December 14-16, 2019
Dec 14 06:09 Democrats' impeachment BS Dec 15 00:31 Jeff van Drew switching parties Dec 15 12:55 Is this Jim Comey's defense? Dec 16 02:43 Democrats' blind partisanship Dec 16 02:49 Schiff's vivid imagination Dec 16 08:32 Michael Mukasey vs. Adam Schiff Dec 16 10:21 Democrats = Party of joiners Dec 16 17:10 Bribery vs. abuse of power
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Democrats' impeachment BS
When it comes to impeachment, it isn't just the process that's BS. It's the things that've gotten said, too. For instance, Debbie Dingell said at the start that she would monitor the hearings before making a decision. Ms. Dingell just said that she'll vote for impeachment.
While Rep. Dingell, who's late husband was the longest-serving Democrat in Congress, sounds reasonable, that's just imagery. Especially during the Schiff Show, the testifiers didn't provide any first-hand evidence of anything approaching an impeachable offense. This isn't a portrait in remaining open-minded. It's a portrait in staying loyal to Speaker Pelosi.
Another Michigan Democrat legislator, freshman Rep. Elissa Slotkin, told Fox News's Bill Hemmer that "I'm not going to be pushed into voting for impeachment. I literally have not made up my mind." That's BS, too. Jonathan Turley and Alan Dershowitz have emphatically stated that a) the evidence isn't there, b) nothing that President Trump did rose to the level of impeachment and c) the charges are so vague that, using these standards, every president in US history would've gotten impeached.
How can voters take Democrats like Rep. Slotkin seriously after watching this testimony?
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The thought that these Democrats are taking these charges seriously tells us that they're partisans first, patriots far down the Democrats' list of priorities. Picturing Democrats deep in thought over whether to impeach or not is ridiculous. The charges are weak and getting weaker. On Friday, the Supreme Court granted cert for President Trump's lawsuit challenging the Democrats' subpoenas. They don't grant cert on frivolous lawsuits.
According to this USA Today article , Article 2 of Impeachment "accuses Trump of directing 'the unprecedented, categorical and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas.'" According to the Supreme Court, President Trump didn't violate the Constitution by appealing the Democrats' subpoena to the Supreme Court. That's how disputes between the legislative and executive branches are resolved.
If the Supreme Court thinks that appealing a congressional subpoena is legitimate, then it's impossible to think of that as an impeachable offense. If we're being intellectually honest, then we'd admit that the Supreme Court's decision should eliminate half of the articles of impeachment just voted on. It's impossible to take House Democrats seriously if they insist that following the Constitution is an impeachable offense. Alan Dershowitz explained the foolishness better in this interview:
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Later in the interview, Prof. Dershowitz was asked what he thought of his Democratic Party. He replied "Well, it should hurt them. The American people should hold them accountable. They have damaged the Constitution. They have inflicted a wound on our system of checks and balances and separation of powers."
Let's be exceptionally clear about this. Article 2 of the Democrats' impeachment charges shouldn't be passed. Let's say, for the sake of this conversation, that the Senate convicts President Trump based on Article 2. That would mean that the Legislative Branch wasn't a co-equal branch. It would mean that the Executive Branch took its orders from the Legislative Branch. That isn't how the Constitution was written.
Professor Turley is right. This would be an abuse of power. Specifically, it would be Congressional Democrats' abuse of power.
Posted Saturday, December 14, 2019 6:09 AM
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Jeff van Drew switching parties
This NYTimes article is reporting that freshman Democrat Jeff van Drew will switch parties next week. According to the article, "Representative Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, a moderate Democrat who is among his party's staunchest opponents of impeaching President Trump, told aides on Saturday that he is planning to switch parties and declare himself a Republican as soon as next week, just as the House is casting its historic votes on articles of impeachment. At a White House meeting on Friday, Mr. Van Drew sought Mr. Trump's blessing for the move, which could be critical to his ability to avoid a primary challenge next year, and the president urged him to make the jump, according to two Democrats and one Republican who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks were intended to be private."
If van Drew switches parties next week, that will take some of the attention away from impeachment. It will strengthen President Trump's assertion that the Democrats' impeachment is a hoax:
Beyond the potential boost to Mr. Van Drew's own political fortunes, the move would also provide a silver lining for Mr. Trump as he becomes the third president ever to be impeached. The president has characterized the drive to remove him as an entirely partisan exercise that will cost Democrats their majority in the House, and a high-profile Democratic defection could help bolster his case while allowing him to divert attention from the vote.
The impeachment process has been harsh on Democrats. They've deserved it. This will be the first time in US history that a president will have been impeached without committing a crime. The bar for impeachment is fairly high. Democrats couldn't even find a crime, which is pretty pathetic. It's understandable why van Drew wants to switch parties. Democrats went nuts after Trump got elected. After that, they didn't recover. Van Drew's decision simply said that he isn't interested in getting lumped in with a party filled with crazies.
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Posted Sunday, December 15, 2019 12:31 AM
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Is this Jim Comey's defense?
This morning, Jim Comey appeared on Fox News Sunday, where he made news . During the interview, "Comey admitted : that the recently released Justice Department Inspector General's report on the launch of the FBI's Russia investigation and their use of the surveillance process showed that he was 'overconfident' when he defended his former agency's use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)."
With that, St. Jim of the FBI just threw the FBI under the proverbial bus. The old cliche "what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive" is particularly fitting. People won't necessarily catch the first lie but it always forces another lie and another. Eventually, the liar gets caught. It's simply inevitable.
As for Mr. Comey being overconfident, that's actually believable. The word confident means "sure of oneself; having no uncertainty about one's own abilities, correctness ;" It's often said that Jim Comey is "often wrong but never in doubt."
Let's be clear about something. People don't become "overconfident" when they painstakingly follow well-established procedures. Further, these weren't just itty bitty-sized mistakes. In fact, it's been argued that they weren't mistakes. When 17 major omissions are made and each of them benefit the FBI's FISA application and the Hillary campaign, the odds of that happening are beyond astronomical. For all intents and purposes, the odds of that happening are nonexistent.
Let's remember that Comey isn't some wet-behind-the-ears intern. He's a former federal prosecutor. He's the former Deputy Attorney General under President Bush 43. The DAG's primary responsibility is the FBI.
This wasn't a good interview for Mr. Comey. His answers still don't add up. Picturing those replies in a John Durham grand jury investigation should put a smile on truth-loving Americans' faces. In all likelihood, though, Mr. Comey's attorneys will instruct their client to plead the Fifth.
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Posted Sunday, December 15, 2019 12:55 PM
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Democrats' blind partisanship
Jessica Tarlov's op-ed criticizes Republicans for blindly supporting President Trump. That's rich considering the fact that supporting the Pelosi-Nadler-Schiff trifecta is a profile in blind partisanship.
In her op-ed Ms. Tarlov writes "I can't seem to stop paying attention and am oftentimes overwhelmed by the gravity of what we're witnessing. Though it's my job to pay attention, the dynamics of this story, from the president's abuse of power, to the geopolitics, to the personal stories of those who have testified, would draw anyone in."
First, what gravity is she talking about? The first impeachment hearing in Nadler's Judiciary Committee featured 3 Democrat activists masquerading as law professors and a real law professor. The highlight of that hearing was Jonathan Turley admonishing the Democrats on the Committee for abusing their power:
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First, during the Impeachment Committee hearings, aka the Schiff Show, Democrats called one hearsay testifier after another. Marie Yovanovitch, the Democrats' third hearsay witness, was fired 3 months before the Trump-Zelenskiy phone call. What she added to the hearing is still a mystery. Lt. Col. Vindman listened to the call. After the call, he voiced some concern to his boss. His boss, in turn, dismissed his concern.
Legal experts are still waiting for the Democrats' first fact witness. In fact, Democrats didn't call a single fact witness during the Judiciary Committee's hearings. Again, I ask "what gravity"? Is Ms. Tarlov insisting that Democrats impeach President Trump for doing more to help Ukraine militarily than President Obama did? President Trump sold Ukraine lethal defensive weapons in the form of Javelin anti-tank missiles. By comparison, President Obama shipped Ukraine blankets and meals-ready-to-eat, aka MREs.
Our reality TV president is now the subject of a reality TV impeachment filled with dramatic twists and turns - and the show isn't over yet. The evidence in favor of impeachment seems overwhelming to me.
Ms. Tarlov, what evidence are you talking about? The only testimony from firsthand witnesses favors President Trump. Ambassador Sondland, who actually spoke with President Trump, said this on cross-examination:
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Presumptions, Ms. Tarlov, aren't evidence. This isn't evidence, either:
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For those of you who, like me, suffered multiple whiplash injuries in that exchange, here's the transcript :
Ambassador Taylor recalls that Mr. Morrison told Ambassador Taylor that I told Mr. Morrison that I conveyed this message to Mr. Yermak on Sept 1, 2019, in connection with Vice President Pence's visit to Warsaw and a meeting with President Zelensky.
That's from Ambassador Sondland's amended deposition. Why that's considered a clarification is baffling. That isn't clarification. That's confusion. Either way, it isn't evidence. It's hearsay on steroids.
In my mind, it's obvious that Trump threatened the president of Ukraine to demand a political favor and improperly held back $391 million in desperately needed military aid approved by Congress to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression. Trump eventually gave Ukraine the money - but only after a whistleblower exposed the president's improper conduct.
What's in Ms. Tarlov's mind is difficult to determine. Freud might not be able to figure that out. Suppositions aren't proof. Without emails or texts between the 2 principles, Ms. Tarlov's statements are rubbish.
Without legitimate, verifiable proof, Democrats don't have a case. That isn't just an opinion. It's Professor Turley's expert opinion:
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This is worth examining:
"But this is certainly the thinnest of the modern record. If you take a look at the size of the record of Clinton and Nixon, they were massive in comparison to this, which is almost wafer thin in comparison," Turley said.
"There's a difference between requesting investigations and a quid pro quo. You need to stick the landing on the quid pro quo. You need to get the evidence to support it. It might be out there, I don't know. But it's not in this record," Turley said.
Suffice it to say that Ms. Tarlov's op-ed didn't stick the landing.
Posted Monday, December 16, 2019 2:44 AM
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Schiff's vivid imagination
Saying that Chairman Schiff's imagination is vivid is understatement. This transcript highlights Schiff's imagination:
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): No, it isn't a failure. At least, it's not a failure in the sense of our constitutional duty in the House. And I will tell you what changed my mind, George, because you're right. I resisted going down this road towards impeachment. But it was two things. It was the discovery of the most egregious conduct to date. It was one thing with the president invited foreign interference as a candidate, when he couldn't use the power of his office to make it so.
It was another when, as president of the United States, he withheld hundreds of millions of dollars to coerce an ally, betray our national security, and try to cheat in the next election. That was not something we could turn away from.
But it was one more fact, George, that I think made it inexorable. And that is the fact that it was the day after Bob Mueller testified, the day after Donald Trump felt that he was beyond accountability for his first misconduct, that he was back on the phone, this time with President Zelensky, trying to get that country to help him cheat in the next election.
It's frightening to think that the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, aka HPSCI, could look at the Trump-Zelenskiy phone call transcript, then think that President Trump was asking President Zelenskiy to "help him cheat in the next election." Anyone who's read that 5-page transcript knows that didn't happen. Only a disturbed person would think that. What's Chairman Schiff's proof that President Trump tried cheating in the next election? His vivid imagination? In the U.S. judicial system, great men like Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison insisted that a man couldn't be convicted without evidence.
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STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally Chairman Schiff, before we go, I do want to ask you a question about the Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on the FBI investigation into the Russia investigation. As you know, it found that there were significant errors, 17 significant errors and omission in that FISA surveillance application for Carter Page, and you've received some criticism because of your past claims that there were not any omissions. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, I want to show it right now:
Mr. Schiff claimed DOJ met the rigor, transparency and evidentiary basis needed to meet FISA court standards. But Mr. Horowitz makes clear that FBI officials didn't even tell senior Justice officials about the concerns and irregularities of its Page application. Would the court have granted the warrants if it knew the whole story? We don't know.
Do you accept that your original judgments were wrong, and what can you do about it?
SCHIFF: Well, I certainly accept that two years later, 170 interviews later, and 2 million documents later, the inspector general found things that we didn't know two years ago . And I certainly concur with the inspector general's conclusion that there need to be significant changes to the FISA process. We just didn't have that evidence available two years ago.
That's BS. The DOJ IG report verified that the Nunes Memo verified everything and that it got those things right. The other thing that's interesting is that the DOJ IG report says that then-Chairman Nunes didn't get a single thing wrong. Then-Chairman Nunes got each detail right.
Question: How could Schiff get each detail wrong and then-Chairman Nunes get each detail right? Not only that, Schiff's memo contested each of the main points of the Nunes Memo.
If anything that Schiff said isn't protected by the Constitution's Speech & Debate Clause, then he's in trouble. Additionally, there's no doubt that the FBI is in legal hot water:
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Watching the entire Ratcliffe interview is stunning.
Posted Monday, December 16, 2019 2:49 AM
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Michael Mukasey vs. Adam Schiff
Michael Mukasey dropped a bombshell when he appeared on Maria Bartiromo's Sunday Morning Futures show. During the interview, which lasts 6:00, Mukasey was asked "I want to ask you about what took place last week where Adam Schiff had phone records of Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, John Solomon, a journalist, Devin Nunes, we'll speak momentarily ranking member intel committee, not only get those phone records and let the public that he had not phone records. Everybody was speculating why did Rudy Giuliani call the White House. Why did John Solomon call Rudy Giuliani? Which, really, you're allowed to make a phone call."
Mukasey replied "There are statutes, part of the criminal code that restrict the ability of anybody to get those records and they list who can get them under what circumstances and that doesn't include Congress. It is for law enforcement, for law enforcement purposes, or if the company wants to disclose them to save somebody's life or prevent serious injury they can do that. Those are the only circumstances. A Congressional committee, as far as I know, has no authority to subpoena that information . "
The conversation continued like this:
MARIA BARTIROMO: Are you saying that was a crime?
MICHAEL MUKASEY: The statute restricting that is in title 18. That is the criminal code. You tell me.
MARIA BARTIROMO: Wow. Devin Nunes says he will have a legal strategy come January. We'll see what that looks like. Do you think he has strong standing?
MICHAEL MUKASEY: I think he has strong standing and there ought to be questions asked and answered how it is that Schiff purported to issue a congressional subpoena for telephone records to the provider, not to the people whose records they were, but to the provider.
MARIA BARTIROMO: Yeah.
MICHAEL MUKASEY: Does that mean for example, if somebody is nominated for a public office and being confirmed by a Senate committee that the Senate committee has the right to look at his telephone records? That is ridiculous. The statute was designed to stop that.
Call me crazy but that might mean trouble ahead for Mr. Schiff. That's a potential legal bombshell for Chairman Schiff's Committee Democrats. Committee Democrats voted to approve the impeachment report so they're just as involved in those civil rights abuses as Schiff is.
If Schiff subpoenaed those phone records, which he's already admitted, then Schiff might need a criminal defense attorney. After putting those phone records into the report that he wrote, there isn't much of a defense that Schiff can mount. Here's the Bartiromo-Mukasey interview:
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Posted Monday, December 16, 2019 8:32 AM
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Democrats = Party of joiners
It's difficult to think of Democrats as leaders when we get proof each day that they're nothing but joiners. Rep. Elissa Slotkin is the latest Democrat joiner to Adam Schiff's impeachment trainwreck . In this op-ed in the Detroit Free Press.
In the op-ed, Rep. Slotkin wrote "In September, I called for an inquiry because of the simple fact that it seemed that the President had used the power of his office to pressure a foreign leader to provide him information for personal political gain." This is the Democrats' standard reply. It's exceptionally dishonest. Here's what the actual transcript of the Trump-Zelenskiy phone call says:
There's a lot of talk about Biden's son that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it : It sounds horrible to me.
While Hunter Biden apparently thinks influence peddling is fine, most Americans don't agree. That's the commodity Hunter was selling. It's the thing Democrats, especially Joe Biden, don't want to talk about.
What's obvious in this phone call is that President Trump wants Ukraine to get rid of their corruption. It's obvious that Hunter Biden was corrupt. It's obvious that Joe Biden wasn't interested in stopping that corruption. The subject of that paragraph on Pg. 4 is corruption, not future elections. Nonetheless, Rep. Slotkin, like other Democrats, insists otherwise:
But here's the fundamental difference: President Trump used the power of the presidency for his own benefit, to give himself some advantage in the very election that would determine whether he remained in office.
It's difficult, if not impossible, to say that President Trump was thinking re-election when he's talking about eliminating corruption in Ukraine. When he returned from his trip to Ukraine, Sen. Johnson told President Trump to release the aid because he thought President Zelenskiy was "the real deal" in fighting corruption.
Democrats reflexively insist that things be put into context. Despite that, they've insisted in this instance to take that paragraph out of context. Rep. Slotkin is just the latest follower following Schiff off his impeachment cliff. Don't expect more than 2-3 Democrats voting against impeachment. Expect this to be Rep. Slotkin's final term in office. Here's why:
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Posted Monday, December 16, 2019 10:21 AM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 16-Dec-19 05:29 PM
Democrats = party of intolerant followers who repeat the party talking points every time they get the chance. "Oh it's such a sad day for America". Not one shred of evidence Trump did anything wrong yet you have a democrat candidate bragging on video he and Obama held the Ukraine hostage and nothing happens to them. These clowns are despicable.
Bribery vs. abuse of power
The hot topic du jour is why House Democrats didn't include bribery as an article of impeachment. For the entire second week of the impeachment hearings, we were told that President Trump had committed bribery. When the official articles were announce, though, bribery was nowhere to be found. Instead, abuse of power was included.
The reason for this is pretty simple, actually. Bribery is an actual crime. Therefore, to convict a person of committing bribery, the prosecution must prove multiple elements of the crime . Those elements are laid out nicely in this website:
Intent is one of the elements that must be established to prove the crime of bribery.[iii] Corrupt intent is the intent to receive a specific benefit in return for the payment.[iv] The intent to use the opportunity to perform a public duty for acquiring an unlawful personal benefit or advantage by the person who receives the bribe amounts to a corrupt intent.[v]
Another element required to constitute the crime of bribery is that a bribe must involve something of value that is used to influence the action or nonaction of the recipient. However, the bribe must not be necessarily in the form of money. It is sufficient if the receiver gets anything of value to himself/herself from the bribe.
How is investigating Joe and Hunter Biden "something of value"? It isn't like Joe Biden is competitive with President Trump in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Iowa.
Biden is for the Green New Deal. He's said during the Democrats' presidential debates that he wanted to eliminate fossil fuels. He said that early while pandering to the Democrats' far-left environmental activists. It's difficult to think of someone as a legitimate threat to President Trump when that candidate has difficulty remembering which state he's in:
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Joe Biden isn't someone I take seriously. He's run for president 3 times. The first time, he dropped out before the first voting began because he plagiarized a speech. The next time he ran, he dropped out after the Iowa Caucuses because he got less than 1% of the vote in Iowa. This time, he's the weakest frontrunner in modern history. He's still leading but it's because the other candidates are worse than he is.
The point that hasn't been made yet is that getting Biden out of the race isn't a benefit to President Trump. It isn't a detriment to his re-election bid, either. There goes the Democrats' argument that getting Biden out of the race is a benefit to President Trump.
There aren't any elements to prove with abuse of office because it isn't a crime. Democrats only have to insist that President Trump did something wrong and win over enough a bunch of Republican senators. Thus far, Democrats haven't accomplished that. It isn't likely that they'll accomplish that, either. Voters are displaying signs of frustration with the Democrats' faux impeachment, too:
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The uppity peasants that Rep. Slotkin, (D-MI), isn't listening to will show up to fire her next November. She should start writing her concession speech because she won't win re-election.
Posted Monday, December 16, 2019 5:10 PM
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