It’s Monday, March 19th, 2018…but before we begin, a brief comment on the recent National School Walkout:

And we hope David Hogg and the Sinead O’Connor impersonator are right behind you.  Sorry, but when clueless, overemotional, adolescent zealots and their equally clueless, overemotional adult enablers are actively threatening our constitutional rights, we’re not of a mind to wish them well.

Particularly when, with every passing day, it becomes clearer and clearer these murders had nothing to do with an inanimate firearm, and everything to do with the psychotic shooter and government systems which let him get away with it:

Some officials wanted Stoneman Douglas suspect Nikolas Cruz committed in 2016, documents show

 

“…The documents showed a high school resource officer who was also a sheriff’s deputy and two school counselors recommended in September 2016 that Cruz be committed for mental evaluation under Florida’s Baker Act. That law allows for involuntary commitment for mental health examination for at least three days.

Such an involuntary commitment also would have been a high obstacle if not a complete barrier to legally obtaining a firearm, such as the AR-15 rifle used in the Stoneman Douglas massacre on Feb. 14, authorities said.

There is no evidence Cruz was ever committed. Coincidentally, the school resource officer who recommended that Cruz be “Baker Acted” was Scot Peterson — the same Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy who resigned amid accusations he failed to respond to the shooting by staying outside the building where the killings occurred.

David S. Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor, said that an involuntary commitment would have been a huge red flag had Cruz attempted to buy a firearm legally. “If he had lied, hopefully the verification of the form would have pulled up the commitment paperwork,” Weinstein said…”

Unfortunately, when it comes to potential perpetrators of mass shootings, as in sports, flags of any color only interrupt play when they’re actually thrown.

As for the first good thing of significance Jeff Sessions has done since becoming Attorney General, we applaud both him and UMBC with one meme…

…while wishing Andrew McCabe bon voyage with another:

This demands a few random thoughts on the passing scene.  First, did McCabe, Comey or any other of these self-proclaimed patriots keep notes on their meetings with Obama regarding the investigation of Hillary’s emails; and if so, would they care to produce them…and if not, why not?!?

Second, do McCabe, Comey, Mueller or any other creature of The Swamp expect US to take McCabe’s “notes” at face value, trusting they represent an accurate account of what was said during privileged conversations with a President he opposed?!?

Third, this guy’s wife took hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions for a Virginia state senate race from the Clintons’ former bagman, and he himself, besides lying under oath, lost 50,000 text messages between two of his adulterous anti-Trump subordinates…and he’s just been fired less than a day from his pension kicking in.  Gee,…no need to suspect any ill-intent on his part!!!

And don’t get us going about the Dimocrats’ recent requirement, when they’re doing their Liberal best to eviscerate Judeo-Christian values from the public sphere, for morals and ethics in our nation’s leaders…

…let alone their sudden supposed love affair with the truth…

…after decades of deliberate Dimocratic deception.

Furthermore, please don’t try to sell us on the sincerity of their interest in either the truth…

…or moral decency…

…in the Oval Office after they chose to oppose the 2nd-most untrustworthy presidential candidate in history…

…with the most untrustworthy…’cuz we ain’t buyin’ it!

Now, here’s The Gouge!

Peter Strzok Had Personal Relationship With Recused Judge In Michael Flynn Case

Text messages obtained by The Federalist show that Peter Strzok and Lisa Page conspired to collude with Judge Rudolph Contreras, a FISA judge who presided over Michael Flynn’s guilty plea and was later removed from the case.

 

“…The pre-existing relationship between Strzok and Contreras and Contreras’ mysterious recusal from the Flynn case, forced or otherwise, raise serious questions about whether Flynn’s case, among others, was properly conducted.

The text messages that show Page and Strzok conspiring to meet with Contreras were originally hidden from Congress. In records provided by DOJ to Congress, the exchanges referencing Contreras, and plans to meet with him under the guise of a cocktail party, were completely redacted by federal law enforcement officials. The exchanges obtained by The Federalist include information that was never turned over to Congress.

Congressional investigators told The Federalist that only 3,162 of the more than 1.2 million documents retained by the DOJ Inspector General (IG) have been turned over to the committees specifically tasked with oversight of the Department of Justice and FBI…”

Now for the Million Dollar Question: why on earth are these two not in jail…

…let alone still working at the FBI?!?

At the very least, they should both be on the Harlem bomb detail with John McClane…

…wearing similar attire.  But if there were real justice in America, they’d be facing a firing squad after their conviction for treason…along with the rest of their ilk included in our introduction above.

Next up, courtesy of NRO, David French details a disturbing contradiction to Progressives’ Parkland anti-gun narrative which deserves presentation in full:

Another Terrible Florida Case Illustrates the Need for Armed Self-Defense

Even when threats are known, law enforcement drags its feet.

 

Uhhh,…that would be his MUSLIM faith!

“It’s hard to imagine the horror in Elaine Simon’s home on Monday night, March 12. According to an ABC News report, the Palm Beach Gardens mother woke up to a “commotion,” went to the stairs to investigate, and was immediately attacked by 17-year-old Corey Johnson. He started stabbing her repeatedly. Her 13-year-old son, Dane Bancroft, intervened to protect his mother, and Johnson attacked him also.

Simon and Bancroft, suffering multiple stab wounds, were able to flee their house and dial 911. Police arrived and arrested Johnson. Simon and Bancroft are in stable condition, suffering a total of 44 stab wounds between them — twelve inflicted on Simon, 32 on Bancroft. Sadly, the mother and son were not Johnson’s only victims. Lying dead in the house, his throat slashed, was 13-year-old Jovanni Band.

It’s a terrible story, made all the more tragic by the fact that Johnson had been under federal and state investigation for 14 months. The Palm Beach Post has the details:

In January 2017, several local law-enforcement agencies and the FBI came together with the staff at William T. Dwyer High School in Palm Beach Gardens, where he was a student at the time. The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office received information that Johnson supported the terrorist organization ISIS and had reached out to the group online, expressing his desire to join them. 

It gets worse:

After the meeting, the FBI told Jupiter police that a counter-intelligence agency in Europe investigated Johnson’s connection to several threats made on Instagram to McAuley Catholic High School in Doncaster, England. Though the report does not say what the threats were, authorities said they “were so severe in nature that up to 100 students were removed from the school fearing some kind of attack.” British news outlets reported that in October 2016, a threat posted on Instagram stated “we will kill every single infidel student at this school.”

The FBI monitored Johnson, spoke to him, and initially decided not to arrest him, reportedly believing that a “redirection approach” would be “most beneficial” for the teen. (Yeah, like Progressive support of illegal immigration, to HELL with John Q. Citizen!!!  If this is beginning to sound familiar, it sure as hell SHOULD!!!) But he kept making ominous online posts, and in 2017 the FBI began “working” to bring charges against him. By February, the charges were ready.

The Palm Beach Post’s next two paragraphs are haunting:

On March 5, Jupiter police checked in with the FBI to see where they were with the federal charges and the agent said the affidavits would be “coming in the next several weeks.”

A week later, Johnson was in jail for the fatal stabbing in Palm Beach Gardens.

Second Amendment advocates are fond of repeating the truth that “when seconds count, the police are minutes away.” Police failures prior to the horrific school massacre in Parkland — and now the FBI delays before this terrible stabbing in Palm Beach Gardens — remind us of a different truth. Even when threats are known, law enforcement will all too often drag its feet.

Any close (and fair) examination of the violent-crime problem in the United States shows us that law enforcement can’t adequately protect Americans. Police aren’t a sufficient answer “right of boom” (after an attack starts), and — crucially — law enforcement is often ineffective “left of boom,” before the attack. In fact, these left-of-boom failures are more important even than police response times in determining the necessity for armed self-defense.

To put it simply, our law-enforcement apparatus simply can’t keep dangerous people off the streets. And it can’t keep guns (and other weapons) out of their hands.

Even putting aside the sensational and unusual stories like the Parkland shooting or the Palm Beach Gardens stabbing, it’s a simple fact that violent crime, including gun crime, is carried out “by predictable people.” In the Daily Signal, John Malcolm and Amy Swearer of the Heritage Foundation compile studies showing that mass shooters typically have “extensive histories” of “mental health issues, disturbing behaviors, or interpersonal violence.”

Even criminals who commit more-“normal” crimes tend to have their own violent pasts. “Intimate partner conflict and domestic violence history are major risk factors for homicide-suicides,” and a “small number of recidivist violent offenders” are “responsible for the majority of gun violence,” Malcolm and Swearer report. Ask anyone who lives in a high-crime area, and he can tell you. The most dangerous people are well known. Their violent crimes are rarely a surprise.

Those who work with victims of domestic violence can tell similar stories. Fatal attacks don’t typically come out of the clear blue. Violence escalates. Even in the age of mass incarceration, our nation does a terrible job keeping the truly violent from walking America’s streets. The gun-homicide problem in this country is disproportionately dominated by previously violent criminals using illegally obtained guns.

I know there are those who read about the Palm Beach Gardens stabbing and immediately think, “Thank God he didn’t have a gun.” But it’s worth noting that knife attacks claim far more lives annually than the dreaded AR-15. Moreover, terrorist organizations have been urging followers to use knives, a particularly gruesome, intimate, and terrifying method of killing. I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority of Americans would (like Jimmy Malone…

…prefer to bring a gun to a knife fight.

Finally, I’m not at all arguing that a gun would necessarily have made a difference that terrible night in Elaine Simon’s home. Given the sheer terror, chaos, and confusion of any violent incident, one can never definitively predict different outcomes with different facts. Even armed homeowners can be taken by surprise and overpowered. But we do know there are countless examples where guns have made a difference, and it’s the difference between life and death.

Human beings possess the right to protect themselves. Even more, they possess a duty to protect their families from harm. When the evidence is overwhelming that citizens cannot effectively delegate that duty to the police, the decision to arm yourself isn’t just defensible, it’s responsible. How much more evidence do we need that law enforcement is not (and was never intended to be!!!) our first line of defense?

We’re of the opinion French, a man we truly hold in the highest regard, plays the Devil’s advocate a little too much in his 2nd-to-the-last paragraph.  Were Elaine Simon in possession of a Remington 870 or Sig P226 with any training whatsoever, we’re of the opinion not only would she have spared both herself and her son the pain and suffering of 42 stab wounds, but saved Florida taxpayers the time and expense of trying and incarcerating their maniacal attacker.

Turning from that which was never intended to be to that which never should have been at all, writing at NRO, Andrew McCarthy offers a thorough analysis of how…

Mueller’s Investigation Flouts Justice Department Standards

 

“These columns have many times observed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s failure to set limits on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. To trigger the appointment of a special counsel, federal regulations require the Justice Department to identify the crimes that warrant investigation and prosecution — crimes that the Justice Department is too conflicted to investigate in the normal course; crimes that become the parameters of the special counsel’s jurisdiction.

Rosenstein, instead, put the cart before the horse: Mueller was invited to conduct a fishing expedition, a boundless quest to hunt for undiscovered crimes, rather than an investigation and prosecution of known crimes.

That deviation, it turns out, is not the half of it. With Rosenstein’s passive approval, Mueller is shredding Justice Department charging policy by alleging earth-shattering crimes, then cutting a sweetheart deal that shields the defendant from liability for those crimes and from the penalties prescribed by Congress. The special counsel, moreover, has become a legislature unto himself, promulgating the new, grandiose crime of “conspiracy against the United States” by distorting the concept of “fraud.”

Why does the special counsel need to invent an offense to get a guilty plea? Why doesn’t he demand a plea to one of the several truly egregious statutory crimes he claims have been committed?

Good questions.

…Think about how bizarre this is. For public consumption, the special counsel alleges breathtaking felony offenses — bank fraud, tax fraud, and money laundering, crimes involving over $100 million when aggregated. Yet, to obtain a guilty plea from one of the allegedly serious felons, Mueller finds it necessary to abandon the hair-raising felonies he purports to have found. If these felonies are readily provable, as Mueller has claimed in his indictments, they are supposed to form the basis of any plea under Justice Department policy. If Gates is the mega-criminal nine-digit fraudster the special counsel has portrayed, he is not supposed to get a slap on the wrist. Yet Mueller accepts a plea to minor charges, including a Section 371 conspiracy that is a prosecutorial invention — designed to shield the allegedly serious felon from penalties Congress has decreed for the misconduct involved.

These charges against Gates and Manafort have nothing to do with “collusion with Russia,” the investigation for which Rosenstein appointed Mueller. There is no reason this case could not have been prosecuted by regular Justice Department lawyers. There was no need for a special counsel for this. And regular Justice Department prosecutors, overseen by engaged Justice Department superiors ensuring adherence to well-established Justice Department policies, would not prosecute a case this way.“

Here’s the juice: only in the fetid morass of immorality and double standards which is Washington could a creature of Robert Mueller’s tortured integrity be considered a paragon of virtue.

Since we’re on the subject of tortured integrity, as FOX News relates…

School custodian stole $180 from students’ bags during National School Walkout

 

While in no way condoning the custodian’s crime, we have to give her above-average marks for headwork and situational awareness.

Which brings us to The Lighter Side:

Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with some selections from the source material for a movie we’re definitely going to view: 

‘Chappaquiddick: Power, Privilege, and the Ted Kennedy Cover-up’ Foreword Excerpt

 

The question isn’t with who did JFK engage in adultery, but rather who DIDN’T he?!?

“…If you are just now discovering Senatorial Privilege, you may not be aware of the controversy that surrounded its initial publication. Damore seemed a most unlikely person to blow the lid off the Chappaquiddick cover up. Born in Ontario, he was a reporter for the Cape Cod Times. His first book, in 1967, had been a standard post-JFK assassination hagiography, The Cape Cod Years of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

In the final scene of Cape Cod Years, JFK returns to Boston for the final time, in October 1963, for a major black-tie fundraiser with the Democrat governors of New England. As Damore told the story, after the dinner a Hyannis housepainter named Fred Caouette approached the president and was “brusquely challenged” by a Secret Service agent.

Then JFK spots his humble Cape neighbor and yells to the agent, “Let the little guy through!” Shaking Cauouette’s hand, the president says, “Freddy, it’s awfully nice to see you,” and finally tells him, “I’ll see you next year.”

That’s the way all Kennedy books were written back then, even by Leo Damore.

Little did Damore or anyone else know that earlier that evening, the tuxedoed president had summoned Mimi Alford, the intern he had deflowered in the White House a year earlier at the age of 19, to his suite at the Sheraton Plaza, where he ordered her to fellate his younger brother Teddy.

“You’ve got to be kidding, Mr. President,” she recalled herself replying in her 2012 memoir…”

Perhaps because Miss Alford didn’t want to end up as just another bit of decor, dated or deceased, in…

We miss the Kennedys about as the Clintons…or the Obamas…or the Spanish Flu…or any other pox upon the Republic.  

Magoo