Don's Tuesday Column

            THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   4/09/2019

                    Two years of collusion delusion

Today is about the last day you can reserve a seat at the 2019 Red, White and Blue Republican Dinner honoring the Second Amendment, this Saturday, April 13, at the Veterans Memorial Hall, 735 Oak Street. The caterer, The Snack Box, needs a meal count to prepare. The meet and greet starts at 5:30 PM, dinner at 6:30. Call 865-2666 or 200-0091. Hope to see you there.

I’ll share nearly 2-year old quotes, now proven accurate, on the Trump/Russia collusion hoax, from “California Democrats offend propriety,” May 23, 2017. First, a brief fact check and correction: “All of the Trump National Security heads say Russia meddled in that election to benefit Donald Trump” is a partial truth. “All” was actually FBI’s Comey, DNI’s Clapper and CIA’s Brennan, all anti-Trump partisans, all Hillary Clinton supporters, all part of the cabal that we now know were misusing and manipulating their positions and assets to undo the 2016 election of Donald Trump.

Russia’s so-called “meddling” amounted to utterly ineffectual social media postings that didn’t change any votes in Trump’s favor. Pre- and post-election protests promoted on the Internet were alternately pro- and anti-Trump. Not one iota of proof has surfaced that “Russians” thought Trump would beat Clinton any more than American polling experts. Hence, Russian meddling could be seen as tarnishing Hillary, not helping Trump win.

Yes, Putin’s goals have been advanced but not by the Trump side. Look up: “Putin Got What He Wanted,” by Jerry Bowyer at Townhall Review. “No, I’m not talking about installing a Russian puppet in the White House. I’m talking about Putin’s actual goal: undermining faith in American democracy…Russia was seeking to delegitimize the expected Clinton victory. Facebook ads targeting Hillary Clinton in broken English didn’t undermine anything without the help of Putin’s unwitting partner: the mainstream media.

“For over two years, guest after guest speculated about Russian agents ‘hacking our election.’ Partisan pundits blamed Russian interference for the results of every single race that turned out poorly for Democrats. Putin got what he wanted, not from Mr. Trump but from his irresponsible critics.” I would ask of local Trump-haters, “Can’t we all accept the facts showing no Trump/Russia collusion?” Please move on.

And yet, “NY Times, Washington Post are still disgracefully enabling ‘Collusion Delusion,’” by the NY Post, shows the deep level of commitment to a now-disproven conspiracy theory among the “thought leaders” on the left. Call it “pandering to folks who can’t let go of the Collusion Delusion” by “suggesting that Attorney General William Barr spun special counsel Robert Mueller’s report to make President Trump look good.” Cling to your rapidly fading hopes and theories, Democrats, and prepare for Trump’s 2020 win.

Do—with Rachel Maddow, Brennan, Clapper et al—what I did with non-credible sources like Alex Jones or the late UFO-logist Art Bell: quit listening and watching. There’s a reason that Rasmussen Reports finds more voters (47 percent) believe “Clinton’s 2016 campaign is more likely than President Trump’s (45 percent) to have illegally colluded with foreign operatives.” Hillary’s campaign, the DNC, Fusion GPS, British spy Christopher Steele and actual Russian sources made the bogus “Dossier.” The 45 percent are die-hard Dems unable to let go of their anti-Trump obsessions.

For help deprogramming, read “How Rachel Maddow Turned Into Infowars; She’s still spinning Russiagate conspiracy tales, even as her ratings come crashing down,” by Peter Van Buren. “Why isn’t Rachel Maddow Treated Like Other Crazy Conspiracy Theorists?” by Mike LaChance, also compares her “pernicious and false” nightly diatribes to the “deplatforming” of Alex Jones for his unhinged rants.

On the other hand, Mollie Hemingway explains how she initially gave credence to the rumors and reports of Trump/Russia election meddling collusion; she began doubting the narrative as various supporting elements fell apart into uncorroborated, refutable falsehoods. Look up: “Here’s Why I Didn’t Fall For The Russia-Trump Conspiracy,” subtitled “Media outlets regurgitated leaks from politicized intelligence officials. They should have been far more skeptical.”

Finally: “Anti-Trump press has less credibility than Jussie Smollett right now,” by Rex Murphy. “In their coverage of the so-called Russian collusion case, they abandoned principle, journalistic ethics, and in some cases, rationality.” It’s time for Trump’s critics to admit Russia collusion never happened.

A major unsung, unacclaimed hero is California’s Rep. Devin Nunes, who is now referring numerous names to the FBI for prosecution, based on his investigation of the duplicitous genesis of spying on Trump’s campaign, FISA warrants, “wiretapping,” etc. He was spot on in his statements. Remember, Rep. Adam Schiff has been so false in his assertions of “evidence” that he should resign his committee chair, if not his seat in Congress. 22 FBI/DOJ people have been fired, demoted, transferred, resigned or retired over their roles in the scandal. That’s a good start.

In my May 23, 2017 column, I wrote that Democrats Feinstein, Clapper, Brennan, Schiff, Lewis and Comey (under oath) all denied seeing any “evidence” of Trump/Russia collusion. While Comey’s firing (a presidential right) provoked outrage among the Democrat lawyers on Mueller’s staff, Comey denied under oath that Trump tried to “halt the FBI investigation.”

“It is (as of May 2017) politically bizarre that Democrats cling to ephemeral hopes that they can impeach President Trump based on some shred of proof of perfidy…Will Democrats accept the eventual finding by Robert Mueller that neither Trump, nor his campaign, colluded criminally with the Russians?” Trick question. “Collusion” isn’t a crime—only “conspiracy to commit a crime.” There is no crime so far.

“Are any Democratic lawmakers starting to fear that they’re not going to find that evidence? Suppose an underling has committed a crime not involving collusion, or Trump. Will Democrats accept that?” Two years later, here we are. “Dear Citizen Collusion Truther—You Own This, Too,” by Julie Kelly, makes the point that even those in the trenches of citizen activism share blame for the hoax we’ve endured.