The Missing Adult

AM:  During the Republican presidential primary season, do you recall Ohio Governor John Kasich claiming to be “the only adult” running?

Old Gadfly:  Yes, I do.

IM:  So, where was he when the Republican National Convention (RNC) commenced?  After all, the RNC is being held in the State of Ohio.

AM:  An adult teaches children all about being a good sport, to shake the hand of your opponent even when you lose the contest.  For the Ohio Governor not to officially welcome delegates to the RNC shows that not only is he a poor sport, he’s a quitter and a loser. 

IM:  For people like John Kasich, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and the Bush clan not to support the Republican candidate for President says a lot more about them than it does the Republican candidate who won the primary playing by the rules.  They truly demonstrate why the word conservative can project a negative, status quo preference for political privilege.  Just like the Democrat ruling class, some within the Republican Party forget that they too can be seduced by a ruling class mentality contrary to the wishes of the constituency they should be humbled and honored to serve.

Old Gadfly:  Unfortunately far too many Americans still feel comfortable being fed narratives shaped by a very biased media.  As you will recall, I categorized many of these individuals as Copernican drones because they lack the capacity to think and analyze original sources on their own.  For example, I have heard many express their fear of Trump because he would be imperialistic or authoritarian.  Perhaps they have been desensitized regarding this notion by a truly authoritarian who has followed through with his promise to circumvent the Congress with his phone and pen.  Trump says that on his first day in office he would rescind unconstitutional executive orders related to the second amendment and immigration.

IM:  I noticed that Trump’s campaign website provides positions on some key issues.  I read through all of these positions, and what struck me was Trump’s apparent intent to work with Congress and our existing institutions to advance solutions.  This does not sound like an imperialistic President.

AM:  Ironically, when looking at Hillary’s campaign website, her positions represent a third Obama term and address everything under the sun—consistent with imperialistic thinking and a belief in a very big and powerful central government.  Let’s see, Hillary’s commitment to the status quo sounds like a conservative.  Trump is the one advancing new ideas to benefit all Americans, not just protected classes at the expense of others.  Nor does he want to enslave the nonruling class.

Old Gadfly:  This past week, I had the opportunity to hear Dinesh D’Souza discuss his upcoming documentary based on his book, Hillary’s America:  The Secret History of the Democratic Party.  The movie opens in three days (July 22, 2016) at theaters nationwide.  Progressives are already trying to debunk the analysis by suggesting political realignment.  Sadly, we see no advertisement by the media.  Does this come as a surprise.  I remember all the media hype about Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth before they were released.  So, we need to spread the word through other means.

IM:  Wasn’t D’Souza convicted recently?

Old Gadfly:  Yes.  This is what he explained in his book:

In this book I will show how Democrats went from slavery for blacks to enslavement for the whole population.  Even those who benefit from the progressive state become dependent upon it and remain captive to their progressive benefactors.  Meanwhile, the rest of us are forced, intimidated, and terrorized into forking over our earnings and possessions so that progressives can dispose of them as they see fit.  In sum, progressive Democrats have gone from exploiting blacks to exploiting everyone.  This is their actual Big Switch. 

. . . Progressives need a pitch, and the best pitch is the idea of social justice.

. . . I learned about the pitch in a federal confinement center where I spent eight months in overnight captivity for my sins against the Obama administration.  My crime was exceeding the campaign finance laws by giving $20,000 over the campaign finance limit to a college pal of mine who was running for the U.S. Senate.  I didn’t do it to get anything in return; I did it simply to help an old friend.  For this, I found myself at the receiving end of the full force of the U.S. government.

But since no one in American history has been prosecuted—let alone incarcerated—for doing what I did, I should be allowed to suspect that my real crime was in exposing President Obama in my film 2016:  Obama’s America and my books The Roots of Obama’s Rage and Obama’s America.  Obama hated my film, vituperatively attacking it on his website barackobama.com, and a few months later, the FBI was knocking on my door (pp. 22-23).        

AM:  What does D’Souza mean by “the Big Switch?”

Old Gadfly:  Democrats and their complicit progressives in academia, the media, and Hollywood claim Republicans, and now Trump, in particular are bigots, racists, misogynists, and so forth, when it was Democrats in our history that were the racists and misogynists.  D’Souza provides evidence that the Ku Klux Klan emerged from the Democrat Party, Jim Crow laws were advanced by Democrats, and Democrats opposed women suffrage.  This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Read his book.  Better yet, watch the documentary.

IM:  Sadly, there is an abundance of evidence to impugn Democrat social justice policy.  For example, here is an interesting video by Dr. Walter Williams from George Mason University.

AM:  Democrats seem to have a powerful megaphone, claiming Republicans are the party of “no” or “obstructionists.”

Old Gadfly:  When a particular ideological faction controls the narrative, it is easy to manufacture false notions.  This is one of the recruiting advantages ISIS and other Islamic or jihadists groups have, and they start early as in this news video of a kindergarten graduation in the Gaza Strip.  Progressives are an ideological faction, and they want Americans to think they are the ones with ideas to advance progress while Republicans want to put blacks back in chains.  Well, Republicans do have ideas.  Check out Trump’s website and take a look at Ryan’s (Republican Speaker of the House) A Better Way.  Of course, most Americans will only know about Ryan’s policy agenda through the media.  Here’s such an example.  The biggest criticism is about the lack of specific detail, highlighting alternatives to Obamacare, as an example.  As a professor, I always advise students to evaluate primary sources.  This is part of an education many Americans seem to have missed.

IM:  Coloradans are about to discover what they did not read in the legislation before it was passed strictly by Democrat votes.   Because a Colorado democrat-controlled legislature and governor passed an Obamacare exchange, they are now scrambling to see how Colorado will fill the gap in lost federal subsidies this coming year.  The proposed legislation calls for an increase in individual income taxes (from 4.63% to 7.96%) and 10% increase for sole proprietors (from 4.63% to 14.63%) and corporations.  Meanwhile thousands of Coloradans have been added to the State Medicaid program.  The citizens of Ohio will soon discover the same dilemma after Governor John Kasich enthusiastically promoted Obamacare exchanges in his State.  A nice little mess created by progressive Democrats, but they will find a way to blame it on Republicans as in D’Souza’s Big Switch theory.

          Old Gadfly:  Some of this explains why Democrats fear a President Trump.  Trump firmly believes in law and order over political retribution.  As an adult, and given available resources, his Attorney General and other federal-level prosecutors would focus on crimes that are far more egregious than a $20,000 campaign contribution.  Perhaps by then, other “ruling class” Republicans will seek redemption for failing to be an adult, and putting our nation at risk with a President Hillary Clinton. 

Some Are More Equal

IM:  Events during this week demonstrated life imitating satire.

Old Gadfly:  What do you mean, IM?

IM:  In Orwell’s Animal Farm, after the socialists took command, they issued seven commandments.  Over time, seeing how easy it was to control the other animals, Napoleon (styled after Joseph Stalin) reduced the commandments to just one:  “all animals are created equal; some are more equal than others.”

Old Gadfly:    Animal Farm’s class distinctions certainly appear to reflect the FBI Director’s decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton despite his own well-described case of someone who grossly violated federal statutes.  Comey was very careful in his wording:  “no evidence of criminal intent” and “extreme carelessness.”

IM:  This wording was precisely what President Obama signaled when interviewed by Chris Wallace on April 10, 2016 on the Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace program.  Obama said he believed there was “no intent” to violate laws, although the actions certainly were “very careless.”

AM:  Then, on a Monday, June 27, 2016, in an unscheduled but well-choreographed arrangement, Bill Clinton privately (no witnesses or photographers) met with Loretta Lynch, the Attorney General of the United States, on her plane on the airport tarmac in Phoenix.  When leaked, Lynch claimed it was just a casual discussion about grandchildren.

IM:  Five days later, on Saturday, July 2, 2016, several FBI agents interviewed Hillary Clinton for about three hours.  This was not a sworn deposition, and there was no recording or transcript of the session.  Yet, Democrats wanted to compare this case to the Petraeus case—the big difference is that the FBI interrogated him under oath.  Do you think Bill advised Lynch to remind the FBI that when they talked to Hillary, it should not be under oath to avoid perjury implications?  Bill remembers his own experience under oath regarding his sexual encounter with Monica Lewinsky.

AM:  Then, on Sunday, July 3, 2016, the New York Times published an article that sent a signal to Loretta Lynch:  “. . . Democrats close to Mrs. Clinton say she may decide to retain Ms. Lynch, the nation’s first black woman to be attorney general, who took office in April 2015."  Of course, by then Lynch said to the public that she would do whatever the FBI recommends.

IM:  All of which led up to FBI Director, Comey, making his announcement on Tuesday, July 5, 2016, that he would not recommend charges against Hillary Clinton.  This announcement was just in time for Obama and Clinton to emerge from Air Force One in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a campaign stop.  The optics were powerful—Air Force One, the President, and an unindicted felon flaunting the notion that some people are above the law and thus more equal than others—like Obama, another anointed one.  Obama declared Hillary the most qualified person for President ever in our history.  Sadly, job titles are not sufficient qualifications.  What has Hillary actually accomplished that is positive?  A lot of wreckage followed her wake:  the Russia reset, a Middle East in absolute turmoil, ISIS, North Korea, Iran nuclear deal, and so forth.

AM:  In the military we had a saying, screw up and move up.  It was recognition that senior people who made mistakes somehow got promoted. 

IM:  With the “above the law” precedent clearly established thanks to Lynch, Comey, and Clinton, Tom Perez, Secretary of Labor, appeared on the Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace program (hosted by Shannon Bream) today in his “private capacity” on national television to stump for Hillary Clinton.  Can you imagine Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunsford, presenting himself in a business suit on the same talk show to stump for a politician?  He’d be court-martialed for violating the Hatch Act—which applies to all federal officials by the way.  Clearly some Americans are more equal than others.

Old Gadfly:   My son-in-law is a legal immigrant.  When I asked him why foreign nationals come to America, he unhesitatingly said, “America has been known as a prosperous and peaceful society based on the rule of law” (bold italics added for emphasis).  He is very disappointed by what is playing out by this corrupt administration, in general, and by an unscrupulous, above the law, presidential wannabe, in particular. 

Gentlemen, we talked about a ruling class in January.  This week provided more evidence.  How do we wake up Americans? 

Democrats to Define Trump

IM:  Today’s New York Times First Draft reports that a Democrat research group by the name, American Bridge, is compiling volumes of dirt on Donald Trump.  The authors openly admit, “Their hope is to have Mr. Trump defined before he ever gets to reintroduce himself to the general election voters.”

AM:  The authors also indicate that American Bridge was founded by a close Hillary Clinton ally.

Old Gadfly:    Do you recall Obama’s response to reporters who asked why he had performed so poorly against Romney in their first presidential debate?

IM:  He laughed and said, “That was not the real Romney.”

AM:  Exactly.  The people were not to evaluate the candidate for who he really was.  The caricature of Romney was how Democrats defined him.  For those of us who actually believe in the 10 commandments—amazingly, there are only 10--one involves not bearing false witness against a neighbor.  But Democrats want the people to buy into what their own Party Pharisees preach, whether it is true or not.

IM:   We are observing full-throated propaganda.  Just today, I reviewed background on the Watergate scandal in terms of the circumstances about covering up illegal activity, refusing to comply with a Congressional investigation, and all the indictments and convictions related to the case.  No one was killed.  But there was accountability for the politically-motivated activities.  On the other hand, the Executive branch has obstructed a congressional investigation into Benghazi (not to mention Fast and Furious, the IRS, and other scandals) and intentionally destroyed evidence.  Four Americans were killed.  Immediately after the Committee released its 800-page report, major news networks headlined their belief that there was nothing new and that it was time to move on.  Why is this disturbing to me?  When Hitler and the Nazi Party assumed control of Germany, they could count on a complicit media.  Here is a list of 20 pro-Nazi newspapers or magazines.  I could not find a similar list for anti-Nazi newspapers.  American-born, William Joyce, known as Lord Haw-Haw, even participated in pro-Nazi radio broadcasts.

Worse, I checked on major themes for Nazi propaganda, and here is what I found:

·         Denounce enemies of their ideology, to include capitalists (this closely aligns with Democrat defined enemies such as the top 1%, white males because of white privilege, and any others that question progressive values as racist, misogynist, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamaphobic, etc.)

·         Punish those who oppose their ideology (Dinesh D’Souza can vouch for this because of a $30,000 indirect campaign contribution; yet, George Soros can contribute over $7 million to the Hillary Clinton campaign while other Wall Street investment firms contributed even more.)

·         Champion eugenics (here the Nazi’s watched developments within America for the moral foundations for cleansing the human race from imperfections, to include Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood)

·         Maintain a cult of personality around the ideology’s leader (for progressives in America this is now Obama, soon to be Hillary Clinton)

·         Tolerate religious practices only if they do not interfere with the state (the Little Sisters of the Poor faced millions in fines for not complying with birth control and abortifacient mandates)

·         The media was more than happy to amplify the Nazi values (we see similar complicity with our own main stream media)

·         Employ propaganda, consistent with Hitler’s own vision for manipulating the masses.  Here are Hitler’s own words in his book, Mein Kampf:

The art of propaganda consists precisely in being able to awaken the imagination of the public through an appeal to their feelings, in finding the appropriate psychological form that will arrest the attention and appeal to the hearts of the national masses [this is why Democrats aggressively define the opponent; see also here]. The broad masses of the people are not made up of diplomats or professors of public jurisprudence nor simply of persons who are able to form reasoned judgment in given cases, but a vacillating crowd of human children who are constantly wavering between one idea and another. (...) The great majority of a nation is so feminine in its character and outlook that its thought and conduct are ruled by sentiment rather than by sober reasoning. This sentiment, however, is not complex, but simple and consistent. It is not highly differentiated, but has only the negative and positive notions of love and hatred, right and wrong, truth and falsehood.

Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice [i.e., the emphasis on social justice, fair share, etc.]; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side [similar to progressive George Lakoff’s axiom that it is the frame that matters, and facts are only relevant if they fit the frame]. (...) The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas [e.g., racist, bigot, white privilege, misogynist, homophobe, Islamaphobe, etc.  Just the other day, Hillary argued that Trump followers fit into one or more of the standard progressive stereotypes.]. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. (...) Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must of course be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula.[1] (Text in bold, italics added)

AM:  Joseph Stalin engaged in similar tactics.  In 1991, the formerly classified footage of Stalin and his mind control evidence was released to the public.  A comprehensive sampling can be found here.  Under Hitler and the Nazi regime, some of the first to be sent to German concentration camps were communists.  Ironically, the fascists and communists were brutal ideological opponents within the same socialist camp.  The Nazis were opposed to Marxist materialism and capitalism.  Yet, to this day, scholars and the general public have bought the myth that fascism, and its Nazi manifestation, is far right on the political spectrum.  Communism and fascism are far left manifestations of left-wing socialism.

Old Gadfly:  As we were having this conversation, I received the personal thoughts of a pastor who plans to support Trump, not because he is a saint, but because he firmly believes Trump is a modern biblical Cyrus.  This pastor also reminded us that Winston Churchill was known to be bombastic and was similarly caricatured as Trump has been.

IM:  The thought has occurred to me that recent progressive efforts to punish Christian bakers for not wanting to participate in same sex weddings, to force public schools to accommodate transgenders, to celebrate black lives matter, to perpetuate gender pay gaps, to criticize opponents of lax immigration policies, to refuse to use terms like jihad or radical Islam, and so forth, are specifically designed to tee up opportunities to use stereotype labels such as racist, misogynist, homophobe, xenophobe, Islamaphobe, and so forth.

AM:    Your observation, IM, represents a swarming effect using several Saul Alinsky rules:  rule 5, ridicule is man’s most potent weapon; rule 8, keep the pressure on; rule 12, the price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative (here the example is the attempt to foil Trump’s evolving views on various issues by suggesting he is flip flopping); and rule 13, pick the target, freeze it, and polarize it.[2]  Obviously, Hillary Clinton has an opportunity to seize upon Alinsky’s tactics; after all, her Wellesley College senior thesis extolled his virtues.  And the American Bridge will be the instrument to lead these tactics.

Old Gadfly:  So, based on all these facts and circumstances, who is the most dangerous opponent to Democrats:  Donald Trump or ISIS?  Trump opposes the Democrat progressive ideology.  ISIS opposes American values in general.  Since Trump appears to be the most existential threat to Democrats, Democrats have indirectly aligned themselves with a threat against America itself.  But then again, Obama, who symbolizes progressivism, vowed to fundamentally transform America.  Therefore, while Trump wants to make America great again, Democrats are actually anti-America.  I know this sounds bold.  But as I mentioned to a good friend yesterday, when one is confronted with telling a mother her baby is ugly, one typically capitulates to dishonesty to avoid getting slapped. 

---

[1] Mein Kampf citations are from the Project Gutenberg-hosted 1939 English translation by James Murphy

[2] Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals:  A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, (New York, NY:  Vintage Books, 1972).

Obama's High Horse and Fuzzy History

Old Gadfly:  Since the Orlando shooting incident, do we now see Obama using a bully pulpit or simply riding a high horse?  He accuses Trump of violating American values by wanting to ban Muslim immigration to America and that using the term, “radical Islam,” serves no purpose.  Obama seems to have created a meme that Trump is anti-Muslim and anti-immigration by extension—you know, one of those leftist labels called xenophobia.  With a complicit media, he expects others will imitate the meme. 

IM:  My understanding is that Trump is against illegal immigration (he’s married to a legal immigrant after all) and especially concerned about not being able to vet a swarm of Muslim refugees into America from an Islamic region that is far from peaceful.  This is a completely different mental frame than “anti-Muslim.”  I would say that Trump strikes me as an individual who believes that a just society is based on a system of laws and that America welcomes immigrants of all backgrounds through a legal process.

AM:  Obama’s message is crystal clear.  He believes his angry oration via a bully pulpit, where he, the self-righteous preacher with good public approval ratings (thanks to a horrific media slant and spineless Republicans who seem to have lost a grip on reality), rebukes the presumptive Republican presidential candidate for sinfully warning the public that there was a radical Islamist connection to the shooting.  Obama counts on an incredibly naïve public to swallow what he says on face value.  As we discussed in the last conversation, he has a colluding and fully complicit media to amplify the message.  Just this morning, I marveled at how George Stephanopoulos, on ABC Good Morning America, facilitated clips of Obama, Clinton, and Trump, shaping the message in favor of Obama and Clinton.  This is the same man who served as a senior advisor in the Clinton Administration, and then later donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation.  I’ll say more about connections later.

IM:  Sadly, at last year’s national prayer breakfast he sat on a high horse while accusing others of sitting on a high horse because an increasing number of Americans (and Europeans) are concerned about the increasing death toll stemming from radical Islam.  He lectured us about Christian violence in the name of Christ but refused to suggest there might be violence in the name of Muhammad.

Old Gadfly:  I remember he mentioned the Crusades.

IM:  He counts on fuzzy history.  Our progressive public education has done a great job in creating a mental frame that blames Christians for the Crusades.  A deeper look shows that the Crusades spawned in defense of Muslim aggression.  And when he sanctimoniously mentioned Jim Crow laws, he failed to mention that these were Democrat policies that are similar to much of the progressive inspired regulatory regime and rulings that pick winners and losers as we speak.

AM:  In the current Foreign Policy Magazine, Moscow-born Julia Ioffee wrote an article with this title:  “If Islam Is a Religion of Violence, So Is Christianity.”  Leftists are already pushing similar themes (see Dr. Paul Kengor’s excellent analysis here).  Let’s just stick to the current issue and I’ll ask, during high horse Obama’s reign, how many Christian-associated casualties have we recorded?  Aside from the thousands of casualties, to include many on American soil, and the millions of refugees stemming from radical-Islam, politically correct imitators like Ioffee want us to play make believe; just as George Lakoff advises all progressives, “if the facts don’t fit the frame, then they are irrelevant” (Read Lakoff’s Thinking Points, a Handbook for Progressives, here).  I think Mitt Romney may have received the Lakoff training based on his “trickle down racism” assertion the other day.  And, I’m sure Barry Goldwater would assure Trump to stay the course despite Mitt’s father, George Romney, going to great lengths to undermine Goldwater after his nomination by suggesting he was unfit to be president (jumping on the bandwagon of leftist efforts along these lines).  The major issue here was that Goldwater believed the issue of civil rights exceeded federal authority and belonged within the realm of the states.  George Romney, showing progressive colors, wanted the federal government to take on extraconstitutional authority. 

IM:  Back to Ioffee, politically correct imitators like Ioffee, who also wrote the GQ hit piece on Melania Trump, do not like their frame being challenged.

Old Gadfly:  Obama seems angry that the presumptive Republican nominee is personally challenging him on this topic.

IM:  God forbid anyone should challenge Obama because any such sacrilegious act would clearly be racist.  Ironic, isn’t it?  I remember a Democrat presidential nominee saying very derogatory things about his predecessor.  In fact, I recall that he did this to rally his political base, to get them angry and hungry for his special antidote of “hope and change.”

Old Gadfly:  So, what do you think he had in mind for change?

AM:  You mean more specifically than his vision to “fundamentally change America” ?  Wayne Allyn Root, a Columbia University classmate of Obama’s told us what the change was in 2010.  Here is an excerpt from an article he penned:

Rahm Emanuel cynically said, "You never want a crisis to go to waste." It is now becoming clear that the crisis he was referring to is Barack Obama's presidency.

Obama is no fool. He is not incompetent. To the contrary, he is brilliant. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is purposely overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos — thereby destroying capitalism and our country from within.

Barack Obama is my college classmate (Columbia University, class of '83). As Glenn Beck correctly predicted from day one, Obama is following the plan of Cloward & Piven, two professors at Columbia University. They outlined a plan to socialize America by overwhelming the system with government spending and entitlement demands. Add up the clues below. Taken individually they're alarming. Taken as a whole, it is a brilliant, Machiavellian game plan to turn the United States into a socialist/Marxist state with a permanent majority that desperately needs government for survival ... and can be counted on to always vote for bigger government. Why not? They have no responsibility to pay for it.

Old Gadfly:  I remember reading about this strategy in the 60s, going into Johnson’s Great Society agenda.  Later in graduate school, I read Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward’s book, Regulating the Poor:  The Functions of Public Welfare.  Notice the action described:  regulating; not elevating or empowering, or some other uplifting strategy.  The authors described the importance of “stabilizing” the masses as a function of the welfare state.  This is very consistent with the growing administrative state that we now have, where a powerful central government continues to expand a regulatory regime that is becoming more and more coercive, controlling the centers of wealth production and significantly chipping away at individual liberty.

AM:  Which brings us to motivations for “hope and change” and the connections I mentioned earlier.  First, let’s start with Obama’s connections:  besides his mentoring by communist Frank Marshall, Obama’s key advisors, Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod have their own direct connections with communist mentors.  See, for example, the evidence provided by Dr. Paul Kengor.  In his recent book, Takedown:  From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage, Kengor explains (with powerful evidence) how important it was to destroy the traditional institutions of family and marriage to allow communism to flourish.  This is the fundamental change Obama had in store for America.

IM:  Just like V. I. Lenin, Obama knew that he needed to grow a Bolshevik-style grassroots to imitate his “vision” for a transformed America.  To achieve this, he instituted an initiative called “Organizing for America.”  Here is the video he released on January 15, 2009 announcing this grassroots initiative.  Today, his organizing machine is now named BarackObama.com.  At this renamed site, Obama imitators/followers can watch over 30,000 videos.

Old Gadfly:  In terms of “connections,” are there any concerns about Hillary Clinton?

AM:  Aside from the apparent corruption associated with the sleazy pay-to-play connections at the Clinton Foundation, a more sinister set of connections--especially in light of what happened in Orlando--begins with Huma Abedin, Hillary’s former aide at the State Department with access to Top Secret information and now vice-chair for her presidential campaign.  A recent expose’ by Roger Stone is very troubling!  According to Stone, Huma Abedin, a Muslim (ironically married to former, penis-texting Jewish Congressman Anthony Weiner), was the assistant editor for 12 years of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, an academic journal published by the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, a family business founded in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with the patronage of Abdullah Omar Naseef of the Muslim World League.  Naseef’s connections go beyond this.  Naseef was involved in creating Rabita Trust in 1988.  Here is an important excerpt from Stone’s article:

Just a month after the 9/11 jihadist attack left thousands dead and brought down the World Trade Center, President George W. Bush’s Executive Order designated the Rabita Trust as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity and the Treasury Department froze its assets on October 12, 2001.

Naseef founded the Rabita Trust and remains involved with it to this day.  A Treasury Department press release issued when Rabita Trust’s assets were frozen indicated that Rabita Trust is headed by Wa’el Hamza Jalaidan, one of the founders of al-Qaida with bin Laden.  He was the logistics chief of bin Laden’s organization and fought on bin Laden’s side in Afghanistan.  Jalaidan himself was branded a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity by the United States Treasury Department, and his assets have been frozen, as well.

But the connections between Abedin’s Saudi benefactor, the Muslim World League, and al-Qaeda don’t end there.   (To read more, see here).

IM:  The Washington Post assigned 20 journalists to scrutinize Trump.  When do you think they might consider doing the same for Hillary Clinton?

Old Gadfly:  Not likely.  Fuzzy history is an asset for the left.  I realized this last year when a USAF Academy cadet admitted to me that he had no idea what communism is.  We need a modern Max Eastman to refresh people of real history. 

Eastman was a socialist activist in his early years and a close associate of John Reed, a fellow intellectual, Greenwich Village Bohemian who tried to bring socialism to America in the early 1900s.  You may have watched Warren Beatty’s movie, Reds.  Beatty wrote the screenplay and played the role of Reed in the movie.  I saw it when it was first released in the 80s and mostly treated it as fiction.  Then I watched it again last month.  After serving over 34 years defending America against the threat of communism, I truly understood the message of this biographical and historical movie this time.  In his book, The Road to Serfdom, F.A. Hayek relied heavily upon Max Eastman observations.  Here is Hayek’s opening paragraph in Chapter 11, “The End of Truth”:

The most effective way of making everybody serve the single system of ends toward which the social plan is directed is to make everybody believe in those ends.  To make a totalitarian system function efficiently, it is not enough that everybody should be forced to work for the same ends.  It is essential that the people should come to regard them as their own ends.  Although the beliefs must be chosen for the people and imposed upon them, they must become their beliefs, a generally accepted creed which makes the individuals as far as possible act spontaneously in the way the planner wants.  If the feeling of oppression in totalitarian countries is in general less acute than most people in liberal countries imagine, this is because the totalitarian governments succeed to a high degree in making people think as they want them to.

AM:  Obama, the planner, must be pleased because even Republicans are acting “spontaneously in the way the planner wants.”

Old Gadfly:  Yes.  About 35 years after Hayek’s warning, in the 1983 edition of George Orwell’s 1984, the venerable Walter Cronkite provided the Preface.  Here is an excerpt:

If not prophecy, what was 1984?  It was, as many have noticed, a warning:  a warning about the future of human freedom in a world where political organization and technology can manufacture power in dimensions that would have stunned the imaginations of earlier ages.

Orwell drew upon the technology (and perhaps some of the science fiction) of the day in drawing his picture of 1984.  But it was not a work of science fiction he was writing.  It was a novelistic essay on power, how it is acquired and maintained, how those who seek it or seek to keep it tend to sacrifice anything and everything in its name.

IM:  Pretty powerful observation from a respected journalist.

Old Gadfly:   Are there any living American journalists worthy of the title?  They seem to have lost their sense of duty and their soul.  And they have good company with imitating Democrats and spineless Republicans who lack the courage to support Trump, who clearly understand what Hayek and Cronkite warned us about.  Trump has a realistic understanding of history and is not on a high horse—he’s out front leading Americans who refuse to relinquish their God-given liberty.