This weekend has been all about tax preparation and housecleaning before “the Great Backyard Patio Cleaning” project begins. There’s cleaning, redecorating, and painting to do before the heat gets here, so there’s really not a moment to lose. In the meantime a few items and thoughts:

Unlike the mainstream media, I’m choosing not to comment on the results of Robert Mueller’s now-completed investigation until the findings are published. But regardless of what the findings show, Scott Johnson is spot-on when he writes this:

We have all operated on the assumption that the gravamen of Mueller’s investigation was alleged “collusion” by the Trump presidential campaign with Russians interfering with the election. See, e.g., the FISA warrant taken out on Carter Page. His reputation duly impaired, Carter Page still rolls merrily along. One inference we can draw from the Mueller investigation: Carter Page is the cleanest man in the United States. Perhaps now that the Mueller investigation is closing up shop we can see the whole FISA warrant.

The political corruption of the FBI and the intelligence agencies by the Obama administration was to remain a deep, dark secret. If the the American people had not had the temerity to elect Donald Trump along with a Republican Congress in 2016, we would have remained in blissful ignorance. After such knowledge what forgiveness?

There’s already been way too much reckless and rampant speculation by folks who don’t know anything other than their frothing, drooling hatred for Donald Trump. The performance of the mainstream media during the Mueller investigation has been shabby and reckless, to the point where they have single-handedly destroyed whatever prior reputations they might have had for fairness and objective reporting. And there is no one – on the right or on the left – who has covered themselves with glory these past two years.

…you know who/what I blame for this? Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein cashing in on their work during Watergate with “All The President’s Men”. Great book, great movie, fer shure. But the fact of the matter is that neither Woodward, Bernstein, The New York Times,/I>, nor The Washington Post brought down Richard Nixon’s presidency. That was done by Nixon himself and his rampant and deep paranoia, and his uncanny ability to surround himself with, well, advisors with (to put it kindly) questionable ethics. And while the Post and Times reporters were simply doing their jobs, Nixon’s presidency would likely have self-destructed on its own as soon as the tapes were discovered and he refused to turn them over.

…By making themselves the story and the stars of Watergate, they changed the way journalism was practiced and how journalists themselves were seen. Now everyone wants to be Woodward and Bernstein and bring home their own Republican president as a trophy, and it has gotten far past the point of “reporting the facts”. Now it’s all “unnamed sources” and rife speculation without any facts to back them up. Now it’s all who’s winning and who’s losing, as if politics were nothing but a friggin’ horse race. Let’s just recall how many times MSNBC and CNN suggested the walls are closing in and/or the wheels are coming off the Trump administration. It’s nothing but opinion-based journalism, and you know what they say about opinions and what they are like…

Way to go, Ohio! Look, if liberals and Democrats love abortion and infanticide so much, let them and their massively-rich donors in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and the Beltway, and the folks they sell dead baby parts and tissue to pony up to support the abortion industry and the organization that that sucks from U.S taxpayer dollars the most. After all, that would be the “compassionate” thing to do, wouldn’t it considering the hardest-hit folks would be minorities and lower-income folks.

…in that way it’s no different from NPR and PBS – organizations whose original (and perhaps well-meant) missions have long since gone the way of the kiwi due to the growth of media and technology over the past few decades. Time to eliminate all federal funding for media organizations.

It’s also time for President Trump to go Teddy Roosevelt and start calling out the likes of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to support equally the views and opinions on those on the left and the right. It’s one thing to say, well, these are social media platforms and folks can use or not use them at their own choosing, but the gray area gets when, say, a conservative candidate’s Facebook page gets treated differently from a Democrat or liberal candidates page due to some shady, unseen algorithm designed by some pencil-necked geek in Santa Clara or Cupertino. You simply cannot have elections adversely impacted like that.

…while I hope it doesn’t come down to the threat of legal action – as a 100% libertarian when it comes to the matter of free speech and would hope these folks would commit to doing a better job of self-policing – speech in all forms ought to be free and unfettered so long as it isn’t threatening or violent in any way. And just because some snowflake is offended or complains about speech they feel is offensive shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all. It’s time for these social media platforms to wise up and, frankly, grow up, recognizing their platforms have implications that go far beyond expressing opinions and sharing baby and vacation photos. People’s lives and livelihoods are now at stake. These companies and their offerings, while offering unlimited potential and opportunity to do good in the world, also offer the same to do great harm by serving as arbiters over what, and what doesn’t, constitute free speech.