Lo and behold, when the Mueller report finally emerged, it completely cleared the Trump campaign of coordinating or conspiring with Russia (let’s face it, if the Mueller team couldn’t find any “collusion” after looking for about two years, there probably wasn’t any to find). That should have been the end of it, and might have been, except the Mueller report also discussed “obstruction of justice” charges. Now the facts that Mr. Mueller served his full term as Special Counsel and that his report was issued, indicates that the President did not obstruct his report. The fact that a report was issued is pretty good evidence that the subject of the report did not keep it from seeing the light of day. Mr. Mueller, for reasons that are baffling, discussed obstruction by saying that he could not make a determination as to whether the President’s conduct was obstructive; the report did not exonerate him nor did it charge him. The President’s enemies are making a big deal of the fact that the report did not “exonerate” him, but when has such a report ever “exonerated” anyone? That is not how such investigations work. Either the investigator(who had the power to indict and charge) finds enough evidence to bring a charge, or he does not. If he does find it, he makes the charge; if he doesn’t, he does not charge – but his purpose is not to “exonerate” but to investigate for the purpose of charging whatever crimes are discovered. The fact that Mr. Mueller neither charged nor indicted should be enough to convince anyone, not that Mr. Trump is “a good guy,” or “clean,” or “exonerated,” or “innocent,” but only that he was not charged. The typical language is that “there was no evidence” or “we were unable to make a charge,” not, “he is innocent.” There is a school of thought that says that Mr. Mueller was constrained by a legal opinion that a sitting president cannot be charged with obstruction of justice and therefore he explicitly left it up to Congress to do so – but we think what Mr. Mueller said was that Congress has the power to rewrite the laws to cover such a contingency that could arise in the future; not that he was kicking this specific case to Congress for it to look into the specifics of the charge against this president.
BY JOHN SHAFFER The Mueller probe into possible means used by Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election via the Trump campaign lasted over two years, and for that entire period of time, as various Congressional committees found no such interference using the Trump campaign, the Democrats told one and all to “wait for the Mueller report,” “the Mueller report will be the final word,” or similar sentiments. Of course, at that time they fully expected that the Mueller report would show some type of malevolent relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia, and this gave them confidence that the Mueller report would be the blow that brought down the Trump administration. (And this is as good time as any for an aside – it was not only committees in the previous, Republican-led, Congress that refuted and invalidated the claim that the Russians changed the outcome of the election, but also several prominent Democrats, namely President Obama, Vice President Biden, Minority Leader Pelosi, Attorney General Lynch and Homeland Security Secretary Johnson, all of whom said that very thing.)
Lo and behold, when the Mueller report finally emerged, it completely cleared the Trump campaign of coordinating or conspiring with Russia (let’s face it, if the Mueller team couldn’t find any “collusion” after looking for about two years, there probably wasn’t any to find). That should have been the end of it, and might have been, except the Mueller report also discussed “obstruction of justice” charges. Now the facts that Mr. Mueller served his full term as Special Counsel and that his report was issued, indicates that the President did not obstruct his report. The fact that a report was issued is pretty good evidence that the subject of the report did not keep it from seeing the light of day. Mr. Mueller, for reasons that are baffling, discussed obstruction by saying that he could not make a determination as to whether the President’s conduct was obstructive; the report did not exonerate him nor did it charge him. The President’s enemies are making a big deal of the fact that the report did not “exonerate” him, but when has such a report ever “exonerated” anyone? That is not how such investigations work. Either the investigator(who had the power to indict and charge) finds enough evidence to bring a charge, or he does not. If he does find it, he makes the charge; if he doesn’t, he does not charge – but his purpose is not to “exonerate” but to investigate for the purpose of charging whatever crimes are discovered. The fact that Mr. Mueller neither charged nor indicted should be enough to convince anyone, not that Mr. Trump is “a good guy,” or “clean,” or “exonerated,” or “innocent,” but only that he was not charged. The typical language is that “there was no evidence” or “we were unable to make a charge,” not, “he is innocent.” There is a school of thought that says that Mr. Mueller was constrained by a legal opinion that a sitting president cannot be charged with obstruction of justice and therefore he explicitly left it up to Congress to do so – but we think what Mr. Mueller said was that Congress has the power to rewrite the laws to cover such a contingency that could arise in the future; not that he was kicking this specific case to Congress for it to look into the specifics of the charge against this president. BY JOHN SHAFFER There is a saying, “Where there’s life, there’s hope,” and although it may have been intended as an articulation of a never-give-up spirit, it also describes the attitude of those who oppose abortion, which includes the present author. We see abortion as “stilling a beating heart,” and that is the basis of a spate of recent legislation either passed or under consideration in Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri, Alabama, and Ohio, among other states. Those bills generally would ban abortions in instances where the unborn child’s heartbeat is detected. The bills typically protect the mother in that she would not be prosecuted for the abortion (although the abortionist would be). There also are exceptions for the life of the mother. These measures are in response to the spate of legislation earlier this year in states such as New York, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Virginia and Hawaii, among others, that would legalize abortion up to the moment of birth – and perhaps immediately afterwards.
Up until the US Supreme Court’s 1973 decisions of Roe v. Wade (which legalized abortion up to the point of viability) and Doe v. Bolton (which effectively legalized it after viability), all of those state legislatures would have have the power to decide – the progressive states such as New York or Rhode Island could have abortion on demand, and the conservative states such as Mississippi or Louisiana could have restricted the practice. Those freedoms ended when the Court effectively federalized the issue, and over 50 million aborted babies later, the issue is no less emotional, passionate and intense than it was 46 years ago. The 1973 Court may have hoped that by deciding in favor of abortion, the issue would be unchallengeable and thus less politically charged. However, the issue of abortion, more it seems than any other twenty issues combined, has turned each US Judicial nomination into a potential battleground, and has sharpened the partisanship and anger in Congress, the Courts, and America. The political left has opposed any restriction on abortion and has sought to pass laws that secure the practice; and the political right has opposed any extension of abortion, and has sought to pass laws to limit abortion; and each side fights tooth and nail for or against court nominees based on their opinion on abortion, or their likelihood of overturning Roe or Doe. BY JOHN SHAFFER One trait that is common to Americans is pride in America. At least it always was a common trait, until recent years, when the progressive left, heady on its injection of political correctness, found their nation’s flaws to be greater than its attributes. It used to be that practically everyone, from schoolchildren to the aged, from all races and beliefs, from all occupations and all origins, had an understanding that America was a force for good, a beacon for freedom, and an engine of enterprise and liberty. There existed a core of prominent Americans whom all of us agreed were “great,” and even though Americans knew that none of those “greats” were perfect, everyone appreciated their contributions, which, in combination with the ordinary, unspectacular efforts and sacrifices of millions of individuals, made America a great nation.
But nowadays, not everyone agrees that America is a “great” nation, deserving of respect. A significant number of prominent Democrats don’t think so. Pete Buttigieg says, “America was never as great as advertised.” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says, “America was never great.” Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez laments that she “never experienced prosperity in her adult life” (a period of time that includes the Obama years). Former Attorney General Eric Holder asks sarcastically, “When do you think America was great?” Former First Lady Michelle Obama said that she had never been as proud of America as when her husband won the Presidential nomination. Her pride lasted the eight years of his administration, and since then she has expressed the opinion that we have reverted from greatness. Even President Trump, whose slogan “Make America Great Again” implies that America’s greatness has not been constant, may be guilty of selling America short. BY JOHN SHAFFER The realization that Jihadists were at war with America, even if America wasn’t at war with them, came with a shocking abruptness on September 11, 2001, so much so that the phrase “everything changed after September 11” (or some variant thereof) has melded into the popular consciousness. But there is another date on which “everything changed,” and if we are not well aware of the specific date of the change (November 8, 2016), we all should be cognizant of the effect that took place when Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. Not so much for the changes he made, for Barack Obama, George Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, John Kennedy and almost every other President made his share of changes; but more for the reaction to Mr. Trump’s election. That is where big changes were made, for many things that were barely noticed during the Obama years (such as “children in cages” at the border, or illegal immigrant “families being separated”) suddenly became the moral equivalent of war crimes in the eyes of the progressive left, which, we emphasize, was very little concerned about the issue if at all, prior to his election.
A similar phenomenon concerns the Trump administration’s desire to inquire of the citizenship of respondents to the 2020 US Census. Well, not citizenship per se, but specifically, “Are you a citizen of the United States?” That question, or a variant, was asked in almost every census from 1850 to 1950 (including those years when millions of LEGAL immigrants passed through Ellis Island and other places). In 1850 and 1860 respondents were asked to give their place of birth. In 1870 a citizenship question was asked, evidently for the purpose of learning if emancipated slaves were being given the rights due to them. Starting in 1900, the form asked if the respondent was a native-born citizen, a naturalized citizen, or a non-citizen. This continued through 1950. The form had grown to be quite long and intrusive, so at the next census, 1960, that question was dropped, along with many others, in order to make the form easier to use, fill out, and record. As our population expanded and the government’s thirst for information grew, the form was divided into long and short versions. The short version, which did not include a citizenship question, went to about 80% of the population. The long form, which went to about 20%, did ask the citizenship question. BY JOHN SHAFFER With their numbers already above the one score mark, it isn’t surprising that another Democrat has announced his candidacy for President, but the way that Mr. Joe Biden announced was especially unusual. The announcement was delayed a few days and instead of a splashy debut in Charlottesville, Virginia, the former Vice-President and Senator instead made a previously recorded video/internet announcement at 6 am on Friday, followed by a fawning “interview” on the View, where Democrats never have to fear an unsafe question. His “first public” appearance as a candidate came on Monday in Pittsburgh, arranged to display “blue-collar Joe” as he sees himself – champion of the workingman, etc.
We are more interested, however, in his taped announcement and his interview, because in them he told what in more civilized times were known as lies. The bulk of his video announcement had to do with the “riot” at Charlottesville, caused by a largely unsupervised clash between white supremacists on one side and on the other, thugs from Antifa and other violent groups from the far left. These two groups hijacked what would otherwise have been a peaceful demonstration by people who objected to the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, and by people who thought the statue should be removed. Sadly, those peaceful people were overwhelmed by others whose opinion on the statue was merely a shoehorn for a violent demonstration. Sadly, one of the peaceful opponents of the statue was killed when struck by an automobile driven by a white supremacist who was fleeing violent left-wing thugs. Sadly, Mr. Biden chose to lie about what President Trump said about that day’s events. |
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