Displaying posts published in

May 2019

Dershowitz: Shame on Robert Mueller for exceeding his role By Alan Dershowitz,

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/445983-dershowitz-shame-on-robert-mueller-for-exceeding-his-role

The statement by special counsel Robert Mueller in a Wednesday press conference that “if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that” is worse than the statement made by then-FBI Director James Comey regarding Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign. Comey declared in a July 2016 press conference that “although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

Comey was universally criticized for going beyond his responsibility to state whether there was sufficient evidence to indict Clinton. Mueller, however, did even more. He went beyond the conclusion of his report and gave a political gift to Democrats in Congress who are seeking to institute impeachment proceedings against President Trump. By implying that President Trump might have committed obstruction of justice, Mueller effectively invited Democrats to institute impeachment proceedings. Obstruction of justice is a “high crime and misdemeanor” which, under the Constitution, authorizes impeachment and removal of the president.

Democrats 2020: The Grievance Party By Larry Elder

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/democrats-2020-the-grievance-party/

Describing the Democratic Party as one built on “identity politics” used to be a pejorative. But Georgia’s failed 2018 Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams, recently defended this description of her party. “I would argue that identity politics is exactly who we are,” said Abrams, “and it’s exactly how we won. … When we refuse to engage in the conversation of identity politics, when we refuse to acknowledge that we see you and we understand you and we understand the barriers that you face, then what we are met with is a lack of trust.”

Fellow Democrat and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg apparently failed to get the memo. A week before Abrams embraced and even expressed pride in Democrats’ identity politics, Buttigieg was blasting President Donald Trump for his “racist” use of it. Trump, said Buttigieg, engages in “peak white identity politics” that creates a “crisis of belonging” in America “designed to drive apart people with common interests.” Buttigieg added, “When you do not belong, it doesn’t just put you in a bad mood; it puts you in a different country.”

By “identity” politics, Democrats really mean grievances. The party leaders push the narrative that blacks, Hispanics, gays, etc. are victims, whether due “inequality” or “sexism” or “racism” or “otherism.”

Take 2020 Democratic presidential contender Sen. Kamala Harris, who announced plans to end the alleged grievance of “unequal pay.” Harris claims women working full time make 80 cents on the dollar (SET ITAL) for doing the same work (END ITAL) as men. She insists it’s worse for minorities: Black women are only paid 61 cents on the dollar, Hispanic women 53 cents. Never mind that the Labor Department long ago debunked this myth. CONTINUE AT SITE

Dem. Presidential Contenders Urge Impeachment after Mueller Press Conference By Jack Crowe

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/dem-presidential-contenders-urge-impeachment-after-mueller-press-conference/

A host of Democratic presidential candidates have strengthened their calls for impeachment in response to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s reiteration of his investigative findings in a Wednesday press conference.

In his first public comments since his appointment, Mueller emphasized the role of Congress in addressing the actions outlined in his report, citing the long-standing Department of Justice guideline that precludes the indictment of a sitting president.

“The opinion [in the report] says that the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal-justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing,” he said.

In response, a number of Democratic presidential contenders renewed their calls for an impeachment inquiry and cast Mueller’s comments as a de facto endorsement of that course of action.

Senator Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) on Wednesday said Mueller’s press conference was “essentially” a public impeachment referral intended to motivate lawmakers who have not yet made up their minds on the issue.

Algeria: Russian Influence, American Opportunity? by Debalina Ghoshal

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14237/algeria-russian-influence

Vladimir Putin agreed to write off Algerian debt in 2006, on condition that Algiers purchase industrial goods, including military equipment, from Moscow. Since then, Algeria has become Russia’s largest arms importer in Africa.

Until now, due to the 1999 Leahy Law, the “State Department and Defense Department are barred from providing military assistance to countries with a history of human rights violations.” Algeria has an extremely poor record in this realm.

Today, however — only if such an unacceptable situation changes significantly — the United States might follow it closely and act accordingly.

The recent uprising in Algeria, which culminated early April in the end of Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s 20-year reign, is being touted as the North African nation’s belated “Arab Spring.”

The outcome of the bloodless military coup, backed by the country’s growing population of disenfranchised youth, remains to be seen. But the United States should be paying close attention to how Russia, with its increasing moves on Africa in general and Algeria in particular, now proceeds.

Moscow, which had enjoyed close relations with Bouteflika, is observing the unfolding events in Algeria with caution, hoping that the changing political landscape in Algiers will not affect the defense cooperation that has been going on for decades, and which sharply increased in 2006. That was the year when Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to write off Algerian debt, on condition that Algiers purchase industrial goods, including military equipment, from Moscow.

The New Smear Machine: Guilt by Association by Douglas Murray

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14248/guilt-by-association

During the speeches one of the representatives from ‘Jewish Voice for Labour’ (a shell organisation set up to defend Jeremy Corbyn from accusations of anti-Semitism) claimed that Jews are ‘in the gutter’. Nothing was particularly noteworthy in all of this — except for one interesting fact, spotted by the British-based ‘Campaign Against Anti-Semitism’. This organization, having attended the march to monitor it, noticed a number of extremely interesting attendees. According to the ‘Campaign Against Anti-Semitism’, these included a man called Tony Martin, who is the leader of a neo-Nazi organisation called the National Front. This is not an organisation that is called ‘neo-Nazi’ or ‘fascist’ as some sort of rhetorical colouring required to win a debating point. It is described as that because that is what it is.

Perhaps we can cut out the middle man and just call all the members of the Parliamentary Labour party who attended the May 11 march ‘neo-Nazis’, ‘far-right’ and ‘fascist’. It is hard to see why not. By their own standards and tactics they eminently qualify for the description. Perhaps they will embrace the terms. Or perhaps they will begin to recognise that the stick they have been using to take out perfectly innocent opponents for political gain is in fact a boomerang that can just as easily come right back at them.

One of the favourite tactics of the far-left in the West today is to carry out hit-jobs by utilising the tool of ‘adjacency.’ This is the new only slightly fancy term for what has usually been known as ‘guilt by association’. Where there was once an agreement that people should be held responsible for their own views, now they can apparently be held responsible for the views of anyone beside whom they once stood.

So for instance, last month Jordan Peterson was denied a visiting fellowship at Cambridge University because he had once been photographed (at a post-speaking event meet-and-greet) with somebody wearing a T-shirt saying ‘I’m a proud Islamophobe’. Activists who wish to take decent people out of the parameters of legitimate discussion no longer merely smear them by trying to claim that their opponent is an extremist. Instead, they hint that even if their opponent might not be an extremist, here – for instance – is a photograph of him standing beside someone better able to be described as an extremist. Thus has the smear machine found a happy pastime and a fairly useful tool in its game of political warfare.

This tactic is rarely used by the right against many on the left. Or if it is, its legitimacy is denied. For instance when the British Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, for instance, is endlessly pictured with Islamist extremists or a whole range of anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, it is agreed that he is not ‘adjacent’ to these people, but merely to be pursuing his often strangely uncredited role as the international community’s informal peace-keeper-in-chief. His proximity to the worst people is never evidence of ‘adjacency’: merely of saintliness at best, and bad luck at worst.

MY SAY: AUF WIEDERSEHEN?

This week Felix Klein a German official warned against wearing the Jewish kippah in some public places.

Oh Puleez! What’s new?

Early in 2015 there was a backlash against Jewish council leader Dr Josef Schuster after he warned German Jews to “look less Jewish” when walking through predominantly Moslem neighborhoods in Berlin.

Three years ago on January 20th 2016, the headline was:

“German Jews ‘no longer safe’ due to anti-Semitism and ‘deteriorating security’ Some Jews have talked about ‘packing their bags’ after rise in hate crime.”

(https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/german-jews-no-longer-safe-due-to-anti-semitism-and-deteriorating-security-a6823216.html)

Anti-Semitic manifestations in Germany can be traced to the Left’s obsessive and vicious criticism of Israel, National Socialist racism, and Muslim faith driven hatred of Jews.  It can’t be ignored or controlled.

“Auf Wiedersehen” a German song composed in 1950 by Eberhard Storch, has lyrics in English by John Parson and John Turner : ” This lovely day has flown away, The time has come to part”

German Jews have a choice. They can leave or stay and risk the chance that they will hear “Geh Raus Yude!” or اخرج! Alyahudi!

RSK

Don’t Blame the Surge of European Anti-Semitism on the Populists By Jonathan S. Tobin

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/anti-semitism-europe-muslim-immigrants/

Downplaying the role of Muslim immigrants distorts the truth.

The latest news about the surge of anti-Semitism in Europe may not surprise people who worry about the rise of European populist parties. The populists opposing European unity and globalism are easily identified with the old Right in many countries. Many of their supporters — whether the right-wing AfD in Germany, the National Front in France led by Marine Le Pen, or the conservative ruling parties in such countries as Poland and Hungary — are also identified with traditional anti-Semitic attitudes.

So when a German federal official recently advised Jews to avoid wearing a kippah or religious head covering in public so they wouldn’t be targeted for violence, most foreign observers concluded that it was right-wing anti-Semites who have been attacking Jews, given that right-wingers have been making gains in elections, including in the recent European Parliament election.

The official, Felix Klein, Germany’s first “Commissioner for Jewish life in Germany and the Fight Against Anti-Semitism,” was criticized by many, including Israeli president Reuven Rivlin, for surrendering to the forces of hate. The outrage inspired the newspaper Der Bild to publish a cutout version of a kipah for readers to wear in solidarity with Jews.

Earlier this month, a New York Times Magazine story titled “The New German Anti-Semitism” reported that “police statistics attribute 89 percent of all anti-Semitic crimes to right-wing extremists.” But the same article went on to question that statistic. According to the Times, when German authorities can’t directly attribute a motive for an attack on a Jewish target (and they often cannot), they ascribe it to the Right. But a European Union survey of German Jews conducted last year showed that a plurality of Jews who say they experienced anti-Semitic harassment said the perpetrators were Muslim extremists. Yet, as the Times noted, the German government has been insisting that country’s anti-Semitism problem has not been imported from the Middle East.

Another Mueller-Comey One-Two Punch By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/29/another-mueller-comey-one-two-punch/

Most Americans are unaware of the long history of comradeship and chicanery between Special Counsel Robert Mueller and former FBI Director James Comey. For nearly two decades, the pair have held the same jobs, earned the same foes, and swaggered in the same rarified sphere of political prestige and privilege.

This week, the country has been treated to another reminder of how often the twosome operates in tandem.

In fact, their prior relationship should have disqualified Mueller from overseeing an investigation into one of Comey’s fiercest critics and the man who fired him, President Donald Trump. Without Comey helping to fabricate the Trump-Russia collusion narrative in 2016, there wouldn’t have been a Mueller investigation into fabricated Trump-Russia election collusion.

Further, Comey admitted he leaked his internal “memos” to the New York Times after his dismissal in May 2017 in an attempt to prompt the appointment of a special counsel. Comey also would be a witness in Mueller’s investigation; his extemporaneous memos that documented alleged conversations with the president in early 2017 are cited as evidence throughout the obstruction of justice section of Mueller’s report. The conflicts are rife and overshadow the legitimacy of the entire Mueller probe.

Comey and Mueller share similar traits: The lofty rhetoric about the rule of law; the self-aggrandizement disguised as adulation of the government institutions they run; the lust for power; the superiority complex; the petty thirst for vengeance. They are New York natives who once claimed to be Republican. Both served as deputy attorney general for President George W. Bush and director of the FBI for President Barack Obama.

Trump Has Become the Democrats’ Great White Whale By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/29/trump-has-become-the-democrats-great-white-whale/

One way of envisioning the Democratic obsessions with Donald Trump is as an addiction. We have seen the initial impeachment efforts; the attempt to get him under the emoluments clause, the Logan Act and the 25th Amendment; the Russian collusion hoax; the Mueller investigation; the demand for his tax returns; and the psychodramas involving Michael Avenatti, Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels. Relentless progressives have needed a new Get Trump fix about every two months.

More practically, their fixation also substitutes for a collective poverty of ideas. The Democratic Party has no plan to secure the borders other than to be against whatever Trump is for. They would not build a wall, deport illegal entrants, end sanctuary cities, fine employers or do much of anything but allow almost anyone to enter the U.S.

The homeless crisis is reaching epidemic proportions in our cities, almost all of them run by progressive mayors and city councils. None have any workable plan to clean the sidewalks of needles and human excrement. None know what do with the hundreds of thousands who have camped out in public spaces, endangering their own health and everyone around them due to drug addiction and inadequate sanitation and waste removal.

On abortion, the new Democratic position seems to be that the unborn can be aborted at any time the mother chooses, up to and including the moment of birth.

The Green New Deal has been endorsed by most of the current Democratic primary candidates, even though they privately know its utopian fantasies would shut down the U.S. economy and destroy the present prosperity fueled by record energy production, deregulation, and tax reform and reduction.

Mueller’s Press Conference Makes the Impeachment Tightrope Tougher to Walk for Democrats By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/robert-mueller-press-conference-impeachment-politics-democrats/

The special counsel just upped the pressure on those in the party who think impeaching Trump is politically ill-advised.

B ob Mueller decided to shoot up the town before he rode off into the sunset.

It is fair enough to observe that in his short but explosive speech, delivered at the Justice Department this morning, the special counsel did not say anything that wasn’t already set forth in his report — a point being emphasized by the White House. The sprawling report is 448 pages long, however. In his nine-minute address, Mueller quite consciously highlighted the portions of the report that fuel the Democrats’ calls for impeachment.

Mueller was adamant that he did not make a finding on whether President Trump should be charged with obstruction of justice because the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued guidance forbidding the indictment of a sitting president. I’ve argued before that he is completely wrong on this, but that is beside the point.

What matters is that Mueller can be fairly understood to be saying he believed President Trump committed obstruction of justice. That is not the only possible interpretation, but it is the most likely interpretation.

Mueller said Wednesday that if he had concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge Trump with obstruction, he would have said so (as he did with collusion). He then emphasized that he did not say so. That strongly implies that he believes the evidence is sufficient (notwithstanding that the attorney general has found otherwise). Mueller added that, in deciding not to allege obstruction even though the evidence was arguably sufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, he relied on the OLC guidance. Finally, he deduced from this, and from his understanding of the Constitution, that in our system it is for Congress, not federal prosecutors, to deal with presidential misconduct.