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| Terrell AfterMath |
Sunday, November 10, 2019
Marine Corps Birthday
Nov 10th, Marines will eat like kings and the next day the menu will feature cold cuts.
This account has a special significance to the Tunnel Dweller because 17 years later I was privileged to serve with the Second Marine Division for two years in Alpha 1/2. Always we wondered if we would have been as courageous as those Marines on Tarawa in 1943, often fearing we might not be. TD
The media protected Jeffrey Epstein and crucified Brett Kavanaugh
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| https://www.americanthinker.com/cartoons/ |
"This week, Project Veritas released a video featuring ABC News anchor Amy Robach on set, speaking in August with a running camera and a hot mic. In her conversation with others off-camera, apparently during a setup or commercial break, Robach noted with some frustration that she had the story about the allegations against Jeffrey Epstein all to herself three years ago and with about as much detail as anyone could expect. But her network, she added, inexplicably refused to air it.
" 'I've had the story for three years. I've had this interview with Virginia Roberts [Giuffre]. We would not put it on the air,” Robach said. "First of all, I was told, 'Who is Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story.' Then [Buckingham] Palace found out that we had her whole allegations about Prince Andrew and threatened us a million different ways. We were so afraid we wouldn't be able to interview Kate and Will that we, that also quashed the story."
" 'It was unbelievable what we had. Clinton, we had everything," she continued. "I tried for three years to get it on to no avail. And now it's all coming out, and it's like these new revelations, and I freaking had all of it."
"After Project Veritas released the video, Robach walked her comments back and said the undercover journalist “caught” her in a “private moment of frustration.” She added that since the Epstein allegations broke, ABC News has “continued to aggressively pursue this important story.”
"Additionally, ABC News has claimed it refused to run Robach’s reporting because it did not meet their editorial standards. Apparently, there wasn't enough corroborating evidence, despite the fact that Robach says in the video that she had multiple witnesses who confirmed her story. Still, ABC News decided that the allegations, despite the corroboration, were just allegations unworthy of airing. And they killed the story that would eventually land Epstein behind bars, triggering his death." . . .
What the University of Alabama's Football Stadium Tells Us about CO2
John Eidson
To get a visual of what an astonishingly tiny portion of the atmosphere is made up of the increased amount of CO2 that's appeared over the last century, take a look at the University of Alabama's Bryant-Denny Stadium, which has a seating capacity of slightly more than 100,000. Consider that just ten of those 100,000 people in the stands represent the visual equivalent of the increased level of CO2 in our atmosphere. Just ten. Ten of the football fans in the jam-packed stadium represent the increased amount of CO2. The other 99,990 fans represent the rest of what's in the atmosphere — i.e., everything except the increased amount of CO2.
. . . "I'm not a climate scientist, or a scientist of any kind. But I do have an engineering degree, which I mention only to point out that I'm at least as qualified as most non-scientists to form rational opinions regarding claims about the climate. Maybe I'm off base, but it doesn't seem plausible to my layman's mind that a microscopic increase in one of the least plentiful atmospheric gases (CO2) is causing the environment to fall apart at the seams." . . .
. . . "There's another possible reason why the planet has warmed over the last 100 years, and it has nothing to do with carbon dioxide. Earth's climate has always been in a state of flux. For billions of years, our planet has experienced warming trends followed by a cooling trend, followed by another warming trend, and so on. That one-followed-by-the-other pattern is unbroken, dating to the time the atmosphere first formed, so maybe the warming trend over the last century was just another event in that timeless pattern. In other words, maybe the warming was merely coincidental to the slight increase in CO2.
"The peddlers of climate fear have misled us before" . . .
While we're on the subject:
A huge, angry, Greta Thunberg, looming big over San Francisco...
"Seems it wasn't enough for the left to compare young Greta Thunberg, a 16 year old Swedish global warming activist to Joan of Arc or even "Christ's successor."
"The looney left of San Francisco is now putting up a gargantuan mural of her face, uglier, angrier, doughier and shadowier than it really is, as if to scold San Franciscans from above as she did in her theatrically overwrought United Nations tantrum for the cameras." . . .
The Alleged Whistleblower Eric Ciaramella
The Radicalizing of Eric Ciaramella "While the lawyers representing Eric Ciaramella, the alleged “whistleblower” in the Trump impeachment fiasco, describe him as having spent his entire career in “apolitical civil servant positions,” the truth is that Eric Ciaramella has been involved in radical political behavior throughout his life — including his years at Yale.
In fact, long before he was digging up dirt with the DNC’s Alexandra Chalupa about President Trump’s mythical collusion with Russia, Ciaramella was involved in leading a protest over what he believed was the poor treatment of Bassam Frangieh, a radical professor of Arabic Studies at Yale. On April 15, 2005, then first-year Yale student Ciaramella dressed in all white to lead a contingent of ten similarly dressed first-year Yale Arabic students to the offices of the Provost and the President of the university to demand that the university provide an incentive to encourage Frangieh to stay at Yale. . . .
Scrub-a-dub-dub: Did the whistleblower scrub his social media footprint before filing his complaint? '. . . He did a pre-scrub of his social media footprint, quite possibly anticipating that he might just get famous.
The ‘Whistleblower’ and the President’s Right to Present a Defense . . . "Presenting an affirmative case would not be without risk for the president. If the Democrats’ case for impeachment is weak and has no chance of success, he would probably be better advised to leave well enough alone. Nevertheless, if the president wants to argue that the bureaucracy has had it in for him from the start, and has coordinated with Democrats to undermine him, he has an unusual embarrassment of riches to exploit. " . . .
If Ciaramella Is The Whistleblower, Democrats Have Made A Major Blunder And Their Credibility Will Evaporate . . . " When the American people fully understand that Ciaramella submitted his complaint for the sole purpose of triggering an impeachment inquiry, and learn about his activities and close associations in D.C., the limited credibility the Democratic Party still retains will evaporate. Especially if the Durham investigation turns up criminal or merely unethical behavior on the part of Obama Administration officials.
Facebook threatens to BAN pages mentioning Eric Ciaramella "We reported last night that LaCorte News and several other Facebook pages owned by Bivona Digital – totaling 3.1 million followers – were locked, not allowing our journalists to post stories or breaking news. Facebook also threatened to completely eliminate the pages unless the unnamed violations were stopped.
"At the time we weren't sure whether the crackdown was due to our reporting the name of alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella or not. It was.
"Outlets including Breitbart News, The Gateway Pundit, and others – pages affecting more than 8 million followers in total – all report they got the same warnings they were violating community standards in reporting Ciaramella's name." . . .
In fact, long before he was digging up dirt with the DNC’s Alexandra Chalupa about President Trump’s mythical collusion with Russia, Ciaramella was involved in leading a protest over what he believed was the poor treatment of Bassam Frangieh, a radical professor of Arabic Studies at Yale. On April 15, 2005, then first-year Yale student Ciaramella dressed in all white to lead a contingent of ten similarly dressed first-year Yale Arabic students to the offices of the Provost and the President of the university to demand that the university provide an incentive to encourage Frangieh to stay at Yale. . . .
"It is likely that Bassam Frangieh wanted to use literature to be able to shape Yale’s undergraduates’ views on what he called the “heroic Arabic poet-martyrs” battling against the unjust occupation in Palestine. In 2000, Frangieh published a chapter romanticizing terrorism in a book entitled Tradition, Modernity, and Postmodernity in Arabic Literature. Ciaramella’s favorite Yale Arabic professor praised the heroism of Abd al Rahim Mahmud, the “first Arab poet-martyr.” Mahmud, who is often used to inspire terrorism and suicide bombings among Arab youth, was described by Frangieh as “carrying his soul in the palm of his hand,” as he “threw himself into the cavern of death.” Romanticizing his terrorism, Frangieh recalls Mahmud’s “premature death at age 35, fighting a battle in an attempt to keep Palestine free from foreign occupation, [which]brought dignity to the hearts of his people. Through his death he eliminated the gap between words and action… he shall remain a symbol of heroism and pride for his people.” (p. 222) . . .
Logs Also Show DNC Contractor Who Allegedly Worked with Ukraine to Investigate Trump/Manafort Visited Obama White House 27 times.
Scrub-a-dub-dub: Did the whistleblower scrub his social media footprint before filing his complaint? '. . . He did a pre-scrub of his social media footprint, quite possibly anticipating that he might just get famous.
"Sperry points out that it roughly parallels what was seen in the social media presence of anti–Judge Brett Kavanaugh accuser, Christine Blasey Ford. Chesa Boudin, as I noted here, seems to have done the same thing.
"Lefty ideas stink. Hence the planning. The coordinating. The getting ready for the big bomb to go off and protecting oneself from fallout." . . .
The ‘Whistleblower’ and the President’s Right to Present a Defense . . . "Presenting an affirmative case would not be without risk for the president. If the Democrats’ case for impeachment is weak and has no chance of success, he would probably be better advised to leave well enough alone. Nevertheless, if the president wants to argue that the bureaucracy has had it in for him from the start, and has coordinated with Democrats to undermine him, he has an unusual embarrassment of riches to exploit. " . . .
If Ciaramella Is The Whistleblower, Democrats Have Made A Major Blunder And Their Credibility Will Evaporate . . . " When the American people fully understand that Ciaramella submitted his complaint for the sole purpose of triggering an impeachment inquiry, and learn about his activities and close associations in D.C., the limited credibility the Democratic Party still retains will evaporate. Especially if the Durham investigation turns up criminal or merely unethical behavior on the part of Obama Administration officials.
(Note: This morning, I posted a summary of investigative journalist Paul Sperry’s stunning portrayal of this young man. Sperry’s full report can be viewed here and my summary, here.)
"We have all known people like Eric Ciaramella. They’re young, ambitious, eager to please and the boss loves them.
"For Ciaramella in 2016, that boss was then-CIA Director, John Brennan." . . .
Facebook threatens to BAN pages mentioning Eric Ciaramella "We reported last night that LaCorte News and several other Facebook pages owned by Bivona Digital – totaling 3.1 million followers – were locked, not allowing our journalists to post stories or breaking news. Facebook also threatened to completely eliminate the pages unless the unnamed violations were stopped."At the time we weren't sure whether the crackdown was due to our reporting the name of alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella or not. It was.
"Outlets including Breitbart News, The Gateway Pundit, and others – pages affecting more than 8 million followers in total – all report they got the same warnings they were violating community standards in reporting Ciaramella's name." . . .
GLAAD: We Want ‘20% Of Series Regular Characters’ To Be ‘LGBTQ By 2025’
Daily Wire "On Thursday, GLAAD published its annual “Where We Are on TV” report, which examines the number of LGBTQ characters on television."In the opening paragraphs of the report, GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis states that television plays a crucial role in our culture when it comes to “changing hearts and minds.” She adds that according to a study, “less than one-quarter of Americans have a close friend or family member who is transgender,” which means many Americans “learn about trans people from what they see in television, movies, and news.”
"Due to this statistic, Ellis says, the casting of trans actor Brian Michael Smith in Fox’s “9-1-1: Lone Star” is important.
"The report then cites an online survey of 2,037 adults conducted by Harris Poll suggesting that 20% of Americans ages 18-34 identify as LGBTQ, and that approximately 12% of overall respondents identify as LGBTQ." . . .
Nunes Demands Schiff Testify After Lying; Also Wants Whistleblower And Hunter Biden To Appear
Zero Hedge "Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) made a formal request that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) testify in a closed-door session as part of the impeachment inquiry against President Trump.
" 'Prior to the start of your public show trial next week, at least one additional closed-door deposition must take place," reads a Friday letter from Nunes to Schiff.
" 'As the American public is now aware, in August 2019 you and/or your staff met with or talked to the whistleblower who raised an issue with President Trump's phone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky. Although you publicly claim nothing inappropriate was discussed, the three committees deserve to hear directly from you the substance and circumstances surrounding any discussions conducted with the whistleblower, and any instructions you issued regarding those discussions."
" 'Given that you have reneged on your public commitment to let the committees interview the whistleblower directly, you are the only individual who can provide clarity as to these conversations," the letter reads.
"Schiff lied about his office's contacts with the whistleblower - initially claiming "We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower," when in fact the whistleblower, now known as CIA officer Eric Ciaramella, reached out to a committee aide who directed him to Democratic attorney Mark Zaid (who proudly obtained government security clearances for pedophiles and enjoys walking around children's theme parks alone).
"That said, Schiff maintains he hasn't personally spoken with Ciaramella, and that his committee was only given vague information as to the nature of the complaint." . . .
Is the "Faithless Elector" Coming to the Supreme Court?
"A recently-filed cert petition gives the Court a good opportunity to rule on the constitutional role of presidential electors"
The Volokh Conspiracy "A cert petition (available here) has been filed with the Supreme Court in the latest case involving "faithless electors," Chiafalo et al. v. State of Washington. [Historian Michael Rosin and I have submitted an amicus brief, available here, in support of the petition.] I'm betting that the Court will grant the petition and finally give us its views on a fascinating, and very thorny, question of constitutional law: to what extent may States control the behavior of presidential electors in the performance of their electoral duties?"The Chiafelo case involves three of Washington State's presidential electors in the 2016 election. Each had been included in a "slate" of potential electors submitted by the WA Democratic Party to the WA Secretary of State. When Hillary Clinton won the Washington popular vote, the WA Secretary of State, in accordance with WA law, appointed the members of the Democratic slate to be the State's presidential electors.
"WA law requires the electors to vote in accordance with their direction from the Party which nominated them, and backs that up with punishment if they act otherwise:
"Any elector who votes for a person or persons not nominated by the party of which he or she is an elector is subject to a civil penalty of up to one thousand dollars." RCW 29A-56-340.
"But when the State's electors convened in Olympia in December, 2016, the three petitioners in this case, instead of voting for Hillary Clinton, cast their ballots for Colin Powell. They were subsequently fined $1000 each for having [done] so." . . .
Saturday, November 9, 2019
Warren Plays To Nearly Empty Hall As Enthusiasm Wanes For Democratic Candidates
Joseph Curl
"To say there’s a lack of enthusiasm for the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates would be a grand understatement.
"And in South Carolina, apparently, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is not so popular.
"The Massachusetts Democrat hawking the $52 trillion Medicare-for-all program spoke Friday evening at an “Environmental Justice” forum in the state.
"From photos of the event, it looks like dozens came, maybe 100 tops. Shots from the back of the auditorium show a sea of empty seats."
. . .
"Questions emerged immediately on how to pay for the program. Said Warren: “The $11 trillion in household insurance and out-of-pocket expenses projected under our current system goes right back into the pockets of America’s working people,” Warren writes. “And we make up the difference with targeted spending cuts, new taxes on giant corporations and the richest 1% of Americans, and by cracking down on tax evasion and fraud. Not one penny in middle-class tax increases.' ” . . .
Who actually pays these taxes Warren wants to charge?
"And in South Carolina, apparently, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is not so popular.
"The Massachusetts Democrat hawking the $52 trillion Medicare-for-all program spoke Friday evening at an “Environmental Justice” forum in the state.
"From photos of the event, it looks like dozens came, maybe 100 tops. Shots from the back of the auditorium show a sea of empty seats."
. . .
"Questions emerged immediately on how to pay for the program. Said Warren: “The $11 trillion in household insurance and out-of-pocket expenses projected under our current system goes right back into the pockets of America’s working people,” Warren writes. “And we make up the difference with targeted spending cuts, new taxes on giant corporations and the richest 1% of Americans, and by cracking down on tax evasion and fraud. Not one penny in middle-class tax increases.' ” . . .
Who actually pays these taxes Warren wants to charge?
That leaves two remaining groups that may bear the burden of the corporate tax: workers and shareholders.
Schiff Goes Full Stalin
Now it seems you don’t even need real crimes defined by statute. You can invent them, as Dershowitz charged Democrats with doing in an appearance with former U.S. Atty Guy Lewis on the November 7 edition of “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News.
Daniel John Sobieski "As Rep. Adam Schiff’s “sentence first, trial later” show trial of President Donald J. Trump reaches a so-called public hearing phase, we find the weaver of fables dictating what witnesses the GOP will be permitted to call based on a set of three qualifying question they must answer in advance. These questions ask, essentially, if the witnesses believe President Trump is guilty of pressuring Ukraine to dig up dirt on the Bidens in exchange for military aid. The GOP, it seems, will not be allowed to call witnesses who have testimony or evidence to the contrary, that there was no pressure and no quid pro quo. Nor will the GOP be allowed to present witnesses or evidence that confirms that the “dirt” is accurate, that the crime of threatening to withhold aid for a personal and political favor, a crime Biden has already confessed to, was committed by Biden, not Trump, on behalf of Biden’s son Hunter. Nor will the GOP be allowed to make the case that any Trump inquiry of the Ukrainians was mandated by a treaty signed by President Bill Clinton. This is, dare I use the term Democrats used during the impeachment of Bill Clinton for a real crime, a phrase used by Joe Biden himself, a political lynching. As reported by the New York Post:
Full article here.House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff on Thursday released a tightened set of guidelines over what potential witnesses can be called in the impeachment hearings, saying Republicans must justify their relevance according to a three-point criteria…
Is Pelosi finally sick of the terrible damage Schiff is doing to her party?
"This week, Rep. Jim Jordan was officially moved to the House Intelligence Committee, from Oversight, in order to be part of the coming public interrogations of witnesses summoned by committee Chairman Adam Schiff.
"Jordan is a pit bull, exactly what the committee needs among its Republicans. It was in Pelosi's purview to refuse Jordan's appointment, and she did not."Hmmm. Is it possible that even she is sick and tired of Schiff's mendacity, his secrecy, his shutout of Republican questions, his witness tampering? He even advised "witnesses" not to answer questions from Republicans.
"Most of these people being called to testify are not witnesses to anything relevant; they are just vague anti-Trumpers willing to prostitute themselves in one way or another before Schiff's cloak-and-dagger, repressive little show trial that, as many have commented, is reminiscent of the tactics of the former Soviet Union." . . .
Impeachment Drama Is Fraught with Traps for Sane Observers
Conrad Black "It is painful to take issue with my blessed friend Peggy Noonan, and also painful to read both that she has effectively joined the disreputable impeachers of Donald Trump and has invoked a disingenuous argument in support of that position.
"Writing in the Wall Street Journal on November 2, she asserted that it is clear President Trump used his office to ask the president of Ukraine to destroy Joe Biden politically and that he used U.S. financial assistance to Ukraine as an incentive, and the withholding of it as a threat to incite such activity. And she wrote that the only remaining argument is whether that constitutes an article of impeachment that warrants removal from office.
"In fact, there is no evidence that there was a direct connection between Ukraine investigating Biden and the assistance involved. There is no evidence that Trump was asking for more than the facts of Biden and his son’s exposure in Ukraine—if the Bidens’ conduct was unexceptionable that finding would have fully satisfied Trump’s request to know what happened. The entire United States should want to know if Biden’s son was influence-peddling in Ukraine, China, and Romania—as has been alleged—and it should equally wish to know if the charges are unfounded.
"Peggy Noonan posed the question in her Wall Street Journal column, “Can we prove through elicited testimony, that the president made clear to the leader of (Ukraine) . . . that the U.S. would release congressionally authorized foreign aid only if the foreign leader publicly committed to launch an investigation that would benefit the president in his 2020 reelection effort?” Her answer: “We all know that.”
"We don’t know anything of the kind. The absence of evidence that information on Biden and aid were connected and that the president was directing President Zelensky to produce a condemnation of Biden and his son is precisely why this spurious Star Chamber conducted by the most chronically dishonest person in American public life (Adam Schiff, though only by a nose over House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, both Democratic congressmen), should not even get to the Senate.
"If there were convincing evidence on these points, that Trump was saying to Zelensky: “If you want any assistance from this country, give me an investigation of the Bidens’ activity in your country that demonstrates their corruption,” then there would be an issue that justified being enacted as an article of impeachment. The question Peggy Noonan posed of whether this justified the president’s removal from office would then be the subject of a Senate trial." . . .
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| Noonan |
"Writing in the Wall Street Journal on November 2, she asserted that it is clear President Trump used his office to ask the president of Ukraine to destroy Joe Biden politically and that he used U.S. financial assistance to Ukraine as an incentive, and the withholding of it as a threat to incite such activity. And she wrote that the only remaining argument is whether that constitutes an article of impeachment that warrants removal from office.
"In fact, there is no evidence that there was a direct connection between Ukraine investigating Biden and the assistance involved. There is no evidence that Trump was asking for more than the facts of Biden and his son’s exposure in Ukraine—if the Bidens’ conduct was unexceptionable that finding would have fully satisfied Trump’s request to know what happened. The entire United States should want to know if Biden’s son was influence-peddling in Ukraine, China, and Romania—as has been alleged—and it should equally wish to know if the charges are unfounded.
"Peggy Noonan posed the question in her Wall Street Journal column, “Can we prove through elicited testimony, that the president made clear to the leader of (Ukraine) . . . that the U.S. would release congressionally authorized foreign aid only if the foreign leader publicly committed to launch an investigation that would benefit the president in his 2020 reelection effort?” Her answer: “We all know that.”
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| Tony Branco, Townhall |
"If there were convincing evidence on these points, that Trump was saying to Zelensky: “If you want any assistance from this country, give me an investigation of the Bidens’ activity in your country that demonstrates their corruption,” then there would be an issue that justified being enacted as an article of impeachment. The question Peggy Noonan posed of whether this justified the president’s removal from office would then be the subject of a Senate trial." . . .
Right to Confrontation: The Latest Bogus Legal Argument over the ‘Whistleblower’
Andrew C. McCarthy
"I used to have occasion to say that in the Patriot Act debates, when the senator was wowing us with his Fourth Amendment theories. With impeachment upon us, he’s now onto the Sixth Amendment — specifically, the confrontation clause. It guarantees the right of cross-examination: In all criminal trials, the accused must be given the right to confront the accusers. Senator Paul has deduced that this must mean that the identity of the so-called whistleblower has to be revealed, lest President Trump be denied his constitutional rights.
"Sigh.
"Mind you, Senator Paul has been making this argument while he himself shrinks from outing the man at issue — whom we are reliably told is a 33-year-old CIA official, formerly tasked to the White House National Security Council as a Ukraine expert. There is but a small circle of people who fit that description, so Paul, like many in Washington, has known the name, to near certainty, for some time.
"The senator makes the fair point that there is no legal barrier to the media’s naming the man. We can be confident that if a Democratic president had been accused of impeachable offenses, that would already have happened weeks ago (and, indeed, some right-leaning media sites have published the name)." . . .
Impeachment is neither a criminal trial nor a legal process, so the president does not have the constitutional right to confront his accuser."As a constitutional lawyer, Rand Paul makes a good medical doctor.
"I used to have occasion to say that in the Patriot Act debates, when the senator was wowing us with his Fourth Amendment theories. With impeachment upon us, he’s now onto the Sixth Amendment — specifically, the confrontation clause. It guarantees the right of cross-examination: In all criminal trials, the accused must be given the right to confront the accusers. Senator Paul has deduced that this must mean that the identity of the so-called whistleblower has to be revealed, lest President Trump be denied his constitutional rights.
"Sigh.
"Mind you, Senator Paul has been making this argument while he himself shrinks from outing the man at issue — whom we are reliably told is a 33-year-old CIA official, formerly tasked to the White House National Security Council as a Ukraine expert. There is but a small circle of people who fit that description, so Paul, like many in Washington, has known the name, to near certainty, for some time.
"The senator makes the fair point that there is no legal barrier to the media’s naming the man. We can be confident that if a Democratic president had been accused of impeachable offenses, that would already have happened weeks ago (and, indeed, some right-leaning media sites have published the name)." . . .
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