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The Khashoggi Matter — Was he really a “bad guy’?

President Donald Trump holds a sword and sways with traditional dancers during a welcome ceremony at Murabba Palace, Saturday, May 20, 2017, in Riyadh. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

By Dr. Larry Fedewa (October 21,2018)

British Journalist Melanie Phillips provides a different narrative of the final hours of Jamal Khashoggi in her Jewish News Service column (October 18, 2018).Far from being the liberal Washington Post opponent of revisionist Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (called MBS for short) because MBS’ reforms are too little too late, Phillips asserts that he was in reality a double agent with ties to both the radical Muslim Brotherhood and the Saudi intelligence service.

Of late, he had been straying off the beaten path by connecting with the Turkey/Qatar faction which opposes the Saudi/US/ Israel triad for leadership of Sunni Islam. In fact, he visited the Saudi embassy on that fateful day to secure Saudi government permission to marry his Turkish fiancé, who is a Turkish diplomat and daughter of a former advisor to Turkish President Erdogan.  Keep Reading

The Origins of the American New Left

Where did they come from?                         

2016 Rally – Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Hillary Clinton

By Dr. Larry Fedewa (September 23, 2018)  America’s academic institutions today are dominated by the heirs of people who grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s. A look at the anti-establishment movements of those days helps us to understand the themes that have survived and evolved into today’s New Left.

The overarching issues of those days were opposition to the Vietnam War, which started in the universities of the time, and the civil rights movement whose champion was

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Almost unnoticed in the confusion was President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs, which introduced the most radically socialistic legislation in American history, extending the role of the federal government to responsibility for care of the poor.

Civil rights and the anti-war causes were directly anti-establishment, and both were based on a sense of moral superiority. It did not take long for the believers in the two causes to join forces. They filled mutual needs: the anti-Vietnam movement was based initially on the objections of college students (mostly white) to being required to fight in a war which was neither understood nor supported by most Americans.

The issue quickly became whether the federal government even had the right to draft youngsters at all. Middle America stood firmly with the government on that issue, thus spawning widespread opposition to the anti-war movement and solidifying support for the War beyond what is had been in the beginning.  The champion of the Middle American view was Alabama Governor George Wallace, who also had come to prominence as a segregationist (a position he later repudiated).

What the anti-war movement needed was a cause larger than the discomfort of some white college boys. They needed a transcendent cause and they found it in the civil rights movement. That cause was social justice. Specifically, social justice as interpreted to mean equality of all Americans — legally, socially, economically and morally. The civil rights movement needed white support; the leaders were aware that without it, they would never achieve their goals.

It was a marriage made in heaven.      Keep Reading

US Politics: Alternative Realities

by Lawrence J. Fedewa (June 23,2018) 

The most striking feature of American politics today may well be the completely different perceptions held by various groups of what “facts” each considers to be truth. It’s like they are living in different worlds. While there are some cynical “realists” who knowingly fashion “fake news”,  many partisans sincerely believe their views to be correct. So much so that they feel moral indignation and outrage at the other side.

At the root of these reactions is fear. All are afraid, in varying degrees, that their way of life is threatened by the other actors on the political stage. It is fear which drives people to irrational conclusions and closes their ears and minds to dialog with those who disagree with them. When logic is thrown out the window, all that remains is instinct. Imagination can be formed  by logic, but fear obscures all but the  most dangerous fantasies.                                  Keep Reading

Timetable of Highlights in the 2016 election cycle

 

Here is a timeline of the highlights: The chronology is useful valuable because it shows the flow of events, including some possible cause and effect sequences. (Note bold entries)

________________________________________________________________

2001-2013 Appointed by President George W. Bush and retained by President Obama, Robert Mueller served 2nd longest period in US history as FBI Director

September 4, 2013 James Comey appointed Director, FBI by President Barack Obama

March 2015  A series of events, including Congressional subpoena for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails as Secretary of State regarding the Benghazi murders, lead to public discovery of irregularities in Clinton’s use of emails as Secretary of State. DOS begins inquiry of her emails on an unauthorized server. Clinton holds press conference stating her conduct was proper.

April 12, 2015  Hillary Rodham Clinton announces her candidacy for President of the United States of America.

July 10, 2015  FBI opens an investigation of Clinton emails

July 16, 2015  Donald J. Trump announces his candidacy for President of the United States of America

September 2015  FBI Director James Comey testifies before Congress on Clinton email investigation, revealing that there is an investigation but no conclusions

March 2016  WikiLeaks publishes first Podesta emails

June 30, 2016  Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s private meeting with Bill Clinton – soon discovered by press

July 5, 2016  FBI Director Comey announces that Clinton will not be prosecuted

July 19, 2016  Trump wins Republican nomination

July 26, 2016  Clinton wins Democrat nomination

July 2016  FBI begins investigation of possible collusion between Trump campaign and Russia

October 28, 2016  Comey sends letter to Congress stating that FBI investigation resumed on discovery of Clinton emails on former Congressman Anthony Weiner’s computer

November 6, 2016 Comey sends 2nd letter to Congress announcing that the Weiner evidence irrelevant and Clinton investigation closed.

November 8, 2016  Donald J. Trump elected 45th President of the United States of America

January 20, 2017 Inauguration of Donald Trump as 45th President

May 9, 2016 President trump dismisses James Comey as Director , FBI

May 2017  Associate Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein appoints Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate Russian collusion with Trump campaign, using same FBI investigators who had been on the case since July. 2016.

 

© Richfield Press, 2018 (All rights reserved)

 

 

DOJ Mess: Connecting the Dots

With the publication of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General’s long-awaited report on Thursday, June 14, 2018 the complicated tale of FBI involvement in the 2016-17 presidential election got even more confusing.  Considering all the public information available, the following is a likely scenario of the events.

The Beginnings

Apparently,  the FBI involvement in this entire episode was originally triggered by the obvious questions about Hillary Clinton’s use of private emails. Obama’s FBI Director James Comey realized that the situation posed a potentially fatal threat to her eligibility to run for president. He believed it was his responsibility to neutralize that threat, possibly on orders from President Obama, perhaps through Attorney General Loretta Lunch. Accordingly, he initiated an FBI investigation, but kept control in his own office, using a hand-picked group of investigators, who were known to Comey as sympathetic to Clinton/Obama. Keep Reading

A Bloodless Coup d’ Etat?

 

 

by Lawrence J. Fedewa (June 1, 2018)

Numerous conspiracy theories are being expounded by recent books, starting perhaps with the works of David Horowitz, and currently with Jerome Corsi’s Killing the Deep State (Humanix, 2018) among many others. At first, I was very skeptical that these portraits of the “never-Trumpers” could possibly be true. The individual actions were not hard to believe, even at the beginning. We had only to listen to Rachel Maddow or Lawrence O’Donnell or Chris Matthews or The View for a few minutes to understand that there are Trump haters making outrageous accusations and creating fake news against the President.

What was difficult to believe was that the dissenters had actually been organized and deployed with a goal of overturning the 2016 election. After all, such acts are treason. But the accumulation of evidence is truly staggering. It seems that the FBI, the Obama Justice Department, and the CIA in cooperation with the Director of National Intelligence not only tried in vain to prevent the election of Donald Trump but conspired to overthrow his presidency at any cost.  This plot to place or replace the elected President with the candidate of their choice is becoming more and more visible as documents are unveiled. It seems increasingly likely that the bureaucrats joined the Obama zealots and eventually the entire Democrat Party in an attempt to overthrow the President of the United States. Not since Aaron Burr’s alleged conspiracy in 1806 have we heard of such an attempt to overthrow the legitimate government.

Without the bureaucrats, the plot had no chance of maturing, let alone succeeding. It is hard to believe that these hard-nosed professionals were motivated by the quixotic fantasies of the politicians. Sentimental they are not. For the most part, their jobs were safe under any administration. So, why did they care?

The best guess lies with the basis of all bureaucratic ambition – power. The opportunity to control the presidency must have been the deadly elixir – the Kool- Aid – that Lynch, Brennan, Mueller, Comey, Clapper and the rest were drinking. True, Trump campaigned on reducing regulations (the mother’s milk of bureaucratic power), but so have many other candidates. What was it that motivated them to sign on to treason?

We may never know. Initially, they may have been intrigued by the prospect of serving under a President Hillary Clinton, who had turned her position as Secretary of State into a money machine, and who was likely to share the next step up with the chosen few who had helped her along the way. But that fantasy vanished with the election. Why continue? Why set up a mechanism by which they could get the Trump Administration to actually pay for the agent of its own destruction?  Ingenious yes, but why? Only they know that answer.

The scenario which is slowly coming to light sounds strikingly similar to the conspiracy theories which surrounded the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. And, even earlier, the assassination of the populist Huey Long ended his challenge to President Roosevelt. Are today’s conspirators thinking along similar lines as their current plot unravels?

The terrible truth is that this cabal has not yet been defeated! It is possible that they may still succeed in their campaign to mount a bloodless coup d’ etat! The Democrat Party — one of the only two major political parties  in America — has joined their cause and threatens to conclude this treasonous exercise if they win sufficient seats in the next Congress. Even then, intentionally gullible as they seem to be, it is unlikely that they can actually produce a conviction. But, if the House succeeds in approving  articles of impeachment, you never know what might happen.

The most pernicious act in American history is still a possibility!

 

© Richfield Press, 2018 (All rights reserved)

 

Donald J Trump’s Big Gamble

 

Will his actions speak louder than his words?

 

by Lawrence J Fedewa, April 15, 2018

In language, style and actions, Donald J. Trump is commonly described as “a different kind of President”.  His advocates tend to believe that he is “still learning how to be a politician”. He detractors believe that he is now and ever will be an incompetent President. As the great ethicist, H. Richard Niebuhr, used to say, “People are generally correct in what they affirm, and wrong in what they deny.” In the case of Mr. Trump, it is true that he is learning, but not how to be a politician. It is true that he is not going to change, but wrong that he is incompetent.

The basic truth about Mr. Trump is that he is deal-maker. What he is learning is not how to become a politician, but how to make deals with politicians. He has publicly scorned the deal-making capabilities of politicians, but he is now in their world, so he has to learn how to make deals with them. A more conventional description of this process is “building a coalition “around each major initiative.

He has learned that the sweet spot of most politicians is their electability at the time of an election. He has already indicated that he intends to have a very active campaign schedule for the 2018 mid-term elections. To the extent that his campaigning is successful, of course, he will build political capital. The opposite is also true. Unlike most of the politicians he interacts with, his core competence is making deals rather than attracting voters. The fact that he has done as well as he has with attracting votes is a tribute to his natural charisma and his experience as a media personality rather than his political know-how.

So, what is different about a deal-maker? The script for Mr. Trump’s approach to dialog is contained in his book, The Art of the Deal.

Keep Reading

The controversies around school shootings

A UK interviewer asks for insight into American approaches to the tragic shooting in a Florida school.http://bit.ly/2HLBVs3    (22 minutes)

MoreNew: Project Extra: The Gun Debate How soluble is the gun problem in America? Or is the problem less about guns, but more about mental health and law enforcement? Dr. Larry Fedewa () provides considered insight into these questions.
10:50 AM – 25 Feb 2018

What about DACA?

 

 Lawrence J. Fedewa (January 29, 2018)
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) originally referred to a program invented by President Barrack Obama in 2014. It granted a temporary authorization to stay in the U.S. to children whose parents came to the United States illegally and who are thus officially classified as “illegal aliens”. Since this was an Executive order, not a law, its existence is dependent on the continued authorization of the new administration. For DACA to become the permanent law of the land, both Houses of Congress and the president must sign off on it.
Republicans have opposed this Executive Order because they believe that the illegal actions of the parents should not be rewarded with citizenship, but rather punished for breaking American law and therefore deported to their country of origin – presumably along with their children (although this position has been softening recently). They call the Obama position “amnesty” and fear that ratification of that policy will create an incentive for more illegal immigration, in defiance of American law.
There are an estimated 800,000 to 1,000,000 children of illegal immigrants living in America today, although no truly reliable estimate exists. There may be more, perhaps as many as a few hundred thousand more. What should we to do with them?