves to be “citizens
of the world” as opposed to citizens of the United States, and the concept of
national identity is starting to fade in the pursuit of global and
international identity.
One can look
at these trends and easily point their finger at a host of culprits- the news media,
the entertainment industry, education (or, should we say, the lack of education),
the reluctance of parents to teach their children about God, national pride and
what constitutes good citizenship, just to name a few.
Worse, bad personal
behavior by celebrities of all stripes- professional athletes, musicians,
actors, etc., is being tolerated to a degree not seen before and it is the
trend towards acceptance of such behavior that results in the lowering of
standards of what is deemed to be acceptable or even admired. Where are the
role models?
These
observations are not merely the pinings of an old curmudgeon bemoaning a
perceived downfall of civilization but rather a recognition of a downward slope
that is rooted in the radicalization of college campuses which began in the
1960s. The professors of that era, who increasingly embraced atheism and even
communism, became department heads and administrators in the decades which
followed, and spread their influence among the students who, in turn, became
the schoolteachers and university professors holding sway over millennials and
gen-Xers. When prayer in public schools ended in the mid-1960s, that was just
the first step in the cultural wars that have now taken umbrage with reciting
the Pledge of Allegiance and the singing of the National Anthem.
Looking back
on the developments of the last six decades, we can recall the very stark warnings
that older and wiser people made at the time, while the “young enlightened”
generation laughed at such warnings…now, six decades later, it is that “young
enlightened” generation who is beginning to see the ramifications that have thus
resulted.
Just think
about what this country will be like in ten years, when those under thirty
today become the movers and shakers and power brokers of tomorrow. While the
generation of baby boomers, (those born between 1946 and 1964), move into
retirement, who will be a position to stave off the trends toward socialism
increasingly finding favor with their progeny? Who will speak out for the
freedom of speech once speech codes imposed by political correctness actually lessen
diversity of thought and usher in the dastardly dictatorship of groupthink?
These are
questions that must be answered now, for our cultural fabric and our national
identity- the very things which set America apart for two and a half centuries-
teeter on the precipice of oblivion by a generation of those who have been
indoctrinated to hold such concepts in utter contempt. While the rest of the
world drools at the prospect of American demise, they too cannot see the
forest of darkness for the sake of the trees which stand before them…
Election 2020- Why the Democrats Have Already Lost…Bigly
With every
passing day, with each and every week that advances the calendar, it becomes
clearer and clearer…President Donald J. Trump will win reelection, and it won’t
even be close.
The Democrats,
the anti-Trump/NeverTrump blue noses who still claim to be Republicans,
the Deep State in Washington, D.C., and most especially, the national media and
the Hollywood elite are all setting themselves up for an even larger
disappointment than they had election night, 2016.
Someone once
said that “there is no lesson the second time one is kicked by a horse,”
meaning that the first kick should have firmly taught the folly in standing
behind a horse and, if that lesson didn’t take hold then it won’t the next
time, either.
Evidently, all of the forces within and outside government, who are so rabidly opposed to the presidency of Donald Trump, learned absolutely nothing in the last three years in which they have actively tried to destroy the man, and with him, all of the millions of voters who put him in office.
Not that
they won’t try, even harder than they have in the past, to take this president
down. After all, none of these opposing factions…and they are legion…ever considered
the remote possibility that Donald Trump might actually win the 2016 election…but
then, history happened.
Now that
Trump is president, and carries the attendant advantage of incumbency,
look for all his many opponents to pull out all of the stops in their abiding
hatred of the man who has the moxie to call them out for who and what they are,
and you have a recipe for campaign coverage so biased and so filled with
disdain as to stretch the imagination and boggle the mind.
It’s not
enough that journalism…which is to say objective journalism…has gone the
way of the telegraph. What passes today for the news media- network, cable, and
the print media is nothing more than a collusive propaganda machine in
undeniable cahoots with the Democrat Party- so much so, that the talking points
of both arrive instantaneously and concordantly, and this is by design.
Tell the
people a lie, over and over and over again, and what constitutes the “truth”
becomes malleable and subjective. Worse, the people who must bear the suffrage
of actual voting do so largely out of programmed ignorance due to the lack of
real news, and from which they might otherwise make informed decisions.
Essentially,
it is the preponderance of fake news across all media outlets which threaten
the sanctity of an election, and thereby the underpinnings of representative
democracy, more than any alleged tampering with our elections by a foreign
power- be it Russia, China or anyone else.
Into this
maelstrom, is the reelection campaign of a president who has defied his
opponents at every level of government and delivered on the promises he made to
the American people. To wit…
The
tax cuts and regulatory reforms he has put into place have lowered unemployment
across the board, to the lowest levels seen in a half-century, and the lowest
levels ever for Asian Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans
and women across all ethnic identities;
The
energy policies of the Trump administration have made the United States the
world’s largest exporter of energy, and completely self-sufficient from the
dictates of OPEC. Remember that this is the same United States that was practically
brought to its knees by OPEC in the 1970s;
While
there is still much to be achieved in the de-nuclearization of North Korea, the
medium- and long-range missile testing has ceased, along with nuclear weapons
testing, and the two sides are talking- something that hasn’t taken place since
the 1953 Korean War cease-fire;
For
the first time since President Nixon normalized relations with China in the
early 1970s, the United States is in a position of economic strength to finally
leverage long-needed trade concessions, and we finally have a President willing
to take on the Chinese in a way that none of his seven predecessors were
willing to do;
Ridding
the country of the individual mandate attendant to ObamaCare fixed the biggest
and most invasive aspect of the (un-)Affordable Care Act, and thereby unlocked
the potential for actual improvement to how healthcare is delivered to the
people. Couple that with Trump’s initiative to lower the cost of prescription
drugs across-the-board, and we might finally begin to get a handle on the
rising costs of healthcare;
Pulling the United States out of the insanely masochistic and ludicrous JCPOA (the Iran “Deal”) and the equally self-flagellating Paris Climate Accords, brought forth a foreign policy that puts America first, and to a degree we haven’t seen since Ronald Reagan left office in January of 1989. A succession of globalist/internationalist presidents- both Bushes, Clinton and Obama- all-too-often subrogated American interests to a new world order dead-set against American prosperity and pre-eminence.
Juxtapose
this reality to Democrat aspirants to replace President Trump who
Advocate
for universal single-payer health insurance, eliminating private health
insurance currently enjoyed by seventy percent of Americans who get this
coverage from their employers and unions;
Seek
to decriminalize illegal border crossings so as to effectively create open
borders, some even offering to provide guaranteed healthcare coverage to these
same illegal immigrants;
Seek
to eliminate the tax cuts enacted in December of 2017, driving up the tax
burden for working families and middle-class taxpayers, and taxing the wealthy
at a rate of 70%;
Seek
to effectively shut down domestic energy production with the imposition of
environmental regulation guaranteed to make the United States once-again
dependent on foreign oil, coal and natural gas;
Seek
to re-commit to the disastrous JCPOA, the Paris Climate Accords, NAFTA and other
such deals that, by design, will hurt the American economy and will cost
Americans the very jobs gained back in the wake of the Trump presidency;
and…
who seek to punish Donald Trump for having the gall to win the 2016 election,
by supporting impeachment and even post-presidential prison for the man they
seek to unseat.
So, we are
supposed to believe that a vast majority of people in this country would prefer
(name the Democrat- Biden, Bernie, Warren, Kamala or even Mayor Pete) to occupy
the Oval Office in 2021?
Well that’s
just more of the same horse-hockey of wishful thinking that the media tried to
foist on us in the last election…it didn’t work then…it won’t work now that the
election is in full swing…and it won’t work in the fall of 2020, either…
…but don’t
even try to tell that to Trump’s opponents, or members of the Hollywood
elite, or the media, or the deep state apparatchiks in Washington, lest you be
labeled a racist, a misogynist, psychotic or worse…
There are
liars, there are damned liars and then there are those adversely affected by
Trump Derangement Syndrome…just turn on the TV…you’ll see them all there…
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio Thursday, 11 July 2019
After a fifteen-week long hiatus, I was back on the radio, sitting in on the Nora Firestone Show, on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110, where I discussed the over-the-top double standards in media coverage, the poisonous platform of Democrat presidential candidates, why President Trump will win re-election and an ongoing threat to our cultural and national survival.
This show also appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast, so here is a replay of that broadcast:
It is a question worth asking, yet one which might surely stump the very best contestants on ABC’s Jeopardy, the popular TV game show hosted by Alex Trebec:
“Who was Sylvester
Magee?”
Born to slaves named Ephraim and Jeanette, who worked on the J.J. Shanks Plantation in North Carolina, Sylvester Magee was later sold to one Hugh Magee, who owned the Lone Star Plantation in Covington County, Mississippi and there he worked as a field hand prior to enlisting in the Union Army in 1863. Twice wounded, Magee returned at war’s end an emancipated freedman. He lived to be well over 100 years old, but his age was uncertain beyond the fact that he was born sometime in the 1840s.
On October
15, 1971, Sylvester Magee, died in Columbia, Mississippi, the last known living
former slave in the United States.
In the forty-seven
years since Sylvester Magee passed away, the idea of paying descendants of
American slaves reparations has bubbled up from time to time as a proposed
antidote to ameliorate the legacy of slavery in the United States.
Controversial at its core and increasingly difficult to equitably implement, reparations
have nevertheless been the occasional card played by extremists on the
political left in a dubious effort to sway the African-American voting bloc.
In this year
of 2019, as a run-up to next year’s presidential election, Democrats seeking
their party’s nomination are feverishly queueing up to kiss the hind quarters
of the notorious race-baiter Al Sharpton (remember Tawana Brawley and the hoax
Sharpton concocted to gain national exposure?) at his annual convention of his National
Action Network. By promising to support and sign legislation providing for
reparations to those claiming to be the descendants of slaves here in the
United States, these pathetic politicians do so to gain Sharpton’s blessing and
potential endorsement. As an aside, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX)
has even introduced legislation to for a “study group” to look into the
possible payment of reparations.
Just a study
group? Yeah, right.
Aside from
the general argument of paying descendants of slaves (now, well into the fourth
generation) compensation for the involuntary servitude to which their ancestors
were subjected, the proposal would be utterly impossible to implement.
Why?
Well
for instance, how would it be determined who would pay the actual reparations,
aside from the U.S. Treasury? Would the payments be exacted from only the
descendants of slave owners or from whites only? What about Caucasians who are
descended from immigrants who came to this country in the decades following the
American Civil War? Should they also have to pay?
Then
again, how would it be determined who specifically would be paid reparations? Would
such payments be limited to documented descendants of slaves once held in the
United States, or to blacks, in general? What about African-Americans who are
descended from immigrants who came to this country in the years following the
American Civil War? Should they, too, be so entitled to receive these payments?
What about individuals, like former President Barack Obama, whose father was a
Kenyan national and whose mother was a white American? Would individuals of similar
lineage qualify to receive such benefits?
Implementation
issues aside, the idea of compensating the descendants of U.S. slaves for what
happened to their great grandparents, and great-great grandparents, is nothing
more than cheap and exploitative means to trick African-American voters into
staying on the political plantation known as the Democrat Party- a party which
has really done nothing to improve the lives of African-Americans since the
1960s. Worse, to take money from one person and give this money to another, all
in the name of retrospective recompense, constitutes government-forced redistribution
in its worst form, and reinforces the stereotype that, somehow, black folks are
incapable of improving their own lives without government assistance.
If that’s
not racist, then what the hell is?
No one worthy
of respect would deny that the institution of slavery in the United States was an
injustice of the worst kind in our country’s history. Just as certain, no one
in their right mind would dare say that race relations, in general, and the
civil rights and opportunities for African-Americans, specifically, have not significantly
improved since the 1950s…
…that is,
unless they are race-baiters like Al Sharpton, who make their ill-begotten
gains by exploiting the emotions of those of his own race and by extorting the putative
political “guilt” of liberal whites and other politicians seeking his imprimatur.
To
opportunists like Sharpton, and the politicians who seek his favor, “race” is
nothing more than a commodity to be played in the open market of ideas, thanks
to the media attention that he gains every time he opens his mouth.
Perhaps, we
have not quite realized the oft-quoted dream of Martin Luther King, Jr., who
longed for the day when people would be judged, not by color of their skin, but
rather by the content of their character…a day when blacks and whites could sit
down in fellowship, together at a table of perfect racial harmony, and join
hands…
…and nothing
would ensure that this dream will never come to pass, and would thus render
race relations forever irreparable, than the forced payment of reparations to a
select group of citizens who have never known the injustice of slavery in their
own lifetimes.
That time passed with the passing of Sylvester Magee, forty-seven years ago.
Double Standards- Alive and Well in the Age of Donald Trump
If a “double
standard” was a sandwich at the West Wing Café (one of Washington DC’s best
places to grab a sandwich and just two blocks from the U. S. Capitol), it would
be a hands-down favorite for Democrats and their Republican collaborators in
the House and Senate. The same holds
true for their cohorts across the mainstream media, who apply a “double
standard” with reckless abandon, especially when it comes to matters concerning
inappropriate sexual behavior.
Take for
instance the extremely broad leeway that politicians from both parties are
giving former Vice President Joe Biden. For years there have been a multitude
of memes concerning “Creepy Uncle Joe,” and there is ample evidence in the form
of too many video clips to count that the former VP and longtime Senator from
Delaware takes affection towards females of all ages to an unusual extreme.
“Oh, that’s
just Joe being Joe…”
Isn’t that what we always hear whenever the former vice president puts his foot in his mouth or, not to mention, whenever his hands and face get a little too close to the ladies for comfort?
Imagine,
just for a moment, that instead of Joe Biden being in all of those video clips,
it was President Donald Trump. If you think that his recorded conversation with
Billy Bush on the NBC show Access
Hollywood from 2005 caused a stir in October of 2016, nothing would compare
to the absolute outrage that would occur if Trump was the subject of all of the
“Creepy Uncle Joe” memes and clips.
Why,
Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate would immediately impeach
President Trump if ever such videos of him were found, but strangely, they are
willing to give Biden a pass.
Biden
himself went on the air and tried to convince viewers that he now “get’s it”
about the “changing standards of personal space,” or some such rot, and all of
the media marveled at the man’s sincerity.
Yeah, right.
The only
thing is that I don’t recall other past politicos being so habitually prone to
such closeness, which seems to stretch beyond the comfort of the female
recipient. Granted, Presidents Roosevelt, Kennedy and Clinton all had their extra-curricular
relationships with women, but these dalliances were off-camera and went largely
unreported by a sympathetic press.
Biden, on the other hand, has set off a cottage industry of “Creepy Uncle Joe” commentary and yet the “experts” and D.C. insiders all tell us to “get a grip” and, even in some cases, caution us about the sad passing of a time when demonstrable affection was once within the scope of acceptable behavior from politicians. Again, I am hard-pressed to think of another politician who sniffed the hair of women and routinely kissed them as though they were family members or even close friends.
Come to
think about it, if I acted like Joe Biden at an intimate dinner party with my
very closest of friends, I am almost certain that their husbands would be as
put off with my behavior as my wife would doubtlessly be.
While no one is suggesting that Joe Biden’s behavior rises to the level of sexual assault, there is also little doubt that his seemingly-lecherous entreaties tend to be the habitual way he interacts with unsuspecting females, and his boorish behavior obviously places them ill-at-ease.
Biden’s
excuse of “the changing standards of personal space” is not unlike the excuse
that Democrat Virginia Governor Ralph Northam used when trying to rationalize a
1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook photo of him in blackface. The
Governor said that he was cognizant of the fact that “sensitivities concerning
such depictions have changed since the time the photo was taken.”
I recall that a fraternity brother of mine once showed up at a 1979 costume party donning blackface, and he was told to leave and wash it off his face before returning, so obviously Northam’s explanation, like Biden’s, was a total crock of bulls*#t.
In neither case, did the offending politician ever offer an apology. Instead, they tried to side-step their behavior with pathetic rationalization and lame excuses. Being a Democrat, or any liberal, means never having to say you’re sorry. Apologies after all are only expected from Trump, his supporters (for even supporting him) and conservatives, in general.
Again,
imagine the reaction if a photograph of Donald Trump wearing blackface ever
surfaced…he’d already be out of office. Yet, Virginia Governor Northam will
remain in office until his term runs out in January of 2021.
If that
strikes a chord of outrage, consider the fact that Northam’s Democrat
Lieutenant Governor, Justin Fairfax, remains in office despite two very credible
and documented claims of sexual assault made by two different women concerning
incidents that took place in the last decade.
So, while all of the mainstream media lectures us
about giving Joe Biden some slack regarding his past behavior, it was President
Donald Trump himself who, knowing all-too-well what accusations of personal
misconduct can do, offered the best commentary directed towards the former Vice
President:
“All I can
say, is welcome to the world, Joe. Are you having a good time, Joe? Are you
having a good time?”
President Trump should be so lucky to enjoy the allowances that are routinely given to “Creepy Uncle Joe.”
Then again,
the double standards of political correctness is the very sandwich that is irresistible
to politicians and pundits, alike.
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio Thursday, March 28th at 1:00 PM, EDT
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio Thursday, March 28th at 1:00 PM, EDT
On Thursday, the 28th of March at 1:00, EDT, I was sitting in for Nora on the Nora Firestone
Show, on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads, when we took a look
back at Trump’s State of the Union Speech and his subsequent meeting
with Kim Jong Un. We also discussed an attempted coup d’état’, the
release of the Mueller report, the mad-cap messaging of the Democrat
Party and then looked ahead to the 2020 election.
This show appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast, so here is the link to the replay of that show:
After 675 days (that’s one year, 11 months and 17 days) and spending some $26 million of taxpayers’ money, Special Counsel and former FBI Director Robert Mueller, III has submitted his long-awaited report to Attorney General William Barr.
Mueller, who
was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to investigate
allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to rig
the 2016 Presidential Election, and allegations that President Trump obstructed
justice by firing FBI Director James Comey in May of 2017, submitted his
lengthy report to the Attorney General on Friday, March 22nd. Attorney General
Barr, who in turn has promised to make public his findings to the extent that
he can without compromising national security, is expected to deliver his
summary report of the investigations to Congress early this week.
Even before it was announced that Mueller had submitted the report to the AG, Democrats and their cohorts in the mainstream media were already spinning the results of a report that was for them at once both disappointing and, then retrospectively, inconclusive. Weeks prior to the release of the report, House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) issued subpoenas to eighty-one individuals who have been associated with the President going back to the 1970s in an all-out effort to do what the Mueller report evidently did not do- produce evidence worthy of indictment as a means to impeach the President.
For almost
two years, Americans have been hammered by Democrats and the media with the mantra
that impeachment would soon follow as a result of Mueller’s thorough investigation.
Yet, in the weeks preceding the release of Mueller’s report, it became apparent
that the resulting indictments would go no further than Michael Cohen, Michael
Flynn, Rick Gates, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, all of
whom were either indicted on “process” crimes as a result of the investigation
itself, or for crimes preceding their involvement with the Trump campaign. Others
who also faced Mueller’s indictments were primarily Russians and other foreign
nationals who will never respond to the indictments. More importantly, the fact
that it was announced than no further indictments would proceed from the
Mueller report essentially vindicates what President Trump and his supporters
have long insisted upon- that there was no collusion with the Russians and no
obstruction of justice, period.
That Trump
did not collude with the Russians or attempt to obstruct justice in his firing
of Comey comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the origin of the Mueller
investigation, the details of which are still emerging in the drip-drip-drip of
evidence that the investigation was actually the result of high level
corruption in multiple departments of the Obama administration and in
coordination with the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.
It was the
Clinton campaign who bought and paid for a false dossier from Fusion GPS,
authored by Christopher Steele, filled with undocumented and unreliable information
on Trump and Russia, all in an effort to excavate dirt on Trump. Steele had
already denied the veracity of the dossier even before FBI Director James Comey,
former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, former acting Attorney General Sally
Yates and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein used it to sign off on FISA
warrants to surveil members of the Trump campaign. All four did this with the
full knowledge that the information in the dossier was unreliable, and all the
while concealing the origin of the report- that it was paid for by the Clinton
campaign- from the FISA court.
It has now
been revealed that prior to his infamous televised exoneration of Hillary
Clinton in July of 2016, FBI Director James Comey was in fact acting under the
orders of Attorney General Loretta Lynch that Hillary Clinton would face no prosecution
for espionage and mishandling of 33,000 emails illegally stored on her own
private server, despite very real and substantial evidence of criminal behavior
on the part of Ms. Clinton and her associates. Instead, a bogus inquiry into
alleged Russian collusion on the part of the Trump campaign was initiated at about
the same time to further deflect attention from Clinton, whose husband met with
Lynch on an Arizona tarmac just prior to the Comey announcement.
It has further been revealed that Comey illegally released classified information on his meetings with President Trump, through a Columbia University professor, to the New York Times, with the intention of prompting the appointment of an independent counsel, who turned out to be his longtime friend and mentor, Robert Mueller. It was in these January and February 2017 meetings with President Trump that Comey concealed the fact he had used the dossier to obtain FISA surveillance warrants to spy on members of the Trump campaign in the fall of 2016, insisting instead to the President that the dossier had no merit and was without substance- an obvious subterfuge and infamous double-dealing with a duly-elected President.
The coordinated attempt to first sabotage President Trump’s campaign, then reverse the results of a free and fair election and subsequently throw a wrecking ball into Trump’s presidency, crossed many departments and involved several senior members of the Obama administration- Comey, Lynch, McCabe, Yates, Former CIA Director John Brennan, Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper, Former U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, Former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, Former FBI Attorney Lisa Page, Former Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr and others. The fact that the coordinated effort crossed several departments and bureaus within the Obama administration can definitively and only mean that it was perpetrated by former President Barack Obama, himself. Remember that it was a September 2nd, 2016 text message from Lisa Page to Peter Strzok that “POTUS wants to know everything we’re doing,” thus confirming Obama’s involvement.
There is a word for this type of behavior- it’s called an attempted coup d’état, and nothing like this has ever before occurred in the history of the United States.
Not that any
of this matters to House and Senate Democrats, who will still insist that Trump
obstructed justice and colluded with the Russians to deny Hillary Clinton the
presidency- the Mueller report be damned. The fact is that the election of 2016
is something with which they cannot and will not come to grips, and it is their
sacrosanct mission to destroy a duly-elected President of the United States and
impugn anyone and everyone who supported his candidacy and subsequent
presidency. In the coming days and
weeks, the media itself will go out of its way to diminish the findings
contained within the Mueller report, which did not in the end deliver the goods
that they promised would terminate Trump’s presidency.
675 days,
and $26 million dollars later, the president’s supporters can smile at the fact
that Donald J. Trump is still
President of the United States, and laugh at the fact that, thus far, there
hasn’t been anything his political
opponents in both parties and across the mainstream media can do about it…though
surely not for lack of trying. The problem for them is, as the late and former
President John Adams once said,
“Facts are
stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the
dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
Thank God we
have a President who doesn’t allow these distractions to interfere with the job
he was elected to do…and from where things now stand, it appears that he will
be doing this job for another six years.
Any thought
that Democrats regaining majority status in the U.S. House of Representatives, would
lead us towards a new era of balanced government has evaporated in the wake of House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s loss of control over her own caucus. Increasingly, the
radical fringes of the Democrat Party have taken over the messaging and the
platform of that party and, in so doing, transformed the party into a socialist
movement incompatible with the majority of the American electorate. The examples
are many, some of which are as follows:
Abortion-
What used to be an issue regarding access and availability, especially during
the third trimester of pregnancy, has now become an issue of post-birth
infanticide, with Democrats advocating abortion rights up to, during and after
the birth of a child at full term. Only eight countries in the entire world
allow this gruesome procedure, and the United States is now one of them.
Healthcare
– What was once a movement to expand the availability of healthcare insurance
coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) has now become an effort
to completely eliminate private health care insurance coverage for millions who
currently have this coverage through their employers. Democrats are seeking a
single-payer healthcare model where all Americans would be forced into
government-run healthcare…essentially besetting all of us with the same questionable
quality of healthcare that has beset our veterans who have not been properly
served by the Veterans Administration.
Education-
The effort to make four-year tuition-free college education available to anyone
who wants it is now the drumbeat of liberal politicians and academics, alike.
What neither realizes is that by placing higher education on the same level as primary
and secondary public school education, this will eventually result in
professors being paid at the same wage levels as public school teachers. Moreover,
the quality of higher education will continue its downward spiral away from
true education and towards institutional indoctrination. Hence, the effort to
expand voting rights down to individuals who are sixteen years of age in the
knowledge that sixteen-year-olds, having lacked an education into the reality
of socialism and its history, will vote overwhelmingly to acquire what they
have been told is “free” stuff.
Immigration-
Say what they will but the bottom line is that Democrats, in their refusal to acknowledge
the very real crisis at our southern border, have essentially espoused open
borders with unfettered flow of illegal aliens, who enter this country and avail
themselves of American largesse. The increased illegal entry of illegal aliens
has been well documented, and is expected to approach one million in 2019,
alone. As unsustainable as that clearly is, Democrats like the idea of such
unfettered immigration, in the hopes that amnesty leading to citizenship will
swell the ranks of Democrat voters and ensure their political power, in
perpetuity.
Impeachment.
With the impending release of Robert Mueller’s report on his investigations
into alleged collusion between Donald Trump and the Russians during the 2016
campaign and obstruction of justice, and anticipating that the long-awaited
report will show no crimes on the part of the President, the Democrats are
already pursuing a “Plan B” of going back through four decades of Trump’s business
dealings to find something, anything that they can use to remove Trump from
office. In casting such a wide net of inquiry into all things Trump, Democrats
have shown that the President’s claim of a “witch hunt” in search of a crime is
just that…a “witch hunt” perpetrated by those who remain irate over his
election, and nothing more.
Anti-Semitism-
The growing tendency of Democrats to invoke long-held prejudices against the
Jewish people, due to their opposition to the Israeli state, is not only an American
problem but is increasingly a problem in many western democracies, as well. In
Great Britain, anti-Semitic words and actions among members of Britain’s Labour
Party have reincarnated such sentiments for the first time since prior to the
Second World War. Similar instances of anti-Semitic rhetoric have been heard in
many European capitals, and violence against Jews is increasing all over
Europe. The failure of Democrats to censure
the pro-Islamic, anti-Semitic freshman congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and
replace this effort to target her repeated anti-Semitic rhetoric with a generic
call for non-specific tolerance does nothing to curtail this woman’s hateful
speech.
What do such
divergent, seemingly unrelated issues all have in common? More specifically,
what is the raving lunacy behind such messaging on the part of Democrats?
That’s
simple- President Donald Trump.
By opposing
the President at every turn, Democrats who have been trying to de-legitimize
his election and call into question the millions of American voters who
supported his candidacy, have essentially ensured that their return to control
of the House of Representatives will represent nothing more than a continuation
of enhanced efforts to impeach a President that they just don’t like.
The very
fact that there are just enough gutless Republicans who refuse to back their President
and stand firm against the efforts to undo the election results of 2016, will
mean that President Trump will have to continue the pursuit of his presidency
without the help of his own party- and that cowardice on their part is the most
reprehensible of all.
Given the
fact that the leftward leap of Democrats to the fringes of political discourse
has all but ensured the re-election of President Donald Trump in 2020, we can
all anticipate six more years of pettiness on the part of his opponents from
both parties, who would rather serve their own interests than those of the
nation they were elected to serve.
“Sometimes You Have to Walk” Trump returns from the Hanoi Summit Without a Deal
On the final
day of February 2019, President Donald Trump returned to the United States
without having secured a commitment from North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un to
denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. A scheduled luncheon, along with a
subsequent signing ceremony, was abruptly scuttled when the President decided
that Kim’s offer to close the country’s largest nuclear enrichment facility, located
in Yongbyon, North Korea, was not sufficiently commensurate with the lifting of
all sanctions that the North Korean leader had also requested.
“Sometimes, you
have to walk,” said the President during a brief press conference prior to his
departure from Hanoi, Viet Nam, where the summit between the two leaders had previously
been scheduled to take place, earlier in February.
According to
various reports, the North Korean leader was stunned to learn that the United States
had far more knowledge of several supposedly “secret” enrichment facilities
than previously thought.
The President told reporters that he was looking for Kim “…to do more regarding his commitment to denuclearize, but he was unprepared to do that.”
President
Trump, who has had considerable experience over many decades in brokering large
financial deals, and who authored a best-seller The Art of the Deal in the 1980s, knew what Ronald Reagan knew when
the former President walked away from an arms treaty with then-Soviet Leader Mikhail
Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland. Reagan’s insistence that such an arms treaty
was not worth the price of scuttling the Strategic Defense Initiative,
derisively nicknamed “Star Wars,” and that standing strong and refusing a quick
deal would lead to a better deal down the road.
It was a
lesson that was evidently lost on President Barack Obama, who infamously signed
onto a one-sided deal with Iran, handing over billions in cash in exchange for
no substantial commitment from the Iranians to halt missile production and
uranium enrichment. Obama thought, erroneously, that it was better to have a
bad deal than no deal at all.
Thank
goodness that it was not Obama in Hanoi trying to leverage an agreement with
the North Koreans. Then again, Obama refused to even confront the growing
threat of North Korea’s nuclear arms buildup, by instead emphasizing “strategic
patience” (a euphemism for doing nothing) when dealing with the North Korean
push towards deliverable nuclear weaponry.
Practically
everyone, including Democrats, anti-Trump/Never Trump Republicans, the national
news media and so-called “experts” from previous administrations were
predicting, and in some cases hoping for, failure on the part of Trump, in his
second sit-down with Kim Jong Un. Many were saying that the North Korean Leader
would “flatter” the President into signing a deal without any substantial
commitment by the North Koreans to give up their nuclear weapons program. Once
again, the President overcame the low expectations of his political opponents
by standing strong in the face of opposition, and rejecting a bad deal based
solely on its own merits- or rather, lack thereof.
While vehement
Trump-haters rejoiced in the fact that no deal came of the Hanoi Summit, wiser
and more informed heads from both political parties agreed that the President
was right to walk away from the summit without an agreement. The fact that the
President refused to sign an agreement, merely for the sake of signing an
agreement, also showed the watching world once again, including most
importantly China, that the days of the United States being “rolled” into
pursuing bad treaties has ended. As the United States is trying to use its economic
muscle to forge a better, more mutually-beneficial trade agreement with China, the
lack of an agreement with North Korea may bode well for negotiations between the
world’s two largest economies.
The question
is whether or not Trump’s political adversaries, who tend to prefer national
failure to the possibility of Trump’s successes, will continue to root against
the President and by extension, America itself.
coup d’état- n. (kuː deɪˈtɑ) Fr: [ku de ta’] ) also known simply as a coup, an overthrow, is a type of revolution, where the illegal and overt seizure of a state by the military or other elites within the state apparatus occurs.
Setting aside the all-too-soft interview of the disgraced former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe by Scott Pelley on CBS News’ 60 Minutes– an interview designed to make McCabe appear to be some kind of patriotic hero (and assist him in the sales of his new book), we now have an admission that an attempted coup d’état took place in May of 2017.
If what McCabe said in the
interview is indeed true, then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who
authored President Donald Trump’s justification for the firing of former FBI
Director James Comey, took it upon himself to initiate proceedings in an
attempt to remove the President from office by invoking the 25th
Amendment.
According to McCabe, it was
Rosenstein who mused about the “number of additional cabinet-level officials”
(neither Rosenstein nor McCabe were such) who would vote to remove Trump from
office, via the 25th Amendment. McCabe also claimed that Rosenstein
offered to be “wired” in order to trap the new President, a claim which
Rosenstein first denied, and then said was only offered in jest. McCabe even claimed
that two of Trump’s cabinet officials were “a go” on the attempt, despite the
fact that the 25th Amendment, enacted in 1965, only applies to a
president who is physically or mentally incapacitated from discharging his
duties. Only twice in the last century, was a President so duly incapacitated.
The stroke which
incapacitated President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 would have invoked the proper
use of this amendment. More recently, when President Ronald Reagan was shot in
March of 1981, the 25th Amendment was temporarily invoked while Reagan
was in surgery to remove the bullet from his chest cavity.
Nothing in the 25th
Amendment addresses the issue whereby a President isn’t preferred, or commits an
act found to be personally objectionable, such as firing an FBI Director who
has run afoul of the law by leaking confidential information, directly or
indirectly, to the press- like James Comey did when he leaked details of a
confidential conversation he had with President Trump in February of 2017,
through a Columbia University professor to the New York Times the following May.
A president, any president, may fire an FBI Director at will and for any reason, or no reason at all. However, that wasn’t good enough for a Deputy Attorney General (Rosenstein) or a Deputy FBI Director (McCabe) who worked diligently to absolve Hillary Clinton of very real crimes like obstruction of justice when her operatives bleach-bit some 33,000 e-mails illegally stored on her private server and when they hammered to bits wireless phones and other “smart” devices, both of which had been subpoenaed by the Justice Department. No, instead, because these two “deep state” apparatchiks didn’t like the decision of American voters to elect Donald Trump as the nation’s forty-fifth president, they manufactured a reason of their own to oust a duly-elected president from office. By using false information from a Clinton-paid-for dossier, they had Robert Mueller named as special counsel to investigate a crime which they both knew, all along, bore no evidence and was completely without just cause.
Some $40 million and two
years later, the ill-conceived and mis-begotten Robert Mueller investigation continues
unabated. Yet, no evidence of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, nor
evidence of justice obstruction in the firing of James Comey, has been brought
forth- and there is a reason for this…it simply does not exist.
So, what we are left with is simply this:
Donald Trump was elected the nation’s forty-fifth President of the United States, much to the chagrin of an elite group of Justice Department and FBI officials who wanted Hillary Clinton to be elected, instead. By white-washing her very real crimes, and then illegally surveilling the Trump campaign, they nevertheless failed in their effort to see her elected. Then, having failed this, they attempted to undo and overturn the results of a free and fair election, by attempting a silent coup d’état- the first time ever in the history of the United States…
…and while the mainstream media seeks to rationalize and minimize this very real conspiracy against a duly-elected President of the United States, in so doing they have missed the biggest story of our lifetimes- an attempted overthrow of our government by “deep state” insiders, who honestly believed that they knew better than the citizens they were sworn to serve.
Under-reported: Trump Just Won Re-election in 2020
The headline
yet to be seen: Trump Wins Re-election in 2020…
…yet to be
seen, but nevertheless almost certainly true.
Taking stock
of the 2020 election as of February 2019:
With
(count ‘em) 30 Democrats who have either announced or are seriously considering
running for their party’s nomination in 2020, no real party standard-bearer has
emerged that has a chance of uniting a fractured party to victory against Trump.
The media doesn’t like to mention it, but the Democrat Party is fractured between
its lunatic left (who favors infanticide, open borders, radical socialism and a
fantasy called the “green new deal”), and a shrinking, aging and
soon-to-become-extinct traditional left (wedded to big labor, protectionism and
the working middle class).
Virginia’s
sad comedy of errors where Governor Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark
Herring, both of whom ran their elections on a 2017 platform of accusing their
Republican counterparts of racism, must now rationalize and contextualize their
having donned “blackface,” in an era where doing so had long since been deemed
an anathema to racial equality and sensitivities. Meanwhile Lt. Governor Justin
Fairfax, being pressured to resign in the face of two credible accusations of
sexual assault within the last twenty years, leaves the swing-state party in
Virginia without any shred of moral authority when it comes to the defense of
women’s rights. Given the two controversies involving race and gender, the
longer they remain in office, the more these three will place a drag on a
national party which seeks to run on a platform accusing Trump and Republicans
of being insensitive to the plight of women and people of color.
Legislative
initiatives in half a dozen states which would legalize abortion up to and including
full-term delivery of a child, amount to nothing less than infanticide, not to
mention the fact that third trimester abortion is only legal in seven of the world’s
countries and is opposed by the vast majority of the U. S. electorate. Finding any
Democrat who publicly denounces these ghoulish and dastardly procedures,
codified into law by states all headed by Democrat administrations, is like finding
a Democrat who publicly supports full funding for a border wall- yet another
issue where the public supports the President’s position.
Speaking
of walls, the only real wall that is being constructed is the one being built
by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
(D-NY), which is slowly but surely isolating the Democrat leadership away from the
electorate who is coming to realize the need for actual, and not virtual,
border security. As the number of innocents whose lives are being lost- from
homicide (both civilian and law enforcement), drug overdose and sex trafficking-
all at the hands of illegal aliens- continues to grow, political opposition to actual
border security imperils the electability of Democrat politicians, especially
those who had supported wall funding in the past.
So why are so many would-be candidates declaring, or on the verge of declaring, their intention to seek the nation’s highest office? Moreover, why are Democrats increasingly supporting issues and initiatives that will either never work, or never find favor with the vast majority of Americans?
The
explanation is rather simple- assuming people are willing to extricate themselves
from the box in which the media has placed us- a box that encourages division,
exaggerates the President’s unpopularity and diminishes the specious positions
taken by his adversaries.
In both
instances, announcing a presidential candidacy (or publicly contemplating the
same) and advocating an agenda steeped in fantasy and illogic brings to bear free
national media attention to politicians who would otherwise be ignored in the
wake of their own irrelevance.
Better to be noticed, even dubiously so, than to be ignored, all of which impacts an election twenty-one months away and which therefore suggests…
A Call to Greatness: Trump Delivers State of the Union to Joint Session of Congress
On Tuesday
evening, February 5th, 2019, President Donald Trump delivered his
second State of the Union Address before a joint session of Congress. During
the hour and twenty-one-minute address, the President called on Democrats in both
houses of Congress to set aside “gridlock, resistance, vengeance and
destruction” for the greater good of the American people and instead pursue “greatness,
results, vision and progress.” Imploring both parties to work together to serve
the American people, first and foremost, he challenged the gathered Representatives
and Senators, alike to “… choose whether we are defined by our differences- or
whether we dare to transcend them.”
Touting the
economic gains in both employment and wages, as the direct result of the tax
cut legislation of 2017 and the elimination of tens of thousands of burdensome
regulations, and then citing the economic miracle taking place as a result of
these policies, he warned Americans that there are three things that could thwart
this strong performance- “foolish wars, politics or ridiculous partisan
investigations,” adding, “If there is going to
be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation… It just
doesn’t work that way… We must be united at home to defeat our adversaries
abroad.”
The
President then laid out his legislative agenda for the coming year- border
security including funding for wall construction where needed, creating an “immigration
system that is safe, lawful, modern and secure,” further reductions in
healthcare costs including prescription drugs, pursuing trade deals and foreign
policies that put America’s interests first, and revitalizing our nation’s
infrastructure.
President
trump also cited that the year 2019 will mark three important anniversaries:
The 50th anniversary of man landing on the moon,
recognizing one of the Apollo 11 astronauts who raised the American Flag on the
lunar surface, “Buzz” Aldrin;
The 75th anniversary of the D-Day landing,
recognizing three surviving members of the more than 75,000 Americans who took
part in what Commanding General (and future president) Dwight Eisenhower called
the “great crusade” against tyranny: PFC Joseph Reilly, SSG Irving Locker and Sgt,
Herman Zeitchik;
The 100th anniversary of the 19th
Amendment, which granted voting rights to women, by recognizing that there are
more women serving in Congress than ever before and that there are more women
in the workforce than at any time in history.
In
an address which introduced several ordinary Americans who have achieved
extraordinary greatness, he offered a vision of what America can be, what
America should be, and called for Congress to set aside petty partisanship to
create safer communities, stronger families, richer culture, deeper faith and
a middle class bigger and more prosperous than ever before.
He announced a month-end,
follow-up summit meeting with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un to take
place in Vietnam.
Then, the President implored
Congress to pass legislation that would end the practice of late-term
abortions, in response to several states which have recently sought to enact
laws essentially amounting to legalized infanticide.
“Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life. And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth: all children — born and unborn — are made in the holy image of God.”
In
summation, the President closed his address, adding:
“We must choose whether we will squander our inheritance — or
whether we will proudly declare that we are Americans. We do the incredible. We
defy the impossible. We conquer the unknown.
This is the time to re-ignite the American imagination. This is
the time to search for the tallest summit and set our sights on the brightest
star. This is the time to rekindle the bonds of love and loyalty and memory
that link us together as citizens, as neighbors, as patriots.
This is our future — our fate — and our choice to make. I am
asking you to choose greatness.
No matter the trials we face, no matter the challenges to come,
we must go forward together.
We must keep America first in our hearts. We must keep freedom
alive in our souls. And we must always keep faith in America’s destiny — that
one Nation, under God, must be the hope and the promise and the light and the
glory among all the nations of the world!”
Despite
media coverage to the contrary, history will show that President Trump’s 2019 State
of the Union address was one of the finest, most visionary speeches ever given
before a joint session of Congress. Whether his challenge to lawmakers to rise
to the level of greatness as vouchsafed by the individual heroes he introduced
remains to be seen.
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio Thursday, January 31st
On Thursday, the 31st of January, I was sitting in for Nora on the Nora Firestone Show, on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads. On the show, I discussed the resurgence of radical abortion legislation initiatives and the President’s upcoming State of the Union address by time traveling back to the Januarys of 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018, and revisiting four speeches that all lead up to this year’s State of the Union address, which I then previewed prior to the speech slated for Tuesday. February 5th.
This show will also appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast, and here is the link to the replay of that broadcast:
There has
been much talk and further speculation on President Trump’s State of the Union
Address, slated for Tuesday evening, February 5th.
On the 3rd
of January, 2019, while in the midst of a partial government shutdown, House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi invited the President to address a joint session of
Congress on January 29th. Subsequently,
the Speaker requested that the address be cancelled or postponed until the
partial shutdown ended, out of concerns for security. This was a lie
perpetuated to force the president’s hand in unilaterally caving to Democrat
demands that the shutdown must end prior to any discussion on border security- discussions
that would exclude any funding for a wall on the U.S./Mexico border. When the
President agreed to the postponement, as opposed to a written submission that
came on the heels of this postponement request, the new date of February 5th
was agreed to when the president offered to temporarily re-open for three weeks
that portion of government that had been shut down, pending resolution to the
issue of border wall funding.
The real
reason that Democrats want to postpone/cancel the address is that they do not
want the President to attain access to a national audience, out of fears that
he would make a compelling case for border wall funding and other such
initiatives that he wishes to pursue during the biennial legislative session,
ending January 3rd, 2021. Democrats know all-too-well that giving
the President any legislative win, especially border wall funding given his
oft-stated promises to build a wall during his 2016 campaign, will effectively
result in his re-election in 2020- something that they cannot, must not abide.
Since a large swath of Democrats in both houses of Congress seek to impeach
President Trump, not allowing him any legislative victory is the “plan B” in curtailing
his presidency, irrespective of what is in the best interests of the country.
So, the
State of the Union address will proceed as rescheduled on February 5th.
Here is a prediction: once the President is formally introduced to the joint
session, and takes the podium, look for the Democrats to walk out of the
chamber, en masse, in a childish attempt to humiliate President Trump before a
nationwide audience. They will do this so that the post-address news cycle centers
around the Democrat walk-out, as opposed to the substance of the President’s
address. It is as though the story has already been written, which just goes to
confirm the undeniable collusion that
exists between the mainstream media and the Democrat Party, and further
perpetuates the proposition by President Trump’s opponents that his presidency
is somehow illegitimate and not worthy of the trappings of his office. Remember,
now, what the lessons of the last (count ‘em) three years has taught us- that
there is no depth to the extent that Democrats will descend, in order to
obstruct the presidency of Donald J. Trump, as they have time and time again proved
before, during and subsequent to his election as President and taking his
office.
Sad but true, the Democrats would prefer the complete and total collapse of this country, than to allow this President to successfully lead the nation to security and prosperity, recalling to mind what Golda Meir, Israeli Prime Minister (1969-1974), once said about those seeking the destruction of her own country:
“Peace will come when they love
their children more than they hate us.”
…and make no
mistake about it- hatred of Donald Trump, and those who voted for him and
continue to support his presidency, is that which is driving the Democrat Party,
and nothing more than that.
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio Thursday, January 24, 2019
On Thursday, January 24, from 1:00 to 2:00, EST, Drew Nickell was sitting in for Nora Firestone on the “Nora Firestone Show,” on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110, on your Hampton Roads (VA) dial. During this hour-long broadcast, he reviews the events of 2018, discusses the crisis at the U.S./Mexican Border, explains the eerie similarities of “Brexit” and “the Wall,” discusses the double standards when it comes to news coverage, and makes a prediction about the 2024 Presidential Election. This was also be shown as a Facebook Live broadcast. If you weren’t to tune in, here is the hyperlink to the live-streamed broadcast. We hope you enjoy the show.
If ever there
was a weekend when double standards on the part of the mainstream media were on
full display, the three-day weekend that was the third weekend of January 2019 proved
to be just that.
First, there
was the downright celebratory reaction by all sectors of the mainstream media
to the Buzzfeed report that there was documented evidence that President Donald
Trump instructed his former personal attorney Michael Cohen to lie to congress
when Cohen first appeared before congressional committees. Watching the reaction
of so-called journalists and political pundits, who were absolutely giddy with
the news that (finally) the nail in the President’s impeachment coffin was hammered
in and that it was only a matter of time for Trump to be impeached, was a
sickening albeit revealing confirmation that the once-heralded fourth estate of
a free press has effectually become the propaganda wing of the Democrat Party.
So egregious was the fabrication by already-discredited Buzzfeed reporters,
that a spokesman for Robert Mueller’s investigative team took the unprecedented
step of formally announcing that the bogus report was unsubstantiated and inaccurate
on its face. Yet, the mainstream media continued the “if this was true” cacophony
that impeachment was on the near horizon, nevertheless.
Then, there was
the reporting surrounding the President’s Saturday announcement of a compromise
offering to recalcitrant Democrats, to end the partial government shutdown by
temporarily extending protections for
hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who were brought to the United
States as children, as well as those escaping disaster zones, for a period of
three years, in exchange for $5.9 billion in border security funding, part of which
includes border wall funding. While Democrat leadership panned the proposal
before it was even offered, major media outlets jumped on the “nothing new here”
bandwagon, predicting its failure in the Senate as a certainty, and echoing the
mantra that it is the President who is being unyielding and unreasonable.
Then there was the report that students from Covington (KY) Catholic High School, wearing “Make America Great Again” ballcaps wantonly disrespected Native Americans who were banging drums and chanting as “Indigenous Peoples” counter-protesters to the March for Life. Equating the young students wearing the ballcaps to “Nazi brown-shirts,” the mainstream media attempted to drive the narrative that it was the young Trump supporters who were inciting violence, all based on a snippet of video showing one of these students smiling in the face of a Native American drum-beater. The problem with this initial reporting was revealed when longer, more comprehensive videos showed quite the opposite. In fact, it was counter-protesters, including members of the Black Hebrew Israelites Movement and the Indigenous Peoples Marchers, who were hurling racial epithets and race-based insults at the white students. Also, it was the Native American drummers and chanters who got into the face of the students, who only responded with their school’s sports cheers in an effort to drown out the vile and racist taunts being spewed at them. Sadly, the Diocese of Covington was quick to condemn its own students before looking at the facts of what actually took place, and the school was forced to cancel today’s classes out of safety concerns for its students and faculty.
Adding
insult to injury, we now are greeted with reports that freshman Congresswoman
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has claimed that if her “Green” agenda is not
immediately acted on and passed into law, the world would be coming to its end in
a dozen years, adding that such a world which tolerates billionaires is
inherently immoral. Just imagine the outrage on the part of the media if a
conservative Republican made such an end-times claim based on Biblical prophecy,
citing eschatological passages in the Old and New Testaments. Yet, predictably,
the mainstream media reported AOC’s claims with little or no critique of her outrageous
statements.
If the
mainstream media did not have such double standards associated with its
coverage, then they would surely have no standards at all, because far too many
segments of the media have now prostituted themselves on the altars of
political correctness and opposition to all things Trump.
Considering such
sources, we are left with nothing more than partisan propaganda designed to achieve
an intended outcome of President Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election- an
obvious “plan B,” if their efforts to impeach the President before hand do not
come to fruition, first.
Cross-Currents of History- “Brexit” and “the Wall”
The summer
and fall of 2016 set into motion a sequence of events, in both the United Kingdom
and in the United States, which teaches much about political mischief and the
will of the people who try to effect change against the tide of political
correctness.
It is
recalled that on June 23rd, 2016, the people of Great Britain voted
on a simple referendum which said, “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of
the European Union or leave the European Union?” In that referendum, 72% of the
electorate weighed in- an astonishing turnout- whereby roughly 52% of voters favored
pulling out of the E.U. and 48% voted to remain. All of the pre-referendum polls
had indicated the measure had no chance of passage. Nevertheless, “Brexit,”
commonly favored by Britain’s Conservative Party (the “Tories”) and generally
opposed by that country’s Labour Party, won the day but resulted in the
resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron who, despite leading the
Conservative Party, resigned his post due to his own opposition to the move. In
his place, Theresa May, Cameron’s former Home Secretary, was elected the new
Prime Minister the following month in order to usher in and effect Britain’s
exit, due to take place March 29th, 2019.
Prime Minister
May, who privately opposed leaving the E.U. outright, spent the next two-and-one-half
years, soft-peddling the exit in the hopes that “Brexit” fever would die down.
In attempting to broker a soft exit from the E.U., the Prime Minister “slow-walked”
the initiative, which came to a head yesterday when members of Parliament overwhelmingly
handed her a two-to-one rejection of her move to leave the European Union in a
not-so-absolute exit. Her brokered deal with the E.U. displeased both
pro-Brexit members of her own party, who rejected the half-baked initiative, as
well anti-Brexit Labour M.P.s, who insist on remaining in the E.U., and both
voting blocs joined to vote down the measure, 432-202.
Meanwhile in
the United States, Donald Trump, who defied all of the polls in both the
Republican primaries and general election, was elected President of the United
States on November 8th, 2016. Central to his campaign was Trump’s promise
to build a border wall along the U.S./Mexican Border. Following his
inauguration on January 20th, 2017, he was assured by the Republican
leadership in Congress, time and time again, that they would take up the
measure once the 2018 mid-term elections were concluded.
Largely out
of stated fears that any attempt to pass border wall funding, prior to the mid-terms,
would negatively impact the chances of Republicans retaining their majority in
the House of Representatives, Speaker Paul Ryan repeatedly thwarted voting on
the measure. His duplicity, given his absolute opposition to the construction
of any such wall, resulted in the Democrats taking over the leadership in the
House, essentially resulting in the stalemate we see today between the
President and the Democrat leadership in the House, along with Democrats in the
Senate.
In the
ironic cross-currents of trans-Atlantic politics, in both the United Kingdom
and in the United States, political correctness has won the day by cowering conservatives
who, rather than acting on the wishes of their own voters, seek to reject the
will of the people and defy their wishes to effect change. This cowardice has resulted
in wholesale rejection by the electorate and has thus empowered liberal
entities who steadfastly remain united in opposition to conservatism. Prime
Minister Theresa May has effectively become the British equivalent of Former House
Speaker Paul Ryan, as she herself is facing a no-confidence vote in the House
of Commons, on this very day.
Jumping Ahead to January 20, 2025: Beware the President of the United States
Politics is
nothing if not cyclical- especially after two-term presidencies.
In our own
lifetime, we have seen a succession of presidents elected as polar opposites to
their immediate predecessors:
Kennedy elected following two terms of Eisenhower;
Nixon elected following two terms of Kennedy/Johnson;
Carter elected following two terms of Nixon (and his successor, Ford);
Reagan elected following Carter’s single term;
Clinton elected following two terms of Reagan and one term of Bush-41;
Bush-43 elected following two terms of Clinton;
Obama elected following two terms of Bush-43;
Trump elected following two terms of Obama.
While President
Donald Trump’s re-election in 2020 cannot be ascertained with any assurance, suffice
to say that none of the “cast of thousands” of Democrat hopefuls have the goods
to wage a successful campaign against “the Donald.”
Not that the
media- given their abject failure to prevent his election in 2016- won’t go all
out against the President when he seeks re-election to the nation’s highest
office in two years. Twentieth and twenty-first century historical trends will almost
guarantee his re-election the next time we endure a presidential campaign. Therefore,
Trump’s re-election will assure that he will be succeeded by his own polar
opposite- and no one in politics today is as diametrically opposed to Donald
Trump as is the freshman Congresswoman from New York’s Fourteenth District than
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Two weeks
prior to the 2024 Presidential election Ocasio-Cortez will celebrate her thirty-fifth
birthday, thus meeting the Constitutional age requirement by a mere fortnight. All
of Hollywood, the mainstream media, and politicos of all stripes will actively and
clandestinely support her candidacy because she will still be young, still be
vivacious and, most importantly, still
check off the criteria of being a Hispanic woman who breaks with the succession
of forty-four men who have held that office.
Think it’s
impossible? Think, again.
Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez shocked the political world when she successfully unseated Joseph
Crowley (D-NY), a ten-term Congressman who rose through the ranks of his party
to become Chair of the House Democrat Caucus in his final term. Her popularity in
social media, along with the inordinate amount of attention paid to her
grass-roots campaign to wrest away the nomination of such a powerful incumbent,
resulted in her 57% landslide victory in New York’s Fourteenth District
primary. In that particular district, which encompasses the eastern half of the
Bronx and part of north-central Queens, and where half of the resident
population is of Latino and Hispanic heritage, winning the Democrat nomination
to that seat is tantamount to winning the general election in the fall. In
essence, her election to Congress was then guaranteed, and there was little
surprise that she managed to win 78% of the vote in that fall’s general
election.
Despite her
many gaffes and the absurdity of the radical socialist positions she takes on a
host of issues, ranging from taxation, education, immigration, the environment,
income equality and healthcare- just to name a few, no first term
Representative has ever garnered anywhere
near as much media attention as has Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Her doe-eyed
countenance and her toothy smile is irresistible to photographers and
television cameras, alike, and her fellow Democrats in the House queued up just
to have their picture taken with her when she assumed office on January 3rd,
2019. Despite her participation in a climate change sit-in protest outside the
office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on that day, she nevertheless broke
her campaign promise to oppose Speaker Pelosi’s run for the speakership and was
politically savvy enough to then vote for Pelosi’s return to lead the House for
a second time.
Her radical
stances and her self-described “Democrat-Socialist” identification has all but
marginalized Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who essentially coined the term in his doomed
2016 run against Hillary Clinton. The mere fact that she won in the very same
election which saw the defeat of that other “darling” of Democrat-Socialism,
Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke (D-TX), gives her a decided advantage over the
Bobby Kennedy-wannabe. While his use of the “Beto” nickname is a fallacious
attempt to portray himself as Hispanic (he actually is of Irish decent), her
ethnic roots are the “real deal” in a party where ethnicity and gender (forgive
the term) trumps all else.
Rest assured
that, given the inordinately perverse amount of attention paid to her thus far,
and kid-glove handling by the major media who sees her as the sine qua non rising star of Democrat and
liberal politics, there is nothing holding her back from climbing the ladder of
her party to win the 2024 nomination. By then, she will have tempered her
penchant to put her foot in her own mouth and she will have acquired just
enough discretion to stave off any Democrat challengers who would seek to
disrupt her own presidential ambitions. Anyone who believes that the media was “all
in” for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election (and they were) hasn’t seen
anything comparable to the coverage she will receive six years hence.
Ironically,
that same year of 2024 will coincide with the time we will be eligible to begin
receiving full Social Security benefits (assuming they still exist) and it will
be the measly pittance of our own Individual Retirement Account (IRA) that
President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will seize in order to redistribute- all in
the dubious name of “fairness” and “income equality.”
So much for
a life of hard work and financial forbearance, sorry to say.
Fifteen Minutes to the Truth: Trump’s Address and the Democrats’ Response
Last night,
in the ten minutes it took the President of the United States, and in the five
minutes it took the Speaker of the House and the Senate Minority Leader, to
discuss the logjam in negotiations on border security and the partial
government shutdown, the truth concerning all of the hubris surrounding these
issues came to the forefront…and it wasn’t pretty.
Sadly, many of the President’s supporters who decided to skip the response from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) missed an opportunity to see the full truth on display. Concurrently, Democrat supporters who decided to skip President Donald Trump’s first address from the Oval Office also missed an opportunity to see the truth concerning these two issues.
For the rest
of us who invested the requisite nineteen minutes in order to see both of these
speeches, the real truth about Washington, D.C. and all that ails it was on
full display for all the world to see…and, again, it wasn’t pretty.
In his address to the nation, President Trump did an exemplary job in explaining the nature of what has been and is taking place along the U.S./Mexican border. In copious detail, he recounted the very real human tragedy taking place as a direct result of our flawed immigration policies and the lack of effective border security. The president enumerated the list of harmful and dangerous drugs- meth, heroin, cocaine and fentanyl- pouring into the United States through the porous border separating our two countries, indicating that more Americans will die each and every year, as the result of this smuggling, than died in fifteen years of the war in Viet Nam. He laid real numbers on the crime statistics directly resulting from this illegal immigrant entry during the last two years- 266,000 arrests, 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes and 4,000 homicides. He told a watching nation of the perils that beset women, one out of three of whom are sexually assaulted, and children making the trek from Central America, including tens of thousands of unaccompanied children who have been sent across the border by those who have no interest in their welfare, and many of whom are being used as “human pawns by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs.”
The President also reviewed the specific proposals of what he has submitted to Congress, based upon recommendations from the Department of Homeland Security, border agents and law enforcement professionals, which include humanitarian assistance, medical care, technology for detecting drugs, weapons and other illegal contraband. Included in his proposals is $5.7 billion to repair, replace and construct barricades designed to prevent illegal crossings and funnel migration into ports of entry, where each migrant can be identified, assessed and evaluated as to their qualifications for entry. He has asked the Congress to enact immigration reform that will close the current loopholes which otherwise prevent unaccompanied children from being returned to their families in the countries of their origin.
He also recalled
four very real and personal accounts of those American citizens in California, Georgia
and Maryland who have been savagely victimized by illegal aliens and the very real
pain that their families have had to endure, saying he will never forget how
these tragic instances have affected real people across our country.
After a
three-minute pause between the two speeches, it was the Democrats’ turn to
respond to the President’s address and oh, how they did respond…
Without any
mention of the illegality and the resulting criminality of what is taking
place, and without any specific proposals on what they define as border
security, Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader Schumer instead took the occasion
to deny that the crisis which the President enumerated even exists, accusing
the president of manufacturing the crisis and fomenting malicious hatred
towards those who seek entry into the United States. Accusing the President of “holding
the American people hostage,” engaging in a “temper tantrum,” and shutting down
government- all in an effort to build a wall which they see as no deterrent and
ineffective to ensure border security- they instead insisted that the President
end the shutdown with empty promises that they would subsequently engage in
further dialogue following the end of the shutdown. Despite the fact that both
of these Democrat leaders have in the past voted in favor of border barricades only
to see such votes amount to nothing, and the fact that neither has done anything
in their combined 52 years of holding office to bring real solutions to
immigration and border control, they presented a fantasy of wanting to address
the problem- but only after the President “caves” on the shutdown and abandons
his insistence of “building a wall.”
While the
President still seeks to end the impasse by arriving upon reasonable compromise,
it is the Democrats who insist upon stonewalling the President- all because
they hate the man and will deny him any possible victory, and all for the sake
of political gamesmanship.
Fifteen minutes to the ugly truth, one which any impartial observer can plainly see- a President who has vowed to uphold the oath of his office by protecting the citizens he was elected to serve, and the overtly-partisan leaders of his opposition who would sooner let the country fall down and continue to see American lives ruined than to work towards a solution to a very real problem that has existed for decades, and has reached a crisis point that is as undeniable as it is in need of permanent resolution.
2018 passed by with such rapidity that we find ourselves on the precipice of 2019 largely indisposed and vastly unprepared to the prospect of a whole new year. Nevertheless, we recall and recount the major events that comprised the year in passing, as its final seconds tick down:
January- The
year began much as it would eventually end, with President Trump battling
Democrats, and a few Republicans, over border wall funding as part of a comprehensive
deal which would have included provisions for DACA, and other provisions
dealing with chain migration and the visa lottery program. Republican failures
to get behind this initiative would prove to cost them their majority in the
House of Representatives the following November. A false alarm on the Hawaiian
Islands alerted residents that an inbound missile, purportedly launched from
North Korea, sent emergency officials into panic mode but nevertheless called
into question the very system designed to alert us in the event of an actual
attack.
February- Revelations
that former President Barack Obama “wanted to know everything” that former FBI
Agent Peter Strzok and his paramour Lisa Page were up to in September of 2016,
in their efforts to take down Trump’s campaign sent alarm throughout the halls
of Washington, yet by year’s end the texts from Page and Strzok conveniently
disappeared while in the custody of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose
investigation of the President continued into its second full year. A tragic
school shooting in Parkland called into question the wisdom of declaring public
schools “gun-free zones” and the fact that the FBI is much more adept at
pursuing false claims of Trump/Russian collusion than they are at following up
on actual and verifiable leads that a potential school shooter is plotting a
deadly agenda to wreak havoc and mayhem.
March- Having
been “rolled” by their Democrat counterparts in the Senate, Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell swallows yet another continuing resolution to fund the
government through year’s end without securing funding for a border wall on the
U.S./Mexico border. The Democrats get all of the funding for their legislative
priorities, while House Speaker Paul Ryan and Mitchell convince President Trump
that this was a “good deal” for the American people. Trump reluctantly signs off
on the continuing resolution, promising there will be no other such deals that
do not fund border security. Following OPR recommendations for his termination,
former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is fired, for having lied to investigators
on more than one occasion, regarding his involvement in both the Hillary
Clinton e-mail and in the alleged Trump/Russia collusion investigations.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would also get his own walking papers from the
President himself, following a contentious year between the two where the
Secretary seemed to be at odds with the President’s foreign policy.
April –
Attorney/Client privilege fell prey to the ongoing Mueller investigation as
Michael Cohen’s offices and home are subjected to an early morning raid by
investigators bent on finding anything and everything they can to use to impugn
the President and find evidence of a crime which did not exist. Meanwhile,
House Republicans sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department for former
FBI Director James Comey, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former
Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, FBI
Agent Peter Strzok, FBI Counsel Lisa Page, former Acting Attorney General Sally
Yates and former Acting Attorney General Dana Boente, recommending formal
investigation into multiple violations of federal statutes in the way that both
the Clinton e-mail scandal and the Trump/Russia investigations were handled.
The Justice Department, under recused Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein fail to act on the referral, essentially
absolving these eight individuals from further prosecution.
May- President
Donald Trump kept a major campaign promise by formally recognizing Jerusalem as
the capital of Israel and relocating the United States Embassy to that city
from its former location in Tel Aviv. His actions also fulfilled promises of
his predecessors, going back decades, to both recognize and relocate the
American embassy to the ancient capital of the Jewish nation. Further evidence
of high-level corruption in the Obama administration came to light but, again,
the Justice Department under Sessions and Rosenstein fail to act on this
evidence, revealing a double-standard within the Department- one for Trump, and
the other for Obama and Clinton.
June- Following
an episode of her own show where Samantha Bee referred to the President’s
daughter, Ivanka Trump, as a “feckless *unt,” yet another double-standard on
what constitutes acceptable speech is revealed, where any and all such hate
speech directed at Trump and his allies is deemed acceptable by a Hollywood elite
who would never tolerate such language directed at any Democrat. Predictably,
they all fell into line supporting such attacks levied at Trump and his family.
Trump delivered a speech to the G-7 Summit in Charlevoix Quebec, coming down on
the side of the American worker and rejecting imbalanced trade deals going back
decades, which penalized American workers at the behest of post-war emerging
economies following the end of World War II. Later that month, Trump met with
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore and hammered out a preliminary
agreement aimed at ratcheting down the rhetoric between both countries while at
the same time facilitating the eventual de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
July- Trump’s
announcement that he would nominate Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the
Supreme Court vacancy created by Justice Anthony Kennedy’s announced
retirement, elicited scores of protests within seconds of the announcement.
Trump also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland and was
roundly criticized for not having publicly taken the Russian leader to task for
alleged interference in the 2016 election. When Putin revealed during a follow-up
press conference that Russian interests had donated over $400 million dollars
to the Clinton Foundation in order to facilitate the sale of nuclear assets
during her tenure as Secretary of State, as well as her presidential campaigns,
the news media “buried” this revelation under the aegis that Trump was letting
Putin off easy in failing to condemn him at the press conference.
August- At mid-month, White
House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that the Trump administration
was revoking the security clearance of ten high-level Obama administration officials,
including former CIA Director John Brennan, former
CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden, former FBI Director James Comey, former
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former
Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, former U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, former
FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, former FBI Attorney Lisa Page, former National
Intelligence Director James Clapper and former Deputy Attorney General Bruce
Ohr. The announcement set off a cacophony of protests, made largely by those
who would seek to end the Trump presidency any way possible.
September- Senate Confirmation hearings on President Trump’s nomination of U.S. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh devolved into the theater of the absurd, with Democrats taking the hearings to an all-time low. Eleventh-hour allegations that that Kavanaugh once sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford three dozen years before- allegations completely devoid of evidence and witnesses who could corroborate the allegations, threatened to derail the nomination. During her dramatic, albeit self-conflicting testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senate Democrats ushered in at least three other allegations by women whose claims are ultimately proved to be false. This overreach was largely credited with an expanding Republican caucus in the Senate elections later that fall.
October- The
first caravan of Central Americans seeking to illegally enter the United States
breached the border of Guatemala and Mexico, as many thousands from Guatemala,
Honduras and El Salvador- primarily young men- begin the long journey through
Mexico which eventually ended up in Tijuana, on the Baja California peninsula. Trump’s
determination not to let them breach the U.S. Mexican border led to a confrontation
with border guards and the would-be trespassers, where tear gas was used to
fend off attacks of stone throwers in the month following. Under-reported was
the fact that this caravan, and the ones to follow, were and are being
facilitated by liberal U.S. attorneys who advocate an open border and oppose
the Trump administration’s policies on immigration.
November-
House Democrats were successful in flipping forty seats in the House of
Representatives, thanks in large measure to the failure of the House Republican
leadership under outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan, to pursue President Trump’s agenda
on a multitude of legislative fronts, including promised funding for a border
wall, which Ryan secretly opposed. While Republicans managed to increase their
majority in the Senate, while at the same time ridding itself of
NeverTrump/anti-Trump Republicans Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Bob Corker (R-TN) and
the late John McCain (R-AZ) who died at the end of August, Trump’s position in
the Senate actually improved, as a result of the election. While the media
predictably sought to blame Trump for the loss of the House, it became obvious
that the loss had far more to do with the feckless leadership on the part of
Ryan, than anything that the President had or hadn’t done.
December-
Too little and too late, House Republicans summoned the testimony of former FBI
Director James Comey concerning false statements he had previously made before House
investigative committees. Also sought was testimony from former Attorney
General Loretta Lynch concerning her handling of the Clinton e-mail
investigation. With House Democrats set to take back control of the House as
well as its investigative committees, it is doubtful that further investigation
into Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration will proceed into the next
biennium, while the quest to find a reason to impeach the President is likely
to gain steam in the lower house. The passing of former President George Herbert
Walker Bush, seven months following the passing of his wife, Barbara Bush
diverted media attention for about a week, while a standoff between President
Trump and House and Senate Democrats over border wall funding led to a partial
shutdown of 25% of federal government departments and agencies not currently funded
for the next year. While the President cancelled his own Christmas and New Year’s
celebration plans set for his residence at Mar-a- Lago in Palm Beach, Florida,
and decided to remain in the White House seeking a resolution to the impasse, Nancy
Pelosi (D-CA) decided to spend the holidays at a tony Hawaiian resort abiding
her time until her party retakes the House on January 3rd, 2019.
Surely, there
were other major events taking place in 2018, but this recounting has caused us
to reach for both leftover eggnog and antacids that only such a year can bring
about.
May your
New Year be blessed with happiness, health and prosperity.
A Visit from Rudy on the Night Before Christmas (with apologies to Clement C. Moore)
‘twas the night before Christmas, when through the White House, not a Comey was stirring- not even that louse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that a real A.G. soon would be there.
Barron was nestled all snug in his bed, while visions of soccer balls bounced in his head. Melania in her kerchief, and Trump in his cap, had just settled down for a long winter’s nap.
When out from the press corps there rose such a gaggle, Trump sprang from his bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window he flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw open the sash.
The moon, on the breast of the new-fallen snow, gave a luster of midday to reporters below, when what to his wondering eyes should appear, but Chief Justice Roberts with eight SC justices near, and a little old lawyer so lively and tawny, Trump knew in a moment it must be Rudy Giuliani !
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, and he whistled and shouted and called them by name:
“Now, Clarence! Now, Stephen! Now, Ruth-ey and Brett! On, Sammy! Elena! On, Sonya and Neil! To the top of the Court, to the top of Trump’s wall, now, rule away! rule away! rule away, all!”
As fake news before Sarah just will not fly, when she meets with Acosta and he starts to lie, so up to the housetop the justices flew, so full of indictments, and Giuliani, too. And then, in a twinkling, Trump heard in his lobes, the swishing and swashing of justices’ robes. As Trump drew in his head, and was turning around, down the chimney Giuliani came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, and his clothes were all tarnished with NYC soot; a bunch of indictments he’d flung on his back, and he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. His eyes, how they twinkled! His dimples, how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry. His droll little mouth was drawn up with a sneer, as the District of Columbia grew nervous with fear.
The briefcase of leather held tight in his hand, and all it contained spread alarm through the land. He had a big smile with a voice mighty proud, his eyes opened wide when he bellowed out loud. He was dapper and prescient- a right jolly old elf, and Trump laughed when he saw him, in spite of himself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head soon gave Trump to know he had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, and issued indictments to Mueller- that jerk. Laying his finger aside of his nose, and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose. He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, and away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight…
“Orange jumpsuits for homies- both Hillary’s and Comey’s!”
Take all of the visceral hatred of President Donald Trump by Democrats, and all of the still-middling vacillation of those who were once NeverTrump Republicans, and all of the “go for it” adulation of the President coming from his base, remove all of this from debate between two parties, the central and defining issue facing Congress is whether or not to build a wall along the border between the United States and Mexico.
Building the wall was also the central and defining platform of the President’s 2016 Campaign, and the House of Representatives’ refusal to take up the issue of wall funding under Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), whose opposition to the wall itself- though not much talked about, has nevertheless resulted into Republicans now having to try to do so from minority status. They could still pass a funding bill before the Democrats take over in January, but they won’t largely because Ryan won’t budge on his stubborn refusal to allow such a vote. So much for so-called Republican leadership…small wonder they lost the House.
Earlier this week, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sat down with the President and Vice President Mike Pence for a brief press gaggle before meeting in private. The border wall was brought up in conversation before live television coverage, and the President insisted on border wall funding before signing off on any budget going forward. The two Democrat leaders repeatedly insisted that any such discussions should be off-camera and in private. Trump once again showed his mastery of pinning down his opposition, said that speaking about it in front of the cameras is all about transparency, asking the two leaders whether or not they were in favor of transparency. After repeated reminders by Schumer of Trump’s oft-stated intent to allow a government shutdown, if that is what it takes to secure border wall funding. Trump even offered to “take the mantle” of such a shutdown, reminding the New York senator of his own disastrous attempt to shut down the government over the same issue, earlier this year.
Why Vice President Pence was there in the first place still remains a mystery. Throughout the entire affair, Pence remained in a mannequin-like frozen pose, staring down at a fixed spot without expression…too weird for prime time.
As an issue itself shutting down the government is the last thing Democrat supporters ever want to see happen as they are all about government, everywhere, every time and in everything. Yet, shutting down the government presents no such problems for Trump’s base of support and other conservative voters who view a brief government shutdown with smiling approval.
The other reason for Trump’s insistence on securing border wall funding now is that it may never come up for a floor vote under Speaker Pelosi once she takes the Speaker’s gavel. Two more years is way too long for a President who is determined to construct a wall that will fix the problem of illegal entry, in those areas unpatrolled by border agents.
Democrats are being duplicitous in their offer of $1.8 billion for border security- a vague reference to border-related issues excluding any such funding for any wall- aside from other border alternatives that don’t work. Remember that it was Senate Democrats who universally backed Senator Diane Feinstein’s (D-CA) bill, which would have proscribed any alien arrest within a hundred miles of the U.S. border and essentially creating an open border for all to enter.
If that is their idea of appropriate border security, then Trump is the only obstacle standing in the way of such a horrifying scenario- a scenario a majority of Americans would never wish to abide. Trump’s insistence on building the wall by any means necessary, military or otherwise, may be the only way our border will ever be secured. While Democrats insist that building a wall would do nothing to secure the border and would therefore constitute a spendthrift attempt to preserve Trump’s political promise, the reality of walling off a border suggests otherwise. When Israel finally took the step of building a wall along its 440-mile-long border with the West Bank, terrorist attacks from Palestinians in the West Bank fell seven-fold, and illegal border breaches virtually disappeared-all proving that border walls do in fact, work.
So, casting aside all of the issues surrounding the Trump presidency itself, it all comes down to simply this…
…to build a wall, or not to build a wall…that is the question.
On Friday evening, the final day of November 2018, George H. W. Bush, the forty-first President of the United States and father of George W. Bush, the forty-third President of the United States, died at Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. Eight months following the death of his wife, Barbara Bush, the late President joined his wife and his first daughter, Robin, who died as a small child from leukemia in 1953.
Much will be written about the man, his term as president, and the legacy he left behind including that of his own son, who became President eight years after the elder Bush’s term ended in 1993. Praise will be heaped upon him by the mainstream media. Much of this praise will have been duly earned in a long and accomplished career in and out of public service, while much will also be driven by political posturing and ulterior agenda, which is now part and parcel of such reportage.
Born to privilege as the son of U. S. Senator Prescott Sheldon Bush (R-CT) an early advocate of birth control who also served as the first treasurer of Planned Parenthood, George Herbert Walker Bush was the youngest Navy pilot shot down during World War II, while fighting in the Pacific Theater of Operations. Following naval service, Bush returned to Yale where he also captained the school’s baseball team and led that team to the collegiate finals twice- quite an accomplishment for a man who also completed his undergraduate studies in eighteen months. Successful in the oil business for two decades, following college and his marriage to the former Barbara Pierce in 1945, Bush began his own political career in the mid-1960s.
Congressman for two terms, United Nations Ambassador for two years, Chairman of the Republican National Committee during Watergate, Presidential Envoy to the People’s Republic of China for two years, CIA Director for the two years following, and then Vice President under Ronald Reagan for two terms before being elected in his own right as President in 1988, Bush’s political career spanned four decades. Failing to win re-election in 1992, his political career abruptly ended when he lost to Bill Clinton, thanks largely to a third-party presidential run by an old business nemesis, H. Ross Perot, launched with the sole purpose of preventing his re-election.
Bush’s presidency, coming on the heels of a very successful two-term presidency of Ronald Reagan, witnessed the final fall of the Soviet Union and with it, the fall of the Berlin Wall, as well. Bush put together an international coalition to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from an attempt to overthrow and annex Kuwait during the late summer of 1990. Ultimately successful in defeating the Iraqi forces, but stopping short of invading Iraq following this victory, that decision not to further pursue Saddam Hussein was often cited as the reason for the Iraqi War being launched during his own son’s presidency.
While historians will quibble about the presidency of the elder Bush, and while conservatives will quite rightly call into question the late President’s commitment to conservative causes vis-à-vis Reagan’s commitment to these same causes, there is no doubt that President Bush came to personify the globalist, internationalist aims of the three immediate successors to his presidency, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. This commitment to globalism, and its attendant desire to “nation-build” by imposing American-style democracy on dictatorships overseas, has been largely rejected by the current President of the United States, Donald Trump, which goes a long way to explain why Trump’s candidacy was so opposed by the entire Bush family (not to mention the fact that Trump defeated “Jeb” Bush in the 2016 Republican nomination), and why they continue to oppose Trump’s presidency.
Much of the commentary surrounding the passing of President Bush will center around his willingness to work with political adversaries and seek bi-partisan support for his initiatives. His willingness to break a “read-my-lips-no-new-taxes” pledge made at the Republican National Convention in 1988, cost him the full-throated support of conservative Republicans four years later and ultimately led to the presidency of Bill Clinton. The two men would nevertheless forge a friendship and a kinship, following Clinton’s two terms as President, thus cementing an odd and telling bond that exists between the Bushes and the Clintons to this very day.
It is always sad when any president or former president passes away, regardless of our own personal feelings about their respective presidencies. We ourselves have witnessed the passing of eight of the last fourteen Presidents of the United States (including Herbert Hoover who served well before we were born), and such passings are indeed appropriate times to reflect upon their respective presidencies and the history in which they each played such a crucial part…
…and there is no doubt as to the historical relevance of the late President George Herbert Walker Bush. May he rest in peace.
John was born into a level of poverty that few Americans have ever witnessed. Bereft of opportunities to improve the conditions of his life and his family, he decides to take the extraordinary step of leaving the confines of his own existence and seize upon an opportunity to secure a better life for himself, in a place where food and warmth and drink are plenty, where sanitation exists and where access to medicines are readily available…so he forces his way into a neighbor’s home, fixes himself a sandwich, helps himself to a bottle of beer, takes a long-needed hot shower, changes his clothes into what he can find in the master bedroom’s closet, and rifles through the medicine cabinet to find some medications that will ease his pain. When the homeowner returns from their workaday job to find this trespasser making himself at home, does the homeowner:
1. Call the police to report the trespasser who has broken into his home?
or
2. Invite the trespasser to remain in his home indefinitely and continue to avail himself of all that the homeowner has worked so hard to attain?
While any sane person faced with the prospects of encountering such a trespasser would obviously select the first option, there are loads of sanctimonious people not having to deal with the ramifications of such an invasion, who would lecture the homeowner about the need to share his fortune, to share his living space along with the fruits of his labor and continue to provide comfort and lodging to someone who has broken into his home.
Such is the dilemma facing the United States today when many thousands of young men and, perhaps, hundreds of women and children are massing outside our southern border and attempting to enter this country by whatever means necessary- knowing that if past policy is any indication, they will be able to remain as long as they want. They are coached by American lawyers who advocate open borders, to say just the right things so as to be able to claim asylum and parlay that claim into permanent residence. Bolstered by the rulings of a Ninth Circuit Court which stymies each and every effort by the current President of the United States to defend our nation from such an onslaught, the interloper knows that he can wait out the President’s threat to close the border because, eventually, that border will reopen once the tempest of the moment dies down. Once inside this country, he will be afforded the Constitutional protections, its rights of due process and be given the benefits of free legal counsel to fend off any and all efforts by the federal government to have him deported back to the country of his origin. The fact that his specious claims of asylum and his request for refugee status are fraudulent are beside the point, especially if he fails to show up for a court hearing scheduled many months or even years down the road. He’s here and that’s it…end of story.
Such is the insane asylum that Americans face today and the media, along with their allies in the Democrat party, are oh-so-willing to play the part of the sanctimonious, socialist sycophants who wag their collective fingers at the President and his supporters and accuse them of racism, intolerance and at day’s end, inhumanity…
…and this insane asylum isn’t exclusively an American problem, as very similar conundrums have been played out in Europe, where so-called refugees from Syria and other middle eastern countries have entered European nations in huge numbers, particularly in Germany. Again, the vast majority of these immigrants are young men between the ages of 18 and 45 who seek not the protection of a host democracy, but who rather seek to appropriate the largesse provided by governments who have embraced varying levels of socialism and wealth redistribution. Like all too many of their counterparts in the Western Hemisphere, they have no desire to assimilate, no intent to learn English (or the language of their host country), and certainly no inclination to adopt the culture and values that are the mainstays of western civilization. Further, once they have amassed enough of their fellow “refugees” into specific areas within urban communities, they establish “no-go” territorial boundaries where native-born populations dare not enter.
Before we knew it, we found ourselves on the verge of Thanksgiving 2018, and its sudden and seemingly all-too-early arrival has caught all of us by surprise and, perhaps, dismay.
It seemed like it was only yesterday when the sultry, humid August-like days of early October dictated the running of our summertime air conditioners. A month later, an atypical cooling of November caused us to flip the switch on our thermostats to forced and heated air, as if the summer skipped autumn altogether and brought us into the chill of winter.
Amid Mother Nature’s manic meanderings, our summertime sweat turned into wintertime’s congestion with all of the associated sneezing, hacking and coughing- symptoms that usually hold off until just before the yearly bacchanalia known as Hanukkah to some, Christmas to most and then, New Year’s to all.
Perhaps, as the fifties of our last decade have now become the sixties of the next in the progression of our own age, it merely seems that time is passing with evermore acceleration. It is as though it was only yesterday when President Trump won his all but unlikely victory over Hillary Clinton, and we have already passed the mid-term elections two years later. In two months, the president will begin the second half of his first term- wherever did the time go?
Despite all of the angst, and ups and downs of the past year(s), we have much for which to be thankful on this Thanksgiving of 2018. We still live in the greatest country on earth. We still enjoy the blessings of freedom. We still take pride in our independence and the attendant rights of free speech, writing, religion and whether or not we choose to bear arms- rights largely unattainable in the world at large. For most of us, our cupboards and tables are bountiful and the hunger and deprivation affecting much of the world are things that, in a relative sense, have eluded our very fortunate selves who happen to call ourselves Americans.
Sure, there are as always, the ever-looming threats of international and domestic upheaval, the uncertainty of economic stability, the murkiness and unpredictability that goes hand-in-hand with changing cultures and behavioral norms which at once are concurrently menacing, and yet liberating, all in the same moment. It is, after all, the distinctly human dichotomy that while we enjoy what we perceive to be the comfort and caring of family and friends, we also know in the back of our minds how fleeting and momentary such blessings might prove to be. Life has a cruel way of reminding all of us that what is here, today, might well be gone, tomorrow, and that we better be thankful for what we have because, in the end, all is temporary, even for the most secure among us.
Perhaps this is why we have a Thanksgiving in the United States- to take one day, regardless of our differences, to say thanks for the blessings that are bestowed upon us. Such is the unique nature of this very American holiday. We may be black or white, we may be Protestant, Catholic, Muslim or Jew, we may be devout in our beliefs or even agnostic, but we can all be thankful for the freedoms we enjoy- freedoms that much of the world can only dream of but that we in the United States regard as ordinary, expected and guaranteed by our Constitution.
So, it is with all of this in mind that we extend our very best wishes to you and yours for a happy and blessed Thanksgiving, with thoughts and prayers that the bounty we all enjoy today, may be ours tomorrow and always.
On any given Sunday it is said that any NFL team can win or lose, and a team’s fortunes can hinge on a turnover, be it a loss of downs, an interception or a fumble. Timed right, such a turnover can and has cost an otherwise winning team loss, humiliation and perhaps a chance at post-season play. That’s football.
As with football, politics is on a game clock and time is quickly running out on Republicans in the House of Representatives. With roughly six weeks until Democrats take over the House, albeit for (at least) the next two years, Republican congressmen have a very small window to get things done…but will they?
Having failed to push through promised healthcare legislation (thanks to a last-minute thumbs down by the late (and ultimate) RINO in the U.S. Senate), having failed to deliver on President Trump’s request to build a wall on the border with Mexico, and having failed to complete an investigation into how members of the Obama administration colluded with the Hillary Clinton campaign to use a fake dossier to spy on members of the Trump campaign and launch a costly and pointless investigation into alleged Russian collusion, Republicans have effectively “fumbled” the House back to the Democrats. Essentially, they have handed the gavel back to whence it comes…back to the once and future Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
With six weeks to gain some small sliver of dignity before surrendering their power, odds are that Republicans won’t even try to do so, and that timidity is precisely how they lost the House.
So afraid of what might happen in the Senate, where it is said that all good legislation meets its own demise, so afraid of being labeled the “party of intolerance,” the “party with no compassion,” or, Heaven forbid, “the party of Trump” by a media who will always and forever be against them, their lack of intestinal fortitude, as personified by outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and three dozen other House Republicans who decided not to risk another run for their own seats, proved to be their own undoing.
Not that their failure to act on President Trump’s mandate didn’t have help from their fellow partisans in the Senate, where Republicans still maintain a small majority going into the new year. After all, House Republicans have not been able to make up their minds as to just who they are, and what they represent, since taking the reins from Nancy Pelosi eight years ago. The only real accomplishment that House Republicans can lay claim to in those eight years, is legislation passed in December of 2017 which lowered taxes across the board, simplified tax filings for a large majority of individual taxpayers, and brought an end to ObamaCare’s unpopular individual mandate. Ironically, ObamaCare was the only significant legislation passed under Democrat leadership in the four years preceding the Republican takeover in 2011, so it seems that legislative incompetence is a bi-partisan malady whose cure seems to be fleeting at best.
Major problems lingering for decades- immigration reform, the national debt, failure to achieve a balanced budget (or even any budget devoid of continuing resolution after continuing resolution), and the ticking time bombs of Social Security and Medicare insolvency- have remained unaddressed by both parties and both houses of Congress. Given the pending “subpoena canon” promised by Democrats to seek revenge on Trump’s election victory, the odds that any of the aforementioned issues will be addressed in the new Congress are somewhere between “slim” and “nil,” and “slim” just left town.
It is very tempting, for pundits and politicians alike, to blame the House loss on President Trump, but doing so doesn’t mean that it’s right. While Democrat apparatchiks can do what they will (and always seem to will), to overturn election results in Florida and other states, the real culprit in Republicans losing the House, is none other than Speaker Paul Ryan, whose spinelessness, fence-sitting and trying to be all things to all people are in the finest tradition of his Republican predecessors John Boehner (D-OH) and Denny Hastert (R-IL). Essentially, Republicans haven’t had true leadership in the House since the days of Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and his term as Speaker ended as the last century came to a close.
Twenty years, and (count ‘em) three Speakers later, they still just don’t seem to “get it.” All of which confirms the adage that, while Democrats don’t know how to act ethically when they lose an election, Republicans just as surely don’t know how to act competently when they win an election…and they have no one to blame but themselves.
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio on Thursday, November 8th on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110
On Thursday, the 8th of November, I was sitting in for Nora on the Nora Firestone Show, on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads, where I discussed the resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, how the mainstream media is failing us, the fallout from the mid-term election and what it will mean going forward, and how Democrats are planning to use their control of the House to bring down the President, at all costs.
This show appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast, so here is a link to the replay of this broadcast
Making Sense of the Mid-Terms and Where We Go from Here
When all the chatter stops regarding the 2018 mid-term election, and all of the self-described “experts” have finished blathering about who won, who lost and who should take the blame or credit for its results, some very real and tangible consequences will begin to emerge that will shape the next two years and then the four years that will follow.
As was almost expected, Democrats were able to “flip” the House of Representatives by only the slimmest of margins. As of this writing, Democrats now lay claim to 220 House seats, barely surpassing the 218-seat threshold needed to attain majority status. With 22 House races yet to be decided (again, as of this writing) the Democrats’ hold on the House will be just as tenuous as the Republicans’ hold on the House last year. With the departure of over thirty House Republicans who chose not to seek re-election, the Democrat takeover of the House was certainly eased, if not abetted by these Republicans- most of whom were RINOs whose support of the President was flimsy, at best. As a group, the Republicans who remain in the Congress are more solidly behind the President, even though their overall power has been obviously diminished.
House investigations into Democrat misbehavior regarding the launch of the Russia probe, and other such investigations of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will take a U-turn, with any investigation of Clinton and the Democrats being brought to an immediate halt, while investigations into Trump will be intensified and broadened- Democrats poised to chair the requisite House committees have already said so. Whatever progress made by Bob Goodlatte’s (R-VA) and Devon Nunes’ (R-CA) investigative committees will now evaporate into thin air, while at least two key Democrats poised to take over committee chairmanships, Maxine Waters (D-CA) of finance, and Jerry Nadler (D-NY) of judiciary, have promised to begin impeachment proceedings against the President and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, respectively. But therein lies the ironic secret to Donald Trump’s eventual victory in 2020.
With little or no legislation coming from the newly-aligned House, President Trump will be able to effectively run against a “do-nothing” Congress in 2020, while at the same time- and this is ironic- being able to portray victim-status in the wake of more and more hearings, investigations and other subsequent “witch hunts,” sure to follow. In other words, flipping the House to Democrat control may be the one thing that assures Donald Trump of re-election in 2020. After all, he now has someone(s) and something(s) to run against, whereas without this change, who really is Trump’s adversary?
In spite of historical precedence that has indicated a flip of one or two houses of Congress during a given president’s first mid-term election, President Donald Trump managed to flip at least three, perhaps four, Senate seats adding a net gain of at least three seats to his threadbare majority in the Senate.
For Democrats in the Senate who voted to oppose Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, representing states where Trump defeated Hillary Clinton two years ago, things didn’t go so well. Bill Nelson (D-FL), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) all paid the price for this vote, and it appears that John Tester (D-MT) barely escaped joining them. Only Joe Manchin (D-WV), who voted to confirm Kavanaugh, was able to retain his seat, while the only incumbent Republican to lose his seat was Dean Heller (R-NV). In Arizona, Martha McSally (R-AZ) seems poised to win Jeff Flake’s (R-AZ) abandoned seat over Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), and if that should hold, (pending the eventual outcome in Mississippi’s special election to replace Thad Cochran (R-MS), then President Trump will have expanded his majority in the Senate from 51 to 54 seats.
More importantly, erstwhile anti-Trump/NeverTrump Republicans Bob Corker (R-TN) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) will have been replaced with Trump loyalists, expanding the President’s political influence over his caucus in the Senate. With fifty-one Republicans including three anti-Trump/NeverTrump in the old Senate, the President was unable to pass his healthcare bill in 2017, thanks to John McCain’s (R-AZ) infamous thumbs down vote in July of that year.
With 53 or 54 Republicans in the new Senate, including the newly-elected erstwhile anti-Trump/NeverTrump Mitt Romney (R-UT), the President will be able to more easily confirm replacement cabinet officials, more easily get Senate approval on trade agreements and other such treaties, and continue his success in appointments to the federal judgeships. Essentially, Trump was smart to concentrate on campaigning for Senate candidates and the fact that he was able to not only retain, but then expand, the Republican majority in the Senate will bode well for him in the next two years, running up to his re-election campaign in 2020. If either Associate Justices Ruth Bader-Ginsberg or Stephen Breyer (both in their 80s) decides to step down, President Trump will have an opportunity to alter the direction of the Supreme Court for decades to come. Having already confirmed two Associate Justices, and some 1100 other federal judges, it may well be that Trump’s biggest legacy and most lasting impact will be in the judiciary.
Needless to say, a lot of new faces from both parties will appear on Capitol Hill come January. A record number of seats in both Houses will be held by women in both parties, and the effect that will have on the comings and goings of our elected officials and in the legislative process remains to be seen.
In Virginia alone two incumbent Congressmen, Dave Brat (R-VA) in District 7 and Scott Taylor (R-VA) in District 2, were replaced by Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) and Elaine Luria (D-VA), respectively. As expected, Barbara Comstock (R-VA) in District 10 lost in her re-election bid to Jennifer Wexton (D-VA)., hence the three House seats that flipped in the Old Dominion. Once reliably conservative going back decades, Virginia is now an irreversibly “blue” state, thanks both to the fact that Virginia claims more federal spending than any other state and is now politically dominated by the DC suburbs of Northern Virginia. Save for four congressional districts in rural Virginia, the Democrat takeover of the Old Dominion is almost complete and the Commonwealth has become irreversibly changed as a result.
If history is any indication, America seems to be fixated on the idea of divided government like no other country in the entire world, and nothing from yesterday’s election would tend to counter this claim. The next two years promise to be a topsy-turvy world of high drama and low dealing, with treachery and trouble-making brought to the forefront as never before.
While members of both parties, as well as President Trump, can legitimately lay claim to winning the mid-term election of 2018, it will nonetheless vouchsafe the old adage that “victory has a thousand fathers, while defeat is but an orphan.” While politicians of all stripes will claim such victory, let us hope that we the people do not become orphans in the process.
To say that the Mid-Term Election of 2018 is the most important and consequential mid-term election in our lifetime would be a gross under-statement. When it comes to the very direction the United States is going to take in the years ahead- be that two years ahead or six, the choice American voters will make could not be clearer, and the stakes could not be greater.
On the one hand you have the Democrats. Aside from the fact- the very important fact- that they are still “smartin’” from President Trump’s upset over their anointed queen, Hillary Clinton, who was certain to be the successor to Barack Obama, vengeance on her behest is the saliva that drools from their very essence. This is why they have taken their eyes off of their evolutionary course, and have steered themselves into the mindless stratagems of socialism and open borders.
No real American wishes our border to be an open pathway for anyone to merely saunter across, with an expectation of governmental largesse and eventual citizenship. To openly advocate for such an approach is political suicide, but acting in such a way to promote this policy of open borders is what has been going on, and will continue to occur, as long as Democrats block any attempts by Republicans or President Trump to arrive upon a more safe and secure immigration policy- one that works. In short, it’s all about swelling the ranks of immigrant voters, and how they got here is of no concern to Democrats who only seek the power of elected office.
In the same way, no one who has even an elementary understanding of economics, or knows the history of the twentieth century in which hundreds of millions died as the direct result of the varying forms of socialism and the wars it brought about, would rationally seek socialism as the correct solution to the means of production and the distribution of wealth. Because “the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money,” so famously said by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, socialism can only and eventually result in universal poverty and dependence on the state. Because the wealth that creates both enterprise and employment will have been taxed into oblivion, there will be no one for whom to work, and the middle class will cease to exist as a result. Essentially, the only bloc of voters who would pursue socialism are either ignorant of history and the realities of economies based upon supply and demand or are, in fact, anarchists who seek to bring down our national economy as a means to foment revolution and subsequent change to a global government in control over every aspect of our lives.
Democrats don’t like to talk about these things because they know, deep down, both positions are losers in the eyes of the American voters. So, instead they talk of the need to counter President Trump and provide some semblance of a balance of power. They know that the second they gain control of either house, the next two years will be filled with committee hearings, investigations and little else in spite of the fact that the American people want things done to improve their lives, and no amount of partisan acrimony and talk of impeachment can ever bring this about.
On the other hand, you have the Republicans. Formerly fractured in half by those who support President Trump, and those who hate him as much as their Democrat foes do, somewhere along the way they realized that the guy tends to get things done- things his more polite Republican predecessors could never get done, largely because they sought approval from the opposing party and the biased media that would never materialize, regardless. Add that to the way he can draw a crowd at a stump speech, control the conversation though the use of twitter, and the economic surge that has occurred since his election, there is a sense that whatever before divided the Republican party is going the way of departed (John McCain R-AZ) and departing senators (Bob Corker R-TN, Jeff Flake R-AZ). For a Republican to distance himself or herself from the President, is to court disaster on election night.
Aside from the Trump factor, it is the Republicans who seek to preserve the strength of the American economy, it is the Republicans who seek to stymie the progression towards socialism, and it is the Republicans who want to stem the tide of illegal immigration, the growth of sanctuary cities and the slow and steady assault on our Constitutional freedoms.
Early voting returns indicate the possibility of a record turnout by the time the votes are tallied. With such a vast chasm between two competing agendas, the American people will decide the fate of this nation, in a mid-term election like no other…
A Half-Century Later and Still Addicted to National Politics
Perhaps I was a strange kid.
Fifty years ago, at age 10, I became acutely interested in national politics for the first time…and I haven’t been able to sever this addiction ever since. That year’s election featured a back-from-the-political-dead Republican Richard Nixon running against a grudging consensus, albeit old-time labor Democrat named Hubert Horatio Humphrey. Added to the volatile mix, given the year that was 1968, was an independent candidate who ended up securing five electoral victories in the south, something no independent candidate has ever been able to accomplish since. His name was George C. Wallace.
Nixon, who was Ike’s Vice President during the 1950s, famously lost to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election. Two years later, Nixon lost in his quest for the California governorship to Edmund G. “Pat” Brown (father of Jerry Brown), and announced his decision to leave political candidacy going forward. In his televised concession he bitterly told an oft-adversarial press that “…think what you will miss…you won’t have Nixon to kick around, anymore, because this is my last press conference….” That was 1962.
Six years later, he was about to become the thirty-seventh President of the United States, only to resign the presidency six years later. No one could have foreseen any of that in 1968. The year already gave us the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. “Bobby” Kennedy. The younger Kennedy’s assassination following Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to seek re-election left Democrats with no alternative but Sen. Eugene McCarthy, whose outspoken opposition to the Viet Nam War put him at odds with LBJ who was in the midst of pursuing that war for the previous five years. In an effort to mend the breach, Democrats grudgingly accepted Johnson’s Vice President Humphrey, whose bona fides on civil rights and other liberal pursuits were well established. Not having outspokenly taken issue with the Johnson administration’s pursuit of war in southeast Asia, Humphrey was hoped to bring Democrats together. In the tussle over civil rights, though, it wasn’t the Republicans who stood in the way as much as it was the Democrats from the old South, particularly the deep South, who left the party in droves, supporting instead Alabama Governor George Wallace, known for his opposition to desegregation as personified in his blocking the door at the University of Alabama in the face of Bobby Kennedy’s assistant, Nicholas Katzenbach.
With that kind of intrigue, who could not possibly take interest in the election of 1968?
Well, yours’ truly took in so much of that election, it began an addiction to national political elections that has lasted one half of a century later, unto this very day.
Months ago, I predicted that Republicans would retain both houses of Congress and there has been nothing since to indicate that this prediction isn’t still certain on my part. It will be close, but the G.O.P. will narrowly retain majority status in the House, and modestly increase their majority in the Senate.
In the half century that has passed, with thirteen presidential elections closely followed, and just as many transformative mid-term elections also followed, there are many similarities in the ones I have observed with today’s mid-term election, with one exception, who just happens to be President of the United States. As never so intently before, this year’s mid-term election comes down to a national referendum on the presidency of Donald Trump. For his own part, Trump is rallying his base to support Republican candidates with amazing energy and stamina, to a degree and number of appearances never attempted by a sitting president. Republican success or failure will largely depend on whether or not Trump can push his voters to the polls, even though he isn’t technically on the ballot. With nothing of substance to offer, other than continued oversight and possible impeachment, Democrats are also hanging their fortunes on just how the country feels about President Trump, so they too see that the election of 2018 is all about Trump.
Drew Nickell was Back on the Radio, Thursday October 25th at 1:00 PM, EDT on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110
On Thursday, October 25th at 1:00 PM, EDT, I’ll was sitting in on the Nora Firestone Show, where I discussed the fallout from the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, how Democrats are trying to change the rules for elections they cannot otherwise win, our national sovereignty and the caravan of illegal immigrants heading towards our southern borders, and predictions of the 2018 mid-term elections, less than two weeks away.
This show appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast.
Here is the link to the recording of this broadcast
The timing couldn’t be more suspicious- a growing number of illegal aliens from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador making its way through Mexico, heading for the U.S. border and destined to arrive in time for the 2018 mid-term election.
As of this writing, the original group of 200 has swelled to more than 7,000, while yet another group of more than 1,000 has left Honduras making the same trek as their predecessors. Add all of this to the 13,000 Central Americans who have already been arrested this year while attempting to illegally enter the United States, and it has become obvious that the United States is being invaded by those who are seeking to acquire the largesse that only comes from American taxpayers, who will ultimately foot the bill for housing, medical care, food stamps and other such welfare programs…
…and the Democrats couldn’t be more delighted.
Not that Democrats give a flying flip about the welfare of these illegal entrants, nor the human tragedy unfolding south of our border with Mexico. To Democrats, these criminal trespassers offer the promise of voting power that they cannot otherwise get from legal immigrants or native-born Americans. This is precisely why they won’t lift a finger to enact immigration reform or appropriate funding to enhance border security.
Even more pernicious is the fact that this invasion is being funded by those who seek to destroy the national sovereignty of the United States by their advocacy of open borders. How else can so many thousands be sustained in their quest to breach our borders and avail themselves of our generosity here in the United States?
Thanks to George Soros and the Open Society Foundation that he started years ago, this mob of alien invaders are being fed, watered, sheltered and housed as they make their way north, and the mainstream media is all aboard with this initiative to redefine this illegal alien invasion into a “humanitarian crisis” playing the requisite guilt card on gullible Americans.
Meanwhile, President Trump is doing all he can to stop this invasion, promising to use the U.S. military, if necessary, to prevent this massive trespass and by requesting more money to fund the construction of a border wall to stop such illegal trafficking that goes part and parcel with this border breach…and what does he get for all these efforts to protect our national sovereignty? The accusation of anti-Hispanic racism, that’s what.
It’s the same old, same old from Democrats who are all-too-willing to play the race card whenever they can’t win an argument on its own merits. Never mind the fact that advocating open borders, well, borders on the insane. Democrats would sooner lead the country towards its own destruction than to serve the interests of the American people, all in an effort to seize political power away from their opponents.
So, the ultimate question facing the American voters in this mid-term election of 2018 comes down to this…
…are we stupid enough to turn power over to those who seek our own national demise?
Predictions Predicated on Prevarication in a Fantasy World of Wishful Thinking
Three weeks from today, on 7 November 2018, Americans will wake up to find that the mainstream media and all of the so-called “experts” got it all wrong, once again.
For many months, we have been bombarded with prognostications that the House of Representatives will flip to Democrat control, and that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will once again resume her position as Speaker of the House.
Don’t believe it…not even for a second.
The prediction of a House overturn is largely based in wishful thinking on the part of pundits and also on historical precedence that, in a mid-term election year, the party which holds the White House will lose enough seats to flip the House (and sometimes the Senate) to the party in opposition.
Remember it was these same pundits who told us there was absolutely no way that then-candidate Donald Trump could garner enough electoral votes to win the White House in the face of an overwhelming onslaught by Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton. At one point, they even said Trump’s quest for the Republican nomination was something short of a farcical stunt not to be taken seriously on its face. Time and time, again, Trump defied the experts and won primary after primary, caucus after caucus, and still they refused to take him seriously.
But then, the unthinkable happened and “the Donald” won it all, sending pollsters and pundits alike into a furious frenzy for his having proved them all wrong. Since nothing can infuriate an “expert” like proving the expert wrong, that in and of itself goes a long way into explaining why they have been calling into question the legitimacy of his election, ever since.
In the two years since the President was elected, the economy has improved immensely by any and all measures, the threat of war on the Korean peninsula has largely been abated, two Supreme Court justices have been seated, ISIS has been largely destroyed and the most unpopular aspect of ObamaCare (the individual mandate) has been eliminated. Personal and individual income tax rates have been reduced, scores of restrictive regulations have been removed and have thus spurred business activity and hiring levels to all-time highs, with unemployment hitting record lows, in the process. Just because the media is fixated on the fiction of Russian collusion and doesn’t want to report on all of the many positives which have taken place in the wake of Trump’s election and presidency, doesn’t mean that the voting public is not fully aware that Trump’s presidency has largely improved their lots in life. None of these accomplishments, though promised by the new President during his campaign, were ever thought to be possible, and yet no one can reasonably deny the reality that they have indeed taken place.
Throw in the despicable way Judge Brett Kavanaugh was treated by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Oversight Committee, and the promise of House Democrats to launch impeachment proceedings against both he and the President, should they regain majority status in the House of Representatives, and we are supposed to believe that the voting public will put these clowns back in power?
Democrat Designs- When You Can’t Win, Change the Rules
As any Little Leaguer knows, win or lose after the game, you shake hands (or “high five”) with the opposing teammates, and say, “Good game.”
It’s the ultimate expression of good sportsmanship that somehow got lost on Democrat politicians who find themselves on the losing end of an election.
Cases in point:
Hillary Clinton…enough said…In an upset, she lost big (in the electoral college) to a first-time candidate who all of the “experts” said would go down to defeat. Rather than accept the results of the election, congratulate the winner and call for national unity as so many of her predecessors have done, she writes a book, “What Happened…”, and goes on the lecture circuit blaming practically everyone else for her loss and demanding an end to the Electoral College that has been in place since the beginnings of the republic. Not surprisingly, Democrats far and wide have jumped on this bandwagon, as well.
Donald Trump. His stunning victory prompted members of the Obama Administration to use a fake dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign to launch a bogus investigation into Russian collusion, all in an effort to besmirch Trump’s unlikely victory and take down a duly-elected president or, at very least, de-legitimize his presidency. If that were not enough the former President, Barack Obama, and his second Secretary of State, John Kerry, travel the world meeting with foreign officials all in an effort to undermine the newly-elected President and subvert his foreign policy. Domestically, Obama launched an organized resistance movement whose tentacles reach far into the “deep state” and into the halls of Congress, itself. This has never been done in the history of a United States which heretofore prided itself on the smooth and peaceful transition of power whenever an opposing party won the White House.
Supreme Court. After a bitter and contentious Judiciary Committee fight (where Democrat Senators vowed to do all they could to prevent President Donald Trump from successfully nominating his second Associate Justice to the Supreme Court), they used those hearings to try and destroy the reputation of a man who quite possibly may be the most qualified nominee, ever. To hedge their bets against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, they spent two months sitting on an unsubstantiated and salacious claim that Kavanaugh attempted to sexually assault a teenager thirty-six years ago, when both he and his accuser were in high school. When it became apparent that none of the people she claimed to have first-hand knowledge of the alleged assault could corroborate her story, they then solicited other claims of sexual misdeeds from his college years, each claim successively even more ridiculous than the prior. That failing, they insisted upon yet another FBI investigation into the claims which ultimately failed to show any collaborating evidence. Then, they attempted to label the FBI investigation upon which they insisted, a “whitewash” and a “sham.”. Once Kavanaugh’s nomination was approved by the Senate, they immediately claimed that he will forever have an asterisk by his name and that his seat on the high court be deemed “illegitimate,” calling to mind the asterisk they put on President George W. Bush’s narrow victory over Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. They have also promised to launch more hearings on the allegations against Kavanaugh, and seek his impeachment, if they win control of the House of Representatives and Jerry Nadler (D-NY) seizes the chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee.
Now, disaffected Democrats are calling for gradually expanding the number of seats on the Supreme Court to…get this…nineteen so as to dilute the philosophical shift towards a more constructionist direction. It’s not the first time Democrats have sought to pack the Supreme Court when they don’t get their way. President Franklin Roosevelt attempted to do the same when in 1937, the Supreme Court ruled against certain elements of his National Recovery Act. His brazen attempt to suddenly add six more seats to the Supreme Court ultimately failed, but the attempt was made, all the same.
It has been said that Democrats don’t know how to behave when they lose an election, just as Republicans don’t know how to act when they win an election. This maxim has taken on a life of its own, when losing Democrats seek to undo the results of an election when their candidate comes up short…time now to launch altogether new and divisive “witch hunts,” as if the ones currently in play are not despicable enough.
The message in all of this is quite clear. When you can’t win, change the rules.
The one consolation, if there is any, is that their bad behavior has netted one positive result for Republicans and, specifically, conservatives. It seems to be the case that the anti-Trump/NeverTrump Republicans are a dying breed, for nothing can unify a divided G.O.P. like a nasty fight over a judicial nomination. With the passing of John McCain (R-AZ), the pending retirements of Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Bob Corker (R-TN) and the circling of Republican wagons over Kavanaugh’s nomination, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) excepted, those remaining Republicans who once opposed Trump are rapidly coming to the conclusion that the President is “their guy,” after all…
…and given the excesses of the Democrats in Congress, and the extremes to which many of their supporters seek to cause mayhem, the anticipated “blue wave” will barely register a ripple and may, in fact, become a Republican “rip current” taking Democrat designs out to sea.
When it comes to politics in an election year, no month can bring out the “crazies” like October. Perhaps it is sheer irony that the autumnal month of deciduous reds, yellows and oranges ends with Hallowe’en- a night of fright when the costumed ghosts and skeletons of our youth roam the streets in search of treats.
It has become practically cliché that an “October surprise” is in the offing- that sudden, unexpected and world-shaking revelation that can tip a political campaign on its heels and cause all kinds of consternation in the body politic. We never seem to see it coming, are always stunned at the content of its unfolding and then, with hindsight, pretend that we knew what was going to happen, all along.
Just as we can be sure that somewhere within the clandestine closets of congressional corruption, a burgeoning bulletin bides its time, awaiting the exact moment when its revelation can prove most damaging. Democrats have long made the “October surprise” something of an art form, most likely because the popularity of their stances on issues leaves much to be desired in their own right.
The eleventh-hour revelation of Christine Blasey Ford’s specious claim against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, which erupted just as the Senate had concluded its advice and consent hearings and was proceeding towards a committee vote, was not dissimilar to an “October Surprise.” The fact that it came a month earlier than usual is beside the point.
Rest assured, though, that Democrats have a loaded arsenal of “October Surprises” just waiting for opportune moments to detonate in a well-timed series of planned executions- whether these are intended to further delay the vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination, or to ensure a takeover of the House of Representatives.
Let’s face it. When it comes to fair play, Democrats have no soul and absolutely no sense of right and wrong. Whatever it takes to gain and retain power is fair game to them and, if an honorable man like Judge Kavanaugh is caught up in the maelstrom and his family is destroyed in the process, that’s okay so long as it delivers the intended, infernal results they seek.
What the Democrats lack in altruism, the Republicans just as surely lack in determination and resolve. In fact, the way all-too-many Republicans react to the most nefarious of Democratic tricks, it might be easily argued that their elephantine mascot should be replaced with a spineless jellyfish. In their Quixote-like quest to show sensitivity and understanding, it’s just as predictable that they will be bowled over by Democrats who can count on Republican vacillation- whether it is funding for a border wall, or standing by their President’s selection for the Supreme Court.
Here is a prediction:
Judge Brett Kavanaugh, in the end, will be confirmed…but only by a smidgen in the Senate, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking the tie…and Republicans will then retain their majority in both houses of Congress…
Now IF (and it’s a big “if”) this is wrong, and the Democrats are successful in either taking him down (with the help of two RINOs) or stalling the vote on Kavanaugh until after the mid-term elections, then the Republicans will lose BOTH houses of Congress, the Democrats in the House will vote to impeach President Trump, and the Senate will finish the job (with the help of the anti-Trump/NeverTrump Republicans). Then, this will usher in the ultimate downfall of the United States, which will become a weak socialist state, our wealth will end up being sent overseas, and we will cease being an independent nation by the 2024 Election.
I say this because if he is not confirmed, it will be more because of Republican weakness and spinelessness, than Democrat treachery, and large parts of the Republican base will not reward spinelessness and weakness with further support.
With Republican caving to (count ‘em) yet a seventh FBI investigation of Judge Kavanaugh, it is all because the anti-Trump/NeverTrump ne’er-do-well and so-called Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, one Jeff Flake (R-AZ), got his crooked nose out of joint when accosted by a trio of feminist wackos in a “restricted” elevator. Then, the oh-so-appropriately-named Flake had the hit put on him by his Democrat friend in the Senate Chris Coons (D-DE), who got Flake to change his “yes” to a qualified “yes,” stipulating that the FBI launch a week-long investigation into Ford’s accusation, which essentially gave the Democrats more time to dig up more dirt. The next day, Flake stood beside Coon on stage in New York City, and bragged that he would welcome any and all to join him in an elevator car, anytime. He’s already made up his feeble mind to vote against Kavanaugh- if for no other reason than to stick a knife in Trump, yet again.
So, it will come down to whether Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) are real Republicans, or merely Democrats in drag. The charges made against Kavanaugh have essentially become a mere sidecar to the main issue of whether or not President Trump will get a second pick to the Supreme Court, for so long as he remains President.
With roughly half of the American voters voting for Hillary Clinton and roughly half of the American voters voting for President Trump in the 2016 election, few minds remain to be made up as to Kavanaugh’s supposed guilt or innocence.
For that matter, half of the American voters are in complete denial about the many real crimes that Hillary has committed over the years, and this same half of the electorate also believe that Donald Trump is a sexual predator who has incestuous feelings towards his daughter, Ivanka. Sane Americans know very well that these voters are completely wrong on both counts, and it doesn’t take an FBI investigation to prove them wrong, either.
Dr. Ford’s allegations are so full of holes that they should never have been presented to the Senate Judiciary Committee in the first place. Without a certain date, time, location or corroborative witnesses attesting to her claim- a claim about something which supposedly took place three dozen years ago, what can the FBI investigate after all?
Any reasonable observer can say with absolute certainty that Dr. Ford is lying through her teeth (just as she lied about a “fear of flying”, and using a cell phone following the 1982 supposed assault) and that these allegations are completely without merit. That said, half of the people out there will believe her, regardless, just as they believe what they believe about Hillary and Trump.
The fact that Trump made this nomination is REALLY what this whole mess is all about, and Judge Kavanaugh is having to pay the price in a way he never should have had to do, in any society that prides itself on due process.
Assuming that the news cycle for new and baseless allegations against Kavanaugh last about four to seven days, we can roughly estimate that true-to-form Democrats already have approximately seven or eight women waiting in the wings with their own fanciful allegations- just long enough to tie up the nominating process through the mid-term elections.
So, it really comes down as to whether or not Republicans can “grow a set” and proceed with a vote, before they cede the rest of their tenuous power to their opponents across the aisle, doesn’t it?
In the Autumn of the year (and in the Autumn of our years), October beckons with salacious surprises and scandalous sorties in a world gone mad with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Putting the World on Notice, Trump Addresses the United Nations
Following up on a speech he delivered to the United Nations General Assembly on September 19th, 2017 (http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=1481), President Donald Trump addressed the world body on Tuesday, September 25th, 2018, reiterating the themes of last year’s address.
In this year’s address, he underscored the national sovereignty of the United States, rejecting the drift towards globalism and internationalism, saying that “the United States will never submit its sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.” In doing so, he reiterated the United States’ rejection of the International Criminal Court, indicating that the United States does not and will not recognize the authority of this court in any matter coming before it.
It was a far cry from the last three decades, where a succession of U.S. Presidents, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, markedly pushed an agenda towards a “new world order,” where the United States would gradually surrender its authority to an international, one-world government. Trump’s rejection of that philosophy will no doubt find scorn amongst the elitist apparatchiks who have pushed such an agenda for decades, but this rejection is nevertheless an effort to put the world on notice, that the United States will maintain and assert its national sovereignty regardless of international attempts to do otherwise.
In the speech to the U.N., the President also laid out the following premises, specific to issues facing the world, today:
With regards to North Korea, citing the real progress towards peace on the Korean Peninsula, the President stressed the need to maintain international sanctions until the goal of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula is achieved;
With regards to the Middle East, the President cited the financial commitments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan to aid the people of Syria and Yemen caught in the horrific civil wars taking place in those two countries. He also put the Assad regime in Syria on notice, that the United States will intervene if and when chemical weapons are once again used against the Syrian people;
Trump excoriated the corrupt leadership in Iran for their role in fomenting terrorism around the world, their pursuit of deliverable nuclear weapons and the regime’s efforts to destabilize the governments of their neighbors across the Middle East. He stressed that the United States’ withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal was backed by many of the nations in the Middle East, who know first hand of the dangers associated with Iran’s behavior, and he called on the world to support and augment economic sanctions in an effort to isolate the Iranian regime for as long as its aggression continues;
Regarding international trade, the President reiterated that the days of capitulation by the United States, which favors the economies of its trading partners over U.S. interests, are over. Citing specifically China’s use of currency manipulation, trademark infringement, theft of technology and its unfair trade practices, he announced further implementation of punitive tariffs aimed at leveraging substantive change in China’s behavior;
Trump also reinforced the tenants of the Monroe Doctrine, which rejects the interference of foreign nations in the Western Hemisphere. Specifically, he cited U.S. efforts to strengthen border security in an effort to combat illegal immigration and its related threats of drug smuggling, human trafficking and criminal gang activity. He also announced that the United States will not participate in the new Global Compact on Migration, stressing that “migration should not be governed by an international body unaccountable to our own citizens.” He bemoaned the human tragedy taking place in Venezuela- once the richest and most prosperous nation in South America- as the result of pursuing socialism which has impoverished its people. He called for the restoration of democracy in that country and announced new sanctions against the Maduro regime;
Finally, he put the entire world on notice that, going forward, U.S. foreign aid and financial assistance will be limited to those countries who act in coordination with and in support of our own national interests. No longer will countries who oppose U.S. policies and who undermine U.S. efforts to combat terrorism enjoy the generosity of the American people. He also announced that the United States will cap its financial support for U.N. peacekeeping missions at 25%, encouraging its other member nations to more equitably share in this burden.
At last, we have an American President who dares to question a thirty-year pursuit of internationalism and globalism. At last, we have an American President who dares to place the interests of his own country ahead of the interests of other countries. At last, we have an American President who rejects the efforts by many domestic politicians in both parties, and foreign agents to subjugate our own national sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats in Europe who do not have our own best interests at heart…
Drew Nickell was Back on the Radio, Thursday, September 27th at 1:00 PM EDT
On Thursday, September 27th at 1:00 PM, EDT, I substituted for Nora Firestone on the Nora Firestone Show, where I discussed the media’s use of anonymous sources, Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, the myth of bipartisanship, the death of due process, and President Trump’s address to the United Nations.
This show also appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast.
Dual Process- How Democrats Turn Justice on its Head and Deny Due Process
Due Process, the right of the accused to face one’s accuser, is tantamount to a free and fair judicial system, and essential to government of, by and for the people. It is the very basis of English Common Law, and by extension, the right of anyone accused of crime here in the United States.
It is as old as Clause 39 the Magna Carta of 1215, which stipulated that
“No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by lawful judgement of his equals or by the laws of the state.”
One hundred thirty-nine years later, during the reign of King Edward III the phrase “due process of law” first appeared, when restating Magna Carta’s concept that
“No man of what state or position he (may) be, shall be put out of his lands or tenements nor taken (imprisoned), nor disinherited, nor put to death, without he be brought to answer by due process of law.
The Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution’s Bill of Rights codified this concept, saying
“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment of indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger, nor shall any person be subject for the same offense, to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb, nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be witness against himself, nor be deprived of life liberty or property, without due process of law, nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
One would think that such a concept, more than 800 years old, would be beyond scrutiny or debate in a United States built on the foundations of due process, where we are governed by the rule of law and not by the political whims of fancy.
Not anymore.
Due process has become “dual process,” where the rights of the accused just happen to coincide with, and are solely dependent upon political affiliation.
If, for instance, a Republican president appoints a conservative judge to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, it is considered to be fair game that any woman can come forth with a specious and unverified claim of sexual misconduct against the nominee, and that such a claim in and of itself are grounds to effectively derail the nomination without due process. Such is the case with Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
If, on the other hand, a Democrat Congressman representing Minnesota, who is also vice chair of the Democrat National Committee, savagely beats a woman who used to be his girlfriend, he should be allowed to retain his seat in Congress and pursue his campaign to be the Attorney General for the State of Minnesota. Such is the case with Congressman Keith Ellison.
Therefore, as dictated by Democrats in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, the guilt or innocence of any individual, thus accused of any crime or offense, shall be solely determined on the basis of their political affiliation, and the right of the accused to defend himself against any allegation shall be infringed if such a person is affiliated with or appointed by a Republican President. Republican members of the Senate and House of Representatives who, in any way, come to the defense of such an accused person, shall be scorned and censored by members of the opposition party, and their credentials as a duly-elected Senator or Representative, shall be called into question and are complicit in any sexual misconduct allegation, irrespective of whether or not such allegation is based in fact.
The Constitution of the United States and its Bill of Rights be damned.
Author Drew Nickell will be featured at a Book Signing at the Virginia Beach Barnes & Noble Booksellers located at
Town Center 4485 Virginia Beach Boulevard, Virginia Beach
Saturday, September 22, 2018, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
Washington, D.C., a town which thrives upon its arms-distance relationship with anything approaching the truth, is a town steeped in lies. Lies are to Washington, D.C. what neon lights are to Las Vegas, what steamed crabs are to Baltimore, what beer is to Milwaukee, and what music is to Nashville.
Whether it be Republican, Democrat or Independent, lies are the stock-in-trade of our nation’s capital. Politics, in and of itself, is the art of the lie and the bigger the lie, the greater of its propensity to pervade the pursuit of public policy. How a politician can look into his or her own mirror at the end of one day, or the beginning of another day, is one of the great mysteries of human existence.
The biggest lie in all of Washington, D.C. rears its ugly head each and every time a politician runs for office. We always hear the clarion calls for bipartisanship, in every election year, because politicians are well aware of the public’s desire that both parties work together to solve the nation’s problems…or so we have been led to believe…and that, my friends, is a truckload of crap.
Notice, for instance, how when Democrats are out of power, whether it be in the White House, or in either house of Congress, they speak of the need for Republicans to cross the aisle in the spirit of bipartisanship. Republicans, being the spineless jellyfish that they are, accede to such requests in order to bear the appearance of bipartisanship, and usually get tromped upon as a result.
Flip the scenario where Democrats hold the majority in either, or both houses of Congress, or when a Democrat sits in the Oval Office, and calls for bipartisanship evaporate into thin air.
“Republicans need to know that elections have consequences.”
That is what the last Democrat President had to say when Republicans were locked out of any discussion whatsoever concerning his signature (and only) legislative achievement, that being ObamaCare. From the members of his own Democrat party, came the nodding heads and all-knowing smiles that accompanied his pronouncement, while their Republican counterparts sat silent, stewing in their own frustration and hoping for another day.
That day came in 2016 when Republicans, having retaken majorities in both the Senate and the House, saw the election of a Republican President, but we would be hard-pressed to see any such degree of partisan unity or support for the current President, given the back-stabbing he receives from far too many members of his own party. Perhaps this is why the late so-called Republican senator from Arizona, one John McCain, was so grotesquely lauded by Democrats during the extended week that was his funeral. Like no other senator in the history of the United States, McCain could be relied upon to consistently oppose a President of his own party, and cross the aisle to vote with his Democrat counterparts, time and time and time, again.
Can anyone imagine for one second, a President Trump acting with the unbridled arrogance of his immediate predecessor, by systematically locking out Democrats by saying, “Democrats need to know that elections have consequences,” when it comes to any issue before Congress? In each and every case, Donald Trump has called for Democrats to join with Republicans in forging a bipartisan coalition to address the problems which plague us, and his efforts to do so have been rewarded with condescension and derision from his Democrat (and, in some cases, Republican) opponents who are fixed upon one idea, and one idea only…to destroy his presidency and overturn an election.
Remember this, if you remember nothing else:
If Democrats succeed in their eleventh-hour ploy to derail and prevent Judge Brett Kavanaugh from taking his place as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, then no Republican President will ever be able to successfully nominate a Supreme Court justice, ever again, regardless of which party holds a majority in the United States Senate…
…and that is what the specious claims by a liberal professor in California are all about, truth be damned.
In the Extremely Unlikely Event of Our Own Nomination, I Confess…
Four dozen years ago, I found myself in my first year of parochial school.
My parents, reeling from a decision by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Merhige ordering the consolidation of Henrico and Chesterfield County public schools with the City of Richmond public schools, which would have entailed cross-town busing (a ruling, by the way, which was later overturned in the U.S. Supreme Court), yanked me out of my suburban public school and thrust me into a nearby Catholic school. It was a mixed year for yours truly.
On the one hand, the Baltimore Orioles won their second World Series, and the Baltimore Colts were on their way to a Super Bowl victory the following January. Not bad for a dyed-in-the-wool Baltimore fan, to say the least.
On the other hand, I found out the very meaning of the word “nemesis.” Another kid just like me- too much like me I should say- became my “mortal enemy,” as it were. We were like oil and water and we took to fisticuffs more often than I can remember- so often that for the next two years, the school made sure we were never in the same class, again. That was 1970, and I was in the sixth grade.
A half dozen years later, after walking a classmate to her class which was at the opposite end of a large high school in Henrico County, the bell rang and I took off at breakneck speed, trying to avoid being late for my own class. Wearing blue jeans and stirrup-strap boots, I ran as fast as I could towards the opposite end of the school building. Rounding a blind corner from the other direction strode a diminutive history teacher bearing an armful of books when we collided, with books and papers flying everywhere.
To the teacher’s credit, she kept the school principal from ending my young life, as he was bound and determined to do until, thankfully, she explained the full story. Accident though it was, I was still rewarded for my efforts with two weeks after-school detention. On retrospect, I suppose the punishment was just, as it is indeed unsafe for a six-foot, 200-pound young man to be running at full-speed down the corridor of a school building.
I offer these confessions in the extremely unlikely event that I am someday nominated to some position of import. After all, being an admitted conservative who tends to vote Republican, if a partisan rival were to learn of these occurrences I would be thus accused of having a “violent past,” with regards to my dealings with a fellow sixth-grade nemesis, or recklessly knocking down a helpless teacher in my senior year of high school. If, on the other hand, I was a liberal Democrat, then that would certainly be a different story, and who knows the heights to which I might have otherwise attained?
So, it is with these things in mind that I read the news of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh being accused of sexual improprieties when he was in prep school, three dozen years ago. Having gone through (count ‘em) six FBI investigations during his career, and two Senate Judiciary hearings (one for his current position as a circuit judge, and the other for his nomination to the Supreme Court), out of the blue an old classmate has now leveled accusations that the once and future judge pressed his advantage upon her at a house party, the kind of house party all of us who attended high school once, well, attended.
Never mind the fact that none of his other classmates have ever indicated that such an assault was within the normal behavior of a young Brett Kavanaugh, and at least one of his classmates who claimed to be at the party, said emphatically that the occurrence did not take place. For his own part, Kavanaugh himself has vehemently denied that such an assault ever took place upon his accuser, or any other woman, for that matter.
For her own part, his accuser is a university professor, one Christine Blasey Ford, with a doctorate in psychology, who has authored several papers and, presumably, a dissertation in order to earn her doctorate. That aside, she apparently required the assistance of Stanford law students to pen a letter to Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) recounting her sudden recall of the ‘til-then-repressed episode during her own marriage counseling session in 2012. Feinstein, who received the letter in early July of this year, chose to keep the letter to herself until the very week Kavanaugh’s nomination was to be put to the committee vote, when she decided to release it to the FBI.
So now it seems that the road towards Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court has met a snag, thanks to the shenanigans of Democrat senators who promised to do everything they can to prevent President Donald Trump from making a second Supreme Court appointment. Kavanaugh managed to survive the grueling hearings despite desperate efforts by Democrats to trip him up during the three-day inquisition of September 5-7, and despite the coordinated protests of partisan spectators in attendance…but that wasn’t quite good enough for Feinstein and her Democrat colleagues, who will stop at nothing to trip up Kavanaugh and, by proxy, the President they hate.
A fellow Trump-hater on the Republican caucus of that same Senate Judiciary Committee, one Jeff Flake (R-AZ) who would love nothing more that to throw one last dagger into the back of the President he hates prior to his retirement at year’s end, has now indicated that he will not vote to confirm Kavanaugh until he hears from the judge’s accuser, and similar sentiments have been heard from another on-the-way-out Republican Trump-hater, Bob Corker (R-TN), who desires to get his last digs in, as well.
It’s not the first time Democrats have pulled an eleventh-hour stunt on a Republican-appointed Supreme Court nominee. Lest we forget the “high-tech” lynching on Clarence Thomas, back in 1991, courtesy of accusations by Anita Hill that Thomas made inappropriate sexual comments toward her while she was in his employ, it seems to be a standard play when Democrats find themselves in an unenviable position of not being able to make their own nominations to the nation’s high court. Then, of course, was the disgusting character assassination of Robert Bork at the hands of the late Ted Kennedy (D-MA) during the Reagan administration, which coined the verb “bork,” which has come to mean a last-minute attempt to sabotage a nominee through specious and devious means. Judge Bork didn’t survive the assault on his character, the way Justice Thomas was able to do, but going back to a nominee’s high school years- three dozen years past no less, just to find some dirt that might stick is a new low, even for the “low-lifes” who now exist in the United States Senate. Whether he is ultimately seated to be an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court is now beside the point. His reputation has been trashed by opponents to his nomination for the mere fact that they couldn’t find any other way to stop him in his tracks- just to stick it to the President who nominated him in the first place…
…in a word, disgusting.
So, as I said, in the extremely unlikely event that yours truly is ever nominated to anything of consequence, let my confession be on the record for all to see.
While the country remembers that horrible day, September 11, 2001, another kind of menace looms on the southeastern horizon- one that has the potential of widespread suffering, damage and destruction.
Not the actions of Islamist fundamentalist terrorists, but rather the anger of Mother Nature who stirs her terrible tempest, yet again. Hurricane Florence approaches- inexorably, certainly and with dastardly intent on a waiting populace.
It has been sixty-four years since a hurricane of this magnitude struck the mid-Atlantic, when Hurricane Hazel came ashore near the coastal border between North- and South Carolina. Hazel resulted in as many as 1,191 deaths, mostly in Haiti, but including 95 here in the United States. An additional 81 souls were lost in Canada as the storm continued on a northern path, eventually making its way toward Hudson Bay. In Norfolk, Virginia wind gusts of 100 mph were recorded, while in Richmond, 200 storefronts were damaged and the steeple of the old Trinity Methodist Church was toppled. Damages amounted to $382 million- a considerable sum of money then and equivalent to $3.5 billion, today. Half of Virginia’s residents were without electricity for an entire week, and those who remember the storm- now well into their seventies at least- still remember cooking over candles and fireplaces in a very darkened Commonwealth of Virginia, at a time when residential emergency power generators simply didn’t exist.
Virginia would face its costliest hurricane in 2003, when Hurricane Isabel ravaged the state resulting in 22 deaths and more than $1.8 billion in damages. I remember the storm quite well, living as I still do in a house about a mile from the Virginia Beach oceanfront. The storm arrived here in the third week of September, and though merely a category 1 storm, with sustained winds of 72 mph when it hit, it would be eleven days before our electricity was restored.
Now, we are facing the prospect of a Hurricane Florence that might well reach category 5 status, prior to hitting landfall somewhere along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, some sixty miles due south. Worse, the contrivances of an angry Mother Nature have apparently conspired to make this storm stall, once making landfall- the perfect recipe for disaster as this area has never before seen. States of emergency have already been declared in Maryland, Virginia, North- and South Carolina, and this particular storm has the potential of redrawing coastal maps- especially along the Outer Banks, which begin in the Sandbridge section of Virginia Beach and extend southward to Cape Fear in the southern reaches of the North Carolina coast.
This “stalling” will also result in record amounts of rainfall throughout the interior sections of North Carolina and Virginia, with a potential to dwarf the amounts of rain that resulted from the aftermaths of Hurricanes Camille in August of 1969 and Agnes in June of 1972, resulting in hundreds of deaths here in the Commonwealth.
With nowhere to go (as the storm will adversely affect at least a hundred miles in every direction), we’ll have no choice but to ride out the storm where we are right now, at this very minute. With a case of bottled water, and two bathtubs filled to enable the flushing of toilets in the event water supply becomes disabled, we find ourselves somewhere between the emotions of dread, despair, denial and, in the end, prayer- prayer for a miracle that somehow, some way the storm decides to make a drastic U-turn, and head back towards the sea of its origin.
While the country observes the seventeenth anniversary of the horrible events of September 11, 2001, another national disaster looms large in our psyche. God willing, we’ll return to post yet another day, once the seas are calmed and a normal state of existence returns.
Fare thee well, my good friends, and may God help us all.
This week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, in the end, proved to be predictable, mundane and largely a futile waste of time and purpose. Yet for those who invested the hours requisite to witness the hearings, there were nevertheless some lasting impressions that will remain with us for a considerable time to come.
First and foremost, President Donald Trump has selected a man eminently qualified to become his second appointment as an associate justice on the United States Supreme Court- and that is quite an understatement.
Like Justice Neil Gorsuch before him, Judge Kavanaugh proved himself to be a jurist of uncommon wisdom and the breadth of his knowledge is, in a word, staggering. With an encyclopedic knowledge of history and the proper role of the judiciary as the essential third branch of our nation’s government, he showed a watching audience the sheer wisdom of his selection, and no one can argue that he is not qualified to don the robe of a Supreme Court associate justice. At age 53, Judge Kavanaugh can anticipate a long career on the nation’s highest court, and it is not unreasonable to suggest he might someday prove to become the eventual successor to Chief Justice John Roberts, ten years his senior. That he will be confirmed is just short of an absolute certainty and his confirmation hearings will prove to be nothing more than a pro forma exercise of the Senate’s “advice and consent” function, as delineated in the U.S. Constitution.
What’s more, Judge Kavanaugh outclassed everyone in the room- bar none.
Secondly, Republican Senators did a reasonably good job of examining the candidate for insights into his judicial philosophy. A self-described “textualist” whose approach to justice is based upon the language of the Constitution’s framers, Judge Kavanaugh responded to their questions with alacrity and prescience. In so doing, showed that he was well prepared for the intelligent questions posed to him by Republicans on the Judiciary Committee. With the exception of anti-Trump/NeverTrump Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) whose first three questions were not-so-veiled attempts to once again hurl insults toward the President who nominated Judge Kavanaugh, the remaining Republican interrogation was probative and, at times, even profound- best exemplified in Kavanaugh’s answer to Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) when he was asked about which of the Federalist Papers were his favorite. His answer to that question was nothing short of brilliant and, for anyone watching, a consummate lesson on the mindset of those who authored the Papers and the wisdom with which they established the foundation of the American government.
Thirdly, while the Republican Senators were largely probative, their Democrat counterparts were perfunctory at best, and petulant to say the least. Their puerile attempts to sabotage the hearings, in a coordinated succession of objections to the hearings right at the onset, showed themselves to be the south ends of northbound horses. The fact that every single member of the committee’s Democrat caucus had already made up their minds to oppose his nomination from the get-go, showed the disingenuousness of their protestations about the number of documents released concerning Judge Kavanaugh- a number approaching one half million- more than five times the number of his immediate predecessors, combined. Had 100% of the documents requested been provided, their votes to oppose his nomination would remain unchanged and this effort to sabotage his hearings was nothing more than an expression of sore losers who still cannot seem to wrap their heads around an election which took place almost two years ago.
Worse, the “Spartacus” self-analogy made by Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ), referring to his release of four documents that were originally designated “committee confidential” while attempting to throw himself on the altar of senatorial sacrifice, showed the New Jersey Senator to be nothing short of an ass-clown. He knew before-hand that the documents to which he referred had already been released for public consumption, but that didn’t keep him from displaying the histrionics that have become his stock-in-trade, all in an attempt to promote his candidacy for the 2020 Presidential Election. Not to be outdone, Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) displayed similar tactics, again in an effort to promote herself as a presidential candidate, and nothing more. From their questioning, it was fairly easy to tell which of the Democrats on the committee have presidential aspirations, and their ulterior motives were as obvious as they were pathetic.
Finally, the protesters who at regular intervals attempted to disrupt the hearings with moronic and screaming outbursts, showed that they too were coordinated in their vocal objections and it was obvious that their actions were paid for by the likes of George Soros, and company, despite media reporting to the contrary. Their outbursts came at seventeen-minute intervals. Such precision is hardly the work of unplanned and spontaneous efforts. Sadly, such behavior will prove to be politically counter-productive at best, and a threat to the future of such hearings remaining open to the public, at worst.
Sad that the nomination of an eminently-qualified Associate Supreme Court Justice has come to this, but nevertheless comforting to all that a man of such high caliber will be there to take his rightful part on the nation’s highest court.
So, to Judge (and soon-to-be Justice) Brett Kavanaugh, we extend long life and best wishes.
Anonymous Sources- the Modus Operandi of Fake News
It has become all too common, all too familiar in today’s news- the use of anonymous, or unnamed sources to put forth misinformation under the guise of objective reporting, such as…
“According to anonymous sources…”
or
“Unnamed sources have confirmed that…”
There are two types of “anonymous sources,” vastly different from one another:
The first type, all-too-rare by the way, is when an anonymous source is used because the legitimate source of a story would be in serious peril if his/her identity were revealed- loss of income, personal safety, employment status, etc.
The second type, all-too-frequently used, is a contrivance to substantiate specious claims by a supposed journalist whose “reports” are based on nothing more than personal bias and/or wishful thinking.
In an age where “facts” are in the eyes of the purveyor and “objectivity” becomes a matter of opinion, it has become increasingly difficult for a consumer of news to determine which type of anonymous or unnamed source is being used. Sadly, such ambiguity has become the source of cynicism and doubt, and why journalism has now become such a lowly-regarded profession- even lower than that of a politician.
There was a time, a generation ago, when there was a marked difference between news reporting and editorial commentary- the first based upon empirical evidence and multiple sourcing, and the latter based upon reasoned observation. In newspapers, actual news reporting appeared on the front pages while editorial commentary was relegated to the back two pages of a newspaper’s first section. In television and radio, the distinction between the two was clearly defined and delineated.
Sadly, in the age of 24/7 news coverage, that ship sailed a long time ago.
The most egregious example of this reality is best revealed in the CNN reporting that then-candidate Donald Trump knew in advance about the subject of a meeting between his son, Donald Trump, Jr. and Russian nationals, who supposedly had dirt on Hillary Clinton. The story is that CNN and others, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, was based upon supposed anonymous “sources” indicating that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen told the Mueller investigative team that the president knew about the meeting before it actually took place on June 26, 2016.
Never mind the fact that Mr. Cohen vehemently denied this allegation before a congressional committee in sworn testimony, earlier this year. Despite CNN’s insistence that Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, was not the anonymous source to the story, Mr. Davis revealed this week that he was indeed the source CNN used, and has since claimed that the assertion of prior knowledge on the part of President Trump has no basis in fact. Even in this denial, CNN insists that the story is still true, based on “numerous unnamed sources.”
The problem is that the “unnamed sources” to the story could only be Mr. Davis, who has indicated that the story is untrue, or Mr. Cohen, who has sworn under oath that there was no prior knowledge. Rather than admit the error in the report, which has now been recanted by the Washington Post, CNN is stubbornly sticking to their guns all in an effort to save the reputation of its own disreputable reporters, most notably Carl Bernstein. It was Bernstein who “made his bones” taking down former President Richard Nixon during the Watergate Scandal, and it is Bernstein who has since become nothing more than a partisan hack, bound and determined to do and say whatever it takes to take down the current President of the United States, Donald Trump.
When journalists leave the realm of objective news reporting and enter the realm of partisan propaganda, freedom of the press becomes irrelevant and its responsibility to keep the public properly informed is marginalized to the point of extinction.
Collectively, the entire array of the mainstream media regularly excoriates the President for lambasting “fake news” in his use of tweets. They even claim that his calling out “fake news” threatens freedom of the press, as provided for in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.
Yet, such claims are in and of themselves, more “fake news” because it is the media itself that imperils its own existence, with unbridled fiction based upon the dubious use of anonymous and/or unnamed sources when, in actuality, there are no such sources to begin with.
(author’s note- this is a story I wrote almost a quarter-century ago for young boys and their dads who were participating in an overnight “long-house” camping trip with the Tuckahoe (Virginia) Y-Indian Guides, explaining the change in the seasons. It is also a parable about race, diversity and acceptance…)
The Many-Colored Headdress
Many, many years ago, before man understood the passage of the seasons, there were four great chiefs in the sky. Each of these chiefs wore a headdress that was made of feathers having only a single color, and this color was different from those of the other chiefs. During the passage of the year, each chief would boast that it was his headdress that was more beautiful than that of the others.
In the spring, Chief Green Feather would begin his dance, saying, “Look at my beautiful green feathers and how they shine in the warming sun. All of the earth below is awash in the beautiful green of my feathers. All of the flowers, which only bloom for me, are supported by the stems and stalks that are green. Surely, my green feathers are the most beautiful.”
In summer, when the sun was high, Chief Yellow Feather would begin his dance and say, “Look at my beautiful yellow feathers. They are the color of the blazing sun which warms the sky and the earth, below. All life seeks the warmth that only my feathers can bring. Surely it is my feathers which are the most beautiful.”
In autumn, Chief Red Feather would begin his dance and say, “Look at my feathers, and how they adorn the trees in such beautiful shades of red. Only when I dance, do the trees and mountains show such beauty, and even the sky is red as it follows the setting sun. Surely, my red feathers are the most beautiful.”
In the cold of winter, Chief White Feather would begin his dance and say, “Look at my white feathers and how they cover the earth, below. Only when I dance, is the earth below as pure and clean, and even the full moon, above, is colored with my feathers. Surely, my white feathers, are the most beautiful of all.”
When he had heard enough, the Great Spirit which ruled the four chiefs, gathered them together and said, “How foolish you are to argue over which of you wears the most beautiful headdress. Because you have been so foolish, I will take half of the feathers from each of your headdresses, and from these I will make my own headdress. Then you will see the most beautiful headdress of all.”
When the Great Spirit had assembled his own headdress, using the green, yellow, red and white feathers, the four chiefs agreed that this was the most beautiful headdress they had ever seen. By alternating the four colors, over and over, the headdress of the Great Spirit was, indeed, magnificent.
The Great Spirit then said to the four chiefs, “Because you have learned that the most beautiful headdress is one that has each of the colors you wear, each of you will have your own time, in every year that comes. And I will teach man to mark the passage of the years as when you come and go, until you come and go no more.”
This might explain why we have the seasons of the year, but it also might explain that, although our skin may be black, brown, yellow, red or white- all are beautiful in their own way, and all are even more beautiful when taken together.
Drew Nickell was on the Radio Thursday, August 23rd at 1:00 PM, EDT
On Thursday, the 23rd of August at 1:00 PM, EDT, I was sitting in for Nora on the Nora Firestone Show, on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads, where I discussed the “nanny state” and its encroachment on our freedoms, national security clearance, the problem with the so-called “RINOs”, looking ahead to the fall elections, as well as the possibility of Trump’s second term and whether or not America is as great as he says it is.
This show also appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast and here is a link to the replay of that broadcast:
On August 15, 2018, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that the national security clearance for former CIA Director John Brennan was being revoked by President Donald Trump. During that announcement, it was also indicated that several other former officials would also be subject to a review of their own respective clearances, to determine whether or not such revocation would also be in order. These include:
Former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden
Former FBI Director James Comey
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe
Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates
Former U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice
Former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok
Former FBI Attorney Lisa Page
Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper
Former Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr
Almost immediately, the predictable and selective outrage at Trump’s decision to revoke Brennan’s clearance, and review that of the others, hit the airwaves prompting a plethora of complaints from former officials, politicians from both parties and the chattering classes from all sectors of the media saying that President Trump was playing politics with our nation’s security. They allege that by revoking such clearance, and even threatening to do so, is nothing more than an attempt by the president to quash free speech and other such rot.
If that were indeed the only reason President Trump decided to do so, then it might be safely assumed that the decision to do so has proved to be an abject failure, especially in the case of Brennan who has been on the airwaves ever since, with ever-more increasing diatribes levied at the President.
True enough, all of the ten thus listed vehemently oppose the President and, with the possible exception of General Hayden, have actively participated in an effort to both prevent his election and sabotage his presidency, by using the powers of government to act on their hatred of the current president. While that may well be the motivation behind the president’s decision to do so, it also is certain that it is well within the rights of a sitting president to remove such clearance for any and every reason as he deems fit. Brennan’s publicly discussed musings about possibly seeking an injunction against the President, through a lawsuit filed in federal court, are about as likely to succeed as his being appointed to a top level within the Trump cabinet.
It won’t happen.
Yet, despite all this falderal about Trump’s decision, the larger issue of national security clearances for all former officials who have since left government (Bruce Ohr being the exception) comes to bear.
It is argued, for instance, that the retention of such clearance enables those currently in government service to seek counsel from former officials when needed, tapping into the formers’ experience and expertise as such situations that might arise. That said, it is highly doubtful that any such scenario would arise which would prompt current officials in the Trump administration to seek help from Brennan or, for that matter, any of the others listed. After all, who could reasonably be certain that any such advice would be altruistic and in the interests of national security when it would come from those so set against the current president?
It is also argued that as many as five million of our citizens currently have national security clearance, so why single out Brennan, but this number is misleading because most all of these five million have lower levels of national security clearance. In fact, there are actually three levels of national security clearance- confidential, secret and top-secret, and it is only the latter and most stringent level of clearance that is at issue when it comes to President Trump’s decision.
The larger issue of national security clearance, especially the relevant top-secret national security clearance, is whether or not such a clearance should be retained, and it is indeed a reasonable position that once people leave government service, at any level, they should have their clearance automatically revoked. Five million people walking around with varying levels of national security clearance is, after all, unsettling when we don’t know how many of these people still actively need to retain such clearance. The number of five million seems pretty high and, since we don’t know just how many people at each level have such clearance, then the time has long passed for Congress to review the policies regarding the retention of national security clearance at all levels.
In the meantime, we have no choice but to leave it to a sitting President of the United States to make such decisions on a person-by-person basis, and all of the moaning and groaning by John Brennan and others doesn’t justify otherwise, no matter how much they hate President Donald Trump.
But don’t expect to hear that argument from anyone in the media. After all, this is just another opportunity in an ongoing quest to bring down the President. As long as it remains so, we won’t hear the end of this anytime soon, sorry to say.
The Nanny State- the Slow and Steady Creep to the Loss of Individual Freedom
Perhaps the most dangerous, yet oft-used two-word phrase in the English language is “meant well.”
Ah…those “good intentions.” They’ll get you every time. As an old priest once told me in parochial school, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” and never were truer words spoken, as evidenced in contemporary society.
The creeping nanny state, and its attendant loss of individual freedom, is a phenomenon whose roots go back well into the decades of our collective past. When government- federal, state, local and, for that matter, homeowners’ associations- find too much time on their hands, the desire to protect us from ourselves becomes all-too-tempting, all-too-encroaching and all-too-infuriating to anyone who cherishes individual liberty and personal freedom. For instance:
Just this past week, the State of California passed an ordinance that only milk or water may be served to children in a restaurant or other such dining establishment, all in the name of combating childhood obesity. Heaven help the adult who orders a Coca-Cola and then allows a child to have a sip;
While mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg pushed through local ordinance that limits the serving size of soda pop to 16 ounces, sounding the death knell for the “Big Gulp” and other such larger servings- all, again, in an effort to combat childhood and adult obesity. So, instead of buying a larger serving of soda pop, are we to understand that the public interest is better served by forcing people to instead purchase multiple smaller servings?
In San Francisco, where strolling the streets in the nude and where defecating, urinating, smoking marijuana and shooting up heroin on the sidewalk are all within the purview of protected individual rights, an adult smoking tobacco in his or her home, where children reside, can be cause for arrest and children may be forcibly removed from such a home and placed into foster care by complete strangers;
In many states, it has become illegal to smoke while driving an automobile with kids inside, and can result in arrest and/or traffic citation and referrals to juvenile and domestic relations courts;
In Seattle, Washington, where smoking marijuana and shooting up heroin is perfectly legal in public spaces, and where (like many cities) syringes are distributed any and all comers, restaurants and other dining establishments are prohibited from dispensing plastic straws and utensils as a means to combat littering and so-called threats to the environment- no mention of the used syringes and needles which prevent families from otherwise enjoying city parks with their children;
All over America, homeowners’ associations have become the new and local gestapos, ready to pounce on, fine and even cause mortgage foreclosure and imprisonment for anyone daring to display an American flag, for planting azaleas or for having any non-uniform holiday decoration of any kind. They even impose restrictive start and end dates for having a wreath on the door at Christmastime, or electric candles (only the ones with clear bulbs are allowed, of course).
Such instances in the preponderance of over-bearing restrictions on individual liberties, and where cultural appropriation of traditional American expression is rife with frequency, are sadly too many to enumerate. Worse, they are the inevitable outgrowth of liberalism and state-ism run amok- the message being only those activities of which they (the ones in charge) may grant approval and permission, are allowed.
So, while our governments at all levels, as well as homeowners’ associations throughout the United States, seek to impose regulations and restrictions- all with the so-called “good intentions” of protecting ourselves from, well, ourselves, it cannot be over-stated as to the ill-effects of such imposition on the freedoms we cherish and the attendant incremental loss of individual liberty, but then again…
“Not Great?” Andrew Cuomo and his Unintended Confession
“We’re not going to make America great again; it was never that great. We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged…”
-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, 15 August 2018
Not great?
Really?
While at once signing a bill into New York state law, and attempting to stick his thumb into Donald Trump’s eye by making a snide reference to the President’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) put his sizable foot into his sizable mouth on Wednesday, August 15, 2018. In doing so, he unwittingly and unintentionally revealed the deep contempt he, and other so-called “progressives” have towards their own country, the United States of America.
Cuomo is not the first, and by no means is he the only, liberal Democrat to voice his disdain for the United States. Sentiments blaming America first and calling into question America’s greatness have been, and still are, a mainstay of leftist thought throughout the world, so it is no surprise that the New York governor should question America’s greatness- it’s what liberals really think.
Take for instance what Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said about the entire American justice system, following a Q & A session at Dillard University in New Orleans, earlier this month:
“The hard truth about our criminal justice system: It’s racist…I mean front to back…”
The entire criminal justice system, and all who are part of that justice system- law enforcement, attorneys, judges, the courts, corrections, constitutional protections favoring the accused, “front to back” as she says, “racist.”
It’s all just enough to make us puke, truth be told.
Whether they be liberals, leftists or, as they call themselves “progressives,” politicians (and also pundits, by the way) like Cuomo and Warren basically hate America, though they would never come out and say so outright. Instead, they pursue their nefarious goals of socialism and one-world government by attacking the institutions of our democracy, our founding principles and the history of a country that has done more- far more- to promote and secure the blessings of liberty and equality across the entire world, than any nation or empire ever has before.
The history of American greatness is without question, despite attempts from academics and scholars to erase this history from our children’s textbooks, and call into question this greatness in our classrooms.
Twice in the 20th century Americans sacrificed hundreds of thousands of lives to save the world from totalitarian aggression on lands far away from their own shores. Many tens of thousands more Americans sacrificed their lives attempting to save the world from communist hegemony- again in other lands, far away from the United States. Thousands more Americans have sacrificed their lives in opposition to Islamic extremism, which seeks to bring the world under its domination through global jihad, all in an effort to bring about the final apocalypse.
So much sacrifice, so little respect.
There are countless other examples of American greatness- leading the world during an industrial revolution that created out of nothing, a middle class which bridged the gap between the poverty of many and the wealth of a relative few. Leading the world through technological innovation, the United States enabled the human species to fly in the air, land on the moon, explore the far reaches of the universe, and create the means for instantaneous global communications. No nation in the history of the world has been more generous in its largesse, particularly when it comes to post-war assistance America has given to its erstwhile enemies time and time again, and no nation has done more than America to combat the world’s common maladies- poverty, disease, hunger and yes, oppression.
But that’s not good enough for a New York Governor, a Massachusetts senator and many others from their own Democrat party and persuasion, who see nothing good in America’s past and present because, as they see it, Americans are not “fully engaged,” whatever the hell that means.
As Eric “Otter” Stratton (played by Tim Matheson) incredulously asked his former paramour, Mandy Pepperidge (played by Mary Louise Weller) in the 1978 blockbuster motion picture Animal House, the same question should be asked of all liberals who call into question America’s greatness…
They are the “Dirty Dozen” of the G.O.P., so-called and self-described Republicans who, to a man, oppose Republican President Donald Trump at every opportunity, and would much have preferred Hillary Clinton to have been elected in 2016.
Their names- former President George Bush, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), National Review’s Senior Editor Jonah Goldberg, Weekly Standard’s Editor-in-Chief Steven Hayes, Ohio Governor John Kasich, Weekly Standard’s Founder and Editor-at-Large Bill Kristol, Senator John McCain (R-AZ), former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, and Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) read like a Rogues Gallery of Republican rattlesnakes, coiled and ready to inject their politically-deadly venom into Donald Trump and his presidency.
Besides the fact that they all claim to be Republicans, and claim to be conservatives, they share but two things in common- their hatred of the current President and their opposition to all he does for the simple sake of opposition, itself.
Let’s face it. These guys seldom, if ever, voiced any real opposition to former Democrat Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and yet try to outdo one another in criticizing President Donald Trump.
Why?
Well, that’s the tough question, but odds are that it is largely because their bitter egos and their lofty senses of self-esteem could not and would not support a Republican nominee who basically failed to kiss their asses and seek their support of his candidacy. Sure, they object to the President’s style, the fact that he tweets and a myriad of other petty complaints they have about this, that and the other. Yet, despite the fact that Donald Trump is pursuing a solidly-conservative agenda and, in doing so, is keeping the promises he made during the 2016 campaign, these twelve- and a host of others- would sooner see the current President hang from the gallows than to see Hillary Clinton imprisoned for the very real crimes she committed before and during her own runs for the White House…
…and therein lies the problem.
When Donald Trump faces opposition from Democrats, such opposition is, on one level, to be expected. After all, partisan opposition is the hallmark of any self-respecting two-party system, be it Tory vs Labour or Democrat vs Republican. The fact that Democrats have crossed the line of sanity in their opposition of Trump is besides the point. They are the opposition. Enough said.
Yet, when a sitting Republican U.S. President faces such vehement opposition from the politicos and pundits within his own party, it bespeaks of their hypocrisy and treachery to a level not seen in the political history of either party. How can a Republican President succeed when influential members of his own party seek to destroy him and his presidency at every turn?
Ask Tim Pawlenty.
Last night, the former Governor of Minnesota lost in his bid to gain that state’s Republican nomination to a man backed by President Trump, one Jeff Johnson, a relatively unknown county commissioner and former state assemblyman who had the sense to embrace the Trump presidency and garner Trump’s endorsement. Pawlenty’s disdain for the President is well-known, having once called Trump “unsound, uninformed, unhinged and unfit (to be president).” Such posturing rendered the one-time popular Pawlenty unelectable in a state where Republicans have a reasonable chance of taking back a governorship once held by the G.O.P.
The lesson is simple- oppose the Republican president and you oppose the Republican electorate, thus finding yourself minimized and teetering on the precipice of political extinction. The fact that Senators Corker, Flake and McCain are not going to seek re-election, and the fact that Sasse’s re-election in 2020 is in peril in a year where the President will be seeking his own re-election, speaks loud and clear with regards to who holds the trust and support of the Republican electorate- and it isn’t them. Rapidly declining subscriptions to the Weekly Standard and National Review, once mainstays of conservative political thought, shows what the reading public thinks of Messrs. Goldberg, Hayes and Kristol, and it isn’t much.
Oddly enough, Mitt Romney has received the endorsement of President Trump for his run for the Senate, but that is only because he is the Republican nominee for Utah, and for no other reason. Trump would have rather endorsed any other Republican, but it was Romney who got his party’s nomination in that state. Suffice to say that the political careers of the Bush brothers have come to a close, and their influence on Republican voters, if they ever really had such, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. The same holds true for Ohio Governor John Kasich, whose endorsement of state Senator Troy Balderson to the Ohio 12th Congressional seat wasn’t enough to push him over the top- Balderson needed the President’s endorsement to win a narrow victory last week over an up-and-coming Democrat, Danny O’Connor.
A look into the Kansas Governor’s race, one in which Kris Kobach narrowly defeated incumbent Governor Jeff Colyer for the Republican nomination, shows the power of a Presidential endorsement in the age of Trump, and other recent elections reveal a Republican electorate migrating away from the aging relics of mainstream/milquetoast Republicans who stand for nothing except their own precious power and influence. Kobach embraced the President, gained his endorsement and won in a tight race against a Republican incumbent governor who sought to distance himself from the President. So much for seeking to be all things to all people, right Governor Colyer?
While there are others, like Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME) who might well have been included in the G.O.P. “Dirty Dozen,” it also seems that these longtime Republican stalwarts are beginning to see the light that is the Trump presidency. Their well-known pro-abortion bona fides won’t keep them from voting to support Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, just as they voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. These women are just smart enough to know where their bread is buttered, even if they remain “un-plussed” with the current President.
Republicans who fail to support their President imperil the power that their party holds in both houses of Congress. If the House (and much less likely the Senate) flips to the Democrats, the big lie will be proffered by the media that it is Donald Trump’s fault, and no one else’s.
Truth be told, though, it will be the fault of the G.O.P. “Dirty Dozen” and other so-called Republicans who, like their Democrat counterparts, cannot and will not accept the reality of the Trump presidency. With such “Republicans,” who in the hell needs Democrats, anyway?
Someday, in the not-so-very-distant future, Robert Mueller’s probe into allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to disrupt the 2016 presidential election will come to an end, and with it will go the attendant allegations that President Donald Trump obstructed justice when he fired FBI Director James Comey in May of 2016.
Eventually, time and circumstance will run out on Mueller, primarily because there was, is and never will be any “there” there. The costly investigation (approaching $20 million as of mid-August, 2018) has substantiated neither collusion nor obstruction, primarily because the former was based upon a bogus dossier paid for by Trump’s opponent and the latter is based on the erroneous precept that a president hasn’t the power to fire an FBI Director.
Setting aside a possible, but not probable Democrat takeover of the House of Representatives, President Trump will not be impeached for the simple lack of an impeachable offense. Try as they might, bad actors from both political parties will find that they cannot impeach a president merely because they find that president detestable, and there is not even a mathematical chance of Republicans losing enough seats in the Senate to enable 67 votes to convict the President in the event he is impeached.
So, moving beyond the juvenile fantasies of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) to “impeach 45,” the United States of America will emerge from the 2018 mid-term election with a Trump presidency intact, and the next political struggle will be the 2020 presidential election with a whole new set of challenges facing our sorely divided nation.
If the last nineteen months are any indication, the President will continue to check off the many promises he made during his election campaign while his opponents within and outside government will do all they can to besmirch his good name, obstruct his initiatives and oppose his every move in an effort to bring him down. That said, the American people will tire of the libelous and slanderous news coverage he has been getting from across the media, and easily reelect him by once again defying all of the pundits and pollsters who will attempt to convince them that his reelection is impossible, based on polling not worth spit in the wind.
Beyond 2020, the President will face the enormous burden of re-uniting a divided country in a way that no president has ever had to do, since the end of the American Civil War. It will be no small task considering the venom and animus that has filled our airwaves and internet with a level of visceral hatred unseen at any time in the lifetime of anyone living, today. Since the media gave his predecessor a pass on the divisiveness concocted by Barack Obama, President Trump will have the dual duties of piecing back together an American society divided by identity in the wake of the last three presidencies, along with a polarized political polemic made possible by a media fixation on a scandal that, in the end, wasn’t (Trump/Russia). Never mind the fact that real criminal activities perpetrated by Hillary Clinton and her campaign, those of the Obama administration, and a cross-current of governmental departments during Obama’s presidency will largely go unpunished for the time being, thanks to the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. If he is not replaced early next year, the President will continue to find no friends in a Justice Department opposed to his very presidency.
However, none of that inside-the-beltway blather will mean much to the American people who are quietly coming to the regrettable conclusion that peaceful political discourse, in the cities and towns where they live, is going the way of the telegraph. In short, when the people become so divided on intractable issues that are at once irreconcilable, and yet fundamental in their scope and substance, the desire to seek compromise and consensus becomes impossible. When that happens, conflict in all its ugly forms becomes inevitable.
President Trump will likely cruise to re-election on the strength of the American economy, and the fact that no Democrat can prevail against him- that’s the good news. However, the America that will follow his re-election will be an America that no president would ever wish to govern, given the stridency of a people so divided in party and purpose that interpersonal communication can no longer fix what ails it. While it is possible that a President Trump- unfettered by the distraction attendant to the Mueller investigation- can find a way to bring his country together, doing so would require the Congress, the Senate, the “deep state” and the media to give him the benefit of doubt- something that won’t happen as long as their hatred of a president transcends their presumed love of a country.
Wishful Thinking in the August of a Mid-Term Election Year
In every August of any given mid-term election year, the most overrated, yet subsequently under-accounted for occupations are those of pundits who, based on nothing more than their own wishful thinking, pretend to have insight into the election taking place that November. Such prognosticators often cite selective polling, essentially using the polling source(s) which bears closest resemblance to their own biases. With a look into just how keen an insight into actual election results they really have, consider 2016 when they got it all wrong- practically to a pundit.
So, it is with such grains of salt that we take reports from our selective news sources regarding yesterday’s special elections in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and Washington. The actual voting results in most all of these contests have little or nothing to do with the commentary proffered to explain what the results mean with regards to November. Nevertheless, pundits having little or nothing to otherwise occupy their itching and self-absorbed little minds will all queue up at the “group-think grill” to get their slices of tasty talking points, and make predictions that are conveniently forgotten when the votes are counted in November.
In this mid-term election year of 2018, the group-think commentary of pundits explaining yesterday’s votes already had the “story” written, offering to explain the voting and what it means for November. Whether specific candidates endorsed by President Trump won or lost their respective elections are beside the point. Either way, the narrative coming from all sectors of the mainstream media is that Donald Trump is putting a drag on his fellow Republican candidates…now, get this- based on his tweeting, no less, or so they say…and that’s their explanation as to why either the Democrat would win by any margin, or why a Republican would win by a slim margin. Any Republican winning by a large margin is said to have won…again, get this- in spite of Trump.
There’s nothing like taking on the two things the media hates most about the President- the fact that he delivers his messaging in a way that completely bypasses the press by his tweeting, and the fact that he has become quite adept at manipulating what he knows to be adverse coverage, much as one with a laser pointer can tease and misdirect a pursuant cat. Then, while the media falls over themselves in frantic pursuit of damaging information (select the topic), Trump goes about his business of fulfilling his campaign promises like checking off a list of completed tasks- and this is the guy that all of the “experts” say is about to be crushed under the onslaught of a giant blue wave?
Well, let’s look at that blue wave. It is made up from false and irrelevant assumptions, gained from some (but not all) past mid-term elections, where the party in power loses enough seats to flip one or both houses of Congress. Such a flip coming from a fractured Democrat Party united solely in their hatred of, and impeachment fantasies towards, Donald Trump and one that meanders close to the precipice of oblivion in their party’s creeping embrace of socialism and open borders.
Half of the Democrats, including most of their party’s leadership like minority leaders Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), are the Democrats of old…voted in from the same old diverse array of aggrieved and targeted special interest groups, based on race and other such identities, and who were all in for Hillary Clinton’s nomination and election. When the latter didn’t happen, they refused to acknowledge Trump’s victory and instead went about “resisting” the new President on the orders of outgoing President Barack Obama (who created the resistance movement the day after Trump was elected) and Hillary Clinton, whose coronation was thwarted by a first-time candidate who she despises.
The other half of Democrats are those who have embraced the socialism offered by Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. These charlatans are supported heavily by young liberals who have not been educated in the sad history of the hundred million plus lives lost, in the last century’s struggle with socialism in all its many forms. Their pursuit of open borders, voting rights for illegals and free everything- housing, higher education, and health care for all- is fiscally impossible, but nevertheless represents the shiny new toy to the children of the left, prompting DNC Chairman Tom Perez to identify Ocasio-Cortez the future of his party.
What the pundits would have us believe is that the majority of the American electorate, whose wages have become a little higher, whose jobs have become much more plentiful, and whose overall economy has taken off like a rocket in the wake of the Trump presidency, are going to cast all of that aside and support instead the impeachment of a president and/or the insanity that is emblematic of the socialist movement in America, today.
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio, Thursday, August 2nd at 1:00 PM, EDT
I was back on the radio Thursday, August 2nd, sitting in for Nora Firestone on her show on WKQA-AM, Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads, VA. On the show, I was discussing the reaction to President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the “Deep State,” the fallout from Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin, the #WalkAway movement and predictions about the 2018 mid-term elections.
This was also presented as a Facebook live broadcast, and here is the link to the replay of that broadcast:
While no one in the media will ever admit this, it is becoming ever more evident that President Donald Trump is practically unbeatable within the U.S. electorate. Sure, there are pockets within the electorate- coastal elitists, aggrieved identity groups, socialists, open-border advocates and politicians of both parties who despise the President. These make up that part of the electorate vehemently opposed to Donald Trump and his presidency.
Yet taken together, they cannot begin to counter the pro-Trump voters within that same electorate who are more loyal to Trump, as a percent of the Republican voters, than any other Republican President, ever. Not that this fact is reflected in the representatives and senators who presently comprise the legislative caucuses in both houses, for there are scores of Republicans who tacitly or actively oppose the President at every opportunity to do so.
The most vociferous amongst these anti-Trump Republicans are those who are not seeking re-election in the fall, which says much albeit unintentionally, about the actual power Trump holds over members of his own caucus who are running for re-election. “Oppose Trump at your own peril” is not only a warning…it’s a stark reality, and for Republicans to deny that this is the age of Trump, is to ignore the fact that the G.O.P. will live or die based upon the degree to which they embrace, support and back the current President of the United States.
To be precise, this fall’s election is a referendum on Donald Trump, plain and simple.
If Democrats take over the House, their first order of business will be to impeach the President- reason to be determined. Much like the opponents to the President’s selection for Justice Kennedy’s seat on the Supreme Court being at the ready, armed with pre-printed protest signs, in need only of a name to fill in the blank, they’ll figure out some excuse to charge the President with a fabrication of a supposed crime, because they know they can’t impeach a sitting president just because they hate the man. The fact that there will not be enough votes in the Senate to ultimately convict the President is irrelevant to Democrats, because they only need to approve articles of impeachment to bottle up the Congress until 2020, when then they can have a shot at the White House, itself.
On the other hand, if Republicans can retain their majority in the House, then impeachment of the President will be averted and the issue will be to what degree the House is willing to work with the President on the key issues of health care, spending, taxation, border security and immigration reform. The pending departure of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has already set up a run-off between his heir apparent, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and a member of the House Freedom Caucus, Jim Jordan (R-OH). This contest will say much regarding the future of Republicans in the House of Representatives.
Given the strength of the economy, international developments ranging from North Korea to NATO to the Middle East, the defeat of ISIS and in keeping the promises made during his campaign in 2016, the case for voting against Trump has become exclusively partisan- opposing the President for its own sake, rather than for tangible reasons.
Anyone who believes that a majority of this country is actually for open borders, for guaranteed basic income and for “free” education, health care and housing- as are becoming the primary issues upon which Democrats are increasingly advocating- is delusional to believe that this is even remotely approaching a winning platform. Here’s a prediction: scores of Democrat voters will either stay home or abandon the excesses of their own party, and oppose their most leftward-leaning incumbents and candidates running for office. Yes, it’s true that many incumbent Democrats are being pushed aside by socialist upstarts in Democrat primaries, but this will only serve to lessen the support that these new Democrats will ultimately receive at the polls this fall.
Taken together, it appears that Trump’s party is not only well-positioned to prevail this fall, but it is Trump who is in the driver’s seat to win re-election in 2020, so “Plan A” of the Democrats to rid the country of one Donald Trump by voting him out of office is becoming increasingly unlikely.
Never fear though. Democrats who often find themselves unable to secure the policies they promote are well-versed and well-trained to seek from the courts that which they can’t achieve through the legislative process. That’s why we have activist judges who write the laws from the bench that Democrats are unable to pass, legislatively.
So “Plan B” will be to oppose Trump in the courts and then hope that somehow the Mueller probe can come up with something…anything…to get Trump in the hot water they so desperately seek. Any Republican “rat” they can find to support this effort will be all the more welcomed to join in the fray, but many of them won’t be around next year, so Democrats seeking Trump’s removal will have to rely on their compatriots in the “deep state” and their allies in the mainstream media to do their bidding, instead.
Otherwise, President Donald Trump will be around until January of 2025, which will drive the likes of Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and company out of their ever-loving minds and further deteriorate the Democrat Party, as we’ve come to know it…that’s the good news.
The bad news?
Well, if you think that the country is polarized today, then just imagine this country with Donald Trump’s re-election in 2020…it will be war in the streets, sorry to say, and the one chance this nation has to correct the errors of its ways in following a globalist agenda for almost a century, will hang in the balance under a President elected to do quite the opposite.
Trump Meets with Putin in Finland and then all Helsinki Breaks Loose
President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, July 16th and, as a result of the press conference which took place immediately afterward, all Helsinki broke loose.
It wasn’t as if the stern reaction by the media, Democrats and anti-Trump/NeverTrump Republicans to Trump’s words wasn’t planned in advance. In fact, given the curious timing of Robert Mueller’s indictments of twelve Russian generals delivered by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on the Friday before, one might say all of the tempests in a veritable teapot were already set to boil over well in advance.
For instance, following Rosenstein’s announcement at the end of last week, Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) once again proved to be the south end of a northbound horse when he stated that the President “should not be allowed to meet with Putin in private, without three of four Americans in the room to witness the conversation.” In other words, the Virginia Democrat basically indicated that a duly-elected U.S. President (namely, one Donald Trump) cannot and should not be trusted to meet privately with a Russian President, and therefore such a meeting should not be allowed to take place.
Then, following the press conference, it was none other than Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN)- the same Steve Cohen who said that disgraced FBI Agent Peter Strzok merited a Purple Heart for the supposed grilling he underwent by House Judiciary and Oversight Committees earlier last week- called for a military coup d’état to take place prior to Trump’s return to the White House, because “the Commander-in-Chief is in the hands of our enemy.”
Not to be outdone, the former CIA Director under President Barack Obama, John O. Brennan, had the temerity to accuse the current President of “high crimes and misdemeanors worthy of impeachment,” calling on House Republicans to initiate impeachment proceedings, upon the President’s return to Washington, D.C. Once a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA who voted for communist party nominees for President in the 1970s, and a born and raised Catholic son of Irish immigrants who renounced his Christian faith and changed his religion to Islam, long before he was tapped by Obama to head the CIA, Brennan was the one who went around Washington peddling copies of dossiers, paid for by Hillary Clinton, that were used to obtain FISA warrants against Carter Page and others associated with the Trump campaign.
Speaking of dossiers, it was Senator John McCain (R-AZ) who first delivered the Clinton-funded dossier to FBI Director James Comey, which prompted the illegally obtained FISA warrants against Trump and his campaign, and ultimately led to the Mueller probe. The supposedly ailing senator had enough chutzpah to release a statement excoriating the Republican President, saying that Trump’s comments made at the Helsinki press conference were “the most disgraceful comments ever made by a U.S. President before a Russian,” basically charging the president with treason- a sentiment shared by former President Bill Clinton’s press secretary, Joe Lockhart.
Despite universal Democrat condemnation, there were enough anti-Trump/NeverTrump Republicans, including the usual cast of Trump-haters like Senators Ben Sasse (R-NE), Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Bob Corker (R-TN) and others who routinely bash the President, to jump on the pile of disdainful reaction to the press conference and make the outrage a truly bi-partisan affair, leaving the President to fend for himself, yet again.
With help from most all of the mainstream media, Trump’s enemies immediately twisted the President’s comments into taking Putin’s denials as undeniable fact in the face of U.S. intelligence findings that Russian government attempted to disrupt the 2016 presidential election when Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, her server and the DNC servers were hacked in the winter and spring prior to that year’s election. Notably absent from the reporting was the fact that the RNC servers were also attacked, but yet not compromised due to better protection. Also missing from the reporting was the seldom-stated fact that the Clinton server, and the DNC servers remain “missing,” an important point which is only and repeatedly mentioned by the President, as Trump did during the press conference. Trump stressed that he had “great confidence” in the U.S. intelligence services, but also noted that “…Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial…” This discrepancy was quickly turned by the media into a supposed repudiation of our own intelligence services at the behest of Putin, as if both claims cannot possibly be true.
The fact is that both statements by the president are most likely true. After all, it can be true that the President has great confidence in our intelligence, while at the same moment saying that Putin was strong and powerful in his denial- not that an extremely biased media, along with his own political adversaries are going to give our President any such degree of slack. No, they were looking for a reason to pounce on Trump in advance, and the President apparently gave them ample space to do so.
Most egregiously, the post-conference reporting by the media has universally ignored the fact that it was Putin himself who stated that Russian interests provided over $400 million to help Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign (an obvious reference to pay-for-play contributions to the Clinton Foundation in exchange for the transfer of 20% of the domestic uranium stockpiles to Russian control in 2010). Once again, leave it to the media to give Hillary Clinton a pass for her own very real criminal activity, while at the same time creating yet another brouhaha as a supposed justification for a possible Trump impeachment.
It is an undeniable certainty that Trump was going to incur the wrath of his political opponents across the spectrum, regardless of the degree to which he presented the findings of domestic intelligence to Putin- something the President quite rightly said should be done in person- that the Russians attempted to interfere in the 2016 elections. Considering the fact that Russians have been doing this to the United States and other countries since the late 1920s and considering the fact that President Barack Obama used taxpayers’ money ($349,276.00) to interfere with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu’s reelection in 2015, it is curious and altogether telling that Putin’s alleged “tampering” is all of the sudden being termed as “an act of war” perpetrated against the United States… an act of war between the two countries who hold 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons… and they seek to blame Trump for being irresponsible, all the while accusing him of being treasonous?!?
Ironically, avoiding thermo-nuclear war between Russia and the United States, at a time when Russian/U.S. relations are at an all-time-low, was the very reason why President Trump sat down with Putin, in order to begin a dialogue aimed at reducing the risk of such a war. To listen to Trump’s political enemies and detractors, it was accusing Putin of interference in our elections that really mattered, when all Helsinki broke loose on Monday, July 16th.
When FBI Agent Peter Strzok testified before a joint session of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees on Wednesday, July 12th, what became apparent was evidence of a well-entrenched “deep state,” explicitly personified in the demeanor, bearing and testimony of the witness being questioned. While no significant revelations resulted from the day-long hearing, what did manage to surface was the fact that Strzok was inordinately biased in his handling of the Clinton e-mail, Trump/Russia, and the Mueller investigations- three separate investigations in which he was conveniently placed in charge.
The very fact that the same man was placed in charge of all three investigations was telling, in and of itself, especially given the fact that Robert Mueller initially placed him in charge of the latter investigation, knowing full well that Strzok’s credibility had already been besmirched in the two prior investigations of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Worse, when his texts became public and Mueller had no choice but to remove him from his own investigation, it was only for the “appearance of a conflict of interest” as opposed to an obvious conflict of interest as evidenced by the texts he exchanged with Lisa Page, a Justice Department lawyer also assigned to the three investigations, with whom he was having an extra-marital affair.
During the combative hearing, Strzok was surly, defensive and contemptuous towards Republican House members questioning him regarding his text messages, while insisting that his personal feelings about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had no bearing on the actions he took in handling the investigations, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. It also became apparent that Strzok revealed his intent to sabotage the Trump campaign, just as the investigation into Trump/Russia collusion began during the 2016 presidential election. Then, when former FBI Director James Comey was fired, and immediately after Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate allegations that Trump had obstructed justice in Comey’s dismissal, Strzok envisioned the possibility of impeachment even before he was named to head up the Mueller probe in the months that followed. Such inclinations on his part show an overt amount of bias to a level that cannot possibly allow anyone to pursue official duties without the ill-effect that it would have on any official undertakings. This also explains why he was so intent on absolving Hillary Clinton of the multiple crimes she committed, most notably by changing the phrase “gross negligence,” (which is a crime) to “extreme carelessness” (which is not a crime), in Clinton’s exoneration- penned two months before Clinton and thirty-one others had even been interviewed.
His infamous texts and his subsequent actions and testimony before Congress reveal a “deep state” of career Washington apparatchiks who sought to hijack a presidential election in favor of Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump. Other players, including Lisa Page, James Comey, Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, Former CIA Director John Brennan, Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Former Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, Former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and Former Acting Attorney General Dana Boente all took part in this “deep state” corruption, but it is Strzok who has become the very face of the deep state under Obama, given the animus he displayed and continues to display against the current President.
If Strzok is indeed the face of the “deep state” that existed during the Obama administration, then it is becoming quite clear that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has become the face of the “deep state” in the age of Trump, doing everything he can to obstruct Congressional oversight into the Justice Department’s handling of these investigations, and in his obvious attempt to undermine the President he now serves. It is Rosenstein who signed off on subsequent FISA warrants against members of the Trump campaign, it is Rosenstein who wrote to President Trump advising him to fire Comey (which launched the Mueller probe), and it is Rosenstein who has continuously blocked the release of documents subpoenaed by Congress.
Upon President Trump’s nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, it is Rod Rosenstein who has now directed federal prosecutors from around the country to comb through Kavanaugh’s rulings and documents to find anything they can to thwart his nomination- something that has never been done by the Justice Department for any other Supreme Court nominee, ever.
Then, on the very Friday before President Trump was scheduled to sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland on Monday, July 16th, Rod Rosenstein called a press conference to announce his indictment of twelve Russian generals for their part in hacking Hillary Clinton’s emails, along with e-mails by Clinton campaign manager John Podesta and other members of the Democrat National Committee. The timing of these indictments, which could have been brought anytime during the last six months, is an obvious attempt by Rosenstein to throw a wrench into Trump’s meeting with Putin. These indictments have also prompted both Democrats and anti-Trump/neverTrump Republicans to demand that Trump postpone any meeting with the Russian leader until these Russian generals are extradited to the United States to face charges- something they all know is never going to happen.
The media- ALL of the media, constantly reminds us that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is a Republican, who was appointed by Trump to his position as Deputy Attorney General in the wake of Attorney General Jeff Session’s recusal from all matters related to the 2016 campaign. What the media never says, however, is the fact that Rod Rosenstein’s wife, Lisa Barsoomian, is a lawyer who once was the protégé of both Comey and Mueller, and who once represented former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, as well as Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and has even done work for the Clinton Foundation…quite a cozy relationship that Rosenstein enjoys with Trump’s political opponents.
Meanwhile it is President Trump who has the sense of purpose to pursue the domestic and international changes he seeks to implement in both the status quo ante, and in the face of all of this “deep state” corruption so intent on his demise. So far, the President has been adroit in allowing his political adversaries from both parties to unwittingly reveal their treachery and corruption for all to see, without any interference on his own part. In the past he has often reiterated his intent to maintain a “hands-off” approach with regards to the Justice Department, indicating at some point he might have to “step in”. A good start would be for the President to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions, fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and fire FBI Director Christopher Wray. At the same time, he should subsequently order the FBI and Justice Department to release all of the documents relating to the Clinton-email investigation and pay-for-play corruption relating to the UraniumOne acquisition of our nation’s uranium stockpile, as well as all of the documents relating to the launch of the Mueller probe…
In doing this, it’s the timing that presents the biggest challenge to President Trump, and there would be no better time to do all of this, than on the day after the mid-term elections, November 8, 2018.
Unhinged- the Response to Trump’s Supreme Court Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh
It’s a story that was written long before Judge Brett Kavanaugh became President Donald Trump’s selection to fill the seat of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on Monday, July 9th. In fact, all that was really needed was to fill in the actual name of the person the President selected to fill that vacancy, by those who were set to pounce on the selection regardless of who he or she might have been.
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when Supreme Court nominees were judged solely on their core competencies in jurisprudence, as opposed to suspicions of their political leanings, as is the case today. For instance, Justice Kennedy was approved on a bipartisan, 97-0 vote when President Reagan nominated him in 1987. Justice Ruth Bader-Ginsberg, nominated by President Clinton, was approved on a 96-3 vote. Even more recently-appointed Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan- both appointed by President Obama, were approved by filibuster-proof, bipartisan majorities in the U.S. Senate. This all changed however when in 2013. then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) introduced the “nuclear option,” negating the filibuster-proof 60-vote threshold to approve Obama-appointed federal judgeships. That precedent, created by the Democrat Majority Leader was then used by his successor, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), to prevent the unreasonable and interminable stalling by Democrats who attempted to sabotage Justice Neil Gorsuch’s nomination, by President Trump in 2017.
With once and future nominations to the nation’s high court thus dependent upon the particular party in power, the days of Senate bipartisanship in approving Supreme Court nominees is now a thing of the past. So, it was not surprising that Democrats decided, well before the fact, that their opposition to Trump’s second appointment was set in stone, name to be added later. Their opposition, regardless of the qualifications attendant to the particular nominee, was and is based solely upon the fact that it is Donald Trump who is selecting his nominee, and nothing else. Oh, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and his merry band of Trump obstructionists will pine about Roe vs Wade (1973) being immediately overturned, if and when Judge Kavanaugh joins the Supreme Court for the fall term. They will postulate about women dying from “coat-hanger abortions in back alleys,” as the direct result of Trump’s selection. They will say that Kavanaugh’s addition to the high court will bring about an end to LGBTQ rights, and other such nonsense, based upon nothing more than the fact that it is Donald Trump, and not Hillary Clinton, making the decision- and that is what is really behind all of the hoopla surrounding Kavanaugh’s nomination. The same thing happens each and every time that a Republican President makes such appointment, and the warning about overturning Roe vs Wade has been a staple of Democrat opposition going back to the Reagan administration in the 1980s, so there is no news there…
…except for the fact that Democrats and Republicans both know that the chances of Roe vs Wade being revisited are about as likely as Brown vs Board of Education (1954), the landmark ruling which outlawed racial segregation in public schools, being revisited. Even if the controversial Roe vs Wade decision is overturned at some point in the future, it would only return to the states regulatory power concerning abortion- hardly the recipe for mass deaths of women seeking to terminate pregnancies. The national guarantee of abortion rights, being the central issue of Roe vs Wade, is conveniently couched as “Women’s Health” endangerment by Democrats, when it is actually the health of unborn babies that is endangered by abortion-on-demand, but that is a separate discussion for another day.
Suffice to say that upcoming hearings concerning Judge Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court will present a circus of unprecedented postulations and prevarications as Senate Democrats will do everything possible to trash the lifetime career of a United States Circuit Court of Appeals judge whose writings on jurisprudence have been widely hailed as benchmarks of opinion that have been embraced by jurists across the political spectrum. Kavanaugh’s rulings have even been widely endorsed by and incorporated into Supreme Court rulings during his tenure since his arrival in 2003. But, as Schumer would have us believe, what is a little thing like trashing the career and reputation of a dedicated jurist, when what is really at issue is the man who nominated him? Schumer even had the chutzpah to recommend to the President that he instead nominate Merrick Garland, Obama’s choice for the high court, in “the interests of national unity.” This coming from a Senate Minority Leader whose stock-in-trade is anything but national unity.
Yet, there are even objections to Kavanaugh coming from so-called Trump-supporters, who have moronically expressed their displeasure in Trump’s selection. Never mind the fact that it was Kavanaugh, along with two dozen other possible Supreme Court nominees, whose names were published on a pre-election list by then-candidate Donald Trump, for all the world to see- a first ever for a presidential candidate. Now, suddenly, so-called “purists” claiming to support this president are taking issue with Kavanaugh’s appointment, just because their particular preferences were not selected this time around. Perhaps they would do well to examine Kavanaugh’s record and the rest of Trump’s list, before opening their mouths with their eyes wide shut unless, of course, they would have preferred Hillary Clinton’s choice, instead.
Once Judge Kavanaugh has endured the salacious slander and infectious innuendo thrust upon him and his family, he will inevitably join the Supreme Court, likely before October 1st, when the court’s fall term begins. His rulings during the subsequent decades will prove to be the only mark that really matters when it comes to whether or not President Trump made a good decision by nominating him in the first place…
…and no amount of demagogy, perpetrated by the left or the right, can change that fact, despite the multitude of talking heads who think they know better than a man duly elected by his country to make this decision.
Voices and Choices- the #WalkAway Movement and What it Means
It erupted upon the scene so quickly that we almost failed to take note of it.
The #WalkAway movement, the visionary brainchild of one Brandon Straka, has given voice to thousands who, like Straka, have grown weary of the empty promises of liberalism, and who have become disillusioned by the extreme excesses of political correctness. Having voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, Straka has since launched a Facebook-based movement which, in a short month’s time since its inception, has attracted more than 85,000 members and has more than 350-member posts each and every day- not too shabby for a movement which did not exist two months ago.
In short, Straka and his followers have vowed to abandon the Democrat party for good, and this spells disaster to a political party in disarray- one that has become fractured by the excesses of its own creation.
On the one hand you have the aging relics of a party once headed by the likes of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert H. Humphrey and Henry “Scoop” Jackson- liberals for their time, to be certain, but virulent anti-communists, all the same. Amongst these relics are the Democrat leadership in both houses- Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein of California, Jerry Nadler and Chuck Schumer of New York, as well as a host of aging Democrats between the two coasts. It is fairly easy to identify them- they are the Democrats in Congress and the Senate who are well into their seventies and who tenuously hang onto their seats in the face of passing years and philosophical circumstances.
On the other hand, you have radical socialists who are incrementally hijacking the soul of the Democrat party, like 28-year old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who wrested her party’s nomination for the House of Representatives away from Joe Crowley- a ten-term Congressman who had never before faced internal opposition since arriving in Congress at the end of the last century. Of her surprise victory over the powerful incumbent, DNC Chairman Tom Perez said that Ocasio-Cortez was “the future of our party.”
The steady takeover of the Democrat Party by avowed socialists has spread to Virginia- once a bastion of Democrat conservativism, which included the late Senator Harry F. Byrd who, while governor, led the Commonwealth’s massive resistance to Brown vs Board of Education, that landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling which desegregated the nation’s public schools. In Virginia, Democrat Socialist Lee Carter, a self-described “activist and community organizer (sound familiar?)” defeated that state’s Republican House of Delegates Majority Whip, Jackson Miller, in last year’s off-year state election. In 2016, a transgender heavy-metal singer, one Danica Roem, another Democrat Socialist, defeated long time conservative Republican Bob Marshall for his Congressional seat- another sign that radical changes are taking place within the Democrat Party.
This trend towards political radicalism, the ever-increasing litany of liberal lunacy, as evidenced by Maxine Waters (D-CA) and her call for vehement confrontation against all of President Trump’s cabinet members, and the violent excesses of the #Antifa and #BlackLivesMatter movements have only served to push thousands of one-time Democrat loyalists away from the Democrat party.
The only problem is that the mainstream media is not talking about this massive exodus, as it goes against their agenda to rid the country of one Donald J. Trump, while instead musing about how many seats in the House and Senate Republicans are going to lose in the 2018 mid-term election…
…wonder what they will say on the morning of November 7th, 2018, when America wakes up to find that the predicted “blue wave” was barely a ripple, thanks to the #WalkAway movement and many others who have abandoned a political party that no longer represents them.
Drew Nickell was Back on the Radio Today, Thursday, July 5th at 1:00 PM, EDT
I was back on the radio today, sitting in for Nora Firestone on her show on WKQA-AM, Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads, VA. On the show, I was discussing the intolerance coming from those who feign tolerance, the possibility of a second American Civil War, Donald Trump’s upcoming Supreme Court selection and the need for a new and revitalized Independence Day.
This was also presented also as a Facebook live broadcast.
Here is the link to the video replay of that broadcast
First, I would like to thank each and every one of you who have taken the time to read some of the 300+ essays which I have written and posted during the past three years. Much to my surprise, my essays have been read in 83 countries on six continents, something I would have never dreamed possible when I began sharing my thoughts on Facebook a few years ago.
In June of this year and for the first time ever, my monthly views from readers like you have surpassed the 2,000 threshold and my annual views so far in 2018 have almost doubled what they were in each of the entire years of 2016 and 2017.
None of this would have been possible without you, my Facebook friends and followers, and this readership is just starting to expand into LinkedIn, Twitter, Google and even Instagram.
If there is anything we have learned in the last week or so, it is that elections- presidential elections- really do matter. This is especially true, given the “teeter-totter” balance amongst the Supreme Court which, more often than not, decides contentious cases on a 5-4 margin. Just within the last two weeks, the Supreme Court decided:
that the state cannot force a baker to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, if doing so violates a religious tenet held by the baker, pursuant to the First Amendment’s freedom of religion;
that public sector union membership and remission of dues by governmental employees, for that membership as payroll deductions, cannot be compulsory and must be consented to affirmatively by each and every employee, pursuant to the First Amendment’s freedoms of speech and assembly;
that organizations which advocate and support right-to-life alternatives to abortions cannot be compelled by the state to offer either abortion counseling, abortion referral or abortion information, pursuant to the first amendment’s freedom of religion;
that state governments retain the right to purge voter registration rolls, based upon four years of voter non-participation and failure to respond to notices from the state’s election commission;
that the President of the United States has the constitutional authority to determine under which circumstances immigration from specific countries is controlled or proscribed, pursuant to his powers as chief executive.
In each of these rulings, a flip of a single vote (or two) would have resulted in the opposite ruling being made. In other words, if the Senate under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had violated precedent and the Joe Biden (D-DE) “rule,” by allowing Obama-appointed Merrick Garland’s nomination to proceed during a presidential election year, or if Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 presidential election, these rulings would have gone the other way.
Yesterday, June 26th, the very “fulcrum beneath the teeter-totter” in each of these decisions, Justice Anthony Kennedy, went to see President Trump as a courtesy call in advance of his announcement that he is retiring immediately, concurrent with the end of the Court’s springtime term. It was Kennedy who functioned as the unpredictable “swing vote” in a host of controversial decisions during the last three decades, and in doing so, his credentials as a conservative swayed back and forth, as well. In reply, the President thanked the retiring Justice for his service to the Court, going back to Kennedy’s nomination by then-President Ronald Reagan in 1987, and also thanked Kennedy for allowing him to name his replacement during his own term as President- again reminding us that presidential election have consequences and that resulting Supreme Court nominations can shape the third branch of the federal government for decades.
In an unprecedented stroke of pure brilliance during the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump published a list of twenty judges and former jurists, from whom he would select future nominees to the high court. Since his run for the White House, the President has added five names to the original list, and it will be among these couple dozen- including Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Lee’s brother, a judge in his own right, from whom the President will make a decision. Each and every one of the men and women on Trump’s list is a constitutional constructionist, preferring to rule on the basis of what the Constitution actually says, as in the case of Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas, and to a lesser extent Roberts, and as opposed to activist judges (the preferred choice of liberals) who attempt to create law from the bench, as is the case of Justices Breyer, Bader-Ginsburg, Kagan and Sotomayor.
So, Trump’s decision will be a crucial one, and the nomination’s voting which Senate Majority Leader McConnell has already announced will take place in the early autumn, prior to the mid-term elections in November, will make for quite a show in the United States Senate.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is already posturing, insisting that the nomination be held up until after the mid-terms, but even Schumer knows that he has no standing nor any legitimate reason for attempting to delay this nomination. Save for the remote chance that Trump’s nominee is tripped up in hearings by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Trump will get his second Supreme Court pick.
Given the fact that Justices Breyer and Bader-Ginsburg are both in their eighties, it can be reasonably assumed that their respective retirements will provide the next Supreme Court vacancies and, if Donald Trump wins re-election in 2020, he will have at least two more opportunities to select their replacements. If this indeed happens, Trump will have been given a very rare opportunity to name four, or perhaps even five of the nine Justices on the Supreme Court, something only Presidents Washington and Franklin Roosevelt were accorded.
So, while Senator Schumer can sing You Can’t Hurry Love to the top of his lungs, it is Donald Trump and the Supremes who will hit the top of the charts, and thus change the direction of the Supreme Court for a long time to come- yet another reason his voters elected him in the first place.
Hatred from the Left… How America is Inching towards a Second Civil War
One of first casualties of war is the truth, often occurring even before a war begins.
An example of such a lie… the idea that both sides of the political spectrum are equally to blame for the absolute hate which now exists in political discourse in today’s society.
Cases in point:
It wasn’t Republican legislators who boycotted a presidential inauguration and it wasn’t Republicans who organized protest marches in many cities on that day which devolved into violence, mayhem and destruction, with celebrities calling for bombing the White House.
It wasn’t a Republican former President of the United States who has actively coordinated and fomented a “resistance movement” against his successor, and then goes around the world trying to undermine everything that his successor is attempting to achieve on the world stage.
It wasn’t a Republican who went onto an Alexandria, Virginia baseball field and attempted to kill as many Congressmen as he could.
It wasn’t registered Republicans who have been shown with mock-up severed heads of a President, or who have called members of the President’s family “c***s,” or advocated assassinating the President, or kidnapping the President’s twelve-year-old son, and putting him in a cage with pedophiles, or placing the President’s Homeland Security Secretary in the nude, tied to a whipping post, and allowing passers-by to take turns flogging her with a whip.
It wasn’t a Republican intern who shouted, “F** you, Trump” in the halls of Congress.
It wasn’t Republicans who entered a D.C. restaurant and verbally harangued Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, while she was attempting to enjoy a quiet supper with her husband, only to leave the restaurant during the meal, and return home to find the same level of hostility being spewed in front of her house.
It wasn’t Republicans in Florida who verbally harassed that state’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, while she and her boyfriend went to see a motion-picture documentary on Mr. Rogers, before, during and after the screening.
It wasn’t a Republican restaurant owner in Lexington, Virginia who asked White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave the restaurant where her party had made reservations beforehand… that same restaurateur then organizing a vehement and harassing protest in front another restaurant across the street where many of the Huckabee Sanders party subsequently attempted to dine.
It wasn’t a Republican Congresswoman from California, one Maxine Waters (D-CA), who publicly implored her constituents to continue harassing Trump’s cabinet members at all venues where they might be found in an effort to drive them from continuing to serve in the Trump administration, nor was it a Republican Senator from New Jersey, one Cory Booker (D-NJ), who echoed similar sentiments.
No, these are the tactics that Democrats and other members of the political left utilize to foment the socialist revolution they seek. These are the Democrats and other radical leftists who have taken hatred and intolerance to an all-new low, and who are fanning the flames of violence in the streets of our cities and towns, just because they cannot get their heads wrapped around the idea that a member of the opposing political party actually won an election, fairly and squarely, and one who is now seeking to keep the promises he made during his own presidential campaign.
Left unchecked, this leftist lunacy will no doubt result in a second American civil war- something that the media- all of it- desperately hopes will occur, just so they can blame it on… President Donald J. Trump, conservatives and Republicans.
We are reminded of what Golda Meir once said, “There will only be peace when they begin to love their children more than they hate us.”
Make no mistake as to where the hate is coming from… and it isn’t Trump, Republicans, conservatives, or the right.
Drew Nickell was back on the Radio Thursday 21 June 2018 at 1:00 PM EDT
On Thursday, June 21st, I was sitting in on the Nora Firestone Show, where I discussed President Trump at the G7 Summit in Canada, the Singapore Summit with Kim Jong Un, the IG Report on the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation, the Deep State and the problems at our southern border.
This show also appeared as a “Facebook live” broadcast, and here is the link to the replay of that broadcast:
As Summer Begins – Uncovering the Deep State that Exists in Washington, D.C.
This afternoon, Wednesday June 20th, with the occurrence of the semi-annual solstice, Summer officially begins for those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere of this good Earth, while Winter begins for much of South America, sub-Saharan Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and all of the other locales “down under.”
With the change of seasons, emerges an uncovering of a Deep State that does, in fact, exist in Washington, D.C.
Oh, we have suspected for years and perhaps even decades, that a shadow government- deeply entrenched, unelected, and all together unaccountable- wields an enormous amount of un-constitutional rule over our federal government. A “Deep State,” which transcends the administrative, legislative and judiciary balance of powers outlined in the United States Constitution, has long been on the whispered lips of fair-minded observers, otherwise fearful of the retribution that would attend to such revelation being made public.
Nevertheless, the “Deep State” exists and its uncovering was cemented in the release of the Inspector General’s Report on the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation and how that investigation was handled by the FBI and Justice Department, in late 2015 and throughout much of 2016.
Appearing before oversight committees in both the House and the Senate this week, Inspector General Michael Horowitz- the man heading the probe into how the FBI and Justice Department handled this investigation answered questions on the details and substance of his report, and the conclusions he arrived upon in summarizing the report.
Essentially, the 560-page report was replete with instance upon instance of procedural and personal bias expressed by Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and other top-ranking FBI and Justice Department employees who were in charge of both the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation and the subsequent investigation into allegations of Trump/Russia Collusion, during the 2016 campaign. The report’s findings, though in summation fell short of determining an absolute politically-motivated reason for James Comey’s decision to exonerate Mrs. Clinton, nevertheless details multiple instances of bias on the part of investigators, calling into question their base motives in how they handled the investigation.
The many texts appearing on government-issued phones and other smart devices reveals a hatred and scorn for then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump, that borders on the psychotic. Yet, these are the people who not only were appointed to take charge of an investigation into documented crimes committed by Hillary Clinton and her associates, but then were appointed to launch an investigation into alleged Russian/Trump collusion and were subsequently appointed by Robert Mueller to be part of his own investigation into same.
What also became clear in the IG report, and in the Horowitz hearings on Capitol Hill, is that corruption in the FBI and Justice Department goes well beyond these miscreants, with references to concert and sporting event tickets, vacation packages, golf outings and dinner invitations routinely being extended to FBI agents by major media outlets and news organizations, in exchange for leaking information on these and other FBI investigations.
Even more disconcerting is the fact that the Justice Department, effectively being headed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in the wake of Attorney General Jeff Session’ recusal from these investigations, and the FBI under Director Christopher Wray, have wantonly and repeatedly refused to produce subpoenaed documents to appropriate Congressional oversight committees, all in a bogus attempt to justify their non-compliance under dubious and ridiculous claims of protecting national security. In fact, there are no national security concerns in hiding from the public the extent to which the “Deep State” is entrenched, other than the fact that it blows the lid off of a shadow government which believes itself to be above the law and exempt from Constitutional restraints on how they use their offices to control, surveil and subvert political and legal processes in a country founded on quite the opposite.
Case in point:
On August 8th, 2016, FBI Attorney and Mueller Investigation Team Member Lisa Page sent a text to her extra-marital lover FBI Agent Peter Strzok, saying, “(Trump is) not ever going to become president, right? Right ?!?” This particular text message was not revealed to Congress until May of this year…disturbing enough. Yet, as incredulous as it sounds, Strzok’s reply to this text message was not revealed until this week, with the issuance of the IG report, where he answered, “No. No, he’s not. We’ll stop it.”
This is perhaps the most egregious example of personal bias expressed between these two, but it is the actions of Mr. Strzok and Mrs. Page before, during and after the Clinton e-mail investigation which places the above exchange between himself and Page in context of criminal collaboration with Hillary Clinton, prior to that investigation’s conclusion, as well as criminal bias against Donald Trump even before the investigation into Russian collusion began.
This was revealed when in late September, 2016, Strzok and his boss, Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, sat on revelations that top-secret documents appeared on Anthony Weiner’s laptop proving what constitutes criminal espionage on the part of Hillary Clinton, while driving headfirst into the Trump/Russian allegations both before and after the election. Ironically, their efforts to delay revelation of this discovery resulted in James Comey’s October 28th 2016 letter to Congress, saying that the investigation into Clinton’s illegal use of a private e-mail server had been re-opened, due to new revelations coming to light.
Following the election of Donald Trump, the effort to prevent his election by Strzok, Page and others transcended into an effort to sabotage Trump’s presidency, and their efforts to do so led to James Comey’s illegal leaking of classified conversations with Trump and other such documents, and whose firing subsequently resulted in the intentional appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller in May of 2017, launching his own investigation into Trump/Russia collusion. Among Mueller’s first appointments to his own team were none other than Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
So, the entire sordid Mueller investigation was inherently corrupt, both at its very inception and for several months following, as it was only several months later when Mueller fired both Strzok and Page from his investigative team- a team entirely comprised of Clinton donors and supporters of her candidacy.
No politically-motivated reasons for James Comey to exonerate Hillary Clinton (something he had no authority to do in the first place)?
Yeah, right.
If all of this was merely a matter (as Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch prefers to refer) of covering up for crimes committed by Hillary Clinton, or an attempt to prevent Donald Trump’s election and effect his impeachment through fraudulent means, that would be bad enough.
Worse, we now know of an undeniable and irrefutable “Deep State” operating at the highest levels of our federal government, comprised of deeply entrenched, unelected, and all together unaccountable career officials who place themselves above and beyond our laws and our Constitution…
…and it will take a strong and incorruptible President, namely one Donald J. Trump, to drain the swamp as he has oft-promised, fire the lot of them and let the chips fall where they will.
This must end, or else the United States of America, as a sovereign, independent and free country will see its end.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
now available at Amazon
Signed and personalized editions now available at my website:
http://www.drewnickell.com
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(author’s note- In May, 1999, as the father of two children, I wrote the following “Father’s Prayer.” On this Father’s Day, and in honor of all our fathers- both living and dead- I wanted to share this with each of you, as you take a moment to remember your own father)
A Father’s Prayer
Thank you for this day, oh Lord,
Thank you for my life;
Thank you for my children, Lord,
Thank you for my wife;
Hold me in your loving hands
On this, and every day;
And as I traverse distant lands,
Keep me in your Way;
Make me mindful of your will
In all my thoughts and deeds;
Keep me strong and faithful ’til
That day when life recedes;
Keep me always in your Grace
With every word I say,
In every time, and every place,
Until my final day;
Let not temptation trouble me:
Nor lies, nor spiteful hate;
Let not the serpent’s poisoned tree
Lure me, at any rate;
And when my last day beckons, Lord,
With no more days to live,
Then, in my final seconds, Lord,
For all my wrongs, forgive.
Signed and personalized editions now available at my website:
http://www.drewnickell.com
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IG Report (Part I) – Despite Claims to the Contrary, a Tale of Political Bias Emerges
Yesterday, June 13th, following a seventeen-month-long investigation, the Inspector General’s Report on how the FBI and the Justice Department mishandled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private server while she was Secretary of State, was finally released. In its summation, Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded that there was no conclusive evidence that political bias played a part in the decision not to bring charges against Mrs. Clinton, despite the fact that the report was replete with evidence of political bias on the part of senior officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Amongst its findings were:
– that FBI Director James Comey was insubordinate in his July 2016 announcement that, despite evidence of crimes committed by Mrs. Clinton, no charges would be levied against her. In doing so, Comey usurped the authority of Attorney General Loretta Lynch and stepped well outside his bounds as head of the bureau charged with investigation, as it is beyond the purview of the FBI to decide whether or not criminal charges are brought forth;
– that Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe illegally leaked documents relating to the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server, as it is standard operating policy that no such leakage is allowed during an active investigation;
– that the FBI Agent in charge of the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation, one Peter Strzok, willfully and knowingly sat on evidence of illegal dissemination of classified information when emails containing “secret documents” appeared on a laptop computer owned by Huma Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner, who was not authorized to view such documents- clear violations of established law, and the fact that this information was also obtained by foreign operative constitutes espionage on the part of Hillary Clinton;
– that Attorney General Loretta Lynch gave the appearance of impropriety when she met with former President Bill Clinton on an Arizona tarmac just days before Mrs. Clinton was questioned by FBI agents, in direct violation of Justice Department policy;
– that at least five FBI agents, including Peter Strzok, expressed overt bias against Donald J. Trump, both as candidate and as President-elect, in text messages exchanged with Lisa Page, which promised to prevent his election and sabotage his subsequent presidency, and in other communiques expressing contempt for American citizens who voted for candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election;
– that former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton used private e-mail accounts, under pseudonyms to hide their identities, to communicate with each other on official business, and that James Comey also used a private e-mail account to illegally communicate with members of the mainstream media in like fashion;
– that several employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation accepted gifts of vacations, golf outings and other such forms of entertainment from members of the mainstream media, in exchange for illegal leaks of classified information, and in direct violation of bureau policies and federal law.
To suggest that politics had no bearing on the Clinton e-mail investigation is ludicrous, to say the least, given the activities of senior-level FBI and Justice Department officials charged with investigating actual crimes committed by Hillary Clinton and alleged collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russia. The fact that James Comey was found to be grossly insubordinate in his announcement exonerating Hillary Clinton is also proof positive that President Donald Trump was well within his bounds to fire the FBI Director, thus disproving any charges that the new President obstructed justice in doing so.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz has yet to release the reports of his investigation into the circumstances surrounding the investigation into allegations of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign (part II) and in the use of undocumented and salacious dossiers (part III), paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, to obtain FISA warrants to surveil American citizens associate with the Trump campaign.
In these subsequent releases, Mr. Horowitz will either vouchsafe claims that he has pursued these investigations without political bias, or else confirm that he is nothing more than another part of a deep state whose aims are to sabotage the Trump presidency and cover up the crimes committed by Hillary Clinton. His due diligence in thoroughly investigating the events surrounding the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton, though commendable, does not in and of itself, prove that politics did not play a large role in both his investigation, and in the investigation of Mrs. Clinton.
While his report does suggest the illegitimacy of the circumstances under which rogue members of the FBI brought about the Mueller investigation (after all, it was James Comey who placed Peter Strzok in charge of the investigation into Russian collusion and it was Comey who leaked information to the press concerning this investigation, which resulted in the Mueller probe), we won’t know the full story about what prompted the Mueller investigation until such time as these reports are made public.
Stay tuned…it is all just beginning to hit the fan.
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Singapore Summit: Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un Make History with Agreement
On Tuesday, June 12, 2018, President Donald J. Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un formally signed an historic agreement which commits the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to the complete and total denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. After their historic face-to-face meeting, the first ever between a U.S. President and a North Korean Leader, the two held a signing ceremony for an agreement which stipulates that:
1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
2. The United States and the DPRK will join in their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.
Further, the two parties to the agreement commit to implement the stipulations in the joint agreement fully and expeditiously and to hold follow-on negotiations between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his North Korean counterpart, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of this summit. Both parties have also committed to cooperate for the development of new US-DPRK relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity and the security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world.
Absent from the text of the agreement were any details concerning the means by which verification of the denuclearization will occur, although the President has indicated that such verification will be essential prior to any sanctions, currently in place, being lifted. Also, the President indicated that joint military exercises between the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK) will be suspended indefinitely, as an effort to show good faith towards the North Korean leadership.
Also missing from the agreement were any references to human rights abuses on the part of North Korea, although the President noted that future discussions will include addressing these concerns when the time is appropriate to do so.
The President also indicated that he will, at some point in the future, invite the North Korean Leader to the White House and that he would also be willing to visit Pyongyang as well.
While there is much remaining to be worked out between the two nations as to how these commitments will be implemented, the fact remains that the agreement signed in Singapore represents an historic and crucial first step in establishing a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula, following sixty-five years of ongoing hostilities between North and South Korea. In a Korean War which cost tens of thousands of American lives, and hundreds of thousands of Korean lives, the uneasy cessation of armed hostilities has heretofore left the resolution of that war uncertain. This agreement between President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un may well prove to facilitate a formal ending to the Korean War, something never though possible prior to Donald Trump’s presidency.
To those who would continue to disparage the President and call his negotiating skills into question, it might well be asked, “How do you like them apples?”
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Trump’s Message to America’s Workers at the G-7 Summit
It was the fall of 1974 and yours truly was beginning his sophomore year of high school. During a favorite television variety show of the day, the Carol Burnett Show, a red-headed singer named Helen Reddy sang a song that would reach #9 on the Billboard Top 100 Chart in September of that same year. The song’s title was You and Me Against the World, and a fresh look at the song’s lyrics ironically describes the precise message that President Donald Trump sent out to the American worker while participating in the G-7 Summit in Charlevoix, Quebec:
“You and me against the world-
Sometimes it seems like you and me against the world,
When all their backs have turned away
You can count on me to stay
Remember when the circus came to town
How you were frightened by the clown
Wasn’t it nice to be around someone that you knew
Someone who was big and strong and looking out for you
You and me against the world-
Sometimes it seems like you and me against the world
And for all the times we cried, I always felt that
God was on our side
And when one of us has gone,
And one of us is left to carry on,
Then remembering what we will have to do
Our memories alone will get us through
Think about the days of me and you
Of you and me against the world…”
Granted, Australian-born Helen Reddy, now 76 years old, would likely become irate were she to learn about this tie-in of President Trump to her hit song. Nevertheless, the similarity of its lyrics to the message Donald Trump was sending to America’s workers and the world about international trade is almost inescapable.
After all, it seems like all of our allies, all of our adversaries, all of the domestic political forces allayed against him- including Democrats, anti-Trump and NeverTrump Republicans, and practically all of the mainstream media have united once again in their fundamental opposition to his presidency. No matter the issue, this cabal of opposition can be relied upon to oppose the president because, at day’s end, they simply don’t like the man…no news here.
Yet, when it comes to world trade, the fact is undeniable that since the end of the second world war, seventy-three years ago, the entire world has enjoyed the vastly unfair, inequivalent and lopsided trade arrangements between the United States and the rest of America’s trading partners. Many countries place enormous tariffs on American products going into their countries, while the United States imposes comparatively little, if any in some cases, duties in return for their products coming into this country. This inequity hurts the American products’ competitiveness in the world market and is especially cruel on the American worker who manufactures these same products. This is precisely the reason that, while Japanese motorcycles- Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha- can be found on any street in the United States, one would be hard-pressed to find a Harley-Davidson anywhere on the Japanese islands. Their tariffs on our motorcycles are nearly 100%, while our tariffs on their motorcycles are practically nil.
This same gross imbalance applies to a host of products coming from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom- the other members of the G-7 group meeting in Charlevoix, whose leaders have taken great offense at our president’s message to them- that the days of unfair trade practices have come to an end.
It shouldn’t be any surprise that President Trump wants to end these practices. His entire campaign was predicated on ending these imbalances in an effort to provide relief to an American workforce who has suffered from the effects these imbalances, for decades.
Globalists and internationalists, within and outside the United States, would love to continue sticking it to the American worker- after all, it’s not the only case in which our veritable pockets are picked clean. Just look at the trillions we spend defending the world and, specifically these allies, against would-be aggressors throughout the globe…nothing like the proverbial dog biting the hand that feeds it.
Pardon our president for having the chutzpah to keep his promises, a novel concept to politicians not used to bearing such fidelity to their word.
Predictably, John McCain (R-AZ), who despises all things Trump, took the occasion to once again slam our duly-elected president, saying in a tweet:
“To our allies, bi-partisan majorities of Americans remain pro-free trade, pro-globalization and supportive of alliances based on 70 years of shared values. Americans stand with you, even if our president doesn’t.”
Brain tumor or not, John McCain has once again shown the world that, despite the years he spent as a P.O.W., he is no hero and no patriot, either. He is however, a demagogue who would rather betray his country and his president, than admit to any good President might achieve.
So as President Donald Trump embarks on an historic mission in Singapore, to try and leverage North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un to give up his nuclear weapons program, we can expect a complete lack of support from all of those who wish nothing but failure on an American president- one whose message to his own countrymen is simply…
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Drew Nickell is back on the Radio, Thursday 7 June 2018 at 1:00 PM, EDT
On Thursday, June 7th, I was back on the radio, sitting in for Nora Firestone on the Nora Firestone Show on WKQA-AM Freedom 1110 in Hampton Roads. During the broadcast, I will be discussing the coarsening of political and social debate in our rhetoric, the inevitable race towards technological singularity and I will also be interviewing Republican Congressional candidate Mary Jones in advance of Virginia’s Primary Election, next Tuesday, June 12th.
This was also simulcast as a Facebook Live presentation for those who live outside our listening area.
The Coarsening Dialog of Discourse- How Low Can It Go?
The coarsening dialog of discourse in the body politic within the United States is speeding towards rock bottom. Yet it begs the question still, “Just how low can it go?”
We all know about Kathy Griffin and her photo showing a decapitated Donald Trump and the invective she hurls at the President on a regular basis, all the while blaming Trump and his family for the demise of her career.
We all know about Chelsea Handler who doubled down on her mockery and her insults directed towards First Lady Melania Trump, upbraiding Mrs. Trump for her accent despite the fact that the President’s wife is fluent in five languages.
We all know about Michelle Wolf who unabashedly hurled personal insults at White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, during this year’s White House Correspondents Dinner. Wolf was rewarded for her efforts by getting her own show on Netflix, thanks to newly appointed board members Barack and Michelle Obama, who gained their new appointments in exchange for campaign contributions by the network’s chief programming officer Ted Sarandos. It was Sarandos who Obama also appointed as ambassador to the Bahamas, so the ties between the two go way back.
And most recently Samantha Bee, another so-called comedian, referred to the President’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, as a “feckless c***(rhymes with ‘hunt’)” on her late-night television show. Sadly, many Hollywood liberals are circling the wagons around Bee, including actress Sally Field who, at one time, played a nun on a popular 1960’s sitcom.
There are many more examples of low blows directed at the President and his family, going places and to degrees never before seen in the ever-coarsening course of our nation’s discourse. Given the fact that comedian and actress Roseanne Barr- no stranger herself to “f-bombs” and coarse language- lost her highly popular reboot of “Rosanne” on ABC, following her ill-considered tweet about Obama’s one-time senior advisor and mentor, Valerie Jarrett, it also has revealed the double standard of outrage that exists today. A liberal, or an otherwise anti-Trump-er can say anything and get away with it, but not a conservative or anyone who supports the President…in a word, sickening.
Yet, the disgusting diatribe which exists today goes well beyond the hills of Hollywood, and even extends now to candidates running for elective office.
Take for instance Virginia’s tenth congressional district. It comprises the northernmost tip of the Old Dominion. Containing Clarke, Frederick and Loudon counties, along with the independent cities of Manassas and Manassas Park, it also includes portions of Fairfax and Prince William counties and even touches Washington, DC to the west. Presently represented by moderate Republican Barbara Comstock (R-VA). two others are vying for Comstock’s seat. One, a Democrat, is Dan Helmer and the other is an independent, Nathan Larson.
Larson, who served a year in federal prison for sending an e-mail detailing plans to kill then-President-elect Barack Obama in 2008, is…get this…an open advocate for pedophilia one who has even launched several websites allowing pedophiles to discuss child rape, having once bragged about choking and raping his ex-wife. Following their divorce, she committed suicide. If not for former Governor Terry McAuliffe’s (D-VA) decision to restore voting and candidacy rights to convicted felons in 2016, Larson would otherwise be prohibited from running for office in the first place- yet another parting “gift” to the Commonwealth from Bill Clinton’s one-time presidential campaign manager and chairman of the DNC.
For his own part Democrat Dan Helmer, an Iraqi war veteran, has launched a recent television ad which states:
“In 2001, this man (showing a picture of Osama Bin Laden) was the world’s greatest threat to democracy. In 2018, the world’s greatest threat to democracy lives in the White House (showing a picture of the White House).”
In Virginia’s tenth congressional district, such are the voters’ alternatives to the incumbent Republican…one, an admitted pervert and the other, a demagogue given towards making a ludicrous comparison of a duly-elected President Trump to Osama Bin Ladin.
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Drew Nickell is back on the Radio Thursday, 31 May 2018 at 1:00 PM, EDT
I’ll be sitting in on the Nora Firestone Show, where I will be discussing President Trump and what makes him so very different from his predecessors, his controversial decision to relocate the American Embassy to Jerusalem, multi-departmental corruption within the United States government and its assault on the Bill of Rights, as well as the political polarization that has gripped our nation.
This show will also appear as a “Facebook live” broadcast, so I hope you will join me there.
If you live outside Hampton Roads, and would like to tune in on the internet, here is a link to that live broadcast :
Memorial Day- Remembering What It Is and What It Is Not
True or False:
Memorial Day is a day we set aside to honor all of those who serve our nation in the Armed Forces of the United States.
If you answered “true,” you are not correct.
True or False:
Memorial Day is a day we set aside to honor all of those, living or dead, who have served our nation in the Armed Forces of the United States.
If you answered “true,” you are not correct.
True or False:
Memorial Day is a day we set aside to honor those who have served our nation in the Armed Forces of the United States, but who are no longer with us.
If you answered “true,” you are still not correct.
True or False:
Memorial Day is a day we set aside to honor those who died while serving in the Armed Forces of the United States.
If you answered “true,” you are still not quite correct.
True or False:
Memorial Day is a day we set aside to honor those who lost their lives in battle while serving in the Armed Forces of the United States.
If you answered “true,” then you are quite correct…
Unlike Armed Forces Day which honors those who serve and have served our nation in the Armed Forces, and unlike Veterans Day which honors those who have served in the Armed Forces of our nation in times of war, Memorial Day carries a special place in the heart of this nation because it honors those who gave their lives in combat while our nation was at war. For those who made the supreme sacrifice- giving their very lives so that this nation might live and so that the world might someday be free, we set aside this day each year to remember those whose lives were cut short because they fell in battle when we were at war.
By all means we should show our respect for those who serve in our Armed Forces, and it is well we honor those who once served in the Armed Forces, whether in wartime or not, because each of these individuals heard the call of their country to defend us in times of war and in times of peace. It is altogether fitting that we do so.
With the deepest of respect to all of those men and women who have thus served, it is also incumbent upon each of us to remember the thousands of lives that were sacrificed while serving this nation in times of war because without this ultimate sacrifice, we might not be enjoying the blessings of liberty that we enjoy today as citizens of a free and independent United States of America.
General John J. “Blackjack” Pershing, the Supreme Allied Commander of the American Expeditionary Force in World War I, perhaps said it best when he said,
“Time will not dim the glory of their deeds.”
This quote was once referenced on the main entrance at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium, and the lettering was subsequently relocated on a war memorial just outside Oriole Park at Camden Yards, in that same city. Nevertheless, the sentiment rings true, despite the demolition of the stadium where the lettering once reminded us of this sacrifice, and whether or not the lettering even remains, for as long as we remember the true meaning of Memorial Day.
So, whether we rush to take advantage of Memorial Day sales, or choose to spend the day sunning on the beautiful beaches of our country, or enjoy watching Memorial Day parades or even spending time with our friends at our backyard bar-b-ques, let us each resolve to remember all of those men and women who died so that we might live.
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Ahhh, to be a Democrat in 2018…it must boggle the mind and torture the soul…
After all, to be a Democrat in 2018, means that…
…you hope and pray that Bob Mueller will find some reason…any reason…to instigate impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump, even if that means the fabrication of evidence where a crime wasn’t committed in the first place…
…you hope and pray that, in his attempts to de-nuclearize the Korean peninsula and bring about a formal end to the Korean War after 65 uneasy years of ceasefire between North and South Korea, that President Donald Trump will fail and fail miserably…
…you hope and pray that enough illegal aliens will enter the United States to overwhelm the social safety net and instigate calls for full citizenship to be conferred upon anyone who wants it, without regards to the circumstances of how any of them got here in the first place, thus proving that President Donald Trump’s desire to build a wall along our southern border is pointless……
…you hope and pray that, somehow, someway, President Donald Trump has an illicit affair with one or more of his White House staffers/cabinet members, so that you can prove he is a misogynist womanizer like you have claimed all along…
…you hope and pray that the economy goes into the worst depression of all time, putting millions out of work, inflating the U.S. Dollar to the point of insolvency and causing mass starvation here in the United States, so you can prove that President Trump’s economic policies only benefit his rich friends…
…you hope and pray that hundreds of young African-American males will be gunned down by white police officers to bring racial unrest to an all-time high level, so you can blame President Donald Trump for his racist rhetoric…
…you hope and pray that there are hundreds more school shootings which will prompt nation-wide gun confiscations and the subsequent outlawing of the National Rifle Association…
…you hope that there is such an epidemic of teenage pregnancies, that abortion becomes a taxpayer-funded right for all, to show that President Donald Trump’s decision to curtail funding of Planned Parenthood was wrong…
…you hope and pray that World War III breaks out in the Middle East as the direct result of President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, relocate the U.S. Embassy to that city, and withdraw from the JCPOA Iran deal…
To be a Democrat in 2018 simply means that you want the United States to fail, so that it can be replaced with a European-style socialist state, whose sovereignty is turned over to an international order of bureaucrats…
…it’s not what the American people want, but who cares what they want, as long as Democrats are elected to office? Then, and only then, can you get rid of Donald Trump and resume your quest to destroy our country.
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The Poisoned Fruit of Corruption within the United States Government
As it becomes ever clearer, during Barack Obama’s presidency, highly placed operatives within the United States government sought to actively usurp the 2016 Election via two critical modus operandi:
– The Department of Justice under Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch, including its Federal Bureau of Investigation under Obama’s Director James Comey, and the Department of State under Obama’s Secretaries John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, all knowingly and willingly conspired to cover up crimes committed by Secretary Clinton, with regards to her illegal use of a private server while Secretary of State, her illegal dissemination of classified documents to unauthorized personnel and her willful destruction of subpoenaed evidence relating to this and other activities under investigation by Congress. Without credible investigation of these crimes, the Justice Department refused to pursue grand jury indictments, refused to thoroughly examine the evidence related to these crimes and refused to question Mrs. Clinton adequately, prior to clearing her of further action.
– The Department of Justice under Obama’s Attorney General Loretta Lynch, acting Attorneys General Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein, including its Federal Bureau of Investigation under Obama’s Director James Comey, the National Security Agency under Obama’s NSA Director James Clapper, the Central Intelligence Agency under Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan, and Obama’s National Security Advisor Susan Rice, knowingly and willingly used salacious and unverified information, paid for by the Clinton Campaign, to pursue FISA warrants without proper disclosure to the courts, while Obama’s United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power and his National Security Advisor Susan Rice sought to illegally unmask U.S. citizens caught up in this surveillance, and all in an effort to thwart the campaign and sabotage the subsequent presidency of Donald Trump. In an effort to manufacture evidence and create suspicions of criminal activity on the part of Trump and his campaign, the FBI planted a spy (or spies) into the Trump campaign very early on in 2016, all at the behest of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and which ultimately led to the appointment of a special counsel, one Robert Mueller. To facilitate and instigate this appointment of a special counsel, classified information was leaked to the media by operatives of James Comey and at his own direction. Further, the Department of Treasury under Obama’s Secretaries of the Treasury Timothy Geithner and Jacob Lew, and its Internal Revenue Service under Obama’s Commissioner Doug Schulman, illegally targeted campaigns and political organizations representing conservative, libertarian and Republican interests by indefinitely tabling requests for tax exemption certification and by using its powers to otherwise harass and intimidate private citizens for their involvement in same.
Sadly, if President Trump had been defeated by Hillary Clinton, none of this subterfuge would ever be known, and the guilty would have retained and broadened their power under the most illicit of means.
For all of these many departments, bureaus and agencies, under all of these many members of the Obama’s Administration to have acted in such coordinated fashion, at the behest of Hillary Clinton and to the detriment of Donald Trump, this effort could have only been instigated and overseen by the president, himself and his chief of staff- namely Barack Obama and Valerie Jarrett, respectively…
…and it is they who have left to this country the poisoned fruit of the most corrupt administration in American history.
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Two hundred forty years ago, this fledgling nation was at war with Great Britain to sever its ties with the British Crown. Thirty-six years later, we were back at war with Great Britain, when that country’s Royal Navy impressed (meaning capture and involuntary servitude) American sailors on the high seas and threatened to take back what they had lost in the American Revolution.
Since that time, the ebbs and flows of the Anglo-American relationship have largely been amicable- especially since 1917, when the United States entered the First World War and in 1941, when we again entered the Second World War. In both instances, our one-time adversary relied upon our assistance to defeat Germany (along with Germany’s allies) and the trans-Atlantic friendship between the United Kingdom and the United States was thus sealed for many generations.
All that said, it is difficult to understand America’s fascination with Britain’s royal family. After all, it was the concept of a ruling dynasty that was and is the philosophical antithesis of what America is all about. Where Britain has always been a society based on class, the American experiment has always facilitated upward mobility regardless of one’s background and heritage- especially since the end of slavery and segregation. To suggest that a perpetual dynasty rule over a nation, decade after decade, century after century, is an anathema to Americans as well as her Western Hemisphere neighbors.
This fascination with the British royals was piqued three times in the twentieth century- in 1952 when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned, in 1983 when the Prince of Wales married Lady Diana Spencer, and in 1997 when Lady Diana died from injuries sustained in a vehicular accident while travelling in a Paris tunnel. This fascination continued in this century, especially when Prince William married Catherine Middleton and when this marriage produced the “royal issue” of two boys and a girl, in 2013, 2015 and in 2018.
Tomorrow, May 19th, Prince William’s bearded younger brother, Prince Harry, will marry an American divorcee, one Meghan Markle- an action which caused his great-great uncle, Edward the VIII, to abdicate the crown in 1936 when he married another American divorcee, Willis Simpson. Adding to the palace intrigue of Harry’s nuptials is the fact that Ms. Markle is the bi-racial child of a white father and a black mother- an historic first for any member of Britain’s royal family.
Yet even the novelty of Prince Harry’s marriage to Ms. Markle doesn’t quite explain America’s ongoing fascination, and seeming obsession, with all things royal.
As an exchange student in the spring of 1980, back when the world was young no less, I found the trappings of the British monarchy to be quite curious and, to a lesser extent, somewhat comical given my own upbringing in the comparatively unceremonious and unadorned United States. I thought to myself that the richly festooned uniforms of the British military, though stylish, seemed to be akin to fancy giftwrap covering popinjay soldiers- admittedly a biased view from this naïve and unsophisticated “colonial.” In my study of British history, both here in the States and at the University of London’s Birkbeck College, I came to understand why Britain must have its monarchy, and even came to support its continuation. Yet I still could not understand why Americans could be so enthralled with something so utterly un-American as a reigning monarch and her family.
Almost forty years later, I still don’t quite “get” it.
So, in the early hours of tomorrow morning, televisions around the United States will be tuned in to the pomp and ceremony of a royal wedding. The interest in it will be keen and even, perhaps, voyeuristic for many millions in the country…
…perhaps presenting an opportunity to this skeptic to catch up on some reading, and break away from his addiction to the oh-so-contemporary phenomenon of breaking news.
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Hard though it might be for some to realize it, there is in the second decade of this century, a war on the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights. The war on the Bill of Rights is being waged by the political left, whether they are referred to as “progressives,” “liberals,” “socialists” or “Democrats.”
Take a stroll through each of the Constitution’s first ten amendments, passed in 1798, and one can easily see that these rights are under perpetual assault by those very same politicians and political activists who claim to be the voices of tolerance. In reality, however, they are anything but tolerant.
For instance, the First Amendment guarantees the freedoms of speech, religion, the press and free assembly. A visit to most institutions of higher learning in 2018 reveals the imposition of speech codes, proscription of religious activities, censure of conservative writings and the attendant restriction of conservative groups to assemble in protest. It is often stated that what begins in academia today, will be in the larger scope of society tomorrow, and this trend of intolerance against conservative expression on university campuses should sound an alarm to all of us who cherish these rights.
With regards to the Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms, it is obvious which side of the political equation seeks to either repeal the Second Amendment outright, or severely restrict this right, altogether.
The Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure has been eroding for decades, but this erosion has been most recently facilitated by activist judges who seek to legislate from the bench what they cannot get representative government to enact. One needs look no further than the early morning raid on the president’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the pre-dawn raid on Paul Manafort to know that a politically-activated FBI can obtain warrants from sympathetic judges to pursue political inquisitions at the behest of partisan interests. The same holds true for the Fifth Amendment rights to due process and how these rights are selectively protected for certain people, namely Hillary Clinton, and not others- essentially anyone remotely connected to Donald Trump.
Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendment rights which guarantee due process, individual protection against excessive bail, fines or cruel and unusual punishment were most notably violated when the maker of an internet video, falsely blamed for instigating the raid on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was arrested and imprisoned for more than two years without trial, all because the Obama Administration lied about the circumstances which led to the attack in an effort to cloak their own culpability during Barack Obama’s re-election campaign that year.
Ninth and Tenth Amendment rights relegated to the people, or those rights which are otherwise reserved to the several states comprising the union, have long been under siege by the creeping and steady growth of federalism- most notably in the realm of social engineering on issues of abortion, education and regulation of health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare. Federal guarantees of abortion rights since Roe v Wade (1973), federal control of education curriculum since the passages of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965) and the No Child Left Behind Act (2001) and the medical insurance dictates of ObamaCare (2010) have signaled the encroachment of the federal government on those respective areas that previously were reserved to the several states. It wasn’t conservatives who promoted this encroachment- it was the fruits of political activism on the left.
As the mid-term elections of 2018 approach, followed by the general election of 2020, voters should be well aware as to which national party seeks to preserve their constitutional rights and which party seeks to further erode these rights, prior to casting their ballots. They won’t be correctly informed about this comparison by a biased national mainstream media, which has effectively become a propaganda vehicle for the left, but perhaps this is all part and parcel of an agenda to wage a larger war on freedom, independence and representative government- the very antithesis of state-ism, socialism and totalitarianism which are the pursuits of “progressives,” “liberals,” “socialists” or “Democrats.”
Failure to recognize these truths imperil this nation beyond any and all else.
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There are a few occasions when a symbolic move can prove to be of great substance, as well. Today, May 14th, 2018 marked such an occasion.
Seventy years to the very day after U.S. President Harry S. Truman became the first world leader to recognize the modern state of Israel, the United States Embassy was officially relocated to the Israeli capital of Jerusalem.
On December 6th of 2017, President Donald J. Trump made history when, on behalf of the United States, he formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel- a move seemingly obvious and inconsequential on its face, but in fact a very substantive and remarkable move on the part of a U.S. President.
The decision to relocate the American embassy from Tel Aviv, some forty miles away from Jerusalem, has its roots in 1995 when Congress passed legislation calling for its relocation. In subsequent order, Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama all failed to act upon this legislation because they heeded the so-called “expert” advice from State Department apparatchiks, that doing so would interfere with the peace process in the Middle East.
Twenty-two years later, their successor Donald Trump defied these “experts” and even members of his own cabinet, like former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and announced the formal recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and his intention to move the U.S. Embassy, accordingly. Widely criticized by those opposed to such a move, both within and outside the United States, the president ignored his naysayers, stuck to his resolve and the United States Embassy in Jerusalem was formally opened today, five months following his announcement.
While Palestinians in the Gaza strip violently protested the move, Israeli defense forces held the protesters at bay along the Israeli/Palestinian border where several Palestinians were killed and hundreds of others were wounded.
Representing the United States were U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman (appointed a year ago, tomorrow), Trump’s daughter Ivanka, her husband and senior adviser Jared Kushner, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan. Also in attendance, were several representatives of the U.S Senate and House of Representatives.
It was Kushner who delivered the keynote speech, following a live video feed from President Trump, and both reiterated the reasoning and importance of the embassy’s relocation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu followed Kushner with his own remarks, recalling his days as a young boy traversing neighborhoods nearby the site of the embassy and extolling the gratitude and appreciation of his county for what President Trump has done.
“This is a great day,” said Netanyahu, “A great day for Jerusalem. A great day for the state of Israel. A day that will be engraved in our national memory for generations.”
He went on to thank President Trump for “having the courage to keep his promise” to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, saying that “Jerusalem is the eternal, undivided capital of Israel.” Netanyahu closed his speech saying, “God bless the United States, God bless Jerusalem, and God bless the state of Israel.”
Notably absent from the proceedings were representatives of the United Kingdom, France and Germany, countries whose leaders have opposed the recognition of Jerusalem and the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to that ancient city.
While relocating an embassy just forty miles may not seem to be such a big deal, in the annals of world history, it is a very big deal and one of major consequence in a world grown weary of tensions in the Middle East. Having that particular issue- the recognition of Jerusalem and the relocation of the U.S. Embassy, effectively takes that issue off of the table in any negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. It is hoped that the removal of this key sticking point will facilitate future peace negotiations between the two parties, provided that Palestinians come to recognize Israel’s right to exist- the other major hurdle preventing a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine.
Unlike his predecessors, President Trump has shown the determination to keep his oft-stated 2016 campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy to Israel’s capital, in the face of widespread and vehement opposition. This, along with last week’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), fulfilling another campaign promise and also in the face of widespread opposition, sends a message to the world that Trump is a man of his word…something that will be in his favor when he sits down with the Supreme Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un next month in Singapore.
If Trump is able to achieve what was once thought to be impossible- bringing a formal end to the Korean War and verifiably de-nuclearizing the Korean peninsula, he will go down in history as one of the greatest U.S. Presidents in the area of international relations…
…but don’t tell that to the mainstream media, the Democrats and the anti-Trump/NeverTrump Republicans who are fixated on his impeachment. They have their heads mired in a porn star and ridiculous allegations of Russian collusion.
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For the fourth time in my life, I had to say goodbye to a dear friend- the rare kind of friend who walks into the room when the rest of the world walks out, the kind of friend who never shows a bad side or contempt or impatience and is always there for you, even when you don’t want them to be.
Three dogs and a cat.
I was in my late twenties when I said goodbye to Ribsey, a foundling English Setter who was my best friend for seventeen years. When I was a boy and was all alone, without a friend in the world, Ribsey followed me everywhere- even chasing the bus I rode to parochial school, a mile-and-a-half-away. He’d wait in the schoolyard until I rode the bus home, again chasing it all the way back to where the day began.
I was thirty-three when my young family lost Lady Di, a beautiful Brittany Spaniel we bought at a shopping mall while visiting friends. She came before the kids were born and was part of their lives in their toddling years. A sickly dog, who was bedeviled with bad teeth, severe epilepsy and she even survived a heartworm attack, until one morning when we found her in the backyard seemingly asleep, but already cold to the touch…we didn’t see that one coming, given the fact she was only nine years old.
A few months later, we took the kids to a puppy farm in Matthews County and adopted a young puppy Yellow Labrador Retriever whose russet color prompted one of the kids to name the dog “Clifford,” after the books they were enjoying at the time. Clifford was a mighty dog who was such a great swimmer he could tow me (I am a large man) onto the ocean shore from a distant sandbar with my grabbing his tail and enjoying the ride. He’d wear out my arm throwing tennis balls as far as I could out into the ocean, and he would retrieve the balls and swim them back to me, over and over and over again. He survived the doomed marriage to my kids’ mother, remained with me after we separated, and was three months shy of his fourteenth birthday when liver cancer took him four days after he was diagnosed. I was forty-seven and the year was 2005.
Ever a dog person, I nevertheless adopted Bootsie, a stunningly beautiful Maine Coon cat, from an animal shelter a year before I lost Clifford. That was 2004, and I only did so to provide my second wife’s aging cat with a playmate. When wife #2 left, I came within a cat’s whisker of letting her take Bootsie but had a change of heart when she was being put into my-soon-to-be-ex’s car and grabbed her. It prompted an argument, of course, but my name was on the adoption papers, so Bootsie was mine and I kept her. In the lonely years that followed, there were times when the loneliness gripped my soul and I entertained thoughts of ending it all, but every time this happened, Bootsie would climb up on top of me, lay on my chest while I sobbed, reminding me that I had to stick around to take care of her. Small for her breed, she’d spend countless days in the stairwell window watching the birds which flew outside.
With the arrival of my current wife, Mary Ella, her elderly Bichon Frise “Jax” entered our world and Bootsie was far from happy. Sometimes she would hiss at him for no reason at all and on two occasions, they got into it and it was Jax who paid the price both times- better not to tangle with “hypodermic” claws and teeth. Eventually, Jax learned his lesson the hard way and just ignored her but it didn’t matter- the hisses were often and just as certain in their intent. In the last several months, though, Bootsie stopped with the hissing and would even stand up on her hind legs to sniff at him while he slept on our living room sofa. Occasionally, his tender heart got the best of him and he’d give her a kiss, which she tolerated with all of the disdain a cat can muster in her expression, following.
On April 11th of this year, Jax was sitting atop our living room ottoman when, out of the blue, Bootsie leapt up voluntarily to sit beside him. This was a first, and Mary Ella raced around to get a snapshot for posterity. Then, a few hours later when we are talking, Bootsie started turning in a tight counter-clockwise circle, over and over, again. At first, we laughed but the laughing stopped when she was still turning in a circle, ten minutes later.
Our veterinarian (who also looked after Clifford), a wonderful man with a kind heart, paid us a house call and took a blood sample to rule out kidney and liver ailments. Her blood sugar was elevated but she showed no other signs of ketoacidosis, and in examination, he ruled out idiomic vestibular syndrome- based on eye-function, leaving him to conclude it was either feline dementia, brain lesion or brain tumor.
In the two weeks that followed, her condition worsened with these “spinning” episodes lasting some four hours, pacing when she wasn’t turning circles or sitting on her haunches, staring at nothing. Then, as the episodes continued her appetite practically disappeared along with her interest in anything else, followed by her abandoned use of her cat box, and in the last week it became apparent that she lost her eyesight, as well. Brain tumor confirmed, based on the rapid pace of symptom deterioration in such a short time.
So, this past weekend and this morning allowed me to say my tearful and sobbing goodbyes to Bootsie. I sat with her for hours while cradling her in the shirt-tail of the t-shirt I was wearing, and awaiting the arrival of her kind doctor who would take her to the special place in my heart, already occupied by Ribsey and Lady Di and Clifford.
It is said that all dogs go to heaven and cat enthusiasts will say the same thing about their cats. Being a mortal of fifty-nine years, I can’t say for sure, but this much I do know… When someday I cross that river and come to belong to the ages, I will know I am in heaven when I see three dogs and a cat waiting for me, that we might spend an eternity running and playing together.
My last words to Bootsie were the same words I said to Ribsey and to Clifford, just before they received euthanasia:
“I’m so sorry…I love you…please, please wait for me…I’ll be there, soon enough…”
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Technological Singularity: An Inevitable Nightmare or Putative Paranoia?
Ever since the publication of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, on the first day of January 1818, the fear that technological singularity would one day catch up with humankind has taken hold in the dark places of our subconscious thoughts. Motion pictures, such as Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, have also challenged us to ponder our human limitations at the prospect of technological hegemony.
Technological singularity is the proposition that technological advancement would someday reach an inevitable point where human intelligence would be transcended by artificial intelligence, and that the latter would take on a life of its own rendering us mortals obsolete.
It’s something that we collectively fear, being the self-absorbed and self-centered species that we are, and it is not unlike the fear we all share that there just might be a superior species out there in the universe, which would threaten our own superiority, here on earth.
Truth be told, mankind has “evolved” to the point where our own long-held and religiously-based sense of humility has been transformed into an exaggerated sense of self-esteem. Essentially, we have become the masters of our own destiny and nothing outside of ourselves can knock us off our high perches of superior thought…i.e. the pride that cometh before the fall (Proverbs 16:18).
Could it be that technology has, or soon will have, reached the point where we as humans can no longer control the evolution of hyper-intelligence?
Most all of us who have lived through the onset and acceleration of computer technology have all paused, at one point or another, to ponder whether or not we as individuals can keep up with the accelerated pace of technological improvement. For those of us of a certain age, we grudgingly marvel at the ease with which our progeny runs circles around our own ability to interact with smart phones, computers and even synchronization of our remote controls. With the advent of smart devices and virtual software agents, such as Alexis™, Echo Spot™, Siri™ and Google Assistant™, we become dependent on such technology to make our lives easier- but at what price?
More importantly, should the devices break down and become inoperative, will we remember how to do certain tasks without the assistance of these devices? It’s the same question that we might ask ourselves, “What to do when the Garmin™ or Tom-Tom™ breaks down- do we go back to reading maps?”
As much as we hate to admit it, given our all-too-human predilection towards excessive ego, we can very easily become slaves to the technology of our own invention. Hence, the inability to even drive a car once its governing technology of the power-train control module (PCM), consisting of the engine control unit (ECU) and the transmission control unit (TCU), goes on “the fritz.”
So, the thought of technological singularity may not be so far-fetched, as we would otherwise like to delude ourselves into thinking, and now that the “technological toothpaste” has exited the “tube,” how can we ever put it back into the “tube” and thus preserve our own pre-eminence in the world of intellect and thought?
Or maybe…just maybe…we drank too much coffee this morning from our automated coffee-maker, set in advance the night before.
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When it comes to playing U.S. Presidents, much of Washington, the mainstream media, not to mention the entire world for that matter, have all enjoyed a mighty good go of it. A brief look back recalls how past presidents have been played to a T.
Barack Obama
– Played by Iran into forking over billions in cash for a feckless, toothless and flawed JCPOA Iran nuclear deal;
– Played by North Korea who “psyched” Obama into a policy of “strategic patience,” essentially doing nothing regarding their growing nuclear threat;
George W. Bush
– Played by Democrats and the media into a feckless position of timidity with regards to political correctness, constantly having to constantly substantiate his own “credentials” of tolerance and bi-partisanship;
– Played by allies to “foot the bill” in Iraq and Afghanistan under the guise of a supposed international peace-keeping force (Bush wasn’t the only one) …played by Pakistan into continued financial support while that government abetted the Taliban in Afghanistan…and succored into implementing concessions to North Korea, prior to negotiations, on nuclear arms commitments made in bad faith;
Bill Clinton
– Played by North Korea into forking over billions in cash (sound familiar?) in exchange for nuclear non-proliferation by which they never intended to abide, in the first place;
– Played by his own wife, Hillary Clinton, who convinced him that she could put together a health care “plan” that would pass muster in a Congress and a Senate, on the premise that they would cede management of the entire national health care industry by placing it under White House control;
George H. W. Bush
– Played by both houses of Congress into breaking his “read my lips, no new taxes” campaign pledge in exchange for commitments to spending cuts that never took place. Doing so effectively wrecked his re-election campaign and paved way for both of the Clintons to replace him;
– Played by an old business rival and nemesis, one H. Ross Perot, who had enough money to launch a presidential campaign whose sole purpose was to prevent Bush from being re-elected.
Enter one Donald J. Trump who spent his entire career, and even authored a book on the Art of the Deal. Ever the tough negotiator in all his many non-political pursuits, here is a man we all got to know very well, since he thrust himself onto the national scene back in the mid-1970’s. Legendary for the boldness he exerted into contract negotiations, and for his sheer stratagem of self-promotion unlike any other ever seen, Trump’s name was practically everywhere and on everything, for decades. To those who knew him well, his announcement to seek the presidency in 2015 was neither surprising nor capricious, and his nomination to head the GOP ticket seemed a certainty, despite a mainstream media who mistakenly took it for nothing more than a stunt. To a nation that was told, even by members of his own party, that he was a fraud and a fool- one who had absolutely no chance to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, Trump’s victory seemed all but impossible, and yet he won the election despite all of the varied forces united against him.
In office, Trump has defied all of the so-called “experts” in his statecraft, and in how he has managed to bring about a North Korea to go where no one thought possible. Just this week, a commitment to de-nuclearize the entire Korean peninsula and bring about a formal armistice to end the Korean War, sixty-five years after the 1953 cease-fire, has been made by both North and South Korea. Anyone who would otherwise be skeptical about President Trump’s role in all of this should ask South Korea Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha who told Fox News:
“I think clearly he (President Trump) saw this as an immediate, the most challenging global security agenda, not just for the United States but for the whole world… President Trump’s tough talk on North Korea has not negatively impacted peace talks…the daily messaging is one thing… the longer-term effect of those messages is what really mattered, and it has forced the North Korean leader to change his calculations.”
So here we have the South Korean diplomat, crediting President Trump in bringing about an opportunity to achieve what was once thought to be quite impossible. In the face of NeverTrump Republicans, Democrats, their fellow travelers in the State Department and the mainstream media, and all of the aforementioned former Presidents, who thought Trump’s tweets about “Little Rocket Man” would lead us to global thermo-nuclear war, it would seem that Trump is on the path to achieve quite the opposite. Sitting beside German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump said that the U.S. won’t be “played” by North Korea, as his administration prepares for a meeting with North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un:
“We’re not going to be played. OK? We’re going to hopefully make a deal, if not that’s fine…the U.S. has been played beautifully, like a fiddle, but this time is different…we won’t play games like we have in the past.”
There are many other arenas in which Trump has refused, time and time again, to be played, especially by those fixated on their opposition to his presidency.
For instance, in the constant cloud of suspicion that has hung over his presidency in the wake of the Mueller investigation, other presidents would have been cowered by such an inquisition, but not Trump. Just recently, the president confessed that he has purposely stayed away from intervening in the Justice Department and their investigations, but that at some point, he would get involved, calling the Mueller probe a “disgrace.” In the wake of the release of the House Intelligence Committee report which absolved the president of any wrongdoing with regards to allegations that his campaign colluded with the Kremlin, even his reticent and oh-so-recused Attorney General Jeff Sessions has finally called for an end to the Mueller investigation.
Whatever President Donald Trump lacks, insofar as the absence of “Teflon coating” is concerned, he more than makes up for it with a seemingly-impenetrable suit of armor, which enables him to charge ahead in the face of unprecedented opposition, from all sides. Neither a hostile media, nor a recalcitrant Democrat opposition, nor Anti-Trump and NeverTrump Republicans, nor a cacophony of presidential predecessors have managed to take this president “off-task.” The fact of the matter is that he just won’t be played, by anyone or anything…and it’s “game over” for anyone who is tempted to think otherwise.
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Drew Nickell is back on the Radio Today, Thursday, 26 April 2018 at 1:00 PM, EDT
I’ll be sitting in for Nora Firestone on her show, the Nora Firestone Show, and interviewing Cmdr. Linc Smith, a retired Navy Public Affairs Officer who served 25 years on ships and commands, worldwide. He now advocates for veterans and also continues with a career in broadcasting, both in Hampton Roads and in Washington, DC, and is a member of the National Press Club.
If you live outside Hampton Roads, and would like to tune in on the internet, here is a link to that live broadcast :
This was available as a live webcast on my Facebook page, so I hope you were able to tune in to today’s broadcast…If not, then here is the link to the replay of this broadcast:
Democrats in Dementia- the Leftward Leap of Liberal Loons
If one were to take a snapshot of the policies which are being proffered by Democrats in search of a nomination, and compare these to that party’s not-too-distant past, one would easily come to the conclusion that members in that party have gone stark-raving mad.
Apparently, there is no extreme to which an ambitious Democrat won’t go in order to certify his or her so-called progressive (read liberal) credentials, and a cursory review of the platforms they purport bears this out…to wit:
-Bernie Sanders (I-VT) The self-styled socialist from the Green Mountain State is not only calling for his old standbys, “free” healthcare and “free” college tuition to all comers but wants to nationalize a $15.00 per hour minimum wage …get this… “for every American who wants or needs one.” With not even a hint of how the Senator would begin to pay for this undertaking, that is what he advocates, nevertheless.
-Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) The flaxen-haired charmer from the Empire State, who turned her back on the Clintons after using their name to secure her seat (once held by Hillary Clinton), also supports a guaranteed jobs plan for “regular Americans who are unemployed and willing to work to better their local community.” She also called for “big, bold ideas to fix our economy.” Again, nary a farthing of how she would have us pay for this.
Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) The former football star from the Garden State who insisted that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was a racist during his nomination hearings, and who insisted on finding Secretary of State designee Mike Pompeo’s opinion of specific gay sex acts as part of his own hearing, is also an advocate of a guaranteed jobs program. Booker said, “The federal jobs guarantee is an idea that demands to be taken seriously… Creating an employment guarantee would give all Americans a shot at a day’s work and, by introducing competition into the labor market, raise wages and improve benefits for all workers.” No word on where that hefty sum will come from.
-Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA)- where else would he be from?- is proposing a bill that would tweak the Earned Income Tax Credit to double the amount for families, and ten-fold for childless workers. “The progressive wing of the party,” he said, “should not be afraid to lay out their vision of where they want to take the country and what would an ideal society look like…then we can negotiate the details.” In other words, impose a policy and then figure out just how to implement it…brilliant!
-Another Democrat presidential wannabe, one Andrew Yang, is promising $1,000 a month for all citizens between the ages of 18 and 64 as a universal basic income program…work optional. Never mind the fact that the socialist utopia of Finland is nixing the idea after a two-year test period which showed that pay without work is a recipe for disaster.
It’s no secret that dozens of incumbent Democrats in both the House and Senate are running on a platform of impeachment…indicating that if Democrats win back the House, articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump will be the first order of business, come January. Never mind the lack of any “high crimes or misdemeanors,” as required in the Constitution…they will impeach him simply because they just don’t like him.
Yet, above all these crazy examples, this one takes the cake.
-Recently a wealthy Democrat donor club, the Democracy Alliance, used an event attended by Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez and former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe to call for reparations…that’s right…reparations. The idea is to pay every black citizen a stipend to atone for the sins of slavery- an experience that no living black American ever endured- but one that would nevertheless reimburse each for the suffering of their fifth- and sixth-generations-ago ancestors, and the legacy that that institution left behind. In an invitation to the event, they fantasized that four years from now, they would be “celebrating policy victories across the nation: Medicare for all and free college, and that next on the agenda is reparations.” It’s an idea that’s been around for some time, gaining momentum from a Reparations Convention held in Chicago back in 2001. One of the many problems with the idea is that not all living African Americans are descended from slaves, and not all living Caucasians are descended from slave owners or those who, along with African chieftains themselves, participated in the slave trade. Never mind that…oppression is oppression and the reparations are “owed,” according to lunatics who advocate this idea. Well, if one wants to start an unthinkable race war in this country, this is one way to bring it about, but don’t tell that to anyone who advocates reparations, lest you be labeled a racist.
Taken separately, these proposals are as ridiculous as they are delusional, and the chances of a majority of Americans backing these policies are somewhere between “slim” and “none,” with “slim” having just left town.
Taken together though, with widespread Democrat advocacy of open borders and the extension of voting rights to illegal aliens (it’s already happening in California, where anyone with a driver’s license can vote without proof of citizenship), it reveals the radical extent to which Democrats aspiring to replace the president will go, in order to win the nomination of their party.
Demonic? Perhaps. Moronic? Certainly…that said, if this is where the Democrats are headed, then Donald Trump will easily be re-elected in 2020…and it can’t get here soon enough.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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“Advice and Consent” in the age of President Donald Trump
“He (the president) shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur, and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.”
-United States Constitution, Article II, Section 2, paragraph 2
Every single President of the United States, going back to the very first President, George Washington, has had the power to appoint members of their cabinet with the advice and consent of the United States Senate…that is, until the election of Donald J. Trump.
Trump’s election and his presidency has brought about a fundamental change in his ability to form his cabinet, appoint ambassadors and heads of departments- NOT for legal, but rather for political reasons.
Simply stated, Democrat members of the United States Senate so object to his election and his presidency, that they have decided to do everything they can to block the president from his constitutional authority to appoint even his own cabinet. Sadly, these Democrats are aided and abetted by at least one Republican Senator- a Senator who voted to approve both of Barack Obama’s Secretaries of State, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.
That Senator is Rand Paul (R-KY).
Paul’s intended refusal to approve the appointment of Mike Pompeo to be the nation’s seventieth Secretary of State, along with the absence of anti-Trump John McCain (R-AZ), will mean that Pompeo’s appointment will not likely make it out of committee, and it is an open question as to whether or not Pompeo’s appointment will be brought to the floor of the Senate for an up or down vote. Bad enough that, since the election of Donald Trump, cabinet and ambassador appointments have become a strictly partisan undertaking- but when a president’s own party works hand-in-hand with Democrats to block their own president from making such appointments, it is little wonder why this president has such contempt for ‘the swamp” that has become our nation’s capital.
While Senator Paul can pontificate all that he wants about his reasons for blocking Pompeo’s appointment, the fact that he voiced little or no opposition to the appointments of Hillary Clinton and John Kerry shows that he is nothing more than the south end of a northbound horse whose sole purpose is to garner media attention that he would otherwise not attract. In this same way so-called “maverick” John McCain (R-AZ) frequently has placed his own thirst for media attention above and beyond the interests of his country.
Enough is enough.
It has become apparent that a majority of Congressmen and Senators, alike, would rather see the President fail than to see the country succeed- here at home and around the world.
Take for instance North Korea. However remote the possibility that North Korea will abandon its nuclear weapons and de-nuclearize the Korean peninsula, the fact that such an undertaking is even being mentioned is a first for any U.S. President since they began this quest, going back to the end of George H.W. Bush’s presidency. The fact is that Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama all failed, and failed miserably, to stymie the nuclear ambitions of North Korea. Now that such an achievement might well be in the offing for President Trump, leave it to the anti-Trump weasels in the United States Senate, from both parties, to block the President from the most important and consequential international achievement since Ronald Reagan brought about the end of the Soviet Union under his successor’s presidency.
Mike Pompeo, who graduated first in his class from West Point and first in his class from Harvard Law School, in eminently qualified to be Secretary of State. His management of the Central Intelligence Agency as CIA Director has been exemplary, in the wake of the directorship of his corrupt predecessor, John Brennan, and he has gained the trust of President Trump in providing the president with most of the daily security briefings since his appointment to that post. During the Easter weekend, Pompeo secretly went to North Korea to meet with Kim Jong Un, to prepare for the meeting between Kim and President Trump, slated for late May or early June- the first between a U.S. President and a North Korean dictator- ever.
Yet, leave it to a diminutive little twerp like Rand Paul to try to get in the way of all of this- just to make a point about his view of enhanced interrogation techniques and questioning the wisdom of President George Bush’s decision to put American troops into Iraq…such are the platitudes of a man who has about as much credibility as Obama’s weak and feckless Secretaries of States, Clinton and Kerry. So invested is Paul in his intention to block Pompeo’s appointment, that he is beginning to soften his long-held opposition to the disastrous JCPOA agreement entered into by the Obama administration, which gave billions of dollars to Iran in exchange for nothing of substance.
If ever a cabinet-level appointment was prescient and necessary to the critical times in which we live, President Trump must have a Secretary of State who can duly represent the United States, and one who he can trust…but don’t tell that to Rand Paul, or the Democrats in the Senate who would rather abide a continuation of North Korea’s nuclear threat than to hope for success on the part of President Trump.
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A Tightening Noose- Congress Sends Criminal Referral to FBI, Justice Department
Slowly, surely, inexorably, the noose begins to tighten around those who conspired to cover up the crimes of one 2016 presidential candidate while colluding to disparage another candidate and destroy his presidency.
Yesterday, April 18, 2018, eleven members of the House of Representatives sent a formal criminal referral to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, FBI Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah John Huber, recommending formal investigation into multiple violations of federal statutes, on the part of Former FBI Director James Comey, Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, FBI Agent Peter Strzok, FBI Counsel Lisa Page, Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and Former Acting Attorney General Dana Boente.
The referral was a long time coming, but nevertheless exhibits that real criminal violations by Comey, Clinton, Lynch, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Yates and Boente that are substantiated through an internal investigation by Inspector General Michael Horowitz, as well as hearings by the House Intelligence Committee and, most recently, U.S. Attorney John Huber.
The referral covers James Comey’s improper decision to exonerate and absolve Hillary Clinton for violations of the espionage act, in releasing classified documents to unauthorized personnel, including the pedophile husband of Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner. Additionally, Comey’s conduct regarding his release through a third party to The New York Times, “secret and confidential” and classified information regarding his conversation(s) with President Trump was cited in the referral, as was his misleading testimony before the Senate Select Committee on the Judiciary and the House Judiciary Committee- violations of U.S. Code 18, Sections 1001 and 1621.
As for Hillary Clinton, listed in the referral were charges that the former Secretary of State violated federal election laws by disguising payments to Fusion GPS for the Steele dossier that was illegally used to obtain warrants from the FISC court to surveil members of the Trump campaign- a violation of U.S. Code 52, Sections 30101 and 30121.
Additionally, Clinton’s illegal use use of a private e-mail server and for her compromising “high-level” communications were specifically referred to in violations by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page of U.S. Code 18, Sections 1505 and 1505b for their part in eliminating evidence related to this compromise on the part of Mrs. Clinton.
Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch was cited for her decision to threaten with reprisal a former FBI Informant who attempted to come forward with revelations about payments made to the Clinton Foundation in exchange for the decision to approve the Uranium One deal, where 20% of U.S. uranium stockpiles to Russian interests- violations of U.S. Code 18, Sections 1505 and 1515b.
Former Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe violated US Code 18, Sections 1001, 1505 and 1621 based on at least four instances where he deliberately misled Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath, concerning his own leaks to media about the Clinton Foundation investigation.
Lastly, Comey, McCabe, and Former Acting Attorneys General Sally Yates and Dana Boente were all cited for illegally presenting false information, based on the discredited Steele dossier, to the FISC Court to obtain surveillance warrants against Carter Page- a Trump campaign operative. Doing so violated U.S. Code 18, Sections 242, 1505 and 1515b.
These violations are by no means the sum total of criminal violations on the part of these individuals but are nevertheless indicative of a “deep state,” whose lawlessness at the behest of Hillary Clinton and documented criminal conduct towards President Donald Trump, are not going to fade into oblivion the way that Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans hope that they will.
Furthermore, failure to act on this referral will ultimately give President Donald Trump all the justification he needs to fire Attorney General Sessions, FBI Director Christopher Wray and others, including Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, for failure to enforce federal law and for violating their own oath of office.
The only thing standing in the way of prosecuting these “deep state” operatives is the potential Democrat takeover of the House of Representatives in the 2018 mid-term election, in which case all bets are off and the guilty will go unpunished.
That aside, the tick-tock of criminal prosecution against these individuals goes on and an ever-tightening noose beckons around the necks of those who used the power of the federal government to carry out the biggest scandal in American history.
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Unintended Admission- James Comey’s Pathetic Last Act
On the eve of his formal book launch, former FBI Director James Comey’s pre-launch circuit of media appearances are having a most ironic consequence- the unintended admission by Comey that President Donald Trump was right in firing him last May.
In a self-serving, self-righteous and altogether churlish interview with former Clinton staffer George Stephanopoulos on ABC Sunday Night, Comey revealed a personal hatred of the president- one which is all-consuming and innately visceral from the depths of his soul (assuming he has one), and one that would effectively disqualify him from being in any law enforcement position.
Comparing the president to a mob boss and assailing Trump’s character in a way that transcends political and professional differences going right to the core of vengeful animosity, Comey essentially told a watching audience that he was and is incapable of impartiality- towards Trump and towards former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
While claiming that he personally didn’t vote in the 2016 Presidential election, even though his wife and all of his daughters did so and that they all marched in protest on the day of Trump’s inauguration, Comey effectively admitted that he “put in the fix” on Hillary Clinton’s exoneration in July of 2016. He said he did so because he believed in the certainty of her election and wanted to avoid the “delegitimization” of such an election by clearing Clinton of scandal resulting from her illegal use of a private e-mail server and distribution of classified e-mails to unauthorized personnel, including the pedophile husband of her aide Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner. When it became apparent that classified information was in fact on Weiner’s laptop, as a result of this illegal distribution, he re-opened the investigation and said so in a letter he sent to Congress, on October 27, 2106- a fortnight prior to the election.
What Comey was really trying to do with the release of that letter was to cover his hind quarters in the unlikely event that Trump would win the election, by getting in good graces with Republicans on the House Oversight Committee.
Comey’s double-dealing did not end there.
It is recalled that while Comey mentioned the information contained in the Clinton-funded dossier, when he conferred with the newly-elected president in January of 2017, he stressed that there was no evidence that the information was credible, and that it was deemed to be salacious and without merit. At the same time, Comey never told the president the origin of the information, that it was a dossier funded by Clinton, and he never told the president that this dossier was used to obtain FISA warrants to surveil Trump campaign operatives.
Four months later, he leaked information contained in his notes following his meeting(s) with Trump to The New York Times through a third party, knowing that it would prompt the appointment of a special counsel by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to investigate Trump and knowing that Rosenstein would appoint his mentor and friend, Robert Mueller, to that post.
Never in the history of the FBI has there been a more corrupt, more dishonest, more partisan and more vindictive director than James Comey, and Trump was absolutely correct in firing him when he did. Not even J. Edgar Hoover (whose own battles with President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy became the stuff of legends), would ever stoop the depths that James Comey has exhibited in his actions at the behest of Hillary Clinton, and at the targeted detriment of a duly-elected president, one Donald J. Trump.
When it becomes evident (not to mention acceptable) to the mainstream media that an FBI director can play fast and loose with the law, to benefit one presidential candidate over another he deems to be “unworthy” of the office the candidate seeks, and when that FBI director is hailed to be some kind of “patriot” who seeks to prevent the election of someone he personally despises, we have arrived upon a time when there are no longer the maxims of fidelity, bravery and integrity at the highest levels of a law enforcement bureau which once stood for such principles.
In his egregious effort to bring down a duly-elected president, by engaging in a churlish attempt to disparage Trump’s character all the while doing so to promote the sales of his own book, former FBI Director James Comey has unwittingly vouchsafed Trump’s decision to fire him, at very least. Comey has also unwittingly likened himself to a lady of the street, plying her trade to anyone willing to fork up the dough, and this is simply the kind of individual who never should have been appointed to the directorship of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in the first place…
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Privileged Communications – the Death of Confidentiality and Trust
There was a time, perhaps a generation or two ago, when there was a universal understanding of what constitutes privileged communications. The concept, perhaps as old as the beginnings of verbal human communication itself, began as an understanding between two individuals that the content of their private conversation was to be kept confidential, and both parties were bound not to disclose its details to anyone else. In the event the confidentiality was breached, the cost of such a breach was inevitably the cessation of trust between the two individuals.
This concept of privileged communications became a part of Christianity in its very beginning, when Jesus implored his followers to “confess your sins, one to another” (James 5:16). This admonition to confess one’s sins to another led to the Catholic Sacrament of Penance, and for centuries the confidentiality of the confessional, otherwise known as the “Seal of the Confessional,” was deemed to be absolute. Essentially, nothing revealed in a confession was subject to legal subpoena, period…that is, until it wasn’t…as the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled in Louisiana v Fr. Jeff Bayhi (2014), when it stated that in certain cases a priest can be held in contempt if he refuses to disclose the contents of a confession under subpoena. The same confidentiality between doctor and patient has also become an open question, despite HIPAA laws which dictate quite the contrary.
The concept of privileged communications between attorneys and their clients, first developed in English Common Law, goes back to the time of Shakespeare when in 1577, in the case of Berd v Lovelace, it was ruled that solicitor Thomas Hawtry was not compelled by the court to disclose confidential information gained from his client. For the next four hundred forty-one years, the practice of attorney-client privilege was also deemed to be absolute…that is, until it wasn’t…when yesterday the FBI raided the hotel, home and office of Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen.
Cohen, who never has been part of Donald Trump’s administration and was not a part of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, had been fully cooperative with Robert Mueller’s investigation, as had the president’s legal team at the White House. Having turned over millions of pages of documents to the Mueller team, such cooperation was thus “rewarded” with Mueller referring evidence he stumbled across, while investigating alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, to the U.S Attorney in Manhattan. This prompted a “no-knock” raid on Cohen’s DC hotel, and his New York home and office where all of his records were surreptitiously seized without warning, much in the same manner that Paul Manafort’s home and office were raided without warning in July of last year. While the specific substance of what Mueller stumbled upon is not known, as of this writing, it also is evident of the fact that Mueller will stop at nothing to bring down a duly-elected President of the United States, based solely on a “fishing expedition” borne of a fictionalized dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Meanwhile, some 1.2 million subpoenaed and unredacted documents are still being slow-walked by the Justice Department to Congress, more than a year after they were first, and have twice been since, subpoenaed.
So, what are we to make of this?
First, cooperating fully with Robert Mueller, in the end, means nothing and any notion that doing so is in the best interest of the president is purely bogus, despite all of the “experts” in the media who insist otherwise.
Second, the idea that the president will now sit down with Mueller, given Mueller’s treacherous actions, has gone the way of the dodo bird. Simply stated, it won’t happen…ever.
Third, the application of justice in the United States is no longer an exercise in objectivity…it has become most subjective, solely based on whether someone is a Republican or a Democrat. Just compare Trump’s treatment by the FBI and Justice Department, given the baseless allegations against him, to Hillary Clinton’s treatment by the same people, whose crimes are not imaginary, but very real. The double standard based on party affiliation becomes self-evident.
Fourth, and possibly most disturbing, the privileged communications that the bounds of honor once demanded, be it in the doctor’s office, the courts and in the church, have gone by the wayside- just as the profiled information of Facebook subscribers have been compromised- and all for nefarious reasons…
…and with the death of confidentiality and interpersonal trust that once existed in the lives of everyday people, we all are left utterly alone in the existence of our being here on this planet.
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Mueller’s Mousetrap: “…not the target, just the subject…”
Almost a year, and tens of millions of dollars later, President Donald Trump’s lawyers were supposedly informed that the president is “no longer the target” of Robert Mueller’s investigation, but is merely “the subject” of it…as if to say, “Come sit down and answer questions, Mr. President…it won’t hurt…we promise…”
As if…
Mueller, who staffed his team exclusively with Democrats within the Justice Department- including Democrat activists and Hillary Clinton campaign donors- has indicated that, although the president is not a target of criminal inquiry, he remains the subject of the inquiry…and that the inquiry now concerns obstruction of justice.
As if the president and his lawyers are naïve enough to fall for that one…
Let’s be clear. Having failed to find even the slightest evidence that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russians to deny Hillary Clinton the election she was “supposed” to win by a landslide, as was the stated purpose of Mueller’s appointment by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the investigation is now aimed at finding evidence that President Trump obstructed justice in his firing of FBI Director James Comey.
The only problem is that a sitting president can fire anyone he chooses, for any reason a president finds necessary, and this applies to the exalted James Comey, as well. Mueller’s latest fishing expedition is purportedly attempting to find that the reason Trump fired Comey was to interfere with an investigation that was based on Comey’s own fabrication of a crime…a crime that did not exist. Not even a high hurdler would stretch that much before running a race, but this is nevertheless a mighty stretch, to say the least. What this also shows is that Mueller’s investigation, from the day of its inception, was intended for one purpose, and one purpose only…to overturn the results of the 2016 presidential election and force duly-elected President Donald J. Trump out of office.
At day’s end, Robert Mueller cannot force the president to answer his questions for three important reasons:
– The president, as any citizen, has the right to withhold testimony, commensurate with his Fifth Amendment rights;
– The president has an absolute right to executive privilege when it comes to answering questions about any discussions he has had while in office;
– If he so chooses, regardless of the political ramifications for doing so, the president has an absolute right to fire Robert Mueller for any reason, including any scenario where Mr. Mueller exceeds the scope of his authority under his own appointment as special counsel.
While the president talks about wanting to sit down with Mueller and answer his questions in hopes to bring this investigation to an anti-climactic conclusion, this is nothing more than a public relations stunt to show the public that he has done nothing wrong to fear such an interview. Yet, the president also knows that Mueller will stop at nothing to trip him up and lay a perjury trap, based on the most trivial and innocent discrepancy with anyone he has already interviewed, and THEN the president would find himself once again a target of a criminal investigation.
In short, the day when President Donald Trump sits down with Robert Mueller, face-to-face, will be the day he hands over his presidency to Democrats who want him out of office, period…and no amount of sweet-talk from Mueller, or anyone else, can change that fact.
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Recognizing that I am hardly one to write about religion, in general and Easter, specifically, there is no doubt in my mind that Easter is the very reason Christianity exists. Without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the message that this resurrection brings us, there is no reason to believe anything beyond our poor, paltry existence here on this earth.
Sad that this Son of God had to be put to death in the most horrible way imaginable, in order to lead the way to mankind’s eternal salvation, His death and resurrection bears witness to the fact that all of us are something more than the flawed human bodies we inhibit. It vouchsafes the eternal nature of our souls, that the time we spend here on Earth is but a sliver of the sum total of our existence, and that we are more, much more, than merely organic deposits with finite shelf lives.
So, whether or not you celebrate Easter, please allow me to extend my heartfelt best wishes to you and yours, for a blessed and happy Easter, and to those of you who are my Jewish friends, please allow me to wish you good Pesach on this week of Passover.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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Drew Nickell is back on Radio Today, Thursday March 29th at 1:00, EDT
I will be back on the radio once again today, Thursday, March 29th, at 1:00 pm EDT, and filling in for Nora Wahl Firestone on her show at WKQA-AM, Freedom 1110 AM in Hampton Roads, VA. During the broadcast, I will be discussing the Omnibus Spending Bill, California’s lawsuit against the federal government, Saturday’s protest march and the 2nd Amendment , and the Stormy Daniels interview .
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Sanctuary Suffrage and the Left’s War on the Constitution
Every ten years, the United States is compelled to take a constitutionally-mandated census of its citizens. Primarily used to re-apportion the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, the census has also been used to allocate federal dollars across a host of taxpayer-funded projects- roads, schools, healthcare assistance, etc. The information gathered on this decennial snapshot tells us who we are as a nation, and what variables amongst us describe our race, sex, age, where we live and how we are related to our household members- all in addition to the counting of how many of us we are.
Up until the last census, taken in 2010 (and previous censuses going back to 1965), we were asked whether or not we were actual citizens and, if not, what was our immigration status. That last detail was deemed necessary to determine equal representation in the House, as such representation is solely based on the number of citizens being represented in each congressional district, with the aim of making each House seat representative of an equal number of constituents. Given the priorities of the Obama administration, counting citizens was deemed to be irrelevant, as they and their Democrat allies sought to apportion congressional districts to include non-citizens as well, in direct opposition to the mandates of the U.S. Constitution. States thus having large populations of non-citizens like California, as compared to other states like Wyoming, would then be over-represented in the apportionment of House districts, presumably favoring Democrats over Republicans. Hence the purpose behind Democrat opposition to including the citizenship question in the upcoming 2020 census- it’s a bold play by Democrats to include non-citizens in the apportionment of congressional districts, and in so doing, enable these districts to receive a dis-proportionate share in federal funding. That’s it in a nutshell, despite their egregious claims that including the question amounts to racial intimidation.
In essence, the Constitution be damned if non-citizens can’t have what’s coming to them, too- including the right to vote. Yes, it’s true. An illegal alien in California can qualify for a driver’s license and/or a state ID card. With either, the non-citizen is then granted suffrage- the right to vote in state elections, including federal elections, because federal elections are administered by the respective states. The State of California has also declared itself a sanctuary state, essentially absolving itself from cooperation with Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE). When ICE attempts to enforce deportation orders, or serve criminal warrants against illegals who have committed violent crimes, state and local officials are proscribed from cooperation with federal authorities. In essence, what this really means is that California- given these two examples, has effectively declared war on the United States Constitution, all in pursuit of partisan political power…and it doesn’t end there…
In the Senate and in the House of Representatives there is a growing number of legislators, mostly Democrats but also anti-Trump/NeverTrump Republicans, who are bound and determined to prevent President Trump from making good on his campaign promise to build a wall on the southern border of the United States. Their vociferous opposition to the construction of the wall merely confirms the fact that what they seek are open borders, which allow unfettered access to illegal aliens- aliens who will then be granted voting suffrage, all in the pursuit of partisan political power.
Ironically, it was yesterday when retired Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens wrote an article for The New York Times on MSN.com advocating for the outright repeal of the Second Amendment- a stance even many gun-control advocates recognize as extreme. It should be noted that this is the same Justice Stevens who authored the dissenting opinion in District of Columbia vs Heller (2008), opposing the verdict that re-affirmed the right of individuals to keep and bear arms, irrespective of affiliation with a state militia. While Stevens’ opposition to private gun ownership is well-documented, it also says much about a former associate justice who wants to tear up the Constitution. While many gun-control advocates say they don’t want to outright repeal the Second Amendment, having a former Associate Justice advocating such repeal merely reinforces the argument of gun-ownership advocates, and the NRA particularly, that the right to bear arms is well under siege.
These are but two examples of how the political left has declared war on the Constitution of the United States, a war that has been percolating since the late 1960s and which has its roots in academia, going back to the earliest decades of the 20th century. To radical anti-American extremists in university faculties across the country, the Constitution is merely a relic of history whose very meaning and structure is something to be ignored in much of what they advocate, including what constitutes free speech on their very own campuses. In their world, students who echo their own radical sentiments are to be guaranteed the right to express their opinions, but those who oppose this ideology are to be censured and made silent- a very dangerous mindset that, over a generation, can lead to complete destruction of individual liberty and a dissolution of constitutional rights.
Without the Constitution of the United States, the United States of America simply does not exist…and behind the left’s war on this Constitution lies their real intent to overthrow the nation and replace it with a totalitarian socialist state.
The first step in this effort, is to rid the nation of its duly elected president, one way or the other. Once Donald Trump is no longer President of the United States, they can proceed with implementing the rest of their nefarious agenda.
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Republicans Rolled by Democrats- Trump Signs Dirty Deal to Fund Military
If ever there was a time to “ditch Mitch,” that is to say Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the proof in that pudding came with this week’s dirty dealing that he and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) put together with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Not even giving their own caucus a chance to read the 2,300-page, $1.3 trillion Omnibus Spending Bill, which essentially funds most all of the Democrats wish list- Planned Parenthood, ObamaCare and VA hospital supplementals, building maintenance for unoccupied federal buildings and a host of other spendthrift wastes of taxpayers’ dollars, the Republican leadership nevertheless agreed to a bill completely devoid of the promises President Donald Trump made in winning the 2016 presidential election. Absent was any substantial funding for a border wall, save for nominal maintenance and repair of existing and outdated fencing, absent was any reinforcement for, and additional hiring of ICE agents, or any provision to cut federal funding from sanctuary cities- cities blatantly in violation to federal immigration laws.
It was as if McConnel and Ryan said to Schumer and Pelosi, “You can have anything you want, just as long as we can restore funding to the military that was denied during the eight years of the Obama administration.”
So delighted that they were able to force this dirty deal upon a Republican majority in both houses, Schumer and Pelosi were ebullient in what they were able to pull off against their impotent and feckless counterparts, McConnell and Ryan. Schumer even added, “Today, we as Democrats were able to achieve more in the minority than we ever were able to achieve when we were in the majority.”
Force-fed to their caucus twenty-four hours before yet another government shutdown was to take place, cowardly Republicans hurried to vote for the measure before immediately splitting town to begin their spring/Easter break, dumping the dirty deal into the president’s lap and putting the onus on him to avoid a government shutdown. Only ninety-five members of the 238-member House Republican caucus, and only twenty-four members of the 51-member Senate Republican caucus, had the courage to oppose their leadership and vote against the bill. Hence, the majority of the Republican caucus (143 Republicans in the House and 27 Republicans in the Senate) effectively turned on the president, as well as the electorate who swept them into office, and joined with Democrats to dump a dirty deal onto the nation.
Trump immediately saw this dirty deal for what it was, even musing (and tweeting) about vetoing the bill, citing inaction on DACA and inadequate funding for construction of a border wall. In the end, however, Trump caved into signing the bill at the behest of his Defense Secretary James Mattis, who stressed the urgent need for increased military funding, to offset the decay in military readiness that was the result of Obama-era sequestration. While many who support the president wished that he had forced the issue, and veto the spending bill, it was Trump who decided to place military readiness over fiscal restraint, and sign the dirty deal, after all.
In signing the legislation, the president vowed that he would “never again sign such a bill,” and called for Congress to pass legislation allowing line-item veto authority to a president, something that all but a few state governors already have to effect fiscal restraint. His call for line-item veto authority will undoubtedly be ignored in the House, where that chamber jealously guards their spending authority.
Trump also called on the Senate to end the filibuster rule, which enables only a few members of the minority party in the Senate to control budgetary and spending legislation. Trump’s calls for ending the filibuster rule will nevertheless be ignored in the Senate, because those ego-maniacs will never surrender the power they hold over the rest of the country, and McConnel is more wedded to Senate tradition than serving the needs of the nation- a stance quite common to anti-Trump/neverTrump Republicans, like Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John McCain (R-AZ) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ).
In forcing this dirty deal onto the president, Republicans in Congress seem bound and determined to surrender their majority status, by abandoning their president and thus enabling Democrats to seize the majority, so that they can then impeach a president on the grounds that they just don’t like him.
Outside the insidious beltway surrounding the political “red-light district” that is Washington, D.C., there is a substantial base of Trump’s electorate who demands that Republican leadership fulfill its oft-made promises of fiscal and budgetary restraint, and to enact the president’s legislative agenda. Sadly, this base is not represented in a Congress where partisan differences are practically non-existent, and Republicans have become merely a laughing stock to Democrats, like Schumer and Pelosi, who are able to pursue a nefarious agenda unfettered by minority status.
Inside that same beltway, however, resides a lone crusader who is willing to take on the establishment, who seeks to upend business as usual, and save his country from its own demise. The deep state of government tries to sabotage his presidency at every turn. The media who covers him, with lies and deceit, will stop at nothing to bring him down. His own party has abandoned him, colluding with the opposition to wreck his efforts and it is these Republican weasels, who sell their souls to the almighty dollar and thus do so at their country’s peril.
Yet, this lone crusader, one Donald Trump, plods on in a quest to “Make America Great Again.” In the face of almost-universal opposition and obstruction, he is a man who just wants to make good on his promises to the people- the very people who have lost any semblance of representation in our nation’s capital.
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The Mueller Probe- America’s Punishment for Electing Trump
After ten months, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent, to punish America for electing Donald Trump president, the time has come for the Mueller investigation to come to an end.
The Mueller investigation, instigated by a vicious lie, cooked up by a cabal including the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, the Obama administration, including his Justice Department, his FBI, his State Department, his CIA and NSA, was put together for three purposes:
To exonerate Hillary Clinton for crimes relating to her illegal use of a private server, willful destruction of evidence, and distribution of classified documents to unauthorized personnel, which were subsequently hacked by foreign governments- all felonies punishable with imprisonment;
To slander and libel Donald J. Trump in a coordinated effort to prevent his election by utilizing FISA warrants to spy on Trump and his associates, based on a Hillary Clinton/DNC paid-for dossier assembled by a foreign national, Christopher Steele of Fusion/GPS, and submitted as evidence to a FISC court to obtain such warrants under false pretenses;
To then sabotage the presidency of duly-elected Donald Trump, through renewing these illegally obtained FISA warrants, so as to create a false scenario of collusion with Russians and obstruction of justice, all in order to prompt a fishing expedition whose sole purpose is to bring down the Trump presidency by any means necessary, so as effectively to overturn the election of 2016.
In the history of the United States, there has never been a more sinister effort, spread across the federal government, including the departments of Justice, State, Treasury, as well as the FBI, NSA, CIA, IRS to use the power of a deep state to sabotage any presidency, namely the Trump presidency, and effectually attempt a coup d’état.
Evidence that this attempt to overturn an election and, in effect, punish the American people for not electing Hillary Clinton, reaches to the highest level of the Obama administration, including President Barack Obama. It has grown well beyond the limits of Inspector General Michael Horowitz, and has prompted increasing calls for an independent counsel to investigate these crimes.
The Mueller investigation, prompted by the illegal leaking of classified information to the New York Times by fired FBI Director James Comey, is nothing more than a diversionary tactic put into place to cloak the very real misdeeds of both Clintons and the administration of Barack Obama- deeds so horrendous in their very nature, and so widespread amongst senior officials across governmental entities, that even Trump’s own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, has thus far refused to appoint this independent counsel because of the potential ramifications involved with criminally charging two ex-presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Ironically, it was the Clintons and Obama who attempted to cover up their own corruption, by accusing Donald Trump of committing the very same crimes that they themselves committed. Bill and Hillary Clinton, through their foundation, were paid $145 million, in advance of the sale of U.S. uranium assets to Uranium One, a holding company partially but substantially owned by the Russian Federation. The sale and transfer of this uranium stockpile was subsequently approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). This committee included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Eric Holder, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, and Office of Science and Technology Policy Chairman John Holdren, all of whom were Obama appointees. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, former CIA Director John Brennan and former NSA Director James Clapper, all Obama appointees, all signed off on the transfer as well, and would go on to play key roles in the attempted take-down of Donald Trump.
Firing Robert Mueller is perfectly within the legal purview of President Donald Trump, and the time has long passed for his investigation to come to a close. In ten months, it has failed to show a scintilla of evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to defeat Hillary Clinton. It has failed to show anything close to obstruction of justice, on the part of the president, and now has taken the desperate steps to investigate the Trump organization for activities taking place prior to Trump’s run for the presidency- in essence, a fishing expedition with no end in sight, and no limits to the breadth and scope of this inquisition.
Sadly, if Trump was to do so, the neverTrump/anti-Trump Republicans, including senators John McCain, Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio and a host of others, would join hands with Democrats in the Senate, to demand impeachment proceedings against the president in the House of Representatives, and thus prompt a constitutional crisis of enormous proportion, and the potential for permanent damage to representative democracy would so ensue.
Away from the cameras, and away from the ever-present news coverage which is as biased as any in American history, two former presidents, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, two former Secretaries of State, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, two former Attorneys General, Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, along with Susan Rice, James Clapper, John Brennan, James Comey, Robert Mueller, Samantha Power and a host of others like Andrew McCabe and Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, are all delighted in the punishment that they have exacted upon the American people, for having gone against their collective will to elect Donald Trump President of the United States.
President Donald Trump, who can’t even trust the weasels in his own inner circle, who take delight in illegally leaking classified information to their co-conspirators in the media, has been effectively placed before a political firing squad, and is forced to face the onslaught of those who are set to deny him and his electorate, what he has earned through a fair and free election, and it is President Trump who is utterly alone and without the support of even his own party…
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Drew Nickell is back on Radio Today, Thursday March 22nd at 1:00, EDT
I will be back on the radio once again today, Thursday, March 22nd, at 1:00 pm EST, and filling in for Nora Wahl Firestone on her show at WKQA-AM, Freedom 1110 AM in Hampton Roads, VA. During the broadcast, I will be discussing the president’s pending face-to-face with Kim Jong Un, the firings of Rex Tillerson and Andrew McCabe, the Mueller investigation, and review all that’s happening with media coverage and the upcoming mid-term elections. If you live outside Hampton Roads, and would like to tune in on the internet, here is a link to that live broadcast :
First day of spring, a lovely thing, so we’ve been told
And yet, outside, a “weeping bride,” left in the cold-
Her tears of rain, and winter’s pain- they’re still around…
Where is the sun? Spring has begun, yet cold abounds…
So, we must wait, until it’s late, for spring to come,
And in our wait, yet with our fate, it’s worse for some
Who are alone, and as they moan, their teardrops fall…
First day of spring, why won’t you sing, for one and all…?
Twenty-five hours before payments from his federal pension were about to begin, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was summarily fired from the bureau by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
In a late Friday night announcement, the Justice Department announced McCabe’s immediate termination as the result of findings, by the bureau’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), that McCabe had lied to investigators on more than one occasion, regarding his involvement in both the Hillary Clinton e-mail and in the alleged Trump/Russia collusion investigations. “Lack of candor” by any and all employees of the FBI are grounds for immediate termination, period. McCabe’s firing also vouchsafes that this policy applies to all, and it should serve to allay any doubts from low-level FBI agents throughout the country, who might otherwise have felt that senior-level members of the bureau get a pass on this policy.
By waiting for the OPR’s official recommendation, issued this past week, Sessions managed to avoid accusations that this decision was purely “political.” The OPR is very much apolitical by nature, comprised of career civil servants, and would not have made this recommendation without just cause. Immediate cries from both Democrats, and McCabe himself, that it was all President Trump’s doing, only serve to confirm the evidence of their own bias, when it comes to both the FBI and the Mueller investigations. Had Attorney General Sessions rebuffed the OPR’s recommendation, and allowed McCabe to retire with his pension intact, he would have merely repeated the Obama administration’s allowing disgraced IRS official Lois Lerner to retire with full benefits. Such a refusal would have also provided President Trump with yet another reason to terminate Jeff Sessions as AG.
McCabe, who facilitated the illegal use of a Hillary Clinton-funded GPS/Fusion dossier to pursue FISA warrants against Trump’s campaign associates, and was part of efforts by Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and others to sabotage Trump’s campaign and subsequent presidency, also colluded to absolve Hillary Clinton of criminal charges following her unauthorized use of a private e-mail server, illegal distribution of classified documents and destruction of evidence related to both. If the findings of Inspector General Michael Horowitz regarding McCabe, and others, lead to the appointment of a special counsel, criminal charges could well follow, and the loss of McCabe’s pension could be the least of his problems. Furthermore, none other than former FBI Director James Comey could also face criminal charges for his own misconduct regarding Hillary Clinton’s e-mail investigation, and illegal release of classified documents to the media, which prompted the Mueller investigation.
Also revealed last night were text messages between Strzok and Page that may serve to impugn FISC Judge Rudolph Contreras, a friend of Strzok, who suddenly recused himself from further involvement following his ruling on Michael Flynn’s indictment. That, in and of itself, calls into further question the FISA applications being approved by the FISC court, and many more indictments could follow, as well.
With so many careers destroyed, and with so many criminal indictments surely to follow, the one question that needs to be asked is simply this…
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Drew Nickell is going to appear at a book signing, Saturday, March 17th (St. Patrick’s Day) at the
Barnes & Noble, Booksellers-Virginia Beach Town Center
4485 Virginia Beach Blvd
Virginia Beach, VA 23462
757-671-2331
Drew will be signing copies of his book, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, EDT
about Drew’s Book:
Bending Your Ear—A Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times delves into the political issues facing America at a crucial moment in this country’s history, where we find ourselves struggling with our national identity and the direction in which we are headed. We have been bombarded with contradictory and confusing messages by the political and media classes to the point where we have collectively lost our way, forgotten our history, and lost touch with what it actually means to be an American. We need to be reminded that “we the people” have the ability to think for ourselves, and recapture all that has made this country the greatest country the world has ever known.
Drew Nickell pulls no punches with regards to both the sociological and political states in which we find ourselves. He assesses the current events of American politics and offers solutions, at a critical time when we decide which direction we took in the 2016 general election. Now is the time for anyone who cares deeply about America, to read what is contained in Bending Your Ear—a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times.
Tillerson Out, and Pompeo In as Secretary of State
Of all the cabinet-level appointees of the President of the United States, none is more important, nor carries more prestige, than the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State is the very face of the president to the world at large and is the nation’s chief diplomat in all things external to the United States. The Secretary of State is the U.S. equivalent of a Minister of Foreign Affairs, in parliamentary systems of government, and even in the United States with its representative republic, the position was originally known as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, from 1781 to 1789.
Robert Livingston was the nation’s first Secretary of Foreign Affairs, before he was replaced by John Jay, who went on to become acting Secretary of State prior to the first actual Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson. Since Jefferson, sixty-nine Secretaries of State have held the position, either as acting or formally installed, and no fewer than six of the first seventeen Secretaries of State went on to become President of the United States (Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Van Buren and Buchanan).
Once roundly criticized by Democrats for his close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin while serving as the CEO of Exxon-Mobil Corporation, Rex Tillerson’s approval by the Senate was largely along partisan lines, as most all of Trump’s cabinet appointments have been. Tillerson was first recommended to the position by George W. Bush’s Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and Robert Gates, who served as Secretary of Defense under Bush and Barack Obama, and it seems that he has remained at odds with President Trump practically from the beginning of his tenure. Because of its relative importance, when compared to other cabinet-level positions, a Secretary of State must be in lock-step agreement with the president under whom they serve, so it was no real surprise when President Trump gave Secretary of State Rex Tillerson his walking papers.
For instance, Rex Tillerson had taken the position that Iran was abiding by their commitments under Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), much to the dismay of his boss who opposed the Iran deal from its inception. Tillerson opposed the president’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accords, opposed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), opposed Trump’s desire to renegotiate the Clinton-signed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and, most recently, voiced his opposition to the decision of the president to place tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. When President Trump last Thursday accepted the invitation from North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to meet with him to discuss de-nuclearization, Tillerson objected, saying that it was “pre-mature” for any such discussions to take place, and this proved to be the final straw on the back of his own undoing.
Acting more in concert with Trump’s globalist/internationalist predecessors, it is no wonder that Trump fired Tillerson, and then decided to replace him with his own CIA Director, Mike Pompeo. Pompeo, who has given most of the daily intelligence briefings to the president, has won the trust of Trump and there is no doubt that his tenure over the State Department will more closely align with that of the president’s. In replacing Pompeo, Trump has wisely decided to elevate Deputy Director Gina C. Haspel, a career CIA professional since she joined the agency in 1985, as opposed to the more-typically appointed political operatives so prevalent in past administrations. Having over thirty years of experience with the CIA, and a level of expertise uncommon to previous CIA Directors (she once served as Deputy Director of CIA’s National Clandestine Service, which oversees covert operations around the world), Haspel is well equipped to direct the agency once notoriously headed by the likes of John Brennan and, oddly enough, George H. W. Bush.
For his own part, Mike Pompeo is highly respected for his professionalism and his high intellect. Graduating first in his class (1986) at West Point, with a degree in mechanical engineering, he might seem an odd fit to oversee all of those Ivy League graduates, with their degrees in international relations, who have made the State Department a morass of discombobulation and ineffectiveness. Nevertheless, Pompeo will faithfully serve a president who has ordered a 31% reduction in the State department operating budget- a good start in “draining the swamp” that is “Foggy Bottom.”
So, while all of the “experts” of statecraft wring their hands at the dismissal of Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State whose very nomination they so vehemently opposed, confirming Mike Pompeo as Tillerson’s replacement (and Gina Haspel as Pompeo’s replacement) will surely reopen the circus that is the Senate approval process. No doubt, all of the posturing and demagogy attendant to such proceedings will surely fill the airwaves of late March and April.
Meanwhile, the presidency of Donald Trump proceeds unabated and, now that the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has formally cleared the president of any alleged collusion with the Russians, the president can proceed with having the State Department at his back- something altogether new in his service to the nation.
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Kim’s Invitation to Trump: Real Breakthrough or Déjà vu?
It didn’t take twelve hours for the mainstream media to turn a collective “about face” on President Trump’s decision to accept the invitation from Kim Jong Un, to meet in the next couple of months for the purpose of discussing de-nuclearization on the Korean peninsula.
When the announcement was made by South Korean National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong last Thursday, March 8th, just outside the entrance to the west wing at the White House, initial reaction to the announcement amounted to stunned approval from unlikely media sources who, unprepared for such a seeming breakthrough in the stalemate between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump, were caught tongue-tied and flat-footed. After all, how could Trump- crude, brusque, undiplomatic and recklessly accelerating us towards nuclear war, ever leverage a discussion from “Little Rocket Man” about de-nuclearizing the entire Korean Peninsula? Hell, de-nuclearization wasn’t even dreamed about by his Democrat and Republican predecessors, who relied on trained “professionals” in the State Department to leverage concessions from Kim and his father- concessions that were as worthless as a liar’s promise.
In 1994, Bill Clinton offered boatloads of cash, and following delivery, Kim’s father, Kim Il Jong, immediately resumed nuclear research, despite the “deal” to the contrary that Clinton so foolishly touted. In 2001, George W. Bush agreed to remove all nuclear missiles in South Korea, once aimed at North Korea, in exchange for yet another promise to halt nuclear weapon research, and Kim Il Jong reneged, yet again. Five years later, North Korea successfully detonated its first atomic weapon, and the march towards the development of nuclear missiles began in earnest. At least Clinton and Bush tried- a far cry from Barack Obama, whose policy of “strategic patience” provided him a convenient and irresponsible excuse to do nothing, and kick the can down the road to Donald Trump. By the time all of this “kimchi” landed in Trump’s lap, Kim Jong Un was well on the way towards being able to nuke the continental United States with an ICBM.
From the get-go, Trump has made it clear that there was no way the United States would abide a North Korea capable of a missile strike against the U.S., or its allies, and summarily applied pressure on China to join in a U.N. resolution to apply the most stringent sanctions against North Korea. The president even took to openly tweeting insults, referring to Kim as “Little Rocket Man,” and issuing threats of “fire and fury, the likes of which the world has never seen” to the North Korean dictator, causing State Department “experts” to swoon at the thought of such provocative pokes coming from a U.S. president. They wailed and whined about the “reckless” president, who would push the world towards World War III.
Then, the unthinkable happened.
It was Kim Jong Un who came with an invitation, to sit down with his nemesis and discuss the possibility of de-nuclearization- something all of the “experts” never dared suggest. After initial jubilation at the thought of such a breakthrough, the legion of Trump-haters: NeverTrump Republicans, Democrats, the so-called “experts” like R. Nicholas Burns (George W. Bush’s Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs) and Peggy Noonan (Reagan’s speech-writer), and their friends in the media, all got their messaging together and then went on a plethora of interviews to bash Trump, yet again, and tell the world the president was flimflammed by a rogue dictator, who tricked the president into agreeing to meet. One might think that all of the “talking classes” are rooting against the president, just because he didn’t seek out their advice and consent, before taking matters into his own hands and boxing Kim into a corner.
Well, their own bruised egos aside, it seems that our president figured out that if one is going to deal with a tyrant, then one needs to speak in the language that the tyrant understands, and now who has approached Trump, hat in hand, and requested a bi-lateral meeting, without all of the time-consuming and trivial trappings of a brokered summit? Such a summit would take far-too-long to bring about, under the “rules and regulations” the experts swear by, and both Kim and Trump haven’t the time to wait for all of that to take place. Kim won’t wait because he knows, that Trump knows, he is merely months away from having an operational ICBM with a nuclear warhead- something Trump has promised will be preceded with military action, which is why Kim has requested a meeting by mid-May. The threat of American military action looms large for the little dictator, primarily because he believes Trump is just “mad” enough to follow through on his threats, and annihilate North Korea in the process. For his own part, Trump knows that the only way to prevent an inevitable military showdown is to give Kim this one last chance to back off his nuclear stance, and thus preserve his regime, or else bear witness to American military might.
The Trump-haters who seem to hope that the effort fails, just so they can say, “…see, I told you so,” don’t realize that their slandered “warmonger” president really wants to avoid war, and is willing to extend the olive branch this one time in order to prevent it. They insist that Kim is so smart (and that Trump is so dumb), that he will snooker the president the way his dad did Clinton and Bush, and gain sanction relief and other concessions on the front end of a commitment he doesn’t intend to keep.
Well, so far, it is Kim who has made all of the concessions, including a halt to missile testing and abiding U.S./South Korea military exercises, designed as rehearsals for a possible invasion of the North. Beyond agreeing to sit down with Kim, Trump has promised nothing, and both sides understand that financial pressure and international sanctions will remain in place while the two sides prepare for this historic meeting- the first between a U.S. president and a leader of North Korea. Kim wants to see a formal agreement to bring to an end to the Korean War, sixty-five years after a cease-fire was declared, leaving a “hot” war turned “cold” but, technically, not over. Trump might be willing to abide this, once Kim turns over all of his nuclear weaponry to the U.S. and once U.N. inspectors thoroughly verify that de-nuclearization has actually taken place.
Trump won’t be stupid like Obama was with the Iranian mullahs, when his predecessor forked over billions in cash for nothing in exchange. Trump won’t be taken in, the way Clinton and Bush were taken in, and he has already promised to make it a short meeting if he senses that Kim is trying to pull one over on him. What would then follow would show a watching world that the time has come for a military response to the Korean crisis- one that Trump wants to avoid, but is willing to exact, if that is what it will ultimately take to de-nuclearize North Korea.
Don’t expect that these efforts, if successful, on the part of Donald Trump to avoid war with the North Koreans, will land the president anything close to a Nobel Prize for Peace. No, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, who awarded to Obama the Nobel Peace Prize for achieving nothing more than his own election, and to Al Gore for convincing the world that man-made global warming would melt the polar icecaps by 2013, would more likely give the prize to Kim Jong Un, instead. Perhaps they should rename the prize the “Nobel Prize for Political Correctness,” but that is a subject for another day.
So, whether a real breakthrough is achieved or whether this is just an unfortunate case of déjà vu, is really up to Kim. He either comes in earnest or he comes to deceive, at his own peril. Kim may be crazy, but he is not stupid. While only a fool would trust him to keep his word, his actions are the only way he will avoid his own demise and the destruction of his country, and Trump knows this all too well, because time has run out.
Perhaps, it is time for all of the “experts” to start rooting for an American president, rather than licking their chops at the prospect of his failure…but don’t hold your breath…they are still hoping that Trump colluded with the Russians.
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Drew Nickell is back on the Radio Today, Thursday March 8th at 1:00, EST
I will be back on the radio once again today, Thursday, February 8th, at 1:00 pm EST, and filling in for Nora Wahl Firestone on her show at WKQA-AM, Freedom 1110 AM in Hampton Roads, VA. During the broadcast, I will be discussing discussing tariffs, Jeff Sessions, school shootings, media coverage and the upcoming mid-term elections. If you live outside Hampton Roads, and would like to tune in on the internet, here is a link to that live broadcast :
We have all heard the oft-repeated phrase that a dog is “man’s best friend”, and there is ample reason that we should believe this. For thousands of years, dogs and their masters have had a special relationship with one another. Dogs help men at work and play, they comfort us when we are sad and lonely, they protect us from the dangers that we may encounter and they’ve even been known to aid in the healing of the sick.
Yet, no one really knows how or when this special relationship began. We’ve always assumed that wolves began to follow prehistoric tribes on their hunting parties; waiting to devour the remnants of the beasts that were killed so that man might eat. No one can really say, with any certainty, which of these wolves became the first domesticated “dog”. This tells that story. . .
Once upon a time, long ago, there lived a clan of cave people who called themselves the Keepers of the Flame. They were a clever people, for they had discovered how to make fire from flint. By striking an ordinary rock against a piece of flint, they were able to create fire whenever it was needed. Before this, fire could only be had when lightening would strike a tree, so the Keepers of the Flame had a marked advantage over other tribes which had not learned about the secrets of flint.
One of the boys in this tribe was named Lag, because he had a habit of lagging behind the others when they would go in search of food. Lag was often scolded by the tribal elders for this, but it was no use, for like many bad habits, this one just would not be broken. Because Lag often showed up late for supper, he was given the task of gathering up the bones and carcasses and taking them out to the wolves that had been following this clan for some time. The tribal elders had realized that giving such scraps to the wolves served the dual purpose of sanitation and keeping the wolves at bay. So it fell on Lag to do the dirty work of feeding the wolves.
Little had anyone in the tribe realized how the wolves were becoming attached to Lag. Nevertheless, the wolves would whine and wag their tails whenever they caught sight of Lag, even if he had nothing to offer them. The rest of the tribe would be growled at by the wolves, but the wolves knew that Lag was their source of food. As such, Lag was even able to touch the wolves, who would wag their tails and lick his hand when he would stroke their gray coats of hair.
When the tribal elders saw how Lag was able to approach and pet the wolves, they were amazed that Lag had the ability to do this without being bitten or even growled at. Over time, they came to appreciate, and be awed by, what they considered to be a special power that Lag had over the wolves, for it never occurred to them that the wolves were merely showing Lag their gratitude for having fed them.
One night, as the Keepers of the Flame had finished feasting on a buffalo which they had roasted on a campfire, they called out for Lag to carry away the scraps, but he did not answer the call. Strangely enough, the wolves who had been following the tribe for many months, were nowhere to be found, either. Another day passed and the tribe began to wonder where Lag and the wolves had gone.
Late that next evening, the tribe was startled by a single wolf who was barking at the entrance to the cave. They tried to shoo away the wolf, by throwing stones at him, but the wolf just dodged the stones and continued to bark at them. One of the men said that the wolf would stop barking if they killed him, but the chief stopped this man as he was raising his spear.
“I believe that this wolf is trying to tell us something,” said the chief. “Perhaps he knows where we could find our lost member, Lag.”
Sure enough, the wolf led the men of the tribe straight to Lag, who had fallen some three miles back, and had broken his ankle. Surrounding Lag was the rest of the wolf pack, who had fought off other wolves as they tried to get at Lag. They had even brought to Lag a squirrel to eat, and only now backed away from Lag when his fellow tribesman reached down to pick him up and carry him back to the cave.
For the rest of his days, Lag would walk with a severe limp, as .a result of the injury to his ankle. For the wolves who had so protected Lag, when he had fallen, there was to be no more growling at the other Keepers of the Flame, who in turn, allowed the wolves to sleep in the cave when the weather was bad. Sleeping next to Lag, regardless of the weather, was the one wolf who had summoned the tribe to his aid. He stayed with Lag always, as a matter of fact, and this wolf became known as “Lag’s Dog”.
Last week, President Donald Trump announced his intention to place specific tariffs on imported aluminum and steel, as a means to preserve aluminum and steel manufacturing in the United States. Almost immediately, globalist Republicans and economists, alike, began to howl at the notion of placing such tariffs- warning that doing so would lead to trade wars and would ultimately hurt American consumers of products utilizing these materials. Interestingly many Democrats, who traditionally embrace this kind of protectionism because it favors industries dominated by labor unions, have joined in the criticism of Trump’s plan to levy a 25% tariff on imported steel, and a 10% tariff on imported aluminum. Had such a proposal been brought forth by a Democrat president, Democrats would have rejoiced at such a prospect of protectionist policy, which only goes to show that they are going to oppose Trump, at any and all levels, for the mere sake of opposing the president who they despise to their very core.
Meanwhile, in the face of such criticism, President Trump maintains that the imposition of such tariffs is the only means left to prevent the entire shutdown of aluminum and steel manufacturing, here in the United States. Because these two commodities are so vitally important to the manufacture of armaments, the president has couched this policy in terms of ensuring our national defense, especially in times of war. Admittedly, it is impossible to manufacture weapons of war without ready access to these materials, and any scenario which would see the United States solely dependent on the importation of these materials, in times of war, is a prospect no responsible president would dare embrace. Hence, the need to preserve the last remnants of aluminum- and steel-making capacities before they, too, altogether disappear from our domestic manufacturing mix.
Critics cite the failure of a tariff once placed on imported steel, imposed temporarily by the George W. Bush administration in 2002. These temporary tariffs were intentionally set to expire in 2005, but were rescinded well before that date, largely because the Bush administration caved in to protests from the World Trade Organization (WTO). The 2002 tariffs exempted Canada and Mexico, because their inclusion in the imposition of these tariffs would have meant the placement of fines against the United States, under the Clinton-signed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This is the same NAFTA which Donald Trump has long opposed, since its inception in 1994. Trump’s opposition to NAFTA, along with the prospects of placing tariffs on imported aluminum and steel, were key components of his 2016 presidential campaign, alone amongst sixteen other Republicans vying for that year’s Republican nomination.
Once again, the issue comes down to the difference between globalists like both Bushes, both Clintons and Obama, who have steeped and vested interests in the maintenance of a global economy pursuant to a “new world order,” and nationalists like Donald Trump, who favor putting American interests ahead of those interests favored by the WTO. Such internationalists have, during the last seventy years or so, made “tariff” something short of a dirty word- that is to say when the “tariff” to which they refer, is one imposed by the United States. Since the end of World War II, the United States has generously allowed foreign countries to impose tariffs against the United States as a means of rebuilding their respective post-war economies, even when the imposition of such tariffs have wrecked many U.S. industries and cost hundreds of thousands of American manufacturing jobs in the decades since.
Bethlehem Steel, and the history of steel manufacturing in Sparrows Point, Maryland, just east of Baltimore, is a primary example of what has happened to the steel industry in the advent of internationalist policy. Once Maryland’s largest employer, there was a time when steel manufacturing at Sparrows Point employed some 65,000, including my uncle who would sacrifice his lungs to the production of steel, as his job involved lining the great ovens with asbestos brick at that plant. By the time I was selling personal protective equipment to the plant in the mid-1980s, the employment at that facility was down to about 6,700, and it was all dependent upon the successful implementation of a new technology, developed here in the United States, of continuous casting in the manufacture of steel. That effort proved to be too little, too late, and by the second decade of the twenty-first century, steel manufacturing at Sparrows Point ceased to exist. The gargantuan plant, which had once been the world’s largest manufacturer of steel, became a hollow monument to what was once the power and might of the American workforce.
The seeds of this economic globalism go all the way back to the presidency of Woodrow Wilson who, interestingly enough, began the process of shifting federal tax revenue away from tariffs and duties on foreign imports, and onto personal income. It was Woodrow Wilson who in 1913 imposed the first permanent federal income tax onto the American people, via the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and it was Wilson who initiated the first payroll tax at the beginning of his presidency. That same year incidentally saw the creation of the Federal Reserve System, which has overseen monetary policy ever since. It was Franklin D. Roosevelt who later imposed the Social Security Income tax in 1936, and it was Lyndon B. Johnson who first imposed the Medicare payroll tax in 1965. Essentially, three of the most powerful Democrat presidents ever elected are largely responsible for all of the federal taxes withheld from American paychecks, and it is these policies which have largely shifted funding for the Unites States government away from tariffs, and onto the backs of American wage earners.
All of these years later, it was the presidency of Donald Trump who pushed through the largest income tax reduction on individuals and businesses, in the Tax Reform and Jobs Act of 2017, and now it is this same administration who seeks to unravel seventy years of unfair trade policies, in a twilight attempt to recover American economic pre-eminence, after seventy years of propping up other world economies. The United States, alone among world powers, has both rebuilt post war economies in nations with whom we were once at war, and has maintained and provisioned the defense of European and Asian allies since the end of World War II, now seeks to level the playing field when it comes to international trade. While resistance to Trump’s tariffs from other nations is quite predictable, in spite of the largesse Americans have availed to the world, resistance to tariffs on steel and aluminum, from our own politicians in both parties, speaks to the extent that globalism has largely superseded Americanism in economic policy.
Any nation which comes to depend upon other nations for the strength of its national economy, and the ability to arm and defend itself in times of war, is a nation whose continued safety and security has become the property and purview of foreign interests, and not their own. The same holds true for American interests…something that Donald Trump has understood for decades, but something found repugnant to those who place the world’s interests above our own.
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Recusal and Refusal – the Curious Case of Attorney General Jeff Sessions
The only thing certain about Jeff Sessions is the fact that, for reasons known only to himself, he is bound and determined to be the Attorney General of the United States.
Sessions was a well-liked and comparatively successful senator from Alabama, whose own re-election was virtually perpetual for as long as he wanted to serve in the Senate. Sessions was respected by both sides of the Senate aisle- that is, until he decided to accept President Donald Trump’s nomination as the nation’s eighty-fourth attorney general. From the first day of his confirmation hearings, Sessions subjected himself and even his career to wholesale slander, particularly on the part of fellow Senator Corey Booker (D-NJ), alleging that the Alabama senator was a de facto racist who should not receive Senate confirmation. After an excruciating inquisition by Booker, and his fellow Democrats on the senate Judiciary Committee, desperate to find some reason to reject their fellow and once-liked fellow senator, Sessions was nevertheless approved on an 11-9 strictly partisan vote in committee, and an equally-partisan 52-47 vote in the U.S. Senate.
Sessions wasn’t in the new job a month when he decided to recuse himself from all matters related to the investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. So broadly applied was this recusal, that Sessions has since maintained more than an arm’s length distance between himself and any investigation, even remotely connected to the Russian/Trump probe. This recusal (and, in essence, refusal to pursue investigation) even precludes his participation in anything to do with Hillary Clinton’s e-mail scandal, FBI illegal use of a Clinton-funded dossier to get FISA court authority to spy on members of the Trump campaign, and probing into the Clinton Foundation/Uranium One collusion, which resulted in the transfer of 20% of our uranium stockpile to Russian interests. Obviously, Sessions had nothing to do with any of these scandals but, so far, he has used his recusal to avoid anything related to these revelations, as well.
In essence, Sessions’ recusal has effectively taken the Justice Department away from the Trump administration, and placed it into the hands of Obama-appointed officials, and under the oversight of Rod Rosenstein, whose inexorable ties to the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations, as well as Bob Mueller and James Comey, render him unable to judiciously pursue investigations and indictments against these former officials.
Worse, because of cowardice on the part of Senate Republicans, the Democrat minority in that chamber has effectively blocked President Trump from firing Sessions. Doing so would place the entire Justice Department under Rosenstein’s direction until Sessions’ replacement can be confirmed- something that Senate Democrats vow will never happen as long Trump remains president. Gutless Republicans would roll over in such a scenario, allow their Democrat colleagues to block a second Trump AG appointment, and then Democrats would use such a firing to prompt impeachment proceedings in the House, under the guise that Sessions’ firing would somehow be construed as obstruction of justice.
So, the president is boxed in on the subject of Sessions and is thereby reduced to periodic humiliation of his own attorney general, in the form of comments via Twitter, to try to get him to resign his post. No one can rightfully blame Trump for his frustration with not having an effective attorney general as part of his administration. After all, Kennedy had his brother, Bobby, Nixon (for a while) had John Mitchell, Reagan had Ed Meese, Clinton had Janet Reno, Bush had his triad of John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales and Michael Mukasey, and Obama had the tag-team of Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. All of the aforementioned attorneys general did their level best to serve the presidents who appointed them.
Who does Trump have? Jeff Sessions, who has recused himself from anything related to serving the interests of his own president. In his recusal, he refuses to get involved- even when it comes to pursing indictments against Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and their apparatchiks, who have clearly violated several criminal statues when it came to the covering up for Hillary Clinton, and using the powers of the Obama-led federal government to attack Donald Trump.
In all of this, Sessions is a quandary, in and of himself. On surface, the most loyal of Trump’s supporters, he was the first U.S. Senator to endorse, actively support and even work for Donald Trump’s nomination, back when no one else even dared to do so. He worked tirelessly to help Trump beat sixteen other candidates for the Republican nomination, and he remained in place to help Trump win the fall election. He weathered an unbelievable storm of invective, inquisition and indignation to survive Senate scrutiny and become Trump’s attorney general. Yet, in this role, he has effectively abdicated any sense of running the Justice Department and, through his all-too-timid and time-consuming responses to Republican demands for criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration, he has virtually assured that none of these bad actors will ever face criminal consequences for their own actions, as long as he stubbornly remains in place.
All of which brings us to the inevitable question, “Is there another, ulterior motive in Sessions’ dogged pursuit of, and stubbornly remaining in this office?”
… and that question prompts dozens more in the curious case of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
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Liberal Logic 101- How the Left Thinks and Why They Will Lose Elections
In the fifth century B.C., Sun Tzu, general, military strategist and philosopher, wrote The Art of War, a study on how to fight and win wars. The book would go on to have major influence on military, business, legal and political strategy- entities where competition is a major factor- and even up to our present day. In it, Sun Tzu cautions the reader to “know thyself, and know thy enemy.” He explains that doing so almost guarantees victory in any conflict, and that failure to do so can almost guarantee defeat.
“Know thyself, and know thy enemy.”
It isn’t hard to ascertain one’s political leanings- especially in an age where we are becoming increasingly polarized between left and right. Listening carefully to the words being used, it becomes pretty clear where an individual’s politics are, even when the individual wants these inklings to remain private, and this is even true for both Democrats and Republicans. For instance, if someone uses the term “progressive” in the place of the word “liberal,” you can bet your bottom dollar that this person is a liberal.
Liberals, by and large, hate the word “liberal,” because they are smart enough to know that the American people have an innate disdain for anything so named. That’s sad because, traditionally, the word “liberal” was once evocative of open-mindedness and free-thinking, with a willingness to try new ideas and challenge the status quo. In the past seventy years, or so, the word has taken on the trappings of socialism, communism and globalism- three philosophies repugnant to conservatives, who instead believe in entrepreneurship, capitalism and nationalism. In almost every contemporary political issue, the struggle comes down to these two competing philosophies, which explains why President Donald Trump is so reviled by socialists, like much of today’s Democrat Party, communists (yes, they still exist, particularly among Antifa and other radicals) and globalists, including much of the mainstream media and all of the living past presidents- Carter, both Bushes, Clinton and Obama. Show me an anti-Trump or NeverTrump Republican in either the House or Senate, and I will show you a closet liberal who pretends to be a conservative but, in fact, is a believer in big government, wealth re-distribution, internationalism and, inevitably, a one-world government.
Republicans who truly want to remain in office will have to start coming around to embrace the president they once reviled, because the presidency of Donald Trump is going to be the central issue of the 2018 mid-term elections and, inevitably, the 2020 presidential election. Failure to do so will ensure that the days of a Republican legislator are numbered, and this is largely due to the corners in which Democrats have painted themselves.
Rather than rallying around substantive issues, like healthcare, the budget, immigration and, essentially, the proper role of government, Democrats and anti-Trump, NeverTrump Republicans have a singular purpose- depose, impeach and otherwise destroy the presidency of Donald Trump, by any and all means. With help from the collusive mainstream media, messaging this over-arching philosophy is easy enough, but not so easy as to sway the thinking of true, philosophical conservatives and the legions of Trump supporters across the land…and therein lies the secret as to why Trump will win re-election in 2020.
All of those forces set against Trump have made a tactical error which renders their dreams of bringing down the president, and/or defeating him in 2020, unlikely to the point of certainty. In their hatred of Trump, they have allowed their disdain to extend towards hating those who voted for, and continue to support, Donald Trump. This hatred, as most evidenced by the Hollywood elites and other notable celebrities, who regularly and consistently show their disdain for America, patriotism, family and even religion, values which they condescendingly mock and deride- suggests that believing in God, standing for the national anthem, saying the Pledge of Allegiance is indicative of low intelligence. Telling large swaths of American voters that they are of low intellect is not going to attract their votes, any more than basing an entire political platform on ending the presidency of Donald Trump. In attacking God, or belief in God, in attacking America, patriotism, and the desire to put America first, liberals alienate enough voters, right out of the gate, to prevent any liberal from ever again prevailing in national elections. Additionally, continued blind allegiance to Barack Obama, and even to Hillary Clinton, whose criminal behavior is just now starting to come to light for many who were previously oblivious to this behavior, will push many even further away from the Democrat party- despite claims that their base is so “energized” in the wake of Trump’s presidency.
With every day, and with every instance of media bias against the president, it becomes more and more evident that the media has lost the trust of the American people, who will vote for President Trump and his legislative supporters. They will do so, even if for no other reason, than to roundly reject the notion that it is they who are “politically incorrect,” and therefore unworthy of the respect due to any American standing up for his or her belief. Liberals who oppose border security, a more robust international stance, tax reduction and regulatory relief do so at their own peril, because most Americans feel otherwise, and this only reinforces the president’s position in the next election(s).
As those opposed to Donald Trump’s presidency grow ever louder and ever angrier, with every passing day, they also ignore another crucial teaching from Sun Tzu, twenty-five centuries ago, and they do so at their own peril:
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The News Today- Quid Est Veritas ? (What is Truth ? )
Since the advent of 24/7 cable news, the great irony of constant news coverage is that public trust in that coverage continues to decline. Countless studies show that television audience trust in news coverage is half of what it used to be, prior to thirty years ago, which was half again what it had been in the 1960s. In essence, the public’s trust in the news media has fallen four-fold in the last fifty years and most of this decline has occurred since the advent of cable news television.
So pronounced is this lack of trust in what is being broadcast as news coverage, the ground has become fertile for conspiracy theories attached to practically every event reported- be it a school shooting, as happened in Parkland, Florida, a train colliding with a garbage truck, as happened in Crozet, Virginia, or an upset political victory that flew in the face of conventional wisdom, and called into question the expertise of pundit and pollster, alike.
We’ve seen examples of manufactured news, like when Dan Rather purported to find what became known as the Killian documents, alleging that former President George W. Bush had once been declared unfit for duty in the Texas Air National Guard and suspended from that service. This was in 2004, when Bush was in the midst of his re-election campaign against John Kerry. The story was a complete fabrication on the part of Rather, whose reputation as a viable journalist had already been on the downward slide since his coverage of the Reagan administration. At that time, bumper stickers which said, “Rather Biased” began to appear as an outward expression of skepticism on the part of the general public. “Rather-gate, “as it came to be known, was the first documented example of false news manufacturing by a major television network, although there had been significant instances of such similar suspicions reaching back into the early days of television broadcasting.
Belief in news coverage or, rather, in the declining lack thereof, hasn’t been helped by the constant drone of news coverage in the wake of cable news, and can be traced to a single event on which saturated news coverage overdosed on the evening of June 17th, 1994.
After his attorneys convinced O. J. Simpson to turn himself in to Los Angeles authorities, following their issuing of a warrant for his arrest in the double homicide of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and a waiter named Ronald Goldman, and in an attempt to flee from these charges, Simpson was riding in his own white Ford Bronco, driven by his friend, A.J. Cowlings, heading north on Interstate 405, with police cruisers following in pursuit. Overhead, at first, was a single news helicopter, but before the agonizing low speed chase ended, no fewer than nine helicopters had joined in to cover the “event.” 24/7 news coverage of the trial soon followed, and at one point, there was not a time when one could turn on the television and not find coverage of the murder, which lasted for months.
It is said that quantity does not mean quality, and so constant and jaundiced has news coverage become since the Simpson trial, that its watching public has grown skeptical of practically every story covered. Even with the news following the school shooting in Parkland, the slow drip-drip of revelations, like the number of sheriff’s deputies refusing to enter the school building and intercept the shooter, lends credence to this skepticism. Scripted interviews with “students,” some of whom are suspected of being planted by news media for desired effect and messaging, don’t do anything to encourage confidence on the part of television audience, and we have arrived upon a time where all news has become something to be taken with a grain of salt.
In the Gospel of John, chapter 18, verse 38, Pontius Pilate, having heard the accused Jesus of Nazareth’s claim to be a “witness to the truth,” posed the following question to Christ, “Quid est veritas?” (what is truth?), prior to proclaiming to the crowd of onlookers that he believed Jesus to be innocent of having committed any crime. Yet, it was Barabbas for whom the crowd demanded commutation of a death sentence.
Sad that we must all ask ourselves the same question, “What is the truth?” when seeing the news of the day. An uniformed, or mis-informed, public is the greatest threat to representative democracy, and in the end, may prove to be the very reason for the deception that is the mainstream media, as it exists, today.
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School Daze- Putting First Things, First, in the Wake of School Shootings
Once the hurt has passed- passed, at least, to the point where we can review what took place in Parkland without knee-jerk reactions clouding the issue of school shootings, the nation will have to focus its attention on the immediate problem, first.
It is not the guns, nor even the availability of guns that is at issue. It’s not the failure of an FBI, having lost the focus of its primary mission to connect the dots and take preemptive action to prevent crime, as in this case, they well could have. It’s not mental illness, per se, and how local authorities gather and share information when it comes to troubled youth. All of these things are important, and there is ample need for all of these issues to be addressed.
The primary and immediate problem, however, is that our schools are not safe, and distracted focus on the peripheral issues already enumerated will not make our schools any safer tomorrow, than they were on February 14th. Since guns of all types won’t be off the streets anytime soon, and there is no shortage of social misfits and evil “sickos” who are capable of exacting such wretched carnage, we have to take steps now to ensure that our schools are safe…
…and if we cannot take the necessary steps to ensure the safety of our schools, then we need to face the eventuality that the time has come to consider closing our schools, permanently.
When a school shooting begins, whether it is from Columbine nineteen years ago, all the way up through Parkland last week, there is about a ten-minute gap in the time alerts go out and the time that police response is on site. In that amount of time, an armed assailant with enough ammunition can kill a lot of unarmed children and adults, as well. Time after time, the dastardly deed is all done by the time police arrive, so any amount of self-defense the school can provide has to come from within the school’s staff. Hence, the call to consider arming our teachers, or at very least, some of our teachers (though, the thought of some of our own teachers “carrying,” admittedly, causes us to laugh and wander off track), comes to the fore.
Any adult school staff member- administrator, counselor, nurse, custodian and teacher, too, could be trained in firearm safety and trained how to shoot. For that matter, it needn’t even be a member of the school’s staff. There are plenty of trained adults- retired police and arson investigators, armed services veterans and retired military, who have been trained in the proper use of firearms, and many of these men and women could use a paying job, for sure. Just as sure, many would volunteer to be hallway proctors equipped to fight back against an armed assailant, bent on mass murder. That’s one thing that could be done very soon.
While none of us can board an airplane, attend a major league sporting event, or enter an arena or concert hall, without passing through metal detectors and bag checks, thousands enter and leave school property each day without having to do so…not at all schools, but at enough schools with no such provisions, that the means to conduct such searches should be provided with funding and mandate. What’s good for the county courthouse and magistrate’s office should also be good for the schools within their jurisdictions. Within a year or two, all public schools across the entire country could be so equipped.
It is obvious that these measures will cost, one way or another, a tremendous amount of money and resources, which might easily beg the question, “Is the safety of our children while attending school worth it?”
As obvious as the answer to that question might be, we must also consider the school- that is, to say, the school building, as a continued venue for elementary and secondary education. It takes a tremendous amount of taxpayer money to finance the overall operation of the school building(s)- staff salaries, equipment, school cafeterias and lunch programs, maintenance and physical plant operating costs, not to mention the costs of transporting students, to and from school. Added together, it is small wonder that public education takes a big slice, perhaps the biggest slice, of state and municipal operating budgets.
Add these costs to the problems associated with school shootings and other forms of violence taking place in our schools, perpetrated from within and without, not to mention instances of sexual misconduct that steal away the innocence of our precious children, and one has to ask, “Is this all worth it?”
We live in an age where information, most all of the known information, is available on the internet. We could provision every home in America with broadband internet service, provide every household with an interactive home-based computer, and provide quality education to every child, for a fraction of what it costs to operate school facilities. As any telecommuter who has participated in on-line meetings and virtual training seminars knows, the classroom can be brought to the home as easily as the corporate conference room can be brought to the home.
Granted, what would be lost in the wholesale conversion to home-based schooling, would be the social interaction between kids (already a problem with a generation of children who prefer computer games to outdoor physical activity), and a severe impact on extra-curricular and athletic participation, too. Then again, if the purpose of education is to learn, learning can be accomplished at home, and the issue of school safety becomes moot.
Simply stated, if we cannot as a nation make our schools safe, then we must consider the eventuality of closing the schools as we know them, and keeping our kids safe at home, with an on-line teacher, instead.
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The Second Amendment- Weep Not for the Children, but for their Children
Having ratified the United States Constitution on June, 21, 1788, the Congress realized that it was in immediate need of amendment, hence the passage of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights, within fourteen months on September 25, 1789. The amendments were approved in order of their relative importance, according to what the framers determined to be most crucial, and were thus prioritized in order from one to ten.
In between the freedoms of religion, press, speech, assembly and petition (as outlined in the first amendment), and subsequent freedoms from forced quartering of soldiers, search and seizure without warrants of probable cause, unfair trials without juries, cruel and unusual punishments, and abrogation of delegated powers and those not specifically enumerated to the federal government (found in amendments three through ten), the same men who ratified the Constitution found it necessary to prioritize the second amendment:
“A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Of all the amendments to the Constitution (save the eighteenth which outlawed alcoholic beverages), the second amendment has proved to be the most fragile, most mis-interpreted, and most controversial. Over the years, its very meaning has been bandied about. Opponents to the right of citizens to own firearms have often claimed that the purpose of the second amendment is to provision well-regulated state militias, and nothing more. They claim that individual gun ownership is not what the second amendment is all about.
This mis-interpretation escalated to the point where the United States Supreme Court, in District of Columbia vs Heller (2008), ruled that the second amendment “protects an individual right to possess a firearm, unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.”
So, it seems certain that the intent of the second amendment does, indeed, guarantee the right of individuals to possess firearms, and that government lacks the power to infringe upon these rights. Yet, of all the amendments to the Constitution, the second amendment’s rights are the ones upon which such freedoms have been most infringed.
For instance, since the 1930’s, automatic weapons are proscribed from private ownership. In essence, one cannot own an operational machine gun. Background checks, gun registration and licensing permits are all infringements on these rights, but have been deemed to be largely acceptable in the service of public safety. Mentally deranged people, quite rightly, are also proscribed from possessing guns of any kind- again, an infringement in the greater interest of public safety. Few would argue that these specific restrictions are not necessary and yet, every time there is a heinous mass shooting, the voice of those who would rather see the end to private gun ownership take advantage of these shootings, to call for ever-stricter gun control and systematic erosion of second amendment rights.
Before we are so quick to cede away our constitutional rights in the momentary hyperbole of outrage, in the wake of the latest mass shooting in Florida, perhaps we should consider the following from none other than Thomas Jefferson, citing Cesare Beccaria’s Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1764), on precisely why the second amendment is so very important to the success and survival of liberty:
“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature (that) they disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
Jefferson’s view precisely describes the ill-wisdom that is the essence of gun-free zones, and precisely why the passage of more and more gun control laws only makes our streets and our schools, our churches and our homes, more dangerous.
Simply stated, lawful citizens obey gun laws and criminals do not. So, all of the efforts to rid the nation of firearms- regardless of how passionate and how precious the screams of our youth are deemed to be genuine and worthy of consideration- the streets of Chicago and Baltimore, and a hundred other cities and suburbs also tell us that the preponderance of gun statutes are directly correlated to the escalation of gun violence, and not its extinction.
As the young generation arises, a generation which does not know their country’s history and does not have high regard for our constitutional rights, nor the reasons for its protections against potential governmental overreach, the freedoms we enjoy today may well be numbered, in both time and circumstance.
Weep not for the children, but for their children, who will know not the blessings of freedom and liberty, but rather the chains of subjugation and slavery.
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In an all-too-frequent occurrence, we once again hear that a mass murderer was on the “radar screen” of the Federal Bureau of Investigation before the dastardly deed was done. San Bernardino, Garland, Texas, Las Vegas and, now, Parkland, Florida. The continuing saga of FBI knowledge before the fact, then nothing is done to stop the brutal murder of innocents in the wake of such knowledge. Even the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the Boston marathon attack were not without prior knowledge on the part of the FBI.
We keep hearing the same mantra, “See something, say something,” but, then…nothing.
Most recently, the FBI knew that Nikolas Cruz was in possession of firearms. They knew he had a sick penchant for killing animals. They knew he had several occurrences where police had been called to his home, where he had been expelled from his high school following violent acts perpetrated on his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend, all after having been prohibited from entering the school with a backpack for fear of deadly devices he might bring to school. His pathos was well known by student and teacher alike, and the FBI even knew about his disturbing posts on Facebook, and that he had declared in a video that his goal in life was to become a professional school shooter, thanks to a tip they received from a concerned citizen in Louisiana. All of this knowledge, and yet…nothing…no co-ordination with the FBI office in Miami, no alerts to local and state police.
Seventeen lay dead, fourteen students and three school staffers, all because nothing was done to stop a sick and twisted individual from planning and executing the deadliest school shooting in Florida history, one that rivaled Sandy Hook and Columbine in its infamy.
We keep hearing about how great and how dedicated the rank and file of FBI agents are in the execution of their jobs, and yet corruption and mismanagement from above is what keeps them from doing their jobs. Several years ago, citizen complaint and advisory calls phoned into local FBI field offices, were re-routed to a central call center located in West Virginia in an effort to co-ordinate such calls to one data center and track such calls on a national basis. The only problem with that strategy is the failure for forwarding these alerts to local FBI offices and law enforcement- assets which, if informed and deployed, might well have prevented these heinous acts from happening.
Yesterday, Friday the 16th of February, we heard from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that thirteen Russian nationals, and three firms with which they have been associated, were indicted on charges related to interference with political campaigns going back to 2014. In the indictment, Rosenstein stressed that no American citizen actively or inactively took conscious part in this interference, and that any involvement by Trump campaign associates was the result of deceptive tactics used by the Russians who, hiding behind fake social media profiles appearing to be American citizens, attempted to disrupt the election process by concurrently staging pro-Trump rallies and anti-Trump protests, sometimes even on the same day. Repeatedly, Rosenstein stressed that nothing in the indictment suggested any willful collusion on the part of any American citizen, which also suggests that alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign remains nothing more that a pipe-dream by Democrats, NeverTrump Republicans and the mainstream media to bring down Donald Trump. The fact is that these efforts on the part of Russians reach back well before Trump’s candidacy and ascertain no connection with Trump or his campaign. It also reveals an Obama administration, which knew about this tampering, did nothing to stop it in the self-assurance that Hillary Clinton was going to win the presidency. Had Mrs. Clinton won the presidency, none of this would have been known and no Mueller probe would have taken place.
So, while the FBI has so busied itself, illegally pursuing FISA warrants against Trump campaign associates, all based on a fake dossier purchased by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, they have failed to adequately do their primary job of investigating real domestic violent crime and preventing its occurrence. Essentially, the FBI at its highest levels has become a political investigative body rather than a criminal investigative body- an American version of a Soviet era politburo, rather than a crime-fighting force as it had once been known.
Florida’s Governor Rick Scott has demanded the resignation of Trump’s FBI Director, Christopher Wray, as the result of the inaction taken by the FBI prior to the school shooting in that state. While Wray might have the potential of becoming the FBI’s “fall guy,” as the result of this latest failure to connect the dots with regard to the killer Cruz, the problems associated with the lack of communications and inter-agency cooperation go back to the years leading up to 9/11, begging the question, “Why do we have an FBI in the first place?”
This much is true. Changes- fundamental, organizational and actual- must take place in both the Justice Department and in the FBI. If neither Attorney General Jeff Sessions nor FBI Director Christopher Wray can effect such changes, then both should go, sooner rather than later.
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The news from Parkland, Florida, of a crazed shooter entering a high school and killing at least 17, was the latest in a string of mass shootings occurring where people are at their most vulnerable. Whether in schools, like Columbine and Sandy Hook, or in churches like the ones in Charleston and Sutherland Springs, the single common denominator is the fact that these mass killings took place in buildings presumed to be devoid of firearms- in essence, gun-free zones.
All it takes is for some malcontent, armed with weapon(s) and bent on mass murder, to enter a school or a church, where he knows that there is little chance of being shot, and then bodies start piling up.
Predictably, legislators and politicos, will stand up and demand more and more gun control legislation, even though such legislation would fail to prevent these mass killings from taking place. Just as Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals and the intellectual inspiration to both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama once said, “Never let a crisis go to waste,” liberals always take these shootings to push for more and more gun control legislation. These political opportunists would have us believe that some lunatic would be dissuaded from perpetrating mass murder, on the basis that said lunatic sees a sign prohibiting guns at any given location.
Horse feathers!
Gun control laws have about as much to do with preventing mass shootings as warning labels on packs of cigarettes have to do with preventing lung disease. Consider Chicago, for instance, which has the strictest gun control laws in the entire nation. That city also has the highest number of shooting deaths in the entire nation, year after year. Despite very strict gun control laws having been put in place, shooting deaths have escalated in Baltimore, as well. The same could be said for many other large cities around the country.
Putting up a sign that an area is a gun-free zone, be it in a school, church, synagogue, or restaurant, is tantamount to saying that the people inside are completely defenseless, and therefore act as an unintended invitation for a would-be mass killer to perpetrate the most carnage possible.
Arming teachers and administrators, in the same way that commercial airline pilots are now permitted to carry firearms, might provide defense capabilities aimed at taking down mass shooters, but there is something else that should be attendant to any effort to prevent gun violence…and that is teaching children right from wrong, beginning in elementary school.
There was a time when schools drilled into students’ heads that taking a human life, or perpetrating any act of violence, or committing any crime, is wrong, period. Then, beginning in the early 1970s, the concept of moral relativism came creeping into the classroom. It started when teachers began assigning essays to their students, asking whether or not it is wrong for a homeless mother or father to steal a loaf of bread from a convenience store. The notion of “justifiable crime,” thus entering the lexicon in school curriculum, took off from there, aided and abetted with the frequent use of mental illness as a defense to exonerate those committing homicide. Nowadays, it seems that the only “right” and “wrong” being taught is that it is always “right” to challenge authority and that it is always “wrong” to question the dogma of man-made global warming. In the absence of the pledge of allegiance and school prayer, political correctness has taken the place of God and country. Criminologists are notorious for rationalizing and excusing any street crime, including rape or homicide, while being the first to condemn white-collar crime on a wholesale basis.
Another idea might be the imposition of mandatory capital punishment in the cases of all mass shootings, perpetrated by anyone 14 years of age, and older. While there are many studies which claim that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent in preventing homicide, such studies are usually proffered by university professors and lawyers opposed to capital punishment in the first place. However draconian or unenlightened it might otherwise seem, bringing back public executions might well deter many a miscreant from even thinking about perpetrating mass murder.
The first thing that should be done, regardless, is to take down all of the signs which say, “Gun-Free Zone.” The only thing that putting up such signs accomplishes, in the end, is to encourage the sick and twisted to commit mass murder like that which took place on Saint Valentine’s Day, in a quiet suburb of Fort Lauderdale, and in far too many other places across America.
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Obama’s Designated Liar- the Chronicles of Susan Rice
Former National Security Advisor and one-time Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, author of a “disturbing e-mail,” sent to herself some fifteen minutes after Donald J. Trump was sworn in as President of the United States, has had much to say on behalf of her boss, Barack Obama, the bulk of which has been outright lies designed to cover the mistakes and misdeeds of her former boss.
Having cut her teeth in the Clinton Administration as part of the National Security Council, Rice first covered the tracks for President Clinton’s lack of response for Rwandan genocide in 1994. Her primary concern was how Clinton’s “lack of response would affect Democrats running in that year’s mid-term election”, according to an article in The Atlantic, authored by Samantha Power, who would go on to serve as U.N. Ambassador replacing Rice, when Rice became National Security Advisor.
While serving as U.N. Ambassador, it was Susan Rice who, on September 16, 2012, appeared on five Sunday talk shows, claiming that the preceding week’s September 11th raid on the Benghazi Consulate was “a spontaneous reaction to an internet video which ‘insulted’ the Islamic prophet, Muhammed.” In doing so, Rice repeatedly dismissed the notion that the attack was actually pre-planned in observance of the 9-11 attacks, eleven years before. As events unfolded during the weeks which followed, Rice was proved to be a liar who, in fact, was attempting to provide political cover for Obama’s re-election, as it had been his claim that Al-Qaeda in Libya was under control. The truth about the raid on Benghazi came out, but not in time for Obama’s re-election to be thus affected. Obama, Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice all knew at the time that the “spontaneous reaction to an online-video” was a lie, but that didn’t dissuade them from trotting out Rice to be the designated liar on that Sunday, the 16th.
In a June 2nd, 2014 interview with former Clinton advisor George Stephanopoulos on his ABC morning show, it was Susan Rice who claimed that deserter Bowe Bergdahl “served the United States with honor and distinction.” She also added, “Sergeant Bergdahl wasn’t simply a hostage; he was an American prisoner of war captured on the battlefield.” As the truth about Bergdahl’s desertion surfaced in the coming weeks and months, it became known that Rice had been sent in on another mission- this time to rationalize Obama’s decision to trade five high-level Guantanamo detainees in exchange for Bergdahl’s release by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Once again, a lie proffered for political prevarication and deception.
Monday’s release of an email written by Rice, fifteen days following a January 5, 2017 meeting between Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden, FBI Director James Comey, Deputy FBI Director Sally Yates and Rice, suggests that she was attempting to cover Obama’s tracks, once again.
“President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book,’” Rice wrote. “The president stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book.”
The issue to which Rice was referring was the Obama-led investigation into alleged collusion by the Trump campaign, all based on evidence gathered in the FISA surveillance of Trump campaign associates. We learned last week that the FISA warrants were granted based on supposed “evidence,” obtained from the Christopher Steele dossier, which was bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC.
So, while Barack Obama, Joe Biden, James Comey, Sally Yates and Susan Rice all knew that the FISA court had been “had” by the FBI, who failed to disclose to the FISA court who it was that funded the false dossier, it was Rice who then indicated in her January 20th e-mail, Obama’s insistence that the investigation should be done “by the book,” all in an attempt to cover for her boss one last time, and clean up the sordid mess before it became property of the National Archives.
A “by the book” investigation, borne of treachery and deceit, all aimed to bring down the presidency of a duly-elected successor to Barack Hussein Obama…
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Lincoln at age 209- Time Traveling and Ironic Coincidence
Abraham Lincoln was born two hundred nine years ago today, in a log cabin near Hodgenville, Kentucky. His father and mother were part of the hardscrabble “great American unwashed,” as the 16th president would often refer, decidedly different than the trappings of wealth that attended the birth of his 29th successor, Donald J. Trump. Lincoln, almost universally considered to be America’s greatest president, was primarily self-educated, while Trump was afforded top-notch education- first, at the prestigious Kew-Forest School and New York Military Academy, and then at the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, earning high marks in economics. On its surface, nothing would suggest any degree of commonality between Lincoln and Trump, and yet exchanging these two men in the respective times in which each served as president, a strange irony of coincidence emerges upon considered study.
When Lincoln was elected in 1860, the United States was a bitterly divided country on the very precipice of the deadliest war in American history. Having barely received 39% of the popular vote in a four-way race, his election was the spark that touched off secession and, ultimately, war against the eleven Confederate States of America. At the time, Lincoln was arguably the most hated of presidents in the seventy-one years since the election of George Washington. Roundly lampooned in the newspapers of his day, Lincoln faced opposition from both major parties, Democrat and Republican, and even from within his own cabinet. At a time when national unity should have been the order of the day, given the fact that the country was at war with itself, Lincoln’s presidency was a bitter and lonely struggle against treachery, both from within and without. He was regularly thought to be a dolt of little intelligence and poor manners, and his common man’s parlance of verbal communication was routinely scorned by the elite of establishment politicos in the nation’s capital, who scoffed at his penchant for bawdy stories and backwoods humor. His own re-election in 1864 was far from certain, as the embattled president ran against an army general whom he had twice fired from command, one George B. McClellan. McClellan’s platform was based on making peace with the rebellious south, a very popular sentiment following three bloody years of conflict, and yet it was Lincoln who ultimately prevailed against all of the political forces conspiring against him.
Excise the fact of civil war during Lincoln’s presidency, and one can obviously draw parallels between Lincoln and Trump.
Like Lincoln, Donald Trump was very much an outsider to establishment Washington at the time he was elected. Like Lincoln, Trump was and is hated by members of both political parties, and is roundly lampooned in the newspapers of today, as well as with a broadcast and cable media that did not exist when Lincoln was alive. Faced with treachery from within his own cabinet who, in Trump’s first year of office, has routinely leaked information to the media, just like Lincoln’s own cabinet regularly did, all in a seemingly-concerted effort to bring down a sitting president. Often assailed as something of a dunce, with poor manners and coarse speech, as well as a tendency towards less-than-diplomatic tweets and intemperate language, Trump’s “style” is frequently at odds with establishment politicians in Washington, D.C., who consider themselves to be of a higher class than their tawdry president. Like Lincoln, Trump was elected with less than a majority of the popular vote. Like Lincoln, Trump has had to face strong opposition from the legislature while trying to piece together some semblance of coalition government, just as his opponents in the House and the Senate from both parties, attempt to parlay partisan division into legislative dysfunction.
It is often said that history has a way of repeating itself- and in ways not fully realized until after the fact, when we can look back retrospectively of all that’s occurred. Leadership, true leadership, can only be achieved in the face of adversity and in the midst of opposition. While it is too early just yet in his administration, to determine whether or not the test of time will find favor with the presidency of Donald J. Trump, it is certain that the sentiments of adversity and opposition to his presidency have adjoined in an atmosphere ripe with both the need and opportunity of great leadership on the part of the president. Given all that he has achieved in his first year of office, under the less-than-ideal circumstances in which he finds himself, the new president seems poised to harness the reins of history in a way which will find favor, once his own time in office has passed…
…and all in the irony of coincidence he shares with Abraham Lincoln, no less.
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Drew Nickell is back on the Radio, today, February 8 at 1:00 pm, EST
I will be back on the radio once again today, Thursday, February 8th, at 1:00 pm EST, and filling in for Nora Wahl Firestone on her show at WKQA-AM, Freedom 1110 AM in Hampton Roads, VA. During the broadcast, I will be discussing recent revelations, in the FBI and Justice Department, which show high-level corruption within our government regarding the 2016 election, as well as dysfunction in Congress over spending and other such items. If you live outside Hampton Roads, and would like to tune in on the internet, here is a link to that live broadcast :
The Text that Hit the Fan: “potus wants to know everything we’re doing”
Among the thousands of text messages between FBI Agent Peter Strzok and Attorney Lisa Page, messages that the FBI claimed to have lost but were nevertheless found, was this text from Page to Strzok on September 2, 2016:
“potus wants to know everything we’re doing.”
It is not an overstatement that this text may well prove to be the smoking gun that President Barack Obama was part of the effort to meddle in that year’s presidential election, using the power of government to both protect Hillary Clinton and attack Donald Trump, all in an effort to rig the election in Clinton’s favor.
Strzok, having successfully engineered FBI Director James Comey’s exoneration of Hillary Clinton on July 5th of that year, received this text from his paramour, Lisa Page. The text was part of an ongoing dialog between the two, concerning a meeting that Comey was to have with Obama, to discuss talking points about the probe into the former secretary of state.
If the president of the United States (“potus”) wanted to know everything that Strzok and Page, specifically, were doing (regarding the Clinton investigation and everything they were doing to help obtain a FISA warrant against Trump), then that means President Obama was well aware of such efforts and sought to be updated on these same efforts…
…and it doesn’t get higher than this.
There would be more text messages to come in the days and weeks which followed. One in particular, written by Page on Election Day, 2016 referenced buying “all of the president’s men” and the need to “brush up on Watergate,” indicating that she fully understood the implications of what was going on. A week later, on November 14th, Page referenced in another text to Strzok “OUR task ahead of us,” and, while the meaning of this cannot be precisely ascertained, it fits nicely into a determination to either overturn the results of the election or put into place a plan to destroy the new president.
In the coming days and weeks, we will be learning about what all was taking place at Obama’s State Department, before and after the election, while that department was headed by John Kerry, following Clinton’s tenure. It will show that senior-level officials both attempted to conceal subpoenaed documents in the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation, and it will show a concerted effort to sabotage Trump’s campaign and presidency. This level of corruption, as with the Justice Department and FBI, which used a Clinton-funded dossier to spy on Trump’s campaign associates, may even spread to the Treasury Department and the IRS, before all is said and done. Regardless, this is a scandal without equal in the history of the United States…
…the trans-departmental attempt to cover up the crimes of a Secretary of State, one Hillary Clinton, and disrupt a presidential election and sabotage its victor, all under the aegis of a corrupt president of the United States, one Barack Obama.
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The Mueller Probe- Desperately Avoiding the Inevitable
In the nine months since former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel, tasked specifically with finding evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to tamper with the 2016 presidential election, no evidence has been brought forth that any such collusion ever took place. In fact, it has become apparent that Mueller, Deputy FBI Director Rod Rosenstein (who appointed Mueller), as well as James Comey and Andrew McCabe, all knew that the FISA warrants granted to the Obama Justice Department and the Comey-led FBI, were principally based upon opposition research, paid for by the Clinton campaign and DNC.
The fact that the GPS/Fusion dossier was merely mentioned as “possibly being of political origin” in the requests for multiple FISA warrants, is a far cry from full disclosure to the Obama-appointed FISC judge, that the dossier was paid for by the political opponent of the candidate targeted in the FISA warrant. Had this been disclosed to the judge, the judge would have violated federal law granting the FISA warrants based upon such questionable evidence. Such omissions are also, in fact, violations of law which are punishable by imprisonment. Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe testified in closed session, that “no such warrants would have ever been requested without the dossier”. Hence, those who submitted these requests to the FISC criminally violated the law, all in their zeal to first, prevent the election of Donald Trump, and then sabotage his presidency from the start. Democrat-authored memos cannot, and will not, dispute any of these facts as we have come to know them, despite vehement attempts on their part to do so.
Unable to substantiate collusion between the Russians and the Trump campaign, Mueller’s team has since re-focused its investigation into whether or not President Donald Trump obstructed justice in his firing of FBI Director James Comey on May 9th of 2017. Although Comey’s firing was not the designated focus of the appointment of Mueller by Rosenstein, the real reason for his appointment was apparently to retrieve anything possible to bring a criminal indictment against Trump, leading to his impeachment.
In essence, an outcome in search of a crime.
The only problem in going that route is that a sitting president has unrestricted authority to fire an FBI Director, at any time and for any reason. Comey admitted as much before and after his firing. So, since Comey’s firing won’t suffice, Robert Mueller has now “baked a cake,” loaded with the most trivial of details, gained from his interviews with Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort and George Papadopoulos. In so doing, he is tempting the president to take a bite of this “cake,” and thus open himself to charges of lying to a federal prosecutor- that is, if the president decides to sit down with Mueller and face his questioning. Refusing such a request from Mueller will assuredly cause political fallout and sanctimonious outrage amongst Trump’s bi-partisan opponents, and their fellow travelers in the mainstream media. No doubt, Trump’s refusal to sit down with Mueller would fuel the fires of those set on demanding his impeachment, as predictable as it is undeniable.
Nevertheless, talking to Mueller (something that the president has an absolute right to refuse) would be tantamount to Trump’s effective resignation from the presidency, and therefore NOT something that is ever likely to happen. He knows it, and so does Mueller, despite media reports which suggest that such an interview is certain to take place. It’s not the first time the media has pushed a narrative divorced from reality, and it won’t be the last, either.
In the end, no matter how long all of this drags out- even if God forbid, it lasts throughout Trump’s second term- the investigation of Robert Mueller is faced with inevitable failure in its fevered quest to bring down the presidency of Donald J. Trump. All of the desperate attempts to avoid this inevitability notwithstanding, the time has come for this inquiry to come to a close, if only to avoid splitting the country further apart. Yet, that may well depend on whether or not Mr. Mueller loves his country more than his own reputation.
In the words of the president, himself, an absolute “disgrace,” indeed.
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Yesterday, February 2nd, a memorandum summarizing more than a year-long investigation into the FBI and the Department of Justice and their use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during the 2016 presidential election, from the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Devin Nunes (R-CA), was released without objection or redaction from the White House.
Its release was vehemently opposed by senior-level associates of the Justice Department, including Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray, as well as the ranking minority member of the committee, Adam Schiff (D-CA), on the grounds that its release would compromise national security, it assets, and the methods and procedures used by our intelligence to gather information on foreign nationals. These objections, and the justification for these objections, were echoed by the mainstream news media- all in supposed fear that the memo’s release would irreparably damage our national security and destroy our federal agencies. Nevertheless, these objections turned out to be completely fallacious and without any merit or substance. The four-page memorandum itself, as well as the cover letter from White House Counsel Don McGahn, contained no such information as was alleged.
The salient question…why the objection to its release?
Simple. Its release exposes a level of corruption and abuse of power that was exacted upon the Trump campaign, before, during and after the election, on the part of Barack Obama’s Justice Department and the FBI, then under the direction of James Comey. The memo exposes the fact that a GPS/Fusion dossier, authored by Christopher Steele and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC to dig up dirt on Donald Trump, was the principle “evidence” submitted to the FISA court, backed up by media reports that were circularly sourced to Christopher Steele, to obtain warrants to spy on Carter Page and others associated with Trump’s campaign in the final weeks of the 2016 election. In December 2017 closed-door testimony, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe indicated that without this dossier, there would be no such FISA warrants requested from, much less approved by, the FISA Court. Originally requested under James Comey’s signature, and with the imprimatur of Obama’s Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, these illegal warrants were renewed by, and additional warrants were subsequently obtained by, Deputy Attorney Generals Sally Yates, Dana Boente and Rod Rosenstein, reaching well into the Trump presidency. This dossier, compiled by Steele and based on tabloid and salacious reports gathered from Russia, was revealed to President Trump in January 2017, by FBI Director James Comey, who assured the president that there was no reliable evidence in the dossier, despite the fact that it was Comey who used this dossier to gain FISA warrants, two months before. In May of 2017, the day following his firing by President Trump, Comey released transcripts of his own notes on his conversations with the new president through a college professor to the New York Times, which ultimately prompted Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein to appoint Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, knowing full well that there was no substantive evidence of such collusion in the first place.
So, an opposition research paper paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, was used by the Obama Justice Department and the FBI, to obtain FISA warrants against her opposing candidate, without divulging to the FISA court that this dossier was just that- a false dossier authored by a foreign national, Christopher Steele who “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.” The dossier was fed by Nellie Ohr, an employee of GPS/Fusion and the wife of Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr, and these fabrications were used to obtain subsequent warrants.
Never in the history of the United States has there been so blatant disregard for the U.S. Constitution, and never has there been a scandal in such magnitude reaching far into an administration, to interfere with a presidential election, attempt to overturn that election, and destroy the subsequent administration of a duly-elected president.
Yet, the release of this memo only scratches the surface of the deep state corruption that has been unleased on President Trump. In the coming weeks and months, it will be revealed that similar abuses of power and attempts to destroy Trump’s presidency, extend to State Department and the Treasury Department personnel appointed during the last three administrations, all at the behest of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Had Hillary Clinton been elected, none of this corruption would have ever come to the surface, and no one would have ever known that her election was only made possible, as the result of collusion with the FBI and the Obama administration, aided and abetted by a news media which has ignored the biggest story in our lifetime…
…a story whose revelation is merely the tip of the iceberg.
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How dare the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, deliver the State of the Union address last night, to a joint session of Congress on live television…?!? After all, wasn’t it Hillary Clinton who was supposed to be delivering that speech…?!?
How dare President Trump talk about the members of our armed forces, emergency responders, those Americans who put themselves in harm’s way, to come to the aid of their countrymen, here at home and across the seas…?!? After all, pointing out all they do to protect us is nothing more than a ploy to distract us from the Mueller investigation…
How dare he call upon our legislators, both Democrat and Republican, to set aside their partisan differences and seek common ground to deliver for the American people they are elected to serve…?!? Doesn’t he know we are a divided country, incapable of joining together for the greater good…?
How dare this man tout the accomplishments of his first year in office, creating 2.4 million new jobs, 200,000 of these in manufacturing, alone, achieving historical low unemployment figures for blacks and Hispanics, and touting record highs in the stock market which enrich everyone’s 401k plans, retirement pensions and college savings accounts…?!? Doesn’t he know that rescinding thousands and thousands of regulations, cutting business and personal income taxes, and eliminating ObamaCare’s individual mandates only amount to tax cuts for the rich…?!?
How dare he tell the American people to believe in themselves, believe in America, and tell them that they can dream anything, be anything and achieve anything…?!? Surely, he knows that nothing of the sort can be accomplished, without Democrats regaining control of both houses of Congress, and then telling the people how they must think and how they shall live their lives, because Americans are unable to think for themselves…
How dare President Trump evoke patriotism, how dare he mention the motto “In God, We Trust,” how dare he say we should stand for the National Anthem or place our hands over our hearts when we say the Pledge of Allegiance…?!? Doesn’t he realize that doing so is an assault on the First Amendment and that he is marginalizing those who don’t believe in these things?
How dare he call for lowering the prices of prescription and generic drugs, how dare he call for speeding up FDA approvals for revolutionary new treatments, and allowing terminal patients to avail themselves of potential life-saving treatments…?!? Doesn’t he realize that the people have no right to treat their medical conditions without government regulation and approvals…?!?
How dare the president talk about the pursuit of fair and reciprocal trade deals, protect American workers and American intellectual property…?!? Doesn’t he understand that Americans are supposed to prop up other countries, even at the expense of ourselves and our jobs…?!?
How dare he talk about clean coal and energy independence when he knows that dependence upon foreign oil is what keeps potentates in power and energy prices high, and that keeping coal mines closed in states like Kentucky and West Virginia supports the import of foreign coal from countries who don’t have to abide by the Paris climate accords for the next thirteen years…?!?
How dare he call for shortening the timetables for building roads and improving infrastructure…?!? Doesn’t he realize that thousands of bureaucrats depend upon these notoriously slow approval processes for their very livelihoods…?!?
How dare the president speak of securing our borders against illegal entry, doing away with lottery visas and chain migration, just so he can provide a path towards citizenship to 1.8 million illegal immigrants and their children…?!? Doesn’t he realize that there should actually be no borders, and that people have the right to come to this country unimpeded and avail themselves of American largesse, without any restrictions, just so they can become registered Democrat voters and ensure the perpetual primacy of that party?
How dare he call upon both parties to work together on bringing our immigration laws into the realities of the 21st century, and how dare he say that Americans are dreamers, too…?!? Doesn’t the president understand that immigration reform can only happen when Republicans are called racist xenophobes, and doesn’t he understand that only children of illegal aliens are allowed to dream…?!?
How dare the president speak of annihilating ISIS, when his predecessor promised us we would have to live with the reality of Islamic terrorism, how dare he keep the Guantanamo detention facility open when his predecessor promised to close that facility, and how dare he decry rogue regimes around the world, especially North Korea, who are bent on achieving the capability to land a nuclear weapon here in the United States…?!? Doesn’t he realize that they, too, have the right to pursue their own dreams of destroying America, and doesn’t he know that every country in the world deserves American financial support, regardless of whether or not they are allies…?!?
How dare he recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel…?!? Doesn’t he know that doing so is offensive to those nations who seek to destroy Israel, and doesn’t he know that doing so is counter-productive to a peace process that has failed to achieve a two-state solution for the past forty years…?!?
How dare the President of the United States refer to the Capitol dome as a monument to the American people, when they should otherwise see the Capitol dome as a monument to the politicians we elect…?!?…
…and how dare the president tell Americans that it is they, the American people, who are making America great, again, when all that it does is to co-opt a cheap campaign slogan and attempt to bring the country together…?!? Doesn’t his horrible man realize that keeping the people divided against each other, and using these divisions to retain partisan political power is in the best traditions of our country…?!?…
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Trump’s First State of the Union- to View or Not to View
On the eve of President Donald Trump’s very first State of the Union speech before a joint session of congress, it is worth recognizing the very real state of disunion that exits within, and outside, that same congress. This disunion is the inevitable biproduct of the intentional divisiveness which has been put forth by all, Democrats and Republicans, alike, who were opposed to his candidacy and are opposed to his presidency. The forces united in their resistance to his presidency are the very audience to whom his speech will be delivered, much akin to Daniel going into the den of lions who are licking their chops at the thought of feasting upon their human visitor.
Many of the same Democrat House and Senate members who boycotted his inauguration a year ago, have already indicated that this boycott will be continued tomorrow night. Had Republicans so boycotted an inauguration or a State of the Union speech by Barack Obama, screams of racism would have surely saturated the airwaves, but it’s perfectly tolerable for Democrats to do so against Trump. Look no further than this for the obvious hypocrisy that is undeniable, for when it comes to what the media feeds all of us, what’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander.
The wide gulf which now exists within the nation itself- that being the direct result of the divisiveness promoted by his immediate predecessor, Barack Obama- is the same nation now beset with division to whom Donald Trump is tasked with communicating his vision for the coming year, and beyond. As surely as Trump’s supporters will be tuned in to listen to his remarks, so it is equally certain that voters opposed to his presidency will not be tuning in to listen to the speech. Nevertheless, these same “non-viewers” will have plenty to say about the speech, beginning Wednesday morning, ranting and raving about the president’s speech being racist, sexist, misogynist, non-inclusive, blah, blah, blah. This will all be based solely on the rantings and ravings of Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Rachel Maddow and Steven Colbert, who themselves have already pre-ordained their narrative, completely devoid of anything actually contained in the president’s speech.
So how does anyone, much less a President of the United States, work with or speak to anyone so invested in their hatred of Trump, that they won’t even listen to that same president as he addresses the nation?
Better yet, how can any congressman or senator who shows his opposition to this president by not showing up to hear him speak, expect any cooperation from this same president, on substantive issues requiring their attention by the voters who elected them in the first place?
Donald Trump is just smart enough to ignore his naysayers and opponents, and will instead pursue his agenda with reckless abandon, as he has since taking office. That is the real secret behind his successful first year in office, but don’t expect the media to talk about this fact. Just as with his tweets which they disdain so much, the President bypasses the media’s coverage of his presidency as though it were an irrelevant irritant, much like a camper swatting away gnats who buzz in front of his eyes.
If Donald Trump is as bad as his opponents have made him out to be, one would think that these “no-shows” would want to be even be more attentive to what the president has to say about his agenda if, for no other reason, to seek out a strategy to oppose that agenda.
Then again, since their opposition to Trump is fomented and affirmed by a biased media set on destroying his presidency, why bother with something like honest and informed debate, when all you have to do is chant, “Impeach 45…Impeach 45…?”
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Regarding the news that former Secretary of State John Kerry is not only undermining President Trump with the Palestinians, but is also mulling a run for the White House in 2020, this is an actual street sign (I’m not making this up) in Virginia Beach…
The FBI’s “Secret Society” (and why this should worry all of us)
Yesterday’s news reports that a substantial and crucial number of text messages between FBI Agent Peter Strzok, and his paramour Lisa Page- messages exchanged between December 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017 (the very day Robert Mueller assumed control named of the investigation into alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign)- have suddenly disappeared, provides even further evidence of corruption within the senior levels of the FBI and the Justice Department. Reluctance on the part of that same Justice Department, to comply with multiple House oversight committee requests for all documents related to this same investigation, further suggests the scope of this corruption, slowly emerging for all to see.
This corruption permeates top levels of the NSA, the CIA and cabinet level appointees of the Barack Obama administration, as it has become ever clearer that FISA warrants to spy on private citizens associated with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign were based upon GPS-Fusion dossiers, paid for by the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign. Further, hundreds of these same associates within the Trump campaign, caught up in these illegally-obtained FISA warrants, were unmasked by senior level cabinet members of the Obama administration, including UN Ambassador Susan Power.
Peter Strzok, who was the lead investigator into Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private server, and who was also in charge of the FBI’s investigation into alleged collusion of Russia and the Trump campaign, and his extra-marital lover, a trial attorney assigned to Robert Mueller’s investigation, Lisa Page, had already gained notoriety for messages they exchanged in August of 2016, where they discussed the need of an “insurance policy” to destroy the Trump presidency in the unlikely event that he would defeat Hillary Clinton in the fall campaign.
Then, on the day after the 2016 election, in one of several text messages exchanged between Strzok and Page, it was revealed that a “secret society,” one whose intent was to bring down the presidency of Donald Trump, was created and which included several pro-Clinton, anti-Trump members of the Mueller investigative team, along with others associated with the decision to clear Hillary Clinton of criminal charges two months before the July, 2016 announcement by former FBI Director James Comey.
Comey’s announcement, which essentially let Clinton off the hook, was written in May of 2016, and based on a decision to exonerate Clinton by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, in coordination with Comey and the Clinton investigative team. As it turns out, it was Strzok who changed the incriminating wording of “gross negligence” to “extreme carelessness,” all done at the behest of his superiors and to the benefit of Mrs. Clinton. To suggest that all of this “fix” was not under the auspices of President Obama is highly problematic, given the broad extent of what was required to exonerate Clinton from facing espionage and other charges related to her use of a private server and her release of classified documents to non-authorized personnel, like Huma Abedin.
According to Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) someone associated with this “secret society” has now come forward and corroborated the existence of the society, and that they held meetings outside the offices of the FBI and the Justice Department- meetings convened to discuss how they might be able to drive the current president from office.
Then there is the four-page memorandum from Devon Nunes, (R-CA), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, which summarizes his committee’s findings that there is hard evidence that bias on the part of anti-Trump agents within the FBI, and which may also include several senior-level members of the Obama administration, is what prompted the entire investigation into Trump, in the first place. Republican House and Senate members outside the committee who have read this memorandum say that, once the public has seen its contents, all will be shocked to learn just how high up this corruption reaches into the Obama administration. Interestingly, Democrats who sit on this same committee are vehemently opposed to the public release of this memorandum, for fear of its ramifications, while other Democrats in both houses allege that the document is only a means to divert attention away from the Mueller investigation.
Regardless of one’s position on President Donald Trump- love him or hate him- the idea of FBI and Justice Department interference into a presidential election, and attempts to overturn the results of this election, should be disturbing at very least. The fact that powerful, senior-level officials within the FBI, the Justice Department, the CIA and the NSA, during the Obama administration, all participated in the illegal surveillance of Donald Trump and his associates, speak of a scandal much more serious than Watergate, and much wider than any in the history of the United States. The suggestion of the existence of a “secret society” designed to take down a sitting president of the United States, should send shivers down the spine of every American, that there is something so rotten in our nation’s capital, the very survival of representative democracy hangs in the balance of the whispers and designs of a very evil element within the deep state.
Not even Donald Trump could have imagined just how deep and murky the “swamp” that is Washington, D.C. really is…and little wonder why he is viewed as such a threat to the status quo of a corrupt government so entrenched in treachery and deceit.
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Entering the first week, of the fourth shutdown of the U. S. government, thanks to arcane Senate rules regarding budgetary reconciliation, the time has come to change Senate rules on all matters budgetary and otherwise. The fact that a small cabal of egomaniacs in the United States Senate, led by Chuck Schumer (D-NY) can continue to collect their ill-earned pay, while members of the military and others who provide critical services which protect life and property must report to work with no promise of pay, is outrageous enough.
Yet, historically, such an abomination is only made possible by the 1974 Robert Byrd (D-WV) rule, which requires a sixty-vote threshold to approve any legislation whose effects of increasing the federal deficit last more than a decade. Since any legislation passed by Congress has such potential implications which last that long, it is no wonder that a budget has not been passed in recent memory, and that the individual tax cuts in the 2017 Tax Reform and Jobs Act have to expire in ten years. In fact, our government has only been funded by a series of continuing resolutions since April, 2009- that’s almost nine years without an approved budget signed by the President of the United States, encompassing the entire administration of Barack Obama, as well as Donald Trump’s first year in office.
There is nothing in the United States Constitution providing for a filibuster. In fact, when the framers of the United States Constitution provided for bicameral legislature in Article I of that document, the only terms that permit a filibuster in the Senate are in a vague reference to Article I, Section 5, Clause 2 which stipulates that each house of Congress can establish its own rules for procedure. Given that this provision only stipulates a 2/3 voting requirement in order to expel a member of the Senate, it is a pretty flimsy allowance for the Senate to create what is known as Senate Rule XXII, which provides for a 60-vote threshold to evoke cloture, forcing the end to debate and move towards an actual vote.
Even there, it is something of a stretch to say that this rule allows for a filibuster, per se. Yet, it is a matter of record that use of a filibuster in the Senate is the accidental and unintended stepchild of an 1806 Senate resolution that the “previous question” rule adopted in 1789, which allowed for simple majority votes to end debate and force votes, should be scrapped due to the fact that it had only been used once in those seventeen years, and was therefore deemed redundant. Because the Senate created no other means to end debate, filibusters then became theoretically possible.
So, the notorious filibuster which has been used to do everything from blocking cabinet appointments, to evading budgetary responsibilities through the use of continuing resolutions, to outright shutting down the government for lack of a sixty-vote threshold, is all based on a theory that was the result of the lack of foresight in an effort to achieve the opposite.
Such a discombobulation that could only be understood by those addicted to their own sense of self-importance, the insane, or both.
The Senate can change these rules, as long as senators unwed themselves from blind adherence to tradition at the cost of doing the people’s business. They can easily approve a budget or, for that matter, any legislation with a simple, 51-vote majority, if they so choose. Or, are they so irrevocably married to a forty-four-year-old rule, put into place by a West Virginia Democrat senator, one Robert Byrd, who was once was an active recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan?
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Well it didn’t take quite a year in Donald Trump’s presidency (a few hours shy of his first year, to be precise) for Democrats to force a shutdown of the government, just to make a point that, in the final analysis, is oh-so pointless.
Republicans, who are always so-so willing to make accommodations to their…ahem…“friends across the aisle,” ended up giving concessions to everything that Democrats wanted: six-year continued funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Plan (S-CHIP), a delay in some of the taxes associated with ObamaCare, continued funding for a host of programs largely supported by Democrats, etc. The continuing resolution, offered by Republicans and passed in the House with even some Democrat support to avert a government shutdown, actually contained no language to which a single Democrat objected. Yet, even then, the Chuck Schumer (D-NY) led Democrat caucus couldn’t resist the opportunity to point fingers at Republicans, and stick a finger in the eye of the president.
After all, Democrats are seething mad at this point.
Having failed up until now to prove Trump/Russia collusion, having failed to block the Supreme Court appointment of Neil Gorsuch, having failed to block passage of the most sweeping tax reform bill in four decades, and having failed to keep the Trump administration from killing the unpopular individual mandate in ObamaCare, the Democrats are desperate. They just can’t seem to get the public to agree with much of the mainstream media that Donald Trump is mentally unfit for office, or that he is a racist, or that he is a misogynist sexist beast of a man who hates women, so they had to do something!
Force a government shutdown via filibuster in the hopes that Republicans in general, and President Donald J. Trump, specifically, will get the blame for the dysfunction in Washington, D.C. that is a government shutdown. After all, don’t Republicans always get the blame for shutting down the government? What’s changed?
As a matter of fact, only one thing has changed with regards to such proceedings.
Unlike the oh-so-gentlemanly, go-along-with, get-along-with, don’t rock-the-boat and try-not-to-be-offensive mainstream, moderate Republicans of old, who lacked the spine to fight back against Democrat demagoguery, the G.O.P. is now led by an in-your-face, no-holds-barred, street-fighter of a president who has the “cajones” to call a spade a spade, and single-handedly fight back against the coalition “government,” consisting of Democrats, anti-Trump Republicans, deep-state apparatchiks permeated throughout the federal government, and the mainstream media. The fact of the matter is that Republicans, real Republicans, finally have a leader worthy of the term, who isn’t going to lay down and play possum while Democrats roll over them with the same-old, same-old tactics of yesteryear. Republicans can win the argument over Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, if only they will follow their leader in the White House, and not backslide into their viscous and vacillating ways of days gone past.
Even though five Democrats in the Senate, mindful that their 2018 re-election is up for grabs in states which heavily voted for Trump in 2016, sided with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and supported the continuing resolution to avert a shutdown, there were enough anti-Trump Republicans in the Senate, like Mike Lee (R-UT), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and Rand Paul (R-KY), and no-shows like Thad Cochran (R-MS) and the notorious anti-Trump John McCain (R-AZ) to make sure that Trump gets his “come-uppance.” These Republican rattlesnakes prove that, in the two thousand years since Julius Caesar was stabbed in back at the hands of Roman senators, not much has changed in the grand scheme of things.
The Senate is where great legislation dies a thousand deaths, after all, and their own “shutdown” would benefit us all, but wishful thinking is not going to bring a sense of sanity back to Washington, if such a sense ever existed there in the first place.
If “stupi-cidal” (combination of stupid and suicidal) Republicans, like Lindsay Graham and company, can keep their pie-holes shut long enough, and allow the Republican president to take the lead in messaging this shutdown as “the Schumer Shutdown,” as it truly is, then the finger pointed by the Senate Minority Leader from New York will land squarely in the reflection of his own mirror.
They just need to grow a spine and get past the excesses of their own egos. Otherwise, it is they who will be shut down and out by the Schumer Shutdown.
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Strategy Revealed- the Democrats’ Platform for the 2018 Election
Looking ahead nine months, practically all of the mainstream media predict a Democrat takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives in this fall’s 2018 mid-term election, as if the balloting has already taken place. They base this prognostication, in part, on historic trends that the party out of power, with regards to the presidency, averages a 25-seat swing in past mid-term elections. With the present balance of power in the House of 239 Republicans and 193 Democrats (3 seats are vacant), and assuming that this average swing holds sway in House elections, this would render a balance of a slim Democrat majority, beginning in 2019, of at least 218 Democrats to 214 Republicans, not counting the three vacancies. Given the number of Republicans in the House, including several GOP committee chairmen who have decided not to run for reelection, prospects would indeed tend to favor the Democrats later this fall…
…that is, except for one thing…the lack of a winning strategy, based on policy.
In past mid-term elections, the party out of power coalesced around a single winning stratagem. In 1994, Republicans flipped the House based upon House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” which entailed a number of reforms promised by Republicans with regards to fiscal policy, and procedural changes to budgetary voting. In 2006, opposition to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, united Democrats and enabled the return of Democrats to majorities in both houses. In 2010, opposition to ObamaCare rendered a return to a Republican majority in the House.
Hence, in each case, a winning strategy, based on policy, paved the way for a change in House leadership.
Looking ahead to the 2018 election, what could possibly be a winning strategy, based on policy, for Democrats?
Opposition to border control? Not likely. Most Americans believe in strict border controls to combat the flow of illegal aliens into the United States. Despite attempts by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to rein in President Donald Trump’s desire to restrict immigration from countries which cannot ascertain the identity of their own emigres, most Americans believe that the president’s policies designed to make Americans safer are sound, and reject the idea of open borders and unvetted immigrants coming into the United States.
Opposition to the 2017 Tax Reform and Jobs Act? Get real. With lower taxes on corporations, small businesses and most middle-class taxpayers- including the elimination of the unpopular individual mandate in ObamaCare- the number of businesses awarding bonuses to their employees, as well as the meteoric rise in the stock market which benefits everyone with a 401K retirement portfolio, will fend off any criticism from Democrats united in their opposition to this legislation.
Alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign? Except for wishful thinking on the part of anti-Trump politicians in both parties, and much of the mainstream media, most Americans believe that the fantasy of Russian collusion is just that- a fantasy proffered to rationalize just how Hillary Clinton lost an election that she was supposed to win. Her own popularity, which has now sunk below that of the president, is hardly a cause around which to structure a winning campaign.
With the economy booming and unemployment sinking, with more money in the pockets of everyday Americans, what’s a Democrat to do?
Simple- make Donald Trump out to be a bad person, and convince the American people that if they return to power, they will impeach the president of the United States. Simply stated, they hope that all of the animus they foment against the president, with help from large sections of the media and even idiotic anti-Trump Republicans like John McCain (R-AZ) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), will be enough to sweep Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) back into her former role as Speaker of the House. The only problem is that, absent of “high crimes and misdemeanors” as outlined in the Constitution, they cannot impeach a sitting president just because they don’t like him.
Even if they were able to win back the majority in the House, and pass a bill of impeachment, the fact remains that two-thirds of the Senate- 67 senators, would have to vote to convict the president- something that has never been done in the history of the United States. Simply stated, there are not enough stupid Republicans in the U.S. Senate to make that remotely possible- even if the Senate flips along with the House in the 2018 election. Assuming that the Senate does flip- highly unlikely, given the particular third of the Senate seats up for grabs this fall, most agree that the numbers favor Republicans retaining their slim majority.
Despite all of the outcry against Donald Trump, most Americans prefer his policies to that of his predecessor and, along with a robust economy, the last thing Americans would want is a dysfunctional government with a legislature tripping up the president at every turn.
In essence, a strategy of ridding the country of one Donald Trump may be popular with the Democrats’ base, but it won’t be enough to convince voters that such a drastic change, based in sheer hatred of Donald Trump, is desirable enough to give control of the House back to the Democrats…
…but what about the polls which suggest a 12-point edge favoring Democrats over Republicans? Yeah, those same polls once told us that Trump’s election was impossible, while history decided otherwise.
So, while the Democrats and their anti-Trump allies in the media wager all of their marbles on getting rid of Donald Trump, it is those same Democrats and partisan pundits who will end up losing all their marbles, on a losing strategy based in nothing more that sheer hate…
…and that is how Republicans will retain majorities in both houses of congress, as long as they are smart enough not to buy into the conventional wisdom that suggests otherwise.
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No one, who was not in the Hawaiian Islands yesterday morning, January 13th, can begin to imagine what went through the minds of Hawaiians and their visitors alike, when they received an alert that a ballistic missile was headed their way, to seek shelter, and that this was not a drill. The twenty minutes it would take, from launch, for such a missile launched from North Korea to hit Hawaii leaves little time for end-of-life thinking, even though such thoughts are no doubt pervasive into a public mindset that is also struck with the ultimate fear of imminent doom. The fact that such an attack has grown from the “possible” to the “not-quite-so-unlikely” is enough for all of us to be concerned about, thanks to a Korean despot bent on striking fear throughout the world. Given that, the false warning of an imminent missile strike takes on a whole new level of sobriety and awareness which most of us have not considered for almost an entire generation’s life span.
An accidental push of the wrong button in Hawaii’s state-run Emergency Alert System, and the very painful agony of tens of minutes in the time it took to adequately notify the public that the alarm was false and accidental, can only be measured in the heavy heartbeats of thousands who thought that this was how their lives would end- suddenly, randomly, finally.
We can all thank Divine Providence that this was no missile attack, yet such a false alarm should, on retrospection, alarm us all in recognizing the inadequacies of our preparedness to deal with such an attack. In Hawaii, for instance, there are no fallout shelters- not one, so the advisory to seek shelter might only protect one from the blast’s shockwaves, but not the post-detonation’s effects from radioactive fallout. Surely electrical power would be rendered asunder, meaning that water service would cease, along with anything else that might otherwise be of critical use in post-attack recovery.
We don’t like to think about it but the fact is that no city, large or small, nor any town of significant size, has any provision in the way of fallout shelter. For the past fifty years, the concept of mutually assured destruction, M.A.D., rendered the “unthinkable” unlikely enough not to have to worry about such preparations, and other demands on the public purse made the construction and maintenance of fallout shelters impractical. Even the secret critical continuation of government facility, now known as “Project Greek Island,” was decommissioned in 1992 when knowledge of “the bunker,” as it had come to be called, became public in a Washington Post article by Ted Gulp that same year.
Yet, the missiles and bombs capable of nuclear annihilation haven’t gone anywhere- they are just waiting for a mad-man to come along and light the torch of thermonuclear war. With Kim Jong Un on the threshold of intercontinental attack capability, that is to say, against the U.S., his are the poisoned pills made possible by the ditherings of Donald Trump’s predecessors who, fearing for the worst, did nothing to stop the inevitable from eventually occurring. We are now at that threshold, like it or not.
While the hate-filled left in Washington, New York and Hollywood (i.e. Jamie Leigh Curtis) will no doubt find some excuse to blame Donald Trump for yesterday’s false alarm in Hawaii, they do so despite the fact that the alarm was originated by a state-run facility, and not any facility within the federal government. Had the attack been real, these same hate-filled “lefties” would no doubt blame it on Trump, regardless, and while their psychopathic rants do nothing to quell the unease we should all feel about Kim, the fact remains that we all face the very real threat of nuclear weapons in those wrong hands.
As the president is forced to deal with what is taking place on the Korean peninsula, as well as other potential hotspots in Iran and elsewhere, perhaps we all should consider the fact that, despite our unwillingness to consider the “unthinkable,” with regards to nuclear war, we are completely unprepared to deal with such a scenario, as a nation and as a people.
Essentially, a false alarm that should alarm us all.
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It can almost be universally accepted that the lowest form of human beings, when measured in terms of sheer honesty, is the politician. Let’s face it. A politician not only has an arm’s distance relationship with the truth, but lives in a universe where “truth” is defined as whatever is said which serves the purpose of the moment. Without truth, real truth, honor cannot and must not exist.
For instance, in an institution of learning which has an “honor code,” honesty and fealty to the truth is pre-eminent in the purpose and execution of such an honor code. Errant students have long forsaken continued attendance in such schools as the price of adherence to the honor code- a code which is as alien to our nation’s capital as, well, a businessman who enters a political campaign for the first time, only to be elected president of the United States.
Take for instance that man, President Donald J. Trump.
Having met last Tuesday with a bi-partisan group of legislators, and surprising all assembled as well as the media, the president decided to air the first hour of that meeting on camera. He reached out to members of both parties asking them to work together to bring forth a solution to the DACA issue regarding continued status of the so-called “dreamers,” brought into this country by illegal alien parents during the past decade and before. President Trump challenged those gathered, including Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Diane Feinstein (D-CA), along with a smattering of leaders of both parties and houses of Congress, to come up with a bi-partisan solution that included basic tenets of rescinding immigration via lottery, ending “chain” migration, which allows tangential flow of family relatives well beyond the individual selected in such lottery, and financial commitment to enhancing border security- security which includes construction of a wall along parts of the U.S./Mexico border.
Within forty-eight hours, a self-appointed sextet of senators, including Corey Gardiner(R-CO), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Bob Menendez(D-NJ), notable anti-Trump Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), along with Graham and Durbin, requested a “closed-door and confidential” meeting with the president, to discuss a proposal claiming to include all or the four elements which the president laid out. Also present at the meeting were Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA), much to the surprise of the self-appointed six. In short, the proposal they proffered was essentially a sham, which addressed none of these pre-requisites, but was nevertheless brought forth in an attempt to trick the president into approving. When the president recognized the obvious attempt to be flimflammed by the proposal, he bristled at the submission and things got testy between him and the six senators who requested this “closed-door and confidential” meeting.
Almost immediately after the meeting, it was Senator Durbin who said that Trump disparaged Haiti and several African nations, referring to them as “shitholes,” and that the president wondered why we have to take immigrants from those countries, as opposed to Norway whose prime minister Trump had met with, just before. Later, Senator Graham reportedly told his fellow Senator from South Carolina, Tim Scott (R-SC) that Trump made the same reference, and that he “got into the face” of the president regarding the reference. Amazingly, the two senators who were there (Cotton and Perdue) and who were not part of the “gang of six” did not recall such a reference by the president in the first place. Regardless, the die was cast to sabotage further DACA negotiations, under the guise that the president is obviously a “racist,” and the media was oh-so-delighted to jump on that bandwagon. Following a ceremony on Friday where President Trump signed an executive order to change the Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthplace National Landmark into a national park (substantially expanding the Atlanta site), at least one reporter repeatedly shouted, “Mr. President, are you a racist?”
Well, that only goes to show that the only thing lower than a politician on the honor scale is a politicized “journalist,” but we digress…
Regardless of whether or not Trump used the term to describe those nations whose immigration thresholds would have been expanded by the gang of six proposal, the point is that when the president declined to accept the proposal, the “closed-door and confidential” nature of the meeting was betrayed by the very senators who had requested such confidentiality in the first place- in essence, a failure of honor.
Then we have the House Minority Leader and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), referring to five of the six senators as “the five white guys” who should open a hamburger stand in an obvious reference to the east coast Five Guys hamburger restaurant chain… “Five White Guys,” and who is being racist?
All of this took place in the same week that Diane Feinstein (D-CA) leaked the entire closed-door testimony of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, a key figure in the fake Trump dossier which was used by the FBI to obtain FISA warrants to surveil the Trump campaign in 2016. Feinstein did this in spite of her pledge to consult her ranking counterpart on the investigative committee, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), before such release. She didn’t keep her word to Grassley and released the full transcript of closed-door testimony, later claiming that it was a head cold which had caused a momentary lapse in her mental faculties.
Wasn’t it just last week that President Trump’s own mental faculties were the ones being called into question by his political opponents?
A good idea would be for the president to air more of these bi-partisan outreach meetings, if for no other reason so that these damnable politicians can go on record for a change.
A better idea would be to record such meetings so that the veracity of claims following such meetings can be substantiated, without the filter of a complicit media bent on the destruction of a U.S. presidency.
The best idea would be to institute a code of honor on the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., but now who is the dreamer?
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Drew Nickell is back on the Radio, today, January 11th at 1:00, PM, EST
I will be back on the radio once again today, Thursday, January 11th, and filling in for Nora Wahl Firestone on her show at WKQA-AM, Freedom 1110 AM in Hampton Roads, VA. I will be interviewing Steve Gorham, the Executive Director of Climate Science Coalition and author of Outside the Green Box: Rethinking Sustainable Development. If you live outside Hampton Roads, and would like to tune in on the internet, here is a link to that live broadcast :
Please note, because I will be interviewing a call-in guest, today, there will be no Facebook podcast because of audio limitations in transmitting a call-in interviewee and his responses to questions during the interview.
Mentally Unfit – the Last Desperate Act of Trump Derangement
Failing on all counts to rid themselves of the reality of Donald Trump’s presidency, those whose mission from the start to destroy the president have, at long last, reached the point of absolute desperation. Having utterly failed to find impeachable crimes in an absolute fantasy of Russian collusion on the part of the Trump campaign, and having failed to prevent the president from attaining legislative success in congress, we now hear charges from Democrats, their allies in the media, and everyone else who still can’t stand the thought of Donald Trump as president- that the president is mentally and psychologically unfit to serve as president.
So deeply held is their hatred towards the president, so desperate they are to end his presidency, and so enraged with the undeniable success he has had in his first year of office, that they seek to invoke a 25th Amendment proceeding to determine Trump medically unfit to continue as president. Such accusations are coming from all quarters, ranging from Joy Behar and Whoopie Goldberg from “the View,” to tabloid trash journalist Michael Wolff, to news anchors and commentators across media (including even some Fox News anchors and reporters like Shepard Smith, for instance) and from many current and former office holders from the Democrat Party.
They take as gospel truth, outlandish charges from the most dubious, not to mention non-existent, sources that the president of the United States is insane, and that “everyone” around him believes him to be so. In the case of Mr. Wolff’s most recent stab at peddling fiction as fact, the author cites much of his premise on the rantings of a loose cannon- er, loose Bannon, as it were. Yes, this is the same Steve Bannon who, following his firing from the Trump administration, opposed the president’s endorsement of Luther Strange for Alabama’s senate seat and successfully delivered Roy Moore as the nominee, instead. In essence, this so-called “master of conservative credentials” turned a solidly and otherwise guaranteed red senate seat, blue with the election of Doug Jones. Perhaps President Trump was onto something when he gave Bannon his walking papers in August of 2017.
It’s not the first time that a Republican president’s fitness for office has come into question: Dwight Eisenhower following his heart attack, Richard Nixon during Watergate, Ronald Reagan from the very start, regarding his age, and most recently, George W. Bush for his supposed lack of intelligence. That’s what Democrats do when they can’t win, otherwise. They accuse the sitting Republican president of being unfit for office. Yet, such efforts have hit an all-time low in their efforts to unseat Donald Trump.
Ever since Donald Trump launched his candidacy in June of 2015, all of the forces opposed against him have sought to diminish and de-legitimize him- as a candidate for the Republican nomination, as the Republican nominee running against Hillary Clinton, as president-elect and, ultimately, as president. Hillary Clinton basically put forth the idea of Trump’s unfitness in each of the debates in which they both participated.
Now we have the likes of Joy Behar and Whoopie Goldberg proffering diagnoses that the president needs to be institutionalized for tweeting that his nuclear button is bigger than Kim Jong Un’s, as if a bit of bravado which they find offensive is undeniable and clinical proof of what they allege. White House correspondents were quick to jump onto the looney-bin bandwagon, questioning White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders as to whether or not the president was mentally fit to serve.
Interestingly enough, such questions were never asked when a former president (Clinton) received fellatio from a 19-year old intern in the Oval Office, or when another former president (Obama) sent pallet loads of cash to an Iranian regime in hopes that it would buy cooperation with these thugs on an arms deal that guaranteed nothing in return.
Then again, the more conservative, not to mention successful, a Republican president is, the more that they are deemed by their political opponents to be unfit for office…pretty slick, right?
The real danger in this type of political play is diametrically tied to the sheer number of people who are ignorant enough to buy into this idea- that the president of the United States is insane and, left in office, will lead us all into our destruction. Such a fiction can run amok over an ill-informed populace and can thus debilitate a functioning government, which seems to be the goal of newspapers and networks, alike.
The last act of desperation by an insane opposition completely deranged at the thought of a Trump presidency…
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The Official Unlikely (…or maybe not so…) Predictions for 2018, and Beyond…
Happy New Year.
For the third consecutive eve of the coming new year, this offers a list of unlikely, or maybe not so unlikely, predictions for the coming new year. If nothing else, might it and may it bring a smile to your face as we all bid 2017, “adieu…”
– Allegations of sexual misconduct amongst current and former House and Senate legislators grow to a point where both houses of congress pass emergency legislation to stop any and all further allegations from being made “until such time as the appropriate ethics committees can investigate all those claims having already been alleged.” It is the first time that President Trump vetoes legislation approved by both houses of congress.
– During an unfortunate “hot mic” moment, Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) is heard describing a rival Republican candidate by using the “n-word.” In response to news reports about the incident, she charges that the recording itself is racist because it was recorded on equipment manufactured in Japan, and because Japanese corporations have no African-American board members, “they must be inherently racist,” says Jackson-Lee.
– Following the coldest winter in seventy-eight years, President Trump tweets, “fake news reports that our pulling out of the unfair Paris climate agreement has already resulted in increased global warming- more fake news- worst winter ever.” Trump’s use of the word “ever” in the tweet prompts calls for new investigations into Trump’s tweets by congress, to see if that, in and of itself, could be cause for impeachment, since other attempts have thus far proved futile.
– Democrats, the mainstream media, the few NeverTrump Republicans left- meaning retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ)- all claim that President Donald Trump colluded with Russian President Vladimir Putin to shift the arctic air masses towards the United States during the winter of 2018, just so he could then call into question global warming dogma and try to justify his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. Democrats call for special counsel investigations into “climate collusion,” as it has come to be referred.
– In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court rules that the section of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017, which rescinds the individual mandate in ObamaCare, is well within the constitutional purview of both congress and the president. In their dissent, Justices Ruth Bader-Ginsberg, Elena Kagan, Sonya Sotomayor and Steven Breyer sided with the overturned Ninth Circuit Court ruling that stated “ObamaCare is established law, that neither congress nor the president have the authority to alter or change its requirements, until such time as Democrats hold both houses of congress, as well as the White House.”
– In the first full season of NFL football since the controversy of national anthem kneeling erupted in 2017, overall disenchantment with pro football by fans who choose not to renew their season tickets has also resulted in the “fire sale” of permanent seat licenses (PSLs) in all NFL stadiums where such licenses exist. Once valued in some cases at $15,000 per seat, and up, PSLs in prime seating locations are now going for $500. Television networks are demanding contract renegotiations for game coverage at season’s end, while NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has appealed to congress for legislation guaranteeing home attendance sellouts, to which President Trump tweets, “Fat chance to Goodell and failing NFL- No Fan League- stand for the anthem, or stands will empty.”
– As construction begins on the U.S./Mexico border wall, which is part of the $ 2.9 trillion Infrastructure Reinvestment Act of 2018, a lawsuit by the National Endowment for the Arts to halt construction is entered into the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco. The initial injunction cites the lack of space on the wall for graffiti (due to its design and engineering) infringes on the right of both Mexicans and U.S. citizens to express themselves, thus violating their first amendment rights. A subsequent 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court then clears way for continued construction of the wall.
– The long-awaited report by Robert Mueller’s independent counsel investigation, into charges that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to rig the election against Hillary Clinton, states that “while there is no evidence that the Trump campaign ever colluded with the Russians during or after the 2016 election, the independent counsel finds that the president used bad manners in his public statements, and in various forms of social media, and should be shamed for doing so.” At an overall cost of $ 27.5 million, your taxpayers’ money at work.
– In the first open-enrollment period since the Tax Cut and Jobs act of 2017 was passed (which eliminated the individual mandate to purchase health insurance), Bronze plans cost an average of $20,000. per individual, $40,000. per couple, and $65,000. per family. With dwindling enrollees as the result of such rate hikes, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) say, in a joint statement, “You see?… We told you so… President Trump’s insistence that the individual mandate be removed has once again made healthcare unaffordable to middle class citizens, forcing many of them to seek out alternative forms of insurance not covered under the Affordable Care Act.” In response to Pelosi and Schumer, President Trump tweets, “Chuck and Nancy…ya’ think? …beautiful health care reform in 2019.”
– On the eve of the mid-term elections of 2018, national polls predict that Republicans “have no road” to retain control of either the House or the Senate. On election night, the president tweets, “Fake polls in 2016…more fake polls in 2018…failing fake news…America is winning, again.” In a surprise result, Republicans actually increase their majority in both houses of congress, and talking heads across the mainstream media say that Trump has now spread his Russian collusion into the House and Senate races, and is now trying to take over the country.
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As if 2016 wasn’t eventful enough, in truly stunning and storied ways, 2017 proved to be a year of great consequence in the long view of a history in the making. As we recall…
January brought us the inauguration of a new president, in the midst of violent leftist protests and a juvenile boycott of the ceremony itself, by many Democrats in the House of Representatives. Though predictably panned by his many critics, President Trump delivered a terse and declarative address, signaling a change in focus on domestic matters and a new set of priorities with regards to the United States on the world stage.
February witnessed the beginning of a coordinated effort to stop the new Trump presidency in its tracks. FBI Director James Comey met with President Trump and assured him that he was not under investigation in any way, although Comey refused to acknowledge this publicly, leading the public to believe that Trump was under investigation. Lawyers, exploiting the leftist bent of the ninth circuit court, entered injunctions against the Trump administration, bringing a temporary halt to the president’s executive order, banning travel from specific countries. Trump delivered his first state of the union speech which was widely acclaimed for its vision, substance and delivery. In it, he outlined a bold and ambitious legislative agenda he intended to pursue in the coming first year of his administration.
March saw the clumsy and ill-prepared rollout of the Republican American Health Care Act which proved to be a half-baked attempt to repeal and replace ObamaCare. In reality it would have neither repealed nor replaced the Affordable Care Act, which would lead to the eventual failure of enough Republicans, and even tepid support from the president, to back the bill. March also saw the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to fill the seat of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
In April, President Trump was entertaining Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Mara Lago estate when, during dessert, he informed the Chinese premier that U.S. Naval forces had just launched 58 cruise missiles on Syria’s Shayrat air base, in retaliation for a sarin gas attack on Syrian civilians ordered by Bashir al-Assad. It proved to be a stroke of brilliance letting the Chinese leader know that Trump was serious about North Korea to an extent no U.S. president had ever been, before. In the coming months, further testing of nuclear weapons and intermediate- and long-range missiles by the North Koreans caused the world to rethink how it should deal with that country’s rogue regime, prompting unanimous votes in the United Nations security council to further censure and place economic restrictions on North Korea.
May began with President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, after which the terminated director illegally released to the New York Times, via a friendly Columbia University professor, transcripts of notes he had taken during three different meetings with the president. This release brought about the appointment of Comey’s mentor, Robert Mueller, to lead an independent council investigation into charges that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to deny Hillary Clinton the election. Meanwhile, President Trump met with twenty-four leaders of Muslim nations in Saudi Arabia, imploring them to rid their countries of Islamic terrorists, before addressing the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem. Following a first-ever visit to the West Bank by a sitting U.S. president, where he met with Palestinian Leader Mahmoud Abbas, the president delivered a powerful speech in Warsaw, Poland and was on hand to dedicate the new NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. In his address to NATO member nations, the president took them to task for not honoring financial commitments to provide for their own defense. In a meeting of the G-7 nations in Sicily, the president stressed the importance of ridding the world of Islamic terrorism to promote economic prosperity.
In June, the president formally withdrew from the Paris climate accord, citing the enormous financial burden the agreement unfairly placed on the United States. Increasing violence on the part of the radical left saw violent demonstrations around the country, culminating in an assassination attempt on Republican legislators practicing for an annual baseball game on a field in Alexandria, Virginia. Seriously wounded in the attack was House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA). For their own part, Democrat senators took turns slandering the character of their former colleague, Jeff Sessions (R-AL), during his confirmation hearings as the newly-appointed Attorney General.
In July, twenty-five Democrats in the House of Representatives launched impeachment proceedings against President Trump, not for high crimes and misdemeanors as the U.S. Constitution stipulates, but rather for what they see as Trump’s unfitness for office. It marked the first time an impeachment attempt was essentially launched out of sheer, personal disdain for a sitting president. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) put the final nail into the Republican health care bill, ceremoniously thrusting a thumbs-down gesture in his crucial vote on the legislation.
August saw violent unrest in Venezuela, as the result of the failure of yet another socialist regime to effectively govern and manage an economy. Protests for and against the removal of confederate statues heated up, most notably in Charlottesville, VA where one protester was killed when run over by another, who drove his car into a crowd of opposing protesters. Despite President Trump’s repeated condemnation of white racism in his response to the incident, the president was assailed because he noted that both sides of the debate were at fault in the escalating rhetoric and resulting violence taking place in Charlottesville. Mother Nature ended the month with her own violence, as Hurricane Harvey ravaged the southeastern coast of Texas. By declaring besieged east-Texas a federal disaster area, before the fact, President Trump had key resources already in place to effectively manage emergency response teams in providing assistance in the wake of the storm.
September saw the president’s address to the general assembly of the United Nations for the first time in his presidency. While acknowledging the sovereign right of member nations to pursue their own respective national interests, the president also made it known that the United States would place the interests of its own citizens at the forefront of its foreign policy, going forward. In a brilliant stroke of political genius, the president sent DACA back to congress and thus avoided the anticipated and predictable outrage, had he summarily rescinded Obama’s executive order, regarding same. In doing so, he put the burden of immigration reform back on congress, where it rightfully should have been all along.
October began with carnage on an unprecedented scale with the death of 58 and the wounding of 546 concert-goers in Las Vegas- all at the hands of a single gunman perched high in his nest situated on the thirty-second floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, across the street. While the NFL continued to see dwindling attendance numbers and television ratings, in the wake of player protests during the national anthem, revelations of sexual improprieties of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein began an avalanche of similar allegations that would eventually ensnare Alabama Judge Roy Moore running for that state’s senate seat, Senator Al Franken (D-MN) and Representative John Conyers (D-MI), among others. Revelations that the Obama administration was actively involved with the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, to sabotage the Trump campaign with a fake dossier, which was paid for by both the Clinton campaign and the FBI and which, in turn, was used to gain FISA warrants against Trump campaign operatives. Further revelations of corruption on the part of the Clintons caused a relook into the 2010 sale of uranium assets to Uranium One, partially owned by the Russians, in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation.
November witnessed continued carnage as a lone gunman entered a small church in Sutherland Springs, TX and killed twenty-six of its parishioners. The illegal immigrant who, in July of 2015, had killed Kate Steinle in San Francisco, was essentially acquitted of her murder due to the fact that jurors were not informed of the killer’s repeated illegal re-entries into the United States, as well as violent felonies of which he had been previously convicted. The verdict was celebrated by political opponents to the president and those who advocate open borders.
December brought revelations that the Obama Administration had intentionally quashed investigations into domestic drug-trafficking and money-laundering by Hezbollah terrorists, all in an effort to ensure its ill-conceived and ill-considered nuclear deal with Iran. Further findings of conflicted interests, on the part of Mueller’s investigative team, continued to diminish confidence as to the legitimacy of the investigation. This prompted many in the media to erroneously report that Donald Trump intends to fire Mueller, despite repeated denials by the president, himself. For his own part, President Trump made history by formally announcing his intention to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and relocate the Tel Aviv-based U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. As promised during his campaign, and subsequently during his first year in office, President Trump delivered on this promise to have enacted, and then sign, the Tax Reform and Jobs Act by Christmas, 2017. In addition to the largest-ever reduction in federal income taxes, the new law also allows drilling in the Alaskan ANWR region and eliminates ObamaCare’s individual mandate to purchase health insurance, essentially gutting the Affordable Care Act’s most-reviled requirement, which had punished people who could least afford it.
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With heartfelt gratitude to all of my Facebook friends, and particularly those who have suffered my musings and have been so supportive of same (at times even reposting to your own pages), as well as all the subscribers to my website which is located at (http://www.drewnickell.com), I wish to extend my best wishes for a very Merry Christmas. To those of you who were kind enough to purchase my book (ref. below), I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. If you have a moment, please write a short review of it on amazon. Doing so would help me sell more copies, thanks.
This week, I’ll be posting a month-by-month recap of the events of 2017, so please be on the lookout for that, and let me know what you think.
With deepest appreciation, a Merry Christmas to you. and yours,
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The Real Person of the Year- President Trump’s Detractors
One might think that, after 2016- an entire year of making horses’ asses of themselves, his legions of detractors would have known better than to further abase themselves by continuing to predict the worst when it comes to Donald Trump.
Remember that all of the so-called (and self-styled) “experts” once predicted that:
– Donald Trump’s candidacy was a joke
– Donald Trump would never win the Republican Nomination
– Donald Trump would be destroyed by Hillary Clinton in the debates
– Donald Trump’s candidacy won’t survive his comments on women
– Donald Trump had no path to victory against Hillary Clinton in the election
– Donald Trump’s election would result in an immediate stock market crash
– Donald Trump’s collusion with the Russians will result in impeachment
– Donald Trump will never successfully appoint a Supreme Court Justice
– There is no way Donald Trump could possibly exit the Paris Climate Accord
– Donald Trump cannot partially ban immigration from specific countries
– Donald Trump cannot possibly defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria
– Donald Trump wouldn’t dare to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
– Donald Trump cannot remove ObamaCare’s individual mandate
– Donald Trump won’t be able to sign a tax overhaul/reduction bill by Christmas
There are many, many more predictions, all proven to be wrong, made by the “experts” who still cannot manage to come to grips with the very fact of Trump’s presidency. Worse, his consistent string of successes as President has caused his many detractors to become apoplectic, practically to the point of derangement.
Regardless, dire predictions of every single aspect of Trump’s presidency have continued to the point of ridiculousness. In the midst of all of this naysaying- by Democrats, NeverTrump Republicans, academia, mainstream media and self-absorbed and self-anointed celebrities- President Trump has nevertheless achieved the most successful first year of any presidency in memory.
The secret to Trump’s success in his first year as president is the same secret he deployed in winning the Republican nomination and the presidential election in 2016.
He out-worked his opposition.
While Hillary Clinton pursued a campaign schedule that was on-again, off-again, Donald Trump participated in four to five campaign events each day, seven days a week for months in pursuit of victory, despite all of the negativity aimed his way.
Similarly, while all of his political and media opponents have fixated themselves on a Russian fantasy, the President has eliminated nearly two thirds of federal regulations in eleven months, rescinded most all of Barack Obama’s executive orders, successfully appointed a record number of circuit court judges and completely re-asserted American pre-eminence on the world stage.
So, it is altogether fitting and proper that we should celebrate the real and true Person of the Year- all of those Trump naysayers who have made complete and total horses’ asses of themselves by telling us just how bad a president Trump has been. Let’s all wish them continued success in under-estimating the President in everything they say and do, while President Donald Trump continues to…
…“Make America Great Again”
Merry Christmas, everyone (the president promised we could once again say this, too).
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The Fright Night Before Christmas, a Parody (with apologies to Clement C. Moore)
‘twas the night before Christmas, when through the White House, not a Clinton was stirring, not even that louse. Their stockings were hung by their foundation with care, in hopes more Russian rubles soon would be there.
The Clintons were nestled all snug in their beds, while schemes of collusion danced in their heads. Hillary in her pantsuit, and Bill with some babe, had just gone to bed for a long winter’s daze.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, Bill sprang from his bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window Bill flew like a flash, tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon, on the breasts of some brand new intern, gave the luster of midday to his women below, when, what to his wandering eyes should appear, but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, with an orange-haired old driver so lively and plump, Bill knew in an instant it was Donald Trump!
More rapid than tweets his comments they came, and he whistled and shouted and called them by name:
“Now, Mueller, Now Strzok! and all of their homies! On, Huma! On Loretta!, On, McCabe and On, Comey! With an awesome eruption, with news of corruption, now, dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”
As Democrat accusations with no backing fly, when they meet with an obstacle, they just simply lie, so up to the housetop the coursers they flew, with the sleigh full of charges, and Donald Trump, too.
And then, in a twinkling, Bill heard on the roof the prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As he returned to his bed, and was turning around, down the chimney “the Donald” came with a bound.
He donned Brioni suits, with his own branded ties, and his clothes were all tailored to his exact size; a bunch of indictments he flung on his back, and he looked like a lawyer just opening his pack. His eyes, how they twinkled! His dimples, how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry. His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, and the grin on his face beamed as white as the snow.
This Trump of a man who just won an election, and yet the fake news went out with hateful rejection. The FBI and Democrats, all with delusion, to bring forth a tale of Russian collusion. He was Donald Trump, who had quite the nerve, to take on old Hillary, who soon will be served.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head soon gave Bubba to know he had so much to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, and filed the court dockets, then winked at the jerk. Laying his finger aside of his nose, and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, and away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight…
“Merry Christmas to all, Merry Christmas, Good Night!”
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Drew Nickell will be back on the Radio today, Thursday, December 14th at 1:00 PM EST
I will be back on the radio once again, Thursday, December 14th, and filling in for Nora Wahl Firestone on her show at WKQA-AM, Freedom 1110 AM in Hampton Roads, VA. I will be discussing the problems with Fake News, Jerusalem, Mueller’s Investigation, Sanctuary Cities, Congressional Dysfunction, and other current events here in the nation and around the globe. Here is a link to that live broadcast
Fake News- the Real, Hidden Danger in Biased Reporting
There is nothing new about biased reporting. In a free society, where freedom of the press is guaranteed by law, it is practically and systematically impossible to avoid slant in the coverage of news. Even the most objective reporting, as quaint as that may sound in this day and age, is inevitably going to be flavored by the viewpoint of its writer. In the case of broadcast news, this is doubly true, as the on-air personalities- in both inflection and expression- are going to slant the delivery of news beyond the slanted scripts already prepared to be read from the teleprompters. As long as humans write and read aloud news coverage, there will always be an innate bias, whether the story is sports, business, current events or, especially, politics.
Let’s face it. Freedom of the press, in all its varied forms, has one drawback- the total lack of either filter or fidelity. This is because, in the final analysis, the freedom of press carries with it the inability to condone or censor, as the dictates of empirical truth would otherwise warrant.
The most egregious form of bias in political reporting has been the regrettable standard for many years, going back to the beginnings of our republic. In the last four or five generations, political reporting has always, always favored the Democrats. If you don’t believe this, take a look at the last twenty-two presidential elections going all the way back to Franklin Roosevelt’s first run in 1932, and name the Republican nominee who ever benefitted from election coverage.
(crickets chirping)
Nothing new.
As overtly and negatively biased as was the coverage of Richard Nixon’s five runs for national office (1952, 1956, 1960, 1968 and 1972) and Ronald Reagan’s four runs for national office (1968, 1976, 1980 and 1984), nothing can compare to the outright hostility that was so obvious in the coverage of Donald Trump’s lone presidential run. While Nixon’s and Reagan’s presidencies received equally-negative and biased coverage during their respective terms, nothing comes close to the jaundiced coverage that Donald Trump has received in the first eleven months of his own presidency.
The same could be said in reverse when it came to the overtly and positively biased coverage which enormously benefitted FDR, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and, especially, Barack Obama. In the eyes of the national press, neither of these four could do anything wrong by comparison to the aforementioned Republicans. The only reason that Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson didn’t receive the same glowing coverage is that they came into the Oval Office as the result of the death of their respective predecessors.
Political bias in presidential coverage is, and always has been, a double-edged sword that can, at once, protect the favored and slay the unfavored. For instance, every week we hear unsubstantiated claims of how Donald Trump treats women. Where was such news coverage about John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton, when it came to substantiated and multiple instances of their own very real improprieties toward women? While the media has outright protected Hillary Clinton in their refusal to cover the very real felonies that she has committed over many years, they continue to focus on the fantasy of alleged collusion between Russia and Trump- a story that they damn well know is as fictional as Star Wars. Worse, as has been recently documented during the past few months, the media is not beyond fabricating false stories out of thin air, and to a degree never imaginable in the days of Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.
When Trump is re-elected in 2020 (and there is nothing of substance to suggest that there is any reason he shouldn’t be re-elected), it will doubtlessly be at the end of a campaign which will witness an altogether new low in campaign coverage. His second term will no doubt be trashed by the national media to an even greater degree that what has been the case, to date. That much is certain.
Nevertheless, the real danger of fake news, as it has come to be known, is directly proportional to the degree to which Americans believe what they hear when watching/reading the news. The fact that the so-called fourth estate- that watchdog of democracy so invested in representative democracy, and so ordained in our constitution- is dead, doesn’t portend well for an informed electorate whose voting suffrage is essential to the maintenance of our freedom and independence. Without an informed electorate- an electorate who is correctly informed on the issues of the day, the people they elect become accountable to no one, especially in the absence of term limits. That the national media has unwittingly revealed its absolute fear and dread that Donald Trump might well keep the vast majority of his campaign promises, scares them to no end- just as it scares the living hell out of Democrats as well as the NeverTrump Republicans who also fear that their days of wine and roses are quickly coming to an end in the wake of Trump’s presidency.
A president who actually keeps his promises? The nerve of that guy. Just who does he think he is, anyway?
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It should be as obvious as the nose on one’s face- Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.
On Wednesday, December 6th, President Donald J. Trump formally declared the obvious, that Jerusalem is indeed the capital of Israel. He further put into motion the eventual relocation of the United States Embassy from its current location in Tel Aviv, to its more proper setting in the capital of Israel, Jerusalem. To deny that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel is no different than denying that London is the capital of the United Kingdom, that Paris is the capital of France, and that, well, Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States.
One would never know it, though, given all of the outrage amongst the international community, as well as our own State Department apparatchiks and other politicos who swoon at the thought of this declaration. Never mind the fact that the last three U.S. presidents, Clinton, Bush and yes, Obama, pledged to do the very same thing when they ran for the presidential office in 1992, 2000, and 2008, respectively. Not a peep from the political illuminati back then, but now…
Let’s face it, President Trump has the courage that his immediate forebears lacked, to put into motion the promises of his own campaign, as well as those of his three predecessors. Yet because it is Trump doing this, all hell has broken loose with almost universal condemnation of his recognition, which only goes to show the difference between a statesman who keeps his word, and politicians who routinely lie through their teeth. Clinton, Bush and Obama had absolutely no intention to follow through on this promise- a promise offered for the sole reason of gaining campaign contributions from those who support this recognition, namely Jews and sympathetic gentiles, alike. Once in office, each of these presidents refused to come within miles of following through on their promise to do so.
Interestingly enough, it was the United States which was the first nation to recognize the modern sovereign state of Israel back in 1948, by President Harry S. Truman- a Democrat, to boot. Therefore, it is altogether fitting and proper that the United States should be the first nation to formally acknowledge that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, almost seventy years later, and it’s been a long time coming.
Those opposed to President Trump’s declaration offer up a lot of blather that his doing so will thwart the so-called “peace process” aimed at bringing about a two-state solution to Israel and the Palestinians…some process! While Palestinians routinely launch rockets at and continue to commit terrorist violence against Israelis, and at the same time refuse to negotiate any treaty which includes the survival of Israel as an independent nation, it is Israel which continually offers a good-faith effort in these same negotiations. It is also Israel- alone among middle eastern countries, which guarantees freedom of religion to Muslims, Christians and Jews, alike. Nowhere else in that region of the world, does such freedom of religion exist.
To pretend that the continued refusal to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is the way to achieve peace, is the errand of fools and the basis of a lie.
Jerusalem is, indeed, the capital of Israel today, just as Jerusalem was the capital of Israel three thousand years ago. Finally, we have a president who has the courage and clarity of thought to recognize the obvious.
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The Deep State- Why Mueller’s Investigation is a Complete Sham
Once upon a time, there was a general feeling that of all the federal bureaus and agencies which comprise our government, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the one agency beyond reproach. Sadly, this is no longer the case. The FBI has become so corrupt, so partisan and so very political, that is has become just another dreaded example of the deep state- a deeply entrenched entity of government employees who can no longer serve the people of the United States.
Robert Mueller, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Andrew Weismann are but six attorneys who have besmirched the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and have exposed the intrinsic corruption of the investigation into the alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
To date, some ten million dollars of U.S. taxpayer money has been spent on this sham of a bogus investigation into the fantasy that President Donald Trump colluded with the Russian Federation to steal the election away from Hillary Clinton. There never was any collusion between Trump and the Russians, and all of the above-named individuals have known this all along. Nevertheless, they have broken the law, the oaths of office they have taken, and their fiduciary responsibilities as federal attorneys to fabricate a case for Donald Trump’s impeachment. In the process of doing so, they have aided and abetted the Obama administration’s illegal coverup and obstruction of justice with regards to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private server while she was Secretary of State.
For reasons known only to himself, President Trump’s own Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, has not sought an investigation into this corruption- that is, as far as we know. Nevertheless, the real collusion, the real corruption of the 2016 Presidential Election is the lone province of Democrats, including the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the Democratic National Committee and the Obama and Clinton minions who occupy the federal government to a degree that boggles the mind, unbelievable though it may sound.
Why is it that every single member of Robert Mueller’s investigation team, including these six, are heavy donors to the Clinton campaign, including one who worked for the Clinton Foundation and whose job it was to thwart FOIA requests for financial information regarding some $ 145 million dollars in donations to the Clinton Foundation from (you guessed it) the Russian Federation? (These donations facilitated the sale of U.S. uranium assets to a company largely held by Russian interests, and represent very real collusion between former President Bill Clinton, his wife and the Russian Federation.)
The simple answer is that Mueller, Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page and Weismann all serve as minions to their mistress, the former first lady and Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Helping to cloak this corruption are large elements of the mainstream media and even Republican globalists in the Senate and House of Representatives who wish for nothing more than the ouster of President Trump- all because he had the nerve to wrest away the Republican nomination from their precious darling, Jeb Bush. It is entirely interesting that while they had absolutely nothing to say during the entire eight years of the Obama presidency, both George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, have been vociferous in their criticism and disdain for President Trump, and this subjective disdain for Trump is shared by scores of Republican senators and congressmen currently serving in our legislature.
It is no wonder why President Trump so frequently and pointedly brings this investigation into question, and why it has become apparent that he does not trust his own Department of Justice, which says as much about the swamp he has sought to drain as it does about the resident evil that exists in Washington D.C., today. Only a fool, and a damned one at that, would place his faith in an investigation that is so very tainted, in both its scope and in its substance.
It is said that the evil lurks where we least suspect it, and is only evidenced by the evil works of its practitioners. Sadly, the FBI is no longer beyond reproach, and Americans’ faith in their government has fallen to an all-time low.
Sad, indeed, that we have arrived at such a place in our history. Hasten the day when we are delivered from the evil doings of this deep state.
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On first glance, the term “sanctuary city” seems so innocuous, so comforting, so humane. After all, the very word “sanctuary” means a protected, immune and safe place, where those who are pursued find solace, protection and, well, safety. For instance, Catholic and other Christian churches have, for centuries, provided sanctuary to those who fear for their lives and liberty. So have synagogues.
In reality, however, sanctuary cities have all-too-often become harmful, restless and inhumane outgrowths of a very dangerous mindset- the mindset of liberal political correctness. This mindset aids and abets the criminal and murderous to remain here, in the United States, along with the many millions of other illegal immigrants, on a perverted premise of tolerance and inclusion. Note the key word “illegal.”
There are more than 200 sanctuary cities in the United States, including most of the largest cities in America. In essence, being a sanctuary city means that the government of such city does not and will not cooperate with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) , the U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement (CBE) and its U.S. Border Patrol, in enforcing federal law as it relates to illegal immigration.
Hmmm…
Imagine, if you will, such a stance with regards to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). More importantly, imagine a United States where local law enforcement (and, in some cases, state law enforcement) refuses to cooperate with the FBI, and the effects that would have on criminal investigations as they relate to kidnapping, child abductions and bank robberies, just to name a few. Without such cooperation, it would simply be…
…in a word, unimaginable.
Sanctuary Cities.
San Francisco is one such a city. On the first morning of July, 2015, Kate Steinle, a promising young 32-year old woman, was enjoying a morning stroll along the city’s Pier 14, with her father, Jim Steinle. Out of nowhere, one Garcia Zarate appeared in possession of a stolen federally-owned handgun, shot Miss Steinle three times, tossed the stolen handgun into San Francisco Bay, and fled the scene of this senseless murder. Steinle fell into the arms of her father, gasping in her last breath, “Help, me, Daddy.” Despite her father’s attempts at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, life slipped away from his wounded daughter, as one of the three bullets had pierced her aorta.
Zarate, who had been deported from the United States five times and had a rap sheet including seven prior felony convictions, had most recently been sentenced to prison for illegal re-entry. Upon sentencing however, a federal court instead recommended Garcia Zarate be placed in a federal medical facility. On March 26, 2015, at the request of the San Francisco Sherriff’s Department, the Federal Bureau of Prisons released Zarate, having just completed his sentence for illegal entry into the country, to San Francisco authorities on an outstanding warrant for felony drug charges- the possession and sale of marijuana. When Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) then issued a detainer on this release, San Francisco- being that sanctuary city- refused to cooperate with the request for detainer, and then summarily released Zarate onto the streets of the city where he murdered Kate Steinle, three months later.
That he was acquitted of the murder on November 30, 2017, was really no surprise, being in the very same state that once acquitted O. J. Simpson for the murder of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, back in 1995. As with the Simpson verdict, the acquittal of Garcia Zarate left the surviving family with no sense that justice, for the murder of their loved one, had been served. Once again, liberal political correctness stole the day, and managed to let an assailant get away with murder. Justice may be blind, as they say, but does it really have to be stupid, too?
Had the city of San Francisco co-operated with ICE, Kate Steinle would still be alive, today… Had the U.S. Border Patrol been operating under the policies of the Trump Administration, back when Barack Obama was President of the United States, Zarate might not have illegally re-entered the United States a sixth time, as he did in September of 2009, and Kate Steinle would still be alive, today… Had there been a wall along the Mexican/U.S. Border, Kate Steinle would still be alive, today…as would thousands of others who have been killed by illegal aliens who reside, often under the protection of sanctuary cities, here in the United States.
Hanging in the United States Senate and awaiting legislative action, is the Illegal Re-entry Act of 2015, also known as “Kate Law,” having (finally) been passed in July of 2017 by the U. S. House of Representatives. The law provides for minimum mandatory sentencing, for those deported illegal aliens who re-enter the United States and commit a felony. It won’t bring back Kate Steinle, or the many others killed by criminal illegal immigrants but, if passed and signed into law, it would prevent other people like Kate Steinle from being denied justice and denied the ultimate right- the right to live their lives in these United States.
Or is an illegal’s “right” to re-enter the United States unfettered, under the protection of so-called sanctuary cities, more precious than an American’s right to live?
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Legislative Dysfunction- the Partially-Participatory U. S. Congress
In both houses of Congress, the respective representatives and senators are only partially participating in the people’s business- presumably the reason they were sent there in the first place.
For starters, the Democrat caucuses in both houses are fixated on two things and two things, only.
First, there’s last year’s election. Unable to come to grips with the fact that Donald Trump was able to wrest the presidency away from the presumptive princess of pre-ordained presidency, Hillary Clinton, and desperate in their need to find something that might explain their election night nightmare, the Democrats are desperate to find any linkage between Trump and Russia. So far, the only real linkage between the two seems to be the fact that both are able to spell each other’s name, and that’s about it. Never mind, though. Bob Mueller is still trying to find something, and who knows? Even a blind squirrel arrives upon an acorn every once in a while…
Second, there’s impeachment. If Russia turns out to be nothing, as apparently and evermore evidently seems to be the case, there’s only one way to undo the results of last fall’s election- impeach the s.o.b. who did this to their Hillary. Therein lies the problem, though- as much as they would love to impeach Donald Trump, finding the requisite high crime and/or misdemeanor could prove to be an unrealistic stretch. The best thing they have so far (firing James Comey, the singing and slithering snake who serves to destroy the president) won’t take them to the promised land they seek. If they can manage however to block any legislative undertaking, by either automatic “no” voting or by outright refusal to participate in any way, they can prevent the Republicans from accomplishing anything legislatively. That would be the only thing that might sweep them back into a majority in both houses, and make the impeachment of Trump all that much easier in the end- even if the real reason for doing so is nothing more than the fact that they really just don’t like the guy.
If that is not bad enough it is the Republicans who seem to be, wittingly or unwittingly, aiding and abetting the Democrats in their devilish designs to upend the election.
For the moderate mainstream milquetoast Republicans- the ones who just want to leave things as they are- they, too, are apoplectic about last year’s election. Their boy, Jeb Bush, got knocked out pretty easily by a political rookie who was just too perky for their staid and steady status quo. Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, the guy had to go ahead and beat Hillary Clinton- the same Hillary Clinton they pretend to hate, but are all-too-willing to work hand-in-hand with a fellow globalist. After all, Hillary wants the same one-world government they do, and it is pretty clear that Donald Trump doesn’t- the guy even goes around saying he wants to put America first, for cryin’ out loud! So, what do they do? Well-practiced in professional procrastination, they drag their feet in pursuit of process, even if that means adhering to arcane rules designed by Democrats to serve their own purposes, i.e. the (Robert) Byrd rule requiring a sixty-vote threshold on all matters budgetary. If anything would prevent balancing the budget or exercising fiscal restraint, it is that rule- but we digress.
Then, there are the Republicans who just hate Donald Trump. Led by his arch-nemesis, John McCain (R-AZ), the so-called “maverick” who would suck up to Barack Obama and either of the Clintons as surely as he would do everything he can to assail the current president. McCain, who insists upon staying wed to process and procedure even if nothing actually gets accomplished, pleads to the return to “regular order,” the fortress of filibuster for legislative failure. His acolytes, like fellow Arizonan Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Susan Collins (R-ME) and several others- you know, the ones who voted against ObamaCare and now refuse to repeal, replace or even repair the failed and designed-to-fail Affordable Care Act. They are the same batch of Republican rattlesnakes who once were oh-so-opposed to ObamaCare’s individual mandates, but now who insist that those same individual mandates remain in place for any chance of enacting tax cut legislation. Amazingly, the failure to pass this legislation will ensure that the Republicans return to minority status in both houses of Congress, and perhaps this is what they want deep down inside. Either that, or they are just plain stupid and, as we all know, you just can’t fix stupid.
While these same Republicans so vehemently opposed to Judge Roy Moore’s election to the Senate, based upon recent allegations of 38-year old sexual improprieties on the part of a man who previously won six state-wide elections, they are just as happy with keeping Senator Al Franken (D-MN) and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) in their seats, despite far more recent, and for that matter, more credible claims of sexual impropriety. After all, Franken and Menendez are their pals, and Roy Moore is just another nationalist who won’t play along with their idea of what government should be.
Adding together the united-in-opposition-to-Trump Democrats, the anti-Trump, NeverTrump globalists and the let’s-just-keep-the-way-things-are and not-rock-the-boat slackers in the Republican caucuses of both houses, it will be stunning if President Donald Trump ever signs any meaningful legislation into law.
Than again, stunning seems to be the forte of one Donald Trump.
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Sexual Misbehavior- the Dirty Little Secret which Permeates Throughout the Powerful
The United States, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, has become engulfed with the reality of sexual misbehavior, and is now confronted with revelations of its instances, going back four decades and beyond. The cancer of this decadence knows no bounds. It includes past presidents, the halls of congress, both Republicans and Democrats, and all departments of government on federal, state and local levels, including the judiciary. It encompasses academia, religious denominations, athletics on the college and professional level as well as theatrical, musical, broadcast and cable television, and motion picture enterprises. Its victims are usually young women and, in all-too-many instances, children both male and female.
For too many years, it has been whispered about, winked about, and cloaked within the secrecy of a culture which has aided and abetted this activity, in both its indulgence and in its omission. All the while, selective outrage has brought into question the validity of something very real- something that destroys innocent lives, ends what otherwise would be promising careers, and which metastasizes into the equally destructive emotions of denial, resignation, and, ultimately, acceptance of a misbegotten state of what is then deemed to be normal. In fact, it has almost come to be expected, which is the saddest commentary that can be made about the age in which we live.
Compounding the problem are those instances of false accusations, which honest brokers must grudgingly acknowledge exist, far and away the exception rather than the rule to be sure, but nevertheless very real. The use of moneys- private and public, to silence the accusations that should otherwise be pursued, bears witness to the fact that, all too often, the epidemic of sexual exploitation is inherently a problem of the rich and powerful, who utilize their wealth and influence to cover their awful deeds.
It is ironic that accusations of such behavior on the part of Roy Moore, the Alabama Judge who is in the final three weeks of his campaign for a seat in the U.S. Senate, has unintentionally forced the mainstream media to revisit the many accusations made against former President Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct, including forcible rape in the case of Juanita Broaddrick. These many accusations, which the mainstream media minimized, trivialized and attempted to conceal in a collusive effort to ensure his election in 1992, and his re-election in 1996, are now coming back into conversation a quarter-century later. There is no doubt that President Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, took an active part in attempting to destroy the reputation of her husband’s accusers, all the while pretending to be a crusader for women’s rights and defender of the most vulnerable among us. The so-called women’s movement shares in its own responsibility for giving the Clintons a pass, by mere virtue of their political party and support for abortion. Nevertheless, the hypocrisy of the women’s movement is thus exposed and can no longer be ignored by any who claim to be true supporters of women’s rights.
Unfortunately, all of the accusations against Judge Moore, true of false, may come to resemble Erwin Schrödinger’s “cat” in the unopened box, which may either be dead or alive. Since there is not enough time, to make the final determination of the truth in the matter(s) of Judge Roy Moore, prior to the special election that has been scheduled in early December, it may be the best solution to delay the election of Alabama’s U.S. Senate seat, until such time as an unencumbered and equitable election can rightly be held.
Otherwise, the good citizens of Alabama whose suffrage must decide this election, and the nation of which they are a part, might ultimately be disserved in the haste to vote for the sake of voting.
Nevertheless, the epidemic of sexual exploitation, by the rich and powerful across this country, must either be eradicated in its entirety, or it will bring about the ultimate destruction of our society, in the end.
Set aside to honor all who have served in the armed forces of the United States, Veterans Day is the American descendant of what once was observed, and what many countries still observe, as Armistice Day- commemorating the end of World War I.
At precisely the eleventh hour, on the morning of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, of 1918, the guns suddenly fell silent along the Belgian lowlands and hedgerows- ending what was, at that point in time, the costliest and deadliest war in human history. Six hours before, the Allied and Central Powers signed the armistice formally bringing an end to the hostilities. The armistice was to take effect at 11:00 am, local time. The very day before, more than 2,700 men lost their lives in a deadlocked war which, all told, saw the deaths of more than 8 million, including 116,708 Americans. According to prevailing thought at the time, World War I was supposed to be the war that would end all wars. Ironically, it proved to set up the scenario for the Second World War, in the third decade following, and all of the world history that ensued, ever since.
The ending of the First World War was commemorated as Armistice Day, here in the United States until 1954, when an act of Congress changed its designation to Veterans Day, honoring all who have ever served in the United States Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard. As opposed to Memorial Day, honoring those who lost their lives while serving, Veterans Day honors all who have ever served- living and dead. It is a day to thank those who put country before self, and swore to protect this country from “all enemies, foreign and domestic,” with their very lives, if necessary. In short, it is their day.
Without reservation, it is these individuals who all of us should thank, while also calling to mind the silence of that eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, of 1918, when the guns fell silent in the hopes that we might finally see the end of war, for all time.
That hope still lives in the hearts of all good people, everywhere.
Election 2017- America in Caricature, America in Miniature
When comparing, county by county, the results of the 2016 Presidential Election and the 2017 Gubernatorial Election, little change has taken place in Virginia.
No surprise.
Regardless, the 2017 Gubernatorial Election in Virginia casts the Old Dominion as the United States in miniature, revealing the fact of increased political polarization in both the commonwealth and in the nation.
A look at the 2016 U.S. election map shows a vast region of Donald Trump supporters, one that is rarely speckled with Hillary Clinton supporters. On the Pacific coast, along the southwest border and in the urban corridors of the northeast, Clinton support is prevalent, but nowhere else- save for counties along the central Mississippi River, where white voters are in the minority.
Taking a look at the 2016 Virginia election map, a similar trend of political polarization is revealed with vast areas of the state, where voters opted for Donald Trump. In the suburbs of Washington DC, in the heavily academic conclaves of Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia, and in the area of Virginia’s capital, Richmond, heavy support for Hillary Clinton is revealed, along with counties and cities in southeast Virginia where, again, white voters are in the minority.
Comparing the 2016 Virginia map to the 2017 Virginia map shows only two localities switching to benefit Ralph Northam (Chesapeake and Virginia Beach) and one locality switching to the benefit of Ed Gillespie (Bedford County). That aside, there is no change between the two elections.
As much as any Virginian is loath to admit it, the fact of the matter is that the Commonwealth of Virginia depends on federal dollars more than any other state when it comes to employment. Between civilian federal government employees in the Washington DC suburbs, military employment in Hampton Roads, and federally-funded employment in the state’s large universities, the Commonwealth is beholding to federal largesse as no other state in the entire country. Virginians vote where they work, and base their votes on the source of their jobs/benefits.
All of which begs the question, “Will it ever be possible for any of these densely populated regions to vote for a candidate from a party that says it wants to reduce the size of government?”
The same question can be asked of those regions in the country where, year-in and year-out, voters are steadfast in their support of Democrats running for national office. Those “blue” localities are the localities most dependent on federal tax dollars, in terms of both employment and dependency, and just happen to be represented by congressmen and senators most opposed to reforming the U.S tax code, reducing tax rates and repealing/replacing ObamaCare.
Was the 2017 gubernatorial election a rebuke of Trump’s presidency? Hardly.
The truth of the matter is that this is what happens when Republicans nominate an inside-the-beltway, oh-so-moderate, anti-Trump acolyte of both Bush administrations (like perennial loser Ed Gillespie), who distanced himself from Trump, refused to campaign with the president, and was FOR taking down Confederate monuments before he was against taking them down. Gillespie is the ultimate GOP insider, a transplant from New Jersey who, truth be told, never wanted Donald Trump to win the GOP nomination, and surely didn’t want Trump to win the White House, either. The media won’t spin it this way, but it’s the sorry and sad truth about politics in the Old Dominion.
Worse, it also reveals the widening chasm between those localities that feed at the federal trough, and those localities that are forced to fill the federal trough with nary a benefit, in return.
For more than a century, the Democrat Party has been the party of ever-expanding government, higher and higher taxes and the party of greater dependence for those whose votes are secured in precisely this manner. While the Republican Party has supposedly been the party of reducing the size of government, the party of lower taxes and spending, and reducing the number of dependents on the federal trough, they are stymied in the fear that the mainstream media will paint them as uncaring and intolerant. Hence the nomination of milquetoast, spineless, oh-so-moderate, mainstream Republicans whose only talent lies in snatching defeat from the jaws of what otherwise should be easy victory.
Therefore, such Republicans In Name Only (RINOs), like the Bushes, the McCains, and, most recently, the Gillespies, differ from Donald Trump in one way.
Murder in Sutherland Springs- The Elusive Truth about Mass Killings
Why?
It seems to be the one thing that ties all mass killings together.
It is also the one thing on which we cannot seem to get a handle.
Why?
Every time a mass killing takes place- a killing in which the killer ends up dead- we are left with the question as to why the killer made the decision to deprive his victims of their own lives.
Oh, we can offer up “reasons” as to why these killings take place. Racism in all its forms (Charleston, Dallas), Islamic extremism (9-11, Fort Hood, San Bernardino, Orlando, and most recently, New York), and latent psychosis (Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, most recently, Las Vegas and, now, Sutherland Springs) but, in all these instances, we still do not answer the fundamental question as to why these events occur.
Let’s face it. There are plenty of racists (among all races), plenty of Islamic extremists (around the world) and enough psychopaths (of all kinds) who DON’T go around killing people, so these “reasons” that are put forth cannot be the be-all and end-all when it comes to answering the question, “Why?”
We can blame the second amendment, we can blame the mental health system, we can blame the political atmosphere of late, we can the lay blame on all sorts of “bugaboos,” but doing so just leads us further away from the truth.
There is something deeper, more hideous, more malevolent dwelling within those who perpetrate mass killings, than within the rest of the “idioti” running around in the world. That “something” is the very something which psychiatrists and criminologists, and all of the expert analysts within and outside government, will never put their finger on because, at day’s end, that something is as intangible as an emotion, as irrational as a tantrum, and as old as man going back to the beginnings, when Cain slew Abel.
That something is “evil.”
If we as a people to not come to accept this fact, do not come to grips with the spirit of evil that ties all of this carnage together, and do not address this common denominator head on, then the killings will increase in number, in casualty and in frequency…
In the Name of Tolerance and Diversity- the Poisoned Pill of Political Correctness
Imagine, for a moment, you live in New York City- a vertical forest of concrete and steel, overrun with vehicular creatures below which crawl along the many miles of asphalt trails, beneath. Imagine while you love being there, whether resident or visitor, that something inside you yearns for the simple breeze in your face that comes from riding a bicycle. So you mount the two-wheeled conveyance, and head down a street set aside for fellow cyclists who yearn for the same sensation…
Unbeknownst to you, there is another who has been living here for a few years, courtesy of a program designed to diversify the countries from which entry visas are granted to foreigners based solely upon random selection. No effort is made to determine whether or not the person selected (who is also allowed to bring along their relatives into the United States) has any intention to assimilate, seek citizenship or embrace the tenets of our republic. After all, the whole point of the Diversity Visa Program is to guarantee diversity of those coming into a country whose population is already the most diverse in the entire world. Introduced by Sen. “Chuck” Schumer (D-NY) in 1990 as part of a larger bill overwhelmingly passed by both houses of congress, and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990, provides up to 50,000 immigrant visas annually, drawn from random selection among all entries to individuals who are from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. One of these countries is Uzbekistan, from which Sayfullo Saipov emigrated in 2010. Following the call for jihad against the west, Saipov goes to a Home Depot store in New Jersey, rents a pickup truck for a nominal fee, drives to Manhattan and races some fifty miles per hour down the bike path- running over dozens, killing eight and injuring eleven more. Having exacted such carnage, the terrorist assailant then exits the rental truck, brandishing pellet and paintball guns in a failed attempt to commit suicide by cop, thereby waylaying his journey into a heaven of seventy two willing, waiting and wanting virgins.
Once again, all in the name of tolerance and diversity, the poisoned pill of political correctness exacts its toll among the most tolerant, at the hands of radicalized member of the world’s most intolerant religion, that being Islam.
“Allahu Akbar!” the battle cry of all such jihadists, is once again echoed on the sidewalks of New York.
Yet, in spite of the fact that such a modus operandi rears its ugly head for the eighth time since the beginning of summer, when calls for such vehicular attacks against the west were initiated by ISIS, President Donald Trump’s call for extreme vetting and a temporary halt to such immigration is met with accusations of racism and islamophobia by the globalist, politically-correct classes in both parties of congress, courts and colleges, alike. Never mind the fact we now face the very real possibility that such a scenario repeats itself again and again here in the United States.
Evidently, slaughter of innocents is the price we must pay so that we can prove to the world that we tolerate, encourage and promote the acceptance of those who, themselves, wish to annihilate our culture, our freedoms and our populace, all in the name of jihad…
…in short, a politically-correct policy of suicidal stupidity.
(authors note- This is a little piece that I wrote back in 1993. With the approach of “All Hallowe’s Eve,” as it used to be called, I thought I would share it with you for your own enjoyment… Happy Hallowe’en to all! – Drew Nickell)
In a time before recorded time, before the snakes were driven from the green island, before the outsiders brought with them the one God, there was a sect of people called Druids. The believed that nature itself had mystical powers- powers so great as to be reckoned with. On the eve of the ninth month they would draw lots to see which of them would be given in death to pacify the gods which principally were known as earth, wind, fire and rain.
Jack lived alone in the hollow trunk of an ancient tree. He kept much to himself most of the time, and was not well known, beyond his appearance, by those who lived in or closer to the Village of the Gourd. Aside from an occasional trek to trade his wood carvings, he seldom ventured far from the tree he called home. Jack remained an aloof and private member of his community.
One night, when the wind from the north blew cold and clouds had covered the star-goddesses, Jack was returning from the market with a satchel filled with un-traded carvings. His wares weren’t bringing much these days, for the potato crop had been sparse. All he managed to acquire was a large, pear-shaped pumpkin-squash. He planned to return to his tree, light a fire and cook the squash meat.
As the tree appeared just over the knoll, a brief but sudden burst of colder wind howled faintly behind his right shoulder. Jack stopped suddenly because he thought he heard his name called by the wind. Slowly turning about, Jack was pushed backwards by a second, stronger burst of wind which actually knocked him over. “J-a-a-a-a-a-a-c-k !” There was no mistake this time. Leaving his satchel of wares strewn about on the pathway, Jack scampered over the knoll with his pumpkin, dove into the tree and slammed the door shut. Knocking over bowls and plates, he fumbled around for his piece of flint. Dropping the rock twice with his shaking hands, he was eventually able to strike a spark which found a home on some tiny wood shavings. He built a larger than usual fire in the center of the one room, and the smoke began to curl up towards the hole at the top of the tree trunk. By then, he was too exhausted to cook his squash, and he drifted off into the Land of Nod, listening to the wind howling through the barren limbs above.
Jack awoke the next morning to find that all of the trees were now barren. The fiery reds and yellows that had adorned the trees in the Village of the Gourd had now painted the ground beneath. Out on the path, Jack saw his carvings strewn about the leaves and he began to gather them up. He went into the village and set them upon the table in the market. He had hoped business would be better today, for this was the eve of the ninth month and at noon all of the adults in the village gathered to draw the lots of passage.
Even though it was the highest honor to be selected as the sacrificial offering, no one amongst the villagers relished the idea of being personally chosen. Nevertheless the lots were drawn, and Jack breathed a silent sigh of relief when he found that his was not the short straw. That fell upon the very same one who, only the day before, had traded the pear-shaped pumpkin-squash for the carving of the squirrel which had taken Jack all of three days to create. Jack was sad enough for the unfortunate member, and doubly so at the thought of losing a good trading partner. After the sun dipped below the horizon in the west, the high priests would dress that member in the ceremonial fur, tie-his hands behind him and place his head upon the rock of the giving. Having done this, a large boulder would be dropped on the head of the chosen one and crush the mind that dwelled within.
Soon enough, the shadows grew long and it was time to gather up his carvings and prepare for the Ceremony of the Giving. Jack hadn’t noticed, but he had left his stone knife on the table at the market. He carried his satchel back to the hollow tree and set it down inside. He had no food to bring to the ceremony, so he grabbed the pear-shaped pumpkin-squash and headed for the light of the great bon-fire where the ceremony was to take place. Stopping briefly at his market table to retrieve his knife, he rushed over to the Place of the Ceremony and watched as the high priests began their incantations to the gods of earth, wind, fire and rain.
As these chants reach a feverish pitch, the men of the village all together raised the boulder and dropped it down upon the chosen one’s head. That having been done, there came from all the voices of the villagers a joyous yell, and the feast of what was then the ninth month began. Jack brought forth his pumpkin-squash amidst the snickering of some of the others, but offered it all the same for the purpose of the great feast. One of the women said to him that he was the wood carver and should therefore have scooped the meat from the pumpkin-squash himself. Although he never really knew why, he cut the pumpkin-squash in a way that somehow resembled the face of the “chosen one,” and then used his stone knife to scrape the tender meat from within. Giving the meat to one of the women, he then set the hollowed gourd aside and ate the best meal he had had that year.
Later, as the last of the villagers wandered from the feast, he started for home but suddenly stopped short. A cold burst of wind blew upon his back and he thought that he had heard that same moan from the night before. He stumbled into the hollowed-out pumpkin-squash, and then a strange idea took hold of him. He went to the burning embers of the bon-fire and saw how they were burning the grease-soaked timbers very slowly. He then grabbed a piece of this greasy wood and shoved it into the largest hole of his hollowed-out gourd. He gently blew into the hold and the low flame kicked up. Startled by how well the light shown through the holes, he grabbed the pumpkin squash by its vine and headed home. Just as he began to ascend the knoll, a sudden burst of cold wind came from behind and moaned, “J-a-a-a-a-a-c-k!” With that, Jack reeled around, held up his -pumpkin-lantern and listened as the wind howled off into the distance.
He stood there for a while silent and motionless, pondering the mystery of what had taken place. As the flame inside the gourd began to flicker out, he turned and made his way back to the tree. He lived seven more years and then died, never again bothered by the howl of the wind.
Jack is now remembered for his lantern and this, Jack’s Lantern, is how the Jack-o-Lantern became a tradition on the eve of the ninth month of the old calendar, (nowadays, the eleventh month) called November.
History, real history will one day note that the greatest political scandal in the history of the United States was perpetrated by two Democrat administrations, aided and abetted by the Republican administration which held office in between. The corruption thus exposed on the part of the Clintons and the Obama administration, with nodding approval and willful noninterference by the George Bush administration, will have come to light, ironically, as the result of a costly and fruitless investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Someday, it will be shown that the utter silence of former President George W. Bush, during the entire eight-year presidency of Barack Obama, was for a specific reason. The fact that the forty-third president has now chosen to speak out against the Trump administration, exposes the truth that the Bushes and the Clintons have long been in cahoots with one another in the pursuit of a globalist, one-world government, and have pursued this goal in conjunction with the Obama administration.
In the years leading up to Hillary’s 2016 campaign, tens of millions of dollars found their way to the coffers of the Clinton Foundation from the Russian Federation, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid directly to President Bill Clinton for a speaking engagement, all in exchange for a deal where Russia ended up with 25% of the uranium reserves once held by the United States. The Obama administration- specifically the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder, put the kibosh on an FBI investigation into ties between the Clintons and Russian operatives, the attempt to gain influence vis-à-vis donations to the Clinton Foundation, and that they knowingly and willingly failed to inform Congress of same.
The sale of these uranium assets to Uranium One, a holding company partially but substantially owned by the Russian Federation, was subsequently approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). This committee included:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
Attorney General Eric Holder,
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner,
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta,
Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker,
Energy Secretary Stephen Chu,
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano,
U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, and
Office of Science and Technology Policy Chairman John Holdren,
all of whom were Obama appointees.
In other words, the transfer of our uranium assets to the Russians was approved by a large segment of the Obama Administration even though the FBI, under Robert Mueller, had been investigating Russian influence peddling into the Clinton Foundation- an investigation that was thwarted by Attorney General Eric Holder. Mueller’s silence on the matter was and is deafening, and his immediate successor, James Comey, went along with the cover-up presumably to “protect the reputation of the FBI.” It was James Comey who leaked confidential information on his conversations with President Trump, to the New York Times with the intent to launch a Mueller-led investigation into the Trump campaign, all as a ruse to cover up the real Russian collusion with the Clintons and the Obamas, as well as complicit enablement by the FBI.
Now it has come to light that the Fusion GPS dossier, authored by Christopher Steele, which was the impetus behind the costly and fruitless investigation by the same Robert Mueller, was purchased and funded by none other than the Hillary Clinton campaign- thus revealing FBI collusion with the Clinton campaign to bring down, first the candidacy, and then subsequently, the presidency of Donald Trump. That the FBI would act on information from such a dubious source with the intent to besmirch the Republican nominee for president goes to show how deeply embedded the “Deep State” of the Obama-Bush-Clinton years has tried to poison the well for President Donald Trump, whose so-called “nationalist agenda” flies in the face of his four predecessors.
Trump has, this very week, been directly or indirectly assailed by members within his own party, including former President George W. Bush, departing Republican Senators Robert Corker (R-TN), John McCain (R-AZ) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), which shows that this overarching globalist presence within and outside government crosses party lines and extends into the mainstream media who, save for few exceptions, has largely ignored Clinton and Obama corruption from the very start.
The extent of this corruption, over such a long period of time and across several administrations, is just beginning to be revealed as the unveiling of the truth now stands to show the insidious power of the political elite and the treason it has perpetrated on the United States of America, at long last.
It is now up to the Trump administration to bring out into the open all that has been whispered about for so very long, and to see that justice is done. God willing, we’ll soon know the rest of the story.
We somehow knew it was going to happen…eventually… certainly… finally…it just had to…
Given all of last year’s outrage about the Billy Bush tape of Donald Trump yucking it up with locker room language, all of the feminist lament about the president’s nomination and election, all of the “pink-hat” protests during his inauguration, and all of the invective hurled at the president during this year’s Emmys and Oscars award ceremonies, lo and behold…
…this year’s award for hypocrisy in the crusade for women’s rights goes to…
…the envelope please…
…Hollywood…
…specifically, the liberal, Trump-bashing, Hillary-loving, Obama-worshiping, oh-so-holier-than-thou star-studded Hollywood celebrities who like nothing better than to lecture the rest of us on how to think and vote.
Harvey Weinstein, far and away the largest individual contributor to all causes and campaigns Democrat, has now been exposed for the complete and total serial sexual predator that he is…using his power and influence to prey upon young wannabe starlets who have had to “put out” if they want the stardom they so desperately seek. Worse, come charges which are now pending for criminal sexual battery and rape, in both the United Kingdom and the United States.
Abiding Weinstein’s predilection for pursuing pretty young women, were all of the older, established stars of both sexes, who knew all along that Weinstein was a regular practitioner of “casting couch” auditions, and said nothing…nothing… about it until the you-know-what hit the fan.
Where was the outrage from those celebrities- so given to voice their disdain for the president, based largely on uncorroborated stories of Russian hotel rooms and insane innuendo, when it came to a real sexual predator from within their own industry?
Why did it take five days for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to voice their own outrage (if that is what you call it) over the public revelations of that which they must have already known, from private whispers, that Harvey Weinstein- the same Harvey Weinstein who contributed so much cash to their campaigns and causes- was doing to young starlets what both of them have been doing to the country?
“Actually, there is no way to return the cash…” – did she really say that?
Of course, Hillary Clinton is well-versed and well-practiced in the art of accepting political support from serial sexual predators who just happen to be members of her own political party, or for that matter, her own marital household.
Weinstein routinely did to young aspiring actresses what Bill Clinton did to scores of women, including Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey and countless others over the years. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton- that bastion of feminist causes and all things “woman” who can rail about the insensitivities of Donald Trump’s language- that same Hillary Clinton used her commitment to women’s issues by turning around, fending off and trying to destroy the lives of those women who had fallen under her husband’s prey.
We expect this level of hypocrisy from Hillary Clinton. She is slime, after all, and we can all thank Divine Providence that she was not elected to the world’s most powerful office.
But now that Barack Obama has finally, albeit tepidly, assailed Harvey Weinstein for his transgressions (with no promise to return any cash, by the way), and watching the predictable parade of Hollywood celebrities all queueing up to join in the outrage, we now know the answer, all too well, as to why it took so long for all of them to speak out against Harvey Weinstein, and why NBC and the New York Times intentionally squashed the story when it first came out…
…it’s because, after all, at least Harvey Weinstein isn’t, God forbid, a Republican…
When all is said and done, we many never know just what prompted Stephen Paddock to perpetrate the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. As of this writing, more than fifty lay dead and several hundreds of others are wounded, all the result of one crazed shooter, and for reasons known only to himself.
A Nevada resident, living in an upscale retirement community located in Mesquite, Paddock checked into the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, secured a room on the thirty-second floor, barricaded the entrance to his room, and opened fire on a crowd gathered across the street to enjoy the last night of a three-day country music festival. Equipped with ten rifles including automatic weapons, and an abundance of ammunition- enough to kill hundreds, Paddock was well-prepared to exact massive carnage and he even set up a video feed to alert him of the imminent approach of law enforcement officers dispatched to neutralize him. Given the amount of ordinance he carried into his hotel room, this was doubtlessly a well-thought-out, pre-planned attack which was meant to maximize the taking of innocent life prior to the commission of his own suicide.
Licensed to carry firearms and to fly private airplanes, Paddock, who was believed to work as either an accountant or an auditor, apparently had no prior felony charges even though he was “known to local authorities,” according to a Fox News report. He had no ties to domestic or international terrorism and apparently carried no racial or religious animus, and there was nothing about the man to suggest a propensity to launch such an attack…and that might well prove to be the most frightening aspect of all.
After all, how can such an attack, at the hands of such a person, ever be prevented?
Sadly, it can’t be, and that is part of what is so very disturbing about this horror.
The mainstream media will no doubt search for some reason that Stephen Paddock went off the rails of sanity, and decided to kill on a broad scale. They will “hope” that they can somehow find a way to tie this shooting to President Trump, or to the “alt right” or to some other entity which drives their pre-conceived narrative that this is the result of Trump’s whatever, fill-in-the-blank. They will resurrect the cry for gun-control, even though, as we have learned, anyone wielding a knife or driving a motor vehicle can achieve the same dastardly results, given the propensity to do so.
Yet the reason- the real reason that this attack took place may be staring all of us in the face, though we all are loathe to admit it.
The simple fact is that there is evil in this world- pure, diabolical evil that is at the heart of what took place in Las Vegas, in the evening hours of October 1st, 2017. It’s the kind of evil that can only come from diabolical and demonic forces which are very real- forces that are set upon mankind from without, to foment a steeping hatred from within, and exact revenge on the innocents at their most vulnerable. The fact that such attacks take place often defies all logic or reasoning.
Nevertheless, it is for each of us to see this for what it really and truly is, and to pray that we all may be delivered from the evils that surround us in such a troubled world.
I never thought the time would come that I would say this.
The Baltimore Ravens lost 44-7 to the Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley Stadium in London, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the result.
It has been quite a long time coming.
On the weekend after I was born at the end of October 1958, the Baltimore Colts beat the Green Bay Packers 56-0, the biggest shutout victory in the thirty-odd year history of the Baltimore Colts. That December, the Colts won their first of three World Championships during their stay in Baltimore. While obviously I have no memory of that 1958 season, I became a dyed-in-the-wool fan of Baltimore’s Colts from the age of seven, until the night they snuck out of town in the middle of the night of March 29, 1984, headed for Indianapolis. I cried for two weeks (no kidding), spent the next twelve years waiting for Baltimore’s re-entry into the National Football League, spending two of those years rooting for Baltimore’s entry into the Canadian Football League, and boycotted the NFL during all of those twelve years.
Needless to say, no one was happier than when it was announced that the Cleveland Browns were relocating to Baltimore in November of 1995. Having been spurned by the NFL since the Colts’ departure, losing two expansion bids to Charlotte and Jacksonville, I didn’t care that an established NFL franchise was leaving Cleveland for the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. After all, the franchise had the decency to return the Browns’ identity, colors and history to the shores of Lake Erie, and then took on a new persona as the Baltimore Ravens. From that day on, November 6, 1995, I was (and thought I would forever be) a dyed-in-the-wool Ravens fan. Over the next twenty-one seasons, I lived and died with the Ravens and spent an awful lot of money- installing satellite services for DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket programming, attending about a dozen games at both Memorial Stadium and M & T Bank Stadium, and buying all of the trappings of a true Baltimore Ravens fan- jerseys, t-shirts, hoodies, jackets and many other items now collecting dust in my office.
All of that- the fifty years of frequent agony and occasional ecstasy, all came to an end on Sunday, September 24, 2017. Representing the very city where the National Anthem of the United States was written in 1814, by Francis Scott Key, a number of Ravens’ players took a knee at the playing of “the Star Spangled Banner” in London’s Wembley Stadium, having received the go-ahead in a letter from their owner, Steven Bisciotti, expressing his support. Adding insult to injury, these same players then stood respectfully for the playing of “God Save the Queen,” the national anthem of Great Britain.
In an unfortunately bygone age, this would be considered nothing less than treason.
It’s not enough that these overpaid and oh-so-coddled prima donnas, who often lead less-than-pristine personal lives off of the field, would show such disrespect. They have the gall to show their lack of patriotism on a foreign field- ironically in the very same country with whom the United States was at war in 1814 when the words to the National Anthem were written. So, it is altogether fitting that the Ravens should fall flat on their “bums,” losing badly to the Jacksonville Jaguars in one of the most lopsided scores in their history.
Next week, the Baltimore Ravens will host their biggest rival, the Pittsburgh Steelers, in Baltimore for their trans-Atlantic homecoming. Even if all (and I mean ALL) of the Ravens fans continue to stand by their team, there will be one less fan watching that, or any other NFL game, going forward. The National Football League is suffering under the weight of its own success (not to mention its own excess) and I and have nothing but utter contempt for a league of well-paid, professional athletes, their greedy owners, and the networks who have made both of them rich beyond all rhyme or reason.
Stark, Clear and Concise, Trump Addresses the United Nations
On Tuesday, September 19th, 2017, President Donald Trump addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations, delivering a speech unlike any other in the seventy-year history of that body. Stark and clear, devoid of any diplomatic double-speak, President Trump let it be known that his is a presidency that will always place the interests of the American people at the forefront, in all its dealings with the international community, going forward.
In staking out this position, Trump reiterated the nationalistic tone of his inaugural address in January, and explained to the world what “putting America first” means and why the assembled heads of state should have the same ethos regarding the respective populations of their own nations:
“In foreign affairs, we are renewing this founding principle of sovereignty. Our government’s first duty is to its people, to our citizens — to serve their needs, to ensure their safety, to preserve their rights, and to defend their values.
As President of the United States, I will always put America first, just like you, as the leaders of your countries will always, and should always, put your countries first.”
In essence, the President rejected the entire concept of one-world governance, indicating that the “best vehicle for elevating the human condition” is instead, the nation-state.
Evoking the original vision of the United Nations, to ensure each member nation the three pillars of building a better future: national sovereignty, national security and prosperity, Trump also said that the disproportionate military and financial support to the United Nations, on the part of the United States, while not to be taken for granted, would nevertheless be well be worth it, if these goals were to be realized, and called on the United Nations to join together in pursuit of this vision.
Unrestrained in calling out the United Nations for falling far short in its accomplishments thus far, the President nevertheless called on the world body to realize the opportunity that lies ahead to ensure peace through the strength of national sovereignty and a shared commitment to international security. He acknowledged the recent 15-0 votes of the U.N. Security Council to impose economic sanctions against North Korea, but also indicated that far more must be done to reign in the rogue regime in that country.
He made a clear case against those who would deny the world peace- specifically, North Korea, Iran, radical Islam, Venezuela and Syria.
He condemned the regime ruling North Korea for starving its own populace in pursuit of nuclear weapons, for its reprehensible record of imprisonment, torture abduction and murder, and enumerated egregious examples of each. Indicating the strength and great patience of the United States, Trump said that if forced to defend itself or its allies, that the U.S. would have “no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” Characterizing North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un as a reckless “Rocket Man” bent on a suicide mission, Trumps remarks effectively put China on notice that they must bring an end to North Korea’s nuclear program before military action against North Korea is necessitated- and that time for peaceful diplomacy, though preferred, is quickly approaching an end.
Trump was also clear in pointing out the President Obama’s Iran deal as “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions ever entered into” by the United States, and promised to revisit the U.S. commitment to the agreement in light of the fact that Iran continues to threaten the United States, Israel and other Arab neighbors with destruction, while pursuing its nuclear program unabated. He chided the Iranian regime for funding international terrorism which has extended to every continent in the world, and called on each member of the United Nations to drive Islamic extremism out of their respective countries.
Trump also called out the leadership in Venezuela for forcing upon its people a failed socialist economic model that has thrust that country’s economy into disaster. In doing this, Trump condemned Nicolas Maduro for inflicting terrible pain and suffering on his own people, and indicated that Venezuela is not failing due to poor implementation, but rather faithful implementation of a failed system, just as it has failed wherever it has been tried. He urged other nations to address the Venezuelan crisis and called for the restoration of political freedom and democracy to that country.
He restated why he launched a missile strike against the Syrian forces who launched a chemical weapons attach against its own people, and thanked Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon for their respective roles in hosting Syrian refugees with the financial support of the United States.
He concluded his address by challenging the member nations of the United Nations to live up to the promise on which the United Nations was founded, asking whether each nation “loved its citizens enough to defend their interests, preserve their cultures and ensure a peaceful world for their citizens…”
“Our hope is a word and world of proud, independent nations that embrace their duties, seek friendship, respect others, and make common cause in the greatest shared interest of all: a future of dignity and peace for the people of this wonderful Earth.
This is the true vision of the United Nations, the ancient wish of every people, and the deepest yearning that lives inside every sacred soul.
So let this be our mission, and let this be our message to the world: We will fight together, sacrifice together, and stand together for peace, for freedom, for justice, for family, for humanity, and for the almighty God who made us all.”
While the anti-Trump globalists and internationalists, in both Democrat and Republican parties and in the mainstream media, were quick to label the speech as excessively nationalistic and dangerous, scores of others welcomed Trump’s address indicating that it has been a long time coming for a U.S. President to speak so clearly and honestly on the challenges facing the international community, and in a way that stands in stark contrast to speeches delivered by his predecessors.
Any doubt as to where President Donald Trump stands on the world stage has now been erased in, what many feel to be, the greatest speech he has delivered to date. His was a speech unlike any other in terms of clarity and certitude, and a watching world now knows why he was elected and what he sets out to accomplish on behalf of the American people and the world of which they are a part.
A Stroke of Genius- Trump Sends DACA Back to Congress
DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, was pronounced policy by Barack Obama on June 15, 2012. Measures aimed at providing a pathway to citizenship for so-called “dreamers,” essentially children of illegal immigrants brought into this country by their parents, went back as early as 2007, but never gained traction in the Senate. Without legal passage by the legislature, it was Obama who ordered this deferred action for dreamers via executive order- something not allowed by the United States Constitution.
Facing the certainty of bipartisan backlash were he to outright reverse Obama’s executive order, President Donald Trump instead sent the entire issue of dealing with both “dreamers” and illegal immigration back to the Congress while implementing an immediate halt to the program for a period of six months. Essentially, Trump put an immediate stop to the expansion of the program- freezing the status quo ante, and put Congress on notice they have six months to address the issue before Obama’s DACA is cancelled, outright.
In a word, brilliance.
Let’s face it. The reason why we have arrived at this point is because the Congress has lacked the intestinal fortitude to deal with illegal immigration for the last three decades. Oh sure, there is much talk about immigration reform, and the need to secure our borders- particularly our southern border, but it has only been that- a lot of talk put forth in the interest of securing enough votes to be reelected and then quickly and conveniently forgotten, whenever the issue actually comes up. Both parties share equal responsibility in the problems we have with illegal immigration today.
Democrats, ever seeking to expand their own voter base, would love nothing more than wholesale immigration, legal and otherwise, and then pursue the subsequent enfranchisement of their right to vote. Their idea of immigration reform is essentially to grant citizenship to everyone already here, secure in the belief that the resulting electorate would guarantee Democrats perpetual control of all three branches of government.
Republicans, never ones to let principle to stand in the way of political patronage, intentionally soft-step immigration reform because much of their financial support comes from corporations and other private interests who benefit from having a low-cost, alternative supply of labor extensively provided by illegal immigration. Better to serve the needs of self-interests, than to risk being labeled a “heartless bigot who would round up innocents and send them back where they came from.”
While blowhards in both parties voiced outrage at the anticipated cancellation of DACA by the president, and bolstered by an entire mainstream media united in message that Trump’s actions would be “callous and inhumane to innocent children who were brought here against their will,” it was Trump who fashioned a way to put the ball back into the court of the naysayers, saying essentially, “if you care about these “dreamers” so much, you deal with it…”
Given the inability of Republicans to get together on anything other than voicing selective outrage at their president’s latest tweets, their leadership- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), has also been put on notice that the President is willing to work with Democrats if that is what it takes to get action on a host of things, including immigration, tax reform and infrastructure.
Unlike his immediate predecessors, Barack Obama and George W. Bush, it is noteworthy that President Trump is neither an ideologue (Obama) nor an insider (Bush). Rather, he is by his own admission, a deal-maker, committed to achieving his agenda regardless of how, or with whom, he gets it done.
That’s not good news for establishment Republicans, who insist on doing things their own way, which is essentially not doing anything at all. It’s also bad news for Democrats, who sound shrill in their attacks on a president who nevertheless reaches out to them in a way no presidents have done in the last thirty years.
Once again, Donald Trump is proving the “experts” wrong, by achieving what was said to be impossible- but, then again, he has been doing that very thing, for most of his adult life.
Drew Nickell On The Radio Thursday 14 September at 1:00 PM, EDT
I will be back on the radio once again, Thursday, September 14th, and filling in for Nora Wahl Firestone on her show at WKQA-AM, Freedom 1110 AM in Hampton Roads, VA. I will be discussing current events surrounding the Trump presidency, the political environment surrounding his administration, and other current events here in the nation and around the globe. Here is a link to that live broadcast :
As I am not usually given to sharing personal and private information on social media, I nevertheless feel that it is incumbent upon myself to advise you that I will have to take a break from regular postings, beginning Labor Day weekend. My daughter is having critical surgery that week and my priorities are to be with her so that I may attend to her post-operative convalescence, for the time being. She faces an extraordinary uphill climb and I ask each of you to remember her in your thoughts and prayers, as you are able to find time to do so. Having said so, I remain
The Stuff of Legends- the Response to Hurricane Harvey
The rains came, and came, and came, again- setting records which no one, in their right mind, would ever seek. Hurricane Harvey, gaining strength from the hot waters of the Gulf of Mexico, assaulted the southeastern coast of Texas with wind and water. Stalled by the approach of a southeastern-bound high pressure system, Harvey loitered on the Texas coast just long enough to deluge the entire area under water- the likes of which have never been seen in the United States. Its costs in dollars will have seen no equal and the many lives lost in the treacherous floodwaters, though thankfully not record-setting, nevertheless remind us that there are certain things far beyond the control of man that can separate the living from this life.
Perhaps worse for those who survived the storm- those who have seen their entire lives and livelihoods stripped away- are the prospects of rebuilding from scratch. Their homes destroyed, their belongings damaged beyond repair, their keepsakes and other irreplaceable items lost forever, they must now face the formidable frustration of having to start all over again…
..and yet…
In all of the footage of disappearing highways and rushing rivers, we also saw the very thing that makes America the special place that it is- a place which is oft-forgotten, but is always there, despite the push and pull of political posturing. Americans always rush to come to the aid of the besieged, whether in war or in natural disaster, here at home and around the world. The efforts of emergency responders and just plain ordinary folks, to assist the many thousands of displaced, desperate and dispossessed people, shows just who we are as a nation.
It belies the fraudulent storyline of a mainstream media, set on otherwise dividing people into camps of identity labels, that America is a nation falling apart at its seams. The real storyline is that Americans come together in the worst of times, and the heroic efforts of a people united in purpose stands in the face of those who would rather see us destroyed- AntiFa, BLM, radical leftists, Islamic terrorists, Neo-Nazis, the Klan. Added together, these pathetic examples of human excrement are no match for the rest of us- the ones who care about others and are willing to sacrifice all in the name of humanity. That is who real Americans are and that’s what real Americans do- come to the aid of the misfortunate. Real Americans have no use for media malcontents who stir up controversy about the first lady’s shoes, and whether or not President Trump is ever going to find favor with those who hate him and seek an end to his presidency.
While it is premature to assess how the Trump administration is managing this emergency, early indicators are that the president and his cabinet are doing a far better job than other presidents who have had to deal with national emergencies. It is true that Trump has had the benefit of competent state governors and mayors, unlike what occurred in Hurricane Katrina, where Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco was late in calling in the National Guard, and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin hunkered down in his hotel room. Despite this advantage, Trump ignored precedent by declaring the region a disaster area before the fact, and put into place federal government resources in advance of the storm. In so doing, President Trump may well have re-written the “book” on disaster management from a federal response level. Never mind that the media will conveniently overlook this accomplishment.
It will be many months, and even years, for southeastern Texas, Louisiana and other affected states to be rendered whole again, once the waters subside and life returns to some state of normalcy. The challenges faced by those so adversely affected are horrendous, to say the least.
Yet when all is said and done, it will be these heroic efforts and the march back from disaster that will stand the test of time and become the stuff of legends.
Monumental Moronity- the Left’s Assault on American History
In the latest cause du jour, it has now become quite the rage to dismantle any statue paying homage to anyone whose lifetime is not commensurate with contemporary political correctness.
Confederate war memorials? Gone.
Historical figures, especially founding fathers who also happened to own slaves? Gone.
New world explorers who broadened the knowledge base and global footprint of European dynasties? Gone.
Next will be any monument or memorial to those who laid down their lives in all of the wars this country has fought…just wait and see.
In fact, any, ANY statue that honors anyone who is not sacrosanct in the eyes of liberal orthodoxy and leftist dogma is now under siege by malcontented radicals who will never find satisfaction with anything American, or that which promotes the virtues of western civilization.
And that is the point.
Tear down the monuments to our nation’s past today, and then tomorrow, tear up the nation’s founding documents which define who we are and how we are to be governed. Call this the express lane to national suicide, here in the United States.
Growing up in Richmond, Virginia we recall that one of the few things which genuinely set Richmond apart from other cities- namely, Monument Avenue. Often compared to the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Richmond’s Monument Avenue was widely recognized as one of the most beautiful boulevards in the western hemisphere. Lined with stately oak trees on each side and also on the malls that separated east- and westbound lanes, Monument Avenue courses past the roundabouts which honor heroic figures of a bygone Virginia- Generals J.E.B. Stuart and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson whose equestrian statues face north, signifying that these two generals did not return home. Most famously, General Robert E. Lee’s equestrian statue faces south, signifying his return home following the war. Additional statues honoring Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Admiral Matthew Fontaine Maury, the “Pathfinder of the Seas,” whose own cartography of Atlantic sea lanes still stands the test of times, to this very day. Also located on one of the avenue’s traffic malls is a canon, facing west, marking the perimeter of the city’s inner defenses. So beautiful and well-planned in the decades following America’s Civil War, Monument Avenue was also lined with stately homes belonging to the upper crust of Richmond society, in an age of carriages and other horse-drawn conveyances. As the decades passed by and asphalt began to cover many of its cobblestones, it was thought to make Monument Avenue more inclusive, so a statue honoring Richmond native Arthur Ashe was dedicated in 1996…the key word being “inclusive.”
Yet there is nothing “inclusive” about current efforts, on the part of liberal elites, to tear down the five “Confederate” monuments on Monument Avenue. Doing so would destroy the entire fabric of Monument Avenue and thus render asunder the teaching moments that once taught area schoolchildren of Richmond’s past, warts and all.
Then again, why would we want to educate our schoolchildren about their country’s history when we’d sooner indoctrinate them on the platitudes of political correctness and the shortcomings of those who came before us?
Several blocks east of Monument Avenue’s eastern terminus there is the equestrian statue of George Washington on the grounds of Virginia’s State Capitol. At its base are statues of Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Andrew Lewis, Chief Justice John Marshall, George Mason and Thomas Nelson, Jr. All of these men, including Washington, had pivotal roles in the founding of the United States, and it can be reasonably argued that there would be no United States of America, save for the contributions these seven men made in the years before, during and after the American Revolutionary War.
Yet because most of these men were slave owners, is Virginia’s Washington Monument, as it is officially known, next on the list to come down? Well, Virginia’s Capitol, designed by slave-owning Thomas Jefferson, once served as the Capitol of the Confederacy, so maybe they should consider tearing that down, too…
While we are at it, perhaps the time has come to target Washington D.C.’s Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial…
To the north, Baltimore removed its own Confederate Monuments, including a statue honoring Confederate Generals Lee and Jackson, in the middle of the night (just like Baltimore’s beloved Colts who were similarly “removed” in the middle of the night by their alcoholic owner). The city’s Lee-Jackson statue was dedicated in 1948 by Baltimore Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr. Ironically enough, it is his daughter, House Minority Leader and former Speaker of the House, Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi, who is now leading the call to remove Confederate statues from Statuary Hall in our nation’s Capitol.
If some future generation of elitist intellectuals determine that certain elements of Martin Luther King, Jr’s life are determined to be reprehensible, will it be okay with today’s liberal elites to tear down his memorials, as well?
Perhaps that is a question that should be asked of Minority Leader Pelosi, Virginia’s Governor Terry McAuliffe (also, a friend of the Clintons’) and all of those who seek to tear down the reminders of our collective history. In so doing, they seek to erase the past from our own national consciousness. Then, we will be free to repeat the mistakes of the past and usher in an all new American civil war, one ignited by the divisions these liberals are so set upon fomenting…
It is a decision that flies in the face of one-time candidate Donald Trump. Once eyeballing the frustration of a seventeen-year long venture in Afghanistan that has cost America much, and shown little, Trump had intended to withdraw our forces from America’s longest-ever war, and bring them back to kith and kin. After all, despite the number of troops in theater, achieving anything of lasting consequence in Afghanistan has been fleeting in these seventeen long years.
Such is the inevitable we suppose, when the United States goes into a hostile and foreign land with the intent to replicate itself- its morals, its diversity, its tolerance and into a culture and society that will have none of it. Afghanistan is, far and away, the worst of the Islamic states when it comes to harboring terrorists, as more than twenty Islamic terrorist organizations have established presence into the country, including the remnants of Al-Qaida, ISIS and, of course, the Taliban. Trying to build a representative democracy in such a place was the unfortunate folly of George W. Bush, and Barack Obama made it all worse announcing in advance a date that the United States would withdraw its forces- thus ensuring that the Taliban would merely have to “wait it out” to join with their fellow terrorists and turn the Islamic state into a rabidly-radical Islamic theocracy bent on war against the west.
Even worse than attempting to “nation build” Presidents Bush and Obama squandered many billions of dollars and many thousands of American lives making the same mistake that Lyndon Johnson made in Viet Nam- fighting a war remotely-controlled from Washington, rather than allowing in-theatre commanders to do what they are trained to do, and allowing them to win a war, as quickly as possible, while sacrificing as few American lives as possible. At least Bush had the brains not to inform our enemies in advance of when and where bombing runs would take place, yet that is precisely how Barack Obama thought war should be waged.
In a word- lunacy.
Into this mess, President Donald J. Trump has waded, with an initial instinct to stand by his campaign rhetoric and quit Afghanistan. Yet smart enough to give ear to experienced generals who have been to Afghanistan, who know what is needed to achieve victory, and whose expertise had been stymied by the prior administration to wage war as they otherwise know how to do, Trump has reassessed the situation and has decided to remain in Afghanistan, but with a new twist that could prove pivotal when it all shakes out.
The mission to rebuild Afghanistan as a unified democratic nation has thus been rendered asunder. The new mission, to simply kill terrorists wherever they may hide and destroy their networks, has now been launched and Trump has given field commanders the authority to pursue these ends, without restriction. If terrorists flee into neighboring Pakistan, as they have been doing all these many years, that country will have the opportunity to either join in the coordinated pursuit of these terrorists, or entertain the idea of India entering into the fray- something they dread more than anything else.
Wisely, the president has also refused to provide specifics as to troop numbers and timelines, essentially saying that all will be determined based upon conditions on the ground. In other words, the mission is now achievement-focused instead of being calendar-focused. While such a stratagem can seem to be vague and open-ended, Trump has emulated former presidents, like Lincoln and Roosevelt, who were focused on victory at all costs without limitations of time or, for that matter, conduct. Mindful that Obama’s sudden and premature withdrawal from Iraq proved to be disastrous, as it rendered all of our previous efforts moot, and created ISIS, Trump realized that to do the same in Afghanistan would prove just as disastrous and might lead to another 9/11. His “take” is that you either kill the rats there, once and for all, or risk them eventually coming here.
Admittedly, it is a gambit for the new president. If Afghanistan continues to be the quagmire that it has been for seventeen years, Trump’s decision to continue our presence there will prove to be his downfall. Yet, if his release of Obama’s leash on the military commanders lets loose a deadly force on terrorists who have made Afghanistan their horrible haven, Trump will have achieved something that will etch his name in the annals of history as the one who finally defeated the black flag of Radical Islam.
The late owner of the Oakland Raiders, Al Davis, once smilingly told his team to “Just win, baby.” In the same sense, President Donald Trump has issued the same order to his generals…
Drew Nickell On The Radio Thursday 17 August 2017 at 1:00 PM, EDT
I will be back on the radio once again, Thursday, August 17th, and filling in for Nora Wahl Firestone on her show at WKQA-AM, Freedom 1110 AM in Hampton Roads, VA. I will be discussing current events surrounding the Trump presidency, the political environment surrounding his administration, and other current events here in the nation and around the globe. Here is a link to that live broadcast :
What happened in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday, August 12th, has been brewing for quite some time. Extremists, from what is called both the right and the left, joined into battle with one another, armed with lumber and steeped in longstanding hatred. Both sides, the white supremacists/neoNazi/KKK and the AntiFa/BlackLivesMatter/AntiTrump resistance, spilled onto the streets of Charlottesville with a premeditated intent to do battle, and the City of Charlottesville allowed these opposing mobs, so armed, to enter into the streets of this small Virginia city and wreak havoc, as a result. So accommodating to provide the battlefield upon which both extremes of opposing factions waged war, it almost seemed staged right from the start.
When the city council of Charlottesville decided to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a small park, once known as Lee Park and renamed Emancipation Park, opponents to the decision sought to organize protests against the removal and, from court permission, gained permit to stage the protest. Making common cause with these alt/right opponents were representatives of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists intent on doing battle, while opposing forces, well-notified of the planned protest, amassed elements of the AntiFa (anti-fascist) radicals, BlackLivesMatter, and other left wing extremists including AntiTrump resistance. Told to make no arrests prior to the hour that the protest was scheduled to begin, local police enabled armed thugs from both sides to proceed from several entry points to join into the melee that followed.
The fact that the media was all prepared and in place to lend coverage to the expected conflict lends credence and bears witness to the proposition that the riots in Charlottesville were planned and engineered to take place, and that this was done for a reason.
Knowing that the effort to bring down Donald Trump from the Russia inquisition will ultimately fail, and that it is unlikely Robert Mueller will find anything worthy of indictment against the president, those who oppose Trump from both sides of the political spectrum decided on a strategy to play the race card against him. The left, ever seeking to tie white racists to Trump jumped at the chance to create an event that would “expose” Trump for what they imagine to be his underlying approval of these racists. Meanwhile the AntiTrump forces from the right, like Weekly Standard editor Stephen F. Hayes, were all prepared to jump on the president, regardless of what he said or didn’t say, regarding the events taking place Saturday morning.
For his own part, the president neither said nor did anything wrong, in either the remarks he made Saturday, and then on the following Monday. In both instances, he decried racism in all its form, hatred on both sides and espoused the need for people to come together and, hopefully, love one another. Yet, because his Saturday comments did not include specific references and repudiation of white supremacists/neoNazis/KKK, as they later did on Monday, Hayes and his fellow travelers from all sides of the mainstream media joined in their expressed indignation at the president’s initial response, and questioning whether such remarks came too little, too late.
Essentially, every faction opposed to the Trump presidency stood at the ready on a Saturday morning in August to pounce on Trump, regardless of his remarks. Knowing that a riot was about to take place between extremists, both white and black- one that would require a response from the president, it became a matter of “how” they would turn the riot against the president, not “if” they would do so. It is as if there keyboards and cameras have Trump in the crosshairs, ready for the next assault on his presidency. Perhaps this time they will get Trump on the race issue, since all of their other attempts to bring him down have thus far fallen flat.
What wasn’t foreseen was the horrendous automobile assault, perpetrated by a young white driver from Ohio, who was given to Nazi fascination. No one knew what was in the mind of James Alex Fields, that would prompt him to do such a thing resulting in the death of one young woman and injury to many others, but everyone on both sides of the riot’s perpetrators knew that it was based on the visceral hatred that they have for one another. Though the streets are laid quiet, the hatred still burns within the hearts of those who pull both sides of the political spectrum further and further apart.
Pulling down historic monuments of men who fought for what they believed in, regardless of contemporary revisionism, will not serve to unite the widening breach between Americans. Giving space to rioters to destroy property and cause violence will not promote constructive dialog, so badly needed in a divided nation. Tolerance of free speech does not extend to the allowance of anarchy, and there is much blame to go all around for the events in Charlottesville during the past weekend.
It is noted that long before the American Civil War was fought, extremists from both the North and the South- radical abolitionists and fervent secessionists- engaged in the same level of extremism that exists today, and it was those extremists on both sides which led this country to the costliest war ever fought by Americans, with more than 750,000 dead by war’s end.
Unless this country learns well the lessons of its own history, it is doomed to repeat the tragic mistakes of its past, and Charlottesville will only serve to be a harbinger of what is to come…a cultural war turned bloody that will tear us apart.
I will be back on the radio, today, Thursday, August 10th, and filling in for Nora Wahl Firestone on her show at WKQA-AM, Freedom 1110 AM in Hampton Roads, VA. I will be discussing current events surrounding the Trump presidency, the political environment surrounding his administration, and other current events here in the nation and around the globe. Here is a link to that live broadcast :
Venezuela- What Inevitably Happens When Socialism Fails
Regardless of nuance in the different forms of socialism, when it is tried and ultimately fails, the result is almost always deadly.
First there was Russia where socialism was the philosophical reason for the Russian revolution and the impetus behind the creation of the Soviet Union. The world watched as the economic upheavals it unleashed, and its ultimate failure of economic function, led to a brutal Stalinist totalitarianism that resulted in the death of 20 million in the labor camps of Siberia.
Then there was National Socialism, born of the German Workers Party and fermented in the severe depression which followed Germany’s loss in the First World War. The German Workers Party became known as “Nationalsozialismus” and its acronym NS (pronounced “na-zi“ in German) and the movement it spawned, seizing national control of the economy, touched off the costliest war ever fought, and the systemized eradication of at least 9 million people, including 6 million Jews, in the death camps of its own creation.
When Mao Zhedong touched off the Cultural Revolution in China, based in the pursuit of socialism in Asia, it is estimated that as many as 100 million perished in the wake of Mao’s internal war against political adversaries, and inspired socialist revolutions on the Korean peninsula and in Southeast Asia, resulting in the death of millions more. Such pursuit of communism, in the name of socialism, has given the world a madman in North Korea who is now capable of launching intercontinental ballistic missiles into the United States and intends to do so with nuclear payloads.
Attempts at socialist uprisings in the Western Hemisphere have inevitably led to the creation of brutal totalitarian regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua and, most recently, in Venezuela, amongst others. Once the fourth strongest economy in the Western Hemisphere, Venezuela’s march towards socialism in the twenty-first century, first under Hugo Chavez, and since, under Nicolas‘ Maduro, has disintegrated the economy, and brought about a brutal totalitarian regime which has eliminated constitutional rights and imposed harsh treatment of its own starving people. The nation that once led the efforts to free Latin America from the grip of European Colonization, under visionary hero Simon‘ Bolivar, has now descended into chaos and violence as it comes to grips with its own economic failure, as the result of socialist imposition.
In Europe, a more measured and incremental march toward socialism has transfigured an entire economic culture which once gave birth to the concepts of individual liberty and economic freedom. Coupled with an open-door policy towards the migration of millions of refugees from the Middle East, the inevitable result in the soaring social costs of trying to provide all people all things, is pushing towards eventual financial failure. Once this occurs, will the remaining members of the European Economic Community follow Britain’s lead in exiting the alliance, or will the EEC impose more stringent controls on the swelling population and seek further erosion of individual liberty and private enterprise?
All of these examples are curiously missing in the rhetoric of Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), as they urge their followers to pursue what Sanders has called “Democratic Socialism.“ Both of them know the ultimate outcome of that which they seek- the imposition of economic wealth redistribution that will make everyone poorer, more dependent on government and more willing to surrender individual liberty in exchange for services provided. Then, once all the money runs out and the people begin to starve en masse, the government will clamp down on any attempt to dissemble the socialist apparatus and, in doing so, will end constitutional guarantees of freedom and liberty.
The underlying socialist proclivity that is inevitably contained within the globalist, one-world economic movement, once led by Obama, Clinton and both Bushes, during their respective presidencies, as well as in the controlling power bases in both political parties, now have only one thing standing in the way of their own globalist visions…
Rock Bottom- The Lowly Point to Which Both Parties Have Descended
It’s a race to the bottom, and whichever party gets there first gets dibs on claiming that it’s they who can boast about hating Trump more.
On the one side we have the Democrats. United in their opposition to the Republican president, they act as one in their singular determination to block any and all initiative coming from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It doesn’t matter whether or not any singular effort coming from the Trump White House would benefit the country, for as long as such effort comes from Trump, they will oppose, resist, delay and disparage the President in the process. To an extent, this is expected of an opposition party out of power, but it has descended to the point of lunacy on the part of the minion senators and representatives who blindly obey the commands of Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), respectively, in universal opposition to Trump legislative initiative, regardless whether such initiative pursues the greater good of the nation. To be a Democrat is to hate all things Trump, and the rest doesn’t really matter much.
Yet, leading the race to the bottom are the Republicans- specifically those Republicans who are doing everything in their power to delegitimize and marginalize a Trump presidency they have opposed from the very start. This is especially true in the Senate, where at least twelve of the fifty-two Republican Senators are actively driving an effort to bring down the president in any and every way they can. They do so by cowardly backing away from heretofore unified votes to repeal ObamaCare, they once cast at a time when they knew their repeal votes were for naught, under a President Obama when he would surely veto them. Now that a Republican president is in a position to sign whatever they would put forward to repeal, replace and provide the country with a better solution to its healthcare woes, these same cowards run away for fear they might look bad if it doesn’t work, or fear that the media will say they are mean for taking away someone’s health care. Others try to limit their own president’s ability to make recess appointments for fear that President Trump will put a stop to the Bob Mueller/Democrat Lawyers Who Supported Hillary Clinton-led witch hunt and replace Mueller with a non-partisan special counsel, or that Trump would replace his own Attorney General in the interim. Still others pass legislation that would curtail President Trump from leveraging sanctions to conduct foreign policy without the Senate’s imprimatur, in direct opposition to the Constitution of the United States.
These are the “dirty dozen” Republican senators who, with an all-abiding eye of their own leadership, do what they can to stymie the president. These include Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Shelly Moore Caputo (R-WV), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Bob Corker (R-TN), Susan Collins (R-ME), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Dean Heller (R-NV), John McCain (R-AZ), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Rob Portman (R-OH), and Ben Sasse (R-NE). Some do so overtly, like Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, who is currently writing a book on how to oppose Donald Trump- a duly elected president from his own party! Others like South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham do so covertly, by fully colluding with their Democrat counterparts to propel an ever-expanding probe into whatever they can find on Donald Trump to pursue impeachment of a president that none of them “authorized” to win. It’s plain to see that none of these dirty dozen, nor their leadership in the Senate, give any regard at all to the very real criminal offenses perpetrated by Hillary Clinton and her campaign, with regards to Clinton Foundation pay-for-play, unauthorized dissemination of classified information, and the destruction of e-mail evidence under congressional subpoena. None are concerned about Obama administration’s criminal and targeted unmasking of U.S. citizens caught up in the surveillance of foreign entities. No, they’d rather go after Trump, instead. So while all of these bottom-dwellers take an extended vacation back to their districts, the investigations they have launched to bring down their president go forward with great zeal and determined purpose.
Then, we have the President- a political outsider, who looks out upon the swamp that is Washington, D.C. It is a city laden with corruption that permeates both parties- an endemic poison that prevents the level of change needed to address the needs of the nation’s people. Even more dangerously, the institution of a “deep state” which dominates every federal department and agency, and which condescendingly looks down upon an electorate who from their stand point, lacks their “expertise” in all matters governmental. It is this deep state- primarily, career federal employees who would sooner leak out confidential conversations that the president has with foreign leaders, and thereby threaten our national security in the process, than allow the very idea of a successful Trump presidency.
In spite of all of this (and for that matter, everyone else including an adversarial mainstream media united in message and purpose to disparage the president), Donald Trump disregards the many forces allayed against him, and pursues his agenda in any and every way he can. With the self-confidence and self-assurance that is his own essential quality, he knows that what he seeks is for the overall benefit of Americans, and he does so to strengthen America’s position in the world. He will keep doing so, as long as he has the support of the people who elected him, regardless of the slime that is the content and dwelling space of his opposition.
After all, Donald Trump has a job he was elected to do- and it’s one hell of a job he must do, if we are going to have a country…politicians be damned.
King Rat- McCain Betrays his Own Party and the President, yet Again
Brain cancer or not, Viet Nam POW or not, Senator John McCain(R-AZ) is the absolute king of the Republican rats, who will stop at nothing to betray his own party and the first real Republican president since Ronald Reagan.
Flying into Washington late Wednesday afternoon, the senior senator from Arizona mounted his high horse once again to lecture the Senate and the nation about what is and isn’t proper in Senate deliberations…as if he knew. In his self-serving and puerile bombast, he got his digs into the president he hates and pontificated about what he sees as the need for the Senate to work together.
Interestingly enough, the only thing that on which the Senate has come together this year, is their ill-advised and constitutionally-dangerous imperative to restrict President Trump in the management of foreign policy, specifically with regards to Russian sanctions. This is nothing more than a direct slap-in-the-face to the president- one that is unprecedented in U.S. history. Further, he and other AntiTrump Senators, including Lindsey Graham(R-SC) and Ben Sasse(R-NE) have overtly threatened the president that it will be “the end of his presidency” if Attorney General Jeff Sessions is fired, once again undermining and usurping the power and prerogative that is constitutionally the exclusive domain of any sitting U.S. president.
Despite seven years of promising the American people to repeal and replace ObamaCare, seven Republicans (Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Susan Collins of Maine, Shelly Caputo of West Virginia, Dean Heller of Nevada, McCain of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Rob Portman of Ohio) opposed Senator Rand Paul’s amendment to repeal the Affordable Care Act in its totality, joining obstructionist Democrats who have vowed not to participate in any measure that would put an end to the worst domestic legislation in history… that was Wednesday night.
Then on Friday morning, July 28th, it was McCain who ignominiously and dramatically threw a visceral thumbs down, joining Collins and Murkowski, to put the final nail in the “skinny-repeal bill,” which only sought to rid the ACA of its employer and individual mandates and medical device taxes. These senators, who all supported Hillary Clinton simply because she was not Donald Trump, are still sticking it to the American people because they remain angry about Trump’s victory in November.
In a word, betrayal- betrayal to their party, betrayal to the president and betrayal to the country.
Recalling the condescension in McCain’s speech on Wednesday, where he said:
“ …stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on the radio and television and the Internet- to hell with them…”
Well, Senator John McCain, “to hell with YOU and the rest of the rats,” too many of whom propagate the Republican caucus in the United States Senate.
It’s high time to vote their sorry asses outta there.
A Progress Report and Note of Thanks to the Readers of Drew Nickell
Two years ago this month, we began an effort to expand the readership of our essays which are catalogued on http://www.drewnickell.com, and which have also been posted on Facebook and are now shared on Twitter, Instagram, Amazon, LinkedIn and Google.
In that time period, our 225 essays have been read over 8,000 times in 68 countries, across six continents- something that we would have thought absolutely impossible only a few years ago.
Drew’s webpage has attracted 4,500 subscribers and his number of Facebook friends has swelled to just over 3,000, with an additional following of more than 500.
None of this would have been possible, but for the support of you- the friends who have offered supportive and constructive feedback, and who have kindly spread the word of our efforts to provide honest commentary on the events that shape our lives.
To you, our cherished friends, we offer our sincerest thanks and deepest appreciation for all you have done at our behest.
As a token of our appreciation, we are reducing the price of the signed and personalized copy of our book, Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times by just over $5.00 per copy. Yesterday’s price was $25.99, and is now available to you for $20.95, which includes sales tax, packaging and postage within the United States.
We will also be having a book signing this Saturday, July 22, from 10AM to 4 PM, at the Barnes and Noble Booksellers in Virginia Beach, located near the Virginia Beach Town Center at 4485 Virginia Beach Boulevard, Virginia Beach, VA 23462.
We hope to see you there.
God bless each and every one of you for all you have done to support our efforts.
Senate Confirmation Hearings- What Isn’t Said (but REALLY is Said)
On Wednesday, July 12, 2017, Christopher A. Wray appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions regarding his nomination to become the eighth Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His selection by President Donald Trump, to lead this embattled bureau, falls on the heels of James Comey’s firing in early May of this year.
There is little doubt as to his qualifications to lead the FBI, just as there was little doubt as to the qualifications of any or all of President Trump’s cabinet-level appointees, since the new president took office in January, 2017. By all accounts, Wray is a fine man, a distinguished professional and completely lacking in all of the dramatic flair and self-absorption that was the essence of Director Comey’s persona. In essence, he will prove to be the healing salve of an investigative agency that has grown far too political, given the apolitical nature of what the FBI is supposed to be. Once again, President Trump has hit a home run with this selection.
What has come to light during his confirmation hearing is the ironic nature of all such confirmation hearings in the age of Trump. Senate confirmation hearings are supposed to be designed to reveal the attributes, the strengths and, yes, the possible shortcomings of any given nominee- all in an effort to determine the suitability of such nominee, commensurate with the constitutional advice and consent function of the U.S. Senate. The irony is that, in the current administration, these hearings reveal far more about the senators asking the questions than they do the person being questioned.
While the mainstream media- the entire mainstream media- routinely refers to such hearings as “grilling,” a far more accurate depiction would be “inquisition,” something akin to the “Spanish Inquisition” farcical skits performed in the “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” television shows, broadcast on the BBC from 1969 through 1974. What is supposed to be non-partisan has become a partisan free-for-all, intent on scoring political points rather than uncovering the qualifications of a nominee. In doing so, the political motivations and tawdry character flaws of the questioners are thus revealed in the nature of the questions being asked.
A cursory viewing of the questions asked by senators in Christopher Wray’s nomination hearing can be summed up as the questions tacitly, but not expressly, asked, based upon the three partisan factions of the committee’s members:
Democrats (all of them): “We hate Donald Trump, and we intend to seek his impeachment, hopefully with your help. Even though we have not as yet found any evidence of collusion or obstruction, will you help us get Trump by reporting back to us anything you see as evidence of our doubts as to his suitability to be president, and will you help us to destroy his family (i.e. Donald Trump, Jr.) if we cannot destroy the president, himself?”
NeverTrump Republicans (i.e. Senators Graham (R-SC), Sasse (R-NE) and Flake (R-AZ ): “We, too, hate Donald Trump. In our hatred of him, we need your help to bring him down by informing us when (not if) he asks you to do something that we would find offensive or that you will (not would) find unethical. Will you commit to come to us and tattle on the president anytime it would help us in our mission to avenge Jeb Bush by bringing Trump down?”
Remaining Republicans: “It really doesn’t matter who is president, and whether or not we supported Donald Trump’s election is beside the point. Will you commit to not referring to ‘investigations’ as ‘matters,’ will you let us know if the president or a future president has secret meetings on an airport tarmacs with the spouses of presidential candidates, and will you let us know if Bob Mueller is not getting the support he needs from the bureau?”
In other words, questions posed to fine men and women, by lessers who pretend to serve the country, but really are there to enjoy sumptuous free lunches in the Senate dining room and avoid the difficult tasks associated with legislation and serving the needs of the country which elected them in the first place.
Following his second successful international trip, President Donald Trump has returned home to a political environment that has largely failed to come to grips with his own presidency. Despite what most reasonable (CNN and MsNBC, in particular, excluded) politicos, and even the most critical observers, have admitted was a transformational and altogether statesmanlike speech in Warsaw, Poland, the Trump bashers cannot seem to accept the fact that the new president has ushered in an entirely new direction in foreign policy.
This new direction, on the heels of Barack Obama’s “Blame America First” ideology, “leadership from behind”, “strategic patience,” and in the wake of a globalist new world order pursued by the last four presidencies of both Bushes, Clinton and Obama, Donald Trump has effectively reincarnated the spirit of Ronald Reagan’s “America First” approach to dealing with a world whose own interests are far different from those which would benefit the United States. For the first time in almost three decades, we now have a president who is willing to pursue our own national interests first, and who rejects the supposition that an American president should place global interests above and beyond that which is in our own national interests.
As President Trump so clearly stated in his Inaugural Address on January 20th, 2017, he “was elected President of the United States and not president of the world.” Largely panned by globalists of both parties, the mainstream media and their fellow travelers in academia, all of whom reject American nationalism as some kind of fascist reincarnation of totalitarianism, the new president made it altogether clear that the age of American acquiescence to a new world order has come to a close. From his decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord and his insistence that NATO allies honor their financial commitments to partially fund their own defense, to his intent to renegotiate the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and his refusal to further pursue the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), President Trump has proved to be a man of his word who will put America first and foremost in all his dealings with foreign governments.
This pursuit of placing America first precisely explains why Trump will never gain the acceptance of the internationalist elite- be they the European Economic Union, the Democrat Party, the NeverTrump establishment Republicans, career State Department apparatchiks, most all of the mainstream media (including much of Fox News, most notably Shepard Smith and Gillian Turner), anti-American academics and everyone else who seems to be bent on the destruction of his presidency.
Let’s face it…
Trump will never be able to placate or please his opponents in the Democrat Party, and most all of the Democrat Party will never accept either his election or his presidency. Even if he were to pursue their goal of universal, single-payer health insurance for all, they would constantly carp about Russia and their fantasy of his collusion with Vladimir Putin. Furthermore, they will actively or passively pursue his impeachment as an all-consuming stratagem.
Trump will never be able to win over the NeverTrump Republicans who have opposed him and his candidacy from the start. These include John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Susan Collins (R-ME) and many others. Waiting for their support would be as futile for President Trump as counting railroad ties while riding a passenger train. In short, they are globalist-internationalists and he is not.
Trump will never gain the respect, much less the acknowledgement of his fairly-won electoral victory, from a mainstream media who will never forgive him for defeating Hillary Clinton in the election of 2016. Until the very last day of Donald Trump’s presidency, they will continue to lie, misrepresent, spin and pursue stories based in opinion and not in fact, simply because he is the first president in history who refuses to kowtow to their libel and slander.
Trump will never find favor with an international community who so loved his predecessor, Barack Obama, for pursuing their interests over those of the United States, and who was so willing to fork over enormous amounts of our own treasury in the pursuit of policies and treaties which benefited them to our own detriment (i.e. The Paris Accord and the Iran “Deal”).
In essence, we have arrived upon the point of intransigent futility in any reasonable discussion of the Trump presidency, for the simple reason that despite what he says, does, tweets, accomplishes and pursues in the interests of the American people, the powers who so vehemently and irrationally oppose his very existence, have one goal- the end of his presidency.
Given all that, it is no wonder that the man tweets- how else can he or will he ever get his message across to the American people?
Having failed to defeat Donald Trump in the Republican primaries and the 2016 general election, having failed to substantiate any claims that Russia successfully tampered with polling or that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to throw the election his way, having failed to prove that Trump obstructed justice in the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, all of the many forces gathered to overturn the 2016 election are now alleging that President Trump is mentally deranged, and thereby unfit for the office he holds.
This week, it was announced that no fewer than twenty-five House Democrats have initiated impeachment proceedings based upon Section 4, of the Twenty-fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which reads:
“Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”
In other words, for these proceedings to gain any traction, Vice President Mike Pence and a majority of President Trump’s cabinet would have to conclude that the president is no longer capable of performing the duties of his office, put this in writing and submit it to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI).
This is about as likely to happen as a free, fair and open election in North Korea.
Yet, such are the tactics of desperation and that which would support a collective clinical diagnosis of manic derangement and obsessive compulsive disorder, on the part of those who would support this action. Simply put, it is NOT the president who shows signs of derangement, but rather the psychological disorder of those who cannot come to grips with the political ascendancy of Donald Trump.
Into this lunacy one can add CNN, MsNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, the Washington Post, the New York Times, most of the Democrats in both houses of Congress, a substantial number of NeverTrump Republicans, and a vast number of “deep state” political hacks who constitute many career apparatchiks in the Federal government. Add in the twenty-seven secretaries of the states who have now refused to turn over voter registration data, from within their respective states, to a bipartisan committee investigating reports of election fraud…and this doesn’t even include the lefty-looneys that dominate Hollywood and academia, alike.
What is the basis of their collective hysteria?
Tweets !
They say that Trump is not acting in a way that is commensurate with the proper behavior of a United States President. Well, in looking into some of that behavior of Presidents in the past sixty years, we find that:
President Harry Truman once threatened in a letter to a Washington Post reporter, to cripple that reporter who had panned his grown daughter’s piano recital;
President John F. Kennedy regularly swam naked in the White House pool with two young women (also naked) he called “Fiddle” and “Faddle,” and had numerous trysts with scores of women in the White House;
President Lyndon Johnson held impromptu press gaggles while sitting on the “john” doing…ahem…”big business”…ahem;
President Bill Clinton received fellatio in the Oval Office and inserted his cigar into…(we won’t finish the sentence), and groped an unpaid staffer, one Kathleen Willey who, having learned of her husband’s suicide, came to the president in tears, trying to obtain a paid position in the White House;
President Barack Obama insisted that there wasn’t a “smidgen of corruption” relating to the IRS targeting of conservative political activists and is spending his post presidency going behind his successor’s back in his meetings with foreign leaders, trying to undermine President Trump’s foreign policy;
…and President Donald Trump tweeted what?
In other words, if a Democrat president behaves with reckless abandon, it is just “politics as usual” but if a Republican says or tweets something disparaging about a hostile, libelous and slandering reporter like Mika Brzezinski, or her like-minded fiancée Joe Scarborough, both of whom hurl unrepentant invective at him on a daily basis, that is grounds for the forcible removal of a duly-elected president.
Call President Trump crazy as you will, but the real crazies are the ones who can’t come to grips with his election, and that is what has become of political discourse on this the eve of the nation’s 241st birthday.
The Real Truth about Russian Interference in the 2016 Election
With the passage of enough time, the truth has a tendency to come out and it often bites one right where he sits. So goes the obsession of Democrats and their quixotic quest to find guilt with Donald Trump concerning Russian interference in the 2016 election.
So convinced in their wee little minds that the Trump campaign must have colluded with Vladimir Putin to deny Hillary Clinton the presidency, that all of the eggs they have thrown at the president have now landed back in their own faces. As it turns out, the Russian interference in the 2016 election was the fault of…yes, Barack Obama.
It is recalled that it was Barack Obama who infamously said to then-president of the Russian Federation, Dmitri Medvedev, “Tell Vladimir (Putin) that I will have more flexibility after the election,” referring to Obama’s own re-election campaign. The promise to Putin, caught on a “hot mic” shortly before the 2012 election, evidently referred to Obama’s reluctance to take action against Russia for all the many bad things that they were up to…Syria, Ukraine, their ties to Iran and, as it now seems, interference in the presidential election of 2016.
With regards to the latter, it really doesn’t matter that it was the Democratic National Committee whose confidential e-mails were hacked. The Russians tried to do the same thing to the Republican National Committee, but the Republicans had a better firewall than the Democrats and the Russians failed to hack into the GOP. When the FBI asked the DNC to turn over their own server, they refused to do so in order to conceal their own collusion with Hillary Clinton’s campaign against Bernie Sanders.
Apparently, Barack Obama knew about such interference as early as the late summer of 2016 and, during a meeting with Putin in September of that year, told him to “knock it off.” Yet, the president failed to reveal these shenanigans to either the Clinton or the Trump campaigns because he did not want to rock the boat in an election which he was certain that Hillary would win.
Why else would Obama say nothing and do nothing when he found out about the tampering?
Obama publicly revealed the tampering only after Trump won the upset victory, and put into motion a misinformation campaign to lay the blame on Trump and his campaign. It was Obama and his administration who colluded with the FBI, his Democrat caucus in Congress, their allies in the mainstream media and NeverTrump Republicans to try and blame Trump and his associates, but alas…
…there was, and is, no evidence that Trump and his campaign did any such thing.
Not deterred by the lack of such evidence, former FBI Director James Comey repeatedly leaked information to the media in an effort to cast aspersions on Trump, all in an effort to have an independent counsel named to explore the matter further. In the absence of any evidence to support Trump’s involvement, his mentor Robert Mueller, who was thus selected as that independent counsel, has now appointed a cadre of high profile attorneys, all of whom are Clinton supporters including one who successfully fought FOIA requests for documents related to the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private server while Secretary of State. Their goal is to dig up enough dirt on Donald Trump to bring about his impeachment, fulfilling the desire of Democrats, NeverTrump Republicans (they’re the ones who keep insisting that Comey and Mueller are beyond partisan reproach), the mainstream media, and “Deep State” of Obama and Clinton loyalists throughout the federal government.
No doubt, all of these nefarious forces will surely and eventually find something, anything to upend the result of last year’s presidential election, and the real cost to the nation will be the survival of representative democracy in the United States.
Yet in the long run, history- real history will bear witness to the extreme amount of corruption within the Obama administration, the Clintons, the mainstream media and the “Deep State” that exists within the federal government because the truth, in the end, always comes out.
Drew Nickell on Radio
Thursday, 22 July 2017 at 1:00 PM EDT
I will be back on the radio, Thursday July 22nd and filling in for Nora Wahl Firestone on her show at WKQA-AM, Freedom 1110 AM in Hampton Roads, VA. I will be discussing current events surrounding the Trump presidency, the political environment surrounding his administration, and other current events here in the nation and around the globe. Here is a link to that live broadcast :
On Wednesday morning, a radical leftist and former campaign worker for Senator Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) presidential campaign, one James T. Hodgkinson of Belleville, IL, open-fired on twenty-five Republican House and Senate members as they were engaged in an early morning baseball practice in Alexandria, VA. The Republicans were in the midst of their final practice for the annual Republican vs Democrat benefit baseball game, slated for Thursday night at Nationals Park in Washington DC. After ascertaining from Rep Jeff Duncan (R-SC) which party was engaged in practice, Hodgkinson returned to the ballfield with a semi-automatic rifle and opened fire, severely wounding the House Republican Whip, Steve Scalise (R-LA), two Capitol police officers who were part of Scalise’s security detail and a congressional aide. After firing more than fifty rounds at the defenseless amateur ball players, Hodgkinson was fatally wounded by shots fired by Capitol police officers in a gun battle which then took place. Had Scalise not been present, there would have been no security, and an outright massacre would have ensued as a result. The fact that the only fatality was that of the assailant is a miracle, considering all that took place. This attack was only the latest in what has become a string of increasing violence, perpetrated by the radical left, in the wake of Donald Trump’s election.
Predictably, Virginia’s Democrat governor, Terry McAuliffe- a one-time Clinton aide and former head of the Democratic National Committee, seized on the opportunity to call for stricter gun control, in a public statement at the very scene of the assault, later that morning. In true “Clintonista” fashion (“never waste an opportunity to exploit a tragedy,”) McAuliffe thus followed in the footsteps of the late Saul Alinsky in his book, Rules for Radicals. At very least, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), minority leaders in their respective chambers, had the decency not to tread on such opportunistic ground and instead call for bi-partisan unity in the wake of such tragedy. Apparently, the Virginia governor lacks such decency, so there it is…
On Tuesday, Senate Democrats, blinded by their insatiable desire to find anything and everything they can to bring down the presidency of Donald Trump, once again took it upon themselves to slander Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trying to portray Sessions as a racist supporter of the Ku Klux Klan during his confirmation hearings in February, they have now continued their attack on the former senator from Alabama- first accusing him of colluding with the Russians to interfere with the 2016 Presidential Election and then accusing him of obstructing justice by refusing to answer questions concerning private conversations he had with President Trump about the firing of former FBI Director James Comey…in a word, character assassination. It has been the longstanding policy, going back to the beginnings of our republic, that a president, any president, can “keep his own counsel” from members of his cabinet. If such a policy was not in place, it would severely weaken the presidency and skew the balance of power as enumerated in the Constitution of the United States.
Showing their own sheer hypocrisy, vis-à-vis their silence when Barack Obama’s first Attorney General, Eric Holder, refused to answer questions concerning Operation Fast and Furious (thus becoming the first and only Attorney General to be charged with contempt of Congress) Democrats suddenly voiced outrage concerning Sessions’ refusal to divulge details of private conversations he had with Trump. Democrats continue their reticence to summon Obama’s second Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, for her overt obstruction of justice in interfering with the FBI Investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private server and her felonious destruction of evidence regarding the same. This was evidenced by James Comey’s recent revelation that Lynch had assured members of the Democratic National Committee, in a June 2016 memorandum, that Clinton would never face indictment- well before her secret meeting with Bill Clinton on the weekend before Comey announced his refusal to proceed with a criminal referral against Hillary Clinton. Lynch further obstructed justice by insisting that the FBI investigation be referred to as a “matter” rather than an “investigation” so as to be in lock-step with the Clinton campaign.
So while Senate Democrats take a break from their quest to unseat the president by any means possible, it has become ever clearer that the radical left will stop at nothing to bring down President Trump, either by character assassination of a former colleague (Sessions) or the fabrication of criminal activity on the part of the president.
Failing to show, in order, that the Election of 2016 was rigged by the Russians, that the Russians were in collusion with Donald Trump and his campaign to deny Hillary Clinton the presidency, that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was part of this alleged collusion by participating in secret meetings with Russian officials which did not take place, and that President Trump obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey in May, it begs the question, “What next?”
Assuming that the words of the former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi ring true- (that she “prays for the success of President Trump,”) the time has come for the end of this nefarious witch hunt, and to get on with the business of a nation who has elected these legislators to serve the will of the people. Furthermore, it should be the purview of all Democrats to condemn the fruits of their own partisan rancor and put a stop to the leftist extremism that is taking place in our country, by living up to the promise of their own service…and they must do so NOW, before such tragic events like the one in Alexandria VA repeat themselves.
In the same week that a 25-year old Air Force veteran, one Reality Leigh Winner, was arrested for leaking classified documents to a news organization called Intercept, we have now learned that former FBI director James Comey has recently leaked notes from his own private conversation(s) with President Trump, to a Columbia law professor in order to conceal his real intent to leak details of this conversation(s) to the New York Times.
Both Winner and Comey did so for the same reason- to cause damage to and exact revenge upon the presidency of Donald Trump.
Winner, expertized as a translator in three languages and a fervent Bernie Sanders supporter, left behind a long trail of her posts on social media expressing her utter disdain for the president, his election and her intent to join the resist movement by helping to take him down. Winner, who was under the employ of a defense and intelligence contractor, Pluribus International, released classified documents concerning Russian hacks into the manufacturer of election software in the United States, thereby subjecting herself up to ten years in federal prison.
Comey, in his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee, admitted to Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) that he released his notes to the press via a third party, one Professor Daniel Richman of Columbia University’s Law School, so as to conceal the source of the leak to the public. In these notes concerning the conversation he had with the president on February 14th, 2017, Comey indicated that the president said he “hope(d)” that the FBI Director would see his way to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn, stressing that the recently fired National Security Advisor was a “good guy,” after all. Though the request from the president “deeply bothered” Comey at the time, he decided not to inform his superiors at the Justice Department of any potential attempt to obstruct justice, choosing instead to “keep it in a box” for later use. Essentially, Comey was double-dealing with the president and his Attorney General by denying them access to information he later decided to leak to the press. If this is the “honest loyalty” Comey assured the President he would have, then it is no wonder that, retrospectively, James Comey was fired by the president.
Indicating that he made the decision to release the notes, in the wake of what Comey alleges were lies concerning his firing by President Trump last month, he wanted to get his side of the February 14th 2017 conversation out. In doing so, Comey knew that it would result in the appointment of a special prosecutor, which was then realized in the appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller. Mueller, incidentally, just happened to be the one-time mentor of James Comey, when Comey worked for him at the Justice Department. It was Mueller who cleared the way for Comey to testify before the senate committee which, on its own face, seems to indicate that the special prosecutor sees no evidence of obstruction of justice on the part of the president.
Comey also revealed that he was directed by former Attorney General Loretta Lynch to refer to the criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server as a “matter” rather than an “investigation,” using the same language as the Clinton campaign. Regardless, Comey indicated he was forced to announce his decision not to proceed with a criminal referral, when it was revealed that Lynch met secretly with former President Bill Clinton on a tarmac in Arizona, all in an effort “to save the reputation of the FBI.”
So despite the clear violations of law by Hillary Clinton, which he enumerated on July 5th, 2016, Comey chose not to proceed with a criminal referral. Yet, in the instance of Donald Trump who to date, has broken no law, he is more than happy to see the new president pilloried in the press and persecuted by the senate and a special prosecutor, in separate investigations going on at this time. Comey knows well that there was no obstruction of justice on the part of the president, and yet he cannot admit it, leaving that to Mueller to determine, instead. This is the same James Comey who so stubbornly refused Trump’s request to state publically that the president was not under any investigation, despite the fact that his notes indicated that he assured the president of this on three separate occasions, between January 6th and April 15th of this year. So quick to exonerate Mrs. Clinton, yet so reticent to clear the name of Donald Trump… such is the subjective service of the now-departed FBI Director, who would purport prevarication on the part of the president…
Two leakers- one, a pathetic pawn of the political left, facing prison time for and of her own making, and another, a disgruntled and disingenuous former FBI Director who takes it upon himself to decide what is, and what is not, a crime according to the dictates of his own personal feelings. Comey also exonerated the Clintons in the Whitewater investigation a quarter-century ago, so whatever Mrs. Clinton wants to lay at the feet of Comey, for her 2016 loss to Donald Trump, the fact of the matter is that he has managed to save her hide twice in twenty-five years.
To think that either Reality Winner or James Comey is a patriot, for having leaked classified (Winner) and confidential (Comey) information to the media, is to delude oneself to the proposition that it’s okay to bring down a duly-elected president, based upon one’s own personal disdain rather than a larger patriotic pursuit. These two are but a few of the hundreds of leakers, both high and low, that threaten not only a president but, in the end, the nation he was elected to serve. Continued unchecked, those who would continue to leak- illegally or not- will only result in national disaster and personal destruction, which serves not the nation but rather their own selfish vengeance, when all is finally said and done.
The Lonely Road Less Taken- Trump Withdraws from Paris Accord
On Thursday afternoon, President Donald Trump fulfilled yet another of the many promises he made during his 2016 presidential campaign, by formally withdrawing the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement, an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Drafted at the close of 2015 and signed by Barack Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry in April of 2016 the Paris Agreement, which had no congressional approval by the way, was put into force four days before the election that swept Donald Trump into office, on November 8th, 2016. Effectively, the agreement committed the United States to paying $ 100 billion per year into a fund that would purportedly finance green-energy development in emerging nations, and lead towards a global regulatory commission that would determine which sources of energy would be permissible to pursue. In other words, it would cede the power of permit away from the sovereignty of the United States, and onto an international body answerable to no one.
That the Obama Administration would so actively pursue such an agreement, was part and parcel of their mindset to diminish the economic prowess of the United States and socialize our national wealth across the globe. Predictably, Obama had the support of most all of the world’s nations to sign onto the agreement, including China and India (the world’s worst polluters of greenhouse gasses) whose own participation in the provisions of the agreement were conveniently delayed until 2030. Leave it to the rest of the world’s governments to be so generous with the wealth of the United States, whose taxpayers are already footing the bill for most of the international security in Europe and East Asia. Comparatively speaking, the financial burden of the Paris Agreement on those nations is minimal, once again attesting to an international community more interested in socializing American wealth that reducing global temperatures.
Because the United States is so heavily dependent upon coal and other fossil fuels for its energy needs, the associated taxes pursuant to the agreement would have landed most heavily upon American consumers, whose electrical bills would increase by $ 21,000 per year by the middle of the next decade- yet another financial burden not shared by our European counterparts.
Recognizing how foolish the Obama administration was to sign such an agreement, and understanding the blatant unfairness to U.S interests inherent in the Paris agreement, Donald Trump campaigned for his office vowing to withdraw from it entirely. When the leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom scoffed at Trump’s request to re-negotiate the terms of the agreement to be more equitable to the United States, he had no choice but to follow through on his campaign promise.
The reaction to Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement was equally predictable, with Democrats and their collusive allies in the mainstream media sounding apocalyptic warnings that the decision would lead towards catastrophic rises in sea levels and temperatures, not to mention Kerry’s assertion that our children with asthma would suffer ever more so, as a direct result of Trump’s decision. Globalists abounding within the ranks of anti-Trump Republicans bemoaned the loss of American leadership in all things climate, despite the fact that Americans have done more to actually reduce carbon-based emissions than other nations- and this was done without any international agreement, to boot. The learned classes of political correctness, fully steeped in what has become a veritable religion of man-made climate change, were quick to assail the folly of Trump’s decision.
Ironically, had Trump decided not to withdraw from the Paris agreement, all of these same forces would have derided the president for not living up to the promises he made during the campaign. In essence, Trump was once again placed into a stacked game of political hypocrisy where he cannot possibly win, regardless of what he does.
Leadership, true leadership, often requires the kind of courage that entails a journey along a lonely road, a road less taken by the weak and unwise. The lonely road on which President Trump has ventured, in his decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement, is not unlike countless other instances where he has sought not the approval of the world, but rather the salvation of the nation which elected him into office. Donald Trump may never be as globally popular as Barack Obama or either of the Clintons, but in serving the interests of the American people and in putting the welfare of our citizens first and foremost, he may well prove to be one of the greatest leaders this country ever knew, and one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States.
In the three weeks since our last entry, President Donald Trump ventured into the tempestuous sea of international relations, accomplished more in nine days than many of his predecessors accomplished in their respective terms, and now has returned to the snake pit that is Washington, in all its anti-Trump forms. The forces allayed against this president are as vast as they are visceral, united in a single determination to bring this president down, at any and all costs.
They include the entire Democrat Party, large swaths of the Republican Party, deep-state career apparatchiks who want to avenge Hillary Clinton’s defeat- both in and outside the White House, the vast majority of cable, network and print news media as well as practically all of academia, Hollywood and the rest of the “resist” movement- clandestinely funded by George Soros, championed by Hillary Clinton and augmented with the support of Barack Obama.
With such an array of vipers coiling in every corner of what has become the state of political affairs in our nation, it begs the question as to why the president would ever want to come back to this.
After all, he was much better received in Saudi Arabia where he exquisitely implored the leaders of twenty-four Muslim nations to join in the fight against terrorism and drive from their midst and their mosques, those (ISIS) who seek only death and destruction. The first U.S. president ever to venture into the Saudi Kingdom while in office, his flight from Saudi Arabia to Tel Aviv marked the first time any plane ever flew directly from Saudi Arabia to Israel. In Jerusalem, and while wearing a yarmulke, Trump became the first sitting U.S. President to pray at the Western Wall, the first sitting U.S. President to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. His widely- and wildly-accepted speech to the Israeli people touched on six major themes:
First, President Trump affirmed the Jewish people’s “ancient and eternal” ties to the land of Israel.
Second, Trump explained that in the heart of the tyrannical Middle East, Jews, Christians and Muslims live freely in the one democracy in the region- that being Israel.
Third, Trump pledged that the United States will always stand with Israel.
Fourth, Trump hinted at the possibility of a larger, regional peace between Israel and the Sunni Arab nations.
Fifth, Trump pledged his firm commitment to ensuring that Iran doesn’t obtain a nuclear weapon and halting Tehran’s support for terrorists.
Lastly, and contrary to what the mainstream media would have us believe, Trump claimed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians themselves are “ready to reach for peace.”
With regards to the latter, Trump became the first sitting U.S. President to venture into the West Bank, urge the Palestinian Authority to join in the fight against ISIS, meet with the Palestinian leader, and secure a commitment from Abbas to put forth a sincere effort to make peace with Israel.
Try to think of any President during your own lifetime that managed to do all of this in but a few days- let alone during the terms of their office.
Yet, Trump wasn’t finished. From Jerusalem, his journey continued onto Rome, where he met with Pope Francis, and thus completed a triad of having visited the holy cities and religious centers of all three of the world’s monotheistic, Abrahamic faiths- Islam, Judaism and Christianity.
He continued on to the dedication of the new NATO headquarters in Brussels, and publically put forth what had been privately put forth by most all of his predecessors since NATO’s founding at the end of World War II- the need for NATO’s member nations to provide their own nominally fair share of providing for their own defense. Only four of NATO’s twenty-seven member nations are in compliance with the 2% of GDP threshold, and past efforts over the decades to “diplomatically” remind the remaining nations in private to pony up have yielded little or no results. Leave it to Trump to bring this before the people of Europe and all the world, and remind them that insuring the peace should not be the exclusive burden placed upon the backs of the American taxpayers… imagine that!
…Why, it was enough to send all of the tweed-jackets in academia and all of the pin-striped suits in the State Department to cry aghast, and swoon in shock, at the horror of this intemperate faux pas, on the part of our president. While the feckless and spineless leaders of Europe smirked in derision at the president’s remarks, they nevertheless received the long-overdue message that America’s protective security is not to be taken for granted and that such a treaty must be participatory in nature, by all its members. The massacre outside Manchester’s arena provided yet another tragic reminder that opening the doors to immigration and unfettered international transit, all in the name of political correctness and inclusion, is all-too-often the pathway to peril in the age of Islamist extremism. That Europe refuses to actively join in the fight against ISIS is reprehensible enough, but it is becoming clear that warning signs associated with the individuals responsible for the attack were all around and yet, inexplicably, not acted upon. Trump, citing the attack, reminded these same NATO leaders, and those assembled for the G-7 conference in Sicily that the world can only prosper when it rids itself of Islamist terrorism.
The defeat of terrorism- an all-encompassing theme to Donald Trump’s first international trip is, by any measure, an undeniably noble and critically-important mission that the entire sane world can wrap its head around, and yet…
…the President of the United States, on the heels of a wholly-successful overseas trip, is welcomed home to the snake pit that is his own nation’s capital, where opposition to his presidency, obfuscation of reality, and obsession into all things Russian are pursued by those within and outside his own party. A Chuck Schumer (D-NY) here or a Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) there is of no surprise, but throw in a John McCain (R-AZ) or a Ben Sasse (R-NE) or a Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and the treachery and venom of treason begins to rear its ugly head, be it a leak of secure information or the determined attempt by our elected officials to bring down the nation’s duly-elected President.
Alas, the only thing separating the greater anti-Trump counter-insurgency from a photo of Kathy Griffin holding a severed head of Donald Trump is the image itself, for in the end, they all seek the same thing- the destruction of Donald J. Trump.
President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday afternoon, following the recommendations of his Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that he be terminated. Among the several reasons cited by Sessions and Rosenstein was how Comey handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized use of multiple private servers while she was Secretary of State, and the lack of confidence in his ability to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation, going forward.
Almost immediately, Democratic politicians and the associated mix of NeverTrump Republicans, most notably John McCain (R-AZ), along with the anti-Trump mainstream media, voiced outrage and dismay at the firing, stating that the real reason for Trump’s actions was to thwart an ongoing investigation into allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to ensure Clinton’s loss in the November 2016 election.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
First, the firing of an FBI Director does not and will not stop the Bureau’s investigation of any matter, including specious claims that Trump and his surrogates were working hand-in-hand with the Russians to cast aspersions on Mrs. Clinton. To date, no single piece of evidence has been brought forth to substantiate such claims but that won’t stop the forces allayed against Trump’s presidency from pursuing the lie that Trump’s victory in the 2016 election was illegitimate.
Second, despite Democrat calls that a special “independent” prosecutor be named to investigate these charges of collusion, the fact that two bi-partisan committees (one in the House and one in the Senate) and a third investigation by the FBI and other intelligence agencies, including the CIA, have yet to find any evidence to support such allegations, the fact of the matter is that a special prosecutor would not be appropriate since there is no evidence of a crime having been committed. Special prosecutors are named as the result of a crime being committed. Since no crime has been committed, naming a special prosecutor would only prove to be a colossal waste of taxpayers’ money and merely serve to propagate division within the legislature as a means to interrupt the president’s legislative agenda.
Claims that the president’s action are “Nixonian” and that Tuesday’s firing of Comey are anything like the “Saturday Night Massacre,” when in 1973 President Nixon fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, resulting in the resignations of then-Attorney General Elliot Richardson and then-Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus, are complete nonsense. Cox, who was appointed by Richardson to investigate the Nixon Administration’s cover-up of the Watergate break-in, had issued a subpoena on the president requesting tape recordings of conversations in the Oval Office, and Nixon responded by firing him for doing so.
Comparing that to Trump’s firing of Comey, as well as the firing of acting-Attorney General Sally Yates, both of whom were appointed to their positions by President Obama, cannot be compared to Nixon’s firing of Cox forty-four years ago. Comey was fired following many months of his own egregious behavior as head of the nation’s top law enforcement agency, whereby he politicized his position as the head of the FBI. His decision to not proceed with a criminal referral regarding Clinton’s illegal use of multiple servers while she was Secretary of State, her lying to a Congressional committee while under oath (perjury), her obstruction of justice in the destruction of evidence related to 33,000 e-mails and her illegal handling of classified documents, was well outside his bounds as an investigator who is charged with the gathering of evidence. Essentially, he usurped the role of the Attorney General in his decision and in his televised announcement on July 5, 2016. In his testimony to Congress on several occasions, Comey increasingly appeared emotional and erratic, and in his testimony took on the persona of dramatic effect- something that is not commensurate with being an FBI Director. As for Mrs. Yates, she was fired for insubordination when she took it upon herself to refuse to enforce Trump’s first executive order concerning travel from seven countries, despite the fact that the order had been judged legal and within the constitutional powers of the president by the Justice Department of which she was a part.
The FBI Director serves at the will of the President of the United States and it is certainly within the purview of the president to fire the director anytime that the president feels that the director cannot effectively lead that agency. It has been charged that Trump’s timing in doing this was not good. Well, there is never a “good” time to fire anyone at any time, because forced terminations are never a “good” thing- in business and in government, as well.
The Democrats who today are appalled at the firing of James Comey are the same Democrats that were demanding his ouster when on October 27, 2016 he announced he was re-opening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail two weeks prior to the 2016 election. Mrs. Clinton has consistently blamed Comey (along with WikiLeaks and the Russians) for her loss but, as we have come to learn over a quarter-century, the rules of conduct and the law that applies to the rest of us, never seem to apply to the Clintons, and that might explain why no indictments have ever been pursued on the Clintons nor on their surrogates, including Huma Abedin, who illegally and habitually transferred classified documents to her one-time husband, Anthony Wiener. One would think that Democrats would be rejoicing the dismissal of FBI Director James Comey, but then again…
Healthcare Passes in the House- a First Step in the Fulfillment of a Promise
The first step in the ultimate repeal and replacement of ObamaCare took place Thursday in the House of Representatives, as House Republicans just managed to eke out a victory with barely a vote to spare, thanks in large part to the leadership of President Donald Trump.
It was Trump who sat down with two key Republican holdouts, Missouri’s Billy Long and Michigan’s Fred Upton, and it was Trump who then asked Rep. Upton to draw up and submit an amendment addressing their reservations. This amendment would fund an additional $8 billion to supplement premiums for those with pre-existing conditions, as part of the revised American Health Care Act of 2017. In doing so, Trump’s last-minute effort proved pivotal in surpassing the 216 required votes necessary for the bill to advance to the United States Senate.
Twenty House Republicans opposed the measure, along with the entire Democrat caucus who then sang a jeering “na-na-na-na…hey, hey… goodbye,” when the deciding vote was cast, predicting a Republican loss in the next mid-term election of 2018. Such crass and immature behavior by House Democrats reveals their real level of concern for the very real challenges Americans who have been thrust into the individual market. This market has witnessed soaring premiums and ridiculous five-figure minimums, effectively separating the insured from actual healthcare. Just yesterday, the last insurer for the state of Iowa (save for three of its 97 counties) pulled out of the individual market, and then the same thing happened in Virginia where Aetna announced their own pullout for 2018 individual market coverage.
The stubbornness of Democrats to insist upon the continuation of ObamaCare, for merely partisan purposes, when everyone knows the certainty of its impending collapse, is at very least reprehensible in and of itself. Furthermore, Democrats know all-too-well that Republicans, in passing this measure, have supposedly spared them of taking the fall for its impending failure, which further reveals the dark nature of Democrat obstructionism. For seven years, they did nothing to fix the short-comings of their own legislation, and now deride Republican efforts to come to the assistance of the American people, who are unable to secure either healthcare or coverage.
The fact that more individuals chose to take the tax penalty for not signing up for ObamaCare, than those who actually signed up for the program, shows just how flawed ObamaCare was from the start. Its replacement would end such punitive tax burdens, along with a couple dozen other considerable taxes associated with Obamacare, and the total tax savings of the Republican plan are estimated at $1 trillion dollars. In addition, the elimination of many of ObamaCare’s burdensome regulations, including the individual and employer mandates, can only serve to boost business expansion and employment so sorely needed today. ObamaCare’s effect in reducing the number of permissible hours of work per week for employees, in order to exempt their employers of the requirement to provide coverage, has only served to increase the number of part-time, low-paying jobs Americans must work, in order to make ends meet- often resulting in Americans working many more hours than they would have with higher-paying, full-time jobs. In essence, ObamaCare resulted in more Americans losing employer-provided health insurance, a fact seldom mentioned in news reports regarding same.
Almost immediately, the same mainstream media who had said that Republicans could not pass this legislation began predicting that it would ultimately fail in the Senate. In order to get just another opportunity to appear on camera, and thereby attempt to re-assert his own relevance, anti-Trump Senator John McCain (R-AZ) voiced his “disapproval” of the measure, while his buddy Lindsey Graham (R-SC) poo-pooed its chances for Senate passage. In the end though, both are just blustering. Imagine, once the Senate marks up and makes changes to the House bill, any Republican senator standing up for ObamaCare, by opposing the passage of what will eventually become its repeal and replacement, and then going back to their constituents and trying to explain that one…it won’t ever happen.
The House bill is far from perfect, but it is far better than its original version, and loads better than the Democrats’ Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). The Republicans’ American Health Care Act, while technically not repealing ObamaCare, still only requires a simple majority in the Senate to pass and, though it may not fix all that is wrong with ObamaCare, is a good place to start in eventually tearing it down. More importantly, it vouchsafes the President’s campaign promise, and the seven-year promise of Republicans, to repeal and replace ObamaCare. Step-by step, they are on their way to doing just that.
Yet, in the end, Americans will have to face the ultimate choice of two very different paths for healthcare in this country. Either the country will continue in the direction of universal, single-payer coverage for all, which is what the Democrats ultimately seek, or the country will insist on its government removing itself entirely from everything related to health care. After all, the most certain way to reduce the costs of healthcare would be to achieve the entire elimination of health insurance, altogether, but in the likely absence of that ever happening, the ongoing battle of how best to provide healthcare will remain as the nation’s most challenging and difficult domestic issue in the years ahead.
In a not-entirely-unrelated development, yesterday also witnessed President Trump signing an executive order on religious freedom, bringing to an end enforcement of the 1954 Lyndon Johnson Amendment which proscribed churches and other religious organizations from participating in political campaigns and restricted their endorsement of specific candidates running for public office. Selectively enforced, given the number of churches which openly endorsed Barack Obama’s candidacy in 2008 and 2012, the decision to end its enforcement by the IRS levels the playing field of all denominations by ensuring the first amendment rights of free speech from the pulpit. No longer will religious organizations, such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, be subject to healthcare regulations which run in opposition to the tenets of Catholic doctrine, and the same freedoms will be extended to other such organizations representing all faiths.
President Trump is off to a very good start in leading House Republicans to pass that most difficult legislation regarding health insurance. His determination to see it through the House will require the same amount of effort to see it through the Senate. More importantly, the die has been cast on how to proceed with tax reform legislation- the next big item on Trump’s domestic agenda. He has already started the process by drawing up and submitting his own framework for tax reduction and reform, and reports indicate House Republicans are moving it along in their own chamber. Given the fact that, while tax reform is yet another difficult and complicated issue with which to grapple, how Trump and the Republicans ultimately get it done will no doubt follow the same modus operandi. The Democrats will utilize the same level of demagogy to oppose this, but their own deteriorating credibility- ever more obvious to the American people- will only serve to ensure another Trump victory on this, and in the election of 2020.
Then will be the time for all of us to sing, “na-na-na-na…hey, hey…goodbye.”
Measuring with the Wrong Ruler- Trump’s First Hundred Days
Not that one might ever see this in the mainstream media, but measuring the first hundred days of the Trump administration is essentially measuring with the wrong ruler.
Ever since the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which began on March 4th, 1933, every elected president since has been measured by the same wrong ruler. Roosevelt was elected to his first term on November 8th, 1932 and, as was the case back then, didn’t take office until March 4th, the following year. In essence, President-elect Roosevelt had a full four months to prepare for his presidency so it is no wonder that his “first hundred days” (whose measurement began five days later on March 9th) was marked with a bevy of bills passed by Congress until the measurement period ended on June 16th, 1933.
Compare that to Donald Trump, who was elected on the same day, November 8th, 2016, eighty-four years later. President-elect Trump had less than two and a half months to prepare for his own presidency. To measure him fairly and arithmetically against Roosevelt would equate to his first hundred days ending on May 9th, not April 29th as the media would otherwise have us believe. Needless to say, what the mainstream media is doing is measuring Trump’s first hundred days with a bogus ruler.
When Roosevelt was elected, the number of Cabinet-level appointees requiring advice and consent from the Senate was ten. FDR’s cabinet was approved by the Senate within the first few weeks of his administration. Compare that to Trump who is required to gain such approval on twenty-four cabinet level appointees and, thanks to obstructionist Democrats led by Charles Schumer (D-NY), has still not seen a complete cabinet emplaced a full four months later.
When Roosevelt was elected, Congress didn’t take the vast number of recesses as is the case today, so getting action on legislation was far easier in 1933 than it is in 2017. Roosevelt also had the luxury of having a filibuster-proof Democrat majority in the Senate, and a much larger Democrat majority in the House of Representatives than President Trump enjoys with his Republican caucus. These sheer comparative numbers do not even take into account the stridency and over-the-top partisanship that exists in 2017, as compared to the political discourse that took place in 1933.
Roosevelt enjoyed an even-greater advantage than Donald Trump will ever hope to enjoy- the adoration and support of the mainstream media. No president, with the possible exception of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama, has enjoyed as much support and as little scrutiny as did Franklin Roosevelt when his presidency began. Compare that to the hostile and, perhaps, despicable way that Donald Trump and his administration are covered and the comparative difference is as striking as it is blatantly hypocritical.
The mainstream media will drone on and on about what they perceive to be President Trump’s supposed failure in his first hundred days to secure legislative wins in Congress, while minimizing all of the accomplishments of the new president in his executive orders and memoranda, not to mention the successful nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch- a feat no president has ever before accomplished in his first hundred days. The media will also gloss over Trump’s successes on the international front. Not only has Trump accomplished a 180° turn-around from the feckless foreign policy of his immediate predecessor, but has reset the trade policy from that of the last five administrations, combined. While Roosevelt’s international challenges did not begin to surface until his second term, which began in 1937, Trump inherited an absolute mess in the international arena on his first day- one fraught with far more danger than existed back in Roosevelt’s time.
But don’t expect a fair and full accounting of Donald Trump’s first hundred days in office from anyone in the mainstream media because, after all, Trump was the one who denied Hillary Clinton the presidency she so deserved, in the opinion of those who pretend to be objective in their coverage of the White House, and that was something that they will never forgive, for as long as Donald J. Trump is President of the United States.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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It’s a club that, truth be told, wants to cut off new membership.
The so-called “nuclear club” of nations who have “the bomb” has grown to the point of over-saturation. That “club” includes charter members – the United States, Russia (nee- Soviet Union), the United Kingdom, France and China, all signatories to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) which went into force in 1970. Since then, three more nations- nations who are not signatories to the NPT- have budged their way into “the club,” those being India, Pakistan and, most recently in 2006, North Korea.
That late entry into “the club” poses a unique problem, not only for its members but also, and even more so, for its non-nuclear neighbors- Japan and South Korea. It’s not only that Kim Jong-un has a nuclear bomb, nor is it that he is developing missile systems which are capable of delivering the bomb, but rather that he is just crazy enough to actually launch a nuclear attack- both on his neighbors and on the United States forces stationed in those neighboring countries. Worse, he is the only national leader ever to have officially and specifically threatened to attack the United States in its 240-year history. Not even Adolf Hitler nor, for that matter, the Imperial Japanese Empire (who actually attacked the naval and air bases in Pearl Harbor), nor the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, ever actually threatened to attack the United States, but Kim Jong-un has repeatedly threatened to launch a nuclear strike at the United States- something that his father, Kim Jong-Il, nor his grandfather and founder of North Korea, Kim Il-sung were ever insane enough to do.
Never mind the fact that his intermediate-range weapon-delivery systems aren’t entirely reliable and that his Inter-continental Ballistic Missile is still in development, Kim Jong-un has said that he intends to launch such an attack against the United States and, through the words of his envoy to the United Nations, Ja Song Nam, who yesterday warned that the United States is acting in such a way to bring about global thermo-nuclear war, is determined to do so, sometime in the not-quite-so-distant future.
That he has been able to proceed towards the capability to realize such a threat is the result of foolish miscalculations on the part of the United States. Heretofore, we have been repeatedly assured by the Chinese that they won’t allow the North Koreans to attain such capability- that and the fact that Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama all touted their own would-be success in bringing the North Koreans under control…
…yeah, some control. The millennial, corpulent communist Kim is on the very threshold of tying a nuclear weapon to an intermediate-range ballistic missile, and is not very far away from doing the same thing to an ICBM- one capable of reaching the west coast of the United States’ mainland.
Finally, the United States has indicated that enough is enough. Since Clinton’s “six-party framework” to reign in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions has proved to be nothing but a farce, and Obama’s “strategic patience” was nothing more than an excuse for ignoring the growing threat, President Donald Trump has indicated to the Chinese that he is very prepared and quite willing to launch a preventive strike against the North Koreans, if the Chinese fail to reign in the tubby tyrant who is headed towards annihilation.
Trump’s recent missile attack against the Syrian airbase, from which sarin gas attacks were launched by the Assad regime, and the dropping of a Multiple Ordinance Air Blast (MOAB- also euphemistically called the “Mother of all Bombs”) on ISIS tunnels in eastern Afghanistan, has also sent a clear message to both Iran and North Korea that, while they can hide their nuclear capabilities underground, we can still take them out if we need to, and are not afraid to do so should contingencies arise.
Therein lies the crux, and the passage of time is no friend to anyone- not to us, not to the Iranians, not to the North Koreans, nor to any of the nations in Asia or the Middle East. Doing merely what his predecessors did would only leave President Trump in a position of enabling our enemies, in both Iran and North Korea, to eventually attack the United States with nuclear weapons. The fact that Iran is continuing to develop nuclear weapons and strategic medium- and long-range missiles, despite the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) pushed through by Barack Obama, should surprise no one who lives in the real world. Obama was a fool to push for and sign onto such a deal, because it offers nothing to ensure that Iran won’t become the next member of the nuclear club.
The fact that Kim Jong-un has now become a thorn in the side of his Chinese allies doesn’t help, either. China needs favorable trade agreements with the United States, much more than they need trouble from the little boy who lives next door. There is even some talk now that the Chinese might send in a hit-squad, to enable Kim to join his father and grandfather. After all, it’s far better to eliminate one irrepressible and incorrigible mad man, than to allow him to bring on a disaster of untold proportions. The longer Kim stays in power, the closer the world comes to its nuclear nightmare, and we now have a president who finally sees the world for what it has actually become, rather than the world everyone wishes it was, instead.
With Democrats feverishly and desperately trying to find anything and everything to explain away Hillary Clinton’s defeat last November, they pray that somehow they can prove that Donald Trump was in collusion with the Russian government to deny her the election she supposedly had all locked up…
…and his answer?
Nothing short of responding to Vladimir Putin in a way never even considered under any of the last four administrations- both Bushes’, Clinton’s and Obama’s- much less acted upon. Any thought that Donald Trump was going to appease Russia’s president, has gone the way of fifty-nine Tomahawk cruise missiles. It’s now going to be that much more difficult for Democrats to allege that Trump is merely Putin’s lap dog, eager to do his bidding on the world stage.
Last week’s missile strike on Syria’s Shayrat air base, from which fixed wing aircraft were launched on orders of Bashir al-Assad, on April 4th and then dropped sarin gas upon civilians in Khan Shaykun, a small town in northwestern Syria, surprised and shocked the watching world. Syria’s gas attack took the lives of over one hundred, many of whom were infants and small children. The barbarity of this attack was enough to prompt President Trump to quickly and ably retaliate with the go-ahead to launch the missiles from two U.S. Navy destroyers- all within seventy-two hours of the gas attack.
Unlike Obama, who would have dithered in response to the use of Syria’s chemical weapons (chemical weapons that they falsely and repeatedly claimed had been disposed of years ago, and as recently as January of this year, by Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, who reasserted this false claim) by submitting position papers of protest to the United Nations, which would have resulted in more meaningless claptrap, and who would have again waited for Congress to grant approval, President Trump would have none of that. He acted- quickly, resolutely and decisively with a perfectly-measured missile strike- one with more meaning than with actual brute force.
For starters, President Trump showed that he is a forceful commander-in-chief who will instantly respond to such situations that may arise, and without hesitancy, delay and advanced notice to our adversaries- something he repeatedly promised during his presidential campaign. Having given Russian military commanders in Syria an hour’s advanced notice of the missile launch, he took the moment to inform visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping during their farewell dinner, of the attack in a deft move to also convey a similar message to the Chinese- that the days of dithering on the part of his predecessor are done. He followed up on this message to the Chinese leader with the deployment of a western-Pacific aircraft carrier group, now headed towards the Korean peninsula, and assured them that the United States is prepared to take military action against North Korea, should the Chinese fail to hem in the provocative actions of North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un. For his own part, the North Korean dictator now has reason to believe that there is an unpredictable, and unintimidated U.S. president who will do that which his predecessors were afraid to do- be willing to launch a strike against his strategic missile launch site- located a mere thirty miles north of South Korea’s capital in Seoul.
Secondly, President Trump has shown his willingness to reposition and refocus his own strategy, based upon contingencies as they arise. During the campaign, and in the years before, it was Trump who indicated that the United States should avoid entanglement in Syria, specifically, and in other Middle Eastern hot spots where U.S. interests are not specifically at risk. Regardless, he has shown that he has a sense of noblesse oblige on the part of the United States to respond at any moment when such “red lines” are crossed and WMDs are visited upon innocent lives. While some purists in the halls of Congress thump their chests about the legality of Trump to launch such strikes without prior congressional approval, many of the anti-Trump forces, in both the Democrat and Republican caucuses, and even a few of the players in the Obama administration, are actually praising Trump for the decisive and effective manner in which he responded to Syria’s assault against their own citizens.
Thirdly, Trump has effectively enabled Vladimir Putin to paint himself into a corner of having to defend the indefensible- including a “rogues’ gallery” of Russia’s own allies- totalitarian states like Syria and Iran, not to mention bad actors like Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations. Russia’s return to the Middle East, enabled by the Obama administration’s limp-wristed and ineffective foreign policy following thirty years of Russia’s absence in that region, hinges on their ability to maintain air bases in Syria and a naval presence in the Syrian port of Tartus. In response, both Russia and Iran may rattle their sabers and shake their fists with threats of retaliation against the U.S., but they must also realize that Trump is no fading flower of fecklessness like so many of his predecessors, and that provoking a President Trump might well result in their own undoing.
Essentially, this single, solitary missile strike was perfect- perfect in its scope and its rapidity, and perfect in its precision and effectiveness. That the Trump administration has now left the door open to further action if deemed necessary, just as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sits down with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for the first time, also sends a strong message to all of the bad actors in a treacherous world, that the days of American acquiescence have come to an end.
More importantly, the Trump doctrine of “America, First” in its foreign policy not only pursues the greater interests of the United States, first, but also is one that asserts American leadership on the international front- a sense of leadership long-lacking and, now, richly reasserted.
Unmasking the Real Agenda- the Democrats’ Desire to Destroy America
With every week that passes it becomes clearer and clearer. The Democrats’ desire to destroy America, by fomenting domestic discord and disrupting the further functioning of government, is approaching critical mass. To wit:
In collusion with their allies in the mainstream media, which reaches into every network and every newspaper, Democrats are continuing to pursue the false narrative that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian Federation to steal the presidency away from Hillary Clinton. Absolutely no evidence supporting any of these allegations has come forth, and there is no basis for pursuing any further investigation of these claims, other than to stop the Trump administration from pursuing the agenda that the president put forth during the 2016 campaign. None.
There is mounting evidence that the Obama Administration conducted improper and ongoing surveillance of key members of Donald Trump’s campaign and transition teams before, during and after the 2016 presidential election. They did this in a clandestine effort, under the guise of FISA surveillance of foreign officials, in order to gather dirt on the Trump campaign. The fact that nothing of substance was gained from this surveillance is beside the point. The intent of the Obama Administration to use the power of the federal government to interfere with the presidential election and, following the defeat of Hillary Clinton, to disrupt the orderly transition of government in the waning days of the Obama presidency, by virtue of a last-minute executive order to broadly disseminate classified intelligence across a wide array of government officials, lays credence to this intent. The fact that Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, ordered the unmasking of Trump campaign and administrative officials, “incidentally” caught up in the surveillance, was for no reason other than to attempt to cast aspersions on the incoming administration. The fact than Ms. Rice reported directly to the President and his senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett (who has moved into the Washington DC home of President and Mrs. Obama, since Trump’s inauguration) can only indicate that she was operating on the orders of the former president and his senior advisor. It was Susan Rice who was dispatched to the major networks in September 2012, to disseminate the false information that the raid on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi was the result of an anti-Islamic video. This information was subsequently proved to be untrue. In a recent interview with PBS reporter Judy Woodruff, Ms. Rice denied any knowledge of the unmasking of American citizens caught up in the surveillance- once again, an abject lie perpetrated to conceal nefarious political shenanigans in the waning days of the Obama Administration. The fact that these developments are not even being reported by large segments of the mainstream media reveals the extent of major media collusion with the Democrat party.
For the first time in history, a politically-motivated threat of filibuster by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and his partisan colleagues, to block the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch- a judge who they unanimously approved to sit on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in 2006- is effectively destroying the advice and consent function of the U.S. Senate, all because these Senate Democrats seek to deny President Trump from making any appointments to the Supreme Court, going forward. Senator Schumer is following in the footsteps of his predecessor Harry Reid, who effectively shut down the efficacy of the U. S. Senate when he was that chamber’s Majority Leader.
Egregious efforts by liberal judges in U. S. Circuit Courts, to stay various executive orders signed by President Trump, have only begun. Such efforts, based solely upon political and non-judicial reasons, will continue until such time as these judges are either impeached by the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, or until such time that the Trump Administration eventually ignores the dictates of these judges, who only seek to promote interference in the functioning of government, as outlined in the United States Constitution. The fact that they are attempting to block President Trump from pursuing actions identical to those of his predecessors, with which they did not interfere, proves their own nefarious and egregious agendas.
Taken separately, each of the preceding points bears witness to symptoms of governmental dysfunction in the wake of Donald Trump’s presidency. Taken together, along with the growing discord on college campuses and in the streets of cities across America, they bear witness to the beginning of a second civil war in the United States- one based on ideological differences that can only serve to bring down the most powerful and greatest country the world has ever known.
When John Boehner (R-OH) announced his stepping-down from the House speakership in September of 2015, it was largely due to his inability to lead his majority caucus, and complicated by the surprise defeat of his majority leader, Eric Cantor (R-VA), by a Tea Party conservative upstart, Dave Brat (R-VA), the year before. It was in that year before, that moderate Republicans, who would eventually become NeverTrump Republicans, could not find the political muster to defund ObamaCare, as they very well could have, and the demands for a change in House leadership then fell on the wrong guy- another oh-so-moderate Republican, one Paul Ryan (R-WI).
At the time, one recalls that Congressman Ryan didn’t initially want the job, but because no other Republican had the courage to lead the opposition to Barack Obama, he grudgingly accepted the speakership that Boehner gladly surrendered. Ryan was a national unknown until he became the vice-presidential running mate of yet another oh-so-moderate Republican, one Mitt Romney (R-MA), who had instituted a forerunner of ObamaCare in Massachusetts, when he was governor of that state. Ryan was an attractive, youthful counterpart to the older, ultimate insider Joe Biden, and it was thought he could propel Romney to victory. Yet both were so determined not to risk offense, that they moderated themselves to abject defeat in the 2012 election.
Paul Ryan went on to become Speaker of the House, and promised much if he could only witness a Republican majority in the Senate and, ultimately, in the White House. Ryan proved to be an on-again, off-again supporter of Donald Trump- not speaking at the behest of his party’s nominee until the convention that confirmed Trump’s nomination. In the coming weeks and months, Ryan’s so-called support of Trump waxed and waned with the prevailing winds of public opinion, based on polling that ended up being woefully wrong, in the end. Ryan even cancelled a campaign appearance with Trump, following the release of the Billy Bush recording, and was hedging his bets that Trump would ultimately lose to Hillary Clinton. Yes, the leader of the Republican Party busily prepared himself for a Clinton victory that wasn’t to be, instead of preparing an agenda for a Republican president to pursue.
So, it is this Paul Ryan, the wobbly wooden soldier of all things polite and proper, the perfect professional of political process, in whom Donald Trump entrusted his first legislative foray, taking on the most difficult challenge of all- the repeal and replacement of ObamaCare.
Instead of assembling an intramural team of both conservative and moderate Republicans, in both the House and Senate, to put together a fail-proof bill that would have had the support of most, if not all, of the Republicans in both houses, as true leadership would demand, Ryan played the insider game of crafting a Republican version of ObamaCare and proceeded with printing the bill before it could even be discussed within the Republican House caucus. He proceeded then to misrepresent the level of support for its passage to President Trump, and asked the new president to rally support for a bill not of his own making. Trump did his level best to meet with all factions, and even amended the bill to appease Republicans who were not initially in support of what they viewed to be “ObamaCare Light,” which didn’t exactly repeal ObamaCare and didn’t actually replace it, either. But then the oh-so-moderate Republicans, who are afraid of offending anyone at any time, began to drop off and the bill was doomed, in the end.
Democrats celebrated the failure of this bill as a “rookie mistake” of the Trump presidency and then cynically offered a willingness to work with the president on fixing what ails ObamaCare. Yeah, right. Democrats would love nothing more than to hang its ultimate failure on a Republican president they despise, rather than face the certitude of its failure, and being held to account for crafting it in the first place.
Donald Trump’s decision to trust Ryan to deliver the votes necessary to pass the bill was indeed a mistake, but nothing would assure the ultimate failure of his own presidency more, than placing his trust in Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). It is Schumer who has urged his caucus to oppose the nomination of the most qualified and excellent Supreme Court nominee in more than a half-century, Neil Gorsuch, and it is Pelosi who infamously once said, “We have to pass the bill so we can find out what’s in it,” putting the nation’s healthcare in the position that it is, today. In trusting the Democrats who so vehemently oppose his presidency, to a level never seen by an opposition party in U.S. history, Trump would be a damned fool to go down that rosy path to perdition…ever.
Despite the president’s unwillingness to blame Ryan and the House Republican leadership for the bill’s failure, the fact is that the House Republican leadership has now abrogated any level of trust with the administration in pursuing legislation, going forward. Ryan will remain the Speaker of the House for the time being, but any chance of his being an effective leader of House Republicans has gone with the winds of time and circumstance.
So what is a Donald, or more appropriately, “the Donald” to do?
If President Trump wants to realize any hope of success in achieving his legislative agenda, he is going to have to draft his own legislation, submit it to Congress, and take to the airwaves to garner support for it from the public-at-large, much as former President Ronald Reagan did early in his first term, to prompt public support for his tax cuts. Reagan accomplished getting his way, despite a substantial Democrat majority in the House of Representatives. Trump has already shown an ability to gain public support, as evidenced by the response to his first speech to both houses of congress in February. To a public who is hungry for tax cuts and reform to the tax code, this would be a cinch for the President, and would prevent the spineless Republicans in the House and Senate from watering the bill down to a complete “nothing-burger,” something that oh-so-moderate Republicans are expertized in doing.
Essentially, the success or failure of Donald Trump’s presidency is now inexorably dependent upon his own ability and his own propensity to lead, because the GOP’s leadership, in both houses, once again proved that they are unable to lead, for the fear of their own failure.
In essence, to lead or not to lead, that is the question, for leadership requires a willingness to put oneself on the line, and that is the question for President Donald J. Trump, going forward.
All happening with concurrence and breakneck speed, there’s so much to consider and so much to say, that one can hardly keep up with it all.
For instance, there are the consternationhearings, on the part of Democrats, on Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. Try as they might, the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee cannot find one legitimate reason to oppose his nomination, other than the fact that it was Donald Trump who nominated Gorsuch and that Obama’s late-term nominee Merrick Garland didn’t get a hearing, last year.
Time was when the “world’s greatest deliberative body” could come to consensus on nominees of Gorsuch’s caliber but, now that the chamber is exclusively defined by party, such consensus cannot be achieved and therefore has rendered the purpose of the Senate’s advice and consent function, moot. Gorsuch will soon join the eight justices who sit on the Supreme Court, as his nomination will survive, one way or another. He is eminently the most qualified nominee since Antonin Scalia, and quite possibly the best nominee put forth in our lifetime, going back to the Eisenhower presidency. He believes that judges are simply there to interpret the law and keep the law within the confines of the U.S. Constitution. He does not fit the mold of activist judges, preferred by Democrats, who legislate from the bench to create those laws which Democrats cannot otherwise achieve through legislation. Therefore, it’s time for these hearings to end, time for Mitch McConnell to evoke the nuclear option, so that Judge Gorsuch will be on hand to render asunder the wacky rulings of U.S. circuit court judges who seek to stop President Trump any way they can. Enough is enough.
Then there is the issue of the president’s tweets on “wiretapping.” Once again, the mainstream media lends voice to the anti-Trump opposition in both parties, to place aspersions on his claims that the Obama administration placed surveillance on the Trump team following the election. Now it is coming to light, as President Trump said it would, that such surveillance took place and, regardless of whether or not the surveillance was legal, the dissemination of the surveillance to a multitude of agencies- thanks to the last-minute executive order signed by Barack Obama- made it inevitable that some Obama crony would unmask the names of the U.S. citizens caught up in the incidental findings, and release these transcripts for purely political and partisan reasons- a felonious crime by any measure. It would be most unwise to hold one’s breath, awaiting the mainstream media to acknowledge that, once again, they got it wrong, but it will ultimately be shown that Trump was subjected to the most hostile predecessor’s transition in U. S. history, and that will be Obama’s lasting legacy.
Once again, just as Democrats show they do not know how to behave themselves when they lose an election, Republicans insist on showing that they do not know how to function effectively when they win an election. The repeal and replacement of ObamaCare should have been an easily-achievable “slam dunk,” given the national mandate from voters who demanded that ObamaCare must go. Yet, once again, Republicans cannot decide whether they are moderate Democrat-wannabes, globalist mainstreamers, free-market conservatives or quasi-libertarians. So, in order to be all of these, they cannot seem to agree on how to do anything, namely, use their majorities in both houses to upend ObamaCare and provide a better solution for everyone else.
It’s no wonder, for the fact that many Republicans still cannot make up their minds whether they are for Trump, or against him. Regardless, the American Health Care Act that is being offered up by House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), and supported by the president, doesn’t quite repeal ObamaCare and doesn’t quite fix the health insurance problem in America. Even though Democrats will universally vote against the bill, they secretively and furtively hope that it will pass, so that they can escape blame for the coming and inevitable collapse of ObamaCare. Nothing would bring down the costs of healthcare like the entire eradication of health insurance altogether, but that is never going to happen, so we must await the machinations of lessers, instead.
Finally, the ill-effects of multi-culturalism, inclusion and relaxed immigration policies tragically come to light in horrors visited on the United States and the United Kingdom, concurrently. In England, tolerance for radical Islamic ideology brings on an attack on London’s Westminster Bridge, as an Islamic radical, British-borne, slams his rented vehicle into a pedestrian crowd, killing three and injuring more than twenty. He goes on to murder a British police officer with a knife, before the assailant is ultimately gunned down on the grounds of the Houses of Parliament. For too long, British politicians have indulged Islamists to proselytize their radical theology in the U.K. and are now faced with the cancer of Islamic extremism within the realm of Great Britain.
Here, in the United States, failure to enforce immigration laws results in two illegals from Central America, aged 17 and 18, insanely placed into the ninth grade class at Rockville High School, in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. The two forced a 14-year-old girl into the bathroom and raped her in a most vile and disgusting way. Maryland’s House of Delegates responds to the rape by voting to make Maryland a sanctuary for illegals and, in so doing, guarantee that such incidents continue to occur, unabated. Leave it once again, to liberal Democrats in the Old Line State, to pursue the policies of political correctness above the need to keep its citizens safe. Maryland, oft-described as “America-in-miniature,” is a microcosm of what ails the nation- liberal dogma and ideology which can achieve nothing in the end but the ultimate destruction of the United States of America.
Less than two months into his presidency, it is truly a wonder that President Trump has been able to accomplish much of anything- that is, given all of the forces set against him. With a mainstream media which seeks to cast none but aspersions onto his presidency, unified Democrats who have sworn to oppose him in each and every possible way, federal government employees, unaccepting of his election, who leak anything and everything to make him look bad, the NeverTrump Republicans who are desperately seeking anything they can find, to justify their anti-Trump behavior during the campaign, his is a presidency holding firm against a tsunami of opposition. The demise of Donald Trump’s presidency seems to be an almost universal sentiment, if not an all-encompassing goal.
The Democrats and their complicit allies in the mainstream media will lie, distort and demagogue without restraint to short-circuit the president, even if it means that President Trump will enter his third month still shy of a full cabinet. Despite the fact that candidate Trump could have been, and most likely was, subject to surveillance on his predecessor’s orders without warrant (as the president is able to do under law), nothing has surfaced which would lay credence to the myth of Trump/Russian collusion. Yet, this will be the oft-stated mantra of the Media/Democrat alliance for the remainder of his presidency. The Democrats, as well as their allies in the mainstream media know better, but this won’t stop them from drumming out the lie, regardless. Should the Russia card fail to confuse the public, the racism, sexism and xenophobe cards all await play in the hands of Democrats- all because Donald Trump had the nerve to win the election over Hillary Clinton. So what if the country is splitting apart, based on these lies? Being a liberal means never having to say you’re sorry.
Their mission: Trumpus Interruptus.
Despite all of that, he has accomplished quite a lot nevertheless. Through executive orders which he has signed- and only one has been stopped by lawyers opposed to his presidency- he has checked off many, if not most, of the promises he made to the American people during his campaign. The early indicators are that business has responded favorably to these initiatives, and a new national optimism is emerging in the wake of his presidency. Whatever his enemies (and they are legion) have to say against him, the American people are beginning to witness a growing surge in support for what he in fact is accomplishing.
In his first attempt to pursue legislative action, he has taken on the most difficult task first- the repeal and replacement of ObamaCare.
No domestic issue is more fraught with political peril, nor complicated to its core, nor nuanced with an effective double-edged sword than dealing with the national disaster that is health insurance, today. Whatsoever was wrong with health insurance prior to Barack Obama’s presidency was hardly worth the effort to fix it by bringing down the entire health insurance market for everyone else. To leave the ACA as is, and thereby let it fail, places its ultimate failure exclusively on the Democrats, which would be the strategically cynical and partisan thing for Republicans to do. Republicans who, by and large, would rather fall on their own swords in pursuit of what they deem to be is right, have thus taken on the burden of fixing a system which Democrats engineered to eventually fail, in order to bring about nationalized and socialized health insurance for all. Leave it to the House Republicans to break this purported effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare into three steps, which well could be accomplished in one, if only Senate Republicans would do away with the decades-old Robert Byrd (D-WV) rule which sets a standard of approval at a filibuster-proof threshold. Nothing in the Constitution requires this- only a rule which the Senate is empowered to change, at will. With a little spine, Republicans could get everything they want, including a thorough divorce from health insurance by the federal government, medical malpractice liability reform and the severing of state boundaries to the health insurance market, and send all of the regulating power back to the states where it belongs, pursuant to the Tenth Amendment.
But will they?
While Democrats sit back and laugh at the clumsiness of their Republican colleagues, President Trump has been put into a position to show support for the Republicans’ American Health Care Act, on the sheer basis that it is better than ObamaCare- that is a pretty low bar, by any standard. It’s no wonder that his administration is reticent to place their name on something that may not pass, in the end, due to a unified Democrat minority and a fractured Republican majority, in both houses of Congress.
The sad fact of the matter is that Democrats don’t know how to behave themselves when they lose, and Republicans don’t know how to function when they win. In their mutual intransigence, the nation hangs in balance.
Sadly, for President Donald J. Trump, so may his presidency.
It’s something that parents should share with their teenaged children. In fact, it’s something that we wish our parents had shared with us, when we were coming of age.
First fact of life- Unless one is born, raised, lives and dies on a deserted, uncharted island, there is no such thing as privacy- anywhere. For instance, our ninety-five-year-old mother never once paid a bill on-line, never once opened an on-line bank account, and went through life thinking that her financial information, her medical information, and even her school records were strictly off-line…fat chance. Even her father’s immigration to the United States, in July of 1901, is detailed on-line, and so is everyone else’s. On the other side of our family, the fact that we were able to determine that our great, great, great, great grandfather fought in the American Revolution, and what he was paid for his services to the young nation (it wasn’t much, by the way) was found, courtesy of the internet. The fact that his father was indentured for seven years, to pay for his passage from the British Isles, was also found, courtesy of the internet.
Second fact of life- Don’t let our government, the mainstream media, nor politicians of either party ever fool you. Whether you are the president of the United States, a government employee, a corporate employee, a sole proprietor in business for yourself, a student, or for that matter, an indigent, our government can and will, without warrant, spy on you. They have been doing this for many years. The fact that you do not know this is merely because you haven’t, as yet, done anything to warrant prosecution. We have even arrived at a point in time when governmental employees, not pleased with recent election results, can and do eavesdrop on the president’s “secured” telephone lines, and release transcripts of his conversations to the media in order to embarrass, humiliate and sabotage any chance of his doing his job safely and securely. If they can do this on “secured” White House telephone lines, it’s assured they can also do this at his former residence, in a Manhattan building that bears his name. His predecessor can deny, deny, deny all he wants to, but this is the same predecessor that told Bill O’Reilly that there was “not a smidgen of corruption” in an Internal Revenue Service that targeted private citizens who were opposed to his policies. This same former president’s Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, perjured himself in a congressional hearing when he said that the government was not collecting phone data on its citizens, so why would any sane person believe him when he says that Donald Trump’s telephone lines were not tapped, ever. The media will keep telling you about Trump’s ties to the Russians, but this is a lie, too. If there were any such ties, we would have heard about it by now. Rest assured that Hillary Clinton would have told us long before Election Day, after gaining the information from her supporters in the government and in the media.
Third fact of life- Dissuade yourself of the fallacy that filing your taxes on paper forms, hand written, means that your social security number and financial information is secure, simply because you didn’t e-file your tax returns. This is another fantasy. All of the information provided on your tax returns, regardless of how filed, has been logged in on government computers, which is why your earnings are reported on a social security statement, mailed yearly, which enumerates your earnings going back to your first part-time job as a teenager. Names can change but social security numbers never do.
Fourth fact of life- Anyone with a substantial dose of technical expertise, and a stubborn intent to do so with “due diligence”, can and will find out anything they want to about your own personal life, regardless of the nature of what you believe to be secret, which is why we get spam e-mail on how to maintain or reduce our blood sugar, why we get weekly phone calls from different sources offering to extend our warranties on our automobile (they know the make, model and year) , and why we get mailed reminders that the warranties on our appliances have expired. If your children run into credit issues, the collectors will call you wanting to know if your child is available to the phone, even when they haven’t lived with you in a decade. This is also why a prospective employer can go on-line and retrieve your history of traffic violations, not to mention more serious peccadillos from your past.
So while the entire world can know each and every little “dirty secret” you think you hold in your heart, so now can the world know all of the dirty little secrets that our intelligence communities hold in their confidential file folders.
Drew Nickell on Radio Today, 2 March 2017 at 1:00 PM EST
Drew Nickell is back on the radio as today’s guest on the Nora Firestone show on WKQA-AM, 1110 in Hampton Roads. He will be discussing current events surrounding the Trump presidency, and the political environment surrounding his administration. Here is a link to that live broadcast :
The Reset- Trump’s Address to a Disjointed Session of Congress
Last night, before a worldwide audience, President Donald Trump masterfully delivered his first presidential address to both houses of congress. Widely hailed as the best speech he has ever given, the new president stuck to his stated themes of “unity and strength… in a message deeply delivered from (his) heart.”
Recounting the many executive actions taken thus far, in an administration all of six weeks old, the president outlined a broad legislative agenda, enumerated the economic challenges facing the nation- including unemployment, stagnant economic growth, growing dependence on food stamps, and an $800 billion dollar trade deficit. Calling on both houses of congress, he beseeched both parties to join together in solving these problems:
“…solving these, and so many other pressing problems, will require us to work past the differences of party. It will require us to tap into the American spirit that has overcome every challenge throughout our long and storied history.”
To look at most of the Democrats, many of whom boycotted his inauguration, it was as though they were not listening at all to the president’s call for unity, and instead sat there calculating how they might possibly spin their post-address commentary to their dwindling liberal base. Their churlishness and contempt, based on little more than utter hate for the man who upset their dreams of a Hillary presidency, showed them to be petulant children unhappy with not getting their way… and the more they complain, the smaller they seem. While they can get away with such bad behavior in the short term, Americans will continue to grow weary of their partisan posturing, and it will be the Democrats who continue their dive into the wilderness of fewer numbers and shrinking support.
While a few Democrats, most notably Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), were moved to give several standing ovations, most Republicans enthusiastically received the speech, rising to their feet upwards of eighty times. A few, like Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and his #NeverTrump aide-de-camp, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), bore noticeably sour-puss expressions much like their Democrat counterparts but, after all, they are just as unhappy about Trump’s election and therefore cannot help themselves but to throw water on the president’s campfire.
Nevertheless, remaining Republicans now have a president who will work with them on the key issues of repealing and replacing ObamaCare, revising the tax code and providing for national security, both at our border and around the world- and one, by the way, who is not afraid to name the enemy for who and what it actually is- Radical Islamic Terrorism.
The mainstream media even chimed in, condescendingly saying that as a result of the speech, Donald Trump was, at long last, President of the United States- that the speech might well prove to be the much ballyhooed “reset” of the Trump presidency- from the “dark campaign mode” of Donald Trump to a brighter, “more presidential mode” befitting the office he holds.
Well, it was a reset- but not the kind of reset the mainstream media has in mind.
The “reset” President Trump delivered was rather to those in the television audience who, for the first time, heard the man speak without the partisan and disparaging spin, oft-provided by his political opponents and their partisan allies in the mainstream media. Considering the fact that he won the presidency with less than half of the popular vote, and even though his approval ratings are supposedly in the low-to-mid forties, the speech proved to be a home-run for the president, based upon follow-up polling that showed a 69% optimistic response (as compared to a 28% pessimistic response) to his address.
Essentially, only the most strident opponents to the president could be critical of an address so adroitly delivered, so artfully composed, and so succinctly clear in message and mindset.
While it is still very early in the administration, there can be no doubt that there is a new president who, given the support of his own Republican party, is perfectly poised to make meaningful and much-needed change in Washington, DC.
Furthermore, there is now a notable benchmark that has been set to adjudge his presidency, going forward.
The more carping on the part of his opponents, the more criticism on the part of the mainstream media, the more successful President Trump will be in delivering on the promises he has made to the American people…
…and for all of those who trudged through the last eight years, “ain’t we got fun?”
We hesitate to write this because, in order to do this accurately, we have to reveal some personal information. In doing this, which is something we are not usually given to do, something we are very much loathe to do, but nevertheless we must do, in order to offer concise and persuasive analysis.
Following a seventeen-year career with a major telecommunications carrier, we were laid off in 2016 as part of a very large reduction-in-force from that well-known company. We had survived such layoffs twelve times during our time with them but, sadly last year, we suppose that our number was up. Sniff-sniff, such layoffs happen every day. Enough said.
When we joined the company in 1999, we had first-class health and dental benefits, along with a pension plan and other fringe benefits that could not be beat. The pension plan went away as the result of an ill-advised merger with another wireless carrier in 2005, but the health insurance benefits were nevertheless very good, at the time.
Then, following the Democrat-only passage of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. ObamaCare), things started to change- and drastically so. Our employer started to ask and insist upon acquiring very personal information about the status of our health- wanting to know such things as our weight, LDL and HDL cholesterol levels, tobacco use, blood sugar levels, etc., all under the guise of offering supposed discount levels, all in order to comply with this outright invasion of privacy. To do otherwise would have set our premiums at a level which would have made continued employment untenable. So we complied, provided our employer very personal information and ended up paying about the same level of premium we had prior to this invasive initiative. In the years that followed, our “discounted” premiums steadily went up, while the co-pays associated with our coverage increased dramatically, as did the out-of-pocket costs of prescription medication- WAY up ! All of this was because of regulations associated with ObamaCare.
When our severance package expired, we were forced to seek medical insurance coverage through what is laughingly called the “open market.” In Virginia, there is only one service provider and, in order to acquire “Bronze” level coverage for my wife and myself, we were told that our premiums would be $ 1,560.00 per month. At the “Bronze” level, no financial benefits would accrue until my wife and I had spent $ 13,000.00 out-of-pocket, mind you, in network, after which in-network coverage would be on a shared 50/50 basis.
In other words, we would have to spend- get this- $ 31,720.00 per year before any benefit associated with this coverage would begin to kick in. Given the choice of having to decide between mortgage foreclosure, which would have been a certainty, or complying with a federal mandate to purchase health insurance, which would only be of any tangible benefit in the most unforeseen of catastrophic circumstances, we basically said, “We are NOT going to lose our home to these sons-of-bitches, and we don’t care if they put us in jail for being non-compliant.”
Understand that the figures referenced above were the costs prior to the increase in coverage for this calendar year.
This is NOT healthcare. This is NOT affordable. This is ONLY a means of forcibly taking money from us, and redistributing it to the poor and the indigent, who pay little if nothing for healthcare services…
…and this is why ObamaCare MUST go- sooner, rather than later.
Back in the day of formal balls and debutants, a young lady would carry a dance card, which essentially was a detailed schedule of the men with whom she would dance each successive dance, on that particular evening. After the last dance, the dance card would then become a souvenir remembrance of the evening, one that could be re-read again and again in detail- providing the lady with fond and precise memories that would last a lifetime, as pages yellowed and ink faded throughout the many years. There was nothing sadder than an empty dance card, for it lay bare the disinterest men had, in dancing with a young lady unblessed with beauty or comeliness. For such ladies back then, who never married, the dance card would often prove to be a painful reminder of the stigma associated with spending a lifetime unwed.
In an old West Point ballad from the nineteenth century, as famously quoted by General Douglas MacArthur in his 1951 farewell address to Congress, it is said that “old soldiers never die, they just fade away…” In the same manner, old politicians who have had their run never seem to die, but rather fade into oblivion with the loss of their own relevance. When once their influence was sought and something to be cherished, they have an unfortunate tendency to serve that one-too-many additional term, and often make the end of their political career look vapid and trivial, bereft of ideas. This is especially true for senators on both sides of the aisle, who once gained the nomination of their party for the nation’s top job, but who were denied victory, in the end. No longer garnering attention from the media as they once had, some take to making outrageous statements in an effort to claim relevance that has passed them by.
Consider the yellowed and fading dance card that is Senator John McCain’s (R-AZ) as revealed in the invective he hurls at President Trump, taking each and every opportunity to remind us that he does not like, nor support, the forty-fifth president. He wasn’t nearly as hard on Trump’s immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, who defeated McCain quite convincingly in the 2008 presidential election. Judging how the longtime Arizona senator ran his presidential campaign that year, it is not certain that he really wanted to win. Not once did he ever take on his Democrat opponent anywhere near to the extent he has taken on the current Republican president- going back to the days and weeks well before Trump infamously took the Senator to task, saying “He insulted me, and he insulted everyone in that room… He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured… perhaps he was a war hero, but right now he’s said a lot of very bad things about a lot of people.”
Predictably, the mainstream media, Trump’s Republican rivals for the nomination, and everyone else opposed to Trump’s candidacy pulled out McCain’s “hero card,” and excoriated Trump for insulting McCain, who suffered torture as a prisoner of war in the notorious Hanoi Hilton of North Viet Nam. That particular card is pulled any and every time a Republican criticizes the senior senator from Arizona, and it’s a card that has expired from overuse, long ago.
What is left for an aging and tired old senator who has made a political career of being the unpredictable “maverick” just as likely to oppose his own party as to suck up to the opposing party? To be honest, he has never been truly conservative, or for that matter, really Republican- and he uses this modus operandi to garner attention and assert relevance that he otherwise neither has nor merits. McCain has done this for decades, so it is no surprise that he goes to Europe, and solidly chastises the new president and openly questions his competence for all the world to see and hear. McCain’s dance card is fading, and he knows it, which is why he acts like the south end of a northbound horse, and thus ignores the tradition of politics ending at the shores of his country.
Call Senator McCain a hero if you will, but he is no patriot…not anymore.
Coordinated Insurrection- the #Resist Movement Against President Trump
Monday, February 20th is unofficially known as Presidents Day, a day in which the nation pauses to honor the forty-four men who have served as the chief executive of the United States. An outgrowth of what used to be a national holiday to exclusively honor the first president, George Washington, on the occasion of his February 22nd birthday, and in conjunction with many state holidays which honor the February 12th birthday of its sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln, the day became fixed as an annual holiday to be observed on the third Monday of February, beginning in 1971. Prior to then, Washington’s Birthday, as it is still officially known, was celebrated on the 22nd of February, each year.
Monday, February 20th also marks the first month of Donald Trump’s presidency. In that first month, Senate Democrats have intentionally stalled the completion of his cabinet for no other reason than to spite and to thwart the new president in any way they can. Such posturing is not the norm, as recent presidents have entered their second month with their cabinets largely in place, regardless of party. Thanks to the Democrats’ prior leader, Harry Reid, a simple majority is only needed to confirm a presidential appointee, where once a sixty vote approval was necessary to prevent a filibuster against any single nominee. No matter and despite the lower threshold, the new president is forced to pursue his presidency without a full cabinet- a hindrance not shared by any of his predecessors. In short, Democrats who don’t get their way in a national election get nasty to a degree never seen when it was Republicans who found themselves in the minority, as they did following Barack Obama’s election in 2008.
If that wasn’t bad enough, four liberal judges- selected for their predisposition against the new president, have erected the first hurdle in front of President Trump, by halting his executive order to temporarily delay the entry of people from seven countries which are unable or unwilling to document their travelers. Despite the fact that at least three of his predecessors, on occasion, did the same thing, these judges have suddenly found reason to block Trump where they did not see such reason to block his predecessors, before.
In the wake of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn’s forced resignation, it has now come to light that there were at least nine illegal and unauthorized leaks detailing a private telephone conversation he had with the Russian ambassador that were released to the press. While the sources of these leaks have yet to be precisely determined, it is obvious that down-level apparatchiks retained from the Obama administration released this information, in a further attempt to sabotage the new administration. This is not the only time that this has happened since Donald Trump won the November election and became president on January 20th. Nevertheless, this has caused House and Senate Democrats, as well as several #NeverTrump Republicans, to smell the blood of scandal in the new administration, and they are drooling at the prospects of further investigation- all in an effort to bring down the presidency of a man who they hate beyond reason.
This effort is by no means limited to the halls of Congress. There is a concerted, well-financed and well-coordinated effort to sew discord amongst the voters and encourage vehement and sometimes violent resistance to the Trump administration, and the agenda of the Republicans, on a slew of initiatives. Republican House members, holding town hall meetings back in their home districts across the country, are being routinely disrupted by recruited and paid protesters, brought in from outside their districts, who seek to silence free speech that is not in lockstep with liberal dogma. Their attempts to recruit trainees in the art of disruption have even infested meetup invitations, such as the following we received just in the past few days, under the header and text that reads as follows:
“For Education #Resist-
Meetup has always served as an organizing platform for a wide range of political views, welcoming everyone from the Howard Dean-iacs to the Tea Party. Meetup will always welcome people with different beliefs. But after the recent executive order aimed to block people on the basis of nationality and religion (a lie), a line was crossed. At a time when core democratic ideals feel under attack, we feel a duty to spark more civic participation. Last week, we created 1,000+ #Resist Meetup Groups to act as local hubs for actions on behalf of democracy, equality, human rights, social justice, and sustainability. Already 50,000+ people have joined. These #Resist Meetups are open to anyone who want to create a bright future that’s rich with opportunity and freedom for all. Meetup exists to connect people so they create opportunity and make the world they want. We hope members take these Meetups forward to be powerful together.”
Such efforts to disrupt the Trump administration include such groups such as Organizing for America, the brainchild of former President Barack Obama, who created the group following his election in 2008. Willfully encouraged by Obama to organize resistance against his successor’s presidency, it marks the first time in United States history, that an outgoing president is actively encouraging insurrection and revolt against his successor. Couple this with the actions of Obama’s apparatchiks who remain in government service, and who seek to bring down his successor’s presidency, and the makings of sedition and insurrection within government thus pose a threat to national security, as well.
This is how civil wars begin. This is how the left wants to overturn the results of a free and fair election and, in so doing, destroy the country.
Be wary. The rats are in the cornfield and they threaten our survival.
Enter the Lawyers: Completing the Tripartite Against Donald Trump’s Presidency
Joining Democrats and NeverTrump Republicans in the Senate and House, along with the mainstream media, four anti-Trump Lawyers on the west coast have now revealed the third force in a tripartite cabal bent on the de-legitimization and eventual destruction of the Donald Trump presidency.
It is not enough that a third of House Democrats boycott the president’s inauguration. It is not enough to do everything they can to block President Trump from having every part of his cabinet in place, nor enough to slander and libel fellow Senator Jeff Sessoms (R-AL) to a level of disgust never seen in the U.S. Senate. It isn’t even enough that the mainstream media is approaching the new administration with a level of hostility not seen before in U.S. history.
No, now it is the lawyers who enter the fray- two appointed by George W. Bush (U.S. District Court Judge James Robart and Ninth Circuit Court Justice Richard Clifton), one appointed by Barack Obama (Ninth Circuit Court Justice Michelle Friedland), and one by Jimmy Carter (Ninth Circuit Court Justice William Canby), and who join forces with politicians, press and pundits, to block President Trump at every turn.
“What cannot be achieved in legislation, must be achieved in the courtroom,” so sayeth the mantra of liberalism in the United States, today.
“Trump was elected, but not legitimately, so we are going to do everything we can to stymie and block everything he wants to do, regardless of what the people have to say about it- national security be damned.” Such is the pathetic pledge of allegiance binding Democrats, NeverTrump Republicans, the mainstream media, and, now, leftist litigators who all share a hatred of all things Donald, to a degree not seen this side of Hollywood.
The actual law in question is beyond dispute:
“Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”
-Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952
Oh, but don’t let a little thing like the law or the United States Constitution get in the way of doing the “right thing,” and putting a lasso around a president for whom none of the aforementioned judges voted. U.S. District Judge James Robart didn’t even mention the law in his ruling to put the kibosh on President Trump’s temporary travel ban on seven countries- countries which cannot or will not ascertain the true identity of travelers flying from their airports to ours. An activist on a mission to aid immigrants of all types, legal and otherwise, James Robart was the man who could “get it done” for Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson. He and his staff knew before the fact that Judge Robart would play along. After all, the judge was appointed by the open-border and globalist former president George W. Bush, whose Ninth Circuit appointee, Richard Clifton, would join Michelle Friedland (Obama’s) and William Canby (Carter’s) to stick it to the current president. The law was also missing from the Ninth Circuit ruling but, when it comes to reigning in a man like Trump, what matter?
Never mind that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has a notorious history in their radical and extremist rulings, leading all other circuit courts in having their decisions overruled in the Supreme Court. This is the same court that once ordered the motto “In God, We Trust” banned, and the phrase “under God” be excised from the pledge of allegiance. Thankfully, both of these rulings were tossed out by the U.S. Supreme Court, but the fact that such undertakings went that far demonstrate a predisposition and predilection on the ninth Circuit Court’s part, to appease the demands of liberals who seek to tear this nation asunder, any way possible. While leftist and looney lawyers are lining up their legal challenges to stop President Trump at every turn, rest assured that most of these actions will find their way through Ninth Circuit Court, and this is a pattern that will oft be repeated, since they are powerless to stop him in the chambers of Congress where Democrats are in the minority.
It is as if they are saying, “What’s a little thing like national security matter, when it’s the president who needs to learn who runs things around here- and it ain’t him.”
Not that all Republicans can be counted on to back up their party’s president. Trump wasn’t in office three weeks before Senator John McCain (R-AZ) openly criticized and put a negative slur on an otherwise successful intelligence mission (Trump’s first) in Yemen, which cost the life of Ryan Owens, a member of Navy Seal Team 6. Citing his death, the Senator questioned the mission and its success for no reason other than to get attention by once again jabbing his president. Then, Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) another NeverTrump Republican, joined Elijah Cummings (D-MD) in opening an investigation looking into presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway, who voiced support for Ivanka Trump’s fashion line in the wake of Nordstrom’s (and others’) decision to drop the product line from its stores.
Wow! Talk about scandals! Oh, but the shoes, the shoes!
What’s really at stake is the fact that there is a new president, sent by the people to upend the status quo ante, and drain the swamp of the special interests and the inherent corruption it breeds. The politicians who protest the loudest are the very ones who have the most to lose, and fear that their days of influence are coming to an end with the presidency of one Donald Trump.
Hence, such are the words of those whose days are numbered, and we suspect they know it, all too well.
Decades long in the making, going all the way back to when the Blame America First pathos, first born in the hallowed halls of universities in the early years of the twentieth century, this is what has become of higher education in the second decade of the twenty-first century.
Read the signs: “Become Ungovernable” and “This is War.” Such advocacy of anarchy- so praised by the intelligentsia, and so funded by the likes of George Soros- is quickly becoming the greatest domestic threat in the history of the United States. The lazy and collusive mainstream media will put forth and echo the lie, that such discord is a reaction to the presidency of Donald Trump. Yet, the real source of this discontent, as expressed by these protesters, can be traced to the campus classroom. These young protesters and professional anarchists, awaiting the next opportunity to destroy and wreak havoc, are the children of the seditious scorn which is held by professors across this land, and even around the world.
The seeds of anti-Americanism- the stepchild of European-style socialism, itself an ideology that touched off bloody revolutions and unimaginable cruelty throughout the twentieth century, was the brainchild of the intellectual elite and academics, who held nothing but scorn for the working classes, and looked down their bespectacled noses at quaint concepts of patriotism and piety. They found common cause with communism in the 1930s, throughout World War II, and into the decades which followed. They acted as both apologists and deniers for the Soviet Union and Maoist China, and railed against efforts to snuff them out. This mindset bore malicious, and sometimes, violent fruit on university campuses in the 1960s and well into the 1970s, and these young revolutionaries, who once demanded the freedom to protest against their government under the guise of free speech, eventually became the elder professors who dominate and rule the university campus today, and who advocate anything but free speech.
All speech, and for that matter all thought, that is not in lockstep with leftist ideology, is not to be tolerated in the halls, and on the malls of our institutions of higher learning. Whenever conservative, Republican or libertarian voices are heard, they are shut down and labeled as pariah, not fit for the ears and eyes of college students. When on occasion, conservative guest speakers- be they Condoleezza Rice, Milo Yiannopoulos, or Gavin McInnes- are invited to speak, the call to arms is sent out by their professors to raise objection, protest in great numbers and escalate to the point, where such invitations are cancelled. Merely wear a ball cap that says “Make America Great Again,” and be rewarded for your own right to expression with pepper-spray to the face.
If this hostility towards diversity of thought isn’t bad enough, add in the legions of paid anarchistic thugs who throw gasoline on the fires of discontent and cause damage and destruction in their wake. University and municipal police, commanded to “give space” to the protesters and rioters, are rendered impotent to protect public safety and they themselves become targets of the assailants.
Into the maelstrom of radicalism run amok, enter a new president, Donald J. Trump, and a new administration, very different from the all-too-appeasing and encouraging Obama administration. During his presidency, Barack Obama encouraged young people to take to the streets, and give voice to the malcontented and resentful ideology that he espoused. Obama, totally lacking in the class and dignified restraint of his own predecessor George W. Bush, has already begun to voice opposition to his successor and still encourages such protests, saying that they are “exactly what we expect to see when American values are at stake.”
President Trump, a man not given towards appeasing anarchists or placating protesters, will have to seize control of such unrest and bring to justice the financiers of these bad actors, or else preside over a country which teeters on the brink of ideological civil war. Predictably, the mainstream media and his political opponents will portray his doing so as the modus operandi of a police state, and will continue to portray him as the authoritarian heir to Adolf Hitler. In doing so, they will continue to incur the shrinking level of trust among the electorate, and will further marginalize their own influence over the people they are supposed to serve.
Yet, if the new president does not act, this pathology that has taken hold of the “children of the scorn,” will touch off the ideological civil war between those who love this country, and those who seek to render it asunder. Anarchy in the streets of cities today will spread to the streets of the suburbs tomorrow, and the freedoms we cherish will hang in the balance, if this unrest is not soon stopped.
The year was 1970, and while we were all of eleven years old, America was enjoying Smokey Robinson and the Miracles new hit, “The Tears of a Clown.” Although it has been many a year since the song was last heard, it instantly came to mind when the news video caught Senator Charles “Chuck” Schumer (D-NY), arguably the most powerful Democrat official since the recent departure of former President Barack Obama from the White House, getting all choked up with tears on the plight of travelers being denied entry into the United States. Saying that President Trump’s momentary, 120-day stay on entry visas, for travelers originating from seven countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, the Sudan and Yemen), was “mean-spirited and un-American,” the Senate Minority Leader even evoked the imagery of tears running down the face of the Statue of Liberty, further recalling an uncle who was named “Ellis” for Ellis Island.
Where were the tears from Senator Schumer when the massacre in San Bernardino took place? Where were the tears from Senator Schumer when the massacre in the Orlando night club took place? Where were his tears when Nidal Hassan took many lives in the Fort Hood massacre? Or for the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have lost their lives since President Barack Obama bailed on his own “line in the sand” regarding chemical weapons?
Are we to believe that the inconvenience posed to 109 travelers inconvenienced by Trump’s executive order are worthy of the tears of a U.S. Senator, who was curiously silent when Barack Obama refused entry to ninety-seven Cuban refugees in one of his last acts as president? Or when President Obama ordered such a temporary ban on Iraqi refugees in 2009, (following the discovery of two ISIS fighters who slipped past the borders and were living in Kentucky)?
Talk about the tears of a clown!
Whether Senator Schumer’s tears were theatrical, as President Trump has suggested, or genuine, is beside the point. Our guess is that the real source of Schumer’s tears has nothing to do with international travelers and everything to do with the fact that, once he has ultimately failed to stop President Trump from getting the cabinet he named, and once the President gets his nominee to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, Schumer’s ability to effect policy will evaporate into thin air- and the senior Senator from New York knows this. Given an overwhelming Republican majority in the House, and a simple but ultimately impenetrable majority in the Senate, there is nary a way for Democrats to keep the new president from pursuing the agenda of his candidacy- and Senator Schumer’s tears are more about this, than anything else.
Further, if this is the best that the Democrats can offer as opposition to Trump and the Republicans (assuming they don’t backslide), the die has been cast on Donald Trump’s re-election in four years, and a continued erosion of Democrat seats in both houses of Congress.
Then again, why should the Democrats have such tearful angst about their own demise? After all, a third of their caucus in the House didn’t even show up for work on the day in which their nemesis, Donald J. Trump, was inaugurated as the forty-fifth President of the United States. Further, even more of these same Democrats have sworn not to be co-operative, in any way, to participate in the further functioning of government in our blessed republic…
Taking Care of Business- President Trump’s First Week
The mainstream media has gone into a veritable tizzy, and all of the politicians who opposed Donald Trump’s candidacy from the start have grown apoplectic, all because President Donald Trump is taking care of business by keeping his campaign promises on a multitude of fronts. In less than a week since becoming the forty-fifth President of the United States, the new president has signed executive orders and memoranda on the following:
Abortion-
Re-instituted Mexico City memorandum prohibiting the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortion counseling and services in foreign countries;
Signed an executive order which proscribes public funding for organizations that provide abortion services in the United States;
Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare)-
Signed executive order to authorized agency heads to waive requirements to the maximum extent of the law as they relate to employer and individual mandates, in preparation for anticipated repeal and replacement of ACA;
Commerce-
Ordered the Secretary of Commerce to review manufacturing regulations with the aim of speeding up the approval of permits for factory construction and related operations;
Energy-
Signed executive order and memorandum that green-lights the Dakota and Keystone Pipelines, respectively;
Signed executive order that further mandates the use of American- made steel in the construction of these pipelines;
Federal Workforce-
Signed memoranda to freeze all pending and new hires in federal government, excepting military and critical public safety hiring;
Immigration-
Signed an executive order to commence construction of a wall on the southern US border, beginning with funding from 2006 legislation, and directs the hiring of 5,000 additional border patrol agents;
Signed memoranda that ends the Obama “Catch & Release” policy, and orders agencies to step up deportations, and directs the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security to block federal grants from sanctuary cities who refuse to enforce existing laws pertaining to illegal immigration;
Infrastructure-
Signed an executive order to speed up environmental reviews for high-priority infrastructure projects, and approve such projects within a thirty-day window;
Regulatory-
Signed an executive order to freeze all federal regulations, including recent Obama-signed regulations yet-to-be-implemented, until each can be reviewed and either implemented or rescinded following said review;
Trade-
Signed executive order to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Trade Agreement;
…and that’s just for starters.
On Friday, President Trump will be meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom, and it is anticipated that a new trade deal between the UK and the US will be discussed. Recalling his predecessor’s warning that by voting to exit the European Union, “Britain would be sent to the back of the line,” yet another edict of the Obama presidency will be tossed on the ash heap of history.
While liberals are incensed that Trump is pursuing an agenda he set out during the campaign, and shocked that he is doing so, post haste, their allies in the mainstream media continue to beat the drum that says “he can’t do this, and he can’t do that,” a drum that Trump has ignored for the past twenty months since he announced his candidacy. In their attempts to distract the public by emphasizing dust-ups on inauguration viewership and popular voting, they ignore the fact that the new president is off to a flying start in acting as…well…a president should act. In doing so, he drives them to distraction, much to the delight and pleasure of his supporters.
In short, Trump plods on while his opponents wring their hands and, in the first week of his presidency, is managing to do what few politicians ever seem to do- keeping his promises.
Substance and Purpose: The Inauguration of President Donald J. Trump
As Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the forty-fifth President of the United States, the full fruition of a lifetime’s work, and four years of planning, came into its own, on Friday, January 20th, 2017. His inaugural address, quite different in tone and substantively different from any in history, yet drawn from John F. Kennedy’s and Ronald Reagan’s inaugural addresses, was a direct message to the American people that their elected officials are hereby put on notice, that things are going to be very different, going forward. Further, he put the world on notice that America’s priorities are now going to shift in a direction not seen in eight decades and that the United States will henceforth pursue a direction, in policy and practice, which puts America and Americans first and foremost.
On the very evening of Mitt Romney’s loss to incumbent President Barack Obama, in November of 2012, Mr. Trump made a decision to seek the nation’s highest office, realizing then that real change in the relationship the federal government has with its citizens, was going to have to come from outside the political powerhouses dominating both parties- a decision which was well kept secret, until he formally announced his candidacy in June of 2015. At that time, his wife Melania Trump wasn’t entirely happy with her husband’s plans, considering the very real possibility of Trump’s eventual success, and recognizing the changes to the lives of herself, and her son Barron, which would no doubt result. Donald Trump envisioned that very night, the slogan “Make America Great,” and had the foresight to trademark it, the next day. In reconsideration of how this might be misconstrued as a negative jab at America, he went back and re-filed the trademark application with the more familiar “Make America Great Again,” which became the slogan of his campaign, two and a half years later. Largely lampooned and derided from the day of his announcement, Trump ignored the pundits and politicians, the experts and the media, and all of those many who said it couldn’t be done, and the rest became indelible and certain history.
Historically, inauguration speeches have often borne a tendency to be both lofty and inspirational, espousing visionary platitudes of philosophical postulations, and have been intended to be more noteworthy in eloquence, than substantive in articulation. Think of Kennedy’s soaring rhetoric, of Reagan’s exquisite and popular connectivity and, most recently, Obama’s philosophical oratory. Trump drew on some of these themes, such as Kennedy’s “…common enemies of man- tyranny, poverty, disease and war, itself…” and Reagan’s “…government isn’t the solution to the problem- government is the problem…” and set down to write a speech in his own unique, direct and inimitable style.
As a result, Trump’s speech was very different, in both tone and substance, from any that has ever been delivered in the past. He spoke directly to the American people, issuing an indictment against the creeping globalism of both parties and, in front of his presidential predecessors who all pursued this agenda, informed the world of a new and impactful direction in its international dealings that places American interests first and foremost:
“We are issuing a new decree to be heard in every city, in every foreign capital, and in every hall of power. From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first.”
Citing the record of elected officials pursuing policies that have largely left Americans forgotten and marginalized, Trump said:
“For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished, but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered, but the jobs left and the factories closed. The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs and, while they celebrated in our nation’s capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land”
But then, later added:
“January 20th, 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”
Often citing these “forgotten,” the “mothers and children trapped in poverty,” the “rusted out factories, scattered like tombstones” (devoid of labor), and an “education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge,” Trump promised that the effects of these deprivations- “crime, gangs and drugs, costing lives and unrealized potential,” would be put to an end, and pronounced that this “carnage stops… right here, right now.”
Quite possibly, the best and most profound part of his address was when he said:
“We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example. We will shine for everyone to follow. We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the earth. At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America and, through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other. When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.”
The speech was largely panned by the entire mainstream media. Some, like CNN’s Chris Matthews, described its nationalistic tone as “Hitler-ian” and reminiscent of 1930’s “Nazism.” Others have grumbled that the speech was “divisive, and failed to reach out to a divided country-especially those who did not support Trump’s candidacy.” Still others have impugned Trump’s speech as being “inconsistent with Republican and conservative orthodoxy.” Yet, just as the mainstream media failed to recognize the populist draw of Trump’s message during the campaign, they also now fail to acknowledge that Trump’s inauguration address has found much favor with the American people, who have witnessed first-hand, the effects of globalist policies which have left them in the lurch, and witnessed the redistribution of their earnings, spread across the globe.
Trump’s speech was largely like the man who delivered it- direct, intentional and without any sense of being vague or indefinite. It sought not the loftiness of prose, not the cadence of poetry, nor the appeal to the intellectual and academic. Rather, it was an appeal directly to the American people, for singleness in purpose and in national unity, to refute the “expertise” of those who spread the poisons of inefficacy, impotence and impossibility- all in an effort to “make America great again.”
That such an inauguration and an inaugural address would draw such scorn from those who would still seek to indict Trump’s presidency, speaks loud and clear about the true sources of division in our country- and President Donald J. Trump is neither its culprit, nor its creator.
Ironically, however, he may prove to be its healer. If even in the end, he is only partially successful in realizing the promises he has espoused, he will have achieved a vaunted level of greatness and excellence in the service of his country- one in which future generations will look back upon his election, as the time when we the people, of the United States of America, finally saved ourselves from our own demise.
Simply Reprehensible- Obama’s Exit and the Democrats’ Boycott
In the final few days of his presidency, Barack Obama is determined at long last to go out of office in a blaze of glory, by revealing his latent and utter contempt for his country, which has so roundly rejected his presidency in their refusal to elect Hillary Clinton as his successor. As he himself told the country during the campaign, this election of 2016 was essentially a national referendum on his presidency, and the voters effectively said, “No, thanks,” much to his chagrin. So incensed that his presidency was, in essence, rejected by the voters who, save for California and New York gave Trump a landslide in both popular as well as electoral votes, he has decided to unleash the unlimited contempt in which he holds much of the rest of the country, in his actions since the election- actions he most assuredly would not have taken, had Hillary Clinton won the election.
These acts of pure spite include U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power’s abstention of a United Nations vote to condemn Israel (for settlements in the West Bank and Israeli presence in parts of Jerusalem), his continued release of most of the remaining Guantanamo detainees to countries unwilling to keep these imprisoned terrorists off of the battlefield, a record and staggering number of prison sentence commutations, primarily benefitting African-American felons, and, most egregiously, his pardon of Army PFC Bradley (aka Chelsea) Manning, against the wishes of his own Defense Secretary and legislators from both parties. Had Private Manning been convicted of treason, as was he/she originally charged, he/she might have faced the death penalty, but he/she pled down these charges in a bargained agreement that sentenced him/her to thirty-five years, instead. Now, thanks to the outright treachery of Barack Obama, Bradley will walk out of prison having served less than seven years.
Since his “apology tour” in the early months of 2009, in a host of actions regarding his use of multiple federal agencies to target his political opponents, in the foreign policies he has pursued, in the domestic policies and use of executive orders that have effectively stymied small business in particular, Barack Obama has spent the entirety of his presidency lowering the standing of the United States in the world, in order to vouchsafe his assertion that the United States is anything but exceptional. Worse, his actions regarding issues of race have largely set this country back sixty years, as evidenced by the rise of Black Lives Matter and the increasing level of police killings across the country- both of which can be traced to how he handled riots in Ferguson and Baltimore, as well as his reaction to the 2009 arrest of Louis Gates. Despite what has been reported as his own personal popularity, based upon polls conducted by the same entities which guaranteed Hillary Clinton’s victory, it is also no stretch to say that, as president, Obama has consistently not acted in the best interests of America. Given the abject failure of his signature Affordable Care Act, Obama’s historical accomplishments (i.e. his legacy) as president basically boil down to having been elected the nation’s first black president, and little else.
As of this writing, sixty Democrats in the House of Representatives (one third of the entire Democrat caucus in that chamber) have determined to boycott the inauguration of Obama’s successor, Donald J. Trump, in the final few days before what is supposed to be an orderly and peaceful transition of presidential power. What these reprehensible representatives are doing is nothing short of the betrayal of the United States Constitution they have sworn to uphold, and by such actions they have thus betrayed the constituents they represent, in their petulant and pathetic protest of Trump’s presidency. Not unlike the actions of Private Manning, who clearly violated his/her own vows to defend the Constitution by releasing classified information to WikiLeaks in 2010, these congressmen and congresswomen have effectively told their constituents that allegiance to their political party (forgive the term) trumps their allegiance to the country, at large.
As evidenced by the way President-elect Trump has reached out to his opponents, both Republican and Democrat, the new president will ultimately rise above the scorn with which these Democrats have held him- not that they deserve any further regard from him. The fact of the matter is that Trump can pursue his agenda without their help, assuming a united Republican caucus in both chambers of Congress, and when the time comes for these sixty reprobates to run for re-election, their constituents would do well to remember that, when the time came for the country to be reunited, if only for a day, they were nowhere to be found. Furthermore, as President Obama exits the White House, smug in the sense of his own flawlessness, the country can look forward to transcending his ultimate failure to faithfully serve the people who put him in office.
Deplorable for the Ages- the Opposition and its Response to Trump’s Inauguration
Well, this much is certain.
The Democrats including President Obama, himself, their collusive allies in the mainstream media, Obama’s appointees to the nation’s intelligence communities, and even Republicans who worked against his candidacy from its start, have done everything they could do, to cast aspersions on Donald Trump’s presidency and besmirch him the office he has quite fairly and legitimately earned, in a election landslide of electoral votes. They have blamed, in the weeks which have followed Trump’s election, FBI Director James Comey, the Russians, the electoral college system itself, and even (get this) the media, to explain how it was, that he won and how they lost an election they assumed was in the bag. They have set upon Trump’s cabinet designees, grilling them on Donald Trump’s statements and positions to allege internal division and incompetence, and have even sunk to slandering Jeff Sessoms, specifically, accusing him of racism- all for the sole purpose of trashing the nation’s forty-fifth president in the week(s) before he takes office.
Some have even accused the president-elect of being a de facto agent of the Russian Federation, under the direct threat of blackmail on the part of Vladimir Putin. Most recently, Representative John Lewis (D-GA) has accused Trump of being illegitimate to the presidency itself, blaming his election and Hillary Clinton’s “destroyed candidacy” on the Russian involvement. As of this writing, twenty-six of his fellow Democrats in the Congress have thus far indicated that they will boycott the inauguration in protest to his presidency.
If all of this sounds eerily familiar- it should. This same tactic of seeking to deny Trump’s existential and legitimate claim to the nation’s highest office is not unlike the Palestinian (btw, generally supported by Democrats) tactic of denying Israel’s existential right to exist.
In essence, to deny Trump the respect of the office of the presidency, itself, is to violate the spirit and the dictates of the Constitution, itself. Not that it would matter to those who place their party above the nation. Interestingly enough, Rep. Lewis has also boycotted both of George W. Bush’s inaugurations, and has accused every past Republican nominee of varying degrees of racism, essentially selling out his civil rights bona fides in such acts of sheer partisanship. Conveniently, it also gives Rep. Lewis and his fellow Democrats an excuse to be entirely uncooperative to work with President Trump going forward, which is exactly what they were instructed to do by President Barack Obama, in his farewell speech to a crowd of supporters in Chicago, when he admonished them to offer no help to Republicans on healthcare, and other issues.
It is no stretch to imagine that if Republicans had greeted Obama’s election in such a way, back in 2008 (and 2012) by boycotting his inauguration(s), they would have been pilloried with accusations of racism and would have likely been censured for doing so.
For his own part, President Obama has attempted to put the “schneid” on Trump, using his last few weeks to join the world in condemning Israel- a first for the U.S. (abstaining on the recent UN resolution), suddenly placing sanctions on the Russian Federation more than a year after he learned of their hacking on the Democratic National Committee, and freeing an ever growing number of Guantanamo detainees to countries which have no intention of keeping them off the battlefield.
Obama’s and, for that matter, Hillary Clinton’s acolytes in the Democrat Party- a party which has lost over one thousand seats in the state houses, governorships and Congress, combined, since Obama took office in 2009- now deign to lower themselves even more, in their petulant postulations and pathetic protests to the presidency of his successor.
So incensed that one Donald J. Trump had the temerity and guile, to upset their intent to have Hillary crowned, that most in the mainstream media and in the entertainment industry have collectively placed an evil eye of scorn and damnation on the man before he even takes office. For its own part, the mainstream media has given voice to trash news, following the release of classified documents to BuzzFeed- documents so fallacious that they should never have been given credence in the first place by the CIA, whose director, John Brennan has assailed Trump in a manner most unbefitting his office.
Worse, all of the aforementioned have demonstrated unquestionable contempt for the citizens of this nation, both those who voted for and against its forty-fifth president, by demonstrating ill will and wretched disregard for the president who was elected by the people, themselves.
Mark that history will record that all of this will have ushered in the beginning of the end to the Democrat Party, itself, and specifically for what it has become, in these last years. In their deplorable behavior, they have thus de-legitimized themselves to the consequences of their own demagoguery. Good riddance to them all.
With eleven days remaining before his inauguration as the forty-fifth President of the United States, Donald Trump is about to embark upon the most difficult job he has ever undertaken.
Unlike his immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, Trump managed to win the election without the help of an adoring media- the same advantage enjoyed by Bill Clinton in 1992. Unlike Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, he managed to win the election without the trappings of a political dynasty going back to Bush’s grandfather, Senator Prescott Bush (R-CT) who, in turn, paved the political path for his own son, George H. W. Bush, to eventually win the presidency on the coattails of his own predecessor, Ronald Reagan. Unlike Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, Reagan or Reagan’s predecessor, Jimmy Carter, Donald Trump won the election without having served as a state’s governor. Trump won the presidency without having served as a U.S. senator, as in the case of Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy and Harry S. Truman. In fact, no president has ever been elected with less political experience than has Donald J. Trump, going all the way back to the nation’s first president, George Washington…
Yet, while his political opponents continue to beat the demagogic drum that he is therefore “totally unprepared” to enter the Oval Office, the very same people don’t realize (or are willing to admit) that “the Donald,” in a very real sense, has been preparing for this job since 1971, when he first took charge of his family’s real estate and construction firm. Practically everything he has done in the forty-five years hence, has enabled him to hone the skills necessary to win a national election, against all of the formidable odds stacked against him, and will likely serve to pave the way towards a successful stewardship of the nation’s highest office.
From his own project management of New York City’s Wollman ice skating rink’s refurbishment, to the many high-profile hotels, sky-scraping office buildings, resort casinos and golf courses bearing his name, from his television success with “The Apprentice,” to his entry into both the sporting and beauty pageant arenas, and from his own branding of a host of products, and even into the world of publishing, with his best-seller, “The Art of the Deal”, with rare exception, virtually everything in which the president-elect has been involved has proved to be an incredible success. Having mastered the skills of contract negotiation, project implementation and public relations, it can also be argued that Donald Trump has achieved more personal and professional success, than any president who has ever served as president.
While others have largely talked their way into the presidency, Donald Trump has achieved entry into the White House through determination, hard work and an unfettered focus on getting real results through his own actions- and he has done so, much to the chagrin of professional politicians, the mainstream media and politicos from both major parties.
Now, as he prepares to take office, the real work of leading a decidedly-divided country begins. Among the challenges he faces…
Repealing and replacing the abject national failure known as ObamaCare
Reforming the tax code which has only served special interests and has also sent a substantial part of our national wealth overseas
Eliminating reprehensible and restrictive regulations that have only served to impair entrepreneurship, commerce, prosperity and energy independence
Establishing a domestic and foreign policy agenda which places American interests ahead of a globalist agenda, which has all too often cost far too much in terms of national treasure and bloodshed, alike
Renegotiating trade deals which have only served to export jobs and outsource manufacturing
Regaining judicial restraint in the United States Supreme Court
Defeating radical Islamic extremism, both here at home and throughout the world
Restoring national unity and healing the divisions that have been the unfortunate offspring of political correctness, for decades
These are but a few of the challenges which now face this nation and the new president, as he prepares to enter the Oval Office. It is a daunting and ponderous list, indeed, and one that is seemingly beyond the capabilities of most mortals but, then again, there has never been a mortal like one Donald Trump.
The Official (…or maybe not so…) Unlikely Predictions for 2017, and Beyond…
A year ago today, we posted a decidedly satirical and sardonic list of unlikely predictions for 2016 ( http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=445 ). Oddly enough, on close inspection, much of the content within many of these predictions actually came true, in one way or another. So this year, we thought we might offer our perhaps-not-so-unlikely predictions for next year, and the extended near future beyond…
In September of 2017, Barron Trump, having been recently enrolled in a prestigious and elite preparatory school located in Washington D.C., will enter the school on his first day, amid a ton of media coverage, wearing a navy blue blazer with the school’s crest on its pocket, and a necktie striped in the school’s colors. The videos broadcast that morning prompt a frenzy of pre-teen and early teen-aged girls who have suddenly developed a crush on him, and that leads to his being designated as the next teen idol, as noted in teen-targeted magazines.
Also in September, 2017, former President Barack Obama publishes his first post-election book, a memoir of his years in the White House. The book, entitled “The Perils of Perfection- the Presidency of Barack Obama,” and by year’s end, surprisingly becomes listed in the New York Times best-seller list, but in the fiction category- the first for a book pretending to be non-fiction.
Dateline October, 2017- In a narrow 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court rules against the findings of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, on a suit by Hillary Clinton which attempted to overturn the results of the 2016 election, based on the premise that it was the Russians who set up her private server without her knowledge, and who fabricated all of the e-mails her lawyers had deleted in the first place, and which prompted the FBI investigation which she further alleges cost her the election. In their dissent, Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagen and Breyer, note that exceptions should be made for former first ladies who otherwise “deserve to be president.”
Also, in October of 2017, Wal-Mart announces the closure of one-fifth of its stores, nationwide, as the result of price increases on Chinese imports, caused by first-time tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, at the same percentage that China has imposed on U.S. imports, for decades.
In December of 2017, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady announces that this season will be his last and hopes to play out the end of his career in Super Bowl LII.
By the end of 2017, it is noted that only one of the many celebrities who threatened to leave the United States and move to Canada if Donald Trump was elected, actually moved to Canada. It is suspected that Miley Cyrus did so, to avoid charges in District Court, stemming from her giving the finger to a judge who fined her for failure to stop at a red light on Hollywood Boulevard.
The end of 2017 also brings on the announcement that Hillary Rodham Clinton is legally separating from her husband, William Jefferson Clinton. In the early months of 2018, she files for divorce when it is revealed that the former president is now an expectant father, along with his girlfriend Lindsay Lohan.
The 2019 Major League Baseball Season begins with the announcement that Cal Ripken, Jr. has purchased the Baltimore Orioles from Attorney Peter Angelos. Promising to return the Orioles to post season play, Ripken announces that former manager Buck Showalter will be named general manager, and that Miguel Tejada will be named manager. Brother Billy Ripken will direct the Orioles’ farm organization.
In July, 2019, former first lady Michelle Obama announces on “the View” that she is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, to the delight and tearful pleasure of Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg. Later that year, it is reported that she made the announcement against the wishes of her own immediate family, who wants to remain “chillin’” in Hawaii.
In the run-up to Donald Trump’s re-election bid in 2020, the most popular prime-time show on cable and satellite television is “Being Barron,” starring Barron Trump, himself, and featuring his teen-aged and teasing take on living in the White House. Young Barron proves to be a comic genius in the cadence and timing of his monologues, and he reads some of his fan mail (mostly from girls) in a segment of the weekly show. At the end of each episode, the signature send-off shows Barron rolling his eyes, at the sound of his mother Melania (unseen), telling him that it’s time to turn off the TV and to get ready for bed. The proceeds of the show funds programs which allow under-privileged and at-risk teens to attend charter and other private schools, and then draws ire from the teachers’ unions and Democrats in the House and Senate.
The fall election of 2020 sees the re-election of President Trump, who wins in forty of the fifty states, garnering 334 electoral votes to Elizabeth Warren’s 204. This immediately prompts demands for a recount by Democrats, and amid allegations that Trump stole the election, the final results have Trump winning 339 electoral votes to Warren’s 199. Efforts by Hollywood to urge Republican electors to swing the vote to Warren prove infantile as well as impotent, once again.
As 2020 comes to a close, it is announced that Lucas Films will launch the next anticipated blockbuster in the Star Wars franchise, entitled “Young Obi Wan- the making of a Jedi.” Starring Barron Trump as the young Obi Wan, the announcement is made alongside the President, who predicts that the gate receipts for the film will be “YUGE.” In a separate statement, First Lady Melania Trump indicates that Barron’s scenes will only be filmed during the 2021 summer vacation, so as not to interfere with Barron’s education.
Dateline November, 2021- The Supreme Court unanimously rules that all persons having been fined for not carrying health insurance during the time when such persons fell under the regulations of the now long-defunct Affordable Care Act (also known as Obama Care), are due a refund with interest on the fines that were paid, originally. In a related case, the Supreme Court also rules that all elected officials, including the president, are subject to the same regulations regarding health care, as the public at large.
A 2023 segment of the new hit show “Fallen Stars Back in Reality” shows one-time star Miley Cyrus working as a cook aboard a Canadian commercial fishing vessel. It turns out that the Canadian government finally allowed her to remain in Canada, on the condition that she remains offshore.
In April, 2024, former President William Jefferson Clinton publishes a tell-all memoir entitled “The Hell of Living with Hillary Clinton.” The former first lady files a defamation and libel suit against her former husband indicating, among other things, that finally, it was his fault she lost the 2016 election. In the eight years that has followed her defeat in the 2016 election, she has yet to admit that she had anything whatsoever to do with the loss.
July, 2024- Boeing finally delivers the all-new Air Force One, at a cost of $3.5 billion dollars. After riding aboard the plane on its maiden voyage, President Trump tweets “It’s pretty nice, but my own plane is nicer, so I am going to keep traveling on ‘Trump Force One’ – besides, I won’t have to give it up when I leave office.”
In January of 2026, the Baltimore Colts defeat the Indianapolis Ravens in an AFC Championship contest that no one anticipated would ever be played. Baltimore goes on to defeat the NFC Champion Washington INAs (Indigenous Native-Americans) in Super Bowl LXI.
So that’s the way it is, or might be, in the new year of 2017, and beyond.
This is your intrepid commentator, Drew Nickell, reporting…
In the final few vestiges of the year that was 2016, we pause to review all that occurred, and what developed into becoming, a very consequential year in the course of our national journey.
As the year began in January last, we started to see the potential of damage wrought through the president’s use of executive orders, and took heed in Barack Obama’s clandestine and overt war on the second amendment. Following the president’s divisive and final state of the union speech, our focus was on the Charleston debate and the setting of the table for the GOP nomination.
In February, we unexpectedly said goodbye to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and pondered the ramifications of his passing on the short- and long-term direction of the nation’s highest court. The debates for the GOP nomination continued onward, and during the ensuing debates, we started to see the inexorable dominance of Donald Trump, as evidenced by strong showings in the Iowa caucus and decisive wins in the New Hampshire, Nevada and Virginia primaries. On the Democrat’s side, we started to sense that all was not right with the uneven scales, in the way the Democratic National Committee and the media were managing the insurgence of Bernie Sanders as an alternative to their intended nominee, Hillary Clinton.
In March, Donald Trump’s successful run through the “Super Tuesday” primaries and caucuses sent chills through the mainstream media and the NeverTrump Republicans allayed against his candidacy, both of whom could no longer deny what we knew for the preceding nine months- that the Republican nomination was his to lose. The election campaign itself took an ugly turn in the streets of Chicago as paid protesters, (funded by George Soros and coordinated by Obama’s early mentor, Bill Ayers) bent on wreaking havoc, forced a cancellation of a Trump rally in that city. Anti-Trump Republicans continued to try in vain, to sack the candidacy of their leading candidate with much help from the mainstream media, but the Trump train continued on, despite these efforts to be derailed.
In April, as Trump continued his strategy to eliminate, one by one, his sixteen rivals for the GOP nomination, we saw President Obama in London, arrogantly attempting to “school” British voters on how they should abide by his wishes, and cast their votes accordingly, in the upcoming referendum on their continued membership in the European Union.
In May, Trump continued his path to victory in the quest for the Republican nomination, while the sitting president decided that it was a matter of national urgency to re-direct where its citizens relieve their…ahem…“urgencies”.
In June, we were forced to face the facts of Barack Obama’s failure to defeat or, for that matter, even name Islamic Extremism- both here and around the world. Donald Trump locked up his nomination long before his eventual Democrat rival, revealing the truth that the media had it wrong, all along, regarding what was inevitable and in which party, this inevitability truly existed. As a harbinger of things to come, British voters defied the “experts” and pollsters (not to mention Obama), voting to leave the European Union, much to the chagrin of globalists in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Bitter warnings of market backlashes, in the wake of this upset, proved to be unfounded, as would the forecasting of similar dire results in the markets, five months later.
In July, the “fix was in” on the investigation of criminal behavior by Hillary Clinton, as Attorney General Loretta Lynch met with former President Bill Clinton just a few days before her FBI Director, James Comey, announced that, despite a litany of wrongdoings by the former Secretary of State, he would not recommend any charges against her. The nominating conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia certified the respective nominations of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, but nevertheless revealed continued fracture of both parties, thanks to NeverTrump Republicans attempting to spoil Trump’s win and the revelation of collusion between the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
In August, following these conventions, the mainstream media began pronouncing that Hillary Clinton was certain to win the general election regardless of the number of Trump’s post-convention rallies consistently drawing in the tens of thousands, juxtaposed against Hillary’s extended time off and frequent absences on the campaign trail.
September saw Hillary’s continued part-time approach to the fall campaign, as she preferred lavish fund raisers to campaign rallies being manned by Obama, her running mate, Tim Kaine and other supporters within her party. It was at one of these fund-raisers that she revealed her true feelings about the American people, labeling Trump supporters in what she viewed as a “basket of deplorables.” Later that month, the first debate was held between Donald Trump and the tag team of Hillary Clinton and “moderator” Lester Holt.
October’s release of an eleven-year-old “open-mic” recording of Donald Trump yucking it up with NBC’s Billy Bush, gave anti-Trump Republicans an excuse to bail on their nominee, and gave the Democrats and their allies in the major media much fodder to spread the notion that Donald Trump was just too misogynistic and sexist to ever become president. All the while, they kept pounding it into our heads that there was simply no path for Trump to win the electoral college, despite the fact that it was Trump who continued to improve his performance in the remaining debates- despite adverse “moderation” from Hillary’s supporting cast of supposedly even-handed debate moderators.
November began with continued polling and “expert” commentary that there was no path for Donald Trump to win the election. Then, in the wee small hours of Wednesday morning, November 9th, Donald Trump won the election, garnering 306 electoral votes to Hillary’s 232. The result of this upset sent shock waves throughout the mainstream media and even into the streets, while demands for recounts and allegations of Russian tampering all failed to deny Trump’s election to the presidency. Further attempts to malign and cast aspersions on Trump’s win, in characterizing his cabinet-selection process in “a state of disarray” only served to make all of the pundits and politicos look even more foolish, as Trump filled his cabinet slots faster than any of his ten elected predecessors.
In December, further attempts to deny Trump’s presidency entered into “the theatre of the absurd,” with celebrities trying to convince the Electoral College to overturn the results. These efforts cost Trump only two electoral votes, while costing Hillary Clinton five electoral votes, in the end. As we observed the 75th anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor, we were told by President Obama’s press secretary, Josh Earnest, those American survivors of the attack who still bore a grudge towards their Japanese attackers, needed to “get over it.” Then, just on the eve of Hanukkah’s beginning, and on Christmas eve, itself, President Obama orchestrated a first-time-ever abstention of a United Nations vote to condemn Israel, for settlements in the West Bank and Israeli presence in parts of Jerusalem, effectively proscribing Jewish prayers at the Western Wall- all in an effort to stick it to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli people and further seek to sabotage the foreign policy of the incoming administration. Typically, he left for an extended vacation in Hawaii days before his UN Ambassador, Samantha Power, wielded the knife of his own treachery.
As we usher in the new year, we all must ponder what a year it was, indeed !
Drew Nickell is back on the Radio Today, December 22, 2016
Today, Thursday, December 22nd from 1:00 to 2:00, EST, Drew Nickell will be sitting in for Nora Firestone on the “Nora Firestone Show,” on WKQA Freedom 1110, on your Hampton Roads (VA) AM dial. During this hour-long broadcast, he’ll be discussing the 2016 Presidential Election- what lead up to it, what has happened since, and what we can expect, as a result. If you can’t tune in, here is the hyperlink to the live-streamed broadcast. We hope you’ll tune in, and don’t forget to call in, at (757) 222-3705 !
A Christmas Appeal- (a Star is a Terrible Thing to Waste)
All over Southern California, and in the suites of New York, many hundreds of celebrities, distraught over the results of this year’s election, are feeling lost and abandoned in the realization that their appeals have gone unanswered. Many dozens of these same celebrities, threatened to leave our country if Donald Trump was to be elected president. Some even took to the airwaves to appeal to Republican electors to do what they saw as the right thing to do, and flip their votes to Hillary Clinton but sadly for them, their appeals went in vain, and even more of Hillary Clinton’s electors went “rogue” than did Mr. Trump’s, in the end.
Now, dejected, despondent and discouraged that their sense of broad appeal was not so broad, and that their influence over the masses was an illusion, not based in the reality of a fan base they found to be waning and wanting. Faced with the certainty that they have failed, in the end, to realize their dream of a Hillary Christmas, and faced with the prospect that Donald Trump will indeed be president, these same celebrities now need your help in keeping the promise to vacate the premises of a country that has gone against them.
In this festive season, where we open our hearts and give of ourselves, won’t you give to UNICREF, the United Celebrity Relocation and Expatriation Fund ?
After all, a star is a terrible thing to waste, and for them, defeat is a terrible thing to taste.
Barack and Hillary’s Top Ten Reasons Hillary Lost the 2016 Presidential Election
All thirty of the states whose electors were awarded to Trump are filled with what Hillary would call the “basket of deplorables” and it is only in the “blue” states that “enlightened” people reside.
Vladimir Putin rigged the election towards Donald Trump because he has been so cowered by Barack Obama’s forcefulness and resolve, that he was afraid Hillary might even be more so.
WikiLeaks rigged the election towards Donald Trump because, at heart, they are right-wing extremists who would prefer a Republican to a Democrat.
The mainstream media was overtly biased against Hillary, just because she is a woman, just as much as they were biased against Barack Obama, just because he is African-American.
Donald Trump conspired with members of the mainstream media, and the Democrat National Committee, to have Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile write e-mails that appeared to be biased against Bernie Sanders’ candidacy, when Hillary really wanted him to be treated fairly.
Donald Trump’s children tried to show that they had real class, when actually all of them were in cahoots with Chelsea Clinton to keep her own father from returning to the White House, where teenage interns would once again be set upon.
Donald Trump utilized all of his real estate and entertainment friends- particularly all of his friends in Hollywood, to air ads pretending to support Hillary Clinton, but knowing full well that the public would do the opposite, instead.
Donald Trump put his own name on major hotels and resorts, just to evade campaign finance election laws pertaining to advertising.
The FBI, the CIA, the IRS and all of the bureaucrats in Washington really conspired against Hillary Clinton, by pretending to conspire against Donald Trump, knowing that the public is so disenchanted with Washington that they would vote in opposition, instead. This method is called cross-quasi-triangulation by conspiracy theorists. Anyone who is adept in trigonometry can easily figure this out.
Barack Obama knew that the only way his own popularity ratings would go up at the end of his term, was to have his protégé, Hillary Clinton, lose the election.
Now what’s all of this crap about “fake news,” anyway?
To Those Who Would Cast Aspersions on the Election of Donald Trump
No matter how hard the forces still allayed against him try, with all their might to deny him the presidency, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the forty-fifth President of the United States at noon on Friday, January 20th, 2017.
For the sake of clarity, we will state it again.
Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the forty-fifth President of the United States at noon on Friday, January 20th, 2017.
Whether one is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, a stubborn “NeverTrump” Rattlesnake Republican, a Bernie Sanders socialist, a stick-with-her-to-the-hilt Hillary Clinton sycophant, an elitist we-know-better-than-you political pundit, a so-called scientific pollster, an inside-the-beltway politico, or a consummate conspiracy theorist, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the forty-fifth President of the United States at noon on Friday, January 20th, 2017.
On Monday, December 19th 2016, the Electoral College will convene to certify that Donald Trump won the 2016 Presidential Election with 306 electoral votes, 36 more than the 270 electoral votes necessary to win, and that Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 Presidential Election with 232 electoral votes, 38 less than the 270 Electoral votes necessary to win. The idea that enough presidential electors will go against their mandates, and summarily reverse the outcome on that day, is nothing more than pure presidential and political poppycock. Suffice to say that it would be more likely (and to some, even more desirable) that the Indianapolis Colts and the Baltimore Ravens will suddenly decide to swap team names, just so the Colts could return to the city where they began playing in the All-American Football Conference in 1947, and where the reincarnated Colts resumed NFL play in 1953.
Oh, we all can bet the farm on the fact that all of the forces allayed against Trump will do their level best to cast aspersions on his uncanny victory, for the four or eight years that he will serve as president, just as the similar forces did their level best to cast aspersions on George Bush’s wins in 2000 and 2004, and even Ronald Reagan’s wins in 1980 and 1984. Demands for recounts will inevitably show that even more people voted for Trump than the official vote tallies thus far reported, but the machinations of the disenchanted won’t stop there. Trump’s enemies will claim that the Russians somehow rigged the election itself (they didn’t), that the Russians hacked the e-mails of the Democratic National Committee, members of the mainstream media and Hillary Clinton just to make her look bad (despite the fact that it was operatives in the DNC, representatives of the mainstream media and Mrs. Clinton who authored these same e-mails in the first place), and that Donald Trump has far too many potential conflicts of interest to become president (he doesn’t). Amazingly, all of these same people who so vehemently oppose Trump’s inauguration had absolutely no problems with fraudulent voting that ran rampant in Barack Obama’s first election in 2008, had no uneasiness about the authenticity (or lack, thereof) of Barack Obama’s birth certificate, and had no qualms about the sealing of his academic and collegiate records which might have otherwise indicated a foreign birth…
…in a word, hypocrisy.
While there are those who think that Mr. Trump is the most divisive president ever elected in the history of the United States, these same ignoramuses don’t know their infernal regions from a hole in the ground…nor do they know their own country’s history.
Once upon a time, it was recorded that an elected president who won only 39.8 percent of the popular vote, and who was so opposed, so hated and so reviled by a large portion of the American electorate- one who even assembled his cabinet with many who were aligned against his presidency in the first place, that it touched off the costliest war in American history. His name was Abraham Lincoln.
Does anyone with any shred of sense believe that Donald Trump’s election and subsequent inauguration will touch off another civil war in the United States?
Let them hear this loud and clear…
… Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the forty-fifth President of the United States at noon on Friday, January 20th, 2017.
A Path to Presidential Success- the Master Cabinetry of Donald Trump
One look into the comings and goings at the New York’s Trump Tower, since its namesake was elected president, and one could easily conclude that the president-elect is willing to meet with anyone and everyone, friend or foe.
Mitt Romney, Bill de Blasio, Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Gore…these are not what anyone would call Trump supporters…and yet, “the Donald” was willing to sit down with each of them at length, ask probing questions and have substantive discussions with each of these erstwhile political foes. While sending the mainstream media into an absolute “tizzy,” and thus prompting fallacious stories about how Mr. Trump is supposedly turning his back on the base of supporters who elected him president, once again it is Donald Trump who is plodding along and, as before, is enabling this same mainstream media to make themselves look foolish, at the end of the day.
What the media does not understand about Trump is that he is not a politician, but rather a business executive- one who is willing to listen to even his fiercest competitor in order to gain a competitive edge and understand all viewpoints prior to making the best decision.
Take for instance his meetings with Messrs. DiCaprio and Gore. Staunch environmentalists both- environmentalists in the extreme sense of the word, to boot. Both of these men reported having substantive, probing and thoughtful discussions with the president elect. Yet, when it came to announcing his choice for heading the Environmental Protection Agency, it was Donald Trump who named the Attorney General of Oklahoma, one Scott Pruitt, a noted skeptic of man-made climate change- the antithesis of whom either DiCaprio or Gore would have preferred.
While the mainstream media and all of the political pundits are busy musing as to the method behind his madness, Donald Trump knows all-too-well that the best way to defeat the opposition is to step into their shoes, see the world the way they see it, and arrive upon the best way to succeed in overcoming this opposition…
…in a word, brilliant.
One look into the choices President-elect Trump has made in his final selections to fill these posts, and one sees the makings of a cabinet that might well be the best presidential cabinet crafted in the last several decades. The fact that Mr. Trump is willing to seek personnel well outside the politicos in Washington, and even consider the appointment of onetime rivals and outright opponents to his own candidacy, shows that he is a man who is sage enough to look past the squabbles of campaign rhetoric in order to find the best men and women to fit the positions he needs to fill. Much to the chagrin of the “NeverTrump” so-called conservatives within his own Republican party, the choices he has made thus far have been, in a word, conservative, to a degree that Ronald Reagan’s cabinet never was.
Compare this to that of his immediate predecessor. Barack Obama would no sooner sit down with his opponents, and hear them out, than he would get into a four-point stance against the Baltimore Ravens’ defensive line. In fact, it is doubtful that the sitting U.S. president listens much to his own cabinet (Valerie Jarrett, excepted), as even the legislators in his own party have repeatedly complained about the fact that he rarely consults them before making any decision. As he closes out the second of his two terms as president, Obama is still convinced that he is smarter than everyone in the room, smarter than everyone in Washington D.C. or, for that matter, everyone in the entire world. Just as his party’s candidate for president, Hillary Clinton, is unwilling to accept any responsibility for her own defeat at the polls, Barack Obama is quick to blame anyone and everyone else, including his own immediate predecessor, George W. Bush, for the shortcomings of his own presidency- a presidency which historians will note to be an abject failure, when all is said and done. The reasons for this are many, but suffice to say that President Barack Obama ultimately failed, due to the excess of his own ego in thinking it was he who knew better than anyone else. That’s fine for a university professor who holds the power of his students’ grades in his hands, but disastrous for a president who seeks to lead a nation and, namely, the world in which we live.
Donald Trump will succeed the way he has always succeeded, by listening and probing and negotiating and dealing. He will succeed by hard work, as evidenced by his career and his candidacy, and by his own determination to succeed in the face of opposition, just as he succeeded in winning the nomination of his party and, in the end, the presidency, itself.
And, for the record, he is off to one helluva start.
Diamond Anniversary in the Shadow of Diamond Head- a Pearl Harbor Remembrance
Seventy-five years ago today, December 7th, on what was supposed to be a quiet Sunday morning on the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands, the United States was thrust into war by a sudden and deliberate attack by the Japanese Empire. The attack began twelve minutes before 8:00 AM, local time, a full hour before the Japanese diplomatic delegation informed our government that ongoing negotiations- negotiations presumably aimed at the preservation of peace- would come to a cease, and that further discussions between the two nations would come to an abrupt end. In the two hours which followed, 2,471 souls lost their lives including 68 civilians, and an additional 1,213 were wounded- many suffering burns from the fires spawned in the air raid. Nineteen of our ships were sunk or severely damaged that morning, while 250 planes were destroyed or damaged, rendering our Pacific defenses all but powerless to fight back.
The logistics required to launch such an attack, by air and naval forces of the Japanese Empire, made it painfully obvious that plans for the attack had been made many months prior to that Sunday morning, thus revealing the treachery and duplicity of the Japanese government. What also became obvious was the very fact that, despite ominous signs that such an attack might soon take place, our own intelligence assets failed to adequately alert the military and naval command structures stationed on Oahu, in the days and weeks prior to that fateful Sunday morning.
Nestled into a false sense of security that the two mighty oceans which separated the United States from the eastern hemisphere, where two wars in Europe and in Asia were already well under way, the American people were largely united in their steadfast opposition to enter these conflicts, but all of that changed in a matter of hours on that dreadful day. It would be another four years before the largest and deadliest war ever fought would come to an end, a war which saw the death of some eighty-four million people.
Those sailors and soldiers, those airmen and marines, who managed to survive the attack on that Sunday morning, have largely gone on to join those who lost their lives that day. Those relatively few remaining are well into their nineties, and have witnessed first-hand the events which have shaped world history since that Sunday morning, seventy-five years ago. These tortured souls fear that their progeny- those of us who were born in the four generations which have followed, will soon forget the harsh lessons learned in the wake of the attacks on that day, for they know that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.
It is for this reason, above all, that we must remember Pearl Harbor on this day, and always.
Poisoning the Well in Post-Election Posturing by a Party Scorned
It wasn’t nearly enough that a candidate and her political party, their accomplices in the mainstream media citing all of the polls from the esteemed experts, so certain of her inevitability, that they ultimately lost to a man running largely on his own, backed only with the support of the millions wanting to change, and seek real change, in Washington, DC. A candidate done under, largely by her own illegal actions, repeated prevarications and ethical shortcomings, it had become obvious to Hillary Clinton, as early as Tuesday afternoon, November 8th, that she would not prevail in the electoral college- hence the reason she called off the planned fireworks display, in what was supposed to be the introduction of her victory celebration in New York.
Having conceded victory to her rival, Donald Trump, now she has decided to join forces with Jill Stein in demanding recounts that will change nothing- except to reinforce the proposition that Trump’s is an election without legitimacy. The idea is to deny the man elective legitimacy, and in so doing, poison the well of chances that the new president can achieve success in leading the nation. There are no losers like sore losers, and it is these two scorned women who cannot get past their own respective defeats, at the end of the day.
It wasn’t nearly enough that an incumbent president, who framed this year’s election as a referendum on his own presidency, smug in the certainty that his own sense of self perfection was something shared outside of himself and his mirror, was roundly rejected by a country dispirited by a combination of his own ineptitude, internationally, and the failure of his prized domestic program to deliver all that was promised in the passage of ObamaCare. The American people, regardless of what the mainstream media would have you otherwise believe, have effectively said that his presidency has grown stale, ineffective and ultimately a failure, in the end.
Now, Barack Obama travels the world, reinforcing the lie that foreign leaders should dread the new president, and therefore need his own reassurance that the United States will not have its values compromised by one man. Time was that partisanship ended at the shores of our country. Yet, rather than admit that it was his own presidency that ultimately led to the election of Donald Trump, Barack Obama wants to spend the remainder of his presidency poisoning the well of good will from abroad, and punishing the American people for what he sees as the betrayal of his own legacy. Unlike his predecessor, George W. Bush, who had the class, the decency and the sense of duty to refrain from criticizing his successor, Obama has promised to remain in Washington, there to speak out whenever Trump pursues a policy not to his liking. In effect, he seeks to poison the well of American exceptionalism long after he has left office.
It wasn’t nearly enough that most of the major media, so certain in the election of the candidate they championed, got proverbial eggs all over their collective faces, both from the collusion with the Clinton campaign, and the ultimate failure to faithfully report the news and the real mood of an American electorate. Their status, not good even prior to this year’s election, now lowered to the point of disdain and disrepute to the American public, and their viewership and readership will suffer as a result.
Now, they purport to be true and pursue false stories on a Trump transition team in crisis, when the truth is that Donald Trump is leading the way in the timely construction of his cabinet, as compared with his most immediate predecessors. Despite the media’s attempt to show a divide within his own transition team, by focusing on whether or not Mitt Romney will be named Secretary of State (on the record, we’re doubtful), and by raising questions as to the disposition of the financial empire that bears the new president’s name- questions that are the potential seeds of discontent, Donald Trump characteristically plods on, in the face of such scrutiny from a media which has grown more hostile in light of his election. By giving voice to the mobs rioting against his election, by giving airtime to initiatives to recount state elections, the media thus seeks to poison the well of public approval for a new president, even prior to his inauguration.
May Donald Trump be splendidly successful, if for no other reason than to spite all of those who seek to poison the well of hope that he achieves such success, in his own presidency.
That Donald Trump has shocked the world, and masterfully won the presidential election of 2016 is no longer in dispute, despite the rioting malcontents paid to express intolerance and lawlessly act out, purportedly on behalf of a party that preaches tolerance (well, their own, anyway). Furthermore, all of their ill-behavior changes nothing about who will take the oath of office on January 20th, 2017. Our guess is that they were merely a riot in search of a cause, that Donald Trump’s election filled the bill, and that they’ll act out again against something else when George Soros gives them a financial incentive to do so. In a word, pathetic are the losers who can face neither certainty nor reality.
Looking back on all that has transpired during the last year and a half, which culminated in the election of Donald Trump in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, November 9th, 2016, there are several and certain lessons that beg to be stated and, more importantly, must be remembered for the next presidential election, and the one after that:
First, the mainstream media is not to be trusted in any way, shape or form, to report on presidential campaigns to any degree of accuracy, nor without the bias attendant to acting as a propaganda wing for the Democratic nominee. Such overt bias, having continually worsened since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, it was this year’s election that proved, once and for all, that any Republican seeking the presidency does so in the face of an unfair, overtly biased and at times libelous press who seeks their defeat with every word they write. Therefore it is up to the voter to seek out information from other sources because the mainstream media warrants no such trust;
Second, presidential polls are worth about as much as screened portholes on a submarine, and are no more indicative of an electorate’s mood than wisdom coming from the wrong end of a bull, and should therefore be regarded in the same manner. Most, if not all, of the “scientific” forecasts had Hillary Clinton certain to win north of 300 electoral votes, and the complete opposite happened. (Brexit, anyone?) There’s a very simple way to know who is winning the presidential election…it’s the candidate who is not screaming nor coming across in an angry demeanor, as Hillary so profoundly displayed in her recent rallies;
Third, the voters who cast ballots for Donald Trump are neither ignorant, nor racist, nor sexist, nor xenophobic, nor Islamophobic, nor anti-LGBT, nor any other pejorative with which they have been accused, unless one is willing to accept that a plurality (yes, it will be shown that Donald Trump won the popular vote, too) of voters are ignorant, racist, sexist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, anti-LGBT, and all of those horrible things. Anyone who seriously believes that about the American people, should come to the conclusion that the United States is too intolerant to deserve their citizenship and should soon make arrangements to expatriate to another country, more to their liking;
Fourth, there is nothing wrong with the electoral college that cannot be fixed with a requirement that voters substantiate their right to vote with a picture identification card, which most states offer and all states should offer at no charge to anyone asking for it, provided that the person can substantiate their citizenship. Other countries require this and one must produce such identification to bank, board an airplane, drive a car, purchase a firearm, or secure gainful employment in this country, so there is nothing racist about requiring a state-issued voter ID card, either;
Fifth, the politics of incumbency and the powerful influence of money in the halls of Congress must, at long last, be put to an end. On a rotating basis, beginning with those who have served longest, term limits of three two-year terms for a representative, two six-year terms of a Senator, and twenty years for a Supreme Court justice must become the law of the land, by constitutional amendment. If the legislature refuses to act on this, then a convention of the states must bring this about. In addition, all forms of lobbying through an exchange of money must be declared illegal and, again if the legislature refuses to act on this, then a convention of the states must bring this about, as well;
Sixth, the illegitimate use of federal agencies and departments, including State, Treasury (including the IRS), and Justice (including the FBI), as a means to wage partisan political warfare must come to an end if the country is ever going to restore its trust in government. Any breach of this covenant must be dealt with severely and automatically become grounds for immediate termination of employment. If criminal violations occur in such scenarios, legal ramifications, including loss of pension and imprisonment must be in the offing for such offenses;
Seventh, the Presidential Commission on the Debates has shown to be incapable of impartially and judiciously selecting moderators for any presidential debate, and therefore should be completely done away with. Each party should select their own moderators for the debates during the nominating seasons, and then each party should select one moderator for each of the debates leading up to the election. The debates themselves need to return to the television studio so as to eliminate the possibility of audience involvement, and the format of the debate should resemble that of a high school forensic debate, as opposed to what we have witnessed in the last several elections;
Eighth, President Barack Obama has shown that an elected president can rule by executive order, but has also exposed the need that doing so must remain within Constitutional constraints, which has not been the case throughout his presidency. His insistence on doing so largely contributed to the election of a candidate who ran in opposition to his policies, and one who can undo all of these executive orders with a stroke of a pen on the afternoon following his inauguration, as we hope Mr. Trump will do;
Ninth, the myth that the candidate who has the most money to spend, or has the most organized ground game to utilize, or has the greatest backing of partisan power-players, is going to be the likely winner is pure bunk. Hillary Clinton had all these advantages and yet Donald Trump won the election handily. He did this through hard work, as evidenced by the number of campaign events he held on any given day, and by sheer determination to stand up against the forces allayed against him;
Tenth, nothing, NOTHING is ever a lock- not in sporting events, and certainly not in politics. Anyone who says otherwise is nothing more than the south end of a northbound horse, and gambles their credibility by doing so. Fortunes were lost in the waging rooms of Brexit, and fortunes were lost in the wagers on the results of this year’s presidential election. It’s easy to determine when a pundit has no idea what they are talking about…it’s the one who starts with “There’s no way…,” because, in the end, there is always a way.
Special Announcement – Drew Nickell to Participate in Hampton Roads Authorfest 2016 on Saturday & Sunday, 12-13 November 2016
For those of you living in Hampton Roads, otherwise known as “the 757,” Author, Blogger and Commentator Drew Nickell will be participating in Authorfest 2016 on Saturday, November 12th and Sunday, 13th, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers-Town Center, located at 4485 Virginia Beach Boulevard, Virginia Beach Virginia 23462. Drew will be doing live readings at 2:30 PM on Saturday, November 12th and on Sunday, November 13th at 10:00 AM, and will be available throughout the Authorfest to sign copies of his book, Bending Your Ear- A Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times, and discuss the 2016 Presidential Election and the implications of this election going forward.
Despite all of the forces allied against his candidacy, from its very start in June of 2015, businessman and real estate mogul Donald J. Trump was elected the forty-fifth president of the United States, having bested Hillary Clinton in thirty of the fifty United States. Winning seven of the eleven so-called “swing states,” his victory was sealed when he was awarded the presidential electors of Pennsylvania in the early hours of Wednesday, November 9th– a state that hasn’t gone Republican since 1988.
Not only did Trump defy all of the so-called experts, who were forecasting an electoral landslide of more than 300 electoral votes for Mrs. Clinton, as late as Tuesday afternoon, he has also effectively ended any future presidential aspirations on the part of the three ruling political families- the Bushes, the Clintons and the Obamas, who have held power since that same year of 1988. The dominance of these three families on their own respective parties, for longer than the last quarter-century, has been shattered on the rocks of a determined man- one who has never run for any political office, in his lifetime.
In doing so, he also managed to raise the curtain of decades-long mainstream media collusion with Democrats, in general, and the Clinton family, specifically, and has forced even the most vaunted experts of presidential polling to admit the error of their ways, and their inability to read the sentiments of an American electorate. Once derided as a “clown candidate,” condescendingly laughed at and scorned upon by political and media elites who viewed him and his supporters as what Hillary Clinton once called a “basket of deplorables,” it was Donald Trump who had the last laugh, in the end.
Today, the mainstream media speaks much about the “need” for Donald Trump to reach out, to mend fences and to engage his erstwhile adversaries- the Democrats and the “NeverTrump” Republicans, to join with him to form some kind of cooperative coalition as he enters into his own presidency. In reality, Donald Trump should outwardly and cordially treat these adversaries with a sense of presidential decorum, truly, but never fall into the foolish trap of entrusting any of these entities with his pursuit of an agenda with which they have taken so much issue. Having retained both houses of Congress, it is now up to the Republicans to work with Trump and start acting like an opposition party opposed to Democrats, instead of acting like Democrat-wannabes. Failure to do so will effectively end the Republican Party- a party whose beginning can be traced back to 1854.
Donald Trump is to be congratulated for an amazing win of historic and consequential proportions, but now the real work of all that he and his followers have sought, begins. It will not be easy to mend a broken nation and the challenges that he and the American people face will not easily be overcome.
Most urgently, he must bring about the immediate demise of ObamaCare. In doing so, he must work with the Congress to replace it with a new system that is designed to serve patients first- one that is not coercive with the sword of the IRS, but rather a consumer-focused system where open competition amongst several insurance providers, across state lines, keeps the costs of coverage within the financial grasp of working Americans.
Second, he must secure the borders of this country, ensure that those entering the United States are carefully vetted to assure the public safety, and ensure that any and all immigration is managed legally, competently, and professionally.
Thirdly, he must immediately begin the process of replacing the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, on the Supreme Court of the United States.
In the longer view, President Trump will be tasked with bringing together a divided country, one compoundly fractured along racial, religious, political and economic lines. This will no doubt take longer, given the enormous chasms that separate Americans from one another, but this must nevertheless be in the back of Mr. Trump’s mind in all of his decisions as he moves forward. With an emphasis towards American nationalism, so absent in the last twenty-eight years of an over-arching globalist agenda pursued by both parties, putting America and Americans first will go far in bringing the American people together, again.
There is much to do, Mr. Trump. On behalf of the American people, let’s get started…big league.
Election Day 2016 – Day of Decision, Day of Destiny
…and now it has come down to this…this day, this decision, and this destiny.
Today the United States will cast its ballots for the presidency of the United States, and never has more been at stake in the outcome of a presidential election than in this year of 2016. The distinction between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump could not possibly be greater- in terms of style, in terms of flawed ethos and pathos, in terms of policy and the direction in which each would take us.
Hillary Clinton, whose ambition is all-pervasive and is devoid of any ethical standard other than that which is self-seeking and self-serving, feels that the presidency is something that is owed to her. She is advantaged by the widespread and pervasive collusion of most all of the mainstream media, her campaign, the Democratic National Committee, President Obama’s State, Justice and Treasury departments, including senior levels of the IRS and the FBI, all working to ensure her ascendancy to the throne that they have fashioned for her. Not able to draw large crowds in her own right, she has relied on more popular acolytes within her own party, from presidents to the first lady, to musicians and celebrities, all in an attempt to draw people who would otherwise not bother to see her.
Donald Trump- theatrical, bombastic, combative and sometimes even abrasive- stands stubbornly against all of the forces set on his demise. He has endured enmity from the establishment globalists within his own party, in addition to all of the forces united against him as listed above, and has spent a king’s ransom of his own money in a quest to save this country from the abyss of its own excess. Somehow, he has again and again proved the experts wrong, and seeks to do this one more time. Without any help from former Republican presidents (all of whom are named “Bush,” by the way), nor from the GOP leadership in Congress, nor from any celebrities of note, he nevertheless has managed to draw in the tens of thousands, all by himself. He speaks to their frustrations and offers a voice to those who have been squeezed out of both prosperity and opportunity, at the hands of policies driven by both parties which benefit the few, at the expense of the many.
The one thing that unites all of the diverse powers set against Donald Trump may yet prove to be his own saving grace. As all of these forces have something to gain from the continuation of the status quo ante, no one represents the status quo of the past quarter century than does Hillary Clinton. All of these same forces are threatened by the election of Donald Trump, because his election would come at the cost of their own demise. Their vested interests, their proclaimed competency and prestige, and even their positions of power and influence would all come crashing down, atop their lofty egos. The fact is that Donald Trump scares the living hell out of the Clintons, the Obamas, the Bushes and most all of the major media because, if successful, he will have done so without their aid or influence and their days of relevance would be numbered. The many masses of the middle class hear his call for substantive change and are willing to climb aboard what they see as the last lifeboat to their country’s salvation.
Lost in all the hubris of what most certainly is the most contentious and acrimonious U. S. presidential election in more than a century, is the cold reality of what this election says about its electorate. In a way, this election- comprised of what may be the most detested candidates in history- is a reflection of who we are as a people and our understanding, or misunderstanding, of its short- and long-term ramifications.
To be precise, we are either a people unafraid to seize control of our own destiny as a republic, or we are the moronic marionettes marching in step to the pied piper of political posturing. A Trump victory will ascertain the former, and give this nation one last chance to fix what has long ailed us, while a Clinton victory will prove the latter and etch the letters of our own demise- both as a nation, and as a force for good in the cause of liberty and prosperity.
…something to consider as we head to the polls on this day, and for all time.
Several months back this writer predicted that, despite all of the mainstream media predictions, prognostications and, for that matter, professional polling to the contrary, Donald Trump would shock the entire world by winning the presidential election, hands down. We made this prediction and, for the record, will stand by this prediction one week before the election will formally take place on November 8th. We did this (and do this) because Donald Trump’s candidacy is a “movement” candidacy, as opposed to a strictly “partisan” candidacy, which has been the case for Republicans since the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term in 1989. Movement candidacies, such as Roosevelt’s in 1932 and Reagan’s in 1980, tend to be won by decisive margins, as opposed to partisan candidacies such as Kennedy’s in 1960 and George W. Bush’s in 2000, which were won by razor-thin margins, respectively.
The difference?
While partisan candidacies are typically candidacies run by inside partisan heir apparents, i.e. typical Democrat vs. Republican, movement candidacies are candidacies run by relative outsiders, answering a call for substantive and actual changes. While Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton is the ultimate partisan insider, running her campaign as the partisan Democrat she is, Republican Donald Trump is anything and everything but a partisan insider, much to the chagrin of Republican mainstreamers like the Bushes, John Kasich, and Mitt Romney, who remain intransigent that one of their “own” didn’t get the nod, and are having to feast upon the sour grapes of their own vineyard.
Our prediction of a Trump win is just that- a prediction, which is to say that it’s not a prognostication. Whereas a prediction, as the one offered here, is based upon one’s take of what is going on, a prognostication is more of a view into the near future, as if that future is somehow ordained by forces beyond our comprehension.
Only a fool, and a damned fool at that, would prognosticate a win by either candidate in this election of 2016.
What we can do, then, is offer up two post-election scenarios- a Hillary win and a Trump win.
A Hillary Clinton win will be essentially a continuation of the stalemate that exists between the House of Representatives and the White House, where nothing actually gets done and partisan bickering between the Oval office, backed by their partisan allies, and the Congress, lead by the opposing party, will continue to be an exercise in futility and a continuation of the rancor to which all of us have grown quite nauseated. Whereas Barack Obama, for instance, was able to begin his term with a brief “honeymoon,” Hillary Clinton will not have this luxury, thanks to the level of distrust she would carry into her inauguration, based upon the plethora of scandals that are the hallmark of her candidacy. This certainty would be sealed with either Barack Obama’s pardon of her, on the final day of his presidency, or her own de facto pardon of herself on the first day of her own presidency, which has the potential of impeachment proceedings if further FBI revelations of her wrongdoing come to the surface in the next several months.
A Trump win will more likely resemble the first term of a Roosevelt presidency or a Reagan presidency, where much legislative action is proposed and acted upon- especially during the first hundred days of Mr. Trump’s term. This would occur where even the most stubborn “NeverTrump” members of his own party resign themselves to the fact of his presidency and thereby seek to jump aboard the “Trump Train,” at long last. A Republican retention of the Senate majority would ensure that a substantial part of his platform, namely ending ObamaCare, would be in the offing.
The good news for Hillary Clinton is that, either way, she will not likely face legal ramifications for her own dirty deeds, as it is almost certain that Obama’s final act as president will be a full, unconditional pardon- especially if Trump wins. Obama would do so for no other reason than pure spite for an American people, who would have effectively decided that two terms of an Obama administration is quite enough.
The bad news for Hillary Clinton is that, if Trump should win, any new and substantive revelations about criminal activity discovered after the 20th of January 2017, would render Obama’s presidential pardon moot, and thus enable a Justice Department headed by Trump’s Attorney General to bring her and her husband justice, real justice, at long last.
The worse news for Hillary Clinton is that, if Trump should win, it is very likely that such post-inaugural revelations would eventually occur, since more is not known about the Clinton corruption than is known, at this point in time.
The good news for Donald Trump is that, should he lose the election, he can return to a relative life of ease and comfort, once again joining his children to manage their real estate and financial empire and thus returning him to the status quo ante he has enjoyed so much, over the years.
The not-so-comfortable-but-nevertheless-oh-so-gratifying news for Donald Trump is that, if our prediction holds true and he indeed wins the presidency, he will have an opportunity to make the fundamental changes he seeks and, at the same time, stick it to all of the professional politicos, pollsters and press by calling their so-called “expertise” into question, and serve up a career-ending crash of their own making.
Nothing would ice Trump’s inaugural cake sweeter than that…big league.
Anyone who has been following the Clintons for more than three decades knows that they are inherently corrupt, and that there are no bounds when it comes to the level and depth of their corruption- a corruption that is as pervasive as it is contagious.
We all knew about Hillary Clinton’s cattle futures, Whitewater, Travelgate, “Foster”-gate, how she handled the so-called “bimbo eruptions,” her e-mail and private server, Benghazi, etc., etc., ad nauseam. Thanks to the WikiLeaks release of the e-mails she ordered deleted, we have also come to know about the Democratic National Committee’s collusion to rig the nomination for her (sorry, Bernie Sanders), and how the one-time CNN commentator and now DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile gave her the heads up on questions prior to her debates with Sanders, and why Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Florida) was forced to resign her DNC Chair, only to become Hillary’s 50-state campaign chairwoman.
We have also come to know that the Clinton corruption has metastasized, and this “cancer of corruption” has spread into the Obama administration and has permeated the State Department, the Department of Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Justice, and even the Federal Bureau of Investigation- an agency which once prided itself from being immune to political contagion, but has become stained by political corruption at its highest levels.
The “cancer of corruption” has overtaken most, if not all, of the mainstream media in both print journalism and television broadcasting. Even Fox News- once thought to be “fair and balanced,” has largely become her surrogate as well, with few exceptions, namely Sean Hannity. Any Fox News broadcast hosted by Shepard Smith or Megyn Kelley bears this out, beyond any doubt, whatsoever. This corruption has even spread to much of the presidential polling, where oversampling of Democrat voters has been engineered to deliver pre-determined results, and it has been reported that many of the touch-screen balloting in Texas and elsewhere has been tampered with to the extent that early ballots cast for Donald Trump are being surreptitiously switched to Hillary Clinton, despite the denials of Texas election commissioners and Clinton’s allies in the mainstream media.
We also have learned that the Clinton Foundation has effectively become a conduit to enrich the Clintons (once “dead broke” when they left the White House, according to Hillary) beyond imagination, and even Clinton insiders are horrified that the foundation has been used to fatten Bill Clinton’s wallet, and has become nothing more than a conduit of influence by foreign governments to gain access to State Department favors, in exchange for cash contributions.
It is no stretch to say, as Donald Trump has said many times, that the entire election process is rigged beyond any and every doubt, and all of the derision he receives for saying so does not change the fact that our government and its institutions are now captive to a level of corruption that knows no bounds. Worse, unless Trump can manage to win this election, all of this corruption will become institutionalized and permanent with the election of Hillary Rodham Clinton as President of the United States…
…all of which makes this Hallowe’en of 2016 the scariest of all.
The Changes Needed- Trump Lays Out his Contract with the American People
Not that the mainstream media would ever report on something as substantive as actual issues in this election of 2016- especially when it comes to Donald J. Trump. After all, why would the mainstream media risk the election of their queen, Hillary Clinton, by reporting anything to do with substance when it comes to her opponent, who they despise even more than the idea that he might actually be elected president? Besides, it’s much more fun harping on unsubstantiated allegations by a dozen of her female supporters, that they were sexually assaulted by Trump years ago- allegations that have never surfaced prior to the last two weeks.
Nevertheless, it was Donald J. Trump who unveiled a substantive twenty-eight point plan to bring change, real change, to Washington, DC that would fundamentally change the relationship that government has with the people they are supposed to serve. In his Saturday address delivered in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump laid out a specific (did you get that, major media, specific ? ) agenda that he promises to initiate during the first hundred days of a Trump administration:
FIRST, Trump will propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress- 3 two-year terms for the House of Representatives and 2 six-year terms for the Senate;
SECOND, Trump will institute a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health);
THIRD, Trump will institute a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated;
FOURTH, Trump will institute a five-year ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service;
FIFTH, Trump will institute a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government;
SIXTH, Trump will institute a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections;
SEVENTH, Trump will announce his intention to renegotiate NAFTA, or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205;
EIGHTH, Trump will announce our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership;
NINTH, Trump will direct his Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator;
TENTH, Trump will direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers, and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately;
ELEVENTH, Trump will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of job-producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal;
TWELFTH, Trump will rescind the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward;
THIRTEENTH, Trump will cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use this money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure;
FOURTEENTH, Trump will cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama;
FIFTEENTH, Trump will begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia from one of the 20 judges on his list, justices who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States;
SIXTEENTH, Trump will cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities;
SEVENTEENTH, Trump will begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the country, and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back;
EIGHTEENTH, Trump will suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered “extreme” vetting;
NINETEENTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Middle Class Tax Relief and Simplification Act, an economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate. It will suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur.
TWENTIETH, Trump will submit to Congress the End the Offshoring Act, which establishes tariffs to discourage companies from laying off their workers, which enables them to relocate in other countries and ship their products back to the U.S. tax-free;
TWENTY-FIRST, Trump will submit to Congress the American Energy & Infrastructure Act, which leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral;
TWENTY-SECOND, Trump will submit to Congress the School Choice and Education Opportunity Act, which redirects education dollars to give parents the right to send their kids to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. This ends common core and brings education supervision to local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and makes 2- and 4-year college more affordable;
TWENTY-THIRD, Trump will submit to Congress the American Energy & Infrastructure Act, which leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral;
TWENTY-FOURTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act, which fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and allows the states to manage Medicaid funds. Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA: there are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want to speed the approval of life-saving medications;
TWENTY-FIFTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act, which allows Americans to deduct childcare and elder care from their taxes, incentivizes employers to provide on-site childcare services, and creates tax-free Dependent Care Savings Accounts for both young and elderly dependents, with matching contributions for low-income families;
TWENTY-SIXTH, Trump will submit to Congress the End Illegal Immigration Act, which fully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border with the full understanding that Mexico will reimburse the United States for the full cost of such wall; establishes a 2-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous deportation, and a 5-year mandatory minimum for illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor convictions or two or more prior deportations; also reforms visa rules to enhance penalties for overstaying and to ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first;
TWENTY-SEVENTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Restoring Community Safety Act, which reduces surging crime, drugs and violence by creating a task force on violent crime and increasing funding for programs that train and assist local police, increases resources for federal law enforcement agencies, authorizes federal prosecutors to dismantle criminal gangs and put violent offenders behind bars;
TWENTY-EIGHTH, Trump will submit to Congress the Clean Up Corruption in Washington Act, which enacts new ethics reforms to “drain the swamp” and reduce the corrupting influence of special interests on our politics.
Whether or not a President Trump can be successful in implementing any or all of the above is an open question, but at least he is offering a substantive plan to fix what has ailed our government for the past seven decades, and seeks to place our elected leaders under scrutiny of the American people.
Then again, voters who think that change, real change, is not needed in Washington DC still have the option to vote for Hillary Clinton, whose programs explicitly promise to continue the same-old, same-old strategies which have landed our country in the circumstances with which we find ourselves, today.
But don’t expect to hear about these differences from the mainstream media, who would much rather concentrate on sex, instead.
Viva Las Vegas – the Third and Final Debate of 2016
Not even the savviest of odds makers are able to predict what can and will occur in any debate featuring Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and such a maxim was substantiated last night, in the third and final debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Donald Trump was so thorough, so focused and, yes (dare we say it?) so presidential last night, that the mainstream media and the politically-correct classes united against his candidacy had to scramble, just to find one thing they could use, to once again slam his performance. In the end, they all had to resort to lying about what “the Donald” actually said when answering a question as to whether or not he would accept the outcome of the election on November 8th.
“I will look at it at the time,” Trump said. “I’m not looking at anything now. I’ll look at it at the time.”
When pressed for further clarity on this issue, Trump said, “We’ll find out on November 8th,” and added, “What I’m saying is that I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense, OK?”
Despite what was clearly meant to be a “we’ll wait and see” response, it was the media, starting with the anti-Trump host of The Kelley File, Megyn Kelley of Fox News, who indicated that “he would not accept the outcome of the election, regardless.” This meme was seized upon, by the forces allied against Trump, as an absolute repudiation of the electoral process, and an unprecedented and un-American response to a simple question, as if such a challenge never happened before.
Apparently, they all conveniently forgot the election of 2000, when Al Gore challenged the election results in a court of law, and that election was not conceded until just before Christmas, that year.
This “press prevarication” aside, the anchor of Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace, did a comparatively good job in moderating the debate, asking probing questions of both candidates, while seeking answers on their own respective controversies. Donald Trump addressed these concerns ably, while Hillary Clinton seemed somewhat astonished that a member of the media would actually challenge her in such a debate, and sought to spin her way, and in some cases, outright lie, to avoid addressing the challenges put forth.
Trump was focused and forthright, taking his case for change to the American people, and fully explaining where he and Mrs. Clinton differ on a host of issues relating to immigration, foreign policy, judicial appointments, gun rights, late-term abortion, ISIS and the economy. To this, it was Mrs. Clinton who merely reiterated the primary focus of her candidacy- that she is more qualified to be president, and that Trump is unfit to be president. She did this knowing that her own policy positions, which seem to play ping-pong on a continual basis, can neither be accurately ascertained (abortion excepted), nor accepted by the majority of voters. Worse, she completely dodged the issue that her campaign channeled money through the DNC, to pay protesters upwards of $1,500.00 apiece, to cause violent disruptions at Trump campaign rallies, and provoke fist-fights at these same events.
To everyone’s shock, it was Donald Trump who kept his composure, in the face of such adversity, and it was the all-too-practiced and robotic Hillary Clinton, who seemed to be on edge at times, as even she could not contain the nervous perspiration which otherwise belied her superficial iciness.
While the Democrats, the Clinton Campaign, the mainstream media and the establishment, never-Trump Republicans will all spend today, and the coming weeks, focusing on the lie that Donald will not accept the election results on November 8th, those who were watching and paying close attention to what actually took place at the University of Las Vegas Thomas & Mack Center, will know what Donald Trump really said, and that it was Donald Trump who won the debate, hands down.
There are even those who still maintain that Trump’s campaign is not a serious quest for the presidency- those who are astounded that the “not-so-serious” candidate has refused to concede the election, a little less three weeks before it takes place…
Overcoming the Odds and the Obstacles – On the Eve of the Final Debate
Despite the odds which were most assuredly stacked against them- a rebel force who took on the world’s most powerful army- it was on October 19th 1781, in Yorktown, Virginia, that the British army, under Lord Cornwallis, surrendered to the Continental army, under the command of George Washington. Cornwallis, a mastermind of military strategy, but with an Achilles heel of his own ego, could not stomach the thought of tendering his sword to this upstart rebel. So, he sent one of his senior officers to surrender His Majesty’s forces to General Washington, instead. As the ceremony occurred, the British army’s band played a familiar tune of its time, The World Turned Upside Down, noting the sheer irony and shock of that which was taking place on the shores of the York River. No one at the time had given the Continentals the slightest chance of winning, for everything seemed to be going against them, and yet…
* * *
Two hundred thirty-five years later, Donald Trump will be trying his best to defy all of the forces set against him, namely:
The mainstream media, who so overtly and blatantly do all they can to destroy his own candidacy, through coordinated “revelations” of women supporting Hillary Clinton who, suddenly on the same day, allege sexual improprieties on the part of Trump (never mentioned before, going back decades), and then protect their queen, Hillary Clinton, from any bit of news (WikiLeaks) that would otherwise call her into question;
The Clinton Campaign, who coordinates the attack on Trump by the mainstream media, utilizes key operatives in Obama’s State and Justice Departments, and even the FBI, to illegally inoculate Hillary Clinton from any legal repercussions for her actions while serving as Secretary of State, and thereafter;
The recalcitrant Republicans who would sooner see Hillary Clinton president, than to honor past pledges, and unite behind their only chance to save this country from Clinton-appointed justices, the threat of ISIS, the financial as well as medical disaster that is ObamaCare, or any hope of border security, all because of their own allegiance to a Bush-Clinton-Obama agenda, towards increasing globalization and one-world governance.
Into such maelstrom strides a lone, albeit brash, tour-de-force that is Donald Trump, with no one at his side to take up his cause, save for the tens of thousands who regularly show up at his rallies and the many millions of supporters who will be watching, on Wednesday night. The debate, ironically set in Las Vegas given the odds so heavily weighing against Trump, is to be moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday. Wallace, the son of longtime CBS News reporter Mike Wallace, offers the only real chance of fair and unbiased moderation in any debate between Clinton and Trump, given the fact that Lester Holt, Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz all went after Trump as though they were Hillary’s running mates, in the first two debates.
He only has one thing going for him- the one thing that might just enable him to accomplish, in Las Vegas, what Washington once accomplished at Yorktown.
That one thing is the truth- the truth of Clinton corruption, the truth of mainstream media collusion, the truth of an election being hijacked by a triad of government, mainstream media and the Clinton campaign, all working in lockstep with one another. If Trump can hammer this home, and put the whole issue of Hillary Clinton’s quest for the presidency to such a test, then he can win the debate and, quite possibly, turn the world upside down, by winning the election which follows in three short weeks.
The Story That Mustn’t Go Away- Media Collusion with the Hillary 2016 Campaign and the Obama Justice Department Confirmed
Media bias in this year’s election is practically self-evident, and has come to be taken for granted by most of the voters paying attention to the news from the major networks and print media, because such bias has been traced back to the early 1930s and the Roosevelt presidency, and has steadily increased since then. For the last year, we have been writing about our assertions that much of the mainstream media was not only in the tank for Hillary Clinton, and also offered our suspicions as to outright collusion with her campaign and the Obama administration, as well.
It’s no secret that the media controls the outcome of elections, as we discussed September of last year (ref http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=312 ). Yet, to be honest, our assessment fell short of a formal assertion that this was a coordinated effort between the media and a specific candidate’s campaign.
In the following month of 2015, we noted that something in the way the debate was moderated suggested over-the-top antipathy towards Republicans in general, and Donald Trump, specifically (ref http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=374 ). Again we had no idea that, at that point in time, there was actual coordination between the moderators and the Clinton campaign, in efforts to marginalize all of the Republican participants, especially Trump.
Last May we discussed at length, the death of the Fourth Estate of journalism (ref http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=767 ), and yet failed to notice that Hillary’s campaign and the Justice Department were bearing the final remains of what was once a free press, to its very grave with the media complicit in its own innate bias.
A couple of months ago, we railed about the disgusting level of advocacy in the coverage being served up by the mainstream media at Hillary Clinton’s behest (ref http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=961 ), but we had no idea that it was being engineered by the Clinton campaign.
Yesterday’s release of WikiLeaks documents, which confirm beyond doubt a year-long, three-point triad of the mainstream media, the Clinton campaign and the Obama State and Justice Departments, and their coordinated mission to bring down Donald Trump and place Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office. We now know that our entire national political system has been seized by, and is in the hands of, a hostile and dangerous alliance consisting of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the minions in the mainstream media who do their bidding. DNC Chairman Donna Brazile (who was then working for CNN) provided questions to Clinton’s aides, in advance of Clinton’s town hall tete-a-tete with Bernie Sanders, with one question pertaining to the death penalty being asked, word-for-word. Ultimately, it would be Brazile who would succeed Debbie Wassermann-Schultz, when the latter was ousted for her own collusion with the Clinton campaign.
We have also learned that Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been given copy-editing privileges with New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich, who actually asked for permission from Clinton’s communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, to use specific portions of an interview with Mrs. Clinton. Leibovich even allowed Palmieri to offer extensive editing suggestions as to how the news covering Clinton should be written, and was thus told by Palmieri that “it was a pleasure doing business” with him.
There are several more examples of this collusion between many of the media outlets and the Clinton campaign, including the coordination of attack against Trump by CNBC correspondent and New York Times contributor, John Harwood, when he moderated the Boulder debate in October of last year, and it was Harwood that actually gloated about his successful attack on Trump to the Clinton campaign, afterwards.
To complete the terrible triangle of treachery, it turns out that the Obama Justice Department gave Mrs. Clinton several instances of advanced warning, when certain actions on her part might lead to inconvenient investigations into her own wrong-doing.
Now, as it seems, all three of these collaborators (the media, the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign) have been in coordinated cahoots to bring down the Trump campaign, since it appeared he would ultimately win the Republican nomination.
All of this, in and of itself, is frightening for lack of a better word.
Worse, in August when we offered up a prescription for that which ails the Republican Party, who presumably- if not certainly, seeks to address the crucial issues- the Supreme Court, border security, ISIS, ObamaCare and prevent the re-introduction and permanent installation of Clinton corruption, at the highest levels of our government (ref http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=951 ), they ditch Trump entirely. If that were not enough, they offer up more stupidity by telling voters to vote “down ballot” so that they can serve as a check on Hillary’s presidency, instead.
Yes, the establishment Republicans led by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, have been an absolute wall of marshmallow cream against Obama’s overreach, and have thus puffed out their chests, in abhorrence to the crass things that Donald Trump has said over the years. It would seem they even have the nerve to tell us, “Forget Trump, but vote for us and we’ll keep Hillary hemmed in.”
So, for lack of a better way of saying the obvious, it is the Clintons, the Obama administration and their co-conspirators in the mainstream media- along with the compliant establishment Republicans, who are seeking to defeat Donald Trump and thus ensure that Hillary Clinton wins the election, country be damned.
What Hillary did while Secretary of State, in selling favors to foreign governments vis-à-vis the Clinton foundation, was merely practice scrimmage compared to what she can do as president, rest assured.
Whether liked or not, whether supported, or tolerated, or absolutely detested, Donald Trump is going against all of the above, and spending a fortune of his own money to offer an alternative to the globalist, open-bordered, ISIS-subjugated and constitutional disintegrating agenda of Hillary Clinton and, in so doing, may represent the very last vestige of representative government in the United States.
With less than a month to go, our very survival as a republic thus teeters in the balance.
Try As They All Might – The Ship That Hasn’t Foundered
In the fortnight since their last encounter at Hofstra University on the 26th of September, the mainstream media has tried their level best to convince the American people that Donald Trump’s campaign against Hillary Clinton is all but lost, just as they have repeatedly tried to do so, for the last fifteen months. Given his own lackluster performance at Hofstra, and the collusive spin that the media has coordinated with the Clinton campaign, particularly in the two weeks since, it appeared that all of the breaks were indeed going against the Republican nominee.
The “suddenly discovered” video of Trump yucking it up with NBC’s Billy Bush back in 2005, exchanging disparaging remarks about celebrity women in a “hot-mic” moment certainly didn’t seem to improve “the Donald’s” acceptability amongst the politically-correct classes. It didn’t help to mollify those recalcitrant “Republi-can’ts,” who never did give the Republican nominee their support in the first place, and who were jumping all over each other to try to out-condemn Trump for the oh-so-horrible things he said in the exchange- things that any man, any man has heard many times over in the confines of the locker room, the men’s room and just about anywhere else, outside the presence of women.
The hyper-ventilating over Trump’s coarse words even managed to overshadow the thorough trouncing of Hillary Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine, at the hands of Trump’s running mate Mike Pence, at Longwood College on Tuesday, October 3rd, in Farmville, Virginia. Yes, there was even talk amongst the multitude of “Clintonistas” in the mainstream media and the rattlesnake Republicans who won’t admit that they really support Hillary Clinton, that there was a push to replace Trump with Pence as the nominee going into next month’s election.
And yet…
…at least one person wasn’t listening to all of the pundits excoriating Trump, who wasn’t listening to all of the expert advice that he lay off of the Clinton scandals and thus appear humble and contrite in his remorse, and who should offer up milquetoast parlay with Hillary Clinton so as to appear softer, kinder, gentler, etc.
The one person who was not listening to any of this was one Donald J. Trump, and in not listening, Trump not only managed to win the debate, but also breathed new life into a campaign the experts have tried their level best to write off, time and time again.
Immediately before the proceedings four women, who know first-hand the treachery of the Clintons, got together with Trump to tell their stories about the way the Clintons really treat women. Juanita Broaddrick who was raped by Bill Clinton, Kathleen Willey who was groped by Bill Clinton in the Oval Office, and Paula Jones to whom Bill Clinton indecently exposed himself, all told the same story of how, in each of their cases, it was Hillary Clinton who attacked them unmercifully for their accusations against her husband. Then there was Kathy Shelton who, as a twelve-year-old in 1975, was brutally raped and beaten by a man who Hillary defended in court, and who later was recorded laughing in an interview about how she was able to get the rapist off on a technicality, even when she knew her client was, in fact, guilty of the assault. These four women were also sitting next to Trump’s family at the debate, in a courageous show of unity that bared an undeniable truth…
…simply stated, that while Donald Trump has said disparaging things about women, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have done disparaging things to women, and have sought to ruin their lives, as a result.
Not even the anti-Trump tag-team of ABC’s Martha Raddatz and CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who regularly cut-off Trump in mid-sentence and who took turns in actually debating Trump on key points, in order to assist Hillary Clinton, were able to defeat Trump, in the end. It was Trump who expertly fended off the attacks of all three- Hillary Clinton, Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper, and it was Trump who deftly answered the questions from supposedly uncommitted voters- many of whom asked questions worded in a way to suggest actual support for Clinton. There was not a single question that was worded in a way to attack Hillary Clinton- not from the moderators, nor from the chosen audience questions, and yet…
…it was Donald Trump who prevailed over all, and it was Donald Trump who offered a promise to the American people- a promise to seek justice, final justice against his opponent, should he be elected the next President of the United States, and in doing so, prompted rare applause from the audience present at the debate in Saint Louis.
This is the Donald Trump who managed to trounce sixteen skilled politicians to win the Republican nomination. This is the Donald Trump who has the intestinal fortitude to take it to the Clintons in a way that George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole did not in 1992 and 1996, and in ways that John McCain and Mitt Romney could not take it to Barack Obama, in 2008 and 2012. This is the Donald Trump, who brought millions of new voters into the Republican primaries and caucuses, and this is the Donald Trump who, above all other Republicans, realizes that when going up against the Clintons, it is the nice guys- like all those predecessors, who in the end, finish dead last.
So you think this election is over? Stay tuned, for it’s only just beginning.
The stakes could not be clearer and the ramifications could not be more certain. In five weeks, the most consequential election in our lifetimes will decide, once and for all, what kind of country we will be and what role this country will play in the world in which we live.
The world has turned over many times since the world was young for most of us, and the passage of time- ever greater in acceleration has brought some of us to what I will say is the autumn of our years. In that time period, we have seen a drastic and fundamental re-setting of the world order, and of our place in that world…both as a nation, and as individuals.
As I was born twenty-seven months before the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, my most remote and earliest memories remember the elation of my parents, that a Catholic could be elected president of the United States. John F. Kennedy, in his speech that cold afternoon, of January 20, 1961, said that “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, or oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
In that time, despite waging an intense cold war with the Soviet Union, the United States was largely looked to, and regarded as, the inspiration for the entire world.
Yet, the seeds of anti-Americanism started to foment in the nascent rumblings and communist revolutions from the Middle East, to Southeast Asia, to Africa, and even into South America and the Caribbean- just off of our shores. In the coming decades, America would sacrifice great treasure and countless lives, in the jungles of Southeast Asia, in the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq, in the ragged slopes of Afghanistan and other places, as the result of pursuing with all her might, to take this world to a better place.
Many of us know, first hand, the soldiers and sailors, the airmen and guardsmen, and all of the brave marines who so valiantly fought and served in these conflicts, and particularly those who made the supreme sacrifice in pursuit of defending freedom in a world, which sadly and all too often, neither sought nor appreciated, the liberty and freedom we offered her, in the end.
Since 1960, the world’s population has more than tripled, and is now knocking on the door of seven billion persons. Since the dawn of man so many eons ago, the world’s population did not reach one billion until 1900, when all four of my grandparents were very young. It took another sixty years for the world’s population to double. Then, it only took twenty-five years for it to double, once again, and it will double, yet again, when I turn ninety. So in essence, should I live so long, the world’s population will have increased five-fold in the course of my own lifetime, when it once took all of sixty years, just to double…that’s ten billion people projected to inhabit the earth in the year 2048, just thirty-two years from now.
This is an acceleration of the world’s population our good earth is ill-equipped to sustain, and in those times, the struggle to merely find nourishment and clean water will make these essentials the ultimate commodity and the very source of economic and political power.
But what kind of country stands even a chance of survival, in a world where most go without? Would a United States, drowning in the same socialism that besets and cripples much of the world, have the vibrant strength, and sense of purpose, requisite to survive in such a world? Or, will a United States, having re-sparked and re-kindled the spirit of independence and free enterprise, that spirit which once made our nation the envy of all of the rest of the world, develop the innovation and technical means necessary to confront these challenges, head on?
Can we honestly say, that ours is a country that, today, would indeed pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend or oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty… given the leadership we have at the highest levels of our government, who seek not the altruistic ideal of a world blessed with freedom, and steeped in our power to lead it, but rather sustained political power for the mere sake of retaining such power, itself?
If this does not change, and on the quick, then we are doomed to suffer the consequences of our own undoing, and subject our children, and their children, to a defenseless nation beset with all of the world’s ills, at our very own doorsteps.
We have the power to choose, and not the politicians in charge, not the major media that tries to manipulate our minds, and not the pollsters, nor the politicos of both parties, nor even the powers that be can make such a choice, for ours is still the power to decide whether or not, to change the course we have been on…a course seemed bent towards defeat and destruction.
So, this election is going to say much about the direction this country will take, as it speeds closer to the times which I have just described. My grandchildren, who will be coping with such a world, will literally live or die, based largely upon the decisions we make today, and in the subsequent direction our country takes, when we go to the polls in November.
This is why all of us should think long and hard about the votes we will cast, and the repercussions of those decisions and their impact on our progeny. The question is simply this- What kind of country will we bequeath to our children, and do we want this country to once again regain its pre-eminence and strength, in a world seemingly hell bent on our own demise ?
One way, the old and the tired and the all-too-staid, offers more of the same old, same old, where problems don’t get fixed, where distrust grows rampant, and where division and discord further alienate us from one another. If what we seek is more of what we have had, then Hillary Clinton offers such continuity.
There is, however, another way. This way seeks to throw out the textbooks of political correctness, to toss aside the march towards globalism and one-world government, and break free from the box of impotence and resignation to seek new solutions and reincarnate the can-do attitude that once was America’s gift to a world grown tired and weary. Donald Trump may or may not succeed in this endeavor, in the end, but at least he is willing to try…
…so it comes down to this. Are we willing to try? Do we have the courage to try? And if we fail to do so, at this critical convergence in our history, will we be able to explain to our grandchildren why we failed to do so when, at long last, we once had the chance? For our children, and for their children, we must learn from the mistakes of our past and protect for them the legacy of freedom, self-sufficiency and independence that will secure their future, for this and for all time.
Special Announcement- October 30th Drew Nickell’s Birthday Gift Drawing to be held for a copy of Drew Nickell’s signed book and a beautiful Bending Your Ear Locket Necklace
To those who have already read and/or are planning to read Drew Nickell’s book, Bending Your Ear– a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times soon:
First of all, thank you for your support. In light of my fifty-eighth birthday on October 30th, I wish to present one of you with a complimentary signed copy of Bending Your Ear – a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times, AND a beautiful Bending Your Earlocket necklace, from Origami Owl to match. The entire gift package of the book and locket is worth over $100.00 and will be awarded based upon a random drawing.
As a new author, I have recently learned that much of the success in selling a book depends upon the number of favorable reviews received on Amazon. Therefore, to qualify, each contestant will need to write a review of the book on the Amazon.com website. Once the review appears on that site, (https://www.amazon.com/Bending-Your-Ear-Collection-Essays/dp/1633932907?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc ) an entry will be made into the contest, and from this pool a single winner will be chosen, at random. I will be contacting the winner to arrange for shipping, and both should arrive just prior to the election, provided the winner has been contacted with their shipping address verified.
So please read my book, take a moment write that review, and thank you for your participation.
Debate Double Team Tag-Teams Trump- Holt Helps Hillary at Hofstra
Alliteration aside, last night’s so-called presidential debate at Hofstra University quite managed to achieve the impossible. As if Candy Crowley’s moderation of the 2012 Obama/Romney debate couldn’t get any worse, in terms of a moderator taking sides and propping up one candidate against another, NBC’s Lester Holt outdid even that performance, in helping Hillary by tamping down Trump.
Holt routinely and repeatedly interrupted Trump and sought to stop Trump in mid-sentence, on more occasions than could be counted. Rarely did he interrupt Hillary Clinton, nor did he ever attempt to stop her in her tracks. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the substance of Holt’s questions might have believably been provided by the Clinton campaign, itself. For instance:
Donald Trump was asked about the release of his tax returns, but where was Holt’s questioning of Hillary’s many thousands of missing and deleted e-mails?
Donald Trump was asked repeatedly about the years’ long inquiry into Barack Obama’s birth certificate, couched in the spin of its being motivated by racism. Where were Holt’s questions about the inception of this inquiry at the hands of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2008 when she was running against Obama for the Democratic nomination?
Lester Holt pointedly asked about Donald Trump’s presumed misogyny in his views towards women, based on comments he has made about Rosie O’Donnell and a former Miss Universe, but where were the questions about the way Hillary Clinton treated women ranging from Monica Lewinsky to Kathleen Willey to Paula Jones to Juanita Broaddrick?
Holt asked about a class action lawsuit against real estate developers, including Donald Trump’s firm in the early 1970s for discrimination in housing, but where were Holt’s questions related to the installation and use of an illegal private server while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, and where were his questions concerning Clinton’s handling of classified information contained in her unauthorized use of this server?
Lester Holt hammered Donald Trump regarding whether or not the Republican nominee supported the Iraq war, based on a brief aside Trump mentioned in Howard Stern’s radio show before the Iraq war began, while ignoring the many and documented arguments Trump had with Sean Hannity, against going to war in Iraq- well before the fact. Holt still doubled-down on the accusation that Trump was for going into war, regardless. Where were the questions from Holt about Hillary Clinton’s vote to approve Operation Desert Storm and authorize going to war in Iraq- a vote which actually had consequences as history unfolded?
Holt challenged Trump on his advocacy of “stop and frisk” protocols, alleging that such policies had been deemed unconstitutional when, in fact, it was only in the practice in one specific precinct, that was deemed to be constitutionally discriminatory by a judge, in a specific case. Where were Holt’s questions concerning Hillary Clinton’s once referring to young black men “super predators,” as she did in 1996, and her support of the Black Lives Matter movement with regards to their war against law enforcement?
While it can be argued that Hillary Clinton, with her decades of being involved in politics and the fact that she has participated in thirty-eight one-on-one debates during her long career, came into the debate well-prepared and more comfortable in such a format, it can also be equally argued that Donald Trump in his very first one-on-one debate is neither an experienced nor a skilled debater, as well.
Such is the inherent difference in one Hillary Clinton, who is well-versed in the forensic arts of debate, and one Donald Trump, who is well-practiced in the “real world” arts of business and contract negotiation. The first requires the “gift of gab,” which Hillary has well-honed over the years. The second requires a clear vision as to the stakes at hand and a forceful determination to create, implement and execute a satisfactory outcome in any negotiation, as is Trump’s forte.
While the mainstream media will attempt to drive home their impressions that Hillary Clinton somehow managed to out-perform Donald Trump in their first debate, they will casually overlook what Trump was able to accomplish last night. For all the world to see, he came off looking presidential in his demeanor- not like the madman he has been painted out to be, but rather as the serious and determined candidate with a clear vision as to where he wants to lead this country, regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with that direction.
The fact that Hillary Clinton can more capably communicate prevarication and posturing, than Donald Trump can do at answering questions candidly and honestly, speaks volumes as to the comparative values of presentation versus character, in responding to the questions put forth. While the world will never know what truly lurks in the heart of one Hillary Clinton, the watching world knows exactly how Donald Trump feels about what needs to take place to effect change- real change, so necessary to fix the problems that ail our nation and our world.
So the only question which remains, regarding their first debate is this…
…If Hillary Clinton is so experienced and so prepared to take office, if her policies are truly correct in their composition, and if Donald Trump is so unfit to become president, and so incorrect in his approach to the issues of our times, then why does a candidate like Hillary Clinton need so much help from a moderator, like Lester Holt, in the first place?
In the run-up to Monday night’s debate at Hofstra University, between presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, what is taking place in the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina is a microcosm of a disease that has reared its ugly head across America.
Many in the major media will say that this is the result of yet another black man being gunned down by the police and, as was the case in Ferguson, Baltimore, Dallas and several other cities across the United States, is based on nothing more than a lie- a lie that has been spread by members of the Black Lives Matter movement and by politicians who are exploiting the unrest for their own political purposes.
Let us be clear. When people loot and riot and assault police officers en masse, as has happened in all of the aforementioned cities, this has nothing to do with peaceful protest and everything to do with felonious activity on the part of criminals taking to the streets. There is an ocean of difference between holding up a sign, yelling about perceived injustice, and tossing a park bench through a storefront window so as to help oneself to cans of Red Bull, packs of cigarettes and Air Jordan sneakers. When such looting is followed by throwing bricks and stones at police officers, the bedlam that ensues has nothing to do with civil rights and everything to do with unleashed anarchy in the streets.
Worse, the one man whose gift of public speaking and use of words might otherwise quell and calm the anger which is fomented in the actions of the young and impassioned is curiously silent and this, in and of itself, speaks volumes about where he stands on the violence taking place. In his silence, President Barack Obama has effectively taken sides with the rioters and against the police whose job it is to protect lives and property and uphold law and order. From the onset of his presidency, Obama has driven a wedge of distrust and discord between whites and blacks, between law enforcement and communities of color, and between the left and right to an extent not seen in generations of presidents, and his is the virulent virus that is spreading pandemically across this country.
Into this year’s presidential election is injected this same illness, with Hillary Clinton exploiting the unrest in shamelessly pandering to gain the black vote, by ginning up another lie- the lie that Donald Trump is a racist, as are those who support him. Hers is the same tactic used by Adolf Hitler, to divide and conquer through the rhetoric of division and discord.
With any hope, these lies which have perpetrated the disease will, at long last, be rejected by enough of the American voters who seek change- real change in the way we go about dealing with the difficult issues of race and want and fear amongst our people.
Such change won’t happen with a president who expresses rage against his political opponents to a degree never seen against Islamic fundamentalist terrorists, and who refuses to condemn violence in the streets of his country. It won’t happen with a corrupt and callous candidate who has called the supporters of her opponent deplorable racists, and worse, and uses this divisive rhetoric to mine for votes. It won’t happen with the major media who spread such lies in an effort to boost their own ratings. It won’t happen on university campuses whose codes of political correctness seek to hide the real truth of what is taking place.
Yet such a change might happen with an outsider candidate who just wants to make America first in all his dealings, and who offers possible solutions to the many problems that plague the inner cities of a county led astray by the powers that be.
In this election year, such are the stakes with which voters are confronted.
Implausible Deniability – the Obama/Clinton Foreign Policy
Time was when politicians routinely played the verbal game of “plausible deniability” in a dubious attempt to escape culpability when asked, “What did he/she know, and when did he/she know it?” This strategy was most notorious in the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, when the primary issue of the hearings centered on whether or not President Richard Nixon had prior knowledge of the Watergate break-in, and the cover-up that followed. During that hearing, the most important and prescient question was asked by then Senator Howard Baker (R-TN), “What did the president know, and when did he know it?”
Forty-five years hence, the game of plausible deniability has taken on a new and more-menacing twist- the idea that the President (Obama) and his Secretaries of State (Clinton and Kerry) can pursue foreign policy initiatives which are damaging to U.S. interests and, in effect, aid and abet the enemy.
Take, for instance, the transfer of money to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In separate transactions during the course of this year, more than $ 1.7 billion has been transferred from the United States Treasury to the Iranian regime, most notoriously in the form of a cash transfer of over $400 million (in Swiss francs and euros) as ransom payment in exchange for the freeing of four American hostages held in Iran. Additional money has also been transferred from our government to theirs, in the form of electronic funds transfer, the details of which are still being made known, as of this writing. While this money indeed originated from Iranian assets seized during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the reimbursements of these assets included compounded interest, more than thirty-five years’ worth, and was integral to getting the Iranian regime to agree to Obama’s nuclear arms deal with Iran- an arms deal begun by Hillary Clinton and implemented by her successor, John Kerry. All three have promised the American people that the pursuit of this treaty, including the requisite transfer of money, would be the first step in engaging the Iranian regime towards more normalized relations, and improve Iran’s behavior on the world stage, despite the fact that opposition to this deal from a host of experts in the foreign policy arena was widespread and well-noted…and what happened?
Iran was able to bring to an end the inspections of both their own nuclear stockpiles of enriched uranium, and the centrifuges which manufacture these stockpiles, walk away with billions in payments and have become even more bellicose and belligerent in their actions against U.S. naval warships in the Persian Gulf.
Predictably, when the “you-know-what” hits the fan, the response from Obama, Clinton and Kerry will undoubtedly be, “We acted in good faith but, alas, Iran didn’t hold up their end of the bargain,” or some such rot, in their attempt to cover up their own incompetence with plausible deniability or, in this case, implausible deniability, since most of the American people vehemently opposed this deal and its cash payments, from the get-go. Worse yet, the very reasons that there was such opposition to the Iran deal in the first place, warning that the U.S. would be getting screwed in the process, will render the deniability for its abject failure most implausible, and not even the overt collusion with much of the mainstream media will be able to cloak the culpability that the Obama administration and Secretaries Clinton and Kerry possess, in the creation and implementation of the worst foreign policy deal in U.S. history. In essence, billions of dollars will have been squandered in a dubious attempt to create a legacy for Barack Obama, one that will rest on his shoulders and those of his incompetent Secretaries of State, for decades to come.
But what’s a few billion dollars to them? After all, it’s not their money, but ours…
One has to hand it to Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton. Never in our lifetimes has anyone ever been a major party’s nominee and has exerted less effort in running for the nation’s highest office. Not since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1944 reelection campaign has a candidate spent less time, well, campaigning for president, following his/her respective nominating convention, and FDR was running for his fourth term, for cryin’ out loud!
In the month of August, Hillary Clinton was absent from campaigning for seventeen of the thirty-one days comprising the eighth month of the year. Her participation in September has even been more lackluster, as she has been absent for all but a few days since the beginning of this month.
Compare that to her Republican rival, Donald J Trump, who has scarcely taken a day off from campaigning since his nomination in mid-July. If the election were determined strictly by a candidate’s personal effort, Trump would win by a landslide of epic proportions.
It’s not that Hillary’s campaign itself has lagged…no, not by a longshot. Her surrogates have been feverishly running for president in her stead. From her running mate Tim Kaine, to her husband Bill Clinton, to her daughter, Chelsea, to even the current office-holder, Barack Obama, the Democrats’ “A-listers” have been putting forth their maximum efforts to make her the next president, while she has spent much of her time resting with her feet up in her Chappaqua, New York mansion.
Any doctor worthy of his/her license to practice will tell you that older people who lay about too much risk acquiring pneumonia, and if that is what truly ails Mrs. Clinton (one can’t be sure of anything related to Mrs. Clinton), it is certainly understandable why she might need some downtime. Then again, considering news reports (assuming that is what they are, given her adoring media) that she was only diagnosed with a mild case of bacterial pneumonia in one of her right lung’s lobes last Friday, why the light schedule since she was nominated in July?
Having had both viral and bacterial pneumonia on a few occasions ourselves (one episode so serious that our lung capacity was reduced by two-thirds), we do know that seizure-like collapses, as was hers on Sunday the 11th of September, don’t happen…not like that, anyway. While her doctor’s report that she hasn’t developed any new conditions (other than the pneumonia, bronchitis, ear and sinus infections, etc.) in the past year, and that qualifier does not necessarily mean that there aren’t other conditions that might have already been present, prior to this past year.
While we admittedly lack the medical training and therefore are certainly in no position to proffer diagnoses on Mrs. Clinton’s condition, her episodes of fainting, frequently occurring over the years (according to her husband), are suggestive of a neurological disorder most frequently found in sufferers of advanced Parkinson’s disease. It has been noted that such patients who suffer these types of episodes find that wearing sunglasses with cobalt blue lenses aids in preventing such episodes, not unlike the shades seen on the first lady, as she was wearing when she emerged from her daughter’s apartment a few hours after her collapse.
While it can be said that Hillary Clinton is always ready, able and willing to show up for any and every campaign event where money is being offered up in large sums, her presence out on the stump has largely been lackluster and comparatively brief, with most of the rousing speeches being delivered by her surrogates, instead. Given the secrecy and obfuscation that is the sine qua non of all things Clinton, it is certainly not outside the realm of possibilities that Mrs. Clinton suffers from something much more serious than a slight case of pneumonia and puts into question her physical fitness for the job of being president, notwithstanding the glowing report released from her own doctor. Given the right incentive and the right individual, a patient’s doctor can say anything that a patient wants them to say- after all, a patient’s actual medical profile is entirely confidential, when one gets down to it.
This much is certain. If Mrs. Clinton suffers such a seizure again, in front of cameras, that is to say, her fitness for service will rightfully come into question, and her viability as a presidential candidate will come to a cease. That said, running a campaign via remote control is not going to help her in her quest to defeat a tour-de-force like Donald Trump, and a Hillary-in-absentia cannot, nor should not, prevail in November’s election.
Much is being made about the Democrats’ presidential nominee having to prematurely leave the 9-11 Memorial Ceremony on Sunday, 11 September 2016. As she was walking to an awaiting SUV, supported on each side by aids trying to assist her into the vehicle, her knees buckled and she appeared to have fainted, losing a shoe in the process, according to eye-witness reports. After two hours, her campaign spokesperson indicated that she had become dehydrated and, after she had been whisked to her daughter Chelsea’s apartment, the former Secretary of State later emerged from the apartment smiling, waving and even stopping to sign an autograph for a young girl on the sidewalk. Later on Sunday, according to her physician, it was announced that she had been previously diagnosed on the Friday immediately before, as having pneumonia and was being treated with antibiotics and advised to take a break from her normal schedule of campaigning. There we have it- two explanations, within a few hours of each other, for a candidate who has been regularly taking weekends off, since the Democrat National Convention which nominated her to the nation’s highest office.
While faltering and stumbling is nothing new for the former first lady, as she has been shown many times being assisted up staircases and tripping and falling while entering jetliners, this latest episode of foundering has renewed suspicions about the overall health and well-being of the former first lady, who suffered a serious fall and concussion in December of 2012 which, according to her husband, required six months of convalescence just “to become herself” again. Nevertheless, the Clinton campaign has stuck to the mantra that she is in perfect health. If this is so, why is it that she seems to be constantly accompanied by another physician, with a pre-loaded injection at the ready?
While public concern for the health of presidential candidates is a relatively-recent phenomena (remember the absolute secrecy surrounding John F. Kennedy’s suffering of Addison’s disease and the medicine cabinet full of daily prescriptions he was required to take for this, as well as his spinal troubles), it is nevertheless a legitimate question about which, and the right of the electorate to know, the general health of those they elect to public office. Once again, the Clinton campaign answers these concerns with multiple, varying answers which only serve to feed lingering suspicions that all is not well with the Democrat candidate for president.
Yet, even on the very evening of the reported diagnosis of pneumonia, according to her doctor ex post facto, Mrs. Clinton seemed to be in good enough health and spirits to read the following prepared remarks at an event hosted by Barbra Streisand, and they were very well-received, with laughing approval, by the wealthy fundraisers in attendance:
“To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables…right?… racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it…and unfortunately, there are people like that, and he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric…these people are irredeemable and not America.”
-Hillary Rodham Clinton, speech to LGBT Fundraiser, New York City, 9 Sept 2016
The tens of millions of Trump supporters, half of whom were so maligned and slandered by this comment were not so amused, and even many Democrats who intend to vote for their party’s nominee, were appalled that she would make such a statement in the first place. Mind you this was not an aside caught in an unscripted moment on an open microphone, as was the infamous “47 percent” comment of Mitt Romney in 2012, but rather scripted in a vetted speech delivered on teleprompter thus indicating a categorical imperative to besmirch a very large segment of the American populace. To make matters worse, her feeble attempt to walk this back, indicating her single regret in using the term “half” to describe those she insulted, seemingly cemented in the minds of voters her utter contempt for the working people of all walks of life who only seek to make this country better, safer and more prosperous, by supporting a candidate who just happens to be running against her in a presidential election.
In short, Mrs. Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” is but a basket filled with the fruits of her own undoing…the repeated lies, the endemic deceit, the record of dishonesty and, yes, the utter contempt she holds for the American people, and this is where Hillary Rodham Clinton has most egregiously stumbled in her quest to become President of the United States.
(author’s note- In recognition of Sunday’s fifteenth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, I am reposting this essay from September 11, 2015, for your consideration and reflection.)
9-11, Fourteen Years Later
Once upon a time, when the world was young (and so were we), we naively believed that, by and large, we were safe from the ills that plague the Middle East. We told ourselves, “Yeah, it’s pretty screwed up over there, but we are here, thank God, and all of that bad stuff is all over there…so why worry?”…
…Then a jet airliner flew right into one of the twin towers at New York’s World Trade Center…
Our immediate reaction was, “That must be one screwed up pilot…How could he possibly have not seen that building on such a clear day?”…
…Then, a second jet airliner flew right into the other tower at New York’s World Trade Center…
…and then, we knew that these collisions were no accident…
…Then, a third jet airliner flew into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a fourth plane, bound for the United States Capitol dome, crashed into the fields of rural Pennsylvania…
…and then, we knew that we were at war…
For an all-too-brief while, our country- the United States of America, which had a long-standing tradition of uniting during times of war, pulled together and resolved to do whatever it took, in order to stop the sinister ideology that prompted such dastardly deeds. For a brief moment, we forgot our ideologies, we forgot our partisan affiliations, we forgot our creeds, and our races, and all of our identity groups, and everything else that seeks to separate us, and we united behind the effort to get the sons of bitches who did this to us…
But then, partisan politics and advocacy journalism, on the part of the mainstream media, began creeping in and thus dividing us into partisan blocs, pitting liberals against conservatives, pitting Democrats against Republicans, pitting the poor and middle classes against the rich, pitting blacks against whites, non-believers against believers, gays against straights, etc., etc., ad nauseam…until we were united no more…
Seven autumns later, these divisions- with complicit help from a mainstream media, bound and determined to do whatever it took to make history by ensuring the election of the nation’s first black president- saw the election of a very different kind of president- a president who did not believe in American exceptionalism, a president who seemed to be above such childish notions of patriotism and “the American Way”, a president who derided Americans who “cling to their guns and religion”, a president who, in reality, had nothing but contempt for Americans and all that America has done, over the many decades, to preserve equality and freedom throughout the world. This new kind of president traveled the world, apologizing for all of his country’s transgressions and telling all of the world that we are no better than they, and for this they awarded him a Nobel Prize for Peace- for having done nothing more than being elected and disrespecting his own country…
This new kind of president- one whose psychological makeup and ideology is vastly different from all of his forty-three predecessors, did everything he possibly could to tear down this country, to further divide this country, to set Americans against Americans, thus fulfilling his 2008 election night promise to “fundamentally transform the United States of America” by changing us from a country leading the world towards a better tomorrow, to a country “leading from behind” in a concerted, determined effort to enable all of the world’s many problems to visit our shores and infect our national psyche. Due to this one man, and his nefarious agenda, race relations are worse today than they have been in sixty years. Due to this one man, we are far less safe today than we were, even on the sunny morning of September 11, 2001. Due to this one man, and an imbecilic Secretary of State, he has struck a deal (a deal whose details have not been fully disclosed) with the most evil regime on earth, Iran- one that will assure their acquisition of nuclear weapons and inter-continental ballistic missiles with which to deliver these weapons on the shores of a nation they call “the Great Satan”, the United States of America. This one man, who would have us believe that unsubstantiated claims of man-made climate change pose a greater threat to our national security, than radical Islam, illegal immigration, and a nuclear Iran, combined…
What have we, as a nation, learned since that sunny Tuesday morning, fourteen years ago?…
Labor Day 2016 has come and gone, and across the nation, school children find themselves back in their classrooms, longing for the idleness and freedom associated with not having to be tethered to schedules that will last until mid-June, next year- an eternity to such youngsters. We recall such feelings from our own childhood and it was for this reason that we somehow came to associate September with ominous feelings of dread- another school year of homework and bedtimes and shrinking afternoons of shortening daylight, wondering if the magic of care-free summers will ever arrive again. How little did we know, back in the day, that care-free summers of our youth would become momentary, fleeting and illusory.
With the passage of Labor Day, so too has the respective, post-convention bounces to the candidacies of Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. Voters are settling in and solidifying their choices, roughly speaking. Forty percent have decided to vote for Clinton, or have decided to vote for her in opposition to Trump, and will not be swayed away from doing otherwise. Another forty percent have decided to vote for Trump, or have decided to vote for him in opposition to Clinton, and also will not be swayed away from doing otherwise. The remaining twenty percent will either decide to stay home on Election Day, be swayed one way or the other, waste their votes on quixotic third-party candidacies, and yet, will inevitably and inexorably determine who will be the next president of the United States.
It is said that presidential campaigns in the United States do not really come into their own, until after Labor Day, when people start “paying attention.” At one time, this was probably truer than it is today, given the plethora of cable news networks, social media and on-line sources of information to our avail. We have been forcibly immersed into this election for the last eighteen months, and have come to the conclusion that Election Day cannot arrive soon enough if, for no other reason, to see an end to the monotony and cacophony that is political coverage in the mainstream media. We long for the time which will arrive soon enough, when all of the bickering between the candidates, their campaigns, with our friends and our family members, will become moot.
While candidates and candidacies come and go, just as the leaves of deciduous trees fall onto the ground beneath, there is nevertheless an equally true maxim that political movements tend to last beyond the balloting that decides winners and losers. Such was true in the 1930s, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt ushered in the era of big government, and such was true in the 1980s, when Ronald Wilson Reagan ushered in the era of supply-side economics. In both cases, the relative legacies of these political movements have continued to this very day and, often and ironically, are found to be in direct conflict with one another.
Yet, this election of 2016 somehow finds less than the subordinated and stubborn struggles between liberalism and conservativism, less than the predictable and partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans, less than the tenacious and treacherous tugs-of-war between left and right. No, this election of 2016 transcends the norms of the old and tired teeter-totter of leaning one way and then the other. This election is about a movement- a real and very palpable difference between the inside and the outside, between the forces of the entrenched and the forces of the disillusioned, between the powers that be and the powers that seek to upend and upheave the old and the stale and, in the end, the ineffective. This explains why many of the mainstream and inside-the-beltway conventional Republicans refuse to support their party’s nominee, even if this lack of support results in the dreaded election of one Hillary Clinton. These recalcitrant Republicans find common cause with the mainstream media, the political pundits and pollsters, and ultimately, the Democrats whose very survival depends upon the continuation of the status quo ante. Simply speaking, Donald Trump’s election will realize all of their worst fears, and will result in their own loss of power, prestige and influence- and this, they cannot and will not abide.
Yet, beyond the beltway, beyond the prosperous and toady suburbs of Maryland and Virginia, and beyond the festooned watering holes of Georgetown where insiders gather and deride the people they supposedly serve, there is a movement- a real movement of people- just plain people- who have had quite enough of their egomaniacal and elitist “expertise,” who have grown weary of shrinking paychecks and cultural disdain from the empowered who believe they know better, who want the country they once knew to return to the days when opportunity and promise were very real, and where anything and everything was possible, if only we seek it with all of our might and determination.
This is why an outsider like Donald Trump can win in November, and this is why an outsider like Donald Trump must win in November, for his is a movement that cannot and will not be refused, at long last.
Simply stated, the people want their country back, and such is the force majeure beyond Labor Day.
Children of All Faiths- the Real Victims of Radical Islam and Universal Hatred
There are times when certain images of war tear at the heartstrings in ways no words can possibly do so. In black and white, the image of a small Jewish boy liberated from Auschwitz, pulling up his sleeve to reveal on his tiny forearm, a branded serial number of his internment, or decades later, the image of a young girl running in the nude- her clothes burned away in a napalm attack in Viet Nam. In living color, the image of a dazed and confused small boy, pulled from the rubble in Aleppo, Syria, unaware of a bleeding head wound that is his own.
Such are the real victims of Radical Islam and the wars it has perpetrated- the innocent lives of the smallest among us who, regardless of whether they are Christian or Jew or Muslim, pay the full price of the hatred perpetrated by the mothers and fathers who use their twisted doctrine of Islam to justify the slaughter of thousands of innocents. This boy, Omran Daqneesh, all of five years old, miraculously survived the bombing of his home after being rushed to the hospital. Amazingly, all of the members of his family managed to survive the attack as well, blamed on an airstrike courtesy of the Assad regime and aided by Russia. Yet, there are others- countless others- who are not so (forgive the word) fortunate as this little boy. The children who are beheaded because they are Christian, the little Jewish children who die from terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, the many Muslim children who are systematically slaughtered in front of their parents, because their parents refuse to submit to a radical and fundamentalist form of Islam seeking to bring on a caliphate of world domination.
That children are caught in the crossfire of war is certainly nothing new. Recorded history is replete with such tales of carnage, and it is always the most innocent among us who pay the highest costs of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. Jesus once said, “Suffer the children who come unto me (Luke 18:16),” and it seems that Jesus was referring to the tragic circumstances surrounding the unfortunate death of children who, at the hands of adults, lose their lives to violence throughout the world.
In the example of this photo, it is a little boy in Syria. Yet, it might have been a little black boy on the streets of Chicago, a little Jewish boy in his school in Jerusalem, or a little French girl in Nice, along the French Riviera- all of whom are caught in the crossfire of hatred and callous disregard for human life that is the darkest side of our own human existence.
Golda Meir, the former prime minister of Israel, once said, “We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” It only stands to reason, some fifty years later, that the scourge of Radical Islam which has set the world in a global war will only come to know its end, when the Radical Islamists who perpetrate this war come to love their children more than they hate the rest of us. Until we as a people, of all faiths and all nationalities, unite in determination to rid the world of this hatred, it is our children- all our children, who will pay the ultimate price of our own undoing.
While we have been predicting that businessman and real estate developer Donald J. Trump would be elected the nation’s forty-fifth president of the United States, since the autumn of last year, we must also consider the ramifications should he lose this election to Hillary Clinton.
Certainly, the mainstream media, the political “experts,” the professional pollsters, and politicos of all stripes have been in lockstep unity on what they perceive as the likelihood, if not certainty, of Hillary Clinton’s victory in November, 2016. Despite the fact that, while Hillary Clinton draws hundreds of supporters to her well-orchestrated events, as compared to the thousands of people routinely showing up at Donald Trump’s events, none of the talking heads on television, nor so-called journalists in the country’s major newspapers and magazines, are even suggesting the possibility of a Trump victory…none.
So, let’s assume for a moment that all of these so-called experts are correct, and let’s consider the ramifications of a Hillary Clinton win. What’s next? Well, based upon what we know of Hillary Clinton’s political history, and the statements that she herself, has made during the course of her campaign, we can easily predict the following:
Taxes- Taxes on businesses and corporations (already the highest in the industrialized world) will go up, urging more large corporations and businesses to leave the United States and move their operations overseas, resulting in more and more job losses to the private sector. The same will hold true for estate taxes, which will continue the trend towards the loss of family farms and other small businesses, due to the punitive taxation assessed by the government on the passing of individuals who have already paid taxes on the money they have earned during the course of their lifetimes.
Public Safety- Hillary’s embrace of the Black Lives Matter movement and her well-documented disdain for law enforcement here in the United States, will bring about more attacks on police officers, which have almost doubled in the past year. Given the fact that there are more than 100,000 fewer police officers today, than there were when Barack Obama took office in 2009, the dwindling numbers of law enforcement officers will continue to make our communities less safe- especially in the poorest sections of our cities, where those of color fall victim to ever-increasing violence at an alarming rate.
Radical Islam- Hillary’s intent to continue the policies of the Obama administration, with regards to Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism and the administration’s fecklessness in dealing with, and its stubborn refusal to correctly identify Radical Islamism for what it is, will result in ever-more terrorist attacks both here at home, and around the world. Her stated desire to increase refugee resettlement from Syria, by a factor of 550%, without properly vetting these refugees, will import to our country the very same problems that have been witnessed in Belgium, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and all over Europe. With her aide Huma Abedin, expected to replace Valerie Jarrett as Senior Advisor to the President, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood will continue to wield a greater degree of influence in Hillary Clinton’s White House than ever before.
Foreign Policy- The pay-for-play corruption that is the essence of the Clinton Foundation will put the foreign policy of the United States up for sale to a degree not even seen during the Obama administration. Essentially, our foreign policy will be determined strictly by the level of financial support that the Clinton Foundation will enjoy, and the Justice Department will abide in this corruption, leaving our foreign policy the end product of such racketeering. Our allies will continue to feel that they have been betrayed by the United States, and our enemies will be emboldened by the ease with which they can escape consequences for their misdeeds by simply writing a check to the Clinton Global Initiative.
Education- With ever-greater federal oversight of classrooms, from pre-kindergarten through post-graduate education, the standards of excellence in education will continue to decline in order to promote “fairness” and ‘inclusiveness,” and the United States will continue to lose ground with regards to competitiveness with the rest of the industrialized world. Union membership will be nationally mandated for all teachers, as it already is in several states which have no right-to-work laws, and public schools will become the exclusive domain of teachers unions across the land. Private and parochial schools, assuming they continue to exist in the face of creeping regulation and ever-more onerous accreditation requirements, will be the only way students are able to acquire a quality education and, in the absence of charter schools, will only be affordable to the very rich, thus creating an effective caste system in education, itself.
Medical Care- With the already-in-progress deterioration of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), as private insurers continue to drop out of the exchanges providing coverage, the intended consequence of this deterioration will result in a single-payer system of national healthcare, where healthcare is rationed by the dictates of the federal government. As private corporations in the medical and pharmaceutical industries face ever-higher taxes and more stringent regulations, the requisite innovation and technology in which the United States has led the world will cease to exist, and the quality of healthcare in this country will take on the trappings of healthcare as that which exists in the Veterans Administration, only worse.
In short, should the hammer of Hillary’s election should fall upon this nation, and the former first lady and Secretary of State be elected president, it will prove to be the final nail in the coffin built by Barack Obama, and it will be the United States of America which will be thus rendered asunder.
But at least, in the end, we won’t have a president who merely says mean things…
The 2016 Election is over, Hillary Clinton has won decisively and there is no “path” for Donald Trump to win the election- this according to pollsters and pundits, alike. Even the vaunted Dr. Larry Sabato, of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, has projected a landslide win for the former first lady and Secretary of State, with Donald Trump projected to garner merely 191 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton’s 348- well above the 270 required to gain the U.S. presidency. Even Karl Rove, the former White House Deputy Chief of Staff under President George W. Bush, and the “mastermind” behind Bush’s wins in 2000 and 2004, has jumped on the crowded bandwagon of those who have written off any chance for the Republican nominee to come anywhere close to winning the November election.
Talk about “counting chickens before they hatch”…
One should file such prognostications under the Latin phrase bovis stercore. For those who are unfamiliar with this phrase, consider its English translation to be something shoveled up in a bullfighting arena.
In order for anything close to these predictions to come true, a certain set of assumptions would all have to materialize on Election Day:
First, the bloc of voters identifying themselves as African-American would have to turn out in numbers and vote the way they did for Barack Obama in 2012 and 2008 (dream on, Hillary).
Second, the bloc of voters identifying themselves as “staunchly conservative” and “evangelical” would have to stay home and not vote, the way they did when moderate Mormon Mitt Romney was the Republican nominee in 2012, the way they did when moderate mainstream John McCain was the G.O.P. nominee in 2008, and the way they did when other moderate mainstream Republicans, Bob Dole in 1996 and George H.W. Bush in 1992, ran for the presidency (keep dreamin’, Hillary).
Third, the bloc of voters identifying themselves as Democrats would have to vote with the same level of enthusiasm and support as they did for both Obama and Bill Clinton when each of these candidates won consecutive elections, respectively. Not even the staunchest of Democrats pretend to believe that Hillary Clinton carries the political assets of charisma and likeability in the same vein as did either Obama or Bill Clinton (she doesn’t).
Lastly, the bloc of voters identifying themselves as “independent” would have to vote the way they did overwhelmingly in 1992, 1996, 2008 and 2012, handing Bill Clinton and Barack Obama the presidency four times (rest assured they won’t).
Essentially, the dire predictions of a Hillary Clinton landslide are based solely upon a house of cards constructed of these four assumptions, over-the-top-to-a- level-not-seen-before biased reporting by the mainstream media, and outcome-based polling, jiggered to exaggerate support for Hillary Clinton- the same Hillary Clinton who is viewed as untrustworthy by two-thirds of the American electorate and half of Democrat voters, most of whom supported Socialist Bernie Sanders, to boot.
So as all of the pundits and pollsters, all of the mainstream media types and “neverTrumpers,” and all of the “Republi-can’ts” are busy “counting their chickens before they hatch,” the American people stand to prove them all wrong, and it is on the faces of the so-called “experts” that the proverbial “eggs” will likely splat.
Slanted Media Coverage of the 2016 Election- Advocacy Journalism at its Worst
When the world was young, and we were working towards attaining a degree in Communications/Journalism at James Madison University, there was much discussion in our news writing classes about “advocacy journalism” and how it should be avoided when reporting on the news. In these classes, we were told in no uncertain terms that our own biases should be set aside, unless we are writing commentary or editorials. While it was understood that, as human beings, it is not possible to be completely objective in our writing, it should nevertheless be the ideal towards which we should all strive when reporting on the news.
So much for the teachings of those halcyon days of college life, back when ideas and ideals, striving towards the making of a better world through honest discussion, expanded our horizons and broadened our world view. Who would have thought then, when the 1970s were turning into the 1980s, that both the ideals of unbiased reporting and honest discussions on university campuses would go the way of the dinosaur? Yet, who today can honestly admit that there is such a thing as objective journalism within the mainstream media, or that a free exchange of ideas on our university campuses is possible in this era of indoctrinated political correctness?
On September 22, 2015, we posted an essay called The Gotcha Game- How the Media Controls Elections ( http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=312 ), where we elaborated how the media plays an active role in determining the actual results of elections across the country in its practice of excessively-biased reporting. Label this effort to bring down Trump, from the major media, “Exhibit A” as proof of this reality.
Back in early June of this year, we posted an essay entitled Selective Scrutiny-the Death of the Fourth Estate ( http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=767 ). In this essay, we discussed how the mainstream media will rake a Republican nominee- any Republican nominee- over the coals in attempt to de-legitimize his candidacy, regardless of who he happened to be, while a Democrat nominee can violate the law, peddle influence on a massive and felonious scale, all without a peep from the major media. Label this effort to bring down Trump, from all supposed sides of the major media, “Exhibit B” as further proof of this reality.
Today we find that this bias emanating from all mainstream media outlets, both in print and on television, is as rampant as was once the bubonic plague in Europe, centuries ago. Cases in point…
Last Sunday, on Chris Wallace’s morning talk show, Hillary Clinton unashamedly and unquestionably lied, by indicating that FBI Director James Comey had stated in congressional testimony that she had been completely honest with the American public concerning her use of a private e-mails server and the number of devices she used while Secretary of State, as well as her own testimony before a congressional committee investigating Benghazi, last fall. Nothing could be further from the truth, and Mrs. Clinton knew damned well that in her interview with Chris Wallace, she was lying through her teeth. If one hasn’t been listening to Fox News, one wouldn’t even know about her persistent prevarications regarding all of these issues, because the remaining venues of news reporting suggest that this habitual lying on the part of Hillary Clinton is merely a figment of Fox News fantasy, and a vast right wing conspiracy who is unfairly assailing the former first lady.
It’s not unlike a bank being blamed for armed robbery, isn’t it?
Compare that coverage, or lack thereof, with the incredibly-negative and aggressively-intoned coverage of each and every word emanating from Donald Trump’s campaign, and what stands clear is that the mainstream media- all of the mainstream media– is seizing upon each and every opportunity to twist, spin and utterly slander anything and everything that Donald Trump says, just to cast aspersions on his own candidacy to a degree not seen in this writer’s lifetime. Granted, there are occasions when Donald Trump deserves such scrutiny, but why the obviously odious double standard?
This same mainstream media, so in bed and under covers with the Democrat Party’s nominee, has already come to a place where they are prepared to say ninety days in advance, that Hillary Clinton has already won the election hands down, based upon poll after poll after poll and a growing list of former Bush operatives and other Republi-can’ts who have condemned Donald Trump for- now get this- his style ! In other words, since Jeb Bush lost “big” to Donald Trump, these insiders are going over to the other side, to teach voters a lesson about who is and who isn’t a worthy candidate.
Any objective delve into the various polls’ samplings and methodologies reveals that twice as many Democrats are routinely polled as are Republicans, and the comparatively larger polling spreads between the two candidates are directly correlated to comparatively smaller numbers of people being asked. In other words, even the polls are skewed to a pre-determined result that there is no way Hillary can lose- no way, whatsoever.
What can’t be squared, given the overly-biased reporting and collusion that exists with the mainstream media, the polls that indicate the impossibility of a Trump win, and the treachery of Republi-can’ts conspiring to sink Trump’s campaign, is the fact that while Hillary Clinton typically draws in the hundreds to her own events, Donald Trump routinely draws in the thousands.
So, is this election truly already in the bag for Hillary? Well, the news is that…
…nothing, nothing, is a lock, despite what expert observers would have us believe.
There are times when we write something, or say something, when what we write or say comes back to bite us in our infernal regions…and this may well be one of those times.
Back in the third week of July, 2015, we posted an essay entitled the “Cancer of Division,” ( http://www.drewnickell.com/?p=9 ), where we discussed the peril posed by division within our country, and how this threat can lead us to our destruction as a nation. In it we also wrote:
“…a divided Republican Party, not to mention a third party run by ANY of them, will ensure that the next president will have a “D” after their name and, as things stand now, that president will be a former first lady and Secretary of State. Worse, these intra-party spats are pitting Republican voters against one another- a trend that is virtually orgasmic to Democrats who will unite behind their nominee, regardless…
…Since Republicans cannot do anything to heal the divisions that are the perverse progeny of Barack Obama, for so long as he remains president, they would be wise, instead, to resolve to unite as a Republican Party. They should call on ALL of their candidates to stop trashing one another (including Donald Trump, along with his own trashing of the others), and remember “the Gipper’s” eleventh commandment: “Thou shalt not insult another Republican”. Each of the candidates must resolve to support whoever the nominee is, regardless, because ANY one of them would be a far better president than ANY of the Democrats running today. Instead, they need heap their vitreous on Obama and Hillary and keep pounding away, day after day…”
Well, given the week that has just passed, we are feeling the bite from that which we wrote fifty-four weeks ago.
The not-quite-yet-to-be-reconciled-to-the-nomination-of -Donald-Trump Republican Party, is showing itself to be suffering from the detritus of its own division, especially when the “Republi-can’t” sector of the G.O.P. (namely, the Republican rattlesnakes who can’t rally ‘round the party’s nominee and have announced their support for Hillary Clinton, instead) is showing its infernal regions for all the world to see, and laugh at. Aided by a starving mainstream media, who is ready to seize upon anything that calls Trump’s candidacy into question, and thereby help to elect their queen to the presidency, there is a disease within the G.O.P. which, left unchecked, will ensure that Hillary Clinton is elected president.
It has been said of religion in general, and Christianity, specifically, that “the devil dances when division drives us to hate one another.”
Well, in the same manner, Hillary Clinton is dancing a happy jig, and will continue to do so each and every time a so-called Republican genuflects to her by their endorsement, while condemning their party’s nominee in the process. These turncoats include Meg Whitman, the former failed Republican candidate for California’s governorship, Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY), former Rep. Larry Pressler, (R-SD) and former George W. Bush administration apparatchiks Richard Armitage, Henry Paulson, and Brent Scowcroft. No doubt there will be others, including Bush’s first Secretary of State and former General Colin Powell. Couple in that same group, “Republi-can’ts” such as former candidates Lindsey Graham, John Kasich, Mitt Romney and the Bush family who refuse to lift a finger to ensure Hillary’s defeat, and therein lies the seeds of their own party’s demise.
Never mind the fact that any effort to assist Hillary Clinton in such a manner is nothing less than an absolute acceptance of continuing Barack Obama’s disastrous foreign policy, an embrace of all of the corruption that is the substance of Hillary Clinton’s criminal history, and an outright endorsement of activist liberal and legislating-from-the-bench justices that a President Hillary Clinton would nominate, who are bound and determined to undermine the United States Constitution at any and every opportunity to do so.
Such is the disease that ails the Republican Party, and there is only one prescription that can ward off the undesirable and, yes, life-threatening effects of this disease…and that prescription is UNITY.
Quite simply, Republicans must unite behind the candidacy of Donald Trump or the failure to do so will push our country into disaster, and will effectively destroy representative democracy and the Grand Old Party, forever.
Now that the gavels are silent and the conventions have ended, we enter into the real election- an election that will say as much about who we are as a nation, as it will say about what type of country we are to become- and the roads ahead, and those beyond, take very divergent paths from each other.
The one road- known, familiar and totally ineffective, promises to continue a path towards a national transformation that then President-elect Barack Obama laid out on election night, 2008… a transformation from world leader, to “leading from behind”…a transformation from winning the global war against radical Islam, to denying that it even exists… a transformation from equal justice under law, to the double standards of a “Clinton-ocracy,” where some can flaunt the law and enrich themselves, unfettered from a Justice Department that will not indict…a transformation from color blind to black lives matter…a transformation from law and order towards mob rule anarchy…a transformation away from independence and towards a globalist super-state.
Such is the road ahead, should Hillary Clinton win the election.
The other road- unknown, uncertain and yet totally enticing, promises to break up a broken system…a broken system built on patronage, pay-for-play, and winking insiders with knowing nods, who play their games irrespective of the voters who put them in office…a road offered by a candidate who defies the political insiders of both parties with a politically-incorrect campaign style and an uncanny way of speaking to the forgotten people who have seen their paychecks drop or disappear, altogether… a forgotten people who have seen their hopes and dreams evaporate before their very eyes under the weight of oppressive regulations, globalist free-trade policies, excessive wealth re-distribution vis-a-vis confiscatory taxes…and all this from a showy candidate who offers reassurance to a forgotten people who fear for their own safety, in a nation that would otherwise incur and expand illegal immigration, drastically increase refugee resettlement into the U.S. from countries where radical Islamist ideology is rampant and widely practiced, and who would otherwise witness a continued and deadly war on law enforcement, ushering in an era of anarchy and violence as a result of the direction his opponent would take us…
Such is the road ahead, should Donald Trump win the election.
Beyond a Hillary Clinton presidency, the ensuing road would be devoid of many of the freedoms we, up until recently, have taken for granted, today…the right to own firearms, the right to express ourselves without harassment or censure from a ruling government class…the right to worship as we please…the right to lawfully petition for our grievances…all coordinated with, and under approval from, those who she would appoint to the United States Supreme Court. On such a road, whatever foreign policy we might otherwise have left, would have been sold for donations to the Clinton Foundation, to a degree not seen previously. The country that Hillary Clinton would leave behind is a country where races are pitted, one against the other, where the forces of speech codes on college campuses extend to the very places in which we live, and where we are told what to think, without question or scrutiny, and the voices to any dissent are silenced.
Such is the road beyond, should Hillary Clinton win the election.
Beyond a Donald Trump presidency, the ensuing road offers the chance to return us to the days where American pre-eminence is unquestioned, where we once again reclaim the industrial might that once led the world in innovation and scope, where our own American interests are secured and not subject to negotiation, before the interests of other nations are addressed. The country that Donald Trump would leave behind would be stronger, freer and more secure from the threats that face us from within and without. The re-emerging middle class would be upwardly mobile and expanding, and everyone would, at long last, be treated the same, without regard to the divisive criteria of race, sex, gender, religion or party affiliation. The country Donald Trump would leave behind would well be on the road towards, if not witnessing, the final defeat of radical Islamic totalitarianism.
Such is the road beyond, should Donald Trump win the election.
In the next fourteen weeks until election day, Americans will be bombarded with pollsters trying to prove that Donald Trump doesn’t stand a chance of winning, with “experts” from every field of study that say Trump’s policies can’t be implemented or will not work, and with well-funded and constant messages from the Clinton campaign saying that Donald Trump is psychologically unfit for office. We will be told who wins each of the debates, regardless of our own analysis to the contrary, and we will be told that the moderators are impartial when we know otherwise. All of this- every bit of it- will be done, and co-messaged by, a mainstream media fully in the tank for, and in collusion with, the Hillary 2016 campaign….and yet…and yet…
The roads ahead and the roads beyond remain vastly divergent from one another, and the real question and the one question before the people (who will ultimately decide which road will be taken), is whether or not the road we have been on is, indeed, the one on which we would seek to continue…
Philadelphia 2016- The Mirror that is Hillary’s Glass Ceiling
On Thursday night, Hillary Rodham Clinton claimed the nomination of her Democrat Party at the Wells Fargo Center Arena in Philadelphia Pennsylvania.
For herself, and for the many women who support her, her nomination represents what they believe to be a broken “glass ceiling,” much as Barack Obama’s nomination in 2008 represented the same for himself, and for the many black Americans who support him, as well. While other women have been nominated to the U.S. presidency before, Hillary’s nomination was the first by a major political party.
So be it…history made.
Taking full advantage of this notable nuance, Hillary’s video feed on Tuesday night, following the state-by-state roll call of Democrat delegates, showed individual portraits of the forty-three men who have been president of this country and was followed by a composite portrait of all of these men taken together. Suddenly, the composite portrait seemingly shattered on the screen, to the sound of glass breaking, and Hillary Clinton suddenly appeared in a closed-circuit video feed smiling and savoring her special moment. The messaging was clear- another barrier broken.
So be it…history made…and that was where the fantasy began.
After speeches by Michele Obama, President Obama and former President Bill Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea, all designed to conjure up and create anew an image of Hillary as the perfect wife, the perfect mother and the “most qualified person to ever run for president,” Hillary arrived to claim credence to this fantasy. For most of the delegates gathered in the arena, and for her undying supporters across the nation, this was the moment they all had waited for, and even the worst of speeches by the Democrat nominee would not have altered this moment for any of them.
…and then, Hillary spoke.
Her tone, altogether condescending and authoritative, much like a school principal laying into a wayward student for misdeeds, took on an air of angry admonishment- particularly when taking her Republican rival, Donald Trump, to task. In between these insults (and there were many), Hillary gleamed in both adoration from her supporters and in the self-adoration for which she is well-known. Interspersed within these segments was a litany of liberal talking points and policy platitudes designed to lure Bernie Sanders’ supporters into the fold of her candidacy. Promises, promises… but yet, no meat on the bones of these promises.
While all, and we mean all, of the mainstream media has joined into the fantasy that this was a more-unified convention than the Republican convention the preceding week, close observation of her acceptance speech revealed something else. Vertical banners, depicting “HILLARY” spelled out in white letters on blue backgrounds occasionally had parts of the lettering marked out to reveal another word- “LIAR,” unmistakably showing that the final night of the convention was anything but unified. The most ardent and verbal of Bernie Sanders’ supporters, particularly from the state of California, were locked out of the final night- their seats given instead to Hillary supporters not originally invited to attend the convention. Coached to chant “Hillary, Hillary” anytime chants to the contrary began, her minions attempted to shout down the voices of disenchantment, all in an effort to portray a narrative that was not quite real- a narrative that all had supposedly united behind their queen.
Taken together, Hillary’s “glass ceiling” seemed rather a mirror of her own self-admiration, evoking a memory of the moment in Snow White, when the queen gazes into her own magic mirror and intones, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”
Let the mirror of a watching nation provide a certain and final answer to this queen’s inquiry, once and for all.
After an unquestionably horrible start to the 2016 Democrats’ National Convention in Philadelphia, one in which DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was forced to resign as a result of leaked e-mails revealing the depth of corruption behind Hillary Clinton’s nomination, former President Bill Clinton attempted to rescue his wife’s candidacy last night in an address to the delegates assembled there.
In a long, drawn-out and meandering speech, the former president painted a picture of Hillary as the great crusader against all things unjust, and proffered an argument that his wife was an agent of “real change” and that hers was a history of problem solving in the wake of scorn and opposition, going back to the days when she was a law student at Yale University. He spoke of an idyllic romance between the two, over the course of four years, and painted a picture of undying love, admiration and romantic intrigue, as only Bill Clinton can do, and he gave it his level best, saying that all of the negative history of the real Hillary Clinton cannot be true, based solely upon his own recounting, and therefore must only be a fabrication of those who oppose her candidacy, instead.
Of course, when recounting his everlasting love, deep admiration and high regard for his wife, Bill Clinton conveniently omitted the numerous affairs in which he has engaged, the number of sexual assaults he perpetrated against scores of women who felt the wrath of Hillary Clinton when they leveled complaints against her husband of forty-one years- complaints that started to surface early into their marriage.
When attempting to enumerate all of the wonderful contributions Hillary has made to benefit women, children, the down-trodden and disadvantaged, no mention was made of ethics violations resulting in her being fired by the Watergate Investigative Committee, nor of her illegal cattle-futures trading, nor of Whitewater. No mention was made of Travel-gate, no mention was made of Vince Foster and Ron Brown’s mysterious deaths, nor of how she (and he) both managed to lose their licenses to practice law in Arkansas.
While trying to paint her tenure as Secretary of State as one of accomplishment and success, Bill Clinton conveniently brushed aside the disaster of her handling of the Arab Spring, her disastrous policy in Syria and Libya, her role in and lying to the nation and lying to the survivors families about the events taking place in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, and her handling of the mullahs in Iran which led up to the Iran “deal,” which effectively handed over $150 billion dollars to that government and has paved the way for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons without interference from U.S. and U.N. inspections.
No mention was made of the “pay for play” contributions made by foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation, and no mention was made of the criminal activity surrounding her use of a private server while Secretary of State, the tens of thousands of deleted e-mails nor the storing and transmission of classified documents to individuals not authorized to see such documents.
Often wagging his index finger, in precisely the same manner as he did when he assured a watching nation that he “did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss (Monica) Lewinsky, and never told anybody to lie about it, not ever,” he conjured a tale of all of the wonderful things that is the essence of what he suggests to be the real Hillary Clinton, with all of the poise and sincerity of a carnival barker trying to entice naïve and gullible patrons to pay the price of admission and enter the carnival freak-show of believing in and worshiping at the altar of Hillary Clinton.
From the looks of admirers in the audience, it appears that Bill Clinton was quite successful in convincing them, that all of the horrendous tales of his wife’s misdeeds were mere fabrications of Republicans in general, and Donald Trump, specifically, with no basis in truth, whatsoever.
Nevertheless, people who know the real Hillary Clinton- the informed who bother to research her past, the many women who have fallen under the libelous and slanderous attacks she has made against them for complaints against her lecherous husband, and those whose family members have perished as a result of her own incompetence- these people are not swayed by the tale that Bill Clinton has so artfully spun.
Therefore, the question in this election year of 2016, is whether or not the people in the real world who know the truth, will outnumber the millions and minions of those living in Hillary’s Wonderland, where she can do no wrong and who believe the lie that she is “the most qualified person in history” to become President of the United States.
Philadelphia 2016- The Democrats’ National Convention Opens
With the height of summer’s heat beating down on the City of Brotherly Love, the Democrats opened their 2016 national convention today at the Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Amidst a growing scandal- yet another e-mail scandal, no less– the Democrats will spend this week trying to hold together an increasingly-fractured coalition that is breaking down into two camps- one for the presumptive nominee, Hillary Clinton, and the other for her erstwhile challenger, Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
Sanders, who spent much of his campaign noting the “rigged system” of super-delegates already lined up and in the tank for Mrs. Clinton, has received a great degree of validation for these claims, based upon thousands of e-mails, released at the end of last week by WikiLeaks, indicating that the Democratic National Committee was all in for Hillary Clinton well before the primary and caucus season even began. So egregious and so over-the-top was this collusion between the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee, that DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) has been forced to resign her position as DNC Chairwoman, effective at the conclusion of this week’s convention. She will be replaced by another “Clintonista”, one Donna Brazile, whose own e-mails have revealed a strong level of contempt for the Vermont senator’s campaign.
Meanwhile and not surprisingly, the Clinton campaign and the presumptive nominee herself, Hillary Clinton, have claimed to be completely unaware and out of the loop on this collusion, but interestingly have not condemned this collusion, either. Instead, Hillary Clinton has appointed the soon-to-be-departing Debbie Wasserman-Schultz to be honorary Chairwoman of the Hillary 2016 Campaign Committee, presumably as a token of appreciation for all that Wasserman-Schultz did to ensure Hillary’s nomination- which included limiting the number and scope of the debates between Hillary and her Democrat rivals, and curtailing the times to which they were aired on television. With a super-delegate system put into place by the Democratic National Committee and led by Wasserman-Schultz, there was no way that Bernie Sanders could have been nominated, despite his very strong showing during the primary and caucus season, and his legions of Sanders supporters who vehemently oppose Hillary Clinton’s nomination.
Yet another “Clintonista,” one Tim Kaine (D-VA), was selected on Friday to be Hillary Clinton’s running mate in the fall campaign, much to the chagrin of Bernie’s supporters who were hoping for a far-more liberal choice in Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). As of this writing, it is rumored that Bernie’s supporters will stage a walk-out during Kaine’s address to the convention on Wednesday, due to their disdain for both Kaine’s selection and the means by which Hillary was able to snare the nomination, herself.
The highlights of the DNC convention include Monday’s speeches by Bernie Sanders and Michele Obama, Tuesday’s speech by former President Bill Clinton, Wednesday’s speeches by presumptive vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, and Thursday’s addresses by Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, and the candidate herself, Hillary Clinton. Other notable speakers during this week’s convention will include former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Whether the convention will be burned by the scorching heat of Philadelphia’s weather, or by further e-mail releases by WikiLeaks, or if they will “feel the Bern” from Sanders’ supporters, one thing is for certain- it will be a hot time in Philadelphia, this week.
