Here are my observations and opinions on my selected news of the day.
THE BARR BOMBSHELL – Much has been written about the pending release of the Mueller Report by Attorney General Bill Barr next week with the Democrats and their media friends already harping about redactions. They may even go to court to gain access to the complete document. Good luck with that.
This week, however, Barr’s comment before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that he believed the Trump campaign was spied upon certainly stirred “old Washington.” He gave those fake news people at CNN and MSNBC a “real” bombshell.
“You’re not suggesting that spying occurred,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) asked as the two went back and forth over the wording … was it “spying,” or was it “surveillance” … Barr said, “I think spying did occur. Yes, I think spying did occur.”
“I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Barr told Shaheen, who questioned why he would investigate the FBI’s counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign.
“No doubt a lot of former Obama administration and Hillary Clinton campaign officials (the Deep State), opposition guns for hire, and media members are stunned and scared that the Justice Department finally has a leader willing to address the FBI’s (and DOJ’s) behavior in 2016,” wrote Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly A. Strassel in her opinion piece, “Barr Brings Accountability.”
We know the conspiracy … yes, it was a conspiracy … to undermine Donald Trump before and after his election began on Obama’s watch. In television appearances in April 2016, Obama seemed to have knowledge that Hillary would be cleared of the charge of “carelessness” in handling classified e-mails, saying “I continue to believe she has not jeopardized America’s national security.”
Hillary, too, during an interview on NBC News said the investigation would ultimately clear her. ‘This is not going to happen,” she said when asked if she would be indicted.
Strassel noted that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper viewed the Barr statement on spying both “stunning” and “scary.” Indeed. It was Clapper who lied to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) when asked if intelligence officials collected data on Americans. “No, sir,” Clapper responded, “not whittingly.”
The house of cards is about to fall on the Deep State, friends. The release of the Mueller Report and the soon to be completed DOJ IG report by Michael Horowitz will shake up “old Washington.”
ANOTHER DEMOCRAT DILEMMA – They regularly infer that their’s is the party of the “big tent,” welcoming blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and the full LBGQT gamut. However, it’s also a party that isn’t big on religion.
Along comes Pete Buttigieg, the openly gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who plans to seek the Democrat nomination for president, but wait, he’s religious and that’s not going down very well.
“As a religious gay man who believes his party has ceded discussion of religion and spirituality to Republicans, Pete Buttigieg, a Democrat candidate for president is talking about God and sexuality in an unconventional way,” wrote Jeremy W. Peters in the New York Times. “He is using the language of faith to confront the Christian right on territory that have long claimed as their own.”
While the Democrats deal with their dilemma, the media seems more than happy to talk about Buttigieg because of his anti-Trump and Pence comments. NBC invited him to appear on “Meet the Press,” and Gerald F. Seib gave him a boost in his Wall Street Journal column.
“No question, he’s a very impressive guy … a shining light on the horizon,” said the left-leaning Chris Wallace of Fox News Channel admiringly.
Buttigieg is a devoted Episcopalian, who married his husband, Chasten, in a church service last year, regularly quotes scripture. He questioned if Vice President Pence stopped believing in scripture when he started believing in Donald Trump.
During an interview on CNBC, the vice president, responding to a question about Buttigieg’s remark, said, “He’s said some things that are critical of my Christian faith and about me personally, and he knows better. He knows me.”
There’s no evidence Pence has ever discriminated against gay people. The two worked together when Pence was governor of Indiana.
“But I get it,” said Pence, “you know, it’s 19 people running for president in a party that’s sliding off to the left. They’re all competing with one another for how much more liberal they can be.”
A number of religious organizations have commented on Buttigieg’s smearing of the very people he wants to win over.
Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, noted that Buttigieg’s approach struck him as odd given how so much of his message has been focused on unity and restoring the Democrat Party’s relationship with voters who are more religious and conservative.
THE DEM CLOWN CAR now has 19 people running for the presidency. (Courtesy guinessworldrecords.com)
Finally, a voter in Grand Haven, Michigan was so impressed with Buttigieg that he said so in a letter to the editor of the Holland Sentinel, referring to the contrast between him and our current president as “nothing short of astounding.” OMG
Obviously, it doesn’t take much to “astound” the writer. He opens by citing that Buttigieg is a magna cum laude Harvard graduate who is an avid reader of classic literature. The rest is too embarrassing to repeat.
Meanwhile, Democrat wannabes continue to cram into the presidential candidate clown car.
STEPHEN MOORE still faces an uphill fight to gain confirmation to join the Federal Reserve Board. Knowing that he has been a supporter of the president is working against him, and the fact that he thinks 4 percent GDP is possible isn’t what they want to hear as the 2020 elections are near.
PEW SURVEY REVEALS that only 22 percent of American adults say they ever use Twitter, and of that 22 percent, a full 58 percent say they use Twitter “less often” than once a day. Twenty-nine percent say “once a week.”
Why should you care? Because lazy journalists use Twitter to gather material for stories, and you need to know that the result is an over representation of divisive stories lacking in news value.
“It’s one thing for someone without a media megaphone to make the mistake of allowing Twitter to distort his perception of the country,” comments Emily Jashinsky at The Federalist, “its another thing when your perception of the country shapes the media’s depiction of it.”
THAT’S ME receiving a commemorative plaque recognizing the 50th anniversary of Doolittle’s blind flight from Flying magazine’s Dick Collins while Gen. Jimmy Doolittle looks on at left.
FROM THE MEMORY BANK – Sadly, Dick Cole, the last of the Doolittle Raiders passed away at 103 years of age. He was one of 80 pilots assigned to fly 16 B-25 Mitchell bombers off the deck of the carrier USS Hornet on April 18, 1942 in a surprise raid on Tokyo, Japan.
Although I was barely four years old at that time, as an executive with Sperry Flight Systems 37 years later, I had the honor of meeting Gen. James “Jimmy” Doolittle on September 24, 1979 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his blind landing in the closed cockpit of a NY-2 using Sperry instruments. The general passed away in 1993 at 96 years of age.
EVERY DAY WE ARE FACED WITH ENIGMAS, and a friend recently sent me a collection of them that I will share with you from time to time. Here’s are two to consider:
“Isn’t it weird that in America our flag and our culture offend so many people, but our benefits don’t?”
“I can’t quite figure out how one can proudly wave the flag of another country, but consider it punishment to be sent back to that country.”
May God bless the United States of America.
