Kissinger On Trump. Dana Says No. di Blasio An Ignoramus. My Ranting About An FBI Ignoring The Rule of Law and A President Winking. Keep America Last!

Just back from wonderful wedding in Atlanta.

I hope all my friends, who are fathers and fellow memo readers, had a wonderful Father's Day.  I did except for the fact Dana Perino turned me down to be our next President's Day Speaker.  She gave no reason and I e mailed back her Father's Day Gift was a bummer.

I have  four other speakers I am trying to entice so am keeping my fingers crossed.
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From a wonderful, long time family friend and fellow memo reader: "Loved the picture of Daniel and his beautiful family. Stella is ADORABLE and already has the Berkowitz charisma. 
Speaking of beautiful.,  Lynn looks great!!

Thanks for your thoughtful and insightful explanation of the Muddle (was that an unintentional slip?)  East and insight into Angela Merkel. Your memos always help clarify what I hear. You know you shape my world view. 

Have a great trip. I know how busy you both will be catching up with your Atlanta friends but if you see an Opportunity, L---- and I would love to host you for a meal at L-------.  

Safe travels!!!

M----"

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nhjvoJatKOY

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This from last week's WSJ Lead Editorial.

I doubt all my friends who praised Comey's book and urged me to read it will agree that he is a self-serving scumbag .

Kim Strassel looking better and better when it comes to her op ed investigative writing about this sordid phase of FBI history. (See 1 below.)


http://thefederalist.com/2018/06/15/11-quick-things-know-inspector-generals-report/#.WyQljhic4u4.aolmail

Kissinger on Trump. (See 1a below.)

And:

Holman Jenkins (See 1b below.)

Finally:  From my English girlfriend:" I saw this on the BBC News App and thought you should see it:

The Brexit comic using satire to 'laugh at our leaders'"++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Mayor de Blasio is an ignoramus. I used to think Alabamians were dumb as dirt and then I learned to read and then visited/discovered  New Yorkers.

Between California's political lunacy and New Yorker's apathy I believe my oft comment that America is a bar-bell nation has proven insightful.  I rest my case. (See 2 below.)
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More Ranting. (See 3 below.)

I want to do some random  ranting of my own about several personal concerns:

a) I have no problem with Trump's effort to right some trade treaty wrongs outside the scope and rules of the WTO Treaty.  There are those who honestly disagree but working within the dictates of this agreement's terms takes eons and Trump only has 4 to 8 years to accomplish his goals.

b) The politics of hate and weaponization of most everything in our society has reached destructive levels.  I do not have a corrective answer. The dumbing down of America, as Professor Bloom warned, has laid the foundation for our inability to engage in constructive discourse among other reasons..

c) I find it perverse that Director Wray, by his own admission, acknowledged, for a few minutes,  the IG's report was a stinging rebuke of the way The FBI handled the Clinton matter  and then proceeded for the remainder of his time defending The FBI, telling us what a wonderful organization it is, how they have saved our nation from many terrible events etc. However, Wray never explained and/or admitted Comey's crowd besmirched the rule of law.

America's most powerful law enforcement agency was allowed to operate outside the rule of law because of arrogant leadership. Think about that.  Let that sink in and if you do not get goosebumps then you are either cynical or impervious to the fact that we are a nation, a people, who supposedly profess to our adherance to the rule of law.

I am sure most will admit The FBI does some wonderful things but when an organization can be turned into what Comey and his lackeys were willing  to ignore and  under the auspices of a president who not only condoned its actions but probably directed them in a veiled and subtle manner, there is truly something "Rotten in Denmark!"

I believe the stench reaches right into Obama's Oval Office but he was shrewd enough to leave no detectable  fingerprints just as The IG concluded there was no discernible bias. Comey's investigation was smeared with bias but not in a detectable manner.

d) There is nothing Trump can do that will find a modicum of favor with Democrats.  If he negotiates in person he is giving Korea's leader prominence, if he puts their flag with ours he is 'koshering' a monstrous nation, but when he was elected president he was the man who was heading us directly into war.

When he cut taxes he was helping corporations receive undeserved billions while only giving "crumbs" to the "despicable"  little guy. When he twitters he is being un-presidential and when he opens his mouth lies fly out  but his mass media detractors are absolved for unwarranted and false attacks and so-called  comedians and Hollywood types are excused for their disgusting display of sick humor and behaviour.

The hatred towards a man who is working to return America to its rightful position of leadership after eight years of withdrawal and feckless-deceitful policies and Democrats who want to see him fail at the cost of our nation is beyond amazing.  

If Trump "Wants To Make America Great Again" I surmise Democrats would be pleased to "Keep America Last."

e) Generally speaking, when matters get too good on Main Street it eventually does not go well for Wall Street.  Why?  Because too much of a good thing forces  The Fed to raise rates, abnormal wage gains bite into earnings, inflation begins to rise and excesses creep into the economy that must be painfully wrung out over time.

 Also a strong dollar can become a mixed blessing. 

Are we at the tipping point?  No, I believe the economy is on a reasonable sound footing for the moment but the recovery is in its 9th plus year and, yes, it came from a very low point. Perhaps four or five of those years can be attributed to catch up and righting the ship of state. However, during this period our deficit mostly doubled and continues to grow siphoning more capital away from the private sector and the rise in interest rates is also having an impact on the % debt commands of  GDP.  Add to this the slowdown in growth in Europe and the unresolved issues involving The Middle East, N Korea , Trade and China's growing appetite to militarize its spreading influence there is much to think about that is fraught with danger in terms of a market that is a bit frothy.

f) Finally, I do believe Democrats offer no solutions other than contempt and desire to despoil and impede That said,  negativism always attracts but can it win them the recapture of The House? I think not unless the Republicans fail to deliver on some promises Trump still wants to accomplish before the mid-terms, most specifically the immigration issues. 

Democrats are currently busy making a big issue out of immigrant  family separation.  It touches the raw  nerve of American sensibilities when it comes to breaking up families but I remember Democrats allowed a Cuban kid to be sent back to Castro's Cuba and some Miamians were upset but America mostly yawned. Which bring me to another peeve, ie. selective discontent. There is nothing I find more distasteful than "Hollywood Hypocrisy."  Liberals/progressives  seem awash with this affliction.

Well enough ranting. It is a new week and we will be served another round of watching the tug of war between Congressional Oversight Committees trying to wrest documents, they are entitled to have, from a Justice Department and FBI that seem to believe they are beyond reach and can operate in an autonomous manner. And don't forget about the IG testifying and Rep. Schiff\, Seaker Pelosi and Sen. "Upchuck" continuing to make fools of themselves as they run cover for their brand of "despicables."
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Dick

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1)

The Disgrace of Comey’s FBI

The damning IG report shows the urgent need to restore public trust.

By  The Editorial Board

The long-awaited Inspector General’s report on the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton investigation makes for depressing reading for anyone who cares about American democracy. Self-government depends on public trust in its institutions, especially law enforcement. The IG’s 568-page report makes clear that the FBI under former director James Comey betrayed that public trust in a way not seen since J. Edgar Hoover.

We use the Hoover analogy advisedly, realizing that the problem in this case was not rampant illegal spying. Though IG Michael Horowitz’s conclusions are measured, his facts are damning. They show that Mr. Comey abused his authority, broke with long-established Justice Department norms, and deceived his superiors and the public.

The issue of political bias is almost beside the point. The IG scores Mr. Comey for “ad hoc decisionmaking based on his personal views.” Like Hoover, Mr. Comey believed that he alone could protect the public trust. And like Hoover, this hubris led him to make egregious mistakes of judgment that the IG says “negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the department as fair administrators of justice.”While the IG says Mr. Comey’s decisions were not the result of “political bias,” he presided over an investigating team that included agents who clearly were biased against Donald Trump. The damage to the bureau’s reputation—and to thousands of honest agents—will take years to repair.

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The report scores Mr. Comey in particular for his “conscious decision not to tell [Justice] Department leadership about his plans to independently announce” an end to the investigation at his July 5 press conference in which he exonerated but criticized Mrs. Clinton. And the IG also scores his action 11 days before the 2016 presidential election, on October 28, to send a letter to Congress saying the investigation had been reopened.

The decision to prosecute belongs to the Attorney General and Justice, not the FBI. And the FBI does not release derogatory information on someone against whom it is not bringing charges. Regarding the October letter informing Congress that the FBI was renewing the investigation, FBI policy is not to announce investigations. “We found unpersuasive Comey’s explanation,” deadpans the IG.

“We found that it was extraordinary and insubordinate for Comey to conceal his intentions from his superiors, the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, for the admitted purpose of preventing them from telling him not to make the statement, and to instruct his subordinates in the FBI to do the same,” says the report.

“Comey waited until the morning of his press conference to inform [Attorney General Loretta] Lynch and [Deputy Attorney General Sally ] Yates of his plans to hold one without them, and did so only after first notifying the press. As a result, Lynch’s office learned about Comey’s plans via press inquiries rather than from Comey. Moreover, when Comey spoke with Lynch he did not tell her what he intended to say in his statement.”

All of this underscores the case that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made when he advised President Trump in May 2017 that he should fire Mr. Comey. The President’s mistake was not firing Mr. Comey immediately upon taking office on Jan. 20, 2017, as some of us advised at the time.

As for political bias, the IG devotes a chapter to the highly partisan texts exchanged over FBI phones between FBI personnel. The IG says he found no evidence that political bias affected investigative decisions, but the details will be fodder for those who think otherwise.

For one thing, the political opinions ran in only one direction—against Mr. Trump. Then there is the case of FBI agent Peter Strzok and his decision to prioritize the Russian investigation over following up on Mrs. Clinton’s emails. The IG concludes that Mr. Strzok’s “text messages led us to conclude that we did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision was free from bias.”

The specific Strzok message the IG cites is one in which he responded to a text from his paramour, Lisa Page, asking for reassurance that Mr. Trump was “not ever going to become president, right?” Mr. Strzok replied, “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”

Senator Ron Johnson’s office reports that his committee had received the first part of this exchange— Ms. Page’s question—from Justice. But somehow Mr. Strzok’s astonishing reply wasn’t included. If this was deliberate, the official who ordered this exclusion should be publicly identified and fired.

The report also chronicles a long list of other questionable judgments by the FBI and Justice. These include waiting until late October to announce that the FBI was seeking a search warrant for Anthony Weiner’s laptop, though “virtually every fact that was cited” to justify the move had been known a month before.

And the report criticizes the decision to let Mrs. Clinton’s attorneys, Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, attend the FBI’s interview with Mrs. Clinton when they were potential witnesses to her possible offenses. This was “inconsistent with typical investigative strategy and gave rise to accusations of bias and preferential treatment,” the IG says.

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The unavoidable conclusion is that Mr. Comey’s FBI became a law unto itself, accountable to no one but the former director’s self-righteous conscience. His refusal to follow proper guidelines interfered with a presidential election campaign in a way that has caused millions of Americans in both parties to justifiably cry foul.

This should never happen in a democracy, and steps must be taken so that it never does again. Mr. Horowitz deserves credit for an investigation that was thorough, informative and unplagued by leaks. But it is not the final word. Next week he will be testifying before Congress to flesh out and clarify his findings. Congress should also call FBI agents as witnesses.

The larger damage here is to trust in institutions that are vital to self-government. Mr. Trump will use the facts to attack the FBI, but most agents are honest and nonpartisan. Christopher Wray, the new FBI director, promised Thursday to implement the IG’s recommendations, but his cleanup task is larger. He can start by ending the FBI’s stonewall of Congress on document requests.

Mr. Wray and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have to understand that radical measures are needed to restore public trust in both the FBI and Justice Department. If they won’t do it, someone else must.

1a)Kissinger is now 94 years

Recently, Henry Kissinger did an interview and said very amazing things regarding President Trump.  He starts with:   “Donald Trump is a phenomenon that foreign countries haven’t seen before”!

The former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger gives us a new understanding of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy and predicts its success:  “Liberals and all those who favor (Hillary) Clinton will never admit it. They will never admit that he is the one true leader. The man is doing changes like never before and does all of it for the sake of this nation’s people.   After eight years of tyranny, we finally see a difference.”

Kissinger knows it and he continues with: “Every country now has to consider two things: One, their perception that the previous president, or the outgoing president, basically withdrew America from international politics, so that they had to make their own assessments of their necessities. And secondly, that there is a new president who’s asking a lot of unfamiliar questions. And because of the combination of the partial vacuum and the new questions, one could imagine that something remarkable and new emerges out of it.”

Then Kissinger puts it bluntly:    “Trump puts America and its people first. This is why people love him and this is why he will remain in charge for so long. There is not a single thing wrong with him and people need to open their eyes.”  When he boasts that he has a “bigger red button” than Kim Jung Un does, he so transcends the mealy-mouthed rhetoric of the past, thereby forcing a new recognition of American power. 

Kissinger once wrote:   “The weak grow strong by effrontery – The strong grow weak through inhibition!” No sentence better captures the U.S.-North Korea relationship.

Trump is discarding the inhibitions and calling the bluff on North Korea’s effrontery:   His point is that the contrast of American retreat under Obama and its new assertion of power under Trump creates a new dynamic that every one of our allies and of our enemies must consider.  Our allies grew complaisant with Obama’s passivity and now are fearful due to Trump’s activism. And they must balance the two in developing their policies:   They realize that the old assumptions, catalyzed by Bush 43’s preoccupation with Iraq and Obama’s refusal to lead are obsolete.  So, Trump is forcing a new calculus with a new power behind American interests.  Those — here and abroad — who rode the old apple cart worry about its being toppled.

But, as Kissinger so boldly stated:     “Trump is the one true leader in world affairs and he is forcing policy changes that put America first! ”

1b) Open Up the Horowitz Secret Appendix

The public needs to know the history of the Russian info that had a big effect on Mr. Comey’s decisions.

By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report points to multiple irregularities in FBI chief James Comey’s actions in the 2016 election campaign, sees no evidence of political bias, but never really gets to the bottom of why Mr. Comey played the role he did.

Mr. Comey may have been worried that a Justice Department decision not to prosecute Mrs. Clinton would lack credibility, but it was in no sense his obligation to solve this problem. It simply was not the FBI chief’s job to relieve the Obama administration of the need to sell its decision to the electorate. This is why we have elections. It’s what political accountability is all about.

This is where Russia enters in. It is highly absurd at this point to keep this information secret, as Mr. Horowitz does in a classified appendix.

We already know from press reporting last year that the FBI was in possession of some kind of Russian intercept of a purported Democratic email that referred to an alleged conversation between Clinton aide Amanda Renteria and Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

Mr. Horowitz says Mr. Comey did not find the information credible, didn’t investigate it, and didn’t tell his Justice Department superiors about it.

Except that as recently as a few weeks ago in a TV interview Mr. Comey indicated the information might not be false. Hmm.

One more thing we learn: The same classified source reported an allegation that Mr. Comey himself would seek to delay the Hillary investigation to aid Republicans.

So the information wasn’t credible, wasn’t investigated, and wasn’t shared with his superiors. We also don’t know which agency it came from or what discussions about its relevance took place. And yet it was hugely consequential. Mr. Comey himself tells us in his memoir that this classified information was pivotal to his decision to intervene. He feared it would leak and be used to discredit any DOJ decision to clear Mrs. Clinton.

Let’s pause here. Readers may have noticed a slight elision in my May 30 column on these matters. Mr. Comey’s second intervention, the one reopening the Hillary investigation shortly before the election, was one intervention that was not based on Russian intelligence.

It was also the one intervention decidedly not urged on Mr. Comey or favored by his Obama administration colleagues.

But consider: Mr. Comey by this point could not have failed to notice that all the FBI’s interventions were tending to benefit Mrs. Clinton. He could not have failed to notice that the intelligence basis for his actions (e.g., the Steele dossier) was disconcertingly thin.

He would have been lacking in shrewdness not to wonder if Obama spy masters were playing him for a sap. When the Anthony Weiner laptop surfaced, he would have had every reason to be eager to re-establish his bona fides with his GOP congressional overseers as somebody who in retrospect would be seen to have played an evenhanded role in the election.

Voilà. Yet this line of inquiry has not been so much neglected as dropped by the media. Virtually no press accounts this week even mention Mr. Horowitz’s classified appendix.

This is not exactly surprising. Democrats and Mr. Trump’s press critics ecstatically embraced the Russian interference theme but, unfortunately for them, the Russian interference theme also gives coherence and motive to the story they wish to ignore. This story concerns a consistent pattern of meddling in the race by our own intelligence agencies, using Russian intelligence as an excuse.

Indeed, a fact becomes clearer than ever, especially from the poorly self-serving babblings of former Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper : The now-defunct theory that Mr. Trump was Russia’s cat’s-paw had been widely adopted at the highest echelons of the Obama administration. It inspired many of the administration’s actions.

It almost goes without saying that Russia at first would have looked on Mr. Trump’s candidacy as the U.S. establishment did, as a joke, discrediting our democracy.

That Russian trolls were keen to promote the Trump phenomenon seemed obvious to this columnist from August 2015, as I’ve pointed out.

But this does not delegitimize Mr. Trump or the message his voters were trying to send by electing him. The Kremlin was no less blinkered and smug than our own establishment, a k a Mr. Comey, in its understanding of the Trump phenomenon and contempt for democratic outcomes.

Mr. Comey’s actions unfurl more as a comedy of arrogance rather than a conspiracy, though conspiratorial elements certainly came to be involved, especially in promoting leakage of the Steele dossier and various innuendo against the incoming Trump administration.

Not for the first time, we wonder how the Trump presidency might have been different, and how much opportunity the country might not now be squandering, if Democrats had decided to understand his election as an interesting, anti-partisan, possibly providential anomaly rather than inventing conspiracy theories about it.

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2) The Attack on Educational Excellence

Schools considered ‘too Asian’ were once branded ‘too white’ or ‘too Jewish.’

By Jason L. Riley

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio stands 6½ feet tall but still managed to come up short last week. The progressive Democrat wanted to eliminate the entrance exam for the city’s eight elite public high schools to ensure that more black and Hispanic students were admitted. State lawmakers, citing opposition from Asian families, blocked the move. Good for them.

The number of available slots at these schools is fixed, and last year Asian students were awarded 52.5% of them, according to the city’s Department of Education. By contrast, whites comprised 28% of the total, while Latinos and blacks were 6.5% and 3.8%, respectively. You’ll find similarly lopsided racial and ethnic results in other large cities—Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia—where black and Latino students are underrepresented in academically selective public high schools while whites and Asians are over represented.

Asian families in particular fear that replacing an objective test with what amounts to a racial quota system would come at the expense of Asian children. Given that other schools and programs for high-achieving students around the country are being pressed to become more “diverse,” those concerns are understandable.

After the Montgomery County school district in Maryland changed admissions standards for gifted-and-talented programs—by broadening the definition of “gifted,” among other adjustments—black and Latino acceptance rates ticked up while Asian admissions fell. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is an elite magnet school in Northern Virginia that also uses an entrance exam. The school’s acceptance rate matches Georgetown University’s (just 17%) and its student body last year was 2.2% Latino, 1.5% black and nearly two-thirds Asian. A 2017 profile of the high school in Washingtonian magazine noted that administrators are under constant pressure from outsiders to increase the number of black and Latino students by watering down the selection criteria.

In the upside-down thinking of affirmative-action advocates, academically rigorous schools should be more focused on achieving racial balance and less focused on maintaining high standards. Asian displays of academic excellence therefore become problematic. Asians are somehow to blame for outperforming others, and they are to be punished for the historical injustices that blacks suffered at the hands of whites. This is what happens when you try to reconcile what is irreconcilable: group preferences on the one hand and equal treatment of individuals on the other.

But Mr. de Blasio’s decision to call for an end to the test, instead of calling for better test preparation, is also revealing. What he and other critics of selective schools are saying is that these low-income black and Latino kids will never measure up, so we must stop trying to measure them. The mayor and his allies seem to have given up on the very students they claim to be helping. How, exactly, you help one group by holding it to lower standards than other groups isn’t clear. Deciding which groups deserve special treatment is also problematic. Schools today that are considered “too Asian” were in times past branded “too white” or “too Jewish.”

Mr. de Blasio and his fellow education egalitarians also conveniently ignore the ample evidence of minority academic success because it undermines their argument that the problem is the exam requirement, not poor exam preparation. But if the mayor is genuinely concerned with increasing the number of black and brown students matriculating at top high schools like Bronx Science and Stuyvesant, he ought to pay a visit to one of New York’s high-achieving public charter schools.

Success Academy, for example, operates 46 public charter schools in New York. They serve more than 15,000 students, the vast majority of whom are poor and black or Latino. Success students regularly shellac their peers in the city and state on standardized tests. A spokeswoman for Success Academy told me by email that the acceptance rate for Success applicants at the city’s elite schools this year was more than double that of black and Latino students citywide, and “there were three Success middle schools whose students of color were three to four times as likely to gain admission.” This year, Success Academy graduated its first high-school class, and all of its members are college-bound. These students didn’t need someone to make school admissions tests less rigorous. They needed educators and education-policy makers who believed in them.

Similarly, Mr. de Blasio doesn’t need to overhaul admissions at high-performance schools to boost percentages of minority students. Instead, he could give successful charter schools, private schools and parochial schools more access to underprivileged students—something he has resisted out of fealty to teachers union leaders who vehemently oppose school choice. Here’s an idea: Leave the best schools alone, and make sure the next mayor cares less about union support and more about the 47,800 children now sitting on New York’s charter school waiting list.

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3)The data continue to show that the EU is in decline again, and is not expected to improve for quite a while. The ECB continues with QE, and now has a larger balance sheet than the Fed at $4.6 trillion Euros, or 43% of EU GDP vs Fed balance sheet being run off and at 22% of GDP. This data alone tells us that the EU is far from out of trouble, even though it has had some recovery the past year. Unemployment is still 8.5%. Although that is the lowest in ten years, it is still terrible by US standards. Low rates still keep zombie companies alive. Greece and Italy are still in crisis. The ECB deposit rate for banks is still -.4%, vs 2.5% for the Fed. The dollar is high, and the Euro is still slipping. Given all of the political turmoil in the EU, the risks are very high that they will continue to have serious problems for years to come. There is also recent evidence that Merkel is having major problems holding her coalition together for long, and there could have to be another election in Germany in the next year. There is a major push in Germany to kick out the Muslim refugees, similar to Poland and Hungary, and now Italy. (it is not just Trump-it is in many countries) That will be the end of the Merkel, and maybe German domination of the EU. There is no way to know what happens then as the refugee influx is having an even greater impact on politics as time goes on. Brexit will happen in March and upset the stability of the EU even further. And now Trump has completely sent them into a turmoil on trade, NATO and Iran deal. Without Merkel, the EU will have political chaos as Macron and others jockey for the lead. It is clear the EU is no place to invest or own stocks or hard assets for a long time. The whole idea of the EU and having every country have a veto is unworkable once Merkel departs, as there will be a scramble for leadership of Germany and of the EU. Meantime the UK will go off on its own and will not have the economic decline many had predicted over Brexit. That will likely cause others to think about exit. At the same time Argentina is in collapse again, and Venezuela is completely non-functioning. Japan is still in QE. Compare all of this to the US and let that be a helpful guide to your investment strategy and politics. You can hate Trump the person, all you want, but his policies are really working even better than his people forecast, when much of the rest of the world is still in serious economic problems, even though doing much better than during the crash. China and the US will now totally dominate world economic activity, and that means geopolitical power. If Trump is really able to get N Korea to denuke, then Trump and the US will totally dominate. The US will win the trade battle because it is so much stronger than the EU and Canada. It will come down to Xi vs Trump, and both are smart enough to understand a trade war is not good for either. That is the fight you need to pay attention to. The rest is just noise.

It is clear the tax reform is working even better than expected. GDP is likely now to be headed for 4% this quarter and likely Q3. That will make a huge dent in the deficit, and it will justify the tax cuts as tax revenue will rise materially going forward as corporate profits move up by 20% or more. In retail, the way consumers are spending is interesting, and tells us that the tax cut really did make a difference in how consumers are feeling. You don’t spend on jewelry and furniture and going out to dinner unless you feel good about your economic and job situation. Department stores are down 14%, restaurants up 30%, electronics down 5%, furniture up 26%, jewelry up 16%, and sports related items up 3%. Home Depot continues to have record results which suggests homeowners are fixing up instead of selling. Take a look at Home Depot stock over the past couple of years to see where people are spending. Super markets are about to have real problems as Amazon, Wal Mart and Albi, the German discount super market, ramp up deep discount food. A lot of grocery anchored strip centers are going to have problems as regional chains fail. The whole food industry is in the early stages of major changes, and it is all good for inflation and for consumers. In November remember- “it is the economy stupid”.  

If you read some of the emails that were sent inside the FBI, and how Strozk was in charge of the Hilary investigation, and then the Trump investigation, you have to conclude there was very real bias bordering on what appears to be almost an attempted coup to “stop Trump from becoming president.  Now we learn there were several other to FBI agents who were equally biased. Horowitz can say there is no hard evidence of bias, but what is a text saying we will stop Trump”, if not scary. A top FBI manager saying such a thing??? Add on the text saying “Obama wants to know everything we are doing”, and you cannot deny there was some bad stuff happening in the election. And very likely Comey, by acting outside of procedure, inadvertently helped elect Trump. There can be no question his actions had an impact. It also means Mueller cannot indict Trump on obstruction, and there can be no impeachment, since Comey clearly deserved to be fired. When we see all that was going on, and we only know a little bit so far, we have to be very concerned about our democracy and our bedrock institutions. The continued cover up and stonewalling by Rosenstein and Wray has to stop. All the docs need to be released so we can all try to know the truth. Somebody independent, like a special commission of truly nonpartisan retired judges and constitutional scholars, needs to be formed to pull all of this together to clean it up. This mess makes Watergate look like kindergarten, and there are more IG reports to come, plus Mueller who is now compromised. Three senior FBI agents were part of the Mueller investigation, and were kicked out, and some of the lawyers are ardent Clinton supporters, and we are supposed to believe that investigation is not tainted? The swamp is truly fetid. The press is no longer honest nor objective. With all this, Sessions is AWOL. Strozk has still not been fired. Trump should fire Sessions, Rosenstein and Wray, and  bring in truly outstanding, non-partisan leaders to clean house and end the cover up.  He should order Rosenstein to turn over everything tomorrow morning. The voters have a right to know.  

All sides in this election acted badly, and the Russian attempts to interfere through Facebook just add a further complication. Trump, Pelosi, Schumer just add to the turmoil with their outlandish and stupid comments and tweets. The press lies and does make up fake news. The whole social media world of attacks on anyone, or any company, especially on campuses, that does not toe the PC line as perceived by the far left, is a real threat to democracy and freedom of speech, which is the most important underlying principal that makes America what it is. Universities, with their speech codes and bias teams ready rush in and punish anyone who speaks his mind and does not adhere to the Orwellian rules, is teaching the next generation it is OK to quash free speech.  The rush to claim everything is racist is setting back all the good progress we have made over the past several decades on racial equality. And Trump’s style just exacerbates the problems, and he is surely not the leader we need to work to end this awful mess.  Where is Ronald Regan when we really need him. I fear we are in for several more years of Washington turmoil, and ugly partisan battles. Nobody looks good in all this.

I strongly suggest you google Amy Wax U of P law school to see how free speech has been shut down on campus.  Also look for an op ed in the recent WSJ by Paul Levy who was very brave to resign from the school’s board and speak out over the levy situation.

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