With judge's ruling, Obama gets his lakefront Temple of Love

John Kass
https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/john-kass/ct-met-obama-presidential-library-chicago-kass-20190611-story.html
June 12, 2019

Barack Obama points out features of his proposed presidential center in Chicago, May 3, 2017.(Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Now that a federal judge has decreed that Chicago’s great temple to Barack Obama can be built without delay — you can almost hear Obama himself say the words, “Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!” — there remains a nagging question:

Did Obama truly help Chicago, the city of his political birth, by taking care of the Daleys and installing Rahm Emanuel as mayor?

Or did Obama turn his back on Chicago once he became president, worrying more about his March Madness brackets than the constant slaughter by the street gangs that continues to this day?

It’s probably best that we leave that to the historians.

Let’s hope they fight it out, perhaps even to the death on the roof of the gigantic Obama Temple of Love and Fealty.

Best they fight before a giant stone carved head of Obama, the head gliding on a series of cunningly placed ball bearings, so that it might swivel this way and that to fix its glowing green eyes upon evil.

Chicago is beset by unending violence, unending political corruption and unyielding public workers pension debt, and lags far behind other cities in economic development for poor neighborhoods.

But at least Chicago will have the $500 million Obama Temple. Politicians can hold fundraisers there. Chicago will be the envy of the world.

I can’t wait till they name some of the meeting and entertainment areas. My preferences? The Kim Foxx Recusal Room, the Fast and Furious Ante Room, and the Jussie Smollett Lounge of Justice.

All that may or may not happen — probably not. But it might, you just never know.

What we do know for certain is that U.S. District Court Judge John Blakey on Tuesday tossed out a federal lawsuit filed by a group called Protect Our Parks that would have stopped construction of the Obama center.

Judge Blakey, who had the good fortune to have been made a federal judge by President Obama, said there “should be no delay” in construction, adding with a flourish, “this case is dismissed.”

The protect the parks group said it would appeal.

Who does Protect Our Parks think they are, anyway?

Federal judge tosses suit seeking to stop Obama center in Jackson Park, compares project to Soldier Field »

They had the audacity to believe that Chicago officials really meant it back in 1836 when they designated the lakefront as “Public Ground — A Common to Remain Forever Open, Clear and Free of any Buildings, or other Obstruction Whatever.”

The “Forever Open, Clear and Free” line was used to stop the Lucas (aka Star Wars) Museum, which could have been nice if our politicians dressed up in furry Ewok costumes and re-enacted thrilling action scenes from the space opera.

And “Forever Open, Clear and Free” was also used to stop a lakefront park land grab by the politically influential Chicago’s Children’s Museum, whose top cheerleader was the then-Mayor Richard M. Daley.

But “Forever Open, Clear and Free” had no chance against the Obama Temple of Love and Fealty, because, well, it’s Barack Obama, and he has superpowers.

“I would like to see us get to a point where we can get this resolved,” said Mayor Lori Lightfoot. “It’s a great honor for our city that the Obamas have chosen Chicago for their presidential center, but I also understand the concerns of people in the neighborhood in particular who are worried about what this huge megadevelopment is going to mean for their lives.”

Technically the huge building on the lakefront is being called the Obama Presidential Center, not the Obama Presidential Library, since a presidential library holds presidential papers for historians, and that’s not what’s planned in Chicago. They probably think we can’t read.

If it’s going to be just a pretentious temple of secular worship, couldn’t they at least call it a Presidential Centre?

But Chicago will at least get a place to quietly contemplate the awesomeness of Obama, while the city goes broke, and it’ll only cost about $500 million, with another $200 million or so from taxpayers for street construction. Maybe more. Who knows?

I heard a rumor that the Pritzkers, who are pushing this thing, have a few bucks, maybe more than a few?

If they want an Obama Temple, why don’t they buy the land and build it in, say, South Chicago, where Obama was once a community organizer?

They could plop down this political love temple at 87^th and Commercial rather than building it in a once inviolate lakefront park. Come on, rich Pritzkers, where do you think you are, ancient Rome?

Just a few years or so ago, most people agreed that the lakefront should be left alone. Other cities defiled their lakefronts, but Chicago didn’t.

But Obama wants his temple of love, fealty and adoration.

And what Obama wants, Obama gets, no matter who pays.

Listen to "The Chicago Way" podcast with John Kass and Jeff Carlin — atwww.wgnradio.com/category/wgn-plus/thechicagoway.

jskass@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @John_Kass

Hey Joe Biden, Here Are Some Scandals You Forgot

A historical refresher

By David Harsanyi

https://thefederalist.com/2019/06/12/hey-joe-biden-here-are-some-scandals-you-forgot-about/

June 12, 2019

(Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

“Know what I was most proud of?” presidential candidate Joe Biden told a crowd on Wednesday. “For eight years, there wasn’t one single hint of a scandal or a lie.”

In an era where every presidential tweet is an existential threat to democracy, there are probably plenty of people who believe this myth. Off the bat, though, it should be mentioned that even liberal factchecking outfit PolitiFact once awarded Barack Obama the “Lie of the Year” for misleading the American people about his technocratic health-care plan.

Our former vice president, no slouch about misleading the public on the ACA, probably forgot.

Obama’s most famous lie, of course, upturned millions of lives. Without it, it’s doubtful Obamacare—which was perhaps the only wholly partisan national reform effort in American history—would ever have passed. Even with a stream of falsehoods, the bill had to be shoe-horned through Congress. Media did a lot of heavy lifting for the administration in those heady days.

“If you like your health care plan, you can keep it” was only one of an array of demonstrably false statements fed to the public to give (now-extinct) moderate Democrats cover. You might remember one of Obamacare’s architects, Jonathan Gruber, explaining how this “lack of transparency” compounded by “the stupidity of the American voter” was a huge political advantage for the administration. Or maybe you don’t.

How many Americans knew, for instance, that “Operation Fast and Furious” put around 2,000 weapons into the hands of narco-traffickers (and an Islamic terrorist), leading to the murder of hundreds of Mexican citizens, and at least one American, a border agent named Brian Terry? Not enough.

There must have been at least a sniff of scandal, by the way, because even after a federal judge rejected Obama’s assertion of executive privilege in efforts to deny Congress files relating to the operation, the administration wouldn’t budge. Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, refused to cooperate in the investigation, becoming the first sitting attorney general in American history to be held in contempt of Congress — a vote that included 17 Democrats.

That’s odd, because today asserting executive privilege is exactly like Watergate. And ignoring courts? Well, Obama did that all the time.

Then again, Obama could secretly send planes filled with cash to pay ransom to an Islamist terror state responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American servicemen(using money that had been earmarked for terror victims), and most reporters would still regurgitate echo-chamber talking points. You remember Ben Rhodes bragging about how the Obama administration could trick 27-years-olds whose “only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns” because they “literally know nothing?”

Politico’s Josh Meyer, who did know something, would write a deeply sourced piece—featuring numerous real-life, on-the-record administration officials— about the Obama administration’s efforts to undermine investigations into a drug-trafficking ring run by Hezbollah operating in the United States, and most major news organizations never even mentioned it.

Today, President Trump’s Twitter attacks on CNN reporters are threats to the future of free expression. Back in 2012, the Obama’s Department of Justice spied on the Associated Press, tapping around 20 different phone lines—including cell phone and home lines—that captured at least 100 staffers who worked for the outlet. The government kept records of all outgoing calls “for both the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters” and the main line used by reporters in the House of Representatives.

The Justice Department had already spied on Fox News reporter James Rosen in 2010, collecting his telephone records, looking at his personal emails, and tracking his movements. Holder, by the way, shopped the case to three separate judges, until he found one who let him name Rosen a co-conspirator in the crime of reporting the news. If only this episode had gotten a fraction of the breathless coverage of a William Barr letter.

There is, of course, so much more. Obama’s CIA director, John Brennan, oversaw an operation of illegal spying on a staffer of the legislative branch of the U.S. government. At least five agency officials under his watch broke into Senate computer files, viewing drafts of a report on torture and reconstructing emails of at least one staffer. Brennan would attempt to cover up the agency’s actions by doubling down, blaming the Senate, and pushing to fire at least one staffer charged with investigating his agency.

Then there is Obama’s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, who brazenly lied to Congress about spying on American citizens.

Biden might not remember that Internal Revenue Service leadership aggressively targeted conservative groups to undermine their voice in elections. The IRS admitted as much in an apology letter. Then there was Obama national security advisor Susan Rice, who went on national television and claimed that terrorist attacks against Americans at Benghazi were a “spontaneous reaction” to “hateful and offensive video,” even when she knew it was a sophisticated and pre-planned terror attack. Defenders of free expression were nowhere to be found as the maker of the video was conveniently thrown into jail.

There were cronyistic green projects that enriched political allies. There was the Secret Service’s many embarrassing breaches and general debauchery. There was Hillary Clinton’s infamous attempts to circumvent transparency — more than likely to cover up favor-trading. Even more seriously, there was Veterans Affairs negligence.

Then again, perhaps Biden feels “most proud” of his mythical eight years of non-scandals because it’s about the only thing in his political past he isn’t going to be forced to abandon.

David Harsanyi is a Senior Editor at The Federalist. He is the author of First Freedom: A Ride Through America's Enduring History with the Gun, From the Revolution to Today.Follow him on Twitter.

Watergate by Any Other Name

BY ROGER KIMBALL

https://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/watergate-by-any-other-name/

January 14, 2019

FBI Director James Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan at a House hearing in February, 2016.

JOE GROMELSKI/STARS AND STRIPES

Familiarity, it is said, breeds contempt. It also breeds indifference. For almost three years now, the intelligence services and police apparatus of the deep state have worked tirelessly to undermine Donald Trump. Beginning sometime in the late winter of 2016, when Trump’s presidential campaign was showing unexpected signs of strength, John Brennan—the Communist-voting apparatchik turned media mouthpiece whom it pleased Barack Obama to appoint as director of the CIA—began ringing alarm bells about Trump’s possible relations with the Kremlin. His concern was based on two things. One was a report, spurious as it turned out, about “contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians.” The other was that brittle sense of entitlement, fired by paranoia, that membership in the higher echelons of the deep state’s nomenklatura breeds.

Brennan convened a “working group” at CIA headquarters that included Peter Strzok, the disgraced FBI agent who was head of counter-intelligence, and James Clapper, then director of national intelligence (now, like Brennan, another mouthpiece for the left-wing media), in order to stymie Trump’s campaign. It was Brennan, too, who first alerted James Comey, the disgraced former director of the F.B.I., to the fantasy of possible “collusion” between the Trump Campaign and “the Russians.”

Then came the infamous “Steele Dossier,” the agglomeration of malicious gossip about Trump that was surreptitiously commissioned by and paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. This fantastical piece of “opposition research” was essentially the sole warrant for opening secret FISA investigations against Carter Page, a low-level Trump campaign advisor, and others.

All this provided sensational pabulum for the anti-Trump press, who spent countless hours peeling back the complex, hypertrophied onion that the CIA, the FBI, and various figures within the Obama administration had built up to destroy the candidacy of Donald Trump without quite seeming to target Trump himself.

Mirabile ditctu, it didn’t work. Still, it was impossible that Trump could actually win the election. Nancy Pelosi told us that we could “take it to the bank” that Donald Trump was not going to be president. Many other politicians and talking heads made fools of themselves emitting similar pseudo-certainties right up to the afternoon and early evening of election day.

But win he did, and that changed everything. Now it was not a candidate who had to be stopped but a duly elected president of the United States who had to be kept from knowing exactly what lengths the government—soon to be his government—had gone to destroy him. From November 9, 2016, to January 20, 2017, the reins of government were still in the hands of Barack Obama. The apparatus to stop Trump the candidate was already in place. Now it would be deployed against Trump the president-elect and, later, Trump the president.

Over the last few days, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other anti-Trump outlets have revealed, and reveled in, something that many observers suspected for a long time. That the investigation into various figures associated with the Trump campaign—not only Carter Page, but also George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, and Michael Cohen—was just a pretext. The main target all along was Trump himself. As Andy McCarthy observed, “following the firing of FBI director James Comey on May 9, 2017, the bureau formally opened an investigation of President Trump.”

The Times breathlessly frames its story as the revelation that Trump might have been “secretly working on behalf of Russia.” Right on cue, the anti-Trump fraternity went into full-swivet mode. Probably the most comical contribution to this almanack of rhetorical incontinence was written by Max Boot, who offered “18 Reasons Why Trump Could Be a Russian Asset.” Reason number one: that Trump, the head of a multi-billion dollar real-estate development company with interests all over the world, had business dealings with Russia. Excellent, Max!

In fact, though, what the Times story revealed was simply that, pace repeated assurances by James Comey, Trump was the target of the investigation from the beginning. As McCarthy notes, “the only thing the story shows is that the FBI, after over a year of investigation, simply went overt about something that had been true from the first. The investigation commenced during the 2016 campaign by the Obama administration—the Justice Department and the FBI—was always about Donald Trump.” Moreover,

The FBI and DOJ knew this would be controversial—the incumbent administration spying on the opposition campaign in the absence of corroborated evidence of a crime.

Let’s pause to ponder that last bit: “spying on the opposition campaign in the absence of corroborated evidence of a crime.” “Controversial”? You think? How about nefarious and probably criminal? Richard Nixon is unavailable for comment.

In a way, you have to admire the cunning of the Obama minions. Faced with exposure of their “controversial” tactic, they went to work. “[T]hey designed the investigation,” McCarthy explains,

in a way that allowed them to focus on Trump without saying they were doing so. Before Trump was elected, they papered the files to indicate that they were focusing on the Trump campaign or people connected to it, like Page and Papadopoulos. This way, they could try to collect evidence about Trump without formally documenting that Trump was the target.

In other words, we are staring into the bowels of the biggest political scandal in the history of the United States. Americans pride themselves on living in a republic in which the peaceful transfer of power is a hallmark of our political life. But what we have here is an effort by one administration to thwart that process. Remember: there was no crime. There was always only the Steele Dossier, that rancid pile of slander that was paid for by Trump’s political opponents. That was the stated basis for the FISA warrants: uncorroborated rumor instigated and circulated by the Clinton campaign.

Naturally, the anti-Trump chihuahuas are yapping once again that this is—finally, at last—the revelation that will bring down the Trump administration. Chris Matthews, feeling another frisson tingling up his appendage, excitedly announced that the president is “at the end of the rope.” But we’ve been down this street before. From before Donald Trump assumed office, we’ve been repeatedly assured that some “bombshell” had been released that harbingered “the beginning of the end” for the Trump presidency. It’s actually quite amusing to watch a few of these hysterical prognostications back to back.

Back on planet earth, however, two things are happening. First, Donald Trump piles up victory after victory for the America people: jobs, economic growth, a revitalized military, constitutionalist judicial appointments, a more rational regulatory environment, border security and immigration reform -- the list is long and astonishingly impressive. He has also, by the way, stymied his suppose best-buddy Vladimir Putin by aggressively pursuing an energy policy that has made America the world’s largest producer of energy, sending lethal weapons to Putin opponents in the Ukraine, thwarting the Russians in Syria, and many other initiatives.

But in the parallel universe occupied by the John Brennans, James Comeys and Robert Muellers of the world, the effort to unseat the democratically elected leader of the free world continues apace. The entire investigation, conducted at first under cover of a counter-intelligence inquiry, was always deep down a criminal investigation. The great, insuperable problem that the would-be inquisitors have faced from the beginning is that this was never an investigation of a crime. Rather, it has been an exploratory probe that was bent on discovering a crime, much as a deep space probe is deployed in an endless search for intelligent life on the fringes of the galaxy.

Asked recently by Fox News host Jeanine Pirro whether he is or has ever been working for Russia, Trump responded, “I think it’s the most insulting thing I’ve ever been asked.” Quite right, too. For the rest of us, though, it’s more than insulting. It’s been going on so long that we are tempted to forget what this travesty really is. Familiarity has bred indifference. It is time that we woke up to the truth. What we have been witnessing is a blatant and nefarious effort to repeal the results of a lawful election and undermine the integrity of our democratic institutions. The fact that this attempted coup is being undertaken not by wild-eyed revolutionaries but well-accoutered bureaucrats high up the feeding trough of the deep state makes the assault on our freedoms more, not less, frightening.

Déjà Vu and Cohen Hysteria

By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/15/deja-vu-and-cohen-hysteria/

December 15, 2018

Robert Mueller/Michael Cohen

Déjà-vu all over again. I have always admired that mot attributed to the philosopher Yogi Berra. And I think that if you look around at the latest episodes in the long-running, off-off Broadway entertainment “Get Trump” you’ll like it too. After all, this last week or so brought a veritable tsunami of déjà-vuable moments.

I suppose the central event was the sentencing of the President’s former lawyer Michael Cohen to three years in prison for . . . for what? CNN, that reliable fountain of fake news says it was for, inter alia, “arranging payments during the 2016 election to silence women who claimed affairs with Trump.”

Actually, the centerpieces of the charges against Cohen were tax and bank fraud and lying to Congress. Paying off tarts who claim to have had sexual relations with your patron a decade earlier is not a crime, but that didn’t matter to the prosecutors or to CNN. They just rebaptized the arrangement as a violation of campaign finance laws. Why? Because keeping the floozies quiet increased Donald Trump’s chances of winning the 2016 election. By that reasoning, as Conrad Black noted a few days ago, “a candidate who buys mouthwash or gets a haircut or a new suit, is equally trying to enhance his likelihood of election.”

Besides, even if these transactions were campaign finance violations—which they were not—they would be punished by a fine. As Andrew McCarthy noted, “when it was discovered that Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was guilty of violations involving nearly $2 million—an amount that dwarfs the $280,000 in Cohen’s case—the Obama Justice Department decided not to prosecute. Instead, the matter was quietly disposed of by a $375,000 fine by the Federal Election Commission.” I understand that, as McCarthy noted elsewhere, “the law is murky” on the issue, but it is important to keep one’s eye on center stage and not get distracted by legal complexities.

To my mind, what actually happened last week is the same thing that has been happening since the summer of 2016 when the Obama Administration began taking out “insurance policies” (classical reference there!) by trying to frame the Trump campaign with bogus charges of “Russian collusion.” After November 9, 2016, that effort mutated into an effort to destroy the Trump presidency. The “Russian collusion” meme was the fons et origo of the effort. But that was only the beginning, and after almost two years and $35 million, Robert Mueller and his merry band of anti-Trump rogue prosecutors have failed to deliver a shred of evidence of any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Instead, they have latched on to various associates of Trump, uncovered real or imagined wrongdoing that has nothing to do with the president, and proceeded to squeeze them in an effort to encourage them to “sing”—or, if there is no relevant song, to “compose,” i.e., fabricate something harmful to the president.

Paul Manafort, who was briefly the president’s campaign chairman, is the most public figure to have come into the crosshairs of Mueller’s open-ended prosecutorial campaign. They dug and dug and dug and discovered some serious financial improprieties from a decade or more ago. None of these had anything to do with the president. But Manafort’s closeness to Trump led them to suspect that he might know, or be able to make up, something damaging. So they threw him into solitary confinement only to drag him out periodically to ask if his “memory,” or at least his powers of invention, hadn’t improved. It is disgusting behavior, worthy of Lavrentiy Beria. One wonders if these specimens of ruthless prosecutorial abuse will suffer a fate at least metaphorically similar to their hero. (“Show me the man,” said Beria, “and I’ll show you the crime.”)

And speaking of crime: what is the crime after which Mueller and his pack are spooring? What set the awesome coercive power of the state into Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s hands? He and his team have indicted something like a score of people and companies. They’ve conducted dawn raids and intimidated and destroyed many careers. But apart from folks like Manafort and Cohen, who have been indicted for crimes unrelated to the 2016 presidential election campaign (Cohen’s payments to the tarts don’t count), the other unfortunate individuals have been nabbed on so called “process crimes.” In plain English, they were set up.

The hapless George Papadopoulos falls into this category. For a brief moment, the Left catapulted Papadopoulos into a starring role in the “Get Trump” drama. “How the Russia Inquiry Began,” panted the New York Times, in a piece riddled with errors and lies.

But of course the man in the news this week is General Mike Flynn, the person who for about 15 minutes was President Trump’s National Security advisor. What the deep state did to General Flynn, a genuine American hero and patriot, is truly unconscionable. The Obama Administration loathed Flynn (Why? See the bit about his being a “genuine American hero and patriot”). And so on January 24, 2016, just a day or two into the Trump Administration, they set him up. Indeed, the ineffable James Comey, former head of the FBI, soon-to-be grand jury interviewee, boasted about setting him up and noted that he would never have gotten away with it in the Bush or Obama administrations. Ponder this:

Andrew McCabe [the disgraced former Deputy Director of the FBI ] called Flynn on a secure phone to the White House on January 24. McCabe asked Flynn if he could send in a few agents to speak with him about “his communications with Russian representatives.” (Flynn’s private calls with the Russian ambassador had already been leaked illegally to the Washington Post; Flynn also was under investigation by the FBI for his alleged ties to the Kremlin.)

McCabe advised Flynn that “the quickest way to get this done was to have a conversation . . . with the agents only.” If he wanted the White House counsel present, McCabe said, then he would “need to involve the Department of Justice.” Flynn deferred. Two hours later, two FBI agents, including the disgraced Peter Strzok, interviewed Flynn but did not warn him about making false statements to the FBI. Trump’s new national security advisor and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency viewed the agents, according to McCabe’s notes, as “allies.”

The one thing Flynn was culpable of was naiveté in thinking that the FBI agents were “allies.” He should have known better.

In any event, although Strzok and his unnamed partner concluded that Flynn was not lying, the home office decided otherwise. They charged him with lying to the FBI, bankrupted him with legal fees and threatened to involve his son in a smorgasbord of charges. So he agreed to a plea-bargain, which is legalese for testifying the way prosecutors want in exchange for a reduced sentence or immunity.

This story may be set for a happy ending, however, because Flynn’s attorneys, responding to the sentencing memo released by Mueller’s office, have fought back, outlining a wide range of partisan misconduct by the FBI. Enter U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, a gimlet-eyed opponent of prosecutorial abuse, who has demanded that Mueller’s posse send him all relevant documents in the Flynn case.

Only they didn’t send over all relevant documents. Indeed, it is not even clear that the FBI still has the original memos that Strzok and his partner would have prepared after their January 24 interview with Flynn. But if not, why not? Such memos are evidence that belong to the American people. Not everyone is Hillary Clinton, who can get away with lying under oath and destroying evidence.

The NeverTrump Right is gloat-warning that the fall of Michael Cohen has put the president in serious trouble. For example, from his pulpit David French advises Republicans not to “fool themselves: Trump is in serious trouble.” Meanwhile from his pulpit, Pete Wehner thunders that not only is Trump going down, but so too are his supporters: “the blast radius from the Trump presidency,” he tweeted, “will be enormous.”

Well, we’ve been here before. In fact, this chorus has been singing since before Trump was elected, an eventuality that was said to be impossible. How many “bombshells” have been detonated announcing the swift demise of the Trump presidency? But somehow, despite Robert Mueller, despite even CNN and MSNBC and the Washington Post, Donald Trump is still here.

Moreover, with every month that passes, he has strengthened his position. A huge number of campaign promises have been kept or are in the process of being kept. At his televised White House meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer on Tuesday the president inarguably showed that the Democrats, with their opposition to the border wall, are weak on border security, i.e., are weak on protecting the American people. I sometimes hear it said, even from some of the president’s supporters, that he lacks strategic vision, that while he may be adroit tactically, he lacks an overarching set of goals and a roadmap to achieve them. I disagree. Much to my surprise, I think Trump has emerged as one of the most successful presidents in history. I wouldn’t have predicted it. But here we are.

Yes, a week is a long time in politics, as Harold Wilson memorably said, and a lot could happen between now and 2020. But if the next two years are anywhere near as successful as the two years now coming to an end have been, I predict that Trump will be reelected in a landslide. The economy is booming, Trump’s foreign policy initiatives have been startlingly successful, and his many judicial appointments have been superb.

Let me also say that I predict that the two Jameses, Clapper and Comey, along with people like John Brennan, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates, and possibly even Hillary Clinton have appointments with the grand jury brewing. I know, I know, we’ve been down this road before. It really does seem like déjà-vu all over again. But I long ago reconciled myself to André Gide’s melancholy observation: “Toutes choses sont dites déjà, mais comme personne n’écoute, il faut toujours recommencer.”

LOUIS FARRAKHAN, LIVE FROM TEHRAN

Lloyd Billingsley
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271861/louis-farrakhan-live-tehran-lloyd-billingsley
November 6, 2018


(Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Monday November 5, one day before the election, marked the resumption of sanctions on the Islamic regime by the Trump administration. Nation of Islam boss Louis Farrakhan flew to Iran to speak out on behalf of the ruling mullahs.

As Fox News reported, Farrakhan told Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council: “Today, I warn the American government that sanctioning Iran is a big mistake.” The eager Farrakhan failed to flag any mistakes by the Iranian Islamic regime, the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism. And Farrakhan took care to time his visit with an important event.

Thirty-nine years ago, in 1979, the Islamic regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini invaded the U.S. embassy in Tehran, took more than 50 American diplomats and civilians hostage, and held them for 444 days. Farrakhan marked the anniversary by telling law students at the University of Tehran, that “America has never been a democracy” and then led the students in a chants of “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”

No one in America had ever seen a performance quite like that. On the other hand, in his live Tehran show the Nation of Islam boss was not advancing any new themes.

On October 14, the 23rd anniversary of the Million Man March, Farrakhan addressed a cheering audience in Detroit: “To the members of the Jewish community that don’t like me — thank you very much for putting my name all over the planet…I’m not mad at you, ‘cuz you’re so stupid.” The Nation of Islam leader also claimed “I’m not an anti-Semite. I’m anti-Termite,” and repeated that message in a tweet.

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz denounced the speech and called out presidents Obama and Clinton, along with former DNC boss Keith Ellison, for their ties to Farrakhan. Even so, prominent Democrats running for office were not swift to denounce Farrakhan for his Jews-are-termites speech. In fact, Farrakhan thrives on special treatment from high-profile Democrats.

“Louis Farrakhan has ingratiated himself with the liberal elite in the United States,” Howard Feldman noted after the “termites” speech. “Both Obama and the Clintons have been photographed alongside him. And whereas they publicly denounce his attitude towards Jews, the fact that they continue to be seen with him is that which empowers him.”

True to form, at the funeral of Aretha Franklin, who passed away in August, Farrakhan got a place of honor, right up front with Democrats Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Erica Holder. Many speakers exploited the occasion to bash President Trump, but none of the prominent Democrats took Farrakhan to task about anything. Viewers got the impression the Democrats liked being seen with him.

Back in 2005, a smiling Illinois Senator Barack Obama duly posed with Farrakhan for a photograph (above) that only recently emerged. That was no surprise because the senator’s 1995 Dreams from My Father portrayed the Nation of Islam in a completely favorable light.

The author’s hatemongering Chicago pastor Jeremiah Wright, who prefers “God damn America” to “God bless America,” was a longtime pal of Farrakhan, and the Dreams author participated in the Million Man March. In 2008, when the dreamer ran for president, Farrakhan called him the “messiah.” 

Once elected, POTUS 44 preferred to target conservatives rather than take Farrakhan or Wright to task. In similar style, for the most part, the establishment media have remained uncritical of the Nation of  Islam boss, even though his racist views were no secret.

As Stanley Crouch explained in the Village Voice in 1985, in the view of Louis Farrakhan, “the white man was a devil ‘grafted’ from black people in an evil genetic experiment by a mad, pumpkin-headed scientist named Yacub. That experiment took place 6000 years ago. Now the white man was doomed, sentenced to destruction by Allah.”  It follows that, regardless of self-image, anyone who believes that Dave Brubeck, Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Wright Brothers are the devilish result of Yacub’s failed experiment is a racist.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton was quick to target Trump supporters as racists, sexists, homophobic, islamophobic, and so forth, a veritable “basket of deplorables.” When it comes to racism, the former First Lady and Secretary of State, who would still like to be president, pretty much gives Farrakhan a free pass.

For his part, the Nation of Islam mouthpiece knows he can call Jews termites, denounce America from Tehran, and most prominent Democrats will treat him gently. In reality, his “Death to America” chant differs from the Democrats only in degree, not in kind.

Now completely dominated by the left, Democrats despise the America that actually exists, with its culture, history, traditions and borders. Their dream is the future social justice America, with no borders. In the Democrats’ vision, only their party prevails, with help from an imported electorate.

"No Trump, no wall, no USA at all,” the refrain of leftist Democrats, is no great distance from “Death to America,” as chanted by Louis Farrakhan in Tehran. Democrats have effectively empowered this loathsome racist and anti-Semite. At election time or any time, non-Democrats, journalists and civil rights leaders would be wise call them on it.

Lloyd Billingsley is the author of Barack ‘em Up: A Literary Investigation, recently updated, and Hollywood Party: Stalinist Adventures in the American Movie Industry.  Bill of Writes: Dispatches from the Political Correctness Battlefield, is a collection of his journalism.

Why Black Voters Are Turning to Trump

By Karin McQuillan

https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/14/why-black-voters-are-turning-to-trump/

September 14, 2018

The growing positive attitude of black voters towards President Trump is the wildcard in the coming midterm elections. It is real and it is expanding. Polls are showing anywhere from 20 percent to 36 percent of blacks approve of President Trump. The Democrats even may have lost 11 percent of black women.

The cracks in the black Democrat bloc voting are one of the most consequential results of Barack Obama’s presidency and the phenomenal effectiveness of President Trump’s pro-business policies. This could be a historic turning point.

Measurable Progress

Trump’s economic policies have improved the lives of black Americans, just as he promised they would during the election. Unlike Obama’s media hype, Trump’s progress is as real and as solid as his buildings. Black unemployment continues to fall. Good manufacturing jobs are coming back.Paychecks are rising, too.

The roots of this political watershed in the black community are more complex than job figures and will last beyond Trump’s tenure. I have been listening for hours to ordinary black Americans on the #Walkaway movement’s YouTube channel. This is a movement of former Democrats explaining why they are leaving their party. While each face, voice, and story is unique and fascinating, there are some striking recurring themes.

Ironically, the change seems to have started with President Obama’s election.

President Obama raised the hopes of black Americans to the highest they’ve been since Martin Luther King. The entire country expected he would devote himself to getting blacks better schools, more jobs, higher wages, and safer neighborhoods. Instead, Obama ignored those bread-and-butter needs. His signature initiative was to send Eric Holder to stoke up publicity and fear in the wake of the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown shootings.

In the short term, hyping fake white racism and police brutality worked to stanch the bleeding in black turnout in the 2012 election. In the long term, however, Obama’s reliance on racial fear and grievance increased black suffering. He broke people’s hearts and blew up many black voters’ loyalty to the Democrats.

The #Walkaway videos are remarkably consistent on that score. Obama got them paying attention to party politics for the first time. Next came the emotional roller coaster, as joy turned to disappointment. Obama’s identity politics agenda, now amplified by progressive Democrats, was a cynical ploy and it has become is a total turn off to those now paying attention. These black voters hate illegal immigration. Obama marked the end of their romance with the Democrat Party, not a new beginning.

Surprised by the Truth

Few of these ex-Democrats voted for Trump, but they were willing to give Trump a chance after the election. They find Trump Derangement Syndrome ludicrous. In fact, they love what he is doing. They appreciate the jobs he is creating, and they share his patriotism.

They are listening to—in some case meeting—deplorables and finding them kind, decent, and not racist.

A last, and very interesting theme, is after Obama got them engaged, most of these black Democrats started doing research on the internet. They were riveted learning the history of the Democratic Party. They care deeply and viscerally about slavery. What a shock to discover they had been lied to about it all their lives.

President Lincoln was not a Democrat, as they’d been led to think in school. It was not Republicans who were the party of racism, but Democrats. They learned for the first time that Democrats were slave owners. Over and over, they share their surprise at learning the Democrats are the party of Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan. Democrats are the party that destroyed the black family. Bill Clinton set off the explosion of black incarceration. They are done permanently as Democrats.

This is a revolutionary change of perspective on the identity of the two parties. It was mentioned in almost every video I watched.

Virtually every video begins with a statement like this one from a GenX woman: “I always followed the crowd. . . . Everybody is supposed to be a Democrat. Black people vote Democrat . . . . We were taught Republicans are all bad, racist, only care about the rich. I fell for that for quite a long time.”

Same words from a young  business major: “I never truly chose the Democrat Party. Being the family I’m in, the area I’m in, the color I am. Everyone was Democrat by default . . . I never heard anyone debate any political issue . . . I was on a conveyor belt of ‘next Democrat’ . . . never had any information . . . I didn’t know which side was left (or) right. I was so uninformed, so many people around me uninformed.”

A working guy sounds a similar theme: “Way back when I was a kid, I was taught Republicans were evil white people who didn’t want to share with black people. Black people were Democrats. . . . there was a black party and a white party . . . I voted straight Democrat . . . I finally stopped voting . . . They’re all greedy, just another white man in the White House . . .  I forgot all about it to be honest . . . didn’t know who was in office.”

Obama Raised Hopes—and Dashed Them

President Obama got millions of blacks interested in following politics for the first time in a long time. “Hope and change” was not an empty slogan to them. They felt it, deeply, emotionally. Even uninterested, cynical, disengaged people allowed themselves to get invested.

A young vet speaks for many. “I was so happy, I cried. I can’t believe I live in this day and age. I was told this would never happen because white America hates black people. That’s how I was raised . . . I was into him . . . I joined the military ’cause I wanted to serve Barack Obama.”

Another woman expressed what many others also said: “[Obama was] so eloquent, seemed intelligent, real cool . . . thought he’d try to get the inner cities together, get better education for black children. That’s what I assumed. Make things better for black people.”

A Millennial man who first voted in 2012 repeats the typical story. Obama got him interested. “This is going to be historic.” He began to do “binge political researching.”

Obama got these supporters involved, and euphorically hopeful. Then he let them down.

“As soon as he got in office, this dude started going sideways . . . this isn’t what we voted for,” the Millennial says. Obama focused on getting money and votes from greens, gays, feminists, and illegals, and used race-baiting to keep the black vote. They noticed nothing got better.

These are people who did not have the luxury to make excuses for Obama. Many in the black community are enduring real suffering—not the snowflake variety. They were looking for results, not left-wing virtue signaling. Obama broke the spell. Here was the ultimate Democrat who had a shot to come through and improve black lives, and he fired blanks.

Under Obama, says a YouTuber who calls himself “That Black Dude,” “I watched my paycheck decrease from $860 . . .  after four more years to 690 bucks every two weeks . . . I can’t survive like this . . . and the news kept telling me that everything was great . . . this was the hope and change, and we have to get used to unemployment.”

“They just make promises and don’t do anything,” says another young black woman, “and our communities . . . education for our children are still jacked up . . . I didn’t see any progress for Americans, for working, everyday average Americans . . . Obama, all these promises he had not made and weren’t being kept.”

“Democrat Party have no plan, no direction, no future, no way of looking at growth . . . growing on hate is not what this country should be, wants to be,” says a man who goes by the handle “NtenseFit Way.”

A thoughtful young man explains his thinking in a video well worth your time:

All [Democrats] want to do is monetize white guilt . . . it’s not really productive, man, because we never address the core issues . . . . [Democrat] policies do not work . . . enough is enough. It is time to break the cycle. Me, I made a decision, man, I can no longer support the Democrat Party. Because they are not the party for black people, they’re not even the party of America. They are such a far-Left socialist party . . . I don’t know who they’re working for—it ain’t us. In every state they run . . . opportunities diminish . . . their policies are failed. . . . I can’t do it anymore. I’m conservative.

Some blame Obama by name. Many do not. But his failure to help, or even try, was their final break with the Democratic Party.

“All you seen since you were a kid and you were black were promises on things they were gonna change, things would become better. All you seen, things have become worse,” says a man who identifies himself as an ex-felon.

He asks and answers: “Who’s responsible, who’s running this system? It’s the Democrats. Destroyed the black family. Destroyed the black home . . . . They come every four years and they take take take and they don’t give you shit back. I’m tired of it, tired of the excuses.”

Identity Politics is a Loser 

Hillary Clinton tried to follow in Obama’s footsteps with identity politics. But many black men feel targeted by feminism. Others are appalled by the Democratic Party’s promotion of abortion, which disproportionately targets black communities. Black men and women are furious that illegal aliens seem to receive better treatment from Democrats than American citizens.  Intersectionality is failing to unite them with the other privileged grievance groups. These voters realize their interests are not identical or even similar to leftist politics.

Hillary personally was a turn-off and her corruption was appalling. A former Bernie Sanders supporter expresses his disgust, which extended from Clinton to all progressives, eventually including Sanders himself. “The thing that completely opened my eyes like someone threw cold water on you in the middle of the night . . . was the DNC rigging the election,” he says. “Those emails . . . money laundering through the Clinton Foundation . . . the whole shit show . . . The motherf—-r had all the questions to the debate, and she still lost the f—ing debate . . . starting with the election and past two years, bullshit and f—ery coming from liberals.”

The progressive Democratic Party has no positive message for blacks. “Party of victimhood. Party of excuses,” says Hermes Justin Wilson. “Those who see themselves as eternal victims will always stay that way . . . using black people as a stepping stool . . . keeping them low by having them stuck in this mindset.”

And then Donald Trump happened. Trump was not a turn off to them. He is familiar. Trump was known and liked by many blacks because of “The Apprentice.” They are fine with his braggadocio and outsized personality. They admire his success as a businessman. Some know his reputation as a friend of blacks. Some were willing to give him a hearing and a chance.

Even those who did not vote for Trump are open about how much they love him now. President Trump is delivering, big time, on jobs, on crime, on actually improving their daily lives.

Making Patriotism Cool Again

Trump is delivering on another thing a lot of these #Walkaways care about: patriotism and unity.

“We live in the greatest country on earth and I am proud to be an American,” says a well-dressed man who calls himself YG Nyghtstorm. “I am so happy to see so many of my fellow citizens standing against hatred and putting America first.”

Vanessa Rogers says: “I’m proud to say I’m an American. I love my country . . . Trump is doing a fabulous job.”

A Millennial who calls himself Mike Nificent says: “I am all about personal responsibility, individual liberty . . . I believe in the Constitution, I love America. I’m proud, I’m patriotic.”

A gay woman with the handle Bethegoldenera Ray explains: “I’m realizing conservative is not bad. It’s American values. I want free speech. I want the right to bear arms . . . .The only thing I heard the right say is get up, make something of yourself, this is America . . . why would people want socialism in this country? As a gay, black woman who is all about equality, I cannot believe the (Democrat) party I once believed in is so anti-American.”

The media crusade against President Trump leaves them cold. “A lot of black people like [Trump],” says a closet Trump supporter. Rappers talk about him all the time. . . . Let’s give the guy a try . . . Once I started researching things, watching his speech and how they reported it. It really is fake news.  . . . Resist? What are you resisting? He’s president.”

From a well-educated, mature man: “Convince people through evidence and facts why your point of view is superior than your opponents and why your direction of the country is better. To say Donald Trump is going to destroy America while you’re destroying America is an oxymoron, it’s hypocritical . . . You need to get control of your emotions, brother . . . if you want to convince me, show me through your policies.”

They are listening to Republicans, they’re meeting them at work. They like them and realize they have shared values. They are finding out for themselves that Republicans are not racist. These black voters have Republican values on abortion, marriage, hard work, creating opportunities for people to make something of themselves, and loving America.

A college grad says: “I like that people on the right are way more open for conversation, for dialogue . . . examples, details, facts . . . being consistent . . . people on the right are way better at that.”

He concludes: “I’m about unity. I want this country to get better. I want race relations to get better. I want America to keep building and get stronger . . . we can barely make jobs for people. . .. I’m walking away from bad policies . . . corruption . . . Drain the swamp.”

If these were the opinions of a small group of mavericks, it would be interesting. If the poll numbers of  black voters liking Trump are accurate at only 11 or 14 percent, it will seriously impact the swing states, lowering Democrats chances in 2020. If the numbers actually are 21 or 38 percent, America will never be the same. Democrats tell themselves that black voters turning to Trump is not real and it will go away. It is not going away.