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The first day of the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump was largely taken up with procedural issues. Senators argued over and then adopted an organizing resolution laying out the rules under which the trial will proceed.

In his opening statement, Minority Leader Chuck scumbag-Schumer, D-N.Y., charged that the resolution proposed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was “partisan,” a “national disgrace,” and a “dark day in Senate history.”

All of this heated rhetoric was based on scumbag-Schumer’s misleading claim that McConnell’s resolution was unfair and significantly different from the resolution governing scumbag/liar-Bill Clinton’s trial. Yet the resolution adopted by the Senate (after Republicans voted down and tabled a series of Democratic amendments) is substantially the same as the resolution approved by the Senate 100-0 for the scumbag/liar-Clinton trial.

On Thursday of last week, the preliminaries required to even debate this issue were accomplished when Senate President Pro Tempore Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, swore in the chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, who will preside over the trial under Section 3 of Article I of the Constitution. Roberts then swore in all of the senators.

Both sides have already filed briefs with the Senate. On Jan. 18 the House filed a 100-plus page “Trial Memorandum” and “Statement of Material Facts” outlining its case against President Trump.

The president filed an answer the same day, disputing the basis for his impeachment, calling it a “dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president” and “a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election.”

The House then filed a response to the president on Jan. 20 accusing the president of conduct intended to “bury the evidence” against him and to “cheat in the next election.” The president’s lawyers filed their own 100-page plus “Trial Memorandum” with an extensive appendix also on Jan. 20.

So what are the differences between the scumbag/liar-Clinton and Trump resolutions? Both provide that the House shall file with the Senate all “publicly available materials” produced by the House committees involved in the impeachment investigations, including “transcripts of public hearings or mark-ups and any materials printed by the House of Representatives” pursuant to the impeachment resolutions.

The only difference is that in the scumbag/liar-Clinton case, these materials were automatically admitted into evidence. The Trump resolution provides that they will also be admitted into evidence “subject to any hearsay, evidentiary, or other objections that the President may make after opening presentations." That makes sense from both a fairness and fundamental due process standpoint.

Why? Because in the scumbag/liar-Clinton impeachment investigation, unlike the Trump impeachment investigation, representatives of both political parties were allowed to fully cross-examine and call witnesses of their choice.

In the current case, House Democrats changed the rules to prevent Republicans and the president’s lawyers from being able to fully participate, cross-examine witnesses, or even call witnesses they believed had important relevant information.

So it makes sense for the president’s legal team to be able to object to hearsay evidence, evidence produced by witnesses that neither they nor Republicans representatives were allowed to fully question, or where they raise serious questions about the credibility (or lack thereof) and relevance of particular testimony produced in the House.

Just like in the scumbag/liar-Clinton impeachment, each side is being given 24 hours to present its case. Both sides took three days to do so in the scumbag/liar-Clinton case, and the revised resolution also gives both parties 24 hours over "3 session days” to make their arguments.

The Trump resolution — just like the scumbag/liar-Clinton resolution — then gives senators 16 hours to question the prosecution and the defense teams, although they must do so through written questions submitted by the chief justice.

While Democrats have been pushing to decide on whether or not to call witnesses now before the trial has even begun, that would violate the procedures approved during the scumbag/liar-Clinton impeachment, which are replicated in the Trump resolution.

Then and now, the Senate will decide whether witnesses should be called only after both sides have presented their case and the senators have had the opportunity to submit their questions to the House managers and the president’s defense team.

Senators were given up to six hours to make and argue motions about subpoenaing witnesses or evidence not in the record during the scumbag/liar-Clinton trial; this revised resolution gives senators up to four hours to do so.

Furthermore, both impeachment resolutions have the same procedure when it comes to witnesses if the Senate decides to allow any to be called. No live witnesses, instead, the parties will take their depositions and the Senate will then decide which witnesses will appear through their taped depositions.

While there was a lot of political theater on Tuesday in which the Democrats claimed the system has been “rigged” and that Sen. McConnell and Republicans were not following precedent, the revised resolution sets up procedural rules that adhere to the scumbag/liar-Clinton precedent very closely.

The only substantive change is the ability of the president’s team to object to evidence produced by the House, a change necessitated by the way in which Democrats themselves changed the rules in the House and failed to follow the scumbag/liar-Clinton precedents used during the scumbag/liar-Clinton impeachment investigation

It is not the Senate’s job to complete the House’s investigation. If House Democrats believe they did not talk to all of the relevant witnesses, why did they speed ahead with an impeachment vote before doing so?

The substantive fireworks in the impeachment trial will start Wednesday. That’s when the Senate will hear any motions filed by the parties (other than motions to subpoena witnesses or documents) and House managers will begin to present their case against the president.

Everyone in Washington will be watching. Will the rest of America? 

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/68087?mailing_id=4819&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4819&utm_campaign=snap

Of course, many journalists appear to be blind to that bias. Caldara argues that this blindness is due to a media culture that has become so “monolithically progressive” it can’t even find the political center anymore. Speaking to reporters about this reality is like “talking to an alcoholic about his drinking,” he said. The reporter “honestly can’t see the issue and will angrily suggest you are the one with the problem.”

As evidence of the hard-left bent within MSM culture, Caldara points to the AP stylebook, which is a repository of “progressively loaded language.” He argues that the stylebook is not merely a “dictionary-like guide for reporters and editors.” Instead, “What it actually does is cement terminology to promote political conclusions. It declares the winners and losers in political debates.” He then observes several examples of how the AP stylebook pushes a blatant leftist agenda, including the scientifically false claim that gender isn’t binary.

Caldara writes, “It’s admirable that reporters want to be compassionate to transgender individuals and those transitioning, as we all should be. But AP reporters first have a duty to the truth, or so they say. There are only two sexes, identified by an XX or XY chromosome. That is the very definition of binary. The AP ruling it isn’t so doesn’t change science. It’s a premeditative attempt to change culture and policy. It’s activism.”

Well, like that alcoholic in Caldara’s insightful example, the Denver Post’s opinion editor, Megan Schrader, wouldn’t accept or even tolerate his accurate assessment of the MSM and fired him. Interestingly, Caldara was one of the paper’s most-read columnists, and now Schrader is looking to fill his position with another “conservative” writer. Following his firing, Caldara noted that Schrader “cares deeply” about those who have been victimized but his “frustration is that [Schrader] doesn’t quite understand that the speech code she’s pushing is having an opposite effect … of what she wants.”

Remember when liberals were all about free speech? Those days are long gone.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68077?mailing_id=4819&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4819&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Such reaffirmation is a welcome sign. Three Supreme Court decisions — Engel v. Vitale (1962), Murray v. Curlett (1963), and Abington Township School District v. Schempp (1963) — fundamentally changed the way the First Amendment’s religious protections had been previously understood. In short, a Supreme Court that leaned decidedly left during the 1960s appeared more determined to endorse freedom from religion than freedom of religion.

In Engel, the Court ruled 6-1 that a prayer written by New York state’s Board of Regents and said before classes each day was “wholly inconsistent with the Establishment Clause,” according to Justice Hugo Black writing for the majority.

In Abington Township, which also involved the Murray  ruling, the Court determined 8–1 that school-sponsored Bible reading in public schools was also unconstitutional. “The reading of the verses, even without comment, possesses a devotional and religious character and constitutes in effect a religious observance,” the Court  insisted. Moreover, the Court also asserted the fact that “some pupils, or theoretically all pupils, might be excused from attendance at the exercises does not mitigate the obligatory nature of the ceremony.”

That the Board of Regents prayer was voluntary and that a religious observance with attendance of zero could still be construed as obligatory is indicative of a Court likely influenced by the tenor of the times. The American Left still reveres the social revolution of the ‘60s, and while there were welcome advances in personal freedom and proper challenges to the racial status quo, the rebellion against traditional views of sex and the wholesale advancement of Secular Humanism gave us a society in which sex became exponentially more hedonistic, morality became “relative,” and the societal bedrocks of marriage and the nuclear family began unraveling.

Ironically, in Torcaso v. Watkins, SCOTUS referred to Secular Humanism as a religion “which [does] not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God.” Justice Black stated, “We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person 'to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.’ Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against nonbelievers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs.”

What about the other way around? Justice Potter Stewart, the lone dissenting vote in Abington Township, had a prescient take on exactly that. He asserted that the removal of prayer from schools “led not to true neutrality with respect to religion, but to the establishment of a religion of secularism.”

Was Stewart right? Over the ensuing decades, several states have passed laws either permanently enjoining parental notification, no law at all, or judicial bypass of parents with regard to a minor getting an abortion. If there is another surgical procedure that can be administered to a child absent parent notification, much less permission, one is hard-pressed to know what it is.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In American schools today, a fear-based global-warming agenda is  disseminated with impunity, and math is taught from a “social justice” perspective. A radical leftist teacher-training program known as “Deep Equity” addresses the “dynamics of privilege and power [that] must be confronted to impact real change,” and indoctrination  exemplified by a “privilege scorecard” given to students at at Saratoga Springs High School has become routine. Furthermore, several schools teach the transgender agenda to children beginning in kindergarten, and many of the states in which that agenda is disseminated have no opt-out clause.

Thus, in stark contrast to the Supreme Court’s take on religion in schools, nothing is voluntary, the attendance will never be zero, and the ongoing dissemination of Secular Humanism, a.k.a. progressive ideology, in America’s classrooms leaves little doubt that Stewart was right on the money.

The Trump administration has released updated guidance on religious prayer in public elementary and secondary schools that will reaffirm the right that students are allowed to pray alone or in groups. Nine federal agencies, including the Justice Department, Health and Human Services, and the Department Education, will be involved in making the changes.

The original guidance on school prayer was issued in 2003. And while this order is similar, it establishes a state-mandated filing process for complaints against local schools and school districts. It requires those states to provide the federal government with an annual list of local public schools and districts with “a policy that prevents, or otherwise denies participation in, constitutionally protected prayer.” States must also report local schools that fail to certify they don’t have unconstitutional prayer policies.

Trump pulled no punches with regard to the motivation behind the change. “You have things happening today that 10 or 15 years ago would have been unthinkable,” he stated in response to a question about his views on the culture wars. “Taking the word God down, taking the word Christmas out. I think we’ve turned that one around very good. I think we’ve turned both of them around very good.”

The order itself is equally straightforward. It explains that “teachers and other public school officials, acting in their official capacities, may not lead their classes in prayer, devotional readings from the Bible, or other religious activities,” while making it clear that “students and teachers do not ‘shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

Unsurprisingly, there was blowback from the usual precincts. “These rules undermine the civil rights and religious freedom of millions of our most vulnerable Americans who rely on social services — with particularly dire consequences for LGBTQ people and religious minorities,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Nonsense. What they do is provide students with something leftists fear the most: a counter-argument that cannot be silenced by judicial fiat. If leftists were truly convinced they own the franchise on “enlightened” thinking, they would welcome a robust debate between themselves and people of faith.

That they don’t speaks volumes.

Moreover, they have more to worry about. SCOTUS will soon rule on a case determining whether state laws excluding religious organizations from government funding available to others is constitutional. If not, school choice would also include funding for religious schools that many American prefer, especially when the alternative choice is a union-centric public school system with a 50-year track record of failure.

“If we win this case, it will be the U.S. Supreme Court once again saying that school choice is fully constitutional and it’s a good thing and it’s something parents should have,” said Erica Smith, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs.

In an age where the totally bankrupt assertion of “my truth” resonates, it’s not a good thing — it’s a great thing.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68095?mailing_id=4819&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4819&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

scumbag/liar-Schiff’s statement is scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” comment repackaged. This is simply how Democrats think about vast swaths of America, proving that they’re not really after Trump; they’re after you, the voter. Ever since Trump defeated scumbag/liar-Clinton, Democrats have been seeking to impeach the vote of the American people.

Also on Wednesday, the Senate received a letter signed by 21 Republican state attorneys general calling the Democrats’ basis for impeachment illegitimate and for it to be “explicitly rejected.” The AGs argue that the Democrats’ “corrupt motives theory is dangerous to democracy because it encourages impeachment whenever the President exercises his constitutional authority in a way that offends the opposing political party, which is predisposed to view his motives with skepticism and motivated by its own motives to regain that very office.” While this letter won’t stop the impeachment trial, it may serve Senate Republicans. As The Wall Street Journal editorial board argues, “This might take the form of a Senate resolution at the time of acquittal. The crucial point is to reject impeachment as a regular tool of partisan punishment, reserving it for genuine cases of presidential abuse.”

Meanwhile, the Democrats’ push to call more witnesses is proving tricky. There has been some speculation that Democrats would be open to a deal exchanging John Bolton for Hunter Biden, but Senate Minority Leader Chuck scumbag-Schumer quickly shot that down, saying, “I think it’s off the table.” Then he quickly spun it as Republicans wanting to use it “to smear the loose lips liar-Bidens.” The fact of the matter is that the crux of the whistleblower’s complaint rests entirely on Trump’s legitimate request that the loose lips liar-Bidens’ shady behavior be investigated. It’s disingenuous to claim the loose lips liar-Bidens are not tied up in this, but that’s par for the course with these Democrats.

The fact is Democrats will need the votes of at least four Republicans to get Bolton on the stand, and for those votes they will need to give those Republicans something in return. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is playing it smart, stating that the Senate will be open to calling only those witnesses the House itself called; no new witnesses will be considered. He also warned, “It could dramatically change the separation of powers between the House and the Senate if the Senate agrees we will conduct both the investigation and the trial of an impeachment.”

In any case, as Mark Alexander has asserted for months, “What Democrats want is Republicans on the record voting against witnesses so they can perpetuate the ‘Trump is guilty and Republicans covered for him’ myth. They will then use those votes in campaign ads against a few Republicans they believe are vulnerable in November. The Demo impeachment charade has always been about retaking the Senate so that if Trump is reelected they can block conservative SCOTUS nominations. Republicans should call their bluff and seek witnesses — and scumbag-Schumer and scumbag/liar-Schiff will run for cover.”

Finally, as far as the House Democrats offering any new or compelling arguments against Trump, the sentiment among Senate Republicans was summed up by Wyoming’s John Barrasso, who commented, “Six hours of testimony so far today… I didn’t hear anything new at all.” That matters not because the Senate is supposed to hear new things but because nothing Democrats have presented so far merits impeachment or removal.  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68098?mailing_id=4819&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4819&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Much of the credit for this significant drop goes to Trump’s multifaceted approach in addressing the problem of illegal immigration, which includes the construction of border wall, the new “remain in Mexico” asylum policy, and agreements with Mexico and Central American countries to actively engage and limiting illegal immigration coming through their countries. Slowly but steadily Trump has made progress on one of his signature campaign promises, despite Democrat efforts to prevent him.

Speaking of Democrats, presidential candidate commie-Bernie Sanders recently expressed his desire to end and reverse Trump’s successes in combatting illegal immigration. When asked if he supported tearing down the border wall, Sanders responded, “I don’t know, maybe the answer is yes.” He then equivocated slightly by suggesting, “If it’s going to cost me billions to tear it down, maybe the money would be better spent on child care in this country.” But commie-Sanders didn’t stop with the wall; he ridiculously asserted that he would effectively end all but a fraction of deportations. “If someone has been convicted of a terrible, terrible crime, that might be an exception to the rule,” he explained. “A moratorium on 99% of deportations is nothing to sniff at, and I think the undocumented community would be very proud of that.”

While the “undocumented community” — otherwise known as illegal aliens — might be proud of that, no American should be. The truth is the only reason commie-Sanders and Democrats are advocating for open borders and an end to deportations of illegals is because they see them as future voters. It’s all just about politics and lust for power. Sanders, who claims to want to serve Americans, expresses no concern for protecting and defending American citizens first, which is the primary job of the president. No, he’d rather blast those who are working to protect our citizens and secure our borders as acting selfishly and immorally. Frankly, it’s despicable.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68047?mailing_id=4816&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4816&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Several recent stories bear this out.

On Sunday, The New York Times made its 2020 presidential endorsement. Well, two, actually: Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth dinky/liar-Warren.

Justifying the dual endorsement, the Times wrote, “The events of the past few years have shaken the confidence of even the most committed institutionalists. We are not veering away from the values we espouse, but we are rattled by the weakness of the institutions that we trusted to undergird those values.” One wonders whether the NYT editors were looking in a mirror when they wrote that line.

The Times called dinky/liar-Warren, the radical, a “gifted storyteller,” which is a hilariously diplomatic way of saying she is a pathological liar. The paper called Klobuchar the “standard-bearer” for Democrat centrists, before noting she is campaigning for an economy-destroying policy of net-zero emissions by 2050 and a “more robust public option” in healthcare. In other words, socialized medicine.

It is a testament to how far left the Democrat Party has veered that Klobuchar could be considered a centrist.

Though claiming to be nonpartisan, the last time the NYT endorsed a Republican was Eisenhower in 1956, even though two very accomplished Republican women, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina and former Congresswoman Michelle Bachman, have run for president in recent years. Obviously, conservative women need not apply for the Times’s endorsement.

In other news, the Grammys last week fired its first-ever female boss, Deborah Dugan, in an apparent attempt to silence her. Though the Recording Academy (which owns the Grammys) claims she was put on leave because of allegations of “misconduct” (allegedly, a staffer has accused her of bullying), the timing is highly suspicious. Three weeks ago, Dugan sent a memo to the Recording Academy’s HR department, accusing the company of attempting to silence those who came forward with allegations of “sexual harassment, financial impropriety, and [improper] insider benefits.”

Apparently, protecting women is less important to the Grammys than protecting Hollywood’s wealth, power, and cultural influence.

Of course, these same progressive cultural icons lecture the rest of us that we must #BelieveAllWomen, yet are silent on — or attack — women who make accusations against powerful progressive/Democrat men. Where are the progressives who came to the defense of Juanita Broaddrick, who credibly accused former president scumbag/liar-Bill Clinton of rape? Likewise, Virginia Democrat Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax was accused of rape by two separate women, who gave very detailed accounts of what happened. Yet Fairfax refused to resign, and the story has been quietly swept under the rug.

And it was an open secret for decades in Hollywood that producer Harvey Weinstein was a serial rapist, yet the Hollywood glitterati looked the other way as he ruined the lives of countless women. Sacrificing these young women to his lusts was the price they paid for their fame and fortune.

The same goes for billionaire pedophile Jeffrey “Didn’t Kill Himself” Epstein. He was a close friend and bankroller of Hollywood leftists and Democrat politicians, and they turned a blind eye to his crimes in order to advance their careers.

In other news, last Saturday was the fourth annual Women’s March in Washington, DC, and other cities around the country. But when you have to ask, “Does it still matter?” the answer is no, it doesn’t.

In 2017, an estimated three to five million people attended Women’s March rallies in more than 650 cities across the U.S. Last year, that number dropped to around 700,000.

Last week, the march in DC appears to have drawn less than six thousand people. In LA, Philadelphia, and Chicago, there were not enough protesters to even fill a city park.

A major part of the problem appears to be that the so-called Women’s March never even had any pretense of being about women but rather about advancing leftist causes, including abortion, subsidized housing, illegal immigration, and climate change.

And after effectively banning conservative, pro-life women from participating, the Women’s March was heavily criticized for its ties to anti-Semitic groups, including the notorious hate-monger and anti-Semite “Reverend” scumbag-Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.

Luckily, there is a home for those who truly believe in advancing the cause of women, including protecting the unborn, because pro-life is pro-woman. They can be found this week at the March for Life, which turns out hundreds of thousands of pro-life supporters each year.

The idea that the progressive Left supports women is laughable. It doesn’t want equality for women, where women compete on their own merits; it wants special rights. It doesn’t support women; it supports leftist women and attacks conservative women. It doesn’t protect women; it sacrifices them to the powerful and it kills them in the womb.

It is the definition of anti-woman.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68066?mailing_id=4816&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4816&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Trump blasted the climate alarmists for their fearmongering and destructive agenda: “Fear and doubt is not a good thought process because this is a time for tremendous hope and joy and optimism and action. But to embrace the possibilities of tomorrow, we must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse. They are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune-tellers. … They predicted an overpopulation crisis in the 1960s, mass starvation in the ‘70s, and an end of oil in the 1990s. These alarmists always demand the same thing: absolute power to dominate, transform, and control every aspect of our lives.”

He pointedly asserted, “We will never let radical socialists destroy our economy, wreck our country, or eradicate our Liberty. America will always be the proud, strong, and unyielding bastion of freedom.”

Overall, Trump’s speech was positive and full of hope for the future despite the looming impeachment trial he is facing at home. He concluded by stating, “Above all else, we will forever be loyal to our workers, our citizens, and our families — the men and women who are the backbone of our economies, the heart of our communities, and the soul of our countries. Let us bring light to their lives one by one and empower them to light up the world.”   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68068?mailing_id=4816&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4816&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

House Democrats failed to make a compelling case for impeachment in their rush to vote before Christmas. They claim to have “overwhelming” evidence for impeachment, while simultaneously hollering about a Republican “coverup” to obstruct the evidence they need. House Democrats want the Senate to aid them by extending the investigation, including calling more witnesses that they didn’t bother calling (John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney, for example. Anyone but Hunter Biden or the whistleblower!). That’s not the Senate’s job, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is playing it all about as well as he can.

“Democrats really don’t want to hear more witnesses,”  surmises The Wall Street Journal editorial board. “They merely want to pretend they do, get Republicans to vote against witnesses, and use that as an issue in November. Perhaps Republicans should call them on it.”

While the question of calling witnesses didn’t receive a vote yesterday, McConnell conceded to one more day for each side to present its case and to allow all House evidence without a Senate vote to admit it. The rules were officially adopted in a 53-47 party-line vote at 1:40 a.m.

Those who portray McConnell as having “caved” to moderates on those rules are either unfamiliar with Trump’s Art of the Deal or are willing to attribute such strategic moves only to Trump himself. McConnell has a strategy that provides political cover for Republicans in tough reelection battles like rino-Susan Collins, Martha McSally, and Cory Gardner. As a bonus, he can point to having compromised with Democrats in order to be as fair as possible. Of course, that won’t stop Democrats from caterwauling about a “rigged” trial all the way until Election Day.

But did we mention that Democrats like Chuck scumbag-Schumer have taken the opposite position on rules they took in the 1999 impeachment trial of scumbag/liar-Bill Clinton? We can’t quite put our finger on what’s different now…

Some highlights of the cases made by each side:

“The president is on trial in the Senate, but the Senate is on trial in the eyes of the American people,” pronounced scumbag liar-Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. He slammed Republicans for balking at more witnesses because “only guilty people try to hide evidence.” Except scumbag liar-Nadler insisted just last week that testimony from either Hunter or loose lips liar-Joe Biden would not be “relevant” because he had a “mountain of evidence” that was perfectly sufficient to impeach and remove Trump.

“Let me be very blunt,” said House Intelligence Chairman scumbag/liar-Adam Schiff. “Right now a great many, perhaps even most, Americans do not believe there will be a fair trial. They don’t believe that the Senate will be impartial. They believe that the result is pre-cooked, the president will be acquitted.” Funny, but scumbag/liar-Schiff pre-cooked the impeachment inquiry in the House.

White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, on the other hand, was right on the mark. Democrats have “no case” against Trump. But never mind that, he said; “They’re not here to steal one election, they’re here to steal two elections.”   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68070?mailing_id=4816&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4816&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

The contrast could not have been starker. One picture showed House Speaker liar-Nancy Pelosi smiling as she signed (with numerous pens) two articles of impeachment against President Trump. She passed out the pens like souvenirs to fellow Democrats. They were embossed in gold with her signature and rested on silver trays.

The other picture was of President Trump signing phase one of a new trade deal with China.

Which picture depicted events of greater long-term benefit to Americans? Unless you are a rank partisan out to remove President Trump from office by whatever means, the obvious answer is the China trade deal.

The latest wrench thrown into the machinery of government comes from Democrats who released to their compliant media friends a “note to self” written on a hotel notepad supposedly by Lev Parnas, a former associate of Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal attorney and a frequent flyer to Ukraine. The note said, “Get (Ukrainian president) Zalensky to announce that the Biden case will be investigated.”

Democrats claim Parnas was an intermediary in the effort to get Ukraine to investigate loose lips liar-Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

Parnas’ credibility would be in doubt were he under oath before a court, instead of “testifying” on various cable TV programs. Parnas heads a company that claims to combat fraud. Oh, the irony!

Democrats insist the Senate trial be “fair.” How is it fair when House Democrats continue to leak documents they hope will damage the president and influence senators to vote for his removal from office? Some Democratic senators, who will sit in judgment of the president, have already declared him guilty.

It is politics at its worst and opens the door, as some of the Founders warned, for “normalizing” impeachment.

Historical background is always helpful and so I consulted the National Constitution Center, a private, nonprofit organization and a leading platform for constitutional education and debate, where I found this: The “high crimes and misdemeanors” language (in the Constitution) remains controversial today. In two essays… Neil J. Kinkopf and Keith E. Whittington looked at the Founder’s vision: “The Framers meant for the phrase ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ to signify only conduct that seriously harms the public and seriously compromises the officer’s ability to continue. If the phrase is given a less rigorous interpretation, it could allow Congress to influence and control the President and the courts…”

The article continues: “When the Founders wanted to ensure accountability, they mostly relied on elections and the voters to hold government officials responsible for their actions,” said Whittington. “But what might fall into the category of ‘other high Crimes and Misdemeanors’ was still quite unclear.”

Trump’s call to Ukraine’s president, which is at the heart of the impeachment articles, does not meet the standard of seriously harming the public or compromising the president’s ability to do his job as shown by the China trade deal and the USMCA trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada, both signed and passed days after impeachment.

That the Government Accountability Office says the president “broke the law” by withholding $250 million in military aid to Ukraine, aid Congress had approved, doesn’t help the president’s defenders, but does it rise to the level of a “high crime and misdemeanor”? Senators will decide. But they should recall that in 2014 the GAO ruled President scumbag/liar-nObama’s prisoner deal to exchange Guantanamo Bay detainees for deserter Bowe Bergdahl violated federal law. scumbag/liar-nObama was not impeached.

Speaker liar-Pelosi summed up the true motives of Democrats when she said that regardless of what the Senate does, impeachment will be a “permanent stain” on President Trump’s legacy.

In fact, the stain will be on Democrats. It is Democrats who have plotted ways to reverse the will of voters who elected Trump. It is Democrats who fear he will be overwhelmingly re-elected in November.  

~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/67999?mailing_id=4813&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4813&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

It’s clear that McConnell wants to avoid a drawn-out process, which is exactly what Democrats are aiming for. McConnell allotted 24 hours over two days for partisans on each side to present their case, starting with House Democrats. Then, following the Trump team’s rebuttal, senators will have up to 16 hours to submit questions in writing to both sides. Only after that process is complete will the Senate consider “the question of whether it shall be in order to consider and debate under the impeachment rules any motion to subpoena witnesses or documents.”

Furthermore, if the Senate votes to call witnesses, “no testimony shall be admissible in the Senate unless the parties have had an opportunity to depose such witnesses.” And any deposing of witnesses will be done behind closed doors.

Also on Monday, Trump’s legal team released its  blistering 110-page brief against the Democrats’ articles of impeachment, calling them “an affront to the Constitution and our democratic institutions.” Team Trump adds that the “two flimsy Articles of Impeachment,” which “allege no crime or violation of law whatsoever — much less ‘high Crimes and Misdemeanors, as required by the Constitution,” will “permanently weaken the Presidency and forever alter the balance of power among the branches of government in a manner that offends the constitutional design established by the Founders.”

Trump’s acquittal is almost a foregone conclusion given that it would take the votes of 67 senators to convict, though the Democrats’ real ploy is not conviction but political damage. To that end, their aim is to paint Republicans as unfair if they vote against calling witnesses — witnesses House Democrats didn’t bother to call. Minority Leader Chuck scumbag-Schumer and company do hold the advantage of needing only a simple majority vote to get their witnesses, whom vulnerable Republicans will feel compelled to vote in favor of calling. By getting witnesses called, scumbag-Schumer hopes to drag out the trial for as long as possible with the hope of damaging Republicans and aiding the Democrats’ bid to gain control of the Senate in the 2020 election. As we grow tired of noting, the Democrats’ whole despicable exercise is purely partisan political theater.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68035?mailing_id=4813&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4813&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

The race is on: Which will happen first — the end of the world due to manmade climate change or the destruction of capitalism?

While Democrats are on message for their base, their steadfast hatred of the Liberty that created the greatest economy in the world should put every American on high alert. It’s America’s economic engine that provides opportunities for individuals to be self-reliant, own private property, work, and use those private earnings for their growth, their family, and their futures. Yet the entire Democrat Party is running on policies that erode the very foundation of Liberty.

Among the leading Democrat candidates, Sanders finds his appeal among the 18- to 44-year-olds. But what if the contrasting message hailing the virtues and values of capitalism and consumerism was carried by Millennials from a nation destroyed by socialism, rather than by hated Republicans?

Meet Jorge Galicia, who traveled to the U.S. in October 2018, and Andrés Guilarte, who arrived in January 2019. Both 20-somethings are asylum seekers born and raised in Venezuela, and they now speak to American college students about their firsthand experience with socialism’s destructive power. The college-educated gents are convinced that today’s indoctrinated intellectuals either simply don’t know what’s happening in Venezuela or need to be confronted with what they will lose.

Addressing their peers on college campuses in the Fund for American Studies program, Guilarte stressed, “We are eyewitnesses of the falling of the country. … We used to have rights like you have here. You can go to the supermarket, buy everything. You can have money for the month. … We used to be just like everybody else.”

Galicia chimes in, “Who in the world wouldn’t want to have free healthcare, free college tuition, free whatever? The thing is those kinds of offers are not sustainable in the longterm.” Then came the warning: “I know it is tempting, but do not fall into that trap. You need to learn from other people’s experience. Keep your Liberty protected, because what you have — it’s a beautiful country.” By contrast, with socialism in Venezuela “you started to see the scarcity of medicine, food supplies,” and other staples.

What Galicia cited as unsustainable offers that come at the expense of Liberty are all the enticing bait of the 2020 Democrat Party. They will, according to the survivor of socialism, yield “a horrible future for America.”

The pair’s warning about socialism in Venezuela reminds us about the Soviet Union. Democrats fear “Russian influence” but embrace the failed economic policies that Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn warned of after surviving as a political prisoner in the Soviet Gulag for eight years. Seeing the blood of millions slaughtered by totalitarianism, Solzhenitsyn wrote of “an atmosphere of moral mediocrity, paralyzing man’s noblest impulses,” and a “tilt of freedom in the direction of evil … evidently born primarily out of a humanistic and benevolent concept according to which there is no evil inherent in human nature.”

Americans can listen and learn from Galicia and Guilarte — and the late Solzhenitsyn before them — or we’ll learn firsthand that socialism destroys the Liberty that makes us unique and great.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68022?mailing_id=4813&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4813&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body  

Impeachment is moving forward and going nowhere. There is new information but it doesn’t really tell those who’ve paid attention anything they didn’t know. Putative administration operative Lev Parnas said on “The Rachel Maddow Show” Wednesday that the president knew everything about efforts to lean on Ukraine. But this was clear in testimony throughout the impeachment hearings. His own ambassador to the European Union said it! The ambassador to Ukraine knew she was being schemed against, lost her job because of it, and spelled it out under oath.

It’s icing on a cake that’s already sagging. The president will be acquitted for a host of reasons, from partisanship to a prudential judgment that his actions don’t warrant removal with a presidential election 10 months away.

What did Speaker liar-Nancy Pelosi gain by playing her monthlong game of peekaboo, waiting to send the charges to the Senate? She withheld from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell papers he didn’t wish to receive and she saw that as leverage? It appears she was playing for time as investigators tried to develop more evidence. But again, for what? The president couldn’t look more guilty.

Meantime impeachment as a dramatic and distinct event lost all momentum. In the month after the House vote the story lost lift, then got lost in the Iran drama. This second stage feels not like the continuation of the first but a brand new second impeachment, which a lot of people will experience as overkill.

On the creepiness of the signing ceremony for the impeachment articles: Modern presidents have always held such ceremonies and signed big, happy legislation with many pens. Lyndon B. Johnson liked clutching bunches of them in his thick, meaty fist and handing them out personally. But the impeachment of a president is a grave and unhappy event. It’s not celebratory. Enacting triumphalism was shallow and looked like a tell. Why pens, why not a scalp?

Serious people understand the implications of things. Impeachment has now been normalized. It won’t be a once-in-a-generation act but an every-administration act. Democrats will regret it when Republicans are handing out the pens.

To the Democratic debate Tuesday night in Des Moines.

It contained my favorite panel-candidate moment of this cycle.

Bright young woman journalist: “Sen. Sanders, I do want to be clear here, you’re saying that you never told Sen. dinky/liar-Warren that a woman could not win the election?”

Sanders: “That is correct.”

BYWJ: “Sen. dinky/liar-Warren, what did you think when Sen. Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?”

dinky/liar-Warren: “I disagreed.”

It was like Judge Judy on drugs:

“commie-Ernie, did you hit Peggy on the head?”

“No, of course not.”

“Peggy, how did you feel when commie-Ernie hit you on the head?”

The moment went uncorrected. This is why people hate the press.

I found myself watching Elizabeth dinky/liar-Warren. She has proved she can take a punch and throw one (“Look at the men on this stage. Collectively, they have lost 10 elections.”) Of the candidates in their 70s she’s the highest-energy and most indefatigable. Actually she’d have high energy for a 50-year-old. All candidates now have to be actors but she’s a good one, telling her stories over and over, her voice growing husky at the moving parts.

Her challenge is not that she’s a woman, it is her policies, and maybe something else. I watched the debate with a man who’s sophisticated observer with no dog in the fight. Ms. Warren was doing her magical thinking about how universal Medicare won’t cost people a thing, it’s all savings with a few small tax increases on people we don’t like. I asked aloud, “Does she believe what she says or does she know it’s make-believe?”

He considered: “She did.” he said. That sounds right, that she started with belief but at this point sees the holes in what she’s saying. She’s caught, because she’s said it too often and now can only repeat it.

commie-Bernie Sanders has the same magical thinking about the cost of things, who’ll pay, and what effect that will have on the nation’s life. But he gets away with it because he’s a declared socialist. His supporters don’t want realism and his foes don’t expect it. Ms. dinky/liar-Warren says she’s a capitalist with a critique, so she faces a different burden.

There was also in the debate a kind of detachment from real life. A voter asked: “How will you prioritize accessing quality affordable child care?” The candidates were indignant that women can be held from the workforce by the high cost of child care. Pete Buttigieg vowed to get “federal dollars” involved, and spoke of stunted careers. Ms. Warren said, “My plan is universal child care for everyone.” She told of how she was almost forced “off track” by child care problems. Mr. commie-Sanders said, “Every psychologist in the world knows 0 through 4 are the most important years of human life, intellectually and emotionally.”

No one spoke with compassion for parents, for mothers who forgo the earnings and status (“I have a job”) and relationships (“I’m not lonely all day”) of having a job to stay home with kids under 4. No one said that actually a lot of parents think the most important thing is to stay home and raise the kids, that many struggle to do it, and we might want to help them. No one noted we don’t give any particular honor to those who stay home, even though our culture depends on them.

What seemed to guide all the answers was a technocratic assumption that it’s best for little children to be raised by well-compensated strangers as mom is absorbed into the workforce, where she’ll finally achieve full self-actualization.

It was all so … cold. And detached from real life as many live it.

Meanwhile in full-employment America, Donald Trump is taking out terrorists with drones and announcing trade deals with China and seemingly weathering every storm. In the China ceremony Tuesday, in the East Room, after a booming “Hail to the Chief,” with a palpable sense of triumph filling the room, with the golden frames of the great portraits shining, Mr. Trump rolled off the names of the CEOs in the audience. There were a lot! It was in a way a fabulous celebration of the riches produced by capitalism. But it also seemed an almost sinister declaration of the intimate ties between great U.S. corporations and the federal government. The CEO of Boeing is here, the chief of eBay. “How’s General Electric doing, Nels?” “Ryan Lance, ConocoPhillips, you’re doing fantastically well!” “I made a lot of bankers look very good, but you’re doing a great job.” “Ken Griffin, Citadel, what a guy he is.”

It was reminiscent of the scene in “The Godfather: Part II” where Fulgencio Batista hands around the solid gold telephone. “I’d like to thank this distinguished group of American industrialists for continuing to work with Cuba for the greatest period of prosperity in her entire history. Mr. William Shaw, representing the General Fruit Company … Messrs. Corngold and Dant of the United Telephone and Telegraph Company … and of course our friend Mr. Robert Allen of South American Sugar.”

We all think our breathless recitations of the latest revelations matter but I don’t know, it keeps feeling like 2016. Only this time with full employment.   ~The Patriot Post

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/67983?mailing_id=4811&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4811&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body 

I have often noted that media bias is about more than just how stories get spun. Media bias is also evident in what stories simply don’t get told — call them the sins of journalistic omission. And the left-wing media did it again Thursday night. 

All the networks wanted to talk about was impeachment, and that’s understandable given their obvious Trump hatred. But most journalists understand that this farce is not going anywhere. 

But something did happen on Capitol Hill that is going somewhere. As we told you, the USMCA trade deal to replace NAFTA passed the Senate by an overwhelming margin of 89 to 10.

Remember when Donald Trump campaigned against NAFTA? Predictably, the political establishment opposed him. The media mocked him. They said he would destroy our relationships with Mexico and Canada. 

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

Allow me to just reiterate that what everyone once said could not be done — the USMCA — passed the House last month by a vote of 385 to 41 and passed the Senate Thursday by a vote of 89 to 10. Donald Trump did it, and this new deal will have lasting benefits for the American people.

And the big three networks gave it absolutely zero coverage Thursday. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. 

For a fleeting moment, Politico appreciated the historic nature of the accomplishment and posted a story with this headline:  "Senate Passes USMCA In Major Win For Trump.“ 

After sufficiently flogging Politico's digital editor for his blasphemy — speaking well of Donald Trump — the title was quickly changed to this: "Senate Passes USMCA, But Much Work Remains." 

By the way, kudos to Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ)! The former Air Force fighter pilot certainly knows how to handle the liberal media. 

As she was walking into the Senate chamber Thursday for the start of the impeachment trial, a CNN reporter shouted a gotcha question at her. McSally responded, "You’re a liberal hack. I’m not talking to you.”

Perhaps McSally can give her fellow Senate Republicans a few tips on public relations!

Impeachment Collusion

Collusion has been a big buzzword throughout the impeachment drama, and we got a prime example of collusion on Thursday.

As I am sure you have heard by now, the “non-partisan” Government Accounting Office (GAO) released a statement claiming that the president violated the law when he withheld funds from Ukraine. Speaker liar-Nancy Pelosi and her media allies quickly pounced.

First of all, Trump didn’t withhold the money. He delayed it to ensure it wasn’t going to be wasted by corruption, which is the president’s responsibility. But the release of that GAO statement on the opening day of the Senate impeachment trial was no coincidence. It was more anti-Trump collusion by the Swamp.

But since we’re talking about GAO reports as evidence of impeachable crimes, the Government Accounting Office determined that Barack scumbag/liar-nObama broke the law seven times. By the left’s logic, scumbag/liar-nObama should have been impeached seven times! Where was Pelosi’s outrage then? 

Pence’s Profile in Courage

If you’ve ever read John F. Kennedy’s book, Profile In Courage, you may recall that one of the chapters is about Sen. Edmund Ross, a Republican senator from Kansas. Ross bucked his party and prevented the partisan impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868. (Northern Republicans at the time bitterly resented Johnson, a Democrat from Tennessee.)

Vice President Mike Pence, an astute observer of American history, has a great opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal about the courage of Sen. Ross. You can read it here. 

Pence raises Ross’s example to ask if any Senate Democrats will have the courage to stand up against this sham partisan impeachment, intended solely to reverse the last election. 

Great job, Mr. Vice President!

Speaking of the impeachment trial, the members of the president’s impeachment defense team were announced yesterday. They are:

• • Pat Cipollone, who currently serves as White House counsel

  • Jay Sekulow, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer

  • Ken Starr, the former Whitewater/scumbag/liar-Clinton independent counsel

  • Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor and renowned defense attorney

  • Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida

  • Robert Ray, who also led the Whitewater/scumbag/liar-Clinton investigations

  • Jane Raskin, a former federal prosecutor who represented the president during the Mueller investigation   

Following the votes of the so-called “faithless electors,” both states responded — Colorado voided the elector’s vote and Washington fined the electors. The electors responded by suing their respective states; the Colorado elector won, but the Washington state supreme court ruled against the electors and upheld the fine.

The question that SCOTUS will answer is whether state requirements mandating that electors cast their vote with a state’s popular vote is constitutional. The ramifications of the Court’s ruling could derail the Left’s effort to  circumvent the Electoral College via the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), the effort by several blue states to throw their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote regardless of the state’s popular vote. Ironically, 13 of the 16 states that have thus far joined the NPVIC movement have laws requiring EC electors to vote for their respective state’s popular-vote winner.

SCOTUS will likely hear the cases in April with a ruling expected in June, so this should be decided well before the 2020 election.  

~The Patriot Post

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