Liz Plays Hardball

Before the campaign began Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders agreed to be polite to each other. Liz lied and it came to a head last week.

First there were two stories leaked to the press. One was that Sanders's campaign staff were presenting her as the candidate who mainly appealed to elitists and could not expand the party while Bernie was attracting first-time voters. The story may or may not be true. It sounds like how Bernie's supporters think. I did not see any attribution for the story but I'm betting it came from the Warren campaign as a way of signaling that Bernie attacked first so any counter-attacks by Liz are fair.

The second story is that at a private dinner in 2018 Bernie told Liz that a woman could not win the 2020 election. This was the same dinner that Warren told Sanders that she was running. CNN broke the story and, by coincidence, they also hosted the February debate.

Part-way through the debate Sanders was asked why he told Warren that a woman could not win in 2020. He denied saying it and pointed to his long record of supporting women candidates. He was asked again if he denied saying it and he stated that he uncategorically denied it. The moderator then asked Warren how she felt when Sanders asked that question. That caused a stir in the audience since the moderator just called Sanders a liar. CNN piled on by asking Amy Klobuchar what she thought when someone said that a woman could not win in 2020.

At the end of the debate Warren walked over to Sanders. He reached out to shake her hand and she pulled her hand back, making a fist then holding it with the other hand. She was caught on a hot mic saying that Sanders had called her a liar on nation-wide TV. He was incredulous so she repeated it. He threw up his hands, said something about "Don't do this" followed by "Do you want to do this?" and ended up walking away.

I'm sure that Warren orchestrated all of this with the help of CNN. Or maybe CNN orchestrated it with Warren's help. Either way, Warren realized that her support was shrinking and Bernie's was growing and she had to do something. CNN has a record of being establishment Democrat and Warren is much closer to the establishment than Sanders. There's no doubt that the moderators set Bernie up, asking him something they knew he would deny then asking follow-up questions in a way to show that they did not believe Bernie's denials.

Later CNN tried to insist that this was not a he said/she said situation because it had been reported on. But the only confirmation for the story came from four of Warren's staff who said that she told them about it. We don't really know if Bernie said it, if Warren made it up, or if Bernie said something about how difficult it would be for a woman to run against Trump and she took it the wrong way. What we do know is that CNN took sides, believing Warren's version and rejecting anything Bernie said.

Warren's reaction was interesting. CNN called Sanders a liar but she attacked him for calling HER a liar. Yes, if he'd thought about it he'd have realized the original story came from her but CNN never expressed it that way. They never said, "Elizabeth Warren says you told her this, how do you respond?" So was Warren's outrage rehearsed? And why was CNN still recording what was said? Why hadn't they cut the mics when the debate ended? Did a director say, "Look, Warren's going over to Sanders. Turn the mic back on?" or did Warren know ahead of time that the conversation would be recorded and was the whole thing staged?

We don't know. We do know that CNN was fanning the flames by releasing the post-debate conversation.

This would not be the first time something was staged during a presidential debate. Remember, in 2016 Hillary Clinton walked across the stage and stood in front of Donald Trump then complained that he was following her around. And CNN fed at least one question to Hillary Clinton before one of her debates with Sanders.

Chances are that all of this will be wasted effort on CNN's part to revive Warren's candidacy and may be a factor in Trump's reelection. Sanders' supporters were correct that he brings in new voters to the Democratic party but they are there for him. If they feel that he was treated badly by the party then they will stay home on election day or vote for the Green candidate in protest.

The Candidates and the Iran Nuclear Deal

During the final Democratic debate before the primaries, the candidates were asked about President Trump's statement that he will not allow Iran to possess nuclear weapons. Each of the candidates praised the nuclear deal that was negotiated under President Obama and condemned President Trump for pulling out if it. That shows that either a) they are stupid, b) they think that everyone else is stupid or c) they have no idea what was in the agreement but they are sure it must have been good if Trump opposed it.

The agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or the JCPOA did not stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. It did just the opposite - it allowed Iran to be a nuclear power as long as they did it slowly. Validated in 2015, the JCPOA required Iran to wait 15 years before finishing nuclear weapons. The hope was that after 15 years the Iranian theocracy would give up its desire to spread it's version of Islam and become a more moderate country. Five years into the agreement, that looks like a bad bet. Iran used the funds freed up by Obama and the lifting of sanctions to organize militias in multiple countries, carving out whole sections that functioned as Iranian-controlled mini-states. It also continued the civil war in Syria.

Iran started cheating on the treaty before it was even signed. It did not disclose all of it's enrichment facilities as required. It also violated agreements on developing nuclear-capable missiles.

So why did the candidates support the treaty and act as if it was stopping Iran from having nuclear weapons? Even Obama's Vice President, Joe Biden, acted as if the JCPOA was keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

I suspect that they don't want to come out and say that they would allow Iran to become a nuclear power by 2030. That would admit that Trump is right which is the worst thing a candidate could say on that stage. So they had to pretend that the JCPOA was keeping Iran from making nuclear weapons.

World War III?

Last week the US Embassy in Iraq was attacked. In response President Trump ordered a drone attack on a high-ranking Iranian who was implicated in organizing the attack. Now the Left is going crazy insisting that World War III is about to start. This is beyond silly. Iran is no superpower with allies across the world ready to declare war on the US in retaliation for us threatening Iran. At most it is a regional power with militias in several neighboring countries forming states within a state.

Is war even likely? No. Neither side wants it.

Let's be honest about war between the US and Iran. We'd win. There's no question about that. We overthrew the Taliban in days. Iraq only lasted a few weeks. And when we fought those wars we hadn't been in a real war in decades (Desert Storm barely counts). Since then we've been in constant warfare. Our troops are battle-hardened. Our equipment is battle-tested. Iran wouldn't stand a chance.

Iran isn't united, either. They had major protests a few months ago. They were brutality put down. The entire country was cut off from the Internet for weeks to keep images of the protests from getting out. In suppressing the protests, nearly 150 were killed and thousands detained. In addition, Iran's economy is collapsing because of American sanctions. This is not a united country ready to take on a super-power.

But, as Afghanistan and Iraq proved, occupying a country after you overthrow the leadership is difficult. If we overthrew Iran, we would be stuck with another unpopular occupation but the Iranian leaders would probably be dead. There are no winners there.

Of course Trump could follow Obama's example in Libya and overthrow the government then let it turn into a failed state and blame the "international community" for not doing more. But Iran isn't Libya and Trump would get a lot worse press than Obama.

So neither side has anything to gain from war. In fact it was Iran's desire to avoid war that led us to this place. Iran wants nuclear weapons and a delivery system capable of reaching all of Europe. Once they are a nuclear power then they will be safe from attack. No one wants to risk a nuclear exchange. But no one wants a Nuclear Iran, either. They want to be a regional power and were building their empire until Trump hit them with sanctions over their violations of the treaty Obama signed with them.

So Iran will stall for time, hoping they can survive the sanctions until they can build some working nuclear weapons or a more favorable president is in the White House. Trump will continue the sanctions hoping for some real concessions instead of the weak treaty Obama signed (and which Iran had violated before it was even written).

In the meantime Iran is testing Trump to see what they can get away with and he's projecting strength in an effort to get them to back down. But it won't lead to war because neither side wants it.

The Impeachment Game-Changer (but not the one you think)

Earlier this week the New York Times reported that the hold on funds for Ukraine began much earlier than previously reported and was opposed by high-ranking officials including the Secretary of State and the Chief of Staff. Democrats immediately pounced (yes, they can pounce, too) and announced that this was a "game changer" and proved the need for additional witnesses to testify before the Senate. It is a game-changer but not the way they think.

First, this proves that they rushed the impeachment. If the New York Times can uncover this information then how did the House miss it? After all, the House has the power of subpoena. What else have they missed in their rush to impeach?

But what is more important is what this does to their case. The original whistle-blower report claimed that President Trump demanded that Ukraine open an investigation into the Bidens and withheld an aid package that was meant to pay for armaments in order to force compliance. The main proof was that Trump did suggest that the investigation be reopened and there was a hold placed on the aid.

Here's how their new timeline looks:

President Trump is obsessed with Joe Biden. In April the President learned about the aid package for Ukraine and saw an opening to embarrass Biden so he ordered a hold put on the aid. Then he waited the rest of April. And May. And June. Finally, 84 days later he had his phone call with the Ukraine. But he didn't mention the Bidens until half-way through the call and he never mentioned the hold. In fact, according to witnesses sworn testimony and statements from Ukraine, no one told them about it. The hold was released in mid-September with no investigation started.

The fact that Ukraine was never told about the hold was always a problem for the impeachment but now we have a second problem - the 84 day gap between Trump's order to hold the aid package and his suggestion that Ukraine look into the Bidens. It's really hard to reconcile the claim that Trump was obsessed with Biden with the leisurely pace. In fact, give the nearly three-month gap between the two actions and the low priority that Trump gave the Bidens in the phone call, it's not very likely the two events were connected at all.

The Asterisk Impeachment

The House of Representatives impeached President Trump but they failed to name an actual crime and instead went for Abuse of Power and added in a second charge of Obstruction of Congress.

Taking the second part first, it's true that the White House ordered witnesses not to cooperate with the impeachment. The justification was a combination of executive authority and an objection to the rules being used by the Democrats. This should have been referred to the courts to sort out. Rather than doing that the Democrats rushed the impeachment.

The first article list several allegations about the phone call and the president of Ukraine. None of the witnesses called during the hearings had first-hand knowledge of and wrong-doing. This should have been referred to a special prosecutor. But, again, the Democrats were in a rush and that would have taken months or years. What was not included was a list of law that President Trump broke. That's because Trump did nothing outright illegal. You have to assume his state of mind in order to infer criminal intent. Was the President actually trying to get a political advantage on one of the 24 Democratic candidates or had he seen the video of Biden on Fox and sincerely thought that it merited further investigation? The House Democrat pretend to know but they lack proof.

The whole impeachment was rushed and incomplete. The House Democrats have even admitted this. They are trying to get additional evidence and have suggested filing additional articles of impeachment.

The Democrats are also trying set the rules for the Senate trial. For Bill Clinton's Senate trial, there were no witnesses, just transcripts of testimony. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is insisting that this time there be a full trial with new witnesses. Again, this shows how rushed the House proceedings were. The House should have gone to court to get a definitive answer on how far executive privilege stretches.

It is obvious that the House Democrats do not care about following proper procedures. They already tried that with the Russian collusion investigation but the Mueller Report failed to find anything actionable. They are not willing to wait months or years for a second investigation that may also turn up nothing.

The Democrats know that there is no way they can force Donald Trump from office. That's no longer the goal of the impeachment.

Last Summer the lawyer representing Christine Blasey Ford when she testified prior to the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh admitted that Ford's real goal was not to stop Kavanaugh from being confirmed. The real goal was to put an asterisk on the justice. "He will always have an asterisk next to his name. When he takes a scalpel to Roe v. Wade, we will know who he is, we know his character, and we know what motivates him, and that is important; it is important that we know, and that is part of what motivated Christine."

That's all the Democrats are left with President Trump: putting an asterisk on his name. WaPo columnist and Trump-hater Eugene Robinson calls it the "Asterisk of shame".

It's possible that Nancy Pelosi is holding off transmitting the Articles of Impeachment in order to stretch out the process. She knows that the President will be acquitted as soon as the case goes to the Senate.

This whole thing is likely to backfire on the Democrats. Trump's approval rating has already improved and the Republicans have raised tens of millions in donations.

The Democrats have done as much damage as they can by voting to impeach the President. If they try to go any further then they risk putting an asterisk on themselves as the Congress that used impeachment for political gain.

Impeachment Narratives

In their report to the House, the Judiciary Committee admitted that none of President Trump's actions were outright illegal but still claimed that they were improper because the committee could read the President's mind (they actually said this). This echos a judge ruling on Trump's immigration pause who admitted that it was within the President's power but still issued an injunction based on the President's motives.

But what if the Judiciary Committee got it wrong? The impeachment is all about narrative. Their narrative is that Trump was trying to hurt the Democrats' inevitable nominee by forcing a foreign power to publicly open an investigation on actions that may have benefited his son. But there are other narratives possible.

My narrative is that Trump saw a clip of Biden bragging about getting the Ukrainian prosecutor fired on Fox News and thought that there was legitimate cause for concern so he mentioned it in his phone call to the Ukrainian president. It wasn't an important point to Trump. He was more interested in Crowdstrike and who hacked the DNC in 2016 but it was a concern to him.

My narrative also says that Trump first learned about the aid to Ukraine in the Washington Examiner and put a hold on it out of concern that the US is under an unfair burden as the only country supporting Ukraine. Trump started the phone call by making that statement - that no one else is helping them. The hold on the aid was renewed a few times until Trump was convinced that it was justified and the money was released in mid-September without anyone in Ukraine knowing about it.

There is nothing remotely impeachable in my narrative and there's more evidence to support my version than the narrative the House is using.

This is not the first time that something Trump has said was given a different spin. During the election he called on any country that had hacked Hillary Clinton's emails to release the ones she had deleted. This was a joke but one with an edge. Trump was reminding us that Clinton had kept her emails on a poorly-secured server and that she had deleted more than 30 thousand of them before turning the other 30 thousand to the government. But the Clinton campaign immediately spun this as Trump asking a foreign power to hack into her emails and suggested that this was treasonous. Trump had done no such thing. Clinton's server was already offline and in FBI custody. He was suggesting it had already been hacked. Regardless, the media clutched their pearls and went with the Clinton spin.

The same thing has happened with the impeachment. You don't even have to assume the best of Trump to go with my narrative. You just have to look at how he operates (Fox News conspiracies and resentment over Europeans not contributing enough to NATO). None of the witnesses who testified could go beyond "I heard" or "I assumed". We still don't officially know who the whistle-blower who started this mess is or what his motivations are. That his name is still officially secret is telling. Supposedly they are keeping it secret for fear that his life will be threatened but at this point he would just be one of many witnesses against the President. Why should he get different treatment?

All of this smells to high heaven. The Democrats have been wanting to impeach the President since the day after election. They already had four impeachment votes over four different "offenses". When asked about the speed of the impeachment, Nancy Pelosi responded saying "We've been working on impeaching him for 22 months, two and a half years." That was the length of the Mueller investigation which was supposed to provide justification for impeachment but failed. This current effort seems too much like a last-ditch effort to impeach.

Look at how this differs from the Nixon and Clinton impeachments. Those rose out of criminal referrals by independent investigators. Both of those began with a full House vote. Both of those were of a president in his second term.

In contrast, there has been no criminal referral or independent investigation. It was all done internally in the House. And Trump is still in his first term with an election less than a year away.

The Democrats' conduct makes it appear that this is nothing but a political stunt. This is reinforced by public statements they have made. At this point the Democrats know that they have no case and no chance of having President Trump removed from office. It's nothing but a mean-spirited desire to add an asterisk to Trump's name.

Investigations Biden and Clinton

I noticed this in the November 8th Washington Post Daily 202:

Trump's demands for Ukraine came down to three words -- "Investigations, Biden and Clinton" – according to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent, who oversaw Ukraine policy. The transcript of his deposition, published yesterday afternoon, lays out in perhaps the starkest terms to date Trump's shadow efforts to coerce Ukraine's leadership to open investigations that would benefit him politically, Greg Jaffe and Mike DeBonis report: "Trump 'wanted nothing less than President Zelensky to go to a microphone and say investigations, Biden and Clinton,' Kent told House impeachment investigators.

One word in that summary jumped out at me - Clinton.

The whole impeachment is based on the conviction that President Trump was trying to use foreign policy to damage a political rival. The President's defenders say that he was simply interested in ending corruption in Ukraine, particularly if it also involved former US officials. The fact that one of them is running for president is irrelevant to an inquiry into past misconduct.

There are some things in favor of the pro-Trump version of the events. Joe Biden did brag about getting a prosecutor fired, there had been an investigation into Burisma, the company that had hired Joe's son Hunter and the State Department had issued a warning about possible conflicts of interest with Hunter being employed by a major company in a country when Joe was responsible for Ukraine policy.

The pro-impeachment people insist that the Bidens did nothing wrong and that Trump was asking a foreign power to help with the US election.

Here's why Clinton's name is so important. Hillary was not running for President in July when the phone call was made nor has she done more than say that she'd love to be President if it were handed to her but she's not running.

If the call was all about hurting a rival then why bring Clinton into it? Her only involvement would have been during her days as Secretary of State or possibly through the Clinton Foundation. That is all in the past. Lumping the two together means that Trump was interested in past misdeeds, not hurting a possible rival.

One last point, Biden is not a political rival. He is a potential rival. He is a front-runner but not a single vote has been counted. Hurting Biden at this point does not help Trump unless you believe that Biden is the only candidate who can beat Trump. Personally I think that Biden would not stand a chance against Trump but hurting him early in the primaries could help someone with a better chance against Trump in the general election. That means that hurting Biden now would potentially hurt Trump later.

I don't believe for a moment that Trump hasn't considered this. So if he wants Ukraine to investigate Biden and Clinton then it's because he genuinely believes that they were involved in some corrupt dealings and wants them punished for it.

Columbus Conundrums

In a single breath the anti-Christopher Columbus Progressives say that:

A) Columbus didn't set foot in the modern US so

B) We should recognize Leif Erikson instead, even though he never set foot in the modern US and

C) We should blame Columbus for the genocide of the Native Americans eve though it happened hundreds of years after his death and was mainly confined to the areas occupied by the modern US and, finally,

D) We should celebrate Indigenous People's in honor of the people who Columbus never encountered (see A above).

I'm sure this all makes perfect sense to someone.

The "Impeachment". Where are we at?

If rumors and partial news accounts are correct then the impeachment that's not an impeachment becomes clearer.

First, there was no House vote to begin impeachment because not all Democrats would have voted for it. It's one thing to have a party-line vote. It's much harder to justify if there is bipartisan opposition and only partisan support for it.

Pelosi and the Democrats are trying to have it both ways. They haven't had a formal vote to begin impeachment but they are acting as if they had.

In some ways this is a continuation of the Russian investigation. The Democrats waited for the Mueller Report only to have it come up empty. Yes, there were instances of obstruction of justice identified but many of those were nothing more than the President complaining to the press. The Democrats were sure that Mueller must have uncovered SOMETHING but the grand jury proceedings are sealed and the only way to get them unsealed is to begin a formal impeachment. The Democrats have filed a motion to have the grand jury records opened but the judge resisted since there was no formal impeachment vote.

Everything about the whistle-blower is suspicious. It now appears that he approached the Democrats first and they helped him write up his report. They even managed to get the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community to change the requirements and eliminate the need for 1st hand knowledge. The Democrats are making every effort to conceal the whistle-blower's identity but it has leaked out that he is a registered Democrat and he has a connection with one of the presidential candidates. Now it's being reported that the candidate in question is none other than Joe Biden. That would explain why his identity is being kept so secret. A close connection to Biden means that instead of being a civil servant who was outraged at the abuse of power he had heard about, he might well be a Biden supporter who wants to shield the Bidens from an investigation.

This would sound a little paranoid if they hadn't done the same thing last year with Judge Kavanaugh. If they had forwarded Christine Ford's original assertion to the full Senate Judiciary Committee before the hearings, the FBI would have interviewed the people named and reported back that everyone named denied it and that Kavanaugh's diary gave him an alibi. Nothing further would have been heard about the accusation.

Instead the Democrats referred Ford to an attorney who coached her. The original story, "Kavanaugh groped me over my clothes at a party but I pulled away" was too mild. So details were added in lurid detail, "He put his hand over my mouth and I thought he was going to kill me!" and "It gave me a life-long fear of being enclosed." This last part was an outright lie. Ford claimed that she was so afraid of being enclosed that she couldn't stand to fly but her history showed that she flew often and seemed to enjoy it.

So the Democrats have a recent history of coaching a witness and stage-managing their allegations. They also learned last year that once an accuser's identity is known it becomes easy to discredit the accuser. So they are suggesting going to extraordinary lengths. It's been suggested that the whistle-blower will be at a remote location with his face blurred and his voice altered. Is this really to protect his identity or to cover it up?

But none of this amounts to more than a fishing expedition and an attempt to stop the investigation into the beginning of the Russian conspiracy hoax.

The Race So Far

Bernie Saunders had to be taken to the hospital and given two stents. His campaign was already in trouble. There were reports of shakeups. Elizabeth Warren was endorsed by the Working Family's Party of New York. That's important because they are to the extreme left and normally would be more comfortable with an avowed socialist. Saunders has been dropping in the polls, ranking well behind Warren and Biden. Given his failing campaign and worries about his health I think we can cross him off of the likely winners list. Not that I really expected him to get the nomination. A grouchy 78-year-old socialist doesn't have wide appeal, even among today's Democrats. Four years ago he benefited from being the 2nd choice for Warren supporters and the only choice for the Not-Hillary vote. With those gone he was coasting on name recognition.

Joe Biden is also fading. There are questions about his memory and his honesty. The Ukraine story may sink him even if nothing comes of it. And he's also in his late 70s. He spends most of his time running on the Obama/Biden administration but that's a hard sell. It would be very unusual for a former vice president to be refused the nomination if he wants it but Joe may manage to pull that off.

That leaves Elizabeth Warren among the front-runners. She's The youngest of the front-runners (including Trump) and projects a lot more energy and earnestness than Saunders or Biden. She's currently the front-runner in some polls. I'd give her better-than-even odds of getting the nomination. I'd say it was a sure thing except for the tradition of giving the nomination to former vice presidents.

How will the election come out?

Biden insists that he can beat Trump "like a drum". He's fooling himself. If he gets the nomination he'll lose to Trump. He'll look old, tired and confused compared to Trump.

But Warren's my top pick. How will she do?

Trump has a lot of advantages. He's the incumbent. That's always a good thing in a healthy economy. And people know him now. Four years ago Democrats were calling him mentally unstable and likely to start a war. Instead he's the first president in decades who hasn't involved us in new wars, at least not so far. And he can claim to be a peacemaker based on his negotiations with North Korean. Republicans, including me, were worried that Trump would turn out to be a New York Liberal in disguise. He hasn't. His administration has been mainstream Republican and to the right of both Bushes. Trump won in 2016 even though his campaign was in constant turnover and he was outspent two-to-one. This time he will have the bigger campaign chest and experienced campaigners won't be afraid that working for him will ruin their careers. The impeachment proceedings are also likely to help Trump. Unless the Democrats can make a much stronger case than they have, it just looks like an attempted coup and that's enough to motevate lukewarm voters to vote. That happened in 2018 when the circus surrounding Kavanaugh's confirmation is credited with motivating enough Republicans to keep the Senate.

Warren has some significant handicaps. She wants to run without corporate money. That only helps Trump but it's doubtful that corporations and big-money donors will support her regardless. She is proposing government takeover of health care and education. She wants to raise taxes and to tax wealth itself. She has proposed a partial takeover of large businesses with the government mandating the membership of corporate boards. Any of those will cause major economic disruption. All of them put together are likely to crash the economy harder than the Great Depression. The only way a politician can push through this sort of wrenching change is during a major economic downturn when people think that they have nothing to lose. Trying to pass this during an economic boom is nearly impossible. She's certain to turn Wall Street against her which is major since they've been supporting Democrats over Republicans for the last several elections cycles. I doubt that Warren will go down in a defeat comparable to McGovern or Mondale. She's certain to win California and New York. But she's also certain to lose a lot of states that haven't voted Republican since Reagan.

One other handicap that Warren will have. If she's on the ballot then this will be the 4th election in a row with a woman or black running. The novelty of voting for the first woman candidate is gone.

So, my final prediction - Trump vs Warren with Trump winning.

Why Now?

A week ago Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would be investigating impeaching President Trump over an unreleased whistle-blower report claiming that Trump threatened to withhold military aid meant for Ukraine unless they reopened an investigation into Joe Biden's son. According to the rumor, Trump demanded the investigation be reopened six times during the phone call. This seemed very premature since Trump had already announced that he would release both the transcript of the call to Ukraine and the whistle-blower report by the end of the week. Why not wait?

Sure enough, Trump did release both and it was a big nothing-burger. While Trump did ask that the investigation be reopened, he only mentioned it once and that was after several other requests. There was no mention of a quid pro quo agreement. The military aid funds that had been held have already been released even though the investigation has not been reopened.

The whistle-blower report was similarly unimpressive. The author admitted to not having any direct knowledge so it's all "people familiar with ... tell me". There was an accusation that the original transcript had been hidden on a secure server because people understood the enormity of what the President did. This accusation also fell apart because Trump willingly released the transcript and because Susan Rice admitted that the Obama administration had put similar transcripts on the secure server. Also, after the Washington Post printed transcripts of Trump's first two calls to foreign leaders, they can be excused for taking extra steps.

So why did Pelosi launch an impeachment so early? After a week, a few things have become clear starting with the fact that there is no reason for impeachment here.A week ago it looked like Pelosi had lost control of the House to the Squad and other pro-impeachment Democrats. That is certainly a factor. There is a vocal wing of the Democratic party that has always planned on impeaching Trump and was just looking for an excuse.

The real factor here is timing. There is only four months until the primaries start and an impeachment will be a major distraction. No one will be watching the primaries if the President is on trial in the Senate. Also the longer things drag on the worse the case for impeachment. Why bother to impeach a president with an election coming up in a few months?

But another factor has come up over the weekend. Attorney General Barr has been talking to the Australian and Italian governments about the origins of the Steele Dossier. This seems to be a reasonable thing for the Attorney General to look into. There are credible reports that officials from both of these countries entrapped a low-level Trump campaign worker with promises of Clinton's deleted emails. Was this done by low-level officials acting on their own or did these governments try to interfere in a US election. You'd think that people would want to know. Instead the Washington Post made a shot across Barr's bow, by suggesting that he is at risk of prison time. Prison time for investigating election fraud? Seriously?

So maybe the other factor here is that the left knows the Clinton campaign and the Obama administration crossed some lines and they are using the impeachment to try to stop the investigation.

Either way, they are out of time. With deadlines approaching, they seized on the Ukraine call because they don't have anything else to use and they are committed to impeaching the president no matter what.

Impeachment Fever

According to the Democrats' master plan, August was going to be used to make the case for impeaching President Trump at town halls. Then they planned to get down to impeachment when they returned to work in September. As it turned out the town halls didn't raise much excitement. Still, the Democrats returned to DC rested and ready to impeach someone.

The first target turned out to be Justice Kavanaugh. An excerpt from an upcoming book claimed that he wagged his penis at someone while in college and Democrats were ready to start impeachment proceedings over that. But then it turned out that no one could remember it except a lawyer connected with the Clintons. Even the woman who was supposed to be the victim denied it so that fell apart.

Back to the original target, President Trump. But the original justification for impeachment wasn't going to work. The Mueller probe came up empty on Russian collusion. It listed possible obstruction of justice charges but let's be honest, you can't remove a sitting president because he complained to the media that the special council should be replaced because of a conflict of interest.

But, just at the right time a new allegation appeared. There were rumors that a whistle-blower had reported a conversation between President Trump and the prime minister of the Ukraine in which Trump demanded that an investigation into Former Vice President Biden's son be reopened. Trump was supposed to have threatened to  withhold aid unless they acquiesced. Democrats and the press were up in arms.

New information has come out. Yes, Trump did put a temporary hold on $400 million around the call but he says that this was unrelated to the investigation. It turns out that the whistle-blower did not have first-hand knowledge of the call and technically is not a whistle-blower which is why the Inspector General has not released the complaint to Congress. The President has agreed to release a transcript of the call and of the complaint to Congress by the end of the week.

But Congress has Impeachment Fever. The Squad has been working their fellow members and Speaker Pelosi. So, rather than wait until they have all the relevant documents, Pelosi announced an impeachment probe. This raises the immediate question, "Has she lost her mind?"

She announced the inquiry just days before she will have the facts. If Trump is telling the truth then this will blow up in her face. And there's every reason to believe him. If the transcript showed a true quid pro quo deal then he'd be refusing the release the transcript. So this could blow up in her face by the weekend. This is important because she's likely to only get one shot at impeachment. If it fails then it will be much harder to do a second impeachment. Further, trying to get 67 votes in the Senate will be nearly impossible without an iron-clad case. After all, the Republicans have a Senate majority and will face angry voters if they remove a president with a 90% approval rating among Republicans.

There are other dangers. Joe Biden is the Democratic front-runner and he has bragged about using a quid pro quo deal to have a Ukrainian prosecutor fired. This is the same prosecutor who was investigating the company his son was working for. If the Democrats start impeachment over Trump trying to revive this case then people are going to demand to know if there was anything to it? And they will want to know why a quid pro quo agreement was ok for Biden but impeachable for Trump. This will also tarnish Obama's reputation. Biden insists that Obama backed him.

This could catch other fish, Hillary Clinton tried to get damaging information on Trump through the Ukrainian Embassy. People associated with her did PR work for Ukraine as did Mueller.

So there is a real possibility that the investigation could leave the Democrats disillusioned and dispirited and their front-runner's campaign crippled.

Why would Pelosi risk launching an impeachment with so many possible downsides? I can think of a few reasons. One is that she's lost control of the House. The Squad has always been for impeachment and they forced her to rush into it.

Another possibility is that the Democrats want a failed impeachment as a campaign tool. "Elect Democrats so that we can finally remove Trump from office!" This means that they've accepted that Trump will win the 2020 election and are thinking ahead to ways of removing him during his second term. While this is possible, it's not likely. If requires the Democrats to admit that Trump will win and that they will be able to mount a second impeachment after the first one fails.

The final possibility is spite. The attorney who represented one of Justice Kavanaugh's accusers talked about the importance of putting an asterisk on his name. The Democrats might simply be trying to put an asterisk on President Trump's name.

Kavanaugh Conspiracies

A bit over a year ago Judge Kavanaugh looked like a shoe-in for confirmation to the Supreme Court. But then, after what should have been his last confirmation hearing, Senator Diane Feinstein revealed that someone had contacted her weeks earlier with allegations of sexual misconduct. The accuser, Christine Blassy Ford, refused to contact the Senate Judiciary Committee directly, instead  going to the Washington Post with her story. That was followed by numerous other allegations.

Because of the #MeToo movement, people were inclined to believe Ford that something happened. After all, the #MeToo'ers said, coming forward with such complaints was such a burden that no one would make something like that up. But, as the allegations piled up, it was obvious that people were making things up. But let's assume for a moment that Ford and Ramirez were telling the truth.

Ford's basic story is that when they were in high school, Kavanaugh groped her over her clothing and swim suit but she easily got away from him. That's all it amounts to. What she said during her testimony had been coached to make it sound much worse. She talked about being afraid that he would suffocate her and life-long trauma she suffered from the incident. But, the trauma-induced claustrophobia she claimed to have did not exist. She lied about it which casts doubt on the rest of her story. Further, Kavanaugh kept a detailed diary showing that he was so busy with sports that this event never occurred, at least not with him. And, finally, the other three people named all denied it.

The second allegation happened at Yale. Somehow, at a drunken party, Kavanaugh lost his pants and put his penis in the face of Deborah Ramirez. Assuming it happened, so what? Yes, it's at odds with Kavanaugh's reputation as boringly straight-laced but it tells us nothing about his fitness as a judge 30+ years later. But, again, it's unlikely to have happened. Ramirez admits that she was drunk at the time and spent a week trying to decide if it was Kavanaugh or not. She called friends before coming forward but could not find any who remembered the incident. Again, it's likely this did not happen, at least not with Kavanaugh.

What brought this up again is that someone else remembers a second incident similar to the one with Kavanaugh. This launched calls for a new investigation and possible impeachment. But this allegation is on even shakier ground than the others. The accuser, Max Stier, is a lawyer with deep ties to the Clintons and the alleged victim doesn't remember it happening. Considering that Stier has his own axe to grind and could not produce a single witness, this is likely another fabrication.

There is some outrage because Stier informed the Senate Judiciary Committee of his allegations a few days prior to the final vote. Democrats are complaining that the process was rushed.

So, now that I've covered the facts, here's what I think really happened. When Justice Kennedy announced his retirement, the Democrats decided they would prefer to keep the seat open until 2021 in the hopes that a Democrat would defeat Trump for reelection. So their plan was to stall until the 2018 election when they hoped to take the Senate. After that, they would either refuse to consider any Trump nominees or would vote them down.

Kavanaugh was one of the best-qualified candidates in modern history. Some of his opinions were copied verbatim into Supreme Court rulings. The only way to keep Kavanaugh off of the Court was to engage in personal destruction. They used the same play-book as was attempted under the Clarence Thomas hearings - wait until after the confirmation hearing then breathlessly introduce an unsubstantiated accusation of sexual harassment. Ford's lawyer has even said that the whole purpose was to "put an asterisk" on Kavanaugh's name.

Stier's accusation came so late in the process precisely to stall for time. If they had waited for an investigation then it would have been followed by more accusations in an endless procession. No one wanted to know the truth about Kavanaugh, that he is a decent man. They wanted to stall and besmirch his character.

Now, a year later all of this is coming up again. Why? It is unlikely that Kavanaugh will be impeached and removed from the bench. The real reason is to add more asterisks to his name in order to scare off other conservative candidates.

Scary Old Men

The two Democratic front-runners, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, are both quite elderly. If either one gets the nomination then he will be the oldest candidate in history (and that's with the current record-holder, Donald Trump, on the ballot). Beyond this, both candidates are getting outright scary.

Biden has a long history of stretching facts, sometimes well past the breaking point. He plagiarizes other people's stories and inflates his own story. He claims to have been in charge of drawing down the troops in Iraq but the generals in command contest that. He says that he "beat the NRA twice" referring to the Clinton-era assault weapons ban. His role wasn't big enough to make Wikipedia's summary of the legislation and the re-authorization of the law died in committee, not on George Bush's desk so it's difficult to understand what his second "win" over the NRA was.

Even his reason for running is based on the lie that President Trump called neo-nazies and Klansmen "good people". Yes, Trump said there were good people on both sides but he also made it clear that he meant people protesting against removal of a statue. In the same breath, Trump condemned the racists. Beyond this, Biden has no clear reason for running.

Biden is also getting forgetful. He's referred to President Obama as "President my boss" and to President Bush as "the last President" (somehow forgetting Obama's tenure). He frequently forgets what city or state he's in. This sort of memory loss is common in people his age but it's not comforting.

Then there are statements he's made that are difficult to decide if he's stretching the truth as he always did or miss-remembering. He claims to have met with students from the Parkland shooting in his office as Vice-President but the shooting happened after he left office. He tells about a soldier refusing an award as he pinned it on while vice president but he was wrong about the name, rank, and branch of the service the soldier was in as well as the reason for the award. In addition, he was a senator at the time and someone else was pinning on the award.

Biden also has violent tendencies. When the Billy Bush tapes came out, he said that if Trump had said something like that when they were in high school he'd have beaten him up over it. He later said that if Trump followed him around on the debate floor then he'd turn around and deck him (Note: this was a lie by the Clinton campaign. Hillary repeatedly walked across the stage and stood between Trump and the camera so Trump would appear to be looming over her shoulder). Earlier this Summer when asked about debating Trump, Biden raised his fists and mimed boxing.

Biden's violent tendencies are not limited to Trump. He's known for inappropriately touching women but he has a worse habit. At least three times in the last month, when a woman asked a question he didn't like, he grabbed her hand or arm and held her in place while he lectured her.

So, is Bernie any better? No, he's scarier.

When he ran in 2016, Bernie said that people should have gone to jail for the 2008 crash. He went on to say that even if no laws had been broken, an imaginative prosecutor can always find something to charge someone with. For his current run Saunders wants to jail oil company executives.

When asked about population control and global warming, he said that he's eliminate the Mexico City rule (which prevents the US from funding abortions in other countries) and push the rest of the world to use birth control and abortion to reduce the population. Talk about your American imperialism!

So, we have Biden who lies, forgets things and has violent tendencies and Bernie who campaigns on jailing his enemies, even if they haven't broken the law, and dictating something like China's One Child policy world-wide.

I find both of these guys terrifying.

Their First Day

The presidential candidates are in a bidding war for how much they will do to limit guns through executive action on their first day in office.This means they are planning on circumventing Congress, defying the Supreme Court, ignoring the Constitution and violating their oath of office (almost as soon as they give it).

What are they planning on their second day?

And why aren't Democrats scared of these people?

What Elizabeth Warren SHOULD Say About Claiming To Be An Indian

This week presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren made a general "I'm sorry for what I did and I apologize to any the people I harmed" without actually admitting what she was apologizing for. Since she's having problems admitting what she actually did and why it's bad, I thought I'd write a proper apology for her:

Back when I was just starting my career I realized that I would have difficulty getting a job at a top tier law school with a degree from a 2nd tier school. In order to get an "in" I relied some old family stories and checked "Indian" as my race. I never actually researched what it actually meant to be Native American. It's as much culture as ancestry and I never had a living relative talk about growing up in a tribe or on a reservation. But no one checked. Harvard was thrilled to have a minority, even a blond, blue-eyed Native American. I was even asked to contribute to Pow Wow Chow, a cookbook of traditional Indian recipes. By that point I'd convinced myself that we were descended from Indians and therefore anything we ate must be traditional, even if it was a seafood recipe I copied from a magazine.

Once I had established myself I quietly dropped any claims to Indian heritage until it came out during my first Senate run. I ignored this issue when it came out but I decided to put it to rest when I began organizing my presidential campaign. I had a genealogist check my DNA and I did an interview with family members where we talked about the stories we'd grown up with. As it turned out, I didn't properly understand that the DNA results undercut my claim and family stories are meaningless.

So I apologize for using this claim to advance my career. I apologize to the people I displaced by elbowing my way in front of them with a false claim. And I apologize to the Native Peoples of America and to all minorities. I used programs meant to make up for centuries of discrimination even though I was not entitled to use them.

Was the Revolutionary War Fought Over Slavery?

According to the New York Times Magazine's 1619 Project, the reason that America broke away from Great Britain was that the British government was going to outlaw slavery. This is so stupid it hurts.

Great Britain didn't outlaw the slave trade until 1807 and they didn't outlaw slavery itself until 1833 and it did not become fully effective until 1840. Granted there was an abolitionist movement in England in the 1770s, but there was also one in the colonies.

Under English law, slavery was legal in every colony in 1776. Once independence was declared, various colonies began outlawing it. Six states outlawed it by 1790 and all of the northern states had abolished it or were working to eliminate it by 1804. Slavery was never allowed in the Northwest Territory which meant that free states outnumbered slave states through the Civil War.

Given all of that and how long it took England to outlaw slavery throughout Great Britain, it's offensive to claim that the Revolution was inspired by a desire to keep slaves.

The Objection to Universal Background Check Explained

It's a knee-jerk reaction: there's a mass shooting and immediately the call is renewed for Universal Background Checks, AKA the Gunshow Loophole. This would require a background check for any transfer of a gun. Some proposed versions would even require it for lending a gun to a member of the family. The problem with this as a solution to gun violence is that there has yet to be a single mass shooting where either the shooter(s) passed a background check or the gun existing law was broken for the shooter to obtain the gun. In Columbine, the grandfather of school shootings, a cousin bought the guns and was charged for it. In the recent Dayton shooting, the gunman was legally able to buy guns but a friend made the purchases so his parents wouldn't know. It should be pointed out that the guns used in the vast majority of drug and gang related crimes were obtained illegally.

It should also be pointed out that during the Obama administration the ATF tried to exploit "gunshow loophole" and the "dark web" to buy guns. They were unable to make any purchases while posing as someone who would not pass a background check.

 

So right off the bat you have a disconnect between gun owners and people who want "common sense gun legislation". If universal background checks won't stop mass shootings then why are people pushing so hard for them?

Many of the people pushing for this are doing it reflexively. They've been told that this is needed all of their adult lives going back to Bill Clinton in the 1990s. They never stopped to examine the effectiveness of background checks because people they trust have already told them that these work.

But some people have to know how ineffective these would be. Why are they still pushing for it? What will they gain from them?

The most charitable motive is that they hope to slow the number of gun purchases by making it difficult enough that people give up on the purchase or don't bother in the first place. Opposition to this is the same as opposition to obstacles to abortion. The advocates worry that allowing any anti-gun legislation to pass will make it easier for stricter legislation. Once a background check is mandated then it's fairly simple to extend the time needed for it. In California and other places where local law enforcement has to sign off on concealed carry permits, some authorities have refused to ok a single application turning a formality into a roadblock. That could well happen to background checks.

The real scare for gun owners is that when a background check has to be performed on all transfers, that gives the government a list of gun owners that could be used for confiscation. While this is unlikely in the US, it is how England was able to disarm its population. In England, every gun had to be registered. That made it easy for the government to ask every registered gun owner for their gun.

At its heart, this is an emotion vs reason argument. People who want background checks are not acting rationally and are unwilling to listen to reasons why this would be ineffective. Rather than listening to gun-owners' objections, they see the gun-owners as either tools of the NRA or "being willing to sacrifice childrens' lives". Beign talked down to like that just makes the gun owners dig in deeper with their opostition.

 

The Problems with Joe

Joe Biden tops the polls of contenders for the Democratic nomination for president. The first two debates didn't budge him. His biggest challenger, Bernie Sanders, has slid a bit and is now fighting it out with Elizabeth Warren for second place. This is typical. Biden is a former Vice-President and when one of them runs he gets to be his party's candidate (the one exception to this was Hubert Humphrey who narrowly failed to get nominated for a second time in 1972 following his loss in 1968). Biden has a glow about him from residual warmth for President Obama and he projects the image of a father or grandfather. There are some warning flags that Biden is not up to being president.

Biden has a reputation as a "gaff machine". He often says things wrong. Recently he told a group of children that " Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kid". He caught his mistake and added " wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids." It's possible that he slipped and said "white" when he meant "wealthy" or it could be a Freudian slip. It's also easy to write off him getting the locations of last week's shootings wrong. Trump made a similar mistake. But some of Biden's other slips are much harder to ignore.

Recently he also said, " those kids in Parkland came up to see me when I was vice president". The shooting happened in 2018, more than a year after he left office. His campaign says that he was thinking of the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012 but that raises more questions.Sandy Hook involved very young children while Parkland was young adults, some of them months away from graduating high school and the two shootings were more than five years apart. That is more significant than substituting one "w" word for another.

This is nothing new. In 2008 he talked about how FDR went on TV to address the nation after the stock market crash of 1929. Again, this was more than a slip of the tongue. FDR wasn't elected until 1932 and no one was on TV in 1929.

There is also Biden's temperament. He has a temper and often resorts to violent imagery. When the Access Hollywood tape came out with Donald Trump's comments on touching women. When asked about it, Biden said  "The press always ask me, don't I wish I were debating him. No, I wish we were in high school, I could take him behind the gym. That's what I wish."

A year or two later, when asked about debating Trump he referenced Trump looming behind Clinton and said if it was him, he'd have turned around and slugged him (note, Trump never left his podium. Clinton repeatedly crossed the stage and stood between Trump and the camera in a practiced move to make Trump appear to loom over her.)

In a different interview Biden said, "The idea that I'd be intimidated by Donald Trump? ... He's the bully that I've always stood up to. He's the bully that used to make fun when I was a kid that I stutter, and I'd smack him in the mouth." 

Recently when asked about debating Trump, Biden said he was looking forward to it and raised his fists in a boxing stance.

It's not only Trump that causes Biden to lose his temper. Recently a teenage girl asked him how many sexes there are. He said "three". She asked him to name them and he accused her of playing games. She started to walk away and he grabbed her arm and said he was the first to support (gay) marriage. This was a very minor incident although it left the girl upset but it shows Biden's temper.

He also (with a smile on his face) challenged Trump to a pushup contest.

If I was a Democrat I would be very worried that this man was my front-runner and the face of moderation.

If Trump's a racist then why is it so hard to find proof?

We're constantly told that President Trump is an irredeemable racist but I have yet to see an accurate quote taken in context that proves this. Why is this so hard?

The quote most often used "good people on both sides" was butchered. In the same breath he condemned the white supremacists and then went on to say that some of the people protesting the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee were acting in good faith and speculated on statues of Washington and Jefferson being next (surprise, he was right). There's no racism there.

After some ISIS-inspired attacks in the US including the Pulse Nightclub shooting and during a wave of refugees from ISIS-infested territories, Trump suggested a temporary freeze on accepting people from these countries until we could put stronger vetting in place. This is still being referred to as a ban on all Muslims.

At least three times Trump has made statements about the violent drug-gang MS-13 that were rephrased to claim that he was talking about all Latinos.

Just a few days after people insisted that it was not racist for Speaker Nancy Pelosi to respond to attacks from the Squad, the same people insisted that it was racist for Trump to respond to their attacks. His tweet suggested that the three of them who were from different countries/territories or whose parents were should clean them up before telling us how to change the US. He did not tell them to "go back where they came from" which is how his tweet was reported. The same was true when he responded to attacks from Rep. Elijah Cummings by pointing out how little he's done for his district and how bad things are in Baltimore. Suddenly it's racist to point out reality.

In the run-up to the 2016 election, the Washington Post had at least a dozen reporters investigating Trump and the worst example of racism they could find was his father's company being fined for discrimination in the 1970s.

So, again, if Trump is so racist then why do they have to manufacture all of the evidence of it, something like saying that "poor kids can be as smart as white kids?"