Here are my observations and opinions from my selected news of the day.
“THERE YOU GO AGAIN,” used to be one former President Reagan’s favorite lines. He used it in the 1980 debates with Jimmy Carter successfully and subsequently used it a number of times to disarm opponents.
I believe, if Reagan were alive today, he would use that line against one of his past speechwriters, Peggy Noonan, who has completely defected to the political left.
While I have often admired her writing, of late I have noticed her failure to do the research necessary to honestly present her opinion for your consumption and approval.
There’s a kind of “I told you so” implicit in her latest Wall Street Journal column, “Impeachment Is Getting Real,” as she reminds us how she would press Trump supporters on putting “all of American military power into the hands of a person with no direct political or foreign-affairs experience or training.”
Noonan fails to recall how many of us similarly questioned Barack Obama’s meager credentials as a community organizer and a brief stint in the Senate with little to show for that service.
She wasn’t satisfied with the response from Trump supporters that he would have generals around him, and his gut would blend with their expertise.
Feeling validated, Noonan related how the generals “One by one they left or were fired,” but was notably disappointed when she realized that it had no effect on them. Oh, the irony.
If Noonan had done proper research, she would have reminded her readers that in former President Obama’s White House, they preferred that the military be seen but not heard.
When Rosa Parks interviewed a dozen senior military officers for her piece, “Obama vs the Generals in 2013, she asked if they knew of any military officers with whom the president (Obama) had a close and warm personal relationship, one responded “I don’t think he’s close to anyone, he just doesn’t seem to have any interest in getting to know the military.”
“Most of my sources,” wrote Parks, “expressed a fear that the president’s ambivalence about military force has morphed into ambivalence about the military itself” … an ambivalence that has “contributed to a series of strategically incoherent White House decisions.”
Noonan also failed to remind her readers that in an unprecedented move Obama purged the military of 197 top military officers in what Investor’s Business Daily called a cleansing of any officer “suspected of disloyalty to or disagreement with the administration on matters of policy or force structure, leaving the compliant and fearful.”
Among the list of military elites purged and fired under Obama were some who were well-known, like Gen. John Allen, Gen. Carter Ham, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and, yes, Gen. James Mattis and Gen. David Petraeus.
Noonan continues, returning to the impeachment process stating her belief that the “Democrats think they have the goods. They wouldn’t go live unless they did.”
She asks if it can be proved that the president made clear to the leader of another nation that the U.S. would release foreign aid only if he publicly committed to launch an internal investigation that would benefit the president in 2020.
“Falling in line with her friends in the Beltway media, Noonan fails to remind her readers that Joe Biden admitted doing so and was captured on video saying, “I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”
Talk about quid pro quo. Is Pelosi willing to sacrifice Biden to make a case against Trump?
Noonan then offers her advice to Adam Schiff. “I wouldn’t be fair, I’d be generous – providing all materials, information, daily inviting the Republicans in … show respect and rob Republicans of a talking point.” She doesn’t know Schiff.
Reagan must be turning over in his grave. The woman who gave him the memorable line in his speech at Normandy – “these are the boys of Pointe du Hoc” – can no longer be trusted.
Kramerontheright stated earlier, and I will state it again, I believe that there should always be strings attached – a quid pro quo – when taxpayer dollars in the form of cash, food or military aid in the form of equipment is to be provided to any country.
OVER AND OVER, Democrat Nancy Pelosi attempted to hide behind the Constitution, or stand beside a big American flag, to try to convince us that “It’s a sad day because nobody comes to Congress to impeach a President of the United States. No one.” Ridiculous. Democrats were talking impeachment the day he was inaugurated. Then there was Adam Schiff, who claimed he took “no pleasure in the decision” and didn’t want to “see it come to this.” Mr. Insincere.
THE BOLTON TESTIMONY – It appears that it will take a subpoena to get Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton to appear before Schiff’s kangaroo court.
Bolton is no fool. He has a vivid memory of the negative comments Democrats circulated about him being a hawk that couldn’t be trusted. Now these scoundrels want him to help them take down the presidency over a phone call.
Here, too, Peggy Noonan suggests he might be asked if “the president (acted) in a way he disapproved of on Ukraine? Was there a side-game foreign policy? All that would be powerful.”
Scheming, she wonders “what if he (Bolton) was asked to think aloud about what he saw of the way Mr. Trump operates. After all you’ve seen, is it good for America that Donald Trump is president? Tell us about what you observed about the nature and mind and character of Donald Trump.”
How naïve. I am sure Bolton has his opinion of President Trump, but I simply cannot conceive of him deciding to be the one who paves the way for Trump’s impeachment. He’ll save his thoughts for a book, which he’s sure to write.
MEANWHILE, IN THE ECONOMY, where the president’s promise to create an environment for jobs and higher wages made news this week, there’s good news.
A net 131,000 new jobs, which exceeded expectations, was notable, according to the Wall Street Journal despite that some 42,000 jobs were lost due the union strike at GM. The labor force continues to expand with 325, 000 new entrants in October and more than a million since July.
It’s important to note that the current job market is attracting middle class workers who have been on the sidelines for years. “Perhaps wages are now rising enough to make work more valuable than public benefits (welfare), or maybe job openings are finally available that meet their skills,” the Journal opines.
AND, FINALLY – Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace again proved he’s an anti-Trumper.
LAUGH-OF-THE-DAY – “Actress” Jane Fonda said Friday that she’s not purchasing any more clothes as a way to fight climate change, claiming that the climate change activist Greta Thunberg has made her “think a lot about consumerism.”
Friday’s protest marks the fourth time Fonda has been arrested while protesting for support of climate change action on Capitol Hill, according to Nicholas Ballasy of PJ Media.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
