Sunday, September 29, 2019

Fox News Political Hack Donna Brazile Runs Poll Asking If Trump Is A “Legitimate President”…It Backfires In A BIG Way

100%FedUp  "She’s the former Chairwoman of the DNC and is also a cheater who gave Hillary Clinton questions prior to a debate in 2016. She tries to come off as neutral but she’s a snake in the grass.
"Brazile is one of the latest people Fox News has hired to become more leftist in their reporting. Does Fox News go along with the poll that Brazile tweeted out?
"Does Fox News political hack Donna Brazil not know about the Electoral College?
"President Trump won the 2016 election fair and square!"
"Brazile probably wasn’t expecting the replies to her poll and the numbers that were way higher for President Trump."


I loved this reply to Brazile:


Intel Community Secretly Gutted Requirement Of First-Hand Whistleblower Knowledge


The Federalist
Federal records show that the intelligence community secretly revised the formal whistleblower complaint form in August 2019 to eliminate the requirement of direct, first-hand knowledge of wrongdoing.
"Between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings. This raises questions about the intelligence community’s behavior regarding the August submission of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump. The new complaint document no longer requires potential whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are reporting.

"The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until after the transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress were made public, eliminates the first-hand knowledge requirement and allows employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only “heard about [wrongdoing] from others.” 
"The internal properties of the newly revised “Disclosure of Urgent Concern” form, which the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) requires to be submitted under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA), show that the document was uploaded on September 24, 2019, at 4:25 p.m., just days before the anti-Trump complaint was declassified and released to the public. The markings on the document state that it was revised in August 2019, but no specific date of revision is disclosed." . . .




How the Framers Thought About Impeachment

The American Interest

The threat of impeachment being employed more often might just put some ballast back into our constitutional system.
 "With House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that she asked the relevant House committees to begin an impeachment inquiry of the President comes the need for a short primer on how to think about the impeachment of a president as a constitutional matter. This is not to dive into the details about what the current president may or may not have done. Rather, it’s a reminder in outline about how the Constitution, first through the text of Article II and second the process as laid out in Article I, intends to shape House members’ thinking about such an inquiry.
In Section 1 of Article II, the text explains that the “powers and duties” of presidency will “devolve on the Vice President” when, for whatever reason, a president is removed from office. This signals that, when examining Article II, we should be looking not only for the President’s authorities but also his official obligations.
In that regard, Article II begins by vesting “the executive power” in the person of the president—a power that was defined by the political theorists of the day as involving a broad obligation to administer the laws of the land, command the nation’s military forces, and conduct the nation’s foreign affairs. What concludes Section 1, Article II, is the presidential oath to “faithfully execute the office of President. . . .and. . . .to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Thus Section 1, which lays out the fundamental features of the office, begins with the defining power and concludes with a sweeping obligation to not only carry out the office properly, but to do so with the health of the larger constitutional order in mind.
Sections 2 and 3 of Article II appear as an odd lot, sharing neither the same length nor an obvious coherence. As Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson once put it, the text is “almost as enigmatic as the dreams Joseph was called upon to interpret for Pharaoh.” But is it? Would the Constitution’s drafters have been so slipshod when it came to such an important matter as setting out presidential authorities?
Upon closer inspection, Section 2’s authorities appear to be spelled out because each of the executive powers named has been modified in some way. For example, while the president as the chief executive directs the nation’s diplomacy, in concluding a treaty he must get the consent of two-thirds of the Senate—a concession to the federal and republican character of the country. As the individual inhabiting the office vested with the executive power, the president is commander-in-chief over the nation’s armed forces but also the state militias when called into service—an authority intended to fix a problem that bedeviled George Washington as commander-in-chief during the Revolutionary War, when he could only request the cooperation of the militias when planning campaigns.
As for Section 3, the language is one of oughts: The president “shall” do this and that, such as seeing to it that the laws are “faithfully executed.” Taken as a whole, the section essentially calls on the inherent energy of the unitary executive to give direction to the nation’s policy agenda and keep the basic functions of government up and running. There is certainly discretion in how a president carries out these mandates, but they are mandates.
"In brief, Section 2 is about powers, while Section 3 is about presidential duties. In that respect, Sections 2 and 3 are structurally an echo of Section 1.
"The final section of Article II, Section 4, lays out the grounds for impeaching the President and removing him from office if convicted of treason, bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanors. Treason is straightforward; it’s clearly a violation of the president’s oath. Bribery is likewise a clear violation of his oath and obligation to faithfully execute the laws. But what constitutes “high crime and misdemeanors?”
"At the time of the Constitutional Convention, the phrase—borrowed from British legal practice and the ongoing impeachment proceedings against the former British governor of India, Warren Hastings—was intended to address the problem of when an executive exercises legitimate authority but does so in a manner, as Alexander Hamilton put it, in “violation of some public trust.” A president, for example, has virtual plenary power to grant pardons, but if he exercises that authority so as to hide a crime, at a minimum he has violated his duty to faithfully (that is, in good faith) execute the laws.
"Again, at the time of the Convention, a key problem the Framers wanted to address was the absence of an independent executive under the Articles of Confederation. They succeeded in establishing an office that could act with energy, decision, dispatch, and, if necessary, secrecy. The circle they had to square was providing for removal in the case where a president abused his broad discretion, without giving Congress the power to control presidential behavior by making removal from office too easy. Poor policy choices, ineffective administration, boorish behavior would be too low a bar for such removal. But an abuse of office—either obvious in the case of treason or bribery or less so in instances in which a president breaks the constitutional norms he is sworn to uphold—had to be on the docket if the newly crafted and powerful chief executive was to gain popular acceptance and the office not be amended by the state ratifying conventions.
"Obviously, in comparison with treason and bribery, deciding whether a president has committed a high crime and misdemeanor will always be more of a judgment call. Hence, those calling for impeachment on these grounds will not readily escape the charge they are acting politically. Indeed, because impeachment only requires a simple majority vote in the House, it appears that the Constitution makes it relatively easy to impeach. However, the Constitution likewise makes it difficult to remove a president from office, requiring a two-thirds majority in the Senate for a conviction.
"In sum, the Constitution’s structure frames the question of impeachment and removal around its textual insistence that with great executive power comes great responsibility. And because the Constitution seems to have created a relatively open door when it comes impeachment, a plausible assumption is that impeachment, qua impeachment, was never meant to be such an exceptional oversight mechanism. Just as it is plausible to argue that removal would be rare.
"There is no question that a more routine use of impeachment inquiries might be disruptive to the presidency. On the other hand, the threat of it being employed more often might just put some ballast back into our constitutional system in the face of the expansive sway of the modern presidency. It might temper just a bit presidents who think that, once popularly elected, they have a mandate to govern as they wish and ignore the constitutional fact that they have both powers and duties.
Gary J. Schmitt is a resident scholar in strategic studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

Nikki Haley Scolds Kamala Harris For ‘Embarrassing’ Defense Of Joe Biden

Daily Caller  "Former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley scolded Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris for her “embarrassing” defense of former Vice President Joe Biden.



"Haley shared a video tweet Sunday of Harris suggesting Biden should be left alone with regard to any potential misconduct either by him or his son Hunter Biden, making it clear that she was not impressed with Harris’ response.
“ 'Leave Joe Biden alone? So are you telling us @KamalaHarris that what Biden did was ethical and moral? Where are the questions about the conflict of interest that occurred from Biden’s actions and the issues with his son? This response is embarrassing,” Haley concluded."
"Harris, when asked whether she would allow the son or daughter of her vice president to sit on the board of a foreign-held oil company, admitted that she “probably” wouldn’t — but immediately pivoted to attacking Trump. 
"She argued that any discussion about the Bidens was “a distraction from the facts” and that the real problem was Trump “corrupting America’s democracy.”
“ 'As far as I’m concerned, leave Joe Biden alone. Just leave him alone,” Harris said."

. . . 

Trump: 'Rep. Adam Schiff Must Resign From Congress!'

Like that's going to happen

PJ Media  "As we reported yesterday, Republican Congressman Andy Biggs wants his fellow Congressman Adam Schiff censured. The reason, of course, is that Schiff making up dating quotes during a congressional hearing about the conversation President Trump had with Ukraine's leader. Biggs is now joined by President Trump himself, who takes it one step further. He calls on Rep. Schiff to resign from Congress.

" 'The Whistleblower’s complaint is completely different and at odds from my actual conversation with the new President of Ukraine," President Trump writes on Twitter. "The so-called 'Whistleblower' knew practically NOTHING in that those ridiculous charges were far more dramatic & wrong, just like Liddle’ Adam Schiff... fraudulently and illegally inserted his made up & twisted words into my call with the Ukrainian President to make it look like I did something very wrong."

" 'He," the president writes about Rep. Schiff, "then boldly read those words to Congress and millions of people, defaming & libeling me. He must resign from Congress!"



. . . 

"It goes without saying that the president is completely right. What Rep. Schiff has done is completely and utterly irresponsible. He literally made up quotes from a conversation President Trump had with the leader of another nation, thereby not only undermining the President's position at home but abroad too. America's position is now weakened because of a) the content of Schiff's lies and b) the publication of the transcript of a supposedly confidential conversation between two heads-of-state -- a transcript that had to be released because of Rep. Schiff's lies. Other leaders will now think twice before telling the president anything important for fear it might be leaked by Democrats in Congress and their allies in the CIA.

"The one person responsible for this mess is, of course, Congressman Schiff. Considering the damage he has done to the reputation of his country abroad, resigning is the least he should do."


Hugh Hewitt: Adam Schiff Has ‘Destroyed His Credibility’ in Impeachment Inquiry
. . . “ ' I believe he destroyed his credibility this morning, on this show, as a fair arbiter of this process,” Hewitt said. “The most interesting part of the Nancy Pelosi decision to go for a fast impeachment is the implicit but very real concession that the Mueller report had no impeachable offense…So Adam Schiff is biased and Nancy Pelosi has admitted that Mueller exonerated Trump.' ” . . .


Swedish child climate activist reportedly a tool of Al Gore–linked corporate green hucksters

Image by Mike Harris
Monica Showalter  "Kids are great tools for big money and major powers lurking in the shadows, attempting to enact a political agenda.  The latest instance, and it's a doozy, is young Greta Thunberg, the Swedish child climate activist who's coming to the states (with a big carbon footprint, according to today's piece by Thomas Lifson) to persuade us all to jump in on the global warming cavalcade of green laws to restrict our own freedoms — which, as it happens, will just coincidentally make the green elites even richer.

"No wonder they're the shadowy forces bankrolling her peregrinations.  According to a report that ran in The Times (subscription only), titled "Greta Thunberg and the plot to forge a climate warrior," green corporate energy companies looking to turn a profit from green contracts were behind the young Greta's much ballyhooed rise from the beginning.  Far from being some persuasive and charismatic kid out to save the Earth, as the press is reporting, the Times found that:

[T]he Greta phenomenon has also involved green lobbyists, PR hustlers, eco-academics and a think tank founded by a wealthy former minister in Sweden's Social Democratic government with links to the country's energy companies. These companies are preparing for the biggest bonanza of government contracts in history: the greening of the western economies. Greta, whether she and her parents know it or not, is the face of their political strategy.
. . .
Sorry, Greta, even your fellow Swedes aren't buying the climate change claptrap anymore   . . . "Seems Greta's coming here because there are more gullible people.  Most of the Swedes have had it, and they're all global-warminged out." . . .

Top-level climate modeler goes rogue, criticizes 'nonsense' of 'global warming crisis'


A clarion call to the Jewish people of the United States

The Democrats have long been associated with the Women’s March, which has been hijacked by Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory, both of whom defend their relationship with Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, whose anti-white anti-Semitic rhetoric is well documented.  Most of the Jewish women resigned and left. The March refused to condemn anti-Semitism
Myrna Lieberman  "The Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) is coming upon us and we listen to the shofar (Ram’s horn or trumpet).  In the Jewish tradition, if we do not listen to the shofar, the holiday has not been observed. The sounds of the shofar can be a battle cry, or a mournful cry. It is the sound of the presence of G-d, a call out to G-d when we need his intervention.

"There are three basic trumpet calls, one is called T’ruah. It consists of rapid short bursts to arouse from our slumbering souls that have grown complacent; to alert the Jewish people for the need to come together for battle or the need to assemble because of an urgent situation. 

"This holiday is the anniversary of the creation of mankind and the renewal of our relationship with

"G-d. As Judge, G-d will allocate what will happen to us in the coming year. Perhaps this is the ideal time for the Jewish people face an ugly fact:

"The Democrat party, to whom Jews have been loyal since their arrival to America, is infested with Jew hatred and their support of Israel has eroded.  The Jewish members of Congress are silent. They have failed to learn the lesson of the Holocaust which is this: It is the responsibility of every individual to not be silent in the face of hate but to confront it.  In the past, Jews in Europe didn’t want to believe what they heard or saw until it was too late.

"I believe it is the same situation when it comes to the Democrat party. 

"The election of   Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota to Congress is a good example of Jews not wanting to ask the hard questions of a political candidate. After winning election, Omar changed her position. The Democrat party never called her out. 
"Omar tweeted an anti-Semitic trope which accused Jews of buying influence and forcing America to support Israel -- “It’s all about the Benjamins” -- and accusing Jews of dual loyalty.
"On March 7, 2019, The House Democrats had an opportunity to pass a resolution condemning Jew hatred and naming Omar.  Instead, they chose to water it down to a resolution against all hate, and didn’t name her.     
"On August 19, 2019 Democrat Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan held a press conference bashing Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump for denying them access to Israel and called on the United States to cut foreign aid to Israel.
"Both Congresswomen, failed to disclose that their trip was sponsored by Miftah, a pro terror, anti-Semitic Palestinian organization whose founder and chairwoman is Hanan Ashrawi. " . . .
On the Jewish New Year: Reflections on resilience and survival
Tonight, Jews will celebrate the advent of 5,780 years of our existence. On reflection it seems almost impossible that after millennia of persecution and genocide we have survived. Great and powerful empires -- Hellenist, Roman, Hittite, Mesopotamian -- have disappeared and we are still here.
. . .
"On this holiday, as on every Jewish holiday, I reflect with awe and pride on our remarkable legacy of survival and resilience. I give thanks to the United States, the happiest corner of the Diaspora where we remain free to worship and assemble and dissent under the protection of government and laws and our President Donald Trump." . . .

Saturday, September 28, 2019

Bill Maher Hilariously Calls Out Woke White Liberals By Suggesting A ‘Honky Tax’

Somehow this brings Beto O'Rourke to mind. (Language advisory)

RedState  "Bill Maher is often hit or miss with his comedy and his social analysis, and he’s almost never what one would call conservative in his approach. But in a recent closing segment from his show, he took a pretty nice blowtorch to the ridiculousness of white liberals being embarrassed and constantly obsequiously apologizing for the color of their skin.

"Before going any further, know that there’s some pretty strong language in this bit. But it’s also pretty funny, so watching it is encouraged. Especially if you or any of your friends are, or even if you just know,  white people who, as Maher says, “bore the *$^# out of black people at parties” with their apologies for white privilege.

"Maher starts the bit using Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang’s refusal to be offended by Shane Gillis’ old podcast jokes that got the comedian booted from Saturday Night Live’s cast almost immediately after being hired.

“ 'Because if he wasn’t offended, well…someone had to be,” Maher says, before talking about the “weird self-loathing” and “tedious virtue signaling” of white liberals. He calls out actress Rosanna Arquette for saying she was disgusted and ashamed of being white on Twitter.

“ 'You think it’s hard being a black man in a white man’s world? Try being a white woman who feels bad about you being a black man in white man’s world,” Maher quips." 

"But perhaps the best part is when he says the constant flagellating puts the burden on black people to absolve white liberals for their whiteness.

“ 'It’s really asking black people to, again, do something for you. Forgive me. Absolve me. Recognize that I’m one of the good white people,” Maher says. “Jesus, haven’t black people suffered enough?”

“ 'How many white liberals would pay actual reparations…real money taken out of their paychecks? If being white is really this toxic for society, let’s tax it,” Maher says. “Let’s tax whiteness. A honky tax…we’ll calculate your exact level of white lameness then charge you a caucasian offset fee.”

"Be sure to stick around for what he says we should be doing as a society to “get to the finish line” on race. Hint: it involves recognizing that we’re all people, regardless of skin color." . . .

How about a Bipartisan Treaty against the Criminalization of Elections?

Andrew C. McCarthy
Setting aside Hunter Biden, there was no impropriety in President Trump’s asking Zelensky to assist the Justice Department’s investigation into the origins of the Russia probe. 

" Back home in the Bronx is where I first heard the old saw about the Irishman who, coming upon a donnybrook at the local pub, asks a bystander: “Is this a private fight or can anybody join?”
"I was a much younger fellow then. The prospect becomes less alluring with age, so I have some trepidation stepping in between two old friends, Andrew Napolitano and Joe DiGenova. Through intermediary hosts, the pair — Napolitano a former New Jersey Superior Court jurist and law professor, DiGenova a former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia and prominent defense lawyer — brawled this week on Fox News (where I, like they, contribute regularly).
"I’m going to steer clear of the pugnacious to-ing and fro-ing. Let’s consider the intriguing legal issue that ignited it.
"Judge Napolitano argues that the July 25 conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky contains the makings of a campaign-finance crime. "He highlights Trump’s request for Ukraine’s help in investigating then–vice president Joe Biden. In 2016, Biden pressured Kyiv to drop a corruption investigation of Burisma, a natural gas company that paid Biden’s son, Hunter, big bucks to sit on its board.
"Biden, of course, is one of the favorites for the Democratic presidential nomination. " . . .



Greta wants an oompa loompa now


Christopher Skeet
 "When Veruca Salt threw a hissy fit, she at least jazzed it up with a catchy song. 

"No such luck with Greta Thunberg, the teenage Swedish climate activist and sometimes student.  Greta is all frowns, all crossed arms, and she’s not here to play.  Having sailed by an emissions-free yacht to New York, she delivered her now-infamous sermon for the repentant Luddites at the UN Climate Action Summit (available here).  “How dare you?” she thundered repeatedly, while meandering through a sloppy mess of pseudo-statistics meant convince us that she is as capable of a quick Google search as the rest of us." . . .

. . . And after you, your home country of Sweden can show us how an entire nation does it.  True, Sweden couldn’t rouse itself to oppose Nazi Germany.  But this is climate change we’re talking about.  An actual threat.  And Sweden’s transition back to the Stone Age shouldn’t be too difficult.  They have already implemented a de-civilization program of sorts, with its mass importation of unskilled, pissed-off males from the Islamic world. . . .

Mini-AOC sees the end coming and leaps into back action   Her video

The child actor who starred in a series of parody videos as “Mini AOC” is back, after having been bullied off the internet with death threats in July, as Fox News reported back then.

The 8-year-old child actor who went viral for impersonating Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, is no longer going to make videos due to death threats and harassment she and her family have received.
Earlier this year, Ava Martinez, known as "Mini AOC," brought joy to her fans with several videos poking fun at the socialist darling, collecting millions of views on social media.
However, the fun came to a screeching halt on Wednesday when Martinez's family announced that she would no longer be impersonating Ocasio-Cortez and that all the videos created would be removed. . . .
And yet, here she is for your enjoyment.  

‘Banana Republic’: Joe Rogan Rips Democrats for Un-American Attempt to Jail Political Opponents

'Banana Republic': Joe Rogan Rips Democrats for Un-American Attempt to Jail Political Opponents - The Lid (lidblog.com)     " ...

https://spectator.org/