As many on this blog know, I have long been a critic of our sprawling national debt and reckless budgets. I admit to being adverse to our long history of kicking the can down the road with new taxes and higher budgets. Well, we are about to push our kids further into debt with an obscene $1.3 trillion budget bill. The White House and Congress yielded to virtually every temptation in adding to our national debt at a time of tremendous economic uncertainties. We have added $1 trillion to our debt in just the last six months.
Continue reading “Debtor Nation: Congress Approves A Staggering $1,300,000,000,000 Budget”
Below is my column in The Hill Newspaper on lack of clarity in the charging of various Trump figures with false statements while former Andrew McCabe is simply fired a day before retirement. 
While various networks have advanced narratives of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe being fired as part of a Trump bloodlust, FBI Director Christopher Wray weighed in this week to say that 
President Donald Trump is under intense fire for 
At the turn of the last century, surrealists had a parlor game in Paris called “The Exquisite Corpse” where writers would create collective stories by writing lines without knowing what preceded them. The lines were often nonsensical like the line that gave the game its name: “Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau. ” (“The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine.”) With minutes of his firing, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe became such an exquisite corpse with various politicians adding lines to his story that seemed entirely disconnected to his story. Former FBI Director James Comey used McCabe to pitch his upcoming book while former Attorney General Eric Holder used him to effectively attack career staff at his former agency. The point of the game in both politics and literature is not to advance a coherent narrative but insert your own lines into a collective story.
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the implications of the termination of Andrew McCabe and his revealing public statement. The statement presents a particularly difficult problem of former FBI Director James Comey.
In all of the discussion of the firing of Andrew McCabe, various news outlets focused his “loss” of his pension as opposed to the fact that career officials called for his firing for serious misconduct. It now appears that what was lost will soon be found for McCabe. The firing denied McCabe early pension recovery at age 50 of roughly $60,000 a year. However, that only means that he will receive the pension like other federal officials when he reaches the federal retirement age. If Democratic members have their way, it could be even shorter than that.
I 
Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the issuance of a subpoena to the Trump organization for records pertinent to Trump business dealings in Russia. President Trump previously responded to a question of whether such inquiries into his business dealings would be a “red line” by saying that it would. Whether it is a red line or a “Rubicon,” Mueller seems to have crossed it. Of course, the Trump Organization has been asked for information previously and it is cooperating. However, this is a direct demand for business records. In the best case scenario, this could be a clean up subpoena to guarantee that all available documents have been reviewed. Then again it might be a new front in the investigation. Notably, this weekend, President Trump and his counsel ramped up their criticism of the investigation — criticism that I continue to view as unwise and inappropriate.
I have 
President Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen has moved to claim 
House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) leveled a serious allegation at former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Jordan alleged that Jordan leaked classified information about the Trump-Russia investigation to CNN. Clapper later became a CNN contributor. I 
Below is my column in USA Today on the nomination Deputy Director Gina Haspel to head the CIA.