Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Well Happy New Year Everyone!


This says it all!

Star and Tribune: Year in review: The 10 most-read Minnesota news stories of 2019


1. New documents revisit questions about Rep. Ilhan Omar's marriage history:
2. Irwin Jacobs, wife Alexandra dead in murder-suicide:
3. 'This is Jayme Closs! Call 911!' Missing Wisconsin 13-year-old found alive:
4. Man held after boy is thrown from MOA balcony was told to stay away:
5. Minneapolis police identify man arrested after school bus driver shot on highway:
6. Back with family after escaping abductor, Jayme Closs 'is the hero':”
7. Milwaukee toddler Noelani Robinson's short life ends in a Minnesota ditch:
8. Two children, parents dead in apparent triple murder-suicide in south Minneapolis:
9. Mohamed Noor guilty of third-degree murder, manslaughter in killing of Justine Ruszczyk Damond:
10. Bde Maka Ska is Lake Calhoun, Court of Appeals rules: Lake Calhoun is back on the map

So to be clear, after the Strib breathlessly tossed headline after headline after headline about the impeachment of the President, the people of Minnesota just don't care. Not one single story about the President of the United State in the top ten. To be clear, I never once saw an impeachment story listed as even a top five most read story of a particular day.

In fact, the only real "political story" on the list is in regards to Ilhan Omar and her interesting history of marriages. But even that is "local" as she represents portions of Minneapolis. I suspect that this would be the case in almost any local newspaper, and I think people would be surprised at how few people even read these stories in the NYT or WaPo.

What "game changer" ?

Schumer plugging obscure NY Times article as "game changer". 

This is becoming the problem now for the left and their impeachment drive. Schumer believes that suddenly he can demand things after "game changer" report that nobody has read or cares about. Even if you read it, it still doesn't actually change the game. It rehashes what people already know and provides absolutely nothing new in terms of anything relevant.

In a nutshell, the report tells us what process was used to temporarily delay the $400 million in aid.  Apparently Schumer and many on the left must have thought what? That there wasn't a process? The report also (gasp) suggests that some people within the Administration believed that the delay might create a "backlash" from certain members of Congress. Later in the story the NY Times exposes the political bombshell that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

This whole game of wild eyed rhetoric has gone from tedious to ridiculous. Impeachment loses credibility every single day this goes on. Democrats seem content to continue to drag our their losing hand, in what now appears to be a hopeless attempt to gain any sort of momentum. In the immortal words of Kenny Rogers... you got to know when to hold em and know when to throw em. This is some advice Democrats would be wise to heed.

Monday, December 30, 2019

Make no mistake, Antisemitism comes from the left

How liberals are allowing anti-Semitism to flourish
Anti-Semitic attacks continue to shake our city and state. Last week, eight attacks — including four in just in 48 hours — sent a familiar shockwave rippling through the Jewish community. Then Saturday came the horrific stabbing in Monsey, New York. The poison of Jew-hatred is spreading.
I first wrote about the uptick in May. The reason the city’s liberal political class was ignoring it, I ­argued, is that the criminals don’t fit their picture of Evil Bigots. They aren’t, for the most part, MAGA-hat wearing white guys with tiki torches. In fact, many of the attackers are people of color, as investigative reporting by Tablet’s Armin Rosen and others has shown. Imagine if they were white ­nationalists. How much faster would the mayor and other city leaders have taken action?
De Blasio tweeted after this latest round of violence against Jews in the city. He has to stop beating around the bush. These attacks aren’t an ­attack on “our values.” They’re attacks on visibly Jewish people. Even Sunday, after the Monsey stabbings, he blamed Trump and “Washington” for creating “an atmosphere of hate.” De Blasio needs to stop trying to find a “them” to be the opposite of his “us.” His juvenile obsession with having the right adversaries allows anti-Semitism to flourish.
And it isn’t just his ideological blinders. The mayor has also helped create an anti-police ­atmosphere, in which the vigilant presence of officers is considered a bad thing. At an anti-police rally last month, there were signs calling for violence against the NYPD. De Blasio’s response? He insinuated that the idea that there’s anti-police sentiment in our city is, yes, another right-wing plot.

Look folks, antisemitism is not a right wing ideology. It's quite literally pushed every day by prominent people who masquerade as being pro-Palestinian. The fact of the matter is that those who are being investigated for hate crimes against Jews ARE people of color and many of them are Muslim. There simply isn't any actual tangible evidence that there are a bunch of pro-Trump white bigots who are going around killing Jewish people. Up until Obama worked hard to change things, Israel and the Jewish international community was one of our biggest allies.

The suspect in the recent stabbing of multiple Jewish people

But the knee-jerk reaction from the left is to automatically assume that any act of hate must come from a Trump supporter (begging the question: are liberals stupid, biased, or gullible) . Even when a person declares himself to be an anti-Trumper who is looking for a socialist revolution, the left will still demand that the person is a white-nationalist driven by Trump. In fact, for a period of time, one of the mass shooters labeled a white-nationalist turned out after the dust settled to not even be white. Of course, some still maintained that he was still a white-nationalist because of a passage that they attributed to an author that some maintained to be a white-nationalist. 

The bottom line is that you cannot fix partisanship any more than you can fix stupid. But we are at the point where if someone doesn't try to fix this, antisemitism will continue to grow and flourish because we refuse to address (or even acknowledge) the root cause. 

Sunday, December 29, 2019

Biden would ignore Congressional Subpoena Part II

So now Biden is backing off his suggestion that he would ignore a congressional subpoena. This came after multiple people suggested the blatant hypocrisy of such a statement, considering the second article of impeachment.

“I want to clarify something I said yesterday. In my 40 years in public life, I have always complied with a lawful order and in my eight years as VP, my office — unlike Donald Trump and Mike Pence — cooperated with legitimate congressional oversight requests,” Biden said on Twitter. “But I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial,” Biden added. 

One has to wonder what made Biden think he could get away with the statement in the first place. Yeah, there are some people stupid enough to believe that it didn't show an immense amount of hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty (a few comment here). But I also wonder out loud if Biden (like many Democrats) doesn't understand the ridiculousness of the allegations against the President, if he understands them at all.

Perhaps he had to be sat down and explained why Trump is being impeached, and how what he said was at odds with such a thing. After all the Democrats are LITERALLY attempting to rewrite the constitution and scope of Congressional power by demanding that Congress is "always" correct and that it is illegal to challenge a congressional subpoena in court.

Their argument is certainly a slippery slope that would absolutely require Joe Biden to come testify about his involvement in the prosecutor being fired, would absolutely require Hunter Biden to come testify, as well as the whistleblower, Schiff, and others. The impeachment from the House has drawn the line in the sand. When Congress subpoenas, you must show (and not fight in court) or you are breaking the law.

A ridiculous expansion of Congressional powers? Absolutely. But that is the very definition of the second article of impeachment.

It's LSU and Clemson

LSU Rolls over Oklahoma, while Ohio State chokes the big lead 

This was little drama in the first game. It became fairly clear fairly early that Oklahoma was not going to pose any sort of real threat to LSU. It really came down to Quarterback play, where the Heismann winner Joe Burrow so totally outplayed the runner up Jalen Hurts, that it almost makes you wonder how Hurts ended up in the top four. Is LSU that good or was Oklahoma that bad.? Clearly if feels like there was only really three playoff quality teams available, and Oklahoma was  the sacrifice to whomever got the first seed.

The best two QB in college football? 

In the second game, Ohio State appeared stronger on both lines and early on it looked like another mismatch early on. Justin Fields threw for 320 yards and J.K. Dobbins had over 170 yards rushing. The Buckeyes had more first downs, more passing yards, more running yards, more time of possession, but also had more turnovers. The inability to score touchdowns in the red zone and some mistakes allowed Clemson to hang around, and when you allow a team like Clemson with a QB like Trevor Lawrence to hang around, you are flirting with disaster. Not sure that the better team won, but there is no question that Clemson (with a long winning streak) deserves to be in the Championship game.

Sunday Funnies

















Saturday, December 28, 2019

So Joe Biden would ignore a congressional subpoena...

but he supports the impeachment of Donald Trump over people in his administration ignoring congressional subpoenas?

Hypocrisy is the bedrock of liberalism!

Sort of how quid pro quo was fine when he did it, but he believes Trump should be impeached because he might have done it.

Liberals don't get middle America anymore...

They think it's all about jealously and sticking it to the rich  

Americans are working and wages are growing. People's retirement savings is going up, their home values are going up, and they now have some money in the bank. Apparently the logic of the left is that they would rather see corporations be hit with higher taxes so the Government can afford to hand out more food stamps to those who would lose their jobs when disposable corporate revenue shrinks.

Let's also be clear here. People don't care what's in the hot dish, they just care what it tastes like. Everything can look ugly (especially in the Government) if you look too close. Are there issues that still need to be resolved? Sure, but the issues that the American people wanted resolved (better jobs, higher wages, job security, increase in the wealth of middle America) have improved as much in the past couple of years as they have in quite some time.

Attacking Trump as not helping middle America because someone believes that middle America secretly wants higher taxes, more food stamps, and are willing to see their own economic situation be harmed to get there... is just downright wrong thinking. 

Friday, December 27, 2019

No, Mary and Joseph were not refugees

They had a home, they were not impoverished, or fleeing oppression. They were not moving to a new country as refugees, nor were they any sort of immigrants. They were traveling from their home in Nazareth to the town of Bethlehem on order of the Roman Government. Bethlehem was Joseph's home town, and the Romans were requiring people go back to their hometowns for purposes of census.


Where people got the notion that they would have been considered immigrants, held at some border, and that baby Jesus would have been put in a cage is anyone's guess. But it's truly a wonderful example of a liberal idea of a Christmas story that is a complete hoax and a dishonest politicization of the Christian faith. All obviously drummed up because of politics, hate, and Trump derangement syndrome.

The media and their alternate reality of lies and deceit!

That disinformation was going to overtake Republican politics was discoverable years before he says he discovered it.
Its contents were explosive, embarrassing, enraging, and just plain weird.
We only tell little lies!
Three years after Kellyanne Conway introduced the doctrine of “alternative facts” on his own program, a light went on for Chuck Todd. Republican strategy, he now realized, was to make stuff up, spread it on social media, repeat it in your answers to journalists — even when you know it’s a lie with tiny crumbs of truth mixed in — and then convert whatever controversy arises into go-get-em points with the base, while pocketing for the party a juicy dividend: additional mistrust of the news media to help insulate President Trump among loyalists when his increasingly brazen actions are reported as news.

Let's be clear here folks. The biggest disinformation lie during the Trump era has been the Russian Trump conspiracy theory. You take all of the other lies, put them together, and it maybe makes up 10% of the grand lie of "collusion". People like Chuck Todd take issue with the size of the inauguration crowd as if that matters, but seemingly see no problem with falsely accusing (over and over and over) a sitting President of committing treason. Moreover, the entire conspiracy treason concept was an obvious lie. The FBI found no evidence of conspiracy. Yet the media lied. The Senate and House investigations found no evidence of conspiracy. Yet the media lied. After 22 months, the Special Counsel found no evidence of conspiracy. Yet, some in the media "still lie".

I might argue that when we look back in five or ten years that the Ukraine situation might turn out to be the next biggest lie after Russia. From the media insistence that Burisma corruption has been "debunked" (when it hasn't) to the idea that "quid pro quo" is a crime (which it's not) to the idea that Ukraine couldn't have interfered in 2016, because the Russians did (and apparently there is a limit of one regarding how many countries can interfere in an election), the media has gone down the same path that they took with the Russia Conspiracy theory. Where there is smoke, there must be fire. Where there is no smoke, there must be a cover-up. Anonymous sources can always be trusted (even over actual sources with evidence to the contrary). Hearsay evidence is just as good as or better than real evidence. Give a standing ovation to a witness that not only knew nothing, but wasn't even employed with the State Department at the time. Just keep hammering the idea that something is amiss and it must be illegal (or at least impeachable). Because the bad orange man must be brought down.

Truth be damned.

Thursday, December 26, 2019

A guide to how to make a snowflake cry!

snowflakevictory.com/

Time for the annual winners and losers of the year!

Some of these people are obvious (eg: Beto O'Rourke losing, Boris Johnson winning). Others may be more of a subjective matter of opinion thing. I always like to make this a group effort, so let's have some suggestions!


Let's also try to keep this in the public figure sandbox here, no need to dump on people we know. It doesn't have to be politics, and it can certainly be international.

Wednesday, December 25, 2019

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Economy!

Saturday Was The Biggest Shopping Day In US Retail History
Holiday shopping set records over the weekend, with Super Saturday sales reaching $34.4 billion, the biggest single day in U.S. retail history, according to Customer Growth Partners.
 
“Paced by the ‘Big Four’ mega-retailers — Walmart, Amazon, Costco and Target — Super Saturday was boosted by the best traffic our team has seen in years,” said Craig Johnson, president of the retail research firm…
While foot traffic was down at most malls, the conversion rate, or the percentage of people who go to malls and make a purchase, rose, Johnson said. Even long-struggling department stores “had their best weekend of the season,” he said.

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Tis the season to be jolly!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Christmas and that Santa brings them everything they deserve! 


Remember when Roger would brag up his twitter account?

More of the impeachment nonsense!

Law Prof: The Senate Isn’t Required To Hold An Impeachment Trial At All
Forget for the moment the question of when Nancy Pelosi will send over the articles of impeachment. Does the Constitution require Mitch McConnell to do anything with them except perhaps give the House a receipt? Georgetown law professor Bradley Blakeman argued yesterday evening in The Hill (via Twitchy) that an impeachment trial is neither required or needed, especially in this instance.
To be fair, Blakeman does write that the Senate will be required to take some action, but that it doesn’t have to be a trial. All McConnell needs to do, Blakeman writes, is to call a vote to dismiss before a trial even starts — and that would require only a simple majority, as it is just a procedural motion.

There are suggestions that McConnell and the GOP could pass a resolution to conduct the trial the day after the 2020 election. They also suggested that they first vote to dismiss the impeachment charges, then hold hearings regarding how shabby the House impeachment hearings actually were.

Could the Senate really hold hearings to provide oversight of the House? Well I guess when you can vote to impeach a President without any bi-partisan consent regarding actions that you don't either pretend to be criminal or pretend to be proven... then anything is possible.

I think the smart money is on McConnell calling for a trial where no new witnesses are called (which was what happened in the Clinton hearings). Basically each side would rely on the existing information gathered in the House and provide a witness or two to review (and make arguments) regarding that information.

This could all be done in a matter of a couple of days, the Senate would vote to acquit and the President would then run his victory laps.

Due to his extensive foreign policy experience as Mayor of Sound Bend Indiana!

Exclusive: With 218 foreign policy endorsements, Buttigieg targets a big Biden asset
More than 200 foreign policy and national security professionals, including dozens of veterans of the Obama administration, on Monday are endorsing Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg for president.
The text of their joint letter targets President Donald Trump, but the subtext is aimed at former Vice President Joe Biden, who touts his foreign policy experience during the Obama administration as a major asset in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. The endorsements are designed to burnish Buttigieg's credentials as a potential commander in chief and portray him as the leader of a new generation.

So Mayor Pete is now a foreign policy expert, at least according to a bunch of Democratic national security experts. Apparently the best they have is a guy barely old enough to run for President, with no national political experience, much less international experience. This tells us all we need to know about the Democratic Presidential field.

Monday, December 23, 2019

Pelosi the dictator!

'Impeachment Takes a Holiday' -- Starring Nancy Pelosi
In her actions and words, Pelosi looked more like a wannabe Third World dictator than the hope of her nation, or even of her party. It was not enough for her to try to cut the president off at the knees with her sham impeachment vote; she also had to insult the Senate leader and try to assert House authority over the constitutionally mandated Senate role in trying any federal impeachment. To top it off, she implicitly dismissed the third branch of government by bypassing the judiciary’s traditional role as the broker between the legislative and executive branches.
Pretty much everything here is undeniable. Pelosi is quite literally demanding that the executive branch bend to her will, that the Senate bend to her will, and that the judiciary has no place in questioning anything she wants to do. Does she seriously believe that she has this much power as Speaker of the House?


Pelosi didn't want to do this, but now is sort of stuck having to defend it. But the reality is that in order to justify things, she literally has to redefine the separation of powers as well as the checks and balances provided within the constitution. It's a giant power grab. I doubt very seriously if the high court will like it much (if it ever gets to that point).

Sunday, December 22, 2019

Andrew Sullivan writes what liberals won't admit

What We Know About Trump Going Into 2020
(alternate title: Yes, we need to undo the 2016 election)
It is this profound immorality that made this week inevitable. Yes, inevitable. Put a man of this sort — utterly unprepared, utterly corrupt, and with no political or governing experience at all — into the Oval Office, and impeachment, if there is any life left in our democracy, is inevitable.
The impeachment was inevitable because this president is so profoundly and uniquely unfit for the office he holds, so contemptuous of the constitutional democracy he took an oath to defend, and so corrupt in his core character that a crisis in the conflict between him and the rule of law was simply a matter of time.
Sullivan is basically admitting that this was always about undoing the 2016 election. Americans got it wrong according to Sullivan because they elected a man who should have never been President. Sullivan has believed from the very start that Trump should be removed. Not because of anything that would generally have qualified for impeachment, but because in his mind Trump is inherently bad and any excuse will do.
The two core lessons of the past few years are therefore: (1) Trumpism has a real base of support in the country with needs that must be addressed, and (2) Donald Trump is incapable doing it and is such an unstable, malignant, destructive narcissist that he threatens our entire system of government.
Moreover, in Sullivan's world the idea that Trump is President isn't the only problem. The other problem (that he believes needs to be addressed) is that there is an actual base of support for Trump. Sullivan is literally demanding that nobody in this country be allowed to even support Trump. That not only do liberals somehow need to impeach and remove the President, but they need to impeach and remove his supporters too. This is literal madness.
Yes, some partisan Democrats were out to destroy him from the very beginning and have merely been seeking a pretext ever since. Yes, some have overreached in their Russia fixation. And I’m not going to deny the troubling facts outlined in the Inspector General’s report on the FBI’s dangerously sloppy FISA requests when the Russia question first emerged in summer 2016. These are parts of the truth that demand inquiry and reflection. But they are largely irrelevant to the question in front of us.
The odd part about this statement is that Sullivan writes as if Trump needed to be impeached from the start, and then suggests that there are some "partisan" Democrats out to destroy him from the beginning. He makes a weak case that Ukraine was the straw that broke the back so to speak, but it's difficult to reconcile this argument with the main underlying theme of this article. Unless Sullivan is willing to admit that he is part of those willing to bring him down from the start, then his own TDS has altered his self reflection to the point where he doesn't recognize the blatant inconsistencies (not over time) but within this particular article.

Moreover, the very concept that people want to impeach Trump the day he started is actually quite a problem. It runs fundamentally counter to how our country and how Democracy works. What Sullivan is implying (with regards to Trump and his supporters) is extremely dangerous. The long term consequences to simply not accepting election results far outweighs any comfort these people feel from a irrelevant and impotent attempt to remove the President.

Meanwhile, there is now actual proof that people within our own government were breaking the law in order to justify a intelligence and criminal investigation into Trump and anyone associated with him.  Law enforcement did this largely without due cause or due process and most certainly without proper due cause or due process. This also matters. We all need to recognize that this impeachment has nothing to do with Ukraine or Biden, but rather it IS just a pretense to set in motion the very actions that liberals (including those in our own government) wanted to do from day one.

Sullivan is standing on the ledge here and is ready to jump into the entire concept of starting a figurative war with those who disagree with him (addressing them as he suggest). Obviously he is not the only one who holds these paranoid, creepy, and extremely dangerous views. But at least he is willing to admit the underlying view.

Sunday Funnies!




Saturday, December 21, 2019

The biggest hypocrisy of them all...

Hypocrisy is the bedrock of liberalism! 

So the left spent soooo much time "giddy" over the idea of impeachment that they really didn't think ahead. I say that quite literally, because they seem genuinely discombobulated by the idea that their grand and glorious impeachment will die a quick painful death in the Senate. Not being able to see this "coming" is akin to being surprised with finding laptops and backpacks at the local Starbucks.


To be crystal clear, none of what was going to happen should have ever been anything other than a foregone conclusion. Democrats in the House literally could have come up with any remotely plausible reason to impeach the President, 95% of their members would vote to impeach, 100% of Republicans would oppose... then it would go to the Senate where Trump would be acquitted in a nearly complete Party line vote.

But now that we are moving into phase two and Democrats finally see that their shiny new toy of impeachment is about to be tossed aside summarily, likely to be forgotten a few weeks later, and they seem quite upset. After acting in deplorable fashion in the House hearings, did they generally believe that their partisan Tomfoolery would rule the day in the Senate as well? If not, did they really expect people would accept their feinted rage over the fact that Republicans can be just as united and partisan as them?

You will notice that nobody from the left (or in the liberal media) ever made any demands of House leadership to remain neutral or engage in a fair process. Not a single liberal blinked when you had a hearing featuring three Democratic legal experts to one GOP legal expert (this was perfectly fair apparently). We were told it was majority rule and Schiff and gang could legally make their own rules (Republicans were lucky they were allowed one witness).

Nobody from that same group ever once called on Democrats in the House to view things with "an open mind" or gave any consideration to the fact that anyone should consider the possibility that Trump wasn't guilty (of something). Their guilty vote was assumed, and many in the media pressured Democrats to remain united (entirely for political and rhetorical reasons).

More to the point, there isn't a single soul out there who believes that Senate Democrats like Chuck Schumer are walking into impeachment with an open mind or would ever consider the idea that Trump is innocent. Their assumption and demand is a guilty vote and they have no qualms about Democrats stating that upfront.

But apparently what is good for the goose is not good for the gander. If you are a Democrat, you are free to go in with preconceived assumption of guilt and with partisanship dripping off your body. But it appears that the left demands something different of Republicans. They apparently should not only have an open mind, but they should be willing to do the bidding of Democrats who were too impatient to finish their jobs in the House hearings.

So either liberals are dumb, really dumb, or hopelessly dumb. Because they somehow believe that as the biggest partisans engaging in the most blatant and serious partisan act in the history of our country, they have some moral authority to call out Republicans as not being fair.

Hypocrisy is truly the bedrock of liberalism!

Friday, December 20, 2019

This is getting really good!

The beat goes on..

Senate confirms 13 Trump judicial nominees in end-of-year sprint


The Senate confirmed more than a dozen Trump judicial picks this week as the chamber raced to wrap up its work for the year.
"I'm proud that the Senate came together today to confirm more well-qualified nominees and to pass major legislation for the American people," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said after the massive voting streak, which also saw the chamber passing funding legislation.
The back-to-back days of nomination votes brings the total number of Trump court picks confirmed by the Senate to 187, including two Supreme Court nominees.

I count 2 more Appellate Court Nominees and 32 more District Court nominees waiting to be approved by the Senate. That would give him 52 of the 179 Appellate Court Judges (29%) along with 164 District Court Judges with likely more vacancies to come.

This has truly been an ongoing (but not widely covered) story in the Trump Presidency. No matter whatever else happens, Trump's legacy with the Judicial Branch of nominating young conservative constitutional judges will not be undone in our lifetime.


Democrat's own impeachment witness agrees with me!

I got a lot of crap (along with 42K views, 69 retweets, and over 400 likes) over my tweet that suggested Trump would not be considered impeached if the Democrats never present the articles to Senate. It seemed like suddenly a bunch of lowlifes on twitter became constitutional experts and all of them wanted to make me aware that I was wrong.


At the time I was making a political rhetorical semantic argument (spin as you will) without ever stopping to consider if it had any real legal standing. I was thinking more along the lines of how the President, Republicans, and the conservative media was going to play it out. The idea that the impeachment would be withdrawn or never made official if it was not presented to the Senate seemed like a likely concept for the talking points memo.

Little did I know that other (well real) constitutional experts would see it that same way. That such an argument was not just spin, but actually real. If the Democrat's own witness sees it that way, then I am sure others will jump aboard on that concept. It sort of makes sense if you truly see the impeachment as process with a beginning and and an end. We generally think of the "vote" as the end of the process, but in this case it's not. The "vote" provides the authority to approve the articles and send them to the Senate.

It's still possible that the actual situation will be that Democrats in the House voted to authorize Trump's impeachment, but that Democratic leadership never followed through.

Thursday, December 19, 2019

No media bias?

A now deleted Tweet from the WaPo staff!


A twitter take or two from a wise pundit!

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Schiff and Pelosi consider postponing/delaying/punting impeachment?

Democrats are losing their nerve! 
This doesn’t have to do with the impeachment vote itself, which will still happen tonight, but rather the handing off of the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial.
 
That idea was first raised a few days ago by some of Twitter’s finest far-left minds, such as Lawrence Tribe. Others like Jennifer Rubin would parrot it as brilliant. My colleague streiff covered that in detail at the time, which you can read here.
Now, it looks like the idea has left social media and is actually being considered.

Sorry folks, but this isn't about anything other than cold feet. The Democrats know the second this thing hits the Senate that they lose control of the impeachment, the process, and most importantly the narrative. They know this thing has turned on them, and they are looking for a way to ease the fall.

The bigger problem for the Democrats is if they actually vote for the impeachment, then refuse to hand it over to the Senate for trial, they are effectively admitting that this isn't a serious process. They certainly cannot (moving forward) demand to continue to "investigate" after already making up their minds to impeach. That would be putting the cart before the horse and once again admitting that their entire process has nothing in common with anything actually loosely associated with the impeachment provided in the Constitution.

The reality here is that if Democrats impeach, but refuse to provide the articles to the Senate it would be like someone being indicted, but never actually charged with the crime. It would be like the entire impeachment process was a ruse, and we might actually be looking at legal and philosophical arguments as to whether an impeachment that you do not follow through with is actually a real impeachment.

But as any good prosecutor knows. You do not move forward with a case if you know you are going to lose. You pack it up, admit your defeat and move on! I think it's time for Pelosi, Schiff and gang to do just that... admit their defeat!

In a nutshell...

We have a fairly corrupt system in place that allows politically connected figures to earn money in cushy positions where there only real value to a company would be those political connections. Everyone knows it's wrong and possibly illegal, but everyone sort of understands that it is a fairly common occurrence.


One of those examples is the Burisma situation where Hunter Biden (the son of Joe Biden) was provided a $600,000/year position on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, when Hunter had no real connections to either Ukraine or the energy industry to justify the job. The only thing Hunter apparently provided was a billion dollars from a Chinese government subsidized investment company.

We know now that people within the State Department and the Administration found this to be a troubling situation that stunk of conflict of interest. It's said that Joe Biden was defensive about the situation and used the death of his other son as a buffer when people wanted to bring it up. Hunter Biden remained on the board while Joe was Vice President.

So how defensive is our political class regarding these fairly common quid pro quo conflict of interest and possibly illegal arrangements where relatives and friends of high ranking government officials get rich off their ties to that particular official?

Well... in a nutshell... Donald Trump is being impeached today...

Because he asked about it.

Back to the Impeachment Hypocrisy

Let's start with this. The House went into impeachment hearings all bound and determined to prove "quid pro quo" which turned into "bribery" and ended up with "abuse of power" as well as "obstruction of Congress". In other words, they didn't start legitimate hearings to investigate an actual criminal action. Rather, they opened "impeachment hearings" so that they could come up with a justification for the forgone conclusion that they wanted to impeach Trump for "something". They missed on the Russian conspiracy angle and that left the idea that there was something wrong in Ukraine. They just couldn't put their fingers on exactly what it was, and apparently they just needed to figure out what polled well.


The problem (as pointed out by legal scholar after legal scholar) is that "abuse of power" is not an easy to define concept (or easy to justify removing a President over) and that they are largely responsible for their own "obstruction of justice".

With abuse of Power, they are basically arguing that the President used his legal authority to set the terms and conditions for the release of foreign aid to Ukraine, but that he did so with some sort of "corrupt intent". They can only accuse him of intent because the underlying allegations didn't actually happen. Of course, they cannot actually prove the intent, but can provide plenty of opinions, speculation, and opinions regarding hearsay speculations from anti-Trump diplomats who worked in the State Department that point to this corrupt intent for something that never actually happened.

In regards to "obstruction", this is quite "literally" an issue with timing. The Democrats set an artificial date for their impeachment hearings to be completed, and they want to charge the President with a crime because some of the Administration officials asked the court for guidance and Democrats didn't have enough time (apparently) to either allow this to play out or to actually subpoena the other witnesses they claim they want to hear from.

So in the future, the House of Representatives could start a Presidential impeachment hearing on Monday and set Friday as their completion date. They can then demand all the witnesses show up that same week, and if any of them refuse, well then they can just impeach the President for "obstruction". If that sounds ridiculous, it shouldn't. It's literally the same logical concept the Democrats are using here (with just a longer time frame).

Now they realize that the "abuse of power" and "obstruction of Congress" didn't really poll well either. We have now seen the release of six polls in a row that fail to show a plurality of support for impeachment and you have to go back to the end of October to find one with "majority support" (51% or higher). The longer this goes on in the House, the more people lose interest. Likely because they simply spent most of the time interviewing people in private and there apparently were not enough compelling witnesses for them to continue any more public hearings. Their three against one legal expert showdown was a flop and probably lost them more support.

So they are now starting to make the argument that it's up to the Senate to dig deeper for them, because there has to be "more" out there if they could just get to it. There is even talk of requesting additional information from the old "Mueller Investigation" in order to just sort of "pile on" some additional nonsense on top of the nonsense that they are currently slopping around.

They literally want Mitch McConnell to go to bat for their impeachment efforts, and they are feinting outrage at the idea that the President will be allowed to be an active participant in his own impeachment hearing. Apparently the idea that the Senate GOP and a GOP President might coordinate their efforts is some sort of scandal (as is the President being allowed to put on his own defense). After spending the entire impeachment process demanding that as the House Majority Party that they could control every aspect of the impeachment hearings (going so far as to redefine impeachment as a political process that does not require any criminal wrongdoing), the Democrats are now complaining that McConnell and the GOP Senate is not wanting to play by their rules.

Hypocrisy is truly the bedrock of liberalism...

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

The FISA Court takes the FBI to task

There is no question that the FBI forever tainted the entire process
Judge Collyer orders the government to inform the court “no later than January 10, 2020, to inform the Court in a sworn written submission of what it has done, and plans to do, to ensure that the statement of facts in each FBI application accurately and completely reflects information possessed by the FBI that is material to any issue presented by the application. In the event that the FBI at the time of that submission is not yet able to perform any of the planned steps described in the submission, it shall also include (a) a proposed timetable for implementing such measures and (b) an explanation of why, in the government’s view, the information in FBI applications submitted in the interim should be regarded as reliable.”

At this point, it's a f-n joke that only one person has been recommended for criminal prosecution by the FBI (IG). The only saving grace is that the Justice Department is not letting it "end" at the word of a long time FBI employee. Accepting what the FBI says about the FBI behavior is like accepting what a criminal defendant says about his own actions. That being said, the knee jerk reaction from much of the media was to do just that.

Now that Comey has admitted that there was more problems than he thought at the time and even Adam Schiff has suggested that much of his defense of the FBI has been shattered, perhaps we can find some bi-partisan belief that this was a black mark on the FBI of extreme measures. Personally I do not believe Comey wasn't up to his neck in this illegal activity and Schiff is only admitting what he is admitting to, because not doing so would make him look like a bigger idiot that he already looks like.

Many people argued that the FISA court itself was not offended and did not take issue with the FBI activities. This letter and public rebuke proves that as utterly false (just like most of what the FBI, Democrats, and the liberal MSM has peddled about the Trump Russia conspiracy hoax). The FISA Court obviously has no trust right now in the FBI and the process... and that can all be blamed 100% on James Comey. Andrew McCabe, and everyone associated with the illegal, unethical, and partisan driven probe of the Republican nominee for President (and later the President)... all designed to harm his election chances and later to undermine his Presidency.

If you believe these numbers are wrong and partisan... now you know how most of the rest of us feel!

CNN spins and spins

CNN Poll: The nation remains divided on impeachment as House vote approaches
(but technically the polls shows support has collapsed from +5 to -3)
The American public is about evenly split over whether President Donald Trump should be impeached and removed from office, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS, with the House of Representatives poised to vote on articles of impeachment this week.

Support for impeaching Trump and removing him from office stands at 45% in the new poll, down from 50% in a poll conducted in mid-November just after the conclusion of the House Intelligence Committee's public hearings. Opposition to impeachment and removal stands at 47% in the new poll, up from 43% in November. Support for impeachment and removal among Democrats has dipped from 90% in November to 77% now.

So basically, none of the past five polls listed in the Real Clear Politics averages has shown support for impeachment, after almost exclusively showing support in nearly every poll. What has changed over the past week or so? I would assume the fact that the Democrats have now actually finished their hearings and written the actual articles.

It's one thing when you are in the middle of a hearing and witnesses are telling a compelling story. It's quite another when those hearings end without anyone actually providing any evidence that the story was true. It also doesn't help when your main argument throughout the hearings is actually changed when you write your so called "articles of impeachment".

There is no more spinning the truth. This is literally a partisan misuse of the House impeachment authority. They have convinced nobody that didn't already want to see the President impeached (and probably didn't need anything more than a weak pretense to justify it).

Monday, December 16, 2019

This is an interesting take?

When a supposed constitutional law experts tosses constitution aside for partisanship! 

So let's get this straight. The constitution declares that the House hold impeachment hearings and that if the House votes to impeach that the Senate hold a trial. But after the House Democrats ran their impeachment hearings in a secret basement location, selectively leaked information, and then only allowed witnesses that they wanted to hear from testify in public... we should then completely ignore the constitutional concept of a Senate trial if the GOP doesn't capitulate to the Democrats during the Senate trial as well?

Let's make this abundantly clear. Tribe was one of many who demanded that the House did not have to run the impeachment hearings like previous impeachment hearings were ran. He ran hard and fast with the liberal logic that how the impeachment hearings were run were entirely up to the majority and that was perfectly constitutionally acceptable. Perhaps it was.

But if there is nothing to determine (other than majority rule partisanship) how the House runs an impeachment, how do you make the argument that the Constitution sets some sort of standard for the Senate to hold a trial? You cannot possible argue (either constitutionally or logically) that what is good for the House is no longer good for the Senate. That unless McConnell and the GOP agree to run things the way Tribe and others would like, that somehow "this" is a violation of the constitution?

Moreover, it would appear that Tribe is of the thought pattern that the articles of impeachment should not actually be handed over to the Senate in large part because it is completely 100% assured that doing so will actually result in the acquittal of the President (likely with more Democratic defections than GOP defections). The logical problem here is that while this "is" a jury trial situation, there is nothing in the Constitution that demands an open mind in situations where the House has clearly not made a reasonable case.

More to the point: there is no more reason for the Senate "jury" to hold any more of an open mind than the House "grand jury" was holding when they prejudged the existing articles of impeachment. In fact, many had openly prejudged the idea that Trump need to be impeached for "something or anything". Remember the "impeach the motherfucker" video? Would that person ever been put on any grand jury in real life?

Lawrence Tribe has ceased being any sort of legal expert, and is now little more than a hate-filled anti-Constitution TDS inflicted old man. It's a pity.

Democrats demanding that GOP call the witnesses they let slide in the House hearings...

They want a "fair hearing" in the Senate after demanding they could do whatever they wanted as majority in the House.


The four specific witnesses that Schumer is demanding the Senate hear from are:

  • Mick Mulvaney – acting White House chief of staff
  • John Bolton – former national security adviser
  • Michael Duffey – associate director for national security, Office of Management and Budget
  • Robert Blair – senior adviser to Mulvaney

Two of the four (Bolton and Blair) were never even subpoenaed by the House. The other two were part of the lawsuit filed that asked the DC court for guidance. It's very unlikely that McConnell will agree to subpoena witnesses for the Democrats... unless of course there was an agreement to also subpoena the witnesses requested by the White House (such as Hunter Biden, Eric Ciaramella, and possibly even Adam Schiff and Joe Biden). 

I can see no necessary reason for the GOP to bend to the will of the Democrats, given the atrocious treatment their counterparts received from Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, and Jerry Nadler. You cannot argue over and over and over and over how Impeachment is a political process that allows the majority Party control to do whatever they want, then demand that there is a different set of rules in the Senate. 

Well... to clarify, you can demand such a thing if you are complete hypocrite with no intellectual honesty whatsoever. Which seems to fit our modern day Democratic Party and the idiot minion liberals that support them.

Looks like zero GOP votes for impeachment in the House...

Politico wrote an interesting article about this fact, crediting GOP leadership and some sort of partisan "locking of arms" (rather than the more obvious concept that Democrats failed to make their case to Republicans). As has been pointed out, the House hearings have had the opposite effect that Democrats and liberals were hoping for, basically losing public support the longer it drags on. But Politico (and one would assume most liberal outlets) see it as something more nefarious.

Now there is a net negative for impeaching the President

The truth is that none of the recent polling shows either any movement towards impeachment or any tangible evidence that independents are backing it. Even the recent Fox news poll shows independents virtually split, and the only reason the "yes" was stronger than the "no" was due to a partisan breakdown of the sample that had 45% of them voting in the Democratic Primary. The USA today poll showed support within both the Democratic and Independent ranks losing steam, with Independents now opposing it by double digits.

What Politico and other liberals are not getting here is that the information that they deem to be overwhelming and convincing is simply not so. They seem to miss the reality that there is a basic underlying disagreement about the fundamental nature of the allegations. When people outwardly reject the premise of your argument, then proving it makes no difference in the world. You are only proving something that doesn't resonate. There is no "upside" to making a bad argument (no matter how well you make it). But there is a downside, and that is what the Democrats are seeing.

So the real reason that no GOP members will vote for impeachment isn't something nefarious or dishonest. It's really that Democrats have made a bad argument. Think about it... if they cannot sway the public, how can they expect to sway GOP congressional members?

Meanwhile, it would appear that at the very least the two Democrats who voted against the inquiry will vote no again. There is said to be at least three others seriously considering it, and some are even speculating as to whether or not there may be another Party switch or two, in a desperate attempt for these Congress members to hang on to their seat. There can be no doubt that this impeachment has further solidified the partisanship that has been growing in recent years and that will make it harder and harder for red state Democrats and blue state Republicans to keep bucking the trend. Given there is more of the former than the latter, the Democrats have the most to lose from any growing of partisanship.

It would be somewhat humiliating if after all of the attempted clever means to sway public appearance with the basement hearings, selective leaking, selected witnesses, and the the 3-1 legal expert public hearing... that Democrats actually lose support.

Sunday, December 15, 2019

Democratic impeachment hearings did sway public opinion! Negatively!

Public Opinion now split according to RCP Averages


Now this polling averages has moved for two reasons. Obviously there has been a change within individual polls. But also, there is polling (like CNN) that is now to old to consider at this point. Once a poll reaches a certain point, RCP drops it from the average. Perhaps that is because those pollsters (like CNN) don't care to poll anymore, or they are afraid to poll and publish the results. 

Either way, it seems like some of the "steam" has gone out of the media interest and CNN has (like it or not) had record low viewership since they went with wall to wall impeachment coverage. Some have called them on their blanket partisan move of only showing the Democratic opening statement and then cutting away for analysis as the Republicans were speaking (this sort of thing will start to get monitored during election season by the FEC). But no matter how hard they try (or how often they toss in a "outliar" poll) the rest of the world doesn't see it working. 

Sunday Funnies!