Tag Archives: John McCain

The swamp strikes back

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In an absolutely unprecedented series of moves by most every element in not only DC but the northeastern US — as well as across the nation — forces have been arrayed against one man in the White House for the purposes of his utter ruination.

Those forces seek the destruction of Donald Trump. That a person can exist in this kind of toxic environment and then not only survive but thrive speaks greatly to the strength of that individual.

Most every newsroom across the US and a good portion of the globe is against Donald Trump. His intelligence agencies certainly are. From the WSJ.com:

Spies Keep Intelligence From Donald Trump on Leak Concerns

by Shane Harris & Carol E. Lee

Decision to withhold information underscores deep mistrust between intelligence community and president

U.S. intelligence officials have withheld sensitive intelligence from President Donald Trump because they are concerned it could be leaked or compromised, according to current and former officials familiar with the matter.

The officials’ decision to keep information from Mr. Trump underscores the deep mistrust that has developed between the intelligence community and the president over his team’s contacts with the Russian government, as well as the enmity he has shown toward US spy agencies.

On Wednesday, Mr Trump accused the agencies of leaking information to undermine him.

In some of these cases of withheld information, officials have decided not to show Mr Trump the sources and methods that the intelligence agencies use to collect information, the current and former officials said. Those sources and methods could include, for instance, the means that an agency uses to spy on a foreign government.

First “who” are the “leak concerns”? They are. The “deep state.” I asked the question again and again: where is the proof that the Russians hacked the US election and were out to force Trump into the presidency? Answer: “uh, no real proof, you’ll just have to believe us.” You know, us. The intelligence agencies who swear they have no political agendas when in fact that’s all they have. Lt Col Tony Shaffer weighs in:

They continue to fail to realize they exist to serve the president, not to hold sway over him. They hate that Trump is skeptical — amongst other things.

We know all the Demorats are, as well as their linked cabal of Leftists and outright anarchists and what I term the Religious Left — that is to say, those to whom it’s all about emotions and faith, the facts be damned.

Even a substantial portion of the GOP is after Trump’s head, to include Lindsay Graham and those too afraid to be outed in public but are working sub rosa to sever Trump’s achilles tendon, like Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush. Establishment Republicans and Republican pundits hate Trump because they have been made immaterial by him. They no longer matter. They’re having a more difficult time getting a seat for lunch at the Old Ebbitt Grill. The Ruling Class GOP has declared war on Trump. How dare he interfere with their importance? How dare he bypass them and fail to kiss the rings? Worse yet: Trump isn’t hiring any of them. What a shock. They excoriated him then expected him to forget their disdain?

Those Republicans who hate Trump hate Trump because he has removed their influence. Period. They can only be redeemed if Trump implodes in a huge way. Therefore.  .  .

None are working harder against Trump, however, than John McCain.

Listen to McCain continue on and on with the “new world order.”

Remember, it was John McCain who purposely leaked the so-called dossier about Russia “cultivating” Donald Trump. Please read my article here so that you can fully understand the despicable depths to which McCain will sink in order to torpedo the administration of President Trump.

In addition, Bill Kristol has completely delaminated, having said “Obviously strongly prefer normal democratic and constitutional politics. But if it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state.” That said everything you need to know about Kristol and others like him. Kristol also wrote “Idea for : Replace the Trump & Milo CPAC sessions by one with Bannon. Why listen to the marionettes when you can get the puppeteer?” Also: “Honest Q for conservatives who aren’t just working with or around Trump, but rationalizing him: In your heart, don’t you know you’re wrong?” And: “It’s not “The Southern White House.” It’s a fancy if vulgar country club.” Just come out and say it, Kristol: “he’s not my president.”

Let’s not forget Kristol’s “I’ll be unembarrassedly old-fashioned here: it is profoundly depressing and vulgar to hear an American president proclaim “America First.”

So that we keep our terms identified, the “deep state” is that which is considered to be the quasi-hidden horde of faceless bureaucrats, elitists, officials, retired officials, legislators, contractors and American Media Maggots who support and defend everything “establishment” about the US government and its policies. They cannot bear change. I’ll get to why later.

Tony Shaffer thinks these people are behind the Michael Flynn leaks.

Hell, let me just explain the bottom line up front: Trump cannot be allowed to succeed under any circumstance. Successes from him, no matter how they may benefit the people of the United States, repudiate the thoughts, philosophies and the entire belief systems of the very people out to assassinate him at every political turn. That’s the point.

When the American Media Maggots were absolutely up in arms and livid that the DNC and Podesta emails hit the ether via Wikileaks, they are now beside themselves with glee because of leaks in the Trump administration. Verified sources be damned; the AMM is in love with “anonymous” sources.

Let’s use the Michael Flynn situation as an example and, for that, I’ll cut to the chase and make things simple. The truth is that the AMM and the public don’t know for sure what Michael Flynn said to the Russian ambassador. The truth is that the AMM and the public don’t know for sure if the Trump campaign had significant contact with the Russian government. But that is apparently immaterial.

Al “Pay Your Taxes” Sharpton stated on last Wednesday’s Tom Joyner radio show:

If there was dialogue and negotiations with the Russians, with the Russians, which is clearly against the law and clearly an act that cannot be pardoned. If the president knew while it was going on and did not stop it or in some way authorized it, that can be impeachable.”

Uh, wrong, Al. It’s not illegal to speak to the Russians. It is only illegal to negotiate with foreign powers on behalf of the United States when you are not so authorized and you are formally attempting to undermine. Michael Flynn was a citizen when the call with the Russian ambassador occurred at the end of the Obama administration. Did Flynn lie to the FBI when contacted? Again, no one yet knows. The end game is to subvert and delegitimize the Trump presidency in any way possible.

Michael Walsh of PJMedia calls the situation a “rolling coup attempt.”

“.  .  .organized by elements of the intelligence community, particularly CIA and NSA, abetted by Obama-era holdovers in the understaffed Justice Department (Sally Yates, take a bow) and the lickspittles of the leftist media, all of whom have signed on with the “Resistance” in order to overturn the results of the November election.”

Walsh continues and nails the bullet points:

Now, up is down, black is white, and in is out. This is, of course, how you play the game, to keep everyone in a state of maximum confusion. So let’s cut to Main Narrative, as retailed by the MSM, with timely encouragement from the CIA and Democrat operatives masquerading as journalists:

  • Trump is unfit to be president. Plus, Hillary is unbeatable, so give up already.
  • Oops — Trump wins.
  • The Russians stole the election.
  • Trump is too cozy with the Russians.
  • Trump’s people are too cozy with the Russians.
  • No wonder the Russians stole the election for Trump.
  • Flynn called the Russian ambassador — and lied about it!
  • The coverup is always worse than the crime! Flynn must go!
  • Flynn’s gone — but here comes the ghost of Howard Baker —
  • “What did the president know and when did he know it?”
  • Trump is doomed.

Enter now the usual sycophants and deracinated old men, such as war hero John McCain, his lovely sidekick Lindsey Graham and various other useful idiots, adding their capon voices to the leftist choir: let freedom ring!

Please fully read the rest of Walsh’s article.

Victor Davis Hanson writes in the National Review:

Seven Days in February

Trumps’ critics, left and right, aim to bring about the cataclysm they predicted.

A 1964 political melodrama, Seven Days in May, envisioned a futuristic (1970s) failed military cabal that sought to sideline the president of the United States over his proposed nuclear-disarmament treaty with the Soviets.

Fake news proliferates. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Representative Elijah Cummings recently attacked departing national-security advisor Michael Flynn by reading a supposed Flynn tweet that was a pure invention. Nor did Trump, as reported, have a serious plan to mobilize “100,000” National Guard troops to enforce deportations.

Other false stories claimed that Trump had pondered invading Mexico, that his lawyer had gone to Prague to meet with the Russians, and that he had removed from the Oval Office a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. — sure proof of Trump’s racism. Journalists — including even “fact-checker” Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post — reposted fake news reports that Trump’s father had run a campaign for the New York mayorship during which he’d aired racist TV ads.

Here is where Hanson focuses like the proverbial laser beam and exposes the soft white underbelly of the frothing DC banana slugs who can readily be found by simply following their signature trail of slime.

1) As we saw from his recent free-wheeling press conference, Trump’s loud, take-no-prisoners style is certainly anti-Washington, anti-media, anti-elite, and anti-liberal. He often unsettles reporters with bombast and invective, when most are accustomed to dealing with career politicians or fellow liberal officeholders who share their same beliefs. As part of Trump’s art-of-the-deal tactics, he often blusters, rails, and asks for three times what he might eventually settle for, on the expectation that critics of his style will be soon silenced by the undeniable upside of his eventual achievements. This is a long-term strategy that in the short term allows journalists to fault the present means rather than the future ends. Trump’s unconventional bluster, not his record so far, fuels the animosity of elites who seek to delegitimize him and fear that their reputations and careers can be rendered irrelevant by his roughshod populism. He also has reminded the country that some of the mainstream media and Washington–New York elite are often mediocre and boring.

And here you see the spark. That spark of one thing: naked fear.

2) The Democratic party has been absorbed by its left wing and is beginning to resemble the impotent British Labour party. Certainly it no longer is a national party. Mostly it’s a local and municipal coastal force, galvanized to promote a race and gender agenda and opposed to conservatism yet without a pragmatic alternative vision. Its dilemma is largely due to the personal success but presidential failure of Barack Obama, who moved the party leftward and yet bequeathed an electoral matrix that will deprive future national candidates of swing-state constituencies without compensating for that downside with massive minority turnouts, which were unique to Obama’s candidacy. The Democratic party bites its tail in endless paroxysms of electoral frustration — given that the medicine of broadening support to win back the white poor and working classes is deemed worse than the disease of losing the state governorships and legislatures, the Congress, the presidency, and the Supreme Court.

There is no more telling an indicator of this than the DNC pulling hard to elect Keith Ellison as its chairman.

3) Usually conservative pundits and journalists would push back against this extraordinary effort to delegitimize a Republican president. But due to a year of Never Trump politicking and opposition, and Trump’s own in-your-face, unorthodox style and grating temperament, hundreds of Republican intellectuals and journalists, former officeholders and current politicians — who shared a common belief that Trump had no chance of winning and thus could be safely written off — find themselves without influence in either the White House or indeed in their own party, over 90 percent of which voted for Trump. In other words, the Right ruling class is still in a civil war of sorts.

But wait! There’s more!

For some, the best pathway to redemption is apparently to criticize Trump to such an extent that their prior prophecies of his preordained failure in the election will be partially redeemed by an imploding presidency. It is no accident that many of those calling for his resignation or removal are frustrated that, for the first time in a generation, they will have no influence in a Republican administration or indeed among most Republicans. Yet, in private, they accept that Trump’s actual appointments, executive orders, and announced policies are mostly orthodox conservative — a fact that was supposed to have been impossible.

I repeat: fear. Naked fear.

4) Since 2000, what might have been seen as irrational and abnormal has become institutionalized and commonplace: record U.S. debt approaching $20 trillion, chronic trade deficits, an often destructive globalization, Hoover-era anemic economic growth, polarizing racial identity politics, open borders, steady growth in the size of government, sanctuary cities, unmet NATO obligations abroad, crumbling faith that the European Union is sustainable and democratic, and a gradual symbiosis between the two parties, both of which ignored the working classes as either demographically doomed or as a spent force of deplorables and irredeemables (or both).

Please read the full article of Victor Davis Hanson.

An important corollary question is this: do we still have a free press? In one way yes, in another way no.

Yes, we have a free press in terms of their ability to write anything they wish for any reason they wish with very little blowback. No, in terms of their interest in the truth or even the half-hearted possession a slightly curious mind. They are fundamentally lazy, incurious and exist as the propaganda wing for Demorats and Leftists. They’ve been so for years now but only recently been called on the carpet by an individual whom they cannot really damage, but not for lack of trying every hour of every day.

90+% of every newsroom consists of registered Demorats. It is thought that, in the AMM, there is a ten-to-one alignment of liberals to conservatives in the industry. The American Media Maggots constantly bleat about the need for adversarial qualities in any free press. But those adversarial qualities are applied in an unfair fashion and only against those persons with whom they philosophically disagree — conservatives, Republicans to a degree and those who believe in smaller government. If newsrooms question a Demorat or a Leftist the puffy softballs emerge and they place Nerf suits on those they interview so feathers remain in place and unruffled.

In other words, objectivity is gone.

The entire discussion begs this question: what has Trump done in his first four weeks? He has installed people in cabinet positions that will tend to remove the Draconian rules and regulations in, say, the EPA and education. He has cleared the way for the Keystone XL and Dakota access pipelines in an attempt to make the US more energy independent and less dependent on what I term blood or conflict oil from the Middle East. He is attempting to stabilize medical care. He has undone regulations imposed by the Obama administration. He has made an excellent Supreme Court nomination. And he has mostly guaranteed roughly $78 billion dollars of American business commitment to the United States that wasn’t there under Obama. Trump also has about a 55% approval rating. It is trending up. Slowly. But up.

Truly, though, what’s it all about?

What is it ever about? Power and money, money and power. Mostly power. And the fear engendered with the actual and perceived loss of power.

People who have great jobs, usually for life, producing little work, not subject to election, making fabulous salaries, being treated with deference and living in stellar homes — their incomes and perks having risen whilst the average American’s wages have stagnated or dropped. They possess great healthcare. They have wonderful retirements. Their neighborhoods and schools are fabulous, untouched by gangbangers or gunshots or filthy immigrants or the homeless pissing on their front steps. They have great gyms, pristine jogging paths, espresso machines that sound like you’re hocking the ultimate loogie, vegan beer, quinoa, gluten-free gluten, and the newest Porsche Cayenne for the mommies.

“The spice must flow!”

Yet: they are the underminers and obstructionists — in both parties — because, finally, the focus is now on them. And they don’t like it one bit.

Those are the people who live here, around the DC Beltway, which is one of the richest and most expansive, desired places in the US. Above is some of the most expensive real estate in the country. Why do you suppose that might be?

The final question for purposes of this post is: What can be done?

First, he must continue on the current path of acquiring his cabinet and his various government appointments. He must fight like hell for Judge Gorsuch and the next SCOTUS vacancy because, after all, there will be another opening if not more during the next four years.

He must next direct his applicable beleaguered cabinet members to fire and eliminate wholesale as much of the upper and middle-management staff as humanly possible, because this is the true locus of hate, discontent and dissent in each agency. He has to continue or should begin to assume that opsec is prime. Mellow the rhetoric. Make your plans in private and not so public. Keep your cards close to your vest. Fire all the US attorneys in every district — they’re all Obama appointees. Fill all those mounting court vacancies by “recess appointing” judges on March 21st.

Uh-oh.

What if Trump kicks the country up to 3% + GDP growth? What if he brings more jobs to the US? What if he actually begins to bring jobs to the inner cities? What if he strengthens our military? What if he begins to make America energy independent? What if he begins to reduce waste in government? What if he reduces the size of government? What about those seats in 2018?

In four words: what if Trump succeeds?

Demorats and Leftists know: they’ll be irrelevant.

BZ

 

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The truth about Buzzfeed and Trump

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Let’s look at President-elect Donald Trump’s first press conference. Then let’s discuss the circumstances.

During President-elect Donald Trump’s press conference today, Trump took aim at “fake news” regarding the release of an unverified dossier by Buzzfeed, calling them a “failing piece of garbage.”

Following that, he ended up getting into an argument with a CNN reporter, who he also called out during the presser over their report on a two-page synopsis they claim was presented to Trump. With Trump looking to call on other reporters, Jim Acosta yelled out, “Since you are attacking us, can you give us a question?” “Not you,” Trump said. “Your organization is terrible!” Acosta pressed on, “You are attacking our news organization, can you give us a chance to ask a question, sir?” Trump countered by telling him “don’t be rude.” “I’m not going to give you a question,” Trump responded. “I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news.”

It would appear there is no love lost between CNN and Trump. Let’s begin to explain, from BuzzFeed.com:

These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia

A dossier, compiled by a person who has claimed to be a former British intelligence official, alleges Russia has compromising information on Trump. The allegations are unverified, and the report contains errors.

by Ken Bensinger, Miriam Elder and Mark Schoofs

A dossier making explosive — but unverified — allegations that the Russian government has been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” President-elect Donald Trump for years and gained compromising information about him has been circulating among elected officials, intelligence agents, and journalists for weeks.

Translation: we don’t much care that anything is verified or corroborated; we’re going to throw it onto the wall in any event because the information can do nothing but assail Donald Trump. CNN, equally despising Trump but perhaps even more clearly craven than Buzzfeed justifies publishing the story and promoting it (yes, I watched CNN do just that) under the guise of “news about news is news.” Damn the facts or corroboration.

In a nutshell, backed by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, this is what occurred.

A still-unidentified wealthy GOP donor — clearly not a good pal of Donald Trump — hired a firm in 2015 called Fusion GPS to assemble opposition research on Donald Trump. Fusion ended up hiring a former British MI-6 operative named Christopher Steele, in the spring of 2016, who wrote the 35-page report on Trump. Please let me point out that the DC firm Fusion GPS is the same one hired by Planned Parenthood to put a positive spin on videos showing the sale of baby parts. This is “good to know” information.

Because the meme was “in the air,” Steele was to dig up smegma on Trump’s “obvious” ties to Russia. Steele talked to some Russians and the gossip was included in the report later compiled.

The information somehow “found its way” to the FBI. That was not magic, of course. It was purposeful, by way of Arizona Senator John McCain.

Yes, John McCain — clearly not a good pal of Donald Trump — got this hot mess started. He sent one of his own operatives across the Atlantic in order to acquire Trump’s dossier from Steele. McCain discovered the dossier’s existence when he was at a Canadian meeting with Sir Andrew Wood, a former associate of UK’s Tony Blair who is, also, not a good pal of Donald Trump, and subsequently sent an aide to acquire the report, in August of 2016.

An interesting aside. Very few persons have dared to mention the direct involvement of Senator John McCain, even that stalwart “the spin stops here” Fox News guy, Bill O’Reilly, who purposely avoided mentioning the involvement of McCain in his Thursday, January 12th Talking Points Commentary broadcast.

John McCain turned the dossier over to the FBI, saying he did “what any citizen would do.”

The report contained this:

Lurid sex claims

The report states that in 2013 Trump hired prostitutes to urinate on the bed of the Presidential Suite at the Moscow Ritz Carlton, where he knew Barack and Michelle Obama had previously stayed.

It says: ‘Trump’s unorthodox behavior in Russia over the years had provided the authorities there with enough embarrassing material on the now Republican presidential candidate to be able to blackmail him if they so wished.’

Trump ridiculed the idea, pointing out that Russian hotel rooms are known to be rigged with cameras and describing himself as a ‘germophobe’. 

Property ‘sweeteners’

The document states that Trump had declined ‘sweetener’ real estate deals in Russia that the Kremlin lined up in order to cultivate him.

The business proposals were said to be ‘in relation to the ongoing 2018 World Cup soccer tournament’.

Russia ‘cultivated’ Trump for five years

The dossier claimed that the Russian regime had been ‘cultivating, supporting and assisting Trump for at least five years’.

According to the document, one source even claimed that ‘the Trump operation was both supported and directed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’ with the aim being to ‘sow discord’. 

A dossier on Hillary Clinton

At one point the memo suggests Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov ‘controlled’ another dossier containing compromising material on Hillary Clinton compiled over ‘many years’.

Elsewhere in the document, it is claimed that Putin was ‘motivated by fear and hatred of Hillary Clinton.’

Peskov poured scorn on the claims today and said they were ‘pulp fiction’. 

Clandestine meetings

At one point the memo says there were reports of ‘clandestine meetings’ between Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen and Kremlin representatives in August last year in Prague.

However, Trump’s counsel Michael Cohen today spoke out against allegations that he secretly met with Kremlin officials – saying that he had never been to Prague.

It has now emerged that the dossier was referring to a different person of the same name.

On Halloween, October 31st of last year, Mother Jones magazine — Leftist Paper Central — ran the David Corn story. No one else covered it at that point; not Fox, not NBC, not CBS or ABC.

On January 5th, Obama was briefed on intelligence and in that briefing the dossier was revealed. Even Obama asked why the dossier information, unsubstantiated and unconfirmed, was included in the briefing. On January 6th, Donald Trump received the same intelligence information from four quite senior US intelligence chiefs.

Simultaneously, Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Little Chuckie Schumer, Devin Nunes, Adam Schiff, Richard Burr and Mark Warner received the same information. CNN then was the recipient of information from a leaker that Obama and Trump had been briefed on the contents.

That’s where Buzzfeed stepped in it, literally and figuratively, with their story. Please click and then read the article.

Many of the allegations have been completely and utterly discredited whilst none have been confirmed in any fashion whatsoever.

Perhaps now you’re beginning to understand the reason behind Donald Trump’s unhappiness at the press conference.

The bottom line is this: the information — uncorroborated, unconfirmed, unsubstantiated — was released with the sole purpose of smearing Trump even before taking office.

This is markedly different from the Wikileaks information about Hillary Clinton, the DNC, John Podesta and the American Media Maggots, insofar as none of that information has been challenged or refuted. The evidence is as plain as day. Those things occurred. The players are simply pissed because they were caught.

The gloves are off. It’s bare-knuckled brawling now. The American Media Maggots aren’t even making the slightest pretense of being unbiased or even semi-truthful. Any journalistic forms of standards or ethics are predominantly gone. It’s all about innuendo and allegations unsubstantiated.

Even journalist Bob Woodward is angry with the media and US intelligence agencies. From the NYPost.com:

Bob Woodward calls Trump dossier ‘garbage’

by Marisa Schultz

WASHINGTON — Legendary journalist Bob Woodward on Sunday clashed with his former “Watergate” reporting partner over the intelligence briefing of President-elect Donald Trump on the salacious allegations contained in an unverified dossier of opposition research.

“I’ve lived in this world for 45 years where you get things and people make allegations,” Woodward told FOX News Sunday.

“That is a garbage document. It never should have been presented in–- as part of an intelligence briefing.”

Further, Bob Woodward had serious words about US intelligence.

Woodward also said that “Trump’s point of view” was being “under-reported,” noting that outgoing White House Counsel Neil Eggleston could have given the briefing to incoming Counsel Don McGahn.

“So Trump’s right to be upset about that,” Woodward said. “And I think if you look at the real chronology and the nature of the battle here, those intelligence chiefs who were the best we’ve had, who were terrific and have done great work made a mistake here. And when people make mistakes, they should apologize.”

Glenn Greenwald at TheIntercept.com also wrote:

The Deep State Goes to War With President-Elect, Using Unverified Claims, as Democrats Cheer

This is the faction that is now engaged in open warfare against the duly elected and already widely disliked president-elect, Donald Trump. They are using classic Cold War dirty tactics and the defining ingredients of what has until recently been denounced as “Fake News.”

Their most valuable instrument is the U.S. media, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with hidden intelligence officials. And Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss, as well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing — eager — to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry, and damaging those behaviors might be.

Mr Greenwald is not a lover of Donald Trump, but he realizes the danger that is occurring in the US now.

But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive. Empowering the very entities that have produced the most shameful atrocities and systemic deceit over the last six decades is desperation of the worst kind. Demanding that evidence-free, anonymous assertions be instantly venerated as Truth — despite emanating from the very precincts designed to propagandize and lie — is an assault on journalism, democracy, and basic human rationality. And casually branding domestic adversaries who refuse to go along as traitors and disloyal foreign operatives is morally bankrupt and certain to backfire on those doing it.

All of these toxic ingredients were on full display yesterday as the Deep State unleashed its tawdriest and most aggressive assault yet on Trump: vesting credibility in and then causing the public disclosure of a completely unvetted and unverified document, compiled by a paid, anonymous operative while he was working for both GOP and Democratic opponents of Trump, accusing Trump of a wide range of crimes, corrupt acts, and salacious private conduct. The reaction to all of this illustrates that while the Trump presidency poses grave dangers, so, too, do those who are increasingly unhinged in their flailing, slapdash, and destructive attempts to undermine it.

The gloves are indeed off, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a bare-knuckled battle from here on out.

Because, after all, what do we have here? We have baseless allegations gathered by well-paid mercenaries for political assassins — on both sides of the aisle, make no mistake — to use against Conservatives, Republicans and Donald Trump.

That is what really occurred between Buzzfeed and Donald Trump.

BZ

 

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Thoughts on Donald Trump

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Ross Perot For PresidentI’ve not made much mention about Donald Trump on the blog if for no other reason than he certainly doesn’t require my approval for any move he makes.  However, with the most recent kerfuffle regarding John McCain, I felt it was time to put phalanges to black keys.

That is because we, meaning Conservatives, are on the cusp of losing the presidency once again; not because we didn’t vote or decided to stay home but because we became what I will call “Perot’ed.”

One nice thing about being older is having a memory, as it is, with regard to America’s history.  Ross Perot, another wealthy individual not customarily linked to overt politics save those required to build his company, decided to enter the 1992 presidential contest as a third party candidate.  His vacuuming of votes from then-president George HW Bush resulted in the installation of Bill Clinton as president, though Clinton won only 42% of the national vote.  Perot himself won 19% of the vote — the greatest for a third party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt with his “Bull Moose” party of 1912.

I credit Trump for bringing certain issues to the forefront, primarily those of illegal immigration.

However, Trump’s venture into the verbal battle with John McCain proved that I cannot take Trump seriously for what I consider to be some very good reasons.

In my opinion Senator McCain “started it” with his pejoratives towards Trump.  Trump verbally retaliated.  I don’t believe it’s any more complicated than that.  McCain made it “personal” in the eyes of Donald Trump.  And therein lies the problem.

Certainly Trump can be as bombastic as he wishes because of the monetary buffer he possesses.  He is unlike any other candidate in that regard.  But upon closer examination one discovers that Mr Trump has supported Democrats and their causes in the past, written them large checks, and is a friend of Hillary Clinton.  Taken in a business perspective, this is understandable.  Trump’s world is New York as was Hillary Clinton’s.  In business you frequently have to play both sides of the street.  I just have to be convinced now, in order to vote for him, that Mr Trump is truly a reformed Democrat.

I find myself not so convinced, unlike others.

Trump is who he is, there’s no denying.  He’s loud, flamboyant, larger-than-life, and broadcasts his appearance via the neon-orange shellacked nest of material atop his pate.

What he isn’t, however, is politically astute.

Certainly, he has negotiated tremendous financial deals sitting down at ebon tables, that much is readily apparent.

But when as powerful a man as Trump takes a comment personally to the point that he retaliates with even greater overwrought (and apparently ill-thought-out) rhetoric, he proves to me that he can be unbalanced in his application of critical thinking skills.

To the point that he may be manipulated.

It is now no secret that, should Trump be elected president, he can be swayed or purposely engineered into speech or actions that are predicated upon either emotions or his own immediate personal reactions and feelings.

Yes, Donald Trump is getting good poll numbers at this point.  And yes, it is understandable that people are tired of staid politicians and yearn for something fresh and new on the political stage.  I get that.

But I can’t see handing a vote to Trump when he has proved, time and again, that he is not to be trusted with consistency.  He’s in, he’s out.  He’s serious, he isn’t.  He says he’s serious now.  He’s funding his own campaign.  He’s making what I believe are totally off-the-cuff speeches.

It shows.

You have to be able to play the long game.  Trump is having difficulty playing the short game.

But here’s the caveat.

As Trump — if Trump — continues to take the air out of the room, we as Conservatives and the Republicans are in danger of revisiting 1992 all over again.  Trump could siphon a certain percentile of votes away from the GOP to do nothing more than guarantee a win for Hillary or another Demorat candidate.

What keeps me from walking away away totally from the GOP this time around can be condensed down into one consideration: SCOTUS.

Think about that aspect.

BZ

P.S.

Michael Beckman has a wonderful article about Trump here.  Please read.

 

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Obama’s horribly-convincing speech:

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Obama, The Only Allies You Can FindAssad has 1,000 tons of incapacitating nerve agents.

Anyone want to handle those sites?

Mr Obama’s transcript:

My fellow Americans, tonight I want to talk to you about Syria, why it matters and where we go from here. Over the past two years, what began as a series of peaceful protests against the repressive regime of Bashar al-Assad has turned into a brutal civil war. Over a hundred thousand people have been killed. Millions have fled the country. In that time, America has worked with allies to provide humanitarian support, to help the moderate opposition and to shape a political settlement.

But I have resisted calls for military action because we cannot resolve someone else’s civil war through force, particularly after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The situation profoundly changed, though, on August 21st, when Assad’s government gassed to death over a thousand people, including hundreds of children. The images from this massacre are sickening, men, women, children lying in rows, killed by poison gas, others foaming at the mouth, gasping for breath, a father clutching his dead children, imploring them to get up and walk. On that terrible night, the world saw in gruesome detail the terrible nature of chemical weapons and why the overwhelming majority of humanity has declared them off limits, a crime against humanity and a violation of the laws of war.

This was not always the case. In World War I, American GIs were among the many thousands killed by deadly gas in the trenches of Europe. In World War II, the Nazis used gas to inflict the horror of the Holocaust. Because these weapons can kill on a mass scale, with no distinction between soldier and infant, the civilized world has spent a century working to ban them. And in 1997, the United States Senate overwhelmingly approved an international agreement prohibiting the use of chemical weapons, now joined by 189 government that represent 98 percent of humanity.

On August 21st, these basic rules were violated, along with our sense of common humanity.

No one disputes that chemical weapons were used in Syria. The world saw thousands of videos, cellphone pictures and social media accounts from the attack. And humanitarian organizations told stories of hospitals packed with people who had symptoms of poison gas.

Moreover, we know the Assad regime was responsible. In the days leading up to August 21st, we know that Assad’s chemical weapons personnel prepared for an attack near an area they where they mix sarin gas. They distributed gas masks to their troops. Then they fired rockets from a regime-controlled area into 11 neighborhoods that the regime has been trying to wipe clear of opposition forces.

Shortly after those rockets landed, the gas spread, and hospitals filled with the dying and the wounded. We know senior figures in Assad’s military machine reviewed the results of the attack. And the regime increased their shelling of the same neighborhoods in the days that followed. We’ve also studied samples of blood and hair from people at the site that tested positive for sarin.

When dictators commit atrocities, they depend upon the world to look the other day until those horrifying pictures fade from memory. But these things happened. The facts cannot be denied.

The question now is what the United States of America and the international community is prepared to do about it, because what happened to those people, to those children, is not only a violation of international law, it’s also a danger to our security.

Let me explain why. If we fail to act, the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons.

As the ban against these weapons erodes, other tyrants will have no reason to think twice about acquiring poison gas and using them. Over time our troops would again face the prospect of chemical warfare on the battlefield, and it could be easier for terrorist organizations to obtain these weapons and to use them to attack civilians.

If fighting spills beyond Syria’s borders, these weapons could threaten allies like Turkey, Jordan and Israel.

And a failure to stand against the use of chemical weapons would weaken prohibitions against other weapons of mass destruction and embolden Assad’s ally, Iran, which must decide whether to ignore international law by building a nuclear weapon or to take a more peaceful path.

This is not a world we should accept. This is what’s at stake. And that is why, after careful deliberation, I determined that it is in the national security interests of the United States to respond to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons through a targeted military strike. The purpose of this strike would be to deter Assad from using chemical weapons, to degrade his regime’s ability to use them and to make clear to the world that we will not tolerate their use. That’s my judgment as commander in chief.

But I’m also the president of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. So even though I possessed the authority to order military strikes, I believed it was right, in the absence of a direct or imminent threat to our security, to take this debate to Congress. I believe our democracy is stronger when the president acts with the support of Congress, and I believe that America acts more effectively abroad when we stand together.

This is especially true after a decade that put more and more war-making power in the hands of the president, and more and more burdens on the shoulders of our troops, while sidelining the people’s representatives from the critical decisions about when we use force.

Now, I know that after the terrible toll of Iraq and Afghanistan, the idea of any military action, no matter how limited, is not going to be popular. After all, I’ve spent four and a half years working to end wars, not to start them. Our troops are out of Iraq, our troops are coming home from Afghanistan, and I know Americans want all of us in Washington, especially me, to concentrate on the task of building our nation here at home, putting people back to work, educating our kids, growing our middle class. It’s no wonder, then, that you’re asking hard questions. So let me answer some of the most important questions that I’ve heard from members of Congress and that I’ve read in letters that you’ve sent to me.

First, many of you have asked: Won’t this put us on a slippery slope to another war? One man wrote to me that we are still recovering from our involvement in Iraq. A veteran put it more bluntly: This nation is sick and tired of war.

My answer is simple. I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria. I will not pursue an open-ended action like Iraq or Afghanistan. I will not pursue a prolonged air campaign like Libya or Kosovo. This would be a targeted strike to achieve a clear objective: deterring the use of chemical weapons and degrading Assad’s capabilities.

Others have asked whether it’s worth acting if we don’t take out Assad. As some members of Congress have said, there’s no point in simply doing a pinprick strike in Syria.

Let me make something clear: The United States military doesn’t do pinpricks.

Even a limited strike will send a message to Assad that no other nation can deliver. I don’t think we should remove another dictator with force. We learned from Iraq that doing so makes us responsible for all that comes next. But a targeted strike can make Assad or any other dictator think twice before using chemical weapons.

Other questions involve the dangers of retaliation. We don’t dismiss any threats, but the Assad regime does not have the ability to seriously threaten our military. Any other — any other retaliation they might seek is in line with threats that we face every day. Neither Assad nor his allies have any interest in escalation that would lead to his demise. And our ally Israel can defend itself with overwhelming force, as well as the unshakable support of the United States of America.

Many of you have asked a broader question: Why should we get involved at all in a place that’s so complicated and where, as one person wrote to me, those who come after Assad may be enemies of human rights? It’s true that some of Assad’s opponents are extremists. But al-Qaida will only draw strength in a more chaotic Syria if people there see the world doing nothing to prevent innocent civilians from being gassed to death. The majority of the Syrian people and the Syrian opposition we work with just want to live in peace, with dignity and freedom. And the day after any military action, we would redouble our efforts to achieve a political solution that strengthens those who reject the forces of tyranny and extremism.

Finally, many of you have asked, why not leave this to other countries or seek solutions short of force?

And several people wrote to me, we should not be the world’s policeman. I agree. And I have a deeply held preference for peaceful solutions. Over the last two years my administration has tried diplomacy and sanctions, warnings and negotiations. But chemical weapons were still used by the Assad regime.

However, over the last few days we’ve seen some encouraging signs in part because of the credible threat of U.S. military action as well as constructive talks that I had with President Putin. The Russian government has indicated a willingness to join with the international community in pushing Assad to give up his chemical weapons. The Assad regime has now admitted that it has these weapons and even said they’d join the chemical weapons convention, which prohibits their use.

It’s too early to tell whether this offer will succeed, and any agreement must verify that the Assad regime keeps its commitments, but this initiative has the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons without the use of force, particularly because Russia is one of Assad’s strongest allies.

I have therefore asked the leaders of Congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force while we pursue this diplomatic path. I’m sending Secretary of State John Kerry to meet his Russian counterpart on Thursday, and I will continue my own discussions with President Putin.

I’ve spoken to the leaders of two of our closest allies — France and the United Kingdom — and we will work together in consultation with Russia and China to put forward a resolution at the U.N. Security Council requiring Assad to give up his chemical weapons and to ultimately destroy them under international control.

We’ll also give U.N. inspectors the opportunity to report their findings about what happened on August 21st, and we will continue to rally support from allies from Europe to the Americas, from Asia to the Middle East, who agree on the need for action.

Meanwhile, I’ve ordered our military to maintain their current posture to keep the pressure on Assad and to be in a position to respond if diplomacy fails. And tonight I give thanks, again, to our military and their families for their incredible strength and sacrifices.

My fellow Americans, for nearly seven decades, the United States has been the anchor of global security. This has meant doing more than forging international agreements; it has meant enforcing them. The burdens of leadership are often heavy, but the world’s a better place because we have borne them.

And so to my friends on the right, I ask you to reconcile your commitment to America’s military might with the failure to act when a cause is so plainly just.

To my friends on the left, I ask you to reconcile your belief in freedom and dignity for all people with those images of children writhing in pain and going still on a cold hospital floor, for sometimes resolutions and statements of condemnation are simply not enough.
 Indeed, I’d ask every member of Congress and those of you watching at home tonight to view those videos of the attack, and then ask, what kind of world will we live in if the United States of America sees a dictator brazenly violate international law with poison gas and we choose to look the other way?

Franklin Roosevelt once said, “Our national determination to keep free of foreign wars and foreign entanglements cannot prevent us from feeling deep concern when ideas and principles that we have cherished are challenged.”

Our ideals and principles, as well as our national security, are at stake in Syria, along with our leadership of a world where we seek to ensure that the worst weapons will never be used.

America is not the world’s policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong, but when with modest effort and risk we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act.

That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

Thank you, sir.  For being an incompetent empty suit and endangering our nation.

Literally incoherent.

BZ

 

 

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