Free Republic

Below is my column in The Hill on the long-awaited interview of Special Counsel David Weiss with House investigators. As expected, Weiss refused to answer most of the questions, but seemed perfectly Nietzschean in explaining obvious conflicts between the accounts of whistleblowers and the Attorney General. Here is the column: The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said that all things are matters of mere interpretation and “whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.” One has to understand Nietzsche and his nihilistic rejection of meaning to fully appreciate this week’s interview with special counsel...

China has been taking advantage of a 'data void' in order to flood social media platforms with Chinese-backed conspiracy theories regarding the origins of Covid-19, which in turn affects algorithmic results from popular search engines such as Google and Bing, according to the Washington Post, citing a Tuesday report by the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD).The Chinese posts have almost exclusively focused on a theory that Covid-19 was created in a lab at Fort Detrick, home to the US Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) - which will ring a bell for anyone who read The Hot Zone,...

Would it surprise you to learn that the judge presiding over a case of Robert Mueller’s is married to a Mueller protege? When Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted Concord, a Russian company that didn’t even exist, it landed on District of Columbia Judge Dabney Friedrich’s docket. At first, it appeared as though Friedrich had a handle on the malarkey taking place. At the initial hearings, she denied the special counsel’s request to delay everything. She rightfully questioned the validity of the charges — especially the unprecedented charge of “conspiracy against the United States.” As many noted, the Mueller squad did...

At a Monday hearing, Judge Friedrich vented — and defended Mr. Mueller. “Meritless personal attacks on the special counsel, his attorneys, other members of the trial team, and firewall counsel will play no role in my decision on your motion, nor will inappropriate and what you clearly believe to be clever quotes from movies, cartoons, and elsewhere,” the judge said. “Your strategy is ineffective. It’s undermining your credibility in this courthouse. I will say it plain and simple: Knock it off.” Mr. Dubelier didn’t back off. The next day, he filed a brief accusing Judge Friedrich of triggering a wave...

**SNIP** In a hearing in a Washington, D.C. courtroom on Monday, Eric Dubelier of the American law firm Reed Smith argued that the case against the Russian consulting company known as Concord, which allegedly operated a “troll factory” in which the Russians created or stole the identities of hundreds of Americans online in order to sow discord and spread propaganda, should be dismissed. If people lying about who they are on the Internet and engaging in political speech is a crime, he argued, then every politician in America would be in prison. “This argument is beyond belief,” Dubelier said. “They...

Special counsel Robert Mueller's office appears to be in an early stalemate in its efforts to bring a criminal case against Russians allegedly involved in Moscow's efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election. Although one Russian company indicted by Mueller in February, Concord Management and Consulting, has US attorneys and a court hearing scheduled, the special counsel's team hasn't been able to reach the company or its co-defendants. The Russian government's top legal office wouldn't accept paperwork from US law enforcement in the case, and the company has already hit back at Mueller by demanding more evidence and information. The...

Yesterday I wrote about an anonymous allegation about Brett Kavanaugh which had been sent to Sen. Cory Gardner last week. The brief letter (which you can see here) claimed that back in 1998, Brett Kavanaugh shoved a woman he was dating at the time up against a wall in an “aggressive and sexual” manner after leaving a bar in Washington, DC. Last night, a federal judge named Dabney Friedrich responded to a request from a lawyer for the Judiciary Committee saying she dated Kavanaugh in 1998 but that no such incident ever happened. From National Journal:

Several readers have now forwarded this rather stunning piece of mail that slams Bob Friedrich, who will face off Tuesday against David Weprin in a special election to fill the Queens Assembly seat vacated by Weprin's now-councilman brother, Mark. The mail features a Swastika superimposed over a generic photo of police tape. It arrived in mailboxes in Glen Oaks, a 10,000-person co-op on the Nassau/Queens line that is heavily Jewish. As you can see from the mailer that appears in full after the jump, Friedrich himself was on the mailing list. The piece accuses Friedrich, who, like Weprin, is Jewish,...

Maths genius declines top prize Photos of the reclusive genius are rare Grigory Perelman, the Russian who seems to have solved one of the hardest problems in mathematics, has declined one of the discipline's top awards. Dr Perelman was to have been presented with the prestigious Fields Medal by King Juan Carlos of Spain, at a ceremony in Madrid on Tuesday. In 2002, the mathematician claimed to have solved a century-old problem called the Poincare Conjecture. So far, experts working to verify his proof have found no significant flaws. There had been considerable speculation that Grigory "Grisha" Perelman would...

All manner of essays from the Left and Right, presented for your reading (and quoting) pleasure.. All EssaysQuotations Links to Related Topics