It’s September 30th, 2019…but before we begin, here’s an actual posting on Facebook Marketplace from our brother-in-law Brutus we’ve declared an instant classic: 

Truer words were never written!

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, writing at The Federalist, Sean Davis details how Deep Staters in the…

“…The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until after the transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress were made public, eliminates the first-hand knowledge requirement and allows employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only “heard about [wrongdoing] from others.”

…The Ukraine call complaint against Trump is riddled not with evidence directly witnessed by the complainant, but with repeated references to what anonymous officials allegedly told the complainant: “I have received information from multiple U.S. Government officials,” “officials have informed me,” “officials with direct knowledge of the call informed me,” “the White House officials who told me this information,” “I was told by White House officials,” “the officials I spoke with,” “I was told that a State Department official,” “I learned from multiple U.S. officials,” “One White House official described this act,” “Based on multiple readouts of these meetings recounted to me,” “I also learned from multiple U.S. officials,” “The U.S. officials characterized this meeting,” “multiple U.S. officials told me,” “I learned from U.S. officials,” “I also learned from a U.S. official,” “several U.S. officials told me,” “I heard from multiple U.S. officials,” and “multiple U.S. officials told me.”

The repeated references to information the so-called whistleblower never witnessed clearly run afoul of the original ICIG requirements for “urgent concern” submissions. The change to the “urgent concern” submission form was first highlighted on Twitter by researcher Stephen McIntyre.

The complainant also cites publicly available news articles as proof of many of the allegations.

“I was not a direct witness to most of the events” characterized in the document, the complainant confessed on the first page of his August 12 letter, which was addressed to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the respective chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees. Hearsay is generally inadmissible as evidence in U.S. federal and state courts since it violates the constitutional requirement that the accused be given the opportunity to question his accusers.

The anti-Trump complaint also made several false claims that have been directly refuted and debunked. While the complaint alleged that Trump demanded that Ukraine physically return multiple servers potentially related to ongoing investigations of foreign interference in the 2016 elections, the transcript of the call between Trump and Zelensky shows that such a request was never made.

The complainant also falsely alleged that Trump told Zelensky that he should keep the current prosecutor general at the time, Yuriy Lutsenko, in his current position in the country. The transcript showed that exchange also did not happen.

Additionally, the complaint falsely alleged that T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, a U.S. State Department official, was a party to the phone call between Trump and Zelensky.

“I was told that a State Department official, Mr. T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, also listened in on the call,” the complaint alleged. Shortly after the complaint was released, CBS News reported that Brechbuhl was not on the phone call.

In a legal opinion that was released to the public along with the phone call transcript, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) determined that the complainant’s submission was statutorily deficient and therefore was not required to be submitted to Congress. The White House nonetheless declassified and released the document to Congress late Wednesday evening…”

What,…yet another coincidence which plays in favor of Progressives and against Trump?!?

Think about it: Sean Davis “never mentioned or asked about the anti-Trump whistleblower”, yet the DNI official immediately responded “the intelligence community would not comment on anything to do with” the subject.

This is a scene right out of Alice in Wonderland…

…with the “intelligence community” and other Deep Staters playing the role of the Red Queen!  Might as well be “Sentence first, trial later!”

In a related item courtesy of Townhall.com and Speed Mach, Derek Hunter asks what inquiring minds want to know:

If The Case For Trump’s Impeachment Is So Strong, Why Are Liberals Lying About It?

“Lying takes a lot of effort, telling the truth is easy. When you start lying you have to remember which lie you told which person, and as the truth begins to creep out, as it always does, you find yourself scrambling to twist it to fit back into your lie. Democrats, both in Congress and the media, are finding this out the hard way this week with their latest “Trump is corrupt and must be impeached” lie.

…Almost everything about the allegations that have Democrats moving toward impeachment of the President is a lie, a proven lie. And they don’t care.

“Holy ‘Tommy Lee Jones’…

…Batman!”

The call with Ukrainian President Zelensky did take place, so that part is true. From there, the lies begin…

…It was weird how everyone got on the same page so quickly, with the same (bad) information and false claims, and just after the intelligence community changed their whistleblowing requirements that information be firsthand, not hearsay. Even self-righteous alleged conservatives who hate the President were quick to get on board.

None – not the Democrats, the “journalists,” or never-Trumpers – seem remotely bothered by the fact that every claim they’ve clutched their pearls over turned out to be false. When you embrace and repeat something you know to be false, you are lying. If the evidence were there, if it’s on their side, why lie?

It’s precisely because the truth is not on their side that they have to lie.

This was a coordinated coup attempt. Democrats were tipped off about the whistleblower complaint and pot-committed themselves to it being the silver bullet they’ve desperately been seeking. But the President was holding all the cards. He released everything to the public and authorized everyone to testify. By the time Democrats realized they’d gotten it all wrong it was too late.

…You only get one bite at the impeachment apple, they have no choice but to plough forward with it anyway. Journalists and pundits, on the other hand, do have a choice. They’re sticking with their team and ignoring the facts, ignoring the truth.

All these people are going to fight till the end, go down with the ship. They hate the President so much they are not going to let a little thing like having to lie deter them. They want him gone and are willing to lie to make it happen. Trump Derangement Syndrome is the Kool-Aid at Jonestown.

For all their insistence that Donald Trump is corrupt, it is his opponents who are willing to pervert reality to get what they want…”

Here’s what this inquiring mind also wants to know: back in the day when we were nervous in the service, one’s security classification (e.g., Confidential, Secret, Top Secret, etc.) did not of itself give one access to classified information absent a specific need to know.  In other words, just because we held a Top Secret clearance flying F-14As didn’t allow us access to classified information concerning U.S. submarine-launched ballistic missile technology.

More importantly, here’s the juice: neither would or should the “whistleblower” and his innumerable “anonymous”, “U.S. government”, “State Department”, “White House” and “U.S.” officials have had occasion or cause to swap tales of Trump’s official phone calls around the water cooler.

For more on the subject of what the MSM missed…or more likely deliberately overlooked…regarding the Ukraine Crisis, we highly recommend Holman Jenkins latest at the WSJ:

“We might not be here if the mainstream media, which loved the Steele Dossier when it seemed to incriminate Donald Trump, had later shown an equal interest in investigating its origins as a partisan fabrication.

In his now-famous transcript, Mr. Trump mainly presses Ukraine’s new president for dirt not on the Bidens but on the known unknowns of 2016. “I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine,” he says. “There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation.”

This is the “favor” he actually seeks from Ukraine’s president.

Yes, Mr. Trump’s musings about the Democratic National Committee’s server may be deluded, though it remains true that the FBI never directly examined the server. His next reference, however, begins “I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people.” Here he may be referring to Ukrainian legislator Serhiy Leshchenko, who injected into the U.S. race a secret document on Paul Manafort’s finances that later became a major factor in the Mueller investigation. Only intermittently have outlets like Politico and the Hill ever shown interest in the alleged pro-Clinton efforts of the previous Ukrainian government. Ukraine at the time was pell-mell becoming a U.S. client. Billions in civilian and military aid were starting to flow from the Obama administration. Vice President Joe Biden was dispatched to help clean up Ukraine’s reputation and make it an acceptable partner.

This was the moment when Hunter Biden, with no relevant expertise, and last seen being booted from a short-lived career in the Navy Reserve because of a failed drug test, received a lucrative role with a Ukrainian company. Where might Mr. Trump have gotten the idea there was something fishy about this? From the U.S. media of course:

All of which may be moot, provided the substance of a recent claim by FOX News’ Brian Watters is accurate.

Next up, also courtesy of Townhall.com, Wayne Alan Root makes an interesting point:

“…We’re debating a phone call between a president and a world leader. Why would any of us have access to this call? Have you ever heard the details of any other phone call between a world leader and an American president?

Heck, Trump is now the most transparent president in history. He released the transcript of a classified call with a world leader. Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama still has never released his college transcripts. There’s never been a single leak. (Almost like they didn’t exist!) You’d think his college records were classified.

But the real question that must be asked: Why can’t we see transcripts of Obama’s conversations with world leaders? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

We’ve now seen Trump’s conversation. I want to see Obama’s conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. We all heard Obama whisper on an open microphone that, once reelected, he could give Putin whatever he wanted. So what do you think Obama said during private, classified calls to Putin?

If we have a right to listen to Trump’s calls, why can’t we listen to Obama’s calls with world leaders? We need something against which we can measure Trump’s supposed “crimes.”

I heard from a friend who heard from a friend that Obama sold America down the river in calls with Putin. I heard he was way too friendly with the radical leaders of the Arab Spring and the Muslim Brotherhood. I heard he sold Israel down the river in calls with leaders of Middle Eastern countries.

I want to see a transcript of former Secretary of State John Kerry’s negotiations with that rogue terrorist nation Iran. Why did he give Iran a “deal of the century”? Can we see the conversations between Kerry and Obama about the Iran treaty? Only one way to find out. We have to see the transcripts. How about the negotiation for hostages held by Iran? I can’t wait to hear Obama offer a ransom to terrorists (a crime).

The precedent has been set. I won’t rest until I see the transcripts of Obama’s calls. Only then can we know if Trump did anything wrong or unusual…”

To borrow a phrase from the late, great John Vernon…

And in today’s installment of the EnvironMental Moment, a picture which is not only well worth a thousand words, but indeed says all that need be said of the environmental movement:

Seems more like a bowel movement to us.

Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:

Then there’s another classic bit of comic relief from Speed Mach:

Finally, since we’re on the subject of Slick Willy, while promoting her latest tome which very few will likely buy because, like another famous but fictional crime cartel…

…the Clintons’ power to instill fear and respect is gone…

Hillary Clinton says she admires Eleanor Roosevelt for sticking by FDR after his affair

…along with whatever scant shred of respect they still possessed.  The Clintons are, quite literally, a pox upon America, a contemporary political equivalent of the Bubonic Plague.  And the sooner the country is rid of any trace of their influence the better.

Magoo