I’m Jewish. For 33 years of my career, I’ve studied and combatted anti-Semitism, extremism and domestic terrorism. Every fiber of my being wants me to write about the near-slaughter at the Chabad synagogue in California. I am not going to. I need to think first. Besides everyone else is reacting now. I can’t promise that I will produce anything near a near-term solution but try I will.
So to the subject of the day–America. Though it’s hard to say, there is something even more important facing us than this wanton terrorism that is spreading across the globe like the virus’ that are becoming immune to antibiotics, there is. That something is the safety of our nation and the surety of our democracy.
We are looking for the right answers in the wrong places. Slyly we have been pushed into the trap of believing that judgment of the Mueller report rests on the issue of collusion when collusion isn’t even a word in the report. We are talking about whether to impeach or not to impeach. We are talking about the Attorney General saying no obstruction existed when there are over 160 pages of evidence-based citations about obstruction. And guess what, politically that may be brilliant political strategy for the president’s re-election campaign. For the nation, it’s a terrible danger. Here’s why.
It’s this sentence. “The Russian government interfered in the 2016 Presidential election in a sweeping and systematic fashion.” “Sweeping and systematic.” Two moderate sized words connected by a conjunction whose meaning is both encyclopedic and terrifying. We’ve since learned that here in Florida at least one of our county’s election systems was successfully penetrated. Not only have we not been able to figure out as yet which one, we can’t even say as a federal government if it is the only one in Florida or the nation. That my friends is top flight stealth. In addition, NBC News reported that 90% of the personal computers in the United States were attacked. We have had bold and successful security breaches in this country by hackers before. This was by a foreign government. The hackers’ purpose was to steal credit card information. The Russian’s purpose was to steal an election.
These attacks, confirmed individually by each of our intelligence agencies, were only part of the plan. It’s a long term plan to weaken the entire American strategy towards the world, particularly Europe and NATO, painstakingly constructed since the end of World War Two. Helping to elect an administration warm to those ideas would only make the Russian’s job that much easier.
So while the Democrats and Republicans are barking at one another from the end of strained leashes over who will speak to this committee or that and preventing or blunting those same efforts, the government is lurching towards its next presidential election. In a remarkable display of Democrat disunity, the party is fielding I think the count is now 20 candidates. As pundits have remarked, it is easier to cite the leaders who are not running for the presidential nomination than remember the ones who are.
The point? Imagine the intelligence agencies difficulty in trying to protect 20 campaigns. Not only is such a field of candidates bad political strategy no matter how positive a happy face people try to put on it, it is a danger to the nation as a whole. And so far, only one lone wolf has announced he’s challenging the president in the Republican party primaries and that person, former Mass. Governor Held hasn’t contested for an election in 20 years. No matter how good the election machinery, in twenty years on can assume there’s a lot of rust on it. The president and his administration, unless Held runs a lot stronger than anticipated, will have the primary season pretty much to themselves to do with pretty much what they want to.
Senator Elizabeth Warren and several others have opined that whether the people want it or not, the Congress of the United States has an obligation to begin impeachment hearings based on the evidence already presented in the Mueller report. So the Congress girds for a political battle over the principle of oversight while the elves in Russia’s North Pole are busily getting their presents ready for our nation’s coming elections. The Democrats bring to mind Nero watching Rome burn. Not only are the Democrats missing the target, protecting the integrity of our Republic and its institutions, they aren’t even aiming at the right one–at least from my perspective.
Apologies to all for this being a day late. I, unfortunately, learned this weekend what “your computer crashed” really means. While it congers up a picture of broken pieces on the floor it simply means a blue screen that says, “Out to lunch.” Six or seven hours of labor and parts across two days and $340 later, lunch is over.
Until vacation beginning May 15 the weekly blog published Sundays is back. For those interested, Bill’s third book, “The War of the Itchy Balls and Other Tales From Brooklyn” is still on track for summer publication. This coming of age in Brooklyn memoir hopefully will provide summer reading far more enjoyable than what we get in the papers.
Finally remember the refrain from the bell towers, “Read! It’s good for both of us.”
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