Robert
Mueller – Reuters
Forgive yourself if you
are confused about developments in the Russia, Russia, Russia storyline. In
fact, there are so many moving parts that you shouldn’t trust anybody who isn’t
confused.
Consider this, then, a
guide to the perplexed, where we start with two things that are certain. First,
special counsel Robert Mueller will never be able to untangle the tangled webs
with any credibility and needs to step aside.
That became obvious last
week when events showed that any honest probe must examine the Obama White
House and Justice Department. Mueller served as head of the FBI for more than
four years under President Obama and cannot be expected to investigate his
former colleagues and bosses.
But without that
necessary step, his work would be incomplete at best. So it’s time for him to
say bye-bye.
The second thing we know
for certain is that Hillary Clinton had a worse week than Mueller. Much worse.
The Washington Post reported that her campaign and the DNC paid millions of dollars
to a law firm, Perkins Coie, which hired a shadowy company called Fusion GPS,
which hired a former British spy, Christopher Steele, to compile the dossier,
much of which was said to be based on Kremlin sources.
The bombshell sent
Clinton into hiding, and no wonder. She probably thought three degrees of separation
from the dossier would be enough to insulate her. In her absence, her defenders
offered a dog’s stew of evasions, half-truths and diversionary attacks.
Their claim that nobody
in the campaign or the DNC knew anything about the deal doesn’t pass the smell
test. When as much as $12 million goes out the window for a document that aimed
to win the election — and failed — everybody knows something.
While the link to
Clinton answers some questions, it raises others. For example, while it is
certain her campaign spread the dossier among the media last summer, it remains
uncertain whether the dossier was used by the White House and the FBI to
justify snooping on the Trump campaign.
One hint that it was is
that Comey, while still in office, called the document “salacious and
unverified,” but briefed Obama and President-elect Trump on its contents last
January. And the FBI never denied reports that it almost hired Steele, the
former British spy, to continue his work after the campaign.
The mystery might soon
be solved because the FBI, after months of stonewalling, agreed last week to
tell Congress how it used the dossier and detail its contacts with Steele.
If the bureau did use
the dossier to seek FISA warrants to intercept communications involving the
Trump campaign, it would mean the FBI used a dirty trick from the candidate of
the party in power as an excuse to investigate the candidate from the
opposition party.
Somewhere, Richard Nixon is wondering why he didn’t think of that.
There is also the issue
of the “unmasking” of Trump associates caught up in the snooping, with the
names leaked to anti-Trump media. It is essential to investigate that angle,
but it would lead right to the Obama White House, which is why Mueller is not
the man for the job.
As for Clinton, the
dossier revelation was not her only new problem. In fact, the second blow might
be the most serious yet.
At the urging of
Congress and Trump, the Justice Department lifted its gag
order on an informant
who can now testify to Congress about bribery and other wrongdoing surrounding
Moscow’s gaining control of 20 percent of US uranium production.
The 2010 transaction was
approved by Obama officials, including Clinton, then secretary of state. About
the same time, Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for a speech to a Russian bank
involved in the transaction. Later, tens of millions of dollars — $145 million
by one estimate — were said to be donated to the Clinton Foundation by
individuals having a stake in the deal.
The informant’s lawyer,
Victoria Toensing, told Fox News the speech fee and the donations amount to a
“quid pro quo” for Hillary Clinton’s help.
“My client can put some
meat on those bones and tell you what the Russians were saying during that
time,” Toensing said.
Clinton called the accusations “baloney,” but that’s what her team said about
any connections to the dossier — before the truth came out.
Finally, another event
is worth mentioning: the release of thousands of files from the JFK
assassination trove. There were lots of juicy tidbits, but no final clarity,
which raises the horrifying idea that, 50 years from now, we might still be
waiting for the truth about Russia, Russia, Russia.
Heaven help us.
______________
He Fights
By Evan Sayet
My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent
#NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of
decorum. They ask if I don’t think his tweets are “beneath the dignity of
the office.”
Here’s my answer:
We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There
could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he
suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined
his presidency.
We tried statesmanship. Could there be another
human being on this earth who so desperately prized “collegiality” as John McCain?
We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt
Romney?
And the results were always the same.
This is because, while we were playing by the rules of
dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years,
engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the
Chicago mob.
I don’t find anything “dignified,”
“collegial” or “proper” about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the
streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds
serve the Democratic Party.
I don’t see anything
“dignified” in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and
imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks.
I don’t see
anything “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your
political opponents and any dissent.
Yes, Obama was “articulate” and
“polished” but in no way was he in the least bit “dignified,” “collegial” or
“proper.”
The Left has been engaged in a war against
America since the rise of the Children of the ‘60s.
To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is
seen as beyond the pale. It has been a war they’ve fought with violence,
the threat of violence, demagoguery and lies from day one – the violent
take-over of the universities – till today.
The problem is that, through these years, the Left has
been the only side fighting this war.
While the Left has been taking a
knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with
dignity, collegiality and propriety.
With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end.
Donald
Trump is America’s first wartime president in the Culture War.
During wartime, things like “dignity” and “collegiality”
simply aren’t the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors.
Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have
seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming.
Had Abraham
Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats
might well still be holding their slaves today. Lincoln rightly
recognized that, “I cannot spare this man. He fights.”
General George Patton was a vulgar-talking,
son-of-a-bitch. In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank.
But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum, then
Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year
Reich.
Trump is fighting. And what’s particularly
delicious is that, like Patton standing over the battlefield as his tanks
obliterated Rommel’s, he’s shouting, “You magnificent bastards, I read your
book!” That is just the icing on the cake, but it’s wonderful to see that
not only is Trump fighting, he’s defeating the Left using their own tactics.
That book is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals – a
book so essential to the Liberals’ war against America that it is and was the
playbook for the entire Obama administration and the subject of Hillary
Clinton’s senior thesis. It is a book of such pure evil, that, just as
the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom
we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.
Trump’s tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in
reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do.
First, instead of going after “the fake media” –
and they are so fake that they have literally gotten every single significant
story of the past 60 years not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the
truth, from the Tet Offensive to Benghazi, to what really happened on
the streets of Ferguson, Missouri – Trump isolated CNN. He made
it personal.
Then, just as Alinsky suggests, he employs ridicule
which Alinsky described as “the most powerful weapon of all.”
Everyone gets that it’s not just CNN – in fact, in
a world where Al Sharpton and Rachel Maddow, Paul Krugman and Nicholas Kristof
are people of influence and whose “reporting” is in no way significantly
different than CNN’s – CNN is just a piker.
Most importantly, Trump’s tweets have put CNN
in an untenable and unwinnable position. With Trump’s
ability to go around them, they cannot simply stand pat. They need to
respond. This leaves them with only two choices.
They can either “go high” (as Hillary would
disingenuously declare of herself and the fake news would disingenuously report
as the truth) and begin to honestly and accurately report the news or they
can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice
their usual hysteria and demagoguery.
The problem for CNN (et al.) with the
former is that, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would
be the end of the Democratic Party they serve. It is nothing but
the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left
alive.
Imagine, for example, if CNN had
honestly and accurately reported then-candidate Barack
Obama’s close ties to foreign terrorists (Rashid Khalidi), domestic terrorists
(William Ayers), the mafia (Tony Rezko) or the true evils of his spiritual
mentor, Jeremiah Wright’s, church.
Imagine if they had honestly and accurately conveyed
the evils of the Obama administration’s weaponizing of the IRS to be used
against their political opponents or his running of guns to the Mexican cartels
or the truth about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the Obama
administration’s cover-up.
This makes “going high” a non-starter for CNN.
This leaves them no other option but to ratchet up the fake news,
conjuring up the next “nothing burger” and devoting 24 hours a day to
hysterical rants about how it’s “worse than Nixon.”
This, obviously, is what CNN has chosen to do. The
problem is that, as they become more and more hysterical, they become more and
more obvious.
Each new effort at even faker news than before
and faker “outrage” only makes that much more clear to any objective observer
that Trump is and always has been right about the fake news media.
And, by causing their hysteria, Trump has forced them
into numerous, highly embarrassing and discrediting mistakes.
Thus, in
their desperation, they have lowered their standards even further and run with
articles so clearly fake that, even with the liberal (lower case “l”) libel
laws protecting the media, they’ve had to wholly retract and erase their
stories repeatedly.
Their flailing at Trump has even seen them cross the line
into criminality, with CNN using their vast corporate fortune to hunt
down a private citizen for having made fun of them in an Internet meme.
This
threat to “dox” – release of personal information to encourage co-ideologists
to visit violence upon him and his family -- a political satirist was chilling
in that it clearly wasn’t meant just for him. If it were, there would
have been no reason for CNN to have made their “deal” with him
public.
Instead, CNN – playing by “Chicago
Rules” – was sending a message to any and all: dissent will not be
tolerated.
This heavy-handed and hysterical response to a joke on
the Internet has backfired on CNN, giving rise to only more righteous
ridicule.
So, to my friends on the Left – and the #NeverTrumpers as
well -- do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be “collegial”
and “dignified” and “proper”? Of course I do.
These aren’t
those times.
This is war.
And it’s a war that the Left has been fighting
without opposition for the past 50 years.
So, say anything you want about this president – I get
it, he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times.
I
don’t care. I can’t spare this man. He fights.
Evan Sayet is the author of The
KinderGarden of Eden: How The Modern Liberal Thinks. His lecture to
the Heritage Foundation on this same topic remains, some ten years later, by
far the single most viewed lecture in their history.
______________
Are we a society of
cowards or heroes?
By William Haupt III | Watchdog.org
Thomas Paine - Shutterstock photo
Cowards die a thousand deaths: The valiant taste of death
but once.”
– William Shakespeare
Why are there more
cowards today than heroes? Because it’s easier to take the cowards way out.
When we hear the word
"coward," we envision those whimpering away out of fear under the
guise of convenient escape.
But there’s other cowards. Some run from trouble;
others run from themselves.
Those with no spine avoid taking a stand and
slither from sight, rather than join the fight and leave those they promised to
support battling on their own.
A coward is afraid to question the source of
rumors and crippled into inaction. They chasten friends and allies and align
with their foe.
The fear of the crowd dictates they that lay all moral
character to waste, since there is safety with others like them.
Heroes
courageously seek out the truth. Those who bow to group appeal at the expense
of principles are cowards.
“Cowards suffer many deaths; but a hero suffers but one.”
– Jayne Shaw
In today’s world, it’s
not uncommon to be forsaken by friends, allies or family.
If we choose a moral
cause or political side they dislike, forgoing interaction, cowards hide to
please the majority.
If the cause is unpopular or difficult, they show their
jauntiest face to endear the masses.
When you reach for support, they can’t be
found.
The majority over-ruled trust and morality.
Cowards do only what’s
“safest” for them.
“It is better by noble boldness to run the risk of being
subject to half of the evils we anticipate than to remain in cowardly
listlessness for fear of what might happen.”
– Herodotus
There are many
despicable acts of cowardness, but none no more contemptible than character
assassination.
This is the ultimate ad hominem used by a coward to avoid doing
what is right or to appease the crowd.
Although slander is a punishable crime,
it is the coward’s best weapon.
They disable someone to discredit their moral
standing by destroying their credibility and reputation.
Few know the
consequences until they are on the outside looking in.
It is then they comprehend
the damage done by a person or a group that wants to spoliate anyone for their
own personal benefit.
“The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous
are bold as a lion.”
Proverbs 28:1
We are developing more
cowards than heroes.
It’s a product of our political left DNA, especially in
cloistered communities.
The righteous morality that made us live in the
likeness of our Creator, led us to bravery.
But now our politicians produce
more cowards each generation through progressive engineering that restricts
religious exposure.
They restrain free will and regulate moral character to
fence in our horizons with immoral laws and dare us to defy them.
This is born
in our classrooms, invades our families, friendships, workplaces, politics and
courts which procreates more cowards.
“Moral political and intercourse has turned into jousting
tournaments to trade insults.”
– Lady Austin
Character assassination
involves spreading rumors and innuendos and deliberate misinformation that
taints one’s morals and reputation to defile integrity.
It is common in our
political campaigns today.
Spinning information that has a half ounce of truth,
but a pound of false actuality is commonplace.
Candidates present misleading
partial facts, avoiding actual context, to damage an opponent.
How many times
have we heard President Donald Trump "paid too little tax or none at all
in a certain year?"
Yet that accuser failed to reiterate that he did not
owe any taxes.
The left claims Trump is a party hack for the GOP when they ganged
up with progressives to derail his campaign!
“You can't throw kindling on a fire and deny you kept it
burning. Right now, cowardice is that kindling.”
– Elen Waters
The greatest group of
character assassinating cowards is traditional media. This has replaced all
ethics in their playbook.
News headlines claim brutality is prevalent when it
involves a minority or a controversial innocent.
This is followed by banners
about investigators who are dismissive of the facts.
The media has become a
coward for other cowards.
They are a pawn of far left candidates to do their
dirty work under the mask of the Fourth Estate.
It’s common to spin a
progressive talking point into factitious public news.
“If you're a liberal, anything you say is protected.”
– Laura Schlessinger
Cowardness has even
replaced moral professionalism in our court system today.
Our great legal profession has
turned into a kangaroo court of insults, false truths and ad hominem insults to
deface and destroy the character of the opposed by each attorney.
This is far
easier than actually practicing the real law of those great orators of ancient
Athens and Rome.
“Lawyers are the only persons who can commit perjury
without being punished.”
– Jeremy Belen
Enlightenment thinkers
illuminated our global horizons.
Yet they’ve been the subject of carnage by
cowards more than any others in history.
They were chastised for setting trends
to change the tide of antiquity into futuristic progress.
They were scorned for
refuting an immoral and cowardly society with laws that deprived men of their
natural rights.
Some met the gallows and others met the fate of character
assassination to silence them.
Their reputations endured fatalistic carnage
until history exonerated them.
“The future exonerates good men as it spits in the faces
of cowards.”
– J. Riddell
The greatest act of
character assassination in history occurred in our nation against the patriot
who started our revolution, Thomas Paine.
Few know he is not named a founder
and was denied entrance to the Convention in 1776 for his opinions on slavery and
universal suffrage.
Yet without the genius of Paine, we’d be subjects instead
of citizens today.
Ben Franklin printed his book Common Sense for free,
which Paine used to enlighten the patriots.
He got nary a shilling for his
work, which he read to the war-torn troops during the Revolution.
Yet he was
banished to France in 1777. He was buried in New Rochelle, N.Y., in 1809, and
only eight people attended his funeral. He died forsaken.
“The first casualty during a reform movement is the
truth. It is forsaken for propaganda.”
– Harry Brower
Bertram Shaw wrote,
“Insults cast afar only demonstrate how spineless a person you are.”
Those who
chasten one’s character covertly or openly achieve temporary goals.
To win a
quarrel, election or get even with one who thinks differently by tarnishing
their reputation has harsh legal and moral emanations.
Only cowards of the
worst kind stoop that low.
And they will pay dearly the very day their victim
is emancipated.
Today, cowardly indignation is strangling too many feasible
solutions to remedy legal, political, social and global injustices.
Cowardice
destroys while heroism creates remedies.
“There is nothing like character assassination to do the
difficult work for you.”
J. Gandi
America’s political
divisions have transformed our morals and ethics into a graveyard for personal
attainment.
The distrust we have for government has spread to our communities
and every crevice of our lives.
Everyone is affected by those using straw men
to do their dirty work for them.
It’s easier to impute to win than to seek a
truth through discourse.
Heroes seek the truth.
Cowards hide from it.
They are
the first ones to lose their liberty and the last to admit it.
Like Rome, we
will fall from within through moral decay if those of us who are heroes do not
stand up against the cowardly enemies of our beloved republic.
We need more
heroes!
All change starts in our own back yards.
“All great change in America begins at the dinner table.”
– Ronald Reagan
Top of FormWilliam Haupt III is a retired professional journalist,
author, and citizen legislator in California for over 40 years. He got his
start working to approve California Proposition 13.
