Nancy Fiddled While Washington Burned

I'll get to the topic implied by the title of this post shortly, but first:

Anyone who has read this blog previously knows that the Curmudgeon's modus operandi is to go directly to source documents, when available, and read those, then draw his own conclusion, rather than relying on the unreliable news media's spin on things.

To that end, I have read Adam Schiff's impeachment report in its entirety, and I've determined that -

Wait a minute. No, I didn't. Of course I didn't. Are you kidding me? Why would I waste my time wading through 300 pages of Schiff's allegations supposedly based on the public hearings that we all had the ability to tune in to? After all, Schiff's spin is even more partisan than CNN's or MSNBC's. I watched the hearings; I heard the testimony. THAT is the source document. The only possible value that could be derived from Schiff's report would be if he had printed it on Charmin Ultra Soft. (Of course, Schiff and the Dems would rather wipe their collective arse on the U.S. Constitution.)

However, I did read the table of contents, and I skimmed key sections of the report on that basis. I also tuned into both CNN and Fox News for their respective takes. Predictably, CNN saw the report as damning, and certain to get Trump removed from office, while Fox saw it as a partisan nothing-burger on the order of the Mueller report.

They're both wrong. From what I've been able to glean, Schiff's report makes the Mueller report look damning. Schiff missed his calling - he can write fantasy as well as Tolkein or Rowling. The edge they have over him is that, after reading their works of fantasy, you could almost bring yourself to believe in wizardry and hobbits.

The most laughably transparent bit of partisanship in the report is the implication of VP Mike Pence. Note that there wasn't one iota of testimony in the hearings to implicate Pence, or anyone else for that matter.

See, this whole thing was cooked up by the Dems because, after the Mueller report failed, and the slate of Dem primary candidates proved to be so wanting that newcomers keep joining the fray, like rats jumping ON a sinking ship, the Dems be like, "OMG! We gotta remove Trump from office, because we can't beat him!"

Then other Dems be like, "OMG! If we remove Trump from office, Pence is President, and voters will be faced with the option of the same policies that have resulted in a strong economy, the lowest minority unemployment in history, serious efforts at border security for the first time in five administrations, a first crack at prison reform, respect for the military and first responders, and good trade deals that don't disadvantage the U.S. - only without the polarizing hyperbole, bad hair and mean tweets! Pence would win by a wider margin than Trump!!"

(I used terms like "be like" and "OMG" in the previous paragraph only because the Democrat Party today takes its cues from the AOCs of the world. Don't worry, I can write better than that. I'm just going for broad bipartisan appeal here.)

So Schiff is hoping we can get Trump impeached and removed, then get Pence impeached and removed, leaving Nancy Pelosi as President. Nancy, power-mad as she is (remember how she lovingly cooed about "the gavel" in 2016?), would undoubtedly demand that the current slate of Dem candidates drop out so that she could run unopposed in the primary. In that scenario, you could pick some random person off the street to run against her and they'd win. Also note that all of this would have to happen pretty fast. Do the Dems not think this stuff through, or are they just making it up as they go along, until they arrive at the next "oh crap" moment?

On to the topic implied by the title. Pelosi is so committed to showing solidarity with Schiff and Nadler as the Judiciary Committee hearings get underway, so stalwart in her leadership of the august body that is the House of Representatives in this somber and reluctant impeachment process, that she's ...

Leaving Washington D.C. to fly (on a fossil fuel-burning jet) to Spain to attend ...

A climate change summit.

Maybe Greta Thunberg can help Nancy solve the problem of air pollution and human feces and spent needles on the sidewalks in her home district. (Nah. Let's just ban some other form of plastic, now that you can't get straws in San Francisco restaurants, nor can you buy bottled water at SFO. But you can buy canned water, and throw the cans in the trash instead of the recycle bins. And you can buy sodas and juice and other beverages in plastic bottles at SFO. Yeah, that'll take care of California's problems.)

What does that tell us? Nancy wants to distance herself from the Schiff-show that is now transitioning to Nadler, so she's leaving Washington - hell, she's leaving the country, for crying out loud. What, is she hoping this thing will blow over before she comes back? Is she sufficiently delusional to believe that Trump will actually be removed from office? Was she the mastermind behind implicating Pence? ("Be sure Pence looks bad too - I want to caress the phone in the Oval Office.")

I find that hard to believe. Even Pelosi doesn't believe this circus is going anywhere. She knew that from the get. So why she caved to AOC, I'll never understand. It'd be the stuff of history books in the future, except that history is now being re-written to fit a narrative. I have to believe that she just wanted to get the hell out of town.

We can only hope that she'll defect. Spain's loss is our gain.

A Verdict in Search of a Charge

It's been a long hiatus for the Curmudgeon, but I can't not weigh in given the current circus going on in Washington. It's hard for me to believe that even the most ardent, anti-Trump, far-left Democrat buys into their party's "case" for impeachment of a sitting President. Then I read various social media posts, or watch CNN, and I'm shocked back into the reality of the extreme partisan (and largely uninformed) world in which we live.

The title of this post relates to the irrefutable fact that the Democrat party has been hell-bent on impeaching this President since before he was inaugurated, before there could possibly have been legitimate articles of impeachment, grounds, or any reason for such action. The initial calls for impeachment began the day after the 2016 election, as I recall. No reason was given; those calling for impeachment simply refused to accept the fact that Trump was elected President. They couldn't defeat him, so they wanted to remove him. It’s the way of the Left: if you don’t get your way in an election, use some other means to get what you want, like the Supreme Court or impeachment.

However, the Dems soon began conjuring up “grounds” for impeachment. Let’s examine each in turn.

1. Colluding with the Russians to undermine the DNC and the Clinton campaign in order to steal the election. This is one of the many, many, many reasons (see what I did there?) that Ms. Clinton has given for her (second, let’s not forget) failed bid to win the White House. Baskin-Robbins must have been her campaign advisor, because she’s given more reasons for her loss than they have flavors.

So Robert Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel to the DOJ, and tasked with launching an investigation into the allegations that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the outcome of the election. To make a long story short, nearly two years and many millions of taxpayers’ dollars later, the Mueller report found no evidence of collusion. Not once was the word “guilty” used (bookmark this fact, as it will be important later).

2. Obstruction of justice. Early in the Mueller investigation, it was announced that the Special Counsel was also investigating the President for this alleged offense, in relation to the Russia probe itself. Again, the Mueller report showed no evidence of such obstruction in relation to the case.

Then came the vaporous “whistleblower,” who is apparently in possession of Harry Potter’s Cloak of Invisibility. This alleged individual alleged that Trump, on a congratulatory call with Ukraine’s new President Volodymyr Zelensky, ordered Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden, son of former VP and current Democrat Presidential candidate Joe Biden, related to Hunter’s role on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company. Said role paid the younger Biden more than $50,000 per month, and he landed the lucrative role while his dad was VP, in charge of U.S. relations with Ukraine. In fact, Joe bragged on camera that, during the corrupt administration of Zelensky’s predecessor, he himself had directly threatened to withhold a billion dollars in aid to Ukraine if they didn’t assure him, within a one-hour deadline, that a prosecutor who was investigating Hunter be fired. He was fired, and the aid was released. Interesting.

3. Quid pro quo was the third reason given, and it arose during the closed-door hearings with the House Intelligence Committee, chaired by Adam Schiff. Those initial hearings were unprecedented, indeed bizarre; they were held in a SCIF (sensitive compartmented information facility) in the basement of the Capitol, and only the Democrats on the committee were allowed to participate. Initially, transcripts of the witnesses’ testimony were not released, but Schiff gleefully leaked out any testimony that seemed to support the case for impeachment to a media that was all too happy to run with it, in typically alarmist fashion. It's like a trial with no jurors, and no defense attorney or witnesses, in which the defendant is stripped of his right to face his accuser, and information is selectively released to the press during the proceeding, with the press playing the role of judge. There has never been anything like it outside of totalitarian systems.

So the initial allegation of quid pro quo was related to Trump allegedly having required Zelensky to investigate the Bidens -  presumably because Trump was concerned Biden would defeat him in the 2020 election – in order to secure the release of promised aid to Ukraine. So the quid being offered by Trump was the aid, and the quo being required of Zelensky was the investigation. Five problems with this theory: first, Trump trumped the Dems by releasing the transcript of the call, in which he asked Zelensky, “if it’s possible,” to look into corruption in Ukraine, including the suspicious payments to Hunter Biden and the former VP’s possible influence in securing them. (Seems plausible; Biden admitted to such influence, the payments to Hunter were far beyond what is normal for a board member’s compensation, and Hunter neither speaks Ukrainian nor knows squat about natural gas. Could be some corruption there, ya think?)

The transcript revealed no tie between the request that Zelensky look into corruption in Ukraine writ large, with the specific example of the Bidens mentioned, and the aid appropriated for Ukraine. (It’s not unusual to expect that a country receiving U.S. aid investigate and try to eliminate corruption; in fact it’s basic fiscal responsibility.) So the second problem was that there was no quid, the third was that there was no pro, and the fourth, that there was no quo. The fifth problem was that most Americans don’t speak Latin, were confused by all the quids and pros and quos being bandied about, and it just didn’t resonate with the voting public as grounds for impeachment. So –

4. Bribery. Instead of demanding a quid pro quo, Trump now allegedly bribed the Ukrainian President into investigating the Bidens, using U.S. aid as the payoff. There are three problems with this theory. First, the Ukrainian President already knew the aid was coming. Trump couldn't offer Zelensky anything that Zelensky didn't already have confidence in getting, and Trump never threatened to withhold it. It had been temporarily held up, for reasons that still can’t be confirmed – could be a desire on the part of Washington to ensure that the funds wouldn’t be compromised through corruption, or it could be a matter of one hand not knowing what the other was doing. By the time this allegation was thrown out, the public hearings had begun, and the testimony certainly produced evidence of a great deal of confusion around the delay in releasing the funds. But no matter; again, Zelensky knew it was coming, so Trump couldn’t offer anything new. Further, Zelensky didn’t know the funds had been delayed, Ukraine did receive them, and the Bidens have not been investigated to date.

The second problem with this allegation? Even if Trump had threatened to permanently withhold the funds from Ukraine unless Zelensky specifically dug up dirt on Joe Biden, which is what the Dems and their media outlets want you to believe, that doesn't meet the standard for bribery under the Constitution, which specifically mentions bribery as a potential reason for impeachment. The statutory definition of bribery would include a demand (which again, was never made) for something of value in exchange for something else of value. However, the Constitutional standard for bribery relates to effectively purchasing the President. It would be as if Zelensky offered Trump billions of dollars in exchange for Trump doing certain favors for Ukraine. And that didn't happen.

And the third problem, which is the most important and telling:  The Democrats actually used focus groups of voters to determine the charge that most resonated with them as grounds for impeachment. The focus groups were given the choices of quid pro quo, bribery, and extortion as possibilities, and they picked bribery, so Schiff and his minions went with that. You just can’t make this shit up.

5. Extortion, just in case bribery didn’t stick.

6. Attempted bribery or extortion. The argument made by the vapid Rep. Eric Swalwell – you remember him, he lasted about a week in the Democrat primary field – was that “If you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar, then when it’s discovered that you have your hand in the cookie jar, you pull your hand out of the cookie jar without taking the cookie, you’re still guilty.” Really, Eric? Is that the best you’ve got? Your alma mater must be so proud.

Besides, there was no conclusive testimony in the public hearings that proved Trump ever put his hand in the cookie jar, to stick with Swalwell’s second-grade Sesame Street analogy. Former Ambassador Sondland’s opening statement alleged that Trump asked for a quid pro quo, but during questioning he admitted that he made that statement because he assumed it; the President told him directly on a call that he wanted “nothing, no quid pro quo” from Ukraine. Lt. Col. Alexander “don’t call me mister” Vindman alleged that Trump’s request was a demand, even though it was clearly worded as a request and couched with qualifiers such as “if that’s possible” and “if you can,” because of the relative position Trump supposedly holds as President of the United States vs. the President of Ukraine. Uhh, okay. Sounds like two Presidents to me, but then again, I’m just a “mister.”

7. Let’s count quid pro quo a second time, since the Dems tried to hang their hat on it after Sondland’s opening statement. Without a focus group, even.

8. Witness intimidation/tampering. During Ambassador Yovanovtitch's testimony, Trump sent out a mean tweet about her, saying that everywhere she was assigned during her diplomatic career turned bad. Never mind whether his assertion was true; it was mean-spirited. So Schiff read it to her during her testimony, and baited her into saying it was "intimidating."

Well, for one thing, she would never have known of the tweet during her testimony had Schiff not read it to her, so if anyone was guilty of witness intimidation, it was Schiff. In fact, she didn't call it intimidating until Schiff brought up the term and asked her to agree with him. Further, she didn't seem too intimidated. (Nor should anyone in response to a critical tweet from Donald Trump - it's de rigeur.) In fact, she continued to testify against him for the rest of the day. If Trump's tweet were enough to intimidate her, she probably shouldn't be in the Foreign Service.

A similar argument was brought forth during the Nov. 19 testimony of Jennifer Williams. Trump had tweeted about her the weekend before her testimony, and a Dem Representative brought it up. He mentioned "witness intimidation or tampering" before she had a chance not to. Again, she continued to testify, apparently not intimidated.

Look, I'm not a fan of Trump's tweets. They're churlish, childish, ill-advised, and extreme. But none of that constitutes an impeachable offense. If being a jerk was an impeachable offense, by all reports Hillary would have been impeached. Of course, she’d have to win an election first.

9. We've got to bring up obstruction of justice again, because the Dems resurrected that charge when Trump cited privilege in not allowing some senior officials to testify. Guess what? As the hearings move into the Judiciary Committee, where the GOP will actually have some semblance of due process, if they try to call one of Adam Schiff’s aides to see what contact Schiff had with the “whistleblower,” Schiff can – and, mark my words, will – cite privilege and prevent any such testimony. (He can take the stand himself, but he’s already lied about that topic and others, so he can just stay that course.)

So, to recap: Russian collusion, obstruction of justice, quid pro quo, bribery, extortion, attempted bribery or extortion, quid pro quo again, witness intimidation and/or tampering, and obstruction of justice again. All without any evidence that these “crimes” were committed, or of any impeachable offense.

As for the witnesses themselves, many of them clearly came across as disgruntled former employees. I’ve had to fire people, and I’ve wound up in arbitration with some of them, because that’s the nature of the brokerage business that I spent 21 years in. I know some of the things they’ll try to say, and I can pretty easily tell when somebody has a chip on his or her shoulder over being fired, or having some of their duties removed. Further, other than Sondland, none of the witnesses had ever met or spoken to President Trump. Few of them had listened to the call with Zelensky regarding which they were “fact witnesses.” And Zelensky himself said there was no quid pro quo, no bribery, no extortion, not even any pressure.

Regarding the conduct of the public hearings, it was nearly as absurd as the nature of the secret-chamber ones. If one didn’t know that Adam Schiff started his career as a prosecutor, it certainly was evident. He came across as a caricature of the most smarmy, attention-hungry, unethical, get-a-conviction-and-damn-the-truth prosecutor that has ever put innocent people behind bars. He led witnesses like a shepherd leads sheep, absent the concern for the sheep’s welfare. And while he cut off Republicans the nanosecond that their time expired, and blocked both their questions and witnesses’ answers if it looked like they’d hurt his case, he allowed witnesses like Fiona Hill to bloviate ad nauseum, ignoring the timer, if he thought it would help it. In short, he played the roles of prosecutor, judge, and jury.

Speaking of Ms. Hill (oops, I mean DR. Hill), she sowed a good bit of confusion related to the allegation of some Republicans’ assertion that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. I’d like to clear that up now, because it's really pretty simple.

Dr. Hill insisted that Ukraine is our ally, and that Russia is the enemy, and that it was Russia, not Ukraine, that meddled in the 2016 election. Here’s the thing: Ukraine is our ally now that Zelensky is President. However, his predecessor was a pretty corrupt guy, as tied to the oligarchs as Putin ever will be – moreso, in fact, because Putin has more power than the oligarchs. So back then, it is very likely (indeed, proven) that Ukraine played a role in trying to get Hillary elected over Trump. Isn’t it interesting that the former corrupt Ukrainian government favored Hillary as the U.S. President, and had ties to Biden and strong relationships with several of the “fact witnesses” in Schiff’s little moot court? Those same witnesses didn’t have anything good to say about Zelensky, who now seeks an alliance with the U.S. and against Russia, against resistance by our own diplomats who favored the corrupt guy. Makes you wonder why, no?

So it’s a tale of two Ukraines: yes, the current government is an ally. No, the previous one wasn’t. Thus it's perfectly plausible that the previous Ukrainian government tried to get Hillary elected, and the current one isn't meddling. End of story. (And I'm not even a Dr.)

So now it goes to the House Judiciary Committee for hearings. That committee is chaired by Jerry Nadler, who, like Schiff, has been calling for Trump’s impeachment since the Russia investigation began, on the basis of “clear and compelling evidence” that neither of them ever produced, nor did Mueller. Nadler has promised a fair hearing that will allow the President and the Republicans the opportunity to participate in the hearings, to call witnesses, and to ask whatever questions they want.

Riiiiight. Unlike Schiff, Nadler was never a prosecutor. In fact, he’d begun his political career before he got his law degree. However, he’s already threatened to take away the GOP’s rights to fairness and due process if the President dares continue to invoke the executive privilege that his office – like Nadler’s and Schiff’s – affords him.

Another brilliant analogy related to the invocation of privilege by Eric Swalwell (and I paraphrase): "An innocent person would just let everyone go ahead and testify. Only a guilty person would invoke privilege." Gee, I thought the law said "innocent until proven guilty," not "innocent until presumed guilty." Swalwell must have slept through law school.

Under the impeachment process, it’s up to the Judiciary Committee to draft articles of impeachment, which constitute the actual charges that will be alleged as grounds thereof. Of course, that’s assuming that the committee determines that there are grounds. There aren’t, but they will, because this verdict was delivered by the Democrats before Inauguration Day, 2017. They’ll probably conduct another focus group to draft the specific articles.

In the end, if articles of impeachment are drafted by the Judiciary Committee, the full House will vote on them, and the House will most surely impeach Trump on a near-party line vote. I say “near,” because a couple of Democrats broke ranks in voting on whether to proceed with the Intel Committee hearings, and at least that many will break ranks again, while no Republicans will vote to impeach, because there is no evidence. Part of this is partisan, related to the fact that Trump had the audacity to beat Hillary Clinton and become President, and the other part is payback for the impeachment of Bill Clinton. The former is Trump's "crime," the latter is that of the GOP a generation ago.

(As an aside, isn’t it ironic that Monica Lewinsky got to spend more time in the Oval Office than Hillary ever did, or will?)

From there, it goes to the Senate, which, of course, is under Republican majority. The Senate holds the legislative equivalent of a trial, in which both parties can call witnesses, and the President’s attorneys can question them. Unless, of course, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decides to curtail the Dems’ due process rights, a la Schiff.

He won’t, because he doesn’t want to make it look like the GOP wasn’t fair when it went to the Senate. After all, there's no need to not be. However, the Republicans could drag out the Senate proceedings, which wouldn’t go over well with the Democrat Senators who would much rather campaign for President than do their jobs: Cory “Spartacus” Booker, Kamala Harris (who has already all but conceded, citing excuses in the best tradition of Hillary Clinton), Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. See, while a Senator can miss as many votes as they want while campaigning (right, President Obama?), they can’t miss impeachment proceedings. It would be like jurors skipping out on the trial to go clubbing and take selfies.

In addition, Joe Biden might find himself being dragged off the campaign trail to answer questions about his influence over the former Ukrainian President in demanding that he fire the prosecutor that was going to investigate his son, or risk losing a billion dollars in aid. This is the only evidence that exists of a quid pro quo, bribery, and extortion with regard to Ukraine, and it will be investigated vigorously if this thing goes to the Senate.

In the end, if it does go all the way through a Senate trial, the Senate will not find the President guilty, and this whole fiasco will hurt the Dems in 2020. The American people understand that once the Mueller report found nothing and was a waste of taxpayer dollars, and once the Dems realized that none of the 20+ candidates they could throw in the mix (and continue to) could unseat Trump, they had to try this gambit. Americans are sick of it, and sick of the fact that while the Dems are busy with this nonsense, nothing is happening on healthcare, trade, or any other substantive issue other than what the President can do and is doing daily by executive order. So given this charade and a weak pool of candidates, the Dems are toast next November.

Impeachment by the House with a not guilty verdict in the Senate was also the case with Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton. However, this is quite unlike the Clinton impeachment. That matter also began with a report from a Special Counsel to the DOJ. A report that used the word “guilty” in relation to eleven specific charges, among them a felony that got the former President disbarred.

Guilty on eleven counts, and yet the 2019 Dems could only come up with nine charges – two of them repeated and none of them alleged to be true by a Special Counsel – of which to accuse Donald Trump? The Democrats clearly need to up their game.

The Great Race

Another day, another Democrat declares his or her intent to seek the party’s presidential nomination in 2020.

It’s way too early to handicap this thing, so I’ll start with a paraphrase of a very concise analysis offered by Ben Shapiro. (Yes, the same Ben Shapiro who’s been banned from speaking at college campuses because the liberals in those institutions’ administrations only believe in free speech for themselves; anyone who thinks differently must be silenced, especially on college campuses, lest our impressionable kiddos actually learn to think for themselves and perhaps become - *gasp* - conservatives.)

I’ll intersperse that with some general observations of my own, and wrap up with some creative ideas for choosing a single candidate from so crowded a field of contenders. All of this will be done with tongue placed firmly against cheek, so lest any of this offend – relax, already, and laugh along.

First, the summary of Shapiro’s analysis (with my own observations sprinkled in). Bernie Sanders owns the left lane of the party (meaning the uber-liberal, socialist faction). In a party that has elevated Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to the improbable role of thought leader (and I threw up in my mouth a little bit just typing this sentence), many candidates see their best shot as bearing hard left, so some others are trying to crowd into Sanders’ lane, including Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren.

In doing so, they’re getting lost, because again, he owns the lane. To counter that, they’ve spawned a new “me-too” movement: one in which they jump on the Sanders bandwagon for whatever bat-poo crazy liberal idea he floats. Sanders wants to raise taxes on the wealthy (wealthier than him, presumably; now that he’s a millionaire he no longer attacks millionaires, just billionaires)? Gee, so do Harris, Booker, Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Julian Castro. Those same “me-too” Dems have also jumped on Sanders’ Medicare-for-all bandwagon.

In some cases, to draw a distinction, they’re trying to out-liberal Sanders and each other. Oh, Sanders wants to legalize marijuana? Cory “Spartacus” Booker will call your legalization of marijuana and raise you reparations for everyone incarcerated for marijuana possession. (Of course, Spartacus has already made a name for himself in terms of making outrageous comments.)

And in other cases, their me-tooism backfires and they have to back-pedal. Sanders recently said that convicted prisoners should be allowed to vote. An audience member asked whether that would include felons like the Boston Marathon bomber, and Sanders replied that yes, it would, stating that the right to vote is so fundamental that even “terrible people” convicted of heinous crimes should retain it (sidebar to come).

Later, Harris was asked whether she agreed. Proving that she can’t take a controversial position, but wanting to jump into the left lane and draft off Sanders, she said, “We should have that conversation.” (By contrast, “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg opposed the idea when asked, noting that when you’re convicted of a crime you give up some rights, and voting is one of them, but then he’s not navigating toward the left lane, he’s driving in the center – more on that later.)

After Sanders was universally blasted for his statement, Harris recanted in a statement that, as a former prosecutor, she believed that “people who commit murder, people who are terrorists, should be deprived of their rights.” No mention of the earlier comment, no explanation of the about-face. George Orwell would be proud.

(Sidebar: a better question for Sanders would have been whether the white supremacist who ran over and killed a woman in Charlottesville should have the right to vote. See, the only reason Bernie would want prisoners to be able to vote would be if the majority of prisoners were Democrats – let that sink in.

And a more rational approach to the question would relate the right to vote to the crime. Should a convicted abortion clinic bomber be allowed to vote for a president who’s likely to appoint conservative SCOTUS justices who might overturn Roe v. Wade? Should death row inmates be allowed to vote for a candidate for governor whom they think is likely to stay their executions? Should a convicted criminal in a given county be allowed to vote for sheriff of that county? Should any convicted criminal be allowed to vote for appellate court judges?)

To her credit, Warren is trying to set herself apart with her own ideas. The trouble is, they’re so crazy – like forgiving all student loans and making college tuition free – that they’re doing nothing to elevate her from the muck she mired herself in with her “23 and Me” stunt. (By the way, if she were to be elected and forgave all student debt and made tuition free, I’d demand reparations for that. I’d like my tuition and my student loan payments back. With interest.)

So much for the left lane, let’s shift to the self-proclaimed center. Now that Biden has officially declared his candidacy, we can presume he owns that lane. Biden’s problem is his platform: “Trump sucks, so vote for me.” Trouble is, every other Democrat in the race, as well as Howard Schultz, is saying the same thing. Hard to differentiate your product when all of your competitors have the same sales pitch.

Biden has already told the first lie of his young campaign, when he said that he asked President Obama not to endorse him, but to let the primaries play themselves out. Are you flipping kidding me? Anyone who believes that should look up, because it says “gullible” on the ceiling. An Obama endorsement would be gold for any of these candidates – no way would they refuse it. Obama was the one who said he’d let the primaries play out before endorsing a candidate, not Biden. When the time comes, Obama will likely endorse whomever can unseat Sanders, if he endorses anyone at all.

I think Beto is in the center lane too; it’s so hard to say as he doesn’t have a solid position on any issue, large or small. I suspect he’s actually as liberal as they come. But no matter, because Mayor Pete roared past Beto to position himself firmly on Biden’s bumper, and Beto will never catch up. Mayor Pete is also largely devoid of firm positions, and is also likely more left than center. But he talks a good game.

That’s reminiscent of another young candidate, who was equally devoid of ideas and experience (I mean, really, mayor of South Bend, IN?), but turned a pretty phrase. That candidate rode into the White House on identity politics, and Mayor Pete appears to be attempting the same feat.

But this is a guy who couldn’t get elected Indiana State Treasurer. Only three former mayors have ever been elected President; none of them advanced directly from the one office to the other; and all were President before 1930. (For the record, Calvin Coolidge went from mayor of Northampton, MA, to the state House, then the state Senate, then the Lt. Governor, then Governor before becoming Vice President, then President. Grover Cleveland was mayor of Buffalo, having been Sheriff, then became Governor of New York, before being elected President. And Andrew Johnson was mayor of Greeneville, TN, then was elected to the Tennessee House, then the state Senate, then the U.S. House, then the Tennessee Governorship, then the U.S. Senate, before being appointed by Abraham Lincoln as Military Governor of Tennessee, then becoming Lincoln’s running mate for his second term. After Lincoln was assassinated, Johnson became President, and of course was later impeached.) Suffice it to say that to get from mayor of South Bend directly to the White House, Mayor Pete will need a vertical jump to rival Michael Jordan’s.

Do any of these (and the many other) declared Democrat candidates have a snowball’s chance in hell of unseating Trump? Apparently the Republicans don’t think so. In many ways, this is the most vulnerable incumbent president this nation has ever seen. If there was any concern whatsoever in the GOP ranks that they’d lose the White House in 2020, especially to one of the many radical far-left candidates, a challenger would emerge to contest the GOP primary, and that hasn’t happened. Sure, we could still see a Flake or a Romney or a Kasich step up, but the complete lack of noise from any of them appears to reflect fear of getting thrashed.

Usually, a very crowded field of candidates trying to unseat an incumbent president means dim chances of one of them getting elected. It smacks of desperation. So many of them lack experience. Most of them lack ideas, and the ones that don’t have such crazy ideas they don’t stand a chance in a general election. The current number of Democrat candidates is unprecedented, but in 2004 the field was, by previous standards, crowded. The initial front-runner in that field was Dean, who ultimately blew himself up with his infamous “Yeah!!” screech – er, speech. The sharpest crayons in that box were Dennis Kucinich and Joe Lieberman. But the candidates canceled each other out right and left, until the last man standing was John Kerry, and we saw how he fared in the general election against an also-vulnerable George W. Bush.

In another crowded field, this one not facing an incumbent, 2016 saw 16 Republicans contest the primaries. Most observers believed that Donald Trump didn’t stand a chance, and that Jeb Bush was the most likely candidate. Yet again, other candidates canceled each other out right and left, and Bush exited early while Trump emerged as the nominee, then went on to win the general election.

That could well play out in 2020. Biden has the best chance against Trump. (Sanders polls well against him, but we learned in 2016 how reliable polls are. I’ll go out on a limb and say that Sanders is unelectable in a general election, and I’ll pray I’m right.) However, Biden likely can’t survive the primaries; his past failed presidential bids and his more recent “creepy Uncle Joe” image, combined with his advanced age and the fact that he just sounds tired all the time, will not help him against such a crowded field. I’m not convinced he has the energy to aggressively campaign – and that’s not a knock on him; I wouldn’t either at his age. And, again, he has no differentiating message.

If candidates do cancel each other out along the way, we could wind up with a Harris or a Gillibrand or a Mayor Pete as the nominee, and any of those would get crushed in the general. It’s virtually certain that the nominee will not be Warren (too much baggage), Booker (too much drama) or Beto (too little substance). (AOC would be running if she were old enough, and wouldn’t that be fun to watch?)

However, my money is on Sanders. But again, it’s too soon to tell.

With such a large field, though, it seems we can surely come up with something more creative than the current process to pick a winner. Can you imagine a debate with 20+ candidates? They’d only get one question each before all the TV viewers (and Biden) had to go to bed. And the Dems may not be done yet – Hillary earlier said she wouldn’t rule out a bid, though she will not run, IMO; NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio will probably throw his name in the ring; and we can’t eliminate the possibility of Alec Baldwin stepping in to play the Pat Paulsen role.

If the numbers reach 25 or more candidates, we could set up a bracket similar to the NCAA basketball tournament, which featured 25 teams from 1968-1974, before the bracket was expanded. (This approach could actually accommodate a field as large as 68 candidates, which is the current number of teams that contest the hoops tourney.) The long-shot outsiders could compete in the play-in round, then the others would be seeded according to polling position. Competition would take the form of one-on-one debates, with voters picking a winner after each. Fouls could be called, with free-throw questions granted. Major policy questions would be three-pointers. The winner would advance to the next round. Spike Lee, Samuel L. Jackson and Charles Barkley would provide commentary, or maybe even be the moderators. Definitely more fun than the current scheme.

A Starbucks in the White House?

I watched with interest the Town Hall with Howard Schultz a couple of weeks ago. Schultz, the former CEO of Starbucks, is considering a run for the presidency in 2020 as an Independent.

Sidebar: I also listened to the Town Hall with Bernie Sanders. Like the Schultz event, Sanders’ was hosted by Fox News. By way of a brief summary, Schultz performed far better than Sanders, who came off as combative, partisan and angry, and dodged challenging questions. The most comical exchange was when one of the moderators noted that Sanders, a self-avowed Socialist, wrote a best-selling book and earned millions of dollars, adding, “Isn’t that the very definition of capitalism?” There was a pregnant pause as the prey considered that either of the trap’s jaws would finish it, then Sanders replied, incredibly, “No.” After which he proceeded to divert the discussion to a different topic, rather than explain his obviously illogical answer.

I found Schultz to be intelligent and credible. Plus you have to respect a guy who turned mediocre coffee into an iconic brand with a cult following.

And he’s a likable, respectful man. In fact, that’s a lot of what he proposes to bring to the White House: respectability, decorum, character. At one point, he turned to the audience and polled them, asking them to raise their hands if they would want their children to emulate the behavior of Donald Trump.

Not one hand went up.

But, you know what? While I wouldn’t have raised my hand, either, I’m not necessarily looking for a President whose behavior I’d want my kids to emulate. I want a problem-solver, and I’ll live with churlishness to get that. I wouldn’t have wanted my kids to emulate the behavior of JFK or Bill Clinton, but both were decent Presidents overall. I would want my kids to emulate the behavior of Jimmy Carter when he was President, but other than appointing Paul Volcker to chair the Fed, Carter’s presidency was an unmitigated dumpster fire. So Schultz’s question to the Town Hall audience evokes a “so what” response from me in terms of the criteria for selecting a POTUS.

Schultz also took on Sanders’ “Medicare for All” pipe dream, correctly noting that 180 million people who currently get their insurance through their employer would lose that insurance.

Second sidebar: Sanders would have it replaced by government insurance, but he ignores the fact that, to keep premiums affordable, someone has to subsidize them, so under his plan the portion of premiums currently borne by employers would be borne by taxpayers, meaning the very people paying the premiums. In other words, we’d all pay 100% of our healthcare premiums, vs. paying a much smaller percent due to employer subsidies. Meanwhile, corporations would presumably save the expense of their share of employees’ insurance premiums, becoming even more profitable, which Sanders claims to be against, but no one is questioning him on that (which doesn’t matter; he’d dodge the answer). Sanders also doesn’t mention that the government would get to decide what treatments you can get, and what ones you’d be denied. O, Canada.

Schultz cited the fact that Starbucks was the first U.S. company to offer healthcare to all its employees, including part-timers. That sounds great, but what does it really mean? It means that Starbucks arranges private group medical insurance from Premera Blue Cross and Kaiser to be provided for its employees who work at least 20 hours a week (sorry, part-timers who work fewer hours), who pay at least $37 per paycheck for the benefit, depending on the plan (plans with lower premiums have higher deductibles, just like everybody else’s employer-provided plan). So a part-timer working 20 hours a week and making, say $15 an hour in Seattle, where Starbucks is headquartered, would see more than 12% of his or her pre-tax paycheck go to insurance coverage.

Now, I’m not saying that’s bad; it’s still a good benefit. What Starbucks does is pretty much what every other company does: use private insurance companies to provide benefits to their employees, and pay a part of the negotiated group premiums on employees’ behalf. I’m just saying that Starbucks isn’t doing anything revolutionary, and the only thing Schultz would need to do to expand the Starbucks healthcare “miracle” to the entire U.S. would be to just eliminate Obamacare and maintain the old status quo.

Schultz noted that 42% of Americans are “disgusted” with political fighting between Republicans and Democrats. (Count me among them.) He claims that, as an Independent representing neither party, he could bring both sides together and stop that fighting.

Yeah, that’s what another outsider said in 2016, but look what happened. The problem is that as long as the Congress and the electorate are made up of Democrats and Republicans, there’s going to be fighting between the two parties, and any Independent President has about as much chance of stopping that as PeeWee Herman has of breaking up a fight between Mike Tyson and Conor McGregor.

And again, while I’m fed up with the partisan bickering, I’m looking for policy solutions to specific problems, not a guy who can come in and get everyone singing Kum-Ba-Yah, but whose ideas I’m opposed to.

In terms of policy, Schultz is a much younger Joe Biden, without the creepy groping and with business acumen. And unlike Biden, Schultz is his own man. When asked whether he felt that President Trump had done some good things, Schultz replied that he had, and he has not since recanted that statement. After Biden called his successor, Mike Pence, a “decent guy,” he was lambasted by the gay community, and a day later he trotted along behind his critics like a dog on a leash, saying that no one who believes as Pence does can be “decent.” (Yes, this is the “tolerance” of the Left: I believe differently than you, and you must consider me decent; you believe differently than me, thus you cannot be decent.)

In other words, Biden is just another politician who will turn whichever way the winds of fortune blow. Schultz isn’t afraid to give some credit to those with whom he disagrees overall, which is as rare on the Left as a Honus Wagner baseball card.

Schultz’s ideological similarity to Biden represents the problem for Democrats. Even before he’s announced his candidacy, Biden is the front-runner in the Democrat primary polls, by a wide margin. Assuming Biden declares his candidacy (he will) and wins the nomination (by no means a certainty at this point), and further assuming that Schultz does run as an Independent, they will split the Democrat vote, and Trump will win re-election handily. Sure, Schultz may pick up some Independent voters who value character over results, but aren’t willing to pull the D lever. (Biden will get some of those Independent voters too, the ones who are willing to vote Dem.)

The potential to divide the D vote and give Trump an easy win is why Schultz has been castigated by the Left for considering a third-party run. Why would anyone discourage a fellow American from pursuing public office? Because Democrats don’t want democracy, they want totalitarian control. So they’ll target anyone who, in their estimation, threatens their ability to gain or retain power.

Why not just encourage Schultz to run, and put up a candidate so compelling that he or she can beat both Schultz and Trump? Because there is no such candidate among the Democrat field. In fact, there’s a good chance that a Democrat nominee could finish third in 2020.

For his part, Schultz states that he does not believe he would split the Democrat vote and usher Trump into a second term (he’s either wrong, or he’s lying). Schultz will most certainly run if Sanders is the nominee, as the moderate Schultz offers an alternative to the bat-poo left Sanders. But he’s also likely to run if Biden is the nominee, despite their similarities; when asked during the Town Hall if he would vote for Biden, he said, “I plan to vote for myself,” a pretty blatant show of hand. In any event, he will have had to declare before the Dem nominee is chosen, so given the possibility of a far-left candidate like Sanders, he’s very likely to run.

In that event, the Curmudgeon will make a bold prediction. Thus far, in the wake of the Mueller Report, the cooler heads on the Left (a relative term that means their hair is only smoldering, not an inferno blazing like Dante’s Fifth Circle of Hell) are not calling for Trump’s impeachment, knowing that the case therefor is weak and that there is no GOP support. However, if Schultz declares, look for Dems to mount a full-on impeachment effort, because at that point they will know with certainty that their chances of unseating Trump in November 2020 are as doomed as a Hillary Clinton presidential bid.

Dear Mr. President: Please Make Good Choices

No, this isn’t a plaintive plea for the President to be mindful of his use of Twitter, or his comments, or the labels that he applies to those with whom he disagrees. Sadly, this President is beyond any hope of reforming such behaviors.

Nor does it refer to his judicial nominations, which have been nothing short of brilliant, at least from this anti-activist, Constitutional originalist’s vantage point. It doesn’t even refer to his cabinet picks, many of which have been quite good (Pompeo, Chao, Mnuchin), some of which have been quite bad (Tillerson), and others of which fell victim to forces beyond his or their control. To wit, Jeff Sessions was a decent choice for AG, but then came the Mueller investigation, and Sessions rightly (from a legal perspective) recused himself, which drew the ire and frustration of Trump, the consummate Washington outsider – all of which doomed Sessions’ future as AG.

Likewise, Kirstjen Nielsen wasn’t a bad choice for DHS Secretary, but with the Dems’ (and some key Republicans’) opposition to border security, no progress could be made. And with the media using photos of children in cages that were taken during the Obama administration to make the claim that BABIES ARE BEING RIPPED FROM THEIR MOTHERS’ ARMS!!! (never mind the fact that the Left couldn’t care one whit if a child is trafficked into sexual slavery; that doesn’t affect its ultimate collective aim of turning America blue), Nielsen was in a no-win situation. The same will prove true for the next DHS Secretary, until someone in this country wakes up and does something about border security.

(And as an aside, lest I be accused of being a racist, I’d feel the same way if Canada’s economy were the shit-show that is Mexico’s or Nicaragua's, and if our northern neighbors were overrun with drug cartels, aided and abetted by a corrupt government, and white Canucks were pouring across our northern border in the same numbers that we’re seeing on the southern border. It has nothing to do with race for me, nor is the central issue gang members or terrorists. It has to do, plain and simple, with sovereignty and the rule of law. Either you have those things or you don’t, and if you don’t, you’re not a country, you’re a human landfill for those nations who consider their poorest citizens nothing more than trash.)

No, I’m talking about the two worst decisions President Trump has made since his inauguration: the nominations of Herman Cain and Stephen Moore to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Neither is qualified to serve on the Fed, and either would be a liability in the role.

First, to Mr. Cain. I like the guy. He’s smart, and was a good businessman. He knows something of the inner workings of the Fed, having served on the board of directors of the Kansas City Fed bank. I generally agree with his political positions, though agreeing with one’s political positions should have nothing to do with determining whether that individual would make a good Governor of a truly independent Fed.

Next, to Moore. I know less of him, but he’s a supply-sider, as am I, so he must be okay. Unlike Cain, he also has a graduate degree in economics, though not a PhD (more on that later). However, he’s apparently not much of a student of the science. An advocate of using commodity prices rather than overall prices as a gauge of inflation – folly to most economists, including this one – he attributed a commodity price rule to former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who never advocated such a rule. Moreover, he referred to that rule as “the Volcker Rule.” The Volcker Rule actually relates to restricting commercial banks from investment trading activity; in other words, it would reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, which was repealed in 1999, during the Clinton administration.

Finally, after Moore’s nomination to the Fed was announced, he said, “I’m kind of new to this game, frankly, so I’m going to be on a steep learning curve myself about how the Fed operates, how the Federal Reserve makes it decisions, and this is a real, exciting opportunity for me.”

Sorry, but my view of the Fed is that it’s one of those places whose motto should be, “You don’t get trained here, you get here trained.” Because one false move can affect the entire world and everyone in it.

Neither man is a PhD economist. Now, I should be the last person to say that one has to have a PhD in economics to hold a position as an economist. Armed with nothing but a generalist MBA with emphases in economics and finance, I held the title Chief Economist for a national, $35 billion financial institution. And over the course of my career, I’ve corrected the work of PhDs from Ivy League institutions.

However, when it comes to the Fed, I do believe its members should either be academic or private-sector economists, or career bankers, such as current Fed Chair Jerome Powell. I’ll get to the reason why shortly.

Powell was also a Trump nominee, and he was a brilliant choice to replace ivory tower academics like Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke, who preceded him. He understands the banking system and how interest rates influence money movement and economic activity, but from a more practical vantage point.

The problem with a businessman like Cain, or a political pundit like Moore (Moore is to the right what Paul Krugman is to the left – an economist-cum-political commentator; only Moore is smarter than Krugman) is that all they want is lower rates, all the time.

I don’t have time to get into the whys and wherefores in this post, but I’ve commented on this plenty in the past: easy monetary policy (i.e., too-low rates) is more disastrous to an economy than tight monetary policy (higher rates). The latter can be paused or undone relatively quickly, while the former results in bubbles that wind up being catastrophic, with long-lasting after-effects, and are extravagantly expensive to extricate from. And the usual policy response to a burst bubble is even lower rates. It's a race to the bottom in which everyone loses.

Powell’s rate hikes last year were good policy, even if they caused turmoil in the markets (however, that was short-lived and had as much, if not more, to do with tariffs as with rates) and kept growth from being even higher than it was. Those rate increases kept the economy growing at a strong, sustainable pace (in a mature economy, annual output growth above 4% cannot be sustained without adverse consequences, no matter what any politician claims). More important, those increases paved the way for the Fed to begin unwinding its bloated balance sheet that was inflated by Bernanke’s incredibly risky quantitative easing strategy, which was always going to require the deftest of touches to reverse. In my estimation, Jay Powell is the best Fed Chair since Paul Volcker.

So whom would I appoint, were the decision in my hands? Though he’s no spring chicken, my first choice would be Thomas Hoenig, former CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. In that role, he served on the FOMC, and was often the lone dissenting vote in the face of Bernanke’s flock of doves, arguing for less accommodative policy (in other words, he was against driving rates too low). He’s smart, knows the territory, and is a reasoned voice.

My other choice might be an academic, but not necessarily one from the usual institutions whose progeny populate the Fed. I don’t believe you need a pure ivory-tower academic from U. of Chicago (or, perish the thought, Princeton or Harvard, which produce only Keynesians). Another banker like Powell would be fine, if the right person could be enticed away from the hefty paychecks of the private sector. 

One thing is certain: neither Cain nor Moore is right for the job. Both are bad-faith nominations by Trump in an effort to punish Powell, and sway the Fed toward easier money. And that is neither necessary – because the Fed is in very capable hands with Powell at the helm – nor wise.

Mueller’s Diner Special of the Day: the Nothingburger

I actually wanted to post about other topics, but the Mueller Report is so front and center in the collective political consciousness right now that I’d be remiss to ignore it, plus readers are asking me to address it, so here goes.

In a nutshell, the report was simply a repeat of the 2016 election: Dems were salivating in anticipation of it, because they were so cock-sure of its outcome, which turned out to be the opposite of what they were expecting, and in the aftermath they can’t accept the result.

Once again, the Democrat party has proven that it doesn’t believe in democracy. It only exists to get its own way, and pout when it doesn’t.

The report concluded that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, and that while Russia attempted to interfere in our election – which should be concerning to all, but is surprising only to the naïve (in part because we do it to them, too) – Russian influence did not affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

Repeat that until you get comfortable with the fact. Because it is fact.

The Left is raising questions as to whether the report was conclusive on the question of obstruction of justice. First, let’s look at the law.

Obstruction of justice is defined as attempting to interfere with a legal proceeding. It certainly appears that Trump’s actions met that definition. However, let’s dig deeper. Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute states:

“Someone obstructs justice when that person has a specific intent to obstruct or interfere with a judicial proceeding. For a person to be convicted of obstructing justice, that person must not only have the specific intent to obstruct the proceeding, but that person must know (1) that a proceeding was actually pending at the time; and (2) there must be a connection between the endeavor to obstruct justice and the proceeding, and the person must have knowledge of this connection.”

Did Trump have intent when, for example, he asked his personal legal counsel to pressure Rosenstein to fire Mueller? Maybe. Did he know that the proceeding was pending at the time? Pending, heck – it was underway.

But was there a connection between the endeavor, if it qualifies as such, and the proceeding?

The affirmative argument would presume that the Mueller investigation would find evidence of collusion, which was unknown at the time (and which it ultimately did not).

In other words, as others have noted, how can you be guilty of obstructing justice when no crime was committed? Put another way, how can you be guilty of obstructing justice when justice was served – i.e., the outcome of the proceeding was a conclusion of no evidence of the crime in question (collusion)? Ah, but logical arguments are lost on the illogical.

Second, let’s consider intent vs. action. Did Trump succeed in efforts to keep people from talking to Mueller, or in getting Mueller removed? No, and no. As for his motives, let’s not forget that Trump is a businessman, not a lawyer or politician. And as a businessman, he’s used to being able to direct people not to talk to certain other people, or to fire whomever he wants.

(I spent 15 years as a CEO. On numerous occasions, I directed my staff not to talk to the media about certain matters. And when necessary, I fired people. It’s a part of business, and it’s understandable that when a businessperson enters politics and finds that he or she can’t always do that, it’s frustrating. But it’s only natural that they would try; that’s how things are done in the world they’ve always lived in.)

Back to intent. Is that a crime? I’m reminded of my youth, spent in Newton, Kansas. Newton has a “suburb,” if you will, called North Newton, where Bethel College is located. When I was in high school, North Newton had one cop (let’s call him Barney, so as not to name names).

Now, Bethel was a small college affiliated with the Mennonite faith, and North Newton had a population of about 1,100 back in those days. So needless to say, Barney didn’t have a lot to do.

This was back when streaking was popular. One night Barney came upon a male student wearing a trench coat, but bare-legged beneath it, and wearing running shoes. Barney picked the young man up and confirmed that he was wearing nothing beneath the trench coat, so he took him to the county lock-up in neighboring Newton (North Newton had no jail or police station of its own).

Barney led the young man into the sheriff’s office and demanded that he be arrested, since Barney had no authority to make an arrest in the county’s jurisdiction. The Sheriff asked Barney what the charge was, and Barney stammered, “Intent to streak.”

The laughter that ensued is similar to the laughter that should follow the Left’s ludicrous assertions that Trump should be found guilty of “intent to obstruct” – especially since, again, any such attempt would presume the commission of the crime of collusion, which didn’t happen.

One of the more interesting – and widely-discussed – aspects of the Mueller Report is the statement that the report did not exonerate Trump of the allegation of obstruction, and that if the investigation had found evidence that enabled Mueller to so state, he would have.

The Left, of course, has pounced on that, claiming an “Aha!” moment, and conflating the inability to exonerate with a presumption of guilt that flies in the face of Western jurisprudence.

However, it’s interesting for another reason, and one that no one is talking about except yours truly.

Follow carefully. Mueller was in the role of a prosecutor. Prosecutors are not in the business of exonerating people. They seek evidence, and on the basis thereof, they conclude whether they can bring a case, or whether it’s unwarranted.

So Mueller could not possibly have exonerated Trump, not because there was insufficient evidence to do so, but because doing so would be inconsistent with his role as a prosecutor.

And Mueller would never have stated that Trump was exonerated of the allegation of obstruction, because that’s not what prosecutors do.

So why did Mueller include that nugget in his report? You tell me. A swipe at Trump, who repeatedly criticized Mueller and his investigation? A bitter attempt to try Trump in the court of public opinion, having failed in his lengthy and expensive efforts to find him guilty of a violation of law?

I’ll tell you this: Bob Mueller is a smart guy who’s been around the block, and he did a thorough job. And his inclusion of that tidbit certainly wasn’t a rookie mistake. It was intentional. We just don’t know the intent. However, politics were likely involved.

Next, to the whole laughable dust-up over Attorney General William Barr’s summation of the Mueller Report. Barr issued a brief overview of the report when it was first delivered to him. Once the redacted report was released to lawmakers and the public, the Left’s collective hair caught fire over the fact that Barr’s summary did not include every detail contained in the full report.

Well, let’s see, the full report was over 400 pages (with little of that redacted), and Barr’s summary was delivered in a presser. He didn’t take the time to read the whole report.

Yet still, the Left accused him of being Trump’s lap dog, noting he’s “the Attorney General of the United States, not the Attorney General of the President of the United States.”

It’s to laugh.

If Barr were acting in Trump’s interest, he never would have released the report to begin with (he didn’t have to, under the law). Or, he’d have redacted all the parts that were embarrassing to Trump (and there were a number of those). But he didn’t. So he’s guilty only of not reading the entire report to the media after he released it.

Contrast Barr’s handling of this matter with former Attorney General Eric Holder, who publicly stated that he was President Obama’s “wing man.” Or Holder’s successor, Loretta Lynch, she of the infamous tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton when the investigation into Hillary’s deleted emails was in full swing.

I’d say William Barr is significantly more independent than his two immediate predecessors. Plus, he’s forgotten more about the law than every Democrat lawmaker combined will ever know. Had Barr been appointed by anyone but Donald Trump, his confirmation would have been unanimous, so well-qualified is he.

So what are we left with? A report two years and millions of taxpayers’ dollars in the making, which concluded that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russia, that Russian influence did not affect the outcome of the election, and that there is not enough evidence of obstruction of justice to make a case for it.

We are also left with a report that is, in some parts, unflattering to Donald Trump. Big deal – there’s nothing about Donald Trump in the report that the American people didn’t know, including his staunchest supporters. We all knew he was an egotistical, overbearing, autocratic guy. Nothing in the report is going to change anybody’s mind about the man: if they hated him before, they still hate him, because they’d hate him if the report had concluded that he was completely exonerated (even though it couldn’t) and that he’s a really terrific guy. And if they supported him before, they still support him, because they knew about his warts all along, and still believe he was the best candidate in the 2016 race.

So the Dems are going to move on, right?

Wrong. Dem lawmakers want Mueller to testify. Why? Ostensibly, because they want to hear his summary of his investigation.

News flash: he wrote that summary, all 400+ pages of it. Read it.

They also want to hear from everyone he talked to in his investigation: Manafort, Cohen, Stone, et al, even though several of those people have already testified before Congress.

Again, why? The summary of those interviews by the Mueller team is included in the report.

The Dems won the House back in the mid-terms on a platform of health care reform. Have you seen the bill that House Democrats penned to overhaul Obamacare? Neither have I, nor has anyone else, because it doesn’t exist. So why don’t the Dems move on to legislating, rather than investigating? The answer is simple:

Legislating is largely done behind closed doors. Then, when bills are debated, the debates are generally broadcast on C-Span, and the average American doesn’t watch C-Span, nor have the attention span to view the legislative process.

However, when the Judiciary Committees grill a Paul Manafort, a Michael Cohen, a Brett Kavanaugh, or a Robert Mueller, it’s high theater, broadcast on all the cable “news” outlets. It’s a public forum for people like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Amy Klobuchar to make widely-televised campaign speeches in front of the American people, thinly disguised as investigative questions. It’s an opportunity to look tough in front of their base. An opportunity to show how anti-Trump they are to a constituency whose sole policy prescription is to see Donald Trump voted out of office, for the high crime of not being a Democrat.

Democrat lawmakers say they want answers. You think they’re telling the truth? Tell you what – when they do parade Mueller and others in front of their committees, take out a stopwatch and time their questions, and compare that to the time they allow their witnesses to answer them. You’ll find that the lawmakers talk far more than the witnesses do. They don’t want answers; they want airtime.

I could go on to discuss what should happen in terms of investigating what was behind the whole collusion myth, or why the Obama administration knowingly allowed Russian interference in our election process for two years and did nothing about it, but I’ve already subjected you to 2,000 words, so I’ll save that for another day. Suffice it to say that it appears the Teflon coating on the Clinton Machine has yet to wear off.

A Shutdown Solution

It's been a long hiatus, but I simply haven't enough time to respond to every trifling matter that ignites the collective hair of the left.

The concept of a government shutdown pisses me off. Whatever your views on it, I invite you to consider, as I do, that it is simply wrong to use people's livelihoods as a political football. Maybe it's because I have relatives who are Federal employees, and I don't like seeing them have to wait for back pay while they work, or to be furloughed and have to work like hell to catch up after the furlough ends, even if they do get back pay.

Maybe it's because I've had my own livelihood threatened due to corporate politics, and I tend to go full-on Braveheart mode when somebody messes with my livelihood for their own gain.

Or maybe it's because I'm a states' rights advocate, and requiring people to work without pay violates the wage and hour laws of every state. Yeah, I get it - as Federal employees they're exempt in this instance. But, were I an attorney, that wouldn't stop me from filing a class action suit against every Federal agency, the Congress, and the administration in response to any shutdown that requires people in my state to work for no pay, and have to wait for back pay, assuming their union's negotiating skills are good enough to secure it. Let the courts sort it out.

So I have a solution for this ongoing shutdown issue (I don't mean just the current shutdown; I'm referring to the fact that it's been used as a pawn in the political game of chess across numerous administrations now, with both parties controlling the White House, Congress, or both).

First, we have to accept the irrefutable fact that the shutdown is not solely the fault of the President - Congress shares the blame. That's true now, it was true when Obama was President and the government shut down, it was true when Bush was President and the government shut down, ad nauseum. The problem is not one party or another, it's not Trump's fault or Schumer's fault or Obama's fault or McConnell's fault or Bush's fault or Pelosi's fault. Not in isolation.

The blame rests on the shoulders of all politicians who employ this gambit for political gain. At issue is that they're unwilling to do what they were elected to do: govern, which requires compromise. But compromise threatens the ability to get re-elected, which is the end game in Washington.

Second, we have to recognize that it's all too convenient for these politicians to employ this gambit, because they go unaffected. And that's what needs to change.

So, if they're going to allow a government shutdown, the following conditions apply:

• The salaries of all elected officials, and their aides, are likewise suspended, but there is no back pay. After all, they're Federal employees too. That includes cabinet members and diplomats.
• Air Force One is grounded. And travel to a Senator's or Representative's home state is on their own dime. No taxpayer-funded trips home. In fact, they're all required to continue working until the shutdown ends. No trips to Camp David. No recesses. And all fundraising activity is suspended until the shutdown is over. Any contributions received are forfeited, and will go to reduce the deficit.
• White House staff are furloughed, except for the Secret Service. Capitol Police will also work. Both groups will be guaranteed back pay. No cooks or maids at the White House. No Congressional cafeteria. And definitely no Congressional gym or golf course.
• If a member of Congress allows a shutdown to happen and then leaves office, pension payments are suspended, again with no back payments.

Now, as to what to do to fix the current crisis. I've written before on immigration policy so I won't go into great depth here. But let me remind readers that I'm in favor of legal immigration. I have family members and friends who are or were legal immigrants, including my forebears. I believe in immigration.

But we are a nation of laws, and nations have borders. I've traveled to more than 30 countries, and every time I crossed a border, I had to show a passport or at least a cruise ship card (which requires a passport to obtain) to verify my identity, the purpose of my stay, and the duration. I've also had to clear security. Every. Single. Time. All nations have borders, and those borders are enforced everywhere but on the southern border of the U.S.

Also, let's take fear out of the equation. The concern should not be that those crossing our southern border illegally are murderers, rapists, drunk drivers, drug dealers, human traffickers or terrorists, although any of those may be valid concerns.

The fact that one has crossed our border illegally makes one guilty of breaking the law. We have laws restricting entry into our country, and if those laws are broken, that individual should not be allowed to remain in our country illegally. Period.

Given that, my solution (and note that it does involve compromise, but that's the strange bedfellow of the political process; you may disagree, and that's fine - I disagree with some of these premises myself, but propose them in the interest of compromise, and getting something done):

1. Build the damn wall already. Call it a slatted fence, call it a picket fence, call it a garden hedge, call it Fred for all I care. But build it. At various points in time, Obama (the revered King of the left), Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and other Dems have called for a barrier on our southern border. So that's how they can save face in spinning why they compromised: it's not about denying a Trump campaign promise, it's the Obama/Clinton/Clinton/Schumer/Pelosi/Biden wall. It's the wall they wanted all along. They can spin that without recourse, because their followers will lap up any revisionist statement they make as though it were mother's milk - after all, those followers had no issue with a wall when their party's leaders proposed one. The border patrol wants a wall. The border cities where there is a wall have seen reductions in illegal border crossings. It's not the only solution, but it's a solution.
2. As for who pays for it: if the new trade deal with Mexico results in just an 8% reduction in our trade deficit with Mexico, it will indeed pay for the wall, in one year's time. So it's easy to demonstrate that the trade deal will, in fact, result in Mexico paying for the wall. (If the deficit is only reduced by 4%, then Mexico pays for the wall over two years' time, etc.)
3. Grant amnesty to the DACA population. That wouldn't be my preferred policy, but again, compromise is necessary. However, they have to pass a background check and maybe meet other criteria, like having valid government ID, etc. Heck, I have to meet those criteria to get a job, why shouldn't they?
4. Include funding for other security measures. Pelosi says we need drones, not a wall. Well, drones won't do what a wall does to prevent illegal border crossings, but nor will a wall give us the intel that drones will. So include funding for drones, technology to scan vehicles for drugs, an increase in border patrol agents, whatever is needed. I'm not for more government spending, so let's cut spending in other areas that are unnecessary. It isn't hard to find the fat that needs to be cut in order to make border security comprehensive. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi aren't afraid to spend money - recall that Nancy supported spending more than $700 billion on the Obama-era stimulus package, and said "We need to pass this bill so we can see what's in it."
5. Address reforms in TPS status for immigrants from Central American countries on the list. Make it easier for them to gain asylum - if they cross the border through legal ports of entry and can present a qualifying case. Wanting a job isn't a qualifying case.
6. On the flip side, end chain migration. Make it a felony to cross the border illegally with a minor in tow. That felony being punishable by immediately providing transportation back to Mexico, with a felony charge on your record in case you try to come back in. If Mexico won't help solve the problem, Mexico can own the problem.
7. End sanctuary policies. If a law enforcement officer in a sanctuary city, county or state interferes with ICE, that official can be arrested by ICE, and is banned from working in law enforcement for life, and is subject to federal fines and incarceration. End federal aid to sanctuary locations. California wildfires? Tragic, but if aid is cut off because California wants to pretend it's a sovereign nation by defying federal immigration laws, the crisis is on the shoulders of California lawmakers. Contrary to what some Californians believe, California is no better than Iowa.

There are probably more things I could come up with, but that's a start. It's a compromise, but it's a workable compromise, and it accomplishes what those on the left and the right say they support: increased border security. And either side can spin it to their advantage, so Congress: do your jobs, compromise, negotiate, then spin. It's what you do. Don't worry about the repercussions; your partisan constituents will love you no matter what you do.

Illegal immigration is a problem - no one on the left or right can deny that - and it is wanting for a solution. So I leave you with the problem-solving approach of my one-year-old grandson, who would probably do a better job running this country than anyone we've elected.

My daughter was working with my grandson, Aiden, on using a shape-sorting bucket. You know, those plastic buckets with different shaped cutouts in the lid, and plastic blocks matching those shapes. You put the shaped blocks through the shaped holes in the lid to get them into the bucket - the problem to be solved being getting the blocks in the bucket.

My daughter showed Aiden the round block, and put it in the round hole. Into the bucket it went. Then she did the same with the square block. Then, she handed Aiden the triangular block. He tried the round hole, but to no avail. Then he tried the square hole, again to no avail. He paused, looked at the bucket thoughtfully, and then ...

He lifted the lid off the bucket and dropped the triangular block into it.

The moral of the story? Don't worry about the hurdles in front of you, just solve the dad-gum problem.