A Dramatic Reading of the Mueller Report

Use The Windows 10 Game Bar

Click here for an article by Chris Hoffman at How-To Geek entitled "6 Great Features in Windows 10’s New Game Bar" to learn how to capture video clips and other tricks.

Ideas For All Those Photos You've Taken

Click here for an article at lifesavvy.com by Harry Guinness about suggestions for what to do with those thousands of images you've shot.

Big Brother (Google) Is Watching You!

Here's a short video clip from The Washington Post illustrating how cookies snaffle onto you and then follow you around; "in a week of regular browsing, you might get tagged by 10,000 third-party cookies." That's on Chrome: Firefox doesn't allow them, by default.



Click here for the accompanying article by Geoffrey A. Fowler, entitled "Goodbye, Chrome: Google’s web browser has become spy software."

In a week of Web surfing on my desktop, I discovered 11,189 requests for tracker “cookies” that Chrome would have ushered right onto my computer but were automatically blocked by Firefox. These little files are the hooks that data firms, including Google itself, use to follow what websites you visit so they can build profiles of your interests, income and personality.

Holocaust Revisionism

Click here for an article at The Washington Post by Lev Golinkin entitled "‘Never forget’ is dead. And it was killed on our watch." Neo-Nazism -- and worse -- is rampant in Europe.

Gerrymandering Explained

Here's a short, simple explanation from The Washington Post of how gerrymandering works:

Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean They're Not Watching You

Click here for an article at How-To Geek by Chris Hoffman entitled "How to See Which Apps Are Using Your Webcam on Windows 10."

Your webcam’s light is on, but which applications are watching you? Windows 10 now has an easy, built-in way to find out. You can also see which apps have previously used your webcam—and the precise time they last accessed it.

Google Home

Click here for an article at How-To Geek by Cameron Summerson entitled "How to Set Up Whole House Audio Using Google Home."

I Like Night Skiing, But ...

... I like to do it on a green or blue run that I'm familiar with. I wouldn't ski this run in the daylight.

Archive Your Stuff!

Click here for an article by Rob Woodgate at How-To Geek entitled "The Best Way to Organize Your Emails: Just Archive Them." Finally, clear out those hundreds of superfluous messages (but you don't want to get rid of them forever). OHIO -- Only Handle It Once!

Mohammed bin Zayed, Crown Prince Of Abu Dhabi

Mohammed bin Zayed, crown prince of Abu Dhabi, de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, is arguably the most powerful leader in the Arab world:

“Prince Mohammed is almost unknown to the American public and his tiny country has fewer citizens than Rhode Island. But he may be the richest man in the world. He controls sovereign wealth funds worth $1.3 trillion, more than any other country.

“His influence operation in Washington is legendary… His military is the Arab world’s most potent, equipped through its work with the United States to conduct high-tech surveillance and combat operations far beyond its borders.

“For decades, the prince has been a key American ally, following Washington’s lead, but now he is going his own way. His special forces are active in Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Egypt’s North Sinai. He has worked to thwart democratic transitions in the Middle East, helped install a reliable autocrat in Egypt and boosted a protégé to power in Saudi Arabia.”

Republicans Gradually Came To Support The Nixon Impeachment

Click here for an article at The Washington Post by William S. Cohen entitled "When will the Republican silence on Trump end?"

Cohen is a former Republican congressman, senator and defense secretary who served on the House Judiciary Committee in 1974 during the Watergate impeachment inquiry. And the point he makes is that originally, when the Watergate burglars were arrested and the story began to develop, Republicans were solidly behind Nixon, a popular president who won reelection by a massive margin in 1972.

Commenting on the present state of affairs, he says:

With the exception thus far of Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Republicans have taken the position that Mueller’s redacted report has resolved all issues of alleged presidential collusion with the Russians and obstruction of justice. Case closed.

This is not a tenable position. The Mueller report has raised nearly as many questions as it has answered. But more important, as someone who legislatively helped craft the original Office of Special Counsel, I can attest that Congress never intended to subcontract out its investigative powers to the executive branch.

He goes on to say:

At the moment, public opinion polls indicate that a majority opposes impeachment proceedings against Trump. It also appears unlikely that two-thirds of the Senate would support removing the president from office based on the evidence currently available.

And:

During the Watergate scandal, the majority of the American people initially opposed impeachment proceedings being launched against President Richard M. Nixon.

But as the hearings moved forward, we learned that, among other activities, the president had authorized the payment of “hush” money to those who had engaged in criminal activity; urged his subordinates to commit perjury before Congress; attempted to have the CIA derail an ongoing FBI investigation; and sought to use the IRS to punish those on a list of his political enemies.

[All of those findings apply to Trump.] Cohen goes on to say:

The silence of Republicans today in the face of presidential behavior that is unacceptable by any reasonable standard is both striking and deeply disappointing.

When one talks privately to some Republican members about a president who lurches from tweet to taunt; who, according to those who have worked closely beside him, is incapable of telling the truth even in mundane situations; who accepts the word of Vladimir Putin and rejects the unanimous judgment of our intelligence community that Russia launched a cyberattack at the very heart of our democracy; and whose toxic combination of egotism and insecurity distorts the basic process of governing, they express their disdain and even alarm at how he conducts the nation’s affairs.

Yet, the same members are reluctant to speak out publicly even in the face of behavior they would find intolerable by any previous occupant of the Oval Office.

Republicans who do not venture outside the Fox bubble believe the propaganda they are being force-fed: No collusion, no obstruction, the president was exonerated, the crimes involved were perpetrated by the corrupt investigators. When they learn the truth, the tide will turn.

Tucker Carlson: "Mexico Is A Hostile Foreigh Power"

Who knew?

Click here for a short article at MediaMatters entitled "Tucker Carlson: Mexico is a "hostile foreign power" and America "must strike back."

It has a link to the Fox News broadcast, and says:

TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): When the United States is attacked by a hostile foreign power it must strike back. And make no mistake Mexico is a hostile foreign power. For decades the Mexican government has sent its poor north to our country. This has allowed that country's criminal oligarchy to maintain power and get even richer but at great expense to us. The flood of illegal workers into the United States has damaged our communities, ruined our schools, burdened our healthcare system and fractured our national unity.

Oooookay ... When I first read (at another publication) that Carlson had said "When the United States is attacked by a hostile foreign power it must strike back. And make no mistake Mexico is a hostile foreign power," I thought Carlson must simply have misspoken, and meant to say "Russia" or "China." But no, he's attacking Mexico as an enemy of the United States.

Russia, China, North Korea, Egypt, Turkey, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, and other repressive autocracies are fine, but Mexico is an enemy. Is Canada next?

Trump Arrives In Britain!

Here's how Sky News is advertising Trump's arrival in Britain on June 3 (paste this address into your browser):

https://twitter.com/i/status/1134833983261413376

Mueller v. Hannity

Click here for an article in WaPo by Erik Wemple entitled "Mueller ruins Hannity’s parade of deception." As Wemple says, Hannity's reaction the day the Mueller report was released was as follows:

“We begin tonight with a Fox News alert. The witch hunt is officially over. The Mueller report is out. And the president of the United States has been totally and completely vindicated,” said Hannity on that night. More: “Tonight, thankfully, for the sake of this country, truth has prevailed. As the president’s attorneys put it, quote: This vindication of the president is an important step forward for the country and a strong reminder that this type of abuse must never be permitted to occur again.”

I've seen several accounts of Republicans who only listen to Fox and other right-wing TV and radio shows that say words to the effect of, "All I've seen and heard is that the president was totally vindicated, and the investigation was bogus from the start and should never have happened." They don't know what the Mueller report says; all they know is what Hannity, Limbaugh and the rest of the right-wing crowd have told them. I read of one such Republican who was shocked to see Mueller on TV saying that if they had found that Trump did not commit the crime of obstruction, they would have said so. That's not what she had been led to believe, and she said that as a result of hearing Mueller speak, she would read the second volume of the report (the one that deals with obstruction). She had thought, based on Barr's "summary" of the report, that Trump had been exonerated, and she was surprised to learn, from Mueller himself, that that was not the case.

Great! If only they could take the blinders off and expose themselves to information that doesn't come from the Fox News bubble, they would learn that reality is entirely different from what they have been deceived into believing.

Of course, Hannity cannot let Mueller's statement stand on its own:

“Now, today, he officially resigned from the Office of Special Counsel but not before showing the world, of course, what we already know on this program, his partisan hackery true colors, if you will,” said Hannity, in his typical spitfire delivery.

In his statement, Mueller said:

“If we had had the confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not however make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.”

Hannity, with a nice assist from Alan Dershowitz, professed to be shocked that Mueller would say such a thing. Wemple replies:

Thing is, Mueller had already said as much — in his report, which hit the public realm more than a month before his statement. Here’s the relevant passage from Volume II of the report: “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, however, we are unable to reach that judgment.”

Of course he did! I already knew that, from reading and seeing non-Fox coverage of the report. But statements like that in the report weren't reported in the Fox world.

This very spectacle — the special counsel, in his first public remarks on the investigation — forced Hannity and many others to reckon with the Mueller team’s actual findings. As opposed to the findings that Hannity had been announcing to his viewers in the intervening weeks:

On May 2: “The witch hunt is done. Mueller has gone home. No collusion, no obstruction.”
On May 22: “We now have four separate investigations that have all cleared President Trump of the spurious charges leveled against him and his campaign. No collusion, fact. No obstruction, fact.”
On May 27: “Now, the truth has been laid bare for all to see. No collusion. No obstruction. No truth to the lies that have been peddled daily.”

Folks who place trust in Hannity — and there are many — might have been confused, accordingly, upon hearing Mueller state, “If we had had the confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” So Hannity had to reassure his fans: Mueller doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Dilemma for Fox: If the report actually showed "no collusion" -- it didn't, but that's the Hannity line -- then the report has to be praised for its thoroughness in coming to such a laudable conclusion; but if the report actually implicated wrongdoing -- which it did -- then the report has to be trashed as a bunch of lies from a partisan hack. Which is it to be, Fox?

Propagating misinformation, as it turns out, is a complicated business. To properly air the “no collusion” mantra, Hannity has to hype the Mueller probe’s investigative thoroughness. To properly air the “no obstruction” mantra, Hannity must simultaneously aver that Mueller is “basically full of crap.” It’s one of the luxuries of Hannity’s bubbled existence at Fox News that he will never be forced to choose between the two.