The Deep State Isn’t New

Some of our federal agencies have been out of control for some time. J. Edgar Hoover was not known for keeping within the boundaries of what the FBI was actually supposed to be doing. On Thursday, Tucker Carlson did a piece about how and why Richard Nixon was removed from office. It is an interesting theory that quite possibly is true.

BizPacReview posted an article about the piece on Friday.

The article reports:

On Thursday, Carlson, as a means of explaining how far the Deep State will go to protect itself and further its agenda, explained that the powers that truly run Washington, D.C. had former President Richard Nixon — “the most popular president in American history” — booted from the White House because he suggested that the CIA assassinated former President John F. Kennedy.

No, Carlson’s monologue wasn’t an audition tape for an Oliver Stone movie — it was a detailed account of events our citizens aren’t supposed to know, aren’t supposed to question.

“So, if you want to understand, if you really want to understand how the American government actually works at the highest levels, and if you want to know why they don’t teach history anymore, one thing you should know is that the most popular president in American history was Richard Nixon,” he began. “Richard Nixon. Yet somehow, without a single vote being cast by a single American voter, Richard Nixon was kicked out of office and replaced by the only unelected president in American history.”

Carlson explained that, far from being “despised by all decent people,” Nixon was reelected in 1972 “by the largest margin of the popular vote ever recorded before or since.”

“Nixon got 17 million more votes than his opponent,” Carlson stated. “Less than two years later, he was gone” and Gerald Ford, “an obedient servant of the federal agencies,” was given the keys to the Oval Office.

The article notes:

On June 23, 1972, Nixon met with the then–CIA director, Richard Helms, at the White House. During the conversation, which thankfully was tape-recorded, Nixon suggested he knew “who shot John,” meaning President John F. Kennedy. Nixon further implied that the CIA was directly involved in Kennedy’s assassination, which we now know it was. Helms’s telling response? Total silence, but for Nixon, it didn’t matter because it was already over. Four days before, on June 19, The Washington Post had published the first of many stories about a break-in at the Watergate office building.

Unbeknownst to Nixon and unreported by The Washington Post, four of the five burglars worked for the CIA. The first of many dishonest Watergate stories was written by a 29-year-old metro reporter called Bob Woodward.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It is fascinating.

The New York Times Is Preparing The Way

Newsmax posted an article today about an opinion piece that recently appeared in The New York Times. The piece was written by Elizabeth Bruenig .

The Newsmax article reports:

Elizabeth Bruenig wrote that the allegation brought forward by Tara Reade, a former Biden staffer when he was a senator from Delaware, warrants an investigation. Reade claimed Biden assaulted her in 1993; Biden has said she’s lying.

“I have my own impressions regarding Ms. Reade’s allegations, but no one — save Ms. Reade and Mr. Biden — knows with certainty whether her claims are true,” Bruenig wrote. “What I can assert with firm conviction is that Democrats ought to start considering a backup plan for 2020.”

The one thing Democrat voters need to understand is that the party elite is not in favor of letting the Democrat voters pick their presidential candidate. They have proved this twice by eliminating Bernie Sanders from the running. The party learned in 1972 when they ran George McGovern against Richard Nixon (who had been totally demonized by the press and was considered a crook by many Americans) that a far-left candidate cannot win enough electoral college votes to be President. That is one of the main reasons Democrats want to get rid of the electoral college. Joe Biden seemed to be a good choice because he is likeable (and I believe the Democrat elites assumed he would be easily controlled). However, the sexual assault accusations are a problem. There is also the problem of comparing the Joe Biden who spoke at the 2016 Democrat convention with the Joe Biden who speaks today. The difference is notable. Something has changed with Joe Biden.

Newsmax notes the comments in the opinion piece:

Bruenig admitted that Reade’s story has holes in it because of inconsistencies.

“Ms. Reade’s account is not nearly as incredible as some have argued,” she wrote.

Still, because of the #MeToo movement that liberals championed and because of their insistence that all women should be believed, Democrats need to start assembling a plan for November that does not include Biden, Bruenig wrote.

“It is still possible — if not likely — that all of this will simply fade away, and that Mr. Biden will continue his campaign without ever submitting to a full accounting, precisely the sort of thing #MeToo was meant to prevent,” she wrote.

“But it is also possible that this won’t just go away, and that it will demoralize voters and place Mr. Biden at a disadvantage against Mr. Trump in the general election, despite the fact that Mr. Trump has a damning list of accusers alleging sexual offenses.

“To preserve the strides made on behalf of victims of sexual assault in the era of #MeToo, and to maximize their chances in November, Democrats need to begin formulating an alternative strategy for 2020 — one that does not include Mr. Biden.”

Look for a smoke-filled room at the Democrat convention (if there is one) to determine the nominee.

The Geo-Political Impact Of America’s Energy Independence

In January of this year, Forbes Magazine reported:

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently published their 2019 Annual Energy Outlook. Whenever your optimism on the prospects for U.S. energy infrastructure waivers, this will restore your confidence. The outlook for domestic energy production is bullish, and in many cases more so than a year ago.

For example, in their 2018 report, the EIA’s Reference Case projected that the U.S. would eventually become a net energy exporter. Now, thanks to stronger crude and liquids production, they expect that milestone to be reached next year.

We have reached that milestone. So what is the impact? Fist of all, we are free of the threat of an oil boycott by OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries). The oil embargo placed on the United States by OPEC in the early 1970’s rapidly increased gasoline prices and caused shortages at the gas pumps. We don’t want to do that again. Aside from the impact on average Americans, we need gas to fuel our military. However, being energy independent does not entirely free us from having to be nice to Arab countries that don’t like us. Because of an agreement made between Richard Nixon and Saudi Arabia, oil is traded in American dollars. This is one of the reasons American dollars still have value despite our large national debt. The Saudis have been responsible for seeing that oil continues to be traded in American dollars, so it is in our best interest to be nice to them. The Saudis are also moving toward a friendlier relationship to Israel because of fear of Iran. Being energy independent allows us to support the nation of Israel without fearing another oil embargo.

American energy independence also has a potential impact on our relations with Russia and Europe.

In July 2018, The Washington Post posted an article about Europe’s dependence on Russian oil.

The article notes:

Putin has proved through his actions that he views everything as a potential tool to gain an advantage economically, politically and militarily. One of his most powerful tools is Russia’s energy resources, and he has used Europe’s reliance on these resources to strengthen his position. Some European leaders have been all too willing to take the bait.

This was the point President Trump was making at a NATO summit this month. He caused a stir for speaking undiplomatically in a room of diplomats. He was also pointing out what everyone in the room already knew: Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas undermines its security.

Trump also understands, as he demonstrated this week in his talks with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, that the United States can and should help solve this problem. By supplying our own natural gas reserves to Europe, the United States can loosen Putin’s economic grip on the region.

The article concludes:

By increasing exports of American natural gas, the United States can help our NATO allies escape Russian strong-arming. America is the world’s leading producer of clean, versatile natural gas. There are two export facilities in the United States. able to ship natural gas overseas — one in Maryland and one in Louisiana. Three more are due to be operational by the end of this year, and at least 20 additional projects are awaiting federal permits. We must speed up these approvals to give our allies alternatives to Russian gas.

We have plenty of natural gas to meet Americans’ needs and increase our exports. Independent studies have found that prices will remain low even with significant gas exports. Now we just need to clear away the regulatory hurdles and show our European allies that U.S. natural gas is a wiser option than Russia’s.

When Putin looks at natural gas, he thinks of politics, he thinks of money and he thinks of power. It is in America’s national security interests to help our allies reduce their dependence on Russian energy. We need to make clear how important it is for their own security, as well.

Our NATO alliance is strong. Ending Europe’s dependence on Russian energy will make it even stronger.

An energy-independent America is good for America, good for Europe, and good for Israel.

This Went Much Farther Than What We Have Been Told

Real Clear Investigations posted an article today that reveals an aspect of the surveillance on the Trump campaign, Trump transition team, and Trump presidency that has not really been talked about much. The article deals with the surveillance by people the FBI placed (or attempted to place) within the campaign. I would just like to mention that Richard Nixon was impeached for far less than what the government was doing during the 2016 election. We have no idea how high up the shenanigans went, but I suspect we will eventually find out. That may be the reason Attorney General Barr is being attacked so fiercely.

The article reports:

Baker (former FBI general counsel James Baker being interviewed by CNN host John Berman) then seemed to switch the question from whether spying occurred to its intent, saying: “There was no intention by myself or anybody else I’m aware of to intrude or do activities with respect to the campaign.” Then he continued his sentence with a clause that significantly modified even that claim. There was no intrusion of the Trump campaign, he said, done “in order to gather political intelligence to find out what the political strategies were.” The FBI was only interested in what the campaign was up to regarding Russia.

There’s a very big difference between saying “I didn’t spy” and saying “I didn’t spy for inappropriate reasons.” The former is a denial, the latter is all but an admission. Baker asserted there was no spying done to gather information on Trump’s campaign strategies. Which could very well mean there was spying, just not any for the narrow reason given.

After a while you learn that you just have to parse some people’s statements to determine what the meaning of ‘is’ is.

The article includes testimony Trisha Anderson gave last Aug. 31 to the House Judiciary Committee and the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight:

Later in her testimony Anderson let slip another piece of information undermining claims that the FBI isn’t in the spy game. The shop where she worked at the bureau is in charge of giving legal guidance for FBI activities. She was asked about whether she or her fellow lawyers in the general counsel’s office were involved in decisions about when confidential human sources had to be let go. “I’m not aware of any such instances,” Anderson said. And then she elaborated perhaps longer than intended: “Our office might and actually routinely provided legal advice on uses, investigative uses of sources overseas, for example, on double-agent operations is a good example of a circumstance that might implicate legal considerations.”

“You mentioned double-agent operations,” said the Republican staff lawyer. “It sounds like your office might give legal advice when an issue arose from an actual operational issue?”

“Correct,” Anderson said.

So for all the denials that the FBI uses spies, the truth seems to be that the bureau not only runs secret agents, but double agents.

Given the difficulties of double agent operations, success with them should be a source of pride, not shame. As long, that is, as they are not done for political purposes.

The average person is truly at a disadvantage in trying to piece together exactly what went on during the 2016 presidential campaign. The media is very careful and very selective in what it reports. Our only hope is that when the investigations are done, those guilty of using the government for their own personal spying operations will be held accountable. I am also hoping that the results of all investigations into the investigators will be made public.

Spying, What Spying?

Supposedly Attorney General Barr dropped a bombshell when he told Congress that there was spying on the Trump campaign. Although Congress seemed shocked, I suspect most Americans were not.

An article in The Gateway Pundit yesterday quotes James Comey in a recent interview:

“With respect to Barr’s comment, I have no idea what he’s talking about when he talks about spying on the campaign and so I can’t really react,” Comey said Thursday at a Hewlett Foundation conference.

…“The FBI and the Department of Justice conduct court-ordered electronic surveillance, “Comey said. “I have never thought of that as spying…and if the Attorney General has come to the belief that that should be called ‘spying’ – WOW!”

“But I don’t know what he meant by that term — and factually I don’t know what he meant because I don’t know of any court-ordered electronic surveillance aimed at the Trump campaign and that’s the reason for my confusion,” Comey said.

So now the argument is that the FISA warrants were not aimed at the Trump campaign? I’m sure it is just an incredible coincidence that most of the surveillance allowed by those FISA warrants were on members of the Trump campaign who would have communicated with the candidate fairly frequently. This may be believable to the never-Trump crowd, but I sure wouldn’t try to sell it anywhere else.

He who defines the words controls the debate.

It really doesn’t matter if it is court-ordered or not, if you are listening to a person’s private conversations, it is spying. Notice that in claiming it was court-ordered, he avoids the issue of whether or not the court was deceived.

We need to keep in mind that this was court-ordered surveillance of a political opponent’s campaign. It was the use of the government to spy on that campaign–it was not simple ‘opposition research.’ Richard Nixon was impeached for far less. Unless we hold those responsible accountable, this will become an everyday occurrence in political campaigns.

Is Equal Justice Under The Law Possible?

The Daily Caller is reporting that Attorney General William Barr stated today that an inspector general’s investigation into whether the FBI abused the surveillance court process during the Russia probe will be completed by May or June.

The article states:

Barr also told lawmakers during a House Appropriations Committee hearing that he is reviewing how the FBI handled the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign that began in summer 2016.

…The FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into Trump campaign advisers on July 31, 2016, purportedly based on information from the Australian government about Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos.

Alexander Downer, who then served as Australia’s top diplomat to the United Kingdom, claimed that Papadopoulos mentioned to him during a meeting in London on May 10, 2016 that Russia might release information on Hillary Clinton later in the campaign.

While the FBI has claimed its investigation did not begin until receiving the tip from Australia in late July 2016, a longtime FBI and CIA informant, Stefan Halper, made contact with Page in England earlier that month.

The entire Russian collusion investigation was a scam set up by the deep state during the Obama administration. The question is whether or not President Obama was in on the scheme.

The article notes that the entire basis for the FISA warrants was the rather questionable Steele Dossier, which was simply a piece of political opposition research:

The FBI relied heavily on the Democrat-funded Steele dossier to obtain four FISA warrants against Page. The dossier, authored by a former British spy, alleged that Page acted as a liaison between the Trump campaign and Kremlin during the 2016 campaign. Republicans have argued that the FBI should not have relied on the dossier since its allegations were unverified and because the document was opposition research funded by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee.

If this investigation is not handled properly, we can expect political parties in power to use the force of the government against their political opponents in the future. Richard Nixon was impeached for far less. I hope Attorney General Barr has the courage to see this investigation to the end.

How Is The Trump Economy Doing?

The Washington Examiner posted an article today about the impact of President Trump’s economic policies on the economy during the past two years.

The article reports:

President Trump has had a tumultuous two years in office, but as he starts to ramp up his reelection campaign, he can boast of having presided over the lowest recorded average unemployment rate of any of his predecessors at this point in their presidencies.

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate had held steady at 3.8%. That brings the average unemployment rate for the first 26 months of Trump’s presidency, from February 2017 through March 2019, to 4.1%.

Starting with the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953, there has never been a president who oversaw such a robust employment market at this point in his presidency. This is demonstrated in the chart below. The official BLS unemployment data go back to 1948, and thus is not available for the comparable period in the Harry S. Truman era or earlier.

Since the economy is a strong player in presidential elections, these numbers are important.

The article concludes:

The strong economic performance will also be a test of a lot of models predicting the outcome of elections. Many analysts rely heavily on the state of the economy when predicting whether an incumbent will get reelected. However, typically, when the economy is strong, it is also associated with a solid presidential approval rating. Yet Trump has polled consistently lower than other presidents, despite the strong economy.

For instance, take Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, whose unemployment rates came closest to Trump, at 4.4% and 4.5%, respectively. At the comparable points in their presidencies, according to Gallup, Eisenhower was polling at 71 percent and Nixon, while less popular, was still at 50%. In contrast, Trump is currently polling at 39%.

That’s why predicting the 2020 election is so perilous, especially with the Democratic nomination battle so wide open. It’s easy to come up with a scenario in which Trump loses reelection despite having the strongest presidential term for employment in recorded history, because he turns off voters in many other ways. On the other hand, it’s also possible to imagine an outcome in which the strength of the economy convinces voters to get past their objections with Trump and stay the course rather than risk radical change being promised by Democrats.

The strong economy may be the reason the Democrats are trying to get so much mileage out of the Mueller Report. It may be their only hope.

Objectivity From A Surprising Source

On Monday USA Today posted an article about the Mueller investigation.

The article asks a very interesting question:

The Russian collusion story had been an article of faith for the Resistance and the press. But why were so many people so deeply convinced of something that was not true? Who was behind not only concocting this fantastic tale but also embedding it in the highest levels of the Justice Department, the intelligence community and the news media?

This question had been on hold during the Mueller investigation. Government officials could not dig into it because anything they might do publicly would have been denounced as interference or “obstruction.” But with the Mueller phase concluded, the gates have opened.

President Trump retweeted a link about a Wall Street Journal op-ed saying the Obama administration must account for “abuse of surveillance powers.” “Time to investigate the Obama officials who concocted and spread the Russian conspiracy hoax!” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., tweeted. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called for the appointment of a new special counsel. And former George W. Bush administration spokesman Ari Fleischer asked what could be the ultimate question, “What did Barack Obama know and what and when did he authorize it?

The surveillance of the Trump campaign and the Trump transition team was inexcusable. It was a more blatant an abuse of federal power than anything previously seen.

This is Article I of the Impeachment Articles against Richard Nixon:

On June 17, 1972, and prior thereto, agents of the Committee for the Re-election of the President committed unlawful entry of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, District of Columbia, for the purpose of securing political intelligence. Subsequent thereto, Richard M. Nixon, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his close subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede, and obstruct the investigation of such illegal entry; to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible; and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities.

Note that the crime was breaking and entering to secure political intelligence and using the powers of government to cover up the crime. What about lying to a FISA court to be able to conduct illegal surveillance and then fabricating a crime to cover up your activities?

The article at USA Today includes the following:

Yet Obama officials also treated Trump campaign staffers as targets themselves. They used cooperative foreign intelligence services to chat them up overseas, both to put a layer of deniability between them and this questionable behavior, and to get around prohibitions against spying on American citizens. The recently released transcript of the House Committee on the Judiciary and Committee on Government Reform and Oversight interview with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos goes into great detail how this targeting was conducted. Papadopoulos claims that foreign governments are now cooperating to reveal more about these activities. 

These activities are illegal. Those involved in illegal FISA warrants, targeting innocent staff members of the campaign, and other misuses of government need to be held accountable. Unless they are held accountable, we can expect to see more of this behavior in the future.

The Story Behind The Story

The American Thinker ran an article today about Mark Felt. To those of us who were paying attention in the 1970’s, Mark Felt is also known as ‘deep throat.’ He was a major player in the Watergate Scandal. He provided Woodward and Bernstein with the information they needed to keep the scandal alive and eventually remove Richard Nixon from office. Watergate was one of the high water marks of the Democrat party–they were able to remove a duly-elected President from office. They are trying to duplicate that high water mark with the Russian collusion illusion. It isn’t working for many reasons. First of all Mark Felt operated in secret. He had to. Had his identity been known, the information he provided would have been viewed in a very different light.

The article reminds us:

The problem with Felt was his motives. Felt had worked his way up to the level of assistant director of the FBI (Is this starting to sound familiar?) and fully believed that he deserved the directorship. Instead Nixon chose L. Patrick Gray III, a bureaucratic cutout with no ties to the agency. Nixon’s thinking here was clear, and as well considered as many of his decisions: J. Edgar Hoover had been a terror in Washington for generations. His replacement had to be someone with no agency connections who would not entertain ideas of becoming the next Hoover. So the colorless bureaucrat Gray got the nod, did what was required of him for a short period, and moved on.

But this was obviously no solace to Felt, who, consumed by resentment, set out to punish the man who had undervalued him. 

We can see the problem for the Watergate myth immediately. Rather than a high moral crusade led by the country’s liberal journalistic elite, an effort that would redeem liberalism after a decade of corruption and incompetence, the scandal was and irrevocably transformed into a squalid campaign by a disgruntled employee. Rather than white knights, Woodward and Bernstein became gullible, easily manipulated stooges. The rest of the Washington elite come off little better, and one of the foundational myths of post-70s “left-liberalism” disappears in a puff of smoke.

In the Russian collusion illusion, part of the problem is that the leakers have not only revealed themselves to the public–they are writing books!

The article notes some differences between then and now:

This time around, the conspirators had a lot more problems than Felt did – the GOP is nowhere near as naïve as it was in 1972 – and the same can be said of America as a whole. Donald Trump is not Richard Nixon – diffidence and self-doubt, serious flaws in Nixon’s character, are unimaginable in Trump. The media of 1972, composed of the Big Three Television networks and a handful of daily papers, channeled blow after blow against Nixon essentially unchallenged. Today’s alternate media acts to cushion and even curtail any similar campaign.

But there’s another element as well, one that says quite a lot about the character of Comey, Strzok, McCabe et al, one that suggests that they couldn’t have succeeded even with everything going their way.

…But the anti-Trump crowd didn’t see it that way. No – they clearly saw that Felt was left standing when the music stopped. No honors, no bestsellers, no Oscar-winning flicks. Felt remained the odd man out while others collected the rewards.

That wasn’t going to happen this time. The collusion crowd wanted their share of glory. They wanted the NYT Bestseller List. They wanted the cash. They wanted to hobnob with Hillary and Barack. They wanted to appear on Oprah. They wanted prominent mention in the history textbooks. They wanted to be patted on the head.

So there was no secrecy, at least in the long run.

I hope that at some point there will be investigations of the total misuse of government agencies to spy on Americans, to unmask Americans in telephone conversations, and to use the government against political opponents. It is a shame that Robert Mueller has ignored all of that in his investigation while chasing rabbit trails questioning the legality of legal private contracts and legal business deals. If the use of the government as a political tool in the last administration is not dealt with, we can expect to become a place where only one political party has a voice and our freedoms very quietly disappear.

An Amazing Perspective

David Vincent Gilbert posted an article recently at Living in the Master’s Shadow. The article is titled, “How Do Civil Wars Happen?” That is a very intriguing question that unfortunately is relevant to current events.

The article points out:

Two or more sides disagree on who runs the country. And they can’t settle the question through elections because they don’t even agree that elections are how you decide who’s in charge.

That’s the basic issue here. Who decides who runs the country? When you hate each other but accept the election results, you have a country. When you stop accepting election results, you have a countdown to a civil war.

The Mueller investigation is about removing President Trump from office and overturning the results of an election. We all know that. But it’s not the first time they’ve done this. The first time a Republican president was elected this century, they said he didn’t really win. The Supreme Court gave him the election. There’s a pattern here.

What do sure odds of the Democrats rejecting the next Republican president really mean? It means they don’t accept the results of any election that they don’t win. It means they don’t believe that transfers of power in this country are determined by elections.

That’s a civil war.

In 1974 the media, in coordination with the Democrat party, drove President Nixon out of office because of a third-rate burglary that he had nothing to do with. If you go back and look at the history of that whole event, you find out many indications that driving Nixon from office was the goal early on. The coordination between members of the Nixon administration and lawyers with connections to the Democrat party was questionable at best. The fact that members of the Kennedy family attended the swearing in of Archibald Cox might be a clue that what was happening was not without political jockeying behind the scenes. That was a high water mark for the press and the Democrat party, and they have not forgotten that. The goal is to accomplish that again by undoing the results of the 2016 election. That is a civil war.

The article continues:

When you consistently reject the results of elections that you don’t win, what you want is a dictatorship. Your very own dictatorship. The only legitimate exercise of power in this country, according to Democrats, is its own. Whenever Republicans exercise power, it’s inherently illegitimate. The Democrats lost Congress They lost the White House. So what did they do? They began trying to run the country through Federal judges and bureaucrats. Every time that a Federal judge issues an order saying that the President of the United States can’t scratch his own back without his say so, that’s the civil war.

Our system of government is based on the constitution, but that’s not the system that runs this country. The Democrat’s system is that any part of government that it runs gets total and unlimited power over the country. If the Democrats are in the White House, then the president can do anything. And I mean anything. He can have his own amnesty for illegal aliens. He can fine you for not having health insurance His power is unlimited. He’s a dictator.

The article concludes:

It’s not a free country when FBI agents who support Hillary take out an “insurance policy” against Trump winning the election. It’s not a free country when Obama officials engage in massive unmasking of the opposition. It’s not a free country when the media responds to the other guy winning by trying to ban the conservative media that supported him from social media.

It’s not a free country when all of the above collude together to overturn an election because the guy who wasn’t supposed to win won.

Have no doubt, we’re in a civil war between conservative volunteer government and a leftist Democrat professional government.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It is chilling. So how do we end this civil war? We end it by ignoring the mainstream media’s biased reporting and doing our own research into what is actually happening. We do it by voting people out of office who do not support the U.S. Constitution. We remind those in office that they took an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution and hold them accountable to that oath. We return to teaching school children about the U.S. Constitution and the ideas that are included in it. We teach out children to love America–a generation not taught to love America will not be willing to defend it. Teaching children to love America is the only way to secure our future. We can go back to our Constitution, but we all have to work toward that aim.

 

Using Watergate As A Template

The Watergate Scandal began a period of Democratic control of Washington that essentially lasted until the 1990’s. Ronald Reagan won the Presidency, but the Democrats controlled Congress. The Watergate Scandal played a role in the Democrats obtaining and keeping that power. It was their high watermark of political influence. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that they would like to repeat their success. Unfortunately for the Republican party, this time they have a few turncoat Republicans helping them.

This is a quote from an article I posted in March:

The actions of the Democrats during Watergate provide a preview of what is happening now. Watergate was a high watermark in the politics of personal destruction. In his book, Inside the Real Watergate Conspiracy, the author, Geoff Shepard, states:

“It seems clear that without Cox’s intervention, the federal prosecutors would have issued indictments at least by August 1973, and the public’s desire to know that the government was seriously pursuing the Watergate case would have been fully satisfied. Indeed, on May 24, 1973, the U.S. attorney publicly stated that comprehensive indictments were imminent; and the prosecutorial memo submitted to Cox on his arrival stated that the case was all but closed.”

As Americans, we need to make sure that this sort of manipulation of the news does not happen again. Today we have an alternative media that we did not have then. Hopefully that will make a difference. At any rate, we need to be aware of what is being attempted.

As Democrats and some Republicans applaud the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel there are some things we need to remember. First of all–no investigation has turned up any evidence of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign to impact the 2016 election. Second of all–the longer these accusations can be dragged out, the more people will accept them as fact. Third of all–if the Democrats can turn the heat up high enough with fake stories, they may be able at least to vote on impeachment. The don’t have the votes to impeach President Trump, but impeachment hearings might win them some votes among some Americans (or it could seriously cost them votes as the impeachment of Bill Clinton cost the Republicans votes).

What we have watched this week is political theater. Unfortunately it is political theater played without any sense of truth or fairness. It is a glaring example of the fact that the swamp in Washington needs to be drained–and Donald Trump is not the problem. The media has created chaos with anonymous sources and unseen memos. The chaos is not from the Trump Administration, it is from a media that is trying very hard to reverse the votes of the American people.

Honesty In The Mainstream Media Seems To Be A Lost Art

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about Major General Errol Schwartz, the head of the Washington, D.C. National Guard.

The article cites a Washington Post story about General Schwartz’s resignation.

The Washington Post story on the resignation reports:

“The Army general who heads the D.C. National Guard and has an integral part in overseeing the inauguration said Friday that he will be removed from command effective at 12:01 p.m. Jan. 20, just as Donald Trump is sworn in as president.

Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz’s departure will come in the middle of the presidential ceremony — classified as a national special security event — and while thousands of his troops are deployed to help protect the nation’s capital during an inauguration he has spent months helping to plan.

“The timing is extremely unusual,” Schwartz said in an interview Friday morning, confirming a memo announcing his ouster that was obtained by The Washington Post. During the inauguration, Schwartz will command not only members of the D.C. Guard but also 5,000 unarmed troops dispatched from across the country to help. He also will oversee military air support protecting Washington during the inauguration.

“My troops will be on the street,” said Schwartz, who turned 65 in October. “I’ll see them off, but I won’t be able to welcome them back to the armory.” He said he would “never plan to leave a mission in the middle of a battle.”

However, that’s not actually what is going on.

The Washington Post has changed its story.

The Gateway Pundit reports:

Now This…
The Trump administration told FOX News of Friday the story is a crock.

Schwartz was offered to stay on his post until after the Inauguration but decided to quit during the ceremony and then he ran to the press to complain.

According to FOX News,

“The Trump Transition team reportedly offered to let him keep his job until the ceremonies were over. Maj. Gen Schwartz refused. It appears he would rather argue his would rather argue his case though in the press.”

The article at The Gateway Pundit also mentions:

The Washington Post completely rewrote their story since it was originally posted without any mention of an update.

We need to be aware of what is happening here. The mainstream media remembers the time when they were able to bring down a sitting President (Richard Nixon) by constantly tearing him down. When you go back and read some of this history of Watergate, you discover that it was a case that should have been over in two months, but behind the scenes in Congress many former members of Bobby Kennedy’s Justice Department were engaged in a strategy to delay indictments and prolong hearings in order to bring down the President and the Republican party. Their long-term goal was to prepare the way for Ted Kennedy to become President. What we are seeing now in the mainstream media today is simply another example of the press trying to create opinions rather than to report news..

We are undergoing a peaceful transition of power. It would be wonderful if those who supported Hillary Clinton during the election would remember that Donald Trump won and Hillary Clinton lost. This is the time for working together for America. This is not the time for unending attacks on the new President.

 

 

A Lesson From History

I will admit to being young and stupid in 1972. I read the papers and watched the news and decided that Richard Nixon was a crook. I voted for George McGovern because he wasn’t a crook. For me it was that simple. I was quite satisfied with myself until about a year ago. I heard a discussion from some people I respect that caused me to revisit the situation. I am now reading a book called The Secret Plot to Make Ted Kennedy President by Geoff Sheppard. I’m not big on conspiracy theories, but there are some basic facts in this book that are hard to ignore.

The book explains the relationship between the Kennedy family and the media and details some of the ruthlessness of the Kennedy family. The book reminds us that after the accident at Chappaquiddick that resulted in the death of a young woman, there were some strange turns in the pursuit of justice. On July 18, 1969, Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge at Chappaquiddick and Mary Jo Kopechne, a passenger in his car drowned. The accident was not reported to the authorities when it happened. Ted Kennedy was interviewed by the police (and press) the following day when fishermen discovered the car and the body and the car was traced to the Kennedy family. When the case came to trial, Judge James Boyle sentenced Kennedy to two months’ incarceration, the statutory minimum for the offense, which he suspended. In announcing the sentence, Boyle referred to Kennedy’s “unblemished record” and said that he “has already been, and will continue to be punished far beyond anything this court can impose.” Sometimes it pays to be a Kennedy.

Watergate was a simple burglary which was stupid, dishonest and unnecessary. From what I have read, Richard Nixon was not aware of the burglary ahead of time and was not aware of the cover-up until very late in the game. By then it was too late. When John Dean realized that he was in trouble, he hired a lawyer—a lawyer very close to the Kennedy family. Behind the scenes, Ted Kennedy was directing the Senate Committee and the investigation. Dean’s testimony was carefully scripted to have the most impact. The media was in on the deal. It is telling that when Archibald Cox was sworn in as the Special Prosecutor in the Watergate Case, at least ten members of the Kennedy family attended the swearing in. Somehow the media overlooked that fact.

I realize that this is old news, but I bring it up for one reason. Ted Kennedy wanted to be President, and Watergate was a distraction from the baggage of Chappaquiddick. He was able to enlist (either verbally or non-verbally) the help of the media in a ‘get-Nixon campaign’ that would clear the way for a Kennedy Presidential victory in 1976. He made sure the Watergate Investigation dragged on, the indictments were delayed, and the testimonies had the maximum impact. The goal was to permanently destroy the Republican Party and clear the way for another Kennedy to become President. It didn’t matter what the truth was—it mattered what the American people were told and expected to believe. Because there were only three network news sources at the time, all moving in the same direction, it worked.

I believe we are going to see the same kind of coordinated attack on Donald Trump when he becomes President. We have a few things going for us that we didn’t have then—we have alternative news sources. The left is currently trying to discredit those sources as ‘fake news’, but many Americans are not fooled. There may be an attempt to shut down or totally discredit internet news (Facebook is already hiring fact checkers with liberal political connections). There is also the fact that Donald Trump is not inclined to claim that he is perfect. He has an ego, and he will tout his business success, but I haven’t heard him claim to be perfect. Be prepared to tune out a lot of the attacks on Donald Trump and his administration that you hear. I am sure he will make mistakes, but I can guarantee that he is not capable of doing all the things the Democrats will accuse him of—there are not enough hours in the day!

Fasten your seat belts! Get out the popcorn! Pray for America!

 

Contrary To What The Media Is Telling You…

CNS News posted an article today about the discussions the mainstream media has been having about the Electoral College. Many of the mainstream pundits are convinced (and have tried convincing Americans) that the Electoral College is something we no longer want or need. So how is the public reacting to being told to abolish the Electoral College? We are not impressed.

The article includes the following graph:

electoralcollegeI guess there were a lot of people who were actually happy with the way things worked out!

The article further reports:

In all ten surveys done by Gallup, the greatest support for amending the Constitution to eliminate the Electoral College came in a November 1968, just after that year’s election.

“Support for an amendment peaked at 80% in 1968, after Richard Nixon almost lost the popular vote while winning the Electoral College,” Gallup said in its analysis. “Ultimately, he wound up winning both by a narrow margin, but this issue demonstrated the possibility of a candidate becoming president without winning the popular vote. In the 1976 election, Jimmy Carter faced a similar situation, though he also won the popular vote and Electoral College. In a poll taken weeks after the election, 73% were in favor of an amendment doing away with the Electoral College.”

So much for the media coverage of the Electoral College.

There Seems To Be Some Anger Among Those In Law Enforcement

The problem with corruption is that it only works if everyone participates and is rewarded equally. Otherwise someone is likely to get disgruntled and blow the whistle. There is also the danger that as bits of corruption get exposed, rats have a tendency to desert a sinking ship. That is part of what is currently happening as details of the investigation into the Hillary Clinton email scandal continue to emerge. Just as an aside, if you are wondering why you are not currently hearing a lot about the email scandal, keep in mind that Reporters Without Borders has dropped America’s Freedom of Press rank to 41st world-wide. Currently we are being told what the Washington establishment wants us to be told.

Sidney Powell posted an article in the Observer yesterday. Ms. Powell worked in the Department of Justice for 10 years, in three federal districts under nine United States Attorneys from both political parties.

Here are some excerpts from her article:

The bombshell this week is that Loretta Lynch and James Comey not only gave immunity to Hillary’s closest co-conspirators Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson—who, despite being attorneys, destroyed evidence right and left—but, in a secret side deal, agreed to limit the FBI’s review of the Clinton team laptops to pre-January 2015 and to destroy the laptops when the FBI review was complete.

Congress and every law-abiding citizen in this country should be outraged. This blatant destruction of evidence is obstruction of justice itself.

We no longer have a Department of Justice: We have a Department of Obstructing and Corrupting Justice to protect the power elite of the chosen side.

It’s easy to see now why Lynch secretly met Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac on June 27. Only a few days later, the FBI had its little chat with Hillary—neither under oath nor with a rights warning—in the presence of her coconspirators. Then, Hillary announced she would keep Lynch as Attorney General if she is elected president. Surely by coincidence, the very next day Comey does his song and dance ending the “investigation.”

…Now we have a candidate for president of the United States who has committed lie after lie, obstructed justice, and destroyed evidence with the support of the president himself—conduct for which many people are in prison. Sometimes it’s called False Statements to federal officials, punishable by up to five years in prison under 18 USC 1001. Under other circumstances, such as in sworn statements to federal judges or testimony to Congress, it can be perjury under 18 USC 1621 or 1623.

Ms. Powell points out something we all need to remember:

Clinton ran her shenanigans without an Inspector General in the State Department. An Inspector General is appointed by the President, but his or her job is to serve as a watchdog on behalf of the taxpayers. As The Wall Street Journal reported, Clinton declined to allow an Inspector General at the State Department during her entire tenure—so there was no internal oversight, and President Obama allowed that. More than a year ago, the Inspector Generals for State and for the Intelligence Community conducted a limited review of only 40 of Clinton’s emails. They quickly found several containing classified information which they immediately reported to the executive branch and advised Congress. They wrote: “This classified information should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system.”

Remember Richard Nixon? Remember Attorney General John Mitchell?  Remember White House Counsel John Dean? Nixon White House cronies Haldeman and Erlichman? They all went to prison.

It’s not just the private server. It’s not about personal emails or even a few business emails sent from a personal account.

It is about the fair administration of justice and trust in our justice system. It is about the accountability of our highest officials. It is about destroying evidence in the face of a serious investigation. It is about national security breaches of the highest order, and it’s about the privatization and sale of our State Department for personal enrichment.

A vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote for two standards of justice in America–one for the Washington elite (who are supposed to be accountable to the people) and one for the ‘little people’ that Hillary Clinton claims to protect. If you are one of the ‘little people’ that is planning to vote for Hillary Clinton, you might want to keep that in mind.

 

 

Confirmation Of What We Already Knew

Kimberley Strassel has written a book entitled The Intimidation Game. The book details the attack on conservative speech by elected Democrats during the last two elections. She posted an article on NewsBusters today detailing some of what she discovered in writing the book. One of the more disturbing things detailed in the book is the attack on conservative (or Tea Party) groups through the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The fact that no one was held accountable for this abuse of power is an indication that it is time to create a tax code that no longer requires the existence of the IRS. For whatever reason, we have reached the point where the IRS has become a political weapon. That is an indication that the IRS needs to go. In 1974, the Second Article of Impeachment of Richard Nixon read as follows:

He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to … cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.

How far we have fallen.

The article at NewsBusters reports:

So Lerner, the IRS, Obama—they were all correct that the targeting fiasco started with a “line agent” in Cincinnati. They just neglected to mention that within twenty-four hours of that agent’s alert—and every minute thereafter—it was political types in Washington running the show.

When Koester talked about “media interest,” he was undoubtedly referring to the wall-to-wall coverage that had just followed the Citizens United decision. He’d likely seen the White House’s furious reaction to the Court’s decision to free up speech rights, and Obama’s dressing-down of the Supremes. He’d likely seen the Democratic Party and its media allies bang on daily about the evils of conservative “nonprofits.” He’d likely taken in the nonstop stories about the Tea Party gearing up in opposition to Obama, and how they were rushing into the (c)(4) realm. And he likely knew those groups were having an effect. Only a month earlier, Scott Brown had won that Senate race, against all odds. Koester was a prime example of how an executive branch—and a political party—can drive a story and make the bureaucracy take notice.

We know that one person in particular took notice: an ambitious partisan by the name of Lois Lerner.

Lerner shocked Washington with her May 2013 admission that her agency had harassed Americans. The shocking thing was that anyone was shocked.

Lerner to this day won’t cooperate with any real investigation; the nation has been denied the opportunity to hear her story. But e-mail is a wondrous thing. Between her records and the recollections of her colleagues, we have a vivid portrait of the former head of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations unit. She was a brassy, self-assured bureaucrat with Democratic leanings and a near-messianic belief in the need for more speech regulations.

I plan on reading the entire book, but Ms. Strassel’s comments in the article confirm what most Americans already knew–the IRS has been used by the Obama Administration to limit free speech. During the Nixon Administration, using the IRS as a political tool was an impeachable offense. Why? Because the media kept up a constant drum beat about the offense. Unfortunately conservatives do not have that media back-up. It is up to us to fight for our First Amendment rights. Unless more Americans wake up to what is happening, that will be a very long and hard fight.

Oh, What A Tangled Web We Weave…

The real advantage to telling the truth is that you don’t have to remember what you said. As you get older, that matters. Today The Wall Street Journal posted an story by Kimberley Strassel showing how lies about her emails are becoming a problem for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Ms. Strassel notes that nothing Mrs. Clinton has previously stated about her emails has turned out to be true.

The article cites a few problem areas:

The Democratic presidential aspirant on March 10 held a press conference pitched as her first and last word on the revelation that she’d used a private email server while secretary of state. She told reporters that she’d turned over to the State Department “all my emails that could possibly be work-related.” And she insisted that she “did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. There is no classified material.”

Both of those statements have been proven to be false. Ms. Strassel points out that as a result the Benghazi probe, Sidney Blumenthal was forced to turn over his emails, which revealed work-related emails that had not been disclosed. Mr. Blumenthal’s emails also revealed that the emails Mrs. Clinton turned over had been altered–work related sentences and paragraphs had been removed.

Since Mrs. Clinton began turning over her emails, some of them have been designated ‘classified.’

The article points out:

We also know that the State Department has now upgraded at least 25 of Mrs. Clinton’s emails to “classified” status. State is suggesting this is no big deal, noting that it is “routine” to upgrade material during the public-disclosure process. But that’s beside the point. This isn’t about after-the-fact disclosure. It’s about security at the time—whether Mrs. Clinton was sending and storing sensitive government information on a hackable private email system. Turns out, she was. For the record, it is a federal crime to “knowingly” house classified information at an “unauthorized location.”

From what we know so far, Mrs. Clinton is guilty of a crime. However, because she is not Richard Nixon and there is no contemporary Woodward or Bernstein who are going to inform the general public as to what is going on, she is not at risk of being held accountable. This is another example of the American media choosing not to do its job. Our nation needs a media that holds our leaders accountable. Right now we don’t have one.

Looking Past The Obvious In The Internal Revenue Service (IRS)Scandal

It has become an accepted fact that under Lois Lerner the IRS targeted conservative groups. However, if you look at the IRS BOLO (be on the lookout order) relating to the targeting, there is another group of organizations that is targeted.

According to an article in yesterday’s Washington Post:

According to the inspector general’s report (pp. 30 & 38), this particular IRS targeting commenced on Jan. 25, 2012 — the beginning of the election year for President Obama’s second campaign. On that date: “the BOLO [‘be on the lookout’] criteria were again updated.” The revised criteria included “political action type organizations involved in … educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”

The article points out that the BOLO is not “viewpoint-neutral.” It does not target groups obfuscating or denigrating the Constitution–only those educating Americans on what the Constitution says. Learning about the Constitution is seen as a danger to America. Wow! We’ve come a long way from our Founding Fathers, who believed that educating future generations on the Constitution was one of the things necessary to preserve our Republic.

The article further reports:

This is a new low for American government — targeting those who would teach others about its founding document. Forty years ago, President Richard Nixon went to great lengths to try to conceal the facts of his constitutional violations, but it never occurred to him to conceal the meaning of the Constitution itself, by targeting its teachers. Politicians have always been tempted to try to censor their political adversaries; but none has been so bold as to try to suppress constitutional education directly. Presidents have always sought to push against the constitutional limits of their power; but never have they targeted those who merely teach about such limits. In short, never before has the federal government singled out for special scrutiny those who would teach their fellow citizens about our magnificent Constitution. This is the new innovation of Obama’s IRS.

The article concludes:

Five years ago, Obama, our constitutional law professor-in-chief, presented his first, ringing Constitution Day proclamation: “To succeed, the democracy established in our Constitution requires the active participation of its citizenry. Each of us has a responsibility to learn about our Constitution and teach younger generations about its contents and history.” Quite so. Perhaps this year, Obama could explain why his IRS would target those who answered this call.

Teach your children well–your future and theirs depends on it.

When Lawlessness Becomes A Pattern

Today’s Washington Examiner posted a story about the number of emails missing or destroyed in various agencies of the Obama Administration. Federal regulations require that emails of federal agencies be retained for certain periods of time. It is becoming very obvious that the federal agencies in the executive branch of the Obama Administration have chosen to ignore that regulation.

The article reports:

The latest example comes from the Department of Health and Human Services, which admitted Wednesday that hundreds of Obamacare emails subpoenaed in 2013 by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform were destroyed months ago.

Subpoena, what subpoena??!!

The article concludes:

And it’s not just emails. As Christopher Horner wrote earlier this week in the Washington Examiner, Environmental Protection Agency officials routinely destroy official text messages, contrary to law. And let’s not forget those fake EPA email names like “Richard Windsor.”

And there’s this: 47 inspectors-general told Congress in a letter this week that their investigations are often obstructed, delayed or otherwise impeded by top agency officials.

It became abundantly clear several years ago that the Obama administration was waging a campaign of massive resistance to legitimate congressional oversight.

That campaign — and a parallel one against aggressive journalism — has made an utter mockery of Obama’s opening-day promise of the “most transparent administration in history.”

So what is it these people are so desperate to cover up?

Richard Nixon and Rosemary Woods would be green with envy.

The Initial Case Against The Internal Revenue Service

As the investigation into the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) continues and the Democrats continue to obstruct the investigation, there is one part of the investigation that is finished.

Scott Johnston at Power Line reported yesterday that under a consent judgment entered earlier this week, the IRS agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). The IRS released the donor list of NOM to a gay rights group that opposed the legislation NOM was supporting.

The article reports:

NOM’s statement on the settlement is posted here. The statement quotes NOM chairman John Eastman: “In the beginning, the government claimed that the IRS had done nothing wrong and that NOM itself must have released our confidential information. Thanks to a lot of hard work, we’ve forced the IRS to admit that they in fact were the ones to break the law and wrongfully released this confidential information.” Hmmmm.

That sounds strangely similar to what is happening in Washington in the investigation of the IRS’s targeting of the Tea Party.

The article at Power Line concludes:

Reminder: The charge that Richard Nixon “endeavored” to misuse the IRS made its way into the second of the three articles of impeachment voted against him by the House Judiciary Committee. Nixon’s efforts to misuse the IRS were futile. They went nowhere. Nixon and his henchmen desired the IRS to “screw” their political opponents, but their efforts were a pathetic failure.

Nixon henchman Jack Caulfield astutely complained that the IRS was a “monstrous bureaucracy…dominated and controlled by Democrats.” As we have come to see, Caulfield was on to something. By contrast with Nixon’s failures to misuse the IRS, the IRS has very effectively “screwed” Obama’s political opponents, and we have yet to learn what the president knew and when he knew it.

Stonewalling As An Art Form

We have had Presidential administrations in the past that were very good at hiding information from the American people, but the Obama Administration has turned stonewalling into an art form.

Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article today about the latest wrinkle in the investigation into the misuse of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The article reports:

The IRS has informed the House Ways and Means Committee that it has lost Lois Lerner email messages from January 2009–April 2011. Harkening back to the allegedly accidental erasure of 18 1/2 minutes of critical Oval Office recordings that contributed to Richard Nixon’s resignation from office, the IRS attributes the loss of Lerner email to a computer crash.

Some email survives: the agency retains Lerner email to and from other IRS employees during this period. The IRS claims it cannot produce email written only to or from Lerner and outside agencies or groups, such as the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or offices of Democrat congressmen. Funny how that works.

I know that this has been said so many times it is a cliche, but can you imagine what would happen if this occurred under a Republican President?

Now That We Have A Committee…

This post is based on two articles–one by the Editors at National Review and one by Andrew McCarthy at National Review. The article by the Editors explains why Benghazi matters, and the article by Andrew McCarthy has some good advice for the Benghazi Select Committee.

The article by the Editors sums up the reasons Benghazi matters:

But the question here is not whether the administration’s misleading statements in the wake of the attacks on U.S. installations in Egypt and Libya are a political scandal in the style of President Nixon’s infamous burglary; they aren’t. But that the administration’s misdeeds here seem to fall short of felony burglary hardly makes the matter a less serious one: The White House misled the American public about a critical matter of national interest, and it continues to practice deceit as the facts of the case are sorted out. That, to answer Hillary Clinton’s callous question, is what difference it makes.

Andrew McCarthy has some advice for the committee:

I was a tough prosecutor but a fair one. If I were the special counsel, I’d do my best to let the chips fall where they may even if it ended up showing that I’d been wrong about things. But truly being fair means you never get to that point: You don’t take an assignment that might disserve the assignment; you don’t take an assignment under circumstances where fair-minded people could be persuaded to wonder whether you’re pursuing the truth or pursuing your own agenda.

The facts of Benghazi are damning for the administration. The select committee should choose one of the dozens of excellent, ethical former prosecutors who have not publicly stated conclusive views on Benghazi. That would make the facts sing for themselves rather than create a target for the partisan demagoguery that could drown them out.

Benghazi is important. The goal is to get to the bottom of what happened, why no one came to the aid of the Ambassador, how the video got blamed, and why has it been so hard to obtain government documents relating to the attack. Those are the questions America wants to have answered.

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Four Pinocchios From The Washington Post

On Wednesday, President Obama made a speech to the Business Roundtable. Yesterday the Washington Post awarded the speech four pinocchios. So what did the President say that wasn’t true?

The President stated:

“You have never seen in the history of the United States the debt ceiling or the threat of not raising the debt being used to extort a president or a governing party and trying to force issues that have nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt.”

So what are the facts? The article cites some examples of exactly what the President claims never happened:

In 1973, when Richard Nixon was president, Democrats in the Senate, including Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Walter Mondale (D-Minn.), sought to attach a campaign finance reform bill to the debt ceiling after the Watergate-era revelations about Nixon’s fundraising during the 1972 election.

…In 1982, Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker unleashed a free-for-all by allowing 1,400 nongermane amendments to the debt ceiling legislation, which resulted in five weeks of raucous debate that mostly focused on limiting federal court jurisdiction over school payer and busing. The debt limit only passed after lawmakers decided to strip all of the amendments from the bill.

…One of the most striking examples of a president being forced to accept unrelated legislation on a debt-ceiling bill took place in 1980. The House and Senate repealed a central part of President Jimmy Carter’s energy policy — an oil import fee that was expected to raise the cost of gasoline by 10 cents a gallon. Carter vetoed the bill, even though the United States was close to default, and then the House and Senate overrode his veto by overwhelming numbers (335-34 in the House; 68-10 in the Senate).

Please see the article at the Washington Post for more examples. I understand that politicians on both sides of the aisle have been known to stretch the truth for their own purposes, but we are at a critical point right now where spending cuts are necessary for the economic survival of our country. ObamaCare represents a very large increase in government spending. We simply cannot afford it right now.

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Why I Don’t Believe Everything I Read

In his book Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution, The Alinsky Model, David Horowitz relates an incident that tells us all we need to know about how underhanded the game of politics can be.

The book states:

College student activists in the 1960’s and 1970’s sought out Alinksy for advice about tactics and strategy. On one such occasion in the spring of 1972 at Tulane University’s annual week-long series of events featuring leading public figures, students asked Alinsky to help plan a protest of a scheduled speech by George Bush, then U.S. representative to the United Nations, a speech likely to be a defense of the Nixon Administration‘s Vietnam War policies [Note: the Nixon Administration was then negotiating with the North Vietnamese Communists to arrive at a peace agreement- DH] The students told Alinsky that they were thinking about picketing or disrupting Bush’s address. That’s the wrong approach, he rejoined – not very creative and besides, causing a disruption might get them thrown out of school. [Not very likely-DH] He told them, instead, to go hear the speech dressed up as members of the Ku Klux Klan, and whenever Bush said something in defense of the Vietnam War, they should cheer and wave placards, reading, ‘The K.K.K. supports Bush.’ And that is what the students did with very successful, attention-getting results. (This story is taken from a Saul Alinksy book, Let Them Call Me Rebel)

So why am I telling this story? The tactics really have not changed. A website called redflagnews is reporting that Renee Vaughan, who was holding a sign at a Trayvon Martin rally, was not who she appeared to be. Ms. Vaughan held a sign that stated, “We’re racist & proud,” and stood with the group supporting George Zimmerman.

The article at Red Flag News reports:

Austin resident Renee Vaughan echoed the sign’s ugly sentiments by yelling, “We’re racist. We’re proud. We’re better because we’re white,” at the Martin group as they passed, according to the Chronicle.

Brandon Darby interviewed Renee Vaughan at the rally. She told him her sign means that “there are people here who are racist and apparently think that’s OK. I’m not one of them. I’m being sarcastic.”

It looks as if Saul Alinsky’s tactics are alive and well among those who want to divide this nation along racial lines.

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Why Character Matters

Character is one of those seemingly old-fashioned virtues that people mention every now and then. It sounds like something we all should have, but it doesn’t  seem relevant to everything. The events of the past few weeks show that it is.

Peggy Noonan posted an article in the Wall Street Journal this weekend about the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal. The article details some of the facts of the IRS treatment of conservative groups–including the leaking of donor information for the National Organization for Marriage. That organization did its own computer forensic investigation and determined that the leak of donor information came from the IRS. Since that discovery, the IRS has stonewalled the investigation.

The article is very interesting in the examples it gives and the conclusions it reaches–I strongly suggest that you follow the link above and read the entire article.

The closing paragraph of the article says it all:

Finally, this week Russell George, the inspector general whose audit confirmed the targeting of conservative groups, mentioned, as we all do these days, Richard Nixon‘s attempt to use the agency to target his enemies. But part of that Watergate story is that Nixon failed. Last week David Dykes of the Greenville (S.C.) News wrote of meeting with 93-year-old Johnnie Mac Walters, head of the IRS almost 40 years ago, in the Nixon era. Mr. Dykes quoted Tim Naftali, former director of the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, who told him the IRS wouldn’t do what Nixon asked: “It didn’t happen, not because the White House didn’t want it to happen, but because people like Johnnie Walters said ‘no.’ “

That was the IRS doing its job—attempting to be above politics, refusing to act as the muscle for a political agenda.

Man—those were the days.

This whole scandal could have been avoided if someone with character had stood up and said, “No, I won’t do that.”

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