When is a special investigation not a special investigation?

When it’s a fishing expedition.

A related question: Which presidents would have survived a two-year investigation to all the nooks and crannies of his personal and business life such as Mueller’s? Jack Kennedy? LBJ? Bill Clinton? Hey, Ike Eisenhower, for that matter?

Point: Not to compare each and every one, but look, it was all systems go to get this guy, and away they went. Basing whole thing on an opposition-research document made of whole cloth. And with almost all media outlets wildly committed to same goal.

Phew.

Later: How did I forget? What if Republicans mounted such an investigation of . . . hold on . . . Obama? With full-scale media warfare to go with it? Imagine that, if you can.

Fact is, the priest, the fire dept. chaplain, risked life to save relics and the Blessed Sacrament, understood as the Body of Christ, but NY Times, that wonderful newspaper, had him carrying out a statue of Christ from the church — which has no statues, by the way.

Nice going, NYT.

Ranking Vatican 2 expert on reforms . . .

Quite a different understanding of this matter is presented when you consider this, from a veteran Italian newsman:

In the week that followed the explosive publication of Joseph Ratzinger�s �notes� on the scandal of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, there are at least seven essential elements that have come into the open, which are to be kept in mind in view of future developments.

The first concerns the genesis of the publication of the �notes.� In the introductory paragraphs, Ratzinger says that he wrote them �in the hiatus between the announcement of the meeting of the presidents of the episcopal conferences and its real and proper beginning,� or between September 12 2018, the day of the announcement, and February 21 2019, the opening day of the summit.

But Ratzinger also says that he wrote them to �contribute one or two remarks to assist in this difficult hour.�

From which one deduces that he wrote them in order to offer them, first of all, to the leaders of the Church gathered at the Vatican by Pope Francis to discuss the question.

This was confirmed on April 13 by �Corriere della Sera,� the most widely read secular Italian newspaper, one of the press outlets that two days before had published the full text of the �notes�:

�Benedict sent the eighteen-and-a-half pages on pedophilia �to the gracious attention� of the secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, before the global meeting of the episcopal conferences, to make them known also to Francis.�

What happened however is that none of the participants at the summit received Ratzinger�s text. Francis thought it better to keep it to himself, locked away in a drawer.

And no one would have known anything about it if Ratzinger himself, about forty days later, had not decided to make it public, formally in a little-known Bavarian magazine, �Klerusblatt,� but practically in a dozen major publications, Catholic and not, all over the world and in several languages, after alerting the highest Vatican authorities to this, as he himself has revealed:

�Having contacted the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin and the Holy Father himself, it seemed appropriate to publish this text in the Klerusblatt.�

Very strange, even upsetting, behavior in this by Pope Francis. Bishops from all over the world gathered to fix a major problem, and the best known bishop in the world, senior and retired, offers his ideas and is rebuffed by the silence of the supreme bishop of all the world.

http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2019/04/17/between-the-two-popes-there-is-%e2%80%9cfracture-%e2%80%9d-the-silence-of-francis-against-benedict/?refresh_ce

Well!

Attorney General William Barr has created public distrust about whether the Justice Department is committed to sharing as much as possible about the Russia probe’s findings, a federal judge said on Tuesday.

“The attorney general has created an environment that has caused a significant part of the public … to be concerned about whether or not there is full transparency,” U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton said during a hearing Tuesday afternoon on a Freedom of Information Act suit demanding access to a report detailing the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller.

Oh?

Walton, an appointee of President George W. Bush, did not elaborate on what actions or statements by the attorney general have generated those perceptions.

We understand, since like Will Rogers, all he knows is (quite possibly, most likely) what he read in the papers. (WaPo, NYT et al. is our guess.)