Here are my observations and opinions from my select news of the day.
WE CAN ALWAYS COUNT ON Louisiana’s Republican Sen. John Kennedy to lay it all out there in colloquial terms, and didn’t disappoint during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates on Wednesday.
While Kennedy’s demeanor is always southern pleasant, you just knew he would be ready for Yates’ testimony. In May of 2017 it was Kennedy who questioned her decision not to defend Trump’s travel ban, calling it “unlawful” and “unconstitutional.”
The president wasted no time in firing her.
“I don’t mean any disrespect,” Kennedy opened. “Who appointed you to the U. S. Supreme Court?”
“Did Donald Trump violate the law by colluding with Russia to influence the 2016 election?” he asked in his opening question on Wednesday. “Was there a group of people at the FBI ‘who despised’ Trump and worked to keep him out?”
“I’m not aware of anyone at the Department of Justice doing anything to try to keep Donald Trump from becoming president,” she said. “That would not only surprise me but shock me.”
Asking her if she agreed with Robert Mueller finding no evidence of any cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia, she said, “I’m in no position to be … I wasn’t part of that investigation.”
Not about to let that one go, Kennedy responded with, “You just can’t bring yourself to say that he didn’t violate the law.”
During questioning on her signing of the FISA warrants, I sensed that Kennedy believed that she wielded a rubber stamp when he said, “Tell me every step you took to verify the accuracy of the Steele dossier.”
“I relied on the FBI as the fact finder here and lawyers who prepared the document,” she answered. “All of whom hated Trump, right?” Kennedy responded. “You don’t like President Trump, do you? You despise Trump don’t you?”
“The cloak and dagger surrounding the Flynn investigation, and the entire Obamagate scandal, suggests strongly that key members of the Obama administration knew that they were breaking laws to undermine the incoming Trump administration,” writes Matt Margolis in PJ Media.
All the more reason for U.S. Attorney John Durham to wrap up his investigation and reveal the names of those who, for nearly four years, attempted to end the Trump presidency.
THE DEBATES – Surely, you’ve noticed the advice Joe Biden is getting not to debate with President Trump? You know that when the New York Times suggests that Biden skip out, or that the faceoffs should be canceled, they have no confidence in Biden’s ability to survive a confrontation with the president.
Elizabeth Drew, who was a panelist representing New Yorker Magazine during the 1976 debates, was given op-ed space by the New York Times to make her case for canceling the debates.
While she makes the point that, “The debates have never made sense as a test for presidential leadership,” the Wall Street Journal editorial board opined that “The public deserves to see how well Mr. Biden holds up under debate pressure while hearing his answers to pointed questions about his policy proposals.
“Mr. Biden portrays Mr. Trump as a bumbling incompetent, a racist, and a liar. If he believes that, he should be willing to repeat his accusations face to face.”
AND HAVE YOU HEARD that CNN’s Brian Stelter on Monday stated that the push for Joe Biden to not debate President Trump for the upcoming election is orchestrated by “mostly right-wing media?”
May God continue to bless the United States of America.