Flotsam with a Voice

Dear Mr. Flotsam,

I read your article, “Mueller answers the Nixon question for our generation: ‘Their president is a crook’,” with dripping disappointment.  Even though I suspect you may currently lack the capacity to process what I am about to say (because your newspaper bio claims you “hold nothing sacred,” to include, I infer, the truth), I will say it because I respect you as a fellow, and potentially undiscarded, human being.

The American public was duped, apparently well-beyond repair, regarding the Watergate scandal.  Recent revelations based on heretofore unavailable documentary evidence reveals Nixon was innocent of any criminal activity.  While Nixon was certainly guilty of unwitting complicity in the initial stages of the “cover-up” (thanks to John Dean’s masterful manipulation skills), he never willfully directed or engaged in illegal activity.  Moreover, he was the victim of a conspiracy via illegal ex parte meetings and carefully orchestrated news releases (fully documented) between the prosecution, judges, and the House Judiciary Committee in convicting Nixon in the court of public opinion.  Don’t take my word for it, read the very well-documented revelations in The Real Watergate Scandal by Geoff Shepard and The Silent Coup by Len Colodny.

Despite your incredibly disingenuous conclusions about the Mueller report, there was no crime committed by Trump.  Had there been a crime, an indictment would have followed.  The “alleged” crimes were (a) Russian collusion and (b) obstruction of an investigation into the crime of Russian collusion.  Mueller was explicit in his finding that there was no collusion.  Therefore, there was no crime (even though legal scholars say that “collusion” is not a crime).

 

The allegations of obstructing an investigation into an alleged crime that never happened is a little more technical.  Let me offer an example that you might understand.  If I accused you of being a child molester, and law enforcement authorities began an investigation, would you sit by silently and let the investigation proceed?  How would you respond when family members and friends are also implicated in the crime?  Now they find themselves lawyering up (at significant personal expense).  Now they also find aggressive prosecutors will pit family member against family member and friend against friend with the promise of leniency via plea bargaining?  Now they realize that when prosecutors find the slightest disagreement in the facts and circumstances they threaten a charge of perjury as additional leverage against family and friends?  Or, would you attempt in whatever manner possible to “influence” the investigation in the interest of obstructing injustice?

The Mueller report cites the following as one of six “Investigative and Evidentiary Considerations” to justify the allegation of “obstruction”:  “The President’s January 27, 2017 dinner with former FBI Director James Comey in which the President reportedly asked for Comey’s loyalty, one day after the White House had been briefed by the Department of Justice on contacts between former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and the Russian Ambassador;” (p. 12, Volume II).  Really?  Here are some thoughts:

·        The only way this piece of information was known was passed on by Comey.  Why?

·         What is wrong with wanting to know if one of the most powerful members of the federal government would be loyal to an incoming, constitutionally elected President?  Like him or not, Trump was legitimately elected President of the United States.  Political appointees, which Comey was, are expected to be loyal to the political agenda of an elected President. 

·         Yet, this was the first of six considerations expressed in the Mueller report.

The second consideration said:  “The President’s February 14, 2017 meeting with Comey in which the President reportedly asked Comey not to pursue an investigation of Flynn:”.  Here are more thoughts:

·         The precise language, according to Comey memos, was ““I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.   He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” (as cited in the LA Times).  The tone and message in the original communication are completely contrary to what the Mueller report claims.

·         As other sources establish, Flynn was “outed” through illegal unmasking of NSA intercepts.

·         As other sources establish, Flynn was set up when FBI officials visited him in the West Wing to discuss his communication with the Russian ambassador (with Flynn unaware of the illegal unmasking) and advised he did not need legal representation during the discussion.  This was a trap and led to Flynn pleading guilty of perjury only after going bankrupt due to legal expenses.

The third consideration:  “The President’s private requests to Comey to make public the fact that the President was not the subject of an FBI investigation and to lift what the President regarded as a cloud;”.  A couple thoughts:

·         If Comey had stated to the President that he was not under investigation, they why was Trump’s request to state this publicly obstruction of a non-existing investigation?  

·         Comey obviously could not respect the President’s request because as a disloyal subordinate in the Executive branch, he was fully aware that Trump was in fact the subject of illegal activity.  Comey was directly involved in using an unverified dossier, funded by a political opponent, to justify FISA warrants to place the Trump campaign under surveillance (the “spying” likely implied by Attorney General Barr in recent Congressional testimony).

The fourth consideration:  “The President’s outreach to the Director of National Intelligence and the Directors of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency about the FBI’s Russia investigation;”.  A couple thoughts:

·         For whom do these intelligence leaders work?  As Executive branch political appointees, they serve at the pleasure of the President.  The President has the constitutional and moral right to confront these individuals on this matter.

·         If, as Comey asserted to Trump, that he was not under investigation, then why would Trump’s outreach to these political appointees be considered obstruction?

The fifth consideration:  “The President’s stated rationales for terminating Comey on May 9, 2017, including statements that could reasonably be understood as acknowledging that the FBI’s Russia investigation was a factor in Comey’s termination;”.  Here are more thoughts:

·         Trump knew the Russia-collusion allegations were a hoax, as verified in part I of Mueller’s report.

·         As implied by the first two considerations above, Trump could not trust Comey.

·         Unfortunately, Comey’s loyal lieutenants engaged in activities that were clearly designed to undermine a constitutionally-elected President.

The final consideration:  “The President’s reported involvement in issuing a statement about the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Russians and senior Trump Campaign officials that said the meeting was about adoption and omitted that the Russians had offered to provide the Trump Campaign with derogatory information about Hillary Clinton.”  A couple thoughts:

·         The meeting was unsolicited by the Trump campaign; derogatory information was in fact offered.  So what?  Representative Schiff has been recorded having a conversation with Russians offering derogatory information on President Trump.  Indications are that it was a hoax, but Schiff did not know this when encouraging the so-called Russians to share the information they were offering.  Isn’t all of this “small potatoes” compared with the Hillary Clinton/DNC funded dossier and its foreign sources?

·         The meeting actually was about adoption.  The Russian lawyer was lobbying members of the campaign to consider mollifying the impact of a previously enacted Magnitsky Act under the Obama administration—the Act, which barred numerous Russians from America, was in response to the torture and murder of Sergei Magnitsky, an attorney employed by former American citizen Bill Browder.  For an intriguing story that led to this Act, read Bill Browder’s true story in Red Notice.  Browder can sympathize with Trump in this case because both were the target of derogatory propaganda by Fusion GPS.

 

Having said all of the above, Democrats will sustain an offensive for four main reasons:

·         Run out the clock under statute of limitations provisions to protect those who conspired to undermine President Trump.

·         Keep pressure on Trump via Congressional hearings to make him and any Republican supporters unattractive candidates going into the 2020 elections.

·         Maintain positive control of the public narrative, knowing they can count on a complicit, duplicitous, and mendacious main stream media who share the same progressive (shall we say socialist) agenda.

·         When indictments begin to surface from Attorney General Barr’s investigation into the “investigators” and Russian collusion hoax “perpetrators,” the Democrats will argue these actions are intended as political retribution despite actual, not merely “alleged,” illegal activity.

In closing, let us hope that the choir to whom you write is an outlier considering the broader population of America.  Many of us seek the "sacred" truth in the interest of justice.

Gadfly

Fellow Coloradoan

I Agree with Gadfly

by

An American Citizen with an Inquiring Mind

Gadfly’s recent essay, “Are You Stupid or Smart?” is one of his better ones. "Stupid" does get the attention of the reader, that is, until the reader self identifies with "Stupid". Gadfly admits we cannot educate “stupid” by insulting stupid. However, Gadfly is frustrated and perhaps very angry with his fellow man. Many of us are angry with our fellow Americans. It is not pleasant to watch a large part of our society being fooled.

In today’s world of instant access to all information, there can be no reason for citizens not knowing. The fooled choose to not know. It’s Forrest Gump on steroids. Some call this civic ignorance; however, I believe what is happening today goes beyond stupid or civic ignorance. The fooled have no conscience and no ideology. They, like Forrest Gump, just exist. They, like Hayek said and Gadfly quotes, imitate what they are fed. They are prey. They are for the taking and they vote.

Ah, but the “foolers”; they are the radical left, the popular media, the crony capitalists and the Washington elites. They are partners. Their ideology is grounded in a secular cause which defies reason, ignores history, tramples the constitution and uses a political party as a platform (until there is no longer a need for a party as their objective is total domination and control). They believe they have all knowledge and have defined absolute truth and their self-destructive ends justify their means. By any reasonable, moral or historical standard, they are insane.

The United States is in a Civil War - a war of ideas. Congress is polarized, paralyzed, feckless, emasculated, without common values; has delegated its law-making authority to administrative agencies and is unable to govern. An ineffectual legislative branch and ignorant citizens embolden the enemy and weaken our Republic.

Our home-grown socialists have hijacked the (once a great) Democrat party. Republicans such as Mitt Romney and the late John McCain put conservative values to shame. JFK or Harry Truman could not even get on the democrat ticket today, let alone get elected. We are no longer governed by the Constitution. We are governed by the administrative state

.

Judging by the events and what we have learned since the 2016 election, we know that had Trump lost the election we would be on a fast track to socialism and the loss of our Republic. We learned this ideology of the self-declared socialists in Congress and our federal agencies is so self-righteous it compromised the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, the Department of Justice, NSA and, possibly, a past president.

With a weak president and without Fox News and talk radio; Muller, the hijacked democrat party and their media partners would have brought about a successful round one, the impeachment of a president, and round two, the denial of seating a president’s supreme court justice selection.

     

Old Gadfly is right. We are in trouble. Socialists and political elites have studied Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals and know that to succeed they must be relentless, vile, lying, evil, and feed off civic ignorance. A Republic is a fragile thing. What do we do to prevent socialist ideologues from destroying our Republic and turning our country into what has happened to other great societies that have failed?

There is an answer. This answer is disruptive, non-violent, requires Americans to reset their priorities, sacrifice some of their non-essential pursuits and reassess patriotism. Kind of like what the Founders had to do when they were in trouble after the American revolution and knew that they had to have a Constitution that would allow this hard-fought freedom from an oppressive Great Britain to be permanent. I believe this is what Old Gadfly may write about in his next article.

Are You Stupid or Smart?

by

Gadfly

            This essay was prompted by watching ABC News this evening, which clearly advanced a political perspective against President Trump.  As a retired American, I have the luxury of spending more time watching news presentations real time and to sample a range of news sources.  Thus, the ABC presentation was not only offensive, it was morally repulsive from a reasoned perspective.

The long-awaited Mueller report was released today.  If you believe it impugned President Trump, and you do not watch Fox News (likely because other news sources and friends admonish you not to) but get your news from other sources, then you may be stupid.  Sorry.  You might even be a friend of mine.  If so, here’s a news flash:  the truth may be painful, but it will set you free (assuming you are not mortally chained to your illusions, reinforced by propaganda outlets).

            How stupid can people be?  Let me give some examples (you won’t hear this from CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post—how do I know?  I looked for evidence and found none.):

·         The Trump Administration never fired Mueller. This would have been possible evidence of obstruction. 

·         Although Trump publicly expressed his frustration about the special prosecution (e.g., witch hunt), he was concerned about the injustice of the deep state and its attempt to undermine his legal presidency.  How would you, my friend, react to someone claiming you were a child molester when you are not?  Would you not protest?   Or would you wait until the witch hunt was over and you were spending time in prison because no one offered a case in your defense?

·         The Trump Administration provided 1.4 million pages of documents (transcriptions of ALL meetings held in the White House).

·         The Trump Administration never declared executive privilege, even knowing he made comments such as, “This is the end of my presidency," upon hearing that special counsel had been appointed despite no crime having been established.

·         The Trump Administration encouraged EVERY individual within the White House to be interviewed (under oath) by the Mueller team.

This entire nightmare began with an FBI counter-intelligence investigation (Who directed it?  Some suggest the direction came from the White House).  The “predicate” was a Russian dossier--since then discredited and characterized as a gross disinformation campaign purchased by a political opponent; and former FBI Director, National Intelligence Director Clapper, and Director of the CIA Brennan were the primary co-conspirators.  What is ironic is that National Security Advisor Susan Rice seemed compelled to memorialize a meeting in which President Obama encouraged the intelligence and law enforcement agencies to address the Trump campaign and its possible Russia collusion “by the book.”

So, there were two elements to the Mueller prosecution:  collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice in relation to collusion with Russia.  Mueller clearly and unequivocally determined there was no evidence of collusion with Russia.  Given this as a fact, then how is it possible to obstruct justice—that is, obstructing an investigation into a crime that never happened?  It doesn’t matter to Democrats.  It doesn’t matter that there was no collusion.  They are now going to seek an impeachment by claiming Trump tried to impede the investigation into a witch hunt, predicated by a manufactured crime (manufactured by Hillary and the DNC via the Russian dossier).

The Mueller expedition was merely a distraction from the real crime taking place in Washington.  The left wants to keep that distraction going.  Mueller did the best he could to advance the leftist cause.  His treatment of obstruction was clearly designed to give the rabid Democrats on the House Judiciary and other committees fodder to advance impeachment.  No doubt, the Democrat-controlled House will pursue this track.  And even though a Republican-controlled Senate will not legitimize the impeachment proceeding with a conviction, the damage will be done going into the 2020 elections.  By extending the Mueller prosecution beyond the 2016 midterm elections, the Democrats demonstrate there are enough stupid Americans to justify their strategy.

Don’t be fooled.  There is a fundamental distinction between legal crimes and political power.  President Trump did nothing illegal.  But his established agenda is to promote a Constitutional Republic and the rule of law—respecting the rights of Americans to make their own choices.  This is an egregious violation of the left’s progressive (socialist, communist, fascist) campaign for America.  Social justice can only be advanced by a political elite.  Equality (as defined by the political elite) is far more important than individual liberty.  Individuals, as the title for this article implies, are far too stupid to make their own choices.  Unfortunately, this may be true given that individuals have been guided as to news sources upon which they should rely.

Justice demands truth.  If one side of a contest for power is only focused on power, then the end justifies the means, regardless of the truth.  Social justice is the means to an outcome, and it can only justify a ruling elite regulating the ruled. The only real outcome in this situation is tyranny.  If the other side, on the other hand, is focused on the power of truth, then the means justify the end.  Justice, then, is THE outcome and is absolutely critical to a free society.

There is a political faction in America that completely disregards the legal election of a President.  This faction is hell-bent on usurping the power of this legitimately elected individual.

 

          NEWS FLASH and a cold bucket of water:  If you are stupid, you’ll imitate what you hear or read (CNN and MSNBC provide great soundbites).  This is consistent with F. A. Hayek's observation that the modern mind is a product of cultural evolution and more closely reflects imitation than reason.  If, on the other hand you are smart, you will triangulate news sources and reasonably challenge any faction's campaign to usurp a legally elected President so that you do not become one of “the ruled.” 

America's Borg

by

Gadfly

“You will be assimilated; resistance is futile.”  This was a declaration heard by the crew of Star Trek’s Enterprise.  The declaration also revealed “the Borg” would absorb “biological” distinctiveness into the collective.  Once assimilated race and gender become irrelevant.

 

We all know Star Trek was a highly successful science fiction series.  Yet, how “fictional” is it?

Sexual orientation conversion therapy has been outlawed in numerous states, to include most recently, Colorado, where a homosexual governor signed the ban into law.  Parents now would be breaking the law by seeking therapy for a child that thinks he or she is anything but heterosexual.  The Colorado political elite has declared to parents: “You will be assimilated; resistance is futile.”  To amplify the effect, a Democrat-controlled legislature also advanced an educational bill to indoctrinate children in different sexual orientations and to begin as early as possible by funding full-day kindergarten.  Both are now signed into law by the Colorado governor.

With the left’s penchant for declaring contrary views as “extreme,” the Colorado Democrat-controlled legislature advanced a “red flag” bill that the governor signed into law.  The Second Amendment is very clear in establishing the inalienable right to bear arms.  Unfortunately, this right is an “extreme” view because it is contrary to those who believe in gun control.  Without due-process, individuals can now have their legally owned arms confiscated because someone accuses them of not being safe to possess them.  The burden of proof, along with the cost of legal representation, rests on the person who has been alleged to be unsafe.  Not only is the “red flag” law a violation of the Second Amendment, it further confirms the power of Colorado’s Borg.

Recently, South Bend (home of the University of Notre Dame), Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a fresh Democratic presidential candidate, attacked Vice President Mick Pence for his Christian views.  Although Pence never publicly said anything derogatory about Buttigieg or his lifestyle, the latter declared that if Pence had any issues about his homosexual lifestyle, he needed to take it up with his Creator.  In other words, God made him gay.

            Really?  What makes Buttigieg believe a homosexual orientation is an exception to other behaviors such as pedophilia, rape, adultery, masturbation, watching pornography, murder, robbery, and so forth?  Could not a thief argue that he was born to be a thief?  Buttigieg was a proselytizing pontificator when he demeaned Pence.  To be clear, in order for Buttigieg to consummate his relatively recent “marriage,” he and his male partner likely engage in sodomy with absolutely no possibility to procreate.  His Creator must be so pleased.

            My guess is that Buttigieg could care less.  He is counting on America’s Borg-assimilated drones to defend his sexual orientation by rallying in support of his candidacy.  The pool of potential drones is growing with many of our youth now “confused” about their gender.  The left encourages it because it makes them more vulnerable and malleable.

            Aside from the symbolism of the Cathedral of Notre Dame as a manifestation of Western civilization and its Judeo-Christian foundation, there is great irony in the unfortunate fact that it was consumed by fire yesterday.  Till yesterday, Notre Dame symbolically resisted the insidious and ubiquitous ambitions of the French Enlightenment and endured for centuries despite the atrocities of the French Revolution and the ravages of two World Wars.

 

With the tragedy and its implications of yesterday’s burning, it is further ironic to witness a Harvard- and Oxford-educated intellectual at the tender age of 37 beat his chest[1] as being morally superior because even though he claims to be Christian, he is truly a progressive secular humanist that is focused on “perfecting” humankind in his own image (even though God created us all in His image).  Because they believe “reason” and “science” are superior to “faith,” they can manufacture canards such as man-made climate change to rally their Borg-assimilated drones to achieve political power.  I love asking secular humanists to prove time, since it is so fundamental to our understanding of natural science.  Even when they understand they cannot prove an a priori truth, they still cannot admit to having “faith” in its a priori nature.

 

The author of Ecclesiastes was not Harvard- nor Oxford-educated.  Yet, he understood that inflated pride in oneself is not a generational infliction: “Vanities of vanities!  All things are vanity.  What profit has man from all the labor which he toils at under the sun?  One generation passes and another comes, but the world stays forever” (1:  2-4).

I watched Clint Eastwood’s movie, The Mule, last week.  He played the lead, 80+-year old character (Earl Stone) who served as a mule for a drug cartel.  He was eventually caught and tried in court, which was the most important scene in the movie.  Despite the good intentions of his lawyer to have him absolved of any crime, Earl interrupted the proceedings to plead guilty.  At his age, accountability and redemption were more important than vanity.

      

In her book, The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution, Ayn Rand made this observation:

 

The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other - until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology (1999, Penguin, p. 8).

            The left is relentless with slogans about those with contrary views.  For now, there remains a substantial population of Americans who believe in liberty, the rule of law, and justice.  Because they hold firm to Judeo-Christian values, they will be called homophobes and Islamophobes, for they resist the absurdity of views contrary to natural law and two to four millennia of tradition.  They will be called racists and xenophobes because they believe in legal immigration.  They will be called misogynists because they believe in the sacredness of human life and motherhood.

 

For now, America’s Borg has a healthy and active opposition.  This opposition will resist; it will not be assimilated into America’s secular humanist Borg.  Ideally, the opposition will provide an alternative to the vulnerable and malleable members of our society.

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[1] Note:  C.S. Lewis might argue that Buttigieg has no chest, as discussed in his chapter, “Men without Chests,” in The Abolition of Man.