The Schiff-show is over – and, meh: a smart guy I follow on Twitter took the latest batch of “the walls are closing in on Trump” articles and simply linked them up with the zillion other “the walls are closing in on Trump” articles which have been put out since the day after he became President. I heard not one person outside social media talking about the hearings – and the ratings for them were low; I suspect that most Americans were only vaguely aware they were going on. At the end of the day, the Democrats had no actual witnesses to anything which could be construed as a crime…and that’s why most likely don’t care.
Where from here? Well, from what I can gather reading reports, Trump and McConnell seem to be double-dog daring the Democrats to actually vote articles of impeachment. Truth be told, I suspect both men would rather not have to go through that…but they seem ready. Even Romney came to the White House for a meeting with Trump; so, even their most likely GOP vote in favor of conviction is probably back on the GOP ranch (how? Well, Romney’s polling started to look just terrible and, well, favors were probably asked and granted…politics, you know?).
One side note that has come up is a wonder just how so many traitors managed to be working in high levels of the Trump Administration. Lots of theories have been offered up. My two are:
1. I don’t think Trump suspected just how disloyal people would be. All the hearings really showed is that the permanent bureaucracy thinks of the American government being them with a small suggestion box for the people. It is really bad: and the only cure I can think of is to revive the spoils system…ie, make all Executive positions “at the pleasure of the President”. Let the bureaucrats know that if they don’t toe the line, the President can toss them out.
2. Even those who might be technically loyal to Trump are probably more loyal to their careers. They know that, come what may, Trump will be out by 2025…and then they’ll need to get jobs and promotions in a system which despises Trump. Its a matter of helping Trump today or helping themselves later…and them selves took precedence.
The other big news is the coming IG report and the on-going investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia hoax. I’m thinking the IG report will be weak sauce…the IG is one of them, after all, and won’t really go after what happened. But even with that in mind, we’re seeing a lot of pre-spin by people targeted in the report. As it turns out, if you are the subject of an IG report, you get to read those parts relating to you before they are released…so you can ask for corrections and clarifications. Lots of stuff about the IG report started leaking in the last 24 hours and it all looks good for Comey, et al…but, remember, the only people who could leak such things are Comey, et al. You don’t worry about pre-spinning something if it makes you look good.
More important is the investigation into Trump-Russia; and the latest word there is that FBI agents are under investigation for altering documents…and gigantic no-no. It only takes one thread to break lose for the whole thing to unravel. And if someone altered a document and there is proof they did so, that person is looking at some serious jail time, even if he or she goes in front of the most Deep State-friendly jury (ie, one in DC). You can’t get around plain facts…and, so, such a person would have massive incentive to tattle on whomever gave the orders for the documents to be altered.
The whole pile of Schiff makes clear to me that we can’t just be about Trump – that we have to go Trump on steroids going forward. Our government has been hijacked by a corrupt Ruling Class and they are determined to keep themselves on the gravy train. It all has to go – agencies dismantled; military officers cashiered; bureaucrats fired; secrets declassified. In short, we need what amounts to a revolution. And let’s hope we can do it via ballots.
Blogs For Victory 
It all has to go – agencies dismantled; military officers cashiered; bureaucrats fired; secrets declassified.
Very true and I would include the media. The coordination between the Democrats, deep state officials, and the media is blatantly obvious now, they don’t even try to hide it. As I type, MSNBC is doing puff pieces on the diplomats who testified bolstering their patriotism and scolding anyone who questions there professionalism and service to country. It’s pure propaganda writ large, and people like Goebbles would be proud. The media was complicit in the leaks coming from Mueller and then Schiff which were all designed to sway public opinion before any cross examination happened.
Schiff is a little boy who got a little power and decided to wield it against all the other boys who beat him up at recess, which I am sure happened a lot. Schiff also has a power complex which is a natural extension of someone who has been inferior his entire life and to me that has been obvious since day 1. I could include a large majority of media types into this category as well; Fredo Cuomo, Chris Hayes, Chris Wallace, Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, Chuck Todd, David Gura, Joy Reid, Rachel Maddow, etc. I mean is that not the roster to the Land of Misfit Toys? These people are not journalists, they are propagandists and need to be held accountable for what they have reported over the last three years, and more importantly what they haven’t reported.
These people are not journalists, they are propagandists and need to be held accountable for what they have reported over the last three years, and more importantly what they haven’t reported.
I suspect their audiences (or lack thereof) will hold them accountable. I think it would set a dangerous precedent for the government to punish "journalists" and "news organizations" for what they've said, written and, as you say, "not reported."
Looks like I was wrong yesterday when I said I didn't think the Justice Dept. IG report would ever materialize. It's been announced that it will be published on December 9th with Horowitz set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee a couple days later. Like Mark, I don't expect the IG report to reveal much, which would be a shame given how long it's taken.
I don’t advocate the government punishing journalists but I do think that many of them should be called to testify to determine who their sources were for the leaks and what vetting they did before they broadcasted that information.
I’m not sure how it could be worked into the system without violating the 1st Amendment, but now that the various media have such total round the clock access to the public I do think there should be some legal consequence for purposely publishing falsehoods. At the very least perhaps any medium which is shown to be propaganda rather than an objective news source could be denied the protections of real journalism, and forced to identify sources.
“…the IG is one of them, after all, and won’t really go after what happened”
I get that, but wonder if the parallel Durham report will act as a counterbalance to the reluctance of Horowitz to be candid. If Horowitz fudges data, spins conclusions, etc. and the Durham report shows his efforts to be dishonest or even just incompetent, that would be embarrassing.
As for the pre-spin that Horowitz’s report will not show that the illegal or just unethical actions of the players involved were prompted by political bias, that is such a ridiculous argument I have a hard time believing anyone would try to make it.
They might possibly get a little traction for it if the Trump attacks were not taking place at the same time the same players were scrambling to cover for Clinton. And, of course, if there were not so many contemporaneous emails from those players howling their rage and hatred of Trump and their “resistance” stances.
The Left is hoping that Horowitz will pull a Mueller and offer himself, his credibility, his reputation and his legacy as sacrifices for the good of the movement, but even Mueller drew a line beyond which he was not willing to go. He stuck his toe over it a couple of times, such as his weasel-wording that he was not able to prove that Trump did NOT commit obstruction of justice, but even that took a toll. All we had to do was look at the man to see the stresses he had been enduring, caught between honesty and integrity and the demands of his party. His supposed allies proved that they were indifferent to the cost to him personally, just demanding that he obey and submit.
Hopefully Horowitz will learn from this and just do the right thing, not expecting anyone from the Left to have his back because the only thing the left does when it comes to having ones’ back is to line up where the knife will go. If you’re not Leftist royalty, like the Clintons or Obama, and are just a foot soldier like Mueller or Horowitz, you really can’t count on loyalty or support or concern for the price you are expected to pay; you are supposed to just take one for the team.
Word is, Durham has is investigating Brennan for setting the pentagon up to spie on Trump.
I hope we see some justice at the end of this. The Democrats need to pay the penalty their criminality.
Agreed. But if we fail to link this criminality to a larger agenda than just winning an election, to the long-range goal of the International Left to take over this nation and make it another tyrannical Leftist hellhole, we will have a short-lived victory. If people don’t understand why the Dems are so obsessed with taking down Trump, if the Dem narrative of Orange Man Bad is allowed to stand as their only motivation, the Left will only suffer a short-term setback.
This is why I keep harping on the need to start talking to the people about POLITICS instead of just identity or, in the case of this impeachment sham, just maneuvering to win an election. We need to get people and personalities and identities out of the discourse, and focus on the structures at stake.
Well, the two main things at stake are the Constitution, and the Supreme Court. If the Democrats take those two out of the equation, it’s pretty much over for America.
Everything the Democrats have done the past 3 years has been unconstitutional, this far. You have the russia hoax, the media complicity, now the Ukraine hoax. All based on coups.
In looking at the larger picture, the big scheme to take over America and turn it into a communist nation has been through the educational system. Enough time has passed that enough people have been brainwashed for the Left to achieve that goal.
The thing is are we going to be found worthy when the day comes that we have to rise to the defense of our Constitutional republic? Today is no different than 1776. The Founders had to deal with the coups , the naysayers, etc. But at the end of it, they won the right to be independent states, and a country free of the British crown.
The men of the country today will be faced with the same calling in the near future. Are we dedicated to the cause? Will we stand? Are we practicing our skills for self-defense? Are we reliable if called to defend the country? Are we versed in first aid?
I certainly hope so!
Above all seek guidance from a higher power!
I’m getting very universal about it – starting with the question: is anything we’ve been told since WWII true? I saw a little story pop up today where historians, sifting the records, found yet another cell of Communist spies in the Manhattan Project. This one, apparently, entirely unconnected to the (I guess) three other cells we discovered over the years. This is 2019: we’re just finding out about this cell, which went undetected and thus was able to infiltrate other areas of national security over the years. Just how penetrated was our government in the 1930’s and 40’s? And then it dawns on you that we’ve never really had a government-wide review of this…a vetting of everyone and seeing who was connected to whom; who got hired, who was promoted. And this means that the progeny of many spies from the 1930’s still exist in our government. Not just finding out our secrets, but influencing policy. It isn’t enough to defend Trump. Winning in 2020 – crucial as it is – is of secondary importance. We need to take our government back…and if this turns out meaning every last person working for it has to be fired, then so be it. My presumption, now, is that whatever the government puts out – unless it is stamped “Trump said this” – is likely false. I trust them even less than I trust the MSM.
As I mentioned last spring, I attended an espionage conference in Berlin run by a man who had run spies in Eastern Europe, an international espionage expert and a man who briefs Congress and the Pentagon in DC, with some speeches and input from two former KGB officers. One of the really interesting things they told us (aside from their opinion of the Steele dossier, which they all agreed was total crap, this coming from men who had worked with Steele and were surprised and disappointed that he got involved in that mess) was that during the war Russia learned that we had cracked the German code.
I kind of freaked out about that. Russia kept that information to themselves, as they were also under attack by Germany, but the implications of the depth and scope of Russian penetration of both American and British intelligence were sinister.
This was in the general context of talking about the Cambridge Five, and Kim Philby’s rise to head of MI 6, which put the fox not just in the hen house but with the keys. We also talked about the spying on the Manhattan Project, which interested me because long long ago I had a practice husband who grew up in Los Alamos and I spent a lot of time there and got very interested in its history and used to have several old publications about it.
When you factor in all this, it is not just amazing but seriously depressing that one of the biggest villains of recent American history was McCarthy. Talk about a media success! This was the only voice trying to warn us about the dangers of Communist infiltration, and even back in the era when Communists were agreed to be bad (before the Dems openly started to promote electing one to the presidency) he was successfully scorned, ridiculed and vilified. To this day, even “conservatives” refer scornfully to “McCarthyism”. If we ever need an example of the success of semantic infiltration and its impact on the mindset of the sheeple, this is it. (BTW, McCarthy was right, and should be celebrated as an American hero.)
From the NYT this morning:
The secretary of the Navy and the admiral who leads the SEALs have threatened to resign or be fired if plans to expel Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher in a war crimes case are halted by President Trump, administration officials said Saturday
Good. The last thing we need in our Navy, or in any other branch of the service for that matter, is self-important bureaucrats who don’t understand the chain of command. It is not that they obey orders they like. It is that they obey orders from their commanding officers. They are not being told to commit crimes, which is an excuse for refusing to follow an unlawful order. No, they are snitty because their opinions are not being treated as sacrosanct.
At least they are willing to quit, instead of staying in their positions and acting as saboteurs working from within to undermine the authority of the Commander in Chief.
If Trump is making a mistake, working on insufficient evidence, then he is making a mistake. Not a huge mistake, not a lethal mistake, just an error in judgment. That is, IF….. But the heart of the matter is, it is his mistake to make, and not the place of his subordinates to issue ultimatums or threats.
I wouldn’t “fire” them. Since when are they in the private sector, where they can be “fired”.
I would court-martial them for insubordination and refusal to follow an order
OR….start a GoFundMe page to collect money to build safe spaces for military officers and equip them with milk and cookies, fluffy blankies, coloring books and lavender essential oils where they can recover from the trauma of being exposed to military discipline.
Breaking News! THE NYT LIED! AGAIN!
Ok, so it’s not news. Just SSDD.
Navy Secretary Richard Spencer rubbished a New York Times blog post claiming he had threatened to resign because President Trump reversed the demotion of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who was tried for murder because he killed an ISIS terrorist.
Spencer told multiple press outlets that “I did not threaten to resign … I work at the pleasure of the president.”
Spencer conceded that as president, Donald Trump is the undisputed commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces. It was that way under Barack Obama, and it’s the same under President Trump.
Spencer remarked: “The president of the United States is the commander-in-chief, and he’s involved in every aspect of the government. And he can make decisions and give orders as he deems appropriate.”
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2019/11/24/navy-secy-i-never-threatened-to-resign-because-trump-reversed-navy-seals-demotion
I apologize for spreading any of the NYT print excrement.
https://www.redstate.com/wag/2019/11/23/saturday-funny-a-fable/
Dan Bongino expressed an opinion that certainly aligned with a majority of conservatives, and perhaps a majority of Americans when he posted: “If we haven’t yet reached peak stupid, then we are assuredly about to cross the event horizon.”
Here’s an interesting twist on “fake news.”
I watch MSNBC and CNN more so than I watch Fox mainly because I know what I am going hear on Fox and it never ceases to amaze me what drivel I will hear on those other two channels. So that being said, I can say for certain that Huddy is engaging in pure projection. While Fox certainly leans right and in support of the POTUS, they usually have a liberal Democrat commentator on the show challenging them, as opposed to the other networks where there isn’t even a pretense of innocence. On MSNBC and CNN the POTUS is guilty as charged and anyone who challenges that narrative is engaging in conspiracy theories. Former GOP Congressman Bill Barr made a rare appearance on Stephanie Ruhle’s show last week on MSNBC, which I was surprised to see, and Barr challenged Ruhle’s assertion of bribery which made Ruhle visibly upset. Her look of disbelief that someone would actually defend the President was priceless and when Barr brought up Biden … well that pretty much ended the interview and I highly doubt he will be invited back lol.
It is conservatives who are the most curious and the ones most likely to seek out other sources for information. Progressives are the ones who live in the echo chamber and I think Huddy confirms that in her post by denigrating the only other media outlet that challenges the broader narrative. Any “journalist”, or whatever Huddy considers herself to be, would encourage people to soak up all information from all sources and make their determination. Only propagandists seek to destroy information sources they disagree with.
Would be fun to see her go up against Hannity or Carlson in a debate, defending her position.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. It sounds like she still has an ax to grind with FOX.
How can any media outlet “hide” information when nearly every other media outlet, plus the House of Representatives, plus no doubt several foreign nations, plus many in each of the Intelligence Agencies, are all scouring the universe for ANYTHING they can use against the president? Only Fox has it? And Fox is HIDING it?
All that “convincing” that … that the media is (sic) lying, that critics of Donald Trump are liars and are the enemy of the state… was made easier by the fact that it is true. Well, mostly true. We don’t necessarily think all critics of Trump are enemies of the state. Most of them are just stupid and blinded by hate. It is the media outlets who peddle lies who are the enemies of the state. And, of course, those who signed onto the Schiff Show, because they are enemies of the Constitution and our basic rule of law and governance, and if that ain’t being an enemy of the state I don’t know what is.
We just watched “witness” after “witness”, which we have to believe are the best the Dems have to offer, testify under oath that none of them witnessed anything. And at the same time we had the words of the president to compare to the projections, assumptions, attributions and interpretations of these “witnesses”, which were only what they wanted him to have said so they could go after him, and we had the spectacle of most of the media hearing the same things we heard but insisting they heard something different.
One thing that always jumps out at me when a Lib starts whining about Fox is his or her tacit admission to not knowing the difference between a news show and an opinion show. The people she cites are all, openly, opinion shows, separate from the hard news segments. This inability to know the difference between opinion and news is why those on the Left think that Maddow, Scarborough, et al are news shows. They simply do not know the difference. Combine that with Identity Information, where what is believed (or rejected) is based solely on who said it, and you have the recipe for the willful ignorance of the Leftist talking heads, once you understand how desperately they need to believe anything bad about anything on the Right. Desperately. That big bad scary truth is looming on their horizons, and it terrifies them.
Remember, few if any of these rabid Leftist mouthpieces have any actual knowledge of, much less allegiance to, the true political structure that is the Left. They are just stuck at the infantile Personality and Identity level of Leftism, which is the political equivalent of the Mean Girls table in grade school, where gossip is traded and the verdict is that everyone at any other table is by definition very very bad.
The New York Times reports that the hearings lacked the damning evidence Democrats like Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) promised, partly because the White House pushed back on Schiff’s claims and released primary sources to refuse (sic) Schiff’s version of events, and partly because, the Times says, the hearings featured no witnesses with first-hand accounts of the president’s malfeasance.
In other words, the Times is fretting because “…the White House pushed back on Schiff’s claims and released primary sources to refuse (sic) Schiff’s version of events, …” How DARE they inject fact into perfectly good lynch mob hysteria? Also, a note to the Times: Hire a proofreader. “refuse”??
…………………
But the Left is undeterred, or at least trying to act all brave and confident in the face of disaster. They are now sending out “aides” to lie, trying to protect the players who will have to face voters in under a year to defend their insanity.
“The hearings were nearly flawless and extremely damning for the president,” one Democrat aide told the Hill. “While no decision has been made to proceed with impeachment, the key facts are uncontested and not proceeding at this stage will be called a ‘total exoneration’ by the president.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/will-she-do-it-insiders-predict-pelosi-may-not-go-through-with-impeachment-after-hearings
They really need to issue their own dictionaries, so we know what the hell they are talking about. The first words I would look up would be “flawless” and “damning” and “uncontested”, particularly the latter, as I am pretty sure I saw a lot of very energetic “contesting” going on, most of it pointing out the blatant and glaring flaws in the testimonies and their inability to “damn” anything.
Unless the “key facts” that are “uncontested” are that the Dems are rabidly focused on getting rid of this president no matter how low they have to go, that Schiff is their Designated Liar and loves every minute of it, and that the whole Dem crew is craven and shameless. I don’t know anyone who would contest those facts, not given the constant proofs presented daily.
I think we all kind of predicted this a few weeks ago.
Note to self — buy more popcorn.
Actually, it’s more like they clamped their arms to their sides and then started smashing their faces into a wall. This damage is all self-inflicted, and a lesson to be learned when you let your life be so dominated by spite, malice and resentment that you happily sacrifice honesty, decency and civility to indulge them.