Meanwhile I am posting some of the more poignant e mails t I received from others while away as well as some of my own thoughts.
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A view about the nation's race problems: http://www.cnsnews.com/video/
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For those who read my memos they know how important I believe the family unit is. It is the foundation upon which our Republic rests.
How we raise children is something I have always considered critical and I wrote my own thoughts several years ago in conjunction with raising money for The Wounded Warrior Project and many of you were kind enough to purchase a copy.
I ran across this while I was away and thought it worth posting.(See 1 below.)
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More on the IRS Scandal which Obama tells us there was not a smidgen of evidence of wrong doing. (See 2 below.)
Doing the Benghazi Hearings right. (See 2a and 2b below.)
And then: http://hawthornephoto.com/
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American campuses have become radicalized by Muslim and far left fascistic type students and faculty and administrators have become cowed by their assaults on academic freedom of speech..
We seemed to have learned nothing from the Nazi Era! (See 3 below.)
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Prager on Israel: http://www.israelvideonetwork.
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The definition of the word Conundrum is: something that is puzzling or confusing.
===Here are six Conundrums of socialism in the United States of America:
1. America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized.
2. Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.
3. They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government.
4. Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer.
5. The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about.
6. They have things that people in other countries only dream about - yet they want America to be more like those other countries.And that, my friends, pretty much sums up the USA in the 21st Century.
Makes you wonder who is doing the math.
These three sentences tell you a lot about the direction of our current government and cultural environment:
1. We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics. Funny how that works.
2. Seems we constantly hear about how Social Security is going to run out of money. How come we never hear about welfare or food stamps running out of money? What's interesting is the first group worked for their money, but the second didn't.
3. Why are we cutting benefits for our veterans, no pay raises for our military and cutting our army to a level lower than before WWII, but we are not stopping the payments or benefits to illegal aliens and other moochers.
Dick
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1) A life of love: How to build lasting relationships with your children
By Amy Peterson
Your relationship with your children is one that can bring a lifetime of satisfaction and love. Nurture it NOW, and it will last foreverIt's never too late!
When you're a new parent, seasoned veterans often comment on how fast kids grow up. It seems impossible that a tiny baby will become an adult. Now that my oldest child is a teenager, I'm realizing those experienced parents were right. I have less than five years left with my daughter in my home full-time. Suddenly I want to turn the clock back and spend more moments teaching and loving her.
Since I can't do that, I have to continue to focus on building a lasting relationship with her and my other children. I want to be close to my children throughout their lives. The foundation of a lasting relationship starts early in life and is built on time-tested principles like the six mentioned here. Here are more ways to build a trusting relationship with your child.
1. Time together. There is no substitute for time spent together. Quality time with kids makes them feel important and loved. Fortunately, most children are happy with simple ways to spend time together, like wrestling, cuddling, playing games, taking a walk or just hanging out. That being said, occasionally making an effort to take your child on a special outing will show him how important he is to you. A lunch date, bike ride, movie date or overnight trip will make lasting memories for both of you.
2. Listen. Parents like to dispense advice. The advice I offer is to spend more time listening than talking. Kids have interesting and funny things to say. My 3-year-old tells me make-believe stories about seeing the tooth fairy and catching leprechauns. My 10-year-old will tell me endless details about the plot and characters of his current favorite book. I hope that my children know I will listen to the silly and serious things they have to tell me. We talk as a family at dinnertime, prayer time and in the car. Bedtime is also a great time for talking and listening.
3. Show interest. Your children's interests are important to them. Even if video games aren't your thing, you need to be interested in them if your child is. As children grow, their interests change. Be supportive of their talents and abilities, even if they diverge from the path you wish they were on. You can also try to find a common interest. As your children become adults, your relationship can still be close. Visit your college kids for a weekend, be an involved grandparent and have family reunions.
4. Express and show love. I will be sad if my son ever stops giving me hugs before bed. Although I wasn't raised in a particularly affectionate family, I love to shower my children with kisses and cuddles. I also express my love by praising them for the good things they do and saying, "I love you so much" often. Discover how your child likes to receive love. One of my daughters doesn't like to snuggle much, but she soaks up words of praise. As you show love to your children throughout their lives, your relationship will be strengthened.
5. Don't be too critical. Parents are responsible for teaching their children so many things. However, parents have to remember that children are learning to navigate the world. They will make mistakes, often over and over again. Children need to be able to know that they are able to learn and make mistakes without feeling criticized or judged by their parents. I find it helpful to remember how young my kids are and that it is my responsibility to patiently teach and set a good example. If I remember my own mistakes and weaknesses, I am gentler with my children's.
6. Forgive and forget. As children grow, they'd rather not be reminded of the dumb things they did in the past. Children will hurt our feelings and do things that make us angry. If they mature and make amends, leave the past in the past. It's common for the "remember when" stories to come out as families get together. Make sure you bring up the light-hearted and fun stories, and leave the more difficult ones behind. Forgiveness and charity are basic values helpful to maintaining any relationship.
I know my children won't always live in my home, but I think we'll always be close. Building lasting relationships is work, but the sweet reward of love and togetherness is worth any effort.
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2)IRS Documents Reveal Agency Flagged Groups for 'Anti-Obama Rhetoric,' Big Three Refuse to Report
By Geoffrey Dickens
ABC, CBS and NBC have so far refused to report the latest bombshell in the IRS scandal - a newly released list from the agency that showed it flagged political groups for "anti-Obama rhetoric." On September 18USA Today, in a front page story, reported the following: "Newly uncovered IRS documents show the agency flagged political groups based on the content of their literature, raising concerns specifically about 'anti-Obama rhetoric,' inflammatory language and 'emotional' statements made by non-profits seeking tax-exempt status."
Not only have ABC, CBS and NBC not reported this story they've flat out stopped covering the IRS scandal on their evening and morning shows. It's been 85 days since ABC last touched the story on June 26. NBC hasn't done a report for 84 days and CBS last mentioned the IRS scandal 56 days ago on July 24.
The article by Gregory Korte went on to report: "The internal 2011 documents, obtained by USA TODAY, list 162 groups by name, with comments by Internal Revenue Service lawyers in Washington raising issues about their political, lobbying and advocacy activities. In 21 cases, those activities were characterized as 'propaganda.' The list provides the most specific public accounting to date of which groups were targeted for extra scrutiny and why. The IRS has not publicly identified the groups, repeatedly citing a provision of the tax code prohibiting it from releasing tax return information."
The American Center for Law and Justice, a nonprofit legal institute that represents 33 of the groups appearing on the IRS list, said it appears to be 'the most powerful evidence yet of a coordinated effort' by the IRS to target Tea Party groups. 'The political motivations of this are so patently obvious, but then to have a document that spells it out like this is very damaging to the IRS,' said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the ACLJ. 'I hope the FBI has seen these documents.'"
2a)Benghazi: How to Do the Hearings Right
By Charles Krauthammer
The Democrats are portraying the not-yet-even constituted House Select Committee on Benghazi as nothing but a partisan exercise. They are even considering boycotting the hearings to delegitimize them.
Fine. Although this would give the Obama-protective media a further reason to ignore Benghazi, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is whether the committee produces new, important facts. If it does, it will be impossible to ignore.
We’ve already seen what a single piece of new evidence can do in reviving interest in a story that many (including me) thought the administration had successfully stonewalled. The “PREP CALL with Susan [Rice]” email from Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, was withheld eight months until revealed by court order. It advises the U.N. ambassador to focus on an anti-Islam Internet video, thus contradicting the perennial White House claim that Rice’s blame-the-video five-show fable came just from intelligence community talking points and not from a White House in full campaign mode.
The select committee will be headed by Rep. Trey Gowdy, a skilled 16-year prosecutor. He needs to keep the hearings clean and strictly fact-oriented. Questions only, no speechifying. Every sentence by every GOP committee member must end with a question mark. Should any committee Republican instead make a statement ending in a period, the chairman should immediately, by button, deliver an electric shock through the violator’s seat.
The areas of inquiry are obvious. They are three: before, during and after.
Before:
Where and to what extent was there dereliction of duty as memos, urgent pleas and mounting evidence of danger were ignored and the U.S. ambassador allowed to enter a deathtrap?
During:
What happened during the eight hours of the Benghazi attack, at the end of which the last two Americans (of four) were killed by mortar fire? Where was the commander in chief and where was the responsible Cabinet secretary, Hillary Clinton? What did they do?
The White House acts as if these are, alternatively, either state secrets or of no importance.
For President Obama, we have three data points. At 5 p.m. EDT, he is briefed on the attack by the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Committee on Benghazi as nothing but a partisan exercise. They are even considering boycotting the hearings to delegitimize them.
Fine. Although this would give the Obama-protective media a further reason to ignore Benghazi, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is whether the committee produces new, important facts. If it does, it will be impossible to ignore.
We’ve already seen what a single piece of new evidence can do in reviving interest in a story that many (including me) thought the administration had successfully stonewalled. The “PREP CALL with Susan [Rice]” email from Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, was withheld eight months until revealed by court order. It advises the U.N. ambassador to focus on an anti-Islam Internet video, thus contradicting the perennial White House claim that Rice’s blame-the-video five-show fable came just from intelligence community talking points and not from a White House in full campaign mode.
The select committee will be headed by Rep. Trey Gowdy, a skilled 16-year prosecutor. He needs to keep the hearings clean and strictly fact-oriented. Questions only, no speechifying. Every sentence by every GOP committee member must end with a question mark. Should any committee Republican instead make a statement ending in a period, the chairman should immediately, by button, deliver an electric shock through the violator’s seat.
The areas of inquiry are obvious. They are three: before, during and after.
Before:
Where and to what extent was there dereliction of duty as memos, urgent pleas and mounting evidence of danger were ignored and the U.S. ambassador allowed to enter a deathtrap?
During:
What happened during the eight hours of the Benghazi attack, at the end of which the last two Americans (of four) were killed by mortar fire? Where was the commander in chief and where was the responsible Cabinet secretary, Hillary Clinton? What did they do?
The White House acts as if these are, alternatively, either state secrets or of no importance.
For President Obama, we have three data points. At 5 p.m. EDT, he is briefed on the attack by the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
At around 8 p.m., Obama spends an hour on the phone with Benjamin Netanyahu to tamp down a breaking, politically injurious story that Obama had snubbed the Israeli prime minister. The White House then issues a readout saying the two leaders had agreed there had been no snub.
So the White House is engaged in campaign damage control quite literally in the middle of the Benghazi events – at a time when Ambassador Chris Stevens is still missing and the final firefight that killed two other Americans is still three hours away. We’ve just learned that Obama was not in the Situation Room that night. Then where, doing what?
We know, finally, that at 10 p.m. Obama called Clinton to get an update. What did they discuss, decide, order?
As former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has pointed out, a half-hour later, State issued a statement deploring the video, setting the premise for the video excuse. Were Obama and Clinton working on a cover story – even before Glen Doherty had joined Tyrone Woods on the roof of the CIA annex where they were to die minutes later?
Yes, that’s speculation. Well, then, give us facts. After all, the White House provided a cascade of hagiographic facts about Obama’s involvement in the Osama bin Laden raid. Yet regarding Benghazi – the most serious operational challenge of his presidency – he is nowhere to be seen.
After:
We now know the White House was pushing the “video made them do it” cover-up, lest the blame be placed on administration policy. Who was involved in that decision, obviously designed to protect a president campaigning that al-Qaeda was “on the run”?
These hearings are a big political risk for Republicans. Going into the 2014 election, they stand to benefit from the major issues – Obamacare, the economy, chronic unemployment – from which Benghazi hearings can only distract. Worse, if botched like previous hearings on the matter, these hearings could backfire against the GOP, as did the 1998 Clinton impeachment proceedings. On purely partisan considerations, the hearings are not worth the political risk.
But the country deserves the truth. They’ll get it if the GOP can keep the proceedings clean, factual and dispassionate. No speeches. No grandstanding. Gowdy has got to be a tough disciplinarian – especially toward his own side of the aisle.
2b)
2b)
Trey Gowdy and the Real Lesson of Watergate
1973 Democrats blocked investigation of LBJ.
It is the real lesson of Watergate.
As South Carolina’s Congressman Trey Gowdy, the new chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, begins his task, it is worth recalling a lesson from Watergate. Specifically a lesson about the creation of what became known as the Senate Watergate Committee — and how the Senate Republicans of 1973 lost a fight that literally changed the course of American history.
The date is November 17, 1972. The Democrats in the United States Senate are not happy with the results of the just concluded presidential election in which their nominee and Senate colleague, South Dakota’s Senator George McGovern, had lost 49 states — all but Massachusetts and the District of Columbia — to President Richard Nixon.
In the middle of the campaign — back in June — the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee had been burglarized. Among other things, the objective was to bug the phones to monitor the DNC Chairman, ex-JFK and LBJ White House aide Lawrence O’Brien. The story had been a detail of the campaign, but a small one. Not until October had the story gained any kind of traction, moving in a bigger way from print media and the hands of the Washington Post’s young reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to television. Walter Cronkite at CBS had spent two nights in a row on the scandal, a big deal in a day where the three TV networks only had a single half-hour news show at the dinner hour. There were strands of a story — a connection between Nixon’s re-election committee, the story of an intelligence fund at the committee. And not much else. The news reports had no effect whatsoever on Nixon’s impending landslide victory.
During that campaign there had been a Senate election in Montana, a re-election campaign for the state’s junior senator Lee Metcalf, a Democrat. His senior colleague and fellow Democrat Mike Mansfield, out campaigning hard for Metcalf, had seen the news reports on the burglary. Understanding that McGovern was about to go under in a tidal wave, Mansfield told Montana voters that when the election was over he would go back to Washington and “pave the way” (his words) for an investigation not just of the Watergate break-in but the whole business of campaign financing.
The importance? Mike Mansfield was not just a run-of-the-mill U.S. Senator. He was the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate. The Harry Reid of his day.
Mansfield kept his vow. On November 17 he wrote two letters. One to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Eastland of Mississippi. The other to another Judiciary member and Democrat, North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin. Mansfield’s flat assertion? That Republicans had manipulated the presidential election of 1972 with a “cynical and dangerous intrusion into the integrity of the electoral processes by which the people of the nation choose the trustees of federal office…”
On February 5, 1973 Mansfield went out with his resolution to create what was formally titled the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. It would soon become known to history as the Senate Watergate Committee.
The Republican response?
If in fact the Democrats really believed that it was critical to investigate what Mansfield had called a “cynical and dangerous intrusion into the integrity of the electoral processes by which the people of the nation choose the trustees of federal office” then that was fine by them. Game on. Immediately they offered an amendment to include in the new Select Committee’s purview not just the 1972 election — but the 1968 and 1964 presidential elections as well.
Why? Specifically.
• 1964 and the Johnson-Goldwater campaign: Under the orders from President Lyndon B. Johnson, the White House was used as the headquarters of a dirty tricks “Anti-Campaign” operation — with the FBI used to wiretap the Goldwater campaign.
As Lee Edwards would later describe in his biography Goldwater: The Man Who Made a Revolution:
In RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, published in 1978, Nixon wrote:Because of [Watergate burglar James] McCord’s connection to the CRP [Nixon’s Committee to Re-elect the President], his arrest had turned the Watergate break-in [in June 1972] into a hot news story. Larry O’Brien [the chairman of the Democratic National Committee whose offices were the target of the Watergate burglar’s bugging operation] in hyperbolic terms claimed that “the bugging incident… raised the ugliest questions about the integrity of the political process that I have encountered in a quarter century of political activity.”…
Stop.
So the FBI, per the Director of the FBI, was directly ordered by President Lyndon Johnson to bug both the Goldwater campaign plane in 1964 and the Nixon campaign plane in 1968. And there was a regular “Anti-Campaign” dirty tricks operation operating out of the Johnson White House during the 1964 campaign. By the personal direction of LBJ — and meeting in a West Wing conference room right over the Oval Office itself.
If there was to be a Senate Select Committee investigating what Mike Mansfield, called the “cynical and dangerous intrusion into the integrity of the electoral processes by which the people of the nation choose the trustees of federal office…” then let’s do just that, said Senate Republicans. So GOP Senators proposed investigating not just the presidential campaign of 1972, but 1964 and 1968 as well.
Answer from Democrats? Democrats had the votes in the Senate — so when the GOP proposed investigating LBJ and not just Nixon — the answer was: Hell, no. The GOP proposal was voted down.
To this day Americans know about the Senate Watergate Committee and the results it eventually produced — the resignation of Richard Nixon. For months in 1973 the Senate Watergate Committee patiently, day by day, exposed the activities of the Nixon White House — while deliberately covering up for the Johnson White House and the Democrats. What is not generally known is that LBJ and the Democrats were let off the off hook by Senate Democrats. The fix was in and it was simple. This was an attempt — a successful attempt — to nail Nixon for something his immediate predecessor had in fact done not in one presidential campaign but two. To paint Republicans of the day as corrupt. Period. It worked.
In a very real sense, perhaps the worst thing that happened to Senate and House Democrats was the long stretch of almost unbroken power they enjoyed beginning in 1932’s FDR landslide. From 1932 until 1980 — 48 years — the Democrats had the run of the U.S. Senate for 44 of the 48. Losing control only twice in two brief two-year stretches, 1946-1948 and again from 1952-1954. For those 48 years — that’s literally almost half a century — they dominated all the committees, the staff structure and they set the agenda. For House Democrats the run was even longer — losing control only in the same two cycles as their Senate counterparts, but ruling the House with an iron fist for an even longer reign in 58 of the 62 years between 1932-1994. Well over half-a-century. Such complete control inevitably bred a bold arrogance, an arrogance that in turn encouraged an even bolder hypocrisy which predictably bred corruption. Sauce for the goose was never sauce for the gander. It was OK to get Nixon — verboten to touch LBJ, the President who was, no coincidence, a former Senate Majority Leader himself from 1955 until his election as JFK’s vice president in 1960. By February of 1973 LBJ had died. So the double-standard from Senate Democrats, the bold “F-you” style hypocrisy in protecting even a dead LBJ was staggering.
The hangover from this period of total control has carried into the actions of today’s House and Senate Democrats.
Now comes the Benghazi investigation. The House GOP and Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina are in a very different place than the GOP Senators in 1973. In 1973 those GOP Senators lived in an environment where they had already been in the minority almost continuously since 1932, with a rabidly partisan left-leaning all-dominant media ruling the television air waves and the print media, the latter led by the pro-Johnson Washington Post and New York Times. In 1973 there was no Fox or talk radio or Internet. Hence GOP Senators were essentially forced to participate in an exercise that they knew ahead of time was fixed from the get-go. From the subject they were allowed to investigate — or not investigate — not to mention the media coverage they would receive, the Senate GOP of 1973 was in a very different situation than the GOP House of today.
The Pelosi threat not to participate in the Benghazi hearings or the demand to depart from the rules and suddenly have an even split of committee members — something Pelosi never did when she herself was Speaker — is a remnant of that “we’re the boss” attitude House Democrats learned in their 58 years of total control of the House. A period refreshed with their four-year return to power from 2006-2010. They still think like the Senate Democrats of 1973, who ordered an investigation of Nixon — an investigation that eventually drove Nixon from office. Forcing Nixon out for doing exactly what LBJ had done.
There’s a lesson here for Congressman Gowdy. And while he may not know this history of Watergate, he most assuredly has well demonstrated a prosecutor’s drive to demand — and get — the facts. Not part of the facts. Or selected facts. All of the facts.
Every single e-mail involved in this episode must be placed in the hands of Gowdy’s committee. Every relevant person involved — from high to low — should find themselves sitting at that witness table. America can spend the summer getting to know not only what Hillary Clinton did and where the President was and what he was doing exactly. The country can learn just who is Tom Donilon, anyway? Who is Ben Rhodes? Probe the Dude’s memory and go over the scribblings of Tommy Vietor. Find every secretary, every night watchman. Be as thorough in investigating Obama as those Senate Democrats — and, yes, the Republicans — were in investigating Richard Nixon. Just… follow the facts.
But understand — and one suspects Congressman Gowdy already gets this — that House Democrats, not to mention the Obama White House — are going to do everything they possibly can to disrupt, block, circumvent, or thwart Gowdy’s effort at every turn. Just as in 1973 — when Senate Democrats blocked an investigation into LBJ that they knew could only lead to certain disaster for Democrats.
“Follow the money” was the command given to Woodward and Bernstein by their famous source “Deep Throat” — decades later revealed to be the FBI’s Associate Director Mark Felt. In fact, the money involved in Watergate was, of course, not just money. It was a fact.
Trey Gowdy is about following the facts.
The last thing America needs is another bunch of legislators — not to mention a president and his staff — deliberately playing fast and loose with the truth.
As South Carolina’s Congressman Trey Gowdy, the new chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, begins his task, it is worth recalling a lesson from Watergate. Specifically a lesson about the creation of what became known as the Senate Watergate Committee — and how the Senate Republicans of 1973 lost a fight that literally changed the course of American history.
The date is November 17, 1972. The Democrats in the United States Senate are not happy with the results of the just concluded presidential election in which their nominee and Senate colleague, South Dakota’s Senator George McGovern, had lost 49 states — all but Massachusetts and the District of Columbia — to President Richard Nixon.
In the middle of the campaign — back in June — the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee had been burglarized. Among other things, the objective was to bug the phones to monitor the DNC Chairman, ex-JFK and LBJ White House aide Lawrence O’Brien. The story had been a detail of the campaign, but a small one. Not until October had the story gained any kind of traction, moving in a bigger way from print media and the hands of the Washington Post’s young reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to television. Walter Cronkite at CBS had spent two nights in a row on the scandal, a big deal in a day where the three TV networks only had a single half-hour news show at the dinner hour. There were strands of a story — a connection between Nixon’s re-election committee, the story of an intelligence fund at the committee. And not much else. The news reports had no effect whatsoever on Nixon’s impending landslide victory.
During that campaign there had been a Senate election in Montana, a re-election campaign for the state’s junior senator Lee Metcalf, a Democrat. His senior colleague and fellow Democrat Mike Mansfield, out campaigning hard for Metcalf, had seen the news reports on the burglary. Understanding that McGovern was about to go under in a tidal wave, Mansfield told Montana voters that when the election was over he would go back to Washington and “pave the way” (his words) for an investigation not just of the Watergate break-in but the whole business of campaign financing.
The importance? Mike Mansfield was not just a run-of-the-mill U.S. Senator. He was the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate. The Harry Reid of his day.
Mansfield kept his vow. On November 17 he wrote two letters. One to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Eastland of Mississippi. The other to another Judiciary member and Democrat, North Carolina Senator Sam Ervin. Mansfield’s flat assertion? That Republicans had manipulated the presidential election of 1972 with a “cynical and dangerous intrusion into the integrity of the electoral processes by which the people of the nation choose the trustees of federal office…”
On February 5, 1973 Mansfield went out with his resolution to create what was formally titled the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. It would soon become known to history as the Senate Watergate Committee.
The Republican response?
If in fact the Democrats really believed that it was critical to investigate what Mansfield had called a “cynical and dangerous intrusion into the integrity of the electoral processes by which the people of the nation choose the trustees of federal office” then that was fine by them. Game on. Immediately they offered an amendment to include in the new Select Committee’s purview not just the 1972 election — but the 1968 and 1964 presidential elections as well.
Why? Specifically.
• 1964 and the Johnson-Goldwater campaign: Under the orders from President Lyndon B. Johnson, the White House was used as the headquarters of a dirty tricks “Anti-Campaign” operation — with the FBI used to wiretap the Goldwater campaign.
As Lee Edwards would later describe in his biography Goldwater: The Man Who Made a Revolution:
Essential to the White House’s dirty tricks was the Anti-Campaign, a political operation conceived by and watched over by Johnson himself. Run by about a dozen experienced Washington-based Democrats, the Anti-Campaign churned out clandestine “black propaganda.” No minutes or notes were kept of the meetings, held in a small conference room on the second floor of the West Wing of the White House, almost directly above the Oval Office. Its members included Myer Feldman, the president’s special counsel; Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then an assistant secretary of labor; Leonard Marks, an old friend of Johnson who later became director of the U.S. Information Agency; James Sundquist, an assistant secretary of agriculture and former speechwriter for Truman; and Hyman Bookbinder, a former labor lobbyist and future Washington representative of the American Jewish Committee.…
But the Anti-Campaign was only one part of the massive anti-Goldwater operation. The Democrats had many tricks up their sleeves. By the middle of September, Goldwater’s regional directors were convinced that the telephones at the Republican national headquarters were bugged. All the important offices were periodically swept for listening devices, but important information, often important, still leaked to the Democrats. Once, at a private meeting in John Grenier’s office, several directors were discussing the possibility of a campaign stop by the senator in the Chicago area. Sam Hay suggested that East St. Louis, Illinois, be added to the itinerary and called the Republican chairman of Cook County who agreed. Within the hour, a Chicago Tribune reporter called Hay to say that he had heard Goldwater would be coming to town, and he wanted the details.
To protect themselves, many of the regional directors began to make their confidential calls from a pay telephone outside the building.….
In the fall of 1964, Johnson directed J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI to bug the Goldwater campaign plane and to conduct security checks of Goldwater’s staff.… Hoover revealed that in 1964, the bureau, on orders from the Oval Office, had bugged the Goldwater campaign.”• 1968 and the Nixon-Humphrey campaign: Again under orders from LBJ, the FBI bugged the Nixon campaign.
In RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, published in 1978, Nixon wrote:Because of [Watergate burglar James] McCord’s connection to the CRP [Nixon’s Committee to Re-elect the President], his arrest had turned the Watergate break-in [in June 1972] into a hot news story. Larry O’Brien [the chairman of the Democratic National Committee whose offices were the target of the Watergate burglar’s bugging operation] in hyperbolic terms claimed that “the bugging incident… raised the ugliest questions about the integrity of the political process that I have encountered in a quarter century of political activity.”…
My reaction to the Watergate break-in was completely pragmatic. If it was also cynical, it was a cynicism born of experience. I had been in politics too long, and seen everything from dirty tricks to vote fraud. I could not muster much moral outrage over a political bugging.
Larry O’Brien might affect astonishment and horror, but he knew as well as I did that political bugging had been around nearly since the invention of the wiretap. As recently as 1970 a former member of [Democratic 1952 and 1956 presidential nominee and 1960 candidate] Adlai Stevenson’s campaign staff had publicly stated that he had tapped the Kennedy organization’s phone lines at the 1960 Democratic convention. Lyndon Johnson felt that the Kennedys had had him tapped; Barry Goldwater said that his 1964 campaign had been bugged; and [FBI Director] J. Edgar Hoover told me that in 1968 Johnson had ordered my campaign plane bugged.
Stop.
So the FBI, per the Director of the FBI, was directly ordered by President Lyndon Johnson to bug both the Goldwater campaign plane in 1964 and the Nixon campaign plane in 1968. And there was a regular “Anti-Campaign” dirty tricks operation operating out of the Johnson White House during the 1964 campaign. By the personal direction of LBJ — and meeting in a West Wing conference room right over the Oval Office itself.
If there was to be a Senate Select Committee investigating what Mike Mansfield, called the “cynical and dangerous intrusion into the integrity of the electoral processes by which the people of the nation choose the trustees of federal office…” then let’s do just that, said Senate Republicans. So GOP Senators proposed investigating not just the presidential campaign of 1972, but 1964 and 1968 as well.
Answer from Democrats? Democrats had the votes in the Senate — so when the GOP proposed investigating LBJ and not just Nixon — the answer was: Hell, no. The GOP proposal was voted down.
To this day Americans know about the Senate Watergate Committee and the results it eventually produced — the resignation of Richard Nixon. For months in 1973 the Senate Watergate Committee patiently, day by day, exposed the activities of the Nixon White House — while deliberately covering up for the Johnson White House and the Democrats. What is not generally known is that LBJ and the Democrats were let off the off hook by Senate Democrats. The fix was in and it was simple. This was an attempt — a successful attempt — to nail Nixon for something his immediate predecessor had in fact done not in one presidential campaign but two. To paint Republicans of the day as corrupt. Period. It worked.
In a very real sense, perhaps the worst thing that happened to Senate and House Democrats was the long stretch of almost unbroken power they enjoyed beginning in 1932’s FDR landslide. From 1932 until 1980 — 48 years — the Democrats had the run of the U.S. Senate for 44 of the 48. Losing control only twice in two brief two-year stretches, 1946-1948 and again from 1952-1954. For those 48 years — that’s literally almost half a century — they dominated all the committees, the staff structure and they set the agenda. For House Democrats the run was even longer — losing control only in the same two cycles as their Senate counterparts, but ruling the House with an iron fist for an even longer reign in 58 of the 62 years between 1932-1994. Well over half-a-century. Such complete control inevitably bred a bold arrogance, an arrogance that in turn encouraged an even bolder hypocrisy which predictably bred corruption. Sauce for the goose was never sauce for the gander. It was OK to get Nixon — verboten to touch LBJ, the President who was, no coincidence, a former Senate Majority Leader himself from 1955 until his election as JFK’s vice president in 1960. By February of 1973 LBJ had died. So the double-standard from Senate Democrats, the bold “F-you” style hypocrisy in protecting even a dead LBJ was staggering.
The hangover from this period of total control has carried into the actions of today’s House and Senate Democrats.
Now comes the Benghazi investigation. The House GOP and Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina are in a very different place than the GOP Senators in 1973. In 1973 those GOP Senators lived in an environment where they had already been in the minority almost continuously since 1932, with a rabidly partisan left-leaning all-dominant media ruling the television air waves and the print media, the latter led by the pro-Johnson Washington Post and New York Times. In 1973 there was no Fox or talk radio or Internet. Hence GOP Senators were essentially forced to participate in an exercise that they knew ahead of time was fixed from the get-go. From the subject they were allowed to investigate — or not investigate — not to mention the media coverage they would receive, the Senate GOP of 1973 was in a very different situation than the GOP House of today.
The Pelosi threat not to participate in the Benghazi hearings or the demand to depart from the rules and suddenly have an even split of committee members — something Pelosi never did when she herself was Speaker — is a remnant of that “we’re the boss” attitude House Democrats learned in their 58 years of total control of the House. A period refreshed with their four-year return to power from 2006-2010. They still think like the Senate Democrats of 1973, who ordered an investigation of Nixon — an investigation that eventually drove Nixon from office. Forcing Nixon out for doing exactly what LBJ had done.
There’s a lesson here for Congressman Gowdy. And while he may not know this history of Watergate, he most assuredly has well demonstrated a prosecutor’s drive to demand — and get — the facts. Not part of the facts. Or selected facts. All of the facts.
Every single e-mail involved in this episode must be placed in the hands of Gowdy’s committee. Every relevant person involved — from high to low — should find themselves sitting at that witness table. America can spend the summer getting to know not only what Hillary Clinton did and where the President was and what he was doing exactly. The country can learn just who is Tom Donilon, anyway? Who is Ben Rhodes? Probe the Dude’s memory and go over the scribblings of Tommy Vietor. Find every secretary, every night watchman. Be as thorough in investigating Obama as those Senate Democrats — and, yes, the Republicans — were in investigating Richard Nixon. Just… follow the facts.
But understand — and one suspects Congressman Gowdy already gets this — that House Democrats, not to mention the Obama White House — are going to do everything they possibly can to disrupt, block, circumvent, or thwart Gowdy’s effort at every turn. Just as in 1973 — when Senate Democrats blocked an investigation into LBJ that they knew could only lead to certain disaster for Democrats.
“Follow the money” was the command given to Woodward and Bernstein by their famous source “Deep Throat” — decades later revealed to be the FBI’s Associate Director Mark Felt. In fact, the money involved in Watergate was, of course, not just money. It was a fact.
Trey Gowdy is about following the facts.
The last thing America needs is another bunch of legislators — not to mention a president and his staff — deliberately playing fast and loose with the truth.
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3)“HIGHER EDUCATION AT VASSER HAS FALLEN INTO THE HANDS OF THE BARBARIANS” .WHY WOULD YOU SEND YOUR CHILD TO EXPENSIVE SCHOOLS TO FACE SUCH VIRULENT ANTI-SEMITISM
'Vile at Vassar'
Thomas Lifson
Anti-Semites are running wild on US campuses, with far too little blowback. The situation at Vassar College, once a respected elite campus, is so dire that the New York Daily News had editorialized:
After allowing an anti-Semitic, anti-Israel infection to fester for months, the president of Vassar College has finally taken a stand for academic freedom and decency. That it took a display of actual World War II Nazi propaganda for her to act is appalling.
President Catharine Hill slammed the anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine after the group attempted to tar pro-Israel advocates by displaying on the Internet a poster created in 1944 to sow anti-American feeling among the Dutch under German rule.
The cartoon image, under the heading “Liberators,” shows a monster stomping on a European city while wearing a Star of David, holding a money bag clutched by a long-nosed man, bearing a U.S. flag and cloaked in a Ku Klux Klan hood.
Here is a cropped image of the poster in question:
In the lead exposing the anti-Semites at Vassar has been Cornell University clinical* law professor William Jacobson, the publisher of Legal Insurrection, and before he started his own site, a contributor to American Thinker. Jacobson stood up to the Jew haters at Vassar, who include a substantial number of faculty members. The American professoriate has been deeply corrupted by leftists who put politics above all. The Daily News continues:
Thirty-nine professors protested after Hill properly said in January that Vassar would not join the American Studies Association’s anti-Semitism-tinged call for boycotting Israeli universities.The 39 backed the boycott, with some asserting that Hill’s action “silenced discourse on campus,” as one put it. Duh, they claim they want dialogue while supporting a boycott against dialogue.Then it turned out that the 39 lacked the courage of their convictions. When Cornell University Law School professor Bill Jacobson challenged the entire group to debate the merits of boycotting Israel, they all ducked. So on May 5, Jacobson spoke — without fee — on campus at the invitation of the Vassar Conservative Libertarian Union, which is headed by a Muslim student.The libertarian union had sought co-sponsorships for Jacobson’s talk from numerous student groups and academic departments. All refused, a fact that demonstrates how strongly anti-Israel sentiment holds sway at Vassar, perhaps inducing a climate of fear among those who feel otherwise.Consider that five days before Jacobson’s visit, Israel-bashers Ali Abunimah and Max Blumenthal stopped at Vassar on a national road show selling separate books calling for Israel’s destruction. Paid for by student activity fees and departmental funds, their event was sponsored not only by SJP but by Vassar’s departments of religion, political science, sociology, English and geography.
So at Vassar, student funds are used to pay for anti-Semites, but those who speak against them must appear gratis. It is good that the president is finally acting, but this has taken far too long. Higher education in America has fallen into barbarian hands in too many instances.
*corrected from adjunct
Anti-Semites are running wild on US campuses, with far too little blowback. The situation at Vassar College, once a respected elite campus, is so dire that the New York Daily News had editorialized:
After allowing an anti-Semitic, anti-Israel infection to fester for months, the president of Vassar College has finally taken a stand for academic freedom and decency. That it took a display of actual World War II Nazi propaganda for her to act is appalling.
President Catharine Hill slammed the anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine after the group attempted to tar pro-Israel advocates by displaying on the Internet a poster created in 1944 to sow anti-American feeling among the Dutch under German rule.
The cartoon image, under the heading “Liberators,” shows a monster stomping on a European city while wearing a Star of David, holding a money bag clutched by a long-nosed man, bearing a U.S. flag and cloaked in a Ku Klux Klan hood.
Here is a cropped image of the poster in question:
In the lead exposing the anti-Semites at Vassar has been Cornell University clinical* law professor William Jacobson, the publisher of Legal Insurrection, and before he started his own site, a contributor to American Thinker. Jacobson stood up to the Jew haters at Vassar, who include a substantial number of faculty members. The American professoriate has been deeply corrupted by leftists who put politics above all. The Daily News continues:
Thirty-nine professors protested after Hill properly said in January that Vassar would not join the American Studies Association’s anti-Semitism-tinged call for boycotting Israeli universities.The 39 backed the boycott, with some asserting that Hill’s action “silenced discourse on campus,” as one put it. Duh, they claim they want dialogue while supporting a boycott against dialogue.Then it turned out that the 39 lacked the courage of their convictions. When Cornell University Law School professor Bill Jacobson challenged the entire group to debate the merits of boycotting Israel, they all ducked. So on May 5, Jacobson spoke — without fee — on campus at the invitation of the Vassar Conservative Libertarian Union, which is headed by a Muslim student.The libertarian union had sought co-sponsorships for Jacobson’s talk from numerous student groups and academic departments. All refused, a fact that demonstrates how strongly anti-Israel sentiment holds sway at Vassar, perhaps inducing a climate of fear among those who feel otherwise.Consider that five days before Jacobson’s visit, Israel-bashers Ali Abunimah and Max Blumenthal stopped at Vassar on a national road show selling separate books calling for Israel’s destruction. Paid for by student activity fees and departmental funds, their event was sponsored not only by SJP but by Vassar’s departments of religion, political science, sociology, English and geography.
So at Vassar, student funds are used to pay for anti-Semites, but those who speak against them must appear gratis. It is good that the president is finally acting, but this has taken far too long. Higher education in America has fallen into barbarian hands in too many instances.
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