Category: Congress

This from FOX News: “Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell, in an interview Wednesday, would not rule out a new impeachment effort against President Trump over his alleged interference in the criminal case of his former associate Roger Stone. Federal prosecutors on Monday had recommended a sentence of between 87 and 108 months in prison for Stone’s conviction on seven counts of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements to Congress on charges that stemmed from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.”

But in a stunning reversal, as FOX News first reported, leadership at the Justice Department overruled the prosecutors on the case, scaling back the proposed sentence for Stone, which immediately led Democrats to accuse Trump of interfering in the process by tweeting about his displeasure with the DOJ. Trump denies it, and the case lately has been complicated further by questions over possible juror bias.

During an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Swalwell (D-CA), was asked whether Democrats would look to launch a new impeachment inquiry on the new controversy. “You know, we’re not going to take our options off the table,” Swalwell, a member of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, told CNN. “We don’t wake up in the morning wanting to impeach him.” (We left the hyperlink to the stories mentioned in the FOX report. Feel free to go take a look at them if you like)

“We don’t wake up in the morning wanting to impeach him.” If anyone reading this believes Swalwell’s statement, I’ve got a ten-ounce bar of 24 ct. gold I need you to look at. It’s real gold! I only need $100.00 for it.

Democrats don’t just wake up every day thinking about impeaching President Trump — they never STOP thinking of that. And no American should be surprised that they are probably going to use ANOTHER sham allegation to turn into an impeachment probe — their third if you include Mueller’s — of the President.

Examples:

♦♦ Los Angeles area Congresswoman Karen Bass told TMZ’s Harvey Levin that not only would they try to impeach Trump again if he wins in 2020, but their seek-and-destroy mission will probably uncover even more information that could show “he’s owned and operated by the Russians.”

Bass told TMZ that the articles of impeachment would probably be different the second time around because of all the dirt they’ll dig up on Trump:

…[I]t might not be the same articles of impeachment because the odds are we’d have a ton more information.  [H]e probably has other examples of criminal behavior.

♦♦ Neal Katyal, a former acting solicitor general under Barack Obama, said, “double jeopardy protections do not apply” to impeachment.

“If the Senate doesn’t vote to convict Trump in this first trial, or tries to monkey with his trial, he could of course be retried in the new Senate should he win re-election. Double jeopardy protections do not apply. And Senators voting on impeachment in the next months know this.”

♦♦ “Donald Trump, I still believe, is a one-man crime wave, and we can’t let him get away with all of his other offenses against the Constitution and the people,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a member of the House Judiciary Committee.

♦♦ One day after Trump’s acquittal, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said the House was awaiting the outcome of several lawsuits previously filed by Democrats, including those targeting Trump’s financial records at Deutsche Bank and former White House counsel Don McGahn. “We will continue to do our oversight, to protect and defend the Constitution,” she said during a press conference, vowing to continue to investigate allegations of administrative wrongdoing, wherever it arises.

♦♦ “Any prospects for impeachment will depend on a mixture of the gravity of the offense and then the imminent danger to democracy and the election,” Rep. Jamie Raskin said. “If the president insists upon violating the Constitution to try to fix this election, he is going to find he’s met his match in the House of Representatives. We’re not going to put up with that.”

Narrative

How can any American not see and understand that the entire Democrat Party seems to be fixated on one thing and one thing only? That “thing” has nothing to do with lowering drug prices, stopping the flow of illegal drugs into the nation, fixing immigration’s broken laws, or helping DACA recipients whose parents brought them here illegally and now they’re stuck. That “thing” is not making this economy that’s booming far beyond experts predicted WOULD happen and far beyond the best expectations of what COULD happen. It does not include improving what already is the lowest unemployment rate for African Americans ever, the lowest unemployment rate for women in 60 years, or improving what is now the highest rate of the labor participation rate in 50 years. We could continue to list more of the amazing accomplishments of this president, but that would take much time. And most Americans already know what they are.

So what is that “Thing” on which Democrats are fixated? 

Before you assume what that “thing” might be, consider this: there is really not just ONE thing that gobbles up Democrats’ concentration. (details ahead)

Every American is paying the price for Democrats forcing the U.S. government to function in this the most partisan political atmosphere in U.S. history. The “one thing” is a combination of quite a few things that are each focused on one target: run Donald Trump out of the White House.

Don’t assume that this is the “blame game.” Don’t believe we at TruthNewsNetwork think Democrats are all evil and are all meeting every night in some secret location to craft ways to their ideas on the nation. I’m sure there are numerous conversations between Democrats about what Democrats are doing and what SHOULD be doing instead. But I don’t think there’s some grand conspiracy among their party although they certainly talk incessantly about Republicans and Mr. Trump.

Democrats’ chief problem is their lack of two things: unity and leadership. 

Their lack of leadership has diminished whatever effectiveness they may have had in the past. Consider those eight years under Obama. Barack Obama was an electric speaker, a great communicator to people from every background, and had the ability to draw people together. Don’t forget: he spent much of his professional life before politics as a community organizer. That involved reaching out to people, bringing them together under a common cause, and instigating unanimous actions by such a group to achieve specific results. That sounds like how political parties should act in Congress!

Democrats are desperate to find a “Barack Obama Part II.” I have news for them: there’s no other Obama in this Democrat Party.

That’s how Donald Trump won in 2016. Democrats tried hard to turn Hillary Clinton in as the replacement for Obama, who would take their party to the next level. But as they watched, it became apparent there was little substance in Hillary — at least not enough substance to even get a good start toward “Obama Part II.” Getting elected was the only way to get started. She was a product of a worn and tired political ideology that time had passed by.

Trump, on the other hand, was new and different. He certainly isn’t a Barack Obama, but he too, has a unique magnetism that draws many people to him. But it also (just as oppositely charged magnets do when putting together) drives some people away. Trump was the first Republican since Reagan that looked like a middle American even though Trump’s from Queens. He’s rough and caustic and brought the communication ability to conservative politics unseen since the Gipper. The biggest thing Americans like about him that gave him the election victory is his empathy for Americans of every class.

What have Democrats lost?

The 1960s

For those of us who were alive in the early 1960s, you can relate to what I am about to say. If you are too young to remember, follow along with these explanations.

I was just a boy when John F. Kennedy was elected President. JFK was a Massachusetts Democrat, a U.S. Senator, a war hero, and the eldest son in a multi-generational wealthy and politically connected U.S. family.

The nation had just completed the first decade after the end of World War II. The 1940s saw the United States take on — simultaneously — Hitler and Mussolini in Europe and Japanese Emperor Hirohito in the Pacific — and was victorious over all three. That World War II victory taught Americans much. And those lessons learned put JFK in the White House and the Democrat Party back to the forefront of American politics.

Though wealthy and from a deep-rooted Democrat elite family, JFK was a politician that looked average Americans in the eye and spoke TO them and not AT them. A large part of the nation fell in love with that and with him. He faced horrendous challenges in Russia, racial division and extremism domestically, anti-war activism, and an American economy that was lackluster at best.

What he knew that today’s Democrats either do not see or maybe just lost is his ability to speak a message that resonated with average Americans.

JFK was an Ivy League product and was nothing like Donald Trump. But the commonality of communication to all Americans gave Mr. Kennedy the same edge as has Donald Trump today. And Democrats gladly fell in line with their beloved “Jack Kennedy.”

The Democrat Party after Kennedy and Johnson faced similar problems as does this Democrat Party: relating to ALL Americans. Jimmy Carter fell flat on his face. Bill Clinton got it. He, too, was a “people” guy. Barack Obama took that American political relationship ability to new levels. Many thought Obama’s Vice President would be the secret to retaking that narrative, but Biden is no Barack Obama. Democrats certainly understand that.

Today’s Democrats seem to feel there’s only one way to regain the White House. For them, that’s not going to be a product of the 2020 election. That’s why the constant attacks on every person in the Trump Administration and every policy of Donald Trump. They are operating from the “Zero-Sum Game” philosophy. Let me explain.

Here’s how the “Zero-Sum Game” philosophy works. It came from economists. In economic theory, a zero-sum game is a mathematical representation of a situation in which each participant’s gain or loss is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the utility of the other participants. If the total gains of the participants are added up and the total losses are subtracted, they will sum to zero.

In politics, that philosophy dictates there is only a finite number of votes that will be cast in an election. Democrats think of that process this way:

The only way to get more votes is to take votes away from anyone running against their candidate. They’re committed to doing anything necessary to win elections, but not by proving to voters what they propose for political policies are much better than Trump’s policies. Their approach is to forget about doing more better for voters but to denigrate Trump and everything he has done while in office. They all day every day attack Mr. Trump without pause, all the while ignoring current status for Americans in the middle of Trump’s first term.

Think back a few years. Hillary campaigned on what was the “Obama policies continued.” She offered nothing new. That’s why she could not defeat Donald Trump: the newcomer.

Trump got it. He gave voters new ideas. Voters got it and liked it. Trump won. Democrats, to this day, still have not resolved any of that.

Summary

So what is the Democrat Party plan for 2020 to win the White House, hold their majority in the House, and win back the Senate? Impeach Donald Trump to remove him from office, making an election victory for a second term as President an impossibility.

Democrats offer NO new policies and NO fixes for any of America’s broken issues. Americans understand that after three full years of nothing but attack after attack against President Trump.

Meanwhile, the nation on every level continues to soar economically across the board for every American. Democrats are lost in that and have NO alternative other than this “Trump attack mode.”

Dems have NO leadership. The leaders they have are feckless, angry and partisan politicians and nothing more. Americans get it. This failure in substance by Democrats is why among the two dozen Democrat presidential candidates that began a push for the White House, one by one have thrown in the towel after lackluster campaigns that resulted only in rejection by Americans. Why? There’s nothing new! Their answer is to get madder and more desperate and up the ante for impeaching Donald Trump.

They are going to try to do just that a second time. It would do nothing but frustrate Americans who might consider a Democrat alternative to a Trump second term if there were any substantive policies on the Democrat menu from which voters could choose. The menu is blank.

Some say Democrats are stupid for their continued craziness. Others hold hope that they will realize their error and make a move in a different direction. But then there are others that believe Democrats do not have the capacity to right the ship.

What will happen? Investigate, investigate, and probably more impeachment attempts. And for Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, and Eric Swalwell, impeachment is the only way for them to gain notoriety for anything Americans could consider “substantive” that might result from their service in Congress.

It’s a shame any members of the Democrat Party feel that philosophy is good for America.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

After a wild and lengthy day, Day One of the Trump Senate Impeachment trial is in the books for historians to expand and interpret for future generations of Americans to see, hear, and read. That what we are experiencing has only happened two previous times in 270 years is incredible. That alone should give all Americans pause when considering the seriousness of any presidential impeachment process.

Yes, Day One was partisan. Yes, it was full of allegations, many of which were outrageous in light of their lack of evidentiary foundation. But the fact that THIS group of House Managers is led by Representatives Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Jerry Nadler (D-NY) explains to us all how and why such outlandish accusations were made.

Day One was a day to “simply” set the process with which the Senate will use for this impeachment trial. The word “simply” is in quotation marks simply because there was nothing simple in the day’s trial activities. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) at the beginning of the day introduced a resolution for the impeachment process. Thirteen hours later, after all of the accusations, vitriolic tantrums, and cries of  “Lies, Lies, Lies!” by Rep. Nadler, the Resolution was brought to a vote by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. It passed down partisan lines, 53-47.

Before we look at Day Two’s trial bullet points, I want to make sure all TNN partners understand what the most contentious topic in Day One involved: refusal to appear before Schiff’s House committee by members of the Trump Administration. Several of those Administration members were issued subpoenas by the House Judiciary Committee for their testimonies but declined to appear. This so roiled Democrats that one of their two Articles of Impeachment, “Obstruction of Congress,” was because of the refusal of those people to appear before Congress.

What does the law say about such refusals to honor a Congressional subpoena? Are there court decisions based on such instances, and, if so, what were their outcomes?

Let’s look quickly at this before we get to Bullet Points:

The Supreme Court has recognized Congress’s power to issue subpoenas, saying in order to write laws, it also needs to be able to investigate. If lawmakers want to punish someone who ignores a congressional subpoena, they typically first hold the offender “in contempt of Congress.” The contempt process can start in either the House or the Senate. Unlike with legislation, it only takes one of the chambers to make and enforce a contempt citation.

How is a contempt finding enforced?

The Supreme Court said in 1821 that Congress has “inherent authority” to arrest and detain witnesses who defy hearing subpoenas. In 1927, the high court said the Senate acted lawfully in sending its deputy sergeant-at-arms to Ohio to arrest and detain the brother of the then-attorney general, who had refused to testify about a bribery scheme known as the Teapot Dome scandal. It has been almost a century since Congress exercised this arrest-and-detain authority, and the practice is unlikely to make a comeback.

Alternatively, Congress can ask the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, a federal prosecutor, to bring criminal charges against a witness who refuses to appear. There is a criminal law that prohibits explicitly flouting a congressional subpoena. But this option is also unlikely to be pursued, at least when it comes to subpoenas against executive branch officials, given that federal prosecutors are part of the branch’s Justice Department.

The most recent example of this appeal to the D.C. Court occurred when Obama Attorney General Eric Holder defied Congressional subpoenas for records from the “Fast and Furious” gun-running scheme the Obama Department of Justice instigated at the southern border. Holder defied the Congressional “Contempt of Congress” finding. Congress asked the D.C. Federal Prosecutor — an Obama appointee — to make a case in federal court against Holder. The prosecutor declined to prosecute.

Congress has opted for a third and final approach to enforcing a contempt finding: getting its lawyers to bring a civil lawsuit asking a judge to rule that compliance is required. Failure to comply with such an order can trigger a “contempt of court” finding, enforced through daily fines and even imprisonment.

That explanation of non-compliance with a Congressional subpoena is vital for you to understand. Why? Because Democrat House Managers on Day One used most of their time in the 13-hour hearing to harp on their need for the Senate to enforce House subpoenas that were denied by Trump Administration folks. These demands are ludicrous. Why? Federal courts (including SCOTUS) have previously refused to involve their courts in such cases because the litigants did not exhaust all legal remedies provided under the Law FIRST.

House Democrats never took any legal actions detailed above to enforce their subpoenas. Instead, they rushed their impeachment case to the Senate, hoping the Senate would do the job of the House. And the Senate so far has denied their requests.

Now to Bullet Points.

Day Two Impeachment Bullet Points

• Opening arguments began in President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial on Wednesday, with Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., telling senators they need to remove Trump from office because he’s shown he’s ready and willing to cheat in the 2020 election.
• Schiff picked up where left off on Tuesday with constant baseless jabs at the President with remarks like these: “The president’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box because we cannot be assured the vote will be fairly won,” Schiff told the Senate. He called Trump’s efforts to get a foreign government to announce an investigation into his political rival “a gross abuse of power” that requires the Senate to act.
• It is probable that President Trump’s legal team won’t begin his defense until Saturday. Both the House Managers and Trump’s legal team have 24 hours (over three days) to present their cases.
• Schiff gave an overview of the House Managers’ impeachment case against the President, saying once again that the House case “paints an overwhelming and damning picture of the President’s efforts to use the powers of his office to corruptly solicit foreign help in his re-election campaign and withhold official acts and military aid to compel that support.”
• Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), and Sylvia Garcia (D-TX), followed Schiff, and they took their case one step deeper. They alleged Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani is responsible for a  smear campaign against then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. According to Nadler and Garcia, Yovanovitch was thought to be a roadblock to Giuliani’s plan to try to dig up dirt on former vice president Joe Biden and his son, who was on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
• There was an odd twist in the Democrats’ discussion about their case for impeachment when  Rep. Val Demings (D-FL) presented a tweet from President Trump who tweeted from Air Force One Wednesday while returning to Washington from Davos, Switzerland. Here’s the President’s tweet: “I thought our team did an excellent job. But honestly, we have all the material. They don’t have the material.” Here’s Demings’ interpretation of that tweet: “Trump’s tweet proves the second article of impeachment, obstruction of Congress.” She described the charge as “covering up witnesses and documents from the American people.” Demings added, “This morning, the President not only confessed to it, but he also bragged about it.”
• “Witness trading” was suggested as a way to allow witnesses to testify in the Senate trial. “Witness trading” is a process where Democrats would choose a witness they want to testify, and Republicans would then get one witness of their choosing to testify. That hit a roadblock. Schiff shot down speculation that would be allowed even if Republicans agreed. “This isn’t like some fantasy football trade,” Schiff said. “Trials aren’t trades for witnesses.”
• Nothing new in the way of evidence was presented by House Manager. Rep. Schiff once again doubled-down on their constant claim: “Over the coming days, you will hear remarkably consistent evidence of President Trump’s corrupt scheme and coverup,” Mr. Schiff (D., Calif.) said, standing at a lectern on the Senate floor. “There is no serious dispute about the facts underlying the president’s conduct.”

Summary

Just imagine how difficult it was for Republicans to sit on their hands during nine hours of the SOS. (Same Old Stuff) Senate rules prevented any replies, responses, or outbursts from the President’s legal team members. In several post-trial session interviews, several GOP leaders confirmed once again that the House Managers in presenting their case for impeachment on Day Two did nothing more than repeat all of their rhetorical allegations from Day One, adding nothing more than the assumption of the “true” meaning of President Trump’s Davos-to-D.C. Air Force One tweet.

To put a period on Day Two, one can say the most apparent two things revealed by House Managers is that 1) they have NO evidence to support either of the two articles of impeachment, and 2) they are desperate for evidence though they have declared numerous times in testimony that “we have iron-clad evidence of the President’s impeachable wrongdoing.” Their desperation explains their rabid and constant pleas for Senators to allow witnesses to be called to testify in the Senate Chamber. THEY HAVE NO EVIDENCE OF IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES.

My conclusion? I’ll sum it up with this trip down Memory Lane with you. The day after President Trump’s inauguration I predicted three things were certain to happen during his presidency: Democrats WOULD impeach the President before the end of his first term in office, 2) the Senate would summarily reject the House Managers’ case against the President and not remove him from office, and 3) President Trump will not only win the 2020 election, but the GOP will hold the Senate, retake control of the House while increasing their majority status in the Senate.

I’m one-for-three so far. I hope for all Americans before mid-November this year I’m three-for-three!

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