May 29-31, 2019
May 29 01:02 Jim Comey's tormented 'logic' May 29 14:46 Pelosi's legislate & investigate mantra May 29 17:23 Mueller morphs into Comey May 30 23:53 Dershowitz, Turley, excoriate Mueller May 31 01:08 The Democrats' presumption of innocence problem
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Jim Comey's tormented 'logic'
When it comes to tormented logic, it's difficult to find 'logic' more tormented than Jim Comey's logic. Tuesday, Mr. Comey wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post that sounded totally defensive.
In his op-ed, Mr. Comey wrote "The conspiracy theory makes no sense. The FBI wasn't out to get Donald Trump. It also wasn't out to get Hillary Clinton. It was out to do its best to investigate serious matters while walking through a vicious political minefield. But go ahead, investigate the investigators, if you must. When those investigations are over, they will find the work was done appropriately and focused only on discerning the truth of very serious allegations."
Mr. Comey, you're either a sanctimonious egotist or you're too stupid to be the director of the FBI. It's sad to think that someone this warped was once the director of the world's premier law enforcement agency. Let's get Trey Gowdy straighten him out on Mr. Comey's allegations:
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Democrats have started their whisper campaign, asking 'what happens if they investigate this and it comes up empty? Will Republicans accept that outcome?' That's the definition of a whisper campaign. That won't happen this time because serious people like Trey Gowdy, John Ratcliffe and Lindsey Graham have seen the documents that will be declassified.
That's entirely different than Adam Schiff saying that he'd seen evidence that was "more than circumstantial":
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The truth is that nobody has seen this phantom evidence. The Mueller team of investigators and prosecutors didn't find it. If they had, they would've prosecuted the people involved. That didn't happen.
The truth is that Mssrs. Gowdy, Graham and Ratcliffe are honest people of integrity. Mr. Schiff is a political hack with a high security clearance.
Mr. Comey has written op-ed after op-ed, done townhalls, during which he's said things that weren't credible. If I didn't know better, I'd think that he was trying to poison potential jurors with his antics and propaganda. Innocent people don't act defense attorneys like Mr. Comey is doing. Mr. Comey is protesting too much.
Posted Wednesday, May 29, 2019 1:02 AM
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Pelosi's legislate & investigate mantra
Anyone that thinks that Nancy Pelosi is serious about both investigating President Trump and passing legislation that actually fixes problems like the asylum crisis at the border or building the wall is either naive or stupid. This article highlights Ms. Pelosi's partisanship and Ms. Pelosi's motivations.
In the article, Ms. Pelosi said "The Congress holds sacred its constitutional responsibility to investigate and hold the President accountable for his abuse of power. The Congress will continue to investigate and legislate to protect our elections and secure our democracy. The American people must have the truth."
Simply put, Ms. Pelosi is a partisan political hack who doesn't give a damn about getting at the truth. Let me rephrase that. She's selectively interested in getting at the truth. She isn't the least bit interested in finding out if the Obama administration weaponized the Intelligence Community in its attempt to push Hillary Clinton's pathetic campaign across the finish line. Ms. Pelosi isn't the least bit interested in finding out whether the FBI used a discredited opposition research document in its application for a FISA warrant.
What have Ms. Pelosi's Democrats done to fix the United States' asylum laws? What have Ms. Pelosi's Democrats done in terms of holding hearings featuring border patrol or ICE agents to find out from the experts what they need? As I've said hundreds of times, I don't give a damn what a windbag politician has proposed. I'm only interested in what ICE and CBP experts have to say.
These questions have been treated like rhetorical questions by House Democrats. These House Democrats either aren't interested in these experts' expertise or they've been instructed by leadership not to call these types of witnesses. Either way, House Democrats haven't passed legislation that fixes any of the aforementioned crises. They've failed miserably.
Ms. Pelosi's House Democrats apparently aren't interested in fixing crises. Therefore, they should be fired ASAP. House Democrats, including Ms. Pelosi, have earned their termination papers. Here's the latest Democrat talking point:
'Despite Department of Justice policy to the contrary, no one is above the law - not even the President.'
Whatever. Nobody in the President's campaign was indicted for campaign-related crimes. Why hasn't Ms. Pelosi mentioned that? Meanwhile, this is what a real speaker of the House sounds like:
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As a historian who was there on the spot when Bill Clinton was impeached, Newt Gingrich knows what Kenneth Starr said in his report. Starr wrote 11 times that Bill Clinton was guilty of crimes and that 6 of those times, Clinton was guilty of obstruction of justice. Gingrich didn't say that Starr complained about not being able to indict Bill Clinton. Starr simply said that he'd reached the conclusion that Clinton obstructed justice.
There isn't anything complicated about that. Starr simply told Congress what he'd found. Mueller didn't do that. His decision to not make a decision on obstruction of justice is itself a decision. It isn't a decision that Pelosi's Democrats like but it's a decision nonetheless. It's time for Democrats to put on their big boy britches and deal with the consequences of the Mueller Report.
In the end, Democrats haven't figured out that the American people have moved on because they're convinced that nothing illegal happened. If Democrats want to keep beating this dead horse, that's their decision. I just wouldn't expect that proverbial dead horse to suddenly rise up and defeat Secretariat.
Finally, Democrats have proven that they aren't interested in legislating and investigating. That's because the Resist Movement's activists won't let them get interested in legislating. When Democrats aren't interested in legislating, they're utterly worthless. It's time to throw them out.
Posted Wednesday, May 29, 2019 2:46 PM
Comment 1 by J. Ewing at 30-May-19 09:29 AM
And yet all I hear from conservatives is how we need to get rid of Trump, or how we need to get rid of the RINOs in Congress. How about getting rid of the Democrats??!
Mueller morphs into Comey
Gregg Jarrett's opinion piece reached a stunning conclusion when Jarrett said "The special counsel publicly besmirched the president with tales of suspicious behavior instead of stated evidence that rose to the level of criminality. This is what prosecutors are never permitted to do. Justice Department rules forbid its lawyers from annunciating negative narratives about any person, absent an indictment."
When Jim Comey announced that he wouldn't indict Hillary Clinton, he first said that HRC had done some illegal things. Then he finished by saying that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring charges against HRC . Back then, there were howls from the legal community, saying that the DOJ speaks in indictments. They don't list things that a person did that were shady but that, in the end, the person wasn't a criminal. Here's Comey's press conference 'exonerating' HRC:
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Today's performance by Bob Mueller was Act II of Jim Comey's disgraceful exoneration of HRC. Mueller included in his report 10 instances of President Trump obstructing justice. In each of those instances, Mueller didn't make a decision. Notice that I didn't say that he didn't indict. I said that Mueller refused to even make a decision.
Instead, in each of these instances, Mueller made the case for and against indicting President Trump of obstruction of justice. Then he essentially said that it was up to Congress to make the final decision. By comparison, when Kenneth Starr issued his report, he noted that then-President Clinton had committed 11 crimes, 6 of which were obstruction of justice charges.
Starr didn't indict Clinton. He merely told the House of Representatives that Clinton had committed those crimes. Jarrett continues:
How can that person properly defend himself without trial? This is why prosecutors like Mueller are prohibited from trying their cases in the court of public opinion. If they have probable cause to levy charges, they should do so. If not, they must refrain from openly disparaging someone that our justice system presumes is innocent. In this regard, Mueller shrewdly and improperly turned the law on its head. Consider the most inflammatory statement that he leveled at the president in his report.
Again, Mueller's thinking is out-of-step with the Constitution. The Bill of Rights presumes that a person is innocent until proven guilty. According to Mueller's thinking, Trump was guilty until he was exonerated. That's bassackwards and then some.
Everyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence. It is the bedrock on which justice is built. Prosecutors must prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. To bring charges they must have, at minimum, probable cause to believe that a crime was committed. The special counsel took this inviolate principle and cleverly inverted it. He argued that he could not prove the president did not commit a crime.
Today is a sad day for the rule of law. Today, a special counsel decided he had the right to ignore the Bill of Rights. Today, a special counsel thought he was Jim Comey's stand-in.
Posted Wednesday, May 29, 2019 5:23 PM
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Dershowitz, Turley, excoriate Mueller
Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley both wrote excoriating opinion pieces for The Hill Magazine. Turley's article is, in my opinion, the harsher of the two. That isn't to say that Dershowitz's article pulled any punches.
The hardest hit in Professor Turley's article came when he said "Last week, I wrote that it has become sacrilegious to question the motives or performance of Mueller. His press conference was the greatest test of such blind faith. Mueller announced that 'the report is my testimony' and that he would not answer questions from Congress either, beyond what is already in his final report. From anyone else, such a statement would be denounced as arrogant, evasive, or both. However, many members of Congress and the media accepted it as the gospel according to Mueller."
I would've tried pulling the same stunt if I'd been in Mueller's position. That being said, I wouldn't have put myself in that position because I respect the principle of the presumption of innocence. Apparently, so does Prof. Dershowitz:
Until today, I have defended Mueller against the accusations that he is a partisan. I did not believe that he personally favored either the Democrats or the Republicans, or had a point of view on whether President Trump should be impeached. But I have now changed my mind. By putting his thumb, indeed his elbow, on the scale of justice in favor of impeachment based on obstruction of justice, Mueller has revealed his partisan bias . He also has distorted the critical role of a prosecutor in our justice system.
Here's Prof. Dershowitz's interview with Shannon Bream, herself an attorney:
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I'm not an attorney or a constitutional scholar. It doesn't require one to notice that Mueller went too far with his 'press conference' (at which he took no questions). The presumption of innocence applies to everyone . Chairman Nadler, Speaker Pelosi and other Democrats repeatedly say that "President Trump isn't above the law." That's true but, just like other Americans, he's presumed innocent until the prosecutor proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty.
Professor Dershowitz and Professor Turley are both Democrats. Both voted for Hillary Clinton. That being said, both put a higher priority on protecting civil rights than they put on political victories. I can't say that about partisan Democrats like Pelosi, Nadler, Schiff, Swalwell, etc. That last bunch are just political hacks.
Posted Thursday, May 30, 2019 11:53 PM
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The Democrats' presumption of innocence problem
The Democrats have a subtle but major problem on their hands. It isn't getting covered by the MSM, aka Agenda Media, because covering it might require work, intelligence and thoughtfulness. The MSM is just missing 3 of those qualities.
The Democrats' subtle but major problem is that Democrats apparently think that some people should be presumed innocent, usually partisan Democrats like Hillary, while others (think Bill Barr or President Trump) shouldn't be presumed innocent.
Democrats and Robert Mueller think that it's a prosecutor's job to state whether a prospective defendant has been "exonerated." That's false. Prospective defendants walk into court with the presumption of innocence. That's a principle that Democrats like Sen. Mazie Hirono, (D-HI), can't quite grasp. In an interview with MSNBC, Sen. Hirono said that "we aren't in a court of law. We're in a court of credibility at this point." What the hell does that mean?
What's at stake is the principles of fairness and evidence. Sen. Hirono and other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee did their best to railroad Brett Kavanaugh's nomination. They didn't want him on the Supreme Court. The Democrats were perfectly willing to lie about Justice Kavanaugh's history. That's the definition of the opposite of fair play. Here's Sen. Hirono doubling down against the principle of the presumption of innocence:
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This article lays things out beautifully:
As Attorney General William Barr testified on May 1, the job of the Justice Department, and thus the job of the special counsel, is not to 'exonerate.' The job of the Justice Department is to determine whether there is 'sufficient evidence to establish an obstruction' and that this 'determines whether or not there was a crime.'
Mueller's job was to make this determination. He declined to make it. But having claimed that they could not make a determination, they did not stop at laying out the facts.
I suspect that Mueller was hoping that he wouldn't have to testify to Congress. I suspect that's a pipe dream at this point. I can't blame Mueller for not wanting to testify. That'd mean having to answer non-softball questions from people like Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Mike Lee, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Representatives like John Ratcliffe, Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows.
That's the last thing I'd want to spend a day doing.
This is a problem for Democrats because it tells the nation that they aren't interested in principled liberalism nor are they interested in fundamental fairness. That's wrong. Watch how Mike Huckabee and Alan Dershowitz debated:
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If the United States can't return to that debating style ASAP, then we deserve the terrible government we'd get. I can't put it plainer than that.
Posted Friday, May 31, 2019 1:08 AM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 01-Jun-19 06:46 AM
Principles of fairness and evidence? All that matters to these BSC democrats is winning and winning at all costs and if that means they stand on the floor of the senate and say someone hasn't paid taxes in 10 years and then later admit they had no evidence to make that claim, so be it because they helped sink the oppositions with the claim.
