Mueller Wants it Both Ways

Robert Muller

by Newt Gingrich: On Wednesday, Robert Mueller tried to have it both ways.

When he said, “if we had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that,” he overstepped his bounds as a prosecutor. Mueller was insinuating that President Trump has not been exonerated of wrongdoing while refusing to explicitly declare the President guilty of any crime.

As Alan Dershowitz noted in The Hill, FBI Director James Comey was “universally criticized” for attempting a similar political dance during the Hillary Clinton email investigation. At the time, Comey had said that there was no clear evidence that Clinton intended to break the law, but there was evidence that she was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information (which can be ruled a crime).

In Mueller’s case, it was much worse. Dershowitz rightly pointed out that Mueller “went beyond the conclusion of his report and gave a political gift to Democrats in Congress who are seeking to institute impeachment proceedings against President Trump.” Mueller’s report said there was no evidence President Trump broke the law. Mueller’s mouth said there was no proof he didn’t.

The problem is, Mueller’s verbal statement distorted the role of a prosecutor and flipped a core concept of the American justice system on its head – the idea that people are innocent until proven guilty. Dating back to John Adams’s principled defense of British soldiers against an incensed public after the Boston Massacre, Americans have held that proving the burden of guilt falls on the state. The American system does not assume you are guilty until the state proves they are innocent – the government must prove guilt.

And the bottom line is: After a two-year investigation consisting of 15 professional lawyers, many millions of taxpayer dollars, and interviews of more than 500 witnesses, everything in Mueller’s 448-page report leads to the conclusion that President Trump is not guilty of any crimes. Like Ken Starr, who declared in his report that there was “substantial and credible evidence” that President Bill Clinton was guilty of 11 separate counts of criminal activity (including obstruction of justice), Mueller could have concluded that President Trump obstructed justice without citing any formal charges. He declined to do so.

Sean Davis for The Federalist also pointed out that Robert Mueller’s politicization of his investigation was self-refuting. Mueller had said, “it is important that the office’s written work speak for itself,” but then he kept talking.

As Davis wrote:“Mueller’s report was released to the public by Attorney General William Barr nearly six weeks ago. The entire report, minus limited redactions required by law, has been publicly available, pored through, and dissected. … If it’s important for the work to speak for itself, then why did Mueller schedule a press conference in which he would speak for it weeks after it was released?”Mueller is making the political suggestion that the President should be impeached on allegations of obstruction of justice for which Mueller and his team of hot shot lawyers found no proof. This is a clear example of a prosecutor who is trying to get an outcome regardless of evidence. In desperate pursuit to keep the bogus Russia collusion narrative alive, Mueller is turning to Soviet-style tactics.

The foundations of our justice system have served us well for 243 years. We should not abandon them now. Robert Mueller should follow his own advice and let his report speak for itself.
----------------------
Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. This commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions.

---

Tags: Newt Gingrich, commentary, Mueller, Wants it Both Ways To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Doubting Filmmakers & Georgia

by Tony Perkins: It wouldn't be Hollywood if there weren't drama. And in this game of chicken between Georgia and the titans of Tinsel Town, there's more of it every day.

It was all very theatrical when Netflix, Disney, Warner Media and Sony Pictures started shaking their fists at pro-life states and made hollow threats about canceling productions. For most conservatives, it was a familiar scene. The entertainment industry has been using the same script since North Carolina's HB 2, when celebrities climbed on their moral high horses to brow beat voters who believe in privacy. Now their empty bluster is directed at the South, where governors are signing abortion bans into law faster than liberals can yell, "Cut!"

This week, Disney CEO Bob Iger trotted out the same old non-committal soundbites. They would be reevaluating their projects, he promised. "We are watching it very carefully," he reassured his allies. But as well as Iger and others are delivering their lines, their performance isn't getting rave reviews from an important corner -- their actual film crews.

"None of us voted for this," said one key grip in Georgia, "and we shouldn't have to suffer because of what the politicians decided." A fight is brewing, others agreed, if their companies pull up stakes and move out.

BuzzFeed interviewed scores of frustrated people on location in the South -- some of whom are starting campaigns of their own. Callie Moore, a camera assistant who works for Starz, is launching a "Stay and Fight in Georgia" initiative. "I generally don't agree that boycotting is the right call to make a real difference here," Moore argued. "I think the film industry brings so much to the state of Georgia, economically and diversity-wise, and I think it does so much good for the state. The least we can do is fight back and try to keep it here."

"It's ultimately hurting more people than it is going to do any justice," one person fumed. "It's not going to affect the politicians and the actors. They're still going to keep going to work in other places like they always have. But... it's going to destroy us." Even liberals like former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams are using the hashtag #Consequences to remind the industry that its bravado would mean "lost jobs for carpenters, hair dressers, food workers & 100s of small businesses grown right here."

Georgia legislators, on the other hand, are probably tired of rolling out the red carpet to people who use them for their tax climate, only to turn around and shame them for the values that make it possible. "Disney is free to do what they please, but their stated intent is highly hypocritical," Stephen Kent points out in the Washington Examiner. "When Hollywood's moral values collide with dollars it's usually no contest." After all, he argues, there didn't seem to be even a whiff of this outrage when Iger shook on his sweet deals overseas.

"There's a deep display of insincerity going on anytime Hollywood studios begin boycotts of conservative states for abortion restrictions. Disney just completed production of Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, and before that was The Last Jedi, which featured memorable scenes shot in Croatia and Bolivia. In Croatia, abortion is restricted after 10 weeks. In Bolivia, it is entirely illegal. And yet, no Disney boycott."Not to mention, the Wall Street Journal points out, Iger's obvious double standard in Asia. "More than a few Americans may also notice the contradiction that Disney is more worried about filming in a U.S. state that has passed a law democratically than it is operating its theme park and hawking its films in China, which uses facial-recognition software to monitor its population and has a million Uighurs in re-education camps..."

There will be more legislators like the one in California, trying to push more studios over the hump by dangling tax breaks in front of anyone with the hutzpah to leave pro-life states. Move to a place like ours that has a better appreciation for killing babies, the bill seems to say! It's a nice try, but whatever modest incentives California can offer will still be offset by the state's suffocating regulations and higher costs.

In the meantime, if Iger is so disgusted by unborn children, maybe Georgians shouldn't wait for him to leave. Maybe they should force him out altogether. Obviously, Disney's brand of "making dreams come true" is a bygone era. "Making the Left's agenda a reality" is more like it. Threatening the people of Georgia because they simply want to allow children to be born speaks volumes of Iger's new Disney.

In the end, though, these executives still see the world through dollars. That's why these CEOs' posturing never amounts to anything. It's all an act. And by Hollywood standards, not a very good one.
--------------
Tony Perkins (@tperkins) is President of the Family Research Council . This article was on Tony Perkin's Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

---

Tags: Filmmakers, Cast Doubt, Georgia,Tony Perkins, Family Research Center, FRC, Family Research Council, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

No Credit Where Credit Is Due

by Cal Thomas: The quote is attributed to President Harry Truman, and Ronald Reagan kept it on his desk: “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

It is even more amazing what has been accomplished with the American economy, but Democratic presidential candidates, the media, and economists such as Paul Krugman of The New York Times refuse to give President Donald Trump any credit.

Recall that it was Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner, who predicted that Trump’s election would trigger “a global recession.” One continues to wait in vain for an “I was wrong” statement from him.

The Economist, a center-left British magazine that includes coverage of events in the U.S. and is no fan of the Trump administration, recently published a remarkable editorial that contains gems Republicans should quote between now and the next election.

They include a strong rebuke to the contention of many Democrats that “working people” are still struggling and that the improved economy continues to benefit only the wealthiest 1%.

The bleak picture painted by Democrats, the editorial says, “is at odds with reality.” The Economist refers to a worldwide “jobs boom” and (note to Bernie Sanders and others promoting socialism) asserts that, “Capitalism is improving workers’ lot faster than it has in years … the zeitgeist has lost touch with the data.”

Noting that U.S. unemployment at 3.6% is the lowest in 50 years, the magazine says, “Less appreciated is the abundance of jobs across most of the rich world.”

A more educated population, the matching by websites of jobs to qualified applicants, and, yes, economic stimulus efforts that helped fuel the emergence of economies from the last recession have all contributed to the American economy and many European economies.

Then there is this, which has been the gospel of conservatives for decades when it comes to welfare and its disincentive for many to find work: ” … reforms to welfare programs, both to make them less generous and to toughen eligibility tests, seem to have encouraged people to seek work.”

This has forced liberal politicians to shift their focus from the unemployed to the “quality” of jobs. British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn is quoted as saying, “Our jobs market is being turned into a sea of insecurity.”

“Reality begs to differ,” says The Economist. “Official projections” predict that by 2026, “America will have more at-home careers than secretaries.” Jobs and the skills necessary to fill them are changing, but not so rapidly that workers—and especially younger people—cannot adjust their education and training to match the new requirements.

Wages are rising almost everywhere, and, as the editorial says, tight labor markets “lead firms to fish for employees in neglected pools, including among ex-convicts. … American wonks fretted for years about how to shrink the disability-benefit rolls. Now the hot labor market is doing it for them.”

This is the argument that conservatives, many Republicans, and the Trump administration have been making for some time. Economic growth, not government, raises most boats.

While acknowledging “The jobs boom will not last forever” and that a recession will eventually “kill it off,” the editorial concludes that the economic boom “deserves a little appreciation.”

It deserves more than that and would be more than appreciated if it all happened under a Democratic president. Republicans and the Trump administration should seize on this reality and promote it every day, asking voters if they want to continue with these successful policies or return to low economic growth and fewer jobs.

It is a question Democrats and their policies of higher taxes and reimposed regulations will find difficult, if not impossible, to answer.
------------------
Cal Thomas (@CalThomas) is a syndicated columnist, author, broadcaster, and speaker with access to world leaders, U.S. presidents, celebrities, educators, and countless other notables. H/T The Daily Signal.

---

Tags: Cal Thomas, No Credit, Where Credit Is Due, President Trump To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Reservists On Duty Fight For Israel On College Campuses

. . . “UC-Irvine is the most dangerous place for Jews today.”

by Daniel Greenfield: It’s Israel Apartheid Week and the Israeli veterans and student activists of Reservists on Duty are reporting to campuses across America. Their mission is fighting back against the lies and the hate.

The annual anti-Israel campus events have become notorious for anti-Semitism and assaults on Jewish students. Posterboard walls rise on quads depicting Israel as a racist apartheid state. Fake checkpoints manned by anti-Israel activists dressed in the uniforms of Israeli soldiers pop up around the country.

Meanwhile Jewish students tuck their Stars of David into their shirts. Distinctive Jewish clothing is put away. Most Jewish students just try to keep their heads down until the ugliness of the week passes.

It’s a tough time to be pro-Israel. But the Shillman Fellows of Reservists on Duty are used to challenges.

Reservists on Duty was co-founded by Amit Deri. A major in the Israeli Defense Forces, Deri hadn’t paid much attention to politics during his decade in the military. While in the IDF, he didn’t know “what was happening outside the military”. And once he did, he was determined to fight back with the truth.

Deri had lost one of his best friends in the fight against terrorism. And he and other IDF vets founded and staffed Reservists on Duty to ensure that those sacrifices in the War on Terror would not be in vain.

On American college campuses, Deri saw for the first time just how ugly the lies were.

At the University of Houston, a school that Deri describes as one of the worst, alongside UC-Berkeley and UC-Irvine, a girl told him, "You’re taking organs from Palestinians and putting them into Israelis".

Like American soldiers during the Vietnam War, Israeli soldiers are demonized and spat on. There is no bizarre atrocity and no impossible horror, too implausible or unlikely to attribute to the men in green.

Reservists on Duty challenges the prejudices and lies by bringing actual Israeli veterans to campus.

Every Israeli Apartheid Week, they call up the ‘reservists’ who jump into action.

“We’re sending our guys there during Apartheid Week to engage with students exposed to these carnivals of hate,” Deri says.

In 3 weeks, they’ve hit over 30 campuses. The University of San Diego is one of them.

The University of San Diego isn’t holding an Apartheid Week, but Jonathan Elkhoury showed up anyway to tell his story. The Arab Christian refugee was only nine years old when he came to Israel. Like many of Israel’s Jewish refugees, his family came to Israel fleeing Islamic violence and built a new life in Israel.

Now, while working on his degree, Jonathan Elkhoury is challenging lies and preconceptions by telling his story. On campuses where no ugly smear or conspiracy theory about Israel is too extreme, he brings his own experience of both sides to bridge the gap and tell the truth about Israel and its people.

It’s not easy.

He’s been called an Uncle Tom and was spat on at George Mason University for waving an Israeli flag.

At UC Irvine, he was told that Haifa is an apartheid city with a separate transportation system for Jews and Arabs. Elkhoury, who had lived in Haifa laughed and replied that it was the most diverse city in Israel. As a child, he had grown up attending a school with students of different of religions and backgrounds. He knows better than anyone else that the apartheid myth is really a big lie.

And now, at the University of San Diego, Elkhoury had achieved a breakthrough.

It was an “amazing moment,” Elkhoury told me. Usually the anti-Israel activists heckle, yell and refuse to participate. But this time, he had convinced a Muslim student from the West Bank to hold a dialogue. As their conversation evolved, the student agreed that the ‘Palestinian’ leadership was the problem.

The amazing moment was just another day for an amazing organization and its Shillman Fellows.

Deri, along with Elkhoury, had been spat on at George Mason University. Elkhoury has been at UC Berkeley. At UC Irvine, one of the women with Reservists on Duty was pushed and another spat on.

But some of the activists have seen worse in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. It’ll take a lot more than spitting and shoving to stop them. Instead, the members of Reservists on Duty go on the offensive.

Creatively.

When anti-Israel activists hold a ‘die-in’ at Berkeley to protest Israel, Reservists on Duty show up in IDF medic shirts with medical equipment, and announce, “We are IDF medics, there’s been a Hamas terror attack, and we are here to treat wounded regardless of their race or religion.”

The creative disruption is part of what Deri calls a ‘chutzpah’ strategy.

“Chutzpah is something that is missing among American Jews,“ he chuckles. “You have to be in Israel for three or four years.”

The other side, he says, has plenty of it. And he’d like to teach American Jews some chutzpah and pride.

At fake checkpoints where anti-Israel activists dressed up as IDF soldiers abuse and humiliate anti-Israel activists dressed up as Arab civilians, the real deal show up with signs warning that the scene is a lie.

"I am an actual IDF soldier, ask me questions,” they announce.

And there are many takers.

When an anti-Israel activist dressed as an IDF soldier puts his hands on a pregnant woman, an actual veteran intervenes. “Male soldiers are not allowed to touch women,” he points out.

Reservists on Duty challenge the lies of the campus ‘Apartheid walls’ with their own displays. But instead of just defending Israel, they go on the offensive, telling the truth about the treatment of Christians, women and gays in the territories under terrorist control. Feminist students are told about honor killings. Gay students are warned that Islamists would happily throw them off the nearest building.

And Elkhoury, the leader of The Minorities Projects at Reservists On Duty, tells his story.

He’s one of over a dozen members, Christian, Druze, Bedouin, and Muslim, who confront campus intersectionality with the truth of Israel’s diversity.

Elkhoury, whose family built a new life in Israel, wants students to know that “Israel is more than the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

“Diversity is the story of Israel,” he says. And Reservists on Duty represent that diversity.

With Christians disappearing from the Middle East, the Christian refugee sees Israel as a model for the region. The same fanatics who had kicked out Jews in the 40s and 50s are now expelling his people.

His work with Reservists on Duty is an opportunity to protect the country where his family found safety.

Deri agrees that Christians are natural partners in the ugly culture wars of campus politics. “As Israelis and Americans, we share the same values and the same way of life, they will come to attack you.”

Some might be daunted by the hostility of the contemporary campus, but the brotherhood of the reservists, forged in the toughness of adversity, sees victory where others can only envision defeat.

“UC-Irvine is the most a dangerous place for Jews today,” Deri mentions. And pauses. California campuses are “the most hostile and violent.” At SDU and UC Irvine, they encounter the same activists every year. "They never graduate from college," he observes. His mission is reaching the actual students.

And that can be challenging.

When Students for Justice in Palestine and members of the Muslim Students Association see them, they become more aggressive. But that also brings out the hateful and violent nature of their opponents.

“I'm optimistic because a lot of people get it,” Amit Deri tells me. “They've been on the attack for 30 years, you have to pick specific battles, and we chose Apartheid Week.”

And he has his own shining moments and success stories.

At Columbia University, one student told Deri that he had spent three years going to Students for Justice in Palestine meetings. “All I ever saw was Israeli apartheid week,” the student told Deri. “I'm in shock, I never knew this. And next time I go to an SJP meeting, I'll have some questions for them."

Reservists on Duty, generously funded by Robert Shillman, was founded in 2015. After four years of hard work, its members have turned a brotherhood into a movement to take back the campus. They travel together, they advocate together, and they want to pass down their esprit de corps to pro-Israel students on campus.

“One of our missions is to give people pride,” Deri tells me. “Many people deep inside are pro-Israel, whether Jewish or non-Jewish, but they're too afraid to be active because of the harassment.

The activists of Reservists on Duty want students to feel that they’re fighting for the right thing.

“I want them to feel,” Deri concludes. “Yeah I'm proud, I'm pro-Israel.”
------------------
Daniel Greenfield (@Sultanknish) is Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an investigative journalist and writer focusing on radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

---

Tags: Daniel Greenfield, FrontPage Mag, Reservists On Duty, Fight For Israel, On College Campuses To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Alaska Earthquake, Trump Tries Again, Clinton's Comedy Routine

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Alaska Earthquake
Did you feel that Earthquake? It happened up in Alaska, and the shockwaves were really strong here in Washington, D.C.

During a trip to Anchorage this week, Attorney General William Barr sat down for an interview with CBS News reporter Jan Crawford. While most of Crawford's questions focused on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's statement Wednesday, she also asked about Barr's investigation of the deep state and the origins of the Russian collusion hoax.

Here's what the attorney general said:

"I had a lot of questions about what was going on. . . I have not gotten answers that are, well, satisfactory, and in fact I probably have more questions. . . some of the facts that I've learned don't hang together with the official explanations of what happened. . . Things are just not jiving."

As we all know, President Trump was very critical of the U.S. intelligence community when he came into office. The left, which spent decades demonizing the intelligence community, attacked Trump for undermining the FBI and other "patriots." Some conservatives, who are naturally inclined to support the intelligence community, joined the left in piling on the president.

But given what we know now -- about Strzok and Page, Comey and McCabe, Ohr and Steele, Brennan and Clapper -- it is totally understandable why Trump did not trust the intelligence community.

Trump knew they spied on him. He knew they despised him and had treated him like he was a Russian agent. And some in the deep state are still fighting Barr's efforts to get to the bottom of this "soft coup."

Trump Tries Again
Heads are exploding all over Washington (and on Wall Street) today in response to President Trump's latest attempt to control our borders.

Late yesterday Trump announced that he is imposing a series of graduated tariffs on products from Mexico until that country stops allowing itself to be used as a conduit for illegal immigration into the United States.

Here are some excerpts of the president's statement:

"For decades, the United States has suffered the severe and dangerous consequences of illegal immigration. Sadly, Mexico has allowed this situation to go on for many years. . . From a safety, national security, military, economic, and humanitarian standpoint, we cannot allow this grave disaster to continue.

"The current state of affairs is profoundly unfair to the American taxpayer, who bears the extraordinary financial cost imposed by large-scale illegal migration. Even worse is the terrible and preventable loss of human life. . .

"Mexico must step up and help solve this problem. . . my highest duty is the defense of the country and its citizens. A nation without borders is not a nation at all. I will not stand by and allow our sovereignty to be eroded, our laws to be trampled, or our borders to be disrespected anymore."

Just so you understand the severity of the crisis at our southern border, Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan told reporters yesterday that an average of 4,500 illegal immigrants are crossing the border every day. That's more than six times the number compared to May of 2017.

Something must be done. But progressives in Congress refuse to address this crisis, while Obama judges routinely block the president's efforts to control the border. So, he's trying something else -- pressuring Mexico to control its borders.

It is striking to see the left spending so much effort every single day on reversing the results of the 2016 election. When they aren't trying to impeach Trump, they are trying to stop him from addressing the serious issues we are facing.

Perhaps the president can dedicate the tariff money to building the wall. And while we're at it, why don't we tax the $148 billion in remittances that leave America every year? A small tax on that money would go a long way toward building the wall!

How's That Again?
Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, has joined the left-wing assault on Georgia's new pro-life law. He said it would be "very difficult" for Disney to continue working in Georgia if the heartbeat law remains in effect.

So what he essentially said was that if Georgia does not allow the continued killing of unborn children, Disney cannot continue making films for children in Georgia. Shouldn't Disney want more children to be born?

I don't know how they did it, but somehow Hollywood managed to make a lot of great movies in America well before Roe v. Wade became law. Walt Disney must be rolling over in his grave.

Clinton's Comedy Routine
With her career in politics over, it seems that Hillary Clinton is trying her hand at comedy. Apparently, Hillary will be one of the keynote speakers at a major cybersecurity event this fall. At first, I thought this must be a story from the satire site The Onion. But it's real.

FireEye announced that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will deliver one of the keynote addresses at its upcoming Cyber Defense Summit, and will "engage in an intimate Q&A discussion." Just imagine the questions that could be asked!

The company said the summit is an opportunity to hear from "informative and insightful industry thought leaders," and to "share best practices, learn about the latest advancements, and enhance your cyber preparedness."

When did Hillary become an industry thought leader or expert on cyber security best practices?

I've got a few suggestions for titles of her keynote address -- "Cyber Security: What Not To Do," "Private Servers: How Best To Evade Best Practices," and "The Clinton Cyber Security Plan: BleachBit, Hammers & Lawyers."

Values Voter Summit
Join me in our nation's capital, October 11th - 13th, for the 2019 Values Voter Summit.

Vice President Mike Pence said, "The Values Voter Summit [is] the greatest gathering of conservative pro-family Americans in the nation." And he is absolutely right! That's why American Values, my non-profit public policy organization, has been a proud sponsor of the Summit every year.

As always, this year's Summit will feature an incredible lineup of top government officials, opinion makers and faith leaders. There will be educational and informative breakout sessions, as well as events honoring those who have made significant contributions to the conservative movement.

American Values will be hosting a special luncheon Saturday, October 12th.

Register now to lock in the lowest rates. Early bird registration ends tonight!

I look forward to seeing you there.
-------------------
Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families
Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Alaska Earthquake, Trump Tries Again, Clinton's Comedy Routine To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Reagan Nails It - Mueller's Big Nothing Burger

Michael Reagan

by Michael Reagan: There was a big media buildup and a lot of wild guessing by the pundits on FOX and CNN about what Special Counsel Robert Mueller was going to say in his public statement on Wednesday.

But in the end, after Mueller’s nearly 10-minute sum-up of his two-year, $40 million investigation into Russian election interference in the 2016 election, we were left with no bombshells, no smoking guns, no surprise twists — nothing new.

We heard nothing from Mueller we didn’t already know, and he took no questions from reporters.

But because the language Mueller used this week was different from the language Attorney General William Barr used when he summarized the basic conclusions of the Mueller Report Barr in April, Mueller’s statement gave a fresh jolt of energy and hope to the Deranged Democrats’ dream of impeaching the president.

Everyone knows that if Mueller had found even a whiff of collusion with the Russians or the slightest hint of obstruction of justice by President Trump, he would have already made that charge — in BIG CAPITAL LETTERS — on page one of his 400-plus-page report.

Mueller didn’t do that in April and he didn’t do it Wednesday.

But that didn’t stop most of the 23 Democrats running for president or the Trump Hate Media from slobbering all over Mueller’s deviously worded and legally shifty statement.

The Democrats and CNN’s embarrassingly unbalanced panels of Trump-hating journalists parsed every other word to “prove” that, see, Mueller thought Trump really was guilty of obstruction but he just couldn’t charge him because he’s a sitting president.

Now, thanks to what Mueller said and didn’t say, the craziest Democrats in the House wanted to start impeaching the president yesterday morning. But Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi knows nothing new was learned Wednesday that wasn’t already in Mueller’s report.

Pelosi may eventually be forced by her caucus to proceed with impeachment, but she knows that it would probably backfire politically on the Democrats in 2020 and that it is never going to happen anyway as long as Republicans rule the Senate.

Despite the liberal media’s biased overreaction, Mueller’s statement was another fizzled “blockbuster” in the “Russian Collision” fantasy that diehard Trump haters still think was real.

The issue Mueller raised that should matter most to Americans now is, “What exactly did the Russians do to screw with our democracy in 2016?” and “What should we be doing to prevent them from trying to screw with our elections next fall?”

None of the Democrats running for president said anything about working on legislation to prevent Russian hackers from meddling in our elections again.

All they and their soulmates in the liberal media did was declare Mueller a great American patriot and climb on the “Impeach Trump Now” bandwagon.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin and his old KGB comrades in Moscow are still laughing their butts off about 2016.

They didn’t spend much on Facebook ads. They didn’t hack our election systems and change vote totals. And they didn’t help Trump steal the White House from Hillary.

But their meddling has succeeded in disrupting the American political system far beyond Putin’s wildest dreams.

And thanks to the sore-loser Democrats and the Trump-hating establishment media, both of which still refuse to believe Trump could have beaten Hillary without committing a crime or treason, Russia’s interference is still succeeding.

Mueller made a big deal out of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election on Wednesday and stressed in his written report how deeply involved they were.

But you don’t hear the Democrats in Congress and the liberal media talking about the importance of stopping the Russians from interfering in our elections.

All we’re hearing is the “I” word — impeachment.

In the end, the deranged reaction to Mueller’s statement by the Democrats in Congress and their soulmates in the media has made it clear — for the hundredth time — that they are much more interested in stopping Trump in 2020 than stopping the Russians.
-------------------
Michael Reagan is the president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation and President Ronald Reagan’s eldest son.  H/T The Patriot Post.

---

Tags: Michael Reagan, Robert Mueller, Big Nothing Burger To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

What a Hash Mueller Made of It

Robert Mueller

by Patrick Buchanan: Republicans should not let Mueller skate on this. For the James Comey-Mueller investigation is itself in need of investigation.

What is it about special counsel Robert Mueller that he cannot say clearly and concisely what he means?

His nine-minute summary of the findings of his office, after two years of investigation, was a mess. It guarantees that the internecine warfare that has poisoned our politics continues into 2020.

If it was the intention of the Russian hackers and trolls of 2016 to sow discord within their great power rival, they have succeeded beyond their dreams.

Consider. Of the charge of conspiracy to collude with the Russians to hack the emails of the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Mueller said, “there was insufficient evidence to charge a larger conspiracy.”

This suggests that there was at least some evidence to conclude that Donald Trump’s campaign did conspire with Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin to fix the 2016 election, just not enough evidence to sustain a charge of treason.

Didn’t they use to call this McCarthyism?

On obstruction of justice, Trump attempting to impede his investigation, Mueller said: “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”

“Mueller Declines to Absolve Trump” was The New York Times headline.

That tells us that Mueller would not give Trump absolution. But why would Trump need absolution, if he did not commit the crime?

Mueller implied that his refusal to charge Trump publicly was based on a Justice Department ruling that presidents cannot be indicted.

But if the special counsel cannot indict a sitting president, and ought not charge him, as, said Mueller, it is “unfair to accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge,” then what was the point of naming a special counsel?

If Mueller actually believes Trump was guilty of obstruction, why did he not forthrightly declare: “While the Justice Department’s interpretation of the Constitution precludes my office us from indicting President Trump, we believe his actions during the course of our investigation constituted an obstruction of justice.”

At least we would have clarity. Now we have Mueller walking out, without taking questions, and leaving us with this toxic mush.

Republicans should not let Mueller skate on this. For the James Comey-Mueller investigation is itself in need of investigation.

Among the questions that need answering:

If, after two years, Mueller found “insufficient evidence” of collusion by Trump, what was the compelling evidence that justified launching the investigation of collusion during the Obama era?

Did that earlier “evidence” turn out to be false allegations and lies?

When did Mueller discover that George Papadopoulos and Carter Page were not agents of the GRU or KGB?

When did Mueller decide there was no collusion or conspiracy?

Was it not until this spring? Or has Mueller known for a good while there was no conspiracy?

Why are these questions important? Because the investigation itself, leaving as it did a cloud over the legitimacy of the president, was damaging not only to Trump but also to the nation. As long as half the country believed Trump was an agent or asset or blackmail victim of Putin, the nation could not come together.

Did Mueller feel no obligation to clear up that false impression as swiftly and fully as possible, if, indeed, he believes it is false?

When did Mueller discover the Steele dossier was the product of a dirt-diving operation, financed by the Clinton campaign and fabricated by a Trump-hating ex-chief of British intelligence with long ties both to former agents of Russia’s FSB and James Comey’s FBI?

Did Mueller ever suspect that the investigation he inherited was a takedown operation, instigated by enemies of Trump who were determined that he never become president or, if he did, that his tenure would be short?

Mueller’s performance Wednesday has reinvigorated the impeach-Trump caucus. But it has disserved the Democratic Party as much as it has the country.

The progressive left and its media auxiliaries, rabid on the subject, are egging on and cheering for candidates who call for impeachment. As of now, at least eight Democratic presidential candidates favor hearings.

The Democratic left is out to break Nancy Pelosi’s resistance.

If they succeed and this city and the nation turn their attention to a titanic battle to see if the Democratic Party can remove the Republican president, it will be bad news for the republic.

The real business of the nation will be put off until 2021.

Meanwhile, the Venezuela crisis is smoldering, and Sen. Lindsey Graham is urging an ultimatum to Cuba to get its forces out.

North Korea is testing missiles again, with few believing Kim Jong Un will give up the security provided by his nuclear weapons.

And John Bolton is in the Middle East accusing Iran of acts of sabotage and war in Yemen and the Gulf, and of threats to American forces in Iraq.

Mueller’s assignment was to give us answers. After two years, he gave us options.

The nation will pay a price for Mueller’s muddling indecisiveness.
--------------------
Patrick Buchanan (@PatrickBuchanan) is currently a blogger, conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior adviser to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000.

---

Tags: Patrick Buchanan, conservative, commentary, What a Hash, Mueller Made of It To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Mark Levin’s ‘Unfreedom of the Press’

David Limbaugh 

by David Limbaugh: With his latest blockbuster, “Unfreedom of the Press,” Mark Levin presents a unique indictment of the liberal media today — something I doubted could be done, given the plethora of material already written on this subject.

It is sweepingly comprehensive, covering the history of the American press from before the nation’s founding through modern times, yet accessibly succinct — 226 pages, excluding the acknowledgments and notes.

It is tough on the mainstream media but is anything but a ranting screed. A passionate patriot, Levin says this book’s purpose “is to jump-start a long-overdue and hopefully productive dialogue among the American citizenry on how best to deal with the complicated and complex issue of the media’s collapsing role as a bulwark of liberty, the civil society, and republicanism …”

With his formidable background in constitutional law and history, Levin provides a fascinating tour of the American free press, from its indispensable role in the establishment of this republic, to its evolution through various phases that culminate in an ideologically possessed institution that is firmly aligned with one political party and is mostly hostile to America’s founding principles.

The media’s alliance with a political party (the Democratic Party) is not the first time we’ve seen this phenomenon in our history. Levin notes that from the 1780s to the 1860s (the party-press era), most newspapers aligned themselves with a politician, a campaign or a political party. But there were at least two critically important differences.

During the party-press era, “newspapers lined up fairly evenly behind one party or the other or one candidate or the other,” so balanced competition alone served as a safeguard against manipulation of the citizenry by a monolithic media. Also, and perhaps more important, newspapers “transparently proclaimed their partisanship.”

Today’s liberal media are wholly in the tank for the Democratic Party, but they steadfastly deny it, which facilitates their ability to deceive and indoctrinate the public. They are not on the party’s payroll or subsidized by it, as some of yesterday’s newspapers and journalists were, but today there is no denying “the revolving door of journalists and/or their family members serving primarily in Democratic administrations, Democratic congressional offices, and Democratic campaigns — and vice versa.”

Levin traces the notion of objectivity in reporting to the Progressive Era in the early 1920s when the “scientific approach to journalism” spread through newsrooms. Journalists were urged to adopt objectivity by developing a consistent method of testing information so that personal and cultural biases would not undermine the accuracy of their reporting.

Whether there was ever an era when journalists pursued objective truth, by the 1950s, the media began to abandon that goal in favor of “interpretive reporting” through their progressive lenses. They don’t even try to separate fact from opinion anymore; rather, they infuse every aspect of the profession with their liberal biases, including the selection, gathering and reporting of the news. There is no ideological or intellectual diversity in their newsrooms. They’re all in disgraceful lockstep.

The media are so ensconced in the progressive worldview that it’s sometimes difficult to tell whether they are intentionally deluding the public or deluding themselves — as they are convinced that their biased reporting meets their warped standard of objectivity. If you believe that only one political viewpoint is worthy of airing (because all other viewpoints are objectively sinister and dangerous), then you might, in a twisted way, think you are being objective by reporting only one side.

Besides, today’s self-righteous liberal media elites have graduated from such trifling concerns as pursuing objective standards, while pretending to adhere to them. They have fully embraced the philosophy of progressive intellectual John Dewey, that the Progressive Movement must not squander “the most important tool of mass communication for advancing its ideological program — a radical break from America’s heritage, culture, and founding, particularly the principle of individual freedom and market capitalism.” In other words, progressives must commandeer the media and enlist their key players and soldiers to harness the incomparable power their positions afford them, engage in full-throated activism and fundamentally transform America.

Today’s media would make Dewey proud. The purpose of a free press “is to nurture the mind, communicate ideas, challenge ideologies, share notions, inspire creativity, and advocate and reinforce America’s founding principles — that is, to contribute to a vigorous, productive, healthy, and happy individual and to a well-functioning civil society and republic,” writes Levin. But today’s newsrooms “do not promote free speech and press freedom, despite their self-serving and self-righteous claims. Indeed, they serve as societal filters attempting to enforce uniformity of thought and social and political activism centered on the progressive ideology and agenda.”

Instead of pursuing these lofty goals, the media are doing the exact opposite: functioning as a propaganda tool for the Democratic Party and its ideology, thereby destroying their reason for existence and “threatening the existence of a free republic.”

While the media and their Democratic Party colleagues breathlessly warn that President Trump is a threat to the free press, they are just projecting. Trump is simply defending himself and issuing a clarion call to Americans, warning us that the partisan media are the real threat — both to the institution of a free press and to the republic.

Levin isn’t calling for government action against the press, but he is calling on us to inform ourselves of the threat (SET ITAL) they (END ITAL) pose to our liberties and exhorting us to “demand a media worthy of our great republic.”

Unlike the liberal media elite, I proudly admit my bias in favor of my friend Mark Levin. But trust me: You’ll learn tons and be greatly enriched by this book.
---------------------
David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book is "Jesus is Risen: Paul and the Early Church." Follow him on Twitter& @davidlimbaugh and his website at davidlimbaugh.com.

---

Tags: David Limbaugh, Mark Levin, ‘Unfreedom of the Press’ To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Sometimes Parties Have to Change to Thrive -- or Even Survive

Michael Barone

by Michael Barone: Political parties generally go unappreciated, even among those inclined to celebrate representative democracy. The Founding Fathers famously didn't like them yet found themselves forming them, not long after the First Congress assembled.

This suggests something I have come to believe while writing essays on our two long-lived American parties: The quality of electoral democracy depends heavily on the performance, the steadiness and the adaptability of admittedly self-interested political parties.

They haven't done very well lately, especially in the European Parliament elections conducted over the last week. Traditional parties of the left, long the favorite of blue-collar workers in industrialized societies, seem to be fading out of existence.

The British Labour Party got 14 percent of the vote, its lowest since 1910. France's Socialists, a governing party just two years ago, got 6 percent. Germany's Social Democrats, founded in 1880, were at 15 percent. These parties' working-class base has been shrinking, and their metropolitan intellectuals are flaking off to Greens or (in Britain) anti-Brexit Lib Dems.

Traditional parties of the right aren't doing much better. Fourteen-year Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU was at 29 percent. France's Gaullist Party was swept aside two years ago by Emmanuel Macron's personal party, which was outpolled last week by Marine Le Pen's National Rally.

Britain's Conservatives got 9 percent -- the weakest showing ever for a party founded in 1846, 1834 or 1678, according to various reckonings. In contrast, the Brexit Party, founded just this year, finished number one, with 31 percent.

This is a rebuke of Prime Minister Theresa May, who was forced to announce her resignation before the results were announced. She failed to obtain Brexit -- leaving the European Union -- after it was approved by a record turnout of voters in June 2016.

The Brexit vote split the electorate in different ways from traditional patterns. Conservatives were long the party of the upper and middle class, and Labour the party of workers. France historically was split between Catholics and anticlericals, Germany between Protestant socialists and the Catholic CDU/CSU.

Increasingly, the split is now between what the British analyst David Goodhart calls the "Anywheres" and the "Somewheres." The Anywheres are the high-education metropolitan elites -- think former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron -- and their less well-off neighbors, plus racial minorities. Somewheres tend to be less educated and located in the heartland countryside, where their families have been for generations.

Thus, in 2016, London voted 60 percent and Scotland 62 percent against Brexit. But the rest of England -- the large majority of the country -- voted 57 percent for Brexit. Last week, the Brexit Party carried 9 of 11 UK regions, while Lib Dems carried London and Scottish Nationalists carried Scotland.

That's a fit response to the Anywheres' arrogant dismissal of Brexit voters as racists too stupid to decide such an issue; to their brain-dead proposal (echoed by May) of a second referendum; and to their predictions, so far unfulfilled, that Brexit would be an economic disaster.

The division between Anywheres and Somewheres, and a corresponding sweeping-aside of traditional parties, is apparent in France and Germany as well. Italy, which seemed to be developing a stable two-party system in the 1990s and 2000s, is now governed by a left-right coalition of a party founded by a left-wing comedian 10 years ago and a right-wing party formerly limited to the country's prosperous north.

The division is also apparent in last month's election in Australia, in which the traditional parties' constituencies were altered just marginally by the Labour Party's climate change policies, enabling the center-light Liberals to gain blue-collar votes while losing a high-education seat held by a former prime minister.

That's similar to the movements that started in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton's New Democrats made gains in affluent states and districts while hanging on just enough to win in the Rust Belt and Appalachia. Those trends were apparent, in vividly amplified form, in Donald Trump's election in 2016 and Democrats' capture of the House in 2018.

The question now is whether the far-out policies backed by many Democratic presidential candidates -- the Green New Deal, ninth-month abortions, open borders, race reparations -- will harm their party more than Donald Trump's uncouthness harms his.

It may be that, by nominating and now almost unanimously supporting Trump, despite his break from party ideology on immigration and trade, Republicans have enabled their party to transition beyond 1990-2010 alignments and adapt to the emerging division between Anywheres and Somewheres. Sometimes even ancient parties must change in order to thrive -- or even survive.
--------------------------
Michael Barone is a Senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner and a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel  and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics Shared by Rasmussen Reports.

---

Tags: Michael Barone, editorial, Rasmussen Reports, Sometimes Parties, Have to Change, to Thrive, Even Survive To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Sharpshooter . . .

. . . Some feel Pelosi is trying to hold back many in the Democrat party from impeaching President because it could hurt their chances in the coming 2020 election.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

---

Tags: AF Branco, editorial cartoon, sharpshooter, Some feel, Pelosi, trying to hold back,
Democrat party, from impeaching President, it could hurt their chances, 2020 election To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Guilty. Guilty! Guilty?

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: “No responsible prosecutor,” Alan Dershowitz writes in The Hill, “should ever suggest that the subject of his investigation might indeed be guilty even if there was insufficient evidence or other reasons not to indict.”

Don’t I know it.

The world-famous lawyer takes issue with the “statement by special counsel Robert Mueller in a Wednesday press conference that ‘if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that.’”* Dershowitz makes a good case that the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ principle requires the government not merely to refrain from imposing punishment before obtaining a lawful conviction, but also to hold back from punishing people by making loud public claims about their supposed guilt.

Which brings to mind my own experience at U.S. Term Limits. In 1994, we ran radio ads and sent mail to citizens in two Oklahoma congressional districts and one in Kentucky. We did not urge a vote for or against anyone, but merely provided information on where the candidates stood.

Yet, prompted by a complaint from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which prefers ignorant to knowledgeable voters, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) investigated.

As if to foreshadow current prosecutorial proclivities, the FEC abandoned its witch hunt after two long years. Relieved the agency’s harassment was finally over, I remember opening an Oklahoma newspaper and discovering a story headlined, “Term Limits Group Violated Law in State, U.S. Agency Charges.”

This problem goes well beyond Mr. Mueller and President Trump. Government agencies that cannot prosecute, should not persecute.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Dershowitz calls Mueller’s comments “worse than the statement made by then-FBI Director James Comey regarding Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.”
------------------
Paul Jacob (@Common_Sense_PJ ) is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacob is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.

---

Tags: Paul Jacob, Common Sense, Alan Dershowitz, Guilty, U.S. Term Limits To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

HHS Protects Religious Freedom in Healthcare

Eagle Forum: The American tax-payer had another win for their pocketbook this week!

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a regulatory reform to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Section 1557. This section applies current civil rights laws and regulations to the healthcare industry.

In 2016, an Obama-era rule expanded Section 1557’s definition of discrimination on the “basis of sex” to include pregnancy termination and gender identity. This rule put hospitals at risk of being sued if they refused to perform abortions or sex reassignment surgeries. Religious hospitals would be forced to violate their conscience and their First Amendment rights. Yet another example of the government trying to make tax-payer funded abortions and the LGBT agenda mainstream.

Even though the expansion was struck down by two federal courts, the rule still remained. Once the Trump Administration noticed this massive overreach of the federal government, they took action to rescind the rule. Now, HHS’s current revised rule will conform with the recognized understanding of “basis of sex” that is commonly held by the court, which does not include pregnancy termination or gender identity. The new rule is estimated to save Americans about $3.6 billion in regulatory costs over a five-year period and will continue to enforce real discrimination in healthcare on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, age, and sex.

As expected, abortion-rights and LGBT groups have filed lawsuits to block the rule. While the court process takes time, we fully expect the rule to eventually be upheld. Eagle Forum applauds HHS for taking a bold step to protect religious freedom in the healthcare industry.
-------------------
Eagle Forum leading the pro-family since 1972.

---

Tags: Eagle Forum, HHS, Protects Religious Freedom, Healthcare To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Sen. Elizabeth Warren - May 2019 Porker of the Month

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
May 2019 Porker of the Month

(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) its May 2019 Porker of the Month for for proposing a taxpayer-funded student loan bailout and “free” college.

On April 22, 2019, Sen. Warren proposed a plan for universal free college and the cancellation of “debt for more than 95 percent of the nearly 45 million Americans with student loan debt.” The plan was immediately panned by several observers. USA Today wrote that it, “flunks fiscal and fairness tests.”

While her solution is foolish, Sen. Warren’s focus on the student loan bubble is laudable, because it resembles the housing bubble before it crashed in 2007-2008. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, “the average cost of a four-year education rose by 64 percent” over the past two decades, with the average college cost now more than $100,000. This never-ending increase in tuition has been caused by the artificially expanded availability of loans, which provides no incentive to colleges and universities to keep tuition low. The New York Federal Reserve found that, “for every dollar in new subsidized student loans the government offers, schools jack up the price of tuition by 60 cents.”
Sen. Warren’s plan would pour taxpayer-funded gasoline on this fiscal inferno and accelerate the backwards incentive structure that necessitates taking out ever-costlier loans. Worse yet, the Brookings Institution found that, “nearly half of the estimated $640 billion to be forgiven under her plan would go to the top 40% of earners.”

CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “Sen. Warren needs to be reminded that the worst way to lower the cost of something is for the government to deem it ‘free.’ Tuition continues to rise because of the endless availability of credit, which perversely necessitates higher loans. Sen. Warren’s unfair and costly plan would exacerbate this crisis and push students deeper into long-term debt.”

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government. For more than two decades, Porker of the Month is a dubious honor given to lawmakers, government officials, and political candidates who have shown a blatant disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

---

Tags: Citizens Against Government Waste, CAGW, porker of the month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, May 2019 Porker of the Month, universal free college, cancellation of “debt To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Nothing New In Mueller Statement As Special Counsel All But Urges Impeachment

by Robert Romano: With a wink and a nod, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller dove into partisan politics to try and kickstart the Democratic House’s impeachment proceedings.

In a spoken statement in which he announced his resignation as Special Counsel on May 29, Mueller reminded House Democrats, “As set forth in our report, after that investigation, if we had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that.”

Mueller added, “We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the President did commit a crime. The introduction to volume two of our report explains that decision.” It was against Department of Justice regulation, Mueller said, “under long-standing Department policy, a President cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional.”

And, the kicker, Mueller noted his report, which will be his final word on the matter, “says that the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting President of wrongdoing.”

Get it? Mueller is saying he’s not going to come out and say the President committed a crime, but he’s not going to say he didn’t commit a crime, either. So much for the presumption of innocence. Either way, he put the ball firmly in Congress’ court.

Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz blasted Mueller’s press statement in an oped for the Hill, writing, “By putting his thumb, indeed his elbow, on the scale of justice in favor of impeachment based on obstruction of justice, Mueller has revealed his partisan bias. He also has distorted the critical role of a prosecutor in our justice system.”

Dershowitz is right. Mueller’s job was to ascertain if a chargeable offense had been committed, and if so, to either bring an indictment or to bring a recommendation to the Attorney General.

Mueller blinked. He did neither, and instead left it to Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to make their own determination.

In announcing the principal conclusions in the Mueller report, and in reviewing the report, on March 24 Barr said he and Rosenstein had found “no actions that, in our judgment, constitute obstructive conduct, had a nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding, and were done with corrupt intent, each of which, under the Department’s principles of federal prosecution guiding charging decisions, would need to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to establish an obstruction-of justice offense…”

Barr added, “Our determination was made without regard to, and is not based on, the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting president.”

Moreover, in testimony before Congress, Barr noted that many of the items of supposed obstruction were things that the President constitutionally had the power to do, such as firing FBI Director James Comey or contemplating removing Special Counsel Mueller.

Either way, now Mueller is all but encouraging Congress to act on impeachment using his report as a roadmap. But at the same time, it is a half-hearted move. Mueller said he will not be testifying to Congress or saying anything beyond his written report.

Why is he so reluctant to testify? Maybe he’s worried about questions from the other side. When did he know there was no conspiracy with Russia? Why didn’t he shut down the investigation then?

Mueller’s statement does not add any new information that was not already stated in the report. It was meant as one more dramatic rollout of his findings, essentially for political consumption, with the potential effect of boosting public support for impeachment — a necessary ingredient if the House is to proceed.

In the meantime, the American people are ready to move on. In the latest Morning Consult-Politico poll, only 40 percent of voters support impeachment as a priority, and almost all of them are Democrats. 71 percent of Democrats called it a top priority or an important priority, but only 31 percent of Independents and 12 percent of Republicans agreed.

In the meantime, 50 percent of voters, including 82 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of Independents said it was not a priority or shouldn’t happen.

Which is no wonder. The whole reason for the Mueller investigation, its stated reason for being was to determine if President Donald Trump and his campaign in 2016 had conspired with Russia to steal the election. Instead the Mueller report said, “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” and “the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference.”

In short, this whole investigation was into a crime that was never even committed. And the tangential supposed obstruction was in fact the President reacting to that fact.

The American people have had enough of this. They want President Trump to serve out his term. In 2020, they will determine if they want four more years. Moreover, the public lack of support for impeachment is bad for Democrats. Everything they do on this matter from here forward is nothing more or less than a continuation of their never-ending attempt to undo the 2016 election results.

They have an uphill battle, and in the meantime, the case still has not been made. And after Mueller’s two-year exhaustive probe, it won’t be. It is sad and pathetically appropriate that the Democrats who reject America First as a political slogan, should also use their power to undermine and delegitimize the duly elected President of the United States in this manner. Sad, indeed.
----------------
Robert Romano (@LimitGovt) is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

---

Tags: Robert Romano, Americans For Limited Government, Nothing New,Mueller Statement, All But, Urges Impeachment To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Trump Has Become the Democrats’ Great White Whale

Victor Davis Hanson

by Dr. Victor Davis Hanson: One way of envisioning the Democratic obsessions with Donald Trump is as an addiction.

We have seen the initial impeachment efforts; the attempt to get him under the emoluments clause, the Logan Act and the 25th Amendment; the Russian collusion hoax; the Mueller investigation; the demand for his tax returns; and the psychodramas involving Michael Avenatti, Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels.

Relentless progressives have needed a new Get Trump fix about every two months.

More practically, their fixation also substitutes for a collective poverty of ideas. The Democratic Party has no plan to secure the borders other than to be against whatever Trump is for. They would not build a wall, deport illegal entrants, end sanctuary cities, fine employers or do much of anything but allow almost anyone to enter the U.S.

The homeless crisis is reaching epidemic proportions in our cities, almost all of them run by progressive mayors and city councils. None have any workable plan to clean the sidewalks of needles and human excrement. None know what do with the hundreds of thousands who have camped out in public spaces, endangering their own health and everyone around them due to drug addiction and inadequate sanitation and waste removal.

On abortion, the new Democratic position seems to be that the unborn can be aborted at any time the mother chooses, up to and including the moment of birth.

The Green New Deal has been endorsed by most of the current Democratic primary candidates, even though they privately know its utopian fantasies would shut down the U.S. economy and destroy the present prosperity fueled by record energy production, deregulation, and tax reform and reduction.

Abroad, were Democrats for or against abrogating the Iran nuclear deal, moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and prodding China to follow reciprocal trade rules? How do they propose to deal with North Korean nuclear-tipped missiles that seemed to suddenly appear as Barack Obama left office?

Have Democrats proposed canceling the new pipeline construction that Trump has fast-tracked? Would they scale way back on the natural gas and oil production that has made America energy-independent and on the cusp of becoming the world’s greatest energy exporter?

Democrats have occasionally talked of implementing reparations for slavery, a wealth tax and free college tuition, and of eliminating college debt, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Electoral College. Yet they have never spelled out exactly how they would enact such radical proposals that likely do not appeal to a majority of the population.

Would they reverse Trump tax cuts, stop hectoring NATO members to pay their promised defense contributions, restore NAFTA or revive the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement?

For now, no one has much of an idea what Democratic candidates would actually do, much less how they would do it.

Instead, the fallback position is always that “Trump stole the 2016 election,” “the Mueller report did not really exonerate Trump of collusion and obstruction,” and “Trump must be impeached or somehow stopped from finishing his first term.”

When the Mueller report found no collusion and no indictable grounds for obstruction of the non-crime of collusion, for a moment progressives suffered an identity crisis.

The temporary paralysis was prompted by the terror that without a crusade to remove Trump, they might have to offer an alternative vision and agenda that would better appeal to 2020 voters.

The Democratic establishment has become something like novelist Herman Melville’s phobic Captain Ahab, who became fatally absorbed with chasing his nemesis, the albino whale Moby Dick. The great white whale once ate part of Ahab’s leg, and he demands revenge—even if such a never-ending neurosis leads to the destruction of his ship and crew.

Democrats can never forgive Trump for unexpectedly defeating supposed sure winner Hillary Clinton in 2016 and then systematically—and loudly—undoing the eight-year agenda of Obama.

So far, Trump seems to have escaped all of their efforts to spear and remove him before the 2020 election. Trump, like Moby Dick, seems a weird force of nature whose wounds from constant attacks only seem to make him more indestructible and his attackers even more obsessed with their prey.

Even if the quest to destroy Trump eclipses every other consideration and entails the destruction of the modern Democratic Party, it seems not to matter to these modern Ahabs.

Getting Trump is all they live for—and all they have left.
-------------
Victor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) is a senior fellow, classicist and historian at the
and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution where many of his articles are found; his focus is classics and military history. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush. H/T The Daily Dignal.

---

Tags: Victor Davis Hanson, President Trump, Has Become, Democrats’ Great White Whale To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!