🇺🇸 Durham’s Defense

Good morning, and happy Friday. As of today, we are officially halfway through 2023. Wild! But it’s cause for celebration, as is the weekend before our favorite holiday of the year: July 4th.

Our independence from Britain 247 years ago made the world a better place. Before the United States, much of the Western world was organized in a vertical order known as the “Great Chain of Being” — a world ruled by priests and monarchs. It was a world in which, if you were born at the bottom, you had virtually no chance of ever making it to the top.

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights took that existing framework and bodyslammed it against the ancient moral grounds it had been resting on for thousands of years.

The vertical order began to tilt, becoming just horizontal enough that, if you were born into a poor Mississippi family in 1954, you could go on to host a TV series called The Oprah Winfrey Show and end up with a net worth of $2.5 billion. Or, you could be the child of two immigrants and become a millionaire by age 23, giving the world the iPhone along the way, like Steve Jobs.

And the tilt didn’t end at the US borders. Our country’s inception compelled humanity to think about concepts like equality and individual rights. It provided a framework for a new economic model called capitalism — which, say what you will, has lifted more people out of poverty than any other framework before it.

Now, we still have a lot of work to do. A lot. Our country is far from perfect. But, if you’ve spent much time outside the United States, you probably know, all things considered, we have it pretty okay back home. Which might be why more than 40 million people living in the US were born in another country, accounting for about one-fifth of the world's migrants.

Nothing is easy. Nothing is perfect. But on a relative basis and historical terms, we think the world is much better now than it was before 1776. At the very least, we don’t have to answer to a King this weekend. And that alone, even 247 years later, is worth celebrating.

Thanks for listening to us ramble. We’re off until next Thursday, July 6th. Enjoy the holiday and the amazing country we get to call home.

Before we go, as all of you know, we are HUGE fans of American history. Which is why we’re excited to be partnering with Rally, a platform for buying & selling equity shares in collectible assets. Looking for a '56 Mickey Mantle card? Rally has it. How about a '54 Hank Aaron card? Yup. Take a look for yourself: the nostalgia kick is a July 4 celebration in itself.

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Right: Are the Walls Closing In On Ol’ Joe? Charles Lipson, Spectator World

Right: Is Liberal Society Making Us Ill? Gurwinder Bhogal, UnHerd

Right: Hey, Joy Reid, Let's Talk About 'Fascism' David Harsanyi, The Federalist

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2016

Durham’s Defense

Earlier this month, Special Counsel John Durham appeared before Congress to testify concerning his report that blasted the FBI investigation into alleged Russian collusion, with former President Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election. Durham concluded the FBI should have launched a preliminary, but not full, investigation into the manner.

Reporting from the Left: Special counsel John Durham defends his investigation and former Attorney General Bill Barr Zachary Cohen and Marshall Cohen, CNN

Reporting from the Right: Durham testifies that the FBI ignored Hillary Clinton plan to link Trump to Russia Brooke Singman, Fox News

From The Flag: House Democrats accused him of running a biased investigation, with some suggesting Durham’s reputation had been damaged. Republicans touted his findings as further evidence of a political witch hunt against Trump. Here’s more from both sides.

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Special Counsel Durham: Short on Knowledge

• Durham’s testimony failed to achieve retribution against Trump’s enemies — and it didn’t exonerate the former president either.

• It’s no surprise Durham thought the FBI’s investigation into Trump was a “witch hunt,” because he doesn’t understand the scandal.

• Durham was left rattled and grousing about his reputation following several lines of questioning from Democratic lawmakers.

John Durham said exactly what Trumpworld didn't want to hear Hayes Brown, MSNBC Opinion: "There was a lot of time spent in the weeds during (this month's) House Judiciary Committee hearing with special counsel John Durham. Lawmakers burned hours trying to spin, parse and unpack the dense, 300-page report he issued last month into the origins of the FBI’s 2016 investigation of former President Donald Trump. ... It wasn’t the most riveting of hearings, but here’s the bottom line: John Durham found nothing to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. At no point in his testimony did he take the bait from Republicans to give credence to Trump’s 'Russia hoax' rhetoric. ... Like Durham’s investigation itself, the hearing was at times a crude doppelgänger of Mueller’s testimony about his findings in 2019. ... And then, as now, Republicans desperately sought to spin the text before them into a full exoneration of Trump."

John Durham Admits He Knows Little About Russia Scandal No wonder he thought the FBI was doing a witch hunt against Trump. Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine: "Durham... tried and utterly failed to prove that the Russia investigation was a vast anti-Trump conspiracy... (and) interestingly revealed a possible explanation for why he threw away a sterling reputation to work with William Barr fruitlessly pursuing a right-wing conspiracy theory: The man seems to have become so hopelessly brain-poisoned by Fox News he has lost all touch with facts outside the Republican information bubble. More specifically, Durham seemed to be unaware of the major factual elements of the alliance between the Trump campaign and Russia. ... (Rep.) Eric Swalwell asked Durham about how Trump 'tried and concealed from the public a real-estate deal he was seeking in Moscow.' ... Durham replied, 'I don’t know anything about that.' ... It may seem inconceivable... But there are many powerful Republicans who long ago decided to ignore mainstream media... and rely on Republican Party–controlled media to understand the world."

One more opinion piece from the Left: John Durham Curbstomped By House Dems, But It's Okay Because Jesus And His Mom Say He's Cool Liz Dye, Above the Law

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

The Final Conclusion? Crooked Lawmakers Have No Honesty, or Shame

• Democrats participating in the hearing, perhaps unsurprisingly, showed no interest in acknowledging their role in perpetrating a hoax.

• In conducting the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation, the FBI knowingly acted on political disinformation to open a Federal inquiry.

• Durham plainly stated the FBI failed to corroborate a single piece of information in the so-called Steele Dossier.

John Durham Testifies, yet ‘Collusion’ Lives Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., Wall Street Journal Opinion: "The FBI is assumed to be proceeding in good faith. As Mr. Durham showed, not only did the FBI open a case on a presidential campaign in the middle of an election, it did so on a piece of evidence that broke all records for vagueness and thinness, involving an opaque remark by an unimportant Trump volunteer to an Australian diplomat. ... Stranger still was the handling of the two most solid pieces of evidence, neither of which was favorable to collusion. The FBI proceeded to falsify one—doctoring a Central Intelligence Agency email to say minor Trump associate Carter Page had not been a CIA informant when he had been. The other the FBI’s overseers simply chose not to share with the team investigating collusion. This was information, received at the very beginning of the inquiry, indicating that Russian intelligence itself was privy to inside dope from the Clinton campaign and a plan to promote collusion fictions against the Trump campaign."

The stunning revelation in Durham hearing should chill us to the core David Marcus, Fox News Opinion: "Durham told the House Judiciary Committee, 'The FBI was too willing to accept and use politically funded and uncorroborated opposition research, such as the Steele dossier. The FBI relied on the dossier and FISA applications, knowing there was likely material originating from a political campaign or political opponent.' And whose political campaign you might ask was funneling this false information to the FBI? Why that would be Hillary Clinton’s, Trump’s 2016 presidential opponent. As if this weren’t bad enough, and it most assuredly is, at almost the same time as the same FBI was opening a case on Trump under false pretenses, it was closing its investigation on Clinton’s mishandling of classified materials with no charges. ... Put bluntly, according to Durham, the FBI had ample evidence to believe that the dirt dug up on Trump was coming from Clinton’s camp, that it was opposition research, not the product of a legitimate investigation, but they didn’t care."

One more opinion piece from the Right: Discredited Democrats Attack Durham To Deflect From Their Own Tarnished Reputations Tristan Justice, The Federalist

FLAG THIS

Survey Says: On Durham’s Report and the FBI

A more right-leaning poll finds 63% of respondents feel the “Russian collusion” inquiry was a “smear job” against former President Trump.

Asked if FBI officials involved in advancing the investigation should “face charges,” 59% say yes, 23% say no, and 18% aren’t sure (Rasmussen Reports).

Opinion of the FBI is variable along party lines — in 2022 a poll found just 29% of Republicans feel the agency is “doing a good job,” compared with 79% of Democrats, and 47% of Independents (Gallup).

FLAG FINDS

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WATERCOOLER

French Daredevil, Decline of Playtime, The “Stormin’ Morman”

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Big Think: What does the average human do every day?

Today I learned that NBA player Shawn Bradley was once fined $10,000 for not going to a mandatory team meeting at a strip club due to his Mormon beliefs. He was also called “The Stormin’ Morman” during his professional career.