Retired Marine CPT John M. Dowd lashed out at former Defense
Secretary James Mattis in a letter shared Thursday by President Donald
Trump.
Dowd, a former Marine Corps Judge Advocate and former attorney to President Trump, was responding to Mattis’
comments attacking the president as divisive and criticizing his plan
to potentially use the military to quell nationwide unrest over the
death of George Floyd.
“We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort,” Mattis told The Atlantic,
arguing that Trump was the most divisive president in his lifetime. “We
are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature
leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent
in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have
shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that
bled to defend our promise; and to our children.”
“I thought this
letter from respected retired Marine and Super Star lawyer, John Dowd,
would be of interest to the American People. Read it!” Trump tweeted in
response.
“I slept on your statement and woke up appalled and upset,” Dowd’s
letter began. “You lost me. Never dreamed you would let a bunch of hack
politicians use your good name and reputation — earned with the blood
and guts of young Marines.”
Dowd went on to call the protesters in Lafayette Park “phony” and
“terrorists using idle hate-filled students to burn and destroy.” He
mentioned the fact that former President George H. W. Bush had used the
military to help regain control after Rodney King was arrested and
beaten in Los Angeles.
“President Trump has done more to help our
minority brothers and sisters in three years than anyone in the last
50. Ask the black pastors. Ask the leaders if the black colleges and
universities. He got them funded. Ask them about the prison reform which
ended the draconian sentences imposed on young black men by the laws
enacted by Biden and his hacks. You need to bone up on your homework and
stop listening to Uncle Leon,” Dowd continued.
He went on to criticize Mattis for saying nothing about “ugly, hate filled, disgraceful” comments made by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and concluded by asking
whether Mattis’ anger was “borne of embarrassment” for his own failures.
Article by Neil Patel in "The Daily Caller": Our country is hurting. Culturally, as a society and how we relate to
each other, we are in the midst of a steep drop, almost a free fall.
Race is just one aspect; we are talking past one another, and we are
less of a community than I ever recall. If you love this country, the
question is how did this happen, and how can we turn it around.
First,
we are unmistakably dividing into two or more very distinct
subcultures. We eat different foods; we travel and live differently; we
consume different media; we live in distinct neighborhoods. Of course,
some of this has always been true, but it’s become much more acute, to
the point where you would need a translator to communicate between these
different Americas. That’s a problem.
The
biggest change is the highest-income echelon of our society — where
many political and other leaders reside — does not have any clue what
America is like. They don’t understand Middle America, and they
certainly don’t understand lower-income America. This group flies
private and lives in isolated cocoon communities; their social circles
are defined, and their private clubs shelter them from the rest. They
don’t go to Disney World, and if they did, they would have private
guides to escort them through, without lines and without dealing with
the other visitors.
This separation has policy implications. It
took nearly 20 years of suffering before people in this upper echelon
even knew our country had an opioid epidemic. The Sackler family that had a huge — but not exclusive — role in fueling that epidemic
was still feted for their good deeds and charitable acts only a few
years ago. The one time our government dealt with the opioid issue
during those 20 years was a law passed by Congress and signed by
President Barack Obama that made it harder for regulators to go after
companies for distributing these deadly drugs. They weren’t horrible
people. They just had no clue what was going on.
Second, there is
no longer a moral or ethical limit on behavior. The Jeffrey Epstein
child rape story is emblematic of where we are. Epstein was allowed to
abuse young girls from poor families for two decades while protected by
some of America’s top institutions and leaders. The FBI reportedly
received information on Epstein as early as the mid-1990s but did
nothing. Vanity Fair, one of our most established media outlets, was
told the same but did nothing. Local police who tried their hardest to
put Epstein in jail say they were harassed and overruled by political
superiors.
When Epstein was finally caught, he put together a
dream team of elite lawyers. He hired the very best criminal defense
lawyers, but he also hired other lawyers with distinguished careers in
and out of government, apparently just for their influence and
connections. Epstein’s prosecutor was Alex Acosta, an up-and-coming
Republican U.S. attorney, so Epstein hired even bigger-name Republican
luminaries to intimidate him. Guys such as Jay Lefkowitz, a partner at
Kirkland and Ellis, one of America’s most reputable corporate law firms
where Acosta used to work, and Ken Starr, a Republican superstar, were
brought on to help cut a deal for Epstein. It worked. Acosta, who went
on to become secretary of Labor for Trump and had identified 36 underage
Epstein victims, cut a deal
to give the child rapist only 18 months in county jail with privileges
to come and go. Even more shocking, the deal included a secrecy clause
prohibiting the victims and their families from finding out what
happened.
Nobody
knows why these notable luminaries signed on to help a child rapist in
an area of law far afield from their standard practice. What’s sadder is
nobody has really even asked. As with Vanity Fair, which knew about
this behavior from the start, our corporate media is not interested in
these sorts of stories, so the protagonists get to keep going as if
nothing happened. Epstein, we now know, was able to keep an office at
Harvard University even after his conviction for abusing young girls.
The
Epstein case is so relevant today because it’s the extreme example of
our dual system. Those at the very top can literally get away with child
rape. Those at the bottom find themselves at the whim of any bad cop
they may encounter. This sense that there are two Americas, with two
sets of rules, is driving so much of the rancor we are seeing in the
streets.
When
police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck for almost
nine minutes, all Americans could see what happened on video. Everyone
agreed it was sick.
Protesting in response is completely understandable. Chauvin had 18
infractions in his 18-year career. We can pretend it was one bad cop,
but anyone who’s looked into the issue at all knows there is still a
culture of covering for your own in many police departments. If you are
from America’s elite population, police brutality doesn’t really affect
you. If you are a poor black American in our cities, it can affect you
very seriously. You can believe, as I do, that the vast majority of
police are good people trying to do a really tough job and also believe
police departments need reform. The police must work for all of us. Any
time a police officer views himself as above the law is a problem in our
system.
None of this means that it’s acceptable for the
protests we saw to turn into riots. Too many truly innocent parties have
been devastated, physically assaulted or lost their life savings. The
problem we have in our country is there is no moral authority of any
standing on the left or the right who can effectively stand up and say
stop.
Our
country today is dominated by the extremes. You may believe the
government went too far in shutting down our economy in response to the
coronavirus, but you probably don’t think the guys open-carrying assault
rifles around our state capitals are there to protect your interests.
The antifa terrorists are not speaking for those outraged over George
Floyd either. At some point, normal Americans are going to have to take
back the conversation. People genuinely interested in coming together to
solve problems are needed today more than ever. The fabric of our
country is nearly torn, and if people of good faith don’t start coming
together now, the people on the extreme edges will succeed in finishing
us off.
Attorney General Bill Barr had a press conference on Thursday where he said that he amplified a little of what we reported earlier in the day: that Antifa was in fact instigating and participating in the violent activity.
From
looking at the activity on social media, the nature of the videos and
who is posting about the actions, it’s fairly clear that the actions so
far have been largely leftist driven by the Antifa-connected anarchist,
socialists and Communists individuals and groups.
“We
have evidence that Antifa and other similar extremist groups, as well
as actors of a variety of different political persuasions, have been
involved in instigating and participating in the violent activity,” Barr
explained. So that doesn’t mean it’s only Antifa in all instances.
FBI
Director Chris Wray followed up on Barr’s remarks by making clear that
the FBI had a number of “ongoing investigations” of “violent anarchist
extremists’ with Antifa-like views, but that people weren’t being
investigated for political views but for their actions.
But
Barr said two additional words about which there has been some
speculation. “We are also seeing foreign actors playing all sides to
exacerbate the violence.”
Now that last part is perhaps the most interesting. What foreign actors?
While
Russia collusion was a hoax, what was true is that Russia played both
sides in stoking division during the 2016 election as the Mueller
investigation confirmed. They helped pro-Trump and anti-Trump protests,
including an anti-Trump protest in New York that had an estimated 12,000
people in attendance.
Russia was behind promoting Occupy as a
symbol that the U.S. was collapsing and dissolving into chaos. RT
anchors ended up calling this out.
Indeed, Russian/Soviet involvement in leftist protests in the U.S. goes back to at least the 1960s.
So
we should not discount that as a possibility when looking at who might
like to destabilize us. Indeed, recall the reports that the information
that Russia wanted Hillary to win was suppressed and that the
information used by Christopher Steele was Russian disinformation.
But
there’s another possibility in the “who wishes us ill” sweepstakes, a
country who’s already indicated a willingness to be involved and that’s
China. As we reported earlier,
China was taunting us, calling the riots “beautiful” and “retribution”
for our support for the Hong Kong protesters, and for leveling sanctions
against them and pulling Hong Kong’s special trade status. They also
are infuriated at us for nailing them about the cover-up of the Wuhan
coronavirus.
China bots are definitely online doing the bot thing
against the U.S. Hong Kong protesters believe that there is involvement
of China’s agents in the protests in the United States and I’ll be
writing more about that.
In contrast to reopen protests, where Democratic leaders were
lecturing (and arresting) protesters not only on the dangers of
reopening too soon but also for marching in and of itself because
exercising First Amendment rights would supposedly lead to a wave of
Wuhan coronavirus outbreaks or something, we have not been hearing the
same “you’re gonna kill seniors, you selfish jerk!” accusations from our
intellectual betters regarding those marching over the senseless death of George Floyd.
The double standards have been so blatant that even some reporters, including Fox Los Angeles reporter Bill Melugin, have noted how “ridiculous and arbitrary” the stay at home rules and lectures have been all along. Pharmacists, too, are weighing in and pointing out the inconsistencies in the arguments that were made by Democrats (and the media)
not even two weeks ago about how doing things like going to the beach
or the park could lead to a dramatic increase in cases numbers.
Thankfully, New Jersey’s Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy “explained” recently
why a person wanting to reopen their business in order to put food on
the table and keep a roof over their head was not even in the same
stratosphere in terms of a priority as someone who was protesting over
racial injustice:
On Monday, New Jersey
Gov. Phil Murphy (D) thanked state residents for protesting the unjust
police killing of George Floyd in large numbers, and commended them
for participating in “the transformational moment of our time,” even
though New Jersey’s coronavirus mitigation plan calls for people to
gather outside in groups of no more than 25—and in fact, state
authorities have fined citizens for organizing anti-lockdown protests. But for Murphy, the two forms of protest are “in different orbits.” “I don’t want to make light of this, and I’ll probably get lit up by everyone who owns a nail salon in the state,” said Murphy.
“But it’s one thing to protest what day nail salons are opening, and
it’s another to come out in peaceful protest, overwhelmingly, about
somebody who was murdered right before our eyes.”
NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, too, has said as much on the issues of reopening and religious worship:
New
York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), who has repeatedly inveighed
against the city’s Jewish community for holding public funerals and
opening their businesses despite stay-at-home orders, struck a similar
note. “When you see…an entire nation, simultaneously grappling
with an extraordinary crisis seated in 400 years of American racism, I’m
sorry, that is not the same question as the understandably aggrieved
store owner or the devout religious person who wants to go back to
services,” said de Blasio.
Get
the message here, folks? As far as Democrats are concerned, your First
Amendment rights directly hinge on how woke you are, not on the
Constitution itself.
If
it wasn’t right for people to protest a month ago, it’s not now,
either. The virus is still spreading, and we’re already getting warnings
about a possible second wave in the fall. A virus doesn’t just stop
infecting people the moment leftists decide it’s okay to march in the
streets.
As my RedState colleague Bonchie wrote so eloquently
last night, though, the Wuhan coronavirus lockdowns turned out to be
nothing but a big scam, abused by Democratic mayors and governors to
suppress speech they didn’t like. To be sure, there has been a public
health crisis with this virus, but it never should have been used to
violate the rights of American citizens who were protesting the
executive orders of the governors in their states.
Once you see the strings on the grievance marionettes, you can never watch the pantomime without seeing them; thus the playbook is transparent. Team Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Team AME Church have again aligned, exactly as we expected.
Last evening former President Barack Obama delivered remarks about race and social justice during a virtual town-hall sponsored by his “my brother’s keeper” initiative. (It didn't go over as great as theyd hoped it would.) Simultaneous to that announcement, George Floyd family attorney, Benjamin Crump, delivers remarks from Minneapolis about healing, race and social justice. To assist the sympathetic narrative Ben Crump introduces George Floyd’s son, Quincy Mason.
Benjamin Crump (AME) introduced the three word catch phrase “take a breath”; initiating a week of memorials for George Floyd that will travel to three states over 5 days. President Obama (BLM) will likely promote “take a knee” etc. [It’s always three words]
All of the activist grievance leaders, in addition to the politicians, have been instructed to reign-in the protests in coordination with the 5:00pm Obama remarks. That timing allows the media to present the ‘healing Obama’ narrative; riots and looting stop etc.
Meanwhile, attorney Ben Crump will deliver the same healing message with the added demand that all police officers must be arrested by the time the first memorial takes place at 1:00pm tomorrow.
The “all we want is an arrest” approach, comes directly from the BLM/AME playbook as executed in Orlando/Miami (Trayvon Martin), Ferguson (Mike Brown), and Baltimore (Freddie Gray). Now that both networks have come back together and aligned, all of the coordination is much easier. Many CTH readers will immediately recognize the playbook. [Video Below]
By the time the third funeral is held in Houston Texas, don’t be surprised to see Joe Biden, Barack Obama and George Bush together to give the political optic of unity and national healing based on race. The actual goal is far less about racial healing and more specifically about how to obtain political benefit and paint President Trump as the problem.
Attorney Ben Crump: “For peace, let's take a breath. For justice, let's take a breath. To heal our country and most importantly, let's take a breath for George Floyd” https://t.co/vhkatk2e6xpic.twitter.com/rBM4UMSlWl
Everything within the strategy is coordinated and planned carefully. The script is how the political value is maximized. In the larger background the goal is activism based on race for 2020 to avoid the problem that was encountered in 2016. Joe Biden, and the DNC apparatus writ large, are the intended beneficiaries.
The HISTORY – The Biden strategy is heavily scripted and not organic. From the moment representative James Clyburn aligned his network with Barack Obama’s Chicago machine there has been a strategy at work.
Clyburn uses the old-fashioned racial playbook through the AME church network. The AME network includes Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Meanwhile Obama historically used the modern race-based network: the Nation of Islam and New Black Panther Party. The NoI and NBPP are also allied with DNC Chairman Tom Perez.
Tom Perez was the head of the DOJ Civil Rights Division… which is not coincidental because the election of 2020 is the second time both networks have merged upon, and attempted to activate, the Black Lives Matter crowd. The first time they merged was in Orlando and Miami during the 2012 “Justice for Trayvon” movement.
Black Lives Matter came out of the organization known as “The Dream Defenders”. The defenders were the younger generational version of the civil rights AME network.
In 2012/2013 President Obama and Tom Perez were able to blend the Dream Defenders into an alignment with Farakahan, the Nation of Islam, and the New Black Panther Party.
As an outcome of a more bitter ideology, the Dream Defenders became more antagonistic and combative when they launched the rebranded version, ‘Black Lives Matter’.
The newly blended Black Lives Matter network had their first heavy visibility with the “Justice for Mike Brown” movement that destroyed Ferguson, Missouri.
After the Mike Brown pretense collapsed the BLM group moved to Baltimore to exploit the false narrative that surrounded the death of Freddie Gray.
Baltimore was then set ablaze with the leadership of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake who famously said it was important to give the riot crowd “space to destroy.”
While BLM was fulfilling their role as on-the-street activists, the parents of Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown were making financial trips through the AME church network.
AME holds the faith-based role while advancing an older and more traditional generational approach toward racial grievance. The BLM message targets a younger generation with guilt and influence to break windows and riots on behalf of ‘social justice’. To achieve their common goal each group agreed to, or should I say: ‘learned to‘, stay in their lane.
When Jesse Jackson and/or Al Sharpton made independent moves toward the younger BLM activists they were ridiculed and dispatched. Lessons were learned. The older race hustlers now stick to the AME crowd where there is a generational respect.
♦ SLIGHTED – Despite Barack Obama leaning heavily on the AME network in ’07/’08, by the time you get to ’12/’13, without re-election needs, the AME was less valued. The open preference for Obama toward the BLM team was visible. After reelection in 2012 team Obama shifted toward expanding political influence through the Latino community.
Tom Perez and President Obama sought to assemble another race-based coalition with hopes they could merge Latinos (La Raza) with BLM. However, all of this focus on BLM and the “dreamers” created a problem. Without maintenance of the social network the AME connection to the Obama-controlled DNC started to fray.
Obama’s focus on a youth movement meant Democrats were taking AME support for granted. Worse yet, the older AME activists gained nothing from the modern Obama coalition; ‘gaining nothing’ means financial benefits were diminished.
Without their traditional/customary indulgence fees the national AME leadership network, the racial patriarchs of the democrat party, were not happy.
The financial disappointment shows up in many visible ways throughout 2015 and 2016, but the most visible way was in September 2016 during the all black Baptist Convention in Kansas City Missouri. (see here)
There were 25,000 participants at the KC Convention and Hillary Clinton was scheduled to deliver the keynote address. When it came time for her speech only around ten percent of the general session audience showed up.
It was the first visible sign the AME network leadership was not at all happy with the modern DNC party apparatus as constructed by the new Obama coalition.
The AME network felt slighted and they literally left Clinton with tens-of-thousands of empty seats at the convention. CTH noticed but the media mostly ignored. Those of you around at the time will remember the CTH position after this convention optic was the 2016 election looked solid for Donald Trump.
LESSON LEARNED – Fast forward to just before Super Tuesday 2020. Bernie Sanders has momentum, and is about to become unstoppable. Bernie was a threat to remove DNC leadership power the same way Trump removed RNC party power in 2016. Party power is money; billions from the big club at stake. Now we see why it was critical for Team Obama (BLM) and the AME team to unite quickly that Super-Tuesday weekend; which is exactly what they did.
While James Clyburn quickly notified the AME network, former President Barack Obama activated his control over the DNC network; and signaled to all other primary candidates they needed to drop out in a designed sequence. The DNC Club made offers they could not refuse. Remember, club rules.
James Clyburn delivered on his end (AME), and Obama delivered on his (DNC/BLM). The rest is history. However, within that history is also a realization that all the alignment means nothing if they don’t successfully activate the network.
That unified activation is exactly what is happening now in the U.S.
The BLM team has been reactivated back onto the streets to create the Alinsky inspired chaos. Meanwhile the AME team openly embrace Joe and push heavily for his candidacy. As a result the optics of Joe Biden taking a knee are: heavily scripted, carefully planned and ironically very appropriate.
The media narrative now becomes “everyone must take a knee.”
Note: the DNC network always use three-word phrases:
“Hope and Change”, “Take A Knee” etc.
Without the AME network Joe Biden doesn’t stand a chance. For all intents and purposes James Clyburn is calling all the shots. Clyburn will be the one to select the VP candidate.
The tone-deaf and arrogant lessons from Hillary in 2016 loom heavy as a stark reminder of just how important Clyburn is to Biden’s chances; and the AME network will not let the DNC forget it.
The message from James Clyburn to DNC Chairman Tom Perez is really simple: without me you would have been dealing with Bernie Sanders, and the DNC would be on the brink of disassembly… so ‘take a knee.’
And I’ve shared two videos (here and here) for those who want more information about how bailouts encourage “moral hazard.” And this is true for banks (think TARP) as well as governments.
Today, though, I want to focus on some numbers that show what’s really causing fiscal problems in some states.
Adam Michel and David Ditch of the Heritage Foundation have generated some startling data on state government finances.
Instead of waiting on a handout from Washington, states should clear the way for a more robust economic recovery by addressing their unsustainable finances. States and local government spending has increased over the recent past… After adjusting for inflation and increases in population, state and local spending (in constant 2019 dollars) has grown from $5,596 per person in 2000 to $7,268 per person in 2019. That amounts to a 30% increase in the real cost of state and local government over just two decades, even without the thousands of dollars per person the federal government sends to states and localities through a wide variety of programs. …not all states spend equally. As of 2017, Florida, Georgia, and Arizona spent about $5,800 per person on state and local governments, but New York spent more than $11,700 per person.
The most important number is the above excerpt is that there’s been a 30 percent increase in per-capita state spending after adjusting for inflation.
That’s a very worrisome trend.
But not all states are created equal. Or, to be more precise, they’re not all equally profligate. Here’s the chart that starkly illustrates why some states are in trouble.
At the risk of understatement, California and New York have not complied with the Golden Rule for fiscal policy.
Needless to say, there’s no justification for the notion that taxpayers in well-run states such as Texas and Florida should be coerced into providing bailouts for politicians in poorly run states.
And now we have a compelling visual that settles the argument.
P.S. Over the past several years, I’ve done multiple columns comparing Texas and California and also several columns comparing New York and Florida, all of which underscore that blue states have created their own problems by taxing too much and spending too much.
P.P.S. Thankfully, people can vote with their feet by moving from high-tax states to low-tax states. Let’s hope that Congress doesn’t enact a bailout so they’re forced to subsidize the states that drove them away.
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 10:56 AM PT — Thursday, June 4, 2020
Authorities believe an ambush on New York police officers Wednesday night may have been terror-related.
According to the New York City Police Department (NYPD) Thursday,
three officers were patrolling a Brooklyn neighborhood on lookout for
any looters when a man approached them from behind and stabbed one
officer in the neck.
A confrontation then broke out between the men, which resulted in the
two other officers receiving gunshot wounds to their hands. It’s not
clear if those injuries were from the suspect or a result of friendly
fire.
Meanwhile, the suspect was reportedly shot multiple times and is now
at Kings County Hospital in critical condition. The suspect has been
identified as an immigrant from the Balkan region who expressed
anti-police sentiment on his social media in the past.
According to reports Thursday, the man suspected of attacking the
officers is believed to have ties to ISIS. Police have ruled nothing out
and terrorist motives are just one theory being raised in the ongoing
investigation.
The incident occurred after the city wide 8 p.m. curfew and is not
being connected to ongoing protests. Officials have said the three
officers are expected to make full recoveries.
ADP Payroll Report For May Suggests Job Cuts Ending and Optimistic for Rebound
Economic analysts had forecast another month of job losses around 9 million; however, the ADP payroll report shows a much better result with 2.76 million jobs lost in May. The surprising difference between expectations and results is giving increased hope a quicker rebound may be possible.
The ADP results were so much better than expected that White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett said he has to check the data twice. The data was released while Hassett was in the middle of an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business.
The key is getting rid of these nonsensical shut-down rules. As the lack of social distancing concern amid the protests has shown, the shut-down fears, rules and regulations are over-hyped and baseless. However, the blue state governors continue to fight economic re-engagement as they look to maximize negative economic impact for political gains.
Irene Triplett, last child of Civil War veteran getting a pension, has died at 90
A civil war canon on the Gettysburg National Military Park. Mose Triplett fell ill on the way to Gettysburg. (Getty Images)
(Newser) – The word "mind-bending" features in the Wall Street Journal's obituary on Irene Triplett and her place in history, with good reason. The 90-year-old died Sunday in a Wilkesboro, NC, nursing home, bringing an end to the final pension that had been paid out in connection with the Civil War. Triplett collected $73.13 a month from the Department of Veterans Affairs as "a helpless adult child of a veteran," a reference to her mental disabilities and her father, Pvt. Mose Triplett. He initially fought for the Confederacy, ending up in the 26th North Carolina Infantry Regiment in early 1863. An illness en route to Gettysburg left him in a Virginia hospital; of the 800 men from his unit who went on to Gettysburg, all but 66 were killed, wounded, or captured.
Mose Triplett left the hospital as a deserter, traveled south to Tennessee, and switched to the Union side as part of the 3rd North Carolina Mounted Infantry. The Journal reports the regiment was known for its "campaign of sabotage against Confederate targets in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina." In 1924, at the age of 83, he married Elida Hall, who was in her late 20s. Irene was born six years later, and US News & World Reportadds that of Hall's four other children with Triplett, only son Everette survived infancy. Mose Triplett died in 1938, his wife in 1967, and Everette in 1996. In 2014 the Journal ran a feature on Triplett and her family, noting at that time she was the last child of a Civil War vet collecting VA benefits, and that the same could then be said of 16 widows and children of veterans of the 1898 Spanish-American War. (For more, check out the 2014 article.)
