It can be said with all candor that Donald Trump was badly done to.  He must, no doubt, harbor a very long list of grievances and injustices that cry out for vindication and vengeance.

His 2016 campaign for President was undermined by Deep State collusion between the FBI and the prior administration, abetted by a willing media, to implicate the Trump campaign in a conjured scheme with Russia to influence the election outcome.  Justice Department officials secretly worked to fraudulently obtain FISA warrants to spy on individuals associated with Trump’s campaign staff and transition team.  The Operation known as Crossfire Hurricane sought to first derail his campaign, then failing that, provided the underpinnings of the Mueller Investigation that lasted twenty-two months and mired his first term in baseless public speculation and partisan congressional committee inquiry that Trump rightly labeled “a witch hunt.”  The clown car that pursued him carried the likes of Michael Avanatti, Stormy Daniels, Alexander Vindman, Christine Ford, and Michael Cohen, et al, who were launched by the media in the frenzy to discredit Trump, only to crash land without apology.  Full disclosure, Trump populated his inner circle with the deeply flawed likes of Rudy Giuliani, Anthony Scaramucci, and Roger Stone to name a few, as well as detrimental appointees within the Cabinet who served him poorly, such as Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, and James Mattis.  Trump was the architect of his own demise on many fronts.

He endured the shame of two impeachments, the first of which was a ceremonial farce, fraught with conflicted testimony from state department hacks and embittered informants.  The second, being a hastily-convened sideshow in the waning days of his term designed to live on well past his acquittal and provide the backdrop for the infamous January 6^th show trial, carefully choreographed to stretch into the midterm elections two years hence. 

The Deep State visited again throughout his 2020 campaign for a second term, this time stretching its tentacles beyond the complicit mainstream media to incorporate the good offices of the CDC, NIH, and the Machiavellian Doctor Fauci to stymie Trump’s attempts at salvaging his booming economy in an election year.  Trump finally surrendered to the crushing lockdown pressures emanating from government proxies in Big Tech and Big Pharma, and embarked on his signature pandemic rescue plan, Operation Warp Speed, an effort roundly dismissed by media skeptics and political adversaries.  Medical science yielded to political science as red states and blue states bickered over the management of extended business and school closures, drawing ideological battle lines against a backdrop of a nation already roiled by summer riots stoked by racial animus. Concurrently, the 2020 election cycle saw the long simmering wokeness agenda emerge with gusto to dampen pride in America, exacerbate the cultural divide, amplify identity politics, and infuse the runaway remote learning curricula with Critical Race Theory.   

The Covid epidemic gave cover for candidate Joe Biden to skirt the scrutiny of the campaign trail, evade debate, and sideline Trump accomplishments with an ever-evolving line of science that at times touched on hysteria.  It permitted key toss up states to reconfigure election laws and engineer new voting processes that were untested in practice, yet upheld in state courts, some of which usurped jurisdiction from the state legislature.   And finally, the Deep State re-emerged with its old cronies in the military intelligence gallery to spin away the Hunter Biden Laptop Scandal and provide legitimacy for mainstream media and Big Tech to bury the story on the eve of the election. 

Post-election, Trump’s efforts to litigate election irregularities were spurned by the courts, and undermined by a parade of charlatans and quacks he recruited that ultimately derailed the impetus for legitimate inquiry.  Those setbacks set the stage for the ill-conceived January 6^th rally and the travesty that followed. 

So here we are, November 14, 2022, with Congressional majorities undecided, the midterm pollsters once again off the mark, amid bogged down voting tallies in toss-up states.  Trump now sees the emergence of a new standard bearer being coronated in Florida, the ignominious defeat of key candidates he championed, and growing dissatisfaction from the GOP with his continued garnering of a spotlight best shined elsewhere.  Between the encroaching fallout expected from the New York State investigation into his business practices and the exploitable harm resulting from the raid on Mar-a-Lago, Trump sits largely as damaged goods on the eve of what portends to be his bigly announcement concerning the 2024 presidential race that may very well be met with bipartisan derision and open media disdain.

True to form, the only one on whom these realities will be lost is Trump himself.  Yet he can still derive a measure of vindication even from this diminished position.  If he were more calculating than impulsive, he could position himself as a shadow candidate in 2024, willing to cede the party mantle to a rising star on a conditional basis.  The caveat being, if Biden or Harris were to run in ’24, the GOP nomination would be his for the asking.  This would accomplish two things for Trump: he can actually defeat either incumbent if they were to run, provided he ran on a platform of restoring his policies and not on his obsession with reclaiming the election they stole.  And second, if the democrats succeeded in dissuading Biden from a second term run, Trump could boast his mere presence was enough to force Biden-Harris to the sidelines, done so by him as a service to America.  He could then declare “my work here is done” and become the magnanimous cheerleader for the chosen one.

Alternatively, he could encounter some stiff opposition in a primary battle with party electors who have Trump fatigue.  True, his war chest would dwarf other hopefuls, but over the course of his tenure with the GOP, he has forged many enemies.  Candidates with no clear path to the nomination may nonetheless savor the opportunity to belittle Trump on a debate stage.  Chris Christie comes to mind.  Nikki Haley could drag some Trump administration skeletons out of the closet.  Mike Pompeo, someone who has actually paid attention these past four years, would present as far more astute on policy matters concerning China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.  Senator Tom Cotton is concise and facile in articulating the failures of the Biden administration on matters ranging from Afghanistan to border security to the Fentanyl epidemic.  Ted Cruz’s prosecutorial bluster could easily conflate Trump’s legal woes with the cloud of corruption hanging over the Biden family. Mike Pence could effortlessly usurp any support Trump still held among Evangelicals while projecting a sense of integrity Trump surely cannot.  It remains highly doubtful that these players would criticize the former President on his record or his policy instincts; no, they would instead seize upon Trump’s electability given his petulant egotism, and castigate him on his sorest of wounds: the stolen election.  Trump would be besieged and humiliated in such a setting.

Such a tact would be, however, at their Party’s own peril.  For Trump holds the nuclear option: a third-party run.  Trump could counter any movement to deny him the GOP nomination with the spectacle of a self-funded run as an independent, maybe grabbing an unaffiliated spitfire like Tulsi Gabbard as a running mate on a Unity Party (how ironic) ticket.  Splitting the Republican Party between RINOs and Trumpsters would all but insure a democrat victory, no matter who they ran. 

This is all a very sad outcome for someone who, as stated at the outset, was badly done to.  His hubris in believing that he could single-handedly “drain the swamp” stands largely as his ultimate undoing.  It is to the country’s detriment that he was so widely unsuccessful in this endeavor; for it will dissuade others who might try.  Perhaps someone less flawed, more adept, and better equipped may one day leverage an election mandate to do just that; but that exceptional person has yet to appear on the horizon.  And that could very well be by design.  For as long as the country cannot be unified behind a visionary with the knowhow to get the money out of politics, the lobbyists out of government, the ideologues out of the press rooms and universities, then the swamp will persevere. 

Donald Trump should not be vilified.  He did have his first term stolen from him by a bogus investigation that paralyzed his administration.  He did have a robust economy and quantifiable policy successes pulled away by a pandemic of foreign origin managed by medical despots and political opportunists that fully undermined his re-election effort.  His character was assailed, his family was vilified, and his achievements obscured like no other who came before him.  The world’s largest social media platform banned its biggest newsmaker. It was open season with no holds barred, and it continues today, witness the unprecedented raid Mar-a-Lago.

But this should all serve as a reckoning for Trump and the GOP.  The Trump era should be recognized as done and dusted, a true casualty of uncivilized times. The GOP has a wide field of quality hopefuls who could easily defeat an array of democrat candidates in 2024.  The best of them would have the coattails to deliver strong majorities in both chambers.  Trump’s vision for a strong America could yet be realized with a winning mandate for sound policy, but that would only come about with someone else at the helm.  

For decades, the democrats and their allies in the media have saddled republicans with the dishonorable ambition of suppressing the vote; specifically, the vote of minority voters. Democrats charge that such a strategy subverts elections, denying victory to democrat candidates in closely contested elections, both local and federal.  Their unstated thesis of course is that uncast minority ballots are, in fact, uncounted democrat votes.  Because when minorities vote, you know, they vote democrat.  It is a given.

They accuse republicans of gerrymandering districts to favor GOP candidates, a tactic known to be employed by whichever party holds the majority in the statehouse.  It is a prime motivator for gaining majorities in state houses.  Unfortunate, but undeniable.  They accuse republicans of pressing for voter identification laws, something democrats claim, absent merit or calculus, results in diminished minority turnout.  They accuse republicans of limiting access to polling stations in minority neighborhoods, curtailing operating hours and shutting out those still in line to vote.  Open-minded people might conclude there may be some validity to some of that.  They accuse republicans of purging voter rolls, unilaterally disenfranchising minorities, a charge thoroughly disproven yet still embraced by the failed Stacy Abrams 2018 gubernatorial campaign in Georgia.  They accuse republicans of election tampering, a charge duly proven by the 2018 scandal and prosecutions resulting from the illegal harvesting of absentee ballots in North Carolina’s 9^th Ward congressional race.  Yet, upon enlightened reflection of that event, 2020 democrats deny the potential for voter fraud in the mass mailing of tens of millions ballots for the upcoming presidential election.  Go figure.

These alleged republican abuses are but child’s play in the game of voter suppression devised and perpetrated by the very party that invented it.  The party of the poll tax.  The party of literacy tests.   The party of Jim Crow.  Those Dixie democrats knew how the game was played, and played it to win.  And they delivered.  But, as with so much in life, those that do not evolve, those that do not change with the times, they get left behind.  So the democrats have fine-tuned their historically superior voter suppression efforts with a new sophistication: voter dilution. 

Voter dilution is a demographics game designed to “flood the zone” with so many fringe voting blocks as to “dilute” the voting power of the everyday citizen.  The first element is to appreciate the attrition rate of the citizen-soldiers, the millions of mostly white men who fought World War II, the Korean War vets well into their 80s, and encompassing the Vietnam War veterans, now in their 70s.  Back in the day, these votes had to be won through tough campaigning on the so-called bread-and-butter issues: strong economy, strong defense, strong social mores.  Or more colloquially, “God, Country and Family”.

As these millions of votes bleed out of the electorate, the democrats are succeeding in replacing them from a variety of voter pools:  naturalized immigrants, generations of children born to illegal immigrants residing in the US, anchor babies attaining legal age, incarcerated felons and the mentally ill.  Sixteen-year-olds aren’t far behind.  Over time, open borders and the heralded “pathway to citizenship” for illegal immigrants will swell the rolls to outnumber what will be remembered only euphemistically as the American Electorate.  And the progressive democrat party believe these votes are theirs to win, not on the traditional campaign issues cited above, but on the issues of social justice and redistribution of wealth.

Voter dilution remakes the foundational tenet of democrat voter suppression into something far more insidious and permanent.  But why would the democrats embark on such a transformational journey, and to what end?  For the same reasons that prevailed in the post-Antebellum South: to hold on to power.  Back then, they didn’t want black judges, or black mayors, or black sheriffs, or black Senators, so they used their monopolies on those positions to suppress the vote; minority votes to be specific, in order to keep their hold on power. 

But that model became unsustainable a century later as the Party of Lincoln continued to champion for equal rights under the law, striking down segregation and integrating the nation’s  institutions.  It was time to pivot, and the democratic party did so with zealotry, redistributing wealth with its war on poverty and enacting affirmative action that introduced the divisive notion of identity politics into the culture.  Embracing a stratagem of liberal pandering and bogey-man politics, the democrats flipped the narrative so that the republicans became the party of repression and the democrats the party of enlightenment.  This turn of events could not have been achieved without first seeding academia with like-minded sycophants to groom and harvest generations of malleable minds, and later, populate the newsrooms across America with covert bias.  Nor could it have been achieved without republicans cashing in their values for corporate profits and a coveted life of privilege, for which they seemingly could abide an ever-growing list of aberration and abhorrence of societal norms.  

Some fifty years hence, the country has been brought to a crossroad.  The remnants of the American Electorate, populated with assimilated nationalities that still cherish the founding principles rooted in individual freedoms and the promise of earned prosperity, or the confluence of alternative visions for America, too disparate to be indexed here.  Whether we remain one nation under God, or a federation of regional sects beholding only to the State, is entirely dependent upon what rises from this emerging, amorphous electorate on November 3^rd. 

This is the legacy of Eric Holder. Of Ferguson. Of Baltimore. Of Barack Obama and Loretta Lynch vilifying the police and glorifying the mob.

This is the legacy of the national media, sensationalizing events absent fact checking and sober judgment.

“Pigs in blankets! Fry ‘em like bacon!” reported by the media with a newly woke deference, never delving into what this sentiment represented and the ambitions of those saying it.

“Hands up! Don’t shoot!” was urban legend and the media knew it; but they lent it credence anyway. Worse, they breathed life into it.

This is the legacy of Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake ordering police to stand down while the mob torched the neighborhood CVS and police chief Anthony Batts sustained policy of retreat while the city burned.

This is the legacy of Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby exploiting the death of Freddie Gray by zealously overcharging six cops, and having all six cases tossed.

This is the legacy of Philadelphia prosecutor Larry Krasner’s brand of criminal justice reform, which is to essentially decriminalize crime.

This is the legacy of Chicago’s county prosecutor Kim Foxx abetting a politically charged hoax, wholly orchestrated to inflame racial tensions; to what end, one should ask.

This is the legacy of the Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey allowing a police station to be surrendered to the mob.

This is the legacy of Seattle’s Mayor Jenny Durkan ceding municipal real estate to the mob.
This is the legacy of Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler siding with the mob and evicting federal law enforcement.

This is the legacy of Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot eschewing federal law enforcement assistance resulting in a wartime body count and the violent redistribution of private property to the mob.

This is the legacy of Mayor DeBlasio’s indifference when scofflaws poured water on NYPD officers in 2019. In 2020 it’s now gasoline and bricks.

This is the legacy of emptying jails and releasing without bail: the jackals now preying on a less protected public, left vulnerable by defunded and demoralized police.

This is the legacy of Barack Obama, built not on white guilt or white privilege, but on white apathy.

So when you look at Portland, Seattle, Chicago, New York and all the rest, and witness the organized lawlessness, the feckless politicians, the servitude of the media and the hollow solidarity from Hollywood elites and major sports figures, to say you never saw this coming is to say you’ve never looked.

It was never about the removal of the President.  Not the Russia probe. Not the Mueller report.  Not the inquiry into Obstruction.  Not the Quid Pro Quo.  Not the Bribery.  Not the phone call.  None of these investigations, either separately or in unison, was going to result in the impeachment and removal of the President.

It was always about flipping the Senate in the 2020 election and neutering the President’s second term.

This would be done if the electorate in choice states with moderate Republican senators could be swayed that their Senator participated in a partisan cover up to salvage the Presidency of Donald J Trump.  It was a clarion call for righteous indignation among an impressionable electorate that could be persuaded by non-stop one-sided media hype to oust weak or retiring Senatorial candidates.

Step One was to create a scenario whereby the House majority could vote to impeach on a dubious case that, by design, lacked merit in both the facts and the law.  Step Two, once the Articles were voted on, was to delay the onset of the Senate trial to sustain a “media buzz” of intrigue and expectation, even if it temporarily generated partisan scorn for the House and its Speaker.  But all along, while enduring GOP ridicule over “where’s the urgency now?”, the opposition was carefully crafting new evidence and new witnesses to spring upon a smug Senate majority that pre-supposed it held all the cards.

These late-to-the-party witnesses, and the suspect evidence they purported to possess, would be foisted upon the Senate for due consideration, lest the optics connote a cover-up.  “Why”, the reasonable would be coached to ask aloud, “if there’s nothing to hide, should the witnesses not be heard?”.  Several weak-kneed GOP Senators could be counted on to buckle, just as was demonstrated in the Cavanaugh confirmation hearings.  To save face and show good faith, these GOP Senators would indulge the mob and lend credence to the discredited.  The media would overlook the checkered past and self-serving motives of the witnesses, and instead enshrine them as dauntless crusaders for truth.  Their evidence, purloined or manufactured though it may be, will be hailed as the smoking gun. 

The resulting faux-frenzy will lure more weak-willed GOP Senators to approve ever greater lengths by the Democrats to re-litigate the Mueller Report and the Ukrainian matter.  Hoping such magnanimous gestures will appease the masses, the GOP it will instead ignite a drumbeat for removal.

In the end, by an unnecessarily small margin, the Republican Senators will vote to acquit the President.  And in so doing, sacrifice enough seats, irrespective of voting yea or nay, as to cede the Upper Chamber to the Democrats in November.

And that was the impeachment gambit all along.

When Donald Trump launched his presidential bid in 2015, many struggled to define his agenda.  Initially, the media and punditry labeled his platform “populist”.  As defined, a populist’s appeal is to “ordinary folk” who feel their interests have been marginalized by established elite groups.  Fair enough, candidate Trump certainly espoused those views, especially when touting his views on jobs and the economy

            But as Trump’s message increasingly incorporated the “Make America Great Again” tag line, this evoked a certain jingoism that caused the media and punditry to pair his populist label with that of “nationalist”.  As defined, a nationalist’s appeal is one of loyalty and devotion to one’s nation, vigorously supporting its interests, even to the exclusion or detriment of other nations.  Unquestionably, nationalism became a cornerstone of candidate Trump’s platform on trade, immigration, foreign policy and the US military.

            Both labels: “populist” and “nationalist” resounded well enough with the American electorate for him to garner nearly 63 million votes and handily capture the electoral college.  Both assignations seemed a fair and accurate description of the views Trump ran on, and won on.

            After the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally in August 2017, the term “white supremacist” gained great traction among news outlets as a catch-all for the alt-right, neo-Nazi, pro-Fascist types which remain a blight on our national landscape.  Understanding that “supremacist” advocates the supremacy of one particular group over others, usually determined by race or sex, the term requires a descriptor in order to convey the identity of the group seeking recognition of its supremacy.  Hence, “white” supremacist would connote the idea that white people are superior to all other races. 

Such a descriptor is not necessary to define a “populist” or a “nationalist”.  One can be a white populist, a black populist, an Asian populist.  Assigning a racial identifier to a populist is superfluous to the term’s meaning, and is therefore not done.  Similarly, a “nationalist” is pre-supposed to favor the nation of their birth or citizenship regardless of color or gender.  One needn’t be a “black nationalist” or a “white nationalist” when invoking a rational advocacy for one’s preferred nation; a simple “nationalist” will suffice.  Surely we’ve all heard former President Obama called a socialist, but never a “black socialist”.  It is unnecessary.  Yet “white nationalist” is de rigueur when ascribed to Donald Trump.  Begs the question, if Trump was a socialist instead of a nationalist, would he be a “white socialist”?

But “supremacist”, (and its newly-arrived colloquial cousin “supremist” favored in the electronic media), does require some degree of specificity regarding the race, color, religion, or gender of the group claiming supremacy.

Fast forward to the second half of 2019 as the Democrat Party begins to field its array of presidential candidates for the 2020 election.  Many, if not all, of the participants ascribe varying degrees of bigotry and racism to Donald Trump.  Some point to his tweets, some to his speeches, some to his heart, others to his soul in order to support these notions.  Some accusations are flagrant, shameful and baseless, others sound more measured and are not entirely without merit.  Yet unabashedly playing the race card, so dog-eared by those appropriating victimhood as to render the slur inert; its stinging effect now blunted, much as the N-word has been desensitized by entitled rap artists.

What has emerged is the conflation of the terms “nationalist” and “white supremacist” into the new normal: “white nationalist”.  As painstakingly laid out above, injecting a racial qualifier into what is little more than a boisterous love of country is unnecessary, and in the case of this president, prejudicial by design.  With the free-style interchanging of “white supremacist” with “white nationalist”, news outlets and the pundit class pivot ceaselessly in stoking racial tensions by casting Trump as a white supremacist simply by conflating terms.  No one is called on it.  No one retracts or corrects or restates.  It’s just out there in the chatter-sphere.  Oftentimes unintentional, but many times pre-planned, this slip of the lip – this lazy and cavalier public discourse that is passed off as journalism goes unchecked until it just sticks.  

So naturally, this malaprop is seized by the candidate pool of democrat aspirants and exploited throughout every news story that can by tinged by race.  Deportations, mass shootings, urban decay, homelessness, crime, economic disparity, all so casually attributed to the “white nationalist” in the White House.

            Whatever that is.

Lots to digest here, so much to unpack.

It is a foregone conclusion that Russia attempted, with varying degrees of success, to hack, influence, interfere (you choose the best descriptor) with our 2016 election.  They no doubt made similar attempts in 2012 and 2008 and 2004, or so we are told.  In fact, other state actors such as China, Iran, North Korea have also been implicated as likely dabblers in the art.   I suspect the US has indulged in similar conduct around the globe.  What I don’t understand is how candidate Donald Trump could be criminally, civilly, or politically culpable over the hostile actions taken by an adversarial power, whose ambitions in this area were well known to our government at the time.  How is it that the harmful efforts undertaken by a rival force, driven solely by self-serving interests, can be blamed on a campaign that certainly lacked the intelligence apparatus to learn of it, and was devoid of any authority to shut it down?  

I’m not saying Team Trump didn’t welcome any beneficial external influences, assuming they even knew such meddling, given the calculus to measure the impact of these actions remains elusive.  But there’s no denying Trump’s campaign had more than a passing interest on any “dirt” that may be available against the Clinton campaign.  So too, did the Clinton campaign seek whatever damaging material on Trump that could be acquired on the open market.  It seems to me there was some “double-dealing” going on: someone was shopping the Steele dossier to one side, while another was peddling hacked DNC emails to the other.  

This would be a good time to draw some distinctions.  It is possible, but not proven, that Trump operatives may have learned that Wikileaks had obtained purloined emails damaging to the Clinton campaign and the DNC.  The extent to which Trump’s campaign was able to leverage the dissemination of those emails is unknown, as the revelations remain solely attributable to Wikileaks and its director(s) to this day.  Contrast that to the infamous Steele dossier, which may initially have had its roots in GOP primary circles, but quickly gained traction within the DNC and the Clinton campaign.  What is widely accepted in these two instances is that the Trump campaign provided zero remuneration to Wikileaks, its founder, nor any entity involved in the procurement of said emails.  The Clinton campaign though, directly through hired help, paid for the Steele dossier, saw to it that it was passed along to the FBI, who in turn, righteously leaked it to suspect media outlets and a privileged few in government.  Each handler of the Steele dossier came to learn in due time that the salacious report was unverifiable, much of which was conjured up and tailored to satisfy its asking price.  Yet these bad actors maliciously disseminated its contents within government and circulated it to various media outlets in order to damage the Trump campaign.  Now that it is understood that Russian operatives provided portions of the dossier to Christopher Steele, who then has colluded with the Russians to influence an election?

The second distinction lost on many is that while the Steele dossier has been roundly debunked and dismissed as fabrication, the emails hacked and leaked from Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta and DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz contained verified communications, much of it unflattering but nonetheless genuine. It resulted in some red-faced chagrin for the party, especially when it was revealed the DNC had betrayed Bernie Sanders and was in the tank for Hillary Clinton throughout the primaries.  So true information, albeit illegally obtained, resulted in some awkward moments for a campaign that was rigged anyway.  But the discredited Steele dossier found new life; not as a campaign-wrecker for Trump as hoped, but as the framework to kick off a counter-intelligence investigation in the Obama Justice Department.  Let that sink in a moment.

That counter-intelligence investigation was spearheaded by Clinton supporters in the Justice Department and FBI; the same cabal that cleared Hillary of criminal wrongdoing in her own email server scandal.  These bureaucrats then used this bogus dossier they knew to be no more than foreign-sourced opposition research paid for with dirty money from dirty hands to support FISA court warrants to electronically surveil the Trump campaign and staffers – what our current Attorney General calls “spying”.  Then came the clandestine entrapment operatives, the unmasking of private citizens ensnared by wiretaps, and the perjury traps, each abetted by orchestrated leaks.  Former Obama-era intelligence officials sanctimoniously slandered the President-elect, each claiming inside knowledge of a deep conspiracy.  Democrat lawmakers promised to produce proof positive of Trump complicity to collude with Russians in the interference of our election, and pundits spoke gravely of the existential threat to our democracy.

It culminated with the Mueller appointment as Special Counsel, and a two-year investigation that predictably delivered only more fevered rancor.  But Mueller did bring some closure on a couple of fronts: he did not find evidence of a criminal conspiracy to collude with Russians, and he affirmed that his investigation was not criminally obstructed by the president or the administration.  That is not to say the President’s opponents will not pursue further investigation into attempted obstruction of justice charges that were suggested by the vagaries in Mueller’s report, and the equivocations demonstrated in his testimony.

Fortunately, these efforts will soon be overshadowed by the Justice Department’s IG Report and the Grand Jury findings led by US Attorney John Durham into the genesis and conduct of the aforementioned unlawful counter-intelligence investigation perpetuated by those so eager to destroy a sitting president that they quite simply lost their way.

And they are destined to pay for it dearly. 

Imagine if you will, showing up at an emergency room with a dehydrated, malnourished child suffering from exposure.  You explain to the staff that you had taken the child on a six-week trek across the desert, without adequate food, water, or protection against the elements.  Add to this, you have zero documentation to adequately prove who you are, nor the identity of the child.  Would you expect the doctors and nurses to simply say, “Okay.  We’ll take it from here”.

Hardly.  You would be detained for arrest, faced with multiple charges ranging from child endangerment to child trafficking to attempted murder.  The child would be treated for its maladies, placed in protective child services, and you would held in custody to await arraignment and hope to make bail.   But if you are an illegal alien, arriving to the US border with a child in this condition, Border Patrol does indeed say, “Okay.  We’ll take it from here”.  And the responsible adult companion is rewarded with a foot in the door toward asylum in the US.

So why is it that an American citizen who neglects a child in such a life-threatening manner is jailed, and an illegal alien given a free pass?  How is it that the citizen is criminally culpable and the illegal is not?  A citizen-driver who fails to secure a child in a five-point harness system can be criminally sanctioned, while an illegal alien can float a kid across the Rio Grande in a wicker basket without legal liability.  Who manufactured this double standard?

The administration is committed to seeking ways to interdict the loopholes inherent in the asylum statutes that incentivize border crossings with children.  This, at a time when the US government is being held ever more accountable should the journey prove fatal to the child. Inexplicably, the parent/guardian/relative/custodian/adult/stranger accompanying the child-victim escapes culpability.  Criminal negligence involving the well-being of a child is one of the more aggressively pursued prosecutions at every level in the US.  And yet, in a classic misdirection of responsibility, the media excoriates only the immigration and border protection agencies should tragedy befall a child when such a ruthlessly perilous journey is undertaken.

Why not criminally charge any alien adult bringing a child into the country who has been subjected to the peril and rigors of the migrant caravan?  A child endangerment charge is serious business to any citizen, yet the illegal alien has apparently earned a legal immunity from this crime, even when it is undeniably evident to law enforcement.  It seems the criminal element involved in illegally crossing the border can be mitigated by recognized refugees and asylum seekers, provided they commit no other criminal acts in the course of, or in the aftermath of, their illegal entry., i.e., assault, contraband, theft, lying to federal officers, etc.  But if a child endangerment charge were to be levied upon entry with a child in distress, the legal basis for arrest and immediate deportation would be laid.  How can those groping for an administrative solution fail to grasp such an obvious provision in the law?

You want to interdict the flow of migrant children being exploited as “gateway pawns” for adult asylum?  Charge the adults, convict the adults, deport the adults.

Laws, statutes and regulations can be messy things.  Take the iterations governing the dissemination of Special Counsel investigations for instance.  It had been the custom for special counsel reports to be released upon their conclusion, where the interested parties and the public at large learned the outcomes together.  But the 1997 release of Ken Starr’s report, replete with sordid and damaging details irrelevant to the overall findings, resulted in a change to the reporting and releasing structure.  The current protocol is for the report to be submitted, in confidence, to the Attorney General, or Acting Attorney General in some cases, as this is the official who would have most likely appointed the Special Council, and to whom the Special Council reported throughout the course of the investigation.

            It was the US Congress who codified this practice in 1999. 

            When Special Counsel Robert Mueller submitted his report to the recently confirmed Attorney General William Barr, it lay solely within Mr. Barr’s purview as to who would be privy to the report’s findings, and to what extent the report would be shared publicly, if at all.  That was the will of the Congress in 1999.

            During his narrow and sometimes contentious confirmation hearings weeks earlier, Mr. Barr expressed two cornerstone commitments with respect to the then winding-down “Mueller Investigation”: (1) the Department of Justice would not interfere or impede with the Special Counsel’s work, and (2) Mr. Barr’s explicit intention would be to release the report, in its least redacted form, to the Congress and to the public at the earliest possible juncture.  As this second stipulation exceeds the 1999 Congressional authorization for disseminating the report, he wanted the Judiciary Committee tasked with approving his appointment to understand his intentions.  Barr’s acknowledgement that the incoming Attorney General would not withhold the Mueller report from Congress, and would provide it at the earliest opportunity, no doubt sealed his confirmation, but also demonstrated Barr’s belief that disclosure and transparency were essential to the nation’s moving on from the now-infamous Mueller Probe.

            In the days leading up to Barr’s receipt of the Mueller Report, Barr explained to Congress that he, in conjunction with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who, in his then-capacity of Acting Attorney General, had appointed Mueller and provided DOJ oversight throughout, would make the legally required redactions in select areas of the that report have long been cited as confidential material. As the review period needed to excise sensitive information would delay the report’s arrival to Congress and the public by a few weeks, Barr pledged to provide a written summary of the findings in short order upon receiving the report to tamp down leaks and alleviate suspense.  Murmurs of approval were heard all around.

            And then Bob Mueller lays not just an egg, but a whole omelet. 

Though Mueller confirms quickly there was no conspiracy (“collusion” is not a crime, so “conspiracy” is what was actually investigated) between the Trump campaign and operatives of the Russian government to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, he vacillates on the issue of obstruction of justice charges.  He doesn’t ask for more time, he doesn’t ask for more documents, he doesn’t ask for more witnesses to depose, he merely states he cannot reach a conclusion on the matter of obstruction AND (get this) that Attorney General Barr and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, should draw whatever conclusions they can as to whether or not obstruction should be charged.

Mueller, the esteemed patriot and non-partisan “stand-up guy”, hands Barr the proverbial “hot potato” that can only have one, completely sure-as-shit outcome: a back-alley cockfight straight down party lines among the House, the Senate, and the White House; set against the dawning of the 2020 presidential campaign. 

And we thought we’d miss Game of Thrones when it ended.

Not only does Mueller leave this 400-plus page IED with Barr and Rosenstein to cogitate over the weekend, but his submission does not follow the redaction protocols Barr requested, insuring the report’s release would be delayed, and that Barr’s “summary” would receive the greatest possible scrutiny in the intervening weeks.  

Barr does provide the summary he promised; and in a very timely fashion.  In it, Barr lays out Mueller’s findings that there is no evidence of conspiracy to collude with the Russians, and there is insufficient evidence to conclude that the President, or members of administration, obstructed justice.  Barr makes clear that Mueller does not consider this to be an “exoneration” of the President in the matter of obstruction, only that Mueller’s findings lack the evidentiary threshold for making a case.  Mueller graciously extends the discretion to Barr and Rosenstein to essentially proceed as they see fit on the matter of obstruction.  And in their discretion, bestowed upon them by Mueller, Barr and Rosenstein elected not to proceed with indictments.

The reception Barr’s summary pages receive from Congress, the media, and the public is akin to the series finale of The Soprano’s: what just happened?  There’s a different take on all sides as to what Mueller meant in his opaque conclusions, and why and how Barr and Rosenstein arrived at the decision they did in not seeking indictments. Barr cites the very conclusion Mueller submitted: insufficient evidence.  Barr further edifies that absent a predicate crime, in this case conspiracy (for which there was exoneration), obstruction charges are superfluous and without merit.  And, oh by the way, never sought unless there was a crime committed, and where it is demonstrable that the investigation into which, was obstructed.  This is not a convenient, back-door escape hatch dreamed up by the President’s buddy in the Justice Department; this is a sober, deliberate rendition of precedent law.

President Trump, as expected, does a victory dance, spikes the ball, and proclaims complete vindication; then piles on by lauding Mueller’s great work and lambasting his critics and the media as suckers for getting punk’d.  Barr is left to stew and shudder over what lies ahead.

So, Mueller waits the requisite two days after Barr’s summary is released, then calls Barr to voice his displeasure over how Mueller’s report was distilled and presented.   According to Barr’s Senate testimony on May 1^st, Mueller was displeased with the media’s take on his work and felt Barr’s representation was too sterile, lacking the nuance and context that went into the report’s preparation.  It is important to note that Mueller declined an offer from Barr to preview Barr’s summary prior to its release, and was apparently influenced by agitated staff members in the Special Counsel’s Office to communicate his displeasure to Barr in its aftermath.

Mueller did not, however, take issue with Barr’s representation of the investigation’s findings, nor the Attorney General’s disposition on how to proceed with respect to obstruction.  After all, Mueller is a talented a legal mind as well, and he fully appreciated the conundrum for pressing obstruction charges absent a predicate crime.  But rather than close that avenue off as a matter of law, the wily, cagey Mueller decided to leave the door to controversy open, and make Barr the prime suspect in a cover up stoked by Mueller’s ambiguity and perpetuated by zealous House Chairmen and wanna-be candidates on the stump.

But Mueller wasn’t finished contributing.  Just to be on the safe side, he follows up his call to Barr with a letter of his own, memorializing their conversation.  And on April 9^th, during an appearance before the House Appropriations Committee (that was anything but on-topic), Barr was asked very deliberate (scripted?) questions by Representative Charlie Crist of Florida whether Barr had been informed of any misgivings Mueller may have expressed concerning the summary pages Barr had released on March 24^th.  Barr stated he was unaware of any objections Mueller may have with Barr’s presentation of the findings.  When pressed by Crist, Barr strayed into areas of supposition, which appear to be at odds with the letter Mueller sent Barr on March 27^th.  So be it. 

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4795192/charlie-crist-questions-ag-barr-april-9-2019

One question that will never be asked, let alone learned, is whether Charlie Crist had knowledge of the letter Mueller sent to Barr on March 27^th prior to his pointed questioning on the matter April 9^th.  That detail looms important as Mueller’s letter is eventually leaked to the Washington Post the night before Barr’s testimony of May 1^st before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and became a focal point of Democrat questioning throughout the hearing.  Charges that Barr lied to Congress followed from Speaker Pelosi (still somehow being cast as the voice of reason for her party), along with calls for his impeachment. 

The Mueller Report’s open-ended conclusions, dropped in the lap of the new AG for final deliberations, coupled with Mueller’s plaintive call to Barr over the summary he chose not to review, followed up with his letter to Barr (that may or may not have been the basis for Crist’s questioning) yet made its way to the Washington Post on the eve of Barr’s testimony, reads like a well-laid trap by a frustrated and embittered bureaucrat who failed to get his man. 

It was never the job of Robert Mueller to exonerate Trump and his team; the presumption of innocence takes care of that once no charges are brought.  The Special Counsel need not prolong an investigation to prove innocence, nor continue to seek out ancillary process crimes once it is evident no underlying crime was committed.  As Barr pointed out, it is a “binary process”: charge, or do not charge.  Indict or do not indict.  Compiling a post mortem on the merits of a 22-month long investigation; what was found, what was learned, who did what, is neither relevant nor required absent an indictment referral.  The Special Counsel instead chose to take the route essentially reserved for blue-ribbon commissions on matters such as 9/11 or the Kennedy assassination.  Mueller ultimately presented a docudrama for public consumption, much of it unflattering and none of it needed, to support his conclusion not to charge.

Having recused the DOJ authority as arbiter of criminal matters, Mueller has yielded to Congress the power to now decide whether events and activities he investigated and determined to be non-criminal, warrant consideration as high crimes and misdemeanors in the polarized realm of partisan politics and the media-fueled court of public opinion.

Way to go, Bob.  Nice job.

I’m a little put off by a clip I saw on CNN of Kamala Harris giving an interview to a radio host.  The African American interviewer asked the question of Harris, did she think she was “black enough”.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/11/politics/kamala-harris-prosecutor-breakfast-club/index.html

Harris received the question well, citing her Oakland birthplace and opined that this line of questioning surfaced with ‘Barack’ in the past, and that it’s a staple of the right to sow disunity among minorities.   Both talking heads back at the studio expressed their approval of how Kamala handled the question.

As we dance around the elephant in the room, namely, is Kamala Harris “culturally appropriating” African-American ethnicity, let us point out that Wikipedia lists Harris among the ten African Americans elected to the US Senate, as does the official US Senate website.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_United_States_Senators

https://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/h_multi_sections_and_teasers/Photo_Exhibit_African_American_Senators.htm

Merely being born in Oakland does not make one an African American, though this was her first reply to the radio program host when asked if she was “black enough”.  As though Oakland has the distinction of being a place that can confer “birthright blackness” on those born there.   There must be a test of lineage.  Her father was Jamaican-born and emigrated from the island nation to the US in 1961; her mother was born in India and immigrated to the US in 1960.  Both are highly educated and distinguished professionals, she in medicine, he in academia.  Neither was born in Africa.

Oakland is not in Africa either.  So I am perplexed both by Harris’ tacit acceptance of African-American ethnicity when it is so attributed, and the media’s artful dodging of this apparent discrepancy.  When taken in light of how Sen. Elizabeth Warren is repeatedly skewered for her claim to Native American ancestry, I am at a loss as to the interviewer’s readily acceptance of “Oakland-born”, coupled with the obligatory homage to Obama, to thereby determine Harris is indeed, “black enough”.  If “cheekbones” are insufficient for Warren, why would “Oakland” be sufficient for Harris?  Why can she not be hailed simply as a woman of color, a bi-racial candidate of accomplishment in both the private sector and public service?  Why would she allow herself to be mis-identified as African American, especially in this era of identity politics?  Why would the US Senate official website mischaracterize her as such?

Perhaps her father claims African ancestry, given the bonds between Jamaica and the African slave trade centuries ago.  Perhaps her mother claims African ancestry, given the tribal migrations of prehistoric peoples along the sub-continent. And if it were the case that either parent claimed African ancestry, would this not be the truthful answer when asked? 

No, I think this is all about the making of a candidate. It simply plays better to the gullible and uncurious. If media outlets repeatedly say someone is African-American, and the person gives such pronouncements her nuanced affirmation, supported by government websites that say it is so, then by golly, I guess she is “black enough”.

Sometimes you have to step back and just marvel at the lengths one will go to retain power. Dianne Feinstein, seeking a fifth term in the Senate at age 85, was rebuffed by the California Democratic Party in February, denying her their endorsement and subsequently backing upstart state senator Kevin de Leon, a lightning rod for progressive causes, for the nomination. Though Feinstein prevailed in the primary, the tepid support of California’s party bosses had to come as an affront to someone of her stature as November approaches.

A masterful tactician, Feinstein decided to use her position as the leading Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to commandeer the Supreme Court nomination process of Brett Kavanaugh to promote her standing among Democrats. No doubt her planned machinations and dubious timing in the suspect disclosure of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s account of sexual misconduct perpetrated upon her by the nominee some 35 years ago were orchestrated in consultation with leading Democrats. To not see the behind-the-scenes hand of Chuck Schumer is to not look.

And in her quest for party accolades and relevance with an ever-left leaning electorate, both Kavanaugh and Ford are simply collateral damage along the way to the brass ring within her grasp: obstructing a Trump appointee to the Supreme Court. A single Congressperson able to accomplish that feat would be forever enshrined Resistance Hall of Fame. The obstacles for the Democrats to permanently deny Trump a second Court appointment are daunting. Currently, the GOP controls both Chambers and the Executive branch. The looming midterm elections pose a real threat to the Republicans’ keeping a House majority, and their hold on the Senate is tenuous.

But, if the Democrats could leverage the flourishing and combustible #MeToo movement to envelop this nominee, the domino effect could have immeasurable political gains on multiple fronts: a pro-life nominee would be disgraced and withdrawn; a replacement nominee could be forestalled until after the midterm election; a win in the House is a vote for Articles of Impeachment (and the argument would thus arise that no President could nominate someone to the High Court while under Impeachment, a nebulous idea, but one that would no doubt have to be litigated regardless of the merits); even with a whisper-thin Senate majority being retained by the GOP, defections could be counted on from enough wobbly Republicans to delay a nomination until a Senate trial on impeachment is adjudicated. By that time, the howling will be that even a acquitted Trump is too far along in his term to be allowed to nominate until after the 2020 election.

Played properly, the Kavanaugh affair could have damaging blowback for the Republicans in the midterms. So far, the Republicans have been maneuvered into calling upon the President to authorize an FBI investigation of the nominee he put forward and they unanimously endorsed in Committee. Think about that and the trembling it suggests among Senate Republicans as you watch a distraught Jeff Flake vote “Yes, but” after consultation with trusted Democrat colleague Chris Coons.

This delaying tactic will earn only a more open-ended and inconclusive outcome, subject to additional posturing and inquiry by the Democrats. Worst case for Democrats: they endure a post-investigation party-line vote in the Senate of a ravaged nominee that can be exploited in the midterms. Thus far, the Republicans have not shown the collective vertebrae to hold fast, and one can envision Kavanaugh going down to narrow defeat. Even if the Republicans were to rally behind their nominee and their President in the wake of a stalemated investigation, and ram through the damaged goods that is Brett Kavanaugh, the stink will stick, that could cost the Republicans both Houses in November, handing the Democrats an otherwise unattainable win who would then mine the endless well of the #MeToo movement for additional complainants and investigations until Kavanaugh is impeached.

The Hail Mary pass, borne the ruination of a good man and the exploitation of an aggrieved woman, and slung contemptuously by Dianne Feinstein, is in the air. We will soon see if it changes the score.