May 5, 2019 --

The cartoon showed a dachshund with the face of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a Star of David on the dog collar leading a blind President Donald J. Trump wearing a yarmulka. Bret Stephens, denounced the cartoon in his April 29 column, remarking that the message of the cartoon was: "in the current administration, the United States follows wherever Israel wants to go." Not so, indicated Stephens who added "there was nothing legitimate about this cartoon." Stephens went on to write: "The paper owes the Israeli prime minister an apology" and advised the Times to reflect how it came to publish (in the April 25 international edition) an anti-Semitic cartoon. Zeev Engelmayer, in the Israeli paper Haaretz, an anti-Netanyahu paper, did not regard the cartoon as anti-Semitic. He called it "a caustic image with a vicious tone, exactly what a political cartoon should be." Certainly the timing of this cartoon's "caustic" criticism of the U.S. and Israeli leaders was not good; three days later a 19-ear old gunman killed one woman and wounded three others in an anti-Semitic attack on a synagogue in Poway, California, some 25 miles north of San Diego.

LPR noted that while columnist Stephens thought Prime Minister Netanyahu was owed an apology, Stephens was silent as to what, if anything, the Times owed President Trump who, Monday, tweeted: "'The New York Times has apologized for the terrible Anti-Semitic Cartoon, but they haven't apologized to me for this or all of the Fake and Corrupt news they print on a daily basis.'" When it comes to covering, or commenting on, President Trump, the New York Times gives its readers propaganda, quite at odds with honoring their right to know the facts. Indeed, President Trump would be justified in calling The New York Times "the enemy of the people's right to know the truth."

The paper's lead editorial April 27, "Mr. Trump's Contempt for Congress," accused the president of "declaring war on congressional oversight" for resisting subpoenas sent by several Democrat chairmen of House committees on issues ranging from immigration policy to the president's tax returns. Not mentioned by the editorial was the subpoena sent to the president's accounting firm, Mazars USA LLP, from Chairman Elijah E. Cummings, of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican ranking member on this committee "strenuously objected" to this subpoena, calling it, in an April 15 letter to the chairman, "an unprecedented abuse of the Committee's subpoena authority" that targets and exposes "the private financial information of the President of the United States."

Lawyers for the president and several Trump entities brought a complaint in federal court against Chairman Cummings to quash his subpoena, accusing House Democrats of weaponizing their subpoena power, and seeking "to investigate every aspect of President Trump's personal finances, businesses, and even his family." The complaint, in part, asserted that the subpoena "has ignored the constitutional limits on Congress' power to investigate," pointing out that congressional investigations must have a '"legitimate legislative purpose.'"

Rep. Jordan also circulated a memorandum to the oversight committee's members objecting to the Chairman Cummings' subpoena to the accounting firm. What the ranking member wrote of Democrats applies equally to The New York Times. "The American people can now see that Democrats' pursuit of the truth is clouded by their obsession with attacking the President and the First Family." Rep. Jordan clearly implies that if war is being waged, it is by the Democrats, using the subpoena power to attack and undermine the Trump presidency.

As the complaint against Chairman Cummings noted, shortly after the 2018 election, Democrat leaders indicated "that they were going to spend the next two years launching a 'fusillade' of subpoenas in order to 'drown Trump with investigations, ' 'turn Trump's life upside down,' and 'make Trump's life a living hell.'"

According to a Washington Post story, November 7, 2018, the day after the mid-term elections that put Democrats in control of the House: "Washington plunged into political war on Wednesday in the wake of a split decision by voters in the midterm elections...." The anti-Trump slant was indicated in the article by comments like this one: "The acrimony was punctuated by Trump's bombast, as the president refused to show contrition or take responsibility for his party's washout in many suburban areas where voters who previously backed Republicans rejected the president's hard-line politics." For the left, President Trump must show contrition rather than defend himself against attack. For the left, Republican politics are "hard-line," -- further elaboration apparently is not thought necessary.

Publication of the Mueller Report has not marked the end of the war against the presidency of Donald J. Trump, but apparently the report will be cited by the left to justify its continuation. Cries from the left of "obstruction of justice" and "impeachment" fill the air. We will continue to hear President Trump denounced as "not fit to be president," as "dangerous" -- a threat to the "soul" of the nation, per Joe Biden. This is all deep state propaganda, originating from the clique that is horrified that we should finally have a president who is close to the ordinary people of our nation. The adage -- "This animal is dangerous; it defends itself when attacked" -- comes to mind. , President Trump is "dangerous" to his enemies because he defends himself when attacked.

Consider, for example, the August 2016 two-page, sharply anti-Trump, statement signed by 50 former national security officials who served Republican presidents. The signers, including former CIA director Michael Hayden and former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, asserted that, in terms of foreign policy, "Donald Trump is not qualified to be President and Commander-in- Chief." Declaring that "Mr. Trump lacks the character, values and experience to be President," as well as "lacking basic knowledge about and belief in the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, and U.S. institutions...," the statement concluded by predicting that candidate Trump " would be the most reckless President in American history." The assertion is as removed from reality now as it was when it was written. Just consider how well the economy is doing.

The current attacks on the president from House Democrats are no less off-the-mark than the August 2016 statement of the former national security officials. Mr. Trump, in defending himself against that statement, dismissed the signers as part of the "'failed Washington elite.'" As to the president's knowledge of our institutions, that will be tested, LPR believes, in the litigation challenging as illegitimate House Democrat subpoenas served on private Trump interests. Then too, forthcoming reports from the Justice Department's inspector general on the FBI's performance in Russiagate, and also the probe headed by Attorney General William Barr should shed additional light on the deep state's war on President Trump.