Posted on 03/07/2017 3:30:59 PM PST by ckinv368
Since the election, Liberals and the liberal media have been fixated on whether or not President Trump and/or his campaign somehow colluded with Russia to “throw” the election in his favor. They are convinced this must have happened, because they can’t seem to fathom how their anointed candidate could have otherwise lost? It’s been non-stop Russia coverage since November. Who talked to a Russian? Who thought about a Russian? Who listened to Tchaikovsky once, even if it was years ago? Liberals are demanding answers, and they are demanding them now. You’d think Sen. Joseph McCarthy was a closeted Democrat, judging by the Red Scaremongering going on in the Democratic party. So, let the conspiracy theories—breathlessly reported each day by the liberal media—begin in earnest.
Did General Flynn talk to the Russian Ambassador? Thanks to intelligence leaks from holdover Obama Administration officials (which are felonies carrying 10 year prison terms), we know the answer is yes. Was it his job as incoming National Security Advisor to talk to Russians? Yes. Was he wrong in failing to fully disclose his discussions to his boss when asked? Yes. Which is why he lost his job. Last time I checked, HR matters do not generally make headline news for very long. America agrees. When that “scandal” failed to take hold, and Trump delivered the speech of my lifetime to a Joint Session of Congress, what were Liberals to do? Go along with his plans to create a better America? Definitely not. So, they decided to drag Attorney General Jeff Sessions into the fray, going so far as to come up with a new line of attack unrelated to 30 year-old allegations of racism they relied on before.
The new attack against Attorney General Sessions alleges that he knowingly lied under oath about his “connections” to Russia during the presidential campaign. Liberals and the media have shrieked for days that he should be investigated by a special prosecutor, and eventually prosecuted for his alleged misdeeds. After all, the thinking goes, President Clinton was impeached for less. Except, the media failed to tell you that this version of events is not what actually happened. Instead, during his confirmation hearings, Sessions was asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, whether he had “been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?” Sessions answered “no.” He was also asked by Sen. Al Franken (quoting a CNN story regarding Russian interference in the election) whether he was aware of a “continuous exchange of information during the campaign between Trump’s surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government,” presumably regarding the election itself. Sessions again answered “I’m not aware of any of those activities . . . I did not have communications with the Russians.” Then, it comes out that Sessions had, in his capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, spoken with the Russian Ambassador – about issues related to that Committee (which was part of his job). Many other Senators have come forward to say they’ve had similar conversations with Russian ambassadors as part of their Senatorial duties. Does this make Attorney General Sessions a liar? Absolutely not. One of the first rules you learn when preparing to cross-examine a witness is that to get good answers, you need to ask good questions. Senators Leahy and Franken asked questions specific to Russian interference in the election, and got answers directly related to that subject. If they wanted to ask Sessions whether he’d ever watched a movie starring Milla Jovovich, or a tennis match with Maria Sharapova, seen The Nutcracker ballet, or whether he’d ever spoken to a Russian citizen in any capacity, about any subject, the answer he provided would likely have been different. They need to learn to ask better questions. Sessions honestly answered the questions he was asked—he was under no obligation to help Sens. Leahy and Franken ask better, smarter questions. This “scandal” will melt away within days, because it is not a real story.
Now, Liberals and the media have chosen President Trump himself as the focus of the next Russia-related “scandal.” However, after months of fascination with Russia-related spying, it’s simply incredulous to see the media do an about-face and question President Trump’s statement that the Obama Administration sought authority to tap his campaign’s communications in an effort to monitor contact with members of the Russian government. Liberals should embrace Trump’s assertion, not deny it. After all, Russian interference is presumably the biggest issue that keeps the Left up at night, and it appears the prior Administration was trying to curtail that. But now, the party line says “the Obama Administration would never do such a thing,” and President Trump is delusional and borderline crazy to suggest otherwise. Except that the New York Times, on January 20, ran a cover story disputing the party line, stating the Obama Administration had been monitoring Trump campaign communications for signs of improper contact with Russia throughout the election cycle. Even former Attorney General Michael Mukasey—a man well respected throughout legal and law enforcement circles—has stated this monitoring likely occurred, and was probably initiated by former Attorney General Loretta Lynch. But, Liberals have decided to forego reality, and even prior statements from the New York Times, and give the benefit of the doubt to an Administration that routinely gathered data about you and your phone calls, and who we now know (thanks to WikiLeaks) had the ability to take control of your smart TV to listen to conversations inside the “privacy” of your home. This effort to discredit President Trump is patently ridiculous in light of present circumstances. It, like the other liberal attacks made recently, will ultimately fail.
T.A. Frank, in a recent story for Vanity Fair, compares these fake scandals to a collapsing soufflé. He correctly points out that as quickly as these stories sink, the liberal media proceeds to “bake another,” in an effort to keep the public “oohing and ahhing” at the alleged spectacle. He rightly proposes that the media should “develop a reputation for believability” before eagerly reporting the next fake scandal. While he suggests the media’s credibility is merely tarnished by these acts, we know that any such “credibility” has long since gone.
Meanwhile, the Trump Administration soldiers on. While media attention has focused almost solely on these self-deflating, home-baked “scandals,” the Trump Administration has increased border enforcement, increased deportation of dangerous illegal immigrants, issued a second executive order on foreign immigration and refugee migration, decreased regulation for multiple industries, restarted several multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects, nominated a conservative jurist to sit on the Supreme Court, removed healthcare-related tax penalties affecting millions of Americans, brought back manufacturing jobs to America’s heartland, negotiated agreements with companies to invest close to $100 billion in American jobs and industries, overseen one of the largest post-election stock market rallies America has ever seen, convinced our NATO allies, along with Japan, and South Korea, to increase military spending to share the burden of joint defense, and introduced plans to bring our military back from the verge of collapse, significantly reform the individual and corporate tax code, and replace the disaster that is Obamacare with something that gives American families healthcare options, not government mandates. All of this in seven weeks.
Shelby Steele, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that American liberalism has exhausted itself through its “unrelenting current of anti-Americanism.” She notes that “liberalism’s old weapon of stigmatization shoots blanks,” has grown “tiresome,” and has become “an anachronism.” Liberals have two choices at this point. They can work across the aisle with Republicans to fix the myriad problems facing our country. If they do, the electorate will likely reward individual members for bipartisanship. Or, Liberals can continue down their current path—one that leads to exhausted irrelevance. The better parts of me hope that the Left sees the light, and starts working with, not against, President Trump and his Administration. But, if history is any indication, the Left will continue to smear the national debate with talk of Russia, while President Trump works hard to fix my country.
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bfl
This is why the mainstream is fake news. All they report is their own conspiracy theories.
Welcome to FR and Thnx for posting in full.
Great thoughts
“been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?”
He answered truthfully, in the context of the question, which was the point of the point, so they could call him a liar.
Remove content creates a new context.
The Sessions-Russia thing is a gift to Trump. Let the Dems and media yak about it for the next year while the rest of the administration goes full speed ahead.
Exactly. Since the day after the election I haven’t heard any major Demorat politicians or policy wonks talk about an agenda to help the American people. They’ve been busy chasing Russians and trying to figure out how to steal back an election they thought they had stolen in the first place.
His column in The Wall Street Journal, March 6, was excellent.
The “intelligence” community claim they have proof that Russia interfered with the election. Why, then, does there need to be a congressional probe into the matter? Just get the heads of the various intelligence agencies together to provide the proof to congress. This would seem to be the easiest way. Then again, they don’t have anything substantial so I reckon this is the way to drag this BS on for months.
The left absolutely LOVED Russia back when they were all-out communist!
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