Once again, the great political cartoonist AF Branco has captured the essence of a political issue with graphic brevity and precision.

In this instance, he has caricatured the House Bullet Twins, Representative Adam “Hollow Point” Schiff and Speaker Nancy “Dum-Dum” d’Alesandro Pelosi, displaying their faux outrage at President Trump’s authorization to provide Turkey, Russia, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with a military deconfliction notice of the air traffic associated with the hit on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

“Military Deconfliction” notices have been used regularly to help militarily adversarial forces avoid misinterpreting the intent of a military action.   In this instance, the deconfliction notice would likely have been limited to the expected flight paths of the US helicopters flying low, dark, and fast in and out of Barisha, Syria.

It is almost certain that whoever made the call on behalf of the US disclosed only enough information to reassure the Turks, the Russians, and the SDF that they were not the intended target of a US military action.  It may have included any potential alternate flight paths if they were forced by operational necessity.

As for Hollow-Point’s and Dum-Dum’s faux outrage that the President didn’t inform them before the recipients of the deconfliction notice, they did not as Congresscritters have a “need to know.”  They had no beneficial part to play in the operation.  Their being informed ahead of time could only result in the operation being compromised, not improved.

If information about the operation had leaked out, it would have compromised operational security and jeopardized the lives of all our military troops involved.   It could easily have escalated the conflict rather than prevent it.   “Friendly fire” by uninformed adversaries would have adversely affected the mission’s success.  By giving the notice, President Trump was giving US military counterparts from Russia, Turkey, and the SDF time to prevent friendly fire.

It seems likely that the Russians, Turks, and SDF probably figured out what the US’s mission was.  They would quickly have deduced that al-Baghdadi’s demise helps them by removing a major impediment to stabilizing the region while at the same time not appearing to be in cahoots with the US.

We’re still waiting to see and read the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report “… on potential surveillance abuses by intelligence officials during the 2016 Russia investigation.”  And waiting.  And waiting.  Fox News Network is reporting that the final report is still being declassified.

The report’s boundaries have shown some elasticity insofar as what material will and will not be investigated and included in the report.

One of the more intriguing questions that has been posed (though not necessarily addressed in the report) will be whether the United States Eye solicited one or more of the remaining four of the Five Eyes (FVEY)  countries (US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) to conduct signals intelligence (SIGINT) surveillances on US citizens involved in the presidential campaign of 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump.  The US cannot lawfully conduct or solicit surrogates to conduct such politically-motivated surveillances against US citizens.

If another Five Eye country was solicited by a US Intelligence Community member to collect and illegally pass the information to the Obama administration or campaign, the logical followup question would be, “Was President Obama aware of the illegal surveillances and did he in fact authorize them?”

I contend the answer to the followup question would have to be a resounding, “Yes!”

How can I be so sure?  Because there would be a good chance that a SIGINT agency head with a FVEY country receiving an obviously unlawful request from Brennan or Clapper would go running to his own head of government and say, “Mr. (or Madam) Prime Minister, a US intelligence community head just asked us to begin an electronic surveillance on the Trump presidential campaign and pass the information to him directly.  What do you want me to do?”  At that point, the PM would pick up the phone and call President Obama with a lot of very touchy questions about the request.  That would be an inquiry even President Obama would not want to receive unless he was not only aware of the DNI’s request but had also either explicitly or implicity approved it and already had some story fabricated to keep his own butt safe and sound in the Oval Office instead of federal prison.

Of course, Hillary Clinton was already measuring for drapes in the Oval Office.  It was a foregone conclusion that she would be the inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States in January 2017.  Had that happened, all of the corruption in the US Department of Justice, the FBI, the federal judiciary, and the State Department would have been swept under the rug stored in some obscure National Archives and Records Administration warehouse and sealed for 100 years.

President Trump’s victory and his determination to drain the swamp caught Obama, the Clinton Crime Family, and their numerous conspiring cronies off guard.  With a new President, an honest Attorney General, and a very competent US Attorney looking at the IG’s forthcoming report carefully, maybe the operative instruction to Obama et al should be, “Lawyer up!”

We can only hope…

Washington Examiner online opinion headline:

ABC News ‘slaughter in Syria’ footage appears to come from a Kentucky gun range

The print and electronic “news” media challenge how we, the great unwashed, can question their credibility when we read stories like this.

Don’t stop with the reporters.  Keep looking up the media food chain to editors, publishers, media owners, and above all, at the alleged journalism schools that teach and train tomorrow’s skewers of the news.

The US House of Representatives under the leadership (or something) of Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been making noises she hopes will mislead us into believing that the House has formally begun the action to impeach President Donald J. Trump.  She’s had considerable help with the misleading from the Democrat Party’s courtesans in the skews media.

Finally President Trump and Counsel to the President Pat Cipollone have heard enough of Pelosi’s and her cronies’ lies.  Even more importantly, the President and his counsel have recognized that Pelosi and Company have become completely committed to destroying the rule of law and to disenfranchising the voters who elected Donald J. Trump in November 2016.

So today, October 8, 2016, counsel Cipollone transmitted an eight-page letter to Pelosi and three of her Consigliere:  Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, and House Committee on Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings.

Cipollone’s letter is a detailed explanation about why the President of the United States will be refusing to cooperate with the House’s unlawful efforts to deceive voters into believing the House is engaging in a lawful constitutonal process.

Cipollone’s letter should help clarify some of the procedural and legal issues the Pelosi Mob seeks to use to install a tyrannical government which could whimsically and corruptly  impeach and remove any and all elected officials including future presidents and federal judges.

President Trump and his legal counsel are right to refuse to be a party to Pelosi’s planned destruction of the separation of powers in our government.