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Thursday, July 5, 2018
SEX, LIES AND THE DEEP STATE
What the affairs of the deep state tell us about it.
At the heart of the effort to bring down President Trump were two affairs. Unlike the bizarre lies about Moscow hotel rooms and prostitutes in the Steele dossier that was used by the Clinton campaign and its allies to smear President Trump and generate an investigation against him, these affairs truly took place.
And they didn’t just expose the malfeasance of four people, but of a corrupt political culture.
The affairs between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page in the FBI, and between Senate Intelligence Committee security director James Wolfe and New York Times reporter Ali Watkins, did more than betray the spouses of Strzok, Page and Wolfe. They also betrayed the duties of the two men and two women.
The affairs were not private matters. The two illicit sexual relationships were also illicit political arrangements. As the Inspector General’s report noted, Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Clinton ally who has since been fired, used Page as his liaison with Strzok to circumvent the chain of command on the investigation. McCabe used Page as his conduit and Watkins’ media employers used the young reporter as a conduit to her older married lover and the leaked information he allegedly provided her.
BuzzFeed, Politico, the Huffington Post and the New York Times were aware of the Watkins affair. As the Times piece on Watkins coolly put it, “Their relationship played out in the insular world of Washington, where young, ambitious journalists compete for scoops while navigating relationships with powerful, often older, sources.” Usually it’s enemy governments that employ young women having an affair with older married government officials to extract information on Intelligence Committee proceedings.
But here some of the biggest names in the media were caught using the same tactics as the Russians.
How significant was the Ali Watkins and James Wolfe affair? Former New York Times editor Jill Abramson, in her furious defense of Watkins, noted, "most crucially, the value of her journalism (her Carter Page scoop in BuzzFeed actually helped lead to appt of Mueller)." Strzok was forced to leave the Mueller investigation due to the exposure of his texts with Lisa Page. Watkins’ affair with Wolfe has been credited by a key media figure with helping create the monster that is the Mueller investigation.
At the rotten heart of the campaign against Trump lay the betrayal of...
Eliminating Identity Politics From the Schools and the US Census
To be sure, this week’s action is just the beginning, and the left will fight it tooth and nail. But the administration should go even further. Just last Friday, the two of us published a Heritage Foundation paper calling on the administration to stop giving preferential treatment on the basis of “race, color, national origin or ethnicity in any of its programs and activities.”
Indeed, we think that the administration should stop collecting data, including in the Census, on artificially created ethnic groups, such as “Hispanics” or “Asians,” which bring together under large umbrellas disparate cultures and races. That would really cut identity politics off life support.
The Constitution is quite clear: The survey is conducted to enumerate the population for purposes of apportionment and direct taxation. Yes, since the first one in our history in 1790, the U.S. Census has asked a question about race—but that has always been something quite incidental to apportionment and taxation.
The question on citizenship, which the administration now wants to bring back, has been asked for much of America’s history, and until recently was uncontroversial.
Reinstating a question about citizenship in the 2020 Census is a small but salubrious step. And it would also help weaken the grip of identity politics, a destructive force that is now racializing all of society.
By emphasizing citizenship (but not ethnic ties), the government gives all people, but especially immigrants and their children, the important and inclusive message that it is concerned with their relationship not with the land of their ancestors but with...
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #308
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Wednesday, July 4, 2018
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