Here are my observations and opinions on selected news of the day.
“ROUND UP THE USUAL SUSPECTS” – While reading Victor Davis Hanson’s piece, “The Police Were Not Policed,” in National Review I was reminded of that memorable line from the movie Casablanca.
“Round up the usual suspects,” says Captain Renault in Casablanca. (marinatimes.com)
They were the words of Capt. Louis Renualt (Claude Rains) instructing his officers to find the killer of Nazi Maj. Strasser, though he witnessed the shooting by Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart).
In his excellent accounting, Hanson chronicles how some in our government joined forces to thwart the efforts of an opposing campaign. While Robert Mueller was hired as special counsel to investigate collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, “an array of FBI agents and associated DOJ officials … have now mysteriously resigned, retired, been reassigned, or have been fired for allegedly unethical or perhaps even illegal behavior,” notes Hanson.
And as Hanson reminds us, “The CIA under (John) Brennan apparently was knee-deep in efforts to push the FBI to monitor the Trump campaign, despite the fact that domestic surveillance is beyond the CIA’s legal mandate.”
Members of former President Obama’s NSC are known to have requested a record number of unmaskings associated with FISA surveillance.
We know that the number four official in the DOJ, Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie Ohr, who was working for Fusion GPS, had a close relationship with the author of the discredited dossier, Christopher Steele.
“Has this happened before in American history?” Hanson asks.
“Somewhere, somehow, someone must explain and rectify the past. For two years, the top employees of these agencies, most appointed during the Obama administration, have engaged in unethical and illegal behavior, likely intended to throw the election to President Obama’s preferred candidate and then, after the election, to subvert the new presidency.
For some reason, Hanson believes, many still in the current FBI, CIA, DOJ, NSC and State Department are “incapable of accepting that their agencies in the Obama years were weaponized to alter a U.S. election and were ordered to do so by many top dogs in their Washington hierarchies.”
“We expect Russian skullduggery, but we never anticipated election interference from those entrusted with protecting us and our institutions from our enemies.”
“How can Americans now trust the intelligence agencies shown to corrupt in the very recent past? Hanson wonders.
There is no doubt in my mind that Mueller knows where all of the skeletons are hidden, but will he have the courage to reveal those activities and those who directed them?
Round up the usual suspects, Mr. Mueller. You know who they are.
TIME FOR A NAME CHANGE – I suggest the National Football League consider dropping “National” from its name. The player protests over standing for the national anthem is ludicrous.
Ironically, an online dictionary states: national; reflecting the character of a nation; the national anthem.
Another states: national; relating to a whole country and its people rather to part of that country.
I think you can see my reasoning for the name change.
In a recent poll of 585 NFL players, nearly all of them were unsure of exactly what they were protesting by refusing to stand for the national anthem. Here are a few of the responses circulating on the Internet.
One player stated, “Me and my fellow players are protesting the Constitution of Independence because of what it does to people of color.”
Another said, “We’re showing the world that we care about, ah, things such as … such as … ah, freedom from suppression.”
“Myself is kneeling to show that just because I’m American don’t mean I got to act like one.” And there was this one: “We are protesting Trump, because he, you know, keeping the black man down.”
Never mind that black unemployment is at its historic low, and that Trump’s approval rating among blacks his risen 14 points since he was elected.
And are they aware that Trump has endorsed John James, a black, who will oppose Sen. Debbie Stabenow in Michigan? James is a businessman who graduated from West Point and served as an Apache helicopter pilot.
The president is also working with the black leaders on a jobs program for felons.
Forward your name change suggestions to Commissioner Roger Goodell.
HEALTH INSURANCE – The average family enrolled in (an ObamaCare) Silver Plan will pay a maximum of $13,725 for out-of-pocket expenses as deductibles increasing by 13 percent in just the past year. On Wednesday, HHS Secretary Alex Azar announced a rule that will provide customers greater access to flexible, affordable health insurance plans.
“PEOPLE ARE FEELING MORE SECURE in their finances than they have at least since the early 2000s,” according to the Investor’s Business Daily, which gave President Trump an “A” grade on the economy.
UNFILLED JOBS are growing in nearly every industry because an expanding economy is demanding more labor and a historically low unemployment rate of 3.9 per cent last month means fewer workers are available.
The number of available jobs grew to 750,000 this spring, according to the Wall Street Journal.
HAVE YOU HEARD that the more than 400,000 people who came to the U.S. on legal visitor visas in 2017 are still here, six months after their time was up. And, sadly, we don’t know where most of them are living. What a disgrace.
May God bless the United States of America.
