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The congressional hearing on this matter starts in about 1 week. The headlines keep pilling up.
Facebook’s definition of “hate speech” grows even more bizarre.
Facebook Censors Articles from Conservative Outlets About Manafort, Cohen.
96 Percent of Google Search Results for ‘Trump’ News Are from Liberal Media Outlets.
“…For a long time there has been concern that the Me Too movement went too far in portraying men as monsters. But several recent events have shown that the movement was just as misguided in turning women into flawless paragons of virtue.
After accusing Harvey Weinstein of rape, Asia Argento became one of the main faces of Me Too. But last week the movement was rocked when actor and musician Jimmy Bennett accused Argento of sexually assaulting him when he was 17 and she was 37.
Argento denied all the charges, including having any sexual relationship with Bennett and, in a statement to reporter Yashar Ali, claimed her late boyfriend Anthony Bourdain actually made the payments to the cash-strapped Bennett because he was “afraid of the possible negative publicity” and to “not suffer any future intrusions in our life.”
Fellow Weinstein victims were careful about condemning Argento. Rose McGowan, one of the most outspoken heroes of the movement, tweeted “None of us know the truth of the situation, and I’m sure more will be revealed. Be gentle.” Mira Sorvino tweeted a statement describing herself as “heartsick” over the accusations and noting that “perhaps she [Argento] will be exonerated.” It was hard not to notice that men who were similarly accused did not get the benefit of the doubt from these women.
Following Argento’s denial, pictures surfaced showing her and Bennett in bed together. She has not made any further comment.
The same week, the 2018 winner of the Miss America pageant, Cara Mund, accused Gretchen Carlson of bullying her.
“Our chair and CEO have systematically silenced me, reduced me, marginalized me and essentially erased me in my role as Miss America in subtle and not-so-subtle ways on a daily basis,” Mund said.
Two other Miss America winners also joined in her complaint. Like Argento, Carlson was a trailblazer in the Me Too movement. Her sexual-harassment accusation against then Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes was the first of many and ultimately forced his resignation. The idea that a Me Too leader would nevertheless be terrible to other women caught people by surprise…”
I am generally for less government regulation. But the social media giants have a monopoly on what can be considered public airwaves. They are biased against conservatives and expressing that bias as censorship of speech. Government should take action.
“…Amid concerns that conservative voices are being silenced on social media, a U.S. House committee announced Friday that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and other tech executives will appear before the panel on Capitol Hill Sept. 5.
Dorsey will discuss his company’s “algorithms and content judgment calls” before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the committee announced via Twitter…”
We vacationed at the cabin for a few days in August 2009. We left the cabin and returned to Sacramento. Austin and I went with grandpa in his new truck to run an errand. Grandpa turned too hard and scraped a light pole. Grandpa swore Austin and I to secrecy.
Lee Ann and Lesley were pulling in to the driveway as we got back to the house. Even though Austin had agreed to keep quiet about the accident he jumped out of the truck and ran to tell grandma that grandpa had an accident. I captured the moment with my camera. This has been one of my favorite photos ever since.
Group ready to eat dinner at the cabin in August 2009. Lesley cleaning up a spill. She may have had too many adult beverages!
Kim Strassel:
“…The country has watched the FBI treat one presidential campaign with kid gloves, the other with informants, warrants and eavesdropping. They’ve seen the Justice Department resist all efforts at accountability, even as it fails to hold its own accountable. And don’t get them started on the one-sided media.
And they are now witnessing unequal treatment in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe. Yes, the former FBI director deserves credit for smoking out the Russian trolls who interfered in 2016. And one can argue he is obliged to pursue any evidence of criminal acts, even those unrelated to Russia. But what cannot be justified is the one-sided nature of his probe.
Consider Mr. Cohen, the former Trump lawyer who this week pleaded guilty to eight felony charges. Six related to his personal business dealings; the other two involved campaign-finance violations arising from payments to women claiming affairs with Donald Trump. The criminal prosecution of campaign-finance offenses is exceptionally rare (most charges are civil), but let’s take Mr. Khuzami’s word for it when he says Mr. Cohen’s crimes are “particularly significant” because he’s a lawyer who should know better, and also because the payments were for the purpose of “influencing an election” and undermining its “integrity.”
If there is only “one set of rules,” where is Mr. Mueller’s referral of a case against Hillary for America? Federal law requires campaigns to disclose the recipient and purpose of any payments. The Clinton campaign paid Fusion GPS to compile a dossier against Mr. Trump, a document that became the basis of the Russia narrative Mr. Mueller now investigates. But the campaign funneled the money to law firm Perkins Coie, which in turn paid Fusion. The campaign falsely described the money as payment for “legal services.” The Democratic National Committee did the same. A Perkins Coie spokesperson has claimed that neither the Clinton campaign nor the DNC was aware that Fusion GPS had been hired to conduct the research, and maybe so. But a lot of lawyers here seemed to have been ignoring a clear statute, presumably with the intent of influencing an election.
Prosecutions under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) are also exceptionally rare, though Mr. Mueller is getting media kudos for hammering the likes of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates for failing to register as lobbyists for foreign entities. The law is the law.
But under this standard, where are the charges against the principals of Fusion GPS, who Sen. Chuck Grassley has said look to have been lobbying on behalf of powerful Russians against a U.S. sanctions law, with its payment again funneled through a law firm? This was a sideline to its dossier work, but Mr. Mueller usually has no issue with sideline charges…”
This is a terrible situation. I am not Catholic or even religious, but I respect the church. This is not the church that has failed, it is the clergy. What a disgrace.
The former apostolic nuncio has claimed that Pope Francis knew about sanctions imposed on McCarrick by Pope Benedict XVI but chose to repeal them.
Another great piece by Andrew McCarthy. It does no good to post a snippet here. If you are interested in a real analysis of the laws relating to campaign money and the president and Cohen go read Mr. McCarthy’s article. News you get in the MSM is worthless.
The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the third quarter of 2018 is 4.6 percent on August 24, up from 4.3 percent on August 16. After yesterday’s releases on new-home sales and costs from the U.S. Census Bureau, the nowcast of third-quarter real residential investment growth increased from -4.5 percent to -1.1 percent. After this morning’s advance durable manufacturing report from the Census Bureau, the nowcast of third-quarter real nonresidential equipment investment growth increased from 6.4 percent to 7.5 percent and the nowcast of the contribution of inventory investment to third-quarter real GDP growth increased from 1.92 percentage points to 2.03 percentage points.
nhttps://www.streetinsider.com/Fed/Atlanta+Fed+Raises+GDP+Forecast+to+4.6%25/14546182.html
Conrad Black:
“…Only the final descent of the Trump assassination squads to the supreme self-humiliation of the Michael Cohen-Stormy Daniels nothingburger could drag me from my sublime writing holiday to inflict myself on whatever readers there may be in August. Amid the hydrogen bomb of decrials of moral turpitude and perceived high crimes, there is no one else audible who sees the Cohen rollover as the supreme victory for the president that it is.
The Mueller investigation that started out with such a trumpet-blast of portentous Wagnerian prophecy of impending revelations of treason, has fallen to the asininity of getting a sleazy lawyer who has pleaded guilty to a smorgasbord of criminal frauds to declare that candidate Trump told him to pay hush money to a woman he had allegedly had a sexual encounter with 10 years before the election, and that this was an illegal campaign contribution and attempt corruptly to influence the outcome of the presidential election.
There had never been any hint of impropriety by Trump in the matter—no coercion, no payment on the night, and the best that could be done for titillation was when Stormy, a generally engaging and peppy businesswoman, though she found nothing exceptionable in the future president’s conduct, or in “his junk,” claimed to have lightly spanked him with a copy of Time that had his picture on the cover. As S&M goes, this is pretty thin gruel…”
https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/24/trump-has-already-won-on-impeachment/
Scott Johnson:
“…My point, and I did have one, in placing the Michael Cohen plea agreement and related charges before readers here yesterday morning, was to note “the trouble down the road for others,” as I put it. First and foremost of “the others” I had in mind was the Trump Organization. Now the New York Times reports that the Manhattan district attorney’s office is mulling over charges against the Trump Organization and two senior company officials in connection with Cohen’s hush money payment to “an adult film actress,” as the Times now refers to Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Clifford).
The supposed counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election now has more spinoffs than Happy Days. Just because it’s obvious doesn’t mean this shouldn’t be said or reiterated. Every day it becomes clearer that the true object of the investigation taken over by Robert Mueller is the removal of President Trump from office…”
Roger Kimball:
“…One of the reasons so many people are confused by the operations of our self-appointed fourth branch of government—I mean in this instance the unending, Kafkaesque investigations conducted by Robert Mueller and his crack team of anti-Trump shock troops—is that while we have seen plenty of punishment meted out, crimes have been rather less populous on the ground.
Yes, I understand that Paul Manafort has been nabbed for tax evasion and bank fraud, and that he now faces additional charges in yet another court. One of the nice things about our modern prosecutors is their handy multiplication machine that takes what is essentially one crime and gins it up into dozens or even hundreds of counts. Presto! You’re facing 18 counts, peasant—try beating that!
The point is, when you have carte-blanche to torment someone, why stop when you’ve got him locked up for life? Like a cat toying with an injured mouse, the modern major prosecutor keeps batting his prey about till he stops moving altogether. What might have been justice for a serial killer is gleefully applied to someone who fudged his tax returns or tripped over himself answering an FBI agent. Then we have sadism, not justice.
When it comes to our legal system, they say that the process is the punishment. But that leaves out the other side of the equation: that for the system, for wretched power-drunk commissars like Robert Mueller, the process, because of the punishment, is all the fun. They enjoy tormenting people.
But the thing that makes this long-running entertainment so confusing for most of us is that none of the crimes we’ve seen so far have anything to do with the title of the show.
Remember: we crowded into the theater to see “The Great Russian Collusion Drama.” But all of the skits we’ve seen so far—from Manafort’s and Michael Cohen’s tax evasions all the way down to whatever it is that Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos are supposed to have done—are like warm-up acts. Russian dressing might be slathered over the salad—everyone knows that in this election, as in previous U.S. elections, the Russians meddled and endeavored to sow discord. (And of course, we do the same thing: just ask the Brits or the Israelis.)…”
and
“…The crime at the center of this deep-state initiative is the election of Donald Trump. The tort? He was elected without the permission of the ruling class, its jesters and its scribes and moralists. Pete Wehner does not approve of Donald Trump. Bill Kristol thinks he is infra-dig. Psychiatrists are still trying to figure out what Mad Max Boot and Jabbering John Brennan think.
But this, Ladies and Gentlemen (and unlike the MTA and the London Tube, we still use the phrase “Ladies and Gentlemen” here), this is the crime: Donald Trump was elected. That’s it. That’s the crime. It’s not in the statute books, but a little thing like that never stopped a diligent bureaucrat, especially one armed with a phalanx of partisan prosecutors and an unlimited budget…”