Mostly Just Anti-Trump

Stacy McCain, Democrats: Pro-Iran or Anti-American?

Nancy Pelosi wants a vote to express her love of America’s enemies:

The House will vote on a resolution limiting President Trump’s military actions toward Iran following his decision to launch a drone strike that killed a top Iranian commander, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday.
Pelosi told Democratic members in a letter that the House will introduce a vote on a “War Powers Resolution” mandating that the administration’s military hostilities with regard to Iran would cease within 30 days if no further congressional action is taken. . . .
Pelosi in the new letter called the administration’s decision a “provocative and disproportionate military airstrike” that she said endangered U.S. service members and diplomats.

Retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer has some thoughts:

As someone who went toe-to-toe with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Afghanistan, I can assure you that Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani got exactly what he deserved when he perished in a U.S. drone strike. What he certainly doesn’t deserve is praise from Democrat lawmakers who would rather mourn a war criminal than credit President Trump for making the world safer.
As the leader of the IRGC’s Quds Force, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, Soleimani was among America’s most vociferous and aggressive foes. He was personally responsible for the deaths of thousands, including the killing and maiming of hundreds of American soldiers. . . .
This man was a terrorist in charge of an IRGC element that had been declared a terrorist organization. He was traveling, in violation of U.N. sanctions, to Iraq, with the apparent intent of inflicting harm on U.S. service members in the region. He was in a combat zone as a combatant in uniform — the legal basis to target him could not have been clearer, and the same goes for the moral justification.
Make no mistake, the targeted killing of Soleimani was not only justified but long overdue. Washington should have taken steps to eliminate this terrorist a long time ago.
The Democrats are politicizing this issue the way they’ve politicized every other issue since President Trump took office. They don’t even seem to care that they have to take the side of America’s enemies in order to criticize Donald Trump.

Let me add this: America’s enemies understand the value of their anti-American allies in the Democratic Party, whose love of “peace” makes it easier for terrorists to kill Americans and our allies. We know, for example, that John Kerry has been acting as an adviser to the Iranian regime, and met with Iranian diplomats in Paris in May 2018. If anyone is really serious about investigating foreign interference in U.S. elections, perhaps they should ask questions about why Iran decided to send a mob of “protesters” to attack the U.S. Embassy in Iraq.

 ABC News ‘Reporter’ Dons Hijab to Promote Iranian Propaganda “Good Morning Anti-America,” you might say: It's just Martha Raddatz. I thought the point was to cover her hair.

At this point, it's merely reflexive anti-Trumpism. If Trump waved a magic wand and cured cancer, the headlines would be "Trump Causes Oncologists to Lose Jobs."

Russiagate Grinding Along

Again, not much activity. Sundance, as always, follows the Sunday talks and caught Rep. John Ratcliffe Discussing Fraudulent Impeachment and Spygate…



as well as Senator Lindsey Graham -vs- Maria Bartiromo… and  Rep. Doug Collins Discusses Speaker Pelosi’s “Stalled” Impeachment Strategy… According to George Bardmesser at AmGreat, There Is No Clever Democratic Impeachment Strategy "There is no brilliant plan here, no clever chess move, no ace up Nancy Pelosi’s sleeve. The Democrats’ “strategy” is failing." But Beth Bauman at Town Hall explains why Shifty Schiff thinks Pelosi Withholding Articles of Impeachment Seems to Be Working

"One success that this has already had has been flushing out McConnell, showing that he is working in cahoots with the president, that he has made himself an active participant in the president's coverup so the American people needed to see that and now they do," Schiff explained.

Even though the House is unlikely to get what they want, Schiff argued that members of Congress have had to go on record to say whether or not they want to hear from additional witnesses and see documents, something he considers a win.

“I think withholding the articles has thus far flushed out where Mitch McConnell’s coming from. It's required senators to go on record," he said. "It’s my hope that that pressure will result in a real trial fair to the American people as well as fair to the president.”

Ironically, Schiff said senators should approach the impeachment trial with an open mind.

"No senators should be expressing opinions here. What we should want is a fair trial and what we should want of senators is that they take their oath seriously and that oath requires them to be impartial," he said.

From DaHill, Jonathon Turley proclaims the Democratic impeachment case collapses under weight of time

Securing an impeachment so fast does not earn you a historic prize. It simply earns you a historic failure. By not seeking to compel numerous key witnesses, the House now relies on the Senate to complete its case. Since the House has maintained that the record overwhelmingly proves that Trump is guilty, the Senate could simply try the case on the record supplied by the House. Indeed, in the 1999 impeachment of President Clinton, Senate Democrats, including Minority Leader Charles Schumer, fought against any witnesses and sought a summary vote without a trial.

I was particularly concerned about moving forward by Christmas on the second article of alleged obstruction of Congress. The House elected to push through impeachment with an abbreviated period of roughly three months and declared any delay by Trump, even to seek judicial reviews, to be a high crime and misdemeanor. The administration is currently in court challenging demands for witnesses and documents. Just a couple weeks ago, the Supreme Court accepted one such case for review then stayed the lower court decisions ordering the production of the tax and finance records of Trump. The House impeached Trump before that court or other federal courts could rule on the merits of claims of presidential privileges and immunities. Both Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon had been able to take such challenges to the Supreme Court before they faced impeachment.

The House refused to seek to compel several witnesses in court, burning months in which it could have secured not just decisions in its favor but also testimony. Indeed, a year ago, I testified before the House Judiciary Committee and encouraged it not only to hold a vote on impeachment but to go to court to force testimony of figures like former White House counsel Donald McGahn. While refusing to use its impeachment powers with such a vote, it did take him to court. It won that case shortly before its impeachment vote. The case will be heard by the appellate court this week, even without being expedited for the impeachment investigation.

When faced with the embarrassing timing of that ruling after the hurried impeachment vote, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff insisted there was no time to waste in getting the case to the Senate and that “it has taken us eight months to get a lower court ruling” to compel McGahn to testify. But after members claimed there was a “crime spree in progress” and no time to waste, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocked any submission to the Senate to demand witnesses that the House unwisely omitted in its investigation. So it seems time is no longer of the essence.

As  Bronson Stocking at Town Hall notes:

Democrats rushed impeachment because the polls confirmed that the more Americans learned about Trump's handling of foreign aid to Ukraine, the higher Trump's approval numbers climbed. Now, Democrats want to paint Mitch McConnell as the one responsible for the weak impeachment case against the president when it was the House's decision to rush the articles before the holidays.

And from Twitchy, Mike Pompeo gives an epic answer when Chris Wallace asks him whether U.S. enemies think Trump is ‘vulnerable’ because of impeachment

Chris Wallace on @FoxNewsSunday: Do you think our enemies think the President is more vulnerable because of the impeachment effort?

Secretary Pompeo: You should ask Mr. Soleimani.

— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) January 5, 2020

Tal Kopan at the SF Chronic whines that Rudy Giuliani mixed White House role, personal business in cybersecurity. Well, that's the advantage of being a private citizen, and not a government employee.

There are several federal laws governing his private sector work that would have applied to Giuliani had he held a formal administration position. For example, career federal ethics officials would have reviewed his financial holdings and connections for possible conflicts of interest. In Giuliani’s case, because he didn’t hold an official position, no such reviews were conducted, and there is no documentation revealing how much he may have made — if anything — by being promoted as a White House cybersecurity adviser.

Gratefully Little Russiagate

I guess the autopsy of Soleimani is sucking up almost all the media energy, leaving little left for the various aspects of Russiagate. I would be tempted to accuse President Trump of some sort of "wag the dog" tactic, but to do that you would have to assume the media was not self aware. . . Oh wait.

Sundance at CTH has Dan Bongino Interviewing Rudy Giuliani – Topics: New York Crime, Iran, IG FISA Report and Biden Family Corruption…



Bill Fidursky at AmThink wonders Doesn't what Joe Biden did regarding Hunter qualify as an 'official act'? Sure seems like it to me.

Whatever the reason or pretext for Joe Biden's threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to Ukraine unless the prosecutor investigating Burisma was fired, as vice president of the United States, Joe Biden committed an official act in matters that involved his son, his son's employer, the major shareholder of his son's company, and a significant source of his son's income. Instead of interfering in and disrupting any Ukrainian matters involving his son, Joe Biden should have simply recused himself from any domestic or foreign matters that involved his son. As things have progressed, the then–vice president's disruption and meddling into Ukrainian investigations appear to have worked to the advantage of Burisma and Mykola Zlochevsky.

As a self-styled purported expert in foreign affairs, does Joe Biden even understand that inherently corrupt societies favor the dispersal of large amounts of cash and favors to incur the goodwill of influential individuals or to buy protection? Having the younger Biden tag along on an official trip to China, where the younger Biden has reported business interests, is another matter.

In shampeachment, WSJ reports that the Trump Administration Subpoena Case Gets Mixed Reaction from Court Panel but Sundance digs deeper in More Administration Leaks and Ongoing House Maneuvers Highlight Dem 2020 Strategy…

The House Judiciary Committeee (HJC) argued in the DC court of appeals to obtain the Mueller grand jury information [6(e) material], and compel testimony of former White House counsel Don McGahn. Also today, more leaks from the inside the administration.

The House has a group of dozens of various DOJ and former Obama officials working on their behalf. That House network also has several currently employed DOJ, FBI, State Department and Intelligence Community officials feeding them information on current real-time events. The HJC are currently arguing the Mueller material and the McGahn testimony are needed for the impeachment trial of President Trump.

First, if the HJC team wins the argument to the three member DC Appellate Court, the DOJ will likely file for a full ‘en banc’ review by the entire panel. If the HJC wins the ‘en banc’ argument the DOJ will likely appeal for an administrative stay by the Supreme Court.

However, if the HJC team loses, they will most likely not file an appeal and will quickly release the impeachment articles to the Senate. The impeachment articles (Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress) are currently withheld in an effort to bolster the DC appeals court argument; lose the legal argument and the Dems just start leaking anyway.
. . .
The political opposition research against President Trump will either come out legally via HJC, or it will come out illegally via leaks. However, it will come out. The DC Appeals Court and/or the Supreme Court decisions will determine which path.

Most of the Mueller team material is irrelevant for the purpose of Trump-Russia. There is no there ‘there’, and there never was. The Mueller investigation in 2017/2018 was never really designed to find evidence of Trump-Russia… it was designed to find dirt on Trump and his family. That dirt, under the guise of investigative evidence, was then assembled into a political dossier.

Anyone who could deliver rumor, innuendo, gossip or manufactured evidence toward that end, similar to the Steele Dossier was used and included in the Mueller material.

Forget about arguing the Mueller probe found nothing on Trump-Russia therefore… (fill in blank). That argument is moot. The purpose of the Mueller effort was dirt on Trump; it didn’t (and doesn’t) matter what that dirt is. Essentially: find dirt, put in file.

At NYDN, McConnell and Pelosi dig in their heels on standoff over Trump impeachment trial. Your point?

Gary Gindler at AmThink wonders Have the Democrats Reached Their Stalingrad? Kind of a strained metaphor, but amusing.

Linked by EBL in Meghan Markle Moves To Canada 🇨🇦🇬🇧🤷🏻‍♀️,  Claire Duburcq, 1917: A Review,   Dracula: A Review, Tanya Tucker: The Jamestown Ferry and Five Came Back: The World War II Directors: Capra, Ford, Houston, Stevens, and Wyler 🎥🇺🇸.