An odds-on prediction or wishful thinking?

Bruce Plante cartoon credit: laprogressive.com

Conrad Black has another provocative analysis of the national political landscape (“The Fatuous Democrats” at National Review online here):

As the revelations of political manipulation and malfeasance in the FBI and the intelligence agencies under the Obama administration and the early Trump days oozes out of the slowly accelerating investigation of those events, and from the self-serving books of people who are prime targets for indictments, the character of the Democratic opposition is evolving in unusual and even exotic ways. The Clinton party, founded as “new Democrats” who favored the original Gulf War and whose standard bearer declared “the end of the era of big government,” has been renounced as abusive of women and generally insufficiently progressive. After 25 years as the Napoleon and Josephine of the Democracy, the Clintons have been banished to the broom closet, an embarrassment from another day.

The successor royal political couple, the Obamas, isn’t faring much better. He presided over the deluge of slime that his Justice Department, FBI, and intelligence agencies poured over the 2016 election and its aftermath, and that is now finally being exposed. The extent to which the former president was involved in the Clinton-email whitewash and the false applications for surveillance of the Trump campaign will become a matter of high public interest. Practically the entire Obama legacy was Obamacare, Green Empowerment and the Paris Climate Accord, and the Iran Nuclear Treaty. All were disasters and all have been dismembered or repudiated. Mr. Obama was cranking up to being a long-term, high-prestige ex-president. There have not been such since Mr. Truman and General Eisenhower. President Johnson and President Nixon and George W, Bush left office in too much controversy; President Ford and President Carter were not successful enough to have great impact, President Reagan was elderly and in declining health, President Bush Senior enjoyed a bit of it, but not the great eminence of Truman and Eisenhower, two-term victorious war-time leaders identified with great enterprises such as the Marshall Plan and the founding of NATO.

The Democrats placed all their bets on Hillary Clinton, and kept raising the ante in the misplaced belief that President Trump could be driven from office as a traitor, a crook, and an incompetent. They bet everything and will lose everything, and some of their prominent personalities will be doing the tap dance before the grand jury in the run-up to the next election. Their vast media claque will suffer a severe lapse of credibility and ratings, given how heavily invested they are in peddling hatred and contempt of the president, which has vastly exceeded fair comment and any acceptable standard of journalistic professionalism.

. . .

If whoever limps through the Democratic nomination process looks and sounds anything like this group and is weighed down by the hare-brained nostrums the party worthies have been spouting in the last few months, they will provide an entertaining variation on what will then be the lengthy and numerous legal trials of some of the stars of the Clinton and Obama administrations.

Mr. Black’s column is here. He seems confident that miscreants at FBI, DOJ, etc. will be indicted, while many other pundits and readers expect nothing to happen to any of them.

Mr. Black's column further describes -- in unflattering terms -- the leading contenders so far in the Democratic presidential primary race.  It's an expanding field; Battleswarm blog has the latest update on the "Democratic Presidential Clown Car."

# # #

So where are the indictments?

image credit: downtrend.com

Conrad Black at American Greatness sums it up in “The Greatest Constitutional Crisis Since the Civil War”:

For more than two years, the United States and the world have had two competing narratives: that an elected president of the United States was a Russian agent whom the Kremlin helped elect; and its rival narrative that senior officials of the Justice Department, FBI, CIA, and other national intelligence organizations had repeatedly lied under oath, misinformed federal officials, and meddled in partisan political matters illegally and unconstitutionally and had effectively tried to influence the outcome of a presidential election, and then undo its result by falsely propagating the first narrative. It is now obvious and indisputable that the second narrative is the correct one.

. . .

The extent of the criminal misconduct of the former law enforcement and intelligence chiefs is now notorious, but to make the right point here, it has to be summarized. The fact that the officially preferred candidate lied to federal officials about her emails and acted in outright contempt of Congress and the legal process in the destruction of evidence, was simply ignored by the FBI director, who announced that she would not be prosecuted, though he had no authority to make that determination.

The full report is here. It’s one to Bookmark. Most of us are wondering if the new AG is convening grand juries. Mr. Black concludes:

This entire monstrous travesty is finally coming apart without even waiting for the horrible disappointment of the special counsel’s inability to adduce a scrap of evidence to justify his replication of Torquemada as an inquisitor and of the Gestapo and KGB at rounding up and accusing unarmed individuals who were not flight risks. . . .

Without realizing the proportions of the emergency, America has survived the greatest constitutional crisis since the Civil War. All those who legitimately oppose or dislike the president, including traditional high-brow Republicans who find him distasteful, should join in the condemnation of this largely criminal assault on democracy, and then, if they wish, go out and try to beat him fair and square, the good old-fashioned way, in a free election. But they must abide by the election’s result.

# # #

Long term: getting along

photo credit (raid on Michael Cohen's office): freespeechden.com

Everyone has watched the media manipulate the Covington students harassed by the faux Vietnam vet beating his drum. Everyone watched the CNN footage of the FBI storming Roger Stone’s home at 6am. The corruption of the FBI, the DOJ, & the media is blatant. It's every day. But half the people I know don’t see it. Those who do see it are swimming against the current. And it is difficult to imagine that things will end well. John Hawkins at PJ Media pondered the problem in a thoughtful piece which concludes that

the basic response came down to, “He’s a smiling white kid wearing a MAGA hat, therefore he deserves everything he gets.”

It would be nice to make it into a joke by calling it what it really is, a “hat crime,” but it’s not funny. If you’re willing to falsely brand a kid as a racist, a Nazi, and a horrible person because he stood there and smiled while some weirdo beat a drum in his face, where do we go from there? . . . If Joe Biden wins the Democratic nomination in 2020, is it acceptable to try to destroy the lives of random liberal teenagers for wearing “I’m With Joe” shirts?

This is the world liberals are dragging us into with their myopic vision, unquenchable hatred for people who disagree with them, and their raging intolerance. Is this good for the country? No way. Will it produce a better America? No. Is it entirely possible that this sort of thinking could lead to increasing amounts of political violence? Absolutely, because you can’t live in harmony with people who think there’s no punishment too great for people who wear hats designed to support their political opponents. 

Then again, maybe those Covington students represent hope for the next generations.

# # #

Cleveland Terror plot foiled

photo credit: myajc.com

Fox News at cleveland.com reports:

A man who pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda sought to kill members of the military and conducted reconnaissance in downtown Cleveland for a planned attack on July 4 -- but the Independence Day plot was foiled after a months-long investigation, federal officials said Monday.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Stephen Anthony said Demetrius Pitts, also known as Abdur Raheem Rahfeeq, was arrested at 10 a.m. Sunday by the joint terrorism task force. Authorities were initially notified about Pitts in 2017, when he lived in Cincinnati and allegedly made statements supporting Al Qaeda and advocating violence against U.S. military members.

. . .

Besides the alleged plan to attack on July 4, officials said Pitts wanted to also harm military members and families of service members. Herdman said Pitts discussed giving remote control cars packed with shrapnel to children of military members. 

When he was asked by the undercover FBI agent if he was worried about injuring children, Pitts said, "I don’t care and I have no regrets," according to Herdman.

Anthony said the arrest came after multiple conversations showed that Pitts had a desire to do harm. Pitts was born and "radicalized" in the U.S., and wanted to commit violence in the name of Al Qaeda, he added. Pitts faces up to 20 years in prison.

Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams said while the alleged plot was foiled, the public should still contact authorities if they notice anything suspicious.

See the rest of the report here.

# # #

Newt's "Practical proposal to protect our children"

Photo credit: newstalkflorida.com

The other evening on Fox News, Sean Hannity proposed his solutions for security on school campuses, to prevent another Parkland shooting from taking place. His proposals mostly involved increased armed presence in halls and classrooms, security clearances at all entrances similar to checkpoints at entrances to federal buildings, and so forth. I did not much like his proposals, as they would turn our campuses into the very militarized environments that we associate with police states. 

During the Parkland shooting, ROTC training saved lives. CNN reported:

Colton Haab heard seven gunshots, and his Junior ROTC training kicked in.

The 17-year-old junior knew a gunman was on his high school campus Wednesday afternoon so he ushered 60 to 70 people to shelter in an open Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps room. At that point, he realized that the Kevlar sheets generally used for the Junior ROTC marksmanship program could come in handy.

"We took those sheets, and we put them in front of everybody so they weren't seen, because they were behind a solid object and the Kevlar would slow the bullet down," Haab told CNN on Thursday.

In his proposals, Speaker Newt Newt sets forth some alternative ideas that expand on the Junior ROTC trainee's quick thinking. The excerpt below is from his newsletter (also posted online at Fox News):

This week’s tragic attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is a deeply painful reminder of how much we have failed to honestly confront the problem of school shootings in America.

Putting up “Gun-Free Zone” signs is not a solution. It is an act of self-deception. By definition, the determined killers carry their guns past the signs. They are not slowed down for one second by community sentiment.

The current strategies of responding to a violent threat by either freezing students in place or accelerating student evacuation both carry seeds of disaster. Freezing the students in place simply sets them up to be killed methodically by a brutal, evil, or mentally ill person. Having them flee may lead them to run right into the path of the killer.

. . .

The fact is, evil people with guns must be stopped by good people with guns.

Furthermore, the faster good people can respond, the fewer innocent people will be killed.

Every school in America should have several teachers and administrators trained in firearms who are permitted to carry concealed weapons. The number of these “protectors of the innocent” in each school should be determined by the number of students. Agreeing to serve in this role might be encouraged with an appropriate monthly stipend. After all, in Georgia, teachers who agree to serve as coaches are paid stipends ranging from $150 to as much as $400 (and sometimes more for large football programs). Surely, we can afford to provide this type of incentive to people who want to help protect our children.

Because these protectors would have concealed weapons and not be in uniform, would-be killers would have no idea who might be capable of ending their threat by ending them.

. . .

If we are really serious about protecting our children, we must have trained and equipped protectors prepared to handle this type of situation whenever there are school activities. The Parkland school had an armed officer assigned to the campus, but the officer never encountered the shooter and was not able to respond in time. Dramatically increasing the presence of uniformed, visibly-armed security guards, however, might create an environment ill-suited for learning.

Instead, teachers and administrators serving as protectors could complement and support the dedicated officer or security personnel who are already serving in many schools. This combination of using uniformed police officers to handle standard school security challenges, while also having responsible adult protectors who are already going to be working in the school prepared to provide additional force in the case of a catastrophic emergency, like a mass shooting, is the most effective and practical way to protect our children.

Read Newt’s full column here.

We all know now that the FBI completely dropped the ball on this one. See Sundance here. It wasn’t the first failure by the FBI to act on tips of imminent danger. And it won’t be the last. Message to schools: you are probably on your own. Prepare accordingly. And I thought Newt's ideas were on the right track.

# # #

Today’s Excellent Read: High Crimes and Misdemeanors

art credit: gallerycartoon.blogspot.com

Douglas MacKinnon at Investor’s Business Daily brings a lot of the dossier-DOJ-FBI-Russia-collusion-spy scandals into clearer focus, and it is not pretty. A few morsels:

As ever more deliberately concealed evidence is being uncovered of factual "collusion" between the Obama White House, the failed presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton and Russia; of professional operatives in our intelligence services openly trying to first, cripple the campaign of Donald Trump, and then, having failed at that criminal objective, to delegitimize his presidency; and of secretly funded far-left anarchist groups proudly preaching violence against those they oppose, it seems the perfect time to ask three questions:

First, what is the definition of a "Police State?

Second, what is the definition of "Treason?"

And last, what – as defined in the Constitution of the United States of America – is the meaning of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors?"

. . .

When you collude with foreign espionage agents to manufacture evidence to obtain a warrant to spy on citizens of the United States for purely political and ideological reasons, you are not only breaking the laws of the United States, but are introducing those very questions of treason, bribery and high crimes and misdemeanors into the conversation.

. . .

What is happening now is not only chilling to the bone, it's dramatically more dangerous because these crimes are being aided, abetted and covered-up by a number of partisans in the mainstream media.

Read the rest here.

# # #

Fake News Propaganda – a Case Study

art credit: Henry Payne cartoon at Townhall 

Happy New Year! I’m starting off 2018 with a close-up look at how the media manufactures Fake News.

Frank Miele publishes news commentary in the Daily Inter Lake, a Montana newspaper. On Dec. 30, he ran an editorial about an AP wire report, the misinformation it contained, and his subsequent efforts to wrench a correction out of the AP higher-ups (h/t Thomas Lifson). It is a bit of a read, but I am linking to it, because it provides a look inside a newsroom and how “Fake News” gets so widely disseminated. It is also a classic illustration of Trump Derangement Syndrome infecting the media pushing progressive propaganda. The Russian Collusion phony baloney is starting to collapse of its own weight, and Miele’s report is related to that, insofar as Andrew McCabe is one of the cast of characters at the FBI. Miele’s report starts off:

I took a rare shift as news editor last Saturday, which gave me an unexpected chance to put my finger in the dike holding back the flood of fake news caused by those afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome. 

As I was sifting through the Associated Press news report looking for wire stories worth putting into the Sunday paper, one story on the news digest caught my attention right away: “President Donald Trump reacts to reports about the retirement of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe by retweeting falsehoods about McCabe’s wife.” 

“Oh no,” I thought. “What has Trump done now?” Because even though I am a Trump supporter, I’ve learned that Twitter can be a cause of trouble in the Trump administration as well as a frequent force for good.

But when I looked up the story, I discovered that my worries were unfounded. So, unfortunately, was the story.

When I read AP reporter Darlene Superville’s story, it was immediately obvious that she had either misunderstood Trump’s tweet or intentionally lied about it. She also plainly didn’t know the meaning of the verb “retweet,” since Trump had tweeted an original statement, not a quoted one.

Getting to the truth will take a bit of context, so here goes . . .

And he goes on from there in some detail. He eventually gets a correction from the AP, but here’s his conclusion, and one which I will put in my mental file for the next time I have a conversation with a liberal on media propaganda:

It was a small step, but an important one. Yes, I felt like the little Dutch boy who put his finger in the dike to stop the floodwaters, but it may be a hollow victory in the war on fake news. I have to wonder about all those hundreds of editors who put the same erroneous story in their newspapers or websites last weekend without question. Didn’t anyone other than me question the accuracy of the report? Besides, with the power of the Internet, the damage may be irreparable. I checked on Tuesday and found out that the fake version of the story was listed in a Google search 7,790 times whereas the corrected version only appeared on 5,710 websites.

Let the reader beware. 

You can read the rest here. It’s an uphill battle, so please pass it on!

# # #

Conrad Black: Choose Sides in This Civil War

image credit: tothedeathmedia

Conrad Black has a sobering if scary take on the minefields and treachery that President Trump has to deal with every day. Here are a couple of paragraphs (and considering the “Never Trump” bias of National Review, I am somewhat surprised that NR published the piece in the first place):

Trump opponents need to understand what the alternative is. The battle lines have been so sharply drawn, in what is now a bloodless civil war for direction of U.S. public policy, that the two sides cannot really communicate with each other. There is a commendable candor in Kellyanne Conway’s statement: “They hate us and we hate them.” . . .

. . .  There is now unfolding what must be the last civilized debate about the trajectory of events in Washington before the civil war moves from the heavy and frequent skirmishing that has intensified since the election to the fight to the death that seems inevitably to impend. The president said in a powerful address to a very enthusiastic audience in West Virginia last week, where he received the grace of conversion to the Republican party of the formerly Democratic governor, Jim Justice, that the entire special-counsel investigation into relations between the Russian government and the Trump campaign is “a total fabrication” and “an attempt to [reverse] one of the greatest political defeats in American history.” So it is.

. . .

Whether [Robert] Mueller conducts himself professionally or not, there is no excuse for a special counsel to have been appointed, and the president was (as he need not have mentioned publicly) badly let down by Sessions. The scramble of nominal Republicans such as Lindsey Graham, and drooling partisan Democrats such as Chris Coons, to pass redundant, grandstanding legislation to protect Sessions and Mueller is nauseating. Trump ran against and defeated both parties, the Clintons, the Bushes, and Obama, and most of their close collaborators in the Congress. The war continues and until the president has enough economic progress, or enough time without gaffes that the hostile media can amplify into a wall of noise, or a sudden foreign-policy success such as with North Korea or even Venezuela, if he wants to start moving the needle of the polls upwards, he will face the problem of cowardice and lethargy in his own party. Senator McConnell’s statement in Kentucky this week that Trump was responsible for the almost total failure of the Republican Congress to achieve anything in the past six months was just more self-serving claptrap from a familiar and very tiresome source. . . .

. . .

This is a civil war and the apostate conservatives should realize that, if Trump loses, they don’t get a new Reaganism in the Republican party and renewed importance and self-importance for themselves; they get the semi-permanent return of those responsible for the decline of America, the sleazy transformation of America into an ineffectual force in the world and into an inert, economically stagnant welfare state. The choice, for sane conservatives, is Trump or national disaster. . ..

Read the whole thing here.

# # #

Trump and the Bottom Line

photo credit: CNN

 

It's Sunday, and as always, Clarice Feldman at American Thinker has a thoughtful perspective  ("A Consequential President in the Time of Pygmies") on President Trump’s first six month in office. Here are a few excerpts:

Once when my son was about 6 or 7 I took him to the circus with some of his friends. The acrobats, clowns, and lion tamer in the center ring enthralled the other kids. Not him. He turned to me and said, “How do you think they make money producing a circus? I think it’s the concessions.” It struck me then that among the people in the world, there are some -- too few, actually -- who are not distracted by spectacles, but, instead, keep their eyes on the bottom line.

That’s how I see the President. His stated goals have always been to make us safe, get the economy booming, enable a job-creation economy, and make life better and safer for all Americans.

As the news is filled with tittle-tattle about the phony baloney Russian collusion story and moronic punditry, the president keeps plowing on with his agenda. American Digest lists 220 things the President has achieved while in office, despite the vitriolic attacks on him and what appears to be a silent coup by the press, bureaucrats, and entrenched officeholders.    

This week, despite Democratic stalling, 78 of his nominees for office were confirmed. So the list should now run to 221 things the President has done to Make America Great Again.

With West Virginia’s Governor Jim Justice having ditched the Democratic Party for the Republican, the Republicans now control 26 state governments. Put another way, 48% of Americans now live in a state where Republicans have complete control. 17% in states with total Dem control. “

The stock market is booming although the NYT twists itself into a pretzel to deny the President’s role in this. . . 

. . .

As for the Russian nonsense, Edward Jay Epstein, a longtime credible sleuth, explains why the Russians had no particular interest in having Hillary win, but a great deal of interest in degrading our belief in the legitimacy of our elections:

. . .

In the meantime, pay attention to the bottom line. Trump is not losing. The media and the Democratic party they work for are.

She has quite a bit more to say (e.g., on Comey and Mueller, etc.); the whole article is here.

Meantime, I am wondering about the 17-day “vacation” that President Trump is taking at one of his golf clubs in New Jersey, while his staff camps out at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Apparently these temporary logistics are planned so that the White House heating and cooling systems can be upgraded and other repairs can be made. Hmmm. I hope a trusted team of experts takes out entire walls in the White House, hauls them over to some secure warehouse, and under surveillance, finds the bugs.  

# # #

Newt: The President Owes the News Media Nothing

art credit:  Australian National Review

I subscribe to any number of newsletters, alert lists, and daily update links. Today, Speaker Newt Gingrich posted a piece at Fox News and then sent his op-ed to his e-list. I am copying it below in full, especially for those who may miss the Speaker's frequent guest slots on Hannity and other prime time news programs. The media continues to astonish in its capacity to sink to new lows--  to undermine, sabotage, and attempt to de-legitimatize the Trump administration. Say what you like about Newt, he hits the nail on the head calling out the corrupt media class and its dishonest coverage of President Trump:

Note: I wrote this before the latest despicable, dishonest smearing of the President, but that incident simplify magnifies my case.

Here is what National Security Adviser Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster said Monday in response to the latest Washington press corps hysteria:

"There's nothing that the president takes more seriously than the security of the American people. The story that came out tonight as reported is false. The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries including threats to civil aviation. At no time, at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed. And the President did not discuss any military operations that were not already publicly known. Two other senior officials who were present, including the secretary of state, remember the meeting the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh anonymous sources. And I was in the room, it didn’t happen."

This simply reinforces the following, which I wrote earlier this week.

After almost four months of watching the news media’s unending dishonesty, hostility, and contempt toward the Trump administration, it is time to have a blunt conversation.

The President owes Americans the defense of the United States Constitution.

The President owes the American people a sound job as commander in chief, protecting the country.

The President owes the American people a dramatically stronger economy with more jobs, better take home pay, and increased opportunities for investment growth; which will help people prepare for retirement, strengthen pension funds, and guarantee Social Security’s solvency.

The President owes the American people a better health system with greater access, lower costs, and better health outcomes.

Indeed, the President owes the American people many things.

But the President does not owe anything to the Washington press corps and the left-wing hypocrites who dominate today's news media.

I first learned this rule after reading the transcript from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s opening press conference with the White House Press Corps on March 8, 1933. During FDR’s inaugural meeting with the press, no one was permitted to directly quote the President except via a prepared quote from his office. The vast majority of the conversation was either without attribution or completely off the record. The purpose of the meeting was for the media to understand what was going on – not for them to play gotcha or win clever attacks disguised as questions. Those were the rules.

Since Watergate, the news media has acquired a steadily more arrogant attitude and has moved further and further to the left. Today, they are adversarial opponents of conservatives– especially the Trump administration.

I learned the hard way as Speaker of the House that I could not regularly meet with reporters on camera. It set up an arena for gotcha questions. Reporters gained imaginary points for finding stupid, narrow, often irrelevant things to argue over. Instead of being an opportunity for a genuine public dialogue, the daily on-camera briefings became a bloody battleground – totally to my disadvantage. Within a few weeks, we were forced to stop.

President Trump's instinct to radically overhaul his relationship with the media is exactly right.

When reporters behave like picadors in daily briefings, trying desperately to taunt and embarrass Sean Spicer rather than listen to and report on what he’s saying, it undermines our free society's right to accurate information. The daily briefing may draw big audiences as a reality television spectacle, but it does not serve the country or President Trump well.

While there remain some serious, historically-minded reporters, they are unfortunately becoming more of a rarity. Instead, much of the Washington press corps has become an incestuous collection of voyeurs who watch, judge, and attack without knowledge or responsibility. This creates a hostile, propagandistic, and distorted version of news coverage.

A visit by Egyptian President el-Sisi to the White House last month led to a young American woman being released from an Egyptian jail. Had Obama achieved this, it would have been lauded by the press as a major sign of leadership and compassion. However, because it was President Trump, the media mostly ignored it.

Similarly, when the new relationship between President Trump and the Chinese President Xi Jinping directly resulted in a trade breakthrough for American beef, natural gas, and certain financial services, ending a 13-year period in which the Chinese refused to buy American beef, we heard very little from the media. It should bring billions of dollars into the United States, yet the media felt it wasn’t important enough to cover.

The recent jobs numbers – manufacturing, in particular – have been remarkable. But, of course, most Washington reporters treat the release of these numbers as non-events. After all, this would mean they have to report good news, and in the left-wing newsrooms in which they are all so deeply embedded, positive news related to the President is simply not permissible.

The President’s upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Vatican, Brussels, and the G-7 in Sicily is a remarkable tour for a new president – especially one who the media insisted knew nothing about international relations. But, of course, the Washington news media wants to trivialize the trip with a discussion of White House gossip and whether the diplomatic journey will have a big domestic effect – as they define it.

If you review the first four months of news coverage – much of which is based on unnamed sources – it becomes obvious how overwhelmingly negative, hostile, gossipy, and focused on undermining and weakening President Trump and his team the press corps truly is.

Given a choice between writing a story about a big historic accomplishment and a petty piece about infighting in the White House, the Washington press corps will go for the dirt every time. If Washington is the swamp, the media is the muck.

I challenge anyone to analyze the last four months of news coverage of President Trump and come to the conclusion that it is unbiased, serious, or focused on important topics.

My guess is, that you will unfortunately come to the same conclusion that I have. In this instance, President Trump should take a note from FDR to remind the Washington press corps that he works for the American people – not the elite media.

For the latest on the smear that Trump asked Comey to end the investigation of Michael Flynn, check this out.

# # #

Steyn: Laws are for the Little People

art credit: zazzle

Mark Steyn has been on hiatus for several months, but he popped up yesterday and posted a column before the debate. As usual, he knocks it out of the park. The entire article is here, but here’s a small sampling:

As I've said for years - on radio, TV and in print - for me the overriding issue in American politics is the corruption. In the Obama era, we have seen the remorseless merging of the party and the state - in the IRS, in the Justice Department and elsewhere. Whatever one feels about, say, Scandinavia, they at least come to their statism and socialism more or less honestly. Not so the United States.

It's bad enough that Democrats aren't agitated about this corruption - but then it works to their advantage. Slightly more mysterious is why so many of my friends on the right aren't incensed by it.

. . .

Needless to say, if you get your news from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, etc, etc, you will be entirely unaware of all this. 

. . .

The present arrangements work for the political class, the permanent bureaucracy, their client groups, and the lawless. But not for millions of the law-abiding. Consider illegal immigration, for example, which pre-Trump was entirely discussed in terms of the interests of the lawbreakers - how to "bring them out of the shadows", how to give them "a path to citizenship", celebrate their "family values" and "work ethic" - and never in terms of the law-abiding, whose wages they depress, whose communities they transform, and, in too many criminal cases, whose lives they wreck.  . . .

. . .

Hillary is the most known known in the history of knowns. And what we know of her is that she's stinkingly corrupt, above the law, and able to suborn entire government agencies in the cause of her corruption. Where do you think we're gonna be after eight years of that?

As Trump says repeatedly. “We will never fix a rigged system by relying on the people who rigged it in the first place.” The full article is on Steyn's website here. 

# # #

Judicial Watch: Lois Lerner and the IRS lied

"Tea Party and other conservative group tax exempt applications

 would not be approved before the November 2012 presidential election"

cartoon credit: ulstermanbooks.com

Ali Meyer at the Washington FreeBeacon reports (h/t American Thinker):

Staff at IRS headquarters in Washington, D.C., buried conservative groups’ tax exemption applications beginning in 2010 and lasting through President Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, according to documents released this week by Judicial Watch, a government watchdog group.

The group released 105 pages of FBI documents, which included interviews with Cincinnati IRS employees who disclosed that applications by Tea Party groups were automatically denied approval and assigned to a special group until they heard from the IRS headquarters in Washington, D.C.

“The FBI’s 302 interviews with Cincinnati IRS employees reveal that the agency adopted a series of policies assuring that Tea Party and other conservative group tax exempt applications would not be approved before the November 2012 presidential election,” according to a statement from Judicial Watch.

The full report is here. 

Will any of the top officials be charged with anything? Perjury for starters? 

# # #

How To Steal Elections: Part 2

art credit: electionfraud2016.wordpress.com

Yesterday, I posted some of Paul Murphy’s July 19 column, “How Democrats Steal Elections” that was published on the American Thinker website. Another column on that website appeared yesterday; it is by Michael N. Mattia, and it is no less disturbing. Some take-aways:

Now that Hillary Rodham Clinton is the Democrats’ candidate for President of the United States, prepare for the most fraudulent, corrupt and dishonest if not outright criminal election process in the history of this country. That has to be the takeaway from all the recent revelations regarding the Clintons and the DNC coronation of Clinton. Significantly aiding this criminality are Obama and the Democratic Party itself.

Obama has co-opted every federal agency tasked with providing honest oversight of the election process.  From the Federal Election Commission to the FBI and ultimately the Justice Department itself, the Clintons and the Democrats  know that there will be no negative consequences to any and all law breaking that they undertake to steal the election.  Voter intimidation by gangs of Clinton thugs will be given the response that the situation will be “investigated.”  In modern day Government usage “investigation” is simply a euphemism for “we intend to do nothing.”   

Release of e-mails proving the corruption and collusion of the Democratic National Committee with the Clinton campaign are simply ignored by the Media and the watch dog agencies of the Government.  No matter how many more e-mails are released from the DNC or how criminally evidentiary they may be, the Clintons know that nothing will dampen the enthusiasm of their lemming like supporters nor in any way endanger their movement to dominance. 

. . .

The only things that drive the Clintons are greed and the lust for power.  There are no religious, ethical or moral constraints on their actions.  If there is enough money dangled in front of her, she will be more than willing to sell out the Country, blackmail be damned.  An elected Democrat, be he Congressman or Senator, would never in a million years vote for impeachment of President Clinton and absent such an action, there is no other way to remove her from office.  She would pack the Supreme Court with ultra-liberal judges acting as a rubber stamp for whatever unlawful or unconstitutional efforts she might embark upon. 

It is now up to the Republican governors, especially, to plan for the onslaught of illegal election activities in their States. [emphasis added]  It is a foregone conclusion that the Democrat governors will turn a blind eye if not wholeheartedly support such activities in order to secure the election of Clinton -- while at the same time giving lip service to the purity of the process.  The tidal wave of Democrat lawyers which will descend on Red States prior to the election in attempts to stymie valid election processes and results will make all previous actions pale in comparison. 

The Republican Party needs to mobilize, now, the assets needed to counteract these people.  State and local law enforcement agents need to be trained in how to specifically deal with the thugs that will be unleashed to effect voter intimidation.   These hooligans will be trained to promote confrontation with Law Enforcement in such a way as to milk the most propaganda from these events.  Be assured that the Mainstream Media will put the most negative spin on efforts to control the intimidation.  Be prepared for an onslaught of charges of voter dis-enfranchisement. Plan, plan, plan, now for the inevitable no holds barred attacks on truth and freedom.

Even if Hillary does not make it to the election (health issues, indictment, whatever), all these tactics will be in play to ensure a win for Fauxcahontas, Biden, Bernie, or fill-in-the-blank. 

This blogger doesn’t hold out much hope that Gov. Kasich will take any meaningful steps to ensure an honest count of the votes in Ohio or to make any efforts to stop intimidation efforts. He couldn’t even see his way clear to show up at the RNC in Cleveland, in his home state. Some voters can do some heavy lifting – by manning the polling stations. At least that might get us past this next election with a modicum of integrity in the vote count in Ohio.

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THANK YOU Cleveland Police Dept. and partners!!!

During the RNC this week, Cleveland has been crawling with paid protesters hoping to disrupt proceedings, but such efforts have been thus far mostly unsuccessful. Prior to RNC week, and having attended two meetings with presentations from law enforcement, Secret Service, and FBI, I was concerned that Cleveland was still vulnerable. This blog post is to say that no matter what happens tomorrow, Clevelanders owe an enormous thank you to the planning and preparations by Cleveland Police Dept. and its law enforcement partners.

Cleveland Tea Party’s roving photographer, Pat Dooley, took photographs today of many of the LEOs, and spoke for all of us when he thanked them for their service and efforts to keep us safe. You’ll see photographs of local and visiting police, mounted police, highway patrols, and others from Ohio State University, Cleveland Clinic, California, South Carolina, Pittsburgh, Austin TX, Florida, Georgia, Ohio National Guard, and many others. (scroll down for photographs or visit the entire album here.

THANK YOU Cleveland Police Dept. and partners!!!

UPDATE at 8:30pm: Geraldo is on O’Reilly at Fox giving credit to Gov. John Kasich for the successful security plans and measures in Cleveland. Whaaaaa  huuuhhhh??? Kasich had NOTHING to do with this! Kasich couldn’t even see his way clear to come to The Q to welcome the delegates to the Convention on Monday in his own state. It’s the Cleveland Police Dept. and FBI and Secret Service and law enforcement partners that deserve our gratitude.

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