View from America: The rattlesnake roundup

I really think Lewis Carroll would find himself uncomfortably at home in America today. To wit: two breaking news stories. One is receiving — at least from my perspective as I blow smoke rings from my hookah — a ridiculous percentage of coverage based upon its newsworthiness while the second may actually involve verifiable lawless behavior on the part of an important public official and has received scant attention.

It is the Media Order of Things in America today.

Anything Trump-related that can be spun negatively regardless of the content takes precedence over all other news. Period.

Unfortunately, our Dear Leader plays into the construct as if neither he nor his advisors are aware the construct exists. Which makes him appear pitifully naive and his advisors shamefully negligent.

The recently departed football coach at The University of Texas, Charlie Strong, once said that social media would prove to be the downfall of Western Civilization or something to that effect. As each day passes, I realize that Coach Strong was a very wise man who probably should have been President of the United States.

Literally, a day does not go by when Donald J. Trump does not “utter” something on Twitter that has to be defended by someone on his communication staff or a member of his Cabinet, and it derails his agenda and continues the express train of ridicule that so delights those convinced of his ineptitude. It is like one of those crazy things we do in Texas periodically that makes no logical sense.

Like The Rattlesnake Roundup in Freer:

Why do seemingly rational people do these things? That guy is Donald J. Trump to me. But let’s get back to the News of the Day.

STORY 1 – Donald Trump, Jr. meets with Russian lawyer under presumption she has some Big Time Juice on Hillary Clinton. Fails to produce. They discuss blockade on adoption of Russian babies instead. Purportedly. Donald, Jr., brings Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort to meeting. Evidence of Russian “collusion” confirmed, as far as press is concerned. It is the proverbial Smoking Gun! How the hell did she get into the country anyway? To discuss the Magnitsky Act? C’mon, no one knows what that is.

Well, goodness gracious, her visa was expedited or waived by James Comey’s boss, the hanger-meeting barrister, Loretta Lynch. Now why would Ms. Lynch be so interested in the plight of Russian orphans, huh?

Not only does this confirm that we have the dumbest people in the world working the media today — and by extraction, our highly regarded journalism schools are graduating the same brain-washed boobs attending our grand Ivy League universities that suppress free speech — but there is ample evidence to suggest that this Russian lawyer is connected to Fusion GPS, the shady group that concocted the “Trump Dossier” which led the immensely-shady, former CIA chief John Brennan (who referred to Jerusalem as al Quds and denounced George Bush when he worked for him) and the former FBI “Golden Boy” James Comey (more on him momentarily) to suspect that Trump had somehow colluded with Vladimir Putin to swindle HRH Hillary Clinton.

We have an incongruously named Senate Select Committee on Intelligence headed by a hack Republican named Richard Burr and a repugnant Democrat from Virginia named Mark Warner. They are looking into the “Russian collusion” allegations for nearly one year and have produced nothing. Zero. Mark Warner pounces on the sniff, on the aroma, of a Russian coming into contact with anyone associated with Trump as evidence of a Grand Conspiracy.

Bring in the witnesses! Send out the subpoenas! There must be no whiff of anything but “bipartisanship”! “Why, yes, of course,” the blubbering Richard Burr concurs because to do otherwise would be….a participant in the Collusion!! Bring Senator Burr before the Committee!!

As I have tried to indicate, I am not the biggest Donald Trump fan. But this is completely out of control. The Senate Select Committee on Complicity isn’t the slightest bit interested in “intelligence”; its purpose, driven not by its Chairman, but by its ideologically-driven Vice Chair, is to drive the President out of office. That purpose is shared by the Ranking Member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (has there ever been a more arrogant title than, perhaps, Chairman of The Rattlesnake Roundup?), Adam Schiff from California, who represents one of the most affluent, left-wing districts on the West Coast. He has effectively usurped the Committee’s control from Devin Nunez, whom he forced to recuse himself because of his support of the Trump campaign when collusion-mania was at its height.

So, we have Collusionmaniac Warner heading Intelligence in the Senate, Collusionmaniac Schiff heading Intelligence in the House, Collusionmaniac Jeff Zucker running CNN and the Entrenched Left running the pillars of the East Coast media establishment: The New York Times, The Washington Post and what remains of ABC, CBS and NBC.

Hey, listen, don’t take my word for it — I’m just some hookah-smoking caterpillar.

STORY 2 – It now appears that the former Director of the FBI, James Comey, who leaked notes of his private meetings with Trump in order to trigger the engagement of a Special Counsel, not only violated his own Employment Agreement, but these documents constituted Government Property and contained Confidential information.

Unlike Story 1, there are no facts in dispute in Story 2. Comey himself admitted to the leak testifying before Sen. Mark Warner’s embarrassment of a committee. He said he believed the notes belonged to him as a “private citizen”; that he felt “free to share” that information; “I thought it very important to get it out.”

Well, that’s very interesting. Daniel Ellsberg thought it was very important to get out The Pentagon Papers. Edward Snowden thought it was very important to get out the fact that the NSA was sweeping up metadata in a manner that exceeded its FISA authority. HRH thought it was very important that her emails not be scrutinized by Freedom of Information requests, so she conducted her business on an unsecured, extra-governmental server that Loretta Lynch and Jim Comey determined did not violate the law.

And now The Straight Arrow himself has taken it upon himself to determine what constitutes ethical and unethical behavior, committing the very same violations of the law which he somehow managed to contort like a rattlesnake to absolve HRH of her numerous infractions.

The very same Democrats who wanted to string Comey up by his lengthy neck for interfering in HRH’s coronation now sit on committees flailing witnesses, demand recusals, stonewall interviewing figures from the Obama administration and tearfully rend their garments lamenting how the Great Comey was obstructed by the Dear Leader.

Story 1 is above the fold on page 1. Story 2 is buried somewhere on page…..oh, I think it’s on the website somewhere.