Tag Archives: Trump

Easy Out for Dems?

05 Thursday Dec 2019

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Not a bad idea. Therefore, the Dems probably won’t go for it.

Censure would allow the Democrats to move on: Obviously, the Speaker wants to send a strong message to her base that she hears their concerns and is acting on them. But every day that Democrats are not talking about health care is a day that they are slowly but steadily losing the election. The media has a limited attention span, and right now impeachment is king. While impeachment might excite the partisan bases on both sides of the aisle, to the vast middle that isn’t paying attention to the latest revelations that are dripping forth on the front pages of The New York Times, this is time not well spent making the case for their reelections.

Censure would be better for the country than impeachment: What the president did with his Ukrainian call is clearly not impeachable. But it wasn’t a perfect call either. We all know that partisan Democrats have wanted Trump removed from office since the very day he entered it and have come up with a variety of theories as to why he should be thrown out, from invoking the 25th Amendment to the current impeachment imbroglio.

But the American people, in their collective wisdom, through a process designed by the Constitution, put him there, and they have the right to have their voices heard to replace him, should they decide that is the correct path to pursue. Short-circuiting the people is a very bad precedent and would needlessly divide the country for generations.

In 1998, some congressional Republicans and Democrats floated censure as a possible alternative to impeachment and when I worked for the House GOP Leadership, I thought that would have been a more prudent approach.

Part of the challenge with censure is it’s not outlined in the Constitution as a way to punish the president for actions that fall short of high crimes and misdemeanors. And indeed, the only president to be clearly censured by the Congress was Trump’s hero, Andrew Jackson. He was censured by the Senate because he defunded the Second Bank of the United States. That censure was later expunged from the record by Jackson’s Whig allies late in his second term in office.

I would vote against censure of this president, if I were in either the House or the Senate, because I think this has been a partisan exercise not worthy of the Congress. But if I were a congressional Democrat, I would prefer censure to impeachment. Impeachment would be bad for the country but probably good for the president. Censure wouldn’t be nearly as bad for the country nor nearly as good for the president.

But, they no more want to move on than the people have that collective wisdom. This all assumes, of course, that the House goes ahead with the impeachment charade – it’s already losing steam. And, again, it won’t help them with 2020.

Your Faces Please

04 Wednesday Dec 2019

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Except they probably won’t say please. Here’s how it will work: millions of illegals come and go, at will and with no questions, documents, or obstruction; on the other hand, you, usury serf, shall jump through burning hoops only to present the mark of the beast.

The Trump administration intends to propose a regulation next year that would require all travelers – including U.S. citizens – to be photographed when entering or leaving the United States, according to the administration’s regulatory agenda.

The proposed regulation, slated to be issued in July by the Homeland Security Department, would be part of a broader system to track travelers as they enter and exit the United States.

The plan has already drawn opposition from some privacy advocates. Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, blasted the idea in a written statement on Monday.

“Travelers, including U.S. citizens, should not have to submit to invasive biometric scans simply as a condition of exercising their constitutional right to travel,” he said.

The Trump administration contends in its regulatory agenda that the face scan requirement will combat the fraudulent use of U.S. travel documents and aid the identification of criminals and suspected terrorists.

Will no brave federal judge in Hawaii step forward and enjoin this madness? No. Go ahead and leave your CFR comments. Maybe vote or something.

UPDATE: You’ll be scanned. Incoming terrorists, grifters, and nation-wreckers won’t even have their Faceberg or Twit checked. After all, if the MS-13ers can’t locate their former victims in the new, free-range Amerika, what’s the point in coming? (And, that VA county might as well be yours, BTW).

Grabblers Discover Consitution Convenient for Once

03 Tuesday Dec 2019

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Odd that they neglect it at all other times. At any rate, the House “Intelligence” Committee projection report is out.

Constitutional Authority for Congressional Oversight and Impeachment

The House’s Constitutional and legal authority to conduct an impeachment inquiry is clear, as is the duty of the President to cooperate with the House’s exercise of this authority.

Article I of the U.S. Constitution gives the House of Representatives the “sole Power of Impeachment.” The Framers intended the impeachment power to be an essential check on a President who might engage in corruption or abuse of power. Congress is empowered to conduct oversight and investigations to carry out its authorities under Article I. Because the impeachment power is a core component of the nation’s Constitutional system of checks and balances, Congress’ investigative authority is at its zenith during an impeachment inquiry.

So, investigate first, open the impeachment proceedings when? Not that any of this will help the enemy combatants in the slightest in 2020. Ball’s in Nancy’s court now, the voter’s next fall.

Possibly Better than the Wall

29 Friday Nov 2019

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Trump may (may) be about to do something big and useful.

President Donald Trump put the Mexican government on the defensive when he said he “absolutely” will move ahead with plans to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

Trump said in a radio interview this week that tens of thousands of Americans are killed every year because of drug trafficking and other activity by the cartels. But Mexico is pushing back, worried that such a step would allow its neighbor to the north to violate its sovereignty by operating unilaterally inside Mexico.

“I’ve been working on that for the last 90 days,” Trump said in a radio interview with Bill O’Reilly, who asked whether such a designation would be forthcoming.

O’Reilly had asked Trump if he would designate the cartels “and start hitting them with drones and things like that?”

Trump replied: “I don’t want to say what I’m going to do, but they will be designated.”

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday that he did not want to enter a “political confrontation” with the U.S. government on the eve of its Thanksgiving holiday. He said that he would leave it at “cooperation, yes; interventionism, no,” and that he had instructed Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard to explain Mexico’s position to Washington.

Ebrard later tweeted that he’d already been in contact with the U.S. government and would use diplomacy to “defend sovereignty.”

Yes, sovereignty. It’s okay for them to dump scores of millions of invaders across our border, but perish the thought a 1% return across theirs. If the cartels are terrorists, subject to military reprisals, then anyone associated – like coyotes and “cargo” – would be as well. And, if anyone, like a federal judge, interferes in this international operation, he sets himself up as an accessory, an enemy combatant. A clean up at last?

May not even happen, but it’s a great, hopeful thought!

Another Demographic Shift!

11 Monday Nov 2019

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“Heather” explains how to vote for someone based on your thinking that the candidate won’t/can’t win. Brilliant.

Three years ago, thousands of these Americans — many working-class, residing in the middle of the country — helped deliver the most astounding electoral surprise in modern history. Now, as they review the Trump presidency a year before his re-election, some are showing signs of turning on conventional wisdom again.

Heather, a local administrative assistant here who is married with a stroller-bound toddler, is still so embarrassed by her 2016 vote that she wasn’t comfortable revealing her last name.

“I’m ashamed to admit . . . But I’m of a more conservative bent and family. I just couldn’t vote for Hillary. But I also thought there’s no way Trump was going to win. This way, I could at least say, ‘Well I didn’t vote for her,’” she said. “I didn’t think I was doing any harm.”

While Heather isn’t sharing her conversion far and wide, she’s already decided “there’s no chance” she’d vote for Trump again. “Heavens no,” she said. “Trump basically turned me into a Democrat.”

The 2020 presidential campaign has been engrossed in a debate over which demographic groups Democrats should devote most of their attention to in order to reclaim the White House. African-Americans in urban areas? Rural voters who flipped from Barack Obama to Trump? Newly emerging but unreliable young people?

But the one pivotal group showing the most evident signs of splitting from the president are white working-class women, according to a review of polling data, focus groups and interviews with more than a dozen party strategists and voters like Heather.

There was the deal of 19: get the vote in exchange for learning to use it. Someone hasn’t kept her end of the bargain. Maybe the stellar GOP strategists will notice this trend too – maybe around 2024.

Just Vote Already

28 Monday Oct 2019

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Nothing like charging straight ahead when you know you have a case. The Dems prepare to take a vote to set up rules for more votes and hearings about a vote to vote the hearing…

The House will vote this week on a resolution to formalize the next steps of the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

The resolution — which “establishes the procedure for hearings,” according to a statement by Speaker Nancy Pelosi — will mark the first floor vote on impeachment since Democrats formally launched their inquiry a month ago.

Walk right on into it…

No Vote = No Impeachment

17 Thursday Oct 2019

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So much for the Russia Ukraine fake news “impeachment.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday she will not stage a vote on the House floor to officially launch an impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

The decision came after Democratic leaders, returning to Washington following a two-week recess, had reached out to members of their diverse caucus to gauge the party’s support for such a vote.

After back-to-back meetings with party leaders and then the full caucus, Pelosi announced that no such vote would take place. Democratic aides emphasized, however, that the process remains fluid and that Pelosi may reverse course and stage such a vote at any point in the future.

“There’s no requirement that we have a vote, and so at this time we will not be having a vote,” Pelosi told reporters during a last-minute press briefing in the Capitol.

She’s right: there is no requirement for a vote unless they kick off impeachment proceedings. Then, one is mandated by that law thing. Of course, that would mean giving the GOP subpoena power and risk exposing Biden, Clinton, Obama, etc. Not going to happen. At what point do some of these people earn the official title of an enemy combatant?

Turkish Delight

15 Tuesday Oct 2019

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The GOP, the MSM, the Neocons, and seemingly everyone else can’t get over Trump deciding to get us the hell out of Syria – where the US should have never been in the first place. The hysteria is hilarious:

The drama is nowhere near over. Out of necessity, the Kurds switched sides on Sunday, turning their backs on Washington and signing up with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, a man the United States has called a war criminal for gassing his own people. At the Pentagon, officials struggled with the right response if Turkish forces — NATO allies — again opened fire on any of the 1,000 or so Americans now preparing to retreat from their positions inside Syria. Those troops are trapped for now, since Turkey has cut off the roads; removing them may require an airlift.

And over the weekend, State and Energy Department officials were quietly reviewing plans for evacuating roughly 50 tactical nuclear weapons that the United States had long stored, under American control, at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, about 250 miles from the Syrian border, according to two American officials.

Those weapons, one senior official said, were now essentially Erdogan’s hostages. To fly them out of Incirlik would be to mark the de facto end of the Turkish-American alliance. To keep them there, though, is to perpetuate a nuclear vulnerability that should have been eliminated years ago.

No, dipshits. It’s a vulnerability that should have never been period. Something about avoiding foreign entanglements… Why do we have any military bases (nukes or not) in any other country? The Empire has its price. Maybe this is it. Time to go home, Yankees.

The Game’s Afoot

14 Monday Oct 2019

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Ha! Ha! Ha! Remember every single time the special people ridiculed, threatened to kill, or actually killed ordinary, heritage Americans? Just good clean fun, they always say. Okay. Then, here’s some more good clean fun:

Ha! Ha! Ha! See, it’s so funny!

The White House is bothered, though. And, in retrospect, as funny as this is, drones would probably be more efficient.

A Coup by Any Other Name…

11 Friday Oct 2019

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As Tom Ironsides told me, Trump has rattled the cages. The CIA and the deep state are pulling a slow, painful coup.

The 2020 Democratic candidate with whom the CIA whistleblower had a “professional” tie is Joe Biden, according to intelligence officers and former White House officials.

Lawyers for the whistleblower said he had worked only “in the executive branch.” The Washington Examiner has established that he is a career CIA analyst who was detailed to the National Security Council at the White House and has since left. On Sept. 26, the New York Times reported that he was a CIA officer. On Oct. 4, the newspaper added that he “was detailed to the National Security Council at one point.”

Michael Atkinson, the Intelligence Community’s inspector general, told members of Congress that the whistleblower had a “professional tie” to a 2020 Democratic candidate. He had written earlier that while the whistleblower’s complaint was credible, he had shown “some indicia of an arguable political bias … in favor of a rival political candidate.”

A retired CIA officer told the Washington Examiner, “From everything we know about the whistleblower and his work in the executive branch then, there is absolutely no doubt he would have been working with Biden when he was vice president.”

The same people who destroyed America and who have set the US Empire into a death spiral are hell-bent on retaining power all the way down. Have they no rope in Washington?