March 27^th 2017 Blog

It seems that a new initiative has taken place in the White House, with the addition of “The Office of American Innovation”, which will bring business management to the workings of government.  There is no better place if one wants to waste and misspend money than in the realm of government.  Yes, it is possible that this new office can breed a new bureaucracy, but this depends upon the motivation(s) of those who are in charge.  We have already had a taste of this type of management from President Trump, when negotiating with both Boeing and Lockheed that saved the American taxpayer 1.7 billion dollars, with just a few phone calls—no bureaucrats and no Congress to get in the way.

It was not entirely surprising when President Trump and Paul Ryan could not get a full Republican consensus with the “American Health Care Act”.  According to some, it is not dead just yet.  Although this legislation was voted down; in the wake of a “no confidence vote” from the “Freedom Caucus”, some Democrats have reached out to both President Trump and his staffers to perhaps breathe new life into this legislation with some fresh ideas.  We cannot declare the “American Health Care Act” has fallen by the wayside, but at least for now is simmering on the back-burner.  President Trump gave it his best shot, but now it is time to move on to tax reform.

The Liberal press is at it again—stressing the narrative of lumping together the Russians with the “leaks” in Washington; possibly from the White House.  Both Senator Trey Goudy and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, were very clear that the above are separate issues.  We already know that the investigation of the interference of the Russians into our election process, yielded no evidence whatsoever of swinging the last national election, one way or the other.  This just leaves us with the “leaks”, for which evidence has been discovered by the ranking member of the “Intelligence Committee”, Nunes, poring over documents, supplied from various sources, for which certain names appeared that were “unmasked” by someone who has access to classified information.

Normally, according to NSA Director Mike Rogers; American citizens who are implicated with foreign agents, are listed as anonymous in the documentation of transcripts, involving foreign communications, until such time as a criminal investigation takes place and is passed on to the FBI.  However, in this case, unmasking took place before an investigation was called upon and apparently those “unmasked” might be those currently working in the White House.  This is what alerted Nunes to visit the White House with this information and not first informing the rest of the “Intelligence Committee” first.  This move by Nunes miffed another ranking member of the “Intelligence Committee” Adam Schiff to appear in two news conferences and communicating his dismay over Nunes going before the media and then to the White House.  What Nunes did was not political, but it was the unprecedented unmasking that prompted him to visit the White House.  

There seems to be no doubt that some Obama leftovers were involved in the “unmasking”.  Tomorrow is Tuesday and both James Comey and Mike Rogers will be in closed session and grilled about who and why someone “unmasked” the named persons in the documents Nunes examined.  According to Mike Rogers, there are only 20 people under him who have access to “masked” persons of interest.  And as I stated above, upon the premise of a criminal investigation, the documents and the “unmasked names” would then be passed on to the FBI and then to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution.  No doubt that the press will be all over White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer during the press conference tomorrow afternoon, about what transpired in that “closed session”.  We cannot expect much of a revelation for the simple reason that what was discussed behind closed door is classified.  Spicer might elude that the “closed session” was either productive, unproductive or perhaps inconclusive.