Archive for the ‘Partisanship’ Category
This week’s e-letter update from Minnesota House Majority Leader Ryan Winkler is typical DFL spin/bullshit. The e-letter update starts with the announcement that the “House Jobs and Economic Development Finance Committee will hold a public forum today (Tuesday, June 30) at 5:00 pm on the Promise Act. Then it says “The Promise Act also establishes a Civil Unrest Investigatory Commission to conduct a neutral investigation into the government’s response to the unrest, with a public report due by December 15, 2020.”
Later in Winkler’s update, he writes “Unlike the neutral investigation that House Democrats proposed as part of the Promise Act, Senate Republicans recently announced partisan hearings into the civil unrest that followed George Floyd’s murder. We know Senate Republicans have been working from the start with Bob Kroll of the Minneapolis Police Federation and his allies to preserve the status quo for public safety. The forthcoming hearings they plan to hold will have zero credibility because they were organized without the input of any DFL Senator, including POCI Caucus members.” Winkler finishes by writing this:
It’s clear that Senate Republicans are focused on throwing red meat to their base on FOX News instead of working with us to create a system of public safety where everyone can be safe, no exceptions. I’ll have more to say later this week when the Senate holds its first hearing.
Apparently, one of Rep. Winkler’s gifts is that he knows what’s going to happen days before it happens. Apparently, this gift doesn’t work on gas tanker trucks, though. Don’t forget this:
Winkler doesn’t know what’s happening at this Senate hearing. He’s a typical DFL partisan hack. When Winkler tweeted about the oil tanker truck, he intentionally said that the vehicle had racist stickers on it. He couched it as ‘I just heard some things from friends who said …’ At a time when tensions are higher than Mount Everest, you don’t throw white gas on that fire.
It turns out that the guy who got into the near-accident was delivering to a gas station owned by an African-American gentleman. Winkler got virtually everything wrong about the incident. He put out gossip that might’ve ignited more rioting. That’s the definition of irresponsible. The first order of business at the next special session should be censuring Winkler for being this reckless. He’s a back bench hack who shouldn’t be House Majority Leader.
This morning, Nancy Pelosi announced the creation of “the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis. This committee will be chaired by Majority Whip Jim Clyburn. In her statement, Pelosi said “That is why I am announcing the formation of a special bipartisan oversight panel.” That’s news to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. That isn’t the only thing that’s suspicious about this committee.
A huge amount of activity will theoretically happen in the next 2 weeks. According to Ed Morrissey’s post, “Pelosi won’t have the House return until April 20, almost three weeks from now.” In her statement, Pelosi quoted President Truman as saying “I knew that after the First World War there’d been a hundred and sixteen investigating committees after the fact, and I felt that one committee before the fact would prevent a lot of waste and maybe even save some lives, and that’s the way it worked out.”
If the House isn’t in session until after a huge portion of the funds have been disbursed, why is Pelosi talking about “one committee before the fact” preventing lots of waste? That’s like putting the fire department on furlough while they’re trying to prevent arsonists’ attacks. Apparently, there’s a different motive:
Why would Pelosi announce a “bipartisan” select committee without first discussing it with McCarthy? https://t.co/aISHzNqUis— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) April 2, 2020
Pelosi has a daily briefing already, but this would certainly afford an opportunity for the House to counter-program against Trump. They’d have to stay in town to do it, though.
David Catron’s article, titled “A Plague of Democratic Partisanship”, highlights the Democrats’ willingness to delay the benefits of the stimulus plan for purely partisan purposes. Democrats had negotiated in semi-good faith with Republicans while Queen Pelosi vacationed in San Francisco. Saturday night, the queen re-entered DC. Hours later, the bipartisan deal was dead.
In its place, the Queen insisted that the following items be part of the coronavirus emergency stimulus legislation:
- Corporate pay statistics by race and race statistics for all corporate boards at companies receiving assistance
- Bailing out all current debt of postal service
- Required early voting
- Required same day voter registration
- 10k bailout for student loans
- For companies accepting assistance, 1/3 of board members must be chosen by workers
- Provisions on official time for union collective bargaining
- Full offset of airline emissions by 2025
- Greenhouse gas statistics for individual flights
- Retirement plans for community newspaper employees
- $15 minimum wage at companies receiving assistance
- Permanent paid leave at companies receiving assistance
That’s just a partial list. At a time when the American people were hurting and some were literally dying, Democrats didn’t hesitate to put people’s lives at risk for some partisan trinkets. The Democrats’ character, or lack thereof, shined through.
Next, ask yourself if that’s the type of people you want leading the nation through a crisis. I don’t require much time to figure out my answer. That definitely isn’t the type of person I want in charge of the nation. Period. John Kennedy nailed it with this summarization:
Amen, Sen. Kennedy. You’re exactly right.
If you didn’t watch tonight’s Almanac Roundtable discussion, you’re in luck. I watched it so you didn’t have to. Predictably, impeachment was the main topic discussed by former DFL State Senator Ember Reichgott-Junge and former GOP Lt. Gov. Candidate Annette Meeks. My first impression of the discussion is that it’s painful to watch Ember Reichgott-Junge mix the Democrats’ political talking points with the Constitution.
At one point in the discussion, Junge trotted out the latest Democrat talking point. Junge said that “It isn’t just President Trump that is on trial. The US Senate is on trial, too.” She then posed a hypothetical question, saying “What happens if new information comes out 6 months from now?” Here’s what I’d say had I been debating her Friday night:
Ember, you’ve got it backwards. It isn’t the US Senate that’s on trial. It’s the US House that’s on trial. Specifically, it’s Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Schiff and Chairman Nadler that are on trial. They’re the people who were tasked with the responsibility of conducting a thorough impeachment investigation. If this was truly about patriotism, Speaker Pelosi would have stopped the investigation once she learned that Chairman Schiff’s committee didn’t unearth proof that President Trump committed high crimes or misdemeanors.
She didn’t stop the investigation because she wanted to use impeachment as a partisan weapon. Democrats have wanted to impeach President Trump since the morning after he won the election. This wasn’t an investigation. It was a search-and-destroy mission. That isn’t about finding the truth. That’s about crippling the President of the United States for purely partisan purposes.
Democrats who voted for impeachment aren’t as guilty as Pelosi, Nadler and Schiff but they’re guilty, too. They’re guilty of impeaching a president who didn’t commit a crime. House Democrats voted to impeach a president without investigators identifying a single piece of direct proof that verifies the crime President Trump committed.
Prof. Jonathan Turley’s ‘indictment’ of the House Democrats still stings. In his testimony, Prof. Turley said “If you impeach a president, if you make a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts, it is an abuse of power. It’s your abuse of power. You’re doing precisely what you’re criticizing the president for doing.”
Honestly, it’s exceptionally dishonest to blame the US Senate for US House Democrats not finishing their investigation. The Constitution states that the House of Representatives has the sole responsibility for impeachment. If House Democrats don’t properly finish their investigation, then that’s their fault. Honest historians won’t criticize the US Senate for conducting a sloppy impeachment investigation.
Senate Democrats better think this through thoroughly. If Senate Democrats want to call witnesses, they’d best be prepared to get buried with fact witnesses by the defense attorneys. That means the trial lasts until well after Super Tuesday. By then, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar will have been forced to suspend their campaigns.
By the time an extended trial ends, President Trump will be well on his way to winning re-election, Republicans will be well on their way to regaining their House majority and well on their way to solidifying their majority in the Senate. That’s the Democrats’ worst nightmare.
It’s easy to name the Democrats’ corrupt impeachment of President Trump as 2019’s Story of the Year. There were other stories that deserve recognition but this story has all the elements of a heartbreaking story of corruption, media bias, partisanship at its worst and civil rights abuses. First, this story exemplifies partisanship at its worst. Democrats have literally tried impeaching President Trump since the morning after his election. Mark Zaid, the faux whistle-blower’s attorney, posted this tweet 10 days after President Trump’s inauguration:
#coup has started. First of many steps. #rebellion. #impeachment will follow ultimately. #lawyers https://t.co/FiNBQo6v0S— Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) January 31, 2017
This wasn’t a solemn event, as Ms. Pelosi insisted. This was the culmination of 3 years of deceit and corruption:
We had Chairman Schiff acting as the faux whistle-blower’s defense attorney, protecting the faux whistle-blower’s anonymity during public committee hearings. When Schiff wasn’t protecting the faux whistle-blower’s anonymity, he was violating President Trump’s civil rights by preventing President Trump’s legal team from representing him during the deposition phase. Schiff also violated President Trump’s civil rights when he refused to let Republicans call witnesses in defense of President Trump.
The impeachment hearings were filled with partisanship, too. This is what partisanship looks like:
Chairman Nadler was required by House rules to schedule a minority hearing day. That didn’t happen. One day of hearings was dedicated to listen to 3 Democrat activists masquerading as law school professors argue with Prof. Jonathan Turley about whether the evidence submitted by Democrats was sufficient for impeachment. Another hearing was dedicated to congressmen and women essentially making closing statements.
The hearings throughout ‘featured’ (I use that term exceptionally loosely) the worst in media bias. Day after day, the media breathlessly insisted that that day’s witness provided “bombshell” testimony. Night-after-night, the bombshell didn’t detonate. In instance-after-instance, the provocative statements in the witnesses’ opening statements turned into dud during cross-examination. Mike Turner’s cross-examination of Ambassador Sondland was the nastiest cross-examination I’ve ever seen:
That’s the personification of media bias and Adam Schiff’s corruption. Each day, networks like CNN and MSNBC and programs like the Maddow Report and Meet the Press Weekdays omitted the part about the exculpatory evidence. That’s why President Trump’s accusations of the Fake News Media resonates. People of integrity admit that CNN and shows like Rachel Maddow’s are corrupt.
They’ve carved out a niche, albeit a limited niche, that serves a political purpose in the Democrats’ quest for power. There was a time when Democrats cared about people’s civil rights. That Democrat Party, apart from Jonathan Turley and Alan Dershowitz is history. That Democrat Party doesn’t exist.
Impeachment is 2019’s Story of the Year but for all the wrong reasons. Impeaching President Trump with hearsay testimony while violating President Trump’s civil rights is awful. Impeaching him while Democrats displayed the nastiest partisanship of this century is worst. Impeaching President Trump with the enthusiastic assistance of the most corrupt media of our lifetimes is a trifecta Democrats should be ashamed of.
Most people understood that it wasn’t likely that Nancy Pelosi would put the USMCA trade negotiation up for a vote before the end of the year. This article seems to confirm that suspicion. The article opens by saying “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she doubts Congress has enough time left to pass the USMCA this year, but Democrats and the Trump administration will continue talks next week to work out a compromise on remaining issues.”
The latest DC rumor is that Pelosi is holding that vote up to pressure reluctant Democrats to vote for impeachment. In this scenario, Ms. Pelosi will withhold the USMCA vote until after they vote on impeachment. Ms. Pelosi knows that Schiff’s impeachment case was weak going in. Further, she knows that impeachment got beaten up quite a bit during the public hearings.
When Democrats voted to authorize the impeachment inquiry, 232 Democrats voted for it. When the entire House votes on Articles of Impeachment, there won’t be 232 Democrat votes. If I was scoring the hearings the way I used to score baseball games, I’d score it this way: Democrats pretty much won each day’s opening statements, especially the witnesses’ opening statements. I think that was intentional.
Think of the witnesses’ opening statements as political clickbait. Their job was to feed the MSM. It was then up to the MSM to plaster that day’s “bombshell” into that day’s chyrons to pound the message home. That message was simple — Testifier A, B or C delivered a “bombshell” testimony. The case against Trump is insurmountable. He’ll be impeached and removed. Pay no attention to what Fox says. Don’t pay attention to what Townhall or the Federalist says, either.
What Democrats wanted people to ignore was the cross-examinations, especially this one:
Mike Turner’s cross-examination of Ambassador Sondland all but officially finished the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. That’s the most powerful cross-examination of the 5 days of hearings. All of the other gossip from the other testifiers is worthless. Sondland spoke directly with President Trump and President Zelenskiy. He’s the only one with firsthand knowledge of the central characters in these hearings.
Turner, BTW, is just one of the new GOP heroes coming out of these hearings. For those of us who’ve followed this Russia Ukrainian Hoax, we already knew that Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan and John Ratcliffe were heavyweights. During the 5 public hearings, Elise Stefanik, Mike Turner and Chris Stewart turned in their finest performances.
Holding up the USMCA is further proof that Ms. Pelosi is the nastiest partisan this century. She’d rather hurt President Trump than do what’s right for the nation. The US needs selfless leaders who put the nation’s needs ahead of partisanship. That isn’t what we’re getting right now. Right now, we’re getting overdoses of partisanship from Pelosi and Schiff.
Krystal Ball used to be a host on MSNBC. She isn’t anymore. To say that she’s critical of MSNBC is accurate but it’s incomplete. Ball is now a host for Hill.TV, where she has a more reputable platform from which to voice her opinions. In this article, Ball didn’t hold back:
“I dare to say some talent did drink more deeply of the Russia conspiracy waters than others, Rachel Maddow, you have some explaining to do,” said Ball, who now who hosts Hill.TV’s “Rising.”
“This is not journalism, it is Infowars conspiracy theory,” she added, referencing the show hosted by right wing provocateur Alex Jones. “CNN and many other outlets are clearly not blameless in this hype machine and the Democratic Party was plenty happy to engage in this speculation as well,” she continued. “Individual members clearly loved that sweet cable news spotlight but I single out my former employer, in particular, in part because they were certainly the worst mainstream offenders.”
This is actually frightening in the worst way. Yes, Mueller was a sad, almost-pathetic, figure but that isn’t what’s frightening. William Jacobsen’s article does that subject justice far better than I can do:
Whether Robert Mueller was a mere figurehead or in control, he was a participant. So while he was a sorry figure in the congressional hearings, and his appearance did substantial damage to Democrat and media plans, the gravity of what happened should not be lessened. It almost worked.
The media, of course, was a full participant in what happened. Just when you thought the major organizations who control almost all of popular and social media couldn’t get any worse, they do. This all takes place while high tech companies put the thumb on the scale by penalizing non-liberal content.
I used to think that Big Government and Big Corporations was the worst combination. Big Tech and the Deep State make Big Government and Big Corporations look like child’s play.
It’s important to factor in the Big Government people and the Deep State. Nancy Pelosi is part of the Big Government nasties that care only about attaining, then maintaining power. As I wrote about in this post, Pelosi is among the nastiest, most disgusting, people in DC. Yesterday, without a hint of proof, Pelosi accused President Trump of committing treason. That’s what a venomous snake looks like. She didn’t have a tidbit of proof. She knew that she couldn’t prove that accusation if her life depended on it. It didn’t bother her that she’d made the most serious charge imaginable. To Pelosi, this was just about appeasing her base. It was all about partisan advantage. This didn’t have anything to do with patriotism.
Krystal Ball did the right thing getting out of MSNBC. That’s a pit of vipers unequaled except in the House Democrat caucus.
