Category Archives: Media Criticism

History, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Mueller Farce

4 Comments

It’s time to end it:

n a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Dec. 7, current FBI Director Christopher Wray consistently deflected questions regarding these types of conflicts by deferring to ongoing investigations being conducted by the Justice Department’s inspector general. He also continued to stonewall on providing information on the FBI’s use of the Steele dossier and the FISA warrant it helped generate, citing vague national security concerns.

We are left with an appearance of an unacceptable degree of political prejudice and a troubling series of unanswered questions. It is dangerous to subject the office of the president to a gravely biased investigation undertaken with a reckless spirit. Should further evidence of untoward bias emerge, Americans may conclude that the justice system itself is illegitimate, with all that entails.

The most prudent move would be to suspend the special counsel investigation until the Justice Department inspector general’s office and other watchdogs can conclude their investigations into possible illegitimate or illegal actions taken by members of Mueller’s team. Then Congress must be given time to review the conclusions of the internal investigations as well as conclude their own ongoing inquiries. The stakes are too high to allow a clique of politicized government agents to destroy the integrity of the investigative apparatus, and damage the office of the presidency.

I wish this were something new, but I think this kind of corruption goes back a quarter of a century, when the Clinton gang came into national power.

Business, Education, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Meaningless Words

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Thoughts from Sarah Hoyt on the ideological incoherence (and, as always, psychological projection) of the left:

All I was doing was pointing out he had no proof of his statement and in fact, there was plenty of proof to the contrary. Where it got interesting was his tactic in the argument. He started by calling me a snowflake and saying I was obviously hurt by what he said. I told him I wasn’t in the least hurt, just amused at his lack of reasoning, and furnished him with another half dozen names of great/rich writers. He tried to call me snowflake again, and then told me to go copulate with myself but in more common words. When that failed, he said he was deleting the thread because he’d obviously hurt people. Note that in none of this had he hurt me, not even with the profanity, nor had I or any of the people who agreed with me on that thread implied we were hurt. Somewhere between amused and appalled is not hurt.

I was discussing this argument with a friend later, and he said I was making the mistake of interpreting the words as words. Or of thinking any kind of thought was behind first calling me snowflake, and then saying he’d hurt people’s feelings.

He said that the whole thing was more a reaction on the level of “when I’m called snowflake it hurts me, so I’ll call her snowflake and that will hurt her” and when we didn’t cave to his argument, he couldn’t figure out how to get out of it other than apologizing for hurting our feelings.

He – he’s an academic – pointed out this is the whole point of post-modern analysis, be it of literature or society: words have no meaning and can be assigned arbitrary meanings according to the emotions they elicit.

He says that’s why the left is more and more resorting to shouting random slogans and words until it gets them the reaction they want. Not because they don’t know the meanings of words, but because they reject the idea that words have inherent meanings.

Like “pedophilia.” Or “liberal.”

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Strzok

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It occurs to me that the texts/emails likely reveal something much more serious than a simple love of Clinton or hatred of Trump. Perhaps they actually provide evidence of a conspiracy to help the former and hurt the latter. e.g., “Yeah, they fu**ed up, but I’ll make sure that none of Clinton’s people have any problems with this email thing.” Or “Don’t worry, we’ll come up with something impeachable on Trump.”

Either or both of these would both destroy the prevailing media narratives. The former would require the investigation into her server be reopened, and the latter would so taint the investigation that it would not be possible for it to be used against Trump. In fact, it would help him, bolstering his own claims of bias and double standards.

[Update early afternoon]

Kim Strassell writes that Mueller and the FBI are obstructing justice. And more from Byron York on the dossier.

And Kurt Schlichter writes that “liberals” (and by “liberals,” he means leftists) have turned the FBI into a disgrace.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society

The Mars Race

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This is hilarious. Muilenburg thinks (or at least claims to think) that Boeing is going to beat SpaceX to Mars. With SLS.

[Update a while later]

Eric Berger’s take:

Boeing also isn’t going to land a rocket on Mars without near total funding from NASA, which has already paid more than $10 billion for development of the SLS and has no actual funding to implement a humans-to-Mars exploration plan. SpaceX will also need some government funding if it is to develop its “Big Falcon Rocket” to reach Mars, but Musk has laid out plans for commercial applications of his launch system that could offset some of its cost. (The SLS rocket has no known customers aside from NASA).

What is particularly puzzling to us is why Boeing and SpaceX are arguing about Mars. These two companies, who compete directly for NASA and other government contracts, are in a far more immediate and real race to reach the launch pad in the commercial crew competition. NASA has had to rely on Russia to get its astronauts to the International Space Station since the space shuttle’s retirement in 2011. Both Boeing and SpaceX are building capsules that will launch crews from Florida.

The companies have both seen slips in their schedules for the first crewed flights. They have launch dates now set for 2018, but there is a general expectation that further delays are likely—both due to development problems and changing requirements from NASA. Regardless, the company that eventually breaks NASA’s Russian dependence will win a public relations boon beyond compare for an aerospace company.

“Do it,” we say to Dennis and Elon.

Indeed.

History, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The FBI’s Obvious Bias

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Yes, at a minimum, those texts have to be released to the public. There can be no question now that there is rot and corruption at the bureau (and I think it goes back to the nineties, with the Clintons). It may be that it is institutionally incapable of policing itself, and it’s the FBI itself (including Mueller) that needs an independent investigator.

But this should cause us to look back at the 90s scandals, in which the Clintons got away with so much, in a new light. I’ve been looking for the entire original Starr report on the Vince Foster “suicide” from an original source (i.e., a government web site) and cannot find it. All I see is this from the WaPo. Which (conveniently) doesn’t contain footnotes or appendices. Including the Knowlton appendix.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Well, well, well…Clinton aides went unpunished for making false statements to the FBI.

Punishment is for the little people, like Republican lieutenant generals.

[Wednesday-morning update]

Hugh Hewitt: Time for an independent investigation of the Justice Department and FBI.

It’s long overdue.

[Bumped]

[Update a couple minutes later]

Aaaaaand, a Mueller deputy was Ben Rhodes personal attorney, and represented the Clinton (Crime Family) Foundation. But I’m sure he can be completely impartial in the investigation of Republicans.

[Update a while later]

And then there’s this.

[Update a while later]

Peter Strzok’s story will hurt the credibility of the federal government at the worst possible time. He’s like the Zelig of the whole thing. Everywhere you look, he’s there:was increasingly politicized under Mueller and Comey

Yes, it’s good that Mueller removed Strzok when he discovered the text messages. No, Strzok is not solely responsible for the conclusions reached in either investigation. But his mere presence hurts public confidence in the FBI, and it does so in a way that further illustrates a persistent and enduring national problem: America’s permanent bureaucracy is unacceptably partisan.

Unfortunately, it’s only unacceptable to one party. The other one thinks it’s exactly the way it should be.

[Update late morning]

The FBI was increasingly politicized under Mueller and Comey. You don’t say.

[Update a few minutes later]

The double-crossing FBI agent must be held accountable.

He’s no rogue; it’s not just him.

Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

An Interesting New Wrinkle In The Flynn Case

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Over at Instapundit:

Did the prosecution tell Flynn’s lawyer that their main witness against him was removed for bias? Since Strzok led the interview and his testimony would be needed to establish untruthfulness, he is a critical witness not just a prosecutor. If not disclosed, would this not be a Giglio violation? This is the kind of misconduct that can get a case dismissed and a lawyer disbarred. It is a Constitutional violation. This has bothered me since I heard about it.

This stinks on dry ice.

I were Flynn’s lawyer, I’d petition the court to withdraw the plea on the grounds it was made on false information (that Mueller had a credible witness to Flynn’s lying). And I’d request that it be done with prejudice, and that prosecution be sanctioned. And if that’s successful, it would be grounds for demands from Republicans for Mueller’s replacement, and perhaps an end to the probe entirely, since it continued to be a dry hole.