September 30, 2019
Sep 30 06:23 Let's censure Adam Schiff Sep 30 07:47 Must the Senate hold an impeachment trial? Sep 30 22:51 The biggest story in 2020? Sep 30 23:22 McConnell's pro-growth agenda
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Let's censure Adam Schiff
Last week, Adam Schiff opened the Joseph Maguire hearing by telling a fictional story that Schiff said was a realistic version of President Trump's conversation with Ukraine's President Zelensky . This is what Schiff read:
In essence, what the President Trump communicates is this: We've been very good to your country. Very good. No other country has done as much as we have. But you know what, I don't see much reciprocity here. You know what I mean? I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from you through. And I'm going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand? And don't call me again. I'll call you when you've done what I asked.
Later, Schiff insisted that it was a parody. To all who watched, that wasn't clear. Then again, that's what the man who said he had proof that President Trump had colluded with Russia.
Schiff told that fiction in 2017. We still haven't seen that proof, probably because it doesn't exist. Lee Zeldin reminded everyone that 3/22/2019 was the 2-year anniversary of Schiff's dishonest statement:
3/22 is the 2 YR ANNIVERSARY of Adam Schiff declaring there's "more than circumstantial evidence" that Pres Trump colluded w/ the Russians to win election. Let's all soak in the fact he has produced a grand total of ZERO evidence to support that statement. Nothing. Nada. None. 0.
- Lee Zeldin (@RepLeeZeldin) March 13, 2019
But I digress. Rep. Andy Biggs has introduced a motion to censure Mr. Schiff . In addition to that motion, Rep. Biggs stated this:
During yesterday's hearing, Chairman Schiff's opening statement included a blatantly false retelling of President Trump's conversation with the Ukrainian president. Democrats previously initiated an impeachment inquiry, which leads to one of the most serious constitutional duties of Members of Congress: removal of the President of the United States.
Through this process, if the President has committed high crimes or misdemeanors, Congress may overturn the election of the President and the will of the American people. It is therefore inexcusable to toy with the process and mislead the American public with such a statement.
Let's compare Schiff's fictional reading of President Trump's statement with what President Trump actually said :
The President: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your weal thy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it . There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation .. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people.
At no point in the 'favor' portion of the call did President Trump talk about the Biden family. Pelosi named Schiff to chair the impeachment hearings. Nadler is incompetent but he isn't dishonest, at least to the extent that Schiff has proven himself to be.
This speaks for itself:
[Video no longer available]
What's important is that nothing in the transcript approaches "treason, bribery, high crimes or misdemeanors." In fact, there isn't a crime to be found anywhere in the transcript, the snitch's complaint or the OLC ruling. This weekend, Ms. Pelosi said that impeachment was the biggest vote Congress can take other than a vote to authorize going to war. She's right about that.
Impeachment should only be used when there's clear evidence that the President has a) committed a felony, b) has betrayed the country to another country or c) intentionally put our nation's people in harm's way. None of those things happened here. Democrats simply hate President Trump. Democrats want him removed from office. It's time to tell Pelosi's Democrats to shut up and get lost.
PS- it's time to censure Adam Schiff and label him the most dishonest Democrat in the nation.
Posted Monday, September 30, 2019 6:23 AM
No comments.
Must the Senate hold an impeachment trial?
Until this morning, I thought that the Senate had a constitutional obligation to hold a trial if the House approved articles of impeachment. At this point, I'm not sure of that anymore. Included in David Catron's article is this quote from "Keith E. Whittington, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University."
Prof. Whittington is quoted as saying "The Senate could entertain a motion to dismiss the charges at the outset of a trial on the grounds that the allegations did not meet the constitutional standard of impeachable offenses, and a majority of the Senate could send the House packing without ever hearing a witness or seeing evidence. If a majority of the senators thought the House was abusing the impeachment power : there is no reason why the Senate would have to pay obeisance to the House by going through the motions of a pointless trial."
When Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998, a trial was held in the Senate. At the time, then-Sen. Tom Harkin noted that senators were both judge and jury. Chief Justice William Rehnquist ruled that Sen. Harkin was right.
If senators have judicial authorities in an impeachment trial, why can't they dismiss the case? If I had a $100 bill for each time I've heard it said that impeachment is whatever Congress says it is, I'd be semi-wealthy. If the House has the authority to say that a president's actions are an impeachable offense, why shouldn't the Senate have the authority to rule otherwise? I've seen nothing in the Constitution that states the House and Senate must agree.
In fact, the Constitution's text suggests the opposite. If the Senate was obligated to agree with the House, there wouldn't be a need for a Senate trial. If the Constitution said that, the Senate trial in those circumstances would be a rubberstamp. I'm certain that isn't what the men who wrote the Constitution had in mind since they steadfastly insisted on a system of checks and balances.
If the Senate slapped down the House's articles of impeachment on the grounds that they thought didn't fit the Constitution's requirements of treason, bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors, that's a legitimate verdict. I can't picture the Supreme Court overturning that verdict. I'm betting that they wouldn't want to touch it.
It's difficult to picture anyone on Capitol Hill taking impeachment seriously, especially when it starts with this clown show:
[Video no longer available]
What's frightening is that Schiff is the more competent one between he and Nadler. In either case, the Senate should vote to drop the case on the grounds that it doesn't rise to the constitutional requirements.
Posted Monday, September 30, 2019 7:47 AM
Comment 1 by eric z at 30-Sep-19 11:44 AM
McConnell could bottle up the question, never getting it to the floor for consideration. He's experienced that way.
Comment 2 by Patrick Mattson at 30-Sep-19 01:52 PM
It's all over the news outlets: McConnell says "Senate Has 'No Choice' but to Hold Trial"
Response 2.1 by Gary Gross at 30-Sep-19 10:07 PM
Actually, Patrick, the words McConnell used was that "I would have no choice but to take it up." That isn't the same as being required to hold a trial.
Comment 3 by Chad Q at 30-Sep-19 05:14 PM
McConnell learned from the best bottlenecker there ever was, Harry Reid.
A trial is a waste of time and everyone but the fringe left knows it.
Comment 4 by John Palmer at 30-Sep-19 05:28 PM
McConnell does not rule the Senate the way the current Speaker rules the house. Mark Levin has read the transcript of the impeachment trial of President Johnson and the Senate did not take up all the charges from the House's articles of impeachment. In fact the majority of the charges were never taken up and the matter of impeaching the President never came before the Senate after they ruled on a minority of charges. If the charges do not rise to impeachable offenses and a majority of the Senate agrees with that opinion, the charges are not taken up and the matter ends. I trust Mark Levin's opinion more than second hand reporting of what McConnell may have said. I see no wrong doing in the President's actions and hope a majority of Senators will also see the foolishness of a trial on bogus charges. Yes Chad a trial is a waste of time. jwp
The biggest story in 2020?
Roger L. Simon's latest article isn't likely to help Democrats sleep well at night. Simon's article quotes extensively from Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey's WSJ op-ed, which is behind a paywall. The biggest story lately has been impeachment. That won't stay the biggest story forever. If Attorney General Mukasey is right, I'd hate to have a last name spelled B-i-d-e-n. Here's Mukasey's explanation:
That Justice Department statement makes explicit that the president never spoke with Attorney General William Barr "about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former Vice President Biden or his son' or asked him to contact Ukraine "on this or any other matter," and that the attorney general has not communicated at all with Ukraine. It also contains the following morsel: "A Department of Justice team led by U.S. Attorney John Durham is separately exploring the extent to which a number of countries, including Ukraine, played a role in the counterintelligence investigation directed at the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. While the Attorney General has yet to contact Ukraine in connection with this investigation, certain Ukrainians who are not members of the government have volunteered information to Mr. Durham, which he is evaluating." [Bold mine]
I doubt that Moeller's investigation into Ukraine was that vigorous. Nobody will doubt that Durham's investigation is thorough enough. This is why this digging is utterly worthwhile:
The definitive answer to the obvious question - what's that about? - is known only to Mr. Durham and his colleagues. But publicly available reports, including by Andrew McCarthy in his new book, "Ball of Collusion," suggest that during the 2016 campaign the Federal Bureau of Investigation tried to get evidence from Ukrainian government officials against Mr. Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, to pressure him into cooperating against Mr. Trump. When you grope through the miasma of Slavic names and follow the daisy chain of related people and entities, it appears that Ukrainian officials who backed the Clinton campaign provided information that generated the investigation of Mr. Manafort - acts that one Ukrainian court has said violated Ukrainian law and " led to interference in the electoral processes of the United States in 2016 and harmed the interests of Ukraine as a state."
I don't know what Durham will find but I'm confident he'll find lots of stuff. After all, he's the guy who took over a cold case after 30 years, then found the evidence and witnesses and won a conviction. If I'm a Biden or associated with the Clinton campaign, I'd start worrying. It's warranted.
Posted Monday, September 30, 2019 10:51 PM
Comment 1 by eric z at 02-Oct-19 10:50 AM
The biggest story is the healthcare reform which is around the corner, the debt burden relief for student debt and surprise medical debt, the move toward fair taxation of mega-incomes and finally moving to tax down obscene accumulations of wealth. Fair taxation would alone be a big story, but there's more that will be happening, 2021, after the next election results are official. Or not. Trump could get four more years, but that is unlikely. Joe Biden fading will be significant, but not the biggest story because he always was mediocre and besides name recognition he brings little to the table other than not being Trump. Bernie and Liz will be the story to top all others.
Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 02-Oct-19 01:34 PM
Eric, I'll agree that Biden "always was mediocre." Elizabeth Warren & Bernie aren't exactly stellar but at least they don't stumble like death warmed over like Biden.
McConnell's pro-growth agenda
The disparity between House Democrats and Senate Majority Leader couldn't be more different. Sen. McConnell's pro-growth economic agenda stands in stark contrast with Speaker Pelosi's all-impeachment-all-the-time agenda in the House. Monday morning, Sen. McConnell sat down for an interview with the folks from CNBC's Squawk Alley on his economic agenda . One of the things that Sen. McConnell talked about was the USMCA:
The argument for USMCA is very, very compelling, you know: 176,000 new jobs, $68 billion increase in gross domestic product, we have 12 million jobs already related to our trade relationship with Canada and Mexico. So I think it is going to be pretty hard for her not to take it up, even though voting for a Trump trade deal, I gather, is a bitter pill for them.
It's difficult enacting many bills when you hate President Trump. Things would be so much easier if Democrats put our nation first instead of putting the Resist Movement first.
Let's highlight the obvious. The economy is being held back by the trade war with China but it's still growing at a faster pace than anything that Obama achieved or that Sen. Warren's policies would achieve if enacted. If you think that puts Sen. Warren or President Obama in a favorable light, the average person whose wages have increased and whose 401(k)s are much healthier disagree.
Here's what Sen. McConnell said about the Republicans' economic agenda:
What I want to do is spend our time accomplishing things for the American people. USMCA, as Leader McCarthy and I pointed out in The Wall Street Journal today, is something we can agree on, something we ought to do. It makes a difference for the American people. The House spent the last three years harassing this president, and I gather we're going to get another chapter of that with the impeachment episode. But we need to find other things that actually make a difference for the American people and try to accomplish as much as we can. That's what I want to do, and that's what we're in the process of trying to encourage the House to do by taking up USMCA.
That's something that the Do-Nothing Democrats haven't paid attention to. This batch of Do-Nothing Democrats have wasted too much time chasing their ridiculous impeachment nightmare. What's frightening is that the Democrats' presidential candidates sound just as nuts. Here's the entire interview:
[Video no longer available]
Posted Monday, September 30, 2019 11:22 PM
Comment 1 by Kanye West at 02-Oct-19 11:08 AM
The economy is not being held back by a trade war with China. It's being held back by Fed policy. Trade war news only affects markets because the Fed has committed to being passive aggressive.
