Here are a few of my observations on the news of the day.
COMEY GETS HIS COMEUPPANCE – On Tuesday, President Trump summarily fired FBI Director James Comey. It was long overdue. Personally, I thought he should have resigned in July 2016 after the agency had completed its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s misuse of a personal e-mail server and her mishandling of classified material. Attorney General Loretta Lynch put him in an untenable position after she met with former President Bill Clinton on her aircraft in Phoenix. Instead, he usurped her authority and stated that the case would be closed without prosecution. Simply, he decided to give up his integrity for political reasons.
The president made the decision following the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstsein, Comey’s boss who was confirmed 94-6 by the Senate last month. “Over the past year,” Rosenstein said, “the FBI’s reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the Department of Justice.” I understand that Rosenstein met with Comey and told him “this isn’t going to work.”
Trump critics are questioning the timing amid the agency’s probe into possible Russian ties to the Trump campaign. How foolish. Comey wasn’t personally conducting the probe, and it will continue.
While Comey’s firing is centered on his mishandling of the Clinton case, I think Patrick Buchanan’s comment that the president was simply getting tired of the Russian cloud hanging over his head for 10 months, with no end in sight, has merit. There’s little the president can do about Democrats slow-walking his confirmations, but he can do something about Comey dragging out the Russian probe.
Comey brazenly went around his boss (Rosenstein) to ask the Senate Intelligence Committee for more money to continue the investigation.
I find it interesting that Comey’s previous boss, Sally Yates, also became political when she referred to the president’s travel ban as unlawful. She, too, was fired.
The swamp is being drained, slowly, but surely. And the Washington crowd is in a tizzy.
WE SHOULD NOT WANT A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR to look into the alleged connection between the Trump team and Russia. If the senators we elected, who now make up the Senate Intelligence Committee and representatives who make up the House Oversight Committee cannot conduct this investigation, why do those committees exist. And need I remind you that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA operative began in September 2003 and it wasn’t until March 6, 2007, and millions of dollars in costs, that Scooter Libby was convicted (wrongly, as he was not the leaker) on four of five counts. President George Bush commuted his 30-month sentence, but it wasn’t until Nov. 3, 2016 that he was readmitted to the DC bar.
THE CANCER SURVIVOR’S NETWORK is buying television air time for Planned Parenthood commercials in Arizona, aimed at those would take away PP funding, and suggests that viewers call the office of Sen. Jeff Flake. In a technique used by Democrats, dire circumstances are depicted should government funds be cut off.
In the testimonial commercial, a woman by the name of Jaime, a Cancer survivor, says her primary care provider couldn’t get her in for screening for three weeks, but Planned Parenthood was able to get her in for an appointment that day.
In an obvious attempt to credit Planned Parenthood, she makes the unbelievable statement, “If I had waited one day I would have had Stage 4 Cancer.”
Yet in Planned Parenthood publicity about Jaime Benner, she tells of undergoing a complete radical mastectomy “a few weeks later, and my Cancer was spreading into my lymphatic system,” and she was actually quoted as saying, “A day could have been the difference between the Stage 3b Cancer I had and Stage 4.”
Senator Flake would probably be touched by Benner’s story, but he’s smart enough to recognize it as a means to persuade him not to cut government funding of an agency that annually performs more than 300,000 abortions.
I can think of no more worthy cause than defeating cancer, and there are a number of charities that do excellent work to aid cancer victims, but I also realize that funds are fungible, and anyone of the pro-life persuasion must surely know that funds given to Planned Parenthood support abortions.
Additionally, it concerns me that the Cancer Survivor’s Network, affiliated with the American Cancer Society, is funding commercials for Planned Parenthood. While the American Cancer Society permits its logo to be used on the Network’s website, the Society cautions that its “content is not endorsed by the American Cancer Society, not should it be accepted as credible medical information.”
