Tag Archives: impeachment

Ditch the Team Politics

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Over the last few months the impeachment circus in Washington has cast a bright light on the polarization of our American politics. All events seem to be evaluated on the “team” aspects of what took place. Will it be good for the Democrats? Will this help or hurt the Republicans? What will be the next move for each team? The talking heads drone on and on about who is winning this news cycle and what it means for the polls. To some extent this is understandable. People are interested in upcoming elections, political wonks want to know the latest, and, as always, ratings are king for the media. I would submit, however, that today’s environment has crossed over from healthy interest to destructive obsession. Healthy debate will not be possible until the focus returns to the issues at hand.

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, although part of the President’s defense team, has given all of us (Republicans and Democrats) an excellent example of how to shred the team jersey in favor of higher principles. For a long time he has advocated the “shoe on the other foot test.” The basic idea is to flip the Republican/Democrat participants in any event 180 degrees and see if your opinion remains unchanged. If your opinion changes then your allegiance is to your “team” and not to the underlying question or principle. For example, if the principals in the impeachment drama were changed from Trump/Biden to Obama/Romney would you feel the same about the same evidence? Would the principle of executive privilege be any more or less important? If Donald Trump Jr. were substituted for Hunter Biden would your definition of corruption change? At each step of the process would you be interpreting the law and the Constitution the same way?

Mr. Dershowitz not only advocates for the test, he lives it. He voted for Barack Obama twice and Hillary Clinton in 2016 yet in this case he represents the very President he voted against. His loyalty is not to a team jersey but to the law. Importantly, he argues in this case not for this President but for the Presidency. He realizes that what can be used against a Republican to win a “team event” today can be used against a Democrat in the future once the precedent is set. He eloquently laid out the case that a victory in a “team event” that weakens the country or the Constitution is not a victory at all.

How can we follow Mr. Dershowitz’ example? We can follow by making our allegiance one tied to the law, a policy, or an underlying principle we wish to support. If that aligns with political objectives so be it. If not, be courageous enough to say so. Above all, we should be consistent with our praise or disdain for individuals or parties. If we believe “x” for a Democrat we should also believe “x” for a Republican. Ditch the jerseys. Follow your principles. Then vote your conscience. It’s the only way we are going to be able to talk to each other.

Who Voted to Send Articles of Impeachment to the Senate?

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On December 18th the House of Representatives voted 230 to 197 to impeach President Trump. I got to wondering exactly who was it that voted to send those two incredibly weak and constitutionally dangerous articles of impeachment to the Senate.

I decided to check where some of those 230 votes came from. The numbers are approximate because maps and information are limited but they should be close. My method was to check just a handful of known Democrat strongholds to see how much effect they had. Out of the hat I pulled Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, New York City, and Chicago.

I found that roughly 16 of those votes came from Los Angeles County where nearly 60,000 homeless live in the streets and pass their human waste directly into the environment. In 2018 over 1000 of those homeless died, double the number from 2012. In 2018 their budget was 63.4 million in the red.

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I found another 8 or 9 votes that came from San Francisco and the Marin County area where residents have to dodge human waste and needles in the streets on top of dealing with nearly 10,000 homeless in the streets. Shoplifting and theft have been downgraded to misdemeanors as long as the total stolen is less than $950. Can you guess how that is working out? There is an interactive “poop map” for residents to check before they go out in their new shoes. You can zoom in block by block to find the latest “deposits.” (The picture below is not a link to the active map). Digressing just a bit, an interesting thing happened when I tried to put a link to the map in this article. It seems that the authors are not happy that so many are linking to it to illustrate how bad things are there. Click on it yourself and see what happens for an amusing little show: http://mochimachine.org/wasteland/

Another half dozen or so votes came from Seattle where over 11,000 homeless reside, where individual workers and entire businesses are fleeing, and even the police are leaving to find places to work where the police are at least appreciated and not called “murderers” by city council members.

I found similar numbers of representation in Chicago, where gunfire and death are daily occurrences and bankruptcy is not out of the question. And of course the largest number came from New York City where a once great city slides further down the rabbit hole every day. Among an ever growing list of “Cuckoo’s Nest” policies they now pay their homeless to move to Newark, many of whom take the money and come back after a few weeks (think about that for a minute). Bail reform (basically no more cash bail required) enacted there Jan. 1st has led to robberies being up over 30%, burglaries up 15%, and all serious felonies up 11% in 2020 according to the police commissioner.

In all, I found roughly 50 votes out of the 230 came from just the five metropolitan areas mentioned above. These are places where liberal politics have overtaken sanity and the necessary pragmatism to actually run a city. The disastrous results are undeniable. Almost a quarter of the votes to impeach the president came from just these 5 metropolitan areas. I’m sure the people who live in this areas are fine people but I wouldn’t trust their representatives to feed my cat. These are the people who want to overturn the votes of over 60 million people immediately. The Iowa caucuses begin a week from today and the President is up for re-election in 9 months.

I did not look at representatives from Baltimore, Philadelphia, Oakland, Newark, Portland, Washington DC, etc., etc. My guess is that almost half of the votes to impeach the President came from House members from failed Democratic cities more interested in playing politics than helping the people they were elected to represent. For months now they have done zero work on behalf of their districts. It’s been all impeachment all of the time. They have also wasted countless millions of dollars which could directly or indirectly help their constituents at home.

Breaking News From the Swamp!

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Over the last couple of days Laura Ingraham has been breaking a story which is further pulling back the curtain on the whistleblower, the Bidens, the Obama-Biden administration, the Ukraine, and Burisma. Here are the highlights:

  1. The attempt to characterize the Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election on behalf of Hillary Clinton as a “conspiracy theory” are dead. NY Times reporter Ken Vogel documented them here in 2017: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/ukraine-sabotage-trump-backfire-233446.
  2. The Obama-Biden administration had a meeting in the White House on Jan. 19th 2016 with “Ukrainian prosecutors and Embassy officials.” The meeting was “for the purpose of discussing Hunter Biden and Burisma.”
  3. White House visitor logs show that the person often named as the whistleblower checked in the Ukrainian delegation!
  4. In early May Ken Vogel was emailing State Department officials asking about this meeting and copied George Kent who just happened to be a “star witness” at the House impeachment hearings.
  5. Joe Biden announced his candidacy on April 25th. On May 3rd the State Department stopped responding to Vogel’s emails.
  6. The NY Times spiked the story.

Here is the full story as covered by Jeffrey Lord: https://spectator.org/laura-ingraham-whistleblower-role-in-hunter-biden-scandal/

Those in sympathy with the swamp will of course pooh-pooh this as another “conspiracy theory” or label it as invalid since it was uncovered by a Fox News person. There is no disputing, however, the hard copies of the emails, the White House visitors logs, or the fact that the NY Times never printed the story. It matters not who uncovered them.

This is certainly further evidence that the Obama Administration knew full well what was going with the Biden/Burisma sweetheart deal. It also shows a connection between the Obama White House, the whistleblower, and one of their “star witnesses” in the impeachment proceedings. One is led to wonder; was the “weak tea” impeachment a coordinated hit job to be sprung on Trump with the added benefit of distracting from the real corruption of the Bidens? It sure seems more and more likely the more we find out.

This will absolutely NOT be covered by any of the mainstream media. Please share and share and share some more.

I Have Questions

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Having marginally followed the impeachment circus going on in Washington these days and hearing some arguments, I wondered about several things. Here’s just a few questions I’d like answered:

Is anything going to be ruled inadmissible during this trial?

If the Democrats are now claiming certain documents and witnesses are “indispensable” and must be subpoenaed to ensure a fair trial why didn’t they issue the subpoenas during their inquiry to solidify their case?

If witnesses are the key to a fair trial why was the President denied his during the House hearings?

In a fair trial would the defendant be denied any representation during closed door depositions, as happened during the House hearings?

If this president and executive branch is “obstructing Congress” by claiming executive privilege will every future president be subject to impeachment for making the same claim?

If claiming executive privilege becomes an impeachable offense what will this do the ability of future presidential advisers to offer honest, candid advice and options?

Whether or not the President is convicted, will this chain of events affect the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches created in the Constitution?

If the entity being offered the “quid pro quo” (in this case the Ukraine) doesn’t know it’s happening at the time, takes no action, and later says there was “no pressure” what exactly happened?

Does becoming a candidate in a primary to run for office make one immune from investigation into wrongdoing?

Does foreign policy emanate from career State Department officials or from the President?

If it is a Constitution shaking event for a president to do what is alleged here why on earth would the Democrats ask us to elect a person who bragged on television about doing that very same thing?