W. Niederhut

Rob, MSM narratives about most things are hardly monolithic. And your exclusive focus on right wing alternate reality sources of "news" is problematic, to say the least. The latest example is your Kool-Aid chugging approach to misinterpreting the COVID epidemiology data. I sincerely hope that you don't end up drinking your aquarium cleaning products. Your misinterpretation of the Mueller Report, and its suppression by Bill Barr, is equally bizarre. Are you even aware that Bill Barr suppressed and blatantly misrepresented Mueller's own summary of his Russiagate investigation? That Barr is currently taking his case for withholding the unredacted Mueller Report from Congress all the way to the Supreme Court? Why? That the adamant refusal of Trump and multiple witnesses, including Paul Manafort, to honestly answer critical questions about the 2016 Trump campaign's numerous contacts with Russian officials and cut outs severely obstructed Mueller's investigation? Manafort continued to lie to Mueller's team even after he agreed in a plea bargain deal to cooperate with the investigation! Mueller documented multiple, clear instances of felony obstruction of justice by Trump, beginning in the spring of 2017, but he was not permitted to indict Trump under Barr's DOJ guidelines. He intended that Congress review the damning evidence. Have you even read the transcript of Trump's long-delayed, written responses to Mueller's questions? Trump repeatedly claimed that he "did not recall" details relating to Mueller's questions.

The park ranger incident in Austin fits with what I have observed here in Denver-- most of the guys who are not social distancing or wearing masks are, typically, 20 to 30-something white males. In our local park, the Baby Boomers are almost all wearing masks and making an effort to socially distance. At Home Depot today, most of the Mexican American guys were wearing masks and gloves, and politely attempting to socially distance. In contrast, several white guys without masks walked right up next to me while I was perusing merchandise on the shelves -- making no effort at all to maintain any distance.

Donald Trump’s Defense of Michael Flynn and Roger Stone Is a Giant Gaslight This is how a cover up works. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/05/donald-trumps-defense-of-michael-flynn-and-roger-stone-is-a-giant-gaslight/ by Dan Friedman May 2, 2020 A full-on freakout on the right over the revelation that the FBI planned for the prospect that then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn would lie in a January 2016 interview, has, inevitably, drawn in political operative Roger Stone. President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested he may pardon both Flynn and Stone, each of whom was found to have lied to federal investigators about the Trump Russia scandal. “What they did to Gen. Flynn, and by the way, to Roger Stone and to others, was a disaster and a disgrace, and it should never be allowed to happen in this country again,” Trump said when asked about pardoning Flynn. Notably, Trump and his backers, by and large, are not saying that Flynn and Stone didn’t lie to federal investigators. Instead they are implying that lying to investigators doesn’t matter. Trump and his backers start with the premise that the Trump-Russia scandal was a “hoax,” a claim premised on the failure of special counsel Robert Mueller and congressional Democrats to prove a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. As a result, Trump and company say, the investigations into their conduct were unfair, with any resulting perjury the product of overzealous prosecution. This is Trump’s fundamental gaslight. Flynn and Stone’s lies, and those of Trump himself, helped to prevent investigators from learning what really happened with the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016, benefiting first and foremost Trump, who falsely proclaimed exoneration. In pardoning Stone and Flynn, the president would reward them for that service, and use the pandemic and the volume of his supporters to drown out anyone noting the con. The argument that Flynn and Stone were railroaded, long popular talking points on the right, got a boost Wednesday, when federal prosecutors in Flynn’s case disclosed handwritten notes that Bill Priestap, then the FBI’s head of counterintelligence, made prior to FBI agents interviewing Flynn at the White House in January 2016. The agents knew that Flynn had spoken in December 2016 to Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the US, about sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama on Russia, an apparent violation of the Logan Act. Preistap wrote: “What’s our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” “Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference.” While conservative pundits have treated these notes as smoking gun evidence that Flynn was framed, legal experts have noted that the FBI’s tactics with Flynn were not unusual. Federal agents often try to catch targets in situations where they will admit crimes or lie, opening themselves to prosecution. In a guilty plea, Flynn admitted to knowingly lying to the FBI agents. (He also said under oath that he did not believe the FBI entrapped him.) Flynn’s lawyers are trying to switch his plea to not guilty, and are also asking for the case to be thrown out. The judge overseeing the case has not ruled on those requests. Trump has also seized on arguments by Stone’s lawyers that the self-described dirty trickster was unjustly convicted because the forewoman of the DC jury in social media posts criticized Trump; the judge in the case rejected this argument. Stone and Flynn’s lies were part of a pattern. Mueller’s report, despite its muddled conclusions, indisputably revealed that the president and his advisers reacted to revelations of the campaign’s ties to Russia with epic dishonesty. Some lies were public: Trump claimed to have no business in Russia. In fact, at the time his employees were seeking Kremlin help advancing a Trump-branded project there. Trump campaign spokesperson Hope Hicks said in November 2016 that “there was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.” Mueller noted more than 100 contacts by campaign with Russia alone. Along with Stone and Flynn, former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen and former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos went to prison for lying to federal agents or lawmakers. Former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates and campaign chairman Paul Manafort were found to have lied to investigators, among other crimes. The Justice Department said in February that it was looking into whether Erik Prince, the Blackwater founder and a Trump campaign adviser, lied to the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 testimony. Reliable Trump boosters like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rush Limbaugh, and Alan Dershowitz have derided perjury charges as “process crimes,” implying these were charges prosecutors brought because they couldn’t find anything more serious. Mueller and his prosecutors, however, have repeatedly said that lies by Trump associates handicapped their efforts. “The investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters,” Mueller wrote. “Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference.” Trump was no passive observer of this. He actively encouraged associates to stonewall Mueller and Congress, dangling the prospect of pardons for aides who refused to cooperate. Mueller’s report examined 10 instances in which Trump may have obstructed justice to thwart the probe. Those include Trump pressuring then-FBI director James Comey to stop investigating Flynn in 2017. And one of Trump’s lawyers, John Dowd, left Flynn’s lawyer a voicemail in late 2017 suggesting Trump would remain supportive of Flynn if he did not give prosecutors evidence about Trump. (Dowd denies that this was an explicit offer of a pardon in exchange for silence. Trump himself refused to be interviewed by Mueller. And as Mother Jones has reported, the president appears to have lied in written answers he gave Mueller in which he claimed not to recall communications with Stone in 2016 about WikiLeaks. Testimony at Stone’s trial by Gates and former Trump campaign chairman Steve Bannon revealed that Trump spoke during the campaign with Stone about WikiLeaks, and that campaign officials viewed Stone as a conduit to WikiLeaks. Flynn and Stone’s lawyers have argued that because prosecutors have not proved that their clients conspired with Russia, their lies to investigators should be set aside. “So much of this case deals with the question: So what?” Stone attorney Bruce Rogow said in his concluding remarks at Stone’s trial. Prosecutors and judges in those cases have repeatedly dismissed those claims. Federal District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, in sentencing Stone, spoke at length on the impact of Stone’s dishonesty, noting he thwarted a key part of the House’s Russia investigation. “His pride in his own lies are a threat to our most fundamental institutions,” she said, “to the very foundation of our democracy.” “He was not prosecuted, as some have complained, for standing up for the president,” Jackson said. “He was prosecuted for covering up for the president.”

Jeff, With your salty, convoluted rebuttals of the Flynn facts, you continue to live up to your nickname, "The Russian Pretzel." Your argument that Flynn simply failed to recall his December 29, 2016 phone call to Kisylak, and what was discussed, is ridiculous, as is your pretzel logic regarding Flynn's work for Kremlin-affiliated agencies since in 2015, and for the Erdogan government. Your pretzels don't pass the sniff test. They remind me of your claims about the GRU not meddling in our 2016 elections, or influencing the results.

I made the mistake of going to Home Depot today to buy several things needed for some lawn and garden maintenance projects. The place was packed, parking lot full, and about half of the customers were not wearing masks or observing social distancing rules. By the time I left, there was a line of customers about 1 and 1/2 blocks long waiting to get into the store. Meanwhile, it looks like Rob Wheeler drank the Trump/Fox COVID "over count" Kool Aid.* * Fox News and Trump allies keep floating debunked theories about an inflated coronavirus death toll https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/04/fox-news-trump-allies-keep-searching-evidence-an-inflated-coronavirus-death-toll-all-wrong-places/?hpid May 4, 2020 It’s the notion that some Trump allies and conservative media figures just can’t kick: The idea that the official death toll from the coronavirus is being inflated. They use the argument to suggest, as Trump has, that outbreak is being politically weaponized against him. They also use it to argue for a swifter reopening of the economy. Unfortunately, their latest theory is just as specious as its predecessors. Over the weekend, this quest for an inflated-death-toll smoking gun focused on one page on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Web page, which relays data from death certificates, currently shows the coronavirus death toll at 37,308 — far lower than other estimates, which have it around 66,000 or 67,000. This led to allegations that the CDC had suddenly revised its death toll significantly downward or that the death toll is dropping off in recent weeks, as the week-by-week data on the Web page would appear to suggest. While it shows more than 12,000 coronavirus deaths for the week ending April 11, that drops to about 10,400 the following week and about 3,200 the next week. Just The News, a website recently launched by Trump-friendly journalist John Solomon, ran with this headline: “CDC: Coronavirus, influenza deaths fall for second straight week.” A tweet from right-wing media personality Tim Young went viral, stating, “Did I read this wrong or did the CDC just revised the national COVID-19 deaths to 37,308?!?!” Other right-wing media posts suggesting as much were widely shared. Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Sunday night promoted an article from a random website called trendingpolitics.com that alleged the CDC had suddenly cut the death toll “Nearly In HALF." What’s the explanation here? “New CDC Coronavirus Data Cuts American Death Toll Nearly In HALF” https://t.co/CyyDpI8Fll — Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) May 3, 2020 “What’s the explanation here?” she asked. It’s pretty simple, actually. Even a cursory look at the Web page at issue should disabuse anyone of this particular theory. At the top, the page clearly says these data are based upon death certificates and are thus a lagging indicator of the death toll. “Note: Provisional death counts are based on death certificate data received and coded by the National Center for Health Statistics as of May 1, 2020," it says. "Death counts are delayed and may differ from other published sources.” This word of caution is repeated throughout the page, in fact. Below the table of weekly deaths, it says, “Data during this period are incomplete because of the lag in time between when the death occurred and when the death certificate is completed, submitted to [the National Center for Health Statistics] and processed for reporting purposes. This delay can range from 1 week to 8 weeks or more.” In other words, there is a very good reason the data show a drop in deaths for the last two weeks: because the data are incomplete and hardly up to date. Just look at the number of total deaths — i.e. not just coronavirus deaths — in the table. Did Americans suddenly stop dying of all causes in recent weeks? Of course not. The data just haven’t arrived yet. And the idea that this reveals some kind of downward revision in the overall death toll is complete bunk. The Web page at issue has existed since at least early April, according to the Wayback Machine, with the same disclaimers about the lag in data. What’s more, the CDC’s website elsewhere reports a similar death toll as everyone else: 65,735. These data, like the ones in media reports, cite reports of deaths from the states — deaths for which death certificates may not yet have been transmitted and coded by the CDC. The whole things harks back to another easily debunked theory floated by a Fox News personality. A month ago, some conservatives pointed to other data on the CDC website — for pneumonia deaths — to argue that the coronavirus death toll was inflated. The apparent drop-off in pneumonia deaths, they argued, suggested pneumonia deaths were being wrongly coded as coronavirus deaths to juice the numbers. Fox News’s Tucker Carlson even did a segment on it. The only problem? The data was, again, lagging. And it didn’t even account for the time period in which coronavirus deaths began to rise significantly. As I wrote then: “For the last few weeks, that [pneumonia] number has come in far lower than at the same moment in previous years. How could that be?” Carlson asked. “Well, it seems entirely possible that doctors are classifying conventional pneumonia deaths as covid-19 deaths. That would mean this epidemic is being credited for thousands of deaths that would have occurred if the virus never appeared here.” ... But the CDC says these data are generally incomplete, even for months. A study of 2015′s data showed that “mortality data is approximately 27% complete within 2 weeks, 54% complete within 4 weeks, and at least 75% complete within 8 weeks of when the death occurred.” As you look closely, you’ll notice the dates of these data. The last week for which we have any data is the week that ended March 21. Why is that March 21 date important? By that point, the United States had logged just 385 deaths from the coronavirus. There’s no way “thousands” of pneumonia deaths were being wrongly classified as deaths from the coronavirus because there weren’t even 1,000 coronavirus deaths logged, period. This theory has apparently been shelved — and for good reason: Now that the data have actually arrived for recent weeks, they actually show the number of pneumonia deaths has spiked, rather than dropped. By the same logic featured here, that would suggest coronavirus deaths might actually be undersold, because some are reported as being due to pneumonia. On the same show, Fox News analyst Brit Hume lodged one of his own oft-repeated theories about an inflated death toll, suggesting that people who have underlying conditions who die in the brief period after contracting covid-19 might have in fact somehow died of those underlying conditions. The theory was also floated the next day during Fox’s daytime programming. Except Deborah Birx, a leading medical expert on the White House coronavirus task force, quickly quashed that idea. “Those individuals will have an underlying condition, but that underlying condition did not cause their acute death when it’s related to a covid infection,” Birx said. “In fact, it’s the opposite.” The other leading medical expert on the coronavirus task force, Anthony S. Fauci, followed up by warning against such “conspiracy theories.” Even Trump himself has rejected the idea that coronavirus data are incorrect. Despite retweeting a claim that mortality is being inflated because infection rates are underreported, Trump last week assured, “I can only say what we’re doing; we’re reporting very accurately." He added: “It’s very important to us to do very accurate reporting, and that’s what we’re doing.” But Trump has sent other signals on this, including with that retweet and with the early argument that the virus is being weaponized against him as some kind of “hoax.” So apparently the idea of an inflated coronavirus death toll is something that just won’t go away, no matter how easily debunked the various theories are — and even as there is much more convincing evidence that it’s actually understating the number of deaths.

Get real, fellas. Michael Flynn lied about MANY things... 1) The fact that he spoke to Kisylak on December 29, 2016. 2) The fact that he and Kisylak discussed the sanctions on December 29, 2016-- in violation of the Logan Act. (This was also confirmed by his associate K.T. McFarland's Email at the time.) 3) The fact that he was being paid (since 2015) by Kremlin-affiliated agencies, including Russia Today. 4) The fact that he was an unregistered, paid foreign agent in 2016.

"Failing to recall. " Of course! Calling the Russian Ambassador on December 29, 2016 to discuss the newly-imposed Obama administration sanctions against the Putin regime was, obviously, not a very memorable event in the life of Michael "Lock Her Up" Flynn, eh? Donald Trump also experienced a severe "failure to recall" problem in his written responses to Robert Mueller's questions about the Russia-gate scandal-- which was a bit of an anomaly for a "stable genius" who claims to have "one of the great minds" in U.S. Presidential history. The only thing weirder is a guy with militarily disabling bone spurs claiming to be "probably the healthiest Presidential candidate of all time."

Joe, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz recently told the Guardian that the U.S. response to the COVID-19 crisis is like that of a Third World country. Economist Thomas Piketty recently made similar remarks in a Democracy Now interview. (And everyone knows that Lindsey Graham is one of America's biggest Banana Republicans.) Top economist: US coronavirus response is like 'third world' country Joseph Stiglitz attacks Donald Trump, saying US on course for second Great Depression https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/22/top-economist-us-coronavirus-response-like-third-world-country-joseph-stiglitz-donald-trump

Jeff, Explain why Flynn calling Russian Ambassador Kisylak on December 29, 2016 to undermine the impact of President Obama's newly-imposed sanctions against Russia for hacking our 2016 elections was not a violation of the Logan Act. Was Flynn an authorized agent of the U.S. government at the time? BTW, are you aware that the U.S. Senate Intel Committee has finally released a bipartisan consensus declaration confirming that Russia hacked our 2016 elections to put Trump in the White House?

Agreed. The claim is downright Wheeler-esque. And let's not forget all of those anonymous FBI "leaks" (rumors) about Hillary's Emails during the summer and fall of 2016, culminating in Rudy Giuliani's statements on Fox News about Comey's impending, pre-election "October Surprise."

Jeff, Huh? You and Rob need to take a few minutes to study Chapter One of the Mueller Report Illustrated. Michael Flynn's December 29, 2016 phone call to Kisylak is central to Chapter One. Of course, Flynn lied to the FBI about making the phone call, then he lied about the fact that he had discussed the new sanctions with Kisylak. Enjoy. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/mueller-report-illustrated/chapter-one/

The Assassinations anthology, edited by James DiEugenio, is a great collection of essays. How about L. Fletcher Prouty's book, JFK, the CIA, and Vietnam? It was one of the first JFKA books I ever read, (a few years ago) after watching Oliver Stone's film, JFK, and learning that the character Mr. X (Donald Sutherland) was mainly based on USAF Col. L. Fletcher Prouty.

California, definitely, gets an "A" in COVID pandemic management. The last time I checked the numbers from Johns Hopkins, California still had a very low rate of cases (119) and deaths (5) per 100K-- despite the fact that the Golden Bear State was an early locus of COVID infestation. In comparison, COVID arrived in Louisiana relatively late, but Louisiana has suffered something like 550 cases and 40 deaths per 100K-- ranking third in morbidity and mortality behind New York and contiguous New Jersey.

Poppycock, Jeff. If Flynn was not charged with any illegal activities, to what charges did he plead guilty?! Flynn was a bad actor long before he got caught lying to the FBI about his December 29, 2016 discussion of U.S. sanctions with Kisylak-- a direct violation of the Logan Act! (Flynn lied about the fact that the sanctions were discussed, after he lied about the fact that the discussions ever took place.) He also concealed the fact that he was working as a paid foreign agent of the Turkish government in 2016, in addition to receiving payments from Russia Today. Flynn was previously fired by Obama as Director of the DIA due to concerns about his suspicion relations with Kremlin officials and the GRU. Both Obama and Chris Christie warned Trump about Flynn's shady history shortly after the November 2016 election, but Trump still hired him as NSC Chief, later claiming that no one had warned him about Flynn!

O.K., that last sentence was funny, Dennis. 🤪 I needed a good laugh today. As for the Michael Flynn/Russia/FBI case, it sounds like we need some sort of consensus here about the basic facts-- but that's hard to do if people refuse to even read the Mueller Report.

Let's not forget about the crucial role of the U.S. M$M in sabotaging Hillary in 2016. Studies of the M$M coverage of Hillary's candidacy in 2016 have documented the bizarre, persistent M$M focus on the Email-gate nothing burger, to the exclusion of coverage of critical policy differences with Trump -- tax policy, Obamacare, sustaining Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, educational funding, environmental protection, climate change mitigation, etc., etc.

David, Not sure what your take was on Kuznick and Oliver Stone's Untold History, but mine was that they were getting at the central historical tragedy of 20th century America-- the destruction of the public welfare (at home and abroad) by vulture capitalism and our imperialist military-industrial complex. They may have glossed over the sins of the Soviet Union, to some extent, but they did a brilliant job describing the destruction of progressive, social democratic ideals by the laissez faire capitalist oligarchs who now control the U.S. government. JFK's murder was merely one chapter in that lengthy Robber Baron saga.

With all due respect, Jeff, that's complete bunk. (Where I come from, we refer to it as horse excrement.) If you look at the data from 2016, Dean Baquet and the NYT played a HUGE role in sabotaging Hillary Clinton and electing Trump. Not only did Baquet expressly put the kibosh on any NYT stories about the Trump campaign's numerous meetings with Russians, he ran weekly front page stories-- based on anonymous FBI "leaks"-- about Hillary's Emails. I remember it well, because my friends and I wondered at the time (2016) why Sulzberger was sabotaging Hillary.

Thanks for posting this, David. It's a subject that I've been brooding about a lot recently-- the historic collapse of the Popular Front (and the labor movement) in 20th century America. Two references on the subject that I have been studying (and re-studying) this week are the Oliver Stone/Peter Kuznick text and series on The Untold History of the United States, and Princeton historian Sean Wilentz's Bob Dylan in America, which explores the subject of the Popular Front in relation to Aaron Copland, the Beat poets, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan in the 20th century. Ironically, Sean Wilentz published a negative review of The Untold History in the NYT-- accusing Oliver Stone and Kuznick of whitewashing the sins of Stalinism.

I'm re-posting today's analysis of the Trump/Flynn nothing burger, by Norman Eisen, for NYT non-subscribers. Rob doesn't want to read the Mueller Report, but he needs to read this. And let me say, in advance, that Rob needs to eschew his standard logical fallacy that, "Because NYT (WaPo, etc.) SOMETIMES publishes Deep State disinformation, EVERYTHING it publishes is Deep State disinformation." It's the fallacy of over-generalization and all-or-nothing thinking. It's like arguing that, "Because SOME Republicans nowadays are Neo-Nazi skinheads, ALL Republicans nowadays are Neo-Nazi skinheads." Why Trump Is Obsessed With the Flynn Case It’s the perfect combination of distraction, fear-mongering and red meat for his base. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/01/opinion/trump-flynn-fbi.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage by Norman L. Eisen May 1, 2020 In the middle of the coronavirus crisis, a cratering economy and plummeting approval ratings, perhaps it’s not surprising to see President Trump return to a favorite theme: abusing the rule of law. Of course, it’s a bit of luck for Mr. Trump, too, that on Wednesday evidence emerged from the case against Michael Flynn, his disgraced former national security adviser, providing a new glimpse into the F.B.I.’s investigation of him. To Mr. Trump and his allies, it reveals a deep state intent on taking down his administration right as it began. “What happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen of the United States again!” Mr. Trump tweeted. To Mr. Trump, trumpeting about maleficent federal agents must feel like slipping on a comfortable old shoe. A review of these internal F.B.I. communications, however, shows none of the wrongdoing that Mr. Trump would like to see. But no matter: The mischaracterization of these documents as evidence of F.B.I. misconduct — and by extension, absolution of Mr. Flynn — signals that the president will escalate his abuses of power in the run-up to the 2020 election. The Michael Flynn scandal was one of the first to reveal the pattern of lawlessness that has characterized the Trump administration. In December 2016, Mr. Flynn, in a phone call, successfully implored Russia to moderate retaliation against the United States for sanctions imposed because of the attack on U.S. elections. The conduct raised serious questions under the Logan Act, which prohibits private parties from conducting U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Flynn dissembled about the call, and his lies were made public, exposing him to potential blackmail by Russia. He then lied to the F.B.I. about it, was indicted and ultimately entered a guilty plea in December 2017 for those false statements. He is now seeking to withdraw that plea, resulting in the release of this new material. Three of the pages of new material released this week show the F.B.I. discussing at what time in their conversation with Mr. Flynn they should warn him that lying is a crime. They are balancing his rights with the need to learn the truth and assessing how to do so without rattling him. Far from entrapment, that is standard operating procedure. The fourth page of the documents consists of notes debating precisely the issues that Mr. Trump accuses the F.B.I. of barreling past. The notes include the question of “What’s our goal” and query whether it is “Truth/admission or get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” Given the gravity of the situation, it would have been malpractice not to at least ask those questions as they prepared. The F.B.I. agents were confronted with a senior national security official who had already had a conversation with Russia that raised serious legal issues and had already lied about it. The notes are examining the two basic options in the situation: Mr. Flynn can tell the truth or lie, with consequences flowing accordingly. When the F.B.I. has serious evidence of wrongdoing, it is normal to put targets in this bind. Law enforcement seldom puts all its cards on the table when questioning a suspect. This is not “entrapment,” where one is induced to commit a crime. Rather, the F.B.I. was trying to elicit the truth of whether a crime had already been committed. The alternative would be to lay out all the evidence (which the notes also discuss). But that would have put accountability and our national security at risk by possibly discouraging Mr. Flynn from talking. So why the fuss over the past day by Mr. Trump, echoed by his usual enablers in Congress and on Fox News? I have spent years observing Mr. Trump’s abuse of power and attempts to obstruct investigations — a recurring pattern that resulted in his impeachment — and to me the answer is clear: He can’t help it. Abuse and obstruction is his standard operating procedure. He is also returning to form to distract from his latest blunder, his botched response to Covid-19, and to provide red meat to his base as part of his re-election strategy. By this point in the Trump presidency, we can anticipate some of the specific threats that lie ahead. First, we should look no further than Mr. Trump’s attorney general, Bill Barr. He recently said that the Russia investigation was “one of the greatest travesties in American history.” Never shy about responding to dog whistles, Mr. Barr’s powers include filing or joining in a motion to set aside the guilty plea and for dismissal of the charges against Mr. Flynn. True, it is baseless, but so was Mr. Barr’s conclusion that the president had not obstructed justice when the Mueller Report established multiple instances of that offense. Unfortunately, Mr. Barr has found company in doing Mr. Trump’s bidding, including the U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, John Durham, who is conducting a review of the origins of the Russia investigation. Mr. Durham has already shown his fealty to Mr. Trump’s “alternative facts,” startling observers when he attacked the conclusion by his own department’s inspector general that early F.B.I. steps in the Trump-Russia investigation were properly predicated. Mr. Durham’s continuing review and eventual report is a second vehicle for Flynn-related mischief. But perhaps the greatest looming rule-of-law risk with respect to Mr. Flynn comes from the president himself. The Mueller Report suggested Mr. Trump’s willingness to dangle pardons to those who do his bidding. In Mr. Flynn’s case the president has since said he is “strongly considering” a pardon. The president has limbered up with a series of dubious pardons and commutations for malefactors or allies ranging from Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Scooter Libby to Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Indeed, it is fair to ask whether Mr. Flynn’s abandonment of cooperation with the government was motivated by the hope of obtaining similar relief. So we can expect that the Flynn drama will continue. At this point in the Trump presidency, who can believe that the president will resist the temptation to put his personal interests above those of the public? He did that when he said Russia would be rewarded for interfering in U.S. elections. He did it again when he fired the F.B.I. director James Comey, obstructed the Mueller investigation and pressured another foreign nation, Ukraine, to interfere in our elections. Indeed, his initial refusal to admit the seriousness of the coronavirus demonstrates that same elevation of his selfish interests in avoiding obstacles to his re-election. The good news is that in every prior example, both our institutions and individual patriots stepped forward to respond to the harms that came out of the president’s pathological selfishness and disdain for the public interest. As the president continues his attacks on the rule of law in the Flynn case, here too there is a remedy. It is one that every American has the power to administer come November. Norman Eisen is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. He served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment and trial of President Trump.

Ron, It's been so many years since I recorded that cover of Knockin' on Heaven's Door that I can hardly remember the tracks, but I'm fairly sure it was; 1) My Martin JM40 acoustic, 2) Guild SD60 electric, (a 70s era solid body guitar similar to the Fender Telecasters) 3) Fender bass, 4) Yamaha organ. Recorded on my Boss BR-8 digital recording deck.

Rob, Read the Mueller Report already. 1) and 2) definitely happened. I'll assume for now that you know that Michael Flynn was working as a paid foreign agent in 2016, eh? He filed that paperwork, himself, after he got caught lying about his illegal contacts with Kremlin officials. As for your latest Michael Flynn "bombshell"... Right Wing 'Bombshell' On Michael Flynn Is A Nothingburger https://crooksandliars.com/2020/04/rightwing-bombshell-michael-flynn

Just for the record, Jeff and Rob, are the two of you arguing that; 1) Michael Flynn did not lie to the FBI about his inappropriate, illegal contacts with Kremlin officials in December of 2016? 2) Michael Flynn was not trying to undermine the Obama administration sanctions imposed on Putin's Russian Federation for actively interfering in our 2016 elections? Please clarify.

Great article from the Irish Times. Thanks to Joseph McBride for the post. And, sadly, this is going to get uglier, IMO. It's not just Trump's truly inept mismanagement of the pandemic response, it's the incipient 2020 Recession following on the heels of the recent stock market Crash. (That, in turn, was largely a result of the 2018-20 stock market bubble created by corporate stock buybacks after the 2017 Trump/GOP tax cut for the so-called "job creators.") How many times do we have to watch GOP supply side tax cuts fail spectacularly before the American people finally say, "We won't get fooled again?"

Ron, Knockin' On Heaven's Door is probably Dylan's most popular post-60s song ever, and one of my personal favorites also. It's a very simple, plaintive song that has been covered by almost everyone during the past 47 years, from Clapton to Guns 'n Roses. I recorded this cover of Knockin' on Heaven's Door about 15 years ago and, when I first posted it on the Soundclick website for some musician friends, it became a top ten cover song on the site, much to my surprise. https://www.soundclick.com/music/songInfo.cfm?songID=14036720