Here are my observations and opinions on selected news of the day.
THE DANGER OF PROGRESSIVISM – When I subtitled the name of this political blog – Views on conservatism while keeping progressives honest – Democrats were beginning to tire of being labeled as liberals. To them it had become almost a four-letter word. They began referring to themselves as progressives, seeing it as more appealing.
While I use progressives in my subtitle, I continue to refer to Democrats as liberals because it best describes who they are. You may have also noticed that I refer to the Democrat Party, not the Democratic Party, because they have shown themselves to be anything but democratic.
I found it humorous that Hillary Clinton was forced to push back against the suggestion that she had taken progressive positions out of political expediency. “I’m a progressive,” she said, “but I’m a progressive that likes to get things done.”
I am addressing progressivism today because I saw the movie, “Death of a Nation,” Dinesh D’Souza’s important contribution of alerting us to what will happen if we allow the progressive Democrat movement to play itself out.
If you are one of those people who wonder – “what the hell is going on in our country?” – you need to see this movie. Seriously.
YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP – Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the darling of socialist Democrats, appeared at an event to rally support for Hawaiian candidate Kaniela Ing. She forgot one important thing – she walked off the stage without introducing Ing.
IS COLLUSION A CRIME? The left-leaning USA Today, in a piece written by Robert Farley of FactCheck.org, would have you believe collusion is a crime, but his attorney sources certainly didn’t agree.
“Colluding with the Russians, i.e. agreeing to cooperate, encourage or assist them in any way in pursing anything they were doing that was illegal, is most certainly a crime,” said Stephen Schulhofer, an NYU law professor.
But David Sklansky, who teaches law at Stanford, opines “Whether it is a crime depends on what you are colluding about.”
Recall that the Trump campaign team – Trump Jr., Manafort and Kushner – met in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer after the offer of incriminating opposition research on Hillary Clinton was offered.
The Federal Election Campaign Act prohibits foreign nationals from making a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value to a campaign. “It is unclear whether opposition research counts as assistance,” offers Sklansky.
“Speaking of contributions or donations of money, will the FEC or DOJ ever investigate the money laundering activities of the Clinton Foundation, where foreign nationals made contributions to gain access to Clinton upon her winning the presidency?” – Kramerontheright
As expected, Bob Bauer, a former White House counsel to former President Obama, who now teaches at NYU, believes opposition research “counts as a thing of value,” even though no research was exchanged as the meeting centered on the adoption of Russian children.
Not all legal experts agree that damaging information on Clinton would be deemed a “thing of value” for legal purposes. Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, argues that if “politically useful information about a candidate’s opponent is in general a thing of value,” that the law is legally “substantially overbroad” and “unconstitutional.”
“Don’t be fooled by word games,” says Victoria Nourse, a professor at Georgetown Law. “There’s no legal term ‘collusion.’ The legal term for collusion is the crime of conspiracy.”
It is a federal crime for two or more people – Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr – to conspire “to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner for any purpose. They certainly conspired to stop Donald Trump from being elected, and to delegitimize his presidency once elected.
“Somewhere, somehow, someone must explain and rectify the past. For two years, the top employees of these agencies, most appointed during the Obama administration, have engaged in unethical and illegal behavior, likely intended to throw the election to President Obama’s preferred candidate and then, after the election, to subvert the new presidency. – Victor Davis Hanson, National Review
Interestingly, USA Today’s effort to continue promoting the “guilty of collusion” charge against the Trump team, actually opened the door for charging a host of NSC, DOJ, FBI and CIA people with conspiracy under U.S. Code, 18 USC 371.
PELOSI SLAMS NBC – Appearing on Meet the Press Sunday, Nancy Pelosi didn’t like Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart’s question whether she would consider allowing another Democrat to take over as the leader in the House.
“First of all,” she said, “I know NBC has been on a jag; this is one of their priorities to undermine my prospects as speaker.” Capehart cited the growing number of Democrats running for Congress who’ve publicly stated they wouldn’t support Pelosi becoming speaker – over 50 candidates and nine incumbents.
You better be careful, Nancy, you don’t want the “fake news” crowd to turn on you.
May God bless the United States of America.
