Headlines

Impeachment threat is helping GOP recruit candidates

Joe Biden calls for Trump’s impeachment for the first time

Hillary’s joking right? ‘I can beat him again!’

Ronan Farrow claims Hillary pressured him to kill Weinstein story

Top labor leader says USMCA will be defeated if quick vote is held

US-China trade talks are about to start — a cut-down deal could lift some tariffs by year-end

Trump: Take your probe and shove it! Poll: Impeached and re-elected?

More evidence Elizabeth Warren lied about being fired for being pregnant

Turkey launches incursion into northern Syria

Fox terminates Trey Gowdy amid reports he joined Trump’s legal team

Kurds vow to use human shields against Turkish troops  ...

Genocide: China bulldozing Ulghur cemeteries to make them more ‘civilized’ ...

Dropping the Mask

Evelyn Farkas, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under Obama until 2015 (specializing in  Russian affairs), has revealed that she was an impetus behind the dissemination of intelligence intercepts supposedly implicating the Trump campaign in coordinating with Russia before last fall's election. Here is a must read and watch video of Farkas and Democrat Senator Stabenow on the Morning Joe show a while back ... Powerline Blog Entry.

It is not too much of a stretch now to piece together what might be behind all the polemics that are taking place in Washington over the Trump-Russia connection. Let me offer my surmises:

- Probably back in the 1990s the Trump operation was in deep dodo because of being over extended with U.S. banks and desperately needing working capital, Trump turned to Russia and was rewarded with some hefty loans from Russian oligarchs (likely close to Putin).

- Since this reprieve allowed Trump to return to be a successful real estate investor ... along with many other popular ventures, these Russian backers were likely repaid in full with a handsome profit. However, these transactions would likely show up on Trump's tax returns around the turn of the century. This is one reason Trump refused to release his tax returns which would suggest a certain coziness with the Russians ... and possibly other embarrassments.

- When Trump was running for President, he felt that, as bad as Putin and company were, they could be a valuable ally in America's likely hot war with the radical Islamic forces around the world. This was because Russia had been having their share of problems with Muslims in places like Chechnya.

- However, Trump's previous business relationship with the Russian oligarchs presented a political problem for Trump ... a problem that the Democrats were all to happy to exploit ... belatedly. The NSA and likely the FBI were surveilling Trump's campaign people (maybe incidentally while tapping others) and had hard evidence of contacts ... probably mostly innocent. However, Trump was very sensitive to this possible PR snag and took pains to separate himself from anyone who could be so implicated -- Manafort, Flynn, Carter Page and a few others.

- Since the Democrats were confident of a Hillary win, they did not heavily exploit this information before the election ... possibly worried that their own Russian dealings might come to light. However, a Trump win threw them into a panicky smear mode and, with the urging of people like Farkas and Obama's last minute release of these Trump intercepts throughout the intelligence community, it was pretty clear that Trump's job as president would be made far more difficult ... and it has.

- But the real shocker is that much of these intercepts have been unmasked ... or the names of Trump associates and likely Trump himself have not been hidden in the text of these intercepts ... a serious felony ... and one that had to be expected with Obama's general release of these intercepts. The question is ... who did this? Or was it more than one Obama loyalist. In his questioning of FBI Director, James Comey, Representative  Trey Gowdy let it be known whom he suspected among Obama's reports: Brennan of the CIA, Clapper of the NSC, Sally Yates from Justice and/or Ben Rhodes of the White House.

So, is the Trump-Russia connection a "nothingburger" as Ted Cruz and others have implied? Unless some insidious connivings are revealed in these NSA intercepts (already repeatedly denied by Democrats), I am inclined to agree. Except of course for the unmasking of the Trump people in these intercepts ... which should land one or more Obama lackies in jail.

Witch Hunt

The Benghazi Select Committee's 800 page report came out today and revealed that Hellary Clinton was the highest Cabinet officer in a real-time Situation Room meeting debating how to respond to the attack on our Benghazi Consulate and CIA Annex. Even after our Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta had given the order to send a rescue mission, this critical meeting not only kept this order from being carried out, but then spent two hours concocting the political red herring that it was an Internet video that sparked this assault ... not Islamic terrorism. The indecision coming out of this exercise in cover-up caused the rescue squad in Spain to sit on the runway for three hours ... changing their clothing back and forth from uniforms to mufti four times because of the vacillation coming out of this meeting.

Of course, that heartless Democrat currently running for America's presidency claimed that there was nothing new in this report even though she had obviously not read it. "Time to move on," she mewled. If Hellery either gave the stand-down order to Panetta's rescue directive ... or if she acceded to such an order coming from the White House ... she is clearly unfit to serve as our Commander in Chief. And her posse is claiming that Trey Gowdy has just concluded a $7 million witch hunt. Probably true ... but we all now know who the witch was who was instrumental in causing the death of at least two brave Americans.

Representative Gowdy has requested that reporters, politicians and ordinary Americans read this report before they finally form their conclusions on this affair. I kind of doubt that many will, but, if you are a seeker of truth, here it is: Benghazi Report. As a reader of this blog confessed yesterday, he doesn't want to deal with such complexities. I know that this is what our cunning Clinton crone is counting on.

Afterward: To me, the door is not closed on this Benghazi affair unless and until we know who gave the stand-down order to the Marine rescue team ... no way.

Crow

Liberals are crowing (see: AP Story and Washington Post Story for their slant) and conservatives (including myself) are asked to eat crow as a result of the Friday's surprising House of Representatives Intelligence Committee's report on the Benghazi attack on 9/11/12. This report seems to dismiss that there were any intelligence failings leading up to this attack, deny that there were any "stand down" orders during this attack, and partially justify Susan Rice's claims about an Internet video being the motivation for these attacks (when she went on five Sunday talk shows shortly after the attack.)

However, there is obviously some push back from conservative commentators (see: Powerline Story and the more powerful Breitbart Story) who point out many of the issues and contradictions that were not answered in this Friday report. I myself am willing to eat some of that cornfield blackbird depending on a few outstanding questions. 1) Why would conservatives on this committee like Michele Bachmann and Peter King sign on to this report without any exceptions voiced? Are there intelligence issues that would be uncovered if all the facts were to be finally aired? And 2) Will Representative Trey Gowdy's Special Committee investigating Benghazi now fold its tent as a result of this other House committee's findings (see: Western Journalism Story) or will it soldier on?

My knife and fork are poised ...