Tag: impeachment

Will #metoo Dems re-elect Bob Menendez?

New Jersey’s Senate race has been tighter than expected.  Although recent polls by CBS and Quinnipiac show Menendez with a comfortable lead, other outlier polls like one by Stockton University have the race within the margin of error.  Now Bob Hugin is using a new tactic: bringing up Menendez’s severe ethical issues.

Senator Bob Menendez just finished an ethics trial with a hung jury over charges that he was taking bribes and traveling to other countries to hire underage prostitutes.  Menendez voted against Brett Kavanaugh, saying Christine Ford was “not only to be believed” but was “a hero”.  Hugin is now using his own words against him attacking Menendez for hiring underage prostitutes.  Menendez’s lawyers argued that the underage prostitution in another country “would hardly be a Federal crime”.

Here is the hard hitting ad:

 

Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill is in trouble after a hidden camera caught her and her staff supporting a ban on all semi-automatic rifles and impeachment.  According to her staff, they have to lie about their support in order to get moderate votes in red leaning Louisiana.  They also said they would lie to voters after she was elected saying that national security issues prevented them from saying they would support impeachment.

“It’s like we have to lie to get elected”

“Essentially.”

Here’s the video:

 

Bill Nelson is another Democrat Senator in trouble.  Nelson sent out an email calling for donations to help Hurricane Michael victims.  But the link in his email goes to Actblue, a liberal Political Action Committee.  Actblue also donates funds to Super PACs which are not legally permitted to coordinate with campaigns or candidates.

Actblue has sent money to several high level Democrats including Elizabeth Warren and Nancy Pelosi.  They have also funded violent Leftist protest groups.  While the funds donated for hurricane relief will likely go to that cause, Nelson’s use of a political PAC to raise funds guarantees that he will get access to their personal information and can solicit further donations or have directed marketing campaigns towards hurricane relief donors.  Nelson did not disclose in his email that Actblue was a political PAC.  He made it sound like they were a charitable relief organization.

Bill Nelson pleads for hurricane relief, directs donors to a liberal PAC instead

Gun control advocates predictably wrong again

The scene was barely a few minutes old in Jacksonville, Florida before David Hogg was making statements about politicians and the NRA.  Another activist took to Twitter to list all the lax gun laws in Florida.  But none of it ended up being relevant.  The Florida shooter was actually a Maryland shooter who was down for the weekend.  He bought his guns in Maryland, which is the 7th strictest state regarding gun laws.  Additionally, he had been admitted for mental issues twice, which would have prevented him from buying his guns if Maryland’s background check system had caught it.  The shooter made several violent tweets before heading to the video game tournament, and those were forwarded to the FBI.  The shooting took place in a gun free zone, which is where 98% of mass shootings happen.  Once again, the facts make fools of gun control advocates.

Gun control activists hope for smoking gun, get same old story instead

Lanny Davis has now admitted that he was the unnamed source in the CNN story about Trump knowing ahead of time of the Trump Tower meeting.  This has been an embarrassing episode of fake news for CNN akin to the Dan Rather memogate scandal.  Davis, as an anonymous source, told CNN that his client Michael Cohen had knowledge that Trump knew about the infamous but not illegal Trump Tower meeting.  CNN ran with the story in July based on the anonymous tip.  Davis later made the claim publicly, before recanting and denying it publicly on CNN.  However, CNN ignored their own story and continued to run with the claim based on their anonymous source.  Now we know that source was Lanny Davis himself.

Lanny Davis admits he was anonymous source for his own fake news

Americans don’t support impeachment.  This is according to a new poll reported by left leaning Axios.  According to the poll, 64% believe Michael Cohen when he says he paid off Stormy Daniels.  But only 44% believe impeachment proceedings should begin.  In our opinion though, this is a stupid poll.  Trump said back in May that Cohen paid off Stormy Daniels and was reimbursed through his legal retainer, not out of campaign funds.  There is nothing there to impeach Trump for.  If anything, it shows that half of Americans are not keeping up with this mess.

Americans still against impeachment

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is back in hot water after her tweet that #abolishICE didn’t really mean #abolishICE.  She admitted she actually supports deportations.  It turns out “abolish” is simply the new “occupy” or “punch a nazi”.  It doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a dog whistle to her crazy supporters to show up armed and masked and destroy private property.

But perhaps even worse, Ocasio-Cortez said that #abolishICE meant we need ICE to stop “sexually assaulting women with impunity”.  I would love to see her meet with all 20,000 ICE employees in front of their families and say that to their faces.

#AbolishICE redefined as “Keep deporting, stop raping women”

But CNN Persisted

CNN isn’t backing off their claim that Michael Cohen can prove Trump complicity with the Trump Tower meeting.  This is despite the fact that Lanny Davis has recanted and backed off of the claim.  We reported earlier after Davis’s under-reported interview with Anderson Cooper that he basically went back on every claim he had previously made.

Davis reiterated to the Washington Post that his own claims were bogus.  But CNN is persisting in reporting that Cohen is ready to dish dirt on Trump.  CNN seems to be going the Dan Rather route of “It’s not proven, but we believe it in our hearts”. Possible things Cohen might know about?  There’s the Trump Tower meeting and potential interference through the DNC server hack, although Lanny Davis has now denied both.  There’s also an old report from the UK Daily Mail back in May that Cohen demanded money from Qatar for Trump.  But so far this seems to be tabloid gossip.

Lanny Davis says Cohen dirt oversold.  CNN still buying it.

Democrats know impeachment is out of grasp and have stopped running on it.  The economy is too good, and their evidence is too bad to actually think they could get 75 Senators to vote for impeachment.  But Democrats are promising endless probes and investigations if they take control of the House.  According to Bloomberg, Democrats have a long laundry list of taxpayer funded probes to hit Trump with in order to obstruct his agenda.  Still, Trump has weathered investigations through the first two years of his Presidency while still accomplishing major agenda items.  Voters will need to decide in November whether they want massive obstruction in the House or continued progress on the economy.

Democrats abandon impeachment, go for obstruction instead

Speaking of Trump accomplishments, stocks are through the roof again as the US and Mexico get closer to closing a new NAFTA deal.  Trump blew up the old NAFTA deal in an effort to secure something better for the United States.  He has accomplished this and North American trade is back on.  The Mexico NAFTA agreement should also bring Canada back into the mix.  This is a big victory for Trump’s foreign trade policy.

NAFTA 2.0 with Mexico coming back online

Impeachment? The answer is still no

Michael Cohen is on his way to jail for a very long time.  But as his ship sinks, he and his attorney are grasping for straws to reduce that sentence.  Cohen has agreed to sing if it means a reduced sentence.  But Mueller already passed on a Cohen plea bargain.

But what if everything Cohen is saying is true?  Is Trump in trouble?  According to precedent, the answer is no.  Let’s start with John Edwards.  Friends and megadonors paid nearly $1 million to Edwards’ mistress to cover up his affair right before an election.  The DOJ brought the charge that those were reportable campaign contributions because they were made to benefit Edwards’ campaign and influence the election.  Edwards was acquitted.  The DOJ could not successfully make the argument that those amounts to pay off his mistress should have been reported.

President Obama found himself in hot water after failing to report $1.8 million in campaign donations made through normal channels and for keeping donations that were in excess of allowed limits.  His campaign paid a $350,000 fine, the largest in history, and moved on with life as though nothing happened.

Bill Clinton lied about an affair during a sexual harassment trial that suddenly fell into the scope of the White Water special counsel.  But he was under oath.  He actually committed perjury.  But nothing happened to him.

In Trump’s case, he paid Michael Cohen a retainer as an attorney to represent him and to deal with issues like paying off people he had an affair with.  Does that make Trump a Clinton grade slimeball?  Of course.  Who didn’t know that already?  But even the leftovers from Obama’s DOJ are going to have a hard time turning a $130,000 payment into something they couldn’t get with the million dollars spent on Edwards’ mistress.  Additionally, the liar and singer Michael Cohen, who stated in the past that Trump didn’t know about the payoffs, never had affairs, etc is going to have to provide hard evidence.  So far the Cohen tapes have disappointed in that area.

From our analysis, the only charge Cohen has made that could put Trump in serious trouble is that Trump knew about the DNC hack before it happened.  Even then, knowing about it is a far cry from causing it.  But that could get Trump into enough trouble that a Democrat run House could at least introduce impeachment charges.  They would never get 75 votes in the Senate.  But more importantly, we’d have to see more than the word of a man on his way to jail being advised by Bill Clinton’s personal attorney, Lanny Davis.  Cohen would need to produce a tape of Trump talking about the DNC hack along with timestamp proof that it was before the hack took place.

I’m pretty sure if that existed, we would have heard it by now.  But who knows, maybe it’ll be an October surprise.

Need to Know 7/27/18

It’s all about the GDP.  Markets are anxiously awaiting this morning’s GDP report, hoping for 4.2% quarterly growth.  If it happens, it’ll be a good indicator that the economy continues to rise at a rapid rate, even after the rapid growth from last year. It would also make the argument against Trump’s tax reform even weaker.

Wall Street awaits GDP report

Speaking of tax reform, Elizabeth Warren bumbled through an interview when she was asked what tax rate is too high.  The poor CNBC journalist tried to help her out.  “Do you feel…that it’s wrong for more than half of somebody’s marginal income to be taken?” “Is 50 percent obviously too high?” Finally, as Warren continued to indicate that 50 percent may actually be too low, John Harwood went for the moon. “…obviously ‘no, 90 percent, that’s ridiculous'”.  Warren finally capitulated.

Warren has the blessing of many Democrats to be the top 2020 DNC Presidential contender.  But they will have to figure out how to deal with her ignorance about what taxes do to families and how the economy works.  When Ocasio-Cortez ignorantly claimed that unemployment was low because people were working two jobs, Warren doubled down on the erroneous claim by saying it was actually because people were working as many as four jobs.  Hopefully she can get some help on the economic front.  When it comes to the economy, Trump is definitely winning.

Warren suggests hypothetical 50% tax rate is too low

On the legal side for Trump, it’s a mixed bag.  While rumors from unnamed sources about the Mueller investigation have turned out to be mostly blowing smoke, there’s a new one out today saying Mueller is going to be looking at Trump’s tweets to see if he obstructed justice.  That would be a stretch.  As Guiliani pointed out, people don’t generally obstruct justice in public for millions to see.  This appears to be grasping for straws.  They would have to prove that Trump was somehow giving instructions to witnesses or intimidating people through Twitter.  That would also mean Mueller would have to take Trump’s 3am Twitter persona more seriously than Peter Strzok’s texts to his mistress.

Even if Trump did try to obstruct justice on Twitter, the Bill Clinton precedent on obstruction would make it very hard to successfully argue for consequences.  Clinton secretly intimidated witnesses, instructed them to lie, matched up stories, then committed perjury himself.  The Senate failed to reach a two thirds majority and ended up acquitting him.

Mueller looking at Trump’s tweets?

Impeachment!

Representatives Meadows and Jordan in the House of Representatives have just introduced a resolution to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for high crimes and misdemeanors. There are five articles written against Rosenstein.

Article I deals with Rosenstein’s refusal to recuse himself from the Russia investigation or appoint a second special counsel to investigate the conflict of interest and misconduct by the FBI.  Rosenstein was in charge of the FISA application to spy on Carter Page that was based in part on paid opposition research from the Clinton campaign.

Article II covers Rosenstein’s obstruction of justice in refusing to turn over subpoena’d documents and refusal to notify witnesses that Congress was seeking their testimony.  Interestingly, this article also hits Mueller for instructing material witnesses to refuse to provide testimony to Congress.  Congress has oversight over the Justice Department and refusing to comply with their requests amounts to obstruction of justice.

Article III accuses Rosenstein of obstruction of justice by using redaction to hide material evidence from Congress.  These redactions include hiding potentially embarrassing information about the cost of Andrew McCabe’s $70,000 conference table, hiding the relationship between Peter Strzok and FISC Judge Rudolph Contreras, hiding the names of high ranking FBI and Obama administration officials, and other redactions used to hide information from Congress.  Rosenstein’s decision to redact the relationship between Strzok and Contreras is especially important given Strzok’s promise to “stop Trump” and the FISC’s decision to issue a secret warrant based on Clinton’s paid opposition research.

Article IV suggests that Rosenstein used an improper basis to appoint Robert Mueller as special counsel and hid the basis through improper use of redaction.  Rosenstein still refuses to provide Congress with a less redacted version of his scope memo for Robert Mueller.

Article V deals more directly with Rosenstein’s supervisory role in the authorization of FISA searches.  Rosenstein is accused of failing to vet Christopher Steele’s phony dossier and failing to fully notify the FISC of the circumstances surrounding the creation of the dossier.  Article V also hits Rosenstein again for his refusal to appoint a second independent Special Counsel to review wrong doing by the Obama Justice Department and FBI in these matters.

A couple important things to note in the impeachment articles: Robert Mueller is mentioned for compelling witnesses not to testify to Congress.  This could be an issue for the Mueller investigation in the near future.  Strzok’s relationship with Judge Rudolph Contreras could lead to a call for an investigation into the secretive workings of the FISC itself.

You can read the articles of impeachment here.

 

Wall Street Cashes in on Paris Accord Withdrawal

It has been two days since Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Climate Accord, and the temps are on the rise. This month is already predicted to be warmer than May, and next month will be even worse.

There are winners and losers from the US withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord. As the ACLU pointed out, one big loser is racial justice and communities of color.  They are right. Major Wall Street players have found ways to cash in on global warming, including Disney. But you have to be able to pay if you want to play.

Disney’s “Blizzard Beach Water Park” is an installation that makes millions of dollars a year selling relief from the scorching temperatures. As corporate pollution causes the Earth to heat up and people to die, Disney has developed temporary measures to mitigate the heat for a price.  In addition to “Blizzard Beach Water Park”, which is ironically named after a type of snow storm that will soon be gone from our vocabulary, their other cooling establishment “Typhoon Lagoon” has a bit of a more appropriate name considering the coming climate apocalypse.

So is there a problem with corporate America cashing in on the inevitable end of the planet? There is when Disney decides to target poorer minorities with their pricing schemes.  Disney isn’t the only culprit.  Seeing the writing on the wall, Universal Studios has also sought to cash in on human suffering by building an unaffordable global warming relief establishment.  As if to mock the suffering and dying, Universal Studios has also themed their cooling apparatus and priced the lower classes of society out of admission. Dripping with irony and disgust towards their fellow man, Universal Studios has opted to name their private establishment “Volcano Bay”.  They laugh as the poor melt away.

What can be done when the President has already consigned us to doom by withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord?  Government funding for pools and parks is abysmal. The government also has refused to provide poor Americans with their own personal pools, opting instead for communal pools in a limited number of neighborhoods.  Rural areas are sure to perish from the heat first.

It appears at this point that the only path to survival for poor minorities in the country is to impeach President Trump, and for Republicans to provide the funding necessary for poor minorities to have equal access to global warming relief.