Here are my observations and opinions on selected news of the day.
“A FOOL AND HIS MONEY is soon parted,” someone once said. To me it applies to those who are foolish enough to add to disgraced FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s GoFundMe page to pay for his legal defense. I’ve heard that he raised $250,000 in the first day. Hmmmm. That’s about one day’s services by his attorney.
SPEAKING OF THE FBI – The agency has clearly been embarrassed by the actions of Comey, McCabe, Strzok and Page. We know what they have done. So, why do they continue to stonewall Congressional oversight committees and watchdog groups requesting unredacted documents? Are there different levels of embarrassment? It’s hard to believe it could get worse.
William McGurn (cfact.org)
“SAVE YOURSELF, MR. PRESIDENT,” writes William McGurn in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, “Why should anyone lift a finger to help him when he refuses to help himself by taking the one step – declassifying documents sought by Congress – that would clear up whether our most powerful intelligence and law-enforcement agencies were in fact working to deny him the presidency?”
The president has tweeted that he just “may have to get involved,” but he has shied away from it; most likely at the recommendation of his legal counsel.
McGurn disagrees. “There is a concerted effort to delegitimize his presidency, an effort that appears to have included some in the highest reaches of the government. What ever the ripple effects of an order to declassify, transparency is a good hill for a president to be defending,” McGurn believes.
“If he waits, he risks a post-midterm Democrat House putting an end to committee investigations of Justice and the bureau,” says McGurn, “If that were to happen, he will surely regret not having declassified when Republicans on the Hill were in position to follow up.”
“If you are unwilling to take the heat by using your authority to resolve the big unanswered questions and protect your presidency, how can you expect others to do it for you?” McGurn advises the president.
Susan Esatrich (quotesgram.com)
A VOICE FROM OUT OF THE PAST – Like me, perhaps you recall “the voice” of Democrat strategist Susan Estrich, who used to appear on the Fox News Channel regularly. She had a voice that was a cross between Tallulah Bankhead and Marlene Dietrich, a far cry from the “Valley girl” voices of so many on-air reporters today. But I digress.
An op-ed by Estrich appeared in The Boston Herald this past weekend. In addition to her legal background – Harvard grad and USC law professor – she writes a syndicated column.
“The big problem on my side of the aisle (Democrat) these days is that so many people hate Trump so much that they cannot acknowledge his strengths among voters and simply cannot believe he could possibly win,” she writes, “And in this, they are sadly wrong. Not only could Trump win; he probably will if Democrats remain locked in a state of denial.”
Estrich notes three big advantages Trump has going for him. “First and foremost, it’s the economy, stupid, as it always is.” For his second advantage, Estrich says “my father used to say at the track – ‘you can’t beat a horse with no horse.’”
With that she reviewed the possible Democrat candidates, pointing only to Sen. Elizabeth Warren as a “strong primary candidate.
The third advantage Trump has, according to Estrich, “he is not stupid. He is not in over his head; he’s been swimming along just fine. He is shrewd; you don’t get to be president without being shrewd.”
I can just hear her saying it.
THE THING ABOUT JOHN MCCAIN – Although Sen. John McCain’s colleagues attached his name to the Defense Authorization Act signed by President Trump yesterday, the president chose not to mention it in his speech prior to the signing at Fort Drum yesterday.
Yes, it might have been the right thing to do, but it appears that the bad feelings between the two men will never be repaired. I’m convinced that McCain’s “thumbs-down” on the repeal of ObamaCare was his revenge for the president’s campaign insult of McCain as a POW.
As I have reported here, there have been attempts to bury the hatchet, but none have been successful.
Disinviting the president of the United States to attend your funeral before you die is pretty low and makes it obvious that the hate for Trump within McCain runs deep and will die with him.
May God bless the United States of America.
