Releasing the Mueller Report is a very bad idea.

After listening to Trey Gowdy today, in an interview, I have to change my mind about the Mueller Report being released. As a political junkie, I really wanted to see it. I thought releasing it was a good idea. Now, I think releasing it is a really bad idea. This has nothing to do with the current President.

First, it is illegal to release a good portion of it. Grand jury testimony and classified information cannot be released, by law. It doesn't matter how much anyone, even powerful politicians, want to see it. Additionally, if Reps. Schiff or Nadler leak the information, which they will if they get it, they should go to prison.

Gowdy, a former prosecutor, said that any time an investigation is performed, the investigating body gives the information to the prosecutors. The prosecutors then determine whether there is sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed. In this country, every single person, no matter what, is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty, with evidence, in a court of law.

If no evidence, or insufficient evidence, is present to indict any individual for a crime, the investigation concludes and the person being investigated is not publicly smeared with the accusations that were not supported with enough evidence.

Think about that. The Mueller investigation has concluded and the investigation is not recommending any additional charges against anyone. So...... what would be the point of demanding its release? Simple....... to smear anyone included in the investigation publicly, including those not being charged with doing anything wrong. Doing this does not allow the accused to defend themselves or to present exonerating or exculpatory evidence, as would be done in a court room. It is fundamentally unfair to the accused.

Looking toward the future, this would set a terrible precedent. Any individual can be accused of any heinous crime by almost anyone. If the investigation concludes showing that it never occurred, using this precedent, the mere fact that the investigation occurred can be put in the public sphere. As Secretary Donovan once said, "Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?" Just like newspaper retractions on page twenty after a phony headline on page one, there is no removing that stain entirely.

The implications of this in politics are enormous. Every candidate will have accusations thrown at them from opposition research and, despite being cleared, those accusations will be in the public arena. If the prosecutors conclude that there is no crime, there is absolutely no reason to nitpick over findings in the report. Nothing will change and the accused individuals lose their rights to defend themselves. No matter where you fall in the political spectrum, this should scare you.

Take any politician, at random... say, imaginary Animal House Senator Blutarski.... and he is accused of having sex with under-aged children. An investigation is completed and there is ZERO evidence that he ever did anything of the sort. Using this precedent, news reporters and opposition politicians can demand that the details of the investigation be made public and the media will report on "the investigation into Senator Blutarski having sex with kids" even though there isn't a shred of truth to it. The media will defend their partisan actions by saying, "We didn't accuse him. We are just reporting that there is an investigation." What will that do to Senator Blutarski's re-election hopes? He is smeared for life. That will then happen in EVERY campaign, on both sides.

Think that scenario is far-fetched? The FBI already did it to Senator Ted Stevens, in order to make him lose his re-election. That is one of the reasons the Affordable Health Care Act was passed. That is precisely why it was done. After the election was over and he barely lost, Stevens was exonerated, but the damage was done. Just a note, one of the people who was identified as committing prosecutorial misconduct in that case was Andrew Weissmann. Recognize that name? No? He was a prominent member of the Mueller investigation.

Therefore, as much as I really want to see that report, releasing it to the public, or to partisans in Congress, for that matter, is a very bad precedent to set.

As an aside, technically, this investigation was illegal to begin with. Both James Comey and Lisa Page have testified, under oath, that there was no evidence of a crime when the investigation began. Therefore, the appointment of the Special Counsel violated the very statute that created the office, because the statute specifically states that one is appointed to investigate a specified crime. There was no specified crime and thus there should have never legally been an appointment. The only crime that led to the appointment was committed by former FBI Director James Comey when he leaked classified information to the media. intentionally.

Paul Krugman, the ultimate partisan hack, calling others "partisan"

Dear Paul Krugman,

Please go back on your medications. Let me point out some of the sewage that you published in your article:

1) You blame the Republican Party for being totally "partisan" in the Judge Kavanaugh hearings. You omit to mention that EVERY Democrat on the committee, and almost every Democrat in the entire US Senate, had essentially announced opposition to the nominee before he was even NAMED, much less before the hearings occurred. Stop with the "We should be bi-partisan" stuff until it works both ways. You don't get your way because you whine the loudest.

2) You say that Judge Kavanaugh will be confirmed unless the Republicans develop "A very late case of conscience". So.... you are suggesting that Republicans should not vote for a nominee who embodies their judicial philosophy just to please liberals? What planet are you from?

3) You also say that Judge Kavanaugh is "displaying an evasiveness utterly at odds with the probity we used to expect of Supreme Court justices". When???? prior to the Robert Bork hearings? Back in 1875? Or.....do you mean like the last eight nominations that are all currently on the US Supreme Court? Since Judge Kavanaugh is doing EXACTLY the same thing that all eight did (NO one offers an opinion on anything since the Bork hearings), that must be what you mean. However, I don't recall you protesting when Justices Kagan, Breyer, or Sotomayor did the same in their hearings.

4) You also say that President Trump "eked out an Electoral College win only with aid from a hostile foreign power." Really??? So 304-227 represents "eked out"? Looks more like "butt kicked". And, after more than eighteen months of investigation, the only "collusion" with Russia has been found on the Democrat side in obtaining phony opposition research and likely criminal FISA court warrants. By the way, Andrew McCabe is now in front of a grand jury investigation. If I was Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bill Preistap, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, Glenn Simpson, James Baker, etc., I would be sweating bullets. The shoe is about to drop.

5) With no evidence at all, you also say that the conservative justices on the US Supreme Court will "abuse their power at every level.". Based on what, Chicken Little?

6) You also write that Judge Kavanaugh spent time in the President Bush White House, which used enhanced interrogation techniques, when it has been shown that he had NOTHING to do with that program. All of the attorneys who did legal work on the program have said as much. If someone is taking out a loan in a bank, at the time the bank is robbed by completely unknown people, would you advocate arresting that person for bank robbery because the person was in the building when it happened?

Mr. Krugman, you are the very definition of a partisan hack, and have been for years. Your calling other people names has ZERO credibility. And, you should note that, just today, Democrat Senators Heitkamp and Manchin have already said that they will likely vote for Kavanaugh. It is fairly likely that Democrat Senators Donnelly, McCaskill, Neslon, and Testor end up voting for him, since he is getting confirmed anyway and they are in tough elections in red states. It is next to impossible to argue that someone who has been a Circuit Court of Appeals Judge for twelve years, has written 307 opinions, and has Judge Kavanaugh's stellar academic record and credentials is "not qualified" to be on the court just because he won't be a rubber stamp for your policies.

The Media Is Whining About Being Exposed

If you are following the news, a number of press outlets coordinated editorials about freedom of the press. In truth, they are all bashing the President. No surprise there. That is pretty much to be expected, given their political views. All of those synchronized editorials are advocating for "press freedom". Exactly what is it that they currently can't do?

- The media can produce stories that are proven to be false with virtually no repercussions for producing them.

- The media can advocate in the portions of their publications and shows that are supposed to be straight news without stating that they are giving opinion.

- The media can publish classified material without penalty where anyone else would be convicted and jailed for doing the same thing. Example: They are about to sentence a NSA contractor (Reality Winter) to at least five years in prison for leaking classified information. They are doing nothing to the media that published it.

- They can slander and demean people but unless intentional malice can be proven by the victim (which is next to impossible), there is no consequence for the media.

Exactly what are these restrictions that they are referencing? Is it being held to a standard that they don't like? Generically, when a media outlet (print or electronic) produces a "news" story that turns out to be false, and someone points out publicly that the story is false, is that restricting freedom of the press? Or....is that actually allowing more freedom, because both sides are having their say publicly?

It appears that, after many decades of being able to control the public agenda and get away with whatever they wanted to do (up to and including riling up the public enough to start a war), the media has gotten more scrutiny in recent times. Additionally, with the advent of the internet, the corporate media is no longer the only outlet for information. Granted, a large portion of information on the internet is not subject to editorial management and contains a lot of false material. That is certainly true and one has to be skeptical of everything that shows up, even more so with outlandish claims. However, many major real news stories have broken in those same venues.

Examples:

1) The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal was revealed by an internet blogger posting a story about Newsweek not publishing the sexual misconduct story, even though it was huge news. As it turned out, they were not publishing it to protect President Clinton, for political reasons, which is a real news story unto itself.

2) The fact that Dan Rather was using unquestionably forged documents to smear former President George W. Bush during his re-election campaign was revealed by internet tech bloggers. It cost Rather his job, appropriately so.

3) The false story about the Democratic National Committee servers being hacked by Russia via the internet was disproved by internet tech bloggers.

So.........it seems that the media companies have lost control of their monopoly on public disbursement of information. They don't like it. They are whining about it. However, they need to get over it because things will never go back to the way they were before the internet became available. If anything, there is more freedom to publish now than at any time in history. The caveat is that the consumers of information have to be much more skeptical and have to process information better. Most don't do it so there are obviously a lot of misinformed people and social media gets filled with nonsensical memes and posts. It is up to all of us the cull through the nonsense and believe only that which can be verified. The mainstream media wants blind trust. However, they have clearly demonstrated that they don't deserve blind trust. That is what has them upset. The curtain has been pulled back and "Oz The Magnificent" has been shown to be what he actually is.

Are Confederate Veterans considered US military veterans? Yes they are.

A friend posted a meme on Facebook that said that Confederate Veterans are the same as other US military veterans and there were some commenters that disputed that, using Snopes.com as their reference. Since I have found Snopes to be agenda-driven at times, I decided to find out. Interestingly, when you use a search engine like Google, the first page consists of all these goofy opinion sites like blogs and Snopes. In fact, Snopes says it isn't true. Snopes is wrong, sort of. They are commenting on the wrong section. The controversy was over Public Law 85-425 passed in 1958, specifically section 410. I wanted to read the actual text of the law. I finally found it on the House of Representatives site. The first thing that is amazing is that the entire law is less than one page. Take that.... Affordable Healthcare Act.

So, to answer the question, as we say, In God We Trust..... all others bring real data. First of all, Section 410 is the wrong section to refer to for this discussion. So... here is the real deal.

Public Law 85-425 amended the Veterans Benefits Act of 1957 (Public Law 85-56). Most of the changes were changes in rates of pensions paid. However, this is the ACTUAL text of the law that added subsection (e) of Section 432 (not 410, the one people always mistakenly refer to).

"3) Section 432 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection: e) For the purpose of this section, and section 433, the term “veteran” includes a person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War, and the term “active, military or naval service” includes active service in such forces.”

That could NOT be clearer despite what any biased observer might think.

So..moving on....what is Section 410? Item 9 of the 85-425 law added a new Section 410 which made pensions equal for Confederate and US veterans. The ACTUAL text of that is this:

9) Immediately above Section 411, insert the following: “Confederate Forces Veterans” “Section 410. The Administrator shall pay to each person who served in the military or naval forces of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War a monthly pension in the same amounts and subject to the same conditions as would have been applicable to such person under the laws in effect on December 31, 1957, if his service in such forces had been service in the military or naval service of the United States.”

I will also point out another mistake that Snopes is making. The web site describes the law as a "feel good" measure because there may not have been any Confederate veterans alive at the time of its passage. There may or may not have been any Union Veterans alive at the time, either. That doesn't matter. The law does have actual consequences, not the least of which is that unmarked graves of Confederate veterans can have government-funded tombstones placed, to honor them, by the Veterans Administration, That is true, to this day. Additionally, older veterans who had married markedly younger women still had their widows protected by pensions.

So, in summary, Confederate Veterans are, by law, considered the same as other US veterans and had equal benefits under the law. Don't believe it??? Don't rely on opinion sites. Read it yourself.

http://uscode.house.gov/statutes/pl/85/425.pdf

August 18, 2018 Summary of the Mueller Investigation, to this point

For those who find it hard to keep up with it all, because they have other things to do, a summary, to this point:

1) James Wolfe, chief of security at the Senate Intelligence Committee, was sleeping with a 20-something New York Times reporter, Ali Watkins . He leaks the fact that minor Trump campaign advisor Carter Page was interviewed by the FBI to his girlfriend who is dumb enough to run it, along with the editors of the Times, implying that Page was working with the Russians. In truth, Page was approached by a Russian agent and fully cooperated with the FBI but, of course, this is nothing close to what was reported in the Times. Lots of people who dislike then-candidate Trump go nuts over the bogus story.

Wolfe has since been fired and Watkins is big trouble for apparently "sleeping her way to stories".

2) The Clinton Campaign hires Fusion GPS, through the Perkins Coie law firm, in order to hide their involvement, to dig up dirt on then-candidate Trump. Fusion GPS hires, Nellie Ohr, the wife of then fourth-ranked person at the Department of Justice, Bruce Ohr, and former British spy Christopher Steele to come up with stuff to use against then-candidate Trump. Between Ohr and Steele, they come up with the infamous "dossier" which turns out to be unverified nonsense. Steele has testified as much under oath.

Ohr has been demoted twice. Steele is being sued for libel. Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS has recently been discovered to have perjured himself in front of Congress.

3) Both former CIA Director John Brennan and Senator John McCain shop the phony documents around to the FBI and news media. Most news outlets know the dossier is nonsense and will not publish it. Eventually, the web site Buzzfeed does, even though they know it is nonsense.

4) Former FBI Director James Comey starts an investigation based on the phony story and document. The investigation is prioritized over the Clinton investigation by the infamous FBI agent Peter Strzok. He, his lover Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe are all in on it. Counter intelligence head Bill Priestap and FBI General Counsel James Baker are in on it. They ask for a FISA warrant and lie by saying the evidence is "verified", which is absolutely untrue. One of the FISA requests is signed by current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is still participating in the process even though he is a potential witness or co-conspirator.

James Comey gets fired and freely admits to violating the law by intentionally leaking classified material to the press. Rosenstein won't recuse himself, even though he is up to his neck in it. BIll Priestap is gone from the FBI. Peter Strzok is fired. Lisa Page was fired. Andrew McCabe was fired three days before he could retire. Baker has been "reassigned" from the highest legal post in the FBI (That is FBI talk for fired from an important job).

5) Comey commits a felony (leaking classified material knowingly to a friend to give to the media) in order to assure that a Special Counsel is appointed. Since Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (there is that name again) appoints Robert Mueller as Special Counsel. However, the special counsel statute specifies that a special counsel is only appointed to investigate a crime. In the appointment documents, there is NO alleged crime mentioned. Additionally, "collusion" is NOT a crime under federal law. So..... what was he appointed to investigate?

6) The Special Counsel, after almost two years, has indicted some Russians for attempting to hack US elections. Every senior official who has testified has said that the election was IN NO WAY effected by their efforts. They have also indicted Rick Gates and Paul Manafort for some business dealings (for which Manafort had previously been cleared by the DOJ) which occurred six or seven years BEFORE the election and had nothing to do with the election or the President. They do not even look into Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta's brother, Tony Podesta, for doing the exact same thing. They also indicted Michael Flynn for mis-remembering a conversation that was not a crime. Yes, that is correct, they prosecuted him for lying about something that was never a crime. (Side note: This is not a new thing. You might remember that US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald went after Scooter Libby for outing a clandestine agent, who everyone knew was not a clandestine agent, and it had already been revealed that Richard Armitage was the one who outed her. Made no difference to Fitzgerald, He just wanted to make a name for himself.)

Therefore, in summary, the entire Mueller investigation was initiated by bogus documents and criminal activity by law federal law enforcement officials. Almost all of those officials have been fired. It is hard to make the argument that they did nothing wrong. As a result of the Mueller investigation, with the exception of the inconsequential Russian hackers (who will never face justice in the US), Paul Manafort and Rick Gates (who made some shady financial deals many years ago that had nothing to do with the election), and Michael Flynn (for lying about something that was not a crime), ALL of the documented crimes have been committed by members of the FBI (Comey, Priestap, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Baker), a friend of the former Director of the FBI (the college professor who leaked classified material from Comey to the media), Department of Justice officials (Rosenstein and whoever signed the other FISA requests), a former CIA Director (Brennan), and the head of Fusion GPS (Simpson, perjury). There has been nothing revealed about the President, or anything to do with his campaign, trying to do something nefarious in the election. If there was, we would no by now. Rep. Adam Schiff couldn't keep a secret about his family if he thought they was political gain in it being leaked.

Democrats searching for the path

I read an interesting article today on the split forming in the Democrats. Because the Democrats only win national elections recently with coalition votes, they have to keep the coalitions together to capture enough votes to win in states that are widely varied in composition. Politically, that is not an easy thing to do. What plays well in very liberal states like California and Vermont may not play well in rust belt states and especially not well in the south. By the same token, more moderate or conservative policy trade-offs for moderate states, may not play well in the most liberal states. To keep the coalition together means walking a fine line between various splintered groups with their own agendas. As an aside, Angela Merkel is currently having exactly the same problem in Germany.

Before the 1930s, the black vote in the US was almost exclusively Republican because the Republicans had been against slavery, for civil rights, etc. and the Democrats opposed all of those ideas. The Democrats were the party of segregation and Jim Crow Laws. With the presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, that changed. Black voters embraced the New Deal and have been fairly monolithic in support of Democrats since then. The record turnout for candidate Barrack Obama in 2008 and particularly in 2012 was expected, given his mixed-race lineage. The black turnout for the 2012 election was 66.6%, which is great. However, in 2016, the turnout was 59.6%, a seven point drop. It is not surprising that those voters were not as excited about Hillary Clinton. In fact, that type of drop should have been expected, given President Obama's unique position in history.

One of the biggest problems that the Democrats have now is the immigration debate. A poll by the Harvard-Harris survey, done recently, found that African-Americans are the racial group most opposed to unlimited immigration. Whereas 79 percent of whites want to prioritize legal immigrants based on what they can contribute to society, 85 percent of African-Americans hold that view. This is a potentially huge problem for Democrats as many Democrats, both in, and running for, office are openly advocating for open borders and less enforcement of immigration law. With the economy improving so much and unemployment being so low, the Democrats have to find something to run on, other than "We don't like the President". Democrats have to be able to count on that large percentage of the black vote to be able to win a national election, and many state-wide elections. If the Democrats put forth policies that 85% of that group do not like, and they have no other issue that will overwhelm that concern, they are likely to have those voters vote for a Republican, or just not vote at all, which amounts to the same thing in the end.

It is a hard path to walk in between the WAY left and the middle of the country. Rep. Joe Crowley would have been on the short list to become the next Speaker of the House of Representatives if he had held his seat in the primary in New York. Instead, he was beaten in the primary by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a declared socialist. It is going to be very hard to win in the middle of the country with an agenda like hers. Therefore, the Democrats are forced to spin that her winning was a good thing (in fact, they are all astounded and scared by that election), while trying, at the same time, not to have the middle of the country think that the party, as a whole, is not endorsing her views. That is a tough path to walk.

Things are getting a little sticky for the FBI in the Michael Flynn case.

Most people who do not follow this stuff closely will not be aware of this, but...... Judge Rudolph Contreras was overseeing the case of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. He recused himself about a week after a plea deal was made. That is HIGHLY unusual. As it turns out, Michael Flynn's appropriate conversions with his Russian counterparts (all incoming NSA Directors do it) were recorded by the NSA, using a FISA warrant, the legality of which has been severely questioned. So........guess who is a judge on the FISA court and a friend of good old disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok? Absolutely correct..... Judge Rudolph Contreras. It isn't public yet but it may be that the very judge who granted the warrant was presiding over the case that resulted. Why else would Judge Contreras recuse himself? He got busted.

When Judge Emmet Sullivan took over the case, things changed markedly. First, the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn have now been shown in official documents to state that they did not believe (not one of them) that Flynn had lied to them. Former FBI Director James Comey also said the same thing in open testimony in front of a Congressional committee. Flynn has said that he was forced to enter a guilty plea because the government was bankrupting him and his family. So... if the FBI, including the former Director, says that they did not think that Flynn had lied, why was he charged? This appears to be the Special Counsel's group telling Flynn, "Help us out or we will destroy you and your family, even though the FBI doesn't think you did anything wrong." Even though a plea had been entered, and, in theory, the case is over, Judge Sullivan made the FBI present all exculpatory material in the case.

Here is the part that most people won't remember...... Judge Emmet Sullivan is the same judge who was presiding over the late Senator Ted Stevens case when the FBI framed Stevens just before an election to get the last vote for Obamacare into the Senate. Stevens barely lost the Alaska US Senate election and then the guilty verdict was thrown out after the election for prosecutorial misconduct. Prosecutors had held out evidence that showed that Stevens was not guilty. But, of course, by then, the election was over. It is a really shameful episode in the history of the FBI/US attorney offices. FBI agents and a US Attorney literally rigged an election for a US Senate seat for political reasons. That is why Judge Sullivan always makes exculpatory evidence be presented EVERY time he presides over any case. He was burned by government prosecutors once, in a high profile case, and is not going to let it happen again.

My guess is that even if the guilty plea is not vacated, Flynn will receive little to no sentence because of how suspicious the circumstances are in this case and that the prosecution may be on the verge of misconduct, again. The worst possible scenario for the Mueller team is for this case to actually go to trial because all of the misconduct by the prosecutors, including the justification for the original FISA warrant, would have to come out in the trial. It could also be very embarrassing for Judge Rudolph Contreras.