More Reflections on the News

Former FBI Acting Director, Andrew McCabe, is on tour and on TV pushing his new book. Recall that we learned it was back in August, 2016, that a meeting was held in McCabe's office with McCabe, FBI counter intelligence chief Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page. Recall that Page said to Strzok, also her lover, "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office - that there's no way he (Trump) gets elected - but I'm afraid we can't take the risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're forty..." Trump is "not ever going to become president, right?" Strzok: "No. No he won't. We'll stop it." Fast forward to May, 2017, after Trump in fact won and did become President. McCabe then authorizes an independent counsel to supposedly investigate Russian collusion in the 2016 election, although the true purpose seems to have been to investigate Trump and anyone associated with him.

Recently, McCabe said this: "Rod (Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General) raised the issue (of the 25th Amendment) and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort." According to McCabe, Rosenstein opined: "I never get searched when I go into the White House. I could easily wear a recording device. They wouldn't know it was there." Imagine, that two of the highest ranking people in our justice system were discussing the deposing of the President of the United States. I do no care if you dislike Trump. I do not care if you hate Trump. This should outrage everyone. Apparently, there was no discussion of the legal niceties of things like probable cause and the obtaining of a search warrant. And let's not forget the true purpose of the 25th Amendment. It allows the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet to declare that the President is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office."

"Unable to discharge" does not mean we don't like Trump, or we don't like his policies, or we don't like his demeanor. And it assuredly is not a substitute for the impeachment process, which does deal with misconduct by the President. If the FBI thought Russia was trying to gain undue influence over the Trump campaign, why not warn Trump? Maybe for the same reason Hillary got away with having a private email server as Secretary of State without being charged for violation of government secrecy laws, and with deleting 33,000 emails and not being charged with obstruction of justice, and for using Bleach Bit to destroy her hard drives. The DC crowd would do anything to help Clinton beat Trump, and charging Clinton just would not do. Just to make sure the fix was in, husband Bill "coincidentally" met with then Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the tarmac in Phoenix. Following that meeting, Lynch said she would abide by Comey's decision (which was not his to make), and Comey dutifully announced that there would be no prosecution of Hillary. (For more on this topic see the 3/12/17 post: "The Deposing of an American President." That's right, the desire to "get" Trump has been going on since he took office.)

In yet a further attack on Trump from a man who greatly dislikes him, comes the story of Jussie Smollett. After accusing two white men, wearing MAGA hats, and saying this is MAGA country, Smollett said they made racial slurs and threatened him with a rope around his neck, Chicago PD is now saying that it did not happen. But it made great fodder for the mainstream media, which already hates Trump. After all, Trump is always accused of setting the tone, of being a racist. One of the commentators on CNN concluded this: "He said his attackers hurled racial and homophobic slurs at him. And this is America in 2019." Is it though? Or is it typical of the Left's view that nothing has changed in race relations in America in the last 100 years?

But maybe not everyone has progressed. A friend and reader, and an alum of Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, forwarded to me a piece in the student paper. Said the writer: "I am so g-ddamned tired of listening to white boys. I cannot describe to you how frustrating it is to be forced to listen to a white boy explain his take on the Black experience in the Obama era...In what world would your understanding of my life carry more weight than my understanding? Unfortunately, it is this world, where white men debate the pain of other people for fun and then take away their rights." Where does a young black woman learn this kind of hatred? In the college/university system, where the overwhelming number of professors are left-wing.

And this from another student paper in another esteemed university, Washington University in St. Louis: "It's OK that conservatives don't feel welcome...we shouldn't...pretend, out of politeness, that there's anything valuable in the Republican policy agenda." After all, this student opines: conservative ideas don't "deserve equal consideration to that afforded liberal and left ideas." Imagine growing up in a society where everyone tells you that the world is flat - your public schools, the TV shows and movies you watch, the newspapers or online media that you read and your college professors. Then, along comes someone who tells you the world is round. How could that notion possibly "deserve equal consideration" to everything that you have ever heard, read or been told?

Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar made the news yet again with another antisemitic remark concerning Jewish money in politics buying support for Israel. Specifically, she had in mind AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee). While AIPAC does lobby to support the continuing good relationship between the US and Israel, it does not donate to political campaigns. After being forced by the House leadership to apologize, Omar's non-apology was followed by this: "I reaffirm the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether its AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel industry." Well, Congresswoman Omar must not be opposed to all PACs; after all she received nearly $60,000 in PAC money, including $5000 from CAIR - the Council on American-Islamic Relations. And Omar is to be the keynote speaker at Islamic Relief USA on 2/23/19. That is a group with one official having "advocated for violence against Jews." (Per the Jerusalem Post) So, of course, I believe her apology for her umpteenth anti-Semitic comment was sincere.