Thursday, April 25, 2019

What Drove the Mueller Investigation?


Victor Davis Hanson
Mueller’s team went down every blind alley relating to its investigation -- except where Obama-era officials were likely culpable for relevant unethical or illegal behavior.
"Special counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year, $30 million, 448-page report did not find collusion between Donald Trump and Russia.
"Despite compiling private allegations of loud and obnoxious Trump behavior, Mueller also concluded that there was not any actionable case of obstruction of justice by the president. It would have been hard, in any case, to find that Trump obstructed Mueller’s investigation of an alleged crime.
"One, there was never a crime of collusion. Mueller early on in his endeavors must have realized that truth, but he pressed ahead anyway. It is almost impossible to prove obstruction of nothing.
"Two, Trump cooperated with the investigation. He waived executive privilege. He turned over more than 1 million pages of administrative documents. He allowed then–White House counsel Don McGahn to submit to over 30 hours of questioning by Mueller’s lawyers.
"Three, anyone targeted by a massive investigation who knows he is innocent of an alleged crime is bound to become frustrated over a seemingly never-ending inquisition." . . .

Hard to believe, but America's media has hit a new low



Let's ambush "Easter Worshipers"!
"Here’s how truly detestable America’s media has become.
"On Easter Sunday, MSNBC decided to ambush special counsel Robert Mueller as he attended services across from the White House at St. John’s Episcopal Church
“ 'We knew that he was going to be, he’s been there. He’s been there in the past so we waited for him,” MSNBC reporter Mike Viqueira proudly said on air. “He came out the side door of the church. I did have a couple of prepared questions to ask him.”
"Then MSNBC showed the footage.
“ 'Sir, could I ask you a couple of questions? Will you testify before Congress, sir?” Mr. Viqueira asks Mr. Mueller, right next to him as the special counsel tries to get into his car.
“ 'No comment,” Mr. Mueller answers. “Are you sure about that, sir?” Mr. Viqueira says. “No comment,” Mr. Mueller repeats. “If he were anybody but the president, would Mr. Trump be indicted, sir?” Mr. Viqueira says, nearly shoving the microphone into Mr. Mueller’s face. No response. 
. . . 
"The shot cuts back to Mr. Viqueira, now outside the White House. “I think it’s accurate to characterize director Mueller as being tight-lipped to my questions,” Mr. Viqueira says, smiling smugly. MSNBC host Joy Reid can be heard laughing at the reporter’s incredible wit.
"Condemnation for the episode of “ambush journalism” was universal, but actress Patricia Heaton had the perfect tweet.
“ 'Hello @MSNBC,” the “Everybody Loves Raymond” actress tweeted. “Today is Easter Sunday, the holiest day of the Christian calendar. Some of the faithful were murdered today while they worshiped. But you ambush Robert Mueller outside of his church and chuckle about it afterward. This is loathesome. Shame on you.”
"Others joined in on Twitter.
“ '@MSNBC just proved itself to be the ‘human troll network’ and is also doubling down apparently proud of this grotesque display of human indecency after a worship service on a spiritual holiday,” one user tweeted. “This harassment outside Easter service is outrageous. @MSNBC often typifies the very worst of the dismal state of ‘journalism’ in America today. Fourth Estate, please do better!” another tweeted.
“And then they LAUGHED after they shared their clip on the air. WOW,” a third tweeted." . . .
"The American people are losing faith in the mainstream media these days, and it’s not hard to see why.
"First, there is the undeniable reality of television “news” and its lifeblood; the advertisers.  Without the sale of temporary media real estate to these corporations, (i.e.: commercials), there would be no money to pay for entertainers like Chris Cuomo, Shep Smith, or Rachel Maddow to talk to those expensive cameras.
"Of course, given that this is the overwhelming and near-singular source of revenue for these channels, there can be no doubt of their influence on the programming.  In any other supposedly unbiased industry, this would be an automatic disqualification for objectivity…but not in the wild world of infotainment." . . .

Clinton, Obama, and "Easter Worshipers"

Dennis Prager: Why Clinton and Obama Tweeted about ‘Easter Worshippers’
The Left won’t allow itself to acknowledge anti-Christian terrorism.




. . . "That is why it is important to understand Clinton and Obama’s tweets: to understand the Left, not to understand her or him.
"Here are the tweets:
"Obama: “The attacks on tourists and Easter worshippers in Sri Lanka are an attack on humanity. On a day devoted to love, redemption, and renewal, we pray for the victims and stand with the people of Sri Lanka.”
"Three hours later, Clinton tweeted: “On this holy weekend for many faiths, we must stand united against hatred and violence. I’m praying for everyone affected by today’s horrific attacks on Easter worshippers and travelers in Sri Lanka.”
"As they both spelled “worshipers” the same idiosyncratic way and used the term “Easter worshippers,” it is likely that either they had the same writers or Clinton copied Obama.*
"Here’s what’s critical: Neither used the word “Christians.” And in order to avoid doing so, they went so far as to make up a new term — “Easter worshippers” — heretofore unknown to any Christian.
"When Jews were murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Clinton mentioned the synagogue in a tweet. But in her post–Sri Lanka tweet, despite the bombing of three churches filled with Christians, Clinton made no mention of church or churches. In a tweet after the massacre of Muslims in New Zealand, she wrote that her heart broke for “the global Muslim community.” But in her latest tweet, not a word about Christians or the global Christian community." . . .   *Emphasis mine, TD



'Easter worshippers'?  . . . "But right on schedule, in coordinated JournoList-grade lockstep wording, multiple prominent Democrats jumped with that weird 'Easter worshippers' phrase to refer to the victims, too.  Together, with those mechanically same wordings, those talking points, they sounded as though they were out to create 'a narrative' for the press to parrot about Easter worshippers, and never mind that they were Christians, murdered in cold blood by Islamist terrorists.  Look at some of these tweets:" . . .

It did not begin with Islam, and it does not end with Islam. It is the same thing that possessed the 28-year-old Australian white nationalist and gun enthusiast Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 50 innocent Muslims at Friday prayers last month in Christchurch, New Zealand, at the lovely Masjid Al Noor on Deans Avenue and the little Linwood Mosque on the other side of town.


What Democrats Have FORGOTTEN About Citizenship

Voting is one of the cherished rights of American citizens. Let’s not cheapen it or our democracy by treating it as a matter of no importance.  Felons aren’t permitted to own guns, because we rather suspect they wouldn’t be putting them to good use. The same can be said for their voting rights.

American Thinker


Socio-Political Journal  "Who should be represented in our elections? That’s the question at the heart of Democratic opposition to the Trump administration’s decision to add a question about citizenship to the Census, a case now before the Supreme Court.
"It’s also at the heart of Bernie Sanders’ proposal that incarcerated felons be given the right to vote.
"That leading Democrats are now seriously opposed to the Census inquiring into citizenship, and at the same time favor giving felons the right to vote, is a sign of how far we have fallen from the idea that voting in our elections is one of the most sacred privileges Americans enjoy.
"Only citizens can vote, and that’s what’s behind the Supreme Court case. At issue there is whether the Census form can ask whether a person is a citizen.
"But Democrats argue that asking about citizenship will discourage immigrants, particularly Hispanics, from answering the Census and thus result in such groups being undercounted. So far, lower courts have accepted this bizarre argument, though the Supreme Court justices are likely to overturn their holding, likely on the ground that Congress has left it up to the executive branch to design the Census, period.
"If someone isn’t a citizen, he shouldn’t count when congressional-district boundary lines are drawn up. Otherwise, non-citizens will be overrepresented in Congress. If there were a district where only half the residents are citizens, it shouldn’t have full representation in the House of Representatives.
"What liberals are playing with is one of the most important things about belonging to a country — the sense of fellow-feeling for fellow citizens." . . .


American Voter Hillary Clinton is Not a Crook, She's an “Undocumented Felon”

Rich Terrell
2015: Her deliberate concealment of federal records raises questions under the federal criminal code.

Hillary Clinton is Not a Crook, She's an “Undocumented Felon” "Since the beginning of the Donald Trump presidency, the Democrats and their shills in the “Mainstream Media”, have been accusing President Trump of all kinds of wrongdoing, including felonies and of being a traitor to his country.  You can’t make this crap up.  But, the emphasis all along of wrongdoing should not have been about President Trump, it should have been about Hillary Clinton and the Democrat National Committee. They are the guilty ones. 
"The only one who really colluded with the Russians was not President Trump, it was the above named Hillary and the DNC who actually colluded with the Russians through that sinister outfit called Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele.  In fact, Hillary and the DNC paid $12 million to GPS to gather dirt on now President Trump to try to discredit his candidacy, and after his election as president.  Why was the Mueller investigation solely directed at Trump, an innocent bystander, who happened to win the presidency when most all of the talking heads said Hillary was going to win, and not on the real culprits, Hillary and the DNC?  Do you think revenge had anything to do with that disastrous decision?" . . .
Legal Insurrection
Should the Boston Marathon Bomber Get to Vote?  . . . "One of these days, if Sen. Sanders ever gets around to reading the U.S. Constitution, he’ll stumble upon the Fourteenth Amendment and notice that it says in Section 2 that voting cannot be in any way abridged “except for participation in rebellion, or other crime.” While I can appreciate a “slippery slope” argument, I don’t think it applies in this case. Most states haven’t let prisoners since 1868, and it hasn’t led to further disenfranchisement of other groups." . . .

. . . "There is a reasonable argument to be made, of course, that those how have already paid their debt and have returned to society should be allowed to vote again. But our republic is not going to suffer from not letting domestic terrorists like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev cast a ballot for Trump or Sanders." . . .

If Kate Smith's statue goes, so should Muhammad Ali's Liberty Medal

Some have argued that Smith's songs from the 1930s have been taken out of context.  No one, however, has called for Paul Robeson High School in West Philadelphia to be renamed because of racial insensitivity.  And no one seems to care that Muhammad Ali was, in Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby's words, "an unabashed bigot."


Christopher Paslay  "Now that the Philadelphia Flyers and Comcast Spectacor have officially removed the statue of Kate Smith outside the Wells Fargo Center and banned her famous version of "God Bless America," there is another question that needs to be addressed: should Muhammad Ali, a racial separatist and supporter of George Wallace, continue to be honored by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia? 
""Fans of Ali know that on September 13, 2012, he was given the prestigious Liberty Medal for being a "Champion of Freedom" and is currently on the Constitution Center's list of medal-winners, which dates back to 1989, when Poland's Lech Walesa won the award.  According to President Clinton, "Ali embodies the spirit of the Liberty Medal by embracing the ideals of the Constitution freedom, self-governance, equality, and empowerment and helping to spread them across the globe." 
. . . 
"In a 1975, interview with Playboy Magazine, Ali even went as far as to say, "A black man should be killed if he's messing with a white woman."  The same went for white men hitting on black women.  "We'll kill anybody who tries to mess around with our women," Ali insisted.  According to the National Constitution Center's website, however, Ali is "a champion of freedom who embodies everything the award was established to honor: individuals of courage and conviction who strive to secure the blessings of liberty to people around the globe."
"Sure, Ali matured over time, and like Malcolm X, he softened some of his views.  But then again, so did Kate Smith.  In 1982, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan, because her rendition of "God Bless America" helped sell millions of dollars in war bonds during World War II."

From 2008: Why Biden’s plagiarism shouldn’t be forgotten.

What is certain is that Biden didn’t simply borrow the sort of boilerplate that counts as common currency in political discourse—phrases like “fighting for working families.” What he borrowed was Kinnock’s life.

From Slate, which was - and is - in the tank for Democrats!  "Teachers and scholars consider the unattributed use of someone else’s words and ideas to be a very serious offense, but the public doesn’t seem to mind much, at least when it comes to politics. The incidents of plagiarism and fabrication that forced Joe Biden to quit the 1988 presidential race have drawn little comment since his selection as Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate—just as revelations of plagiarism by Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin scarcely hurt their book sales. In 1987, before Biden quit the race, he called the incidents “a tempest in a teapot.” Although most reporters disagreed then, at least enough to pursue the story, they seem now—perhaps jaded by two decades of scandal-mongering—to have come around to Biden’s view.  . . . 

"Biden’s downfall began when his aides alerted him to a videotape of the British Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock, who had run unsuccessfully against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The tape showed Kinnock delivering a powerful speech about his rise from humble roots. Taken by the performance, Biden adapted it for his own stump speech. Biden, after all, was the son of a car salesman, a working-class kid made good. Kinnock’s material fit with the story he was trying to sell.

"At first Biden would credit Kinnock when he quoted him. But at some point he failed to offer the attribution. Biden maintained that he lapsed only once—at a debate at the Iowa State Fair, on Aug. 23, when cameras recorded it—but Maureen Dowd of the New York Times reported two incidents of nonattribution, and no one kept track exactly of every time Biden used the Kinnock bit. (Click here for examples of Biden’s lifting.) What is certain is that Biden didn’t simply borrow the sort of boilerplate that counts as common currency in political discourse—phrases like “fighting for working families.” What he borrowed was Kinnock’s life." . . .


Ben Garrison

Biden Launches Campaign with Attack on Trump, Focuses on Charlottesville

Legal Insurrection  "Out-of-touch campaign theme is “America is an Idea” — but the Dem radical base thinks “America is a Bad Idea' "


"Former Vice President Joe Biden officially entered the 2020 presidential race on Thursday morning.
"He released a video this morning that lacks the substance most include when launching a campaign: “policy, biography, ideology.” Instead it’s a video over three minutes of someone with Trump Derangement Syndrome.

"Maybe Biden took this route to differentiate himself from the other candidates. Plus, Biden is well known after all his time in Washington, DC, so maybe he didn’t feel the need to rehash the past.". . . 


Heart-wrenching words; is Biden quoting Neil Kinnock?

"I’ve always liked Biden, but this video and launch is plain out weird, mostly because he starts off with a lie about Charlottesville, VA:" . . .
(You've heard it over and over. Remember Romney's "Binders of women's names" that Joe got skulls full of mush to think was evil made manifest?)

Scott Adams, Dilbert creator gives us details on this since Democrats assume you haven't been clued in on the details:

Mr. Trump, if you debate Biden remember his treatment of Paul Ryan in their 2012 debate. If Joe flashes those radioactive teeth at you, you're reduced to gulping water like Ryan was. TD