BY FLORIDA BILL
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has ruled that the ornery and stubborn Federal Judge Emmett Sullivan must dismiss the case against General Michael Flynn.
It's over, and Sullivan was told to immediately sign an order terminating the make-believe case against the retired three-star general who had served briefly as National Security Adviser to President Trump, following Trump's win in 2016.
In a 2-1 decision by a three judge panel, the court found that Judge Sullivan had committed "clear legal error" and overstepped his role and that the determination of who shall or who shall not be prosecuted "lies squarely within the ken of prosecutorial discretion."
Sullivan's recalcitrance in dismissing the criminal charge that Gen. Flynn lied to the FBI is really artificial since all lawyers know that the decision for any criminal prosecution is within the discretion of the prosecutor. That rule is absolute. Sullivan's notion that he, as the presiding judge, would decide that Flynn should be prosecuted is ridiculous. The veteran judge went so far as to attempt to enlist his friend, John Gleeson, a retired federal judge, as a friend of the court to argue on behalf of the Sullivan position.
So why was the 72-year-old Sullivan pushing so hard for a prosecution, and seemingly attempting to lay the groundwork for his sending Gen Flynn to prison? Gen. Flynn is a retired three-star general with 33 years in the army, and has an unblemished record as a soldier. He had served in combat and was the recipient of four bronze stars and numerous other decorations.
In D.C. where 90 per cent of residents oppose President Trump and his supporters (Flynn included), Sullivan is said to be a popular jurist. Some see him as the "mustached Democrat in a robe." Sullivan doesn't forget that he was lifted from obscurity and given a life long appointment to the federal bench in 1994 by President Clinton.
In finding for Gen. Flynn, the Appellate court called it "clear legal error" on the part of Sullivan. Sullivan's bizarre invitation to the man on the street to file amicus briefs suggesting how he should rule was peculiar and over the top. Of this, the court noted that such a "searching inquiry was not justified."
. The controversial case involving Gen. Flynn began after he was was appointed by President-elect Trump as his adviser on national security. Flynn had served for two years as Defense Intelligence Agency chief for President Obama and in that role had become familiar with the negative downside of Obama policies. His appointment as NSA chief was "disturbing" to Democrats who with FBI agents on the highest level hatched a plan to take out Flynn as a part of Trump's collusion with Russia.
Flynn was sandbagged and accused of lying to FBI agent Peter Strzok in an interview, and last January Flynn moved for dismissal of all charges against him based upon misconduct of Strzok and others in the the FBI. Attorney General William Barr informed Judge Sullivan that there would be no prosecution of Gen. Flynn. Sullivan refused to dismiss the case and his decision was appealed to the DC Appeals court which upheld Barr's decision that that all charges against General Flynn be dismissed, and that the case was over and that Flynn is a free man.
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BY BILL JUNEAU
Born in 1851, the New York Times is a powerful institution in the United States. Its armchair editors have an agenda, and the Hollywood crowd and others with aristocratic rank, wave its front page enthusiastically and in preference to Old Glory.
Likes and dislike of the old Gray Lady run the gamut. Hollywood elitists and high society folk with security fences around their estates, wallow in praise of the New York paper which supposedly provides to a grateful nation "all the news fit to print."
Other Americans are offended at its lack of journalistic objectivity and fairness, and its candid abhorrence of President Trump and his Republican administration. One popular conservative author has called the paper a "seditious rag," and President Trump labels the Times as a master of "fake" news and has discontinued its delivery to the White House.
Lately, the Times has encountered a new pebble in its big liberal shoe. His name is Thomas Cotton, the popular United States senator from Arkansas. This conservative ex-infantry officer, and combat veteran and lawyer, has one-upped the Times with a tough essay which found its way onto the paper's exclusive opinion pages. His essay endorsed the use of active duty soldiers to end widespread street rioting and violence which has been the outgrowth of the killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white policeman in Minneapolis.
In the Op-Ed, the feisty, first-term senator noted that rioters have plunged cities "into anarchy, recalling widespread violence of the 1960s." In New York, he wrote, Mayor de Blasio "stood by" as midtown manhattan descended into lawlessness.
With authority under the Insurrection Act, Cotton wrote that soldiers are effective in bringing peace to the streets when police have been told to stand down by mayors and governors and let violence, arson and looting run its course. . Bands looted, fire bombed cars and businesses and even a police station. One retired Black police captain was murdered in St. Louis and some 800 policemen have been injured. Some elites excused the orgy of violence as an "understandable response" to the wrongful death of George Floyd. It was sort of a "carnival for the thrill seeking rich as well as other criminal elements," Cotton fired off in his editorial.
The Times had let it be known that it opposed the use of active duty soldiers to calm protests, but Cotton submitted his essay and editorial page editor James Bennet and Bennet's deputy Jim Dao polished it a bit with the senator's okay, and even wrote the headline, "Send in the Troops." It was published on June 3, a Wednesday, and Publisher A.G. Sulzberger reportedly gave it his nod.
In the following days, Times' staffers and other fans addicted to the paper and its liberal bend and its loathing of anything Republican, complained to Sulzberger that Cotton's opining had no place on the sacred Times opinion page.
In the face of grumbling and the in-house consternation, the Times did a double flip and announced that the editorial by Sen. Cotton should never have been in the Times. The editorial was "unnecessarily harsh" and inaccurate and the very headline (which the Times editor wrote) was "incendiary."
The Times regrets that it published Cotton's opinion piece, and has blamed it on a "rushed editorial process." To make the point, Publisher Sulzberger, who got that position in January, 2018, fired the trusted opinion page editor, James Bennet, and demoted Bennet's deputy, Jim Dao, who provided oversight of the written word. Dao, said Sulzberger, will be "stepping off the masthead" for reassignment to the newsroom.
In the discourse that followed, Bennet, 54, apologized for his mishandling of Cotton's essay. He had been editorial page editor since 2016, and is the younger brother of U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat from Colorado.
While the Times heard many complaints, hundreds of which came from staffers who signed a letter objecting to the running of the senator's opinion piece, conservative voices have praised Cotton for his demand that rioting and violence and the attack and injuries to policemen be stopped, one way or another, and there is heavy support (based on surveys) for bringing soldiers into the streets when the activity qualifies as an insurrection.
America is still the greatest country on the globe where freedom of expression and debate are welcomed. Senator Cotton raises points which deserve to be debated, and the Times needs to put aside its biases and and political agenda and get back to reporting the news in a fair and professional way.
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By Florida Bill
Every Sunday morning, CBS television presents its long-running news show, "Face the Nation." Moderated by the 40-year-old Margaret Brennan, the show calls upon guests to give their take and opinion on important breaking stories.
Somehow, in recent years, the show has morphed and become an arm of the Democratic party doing its part to chop up the administration of President Trump. Lies, falsehoods and innuendos are worked into the themes and with it comes the approbation from the "never Trump" crowd.
On this recent Sunday, the comely, but inept Brennan, had Attorney General William Barr as one of her guests, and she planned a shellacking of the nation's leading government lawyer.
"Why," demanded Brennan, did the AG order the use of tear gas and chemical irritants to break up a "peaceful" demonstration in Lafayette Square, north of the White House. Marchers were showing their constitutional right to demonstrate against police brutality and the denigration of Black Americans.
The question struck a sour note with Barr and he appeared annoyed at her assertion, but remained poised. These were not peaceful protests, said Barr, "and that is one of the big lies that the media is perpetuating." And by the way, he added, there was no tear gas or chemical irritants used by the police."
Police. were in the process of setting new boundaries for the perimeter of the seven acre park which is home to St John's Episcopal church, when violence erupted and projectiles were thrown, Barr said. Police used non-irritant pepper sprays to rein in the trouble makers, and to prevent a repeat of the violence and the church fire which had occurred there the previous day and night.
Brennan interrupted and declared that "three of my (CBS) colleagues were there and they never saw any projectiles."
"I was there," said Barr. "I was there. They were thrown. I saw them thrown."
Barr said that in that same park on the previous day, a fire was set in the sacred and historic St. John's church. The violence was out of control. Bottles and bricks were being thrown; there was damage to the park and there were injuries. More than 100 policemen trying to rein in the violence were injured and some suffered concussions and were taken to hospitals. We did not want a repeat of that.
Skipping to another subject, Brennan told Barr that a CBS newsman reports that a senior administration official" (no name provided) told him that President Trump had "demanded that 10,000 active duty troops be ordered onto the American streets" to deal with the protesters. "Accurate?" she said.
"That is completely false. The President did not demand that," responded Barr who remained poised, but visibly irritated.
Barr explained that the President, and Secretary of Defense Esper and I were on the "same page" in reference to bringing in active duty soldiers. The President has the power to do so, in accord with law, but the situation on hand did not warrant that action which is reserved for insurrections. Make no mistake here---We all agreed and were on the same page that this was not the time to bring in active duty troops to police the streets, Barr said.
With that, Brennan asserted that CBS "stands by its reporting" that the President had demanded that the attorney general bring in 10,000 active duty soldiers to patrol the streets and put down protesters. Barr, President Trump and the Secretary of Defense Mark Esper have endeavored to set the record straight on this point, but CBS "stands by" its report from some unnamed "official."
Both stories to which Brennan referred and of which she questioned the Attorney General had been widely disseminated by the media. The stories were completely untrue. It was a typical Sunday morning as CBS and "Face the Nation" delivered and "stands by" their anti-Trump reporting.
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