Israel, the Palestinians, Anti-Semiticism

Israel, the Palestinians, Anti-Semiticism

I am one of few Americans who have lived in the Middle East and are aware of the Palestinian side of the formation of Israel in 1948.  History’s memory, worn down by politics and historical events, barely acknowledges the exodus of some 700,000 Palestinian Arabs, both Christian and Muslim, forcefully displaced from their homes and lands, by the Israeli military and settlers during the formation of Israel as a country.  (The Brits were also complicit).  One could make a comparison to the Book of Joshua in the Old Testament, except that there was no actual blood genocide, just economic confiscation.  Christians comprised about 7% of this Palestinian diaspora.

I lived and worked south of Sidon, Lebanon in the mid 1960’s.  We met many professional level Palestinian Christians and Muslims who were displaced from their land by the formation of Israel. We also saw the abysmal Palestinian refugee camps outside of Beirut and other Lebanese cities.  These were not op-ed pieces in the New York Times.  These were real people whose homes and property were effectively confiscated when Israel was formed.  We socialized with Palestinian refugees and our children went to school with some of them.  I evacuated my family from Beirut in 1967 as a result of the Arab-Israeli 6 Day War.

All of the above did not turn me against Israel, conceptually and politically.  Israel was still a beacon of freedom in the convoluted Middle East, although its origins were tinged with nineteenth century European thinking, including Marxism.  From Wikipedia, “The economy of Israel was initially primarily democratic socialist and the country dominated by social democratic parties until the 1970s. Since then the Israeli economy has gradually moved to capitalism and a free market economy, partially retaining the social welfare system.”

The kind of anti-Semitic rhetoric being voiced by the two Muslim congresswomen, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, are just a continuation of the virulent anti-Semitism prevalent in much of the Muslim world since the nineteenth century, and particularly since the formation and success of Israel.  Muslim Arab children are taught from birth, in the madrassas and byways of Islam, to hate Jews, hate Israel, hate America as antheses to Muslim and Sharia philosophies.  Some, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and others, reject this hatred and join the real and rational world.  Others, like Omar and Tlaib, continue to try to spread their bigotry within congress, to the American public and to the world.

Omar and Tlaib and other bigots have first amendment rights like all Americans.  If the democrats fall for and adopt the perverse views of these outliers, in addition to the democrat party’s observable slide toward socialism/communism, they are pounding another nail in the coffin that Trump will bury in the 2020 election process.

Ray Gruszecki

August 20, 2019

GET TRUMP

GET TRUMP

Democrats were devastated in November, 2016, and would not accept that Donald Trump, an outspoken and well-known New York City real estate developer, TV star and non-politician interloper could actually defeat the vaunted Clinton/Obama/democrat political machine and be elected president of the United States.  “Resistance” and obstruction efforts were immediately launched by the defeated leftists, to denigrate and negate Trump’s election win and to polarize the country against Trump.  In fact, this effort turned to street demonstrations and violence in major U.S. cities, ostensibly orchestrated and paid for by such leftist backers as George Soros and his minions.  From this early effort emerged violent street groups such as Antifa, black lives matter and others.  The democrat left’s refusal to accept that Trump was a valid elected president, and their refusal not only to legislate normally, but also to obstruct meaningful governance and to push the limits of the cultural war now raging, has literally thrown the country into political and emotional chaos. Divisiveness and violence are approaching that in the mid nineteenth century over state’s rights and slavery.  Political positions have taken on the mantle of strong, almost  religious faith, rather than being a subject for rational discussion and compromise.

The first legal actions aiming at not only condemnation, but also, impeachment of President Donald Trump, as soon as he was elected, were concerned with conflicts of interest and the emoluments clause of the constitution.  Trump has good lawyers, and these actions were eventually dismissed by an appeals judge. This was an early strike against the leftist “get Trump” crowd. This link refers:  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/us/politics/trump-hotel-emoluments-constitution.html

Concomitant with emolument were efforts to subpoena Trump’s tax returns, again aiming at impeachment, and again countered by Trump’s legal advisors.  Another failure to “get Trump”.  There is an action still pending in California initiated by Governor Gavin Newsome to pass a law requiring tax returns from anyone running for president in the primaries of the State of California.  https://www.apnews.com/5f3e937786e6421f81ee62297d48e349

Impeachment of Trump for ill-defined “crimes and misdemeanors was attempted in the congress from the moment Trump was elected.  These efforts never came to fruition, but the anti-Trump mainstream media efforts maintain the noise and exacerbate the divisions that had emerged in the country.  These efforts were rekindled after democrats gained control of the House of Representatives in 2018, along with the speakership and chairmanship of the many House committees. https://impeachdonaldtrumpnow.org/blog/

Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.  Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee resisted the nomination, as they would with anyone that Trump nominated, but Gorsuch was confirmed since he was replacing Scalia, who was an iconic conservative on the court.

The next anti-Trump effort came after he fired FBI Director James Comey in May, 2017 for leaking confidential information and failing to take action against Hilary Clinton and other democrats who allegedly committed crimes.  All we heard about for weeks was about Trump’s “illegal” firing of a recalcitrant employee.  This later led to a special prosecutor being chosen by the Justice Department to investigate collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign in 2016. (More later)

Soon after this came the Stormy Daniels affair.  The allegation was that Trump had an affair in the past with this porn star, and paid her hush money to keep it quiet with a non-disclosure agreement.  The claim was that this hush money was paid illegally from campaign funds.  All that was heard on CNN, MSNBC, and read in the New York Times and Washington Post and the mainstream media in general, for months, was “Stormy Daniels, Stormy Daniels, Stormy Daniels” and the certainty that this would bring down Trump.  Daniel’s suit against Trump in California to revoke the non-disclosure agreement was thrown out by a judge.  Her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, after a brief stint as a mainstream media darling, was completely discredited and arrested for committing fraud.  Still another attempt to “get Trump” fizzled out. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/us/politics/trump-stormy-daniels-lawsuit-dismissed.html

Then came the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to replace Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh was reputedly conservative, while Kennedy was traditionally the “swing” voter on the court, who many times was in the liberal camp.  It would take a tome to describe the unscrupulous efforts by the leftists on the Senate Judiciary Committee, in congress and in the media, to destroy Judge Kavanaugh and his family, and to keep him off of the Supreme Court.  This included accusations of lurid and egregious behavior on Judge Kavanaugh’s part while a student 25 years ago, false and obviously almost comic false witnesses slandering Kavanaugh, street violence to punctuate the left’s displeasure with the nomination, congressional offices and members of congress accosted in their homes and in restaurants and weeks of turmoil caused by activist leftists violently demonstrating against a good and decent judge of the law.  The leftists failed again to “get Trump”, and Judge Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to SCOTUS by a partisan senate, but not after subjecting the country to a lurid and inexcusable period of social upheaval.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Kavanaugh_Supreme_Court_nomination

Changes in the law by congress are necessary to address the convoluted issues of border security and illegal immigration.  Congress has not been willing to discharge their constitutional duties in this regard.  President Trump’s efforts using executive powers to address the situation have been met with derision and obstruction by the leftist democrats and “never-Trumpers”.  Separation of children and “families” at the border, which are normal criminal processing practice, were represented as “cruelly putting children in cages”.  Separation of children at the border started and was much more prevalent under the Obama administration’s border activity.  Pictures, purporting to show children kept in cages by Trump's policies, and widely disseminated by the mainstream media, were actually dated from the Obama administration.  Leftist activists, represented by obsolete Hollywood personalities and “flavor of the day” politicians visited the border and heaped invective on Trump and his administration, forgetting that Trump was trying to assuage a situation that existed under Bush, Obama and other prior administrations.

Trump’s efforts to fund a “wall” along parts of the southern border, to curtail illegal immigration, were rebuffed by the democrat led congress, so Trump used his executive powers to divert funds from the Defense budget for the purpose.  This precipitated a “balance of powers” dispute.  The Supreme Court ultimately found in favor of Trump’s diversion of funds.  Another example of anti-Trump action failing.  
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/26/us/politics/supreme-court-border-wall-trump.html

The Ninth Circuit Court affirmed the Trump administration’s policy of sending certain migrants back to Mexico pending immigration court hearings in the U.S., after an Obama appointed lower court ruled against the practice.   Another “win” for the Trump forces.  https://www.lawfareblog.com/asylum-update-trumps-remain-mexico-policy-can-continue-ninth-circuit-rules

While all of the above negative activity was proceeding against him, Trump continued what appears to be positive governance, albeit interspersed with ‘direct to the people” tweets, which sometimes were downright stark and inflammatory.  Tweets notwithstanding, Trump’s revoking of many of Obama’s regulatory orders, his support of the energy industry and his generally positive attitude toward business resulted to a much stronger economy than that during the Obama years.  Internationally, Trump flexed America’s muscles, and basically said “no more sucker and patsy for Europe, Russia and China.”  He talked down the North Korean dictator, withdrew from agreements inimical to the U.S., and imposed strong sanctions on North Korea, Iran and Russia.  His speeches in Saudi Arabia and Poland were masterful.

There were increasingly vociferous wails against Trump and his “in your face” policies and diplomacy.  American, European and international leftist elitists increased their hatred of Trump with a passion for his unapologetic, businesslike pragmatism in government and his outspokenness.

The democrat leftists were finally going to “get Trump”!  From May, 2017 to March, 2019, the Mueller special prosecutor investigation was in full force.  Several Trump associates, General Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and others were tried and sentenced for “process crimes”.  It would only be a matter of time until Trump was frog-marched, in an orange jump suit, out of the white house, and into a holding cell.  So the hatred-filled left thought, and the mainstream media and internet waves were filled with these dire “criminal Trump” allegations.  The talking heads on CNN, MSNBC and pundits in the New York Times and Washington Post outdid themselves predicting just how incriminating the final Mueller report would be.

What another disappointment!  Quel dommage!  The Mueller team, comprising 13 democrats and several unaffiliated lawyers, found no collusion between the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and the Russians, and found no chargeable crime of obstruction of justice.  However, the Mueller report waffled and said it “could not exonerate Trump”, and this latter obfuscated and confused the issue for the public.  Of course, exoneration is not in the purview of a purely investigative body like the Mueller team.  It required a real Attorney General to clarify this issue, and William Barr did this accurately and expeditiously.

This was not enough for Nadler, Schiff and other leftist democrats.  They had to haul Robert Mueller, now a private citizen, before their committees and before the country to provide TV coverage of his report.  Clearly Mueller was not up to the task and it quickly became evident that he was not an active participant in its production.  He was just a figurehead whose good name appeared on the report that was actually produced by his 13+ democrat minions.  His answers over eight hours of questioning were ill-informed, halting and frankly, embarrassing.  The vaunted Mueller was an aged and tired old man, and not the answer to the democrat’s quest to impeach Trump.  Another major loss and disappointment for the democrats.  https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/24/20708503/robert-mueller-testimony-winners-losers

Committee chairs like Nadler, Schiff, Cummings, Maxine Waters, and newcomers like AOC, Omar, Tlaib and others, still have not given up on the push to impeach Trump for alleged “crimes and misdemeanors”, and because they hate him so vehemently.  Also, the democrats are no longer the rational party of opposition.  They are now increasingly socialist democrats as somewhat naively led by Ocasio-Cortez and the radical leftists, and who follow the tenets of Marx, Saul Alinsky and other revolutionary radicals. 

After all of the continuing impediments against Trump and his administration, the current crisis manufactured by the left reverts back to the culture war raging in the country, and threatening to tear the country apart.  The latest accusations against Trump and the bulk of American, normal middle of the road people of the country relates to “RACISM”.  Trump is an equal opportunity “criticizer”, and he has recently criticized “the squad” of young, democrat congresswomen, who happen to be of color and ethnicity, and also Elijah Cummings the corrupt, (but black), congressman from Baltimore.  Trump has also, and many times criticized corrupt “lily-white” politicians and others, (most recently Anthony Scaramucci), but this falls on deaf media ears because very little “color” is involved.  So all we hear these days is RACISM, RACISM, RACISM, just like RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, and STORMY, STORMY, STORMY, and on and on and on.  In nearly ever instance, Trump either prevails directly or through the legal system, notwithstanding the left’s sharpened pikes against him.

Presumably the “RACISM” issue will run its course and news cycle until the next anti-Trump item surfaces, and the mainstream media takes up a new chant, perhaps guns, or some other burning political/social issue.

Ray Gruszecki

August 12, 2019

The Conservative Mind

The Conservative Mind

I just finished reading Russel Kirk’s “The Conservative Mind, From Burke to Eliot”, which was Kirk’s “magnum opus” about the evolvement and metamorphosis of conservative thought throughout history.  He really starts with Aristotle, but chooses Edmund Burke as the definitive beginning of contemporary conservative thought. 

Kirk’s book explores how modern conservatism is related to the classic liberalism of America’s founding fathers, and how the nuances imposed by such thinkers as Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Jeremy Bentham and many others affected the evolution of conservative thought.  The impact of the thinking of 18^th and 19^th century American figures such as John and John Quincy Adams (and their progeny Henry and Brooks Adams), Alexander Hamilton, John Calhoun, John Randolph, James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Russell Lowell and Daniel Webster are also highlighted, as are  foreign notables who have had an impact on the continuing evolvement and growth of conservative philosophy, such John Stuart Mill, Alexis de Tocqueville, Auguste Comte, Benjamin Disraeli and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, among others.

Kirk continues into the 20^th century with Irving Babbitt, Paul Elmer More, George Santayana, Thomas Stearns Eliot and Rudyard Kipling.  William H. Buckley, George Will and more recent conservative figures are not included, since Kirk’s book was written in 1953.

Overall, Kirk crystalized for me the historical origins and continuing evolution of conservative philosophy and politics.  People will ask “if you are a conservative, what are you conserving?”  The answer is not some nostalgic or euphoric past that does not exist anymore. Conservatives acknowledge the wisdom, knowledge, experience, ethics and morals that were developed in the past as a starting point for living life and operating in the present.  Not in some rigid or inflexible adherence to the past, but as a starting point.  Conservatives believe that not only this “politically correct”, instant gratification generation is capable of erudite and politically acceptable thoughts and actions.  Conservatives don’t indiscriminately tear down what civilization created in the name of some ill-defined “progressivism”.  They build on the beneficial features of what came before to create an even better world, and a better starting point for those that come after us.

Ray Gruszecki

August 6, 2019

Another Tragic Weekend – El Paso and Dayton

Another Tragic Weekend – El Paso and Dayton

Another tragic weekend with over 30 dead from mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio.  And more rhetoric and platitudes by the vociferous few, who blame the implement, rather than the deranged individual who perpetrated the crimes.  As if the hammer or the sword, or the knife, or the SUV, or the bus or the firearm acted on its own to kill and maim.

And the same heart-felt, but empty, demonstrations of sympathy for the dead and wounded.  Prayers and flowers and teddy bears and candle-light ceremonies assuage our own anger and frustrations about these senseless killings, and adjectives like “senseless”, “horrific” and “abominable” are cast about with very little of substance being accomplished.  The democrats trot out their old, shop-worn, “assault weapon” (as if that defined anything), ban legislation; and the republicans hide behind the Second Amendment.

The resultant and current villains and “whipping boys” after these two almost simultaneous mass shootings are “white nationalist terrorists”, as if appending “white nationalist” to “terrorists” defines the whole issue of mass shootings in the U.S.  Singling out one group, no matter how intolerant and prone to violence, does not accomplish much.  As a result of media focus, white supremacists are just the “flavor of the day”, just as the guns that are responsible for those deaths.

That is not to say that this virulent, intolerant, xenophobic white supremacist movement should be given a pass.  They should be identified, prosecuted as the law allows and prevented from spreading their hatred more widely.  They have First Amendment rights, like all of us, but that should not prevent identifying them and stopping them, before they commit violent crimes, passing appropriate laws if necessary.

Terrorism of any brand needs to be addressed.  Antifa is also a terrorist organization composed of hateful, intolerant leftist radicals who pursue their extreme agenda through aggressive violence.  Any groups that use violence as a political tool should be identified and curtailed, - again, as allowed by the First Amendment and the law.

But more endemic to these mass shootings than neo-Nazis or Antifa, are the unaffiliated loners that sit in their parents’ basements in front of high-speed internet, and play violent combat games, while reading and disseminating hate-filled screeds and memes.  Their next step is to go out and buy (or steal) a ubiquitous and readily available firearm like an AR-15 or an AK-47, or some other weapon, and go to a crowded mall and commit real-life violence.

After this weekend and as usual, there will be the same calls relating to “gun control”, mainly by leftists who sense a progressive or socialist talking point, and who have very little knowledge about the reality of firearms, other than the charged emotions caused by mass shooting incidents such as El Paso and Dayton.  They prattle about “assault weapons”, a contrived and meaningless term, firearms registration and confiscation, and other empty leftist political positions.  There are about 320 million people in the U.S., and the same number, or slightly more firearms.  The rights of possession and use of firearms for sport, hunting and self-protection is embedded in our constitution.  Please see my extensive blog on types of firearms and their use. Here.

Another favorite target of our well-meaning reformers trying to get at the causes of our national propensity for violence is “mental health”.  And again, any such efforts at identifying and diminishing potential violence by these means is welcome.  Of course we have to keep in mind the deinstitutionalization that took place in the latter half of the twentieth century that effectively released millions of prior mental patients back to society with instructions to take the appropriate psycho-active medication to stay “balanced”.  The large homeless population in this country indicates that some of these patients and their progeny have not stayed “balanced”.  How many of the radical loners described above are in this category?

One can posit a sociological solution, both to the asocial and disenfranchised loner and the homeless individual living on the street.  That is for our society in general, to return to the values that foster stability, well-being and a spiritually enabled life.  These include family, respect for law and authority, integrity, positive altruism and a return to religion, rather than away from it.   These are conservative values, and antithetical to the continuing secularist movement away from our God-given values and heritage.  Leftists will call these values “racist”, as they do all things these days with which they don’t agree.  But they are not “racist”.  They embody our American values (whether our origins are Indigenous, European, Black, Muslim, Asian or from some other place or ethnic group).  If we all acknowledged what our truly American values are, and tried to live accordingly, we might just have less violence and upset in our society.

Ray Gruszecki

August 5, 2019

Cutting the cord

Cutting the cord

I have blogged extensively about the history, legality and ethics of copying entertainment content, starting with wire recorders in the 1930’s, and tracking through to the present day.  This link refers.  http://raygruszecki.blogspot.com/2016/03/copying-of-entertainment-content.html


There is more and more dialogue about cutting the cord and getting rid of high priced and unreliable TV service.  Dish TV has not carried HBO channels since November, 2018 because of a pricing dispute.  Direct TV dropped Albany NY channel 13 and other CBS channels around the country because of a similar dispute.  And consumers are paying over $200 per month for full boat Dish TV and Direct TV packages, only to see favorite programming suddenly unavailable.  Similar disputes and high prices abound with various cable companies.


Many people have dropped their high-priced services gone to streaming TV over the Internet, now that fast speed internet is generally available in the country.  This was pioneered by Netflix and Amazon Prime TV, and now includes Hulu, Vudu, Sling, Fubo, Philo, Youtube and several other streaming services that charge $10-$15 per month for their services and provide a lot of entertainment for that price.


There’s another whole world of IPTV streaming services that are becoming more and more mainstream.  These are foreign based IPTV streaming services that literally open up the world of low-cost TV streaming over the internet.  These services accumulate TV signals from all over the world, including all of the American and British programming, put it out on the internet and charge a fraction of what the big commercial providers charge.  These IPTV services include, but do not feature, all of the premium American and English channels, (HBO, Showtime, Sky, etc).

Some of us have known about IPTV for years, and have subscribed to what I considered “experimental” services like IPTV4less, RapidIPTV, etc. With these services, there is no, or very rudimentary guide and DVR capability, and reception and customer service is not always reliable.  These “experimental IPTV services cost $60-$80 per year, and offer thousands of world-wide channels (including all of the “premium” channels), video-on-demand, etc.


  There are now more robust IPTV services, like IPguys, Helix and others that apparently offer guides and DVR type service, and charge upwards of $150 per year.  They seem to be a re-brand of earlier experimental IPTV services.  I don’t know how well their offered EPG’s and recording capability works.


Receiving IPTV is pretty straightforward.  A set top box is required, and there is a plethora of various types available.  The erstwhile Mag254 box with D-link wireless adapter has been replaced with the Mag324 with wireless embedded, for about $75 on Amazon.  The STB is connected to power, to an HDMI port on the TV, and to the internet.  Two USB ports are available, and presumably can be used on the Mag324 to save content.


After payment, an IPTV provider will recognize and authorize the set top box using the Mac address of the box.  That’s all there is to it.  The world’s TV programming is available, for a mere pittance compared to what providers like Dish and Direct TV, and the cable companies charge.  It’s a little raw, and I still consider the IPTV services “experimental”, but for $75 for the Mag STB, and $60-80 for a year’s subscription, there are not 200-300 channels available.  There are literally 5000 channels available.



Ray Gruszecki
August 3, 2019

Our Changing Demographic

Our Changing Demographic

It has to be evident to any alert and unbiased observer, that the world, including the United States, is becoming more homogeneous.  I posit that although cultural issues, like identity politics, may have some minor influence on this homogenization, it is occurring because of increased communication and interaction between the peoples, races and ethnic groups of the world.  One does not need to be a studied anthropologist to note the historic intermingling and assimilation of people of varied backgrounds.  Given enough time, people that originally may have looked and thought differently will inter-mingle and become indistinguishable.  Historically this has taken centuries, but time is compressed in our modern information/communications environment, so the process accelerates.

We can see this in America probably more that in more insular Asia, Africa and Europe.  The U.S. has been called the “melting pot” in the past when referring to European immigration and assimilation.  The term truly applies in modern terms to all of the diverse people living, loving and inter-marrying in America.  We are becoming an amalgamation of Caucasian, African, Asian, Native American and other racial and ethnic groups.  We can already see this in our glossy advertising, TV commercials and news focus.  Whereas not long ago, our idealized male and female icons were white, blue-eyed and blond, they have increasingly become darker skinned, brown-eyed and dark haired.

Not that long ago, in the early and middle twentieth century, this trend was resisted and called “mongrelizing” by white supremacists, primarily in the southern U.S.  Although there are still small pockets with such beliefs, this racism has been largely overcome in the U.S., fueled by the civil rights movement of the later half of the last century, by laws establishing equal rights for ALL Americans and by culturally based social trends.  To hear some in our current political environment throw the term “RACIST” around, one would think that we are a “RACIST” country.  These radicals would belie the history of the past 250 years by trying to bring past racial transgressions into the present, destroying statues and art that are deemed offensive, and calling for reparations for events that occurred hundreds of years ago.

So the quintessential “average American” (and eventually average person in the world), will become somewhat darker skinned and darker haired, and have slightly slanted darker eyes.  We will also probably be a little shorter, less muscular and with bigger heads to accommodate more brain power in our meat computers.  According to Ray Kurzweil and others, we may also be merged with the small phones and computers that we love so well and become cyborgs, completing our march against prejudice in general, and incorporating machines in the mix.

July 30, 2019

Ray Gruszecki

The Dems Just Can’t Win

The Dems Just Can’t Win

The dems and leftists just can’t catch a break! All of their many attempts to derail this president have failed. First their inexorable march toward Obama/Clinton style secularism, and political correctness was interrupted by that brash, outspoken and overtly anti identity politics interloper, Donald Trump. And this happened in spite of the democrat/leftist collusion/conspiracy with foreigners like the Russians and Christopher Steele, more collusion/conspiracy with the fifth column within the Justice Department/FBI, and almost universal mainstream media efforts to keep Trump from being elected.

Next came riots and cars burning in the streets after Trump’s election, perpetrated by “the resistance”, or antifa, with the violence justified as “anti-racist”, although there were rare, if any racist occurrences. Sadly and unfortunately, a white supremacist at a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killed a woman protester with his car, and the media added great amounts of fuel to the fire.

This was followed by the ruthless and false vilification of Trump appointees like Judge Brett Kavanaugh and his backers with leftist mobs not only rioting, but also accosting Trump administration officials in the streets, in restaurants and in their homes. The dems produced false witnesses who lied about Kavanaugh’s activities 25 years ago, and the media piled on and literally destroyed this upstanding Judge and his family. Truth prevailed, however, and Kavanaugh was confirmed to the supreme court.

Then came the greatest effort to finally and forever, remove Trump from office and possibly put him in jail, the special investigation by Robert Mueller and his hand-picked, mostly Obama and Clinton affiliated democrats. This would prove that the Trump campaign colluded/conspired with Russia, and that Trump had illegally obstructed justice and either broken the law, or committed impeachable offenses. Mueller was represented by the leftists and their mainstream media cohorts as their “superhero”

Getting any legislation done, even with small majorities in the House and Senate during the first two years of the Trump administrations were nearly impossible due to the hue and cry of those who called themselves “the resistance” (as if they were in Vichy France). Trump unwound many of Obama’s (some illegal), executive orders with some of his own executive orders aimed at removing restrictions on business and economic activity. A tax reduction bill was eked through congress, - and the economy and stock markets took off and most people’s economic lives improved.

All of this in spite of patently leftist district and circuit court judges hampering Trump’s efforts at every turn, necessitating action in higher courts, including the Supreme Court, with the Trump administration winning most of these higher court decisions.

The mid-term elections turned the House democrat, and even minimal legislative effort pretty much stopped. Under the auspices of Pelosi as speaker, and committee chairs like Nadler, Schiff, Cummings and Maxine Waters, activity in the House turned to trying to find charges against Trump that would lead to impeachment. Many subpoenas were issued, leading to a showdown between executive and legislative branches of government concerning extent of powers.

Also, with the dem’s majority, came a new phenomenon – newly elected congresswomen that are activist, virulently ant-Trump, socialist, anti-Israel and verbally anti-American. They essentially formed a social media cabal that is challenging Speaker Pelosi and the mainstream democrat party, and succeeding in moving the democrat party to the extreme, if not radical left wing, and away from anywhere near middle America.

Then the next of many catastrophes for the leftists. The vaunted Mueller report, all 448 pages, was finally released, and found no collusion by the Trump administration with Russia, and with Attorney General Barr’s help, also found no crime of obstruction of justice on Trump’s part, The report contains inflammatory and erroneous language that the investigation “does not exonerate Trump”, as if they were a court and jury that could “exonerate” him, rather than an investigative body that found no crime. Attorney General Barr released the 98% unredacted report to the public, which he was not legally obliged to do. Months of meaningless argument about redactions followed. Robert Mueller issued a prepared statement that he is closing down the investigation, the findings of the report are final, and that these are his last words on the matter.

Next, the final straw. Robert Mueller is brought before Nadler’s Judiciary committee and Schiff’s Intelligence committee. It was literally painful to watch much of Robert Mueller’s testimony before the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees. Mueller’s fumbling and ill-informed responses revealed pretty quickly that he had lost a few steps, and also probably a few neurons with time and age.

Clearly, he did not want to be there, and his halting responses somewhat explained his secretive and enigmatic behavior during the three year-long special investigation into collusion, obstruction and myriad other implied political sins and wrong-doings of which Trump and his administration were accused. It was also pretty readily apparent that Robert Mueller was a mere figurehead in the vaunted “Mueller investigation”, rather than a knowledgeable and active participant.

Not to belabor Mueller’s obvious diminished capacity and knowledge, but let’s remember that the Mueller’s investigation took nearly three years, cost us, the taxpayers somewhere around $30 million, and resulted in “no collusion” with Russia, and politically charged verbiage like “did not EXONERATE Trump from obstruction”, which is legally meaningless, but which was apparently made a feature of the report to inflame impeachment advocates.

It does not take an advanced law degree to understand that only a court and a trial jury can EXONERATE someone, and the Mueller group was an investigative body, and not a jury. They could not EXONERATE anyone. They could only determine whether or not a crime had been committed. It was not. There was no crime. But the reference to “NOT EXONERATING” Trump irresponsibly set off another round of democrat committee action, at taxpayer expense, including this latest testimony by Mueller, to “finally get Trump”, (for the umpteenth time).

Say what you like about Trump and his bizarre assertions and tweets that sometimes seem “off the wall”, and later are proven to have had some degree of truth. One such is Trump’s depiction of “Mueller and his 13 angry democrats”. This certainly rings true now, after Mueller’s fiasco before congress.

And although it should have ended a long time ago, even before what some are now calling the Weissmann Investigation (after Mueller’s activist lieutenant), the beat goes on, with Nadler, Schiff, Cummings and others continuing to spend taxpayer dollars in their empty “investigations” of Trump. More subpoenas, more rabid conspirational polemics by CNN, MSNBC, the NYT, the WaPo, What will really end it? A resounding republican victory in 2020, with functional majorities in both houses. This may sound like wishful thinking, but with AOC and her “squad” driving the democrats further and further to the extreme left and away from mainstream America, its not out of the question

Ray Gruszecki

July 28, 2019