October 31, 2017

Even The Week sees the Mueller investigation as unhinged

The Week, a formerly centrist magazine that has drifted leftward over the years has an interesting take on the Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigation - it's run amok;
...Dot connectors will, of course, continue to connect dots. It could be that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is hoping to secure testimony from Manafort or Gates that will give him the dirt he needs to bring more appropriate charges. It could be that he already has that information and is just waiting for goodness knows what occasion. At the very least, obsessives will say, the hiring of Manafort indicates — these comments almost write themselves — a very serious lack of judgment on Trump's part. You don't say? The man whose idea of a feel-good national unity speech following an act of domestic terrorism was to suggest a degree of moral equivalence between the KKK and its opponents has horrible instincts, often fails to think things through, is a bad judge of character, etc.? Gosh.

Even George Papadopoulos' guilty plea is no smoking gun. The former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign admits that he lied about email exchanges with a shadowy figure known as "the professor" who had promised Russian "dirt" on Clinton. But as far as we can tell, his communications with Dr. Dirt went nowhere. Papadopoulos also made vague references in his emails to "meetings" with Russian officials that probably did not end up taking place, which seems important only if you ignore the fact that presidential candidates, especially after securing their parties' nominations, routinely meet with foreign leaders, even heads of state.

The most significant thing about Monday's Mueller bonanza is that it reminds us what is wrong with these hysterical wide-ranging special prosecutor investigations that take place in public. Whitewater went on for nearly a decade before it concluded in 2003.
When you have a magazine that blatantly, incorrectly summarizes president Trump's response to  "an act of domestic terrorism" in such a way as they did, say that the Mueller investigation is hysterical then you know the Mueller investigation is as ridiculous as it is malignantly aggressive.  Despite the liberal slant, the article is peppered with factual debunking of the media narrative associated with the investigation.

For example:
There are many problems with the Mueller probe, not least its show-boating obsession with keeping its business in the newspapers, but the biggest one is that its parameters were never well defined. What would count as actual collusion? Idle language is thrown around about people having "ties" to Russia or being "Kremlin-connected." How do you define "Kremlin-connected"? What would be the broad equivalent in the United States from Russia's perspective? A former congressman? Anyone who does business on K Street having a meeting? Defense contractors? Given the country's autocratic structure, there are very few living Russian nationals of any wealth or distinction who are not "Kremlin-connected."
Their conclusion in this regard, seems entirely reasonable:
If it's not going away, the least we could do is broaden the investigation's scope. Why not appoint another special prosecutor to investigate British meddling in our sacrosanct democratic process? The facts are there in plain sight. A former member of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service collaborated with a presidential campaign in an attempt to alter the outcome of the 2016 election. So did a former member of the British Parliament, who peddled disgusting conspiracy theories on Twitter and even attempted to collude with the Clinton campaign on advertising strategy. The speaker of the British House of Commons attempted to discredit Clinton's opponent.
That's awfully hard to argue, and actually seems aligned with what the president himself has been calling for to happen.

Scary Halloween stuff

Nope, it's not the election of Hillary Clinton to the presidency, that nightmare is a thing of the past.  Just some scary websites. Happy Halloween.

October 30, 2017

Hollywood continues to eat itself

Hollywood? Kevin Spacey? Progressivism? Take your pick.
Via (eye roll please...) CNN:
Actor Anthony Rapp has accused Kevin Spacey of making a sexual advance at him when Rapp was 14, Buzzfeed reported Sunday.

In an interview with Buzzfeed, Rapp said Spacey picked him up, put him on his bed and "was trying to get with me sexually" in 1986. Spacey was 26 at the time.

In response to the allegations, Spacey tweeted that he was "beyond horrified to hear [Rapp's] story."

Spacey tweeted: "I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been over 30 years ago.

"But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years."
There's so much to discuss here. In no particular order: 

(1) Why did CNN say sexual assault WITH a minor instead of 'on' or 'of' a minor? The terminology is different than it had been say a Republican Senator. 

(2) Why is Rapp coming forward now?
Rapp, who is now 46, released this statement through his publicist.

"I came forward with my story, standing on the shoulders of the many courageous women and men who have been speaking out, to shine a light and hopefully make a difference, as they have done for me. Everything I wanted to say about my experience is in that article, and I have no further comment about it at this time."
Hollywood is currently rife with new sexual assault stories seemingly coming out every day now. That no doubt is the reason. But it seems like a sudden, rapid implosion of Hollywood.

(3) Those who would have normally came out praising Kevin Spacey for revealing that he is gay, are quite angry. Why? Because it paints being gay in a bad light. Suddenly they are not interested in his revealed sexuality.
Okay, so there's that. I'm not sure Kevin Spacey was using it as a defense, it seems like he had no choice but to reveal the fact of his homosexuality as a result of the accusation against him.  Maybe it was a bad decision if it is coming off as a defense.  But it seems the anger is directed at the fact that he has mixed it up with the assault of a minor and that is making homosexuality look bad. That's how the anger at Kevin Spacey seems to be directed. Just my observation.  If so, those erstwhile defenders of homosexuality as it relates to Kevin Spacey are themselves conflating an admission of a fact with an excuse.  They're handling it as badly as Kevin Spacey himself appears to have done.

Court oddly bars president Trump on transgender military service reversal

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge in Washington on Monday barred President Donald Trump's administration from excluding transgender people from military service.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that transgender service members who had sued over Trump's policy were likely to win their lawsuit. She directed a return to the situation that existed before Trump announced his new policy this summer.
On the surface of it, it's ridiculous. How could president Obama change the rule but president Trump cannot reverse the decision? No judge blocked president Obama from making the change, so how does a court have the ability to do so now? Either both changes are legally permissible or neither are. The specious argument that transgender service members are likely (likely???) to win their lawsuit does not rise to the level of reasonable cause to deny the president the option to attempt to reverse the recently changed policy. The lawsuit has not even concluded yet. As a result of the lawsuit perhaps a change will be required.  At this point, why?

By that judicial logic, likelihood is enough of a reason to allow the president's travel ban to be extended indefinitely: it's likely that someone from one of the countries named in the travel ban will at some point in the future commit an act of terror against the United States.

Both sides can play the game of likely. I expect that this activist judicial decision will be overturned. Regardless of your view on the transgender issue. the court is on thin ice with the argument behind this decision.

Manic Monday or Panic Monday or no big deal?

As you've probably already heard, 3 people, ostensibly with the Trump campaign, were charged with conspiracy against the U.S. 
Donald Trump sought to distance himself Monday from federal charges leveled against his former campaign chairman, saying on Twitter that the crimes alleged against Paul Manafort concerned activities that took place long before his White House campaign.

'Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren't Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????' the president tweeted. Minutes later he insisted in a second tweet: '....Also, there is NO COLLUSION!'

That last note is meant to push back against nonstop claims from Democrats that his campaign worked hand-in-glove with Russia to tilt the results of last November's election.

Trump has lately been on a digital rampage about reports that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded an opposition research project last year that resulted in a discredited 'dirty dossier' full of salacious claims about him.
 The Manafort and company charges likely won't amount to much but there is some concern that the charges against George Papadopoulos might be an issue for the Trump team. Nevertheless, while Manafort and Gates have plead not guilty and George Papadopoulos plead guilty, his actions so far, appear to be arms's length from the Trump campaign.

October 29, 2017

Timing of indictments is suspect

After Hillary Clinton's worst week since losing the presidential election last year, isn't it a bit curious that suddenly there are suddenly charges going to be laid against someone in the Mueller collusion anything-we-can-dig-up investigation of the White House? And it wasn't really a good week for former president Obama either as his White House has been implicated in the Democrat-Russia collusion scandal now too.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is facing a fresh round of calls from conservative critics for his resignation from the Russia collusion probe, amid revelations that have called into question the FBI’s own actions and potentially Mueller’s independence.

This week’s bombshell that a controversial anti-Trump dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign has Republicans asking to what extent the FBI – which received some of the findings and briefly agreed to pay the same researcher to gather intelligence on Trump and Russia – used the politically connected material.

Hill investigators also are looking into a Russian firm’s uranium deal that was approved by the Obama administration in 2010 despite reports that the FBI – then led by Mueller – had evidence of bribery involving a subsidiary of that firm.
Previously I suggested Muller was doing this in self defense, but now I'm wondering if maybe he's being told or pressured to hurry up in order to shift the focus of the media off of the unfolding Democrat scandal.  The timing is suspect to say the least.
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