Author of Op-Ed is the Idiot, not Trump.

I’m sorry, but the person who wrote the anonymous op-ed for The New York Times is the idiot — not Donald Trump. Obviously, the system for vetting such a piece broke down and is leaving “The Gray Lady” exposed. It all fails over the ridiculous assertion that “there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25^th Amendment.”

Now stop and think about that for a moment. Under the 4^th section of the 25^th Amendment, the vice president of the United States and a majority of cabinet officers and agency heads, and two thirds of the Senate and the House, must agree to remove the president. Huh? Really? There was talk about this?

Impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate is a walk in the park by comparison.

Keep in mind, all of this supposedly happened without the president or the media being tipped off for the last two years. No opportunist among the conspirators could try to get rid of a rival by spilling the beans. Or gain some advantage by leaking it prematurely. This piece of dynamite just sat there, an early point of discussion, “within the cabinet,” until anonymous chose to mention it in his op-ed.

“Hi Betsy, this is Mad Dog Mattis. A bunch of us are organizing to remove President Trump from office. As you may know, we need the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet to get this thing started. I want you to think about this and then get back to me.”

“Oh, I will. I will.”

“And needless to say Betsy, don’t talk about this with anyone. It could hurt the country if it got back to the President, himself. No one should use this information for personal advancement. No leaks whatsoever. And Betsy, don’t even tell Dick.”

“Of course, of course. I understand, Mad Dog. Not a word. I think you know that I will be loyal to the resistance. Oh Mad Dog … I should alert you that Dana is on the line with me but she is very, very discreet. You know Dana?”

Imagine. For two years, through all of the transitions, from Rex Tillerson to Steve Bannon and all of the books, from Michael Wolf to Bob Woodward, no one knew about this early conspiracy until this “high level” figure reported it in an anonymous, New York Times-vetted, op ed.

Here are some simple guidelines to help you identify “the idiot.” It is like an Agatha Christie who dunnit?

#1) It can’t be vice president Pence or anyone in his office.

The late Lee Atwater, master of Washington politics, often said that an anonymous source can always be identified as the person who benefits from the article. Pence would not benefit. He is already next in line. He has only one important political task. Do nothing. If he keeps his head down, he wins.

#2) And yet the author uses the word “lodestar” an odd word that is used frequently by Pence. Which may mean that anonymous may want us to suspect that Pence is the culprit. In fact, CNN was sure of it. Another reason why it can’t be.

#3) This is not the killer’s first victim. It is not likely that the Times would take such a chance and print this op-ed, anonymously, without already using this same source in other numerous pieces. Review past articles for verbal fingerprints.

#4) The author is very likely in the pack of those who have already publicly denied the crime. Remember, Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians”? The killer staged his own death so he would not be suspect and could surreptitiously finish off the others. Carefully, read the words of the denials to see who left a door open by a deft choice of words or use of a spokesperson.

#5) The author cannot be Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He was the first to publicly deny writing the piece. The author would want to be lower profile, back in the pack.

#6) Anonymous is probably out of town. If they lived in Washington, D.C., they would see the bitter rivalries and deep divisions among the cabinet and Capitol Hill and thus the absurdity of their idea. Only from a distance would such a coup look possible.

Whoever penned the op-ed did a great service to the President. It did more to unite his White House and his government than anything Donald Trump, himself, could have ever done. It forced a confession of public loyalty.

If there ever was any contemplated resistance inside the Trump administration it is surely over now.

The op-ed failed miserably. The “resistance” is dead. Trump has won again.

Read Newsmax: NYT’s Anonymous Op-Ed Inadvertently Helps President Trump | Newsmax.com
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Thanks Obama, you got us Trump and he got us jobs and got rid of ISIS too !

With Barak Obama trying to get us to return his team to power, it might be well to remember the story of ISIS.

When Barack Obama was president, he sought to defuse Islamic extremism by offering friendship. Obama berated Christians in a speech, reminding them that they had committed crimes during the Crusades of the 11th Century. He told audiences that the Muslim “Call to Prayer” was one of the “prettiest sounds on earth.”

When the so called “Arab Spring” swept across Africa and the Middle East, the Obama-Hillary Clinton State Department welcomed the moment. Libya, which had finally give up its nuclear weapons at American urging, was now gleefully toppled into anarchy.

On the anniversary of 9-11, the American embassy in Benghazi, Libya was attacked and the American Ambassador was murdered. The Obama administration claimed on national television, that the attack was provoked by an intolerant video produced by an Egyptian living in California. We were told that the date of the attack, the anniversary of 9-11, was only coincidental.

Extremist attacks became the norm. A British Army soldier, Lee Rigby, was attacked as he walked down Wellington Street in London in the middle of the day. This father of a two year old was hacked to death and then beheaded by Nigerian Muslims.

The following year, the Boko Haram declared allegiance to the newly proclaimed ISIS. The Boko Haram attacked a boarding school in Chibok, Nigeria and kidnapped hundreds of teenage girls which were raped and sold as sex slaves to Muslims across Africa.

Thanks to an Obama-Clinton plan to supply anti-government groups in Syria, arms began to inadvertently flow into the newly announced Caliphate of ISIS.

Americans watched in horror on national television as American made tanks and Humvees, with black flags of ISIS flowing from their hatches, raced across the Middle East. By 2015 the new territory controlled 35,000 square miles of Syrian and Iraq. Mosul was its capital.

ISIS was rich. It had a population of millions which it robbed and turned into slaves. It controlled massive stockpiles of weapons, oil fields, lucrative smuggling routes and vast numbers of priceless carvings and art pieces from antiquity which it began selling to collectors all over the world. Inspired by its great successes and its gruesome executions, Islamic extremists flocked to the Caliphate from all over. New ISIS cells popped up in the Philippines, Indonesia and all across the Middle East and Africa.

Television viewers in Asia, Europe and the West witnessed mass beheadings on the beaches. And then genocide of villages and cities. Christian communities, which traced their lineage back to the First Century, were now slaughtered. The bodies of these men, women and children were dumped into mass graves.

There was every reason to believe that what ISIS had done in the Middle East would only be the launching pad for attacks in the West. In November, 2105, an attack in Paris left 129 dead.

All during this time, American weapons continued to flow into the hands of ISIS. According to an NBC report, serial numbers and “key markings” on weapons allowed them to be traced back to their American origins. For example, an American owned anti-tank missile passed into the hands of ISIS just 59 days after the American’s purchased it from the Chinese.

In April, 2016, during a campaign stop in Connecticut, GOP candidate, Donald J. Trump announced the end of ISIS. “We are gonna beat ISIS very, very quickly, folks.” It sounded pretty incredible at the time. “It’s gonna be fast. I have a great plan. It’s going to be great.”

The Hillary Clinton campaign openly ridiculed the idea.

“They ask, ‘What is it?’” Trump said, “Well, I’d rather not say.”

Word leaked out of the Trump campaign that his plans had been gleaned from soldiers in the field. That they involved good business sense, new ideas for choking off the source of ISIS money. New ideas for working with Saudi Arabia, the Kurds and Israel. Allowing commanders in the field more authority to reduce decision making time. The latter would prove to be one of the key decisions.

Shortly after winning the presidency, Donald Trump took immediate action on ISIS. He called for a Pentagon review on how to win the war. Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, was urged to eliminate layers of approval for tactical decisions.

There was one other critical adjustment. ISIS would no longer be forced out of a city, province or territory. Now it would be surrounded and annihilated.

The new ideas jelled. ISIS began to break. Its supply of new fighters dried up. And then it collapsed.

Trump claimed more progress in five months than the previous five years.

He was right. Donald Trump made it look easy.

John McCain, The Maverick. He used his setbacks as stepping stones.

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“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority it’s time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain.

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He was called, “the Maverick.” He was finally a man of the west, who carved out his own career that often defied any political party orthodoxy.

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When you think of Senator John McCain you think of integrity and courage. You think of the man who championed campaign finance reform, the McCain-Feingold Act. In fact, in 1989 he was one of the so-called “Keating Five”, which were the five US Senators who were involved in a corrupt Savings and Loan fraud case. Charles Keating went to prison, the five US senators saw their careers cut short, all that is, except for John McCain who tediously fought his way back from scandal to become one of the most admired and respected voices in American politics. He ran for president in 2008. McCain was an example of a man who did not let a setback destroy him.

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I first met Senator McCain in 1989, backstage at a patriotic July 4th event in Phoenix. He had been a prisoner of war at the soc-called “Hanoi Hilton” in North Vietnam. My stepmother’s brother, General Robinson Risner had been held there with him. They experienced torture at the hands of their guards and the prisoners were all brothers because of it. Over the years I was able to interview him on numerous occasions. He was always direct, straightforward and unabashed.

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Senator McCain, like many presidents, presidential candidates and great men, was close to his mother and had an absent father. The senior McCain, John S. McCain, Jr., was commander of the US Naval forces during the Vietnam War. When John was growing up his father was almost always gone. During the war, the North Vietnamese offered to release the son, out of respect for the father. But John McCain refused and stayed on to suffer torture with his fellow American prisoners.

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The Senator survived many remarkable public political squabbles. In 2000, the campaign of George W. Bush spread rumors before the South Carolina primary that Senator John McCain was a traitor who fathered a black child. In 2016, Donald J. Trump attracted a crowd of 10,000 to a Phoenix, Arizona rally. McCain called the people “crazies.” Trump counter punched, saying that he preferred heroes that “weren’t captured.” It became a public feud that was never resolved. The McCain family announced that President Trump would not be welcome at the Senator’s funeral.

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On August 25, 2018, shortly before Senator John McCain’s passing, President Donald Trump tweeted to the McCain family, “Our hearts and prayers are with you.”

Fake history creates fake scale of Trump opposition

Donald Trump and Theresa May had a good laugh about “fake news” at their press conference last July 13, 2018. They might just as well have added a discussion about “fake history.”

All of the American television networks, including the normally objective, Fox News Channel, were busy reporting on the “unprecedented” protests against Trump’s visit to Europe. They typically showed footage of Ronald Reagan speaking to cheering crowds in Berlin, saying, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Or showcase his close relationship with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

London mayor Sadiq Khan approved the launching of a Trump-like pig balloon to fly over the city during Trump’s visit. Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer called it “new territory.”

But in fact, the stream of Trump haters in London cannot even compare to previous anti-America protests that history-deprived journalists seem to have forgotten.

In October of 1983, more than one million people filled the streets of West Germany to protest Reagan’s deployment of the Pershing 2 and cruise missiles.

This number included 400,000 protesters in Bonn. 200,000 in Stuttgart

Similar protests were held in Paris, London, Rome, Stockholm and Vienna. A bomb was thrown into a military intelligence school in Germany.

Two years later, in 1985, there were similar protests against Reagan when he visited the Bitburg Cemetery.

In fact, Ronald Reagan was hated globally. I took a world speaking tour during that time and there were only two places on earth that liked Reagan and America; the apartheid government of South Africa and South Korea. It was amazing.

Reagan is considered by many as one of America’s greatest presidents. One survey actually ranks him as the greatest. His Pershing 2 missiles helped end the Cold War, allowing the reunification of  Germany.

The truth of history is that many presidents are despised — even during their time in office.

Consider the following memo sent to the American Ambassador in London: “As to the politics of Washington, the most striking thing is the absence of personal loyalty to the president. It does not exist. He has no admirers.  . . . This is felt by all, and has got down through all layers of society. It has a disastrous effect on all departments and classes of officials, as well as on the public.”

The memo was written by Richard Dana to American Ambassador Charles Francis Adams in London.

The president in question? Abraham Lincoln.

Read Newsmax: Media Forgets Reagan Faced ‘Unprecedented’ Protests | Newsmax.com
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MELANIA TRUMP: AMERICA’S GREATEST FIRST LADY? AND A GREAT MOTHER!

We may be witnessing the unfolding story of one of America’s greatest first ladies, Melania Trump. And on this mother’s day, an example of a dedicated mother who puts her child ahead of other justifiably, demanding, distractions.

Melanie has been first lady for almost two years and she continues to quietly and gracefully move through her public duties as wife of the president. While political storms rage all around her, she keeps her head held high, with poise, with beauty and humble grace.

Her dignified performance is made all the more powerful when contrasted by a shrill and hysterical, corporate media, still angry that their chosen candidate lost the 2016 presidential election. Every negative thing her husband says and does is amplified while his remarkable economic and foreign policy record is ignored.

When Melanie Trump took up the issue of internet bullying of children, the media turned their ferocity on her, claiming that her husband was the biggest internet bully of all, how dare she speak on this issue?

The First Lady responded with exquisite grace. In March, 2018 she slipped into a White House roundtable meeting with technology executives, dropping the comment, “I am well aware that people are skeptical of me discussing this topic but that will not stop me from doing what I know is right.”

Historians point out that she is the second first lady to be born outside the United States. But it is where she was born and raised that may hold the secret to her success.

Melanie comes from Slovenia. A tiny country that was part of Yugoslavia during much of its time in the Soviet bloc. It was illegal to celebrate Christmas in Slovenia, or even have a Christmas tree, but her parents had her secretly baptized as a Christian.

In the middle of the Cold War Slovenia provided the whole Soviet bloc with refrigerators and other manufactured products. The people were very positive, proud of themselves, creative. But they knew how to keep their heads down. How to become invisible. They knew that they couldn’t even challenge any of their small neighbors, let alone the centralized government in Belgrade, which was walking a tightrope between the mighty Soviets and the Chinese.

And yet Slovenia thrived by minding its own business and letting insults and provocations pass over their heads.

I have been to this remarkable country many times and I believe that Slovenia, and Melanie’s family may be part of her secret to success.

It is very Slovenian for her to be discreet and to avoid provocation. In that respect, she is almost a perfect match for Donald Trump who is upsetting traditions and taking on entrenched powers.

Some say that the role of first lady should be changing because the role of women is changing. And thus a first lady who only deals with ceremonial and domestic chores is diminished when compared to a career woman.

But this is complicated. A president’s wife is not elected.

The German people voted Angela Merkel as their leader. Should her husband serve as a co-leader? Is he diminished as a man if he does not assert himself in her government?

When Bill Clinton said, “You get two for the price of one,” meaning that Hillary was going to help him run the country, it was not well received. Hillary had to establish her own separate identity and political success, separate from him.

The modern role of first lady is complicated by the fact that it has grown in responsibility.  Unlike the UK or France, there is no ceremonial head of state in the United States. Thus all such duties fall on the shoulders of the president. This is where first ladies play a critical role.

Add to that, a first lady may sometimes be a mother. It was a role that Jackie Kennedy made preeminent and that Melanie Trump is reviving.

In history, Slovenians won their revenge by quietly succeeding, not through violent domination of their opponents. As the old T-shirt slogan proclaims,”Success is the best revenge.”

This seems to be the First Lady’s style. She maintains a dignity that makes her all the more mysterious when her critics rage. Sometimes she wins just by being still. And in some cases she is succeeding through her fashion sense, which is stunning, no easy thing.

So today, the media is in a frenzy about borrowed words from an old FTC document, as if it were sacred script that cannot be re-used. Tomorrow it will be something else.

Meanwhile, Melanie, our beautiful, graceful first lady, whose life will one day cover entire bookshelves in libraries, can knock around the private quarters of the White House today, with a T-Shirt emblazoned with her wonderful new slogan for America’s youth, words that represent New York City meets Ljubljana.

“Be best.”

The national media told us that Trump was ruining our relationships with European leaders. It turns out…

Macron and Trump

French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit. Then Agela Merkel. What’s going on here? Who is trying to charm whom? I thought the Europeans didn’t like us. That’s what our own news media contends.

The answer is that President Trump is in the process of renegotiating. And so are these world leaders.

Look, it’s all about money. Our money.

Do you want France, Germany and the UK to like America? Pay up.

They all want American money to expand their economies, to provide for their defense and to clean up the environment in Asia and Africa.

It seems as if we could make Macron and the French and many others, very happy if we came back into the Paris Accord.

Sure. The Paris Accord is all about American money to clean up Asian and African pollution.

When Americans are actually given a choice they overwhelmingly reject this notion.

The last time this was debated publicly in the US was in 1997 when the Byrd Hagel Resolution was passed 95-0. Even John Kerry voted for it. The idea was that developing countries must also help with emission reductions.

The Paris Accord was never voted on in the US Senate because it would have been rejected.

The only way that world leaders and globalists can get our money is to bully a US president into signing these agreements. That’s what they did to Clinton, Bush and Obama.  That’s what they are trying to do to Trump.

They decide. We pay.

And why have we participated in the past?

Many international companies, including American companies, make money. And they donate to the Washington establishment. And this includes companies that own media properties.

The point is, Donald Trump is forcing this out into the open and this is the sort of thing that cannot survive in the sunlight.

Do we want the French and the Germans and the English to love us? Of course we do.

But then, we have to ask this question…. if we have to pay for their friendship is it real?

Trump wants them to pay for more of their own defense, to increase their contributions to NATO. In fact, they agreed to this. But some have not done it. He wants them to be more fair in their trade with us and to make the worst polluting countries in the world also share in limiting emissions.

BARBARA BUSH – AN ICON OF HISTORY

Doug Wead and Barbara Bush

Tonight, Barbara Bush, passed away at 92 years of age. By any standards, Barbara Bush is one of the most extraordinary women who has ever lived. Either that or she is one of the luckiest.  All around her people succeeded.

Historians like to point to the fact that Barbara Bush is the only woman, other than Abigail Adams, to have been both the wife and the mother to an American president.

But there is a big difference.

Abigail Adams never knew it. She died in 1818, having buried three of her children, including a promising young man who had become an alcoholic.

Barbara Bush not only saw one of her sons become president, she saw two of her sons elected as governors. George W. Bush became governor of Texas and the 43^rd president of the United States.  Jeb Bush became governor of Florida and a presidential candidate. Unknown to the public, at one time, Neil Bush was being groomed as a future governor of Colorado.

No other child of a president has ever been elected a governor, although many of them, Jesse Grant to FDR, Jr. have tried.

Barbara Bush did something right.

People sometimes tell me that she reminds them of their grandmother. In fact, she was more like a bawdy, outrageous aunt. She was very funny and as in the case of all great wits, her humor was at times risky.

Soon after winning the White House she hosted the American Catholic Cardinals on a private tour of the family quarters. I was along as a member of the staff. One by one she detailed the history of the rooms and described the subjects and details of the paintings on the wall. When we got to the Queen Mum’s room, she turned, somewhat stumped, at a painting of a beautiful, young lady.

“Well, I don’t know who that is but I think we can all imagine how she got up there.”

There was a brief moment of stunned silence and then, their Eminences broke into uproarious laughter.

Only once did her humor get her into public trouble. In the middle of the 1984 campaign she referred to her husband’s vice presidential opponent, Geraldine Ferraro, with a descriptive comment “I can’t say it,” she said, “but it rhymes with rich.”

Barbara Bush had a keen sense of politics and used her comments to expand her husband’s base of support. She combined this with a shrewd sense of people.

Once, In the middle of the 1988 presidential campaign, I was on a flight on Air Force Two. George and Barbara invited me up to the front cabin for dinner. When we were finished a member of the Secret Service brought up blueprints with some of the proposed improvements for their home in Kennebunkport, Maine. George Bush was soon engrossed in conversations about what changes would be made, when, and if, he was elected president.

Only Barbara Bush sensed the danger of such a conversation with a member of the political staff nearby. Her eyes suddenly locked on mine. “I don’t like talking about this sort of thing before the elections,” she said, “I’m too superstitious.” She knew such a story should not go public. And I got the message.

According to the numbers, George and Barbara Bush should not have had an enduring love story. They were married too young, separated too often and had more than their share of grief. It would spell disaster for most marriages.  But their love survived it all and became an inspiration for others.

Once in the heat of the presidential campaign I somehow ended up right in the middle.

George H.W. Bush was headed to one campaign stop while Barbara Bush was headed to another. Late that night their two planes were parked near each other on an airport tarmac in Michigan. While the three of us waited in a limousine.

“I’ll get out of here,” I said, although I didn’t know where to go.

“Stay right where you are,” Barbara snapped. “I have to leave right away.”

So I sat there quietly, while George H.W. Bush and Barbara tenderly held hands and whispered to each other like teenagers.

The Bushes hated any suggestion that they were a political dynasty. As if by stopping the talk they could stop history itself but make no mistake, the Bushes, not the Kennedys, not the family of John Adams, not the Roosevelts, the Bushes, are the real political dynasty in American history. And Barbara Bush was its fountainhead, its most dynamic source.

Barbara Bush will surely be ranked as the greatest “First Mom” in American history and will rank with Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Clinton as one of the three greatest First Ladies. The latter two because of their resumes, but Barbara Bush because of the power of her personality and the impact she had on the country through others, beginning with her husband, children and grandchildren.