My concern about Flynn's resignation

Flynn's resignation, or what some are calling a political assassination, is concerning because our government recorded a citizen's phone calls and used those calls to essentially get him fired. There is more to this than hearsay about Flynn possibly talking to Russia about US sanctions. The method used is what concerns me most of all, though the whole thing concerns me.

The intelligence community should not leak sensitive information to the press and they should not tap phone lines for no good reason. The press is not responsible for prosecuting someone, that's not patriotism in any sense of the word. 

The reason I brought up patriotism is because I was watching MSNBC to see what they were saying, it's good to see what the slant is sometimes. The show that was on was MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle and Carl Higbie  was being firmly interviewed (that's the nice way to put it) by Ruhle; she asked him in the context of the White House press leaks, "You are a Navy SEAL yourself. Could you see that maybe there are some people in there who are patriots who are saying, ‘I’ve got to figure a way to get the truth out.'"

Let's talk about that question. First of all, are the majority of SEAL's unpatriotic? That seems to be what Ruhle is questioning. I could be putting too much into her question, so let's discount that one. The main problem I see with her question is that she says that it's patriotic to leak information to the press illegally. Edward Snowden may think that is patriotic, but I don't consider that to be patriotic. 

Patriotism, according to Merriam-Webster, is defined as "love for or devotion to one's country." I can't reconcile how devotion to my country fits with breaking my country's law to leak information to the press.

Before I digress too much, I do believe this was a political assassination. The intelligence community wanted Flynn out by almost any means necessary. 

This quote from an article on The Week is a good summary: 

Unelected intelligence analysts work for the president, not the other way around. Far too many Trump critics appear not to care that these intelligence agents leaked highly sensitive information to the press — mostly because Trump critics are pleased with the result. "Finally," they say, "someone took a stand to expose collusion between the Russians and a senior aide to the president!"

I don't agree with everything said in that article, but that quote I do agree with. The intelligence community, or the FBI, does not need to be engaged in undermining our own president and his administration. They didn't do this to Obama.

Why would Flynn be the victim of a political assassination? 

Here's a reason: there was "a secret, months-long campaign by former Obama administration confidantes to handicap President Donald Trump's national security apparatus and preserve the nuclear deal with Iran" by discrediting Flynn. Ben Rhodes, former Obama administration adviser, created this little task force. Obama wants to handicap our own country's national security to politically destroy Trump. I'm not putting the blame fully upon Obama, but he is clearly one of the cogs in this operation.

The only other reason I can figure is the intelligence community's dislike of Trump. It's not my most developed thought, nonetheless it's a thought.

If the intelligence community will take down a president's cabinet member, then who else will they take down? That's my concern. And let's not forget that a man's name was besmirched in all of this.

All Night Senate Democrat protest?

Today the Senate voted to confirm Pres. Trump's pick for Sec. of Education Betsy DeVos. Although Senate Democrats were planning to protest the vote all night, it appears that that didn't pan out, thankfully. 

I think Betsy DeVos is a good pick for Sec. of Education. Our nation's education system is flawed and DeVos wants to reform it. I mean, can the system get any worse? She supports school choice and charter schools, which almost automatically makes her disliked by Democrats. The National Education Association (NEA) was fighting DeVos' confirmation tooth and nail by asking educators to call their senators and tell them no, which is completely fine since we elect our leaders. 

DeVos also held up under the Democrats' tough questioning, which was almost an interrogation. They were asking 'gotcha' questions and it didn't work. Nice try Al Franken, I reckon it's about time for you go back to SNL, they need all the help they get these days. 

I don't think DeVos needs experience in education to be successful as the Sec. of Education, I know Democrats and educators would argue with me on that. I thought America was more 'inclusive' than that. I'm not an educator and I noticed problems in the school system. Further, I write this blog without any experience in politics: I never held any elected office. Experience isn't always a requirement for a job.

To prove my point that our education system is flawed take a look at the Nation's Report Card, which shows the percentage of students performed at or above proficient in the nation. Here's a couple examples: 

• Grade 12 US History- 12%
• Grade 4 Geography- 20%
• Grade 12 Civics- 24%

Those numbers show me that our schools are under-performing. I remember a few years ago when I was in high school the Rowan-Salisbury School System was third from the bottom in the state for mathematics. I don't remember any specifics, but you can understand my point.

I'm not saying that DeVos is going to fix everything, but I'm glad she's getting a chance.

The reason I'm writing about this is I don't want the future generations of this country to be ill-equipped for college or for work. I'm tired of our country being inferior in math compared to other countries. Our country put a man on the moon and now we can't even be proficient in math. If that's not concerning to people, then I don't know what is.

Now, don't mistake my criticism of the school system as disdain for educators. I've had plenty of teachers that were genuinely trying to educate their students. My only issues are with the system, not the people.

The Free Speech Fairness Act

This is going to a very short post: I just wanted to share an article I read about a bill proposed in both the Senate and House that you probably won't hear much, if anything, about. The article is titled, "Trump Promise to End IRS Monitoring of Pastor Sermons Introduced as Bill in House", and it is from The Christian Post. 

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., were responsible for introducing the bill, "The Free Speech Fairness Act." The proposed bill would amend the Johnson Amendment of 1954. The article explains both The Free Speech Fairness Act and the Johnson Amendment of 1954 fairly well.

It is important to me that churches' First Amendment rights are protected from government intrusion. The IRS should not monitor sermons. I say this not out of paranoia, but out of concern: if a government agency is allowed to dictate what pastors preach, then we move dangerously near to government controlled religion and you don't want that. Read the book Tortured for Christ by Richard Wurmbrand to see a little glimpse of that. China is another example of government controlled religion. And North Korea is an example of an atheist state where religion is illegal.

Trump's First Week

President Trump had a whirlwind of a first week with the signing of multiple executive orders. Here's a list from Fox News' website a few days ago of Trump's executive orders:

• An order to restructure the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council.
• An order to lengthen the ban on administration officials working as lobbyists. 
• An executive order imposing a 120-day suspension of the refugee program and a 90-day ban on travel to the U.S. from citizens of seven terror hot spots: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan.
• Multi-pronged orders on border security and immigration enforcement including: the authorization of a U.S.-Mexico border wall; the stripping of federal grant money to sanctuary cities; etc.
• Two orders reviving the Keystone XL pipeline and Dakota Access pipelines. He also signed three other related orders that would: expedite the environmental permitting process for infrastructure projects related to the pipelines; direct the Commerce Department to streamline the manufacturing permitting process; and give the Commerce Department 180 days to maximize the use of U.S. steel in the pipeline.
• An order to reinstate the so-called "Mexico City Policy" – a ban on federal funds to international groups that perform abortions or lobby to legalize or promote abortion. 
• A notice that the U.S. will begin withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. 
• An order imposing a hiring freeze for some federal government workers as a way to shrink the size of government. This excludes the military, as Trump noted at the signing.
• An order that directs federal agencies to ease the “regulatory burdens” of ObamaCare.

The media has been blasting Trump on almost every order he signed, but I think they had trouble keeping up with everything he signed. Even today, Jan. 30, Pres. Trump signed an executive order and it's Monday. According to Yahoo, "President Donald Trump signed an order on Monday that will seek to dramatically pare back federal regulations by requiring agencies to cut two existing regulations for every new rule introduced."

The media called Conservatives hypocrites because we criticized Obama's executive orders and praise Trump's executive orders. Here's the difference between Obama and Trump though: Obama's executive orders were more about creating laws, which is not the responsibility of the POTUS, whereas, Trump's executive orders are largely about getting the US out of the situations Obama put us in and not creating laws. 

I don't see any problems with these executive orders because of their purpose, which appears to be for the purpose of preventing future laws being created based on Obama's failed policies. As I've well established now: it doesn't matter what Pres. Trump does, even if he does accomplish his goal of making America great again, the media will scrutinize and nitpick every comment he makes and every action he takes. 

My personal favorite executive orders Trump has signed are the travel ban, the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, the end of federal grant money to sanctuary cities, and the hiring freeze of government employees. 

Inauguration Day 2017

The inauguration is tomorrow, Jan. 20, as I'm certain you know by now. As usual the media has been trying to undermine the inauguration, such as showing John Lewis questioning Trump's legitimacy being president and talking about Trump's team having difficulty finding musicians to perform. Lewis is simply being a sore loser and news flash: nobody really cares about who performs at inaugurations because it's not about musicians. 

The media has also been talking about protesters that will be at the inauguration fighting Trump's supposed autocracy. However, the media hasn't said much about the radical groups planning some illegal activities. The Drudge Report, on the other hand, informs the public of this kind of stuff, also called the truth. 

In other news: Hollywood is still freaking out about the inauguration. Mark Ruffalo, Alec Baldwin, and Michael Moore (I dub thee: the three stooges) are planning a guy's march on Friday in protest of Trump. And some female celebrities, such as America Ferrara, Cher, Chelsea Handler, Scarlett Johansson, Debra Messing, Frances McDormand, Julianne Moore, Katy Perry, and Amy Schumer are planning to show up at a women's march on Saturday. While the celebrities are marching all of the Trump supporters are going to be doing what they normally do on a weekday, working to support their families.

The best part of all this complaining is that Trump doesn't let the media, or anybody for that matter, bring him down. His response to the congressmen boycotting the inauguration was great. He said, "I hope they give me their tickets." That's just funny right there.

I'm slowly becoming an actual fan of Trump. I even like some of his tweets, especially the ones the establishment hates. Trump has free, unfiltered media coverage through Twitter, which is something he can't get anywhere in the mainstream media. CNN is just as Trump said it is, fake news. That's another favorite quote of mine.

I hope and pray that Trump turns this country around like he has said he would. The media doesn't have the same hope for Trump, neither does Obama. Obama is trying his best to sabotage Trump's presidency and cement his "legacy". (Obama's commuting of Chelsea Manning's prison sentence is an example.) His legacy of empty promises is all I will remember. Obama was in the position to do great things for our country and he didn't.

Let's, as the citizenry of America, give Trump a chance and see what he can do as president.