Gabbard Blasts Own Party..

https://www.westernjournal.com/gabbard-blasts-party-debate-dem-party-isnt-people/?

Gabbard Blasts Own Party at Debate: 

Dem Party Isn't Of, By or For the People

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard took aim Wednesday at the Democratic Party establishment, claiming the party is not “of, by and for the people.”

During the Democratic presidential debate, Gabbard was asked about her feud with former Secretary of State and two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

“Our Democratic Party, unfortunately, is not the party that is of, by and for the people,” Gabbard said.

“It is a party that has been and continues to be influenced by the foreign policy establishment in Washington, represented by Hillary Clinton and others’ foreign policy, by the military-industrial complex and other greedy corporate interests,” she added.

Gabbard said she wants to be elected president so she can “rebuild” the Democratic Party and “puts it in the hands of the people of this country.”

The Hawaii Democrat described her ideal of a Democratic Party “that actually hears the voices of Americans who are struggling all across this country and puts it in the hands of veterans and fellow Americans who are calling for an end to this ongoing Bush-Clinton-Trump foreign policy doctrine of regime-change wars, overthrowing dictators in other countries, needlessly sending my brothers and sisters in uniform into harm’s way to fight in wars that actually undermine our national security and have cost us thousands of American lives.”

“These are wars that have cost us as American taxpayers trillions of dollars since 9/11 alone,” she said. “Dollars that have come out of our pockets, out of out hospitals, out of our schools, out of our infrastructure needs.”

Gabbard said if she wins the presidency, “I will end this foreign policy, end these regime-change wars, work to end this new Cold War and arms race and instead invest our hard-earned taxpayer dollars actually into serving the needs of the American people.”

Gabbard’s comments led to sparks flying between her and fellow candidate Sen. Kamala Harris of California:

Last month, Clinton claimed Gabbard is a “favorite of the Russians.”

“They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far,” Clinton said, adding that Republicans “know they can’t win without a third-party candidate, and so I don’t know who it’s going to be, but I will guarantee you they’ll have a vigorous third-party challenge in the key states that they most need it.”

Gabbard responded with defiance in a series of tweets that referred to Clinton as “the queen of warmongers.”

“Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton,” Gabbard tweeted.

“You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain.”

Gabbard also blasted what she called the “concerted campaign to destroy my reputation” and blamed Clinton — along with her “powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine” — for being behind it.

Finally, the Hawaii lawmaker challenged Clinton to run again herself.

“Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.”

Touchy devil: Vindman pulls rank on Nunes

Article by Monica Showalter in "The American Thinker":

After revealing he was Trump impeachment whistleblower Eric Ciaramella's chatty human water cooler, White House National Security aide Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman sought to get some respect from Rep. Devin Nunes.

Here was the exchange:

"Mr. Vindman, you testified in your deposition that you did not know the whistleblower," Nunes stated.
"Ranking member, it's Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, please," the witness responded.
Nunes corrected himself and repeated the statement, which followed questions regarding who Vindman had spoken with about Trump's phone call. More than once, Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., interjected to advise Vindman that the purpose of the hearing was not to expose the identity of the whistleblower, who is afforded legal protection.

Vindman did say he spoke to two individuals regarding a readout of the call, and that both were government employees with a need to know. Nunes asked which agencies they were with, to which Vindman said he spoke to State Department official George Kent, and "an individual in the intelligence community."

 Which struck a lot of people as touchy, and disgusted many military people.

Sean Davis ✔ @seanmdav

Multiple combat veterans have told me they are livid at this attitude from Vindman, at his use of the uniform as a prop for the cameras, and at his obvious scheming against and insubordination towards his chain of command

 Here's the view of one military man in some of the most elite units:

Tim Kennedy ✔ @TimKennedyMMA

Correcting a civilian about how to be a addressed is a for sure way to make everyone in the military think you are a douche bag.

 It's well known that the extremely elite units disdain use of rank altogether while in the field. Ranks for them are desk-jockey stuff, and that pins Vindman for that type, whatever his combat history.

What's more, it's kind of weird to see Vindman so jealous about the position he has. Being what's known as a lite bird colonel is not an insignificant position in the military, but it's not a top rank. It's a respected middle management position, competitive to get,


 STEWART: You directed Rep. Nunes to refer to you as "Lieutenant Colonel?" Do you always insist on civilians referring to you by your military rank?

VINDMAN: People on Twitter were disrespecting me and my service.

10 U.S. Code 523 which authorizes for ranks, if there are 170,000 officers, then 35,412 can be majors, 16,908 can be lieutenant colonels, and less than half, or 7,116 can be full bird colonels. Even fewer can be generals. According to Wikipedia, "DOPMA guidelines suggest 70% of majors should be promoted to lieutenant colonel after serving a minimum of three years at their present rank and after attaining 15–17 years of cumulative commissioned service." But again, less than half that number become Colonels.

So Vindman jealously guarding his LTC rank to a disinterested civilian such as Nunes looks touchy in the extreme, reminding me of the petty tsarist bureaucrat jealously guarding his sinecure out among the serfs and peasants in the 19th century Russian countryside. Russian literature is full of such people.

 Asked about it later, Vindman confirmed his thin skin.

Sean Davis ✔ @seanmdav

STEWART: You directed Rep. Nunes to refer to you as "Lieutenant Colonel?" Do you always insist on civilians referring to you by your military rank?

VINDMAN: People on Twitter were disrespecting me and my service.

Seriously, Twitter? And the twits and doofuses and trolls of Twitter upset him that badly? What's with this guy? This is snowflake sensitivity, weird stuff in a supposedly tough military man. Where's his inner confidence and self respect? He sounds like a whiner with one very large and delicate ego.

In reality, people who are assured of their self-worth don't need to turn to titles and ranks to let the world know how important they are. The elite military units sure don't. If Nunes had treated Vindman rudely, which he did not, the onus would be on Nunes, not Vindman, as such arrows would bounce right off. This guy, though, acts like a human pincushion, concerned about the opinions of Twitterati no less. Kind of unbecoming. And worse still, would an enlisted man want to follow such a person? Not a normal one.

Most significantly perhaps, it revealed Vindman's essential double standard and political orientation. Vindman insisted that his title be used to Nunes, but didn't do the same for Rep. Adam Schiff or Rep. Carolyn Maloney, both of whom used the perfectly correct (according to the U.S. Military Code of Justice) "Mr.Vindman." If you're a leftist, it's O.K. to say "Mr. Vindman" which reveals an unusually partisan orientation. Lieutenant Colonel to you, Devin Nunes, but Democrats can call him anything they like. Sounds like bias all right, something he claims he has none of. "I'd call myself never partisan," he proclaimed, after he was asked if he was a #neverTrump.

Something that doesn't hold up based on that demonstration.

Which brings up the other thing that's so hypocritical here: Vindman proclaims his touchiness to Nunes, presumably because he was upset about proprieties and chain of command and all that, but at the same time, he has never respected chain of command himself. 

The Federalist's Sean Davis did a pretty good job exposing his repeated pattern of ignoring the military chain of command.

Sean Davis ✔ @seanmdav

JORDAN: Why didn't you go directly to your superior with your concerns?

VINDMAN: It was a really busy week. Also the lawyer told me not to talk to anyone else.

JORDAN: And yet you talked to your brother, to George Kent, and a CIA person you won't name.

Sean Davis ✔ @seanmdav

Vindman was insubordinate, ignored chain of command, leaked, and lied to Congress about not knowing who the whistleblower is, when he clearly knows because he was the whistleblower's primary source.

He deserves to be court-martialied under the UCMJ.

Sean Davis ✔ @seanmdav

Jordan figured out a key part of Vindman's game here.

Vindman refused to go to Morrison, his boss. He instead leaked to his "coordination" partners and his CIA whistleblower friend. Only after that did he go to the NSC lawyer, knowing his seeds were sown

 In light of that, Vindman's obsession with rank looks like a power move, a selfish one, a partisan effort to gain leverage, and he's not even smart enough to disguise it. The whole thing speaks badly for him but tells us everything we need to know about the origins and motivations of this status-jealous deep-state swamp impeachment effort.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/11/touchy_devil_vindman_pulls_rank_on_nunes.html#ixzz65rlFXwsh

 

Congress Shouldn’t Get Paid Until...

Justin Bogie reporting for DailySignal

Congress Shouldn’t Get Paid 

Until It Does Its Job. 

Why This Bill Is a Great Step.

The Budget Process Enhancement Act would take away congressional pay unless Congress passes a budget resolution by April 15 of each fiscal year. (Photo: Bloomberg Creative Photos/Getty Images)

Congress is likely to vote next week on its second continuing resolution of fiscal year 2020. Another continuing resolution will prevent a government shutdown, but there’s not much to celebrate. 

The fact that a month-and-a-half into the new fiscal year none of the 12 annual appropriations bills have been enacted is a sign of how dysfunctional the congressional budget process is.

Thankfully, more members of Congress are taking notice of the breakdown in the budget process and are putting forth reforms to not only create a more efficient budget process, but one that is also more transparent and responsible.

Republican Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona and Ralph Norman of South Carolina on Nov. 14 introduced the Budget Process Enhancement Act. The bill would make two major changes to improve the current budget process.

First, it would remove the assumption that federal programs grow at the rate of inflation from the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline. 

Next, it would institute a “no budget, no pay” policy: If Congress doesn’t adopt a budget resolution by April 15 of each fiscal year, lawmakers would receive no pay until it does. 

The Budget Process Enhancement Act is a positive first step toward removing the bias in favor of higher spending from the baseline and eliminating an accounting gimmick used to skew the impact of budget decisions. 

Including a “no budget, no pay” provision should encourage members of Congress to debate budget and appropriations bills in a timely manner. 

Congress should continue to pursue reforms that will create a better functioning and more responsible budget process. 

Assuming that spending will automatically increase with inflation creates two problems. 

First, it allows Congress to claim spending cuts relative to the baseline when spending is actually increasing when compared with non-inflation-adjusted levels. In other words, Congress may still be increasing spending, just not at the same pace as inflation would otherwise have increased it.

Second, it creates a bias in favor of higher spending. The Congressional Budget Office arbitrarily assumes that agency funding will increase with inflation, not based on actual needs or proposals.

Biggs’ and Norman’s bill would end the practice of adjusting baseline projections for inflation and require agencies to justify additional funding needs.

Federal budgeting should be about prioritizing funding toward constitutional responsibilities. Removing inflation from the baseline is unlikely to address the broader need for spending reforms that limit the reach of the federal government, but forcing agencies to justify new spending should slow the growth of discretionary spending and bring more transparency to the budget process.

One of the reasons that federal spending has grown over the past several decades is that lawmakers spend little time engaging in the broader federal budget outlook. Rather, they focus on discretionary spending, which is about one-third of total federal outlays. 

That strategy has left the country $23 trillion in debt.

Adopting a “no budget, no pay” law would force Congress to more actively engage in the budget process. Thoroughly debating the broader fiscal outlook every year should bring more awareness to the unsustainability of the current budget path and lead to reforms to mandatory spending that lower spending and stabilize the national debt.

Passing a budget and appropriations bills is one of the few jobs that lawmakers are required to do each year. Yet, it has been nearly 25 years since Congress completed each individual step of the budget process before the start of the new fiscal year. 

Over that period of time, the federal government has been plagued by an ongoing series of continuing resolutions, bloated omnibus spending bills, and numerous government shutdowns. Taxpayers are the real losers in all of this dysfunction.

In 2020, the federal deficit is projected to top $1 trillion and remain above that level annually for decades to come. 

Now is the time for Congress to implement reforms to reduce spending and create a better functioning budget process. The ideas represented in the Budget Process Enhancement Act are a welcome first step. 

The Televised Impeachment Proceedings Have Been A Disaster For Democrats

Tristan Justice reporting for The Federalist

The Democrats' own witnesses have exonerated the president and have provided further evidence for investigating the Bidens for their business in Ukraine.

As the House moves into its second week of public impeachment hearings, Democrats are struggling to find incriminating evidence to justify the removal of the elected president, and the American people are not buying into their latest conspiracy theories to undo the 2016 election.

Last week, the House Intelligence Committee heard from three of the Democrats’ star witnesses on impeachment, including former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, the current U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent.

An initial glimpse at the coverage of the proceedings from the corporate media presents a startling situation for the White House. “Testimony puts Trump closer to scandal,” read one headline from the Washington Post. “Democrats land damning new evidence in testimony,” blasted a headline from Politico. “Testimony builds case against Trump,” reads another in the Los Angeles Times.

The most explosive revelations to emerge from three of the Democrats’ most important witnesses? That the Ukrainians were getting closer to rooting out corruption in their government and launching an investigation into the origins of its role in peddling the grand Russian collusion hoax that did irreparable harm to the United States.

Democrats and many in the mainstream media however, focused on the president’s request to investigate the Bidens as part of his overall push for corruption reduction. Trump’s opponents note that the president mentioned the Bidens in a July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, arguing that the American president was directly conspiring with a foreign leader to investigate political opponents at home in order to receive military assistance.

Legacy media outlets have already sliced up the declassified and unredacted transcript of the phone call released to the public to fit the false narrative promoting the Democratic theory of a quid pro quo where Trump allegedly withheld military aid until a Ukranian investigation into the Biden family was launched. On air, CNN even skipped over 500 words to connect the word “favor” with the president’s suggestion that Ukraine look into Hunter Biden’s questionable business dealings with a Ukrainian energy company known to be highly corrupt.

The American people however, are not buying into Democrats’ latest scheme with a compliant media to oust the president from office. Polling on impeachment shows virtually no movement on the issue since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s opening of an investigation in September, and no signs of positive change for Democrats since the first public hearings on Wednesday.

If Democrats have any hopes of removing the president from office next year, they will need the support of Republican senators, but without Republican support in their home states, it is an impossible task. Every sane political observer already knows the outcome of the latest political charade playing out in Washington, where the Democrats will drag out the impeachment process only to have the president be acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Democrats have begun to concede that their arguments are failing among the American people, and for good reason. Their own impeachment witnesses have exonerated the president and have provided further evidence for investigating the Bidens for their business in Ukraine.

During her testimony, Yovanovitch was asked point-blank whether Trump engaged in any criminal activity related to Ukraine.

“Do you have any information regarding the president of the United States accepting any bribes?” Republican Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah asked.

“No,” Yovanovitch responded.

“Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the president of the United States has been involved with at all?”

“No.”

Kent, the State Department’s top official on Ukraine, actually built a case for investigating the Biden family. Kent told lawmakers he was concerned about a “perception of a conflict of interest” related to former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company while his father oversaw the Obama administration’s policy towards Ukraine.

Hunter Biden served on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma for $50,000 a month despite no prior experience in the industry. Kent had previously testified in a private deposition that he raised the alarm over the situation to the Obama White House in 2015 but it was cast aside by administration officials.

“The message that I recall hearing back was that the vice president’s son Beau was dying of cancer and that there was no further bandwidth to deal with family-related issues at that time… That was the end of that conversation,” Kent told the committee.

The testimony provided by Democrats’ three star witnesses is hardly testimony useful to charge President Trump for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Meanwhile, Democrats have struggled to get their story straight. At first, they argued Trump offered the Ukrainians a quid pro quo. Now, the words “quid pro quo” are nearly non-existent, with Democrats and elites in the media using the terms “bribery” and “extortion” to describe the president’s actions.

As public opinion remains unmoved among party lines, it showcases that the American people can see right through the partisan games by Democrats who have spent three years even with help from the mainstream media trying to impeach the president as the top priority on their policy agenda, and it will likely pose electoral consequences next fall.

A Republic, But....

E. Donald Elliott for Spectator

A Republic, 

But Only If We Can Keep It 

As Benjamin Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention, he was asked, “What have you given us?” He answered: “A Republic, if you can keep it.” That probably happened, but even if it didn’t, the exchange captures two fundamental truths about our Constitution.

Most of the attention has focused on the word “republic,” although in recent years that word has increasingly been misquoted as “democracy.” That mistake is both revealing and disturbing. The Founders knew their history; they understood the differences between a republic and a democracy, and with Plato and Aristotle, they approved of the former but not so much of the latter.

One key reason for their disapproval of direct, as opposed to representative democracy, was that disruptors like Donald Trump who talk a good game can get themselves elected in a direct democracy. They are less likely to prevail in a republic, which builds multiple levels of vetoes by elites into the selection process for leaders. That feature of democratic republics insures a modicum of consensus, which is necessary for government to function.

Unfortunately, the Electoral College never worked the way the Framers intended. States passed laws requiring their electors to vote in accordance with the popular vote in their state, rather than to exercise their independent judgment about who would be the best president. An extra-constitutional feature that once functioned to temper direct democracy with checks and balances was the selection of candidates by political parties rather than primary voters; since the 1970s, politicians have become independent policy entrepreneurs who no longer depend much on political parties.

It is inconceivable to me that a Donald Trump could have emerged as the candidate from the “smoke-filled rooms” that once reigned supreme at national presidential nominating conventions. He probably could not even have made it past a vote by party leaders such as the “super delegates” that the Democrats have wisely retained beginning on the second ballot at their nominating conventions.

We have gradually dismantled most of the features that once made us a republic, not a direct democracy. That has created the current crisis in which a democratically elected president is relentlessly opposed — and hated — by a large portion of the elites in our society but is popular enough with the people that he might well get re-elected. The response by the disloyal opposition, “the Resistance,” was described brilliantly by Attorney General Barr in his historic speech to the Federalist Society. Most of it is a sophisticated account of constitutional history and a defense of executive power against encroachment by the other branches, but what is most relevant for present purposes is that many people who should know better are so angry that they will stop at nothing in what they see as their sacred mission to obstruct President Trump. A sure sign confirming how bad things have gotten is that some “Nevers Trumpers” actually called for Barr’s impeachment for delivering what they called a “lunatic” speech to the “authoritarian” Federalist Society. Ever hear of the First Amendment guys? Ironically, they confirmed his point.

This level of hostility is puzzling because many of President Trump’s policies were once espoused by those who now revile them. A good example is pulling back the U.S. military from quasi-imperial missions to promote “stability” around the world. Ending “American imperialism” was the signature program of the Left in the wake of the Vietnam war, but if Trump wants to end “endless wars,” they now oppose it. Another example is building a wall on our southern border, which prominent Democrats including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Chuck Schumer all voted forwhen it was someone else’s wall.

A lot of the loathing of President Trump is stylistic. Vanity Fair called him a “vulgarian.” He is not the son of a great political family, nor did he work his way up through the ranks of politicians. He is a nouveau riche outsider from Queens and it shows. He delights in doing crude things that defy convention such as having affairs with porn stars, making public references to the size of his genitalia, and poking fun at the physical features of his opponents in Congress. These boorish behaviors are “not the way we do” in polite society. Worse yet, he does not consult with the career staff as they think he should, and that slight may yet be his downfall.

In view of the partisan mess that our country is now because the press and about half of the political establishment want to topple a duly elected president, we should all bear in mind a second aspect of Franklin’s famous answer that often goes unnoticed: its use of the singular indefinite article, “A Republic,” or in the words of the Pledge of Allegiance, “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” But only if you can keep it.

Today it is increasingly in doubt whether one nation indivisible is something we can keep. We live in different worlds, depending upon our sources of information. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.” How quaint and old-fashioned that seems; today both sides live in different realities created by CNN and MSNBC, or Fox News and Sean Hannity.

Recently the second edition of a book advocating the secession of Texas from the United States was published, Texit: Why and How Texas Will Leave The Union. There is also one about the secession of California, Calexit. It was originally a comic book about heroic revolutionaries who resist a fascist president who wants to deport all illegal aka “undocumented” immigrants. Somehow a comic book seems appropriate for that simplistic narrative about a complex problem, but the idea of California seceding is now also a serious movement.

A century and a half ago we fought the first American civil war over whether we would continue as one nation indivisible. I doubt whether any modern-day Lincoln would send troops to fight the secession of Texas or California; instead, like the Brits and the Scots in 2014, we’d probably hold a polite referendum.

My father told me that he and my mother had a deal: “We would discuss decisions, but if we couldn’t agree, she would make all of the little decisions and I would make all the big ones. After 45 years of marriage,” he continued, “we have not had to make any big decisions, but if we ever do, I intend to make them.” I chuckled, nodded and went on with my life as a clueless teenager. Years later I understood: in a marriage — as in a nation — there aren’t many “big” decisions that are worth putting the union itself at risk over.

A letter in Lincoln’s handwriting hangs on the wall of the Wadsworth Atheneum museum in Hartford. Lincoln personally was opposed to slavery, but in reply to abolitionist editor Horace Greeley, Lincoln maintained that even abolishing slavery was not worth sacrificing the union: “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

I don’t agree with Lincoln that saving the union was more important than abolishing slavery, but then, he is one of our greatest presidents and his letter shows how important he considered preserving our republic as a single nation.

As we consider the impeachment of Donald Trump, I hope that both sides will keep their grievances in perspective and remember that it is only “aRepublic” if we can keep it. Or in the lingo that millennials understand, “Democracy … means sharing a country with ass–les you can’t stand.” Thank you for that, Bill Maher. Ben Franklin and Abe Lincoln are nodding and smiling.

Obama aides allegedly left Trump staffers ‘You will fail’ notes

Article by Marisa Schultz and Kate Sheehy in "The New York Post":

President Obama’s aides taunted the incoming Trump administration in 2017 by leaving notes around the White House that said, “You will fail,” Trump’s press secretary said Tuesday.

“We came into the White House, I’ll tell you something. Every office was filled with Obama books, and we had notes left behind that said, ‘You will fail,’ ‘You aren’t going to make it,’” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told a Norfolk, Va., radio station during an interview.

Three former Trump aides confirmed Grisham’s claim to the Daily Mail, the Web site said.

She added that cabinets in the press office also were “filled” with books by Obama, who has written three tomes, and inside one of the drawers was another “You will fail” note.

Three former West Wing officials confirmed Grisham’s claim to the Mail, the website said.

“It was a mess that first week,” an ex-aide said of the Trump transition. “Yeah, there were mean notes left in odd places. One in a deputy press secretary’s office, one inside a desk drawer in upper press, another on a bathroom mirror. They were all about how we were doomed to failure

Another source said, “Those notes definitely happened. They even left us Russian vodka in the cabinet.

“They were trolling us from the minute we got there. It was definitely just ridiculous. We were trying to find the bathroom, and we get these notes saying ‘You will fail,’ and ‘You’re not going to make it.’ ”

But Susan Rice, who was Obama’s US ambassador to the UN, tweeted that the claim “was another bald-faced lie” by the Trump administration.

A former Obama senior director of the National Security Council, Jon Wolfsthal, also called the claim “an outright lie’‘ — and said Grisham should be fired over it.

Ex-Obama aide Rudy Mehrbani tweeted that he did a final sweep of a floor in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building as the old administration headed out the door and saw nary an issue.

“@PressSec is absolutely lying,” he tweeted. “My team occupied almost an entire hallway of offices in the EEOB. Before I turned off the lights on Jan. 19, I did a walk-thru of every one of them to make sure all federal records (or other notes) were appropriately archived.”

Grisham responded to the ex-Obama aides’ pushback by insisting in an e-mailed statement to The Post and other outlets, “I’m not sure where their offices were and certainly wasn’t implying every office had that issue.

“In fact, I had a lovely note left for me in the East Wing, and I tracked the woman down and thanked her,” the press secretary wrote. “I was talking specifically (and honestly) about our experience in the lower press office — nowhere else. I don’t know why everyone is so sensitive!

“At the time we saw it as a kind of a prank, and something that always happened. We were so busy trying to learn where the bathrooms were and how to turn on the lights, it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“The books were inside the cabinets of lower press [staffers], as was one of the notes, which was taped inside,” she said. “I believe others have come out saying this was true. Either way – this shouldn’t be a big deal, I was telling an anecdotal story in response to a question about when we first took office.”

When the Clinton administration left the West Wing in 2001, junior staffers famously removed the “W” key from their computers before heading out. The incoming commander-in-chief was George W. Bush, who was differentiated from his ex-president dad, George H.W. Bush, by the “W.”

When the younger Bush’s administration left the White House to make way for Obama’s people, the transition was hailed at the time as a model of propriety and cooperation.

The Trump staffers’ claims about a bush-league transition by Obama officials also drew skepticism from some reporters on the beat at the time.

ABC News’ chief White House correspondent, Jonathan Karl, tweeted that he was present as Trump officials were moving into their White House offices on Jan. 20, 2017 — and that he saw no Obama books or any notes.

No Trump officials complained that they had found any, either, wrote Karl — who added photos of some of the relatively bare offices at the time.

“I was in the West Wing on the evening of January 20, 2017, talking to several incoming Trump officials as they moved into their offices. I saw no offices ‘filled with Obama books’ and nobody mentioned ‘you will fail’ notes. Here are photos I took at the WH that night,” Karl tweeted.

https://nypost.com/2019/11/19/obama-aides-allegedly-left-you-will-fail-notes-for-trump-white-house-staffers/

 

Beware of Washington’s Foreign Policy Establishment Blob

by Curt Ellis for American Greatness

President Trump has unmasked the groupthink that passes for wisdom in official Washington. The Wise Men and their progeny take that as a personal insult.

Beware of the blob.

That’s either a kitschy Burt Bachrach tune from the 1950s, a warning about Washington’s permanent foreign policy establishment, or the takeaway from watching witnesses in the impeachment hearings.

At one time, the State Department was accused of harboring secret Soviet spies, à la Alger Hiss.

Today, the harbor is filled with globalists, and they are quite open about their efforts to subvert President Trump’s foreign policy.

His America First agenda not only conflicts with the species of globalism that is an article of faith in elite Washington, it takes foreign policy off the autopilot setting that it’s been on for decades.

And that may be his greatest offense in the eyes of the foreign-policy establishment.

Let’s go to the videotape.

The first public witness in the impeachment hearings was George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs.

Kent spoke of “how we have defined our national interest broadly in Europe in the past 75 years,” and the fundamental importance of “the collective security provided by NATO.”

He talked about the “rules-based international order” created after World War II.

The Ukraine chargé d’affaires Bill Taylor summed up: “the whole notion of a rules-based order was being threatened by the Russians.”

These honorable and capable men displayed an element of excellent students who’ve memorized all the facts if not grasping their meaning, adept at following whatever map you give them but not at drawing a new one for unfamiliar territory.

One can’t escape feeling that what these diplomats feared most was not a column of Russian troops marching into Crimea and Ukraine, but the march of time overtaking their comforting yet outdated concepts of the world. Who moved my cheese?

Kent gave away the true nature of the game when he said, “Ukraine is on a path to become a full security partner of the United States within NATO.”

This was asserted, and accepted, as fact—“settled law”—though it’s unclear who made the decision to oblige us to be willing to go to war in Ukraine against a nuclear-armed Russia. The president? Congress? Did we miss the debate?

In addition to arrogating to themselves the power to make foreign policy, the foreign-policy establishment engages in a paint-by-numbers exercise when it comes to making policy. No inspiration, no original thinking, no attempt to reflect reality, just follow the outlines laid down by someone else before.

These experts were taught NATO defended “free Europe” from “Russian aggression” when Soviet tanks were ready to drive through Germany’s Fulda Gap in the 20th century. Therefore, expand NATO up to Russia’s border in the 21st century.

Kent testified how “a Europe truly whole, free, and at peace” has been “our strategic game for the entirety of my foreign service career.”

So he and his fellows in the foreign policy establishment push for a united Europe even as Britain, Hungary, Italy, Greece, and Catalonia bristle at Brussels’ centralized power.

We see this copy-and-paste mindset at work time and again.

A 1947 U.N. resolution declared Jerusalem would be an international city administered by the United Nations. For seven decades, official U.S. Middle East policy perpetuated this fantasy even as it became obvious the U.N. couldn’t manage a one-car funeral and Israel would never surrender Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jewish people. President Trump recognized that reality and moved our embassy to Jerusalem over the dire predictions and objections of the “foreign policy professionals.”

The “experts” welcomed China into the “rules-based international order” on the premise this would turn that Communist tyranny into a democratic ally. Toward that end, we shared scientific research as well as extended development loans and Peace Corps missions. These continued, some to this day, even as Beijing grew more hostile and authoritarian.

Such is the track record of the foreign policy professionals we’re told not to question.

Which brings us to a separate though related matter.

Just as we can’t second-guess our foreign services, we’re told questioning our intelligence services is tantamount to treason.

Let’s look at their track record.

They failed to predict the Communist victory in China in 1949. The fall of the Shah of Iran? Missed that one, too. The collapse of Soviet Union? Didn’t see it coming. The 9/11 attacks? A total surprise. Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? They were sure we’d find them. The migration crises following the overthrow of Libya’s Qaddafi and the Syrian civil war? Oblivious. Red China’s ongoing penetration of industrial, military, and government computer networks? They continue to miss it.

With a record like that, one must ask: What are we paying these people for and why should we regard them as any less fallible than other people?

Since he first descended the escalator in Trump Tower to declare his candidacy for president, Donald J. Trump has exposed the mendacity that permeates our political discourse. Politicians mouth poll-tested talking points and the media pretends to believe them.

President Trump earned the ire of the establishment by espousing an America First agenda that rejects the primacy of a “rules-based rules based international order” with its religious devotion to free trade.

He challenges the transnationalist mindset that says Washington should pursue what’s good for the global economy rather than what’s good for America.

But his greatest offense against the establishment is not ideological.

President Trump has unmasked the groupthink that passes for wisdom in official Washington.

The Wise Men and their progeny take that as a personal insult. Too bad.

Bribery? That’s Ridiculous

by Adam Mill for American Greatness

Nobody has ever suggested Trump offered to pay money directly to the president of Ukraine. Neither Trump nor the Ukrainian president is putting anything in his own pocket. Unlike Hunter Biden.

Bribery? Seriously, bribery? Why not cattle rustling or importing unauthorized produce from Canada? Can anyone name a single case in nearly 1,000 years of Anglo-American jurisprudence in which a public official was convicted of “bribery” under these circumstances?

I’ll accept any example of any official within the United States, the English Commonwealth, Great Britain, or even India. I challenge the get-Trump crowd to identify just one example since the birth of the English language after the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

It’s excruciating to watch allegedly intelligent people in the news media supply oxygen to this absurd charge against the president. We are asked to believe that because Trump inquired about possible bribery of former Vice President Joe Biden, he may be guilty of bribery? It makes perfect sense, but only if you’re in the late stages of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s partisan, anti-democracy project is beginning to approach Michael Avenatti levels of absurdity and it is doing incalculable damage to the Democratic brand.

Last week, the California Democrat attempted to criminalize a tweet of the president’s in which Trump criticized former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Intimidation, he said. They tried the same trick whenever Trump criticized the lawless Mueller investigation. Criticizing the politicized witch hunt is not “witness intimidation” any more than paying aid to the Ukrainian treasury is a bribe. Avenatti used a related “defamation” theory when he sued Trump for criticizing Stormy Daniels and we saw how that worked out. Whoops!

Only 13 million Americans in a nation of 331 million tuned into the hearings. In other words, roughly 95 percent of the public has tuned out this drama. Recall the list of legislative priorities the Democrats promised after the voters gave them power in the 2018 elections. At some point, voters will ask whether they did anything to advance these priorities. The Iowa caucus is just around the corner and the candidates can’t get their messages to Democratic primary voters because Schiff’s face dominates the news cycle.

As a person still attached to the quaint notion that the law is something written, I may be forgiven for boring the reader with the actual law on “bribery.” The federal bribery statute provides, “Whoever—directly or indirectly, corruptly . . . offers or promises any public official . . . to give anything of value to any other person or entity, with intent—to influence anyofficial act . . . shall be fined under this title or not more than three times the monetary equivalent of the thing of value, whichever is greater, or imprisoned for not more than fifteen years, or both, and may be disqualified from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.”

Did Trump offer to pay the president of Ukraine a “bribe?” No, that’s ridiculous. Nobody has ever suggested Trump offered to pay money directly to the president of Ukraine. Neither Trump nor the Ukrainian president is putting anything in his own pocket (unlike Hunter Biden).

The nonsense charge overlooks this key aspect of a “bribe” case. A bribe case would require that either President Trump or the President of Ukraine take money for personal benefit. At most, this is just a nation-to-nation exchange of aid for cooperation in a law enforcement investigation.

Maybe it’s bad politics because Biden’s elitist perks seem to entitle him to immunity from investigation—or so all the howls from other elitists in government would have us believe. But it’s not a “bribe.” Every penny of the Ukraine aid stays in the U.S. treasury until its deposited in the Ukraine treasury. No bribe.

It’s therefore no surprise that Trump’s accusers haven’t actually explained their “bribery” theory because they can’t. And they don’t need to. The media just bob their heads up and down as they senselessly repeat the “bribery” charge without having bothered to think it through.

“Bribery” requires taking money or something worth money and putting it into your pocket. Actually, the actions of the Bidens appear to be a much closer fit for the definition.

Based upon undisputed facts in wide circulation, the Biden/Ukraine scandal looks an awful lot like “bribery.” It looks like Burisma paid Hunter Biden for protection from prosecution. It looks like Burisma got its protection from Hunter’s dad. That’s more than enough information to justify opening an investigation into the Bidens. In a sane world, a president would be expected to demand cooperation from Ukraine to uphold and enforce U.S. law.

Nobody is above the law. Not even a vice president. Right?

The Democrats have spent so much time in their get-Trump echo chamber that it has corrupted their ability even to invent a persuasive case. Instead of showing how the alleged “bribe” ended up in the pocket of either President Trump or Ukraine’s President Zelensky, the impeachment hearing largely has focused on sinister-sounding “shadow” diplomacy and “irregular channels,” none of which involve bribery.

The hearings are boring because Adam Schiff uses his “questioning” of witnesses to give speeches. His questions are leading and convoluted. The House Democrats’ attorney asks witnesses with little first-hand personal knowledge to offer “opinions” about how “irregular” Trump’s actions were. And it’s all about hurt feelings.

Anything goes in this Schiff show but the tactics nevertheless undermine persuasiveness.

“I think that if you’re not moved . . . by the testimony of Marie Yovanovich today, you don’t have a pulse,” Fox News host Chris Wallace said of her performance. Wallace, like so many other “journalists,” uses his perch to keep viewers distracted from the utter irrelevance of the hurt feelings of bureaucrats. In the anti-Trump echo chamber, feelings are facts. That explains why the Democrats pursued drama and camera-worthy soundbites. In contrast, the Republicans used the last three witnesses to gather hard facts for their eventual minority report.

Why did Republicans pass on the opportunity to embarrass and discredit the three witnesses of the first two days of hearings? Rumors swirled of dirt on the three witnesses. But why legitimize a witness who is totally irrelevant and testimony that ought to inspire little more than contempt?

The Republicans were generally pleasant and complimentary of the witnesses even as they asked informed and penetrating questions. Seemingly harmless, almost goofy, Republican attorney Steve Castor obtained devastating admissions from Yovanovitch—that she only cared about election interference that harmed Clinton. Ukrainian-originated interference directed at her boss, Donald Trump, did not concern her at all. Often, the Republicans knew the facts better than Schiff’s witnesses.

Last week, Yovanovitch said of her position with Ukraine, “I advocated for the U.S. position that rule of law should prevail and Ukrainian law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges should stop wielding their power selectively as a political weapon against their adversaries and start dealing with all consistently and according to the law.” Wouldn’t it be nice if Democrats here in America used issues instead of trumped-up criminal charges to defeat their opponents? If only the diplomatic corps could return home to provide the same advice to their get-Trump allies here in America.

What is Schiff’s exit strategy? At one time, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) worked at blocking impeachment, at least until the anti-Trump coalition had bipartisan support. But there is no hope of persuading any Trump supporters with these kangaroo proceedings. A long trial in the Senate would allow the Republicans to call witnesses to expose the Bidens’ corruption and Democratic dirty tricks in the 2016 election. And it would significantly hamperthe Democratic primary process. So it’s hard to see that happening

Is Schiff hoping that the televised hearings will make Trump less electable? There’s no evidence that he’s changing anyone’s mind. Perhaps there’s some grand strategy not immediately apparent. Perhaps they’re hoping that a presiding Chief Justice John Roberts will follow Schiff’s absurd rule barring as “irrelevant” any evidence that helps the president? That seems doubtful.

As far as I can tell, there isn’t any strategy beyond catharsis for Democrats who are really angry about having lost in 2016.