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| Alan Dershowitz |
Harvard Law Professor and one time OJ Simpson Dream Team member, Alan Dershowitz believes Trump cannot be charged with obstruction for exercising his power as delineated by the Constitution. That's a heavy legal opinion wielded by one of the greatest legal minds of our age. Why would Dershowitz come to the aid of President Trump when the media would have us all believe that he's a walking disaster? Dershowitz didn't share his opinion as to whether football legend, OJ Simpson cut off his ex-wife's head and generally messed up Ron Goldman. Instead, Dershowitz weighed in on finer legal points as the appellate advisor for Simpson's defense team. Appellate courts review lower court decisions so apparently Dershowitz was retained just in case the Dream Team tanked the Juice.
Back in 2016, Dershowitz described the Dream Team as "the nightmare team" due to the frequent clashes of egos. Today, the Yale educated law professor sites Article II of the Constitution as justification for President Trump to shit can Mueller and anyone else that gets in his way. He points out that past presidents, namely Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy and Obama all invoked this authority by informing the Justice Department when to investigate individuals as well as when not to prosecute others. Dershowitz wrote that no president has "committed the crime of obstruction of justice by trying to influence prosecutorial decisions."
The fact that this authority is granted by an article in the Constitution is rather significant. Articles are the things that made the first edition of the Constitution. You know, important things like term limits and who takes over should the president get capped. The Amendments are the things the founding fathers forgot to pen in the first time around so were added in later like abolishing slavery and letting women vote.
The first President Bush employed the right to squash investigations when he pardoned Casper Weinberger and several others involved in the Iran Contra scandal. Lawrence Walsh, the special prosecutor, stated at the time that the president's actions were intended to derail an investigation that could have implicated Bush in criminal activities. Dershowitz wrote,
"Yet no one suggested that President Bush be charged with obstruction of justice, because in pardoning those witnesses he was exercising his constitutional authority under Article II."
We have a different set of rules for President Trump, mainly because he refuses to relinquish control of his Twitter feed like most other public figures. For quite some time Martha Stewart tweeted for herself which gave us,
What the hell does that mean? In contrast, Mike Tyson conjures up the most thoughtful, beautifully inspiring, grammatically correct tweets as in,
Wow! That dude is awesome! I'm gonna do just that Mike. I guess prison life messed with Martha more than Mike which is why her tweets were often gibberish. It's not like anyone ever tried to stick Mike Tyson with a shiv in prison. Martha probably had to do a lot of gross things to survive, so we have to cut her a little slack on her shaky tweets. The Russian email hack revealed that 21 people needed to approve Hillary Clinton's tweets which were written by an aide. In contrast, Trump tweets are his own words.
The public has an easier time digesting sanitized social media communiques in lieu of the actual truth. Most people want to be placated. It's sort of like staging a house. When my wife and I sold our first home, we removed all pictures of our family, toys and personal items, then my wife baked some bread. Prospective buyers don't want to see other peoples stuff because they can't see themselves living in another family's house. That's what we want from the White House, that is, we prefer the presidency to be staged. We want the message to be packaged for consumption, and it would help if it smelled nice too.
As a lawyer, Dershowitz backs Trump's constitutional rights even when he differs with his policies. Trump's rights are trampled often. For example, a federal judge recently decided that Trump is not allowed to block anyone on his Twitter feed since doing so amounts to censorship. The president could challenge this ruling on the grounds that the 14th Amendment guarantees "equal protection under the law," but he just unblocked them. The only reason Trump allows the Mueller Investigation to continue is because he knows they're not going to find anything.
After going on a fishing expedition in Michael Cohen's offices and stomping all over attorney client privileges, federal investigators came up with some tapes, some of which were leaked to the news media. The Mueller investigation has departed from the Russian collusion mandate and now is trying to prove Trumped cheated on his wife. If Mueller tightens the thumbscrews on Michael Cohen's balls just one more turn, Cohen will start confessing to 9/11. Michael Avenatti filed a baseless case on behalf of Stormy Daniels, described in the media as "an award winning adult film star." Avenatti is trying to nullify contract law which no respectable judge will rule against. Daniels wants to give the money back so she can sell her story for presumably more scratch. She announced she was heading to the border "to help the immigrant children." Forget the wall. The best thing we could do to prevent illegal immigration is line the border with porn stars.
Some journalists have suggested Trump should be impeached for treason for talking to Putin. As the head of the country, he's supposed to talk to other world leaders. Others have pointed out that North Korean Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un, who is guilty of numerous atrocities, was legitimized by his summit with Trump. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill allied with Joseph Stalin against the Nazis during WW II. Stalin is widely regarded as responsible "for the systematic killing of people on a massive scale." Dershowitz made the legal point that treason can be levied only after a declaration of war, not for talking to world leaders with questionable regimes.
The rule of law does not discriminate even when a person isn't well liked by the liberal media and those who were crying in the Javits Center after the last election because they really, really wanted a girl president to win. When laws are biased based on likeability then society is moving in the wrong direction. That just might be the next evolution of a justice system that fines people for using the wrong pronoun.
Another year has passed and some things in my house are dramatically different while others are steadfastly the same. Our oldest, Aidan, is as tall as me. We recently dropped him off at boot camp for Sea Cadets at Fort Devens. William is in the grade that Aidan was when Willy was born. One thing which hasn’t changed in another year is that my wife, Christine, was, yet again, not invited to Taylor Swift’s epic Fourth of July party.
She and Aidan were fans stretching all the way back to 2008 with Love Story. Recently I asked each what they thought of Taytay, and this is what I got,
"I kind of don't care for her latest stuff," Aidan mused.
"Reputation sets a new low for self absorption," Christine noted.
Could it be? Did Taylor Swift lose two fans? Impossible. Admittedly, I hate when pop stars pour their soul into their music, and reveal their inner secrets. After Miley Cyrus twerked in Robin Thicke's crotch at the 2013 MTV Music Awards, the performance drew negative reactions for its alleged raunchiness, sexism, racism, slut-shaming, and cultural appropriation. In response Thicke's wife, Paula Patton, divorced Thicke, whose next album was dedicated to his estranged wife. It was entitled Paula and was filled with Thicke's feelings for his ex including the debuted song, Get Her Back, which contained the following lyrics,
All I wanna do
Is give you that thing, play you that song, you and your girlfriend sing
All I wanna do
Is get you back tonight
Apparently Paula didn't want "that thing" anymore because she didn't swoon over the tune and come running back to Thicke. The album got less traction than the floor in a Starbuck's restroom. Robin himself said about the album,
"In hindsight, the only thing I would have done differently was, I wouldn’t have promoted it or sold it. I would have given it away."
That might have led to a new low of embarrassment. The pop singer Demi Lovato is always singing about her private life including her struggles with mental illness. In her break up song, You Don’t Do It For Me Anymore, she sings
Now that I've learned all about you
A love just like ours wouldn't last I won't fall for your games
So don't hate me if I say
You don't do it for me anymore.
Most fans thought the lyrics were about ex Wilmer Valderamma, but Lovato confirmed that the song was about her "old self." Taylor Swift referred to her old self in Look What You Made Me Do, her Kanye West revenge song in which she recites,
I'm sorry, the old Taylor can't come to the phone right now.
Why?
Oh, 'cause she's dead!
Dead? What a way to milk the drama teat. We all miss the ole Taylor who wrote upbeat work out songs like Shake It Off instead of
I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me
I'll be the actress starring in your bad dreams
The old Taylor was asked to collaborate on a song with Kanye West after he drunkenly snatched the microphone from her during her acceptance speech at the 2009 VMA while saying,
"Imma let you finish..." (we all know the rest)
In response to a possible collaboration, the old Taylor said something like,
"That's never gonna happen."
In 2015, Taylor agreed to play nice with Kanye and presented the Video Vanguard Award to the rapper, who announced he smoked pot to get through his acceptance speech, and that he plans to run for president in 2020, all while Taylor stood arm and arm with wife, Kim Kardashian. Shortly thereafter, Kanye wrote this lyric for Famous,
I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex
Why? I made that bitch famous (God damn)
Then Taylor's mother ratted out deejay David “Jackson” Mueller for supposedly grabbing her daughter's butt at a meet and greet when this picture was taken. Mueller's hand does appear to be on the singer's can, but actual contact is uncertain. In fact, the hand up Taylor's skirt might have been Mueller's girlfriend's who would seem to be in a better position than Mueller for a full on proctologic exam. Mueller was not a shock jock who bragged about the incident on air. Either way, he got summarily shit canned from the radio station, then sued Swift for $3 million. He lost, but not before Taylor's mother said,
"One of the things I think that stuck with me was that
[Taylor] couldn't believe that after the incident, ...that
she thanked him...It made me question why I taught her to be so polite in that
moment."
I don't know how polite Taylor is, but I do know she said "ass" a record number of times in court. Her mother has got me worried because in 2013, I was photographed within a few inches of Taylor's ass. I was certain with the new found "MeToo" status, Taylor's mom would come for me as well. Here's the picture. I'm the guy on the boogie board in the water behind Taylor. I figure once her mother sees this picture, she's gonna call up Google and get me shit canned from my blogging gig.
It's sad for me to accept that my wife and son are no longer Swifties, but changes come even when you stand still. I wish she stuck to her guns and steered clear of Kanye and the whole Kardashian Klan. The unwritten rule in the entertainment industry is for artists never to criticize each other. When Miley Cyrus did her twerking in Robin's thick one, Cher broke the rule by saying the performance "just wasn't done well. She can't dance, her body looked like hell, the song wasn't great, one cheek was hanging out. And, chick, don't stick out your tongue if it's coated." All these things were true, but later the same day Cher rolled back her criticism indicating that she was "ashamed" of her comments.
Rappers apparently didn't get the memo since Nicky Manaj said of Cyrus's when she hosted the VMAs apparently in response to comments made by Cyrus in a newspaper article,
"And now back to this bitch who had a lot to say about me the other day in the press. Miley what's good."
Cyrus shot back,
"Hey, we're all in this industry. We all do interviews, and we all know how they manipulate shit. Nicky congradua-fucking-lations."
Then after taking credit for her fame, Kanye tried "to take down Taylor." All this infighting is ruining the end product. I'll tell you what Kanye West has really done. He made Taylor Swift write the worst songs of her life.
Come back, ole Taylor. Come back.
