Principal questions about Comey’s firing and the alleged Trump-Russia Connection

Posted on by in Blog, Domestic Politics, Elections, Foreign Policy and tagged , , , , , , , , .

Remarkably, without even a shred of established evidence, rumors and innuendo about an inappropriate Trump-Russia relationship, exacerbated by the firing of FBI director James Comey, have now persisted for months, even though all major media companies, from the New York Times, over the Washington Post and all major television networks, have with unprecedented intensity searched for even the most minute evidence, and come up short. Like these media outlets, and you the reader of these pages, we, here at The Canary, therefore have currently absolutely no idea whether President Trump and/or his organization did or did not have an inappropriate relationship with agents of the Russian government.

While unable to offer the public even minimal evidence of such an inappropriate relationship, above referenced media organizations, nevertheless present evolving news to the public as if there could be no doubt about such a Trump-Russia conspiracy. Therefore the New York Times’s page-one headline on May 10 read not Trump fires Comey (Director of the FBI) but Trump fires Comey amid Russia inquiry.

Presenting factually true but otherwise unrelated (at least so far) associations to the public as fact, of course, is “fake-news,” and is meant to subconsciously reemphasize to the public, without need of proof it, that something very stinky must be going on in the Trump White House.  

We here at The Canary wish to again point out that we have no inside knowledge as to whether the Trump campaign had contacts with agents of the Russian government and, if so, what the nature of these contacts was. Since the possibility of inappropriate contacts has been raised in such a public fashion, we support that these rumors be properly investigated. Like every other U.S. citizen, the U.S. President (and his staff) are, however, presumed to be innocent until proven guilty. Based on behavior, a large majority of the national media, however, feels differently!

The principal allegation made against the Trump organization is that Trump’s campaign conspired in secret with agents of the Russian government in defeating Hillary Clinton in the last presidential election. We previously in these pages made the point that, even assuming this accusation to be correct, putting moral considerations aside, such coordinated efforts involving the Trump organization and the Russian government would not necessarily be criminal. It is well known that the U.S. government through a variety of agencies is constantly trying to influence elections in other countries.

President Obama, as has become known recently, supported in the last election cycle opposition parties to Israel’s prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, with staff and federal funds in a failed attempt to defeat him. President Putin’s strong dislike for Hillary Clinton, as has been widely reported in the media, is, likely, the consequence of Clinton actively supporting Putin’s opposition with U.S. federal funds as Secretary of State in the Obama administration during Putin’s most recent election.

In other words, accepting “help” from overseas sources, even from the Russian government, is in itself not necessarily a federal offense, – unless, of course, federal campaign laws were broken, the collaboration involves criminal activities (i.e., the hacking of computers and distribution of content obtained through illegal hacking), government secrets were revealed and/or quid pro quo arrangements were reached, obliging a future elected government.

Also, a campaign organization cannot necessarily be held responsible for potentially illegal acts of individuals committed out of self-interest. General Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s short-term first Security Advisor, may be a good example. Should he, indeed, as has been suggested, have received illegal payments from Russian and Turkish sources. One, of course, would still have to wonder how such an individual survived an allegedly serious vetting process, especially since he also does not appear to be particularly bright: How else could the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency not understand that every word he exchanges on an open phone line with the Russian ambassador would be picked up by U.S. intelligence?

That after months of investigations by FBI and committees of House and Senate, still, nothing concrete has been leaked to support increasingly bizarre daily rumors, spun by the media, therefore, to us suggests that, likely, nothing is there to be discovered. We may be wrong, and Trump’s Russia connections may morph into Watergate II. Proving that something does not exist is, however, almost impossible. Considering the current political atmosphere of absolute confrontation and “resistance” in Washington, it, therefore, appears increasingly likely that this affair will stay with us at least until the mid-term elections. Then, it will be again up to the nation’s voters to decide who is right and who is wrong.

Trump, in the meantime, has, however, to recognize that he, in the end, will not be judged based on what Democrats and the media are trying to concoct but on his performance as President. If he continues to allow relatively unimportant things to rule the news, and take up his valuable time, he will be a failed president. If he can concentrate on what is important, he will succeed.  

The Canary

The unprecedented election campaign of Clinton versus Trump

Posted on by in Blog, Domestic Politics, Elections and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , .

The unprecedented election campaign of Clinton versus Trump

So here we are, barely three weeks from what, likely, will be the most consequential presidential election since WWII, and the descent into gutter politics by the campaigns of both major contenders has hit unprecedented lows. Both candidates are disliked by a majority of the public and their approval ratings in public opinion polls are unprecedentedly low.

As the Clinton campaign and the overwhelmingly liberal press that supports Clinton’s candidacy with unprecedented fervor suggest, Donald Trump has gone from just being a relatively benign BS artist (as we discussed in a prior communication) to being a disgusting sexual predator. Such attacks in at least recent election campaigns are unprecedented, and them coming from the Clinton camp can only be characterized as amazing political “chutzpah.” Yet, we are witnessing an, indeed, unprecedented presidential election campaign, which will not only rewrite standard campaign strategies but may also lead to unprecedented political consequences for party politics and even the two-party system, which has provided political stability for the country for so long.

Hillary, based on WikiLeaks, has again and again been exposed as what she already for decades has been known to be, – a conniving pathological liar, self-serving, unprincipled and ready to say and do anything to achieve power. How much she, indeed, strives for this power, and how much she is willing to sacrifice in the process became shockingly apparent when, after fainting at a public event, she refused to be taken to a hospital for fear that this could impede her election chances. Which person of sane mind would behave that way, – rather taking the chance of significant bodily harm than the risk negatively affecting her campaign for president?

At least subconsciously the public understands how sick a mind must be driving Hillary. Otherwise, it is unexplainable that she has not already “run away” with this election, considering Trump’s at times truly bizarre behavior and her enormous fund raising advantage. Her razor thin advantage in national poles is, in addition, likely exaggerated by biased media reports and, more importantly, by a Brexit-like effect on polling that, likely, underestimates Trump’s electoral following by four to five percentage points.

The, likely, most interesting opinion on this race came from David Gelernter, one of the country’s most original geniuses (and past victim of the Unabomber, whose explosive device, sent through the mail, mangled one of his hands). An artist, writer and professor of computer science at Yale University, he recently published in the Wall Street Journal an article, titled

“Trump and the Emasculated Voter” (October 15-16, 2016). Though also a Contributing Editor at the conservative Weekly Standard, which in its editorial policy strongly opposes Trump, he concluded that “there’s only one way to protect the nation from Hillary Clinton, and that is to vote for Donald Trump.”

And the reasons(s) why the nation needs to be protected from Hillary?

Gelernter astutely notes that over the last few decades the people’s opinions have grown increasingly irrelevant to the political class (whether Democratic or Republicans, though at greatly accelerated pace during the two Obama administrations). He offers examples when asking since when the American public, for example, endorsed affirmative action that has become integrated in our lives in schools and at work. Or since when did the American public accept the fact that men and women should have equal responsibilities in combat in the military. He poignantly asks why are women now in combat in the military but not allowed to play football in the NFL, and reaches the very troubling, though absolutely correct conclusion that we are led by a political class that takes football more seriously than the military.

The larger theme behind these examples is the rapidly increasing encroachment of political correctness, dictated by a political and judicial elite in cahoots with national media, liberal universities and an uber-liberal entertainment industry, telling the American public what can or cannot be said in schools, on campus and at work, who we have to share bathrooms with and, ultimately, how we have to think. Reading some of the ideas behind “safe-zones” in colleges, one is reminded of Communist reeducation camps. One is also reminded of Communism and other dictatorships when our children in college tell us that they cannot express their opinion freely to many of their professors because they would be downgraded if they did not agree with politically correct opinions, like affirmative action, safe spaces, black lives mater, Israel as an Apartheid state, global warming, open borders and others.

Gelernter describes the feeling like that of “encroaching numbness.,” and the American public has, simply, had it with being told how to talk, how to behave and especially how to think. This is where Trump’s popularity stems from, and why accusations against him have been largely ineffective. He is perceived as the only politician who does not play the “political correctness game,” and says it how he sees it. The more outlandish an accusation, the stronger the public, consciously or subconsciously, therefore, will perceive him as unfairly attacked by political correctness. This is also the reason why we here at The Canary believe that Trump under-polls by four to five points.

The third Trump Clinton debate will be important. If Trump manages as similar performance as in the second debate and after that, until November 8, does not self-destruct, we predict that the American public, contrary to what most media want us to believe, will elect Donald Trump as the next president. Using a static pool of representative voters who get interviewed serially, the Los Angeles Times poll is the only one, which has had Trump persistently ahead of Clinton. Considering the unprecedented nature of this upcoming election, we believe that this polling structure is superior to standard polling methods.

President Donald Trump is, as we previously noted in an earlier communication, undoubtedly a risky choice. But, as Gelernter, we also believe that, as of this point, he is the only choice that can protect the nation from Hillary. And nothing is more important than that!

A new governing aristocracy made public deception acceptable

Posted on by in Blog, Domestic Politics and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .
8

We live in unprecedented times: With both conventions behind us, roughly three months to the November elections, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the political landscape has radically changed; and not only because both big parties selected highly flawed, even in their own parties relatively unpopular presidential nominees.

Disruptions of traditional American politics goes far beyond that point, and the selection of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as standard bearers of their respective parties, indeed, increasingly looks like only the last step in a decades-long process of declining morality in public policy and politics. It also coincides with a rapidly expanding government, the concomitant growth and ever increasing power of a government-funded administrative “aristocracy,” made up of professional politicians and largely unaccountable government bureaucrats, who no longer listen to the people but believe to have the right to make choices on behalf of the people, while in actuality self-servingly expanding their own interests rather than those of the people.

Administrative “aristocracies” existed throughout history, from ancient Egypt, China and Japan to later European nation states, at times, indeed, similarly to current circumstances in the European Union (i.e. BREXIT) and the U.S. (ratification of the agreement with Teheran by the U.N. rather that the U.S. Congress), more loyal to their “aristocratic” cast members across-borders than to their own nations. This is how, for example, a German rather than British aristocratic family ascended to the British throne creating the House of Windsor or, as recently as in 1921, when a Saudi Arabian “aristocratic” family from Mecca was chosen by the British as rulers of Jordan, creating the Hashemite dynasty that has been in power ever since. Though formal aristocracies lost power in many countries, new administrative “aristocracies” almost always followed. Though, for example, end of aristocratic rule was a declared goal of the French Revolution, Napoleon established elite schools for future government administrators (and politicians), not too dissimilar to how Chinese emperors had ruled their vast empire already in early Chinese dynasties, and thus created a new ruling class (i.e., administrative aristocracy).

Napoleon’s schooling concept has survived in the so-called Grandes écoles of France over a number of French Republics, with the École national d’administration till today seeding governments and the nations administrative as well as business elites, whether from the left or right of the political spectrum. Post WWII, similar administrative “aristocracies” also developed in most other Western European democracies and, when the European Community was established, found its ultimate expression in the Union’s Brussel Bureaucracy, which can be viewed as the principle cause why the BREXIT vote led to the pending departure of the UK from the EU.

Primarily driven by an ever expanding federal government with increasing powers, and by diminished independence of individual states, such a federal administrative “aristocracy” has also been evolving in the U.S. Especially the last 30 years have witnessed exponential growth in the power of this ruling class, at least partially driven by the power of incumbency, offering politicians a high likelihood of reelection, and due to lifetime employment (with practically no legal option of dismissal) for government employees. United by common self-interests of incumbency and ever expanding financial as well as political power, politicians and government bureaucrats now represent our country’s administrative “aristocracy,” not dissimilar to the EU’s administrative “aristocracy” in Brussels. This is why, by income, some of the suburbs of Washington, DC, now are the richest counties in the nation.

Convinced of intellectual superiority, these “aristocratic” bureaucracies create self-perpetuating and self-serving government structures from the ground up by determining what is and what is not politically correct language (and, of course, politically correct thinking); by establishing educational curricula for schools and colleges that “educate” the young, following the old Jesuit dictum, “give me a child until age seven, and I’ll give you the man;” by interpreting laws in thousands of rules and regulations, many never intended by congress; in other words, by removing the administration of the country further and further from the direct will of the people.

Since ideologies throughout history never were able to co-exist with traditional religious believes, it is not surprising that these “aristocratic” bureaucracies are usually agnostic, and often even overtly hostile to the exercise of free religions. The empty space of religion is filled with “modern religiosity,” best defined as abstract concepts of thought, which share with religions the indisputable conviction of absolute and, therefore, indisputable truth; yet, like religions, they are also characterized by absence of all provability and, at times, are empirical illogical.

A good example for such illogical thinking is, for example, the laudable insistence on equality of all religions (i.e., Islam with Christianity and Judaism) while, at the same time restricting the ability of Christians to practice their religion freely. A good example for the results of such illogical thinking is that currently over 50% of U.S. college students allegedly favor socialism over capitalism, even though every student of history would know that in innumerable incarnations socialism has without exception always failed as an economic model, and more often than not, ended up leading to dictatorships and economic misery (see the current Venezuela, the country with the largest oil reserves in the world). This statistical fact is, however, also a good example how radically this new American “aristocracy” has changed America in recent decades. Even President Obama in his first election campaign, only eight years ago, still categorically rejected the label of being a “socialist” for fear of becoming unelectable. Only eight years later, Bernie Sanders, a declared Socialist would, likely, have become the elected Democratic presidential candidate, had the party leadership not undemocratically conspired against his election.

Looking back in history, considering the more recent political climate in the country, it is really quite remarkable that when the Watergate Scandal broke in the 1970s in the second Nixon administration, Republicans were on the forefront of those demanding his impeachment. Contrast that to what happened during the second Democratic Clinton administration, when the truth no longer mattered and relativity of values, suddenly, ruled the day.

Can anybody imagine that an earlier U.S. president would have politically survived a Lewinsky- like Scandal? And, yet in 1997, only a little over 20 years following Watergate, Bill Clinton not only survived, but became one of the country’s most popular ex-presidents. The political value system of the country in those short years had, obviously, radically changed: Doing the right thing for the country was out; and self-preservation of the ruling “aristocratic” class, based on the relativity of human values, was in. Not one Democratic member of the Senate supported Clinton’s impeachment, and many Republican politicians who had pushed for it, saw their political careers destroyed.

After Watergate, the Lewinsky Affair, likely, became the most decisive political event in recent American history because, for the first time, an American president in a televised broadcast literally looked into the eyes of the nation and outright lied, when stating “I have never had sex with this woman.”

Many, maybe even most presidents before Clinton, of course, also have on occasion been less than truthful; but nobody, except of course Nixon (“I am not a crook”), has in recent history so blatantly lied to the American people as Bill Clinton and, yet, gotten away with it, in the process changing American politics for ever by demonstrating that the modern multimedia world practically always offers the opportunity to relativize the truth of the message (to quote Bill Clinton, “it depends what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”).

The political “aristocracy” learned this lesson very quickly and, of course, nobody better than Hillary Clinton. She would never have dared to follow through with the absolute insane idea of establishing her own Internet server while serving as Secretary of State, had she not been convinced that she could manipulate the truth, should it be discovered. Piercing her words, as her husband had done so well during the Lewinsky Affair, she, indeed, has successfully avoided indictment by the Justice Department, even though a majority of Americans, likely, believe that she escaped because of special considerations by Obama’s Justice Department. Completely exposed in her deception by the FBI investigation, she, remarkably, still continues to lie in her statements to the public.

That Hillary Clinton was not indicted also explains why investigations of Fast and Furious and the IRS scandal never went anywhere, why six weeks before national presidential elections the first Obama administration could instruct senior administration officials to claim that the U.S. ambassador’s murder in Benghazi was not caused by terrorists but by a ridiculous irrelevant video produced in Los Angeles. This is also why Hillary Clinton is still a candidate for President of the U.S., even though common sense suggests that she should have been indicted, and why President Obama can with a straight face go on national television, telling the American people that sending 400 million dollars in foreign untraceable currencies on an unmarked plane in the middle of the night to Teheran represents just “routine” government relations between two governments, and had absolutely nothing to do with the concomitant release of four American hostages.

It has quite obviously become routine for senior government officials, including America’s current President, without fear of political or legal retributions, to blatantly lie to the American people. This, of course, does not happen by happenstance: it is a reflection of how much our country’s political morality has changed over the last three decades.

Within the ruling “aristocracy,” loyalty to the ruling class supersedes right and wrong, and even loyalty to the country is only, at best, second. This is why Ms. Lerner took the Fifth when questioned before Congress about the IRS scandal rather than inform Congress on who instructed her to discriminate against potential political opponents of the Obama administration. She knew that she could count on being protected, and that there would be no serious follow up investigation by the FBI. This is also why only one person was fired in the Veterans Affairs Scandal, the Justice Department decided not to defend a law suit this person filed about her dismissal, and the Obama administration announced that it would no longer implement a law Congress passed that allowed the Veterans Administrator to fire government employees for appropriate cause. And this is also why Hillary Clinton had no hesitation of appointing Ms. Wasserman-Schultz to the position of Honorary Chair of her campaign on the day she was forced to resign as Chair of the Democratic Party after public disclosure how the party under her leadership subverted the primary election process in favor of Ms. Clinton. One hand, of course, washes the other; the administrative “aristocracy” protects its own!

The public instinctively feels the growing divide between the ruling administrative “aristocracy” of both major parties and the American people. This is unquestionably a major reason why Congress and both parties have reached a nadir in popularity. The only question remaining is whether the public is upset enough about where the political “aristocracy” has taken the country to revolt, and take the risk in the upcoming election to consider the unknown over the unacceptable. If the answer is yes, then Donald Trump will be the next U.S. president; if the answer is no, then Hillary Clinton will not only be the first female president of the U.S. but, assuming the public’s anger with Washington continues to grow and finally boils over during her administration, she may end up being the first president since Richard Nixon not finishing a full term in the White House.