The second “whistleblower” complaint is probably a repetition of the same complaint from the same set of eyes with just a different figurehead from the group. By the way, the complaint makes reference to a group that increasingly sounds like a cabal. There’s a term for a form of espionage with the same information being used twice to create the appearance of confirmation. Bottom line, it’s in the toolkit of the intelligence community. And it’s probably operative here.
There’s more to this latest effort to impeach. “Whistleblowing” provides cover for the “whistleblower”. Labeling the person a “whistleblower” shields the identity of the person while also stonewalling efforts to plumb his or her identity for motivations – you know, like the complainant’s possible partisan political aims. Secondly, the non-inquiry inquiry is conducted to prevent a courtroom adversarial setting that would give evidentiary and debate rights to opponents. Keeping the process like a committee hearing, but just labeling it an “impeachment inquiry”, puts great power in the hands of the committee chairman and the Democratic leadership. It’s a tactic that would make Stalin beam with envy.
It’s a two-fer, and nothing but a political flim-flam.
I was drawn back to the Soviet concept of the “correlation of forces” after reading Yuval Levin’s piece from over a week ago (Sept. 27), “The Impeachment Train”. The Soviet notion was fully researched by one of our Defense Dept.’s agencies (DARPA) in a report, “The Soviet Concept of the Correlation of Forces”, in 1976.
Soviet era propaganda poster.
The Soviets sought to exploit what they considered to be favorable circumstances to advance their foreign policy goals at our expense – “the correlation of forces” so-called. The current period in our country’s history has all the ingredients for another “correlation of forces”, one that could drive the nation into strongly hostile camps resembling the antebellum divisions of the 1820’s to 1860, hopefully without the violence. The “correlation of forces” are present for all to see.
The divide has been described as a blue/red and urban/rural one. It’s true; we are deeply split in those two ways. I’ve written about this often. Since the divide is culturally-based, it has the capacity to be even more combustible. Enter Donald Trump. A divide that has been building for quite some time is deepened and widened by Trump’s style of politicking and personal mannerisms. Those manners drive people to their corners.
Part of the blame lies at Trump’s lack of a filter when he speaks (or Tweets). He’s not Bill Clinton who can compartmentalize. Trump in private is nearly the same as Trump in public. He doesn’t distinguish that much between a locker room and moments before microphones and cameras. He cares not about whether he’s talking to foreign dignitaries in private phone calls or crowds at one of his rallies. With Trump, you get what you see … everywhere. He’s unfiltered and inflammatory.
Trump rally, August 2019.
Thus, he elicits strong reactions. Trump’s presence isn’t a soothing one. Sparky talk incites sparky actions. Newton’s third law of motion comes to mind: for every action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction.
And for hypersensitive Dems, their over-the-top reactions are easily facilitated when the party has been lurching ever leftward for the past few decades. Today, there’s not much difference between them and the radical left of the 60’s. Much of it is driven by the cultural radicalization of our urban and suburban areas. The radical has become mainstream in the party. Sure, Trump makes it easier for them to embrace extremist policies as they seek to distinguish themselves from what they considered to be a wholly detestable figure. As the cultural undertow pulls the middle of the party to the left, the more moderate elements get dragged along. Of course, Trump’s behavior is no excuse to foist the poison of socialism on the country.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey (right) speak during a press conference to announce Green New Deal legislation on Feb. 7. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
Trump is not the reason for the Democrats’ love affair with socialism and their leftward leap. Environmentalism is. Environmentalism is a pseudo-religious ideology. It’s religious for its faith in a materialistic explanation of reality. Interestingly, the combination of “religious” and “materialistic” in the same sentence makes for a classic oxymoron. Recognition of the fact by the cultural left won’t stop them from papering over the disjunction by turning Jesus and the Bible into citadels of wokeness, to go along with the long-desired surrender of humanity to a semi-deity, mother nature. It’s pantheism at best. The dogmas are grotesquely incoherent.
Environmentalism provides excellent cover, though, for socialism’s expansion of government power into every facet of life. Is it really all that surprising for the party of government to be a party of socialism? Environmentalism satisfies the Democrats’ itch for government control. The modern Democratic Party is so immersed in its socialism that it doesn’t take much for their opponents to be cast as evil. They don’t need a Trump. Anyone not drinking the Kool-Aid can be branded a “denier”, “racist”, “xenophobe”, “fascist”, and on and on. They didn’t wait for Trump to brand George W. Bush a religious fanatic, a hater, a wanton killer in the chant “Bush lied, people died”, a fascist, a corrupt stooge of Big Oil, an instigator of 9-11, etc., etc.
Code Pink at the White House, about 2005.A protester calling for the impeachment of Bush in June 16, 2005.
The word “impeachment” frequently graced their lips. Trump’s crude mannerisms make for an even easier target for their ideologically-driven hypersensitivities.
The entire gamut of woke communities – on our campuses, in our cities, among our super-rich tech and finance tycoons, amidst white collar public employees, et al – can be energized for lefty activism as need arises. Ask Brett Kavanaugh. Without a shred of evidence, accusers came out of the woodwork to level the worst kind of human conduct at him: perversion, rape, gang rape, a reveler in the grossest bacchanalias, you name it. Even the most “credible” accuser, Blasey Ford, turned out to be “incredible”. In law, we must keep in mind that a story is fiction till its proven. These were never proven, and probably couldn’t ever be proven. They are lies.
Brett Kavanaugh at confirmation hearings, September 2018.Protesters demonstrating against the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the steps of the Supreme Court.The discredited and unsubstantiated Kavanaugh accusers.
The script is repeated on Trump. Instead of an engineered line of supposed female victims, we have the denizens of public employment near the top of the Leviathan pyramid coming forward under the cover of “whistleblower”. They are proof of the existence of a government worker subculture with its own set of norms, values, and expectations that are distinct from their reason for existence. Some of those norms are ideological and partisan. Though, it must be admitted in the case of Trump that a “D” and “R” designation isn’t as relevant as the collective judgment at the water cooler that Trump is reprehensible. Nonetheless, there are vastly more D’s than R’s on the rolls of taxpayer-funded employment. Virginia is blue for the fact. The administrative state isn’t exactly a level playing field.
The ginning up of the activists will require additional gripes to increase the credibility of the charges as per the Kavanaugh caper. It doesn’t matter if the tales are true or not. What matters is the number. The one “whistleblower” story will be followed by others. As I write, a new complaint against Trump is currently percolating from the depths of the Leviathan.
Could Trump adjust by dialing down the bombast? Yeah, but not likely. Trump is like the big post man in basketball who drains a 3-pointer in the beginning of the game. After that, he cannot be found anywhere near the bucket for the rest of the game. Trump believes that his outspoken and unfiltered self is the reason for his shocking victory in 2016, while ignoring the loss of the ‘burbs and married women. So, that’s what we’re going to get for the rest of his time in the White House. He’ll continue to do it till he faces defeat.
But who knows, he may turn out to be a great 3-point shooter. Color me skeptical.
Trump’s saving grace is … today’s Democratic Party. All the talk about Trump’s incivility ignores the Democrats’ irresponsible embrace of socialism and the cultural left. Trump’s behavior may be deplorable, but the Democrats cannot be trusted with our nation. This is one of the weaknesses of some of the criticisms coming from the center-right, like Yuval Levin’s column. I don’t know of anyone who can claim that a dethronement of Trump won’t lead to an empowerment of the Democrats’ socialism. For the average citizen, their choices appear bleak: continue the Trump drama or ruin the nation by handing the keys of power to the Democrats’ leftism.
Levin is right when he says the biggest victim will be a loss of faith in our institutions. Yet, it’s not as if those institutions weren’t deserving of disrepute. The Supreme Court, and the courts in general, have been way out of their lane. Modern presidents have turned the presidency into an almost divine-right branch. Obama had his phone and pen. Congress is a eunuch that performs like a clown show. The administrative state is a law unto itself, so huge as to be unmanageable. The Constitution is made an empty document and open to the manipulations of the whims of men. We have the rule of men, not laws.
At the center of this governance by malfeasance is the institutional presence and power of the Democratic Party and its socialism-at-all-costs ethic. Trump may be personally repulsive; the Democrats are thoroughly unfit for office. The correlation of forces is lining up for a real brouhaha. The modern correlation of forces are a divisive figure in the White House, the Democratic Party’s muscular socialism, the ongoing cultural substitution of Christianity with Environmentalism, the emergence of a very partisan administrative state as the fourth branch of government, and the media serving as a megaphone for the advancement of the Democrats’ socialism and its cultural leftism. Many of these malignant forces are emanating from those blue dots on the electoral map.
Buckle up because impeachment promises to be a real donnybrook.
Prelude: The 19th century Progressives bequeathed to us a many tentacled Leviathan. The monster grew out of the progressives’ fundamental premise that life is too complicated to be left to individuals. We need, they asserted, “experts” to guide and assist us in achieving our highest potential. They did not see the monster developing a mind of its own with distinct interests from those it was intended to serve. You might say, a culture evolved from its peculiar ecosystem. Out of this unique culture arose a predilection for certain views, born of its circumstances and concomitant norms and expectations. The 2016 election threw back the rug and exposed the thing for what it really is. It is a living and breathing thing no longer moored to its original raison d’être. Its purpose for existence is itself, not the country and the country’s citizens.
*******
At times Tucker Carlson drives me nuts. One of his favorite bogeymen is “neocons”, which occasionally crowds out his infatuation with UFO’s. To him, free markets are “just a tool”. He completely misses the point that they are what happens when the state leaves people alone. Free markets blossom when a state is created to protect our natural rights, not the creator of them. But I have to admit that he is onto something in most things Trump. The latest Trump furor erupted over a whistleblower complaint about his phone call (later referred to simply as “the Call”) to Ukrainian President Zelensky. A CIA veteran appeared on his show to present his view of the whistleblower’s complaint. His observations should raise at least a few eye brows. Watch.
The complaint (read here) according to former CIA officer John Kiriakou reads too polished and legally suave to be a product of a single person. In his view, the complaint by the time it got to Congress had passed through multiple hands. Maybe this is normal, but today’s political environment isn’t normal. Multiple hands might mean a coordinated effort. There are concerns that the administrative state is a hyper-partisan outfit, particularly in its DC stomping grounds. Is it possible that our bureaucracies in DC are a well-oiled special interest group with a clear ideological cast? Is the “whistleblower” a pseudonym for a cabal of apparatchiks intent on removing Trump?
Details about the complaint and the complainant are only now beginning to emerge. The existence of an accusation was known to Adam Schiff (D, Ca.), chairman of the House Intel Committee, as it was gestating in the intel bureaucracy (read about it here). According to the latest information, the accuser interacted with a Schiff aide and was referred to a lawyer. Who’s the lawyer? It’s none other than one of the many revolving-door Democrat apparatchiks who populate the environs of the DC Mall, Andrew Bakaj with Mark Zaid as co-counsel.
Andrew Bakaj of Comparr Rose Legal Group, PLLC
Previously, Bakaj has been at the center of insider politics to frustrate Trump appointees. In 2018, he went after Christopher Sharpley, Trump’s nominee for CIA Inspector General, ironically a holdover from Obama’s tenure where he served as deputy IG of the CIA, and functioned as acting IG under Trump. Out of the woodwork arose a cadre of former apparatchiks to blast Sharpley for allegedly punishing “whistleblowers”. At the tip of the spear was Bakaj. They successfully torpedoed Sharpley’s nomination when he withdrew his name rather than face the Dem gauntlet. And who was retained as Bakaj’s legal counsel in this earlier jig? It was Zaid. You can read about the episode here.
It’s time to clear up this business about “whistleblowers” before we go any further. “Whistleblowing” can be more than just a sincere exposure of those of public trust who cook the books. It also lends itself to partisan political crusades. Whistleblowing at this level looks a lot like leaking. Whistleblowing has the potential to be legal cover for leaking.
The motivations of the complaining actor (or actress) can be of a partisan nature. Speaking of partisan, look at Bakaj’s political background. The guy is fully marinated in Democratic Party politics. He interned for Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton in the Spring and Fall of 2001 according to his Linkedin page. He was employed at the CIA’s IG office during the Obama years. That’s where he ran afoul of Sharpley, the CIA’s Deputy IG, at a time when Obama was petrified over leaks. Even Democrats at that time were aware of the blurred line between “whistleblowing” and “leaking”.
Bakaj is now part of the web of professional handlers who are on speed dial with Democrat officeholders with a political ax to grind. So the Call’s digestive tract might look like this: leaker > Schiff aide > Schiff? > Bakaj > Zaid. As more information comes to light, we may have to add more entrails to the guts of the beast.
The Call’s coming to light is starting to eerily resemble the sliming of Kavanaugh. At the root of that campaign was Debra Katz, the DC lawyer who represented Christine Blasey-Ford and her completely unsubstantiated allegations. Is her’s (Katz) a fully objective legal mind? Are you kidding? She once crowed not long after Trump’s inauguration, “This administration’s explicit agenda is to wage an assault on our most basic rights — from reproductive rights to our rights to fair pay . . . We are determined to resist — fiercely and strategically.” She’s a charter member of the Resistance.
Debra Katz at The Wall Street Journal CFO Network on June 12, 2018. (Photo: Paul Morse for the WSJ)
Into this boiling stew is thrown the Call. Cutting through the bombast, we find the complaint adds nothing, other than what appears to be Democrat boilerplate. Trump trumped them by releasing the transcript of the Call. The very thing that was to be the accelerant for a full blown uproar was now equally in the possession of any congregation of people at a barber shop or supermarket. The mom with a basket full of groceries knows just as much as the “whistleblower”. With the transcript, we get to compare the whistleblower’s account of what was said with … what was actually said.
The New York Times’s report on the complaint refers to it as following the released transcript of the Call. Of course it does. Dah! But there’s much more to the complaint that sounds more like a legal brief than a singe person’s recollection. In-between references to the Call are interpretations and embellishments. These could have just as easily come out of the Resistance hothouse or Adam Schiff and the worst of the Democratic caucus. Examples are in order.
Example #1: Right at the start, in the introduction, the complaint rattles off a partisan indictment: “… the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election. This interference includes, among other things, pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President’s main domestic political rivals.”
This is not in the transcript. It’s in the mind of the complainant, and whoever else helped him (or her) write it. As we know, Trump requested assistance from the Ukraine in our investigation of possible governmental misbehavior surrounding the 2016 election. We have treaties for this purpose, one with the Ukraine. Any reference to the Bidens is brief and offhanded, and fleetingly mentioned to make the point of possible corruption and other wrongdoing of recent vintage. As for a “quid pro quo”, to be blunt, there ain’t one. This is clear if you listen to a dramatic reading of the Call in natural conversational tones and rhythms (One was performed on the Hugh Hewitt Show, Hour 2, 10/2/2019).
Example #2: Here’s chilling reminder of the cabal within the unleashed Leviathan: “Over the past four months, more than half a dozen U.S. officials have informed me of various facts related to this effort.” Further, “It is routine for U.S. officials … to share such information with one another ….” Additonally and astoundingly, we have this admission: “I was not a direct witness to most of the events described. However, I found my colleagues’ accounts of these events to be credible because, in almost all cases, multiple officials recounted fact patterns that were consistent with one another.”
“Fact patterns”? “Multiple officials”? “Share such information”? What are “fact patterns”? They are opinions usually fueled by bias. In today’s climate, there’s no hotter bias than DC Trump-hatred. As for the “sharing” and “multiple officials”, that sounds to me like “intrigue”. I would like to remind the Dem caucus that interpretation equally applies to the complaint as it does to the Call.
Example #3: The frequent appearance of the word “pressure” to characterize Trump’s request for assistance from Zelensky, president of the Ukraine, underscores the partisan bombast. “Pressure” is a very loaded verb. Once again, a natural oral recreation of the conversation conveys no such “pressure”. It is a provocative verb enlisted for the sole purpose of advancing a political agenda. The complaint has the odor of DNC press releases.
Example #4: To further the charge of Trump “pressuring” Zelensky, a quid pro quo was stitched together by the author(s). First, they attempt to paint White House officials as “deeply disturbed” as they “witnessed the President abuse his office for personal gain”. The “abuse” relies on cobbling together a line from the Ukrainian president’s account of the talk on his website with the fleeting reference to the Bidens. Here’s the Ukraine line in the complaint:
“Donald Trump expressed his conviction that the new Ukrainian government will be able to quickly improve Ukraine’s image and complete the investigation of corruption cases that have held back cooperation between Ukraine and the United States.”
Attach the above with this:
“Aside from the above-mentioned ‘cases’ purportedly dealing with the Biden family and the 2016 U.S. election, I was told by White House officials that no other “cases” were discussed.”
And you have a “quid pro quo”. Really? Yeah, in the minds of those in the fever swamp. So, we are supposed to believe in the space of a limited conversation that the mere mention of the Bidens is ipso facto proof of “give me dirt on the Bidens or we’ll let you die on the vine”. The only way to get away with the accusation is to be unfamiliar with the Call. Now that we have it to read during our morning constitution, we know that the shenanigans of the intel community and the FBI in DC, along with Crowdstrike, were mentioned. “No other cases”? The Bidens were one of three, all brought up during the length of a short phone talk. The complaint’s author(s) are lying.
I could parse more of the thing by going beyond the first 3 pages of the 9 in the screed. The document is risible. It will become more of a farce as more comes to light, maybe more about the complainant. Some reports have revealed the author to be a registered Democrat. Something not unexpected given the natural affinity between the party of government (Democratic Party) and the employees of government.
Neighboring states around DC all of a sudden have a predilection for Democratic Party candidates. The federal government grows and Democrats flock to DC and its environs. Examine the map of Virginia from the 2016 election. Notice the northern state house districts on the south side of the Potomac, a few bridges away from DC?
Republicans venturing into DC are lambs stumbling into a den of wolves.
The tale of the Call is the story of the sunset of popular sovereignty. We must recognize that the government is so big that it cannot be controlled through elections. In fact, if elections go against the lunch room zeitgeist, the new officeholders will be undermined or removed from office. Welcome to modern impeachment in the age of the institutional radical left.
Stay tuned for more from the impeachment clown show.
The transcript of the “infamous” call to Ukrainian president Zelensky by Pres. Trump, July 25, 2019.
Regarding Trump’s phone call to Zelensky, president of Ukraine, an oral message put on paper and then read isn’t the same as performance of the conversation in the manner in which it was delivered: person-to-person in conversational tones. Adam Schiff’s bastardized performance is a travesty. I’m talking about taking the original transcript and vocally delivering the actual words as they occur in a natural conversation. Once you do that, the air is taken out of the Democrat’s impeachment balloon. There’s no there there.
Duane Patterson (l), Hugh Hewitt (r).
Hugh Hewitt and his producer, Duane Patterson, conducted such a reading (Hour 2, Hugh Hewitt Show, 10/2/19). If performed as it was originally delivered, certain conclusions about the call stand out:
(1) Trump is right. There was no quid pro quo. There was no use of presidential power to advance his candidacy. There was no offer, implied or otherwise, to withhold aid for purely partisan advantage.
(2) Zelensky brought up Giuliani, not Trump. Trump was asking Ukraine for their assistance in our probe of Russia-gate. Of course, Giuliani, being the personal attorney of the president, is also gathering evidence to defend his client against the Democrats’ anti-Trump jihad. Remember, Clinton had an entire war room devoted to the defense of our priapic 42nd chief executive. In fact, the conversation mostly skirts the mention of Giuliani.
(3) The aid that the US has given the Ukraine was mentioned to remind Zelensky that allies operate in a reciprocal manner, and Europe provides little help to Ukraine. We need some international help to investigate a matter of international scope, not necessarily to go after “lunch pale” Joe. We have treaties with other nations to cover these eventualities.
(4) Biden is mentioned by Trump in a brief, offhanded manner. It was mentioned to highlight the possibility of Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election. The Crowdstrike reference is brought up in the beginning by Trump to make the point. That’s the context.
I could say more. It is very strange for Congressional firebrands like Schiff to rush to impeachment over this frail thread. Is this an attempt to head off Barr and Durham as they draw close to the origins of Russia-gate? If so, indeed, we have a coup underway.
In this April 25, 2006, file photo, John Durham speaks to reporters on the steps of U.S. District Court in New Haven, Conn. (AP Photo/Bob Child, File) (Washington Examiner)
Our politics has descended into a shout-fest. Trump doesn’t present reasoned arguments (argument as in viewpoint with reasons). He resorts to boilerplate and name-calling. The Dem leadership and its Squad are channeling a mix of over-caffeinated social justice warriors at a Charles Murray lecture and teenage inmates on acid in a juvenile hall cell block. Don’t expect much calm deliberation to come of it.
If you have one hour and 20 minutes – or as much as you can handle – here is an example of what civil discourse is supposed to sound like (go to here or click on the icon below).
The editors of National Review gather to discuss the issue-meltdown du jour. This session concerns the infamous call and impeachment. There’s quite a range of opinion from the hyper Trump skeptic David French to Charles W. Cooke to the constitutionally fastidious Luke Thompson to Michael Brendan Dougherty to Rich Lowry, the moderator. On the call and impeachment, French lies closer to Pelosi and Thompson closer to Trump. All are critical of Trump and the Democrats but vary in their degree and basis of condemnation
The consensus, if there is one, is that Trump behaved badly and the Dems could have possibly stepped on another rake. My take is closer to Thompson – Trump’s actions were within the historical bounds of presidential behavior and certainly not impeachable – and Cooke – what’s the standard for impeachable offenses given Andrew Jackson’s genocide to presidents making war without congressional approval to presidents with a phone and pen so as to slip the bounds of their oath of office? Impeachment, really, over this?
Pres. Trump and National Security Adviser John Bolton
In the spat with the ousted John Bolton as National Security Adviser, Trump responded to Bolton by saying “guys like Bolton and others wanted to go into Iraq and that didn’t work out too well.” Leaving aside the fact that Bush and Petraeus had succeeded in stabilizing Iraq by September 2008, and Obama cut-and-ran in 2014, Trump exposes his selective memory and bent for near-isolationism. His approach to foreign affairs is a combination of bluster and bluff (“Rocket Man”, “We’ll respond with the likes of nothing you’ve ever seen before”), patronizing niceties as if he’s talking to a municipal planning board (“They’ve got tremendous potential”, etc.), and finding excuses not to use the US military that he boasts so much about. Trump sounds more like Charles Lindbergh and his 1940 America First Committee than Ronald Reagan. Trump is the one who refuses to see the bear in this Reagan campaign ad from 1984 (see below).
The bear ad came to mind after reading Jim Geraghty’s piece in National Review, “The Missing Word in Trump’s Call: ‘Russia’” (Read the article here). The phone transcript between Trump and Zelensky should be read with the pall of Russian aggression against Ukraine overhanging the conversation. It certainly was on the mind of Zelensky as his country is being dismembered by Russia, if it wasn’t in Trump’s head. The Ukraine is at the mercy of American military aid, since the bureaucratic pacifism of the European Union makes it a eunuch and the poor country is geographically isolated. The president talks about his personal squabbles with malevolent Democrats in the conversation as Zelensky’s Ukraine is invaded. I would think that Zelensky is at a severe disadvantage. Thus, he responds with the equivalent of “Yes, yes, Mr. President, yes …”
The crazy Democrats’ serial drive for impeachment and the president’s narrow focus on the never-ending domestic assaults against him must make the American political scene seem like kabuki theater to the guy at the other end of Trump’s phone line. We, Americans, are missing a more serious picture. Back to the bear ad and Lindbergh’s America First Committee, another pall should overhang Trump’s current management of our foreign relations. It’s the tumbling dominoes of the Rhineland (1936), the Anschluss (1938), Czechoslovakia (1938), and Poland (1939).
The Anschluss with Austria, 1938.
A zigzagging foreign policy careening from bluster and bluff to excuse-mongering inaction as we deal with thug countries like North Korea, Iran, and China is a disaster-in-waiting. The measure of success should not be the number of wars avoided but are we any safer and our interests protected.
Besides, the choices aren’t between a boots-on-the-ground invasion and the diplomacy of “All You Need is Love”. Whether Trump likes it or not, the US on the international scene corresponds to the high school Dean of Students. No, we’re not the cop but we are the disciplinarian of last resort. And by discipline, I don’t mean nation-building. To borrow from 19th century, there’s such a thing as “butcher and bolt”. Go in, smash ’em, and get out, as in Operation Praying Mantis from 1988.
An aerial view of the Iranian frigate IS ALVAND (71) burning after being attacked by aircraft of Carrier Air Wing 11 in retaliation for the mining of the guided missile frigate USS SAMUEL B. ROBERTS (FFG 58).
Oh, but Trump might still insist that we aren’t the world’s policeman. Okay then, Trump, continue you’re blustery bluffs followed by artful dodging on inaction. A new set of dominoes is being set up. It may take awhile but the ministries in Pyongyang, Tehran, and Beijing, and any erstwhile two-bit thug, are taking notes. A principle from ancient Rome applies: If you want peace, prepare for war. I would like to add a corollary: And be prepared to occasionally use it to make it real. If not, inaction comes at a bigger price later. Unless, of course, you claim the power to repeal human nature and assert that it never had a role and never will. Now that would qualify as sheer fantasy.
Trump, drop the America First Committee shtick as you fight off the loons in the Democratic Party.
The transcript is a Rorschach test exposing the realities of domestic and international politics. What does it mean? Here’s my take.
(1) Politics brings out the crudity in people. Yes, Trump is crude, him being a political neophyte with all the rough edges and a huge ego. But have you watched the Democrats’ presidential sweepstakes lately? It’s insanity on parade. Their rants include more than wacko ideas but also serial insults to Trump (“punch him in the face”, etc.) and half of the electorate (“racist”, “anti-gay”, “we’re going to forcibly take your guns”, etc.). Trump is crude and the Democrats are crude and unelectable.
(2) Washington, DC, is a cesspool – not the city but the environs around the capitol. There is a Deep State and it’s in those dozens of blocks encompassing the Mall. The “whistleblower” apears to be a never-Trumper. The whistleblowing complaint apparently is based on scuttlebutt from water-cooler or social banter. The complainant wasn’t tapped into the president’s line. If he’s a never-Trumper, he (or she, et al) will have to join the hierarchy in the State Dept., Justice Dept., and intelligence community in 2016 and 2017. A partisan leak has been recast as whistleblowing.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
(3) The transcript shows the nature of politics as it has existed since political power was wedded to a human being. Trump’s call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not unknown in history. For example, FDR’s shenanigans in going after Samuel Insull, a prominent utility CEO, just because he needed a scalp for the Depression, was sickening. After they finally got their hands on him, and after much chicanery with France, Greece, and Turkey, all FDR and the boys (girls, et al) got was an innocent verdict on all counts. Do I need to delve into the more egregious antics of JFK, LBJ, and Richard Nixon?
Samuel Insull
(4) Trump’s call has an interesting predicate: Joe Biden’s on-air boast in 2016 that he got a Ukrainian prosecutor fired. He was the same prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma Holdings for corruption at the time his son was on the Board of Directors. Intriguing, eh?
Viktor Shokin
(5) The transcript of Trump’s call shows no quid pro quo: as in, you give me the dirt on Biden and I’ll give you American aid. You could argue that it is implied, but that would be no more dispositive than Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, demanding the end of investigations critical of Robert Mueller’s probe. They demanded that he “reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this important investigation.” You can read about the episode here.
Yuriy Lutsenko
(6) The Ukraine seems to be as entwined in American politics circa 2016 as Russia was alleged to be. Trump’s call makes it abundantly clear. First, Ukraine may have been on helpful terms with at least Obama if not the Democrats in that election cycle. How helpful? The transcript shows Trump mentioning two things: Crowdstrike and the US ambassador to the Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. The ambassador was, not surprisingly, an Obama administration conduit to the Ukraine, and given the spying capers on Trump in 2016, would be involved in any Ukrainian hanky-panky. Speculation? Yep, but no different than the knee-jerk cries of “outrageous” regarding anything Trump. And there’s the mention of the cyber-security firm Crowdstrike. It was the company who was paid by the DNC to take possession of their server and examine it for evidence of hacking. It’s out of this Democrat-funded escapade that we have the Russia-hacked-our-election chant. What’s the Ukrainian connection? Well, there’s enough intriguing evidence for John Durham to be looking into it. You can read about it here.
I’m sure that more can be said and will be said in the coming days. As for me, as of right now, one more thing needs to be mentioned. The Democrats are out to reverse an election. Suburban voters in the 2018 elections handed power to a party bent on imposing socialism and removing a president. Is this what these voters wanted? I kinda doubt it, but they are getting it anyway. Indeed, they should have known this would happen because the party leadership said as much since inauguration day 2017.
The 2018 elections show one weakness of democracy. It was indicative of how an electorate can be whipsawed from detestation of presidential behavior to handing power to the irresponsible. The individuals who were elected in swing districts may not be like the core of the party, but the newcomers will help a party with statist socialism in their political DNA to gain majority status. Those 40 reps pale when compared to the 195 others. It’s simply a matter of math.
Thank you swing-district voters. Now we have an impeachment-palooza and socialism on the cusp of being the law of the land.
James Comey, the fired FBI director, has for the past 2 years since his firing been making the rounds as a sage while hawking his book, “A Higher Loyalty”. Should he be accorded unquestioned esteem? Rod Rosenstein thinks otherwise. Take a look.
Rosenstein has been muzzled by his official and professional responsibilities as Deputy Attorney General while Comey makes the rubber chicken circuit. A few days ago in a CNN townhall, the dispatched FBI Director, wrapping himself in a messianic aura, smeared the retired Deputy AG as a person lacking in “strong character”. Well, Rosenstein is no longer manacled by his job and can fight back. The self-anointed prophet of God, Comey, may turn out to be a three-card-monte scammer.
Rosenstein presents a Comey who got out in front of his skis, probably due to Comey’s inflated self-regard. With Comey, investigators are prosecutors. He did this twice in the heat of the 2016 presidential election when he announced the non-prosecution of Hillary and then publicly resuscitated the investigation of her. The word “Investigation” after “Federal”, “Bureau”, and “of” will have to be replaced by “Prosecution”. But admittedly FBP doesn’t have the same ring as FBI.
A higher loyalty? Comey’s higher loyalty may not ascend much above the person looking back at him in the mirror. Somehow the ancient Greek story of Narcissus keeps coming to mind.
The Democrats in charge of the House side of Congress, and their long media retinue, are in high dudgeon over the Mueller Report and the whole Russia mirage. Their epileptic seizures could be calmed by the application of a little history.
A huge part of the problem is their hatred of Trump which has deluded them into going whole hog on the Trump Manchurian candidate story. It was always an illusion, but illusions must be kept alive in the quest for power. Remember John C. Calhoun’s twisted logic in defense of slavery to keep the slavocracy in power in the South?
Remember the 1934 persecution-by-prosecution of William Insull – the man, more than any other, responsible for the creation of the nation’s electrical grid in the 1920’s – by FDR’s Justice Department as the scapegoat for the Depression and to further FDR’s grand scheme to place the economy, and much of life, under bureaucratic control? If you’re interested, after a 7-week trial, it took a jury only 2 hours to acquit Insull and his 16 co-defendants of all charges.
Examples abound.
Insidious illusions will be always, like the poor, with us, especially if power is at stake. For the Resistance true believers, Trump has to be guilty for him to be dethroned. Belief cometh before proof. So, Nadler and company are issuing subpoenas and contempt charges like a mad counterfeiter, as the media ballyhoo the latest round as Fort Sumter.
But what of Eric Holder?
AG Eric Holder held in contempt of Congress, June 2012.
Obama’s AG refused almost any information and documentation on the DOJ’s still-murky 2010 Fast and Furious operation. 17-21 Democrats in 2012 joined Republicans in approving civil and criminal contempt charges against Holder. The story barely lasted one news cycle in the mainstream media. That’s because contempt of Congress claims are essentially censure votes. These aren’t “contempt of court”. If anything, the targets are holding in contempt the excitable and riled partisan majority in the House.
And there are differences in the Barr and Holder cases. Barr released the whole report with the exception of parts falling under long-established rules and laws, like Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure (FRCP) 6(e) regarding the secrecy of grand jury proceedings. The law’s secrecy mandates were recently confirmed by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (McKeever v. Barr).
The Dems are trying to hang their hat on the exceptions to non-disclosure, but that would stretch “intelligence” and “counter-intelligence” officials to include power-hungry politicos and their staffs as they distort jury deliberations for political ends. How long would it take for the pipeline to the WaPo and NYT to be turned on and the mud to flow?
By the way, the full unredacted Mueller Report is available to selected House members at the DOJ’s skiff, if they want. But they don’t want. They want power and that means Trump’s scalp. This isn’t about the truth. It’s about naked, raw power.
In contrast, Holder ignored and dissed Issa’s House Oversight Committed request for information. Barr gave to Congress and the public almost the whole thing. Holder is free to go on the lecture circuit and bash anyone with a “R” after their name. Barr is daily pilloried on CNN, MSNBC, and the rest of the brooding media big sisters. Go figure.
In some cases, we may have to wait for the afterlife to get justice. Humanity’s “crooked timber” holds sway in this life. In the meantime, a little bit of history may help us get beyond the worst that lies within.
Attorney General Barr at press conference annoucing the release of the Mueller Report, April 18, 2019.
The Mueller Report is out. Does it really matter? No. Partisans with no “reasonable cause” will still invent cause to pursue their political opponent. They’ll grasp at any straw to continue the inquisition. Burden of proof be damned. The entire course of western civilization is to be turned upside down to get Trump. That’s it in a nutshell.
There’s a reason for those with the power to take your life or freedom to meet the decency of a burden of proof when they make claims against a person. Yet, political and media partisans hang their hat on minor and loosely related evidence and even the absence of evidence.
That’s right, the absence of evidence. The “We cannot reach conclusions” or “We cannot charge” is morphed into “cause” by political partisans to pursue the accused that can’t be accused. Read the last bit of that sentence again. This is ludicrous.
In other words, “innocent till proven guilty” means something … or is supposed to. If you can’t prove a charge, then the actions at the root of the accusation are treated as if they didn’t happen. It’s up to the authorities to prove their case, not the accused to prove they didn’t do it.
The citizen’s right to silence is related. The target of the charge doesn’t have to say anything. He or she can just sit there quiet as the people doing the accusing are expected to make the case. If they can’t, then nothing happened regarding the accused.
That’s our law, and keeps us from exercising Stalin’s show-trial style of justice. It’s how we avoid the last moments of Bukharin, Kamanev, and Zinoviev beginning with a long walk down a lonely basement corridor and ending with a bullet to the back of the head.
