RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/03/mueller-report-collusion-debate-inflated-talking-points/

Both sides are peddling inflated talking points.

‘There was absolutely no collusion!”

“Are you kidding? There was a boatload of collusion!”

I’ve been doing legal analysis in hotly contested cases, including political cases, for about 35 years. By now, I should be used to the insidious word games, as well as the confusion inherent when people imprecisely use ambiguous words because they don’t know any better. Yet it seems like it has never been worse than it is now.

That’s because I’m spoiled. I spent the first couple of decades in the confines of a top-tier judicial system. In legal proceedings, a judge is there to make sure no one plays fast and loose with language. As a young prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, I was very fortunate that my cases were assigned to exceptional judges, who made it their business to mind the court record.

At the time, I didn’t appreciate how valuable that was — judges interrupting the testimony, even if there had been no objection, to clarify what a lawyer or witness meant by some loaded word planted in a question or uttered in an answer. But by the end of the trial, in the transcript that would ultimately be reviewed by appellate courts, there was no way a fuzzy term, such as “collusion,” would be permitted to muddy the waters. Everyone understood what it meant, and didn’t mean, within the four corners of the case.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-3-29-the-russia-hoax-should-we-all-now-just-move-on

A week ago today, the issuance of the Mueller Report finally popped the long-inflating bubble of the Trump/Russia collusion hoax. After thousands of excited and breathless press reports and cable news segments over two-plus years (“new bombshell,” “the walls are closing in,” “impeachment,” etc.), it turned out that there was nothing there. So is there any point in wasting any more time on this? Why don’t we all just move on?

You won’t be surprised that many voices in the media are already advocating for that. At the New York Times, they had barely made it to Tuesday when the lead front page article, headlined “Trump, Citing ‘Evil Deeds,’ Turns Wrath on His Critics,” started pushing for Trump to “drop the subject,” citing the precedents of Reagan and Clinton:

[Trump’s] approach [of seeking retribution against his critics], if it lasts, contrasts with those of other presidents who survived major scandals. After the Iran-contra affair, President Ronald Reagan happily dropped the subject and focused on arms control talks with the Soviet Union and other issues. After being acquitted at his Senate impeachment trial, President Bill Clinton was just as eager to move on to Social Security and other initiatives.

Less expected, perhaps, was the op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on the same day from long-time G.W. Bush advisor Karl Rove, with the headline “Move On From Robert Mueller, Mr. President.” That article’s gist was captured in its sub-headline, “Obsessing over the investigation’s origins isn’t the way to win over swing voters.” Rove urges Trump to switch his attention to focusing on a positive message, including the strong economy.

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/22503/what-siegfried-roy-forgot

Siegried & Roy were illusionists whose famous Las Vegas act with Bengal tigers thrilled audiences at the Mirage Resort and Casino for thirteen years. Their daredevil performance was predicated on the technique of “affection conditioning” in which Roy bonded rather than trained the animals. The method required raising tiger cubs from birth and sleeping with them until they were a year old. Roy described the experience saying, “When an animal gives you its trust, you feel like you have been given the most beautiful gift in the world.”

On October 3, 2003 Roy Cohn’s prized cat, 380 lb Montecore, sunk its teeth into Roy’s neck and dragged him offstage before a horrified audience.

Roy faithfully insisted that Montecore was just trying to protect him. Other experts had a more realistic view of the attack. Kay Rosaire, head of the Big Cat Encounter in Florida at the time said, “They’re predators, so who can really know what goes on in their minds? Even though they are raised in captivity and they love us, sometimes their natural instincts just take over.”

Trying to tame the wildness of a Bengal tiger for entertainment denies the predatory nature of the animal. So it is with the Muslim Brotherhood in America