Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   7/31/2018

A tangled web of lies, deceit, abuse

The entire “Trump/Russia” narrative is becoming, for many Americans, a nearly irrelevant background noise much like “human-caused global warming/climate change/climate disruption/insert-current-iteration-of-world-coming-to-an-end.” You could add obfuscation and endless diversionary analysis to the tactics of those in the Democrat/News Media Complex determined to distract with, and hype, a narrative to the point of boredom and exasperation. When the news media wish to avoid unpleasant and outrage-inducing truth, they sure know how to “hide the football” and “gaslight” (look it up) the populace.

The thing is, it’s been going on since the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump, certainly since the election. We know from “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign,” by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes, that Hillary assembled her staff within 24 hours of her concession and dreamed up the narrative that would become the “story, and she’s sticking to it” of why she lost what everybody (this local columnist and others aside) knew would be her presidency. The proximate story was and remains the “Trump/Russia collusion against her that elected Trump.” Without evidence, Obama and his people worked heartily to advance the same narrative, intentionally attempting to hobble—then remove—the new President.

We also now know that her State Department remained a conduit for introducing and channeling any dirt and unverified accusations on Trump to the FBI under James Comey. Considering that ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post—collectively working to overturn the 2016 election of Trump to this day—morphed into little more than a collaborating arm of the Democrat/Mueller legal and propaganda operation; considering that we now know that there never were any citable, indictable acts of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians—Given all that and more, reasonable Americans have cause to put the whole political, legal and media war on Trump behind them and enjoy life.

Several related revelations over the last 20 months: In March of 2017 former Obama Intelligence chief James Clapper replied “Not to my knowledge” to a Meet the Press question of whether he had ever seen any evidence that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russian government while the Kremlin was working to influence the election. That same Clapper has recently stated in an interview that then-President Obama was behind the whole surveillance/informant/FISA warrant operation against Trump, saying that it wouldn’t have happened without Obama.

Democrat Adam Schiff, endangering anyone between him and a camera, has denied that he’s seen evidence of Trump/Russia collusion which, considering his Intelligence Committee position, tells you there isn’t any such evidence. As with numerous other Democrat partisans, he quickly shifts the issue to one of “smoke and fire” as if there has got to be an “impeach Trump” pony in the manure.

From Mr. Peter “We won’t let that (Trump’s presidency) happen” Strzok, we have his texts to his FBI lover, Lisa Page, framing the question of joining Mr. Mueller’s Special Prosecutor team thusly: He would likely pass up a promotion to some Assistant Director position to join Mueller; however, Mueller’s prosecution would allow Strzok to be part of the grand, historic impeachment of Trump. On the other hand, he expressed reservations to Ms. Page that—with all he knew about Trump, his campaign and the results of informants and surveillance—he didn’t see any “there there.”

I was reviewing a stack of unread articles from last summer, collected for vacation reading, and was not surprised to find what were the raging questions, during spring and early summer of Trump’s first year and the start of Mueller’s investigation. They had to do with revelations about documents supporting the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court application for warrants to spy (literally, “to observe secretively or furtively; to engage in espionage,” i.e. conduct surveillance) on the Trump campaign.

Incidentally, that the spying was directed at the “campaign” has been admitted in other documents and interviews. It can be truly asserted that the FISA warrant to spy on one-time foreign policy advisor, Carter Page, was effectively a broad, carte blanche permission to collect all communication involving Page and anyone in Trump’s campaign, whether in Trump tower or not. Given that the original October 2016 FISA warrant was renewed multiple times, that means that Obama’s FBI was spying on President-elect Trump into the early months of his administration—all based on concocted lies in the infamous “Steele dossier.”

Here is where the analogies with Nixon’s Watergate scandal kick in. The actual crime of breaking into DNC offices to place listening devices (bugs) involved members of Nixon’s reelection team. Nixon reportedly tried to enlist the CIA and FBI to cover up and obstruct, but was rebuffed by principled agents. When taken together, the Obama/Lynch/Comey/Brennan/Clinton/DNC/FusionGPS/Steele cabal engaged in what on its face appeared to be legal means to surveil—spy, bug, “wiretap”—and “investigate” the Trump campaign, including Trump himself. It was all one conspiracy that involved illegal actions (fraudulent FISA applications based on lies) as well as gross misuse of law enforcement to hobble the political campaign of the candidate of the opposing party. Actually, it’s far worse than Nixon’s Watergate—it’s like a banana republic.

I felt mild amusement at praise (?) for being “consistently consistent” by fellow columnist Bill Cornelius. Was I being “damned with faint praise”? Was that a “back handed compliment”? I admit to consistency in pursuing and explicating the truth in all subjects addressed in this column; factual retractions have been extremely rare over the 13-year run of “The Way I See It” (originally “News and Views”). Time has invariably reinforced and confirmed, not disproved, my views. Let’s leave it here: Far be it from me to dispute the observations and conclusions of such a fine fellow, accomplished athlete and brilliant citizen who admits to never reading my columns. Surely, we can add estimable powers of perception (extra sensory?) and deduction to the list of Bill’s qualities.