August 21, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Minnesota Muslims are celebrating Eid today and tomorrow at US Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis. Harking back to the Super Bowl hosted at the stadium earlier this year, the organizers are calling the event Super Eid. Animals will be sacrificed at an undisclosed location off site in connection with the festivities. Animal sacrifice is apparently still a thing in Islam. The Star Tribune is discreet about this in the article
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August 21, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Robert Mueller has filed a 10-page sentencing memo in the case of George Papadopolous (embedded below via Scribd). In the revised authorized version of the origin of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign, Papaoplous looms large. He is allegedly the man. Having reviewed the sentencing memo, however, Bryon York concludes that “Papadopoulos emerges as bit player in Trump-Russia affair.” Margot Cleveland explores the perplexities of the sentencing memo
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August 21, 2018 — Scott Johnson
At the Weekly Standard yesterday Eric Felten blasted the New York Times’s depiction of Bruce Ohr as “a midlevel government worker” and “little-known career Justice Department official.” Indeed, according to one of the Times’s classic triple-byline stories (concluding with credit to two more reporters), Ohr was a faceless bureaucrat deposited “deep into the government bureaucracy.” In case you missed the Times’s point, the team of three plus two reporters also
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August 20, 2018 — Scott Johnson
If you get your news from the New York Times, former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr is or was a faceless bureaucrat and if you think otherwise, you are the victim of a conspiracy theory. I have a counter theory. My theory is that if you get your news from the New York Times, you are spectacularly ill-informed. The Weekly Standard’s Eric Felten presents a galling case study supporting
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August 20, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Those of us who get our news from sources beyond the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN are likely to have a different view of the Mueller Switch Project than, say Chuck Todd. Todd’s reverence for the ability of Mueller to divine “the truth,” evident in his interview yesterday with Trump spokesman Rudy Giuliani, can be understood as ill-informed by anyone who has troubled to read Andrew McCarthy’s
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August 19, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Rudy Giuliani appeared this morning on Meet the Press on behalf of President Trump. Host Chuck Todd asked why President Trump won’t just sit for a friendly interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller and tell the truth. What’s so hard about that? Truth is truth; Trump can avoid any alleged “perjury trap” by sticking to it. But it’s not that simple. “Truth isn’t truth,” Giuliani responded. “Mr. Mayor,” Todd countered.
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August 19, 2018 — Scott Johnson
John observed that Minnesota Attorney General candidate Keith Ellison — incumbent Fifth District representative and deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee — might have been on the brink of being forced off the DFL ticket by domestic abuse allegations that surfaced this past weekend. I don’t think so. The rules of the game have never applied to Ellison and and they aren’t going to be applied now. Yesterday the
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August 19, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The mind-boggling scandal of the Obama administration’s treatment of the Trump presidential campaign continues to unravel, but you’d never know from taking in your news via the mainstream media. Former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr is scheduled to testify under oath this week before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees on August 28. Ohr seems to have served as a conduit for Christopher Steele’s continued service to the FBI
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August 19, 2018 — Scott Johnson
This past Sunday we went to see the great Stax artist William Bell perform at the Dakota Jazz Club in downtown Minneapolis. Bell is 78 years old. He returned to the scene in triumph with his 2016 recording This Is Where I Live, winner of that year’s Grammy for Best Americana. Not blues, not rhythm and blues, not soul — Americana, as Bell proudly mentioned a couple of times during
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August 18, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The confidence of the oleaginous Mark Warner in his colleague Richard Burr gives me my doubts. Burr is the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee who has kept up a bipartisan vibe in the committee’s investigation of Russian interference in the election. The parallel House committee operating under Chairman Devin Nunes has filed its Report on Russian Active Measures. Burr’s committee labors on. I have my doubts about Burr, but
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August 18, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Holman Jenkins finds press coverage of the origin of the FBI counterintelligence investigation wanting. Today he elaborates on this theme in his Wall Street Journal column “The press abets a coverup.” The counterintelligence investigation has been taken over by Robert Mueller. Mueller is to unravel the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with the friends of Vladimir Putin. One problem, if the Steele Dossier os taken at face value: only the Clinton
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August 17, 2018 — Scott Johnson
When I went downtown to the studio yesterday to appear for a segment on Tucker Carlson Tonight, I thought that Tucker wanted to draw me out on the points I made about Keith Ellison in my Weekly Standard column on Wednesday. In the column I asserted that the domestic abuse allegations against Ellison were the least of his disqualifications from office. Taking advantage of his news sense, Tucker only wanted
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August 17, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll asks a pointed question: WHO DO THESE PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE? She draws on her professional experience to answer the question: Here is a little secret from the comedy world, my friends. When comics get together, they rarely discuss the great gigs – the standing ovations, the necessity to take several minutes after one of your greatest bits for the audience to calm down so you can deliver
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August 16, 2018 — Scott Johnson
I am scheduled to appear on the 8:30 p.m. (Eastern) segment of Tucker Carlson Tonight on the Fox News Channel to talk about Minnesota Attorney General candidate Keith Ellison and Minnesota Fifth District congressional candidate Ilhan Omar. That is a lot of ground to cover in one segment. I will have to try to hit the lowlights and leave out a lot of the details that support my comments on
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August 16, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Aretha Franklin — the Queen of Soul, as Steely Dan reminded the “sweet young thing” in “Hey Nineteen” — has died. Jon Pareles reviews the record in his excellent New York Times obituary. I cannot take her measure but we can pause to remember and pay our respects. The metaphor of royal lineage was not entirely amiss in Aretha’s case. Her father, the Reverend C.L. Franklin, was the renowned Detroit
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August 16, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Today the New York Times has published a column by John Brennan under the headline “President Trump’s Claims of No Collusion Are Hogwash.” Brennan served as Director of the CIA until January 2017 and held the highest security clearance until yesterday. He must know what he is talking about. Looking for the goods, I turn to his column. Here is the nub of the column: The already challenging work of
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August 16, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Will allegations of domestic abuse against DNC vice chairman Keith Ellison hurt the Democratic Party ahead of this fall’s midterm elections? DNC chairman Tom Perez says “no.” With three contributing to the story, the AP reports Perez’s assurance yesterday that allegations of domestic abuse against Ellison would not hurt the party ahead of this fall’s midterm elections. “Yet four days after the first public accusation of physical and emotional abuse
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