But, more and more information is coming out, specifically, that the Obama administration had placed an informant in the Trump Campaign. We aren’t even going to speculate on what the reaction would have been had the Bush administration placed an informant in the Obama campaign, but we can guess the response would be several degrees more fierce and indignant than the response to the spying on the Trump campaign has been. Well, gosh, they don’t even use the word “spy.” Former CIA Director John Brennan, former NSA director James Clapper, and various folks a bit lower on the organizational flow chart have used words such as “seeking insight,” or “observing”; and they insist on the term “confidential human source” instead of spy. To mangle an old saying, a rose by any other name still might smell bad.
BY JOHN SHAFFER We didn’t have the highest grade point average, or SAT scores, or IQ, so there are things that are beyond our comprehension. One example is the current flap over “spygate,” that is, the allegation that the Obama Administration gathered information on the Trump campaign. President Trump has made such an accusation on several occasions over the months since his election, and the Obama team and the mainstream media have instantly and loudly scoffed at and denied the charge as often as it has been made.
But, more and more information is coming out, specifically, that the Obama administration had placed an informant in the Trump Campaign. We aren’t even going to speculate on what the reaction would have been had the Bush administration placed an informant in the Obama campaign, but we can guess the response would be several degrees more fierce and indignant than the response to the spying on the Trump campaign has been. Well, gosh, they don’t even use the word “spy.” Former CIA Director John Brennan, former NSA director James Clapper, and various folks a bit lower on the organizational flow chart have used words such as “seeking insight,” or “observing”; and they insist on the term “confidential human source” instead of spy. To mangle an old saying, a rose by any other name still might smell bad. BY JOHN SHAFFER We have said that President Trump seems to raise more hackles over things he says than over things he does; in other words, he generates more dislike over his words and his ways of expressing himself than over the actual policies he is implementing. How many of us have lamented that if only he would stay off Twitter, or curb his tongue a bit more, or even decide not to respond. Ah, well, we have been wishing that for more than two years, and it has not come true yet, so it is unlikely that he will change this habit. But quite often the President is assailed not for something he said, but for something that his political opponents thought he said or wanted him to say or pretended he said. An example of this is the meeting the President has last week with some Chiefs of Police. The topic turned to the vicious gang MS-13, and the President referred to them as “animals.” No one who was in the room with the President thought he said anything else, and no one who reads the transcript of the meeting could possibly believe he said anything else, but not the progressive left, who variously heard President Trump refer to “immigrants” or “Illegal immigrants” as “animals."
BY JOHN SHAFFER OK, we know Republicans oppose Democratic nominations and Democrats oppose almost all of President Trump’s nominees. So do people who served in President Obama’s administration. So do most of the Washington DC careerists who have expressed opinions. So do fashionable people, whether from Park Avenue, Hollywood, or the tony suburbs from almost everywhere. And we can always count on a few liberal Republicans to cast nay votes, if for no other reason than to prove to everybody in “The Resistance” that they resist him, too.
All of the above as expected have come out against Gina Haspel, the President’s nominee for CIA Director. But there is one other prominent person who has come out against her nomination, and he is one we would not have expected. Kahlid Sheik Muhammed (perhaps more frequently referred to as KSM), is perhaps better known by the sobriquet “Mastermind of the 9-11 attacks.” Yes, that KSM, who planned and plotted and executed the destruction of the World Trade Center and the rest of the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, and the murders of over 3,000 people; he has come out in opposition to Ms. Haspel’s nomination. Well, it seems likely that the nomination will squeak through despite the opposition of Republican Senators Rand Paul (on libertarian grounds) and John McCain (more on that later) because a handful of Democrat Senators, moderates to begin with and who have been made more so because they represent states carried by President Trump in 2016 and they are up for re-election this fall, have come out in support of Ms. Haspel. One would imagine that disgust over being on the same side of anything as KSM would be sufficient to cause at least a few others to vote in favor of the nominee, and maybe it will, but if the tenor, tone and direction of most of the questions from most of the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee is any indication, their membership in the Resistance assures they won’t stray over to the pro-Trump camp. BY JOHN SHAFFER President Obama’s administration promulgated many regulations that were contrary to the regulations of previous presidents. Then, the progressives applauded, and the conservatives lamented. But, those regulations went through, because President Obama had the power to implement them.
President Trump has unwound quite a few of the Obama-era regulations, and has sought to unwind many more; now, the conservatives applaud and the progressives lament – but they do more than lament – they “resist”; which includes in several prominent cases the opinions of federal judges, who have stopped the implementation of certain regulations or policies. This leads us to request an explanation of the following question: If one President has the power to promulgate regulations he likes and terminate ones he does not, why does his successor not possess the same power? Remember – we are not talking about laws, which of course cannot be changed without approval from Congress – but are speaking of regulations. And yes, there is a process and a procedure for starting and stopping regulations, and those rules should of course be followed – but the important thing is, the president has the power to change the decisions of his predecessors. President Obama used that power to undo certain regulations that were in place when he took office, and now President Trump wants to do the same thing. Does he have that power, or does that power apply to a progressive president only? BY JOHN SHAFFER President Trump has pulled out of the Iranian nuclear deal. He had promised that he would, and it was widely expected that he would, but there are people who wish he hadn’t. Specifically, the people who populated the Obama administration, which arranged the deal in the first place. If you think the the word “deal” is a bit too informal, call it an “agreement” instead. Just don’t call it a “treaty,” for that is expressly what it is not. A treaty formally binds its parties, and must be, under the US Constitution, approved by two-thirds of the US Senate. In the face of nearly universal opposition from Senate Republicans, and significant opposition from Senate Democrats as well, President Obama never even introduced it as a treaty – he knew he lacked the votes. Instead, it was his own executive agreement (officially, a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), and, the meaningless terminology is indicative that it might have a lifetime roughly equal to that of his own administration. Were it a treaty, it would be permanent and would require another treaty to undo; as a deal or an agreement, it could vanish, and it has done so.
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