We are the drain the swamp people

Yahoo’s ‘go-to conservative’

And look, to a certain degree, I think the president has himself to blame, because who has been more critical and less sort of just trusting of the intelligence agencies than Donald Trump over the last three years?” Wallace asked. “So, you know, why shouldn’t we be skeptical too?”

That from Chris (‘Little Mike’) Wallace, the other son Mario Cuomo never had, and Yahoo’s favorite “Conservative” Newsman — for them, the right guy … at the wrong network.

Chris Wallace: Trump Has ‘Himself to Blame’ for Iran ‘Skepticism’  

Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace doesn’t think President Donald Trump or anyone else in his administration should be surprised that Congress and the American people are not taking their claims about an “imminent” threat from Iran at face value.

Speaking to Fox News’ Bret Baier on Friday afternoon, Wallace said, “I think to a certain degree, the administration has itself to blame. Because right away the president and Mike Pompeo, when he was doing all five Sunday shows this last week, was saying ‘imminent, imminent, imminent.’” He said that “understandably” people want to know what “imminent” actually meant in this case.

As the host laid it out, Trump first said Gen. Qassem Soleimani was targeting an American embassy and is now claiming there were plots against four embassies. “I think if they had been a little more forthcoming right from the start, they might not have allowed this skepticism to build.”

“And look, to a certain degree, I think the president has himself to blame, because who has been more critical and less sort of just trusting of the intelligence agencies than Donald Trump over the last three years?” Wallace asked. “So, you know, why shouldn’t we be skeptical too?”

All of that being said, Wallace agreed with Baier that this entire episode has been a “political win” for Trump if the conflict with Iran does not escalate any further. “But we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” he said. “And if they strike again, whether it’s directly or through a proxy and you begin to see tensions ratchet up, then some people are going to say, are we really safer or not?”

Now, granted, we’re not fond of Chris Wallace. If unfamiliar with the names, but knowledgeable of each network’s ‘biases’, a viewer who watched him over the past year would surely think that “Little Mikey” was a CNN anchor.

And, when ‘Mikey’ opines that“understandably” people want to know what “imminent” actually meant in this case (that the threat to US embassies was likely to be fulfilled soon), and they are thus justified in being ‘skeptical’…then, who can blame the viewer to think he landed on the CNN channel and he’s hearing from a substitute host filling in for ‘Fredo’ Cuomo.

And, by the way, Mikey, “are we really safer* or not?” I would ask .”‘safer’…you mean than when Obama was president?”

And my answer would be, “Well, yeah!”          dlh

*Not to be confused with Morley Safer, Mike’s partner at CBS, and neither to be confused with savory

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• Only applies to FBI, but nevertheless should greatly reduce prison load
  
• FISA abuse criminality (lying to court)  —  “Undergo” training program — (watch videos) — get certificate  —  problem solved!

FBI Director Wray “sends his regrets”

FBI Director Christopher Wray told the federal surveillance court in a letter Friday that he “deeply regrets” the bureau’s many errors in the process to obtain surveillance warrants on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

“The FBI has the utmost respect for this Court, and deeply regrets the errors and omissions identified by the OIG,” Wray wrote in a letter to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

The FISA court had ordered Wray to provide a “road map” on how the FBI intended to address the problems the IG had identified in the Bureau’s handling of the Carter Page case. The IG noted 17 such “problems” and included serious violations of FBI rules and protocols in submitting false information to wiretap Page.

While it took Director Wray over a month to respond to the court’s order, our nation has to feel that under his superb direction, all will be well with the FBI going forward, the nation will be much safer, and Wray himself is a ‘law enforcement genius’.

At least that’s our take here at Veritaspac regarding Chris Wray’s response to the Court:
– One “Wrayremedy”… “will be to use the Carter Page FISA abuses as a case study in training sessions that FBI personnel will be required to undergo”.

– Furthermore, Wray said, “FBI personnel will be instructed on the errors and omissions that were made in the Carter Page FISA applications and associated processes…”

– And, guess what else! “The training will include a test “to confirm that personnel understand the expectations and the materials,” as well as certification for FBI employees who have completed the training…”;

They are going to get a “CERTIFICATE”! FBI agents can show family and friends that they have completed a course in which they learned to understand the expectations of and materials provided by the agency they work for!

The nation can be grateful to Director Wray in assuring that from now on, his agents will know their jobs and understand the Bureau’s rules and what is expected of them!
To that we say, “Bravo! Director Wray. It’s about time!”

By the way, the FBI Director apparently did not suggest that anyone will face any punishment or disciplinary action for any of the various violations which resulted in the ruination of reputations, destruction of financial resources of persons wrongly targeted, etc, etc.         dlh

As always readers are urged to read the link provided.

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Justice Dept. Winds Down Clinton-related Inquiry “Found Nothing of Consequence”

“Huber’s tasking was nebulous from the start. Some people involved in the matters he was said to be reviewing expressed surprise that they were not contacted by the U.S. attorney, and wondered privately what he was doing.”

Our Observations:

1) This is John Huber’s investigation! Remember him? Throughout his “inquiry”, ‘Waldo’ was easier to find than “Where’s Huber?”

2) This is a “news flash” from MSN…evaluate the accuracy of its conclusions at your own risk.

3) Guess who named Huber to do this “intensive investigation” into “Uranium One””, the Clinton Foundation, and the FBI investigation of Hillary’s email server… Jeff Sessions! Surely you have some reservations about that!

4) We can only hope that John Durham will have done a serious investigation (we think he has); MSN’s story, we believe, is intended to try to discredit Durham’s eventual conclusions.

dlh

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US and Canadian intel networks are pretty sure it was a missile strike that brought down a Ukrainian airliner killing all 180 souls on board soon after the aircraft departed an Iranian airport.

So what do the usual suspects do – blame the United States.  Now they are not saying the US fired the missile, (although we suspect that was their first inclination) no, they are assuming the airliner was brought down by a missile and that it was fired mistakenly by Iran. But they blame Trump for that for exacerbating tensions between the two countries   causing Iran’s mistake.

yeh right

To make that connection it takes a special kind of stupidity, animus and analness (the latter not in the excessively careful or precise meaning, but rather assholeness).   All of those qualities are exemplified in Jennifer Ruben and the aptly named anal-fixated Pete Buttigieg. Incredibly the former still claims to be a conservative in her Twitter meanderings and Buttigieg is encompassed by journalistic puffery for being a moderate and a military expert (double entendre intended).

https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2020/01/09/seriously-broken-jennifer-rubin-is-officially-making-excuses-for-iran-shooting-down-ukrainian-commercial-flight-and-killing-innocents/

Buttigieg*

“Innocent civilians are now dead because they were caught in the middle of an unnecessary and unwanted military tit for tat. My thoughts are with the families and loved ones of all 176 souls lost aboard this flight.” 

Iran has been engaging in acts of war against the United States for decades.  Most recently it sponsored a foray occupying embassy grounds in Iraq and was plotting to destroy an embassy.  The planner, Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, already listed as a terrorist and responsible for directing the killing of many hundreds of American soldiers and civilians was dispatched with prejudice in recent days under Trump’s direction.

That enraged Democrats including Rubin. In their warped minds what was Iran then to do but to exercise every incompetence and assume an aircraft taking off from one of its own airports on an approved flight was an American attack. Further, that we were to continue to kowtow to these maniacal numbskulls.

Curiously no one is saying based on the missile strike presumption/theory (however fairly certain) that any other missile capable country was responsible. Indeed official Iran is denying that the plane was shot down at all. Further reports are that they have proceeded to bulldoze the crash site.  Those are the people Rubin and Buttigieg have sympathy for.

As adapted from a recent comment section to one of the articles we linked to, the reasoning both use is equivalent to:

Known homicidal burglar breaks into house.
Home owner defends himself.
Burglar runs out, shoots and kills a neighbor while escaping.

Liberal conclusion: An unnecessary loss of life just because the home owner was belligerent

*Buttigieg is no longer mayor of anything so in an effort to be properly gender neutral we wonder is he to be addressed M, Mir, Misc, Mre, Msr, Mx, Myr, or Ser? 

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Here is the story at The Resurgent along with 40 seconds clip and our response:

Joy Behar To Warren: Americans Afraid You’re Going To Tax The Bejesus Out Of Them

DID JOY BEHAR USE THE WORD BEJESUS??!! How dare she! Shocking offensive term especially when used by a non-coreligionist. Raises specter of insult to low-brow Irish and Christians in general. If a prominent Christian conservative had used some tainted term linked to another religion you can imagine the outrage. Substitute “tax the ikeymo out of you”‘ “jew” . . . whatever.

By the way — damn straight she will tax the “bejesus” out of you, and your children forever,  and the horse you rode in on.

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• Usual suspects in the media did a number on a pro-life youth. He responded by suing their pants off
• CEO of Chick-Fil -A further “clarifies” = admits his company Filleted Up
  

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Young Nickolas stood his ground while taking the abuse of a punk adult protestor.  The mainstream media portrayed Nickolas as being the aggressor.  They made no effort to find out the truth as they rushed to portray the March for Life demonstration to be comprised of a bunch of white racist thugs.  Several of the outlets have been sued with CNN now settling.  We hope the rest get adverse judgements.

CNN confirms a settlement has been reached with Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann

CINCINNATI – The CNN has reached a settlement with Nick Sandmann, a northern Kentucky high school student who had sued the news outlet saying it defamed him.

A CNN spokesperson confirmed Tuesday with The Enquirer that a settlement was reached.

The network would not comment on the details of the settlement. Nick’s lawyers did not respond to phone calls or emails at the time of this report.

Sandmann, a student at Covington Catholic High School, became part of a social media firestorm last January when he was filmed with Nathan Phillips at a demonstraction in Washington, D.C.

A video shows Nick and Phillips standing close to each other in a crowd. Nick stares at Phillips as he plays a drum. The situation unfolded after the March for Life on Jan. 18, which Sandmann and his classmates attended. Phillips was attending the Indigenous Peoples March.

Nick Sandmann lawsuit:Judge to allow portion of suit against Washington Post to continue

The Sandmann lawsuit against CNN, seeking $275 million, was filed in March and stated: “CNN brought down the full force of its corporate power, influence, and wealth on Nicholas by falsely attacking, vilifying, and bullying him despite the fact that he was a minor child.”

Sandmann has also sued NBC and the Washington Post. His lawyers have said they also intend to sue Gannett, which owns The Enquirer.

Related reading

CNN Settles in Covington Lawsuit

American Family Association announces response from Chick Fil-A CEO:

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Melancholy article at American Greatness by culture commentator Anthony Esolen.
The Inertial States of America .  He thoughtfully embellishes the theme but this takeaway quote says much:

Nothing unites us now, not religious faith, not cultural memory, not a common understanding of virtue, not the natural goodness of manhood and womanhood, not children, not the elderly, nothing. We do not seek “the naked bedrock of character and capacity,” because they are judgments against us.

We are the Inertial States of America. I wish it were not so.

We hope or pray that in time, there will be a sustainable extensive reformation, one that retains and emphasizes the cultural qualities that made America great.  Trump’s election revealed substantial longing  for that but it was so very close and the opponents those who  denigrate us, him, indeed our nationality are powerful, intense, vested , unscrupulous indeed ruthless. A Trump/Trumpism re-election (an effective conservatism as it turns out) could set us on a course of respect, even restoration of key wholesome values.

But without that reelection everything will be torn down with a vengeance with a mind to methodically root-out, destroy, erase and deny political and cultural avenues that would allow us effective means to fight. They will have learned their lesson.

Trump’s first election indicated more than a vestige of “Americanism” remained but with only one term many achievements become ephemeral.  A sustained reformation will require focus on classical education and more dismantling of the means of big-government control and institutional leftist power.  That means involvement and sacrifice by conservatives.

We think the chances for substantial reformation have grown, from embers in the hearts of citizens, fanned by Trump administration achievements –  promises kept –  a longing for something far deeper than what leftist one-world government activists can offer.  But all remains tenuous. It is conceivable that the inertia can be redirected on itself.  The next election here in the “United” States might determine of that can be.

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First up – via Washington Examiner:   Bold our emphasis

Ricky Gervais tore into critics who went after him for his opening monologue as the host at the Golden Globes awards on Sunday.

“How the f— can teasing huge corporations, and the richest, most privileged people in the world be considered right wing?” Gervais wrote in a Monday night tweet.

How the fuck can teasing huge corporations, and the richest, most privileged people in the world be considered right wing? 😂 #GoldenGlobes pic.twitter.com/rfXdGrZ41j
— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) January 6, 2020

Via Gary Bauer at Campaign for Working Families (bold our emphasis)

Briefings Tomorrow

Congressional leaders are demanding to know more about the intelligence behind the president’s order to take out Iran’s terror chief, Gen. Qassem Soleimani.  They will get that opportunity tomorrow afternoon in a briefing from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and CIA Director Gina Haspel.

Of course, such intelligence should remain secret, but Capitol Hill leaks like a sieve.  I expect leaks will occur, especially if there is anything that can remotely be twisted as being detrimental to the president.

But I am still reeling from those asking why the president didn’t brief congressional leaders like Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff PRIOR to the strike on Soleimani.

Well, Pelosi and Schiff believe the president is a traitor who stole the election with the help of Russia.  Perhaps that is why he might be hesitant to brief them in advance.

Meanwhile, there continues to be a lot of talk in Congress about tying the president’s hands, whether it’s a War Powers resolution ordering the president to cease hostilities against Iran or repealing the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that passed in the wake of 9/11, giving the president broad authority to respond to terrorist threats in the region.

Progressives have shown little interest in any of that until now.  In fact, Barack Obama carried out nearly 3,000 strikes without congressional authorization, at least in the way many liberals are now defining the term.  Tehran must be pleased with the progressive left’s efforts to resist Donald Trump.

The Manipulation of Language

We see all the time how the left manipulates language in order to influence the conclusions people reach during public policy debates.  For example, any debate about abortion in the “mainstream” media is almost always presented as a dispute between “pro-choice” and “anti-choice” activists — not “pro-life” activists.

Unfortunately, we’re seeing the same manipulation being used now in the coverage of Soleimani.  For example, numerous progressives, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Obama National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, have said recently that the president “assassinated” Soleimani.

Sanders even went so far as to compare Soleimani’s death to Vladimir Putin’s assassinations of political dissidents.  So now Soleimani’s a dissident?!

The left knows that the word “assassination” has a generally negative connotation, as well as a specific meaning under international law.  But Soleimani was no innocent.

He was a designated terrorist and a top official of a hostile power who is responsible for hundreds of American deaths.  As Rabbi Shmuley Boteach noted, Soleimani was “an architect of Bashar Assad’s genocidal war against the Syrian people . . . one of the most guilty men on earth.”

Multiple leftist commentators have questioned the legality of the strike against Soleimani, suggesting that it could be a “war crime.” And they are accusing the president of threatening additional “war crimes.”  Nothing President Trump has said or done is a war crime.

There are war crimes being committed all over the earth, usually by communists or Islamic jihadists.  None of that is ever called “war crimes” by the left.  They only use that term to describe actions by conservative presidents to resist our enemies. 

Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxies once directed by Soleimani, position rockets in civilian neighborhoods, near schools and mosques so that if Israel responds to rocket attacks, Israel can be accused of war crimes.  But hiding weapons in civilian areas is a war crime, and it isn’t a war crime to fire back.

The third example is not a word but the misuse of a phrase.  All over social media many are suggesting that the president is getting us into World War III.  If you believe that then you have no idea what World Wars I and II were like. 

This is a dispute with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which wants to destroy Israel and the United States.  That’s not World War III. 
 
But if you want to talk about world wars, let’s not forget that World War II began because a lot of world leaders were unwilling to confront aggression by Nazi Germany.  Their desire to appease led to the most horrible war in the history of mankind.
 
Like Winston Churchill, Donald Trump is standing up to evil.  His left-wing critics, like the appeasers of World War II, want to lie prostrate at the feet of men like Qassem Soleimani, hoping that nothing terrible will happens to us.
 

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• About his military matriculation and deployment
• The stuff SEALs are made of 
• Honorary Trident in the offing “109 times outside the fence”
  
• But first the cringy dance craze Pete’s peeps are in and out of tune with

More seriously: via the Wall Street Journal by Greg Kelly and Katie Horgan: See full article at the Wall Street Journal.

Buttigieg’s War and ‘The Shortest Way Home’     
Arriving in Afghanistan, he thought of John Kerry. It’s a telling comparison, and an unflattering one.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg returns from Afghanistan to South Bend, Ind., Sept. 25, 2014. Photo: Greg Swiercz/Associated Press

When Mayor Pete Buttigieg talks about his military service, his opponents fall silent, the media fall in love, and his political prospects soar. Veterans roll their eyes.

CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Mr. Buttigieg Sunday if President Trump “deserves some credit” for the strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani. “No,” the candidate replied, “not until we know whether this was a good decision and how this decision was made.” He questioned whether “it was the right strategic move” and said his own judgment “is informed by the experience of having been on one of those planes headed into a war zone.”

But Mr. Buttigieg’s stint in the Navy isn’t as impressive as he makes it out to be. His 2019 memoir is called “Shortest Way Home,” an apt description of his military service. He entered the military through a little-used shortcut: direct commission in the reserves. The usual route to an officer’s commission includes four years at Annapolis or another military academy or months of intense training at Officer Candidate School. ROTC programs send prospective officers to far-flung summer training programs and require military drills during the academic year. Mr. Buttigieg skipped all that—no obstacle courses, no weapons training, no evaluation of his ability or willingness to lead. Paperwork, a health exam and a background check were all it took to make him a naval officer.

He writes that his reserve service “will always be one of the highlights of my life, but the price of admission was an ongoing flow of administrativia.” That’s not how it’s supposed to work. The paperwork isn’t the price of admission but the start of a long, grueling test.

Combat veterans have grumbled for decades about the direct-commission route. The politically connected and other luminaries who receive immediate commissions are disparaged as “pomeranian princes.” Former Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus became a Naval Reserve officer in 2018 at age 46. Hunter Biden, son of the former vice president, accepted a direct commission but was discharged after one month of service for failing a drug test.

Mr. Buttigieg was assigned to a comfortable corner of military life, the Naval Station in Great Lakes, Ill. Paperwork and light exercise were the order of the day. “Working eight-hour days,” he writes, was “a relaxing contrast from my day job, and spending time with sailors from all walks of civilian life, was a healthy antidote to the all absorbing work I had in South Bend.” He calls it “a forced, but welcome, change of pace from the constant activity of being mayor.”

During a November debate, Mr. Buttigieg proclaimed: “I have the experience of being commanded into a war zone by an American president.” The reality isn’t so grandiose. In 2013, he writes, he “made sure my chain of command knew that I would rather go sooner than later, and would rather go to Afghanistan than anywhere else.”

Arriving there, he “felt a sense of purpose, maybe even idealism, that can only be compared to the feeling of starting on a political campaign. I thought back to 2004 and John Kerry’s presidential run, and then remembered that it was during the campaign that I saw the iconic footage of his testimony as the spokesman for Vietnam Veterans against the War.”

The comparison is telling. Mr. Buttigieg has just started his time in a war he says he’s idealistic about, but he daydreams about John Kerry protesting Vietnam after he got back. Many veterans detest Mr. Kerry’s “iconic” 1971 testimony, in which he slandered American servicemen. But it did launch a decadeslong political career.

Mr. Buttigieg spent some five months in Afghanistan, where he writes that he remained less busy than he’d been at City Hall, with “more time for reflection and reading than I was used to back home.” He writes that he would take “a laptop and a cigar up to the roof at midnight to pick up a Wi-Fi signal and patch via Skype into a staff meeting at home.” The closest he came to combat was ferrying other staffers around in an SUV: In his campaign kickoff speech last April he referred to “119 trips I took outside the wire, driving or guarding a vehicle.” That’s a strange thing to count. Combat sorties in an F-18 are carefully logged. Driving a car isn’t.

After the welcome-home rally, glowing press, a few more years of light service, the mayor left the reserves. But his bragging rights were assured. Candidate Buttigieg takes every opportunity to lean in on those months in Afghanistan. Questions ranging from student debt to Colin Kaepernick to gun control prompt him to reference his military stint, sometimes indignantly.

“I don’t need lessons from you on courage,” he lectured former Rep. Beto O’Rourke in an October debate, “political or personal.” Two months later he told Sen. Amy Klobuchar, “Let me tell you about my relationship to the First Amendment. It is part of the Constitution that I raised my right hand and swore to defend with my life. That is my experience, and it may not be the same as yours, but it counts, Senator, it counts.”

Debate moderators and other journalists—hardly a veteran among them—eagerly sell Mr. Buttigieg’s narrative. Debate moderators often point out that he served in Afghanistan and, if Tulsi Gabbard isn’t there, is the only veteran on the stage. When Ms. Gabbard is present, the moderators seldom mention her military experience, which dwarfs Mr. Buttigieg’s.

In our experience, those who did the most in war talk it about it the least. Serving in a support or noncombat role is honorable, but it shouldn’t be the basis of a presidential campaign.

Mr. Kelly, a host at Newsmax TV, served as a jet pilot for the Marine Corps. He was on active duty, 1991-2000 and in the reserves, 2000-11. Ms. Horgan runs a New York logistics consulting practice. She served as an active duty Marine officer, 2006-12 and was deployed in Iraq for 13 months.

We delved a little more into Buttigieg’s deployment and find that his deployment involved assignment to a chaplain function in Kabul  (check out the video that somehow makes for the hagiography about his military experience).  His armed service activity “outside the wire” was delivering gift packages to areas of the city.  Apparently a requirement was to have people along who had qualified with a rifle in some way (note Buttigieg never actually went through basic training) and what else was the Navy going to do with him?  This was not Trident wearing SEAL stuff.   A civilian aid worker was in more danger on a daily basis.

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