Posts on Thursday, December 19, 2019
United Nations - U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft made a rare compassionate public gesture toward her Iranian counterpart in the U.N. Security Council chamber on Thursday. (Snip) But after a contentious U.N. Security Council meeting on compliance with the 2015 accord between world powers and Iran, Craft walked over to talk to Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi.
Ravanchi had spoken about a two-year old girl during his statement to the 15-member council. He said the girl had died in June from a rare disease and blamed the death on U.S. sanctions. An official from the U.S. mission to the United Nations said Craft was expressing her condolences
By 2017 it was obvious that the 20th century institutions were reeling under the impact of the information revolution. The old hierarchies and the authority they had wielded from prestige, authority and celebrity were, if not in a state of collapse, at least badly degraded. The leak of secrets showed how incompetent and mendacious the elites were and the MeToo and Jeffrey Epstein affairs demonstrated how venal.
The last redoubt of establishment legitimacy rested on the claim that it was democratic, protected individual rights against the power of the police; kept the secrets of the ordinary people from any would-be STASI and that the Will of the People
Donald Trump demanded an 'immediate trial' in the Senate Thursday evening after a day of drama and confusion over the fate of his impeachment.Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that he and Sen. Charles Schumer haven't been able over the terms of a Senate impeachment trial, after the two party's traded angry accusations about how the chamber will proceed.McConnell, who earlier Thursday threatened to cancel an impeachment trial for President Donald Trump, described the state of play on the Senate floor after meeting with Schumer, the minority leader.
'We remain at an impasse on these logistics,'
Washington, D.C.—It’s been an ugly fall in Washington. Wet, dreary and deeply stupid. In the season we’re supposed to be shopping for the perfect gift for our loved ones, instead most of us are busily shopping for a reason to give America what they say she wants more than her two front teeth: impeachment.But despite Wednesday’s long-expected vote and the media cheer group accompanying it, this is going terribly for the Democrats.There’s a willful suspension of belief at work in the capital city. Self-proclaimed defenders of the Constitution make excuses for sloppy spying on a major candidate for president. Men who compare themselves to those at Valley Forge shift seamlessly
LOS ANGELES, California — Hundreds of charter school advocates arrived outside the Democrat debate at Loyola Marymount University on Thursday evening, swamping the small demonstrations of support for the various candidates. The group, largely composed of black and Hispanic parents and students, marched to the debate venue with a marching band and cheerleaders, and signs such as: “Stop Prepping Black Kids for Prison!”. (Photos) The small groups of supporters for each candidate — roughly a dozen each for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA); former Vice President Joe Biden; businessman Andrew Yang; and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg — were drowned out by the boisterous march.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded to questions and concerns about the construct of a heavily partisan impeachment process and her refusal to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate.
Highlighting the tenuous nature of the position now held by her party, a barely coherent Speaker Pelosi attempts to explain. As reporters ask questions, Pelosi becomes frustrated and tells the compliant media no more questions on impeachment will be entertained.
A day after impeaching the President, the Speaker of the House refuses to answer questions.
Adam Schiff went on with Rachel Maddow last night to push their Trump-Ukraine conspiracy — something that was completely debunked everywhere after three weeks of testimony except on CNN, MSNBC and the fake news media.During their conversation Schiff announced he was going after Vice President Mike Pence next and may have “acquired evidence” that the Vice President is hiding information in the House Ukrainian investigation. Adam Schiff: Well, we have acquired a piece of evidence, classified by Jennifer Williams, something she alluded to in her open testimony.
I’ll confess: Last night, when I was first told that Speaker Nancy Pelosi was toying with the idea of not delivering the two articles of impeachment voted by the House against President Trump, I assumed it was a joke.
For these last weeks, the Democrat-dominated chamber has been in a mad rush to impeach the president. Democrats even tacked on article two — “obstruction of Congress” — because, they told us, time could not be wasted engaging in the usual negotiation and litigation over legislative demands for executive branch information. Trump is a clear and present threat to “continue” undermining our elections, we were admonished. That’s why he
Rep. Jeff Van Drew, one of just three Democrats to vote against President Donald Trump’s impeachment in the House of Representatives, will become a Republican, Trump announced Thursday. Van Drew’s flip was revealed at the White House less than one day after the House passed two articles of impeachment against Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, delivered the “very big announcement” that “Jeff will be joining the Republican Party.” “This is just a better fit for me,” Van Drew said, adding that Trump has his “undying support.” Trump responded
Democrats want to put pressure on individual Republican senators over the issue of calling witnesses in a Senate impeachment trial, and they are looking to create friction between President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi struggled Thursday to explain what, exactly, her plan is in delaying sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate. She refused to answer questions from reporters who wanted more clarity. Pelosi said only that she is waiting for the Senate to agree on procedures for a trial, and only then will she send the articles over. She said she
The evangelical magazine founded by the Rev. Billy Graham called President Trump's phone call to the Ukrainian president "profoundly immoral" and called for him to be removed from office. Claiming they prefer "to stay above the fray and allow Christians with different political convictions to make their arguments in the public square," editor-in-chief Mark Galli asserted in a Thursday editorial that the moral turpitude of Trump requires the publication to support his removal. Appealing to Graham's legacy of expressing political opinions in "conviction and love," Christianity Today wrote that while they "love and pray for our president," the case against
Trump Signs ‘Groundbreaking’ Legislation
Supporting Historically Black Colleges
And Universities replies
Supporting Historically Black Colleges
And Universities replies
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he signed “groundbreaking” legislation supporting historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).The legislation will permanently fund HBCUs and simplify federal financial aid applications for millions of families, the president said in a statement Thursday. “President Obama and the Obama Administration were unable to get this done. I got it done,” Trump said, arguing that HBCUs have never had a champion in the White House before his presidency.
Don’t Bother, They’re Here
replies
In a comic postscript to yesterday’s farce, Nancy Pelosi is threatening to withhold delivery of the House Democrats’ two impeachment articles to the Senate. Politico’s Kyle Cheney et al. have the story here. (Snip)
By withholding the articles of impeachment from the Senate, Pelosi hopes to extract the terms of a trial procedure that she deems favorable to the Democrats. Politico quotes Pelosi speaking at a news conference moments after passage of the impeachment articles: “So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us.” She stated that it had been her intention to transmit the articles, “but we’ll see what happens over there.”
The Danes have put extra resources into controlling the country's links to Sweden because of bombs going off in Denmark due to people coming from Sweden. The people from Sweden are Islamist criminals. The Swedish government reacted to the Danish move by calling the Danes Nazis. Swedish society has changed for the worse, and the Swedish people are aware of what they have lost.
All this is known, but what is interesting is that a former head of the Swedish truck-maker Scania, a Mr. Leif Ostling, has said Sweden is headed for civil war because of the problem of its violent migrants who have no inclination to integrate
RUSH: I checked the email in the break. It says, “Rush, you haven’t commented on Trump’s insulting of John Dingell.” Well, okay. So Trump is in Michigan. (Snip) This is classic of how Trump is a real guy. Okay. So he goes out of his way to give John Dingell an official farewell funeral. John Dingell’s wife, Debbie, calls him and thanks him profusely. He did something nice, he swept away all partisanship. He could have denied this, just like he could have denied the McCain family the funeral they wanted. But he didn’t. He gave ’em the full state funeral.
According to President Trump, Republicans are “united like never before.” He took to Twitter Thursday to express this sentiment. This comes after all House Republicans voted against impeaching the president, while two Democrats crossed party lines and also voted “no” on impeachment. (Tweet) In a follow up tweet, the president put the “Do Nothing Dems” on blast for not wanting to deliver the articles of impeachment to the Senate. He pointed out that it’s now the Senate’s call as “the greatest Witch Hunt in American history” continues. This come as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is withholding the articles of impeachment from the Senate over concerns of an unfair trial.
The US stock markets shrugged off Nancy Pelosi’s slapdash impeachment on Thursday morning. Stocks roared to record highs following the highly partisan Democrat Party vote on Wednesday. The markets soared following the latest attempt by Democrat leaders to remove the US President from office. Obviously, investors are not concerned with this latest liberal attack on President Trump.
‘Keep Those Articles Here’: Top Dem
Demands Quid Pro Quo Before
Sending Impeachment To Senate replies
Demands Quid Pro Quo Before
Sending Impeachment To Senate replies
Democratic House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn told CNN, if it were up to him, he would withhold articles of impeachment from the Senate indefinitely. Clyburn said he would only send the articles of impeachment to the Senate for if Democrat’s were promised a “fair” trial.
By “fair trial,” Clyburn means allowing new witnesses and deliberation to take place in the Senate. But, deliberations and witness testimony is a job meant for the House of Representatives. Clearly, Rep. Adam Schiff and House Democrats bungled their hearings and concluded with extremely weak articles of impeachment(Snip) Now, they want more witnesses called because they didn’t do their job well their first time.
Immediately after impeaching President Donald Trump for allegedly obstructing the House and abusing his power as president, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi obstructed the Senate’s constitutional obligation to hold an impeachment trial and abused her power by trying to steal power that belongs solely to the Senate under the Constitution. Pelosi told reporters on Thursday that she is in no rush to formally transmit to the Senate the articles of impeachment her party in the House had just approved. Here are six reasons Pelosi’s impeachment obstruction stunt undermines the entire basis of the Democrats’ effort to eject Trump from office.
1) After impeaching Trump for supposed obstruction of House, Pelosi moves to
Five current and former public officials and political candidates were charged Thursday with taking thousands of dollars in bribes disguised as campaign contributions, in return for hiring an unnamed tax attorney for lucrative legal work. Envelopes and paper bags filled with cash and even a coffee cup stuffed with cash—were delivered to the defendants by the unidentified cooperating witness at restaurants, parking lots, a political fundraiser, and a campaign headquarters, according to Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal—as part of an undercover sting that began in early 2018. Those targeted were both Democrats and Republicans, and included the Jersey City school board president
An Iowa man who was found guilty of lighting a local church’s LGBTQ flag on fire was sentenced to more than 16 years in prison Wednesday. Adolfo Martinez, 30, was found guilty last month of a hate crime, third-degree harassment and reckless use of fire after admitting to police in June that he stole a pride banner hanging outside the Ames United Church of Christ and set it on fire using lighter fluid about two blocks away outside the Dangerous Curves Gentleman’s Club, The Des Moines Register reported.
Story County Attorney Jessica Reynolds said in June that the hate crime charge was added
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi undermined her own assertion that impeachment was a “somber” affair by claiming that people – regardless of political affiliation – have a “spring in their step” following Wednesday’s vote. This, of course, is predicated on the thoroughly false idea that impeachment was a bipartisan effort and was supported by people on both sides of the aisle. Yesterday’s vote was strictly along party lines, with no Republicans siding with Democrats, and President Donald Trump is facing an outpouring of both financial and emotional support as the result of impeachment. During her weekly press conference on Thursday,
Beaverton, OR—One woman was stabbed and killed at a Well Fargo in Beaverton and the suspect stabbed three other people before he was finally caught in Tigard, according to police. The incidents occurred at the Wells Fargo located in the Murray Hill Shopping Center at 14725 SW Teal Boulevard. Police responded to a call of a bank robbery and said the suspect stabbed two women at the bank; one victim was pronounced dead and the other sustained critical injuries.(Snip) The suspect, identified as 20-year-old Salvador Martinez-Romero, was later arrested around 11:45 a.m. after running from officers in a residential area
In the history of politics, there is no precedent for the media's entire focus to be on undoing the last presidential election.
True, the left has wanted to impeach every Republican president, but at least they used to wait a decent interval between the inauguration and concocting some preposterous "impeachable offense."
With Trump, it's never been about anything he's done. It's him they can't stand. The technical grounds for their impeachment is: REMOVE THIS MONSTER FROM MY SIGHT! (Snip)On cable news, they're still talking about Trump's "Russia, if you're listening" joke.
U.S. media: Proud not to get a joke.
Well, the final vote in the House of Representatives was not a shocker. House Democrats' lust to impeach President Trump on some shoddy quid pro quo allegation over military aid to Ukraine passed after nearly 12 hours of debate. (Smnip)Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), a 2020 Democratic candidate, voted present, while Reps. Jeff Van Drew (D-NJ) and Collin Peterson (D-MN) voted with Republicans against this witch-hunt.
Today was truly a clown show, with scores of Democrats trying to make the case that Trump is an existential threat(Snip) The evidence against Trump is the very definition of weak sauce. It’s so thin and so nakedly partisan that swing-state voters are sour
The 10-year surge in illegal and legal immigration has exploded the populations of mostly Democratic states enough that the 2020 census is likely to result in the redistribution of 24 House seats in states President Trump won, according to a new population analysis released Thursday morning.
The prediction from the Center for Immigration Studies said that 26 seats overall will shift due to immigration increases since the last census was taken. And it said that a minimum of 19 of those seats will be added to Democratic states.
Washington - U.S. special operations forces who deployed to a military site in Uzbekistan shortly after the 9/11 attacks found pond water that glowed green, black goo oozing from the ground and signs warning “radiation hazard.”
Karshi-Khanabad, known as K2, was an old Soviet base leased by the United States from the Uzbek government just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, (Snip)
The base became a critical hub in the early days of the war to provide airdrops, medical evacuation and airstrike support to U.S. ground forces in Afghanistan.
But K2 was contaminated with chemical weapons remnants, radioactive processed uranium and other hazards, according to documents obtained by McClatchy.
TAMPA — The robber who shot a Brink’s guard and a man who tried to help at a Brandon credit union this month got away with about $120,000 in cash and the driver’s gun, records show.
The robber fled with a bag containing the cash after shooting the guard and a good Samaritan during a struggle outside a GTE Financial branch on Dec. 6, according to a search warrant affidavit released Wednesday.
The robber, who so far has managed to elude a manhunt, also took the Brink’s driver’s gun, the affidavit states. The same person is also wanted in five bank robberies in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties,
A march to ruin, a gang of Mafiosi has been unleashed on our great nation from the bowels of Capitol Hill. This is a modern-day NKVD, a Moscow show trial of revolutionary zealots that would made Felix Dzerzhinsky proud. This sham of a witch hunt is tailor-made for Hollywood, Adam Schiff playing Beria, CNN and the N.Y. Times playing
A concert at Norton Middle School was canceled Wednesday night after bullets were found stored in a student’s locker, according to police.
A teacher overheard students discussing ammunition being brought to school earlier Wednesday, police said in a release. One student reportedly said they brought five bullets to the school multiple days ago to trade with another student for electronics.
Staff searched the belongings of the students involved but found no ammo, police said.
After dismissal, staff searched lockers and found three rounds of .243 rifle ammunition. After the bullets were found, police and K9 units searched the school and buses. No other ammunition or weapons were found
On her way to vote “yes” on two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, far-left Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) posted a video of herself on social media celebrating her affirmative vote and the impending impeachment.“Hi, everyone! I’m on my way to the United States House floor to impeach President Trump,” Tlaib says in the video, smiling ear-to-ear, “on behalf of my incredible district, #13DistrictStrong.”
WATCH: (Tweet/Video) Trump reacted to the post on Thursday morning. “This is what the Dems are dealing with,” the president captioned the video of Tlaib’s celebration. “Does anyone think this is good for the USA!”
It does not seem accidental the hastily defined two articles of impeachment mirror the arguments needed in two lower court cases brought by the House Judiciary Committee. It is likely both articles of impeachment, “Abuse of Power” and “Obstruction“, are designed to support pending HJC court cases seeking: (1) former White House Counsel Don McGahn testimony; and (2) grand jury evidence from the Mueller investigation.
In 2005, I was astounded to hear from a patient who was a candidate for a heart transplant, and who had been hospitalized for a year in my department at the Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, that he had received an offer from his insurance company to fly to China and undergo the surgical procedure there, on a specified date within two weeks. A necessary precondition for a heart transplant is the donor’s demise on the day of the surgery, which obviously is not an event whose date is known weeks in advance. My astonishment only increased when the patient did in fact make the trip to China and had
Oh, great, another super lefty is getting the fawning documentary treatment from Hulu in the near future. It was reported on Wednesday that everyone’s favorite diminutive doomsday cult leader Greta Thunberg will be immortalized via documentary by the streaming platform. Ugh, no more, please! Ahem, we mean, Yay! Greta Thunberg’s getting a movie everybody! She’s so awesome (because saying otherwise means we’re guilty of child abuse.) The Hollywood outlet Deadline reported that the sixteen-year-old Swedish climate change activist who has inspired the collective panic attacks of millions worldwide is getting yet another media opportunity to spread her climate change hysteria.
Did anyone really think the Democrats were serious when they put on those long faces for the nightly news and cast their impeachment votes?
Hell no, Nancy Pelosi may have put on a funereal face and ordered her minions to pretend to be solemn for the cameras, but for leftists of all stripes, impeaching President Trump was like Eric Swalwell's famous fart all over again, a whole lot of s***s and giggles. The left cheered. They took selfies. They went wild.
Here's what Twitter was loaded with:
A California mechanic who worked for American Airlines for more than 30 years has pleaded guilty to tampering with an aircraft in a deal to avoid a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, according to reports. Abdul-Majeed Marouf Ahmed Alani, 60, admitted using a piece of foam to sabotage the plane’s air module system — which reports aircraft speed, pitch, and other flight data to pilots — on a July 17 flight from Miami to the Bahamas with 150 passengers aboard the aircraft. “I do admit the guilt,” he said through an Arabic interpreter in Miami federal court Wednesday, according to the Miami Herald.
House Democrats have begun pressing Speaker Nancy Pelosi to force the Senate to tailor Donald Trump's upcoming constitutional trial to their wishes—by refusing to send the articles of impeachment they passed Wednesday night until Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agrees to their terms. McConnell isn't amused. He plans to call her bluff in a mid-morning floor speech, saying she's afraid to hand him the baton because she knows the articles are weak.
'Pelosi suggested that House Democrats may be too afraid to even transmit their shoddy work product to the Senate,' he will say, mocking her suggesting in a post-vote press conference that she'll hold the two articles
Take heart all of those who believe in America, this day of the Democrat vote to impeach the president is headed for that gloomy place called, “Nowhere”.
Democrats—some “prayerfully”—will mar the peace of this Goodwill Season to vote for Impeachment today “amid heavy capitol security”—but it’s not a single one of them who risks the threat of physical harm.President Donald Trump calls their impeachment drive ”an open war on
Putin defends Trump after impeachment:
‘Democratic Party is trying to achieve
results by other means’ replies
‘Democratic Party is trying to achieve
results by other means’ replies
Russian President Vladimir Putin defended President Trump after the House voted to impeach him over his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian leaders.On Wednesday night, the House voted on two articles of impeachment. Both passed with support from only Democratic members in the majority and one independent. Republicans were joined by soon-to-be-former Democratic New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew and Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson on both articles and Maine Rep. Jared Golden on the obstruction of justice article.Putin, 67, called out the partisan divide
Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) took to the House floor on Wednesday to explain to his three-year-old and one-year-old kids why he’s voting to impeach President Donald Trump.The congressman said he doesn’t “feel good” about impeaching the president, but he feels he has to because he “broke our laws … threatened our security,” and “abused the highest, most sacred office in our land.” (Video) “Let the record show that today justice won, that we did our job, that we kept our word, that we stood our sacred ground. Let the record show that we did not let you down” he said.Kennedy ends his speech, saying,
Washington - India and the US have agreed to further deepen their strategic ties in key areas like defence, counter-terrorism and trade, and to work with like-minded countries to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific, amidst China flexing its military muscles in the region.
The decisions were taken at the second India-US 2+2 dialogue between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at the State Department on Wednesday (Snip) Defence Minister Singh said the strong Indo-US defence ties were an integral component of the strategic bilateral partnership.
A Denver talk radio show has been canceled after one of its cohosts said on air that he hoped "a nice school shooting" would interrupt news coverage of "the never-ending impeachment of Donald Trump."
Chuck Bonniwell, cohost of the Chuck & Julie show on 710 KNUS, made the comments roughly 22 minutes into the show Tuesday afternoon -- drawing backlash from the families of some Colorado shooting victims.
“All right, Chuck Bonniwell, Julie Hayden here, a little after 1:30, talking about the never-ending impeachment of Donald Trump,” Bonniwell said, according to the Colorado Times Recorder. “You know, you wish for a nice school shooting."
“I’ll respect you in the morning” is what I half expect to hear. Of course, the Democrats now invoking the Founding Fathers’ memory in their effort to impeach President Trump won’t respect our colonial progenitors at the next dawn anymore than they did at the last one.
Nonetheless, the Left has interrupted its regularly scheduled programming of trying to tear down the Founders’ reputations and life’s work—the Electoral College, the First and Second Amendments, and the Constitution generally— to claim that those Enlightenment men are
Just when you thought the House Democrats’ impeachment frenzy couldn’t get any more ridiculous, Speaker Pelosi is threatening to derail the constitutionally required Senate trial that would result in President Trump’s acquittal. In a news conference following the impeachment vote, she noted that the rules passed by the House Rules Committee enabled her to withhold naming House impeachment managers (snip) Pelosi’s threat implicitly defines the impeachment vote as political, not constitutionally substantive. All the blather about the solemn constitutional responsibility is exposed as BS: BullShiff
There are few more pitiful sights than the far-Left scuttling to keep the sacred flame of the Corbynista cult burning, in the debris of their historic defeat. Except, perhaps, the mutant rebirth of Remainers as “the moderates”, rising like a molting, two-headed phoenix from the ashes.
The attempt by Britain’s retrograde political forces to reinvent themselves as forward-looking is quite something to behold. Teflon Tony has become Bold 2in1 Blair – whitewashing the Remainer rout by warning Labour itself not to “whitewash” the election result. This is, of course, centrist politician code for the urgent need to stage a cover up.
Why would House Democrats put forward articles of impeachment that are laughably weak and have no chance of removing President Donald Trump from office? Most of the speculation has been that the impeachment will nevertheless hurt Trump’s reelection chances.
There’s another possibility that’s even more insidious.
Democratic Party leaders can’t possibly be unaware of the fact that their impeachment case has no merit. Despite the endless talk of bribery, extortion, campaign finance violations and other supposed crimes Trump has committed, not one of the articles of impeachment accuses Trump of breaking any of those laws, or any federal law for that matter.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a top ally of President Trump, announced Thursday morning that he will retire from Congress at the end of his term.Meadows, a four-term lawmaker who represents part of western North Carolina, said in a statement that he “struggled” with leaving what he has long considered a “temporary job.”“For everything there is a season. After prayerful consideration and discussion with family, today I’m announcing that my time serving Western North Carolina in Congress will come to a close at the end of this term,”
It was an absolutely perfect crystallization of the phoniness of the Democrats’ impeachment rhetoric when Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to silence the spontaneous applause that started to break out as she announced the results of the vote on the first article of impeachment of President Trump. (snip)
The animal spirits started to erupt when she announced the results of the vote on the first article of impeachment last night. A video of the priceless moment shows the context of this immortal combination of facial expression, Nona’s evil eye, and hand gesture
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appears to be considering an idea Democrats have floated for several days of holding back the articles of impeachment to exercise leverage over the Senate and the president.
She declined formally to transmit the articles to the Senate on Wednesday evening after the House voted to impeach President Donald Trump.
Unfortunately for them, the Senate can act, regardless — and would vote to acquit.
That’s because the Constitution is absolutely clear about the Senate’s authority. Article I, Section 3 says: “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”
Before the first FISA application was signed and submitted mired by the pompous, self-serving serial liar James Comey, who signed three of them, Carter Page wrote Comey a letter telling him he was a government asset working with the CIA and the FBI. If that letter had been presented to the FISA court by Comey, as it should have been, the FISA court never would have approved the Obama administration surveillance of Carter Page and Team Trump.
Hundreds of Obama administration and campaign alumni are turning their backs on Joe Biden to support Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) in the Democratic presidential primary.
Former Barack Obama aides Sara El-Amine and Jon Carson collected more than 200 signatures from former Obama staffers endorsing Warren, CNN reports. El-Amine and Carson both worked on Obama's 2008 campaign, but the group they assembled to publicly back Warren includes a range of officials from the Obama era.
The list of endorsers shared with CNN includes Robert Ford, ex-US ambassador to Syria, and Sean Carroll, a former senior official at USAID. It also features Obama alumni
After rushed and intense proceedings into the Ukraine affair, the House has voted to impeach President Trump. The vote was 230 to 197 for the first article of impeachment charging the president with abuse of power and 229 to 198 for the second article charging him with obstruction of Congress.
For Republicans, the important numbers were zero and zero. Not a single Republican lawmaker voted for either article of impeachment.
For the GOP, it was important to show that impeachment is an entirely partisan, Democrats-only affair, and that is precisely what happened.
In a conversation a few hours before the vote, House Republican Whip Steve Scalise
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is continuing to dip in the polls, falling to a distant third behind Joe Biden (D) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), according to the Emerson College/WHDH National Poll released this week.
The poll, taken December 15-17, 2019, among 525 Democrat primary voters, showed Warren nosediving to a distant third with just 12 percent support nationally. That reflects an eight-point drop from November’s results.
The poll showed Biden leading the pack with 32 percent support, followed by Sanders with 25 percent. That reflects a five-point increase for Biden and two-point drop for Sanders, according to the poll.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) came in fourth with eight percent support,
Pete Ain’t It
replies
A funny debate has been roiling the online left: Do young liberals hate Pete Buttigieg too little, or too much?
In the past few months, Buttigieg, the presidential candidate and young mayor of tiny South Bend, Ind., has enjoyed a steady, unlikely rise in early state polls. But with success has come a backlash, and then a backlash to the backlash.
On paper, Buttigieg ticks a lot of presidential-candidate boxes; you can’t write about Mayor Pete without mentioning he’s a Rhodes scholar, he’s a veteran and he has an articulate, cool-tempered decency reminiscent of Barack Obama. And yet the mayor has drawn the ire of the plugged-in progressive left.
Meanwhile in the U.S. Senate:
'Cocaine Mitch' Spent Impeachment
Day Cranking Out Trump Judges. replies
'Cocaine Mitch' Spent Impeachment
Day Cranking Out Trump Judges. replies
The pace was breathtaking. As congressional representatives clamored for face time in what looked like a suit-and-tie version of televised speed dating during the impeachment debate, things were moving even more rapidly in the U.S. Senate. Look at this — Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell moved forward another batch of President Trump's judicial appointments.
Invoked, 90-1: Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #357 Stephanie Dawkins Davis to be U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan
— Senate Cloakroom (@SenateCloakroom) December 19, 2019
Invoked, 91-2: Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #356 Gary Richard Brown
Impeachment or Attainder?
replies
Mindfulness is the key to freedom. Little is entirely new; becoming aware of patterns enables one to discern between the repetitive and the true opportunity of the present moment.
Impeachment is one such instance of this general truth. The great responsibility that is required to exercise this great power is the key. Every presidential impeachment has failed; only in the case of Nixon, which didn’t quite make it to impeachment, was there success in forcing a president out of office.
In England, too, from whence we took the legal concept of impeachment, the great majority of impeachments failed. In this column,
Impeachment without a crime
replies
The House has voted to impeach President Trump. The historical significance of this event lies mainly in the fact that, until now, no president has been impeached without some allegation in an article of impeachment that he committed a crime. This was also the first impeachment proceeding that had no support in the House from a single member of the president’s party.
Legal scholars disagree as to whether impeachment requires a crime. However, the Constitution provides that impeachment of a president is to be for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” I find it hard to read this language as permitting impeachment
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made a startling admission Tuesday when he said President Trump is about to be impeached “without the facts coming out.”
The Senate Minority Leader accidentally told the truth while crybabying in the hopes of violating 200 years of impeachment precedent during Trump’s upcoming senate trial.
Schumer confessed:
So, to engage a trial without the facts coming out is to engage in a cover-up. To conduct a trial without the facts is saying: we’re afraid, we have something to hide. To conduct a trial without relevant witnesses who haven’t been heard from, to just rehash the evidence presented in the House just doesn’t make any sense.
The Democratic primary has had much hue and cry over Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders of late. Yet the front-runner continues to be former Vice President Joe Biden, and there is little sign as yet that he is going to lose his lead, despite his fumbling campaign.
The Democrats are sleepwalking into a disaster.
Biden has so far run a lackluster at best campaign. He is doing relatively few events, and often puts his foot (or his wife's fingers) in his mouth at the ones he does.
Attorney Michael Avenatti criticized the California state bar on Wednesday, for holding a hearing to determine if he should have his law license suspended, for stealing from one of his clients.
The hearing will seek to discover if Avenatti misappropriated $840,000 in settlement money owed to his client Gregory Barela. Barela made continued inquiries about the funds to Avenatti, and the attorney allegedly kept the cash for himself. He still owes Barela $710,000 but denies any wrongdoing.
Avenatti made several comments to reporters waiting outside the Los Angeles courtroom and characterized the proceedings as a political hit job and a "complete joke."
"The entire thing is going to be shown
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the impeachment of President Trump is proof that a left-wing "mob" has taken over the House of Representatives.
Graham told "Hannity" that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., claimed earlier this year that impeachment should be thoughtful and "bipartisan."
"What happened between March and now?" he asked. "What happened [is] the mob took over the House. The mob is running the Democratic Party. If she did not move to impeach this president, she would not be Speaker."
Late Thursday night, President Donald Trump reacted to the House impeachment vote with a meme on social media.“In reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you,” the text of the meme, which features a photo of the president, declares. “I’m just in the way.” (Tweet) Trump’s post hits at the heart of the partisan vote. Without even a clear crime convincingly laid out in the articles of impeachment, without a single Republican voting in favor of either article, and with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) potentiality withholding the articles from the U.S. Senate,
Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to commit Wednesday to delivering articles of impeachment to the Senate, citing concerns about an unfair trial on removing President Donald Trump from office. Senior Democratic aides said the House was “very unlikely” to take the steps necessary to send the articles to the Senate until at least early January, a delay of at least two weeks and perhaps longer.“So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us,” Pelosi told reporters at a news conference just moments after the House charged Trump with abuse of power and obstructing congressional investigations.
Former President Barack Obama’s once-longtime doctor said the medical records Joe Biden’s campaign disclosed are concerning and incomplete.“He’s not a healthy guy,” Dr. David Scheiner, who was Obama's personal physician for the 22 years before he became president, concluded after reading the records. “He’s not in bad shape for his age, but I wouldn't say he’s in outstanding health. Could I guarantee he won't have issues for the next four years? He has a lot of issues that are just sort of sitting there.”A three-page letter from Biden’s physician concluded the former vice president is a “healthy, vigorous, 77-year-old” that is fit to be president.
House Democrats clapped and celebrated after they passed two articles of impeachment against President Trump, despite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly telling them not to, as she has sought to portray the impeachment as a solemn and sad event. After the first article on abuse of power passed, Democrats broke out in applause for several seconds before Pelosi shot them a stern look. At least one Democrat shouted “Yay!” according to a Politico reporter: (Tweet) After the second article on obstruction of Congress passed, someone again shouted what sounded like, “Yay!” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) tweeted out a video that showed Pelosi
After about eight hours of insufferable debate on December 18th, with barbs hurled back and forth turning quickly into a broken record, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against President Trump. (Snip) But the black color Speaker Pelosi and her cohorts wore for Wednesday’s proceedings was appropriate for an entirely different reason--to mourn the damage the House Democrats themselves have inflicted on the Constitution by their irresponsible votes. They have earned a black mark for taking a wrecking ball to the Constitution’s impeachment provisions.