Legendary Great Ivan Koloff: The State of Affairs In Washington

An interview with Ivan Koloff, Legendary Great

What do you think defines the modern or current era of American politics?

Dysfunctional.

In what ways?

Two ways:
(a) politics no longer rewards accomplishments, getting things doesn't matter any longer.
(b) politics incentivizes bad behavior; criticizing, obstructing, etc. - both parties - seem to matter more than governing.

What was the inflection point for this modern era?

I think it Started with Bush 43. I observed that he was perceived by those on the left as 'evil'.
Think WMD in Iraq. There seemed to be a trend of identifying the president as 'evil'.
An evil enemy justifies any action - lying and personal attacks at a minimum.
With Trump, what happened with Bush went to a whole level.

Politics has become an issue of morality, which it is not.

For instance, Trump was considered 'immoral' and therefore any treatment was acceptable.

I don't believe that. And prior to Bush 43, politics was not a morality play.

Coincidentally, that coincided with the rise of the web as a communications mechanism.

Before the Internet, everyone consumed news from the major channels - NYT, WaPo, CBS, etc.

After the Internet, a huge diversity of opinions arose.

Now outlets cater to segments, amplifying messages they want to hear. The echo chamber - the left talks to left; right talks to right, but no one bridges that gap.

A related phenomenn is the craving of attention by individuals: anyone can be a reporter or a commentator even if they have minimal knowledge .

Hasn't helped the political discourse.

And today even the large, once respected outlets, have engaged in segmentation. The Washington Post's columnists, its news coverage cater exclusively to a left-wing audience.

Has the Democrat Party changed since the advent of Barack Obama on the national scene?

Most assuredly. The historic issues embraced by the Left - government spying and monitoring of citizenry - before Obama, that would have been considered a great evil.
With Obama, you saw pivoting to the state as a good thing. The left has turned a blind eye to government

Encouraging government censorship? 20 years ago, that would have been unheard of in the Democrat Party.
That the ACLU now supports censorship under the guise of misinformation.

How did Obama deal with the stunning defeat he faced in the 2010 midterms with the advent of the Tea Party?

The 2010 election was a referendum on Obama. Clinton pivoted to triangulate and compromise. Obama, on the other hand, doubled down on his approach to government.

Obama is the current father of the modern progressive Democrat Party.

I'm going to give you a term or a name and I'd like your reaction:

Lawfare: Unfamiliar with that.

Lois Lerner: A perfect example of the two systems of justice that we ahve; Lerner should have been imprisoned.
After Lerner, I don't think it's a coincidence, were people emboldened in the bureaucracy?
You can target Republicans, violate your statutory obligations under the law, etc.
Lerner was a poster-child of how to get away with it.

By the time Republicans took power, the statute of limitations wiped away the culpability. So the gameplan is deflect, delay, etc.

This is where the Republicans (2016) had the opportunity to unite as the president and set out to 'drain the swamp'
= That's a huge undertaking, but he appeared to make very little effort to rip out some of that nastiness.
He could have gone after Lerner's type - will change the civil services laws to prevent undermining the Executive.
You could have gone after folks like Lerner, which statutory changes needed to be made to prevent the IRS ...
He had a lot going on, but ultimately this was a pillar of his agenda that was missing.


Russian Collusion:
At the end of the day, one of the most unbeliviable acts of political malfeasance ever perpetrated.
In some respects, it was masterful -- the Democrat Party and its supporters -- to sabotage a sitting president with allegations
Let's not forget Trump's culpability : Sessions as an Attorney General.
Had you had a forceful A.G., the outcome could have gone down a different path.
And by appointing Sessions, you also lost the Alabama U.S. Senate seat that Doug Jones won.

James Comey:
Reprehensible human being; for someone who's a lawyer, a senior official of the DOJ and head of the FBI... to engage in the conduct he engaged in... it's beyond the pale.
Comey's supposed to be the adult in the room, and he was clearly not that.
He was as juvenile as the kids he was allegedly supervising.

Merrick Garland
Thank God he's not on the Supreme Court. He's a hack. For the things that the DOJ has sone under his tenure, we'll look back and hang our heads in shame.
Conspiring with teacher's unions to attack parents as terror threats.
The 1/6 prosecutions. They're Absurd.
That's an example where the loss of the mainstream media has undermine public sentiment.
A neutral fourth estate, the public would be outraged what has happened with the January 6th defendants -- and there was none of that.

Bill Barr
Immense respect for him, knew and worked with him. He's an exceedingly bright and honorable guy.
I believe he acquitted himself well under the Trump administration.
He could have done more to corral some of the nonsense that was going on.

Had Barr been A.G. in the 2016 timeframe, what would have happened? It would have been, probably, a very different DOJ.
A very different Russia investigation.

Barr was impeded by Mueller... the special counsel prevented real activity by Barr.
Barr for Sessions would have prevented recusal of the A.G.
And he could have dealt with Rothstein and the other knuckleheads in charge.

Andrew Weissmann
Another hack. For people who don't believe in a deep state, he's Exhibit A.
Floats in and out of government to cause turmoil and enhance his political fortunes. Awful person. Awful.
Andrew Wesissmann doesn't have a shred of respectability.

Jeffrey Epstein
Yes, he was protected, he had a plea deal - most people would call ridiculous.
A Republican A/G. in Florida that handled the plea deal.
Not so much political as it is wealth, corporate-driven.
Who was Epstein helping?
My guess is there are Republicans and Democrats in the mix, may not be political so much as guys who write checks are protecting themselves.
In 2004, he entered a plea deal, he got a sweetheart deal, should they have done that?
Seems much like the Harvey Weinstein case: rich vs. poor.

The FISA Court
Should be eradicated. The whole FISA, Patriot Act, etc. needs to destroyed.
Democrats now support this status quo
It's beyond unacceptable that the court has been lied to on so many occasions and has done nothing about it.
A civil litigant doing so would never tolerate that for a minute, you'd be disbarred.
The FISA Court seems to be completely unfazed that they were abused for poitical purpooss.

Why?
I don't know why the FISA hasn't reacted more vigorously.; At the very least, the court would want to see changes to prevent it from occurring again and being duped.

Kevin Clinesmith:
How that guy is allowed to walk the planet as a member of the bar is absurd.
He should have lost his license and instead a year later he's practicing law; I don't know how that's possible.
And people wonder why lawyers are held in low esteem?
Just look at Clinesmith.

Andrew McCabe:
Good grief, what can you say? Another complete scumbag, who has no business having any voice in our system, either politically or professionally.
And the fact that news outlets continue to give him a platform is borderline insane.
To my media comment, you bring these guys on to give you two to five minutes of utter bullshit that will get your leftwing audience up and riled.

* * * How about Joe Biden declaring that 'white supremacism is the greatest threat facing our country'?
Utter and complete nonsense.
The problem is that any criticism of woke initiatives is automatically converted to white supremacism (even Tim Scott is labeled a white supremacist).
The white nationalist issue is a huge, made-up fiction... it's lost its meaning.
It's as out of touch as crazy uncle Joe.

If you want to focus on white nationalists, where is the KKK? where are the Nazis?
I don't see any of these nutjobs. Where are they?

Patriot Front:
No reaction. (explanation omitted) Don't know who they are.
[Editor's note: Patriot Front is a fake white nationalist group created and funded by certain unnamed government agencies (and the taxpayer) to confirm Obama Biden's statement about domestic violent extremists. Note the meme of 'MAGA extremists' they all use. They're creating a DVE 'threat' to suppress political opposition. Period.]

The Government's Pandemic Response:
Let's stipulate that the government didn't know what was going on, a lot of uncertainty.
It shows how ineffectual government really is. The vaccines - at the time - to get developed in record time was commendable.
Our institutions that are charged with keeping us safe failed

CDC - awful. NIH - worse. They were entrusted with public health - they were complete failures. Socially, eocnomically, morally.
Any apologies? Any retrospection? Absolutely none.

Anthony Fauci
The idea that he was a saint was not true.
As a scientist, to take the position he did. He viewed pandemic response, through his narrow, myopic view of what was right.
Practically everything he did was a disaster.
Has he apologized?
Offered any clarity?
Any self-awareness?

His response to the idea that it came from WIV [Wuhan Institute of Virology], and he was going to squelch that news -- well, that is the opposite of a man of science.
He covered up facts that were inconsistent with his view of the world.
He has a G-d complex of the first magnitude.

His ego is off the charts.
This is an example of where Trump completely dropped the ball, he enabled Fauci, Birx - he let them run wild.
Why did Trump insert himself into this?
You don't have to step up to the mic to talk about Covid every press conference.
He allowed himself to become the center of attention, when that should have been the government response.

After Fauci had lost the confidence of the American people -- why was this guy still in charge?


The 51 former IC officials who claimed the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation:

I was a member of the Metropolitan Club in DC, literary lunches would come in and speak.
Michael Hayden appeared to discuss his book.
I got him to autograph it.
After this incident, if I found his address I'd send the book to his house after I wiped my ass with it.
Every single one should be disgraced.
To lie and engage in that kind of conduct - because Trump is evil, anything is justified to fight that evil force.
Utterly untrue.

To my knowlege, the Washington Post has never run a single story about the genesis of that letter,
that it was done at the behest of Anthony Blinken --- was never publicized.
Again, coming back to the media's dysfunction.

Elements of the Progressive Party believe that the other side is evil, not just Trump.
There was a survey done.
The survey results showed a disparity among D and R.
The willingness to have friends across the aisle is striking and telling.
Republicans may have a view that differs from D, but - in general - most will hear it and discard it.

Progressives, in many cases, don't want to hear. They don't care how the conclusisons were arrived at. Their view is the right view and everyone else is wrong.

So there's a level of intolerance in the Democrat Party?

The data shows that a significant majority of Democrats say they won't have friends who are Republican. Friends.
Now flip the party: a significant majority of Republicans say they would have friends who are Democrats.
Think about the word 'Intolerance' - it's ironic, that Republicans are often labeld as bigots and intolerant - when it's on the other side.

When I lived in People's Republic of Maryland, there was the 2012 election. Someone would put out a sign for Romney/Ryan, every morning.
Every evening I'd drive back, and it had been torched.
[Ed: Torched like a cross?]

Tolerance doesn't apply to politics. No other viewpoints are permitted.

John Roberts:
Roberts it's clear is preocuppied with the prestige of the Court. Exhibit A is Obamacare, just laugh-out-loud funny -- he didn't want a 5-4 decision the other way.
That decision hasn't spared him from all of the withering criticism - that "Republicans are attacking our institutions".
And by the way, the Clarence Thomas accusations are entirely political. [Ed.: also racist, by the Democrats' own definition]
Roberts has attempted to forestall this, but he would have been better served rendering the right decision rather than the politically expedient one.

What about the theory that he was blackmailed on the Obamacare decision? It's a conspiracy theory, but one that's circulated widely given the text of the decision?
I don't believe it. I don't think he's a political hack. My sense is he's doing what he views as in the best interest of the court.


What, if anything, can be done about the current state of government?

It's going to take a JFK-like mythological candidate, who barely won (and did it corruptly) was hugely popular and got a lot done politically.

Attractive, charismatic, new and different - he was able to hold political sway that hasn't been seen since.

Trump is the embodiment of the media star in the White House. It's going to take someone with charisma to make fundamental changes.

Vivek Ramaswamy (author of Woke, Inc.) may or may not be that guy, but he is funny, articulate and smart. He says 'one term and get done what I can and you need to come along.'

Term limits have got to be put in place

How, how will Congress ever vote for this?

There has to be a groundswell of public support for this.
[Ed: One Simple Trick]
This one institutional change that would solve some of the problems infesting our system.

Ultimately, the differences in philosophy between left and right as the size and role of government.

I don't know how you bridge that group.
If you had an R House, and R president, they need to eradicate the Department of Education, the Energy Department, etc.

Eliminate duplicative state and government functions.

Employment law: overlapping state and federal laws, discrimination based on race, religion, gender, etc.
If federal government legislates in that area, it should preempt, if not , get out of the way and let the states do it?
Makes no sense to hafve that redundancy?

- Point to what the government does well.
Post office?
Military may not be true anymore.

-The philosophical divide has to be addressed. For institutional changes, get the federal govenrment out of where they should not be.

Media is beyond repair. Internet has made it such that we're stuck with the current dynamic forever.

Thank you for your time, Ivan.

About Ivan Koloff

After retiring from professional wrestling, Hall-of-Famer Ivan Koloff found new career success leading a large law practice in Washington, D.C. An award-winning expert in governmental affairs, Koloff has written for this august journal twice before:

• ARE THERE REALLY 60 FAILED GOP ELECTION FRAUD LAWSUITS? The Legendary Ivan Koloff Drops a MOAB on the Myth
• Legendary Great Ivan Koloff Dismantles Left-Wing Pseudo Historian HC Richardson, if That Is Her Real Name