Trump-Russia

Open Thread

Mark Noonan5 Comments

It is clear that the Democrats do not want Trump’s people to gain full control of DoJ operations in New York and environs – their ridiculous efforts to get Democrat federal judges to replace Trump’s person shows this. Of course, they don’t have a leg to stand on and Trump simply re-appointed the same person the federal judges tried to replace. But it shows that is the place they fear the most – possibly because it covers both the Clinton and Biden families. Anything they can do to gum up the works will be done.

Trump has now said that Obama was at the back of the Trump-Russia scam – which, of course, we’ve known all along. But the documents Gabbard has been releasing are confirming it. Will Obama be prosecuted? We all have our doubts. But at the very least, let the process be the punishment. And I understand that Trump isn’t going to hold back – that is, he learned his lesson: he went easy on Hillary figuring it was the decent thing to do and their payback to him on that was a mugshot. Ok, then. Off we go – let the investigation go forward and the chips fall where they may.

It is complicated by the fact that some of the crucial events happened outside the statute of limitations. But a conspiracy is a conspiracy…you don’t get to check in and then check out. Once you’re part of it, you’re part of it forever. And 18 US Code 372 is pretty clear:

If two or more persons in any State, Territory, Possession, or District conspire to prevent, by force, intimidation, or threat, any person from accepting or holding any office, trust, or place of confidence under the United States, or from discharging any duties thereof…or impede him in the discharge of his official duties, each of such persons shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six years, or both.

Or from discharging the duties thereof or impede the discharge of his official duties. Most people tend to think of this as trying to intimidate a judge or some such and, true enough, that is what is mostly in mind here…but it is all encompassing. Any person you try to stop from discharging official duties. Including the President. From what we already know, Obama, Hillary, Clapper, Brennan, Mueller, Schiff and a couple score other people are guilty of violating this provision. All of them, after all, were trying to impede Trump in carrying out his duties. And in addition to that, the manner in which the conspirators acted are a host of other violations…you’re really not supposed to suborn perjury or use our national intelligence services to frame up a political rival. That is considered a no no.

Biden pardoned a lot of these people but not all of them – and the pardoned people cannot plead the 5th. That Amendment only protects you from self-incrimination…if you’ve been blanket pardoned, you can’t incriminate yourself. You have to talk or be held in contempt. Just how loyal are these people to the Establishment Club? I guess we’re going to find out.

I guess most of the MSM has been all Epstein all the time of late – and are trying to work out that Trump’s charges against Obama are an attempt to distract from Epstein. This just lets us know that the sudden surge in Epstein reporting is the distraction…and it makes some sense. Rely on it that the Epstein record has been sanitized over the previous four years. It isn’t that dangerous to those in the Establishment at this point…and if they can work it up like they worked up Trump/Russia it could be a huge drag on Trump II…and that is why, I think, Trump went hard on dismissing the whole thing. Any attempt to separate out the Democrat BS on Epstein from the real Epstein issue was going to be a losing fight…too confusing for the casual observe to sort out. So, better to just say it doesn’t matter at all…knowing that by going after the Trump/Russia people you were going to end up getting most of those who covered for Epstein anyway.

Mamdani is still on track to win the NYC election – keeps sitting there with 40-45 percent while the rest is divvied up between Adams, Cuomo and Sliwa. I guess New Yorkers are gonna get what they want good and hard. Here’s what I would do if I were Trump: let it play out. Watch the whole cartoon closely – just in Mamdani’s plan for public grocery stores there will be massive corruption (just imagine the kickbacks and such!)…watch them steal, and then arrest them for stealing. Normally, a GOP Administration would look the other way…say it is a local affair. But NYC receives huge federal funding…and that gives Trump’s DoJ their way in. Basically expose the whole thing – show the world that Mamdani’s fundamental problem isn’t his ideology, but the fact that he actually has no idea what he’s doing. He heard a few catch-phrases in college and has run with them. Show him up. Make him look the fool. It’ll be a useful service to our nation.

You Should be Terrified of What They Did to Trump

Mark Noonan21 Comments

Greg Gutfeld went on a bit of a tear about the latest revelations in the Trump-Russia hoax; click the link and give it a watch. His point is that the Democrats (in the largest sense – including the MSM and RINOs) built up Trump as the New Hitler and so justified any action against him. Because, after all, if you are really stopping a Hitler – a guy who proposes to kill every single person he hates and start a world war – then you really can justify just about any action to stop it; work up a phony Trump-Russia scandal or commit election fraud, you see?. This dovetails with the point I made about the latest revelations: the the same people who assure us that 2020 was legitimate were also all in on Trump-Russia even though they new from the get-go that it was a lie.

This does not prove that 2020 was stolen but because of this situation there is nobody on God’s green Earth who can credibly assert that 2020 wasn’t stolen. Everyone you can possibly rely on to tell you what happened in that strange election is tainted as a known liar or part of a system which repeatedly rewards known liars…and you’d be worse than a fool to rely on their assertions about anything. But even that isn’t really the issue we’re confronted with here. It is much larger than that.

Throughout political history there have always been shenanigans. From the lowliest mud hut village to the most impressive Imperial capitol, people have always tried to rig politics. Some of the most famed people in history are essentially famous for their ability to back the winner and then fix the race to make sure (Kaunitz of the Holy Roman Empire and Bismarck of Prussia probably stand at the top of this heap..but they are just part of a legion). What I’m saying here is that some of the things done to Trump are not new – hardly remarkable in and of themselves. But what is new – at least in the American experience – is a political party, the intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the media and a significant portion of the politician’s own party combining to destroy the politician. And not only combining to destroy the person but doing so with complete fabrications. This I don’t think has ever happened before – and it should terrify everyone.

Step back a moment and think about it: nothing Trump has ever been accused of has been proved. Even the ridiculous civil case over rape still amounts to no more than “he said/she said” without the slightest scrap of evidence that the event could have happened. But they still got a jury to nod along with at least part of the allegations. How? Because for the past 8 years, the accused has been the target of an intense series of allegations making him out to be worse than Hitler. The people in the area the trial was held do not avail themselves of unapproved media. They live in a world where the New York Times is considered the gold standard of truth. And that New York Times – and all the media, including the tiny parts not far-Left in outlook – had all been repeating the allegations for all those years over and over and over again. So, when the guy (as it were) shows up in Court, the jury knew what it had to do…it was “known” that the Orange Man is Bad and so they acted accordingly. This is actually staggering; it is the end of any concept of law in our society if it is allowed to stand.

When I said earlier that nothing against Trump has been proved, I mean nothing. For instance, we don’t even know if Trump ever had sex with Stormy Daniels; and if that happened it wasn’t against the law and in today’s post-Christian world it hardly even counts as a scandal…but we can’t even say with certainty that it happened. And yet even to this day the accusation counts against Trump and various aspects of it continue to wend their way through courts and public opinion. For goodness sake, the lawyer who led the way in bringing the allegation forward is in jail for fraud. Maybe Trump did have the affair. Billionaires are known for that sort of thing. It is certainly plausible: but neither you nor anyone you know can say for certain it did. The only people who know for certain on it are Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels…Trump denies it categorically while Daniels says it happened. And, guys, don’t forget that Stormy is on the hook for about $350,000.00 in legal fees she owes to Trump…not the sort of thing a credible accuser gets hit with.

And yet I bet that if we did a poll then we’d find north of 90% of people certain that Trump and Daniels had an affair. This is not just what a smear can do: it is what can happen when just about everyone conspires against you. Just a bit of detective work on the part of the MSM and we’d know pretty certainly if Trump and Daniels were at that Tahoe resort at the same time in 2006 and if there was a time frame in which the two could have got together. I mean, there would be hotel and room service receipts, witness statements from hotel staff…Trump being pretty well known there would be lots of people who would be keeping an eye on him and following his movements, including paparazzi (this happened when The Apprentice was hot on TV, after all). But all I can ever find about it is Daniels’ claim that it happened. Seems a little thin…and the dog that doesn’t bark here is the MSM not getting us all the lurid background details which would be available if the affair happened. So, like I said: not proved. But absolutely believed.

And so is everything else to one degree or another. And here’s the kicker: the Daniels accusation is the most credible of all the accusations. And she owes Trump hundreds of thousands of dollars for making it! Everything else Trump is accused of has even less evidence that it happened and the main accusation against him (that he’s an agent of Russia) has just been proved completely false. But, once again, people believe.

The terrifying thing here is that if they can do this to Trump – a media-savvy billionaire who can hire first rate legal talent – they can do it to anyone. Suppose Joe Blow in your town offends the Ruling Class…and then there shows up a story in the local news claiming that Joe did This Horrible Thing and that sparks an investigation and you’re sitting there watching this or that dark hint of terrible deeds by Joe leaking out and your mind starts to go, “maybe there’s something to it?”. But the truth is that Joe did nothing wrong other than offend the Ruling Class and is now being destroyed. And he’s being destroyed as an example, just like Trump is. They are letting us know that anyone who doesn’t toe the line will be destroyed. And if you’re thinking that the calm and pleasant Ron DeSantis is immune…well, they’re already calling him worse than Trump (who is, of course, worse than Hitler) and they’re lining up allegations that DeSantis had inappropriate relations with female students when he was a teacher and that he supervised torture at Gitmo. I rate these accusations as entirely non-credible. If any of them had been true, the Democrats would have broadcast them far and wide during the 2022 campaign. But we just learned that an accusation doesn’t have to be true to be effective…it just has to be backed up by all or at least most of the Powers That Be. Rely on it that Biden’s Justice Department will open an investigation into allegations of criminal activity by DeSantis if he’s the GOP nominee. It won’t matter if they’re true – they’ll simply make up whatever they think is best and you’ll see everyone – including the RINOs – swing in behind the investigation.

To be sure, maybe RDS can weather the storm. Maybe, that is, such an obviously personally pleasant person with a great family can get the public mind on his side. But you can’t be sure – and even if RDS can survive it, the problem remains that it can be attempted by the Democrats because they know that the DOJ, the CIA, the FBI and the MSM will fall in line to back up whatever RDS is accused of.

We really must dismantle this system brick by brick. Sure, the FBI and CIA need to be abolished, but it goes far beyond that. We have to find a way to punish the MSM, as well. To make them pay through the nose so they’ll learn the lesson: don’t be part of a political op. This is not something amenable to small reforms and it cant be allowed to continue; we need sledgehammer-like destruction of the institutions which created or fostered the anti-Trump effort. Because it isn’t about Trump: it is about you and me and our ability to remain free. It is either destroy them, or they’ll destroy us.

The Endurance of Lies

Mark Noonan14 Comments

Over this past few weeks it was fully confirmed that Hillary Clinton and her team made up Trump-Russia out of whole cloth, passed it on to the MSM and Justice and both those institutions ran with it – for years – even though a cursory examination right at the start showed the whole concept was false. For us on our side, we knew it fairly instinctively that it was false – partially based on our mistrust of the MSM but mostly because it simply didn’t make sense that Russia would want Trump as President. They knew Hillary Clinton very well: they knew, that is, that a second Clinton Administration would sell out American interests as readily as the first Clinton Administration (not to mention as readily as the Obama Administration). Russia and indeed all global powers wanted Clinton to win in 2016. Nobody knew for sure what Trump was going to be like, but they knew – every person on Earth with an interest knew – that a Hillary Clinton Presidency meant continued hobbling of American economic and military power and American assistance in undermining the American position in the world. If Russia, or any foreign actor, was to interfere in the 2016 election, it would be to benefit Hillary.

And now that it is all exposed what do we see? That people still believe the anti-Trump Narrative. I see it all day long on social media. Of course, it helps that so far the New York Times has not run a story about Clinton’s role in starting Trump-Russia. Nobody is more ignorant of the world than someone who is an avid consumer of the MSM! But while belief based on ignorance is still bad, belief based on refusal to admit error is much worse, because that is what causes our side the most trouble.

I’ve been watching the Never Trump and the Dislike Trump people and while they do now know Trump-Russia was false, they still go with the overarching anti-Trump Narrative. In other words, faced with the proven fact that the primary objection to Trump is false, they still fall back on the feeling that Trump was and is just bad and so must be opposed. And their conviction that Trump is bad is based entirely upon information provided to them by the very same sources which made up and ran with the Trump-Russia story. The believed or at least lent credibility to Trump-Russia and this made them oppose Trump and now that they know it was all false, they still want to maintain their anti-Trump stance. The Lie is dead, long live the Lie!

I used to think that lies couldn’t endure the truth. Turns out I was wrong: if it is a lie that people want to believe, it is going to be quite durable. And for many people, the anti-Trump lies are comforting. And I think this is because they simply do not want to confront what Trump exposed: the utter rot in all American institutions. For these people, life remains good (though inflation is now putting some pressure on that). They tend to work in professions that don’t require a lot of effort and they are well paid. They live in nice areas. As long as they don’t rock the boat too much, they can stay on the gravy train for life and, with a little luck, make a great deal of money. But even if they don’t rise to the heights of money and fame, they still live well. Writing a couple articles a month is a lot less bothersome than clocking in 40 hours a week, right? Trump showed them that while life was good for them, things were bad for the United States. That millions of people were losing their hope for the future…and that the enemies of the United States were on a rampage. And the fault for everything going wrong was in the American institutions which had become both stupid and corrupt in equal measures. How can you defend that? Well, you really can’t – but you can at least attack Trump as a backhanded way of defending the Establishment. An anti-Trump diatribe kept you on the gravy train…pointing out that Trump has been maligned by MSM and government liars gets you kicked off right quick.

So, expect them to continue. And take your fun while you can – these people sift data now to “prove” that Trump is no longer popular with the base and that we’re finally going to get Romney II in 2024 to restore the Balance or some such drivel. Basing their whole worldview on a pack of lies, they simply don’t see what is coming – and their tears will be even more delicious than the liberal tears. But I do wonder – once Trump or Trump II (DeSantis) becomes President and starts to dismantle the Empire of Lies, will they then come around to admitting they were wrong?

Writing a Book Open Thread

Mark Noonan22 Comments

Still working on Secrets – you all have got your copy of Mirrors, right? – and I’m enjoying it immensely. Don’t really know much about the whole fiction author thing but I do wonder if authors are supposed to fall in love with their characters? Bryce and Fred are just great guys while Celeste and Rossalyn are proving to be very tough and resourceful, at any rate. I’m just under 60,000 words on the sequel and it is coming to its climax; probably another 30-40,000 words to go. I’ve introduced several new good guys and a couple new bad guys, as well (one of which is a woman, to sort of balance it out – all my ladies have proven to be good eggs, so far; so I thought I needed a bad lady). As happened to a much better work, the tale is growing in the telling and, at least for me, three or four books of this won’t be enough. I’ve also had to draw a map of Hadwin’s world – it was getting difficult to orientate what direction everyone was going without it. Now I understand why Tolkien also needed one.

Flynn case dismissed, right? Well, not quite – the judge in the case is proving to be an obvious ally of the Deep State and is now inviting Trump opponents to tell him why he should keep the case going, even though the prosecutor says there is no crime to charge Flynn with, or even anything to start an investigation over. Just amazing. One theory I’ve seen is that they want to force Trump to pardon Flynn – to keep some patina of “he’s guilty” on it all. Maybe – but it also might be sheer, hate-filled bloody mindedness at this point.

Acting DNI Grennell has declassified lots and lots of stuff and this is allowing us, for the first time, to really see the picture of the coup attempt. It is going to be very hard to not vote for Grennell in the GOP primary in 2024, should he decide to run. He’s showing that he’s got the most important Trumpist aspect: guts. And if he can be brave while also being less abrasive than Trump, he might become an unstoppable political force. We’ll see what the future brings.

RSM on the Arbery case. I’m mostly agnostic on the case because, well, if the MSM is pushing it hard (and they are) then someone is lying. There’s no way the MSM would push a true story. At the very least, there doesn’t seem to be an actual racial angle here, though the MSM and its minions are already saying that Arbery was killed because he was black. Maybe the shooters are guilty of murder or manslaughter – that is for a jury to decide and unless they plead out, this will go to a jury and the jury will hear the actual facts of the case: and those facts may end up strongly at variance with what the MSM has been saying.

This Open Thread is Exonerated

Mark Noonan35 Comments

That feeling of joy you got in your heart earlier today? That was your realization that Justice can still be had in the United States.

Flynn was railroaded, plain and simple – and some of the things coming out today show that Obama knew…what we don’t know, yet, is if he ordered it. We won’t know unless someone turns on him…which would be a very difficult thing for any Establishment type to do because they know that it would forever be over for them. No one in the club would ever let them back in again. I’m not even sure the prospect of 20 years in jail would convince someone to drop dime on Barry.

Be that as it may, what is clearly emerging is that the law enforcement and intelligence agencies of the Obama Administration – and continuing via Deep State operatives during the Trump Administration – cooked up a false investigation to first try to stop Trump from being elected, then to undo the election once he had one. As one Twitter friend of mine put it: in January of 2017, we did not have a peaceful transfer of power. It was all garbage from start to finish. There was never any collusion with Russia by Trump or his team – in fact, its coming out (as I long suspected) that if Putin preferred anyone in 2016, it was Hillary, who was already safely bought and even if not bought, so mind-bogglingly stupid that Putin could get away with bloody murder on her watch.

But we’re still not done – and we won’t be done until at least some of these criminals go to jail. My Father was opposed to the death penalty all his life (as far as I know), but there was one thing he wanted to keep it for: treason. His view was that treason was the worst possible crime because to betray a nation is to attempt to murder every citizen of the nation. The people who thought this up and carried it out are traitors; their loyalty, when not to a foreign paymaster (and I’m certain that a large number are the deep-cover spies of foreign powers) is to their class. They don’t give a damn about our country. Patriots simply do not use lies and blackmail because their side lost the last election. I want these people to go down, very hard.

We’ll see if that happens – the Deep State is still very powerful and its hard to find anyone who has the position to do something who isn’t allied with the Establishment or deathly afraid of it. I hope that Barr has the guts to do it – and I hope he’s found at least a few others with the guts to push this to a conclusion.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan12 Comments

As we all suspected, Flynn was framed. Completely set up as part of a process which was supposed to get people to lie under oath about President Trump. The plan ultimately failed because the plotters made one, fatal error: they assumed we on our side are garbage like they are. A Deep Stater/Establishment person is willing to lie – we’re not. We know that if you lie – especially under oath – you are taking your immortal soul in you hands and letting it slip through your fingers. Only coercion can get us to lie like that…because at that point we’re not morally responsible for the lie. Flynn agreed under duress to say he had done something wrong to save his family – only that could get him to go along. And then only for a little while. Flynn and Stone and everyone else simply refused to give the coup plotters what they wanted: someone who would swear that President Trump had colluded with Russia.

They didn’t get it – and now its all coming out, just what they did. We’ve got a problem: it was people who claim to be citizens of the United States who did this. Who else have they done it to? How many people are sitting in jail right now because they were forced to choose between the total ruination of their family or “confessing” to something they hadn’t done? And where did we breed in our nation the sort of people who can do things like that? How did it happen? This has to be fixed. For me, step one is to abolish the FBI…and review all their cases to see how many innocent people they’ve railroaded – but, until it is, remember: Never talk to the police.

Our Governor in Nevada is keeping us closed down – but, I also perceived watching his speech about it that he’s really not going to keep us closed up much longer. He’s talking a big game, but the bottom line is that people want to get out. At the end of the day, we’re adults and citizens of the Republic: we can assess the danger for ourselves. The Blue State governors naturally want to keep things closed tight – because they believe misery will help Biden in November. But as more Red States open up, the pressure will become enormous to open back up everywhere. Summer is coming – we want to go out.

I’ve actually always enjoyed reading CounterPunch articles – it is far, far left stuff, but they at least pull no punches and usefully skewer idiots…like Joe Biden, back in 2008:

Biden is a notorious flapjaw. His vanity deludes him into believing that every word that drops from his mouth is minted in the golden currency of Pericles. Vanity is the most conspicuous characteristic of US Senators en bloc, nourished by deferential acolytes and often expressed in loutish sexual advances to staffers, interns and the like. On more than one occasion CounterPunch’s editors have listened to vivid accounts by the recipient of just such advances, this staffer of another senator being accosted by Biden in the well of the senate in the week immediately following his first wife’s fatal car accident.

As they say, there’s more! You just know that Reade isn’t the only one. Biden entered the Senate in 1973. He’s old school – and the old school Senator was Ted Kennedy…a pig of a man who assumed his power allowed him to be a brute with women. And, ol’ Ted was right – he’s still honored as the Lion of the Senate, after all. What makes you think that Joe Biden, with Ted as an example, held back? His deep religious convictions which made him into a Catholic supporter of late-term abortion? Biden has to deny it – well, what he actually has to do is admit it and retire from public life, but he won’t do that – but if he denies it and any more comes out, he’s cooked. The MSM is doing massive cover-up for Biden here (he’s going on Morning Joe to take the softest of soft-ball interviews about it), but if it doesn’t all come out now, it’ll come out via Trump in October.

Open Thread Futures at -$1.79

Mark Noonan65 Comments

We were supposed to be hoarding oil, I guess.

I supported the lockdowns when they were announced – but I’m starting to think that we might have made a mistake. Perhaps we should have made it a matter of personal choice? Do as much social distancing as possible. Wear masks and gloves. Work from home if possible – but let everyone assess the risk for themselves? As we see Democrats trying to force us into a Great Depression over this, it is clear that we didn’t think this all the way through at the start. At all events, it is time to start easing up. We do have to get back to work.

President Trump is going to suspend immigration – which makes sense. Until we’re back to full employment, we simply don’t need more people here. Liberal heads will explode over this – they will step on this rake. They have to. Orange Man Bad, right? So they’ll be out there telling us to stay in our homes but we must welcome new immigrants.

The Experts are still telling us that Biden has it in the bag – which sounds familiar. Almost like I heard this four years ago, or something. But, be that as it may, Steven Hayward has a contrarian view – mostly because Trump isn’t afraid to hit back and the Democrats are a targe-rich environment.

North Korea’s dictator is said to be in bad health.

What I expected to find: Russia didn’t want to help Trump in 2016. Of all the absurdities these past few years, this is the most egregious: that Russia wanted Trump. Its stupid – they owned Hillary. And even if they didn’t own her, they knew her policies were tailor-made to let Russia do whatever it damned well pleased in the world. Russia always wants to sow confusion because that’s just the way Russia is…but to think they’d want to roll the dice on Trump when they had a sure thing in Hillary is ridiculous.

Trump Impeachment

Mark Noonan106 Comments

It is less than it seems so far – for there to be a real impeachment inquiry, the House would have to vote to do so, and so far Pelosi isn’t making that move…and it can’t be for lack of votes: such a thing would garner 218 (at least) votes in the House because too many Democrats would face a primary challenge if they didn’t go along with it. So, why isn’t she moving forward? My view is that the far left base of the Democrats – mostly upper class, urban whites – are the only people on fire for impeachment and Pelosi is trying to thread the needle: make it seem like she’s doing it, but not actually doing it.

The trouble is, these things have a way of just growing on their own. People in the Democrat ranks are already staking out extreme positions and in an election year, the need to one-up on it will make it more likely that nearly everyone stakes out such a position. Democrats are caught in a vise – their attempt to separate Trump from his base – that is all Trump/Russia was ever about – has failed but their own stalwarts have taken it as Gospel. And if you really believe that Trump is a Russian agent placed in office by Putin – and that is what they believe – then there can be no reason not to impeach. To try to hold back from the last step might prove impossible.

No one can tell how this will play out: we know Trump is innocent and so any airing of the facts will help Trump. But the political dynamic is unprecedented: we’ve never had a President actively seeking re-election while an impeachment plays out. Get ready for a wild ride.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan106 Comments

Been hearing – and not just from Never Trumpers – that people are simply growing tired of Trump and all the drama and will opt for Biden simply because they want someone dull. I don’t buy it – I mean, I can understand that the whole circus around Trump is abnormal and people can get frustrated with it, but I don’t feel like it makes we want to vote for Biden, nor anyone I know. What do you think?

PM Johnson has got the Queen to prorogue Parliament: ie, put it on ice for a period of time; in this case, until such time as the PM finishes extricating Britain from the EU. This is something Americans don’t know much about as it is outside our political experience. But in a Monarchy, sovereignty doesn’t reside with the people, but with the Monarch. That’s why they call it “Her Majesty’s Government”. It has been nearly two centuries since a British Monarch exercised any authority outside the advice of the Prime Minister, but the authority is still there under the British constitution and Boris advised the Queen to exercise it – to forestall Remain efforts to prevent the PM from carrying out the will of the people…and because we live in insane times, the PM is being criticized on grounds of being undemocratic in his insistence that the results of a democratic vote be implemented. I still doubt Johnson will pull it off – too much of the British Ruling Class is dead set against it; they really, really want faceless bureaucrats in Brussels who take their orders from Berlin to run things. But, he’s clearly got the brass to give it a try.

Laurence “Stop the Hammering” O’Donnell tried to revive the Trump-Russia debacle with a “scoop” claiming that Russian oligarch’s close to Putin co-signed some Trump loans. I didn’t pay much attention to it because, well, the Trump-Russia thing is drivel and I just don’t care about it…but this is interesting:

According to Harder’s demand letter, “The Program and Tweet make the false and defamatory statements that ‘Russian oligarchs’ co-signed loans provided to Mr. Trump by Deutsche Bank, and described these ‘co-signers’ as ‘Russian billionaires close to Vladimir Putin.’”

Harder is also warning others against republishing the allegedly false statement. (The Hollywood Reporter is doing so because it believes such republication is necessary to convey what is a matter of utmost public concern and protected by the First Amendment in connection with anticipated litigation.)

In a tweet following Harder’s letter, O’Donnell wrote, “Last night I made an error in judgment by reporting an item about the president’s finances that didn’t go through our rigorous verification and standards process. I shouldn’t have reported it and I was wrong to discuss it on the air. I will address the issue on my show tonight.”

Trump likely wouldn’t win any case – the judges would all rule that he’s the President and the MSM can say pretty much whatever it wants. But, the vigorous pushback shows that Team Trump feels, at least, that the facts are on their side.

More and more Democrats are latching on to the Wealth Tax, under various forms. Now, our Democrats are doing this simply because they want the money to shovel to their cronies…but it will be popular, boys and girls; and even if not particular popular, very hard to fight against. Who wants to stand up and defend a billionaire’s horde? We should be stealing a march on the Democrats…and making sure that any wealth tax hits heavily at constituencies favored by Democrats…tax free foundations; private college endowments (Harvard sits on $37 billion – the college is more of a tax dodge as far as the money goes); Soros-type Progressive moneybags. Like getting out in front of student loan debt, it will allow us to push Conservative policy while taking issues away from the Democrats.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan12 Comments

So, the Democrats called up John Dean – of Watergate infame – to try to make the case that Trump is worse than Nixon. It didn’t work out too well:

There was a memorable exchange between Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Mr. Dean during the hearing. When Gaetz spoke, he entered into the record a December 2005 essay by John Dean, titled “George W. Bush as the New Richard M. Nixon: Both Wiretapped Illegally, and Impeachably.” Gaetz then asked Mr. Dean, “How many American presidents have you accused of being Richard Nixon?” It was a humorous moment, and Dean responded that he had actually written a book called Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush.

Personally, I think this was Pelosi’s attempt to feed something to the base in lieu of impeachment. But I’m not sure she can ride that tiger – remember, a very large portion of Democrats, per polls, believe that Trump was elected because Putin switched Hillary votes to Trump. The constituency of those who believe that Trump is the personification of evil is large in the Democrat party – and will have a huge say in whom the Democrats nominate in 2020. These people might not be satisfied with anything less than Articles of Impeachment.

Leftist fascists are suing Masterpiece Cakes, again. They know they can’t win – they are doing it to make sure that no one else will show such courage. The process is the punishment – which is why we need a Civil Rights Act which explicitly allows anyone to refuse service on any grounds they choose.

California is going to provide full health benefits to illegal immigrants under 26. Trump should withhold all federal health care funds for California. If they’ve got enough money to do that, they don’t need taxpayers in the other 49 States helping out.

Poll says that a majority want abortion legal, but with restrictions. Which is probably correct. I doubt that there is even 25% support for an outright ban on all abortions (this is my position, by the way). But I bet there’s not even 10% who are in favor of the Democrats demand for federally funded abortion on demand up to the last minute (and a few minutes later if the kid makes it past the abortion). My view is that if Roe were disposed of (and it should be, simply on the fact that the ruling was grossly unconstitutional), I’ll bet that most States would ban third trimester abortion, nearly as many would also ban second trimester…and only a couple three would keep it fully legal throughout the pregnancy. That still wouldn’t be good enough for me, but it isn’t for me to impose, but to convince…and that is just what the pro-abortion people don’t want to do. They want their views rammed through, what the people want be damned.

Report is that Barr’s investigation into the investigators is rather broad. We can hope. I know none of us really believe that any of the major players will see the inside of a jail cell…but I also know that each of us, in the back of his or her mind, hopes it will be so. It isn’t vindictiveness. In fact, after a short stint, most of us would probably be ok with Trump pardoning them…but we want justice. We want to know that the Rule of Law really applies to everyone.