'Twas the Night Before New Years'

‘Twas the night before New Years’, two thousand and twenty

The year past had brought us news items a-plenty.

What could we say about twenty-nineteen

Except, "Gee, what a wild one the last year has been."

The Democrats started the new year in power,

Having reclaimed the House. It was Pelosi’s hour.

Caressing her gavel, she vowed at each turn

To oppose the Republicans, and her heart burned

With desire for impeachment, though she claimed it must be

Bipartisan; then along came AOC.

Apparently owning the party’s left base,

She persuaded the Speaker to move with no case.

“Impeach!” cried the left wing, “Accuse him of treason!

If that doesn’t work, let's just make up a reason!

He’s mean; we don’t like him; he’s orange – that hair!

Impeach ‘cause winning in ’16 he did dare!”

So the Intel Committee, chaired by Adam Schiff

Held their secret hearings, secured in a SCIF.

No transcripts released; we the people weren’t able

To learn what was happening at that SCIF table.

Schiff, meanwhile, leaked out the bits that looked damning

To a media ready to take up the shamming.

When finally hearings were held in plain sight,

Schiff tried to paint the Prez in a bad light.

But in spite of made-up rules that favored the Dems,

Their hearings failed to reveal any new gems

That would bolster their case to impeach and remove,

Let alone give them any high crimes they could prove.

So, the best they could do was “Abuse and Obstruction

Of Congress,” who just seemed hell-bent on destruction

Of due process, fairness, and our Constitution –

How sad that our legislative institution

Could stoop to such lows, in a desperate quest

From their opposition, all power to wrest.

This is how partisan we have become;

Just thinking about it makes moderates glum.

Now, on to the Senate – but wait, Nancy balked!

As in a most strange turn, of fairness she talked.

But she has no leverage left, as we see;

In the Senate, the Dems aren’t the majority.

Meantime hints of new Articles started to rise,

Leaving voters to wonder, “What’s up with these guys?

Do they not think we see that they’re grasping at straws?

That their case for impeachment is so full of flaws?”

So while all of this nonsense is being conducted,

No new legislation is being constructed.

The Dems gained in ’16 on talk of health care,

But since, all their promises have gone nowhere.

Their primary field started with more than 20

Candidates vying to spend people's money,

But one by one, out of the race they did fall

(In the end, if we're lucky, there'll be none at all).

One of the hopefuls was Eric Swalwell,

But it seemed just a week before his campaign fell.
These days he's supporting his pal Adam Schiff
In another gambit doomed to fall off a cliff.

Next out was Beto - "Hell, yes," he once vowed,
But he couldn't keep pace with the rest of the crowd
In spite of his stunts and his gesticulations.
Guess it takes more than skateboarding to lead a nation.

DiBlasio followed soon after O'Rourke,
But he isn't even liked back in New York.
Harris was next, hoist with her own petard,
Though she, in denial, played the gender card.

So who will it be? Bernie? Spartacus? Liz?
Bloomberg or Steyer? Or Yang, the math whiz?
Or will it be Klobuchar, or Mayor Pete?
Or can Joe Biden help the Dems stave off defeat?

Whoever winds up at the top of the pile,
When they debate Donald Trump, don't touch that dial!
For whoever the winner from this crowded bunch is,
Will need to be able to take verbal punches.

Meanwhile, new trade deals are now getting done,

Thus the stock market’s been on a heck of a run.

A new budget deal was agreed to by all,

Including some funding for Trump’s border wall.

(Why fund the wall if you’re going to impeach?

Are you not confident in your plot’s reach?

Are you protecting your red-state comrades

From election results that will likely be bad?)

The numbers show strength in the economy,

So it's unlikely that a recession we'll see,

At least 'til November, then it just depends

On voters, and how the election night ends.

So - what to expect? What will this new year bring?

To be sure, a lot more partisan bickering.

More posturing from both the left and the right;

Relief from our divide is nowhere in sight.

But where does that start? Well, with you and with me.

Can we re-learn to respectfully disagree?

To accept other views without intolerance?

Or must we maintain such a divisive stance?

I hope that we can, but if we cannot,

Our differences still needn’t leave us distraught.

We’ve survived political divides before,

So I’m sure that we’re able to survive one more.

Just remember: we have more that keeps us united

Than those things that may serve to make us divided.

So let me express to all folks, red or blue

A happy and prosperous New Year to you!

A Symbolic Gesture

I love to walk my dogs, and they love their walks. Being males, they spend more time stopping, sniffing and marking territory than they do walking, but it's more about their experience than my exercise.

Their usual routine is to run helter-skelter to the island in our cul-de-sac, or to the first corner across from it, and mark the first spot. This is probably TMI, but that first stream is generally a pretty healthy one.

They continue down the street, marking pretty much every tree along the way (we have at least one street tree in every front yard in our neighborhood). After less than a block, there's nothing left in the tank. Yet they continue to stop, sniff, and lift their leg.

It's a symbolic gesture.

The House Democrats' vote to impeach Donald Trump on December 18 was the same: a symbolic gesture.

You see, the Dems have been pissing on Trump since he beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential election (read that again, snowflakes: he beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential election - not the Russians, not James Comey, not gender, just one candidate that the electoral majority favored over the other, for reasons that should by now be evident).

They emptied their tank with the Mueller Report, yet they had to lift their collective leg one more time. So they did.

And nothing came out. It was purely a symbolic gesture, like a dog trying to mark a tree with nothing to show for it.

What did we gain from the full House hearing, in which each member got a minute or two to state his or her position for or against impeachment?

Did someone toss out a revelation that made another Representative - or voter, for that matter - suddenly say, "Hey, I never thought of that before! By golly, I'm now for (or against) impeachment!"

No. It was just the same old recycled talking points, with the Dems throwing in a lot of crap they don't like about Trump, but aren't in the articles of impeachment they drafted (and yet constitute the real reasons they want him impeached): civility, decency, things he said on the campaign trail, "ripping babies from their mothers' arms," ad blauseum.

In fact, to that last point, Al Green (not the singer; the one without talent who takes up space in the House), who infamously set the stage by saying we have to impeach Trump so he doesn't get reelected, brought up the now-debunked photo of a little girl crying because she was purportedly separated from her parents at the border.

Hey, Al: 1) You weren't impeaching Trump over his border policy - in fact, you can't, any more than the GOP could have impeached Obama for any of his policies. 2) It's been proven that the picture you used had nothing to do with the propagandized message it was used for in the media. 3) If you truly believe that we the people cannot be trusted to decide who our President is, then you can't be trusted with public office, and should be sent back to wherever you came from, if they'll have you.

In short, the entire day was a waste of time, unless you count the one- to two-minute soundbites each Representative got as a free campaign ad for the constituents back home.

In the gospel according to Mark, we read, "For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?"

Let's paraphrase, to put those words in context: "For what does it profit a political party to gain a symbolic victory, but forfeit its ultimate objective (and indeed, its soul)?"

In other words, what did the Democrats gain from this symbolic gesture that is akin to a dog lifting its leg without result?

Obviously, I can't ask my dogs what they get from this gesture. Are they hoping another dog will see them, and realize the territory being symbolically marked is now theirs? Is it reflex, as ingrained as turning around and around before they lie down? I don't know.

For the Dems, however, we can find some evidence of what they gained, in the polls. Now let me just say that I don't place much stock in political polls - haven't since 2016, at least. By the same token, I don't place much stock in economic surveys, like Consumer Confidence or the various manufacturing surveys. I prefer hard data, like retail sales, or industrial production, or construction spending.

Or electoral votes.

On the other hand, both economic surveys and political polls can be useful in identifying trends, shifting tides, if you will.

At the time a giddy Nancy Pelosi first announced the impeachment proceedings, 90% of Democrats polled favored impeachment and removal of President Trump. The most recent poll showed that number had shrunk to just 77%. Now, 77% is still a lot, but these are Democrats, after all, who are still in denial over the results of the 2016 election, don't need a valid reason to want Trump impeached, and most of whom don't understand the process to begin with. So while 77% is significant, it isn't surprising. What is surprising, and is even more significant, is the large shift between then and now.

I've been accused of saying there are no reasonable Democrats. These results prove that there are at least a handful. The shift probably represents those Democrats polled that actually do understand the purpose and process of impeachment.

Also at the time of Pelosi's announcement, head-to-head polls between Trump and various Dem primary candidates showed several of them beating Trump in 2020: Biden, Warren, Sanders, and in at least one early poll, Mayor Pete. (I can't spell his last name. Don't ask me to try.)

Granted, these are national polls, which mean nothing given the Electoral College (right, Hillary?) And, they're still a year out from the election. Still, and again, shifts in polling can indicate shifts in sentiment.

And guess what? The latest U.S. News poll (hardly a Trump-friendly media outlet) showed Trump beating all Democrat comers head-to-head, some quite handily.

Dollars represent another strong indicator. And the GOP raised a record $20.6 million in November.

Who'da thunk the Democrats could turn Donald Trump into a sympathetic figure?

Yes, what Pelosi and Co. have gained through their symbolic gesture is what appears to be almost certain defeat in 2020. They have achieved the goal held since 2016 of leaving a permanent asterisk on Pres. Trump's legacy, but likely at the cost of losing their House majority and the White House in 2020. And given the nature of this proceeding, that permanent asterisk might look more like a badge of honor than a scarlet letter.

So now what? After harping on the urgency of impeaching Trump, to avoid him doing "further irreparable harm to our Republic," suddenly Pelosi is putting on the brakes. She wants Senate Majority Leader McConnell to show his hand. Her Senate lapdog, Chuck "I love TV cameras" Schumer, is already complaining about not getting his witnesses approved, before the Senate process has even begun.

Sorry, Nancy and Chuck, this is in the Senate now. You no longer get to make up the rules to suit you. It's the GOP's turn.

Personally, I'm torn between two options. The first is a prolonged trial in the Senate, in which the GOP calls Adam Schiff, his pal the whistleblower, Joe and Hunter Biden, Loretta Lynch, Bill Clinton (to talk about his tarmac meeting with Lynch, during which they purportedly talked about soccer), Eric Holder, James Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, John Brennan ... you get the idea. Keep Bernie and Warren and Klobuchar and Spartacus (not that the latter two are still relevant in the race) off the campaign trail and in the Senate chambers. Give Mayor Pete an "edge-edge" to "boot."

However, that could lend credence to this whole charade (plus there are too many Republicans who would insist on playing by the rules; the reason the Dems can more easily unify in these pitched partisan battles is that they're more uniform in their unscrupulousness).

So my second option would be for McConnell to rightly call this what it is and has been, a verdict in search of a charge, a partisan charade, payback for impeaching Bill Clinton and for defeating his wife, and say, "Enough! We're not going to legitimize this nonsense with a trial; we're going straight to a vote. And then we're going to get back to doing what the people for whom we work sent us here to do."

As much as I'd like to see the trial, enough of my tax dollars have been wasted watching the Democrats dry-piss on a tree. Let's not mark the rest of the block. There's nothing in the tank, and there is real work to be done.

This is It - Make No Mistake Where You Are

You'll have to read to the end to understand the title of this post. Sorry.

After my last post, I received a number of comments and messages, as is typical. Usually, I'll get some comments and messages agreeing with what I've said, some that may correct minor points, and some that flat-out disagree with me.

That's okay; I encourage that. Diversity of thought is under attack in the media, on our college campuses, in some cities, and elsewhere in our lives, so if I can provide a forum for it, I'm more than willing.

This time, however, no one disagreed with my premises regarding the impeachment process, nor with my comparison between the House's committee impeachment hearings and the Senate Judiciary Committee's questioning of IG Horowitz. No one even took exception to my assertion that Trump was never worried about Biden as a serious political adversary, because even the Democrats are fearful that Biden can't beat Trump.

No, this time there were but two camps: those who agreed with my points, and those who ignored them altogether to point out other awful things about Trump, most notably his mean-spirited tweets, although one messenger went on at length about all the names Trump called his Republican primary opponents.

Most of whom support him now, but apparently somebody is still pissed about it.

The most common theme related to Trump's ill-advised and wholly unnecessary tweet about Greta Thunberg a few days ago. Now, I have friends with autistic kids, and I'm very compassionate about that particular condition. I would like to tone down the emotion, however, and point out a couple of facts.

First, while Ms. Thunberg may be considered by some to be a "child," she is sixteen years of age. Still too young for Trump to be targeting her in a tweet, just as Barron Trump - who is kept out of the public eye - is too young to be publicly targeted by a law school professor who would rather cross the street than walk in front of a Trump hotel, so deep is her hatred of the man. (I don't recall any of the same folks calling out that behavior as unacceptable. Maybe it's okay, depending on who the child is.)

Second, Ms. Thunberg has Asperger's syndrome, which is within the autism spectrum, but is a particularly high-functioning manifestation. No matter; these may well be distinctions without differences. However, it seems to me that to use the characterization of "autistic child" when that isn't quite accurate is merely an attempt to evoke sympathy and vulnerability in making Trump out to be even worse than he is, when it comes to his tweets, which comes across as exploitative.

It's not necessary - he's bad enough on his own. I'll state yet again for the record: I do not defend his tweets. I find them churlish, ill-mannered, unnecessary, immature, inappropriate, bombastic, superlative, braggadocious, crude, distasteful and hyperbolic. Write it down. I don't want to keep repeating it. And I don't need to defend myself to anyone, thank you (see Matt. 7:5).

However, there is something that folks should be aware of regarding young Ms. Thunberg, and then I'll make a few observations.

There are at least a couple of left-wing climate change groups behind her, one of which paid her way across the pond on a boat to address the U.N. on the topic. (What, you thought she paid her own way by flipping burgers at a Swedish McDonald's?) And why would they do that?

Because she is indeed a sympathetic and vulnerable face on the radical fringe of the climate change movement - you know, the "we'll all be dead in 12 years" faction.

To disagree with her is to be perceived as attacking her, and it's despicable to attack a child with a disability. So she's held up in front of the climate change extremists as a human shield, so that if you attack the cause, you're a reprehensible cad.

Just as Christine Blasey Ford was held up by Dianne Feinstein et al in defense of preventing Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court: none of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee dared question her allegations, though her own witnesses couldn't corroborate them, for fear of being seen as attacking a victim of assault. Never mind that the myriad allegations against Kavanaugh probably set the Me-Too movement back years.

And just as former Ambassador Yovanovitch was held up by Adam Schiff et al as a poor, sympathetic woman who was *gasp* fired from her job! No one dared call her a disgruntled former employee, in spite of the fact that she clearly came across as one; no one dared question her service record in the various hot-spots in which she served, no matter how things turned out in those places. She is, after all, a woman.

Vulnerable as they may be, neither Amb. Yovanovitch nor Ms. Thunberg seemed as triggered by Trump's tweets about them as were their defenders. The Ambassador, after Schiff read Trump's tweet about her to her, proceeded to testify against him for hours. And Ms. Thunberg, who herself refers to Asperger's as a "superpower" that contributes to her ability to stand strong for her cause, responded with her own clever tweet, which was a pretty solid counter-punch. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump read it, chuckled, and said to himself, "Well played, Greta."

Now, some observations. First, regarding Greta's being named Time Magazine's person of the year, I offer my congratulations. I do, however, wonder how many trees are cut down every year to print magazines. Seems that if she's serious about the environment, Greta might want to thank Time for the honor, but admonish them for deforestation.

Second, I find her chosen form of protest curious: she stages school strikes, wherein students skip school to protest against climate change. If it's fine with her parents, it's fine with me. It just seems ironic that she's skipping science class to protest against climate change. Maybe she already knows everything there is to know about climate science.

Third, none of the above should be misconstrued by anyone as attacks on her. They're just curiosities I have, born of the irony of their circumstances. I am probably more bothered by her being exploited by her handlers and her defenders than her defenders are. I will, however, bar no holds in taking shots at adults who take their climate science policy cues from a 16-year-old non-scientist.

Back to Trump's tweets. Look, I wish he wouldn't tweet at all. To some extent, he has to in order to get his message across; CNN, MSNBC and ABC will never report positive economic data, or cover Trump visiting our troops in Afghanistan on Thanksgiving (instead letting themselves be hilariously trolled into saying he's playing golf, a clever gambit which exposed the media for what they are), or show the applause he received at this year's Army-Navy game. So he has to resort to Twitter to get those messages into the mainstream.

But I'd be happy if he just closed his account, or turned over control to a cooler head within his press team.

And yet -

None of his tweets constitute an impeachable offense.

So the fact that his mean tweets were universally invoked as a response to my post about the sham of an impeachment process Congress is now wasting its time and our money on, rather than any substantive defense of "abuse of power" or "obstruction of Congress," or any argument in support of Joe Biden's prowess as a threat to Trump's re-election, is pretty much evidence that -

This is it - make no mistake where you are. If you believe that Donald Trump should be impeached and removed from office, your basis for that action - which should be reserved for the most egregious and serious of offenses - is that you don't like the guy.

That's a slippery slope down which we as a nation do not want to venture, but I fear we're headed that way. This may well become how we wage political campaigns in the future, and how our legislators spend our hard-earned tax dollars.

A final note: I have been remiss, as the author of a blog originally devoted to economic and market topics, in not weighing in on the equity market's take on this impeachment imbroglio.

In a word, the market's reaction is *yawn*.

Now, during the Nixon impeachment process, the market was tanking, but the economy was in recession, and there was a looming oil crisis. (Today, the U.S. is the #1 energy producer in the world. You won't see that on MSNBC.) And during the Clinton impeachment process, the market was rallying, but Alan Greenspan was busy inflating the dot-com bubble.

More recently, the market has fluctuated, but only due to trade concerns or hopes, and overwhelmingly positive economic data.

What's significant about that, especially in light of the market's apparent nonchalance over the Nixon and Clinton impeachments?

Under Nixon, the economy was in the toilet - it wasn't going to matter who was President.

Under Clinton, the market was rallying, but thanks largely to the Fed. Plug in Al Gore, and the market likely doesn't suffer greatly, not with interest rates at then-record lows.

But remember what happened when Trump was elected? The market, which had been trading sideways based on an economy that could barely average 2% growth under an administration with decidedly unfriendly policies toward business, sold off in overnight futures trading by some 800 points after it was announced that Trump won.

Then, not only did the market recover those losses by the open, but it finished the day up 300 points.

An 1,100-point swing in 24 hours' trading is unprecedented, and undeniably triggered by an event - in this case, the election of Donald Trump as President. And the rally has continued, with major indices having set about 100 new records since that day. The business sector likes the guy, whether you do or not.

If the market were fearful that Trump would be removed from office, knowing that the Dems would then likely go after VP Pence, it would be spooked into record lows by the prospect of Pres. Pelosi.

But the market is betting that Trump won't be removed. And the market usually isn't wrong about these things.

A Tale of Two Hearings

Let's get right down to it, and contrast the House Intel Committee's impeachment hearing process - start to finish, including the private depositions taken in a SCIF in the basement of the House - and the House Judiciary Committee's more recent "hearings" on articles of impeachment, to the Senate Judiciary Committee's questioning of Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

The Intel Committee, chaired by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA; as if we couldn't have figured that out from the way he handled the process), began its proceedings by holding private hearings in said SCIF, instead of in front of the American people. Republicans were not allowed to call witnesses, nor were their questions allowed in most cases. No transcripts were released, but Schiff did selectively leak anything that he thought the media could turn into points scored for his cause - his verdict in search of a charge.

It then proceeded to public hearings, in which no fact witnesses were called save one, and his testimony directly quoted the President as saying he wanted no quid pro quo from Ukraine in exchange for U.S. aid. The Republicans' requested witnesses were denied, and a number of their questions were struck down by Schiff.

Next, we heard from three so-called constitutional law experts on the Democrat side, and one on the Republican side. The Republicans' witness testified that he is a registered Democrat and opposes Pres. Trump's policies; presumably that's the only way he cleared Schiff's extreme vetting process. All three of the Dems' law prof witnesses were proved to have bias against Trump; one was so vociferous that, in a previous interview, she claimed to have had to walk across the street rather than walk down the sidewalk in front of a Trump hotel. When asked if she would stay there, she said, "God, no!" No bias there.

The Republicans' witness, despite his party affiliation and opposition to Trump, warned that if the Dems proceeded down this ill-advised, unsupported impeachment path they, not Trump, would be guilty of abuse of power.

In Hollywood, they call that foreshadowing.

On to Rep. Jerry Nadler's (D-NY; as if we couldn't have figured that one out too) House Judiciary Committee "hearings." Mostly we got to hear from the Dems' lawyer interpreting all the second-hand hearsay testimony from the Schiff-show, and the Republicans' lawyer refuting it. Then we got to hear all the committee members spend a long day "debating" the two flimsy articles of impeachment: "Abuse of Power" and "Obstruction of Congress." It was pretty far-ranging, going well beyond those two topics. The Dems kept throwing out all these things that they don't like about Trump, which left one to ask, "So what is it you're impeaching him for? Trump University? His charity? His family? His tweets? His hair? Beating Hillary Clinton?"

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) had the most succinct, factual and logical point of the day (a low bar, to be sure), when he said that it is the Dems in the House that are guilty of abuse of power and contempt of Congress. Abuse of power, for denying the minority due process, and contempt of Congress, for refusing to hear relevant testimony from true fact witnesses.

We did learn at least one interesting thing from the Democrat side, however: Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell's sister is a yoga instructor. Wow, thanks for that nugget, Debbie - it's very much germane to the matters at hand, and your bringing it to America's attention is a damn good use of the taxpayers' money. Really? Is that all they've got? Hey, I have a cousin who teaches music - can we get that on the record?

What happened to bribery? (You know, the charge that the Dems paid even more of the taxpayers' money on a focus group to come up with.) What happened to extortion? What happened to the vacuous Eric Swalwell's attempted bribery and extortion? What happened to quid pro quo?

"Dust in the Wind," as the old song goes. And once the dust has cleared, we're left with "abuse of power" and "obstruction of Congress," which the Dems can't even stay on point to defend.

But I digress - on to Sen. Lindsey Graham's Sen. Judiciary Committee's questioning of IG Horowitz. The latter's report seemed to give the DOJ and the FBI a pass, much to the dismay of some Republicans and the delight of all Democrats. But wait - there's more.

Sen. Graham and the Republicans on the Committee masterfully got to the more troubling matters behind the IG's findings, which were limited in part by the scope of his investigation. Horowitz clearly stated that an FBI lawyer flat-out lied in doctoring an email that was used as the foundation for the application for the FISA warrant that resulted in going after Carter Page. He further stated that he knew of no previous example of that being done, and conceded that if a private citizen had doctored evidence in such a matter, it would be grounds for prosecution.

Also, after Horowitz' report was released, former FBI Director James Comey said it "vindicated" him. When asked if that was the case, Horowitz replied that his report vindicates no one.

This ain't over. Look for the FBI (under new leadership; Wray is rightfully toast after this) and the AG to investigate further. Heads may yet roll, and charges may yet be on the way.

Where Schiff was smarmy and Nadler bumbling, Graham was professional. Where Schiff and Nadler were secretive and obstructive, Graham was transparent and open. Where Schiff and Nadler were vague and arbitrary, Graham was precise.

At the end of the long day of House Judiciary Committee hearings on Thursday, one important thought came to mind. This is the crux of this matter, so consider it carefully. The Dems' entire premise is that Trump sought a quid pro quo from Ukraine (or committed bribery or extortion or attempted bribery or attempted extortion or ... well, ah, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress - yeah, that's the ticket!) in withholding aid from Ukraine (that was paid to Ukraine in a timely manner), in exchange for a personal favor.

What favor? He allegedly wanted Ukraine to dig up dirt on a political rival, namely Joe Biden, for Biden's admittedly - indeed, braggadociously - having held up aid to Ukraine unless it did him the personal favor of firing a prosecutor who was investigating the matter of Biden's son being paid $50,000 a month to sit on the board of a company whose product he knew nothing about, and he had no experience in Ukraine (but Joe, as then-VP, was responsible for dealings with Ukraine). Quid pro quo, anyone?

Now, why did Trump supposedly want Biden investigated?

Several Dems, throughout these proceedings, have asserted that it was because polls showed that Biden would beat Trump head-to-head in the general election.

National polls. We learned in 2016 how reliable those are, when Hillary Clinton was leading Trump in national polling right up to Election Day, when he handed her her pant-suited arse in the Electoral College. And these polls cited by the Dems are more than a year out from the election, even well before the Democrat nomination. So we don't even know if Biden will remain the front-runner (he hasn't consistently been).

So, here's the key question for Democrats: If you're so sure that Trump sought dirt on Biden because Trump was afraid Biden would beat him in the general election -

Why are you so afraid that he can't??

See, if the Dems were confident that Biden could beat Trump, they wouldn't be seeking out new candidates at this late date. They had a field of 20+, but apparently they were concerned that none of them could win in 2020. So along comes Michael Bloomberg. There are rumors - pleas, even - for Hillary Clinton to once more enter the fray, or for Michelle Obama to try "Becoming" President (see what I did there?).

No one, not even the Dems, is afraid that Biden might beat Trump. In fact, quite the opposite is true: Dems are deathly afraid that he can't. 

And that, my friends, is the reason for this fallacious and fruitless attempt to remove him from office.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back On C-Span

Holy cow. I thought that the Intel Committee hearings were laughable: "fact" witnesses who weren't a party to the "facts" about which they testified (except for one, whose testimony reluctantly sealed the case against impeachment), witness-leading, and a committee chairman hell-bent on showing only one side of the story.

The biggest difference between those hearings and today's puzzling proceeding is that Jerry Nadler is not nearly as masterful as Adam Schiff in orchestrating and controlling a biased attack effort.

There were, again, no fact witnesses. The Dems called three liberal law school profs who bill themselves as Constitutional law experts to testify that the Schiff report provides grounds for impeachment under the Constitution. There are two problems with this:

1. That assumes that the Schiff report is factual and based on credible testimony from knowledgeable fact witnesses, with the defense permitted to cross-examine and call its own witnesses. That was not the case. It's a good thing those three law school profs are in academia, because if that's the extent of their knowledge of the law, they wouldn't last a day before or behind the bench. (It also illustrates their lack of understanding of the Constitution, which provides protections for the rights of the accused. On second thought, maybe it's a bad thing that they're profs, as they're influencing the minds of a generation of attorneys and potential jurists.)

2. All three of those professors have a history of anti-Trump comments and behavior, and campaign contributions to Democrat political candidates including Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren. One of them even dragged the President's 13-year-old son into her attack on Trump (can you imagine the outrage on the left if that had happened with Chelsea during Bill Clinton's impeachment proceedings?). And note that the question from a Democrat on the committee that led to that tasteless comment was very much a leading one. At least the Republicans on the committee handed her her arse for it.

The GOP called one witness to the Dems' three (that's okay, though; the three were largely interchangeable as none of them offered one iota of originality, so it was really one-to-one). So who did they call - a Scalia-esque staunch conservative originalist who strongly supports Donald Trump?

No. They called a registered Democrat, who admitted on the stand that he voted against Donald Trump (and the wording is key: not "I didn't vote for Donald Trump," but "I voted against Donald Trump" - active vs. passive in his non-support). And that witness, rather than devolving into anti-Trump emotion, as did the other three, remained focused on the impeachment process as envisioned by the framers. He rightly noted that his feelings about Trump were irrelevant to the impeachment question, and that impeachment on this basis would not only be un-Constitutional, but would set a dangerous precedent in which impeachment is used as a political targeting tool.

Make no mistake: if, at this point, you believe Trump should be impeached, you do not understand the Constitution. You do not understand the law. And, most important, you believed he should be impeached long before the Mueller report was released. You wanted him impeached because he is President, and he is Donald Trump. I'm sorry, but that's not an impeachable offense. (And note that this comes from someone who voted against Trump - also, not "not for him," but "against him.")

At the end of today's ... whatever you want to call it, Ranking Member Doug Collins called out Nadler to provide some inkling of what his plan is regarding furthering this process in the Judiciary Committee. Nadler had no answer.

And that, perhaps, is the most telling fact of all. The Democrats have no articulated plan toward anything other than damaging Trump.

In light of that, one final consideration: given all of these shenanigans, and given that the accusation being leveled is that President Trump abused his office to gain political advantage over an opponent in the 2020 election ...

How is the behavior of House Democrats any different? They are abusing their offices, and their majority, to damage Donald Trump in advance of the 2020 election, because they know that the field of candidates they've assembled to challenge him have virtually no chance of defeating him in a free and fair election. And they know that they can't possibly win the case for his removal in the Senate. So to what end their efforts, other than to damage his chances in an election. This effort began when it became apparent that the Democrat primary field was critically flawed.

We don't need Russia or Ukraine as an enemy hell-bent on influencing our elections. We have our own partisan system, and the complicit media, to do that for us.

Meanwhile, Back in Washington

An even briefer follow-up to the follow-up. While Nancy's in Spain rubbing elbows with Greta Thunberg, and Nadler is wasting America's time perpetuating Adam Schiff's partisan fantasy, the work of America isn't getting done, other than what the President can get done on his own.

A couple of things that aren't being addressed? First, USMCA. We could easily pen a good trade deal for the entirety of the North American continent, but Nancy has other priorities, as do Nadler, Schiff, et al. Heaven forbid they should do the will of the people who put them in their lofty positions of entitlement.

But the bigger one is the appropriations bill. For the uninitiated, let me explain what that is. An appropriations bill lays out what Washington is going to spend money on. Never mind that the process is fraught with favoritism, quid pro quo, retaliation, and other political maneuvering. I won't go into great detail on the process. Suffice it to say that it's controlled by a bunch of recent college grads who work for key leaders of the two parties and negotiate for our tax dollars in a tit-for-tat game that would make us mutiny if we all truly understood it.

With the Dems firmly focused on this impeachment effort, the appropriations bill is lying fallow. So instead Congress will pass a Continuing Resolution (CR) to ensure continued government funding, so that we don't have another government shutdown. CRs are supposed to be used as a last resort to ensure that key government functions continue to be operational, and to avoid shutdowns that could result in our civil servants not being paid.

In reality, many of those civil servants are deemed vital, and thus continue to work through a shutdown and get paid. Others get paid in arrears due to collective bargaining agreements with their unions, meaning that a government shutdown just results in a paid vacation for those workers, though I imagine they might have a greater burden when they return to work.

But the bottom line is that CRs have become the norm, the way we fund the government, because there is political gain for each party in blaming the other party for each shutdown that occurs, and the implications for our civil servants get exaggerated to bolster the spin. Don't get me wrong; I'm not criticizing the civil servants. They shouldn't have to deal with this crap to begin with.

However, by passing a CR to fund the government instead of passing an appropriations bill to allocate spending, Congress is avoiding doing two things that are included in the proposed appropriations measure, but aren't covered in the CR, which just continues current funding.

First, they're withholding a pay raise for the military, including those brave souls who took down al-Baghdadi.

Second, and equally significant: the appropriations bill includes aid for Ukraine.

There is some banter in Washington that Pelosi is holding up the vote on the appropriations bill to ensure that no Democrats in the House break ranks on the impeachment vote, like two of them did on the initial vote to proceed with impeachment proceedings in Schiff's Intel Committee.

So consider this: Nancy Pelosi is potentially withholding aid to Ukraine as the quid for her Dem colleagues' votes on impeachment, as the quo.

Hmmm.

Nancy Fiddled While Washington Burned

I'll get to the topic implied by the title of this post shortly, but first:

Anyone who has read this blog previously knows that the Curmudgeon's modus operandi is to go directly to source documents, when available, and read those, then draw his own conclusion, rather than relying on the unreliable news media's spin on things.

To that end, I have read Adam Schiff's impeachment report in its entirety, and I've determined that -

Wait a minute. No, I didn't. Of course I didn't. Are you kidding me? Why would I waste my time wading through 300 pages of Schiff's allegations supposedly based on the public hearings that we all had the ability to tune in to? After all, Schiff's spin is even more partisan than CNN's or MSNBC's. I watched the hearings; I heard the testimony. THAT is the source document. The only possible value that could be derived from Schiff's report would be if he had printed it on Charmin Ultra Soft. (Of course, Schiff and the Dems would rather wipe their collective arse on the U.S. Constitution.)

However, I did read the table of contents, and I skimmed key sections of the report on that basis. I also tuned into both CNN and Fox News for their respective takes. Predictably, CNN saw the report as damning, and certain to get Trump removed from office, while Fox saw it as a partisan nothing-burger on the order of the Mueller report.

They're both wrong. From what I've been able to glean, Schiff's report makes the Mueller report look damning. Schiff missed his calling - he can write fantasy as well as Tolkein or Rowling. The edge they have over him is that, after reading their works of fantasy, you could almost bring yourself to believe in wizardry and hobbits.

The most laughably transparent bit of partisanship in the report is the implication of VP Mike Pence. Note that there wasn't one iota of testimony in the hearings to implicate Pence, or anyone else for that matter.

See, this whole thing was cooked up by the Dems because, after the Mueller report failed, and the slate of Dem primary candidates proved to be so wanting that newcomers keep joining the fray, like rats jumping ON a sinking ship, the Dems be like, "OMG! We gotta remove Trump from office, because we can't beat him!"

Then other Dems be like, "OMG! If we remove Trump from office, Pence is President, and voters will be faced with the option of the same policies that have resulted in a strong economy, the lowest minority unemployment in history, serious efforts at border security for the first time in five administrations, a first crack at prison reform, respect for the military and first responders, and good trade deals that don't disadvantage the U.S. - only without the polarizing hyperbole, bad hair and mean tweets! Pence would win by a wider margin than Trump!!"

(I used terms like "be like" and "OMG" in the previous paragraph only because the Democrat Party today takes its cues from the AOCs of the world. Don't worry, I can write better than that. I'm just going for broad bipartisan appeal here.)

So Schiff is hoping we can get Trump impeached and removed, then get Pence impeached and removed, leaving Nancy Pelosi as President. Nancy, power-mad as she is (remember how she lovingly cooed about "the gavel" in 2016?), would undoubtedly demand that the current slate of Dem candidates drop out so that she could run unopposed in the primary. In that scenario, you could pick some random person off the street to run against her and they'd win. Also note that all of this would have to happen pretty fast. Do the Dems not think this stuff through, or are they just making it up as they go along, until they arrive at the next "oh crap" moment?

On to the topic implied by the title. Pelosi is so committed to showing solidarity with Schiff and Nadler as the Judiciary Committee hearings get underway, so stalwart in her leadership of the august body that is the House of Representatives in this somber and reluctant impeachment process, that she's ...

Leaving Washington D.C. to fly (on a fossil fuel-burning jet) to Spain to attend ...

A climate change summit.

Maybe Greta Thunberg can help Nancy solve the problem of air pollution and human feces and spent needles on the sidewalks in her home district. (Nah. Let's just ban some other form of plastic, now that you can't get straws in San Francisco restaurants, nor can you buy bottled water at SFO. But you can buy canned water, and throw the cans in the trash instead of the recycle bins. And you can buy sodas and juice and other beverages in plastic bottles at SFO. Yeah, that'll take care of California's problems.)

What does that tell us? Nancy wants to distance herself from the Schiff-show that is now transitioning to Nadler, so she's leaving Washington - hell, she's leaving the country, for crying out loud. What, is she hoping this thing will blow over before she comes back? Is she sufficiently delusional to believe that Trump will actually be removed from office? Was she the mastermind behind implicating Pence? ("Be sure Pence looks bad too - I want to caress the phone in the Oval Office.")

I find that hard to believe. Even Pelosi doesn't believe this circus is going anywhere. She knew that from the get. So why she caved to AOC, I'll never understand. It'd be the stuff of history books in the future, except that history is now being re-written to fit a narrative. I have to believe that she just wanted to get the hell out of town.

We can only hope that she'll defect. Spain's loss is our gain.