Donald Trump

[Peter]

On ‎7‎/‎4‎/‎2017 at 3:09 PM, BaalChatzaf said:

Trump appears to be mocking the media  who are highly mockable. 

And the poor dears are so sensitive to criticism even when they are caught lying.

[Peter]

This Trump thread is practically dormant, but I suppose it was primarily for the election.

Wolf wrote on this thread back in 2016 just before the election: Obama's home town, black police chief, black teachers union -- Chicago just recorded its most violent weekend of 2016 with 52 shootings and 17 fatalities ... total homicides for the year to nearly 650, up over 50% versus last year. "City of Brotherly Love" slightly worse, gangs of blacks beating white students at Temple U. Now, suppose Trump wins. Chaos. end quote

It’s fun to go back and reread some of the letters before the election. There were 100 shootings in Chicago over the 4^th of July 2017 weekend. I don’t think blacks perceive Trump as a “white wing” threat. I don't know how they can live like that. 

I was just watching the original Star Trek’s series second or third episode on BBC and Sally Kellerman was in it, as was Paul Fix who played the older marshal in the TV series, “The Rifleman.” Sally was Hot Lips Houlihan in the movie “MASH” and is now 80 years old. Spock’s makeup was rather crude and the crew’s uniforms were different from later episodes.

Peter

From Wikipedia: "Where No Man Has Gone Before" is the second pilot episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. It was produced in 1965 after the first pilot, "The Cage", was rejected by NBC. Reportedly, Lucille Ball, who owned Desilu Productions (where the pilot was produced), persuaded NBC management to consider a second pilot, thereby exercising a special option agreement it had with Desilu, because she liked Gene Roddenberry and believed in the project. The episode was eventually broadcast third in sequence on September 22, 1966, and re-aired on April 20, 1967. On July 12, 1969, it was the first episode to be shown in the United Kingdom by the BBC.

"Where No Man Has Gone Before" was written by Samuel A. Peeples, directed by James Goldstone, and filmed in July 1965. It was the first episode of Star Trek to feature William Shatner as Captain James Kirk, James Doohan as Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott (later called "Scotty"), and George Takei as Lt. Sulu (the ship's physicist, whose character became helmsman in subsequent episodes). The episode title was adopted as the final phrase in the opening voice-over^[1] which characterizes the series and has entered popular culture . . . . The original pilot of Star Trek, "The Cage", was rejected in February 1965 by NBC executives. The show had been sold to them as a "Wagon Train to the stars", and they thought the first pilot did not match the adventure format they had been promised and was "too cerebral" for the general audience. However, NBC, having been persuaded by Desilu management (and reportedly by Lucille Ball herself), maintained sufficient interest in the format to order a second pilot episode in March 1965. 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here is how President Trump is getting 'er done.

Look at the artistry: not much re American troops in harm's way and this is being broadcast to the world by CNN, finally doing some journalism for a change. Oh, the irony...

I notice that President Trump did not call ISIS the junior varsity team or play games with words (except, maybe, Mad Dog  ). He's merely doing what has to be done to get rid of them.

Michael

[Peter]

The Free Market Express is still rolling along.

Peter

Congress joins Trump war on regs, cuts a year's worth in one week by Paul Bedard | Jul 6, 2017, 7:10 AM:

Congressional lawmakers have gone all in on President Trump's bid to slash Obama-era regulations, targeting $19 billion in rules and the elimination of enough red tape to free up 5,200 federal workers, according to a new analysis.

The cuts proposed by the House Appropriations Committee this week amount to a year's worth of regulations under the Obama administration, said the report from American Action Forum.

Analyst Sam Batkins wrote, "The suite of appropriations bills released this week goes further, curtailing more than $19 billion in total regulatory costs and eliminating 10.4 million hours of paperwork, the equivalent of eliminating all regulations from 2006 and freeing 5,200 employees from paperwork compliance."

His report, provided to Secrets in advance of its release today, said that the committee's funding bills target regulations in the areas of financial services, agriculture and energy. The biggest ticket item: "Repeal of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill's Volcker rule, which originally estimated $4.3 billion in costs and 2.3 million new paperwork burden hours."

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

The Free Market Express is still rolling along.

Peter

Congress joins Trump war on regs, cuts a year's worth in one week by Paul Bedard | Jul 6, 2017, 7:10 AM:

Congressional lawmakers have gone all in on President Trump's bid to slash Obama-era regulations, targeting $19 billion in rules and the elimination of enough red tape to free up 5,200 federal workers, according to a new analysis.

The cuts proposed by the House Appropriations Committee this week amount to a year's worth of regulations under the Obama administration, said the report from American Action Forum.

Analyst Sam Batkins wrote, "The suite of appropriations bills released this week goes further, curtailing more than $19 billion in total regulatory costs and eliminating 10.4 million hours of paperwork, the equivalent of eliminating all regulations from 2006 and freeing 5,200 employees from paperwork compliance."

His report, provided to Secrets in advance of its release today, said that the committee's funding bills target regulations in the areas of financial services, agriculture and energy. The biggest ticket item: "Repeal of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill's Volcker rule, which originally estimated $4.3 billion in costs and 2.3 million new paperwork burden hours."

Never a dull moment.  Trump's administration will be kinetic,  that is for sure. 

I love fireworks,  don't you?

[Peter]

Harvard University has found that 80 percent of coverage in this president’s first 100 days was negative, compared to 41 percent for President Obama.

From Rush. But Trump notes that the News has to make news up and their reactions are so over the top they have no idea where they will go next. They are incoherent. And that is why they are doing all in their power to make the actions of Trump Junior who did nothing worse than saying he would “take a meeting” with a Russian, seem like chicken salad instead of the chicken shit, it is. And remember, the Clintons didn't just have a meeting with a Russian, they TOOK MONEY from foreigners.        

[Peter]

Remember Arnold the Terminator bowing to his (former Kennedy) wife’s liberal views, when he became the gover-nator of the state of California? What a disappointment. But, buckle up Bucky, our President is not failing us. (I won’t add, “so far.”) I am still at a 95 percent approval rating.

Peter

Some clips from: Will Populist Trump Turn into a Schwarzenegger Squish? By Arthur Schaper, Posted: Jul 11, 2017 12:01 AM: . . . . I must admit and I believe that many still fear that this populist president will sour on us. As a Californian, I was so leery of the Trump Presidency. After all, it was House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (another Californian, this time from Bakersfield) who suggested to Joe Scarborough and Co. that Trump’s nomination and campaign reminded him of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s populist bid for governor of California in 2003. That remark offered me even less assurance about a future Trump Presidency . . . . Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reforms failed, and his resolve as a leader fizzled. During his second term, he morphed into an accommodationist liberal puppet. He bowed down to the California Teachers Association. He ignored conservative controversies. He signed off on the green scheme cap-and-trade. He never campaigned for Republicans. Aside from blocking bad proposals, including gay marriage and open border policies, Arnold went along with the same bloated budgets.

Will Trump become the same terminated wannabe Terminator? Looking at the president’s first six months, I rest assured that my vote was not a bad gamble but the right choice. Granted we are only through the first half of the first year of his presidency, but I am convinced that we don’t have a spineless Schwarzenegger-type in the White House. Trump has governed quite conservatively in contrast to his prior liberal-leaning rhetoric . . . . Will Trump turn into a liberal squish? No way. He has passed this test with flying colors. I look forward to eight more years of Trump terminating the liberal opposition in Washington and across the country.

[Peter]

“He Fights” by Evan Sayet Posted: Jul 13, 2017 1:57 PM . . . . We Right-thinking people have tried dignity.  There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency.  We tried statesmanship.  Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized “collegiality” as John McCain?  We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney?  And the results were always the same.

This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.

I don’t find anything “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper” about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party.  I don’t see anything “dignified” in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks.  I don’t see anything “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent.  Yes, Obama was “articulate” and “polished” but in no way was he in the least bit “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper.”

The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the ‘60s.   To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale.  It has been a war they’ve fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery and lies from day one – the violent take-over of the universities – till today.

The problem is that, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war.  While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality and propriety.

With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end.  Donald Trump is America’s first wartime president in the Culture War.

During wartime, things like “dignity” and “collegiality” simply aren’t the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors.  Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming.  Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today.   Lincoln rightly recognized that, “I cannot spare this man.  He fights.”

[BaalChatzaf]

1 hour ago, Peter said:

 

I don’t find anything “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper” about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party.  I don’t see anything “dignified” in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks.  I don’t see anything “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent.  Yes, Obama was “articulate” and “polished” but in no way was he in the least bit “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper.”

Barak Obama played by "Chicago Rules"   He would have thrown Michelle and his two daughters under the bus  if the situation demanded it.  Look how B.O. stuck and knife into his "friend"  Reverend Wright.  A man is often known by the company he keeps.  One of B.O's good buddies was that thug Rahm Emanuel.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William posted on his OL blog yesterday's interview between Pat Robertson and President Trump (see here).

It was such a good interview, I found a YouTube copy and am posting it here in the Trump thread.

If you are like I am, you will feel a reluctance to watch it because of the religious stuff. But there was almost none. And they covered issue after issue after issue different that the mainstream news doing all its heavy-handed grandstanding about Russia Russia Russia gotcha gotcha gotcha aren't-you-ashamed? do-you-think-so-and-so-should-have-said-that? etc., etc., etc.. In other words, there was no crap.

It was like a breath of fresh air. And Pat Robertson did not limit his questions to softball.

For instance, we all know what the media pundits think about President Trump and President Putin. But what does President Trump think about Putin (other than rally rhetoric)? What does he think Putin thinks about America? Where are they at odds and where do they agree? We finally get to hear things like that. Healthcare. Tax reform. Infrastructure. Working with Congress and strategies for getting bills passed. France. China. North Korea. G-20. And on and on.

You get the feeling that President Trump took his shoes off and relaxed as he talked to Pat. It was great to hear him speak like that. 

To be fair, in the middle of the interview, he got a little into rally jargon (especially about infrastructure), but soon after relaxed again. 

In my opinion, this was the best one-on-one interview President Trump has given to date. At least among the ones I have seen.

Watch it. Try to push away any underlying bad vibes about Pat Robertson you may have and you will see what I mean.

Michael

[Peter]

3 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Barak Obama played by "Chicago Rules"   He would have thrown Michelle and his two daughters under the bus  if the situation demanded it.  Look how B.O. stuck and knife into his "friend"  Reverend Wright.  A man is often known by the company he keeps.  One of B.O's good buddies was that thug Rahm Emanuel.

Do you think Fred and Wilma Flintstone are married in real life? David Letterman on the old Johnny Carson Show last night.

I hope history tells the truth. In the mean time, us good guys will remember.

[Peter]

Is it getting hot in here? “Hail To The Chief,” because Donald is putting the “heat index” up! He is “rebuilding” much of America and not just remolding it, as with his illegal alien policies. However, he should be humane with kids born or raised here. When will the wall be finished?

Last night I heard about six, quick sonic booms so I went outside to listen and no more happened. But I wondered if something “stealthy” was going on in Europe or Africa since the military and commercial flights don’t go supersonic until they are a few miles off the east coast to avoid window rattling . . . but not last night, which made me think there was a need for speed. So far, nada in the news.

Peter   

From Red State: Immigration Chief: We’re Sending Hundreds of Agents to Sanctuary Cities Posted at 9:17 pm on July 18, 2017 by streiff: A few weeks ago, the chief of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) remarked that illegal aliens “should be afraid” of ICE. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Thomas Homan said in an interview that he has “zero regrets” about his remarks before Congress this week, expanding on them.

“It needed to be said,” Homan told CNN on the sidelines of a Central American prosperity and security conference. “And by me saying you should be worried, you should be afraid — if you lie on your taxes, you’ve got to be worried, ‘Is the IRS going to audit me?’ … When you speed down the highway, you’ve got to worry, ‘Am I going to get a speeding ticket?’ You worry. It’s natural human behavior.”

Now, in a wide ranging interview in the Washington Examiner, Homan has laid down another marker that is sure to endear him to the open borders caucus: A key target are the 300-plus sanctuary cities and counties that do not cooperate with ICE and ignore requests that they detail criminal illegals for ICE arrest and deportation proceedings. Homan called sanctuaries “ludicrous,” adding, “In the America I grew up in, cities didn’t shield people who violated the law.” A New York native who took his first immigration job during the Reagan administration, Homan said that he plans to flood sanctuary cities with agents. He has been OK’d to hire 10,000 new agents and many will help track down illegals in those havens.

“The president recognizes that you’ve got to have a true interior enforcement strategy to make it uncomfortable for them,” he said.

He ripped cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and San Francisco that refuse to let ICE officers into jails to seize illegal criminals. He explained that it is much safer for ICE targets, police and citizens to make the arrest in jails than on city streets. How is Homan able to do that? Since President Trump’s inauguration, attempts a crossing the border are down by 70% and arrests inside the United States are up by 40%. The precipitous drop in attempts at crossing the border is freeing up agents for use duty in apprehending illegals in the United States and taking custody of illegals from state and local authorities.

“You can like President Trump, not like him, like his policies, not like his policies, but one thing no one can argue with is the effect they’ve had,” said Homan, the former chief ICE enforcement boss and a 30-year immigration agency veteran.

He said that the change in immigration enforcement has been radical — and welcome — under Trump. “You’d think everybody would be celebrating these policies,” he said during the 45-minute interview in his office.

One group he says are cheering: Border Patrol and ICE agents. “Now they have meaning to their jobs,” said Homan. “What this president has done is taken the handcuffs off of law enforcement officers who are charged with enforcing immigration laws,” he added.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

For anyone interested in Randian epistemology, take a look at the massive blank-out Sam Harris just did with Scott Adams about President Trump. Go to 9:58 to hear it.

Harris claimed that President Trump is harming America with lies.

Adams asked him for evidence, for instance if the stock market would be even higher record levels if he didn't lie. Or if ISIS would be reconstituting (meaning choosing to be less violent). Or if North Korea would not have launched that last nuke. 

Harris flat out said the stock market was the wrong metric and didn't talk about the other two. Talk about blanking out evidence. Then came the gobsmacker.

Sam Harris said that President Trump has seriously damaged America because we all talk about politics more than we used to.

Seriously.

He said that.

And he meant that.

Don't believe me. Listen to it yourself.

In other words, he doesn't want the "stupid" people to talk about politics, only the "smart" people like himself. God knows what the "stupid" people will do if they get involved, huh? Better let governing them to their betters, huh?

Dayaamm! You can't make this up as fiction and be believable.

Do you know what I hear as a big honking subtext? I hear Sirens of Utopia calling Sam Harris and him being pissed he cannot remake man according to his own fancy--just like most elitist intellectuals are. So he blanks out what doesn't fit his illusions of what should be and demonizes those who disprove him in reality. And he demonizes them to the appalling degree of the way any fundamentalist religious organization thinks about infidels (spawn of Satan and so on). 

To his credit, he's a bit more tolerant of those who argue with him in words. But then again, he can control words. He can't control those little human suckers out there in reality building good things for reasons he doesn't and refuses to understand and that seems to infuriate him further into fanaticism.

He did other blank-outs, too, like saying Trump was dead inside and so on. When called on his mind-reading of Trump, he said he wasn't mind-reading or dealing with what Trump thought. He just said it, but then said he didn't. Poof! Done.  

I would not want this man out on a farm. He would be absolutely useless. Worse than useless. In a hurricane or other disaster, I believe he would find a way to make it worse without meaning to just by sheer ineptness about how to recognize the important parts of reality in order to deal with them. He would probably be able to tell you the variations in wind speed, though, and get pissed because you don't find his information interesting at that moment (as a cow flies over his head  ). 

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

There's another part of that video I find important, especially for people (like Sam Harris) who keep complaining that President Trump lies because he's a big fat liar who lies in his lying heart and out of his lying mouth because his brain and entire life are lies.

Scott Adams broke down a profile of how President Trump persuades and categorizes what Harris calls lies into three categories:

1. Things President Trump thinks are right and just gets wrong like any human being. (Harris did not object to that one and even said he forgives Trump of "many of those things." In other words, those would not be lies, but mistakes instead.)

2. Some things are clear hyperbole and work better, especially in making the first big offer in a negotiation.

3. President Trump is so focused on the results he seeks that he has a low regard for facts that are not relevant--ones that do not and will not ever matter to decisions or the outcome. So he just doesn't care whether they are right or wrong.

Scott claims, after observing the president through this lens for two years, that he can tell the difference between these categories. He also said he hasn't seen any of the lies Harris complained about from President Trump harm the country, that they are all trivial. And he doesn't apologize for those because that would be lousy persuasion.

I agree with Scott on all this.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just had another thought, too.

I think people like Sam Harris, who I consider to be a control freak of sorts, despise President Trump because he does not feel shame from gotchas.

There's no way to gotcha Trump and make him feel shame so he will submit to sanction of the victim. Instead, President Trump laughs at them in general and gets the country to laugh at them, too. They despise Trump because they are impotent at controlling him. Their main weapon doesn't work on him.

What's worse, it's not as if he defends well against their main weapon (shaming through gotchas). It's as if their main weapon doesn't exist at all to him, that there's nothing to defend against, and that reality confirms it doesn't exist. They feel totally lost in that situation and scared to hell and back.

Michael

[Peter]

From the Washington Examiner: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has decided to ban all travel by Americans to North Korea, due to "the serious risk of arrest and long-term detention" by the rogue regime. "Once in effect, U.S. passports will be invalid for travel to, through and in North Korea, and individuals will be required to obtain a passport with a special validation in order to travel to or within North Korea," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Friday. end quote

Makes sense. It took a long time for the Soviet Union to implode, and it may take a long time for that concentration camp to close.   

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I'm watching Anthony Scaramucci give a presser now that Sean Spicer is out. (Sarah is now Press Secretary.)

Scaramucci is magnificent. He's a perfect person in that position so far. He's in control in a coach kind of way. He talks about winning, how much he loves Trump. etc., and he's totally sincere. And he deflects bait like a master without sounding like a politician.

Spicer was OK, but Scaramucci is a big step up.

I finally can look at the press hostility in pressers and don't feel dirty. Scaramucci elevates the discussion to inspiration despite each barb. It's like sewage off a duck's back, then he dives to get it all before coming back up totally clean.

EDIT: The recording is now available. See it and see what I mean:

Michael

 

 

 

[Jon Letendre]

That was great!

This looks like good news.

[turkeyfoot]

I'll remember Spicer for his contention on the inauguration "spectacle".  I heard him.

He also said , "Covfefe" wasnt a typo.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/05/31/sean-spicer-says-covfefe-wasnt-typo-trump-knew-exactly-what-he-meant/102355728/

And then as if things couldnt get tough enough for Spicer,  Conway threw him a life preserver, and said the inauguration facts werent falsehoods but alternative facts.

But Mooch loves him a man.

I heard the presser. I had a sense that if Trump were listening, he would approve.

Mooch was called and offered the job and then went steadily on his way to erase of his tweets, deny his affiliations.

 Skip to :30

Otherwise hugely deft handling by a comer. He might do well, he wont have to face the constant barrage of directly addressing the press. But hey,  he was one of them or at least as he said he played one on TV.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

22 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Sam Harris said that President Trump has seriously damaged America because we all talk about politics more than we used to.

Here's the entire discussion for anyone interested.

I haven't seen it all yet, but I will.

In the comments to the video and on Twitter, a common theme is that Scott doesn't deal with President Trump's morality whereas Sam does. That's inaccurate. Scott talks about the outcomes Trump seeks as highly moral choices and he lists off strings of Trump achievements as president as conceptual referents. I don't know if he used the word "morality" is describing this, but morality is the concept behind what he was talking about. 

I get the feeling Sam Harris and his people want a gotcha moral standard applied to all phases of executing a plan (including the political persuasion part) so that they, not the one creating the plan and building from it, can control the people involved. Then they can selectively choose what to gotcha according to their whim and regulate the hell out of producers. I think many of them would be appalled by knowing this, too, so they hide behind their moral outrage and keep calling President Trump a conman, liar and so on. They proclaim this as a blanket term without context, meaning they apply it to President Trump in all contexts. They want a contextless existence because they are afraid of contexts they don't understand or control.

But President Trump, bless his heart, goes Galt on control freaks. His subtext is: "Get out of my way!" Then he add, "But let's have fun as I scoot you over to the side."  

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Unless a person is an anti-Trumper, what is there not to like about how Scaramucci is doing his job so far?

So far, he is dishing up one perfect example after another of Rand's rhetorical method of refusing to accept the opponent's premises. Including this video. (Except he uses this technique with a smile and Rand didn't.  )

He then follows by gouging hard at the opponent's vulnerability, which Rand did, too. In this video, he kind of did it in her kind of manner--that is, remove one's goodies from the bad guys and let them fend for themselves. He said he was going to take the leaks away from CNN (and other mainstream news) by getting rid of leak-friendly government employees on his end.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Watch how Scaramucci takes apart leading and malicious media gotchas--with a smile.

I think Anthony Scaramucci is going to go down as one of the greatest presidential communication people in history. He is fully grounded and accepting in the demands of his position, in understanding the producer's mindset (thus the President's mindset), and in reality. And he manages to reframe hostility (i.e. not accepting the opponent's premises) through that lens while smiling and even getting some good vibe feedback from hostile people.

To say it in ugly vernacular, he is as slick as snot.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Here's some speculation I haven't heard anywhere, but I can't get it out of my mind.

President Trump has been bashing Sec. Jeff Sessions recently for recusing himself from the Russian thing and for not pursuing Clinton's corruption. 

What if this is staged, maybe without even Sessions being in on it? This is a perfect topic for leak-bait to find leakers.

For instance, and I'm not saying this is true (although I'm not saying it isn't, either  ), the press recently came out with news--from unnamed sources--that President Trump was considering Giuliani to replace Sessions. Bam! Scaramucci immediately fires Michael Short, assistant press secretary. What if only Short and his cohorts were given the Giuliani hint? That would make it obvious he was the one who leaked it.

Now nobody is talking about Giuliani anymore, but instead about Ted Cruz replacing Sessions. (Cruz is denying it, too.) Should we expect another person to go shortly? I suspect we will see precisely that.

And I think this strategy, if that is what is really happening, will get more sophisticated as time unfolds.

Also, as gravy, by poking Sessions, President Trump is able to set the stage to ultimately have the special prosecutor dismissed.

There you have it. Political wisdom from the reluctant pundit. (Meaning me.)  

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

On 7/25/2017 at 0:40 PM, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

What if this is staged, maybe without even Sessions being in on it? This is a perfect topic for leak-bait to find leakers.

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh and it looks like he is partially on board with my idea, at least as speculation. 

Except he goes deeper. He notes that Sessions has been vilified as a racist, a creep, etc. etc. etc., even to some extent by other Senators, like, say, when he came out for Trump during the election and, more recently, during his confirmation as Secretary of State. Between them and the media, Sessions couldn't do anything right.

Now that President Trump is increasingly bashing him in public (which to Rush this makes no sense at all), these same people are now saying that Sessions is a saint, the highest integrity, etc. etc. etc.

But it looks like Sessions is opening a DOJ investigation of government leaking (including in the intelligence community) and, if rumors go as they are being told, will soon open up an investigation of corruption in the former administration. And all the praise is smoothing the way for him to kick off these investigations without hardly any political friction. 

Won't these Sessions-praisers look like perfect idiots when they finally wake up?

 

So maybe the bashing is staged (or partially staged).

I'll get a link and post it here later so you can read what Rush said. The transcript is not ready yet.

Michael

 

EDIT: For those interested, here is a link to the transcript of the part of Rush's show devoted to Sessions. It's a hell of a nice read, albeit a bit long. Sorry, no time right now to extract quotes. 

What’s Really Going on with Sessions?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Might as well let Rush gloat a little for The Donald, too.

After all, as he basically says, the mainstream media and the anti-Trump intelligentsia are so stupid and easy to manipulate, they fall for the same thing time and time again. As Rush mentioned, they even fall for it when you tell them what you are doing. 

I wonder if this is why zombies are such a cultural meme right now. 

Michael