The Nation's Leading Hate Group Is ...
This weekend, the Miami
Herald’s Leonard Pitts wrote a great column. Stop whatever you
are doing right now and CLICK HERE to read his
expose of the largest “hate group” operating in plain sight in our
country today!
And while you have your
reading glasses on, check out what Washington Post columnist Eugene
Robinson has to say about Trump’s racism by
CLICKING HERE WITH YOUR MOUSE.
And swinging over to a
right-wing writer who doesn’t like the P.O.S. in the White House either, check
out what Mona Charen just wrote by CLICKING HERE. If the
rest of the Republican Party had half of her brains and integrity, there would
be no problem. But they don’t.
I know you’re about to read
on WITHOUT DOING ANY CLICKING, but please, check out these three links to three commentators who say
things better than I can. Please.
Jack Lippman
* * * *
All You and Members of Congress Really Need to Know About the Mueller Report
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| Mueller Goess Before Congress on Wednesday |
The Mueller Report sums up its Section IV of
Volume One (Russian Government Links to and Contacts with The Trump Campaign)
as follows: (The highlighting is mine as are the footnoted comments. The text is the Report’s.)
“In sum, the investigation established multiple links between
Trump Campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian Government. Those links included Russian offers of
assistance to the Campaign. In some instances, the Campaign
was receptive to the offer, while in other instances the Campaign officials 1 shied away. 2 Ultimately, the investigation did not
establish that the Campaign coordinated or conspired 3 with the Russian Government in its
election interference activities.”
1.
Use of “shied away” rather than “refused” should be
noted. There’s a difference.
2.
The language used in this paragraph, while ultimately
justifying the President’s claim of “no collusion,” certainly indicates that
the conclusion was not easy. The path to
the word “ultimately” was not a smooth one.
3.
Collusion is no crime, so it was evaluated by the
Counsel using the very strict requirements needed to qualify under the
definition of conspiracy.
The Conclusion to Volume Two of the Mueller
Report reads as follows. (The
highlighting is mine as are the footnoted comments. The text is the Report’s.)
“1 Because we determined not to make a
traditional prosecutorial judgement, we did not draw ultimate conclusions about
the President’s conduct. The evidence we
obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues
that would need to be 2 resolved
if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgement. 3 At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of
the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we
would so state. Based on the facts
and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgement. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President
committed a crime, 4 it also does not exonerate him.”
1.
The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel
contends that a sitting President cannot be indicted and prosecuted and
therefore, a prosecutorial judgement was not called for. The available remedy, not mentioned in the
Report, rests with Congress and is a Bill of Impeachment.
2.
Resolving these issues would require a trial, which per
the above footnote, would not be possible.
3.
These last three tricky, ambiguous, tortuously worded sentences imply that the inability of the Counsel to conclude that the President did not commit obstruction of justice leaves open the possibility that a conclusion might be made that he did ... but does not make that conclusion, while coming close to doing so by refusing to exonerate him of such a judgement. This is
like wading across a stream but not getting your feet wet.
4.
This contradicts the President’s frequent statements
that the Report exonerates him.
JL
* * * *
Choices
Theologians, philosophers and psychiatrists recognize that people have both good thoughts and bad thoughts
within them. One’s actions can be
directed by one’s “better angels” or by temptations within to do
otherwise. Catholics go to confession
when they want to admit they have followed their baser instincts in their
actions. Jews confess similarly on their
Day of Atonement. We all have these
decisions to make and sometimes, unfortunately, they are made for us, ingrained
in our mental make-up from within without our actively making a choice.
Okay,
enough religion and philosophy for today.
Back to politics. It’s quite a
generalization to make but I think that most Democrats’ behavior is based on
their better thoughts while the behavior of Trumpublicans is governed by
something far less noble. What else
would motivate people to scream at their fellow citizens, “Go Back Where You
Came From,” and not seek repentance after doing so? The President’s Evangelical
supporters should understand this.
JL
* * * *
Enough of
Politics … Let’s Criticize Sports for a While
The primary job of officials
in football, basketball, soccer and ice hockey is to make sure the players
adhere to the game’s rules and not do something they should not be doing. When they do something outside of what is
permitted, officials impose penalties.
But if the players play by the rules, there is very little for officials
to do in these sports. The official’s
judgement comes into play only when it is not clear whether a rule was broken
or not. Good examples of this would be
in football when there is a question of pass interference, and that may only
come up a few times during a game, or a lineman going offsides or a back being
illegally in motion. This approach is
also seen in the other sports mentioned above.
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| Strike Three - Y'er Out! |
Baseball, however, is a
different story. Rather than an
official’s judgement becoming necessary only when there is a question of a
violation of the game’s rules, a home plate baseball umpire is called up to
decide whether a ball thrown by a pitcher, but not hit or swung at by a batter,
is a ball or a strike many times during a game.
An umpire may be required to make this judgement decision as often as fifty
to one hundred times in a game! Nowadays, telecasts of baseball games usually
include diagrams of the plate area where a batter’s swing takes place. While these are only single dimensional, it
is clear to anyone watching a ball game on TV that umpires are making incorrect
calls in what appears to be at least ten percent of their calls, the saving grace
being that both teams are victims, or beneficiaries, of these incorrect calls.
The time has come for balls
and strikes to be taken out of the realm of the umpire’s judgement and be
replaced by multi-dimensional laser software scanning the batter’s box. Umpires will continue to make “safe or out”
calls on the bases, and other judgement decisions, but with the availability of
today’s technology, ball and strike calls are too important to be left to the
eyes of the umpires, particularly when there is a catcher, skilled at
manipulating where he catches a pitch, squatting between the umpire and the
plate area, partially obstructing his vision.
JL
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