Haley's Bombshell, Impeachment Part II, Honoring Our Heroes

Monday, November 11, 2019

Haley's Bombshell
 
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley dropped a bombshell during an interview yesterday with CBS's Norah O'Donnell.  The interview served as a kickoff for her new book, which I haven't read yet. 
 
But in the interview, Haley made the extraordinary and very disturbing disclosure that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly "resisted" President Trump's agenda and attempted to recruit her support for their resistance. 
 
My first thought was, "Did Haley tell the president?"  I hope he's not hearing this for the first time.  But it also goes a long way toward explaining why both men are no longer serving in the Trump/Pence Administration.
 
Assuming Haley's account is accurate, Kelly and Tillerson's plot to block Trump's agenda would be a real constitutional crisis.  Even worse, if some top officials have accepted posts in the administration so they could thwart his agenda, that is a quasi-coup. 
 
As Haley explained to O'Donnell:
 
"Instead of saying that to me, [Kelly and Tillerson] should've been saying that to the president, not asking me to join them on their sidebar plan.  It should've been, 'Go tell the president what your differences are, and quit if you don't like what he's doing.'  
 
"But to undermine a president is really a very dangerous thing.  And it goes against the Constitution, and it goes against what the American people want.  And it was offensive."
 
She's absolutely right. 
 
We know that the entire left-wing progressive movement is trying to cancel the election.  But the fact that two leaders inside the Cabinet, generally thought of as Republicans, were also part of the "resistance" is evidence of just how far down the road we are toward losing our constitutional republic. 
 
The president is the elected leader of the country, not the secretary of state, not the chief of staff!
 
What do you think the media reaction would have been if it were discovered that former Secretary of State John Kerry and former White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough had tried to blow up the Iranian nuclear deal that President Obama negotiated with the mullahs of Iran? 
 
While the deal was not legally treasonous, its effects certainly were treasonous.  It removed sanctions against a regime that has killed hundreds of American soldiers.  It transferred more than one billion dollars in cash to a government that plotted to blow up a prominent Washington, D.C., restaurant.  It allowed a path to nuclear weapons for a country that has repeatedly vowed to wipe Israel off the map.
 
Would Kelly and Tillerson have attempted to blow up that deal if they had served in the Obama Administration?  Yet they were willing to sabotage this president because he is intent on ending our "no-win" wars and on getting our allies to pay for their fair share of their own defense.
 
I'm left with the sad conclusion that no high official in the military, at the State Department or the Pentagon resigned in protest when Obama was directly aiding an enemy of the United States.  But they are incapable of aiding a president who wants to put America first.
 
 
 
Impeachment Part II
 
The impeachment process begins a new phase this week with the beginning of public hearings.  Not surprisingly, the process will continue to be a biased partisan affair as House progressives have rejected the Republican witness list.  (Here and here.)
 
Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz warns that this process has taken on all the hallmarks of a Soviet-era show trial with liberals attempting to invent a crime in much the same way as Stalin's KGB frequently framed political opponents.
 
During her CBS interview, Haley also denounced the impeachment charade, saying it was the equivalent of the "death penalty" for a politician, yet the president had done nothing wrong.  Asked by O'Donnell whether she thought Trump would be impeached and removed from office, Haley said:
 
"I don't know what you would impeach him on. And look, Norah, impeachment is like the death penalty for a public official. When you look at the transcript, there's nothing in that transcript that warrants the death penalty for the president."
 
 
 
Honoring Our Heroes
 
Today is Veterans Day.  The day originally began as Armistice Day to mark the 11:00 AM ceasefire on November 11, 1918, that ended World War I.  In 1954 Congress renamed Armistice Day as Veterans Day to honor the veterans of all our wars.
 
This morning, President Trump participated in a wreath laying ceremony in New York City and became the first president to participate in New York City's Veterans Day parade.  You can watch the president's remarks here.
 
Please find an opportunity today talk to your children and grandchildren about what happened at Concord Bridge and Gettysburg, on the beaches of Normandy and, more recently, in the deserts of Iraq and in the mountains of Afghanistan.
 
As Ronald Reagan once said:
 
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.  We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream.  It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

To the millions who have always been there to stop the tyrant, protect the weak and preserve the peace -- we have not forgotten you.  A grateful nation thanks God for giving us heroes like you.