Here are my observations on a few items in the news.
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER – In my August 3, post, I asked “How Long Does It Take,” to conduct an investigation in the government? I referred to the January 12, 2016 announcement that the Justice Department’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz would review broad allegations of misconduct involving then FBI Director James Comey and how he handled the probe of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail practices.
This past weekend, Roger L. Simon, wrote in PJ Media, “Time for a Full Investigation … of the FBI.” Better late than never. The impetus for Simon’s piece was the recent FBI refusal to turn over documents regarding Hillary Clinton e-mails, because of a “lack of public interest,” news I reported to you in my September 2, post.
“To millions of Americans,” wrote Simon, “Hillary Clinton was as guilty as O. J. Simpson. You would have to be an imbecile not to think she didn’t know she was doing something illegal secreting her professional e-mails as secretary of state on a private server hidden in a residence bathroom. And yet James Comey’s ultimate decision on Clinton depended on her putative ignorance after literally decades of government service.”
How much more tarnished can the FBI get? “Something must be done and quickly,” says Simon, “The FBI itself needs some form of investigation and reorganization. Otherwise a huge percentage of the country will continue to distrust it.”
If trust in the FBI isn’t restored, we might as well rename it the GDS – Guardians of the Deep State, according to Simon.
(Courtesy granitegrok.com)
YOU KNEW IT WAS COMING – “The Chicken Little – Sky is Falling” crowd has begun tying the devastation of Hurricane Harvey to climate change. “Make no mistake: We are being warned,” wrote liberal columnist Kathleen Parker, “Storms of the Harvey variety will become not one-in-1,000-year events but one-in-100. And then, well, who knows beyond worse-is-coming? The least we can do is exercise our free will – and our reasoning powers – to mitigate the effects of human activities on global warming to the extent possible.”
Balderdash, Ms. Parker.
Progressives who blame Houston’s success for the hurricane disaster, targeting greedy Texans in the global hub of the oil and gas industry, were shamed in The Wall Street Journal’s September 1, lead editorial.
“Harvey, the Storm That Humans Helped Cause,” read The New York Times headlined article by David Leonhardt, a regular critic of the president and his policies. “The severity of Harvey is almost certainly related to climate change,” he wrote, “Add up the evidence, and it overwhelmingly suggests that human activity has helped create the ferocity of Harvey.”
An unidentified overseas clichéd columnist was quoted by WSJ writing, “Houston, you have a problem, and some of it of your own making. Houston is the Sodom and Gomorrah of fossil fuels, which cause global warming, which is producing more hurricanes.”
The WSJ then came back to earth with a comment from political scientist Roger Pielke Jr., who noted that the link between global warming and recent hurricanes and extreme weather events is “unsupportable based on research and evidence.” Pielke points out that hurricanes hitting the U.S. have not increased in frequency or intensity since 1900, and floods have not increased in the U.S. since 1950.
If that isn’t enough, NOAA has reported that “it is premature to conclude that human activities have had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global cyclone activity.”
Even the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it lacks evidence to show that global warming is making storms and flooding worse.
Wonder why we haven’t heard from Al Gore?
THOSE PHONY DEMOCRATS – How can you believe House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic who has long supported the right to an abortion and funding for Planned Parenthood? She now says that the Democrat Party should not require its candidates to support the right to an abortion. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) agrees, but Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) oppose Pelosi.
Rep. Ben Ray Lujan (D-TX), who heads the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee, has said that he would be open to funding pro-life candidates in 2018.
As I see it, the Democrats, who have long tarred pro-life Republicans as anti-women, have seen their position weaken, and along with it, their status in the House and Senate. Will voters fall for this obvious position change for votes? I don’t think so.
