Category Archives: Cabinet
Banned on Facebook
Various bad actors were banned on Facebook last week. The list includes conspiracy theorist nut jobs like Alex Jones and Louis Farrakhan.
Fired FBI chief Andrew McCabe thinks President Trump is a Russian asset. But he didn’t make the bad actor cut.
Jack Shafer in Politico says, “free speech took a whacking Thursday.” He says there are better ways to deal with the likes of Alex Jones.
Syria Pullout
ISIS J.V. Team
President Trump got off the phone with Turkish President Erdogan and announced he’s pulling the troops out of Syria. And Secretary of Defense James Mattis resigned.
Democrats and Republicans found common ground slamming the Syria pullout decision. They say the pullout sells out the Kurds and creates a vacuum that ISIS will fill. Same as when Obama pulled out of Iraq. (At least the Republicans say that.)
Pro Syria Pullout
But Reason’s Nick Gillespie and Andrew McCarthy of NR think Trump did the right thing. If we stay in Syria we’d have to choose sides in a war between Turkey and the Kurds. Erdogan’s nasty but Turkey is a NATO ally. Besides, we’re there illegally. Congress never approved it and that makes it unconstitutional.
White House Safe House
Accidental President
I got the idea of a the White House as a safe house from a Holman Jenkins column in the WSJ. He doesn’t think Trump expected to win.
Winning was his colossal if propitious miscalculation. Nobody would care about Stormy Daniels if he weren’t president. His decades-long pursuit of a Trump Tower in Moscow would be a non-story…
Unfortunately, it will also occur to Mr. Trump now that his best move is to cling to the White House at all costs. That’s because under Justice Department guidelines he can expect not to be indicted as long as he remains in office.
FBI Files
Click FBI to enlarge.
The president ordered the release of FBI files related to the 2017 application for a FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page.
So, here’s how three different news outlets played the story:
NPR – Trump Orders Declassification Of FBI Documents Sought By House Republicans
New York Post –Trump says order to release FBI files may be ‘crowning achievement’
CNN – Trump inflames war on Justice Dept. by declassifying Russia docs
Campaign Spending Laws Apply Equally
Click the cartoon to enlarge
After busting Trump fixer Michael Cohen for violating campaign spending laws, U.S. attorney Robert Khuzami bragged “we are a nation of laws, with one set of rules that applies equally to everyone.”
Kimberly Strassel at the WSJ doesn’t buy it:
If there is only “one set of rules,” where is Mr. Mueller’s referral of a case against Hillary for America? Federal law requires campaigns to disclose the recipient and purpose of any payments. The Clinton campaign paid Fusion GPS to compile a dossier against Mr. Trump, a document that became the basis of the Russia narrative Mr. Mueller now investigates. But the campaign funneled the money to law firm Perkins Coie, which in turn paid Fusion. The campaign falsely described the money as payment for “legal services.” The Democratic National Committee did the same. A Perkins Coie spokesperson has claimed that neither the Clinton campaign nor the DNC was aware that Fusion GPS had been hired to conduct the research, and maybe so. But a lot of lawyers here seemed to have been ignoring a clear statute, presumably with the intent of influencing an election.
