Trump pulls our tiny number of troops out of part of northern Syria and all of a sudden, all of Trump’s opponents are pro-war. Ain’t fallin’ for it, guys.
As I said back when Obama was President, I’ve become quite the peace-nik – mostly because of complete lack of trust. I do trust President Trump’s basic instincts here, but overall I don’t trust our government, our military brass or the Democrats when it comes to war. The lives of our troops are too important for them to be thrown away on unclear, endless missions where we surrender all our military advantages and then haul up our troops on charges of war crimes when they make what some REMF thinks is a mistake. I’ll agree to send our troops to war on the following conditions:
1. It is declared.
2. It is fought with brutal and unlimited use of our military force.
3. This is very important to me – we inform all and sundry that when dealing with captured irregulars and hostile “civilian” populations, we’re going to use Rule .303.
The Trump impeachment circus goes on – from what I can tell, Schiff all but wrote the “whistleblower” complaint and as that is falling apart, the Democrats are cooking up a second “whistleblower” to shore up their collapsing case. Meanwhile, various DOJ investigators seem to be closing in on the whole start of the scandal – you know, back in 2016 when the O Admin authorized spying on Trump – and this is getting more and more people into a panic. None of can say where this goes, but I’m feeling confident that Trump (and McConnell) have a very firm grip on this and they are planning on using impeachment – if the Democrats do go for it – as a hammer in 2020.
Dick’s got woke and went broke – but don’t think that will deter them. The only thing an American corporation fears these days is offending the Chinese government. Dick’s made its anti-gun SJW move because it was, socially, cost-free for them. We have to make it economically expensive for corporations to indulge in this sort of thing – only then will they cool it.
Ellen DeGeneres was in the box at a football game with W and the left went ballistic. Ellen made a statement about how its ok for people to disagree and still be kind to each other. That isn’t sitting at all well with the left:
“Avengers” star Mark Ruffalo certainly agreed, saying kindness was out of the question until Bush was brought to justice.
Got that? Brought to justice…for the crime of being a moderately conservative Republican. And this is what Ellen – conventional American liberal – and W – conventional American conservative – don’t get: the left hates. It is what it does, first and foremost and above all else. For every Ellen there are a dozen liberals who’s fondest hope is to see people like us suffer. We could get along with – and often split the difference – with liberals who don’t hate, but such are not remotely in control of the left. We have to defeat these people – drive them from power and take away their subsidies. And we won’t be able to do that if we’re all pretending – as conventional conservatism has – that the left is run by sane people.
The brownouts in California afford us, I think, an opportunity to start rebuilding Republican strength in California. California is horribly misgoverned and this power outage thing just highlights how bad it is there. Trump has commented on it – to the fury of California Democrats – but I’m hoping that someone on Team Trump is really looking at the State to for any election prospects. Certainly it is worth it simply to run up the GOP vote total and thus help Trump win the popular vote (not that it matters, but that it’ll be a fitting and final insult to the Democrats) – but, long term, we can’t rely on Texas forever…and Californians are our fellow Americans (well, most of them, anyway) and we should be working to free them from liberal tyranny and malfeasance.
Blogs For Victory 
So MSNBC is all excited about the following:
A new high of 51 percent wants Trump impeached and removed from office, another 4 percent want him impeached but not removed, and 40 percent oppose impeachment altogether. In July, 42 percent favored impeachment and removal, while 5 percent said impeach but don’t remove him, and 45 percent opposed impeachment.
After lying and mischaracterizing everything about Trump for over 3 years, the media is excited that those lies have had some impact and are now thrilled with themselves how much they have altered public opinion. Even in the Fox poll, one of the questions repeats the lie of the Ukraine phone call. It is truly amazing. Additionally this morning, the panelists on MSNBC are saying that removing troops from the region is an “abdication of our responsibility” and will hurt our relationships with our allies. Yet here was their response when Obama promised to remove troops from Iraq:
Obama, eyeing a 2012 re-election campaign likely to be fought over his handling of the U.S. economy, is looking to wind down a decade of war in the Muslim world that did lasting damage to the U.S. image worldwide and stretched its military and budget to the brink.
“The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops,” Obama said. “That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end.”
Quite a contrast right? Considering the negative press, and not just negative but downright hostile coverage of Trump, I am a little surprised he still has 40+% approval ratings. I am thinking the media has become more of a threat to this country than the Democrats. They have completely abdicated their responsibilities of objective journalism and accurate reporting. Those concepts have all but vanished in 21st century America.
I will add this … I think the poll is mostly accurate but skewed slightly in that I too favor impeachment only because I want the Democrats to formally hang themselves. Honestly, the Democrats do need to vote on articles of impeachment so this gets out in the open and the minority party can begin to investigate and subpoena. That’s the only way this gets resolved and I think the poll reflects that.
Where the media gets it wrong is that they think anyone in favor of impeachment is on their side.
This will become nation wide if Democrats run this country:
SONOMA, Calif. (AP) — More than a million people in California were without electricity Wednesday as the state’s largest utility pulled the plug to prevent a repeat of the past two years when windblown power lines sparked deadly wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes.
This is the most embarrassing headline I can ever think of coming out of 21st century America. This is a country that invented, created, and perfected most of the tools modern societies rely on, yet our government still operates an antiquated, 19th century power grid, and now we see government bureaucrats wielding that power to the detriment of it’s citizens.
Truly unbelievable how far California has fallen in the last decade. If you want to know how the country will look if Democrats gain power, just look at California.
Yet what do you think are the chances of those million Californians voting for a state government that uses tax revenue to fix infrastructure instead of supporting illegal aliens and the indolent? What are the chances of them demanding an audit of the power company and a major reduction in executive salaries and bonuses till more of the company’s money is put into rebuilding its power grid?
I’m guessing very very few, because when it comes to “politics: all Liberals care about is rooting for the team wearing their jersey and trying to destroy —-and evidently even kill—the other team.
BEHOLD THE HYPOCRISY:
Back in April, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined several other lawmakers to blast President Trump for keeping U.S. troops in Syria.
“The 2015 introduction of U.S. military forces into hostilities in Syria was never approved by Congress, in violation of the Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973,” says the letter, signed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Rand Paul and freshman Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. “We believe that the stated intention of withdrawing our forces is appropriate, and we look forward to the orderly return of our service members from this theater of conflict.”
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2019/10/09/classic-ocasiocortez-wanted-us-troops-out-of-syriauntil-trump-agreed-n2554471/?fbclid=IwAR2FKWFfRADni7GvHod1bWanFcUrP5Iz2M42nWrINfaaHO5WFuT59NPG7HA
As I said back when Obama was President, I’ve become quite the peace-nik
I find myself in that same category, and that’s coming from someone, like you, who swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, essentially writing a blank check payable for up to and including my life. IMO, the biggest threat today is domestic, not foreign. We have American citizens, nay, American legislators, who are attempting to destroy the greatest and most successful experiment in self government the world has ever seen.
For the last two decades we’ve not only been fighting perpetual wars, but senseless, non-winnable wars. The old adage, “we need to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” sounded good at the time, but the main result has been to destabilize the entire Middle East, causing unimaginable carnage and mass migration of refugees to areas where they have neither the desire nor ability to assimilate.
If we want to help our allies fight radical Islamic terrorism, we’ve got the high tech tools to do so without putting more than a handful of SF troops on the ground. I know what our satellite imagery capabilities were back in the late 80’s before I retired. I can’t imagine they aren’t light years more sophisticated today. We know where the bad guys are, and we have the means to destroy them without putting American lives at risk.
“we need to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here”
One of the best marketing campaigns the Military Industrial Complex ever came up with.
I think it makes sense—IF we actually do “fight them over there” instead of just harassing them, annoying them and half-heartedly attacking them or stumbling along under ridiculous Rules of Engagement. If we would go into another country that is being invaded or attacked by a nation also seen as a potential threat to this one, then by all means nip it in the bud over there. But do it decisively and with the intent of wiping out the potential threat, not just hindering it for a while and in the meantime making things worse for the other nation for years afterward. That might mean informing the citizens of the nation under attack that when we come in, it will be with lethal force, so anyone aiding and abetting the invading nation will be considered fair game so get out of the way and stay out of the way. We will go after the bad guys no matter where they are, no matter where they hide.
What do we do? We tell the enemy that if they hide behind women or children, or in hospitals or schools, they will be safe—and then we are surprised and dismayed when they hide behind women or children or in hospitals or schools. No, we tell them that we will bomb them into oblivion no matter where they are hiding, and if it turns out that they caused civilian casualties because they used civilian people or establishments as shields then we will destroy their own encampments and fortifications at a ratio of 10 to 1.
Our kinda-in, kinda-out, limp-wristed politically controlled military approach just creates problems. Being the baddest guy on the block, though, usually means no one messes with you—or your friends.
Our kinda-in, kinda-out, limp-wristed politically controlled military approach just creates problems.
It does create problems but that is exactly what the Pentagon wants … therefore they stay engaged and the funding keeps rolling in. It’s much like large government, create a problem in the health care industry and then convince Americans that they need more money to fix it.
Rinse and repeat.
I think the following two headlines found side by side on the same site, sums up everything you need to know about the state of our media:
Media Clamor for Impeachment, Ponder Death Penalty For Trump
WashPost’s Marcus Warns of ‘Violence’ By ‘Deranged’ Trump Fans
(Nancy Pelosi) “… cannot hold the vote because it would endanger her more moderate members by having them voice their support for overturning an election on partisan grounds. She cannot hold the vote because she would then be compelled to give both parties, not just her own, subpoena power and access to witnesses. She cannot hold the vote because she cannot afford to allow the American people to see, in open hearings, the spurious claims upon which the impeachment fantasy is based. She cannot make a move without damaging her and her party’s position. Zugzwang would be the term in chess.”
https://townhall.com/columnists/paulcurry/2019/10/10/zugzwang-why-nancy-pelosi-refuses-to-hold-an-impeachment-vote
What does zugzwang mean? zugzwang is defined by the lexicographers at Oxford Dictionaries as: ” A situation in which the obligation to make a move in one’s turn is a serious, often decisive, disadvantage.”
And Trump knows this, therefore the increasing pressure on her to put up or shut up. For all the howling about the letter to the House, all the dismissive sneering, the fact is the letter laid out the hard cold facts of the House game playing and dishonesty.
And we are seeing a chess match. Or, more accurately, a poker game in which Pelosi went all in and now refuses to show her hand, with Adam Schiff insisting “It’s a winning hand, I guarantee it, I can document it, trust me…” I’d say she tried to draw to an inside straight, to try to fill a deuce-10 gap in a five-card hand.
I see the Party of Tolerance and Diversity has struck again, with its bully-boys rioting in the streets of Minneapolis, attacking Trump supporters leaving the huge Trump rally there.
Left-wing rioters attacked supporters of President Donald Trump leaving a rally in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Thursday evening — assaulting them in groups, setting fire to pro-Trump hats, and attacking the police.
Riot police stood by as members of Antifa were seen dragging steel fences away from the Target Center. They were filmed by Elijah Schaffer, a correspondent for The Blaze, a conservative news site — who was maced as he filmed.
https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2019/10/10/left-wing-rioters-attack-trump-supporters-leaving-minneapolis-rally
Let’s take a look at one sentence in this report: Riot police stood by as members of Antifa were seen dragging steel fences away from the Target Center. Why even HAVE “riot police” if all they do is “stand by” and watch rioting?
Those are the Minnesota rules of engagement .. or lack of engagement in the politically correct, tolerant deep blue state. They need to give the protestors “space to destroy”
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/baltimore-unrest/mayor-stephanie-rawlings-blake-under-fire-giving-space-destroy-baltimore-n349656
Left-wing rioters attacked supporters of President Donald Trump leaving a rally in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Thursday evening — assaulting them in groups, setting fire to pro-Trump hats, and attacking the police.
I think the fact that there is NEVER a corresponding “right-wing rioters attacked supporters of (fill in the blank with Democrat presidential candidate’s name).” Lefties don’t care about that, but it can’t be lost on some, in not many of the Independents the eventual nominee will need to beat Trump.
So I caught part of the rally in Minnesota last night and there were over 20,000 people in the arena … standing room only in a very deep blue state and in Ilhan Omar’s district, and Trump was on fire. And that’s actually an understatement. He eviscerated Obama, Biden, Schiff, Pelosi, the Media and all Democrat candidates leading me to believe that he is not worried at all. Not one bit. I am convinced that Trump has solid proof of Biden’s corruption, Hillary’s foreign contacts, and Obama’s corruption or at least willingness to look the other way. He spoke with the confidence of a vindicated man and I was happy to hear it. Trump is not shrinking one bit from this constant onslaught of fabricated crisis’s and in fact is energized by them and more ready to fight than ever.
These next 12 months will be really interesting.
Here’s more manufactured bullshit:
FEAR: WHISTLEBLOWER ASKS TO TESTIFY IN WRITING
If he/she is anonymous and under “Democrat protection” – what’s the fear?? The actual fear is having to answer Republican committee member questions. And Adam Schiff is now a “factual witness” and should be called to testify as well.
And the plot is thickening into quicksand for the Left:
The 2020 Democratic candidate with whom the CIA whistleblower had a “professional” tie is Joe Biden, according to intelligence officers and former White House officials.
That is the headline on a recent article. It causes us to look a little closer at the weasel words of the leaker’s attorney:
“First, our client has never worked for or advised a political candidate, campaign, or party,” said Andrew Bakaj and Mark Zaid. “Second, our client has spent their (sic) entire government career in apolitical, civil servant positions in the Executive Branch.”
The article quotes this and goes on to explain: emphasis mine
This is called lying without technically lying. It’s Clintonian nonsense. Though the whistle-blower didn’t work for Biden as a political official, he worked in a professional capacity with him and that should have been disclosed immediately, not hidden away. It’s perfectly reasonable to suspect some form of political motivation could form from their previous relationship, especially given we know he’s a registered Democrat.
https://www.trendingconservatism.com/breaking-we-just-found-out-which-2020-presidential-candidate-the-whistle-blower-worked-with
But let’s go back a little into the original commentary on the bias of the leaker. From an earlier article:
Under questioning from Republicans during last Friday’s impeachment inquiry interview with Atkinson, the inspector general revealed that the whistleblower’s possible bias was not that he was simply a registered Democrat. It was that he had a significant tie to one of the Democratic presidential candidates currently vying to challenge President Trump in next year’s election.
“The IG said [the whistleblower] worked or had some type of professional relationship with one of the Democratic candidates,” said one person with knowledge of what was said.
“The IG said the whistleblower had a professional relationship with one of the 2020 candidates,” said another person with knowledge of what was said.
“What [Atkinson] said was that the whistleblower self-disclosed that he was a registered Democrat and that he had a prior working relationship with a current 2020 Democratic presidential candidate,” said a third person with knowledge of what was said.
All three sources said Atkinson did not identify the Democratic candidate with whom the whistleblower had a connection. It is unclear what the working or professional relationship between the two was.
In the Aug. 26 letter, Atkinson said that even though there was evidence of possible bias on the whistleblower’s part, “such evidence did not change my determination that the complaint relating to the urgent concern ‘appears credible,’ particularly given the other information the ICIG obtained during its preliminary review.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/whistleblower-had-professional-tie-to-2020-democratic-candidate
Why does this matter? Because the same IG who did his best to cover up the true nature of the leaker’s relationship with Joe Biden is the same IG who changed the rules to allow the leaker’s report to be processed and forwarded to Congress, knowing it had already been illegally sent to a Congressman, and who then passed judgment on the credibility of the report. He also refers to the report as referring to an “urgent concern” in spite of a rule he had not changed, which defined an “urgent concern” as only an infraction of rules within the intelligence community.
It is quite clear that Atkinson is in this up to his own neck, enabling the report and doing everything he could to allow it to be made public and taken seriously. All three sources said Atkinson did not identify the Democratic candidate with whom the whistleblower had a connection. Gee, wouldn’t you think someone with a relationship with Joe Biden who then alerted to a request by the president to investigate a Biden might just have a serious motivation to do whatever he could to stop that investigation? Or at least lie about what he heard to attack the man who asked for the investigation? And who knew who the leaker had worked with and tried to hide it? Atkinson..
This nest of vipers is so intertwined it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. On a ranch, when you find a nest of rattlesnakes you just pour gasoline into it and toss in a match. It’s starting to look like this is the same approach we need to take with the deeply embedded mutually supportive subversives in our government—metaphorically speaking, of course. I leave the true violence to the Left.
Exactly right. There are many unsavory political layers to this issue and I believe the Democrats and the media are in a fight for their life. What happens when it’s revealed that some of the media networks worked hand in hand with Strozk and Page reporting the leaks of Russia collusion in the early stages to bolster the FBI’s claim of collusion? What happens when it’s revealed that Comey and the FBI knew that the Steele Dossier was unverifiable, yet used that document to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign?
Last night Trump said “it would be so much easier for me to be just one of them … but I am not. I am with you”
That line received a HUGE applause.
The only thing that doesn’t make sense is that Michael Atkinson, the ICIG, was appointed by Trump in November, 2017, although he wasn’t confirmed by the Senate until May, 2018. In an article in The Hill a couple weeks ago he’s described like this:
So either he snuck in under the radar, or he’s changed his stripes since taking the position. It’s pretty clear that he knows most, if not all of the details surrounding the Whistle Blower’s complaint, and to advance a fraud that numerous people have described as likely being written by Democrat staff attorneys seems dishonest in the extreme.
The thing is, Trump makes most of his appointments, like this one, based on what he is told by other people, on resumes and work history and so on. He might not have personally approved this guy, as this is not a top-tier appointment. This sounds like a staff decision, moving someone up from where he did a good job given the nature of that specific job on the assumption he will also do a good job in the new position.
I agree, it is a really dangerous position for Atkinson to take if he did, in fact, do what he appears to have done. But I think there is often incremental creep into escalating wrongdoing as each step seems like a small thing to do to advance the cause—and then, all of a sudden, the totality comes crashing down. As pure speculation, it could have been that the IC just trusted the leaker when he stated the content of the conversation and truly thought this was a serious breach of protocol if not legality, if he didn’t hear the conversation itself, so it didn’t seem like a big deal to tweak the rules a little to allow hearsay instead of first-hand information. By allowing the second or third hand testimony, the names of the people who were actually in on the call could be protected, which probably means protecting their jobs or at least their access to top level discussions which would affect career advancement.
Or, if he trusted and liked the leaker and realized the legal implications of the leaker going to Congress instead of filing an official report with the IG, he might have wanted to help him out by providing cover for him, making it possible after the fact to actually file a report, retroactively creating a paper trail of pseudo-official reporting
From that first step onto that slippery slope, it was downhill all the way, as every act required a justification. Then the rule change had to be justified, which could only be justified by deeming the report to be “credible”. After all, who is going to change a rule for something that doesn’t seem credible? At some point in there the relationship with the leaker and Biden might have come out, or the leaker might have led Atkinson on with half-truths and evasions, essentially throwing him under the bus by making him complicit in a much messier situation than he thought it would be. As so often happens, each coverup effort just leads to more areas that need to be covered up—that “tangled web we weave” syndrome.
The thing is, I think he’s toast now. He should have let the guy deal with the outcome of his flouting of the rules and going to Schiff.
The local commentator here in Phoenix had an interesting take on this by saying “why is the whistle blower and the IG hiding this connection to Biden?? Wouldn’t it bolster their case that this is a career professional who saw how Obama/Biden conducted foreign policy and felt that the manner in which Trump approached it was unethical and he wanted to notify all parties as to why?
Being out in the open with this connection could possibly strengthen their case. The fact that their lying about it suggests something else.
“I leave the true violence to the Left”
They’re planning mass civil unrest from the 19th of October through November the 2nd.
Jeremiah, why do you say this?
That’s what several people have been reporting. Millennial Millie did story on it
Then I read about it on Twitter, too.
Well, we’ll just have to wait and see. I’m not impressed by anything on Twitter and there’s a lot of hair-on-fire crap out there.
Yes, I agree. 😄
Glenn Beck, who I had pretty much given up on a year or so ago, has been at the leading edge of Ukraine/impeachment, and I’ve started listening to him again. Beck isn’t a Trump apologist, just a fair play type of guy. Yesterday he had John Solomon on for most of an hour. The stuff that Solomon has dug up is mind-blowing. Beck has Bill O’Reilly on every Friday, and early in their discussion this morning Beck was talking about how the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine blocked visa requests by Ukranian prosecutors, including the Prosecutor General, to come to this country and meet with the Justice Dept.. After Trump fired the Ambassador, the visas were approved, but the U.S. Attorneys in the Southern District of New York where the Ukranians were directed refused to even look at the information they brought with them. If you Google that you won’t find ANYTHING to support it. I went a dozen or so pages deep in a Google search, wording it several different ways.
Later in the conversation they were talking about the latest Fox News Poll that’s getting so much attention that shows 51% of the public favoring Trump’s impeachment. O’Reilly said he studied the poll’s internal data, and discovered that it polled 8% more Democrats than Republicans. Yeah, I was shocked too. I looked at the poll’s methodology and didn’t see that, but I imagine O’Reilly has access to more than what is shown on the Fox News site. If you Google “Fox News Poll on impeachment” you won’t find anything that says 8% more Democrats were polled.
The point is that Google searches will yield very little, if any articles that reflect favorably on Trump or unfavorably on his attackers. The Left has done exactly the same thing with man-made climate change skeptics. The leading climate change alarmists admitted as much in their emails that were hacked back in 2009 and 2011, where they bragged about subverting the peer review process to prevent anyone who disagreed with them from publishing. It’s like one side has not only refined cheating to an art form, they’ve also bribed the referees to not only ignore their cheating but also make up occasions of cheating by their opponents.
I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I read that the poll by Fox was a joke for the shock value.
Looks like (maybe) there’s a trade deal with China — DJIA up nearly 500 points. Good news for America — bad news for Democrats.
It’s interesting to have a president who knows how to make deals other than back room deals to get political support. Now we may have more whining about a new “quid pro quo”—one thing about the Dems, when they latch onto a new word or phrase they do run it into the ground, don’t they?
If you want to know what the business world thinks of the impeachment process, just follow the DOW. They have no concern. If it were more serious, there would be sell offs and the DOW would be hovering again around the 20’s.
And Jeremiah, Shep’s condescending attitude belongs over at CNN. That’s a better fit for him and I agree … good riddance although I never watched him
Time to happy dance! Shep Smith is leaving Fox!
Excellent column by New Gingrich on impeachment.
That is a great article and it will be fun to see how Pelosi will handle this when they get back from yet another break. It’s weird how they find time for a vacation while our “democracy” is going to hell /sarc
So, the truth may be that the Tic-Tac-Toe analogy is generous. A tougher view may be that Pelosi is playing solitaire. In politics and warfare, that is a losing game
ZUGZWANG My new favorite word.
OK, now I get it. I have never watched a whole Trump speech, but tonight I have been watching, and now I get it. He can be very funny and amazingly impressive. And when he said the impeachment hoax was bullshit I laughed out loud. He’s in regular campaign mode now, not quite as entertaining as the first part, but now I finally get it. Another laugh, when he called the press “dopes”. Pulling no punches here.
Trump is confident and hitting his stride. The bullshit line was great, the crowd loved it and I too laughed out loud. What’s been over looked in this circus environment is the new Phase 1 trade deal with China.
President Donald Trump has boasted that farmers will be struggling to meet demand from China under the terms of a tentative new trade deal.
At a rally in Louisiana on Friday night, Trump bragged that the first phase of a deal to end a trade war with China could see U.S. agricultural imports soar to as much as $50 billion annually.
While Democrats are squirming in zugzwang purgatory, Trump is slowly getting things done and putting America first. Democrats will continue to reveal themselves as fools with a vendetta and fabricated impeachment issues while Trump cruises to a landslide victory next November.
One of the things we need to start doing is challenging the word “deposition”. A deposition is taken in a legal proceeding and I believe these questioning periods are more accurately termed “interviews”. We always let the Left get away with semantic manipulation and infiltration, blindly using the words they provide until a word or phrase is accepted.
One thing Trump said last night, kind of in passing, was something about Atkinson. Just a brief comment, but I’ll bet it was enough to get some panties bunched up in the Atkinson household.
If we want to amp up the pressure, we should have people appointed, publicly, to:
1. Keep track of how many millions of taxpayer dollars have been expended on what is, essentially, a Democrat Party election campaign. That would include the Mueller fiasco and all this Kabuki Theater (to quote Mark Steyn) nonsense. You know how fundraising campaigns have those big thermometers to show how much closer they are to their goals? We should have something like that, a big marker of some kind showing the dollar amount rising so the public is constantly reminded the Dems are playing with THEIR money to help them win an election. We might even discuss considering the money spent to harass Trump a campaign contribution to the DNC. That would make some heads explode, and would certainly draw attention to the benefits to the party from these efforts.
2. Investigate the investigators. That is, mount an investigation into just how this “whistleblower” account began. Announce that everyone who was a party to the phone call will be interviewed and possibly polygraphed in an effort to find out who said what to whom. Announce publicly that the entire “whistleblower” charade was set up because whistleblowers can ask for anonymity to protect themselves, so the construction of an elaborate plan to allow a third party, who can try to remain anonymous but who, in the long run, probably doesn’t have a lot to lose if his identity is revealed, was concocted. This allowed him to act as a spokesman for others who desperately want to remain unidentified, meaning they are probably pretty highly-placed. So dig them out. Find out who he is speaking for. And deal with them. Identify this as a leak of confidential if not classified information that is at least two if not three layers deep, and that all the leakers will be identified and dealt with.
3. Interview Atkinson about his role in the manipulation and accreditation of the leaker’s report. That is, starting with his relationship with the leaker, going on to what he knew and when he knew it about the leaker going to Schiff, when he changed the rule and why he did it, why isn’t the actual date of the change clearly stated but just vaguely alluded to being sometime in August, why after he was already deeply involved in the filing of the report did he feel it appropriate to announce it was “credible”, why did he refer to it as a matter of urgency when it did not comply with the rule that such a matter had to be about misdeeds committed within the intelligence community, etc.
Constantly use the word “corruption” when talking about all of this—-this administration’s dedication to unearthing and dealing with corruption and abuse of power goes deep, and no one is protected.
My own comment led me to a new idea, which is to shift a little from focus on this a witch hunt (which, BTW, I would restate as a lynch mob) and more to the use of taxpayer dollars to fund the election campaign of the Dems.
People are tired of the same old same old, which unfortunately also includes Trump complaining that they are out to get him. I wouldn’t drop that,. because it is true, but I’d add to it the corruption and duplicity of using taxpayer money to build support for a Dem candidate in 2020.
I loved the way he hammered home the increase in ag exports to China reflected in this agreement.
And I loved the way he talked about how farmers will need more equipment to meet the need, all of which should be made in America. He touched on the need for newer and bigger tractors, etc. a couple of times but only once on how that would affect manufacturing in the United States, which I thought was a very important part. When he finally got there he circled around it a little, naming company names like John Deere and Case and Caterpillar, which made me think he had forgotten to mention the manufacturing impact of the deal and was then trying to resurrect it. Still, he got the message across, and when the deal is signed I am sure he will revisit it.
One thing that impressed me as very sly and clever was his praising of China as being so smart and having such good business sense, which is a good way to treat them as the deal is not yet signed, but also pointing out why they would not have gone into business with Hunter Biden if there had not been influence from Joe. That was well done.
when he changed the rule and why he did it, why isn’t the actual date of the change clearly stated but just vaguely alluded to being sometime in August
One thing we have all begun to realize is that there are so many lies out there that it’s difficult to know who and what to believe. That said, Politifact published this explanation on October 1st relating to the change in rules pertaining to whistle blowers. Now, how credible is Politifact? I honestly don’t know.
How credible is Politifact? Well, starting with the title of the article, I ‘d say not very.
Essentially, the Poltifact article uses a lot of words to imply one thing while saying another, and I believe the blizzard of words and the quotations are designed to do just that.
What is obscured is that there are three different areas of importance.
1. What is necessary to FILE a report. Evidently the rules for THIS were changed back in May of 2018. At that time the form did allow a choice among three options: First-hand knowledge, second-hand knowledge, or “from other sources”. Sometime in August of 2019, this was changed—note that no date was included, just the month, while the first form was dated on a specific date, May 24, 2018—-to allow either first-hand or second-hand knowledge. So yes, to claim that first-hand knowledge was a requirement to FILE a report is wrong.
What is more important here is that the following statement was NOT included on the form that was revised some time in August 2019. (emphasis mine) Because THIS is what makes the change so important. Simply removing the option of “from other sources” is no big deal. But removing the following statement IS.
2. That is, what is required to process and/or forward a report:
The previous form also included a section under the subhead “First-hand information required.”
“In order to find an urgent concern ‘credible,’ the IC IG (Intelligence Community Inspector General) must be in possession of reliable, first-hand information. The IC IG cannot transmit information via the ICWPA (Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act) based on an employee’s second-hand knowledge of wrongdoing. This includes information received from another person, such as when a fellow employee informs you that he/she witnessed some type of wrongdoing. (Anyone with first-hand knowledge of the allegations may file a disclosure in writing directly with the IC IG.) Similarly, speculation about the existence of wrongdoing does not provide sufficient basis to meet the statutory requirements of the ICWPA. If you think wrongdoing took place, but can provide nothing more than secondhand or unsubstantiated assertions, IC IG will not be able to process the complaint or information for submission as an ICWPA.“
The current reporting form lacks that section.
” The Inspector General’s office changed its forms after the whistleblower filed, but those changes had no bearing on the rules under which a claim would be processed.
This is patently false. The change clearly DID have a “…bearing on the rules under which a claim would be processed…” The removing of the option of “other sources” was just cover for the real, important, change that is now being ignored by focusing on the hearsay aspect.
The article then tosses in: The section about the need for first-hand information has to do with the investigation that follows a whistleblower’s report, not a requirement for the report itself.“ in a way that tries to imply the concern about the rule change was just about the hearsay aspect. And it glosses over the fact that this was removed in the rule change.
3. And third, what is required for a report to rise to the level of “urgent concern”.
” The law defines an “urgent concern” as, among other things, “a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, violation of the law of Executive order, or deficiency relating to the funding, administration, or operations of an intelligence activity involving classified information.”“
All of the quotations above were taken from the Politifact article.
One reason I found it to be dishonest and purposely misleading is that it throws in a straw man—that of what is a “protected disclosure”. No one has, as far as I know, brought this topic into any discussion.
As for the rules on what is required, those have been the same since 2014 under an order issued by the Director of National Intelligence. Intelligence Community Directive 120 defines a protected disclosure as one that the employee “reasonably believes evidences a violation of any law, rule or regulation.”
So why drag it in here, except to muddy the waters and give the impression of deep research and citation of supporting laws?
Here is another I found significant:
“This is their way of tempering the whistleblower’s expectations,” said analyst Irvin McCullough, with the nonprofit Government Accountability Project. (McCullough’s father served as inspector general until 2017 and now represents the whistleblower.) “It says we might not find enough to support your complaint.”
The latest IG statement says it changed its forms after the current affair unfurled, because it understood some parts “could be read — incorrectly — as suggesting that whistleblowers must possess first-hand information in order to file an urgent concern complaint.”
Note how this skips over the important question of whether or not the complaint rises to the level of being an “urgent concern”—I assert this is because according to the law it does not. This is weasel-wording.
And then there is this throwaway line, casually tossed out and intended to be the final word on the subject: It also notes that its investigation found the report credible and urgent. Again, why is the report “urgent” if it is not about anything “relating to the funding, administration, or operations of an intelligence activity involving classified information.”
So what, exactly, does the Politifact article prove? It fights a straw man and then comes to a conclusion that doesn’t seem to be supported by its clutter of words.
I think an investigation into why the IG ignored the wording relating to what it takes for a matter to be concerned an “urgent concern” might be a feeble effort to say that, because of the punctuation of the sentence, it referred to violation of the law of Executive order that did not have to also be “relating to the funding, administration, or operations of an intelligence activity involving classified information.”
That would be an interesting argument to hear, kind of like “it depends on what the meaning of IS is”.
I don’t see any other way to try to get around the fact that the IG, who manipulated the timing of the change and then, after involving himself in the report took it upon himself to decree it was not only “credible” but an “urgent concern” should have stopped at the first act and left the second and third up to someone less obviously biased.
I’d also like to know upon what he based his determination of credibility. If it was on the form of the report, with all its legal citations and verbiage, and not on an examination of the transcript of the phone call to compare its actual wording to the claims in the report, both he and Schiff should be on the hot seat for that.
I don’t see any other way to try to get around the fact that the IG, who manipulated the timing of the change and then, after involving himself in the report took it upon himself to decree it was not only “credible” but an “urgent concern” should have stopped at the first act and left the second and third up to someone less obviously biased.
You brain operates at a different level than mine when it comes to ferreting out weasel words and subterfuge. After reading your excellent analysis, I don’t see how an honest person could come to any other conclusion.
Thanks, Spook. When I say I have been studying the Left for about three decades, I mean it. I’m a word person, and very sensitive to the way words are used and manipulated, and when that is combined with awareness of how the Left twists words to imply meanings that are simply not there these kinds of sly efforts just jump out at me.
Politifact did posture as fair and objective, and in doing so did provide the core of my observation—that the essential part of the rule change was not to allow hearsay but to get rid of the part that says reports based on hearsay can’t be processed or forwarded. I appreciated that, as it saved me a lot of digging out of both versions of the rule. But they revealed their true colors when they pronounced the verdict of “False” on the part that was less important. Though, to be fair, that was the part the Right had focused on, because that was what seemed important, and that part alone WAS false. I don’t know how many people realized that the part about second hand information was a smokescreen to distract from the truly important change.
It was very well done, and might have stayed beneath my radar, at least for a longer period of time, if the same guy who changed the rule hadn’t been the same guy who then processed the report and forwarded it and said it was credible and described it as “urgent”.
And what about his predecessor, who was the IG and now “represents the whistleblower”? The internal relationships among these members of that community are incestuous and disturbing, at least when they seem to contribute to seditious acts. And I consider this a seditious act, or several seditious acts. Conspiring to create, file, process and publish lies to undermine the authority of the president and lead to his impeachment seems pretty seditious to me, especially when done by people highly placed in the government.
I prompted myself to look up “sedition” and among the varying definitions I found this: emphasis mine
18 U.S. Code § 2384.Seditious conspiracy
U.S. Code
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; July 24, 1956, ch. 678, § 1, 70 Stat. 623; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(N), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)
So this seems to say that the term “by force” is the deciding factor in prosecuting the officials who interfere with our immigration officials as they attempt to enforce the law. That could be an interesting legal argument—what, exactly, IS “force” and how much and what kind would trigger a charge of sedition?
sedition
n. Conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state.
n. Insurrection; rebellion.
n. A factious commotion in a state; the stirring up of such a commotion; incitement of discontent against government and disturbance of public tranquillity, as by inflammatory speeches or writings, or acts or language tending to breach of public order: as, to stir up a sedition; a speech or pamphlet, abounding in sedition.
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
https://thelawdictionary.org/article/seditious-conduct-freedom-speech-three-things-know/
Seditious conduct and speech could subject a person to a criminal conviction and imprisonment. Seditious speech was defined as any false, malicious or scandalous statements directed at the government or at government officials. One person was convicted of sedition for claiming that the president was trying to grab power for himself. Another person was convicted for having a sign referring to government officials as tyrants.
Clearly the examples given are protected by our First Amendment, but I think sworn testimony and an effort to bring about a legal action against a president based on a scurrilous lie, intended to defame the president and undermine his authority, is different from merely expressing an opinion. And manipulation of the law to allow this is a definite contributing factor.
Adam schiff has committed treason with seditious intent. If he is not punished for his crimes it will be a very bad injustice in our most valued institutions.
Adam Schiff didn’t even come close to committing treason.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/americans-have-forgotten-what-treason-actually-means-how-it-can-ncna848651
As it pertains to the Constitutional definition of treason, maybe he didn’t, but under the general, universal definition, yes, he has committed treason against the United States to overthrow a duly elected President, the highest position in the Federal government the Executive branch.
It’s one thing to help a foreign entity against the United States in time of war, but likewise another to conspire through a “legal” process with the help of foreign as well as domestic agencies to go against the United States government under false pretenses, with the intent to overthrow it.
I have no doubt that Schiff has committed acts of treason, through espionage, and the people who form the Coup in which he and they are operating.
I’m not Constitutional scholar by any means but doesn’t take much to see what the Democrats are doing.
Anyhow, President Trump is considering taking legal measures to have Schiff and Pelosi investigated for what they’re doing. So he’ll get to the bottom of it, I’m confident of that.
Well, we have to be careful of the way we toss around words, or we will look like the hysterics on the Left. “Treason” is a very specific word with a very specific definition.
The closest I can think of in recent times was Jane Fonda, overtly giving aid and comfort to our enemies as she traveled to North Viet Nam and openly supported them in their war against the South and against Americans. We’ve had a couple of Americans joining A-Q or ISIS, but where we run into legal trouble is that the accurate definition of the term requires an action to aid a declared enemy in a declared war. A-Q and ISIS are not nations, so there has been the problem of how to declare war on groups of people who do not represent countries.
I agree with “It’s one thing to help a foreign entity against the United States in time of war, but likewise another to conspire through a “legal” process with the help of foreign as well as domestic agencies to go against the United States government under false pretenses, with the intent to overthrow it.” Yet we have to step back and realize that the Left has been careful to target only the president, not the entire government. Yes, we know the government is the true enemy of the Left, and its eventual downfall the true goal of the Left, but the Left is clever and has left itself many loopholes and plausible deniability. Just look at how they realized how close they were coming to obvious efforts to subvert the Constitution and started to have their trolls and meat puppets start mouthing platitudes about their dedication to the Constitution, their efforts merely being efforts to defend the Constitution, etc. They have been very careful to couch their efforts in terms of merely trying to protect the nation, and the Constitution, from the invented dangers posed by a Trump presidency.
There is no “general, universal definition” of treason. While we can see that the efforts of the Left are all in the direction of getting rid of the President, they have yet to rise to the level of outright rebellion against the government. I think they often do rise to the level of sedition.
You say I have no doubt that Schiff has committed acts of treason, through espionage, and the people who form the Coup in which he and they are operating. but in fact there is no proof that Schiff engaged in espionage unless you consider conspiring with people within the American intelligence community who share his political beliefs to be “espionage”—-and I don’t think that would hold up under legal analysis. As for the “treason” thing again, no, there simply is no basis for it.
While the Left is running around with its hair on fire, screeching about this claimed nonsense and that claimed nonsense, distorting the language to try to support its wild claims, it is incumbent upon the Right to remain above the emotional fray, to be the voices of reason and objective analysis. Leave the hysteria and the hyperbole and the exaggerations to the Left, where they belong.
The NYT truly is despicable. From its online “news” tonight:
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are investigating whether President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani broke lobbying laws in his dealings in Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the inquiry.
The investigators are examining Mr. Giuliani’s efforts to undermine the American ambassador to Ukraine, Marie L. Yovanovitch, one of the people said. She was recalled in the spring as part of Mr. Trump’s broader campaign to pressure Ukraine into helping his political prospects.
Yeah, “… Mr. Trump’s broader campaign to pressure Ukraine into helping his political prospects..”
Not “President Trump” and not ALLEGATIONS that he tried to “..pressure Ukraine into helping his political prospects…” And what is wrong with pointing out misbehavior by an ambassador?
And as far as this bogus “investigation” goes, it will go nowhere, as its sole value lies in the headline and a couple of biased comments in the paper.
The paper truly does deserve the title “New York Slimes”.
Just saw the line from the rally last night in Louisiana and thought I would post it. Trump needs to repeat this line at every rally
“The Democrats’ policies are crazy, their politicians are corrupt, their candidates are terrible, and they know they can’t win on election day, so they’re pursuing an illegal, invalid, and unconstitutional bullsh*t impeachment.”
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/trump_comes_out_swinging.html#ixzz62B8Ky8rD
Rep. Al Green (D-TX) said “I’m concerned if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected.”.
(Continuation of posts on Politifact story) emphasis mine
Media Inquiries. Government Accountability Project and its whistleblower clients work in close partnership with the media. Journalists seeking to speak with Government Accountability Project experts or clients should contact Andrew Harman, Communications Director, at AndrewH@whistleblower.org.
https://www.whistleblower.org/contact-us/
Government Accountability Project (GAP) is a nonprofit organization that investigates allegations of government corruption and whistleblower cases. It primarily serves as an advocate for whistleblowers, both from the corporate world and from the government.
https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/government-accountability-project/
Government Accountability Project’s mission is to promote corporate and government accountability by protecting whistleblowers, advancing occupational free speech, and empowering citizen activists. Founded in 1977, Government Accountability Project is the nation’s leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.
https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=10306
Government Accountability Project is the international leader in whistleblower protection — from advocacy to litigation. We have the most effective methodology of using whistleblower revelations to have a meaningful impact on civil society and governance and know how to win whistleblower cases in the court of law and public opinion.
https://www.whistleblower.org
Not to be confused with the Government Accountability OFFICE, the Government Accountability PROJECT cited in the Politifact story is hardly impartial, and its “analyst” is the son of the former IG IC who now represents the leaker, still referred to by some as a “whistleblower”. And it openly brags about knowing how to win whistleblower cases “in the court of law and public opinion“.
Again, the circular pattern of accreditation—-the lawyer for the “whistleblower” is the father of the “analyst” for the activist group quoted as a source of information on the credibility of the IG’s offfice once held by the lawyer/father in an article about a report based in part on media publication of leaks from that office or the person writing the report based in part on the publications.
If there is no corruption, then why Is Hunter resigning?
(Bloomberg) — Hunter Biden is stepping down from the board of a Chinese-backed private equity company and promising to forego all foreign work if his father, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, is elected president in 2020.
Later in the article, this is casually mentioned:
Trump has alleged that Vice President Biden in 2016 threatened to withhold billions of dollars in loan guarantees unless Ukraine fired the country’s top prosecutor, …
Alleged??? I guess if Biden’s threat was actually caught on tape they might drop the “alleged” qualifier. Doubt it though. And then there is this:
“Despite extensive scrutiny, at no time has any law enforcement agency, either domestic or foreign, alleged that Hunter engaged in wrongdoing at any point during his five-year term,” the statement said.
“extensive scrutiny”??? From who? Can we see all these “extensive” reports? It is amazing how the media works overtime to defend Democrats. And they go on:
Aleksander Kwasniewski, the former president of Poland, sat on the board of Burisma at the time and recruited Hunter as a non-executive director because of his advisory work for the gas company,
Advisory work for $50K a month. Hunter must have some amazing insights into the Ukrainian pipe line industry and the opportunities that exist both inside Ukraine and in other countries. Who knew he was such a gas pipeline expert? Where did he acquire those skills? Re: China:
He previously acknowledged meeting with Jonathan Li, a Chinese banker and partner in the fund, during the 2013 trip but has said it was a social visit and they didn’t talk business.
Of course, because they have so much on common hahahaha. Our media’s willingness to lie, obfuscate and cover for one political party has become transparent and embarrassing. Every American notices
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/hunter-biden-steps-down-from-chinese-board-amid-trump-attacks/ar-AAIIjcZ
“Despite extensive scrutiny, at no time has any law enforcement agency, either domestic or foreign, alleged that Hunter engaged in wrongdoing at any point during his five-year term,” the statement said.
Democrats have become highly skilled at working the straw man argument in both directions. Not only do they create a narrative out of whole cloth and then demonize it as though it were true, they also cover up a true narrative and portray something that is true as having never happened. And their accomplices in the media are always right there to repeat the narratives over and over.
…Hunter Biden is stepping down from the board of a Chinese-backed private equity company and promising to forego all foreign work if his father, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, is elected president in 2020.
So, is he really stepping down now and then, also, promising to forego all foreign work if his father, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, is elected president in 2020 or are both actions contingent on Daddy becoming President? Here is where punctuation comes into play. The statement “Hunter Biden is stepping down from the board of a Chinese-backed private equity company, and promising to forego all foreign work if his father, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, is elected president in 2020.” says that (1) he is stepping down, and (2) promising to forego all foreign work, etc. That comma indicates two separate ideas. Without the comma, as the quotation is presented, there is only one idea, which is that two acts will take place if something else happens first.
I get a lot of grief for being a word Nazi, or a punctuation Nazi, but precision is important. That one sentence says two very different and very important things, depending on the presence or absence of that one little comma. The way it is written, Biden can stay on at the Chinese company unless or until Daddy is president—which, as we all know, means until the end of time.
Another example of weasel words, as Spook pointed out, is the statement “Despite extensive scrutiny, at no time has any law enforcement agency, either domestic or foreign, alleged that Hunter engaged in wrongdoing at any point during his five-year term…” Gee, that sounds so impressive, but it is, as Spook pointed out, a straw man. I don’t think anyone ever said Hunter was accused of any “wrongdoing” and I love the qualifier “during his five-year term”. He could be completely passive and never lifted a finger or attended a meeting or even had an office, if his very appointment WAS the wrongdoing in the first place, done by someone else currying favor with the United States through his daddy.
And as more comes out about the Biden/Biden interface—that is, the political power Biden with the dependent useless hanger-on Biden—we learn that Hunter was reaping benefits from his corrupt father’s abuse of his political power a long time ago, and so was Daddy.
“A top executive of a rich and spendthrift company buys the home of a financially strapped senator, paying a generous price. After that, virtually the entire top management of the company gets together in a coordinated campaign to donate money to the senator, getting around campaign contribution limits. And then, after the senator is re-elected, the company hires the senator’s son,” York wrote about the MBNA events back in 2008.
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2019/10/14/hunter-biden-was-paid-consultant-at-age-21-to-large-credit-card-co-while-dad-helped-credit-card-industry-with-legislation
I would think with Hunter leaving the board in China that investors will not be happy considering his level of expertise. I can only imagine that the stock of the company is in decline following this news, and that investors are running for the exits. That’s what happens when you lose such an integral component to the company. I hope they can survive.