Nikki Haley vs Trump

I’ve been intending to get around to answering a comment from a reader, asking why I support Trump when the primaries haven’t even started yet and polls show that Nikki Haley would be more likely to beat Biden. The first part of my answer is that I’ve warned for years that nobody should make any decisions based on polls taken a year before an election. In fact, just by procrastinating a few days, that point about Nikki Haley seems to have been nullified.

https://pjmedia.com/stephen-kruiser/2023/11/16/the-morning-briefing-so-much-for-nikkimentum-n4923948/

I back Trump because I think he was a fine President; that the attacks against him and his supporters have been false, hysterical and unconstitutional; and that having been through what he has, he’s the candidate with the most knowledge, experience and incentive to actually do something about fixing Biden's messes and cleaning up the cancerous partisan corruption.

While I appreciate the commenter thinking that my opinion carries weight, I don’t seriously believe that my endorsement would sway enough voters to determine who wins the GOP primary (if it did, I’d be President.) Any of the GOP candidates would be exponentially better than letting the Democrats stay in power for another four, possibly irreversible years. And let me assure you that while I back Trump, if for some reason he’s not the nominee, then I will work night and day to assure that whoever is replaces Joe Biden. I hope every one of you will make the same vow. When the future of America is at stake, it’s no time to take your ball and go home if you don’t get exactly what you want.

 Now that we know for sure…

I haven’t commented yet on that huge fire in Los Angeles that shut down one of the major traffic arteries because the cause wasn’t yet determined. I suspected it would be due to either incompetent or negligent government, but I hated to say such things until we knew for sure.

Now we know for sure.

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2023/11/15/the-very-stupid-reason-for-that-devastating-los-angeles-freeway-fire-n4923926

Stephen Green at PJ Media has more on what hecalls “the bone-crushing stupidity” of allowing businesses to stuff underpasses “full of kindling and flammable goo,” while letting it cohabitate with “unpoliced homeless encampments filled with vagrants, addicts, and the mentally ill.” 

Awakening The Woke Church

By Kenneth Allard

Although an evangelical Christian, my admiration for fellow believers remains under firm control - possibly because I was raised as a Preacher’s Kid or PK. Grow up inside the sausage factory, the saying goes, and you may have a lingering distaste for scrapple; but grow up a PK and you are almost certain to see Christians struggling to live up to their faith.

My skepticism was most recently fueled by “woke churches” on both sides of the pandemic, some supinely accepting governmental interference, others acting as if “go along to get along” had been added to the Apostle’s Creed. If some Christians were already hedging their bets, then the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War on October 7^th became a challenge to both faith and reason. Had the mythical “Push-Me-Pull-You” creature invented by Dr. Doolittle somehow found a place in the nation’s pulpits? Why else had the barbaric savagery of the Hamas attack inexplicably given way to bizarre assurances that Israel was equally at fault? By appearing to take both sides, was Barack Obama the latest convert to this new doctrine? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/04/us/politics/obama-israel-palestine.html

Eric Metaxas has famously warned that American religious liberties are in peril (Letter to the American Church, Washington: Salem, 2022). How appropriate that Albin Sadar, one of his proteges, fearlessly attacked the latest heresies. “The battle against evil is heating up…(Some) Christians seem to be hedging their bets, intent on not offending the wrong people…careful to remain lukewarm in their response to anything controversial.”

Working alongside Metaxas on his radio and television broadcasts was like fighting at the Alamo. “There were thousands of Santa Anna’s soldiers coming against fewer than 200 defenders of our old Spanish mission…(But) what made it worse was that it seemed as if half of the other fighters inside the Alamo were shooting at us—or they were chiding us for even fighting at all instead of being “good Christian men” who should show love to everybody. But who can dispute the fact that we are now being overrun by evil?” Mr. Sadar’s conclusion is equally chilling: “If the church doesn’t wake up and stop being woke, this nation—and by extension, the world—is a goner.” https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/11/hey_woke church_its_time_to_wake_up.html

Those startling thoughts could be usefully preached and debated this weekend across the nation’s churches. But thoughtful Americans may be influenced long-term by a remarkable speech given this week in Washington to the Federalist Society, a deeply conservative group of lawyers, movers and shakers. Their most unlikely orator: Bari Weiss, a gay Jewish woman, formerly of the New York Times but now the founder and editor of The Free Press. Since October 7^th, Ms. Weiss has been celebrated for her clear writing and fearless, hard-hitting devotion to the facts, regardless of what delicate interests might be offended.

Her speech to the Federalists could hardly have been more momentous had it been accompanied by a divine hand writing ominous prophesies on the ballroom’s walls. Arguing that antisemitism is always a symptom, “It is never about Jews. It is about everyone else. It is about the surrounding society or the culture of the country. It is an early warning system—a sign that the society itself is breaking down.” This ideology of nihilism has now swallowed “All of the crucial sense-making institutions of American life…universities…cultural institutions…nearly every major corporation. It’s inside our high schools and elementary schools.”  So what is to be done?

“I am here because…in the fight for the West, I know who my allies are (and not who) one might imagine them to be. My allies are people who believe that America is good. That the West is good…America and our values are worth fighting for – and that is the priority of the day.” To a thunderous ovation, she concluded: “Our enemies’ failure is not assured and there is no cavalry coming. We are the cavalry. We are the last line of defense. Our civilization depends on us.” https://reason.com/volokh/2023/11/14/bari-weisss-olson-lecture-you-are-the-last-line-of-defense/

Both Judaism and Christianity presume an all-powerful, omniscient God who regularly delights in using unlikely messengers to get our attention. And unexpectedly blessing us with Allies we could never even imagine.

COL (Ret.) Ken Allard is a former West Point professor, Dean of the National War College and on-air military analyst for NBC News. 

Surprise, surprise:  Biden not to be charged in mishandling classified documents

Did anyone think it would turn out differently?  It didn’t exactly take a psychic to predict that neither President Biden nor anyone on his team would be charged by this “Justice” Department after classified documents from Biden’s time as Vice President, and even as a U.S. senator, were discovered in the personal library of his home in Wilmington, his garage, his beach house, his non-secure office in DC at the Penn Biden Center (funded by China), a warehouse in Chinatown and his Boston attorney’s office.  Special Counsel Robert Hur says he’ll be “critical” in the final report he writes, but that’s all that comes of this.  Another bleeping report.

With this timing, the decision to close the case with no charges filed could not be more stark in its comparison with Trump’s Mar-A-Lago “classified” documents case.  (We put quotation marks around the word “classified” in his case because Trump claims to have declassified those materials under his authority as President.  Biden had no such authority as Vice President or Senator; documents from that time marked as classified remain classified to this day.)

The treatment of the two Presidents was vastly different from the start, with Trump being subjected to the shocking, unprecedented armed FBI raid of his home.  Compare the figurative slap in the face Trump got with Biden’s kid-glove treatment, as his attorneys were allowed to shuffle through papers at their leisure, all by themselves.  (Recall that Hillary had gotten the kid gloves, too, during the “investigation” --- have to trot out the quotation marks again --- of her possession of tens of thousands of subpoenaed documents, over a hundred of them classified, on a non-secure personal server and her blatant obstruction of justice in having them deleted and/or physically destroyed.)

Remember what then-FBI Director James Comey said during his infamous announcement on July 5, 2016 that saved Hillary’s presidential candidacy: “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

The Trump and Biden cases do have some differences, and in some ways the Biden case looks much more serious.  To be in possession of classified documents from before he was President, Biden had to have essentially smuggled them out.  Another unique aspect of the Biden case: son Hunter Biden, who had business with foreign entities including some controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and other adversaries of the U.S., was living at Joe Biden’s house while classified material was kept there.  While Trump’s documents at Mar-A-Lago were behind a secure, locked door on a property guarded by both Secret Service and private security, Biden’s documents were lying around the garage where Hunter would go to take Joe’s ‘vette for a spin.  If Hunter didn’t crib from classified State Department analyses for his communications with business associates, maybe he just used them for rolling papers.

Kidding aside, we don’t know that he did.  The point is, he COULD have.

NO case will be brought against the “Big Guy” by this DOJ, as run by Attorney General Merrick Garland and his Obama-holdover deputy Lisa Monaco.  In sweeping banana-republic style, it has diverted essentially all its resources to the persecution of former President and current presidential candidate Donald Trump, and his supporters as well.  Thanks to whistleblowers at the IRS and FBI, we know some officials there are even trying to purge Trump supporters from its own ranks.

As we commented yesterday, this “Justice” Department is not doing its job, and so that job has fallen to the GOP-led House Committees and the Republicans on Senate Committees.  It sure is a good thing Congress has the constitutional responsibility of oversight, because the Executive Branch is out of control and needs oversight like never before.

In fact, just a few days ago, on November 13, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed former White House Counsel Dana Remus to appear for a deposition concerning the way Biden aides handled the classified documents.  Recall that one of those aides was Kathy Chung, who now works in the Defense Department as an aide to Lloyd Austin but who previously was then-VP Biden’s aide, recommended to the VP by son Hunter.  Here’s something very interesting that investigative reporter Paul Sperry turned up on her in June of this year.  His piece is a must-read.  By default, it’s going to fall to Congress to look further into any national security implications...

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/06/08/key_player_in_biden_documents_removal_was_caught_up_in_bill_clinton-era_chinagate_scandal_897961.html

As Sperry reports, Chung worked at the Commerce Department during the Clinton administration --- Hunter knew her even back then --- and was a witness in the investigation of China-born banker and Clinton donor John Huang and was suspected of covering up for him.  Huang was suspected of trading government secrets and access to China.  In 1999, he pleaded guilty to a felony violation of campaign finance laws for arranging illegal foreign donations to Bill Clinton and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for one year of probation, when he could have received five years in prison.  If you don’t recall Clinton’s “Chinagate” scandal, Sperry’s piece offers a refresher.

“While Donald Trump and Mike Pence are also under investigation for removing classified documents from the White House and storing them at their private residences,” Sperry wrote, “GOP congressional investigators say comparisons to Trump and Pence miss the point.  In interviews with [RealClear Investigations], they insisted that Biden’s document scandal is potentially more serious than just mishandling state secrets.  They suspect it could mushroom into a counterespionage case involving China and national security, though the White House dismisses such speculation as ‘baseless.’”

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL had the story of the Biden case being closed without charges on Thursday afternoon before an official announcement was made.  “Hur is expected to prepare a report with harsh criticism of how Biden and his aides handled classified documents,” James Lynch at the DAILY CALLER reported, “but his investigation is not expected to result in criminal charges.”  Hur’s team says it hopes to have that report finished by the end of this year.  They interviewed about 100 people, including Hunter Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/11/16/robert-hur-biden-classified-docs-unlikely-charge-anybody

Here’s Sean Hannity’s commentary from Thursday night.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6341275682112

Guests Alan Dershowitz and Gregg Jarrett weigh in as well in this must-watch segment.  As they see it, the differences in the treatment of these two Presidents by our “justice” system --- here come those quotation marks again --- are about clear as it gets, in an administration that’s relentlessly out to get Trump.  Dershowitz is at his most outspoken yet.

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6341276484112

 I JUST WANTED TO SAY: 

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