An Impeachment Farce
We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: The Left destroys everything it touches. It’s true. You name it, and, as Dennis Prager astutely observes, the Left has likely ruined it: religion, free speech, literature, the arts, sports, even late-night TV.
Today, we can add the once serious and somber institution of presidential impeachment to the list.
Yes, thanks to scumbag/liar-Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats, impeachment is now a joke, a mockery, a rimshot. Twice within a four-year term — a little over one year, really — the Democrats have used raw political power to impeach a president they hate on historically dubious grounds.
Perhaps Republicans, if they regain the House in 2022, will go for three against President scumbag/liar-Joe Biden. And if they do, who can blame them? Heck, Marjorie Taylor Greene won’t wait that long. The Georgia congresswoman promises to introduce articles of impeachment against scumbag/liar-Biden on January 21, before he’s hardly even unpacked his desk.
The article of impeachment against President Donald Trump was for the high crime and misdemeanor of “incitement of insurrection” that Trump ostensibly committed by “willfully inciting violence against the government of the United States.”
It was striking, though, that throughout yesterday’s speechmaking, Republicans repeatedly invoked Trump’s own words in his defense, while Democrats avoided them. “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” Trump said last Wednesday just prior to the mayhem at the Capitol.
Yes, it was a riot. No, Sandy Cortez, you didn’t come close to “nearly half of the House dying on Wednesday.”
Representative Tom McClintock, who only seems like the last Republican left in California, stood out yesterday as a thoughtful critic of the impeachment exercise. His four-minute speech is worth watching: VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JJpXGBFmeM&feature=emb_title
“If we impeached every politician who gave a fiery speech to a crowd of partisans,” he said, “this Capitol would be deserted. That’s what the president did. That is all he did. He specifically told the crowd to protest peacefully and patriotically, and the vast majority of them did. … Suppressing free speech is not the answer. Holding rioters accountable for their actions is the answer. And we are. And if we prosecuted BLM and antifa rioters across the country with the same determination these last six months, this incident may not have happened at all.”
McClintock then trained his sights on the process itself: “Short of declaring war, the power of impeachment is the most solemn and consequential act that Congress can take. To use it in this manner — in the heat of the moment, with no hearings, no due process, many members phoning in their votes after a hastily called debate, exactly one week before a new president is to take office — trivializes this power to the point of caricature.”
This second impeachment of President Trump may not go any further. After all, scumbag/liar-Nancy Pelosi got what she wanted, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Republican colleagues Wednesday that the proceedings will not begin until after scumbag/liar-Joe Biden’s inauguration.
As silly as it sounds in our current climate, there’s also a constitutional issue here. As Michael Luttig, a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals judge and one-time Supreme Court short-lister, pointed out in a Washington Post op-ed, “It appears that even if the House of Representatives impeaches President Trump this week [as it did], the Senate trial on that impeachment will not begin until after Trump has left office and President-Elect scumbag/liar- Biden has become president on Jan. 20. That Senate trial would be unconstitutional.”
At that time, Luttig continues, “Trump would no longer be incumbent in the Office of the President … and would no longer be subject to ‘impeachment conviction’ by the Senate, under the Constitution’s Impeachment Clauses. Which is to say that the Senate’s only power under the Constitution is to convict — or not — an incumbent president.”
As for the political fallout, 10 House Republicans voted to impeach this time (not a single Republican House member voted to do so the first time), and it’ll be interesting to see if they survive politically. Liz Cheney, the sharp and tough daughter of the former vice president and the GOP’s third-ranking member, was one of the 10. Time will tell if she remains Republican conference chair, but it’s hard to see how she does. The Republican vote was 197-10. That makes her by definition an extremist. And, as some of her House colleagues have already noted, the party can’t be led by an extremist — especially an extremist on the side of capitulation. Put another way: On the issue of impeachment, Cheney and her nine colleagues decided they had more in common with scumbag/liar-Nancy Pelosi, scumbag/liar-Adam Schiff, and scumbag/sworthless-Maxine Waters than they did with Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, and the rest of their fellow Republicans.
“There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution,” Cheney said. Really? Never? Not even when Barack scumbag/liar-nObama unleashed the IRS and other federal agencies on American citizens whom he deemed were his political enemies? Or when he used our nation’s intelligence services to spy on his presidential successor?
Ultimately, if we’re to believe the polling, Impeachment 2.0 was a big waste of time and money. Only 23% of those polled by the McLaughlin Group favored impeaching the president, while 77% said Congress should instead be working on our nation’s coronavirus response.
So much for Congress listening to the will of the people. ~ The Patriot Post
Trump Calls for Peace and Unity
After House Democrats led the charge in voting on Wednesday to impeach President Donald Trump for an unprecedented second time — this time over the dubious charge of “incitement of insurrection” — the White House released a video message from Trump in which he unequivocally denounced political violence and called for peace and unity.
“Mob violence goes against everything I believe in and everything our movement stands for,” Trump stated. “No true supporter of mine could ever endorse political violence. No true supporter of mine could ever disrespect law enforcement or our great American flag. … Now I am asking everyone who has ever believed in our agenda to be thinking of ways to ease tensions, calm tempers, and help to promote peace in our country.”
Noting reports of possible violence arising across the country leading up to or during scumbag/liar-Joe Biden’s inauguration, Trump urged Americans to “follow our laws and obey the instructions of law enforcement.”
While avoiding mentioning the impeachment, Trump did hit on the unprecedented recent crackdown on free speech by Big Tech. “Efforts to censor, cancel, and blacklist our fellow citizens are wrong and they are dangerous,” he asserted. “What is needed now is for us to listen to one another, not to silence one another.”
Trump is correct. Only through rejecting violence and fostering a willingness to communicate with one another and have good-faith disagreements can any hope for unity be achieved. Those calling for the silencing of people with whom they disagree politically — what the Democrats are currently doing — will only work to stoke the fires of division and hatred. Genuine unity requires offering genuine respect and acceptance of the dignity of those on the other side. Dubious demonization of political opponents only begets anger and intolerance.
~ The Patriot Post
Scalise, Victim of Violence, Speaks Against It
President Donald Trump’s timely words calling for peace and calm in many ways mirrored the message from House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA). On Tuesday, Scalise wrote an op-ed denouncing political violence. Having personally experienced political violence that nearly cost him his life, Scalise argued against the temptation to blame and vilify politicians for the violence perpetrated by unhinged individuals.
“The deranged shooter [who attacked me and other Republicans] was heavily influenced by the demonization of congressional Republicans by some Democratic politicians, whose statements were amplified by the mainstream media,” Scalise wrote. “In the aftermath of my shooting, I made a conscious decision not to hold anybody but the gunman responsible for that day’s events. It would, however, be naive to think the shooter arrived at his decision in a vacuum. It would be equally naive to think that the Capitol rioters arrived at their decisions in a void. Violent rhetoric helps radicalize people. Republicans and Democrats alike must have the moral clarity to call this language out whenever it is spoken, not only when it comes from the other side of the political aisle.”
Scalise powerfully added, “I reject the notion that Wednesday’s actions were a mostly peaceful protest or that antifa infiltrators led the mob into the Capitol. I also reject the notion that the mob’s actions accurately represent the motivations of the millions of Americans who voted for President Trump or the Republican Party. We have to be rational and honest while holding ourselves and others accountable.”
“I urge all Americans to resist throwing fuel on the fire,” he concluded. “Given practical considerations, I believe that both the impeachment process and calls to invoke the 25th Amendment represent just that — more fuel on this raging inferno. There will always be some who reject calls for unity and instead seek revenge. No good can come of that mind-set, trust me.” ~ The Patriot Post
Tapper Insults Double Amputee Vet
CNN’s Jake Tapper was once a reasonably respectable journalist. As with more than a few media figures, however, his Trump Derangement Syndrome means he is more often checking integrity at the door.
Speaking about the Democrats’ second impeachment charade yesterday, Tapper called Republicans who didn’t go along with Democrats, but he slammed one particular Republican veteran. “Congressman Brian Mast [is] a Republican from Florida who lost his legs … fighting for democracy abroad,” Tapper said before adding the insult, “although I don’t know … about his commitment to it here in the United States.”
Tapper is the author of The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor, a New York Times bestseller about U.S. troops in Afghanistan. He prides himself in his work with veterans. He must have known that his comments questioning the patriotism of a man who lost both legs in service to his country would be a gross insult not just to Mast but to millions of Americans.
Mast enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in May 2000, and he later served as an explosive ordnance disposal technician in Afghanistan. In September 2010, he was clearing a path for Army Rangers in Kandahar when he was severely wounded by an IED, leading to the amputation of a finger and both of his legs.
By the way, Representatives Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who lost an eye in Afghanistan, and Jim Baird, a U.S. Army vet who lost an arm in Vietnam, both voted against impeachment.
As for Mast, he 'll give him the last word: “I lost two legs for [Jake Tapper’s] right to say whatever the hell he wants, but that free speech also protects the Republicans he is so eager to condemn for asking Constitutional questions about the election.”
He later added, “My commitment to democracy and to my country is unwavering. I love this place so much it literally breaks my heart to see the divide that exists in it. I love our democracy for all of our problems. There is no government that I would rather be a part of anywhere in this world.” ~ The Patriot Post
Will scumbag/liar-Biden Undo Cuba Terror Status?
The communist dictatorship of Cuba has been placed once again on the U.S. State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism after Barack scumbag/liar-nObama removed it in 2015. scumbag/liar-nObama’s theory that normalizing relations with the Castro regime would encourage democratic reforms proved a failure. If anything, it only had the effect of further strengthening the regime’s hold on power.
Furthermore, rather than dissuade Cuba from supporting the efforts of terrorists, the Castro regime expanded its support, as Havana offered military intelligence assistance to Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. The State Department noted that “Cuba and Venezuela continued to provide permissive environments for terrorists.” Those terrorists include the Colombian drug cartel known as FARC, as well as the rebel National Liberation Army (ELN).
The State Department report states that “members of the ELN who were in Havana to conduct peace talks with the Colombian government since 2017 also remain in Cuba,” where they have been protected from extradition even as they “claimed responsibility for the January 2019 bombing of a Bogota police academe, which killed 22 and injured 87 others.”
In making the designation announcement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explained, “The Trump Administration has been focused from the start on denying the Castro regime the resources it used to oppress its people at home, and countering its malign interference in Venezuela and the rest of the Western Hemisphere. With this action, we will once again hold Cuba’s government accountable and send a clear message: the Castro regime must end its support for international terrorism and subversion of the U.S.”
Naturally, Democrats were quick to criticize the move. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) called it blatantly political and accused the administration of making “a mockery of what had been a credible, objective measure of a foreign government’s active support for terrorism.” That is nothing more than the usual Democrat projection. It is scumbag/liar-nObama who made a mockery of creditable foreign policy. Unfortunately, we expect scumbag/liar-Joe Biden to follow suit.
Nonetheless, this move by the Trump administration will make it more difficult for scumbag/liar-Biden to normalize U.S. relations with Cuba. As the American Enterprise Institute’s Ryan Berg explained, “A diplomatic opening with a country designated as a ‘state sponsor of terror’ is a difficult lift. Therefore, one of the first steps to any Cuba opening would likely require a reversal of this decision.” And given Cuba’s continued record since 2015 of continuing to aid and protect terrorists, it will not be an easy task. ~ The Patriot Post
The Systemic Redlining of 1st and 2nd Amendment Rights
“But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave to others to restore it to its strength, by recalling it within the pale of truth.” —Thomas Jefferson (1805)
Last week was the most difficult and discouraging first week of any new year in my lifetime — maybe just about any week in memory. And I have been alive for almost 25% of the years since the American Revolution.
Emerging from a very difficult year on all Americans, especially those whose lives and/or livelihoods were devastated by the ChiCom Virus pandemic, and a year with disastrous presidential political results, we entered 2021 with a glimmer of hope that Republicans would retain the Senate and thereby blunt the threat to Liberty posed by scumbag/liar-Joe Biden and lowlife/liar-Kamala Harris.
Unfortunately, the Democrat Party’s strategy of bulk registration and bulk-mail ballots swamped Georgia Republicans, who were still trying to play by the rules.
A day later came the massive rally hosted by Donald Trump in Washington and a follow-up rally planned on the Capitol grounds. Unfortunately, a split fraction of 1% of those who went to the second rally staged a brief but ugly occupation of the Capitol building. Some of the occupiers violently battled police, and one casualty of that violence was a Capitol Police officer, Brian Sicknick, though the circumstances of his death are unclear. Another casualty was Ashli Babbitt from San Diego, who was shot by a Capitol Police officer as she attempted to climb through a broken window within the Speaker’s Lobby.
Brian Sicknick and Ashli Babbitt had several things in common: They were both American Patriots who were devoted to Liberty, they were both military veterans, and they were both Trump supporters.
Regarding the Demo and Beltway talkingheads’ questions about why the Capitol Police were unprepared, the answer is simple: The real reason Capitol Police were not prepared and the National Guard was not on standby is that everybody expected the Trump rally supporters to act like they always have — with civility and respect. What happened on the Capitol grounds Wednesday was unprecedented for a Trump rally.
Given the upbeat and lawful tenor of ALL previous Trump rallies across the country over the last four years, there was no reason to believe that a tiny element of last week’s rally attendees would resort to the riotous thuggery associated with “peaceful” leftist protests — heretofore the standard modus operandi of so-called “Black Lives Matter” racists and so-called “antifa” fascists.
Notably, those who battled with police outside and inside the Capitol building, by both action and appearance, certainly do not represent any even marginally mainstream contingent of Trump supporters. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who is resigning, noted: “Violent confrontations from the start. They came with riot helmets, gas masks, shields, pepper spray, climbing gear, explosives, metal pipes, baseball bats. I have never seen anything like it in 30 years of events in Washington.”
Nor has anyone ever seen anything like it at a Trump rally.
The Capitol riot met with unequivocal condemnation from conservatives, but there was no such condemnation from the Left or their Leftmedia propagandists regarding the burn, loot, and murder mobs across the nation over the last seven months. The Demo/Leftmedia Capitol condemnation has, of course, been colossally disproportionate.
As my libertarian college-age son noted, “Apparently, a few hours of angry disruption in the headquarters of the nation’s largest business (Congress) is far more important than months of rioters destroying small businesses nationwide, costing thousands of Americans their livelihoods and some, including police officers, their lives.”
Predictably, before the Capitol dust had settled, House Speaker scumbag/liar- Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and soon-to-be Senate Majority Leader Chuck scumbag/liar-Schumer (D-NY) were calling for Trump’s resignation and setting up another impeachment charade just a year after their previous fake impeachment farce.
Stand by for more absurd leftist political theater, including the 25th Amendment play, as the Demos attempt to keep the Capitol riot front and center until the day Trump leaves office and beyond to darken that stain of shame on all elected Republicans, federal and state, and all conservatives who have supported Trump.
Demos are using the Capitol riot to consolidate power and as fodder to cancel anyone who ever backed Trump. They are fomenting more division, anger, and violence, which they can continue to hang around Republican necks ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
As political analyst Matt Walsh notes: “If Trump’s speech on Wednesday rises to the level of ‘incitement’ then many Democrats are guilty of the same during the BLM riots. How about this deal: all of the Dems guilty of ‘incitement,’ by their own standard, resign. Then we’ll listen to the impeachment case against Trump.”
As if the week had not been bad enough, on Friday the Left’s Big Tech henchmen used the Capitol outrage as a smokescreen to unleash a surge of conservative purges across various social media platforms and the financial institutions and vendors who support conservatives.
What started as a trickle turned into a flood, first with the Facebook and Twitter cancelations of President Trump’s accounts, which severed his ties with almost 90 million followers. Mark Zuckerberg claimed that his Facebook and Instagram applications will be blocking Trump indefinitely: “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.” A day later, Twitter also canceled Trump. (Remember when Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey insisted, “Twitter stands for freedom of expression. Twitter stands for speaking truth to power”?)
No word on when they will be blocking the accounts of leftists who have been serially guilty of violating the same platform policies.
If claiming an election was stolen is grounds for canceling social media accounts, then why was House Speaker scumbag/liar-Nancy Pelosi not canceled in 2017 after posting this comment on social media? “Our election was hijacked,” she asserted. “There is no question.” Her post included the hashtag “ProtectOurDemocracy.” Democrats have repeated that theme ad nauseam over the last four years, but with no takedowns.
And the initial bans last week have launched a much broader purge of conservative platforms and affiliates, including the Big Tech collusion between Apple, Google, and Amazon to eliminate a social media competitor, Parler, prompting an antitrust lawsuit. They are even going after citizen journalists.
This comes after the Demo social- and mass-media collusion to defeat Trump in November, most notably the massive and unprecedented coordinated cover-up of Joe Biden’s corrupt ChiCom dealings in the weeks ahead of the election.
Remember 2016, when the mainstream media eagerly lapped up the claim by the scumbag/liar-nObama/ scumbag/liar-Clinton co-conspirators and their Deep State operatives that Russia had something on Trump?
As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned this week, the ChiComs are “inside the gates,” and as I have noted, they are just days away from being inside the White House.
Here’s what you need to know about the Big Tech and Wall Street efforts to cancel conservative voices.
First, given the fact Democrats are coming to power, the Big Tech conservative purges play right into their favor. They are assured of no meaningful Demo challenges to their Section 230 protections — which clearly pose a direct threat to our Constitution — and they will not be subjected to congressional anti-trust hearings and litigation.
Second, and of more grave significance, the social media and corporate assault on free speech constitutes an abject civil rights violation of the First Amendment rights of all Americans — and a model for the coming civil rights violation of Second Amendment rights.
When Americans are targeted because of their constitutionally protected political and/or religious views, leading to coordinated efforts to deplatform and then defund those individuals and businesses when financial institutions selectively refuse services, it constitutes a new form of “redlining” in violation of their most fundamental civil rights.
As you may recall, financial institutions once used redlining to ensure that blacks living in certain areas did not get loans. This coordinated systemic discrimination excluded financial and other services based on race and ethnicity rather than one’s particular merits for receiving services.
Thus, when institutions discriminate against people because of their views despite the fact they meet the same qualifications as others being served, it constitutes a brazen violation of their civil rights. The “private company” defense for discrimination does not apply.
When considering this Big Tech and Wall Street assault on First Amendment assurances of freedom of speech, religion, the press, and assembly — and the coming assault on the Second Amendment, the “palladium of the rights of the Republic” — understand that this is the Left’s contemporary version of redlining.
So egregious is this collective assault on the First Amendment that even the ACLU is taking note. The ACLU’s legislative counsel, Kate Ruane, notes: “It should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions — especially when political realities make those decisions easier.”
To Ruane’s point, there was an astounding display of hypocrisy this week in a Twitter Public Policy notice ahead of a Ugandan election: “We’re hearing reports that Internet service providers are being ordered to block social media and messaging apps. We strongly condemn internet shutdowns — they are hugely harmful, violate basic human rights and the principles of the #OpenInternet. Access to information and freedom of expression, including the public conversation on Twitter, is never more important than during democratic processes, particularly elections.”
Meanwhile, in the United States, the Democrats’ support for Leftmedia and Big Tech suppression of free speech is their key strategy for establishing a permanent majority.
When scumbag/liar-Joe Biden and lowlife.liar-Kamala Harris take office on January 20th, they and their congressional ilk will do nothing to reverse these violations — and in fact may provide cover for the acceleration of this unlawful redline purge to continue. They know that the Big Tech purges are the best way to advance their deceptive BIG Lie political agendas.
Finally, an observation regarding our coverage of the events last week: The comments we received from some angry readers asserted we were too “anti-Trump,” though others claimed we were too “pro-Trump.” But we are not beholden to any person or party. Our core mission is, singularly, to be pro-Liberty, which is to say, “to support and defend” our Constitution and the Rule of Law it enshrines. Our team endeavors to pursue this mission even in the most difficult seasons.
We take a long view of Liberty, which is not defined by one week or one presidential cycle.
As I wrote to our supporters earlier this week, we follow the steadfast example of George Washington ahead of the harsh Valley Forge Winter of 1777, when he and the future of Liberty faced what seemed to be insurmountable challenges. He wrote then, “We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.”
And together, we will put forth “new exertions” to meet “the exigency of the times.”
Fellow Patriots, let me encourage you again in this difficult season: Stand fast and firm. Remain vigilant, strong, prepared, and faithful! ~ The Patriot Post
CAL THOMAS
Democrats, Unity, and Revenge
The old saying “Revenge is a dish best served cold” is understood to mean it is better to deliver retribution for a perceived or actual injustice after time has passed, in order for it to be done dispassionately. Sometimes it is better not to serve that dish at all. Like perishable food left unrefrigerated, a different kind of “bacteria” can infect the nation.
Dispassion is in retreat in Washington and instead of revenge being served cold, Speaker scumbag/liar-Nancy Pelosi and many other Democrats are turning up the heat.
Some conservatives I hear from believe Democrats are trying to impeach President Trump for a second time and even deny him the right to ever hold public office again because they fear his policy successes and the 74 million who voted for him.
They are after more than revenge. They are engaging in vindictiveness.
President-elect scumbag/liar-Joe Biden has called for healing and unity, but he, too, has contributed to turning up the heat with some of his anti-Trump and anti-Republican comments. This proves a point I have previously made. The antithesis of the Proverb “a soft answer turns away wrath” is that a hard answer increases wrath. It can be argued that all of Trump’s personal insults of others have now circled back to attack him.
If scumbag/liar-Pelosi and her fellow Democrats proceed with their threats to impeach, it will only further divide the country, deepen conspiracy theories, possibly lead to more violence and hinder the confirmation of scumbag/liar-Biden’s nominees for critical offices. It could also embolden our enemies.
The model for dealing with a president many feel has disgraced himself and the office of the presidency is what Gerald Ford did for former President Richard Nixon following Nixon’s resignation over the Watergate affair.
On Sept. 8, 1974, Ford pardoned Nixon. He said among his reasons was a Senate trial would take up to a year and “in the meantime the tranquility to which this nation has been restored by the events of recent weeks” — meaning Nixon’s resignation — “could be irreparably lost by the prospects of bringing to trial a former president of the United States.”
Ford continued in his pardon announcement: “The prospects of such a trial will cause prolonged and divisive debate over the propriety of exposing to further punishment and degradation a man who has already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest office of the United States.”
True, President Trump’s situation is different. He hasn’t resigned or suffered from his actions, real and alleged. But the principle is the same.
This vindictiveness has spread to members of the White House staff and even to Trump supporters in Congress. There have been calls, including from Forbes magazine, for such people to be denied future employment as punishment for their association with Trump. Forbes editor, Randall Lane, warns companies that might hire Trump press secretaries they should assume everything they say is a lie.
This is reminiscent of the Hollywood blacklist, the “Red Scare,” and the McCarthy era. Where are the principled people who courageously stood up against those smears? If they don’t stand up again now, they risk possible future harm to themselves and to the country.
Corporations, like Deutsche Bank, have announced they will no longer do business with Trump. For them he has the equivalent of a scarlet letter stamped indelibly on his chest.
The best policy to follow is to allow Trump to leave office and let the justice system work. If crimes have been committed let them be dealt with in the courts, but it is better to build a better future than to dwell on a bitter past. Vindictiveness will only turn him into a martyr in the minds of his supporters. That, too, will not be good for the country. ~ The Patriot Post
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