Trump’s Homecoming to the Washington Snake Pit

May 31, 2017 Drew Nickell

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.

-Drew Nickell, 31 May 2017

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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Dispelling the Myths of Comey’s Firing

May 10, 2017 Drew Nickell

Dispelling the Myths of Comey’s Firing

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…

In a word…hypocrisy.

-Drew Nickell, 10 May 2017

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

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Healthcare Passes in the House- a First Step in the Fulfillment of a Promise

May 5, 2017 Drew Nickell

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.”

-Drew Nickell, 5 May 2017

author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”

now available at Amazon

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