Some Thoughts as America Celebrates Flag Day

JUNE 14 IS FLAG DAY IN THE UNITED STATES. Flag Day is celebrated on June 14 to commemorate the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777, by resolution of the Second Continental Congress. The United States Army also celebrates the US Army birthday on June 14. The Continental Congress adopted "the American continental army" after reaching a consensus position in the Committee of the Whole on June 14, 1775. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that officially established June 14 as Flag Day. And, on August 2, 1949, National Flag Day was established by an Act of Congress. Flag Day is not an official federal holiday. Title 36 of the United States Code, Subtitle I, Part A, CHAPTER 1, § 110 is the official statute for Flag Day, but it gives the President the discretion to officially proclaim the observance. On June 14, 1937, Pennsylvania became the first US state to celebrate Flag Day as a state holiday, beginning in the town of Rennerdale. New York Statutes designate the second Sunday in June as Flag Day, a state holiday. The week of June 14 (in 2019 it is the week of June 09–15) is designated as "National Flag Week." During National Flag Week, the President will issue a proclamation "urging the people to observe the day as the anniversary of the adoption on June 14, 1777, by the Continental Congress of the Stars and Stripes as the official flag of the United States of America." The flag should also be displayed on all government buildings. Some owns and patriotic groups hold parades and events in celebration of America's national flag and everything it represents. The National Flag Day Foundation holds an annual observance for Flag Day on the second Sunday in June, with a program that includes a ceremonial raising of the national flag, the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, the singing of the national anthem, a parade and other events. The Star-Spangled Banner Flag House in Baltimore, Maryland, birthplace of the flag that a year later inspired Francis Scott Key (1779–1843), to write his famous poem, has celebrated Flag Day since the opening in 1927 of a museum in the home of flag-banner-pennant maker Mary Pickersgill. The annual celebrations on Flag Day and also Defenders Day (September 12, since 1814) commemorates the Star-Spangled Banner and its creator Mary Pickersgill, for the huge emblem that flew over Fort McHenry guarding Baltimore harbor during the British Royal Navy's three days attack in the Battle of Baltimore during the War of 1812 (1812–1815). The Betsy Ross House, home of legendary Betsy Ross, has long been the site of Philadelphia's observance of Flag Day. Coincidentally, June 14 is also the date for the annual anniversary of the Bear Flag Revolt in California. On June 14, 1846, 33 American settlers and mountain men arrested the Mexican general in command at Sonoma, and declared the "Bear Flag Republic" on the Pacific coast as an independent nation. A flag emblazoned with a bear, a red stripe, a star and the words "California Republic" was raised to symbolize independence from Mexico of the former province of Alta California. The Bear Flag was adopted as California's state flag upon joining the Union as the 31st state in 1850, after being annexed by the United States following the Mexican–American War of 1846–1849. Prominently flying both the US and state flags on June 14 is a tradition for some Californians. President Donald Trump was coincidentally born on June 14, 1946. Here is his proclamation for Flag Day and Flag Week 2019. • "Proclamation on Flag Day and National Flag Week, 2019. Issued on : June 7, 2019. On Flag Day and during National Flag Week, we celebrate and honor our Nation’s lasting emblem, our great American flag. Since the Second Continental Congress adopted its design more than 200 years ago, the Stars and Stripes has been a powerful symbol of freedom, hope, and opportunity. We fly Old Glory from government buildings, schools, city halls, police and fire stations, stores, offices, and our front porches. Wherever Americans are gathered -- sporting events, places of worship, parades, and rallies -- our flag waves proudly, representing the enduring spirit of our country. The American flag helps us to never forget the values of our Republic, and the valor of the men and women in uniform who have defended it. When we look at the red, white, and blue, we are filled with the same spirit of patriotism that stirred Francis Scott Key to pen the 'Star Spangled Banner' during the withering bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1812. We are reminded of the blood spilled across generations to safeguard liberty. We are prompted to reflect with pride on the purity and righteousness of our cause -- the same pride that swelled in the hearts of our boys as they took the beaches of Normandy, and as they raised the flag on Iwo Jima. And we are strengthened in our resolve to pursue justice and safeguard the rule of law, so that freedom can march on. Today, and all throughout the week, let us recommit ourselves to the principles upon which our country was founded. With grateful hearts, let us reflect upon the price of freedom, and the brave souls who gave their last full measure to preserve it. As we raise our flag, as we stand and salute or place our hands over our hearts, let us renew our sacred pledge that we will forever remain 'one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.' To commemorate the adoption of our flag, the Congress, by joint resolution approved August 3, 1949, as amended (63 Stat. 492), designated June 14 of each year as 'Flag Day' and requested that the President issue an annual proclamation calling for its observance and for the display of the flag of the United States on all Federal Government buildings. The Congress also requested, by joint resolution approved June 9, 1966, as amended (80 Stat. 194), that the President issue annually a proclamation designating the week in which June 14 occurs as 'National Flag Week' and calling upon all citizens of the United States to display the flag during that week. NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim June 14, 2019, as Flag Day, and the week starting June 9, 2019, as National Flag Week. I direct the appropriate officials to display the flag on all Federal Government buildings during this week, and I urge all Americans to observe Flag Day and National Flag Week by displaying the flag. I also encourage the people of the United States to observe with pride and all due ceremony those days from Flag Day through Independence Day, set aside by the Congress (89 Stat. 211), as a time to honor America, to celebrate our heritage in public gatherings and activities, and to publicly recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this seventh day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand nineteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-third. DONALD J. TRUMP" • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP IS NOT THE OGRE THAT NANCY PELOSI DESCRIBES. He certainly does know right from wrong. Read the Flag Day Proclamation and it becomes clear. If there are Americans serving in public office who do not understand right and wrong, it is the Democrats who formed the cabal to oust President Trump. He defended his statements about foreign oppo research on 'Fox and Friends' after Speaker Pelosi disgracefully said his statements made it clear he doesn't know right from wrong. Newsmax carried the story : "President Donald Trump Friday defended his comments that he'd listen to information from foreign sources about his political rivals, saying that if he didn't listen to what he was being offered, he wouldn't know that it needed to be reported to law enforcement officials. 'Of course you have to look at it...but, of course, you give it to the FBI or report it to the attorney general or somebody like that,' Trump told Fox News' 'Fox and Friends' I thought it was made clear. I actually said at the beginning, I said I'd do both.' The President has come under fire, mainly from Democrats, after telling ABC News' George Stephanopoulos that 'there's nothing wrong with listening' to foreign sources. 'If I thought anybody was incorrect or it was badly stated I'd report it to the attorney general, the FBI, I'd report it to law enforcement absolutely,' Trump told Fox News. He also pointed out that he's 'constantly talking' to foreign leaders, and is in a 'much different position' than anyone else because he is the President.'I hear things that frankly, good, bad or indifferent that other people don't hear, just a normal conversation," said Trump. 'But nobody is going to say bad things to me. They know I'm a straight player. They know one thing about me I love the country more than anything.' Further, Trump noted that Democrats spied on his candidacy, through the use of the intelligence community, and that is 'probably the worst or certainly one of the worst political scandals in the history of our country.' He also rejected comments from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said Thursday the President's comments show he does not know right from wrong and that he's been involved in a criminal cover-up. 'I call her nervous Nancy,' said Trump. 'She's a nervous wreck, for her to make a statement like that, it's outrageous. Her party got caught spying.' " • Is that clear enough for even you to understand, Nancy?? • • • DO AMERICANS THINK ABOUT HOW UNIQUE AMERICA IS? I read an article early this week that was unrelated to America. In fact, it was about miracles. The Catholic Thing published it on Tuesday under the title "My Eyes Have Seen Your Salvation." The editor, Robert Royal, prefaced the article with a reminiscence about his recently deceased colleague Father James V. Schall, S.J., who would listen when teachers complained about the general state of affairs with their students. Royal said that Father Schall : "...with the wisdom born of long experience -- and decades of forming undergraduates -- would remind them that all we can do is continue to speak the truth wherever and whenever we can. And leave the rest to Providence. • Michael Pakaluk, in his article, wrote : "In the summer after my freshman year in college, I took a boat with a friend to a barrier island off the coast of Long Island, and we went swimming in the Atlantic. There was a riptide that quickly drew me several hundred yards out to sea. My friend, who had been able to get back to shore, knelt down on the beach to pray for me. He was an 'Evangelical Christian,' and I was (then) an atheist. Out of fear that I would go to hell if I died, he prayed for God to save me. And that is what happened. It was a deserted beach, miles from roads and structures. We had taken a boat to get there. People familiar with the area from fishing boats said things like: in twenty years they had never seen anyone on that beach. But immediately after my friend prayed, three men in black bathing suits came walking along the beach. My friend frantically pointed me out, a spot against the sea in the distance. One of them calmly got in the water, swam out to me, and, placing his elbow under my chin (against the riptide!), towed me lifeguard-style back to shore. When I was out there exhausted, starting to fail, I had the thought, I am going to die; I ought to pray. But I rejected that idea out of an atheist’s feeling of hypocrisy -- praying just then and only then. That resolution was foolish, to be sure. But it had this good upshot : in retrospect, there could be no gainsaying that I did absolutely nothing that led to my rescue. My sole contribution was, once the rescue was underway, to cease struggling, remain peaceful, and allow myself to be towed. The fellow who saved me dropped me at first in two feet of water. I was still going to drown there, because I had no strength to drag myself out of the water or even prop myself up. He stood over me for what seemed a long time, looking down (as I thought, with contempt). And, finally, he dragged me up onto the dry sand. He and his mates then simply walked away, without so much as exchanging a greeting. What I am telling you is true : I witnessed it. That is why I can say, 'my eyes have seen God’s salvation' -- whether or not my rescuer with apparently superhuman strength was an angel, as many who have heard this story believe. That day I was saved simply from drowning in the sea, by a man or an angel." • Pakaluk notes that his being saved "is meant to be a picture of true salvation, from sin and death, by the Son of God. 'Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,' Jesus said. We should remember that men don’t belong in the sea. As Pope Benedict commented in the homily at his installation Mass : for a fish, created for water, it is fatal to be taken out of the sea, to be removed from its vital element to serve as human food. But in the mission of a fisher of men, the reverse is true. We are living in alienation, in the salt waters of suffering and death; in a sea of darkness without light. The net of the Gospel pulls us out of the waters of death and brings us into the splendor of God’s light, into true life. The early Christians felt keenly that they had been, as it were, fished out of the sea by the Lord. To proclaim this fact, but also to cloak it from the Romans, they used an acrostic of the Greek word for fish, icthys, which stood for the profession, 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.' Much like that fellow who swam out into the deep to draw me out of the sea, so, as Tertullian said, Jesus made himself as if a great fish to save us little fishes. It’s easy to fail to see some big truths about the concept of salvation. Salvation is something done by one person to another; the savior 'rescues,' which involves a translation from one 'place' to another. Thus, salvation, correctly viewed, is entirely different from self-improvement, cultivation, growth, self-actualization, fulfillment, or even healing. All of these involve some remediation of a deficiency in a person. To educate is to combat ignorance. To heal is to cure disease. But salvation is an act upon a person -- it is not a matter of removing the evil from him, but of removing him from the evil." • • • DEAR READERS, what does this have to do with being aware that America is unique? For me, the answer is that Americans did not "save" themselves. The first Americans were "saved" by the Founders, who, by almost universal agreement, were the greatest assemblage of erudite and freedom-loving leaders ever put on Earth. And who assembled the Founders? God. It was He who created "America." It was He who decided to give humankind a last chance at being responsible for themselves and their fellow human beings under a Constitution that makes freedom and liberty available "under God." As John Adams said, "You have a Republic, if you can keep it." So, God "rescued" us Americans and pointed us in the right direction. We did not save ourselves. God saved us. • Michael Pakaluk wrote : "Someone who has been rescued never ceases to give thanks. But we do not...express our gratitude, unceasingly. • On Flag Day, it would be well, as we display our Grand Old Flag, to pause and thank God for this Flag that represents our salvation as Americans.

Trump Hater Democrats' Moral Outrage over His 'Foreign Oppo Research' Comments is Desperately Hysterical Hypocrisy

PRESIDENT TRUMP'S TELEREALITY GENIUS UNGLUES THE DEMOCRAT TRUMP Haters. There has been little to compare with the "moral outrage" generated by President Trump's statement to George Stephanapoulos that he would listen if a foreign entity offered damaging information on a political opponent." TheHill reported that President Trump on Thursday "defended his comment...equating it to his contacts with foreign governments as part of his role as President. 'I meet and talk to 'foreign governments' every day. I just met with the Queen of England (UK), the Prince of Whales, the PM of the United Kingdom, the PM of Ireland, the President of France and the President of Poland. We talked about 'Everything!' Trump tweeted. 'Should I immediately call the FBI about these calls and meetings?' he continued. "How ridiculous! I would never be trusted again.' Trump then blamed the press for not playing the entirety of his answer, which was broadcast on Wednesday night in an interview with ABC News. 'With that being said, my full answer is rarely played by the Fake News Media. They purposely leave out the part that matters.' " That the President was in part equating his comment about "listening" to his role as President in talking to foreign heads of state is not what the Democrats went up in flames about. They were outraged -- I tell you, OUTRAGED -- that the President would suggest : "I think you might want to listen. There’s nothing wrong with listening. It’s not an interference. They have information. I think I’d take it. If I thought there was something wrong, I’d go maybe to the FBI." The Trump Haters had several lines for their outrage -- including that his remarks were an invitation to foreign governments to seek to interfere in the 2020 presidential election; that he was willing to put himself "indebt" to foreign powers; and that his comments followed special counsel Robert Mueller wrapping up a nearly two year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election [your guess is as good as mine what that has to do with it, but, hey, we're dealing with insane Democrats and their propagandist media, so why not]. The Democrat Trump Haters forgot to add in their comments about the Mueller report that he found no evidence of a conspiracy between the Russian government and the Trump campaign. Although he documented "numerous links" and contacts between them. The “multiple links between Trump campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government” -- those are Mueller's words in his report -- he failed to establish in the eyes of the investigation “that the campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities. In some instances, the campaign was receptive to the offer, while in other instances, the campaign officials shied away. Ultimately the investigation did not establish that the campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities.” (Mueller Report, Volume I, Part IV). • The law is this. "52 U.S. Code § 30121 - Contributions and donations by foreign nationals. (a) Prohibition. It shall be unlawful for -- (1) a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make -- (A) a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election; (B) a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party; or (C) an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement for an electioneering communication (within the meaning of section 30104(f)(3) of this title); or (2) a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) from a foreign national. (b) “Foreign national” defined. As used in this section, the term “foreign national” means -- (1) a foreign principal, as such term is defined by section 611(b) of title 22, except that the term “foreign national” shall not include any individual who is a citizen of the United States; or (2) an individual who is not a citizen of the United States or a national of the United States (as defined in section 1101(a)(22) of title 8) and who is not lawfully admitted for permanent residence, as defined by section 1101(a)(20) of title 8." • The Federal Election Commission regulates this law. • Keep this in mind as we look at the Trump Hater Democrat reaction to the President's comments to the sleazy Hillary partisan, Stephanopoulos. • A growing number of House Democrats are calling for impeachment proceedings to begin against President Trump, citing Mueller's findings. And, while in the past these Trump Haters have focused on the "obstruction" theory for impeachment -- because Mueller refused to say that he had found no evidence of criminal activity regarding obstruction of justice in his investigation of President Trump, BUT, the President threw open the door to "conspiracy" ("collusion" as it is referred to) with a foreign entity to interfere with an American election with his comments to Stephanopoulos. "The Russians attacked our elections, and @realDonaldTrump is giving them the green light to do it again," Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tweeted. "It is shocking to hear the President say outright that he is willing to put himself in debt to a foreign power... not to mention the foreign interference in an American election part," House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) tweeted. • It was HILLARY CLINTON'S campaign and her loyalists who exploited Obama’s FBI to spread Russia conspiracy stories about Trump and his campaign. And, the likes of Brennan, Clapper, Rice, Comey, Lynch and Rosenstein cooperated, tacitly if not directly. Who was their boss?? President Barack Obama. • • • TRUMP USES TELEREALITY TACTICS TO BAIT THE DEMOCRATS. Why??? American Thinker's editor Thomas Lifson wrote on Thursday : "In classic Trumpian maneuver, President Trump yesterday chummed the waters of the House Democratic Caucus with raw meat the impeachment-crazed radicals driving Nancy Pelosi -- who really doesn’t want to talk about impeachment -- to distraction. He also laid the groundwork for the coming prosecutions on the Russia Hoax. In a clip that already has been endlessly run on every news channel, he told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News that he would not necessarily turn down information on his opponent form a foreign source or call in the FBI. Responding to question from Stephanopoulos about his son Donald Jr’s Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised dirt on Hillary Clinton, the POTUS let fly....Stephanopoulos pointed out that FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that a candidate should offer that kind of information to the agency, but Trump flatly rebuffed the notion : 'The FBI director is wrong. Give me a break,' Trump said, scoffing. 'Life doesn’t work that way.' ” • The video of the Trump-Stephanopoulos exchange is available at < https://youtu.be/S2HsUhK-gI0 >. • President Trump got exactly what he wanted from the Haters, according to Lifson, who picked off the Trump Haters' tweets and comments -- "House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler said : "It is shocking to hear the President say ourtight that he is willing to put himself indebt to a foreign power...not to mention the foreign interference in an American election." John Brennan said : "This is just the latest example of what Vice President Biden meant when he said that Mr. Trump is an existential threat to our country. 'Unfit to be President' is a gross understantement. @realDonaldTrump is undeserving of any public office and all Americans should be outraged." • But, said Lifson : "The gasps of horror were not limited to Haters. Laura Ingraham and Victor Davis Hanson were aghast....Ingraham said it seemed like he was 'playing with' Stephanopoulos a bit, but added, 'Putting him in that situation, I don’t get it.' " • Thomas Lifson than offered his analysis : "Here is some help for the perplexed : As the DOJ Inspector General’s report looms and US Attorney John Durham’s mandate has been described in the broadest terms by AG Barr, Trump has the Democrats nattering on about how treasonous it is to accept any information from any foreign country. How about paying Russian agents with campaign money for fake dirt on an opponent, even if laundered through a law firm and Fusion-GPS? When and if indictments related to Fusion-GPS are revealed, the defense lines of the Progressives will have some Trump-sized holes in them. Even NeverTrumper Erick Erickson, of the anti-Trump Resurgent sees the trap : '...we should point out that the Steele Dossier involved a lot of dirt about Donald Trump from Russia and we now know that a good bit of it was made up. The Mueller report itself notes the supposed ‘pee tape’ the Democrats have been all hot and bothered over was fabricated by the Russians. Perhaps the President should not have said it, but let’s not pretend the Democrats would actually go racing to the FBI if presented with sensational information about Trump. They’d run to opposition research firms instead. By the way, before you claim the Democrats handed the Steele dossier over to the FBI, please note that they used it to spread anti-Trump stories in the media for months before doing so not very long before Election Day 2016.' The Steele Dossier was an important foundation of the entire Russia Hoax. Trump has now got many of his worst enemies on the record about how heinous it was to accept any intelligence from a foreign source. Trump mentioned Norway. Hillary and the DNC paid for dirt from Russia. Trump, it must always be remembered, is the most successful reality TV producer in the history of the medium of television. He knows how to set up a story line for a payoff later in the season. In this case, the election season." • • • MEDIA HYPOCRITES. That's what BizPac called the ranting Trump Haters on Thursday : "Media hypocrites fume over Trump’s openness on foreign ‘dirt.’ Where were they on dirty DNC Russia Dossier? After President Donald Trump admitted to ABC chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview that he’d accept 'oppo research' on an election opponent if offered it by a foreign power -- versus reporting the offer to the FBI -- members of the left-wing media and the Democrat Party (excuse the redundancy) suffered a collective meltdown. Leading the pack were CNN and MSNBC." • Let's CORRECT THAT a bit. The President did not say he would "accept" 'oppo research' from foreigners -- he said he would listen. But, the Trump Hater meltdown was everywhere, and BizPac Review offers its selection of quotes : Christopher C. Cuomo "@ChrisCuomo Trump doesn't care about rules, but words have consequences." < https://twitter.com/ChrisCuomo/status/1138990058155855872 >. //// On Anderson Cooper 360° James Clapper sounded off : "@AC360 'Incredible, amazing, stunning and disturbing.' That's how former [Obama] spy chief James Clapper describes his reaction to Pres Trump saying he'd accept dirt on political rivals from foreign governments, adding he's 'run out of adjectives' to describe his shock." < https://cnn.it/2IasO65 >. //// Jake Tapper "@jaketapper Would love to hear from even one Member of Congress who says he takes information on his opponents from foreign countries." //// Cory Booker [aka Spartacus] "@CoryBooker It’s not “oppo research” -- it’s foreign interference in US elections. That you would say this is disgraceful. That you would do it from the Oval Office (yet again) proves you’re unfit for the office you hold." < https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1138936855573999616?s=19... >. //// ABC News : "@ABC EXCLUSIVE : Pres. Trump tells @GStephanopoulos he wouldn't necessarily alert the FBI if approached by foreign figures with information on his 2020 opponent : 'It’s not an interference. They have information. I think I’d take it.' " < https://abcn.ws/2R8UZp2 >. Adam [Pencil Neck] Schiff "@RepAdamSchiff When the Russians offered dirt on Clinton in 2016, the Trump campaign enthusiastically accepted. Today, the President made it clear he would do it all over again, saying everyone does it. No, they don't. Trump does nothing if not project his own lack of ethics onto others." //// Elizabeth [Pocohantas] Warren "@ewarren The #MuellerReport made it clear : A foreign government attacked our 2016 elections to support Trump, Trump welcomed that help, and Trump obstructed the investigation. Now, he said he'd do it all over again. It's time to impeach Donald Trump." //// Joe Biden "@JoeBiden President Trump is once again welcoming foreign interference in our elections. This isn’t about politics. It is a threat to our national security. An American President should not seek their aid and abet those who seek to undermine democracy." • BizPac Review cites conservative media's Mollie Hemingway, who expressed shock at the left’s stunning double standards and obliviousness to reality : “George Stephanopoulos’ good friend, Hillary Clinton, took information from a foreign government,” she noted during an appearance Wednesday on FNC’s 'Special Report' with Brett Baier. If it is a huge problem to take information from a foreign government, he should be asking her and Democrats. The Democratic National Committee secretly bought and paid for this Dossier that by their own accounting was sourced to government officials in Russia. So if this is a huge problem, and many people have been telling us for years that it is, why aren’t the media doing more to find out exactly what happened there? Why they created this hoax conspiracy theory? How they got it into the highest levels of the government? I would like to see some people ask some tough questions of those people.” • BizPac Review stated about Mollie Hemingway's comment : "What she said was accurate. During the 2016 presidential election, then-Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton and her peers at the Democrat National Committee paid a shady firm, Fusion GPS, to prepare a Dossier of dirt on Trump. This firm, in turn, contracted British spy Christopher Steele to dig up this dirt. Steele in turn then allegedly reached out to his contacts within the Russian government to obtain this dirt. These are all indisputable facts that, for some inexplicable reason, have been ignored by the mainstream media, never mind their astonishing implications, which are that it was the Democrats who accepted information from a foreign power and subsequently used it to try and affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. This piece of 'oppo research' later wound up in the hands of the FBI, who subsequently used it to obtain a warrant to effectively spy on Trump’s campaign. None of this was mentioned by Stephanopoulos when he interviewed the President. Instead he complained about the President’s son Donald Trump Jr. having met with Russian operatives during the election after being offered information via email about Clinton. Though nothing came of the meeting and the entire Trump campaign was effectively acquitted of 'collusion' by special counsel Robert Mueller, the left still clings to the infamous meeting as an example of the allegedly dirty tricks that the President’s campaign had played. 'Should he have gone to the FBI when he got that email?' the ABC anchor asked....The FBI director says that's what should happen.' Trump [replied] : 'The FBI director is wrong.' " • • • DC WHISPERS AND THE FULL STORY OF THE HILLARY, OBAMA, BRENNAN CRIME. On April 4, DC Whispers published a long synopsis titled "The Full Story of How Obama, Hillary and Brennan Carried Out The Crime of the Century." I keep the article for eference. It is available at < http://dcwhispers.com/the-full-story-of-how-obama-hillary-and-brennan-carried-out-the-crime-of-the-century/#bE5OvmX21LujXxTh.99 >. In the interest of letting you know about this source, here is what MediaBias/Fact checker says about DC Whipsers : "DC Whispers is a news and opinion website with a right wing bias in reporting. Headlines are somewhat sensationalized, but not extreme in comparison to many we have reviewed....Based on using questionable sources we rate DC Whispers questionable for factual reporting and strongly right biased in reporting. This is a borderline questionable source." (D. Van Zandt 7/21/2017). • With this in mind, here is my summary of the April 4 DC Whispers article, which uses various source. I use a dot to separate the topics. • "This is the information the Establishment Media has been working very hard to ignore...And know that this isn’t the first time the Deep State has directly attempted to manipulate an election outcome. It’s just that this time because President Trump fights so hard, refuses to give up, and his tens of millions of supporters stand by him, that the Deep State was caught in the act." • "The 'Operation Crossfire Hurricane' plot against President Donald Trump is now exposed for the world to see, with special counsel Robert Mueller coming up empty in his quest to pin Trump with Russian collusion or obstruction of justice. We have...information about this scheme, including the involvement of former President Barack Obama, Obama intelligence officials John Brennan and James Clapper, failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok, the Fusion GPS set-up agent Natalia Veselnitskaya, and even foreign leaders including Angela Merkel. This article will firmly demonstrate the following : Hillary Clinton’s campaign used the Christopher Steele Dossier before their involvement was covered up; Senior Obama administration officials secretly plotted to involve Senators in the 'Russia' conspiracy; James Clapper tried to use the 'Russia' narrative to get the Supreme Court to invalidate Trump’s presidency; Natalia Veselnitskaya was a Fusion GPS set-up agent who worked out of an Obama official’s office in DC; Peter Strzok ran point on destroying General Flynn and covering up for Hillary Clinton; Barack Obama used foreign powers to keep the scheme going, even after he left the Oval Office to President Trump." • "The Hillary Clinton campaign issued a press release on September 24, 2016, promoting information from the Christopher Steele Dossier. That press release has almost completely been scrubbed from the Internet but is preserved in at least one tweet and in an Internet archive sponsored by The American Presidency Project. The Clinton campaign, which funded the debunked Dossier in an effort to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil Trump Tower, actively promoted a 'Bombshell Report About Trump Aide’s Chilling Ties To Kremlin.' The Trump aide with the purported Kremlin ties was Carter Page. The 'bombshell report' was a Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff headlined 'US intel officials probe ties between Trump advisor and Kremlin.' Representative Devin Nunes’ intelligence memo makes clear that Isikoff’s article, which was promoted by the Clinton campaign, used Christopher Steele as its source and was used to help obtain the FISA warrant. The FISA warrant application falsely states that Steele did not leak information to Yahoo News. 'We’ve never seen anything like this in American politics,' Hillary for America says in its statement, which called the information in Isikoff’s article 'chilling.' " • "OBAMA Officials Plotted To Get Senators Involved In The Plot In The Hours Before President Trump Took Office. Newly released emails show the Obama administration scrambling to create the 'Russia' scandal within 24 hours of President Donald Trump taking the oath of office in January 2017. The desperation of the Obama administration is evident in the emails, in which the Obama team tries to involve Democratic Senators Warner and Cardin and Republican Senator Corker in the plot....Team Obama’s documented effort to cook up the Russia story before Trump’s inauguration emboldens a narrative already proved by text messages involving Obama official James Clapper : the Obama people actually thought they could stop Trump from getting sworn in. Judicial Watch, which obtained the emails in a Freedom of Information Act case, reports : 'In a Thursday, January 5, 2017, email chain then-State Department Congressional Advisor Hera Abassi indicates that then-Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland’s bureau was attempting to get Russian investigation related documents to the office of Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) office as quickly as possible. (In June 2016 Nuland permitted a meeting between Steele and the FBI’s legal attaché in Rome. Nuland told CBS News that the State Department knew about the Steele Dossier by July 2016.) In the email, with the subject line 'For Immediate Review – Call Sheet for S Call with Senator Warner,' Abassi writes : 'I told Cardin’s folks...that the process is long. Can we ensure that there are no holdups on our end?' Minutes later, Abassi confirms that Nuland was fully aware of the information that the State Department was providing to members of Congress alleging Russia interference information : 'This is definitely on EUR A/S radar!' Leaving no doubt that the State Department officials knew they were transmitting classified information, in a Wednesday, January 18, 2017, email with the subject line 'Cables/M,' Former Foreign Service Officer Kerem Bilge writes to State Department Congressional advisor Hilary Johnson and others : 'Highest class is SECRET/NOFORN.' Johnson replies : 'FYI – so we can keep the SECRET/NOFORN header, and should declassify it 25 years from tomorrow. I forwarded the fully cleared version to the two of you on the high side [Editor’s Note : 'high side' is State Department term for high security classification system],....we’ll need to make sure there is someone in Senate security tomorrow who can accept these.' On Wednesday, January 18, 2017, Johnson confirms that classified documents were sent to Senator Corker in addition to Senator Cardin. 'Flagging that I sent you a high side request for clearance of the draft transmittal letter to send documents to Senators Corker and Cardin.'....In an email dated Thursday, January 19, 2017, with the subject line “Signed, sealed, delivered” [Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs] Durakoglu apparently confirms that Obama State Department officials were eager to provide the classified material before Trump was sworn into office : 'We made the deadline!' Durakoglu states. 'Thank you everyone for what was truly a Department-wide effort!' President Trump was inaugurated less than 24 hours later." • "CLAPPER Tried To Use ‘Russia’ To Get The Supreme Court To Block Trump’s Presidency. Obama administration Director of National Intelligence James Clapper held a meeting in his last days in office to discuss the idea of going to a Supreme Court justice to block President Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to a high-level member of the intelligence community who spoke with a Big League Politics source. Clapper discussed blocking the inauguration on the grounds that Trump was an illegitimate President due to alleged Russian interference in the election, according to the sources. It is not known whether Clapper ever actually convened a meeting with a Supreme Court Justice to discuss the Russia case, or whether he simply discussed the idea of doing so....A high-level member of the intelligence community who witnessed the meeting said that Clapper discussed going to one of three female Supreme Court Justices to make the case that alleged Russian interference could invalidate Trump’s claim to the presidency." • "How did the conspirators do it? They used a set-up agent named Natalia Veselnitskaya, the fabled 'Russian lawyer.'....The US Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, then led by anti-President Trump activist Preet Bharara, played a key role in getting Natalia Veselnitskaya into the country in 2015-2016 on special Obama administration passes. Now, fired US Attorney Bharara’s former office has charged Veselnitskaya with obstruction of justice in an unrelated case. They did this to force Natalia to remain in Russia and not come back to the United States to testify, according to high-level FBI sources. Why? Because Natalia has made it clear that she knows Glenn Simpson -- the Fusion GPS head she had dinner with the night before and the night after her Trump Tower set-up meeting -- and she has said that her Trump Tower meeting with Don Jr. had nothing to do with Hillary Clinton....The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that Veseltnitskaya gained parole into the United States during the Obama administration due to a DHS decision made 'in concurrence with the US Attorney’s Office of Southern District of New York,' then headed by Preet Bharara. But the very people who wanted to get Natalia in now very much want to keep her out....Now Veselnitskaya can’t return to the United States...because she would be arrested upon her arrival in this country. So what could Veselnitskaya spill if she testified? For one thing, Fusion GPS has tried to claim no knowledge of Veselnitskaya’s Trump Tower meeting, despite the fact that Veselnitskaya had dinner with Fusion GPS chief Glenn Simpson the night before the meeting and also the night after the meeting. Veselnitskaya’s appearance on Fox News, in which she discussed her relationship with Glenn Simpson, did not sit well with the Operation Crossfire Hurricane conspirators. Particularly her quote, 'But my meeting was not at all connected with Mrs. Hillary Clinton.'....Here is what an FBI insider recently told us, prior to Mueller officially coming up empty-handed : 'Mueller’s team of partisans has a problem....Veselnitskaya already met with Senate investigators and gave testimony about the meeting. This testimony doesn’t fall in line with the Special Counsel’s version so they have to discredit her and keep her from coming to the US for any future hearings hence the strange indictment by holdovers of Preet Bharara.' The Trump Tower meeting, facilitated by Fusion GPS and debriefed by Fusion GPS, was an original attempt to get candidate Trump to make commitments to Russia regarding the subversion of the Magnitsky Act....but candidate Trump didn’t fall for it....Fusion GPS, Brennan and Comey were trying to set Trump up to commit a serious crime related to Russia but they were unsuccessful....all the meetings were conducted by people associated with the CIA (Halper and Mifsud) and the FBI (Fusion GPS and Henry Greenburg)....the FISA warrants obtained by the FBI never had any mention of Hacked emails....Natalia Veselnitskaya...was operating out of the Washington offices of Cozen O’Connor, a law firm run by an anti-Trump former Obama administration official whose super PAC donated to Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush in the 2016 presidential election. Veselnitskaya’s work from the Cozen O’Connor office provides more evidence of a Democrat and establishment Republican effort to set up the Trump campaign for a future Russian collusion case. Veselnitskaya was allowed into the United States by the Obama Department of Justice while the former Obama official who runs Cozen O’Connor publicly warned then-candidate Trump that if he became President he would be investigated by the DOJ for contacts with foreign leaders....Big League Politics has confirmed that a Cozen O’Connor partner who lives in the same apartment building as James Comey’s friend Daniel Richman -- who leaked classified information to the press on Comey’s behalf -- spoke with Richman during the period that Comey and the Fusion GPS team were trying to obtain FISA warrants on Trump Tower....Cozen O’Connor managing partner Howard Schweitzer is listed on a DOJ form from an investigation into the breaking of lobbying laws by Russians trying to repeal the Magnitsky Act....Schweitzer worked as general counsel for the Export-Import Bank under George W. Bush and was chief operating officer of the TARP bailout program under both Bush and Obama from 2008-2009. Schweitzer’s virulently anti-Trump piece for Politico tries to make the case that Trump was 'sabotaging his own bid for the White House.' Schweitzer said that if Trump became President then 'He’ll be investigated to death' by Congress and the Justice Department for his business dealings and 'relationships with foreign leaders.'....The Russian attorney partner of Paul Manafort who was named as a defendant in Robert Mueller charges is also linked to the Russian spy Natalia Vesenilskaya,....the Fusion GPS agent, according to Senate documents. Here is how ProPublica described Kilimnik : 'Konstantin Kilimnik : Manafort, who worked for the pro-Russian party in Ukraine before running Trump’s campaign, had an employee in Kiev named Konstantin Kilimnik who US and Ukrainian authorities have suspected of having ties to Russian intelligence, according to Politico. Kilimnik served in the Russian army and learned English at a school that experts say often trains spies....Documents reveal Kilimnik’s ties to Veselniskaya....United States Senate...Judiciary Committee chairman Senator Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Senator Dianne Feinstein asked Veselniskaya if she knew a handful of characters believed to be conspirators in the case. Grassley and Feinstein specifically asked Veselnitskaya if she knew Konstantin Kilimnik....Veselniskaya’s link to suspected conspirator Kilimnik is now coming under scrutiny." • "Both John Brennan and James Comey used Peter Strzok to damage President Donald Trump. Strzok is the disgraced FBI agent and fired Robert Mueller team member whose text messages with mistress Lisa Page form the biggest scandal in FBI history. The lovers conspired to illegally bring down Trump, all while the FBI was spying on the Trump campaign. Strzok interviewed Hillary Clinton without putting her under oath, and granted immunity to Cheryl Mills and Clinton’s other associates right before he flew to London to meet with Christopher Steele to work on the anti-Trump Dossier, which was sponsored by the Clinton-funded firm Fusion GPS. That Dossier was used to fraudulently obtain FISA warrants to surveil Trump Tower....When it was time for the conspirators to focus on Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, Strzok was there to run information about the advisor to the Australians. When it was time to take out Trump’s national security advisor General Michael Flynn, Strzok was there to stage an 'ambush' interrogation of Flynn without Flynn’s lawyer present....Brennan hired Strzok to write the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in January 2017. This was an official document used to spur on the Robert Mueller investigation. But the document did not actually find any evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia, it merely said that Vladimir Putin 'aspired' to help Trump and that Russia 'developed a clear preference for Trump.' The Christopher Steele Dossier was added as an 'appendix' to the ICA report, even though Brennan lied and told Congress that it was never used." • "Comey Sent Strzok To London To Meet With The Australians About George Papadopoulos. George Papadopoulos was surveilled in real time by the FBI. Who set him up? Peter Strzok, whose meeting with the Australian ambassador in London provided key basis for the creation of Robert Mueller’s investigation, according to none other than the New York Times. Tyler Durden Explains : 'The FBI sent counterintelligence agents, one of whom was Peter Strzok, to London in the summer of 2016 to meet with Australian ambassador, Alexander Downer, to describe his meeting with Trump campaign advisor, George Papadopoulos. The meeting with Downer was described as 'highly unusual,' and 'helped provide the foundation for a case that...became the special counsel investigation.' The FBI kept details of the operation secret from most of the DOJ-- with 'only about five Justice Department officials' aware of the full scope of the case." • "Strzok Cleared Hillary Clinton Right Before He Left For London. Big League Politics called attention in July 2017 to the fact that Strzok was serving on the Mueller team after personally overseeing the Hillary Clinton email investigation at the FBI and personally conducting the interview with Hillary Clinton that was not under oath and which led to no incarceration for the Democrat candidate. Strzok also withheld information about the Hillary case from Congress according to this text (https://archive.fo/9G6tg/b9cb9a4cc8240df81c1c006f8f1c378c370355f9.jpg.) " • "Strzok Sets Up Flynn. On January 24, 2017, Peter Strzok interviewed General Michael Flynn inside the White House alongside another agent. Flynn’s lawyer was not present. Flynn apparently did not tell the White House about his meeting. Guess who did? Sally Yates, the anti-Trump deputy attorney general whose underling told the FBI to shut down the Clinton Foundation case. Yates informed the White House on January 26 that Flynn met with the FBI. That was the beginning of the end for the original Trump White House. Strzok was close personal friends with the foreign intelligence judge Rudolph Contreras who accepted General Flynn’s guilty plea. Contreras recused himself after he already accepted Flynn’s guilty plea." • "OBAMA Kept The Scheme Going Overseas. House lawmakers are zeroing in on a meeting that German chancellor Angela Merkel held with President Obama at a key moment as one of the FISA warrants against Trump was set to expire. Lawmakers are aware of the role of foreign governments in collaborating with US intelligence agencies in the Trump investigation as recently as 2017. Germany provided information beginning in 2015 to aide British spies and the Obama administration in compiling the Christopher Steele 'Dossier.' Obama had been called out by the Drudge Report for visiting foreign leaders in Europe in the spring of 2017 right before President Trump visited those leaders in Europe. It turns out that one of those Obama meetings is now under scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein gave a redacted document to Representative Devin Nunes, showing two major redactions about the creation of the Trump 'Dossier' and the launch of FISA warrants and Robert Mueller’s investigation during the 2016 campaign. The redactions were : 'the name of a country and the name of a foreign agent who supplied information.' Now we know : the country is Germany and the foreign agent was either Angela Merkel or someone who worked for Angela Merkel in foreign intelligence. The redacted sections will be 'referencing one of the European countries and agents that share SIGINT (signal intelligence) to US Intelligence,' says Chuck Marler, a longtime agent of the FBI Special Surveillance Group under Robert Mueller, who is an official whistleblower in this case. SIGINT countries were involved in sharing information that helped the Christopher Steele Dossier to come together. The Guardian reported in an amazingly under-covered article : 'Over the next six months, until summer 2016, a number of western agencies shared further information on contacts between Trump’s inner circle and Russians,' sources said. The European countries that passed on electronic intelligence -- known as SIGINT -- included Germany, Estonia and Poland. Australia, a member of the 'Five Eyes' spying alliance that also includes the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand, also relayed material, one source said....Fast forward to April/May 2017...the fourth and final FISA warrant was running out....Rosenstein and McCabe were in desperate need of renewed help from intelligence to keep the Russian Collusion narrative alive,' Marler reports. 'Well they weren’t going to get help from the CIA because Pompeo was now CIA Director....In comes Obama to the rescue. He meets with Merkel in private (the US no longer monitored her communications because of the previous mobile phone mishap) [presumably] to beg for some more SIGINT information to keep the collusion narrative alive. Conveniently he meets her hours prior to Trump’s meeting...” • • • DEAR READERS, as BizPac Review summarizes : "The left’s unified, homogeneous reaction to Trump’s ABC interview suggests that all of them -- from the 'journalists' at CNN and MSNBC to the Democrats running for the presidency in 2020 -- believe that the standards of behavior they demand of the President aren’t ubiquitous. That is to say that they think what’s good for the Clinton goose shouldn’t be good for the Trump gander. Just to be clear, however, Mueller’s report made it clear that neither the President, his family members nor his campaign team ever actually accepted any intel from a foreign power. The same may not be said of Hillary Clinton." AND, to close this review, it seems perfectly clear that it was the Obama FBI and CIA who conspired with foreign entities, including Russians, to corruptly destroy President Trump. Further, the Trump Haters are still at it in the guise of the Democrat-majority House.

President Trump Has China and Iran on His "To Do" List after Succeeding with Mexico

WITH MEXICO ISSUES SETTLED FOR NOW, PRESIDENT TRUMP TURNS TO CHINA AND IRAN. In the latest news about Mexico, Reuters reported on Wednesday that Mexico Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the deployment of National Guard forces to Mexico's southern border would start on Wednesday and will advance quickly under a migration control deal signed last week with the United States. Meanwhile, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Wednesday the sale of the former presidential jet and other aircraft from the last government would help fund efforts to curb migration under the deal with the US. • • • CHINA TRADE WAR NEWS. Money and Markets reported last week that manufacturing data suggests that China’s economy is being damaged by the trade war. Money and Markets wrote : "A report last week on Chinese manufacturing suggested that Beijing’s trade war with the Trump administration is causing economic damage. Surveys of manufacturers across the region for May showed that business confidence has been shaken by the conflict over President Donald Trump’s demands that Beijing change its industrial planning strategy and find other ways to redress its perennially huge trade surpluses. A private survey, the Caixin manufacturing purchasing managers’ index, or PMI, for China held steady at 50.2 in May, just above the 50 level that distinguishes between expansion and contraction. But business confidence slipped to its lowest level since the series began in April 2012. The official manufacturing PMI, issued Friday, sank to one of the lowest levels in three years." • Money and Markets said : "China showed no signs of budging over the Trump administration’s demands. It issued a report over the weekend saying it would not back down on 'major issues of principle.' It said Beijing had kept its word through 11 rounds of trade negotiations and accused Washington of backtracking by introducing new tariffs and other conditions beyond what had been agreed to." • However, the United States says that the last-minute rejection of the trade deal that had previously been agreed to by China was the reason that the trade negotiations broke down. • Meanwhile, according to Money and Markets : "...Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies...has found itself at the center of the US-China trade dispute....Wang Shouwen, China’s vice commerce minister and deputy international trade representative, told reporters in Beijing that China would issue details about its own list of 'unreliable entities' soon. Wang said it would be aimed at enterprises that 'violated market principles' and that cut supplies of components to Chinese businesses for non-commercial reasons. He reiterated suggestions that China might limit exports of rare earths, minerals such as lithium that are used in many products including cell phones, electric vehicles and the batteries that run them. After the US expanded its sanctions against Huawei, several leading U.S.-based global technology standards-setting groups announced restrictions on its participation in their activities." • Concerning the rare earths issue, American Thinker reported on June 1 that the US Defense Department has "requested federal funding to support the ramp-up of several American rare earth element mines after China threatened an export ban. The Sino-American trade war raged this week with a series of back-and-forth retaliations. With China generally being unable to gain advantage by pressuring the Trump administration over the risks of higher import prices and key component interruptions, Bloomberg reported that Beijing's leadership has a plan to restrict export supply of the 17 so-called rare earth elements that are crucial to the US production of military jet engines, satellites, and lasers, plus consumer products from iPhones to electric cars. The threat against the US was issued Thursday in a China People's Daily incendiary headline : 'United States, don't underestimate China's ability to strike back.' The article warned of the United States' 'uncomfortable' dependence on China rare earths. The Government Accountability Office in 2016 reported that the United States represents about 9% of world demand for rare earth elements, with the Defense Department accounting for 1% of demand. But, 15 of the 17 elements are key inputs across most of America's high-tech weapons systems." • The interesting fact, as American Thinker reported, is that : "From the 1950s through the mid-1990s, California's Mountain Pass Mine supplied most of the world's demand for rare earth elements, including europium for color TVs. But, China targeted domestic production, and export supply of rare earth elements beginning in the late 1990s as a pathway to enter the Western world's high-tech supply chain." • China used price-cutting and lax environmental and worker standards to handle the rare earths. American Thinker states : "Rare earth elements are not very rare, but they are found in deposits of the low-level radioactive element thorium. Miners know that mining and processing thorium requires substantial environmental mitigation to protect workers and adjacent communities to avoid health risks of developing pancreatic, lung, and other cancers. By selling product at 30% below market and mostly ignoring mine tailings and dumping refining wastewaters loaded with heavy metals, acids, and radioactive elements into giant unlined ponds, China was able to corner over 80% of the rare earth market. Mountain Pass continues to mine about 20% of rare earth element ore, but 100% is shipped by containers to China for refining. China's State Council disclosed in 2012 that the country's rare earths operations typically produce wastewater with a 'high concentration' of radioactive residues that have 'severely damaged surface vegetation, caused soil erosion, pollution, acidification, and reduced or even eliminated food crop output.' According to the Germany-based Institute for Applied Ecology, Bayan-Obo, China's largest rare earths project features an 11-square-kilometer waste pond -- about three times the size of New York City's Central Park -- filled with toxic sludge and thorium." • American Thinker said that Air Force spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Mike Andrews in a press conference "outlined the funding request that was sent to the White House and briefed to Congress. Colonel Andrews emphasized : 'The department continues to work closely with the President, Congress and US industry to improve US competitiveness in the mineral market.' None of the report details was disclosed, but Colonel Andrews said a federal program would employ targeted economic incentives to boost domestic rare earth production." According to American Thinker : "American Elements began discussions with the Trump administration in 2017 aimed at the US government nationalizing the Mountain Pass mine to expedite environmental approvals to ramp up production. CEO Michael Silver told Daily Manufacturing News at the time, 'The [White House] staff understood the urgency of the matter.' In a sign that new competitors will enter the domestic market, Australian rare-earths processor Lynas Corp. and Texas chemical company Blue Line Corp., announced a partnership this week to "see that US companies have continued access to rare-earth products by offering a US-based source." • It seems that once again, President Trump is on top of an issue that China was trying to use to gain an advantage in the trade talks. • • • IS CHINA SERIOUS ABOUT STARTING A WAR OVER THE SOUTH CHINA SEA?? Newsmax reported last Sunday that China's defense minister warned that its military will "resolutely take action" to defend Beijing's claims over self-ruled Taiwan and disputed South China Sea waters. Newsmax said General Wei Fenghe, speaking at an annual security conference in Singapore : "...did not direct the threat at the US but loaded his address with criticism of activities by Washington, including support for Taiwan and leading so-called freedom of navigation operations in the strategic waterways that China virtually claims as its own. Wei said the People's Liberation Army would not 'yield a single inch of the country's sacred land.' " • China's ruling Communist Party maintains that Taiwan is part of China, and Newsmax says it : "...has used increasingly aggressive rhetoric toward the democratic island, which split from the mainland amid a civil war 70 years ago. It opposes Taiwan's independence and formally says it seeks a 'peaceful reunification' while refusing to rule out the use of force if necessary to achieve that goal. 'The PLA has no intention to cause anybody trouble but it is not afraid to face up to troubles. Should anybody risk crossing the bottom line, the PLA will resolutely take action and defeat all enemies,' Wei said." • Relations between Beijing and Taipei have deteriorated, according to Newsmax : "...since Taiwan elected a pro-independence president, Tsai Ing-wen, in 2016. China has since increased diplomatic pressure, cut off its contacts with the island's government and discouraged travel there by Chinese tourists. 'China must be and will be reunified. We find no excuse not to do so. If anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese military has no choice but to fight at all costs, at all costs, for national unity,' Wei stressed. 'We will strive for the prospect of peaceful unification with utmost sincerity and greatest efforts, but we make no promise to renounce the use of force.' Wei was addressing defense chiefs, officials and academics at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore." • US Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who spoke to the same gathering on Saturday, was not present at Wei's speech, reports Newsmax, but : "Shanahan called China's efforts to steal technology from other nations and militarize man-made outposts in the South China Sea a 'toolkit of coercion' and urged it to stop activities the US perceives as hostile. China is pitted against smaller Southeast Asian neighbors in multiple disputes over island reefs, corals and lagoons in the South China Sea, where it constructed seven outposts equipped with airstrips, radar and missile stations that Shanahan said Saturday could become 'tollbooths' in one of the world's busiest waterways." • Beijing is currently firming up a pact with four rival claimants, containing norms and rules aimed at preventing a shooting war in the disputed waters, states Newsmax, and : "On Thursday, China's Defense Ministry dismissed a report that Australian navy pilots were hit by lasers earlier in May while exercising in the waters claimed by China. And on Sunday, Beijing closed off an area near Paracel Islands, which is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan, for military training exercises. Wei said China built "limited defense facilities" but much of it was aimed at improving services and infrastructure for people living there. 'It is only when there are threats would there be defenses. In face of heavily armed warships and military aircraft, how can we not deploy any defense facilities?' he said." • Most of the islands are uninhabited and have been used by fishermen from all sides to shelter during storms, reportes Newsmax, and : "Wei and Shanahan met on the sidelines of the conference Friday and agreed to improve communication and deepen exchanges and cooperation between their militaries. On Sunday, Wei said the countries recognize that a conflict or war between them would have wide-reaching effects. 'It takes two to cooperate but only one to start a fight,' he said. 'We hope that the US side will work with us towards the same goal, follow the principles of non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, and steer the China-US relations in the right direction.' China last sent a high-ranking general to the conference in 2011. Its officials have been quick to downplay this as a mere coincidence, given the busy schedules of their higher-ups. But some observers see Wei's presence this time as a pointed attempt by China to cement its relationships in the region amid a trade war with the US and having its businesses targeted with sanctions." • China would be very foolish to start a war over these built-up islands that the international community says are not in an area of the South China Sea that is part of Chinese territory. • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP DEFENDS HIS CHINA TRADE AND TARIFF STRATEGY. ChannelNewsAsia (CNA) is an English language news channel based in Singapore. Using Reuters as its source, CNA wrote on Tuesday that : "US President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended the use of tariffs as part of his trade strategy while China vowed a tough response if the United States insists on escalating trade tensions amid ongoing negotiations. The United States kicked off a tariff battle with China in 2018, seeking sweeping structural changes from Beijing. But tensions between Washington and Beijing rose sharply in May after the Trump administration accused China of reneging on promises to make structural economic changes during months of trade talks. 'Tariffs are a great negotiating tool,' Trump tweeted, one day after saying he was ready to impose another round of punitive tariffs on China. On Monday, the Republican President said he would raise tariffs on Chinese imports further if he cannot make progress in trade talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit later this month. Trump has repeatedly said he is getting ready to meet Xi at the summit in Osaka, Japan, at the end of June, but China has not confirmed it. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang again would not be drawn into confirming a Xi-Trump meeting at G20, saying information would be released once it was available to the foreign ministry. 'China does not want to fight a trade war, but we are not afraid of fighting a trade war,' he said, adding China's door was open to talks based on equality. 'If the United States only wants to escalate trade frictions, we will resolutely respond and fight to the end.' Last week, Trump said he would decide after G20, the meeting of the leaders of the world's largest economies, whether to carry out a threat to impose tariffs on an additional US$300 billion in Chinese goods. Trump is buoyed by his self-declared victory following a days-long battle with Mexico after he threatened to impose tariffs unless Mexican authorities did more to stem the migrant flow across the US-Mexico border." • CNA says : "Washington is pressing Beijing to address concerns over forced technology transfers and theft of US trade secrets. It also wants curbs on subsidies for Chinese state-owned enterprises and better access for US firms to Chinese markets. On May 10, Trump raised tariffs on US$200 billion of Chinese goods to 25% and took steps to levy duties on the additional US $300 billion in Chinese imports. Beijing retaliated with tariff hikes on a revised list of US$60 billion in US goods. US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Tuesday downplayed the likelihood of resolving the dispute at the G20 summit, saying it would not be 'a place where anyone makes a definitive deal. At the G20, at most it will be...some sort of agreement on a path forward, but certainly it's not going to be a definite agreement,' Ross told CNBC. The White House's top economic adviser Larry Kudlow echoed that sentiment in an interview with CNBC, saying he was hopeful the two presidents would meet at the G20 summit and be able to salvage the discussions. The two sides were 'about 90% home' on a 'great deal' when the talks fell apart a month ago, Kudlow said. 'We'd like to go back to where we were a month ago, where we have a very good basis.' US ambassador to China Terry Branstad was scheduled to meet with US Vice President Mike Pence in Washington on Tuesday amid the ongoing negotiations, reported Newsmax." • The US government has also angered China by putting Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world's biggest telecoms equipment maker, on a blacklist that effectively bans US companies from doing business with the Chinese firm. Newsmax says : "Investors worry China will retaliate by putting US companies on a blacklist or banning exports to the United States of rare earth metals, which are used in products such as memory chips, rechargeable batteries and cellphones." • If past performance tells us anything about the future, we can be assured that President Trump has a strategy for dealing with China and is working through the strategy in order to being about a trade deal that will be fair to both China and the US. • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP ALSO HAS IRAN TO CONSIDER. BBC News, and most other outlets, reported last Friday that : "The United Arab Emirates has told the UN Security Council a 'state actor' was most likely behind attacks on four tankers off its coast. The 12 May attacks bore the hallmarks of a 'sophisticated and co-ordinated operation,' according to its report. The UAE did not say who it thought was behind the attacks, which also targeted vessels from Saudi Arabia and Norway. The US has accused Iran of being behind the attacks but Teheran denies this and has called for an investigation. The attacks took place within UAE territorial waters east of the emirate of Fujairah, just outside the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, in what the UAE called a 'sabotage attack.' They exacerbated long-standing tensions between Iran, and the US and its allies in the Gulf. According to the UAE-led investigation, which was presented to a closed session of the UN Security Council in New York, the attacks showed a 'high degree of sophistication....The attacks required the expert navigation of fast boats' which 'were able to intrude into UAE territorial waters,' the report's preliminary findings say. Divers were used to attack the ships using limpet mines in order to cause damage but not cause a major explosion, the presentation says. There were no casualties but Saudi Arabia has said two of its ships suffered 'significant' damage. Another tanker was Norwegian-registered, while the fourth was UAE-flagged." • The BBC, echoing what most European outlets and governments believe about Iran, says there are two aspects to the tensions under way in the Gulf : "One practical -- what the Americans insist is a real threat from Iran and its allies in the region-- and a political one -- a push by Washington and its key Gulf allies to paint Iran as an imminent threat to peace. The latest UAE-led findings on the tanker attacks last month have to be seen in this context. At the UN they -- along with Saudi Arabia and Norway -- blamed a 'state actor' but stopped short of specifically naming Iran. But then US officials have already said Iran was responsible, with reports that the US Navy tracked a flotilla of small Iranian vessels from which they believe divers operated to mine the ships. So the accusations are not new as such, though made in a more formal setting. But they underscore the pressure-cooker atmosphere in the region with any mistake or misunderstanding by either side risking a serious military engagement....While it is unclear why Iran would carry out a relatively low-level attack on the multinational tankers, observers have speculated that it could have been to send a signal to forces ranged against it that it is capable of disrupting shipping there without triggering a war." • Responding to the UAE report, the Saudi Ambassador to the UN, Abdallah Y al-Mouallimi, said the kingdom believed "that the responsibility for this action lies on the shoulders of Iran. We have no hesitation in making this statement," Reuters news agency reported. The BBC added that : "US National Security Advisor John Bolton previously said 'naval mines almost certainly from Iran' were to blame for the damage, although he provided no evidence to support the allegation. However, Mr Bolton, long known for his hawkish stance on Iran, denied the Trump administration was seeking to overthrow the Iranian government. 'The policy we're pursuing is not a policy of regime change,' he told reporters last week during a visit to London. 'That's the fact and everybody should understand it that way.' Iran's foreign ministry has rejected the US accusations as 'ludicrous' and accused Mr Bolton of being a 'warmonger.' " • President Trump and his administration have, according to the BBC, "taken a hard line towards Iran, accusing it of being a destabilising force in the Middle East. For its part, Iran has accused the US of aggressive behaviour. Tensions increased last month when Washington ended exemptions from sanctions for countries still buying oil from Iran. Washington reinstated sanctions a year ago when it abandoned an international nuclear deal curbing Iran's nuclear programme. The decision was intended to bring Iran's oil exports to zero, denying the government its main source of revenue. In response, Iran announced it would suspend several commitments under the deal." • • • IRAN THREATENS THE US. Military.com wrote on Monday, in an article republished form article was from The Canadian Press, that : "Iran's foreign minister warned the US on Mondaythat it 'cannot expect to stay safe' after launching what he described as an economic war against Teheran, taking a hard-line stance amid a visit by Germany's top diplomat seeking to defuse tensions. A stern-faced Mohammad Javad Zarif offered a series of threats over the ongoing tensions gripping the Persian Gulf....President Donald Trump's decision over a year ago to withdraw America from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Trump also reinstated tough sanctions on Iran, targeting its oil sector. 'Mr. Trump himself has announced that the US has launched an economic war against Iran,' Zarif said. 'The only solution for reducing tensions in this region is stopping that economic war.' Zarif also warned : 'Whoever starts a war with us will not be the one who finishes it.' " • Military.com stated : "For his part, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas insisted his country and other European nations want to find a way to salvage the nuclear deal, which saw Iran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. But he acknowledged there were limits. 'We won't be able to do miracles, but we are trying as best as we can to do prevent its failure,' Maas said. However, Europe has yet to be able to offer Iran a way to get around the newly imposed US sanctions. Meanwhile, a July 7 deadline -- imposed by Iran -- looms for Europe to find a way to save the unraveling deal. Otherwise, Iran has warned it will resume enriching uranium closer to weapons-grade levels. Though Zarif made a point to shake Maas' hands before the cameras, his comments marked a sharp departure for the US-educated diplomat who helped secure the nuclear deal, alongside the relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani. They came after Maas spoke about Israel, an archenemy of Iran's government. 'Israel's right to exist is part of Germany's founding principle and is completely non-negotiable,' Maas said. 'It is a result of our history and it's irrevocable and doesn't just change because I am currently in Teheran.' Zarif then grew visibly angry, offering a list of Mideast problems ranging from al-Qaida to the bombing of Yemeni civilians he blamed on the US and its allies, namely Saudi Arabia. 'If one seeks to talk about instability in this region, those are the other parties who should be held responsible," Zarif said. Zarif's sharp tone likely comes from Iran's growing frustration with Europe, as well as the ever-tightening American sanctions targeting the country. Iran's national currency, the rial, is currently trading at nearly 130,000 to $1. It had been 32,000 to the dollar at the time of the 2015 deal. That has wiped away people's earnings, as well as driven up prices on nearly every good in the country. European nations had pledged to create a mechanism called INSTEX, which would allow Iran to continue to trade for humanitarian goods despite American sanctions. However, that program has yet to really take off, something Iran's foreign ministry spokesman noted before Zarif and Maas spoke to reporters. 'We haven't put much hope in INSTEX,' spokesman Abbas Mousavi said, according to Iranian state television. 'If INSTEX was going to help us, it would have done so already.' " • President Trump, in withdrawing from the deal, pointed that the accord had not limited Iran's ballistic missile program, or addressed what American officials describe as Teheran's malign influence across the wider Mideast, said Military.com : "Back when the deal was struck in 2015, it was described it as a building block toward further negotiations with Iran, whose Islamic government has had a tense relationship with America since the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Teheran and subsequent hostage crisis. Some members of Trump's administration, particularly National Security Advisor John Bolton, previously supported the overthrow of Iran's government. Trump, however, has stressed that he wants to talk with Iran's clerical rulers....The semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that Ali Asghar Zarean, deputy head of Iran's nuclear department, said Teheran had increased the number of its centrifuges to 1,044 at the Fordo underground facility. Without elaborating on the model of centrifuges in Fordo, Zarean added it was 720 centrifuges before the 2015 nuclear deal. The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, said last month that Iran had begun installing a chain of 20 IR-6 centrifuges at its underground Natanz enrichment facility. Iranian officials say the IR-6 can enrich 10 times faster than an IR-1. In late May, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said that 'up to 33' more advanced IR-6 centrifuges have been installed and that 'technical discussions in relation to the IR-6 centrifuges are ongoing.' Under terms of the nuclear deal, Iran is allowed to test no more than 30 of the IR-6s once the deal has been in place for 8 1/2 years. The deal is murky about limits before that point, which will arrive in 2023. A centrifuge is a device that enriches uranium by rapidly spinning uranium hexafluoride gas. Under the atomic accord, Iran has been limited to operating 5,060 older models of IR-1 centrifuges." • Breitbart reported on June 5 that : "Iran could have a nuclear bomb in six to eight months, the former deputy head of the UN's nuclear watchdog Olli Heinonen has warned." Former IAEA official Heinonen warned that "Iran is 6-8 months away from a nuclear bomb" and said : "Israelis need to be worried, and the Gulf states also have reason for concern..." • • • JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER ABE TRIES TO LOWER TENSIONS BETWEEN THE US AND IRAN. On Wednesday mroning, USA TODAY reported that : "Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe arrived in Teheran on a mission to ease tensions between Iran and the US, becoming the first Japanese prime minister to visit since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Abe’s flight touched down at Teheran’s Mehrabad International Airport on Wednesday afternoon. His visit is seen as an effort to mediate amid rising tensions in the Persian Gulf region. Just ahead of his arrival, Saudi Arabia said Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels attacked one of the kingdom’s airports, wounding 26 people. The Houthis said they fired a cruise missile at the Abha regional airport. Though there were no fatalities, it was the largest number of civilians to be wounded in Saudi Arabia as a result of a rebel attack." PM Abe was greeted by Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at Teheran's Mehrabad airport....Iran’s president says that US pressures against his country are losing strength -- the latest defiant rhetoric from Hassan Rouhani amid tensions in the Persian Gulf region. Rouhani spoke during a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, hours ahead of the arrival of Abe. Iranian state TV quoted Rouhani as saying that 'America’s pressure on the Iranian nation...has reached its maximum. From today onward, the threats and pressures will lose their capacity and will be exhausted.' Rouhani was referring to America’s pullout from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers over a year ago, which is at the root of the current tensions. The tensions further soared over the US recently deploying an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers to the region. Abe is expected to try to save the increasingly unraveling nuclear deal and ease tensions in between Iran and the United States. In addition, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry says an Omani envoy is in Baghdad to discuss ways of de-escalating US-Iran tensions. Spokesman Ahmad Sahhaf told The Associated Press that Yusuf bin Alawi will discuss 'solutions' for regional challenges, adding that Iraq has become a pivotal country because of its 'strategic relations with both Iran and the United States.' The Sultanate of Oman often plays a role in mediating regional crises." • • • DEAR READERS, President Trump's success with Mexico can be seen as a preliminary to the much larger task he has in bringing China to a reasonable trade deal, keeping the South China Sea open to international users, and convincing Iran that talking to him and his administration about a real nuclear deal is better than relying on the ineffective efforts of Europe to deal with Iran around the US sanctions on Iran.

Now That the Democrats Have Heard Testimony from John Dean, Why Don't the Republicans Call Monica Lewinsky ?

PRESIDENT TRUMP KNOWS THE ENEMY AND FIGHTS BACK. BizPac Review gave us a few reminders of the presidential bite last Friday, reporting that : "President Trump blasted Comcast, MSNBC and CNN for pushing fake news about his UK visit and Mexico trade stand-off. President Trump torched media monopoly Comcast and left-wing cable news networks MSNBC and CNN for pushing fake news about his UK visit and the trade standoff with Mexico (which he won). Trump tweeted yesterday : 'Watched MSNBC this morning just to see what the opposition was saying about events of the past week. Such lies, almost everything they were saying was the opposite of the truth. Fake News! No wonder their ratings, along with CNN, are WAY DOWN. The hatred Comcast has is amazing!' " What was telling was the President's following tweet : "I know it is not at all 'Presidential' to hit back at the Corrupt Media, or people who work for the Corrupt Media, when they make false statements about me or the Trump Administration. Problem is, if you don’t hit back, people believe the Fake News is true. So we’ll hit back!” AND, when, as BizPac Review put it, "...the media also got egg on their faces when Mexico caved at the last-minute and pledged to stem the tsunami of illegal immigrants stampeding toward the United States," President Trump again bit hard : "@realDonaldTrump If President Obama made the deals that I have made, both at the Border and for the Economy, the Corrupt Media would be hailing them as Incredible, & a National Holiday would be immediately declared. With me, despite our record setting Economy and all that I have done, no credit!" NO CREDIT. That applies not only to President Trump's impressive achievements but to every American who opposes the aganda of the radical Progressive left of the Democrat Party. • • • AND, WHO DO THE DEMCORATS CALL TO TESTIFY? Give us strength, dear Lord. It was John Dean, Watergate's Democrat- colluding wonder boy. Any 2019 John Dean testimony is a mean and dirty trick, far greater than any dirty trick that brought down Richard Nixon. John Dean has NOTHING to say about obstruction of justice except that he helped to manufacture it out of thin air as he lent his treacherous helping hand to the 1973 Democrat witch hunt against another successful Republican President. • Fox News wrote on Saturday : "Last August, Trump had his own harsh words for Dean, who assisted with the Watergate coverup and pleaded guilty to obstruction before becoming a key prosecution witness. John Dean, former counsel to President Nixon, testifying during a Senate Watergate hearing in 1973. The President tweeted, 'The failing @nytimes wrote a Fake piece today implying that because White House Councel [sic] Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Counsel, he must be a John Dean type ‘RAT,’....But I allowed him and all others to testify - I didn’t have to. I have nothing to hide...' Partisan theatrics and high-profile witnesses, Republicans have charged, have distracted from Congress' legislative work. Jason Chaffetz, a former member of the Judiciary Committee and a Fox News contributor, has accused the committee's chairman, Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., of running a 'clown show.' Democrats, throughout the week, also are likely to lay the groundwork for an appearance from Mueller himself, despite his stated desire to avoid the spotlight.... Republicans have asserted that federal law protecting secretive grand-jury information would prevent Barr from turning over all of those documents, and Mueller himself has said he did not question Barr's "good faith" in his handling of the report's release. McGahn, who was referenced in the Mueller report frequently, also has defied subpoenas to provide documents and testify before the Judiciary Committee. The White House directed McGahn not to comply with requests for documents during his tenure there, saying he's legally immune from being compelled to testify about privileged discussions in the course of his official duties. Democrats have responded that McGahn waived that privilege by agreeing to speak to Mueller. Language in the resolution to be considered Tuesday would make it easier for committee chairmen to take the Trump administration to court....[allowing House committee chairmen to] take legal action to enforce subpoenas in the future without a vote of the full House, so long as they have approval from a five-person, bipartisan group in which Democrats have the majority. This coming Wednesday, the House Intelligence Committee has said it intends to review the counter-intelligence implications of the Russian meddling. Mueller said there was no proof of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia despite multiple efforts by Russians to involve the Trump campaign, but he said he could not exonerate Trump on obstruction....With Trump pledging that 'we're fighting all the subpoenas,' top Democrats have said they wanted to avoid repeated floor votes on contempt resolutions detracting from their legislative agenda. The procession of hearings and votes in the week ahead is designed in part to mollify anxious Democrats who have pushed Pelosi, D-Calif., to begin impeachment proceedings immediately. Pelosi so far has rejected that option, preferring a slower, more methodical approach to investigating the President, including the court fights and hearings. During a meeting with Nadler and other committee heads last week, Pelosi made the case that she would rather see Trump voted out of office and 'in prison' than merely impeached, according to multiple sources....Georgia Representative Doug Collins, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, sent Nadler a letter Friday calling the upcoming hearing a 'mock- impeachment' hearing and warning Democrats to be civil when speaking of the President. Collins said in the letter that outside of impeachment proceedings, 'it is out of order for a member of Congress, in debate, to engage in personalities with the President or express an opinion, even a third party opinion, accusing the President of a crime. The rules are clear on this point.' " • • • DEMOCRAT HOUSE PUSHING PELOSI TOWARD IMPEACHMENT. It's not hard to figure out Nancy Pelosi's endgame. She wants President Trump, impeached, tossed out of the White House, then tried and convicted of crimes, and tossed into prison. BUT, she is being very careful as she traverses the road that she hopes will lead to her endgame. • TheHill reported on June 2 that : "Top House Democrats are treading carefully on the issue of impeaching President Trump, despite growing calls for action from the party's base and its crowded field of 2020 presidential candidates. Amid shouts of 'impeach' during comments at the California Democratic Party convention on Saturday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi stopped short of endorsing impeachment or signaling her intention to pursue it. The California Democrat instead spoke about what Trump could be 'covering up' and accused him of 'welcoming...the assault on our democracy.' She also vowed to continue various House investigations of Trump’s administration and businesses. 'This isn't about politics, it isn't about partisanship, Democrats versus Republicans, no,' Pelosi said. 'It's about patriotism, it's about the sanctity of the Constitution and it's about the future of our nation,' she added. 'We will go where the facts lead us. We will insist on the truth. We will build an ironclad case to act.' " • Poor Nancy -- she just cannot avoid talking in Newspeak. • And, the radical Progressive left of the Democrat Party is not happy. TheHill quoted House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who said that he believes Trump will be impeached “at some point," telling [CNN's Jake] Tapper, “What Nancy Pelosi is trying to do, and the rest of us in the House of Representatives, is to develop a process by which we can efficiently move on this issue so that when we get to a vote, it would be something that she calls ironclad, I call effective. And that is why we are trying to take our time and do this right.” Clyburn also told Tapper, according to TheHill, "that Democratic leadership is less concerned with the Republican-controlled Senate, where a two-thirds majority vote is needed to convict and remove a president from office, than with successfully convincing the public of the necessity of impeachment before the process can begin." • CNN and the radicla left Democrats are on the wrong side of public opinion on impeachment -- a recently released CNN poll released Sunday found that 54% of Americans oppose impeaching Trump, compared to 41% who support it. But, TheHill also quoted Republican Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who stressed on Sunday that : "A majority of Americans remain opposed to impeachment, saying the process 'polls right up there with skim milk among the American people.' Kennedy said that if Democrats have made up their minds to impeach Trump, continuing to debate about it was a waste of time. 'My advice to my Democratic friends is if you want to do it, go hard or go home,' Kennedy said on CBS’s 'Face the Nation' 'If you want to do it, go to Amazon online, buy a spine and do it....If you’re not going to do it, then let us get back to work,' he added." • TheHill says calls for impeachment "have grown increasingly common in the crowded Democratic presidential field as well. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) became the first candidate to call for it in April. Both Warren and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) have said Mueller’s report and subsequent comments constituted an 'impeachment referral.' After Mueller’s public comments, Senators Cory Booker (D- N.J.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) also called for impeachment proceedings. Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), however, urged caution, saying last Thursday night that while he believes Trump has committed impeachable offenses, 'we have to go through the process. One of the problems with our politics today is we want to go out and tweet and immediately react, a race to judgment, and we need to be more strategic than that. I'm not saying we shouldn't follow this evidence where it leads, but I am saying we should bring the American people.' " • There is little question where House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler stands. TheHill said on June 3 that Nadler "...has jostled for weeks with the administration to secure more documents and witness testimony -- including that of special counsel Robert Mueller -- to guide probes into Russian election hacking and allegations that Trump obstructed Mueller’s investigation. But the efforts have come up largely empty in the face of the administration’s near-blanket refusal to honor those requests, leading to confrontations about holding administration officials for contempt, and raising the pressure on Democratic leaders to consider impeachment. The dynamics leave Nadler squeezed between Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other top leaders, who want to continue the investigations without invoking the Article I powers of impeachment, and a restive caucus that’s moving slowly but steadily toward the belief that they have no other choice. 'Obviously people are frustrated that we haven’t moved faster. And, frankly, I'm frustrated because we have been held up by the unprecedented action by the White House to deny our witnesses,' Nadler said Friday in a radio interview on WNYC. 'And we can only go so far, until we win in court, to get those witnesses.' Democrats’ court battles with the Trump administration, Nadler added, should wrap up 'hopefully in September, October.' ” TheHill added that : "Complicating Nadler’s dilemma, Mueller last week sought to dissuade Democrats from pursuing his appearance before Congress. 'The report is my testimony,' Mueller said, vowing not to discuss anything outside the confines of the document. 'I hope and expect this to be the only time that I will speak about this matter,' he said....The remarks have done nothing to assuage impatient Democrats hungry for the opportunity to have Mueller on the witness stand, where they intend to press him on countless questions still lingering around his report, most notably his decision not to bring obstruction of justice charges against the President....Nadler has been negotiating with Mueller’s team to get the special counsel to come to Capitol Hill voluntarily. Nadler had previous threatened to subpoena the special counsel to secure that testimony, but has not reiterated that message since Mueller spoke at DOJ last week....Nadler said Mueller will testify one way or another. 'We will have Mr. Mueller’s testimony. I think it's very important that he testify before the American people, even if he doesn't say anything beyond what he said there,' Nadler said. 'The attorney general and the President and others are lying all the time about what was in the report and it's very important that he, to the TV audience and to the American people...answer questions about it, even if there is no new information....Most people are not going to read the 448-page report....Before the Memorial Day recess, Nadler had privately made the case to Pelosi that it was time for Democrats to launch impeachment proceedings against Trump -- an entreaty that the Speaker firmly rejected. Speaking to WNYC, Nadler argued that impeachment by the House may still be necessary even though millions of voters will be rendering their verdict on Trump in November 2020. 'Well, impeachment is...there might still be a point to it. And that point is to say to future presidents, you cannot do this, to vindicate the Constitution, to say there are certain things that cannot be done. God willing, we have to defeat Trump....His reelection would be a national catastrophe." • • • REPUBLICANS IN THE SENATE STAND FIRM WITH THE PRESIDENT. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) said in late May that Speaker Nancy Pelosi's job is at risk : "Her job is very much at risk," Graham told Fox News. "Nancy Pelosi is riding a bucking, wild bronco called the Democratic caucus. Seventy percent of the Democratic base wants President Trump impeached. She knows that impeachment would be political suicide because there’s no reason to impeach the President. So she’s trying to keep the party intact. If she goes down the impeachment road, Republicans take back the House, we keep the Senate, President Trump gets reelected." • BizPac Review reported in late May that : "Less than 24 hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi first held a meeting with the House Democrat Caucus about potentially impeaching President Donald Trump and then delivered a statement to the media accusing the president of engaging in a 'cover-up,' she folded like a lawn chair. Questioned...about why she hasn’t yet filed papers for impeachment, the House speaker first doubled down on her fact-free conspiracy theory that the president has been up to no good but then stated yet again that she’s just not ready for impeachment : “Let me be really very clear. The President’s behavior, in terms of his obstruction of justice, the things he’s doing, it’s clear. It’s in plain sight. It cannot be denied. Ignoring subpoenas, obstruction of justice. Yes, these could be impeachment offenses....I do think that impeachment is a very divisive place to go in our country, and we can get the facts to the American people through our investigation. It may take us to a place that is unavoidable in terms of impeachment or not. But we’re not at that place.” NOTE to Speaker Pelosi -- if presidential and DOJ refusal to honor congressional subpoenas is obstruction of justice and thus imepaxchable, President Obama and Eric Holder would have been impeached and removed form office long ago. • BizPAC Reivew, in the same article, reminded us that : "Despite what Pelosi’s radical base claims, the majority of Americas do not support impeachment. A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll published at the start of the month [May] revealed that a 65% majority of Americans oppose impeaching the President. And according to Slate, 'Since Mueller’s report came out, seven [additional] national pollsters have asked whether Congress should launch impeachment proceedings against Trump. In every sample, a strong plurality -- and in most cases, a majority -- has said no.' These are the facts. The problem for Pelosi is she doesn’t represent the majority of the American people. She only represents a small contingent of liberal Democrats who reside in San Francisco, one of the most radically left-wing cities in the entire country. The congressional Democrat leader is effectively stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, she wants to appease her base by impeaching Trump. But on the other, she wants to appeal to the American people at large (who next year get to determine who’ll control the White House, House and Senate from 2021 through 2025) by working with him to accomplish something meaningful. But instead of taking a side, she’s trying to play both sides. And it doesn’t seem to be working." • • • PELOSI HAS NOT CHANGED HER POSITION ON IMPEACHMENT. Not even to support the radical Progressive left in her own House caucus. • TheHill reported on Tuesday morning that : "Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday that House Democrats are 'not even close' to backing an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Pelosi was asked at an event in Washington, DC; if she would support launching impeachment proceedings if over half of her 235 Democratic members did. 'It’s not even close in our caucus,' Pelosi told the moderator, CNN’s Manu Raju. 'Why are we speculating on hypotheticals? What we’re doing is winning in court. We won a victory getting the documents from the Justice Department today for fear of further going to court.' " • TheHill said : "Pelosi faces mounting pressure from rank-and-file Democrats, some committee chairmen and even members of her own leadership team who are pushing for an impeachment inquiry. According to TheHill’s whip list, at least 56 House Democrats now support launching that inquiry -- a figure that’s more than doubled since former special counsel Robert Mueller held a news conference and said his team could not exonerate the President of obstruction. But pro-impeachment Democrats still represent fewer than one quarter of the total number of Pelosi’s caucus. The Speaker, who lived through former President Richard Nixon’s impeachment and served in Congress during former President Bill Clinton’s, has warned that moving to impeach Trump would rip the country apart. And senior Democrats say it could backfire politically as Democrats try to hold the House and take back the Senate and White House. 'There is nothing as divisive in our country, in my view, than impeachment,' Pelosi said on Tuesday. Instead, Pelosi said House Democrats would methodically continue their investigations into the Trump administration and his businesses. Once they have more evidence, Democrats will determine whether to move forward on impeachment. 'It's not off the table,' Pelosi said. 'I don't think you should impeach for political reasons and I don't think you should not impeach for political reasons. It's not about politics. It's not about Democrats and Republicans. It's about patriotism to our country. It's upholding the Constitution of the United States.' ” That last comment seems to be Speaker Pelosi's theme song so far. • And, Pelosi is right about winning one battle -- if that's what it was. Liberty Headlines reported on Monday that the Justice Department is going to "Hand Over Underlying Evidence for Mueller Report." Liberty Headlines republished a report by Sarah D. Wire of the Los Angeles Times : "WASHINGTON --- House Democrats reached an agreement Monday with the Justice Department to view underlying documents behind the redacted report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, partially defusing an impasse between Congress and the Trump administration. The Justice Department will begin providing the Mueller documents to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday and they will be available to all members of the panel, not just senior lawmakers, according to the committee chairman, Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). In a statement, Nadler said Justice would 'begin complying with our committee’s subpoena by opening Robert Mueller’s most important files to us, providing us with key evidence that the Special Counsel used to assess whether the President and others obstructed justice or were engaged in other misconduct.' The House is still expected to move forward with a vote Tuesday to authorize committee chairmen to pursue civil contempt through lawsuits aimed at enforcing subpoenas. The resolution names Attorney General William Barr, who has resisted until now providing lawmakers with an unredacted copy of Mueller’s final report or the underlying evidence Mueller used, and former White House Special Counsel Don McGahn, who has defied a subpoena and refused to testify before the Judiciary Committee. Tuesday’s vote, which is expected to pass, means the committee can pursue a lawsuit to enforce its subpoenas without the House having to hold another vote, and Nadler didn’t take that option off the table. 'If the Department proceeds in good faith and we are able to obtain everything that we need, then there will be no need to take further steps. If important information is held back, then we will have no choice but to enforce our subpoena in court and consider other remedies.' Republicans said the Justice Department decision shows it is cooperating with congressional oversight. 'Today’s good faith provision from the administration further debunks claims that the White House is stonewalling Congress,' said Representative Doug Collins, (R-Ga.), the top Republican on House Judiciary Committee. The committee has battled Barr for weeks over what underlying information would be released to Congress, and how many lawmakers would be able to see it. On May 8, the Committee voted to recommend that the House hold Barr in contempt of Congress....After a 22-month investigation, Mueller’s 448-page report was released to the public in redacted form in mid-April. The Judiciary committee quickly demanded to see materials that were blacked out because they relied on classified intelligence, grand jury evidence or other protected material. In his report, Mueller concluded that he had insufficient evidence to prove that officials in the Trump presidential campaign cooperated with a Kremlin-backed operation intended to sway the election, although he said they had welcomed the effort. Mueller outlined numerous cases where it appeared Trump sought to derail the investigation after he was elected. But Mueller said he did not consider bringing a charge of obstruction of justice because of Justice Department guidelines that bar charging a sitting President with a crime. In comments at the Justice Department on May 29, the former FBI director [Mueller] made clear that he had not exonerated the President, as Trump often claims. 'If we had had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,' Mueller said. 'We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the President did commit a crime.' " • • • DEAR READERS, on April 19, CBS News reported that congressional Democrats declined an offer by Attorney General William Barr "to view a less redacted version of the report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, as only 12 members of Congress would be able to read the report and could not discuss it with other members of Congress." CBS News said AG Barr made the offer to the House speaker, the Senate majority leader, the House and Senate minority leaders, the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, and the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. These members of Congress, as well as one staffer for each member, could review a less redacted version of the report in a reading room, but could not take the report out of that room or discuss it with other members of Congress." A letter signed by Speaker Pelosi stated : "Unfortunately, your proposed accommodation -- which among other things would prohibit discussion of the full report, even with other Committee Members -- is not acceptable....While the current proposal is not workable, we are open to discussing a reasonable accommodation with the Department that would protect law enforcement sensitive information while allowing Congress to fulfill its constitutional duties." The letter was signed by Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, and the ranking members of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Mark Warner. CBS News said Republicans objected to the letter. "Attorney General Barr has given unprecedented accommodations to Chairman Nadler, and it's unconscionable the chairman refuses receipt of information he's claimed for weeks Democrats are 'entitled to.' Who subpoenas a report and publicly refuses to read it in the same day?" a spokesperson for House Judiciary Republicans said in a statement. • The same day, April 19, House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler issued a subpoena for the full, unredacted Mueller report. And, many Republicans and conservative political analysts said that was all Nadler ever wanted -- to bait AG Barr with an impossible demand and then issue a subpoena. • Then, on May 22, Politico reported that the Justice Department "began offering access to a less-redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's report to dozens of lawmakers on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees -- quadrupling the number of members who can review a more complete version of Mueller's findings on links between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia. But it's unclear if Democrats on those panels will take them up on it." But, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said he's urging the Justice Department "to make the less-redacted report available to all members of the House 'to discharge their duties to form their own opinions on issues of oversight and impeachment.' Schiff, Pelosi and the other Democrats have, reported Politico : "...so far boycotted the Justice Department's offer. They've argued that the full report and underlying evidence should be made available to many more lawmakers so they can make informed decisions about efforts to investigate Trump. At least five of the six Republicans granted access have gone to view the report....the committee and Justice Department reached an unrelated agreement to begin obtaining elements of Mueller's underlying evidence. '[T]he agreement covers the production of twelve categories of counterintelligence and foreign intelligence documents -- it is silent on other matters, including review of the unredacted report.....The Department of Justice has accepted our offer of a first step towards compliance with our subpoena, and this week will begin turning over to the Committee twelve categories of counterintelligence and foreign intelligence materials as part of an initial rolling production,' Schiff said in a statement Wednesday morning. That initial production should be completed by the end of next week.'....The Justice Department also says in its filings that it will preserve the redactions in the version shared with Congress for Mueller’s grand jury material, which protected by federal rules. House Democrats have argued that the Justice Department should join them to ask a court for permission to release the grand jury material to Congress, contending that the restrictions could be waived for the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees." • And, on Monday, June 10, House Democrats and the DOJ reached an agreement enabling House members to view underlying documents behind the [minimally] redacted Mueller report into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The Justice Department will begin providing the Mueller documents to the House Judiciary Committee on Monday and they will be available to all members of the panel, not just senior lawmakers, said committee chairman Nadler. • Now, to end where we began our blog -- on John Dean being called to testify by the House's obsessed Democrats who cannot let go of the 2016 election, I note that in Fox News Opinions former US Attorney Joe DiGenova wrote on Tuesday : "As many have pointed out, Dean is a convicted felon who was disbarred following his criminal role in the Watergate scandal. More important for this farce of a hearing, though, is that Dean has absolutely no first-hand knowledge of the events in question. He’s no more qualified to testify about Russiagate than CNN’s Jim Acosta is to testify about real news. 'Clearly, I’m not here today as a fact witness,' Dean himself admitted. So why would the Democrats call this discredited buffoon away from the CNN studios? Obviously, Nadler called Dean to testify because he wants to use the 45-year-old stench of Watergate to revive a partisan conspiracy theory that President Trump committed criminal offenses, which was already decisively debunked in the Mueller report. Dean didn’t waste any time obliging them. He did what he was there for within moments of beginning his testimony, claiming, 'In many ways, the Mueller report is to President Trump what the so-called Watergate roadmap … was to President Richard Nixon.' Of course, outside Dean’s fantasy land, there is no similarity. In Watergate, there were real underlying crimes. Operatives linked to the Nixon Campaign committed numerous felonies as they broke into the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. After that, genuine obstruction of justice took place, committed in large part by the Democrats’ own star witness, then-White House Counsel John Dean, who physically destroyed evidence as part of the cover-up. In Russiagate, however, there was no underlying crime. There was only the Democrat fantasy, cooked up by the Hillary Clinton campaign, that the Trump Campaign had 'colluded' with Russians to steal the 2016 election. That was a lie, as the Mueller report conclusively established. There was also no obstruction of justice. Given that the President knew all along that he was innocent, nothing he did could possibly have constituted the 'corrupt intent' necessary for an obstruction charge. Attorney General Bill Barr made that clear and explained his reasoning to Congress and the American public in detail. That absence of criminality -- not any nonsense about the Justice Department’s rules against indicting sitting Presidents -- is why Robert Mueller didn’t recommend charging the President. As I've written before, nothing stopped Mueller from stating plainly, in his confidential report to the attorney general, that he thought there was sufficient evidence of criminal obstruction. To put this all in perspective, Russiagate has already gone on longer than the entire Watergate scandal, from the break-in all the way through to President Nixon’s resignation. We’ve been over the same ground again and again since 2016. The investigation is over, and it found that there was no collusion. It’s the equivalent of discovering, after two years of Watergate investigation, that no one had actually broken into the DNC and no evidence was destroyed in John Dean’s shredder." • MY SUGGESTION is that after John Dean testimony, the Republicans should call MONICA LEWINSKY. She knows far more about real presidential collusion and obstruction, related to real crimes, than John Dean ever will.