Who is Robert Mueller?
Who is Robert Mueller?
Unlike Cadet Bone Spurs, Mueller served in Viet Nam in the 3rd Marine Division. He received A Bronze Star with a V for rescuing a wounded Marine under fire in 1968. Later he was wounded in action and then returned to combat duty. He was decorated twice with the Navy and Marine Corp Commendation Medal with a V.
He was US Attorney for Northern California, and then Asst. US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. Mueller served as the senior litigator in the homicide section of the DC US Attorney’s Office.
He was appointed as Deputy Attorney General of the United States by President George W Bush in 2001, and later that year, was appointed by Bush as Director of the FBI. Mueller served as FBI Director for 12 years.
In 2016, Mueller was awarded the Thayer Award, which is given to one person per year by the US Military Academy at West Point.
In 2017, Mueller was awarded the Baker Award for excellence in the intelligence and national security activities of the United States government by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.
People don’t generally plead guilty to federal felonies if they are innocent of all charges. And they certainly do not plead and then cooperate with investigators if they in fact, have no knowledge or participation in any alleged illegal activities. They generally plead to one charge and cooperate with investigators in order to avoid more and greater and even more serious charges.
Rick Gates: Conspiracy and making false statements
Michael Flynn: Making false statements
George Papadopoulos: Making false statements
Richard Pinedo: Identity theft
Alex van der Zwaan: Making false statements
Manafort is facing 23 charges that we know of, 5 from the Washington DC Grand Jury and 18 from the Alexandria, Virginia Grand Jury
18 Russian Nationals and three Russian companies have been charged with federal crimes by the DC Grand Jury so far.
In all his career there’s never been any allegation of either favoritism, nor insanity, nor stupidity, nor political bias against Mueller.
Copyright © 2018 Henry Edward Hardy
To a neoliberal friend
Friend, you are precisely correct in identifying classical liberalism and neoliberalism as being economic philosophies and nothing but that in the strict sense of the terms.
I am using the term liberal in the American political context where liberalism is identified with FDR liberalism which is classic liberalism plus social programs borrowed from democratic socialism and new left liberalism which adds civil rights and anti-war planks to that platform.
In the US political context, neoliberalism is closely identified with the Clintons and has the following characteristics:
* Economic neoliberalsim including deregulation of the banks and industry.
* Rejecting social welfare programs “end welfare as we know it.”
* Support for the military-industrial complex and agressive use of a combination of propaganda and support for pro-American puppets through organizations such as the national endowment for Democracy plus a program of covert assassinations and multiple limited wars abroad, carried out through a combination of pinpoint air attacks and assassinations plus military, training, intel and economic aid for “moderate” terrorist militias.
* Triangulation, the political strategy of running to the left in the primary as a “progressive who gets things done” and then adopting in the general and as a governing strategy a position just slightly right of the Republicans, on the assumption that will create a solid governing majority from the center plus the left, the latter of which will be forced to take whatever crumbs they can get rather than nothing, or the worse republican alternative.
Neoliberalism failed with the Great Recession, and triangulation failed with the DNC and HC’s corrupt manipulation of the primary process.
We supported blue dog, right wing democrats for 50 years and it ended with a kick in Bernie’s teeth at the Convention. A friend of mine told me a lot of specifics about how they were spied on by infiltrators, decredentialled, had their pages taken away, were physically prevented from sitting together in blocks, were shouted down at every time they tried to speak or chant, and were physically manhandled and assaulted by HC and DNC operatives bullying them.
My delegate friend from Brooklyn said it was the saddest and most upset he has been since his father died. I heard similar stories from a number of other people who were there as Bernie delegates and whom I know and trust.
The machine right wing and neoliberal delegates aren’t getting a Mulligan for that, sorry. Not going to happen that we just say no worries well that’s just politics.
If that’s just politics then back at ya. How you liking it so far?
We will never support another Clinton or Clintonian triangulator unless we get equal support for our positions and our candidates. Yes to cooperation and alliance, but no to this entitled assumption that left wing democrats must support right wing democrats, but not the reverse.
Copyright © 2018 Henry Edward Hardy
On Donald Trump
Trump is fundamentally a student of his father’s, with advanced lessons from Roy Cohn. He’s learned the New York way of schmoozing, exaggerating, telling people what he thinks they want to hear, being very slippery and blatantly lying seemingly about even things there’s no reason to lie about, in order to show disrespect to people he wants to hurt. From Cohn, a strategy mix of intimidation, implicit blackmail, clandestine forbidden sex, hard partying, international intrigue, seduction, and hard-nosed threats.
And that’s worked remarkably, even unbelievably well for Trump.
Until now. The Presidency is not a real estate empire or a mafia family. The nomenklatura, or institutional bureaucracy or what Erdogan and Trump like to call “The Deep State” are notoriously entranched and hard to control. A far more proficient sociopathic President, Richard Nixon, found this out to his dismay, as did Bill Clinton to a degree. Though the latter, by his Elmer Gantry/Huey Long talents, survived.
Bill Clinton and LBJ were extroverted people persons and were great at gladhandling/manhandling people to get what they wanted from Congress and the bureaucracy. Obama, an introvert, was less successful.
But Trump as President of the USA is disastrous. He is not unintelligent within certain parameters, but his judgment seems to be impaired much of the time, he seems to have limited medium term recall which he covers for by lying and his credibility with the apparatus is less than zero. Calling them out by name to insult them doesn’t help either. And backstabbing the NRA live on TV? That was in a way delightful but at the same time I have to go whaaat is thaaat? I can’t think of a worse thing he could have done politically to undermine his base and get a lot of heavily armed people very nervous and defensive than by publicly suggesting that arms should be seized from US citizens by law enforcement. “Take the guns first, go through due process second.” I mean he actually said those words quote unquote. Is this a will to self-destruction like Hitler in his bunker? The entire world hopes not! Is it all a theatre of the absurd he simply does. not. care? Is he an agent provocateur dancing to the tune of Putin’s “chef?”
I don’t know.
But we are all going to find out.
Interesting times.
Copyright © 2018 Henry Edward Hardy
For the public good
I’m not all that enthralled by the notion of the nation-state. As an expression of an ethnic group and all that implies, it is an anachronism which should eventually join the divine right of kings on the scrapheap of history.
However, such states are here, they exist, so, what should they do? What is proper policy for a nation state?
The public good. That is what the nation-state must serve. Not just some utilitarian idea of the greatest good for the greatest number, though that’s part of it. The aspirations of the nation state should be to in some real and tangible sense, make things better in a lasting and sustainable manner for all people and for the earth, as stewards.
The psychologist Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper, “A Theory of Human Motivation,” proposed a hierarchy of needs from the most basic humans needs to the more advanced, which depend upon the forgoing.
Maslow’s hierarchy is: physiological needs, safety needs, social belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.
So a good government, first and foremost, must see to the physiological well-being of the people. This means housing, clothing, health care and energy.
Second, safety. This means public safety, environmental and workplace regulation in the public interest, and defense. Actual defense, not occupying other countries or using force to implement regime change.
Third, social belonging. If you are going to have a just nation, then there must be a true sense of “one people.” Including everyone. Also, open borders and acceptance of refugees and migrants with open arms.
Esteem, treat everyone as of value and of worth. Let them make their own choices.
And self-actualization. The key to this is free education, and also a robust economy welcoming to co-ops and startups with strong protections insuring transparency and interdicting monopoly power. Regulation of “natural monopolies” through common carrier, public interest, and environmental legislation. Self-management and workplace democracy, with unions playing a key role in the transition from industrial capitalism to post-industrial social democracy.
So yes, nation-states, do those things. The people have spoken. :p
Copyright © 2017 Henry Edward Hardy
Liberals are unconsciously mirroring and enabling Trumps arbitrary skepticism of the media
I’m seeing a lot of my friends who think they are critical thinking intellectuals and think they oppose Trump, falling victim to imitating his tropes and memes.
Let’s take, “You can’t trust the mainstream media.”
I’ve been a thorn in the side of the New York Times and Guardian for decades now. I guess my high point as a loyal opposition came when the then-current editor of the NY Times, Bill Keller, called me on the phone because Art Sulzberger told him to and I got to tell him for three hours what I thought was wrong with the Times and how to restore it to its former greatness of the 1970’s.
It is fine and good to criticize wrong facts. To criticize the framing of a story. False equivalence. Errors in logic. Lack of historical perspective. Acting as stenographers for State and Defense. Paid content. Trivial articles pandering to the rich and privileged. Ridiculous reasons offered for anonymizing sources. Crappy clickbaitish “reviews” of video games which would never pass muster for books, movies or even TV reviews. Lots to talk about and speak to them about.
But what I am seeing now from a fair number of very smart friends who think they are critical thinking intellectuals and think they are opposing Trump is quite concerning.
“You can’t trust the mass media,” which is Trump’s trope, is spreading far and wide. This is the opposite of critical thinking. It is ad hominem argument.
Having so to speak thrown out the baby with the bath water, and arbitrarily rejecting information from the most trusted and reliable news sources, I see many of these folks posting memes and factoids because they agree with them. Many of these are either obviously false on their face from my perspective or have obvious errors in logic or framing and attribution, or lack thereof.
Okay so far not so bad, we all get fooled by trollish disinformation from time to time. Confirmation bias is rife. When I post false/wrong information and I learn otherwise, I acknowledge my error and correct it. If it is egregious, I remove it.
The problem I am seeing is folks who, when given evidence that their post is false, refuse to correct or remove it.
“I didn’t write it.”
“I never said it was true”
“People will be able to tell it is false.”
“I don’t care I like the meme.”
“I think it’s funny.”
No, no, no, no, and no.
This is the opposite of critical thinking. It is “I say it once, I say it twice, what I say three times is true.” It is Trump’s rhetorical answer to facts and logic. Blocking rational thought with solipsism and arbitrary skepticism without a reasonable critique of the facts presented in refutation, ignoring logic and reason because the other fellow is bad. Ad hominem argument. Or they challenge you to disprove their belief. Another fallacy, argumentum ad ignoratiam.
We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.
–Karl Rove, Republican operative
Is that what its come to? The Nazi Big Lie technique normalized and contextualized for all Americans now
1984 knocking at your door.
Copyright © 2017 Henry Edward Hardy
About Scanlyze
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Scanlyze is an online magazine of essays, commentary, satire, and analysis. Were we half as clever, for inspiration we would take Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Swift, Montaigne, or Seneca.
“The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.”
John F. Kennedy, October 26, 1963
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