Appears that Mike Flynn has resigned. The Democrats and the MSM (but I repeat myself) got their scalp – but it does appear that Flynn was not entirely truthful in the conversations he had with Russian officials. Lesson: never, ever even remotely shade the truth. But think about this – at worst, Flynn lied about a phone call…Hillary lied about Benghazi and not only didn’t resign, but got promoted to Democrat nominee for President. Keep that in mind: Flynn is out, but don’t play the MSM’s game, here.
All those groups making up the #Resistance? Yeah, just as astro-turfed as you suspected:
Ezra Levin, a former staffer for Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, and his wife, Leah Greenberg, are the president and vice president of the Indivisible Guide’s board, respectively.
Levin is also associate director of the Corporation for Enterprise Development, an anti-poverty nonprofit. Melissa Bradley, who sits on that group’s board, previously worked for Green for All, a group founded by liberal commentator and former Obama administration official Van Jones. She was appointed as a Soros Justice Fellow through the Open Society Foundations, which Soros founded.
Greenberg previously worked for Humanity United, which is funded by Soros’ Open Society Institute.
The secretary of Indivisible Guide, Angel Padilla, works for the National Immigration Law Center, which is funded by Soros through his Open Society Foundations. And treasurer Matt Traidi is the research team director for the Service Employees International Union, a major donor to and endorser of Democrat politicians, Capital Research Center notes.
Hat Tip: Instapundit
Oregon Muse over at Ace of Spades has some words for the Never Trumpers:
You need to shut up and go away.
There are two reasons for this. The first is the whole #Nevertrump thing, which I’ll get to a bit later. More importantly, you need to shut up and go away because your policies suck and don’t work. I’m referring to these policies, which you have been agitating in favor of for over 20 years:
1. open borders
2. comprehensive, multilateral trade agreements
3. a large military footprint overseasNow, you may not want to admit this, but I think it’s pretty obvious that all of these policies have been abject failures.
Do keep in mind that I still hold that our 2003 invasion of Iraq was the correct thing to do. What I’ve discovered in hindsight is that how we did it was wrong – mostly in that we stopped at Baghdad and failed to press to on Damascus and Tehran. I can’t change what happened in the past – but now I’ll never agree to our engaging in overseas military operations of a major character unless it is unlimited warfare pressed until all our enemies are killed or taken. That said, the last 20 years should have shattered many illusions on all sides. They have certainly shattered mine. I do not believe that some of the policies I earnestly supported in 1997 are the correct policies – and some policies I thought flat wrong back then are now embraced by me. To sit there and adhere to political or economic theory in the face of events disproving the theories is asinine. It is, however, what Progressives do…and any “Conservative” who is still holding to things like NAFTA agreements and open borders in 2017 is merely a Progressive who likes low corporate taxes and bombing stuff from time to time.
Gay New Yorker comes out as Conservative and hate ensues – the man’s statement:
When Out magazine assigned me an interview with the Breitbart.com rabble-rouser Milo Yiannopoulos, I knew it would be controversial. In the gay and liberal communities in particular, he is a provocative and loathed figure, and I knew featuring him in such a liberal publication would get negative attention. He has been repeatedly kicked off Twitter for, among other things, reportedly inciting racist, sexist bullying of “Ghostbusters” actress Leslie Jones. Before interviewing Yiannopoulos, I thought he was a nasty attention-whore, but I wanted to do a neutral piece on him that simply put the facts out there.
After the story posted online in the early hours of Sept. 21, I woke up to more than 100 Twitter notifications on my iPhone. Trolls were calling me a Nazi, death threats rolled in and a joke photo that I posed for in a burka served as “proof” that I am an Islamophobe.
Read the whole thing. Michael Kaplan, the author, appears to have had enough of people trying to fit him in a box. Because he’s gay and from New York, Progressives expect him to hold to certain views and demand he act in a certain way. This is fine for anyone who wants to be a mindless serf…but anyone who wants to think, or even just have a set of friends who are varied and interesting to be around, can’t stand it.
Bureaucrats are feeling a sense of dread over Trump. If you read the article and don’t laugh, you have a heart of stone.
John Schindler writes about an alleged revolt of the intelligence community against Trump – claiming that they are refusing to give certain types of intel to Trump. If true, then this is why we got Trump: the government just doing what it wants, people be damned. We elected Trump – for better or worse – to be the guy in charge of the Executive Branch, which includes the intel agencies. I understand that some of them might object very strongly to Trump – and perhaps even object on reasonable grounds. But it isn’t their job to set policy – that is Trump’s job. If you figure you can’t work for Trump, then resign.
Blogs For Victory 
Flynn was the National Security Adviser.
His resignation came 30 minutes after it was revealed that the White House was warned by the then acting Attorney General Yates that she believed Michael Flynn was potentially vulnerable to Russian blackmail and had misled senior administration officials about the nature of his communications with the Russians.
So despite warnings as to his potential risk as a national security threat, Flynn was appointed as NSA.
This was prior to his appointment and until 7 hours ago he had the full confidence of the President.
This is vindication for Yates and the Intelligence Community.
Just how was Flynn vetted? Was he acting alone? What did the President know about Flynn’s communication as a private citizen about sanctions?
I’m sure Chaffetz will do his job and get straight on to it, unless he’s a spineless weasel and will put party before country.
The shortest career of a Presidential Advisor of all time.
It only seems like yesterday he was leading a Republican Convention in chanting “Lock her Up” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFBAjhxjQ90
No one cares. Flynn F’d up – he put the VP in a false position.
Pence cares.
The key point here is that AG Yates told the White House Flynn was compromised. So they fired her and swore him in anyhow. It goes beyond a minor infraction on Flynn’s part.
I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this and we’ll see who cares then.
So now the narrative is that Yates was fired because she told the new administration something they didn’t like? Now there is an effort to move away from the truth—that as the acting head of the DOJ she refused to instruct the DOJ to defend the legitimacy of the temporary travel ban, otherwise known as insubordination—to try to make her a victim because she Spoke Truth To Power?
Yeah, right. Nice try.
The key point here is that AG Yates told the White House Flynn was compromised. So they fired her and swore him in anyhow. It goes beyond a minor infraction on Flynn’s part.
No, that is YOUR “key point”. Flynn did nothing wrong until he lied to Pence. Therefore the “key point” is that he could not be trusted and he had to go. You go right ahead and try to flip things around, so talking as a private citizen to some Russians means Flynn was “compromised”——though how one can be “compromised” for doing something that is not illegal only makes sense to those determined to make it a big deal—-and lying to the Vice President is only a “minor infraction”.
Maybe on the Hard Left this makes sense. But a lapse in judgment is a minor infraction and being untrustworthy is serious, to most of us.
And you are ignoring the fact that the real “key point” is that Yates not only had no credibility, she had established herself as an ideologue driven only by her personal ideology, in spite of the legal obligations of her office. Once she made that clear, anything she said was suspect and simply ignored.
Clearly, the Deep State had it in for Flynn – they wanted him gone. But I don’t think the Deep State got him because I think that Trump has nothing but contempt for them. What got Flynn was that he put VP Pence in a false position…and from what I’ve heard of late, Flynn decided to resign: he wasn’t pushed out. The ethic of the Trump Administration is shaping up – and it’s one where one thing you certainly can’t do is put the top people in a false position.
Think about this – under Obama, what Flynn did was common, and in fact often vastly more egregious. What did Obama do? First, claim he read about it in the papers. Then demand an investigation. Then no one is fired or forced to resign. A couple weeks later, he announces there was nothing to it. Progs last night were all gleeful – pointing out that in Obama’s 8 years in office, no one was forced to resign…what they left out, of course, is that for Obama liars were fine…and often promoted.
This is vindication for Yates and the Intelligence Community.
It also may be payback from the intelligence community. Of all Trump’s appointments Flynn was the least popular among Trump supporters. No great loss.
So despite warnings as to his potential risk as a national security threat, Flynn was appointed as NSA. “Warnings” from someone who had already self-identified as putting her personal ideology above her duties as Acting AG, thereby proving herself untrustworthy.
This was prior to his appointment and until 7 hours ago he had the full confidence of the President. Wow, so now you know what the President was thinking! I am truly impressed.
Of course, there is the possibility that the President doesn’t tell everyone what is going on as he assesses sensitive situations. We should be grateful that Simon is willing to share his personal insights.
This is vindication for Yates and the Intelligence Community. No, it is not. It is not “vindication” for Yates, who was fired for blatant insubordination and putting her ideology above her responsibilities. As for “vindicating” the “Intelligence Community”, it is also in the process of committing insubordination, possibly to the extent of subversion. Purposely withholding important intelligence from the Executive Branch could rise to the level of treason, particularly if this results in harm to the nation or to Americans.
John Schindler is a hard guy to categorize. He has developed a conservative following, yet here he writes for the Observer, and his article is rather puzzling.
The sub-headline:
Intelligence Community pushes back against a White House it considers leaky, untruthful and penetrated by the Kremlin
Our spies have never liked Trump’s lackadaisical attitude toward the President’s Daily Brief, the most sensitive of all IC documents, which the new commander-in-chief has received haphazardly. The president has frequently blown off the PDB altogether, tasking Flynn with condensing it into a one-page summary with no more than nine bullet-points.
Yet they didn’t seem too upset when Obama blew off PDBs and said he knew more than the intelligence communities, etc. and this history is not mentioned by Schindler. “Have never liked…”? He hasn’t even been President for a month. I also question the emotion-manipulating words such as “lackadaisical”, “haphazardly” and “frequently blown off”. These are words used to direct a reader in a certain direction. I call them “herding words”.
None of this has happened in Washington before. A White House with unsettling links to Moscow wasn’t something anybody in the Pentagon or the Intelligence Community even considered a possibility until a few months ago.
“Unsettling”? Another herding word, an editorial opinion inserted into what is trying to appear as an objective analysis. Define “unsettling”, John. Yet Hillary Clinton was privy to top secret information, as a Senator, as SecState, and as the Dem nominee, and her closest and most trusted advisor had proven connections with the Muslim Brotherhood, while Hillary had financial dealings with various Russians and participated in the approval of Russian mining of uranium in Nevada. Many of us have found that to be unsettling, though it was one short step away from the White House itself.
The whole article (The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins) is littered with editorial commentary that is not identified as such, presenting it as simple fact. I find the entire article suspect because of the dishonesty of the presentation and the blatant bias of the author.
It appears to be an effort to justify insubordination by government officials who for some reason do not feel like cooperating with the new president. That is one thing when it is insubordination by someone from an agency like the EPA or the Department of Education—those actions, while subversive and possibly illegal, at least do not carry with them dangers to the populace or the nation. Game playing by intelligence agencies trying to undermine the authority and effectiveness of the presidency are dangerous and inexcusable, no matter how Schindler tries to massage his message to make this insubordination and possible subversion seem acceptable—even noble and patriotic.
Let’s take a look at what is being presented as principled and acceptable insubordination, and see how much of it is wholly dependent on differing ideology and the belief that one has the right to defy the authority of the government if it represents a variation from prior ideology.
The intensity of feeling was already raw in late December, when members of the Digital Service gathered for drinks at the Laughing Man Tavern, a Washington bar, to say goodbye to Mikey Dickerson, their boss and the Google engineer first hired to rescue HealthCare.gov, the government’s Affordable Care Act website.
(Note the omission of the fact that the website needed to be “rescued” because the administration had given the no-bid contract to friends of the First Lady who lacked the expertise to do the job and then provided no oversight at all, squandering billions of dollars that were never recovered.)
Mr. Dickerson had recruited many of them to overhaul outdated government systems and databases, with the goal of helping President Barack Obama open the country’s doors to refugees, protect immigrants, aid veterans and improve health care. Now, he said, those who choose to stay will be building better tools for the agenda of Mr. Trump.
Were the goals of “..opening the country’s doors to refugees and protecting immigrants” ever legislated or even made public? Who decided these were the goals of the nation?
This is evidently approval of the concept that employees have the right to dictate the agenda of the administration. Certainly they can quit if they don’t agree with the new direction that seems to give them the heebie-jeebies, but they do NOT have the right to stay in those positions and sabotage the new administration, no matter how upset they may be.
The message (that their expertise was valued by the president; Mr. Kushner; Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist; and others in the West Wing) was meant to provide reassurance. But several members of the team said it had the opposite effect. One employee who still works there said it was the moment she realized their combined technological prowess would be harnessed for a new purpose.
Again, there is the assumption that the employees have the right to pick and choose which purpose will be served by their efforts. Again, they can quit, but it is so typical of the snowflake generation to believe that as employees they get to dictate the direction of their department.
More than 1,000 State Department diplomats registered their opposition to the ban by signing a dissent letter asserting that the new policy would “run counter to core American values” and would not make the country safer. The Left has suddenly decided that its new posture is one of DEFENDING “core American values” correctly reading the tea leaves that their efforts to undermine core American values lost them the election.
At the Defense Department, where uniformed men and women work with civilians, several rank-and-file employees expressed outrage that Mr. Trump would announce the travel ban at the Pentagon, a building filled with people from different faiths and countries.
Wow. Talk about a disconnect. The fact that the “…building (is) filled with people from different faiths and countries..” is supposed to make it off limits for announcements that might just happen to offend any of the easily-offended? What building COULD be acceptable to these fluttery little creatures? Imagine the OUTRAGE at having all employees in any building sorted out to eliminate anyone with a different opinion, so an announcement could be made there without creating a core staple of the hyper-hysterical Left, “outrage”.
In the comments section: emphasis mine
Dottie
Texas 1 day ago
Stop, take a deep breath, and begin to strategize how to make this the Administration’s problem.
They don’t know where the file room and the coffee bar are. They know how to make a mess, just be sure they do it where it can easily cleaned up. They don’t know the real problems and why they are problems.
Remember that rule changes must follow a process. Smart industries would be crazy to go back to their old habit of “Throw it out the back door”, which cost them millions to clean up in the 80s and 90s, with work still to do.
Files can be misfiled. You can gather a list of alternative information sources to refer callers to.
BTW, Dottie,this is illegal, so you are not protected by the 1st Amendment as you are inciting not only illegal activities but overt sabotage of a government agency.
The following is another shrill bleat from someone who now, suddenly, finds the Republic worth defending—as long as he gets to define “the Republic” and subvert any other definition. emphasis mine
.
Old Liberal
USA 1 day ago
Dear Federal Employees:
Most of us know that your service is greatly valued and we believe in your loyal and dedicated government service. We appreciate the excellent service you provide to all American citizens and those who aspire to become American citizens.
These are uniquely challenging times as we deliberate whether this president and his political party are seeking to supplant democracy for authoritarianism. Republicans have routinely demonized government and its workers. Trump and the Republicans seek to weaken government, delegitimize the judiciary, and suppress the fourth estate.
There is a great divide in the country and it is virtually insurmountable unless we find a way to unite to help one another. Our Republic is at a crossroads as governance has ground to a halt. Leadership has moved from the halls of Congress to the People. If the Republicans prevail then democracy is squelched and we become a failed state.
You of course must do what is best for you and yours. All of us must decide whether we are going to be part of the solution or part of the problem. On balance, it seems that the wise course is to repudiate the election results, declare Trump as illegitimate, and require that the Republican Party put the interests of the party aside and pledge their allegiance to the United States of America and the Constitution! These are the most tenuous of times in the history of the Republic. If we delay taking care of today, there may be no tomorrow.
What we are seeing is shrill calls to overturn the very core of our governance, the right of The People to select our leadership, and hypocritically in the name of defending it.
It is hard to know when a Lib is lying or merely delusional. When the federal government, without the approval of a single representative of the Republican Party, takes over one-sixth of the economy and interferes in contractual agreements between people and companies with which they have chosen to do business, imposing Draconian Central Authority regulations, the Left does not see this as “..supplant(ing) democracy for authoritarianism..” When the only legal legislative arm of the government is simply ignored as President Obama illegally creates laws in the Oval Office, subverting the Constitution and rule of law of the country, the Left does not see this as “weaken(ing) government”. When a Leftist judiciary does much the same thing, legislating from the bench to implement Leftist agendas, the Left does not see this as “delegitimiz(ing) the judiciary”.
And when the Left overtly calls for rebellion against the legally elected and established government, overt subversion and even sabotage, they call this support for the Constitution.
Huh?, did you listen to the press briefing today. Legally, there was absolutely nothing that Flynn did wrong. Therefore, how could he have been subject to blackmail? He would still be working today if he had been completely honest with Vice President Pence. The only reason President Trump asked for his resignation was because President Trump could not fully trust him to be completely honest in the future. The rest is liberal fever swamp conspiracy theory stuff that the country has tuned out. The only question is whether yates and other obama people commited a crime if they are responsible for the leak of this conversation.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/953
If what Flynn did wasn’t a violation of the Logan Act, I don’t really know what is.
You might be ok with un-elected bureaucrats leaking info in order to undermine the elected government, but we’re not. Bureaucrat thinks something is up, he can resign and go public with his accusations…whispering to MSMers – who are (a) dishonest, (b) astonishingly ignorant and, (c) Democrats with by-lines – isn’t being heroic…it is just being nastily political.
Even normally biased news sources like CNN are doing a pretty decent and fair job of reporting on this. It’s not at all clear if Flynn violated the Logan Act, certainly not to the extent that John Kerry did in the early 70’s, and besides, no one has ever been prosecuted under the Logan Act.
BTW, if Flynn’s phone conversation came to light as a result of an NSA intercept that WOULD be illegal, at least it was when I was in signals intelligence, and if the person or persons responsible for that intercept leaked the information, he/she/they should be in Leavenworth.
The Logan Act forbids private citizens “without authority of the United States” from negotiating with foreign governments with an “intent to influence” measures or conduct of that government regarding any “disputes or controversies.”
If Flynn merely offered his opinion that the sanctions were not legitimate and were just efforts to create the illusion that Russia had been interfering in the election, were in place not as part of a legitimate foreign policy but were merely an abuse of presidential power in an effort to sway public opinion and get a Democrat elected, there was nothing wrong with that.
It is hard to imagine any conversation with Flynn and any Russian that could have been related to “..an intent to influence measures or conduct of that government regarding any disputes or controversies.” The conduct in question was that of the United States. Stating an opinion that our own president abused the power of his office in applying sanctions for an illegitimate purpose has nothing to do with trying to influence any action by Russia.
There is no evidence that Flynn made any effort to influence Russia to do anything, and that is the core of the Logan Act.
Unlike Liberal god Ted Kennedy, who overtly tried to get Russia to act in ways that would influence an American election, it looks like Flynn was talking about a bogus claim that Russia HAD tried to influence an American election. The sanctions were part of that strategy on the part of the Dems, and Obama. Those are two very different things.
There is a big difference between sending the message that “we’re sorry Russia got hit by sanctions that were just a ploy to implicate you in our election and we appreciate your patience while the next president tries to sort it all out” and negotiating with another nation, promising some sort of compensation for that nation doing something. I haven’t seen anything to indicate that Flynn promised anything except maybe a new look at the legitimacy of those sanctions. No quid pro quo.
In other words, Try, when you say If what Flynn did wasn’t a violation of the Logan Act, I don’t really know what is… you are saying that you don’t know what is.
No surprise there, as all you ever do is spout Lefty talking points.
“no one has ever been prosecuted under the Logan Act.”
He almost certainly won’t be prosecuted. You guys need to be careful to not confuse “won’t be prosecuted” for “did nothing illegal” or “did nothing illegal” with “did nothing wrong” though. Remember, Hillary Clinton hasn’t been prosecuted for anything.
“There is no evidence that Flynn made any effort to influence Russia to do anything, and that is the core of the Logan Act.”
It’s circumstantial, but the timeline of events sure looks like this to me:
1.) Obama announces sanctions against Russia
2.) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recommends expelling American diplomats and closing US facilities in retaliation
3.) Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, promises that Putin would order appropriate retaliation for the sanctions
3.) Flynn has a conversation with the Russian Ambadassador about the Sanctions
4.) Putin announces that he’s not going to do anything in retaliation
Hopefully we’ll get more details, since McConnell says there almost certainly will be more investigation. But that sounds an awful lot like something Flynn said could have influenced Russian policy.
I think the strongest argument that he didn’t violate the Logan Act would actually be the words “with intent”. It’s possible he was just being a doofus and not intentionally trying to undermine the Obama administration. But that interpretation still seems like a far cry from the claim that he didn’t do anything wrong.
I suspect we’ll probably never know, but I’m also generally curious whether
A ) Flynn was so oblivious that he really didn’t remember talking to the Russian ambassador about the sanctions
B ) Flynn figuring that lying to Pence would work and was really too stupid to know that there would be reports about the content of his contacts with the Russian Ambassador
or C) Flynn never gave Pence bad information at all, and Pence was the one lying.
Lol, I’m super good at counting apparently.
Oh, Try, you stretch so far to try to make a point, but you fail, as usual.
This is your litany, with corrections:
It’s circumstantial, but the timeline of events sure looks like this to me:
1.) Obama announces sanctions against Russia in a transparent effort to engage in bogus foreign policy, and alienate a major power, in a last-ditch attempt to help Hillary win the White House, by going along with a fake news story
2.) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recommends expelling American diplomats and closing US facilities in retaliation for Obama’s clumsy effort to drag Russia into American politics as he falsely accuses Russia of funny business
3.) Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, promises that Putin would order appropriate retaliation for the sanctions as everyone knew the sanctions were bogus, and were a very unethical action to take
3.) Flynn has a conversation with the Russian Ambadassador in which there may have been some discussion about the Sanctions (sic) but with no indication that discussing the sanctions was the motive for the conversation(s)
4.) Putin announces that he’s not going to do anything in retaliation with absolutely no indication, much less proof, that he did this in exchange for any promise made or implied by Flynn in a quid pro quo arrangement, making it far more likely that Putin did this to point out the difference between a true statesman and Barack Obama
Your “timeline” lacks the elements of negotiation and intent to influence measures of conduct of Russia.
When one superpower engages in petty and irresponsible abuses of power, insulting another superpower in a pathetic effort to implicate the second superpower in some kind of underhanded activity, of course if leaders in those countries happen to be talking that irresponsible behavior is likely to come up.
I repeat: “There is no evidence that Flynn made any effort to influence Russia to do anything, and that is the core of the Logan Act.”
I notice you are ignoring the propriety of government intelligence officials leaking sensitive information, which may not even be true or may be edited, for the purpose of undermining a new and legally elected president.
But thanks for admitting that just because Hillary has not been prosecuted (yet) that doesn’t mean she didn’t commit crimes.
For me, the main thing is that if Trump’s then-to-be NSA was talking to Russians I find absolutely zero wrong with it. It’s a no-brainer…of course that person should talk to the Russians, and anyone else the new President is likely to have extensive dealings with. Even if he specifically offered the removal of sanctions, my only question would be: what were we supposed to get in return?
This whole thing is bull…Democrats are attempting to conflate hacking with Russians changing the vote totals so that Trump could win and the payoff being that Trump helps Russia. Its stupid. No, not just stupid – egregiously idiotic.
An interesting aside: Michael Flynn has become the first person to resign or be fired from both the Obama and Trump administrations.
Flynn is now the second top Trump official to resign over shady ties to Russia. Campaign manager Manafort was the first.
I’m guessing if he HADN’T been fired you’d be complaining about that too.
Glad you find it interesting, Simon. Your entertainment is a top priority.
Here is what has happened in the past year or so, IMHO.
More than half of the country wanted, desperately wanted, a drastic change from the relentless failures of the Obama administration—the economic failures, the national security lapses, the impotent (at best) Secretaries of State, and most of all the lies. That desire to clean out some of the corruption was expressed by support for different approaches.
One was the appeal of the handsome, superficially charming and articulate Marco Rubio, whose appeal was mostly based on Personality Politics because he had never accomplished anything that should appeal to conservatives and his positions were like a weathervane, shifting according to which way the political winds were blowing.
One was the desire for an elegant, articulate, carefully planned surgical approach to the problems. These people wanted to elect Ted Cruz. Cruz was proven to be consistent, tough, exceptionally articulate particularly when explaining the Constitution and the rule of law. The belief was that Cruz would approach the problems in our government in a low-drama style, with a scalpel, mercilessly excising what needed to be removed and carefully reassembling what was left into a coherent Constitution-based approach to government.
The prevailing sentiment preferred the bulldozer to the scalpel, the idea that the best approach was one that would attack the problems but might also have some collateral damage that could be cleaned up later.
After less than a month of President Trump I, a Cruz supporter, am coming around to the idea that the bulldozer is not a terrible approach. It’s big, loud, intimidating, and doesn’t leave much in its path, but the main virtue of a bulldozer is that bullets bounce off it.
So let’s look at the early days of Trump v Obama. Obama appointed people who were quite notably wrong for their jobs. He picked a notorious racist, Eric Holder, to be his AG, and even after many lawyers in the DOJ quit in protest over Holder’s instructions that the DOJ would not prosecute black-on-white crime Obama kept him on. His inner circle was composed of unsavory characters whose histories were rife with bizarre and ugly episodes and philosophies. and he kept them all on.
Trump appointed a guy who proved to be a loose cannon, and as soon as this became evident the guy got cut loose. Did he pay attention to the alleged warning of a woman who had already stated she would defy presidential authority and try to continue to run the DOJ as an arm of Progressive agenda? Of course not. If Sally Yates had told me my parking meter had expired, once she made it clear she was completely politically motivated, I would not have listened to her.
We can whine about better vetting of appointees, or we can stand back and look at the big picture. The same people who supported every single sketchy appointment of Obama and his determination to keep them as part of the government are the same ones feigning concern and outrage at one Trump appointee proving to be a mistake and being sent packing. What is being ignored is that Trump admits to mistakes, corrects them and moves on. The message from the roster of Obama’s anti-Americans, pedophiles and other misfits is that they truly represented what he thought was important and the direction in which he wanted the country to go.
“…shady ties…”?
You are so funny, “Simon”. Take a break here to adjust that tinfoil hat.
Lost in all the media/democrat/simoneeee9 hysteria about Flynn is the fact that what he actually did – discuss Russia sanctions with a Russian ambassador in his role as NSA appointee is not at all outside the scope of his job or any ethical violation. Lying about his discussion to VP Pence is the real infraction and brings into question his character and honesty, therefore he needed to go.
Now this also brings into light the media/democrats screed about Trumps ties to Russia which are reported to be “dangerously aligned”, yet now we have the second Trump official to be let go for their actions with Russia, and as Amazona said the other day, not once have we heard Trump tell a top Russian official to “be patient because he will have more flexibility after the election” as Obama actually did.
The other angle that the media seems to be soooo concerned about this morning is the possibility of blackmail as Yates warned of, yet no one in the media seemed to have the slightest concern of the possibility of blackmail as it related to Obama’s dealings with Iran, or Hillary’s acceptance of millions of dollars from nefarious contributors, actions of which were much more egregious, so excuse me if I once again find myself laughing at the media and those few people left who actually believe in Democrats.
Cluster, the claim of fretting over the possibility of blackmail is a de facto admission that the Right actually CARES about things like irresponsibility, etc. The Left never had to worry about blackmail because of its conviction, which is pretty well-founded, that its base couldn’t care less about corruption in its leaders, or anything else that would offend decent people. It is the Left that constantly reelects known criminals and abusers of public office, defended Clinton’s disgusting and often illegal behavior, etc.—all the way up to trying to elect a liar and a criminal as President of the United States.
You can’t blackmail a Lefty, because blackmail only works if its target fears the consequences of revealing what he is trying to hide. The Left has no consequences for ANY action. Setting up a “wall” to keep intelligence agencies from communicating with each other, to try to hide comparing of notes on illegal foreign campaign contributions to Clinton, leading to blocking of intelligence that might have stopped the 9/11 attack? The consequence of that was appointing Gorelick to a multi-million dollar position in a government agency and no splashback on Clinton for illegal contributions. The consequence of interfering in the government of a foreign nation and in so doing arming Al Queda with deadly arms to be used against Americans, and then sacrificing four lives to try to cover it up? Being nominated as the Dem candidate for the presidency. And so on.
You can only try to blackmail a conservative because only conservatives care enough for there to be backlash if dirty secrets are revealed. And the media effort to introduce the straw man of possible blackmail is a de facto admission of this.
But you CAN blackmail a Lefty if they face the prospect of spending a good portion of their life in jail and / or loosing a significant portion of their personal assets.
Now this also brings into light the media/democrats screed about Trumps ties to Russia which are reported to be “dangerously aligned”,…
How convenient they never brought to light the many ties Obama had with numerous Muslim countries and entities.
This is priceless. Thomas Friedman on MSNBC this morning just said that this Russia angle with Trump is …… wait for it …… “the most serious national security issue of his lifetime”. Thomas went on to say that this is on the heels of Russia “tipping the scales of our national election” – now we all know that Thomas and really all liberals have a tenuous grasp on reality, but these two statements are laughable. Needless to say that the panel on Morning Joe including David Ignatius (who has been wrong about everything) fully supported Mr. Friedman’s assessment with Joe Scarborough chiming in to say that these are “dark days”.
I watch Morning Joe for the comedy but why anyone listens to these people, or worse yet takes them seriously is beyond me. They have proven beyond doubt that they are unapologetically biased and have been proven to be wrong so many times everyone has lost count. But they obviously have no shame whatsoever and are again this morning, offering their advice as to what should be done. YCMTSU
I have two words for Thomas Friedman: Huma Abedin
Meanwhile, this is NOT news:
Homes and businesses beneath California’s Oroville Dam lie abandoned underwater – as it’s revealed officials were warned about the crumbling structure TWELVE YEARS ago
The Democrats who run the State of California neglected their infrastructure responsibility in favor of special interest projects, and entitlements for non citizens, and now those actions have cost people their homes and livelihoods, But again, this is NOT newsworthy.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4221808/Officials-warned-Oroville-Dam-12-years-ago.html#ixzz4Yf7oUD2f
Anyone who lives beneath a dam has to be smart enough to monitor weather and conditions of the dam and the water building up behind it. If they were not smart enough to start making preparations to evacuate when the rain continued and the original spillway showed signs of being inadequate, I have no sympathy for them.
And as you said, the state has had its priorities clear, and they did not include protecting California citizens. Light rail between LA and San Francisco, a beloved Lefty project, took precedence over maintaining infrastructure, as did the other things you mentioned.
As you sow, so shall ye reap. Now they want Uncle Sugar, in the form of the hated Trump, representing the federal government whose laws they brag about breaking, to step in and make it all right.
A few months ago I signed up for some MeetUp newsletters, thinking of joining a book club if I could find one that appealed, or starting one of my own to discuss conservative writings such as Conflict Of Visions. So I get notices of various MeetUp events sponsored by people who get together to cook Italian food or practice their Spanish or whatever.
Yesterday I got a letter from the MeetUp organizers, bragging about setting up a special MeetUp branch called #RESIST. The only thing they said prompted this was the deviation from democratic American values as shown in the travel ban (their words, not mine) but the goal is to also promote—and here they listed the usual litany of Leftist causes. Social Justice, equality, blah blah blah.
Supposedly over 50,000 people have already signed up for #RESIST, a figure I question. And it’s all fluff and posturing, virtue signaling writ large. I am tempted to try to set up a MeetUp group called Resist #RESIST, for people who resist being suckered in by platitudes and herded like sheep into superficially appealing pseudo-positions.
That should go over well.
http://dailysignal.com/2017/02/13/trump-terrorism-adviser-says-war-on-isis-about-ideology
“We are not at war with Islam,” Gorka said. “Let me be explicit here. It’s very easy for our detractors to paint us as Islamophobes. It is absolutely wrong. This is a war inside Islam—war for the heart of Islam. Which version will be preeminent? We have to help Muslims win the war for the heart of their own religion.”
This ties in with what I, and many top Islamic clerics, are saying—that it is time to push for a Reformed Islam, that rejects the political and violent aspects of fundamental Islam and focuses on the religious aspects. This would allow acceptance of Reform Islamists while being able to treat Fundamental Islam as a political group with basically anti-American intent. While certainly some would lie and claim to be Reform Muslims, preaching violent or political themes in a mosque would move that mosque and its attendees into the Fundamental category forcing its members to re-commit to one side or the other. It might take decades or even generations for this to have a deep and lasting effect.
Reclassifying mosques as political in nature would allow surveillance and legal action for subversive messages and incitement to subversion and violence, activities now protected as they occur under the disguise of religion.
Flynn uproar is a tempest in a teapot. The only people apoplectic about this are the MSM and the rabid leftists who live in select liberal enclaves like LA and Seattle or as I like to call them, the Bubble People.
“Bubble People”. So apt. And so much nicer than descriptions that have come to my mind.
Have you heard the latest? NYT’s reporting that in 2016 Trump aides spoke to…*gasp*…RUSSIANS!
And all this time I thought it was perfectly legal to talk to Russians.
They are pushing it for all it’s worth – leftwing Twitter is sure this will bring Trump down. Hate to break it to them but in order for any scandal to undo Trump it’ll have to:
1. Be Trump on tape offering a quid pro quo.
2. Be egregious enough to convince 25 Republican Senators to agree to convict.
It ain’t gonna happen – first off, because there is no actual evidence that Trump was colluding with the Russians and, secondly, because Trump’s popularity with his Trumpsters is so deep that there will never be more than 4 or 5 GOP Senators willing to vote to convict.
Spot on Mark. Only it’s not only Trumpsters who are bully for Trump, it’s most people outside of The Bubble:
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-travel-ban-polls-2017-2
Let’s hope Republicans stiffen their spine and support our president.
Even Fox News says more people disapprove of the travel ban than approve.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/14/fox-news-poll-sharp-division-along-political-lines-on-trumps-travel-ban.html
Other polls show other results – and 2016 demonstrated conclusively that polls are just guesses.
I’m sure it depends on how the question is asked. “Are you for or against a temporary suspension of immigration and refugees from the 7 countries most associated with spreading terrorism until we make sure the vetting process is working?” would surely get a different response from “Are you for or against banning Muslims from the United States?”
Bubble boy thinks most of the country is as hysterical as he is. Adorable!
I think it’s funny that he keeps coming here attempting to convince us that he’s right and we’re wrong. He’d have better success selling deodorant in a biker bar.
I am Muslim and I think Trump’s is right but problem that it does not included the nations of the 9/11 hijackers.
I understand why this is so the Saudi Arabia are needed allies and the travel ban do severe to relations. Exclusion Saudis after their citizens committed 9/11 makes more the view Muslims that the U.S. fight on terrorism is is missing moral ground. The ban should use Saudis, too.
BOB, YOUR MUSLIM IMITATION IS LESS THAN PATHETIC//MODERATOR
Is that Bob? I can see why his Muslim impersonation needs work, he’s been too busy trying to figure out why Hitler is so chummy with Netanyahu while ushering in the best US/Israel relationship in years.
It took you five posts to get back to insults. This is why you get posts deleted. //Moderator
You don’t need to live in a bubble city to be a Bubble Boy, Bubble Boy.
If you want to fight go somewhere else. If you want to insult go somewhere else. Belligerent and insulting posts will always be deleted. //Moderator
Remind me again who had the open-mindedness to step outside of their bubble, give a fair hearing to other points of view, challenge their longstanding preconceptions and switch political parties as a result? Oh yeah, that was me, Bubble Boy.
If you want to fight go somewhere else. If you want to insult go somewhere else. Belligerent and insulting posts will always be deleted. //Moderator
Getting sucked into Tryvasty’s insult game will get your posts deleted too. //Moderator
I think it’s depressing that you consider it a point of pride that you can’t be convinced to reconsider any of your opinions.
There are medications for that. I understand Bupropion works well.
BTW, I reconsider my opinions all the time when facts change or new information becomes available. In order to convince someone that his/her opinion is invalid you need to do something besides attack other people’s opinions. Just sayin’.
Is that Bob? He sure seems intent on insulting Muslims, doesn’t he? Makes more the view is not smart. Post is severe to relations with brains.
The media, federal bureaucrats, and career politicians are once again letting the American people down by playing their usual reindeer games and creating outrage out of nothing. They are calling for independent investigations, panels, hearings, etc., all of which create for great talk show material but do nothing to actually help this country. It’s easy to spend all day being concerned about trivial issues when you are knocking down and a 6 or 7 figure salary, but 95% of America doesn’t give a F**K about this and want them to go to work for this country. I only wish MSNBC was as concerned about the 95 million unemployed people than they are with their own reporting on meaningless issues and listening to themselves talk everyday.
I clearly remember the Obama administration having back channel discussions with Iran that were not publicly known, and when the media learned of it, their reporting suggested that “sometimes diplomacy requires a cloak of secrecy”. Funny how different they are reacting now. The media is as complicit in the downfall of this country as anyone and it’s time they learn a hard lesson.
Burns, Sullivan and a team of technological experts discussed Iran’s nuclear program with senior Iranian officials at meetings in Oman and Geneva. They also met in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly, which convened in September and October. Those secret talks unfolded as relations warmed publicly for the first time in decades.
Correct me if I am wrong but I just don’t remember the media wanting any investigations into these secret discussions with a country that is deemed the greatest sponsor of terrorism around the world and how these meetings led to the nuclear deal that guarantees Iran a nuclear bomb within the decade.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/secret-talks-paved-iran-deal/story?id=20995333
In a piece that was outdated by the time it appeared, Washington Post columnist David Ignatious, never a Trump fan, wrote in an opinion piece titled: Opinion: What did Flynn tell the Russians?
It appeared in several newspapers, including the Lawrence Kansas LJWorld
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2017/feb/14/opinion-what-did-flynn-tell-russians
There were two comments which, given the wildly Liberal nature of Lawrence, struck me as interesting. (I have not included the names of the commenters, though they are published in the newspaper. I don’t make a practice of putting the names of people on the Internet without their permission.) I found the first comment the most significant.
1 day ago
What did Flynn tell the Russians?
Did Flynn tell the Russians he would be more flexible?
Or did he offer help like Ted Kennedy’s message to Andropov?
He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election. “The only real potential threats to Reagan are problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations,” the memorandum stated. “These issues, according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the election campaign.”
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/27/ted-kennedy-soviet-union-ronald-reagan-opinions-columnists-peter-robinson.html
No. It looks like Flynn is the victim of Liberal fake news,
I wonder who will be the next victim of fake news from the people with the Liberal condition?
The Trump regime is spineless. Waters and Pelosi are fake news merchants busy at work. So it could be any one of the spineless regime members soon.
23 hours, 24 minutes ago
Flynn spilled the beans over Hillary’s deal to sell our uranium to the Russians. It’ll be a wonder if he doesn’t end up on a park bench with a bullet in his head.
From the Forbes link:
Kennedy proved eager to deal with Andropov–the leader of the Soviet Union, a former director of the KGB and a principal mover in both the crushing of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the suppression of the 1968 Prague Spring–at least in part to advance his own political prospects.
In 1992, Tim Sebastian published a story about the memorandum in the London Times. Here in the U.S., Sebastian’s story received no attention. In his 2006 book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, historian Paul Kengor reprinted the memorandum in full. “The media,” Kengor says, “ignored the revelation.”
“The document,” Kengor continues, “has stood the test of time. I scrutinized it more carefully than anything I’ve ever dealt with as a scholar. I showed the document to numerous authorities who deal with Soviet archival material. No one has debunked the memorandum or shown it to be a forgery. Kennedy’s office did not deny it.”
Why bring all this up now? No evidence exists that Andropov ever acted on the memorandum–within eight months, the Soviet leader would be dead–and now that Kennedy himself has died even many of the former senator’s opponents find themselves grieving. Yet precisely because Kennedy represented such a commanding figure–perhaps the most compelling liberal of our day–we need to consider his record in full.
Doing so, it turns out, requires pondering a document in the archives of the politburo.
When President Reagan chose to confront the Soviet Union, calling it the evil empire that it was, Sen. Edward Kennedy chose to offer aid and comfort to General Secretary Andropov. On the Cold War, the greatest issue of his lifetime, Kennedy got it wrong.
Kennedy not only “got it wrong” he did so to promote interference in an American election by Russia, to benefit his own presidential aspirations. And this was a lot more significant than just assuring a Russian diplomat that sanctions imposed as part of a political game by Obama to imply shenanigans on the part of Trump—that is, sanctions used as political tools to try to influence the election—-would be examined by a new president.
What is being overlooked in this whole faux outrage theater is that the sanctions in question were not legitimate sanctions put in place as part of a rational foreign policy, but were part of Dem efforts to rig the election by contributing to the falsehood that Russia was complicit in trying to get Trump elected. They were a statement by the White House that Russia HAD done something wrong regarding the election.
Speaking about Thomas Friedman – Ben Shapiro also noticed his delusion
http://www.dailywire.com/news/13497/new-york-times-columnist-russian-hacking-was-911-hank-berrien
Ya gotta love Tucker.
I saw this segment last night on Tucker’s show and he absolutely crucified that Post reporter. It was fun to watch. Better yet about Tucker Carlson, he has almost doubled the ratings in that time slot once occupied by Megan (Me Again) Kelly.
So Joe Scarborough on MSNBC just said that it is “the Trump’s administrations fault that his network is not covering policy issues” because of all the lies and chaos.
That is comedy gold. And you guys wonder why I watch this cutting edge network.
“It’s not me who should be afraid. It’s them.”
The Dangerous Faggot Tour goes on Bill Maher and that will be must see TV. I love Milo.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/15/menacing-milo-yiannopoulos-says-bill-mahers-audience-should-be-afraid-not-him/#ixzz4YqqXPP27
I remain skeptical that we can keep the economic ball in the air for much longer, but this latest revelation from the FED is promising news.
As the article notes, the index began ticking up last summer, but since the election it’s shot almost straight up.
The gap between Americans both relieved and hopeful since the Trump election and those freaked out, furious and engaging in temper tantrums just seems to be widening, doesn’t it?
Back to health care:
Lawmakers crafting a replacement for Obamacare should look to Wisconsin’s example of a successfully functioning high-risk pool to help those with preexisting conditions, not guaranteed issue mandates, says IPI’s Dr. Merrill Matthews with Mark Litow in RealClearHealth.
…………………………………………..
….HRP critics point out only about 200,000 people enrolled in HRPs even though the Government Accountability Office estimated that 4 million could have benefited.
That discrepancy is, in part, because many HRPs did not offer financial assistance to lower-income participants, a few charged much higher premiums than Wisconsin, and because of some state-imposed limitations. All of those problems are easily fixed.
Republicans have made it clear they want to ensure low-income families, even those with serious medical conditions, can afford coverage. Newly created HRPs should use their federal grants to do just that.
http://www.realclearhealth.com/articles/2017/02/16/high_risk_pools_solve_the_problem_of_preexisting_conditions_
Colorado had an HRP that worked very well. You had to have been denied coverage by three insurance companies, if I remember correctly, to qualify. I always thought it would make a lot more sense to partially subsidize the higher costs of HRP coverage than to simply trash the entire health insurance industry. Of course, my focus was on solving the actual problem, and the Left’s was on using the problem as a stalking horse to implement more government control and take over one-sixth of the economy.
I always thought it would make a lot more sense to partially subsidize the higher costs of HRP coverage than to simply trash the entire health insurance industry.
Many Conservatives pointed this out back in 2010. Cost projections were 2 or 3 billion dollars, IIRC, about the same as the cost to set up the disastrous ObamaCare website.
We tend to look at problems as snapshots and focus only how to address what is in front of us at any given moment.
I think the government should look at health care insurance costs as a series of problems, with the goal of addressing each one.
Right now, in the current snapshot, we have millions of people who have not been able, for various reasons, to acquire and/or keep health insurance, for several reasons. Most of these reasons come back to insurance companies not being able to work across many state lines, meaning that coverage is lost when someone moves out of a coverage area, and/or insurance being tied to employment.
I think a long-range solution involves removing insurance from employment and also allowing companies to sell across the country. With these two things accomplished, it would then come down to the next two issues—-education and personal responsibility.
Just as buying a whole life insurance policy means the premiums can’t go up as you age, buying a health insurance policy at a young age, with the intent to keep it forever, would mean that a healthy person at the age of 25 could buy a reasonably priced comprehensive policy and be able to keep that policy through different employers and after living in different states, even though at the age of 65 he has health issues that would disqualify him from buying anything comparable, at least not for a comparable price. Certainly prices could go up, but only for entire classes, not for individual health problems. This would pretty much eliminate the problem of pre-existing conditions, as someone with the same policy for twenty years would not be kicked out or have his or her rates rise because he or she developed a chronic condition after acquiring the policy.
All sorts of modifications could be made to such an approach. For example, an employer could offer a subsidy for a health insurance policy which could be kept after the employment is ended, possibly with a slight bump in cost to the insured but not requiring a change of carrier. A discounted policy could be offered as part of college tuition, with the same ability to transfer to a personal policy under the same kind of conditions. But the idea would be that people would be expected, and be able, to take responsibility for their own health insurance costs, and at the same time own those policies instead of having them owned by their employers. If John and Jane each have a policy acquired in their early 20s and they marry, they could merge their policies into a family policy, without losing the advantage of having been insured for years, and their children could be incorporated into policies that could be transferred to them when the mature. These are problems that could be solved.
It is a radical approach, as it is dependent on personal responsibility and cedes control to the individual instead of to the State.
If you haven’t already, you really need to forward those ideas to your Congressmen and Senators.
Here is an interesting take on the temporary restriction on entry to the U.S. from certain countries, coming from one who knows what he is talking about. It’s a good read, and we should start to quote the last lines:
“What about all the other rich Muslim countries? They banned Muslim immigration from the very beginning. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar— are they racist, too?”
http://ijr.com/2017/01/788704-chris-kyles-iraqi-interpreter-has-blistering-message-for-all-the-protesters-over-trumps-muslim-ban/
Is anyone listening to Trumps’s press conference? LOL!! Pure vintage Trump. He was asked about meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. He said he wanted to meet with Congressman Cummings from the CBC, but finally gave up trying. Assumed it was probably blocked by some lightweight (Trump’s word) like Schumer.
I only caught parts of it but he doesn’t pull any punches. As you said – vintage Trump
Yeah, but it looks like it might have been a setup, because now Cummings is claiming he never backed off from a meeting with Trump. Sometimes the temptation to be snarky will backfire, especially when dealing with snakes like Cummings and Schumer. Unfortunately, all too often “vintage Trump” has at least one foot in his mouth, whether for real or just appearing so because of something like this.
Wouldn’t it just be too funny for this to result in a new, quickly voted-on and signed bill to make it easier to fire federal employees?
In how many businesses can employees openly defy a new boss and openly advocate sabotage, openly work to undermine his authority? None that I can think of. This is the perfect opportunity to clean house, agency-wise, and there are a few million Americans who WANT to work who can step in and fill the positions that actually need to be filled.
I think we would find that there are fewer of those than the federal employees believe.
https://www.billoreilly.com/b/BOR-Staff-Column:-Civil-Servants…or-Uncivil-Masters