Playing the Angles

Jeff Sessions recently sang the praises of our "Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement," and the latest unpredictable outrage sprang forth from the most predictable sources. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Crazytown) tweeted "For the chief law enforcement officer to use a dog whistle like that is appalling."

For you non-canines, 'dog whistle' refers to race-baiting rhetoric, of which the phrase 'dog whistle' is a prime example. Whenever the left accuses someone of dog whistling, they are dog whistling to their base that its time to become outraged over race. 

To be clear, Senator Schatz main problem is reading English. Apparently, he thinks the phrase means "White American heritage." That could be a correct reading if we are talking demographically, e.g. Anglo American as opposed to Hispanic American. But we are not; the context here is law enforcement, and in this context it refers to a tradition of law unique to English speaking peoples descended from the English/British system of laws. As such, it does not mean 'white' at all, it really means "English," which last time I looked was a language and a generic identifier of a country, not a color.

It is as if he heard Bing Crosby dog whistling away when he sang about a white Christmas. But the Binger wasn't referring to a white people's Christmas, but to a snow covered landscape during the Christmas season. 'White people's Christmas' is not the same thing as 'snow covered Christmas,' and 'white people's heritage of law' is not the same thing as 'Anglo-American heritage of law.'

Which is to say, different things are different, and it ill becomes a Senator of the United States to make mistakes like this in so public a manner. In truth, if Senator Schatz had bothered to retain even a modicum of education from his younger years, he might have been able to make the case that Jeff Sessions was dog whistling Germans. Anglo is originally derived from the Germanic tribes known as the Angles who invaded and conquered England about the 5th Century. 

But if that is what Jeff Sessions was doing then he would almost be as silly a fool as Senator Schatz. The Angles got beat up badly by the Vikings and then squashed by the Normans in 1066, and have had a difficult time putting together any kind of power base ever since. I'm afraid Jeff Sessions by now would be whistling to a kennel nearly as empty as the vast void between the ears of Mr. Schatz.

I think we have  plumbed the depths of this particular bit of idiocy. Lord, please give us a sufficient respite before the next outbreak.

In Like Flynn

The news cycle flies along at its typical breathtaking pace. Mannafort becomes Weinstein becomes Rob Porter becomes Kim Yo-jong becomes Bannon becomes .....

Can we take a moment to slow down the power point slide show and finish up on what used to be termed current news? Let's roll the tape back and bring Lieutenant General Michael Flynn into some focus.

Corruption at the highest levels of government, that is what we saw when our tax payer supported Super Lawyers, Robert Mueller, et al., our very own Special Prosecutors, obtained a plea deal on December 1, 2017. General Michael Flynn admitted he lied, which is not just a social faux pas or evidence of a character flaw, but a felony when done in an FBI interview. Although many who support Mr. Mueller would decry posting the 10 Commandments outside a Federal Courthouse, they have no problem with elevating within the Courthouse the 9th Commandment to a major crime.

Except, the corruption is not with poor Michael Flynn, but with the Special Prosecutors themselves. Let's take a look at some salient facts:

1. The 'lying' Michael Flynn did was not in any interaction he had with Mueller or his team. It was done way back in January of last year when the General voluntary sat down with the FBI to 'splain a few things.

2. At the time, what the FBI wanted to know was what Flynn had said to the Russian Ambassador. This was curious in that the FBI had FISA taps of the conversations and thus already knew exactly what Mr. Flynn had said. And they also knew that what he talked about was not criminal in any way, that in fact it was pursuant to his normal and necessary duties as the prospective head of Trump's NSA. The implication that rises here is that the FBI was hoping to catch him in a lie so they could enforce the 9th Commandment upon him with a God-like vengeance. This feels to me like unethical behavior by  the FBI bordering on abuse of power, but hey, I'm just a private citizen of this Republic, so what do I know?

3. In any case, what Mueller's indictment does not mention is that the FBI determined after the interview with Mr. Flynn that his account of his Russian conversations was substantially true, and that any errors or omissions did not rise to intentional dishonesty. Thus, Mr. Mueller brings his indictment based on his own determination of Mr. Flynn's responses, superseding the agents who were actually present at the interview. I ask: who is better situated to assess the credibility of a person, the one who is face to face with him or the one who is reviewing a transcript months later? A silly question, I know. Our very Special Prosecutors obviously possess super powers of detection of credibility, and it's not clear why we (me and you, dear reader) have any business questioning the matter.

So, to wrap this up, what we have is a decorated General who was performing his lawful duties as a civil servant of the government, who has become the target of large political - not criminal - forces swirling around Washington that for reasons of their own sought to entrap him in some sort of crime so that he would do ..... what?

They certainly haven't gone to all this trouble to get General Flynn; he's just a Washington player like thousands of others and he was fired from the Trump Administration about 30 seconds into his tenure. For me, there is only one obvious answer: they want leverage to force him to support their narrative that Trump and his campaign colluded with the Russians to subvert the American election. If so, then they will be forcing him to lie because Michael Flynn - and Mannafort and Jared Kushner and all the rest - have already voluntarily testified that there was no collusion with the Russians, and the FBI, CIA, NSA, numerous Congressional Committees, and our very Special Super Powerful Best in Class Prosecutors have to date found no evidence of collusion.

Would that our betters on the Federal Courts would allow us to post the Ten Commandments at the door of the Special Prosecutors offices - I think they could use some brushing up on that 9th Commandment right now.