Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was hospitalized on Friday night after she experienced chills and fever during the day, but her symptoms have died down, the court said in a statement.
"Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in
Baltimore, Maryland, last night after experiencing chills and fever
earlier in the day," the statement said.
"With intravenous
antibiotics and fluids, her symptoms have abated and she expects to be
released from the hospital as early as Sunday morning," the court
added.
The statement noted that there will be additional updates when they are available.
Americans are enjoying an all-too-unusual combination of peace and prosperity. The probability that you will be killed or lose a loved one in a foreign war has dropped to nearly zero, while the chance that you or anyone you know will be involuntarily unemployed is lower than it has been in half a century. Moreover, real wages are increasing and inflation is negligible. Life isn’t problem-free, of course, but times are genuinely good. Much of the credit for this gratifying state of affairs is unquestionably owed to President Trump. Yet the Democrats assure us that he is a clear and present danger to the republic.
He is, they believe, such a menace to our sacred freedoms that the speaker of the House recently issued a press release declaring him too dangerous to leave in office long enough for the voters to decide his political fate. The next presidential election is only a year away, but Speaker Pelosi avers that allowing the democratic process to play out is a “weak response” to Trump’s crimes: “That dangerous position only adds to the urgency of our action, because the President is jeopardizing the integrity of the 2020 elections.” She is, however, oddly vague about the details of this alarming threat.
Madam Speaker says the president has abused his power and assures us that “The facts are uncontested.” This is nonsense, of course. Indeed, the most notable feature of the ill-conceived Democratic “impeachment inquiry” is its failure to produce any plausible evidence that he has committed an offense that would justify ousting him from office. There are, however, numerous uncontested facts suggesting that Trump is actually doing quite a good job as president. Thus, while the Democrats search for an impeachable offense to pin on him, let us consider a few of his accomplishments.
President Trump’s most conspicuous successes have involved the domestic economy, particularly the job market. Since his inauguration, more than six million jobs have been created, including nearly 500,000 manufacturing jobs. The latest Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reportshows unemployment at only 3.6 percent, including the lowest Black unemployment rate in history. Hispanic unemployment also remains near its lowest rate ever. Democrats like Joe Biden insist that the middle class has been left out of the Trump economy. As Stephen Moore writes at the Wall Street Journal, this is fiction:
The latest data from the Census Bureau monthly surveys tell a different story. Real median household income — the amount earned by those in the very middle — hit $65,084 (in 2019 dollars) for the 12 months ending in July. That’s the highest level ever and a gain of $4,144, or 6.8%, since Mr. Trump took office. By comparison, during 7½ years under President Obama — starting from the end of the recession in June 2009 through January 2017 — the median household income rose by only about $1,000.
An important benefit of this record high in the median income and the reductions in unemployment over which Trump has presided is a reduction in the number of people who rely on food stamps. Since his inauguration, millions of Americans have been able to get off that program. Breitbartreports, “The most recent USDA data shows that 5,896,383 people discontinued their participation in the nation’s food stamp program … since February 2017 when Trump completed his first month as president.” This is good news for the erstwhile participants as well as the taxpayers.
Those taxpayer savings are, of course, dwarfed by the tax cuts all Americans received when Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) into law. Over 85 percent of American workers saw their paychecks increase as a result of that tax reform law. It also increased the standard deduction for individuals and families while doubling the child tax credit. This piece of legislation is responsible for much of the good economic news noted above. Inevitably, every single candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination has pledged to repeal the TCJA. Americans for Tax Reform notes,
Americans for Tax Reform today released a video compilation of Democratic presidential candidates threatening to impose various taxes on Americans.
Democrats want to raise income taxes, payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, corporate taxes, and impose a carbon tax, gun tax, wealth tax, and even a robot tax. And the Dem threat to repeal the GOP-enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs Act means they would raise taxes on households in every income level in every congressional district.
Another of the president’s ongoing achievements that Democrats desperately want to halt involves the federal judiciary. He has appointed two Supreme Court justices and, as Mitch McConnell recently tweeted, “As of this afternoon, one in every four judges on the federal courts of appeals will have been nominated by @POTUS Trump and confirmed by us here in the Senate.” This is alarming for the Democrats. They can’t get their increasingly left-wing agenda through Congress, so they rely on activist judges to legislate from the bench. Trump is removing that crutch, as Reutersreveals:
Even as the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday heard crucial testimony from pivotal witness Gordon Sondland, the Senate voted to confirm Trump’s latest appointee to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a regional appeals court handling cases from Georgia, Alabama and Florida.…
This marks the third time that Trump has been able to engineer the ideological “flip” of one of the nation’s 13 federal appeals courts, which exert considerable power one level below the U.S. Supreme Court.
In health care, the president has helped free Americans from Obamacare by expanding short-term, limited-duration health plans and enabling small businesses to join “association health plans.” He has presided over the repeal of that misbegotten law’s Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), whose sole purpose was the rationing of essential health care to the elderly, and worked with Congress to eliminate the “tax penalty” for failing to buy health insurance. He signed “Right-to-Try” legislation, and his administration has approved more generic drugs than any of its predecessors.
As to foreign policy, the president moved the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, pulled the U.S. out of the dangerous Iran deal, decreased the danger of terrorism by implementing the travel ban — after winning a Supreme Court battle — pulled out of the ridiculous Paris Climate Accords, concluded the USMCA Trade Agreement — on which the Democrats still refuse to act — imposed tariffs on China in response to forced technology transfer, reduced illegal immigration by implementingthe “Remain in Mexico” program, kept the Guantanamo Bay detention facility open, ad infinitum.
All of the above, and much more, was accomplished even as President Trump was subjected to the absurd Mueller investigation and the even more asinine “impeachment inquiry.” Imagine what the president might have accomplished if the Democrats had accepted the will of the voters. And, make no mistake, that’s what “the resistance” is about. Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats have refused to acquiesce in the peaceful and orderly transfer of power to the president chosen by the electorate. They have nothing to offer but impeachment. That makes them far more dangerous than Donald Trump.
Alexander Vindman’s Impeachment Testimony Displays His Open Insubordination
Vindman publicly and gratuitously questioned the policies of his commander in chief and did so in a partisan political setting. The U.S. military should nip that in the bud.
During his impeachment hearing testimony this week, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman has reminded us of the need for the military to stick to its governing principles. Those principles would guard against dishonorable partisan moves such as Vindman’s appearance before the House Intelligence Committee in his military attire merely to squabble over his bureaucratic disagreement with Trump’s foreign policy, or his gross exaggeration of his political resume in his opening statement.
The military governs itself by two fundamental principles. One of those bedrock principles governing military-civilian relations is the rule thatactive-duty military officers must avoid participating in partisan politics. Thus, for example, serving officers may attend political rallies or functions but may not do so while in uniform.
A second of these bedrock principles is that officers do not publicly question or undercut the orders or official policies of superior officers in their chain of command.This principle is paramount from the platoon level to the highest levels in the Pentagon. As Gen. Douglas MacArthur learned, even a five-star general may not publicly question the orders or policies of the president.
MacArthur was properly relieved after he criticized President Harry S. Truman’s Korean War policies. The proper role of any officer, whether a general or a lieutenant colonel, is to offer his best advice and then obey the orders and policies of the officers appointed over him without complaint or dissent once the president has decided.
These principles are fundamental because they are essential to a proper relationship between a professional military and a government dedicated to civilian control and supremacy over the military. Violations strike at the foundation of civil-military relations in this country and risk grave damages.
When officers violate these fundamentals, they risk sacrificing their credibility as officers and the support of the American public. Today, if the military weighs in on the one side or the other of the omnipresent partisan warfare, they will doubtless risk a loss of credibility and confidence by one-half of the country.
These two principles intersect when a serving officer publicly and gratuitously questions the policies of his commander in chief and in a partisan political setting. In such case, the risk of harm to military-civil relations and to the country is magnified. That is, regrettably, the case with Vindman’s testimony.
Vindman Admits His Disagreement Is Petty Politics
We now have the published transcript of Vindman’s deposition testimony, which was taken behind closed doors after his voluntary publication of his gratuitous opening statement. That previously secret testimony shows his violation of these two principles governing proper military-civil relations in a democracy. This is because Vindman’s questions and answers made clear he simply disagreed with the way the president was administering his chosen foreign policy.
Vindman testified he thought it was “inappropriate” for President Trump’s emissary, Rudy Giuliani, to ask Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden’s dealings with Burisma, which he acknowledged was a “corrupt” company. So even though, according to Vindman, the president’s personal emissary was asking the Ukrainians to conduct such an investigation of a company widely acknowledged to be corrupt, and the younger Biden was earning almost $1 million a year as a board member without any discernible qualifications, and even though Vice President Joe Biden had been the Obama administration’s point man in connection with Ukraine, this lieutenant colonel’s personal opinion was that such an investigation was “inappropriate and that we were not going to get involved in investigations” (30-31).
Vindman, therefore, de facto overruled Giuliani’s overtures because Vindman thought “this would not be a fair investigation, and it would provide, you know, compromising or maybe even fabricated information, if need be” (33).
Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, properly questioned Vindman about whether his testimony was simply about non-impeachable policy disagreements or he had knowledge of potentially impeachable criminal acts. Vindman attempted to deflect and evade the questions, and Ratcliffe politely pressed on.
Vindman finally admitted he did not know of “a crime or anything of that nature.” But he “made a moral and ethical judgment” that he thought it was “wrong” and that he “also had deep policy concerns” (155).
Vindman’s Move Could Set a Bad Precedent
Vindman knew what the president’s policy and desire was. He did not like that policy. He also did not like the way the policy was being implemented through the president’s personal emissary, whom he referred to as an “outside influencer” (21-22). So Vindman decided to thwart that policy. And now he has testified — and is expected to testify again — to offer his personal disagreement and criticism of his commander in chief’s policy.
When subpoenaed, Vindman had several honorable options. He could have answered factual questions honestly, eschewing any voluntary opinion testimony. He could have resigned his position and commission and appeared in civilian clothes to offer his opinions about morals and ethics and what he considered to be a wise foreign policy.
What he could not properly do, while on active duty and in uniform, was appear and volunteer his testimony impeaching the policies and desires of his commander in chief. That voluntary act strikes at the heart of the delicate balance between sound military advice and involvement in partisan politics.
Vindman’s testimony risks setting a bad precedent, and the military should nip it in the bud. There is ample precedent for doing so. In 1994, a highly decorated combat Marine, Col. John Ripley, was the senior Navy ROTC instructor at the Virginia Military Institute. The U.S. government had sued VMI to require it to admit women.
VMI subpoenaed Ripley to testify to his opinions based upon his vast experience in combat and as the senior Marine at the United States Naval Academy and instructor at VMI. Ripley was an American hero. He had been awarded the Navy Cross, Silver Star, two Bronze Stars for Valor, and the Purple Heart. In 1994, his opinions differed from those of President Bill Clinton and his administration.
But despite Ripley’s nonpareil military background, the Clinton administration ordered him not to testify to any opinions but to limit his testimony to facts. Ripley obeyed that order. So, too, should Vindman, if he is given such a lawful order.
John Lucas is a practicing attorney in Tennessee who has successfully argued before the U. S. Supreme Court. Before entering law school at the University of Texas, he served in the Army Special Forces as an enlisted and then graduated from the U. S. Military Academy at West Point in 1969. He is an Army Ranger and fought in Vietnam as an infantry platoon leader. He is married with four children.
A highlight (or a lowlight) reel of the Democrats’
greatest misses from the week that was.
Democrats must be grateful that the Thanksgiving recess will bring to an end their horrible week. It’s not nice to laugh at other people’s misfortunes but this week has featured a smorgasbord of schadenfreude for those otherwise bored and irritated by the politics of the moment. In fact, the rigged “Schiff Show” went so badly that observers have reason to doubt that the Democrats will actually pull the trigger on passing articles of impeachment. Here are a few highlights from Adam Mill’s blooper reel.
Adam Schiff Drives Himself to Tears
With sunken eyes and a cracking voice, Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) did not appear to be cloaked in victory as he gavelled to conclusion the public impeachment hearings. He can be seen here choking back tears after giving a soaring speech about how Donald Trump colluded with the Russians to sway the 2016 elections and then turned right around and did the same with Ukraine for the 2020 elections. “Why won’t anyone believe me?” he seems to be pleading.
Adam Schiff Claims Not to Know Who the Whistleblower Is
On October 4, the Washington Post awarded Adam Schiff “Four Pinocchios” for claiming he did not know the identity of the whistleblower. As noted by the New York Times and theWashington Post, the whistleblower went to Schiff and his staff “to seek guidance before filing a complaint.”
A spokesman for Schiff’s own committee said, “Like other whistleblowers have done before and since under Republican- and Democratic-controlled committees, the whistleblower contacted the committee for guidance on how to report possible wrongdoing within the jurisdiction of the intelligence community.” In spite of being outed by the left-leaning press and a staffer on his own committee, Schiff repeated the falsehood on the first day of televised hearings.
Schiff Intervenes to Out the Whistleblower (Again)
According to some unwritten law, we’re all in big trouble if we don’t pretend not to know who the whistleblower is. Here’s a hint: His last name begins with the letters C-I-A.
Representative Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) asked Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman who he talked to regarding the July 25 call between Trump and the President of Ukraine. Vindman quickly identified George Kent, a witness from the previous day, and then evaded identifying the other witness. Schiff interjected: “We need to protect the whistleblower.”
Nunes then extracted an admission from Vindman that he did not know who the whistleblower was. So how, Nunes asked, could Vindman out anyone as a whistleblower?
Vindman petulantly corrected Nunes for addressing him as “Mr. Vindman” instead of by his rank. Then he refused to answer any more questions. How did Schiff know to intervene to protect the whistleblower if he doesn’t know the identity of the whistleblower? Obviously, Schiff’s intervention itself outed the whistleblower, meaning Schiff has outed him twice.
Everyone Thinks They’re in Charge of Ukraine Policy
One of the more amusing aspects of the hearings was watching so many bureaucrats claim to be in charge of Ukraine policy. George Kent, the deputy assistant Secretary of State for Eastern Europe and the Caucuses, seemed to think he was in charge of Ukraine policy. So did Ambassador William Taylor.
Vindman claimed it was his job to “coordinate U.S. Ukraine Policy.” But Fiona Hill seemed to think she was responsible for coordinating U.S. policy on Ukraine. Likewise, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland also thought he was running U.S. policy on Ukraine. A reminder: We live in a representative republic and not a single one of these self-important bureaucrats was on the ballot in 2016.
Nancy Pelosi’s Press Conference
On Thursday, a week before Thanksgiving, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) appeared to be celebrating early by lifting a glass of . . . well, watch thevideo for yourself and decide what you see after she swallows the liquid.
At one point, a reporter asked Pelosi why she’s proceeding without bipartisan support. “Well if the Republicans are in denial about the facts, if the Republicans do not want to honor their oath of office, I don’t think we should be characterized as partisan in any way because we’re patriotic,” Pelosi responded.
As another sign of the collapsing impeachment effort, to borrow from Samuel Johnson, a scoundrel seeks her last refuge in patriotism. In any case, it doesn’t seem like a very persuasive approach to seeking bipartisan support.
Pelosi also appeared to leave the door open to abort the impeachment effort before it can do any further damage to the Democrats, noting that no decision had yet been made on whether to pass articles of impeachment and that the decision would be left to the committees.
I had no idea these press conferences were so entertaining and I will begin tuning in more frequently.
When You Assume, You Make an Ass Out of U and Me
After the climax of the live hearings, Schiff made this breathless announcement in an impromptu hallway press interview, claiming that Ambassador Sondland confirmed “everyone knew” that President Trump wanted aid to Ukraine conditioned on the investigation of the Bidens.
Moments later, Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) demolished this claim. Sondland simply bought into the groupthink and “presumed” that Trump was guilty of quid pro quo conditioning of aid for investigating the Bidens. Further, Sondland confirmed that the president said he wanted nothing from Ukraine, “no quid pro quo,” and to tell Zelensky to “do the right thing.”
Joe Biden Makes a Gaffe that Isn’t
If you took a break from the impeachment circus, you might have tuned into the Democratic debates on Wednesday. The following morning, noted cross-dressing goat-abuser Lawrence O’Donnell jumped on former Vice President Joe Biden’s “gaffe” in claiming he had the endorsement of America’s only African American woman senator. Senator Kamala Harris retorted, “That’s not true . . . the other one is here.”
Harris does have dark skin, as O’Donnell noted. But her claim to being “African American,” the term Biden actually used, is controversial. Harris’s parents were born in Jamaica and India. One activist said, “You don’t voluntarily immigrate into a community that is supposedly segregated, and then claim the struggles of people who have been here chained to chattel slavery for multiple generations.” Biden’s “gaffe” may have been a subtle reminder of that to his base of support within the African American community.
The News Just Keeps Punching and Punching the Bidens
The uncooperative facts of the Biden/Ukraine scandal continue to refuse to be “debunked.” Earlier in the week, Mark Hemingway revealed that Hunter Biden actually had two streams of income from the Ukrainian company, Burisma holdings. As a board member, Hunter was paid “more than 12 times comparable board pay at similarly sized companies.” But he also worked as a paid consultant at the same time. This is a very serious conflict of interest because, as a board member, he would be part of the approving authority in charge of overseeing such expenditures. It’s self-dealing and would be illegal in the United States.
Additionally, Zerohedge reports that young Hunter Biden is just the tip of the iceberg. Other Democratic politicians also may be implicated. The Ukrainian investigation into Burisma appears to be heating up as announced in a recent press conference. According to this report, “Hunter Biden’s income from Burisma is a ‘link that reveals how money is siphoned [from Ukraine],’ and how Biden is just one link in the chain of Zlochevsky’s money-laundering operation which included politicians from the previous Yanukovich administration who continued their schemes under his successor, President Pyotr Poroshenko.”
Quoting Interfax-Ukraine, Zerohedge goes on to note that MP Andriy Derkach announced at the same press conference that “deputies have received new materials from investigative journalists alleging that the ‘family’ of ex-President Yanukovych funneled $7.4 billion through American investment firm Franklin Templeton Investments, which they claim have connections to the US Democratic party.” Maybe this explains the Democrat hysteria over Trump asking about Ukraine’s corruption?
Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Three years after outsider Donald Trump blew up the political world with his implausible victory over the consummate insider, Hillary Clinton, many establishment Republicans still don’t get it. From their elite cocoon, they continue to indulge the hauteur that put off ordinary voters who had grown tired of a fossilized political class that serially ignored their interests, and seemed more concerned with their own insider perks and privilege, rather than in repairing the damage that decades of bipartisan progressive technocracy had inflicted on the Constitutional order.
The grande dame of the disgruntled NeverTrump Republicans has been the Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan, whose columns on Trump usually sound like a mash-up of the prescriptions of Emily Post and a snobbery redolent of Lady Violet Crawley from Downton Abbey.
Noonan’s latest is an attack on the Republicans’ behavior during the House impeachment hearings, coupled with a scolding of the anonymous author of the anti-Trump book A Warning. We should credit her takedown of “anonymous” as “self-valorous and creepy.” But her comments about the Republicans reveal the underlying grounds for NeverTrump hatred: the resentment against those who don’t accept the progressive assumptions that politics is the business of a self-proclaimed guild possessing knowledge, techniques, and professional manners and decorum that the voting masses don’t have.
As typical of a Noonan column, she starts with some sly preening of her insider-status as a wise political guru: “A young foreign-affairs professional asked last week if the coming impeachment didn’t feel like Watergate.” Unlike hoi polloi, Noonan knows “foreign-affairs professionals,” and they seek her out for her wisdom. She then proceeds to contrast the “dignity and professionalism of the career diplomats” whom the Democrats––“disciplined in their questioning and not bullying and theatrical”––called on to testify, with the Republicans’ “interruptions and chaos-strewing” that she compares to “some of what the Democrats did during the Kavanaugh hearings.”
We see here the NeverTrumper’s fundamental error: prizing sizzle over steak, words over deeds, appearance over reality. And, as usual with NeverTrumpers, she indulges an egregiously false comparison. The Kavanaugh hearings were a contrived political stunt constructed from preposterous charges from long ago, with no direct corroborating evidence to support them, but an abundance of evidence casting them in doubt. The current House hearings are yet another Democrat political stunt, made up of witnesses who are recycling office gossip with varying degrees of separation from the originals, the contents of which are mainly subjective opinions or feelings that have no relevance for establishing facts.
Consider this example from the testimony of acting ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor–– which the mainstream press hyped as a “bombshell,” and whom Noon praises as an exemplar of professionalism––as summarized by David Marcus in the New York Post: “He said David Holmes, a counselor for political affairs at the US embassy in Kiev, told him that he had overheard a phone conversation between Ambassador Gordon Sondland and President Trump.” In what courtroom other than the old Soviet Union or Cuba today would this twice-removed hearsay be admitted?
Likewise in the Kavanaugh hearings, the Democrats were contriving specious charges to derail a confirmation they had no plausible merit-based arguments for rejecting. In the current hearings, the Democrats are again contriving specious charges for impeaching a president against whom three years of a Special Prosecutor’s investigation have not produced credible charges that rise to the “high crimes and misdemeanors” Constitutional standard. That’s why the Dems have dropped the “quid pro quo” and are attempting call the legal and obligatory conditions for giving a country foreign aid “bribery” and “extortion,” using the same Orwellian corruption of words that turns a mutually consensual but later regretted sexual encounter into “sexual assault.”
After three years of Dem calumny and dirty tricks, can we blame the Republicans for forgoing the usual preemptive cringe and vigorously contesting this blatantly partisan attack?
Noonan’s focus on her subjective disapproval of the Republicans’ unmannerly response to what is in effect an illiberal political show trial, replete with secret hearings, leaks to the press, and pre-coaching of witnesses, ignores the substantive consistency of the Democrats’ despicable and desperate attempts to invalidate the results of an election and disenfranchise 63 million American voters.
Noonan goes on to expand on her elevation of “professionalism” by giving us the res gestae of acting ambassador William Taylor, consisting mainly of his military record. She also singled out George P. Kent, highlighting his degrees from Johns Hopkins and Harvard, and his 27 years in foreign service. Again, the NeverTrump preference for sizzle over steak, evident in Noonan’s “They seemed [N.B.] to have capability and integrity.” Why? The right credentials––military service and Ivy League degrees–– are assumed to bespeak achievements benefitting the American people, just as a polished delivery suggests “integrity.” Maybe these gentlemen have such achievements and virtue, but reading off their CVs and praising their demeanor are not dispositive, and say nothing about the veracity or worth of their testimony.
Indeed, when it comes to foreign affairs, generations of highly credentialed foreign policy mandarins have not compiled a record that would suggest those credentials contribute to success. The two most consequential failures include misreading the Iranian Revolution as an anticolonial bid for freedom and popular sovereignty, rather than a religious revolution aimed at creating an Islamic theocracy; and failing to foresee and thus prepare for the collapse of the Soviet Union, something that was unthinkable to the big brains of our foreign policy establishment.
Moreover, the great foreign policy success in the postwar period was victory in the Cold War, which was the accomplishment of an ex-actor and foreign policy amateur looked down on by the government agency “professionals.” They contemptuously dismissed Reagan’s common-sense wisdom like “we win, they lose,” “evil empire,” and “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” The latter iconic phrase, by the way, was argued againstby the State Department and National Security Council because it was too provocative and naïve.
The simple truth that people like Noonan miss is that credentials, including military service, no matter how sterling or impressive, do not necessarily bespeak wisdom or future achievement, any more than exquisite manners, as Jane Austen has taught us, bespeak a true gentleman. They represent instead a promise that is broken more often than kept. What infuriates them about Trump, aside from his affrontery of getting elected over the highly credentialed Hillary Clinton, is that though lacking such credentials, and contemptuous of the political decorum of the ruling caste and their advice, he has been remarkably successful both at home and abroad.
Moreover, the government agencies Noonan extolls are large, hierarchically organized, public-funded bureaucracies. This means they are riddled with group-think, received ideas, and outmoded paradigms that determine advancement. And being funded by taxpayers and protected by a union and civil-service regulations, they are unaccountable to the voters, and so can fail for years without any consequences. Worse yet, mediocrity and politicization flourish in such environments, and those who think beyond the ruling paradigm find it difficult to make changes. In short, they are the “deep state” that Noonan claims doesn’t exist.
Finally, like most NeverTrumpers, Noonan seems to think she can read Trump’s mind and discover his unsavory motives: “They know what this story is, and I believe they absolutely know the president muscled an ally, holding public money over its head to get a personal political favor.” Talk about a big begged question to go along with her other fallacies like the false analogy and argument from authority. (It would be mean to bring up this mixed metaphor describing the Democrats: “brick by brick they gave their testimony and painted a picture that supports the charge that yes, Donald Trump muscled Ukraine.” I didn’t know you could paint pictures with bricks.)
Of course, all the public evidence makes her claim false. It’s hard to believe Trump “muscled” or “extorted” or “bribed” the Ukrainians when they didn’t even know the aid Trump allegedly withheld had been delayed. By the way, wasn’t it Trump, not the credentialed Obama, who sent Ukraine the Javelin anti-tank missiles that Obama withheld? Instead, Obama sent them blankets, no doubt worrying over the “reset” with Russia and keeping his promise to Vladimir of more foreign policy “flexibility.” And how exactly does Noonan know what Trump was thinking, or whether he was so worried about the self-imploding Joe Biden? You want to see some “muscling” and quid pro quo, watch the video of Biden bragging about holding up a billion dollars in aid if Ukraine didn’t quash an investigation of the dodgy Ukrainian company Burisma, which was paying his son $50-80,000 a month.
So it has been since the day Trump became a candidate. The bipartisan ruling caste closed ranks and started fighting off the barbarian invader. Yet in focusing so much on Trump’s manner, lack of dubious credentials, and dearth of time served holding office, they diverted attention from Clinton’s lack of character, her off-putting personality, her venomous ambition, and her manifest violations of her oath to uphold the Constitution. Fortunately, they unwittingly validated Trump’s message and helped put him in office.
So keep it up, NeverTrumpers. All you accomplish is reminding voters why they voted for Donald Trump in the first place.
November 23, 2019
PARIS (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of people took the streets of
Paris and other French cities on Saturday to protest against domestic
violence, after more than 130 women are believed to have been killed by
their partner or ex-partner in France this year.
In Paris, the mostly female activists chanted “Abuser, you’ve had it,
women are in the street” and held purple placards bearing the names of
female victims and slogans such as “not another murder more”.
Purple is a symbolic color used by the women’s rights movement.
The demonstrations, led by the #NousToutes association, took place
two days before the government is due to publish the results of an
investigation into domestic violence.
A Council of Europe expert group on domestic violence (GREVIO) said
this week France needed to offer better protection for victims and their
children and more effective anti-violence measures.
“We cannot continue to accept that women are being murdered today
with total impunity. The state must do its job to guarantee the security
of all women in this country,” #NousToutes activist Karine Plassard
told Reuters in Paris.
Other marches took place in French cities such as Lyon, Strasbourg, Bordeaux and Lille.
“There is far too much violence against women everywhere in society,
at work, in our intimate lives,” said Paris demonstrator Pauline, 28.
“The masculine part of the population must be aware of what they are
doing to the other half.”
Demonstrators carry signs to protest femicide and violence against women in Paris, France, November 23, 2019
The Fake Impeachment is about as annoying as nails on a chalkboard! BUT..I actually love it and hope it continues for another couple of weeks. The Dems are outing themselves better than any of us ever could! You have to think about WHY they are so nervous about the Ukraine!
Meet Igor Pasternak..an arms dealer for the Ukraine. Born in the Soviet Union ..moved to the States around 1992. Started out designing Blimps .. opened a business named Aeroscraft in California. Recognized as an arms dealer by the ATF.
Secured many contracts with the Pentagon..was in Kiev during the 2014 CIA sponsored coup. Signed a contract for Aeros to supply Ukraine’s State Border Service with a surveillance system to monitor the Sea of Azov. Makes millions and supplies to more than Ukraine!
If you're a major arms dealer and tightly connected to George Soros..it's easy to lead the lavish lifestyle Pasternak does. Well known for his Globalism..well versed in you scratch my back.. I'll scratch yours. Around 2013 he becomes very good friends with Schiff and Pelosi.
Gorgeous home in DC and uses it to his benefit hosting Fund raisers for Democrats. Hosted two benefits for Adam Schiff with very generous price tags. Schiff has received $7.8 million from Pasternak.. don't ya just wonder what all Pasternak received?
Invitations to the fundraisers given in Adam Schiff's honor. Attended well by the Elite and fellow Congressmen and women.
If there are arms or war involved.. you just know that Fric and Frac will show up! Maybe we understand just a bit better why our dear Lindsey can't subpoena anyone... He would have to subpoena himself! I've said it before..IS THERE any DEMOCRAT not involved in Ukraine?
Care to explain this in front of Congress @RepAdamSchiff Hunter and Joe aren't the only ones who have gotten filthy rich in the Ukraine.. Pelosi.. Schumer.. Nadler ... McCain.. Graham.. the list is long.. Durham will have it all I'm sure!
Tomorrow we will delve into Alexandra Chalupa and how she binds them all together. Hopefully we understand now why the Fake Impeachment was so important..getting those US dollars over there in Aid affect their paychecks! Quid Pro Quo? You bet .. with the Democrats!
Well, the House Intelligence Committee hearings on President Trump’s impeachment might be over, but for CNN, it’s battle now faces a second front: the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA). Nunes became a target of CNN who published a story that an associate of Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for the president, is ready to detail a tall tale about him meeting Nunes in Vienna in an effort to get “dirt” on former Vice President Joe Biden. Gee—this story sounds so familiar, maybe it’s a throwback to that fantastic tale about Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen being in Prague when he wasn’t. These clowns never learn do they (via CNN):
A lawyer for an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani tells CNN that his client is willing to tell Congress about meetings the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee had in Vienna last year with a former Ukrainian prosecutor to discuss digging up dirt on Joe Biden.
The attorney, Joseph A. Bondy, represents Lev Parnas, the recently indicted Soviet-born American who worked with Giuliani to push claims of Democratic corruption in Ukraine. Bondy said that Parnas was told directly by the former Ukrainian official that he met last year in Vienna with Rep. Devin Nunes.
[…]
Bondy tells CNN that his client and Nunes began communicating around the time of the Vienna trip. Parnas says he worked to put Nunes in touch with Ukrainians who could help Nunes dig up dirt on Biden and Democrats in Ukraine, according to Bondy.
That information would likely be of great interest to House Democrats given its overlap with the current impeachment inquiry into President Trump, and could put Nunes in a difficult spot.
Bondy tells CNN his client is willing to comply with a Congressional subpoena for documents and testimony as part of the impeachment inquiry in a manner that would allow him to protect his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.
Bondy suggested in a tweet on Friday that he was already speaking to House Intel though the committee declined to comment.
Yeah, the ‘Cohen in Prague’ story was fake. And this appears to be total trash as well, with Nunes announcing that he will be slapping CNN with a lawsuit. Daily Wire has more, including a lengthy history of CNN just being an abjectly terrible network that can’t seem to stop peddling fake news about Republicans and President Donald Trump (via Daily Wire):
House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA) announced Friday night that he is filing a lawsuit against CNN over a report that they published the same evening that alleged an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani was willing to testify to Congress that Nunes met with a former Ukrainian prosecutor last year to discuss digging up dirt on former Vice President and current Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden.
[…]
Nunes also plans to sue The Daily Beast for a story that it published earlier in the week that alleged that Parnas helped Nunes set up numerous meetings regarding Ukraine.
In an exclusive statement provided to Breitbart News, Nunes said: “These demonstrably false and scandalous stories published by the Daily Beast and CNN are the perfect example of defamation and reckless disregard for the truth. Some political operative offered these fake stories to at least five different media outlets before finding someone irresponsible enough to publish them. I look forward to prosecuting these cases, including the media outlets, as well as the sources of their fake stories, to the fullest extent of the law. I intend to hold the Daily Beast and CNN accountable for their actions. They will find themselves in court soon after Thanksgiving.”
[…]
CNN… is notorious for making false claims about Republicans and publishing false stories that later have to be retracted.
In late 2017, CNN published a story smearing then-Trump ally Anthony Scaramucci that alleged that Scaramucci was connected to a Russian investment fund that was supposedly under investigation by the U.S. Senate.
Scaramucci took immediate legal action against CNN and the network was forced to retract the report and had to fire three reporters over the incident.
In August, CNN’s Brian Stelter, on his show “Reliable Sources,” allowed a psychiatrist to falsely claim that President Donald Trump was “as destructive of person in this century as Hitler, Stalin, Mao were in the last century. He may be responsible for many more million deaths than they were.”
This story is going to get CNN in a whole lot of trouble. Deliberately peddling fake news from Fusion GPS that nobody else would publish because it’s so baseless? Garbage journalism, but classic CNN. We’re talking “Michael Cohen in Prague” level fabulism.https://t.co/Oc14jyoGIM
CNN does well in keeping its reputation as one of the prolific anti-Trump networks out there—but that doesn’t shield them from legal trouble. James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas did a lengthy investigation into the bias at the network, where it’s a known fact that its president, Jeffrey Zucker, has a personal vendetta against Trump. Well, here’s your finished product.
The Trump-Ukraine fiasco continues to engulf the Democratic Party and its allies in the media. In all, the Hill wasted all week hauling up so-called witnesses over this July phone call Trump had with Ukrainian leaders, where he allegedly threatened to withhold aid unless they investigated the corruption allegations lobbed at Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden, and his board position at Burisma energy company. So far, there's been zero evidence to back up that claim. It's all been hearsay and a lot of presumptions.
