After Mueller, now what?

I think everyone can agree, regardless of political ideology, the Trump-Russia issue turned into a big mess. The news media detest not knowing. In place of good, solid information on just what may have transpired between the Trump campaign and Russia, or just what may not have transpired, they chose to fill in the blanks with rampant negative speculation. By the time the Mueller report was turned in they had convinced themselves—and half of America—that Donald Trump was a Russian agent. It all turned out to be nothing.

But don’t just blame the news media. Their fires were stoked by the likes of John Brennan, former CIA director and rabid Trump hater. During his mea culpa with Morning Joe on MSNBC he said, “I don’t know if I received bad information, but I think I suspected there was more than there actually was.” You think? Then he pretended to be “relieved” that his president was not a Russian agent. Disappointed is more like it.

Morning Joe himself echoed Brennan’s faux sentiment. “It is good news that the president of the United States did not conspire with Russia to influence the 2016 election.” Not to Joe and rest of the get-Trump media. This is almost worse than Election Night 2016. To the rest of us it’s confirmation of something we already knew.

So how do the media redeem themselves? Short answer? They don’t. And they won’t even try. Their hatred for Trump is so deep that they’ll never admit that they made up the story of Russian collusion and plugged in willing stooges like Brennan to give the lie weight. Glenn Greenwald from The Intercept, a big lib and no fan of Trump, was beside himself on Tucker Carlson’s show. He tore into CNN and MSNBC in particular for banning voices like his because he wouldn't toe the line on the Trump-Russia collusion story. He called it a “fraud that they perpetrated on their audience” and accused both networks of being “state TV” or “CIA TV” for giving people like Brennan so much air time.

What happens now? What should happen is Republicans in the Senate, the only place they have any investigative power, should be holding hearings to determine how such a colossal fraud could have been perpetrated on the American people. They can start with the coup attempt by former FBI agent Peter Strzok and his boss, Andrew McCabe, among others. The irony is Mueller was looking at Trump’s firing of James Comey as a possible obstruction of justice. As it turns out, this whole debacle of an investigation based on a bogus dossier was going on right under Comey’s nose. Either he was part of the coup attempt or he was too inept to see it. Either way he should’ve been fired the day Trump took office.

From my vantage point here’s what looks like happened. There were certain persons inside the FBI and Obama’s Justice Department who were so determined to keep Trump from becoming president that they ignored real crimes committed by Hillary Clinton and fabricated fake crimes by Trump. They used a dossier they knew was fake to petition a FISA court to allow them to spy on the Trump campaign.

Nixon was run out of office and several of his men went to prison for a petty break-in looking for dirt. This appears to be a widespread conspiracy to fix an election that may include a former FBI director and a former president. That’s been the real scandal all along. Now maybe we can focus on that instead.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show. He's also the co-host of The PodGOATs podcast.

The race to Venezuela is on

There’s this guy named Andrew Yang. You’ve probably never heard of him. The San Francisco Chronicle is singing his praises. Why? Because he’s running for president and he’s promising a ‘freedom dividend’ to every adult American. What’s a freedom dividend? It’s $1,000 a month just for being alive. How does he expect to pay for this? Oh, he has no idea, but they’re lapping it up in San Fran.

Yang’s yet another socialist in the crowded field of Democrat presidential contenders who are trying to out-promise each other to the nomination. They think that if they can just get the party crown it’ll be a cakewalk over Donald Trump to the White House. Not so fast.

A recent Siena College poll showed more people in New York had a favorable impression of Trump than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Granted, neither of them broke 40 percent popularity, but AOC was less popular than Trump. The primary reason is the recent Amazon debacle. AOC spearheaded an effort to run Amazon out of New York and it worked. They had planned a massive job-creating headquarters in Queens and she and her socialist minions killed it. It’s encouraging to see that even in liberal New York jobs still trump free stuff. But for how long?

Beto O’Rourke is on the campaign trail promising everything to everybody. He brought in over $6 million in campaign contributions in his first 24 hours. He even out-socialisted socialist Bernie Sanders. What does he stand for? Who knows? If it’s socialist, he’s in. He was asked recently if he was for abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy. He said he was unequivocally for a woman’s right to make that decision, to roaring applause from the crowd. That’s great red-meat politics for the whacked-out Democrat base, but murdering a kid on his delivery date is a non-starter with the rest of sane America.

But these Democrat candidates don’t care, because right now there’s socialist blood in the water. It’s a veritable feeding frenzy of big government ideas, and each candidate is trying to prove to the Democrat base that they are willing to go as far as it takes to give them free everything.

Meanwhile back in Realville, President Trump announced that he wants to cap federal student loans. You want to know why the official school bird of your favorite state-supported university is the building crane? It’s because the federal government took over student loans during the Obama error and is shoveling tuition money into the public college oven like a runaway steam locomotive. Our nation’s student debt has more than tripled since 2003 to $1.5 trillion. All of the Democrats currently on the campaign trail want to continue shoveling more money into that furnace. I’ve long predicted that it’s the next financial cauldron to blow.

Never in our lifetimes have we seen such a race to socialism by one political party. As I’ve observed before, they see Donald Trump as so vulnerable that they believe the American people will even turn the ship of state toward Venezuela rather than stay on our current course. They may be in for a rude awakening. A new CNN poll shows 7 in 10 Americans give the economy high marks, and the majority—just barely at this point—give Trump the credit.

This may be a defining moment for the Democrats, but it should also be a defining moment for the Republicans. As the Dems bleach their hair blonde the Republicans need to go full brunette. Instead I fear they may opt for dirty blonde.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show. He's also the co-host of The PodGOATs podcast.

The America-haters

Trump Derangement Syndrome is now epidemic. We all remember when it started. It started the day Donald Trump came down that escalator at Trump Tower. It grew as his popularity did, hitting a fever pitch on Election Night 2016. Most people thought it would subside once the election was over. I knew better.

TDS grows with every success of President Trump. Record low black unemployment? TDS hits another gear. Record low Hispanic unemployment? Yet another new high for TDS. Hug a flag at the CPAC event? They go apoplectic. 

Nick Gillespie at Reason.com is a libertarian who is no fan of Donald Trump. He watched the CPAC speech and noted, “Trump just might have have won the 2020 election today.” He said, “There is simply no potential candidate in the Democratic Party who wouldn’t be absolutely blown off the stage by him.” This is why the libs and Never-Trumpers are going nuts.

Colin Jost, on the Weekend Update segment of Saturday Night Live, ran a clip of the president hugging the flag and asked, “What the hell was that?” What that was, Colin, was a display of undying love for this country. That’s something that’s foreign to a lot of liberals. 

I posted the SNL story to Facebook with the following commentary: “SNL befuddled by Trump hugging the American flag. This, my friends, is emblematic of the problem. Too many on the left hate this country. In fact, ALL of the America-haters are on the left.”

That drew fire from a surprising place. I got slammed by a former co-worker whom I’ve only seen once in the last 20 years, but with whom I used to be quite close. He accused me of being divisive and dangerous and destructive and wanting just to sell a few books. He accused me of saying everybody on the right loves the country and everybody on the left hates it. That’s not what I said at all. I fully acknowledge that most of the people on the left probably love this country. My point was that every single America-hater is on the left. That point is not in dispute.

After some back-and-forth trying to clarify my point to no avail, he offered up this challenge. “Make that list of liberals who actually hate America.” To do so would take up pages of valuable newspaper real estate, so I’ll offer up a partial list.

Let’s start with a Gallup poll from last year that showed only 32 percent of Democrats are proud to be an American. I could stop there, but why when there’s so much evidence of liberal hatred of America. Louis Farrakhan said, “A decree of death has been passed on America. The judgement of God has been rendered and she must be destroyed.” No ambiguity there. And don’t try to distance yourselves from Farrakhan, you liberals. It’s too late. Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson, Keith Ellison, and countless others on the left have cozied up to Farrakhan. There is no excuse like, “Oh, but that was before I knew what Farrakhan was all about.” Farrakhan has always been a racist. He’s always been a black separatist. He’s always been an America hater.

Some lefties were late to the party when it comes to loving the country. It wasn’t until 2008 when Michelle Obama was 44 years old that she uttered these words: “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country.”

Donald Trump may be a lot of things, but one thing you have to give him. He loves America.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show. He's also the co-host of The PodGOATs podcast.