Images | Commentary | Digital Scrapbook
S. L. A. MARSHALL:
Liel Leibovitz:
“…To put it briefly, the Never Trump argument is that they should be greatly approved of, while Donald Trump should rightly be scorned, because—while they agree with Trump on most things, politically—they are devoted to virtue, while Trump is uniquely despicable. The proofs of Trump’s singular loathsomeness are many, but if you strip him of all the vices he shares with others who had recently held positions of power—a deeply problematic attitude towards women (see under: Clinton, William Jefferson), shady business dealings (see under: Clinton, Hillary Rodham), a problematic attitude towards the free press (see under: Obama, Barack)—you remain with one ur-narrative, the terrifying folk tale that casts Trump as a nefarious troll dispatched by his paymasters in the Kremlin to set American democracy ablaze.
Now that this story has been thoroughly investigated and discredited, it seems fair to ask: Is championing a loony and deeply corrosive conspiracy theory proof of anyone’s superior virtue? The fact that these accusations were false implies that the Never Trumpers who made them early and often were among the political pyromaniacs, and are therefore deserving of the very obloquy that they heaped on Trump. And what about people like Carter Page, a blameless ex-Navy officer who was defamed as an agent of a shadowy, ever-expanding conspiracy headquartered in Moscow?
Conspiracy-mongering doesn’t seem like much of a public virtue. Certainly, the Never Trumpers should have known better than to join in the massive publicity campaign around a “dossier” supposedly compiled by a former British intelligence officer rehashing third-hand hearsay and paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. You can still find many faults with Donald Trump’s behavior in and out of office, including some cardinal enough perhaps to merit impeachment, without buying in to some moronic ghost story about an orange-hued traitor who seized the highest office in the land with the help of Vladimir Putin’s social media goons. All that should go without saying, especially for people who ostensibly devote their lives to elevating and enriching the tone of our public discourse…”
and
“…French and the other self-appointed guardians of civility, then, should do us all a favor and drop the civic virtue act. They’re not disinterested guardians of our public institutions; they are actors, working in an industry that rewards them for dressing up in Roman Republican drag and reciting Cicero for the yokels. This is why Bill Kristol, another of the Never Trumpers, could raise money for his vanity website, The Bulwark, and why he could expect his new creation be lauded on CNN as “a conservative site unafraid to take on Trump,” even as the site was staffed by leftist millennials and dutifully followed progressive propaganda lines. Like anyone whose living depends on keeping on the right side of a leftist industry, they understood that there’s only so much you can say if you care about cashing a paycheck—especially when the president and leader of your own party won’t take your phone calls.
The Never Trumpers, of course, aren’t the first Americans to hide cold careerism behind a wall of virtue-signaling. It’s why so many in the professional punditry went the way of Never Trump: More than anything else, the decision to align oneself with a movement that, ontologically, vows to reject the president a priori, no matter what he might say or do, regardless of your own supposed political beliefs, is a way of affirming one’s professional class loyalties, thus ensuring that your progeny will still be accepted and acceptable at Yale…”
Kurt Schlichter:
“…California has morphed from paradise into a garbage state run by garbage people for their own garbage benefit and amusement. The “garbage” part is literal – once the Sierra Nevada mountains symbolized the state; now, towering heaps of trash and human waste do. Welcome to what the Democrats want for all of America. Just watch your step. Literally.
If it were not for the climate, something the liberals in charge of my state have nothing to do with as much as they think they do, it would likely be a nearly empty desert once again. But the sun shines, the beach beckons and the palm trees sway over a population of morons who keep electing proggy fascists to run the place. Which they are doing, right into the ground…”
and
“…And hate them Sacramento does, targeting Normals with petty and not so petty attacks, from bans on straws and gun grabs to the threat of lifting the Proposition 13 caps on property taxes that keep millions of retirees from being tossed out of their homes when their annual bills go up 4000%. What would that mean? Well, when that modest ranch style you bought for $100,000 in 1985 gets reassessed to its current $1,000,000 value (something Prop 13 prevents), and the 1% Prop 13 tax rate goes to 3% or 4%, your tax bill goes from $1,000 a year to $30,000-$40,000. Remember that retirement you worked for? Well, now it will all go to subsidize the deadbeat government workers and welfare cheats that the California Democrats really represent. “No, that’s crazy talk! That would never happen!”
Yeah? Just watch…”
JONATHAN TURLEY:
“…With a crucial defeat in federal court this week, one would expect the House Democrats to be embarrassed at losing long protected precedent supporting legislative authority. Instead, as a federal judge in Washington was rejecting their challenge to the executive order by President Trump to build a wall along the southern border, House leaders have nonetheless moved ahead with an assortment of other inadvisable gambles.
The first step for compulsive gamblers is to admit they have a problem. Democrats have a serious and growing problem. The court defeat was particularly stinging to those of us who have tried repeatedly to persuade House Democrats to recognize that they are destroying themselves with reckless litigation. I have spent decades writing, testifying, and litigating in support of congressional authority. A typical Madisonian scholar, I favor the legislative branch in court battles with the executive branch. We have seen the steady erosion of legislative power over the years, and many of us have indeed tried to steer Congress away from reckless litigation…”
Roosevelt was the only general on D-Day to land by sea with the first wave of troops. At 56, he was the oldest man in the invasion, and the only one whose son also landed that day; Captain Quentin Roosevelt II was among the first wave of soldiers at Omaha Beach.
Brigadier General Roosevelt was one of the first soldiers, along with Captain Leonard T. Schroeder Jr., off his landing craft as he led the 8th Infantry Regiment and 70th Tank Battalion landing at Utah Beach.
Throughout World War II, Roosevelt suffered from health problems. He had arthritis, mostly from old World War I injuries, and walked with a cane. He also had heart trouble, which he kept secret from army doctors and his superiors.
On July 12, 1944, a little over one month after the landing at Utah Beach, Roosevelt died of a heart attack in Méautis, 22 km from Sainte-Mère-Église in Normandy. He was living at the time in a converted sleeping truck, captured a few days before from the Germans. He had spent part of the day in a long conversation with his son, Captain Quentin Roosevelt II, who had also landed at Normandy on D-Day. He was stricken at about 10:00 PM, attended by medical help, and died at about midnight. He was fifty-six years old. On the day of his death, he had been selected by Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, now commanding the U.S. First Army, for promotion to the two-star rank of major general and command of the 90th Infantry Division. These recommendations were sent to General Eisenhower, now the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, for approval. When Eisenhower called the next morning to approve them, he was told that Roosevelt had died during the night.
Approaching Omaha Beach June 6, 1944.
Seated Roosevelt and Churchill. Standing front row left to right: General Arnold, Admiral King, General Marshall, Admiral Pound, Air Chief Marshall Portal, General Brooke, Field Marshall Dill, Admiral Mountbatten.
Casablanca Conference, (January 12–23, 1943), meeting during World War II in Casablanca, Morocco, between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and their respective military chiefs and aides, who planned future global military strategy for the western Allies. Though invited, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin declined to attend.
The work of the conference was primarily military—deciding on the invasion of Sicily (after completion of the North African campaign) rather than an immediate invasion of western Europe, apportioning forces for the Pacific theatre and outlining major lines of attack in the Far East, and agreeing on the concentrated bombing of Germany. Roosevelt and Churchill also found time to discuss nuclear bomb research, to consider competing claims between Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle for the leadership of the French war effort against the Axis powers, and, most important of all, to demand an “unconditional surrender” from Germany, Italy, and Japan.
Philip Hamburger:
“…A 2014 analysis by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting found that from 1987 to 2012, the higher-education sector added more than half a million administrators. Their numbers have doubled relative to academic faculty. Financed in large part with federally subsidized tuition, this rise of administrators siphons money from the core functions of academic institutions. Colleges and universities have shifted teaching duties from full-time professors to part-time nontenured adjuncts who earn paltry wages.
Congress can combat this transformation of the university by reforming student-loan programs. The U.S. government offers student loans without regard to the ratio of administrators to full-time tenured faculty at the school receiving the funds. Congressional largess to students has thus changed the nature of the higher-education system. It has enabled colleges and universities to expand and entrench a class of employees whose interests often conflict with a serious education.
Administrators serve many valuable functions. They can help students and save time for faculty. But their growth in numbers has coincided with some disturbing trends. Governance of academic institutions traditionally rested with the faculty, especially full-time tenured faculty. But the relative decline of faculty has shifted the balance of power toward administrators, who increasingly control academic policy.
It’s no accident that as they have hired more administrators, these institutions have veered toward indoctrination and censorious intrusions into speech, opinion and personal life. These heavy-handed policies are often incompatible with traditional educational ideals, such as academic freedom, freedom of speech, open-mindedness and dispassionate judgment. To be sure, many faculty support such policies, but the most consistent pressure for them typically comes from the administrative bureaucracy. Congress should recognize that its funding helped create this threat to education.
When authorizing student loans, Congress should take into account the ratio of administrators to full-time tenured faculty. …
One might still protest that Congress should not be in the business of reshaping education. But that is precisely what Congress has been doing for decades. Its loans have facilitated the growth of the education-administrative complex and thereby undermined academic governance and values. Congress should reform its lending to stop subsidizing the rise of administrators at the cost of education…”
Liz Sheld:
“…Once this clown car passes a contempt vote they will be cleared to take legal action in subpoena battle, “sources” told Politico. Both McGahn are Barr are being tormented with nuisance subpoenas because the White House has claimed it is exercising executive privilege and refusing to let them testify. In McGahn’s case, he was White House counsel. In Barr’s case, he is prevented from turning over the unredacted portions of the Mueller report because the law prevents him from doing so. The House can certainly take this issue to court and have the court decided if the public interest is worth violating the promised anonymity of grand jury testimony, but they aren’t doing this. Why? Well, because the court will probably not side with congress and this isn’t about getting the redacted version of the report, it’s part of the congressional street theater operation. Trump has also covered the report under executive privilege, another reason Barr isn’t turning over the report without the redactions (less than 10%.) Oh one more thing, the entire report sans grand jury is available for congressfolk to view, but they aren’t taking the opportunity to do so. There’s no good faith here, it’s impossible to think that the congressional jokers are interested in anything other than a public, media-assisted, bitch fight…”
Anything, Anywhere, Anytime bar Nothing. At 56 Col. Paddy Flint was too old for a front-line infantry command. Flint joined the 39th Infantry Regiment in Sicily, and developed the 39th into an exemplary combat formation.
During the Normandy invasion, while advancing on the Saint-Lô-Périers road, Paddy’s outfit was held up by heavy mortar fire. Leading from his customary place on the front, the Colonel and a rifle patrol soon found the trouble. Colonel Flint reported by radio over the walkie-talkie: “Have spotted pillbox. Will start them cooking.”
He called for a tank, and rode atop it in a rain of fire as it sprayed the hedgerows. During the attack, the tank driver was wounded, stopping it, whereupon Paddy crawled down, and went forward on foot with his men. As he led the patrol into the shelter of a farmhouse he was hit by a sniper’s bullet. Aid men soon came up, loaded the Colonel on a stretcher, and as they started for the rear, one of men told him: “Remember, Paddy, you can’t kill an Irishman—you can only make him mad.” Colonel Flint smiled. On the next day, 24 July 1944, he died of his wounds.
Colonel Flint is buried at Section 2, Site 310 at the Arlington National Cemetery.
LAUREN FRUEN:
JED BABBIN:
“…Crossfire Hurricane” — the melodramatic code name for the FBI/CIA spy operation on candidate Trump and his early presidency — was run for the FBI by then-FBI Director James Comey, his deputy Andrew McCabe, Special Agent Peter Strzok, and a few others.
Then-CIA director John Brennan ran it for the CIA. Brennan had to have help, but who was it? A lot of evidence points to the CIA’s then-chief of station in London in 2016-2017, and now the Director of Central Intelligence, Gina Haspel.
President Trump claimed that the FBI and CIA’s spying on his campaign and early presidency was treason. Attorney General William Barr said that, legally, it wasn’t.
Barr is correct. But note well that he didn’t say that crimes other than treason weren’t committed. On Friday, Barr said that since he became attorney general he had been asking why the counter-intelligence investigation was begun and hasn’t yet gotten a satisfactory answer.
The criminal investigation being conducted for Barr by U.S. Attorney John Durham is aimed at the intelligence community. As I wrote last week Trump’s recent executive order, which requires the intelligence agencies to cooperate with Barr and gives Barr the power to declassify anything he chooses, was probably necessitated by the stonewalling by the CIA and the NSA that Durham had already encountered.
There is every reason for the CIA to stonewall. Its current director, Gina Haspel, must have played a major role in conducting the CIA/FBI spy op on Trump.
One result of last week’s column was that one of my intelligence sources — a longtime veteran of the U.S. intelligence community — reappeared after about a year of silence. This person reminded me that he/she tried — unsuccessfully — to warn the White House against Haspel’s nomination to be DCI because of her longstanding close ties to Obama’s CIA chief, John Brennan.
Many people who objected to Haspel’s confirmation, including Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), based their objections on the fact that Haspel had run a CIA site in Thailand in which terrorist suspects were reportedly waterboarded. The waterboarding charge was sufficient to get the Senate — and apparently the White House — to overlook the real problem with her: the fact that, as Paul once implied in a tweet, Haspel is Brennan’s acolyte and protégé.
Brennan was — and still is — a hyper-partisan anti-Trumper. He was a relentless promoter of the Steele dossier allegations against Trump. Either he or James Comey (the two are disputing which) insisted on including information from the Steele dossier in the Intelligence Community Assessment of January 2017, which said that the intelligence community had agreed that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Trump. We know that Brennan has lied to Congress on a host of topics, including events surrounding the spy op on Trump’s campaign and presidency.
Haspel’s longstanding loyalty to Brennan ranks her among the two or three worst personnel choices made by President Trump.
Her loyalty to Brennan is more than a little relevant to Durham’s investigation because, as noted above, Haspel was the CIA’s Chief of Station (COS) in London from 2014-2017. It was during the latter two years of her tenure there when all of the FBI/CIA spying operation on Trump and his campaign occurred.
I’m told that the most-coveted job in all of the CIA (second only to the directorship) is the COS-London job. Before her tenure there in 2014-2017, Haspel had already had that job from 2008 to 2011. It’s very unusual for anyone to have it twice. Brennan probably gave Haspel her second stint there as a reward for her loyalty.
COS-London sits in on weekly meetings of the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) for the purpose of exchanging top-secret intelligence information. The JIC is made up of the heads of all the UK intelligence agencies ranging from MI6 to GCHQ, the UK’s equivalent of our National Security Agency.
During her 2008-2011 stint, Haspel would have made many close friends among the UK intelligence community. Those ties would have been renewed during her 2014-2017 time in the COS-London job.
During Haspel’s later time as COS-London, much of the action on CIA/FBI spy op on Trump took place in London.
The New York Times reported on May 16, 2018 that within hours of opening the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into Trump’s supposed collusion with Russia, two FBI agents were dispatched to London to interview Australian Ambassador Alexander Downer about his meeting with Trump advisor George Papadopoulos. One of those agents was Peter Strzok, the anti-Trump FBI agent who led the “Crossfire Hurricane” team.
As the CIA’s chief of station (COS), Haspel would not only have known about Strzok’s mission to London, but would had to have been briefed on it and approved it.
And that’s not the half of it. Haspel, as Brennan’s COS in London, must have run the UK end of the spy op on Trump for Brennan.
In addition to the Downer meeting, much of the Crossfire Hurricane action took place in London. Among the UK meetings that were part of the spy op in London were meetings between Stefan Halper, the Cambridge professor, and Carter Page, another minor Trump advisor. (Page also met with one of Halper’s employees who was operating undercover for the FBI.) Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese academic, also met with Carter Page in London and cooperated with the FBI’s investigation.
All of these meetings were parts of the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation. They had to have been overseen by the CIA’s London Chief of Station: Gina Haspel.
We don’t know — yet — what went on between Brennan, Haspel, or any of their agents and Christopher Steele, author of the dossier that was later seized upon as the basis for their “investigation.” Durham will have to investigate all of the London events and every aspect of Haspel’s and Brennan’s involvement.
Remember Hillary’s “Clintonmail.com” email system on which she communicated with Obama himself? Did Haspel, Brennan, and Comey — like many Obama officials — have non-government email accounts through which they communicated among themselves and with the Obama White House?
Durham will face the most determined stonewalling by the CIA on all of this. Both Haspel and Brennan have a lot to lose, so she will be fighting tooth and nail against any of Durham’s requests for documents and testimony. Durham, and Barr, will have to force the issue.
There are too many other inquiries Durham will have to make to recount here. But it’s worthwhile to mention two others.
The “original EC” is the much-discussed and never revealed electronic communication that Brennan sent to Comey that supposedly kicked off the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation. We don’t know the date, but the investigation — we are told by the FBI — began on or about July 31, 2016. The original EC must have been dated days or weeks before that date.
House investigators Reps. Devin Nunes and Trey Gowdy were allowed to view a heavily redacted version of the original EC only after threatening to begin impeachment proceedings against FBI Director Christopher Wray and then-deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. It is still classified and unavailable to Congress and the public. Durham will be able to get it in unredacted form and Barr, if he so chooses, can release it publicly. He should.
We don’t know what, if any, of Christopher Steele’s input is contained in the original EC. It’s important to find out because Steele’s dossier begins with a memorandum dated 20 September 2016, two months after the likely date of the original EC.
That’s important because — despite the date of his first memo in the dossier — we don’t know when Steele began to spread his rumors about Trump to the FBI or CIA. It is entirely possible — even likely — that Steele (a trusted FBI source at the time) successfully peddled his unverified, anonymously sourced products to the FBI and CIA long before September 2016.
Barr and Durham have an enormous — and enormously important — task before them. They should not hesitate to go to the president whenever they are stonewalled by the CIA or FBI. His executive order is just the beginning of his necessary involvement in their investigation.
The faster Barr and Durham can complete their investigation, the sooner the public will learn about the abuses of power that occurred in the FBI/CIA spy op on Trump, his campaign, and his early presidency…”
Amanda Garrett:
“…Some have downplayed or even laughed off the seriousness of female educators having sex with teenage students, playing into the trope of hormone-driven boys lusting after the women at the front of the class.
But many prosecutors and people who work with the abused say female teachers having sex with male students are doing just as much harm as their male counterparts who prey on girls…”
and
“…In Stark County, Eichler pleaded guilty last year to three felony counts of sexual battery.
Prosecutors asked a judge to sentence her to four years in prison, but the judge thought Eichler — who surrendered her teaching license and will forever have to register with authorities as a sex offender — had largely suffered enough.
He sentenced her to 30 days in jail and another 30 days in what Stark County calls “half-jail,” a sort of day detention room for adults…”
Why are Democrat-run cities such hellholes of infectious disease and humanitarian catastrophe?!!
And don’t even get me going about San Francisco, where the current California Governor Gavin Newsome left behind a legacy of human feces, heroin junkies shooting up on the sidewalks, and progressive NIMBY losers turning away with indifference.
California really is a lost cause.
At the New American, ““Sky High” Piles of Trash Making Downtown Los Angeles Unlivable.”
And the Los Angeles Times, “Rats and other vermin infest LAPD downtown station, sparking anger among officers.”
