Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, December 17, 2016

B4

OPINION 

DICK Polman

Mountain Views-News Saturday, December 17, 2016 

PETER FUNT

DICK POLMAN

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GIVE TRUMP CREDIT

The nation’s newspapers are struggling mightily to find 
columnists who are willing to write nice things about Donald 
Trump.

 That’s according to a report in the Washington Post, 
indicating that the regular stable of conservative pundits––
from George Will to David Brooks––isn’t delivering enough 
pro-Trump op-eds. As it happens, I was just finishing a column 
praising the president-elect when the Post’s story came out.

 Even before taking office, Donald Trump is sending a 
powerful signal to the nearly 63 million Americans who voted for him that he is, 
indeed, a bold thinker and an agent of change.

 For instance, after pledging during the campaign to stop the exodus of companies 
to Mexico and other countries, Trump quickly saved roughly 800 jobs at a Carrier 
plant in Indiana. True, the number is lower than Trump first claimed, and granted, as 
the Indianapolis Star reports, as many as 2,100 Hoosiers are still about to lose their 
jobs, and yes, keeping Carrier happy will cost Indiana $7 million in tax incentives. 
But to dwell on such relatively minor concerns misses the larger point.

 The president-elect has demonstrated that he can pick up the phone––something 
Mike Pence says he’ll do often––and get action from business chieftains looking for a 
bribe. The Carrier tax breaks will cost only $8,750 per job saved. Using that formula, 
every single one of of the nation’s full-time jobs could be saved, at least temporarily, 
for a mere $1.09 trillion.

, Donald Trump heroically vowed to “drain the swamp” in Washington of 
enlightened leaders with meaningful government experience. What better way to 
make good on that promise than by selecting Ben Carson, a retired brain surgeon 
with no experience in government or in housing to be Secretary of Housing and 
Urban Development?

 Trump deserves enormous credit for surrounding himself with individuals who 
will shun business-as-usual in Washington. Clearly that’s why he chose as chief 
strategist Steve Bannon, a true maverick who favors hate speech of all types including 
white nationalism, anti-semitism, immigrant-hatred and misogyny.

 The president-elect has made clear that he will not become another political hack; 
rather, he will continue to hone the skills that made him so admired in business. He 
will actively manage his vast holdings, regardless of whether they conflict with his 
White House job. He even rebuffed the critics and media elite who urged him to give 
up his gig as executive producer of NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice.”

 Americans don’t like a candidate who says one thing to woo voters and then 
flip-flops once elected. Yes, Trump has conceded that the wall on the border with 
Mexico might be a more modest fence, and true, he’s apparently decided against 
mass deportations, and granted, he admires many of the best features in Obamacare, 
and, yes, he has recently deduced that climate change might be man’s doing, and, of 
course, he no longer intends to prosecute Hillary Clinton.

 But when it comes to things average citizens really care about, Trump is proving to 
be a man of his word. He said he wouldn’t stop tweeting as president, and he hasn’t. 
He vowed to retain his children as top advisers, and he is following through.

 Donald Trump is a leader with a vision of how America works. For example, a 
few days before Thanksgiving his website offered for sale a Christmas ornament in 
the form of a miniature Make America Great Again hat, brushed with real gold and 
selling for $149.

 By holding rallies across the nation––even though there is nothing left to campaign 
for or about––Trump is already cementing his place in history.

 As for the nation’s opinion writers, their unwillingness to recognize Donald 
Trump’s impressive accomplishments after such a short period of time reflects poorly 
on them and not on the true American hero they would seek to defame.

——-

 

Peter Funt can be reached at www.CandidCamera.com

 Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, “Cautiously Optimistic,” is available 
at Amazon.com and CandidCamera.com. © 2016 Peter Funt. Columns distributed 
exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate.


SIX THINGS WE NEED TO KNOW 
ABOUT THE TRUMP-RUSSIA 
CONNECTION

The latest intelligence revelations about Russia’s cyberpush for Donald Trump 
are so persuasive that even congressional Republican leaders have been 
compelled to take notice. There will indeed be investigations and hearings, 
in both chambers. It appears, for now anyway, that they actually view this 
unprecedented national security breach as nearly as important as Hillary’s 
private server.

 Assuming that Republicans don’t try to spin the whole thing into oblivion, assuming that they really 
intend to demonstrate that they’re not being played for saps, and assuming that they do intend to fully 
probe the relationship between Trump and the ex-KGB thug, here are the big questions they might 
want to ask:

1. What did Trump know and when did he know it?

 Prior to the election, intelligence briefers told Trump that Russia was interfering in our election, but 
he rejected the intel, claiming publicly that it might just be some 400-pound hacker somewhere. On 
what rational basis did he have reason to disbelieve the intelligence warnings? In other words, what did 
Trump know and why did he choose not to know it?

2. What are the full extent of Trump’s financial ties to Russia?

As his son Donald Jr. said in 2008, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of 
our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” But we still don’t know the full extent — there 
have long been suspicions that he owes money to Russian oligarchs — because Trump never provided 
a full accounting of his business interests. Will the Republicans finally demand that he fork over all his 
tax returns?

3. Why was Russia so motivated, via its hail of propaganda, to help get Trump elected?

Did Trump start echoing Russia’s positions — soften our NATO commitments; soften or end our 
economic sanctions — because he sincerely believes those positions, or because he has been steered by 
the Russian apologists in his circle?

4. And what about those apologists?

They include:

- Michael Flynn, the incoming national security adviser, a regular contributor to Vladimir Putin’s 
RT propaganda network, and a paid speechmaking attendee at RT’s 10th anniversary dinner last 
December
- Carter Page, a backstage foreign policy adviser who has business dealings in Russia
- Paul Manafort, the campaign manager who was jettisoned after he was outed as a paid advisor to a 
pro-Putin leader in Ukraine
- Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state nominee, a foe of our anti-Putin sanctions, and winner of a 
Putin “friendship” award. What’s the current full extent of their financial ties to Russia? Will the 
Republicans subpoena their records?


5. Is there any evidence of pre-election collusion between Trump advisors and Kremlin officials?

If not, what’s the substance of their post-election communications? Are major shifts in American policy 
in the works - stuff that’s detrimental to American interests? Stuff we don’t know about?

 The latter questions may be the most important of all. Even if Russian’s pro-Trump cyberpush 
wasn’t pivotal in getting Trump elected, Russia got the president it wanted. A president who 
(for all we know) may be financially or otherwise compromised to act in Russia’s interests at 
the expense of ours. As Eric Edelmen and David J. Kramer, two George W. Bush foreign policy 
officials, warn:

 “Without U.S. leadership keeping the Europeans united against Putin, Western resolve in the face 
of Russian aggression will crumble. Before even moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and gaining the 
authority to lift U.S. sanctions on Russia, Trump could produce a radical change in policy toward 
Moscow. Such a change, however, would not make America, the West or the world great again. But 
it could trigger the unraveling of the alliances and institutional structures that made the U.S. and its 
European partners great in the past.”

 All told, the pro-Republican columnist Jennifer Rubin said it best yesterday: “You would think it 
would be obvious that Russian efforts to select America’s president through cyber-weaponized 
revelations may be the most important election story — ever. This is warfare of an entirely different sort, 
one aimed at the heart of democracy.”

 Which prompts my biggest question of all:

6. Do congressional Republicans have the fortitude and patriotism to take this probe wherever it leads?

——-

 Copyright 2016 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Dick Polman is the national political columnist at NewsWorks/WHYY in Philadelphia (newsworks.
org/polman) and a “Writer in Residence” at the University of Pennsylvania. Email him at 
dickpolman7@gmail.com.

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LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

MAKING SENSE

by MICHAEL REAGAN


WHY EVEN HAVE A BORDER?

 Why does California even bother to have a border? 

Why does the United States of America?

 In 2013 the governor of our one-party state, Jerry Brown, 
and the Democrats in Sacramento effectively turned California 
into a sanctuary state.

 They told Washington that if any of the illegal immigrants 
arrested here had not committed a serious crime they would 
not be turned over to federal immigration officials for 
deportation.

 Now the council of Santa Ana has voted to join more than 30 other California 
towns that have declared themselves sanctuary cities.

 Already L.A, San Francisco, San Diego and Oakland won’t cooperate with federal 
officials or spend any of their resources to look for people who are in the USA 
illegally.

We’ll see how tough the politicians running these cities and places like Chicago are 
when the Trump administration starts cutting off their federal funding.

 Meanwhile, the state I love continues to be abused by the Progressive Gestapo 
(PG) in Sacramento that doesn’t care who gets hurts by their open-door immigration 
policies or their terrible regulations and nonstop tax hikes.

 The working-class Latinos who live here – the legal ones, the American citizens 
– and the working poor are the ones who’ll lose their jobs to the cheaper labor of 
illegal aliens. 

 The state’s “Haves” – the Hollywood elites, Silicon Valley computer engineers and 
lifetime political hacks -- are not going to lose their jobs to an illegal immigrant 
from Mexico. 

 It’s going to be the “Have Nots” – the gardeners, day laborers and entry-level 
restaurant workers. 

 They’ll be the ones who’ll be hurt by the incoming waves of illegal immigrants that 
California’s Progressive Gestapo greets with open arms and treats better than the 
state’s shrinking number of taxpayers.

 Illegal immigrants in California already get free health services and schools for 
their kids. They already can get a driver’s license. Now they’re talking about letting 
them vote. 

 In California, there’s a whole industry built around supplying fake Social Security 
cards. You can buy one and get it in an hour. Then you have the paperwork you need 
to take someone’s job away from them.

 So watch out, America.

 California is where most of our worst ideas about government are incubated and 
put into practice.

 Unless Donald Trump’s get-tough policy on illegal immigration turns things 
around, the Progressive Gestapo might be coming to your state and town next – if 
it’s not already there.

 California is a 40-year-old train wreck and it’s only getting worse. Major 
corporations are moving their headquarters to other states. People who own homes 
and pay taxes are leaving too

 A friend of mine who had immigrated to America from communist Czechoslovakia 
recently gave up on California.

 The Golden State was looking more and more to him like the country he escaped 
from in 1986, so he sold his house and moved to Puerto Rico.

 Immigrants from around the planet used to come to America to work hard, get 
rich and become Americans. Now they come here – often illegally -- and want 
Americans to assimilate to their cultures and give them free stuff. 

 It’s getting so crazy in California, legal immigrants from Mexico are thinking of 
moving back.

——-

 Copyright ©2016 Michael Reagan. Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald 
Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. 
Martin’s Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of 
The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.
michaelereagan.com. Send comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. Follow @
reaganworld on Twitter. 

 

 Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For 
info on using columns contact Sales at sales@cagle.com.


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