Editor’s Note: Say What? is the segment of Liberty Nation Radio where we unveil some of the most wacky, astonishing, and damnable things uttered by politicians and the chattering class.
Tim Donner: As the aftershocks of a spate of mob violence settled into a nation shaken and stirred by a pandemic, then the police execution of an unarmed citizen, and then the widespread protests in the nation's largest urban centers -- often peaceful, all too often violent -- we're now hearing calls for radical reform in police departments across the land. There's a growing movement sparked by Black Lives Matter to defund the cops.
Lest you be confused by what this means, it's not just reducing funding but ending it. The dictionary definition of defund is "to prevent from continuing to receive funds." The radicals are now energized, out in force, feeling the Bern, feeling like this is their moment. But in the midst of the chaos came an appearance by George Floyd's brother, Philonise Floyd, before Congress. He decried the execution of his brother and systemic racism but captured the way many of the legitimate black protesters seemed to be feeling with one excruciating question that burned the conscience.
Philonise Floyd: George wasn't hurting anyone that day. He didn't deserve to die over $20. I'm asking you, is that what a black man is worth? Twenty dollars?
Tim: Indeed, George Floyd was executed after allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill. But with the mob still threatening to explode again at any time, at almost anything Donald Trump does or says, the Trump haters on the right and their cheerleaders in the media have been all aglow about the opportunistic, sour-grapes comments of Trump's former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, which were then echoed by Trump's former chief of staff, John Kelly, making a big show of attacking Trump's famous photo-op in front of that church, which was set on fire by protesters, across from the White House. So the likes of Jake Tapper on CNN did what he usually does: invited on another anti-Trump Republican, Colin Powell, and asked him a question that twisted the words of the president.
Jake Tapper: Let's start right now with the extraordinary comments this week from several top former military officials, including former Secretary and General Jim Mattis, condemning President Trump's actions against protesters, his desire to have 10,000 active U.S. military in the streets of this nation.
Tim: Trump's "desire to have 10,000 active U.S. military in the streets of this nation" -- that's a complete lie. What Trump actually said was that he would do it only if the mayors and the governors and the National Guard all failed to restore order. But Tapper and his Trump-hating puppets on the left make a living off corrupting the words and actions of Trump, in this case, making him sound like a violent dictator for demanding an end to anarchy in the streets! But the generals who've been hanging around politicians in Washington for most of their lives, like John Allen and the sainted Colin Powell, doubled down on the Mattis attack.
John Allen: I never believed that the Constitution was under threat until recently, and I have concerns about that. We should all be attentive right now to how the rule of law is being administered in this country.
Colin Powell: I'm so proud of what these generals and admirals have done, and others have done, but, you know, I didn't write a letter because I made my point with respect to Trump's performance some four years ago, when he was running for office. And when I heard some of the things he was saying, it made it clear that I could not possibly vote for this individual.
Tim: And so Colin Powell, Republican in name only, of course, voted for Hillary Clinton and before that Obama twice, and yet the media treat his rejection of Trump like it's something new and alarming. So here's the question for these armchair generals. What exactly has Trump done on the world stage and with the military that so offends them? Was it the defeat of ISIS? Was it talking to the North Korean dictator? Was it demanding NATO members finally pay their fair share? Was it taking on China, which no other president would do? No, none of that matters. Only that the president of the United States threatened to use the military as a last resort if blood continued to flow in the streets. This is what Trump has been up against from the moment he arrived, promising to drain the Swamp known as Washington, D.C.
But through the fog of war it seems like we're in right now, an investigation that was ready to come front and center before the pandemic is now back on the radar. Attorney General Bill Barr went on Fox News last week to imply that his investigation into Operation Crossfire Hurricane, the surveillance of the 2016 Trump campaign by the Obama Justice Department, is picking up steam. And he says that's very understandable.
Bill Barr: Before the election, I think we're concerned about the mode of force behind the very aggressive investigation that was launched into the Trump campaign with a very thin, slender reed as a basis for it. It seemed that the Bureau was sort of spring-loaded at the end of July to drive in there and investigate a campaign, and there really wasn't much there to do that on. And that became more and more evident as they went by, but they seem to have ignored all the exculpatory evidence that was building up and continued pell-mell to push it forward.
Tim: That was before the election, but Barr says what happened following Trump's victory is just as troubling.
Bill Barr: After the election, even though they were closing down some of it, as we've seen in the Flynn case, and saying, "There's nothing here," for some reason they went right back at it, even at a time where the evidentiary support or claim support, like the dossier, was falling apart. And it's very hard to understand why they continued to push and even make public testimony that they had an investigation going, when it was becoming painfully obvious, or should have been obvious to anyone, that there was nothing there.
Tim: Nothing there. A big nothing-burger. And yet, the Democrats dragged the nation through three years of scurrilous allegations that they knew to be false, except perhaps in their dreams, but failing as always to take him down. And, of course, now they're saying the whole thing is just old news, and, of course, the elite media are as always in full lockstep.
We close with a classic sign of the times. It came when angry left-wing legal commentator Areva Martin appeared on the radio show of conservative David Webb discussing -- what else? -- white privilege.
Areva Martin: … that's a whole other long conversation about white privilege, and things that you have the privilege of doing that people of color don't have the privilege of.
David Webb: How do I have the privilege of white privilege?
Areva Martin: David, by virtue of being a white male, you have white privilege.
David Webb: Areva, I hate to break it to you, but you should've been better prepped. I'm black.
Tim: Was there a hole for her to climb into? Want to get away? Don’t you hate when those pesky facts get in the way of a terrific narrative?
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