Obama-Biden

Conventional wisdom holds that the Democratic base is increasingly moving left but the country is hankering for a centrist alternative to Donald Trump. Therefore, it is surmised, it will be much more difficult for Joe Biden to get his party's nomination than for him if nominated to beat the incumbent.

However, Steve M has noted that Biden's support is strongest among black voters, perhaps particularly those of the female variety, and specifically in South Carolina. Yet

If mainstream journalists settle on a story they like about Biden -- that he's Hillary 2.0 -- it could stick. By the time we're ready for the general election, he may have secured the nomination but lost a lot of goodwill, just like Clinton, in large part because the mainstream media will have portrayed him as yesterday's man. The MSM might also pounce on pseudo-scandals ginned up by the GOP, like the recent stories about Biden and his son and their dealings with Ukraine.

The worst-case scenario is that press coverage sours much of the country on Biden but leaves him popular enough to secure the nomination. That actually could make him Hillary 2.0.

Nonetheless, the GOP's predominant campaign theme for a Trump-Biden matchup will center on the period of 2009-2106. You will remember David Bossie less as Donald Trump's 2016 deputy campaign manager than for the US Supreme Court's notorious Citizens United case, named after the political advocacy group Bossie heads and which tragically brought the successful suit against the Federal Elections Commission.

In an opinion piece published shortly after Joe Biden declared his presidential candidacy, Bossie laid out the blueprint for a Trump campaign against the former vice-president if the latter were to receive the Democratic nomination. He writes

The first thing you might remember about Biden’s record as Obama’s vice president is his description of the signing into law of ObamaCare as a “big f------ deal.”

Biden, one of the prime supporters of the disaster that was disingenuously marketed as the Affordable Care Act, must answer for the lies told by the Obama team to sell the plan to the American people.

Infamous Obama lines such as “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” or “if you like the plan you have, you can keep it” – as well as the law’s central failure to control health care costs – all now fall squarely into Biden’s lap.

Nearly a decade later, our health care system is more expensive and less accessible. The left’s recent embrace of a policy that will end Medicare as we know it – or create “Medicare-for-all” as they spin it – is proof positive that ObamaCare was fatally flawed from the outset and it cannot be fixed.

One of the Obama-Biden administration’s top foreign policy objectives was known as the “Russia Reset.” The naïve Obama White House said in a fact sheet that the reset “sought to engage the Russian government to pursue foreign policy goals of common interest – win-win outcomes – for the American and Russian people.”

This wrongheaded policy, which President Obama said would give him “more flexibility,” enabled Russian President Vladimir Putin to lure the Obama-Biden team into a false sense of progress as the Russians meddled in our 2016 presidential election.

Unable to admit that their Russia policy was an abject failure at such a critical time, Obama and Biden chose to ignore Russia’s interference in our election instead of doing something to stop it.

The mainstream media cannot allow Biden to rewrite history when it comes to the Obama administration’s cozy Russia policy.

Pushing the pseudo-scandal Steve M cited, Bossie briefly interrupts his message to argue

Biden must also be investigated fully over his alleged actions in Ukraine on behalf of his son Hunter and the investigation into Burisma Holdings, a company with a board of directors that included the younger Biden as a member. The excited cheerleaders in the liberal media must do the right thing and demand answers.

Nonetheless, lest we think that Trump's major thrust will be to portray (with scandal-mongering) Biden as another Hillary Clinton, Bossie continues

On the all-important issue of fighting for the American worker and manufacturing jobs, let’s remember that the position of the Obama-Biden administration on lost manufacturing jobs was – as Obama put it – that “some of those jobs of the past are just not going come back.”

That destructive attitude, along with an outrageous regulatory regime, caused a net loss of nearly 200,000 manufacturing jobs as a result of the lack of leadership of Obama and Biden.

Since President Trump took office, 453,000 manufacturing jobs have been created in just two years as a result of his can-do spirit, his Make America Great Again optimism, and his pro-growth economic policies.

In 2016 President Obama asked then-candidate Trump “what magic wand do you have” when it comes to bringing back manufacturing jobs? This showed Obama and Biden had no answers then on how to create new jobs – and nothing has changed since.

The failed Obama-Biden mindset of “you didn’t build that” – so critical of America’s entrepreneurial spirit – must never be forgotten.

Another horribly misguided Obama-Biden foreign policy decision was their 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. The deal was supposed to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power for at least a few years.

In a dangerous push to concoct some sort of liberal foreign policy legacy – and after mislabeling ISIS the “JV team” – Obama and Biden gave up the store on a deal that put an exclamation point on their failed eight-year policy of apologizing for America around the world....

You can’t finish an analysis of Biden’s record as Obama’s vice president without asking this all-important question: When it comes to the Obama administration’s efforts to try to stop Donald Trump from being elected president, what did Biden know and when did he know it?

Biden received daily intelligence briefings as vice president. Now that he has made himself a public figure again, he needs to answer for the fake Russian dossier and tell the American people why ex-British spy Christopher Steele was given carte blanche to peddle his lies throughout the highest levels of the Obama-Biden administration.

The American people deserve to know the truth about the fraudulent Russia collusion narrative that was perpetrated on them for two years – and what senior officials in the Obama administration were responsible for it.

Let’s face the fact that an enormous percentage of center-right voters in our country think the Obama-Biden administration was a total failure

In all, Bossie uses the word "Obama" or "Obama's" twenty-six (26) times, including seven times as "Obama-Biden."  

Bossie's criticism of President Obama is dishonest and largely bogus, and a Vice-President wields next to no power, anyway. However, Trump's attacks on Obama were invalid also in 2016 and didn't prevent voters (albeit a minority) from deciding that the previous eight years were no picnic, a perception very effectively exploited by the Republican nominee.

Nonetheless, Democratic voters (especially blacks) are Democratic voters, and Biden realizes that firmly attaching himself to Barack Obama's hip is his most likely (and probably only) path to the Democratic nomination. Potentially deadly in a general election, that connection is critical in a Democratic primary. Steve M more than once has linked to a tweet from a Democratic strategist who reported in March from his focus group among black women likely to vote in the South Carolina primary

Now we’re on to Biden. One woman says it’s the closest we can get to a 3rd term for Obama w/o electing Michelle. Lots of chuckles but also lots of heads nodding in agreement. Another says she would vote for him today but isn’t sure if he’s too “old” or “sloppy” to take on Trump.

— Danny Barefoot (@dannybarefoot) March 5, 2019

The irony is that the same argument- that he can restore some of the Obama luster- which might yield a Biden nomination would present a huge obstacle to victory in November 2020.

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In The Atlantic in mid-April, Edward-Isaac Dovere wrote "Aides say that (Vermont Senator Bernie) Sanders is envisioning himself in the Oval Office, which has been guiding his decisions on both campaign operations and policy positions."

That continued with responses to two questions (beginning at 10:52 of the video below) asked of the Vermont senator on Sunday's "This Week" on ABC.

When Jonathan Karl asked "Cory Booker says he will name a woman as his running mate, will you make the same pledge?" Sanders sensibly responded "I would give very serious consideration to that." Karl immediately followed with "person of color?" and Sanders replied "I think it's premature. It would be silly to make that statement right now."

Of course it would, as understood by anyone who believes he has a serious chance to be the Democratic presidential nominee.

By contrast, at the recent "She The People" presidential forum in Houston, Booker promised "I will have a woman running mate. To me it’s really clear that we do that.” The previous day, Representative Eric Swalwell had stated "I’ve pledged that I would ask a woman to serve as Vice President."

It's easy for them to say. Booker is a dark horse candidate, and Swalwell is no more likely to be nominated than, say, the guy or gal behind you at the supermarket checkout lane. Additionally, such a preposterous promise is a safe one to make for both individuals, given that Swalwell hails from a liberal district in California and Senator Booker from New Jersey, where being a Democrat is an increasingly distinct electoral advantage.

But Sanders is one of the two leading candidates for the presidential nomination.  No doubt it has not escaped his attention that Donald Trump, the surprise winner in the last election, did not choose as his running mate someone based on gender, race, or religion.

When in July, 2016 candidate Trump was about to select Mike Pence as his running mate, Chris Cillizza presciently lauded the choice because, he noted, Trump needed the Koch brothers, the industrial midwest, and "message discipline," as well as "to reassure the GOP establishment" and "social conservatives."

Even Pence's popularity in the Christian right community did not turn on the particular Christian denomination to which he belongs. Rather, it derived from his support of forced-birth, opposition to same-sex marriage, and dedication to "religious liberty," the euphemistic term for permitting discrimination on the basis of claimed religious belief. (It is not apparent what church, if any, Pence attends and he describes himself as an "evangelical Catholic." If you don't know what that is, you're not alone.)

The overwhelming support for the GOP nominee among self-identified (white) evangelicals very likely was determinative in the presidential election, and probably would not have come about without Pence on the ticket. Pence got the nod because it was believed that the Indiana governor and former GOP congressman improved Trump's opportunity to be elected.

And so we have Bernie Sanders properly refusing to commit himself to selecting as a running mate either a woman or a "person of color,"  preferring to wait to determine how best to get to 270. As Dovere found, he's in it to win it. He may not, but at least he didn't make the stupid promise two other Democrats have.

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A President Begging To Be Taken Seriously

With all due respect to an arguably incomparable writer, Charlie Pierce is wrong:

This is, of course, insane. https://t.co/GJ5kTuG6RV

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) May 4, 2019

Oh, no, it's not insane at all.  It is a warning.

Last November 18, Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" had a revealing exchange with President Trump:

WALLACE: Can you envision a situation, you talk about six more years. Can you envision a situation well into your second term where you think that you’re so good for the country and so essential for the progress of the country that you would try to amend the Constitution so you could serve a third term?

TRUMP: No, no.

WALLACE: Why not?

TRUMP: Just won’t happen, it’s not – I think the eight year limit is a good thing, not a bad thing

Of course President Trump wouldn't try to amend the Constitution. That would represent a legitimate effort to achieve desired results in a manner prescribed by the Constitution itself. However, not only did Trump not merely turn thumbs down (for whatever it's worth at two years out) on a constitutional amendment, he endorsed an eight year limit.  In old math or new, that would be 32 years.

That might not have been a slip of the tongue.  Matt Lewis, who picked up on the eight term limit, noted that when China's Xi Jinping became dictator for life, Trump gushed "And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot someday.”

Lewis recognized "This was shtick, but humor can be a safe way to launch a trial balloon—or to inject an idea into the public sphere." The President, however, was not done, for on April 18 he

joked about serving more than two terms as president, telling a crowd that he might remain in the Oval Office “at least for 10 or 14 years.”

Trump made the comments on the same day that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report was released to the public.

At an event for the Wounded Warrior Project, Lt. Gen. Michael S. Linnington, chief executive of the veterans charity, gave Trump a trophy to thank him for his support.

“Well, this is really beautiful,” Trump told the crowd in the East Room of the White House. “This will find a permanent place, at least for six years, in the Oval Office. Is that okay?”

After some laughter from the crowd, Trump continued: “I was going to joke, General, and say at least for 10 or 14 years, but we would cause bedlam if I said that, so we’ll say six.”

Trump also made a joke on the same topic last year. In a speech to Republican donors at his Mar-a-Lago estate, he praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for doing away with term limits.

“He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great,” Trump said, according to CNN. “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”

Assuming President Trump was "joking" is foolish.  As Lewis had speculated about the praise for Xi Jinping, the President may well have been trying to shift the Overton Window or floating a proposal to see how it would fly.

Support for the latter intention is suggested by Trump's remark of six days earlier when he had stated

We’ve cut more regulations in a year and a quarter than any administration, whether it’s four years, eight years or, in one case, 16 years. Should we go back to 16 years? Congressman, can we have that extended? The last time I jokingly said that, the papers started saying 'he's got despotic tendencies!' No, I'm not looking to do it, unless you want to do it.

"Unless you want to do it." It's a leader asking to be asked, directly or indirectly, so that he has to take no responsibility for remaining in power.  It's what you wanted.  You begged for it.

That's no joke, and that's not insanity. It's someone getting increasingly more outrageous and paying no penalty while planning to consolidate power in a second term and realizing that omnipotence may be just one election away.

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Consistently Accommodating

To be fair, perhaps to bend over backwards, Joe Biden may be merely an accommodationist.

As nominee for re-election as vice-president, Biden maintained "Dick Cheney has been the most dangerous Vice President probably in American History." In 2015, explaining that he and his wife were hosted by Vice President Cheney and his wife at the official residence after the 2008 presidential election, Biden stated "first of all, I like Dick Cheney for real. I get on with him. I think he is a decent man."

In the 1995 Senate debate over the Republican Balanced Budget Amendment after its passage in the House, the Delawarean maintained "When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well. I meant Medicare and Medicaid. I meant veterans' benefits. I meant every single solitary thing in the government."

Then Biden joined 13 other Democrats (out of 47) and all but one of the chamber's 53 Republicans in voting for this monstrosity, which fell one vote short of passage.

Biden never has acknowledged this serious error in judgement and as recently as last December (as he was seriously contemplating becoming a presidential candidate) he contended that Social Security "still needs adjustments"- shorthand for reduction in benefits.

Perhaps Biden simply has always wanted to align his views with President Obama- who was thwarted by Tea Party Republicans in his effort to cut the program as part of the Grand Bargain- centrists, hedge fund managers, and Beltway pundits who have advocated curbing benefits in a misleading effort to reduce the budget deficit.

If so, though, it's a disturbing tendency, arguably character trait, which has continued even to this past Wednesday, when the former vice-president

dismissed the notion that the United States should be worried about China as a geopolitical competitor, prompting criticism from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) as well as some Republicans who argued that Biden is underestimating the world’s second-largest economy.

The argument is one Biden has frequently made in speeches throughout the years, but it is drawing increased attention due to his status as the apparent front-runner among Democrats running for president.

At a campaign stop in Iowa City, Biden pointed to his years serving as vice president and as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, telling the crowd that there’s not a “single solitary” world leader who would trade the problems the United States faces for those confronting China.

“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” said Biden, who last week announced his bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

He argued that Beijing has its hands full dealing with its own domestic and regional problems, such as tensions in the South China Sea — which Biden called the “China Sea” — and the “mountains ... in the west.” It was not clear to what mountains or issue Biden was referring.

“They can’t figure out how they’re going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system,” Biden said of China. “I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They’re not competition for us.”

"They're not competition for us" is so inaccurate that it could count as a lie.  Oppression of the Turkic-speaking, ethnic Ulghurs in Xinjiang province has been going on for decades.  Moreover

In the past few years, China has conducted a sweeping campaign to suppress Uighur identity and restrict the practice of Islam. As many as 1 million Uighurs and members of other minority groups — mostly Muslim ones — are being held without charges in brutal internment camps, according to the United Nations. It is just the latest episode in a decades-long history of tension between Uighurs and the staunchly secular, Han Chinese-dominated government in Beijing....

After months of denying the camps existed, China switched last year to justifying them. Beijing insists it is merely providing job training and “de-extremism education” in a region that is poor and steeped in fundamentalism. “As a result of the vocational education and training, the social environment of Xinjiang has seen notable changes, with a healthy atmosphere on the rise and improper practices declining,” said Shohrat Zakir, the de facto No. 2 official in Xinjiang, in October.

Surely we can believe that official because, as former vice president Biden assures us, "they're not bad folks, folks." However, the BBC has reported "Former prisoners told us of physical as well as psychological torture in the camps. Entire families had disappeared, and we were told detainees were tortured physically and mentally. We also saw evidence of almost a complete surveillance state in Xinjiang."

The former Vice President characterizes this gang in Beijing as "not bad" and admittedly, neither the West nor theIslamic world has shown much interest, the latter bunch demonstrating that it's not only Jews it wants to see disappeared.

It's not only the now-infamous ambivalence about school desegregation in the mid-1970s;, the notorious (among Democrats) 1994 crime bill; caving to GOP senators by paving the way to make Clarence Thomas an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court; authorization in 2002 of the Iraq War for President GW Bush, and unapologetically siding with credit card companies against consumers in the 2005 bankruptcy bill. Biden praised Dick Cheney in 2015; diplomatically suggested slicing Social Security in 2018; defended "500 billionaires" last month; whitewashed the mainland Chinese on May 1, 2018.  Whether of accommodation or otherwise, there is a pattern here, and as Joe Biden himself would put it, "it's not pretty, folks."

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Westchester County Workers

Summarizing, there isn't much to say about Attorney General William Barr, except:

- He came;

- he lied;

- he won't go to the House (Judiciary Committee) because he is exposed and frightened

There isn't much to say about former Special Counsel Mueller- still a Justice Department employee- either except::

  - The Department of Justice will refuse to allow him to testify;

  -  A subpoena will be issued by the House of Representatives;

  -  The Justice Department will challenge the subpoena in court;

  -  Mueller will be free to testify promptly- if he resigns.

Unavoidably, a great deal more which would be a major scandal in any other Administration are reported but barely reach the consciousness of most voters as the President's effort to tear down the rule of law proceeds. Nevertheless,the Washington Post's Joshua Partlow and David Farenthold are on the job, on Tuesday writing

Allegations that workers were routinely shortchanged on their pay at President Trump’s suburban country club are now the subject of an inquiry by the New York attorney general, whose investigators have interviewed more than two dozen former employees....

In interviews, six former Trump workers told The Washington Post that they felt systematically cheated because they were undocumented. Some told The Post about being denied promotions, vacation days and health insurance, which were offered to legal employees. The same pattern of unpaid labor was also described by a former manager.

Others recounted practices that could violate labor laws. Two told The Post that they had been required to perform unpaid side work. Two others said managers made them work 60-hour weeks without paying them overtime.

Well, why not? If  here illegally and decline extra work or complain about working conditions, feel free to voice your complaints to the fellows at Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  The report continued

A spokesman for the New York attorney general’s office confirmed that it had received complaints from workers about conditions at the club but declined to comment further.

The Trump Organization has denied the allegations, and workers who spoke to The Post did not keep paper records of the extra hours they said they worked.

But Juarez was among nearly 30 former employees at Trump’s golf courses in New York who met with prosecutors in February. They handed over pay stubs and W-2 forms and answered questions about their salaries, hours, tips and lack of benefits in one-on-one interviews over many hours, according to several workers. Some have follow-up meetings scheduled in coming weeks.

On Thursday, the Post published a follow-up by Partlow and Farenthold, who noted

There was a conscious effort to pay less wages because they knew about the lack of documents,” said the former manager, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal company policy. “You know, where are they going to go?”

Trump’s company called these accounts “nonsense.”

It is an ongoing theme of this blog that if an individual (or family) is in the USA illegally, he should not be here and, yes, should be deported. However, in the absence of such a policy, the immigrant should be treated decently, with dignity, and for his/her benefit (and that of the country) should be made a full-fledged American citizen.

That should be accomplished with little hassle and not with deliberate speed. If not done, the person is left vulnerable and subject to exploitation.  That is the case with at least a couple of Trump properties, another reason that any immigration proposal which comes out of this Administration must be treated with a great deal of suspicion.

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Weak As Always

While the (Attorney General William) Barr hearing proceeds in the Senate Judiciary Committee, our minds explore the ways in which Donald J. Trump is a full-blown liar and would-be traitor. Treason requires giving aid and comfort to an enemy, and Russia is not at war with the USA and is not even on the federal government's terrorist list, so there is that.

But let us not forget that Donald J. Trump is a weakling, a rough facsimile of a coward. A couple of weeks ago we learned

In the summer of 2017, President Trump told Corey Lewandowski, his former campaign manager, to have then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions thwart Robert Mueller’s investigation, according to the special counsel’s report. Trump also told Lewandowski to fire Sessions if he refused a meeting to talk about the issue, the report says.

The report details a meeting between Trump and Lewandowski, which came just two days after Trump met with former White House counsel Don McGahn and asked him to have Mueller removed. In the meeting, Trump “brought up Sessions and criticized his recusal from the Russia investigation,” the report says.

Trump's former campaign chairman pushed the job off to deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn, who told him it would be taken care of, but who understandably didn't perform the task. A private citizen, Lewandowski was not even a member of the Administration, accountable to the President. Yet Trump was trying to get him to do the dirty work of the President.

Lewandowski was not the only Trump associate with enough sense to defy President Trump.  On Monday, The Hill reported

Former Defense Secretary James Mattis declined to carry out orders from President Trump or otherwise limited his options in various attempts to prevent tensions with North Korea, Iran and Syria from escalating, The New Yorker reported Monday, the latest account of Trump’s own officials trying to check his worst instincts.

"The president thinks out loud. Do you treat it like an order? Or do you treat it as part of a longer conversation? We treated it as part of a longer conversation," a former senior national security official told The New Yorker.

"We prevented a lot of bad things from happening."

Oh, like maybe World War III or a nuclear war, though more likely an invasion of South Korea by North Korea. The article continues

In 2017, following a series of North Korean ballistic missile tests, Trump ordered the Pentagon to begin removing the spouses and children of military personnel from South Korea, where the U.S. military has a base. An administration official told the magazine that "Mattis just ignored" the order.

In another instance in the fall of 2017, as White House officials were planning a private meeting at Camp David to develop military options for a possible conflict with North Korea, Mattis allegedly stopped the gathering from happening. He ignored a request from then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster to send officers and planners, according to a former senior administration official.

The accounts, included in a profile of national security adviser John Bolton, reveal that the former Marine Corps general routinely sought to downplay any potential conflicts across the globe.

Mattis resigned from his Pentagon position last December, one day after Trump announced that he would withdraw troops from Syria, a decision Mattis opposed.

A confrontation in the Mideast between major world powers was not out of the question, either. Continuing:

The defense chief also sought to ward off possible conflicts in the Middle East.

As Iraq was preparing for parliamentary elections in late 2017, McMaster was worried about any meddling from Iran and asked the Pentagon to give options to counter such a move.

A former McMaster aide said Mattis later sent a Pentagon official to the White House without any options in hand.

"I asked him what happened to the options," the former aide told The New Yorker. "He told me, 'We resisted those.' You could feel everyone in the meeting go, 'Excuse me?'"

Mattis also reportedly prevented Gen. John Nicholson, then head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, from meeting Trump.

After Bolton replaced McMaster, he asked the Pentagon for multiple options in April 2018, after Syrian President Bashar Assad dropped chemical weapons on civilians in a suburb of Damascus. Mattis gave only one option, a limited strike with cruise missiles, which angered Bolton.

Administration officials told the magazine that Mattis was likely attempting to limit information to Trump so he could not make ill-advised decisions.

Evidently, people around Donald Trump realize this is not a normal man and not a normal presidency. Therefore 

"There are a lot of people in the administration who want to limit the president’s options because they don’t want the president to get anything done," a former senior administration official said.

Management 101, Donald: when you're in charge (supposedly) and underlings are ignoring your demands, fire them. It's a tried-and-true tradition and shouldn't be that difficult. Fortunately, there are individuals in the federal government who know they can ignore this fraud of a man repeatedly and face no consequences.

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Speaking The Unspeakable

Rod Rosenstein has submitted to President Trump his letter of resignation, concluding "America first," mimicking a successful campaign slogan. More significantly, he commented "I am grateful... for the courtesy and humor you often display in our personal conversations," an odd remark for someone holding a position in which he should have no personal conversations at all with the President of the United States of America.

The letter itself may be a plea for a nomination to a federal judgeship.  Taking a different approach,

 CNN anchorperson Don Lemon asked colleague Chris Cuomo Monday night “I’ve been wanting to ask you this. There have been reports about him, right. Do you think he’s a double agent type?”

We don't know, and may never know, whether Rosenstein simply was able to see beyond the horizon by recognizing that he had in Robert Mueller a man with impeccable credentials who could be rolled. We may learn what Rosenstein was up to if House Democrats succeed in having the now ex-Special Counsel testify, under oath, in public, and in a manner to elicit the most information. 

That is the only way in which it will be even possible to determine what Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed by then-Acting Attorney General Rosenstein, was thinking as he conducted an investigation, prepared a report, and looked on as the report was delivered to Congress. For now,  unfortunately, we have to lean on those few individuals who will question conventional wisdom, recognize a sort of Republican version of bait-and-switch, and have the courage to be politically incorrect.

The latter brings us, as it often does, to Bill Maher, who Friday evening noted "if Dostoyevsky had written the  report, it would be called 'Crime and No Punishment.'" He continued

Mueller's report is full of buts:  Don Jr. met with the Russians, but; Manafort gave internal polling data to a Russian, but; Trump obstructed justice every day, but....

Throughout, pundits, lawyers, and Democratic politicians have lionized Mueller as the stern and objective tough-guy ex-Marine who has selflessly and tirelessly served the public interest in both Republican and Democratic administrations. The image, which somehow has largely persisted even following release of the report., has not escaped the attention of Maher, who stated

Just because you have a stone face, doesn't mean you belong on Mt. Rushmore....

And you, tough guy, couldn't get the the President's taxes. You couldn't "follow the money?" You couldn't interview Trump, we're told, because he couldn't testify under oath without perjuring himself?" And that's our problem? It's one feckless punt after another.

Although a memorandum from the Office of Special Counsel investigating Nixon and one from the Office of Independent Counsel investigating Clinton argued that an incumbent president could be indicted, lawyers (with journalists and others following their lead) have been arguing otherwise. Unsurprisingly, in 1973, the Office of Legal Counsel under President Nixon's Justice Department, as well as the same office under the Clinton Justice Department in 2000, contended that a sitting president could not be indicted.

Despite the conflicting legal history, it became accepted wisdom that a President while in office is immune to indictment. Though (or maybe because) he isn't a lawyer, Maher understands

For a guy who didn't want to break precedent by indicting a president, Mueller sure created a lot of new precedents. That's what law is- new precedents. It's always evolving. You can't indict  a sitting president? It's not in the Constitution. It's not even a law. It's a guideline, like drinking white wine with fish or f _ _ _ _ _ _ your cousin. It's a f_ _ _ _ _ _ memo.

In a passive-aggressive manner, the Special Counsel seemed to be urging impeachment proceedings.  "While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime," Mueller noted, "it also does not exonerate him." He acknowledged "if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state."  But Maher recognizes

The Attorney General is corrupt. The Congress is dysfunctional. What good is leaving a road map for impeachment if you know a tribal before party Republican Senate will never remove the President?.Bob, your trail of bread crumbs isn't good enough. We're not that smart anymore. America is an aging shortstop. You have to hit it right at us.

While the subject (Donald Trump) of the investigation was not interviewed in-person (and otherwise, only about collusion) and the President's taxes not requested (as far as is known)

To me, this report is summed up in the words "Donald Trump Jr. declined to be voluntarily interviewed." So make him. Was he too busy? You couldn't work around his tweeting schedule?

We don't know why Robert Mueller conducted a shoddy investigation, nor whether the apparent careerist Rod Rosenstein foresaw how it would play out or instead has some hidden interest in the rule of law or the quaint notion of equal standing under that law. However, it is clear that sworn testimony by Robert Mueller, though not sufficient, is necessary to determine what happened and why.

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