Category Archives: Politics

August 4, 2019 · 9:25 pm

Finding hope amidst the carnage

There were two mass shootings in America within 24 hours, one in El Paso, Texas, yesterday and one in Dayton, OH, in the wee hours of the morning today.

Yesterday, when the El Paso story broke, I was watching a stupid sci-fi movie, Idiocracy, which one of my sons insisted I would love (I didn’t). In that movie, set hundreds of years into the future, America’s gene pool and culture had declined dramatically, where the English language had eroded into gibberish and mindless slogans, education had been demonized and the American system had descended into chaos, and corruption, with a WWF type star running the country.

A male and female from the present were frozen in a top secret military experiment, where they were supposed to be awakened in the near future, but they ended up being frozen for several hundred years. When these two average people awakened they found themselves,literally, the smartest people in the world. The man had been a dud in the Army, who did nothing to distinguish himself as a soldier, while the woman had been a prostitute, who was conned into being a part of the experiment.

The movie Idiocracy was made in 2006 and here we are in 2019 with a WWF type star as president and most days the mindless spin word games leave me wondering what the heck happened to America.

In 2019 America, the media news cycles are largely driven by the blue checkmark crowd of political and thought leaders who drive the media spin cycles on Twitter. President Trump also uses his Twitter account to drive spin cycles. We live, not in an Idiocracy, but a Twitterocracy. News Media people and politicos on Twitter drive the other American news formats, especially the cable TV spin cycles.

Today’s reporting has been a mix of law enforcement reporting updates, reports on the victims, pundits and politicians assigning blame for the shootings (well beyond the two shooters) and as can always be expected massive politicization, before the bodies of the murder victims are even cold. It’s a rather ghoulish national media and political spectacle.

At the end of the day, it appears the El Paso shooter was motivated by white nationalist sentiments and the Dayton. OH shooter was an Elizabeth Warren supporter, Satanist and anti-gun violence advocate (try making sense of that, if you can). My personal opinion is what likely motivates these killers is probably a complex combination of factors, like mental illness, erosion of family, decay of civic culture, social alienation, violent culture, malign online groups that fuel hate. Of course, America’s 24/7 scorched earth spin war, which the media avidly aids and abets, certainly probably could be a contributing factor too.

My point is, it’s doubtful we can pinpoint one specific cause, even though many people want some specific cause, that they can fixate on as the source of the evil, because it’s much easier to believe that, “if we only got rid of that cause, that would fix the problem”. For many on the Left, Trump is the cause and removing Trump from office is the solution. For many others on the Left, the cause is guns and more gun laws will fix the problem.

I’ve never owned a firearm in my life and never want to own one. I understand the strong views of people on both sides of the 2nd Amendment debates and constant battles over gun laws. That said, sure there might be some more gun laws that might keep guns out of mass shooters hands, but at this point enough details aren’t known about these two mass shooting incidents to have a calm debate about whether the law the Democrats are hyping today would have had any impact on either of these two shootings.

The reality that the “causes” are complex and there isn’t some magical, easy-fix political solution to end these mass shootings, particularly those carried out by white nationalists, who are reported to be using online forums to radicalize and spread their racist ideology, ramp up racial fear and incite rage, doesn’t sit well with many Americans. People like believing there are political solutions to slaying violent ideologies (see all the true-believers that American military might could destroy radical Islamist ideology).

This is just my opinion, but positive cultural changes in America begin in the hearts of good citizens, good neighbors, and strong families. We can all work toward that end, in our own small ways. Each tiny effort can begin the change. Of course, having strong leaders in America, from all walks of life, working to spread calm and positive messages, instead of turning everything in America into a vicious political battle, would help a great deal too, but judging from most of the Twitterocracy thought leaders, and partisan political peeps, I wouldn’t hold my breath on that happening.

And here we come to President Trump and his endless ginning up anger and flirting with white nationalists in his rhetoric. While I don’t believe it’s fair or productive to run around calling him a racist or white nationalist, he has never come out and tried to distance himself from white supremacist or denounced their hate-filled ideology. As the person holding the biggest megaphone in America, it’s way past time for him to strongly denounce white nationalism and white supremacy ideology.

The best thing the news media could do for America is abandon their cozy spin nest on Twitter and get back to reporting who, what, when, when, why and how, instead of being major players in the partisan spin wars, which churns out of the Twitterocracy every day in America. Yes, even Trump knows Twitter drives the American news cycles in America and propels the Left’s spin narratives, which is why he clings to his personal Twitter account.

And the best thing each of us average citizens can do is try to take care of our families, our friends, our communities and pray that each small drop of kindness adds up to large enough waves to begin changing the tide in our country.

Finding hope amidst the carnage won’t be easy, but we could each resolve to spread some kind words and work to do some good deeds… that’s a start.

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Filed under Food for Thought, Politics

July 28, 2019 · 4:48 pm

A Total Corrupt Mess

For a few days, I’ve thought about writing a blog post about Robert Mueller’s testimony before Congress on July 24, 2019, but despite tweeting a good bit about it, deciding how to express my thoughts without just ending up expressing my outrage, made me hesitate. I tweet under the name, libertybelle at Twitter. A few days ago JK posted a comment on my blog with a link to a video: https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/454668-rising-july-25-2019 , titled, Establishment Dems exposed, Krystal Ball: How much damage has MSNBC done to the Left? with Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti dissecting how Mueller’s testimony deflated the Trump/Russia spin hysteria peddled by MSNBC (and CNN too).

This assessment of the damage to Dems was brutal and I believe accurate. Their prediction that the Trump/Russia spin hysteria was dead, failed to take into account how quickly the Dem/Mainstream media spin warriors regroup and rewrite their narratives. They will continue with this Trump/Russia Collusion narrative, because they must. Heck, the Washington Post yesterday, ran an editorial claiming Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset, so the Dems Red Scare 2.0 effort is well underway.

The Trump/Russia Collusion spin narrative is the Dems big lie propaganda effort, from which all their efforts to takedown Trump, at best, or delegitimize his presidency 24/7, at worst, spring. If Dems ever concede that Trump/Russia Collusion spin narrative was concocted, or to use Trump’s term, “a hoax”, all of their Trump hysterical narratives implode. And that is what I suspect might happen.

I’ve read a lot of takes on Mueller’s testimony, but I am relying on what I saw in Mueller’s overall testimony. Dems and many #Resist media pulled short video clips to spin that Mueller’s “performance” made the case to impeach Trump. Many Trump pundits and media ran with Mueller’s “performance” was dismal, with some claiming Mueller’s fumbling, to look up passages in the Mueller report, was “an act” to run out the clock.

Well, here’s my take, Mueller’s testimony was the best he could do. Mueller looked to me like an elderly man with significant memory problems and my anger burned as I watched him struggle to answer questions, struggle to remember, struggle with multi-pronged questions (a lot of the Dems had those prepared). The worst part of this was watching Mueller struggle to find passages in the Mueller report, which Dems had planned to have Mueller read out loud for dramatic effect. Mueller got lost trying to locate the passages. Watching Mueller’s testimony was like watching my husband several years ago and it appalled me that rabid Dem lawyers on that Special Counsel team and Democrats staged this spectacle USING this man, who served his country honorably for many years, as nothing more than a stage prop in another of their media SPIN sideshows. It felt like I was watching elderly abuse many times.

Mueller’s testimony exposed the total sham of the Trump/Russian investigation, for me. I believe rabid Dem lawyers ran that investigation and USED Mueller as a figurehead and shield from scrutiny. A question to be answered, which I believe assuredly needs to be answered by the AG, is whether there’s a medical diagnosis of Robert Mueller’s significant memory problems. I feel there’s very likely a medical diagnosis to that. Some pundits and reporters mentioned his “mental acuity”, but the AG needs to find out whether his condition was known before he was appointed to lead this Special Counsel investigation.

The other question that should be answered is what exactly was going on with that Rosenstein and Mueller meeting with Trump in the Oval Office the day before Rosenstein appointed Mueller to head the Special Counsel investigation. Trump and Pence believed Rosenstein brought Mueller to the White House to interview for the FBI director position. Mueller testified that he did not interview for the position. Andrew McCabe wrote in his book, that Mueller’s phone was left in the Oval Office and had to be retrieved later. What on earth was that all about? Was Mueller used to plant a phone in the Oval Office to “surveil” or “spy” on the Oval Office?

Did Comey, Yates and other rabid anti-Trump people just use Mueller all along, as cover for their efforts to takedown Trump? While I hope AG Barr gets to the bottom of this, I’ve learned placing faith in anyone or anything in Washington always leads to massive disappointment. The truth is all that “Drain the Swamp” hoopla Trump hyped misses the truth – there are so many corrupt politicians, on both sides, in Washington, that to really expose the massive public corruption would require throwing them all out, fumigating the place from top to bottom, and starting all over, LOL.

It’s a total corrupt mess and Trump, a lying con man, as good as Dems at stirring up identity politics firestorms, isn’t really going to solve anything. He likes to peddle influence, like the best of them, hobnobbing with his rich friends, offering them top jobs and on it goes.

Our news media, mainstream media & FOX, are just big businesses making a fortune off of running competing Trump Reality Show vs. The Trump/Russian Collusion Show. Where it ends, well, I have no idea, but it’s going to get much worse, I feel sure.

4 Comments

Filed under Corrupt Media Collusion, General Interest, Information War, Politics, Public Corruption

July 21, 2019 · 9:24 am

A Country of Strangers…

After the past few days of Trump-crazy spin, from both sides, blaring across American media, I spent some time thinking about a sad Conrad Richter novel, A Country of Strangers, written in 1966, which I read last month.

The Richter novel was set in the American colonial period, at the time an agreement between colonials and the Ohio Tribes, consisting of several related Algonquin peoples, required the return of all white captives. Richter’s story was written from the viewpoint of a young Lenni Lenape woman, Stone Girl (Mary Staunton), who was a white child captured by a Lenni Lenape (Delaware Indians) tribe when she was very young. She has only a few memories of her white family and a few bits of information an older white woman captive kept repeating, reminding her of her English name and parents. Stone Girl’s belief system and identity is completely Lenape. To compound her alienation from her white heritage, she does not speak English.

Stone Girl married a warrior in the tribe and has a young child, so when the return of captives agreement becomes known, her husband takes her and their child further into Indian territory, hoping that will keep her safe from being forcibly returned to a white family she doesn’t even remember. Stone Girl and her child are forcibly returned. While Richter’s story disappointed me a bit, overall it left me feeling, not only sad for Stone Girl and her child, but sad about how so often political decisions made with the best of intentions, end up causing immense anguish for powerless individuals caught in the middle.

My father’s German ancestors settled into northeast PA, moving north of the Blue Mountain, in 1762. That area had been an ancient Lenni Lenape (Delaware Indian) village, called Meniolagomeka. Moravian missionaries had spent a few years in the 1750s erecting a mission in the area to attempt to convert the Lenni Lenape villagers to Christianity, before the Delaware were pushed out and white settlers moved in. The French and Indian War, from 1754-1763, took a very heavy toll on the Lenni Lenape, from repeated forced relocations, disease and the ravages of this war.

The plight of Native Americans in the European settlement of America still haunts our American conscience, but so often we try to see these troubling situations in black and white, trying to choose a side, when in very personal terms, the larger political decisions, even well-meaning ones, sometimes inflicted enormous personal suffering on many individual people, on both sides, caught up in them.

I found an interesting 2001 article, Redeeming the Captives: Pennsylvania Captives Among the Ohio Indians, 1755-1765, by Matthew C. Ward, at JSTOR. This article was originally published in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography Vol. 125, No. 3 (Jul., 2001). Ward writes that in this 10 year period in the mid-1700s, the French and Indian War had left the frontier border, especially in Pennsylvania, dangerously unprotected and exposed.

Ward explains that during that short decade, the Ohio Tribes waged an escalating campaign of taking white captives as a political and strategic effort, resulting in the capture of nearly two thousand white settlers – men, women and children. Many of these captives fully-integrated into the Ohio tribal societies and despite the forced return of white captives at the end of the French and Indian War, many of these captives fled back to their Indian tribes or refused to leave their tribe. In the Conrad Richter novel, Stone Girl finds out her Indian warrior husband has died in a battle and then her young son is killed, so the spoiler alert is she flees back to the Indians with a former captive, white man she has met, who, like her, had completely acculturated into Indian tribal life.

This phenomenon of white captives voluntarily returning to live with the tribe has been well-documented in early American historical accounts and was very common. The European settlers, who considered the Native Americans uncivilized savages, were mystified by the frequency with which white captives chose to “go native” and stay with the Indian tribe. The Delaware tribes adopted white captive children into their families and fully-integrated white captives, even adults, into their tribal social structure.

And that brings us to our modern politics and the frequent warnings of the dangers of tribalism, where sadly America, in a real sense, often truly feels like a country of strangers.

Interestingly, Jonah Goldberg’s latest book, Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy, Goldberg mentions this very situation in our early American experience:

“In his book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, Sebastian Junger recounts how the English colonies in North America were vexed by a bizarre problem: Thousands of white Europeans colonists desperately wanted to be Indians, but virtually no Indians wanted to be Europeans. “When an Indian child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our customs,” Benjamin Franklin explained in a letter to a friend in 1753, “if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian ramble with them, there is no persuading him ever to return.” However, Franklin added, when whites were taken prisoner by the Indians, they’d go native and want to stay Indians, even after being returned to their families. “Tho’ ransomed by their friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a short time they become disgusted with our manner of life… and take the first good opportunity of escaping again into the woods.”

As Junger observes, this phenomenon seemed to run against all of the assumptions of civilizational advance. And yet it kept happening thousands of times over? Why? Because there is something deeply seductive about the tribal life. The Western way takes a lot of work.”

Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy, Jonah Goldberg, page 13

The Western way, indeed, does take a lot of work to keep our diverse and complex society united for any common purposes and with the rise of populist and nationalist sentiments, and the deepening factionalization (tribalism), often fueled by obscene identity politics, America seems more and more like a nation of screeching tribes, on a 24/7, media-fueled verbal warpath, rather than a nation united by any common beliefs or bonds.

So, where does America go from here? How do we begin to heal the divides and unite our nation under even a few common beliefs? How do we begin to neutralize the damage inflicted on American unity, by this malignant, 24/7 scorched earth spin information war, that only works to fuel outrage and mass hysteria? Is there hope for our rabid American partisan to find some calmer middle ground and begin to work together to unite Americans around a few common beliefs and causes?

America began as an unique experiment – a project – that requires commitment from each generation of Americans to thrive and succeed.

There’s been another Trump-incited debate in recent days about what American immigrants owe America and JK posted a link to the National Review podcast, where Charles Cooke and David French debate whether American citizens, who immigrated here, owe America more gratitude than native-born American citizens

My personal belief is it’s not so much about showing “gratitude”; it’s that our republic needs more individuals making the personal choice to commit to the American project’s most important civic belief – treating our fellow citizens, regardless of which “tribal group in our diversity soup” they identify with, with respect.

I agreed with some points on both sides of the French/Cooke debate, but for me, debating who owes more “gratitude” misses the most important point. It’s not about picking a group who owes more to America, it’s about ALL American citizens should decide whether they want to put in their oars and row, in working toward some common goals.

I believe the first core belief America needs, to even form an American team, that can function, is demanding, not “gratitude”, but demanding we all commit to treating each other with respect. Focusing on judging other Americans, based on their displays of “gratitude” or how they show respect for America, which President Trump will surely hype in his 2020 campaign, as he wraps himself in the American flag and works to polarize and incite more divisions, gets us nowhere. I say this, even though, I am struggling with negative feelings toward Omar’s anti-Semitic remarks and her comments that I perceive as anti-American. Still, working hard to treat other people with respect, here we go from the PA girl, is our keystone belief. It’s our American central principle, if you will. Pennsylvania is the Keystone State, just had to throw that in.

Our political leaders spend more time fueling divides and anger, with too many orchestrating and participating in personal smear campaigns.

A few weeks ago, I listened to the audiobook Unified: How Our Unlikely Friendship Gives Us Hope for a Divided Country, a book written by Senator Tim Scott and former Congressman, Trey Gowdy. The book explains their friendship, but in the process, both offer many examples of how to build a relationship between two people from very different backgrounds. They both talk about how they worked hard to build trust in their relationship and that required being willing to, not only listen to each other’s differing perspectives, it meant trying to understand them. Their friendship took commitment, like all trusting relationships do. On a larger scale America needs leaders committed to building trust across partisan lines and leaders who will put the national interest above their personal or partisan interests.

In his book, Them: Why We Hate Each Other — And How To Heal, Senator Ben Sasse, relates this very point:

“Over the last year, I’ve had occasion to meet with a number of senior Chinese officials, and they’ve always been quick to point out — a kind of diplomatic trash talk — how young the United States is compared to China’s forty-five centuries of history.

Fair enough. We’re babes, historically. But (as long as we’re trash talking) age is not always what it’s cracked up to be. And, besides: doesn’t this discussion miss the point? China is a nation in the classic sense. It is blood and soil. It’s great wall, a fascinating people, an extraordinary long-lived culture.

But America is something different. America is an idea — it is a creed.

The American idea is a commitment to the universal dignity of persons everywhere.”

Them: Why We Hate Each Other — And How To Heal, written by Ben Sasse, page 134.

I agree with Sasse about “universal dignity of persons everywhere”, but being a homemaker, I believe we should work to clean up our own house, first, starting in our daily lives and hopefully our elected leaders and those with a public platform will commit to cleaning up our own political house, instead of just talking about which side is worse.

Frankly, I am ashamed of our American scorched earth spin information war, even though I am just a homemaker, with no political power. The elected leaders in America represent all of us… and most of them, on both sides, are committed to this appalling spin war, where vicious, orchestrated smear campaigns and petty media spin games – to incite, belittle, disparage each other – have become their default form of politics. President Trump, AOC & her squad, and many other elected leaders, political operatives, and the media remain completely committed to waging this spin war.

This scorched earth spin information war is a national disgrace. We should all commit to end it.

Epstein again

There were a few interesting developments in the Jeffrey Epstein case yesterday.

Here’s a link to a story, Real Hedge-Fund Managers Have Some Thoughts on What Epstein Was Actually Doing, written by Michelle Celarier, which offers some theories on how Epstein made his fortune. In this story there’s a link to a tweet thread that’s that a must read too.

Federal prosecutors also tacked on witness tampering allegations to Epstein’s charges:

“The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan said Epstein wired $350,000 to two possible co-conspirators within five days of the Miami Herald’s November 28 expose on former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta’s sweetheart deal with Epstein in 2007.”

https://dailycaller.com/2019/07/12/federal-prosecutors-accuse-epstein-witness-tampering/

This Epstein case is hot news now, but my prediction is it will go much like the Harvey Weinstein and Ralph Northam media feeding frenzies, if Epstein’s connections implicate too many big Democrats.

So far, the mainstream media isn’t pouncing on digging through Bill Clinton’s statement and investigating, in fact, it’s been dead silence there. You won’t see the Washington Post sending dozens of reporters to uncover how much of Bill Clinton’s statement is true, but every hint that Trump made some comment about Epstein is being spun for all it’s worth, especially on MSNBC.

The mainstream media is just as corrupt at running interference and damage control for the Clintons, as FOX News is at running damage control for Trump. The reality is that it would not be surprising if old golfing buddies, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump both had some unsavory connections to Epstein. Bill Clinton and Donald Trump both have plenty of allegations of sexually predatory behavior and unsavory proven history of trying to cover-up that behavior. It is fact that Bill Clinton lied about his affair with Monica Lewinsky and his minions were waging an all-out smear campaign against her. It is fact that Trump had his attorney pay hush money to two women, who claimed to have had affairs with him, during the 2016 campaign.

Sadly, the media is now more dedicated to aiding partisan causes than objectively reporting news. And our justice system seems to operate the same way. There’s plenty of media and Dem outrage about Epstein now, but that was because they wanted Alex Acosta to be taken down. If there’s no evidence to damage Trump and more evidence implicating Bill Clinton or other big Dems, well, Epstein’s case will go the way of Weinstein – it will fizzle out. The mainstream media will work to make the story go away.

Update: Andrew McCarthy at National Review offers his analysis of the Epstein plea agreement and double jeopardy issue: Acosta’s Sweetheart Deal Likely to Foreclose Epstein’s SDNY Prosecution

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Filed under General Interest, Politics, Public Corruption

July 10, 2019 · 10:03 pm

America is about individuals

I am not a feminist.

I am a woman, yet I have never once in my life believed I am entitled to special rules due to this.

This week’s feminist hissy fit centers on the U.S. women’s soccer team. The media Furies rail that the U.S. women’s soccer team deserves pay equal to the U.S. men’s soccer team. The truth is the U.S. women’s soccer team, while the best women’s soccer team can’t hold a candle to men’s soccer teams. This is the reality in most sports.

The glaring truth is men and women are physically different and have different physical capabilities. Pretending otherwise, to appease feminists or advance political agendas, hurts everyone who is willingly brainwashed into buying into policies based on false premises and slippery, deceptive language, or coerced through political and social media pressure to buy into these feminist false arguments and their always-evolving demands.

I do not believe in dogmatic modern feminism, which appears to me to be a thinly veiled, radical leftist, socialist political movement, with a mission of “destroying the patriarchy” (code word for Western civilization). Modern feminists state they want to stamp out sexism and remake, not just our political structure, but our culture and even our daily lifestyle choices to fit their ever-evolving notions of what a feminist utopia should be.

Most of all it’s alarming how many women (and many men too) just jump on board each new media-fueled feminist demand or outrage antic.

The radicals leading the modern feminist movement often contradict each other and advocate conflicting policies, but they agree on their demand for political change, all encapsulated under the banner of “Equality and Fairness”, which the mainstream media invariably champions, without question. The feminist movement’s major mouthpieces issue their demands, which dictate how everyone, especially men, must act and think about… women’s rights and women’s roles in the workplace, “gender roles”, male and female personal interactions, what words must be used when speaking about women and “gender” issues, and what everyone must think about an ever-growing list of issues and grievances their movement decides are “unfair”. Most of all feminists want to tell men what they can and can not do, even down to their private sexual behavior.

The modern feminist movement is all about controlling men.

It’s exhausting listening to so many grown women living their lives in a perpetual state of raging that men need to change, all to conform to their latest charge of inequality or about how “unfair” some issue is to women. Oddly, many liberal men have completely bought into modern feminism and are willing to embrace every new angry charge radical feminists level at men and the “patriarchy” writ large.

America is about individuals pursuing their dreams. It’s not about political parties, mass political action or social media mob actions.

Here’s a home truth about people – you can’t dictate what other people must believe. Freedom of belief is a right in America and should not be dictated or constrained by government, political or social pressure. Every American should feel free to disagree with or embrace religious, political or even personal beliefs without fear of social, political or even economic retaliation from modern social media or media-generated mob smear campaigns. We shouldn’t accept dictates on what words we must use to talk about any political or social issues. Differing viewpoints deserve a hearing.

I believe there are amazingly competent women and there are amazingly incompetent women, smart women and dumber-than-a-rock women, women who work hard and women who are lazier than my old dog, Lucy, whose major daily effort is dragging herself to the food dish each day. The same is true for men. I’m all for job opportunities for everyone, based on clear standards, across the board.

My only exception is I do not believe in allowing women in a few grueling combat positions, because I believe the military mission and what best leads to mission success outweigh feminist politics, always. I base this view based on my view that military mission success often asks soldiers to take on dangerous missions, even sacrificing their lives for some of them. And due to the gravity of some of these combat missions, I don’t think feminist agendas outweigh, careful, deliberative military assessments, as to what physical requirements are needed to accomplish these missions successfully and feminist agendas certainly do not outweigh the risk to other team members, who might be put at risk by lowering standards or allowing women, who are not as competent as their male team members. It’s not fair to put other team members at risk due to feminist political pressure. Some of these tasks require a great deal of upper-body strength and endurance, which the overwhelming body of research shows women do not possess. Biology is what it is, so in military mission decisions, I opt for what best leads to mission success. PERIOD.

This latest U.S women’s soccer team win has become an anti-Trump rally and members of this women’s soccer team are just as much to blame for this political sideshow as Trump. In fact, the team captain is wallowing in media deification for her “trash-Trump”, anti-American political antics. As an added “feminist issue”, the feminist mantra is all about how these female soccer players dont’ get paid as much as the men’s team. The truth is the men’s soccer team brings in a whole lot more revenue and although the U.S. women’s soccer team are amazing athletes, no women’s soccer team can compete with the counterpart top male soccer teams.

Male and female biology is what it is – that’s the truth.

What on earth is wrong with cheering on women’s sports and working to expand opportunities for girls sports too, without turning it into a feminist political cause? Why do radical leftist politics turn everything into a major political and cultural war?

A good starting point for changing America for the better, way beyond political action, begins with treating people as individuals worthy of respect and entitled to their own beliefs, thoughts and opinions.

It seems like America’s 24/7 media spin drama feeds mass hysteria, mass outrage, mass demonization… mass GROUPTHINK.

My modest proposal is that we start listening to each other more and spending more time trying to get to know people as individuals first, rather than as part of some nefarious “other group”.

Just that one change of focus can broaden your view immensely and it can lead you to some amazing conversations with people, whom you thought you had nothing in common with or believed were bad people… based on hot button political issues, the political candidate they support, or group they belong to. Each person deserves to be treated as more than a one-dimensional object to hate.

How hard is it to work on respecting people as individuals?

Clinton Damage Control Full-Steam Ahead…

Jeffrey Epstein, billionaire hedge fund investor, friend to both Republican and Democrat powerful politicians and connected people, was arrested in New York on charges of running a sex trafficking ring of underage girls. In this latest episode of this Epstein sex crime saga, plenty of names are being tossed out as being linked to Epstein… again.

Former president, Bill Clinton, is reported to have traveled on Epstein’s private plane 26 times. Last night, Clinton’s spokesman released a statement:

“Bill Clinton “knows nothing” about the “terrible crimes” linked to Jeffrey Epstein, the former president’s spokesman said Monday, in Clinton’s first statement after new sex-trafficking charges were lobbed against the wealthy financier.”

“In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane: one to Europe, one to Asia, and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation,” the statement said. “Staff, supporters of the foundation, and his Secret Service detail traveled on every leg of every trip. He had one meeting with Epstein in his Harlem office in 2002, and around the same time made one brief visit to Epstein’s New York apartment with a staff member and his security detail. He’s not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade, and he has never been to Little St. James Island, Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico, or his residence in Florida.”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bill-clinton-knows-nothing-about-financier-jeffrey-epsteins-terrible-crimes-former-presidents-spokesman-says

When the Clintons feel compelled to do damage control with a statement, it’s best to be highly skeptical the statement is truthful. This statement was meant to be the Clinton talking points for the mainstream media to begin spinning another “nothing to see here” diversion. Plenty of the mainstream media will just run with this Clinton statement, as if it’s been investigated and verified as factual. The Clintons have done this same smoke and mirrors spin routine to cover-up scandals, with the mainstream media serving as their loyal spin team, for decades now. Honestly, this statement struck me as another Clinton, “I did not have sex with that woman” or “I never sent nor received any information that was marked classified.”

My prediction is that every thread of innuendo, no matter how flimsy, linking Trump to Epstein will result in massive mainstream media spin attacks trashing Trump, without any fact-checking, while any information damaging to Bill Clinton will get brushed under the carpet.

That’s how the mainstream media rolls.

As an aside to the spin efforts, there’s an interesting Tweet thread from 2018, by Techno-Fog, which has FBI documents from 2008 about Epstein, suggesting that Epstein was an FBi informant on some financial investigation

Mueller was the FBI director in 2008.

Small world in that DC swamp, that’s for sure…

Oh, one other interesting bit of information that I wasn’t aware of is Jeffrey Epstein helped devise the Clinton Global Initiative:

“Billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was indicted Monday on child sex-trafficking charges, helped president Bill Clinton devise the Clinton Global Initiative, according to a letter his attorneys sent to federal prosecutors in 2007.

“Mr. Epstein was part of the original group that conceived the Clinton Global Initiative, which is described as a project ‘bringing together a community of global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges,” attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Gerald Lefcourt wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Fox News in 2016 and resurfaced Monday by the Daily Caller.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/jeffrey-epstein-lawyer-claimed-alleged-pedophile-helped-devise-clinton-global-initiative/

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Filed under General Interest, Politics, Public Corruption

July 2, 2019 · 1:19 pm

Odds and Ends

“This is not who we are!”

My intention is to get more blog posts written soon, so we’ll see if my intentions turn into actual writing, lol. For a long time I’ve been pondering how the internet and especially social media usage has changed my life. One of the things I noticed over the years is a decrease in my attention span when reading in general, but particularly staying focused on reading books. The constant click, click, click mentality of modern internet usage made me realize that I wasn’t spending enough time, sitting back, unplugged from the internet, and enjoying hours of reading. So, once again, I’m recommitting myself to spending more time reading actual books, but also filling in the wasted online time listening to audiobooks.

For June, I finished 4 actual books and 3 audiobooks. I’m working my way through two audiobooks and two actual books presently, hoping to stay focused on reading more books and spending less time online. One of the books I’m reading is Ben Sasse’s, Them: Why We Hate Each Other And How To Heal, which I bought a while ago, read a few pages, then sat it aside. I’m halfway through it now and intend to write more about it after I finish the book and do some more research.

Sasse offers important information on the news media evolving into a massive infotainment business. Trump’s reality TV show presidency seems like a natural evolution in this news as entertainment environment, but the real problem isn’t only “Trump is evil” and it’s not only this polarizing news media environment. The main problem really is we, the American people. Without a huge market for this combative news as infotainment and the American embrace of trashy reality TV, this media environment would not thrive and assuredly, Trump’s brand of petty name-calling and juvenile insults would never have acquired a large cheering section, that still fills up large stadiums with flag-waving Americans, who show up to see these Trump Rally Shows.

The corrupt way in which the media gave Trump billions of dollars in free media during the 2016 GOP primary to hype his “GOP Insurgency” still serves as the most glaring example of this toxic media environment, but there are plenty of other examples. Trump’s opponent in 2016. Hillary Rodham Clinton received liberal media deification in the early 90s, with the media overhyping her as the “smartest woman in the world”, America was “getting two presidents for the price of one” and on it went with the liberal media slobbering all over her, crowning her America’s #1 feminist icon.

Conservative media has done the same thing, like turning Sarah Palin into a conservative icon, but the liberal media due to its dominance seems to churn out more media-manufactured political sensations. We now are regaled with the “rock star” Beto O’Rourke, America’s small town mayor, Pete Buttegieg, the always in our faces, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and last week’s Democrat debates, crowned Kamala Harris as the latest media darling for her championing school busing… of all topics to grasp to try and galvanize Americans to vote for her in 2020…

Probably the most realistic liberal take on Harris came from, of all people, liberal icon, Willie Brown:

“The first Democratic debates proved one thing: We still don’t have a candidate who can beat Donald Trump.

California Sen. Kamala Harris got all the attention for playing prosecutor in chief, but her case against former Vice President Joe Biden boiled down in some ways to a ringing call for forced school busing. It won’t be too hard for Trump to knock that one out of the park in 2020.”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/williesworld/article/Bad-news-for-Democrats-none-of-these-14059874.php?utm_campaign=CMS%20Sharing%20Tools%20(Premium)&utm_source=t.co&utm_medium=referral

As the 2020 Democrats veer left, President Trump, is veering back to his 2016 fear mongering about America being a victim of “unfairness” at every turn, even claiming most of our closest allies are taking advantage of us. He’s ranting about illegal immigrants. Mostly, though he’s wrapping himself in the American flag at every turn, playing to his blue collar white audience, proclaiming that only he is there to save them from the crazy Left.

The 2020 Democrats running to unseat him, are trying to find “issues” to run on, doubling down on the most far-left ones out there. Most of all, what they lack remains a stage presence that can push Trump from owning this reality TV show media environment. Americans, especially those who follow the infotainment regularly and are more galvanized to vote, really want the drama and constant controversy that Trump generates. Even while many of Trump’s harshest critics claim to despise Trump’s reality TV show presidency and constant antics, they still tune in to watch and they spend hours upon hours tweeting and railing about Trump’s latest outrage. He still owns the American political stage and I agree with Willie Brown’s assessment.

That’s it for today. Have a nice day everyone. As for me, I’ll be sitting here sipping iced tea … inside this afternoon. It’s 97 degrees, but feels like 105. Even my dogs don’t want to step outside this afternoon.

A glance back at 2015

With Attorney General, William Barr, going back to the beginning of how the Trump-Russia investigation began, I’ve spent time thinking about the beginning of the 2016 race, back in 2015. Last week, Howard Stern began doing interviews to promote his new book and discussing his relationship with Donald Trump over the years. Stern made a comment stating he believed Trump’s 2016 run for president began as a publicity stunt. I wrote a lot of blog posts along the way, so I’m rereading some of those old 2015 blog posts and also old news articles.

Howard Stern, who has interviewed Trump many times over the years, recently stated that he believes Trump doesn’t enjoy being President and that Trump entered the race as a publicity stunt for his Reality TV career and business. I happen to agree with Stern on this point. Even the Michael Cohen revelation that Trump was still pursuing a Trump-Moscow deal while campaigning for president lends weight, not that Trump was colluding with Russia to steal the election, but that Trump was planning for his personal business after the election. He expected Hillary to win. Another glaring red flag that Trump didn’t expect to win the election was he had made no real plans for staffing and the transition. The oddest aspect of Trump’s win in 2016 were the initial videos of Trump on election night. He did not look happy; he looked pensive and uneasy.

Here are two excerpts from recent Stern interviews:

“Radio shock jock Howard Stern believes President Donald Trump’s candidacy for president started out as a “publicity stunt” in order to get a raise from NBC for hosting “The Apprentice.”

Stern, who has hosted Trump on his radio show for years, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper in an interview set to air in full on Friday that he has “no doubt” it was a publicity stunt. Stern told Cooper that he has “inside information” that Trump started out using rumors that he would run for president as a public relations tactic when he was promoting his 1987 book, “The Art of the Deal.””

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/politics/howard-stern-trump-candidacy-publicity-stunt/index.html

“Stern also backed up his statement that Trump did not actually want to be president by noting he was hanging around Mar-a-Lago with Trump and his team when the run was being plotted.

“I know people who orchestrated some of these things,” Stern said. “I was at Mar-a-Lago around when it was announced that Donald was going to run for president, and like everyone else, I thought, Ha-ha-ha. So, knowing Donald, I can tell you with some assurance that I don’t believe that he thought anyone would buy in. Lo and behold, people did. But I’m pretty sure that there was no intention of actually being president.””

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/howard-stern-donald-trump-president-interview-833343/

Donald Trump began an exploratory committee March 18, 2015 and he announced his candidacy on June 16, 2015. Between those two dates, Donald Trump and Bill Clinton were reported to have had a phone conversation. Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy April 12, 2015. So, there were Bill Clinton and Donald Trump having a phone conversation in late May 2015, after Hillary Clinton had announced her candidacy in April. Another interesting date in this 2015 timeline is Jeb Bush announced his candidacy on June 15, 2015 – the day before Trump entered the race.

Let’s throw in another 2015 date:

“A March 2, 2015 New York Times article broke the story that the Benghazi panel had discovered that Clinton exclusively used her own private email server rather than a government-issued one throughout her time as Secretary of State, and that her aides took no action to preserve emails sent or received from her personal accounts as required by law.^[40]^[41]^[42] ”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton_email_controversy

So, in early 2015 the Clintons were dealing with the email “controversy”, is how Wikipedia frames it ( not a “scandal”), guess that’s about like Loretta Lynch insisting Comey refer to it as a “matter”, not a criminal investigation…

Hillary entered the 2016 race April 12, 2015, Trump and Bill Clinton had a phone call in late May 2015 and Trump entered the race the day after Jeb Bush entered on June 16, 2015. Jeb was perceived as the biggest threat to Hillary Clinton and he became Trump’s #1 target, from the beginning. Even Trump’s sideshow entry into the race was designed to steal Jeb’s thunder.

By August 2015, plenty of questions began to swirl about Trump’s campaign, especially about the vast amount of free media afforded to Trump over other GOP candidates in the crowded GOP field. So, what was going on with the media? FOX, CNN, MSNBC, the three major cable networks, turned into The Trump Show channels, 24/7 during the beginning months of the GOP primary in 2015. The Trump free media blitz in those beginning months extended to print media too. Here’s a Washington Post article from August 5, 2015:

“Former president Bill Clinton had a private telephone conversation in late spring with Donald Trump at the same time that the billionaire investor and reality-television star was nearing a decision to run for the White House, according to associates of both men.”

The WaPo piece has Clinton spokespeople and Trump spokespeople offering differing details about how the call originated and the subject of the call:

“Four Trump allies and one Clinton associate familiar with the exchange said that Clinton encouraged Trump’s efforts to play a larger role in the Republican Party and offered his own views of the political landscape.

Clinton’s personal office in New York confirmed that the call occurred in late May, but an aide to Clinton said the 2016 race was never specifically discussed and that it was only a casual chat.”

Both camps even offer differing accounts about how the call came about:

““Mr. Trump reached out to President Clinton a few times. President Clinton returned his call in late May,” a Clinton employee said. “While we don’t make it a practice to discuss the president’s private conversations, we can tell you that the presidential race was not discussed.”

One Trump adviser said Clinton called Trump, but the adviser did not provide specifics about how the call came about.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bill-clinton-called-donald-trump-ahead-of-republicans-2016-launch/2015/08/05/e2b30bb8-3ae3-11e5-b3ac-8a79bc44e5e2_story.html?utm_term=.8b5c03858a43

Trump began his campaign by hurling ad hominem attacks at his opponents, to steal the stage and neutralize his opponents. He had no real policies, just hollow slogans. Trump showed up for the primary debates loaded with petty smears prepared, but did no policy prep to be prepared to actually debate any issues. Everything about his performance looked like a publicity stunt. However, it’s these other machinations of the corrupt media, which ran the 24/7 Trump Show giving Trump, estimated to be billions of dollars worth of free media that speaks to vast corruption with the American media colluding to run partisan political spin efforts. These coordinated spin efforts work in tandem with public opinion polling, to manufacture public opinion in America. When the media hypes (spins) stories, those stories in turn result in manufactured public opinion, which reflects the spin hype.

The rise of Donald Trump in 2015 was the result of not only a populist mood, discontent within the Republican base with Washington politics as usual, it had the massive boost of billions of dollars of free liberal and conservative media selling Trump.

Billions of dollars of free media promotion of Trump’s GOP insurgency speaks to massive media corruption.

Back in October 2015, I wrote a blog post: A triangulation theory?:

“Do you ever let your mind wander and think about “what ifs”? Well, as Donald Trump continues to keep the GOP race in disarray and feeds the worst bigots, xenophobes and racists at the base, well, I wonder, would the Clinton political machine be able to orchestrate a more perfect triangulation than to have far-left kook, Bernie Sanders on the left and Donald Trump on the right. Trump’s single-handedly throwing the election to Hillary with his “deport them all”, which threw the Hispanic vote in the toilet for the GOP, if he is the candidate, then it was the attacks on women, or how about his “closing mosques” comment yesterday? That would leave the Queen sitting snugly in the “middle” – calm, grandmotherly and looking “moderate”…”

https://libertybellediaries.com/2015/10/21/a-triangulation-theory/

Stern stating he was hanging around Mar-a-lago when Trump announced he was running and Stern knows people involved in orchestrating this, as Stern describes it “a publicity stunt” reminded me of a National Review piece from March 3, 2016:

“Last August, Moonves even foreshadowed the oncoming media-induced Trump when, in a CBS quarterly-earnings conference call, he declared, reportedly to applause: “The coming election cycle will clearly ‘Trump’ anything we’ve ever seen before.”

Perhaps this would be a good place to mention that Les Moonves is also a self-declared Clinton friend. In 2001, CBS quoted Moonves as acknowledging, “I’ve had numerous chats with President Clinton over the past few years. . . . He is a friend of mine.”

Trump supporters who believe their candidate is the anti-establishment destroyer of media are being conned, and the con is being perpetrated by the people they hate the most: the Clintonistas of network media.

Moonves is signaling very clearly that his intention is to saturate the market with Trump, which translates to Web traffic and eventually to votes. He’s not interested in what conservative candidates have to say policy-wise or politically. The casual Kardashian voter isn’t attuned to an endorsement by Jeff Sessions or a hashtag on Twitter. They are paying attention to outlets such as ET!, TMZ, Inside Edition, the CBS evening news, CNN, and MSNBC, where Trump’s quotes about shooting voters on Fifth Avenue are played ad nauseam.

Trump supporters who believe their candidate is the anti-establishment destroyer of media are being conned, and the con is being perpetrated by the people they hate the most — the Clintonistas of network media. Not only are these people generally hostile to conservatism. They also are not content to simply sit on the sidelines and objectively report what candidates say and do.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/03/donald-trump-media-they-use-him-make-money-help-hillary/

Along the 2016 trail Trump built a loyal fan base and his poll numbers grew (along with his ego), but the mainstream media, all of those people Trump believed were his friends, pivoted in late 2015/early 2016 to unleash the Clinton-orchestrated massive smear campaign to bury Trump (their general election strategy). It would be interesting to know which Clinton-aligned mainstream media bigwigs were hanging around Mar-a-lago or involved in that 2015 “orchestration” Stern recently mentioned.

Trump’s constant attacks on the mainstream media, especially calling CNN and MSNBC “fake news” don’t seem to me like Trump the authoritarian trying to silence the media. From the beginning, it has sounded to me like Trump lashing out at his former friends in the media, who encouraged him to run, gave him fawning coverage in the beginning months of his campaign in 2015, then turned on him. Those former friends were, like Trump, old Clinton friends… How much Trump knew about Bill Clinton’s Pied Piper strategy (his classic triangulation strategy), I can’t say. However, I can say the media corruption of running partisan spin efforts continues unabated with the mainstream media and FOX head honchos running this endless scorched earth American media spin information war.

It would be interesting to know which media bigwigs Trump was consulting in 2015 about a presidential run and who these people are Stern says were involved in orchestrating, what he refers to as – a publicity stunt. However, like all the rest of the Clinton, Trump and media corruption in 2016, none of them will ever tell the truth. It would also be interesting to know the truth about the Bill Clinton-Donald Trump phone call in May 2015, but here again, that is as likely as Loretta Lynch ever telling the truth about what was discussed in her tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton in June 2016.

These media bigwigs, most of them overtly aligned with the big partisan political factions, control all of the information highways in America…

Aren’t we so lucky in America to have a “free” press…

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Filed under Corrupt Media Collusion, General Interest, Information War, Politics, Public Corruption

June 3, 2019 · 12:40 pm

About TRUST

I stitched this small patriotic teddy bear piece last week. Not sure yet, how I want to finish it, but I want to stitch a few more small patriotic pieces before the 4th of July for some small display on my coffee table.

Here’s the leaflet with this pattern – yep, another one from the 90s:

Now, on to politics…

Last Sunday, JK, shared two links to a blog, asking for my opinion. Jk and I bounced a lot of ideas back and forth in a comment section on a previous blog post of mine. He said this blog is written by a friend of his:

https://havechanged.blogspot.com/2019/05/obstruction.html

https://havechanged.blogspot.com/2019/05/questions-about-russian-collusion-story.html

Both of these blog posts provide timelines and raise many questions about events from January to May when Mueller was appointed special counsel by Rod Rosenstein.

The time period that interests me the most is the few days from Trump telling advisers he definitely wanted to fire Comey until Mueller was appointed special counsel – May 5, 2017 t0 May 17, 2017.

In the first of these blog posts, this entry left me pondering and I am still pondering, the same things JK’s friend raised in the second blog post:

“May 16
Rosenstein brings Robert Mueller to the White House to meet with Trump as potential FBI Director. However, by statute the FBI Director is eligible to serve only one term, for a maximum of ten years. At the end of Mueller’s earlier ten-year tenure as FBI Director it was extended for two years by a special Congressional Act and new legislation would be required if he was to be reappointed. Trump, Rosenstein, and Mueller converse in the Oval Office. It is not known whether the legal impediment to Mueller’s appointment is raised. McCabe has recently published a book in which he writes that Robert Mueller temporarily left his cell phone behind after meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office and that the phone “later had to be retrieved.””

https://havechanged.blogspot.com/2019/05/obstruction.html

In the second blog post, JKs friend includes this entry, expanding on this meeting:

“The day before Rosenstein announced he was appointing Special Counsel and that it would be Mueller, he brought Mueller to the White House to meet with Trump. Is it true that the President was told Mueller was a potential candidate as FBI Director? If so, was the President told that Congress would have to pass special legislation to allow the appointment? Was there any discussion of Russia or the Comey firing at the meeting? When did Rosenstein decide to appoint Special Counsel and decide it would be Mueller? Did Rosenstein and Mueller have any discussions, directly or indirectly, regarding that decision prior to the meeting with the President? Is it true that, as described in McCabe’s recent book, Mueller left his cell phone in the President’s office and had to return later to retrieve it? If so, did the device record anything while it was left in the office?

Did Rosenstein ever consider recusing himself from the investigation since he was a potential fact witness in any obstruction case involving the President?

Why did Rosenstein not consider Mueller’s long and close relationship with Comey as grounds for not appointing him as Special Counsel?”

https://havechanged.blogspot.com/2019/05/questions-about-russian-collusion-story.html

I hadn’t heard about this quote when Andrew McCabe’s book came out in February of this year, so I googled and found it in a February Breitbart article:

“In this same meeting Rod talked about interviews with candidates for director. Then he flipped back to talking about possible candidates for the special counsel job. It was hard to track whether he was talking about candidates for one job or for the other. One minute, he said Mueller had been asked to interview for the position of FBI director; Mueller had gone in for an interview with Trump, and left his phone there, and then the phone had to be retrieved.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/02/25/book-robert-mueller-left-phone-inside-after-trump-oval-office-meeting/

Back in 2018, McCabe has stated that after Comey’s firing, Rosenstein offered to wear a wire to record President Trump. McCabe, who became acting FBI director after Comey’s firing, says he discussed Rosenstein’s offer with his general counsel. Rosenstein has stated he made the comment in jest. McCabe has been cast as the liar all-around, yet the odd thing is when I watched McCabe testifying in front of Congress, I thought he was way more truthful than Comey or Rosenstein, as far as demeanor, watching his eyes. Here’s a video of McCabe reasserting that Rosenstein offered to wear a wire, in an interview in February when his book came out, and he believes Rosenstein was completely serious and not joking.

I don’t read Breitbart and wasn’t confident the quote from McCabe’s book was accurate, so I bought McCabe’s book last week.

So, Rosenstein agreed with firing Comey, when talking to President Trump and Sessions and McGahn. Rosenstein even drafted the memo with reasoning for firing, but after Comey’s firing, Rosenstein went to McCabe and talked like he was distraught over Comey’s firing. He was a man who was looking for atonement from Comey’s colleagues and friends at the FBI, it seems to me. At the FBI, they were completely convinced Trump was involved in some nefarious connections to Russia. They believed the Steele dossier. I believe McCabe’s version of this “wearing a wire”, because the spin level created hysteria about Trump firing Comey, Trump-Russia, and the FBI had bought into the Steele dossier as being reliable intel.

Trump exacerbated the spin hysteria by talking to the Russian ambassador and foreign minister, in the Oval Office, the day after firing Comey, trashing Comey as a real nut-job. The day after that Trump did an interview with Lester Holt completely changing his story and this is the problem with anything Trump says – he lies constantly, he obfuscates, and he often says totally incongruent things in the same sentence.

Rosenstein appeared, to me, to be lying about the wire comment. I don’t believe anyone at the FBI headquarters was in a joking mood about Comey’s firing.

We know from the Strzok messages that have poured out that Strzok loathed President Trump. We know Comey treated Hillary Clinton with kid gloves and expected her to be his next boss. We know Comey believes Trump is a threat to American democracy and Comey believed Trump was conspiring with Russia. McCabe, despite the Mueller report, still believes Trump and his campaign had disturbing connections to Russia. Yet, all three seem to have taken the Steele dossier as a serious intel product, only because they trusted Steele.

From the Michael Cohen arrest, we now know Trump lied about not having any business in Russia, and that even while campaigning for president, he was still trying to work out a deal for a Trump-Moscow project.

Andrew McCarthy in his recent podcast with Rich Lowry talks about how the Mueller investigation began and he asserts the mixing of politics with law corrupted the process and that Rosenstein panicked.(around minute 25:00). I believe it was more than just politics. I believe the orchestrated Clinton/Dem spin operation amplified constantly by the mainstream media was designed to create a “crisis” atmosphere and drive the spin effort that Trump was an imminent threat (the #Resist SPIN War Campaign) that required the immediate appointment of a special counsel. (Fox News runs the Trump “Deep State” hysteria spin messaging effort).

Since McCabe and Rosenstein give two different versions on the “wearing a wire” comment, it sure would be a good idea to get Robert Mueller under oath, answering questions about what he and Rosenstein discussed before the Oval Office meeting with Trump on May 16, 2017, about his “left behind” cell phone, if anything was recorded while the phone was in the Oval Office, how long that cell phone was in the Oval Office, and who retrieved it. If anything was recorded, what was it?

I don’t for a minute believe Robert Mueller would ever have acted in bad faith, but:

“Before I step away, I want to thank the attorneys, the FBI agents, the analysts, and the professional staff who helped us conduct this investigation in a fair and independent manner. These individuals, who spent nearly two years with the Special Counsel’s Office, were of the highest integrity.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/05/29/mueller-read-his-comments-russia-trump-lack-charges/1270761001/

There’s still Peter Strzok being hired, who was anything, but fair and independent and there are lawyers he hired, with close ties to the Clintons. They never investigated the Steele dossier, which fed the Trump-Russia hysteria The Clinton campaign, replete with a vast network of Dem operatives, who specialize in sophisticated smear campaigns, deliberately fed the Steele dossier and the Shearer dossier, masquerading as intel coming from reliable sources, into official government channels.

And here again we come to a word that doesn’t get talked about much in this whole mess, even though it is central to what happened in 2016. That word is TRUST. I believe trust was central to what happened to me in 1998 (see Messages of mhere link at the top of my blog). That retired general would never have participated in that “operation” against me, unless he completely trusted the information he was given. He already hated my guts, so I believe that he easily believed the worst of me. I think Mueller trusted in Comey’s integrity and he trusted in the information he was provided. Mueller’s appointment came about in a very confined timeframe and in the midst of a massive spin outrage cycle, with the media ranting about a “crisis” and “Trump is a Russian agent”.

Mueller looked nervous and uncomfortable in his press conference. I suspect he trusted Comey, who has been reported to be Mueller’s golden boy. I believe Mueller trusted in the information he was given on Trump-Russia collusion. Comey made “intent” his key tenet in his charging decision in Hillary’s email investigation and he overlooked the FBI Notes completely. The months before Hillary became Sec. of State, after Obama’s election, the Clintons had their respective IT guys, Cooper, who set up Bill Clinton’s personal Foundation server in their home and Hillary’s campaign IT guy, Pagliano, use campaign computer equipment to upgrade the family Foundation server, in anticipation of adding the State Dept, message load to their Foundation server. That upgrade process took months, so Hillary really did find it easier to use one device – she wanted to have their Foundation business and her State Dept. business on one secret server in their home… Comey does not seem to believe Hillary is a corrupt person. He does seem to believe Trump is a very corrupt person.

Getting all of the 2016 facts sorted out and on the table is important for our governmental institutions, even if the process will cause a great deal more political upheaval.

2016 should never be repeated.

Hopefully, someone involved in the FBI or DOJ, as this mess unfolded, has the INTEGRITY to sit down with Durham and just tells the truth about what all happened, rather than trying to run competing media spin efforts.

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Filed under General Interest, Information War, Politics, Public Corruption, Uncategorized