Don's Tuesday Column

          THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   6/13/2017

                                   Real economic, security news

While the mainstream news media, MSN for short, has been obsessed with (former FBI Director) James Comey’s utterances, memos and statements under oath before Congress, they’ve had little interest, let alone time, to inform viewers and voters of other more relevant stories.

Most of you could have been out of communication in a resort or on some mid-ocean cruise and not been impacted in any way by the ongoing fascination/obsession by Democrats and the MSN over “Trumprussia” and Comey’s testimony. Think about the now-established fact that there was no “collusion with Russia” by Trump or his team (show me the proof!) and that nothing Trump might have said to Comey rises to the level of “obstruction of justice”—I cite MSNBC’s Chris Matthews for the former and liberal attorney Alan Dershowitz for the latter.

Consider also that even the Washington Post confirmed an FBI report on January 23 exonerating Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. “The FBI in late December reviewed intercepts [of communications between Flynn and Russians] but has not found any evidence of wrongdoing or illicit ties to the Russian government.” It’s another “nothing burger” so how exactly is it scandalous for Trump to want Comey to clear Flynn? The Post’s Ed Rogers: “Trump committed no crime. Democrats need to get over it.” Solid declaration and advice that won’t be taken.

You are part of America’s economy and you can’t exempt yourself from Islamic terrorism and America’s enemies. Have President Trump and Congressional Republicans done anything that might improve your life or shed light on threats that could well worsen your life? Well, you probably don’t know about “Trump delivering biggest cut in regulations since Reagan,” by Paul Bedard (June 9, Washington Examiner). Since the hidden cost of regulations approaches $2 trillion per year, the typical American family is poorer by tens of thousands of dollars as a result; the impact of regulations on a historically sluggish recovery are not obscure.

Donald Trump campaigned on, and got some of his biggest applause over, his promise to cut Washington regulations. We can now check off a promise he’s delivered on—and he’s only getting started. “According to a tally provided by the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, the president has issued fewer rules than any other president since Ronald Reagan and cut the costs of those regulations significantly.” The numbers, however, don’t give the full picture: Trump issued 1,063 rules compared to Obama’s 1,139. Trump’s rules have often repealed an older rule (or rules), effectively reducing regulations by crafting a new rule.

CEI’s Clyde Crews, Jr. wrote: “All this seems significant in terms of history of the regulatory state. The drop between Clinton and Bush (43) was dramatic, but otherwise the last time we saw anything comparable to today’s reduction was when both regulations and Federal Register page counts dropped over a third under Reagan.” Such economy-boosting actions by Trump will help you whether you love him or hate him, voted for him or want him impeached. Unless, of course, you live in a state like California where anti-business rules and taxes prevail.

As I write, news broke that the Republican “repeal-and-replace” bill for Obamacare can indeed pass the U.S. Senate with a simple majority under the reconciliation rules. If the bill passed by House Republicans can get through the Senate and be signed by Trump, the tax, spending, regulatory and economy-stifling nightmare of the (un) Affordable (lack of) Care Act moves to the trash heap of costly big-government, one-size-fits-all failures and schemes.

Some of your fellow citizen-warriors serving in the military have died due to the terrorist activities of Iran and Hezbollah in Iraq; some of your taxes went to Iran in the form of cash as part of Barack Obama’s foolishly negotiated Iran nuclear deal. We now know that, as part of that abominable acquiescence to Iran’s nuclear weapons buildup, “The Obama administration ‘systematically disbanded’ law enforcement investigative units across the federal government focused on disrupting Iranian, Syrian, and Venezuelan terrorism financing networks…” (Susan Crabtree, FreeBeacon.com, quoting testimony given on Thursday by former Defense Dept. official David Asher to the House Foreign Affairs Committee).

Obama didn’t want to cause friction with Iranian officials and scuttle the nuclear deal, which was his legacy of reshaping the power structure of the Middle East, to the benefit of Iran, and to the detriment of allies Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt. Asher said that Obama squandered the chance “at a very low financial cost” to take apart Hezbollah’s finances, its global organization, and the Iran proxy’s ability to “readily terrorize us, victimize us, and run a criminal network through our shores, inside our banking systems—and in partnership with the world’s foremost drug cartels—target our state and society.” (posted Monday at donpolson.blogspot.com)

If Democrats are really outraged by the “obstruction of justice” they allege against Trump, maybe they’ll notice a House Oversight Committee report that showed just that by Obama’s people. “They lied to the family of a slain Border Patrol officer about the weapons used in his death, and stonewalled efforts to get at the truth” (Fox News’ Bret Baier) The Justice Department admitted that 64,000 pages of documents were not privileged, proving why the House held then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt in a bipartisan vote.

Events continue to unfold but it appears that James Comey violated FBI rules at the least, and possibly federal law, in sharing his notes with a professor friend, admittedly to prompt the appointment of a special counsel, which then happened. It stinks of insiders with agendas, to me.