SUPREME AND EXALTED MASTER PRESIDENT ROBERT MUELLER

by Ann Coulter

April 24, 2019

www.anncoulter.com

 

According to Robert Mueller, a president can be guilty of obstruction of justice simply by exercising the powers of the president -- if he does so with "an intent to obtain an improper advantage for himself or someone else, inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others."  

 

Wow. That's a new standard for a president's Article II powers! I don't see it in my pocket Constitution. 

What Mueller is saying is that he should hold the position of supreme exalted master president to review all decisions made by the man who was elected to the office of president by mere voters.

 

  Mueller can't say Trump obstructed justice. The investigation found no Russian "collusion," or related crimes, so there was no justice to obstruct. That's why there's nothing in the report about "perjury," "destroying evidence" or any other recognizable crime, like, say, "accepting a cash bribe." 

Instead, Mueller proposes to review the decisions of the person duly elected president on a purity-of-motive standard. "An improper motive," the Mueller report states, "can render an actor's conduct criminal even when the conduct would otherwise be lawful and within the actor's authority."

 
Except the "actor" here is the president. We're not talking about the authority of a CEO or chief of police. We're talking about the U.S. president, whose "authority" comes directly from the Constitution. 

If a special counsel is entitled to sit in judgment on a president's motives for exercising his constitutional powers, there will never be a president who is not under investigation for everything he does. Mueller is claiming that prosecutors and Congress have a right to probe the president's state of mind when he orders the 101st Airborne into action or nominates a new Supreme Court justice. 

While we're at it, can the president convene a commission to investigate the motives of a member of Congress for voting a particular way? How about a Supreme Court justice? (I've been dying to get to the bottom of Justice Roberts' vote to uphold Obamacare.)

I'm fine with the new standard, provided it's retroactive and the punishment is death.

Have I got "corrupt" for you!

In addition to perjuring himself, suborning the perjury of others and hiding evidence in a private citizen's civil rights lawsuit against him, Bill Clinton issued a number of highly unusual pardons when he was president.

Clinton crony Susan McDougal, the Clintons' partner in the Whitewater Development Corp. scam, was convicted on charges of fraud and conspiracy. She sat in jail for 18 months on contempt of court charges rather than answer questions about whether Bill Clinton had lied in his testimony about Whitewater.

Before leaving office, President Clinton pardoned McDougal.

Is there any possibility that Clinton issued that pardon with "an intent to obtain an improper advantage for himself"? Any at all?

In July 1999, Hillary Clinton indicated that she would be running for the U.S. Senate from New York. Weeks later, President Clinton offered clemency to members of the Puerto Rican terrorist group F.A.L.N, responsible for 130 bombings in the 1970s and '80s that killed five, maimed more than 80 and caused almost $3 million in damage.

Was Clinton's motive for this pardon to help Hillary win the Puerto Rican vote in New York? Time for a purity-of-heart investigation!

(Principled as ever, Hillary initially supported the clemencies, until they turned out to be wildly, shockingly unpopular, whereupon Hillary remembered that she opposed them.)

Over the objections of everyone, President Clinton also granted a full pardon to Marc Rich, an international fugitive wanted on more than 50 counts of wire fraud, racketeering, evading $48 million in income taxes and trading with the enemy -- specifically, conspiring with Iran as that country was holding 52 Americans hostage.

What possible explanation can there be for such a pard-- Oh! Look at this! Rich's ex-wife gave $450,000 to Clinton's presidential library, more than $100,000 to Hillary's Senate campaign and more than $1 million to the Democratic National Committee.

Is it possible that Clinton's pardon of Rich was intended to "obtain an improper advantage for himself or someone else, inconsistent with official duty"?

How about the Clinton pardons for which his brother-in-law, Hugh Rodham, was paid $400,000? I'm not a fancy prosecutor in Robert Mueller's office, but it sure looks to me like selling those pardons constituted "an improper advantage" at least to Hugh.

I haven't even gotten started. This is just the pardons!

To mention a few other curious exercises of Clinton's Article II powers, there was also the sudden decision of his Department of Justice to investigate the NYPD, then presided over by -- I'm sure this is entirely a coincidence -- Hillary's presumed opponent for the Senate, Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

May we ask about the feds' motive for turning with a blind fury on the police department that had slashed New York City's murder rate by 67%?

And what was President Clinton's thinking when he approved the sale of sensitive ballistic-missile guidance technology to China over the objections of his own Pentagon, State Department and Justice Department? Here's something any independent counsel might want to look at: The Chinese had just funneled millions of dollars in illegal campaign donations to the Democrats.

Does that get a purity-of-heart investigation?

How about Obama? When he said if he had a son, he'd look like Trayvon Martin, and then sent three White House officials to Michael Brown's funeral -- more than he sent to Margaret Thatcher's funeral -- did Obama seriously believe Martin and Brown were innocent victims? Or was he just trying to gin up the black vote to help Democrats' electoral prospects -- i.e. trying "to obtain an improper advantage for himself or someone else, inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others."

I'm sure Democratic presidents will be treated EXACTLY like President Trump.

Remember the most egregious of the Clinton pardons, the one granted to tax cheat and friend-of-the-Crazy-Ayatollah Marc Rich? Of course you do -- it was just few paragraphs back.

Guess who investigated that pardon and concluded that Clinton's motives were pure? Yes: That would be James Comey.


COPYRIGHT 2019 ANN COULTER

The "Free Market" and Fake Libertarianism

There are some issues on which libertarian socialists and anarcho-capitalists (right-wing libertarians) can work together - like free speech, the illegitimacy of victimless crimes, and opposing regime change wars. But beyond that, the rationally inclined simply have to face the fact that so-called libertarians are loony tunes when they start talking about the "free market," which has about as much contact with reality as a masturbation fantasy. In the real world we have private monopoly control of essential social resources. Right wing libertarians are fine with that, asking only that "coercion" be cut out of the equation. But if I have enough money to buy the community water supply, I don't have to use coercion to subordinate others to my will. All I need do is build an impenetrable wall around the water, leaving everyone "free" to pay the extortionate prices I demand, or die of thirst. It's perfect liberty without coercion, paradise on earth. 

Furthermore, it should be obvious by now, a century after the U.S. public relations industry took on the task of mind control of the American people, that manipulation, not coercion, is how private tyranny perpetuates itself. Bombs and bullets have their uses, of course, but they are not the means by which we-the-people are held in bondage.

In short, limitless accumulation of capital is the central enemy, not "coercion." But don't expect "libertarians" to understand this. They can't.

Diseased Capitalist Culture Blamed On Subcultures

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in a democratic society..we are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men..who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses..it is they who pull the wires which control the public mind."

from "Propaganda" 1928 by Edward Bernays

 

Ignorant but often understandable fearful reactions by individuals to retail murders committed by driven lunatics and manic revenge seekers that have taken the lives of many innocent souls is conveniently labeled “islamophobic”, while the systemic mass murdering destruction of major parts of the middle east and wholesale inhumanity that slaughters hundreds of thousands, reduces millions to refugees while destroying nations and governments and is the root of retaliatory terrorism is, um, enlightened globalized love of Islam?

Poverty and injustice in some foreign countries is seen as dreadful behavior demanding our humanitarian attention while poverty and injustice at home calls for more domestic spending on war, junk food, pets and gossip.

A rich, arrogant, asshole, thus over-qualified for the job of American president, is so hated by the establishment and its class of professional minions that much of public consciousness is focused exclusively on him while a system sinks lower in wealth and morality each day and situations more threatening than modern humanity has ever consciously faced get worse with each moment focused on his alleged fascism while its more destructive than ever qualities remain in what amounts to an unconscious state that the psych business loves as long as it can be individually monetized.

Proposals that are part of the Green New Deal encounter criticism from the ruling powers and their servant class in media and politics with the plaintive wail “where will we get the money” coming from sources deaf, dumb and blind to the trillions spent on warfare, the billions spent on pet care in a nation with millions living in poverty and hundreds of thousands living under bridges, highways, in tent cities, their autos or on the street. A four-year-old child idiot savant might advise that the wailers consider budgeting less for war, poverty, exploitation, profits and pets and more for food, clothing, shelter and health care for the entire population. If such a gender free disabled child of color existed it might be urged to enter the democratic sweepstakes for president but hopefully refuse to sink to their level, from which warfare, poverty and waste result.

Gossip mongers posing as political commentators insist Trump reveal his tax figures so that they might learn the shocking news that he is an extremely wealthy capitalist, thus given, like all members of his class, to hire lawyers and accountants and regularly cheat on his taxes the way they all do, and to an overwhelmingly greater extent than the common people formerly called the middle but more honestly the working class. In fact, a study revealed that .5% of the richest people in America claim 20% of the untaxable wealth in existence, which amounts to some 50 billon dollars a year of what should be our cash that they stash. Trump represents chump change to that mob, which is why they pay to have him play the role of individual rich pig and drum that idea into the heads of people so starved for information they can believe Trump is having a homosexual affair with Putin while missing the fact that he has almost buried his face in Netanyahu’s crotch with hardly a word of criticism about Israel from the same information pimps screeching about Russia and everything but the system that he, they, and we are a part of and which must be radically transformed if we are to have real democracy, peace, social justice and an environment treated as foundation for such a system.

As the mildly sensible recover from the shock of finding that fantasies they were fed by consciousness control’s mind managers that had Trump and Putin sharing secrets of American fictional democracy, the bottom feeder brigade hasn’t let go and still clings to unrevealed secrets yet to be found when the full story of a two year 25 million dollar waste of time and money called the Mueller farce is open to the public. While most of America watches the latest marvel comics film, hears the latest celebrity gossip and then tries to get some rest, the tiny minority that is paying any attention to this disgraceful Russiagate fiasco and actually reads this 400 page glorified political pornography may start wishing Putin would take over what passes for democracy here, having achieved some measure of success with whatever they call it there. After all, a great majority of Russians do support Putin while, we are told every few minutes, an overwhelming majority here is opposed to Putin’s alleged agent, Trump.

 Now, for a comparison of the shameful behavior of alleged representatives of the people and their co-conspirators in corporate media, let’s watch what the great heroes of our “free” press do with the arrest of Assange, an international figure of courageous public service who makes most of what passes for a journalist class seem a system worshipping stenography religion by comparison. It is significant that he and Manning, two heroic figures, are imprisoned while an entire population of corporate and media hustlers make a living blaming the empty headed egotist in the white house for everything that is, was, and continues to be appallingly wrong with a system while they all make good livings obliterating any mention of that while jumping on a bandwagon of “resistance” to Trump. And Trump will of course cooperate, calling for their heads and despite his initially expressed feelings about wasteful wars becoming a barking dog in response to his master’s orders to get more belligerent about Venezuela, Cuba, and intellectual concepts beyond his – and far too many Americans’ - frame of reference or understanding, like socialism and communism.

A leadership class whose morality and intellect could give pond scum a bad name will continue searching for evidence to impeach the captain of a ship that is not only in danger of sinking but threatening the entire ocean in which it may be swallowed, while the crew follows orders and the passengers are distracted, confused and not yet angry enough to really mutiny. Let’s not wait until the water is up to our ankles.

All Must Rise For The People's Champion Julian Assange

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been evicted from the Ecuadorian Embassy and arrested by the London Metropolitan Police on orders of the United States, which wants him extradited to face a death penalty charge related to his exposure of U.S. war crimes in Iraq.* This shocking contempt for democracy and human rights violates both Ecuadorian and international law. 

Assange was granted political asylum by then Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa in 2012, along with Ecuadorian citizenship last year. Those protections were stripped away on orders of current president Lenin Moreno, who wants revenge for Assange having exposed his massive money laundering operations in the days leading up to his expulsion and arrest. Correa, who cut off Assange's internet connection in 2016 for "interfering" in the U.S. presidential elections, denounced Moreno as "the greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history" for "allow[ing] the British police to enter our embassy in London to arrest Assange."

Alone among Democratic leaders so far, Hawaii representative Tulsi Gabbard rose to the defense of Assange. "The purpose of arresting Assange," tweeted the Democratic presidential aspirant, is "to send a message to the people, especially journalists, to be quiet and don't get out of line. If we the people allow the government to control us through fear, we are no longer free, we are no longer America."

The Trump administration wants to try Assange on charges that he conspired with Chelsea Manning in 2010 to steal the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs obtained by Wikileaks, but as with Russiagate, no evidence has emerged with which to substantiate the charge. [In any event, the American public clearly has a right to know the grim details of Washington's war policies - ed.]

What Assange and Manning actually did was to document grotesque crimes of war, the casual slaughter of Iraqi men, women, and children, Reuters journalists, and Red Cross workers trying to help such victims, that were part and parcel of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Manning leaked 500,000 documents from the Pentagon and State Department, along with the 2007 video of U.S. helicopter pilots nonchalantly gunning people down in the streets as though playing a video game. In a nutshell, Assange's "crime" is having revealed the hypocrisy, wholesale massacre, torture, bribery, and intimidation, that are at the heart of U.S. policy in the Middle East.

The establishment press initially published the Wikileaks documents, but then turned on Assange, eagerly joining in a smear campaign to destroy his reputation.  The coordinated propaganda operation was confirmed in a leaked Pentagon document prepared by the Cyber Counterintelligence Assessments Branch dated March 8, 2008. The document called on the United States to eradicate the "feeling of trust" that is the "center of gravity" for Wikileaks. In other words, they seek to destroy Assange's reputation for having revealed the truth. Keep this in mind as you prepare to send off your tax return on Monday.

Assange published 70,000 hacked e-mails belonging to the Democratic National Committee and senior Democratic Party officials. The e-mails were copied from the accounts of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman in 2016. The Podesta e-mails exposed that Saudi Arabia and Qatar, two major ISIS funders, had donated millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation. They also revealed a payment of $657,000 from Goldman Sachs to Hillary Clinton for speeches. Naturally, one shouldn't assume such modest recompense influenced her views, although she was caught in the e-mails saying that she favored "open trade and open borders," and believed Wall Street executives were best situated to manage the economy, which directly contradicted what she was telling voters. Other e-mails demonstrated Democratic efforts to insure that Donald Trump emerged as the GOP nominee for president, and that Hillary had advance knowledge of presidential debate questions. They also exposed that she was the main architect of the regime-change war in Libya, which left the ruined country in the hands of terrorist gangs, results she is proud of and which she thought would enhance her presidential stature and image. 

Although the evidence couldn't be clearer that HRC's 2016 loss to a reality TV show clown was self-inflicted, corporate Democrats claim to this day that Russia alone caused the defeat, that the Podesta e-mails in particular were pilfered by Putin's hackers. Unfortunately for them, Hillary was already widely detested for her disgraceful record, which renders the Podesta e-mails just another dump in the Clinton cesspool. In any event, ex-FBI director James Comey says that the Podesta e-mails were probably delivered by an intermediary, and Assange insists that "state actors" were not involved. 

Further Wikileak-provided e-mails exposed the hacking tools used by U.S. intelligence agencies to interfere in foreign elections - a regular CIA practice - including in the French elections, as well as the internal conspiracy against British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by Labour members of parliament. It is not difficult to see why Assange is so bitterly hated by the Washington establishment, Democratic and Republican party alike.

Let us recall that it was Wikileaks that intervened to save Edward Snowden, who had revealed how intelligence agencies were engaged in wholesale spying against the U.S. public, as he flew from Hong Kong to Moscow, where he lives in exile to this day. (Snowden faced extradition to the U.S., just as Assange does.) The Snowden leaks also showed that Assange was on a U.S. "manhunt target list."

It shouldn't need stressing, but in our civics-starved culture we can't repeat too often that without the courage and integrity of people like Assange, there can be no First Amendment, no independent journalism, no democracy worthy of the name.  

On his way to the White House Trump denounced the media as the "enemy of the people," while simultaneously declaring "I love Wikileaks." But now that he has power, he wants to crucify Julian Assange. Nothing better illustrates what a hypocritical fraud he is.

If we do not now rise to the occasion and defend Assange, fake news and the infantile tweets of moronic leaders will be all we ever get to see.

*As of now (5/25/19) it looks like Assange will NOT face a death penalty charge, but rather, life in prison.

Sources: 

"Dark Day For Journalism As Assange Arrested," Jimmy Dore Show (You Tube), April 13, 2019

"Julian Assange Arrested in London; Faces U.S. Charge Related to Chelsea Manning Leaks," Democracy Now, April 11, 2019

"You don't grant asylum to someone because he's nice," interview with Rafael Correa on France 24 English, You Tube, April 13, 2019

But At Least They Still Have "White Privilege"

"The rustbelt . . . . is being wiped out . . . . Workers have essentially nothing. They had a compact, they thought. People have done studies of workers in Ohio and Indiana. They feel cheated, rightly. They thought they had a deal with the corporations and the government: they would work hard all their lives and in return they would get pensions, they would get security, their children would get jobs. They served in the army, they did all the right things. Now they're being thrown into the trash can. No pensions, no security, no jobs. The jobs are being shipped somewhere else."

-------Noam Chomsky, Power Systems