“When you strike at a king…”

“…you better not miss.”

Victor Davis Hanson summarizes what we now know about the failed Deep State efforts since 2016 to delegitimize, undermine and remove the duly elected president of the United States.  As Hanson notes, “there are many elements to what in time likely will become recognized as the greatest scandal in American political history…”

In candidate and President Trump’s case that prepping of the battlefield translated into a coordinated effort among the media, political progressives and celebrities to so demonize Trump that his imminent removal likely would appear a relief to the people. Anything was justified that led to that end.

All through the 2016 campaign and during the first two years of the Trump presidency the media’s treatment, according to liberal adjudicators of press coverage, ran about 90 percent negative toward Trump—a landmark bias that continues today.

It’s worth noting this demonization efforts extends to Trump’s supporters.  In its haste to smear Trump and the MAGA movement, the media recently got both the story of the Covington students and a hoax ‘hate crime’ against a TV star badly wrong.  But they wonder why so many Americans are receptive to the charge the corporate news media is “fake news.”  Hanson continues:

At the same time, liberal attorneys, foundations, Democratic politicians, and progressive activists variously sued to overturn the election on false charges of rigged voting machines. They sought to subvert the Electoral College. They introduced articles of impeachment. They sued to remove Trump under the Emoluments Clause. They attempted to invoke the 25th Amendment. And they even resurrected the ossified Logan Act—before focusing on the appointment of a special counsel to discredit the Trump presidency. Waiting for the 2020 election was seen as too quaint.

During the 2016 election, the Obama Department of Justice warped the Clinton email scandal investigation, from Bill Clinton’s secret meeting on an airport tarmac with Attorney General Loretta Lynch, to unethical immunity given to the unveracious Clinton aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, to James Comey’s convoluted predetermined treatment of “likely winner” Clinton, and to DOJ’s Bruce Ohr’s flagrant conflict of interests in relation to Fusion GPS.

About a dozen FBI and DOJ grandees have now resigned, retired, been fired, or reassigned for unethical and likely illegal behavior—and yet have not faced criminal indictments.

Here’s hoping the key word in that last paragraph is “yet.”

The Crown Jewel in the coup was the appointment of special counsel Robert Muller to discover supposed 2016 Trump-Russian election collusion. Never has any special investigation been so ill-starred from its conception.  Mueller… packed his investigative team with lots of Clinton donors and partisans, some of whom had legally represented Clinton subordinates and even the Clinton Foundation or voiced support for anti-Trump movements…

Mueller’s preemptive attacks offered an effective offensive defense for the likely felonious behavior of John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Bruce Ohr, Peter Strzok, and a host of others. While the Mueller lawyers threatened to destroy the lives of bit players like Jerome Corsi, George Papadopoulos, and Roger Stone, they de facto provided exemption to a host of the Washington hierarchy who had lied under oath, obstructed justice, illegally leaked to the press, unmasked and leaked names of surveilled Americans, and misled federal courts under the guise of a “higher loyalty” to the cause of destroying Donald J. Trump.

…sanctimonious arrogant bureaucrats in suits and ties used their government agencies to seek to overturn the 2016 election, abort a presidency, and subvert the U.S. Constitution. And they did all that and more on the premise that they were our moral superiors and had uniquely divine rights to destroy a presidency that they loathed.

And if there’s any justice left in this nation, their overreach will result in the destruction of an unelected Deep State apparatus that patriots have come to loathe.  I’ve sensed in recent days the administration may be preparing to finally counterattack this network and pursue these traitors.  I pray that is in fact the case.  If our Republic is to survive, a very painful and public example must be made.  Make the rubble bounce, Mr. President!

A turning of the tide?

Leftists are in full meltdown over the announcement Justice Anthony Kennedy will step down from the Supreme Court July 31. This action provides President Trump an opportunity to nominate yet another Constitutionalist like Neil Gorsuch to the court. Should Trump serve two full terms, it is likely he will nominate the replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg as well.

The enemies of our Constitutional system are in abject terror over the possibility, now increased, the Court will undo decades of judicial activism. Unable to enact their agenda through the ballot box, the Left sought to impose it instead by abusive judicial fiat. But just as unconstitutional executive orders by Obama could be undone by corrective orders from Trump, the shredding of the Constitution can be reversed by a Supreme Court made up of Justices who respect it.  The impact of these nominations on the next 20 to 30 years cannot be overstated.  It’s vital to elect America First Constitutionalists (sadly, only a subset of the GOP) this fall, and ensure Trump’s reelection in 2020.  Things are going well for patriots lately, but as Glenn Reynolds frequently channels Han Solo, “don’t get cocky, kid.”

On other fronts:

-The Supreme Court, even with Justice Kennedy still on it, has issued a couple of key rulings, freeing pro-life crisis pregnancy centers from being forced to provide information on how to obtain an abortion, and denying unions the ability to force payments from non-members (which usually ends up in liberal political campaigns).

– The reputation of the FBI is hardly helped when Peter Strzok answers a Congressional subpoena to testify in a classified forum, but reportedly refuses to answer the most germane questions by claiming “it’s classified” or declining to answer “on advice of counsel.”  What are the FBI’s lawyers encouraging him to continue hiding?

– A former Hillary 2016 Campaign officer has been indicted for soliciting sexual access to children as young as two years old.  And from the “you can’t make this up” files, he was also chairman of the International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict charity.  As they say, fishermen go where the fish are.

– Without Obama propping them up with pallets of cash, the Iranian regime is suddenly experiencing a popular backlash again.  The previous administration’s failure to support Iranian dissidents was inexcusable.  Worth noting: “Q” indicated a week ago Iran was about to get interesting again… another tick of credibility for those keeping score.

– The GOP seems to have a few more members with spines lately, as the latest attempt to pass an amnesty for illegal immigrants has been soundly defeated.  Eternal vigilance is required on this issue, however.

Keep praying hard!  If God can resurrect His Son or an army of dry bones, He can certainly revive our nation!  Let’s seek daily to have our nation bless Him, that He may show favor to us even at this late hour.

A spineless Congress

It’s no wonder Americans have such a low regard for Congress, when government officials are allowed to thumb their noses at it with impunity.  In recent memory the worst sanction the legislature has given to a recalcitrant official has been to hold Eric Holder in “contempt of Congress” — the first sitting Attorney General ever to be so designated.  That only has effect if the target has any sense of shame, which few in D.C. Mordor do anymore.  Official designation or not, it’s clear much of official Washington shares that contempt.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

It’s no coincidence that defiance from Holder, Lerner, Rosenstein and Wray parallels the public’s near-record low approval of Congress, which, according to the RealClearPolitics average, hit a meager 14.2 percent earlier this week.

But Congress has only itself to blame because the Constitution gives the first branch it created “all of the ultimate weapons in any showdown with either of the other two branches,” in the memorable phrasing of professors Willmoore Kendall and George Carey in their classic “The Basic Symbols of the American Political Tradition.”

Here are five of those “ultimate weapons,” whose deployment ultimately depends on the will of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to defend the right of Congress to be the people’s representatives…

Put somebody in jail.

Impose a big fine.

Invoke the power of the purse

Cut the workforce.

More political appointees.

It’s worth reading the description of these five options at the link.  Despite the frequency of choreographed televised hearings, Congress has largely abdicated its oversight role with regard to the Federal bureaucracy.  This was apparent at least by the time of the “Fast and Furious” gunwalking scandal and the IRS investigations, during which the agencies slow-rolled Congress’ requests for information with impunity.  True oversight involves exercising the power to compel compliance.  The Founders intended the legislature to be “first among equals” within the branches of government.  They, not unelected paper-pushers, represent the people.

The president has less power than people imagine over employees in the Executive Branch.  While he can fire political appointees, career bureaucrats have created a byzantine disciplinary process that, in effect, prevents nearly anyone from losing their job.  I encountered this while supervising relatively low-level “civil servants” — I can only imagine how much more difficult things are in the executive suites.

With a majority in Congress, however, it should be a simple thing to put entire departments like the FBI on notice: comply with legislative directives and requests, or perish as an agency.  Congress can defund any activity of the government with a simple vote.  Unfortunately, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have shown zero interest in actually asserting Congress’ prerogatives.  They are as much a part of the swamp as the agencies running amok, as the recent omnibus bill debacle shows.  That should be a key issue during these midterms — voters need to seek candidates who will support Trump’s “swamp draining,” and that includes pledging to vote in new Congressional leadership.

But for any of this to happen, We the People will need to be more focused than ever this election cycle.  The election of Trump will accomplish little if voters allow the legislature to defend the status quo by resolute inaction.

Creating problems to “solve”

After any well-publicized shooting we hear calls for more gun laws, proposals from banning entire categories of weapons to “stricter background checks.”

I suspect far too many people don’t realize just how strict background checks already are when one goes to purchase a weapon legally.  That said, it’s hard to take the “stricter background checks” talking point seriously when the same side of the political aisle (that would be the Democrats) does stuff like this:

The Justice Department under Barack Obama directed the FBI to drop more than 500,000 names of fugitives with outstanding arrest warrants from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, acting FBI deputy director David Bowdich testified Wednesday…

During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about law enforcement’s faulty response to Parkland, Florida shooter Nikolas Cruz, California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked Bowdich about the removal.

“That was a decision that was made under the previous administration,” Bowdich testified. “It was the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel that reviewed the law and believed that it needed to be interpreted so that if someone was a fugitive in a state, there had to be indications that they had crossed state lines. Otherwise they were not known to be a fugitive under the law and the way it was interpreted.”

Why on earth would the previous administration move to allow half a million people wanted by the law to be able to obtain firearms?  I submit it’s because it creates greater potential for events like the Parkland shooting, which stokes public sentiment against guns and creates an environment favorable for further gutting of the 2nd Amendment.

This theory goes back to what I said right after the shooting in Florida:

This entire event is best summarized by a military acronym whose use I also keep to a minimum: FUBAR. I’ve really, really tried not to entertain theories that mass shootings are a conscious tool of people who want to disarm us, but such a complete and catastrophic failure makes that increasingly difficult.

During Obama’s administration, I occasionally saw the question posed “if he wanted to destroy America’s prestige and power, what would he do differently?”  The same could be asked about disarming Americans.  If our government wanted people to loathe firearms enough to be willing to give them up entirely, what would they do differently?

So the next time someone is screaming that “background checks aren’t effective,” simply reply “taking half a million criminals out of the database tends to have that effect.”

When government makes it easier for criminals to obtain weapons than the law-abiding, it is not protecting the rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  Something to keep in mind.

Simply unbelievable

Many on the Left were certainly hoping to use last week’s school shooting to push for more gun control (there’s even been talk of a “semiautomatic weapons ban,” which would essentially outlaw the vast majority of rifles and handguns in circulation today).

But as the facts come out about this tragedy, it’s more and more clear that anger — and an insistence on maintaining the right to self-defense — is far more appropriate.  To summarize:

• Local police had been called to alleged shooter Nikolas Cruz’s residence 39 times over the previous seven years, with the Broward County Sheriffs involved in 23 of them.
• The Broward County Sheriff has admitted his department did not follow standard protocols regarding such a recurring residence, and two deputies are under investigation in that regard.
• The FBI says it also failed to follow protocols after being warned in January about Cruz — one of two such warnings it received.
• During the event, Cruz was able to leave the school undetected because officers were watching security video they thought was live but had been rewound more than 20 minutes.   As much as I try not to use it, all I can say to this is WTF?
• And to top it all off: there was an armed, uniformed sheriffs deputy assigned to the high school as a resource officer who never entered the building or engaged the shooter during the entire massacre!

The Broward County Sheriffs Department released that last item Thursday morning, right after the previous evening’s CNN “Town Hall” on the event, during which Sheriff Scott Israel puffed his chest and pointed fingers at Dana Loesch and the National Rifle Association, as though the failures listed above are somehow their fault.  Sheriff Israel had to have known of his officers’ failures even as he preened for the cameras!

Given all the above, public school teachers would be justified in refusing to work until/unless they are given permission to be trained and armed.  These data points starkly illustrate the truth of the adage “when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.”  The gunfire lasted four minutes.  Time that on a clock, and while the timer’s running, imagine being a teacher or teenager in a closet hearing gunfire the whole time… with no effective way to fight back.  While a armed veteran officer cowered outside the school, a 15-year old JROTC cadet died holding a door for fellow students to escape (one of three cadets to die that day), others quickly thought to use kevlar mats to protect their classmates, and a beloved coach, with no weapon available to him, died shielding his students with his own body.

This entire event is best summarized by a military acronym whose use I also keep to a minimum:  FUBAR.  I’ve really, really tried not to entertain theories that mass shootings are a conscious tool of people who want to disarm us, but such a complete and catastrophic failure makes that increasingly difficult.  It doesn’t help the government any that one of the most prominently featured students with various media is the articulate son of an FBI agent.  There’s also the fact that four months after the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history (in Las Vegas), the authorities are either still clueless about what happened and why, or are simply refusing to tell the public anything.

The Left wants us to be angry, and I am.

I’m angry that government at every level utterly failed to recognize and act on a wealth of threat information about Cruz.

I’m angry that the information was not routed in such a way as to prevent Cruz from purchasing his weapons (the entire POINT of a background check!).

I’m angry that a veteran officer (with enough time to qualify to retire) did NOTHING as 17 people died around him.

I’m angry that only the resource officer has had the sense of shame enough to resign (although he stands to collect his retirement).  While there have been public calls for people to be fired, recent history doesn’t lend much confidence anyone with real authority will be held accountable.

I’m angry that institutions such as the FBI are more focused on political witch hunts than they are actual protection of citizens.

I’m angriest that all of this is being exploited emotionally to try to further restrict our means of self-defense, even as it becomes apparent we cannot count on anyone else to take care of it for us.  There’s not a law or restriction that could have solved the failures listed above, and I don’t intend to pay for somebody else’s abdication of responsibilities.

The Bible cautions us “in your anger, do not sin.”  I don’t think it’s a sin to warn the gun-grabbers they don’t know the fire they’re playing with.  In the same passage we’re told not to give the devil an opportunity.  The history of firearm confiscations would seem to show it’s just that – a grave opportunity for evil.  So I’ll conclude with a phrase that’s being seen more and more these days:

Exactly

Another example why the Left hates Trump’s use of Twitter to get to the point:

Stop looking to government to save you

Because it’s plain that is its last priority.  Our nation’s Federal law enforcement has now spent over a year investigating politically charged claims that President Trump somehow colluded with Russia to “steal” the election away from Hillary Clinton.  (After all, how else to explain the anointed one’s failure to ascend to the throne?)

But apparently that same apparatus had no resources to spare when told specifically and repeatedly about the threat posed by Nikolas Cruz.  More than FIVE MONTHS before the troubled young man shot up a school on Wednesday, a YouTube channel owner alerted the FBI to online comments Cruz made under his own name about wanting to be a “professional school shooter.”  Today the FBI admitted it was also given very specific threat information about Cruz SIX WEEKS ago… and did NOTHING:

‘The caller provided information about Cruz’s gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential of him conducting a school shooting,’ said the FBI in a  statement on Friday.

The agency went on to state that this information, which came in over their Public Access Line, should have been classified as ‘a potential threat to life’ and the Miami field office notified about the information.

Those protocols were not followed however for reasons that are still not clear, and on Wednesday Cruz shot dead 17 people.

Maybe too many agents were busy trying to trap Trump associates.  Maybe they were all busy sending thousands of text messages to their lovers.  The truly cynical part of me can no longer dismiss the possibility some in our government allow such things to happen because the public then willingly surrenders more of their rights in an elusive quest for security from Uncle Sam.  Whatever the reason, Florida Governor Rick Scott is right to call for the resignation of FBI Director Christopher Wray.  But accountability shouldn’t stop at that mostly symbolic gesture.  EVERY agent who was privy to the information that citizens had provided should be fired and prosecuted for gross dereliction of duty resulting in loss of life.

We’re constantly told we need a perpetual surveillance society, and that if we “see something, say something.”  But what good does it do to surrender our rights to privacy and accept an Orwellian panopticon if those in authority fail in their part of the devil’s bargain and refuse to protect us?

And the Left wants us to give up even more of our rights by disarming?  I think not.  In fact, it’s plain the opposite needs to occur: more citizens need to arm and train themselves.  At the same time pundits are praising the willingness of Coach Aaron Feis to give his life shielding students, they’re asking what needs to be done to prevent such tragedies.  It shouldn’t be so hard to connect the dots: train and arm willing teachers so schools stop being inviting soft targets.  No teacher who is willing to risk their life for their kids as Coach Feis did should have to face an attacker unarmed.  I saw this graphic online recently and it speaks for itself:

Nothing in the above list is more precious than our children — our future.  The utter failure of the FBI in this case reinforces the adage that “when seconds count, the police are just minutes away.”  We have a God-given right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” and that includes the right to defend those things.  We may delegate some of that authority to police agencies, but one of the first things I learned as a military officer is that while you can delegate authority, you cannot delegate responsibility.  All of us, as citizens and parents, are ultimately responsible for the defense of our families and communities.  That responsibility means facing head-on the fact there is evil in this world that requires the average person to be prepared to confront it at any moment.

It also includes the responsibility to punish those we empower to act on our behalf, but who fail to do so.  There MUST be a revival of accountability — and personal responsibility, including self-defense — in this country!

Why don’t they do something?

Once again the actions of a crazed killer are being used to push the idea of further restrictions on the right of law-abiding citizens to own firearms.

“Why don’t they do something,” the Left wails about Congress as they clamor for Americans to give up their right to self-protection and unilaterally disarm.

But that question could be put equally to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  You know, the agency that’s poured thousands of man-hours (not to mention taxpayer money) into looking for what appears to be non-existent evidence of “collusion” between Trump and Russia.  Why bring up the FBI?

Because they were aware of yesterday’s murderer.  Six months ago.

This is not a one-time observation, either.  “Known wolf” is a phrase that keeps popping up after these events:

• The San Bernardino shooters
• The Boston Marathon bombers
• The NY/NJ bomber
• The shooter at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando

So the real question should be this: in an age where we are closing in on ubiquitous surveillance, and authorities have unfathomable–and unConstitutional–capability to eavesdrop on our every move, why are known threats continually able to pull off such tragedies?

Why don’t they do something?

The Senate weighs in

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs today released an interim report of their ongoing investigation into how the Department of Justice and FBI handled the discovery that Hillary Clinton used an unauthorized personal email server, through which a considerable number of classified emails flowed.  Per the interim report, the committee’s investigation is looking into the following questions:

Whether, and the extent to which, any personal animus and/or political bias influenced the FBI’s investigation;

Whether, and the extent to which, the Obama Department of Justice or White House influenced the FBI’s investigation; and

Whether, and the extent to which, any personal animus and/or political bias influenced the FBI’s actions with respect to President Trump.

Unlike the brief House Committee memorandum released a few days ago, this 25-page report uses extensive footnotes to document the material from which their conclusions are drawn.  As it points out, the release of thousands of text messages between FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page raise many questions.  The entire report is available here.  While noting the Senate Committee continues to investigate the matter, this interim report concludes (emphasis added):

The information available to the Committee at this time raises serious questions about how the FBI applied the rule of law in its investigation of classified information on Secretary Clinton’s private email server. We know that:

• The FBI did not use a grand jury to compel testimony and obtain the vast majority of evidence, choosing instead to offer immunity deals and allow fact witnesses to join key interviews.

• There were substantial edits to Director Comey’s public statement that served to downplay the severity of Secretary Clinton’s actions, and that the first draft of the memo was distributed for editing two months before key witnesses were interviewed.

• Director Comey stated that he had not consulted with the Justice Department or White House, when text messages suggest otherwise. We have text messages in which two key investigators discuss an “insurance policy” against the “risk” of a Trump presidency,and “OUR task.”

• Messages discuss “unfinished business,” “an investigation leading to impeachment,” and “my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.”

• Senior FBI officials—likely including Deputy Director McCabe—knew about newly discovered emails on a laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner for almost a month before Director Comey notified Congress.

• Over the period of at least four months, the FBI did not recover five months’ worth of text messages requested by DOJ OIG and two Senate committees; however, when pressed, (The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General) was able to recover missing texts in less than one week.

It’s a mark of how divided our nation is that what is known so far hasn’t raised a bipartisan cry for major reform of the DOJ and FBI, including greater accountability for the secretive FISA Court process.  When our criminal justice agencies act as they have in this instance, it’s a clear and present danger to the liberties of every citizen, regardless of party affiliation.

The question now is whether accountability will make a comeback as a result of these current investigations.  Stay tuned.

Laying out the timeline

UPDATE: (Feb 8, 2018) – It seems Forbes took down the timeline after a couple of days.  No explanation I’m aware of as to why.  Nevertheless, the Internet is forever, and a copy of it remains available here.

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ORIGINAL POST:  One of the challenges for the American public right now is keeping up with the drip, drip, drip of scandalous information coming out of Washington.  The pieces of the puzzles are being slowly dribbled out, and thus it’s difficult for the average citizen to piece together a picture of just how bad the malfeasance of the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation is.

So Forbes has done the nation a great service by assembling the known pieces at this point.  The Epoch Times produced a visual summary in January, but Forbes’ product brings the chronology up to date and provides disturbing clarity.  Keep in mind while reading it there is considerable information that remains redacted or unreleased, and the parties involved will clearly go to great lengths to keep it that way.  The magazine rightly concludes (emphasis added):

It is right to say that this episode is the worst abuse of political power in American history related to elections. Watergate is nothing by comparison. That involved people not employed by the government.  Later it involved a cover-up in which Nixon participated.

Watergate did not involve the DOJ and the FBI – two institutions which must be non-partisans for this Republic of ours.

This case does involve the FBI and DOJ.  It also is foolish not to assume that Loretta Lynch and President Obama were ignorant of the goings on – if not involved in them.

Finally, the dishonest investigation of Hillary who committed actual crimes should not be acceptable. Nor should FBI or DOJ officials be allowed to alter events and Court proceedings for political purposes.

If we let this go, and people are not brought to justice, we will have forever damaged our Republic and the World’s view of us as a nation of laws.

Not to mention that in the eyes of those of us paying close attention, the credibility of our government has taken a body blow from which it may never recover.  Only seeing the key figures in this melodrama in handcuffs and behind bars will suffice to start the process of restoration.  Nothing short of that will matter.