On December 22, 2019,
in Uncategorized,
by magoo1310
It’s Friday, December 20th, 2019…but before we begin, as some of you know, we’ve recently completed Simon Schama’s brilliant Citizens, A Chronicle of the French Revolution.
While we certainly learned the general history of the French Revolution during our decades of schooling and scholarship, it was only while we read Schama’s recounting of the Reign of Terror, in which the author describes how…
“Henceforth, anyone denounced for “Slandering patriotism,” “seeking to inspire discouragement,” “spreading false new” or even “depraving morals, corrupting the public conscience and impairing the purity and energy of the revolutionary government” could be brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. That court could issue only one of two sentences: acquittal or death. To expedite the march of revolutionary justice, no witnesses would be allowed to be called nor could the accused have a defense counsel. Were not the jurymen, after all, good citizens, capable of coming to a fair and unbiased verdict on their own judgment?“
…we came to understand this was the first atheist-inspired insurrection which presaged the Communist tyrannies to come.
And the parallels between the French “then”, and Antifa “now”, are striking:
We cannot recommend this book enough:
Sure, it’s long, it’s involved and the author sometimes presupposes a working knowledge of the French language we “frankly” don’t possess. But it’s both compelling and incredibly revealing of the undeniable similarities which have characterized almost every revolution since: violent, bloody and ultimately totalitarian, including those which engulfed Russia, China, Cambodia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Rhodesia and many other African nations. America stands out as one of the very, very few exceptions.
Yet today, American Socialists are determined to right that wrong.
Now, here’s The Gouge!
We lead off the Friday edition with a few brief thoughts and observations as the curtain closes on Act I of the Impeachment Inquisition. First, as Jim Geraghty notes at his Morning Jolt, like the Terminator’s exclusive focus on killing Sarah Connors…
…impeaching Donald J. Trump, Jr. has been all Dimocrats have really been about, even before the Orange Man upset the World’s Smartest Woman in the Election of the Century:
“…Whatever your view on impeachment, wasn’t it more or less guaranteed, once Democrats won the House, that an impeachment effort would eventually gain traction and reach 218 votes? Impeachment wasn’t just Rashida Tlaib’s infamous pledge. President Trump and a Democratic House majority were never going to settle into comfortable odd-couple squabbling, like Barack Obama and John Boehner’s House GOP, or George W. Bush and Nancy Pelosi’s first House majority. They were always on a collision course on the biggest issue of our era, a furious national argument that started in 2015 and never stopped: Should Donald Trump be president?
As I’ve written before, three weeks into Trump’s presidency, Public Policy Polling found 83 percent of Clinton voters believed Trump needed to be impeached. Three weeks!Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling declared, “voters who didn’t like Trump but were willing to give him a chance have quickly decided he’s not fit to hold the office.”At that point, Trump hadn’t committed any high crimes or misdemeanors.Trump had simply been himself; in the eyes of quite a few Democrats, Trump’s presence in the office of the presidency was an ipso facto high crime or misdemeanor.Impeachment became a way of expressing the belief that the 2016 election shouldn’t have ended the way it did…”
Almost like a…
…religion!
Second, for those of you without the time to watch Mitch McConnell’s Senate speech following the conclusion of the House’s kangaroo court in its entirety, here’s a clip which catches the substance…
…though the full address is well worth your time:
Now, contrast Mitch’s reasoned, fact-based analysis with Nancy’s almost mindless meanderings and fits of pique, and you tell us…
…who holds the stronger hand? Keep in mind, this horrid harpy would have you believe she’d just saved peace, justice and the American way…not to mention the Constitution…from evisceration by the Orange Man. Let us know by voting in our new Poll of the Day, found at the right hand side near the top of the page.
As for her warning she’ll withhold the impeachment articles from the Senate until McConnell allows Dimocrats to dictate trial rules, it’s as empty a threat as any we’ve seen since Sheriff Bart’s classic subterfuge in Blazing Saddles:
Fortunately for the country, McConnell seems possessed of more discernment than either Olson or Sam Johnson.
Lastly, as more than one NeverTrump pundit has suggested, the…
A fact which likely pierced even the alcohol-addled brain of Rachael Bade, as her tweet showing the group of WaPo “journalists” who moonlight as CNN pundits celebrating was quickly deleted.
We’ll leave the last word on hypocrisy so rank it almost oozes from the pores of House Dimocrats to NRO‘s David Harsanyi, who, immediately prior to the preordained impeachment vote, literally begged Progressives…
Impeach Him If You Like, but for the Love of God, Stop Pretending You Care about the Constitution
Perhaps Donald Trump deserves to be impeached for his Ukrainian adventure. Heck, maybe he deserves to be impeached for sending that insanely entertaining letter yesterday. But those are political considerations for Democrats. Impeaching the presidentisn’t a Constitutional imperative. Nor is it a patriotic obligation.Democrats, who todayludicrously wrap themselves in the patina of “rule of law,” know this well. Not very long ago, they were rationalizing and cheerleading unprecedented abuses of power under the Obama administration. And they’ll be cheerleading for more abuses of the Constitution the next time they win the White House.
Nancy Pelosi can dress in black, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and act as if this impeachment is her solemn obligation, but everyone saw the Democratic party’s hysterical reaction to the 2016 election. Everyone saw dozens of candidates running in 2018 — either implicitly, but most often explicitly — on getting rid of the president. Just last week we learned that people within our intelligence agencies subverted the law to help Democrats concoct a three-year national panic meant to undermine the veracity of a fair election.
“The Republic is why we are here today. We are custodians of the Constitution. A Republic by the people for the people,” writes one Eric Swalwall, a man who once pondered the possibility of nuking Americans who demanded to practice their Second Amendment rights. Trump-era liberals had argued for the abolition of the Electoral College long before they were pretending to care about Ukrainian autonomy. Democrats were talking about stacking the Supreme Court long before any whistleblower showed up. If your contention is that the Constitution protects abortion on demand through the ninth month but are fine with undermining property rights, gun rights, religious freedom, and anymeaningfulseparation of power, you’re not a custodian of the Constitution, you’re [a] partisan with an agenda. So do what you must. But it’s been insufferable watching you playact sentinel of the American Republic — whose presumptions, institutions, documents, and Founders you don’t really seem to like very much.
In fact, truly despise.
Next up, the WSJ‘s Kim Strassel keeps our eyes firmly fixed on the REAL abuse of power and obstruction of justice from which the whole Ukraine sideshow is intended to deflect our attention, as she explains why the…
“The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court this week blasted the Federal Bureau of Investigation for “misconduct” in the Carter Page surveillance warrant. Some would call this accountability. Others will more rightly call it the FISC’s “shocked to find gambling” moment.
Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer issued her four-page rebuke of the FBI Tuesday, after a Justice Department inspector general report publicly exposing the FBI’s abuses. The judge blasted the FBI for misleading the court by providing “unsupported or contradicted” information and by withholding exculpatory details about Mr. Page. The FISC noted the seriousness of the conduct and gave the FBI until Jan. 10 to explain how it will do better.
The order depicts a court stunned to discover that the FBI failed in its “duty of candor,” and angry it was duped. That’s disingenuous. To buy it, you’d have to believe that not one of the court’s 11 members—all federal judges—caught a whiff of this controversy until now. More importantly, you’d have to ignore that the court was directly informed of the FBI’s abusesnearly two years ago…”
…After the Horowitz report, the court had no choice but to respond. It’s predictably pointing fingers at the FBI, but the court should itself account for its failure to provide more scrutiny, and its refusal to act when Mr. Nunes first exposed the problem. The FBI is far from alone in this disgrace.“
Dimocrats want to talk about “contempt of Congress”? THIS is contempt of Congress.
Speaking of once-trusted institutions whose willful blindness has led to their downfall and utter disgrace, Best of the Web‘s Jim Freeman details the incestuous relationship between…
“Thanks to a report from the Obama-appointed inspector general of the Justice Department, now everyone knows the truth about 2016. The Obama administration misled the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and wiretapped an American who supported the presidential campaign of the party out of power. One of the many sad lessons is that no American can count on even the most celebrated members of the establishment press to shine a light on such abuses…”
The silence is not only deafening, but should be truly troubling to anyone who remembers the position the Press once occupied in the hearts and minds of most Americans only half a century ago. But the trickle of bias that began with Uncle Walter’s sell-out of Vietnam, became a steady stream under Clinton and eventually grew to an uncontrolled torrent during 8 years of Obama has utterly drained whatever reservoir of goodwill the Fourth Estate ever enjoyed.
At least those who read Pravda generally knew they were being force-fed outright lies and half-truths.
Since we’re quoting Best of the Web, as Jim Freeman recently wondered…
Under Current House Standards, Is This Extortion?
Last week this column noted a Washington Post report raising the question of whether Speaker Pelosi had suggested a quid pro quo to secure a vote against her principal political adversary, President Donald Trump. Today Kyle Cheney and Melanie Zanona report in Politico on another disturbing episode which seems to demand further investigative reporting:
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (D-N.J.) said Tuesday that staffers who resigned from his office following news that he was about to switch to the GOP were told by nameless officials to quit or be blackballed from future opportunities in the Democratic Party.
“They were told to,” Van Drew said, adding “They had to or they wouldn’t work again.”
Then again, thanks to Dimocrats and their union supporters, Washington, D.C. isn’t a “right-to-work” state! Come to think of it, thankfully and blessedly, it isn’t a state at all!
Moving on, here’s a little complication which may well come back to haunt the Dimocrats’ Crazy Uncle in the Attic, as FOX News reports…
“…Biden’s legal team has so far allegedly neglected to cooperate with at least some of Roberts’ attorneys’ requests submitted on Aug. 21, including that they “list all banks or other financial institutions” in the past five yearsand that they “list all sources of income” he’s received over the same time period, court records show.
…If he ultimately cooperates for the Jan. 7 hearing, Biden will likely discuss his financial records while under oath, including those related to his involvement in Ukrainian company Burisma Holdings, according to the Daily Mail…”
Hmmm…had Hillary been the one who set Hunter up with Burisma rather than Biden, odds are Joe would soon be mourning the premature demise of his second son.
Now on sale at Amazon; makes the perfect stocking stuffer! Demons: guaranteed fun…
…for the whole family!
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s this string of politically-incorrect satire from Balls Cotton…
…along with this instant classic from Ed Hickey:
Finally, we’ll call it a week with The Sports Section, courtesy today of the most obnoxious, repugnant sports franchise owner since,…since…oh, hell, THE most obnoxious, repugnant sports franchise owner EVER, as…
Jerry, here’s the juice: TroyWON three Super Bowls. YOU won NONE; you just paid the bills. That you would presume to gainsay an actual contributor, and THE critical contributorat that…
One last item: as it’s the season of giving, the great Stilton Jarlsberg is giving away a…
You can download the ebook from Amazon absolutely free by clicking on this link between 12/18 and 12/22, or go to Stilton’s Place and check out the December 18th offering for all the details.
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