The bad-faith impeachment

Byron York: As Pelosi plays games with impeachment, what next for GOP?

. . .  "Withholding the articles, Tribe said, would strengthen Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's hand as he negotiates with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on the terms of the trial. It would do so, Tribe speculated, "because of McConnell's and Trump's urgent desire to get this whole business behind them."  "Without McConnell's concessions, Tribe urged Democrats to withhold the articles indefinitely because a trial dominated by majority Republicans "would fail to render a meaningful verdict of acquittal.. " . . .

Impeachment Consequences Coming Home to Depraved Democrats  "For every action there is a consequence, and Democrats in congress and running for the presidency are feeling the consequences of their zeal to impeach President Donald Trump this weekend. – Let’s use Twitter to illustrate: . . ."

"President Trump traveled to Philadelphia on Saturday to witness the grand annual football clash between Army and Navy. There, he met players and coaches from both teams prior to the contest, signed an executive order allowing players from military academies to immediately pursue professional sports careers upon graduating, received a rousing ovation from everyone in the stadium when he was introduced, and performed the coin toss while wearing a red “Keep America Great” cap.  Awesome: . . ."
"Democrat New Jersey congressman Jeff Van Drew has informed his staff that he is so fed up with the Democrats’ impeachment sham that he is switching parties. Welcome to the real Party, pal.: . . ."
"Oklahoma voters remind Democrat congresswoman Kendra Horn that “there’s not one county – not one county – in Oklahoma that voted for Hillary Clinton.” Horn is the only Democrat member of congress from Oklahoma. Next November, she will become a former Democrat member of congress: . . .

The bad-faith impeachment  . . . "To summarize: Many Democrats wanted to impeach Trump from the get-go. Frustrated at their inability to get it done, they jumped on their last, best hope, taking shortcuts to ensure their preferred result and racing to beat the political deadline imposed by their party's presidential contest. Through it all, they have insisted they are acting only with great reluctance and sorrow.

"The question now is whether the public will believe it."

The Real Reason Obama Won’t Destroy ISIS Oil Wells

My question had been, as we watched video daily of ISIS convoys of troops moving on more of the middle east, was why not bomb the troop convoys?

D'Souza Media, 2015  "On Tuesday, in an interview with television talk show host Charlie Rose, former CIA director Mike Morrell revealed the decision making processes that were undertaken by the Obama administration while Morrell was serving as a chief adviser to the president. The revelations from the interview provides a clear picture of the reasons given for decisions made in the fight against ISIS.

Rose began his interview summarizing the latest relevant news, from the State Department’s global travel alert, the Russian plane shot down by Turkey, and President Obama’s meeting with President Hollande. Rose then asked Morrell, “Where do we stand after Paris?”
. . .
"Morrell told Rose that Obama’s concern for environmental hazards and damage to the environment were the perceived reasons why Obama did not allow oil wells to be bombed. Stating that he’s not in the situation room any longer but in reflection on Obama policies, Morrell said, “Prior to Paris…there seemed to have been a judgement that look we don’t want to destroy these oil tankers because that’s infrastructure that’s going to be necessary to support the people when ISIS isn’t there anymore and it’s going to create environmental damage. And we didn’t go after oil wells. We didn’t actually hit any oil wells that ISIS controls because we didn’t want to do environmental damage and we didn’t want to destroy that infrastructure…So, now we’re hitting oil in trucks…Maybe you get to the point where you say we have to hit oil wells. So those are the kind of tough decisions you have to make.' ” . . .

AOC and Greta! Save us from ourselves!

Which is it?! Obesity causes ‘global warming’ — BUT ‘Global warming’ also causes starvation! – Problem solved?!

WebMD: Obesity Epidemic May Contribute to Climate Change - 2019

But wait, climate change will cause starvation -- potentially solving the obesity problem!

2013: UK Guardian: ‘Millions face starvation as world warms, say scientists’ — UN urges: ‘We must act quickly’

Turn to these ladies for help:

Biden Says He’s Willing To Sacrifice Hundreds Of Thousands Of Blue-Collar Jobs In Oil And Gas  “ 'We have enormous opportunities,” Biden continued Thursday. “There are so many things we can do. We have to make sure we explain it to those people who are displaced – that their skills are going to be needed for the new opportunities.' ” . . .

The Copenhagen Accord dashed the hopes of those who believed it would begin the fightback against global warming. Yet we appear to be no further forward now.

"In short, in the ten years since Copenhagen, little has really changed:

• Emissions continue to climb, and look likely to carry on doing so.
• Transition to a renewable energy world is painfully slow, and not even keeping up with rising energy demand.
• Promises of $100bn a year in climate aid remain pie in the sky
• There is no prospect of a treaty which binds all countries to specific emission reductions.
• Above all, there is absolutely no possibility that global emissions will reduce fast enough and far enough to the levels demanded by climate scientists.

The Climate Agenda Off the Rails: Sarah Myhre at the American Geophysical Union

. . . "You all are smart, resourceful people. Organize with one another. Start a union. Plan a protest. Outfit a lactation room. Stand in profound solidarity and interconnectedness. Share your power, platform, and resources. And do not settle for anything less on this path towards climate justice and integration, because a better world is possible and we are on our way." . . .

A Contemptible Tissue of Lies Surrounds Impeachment

Conrad Black

Impeachment is just an effort to strengthen the Democrats as they make the uphill battle to persuade the voters to evict President Trump next year for confected moral turpitude, since he can’t be challenged on his accomplishments in office.

"Even as the House Democrats voted to impeach the president this week, there was universal recognition that the effort to remove him was a dead pigeon on arrival at the Senate (assuming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi summons the courage to apprise the Senate officially of the results of the House vote).
"The battle, for some time already, has been at the public relations level, and there the president is winning. USA Today, an anti-Trump newspaper with regular anti-Trump polling results, reported a five point decline in the numbers of people who approved impeaching the president, and other polls indicate that this is a clear trend; he is now ahead of where President Obama was in the polls eight years ago. These polls also probably reflect the gathering disquietude of the country about revelations of unprecedented political skulduggery by the FBI in the Horowitz report. 

No one is above the law!

"The pathetic spectacle of tie-less former FBI director James Comey being transformed into Swiss cheese like Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty at the end of “Bonnie and Clyde”—and by Chris Wallace who is no Trump-admirer—is of a piece with the general unease generated by that report. The inspector general of the Justice Department acknowledged that there could have been political bias in starting the Trump-Russia investigation, and though he didn’t find proof of it, all of the many shortcomings he found in the improper FISA surveillance of the Trump campaign were on the anti-Trump side of the election.
"The lowering clouds of that sequence of outrages raised grave questions about the politicization of the FBI and the intelligence networks and they do not create an optimal atmosphere for the orgy of righteousness of the Democrats and the anti-Trump media now. Rarely have the denizens of a thinly-walled and roofed glass house hurled such a torrent of stone projectiles." . . .

Shhhhh…Just Let the Democrats Schiff Themselves

Kurt Schlichter

"Military guys – and I am a graduate of the Army War College, which is not the one with noted expert on expertise Tom Nichols – try to abide by the apocryphal advice of Napoleon, who counseled that you should never interrupt your enemy while he is making a mistake. But this doesn’t apply to the Democrats because they are not only too dumb to listen to your warnings but their weird dogma actually makes it impossible for them to imagine that they are heading for disaster in 2020. So, I’m going to mock these losers mercilessly, safe in the knowledge that even though I am telling that anime lollipop-looking twerp Adam Schiff and Jerry the Oompa Loompa Nadler exactly what is going to happen, they are powerless to stop it.
"Nancy Pelosi, who is no dummy, knows. She gets it. That’s why she’s not taking questions on her solemn, sad impeachment thing. She gets that she’s trapped by the Commie Caucus’s resolute determination to please their blue enclaves at the expense of alienating everyone else. So she’s trying to make it fade away. Yeah, hold onto that impeachment for a while. It’ll get better with age, just like Jennifer Rubin has. 
"It’s fun to tell No Exit Nancy exactly what misery will befall her crummy party, and to know that she knows it’s all true, and that she also knows there’s not a damn thing she can do about it.
"Remember how Colin Powell, back before he went all Never Trump and we stopped caring what he thought, went on TV and told Saddam Hussein exactly what the American military was going to do to his army? First, we were going to cut it off, then we were going to kill it. That was the ultimate power move (and I was over there when we made it happen). Well, Trump’s been doing that to the Dems lately. He’s been warning them they’re screwing up. He’s been telling them he’ll crush them in 2020. They won’t listen. They can’t listen. And so, they can’t get off the tracks before the Trump Train crushes them into pink pinko goo.
"Let’s review some data points. Agonizingly painful data points for the Democrats." . . .

De Niro bags it

Peter Skurkiss  "In an hour-long Podcast, Rumble with Michael Moore, two-time Academy Award–winner Robert De Niro said: "I'd like to see a bag of s--- right in his [President Trump's] face like that, and let the picture go all over the world, and that would be the most humiliating thing." 

"Interestingly, no Democrat has yet seen fit to call out De Niro on this.  Nor has any of the NeverTrump conservatives who tut-tut about Trump's supposed crudeness in his tweets.  Silence is a form of consent, and no doubt many of them would like to see De Niro's wish fulfilled. 

"This brings us to another point.  De Niro evidently does not have the mental strength to separate Robert De Niro the actor from the thuggish characters he plays in the movies.  The 76-year-old actor thinks he's some sort of a combination of boxer Jake LaMotta (Raging Bull), gangster Jimmy Conway (Goodfellas), and Al Capone (The Untouchables).  Like Lazy Joe Biden, De Niro actually imagines himself to be a tough guy.  One has to wonder how long that delusion would hold up if De Niro had to confront someone without his bodyguards, lawyers, accountants, and public relations people on call.  

"Most relevant is perhaps this.  Doesn't De Niro realize that he's begging to be treated in the same manner as he calls for the president to be?  He is more likely to have pictures of him with poo thrown in his face sent around the world than is Donald Trump.  If so, one has to wonder what kind of Academy Award–level performance De Niro would give then." . . .

"In a democratic society the press must be accountable for stirring up hate"

In a democratic society the press must be accountable for stirring up hate
Different context, different nation, but rock solid wisdom. TD

Product of the genius of Rich Terrell

The Ruling Class Media and the Battle for 2020

CNN earns fake news label again with an assist from the WaPo  "The desperation of the anti-Trump media to defeat his re-election effort is leading them to sacrifice their credibility and peddle an obvious lie.  In a jaw-dropping moment yesterday on CNN's ironically named Reliable Sources program, Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell made a ludicrous claim: "The economy today is not substantially different from the economy before Trump took office."

"Don't believe me?"   Watch this video with Brian Stelter
. . . 

"I guess it takes a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton University to be able to disregard reality to this extent.  Ms. Rampell apparently has forgotten that that before Trump took office, the "new normal" was economic growth lower than population growth (AKA stagnation), manufacturing jobs that would "never come back" and a growing gap between incomes of the well off and the lower paid.

"None of those is true.  In particular, the lower end of the income scale has prospered to an unprecedented degree:" . . .

Andy Puzder
✔
It’s all but impossible to look at this chart and conclude anything other than that ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ ‘s tax cuts have unequivocally benefitted working class Americans. It’s the kind of benefit that wins elections.

Countering CNN: Actor Pierce Brosnan Credits Trump on Economy, Jobs: 'Step in the Right Direction'  But then, the man is a Hollywood actor, so who can take him seriously?

"Merry Impeachmas" from the WaPo

This is where the media’s bowing and scraping to Democrats and their strategists warps our system. They’re not part of the checks and balances. They have no balance, and they never check the Democrats. The media paint everything Team Chuck & Nancy do as “historic” and “solemn,” and the Republican reaction as “diatribes” and “onslaughts.”

Liberals think Chuck Todd is the "gold standard" of pundits/interviewers.

. . . But on Wednesday, Rush Limbaugh accused Todd of attempting an ineffective coup, as impeachment makes no dent in President Trump's approval ratings....which are actually going up. 

Alyssa Milano and Michelle Wolf; the state of American culture and thought.

Alyssa Milano’s Call For Abortion Stories Provokes Astonishing Pro-Life Testimonies

"Milano’s tweet reads, “If you’d like to share your personal abortion story on my podcast to help shine a light on the importance of bodily autonomy, please record story on your voice memo app and email it to below address. If you’d like to remain anonymous please say so in your email. #SorryNotSorry”

"Milano retweeted a post from her “Sorry Not Sorry” podcast account, which is below her original tweet. The tweet reads, “Nearly one in four women in the United States will have an abortion by age 45. Do you want to share your story on #SorryNotSorry? /  Email Submissions@sorrynotsorrypod.com”
"While the post generated a variety of responses, it also caught the attention of pro-life women, including women and men suffering from previous abortions."

Wolf: Abortion Gave Her A God Complex   You recall Wolf's insulting speech against Sarah Huckabee Sanders I'm sure.
"How a man could get past the screechy nails-on-a-chalkboard voice that comes out of this woman’s mouth is beyond me let alone impregnate her.

"We have Alyssa Milano shouting about being an angry premenopausal woman and Michelle Wolf discussing great comedic topics to tickle the funny bone such as period equality and abortion. Oh, yay. Now comes Wolf’s latest on her Netflix comedy special, The Joke Show:

You can feel any way that you want after an abortion,. Get one! See how you feel! You know how my abortion made me feel? Very powerful. You know how people say you can’t play God? I walked out of there being like, ‘Move over, Morgan Freeman. I am God!'”-Michelle Wolf

. . . "Do it, see how you feel! This is what passes for comedy amongst the liberal left. Women discussing period equality and how they felt powerful and God-like after getting that “whoops” from a night of indiscretion taken care of once and for all. Hilarious. So damn funny, my sides are splitting and I nearly wet my pants.

It’s so ironic that Trump could be the guy who ends legal abortion. That dude has been responsible for more abortions than the invention of back alleys. Look, access to abortion is good and important. Some people say abortion is ‘killing a baby.’ It’s not. It’s stopping a baby from happening. It’s like Back to the Future and abortion is the DeLorean.”-Michelle Wolf

Hear Michelle Wolf for yourself.

Adam Schiff; in the mold of a California-shaped Congressman...

...yokefellow of Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Eric Swalwell, Zoe Lofgren, Ted Lieu, Karen Bass, to name just a few. Oh, and Beto O'rourke, a trans-politician self-identifying as a California Democrat.

Adam Schiff: Psychopath, or guilty conscience?  " . . . Even people who dislike President Trump can pretty naturally recognize that [Carter] Page's constitutional rights on unreasonable searches and seizures was violated.

"Not Schiff, though. All he could emit was stone heartlessness for the man whose good name was ruined by abuses of government power, revealing an utter absence of empathy. At first glance, Schiff came off sounding like a psychopath.

"But notice what he's saying: Page, see, is the bad guy. Schiff's not only showing an astonishing absence of empathy, he's attempting to twist the knife an extra time on the already wounded victim. And so much for all those impeachment pieties from Democrats about the sacredness of 'the Constitution.' Constitutions are only important if they're politically useful to a guy like this. For Schiff, it's more important to stick it to Page." . . .

Judicial Watch Slaps Schiff and the House Intelligence Committee With a Lawsuit

“Adam Schiff abused his power to secretly subpoena and then publish the private phone records, in potential violation of law, of innocent Americans. What else is Mr. Schiff hiding?” Fitton asked in a statement. “Schiff and his Committee ran roughshod over the rule of law in pursuit of the abusive impeachment of President Trump. This lawsuit serves as a reminder that Congressman Schiff and Congress are not above the law.”

Trump, Schiff’s Schpy-gate, and more

That’s why I love Trump, warts and all. This is a guy who wants less government and more individual liberty, aligned with strong national security that has no whiff of colonialism about it. So give me Trump: Give me Trump the bombastic. Give me Trump the wheeler-dealer.  . . .

  . . . "Were you surprised to learn that Adam Schiff obtained phone records for his fellow House member Devin Nunes, as well as for Nunes’ Aide, Rudy Giuliani, who is Trump’s personal attorney, and one-time Hill journalist John Solomon?

I wasn’t surprised at all: There is no difference whatsoever between today’s Democrats and classic fascism. (Not Hitlerian fascism, but classic fascism. There’s a difference, as I will explain.)

"Remember that classic fascism is a totalitarian state that has ultimate power over everything. This is different from communism, in which the state has ultimate ownership over everything. The only reason fascism got the bad smell it has now is because Hitler allied it with a lust for world domination and a genocidal hatred for Jews.

"When you subtract world domination and genocidal antisemitism from Nazi fascism, you discover that, in all other ways today’s Democrats match Hitler policy for policy: anti-gun; anti-free speech; total control over youth; environmental obsessions; reverence for Gaia; hostility to traditional Christianity; increasingly violent personal attacks against political opponents; a deep respect for Islam’s muscularity; a partnership between government and big business, which each enriching the other; love of nudity; and on and on and on.

"Please understand that I’m not saying that today’s Leftists are Nazi fascists . . . yet. I do see them capable of moving in that direction, though. After all, American Leftists dream of one world government, which is a form of world domination, and they’re rapidly embracing toxic anti-Semitism. I would not give these people power, ever." . . .

Schiff’s Subpoenas Reveal New Escalation of Partisan Warfare  . . . "Had Trump ordered federal law enforcement to subpoena Schiff’s phone records, you can bet that the congressman and his Democratic colleagues would have said such behavior posed “an existential threat” to the entire Congress, and we would have seen a third article of impeachment making precisely that claim.
"Put aside for a minute the question of whether Schiff’s behavior violated the rights of those whose phone calls he revealed, or whether it violated Trump’s attorney-client privilege. Three other aspects of this matter are worth thinking about."

Don’t Count On Romney

The American Conservative

In order to take a principled stand, it helps if the politician in question has principles. Romney doesn’t, and it is strange that so many journalists and columnists keep pretending otherwise. Romney was in so many respects Trump’s forerunner as the shameless panderer and political contortionist who told Republican voters whatever they wanted to hear in order to get their support. Romney does not “speak for principle” because he has no principles to speak of.

"David Ignatius must be kidding:

Who might deliver us from this national train wreck? Who could restore a sense of balance to the Senate trial so that, whatever its outcome, it doesn’t feed Trump’s false narrative of victimization and populist rage? There’s one obvious answer: Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee and custodian of what remains of his party’s moral and political balance.

"Counting on Mitt Romney for political courage and moral leadership is always a bad bet. Romney has a very safe seat in Utah, so in theory he could afford to take risks, but taking political risks is exactly what Romney never does. He is a consummate opportunist, and he has spent the last decade and a half pandering to anyone and everyone to advance his political career. Romney is not the politician you’re looking for if you want someone who will take a principled stand on, well, anything. If he is the “custodian” of the GOP’s “moral and political balance,” they are truly lost.

"Ignatius continues:

History is knocking on Romney’s door. This is his moment to step away from a president who holds him in contempt and to speak for principle — by insisting that the Senate conduct an actual trial and weigh the House’s allegations that Trump abused power and obstructed Congress.

"It should tell us a lot about Romney that he has not done much of anything to “step away” from Trump before now. Despite a half-hearted op-ed that expressed his willingness to dissent from the administration’s line, he has been a reliable yes vote for the president’s agenda. Support the war on Yemen? Romney was all for it. Send more weapons to the Saudis and the UAE? Romney was on board. " . . .

"A well-oiled weather vane"

NYT: Impeachment rightfully gives losers tyranny over winners

Bookworm Room

At the NYT, hard Leftist Michelle Goldberg explains that impeachment offsets the tyranny of the Electoral College, giving losers their rightful victory.

. . . "Before I get to the opinion piece, though, do I need to remind you that presidential elections in America are governed by the Electoral College? Since I know that my readers have a high level of intelligence and knowledge, I almost certainly don’t need to offer that reminder. Nevertheless, I think it’s easier to understand how horrific the NYT opinion piece is if you remind yourself about the constitutional background.
"If you want to read about it at the source, the Electoral College is right there in the Constitution, at Article II, Section 1, Clause. The whole point of the Electoral College is to ensure that America is not a direct democracy but is, in fact, a representative democracy, including representative votes for the president. The Founders deliberately put all sorts of layers between voters and their government.
"For starters, we don’t run the country on a giant town hall basis, which would be the most direct democracy of all, with every single action of the United States being put to all the voters. Instead, we elect representatives who carry out the will of the people who placed them in office." . . .

Free enterprise: Trump lets us choose our light bulbs

OK, NOW we have grounds to impeach this guy!

Trump Admin to End War on Incandescent Light Bulbs

 . . ."Trump Administration Blocks Energy Efficiency Rule for Light Bulbs

"In announcing the move, the secretary of energy, Dan Brouillette, who is a former auto lobbyist, said the administration had chosen “to protect consumer choice by ensuring that the American people do not pay the price for unnecessary overregulation from the federal government.” The new rule was unnecessary, he said, because innovation and technology are already “increasing the efficiency and affordability of light bulbs without federal government intervention.”

"The rule, which would have gone into effect on Jan. 1, was required under a law passed in 2007 during the administration of President George W. Bush.

"Noah Horowitz, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s center for energy efficiency standards, assailed the move, saying the administration had “just thumbed its nose at Congress, America’s families and businesses, and the environment.”…

"The light bulb rollback is part of a multipronged effort by the Trump administration to weaken a broad array of rules designed to fight climate change, many of which were passed under the Obama administration."

"Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette talked about the change on Twitter:

Innovation and technology are driving progress and increasing the efficiency and affordability of lightbulbs, without federal government intervention. The American people will continue to have a choice on how they light their home.