WHaT tImE iS It, aNYway?
The nurse said that I was to handle the rest of the day as if I were “impaired,” so I guess this is “drunk-blogging,” an allegedly humorous practice that is a trademark political Stephen Green, aka. Vodkapundit when he covers a long and annoying event, like candidates debate or the Mueller testimony. In this case, I don’t have any choice, but I will say this: the first commenter who rags on me for a typo will be srroy! [CORRECTION NOTE: Prodded by JutGory’s comment below, I fixed the several typos in the post, except the one that was intentional. I’m better now.]
1. Welcome to my world, Ann. Althouse just banned “Inga,” a relentlessly snotty and intractable commenter on her blog who is one of the few knee-jerk progressives hanging out there. Ann mentions that she wishes there were a lot more liberal commenters at Althouse, which makes me feel a little better. Her blog has also suffered an ideological exodus in recent years, and Ann thinks of herself—correctly— as a non-partisan contrarian, though she has guest-hosted at Instapundit.. She certainly strives for objectivity (as well as unpredictability), but she has also been very critical of the “resistance” and the media’s treatment of President Trump, as every fair commentator should.
Then again, she refuses to link to Ethics Alarms, so to hell with her…
2. When the U.S. becomes Greece, think of these days, these unethical leaders, and the incompetent public that supported them. The recent budget deal between the President and Congress to explode the budget, ignore the deficit and bring the national debt even closer to a suicidal level is bipartisan betrayal. Although it is especially galling for a President with a “bottom line” orientation to capitulate, Trump is no worse in this respect than Obama, or any of his predecessors going back to Lyndon Johnson. At some point, the American public can only look in the mirror and admit that it has had the power to demand responsible fiscal government, and refuses. We will regret this.
I voted for the late Ross Perot in 1992 for many reasons, but the main one was that I felt he deserved credit for making the debt his signature issue, and for his courageous and clear explanations of the crisis. Since his candidacy, there have been no serious political leaders who have tried to muster consensus that spending has to be cut, that so-called entitlements are out of control, and that our debt is unsustainable. Rand Paul was recently savaged for simply insisting that a new expenditure–expanded assistance for 9-11 first responders–be paid for. Our economy is suffering because of a ridiculously antiquated infrastructure, but it will take trillions to repair. Politicians are waiting for a crisis, like when city sewer systems break down all across the East Coast, or bridges start collapsing with cars on them–and this is coming. Social security is nearing the point where someone’s going to have to give up something. California could have retrofit its buildings in anticipation of the Big One, but would rather play Russian Roulette. I’m just picking these out of the air randomly—I’m impaired, after all—but I could go on and on.
While the President rammed through tax cuts without cutting expenditures, his likely opposition tries to buy the votes of the fiscally idiotic with promises of expensive goodies, like “Medicare for All” (more trillions), guaranteed income and free college. The absurd Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, (who has no chance, but really how much worse is she than Warren, Sanders, Harris and the rest?) has proposed a thoroughly irresponsible “climate change” plan with about a 10 trillion dollar price tag, and it is mostly made up of Authentic Frontier Gibberish, virtue-signaling and unsupportable assumptions. Before a public even slightly aware of the dangers of the exploding debt (or a public that has anything but the vaguest notion about what real science is and the uncertainty of climate change projections, such a proposal would be political hara-kiri. Gillibrand considers it a last ditch effort to rescue her campaign.
Oh, heck, just read her alleged plan. I could vivisect it here, but why should I have all the fun?
3. Please pass this along to your Trump Deranged friends and tell them to stop publicizing MSNBC’s lies and fake news.
First, Mueller did NOT say yesterday that President Trump obstructed justice and would have been indicted if policy didn’t forbid it. I already noted this, but since I keep reading and hearing people claim this on TV, the web and social media, it bears repeating.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Cal.) asked, “I believe a reasonable person looking at these facts could conclude that all three elements of the crime of obstruction of justice have been met, and I’d like to ask you the reason, again, that you did not indict Donald Trump is because of OLC opinion stating that you cannot indict a sitting president, correct?”
This is why questions like this are objected to in court, and why a sharp lawyer, which Mueller once was, would have refused to answer without proper pruning. He is not sharp any more, however, and answered, “That is correct.”
This contradicted Mueller’s report, which said the special counsel didn’t make a decision on whether to indict Trump because of the OLC opinion. We now have reason to suspect that Mueller not only didn’t write the report, but also may not have read it carefully or been appropriately involved in its development.
Thus in the afternoon hearing, Mueller said that by “that’s correct” he meant “No,.”“That is not the correct way to say it,” Mueller said in the subsequent hearing. “We did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.”
Any pundit, journalist or friend who says otherwise is lying, or misinformed.
Second, when Mueller appeared to agree that Trump had shown signs of being untruthful in his written answers made under oath to the special counsel’s office, he was also confused by the question. U.S. Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla) asked, “Director Mueller, isn’t it fair to say that the president’s written answers were not only inadequate and incomplete, because he didn’t answer many of your questions, but where he did, his answers showed that he wasn’t always being truthful?”
“I would say generally,” was Mueller’s answer.
And this is why compound questions are also inadmissible in court.
A spokesperson for Mueller told the Washington Post after the hearings that Mueller’s answer was focused on the President’s answers being incomplete rather than untruthful.
“In answering ‘generally,’ Mueller did not mean to agree with every phrase in that question,” the source told the Post. “The Mueller report, which is the statement of record here, is what stands, and in the Mueller report, it states that the president’s written answers were ‘incomplete’ or ‘imprecise.’ ” Mueller, the Post agreed, used the “generally” answer at other points in his testimony to signal agreement with parts of long questions.
Mueller stood by the report, and the Democrats wanted to confuse the public and the doddering witness with answers that contradicted the report. [Pointer: ABA Journal]
Ethics Alarms 
Jack said: “the first commenter who rags on me for a typo will be srroy!”
Please let there be no other typos! Please make “impaired Jack” a better speller than “normal Jack.”
-Jut
What are the odds?
Given that questions were formulated well in advance to elicit maximum damage does the use of compound question signify that Democrat questioners knew Mueller would not pick on the tactic and allow them to confuse the public.
Newspaper editors also share the blame.
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10157716667593258&id=5637143257
Glad your procedure went well. I must say when I have mine I get the best sleep.
Even without Mike Lindel and My Pillow.
One quEstion jaCk…
is it ethical to blog while drunk (or hungover on drugs) ??
No, but it’s forgivable.
Jack, the upcoming one will be my fourth. UGH! Still, they ARE necessary, and may be life-saving. Given hoe goofy I was for the last three for the rest of the day, your post was remarkably lucid. Hope all went well.
It did. But I’ve got another one in just 3 months. Yeccch.
Guess I’m lucky. After this one I have a three-year break.
Having had more time to peruse, drunk-off-his-ass-Jack spells better than normal Jack.
Sure, “srroy,” was an attempt at humor.
(Gratuitous digression: I would not be too hard on Althouse for not linking to you. Her problem was she banned a contrarian, so she invited her own problem. You may have banned some progressives, but many are self-exiled).
“Rammed through a tax cuts.” Okay…not a typo per se, but maybe there is a disagreement as to “number” between the singular “a” and the plural “cuts.” Yeah, that’s teh ticket.
In Section 3, the spelling of the word , “whicj,” is obviously provocative. As any half-way educated person would know (and, if I am educated at all, it’s halfway), MANY foreign languages pronounce a “j” the way us normal people pronounce an “h.” Obviously, Hack is showing off his cosmopolitanism here. I was not fooled.
“But also may not have read it carefully of been very involved in its development.” Okay, now, this is very tricky. You might think that “of” should be an “or.” You are wrong; WRONG! Some people will write the contraction “should’ve” as “should of.” I first experienced such an incident just over 30 years ago; I have seen such expressions in prose many more times since then. While, certainly innovative, Jack’s expression, “carefully’ve been very involved,” is perfectly understandable. PROVE ME WRONG!
Then, there is the reference to “teh hearings.” Again, Jack is being sly, as “teh” is one of those things hip people say to feign a lack of erudition and telegraph to an astute audience that they are being facetious. And he was. There were not “hearings”; there was only one hearing.
Congratulations, Jack, on a typo-free post!
-Jut
Comment of the Day. But I’m not posting it.
I also just fixed the typos. And you missed THREE! What’s YOUR excuse?
I’ll allow for the drunkenness, but tax rates and revenue generated by them do not directly correlate. Higher tax rates do not automatically mean higher revenues, neither do lower tax rates automatically lower revenues. In fact, it can often be the opposite.
Nevertheless I am onboard with your general point about fiscal responsibility.