Stephen Leary

President Trump, Kim Jong Un Planning Second Summit

2018-09-10T19:23:00.000-04:00

President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are planning a second summit. Trump received a letter from Kim calling for the summit.

The two leaders met for the first time in June in Singapore. Kim wants a formal end to the Korean War while Trump wants a solid commitment to denuclearization.

.@PressSec on letter from Kim Jong Un to @POTUS: "The primary purpose of the letter was to request and look to schedule another meeting with the president." pic.twitter.com/c8dgvhR1hF
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 10, 2018

South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted National Security Advisor John Bolton, who revealed that Kim, in a conversation with the South Korean leader Moon Jae-in, offered to denuclearize within one or two years.

Most so-called experts have opined that Kim and North Korea will never denuclearize. CNN news anchor Erin Burnett said at the time of the first summit that "there's no way around" Trump being a "great president" if he achieves a deal with North Korea.

(Photo courtesy whitehouse.gov)

If Trump can achieve the goal of North Korean denuclearization, many on the political left and the NeverTrumpers will eat crow, as they have predicted it can't happen.

Kim wants a deal before the end of Trump's first administration, as he appears wary of any presidential replacement and the prospects of an equitable deal with anyone but Trump.

Meanwhile, Trump has reacted positively to the new overtures, tweeting, "We will get it done together!"

Kim Jong Un of North Korea proclaims “unwavering faith in President Trump.” Thank you to Chairman Kim. We will get it done together!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2018

Peace with North Korea, an official end to the Korean War, and a denuclearized Korean peninsula. Sounds like a slam-dunk Nobel Peace Prize for Trump when all is said and done.

Does the NY Times Anti-Trump Op-Ed Writer Exist?

2018-09-09T14:05:00.000-04:00

The New York Times published an anonymous opinion piece on Sept. 5 that was purportedly written by a member of the Trump administration. The secret Trump critic calls himself part of "the resistance" and list what s/he believes are Trump's failures, both personal and political.

Does this secret person exist? Some question the honesty of the New York Times, suggesting that the anti-Trump newspaper invented this anti-Trump critic.

President Trump tweeted:

Does the so-called “Senior Administration Official” really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source? If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2018

Greg Gutfield, a host on Fox News, has indicated his belief that the New York Times invented the critic:

How you know @nytimes wrote it: Why would someone trying to work secretly to control Trump's harmful impulses write an op-ed piece for the NYT? Isn't that exactly the OPPOSITE thing you would do to control his impulses?
— GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) September 8, 2018

Many have called on the critic, assuming he exists, to do the honorable thing and resign. Trump has called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate the identity of the anonymous critic.

House Speaker Paul Ryan:

If you're not interested in helping the president, you shouldn't work for the president as far as I'm concerned.

Vice President Mike Pence:

It really is an assault on our democracy and it should be universally condemned.

It has been pointed out that President Obama prosecuted staff leakers, gave lie-detector tests, and was called "paranoid" by his own sycophant media. A report from the Committee to Protect Journalist quoted a New York Times Washington reporter calling Obama's White House "the most closed, control-freak administration I've ever covered."

Veteran left-wing journalist Carl Bernstein, a heavy Trump critic, called on the anonymous writer to reveal himself.

White House staffers believe the anonymous writer does exist and have narrowed down their list of suspects to just a handful.

Many believe the writer isn't really a "senior" White House staffer, as portrayed by the New York Times, which has a history of exaggerating the importance of their anonymous sources.

The op-ed is suspicious since it repeats so many things that the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets have been saying about Trump since he was elected. The NeverTrump crowd has made the same unsupportable charge that he is "amoral" without providing anything approaching convincing evidence. Amoral on the scale of Bill Clinton or JFK? Hardly.

The writer is upset over Trump's attacks on the press, oblivious to the fact that the mainstream media declared war on Trump even while he was still a candidate. The New York Times itself has published "rationales" explaining why the press must be biased against him, tossing aside standard journalistic objectivity. Journalism has a function, and engaging in a war with a president from the radical left of the political spectrum isn't part of the deal.

Without doubt, the anonymous critic could exist. Trump has allowed far too many Obama holdovers to remain in their positions, and they have no desire to further his agenda, but to thwart it. Countless federal workers in Washington DC are radical leftists who will continue to fight against any Republican. DC isn't called the Swamp for nothing, and the Swamp Creature epithet isn't undeserved.

As time passes without the op-ed writer coming forward or efforts designed to uncover his identity remain futile, the greater the likelihood that s/he is a fictional creation of the New York Times.

My Review of David Horowitz' "Big Agenda: President Trump's Plan to Save America"

2017-11-24T11:31:00.002-05:00

A Great Strategy If All Are Willing to Fight For It

By Stephen Leary

Despite all odds, political outsider Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016. But now he faces hostility from both Democrats and the GOP Establishment alike. How to push forward with his agenda when he faces enemies all around him in the Washington DC Swamp?

David Horowitz, in his book, Big Agenda: President Trump's Plan to Save America, tells us that Republicans aren’t interested in winning. They aren’t even interested in defeating the Democrats. They are working as hard as Democrats to defeat Trump.

Republicans didn’t fight Obama’s radical agenda because they were afraid of being called obstructionists, afraid of being stigmatized as heartless or racist or xenophobic. They couldn’t produce a political response to those attacks.

The chief strategy of Democratic political campaigns is to use character assassination. Horowitz points out that Democrats often defend their candidates no matter what the charge and no matter what the facts, while Republicans are quick to condemn their own. For example, Paul Ryan and many other Republicans who jumped off the Trump Train when an 11-year-old sex-talk-video was uncovered of Trump using crude language.

What to do?

Horowitz presents his strategy. The goal is to put Democrats on the defensive. “This can only be done by taking away their moral high ground…expose their hypocrisy and turn their firepower against them.”

Resistance begins with the will to confront the adversary head on—as President Trump has done. But Republicans are often wary of engaging in battle, unlike progressives and communists.

Before Trump, not a single Republican figure would have dared call Hillary a crook and a liar to her face, although she is both.

The first response to an attack by the left is to attack them in a way that is equally strong, that throws them off balance and puts them on the defensive, Horowitz recommends.

The Achilles Heel of the Democratic Party: its monopoly control of the inner cities of America and its responsibility for the misery and suffering inside them. The big cities they control are the centers of the worst poverty, highest crime rates, failing schools, and general hopelessness. Trump’s “New Deal” offered law and order, $130 Billion scholarship program, and high paying jobs.

To combat leftist indoctrination in our schools, Horowitz recommends Republicans persuade university administrators to better reflect diversity of political thought. Republicans control the purse strings that can be used to restrain the progressive juggernaut. Add intellectual, ideological or political into their diversity mission statements.

Horowitz blames Republicans, and rightly so, for sitting back and allowing the liberal agenda to take hold in our nation to its detriment. He presents many worthwhile ideas for taking back the nation.

But who will implement these ideas? The GOP Establishment? Hardly. To expect this group of Swamp Creatures to suddenly reverse course and change their nature is wishful thinking.

The problem with Horowitz’ prescriptions is they rely on Republicans to do something they haven’t done for half a century—confront the liberal agenda in our society. Washington DC is ruled by Swamp Creatures who have earned that ugly name for many solid reasons. They won’t change and nothing will be done as long as they are in charge.

The only change agents are President Trump and the #MAGA activists. But they are far outnumbered. The prospect of any significant change on these issues isn’t encouraging. Trump and his administration can only do so much without the full support of the GOP Establishment. But Horowitz points the way. It won’t be easy and total victory is a long way down the road.

My Review of Edward Klein's Book "All Out War: The Plot to Destroy Trump"

2017-11-10T17:04:00.001-05:00

President Trump faces an army of enemies on the political Left and Right, all warring against a democratically-elected president they feel is unworthy of the office. Edward Klein’s book draws on interviews with many players who provide new enlightening information on the unprecedented war waged against a President of the United States. But Trump is no easy opponent to defeat. As Klein says, his enemies always underestimate his ability to bounce back after a beating.

Trump’s vanquished opponent, Hillary Clinton, suffered from medical issues that were hidden as much as possible from the public. If they had been revealed, it was believed they would have derailed her campaign. Klein reveals Hillary’s scary coughing fit while visiting President Obama and his wife in the Oval Office. A White House doctor attended to her while the Obamas waited outside worried for her health. The Hillary they saw in the Oval Office wasn’t the same one shown to the public at rallies and the debates.

Klein includes the text of an FBI field report on the various Resistance groups and figures, published for the first time in this book. Concern was raised on their penchant for violence and government sabotage. Meetings were held where government workers discussed sabotaging Trump programs they disagreed with. Violent anti-Trump street demonstrations were paid for by Democratic party operatives.

The impeachment crowd has been among the loudest of Trump’s enemies. Klein lists the charges against Trump and dismisses them all: that Trump obstructed justice by firing James Comey, the director of the FBI; that Trump violated the Constitution by receiving profits (“emoluments”) from foreign officials who stayed at his Washington DC hotel; that Trump colluded with the Russians during the presidential campaign; that Trump is somehow “incapacitated” and therefore the 25^th Amendment should be invoked whereby the vice president will replace the president. All of these arguments fall short and the only hope Democrats and Never Trumpers on the Right can hope for is a thundering Democratic victory in midterm elections in 2020, giving the Democrats a majority and some hope of impeaching Trump.

Curiously, President Obama hasn’t been much of an enemy to Trump since he left office. He has little stomach for such things. Klein reveals that Obama has returned to smoking marijuana. He smokes weed once or twice a week, supplied to him by friends who visit his mansion in Washington DC. Klein portrays Obama as a man who has left politics behind. He plays video games all day and is behind in the writing of his memoirs, for which he is being paid $60 million.

The intelligence community boasts many anti-Trump Obama holdovers. The resignation of National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was seen as a major victory for the resistance movement. Flynn’s ouster was a soft coup, Klein says, engineered by anonymous intelligence community bureaucrats. James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence, proved himself to be a liar on several occasions.

Trump’s presidency was beset with numerous leaks, many originating directly from the US intelligence community. The pool of leakers was vast, Klein explains, because Obama had lowered the security classification of sensitive electronic intercepts targeting the Trump campaign, allowing thousands of government workers access to potentially defamatory information. Among Klein’s prime “Leakgate” suspects: Former CIA Director John Brennan, and Hillary Clinton, who was given access to much of the leaked information.

FBI Director James Comey had agreed with Trump that the intelligence community was packed with Obama holdovers intent on delegitimizing his presidency. Klein reveals that Obama privately attempted at least twice to influence the outcome of Comey’s investigation of Hillary Clinton. Comey blew off Obama, who then discussed ways to remove Comey from office with Valerie Jarrett. He was talked into believing it would be politically feasible to remove Comey, but Obama dithered and never pulled the trigger. Obama moles were planted in the FBI and are still there one year into the Trump administration. Comey intended to fire those he suspected of disloyalty, but before he could, Trump fired him.

Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI, had long coveted Comey’s job for himself. McCabe stabbed Comey in the back and talked against him privately, which Comey never suspected. Comey took revenge on Trump by leaking a conversation where Trump asked him to swear his loyalty. The eventual result was the formation of a special counsel to investigate Trump, headed by Robert Mueller. Comey’s actions revealed him to be a member of the Resistance, a Never Trumper, a man without honor, not the nonpartisan he claimed to be, Klein concludes.

The FBI, Klein says, is concentrating on the Resistance groups that are committing acts of violence and plotting more. The FBI discovered collusion between American anarchists of the Resistance and foreign terrorists, such as the Islamic State. “The internet chatter between the Americans and the Islamists is astronomical,” said an FBI source.

The portrait painted by Klein is a Washington DC dominated by Swamp creatures intent on destroying any outsider like Trump who attempts to set the nation back on track and reduce their power. It’s Trump in a war against the Democrats and the GOP Establishment who want to maintain the odious status quo. To what extent can an outsider like Trump succeed? Nothing seems certain at this point, though Klein believes that Trump will at the least finish his term in office. Highly recommended.

My Review of "The Message" Podcast

2017-07-10T15:11:00.000-04:00

The Message Is Like a SciFi B Movie

I was drawn to "The Message" by the intriguing subject matter, which crops up in the news periodically. A purported message to Earth from intelligent aliens living on a planet light years away from us.

I listened to all the episodes despite some shortcomings. The problem is the script, not the voice actors. I felt like I was listening to the audio version of a science fiction B movie. The IT and science talk is nonsense, but that didn't bother me so much, because who expects believability from fiction such as this.

But still, the final resolution was way over the top and unconvincing within the context of the fictional plot. Still, I felt it was worthwhile, just like some B movies.

3 Stars.

**

I've recently discovered fictional podcasts such as this one. Supposedly they have become popular. I'm plotting to write a few my own fictional podcast series. It's a different kind of writing than what I've been doing with my novels and short stories.

My favorite podcasts are old-time shows like Sherlock Holmes, with Nigel Bruce and Basil Rathbone, and the Bob & Ray comedy show.