Here are my observations on some of the news of the day.
THE PRESIDENT’S APPROVAL RATNG MAY BE LOW, but the consumer confidence index advanced to a 16-year high, indicating spending will remain solid, according to Bloomberg.
Former DNI James Clapper. (getty image)
MORE ABOUT CLAPPER – I have written often about the foibles of former DNI Chief James Clapper; most recently on August 3, when I recalled his lying about surveillance on American citizens in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 12, 2013.
It didn’t surprise me that he again made a fool of himself in a CNN interview following President Trump’s Phoenix rally on Tuesday. He labeled the president’s remarks as “downright scary and disturbing. I really question his ability to be – his fitness to be – in this office.” While his thoughts were mild compared to the insulting statements made by anchors on MSNBC, they fit right into the agenda of CNN and the other media to bring down the president.
Commenting on Clapper during a Fox News Channel interview, Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer (Ret.) recalled that he had briefed the former DNI chief several times, and noted that when “(He) briefed him on very complex operations, you can see this vacant look; he just doesn’t get stuff.”
Shaffer’s reference to Clapper’s “vacant look” brought back a memory of the time when he not only had that vacant look, he was speechless during an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer in December 2010.
“London,” Sawyer began, “How serious is it? Any intelligence that it was coming here, Director Clapper?” (She was referring to the bombing and terrorist arrests in London.)
“London?” Clapper said after a long pause with a puzzled look on his face.
Later in the interview, Sawyer returned to the subject and commented, “I was a little surprised you didn’t know about London.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t,” he replied. You have to see it. Click here.
Clapper’s remarks about the president on CNN caused Roger L. Simon of PJ Media to write, “Why Does Anyone Listen to James Clapper Anymore?” In his piece, he recalled a litany of Clapper’s lies and purposeful misrepresentations, to which he summarized – “And now we are supposed to believe Clapper’s alarmist characterization of Trump.”
I agree with Simon that Clapper represents everything wrong with our government. He is The Swamp squared, or perhaps cubed.
CNN’s Brian Stelter openly insults the president on air. (CNN photo)
NOT A PSYCHIATRIST but they regularly play one on television. You’ve heard the diagnoses of President Trump by pseudo psychiatrists Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell, Don Lemon, Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough and Brian Stelter, but Stelter would have you believe that they just cannot pretend that readers and viewers don’t have the same concerns.
On Sunday’s “Reliable Sources,” Stelter said that many journalists and others working in the news industry have “concerns and fears” about the president’s ability to run the country and are often discussed off-camera or after a story has been “put to bed.”
Referring to questions that “are tough to ask out loud on national television,” Stelter asked, “Is the President of the United States suffering from some sort of illness? Is he racist? Is he fit to be commander-in-chief?” and suggests that ordinary journalists – not opinion or commentary anchors – need to address these questions head on.
I have come to believe what Fox’s Sean Hannity has been saying – journalism is dead.
We got to know the personality of Donald Trump during the long campaign. Voters obviously liked what they saw; a man who said what they were thinking.
Personally, I never would have thought that an outsider without political experience, would be met with the insults he faces daily.
A SAD DAY IN PHOENIX – The Phoenix Police Department quietly implemented a new policy banning officers from contacting the feds after arresting an illegal alien and forbidding them from asking about suspects immigration status. The new order violates key provisions of a state law upheld by the U. S. Supreme Court and leaves the city vulnerable to costly lawsuits. Officers can no longer used the term “illegal alien” in the sanctuary city, where they must now use the term “unlawfully present.”
