December 14th, 2016
By Frank Salvato.
The hot-button topic today is whether or not the Russian government hacked into the email servers of the Democrat National Committee and the Clinton campaign, and whether or not they did so to support one candidate or detract from another. While the CIA has declared it as “quite clear” that electing Donald Trump was Russia’s goal, the FBI calls the evidence “fuzzy” and “ambiguous.” The only thing that is clear is that there is no definitive evidence to deduce anything.
These divergent conclusions by the FBI and CIA reflect the cultural differences in the two organizations. While the CIA is adept at drawing conclusions based on probability, inference and established behavior, the FBI – who recently came under-fire for not acting on overwhelming evidence of criminal acts in the Clinton email scandal, in true law enforcement form, relies on the weight of evidence; evidence required at a threshold to “convict.” The CIA’s conclusion, additionally, demonstrates that the Agency is willing to delve into American politics through the advancement of its conclusions.
While the federal law enforcement and intelligence communities debate the merits of the facts that have brought them to their respective conclusions, the mainstream media has already decided that the Russian did, in fact, commit cyberattacks and hacks upon the DNC and Clinton campaign. The only question they are asking is what the Russian motives might have been: To damage Clinton, aid Trump or attack the American election process as an institution.
It is undeniable that the Russian hacks – if in fact it was the Russians who hacked into the DNC and not “black hat” independent hackers or another nation State using Russian hacker fingerprints – exposed a wholly unethical and, in fact, criminal mindset deemed acceptable for American electoral politics by the Democrats, Progressives and the Clintons.
In the hacking of the DNC it was exposed that the Democrat hierarchy was quite alright with weighting the Primary Election in favor of one candidate over another. In stepping down from the post of DNC Chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz tacitly acknowledged that a culture of oligarchic corruption schemed to disenfranchise almost half of the Democrat rank-and-file. This conspiracy to defraud the Democrat voters is, at the very least, unethical to the maximum degree. At its worst it could be criminal, although not a soul called for a criminal investigation into the matter.
The hacks into the Clinton campaign apparatus revealed much more, and some actions that were criminal in nature.
The woman tapped to temporarily replace Wasserman-Schultz, Donna Brazile, was caught red-handed not once but twice affording the text of questions to Hillary Clinton in advance of two debates. When confronted about her grotesquely unethical actions she feigned outrage at “being persecuted” by the media.
Then there was proof positive that Progressive operatives – in unspoken coordination with the Clinton campaign and with full knowledge of John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman – paid thugs and anarchists to commit acts of violence at Trump campaign rallies. Their motive was clear, to paint a public picture of Trump supporters being violent, bigoted and a danger to our country.
Hacks into the Clinton apparatus also exposed the comingling of actions and assets between Hillary Clinton’s State Department and the Clinton Foundation in what was tantamount to a racketeering scheme worthy of a RICO prosecution. They also exposed the truth about Hillary Clinton’s purposeful inaction during the attacks on our diplomatic consulate and CIA Annex in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012.
It cannot be denied that the information that came out of WikiLeaks – which both federal law enforcement and intelligence authorities believe were facilitated by a more advanced entity, be it the Russians or another actor – was damaging to the Clinton campaign and the Progressive enterprise in the United States. At every turn they exposed a tolerance, zeal and acceptance of an unethical status quo to include criminal acts and transgressions against the American people.
But those exposures simply revealed the true soul of the Clintons, the leadership of the Democrat National Committee and the Washington Progressive-Democrat establishment. They also exposed the incredible bias that exists in the American mainstream media; a media that went to bat – viciously – for Hillary Clinton and the DNC to its own detriment. The Russians didn’t advance false-narratives or “fake news” that championed the Trump campaign, they exposed damning realities that existed within the Clinton camp and the DNC.
The fact of the matter is that the American people voted against Hillary Clinton not because of false-narrative propaganda manufactured by a foreign entity against her campaign, they voted against Hillary Clinton because she was proven to be an intensely corrupt political figure whose policies were found to be detrimental to the people of the United States. They voted against the realities that Hillary Clinton created for herself.
Are cyberattacks on any sovereign American enterprise by any entity – foreign or domestic – illegal? Yes, and they should be investigated and prosecuted when evidence of criminal actions have been established. Our elected officials are correct in demanding a full, open, unbiased and comprehensive investigation into the possibility of a cyberattack on our political institutions.
But we cannot lose sight of the fact that what those hacks exposed was a deeply embedded and inbred unethical cancer within the Progressive and Democrat political circles at the highest level; a cancer that was – and is – embraced as acceptable behavior in Liberal politics.
Investigate the possibility of a cyberattack by whoever would have targeted the outcome of the 2016 General Election. But let’s not allow the Leftist spin doctors to wallpaper over what was exposed by those hacks. Like it or not, the byproduct of that “crime” was the exposure of the truth; the dark, dirty, elitist soul of Democrat politics.
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December 11th, 2016
By Frank Salvato.
Not too long ago the American people were held captive to the Liberal mantra that because President Obama won the election he should be due his picks for his cabinet and agency heads without reservation. This mantra extended to nominees to the US Supreme Court as well. People like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were beside themselves that Senate Republicans weren’t simply rubber-stamping Obama’s nominees.
Fast forward to 2016 and the song is upside-down. Today the buzz in the news and from the corners of Washington where propaganda is created and advanced has Democrats and Progressives “very concerned” about President-Elect Donald Trump’s cabinet and agency picks. They are specifically upset about the number of ex-military officers – Generals – being named. “We don’t want to have an extensive military influence on our government,” they say.
But this avenue of thinking is disenfranchising – or at least disenfranchising for a period of seven years – those who have served the American people in our country’s most important role: that of defender and freedom protector. Those they seek to bar from appointed office have actually put their lives on the line for our country; far more than any non-military service politician has ever done.
When the “War Department” was replaced by the Department of Defense in 1947 – in the aftermath of World War II, Congress added the restriction that no military officer could hold the post of Secretary of Defense until he or she had been retired for 7 years. They expanded this restriction to include presidential cabinet secretaries and agency heads as well. They did this in fear of an undue “military influence” on the civilian-run US federal government. As with everything politicians do, they built into that law a back door; the ability to issue waivers to their own rule, which they have used.
In recent administrations, this restriction has garnered little concern. The occasional waiver has been issued without much concern for any undue military influence on the federal government. But now that the status quo is threatened in Washington, DC – and on both sides of the aisle, the idea of just one too many military officers in positions like Secretary of Defense, Homeland Security, National Security Advisor or Director of National Intelligence is fodder for disingenuous politicians seeking relevance.
The idea that a military leader could go rogue with the Defense Department is an antiquated fear. The DoD is so intertwined with myriad agencies – and has so many civilians in its employ – that a military coup under a “Dr. Strangelove” scenario is the thing of over active imaginations and disingenuous politicians.
In fact, in today’s world – and with the capabilities and responsibilities of our military – a former General or Admiral is a more logical choice for the positions of Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security, CIA, NSA and DNI positions and National Security advisors.
The Democrat and Progressive “concern” on this issue is completely political in nature. Their political party was publicly neutered and rejected; decimated and humiliated in the November elections, and they are struggling – desperately – to maintain a semblance of importance. What better way to pretend importance than to paint themselves the “loyal opposition”?
The three nominations that Donald Trump will place into contention that involve ex-military officers are solid picks to experience relevant positions. Each of these nominees has proved to be excellent in leadership, even when their orders deviated from their personal views.
Funny, no one has ever complained that there were ever too many lawyers or activists nominated for positions by presidents. President Obama nominated – without opposition – Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett to the position of Senior Advisor to the President, and seated – without Senate approval – a self-admitted Communist in Van Jones as Special Advisor for Green Jobs.
Given the incredible leeway the Washington elite have given Progressives, the nomination of former military leaders would appear to be, well, patriotic by comparison.
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November 7th, 2016
By Frank Salvato.
A recent exposé by FOX News Channel’s Bret Baier and his Special Report team, exposed and chronicled a damning timeline and some internal practices that prove the Clintons – both Bill and Hillary – did, in fact, have a “pay-to-play” scheme in place entangling the Clinton State Department and the Clinton Foundation. It also proves that senior staff within the Clinton campaign knew there was damaging information held within the emails trafficked over Hillary Clinton’s private unauthorized server, including correspondence between Clinton and President Obama.
These revelations alone, regardless of what FBI Director James Comey believes is actionable within either of the FBI investigations, had the potential to end Hillary Clinton’s presidential aspirations. Alas, the mainstream media is so intent on providing cover and refuge for all of Hillary Clinton’s unethical and criminal acts – by Comey’s own description in his first announcement, that she is getting the pass of the millennium.
Since the re-institution of the original criminal investigation by the FBI and the revelation of a second investigation by multiple FBI offices targeting the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton has dropped like a rock in the polls. This decline is especially felt in several of the critical swing states, including Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Comey’s statement today that he is standing by his earlier decision not to recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton for additional instances of mishandling classified information will most likely have no effect on the polls at all, although it will give the Clinton team a closing argument centered on deflection and ambiguity. The fact remains – and it is undeniable – Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information and is being treated in the aftermath as being above the law.
One of the key issues in the email and unauthorized (read: illegal) server scandal is Clinton’s initial and consistent claims to transparency where her communications were concerned. In her first statement on the matter she insisted – in no uncertain terms – that she wanted to combine her personal and government devices for “convenience.” Since then we have learned that she had over a dozen communications devices, some of which her team destroyed…with hammers.
Also critical to establishing the conspiracy in this scandal is the fact that her senior most staff, including John Podesta, Robby Mook, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, not only knew of the unethical and criminal trafficking of email over the illegal server, they were integral in the destruction of over 33,000 emails that were never vetted for criminality by investigative authorities.
Through the forced transparency provided by WikiLeaks, we now know that the Clinton’s initially wanted to continue to receive huge donations to their corrupt foundation from foreign governments and interests even after – God forbid – Hillary Clinton were to be elected to the presidency. In fact, Hillary Clinton, herself, wanted to keep the spigot wide-open. It was her husband, impeached former-President Bill Clinton, who proposed establishing some sort of vetting process.
Regarding the deletion of Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 unvetted “private” emails by the Clinton team, WikiLeaks disclosures prove that the destruction of what is now considered material evidence in a criminal investigation was premeditated. One WikiLeaks email exposed Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta writing to Chief Clinton aide Cheryl Mills: “…[W]e are going to have to dump all those emails so better to do so sooner than later.”
That email was dated March 2nd, 2015, on the very same day that The New York Times reported on Hilary Clinton’s unauthorized and illegal private email server. On March 4th, 2015, House Benghazi Select Committee chairman US Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), requested any and all emails that were trafficked on Clinton’s private server; not some of them, or only the ones related to the State Department, but all of them.
On March 7th, 2015, Mills wrote to Podesta, “[W]e need to clean this up – [Obama] has emails from her – they do not say state.gov,” referring to the use of Clinton’s Gmail account. Then, at some point between March 25th and March 31st, 2015, the Clinton team deleted the requested emails – the material evidence – and then acid washed the server with BleachBit.
Clinton had insisted on March 10th, 2015, that she had surrendered all of the emails that she had trafficked over her private server saying she wanted to “err on the side of providing anything that could be possibly viewed as work related.” We now know that to be a bald-faced and intentional lie.
The WikiLeaks emails – and the resulting timeline, prove – without doubt – that Hillary Clinton and her team sought to deceive; to hide information from not only the FBI investigators, but the investigators working for the US Congress. These actions are crimes, and they are crimes that prove – solidly – a conspiracy; a cover-up.
They say the cover-up is always worse than the crime. This is true in the Clinton email scandal as well. While the emails in question expose the Clinton’s as greedy, opportunistic politicians only out to enrich themselves, the cover-up enacted in the aftermath of the discovery of her illegal email server is what is slaying her with the American public.
We will never know why FBI Director Comey acted so erratically in flipping, flopping, and then flipping again on the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information. He, himself, admitted in his initial declaration that illegal acts occurred. We also know that better people have been sentence to prison and fined large amounts for doing much less than what Clinton did. To that end there is a grotesque double standard in how justice is being applied to Clinton.
But justice doesn’t always have to come through the judicial system. It is a rare moment when We the People can exact justice directly against someone who has abused our trust, and through that abuse of trust, our nation as a whole. Today we stand at that moment in time. We can exact a punishment to both Bill and Hillary Clinton for the criminal and unethical acts they have perpetrated against the American people by denying the one thing that means the most to them: power.
Democrats, ask yourself, do you really believe you are best served in electing someone who has proven contempt for the masses of every political vane? Is guaranteeing the country at least four more years of scandal, corruption and pain truly a victory? Is electing someone who has proven she will raid the treasury for her own selfish gain worthy of your vote?
We the People have to become, once again, jealous of our love of country. We have to stop electing politically opportune reprobates to office – on both sides of the aisle. While Donald Trump may not be the Statesman we would prefer be leading us in the world today, he is head and shoulders above the corrupt and devious alternative in Hillary Clinton. To that there can be no argument.
So, on November 8th, I ask you to go to the polls to protect the Constitution from the worst most damaging candidate our nation has ever elevated to major political party nomination. The Constitution is ours, we own it, and we must protect it from Hillary Clinton; a woman who has proven to hate everything about the document, what it stands for and its purpose.
In the voices of our Founders and Framers, God save the United States of America.
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November 2nd, 2016
By Frank Salvato.
As we approach Election Day, there will be an incredible amount of talk about the polls. Mainstream media pundits will expound on the lead that Hillary Clinton has and how it is something that, in the short time left, can’t be overcome by Donald Trump. But is this “lead” that Hillary Clinton is said to possess and accurate reflection of the electorate?
Emails released by WikiLeaks last week prove that the Clinton team applied an enormous amount of pressure (as if it were needed) on the mainstream media into systematically and deliberately over-sampling Clinton-friendly demographics in their polling. The emails, that originated with Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, included a detailed 37-page manual on how to go about most effectively skewing the polling results so as to give the Clinton campaign the numbers they needed to claim a lead.
It was their game plan all along to propagandize huge leads in the polls – through the Clinton-friendly mainstream media – to depress voter turnout for Donald Trump. A simple reading of Podesta’s email and the attached manual prove this beyond any doubt.
This is the inherent danger in a politically corrupt; a politically biased mainstream media. By creating “scientific polls” that, through the use of oversampling, skew the perception of a candidate’s popularity, they are manipulating the masses into thinking there is no reason to show up at the polls. To date, or at least until WikiLeaks exposed the scheme, the Clinton team strategy was working.
This scheme of the Clinton campaign to propagandize the polling data just before Election Day, quite successful until it was exposed, is exactly what Donald Trump and his surrogates are talking about when they make the argument that “the system is rigged.”
A perfect example of one of the more obvious sampling biases comes in the form of a recent ABC/Washington Post poll that gave Hillary Clinton a 12-point lead nationally over Donald Trump. As with recent polls from Reuters and ABC News, this ABC/Post poll included a 9-point sampling bias toward registered Democrats.
This was something that they didn’t even try to hide. In publishing its methodology ABC News stated that it sampled 874 likely voters and that the poll had a margin of error or 3.5 points. They openly admitted that the, “Partisan divisions are 36-27-31 percent: Democrats – Republicans – Independents.” While Democrats may have a very slight voter registration advantage, it is nowhere near the 9 points used in this poll.
Professional pollsters insist they are using models established during previous voting cycles, most notably the 2008 and 2012 General Election cycles. These cycles produced an above normal Democrat/Progressive voter turnout for the “historical” advent of the “first Black president.” These were anomalistic cycles not representative of the state of the electorate today.
One Podesta email, WikiLeaked earlier last week, spells out – in detail – exactly how to “manufacture” the desired polling data of the Clinton team. It serves as proof that the mainstream media is manufacturing Clinton-friendly polling data to depress voter turnout for Donald Trump.
The email begins with a request for recommendations from Clinton campaign staff on how what to execute “oversamples for polling” in order to “maximize what we get out of our media polling.”
“I also want to get your Atlas folks to recommend oversamples for our polling before we start in February. By market, regions, etc.” Podesta writes. “I want to get this all compiled into one set of recommendations so we can maximize what we get out of our media polling.”
As stated, the email included a 37-page guide – a manual – with recommendations for rigging the polling. In Arizona, for example, it specifically tasked those organizations executing the polls with oversampling Hispanics and Native Americans, saying it was “highly recommended.”
“Research, microtargeting & polling projects: Over-sample Hispanics; Use Spanish language interviewing (Monolingual Spanish-speaking voters are among the lowest turnout Democrat targets); Over-sample the Native American population,” the memo read.
In discussing Florida, the report mandates “consistently monitoring” samples to makes sure they don’t include too many seniors and that they included an oversampling of “African American and Hispanic voters.” It also instructed pollsters to oversample Clinton-friendly Independent voters in the Tampa Area
The report also instructed those organizations creating national polls to oversample “key districts/regions” and “ethnic groups as needed.”
This is why, when we listen to any of the news outlets – including a Right-leaning FOX News – we are hearing the chattering class of the political punditry; the “strategists” and “analysists” parroting each other in saying that the polls show Trump losing. They are either complicit in the propaganda scheme or simply too stupid to understand they are being manipulated.
Whichever the case, it is clear that the Clinton team is – not now, nor ever – playing a corrupt political scheme that includes the misinforming of the American people in order to manipulate them in their right to a free and fair election. The evidence is irrefutable.
With FBI Director James Comey’s reopening of FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized and illegal private email server, we should see a significant jarring of the polls to Trump’s favor. A new ABC/Washington Post poll indicated that 30 percent of those polled said the reopening of the investigation would keep them from voting for Hillary Clinton on November 8th. Even if the poll sampling remains oversampled there should be a dramatic drop in support for Hillary Clinton given this poll.
And so we will find out just how dishonest the mainstream media is in the polling. If we do not see a significant drop in support for Hillary Clinton then, my friends, Donald Trump is spot on correct in saying the system is rigged. At that point We the People have some serious question to answer and they all have to do with the fate of the country.
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October 25th, 2016
By Frank Salvato.
There is a sizeable faction in this country that is disgusted with the choices we have going into the 2016 General Election. While the choices are far from the quality a great nation like the United States deserves, they are what they are. No amount of complaining, abdication of responsibility or indignation will change this reality.
But, like it or not, the outcome of this election will affect each and every one of us, and in ways that can never be rectified in our lifetimes, if at all. It is for that reason this election is a referendum on the issues, not on the candidates. It is also for this reason that it needs to be reiterated – in no uncertain terms – that General Elections are not for electing your favorite candidate. They are for protecting the country from the worst candidate.
Right now we have two candidates – arguably not the best the country can offer, who possess two extremely different visions for the country. It is about these differences – exclusively – that we must base our choices come Election Day. Put bluntly, this election isn’t about personalities, capabilities, soundbites or even criminality; it is about issues, and on these issues, we dohave choices to make.
Yes, the names on the ballot give us pause. I will cede that point but offer this rebuttal for your consideration.
On the one hand, we have a politically untested, braggadocios businessman in Donald Trump who routinely makes statements before he thinks about the consequences of his words. But while many may have their principles insulted by the prospect of casting a vote for such an overt braggart, there is no question that he loves and appreciates the country that has allowed him to be so successful.
On the other hand, we have Hillary Clinton, a woman who has, but for a very short stint at a private law firm, always lived taking a taxpayer-funded government check. For getting on 30 years this woman has fed off the taxpayer feed trough, advancing her ideological agenda – one tilted to the whims of the Fabian Progressive that she is, admittedly, and establishing and engaging in bureaucratic corruption so extensive that she has been able to parlay her “public service” into an amassed wealth of hundreds of millions of dollars.
So, in personality and professionally, we have a stark and glaring choice in the people that are on the ballot. One, Trump, has a love of country but no political prowess, the other, Clinton, has decades of inside-the-beltway experience but a deeply seeded desire to “fundamentally transform” the nation from a Constitutional Republic to a Socialist Democracy administered by a Progressive oligarchy.
Larger than the personalities in this election, however, are two very important and critical issues; issues that these two candidates – as flawed as they are – have decidedly different ideas about.
We are standing at a moment where we control whether or not the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) remains a binding law or whether it gets repealed. Make no mistake, Hillary Clinton, if elected, will cement this incredibly unconstitutional law into the very fabric of our country for all-time. The only way Obamacare will be abandoned under a Clinton Administration is in deference to the establishment of a full-blown single-payer health insurance system administered by the Federal Government, i.e. nationalized healthcare.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, has made a cornerstone of his campaign the repeal of Obamacare. He has pledged to destroy the artificial barriers in the marketplace – barriers erected by insurance company-friendly politicians – that keep the free market from allowing competition that would dramatically lower premium costs for everyone. This, as a result – through competition in the free market – would make health insurance affordable for all.
So, the choice is abundantly clear – unless you are a Socialist or a Marxist – on who has already earned your vote on the issue of Obamacare. Unless you want your health insurance premiums to rise to unaffordability and the quality of your healthcare to take a downturn to that of a Third World country, you need to cast a vote for Donald Trump so that Hillary Clinton doesn’t make Obamacare permanent.
Then there is the matter of the United States Supreme Court. The direction of the nation, with regard to constitutionalism, hangs in the balance this election. With the next President of the United States most likely getting to nominate three, and possibly four, United States Supreme Court justices, we are at a crossroads as to whether we jettison the Constitution completely or return to being a “nation of laws and not of men,” of which John Adams spoke.
The US Supreme Court is seated to protect and defend the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, exclusively. The justices are tasked with ruling on the constitutionality of law, not on the people effected by that law. As the Constitution and Bill of Rights were crafted to serve all of the people – regardless of race, creed, gender or economic class – serving the Constitution is, by that very act, serving the people.
Hillary Clinton, in the last debate, spoke of appointing Supreme Court justices who would be empathetic to the people and their causes. She talked of her selections being mindful of the people in the decisions they would be faced with making. She said she envisions a Supreme Court that “stands up on behalf of women’s rights, on behalf of the rights of the LGBT community, that will stand up and say no to Citizen’s United, a decision that has undermined the election system in our country” and that her nominees would be “in the great tradition of standing up to the powerful, standing up on behalf of our rights as Americans.”
But none of that – none of it – is what the US Supreme Court is supposed to engage in, as duly noted above. Women, the LGBT community, and even the political process are best served when the Constitution is best served and adequately protected. What Hillary Clinton proposed, in her answer, was to establish an activist special-interest Supreme Court bench that serves entities rather than the Constitution, a document that serves everyone equitably and equally when administered as the Framers intended.
In incredible and stark contrast, Donald Trump has pledged to nominate justices to the Supreme Court who would interpret the Constitution “the way the Founders wanted it interpreted.” In that short, simple response Trump said what each and every American should want to hear in an answer to that query. He will appoint justices that will serve and protect the Constitution, returning the Supreme Court to the rule of law.
So, again, unless you are a “social justice” activist with a Fabian Progressive bent, the choice is clear on who should get your vote regarding the issue of the US Supreme Court. Trump wants justices who rule on constitutionality, while Clinton wants justices who rule on a special-interest, social justice agenda.
In the worst case scenario; should Hillary Clinton win on November 8th, we can be guaranteed of two things. First, Obamacare and its never-ending rate hikes – not to mention the Progressive march to a single-payer health insurance system run exclusively by the Federal Government – will be here forever. Second, the US Supreme Court – and the whole of the federal courts beneath it – will be lost to at least one generation (maybe two) of Progressive-Liberalism; codifying countless new “social justice” laws and mandates onto the American people.
These are the issues that consume this election. To wit, this election is an ipso facto referendum on Obamacare and the direction of the US Supreme Court, nothing else; no personalities, no crimes, no sex scandals, nothing else.
This is why there can be no abdication by the American people of their responsibilities to vote. Yes, the candidates may not be the best our nation has to offer, but the issues are more serious than the personality, ethics and knowledge deficits possessed by either. Just because you may hate the choices doesn’t mean the issues become benign.
While Trump, if he should win, may end up having to surround himself with people more knowledgeable than he on most every matter, that is infinitely better than giving the Oval Office to Hillary Clinton, who has been slated as the “clean-up hitter” in the Progressive fundamental transformation of America.
It is for that reason that sitting this election out – refusing to vote because of the quality, demeanor, ethics or perceived personality deficits of the candidates – is an exercise of abdication of responsibility; to the country, future generations and the US Constitution. In the end, it is the most selfish thing an American can do at this point in American history.
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September 5th, 2016
By Frank Salvato.
The credibility of our government has been marginalized, and increasingly so for decades. The agenda-driven politicization of departments and agencies – government entities that are supposed to serve the people – has facilitated an all-encompassing bureaucracy loyal to elitist politicians over the American people. This corrupt, special interest-serving politicization has exploded in the almost eight-years of the Obama Administration.
In an unbelievable explanation covered by the Washington Examiner, Hillary Clinton testified under sworn deposition to FBI agents that she believed the classified “C” markings on emails recovered from her private emails were there as a way to alphabetically order paragraphs. This information comes from an 11-page summary of the deposition, alongside 58 pages of notes from the FBI investigation into her illegal use of a private email server and email accounts.
“When asked what the parenthetical ‘C’ meant before a paragraph…Clinton stated she did not know and could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order,” the FBI cited from notes created taken during its interview with her.
The interviewing agent’s notes stated that Clinton swore she had a “limited understanding” of the document classification process; of how and why certain documents are deemed classified. They also revealed that Clinton “couldn’t recall” ever being trained on how to handle sensitive material.
The new information also evidenced that Clinton testified to FBI investigators approximately three dozen times that she “couldn’t recall” specific details or events related to her use and establishment of her private email and server.
Clinton’s excuse for several of her lapses in memory was that the events in question occurred directly her head injury, which left the Democrat nominee with a blood clot on the brain and a concussion.
So, let’s take a brief recounting of Hillary Clinton’s political career to see if it is even possible for her to be so naïve about the document classification process and for her not to have any functional knowledge of how to handle classified and sensitive information.
Hillary Clinton served as a staff lawyer on the House Judicial Committee investigating Watergate during her youthful years in Washington. This position mandated that she have access to audio files that containing classified information; information recorded inside the Oval Office. Are we to believe she wasn’t counseled on how to handle those documents?
Hillary Clinton was also First Lady for eight long, hard years. In that station she would have had to have attained a top secret status just for her ability to enter the Oval Office with regularity. Are we to believe she wasn’t counseled on how to manage information she may or may not have had access to emanating from the President or the Oval Office?
Clinton was a US Senator from New York who sat on the Armed Services Committee and the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats & Capabilities. These committee assignments required Clinton receive at least “top secret” clearance for the military information to which she had access. Are we to believe that during the whole of the time she was on these committees she never once was counseled on how to handle classified information?
And as Secretary of States – a position fourth in line to the presidency, and part of the inner-circle cabinet and structural hierarchy of the President of the United States – she was required to handle all classifications of sensitive information materials, including “Special Access Program” material, the highest and most sensitive level of information our government keeps. Are we to believe that she was afforded this access without anyone – anyone – covering their asses enough to have counseled her on how to safeguard this information?
Clinton’s answers the FBI investigators; her excuses; her attempts at establishing plausible deniability, are so far from the realm of believability they are beyond ludicrous. To believe her narrative is to exist as a human being incapable of even the most rudimentary function.
To put it bluntly: To believe Clinton’s testimony would be to be on the intellectual level of a mentally challenged squirrel, and that is being unkind to the squirrel.
It is beyond obvious that Mrs. Clinton has perjured herself in interviews with Federal Agents, just like her impeached husband did. As we all know, that – in and of itself – is a crime punishable by time in a federal prison and a hefty fine.
It would require the willing suspension of disbelief to accept that over the many years Clinton has existed in Washington she wouldn’t understand how to recognize and/or handle classified information. For that to be true there would be a trail of unauthorized access to sensitive materials that would rival the Oregon Trail and the Trail of Tears combined.
Given how the Clintons are dojo masters at covering their tracks and establishing plausible deniability – and given they were aware enough to BleachBit destroy the emails they really didn’t want anyone to see, it is impossible to accept her story that she “didn’t know” or was “unaware.”
All that understood, perhaps Friday’s FBI document dump isn’t what it appears. Maybe it is based on either a guilt streak or an attempt to make things right in spite of a corrupt Justice Department by FBI Director James Comey, perhaps both. Perhaps that was the plan all along. Would it be ethical? No, it wouldn’t. But when you are battling unethical forces (read: The Clintons and the Washington Progressive machine) that will lie, cheat, steal and, perhaps, even kill, to achieve their goals, sometimes you have to get a little dirty.
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July 9th, 2016
By Frank Salvato.
The racial divide in this country, as it exists today, is completely manufactured. It is manufactured by the political and activist class, and for reasons symbiotic to one another.
Politicians need to divide our nation so as to pit demographic against demographic; in order to create political party “battle lines.” This is how they create an “us against them” scenario. True Statesmen and public servants seek to better the nation in ways that are good for all of the population, not just a sympathetic demographic. That does not exist in our country today. True government of and for the people is dead.
Activists – mostly products of the victimhood and grievance class – need to divide to define special interest demographics, again to pit “us against them.” It is how they attain power and influence, as well as wealth for their “movements.” This is serious wealth. One need only look at the personal trappings of Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton to understand this.
Are there bad cops? Yes. Are there good cops that make bad decisions? Yes. But these are anomalies, not the status quote as the fraudulent #BlackLiveMatter movement, race-baiters and the Obama Administration would have you believe.
As a former first-responder I can tell you that even in the most remote locations, each day a man or woman puts on a badge to go to work, they simply want to do their jobs and come home to their families and friends. There is no other agenda than that. It is a goal. And sometimes, as in Dallas, that goal goes unachieved.
The manufactured racial divide now instituted in our nation is starting to take lives; it is fomenting in acts of domestic terrorism. At this point, the militants taking the shots are Black militants. They are targeting law enforcement and the first-responder community. It is perverted.
The fear among the situationally aware is that other intellectually stunted or militantly activist people and/or organizations that are not Black will be moved to retaliate. Many who are of the mind that a “race war” was by design; conceived and facilitated by Progressives attempting to maintain power through the chaos of “national emergency” will assume vindication at this possibility.
But this fear can only become a reality if thinking Americans – which are the overwhelming majority of our people – abandon the color blind society that we created for ourselves through the pain and growth of the 1960s and 1970s. If we do not give into the divisiveness of fear, they cannot achieve their goal of dividing America for purposes of maintaining power and fundamental transformation.
In this specific case, the catalyst for the carnage was not that a Dallas Police Officer shot a Black man. It was not that access to a “gun” caused this crisis. It was that a group of Black men whose minds had been poisoned to a manufactured racial divide pulled the triggers – repeatedly – to assassinate five police officers; wounding many more.
It was the persons, not the weapons. It was the opportunistic politics, not the society.
It is up to We the People to work through this. The Obama Administration is not on our side where this is concerned, nor is the media hacks or the ascribing punditry.
And as we do work though this, let’s all remember one thing: Those men and women who are wearing the badges, even as falsely motivated militants target them for assassination, they just want to make it past the end of their shift, doing the jobs that others fear to do, to achieve their goal of going home.
My condolences to the families, friends and brothers and sisters of the badge who have been touched by this senseless and unnecessary event.
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March 13th, 2016
By Frank Salvato.
Tonight, as I watch protesters in the streets of Chicago squash the free speech rights of those they do not agree with I exist ashamed of my hometown. I have understood for years that Chicago had arrived at being the epicenter of Progressive intolerance, even more so than the grounds of UC Berkeley or Columbia University. But listening to one of the “protesters” being interviewed after the announcement that they had succeeded in effecting the cancellation of a political rally featuring Donald Trump (of whom I am not necessarily a huge supporter), I have come to the conclusion that the brown shirt-jackboots of fascist regimes past have been resurrected; inhabiting the liberal bastions and college classrooms of the Windy City.
One giggling female protester said, “We are protesting inequality, we’re protesting everything.” And a self-anointed community activist (where does one go to get certified as a community activist anyway?), Quo Vadis, said the goal of the protesters – numbering in the high-hundreds, if not thousands – was for, “Donald to take the stage and to completely interrupt him. The plan is to shut Donald Trump all the way down.” In other words, the protesters who consider themselves champions of “equality for all” executed a plan to affect the total censorship of a political figure. By any consideration, these “protesters” annihilated Donald Trump’s First Amendment right to free speech. Correct me if I am wrong, but censorship is antithetical to equality for all. But maybe these protester’s civics instructors haven’t covered the Bill of Rights yet.
Fascism, by definition, means:
“…a political movement that employs the principles and methods of Fascism, the philosophy, principles, or methods of a governmental system that forcibly suppresses opposition and criticism, and emphasizing an aggressive Nationalism and often racism.”
Censorship is a tool of Fascism, serving to suppress opposition and criticism. This is exactly what we witnessed in the streets of Chicago tonight: censorship at the hand of the “enlightened” Progressive movement. So it is that it is fair to characterize these “enlightened” people – young and old, male and female, Black, White, Latino and otherwise – as modern day fascists; individuals intolerant of opinions that exist in opposition to their own; individuals that exist delusional to who they have become; “useful idiots” denying others the right to political free speech in defiance of the Bill of Rights.
It is a consensus among scholars of history that,
“…Fascism rejects assertions that violence is automatically negative in nature, and views political violence, war and imperialism as means that can achieve national rejuvenation.”
And so we witnessed censorship and politically motivated violence – even if the Chicago Police Department held it to a minimum – at the hand of our new era Progressive fascists both inside and outside of the UIC Pavilion. It is both ironic and interesting that a common chant among the protesters was, “Bernie, Bernie,” referring to Bernie Sanders, the socialist candidate vying for the Democrat nomination.
To that end, Ayn Rand considered, where Fascism and Socialism were concerned, that:
“…It is too obvious, too easily demonstrable that Fascism and [Socialism/Communism] are…two rival gangs fighting over the same territory; that both are variants of Statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the right-less slave of the state; that both are socialistic, in theory, in practice, and in the explicit statements of their leaders; that…Fascism is not the product of the political ‘right,’ but of the ‘left’…”
While this type of modern day Fascism takes place across the country, and especially on college campuses; locations that by their very existence should tolerate all political and cultural speech in the pursuit of cultivating critical thinking skills and well-rounded graduates, it is particularly egregious when it happens in Chicago, a city that bears the ugly scars of the 1968 Democrat Convention riots; fascist violence burnt into the soul of that great city. Equally as disturbing is the uneducated, ignorant embrace by our modern day, “useful idiot” fascists of the pseudo-socialism of the Progressive Movement; a movement that is much more fascist than socialist, or even communist.
Tonight, as I watch the fascists of Chicago, young and old, cheer in the streets at their achievement – the successful censorship of political speech, I am embarrassed to call Chicago my hometown. I had always believed that the people of Chicago were vested with a modicum of common sense and at least a splinter of will to quest for knowledge and truth. Sadly, as I watch on, red-faced, I am being proven wrong. Chicago’s streets, tonight, are filled with ignorant fascists who are proud of themselves.
The city that “won’t let you down,” just let me down…and in a magnificent way.
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March 1st, 2016
By Nancy Salvato.
In the beginning, what excited people most about traveling to the new world was freedom to practice their religion without persecution or being treated differently for not adhering to a state mandated religion. As time passed, people were compelled by the idea that they could grab a piece of land and create their own wealth. These two ideas best characterize the American dream, the freedom to have a set of beliefs and not be compelled to follow the group and the freedom to build wealth from a wing and a prayer. Our governing system evolved from these two important rights.
Our country suffered 25,000 casualties, not to mention as many wounded in the revolution to gain our freedom from England. Once we had tasted freedom, it was hard to imagine allowing ourselves to be ruled by a king and a parliament determined to wield their authority over colonies that had been essentially governing themselves independently for years. To be told where goods could be sold and where they could trade, to be taxed indiscriminately, to be tried in courts without a jury of peers…these ideas were recognized as unjust and intolerable.
With freedom came wealth and power. This is because in our country there was no built in ruling class or proletariat class. In America, people were not seen as belonging to any particular class and it was a given that anyone could make it. Andrew Jackson was the first president who exemplified that idea, having beat enormous odds. He was not born of wealth and despite having lost both parents before he was fifteen, survived fighting (under age) in the American Revolution, being imprisoned, and smallpox. Yet he managed to become a school teacher, and later a lawyer, before running for and being elected to the highest office in the land.
What characterized the people who immigrated to America was that they wanted to become part of a country where people were free to pursue their happiness. There was no expectation that the government would take care of them. What drove settlers and foreigners to populate our country was the idea that with hard work and faith they could make something of themselves. When did this change?
Historically, there are some landmark events that we can look at as contributing to the downfall of our country. The passing of the 17th Amendment is one. Senators no longer represent the state; the senate is not the state’s house. It is just an extension of the people’s house. This has eroded state’s rights and upset the balance necessary to prevent any part of the government from gaining too much power or forgetting that they are there to serve the people. Another is Marbury v Madison, in which the judiciary branch of government could determine whether a law is to be followed, not whether a law is being applied fairly. Every time a president uses executive power to create law through regulation, instead of the congress, the balance is being eroded.
In the past eight years, we’ve witnessed the decimation of the middle class. With the economy tanking and the result of a government manufactured housing crisis, people who’d invested years of their savings into homes, found themselves in foreclosure. Forced to move and rent because of bad credit, their homes were often purchased by the wealthy and redistributed to people who qualified for section 8 and received government supplemented housing. Demographics of entire neighborhoods changed, bringing in people whose interests and values did not coincide with the established culture, changing political voting blocks.
At issue this election are several concerns. We are at war with political factions of a religion that calls itself peaceful. We need to determine how this war is to be fought and eliminate this threat. Will it be fought like Vietnam or will we eradicate the problem completely? Domestically, our government is in debt because of all the entitlement programs that were passed by preceding congresses and foisted onto generation after generation to fund. The economy has not recovered, despite the rhetoric. The reality is that many people can no longer apply for unemployment because the timeline for when they can receive benefits expired. Others have found jobs but they are not full time and they do not qualify for employee benefits. Those who take advantage of Affordable Healthcare Act policies are funded by taxpayers, as with any entitlement program. They are not free.
This election is the last gasp for the middle class. Those running for office on the left have openly voiced that they would usher in socialism. Those “feeling the Bern” or backing a progressive truly believe in the idea that the government knows best how to spend our hard earned wealth. This is an election to determine whether we still believe in equality of opportunity or if we now believe in the idea of equality of outcome.
It’s ironic that the sector that continues to show growth is the service industry. As we watch our class structure fall, an entire servant class is being created. It reminds me of the world before America was settled, a world where there were upper classes and lower classes who served them.
I used to enjoy following the election. For me, it was like following baseball or football. Now, when I listen to the media interview the candidates, I feel like I’m watching the show in the Hunger Games hosted by Caesar Flickerman. The media is whoring the candidates out for ratings. I wonder why these are called debates? The candidates are coached to say what will get them ratings. As Gale from the Hunger Games remarked to Katniss, “What if they just stop watching?” Unfortunately, Katniss was right when she replied, “But they won’t, Gale. They won’t.” We’re gawkers at the scene of an accident, compelled to watch the election process going down in flames.
Copyright ©2016 Nancy Salvato
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February 17th, 2016
By Frank Salvato.
Keywords: Antonin Scalia, US Supreme Court, Constitution, Progressive, Framers, Social Engineering, US Senate, Supreme Court Nominee, Senate Republicans, Confirmation,
With the passing of US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia we stand at a very sober moment for our nation, a moment that finds the US Constitution – and the idea of constitutionality in general – in a very fragile state. With the make-up of the US Supreme Court existing on a razor’s edge between the conflicting ideologies of Progressivism (which views the Constitution as malleable) and Constitutionalism (which sees the document at a limitation on government) what happens in the next months will serve to chart the course for our country. The two paths couldn’t be more different: one a pathway to national demise.
I am want to recall a passage from a speech that Ronald Reagan gave in 1964:
“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”
Today, with the passing of Justice Scalia, the Republican and conservative members of the United States Senate have met up with their own “rendezvous with destiny.” They will soon be presented with a nominee to the US Supreme Court from President Obama, a Far-Left Progressive who has already seated two political activists to the Court. It will be the Senate’s duty – not their option, but their duty – to deny Mr. Obama another Progressive seat on the US Supreme Court.
Progressives by their very nature believe that the US Constitution is a flawed document; something to be improved, perfected and otherwise titrated to the needs of the times. That is anathema to what the Framers intended and history bears that out. The Framers intended for the US Constitution to be the “chains” that binds government to the service of the nation, not the service to the ideological and/or the few.
Thomas Jefferson is quoted as saying:
“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”
For just over 100 years Progressives have been moving to free themselves of those chains in an effort to diminish the Constitution, all in the name of social engineering. Progressive political activists elevated to the US Supreme Court have read authority over the States in all matters into the Commerce Clause; have divined the right to execute abortion into privacy laws; twisted affirmative action to champion equality; and facilitated mandated health insurance under the guise of taxation. None of these “decisions” have anything to do with constitutionality in the understanding that the Constitution is written to restrain government. None of these “decisions” have anything to do with ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
In recent times we have suffered the rhetoric of Republican leaders who insist that a President is due his choice when it comes to seating US Supreme Court Justices. This is a political narrative that has no meaning when viewed through the eyes of the Constitution. The President is due his opportunity to submit a nomination for consideration. Then it is the duty – not the option, but the duty – of the Senate to vet that nominee; to make sure that nominee is not damaging to the Constitution, to the office to which her or she is nominated, and to the nation.
Article II, Section 2 of the US Constitution states quite clearly:
“The President shall… by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for;…”
The Constitution does not give the President free reign over who he sees fit to sit on the US Supreme Court. The Senate must – must – provide “consent.” This means that the Senate – a chamber of a co-equal branch of government – has the authority to deny a President his choice for the Court.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and his leadership team must make a stand for the good of the country and for the survival of constitutionality. The Republican controlled Senate must jettison the false narrative of a “President getting the justices he chooses” and make a stand for the Constitution and the Framers intention of co-equal branches of government. Failure by Senator McConnell and Senate Republicans to keep another Obama nominee from being seated by to the Court will mean “a thousand years of darkness” at the hand of a Progressive leaning US Supreme Court and the social engineering decisions they will hand down.
Senator McConnell, Senate Republicans, this is your “rendezvous with destiny.” Stand up for the Constitution. Stand firm for our country. Hold the line for the “last best hope of man on earth.” Hold the line!
My condolences to the Scalia Family. My God hold him in His light in perpetuity
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February 12th, 2016
By Frank Salvato.
Whether you believe that there were nefarious motives behind the advancement of inaccurate information about the Carson campaign by Cruz ground operatives in Iowa or not, one thing is certain, true and undeniable. The leading candidates for the Republican Party’s nomination for President of the United States are feeding on each other. By doing so, they have effectively created an “emotional division” between the voters of the Right. To prove this out all one has to do is spend some time on social media threads related to the topic. Phrases like “Cruz haters,” “Carson’s a whiner” and “Trump is an idiot” are myriad. So, too, is the Conservative rank-and-file’s sudden acceptance of CNN as a credible, non-biased news source.
This election cycle the best that the Democrats can offer is a throwback hippie Socialist and the most disingenuous and opportunistic politician in recent history. The prospects of one of these improbably political creatures reaching the White House relies exclusively on the Republicans finding a way to shoot themselves in the foot; damaging each other so extensively in the primaries that the bleeding continues into the General Election. On the heels of eight years of Progressive rule and their disastrous policies for our economy and national security; in light of myriad scandals and a possible indictment hounding the DNC frontrunner, Republicans should have been able to nominate a potato chip and won in November.
Enter the politics of division. Enter opportunistic political tactics ala the Chicago machine. Enter the type of politics that each and every one of the Republican candidates says they abhor; that each says they will excommunicate from the lexicon of American politics should they be elected to the presidency.
And the Progressives and Democrats, their jaws on the ground, laughed in astonishment. Republicans and Conservatives fell for it again.
There was a reason that Ronald Reagan advanced the idea of the “Eleventh Commandment.” This political edict, originally attributed to California Republican Party Chairman Gaylord Parkinson, stated: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.”
This is what is so incredibly frustrating for aware rank-and-file Republicans. For all the homage that Republicans – candidates, operative and voters – pay to the Reagan Legacy, one point they routinely ignore, and perhaps the most important, especially in presidential primary politics – is the Eleventh Commandment.
Today, as I write this, the top four candidates for the Republican nomination are not talking about their policies, ideologies or agendas; they are talking about personalities, intra-party political tactics and playing the victim/blame game while dividing the electorate on the Right side of the aisle. As Bernie Sanders continues to make inroads with intellectually vacuous voters, and Hillary Clinton continues to spin in an attempt to escape her self-imposed death spiral, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Ben Carson are ensnared in the media web, finding themselves fodder for the “pundocracy” and the “all hail the ratings” 24/7 news cycle. It conjures up images of the tribute talk show in The Hunger Games.
And the Progressives and Democrats are looking at each other, scratching their heads, and asking, “Are they really doing this?”
Today, as I write this, supporters of Cruz, Trump, Rubio and Carson, are engaged in heated debates – some caustically overt – with their Conservative brethren. While Carson supporters seek validation in their complaint that assumptive information was issued by CNN and then super-charged and advanced by political operatives unfriendly to the Carson campaign, Cruz supporters abdicate any and all responsibility for their camp’s actions, instead citing the original CNN report as the culprit. Trump and his followers are screaming “fraud” and Rubio supporters – the flames fanned by Karl Rove – are wondering if the numbers would have been different if the episode never would have occurred. In the end, all of this has fomented discontent and created a divide among the Conservative and Republican electorate.
Additionally, and perhaps most disturbing, is that all of this is occurring over a report from CNN, not the most friendly to Conservatives and Republicans, and certainly a news outlet which has been embarrassed by inaccurate reporting in the past. From the Boston bombing to previous presidential elections, CNN isn’t the benchmark for breaking news accuracy. Yet today’s driving forces in Conservative and Republican politics run with CNN’s reporting without verifying the information as fact? Really? Any credible (read: successful) political campaign establishes backchannel communications with opposition campaigns to verify just such things. It’s “Politics 101.”
Meanwhile the Progressives and Democrats sit back in amazement at how fickle Republicans and Conservatives are; that they would dispose of Reagan’s edict to wallow in mire that is the cable news rating game; that rank-and-file Republicans and Conservatives would turn on each other like jackals to insist they their version of events it the truth and the only truth and anything else is a lie.
Here are two facts that cannot be denied; facts that will serve to reunite the Right after this embarrassing turn of events:
- Both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were elected to the Senate as TEA Party nominees. They are both constitutional conservatives and they both believe in limited government and the many necessary reforms.
- Ben Carson, not too long ago, was courted by the entirety of the Right to run for office because he had the intestinal fortitude to standup to Pres. Obama in public and to his face.
It is time that each candidate comes clean to the public about their trip-up into status quo politics; that they rededicate themselves to the idea that “business as usual” politics is bad for the country. It is also time for each candidate’s supporters to stop demonizing those who don’t agree with them – especially on this issue – as “haters” and “whiners” (we are, after all, on the same side in the end).
It is time to start talking about the issues, policies and agendas each candidate will bring to a presidency. It is time to start running against the DNC’s prospective nominees – one a Socialist and one on the verge of indictment. It is time to verify facts before we espouse them as truths.
It is time to save our country from ruin. And we can’t do that if we are at each other’s throats.
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September 11th, 2015
By Frank Salvato.
It has been 5,113 days since the al Qaeda attacks on New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and the failed third assault that was intercepted into a farm field in Shanksville, Pennsylviania, by American patriots. To borrow a phrase from a past generation that certainly applies to this event, it is a day that will live in infamy. But few would believe where our country is today given the events of that fateful day. Today Americans stand viciously divided in our politics as a society that rationalizes Islamofascist aggression (and, in the case of Iran, facilitates it), even as we harbor ideological factions that stand in protest of our law enforcement officers. We have moved away from the cohesive and united front we embraced shoulder-to-shoulder at the smoking pile of rubble that was the remnants of the World Trade Center; the tomb that holds so many souls.
Today, as we face the fourteenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, the United States government has radically shifted from the sworn obligation to confront and exterminate violent Islamofascism wherever it exists, to a tolerant acquiescence of co-existence with a culture dedicated opposing that state. Today, 3,115 days after 2,977 people were slaughtered by Islamofascists, the Islamic State is on the march, spreading its oppressive and murderous dogma of Islamofascism across the Middle East and Africa, even as its influence reaches the shores around the world, extending into our homes right here in the United States. Al Qaeda has a state of the art “inspirational” magazine for the discerning jihadi. And the United States, under President Barack Obama and the efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry and his predecessor Hilary Clinton, stands not only sympathetic to the Iranian mullahs, but have purposefully facilitated their path to a nuclear weapon.
Today, just 74,760-some hours after the first jetliner sliced through the North Tower, and on a day that would claim the lives of 71 law enforcement officers and 343 firefighters would lose their lives in the line of duty, the racists and supremacists of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement – a violent and intolerant ideological faction spurred on by those who benefit from divisive and race-based politics – march in the streets bastardizing statistics and calling for violence against police officers and first responders. The very people who were hailed as heroes for their courage and selfless acts fourteen years ago are, today the target of vile protestations, lies and vilification.
These societal maladies are but two that exists in today’s United States, maladies born of selfish, ideological politics and a population that refuses to engage in the hard work of casting aside the special interest rhetoric of opportunistic skullduggery or even supporting those who fight daily to dilute the madness.
In all the wrong that exists today, and suffering the wickedness of the dividers, the political opportunists, the Islamofascists and the ideological zealots, we – the American people – must reach deep down into our souls to find the courage and the dedication to come together; to re-attain the brotherhood we shared on that fateful day fourteen years ago; 3,115 days ago; 74,760-some hours ago, that we can not only measure up to what we should be as Americans, but so that we can become what we need to be so that our Republic can survive; so that we can confront and defeat the things that divide us; so that we can achieve e pluribus Unum.
Each September 11th, I remember – purposefully – Jonathan Briley, the “falling man” of September 11, 2001. I penned a piece titled, “Feeling the Pain of the Falling Man of September 11th” on the first anniversary of the attacks. Since then it has been updated to address current circumstances. I ask you – I implore you – to remember the pain you felt on September 11, 2001; to feel the loss and the immediate kinship you felt for being American and being in the cross-hairs. I implore you (and invite you) to remember Jonathan Briley.
Feeling the Pain of the Falling Man of September 11th: Redux
Everyone remembers the horrifying images of September 11, 2001. Anyone alive and aware on that date will live with those images the rest of their life. The scenes of havoc and panic, destruction and slaughter, demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that even though the United States military is the best trained and well equipped in the world, our country remains vulnerable to the wicked.
When one accepts the fact — and it is a fact — that the free world, not just the United States, is at war with violent Islamists, this story is all the more chilling and disturbing.
The mainstream media in the United States has taken the images of September 11th, 2001 off the television and out of the newspapers, but for the obligatory image on the anniversary itself. They say that the images are too disturbing, that they incite a want for revenge rather than allow for closure. But they are wrong to do this.
The United States should not and cannot simply forgive and forget just because the our current president fallaciously insisted that al Qaeda was on the run and that the Islamic State is “jayvee.” Facts demonstrate that al Qaeda, the Taliban – and now the Islamic State and Boko Haram; violent Islamists, have been planning and preparing to implement their global campaign of terrorism — their declared war against the Western World — since before 1993, well before September 11th. Their central location for training may have been eliminated but they had prepared for that, splintering like roaches to the four corners of the world, preparing, planning and implementing their battle plans made decades before.
Make no mistake, they are a cunning adversary. They understood that the US would come after them. They planned for this event. Now they have metastasized and their threat is even greater than before September 11, 2001.
This war cannot be about “tolerance” or forgiving, or about understanding the “reasons why” someone would want to murder innocents whether it be with an airplane, a car bomb, a suicide vest or a saif. This battle has to be about freedom and the right of innocents to live their lives in liberty, free of fear from an unholy sect of genocidal totalitarians who offer only oppression, dominance and terror as their bounty.
The Progressive left and the complicit mainstream media would have us believe that it is America that is to blame for her audacity in the promotion of freedom and free markets, liberty and the vision of a world free of dictators who torture, murder and slaughter for power. To that extent, Progressives and the agenda-driven media are dangerous and a direct threat to the existence of our country, teetering on the brink of treason and sedition. They will attack these words by saying that I have intimated that they are not patriotic and un-American.
For the record, I hold the belief that anyone who believes the United States brought the attacks of September 11, 2001, onto itself IS unpatriotic and un-American. I believe that they have become toadies for our enemy and should be treated and opposed as such. While they manipulate the true meaning of the First Amendment’s free speech clause, they attempt to indoctrinate and transform our youth and the less than suspecting among us into believing in the doctrine of self-loathing, an oppressive ideology born of the less than great thinkers of Europe almost a century ago.
In its March 15, 2006 edition, The Mirror, a British publication (the American mainstream media too gutless to publish such truth), revealed the identity of a man who had to make the unimaginable decision of whether to burn to death in the raging fires of the World Trade Center on September 11th or escape the pain of hell on earth by leaping from the top of one of the world’s tallest buildings to his certain death.
The article was titled, Revealing the Identity of the Falling Man of 9/11. Jonathan Briley was “The Falling Man of 9/11.”
I would beg each of you to read the article but The Mirror, along with Esquire and a number of publications who once cared about such things, has taken the article down. You can search his name – Jonathan Briley – and look at the pictures and feel Jonathan Briley’s helplessness, his terror, and then try to imagine the split second of excruciating pain that he felt when his body hit the cement below with such force that he, a human being just seconds before, was left a bloodstain on a sidewalk, slaughtered like road kill by barbarian Islamists.
The people of the United States need to rekindle the flame of emotional anguish about the attacks of September 11th, 2001. We need to seethe. We need to employ the ingenuity and intelligence that is fostered in a free society dedicated to liberty, and scream our ire from the top of the world. Then we need to take definitive action.
If we are to wage war on terrorists; on violent Islamists, then let us be the ones who strike terror into the hearts of our enemies. Let us bring terror to those who blow-up innocents, saw the heads off hostages and threaten the world with words of annihilation and nuclear Armageddon. If we are to be in a war we did not choose to begin then in the memory of all who have fallen in the quest to provide freedom and liberty to the world, let us be the ones who act decisively to end it.
We need to embrace the undeniable truth that the free world is at war and cease pandering to those who would wake up one day in the future ruing the fact that we should have acted earlier.
A pre-emptive strike doctrine for the United States? Eradicating the world of the likes of al Qaeda, the Islamic State, Boko Haram and every other Islamist organization that preaches the conquest and servitude of the “dhimmi”? You’re damn right!
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August 9th, 2015
By Frank Salvato.
A funny thing happened on the way to the “Forum,” the “guy who doesn’t back down,” the “fighter,” got his nose bloodied and his sycophants didn’t care for it one bit. If that sounds harsh, then let me borrow from the “fighter’s” own words. I don’t have time for political correctness. I also don’t have time for so-called Republicans and Conservatives who want the game disingenuously skewed to their advantage. Nor do I have time for hypocrites.
This is not a screed that poses to apologize for FOX News. I have my own reasons – events that happened to me personally when I was asked to appear on The O’Reilly Factor so many years ago – for not kneeling at the FOX altar. But neither will I bow to the knee-jerk canonization of Donald Trump as the end-all-be-all for the Conservative cause in 2016. Nor will I acquiesce to the Janus-faced whining of those who don’t want to see the “guy who doesn’t back down” asked legitimate questions.
The two questions that have the “Trump-ettes’” undies in a bunch were legitimate questions. Period. Dot. In fact, they were pointed questions, the kind that we on the Right side of the aisle wish we would have seen posed to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during any CNN or MSNBC sponsored debate of election cycles past. Yet, when hard and pointed, and legitimate questions are posed to a so-called champion of the Right his supporters cry foul? How absolutely Progressive! By that standard, Mr. Obama’s sycophants are vindicated in their calling anyone who doesn’t agree with him a racist. Do you see how duplicitous the Trump-ettes are?
Of the first question, Jonah Goldberg – who some on the Right are now attempting to label an “establishment guy,” said this:
“This was literally the stage – like the physical stage – of the next Republican convention. This was the first debate in the contest for the nomination to lead the Republican Party. Donald Trump is the frontrunner in the polls for that nomination and he has, several times in recent weeks, suggested he might take his marbles and go if he’s not the nominee. But it was unfair to ask him about it?…
“Contrary to what you might have read over the urinal at ‘Mother Jones,’ Bret Baier doesn’t work for the GOP. So even if you think it’s unfair for a Republican to expect an answer to that question…you have to have your head so far up Donald Trump’s red-velvet-lined ass you can see the glow of the nickel slot machines, to think it’s out of bounds for a journalist to ask that question.”
I concur. Not only was it a legitimate question, it was a necessary question because the debates were about nominating the Republican nominee. So, if we are not to ask the “fighter” at this forum, then where? To call the question an “attack” is the definition of disingenuous.
The second question, and the one that stirs up more controversy, was equally as legitimate because it showcased the “fighter’s” own words (illustrating his often flippant demeanor) and his reaction to being called on those words.
FOX News’ Megyn Kelly queried Mr. Trump on past diatribes that bordered on – if not crossed over to – being sexist and insulting, to the point of misogyny:
“You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs’ and ‘disgusting animals.’ Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ that it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president? And how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who is likely to be the Democrat nominee, that you are part of the war on women?”
Put aside, for the moment, the absolute fact that should Mr. Trump get to the General Election main stage as the GOP nominee he most definitely will be called on his words by the Clinton campaign and it will resonate. I can guarantee that.
Mr. Trump tried to joke his way out of being confronted by his own words in referring to Rosie O’Donnell, but acquiesced to Kelly in admitting he had made comments like those about other women as well, doing so before smartly deflecting to his abhorrence for political correctness. If he would have stopped there – and if he would have at least feigned some humanistic remorse for having said such things – I think he would have remained viable. But he didn’t. Instead, he doubled down both at the end of the question by saying that perhaps he would be “not so nice” to Ms. Kelly in the future (a thoroughly childish response) and by taking the initiative to call into Don Lemon on CNN to say:
“I just don’t respect her as a journalist. I have no respect for her. I don’t think she’s very good. I think she’s highly overrated…She gets out and she starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions…You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. In my opinion, she was off base.”
So, being asked about your own publicly recorded words towards others is off-base? How so? Are we to believe that other media operatives are going to refrain from going after “the fighter,” “the guy who doesn’t back down”? How incredibly naïve are the Trump-ettes to believe such lunacy?
The person that Republicans and Conservatives put forth as their nominee in 2016 must possess the intellectual prowess to navigate such questions and queries without alienating half of his/her own political party (let alone half of the electorate), doing so while not acting like a three-year old who threatens to “take his ball and go home” if he doesn’t get his way in the process. To wit, do the Trump-ettes even understand that Trump is extorting the entirety of the political Right by saying if he isn’t the nomine he will execute actions to see Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States? How can Trump say he loves his country if he would narcissistically put his own ego ahead of keeping a dyed-in-the-wool, turn of the century Progressive from the Oval Office?
Lastly, please think about this long and hard, especially all you Trump-ettes. If a man were to call your wife, your daughter or your mother a “fat pig,” “a dog,” “a slob,” or a “disgusting animal,” would you want him leading our country? Would you even bother to refrain from giving the guy a well-deserved thrashing? If you would then your honor, dignity and morality should be called into question.
Donald Trump for the 2016 Republican Party’s nominee for President of the United States? Nope. Mr. Trump, you’re fired.
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June 29th, 2015
By Frank Salvato.
Many on the Right side of the aisle are outraged. Gay marriage – a social issue at its core – has been validated by the US Supreme Court. The outrage is palpable. And while there is legitimacy to this outrage – especially with regard to the Court’s transgression of the 10th Amendment – the decision on gay marriage is a “bright shiny thing” that serves to quickly file us past an earlier decision that directly threatens the constitutional structure of our government: The Court’s ruling on King v. Burwell; the Obamacare subsidies.
No matter how you feel about the issue of gay marriage, the Court’s ruling on this social issue is an attack on the 10th Amendment, the rights of States to have authority over all things not enumerated in the US Constitution. But comparatively, the Court’s decision on Obergefell v. Hodges is a “mosquito bite” to yesterday’s “beheading” of our balance of powers at the federal level. We are being led away from what is tantamount to a “genocidal slaughter” of the Separation of Powers to gawk at a “highway accident.” With yesterday’s decision we are all – Liberal and Conservative, Republican, Democrat and Libertarian – losing our government to a transformative end stage; a commingling of constitutional branches and a centralized governmental authority in the federal government; something uniquely anathema to our basic governmental structure.
The Court’s King v. Burwell decision is so much more than its Obergefell v. Hodges decision because the former strikes at the root of how our government is supposed to work. By moving on from this constitutional crisis (and this is a true constitutional crisis) to outrage over a social issue when there are still remedies to be affected for said social issue, we are acquiescing to the Court’s decision on King v. Burwell – and the mortal damage it would establish to our system of government. No, with the Court’s King v. Burwell decision we should be fundamentally and exclusively outraged to the point of immediate action, arguing our points effectively and making a singular and cohesive stand for the Constitution.
There are those who argue that the Court’s attack on the 10th Amendment in Obergefell v. Hodges is equally as important as the Court’s direct assault on the Separation of Powers. I vehemently disagree and for good reason. The immediate danger to the Constitution and the survival of our nation – as we face forces that are achieving the fundamental transformation of our governmental structure – is the failure of the government structure itself, not the prior or resulting social issue movements. To make this argument is akin to believing that the crew of the Titanic should have started examining how to better construct a ship’s hull as the vessel was sinking instead of doing everything that they could to keep the ship afloat.
A simple solution to Obergefell v. Hodges is to remove government from the authoritative realm of marriage all together. One way to achieve this is through the utilization of contracts for legal affairs between cohabitants, leaving the sanctity of the institution of marriage to the Churches where it belongs. Regarding the issue of taxation, where marriage is concerned, radically transforming our tax system from one based on income to one based on consumption makes the issue of “marriage” and personal taxation moot.
That social issue solution understood, we can see why King v. Burwell is so much more important. We live in a time when judicial precedent trumps constitutionality, and we are, in real time, witnessing an explosion of the very structure of our government. Precedent is being set – right before our eyes – that would allow the Judicial Branch to directly rewrite legislation via the issuing of judicial edicts from this point forward.
While both these decisions are important, one cements the destruction of our governmental model, while the other is a social issue battle that the Progressives will use to keep the citizenry away from being cohesive on the latter. Should we fail to see this true constitutional crisis then we will witness, in the immediate, the end of our constitutional form of government.
One battle is so much more important than the other. If we cannot see that then we are not worthy of the freedom we pretend to enjoy. Truthfully, I am stunned this has to be explained.
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March 21st, 2015
By Frank Salvato.
Initially I was going to start with the line, “It is stunning to think,” but then I remembered I was opining about the Obama Administration, of which I have come to expect the unexpected, especially when it comes to nefarious doings meant to advance his agenda. To be certain, all of the actions (and inactions) taken (and not taken) by this administration – without exception – have been executed to advance his ideological agenda, chief among them the handling of the IRS’s targeting of the administration’s political adversaries.
TheHill.com reports that Ronald Machen, the US attorney for the District of Columbia –an Obama appointee – has not acted on a Contempt of Congress charge for former IRS official Lois Lerner even though the contempt citation has been in his hands since May of 2014. Manchen is set to step down next month.
Search the mainstream media headlines and you find this item far down the list if, in fact, you find it at all. Yet the issue is no less important than that of the Constitution’s First Amendment guaranteed rights themselves; to both “peaceably assemble” and to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
There is now no defense, nor believable denial in ignorance, for the illegal actions taken by the Exempt Organizations Unit of the Internal Revenue Service under Lois Lerner. The facts present as undeniable. Under her direction, applications for organizations with political ideologies antithetical to those of the Obama Administration were treated as politically adversarial, receiving excessive scrutiny and myriad unreasonable demands for discovery; treatment not experienced by organizations whose ideologies were symbiotic with the administration’s. Succinctly, Ms. Lerner executed a political attack on a large faction of the American people for their support of a political ideology anathema to that of the President’s.
Ironically, Ms. Lerner’s claim to have learned of the illegal targeting through the news media failed to afford her the popular cover that has served President Obama well through several sensitive issues; cover that is now beginning to expose the disingenuousness of the claim, much to his chagrin. Ms. Lerner’s refusal to cooperate with the House Oversight Committee in its examination of these events – including her intentional denial of the existence of emails pertaining to her actions – rightfully garnered a Contempt of Congress charge.
But what is the worth of a Contempt of Congress charge if the authority tasked with bringing the weight of that charge to bear abdicates the responsibility of doing so? What punishment is there for transgression in a simple designation?
Citizens in the United States have been guaranteed the right to redress government; to be openly critical of the government’s policies and actions. Further, these defined rights allow them to openly oppose any and all elected officials, regardless of station, in an effort to affect change in political offices under which the people are represented.
So, too, are citizens guaranteed the right to peaceably assemble for political purposes; to create groups and organizations – especially under the banner of educating the public – that enjoy all the rights and privileges afforded under the law, including tax-exempt status, should the qualifying criteria exist.
Ms. Lerner’s action usurped these guaranteed rights, and her refusal to cooperate with the House Judiciary Committee not only aggravated that usurpation, but proved – beyond reasonable doubt – that she holds the value of her politics above the rights of the People, and above the guaranteed Rights in our Constitution. Yet, when tasked with executing a Grand Jury referral mandated by a Contempt of Congress charge, Mr. Machen saw fit to prioritize the routine prosecution of dozens of district court financial fraud and local public corruption cases, as if to intentionally ignore the contempt citation. This leads to this question. If the police officer is corrupt – or intentionally abdicates his sworn duty, who do the innocent turn to for justice?
Article II, Section 1, of the House Judiciary Committee’s Articles of Impeachment against Pres. Richard M. Nixon (R) states:
“He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to…cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.”
If the use of the IRS to target political enemies was enough to bring about impeachment charges that would eventually see the first resignation of a sitting President, how does the exact same criminal act not warrant – at the very least – a referral to a Grand Jury for examination?
The Obama Administration claims the mantle of the most transparent in the history of the United States. In the non-execution of the Contempt of Congress charge against Lois Lerner they are transparent in their tyranny against the American people. Case closed…with prejudice.
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March 11th, 2015
By Frank Salvato.
I awoke to the news that 7 Marines and 4 Army soldiers went missing, all presumed dead, after a special operations training mission helicopter crashed not far from where I live; not far from the pristine beach where I took the picture that sits atop my Facebook page. It is a sober reminder that those who volunteer to place themselves in harm’s way; between the evil and the innocent, face dangers even as they train to protect the nation they serve and the innocent they swear to protect.
ABC’s WEAR Channel 3 in Pensacola reports:
“Seven Marines and four soldiers went missing early Wednesday after an Army helicopter crashed during a night training exercise at Eglin Air Force Base in Navarre.
“Defense officials say the military members aboard the aircraft are presumed dead. Heavy fog is having an impact on recovery efforts. Human remains have washed up on shore but the number of remains has not be released at this time. This is still considered a search and rescue mission…Pentagon officials say the heavy fog played a role in the crash.”
In a time when the chattering class demands that we debate the ideological genesis of the deadly threat to our nation – and Western Civilization – emanating from the Middle East, it would well serve our nation’s collective soul to personalize not only the seriousness of the threat, but the guardians of our nation; the rough and ready men and women who step into the coarse void between the way of life afforded us by the American dream and the oppression and cruelty many around the world would love to inflict upon us.
When we have the courage to confront and accept the truth, it is undeniable that there are vicious zealots committing atrocities; crimes against humanity, in the name of Islam. Yet, some among us in the West; some whose ideological addictions force them to see everything through a morally relativistic lens, seek to designate our nation as one of many among equals; our military personnel as simple countermeasures to enemies who have equal claim to ideological and moral legitimacy. But this stunted line of thinking couldn’t be further from the truth and, in fact, serves as a smear against the brave men and women of the US Armed Forces; our sentinels who stand between “the barbarians and the gate.” I know this to be true because my wife and I live among them; we know them and love them like family.
Our enemies, those who willingly join the ranks of Daesh (the Islamic State, al Qaeda, Boko Haram, al Shabab, etc.), execute barbaric acts of tyranny in the name of their religion, committing unspeakable acts of ferocious cruelty in an effort to either convert the un-Islamic or cleanse the earth of those who refuse their dictate, all in an aggressive pursuit of global domination.
The men and women of the United States Armed Forces, in extreme contrast, step into the ugly void of a no-man’s land where the weak and oppressed suffer at the hands of tyrants; a land where the cowardly fear to tread. They inject themselves into situations to free the oppressed, to preserve the liberty of the innocent and to vanquish the tyrannical. And as they do they carry with them the moral clarity that understands “good versus evil”; “right verses wrong”; “duty, honor, country,” lessons gleaned from the righteousness of the American dream, not the ideological clap-trap of theorists hell-bent on believing in the impossibility of global utopia, or the manipulation of political creatures questing for power, influence and fame.
Our military men and women are sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, and neighbors. They go to the store for food, they fill-up their cars with gas, they help their children with their school work, they laugh, and the cry, just like those who do not serve. They cut their grass, they take out their garbage, they pay their taxes and they socialize. The live, laugh and love. But sometimes when they kiss their spouses goodbye at the door; sometimes when they kiss their children good night; sometimes when they promise to be back in a few days, sometimes those kisses are their last and those promises to return are broken, not of their own commission, but because their call to duty, their call to serve, sent them on a path that does not return home.
So it is with the 7 Marines and 4 US Army soldiers who kissed their loved ones goodbye with every intention of returning in a few days. So it is with many military families who have made the ultimate sacrifice.
A close friend of mine who teaches at a military special operations school wrote me after I queried him about the training accident. He closed by saying, “This business is a dangerous business.” Indeed it is. It is dangerous and it is necessary. It is necessary for the longevity of liberty and freedom. And it is rightly necessary for all of us to thank and honor them for their sacrifices; honor them like family, because they protect us like we are family.
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March 8th, 2015
By Frank Salvato.
President Obama has again extended a jaw-dropped reaction to news of yet another scandal in what has become a parade of scandals scaring his administration. This time the President is trying to convince the American public that he learned of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account during her time as Secretary of State through…wait for it…the news media. It’s curious how every time someone in his administration fails at spinning his or her way out of a career-ending scandal he just happens to find out about it through the news media, as if he were as innocuous as the average American citizen.
When asked by CBS News’ Bill Plante about when he learned about the unethical – and most likely illegal – use of a private email account, complete with home-based servers, for official government correspondence, Mr. Obama replied, “The same time everybody else learned it, through news reports.” He continued, “the policy of my administration is to encourage transparency…and that’s why my emails, the BlackBerry that I carry around, all those records are available and archived.”
Effectively proving that this response was coordinated, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the President learned about the issue through the newspapers. Valerie Jarrett, Mr. Obama’s “Rasputan-like” senior advisor, made a statement equally as incredulous as the one issued by the President in asserting that she never received an email from Mrs. Clinton’s private email account and was unsure if anyone in the inner-sanctum of the White House ever did either.
All of these alibis are issued in the face of credible reports that Clinton’s personal staff had made the informed decision to suppress the news of the email account after the White House, State Department and Clinton’s personal office learned this past August that House Republicans had been provided information proving that Clinton used a private email account to conduct official government business, including the possible transmission of secret and sensitive documents, to a server that Qualys SSL Labs rates an “F” for security.
Let’s take a breath and consider these alibis; all of the realities that would have to exist for these alibis to be even remotely palatable.
If, in fact, President Obama was unaware that his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was not using a government issues secure email account, reality would mandate that he never – not once – received an email from her. Is it possible that in an age of instant communication, and in a White House where everyone is connected to their BlackBerries and iPhones, that not one email was sent from the Secretary of State – whose position in presidential succession is fourth in-line – to the President? To borrow a phrase from Mrs. Clinton, one would have to employ a willing suspension of disbelief to even consider the thought.
But, let’s – for the moment – assume that Mr. Obama never did receive an email from his chief diplomatic officer, even as the Arab Spring was exploding, and even as the “reset” with Russia was afoot. Let’s assume that his senior advisors were playing “gatekeeper” with Mrs. Clinton’s correspondence. That would create a reality where Mr. Obama’s senior-most advisor, Valerie Jarrett, was not receiving the Secretary of State’s emails. Further, if we are to believe the picture the White House press secretary is painting we have to believe that no one in the White House was receiving email from the Secretary of State, again, as the Middle East was aflame, Mr. Putin was positioning aggressively toward the Ukraine, North Korea was acquiring nuclear weapons capability, etc.
All that assumed, this would create a reality where the President, the upper-echelons of the White House and everyone attached to it were completely non-communicative with the US Secretary of State during one of the most troubling times the world has ever seen. At best this scenario proves ineptitude heretofore unseen in the Executive Branch of the United States government. At worst, it proves collusion at the highest levels of government to provide political plausible deniability to the President and his senior staff; collusion so debilitating that it corrupted communications between the President and his chief diplomat to the world.
Further, to consider these scenarios is to acquiesce to the truth that someone at the White House knew Mrs. Clinton was using a personal email account and chose not to report the violation of Obama Administration policy to superiors.
But I have drifted too far into the unrealistic. One would have to believe in unicorns and the tooth fairy to believe that the President and his Secretary of State never communicated by email for the total of Mrs. Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State.
Sorry, Mr. President, but I simply don’t believe you. You are now the “boy who cried media.”
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February 3rd, 2015
By Frank Salvato.
Conjuring images of the dying who had clawed at the dank walls of the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Jordanian Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh grabbed at his head, screaming out in agony as he fell to his knees, his body burning, his brain slowly cooking. His Daesh (Islamic State) captors had abruptly abandoned disingenuous negotiations with the Jordanian government for his release, their hostage having actually been killed many days before. Instead, they decided to record al-Kaseasbeh’s purposeful immolation. Having drenched him in accelerant, the savages lit the liquid fuse that set the young lieutenant ablaze. As he writhed, they filmed, indignant to his agony; his humanity. Barbarity for the purpose of terrorist propaganda had been achieved.
Just a month earlier, tens of thousands had taken to the streets in major Middle Eastern cities in support of Islamofascist assassins who slaughtered the staff at Charlie Hebdo. Turkey’s president, Recip Tayyip Erdogan, publicly intimated that the attacks in Paris were justified due to the magazine staff’s transgressions against Muslim sensibilities. And he went further than that, stating, obtusely, that Muslims have “never taken part in terrorist massacres.” Erdogan made these alarming statements as Boko Haram waded through the blood of the 2,000 people they slaughtered in the Nigerian town of Baga, in the name of Islam. So, violent, intolerant Islam is on the march.
Islamists have always been an aggressive faction. Starting with Muhammad and continuing on through the Byzantine-Arab Wars (634-750), the conquests of Persia and Mesopotamia (633–651), Transoxiana (662–751), Sindh (664–712), Hispania (711–718) and Septimania (719–720), the attempts to conquer the Caucasus (711–750), the conquest of Nubia (700–1606) and Anatolia (1060-1360), the incursions into southern Italy, including the conquest of Rome (831–902) and the Byzantine-Ottoman Wars (1299-1453), Muslims have sought to establish control of any and all lands they set foot on, whether by violence or attrition. However, one chapter of Islamic conquest – or bid for conquest – is seldom mentioned in the history books, and perhaps for good reason: World War II.
It is common knowledge – although today that cannot be assumed, given the Progressive Movement’s penchant for “nuancing history” – that during World War II Germany, Japan and Italy allied to form the Axis Powers in their war efforts. There were other affiliate and co-belligerent states (Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Thailand, Finland and Iraq), as well as “client states” (Albania, Burma, China, Croatia, India, Mengjiang, Manchukuo, Philippines, Slovakia and Vietnam), officially considered to be independent countries allied with Germany.
Furthermore, there were key geopolitical players who supported and collaborated with Adolf Hitler, the Nazis and the Axis Powers as a whole throughout the conflict. One such geopolitical player was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the Sunni Muslim cleric in charge of Jerusalem’s Islamic holy places, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The designation of “Grand Mufti” identifies the bearer as the:
“…highest official of religious law in a Sunni or Ibadi Muslim country. The Grand Mufti issues legal opinions and edicts, fatwas, on interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence…The collected opinions of the Grand Mufti serve as a valuable source of information on the practical application of Islamic law as opposed to its abstract formulation.”
During World War II the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was Haj Amin al-Husseini, who:
“…collaborated with both Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy by making propagandistic radio broadcasts and by helping the Nazis recruit Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS. On meeting Adolf Hitler he requested backing for Arab independence and support in opposing the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish national home. At war’s end, he came under French protection, and then sought refuge in Cairo to avoid prosecution.”
When al-Husseini first met with Hitler and Ribbentrop in 1941, he assured Hitler that:
“The Arabs were Germany’s natural friends because they had the same enemies…namely the English, the Jews, and the Communists.”
Al-Husseini’s efforts in recruiting Muslim fighters for the Nazi cause resulted in the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS, the Handschar Brigade. The Handschar earned a reputation for being particularly brutal in exterminating partisans in north-eastern Bosnia. In fact, many local Muslims who stood witness to Handschar viciousness were driven to align with the Communist partisans.
The Grand Mufti was also integral in the organization of Arab students and North African immigrants to Germany into theArabische Freiheitkorps, an Arab Legion in the German Army, that hunted down Allied parachutists in the Balkans and fought on the Russian front.
It would be right to conclude then that al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, home to one of Islam’s holiest shrines, was a willing collaborator with the Nazis and Adolf Hitler; someone who willingly facilitated the Nazi SS and their “Final Solution”; the genocide of the Jews. Yet, in the end, al-Husseini, perhaps the principle Muslim leader throughout that period, walked away from the conflict paying no price for his murderous deeds.
From Hitler’s Foreign Executioners; Europe’s Dirty Secret by Christopher Hale, pages 373-374:
“By the Winter of 1944, Berlin was no longer a safe haven for men like the Grand Mufti. He had never been a brave man and was often found cowering under tables as the great armadas of Allied bombers pounded the capital of the Reich. His allies in the foreign office, like Erwin Ettel, did what they could to protect their esteemed Muslim guest and tried to coax him to escape Germany to whatever safe haven he chose by U-Boat. The Mufti was simply too timid to contemplate such a journey and held on in Berlin to the very end. At the end of May 1945, the Grand Mufti and his entourage at last picked up and fled. He knew that once the British reached Berlin they would waste little time tracking him down. After many tribulations, they managed to reach Constance in the French zone of occupation. Recalling how well he had been treated after his flight from Palestine, when he escaped to French Beirut from British Palestine, the Grand Mufti surrendered to the French authorities. He was soon relaxing in an opulent villa near Paris…
“The Mufti had little time to enjoy French hospitality. His protectors discovered that an ‘Irgun’ assassination squad had arrived in France. On 28 May 1945, el-Husseini bolted to Italy, then secretly boarded a British ship, the SS Devonshire, bound for the Egyptian port of Alexandria.
“The return of the Grand Mufti electrified the Arab world. At a rally at Heliopolis in Cairo exultant crowds swamped his convoy – and King Farouk offered him appropriately sumptuous accommodations in his ‘Inshas Palace.’ The leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, breathlessly declared: ‘The hearts of the Arabs palpitated with joy at hearing that the Grand Mufti had succeeded in reaching at Arab country…The lion is free at last and will roam the Arabian jungle to clear it of wolves. The great leader is back.’”
Today, as we witness the barbarous immolation of a warrior who dared to confront a culture of death, the Islamists remain. In the aftermath of the assassination of those who engage in free speech, as Daesh executes conquest after conquest leaving myriad atrocities in their wake, the Islamists remain. And as leaders of Islamic countries (read: Turkey) advance excuses for the barbarity of Islamist executioners; ideological operatives who slaughter ruthlessly in the name of Islam, the Islamists remain. Little has changed in the violent Islamist world from the days of the Handschar. Indeed, in a time when the president of the United States refuses to consider his country at war with Islamist extremists and the massive movement they represent – and as he maintains a refusal to even speak the phrase “Islamic terrorism,” one can argue that violent Islamists are in a better position today than they were under Hitler.
At the end of World War II, the Allied Powers insisted on attaining unconditional surrender from each of the Axis Powers. Germany, Italy and Japan signed and agreed to unconditional surrender, their satellite nations in tow. Suspiciously absent from the list of Axis power aggressors agreeing to unconditional surrender is Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem; the Muslim facilitator of the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS, the Handschar. Why was this allowed to happen? Who was responsible for allowing this to happen?
I can’t help but feel that had the Allied Powers exacted an unconditional surrender from the Grand Mufti of all forces under his influence; had the Grand Mufti been brought to his knees in capitulation, perhaps – just perhaps – we would not be facing the “emboldened swords” of Daesh on the streets of the Western World and in Islamofascist occupied territories throughout the Middle East. I cannot help but feel that somehow, for some reason, the job of winning World War II was left unfinished…and the rise of violent Islamist terrorism is the price we are paying.
The world – much like in the nascent days of World War II – must once again strive to put aside the geopolitics of the day to come together in a definitive effort to confront the inglorious barbarity of Islamofascism. The peoples of the world must attack Islamofascism militarily, economically, historically and ideologically. Just as we must physically vanquish jihadists who would behead the innocent and set ablaze those who fight against them, so too must we starve them of operating capital globally, even as we correct the fictionalized history of “the religion of peace,” and especially as we deny them the ability to replenish their ranks; especially as we win – unconditionally – the war of ideas for all generations to come.
Today, the smoldering ashes of Jordanian Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, a warrior who came to the aid of those being slaughtered by Daesh, lay denigrated underneath a pile of rubble, an excruciatingly painful death his reward for humanity’s service. And the Islamists remained. I can’t help but feel that the free world has unfinished business…until no Islamist remains.
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November 26th, 2014
By Nancy Salvato.
As The 17th Century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes explained, absent a rule of law, man is dictated by a state of nature in which humans are in perpetual war. As rational beings, we can agree we’d rather be in a state of peace. As a matter of fact, Hobbes would assert that Laws of Nature impel us to seek peace. Hobbes suggested that man would transfer sovereign power to a ruler who would provide protection and safety. The framers embedded this objective, to “insure domestic tranquility” into the preamble of our US Constitution.
Serving as a catalyst to writing the US Constitution was Shay’s Rebellion. This particular event, which I’m certain many will remember learning about during American History, frightened the Framers because they were reminded that our freedom, which we’d fought for and won from England, was vulnerable. Our sovereignty as a nation could easily be lost due to internal dissention and inability to fend off attack from foreign nations who would eventually realize we were unable to defend our new nation against aggression under our first constitution, the Articles of Confederation.
All were in agreement that our first constitution was weak and ineffective; the question that needed their attention was one of how much power to bestow on our new government. This was given tremendous consideration and there was a deliberate effort to check and balance the ability to wield a great nation against those who might fall prey to abusing their authority. Though this was a gargantuan task, the Framers employed their knowledge of political philosophy and history, as well drawing from their English heritage and most recent experiences under British rule.
The enumeration of particular powers was designed to prevent overreach of authority and the separation of powers was to safeguard against any branch or person from becoming tyrannical. Finally, everything was written into a constitution, ensuring a rule of law and not men.
Anyone watching current events through a constitutional lens has clearly identified we are experiencing great insecurity as a nation. Our borders are not safe. Law enforcement agencies are unable to protect us against potential rioters in Ferguson, Missouri, who want vigilante style justice, as opposed to following laws and procedures put in place to protect us against our own passions.
Terrorists are beheading Americans on foreign and domestic soil. Our own president invited illegal aliens across our borders and now wants to provide them amnesty, blatantly dismissing the division of powers which grants the legislative branch legislative authority and the executive branch the responsibility of executing the law.
Our rule of law was designed to promote the general welfare; however, this was to be juxtaposed against the protection of our rights. Both our tax code and our healthcare law require wealthier individuals to pay more into a system which then redistributes this money to other people who for whatever reason do not produce as much and therefore have less income. We are not in balance. Though some would argue the current president has committed impeachable offenses, it is not politically expedient to pursue charges because it would inevitably be labeled racism to go after our “first president of color.”
The preamble to our nation’s rule of law clearly states that “We the People” ordain and establish our Constitution. According to the consent theory of government, the covenant between ruled and ruler ends when the ruler ceases to protect those who consented to his rule.
Thomas Jefferson famously wrote,
“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of our unalienable rights, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government. “
All politics is local. If we expect to see change in our government, it must begin by keeping our local officials in check. The mid-term election was a bell weather of things to come. Our responsibilities as citizens are to make sure we know who we are electing and that our elected officials are serving us.
We cannot do this if we do not adequately understand our own rights or what powers we ceded to our government to protect our rights and maintain peace. We need to understand the implications of any measures taken by those who represent us in our government. And we need to demand justice from the Judicial Branch which should be using its power to declare unilateral acts taken by the Executive Branch as unconstitutional when they are not within his power to make.
Our President said that words matter. He stated on numerous occasions that he does not have the authority to make and pass legislation in his role as our nation’s leader. That said, he’s doing so anyway.
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November 4th, 2014
By Frank Salvato.
“Independent” Greg Orman, who has so many Democrat Party operative working on his campaign one expects to see Nancy Pelosi’s name on his campaign headquarters door, has stated that he will caucus with whatever party presents the best ideas.
Mr. Orman’s campaign website states:
“If Greg is elected, there’s a reasonable chance that neither party would have a majority in the US Senate. If that is the case, he will work with the other independent Senators to caucus with the party that is most willing to face our country’s difficult problems head on and advance our problem-solving, non-partisan agenda.”
Therein lays the problem, and a perfect example of: a) how constitutionally illiterate our political class has become; b) how constitutionally illiterate our citizenry has become; and c) why the 17th Amendment is the most damaging action ever executed by the Progressive Left throughout US history.
When the Progressives of the early 20th Century marshaled through the 17th Amendment, they did a great damage to the symbiotic set of checks and balanced that achieved protections for both the individual and the individual states, where the power of the federal government was concerned. Under the guise of putting more control of government into the hands of the people, the Progressives, under Woodrow Wilson, literally destroyed the check and balance that protected state sovereignty and, through that erosion, the sovereignty of the individual.
At its inception, the US Constitution mandated, in Article I, Section 3, that:
“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote…”
The appointment of senators by the state legislators thwarted political faction on the floor of the US Senate. With each senator held accountable by their respective state legislatures for their votes, alliances and actions, the onus for political survival for the senatorial class was devotion to the well-being of their home states. The political ideology or factional allegiance of the senator was irrelevant for the most part. If a senator chose political party over the needs of his home state, the state legislature could – and would – simply recall him through an act the State House, replacing the senator with someone who held allegiance to his home state – and the constitution of that home state – above national political faction.
Understanding this original intent that the Framers built into the Constitution, the idea of Obamacare, or suffocating national debt, or an aggressive IRS, EPA or NSA, would never have come to be. The unfunded mandates of Obamacare would have seen the 54 senators from the 27 states that refused to establish ACA health insurance exchanges – and most likely more from states that did – voting against the bill in its infancy because the legislation harms the well-being of the individual states and usurps the authority of most every state’s constitution. So too, the national debt would never have been allowed to accumulate because it passes down to the citizens of individual states. The IRS would be little more than a gaggle of accountants, the EPA would not exist and the NSA wouldn’t be allowed to operate on US soil, if at all.
Simply put, there would be no party politics in the US Senate. It would be an assembly of representatives of each state’s government, tasked specifically and exclusively with the protection of the home state and her constitution. The passage of the 17th Amendment killed that protection and facilitated political faction on a national level to metastasize in the US Senate, something Pres. George Washington warned vehemently about in his Farewell Address.
The 17th Amendment mandates:
“The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote…”
By tricking – and that’s exactly what the Progressives did – the populace into thinking the popular election of their senators gave them more power over government, it literally established the opposite; delivering great power to national political parties and the federal government, while extinguishing an essential check and balance over said political parties and the federal government. The 17th Amendment took power away from the people and the states, and delivered it to the political parties and the federal government.
So, why is the Senatorial Election in Kansas a perfect example of constitutional illiteracy and Progressive manipulation? Would the 17th Amendment have not been passed Mr. Orman wouldn’t need – or aspire – to caucus with any political faction or party. He would, instead, be carrying out the will of the Kansas State Legislature and, through them, the will of the people of his state. There would be no need – or desire – to “caucus” with those of any particular political “flavor” because the well-being of each state is dictated by the needs of each state and her people, not the leaders of any political party.
To wit, imagine that the 17th Amendment had never passed, or that a smart-thinking Congress repealed it. No longer would we see any – any – legislative gridlock; no longer would we amass unrepayable debt; no longer would we see hyper-partisan or ideological pieces of legislation rammed down our throats; no longer would the American people – and her government – be held hostage to politics…no long would the American people be held hostage to politics.
Still think Progressives are on the side of the people? Yeah, neither do I…I haven’t for a very, very long time.
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