Heartbreak and the Mueller Report

It's been over a week since Special Council Mueller announced that he was not making any further indictments and it's been nearly a week since Attorney General Barr released a four-page summary of Mueller's report with the conclusion that no one in the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to win the election or obstructed justice to end the investigation. This came as no surprise to Trump supporters who always viewed the investigation as an attempt at a coup. On the other hand, the left greeted the news that there would be no indictment of President Trump or his family with literal tears. In the days since Barr's summary was released they have fixated on the idea that there must be something hidden in the full report. I've seen speculation that there's a road map for Congress to use to impeach the President and remove him from office.

This is highly unlikely. If Barr had mis-characterized the report then certainly Mueller would have said so publicly. So why is the left so reluctant to believe that the legally-elected president of the United States won his office legally?

Part of the answer is the irrational hatred that the left has for Republican presidents in general and Trump in particular. They can't stand to see him in office and had been counting on the report to remove him. Moreover, a lot of people on the left wanted the accusations to be true. Thank about what it would mean if Trump needed Russian assistance to win the election.

Had Trump actually colluded with the Russians then it would have been the end of the Republican Party. Not only would Trump be removed but there would be demands that Vice-President Pence appoint a Democrat as his replacement then resign himself along with all of the Republicans in Congress. The Republican Party would be reduced to a smoldering heap with the Democrats accusing any of them who won an election of having been helped by Russians.

That's what the left was really hoping for - a result that made them the only party in the United States. From then on, the only races would be between moderate-left and far-left.

Those soaring hopes went crashing to the earth with the announcement of Trump's innocence but so strong was the desire that they have now convinced themselves that the full report has evidence that was somehow hidden from Barr but will still serve to bring down Trump and the Republicans.

Conspiracy Theories That Aren't True

The Clintons didn't have associates assassinated.

George W. Bush didn't have advanced knowledge about 9/11, the World Trade Center wasn't blown up with explosives and Bush didn't order the levees in New Orleans destroyed in order to flood out the black populous.

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, not Kenya.

There was no abort order for a rescue mission at Bengazi.

Donald Trump did not collude with the Russians to hack the 2016 election nor do the Russians have blackmail material on him.

Are the Democratic Candidates Going Too Far?

Back in 2008, candidate Barack Obama said that marriage was "one man, one woman", that "no one's coming for your guns" and "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your insurance plan, you can keep your insurance plan.". By the end of his administration he had reversed all of these promises.

So what are we to make of the current crop of candidates? Various candidates have come out in favor of abolishing insurance companies entirely, making gun ownership difficult to impossible, "reforming capitalism" by partially taking control of all large corporations, abolishing ICE and presumably allowing open borders, incorporating illegal immigrants into Social Security, abolishing the Electoral Collage, reparations for slavery, and the Green New Deal which makes Mao's Great Leap Forward seem modest.

There are two possibilities. One is that they are in a bidding war to win the support of the activist wing of the Democratic Party and they will moderate their platform for the general election. The other is that they really are as radical as they sound and, while they might fail at their major goals, they will still push to fundamentally transform America far beyond anything President Obama imagined.

Is this electable? The assumption has been that President Trump is so far outside the norms and anyone can beat him. Since anyone can win, they reason, then they might as well shoot for the moon.

This will probably backfire. By pushing the limits of society so far, the Democrats are making Trump seem like the safe candidate. The current slate of candidates seems like they are auditioning for the reboot of the George McGovern campaign.

The Democrats Come Out as Hating Hate

So here's where we're at: newly-minted Representative Ilhan Omar made a number of public statements that came across as highly antisemitic. She claimed that the only reason Congress supports Israel is because a Jewish lobby bribes them to and accused Jewish members of Congress of putting their loyalty to Israel ahead of their loyalty to the US. Her statements were bad enough to win the approval of former KKK member David Duke.

Rep, Omar is brand new to Congress but she has experience as a elected official so she should know that you don't start insulting minorities in public. Apparently she's so much in the antisemitic bubble that she ca't help herself.

Speaker Pelosi attempted a mild rebuke by introducing a blanket resolution condemning antisemitism. It didn't mention Omar by name but we all know why she proposed it. But then Omar's supporters rallied to her defense. Rater than pushing ahead, Pelosi sent the resolution to the Foreign Relations Committee for "editing". Omar is a member of that committee meaning that she got to rewrite the document that was meant as a rebuke for her antisemitism. The new version still condemned antisemitism but added in anti-Muslim and white supremacy in, too. It passed, of course, and Omar claimed victory for getting the first pro-Muslim resolution passed by the House.

So, instead of rebuking Omar, they made her a hero. And, faced with increasing charges of antisemitism within their ranks, the Democrats could not straight-out say it's bad.

About the New Green Deal

'If you don't like the #GreenNewDeal, then come up with your own ambitious, on-scale proposal to address the global climate crisis. Until then, we're in charge—and you're just shouting from the cheap seats.'  - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

The Green New Deal is not a proposal. It's a wish list and issuing it doesn't put AOC in charge any more than a kid making out a list for Santa. The GND doesn't even have the level of detail that the now-retracted FAQ had and it barely scratched the surface. Here's a few questions to be answered before AOC gets to be in charge:

What do you envision for the electrical grid? If it's a mix of wind and solar then how will you store energy during the day for use at night? How will you cope with fluctuations in the wind? In February the wind died in Minnesota during a Polar Vortex. Do you anticipate allowing gas-fired generators for emergencies such as this or do you intend to build enough surplus generation elsewhere along with additional transmission lines or do you expect people to shiver in the cold until the wind starts again?

Under current laws and regulations, it will take most of the ten years you envision to implement your plan just to do environmental impact studies and acquire right-of-way. Do you intend to give the federal government unlimited control to seize property and ignore environmental concerns?

Exactly what are you planning for transportation? Airplanes are a major source of CO2 so becoming carbon-neutral has to include major cutbacks on flights. How will it be decided which flights are still allowable? What about cars? Will you simply outlaw internal combustion passenger cars and expect people to replace them with electrical vehicles? Do you envision a one-for-one replacement or will the number of vehicles be drastically reduced? If so then how will people move from place to place?

What are your plans for trucks and farm tractors? There are currently no electrical replacements for these. Similarly, current technology cannot replace container ships with electrical ones. Do you intend for us to return to the days of the clipper ship?

How do you expect to pay for the GND? Estimates have put it above $90 trillion. That's literally more than all the money in the world. The CIA estimates that the world gold reserves are $8 trillion and the world currencies amount to $80 trillion. What do you expect the effects on the world currencies will be if the US doubles it, all by ourselves?

Do you anticipate needing changes to the Constitution in order to implement the GND? If so, then what do you propose?

Given the magnitude of the unanswered issues above, you are not the boss, you are just a kid with a list for Santa.