Category: Congress

A Myth Called “Bi-Partisanship”

November 18, 2019

Let’s face facts: the words “Bi-Partisanship” is an oxymoron when it references politics in Washington. Bi-Partisanship requires two or more people to work on any one project or issue together to reach a consensus or agreed-to result. Nothing in that resembles today’s Washington D.C. Congress.

Honestly, we could spend all day every day chronicling the disparities in the legislative methodology used today compared to just a few years ago in Congress. It may have existed for some time, but the first I remember an eternal rift between parties was when former President Obama made this statement: “Elections have consequences.” He was referencing many who complained about the unwillingness of members of both parties to work together. But Obama in saying that was highlighting the fact that Democrats won a second term in the White House and control — albeit temporary power — of Congress. To Obama, that meant his political opponents needed to follow his lead on all matters of government as long as Democrats were in control.

Where had Bi-Partisanship gone?

I cannot answer that. Indeed, the unwillingness for Congress to reach across aisles for the common good of the nation is not a single party issue. But it has reached outlandish heights in unified efforts on the part of those on the Left to resist anything and everything put forward by President Trump. I will not bore you with a list of examples. We all see them as they happen. And they happen so often we have grown numb to them. It’s as if we yawn when they occur and think, “It’s just another day in D.C.!” That’s sad.

The Sheriff in Town

Almost without question, you know who the “Sheriff in Town” references: Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). He’s the boss! Formerly that role belonged to the Speaker of the House. And everyone in Congress stayed inline or drew the ire of the Speaker. Nancy Pelosi was and still should be the Sheriff in Congress. But her position was compromised immediately following the 2018 midterm elections. With the House additions of members of “The Squad,” Pelosi found herself in a difficult situation. Her power was threatened. Those freshman House members challenged her authority and threatened a mutiny to keep her from assuming the role of Speaker in the new Congress. So the Sheriff became “The Squad” — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). They took control of the House of Representatives putting Pelosi on defense. And it has been that way since.

How powerful are the members of “The Squad?” We’re currently in the midst of the demonstration their power: Impeachment. The four immediately after assuming office began a unified cry for the House of Representatives to impeach the President. None could venture a guess as to an impeachable offense with evidence, but their insistence began to infect other members of Congress. The 2020 Democratic presidential candidates each joined the impeachment cause. Before long, House Speaker Pelosi found herself the target of threats by “The Squad” to dump her as Speaker if she did not bow to their demands.

Pelosi and other House leaders created the myth of this “Impeachment Inquiry.” It has no teeth at and is nothing but a sham investigative operation to find dirt on Mr. Trump that Dems hope will lead to articles of impeachment. In other words, this Inquiry is the Mueller Investigation Part II. And so far, it’s effect on finding any Trump wrongdoing is only is as useful as was the Mueller Investigation.

Pelosi quickly discovered that her appointed Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee — Jerold Nadler (D-NY) — had about as much hope at putting together a successful path to impeachment process as do I. She dumped him! She then passed the mantle to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). Without getting wordy, Schiff is the evilest member of Congress in my memory. And my memory is relatively lengthy because it’s 66 years long.

Schiff rewrote the Congressional impeachment process. He made it his own; he made it unconstitutional; made it partisan; and he made himself chief prosecutor, judge, and jury in its proceedings. And in “his” process, he has ignored the Rule of Law.

His objective is simple: find a way to put President Trump on trial in before the Nation and drive him from office. It makes no difference to Schiff there is no evidence through three years of nonstop investigation into the Trump organization that justifies impeachment. Schiff created a new way to handle this entire thing: impeach the President for emotional and psychological wrongdoing.

I know it sounds crazy — and it is. But this process we see unfolding day by day, chapter by chapter, has no historical reference. Nothing like it existed in the three previous presidential impeachment processes. Schiff immediately ditched the idea of “precedent” in pursuing impeachment. He created a new path for unseating a duly elected President: “Do as I say and forget about everything else.” And his objective remains front and center every day. And he has made the process all his, all about him, and all to unseat Donald Trump.

The Charlatan

What is a “charlatan?” I struggle even to spell the word. But Mr. Schiff rolled it out over the weekend in a speech he made to the California Democrat Party. Let’s set the stage.

Schiff had just completed two days of public hearings by his committee in the Impeachment Inquiry. The three witnesses that appeared brought NO facts to the table about any wrongdoing on the part of the President. All three made comments that were negative about Mr. Trump, but each comment was purely an opinion that had no evidentiary basis.

Schiff — who has now made himself a rock star — then jumped on a plane for California to give a speech that was nothing more than a version of a “Schiff victory lap.“ Schiff feels as if his committee was victorious and was successful in showing the public just how evil is Mr. Trump. And Schiff told Californians exactly what his objective in this Impeachment Inquiry is.

Adam Schiff branded Donald Trump a ‘charlatan’ in that fiery speech delivered to California Democrats.  The House Intelligence Committee Chairman, who has been tasked with overseeing the impeachment inquiry into the President, received a rousing round of applause as he unleashed the insults at the 2019 Fall Endorsing Convention in Long Beach on Saturday.

“Schiff, who was introduced at the event as ‘Our Protector’, stated: ‘Two years ago I stood before you and I urged you to resist and you did, but we are more than a resistance now – we are a majority!’ He added: ‘We are a majority in one house, and we will become a majority in the other, and we will send that charlatan [Trump] in the White House back to the golden throne he came from!'”

Put that in perspective: Schiff chairs the House Intelligence Committee. His role is to manage the operations of that committee. In that role, he has now rewritten the guidelines so that he determines each process of the committee. He controls witnesses, whether or not they can testify publicly, what they can and cannot say in their testimonies, who can or cannot question the witnesses, whether or not anyone on the committee can present evidence, ask specific questions of the witnesses, and what topics in each hearing are allowed and are not allowed. In other words, Schiff is lording over a Soviet-style process designed to allow the “ruler” (or Chairman) to control every part of the hearing. And there are no judges, prosecutors, or controlling entities to which anyone can appeal to challenge Schiff on any part of the process. Adam Schiff has become “Vladimir Schiff” with the same power as the Russian President. That’s ironic, isn’t it?

Schiff is The Wizard of Oz!

Summary

We’ll end with this example of the “Schiff-Schizzle” Lunacy.

One of the prize Schiff witnesses who we were told had blockbuster evidence that proved Donald Trump was guilty of extortion of Ukraine and obstruction of justice was former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. She was an Obama Administration holdover. Shortly after Ukraine’s election in 2018 of a new President, Trump fired Ambassador Yovanovitch. Schiff feels certain that Trump’s doing so was an effort to interfere in Ukraine to impact the 2020 presidential election in his favor — but there is NO evidence of that. We all know about the Biden corruption investigation by the former Ukraine prosecutor that was stopped by then V.P. Biden who threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine if that prosecutor was not fired.

Schiff planned to use the firing of Yovanovitch as proof that Trump obstructed. Her testimony would undoubtedly prove that. And her firing (according to Schiff) was unprecedented.

But a problem with that popped up. Former President Barack Obama fired all ambassadors appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2008, the Washington Post previously reported.

Yovanovitch testified that the Trump administration, including the president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, “kneecapped” her. She said that she was not supported by State Department leaders after being recalled in May.

“Political ambassadors sometimes are permitted to stay on briefly during a new administration, but the sweeping nature of the directive suggests that Obama has little interest in retaining any of Bush’s ambassadorial appointees,” WaPo’s 2008 article about Obama’s decision to fire all political ambassadors reads.

Yovanovitch was appointed by Obama in 2016. Newly-elected presidents typically re-vamp the positions with their own choices once taking office. Yovanovitch was allowed to stay on for three years after Trump took office, but has testified that senior officials “declined to acknowledge” the “smear campaign” against her leading up to her firing, Politico reported.

A 2017 Snopes fact check also noted that Trump firing appointed ambassadors was not an unprecedented move and certainly not an obstruction of justice. Doing so is part of being head of the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government.

The resignation and replacement of ambassadors at the end of an administration is routine,” the fact check reads, adding that some presidents have fired everyone at once while others decide on a case-by-case basis.

Democrats said during Friday’s public testimony that they were angry at Yovanovitch’s sudden dismissal, despite Obama doing the same thing when he became president in 2008.

Have you had enough? Take another deep breath: Schiff has only just begun!

Remember last week when we predicted that Pelosi would pull the plug on this impeachment inquiry boondoggle during the weekend? I stated that if she did not, I’d be here today to eat crow and to say that I was wrong. Here’s what I WILL do: I’ll say that I was wrong on the timing. As of this writing, Pelosi has taken no such action. However, her terminating the ”Schiff Schizzle” is inevitable! Why? There’s no evidence of any wrongdoing by President Trump that rises to the level of impeachment.

If Pelosi allows this to continue, “The Squad” will be her least significant issue in the Democrat House of Representatives. There will be a certain wholesale firestorm during the 2020 election as Americans send Democrat members of the House and even the Senate packing in the wake of this impeachment charade.

Stay tuned: we are certain Pelosi’s intervention of this inquiry is imminent!

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The House is REALLY Busy

November 4, 2019

Busy how? They’re certainly not working on Climate Change. Nor are they helping out those Dreamers who are stuck in no-man’s-land regarding their immigration status. Remember: President Trump offered them a path to citizenship a year ago and Democrats turned his offer down. Not working on our serious military funding bill nor on the New Mexico-U.S.-Canada trade deal. They’re busy with other stuff, the least of which are normal legislative items many of which are critical.

And, according to Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, they’ve been very productive during this legislative session:
Two hundred+ pieces of legislation passed by House Democrats in this Congress this year. Wow! They certainly have been busy. But now, they’ve hit a brick wall: this wicked man in the White House has forced Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts in the House to stop everything and pursue measures to kick him out of office. Any additional legislation by this House of Representatives will have to wait. After all, there is no place for criminals in Washington D.C. — especially not a sitting U.S. President. Mr. Trump has got to go!

It certainly comes as no surprise that House Democrat leaders like Nadler have gone nuts, placing the blame for the legislative logjam in 2019 firmly at the feet of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who controls each and every piece of legislation that is to be taken up by the Senate for discussion on the floor and possible votes for their passage. And now in the last sixty days of the year and with the pending impeachment proceedings against President Trump in the House that are certain to dominate all things in Congress through the end of the year, it is almost certain nothing else will be accomplished on Capitol Hill.

Don’t let any of this cloud your minds regarding the truth of what’s going on. The House Democrats hold a dominant majority and have quickly pushed through dozens and dozens of almost totally partisan bills just to wage a public relations war against Mr. Trump and Congressional Republicans. If one listens to Nancy Pelosi and other Democrat members of House and Senate leadership, Republicans have spent the last year on the golf course, junkets in the Caribbean, and taxpayer-funded trips across the U.S. No, that is what Democrats have been doing rather than meeting with and negotiating meaningful legislation desperately needed by and wanted by Americans. Democrats instead are playing political parlor games refusing to consider any legislation that would make President Trump look better than he already does.

The critical trilateral trade deal between Mexico, the U.S., and Canada is such an example — the “USMCA.” It’s a win, win, win for the three already close trading partners.

American business leaders directly involved in the USMCA sent this to Congressional leadership: “We write to you to urge passage of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement as soon as possible this autumn. . . . North America is the most significant trade market for the United States globally, with Canada and Mexico purchasing one-fifth of the total value of U.S. manufacturing output. Canada and Mexico alone, despite representing less than 4 percent of the global economy, buy more U.S.-manufactured goods than our next 11 trading partners combined.“

If passed, USMCA will create 176,000 jobs and will add $68.2 billion to the U.S. economy, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission.

Where does Speaker Pelosi weigh-in on House completion of the USMCA?

You follow all that, don’t you? “We’ve gotta have enforcement,” she parroted again and again. But isn’t enforcement a key element that Congress includes in ALL trade deals? That’s THE fundamental foundation for any agreement! What  Nancy is saying without spelling it out is “I’m not going to bring to the floor any bill that would possibly make Donald Trump look good. He’s devastated my caucus with great economic legislation and executive action that continue to embarrass us. We’re done with letting that happen. And we don’t care what the USMCA would do for American farmers and manufacturers!”

Besides Impeachment, What’s up for the House in 2020?

We purposely left impeachment alone this weekend. We’ve pretty much already had plenty of that nonsense with plenty more to come. But there IS something really big looming on the horizon for the House that I guarantee you’ve not heard about. This will certainly floor you.

Speaker Pelosi is backing a bill from Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib to make members of Congress exempt from taxation at all levels of government – federal, state, and city. The bill is set to be introduced for a reading this week and early indications are that it will have the unanimous backing of all Democrat members of their majority House of Representatives.

Tlaib took a moment Friday to attempt to justify this outrageous bill:

“The rich of this country don’t pay taxes. They use loophole after loophole and exemption after exemption to escape paying their share and they do nothing for the betterment of the nation.

We in congress work tirelessly for the people and can’t get ahead. If there’s any class of people that should avoid taxation, it is the government public servant. We are working to put more money in your pockets at the same time as our pockets are being emptied.

We are working for you. Don’t we deserve a break for that? Of course we do. We’re a special class. We want recognition for such.”

After you pick your false teeth up off the floor, let’s puzzle through this:

  • We already know that many in Congress — not party-specific — feel that they are underpaid and overworked and deserve special considerations that they already receive and others they feel they deserve.
  • Think about the obvious conundrum with Congresswoman Tlaib’s position: who passes taxes in America? Who can remove taxes in America? Who in government determines what all in government make in payroll and benefits? There’s only one answer to all three questions: the U.S. Congress. Theirs is probably the only employer-employee relationship in the U.S. in which the employee tells the employer what they WILL be paid and what their employee benefits ARE!
  • Why is TruthNewsNetwork is the only news entity to report this to the American public? Please let this prove to you that for the past few years as we have alerted you again and again that the Media are not only in the pockets of Congress, they are in direct partnership with the Democrat Party. The MSM report exactly WHAT they are told to report to Americans and they hide exactly what they are told to HIDE from Americans. This piece of the proposed legislation would fall into the latter of the two categories.

Summary

Let’s be honest with each other: this power grab by the Left is not new, was not unexpected, and has been carefully planned and orchestrated. They have for several decades laid the foundation for doing so. Obama actually initiated the process. Remember his telling us his plan was to “fundamentally change the United States.” He never tried to hide that. In fact, he proudly pursued the entire process very publicly. But his was to be simply Chapter One. Hillary was to transition us into Chapter Two. But something happened that not only intercepted their timing, it short-circuited the entire thing. And it is struggling to survive. That “something” that happened? Donald Trump.

Americans drifted into a mild coma regarding America’s political process during Obama’s two terms. That happened by design. Obama knew that if an attempt was made to overtly overthrow America’s entire political process, the furor from citizens would violently shut it down and possibly permanently. The plan was for Hillary to segue into a more militant and visible Socialist transition that would usher true Democratic Socialism into the previously strongest and freest independent country in World history. She was prepared. The Democrat Party was prepared. The Democrat National Committee was prepared. Democrat activists seeded by Obama into key roles in the federal government were all prepared. What none were prepared for was a two-fold tornado: a New York billionaire who was politically moderate but leaned to the right and who understood what average Americans were missing in their lives and how to give it to them. Part two of that surprise weather freak was a group of 63 million voters who were sick and tired of the same old shtick in Washington D.C. and were hungry for a champion to lead the country away from that demonstrative move toward European-style Socialism. Those Americans too were tired of government corruption and tyranny and were certainly wary of paying the tab. Donald Trump was seen to be their ticket out. And he’s made the Democrat Party by the end of every workday turn into a trembling puddle of confusion from failure to comprehend who Donald Trump is and how he has been able to accomplish all that he has.

This impeachment “inquiry” is nothing more than the next chapter of pushback against Democrats’ biggest foe. Normally that pushback would be to raise a billion campaign dollars, get a very together Democrat candidate to put on the campaign trail against Trump, ( an “Obama II”) and resume their journey toward a socialist America that would be their Nirvana. So what do they do?

I’ll end by quoting Texas Democrat Rep. Al Green who said this about Donald Trump: “We cannot beat him at the polls. So we’ve got to impeach him.”

You just received that House plan as lagniappe today. It’s laughable that they would quietly propose a 50% pay raise with the impeachment process ongoing.

And I thought Rep. Adam Schiff wanted total transparency! That’s nothing more than a talking point to the current Democrat Party.

How should you handle it? Don’t believe what they show you, don’t listen to what they tell you, or believe what they say is real. Expect just the opposite regarding it all.

This impeachment process will play itself out. But, honestly, it will play itself out in a manner that Democrats Will regret they let happen. And it will not only give the White House to the Trumps again, it will give the GOP control of the House once more.

Maybe this time a new House Speaker after having four years of a Trump presidency will see and accept that Americans no longer want top-down government OR top-down representation in the Republican Party.

And if that bill that exempts members of Congress from all federal, state, and local income taxes passes the House and even slips by in the Senate, the President better make a loud declaration of its idiocy when it vetoes it.

The Ruling Class

October 25, 2019

I’ve always loved riding motorcycles: road motorcycles. When we married and began having children, my wife put her foot down, and I left the motorcycle world. Twenty years ago, when our kids left home, she told me I could get a Harley. I did, and I hit the road.

I’ve ridden for more than 100,000 miles seeing North America. And North America is breathtaking from the ground. I had for years, primarily for business, flown all over the Continent but never gave thought to what was 30,000 feet below the plane. The World is vastly different 30,000 feet below that commercial jet — at least different from the perceptions of a jet traveler. At ground level, the “real” America unfolds.

In the United States today, we everyday citizens have evolved from a “salt-of-the-earth” group of gritty settlers who did everything into a country full of “flyover business owners and  vacationers.” Instead of the multi-generational hands-on ways of our forefathers, we live a life based on news headlines and soundbites and find shortcuts for everything. We trust a group of several thousand elected and appointed bureaucrats to run our company for us. We live our hectic lives chasing the dollar while raising a family: you know: a house, three cars, vacation homes, hobbies, being soccer moms, and weekend golfers. We’re just “chasing the dream.” Meanwhile, our government is quietly and steadily taking our company down the tube.

Americans must awaken to the reality of an impending disaster. Our company is in jeopardy — not from a foreign takeover but a hostile management takeover. And somehow, members of our very own management team have stealthily slipped into the ownership of OUR company. Most of those no longer even consider us in their decision-making to run the company, The United States of America.

They have become the “U.S. Ruling Class.”

It’s real, it’s here, and it’s deadly.

Who Are They?

Just look around. Who did you vote for in 2018 to represent you in Congress? No, not every member of the U.S. House of Representatives is part of this “ruling class.” But your representative might be. If they are, they are members of what has heretofore been the most powerful political group in U.S. history.

It’s a closed group of single-minded politicians who have, through decades, developed a method of operating government that requires they walk a thin line. They must simultaneously conduct “normal” government business that company stockholders — American citizens — can watch, along with the sinister operations in which they subvert their positions and the assets of our corporation to achieve their personal long term goals that rarely coincide with ours.

Goals: What Goals?

That’s a great question. I could speculate about the goals of politicians and their objectives. But I won’t do that. But it IS realistic and makes sense for us to look at their actions — at least those we can see — and make logical determinations of what their goals “might” be. Let’s start with something that is seldom mentioned, and when it comes up, conversations about it stop quickly.

Did you know American taxpayers have for decades paid those who are lawmakers’ victims of sexual assault settlements to make those incidents go away, thereby avoiding public embarrassment and litigation? News of this law that structures a process for this has been around for a while. It was only made public in 2017. Let’s look at how all this works:

In 1995, Congress passed the CAA, an effort to apply 12 federal laws to the legislative branch, “Congress has notoriously exempted itself from accountability measures,” said Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, an organization focused on promoting transparency in government, in an email. “It’s no wonder the public has such a low approval of Congress given that they exempt themselves from workplace laws that they apply to the rest of society. It is long overdue for Congress to live by the standards of conduct they appropriately demand from others,” Brian said.

The 1995 law also established “an account of the Office in the Treasury on the United States for the payment of awards and settlements” — a fund paid for by taxes from taxpayers to pay settlements.

The payouts have varied widely, from just under $40,000 in 1997 to more than $4 million in 2007 to just under $1 million in 2017. The fund is virtually unlimited. Much is necessary to pay awards and settlements, and a spokesperson for the Congressional Office of Compliance said that money is only added to the fund when needed for a payment.

The exact source of the money is still a question. The source of the money in the fund is excluded from the standard appropriations budget made public by Congress each year. There’s no process by which voters — or even potential government employees — can find out who are the harassers in the office, or for what they’ve been accused, or if they’ve settled with victims before.

The fund used to settle violations is perhaps just one of several pockets of money throughout the government used to handle judgments made against government employees. As harassment accusations topple prominent men in media, comedy, and Hollywood, it’s come under more scrutiny.

The Settlement and Awards Fund comes from an effort to hold Congress accountable for the federal laws that all other employers have to follow. But as prominent men in other fields have faced snowballing accusations of sexual harassment, it’s instead shielded members of Congress from publicity.

What’s the goal there? It’s to maximize personal opportunities while serving in Congress and pushing responsibility for their “questionable” deeds downstream to American taxpayers.

TravelGate

Average members of Congress struggle with travel to and from their districts. Airplane tickets in and out of Washington are not cheap. But if you’re the Speaker of the House — Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as an example — your travel is not only first-class, it’s in private jets paid for by taxpayers. And the Speaker has taken it to new levels.

We looked at documents from the United States Air Force detailing Speaker Pelosi’s use of United States Air Force aircraft between March 2009 and June 2010. And they pretty much tell the same, outrageous story as previous documents we’ve uncovered and released here.

Here are the highlights from the newest batch of documents obtained under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request:

  • Pelosi used an Air Force aircraft for a total of 85 trips, covering 206,264 miles, from March 2, 2009, through June 7, 2010. Pelosi, her guests, and Air Force personnel logged a total of 428.6 hours on these flights.
  • Members of Pelosi’s family were guests on at least two flights. On June 20, 2009, Speaker Pelosi’s daughter, son-in-law, and two grandsons joined a flight from Andrews Air Force Base to San Francisco International Airport. That flight included $143 in on-flight expenses for food and other items. On July 2, 2010, Pelosi took her grandson on a trip from Andrews Air Force Base to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, which is northeast of San Francisco.
  • One trip in particular — to Milan, Rome, Naples, and Kiev — has received considerable scrutiny. The 2015 tour, from July 30 to Aug. 6, cost the Air Force $184,587.81, documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act show. Pelosi, along with several other Democratic members of Congress, made the trip with members of their families. The exact purpose of the trip remains unclear. A Politico news story at the time alleged Pelosi’s congressional delegation “intended to underscore the U.S. commitment to security in that region.”
  • In 2011, Judicial Watch exposed Pelosi’s rampant use of luxury Air Force jets to travel between Washington, D.C., and her congressional district in California, a 5-hour, 3,000-mile journey each direction. In just two years, Pelosi accumulated $2,100,744.59 worth of travel expenses, which included $101,429.14 for in-flight conveniences, such as food and alcohol.

And Then The Junkets

Travel junkets became a point of discomfort for many voters in 2006-2007 following the discovery of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s frequent use of excursions to influence several elected officials. These fact-finding missions included hard-hitting research such as rounds of golf at Scotland’s famed golf course, St. Andrews, and trips to the Fiesta Bowl and Super Bowl. In actuality, those are just some quick highlights. The list of absurd Abramoff coordinated trips is relatively lengthy. Of course, following the public revelation and the eventual indictment and conviction of Abramoff, all of these trips were deemed either demonstrably illegal or, at the very least, gross misappropriations of an official’s time. Congress passed a bill reigning in gifts, meals, and travel packages from lobbyists, and the number of congressional junkets fell off a cliff—dropping from an all-time high of nearly 5,000 trips in 2005 (at the cost of almost $10 Million) to 1,846 visits the following year. The bill limited trip length on foreign travel to seven days and domestic travel to four days but also allowed for—wait for it—some exceptions. These exceptions included the allowance of educational and charitable groups to finance trips for elected officials.

In entirely unsurprising fashion, it didn’t take long for lobbyists and lawmakers to figure out the best way to utilize the exceptions to their full extent. As an article in the Columbia Journalism Review explained recently:

“The arrangement works like this: a congressional caucus—an official group of lawmakers (there are many) with common characteristics or interests, such as the Congressional Black Caucus or Blue Dog Democrats or the Congressional Marcellus Shale Caucus—sets up a charitable organization. That organization, in turn, seeks donations, which do not have to be disclosed. In addition to its good works, the charitable entity then organizes events, such as conferences or retreats, in which the caucus members rub shoulders with contributors. The nonprofit can invite special interests—corporations, unions, and others—to fork over large donations to sponsor and participate in these events.”

So, not only have lawmakers figured out a way around travel junket reform, but they’ve also figured out a way to turn their vacations into a fundraising tool.

Perhaps the most ostentatious abuse of this new “charitable” junket system came in the summer of 2011, when Eric Cantor arranged for eighty House members and their families to visit Israel through a charity affiliated with the pro-Israeli lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee. This massive “fact-finding mission” was capped off quite embarrassingly, with a (quite possibly drunk) Kansas Representative Kevin Yoder taking a late-night skinny dip in the Sea of Galilee.

Summary

None of these things we mentioned today have much to do with the legislative nightmares we are currently watching play out on the international stage. But they illustrate in part just how many (if not most) members of Congress go to D.C. planning on milking the system — our system of government — to line their pockets most often as a direct expense to taxpayers for all kinds of perks that Americans on the most part don’t know about and certainly do not know how or why they exist and work. These examples are just a fraction of the ways those on the Left are shading American taxpayers. How do they let it happen? Let’s face it: there’s nothing about this for which any member of Congress will take responsibility. If and when someone wants to try, they usually explain this way: “Everybody on Capitol Hill does this. Why shouldn’t I?”

Do you know what’s worse? They get away with all of this! Let’s face facts: having foxes guard a henhouse is a pretty stupid decision on someone’s part.

They’re doing this is NOT just about money. It’s NOT about bringing some low-level employee back to Earth — REAL Earth. It’s about teaching us all a lesson they are confident they’ll win every day.

Last but not least: does any of this illustrate why some, if not all, that we see today in the “Schiff-Pelosi ‘faux’ impeachment inquiry are permeating our 24/7 news cycle? What is right, necessary, and justified for members of Congress to do as part of their jobs for us is diminished by THEIR personal need to perpetuate a gravy-train of benefits that include perks, dollars, investment opportunities, and, most of all, power that comes with “fitting-in” with the D.C. power brokers. The American taxpayers are not on the radar screen of accountability to these Congressional members. Their fantasy world does not extend to the borders of their Congressional Districts. Its boundaries are a two-mile circle around Capitol Hill in D.C. Nothing, and pretty much no one outside that circle is significant to them.

For these and other reasons we have no time to mention, we need to understand that you and I are just a social security number on an IRS tax bill or a zipcode on a contribution check to most of the Congressional members caught-up in the D.C. Circus. There are certainly a bunch who wear white hats. But for the most part, the bad guys are controlling our government.

If you didn’t understand why so many in Washington — even Republicans — expend so much effort, time, and taxpayer money to rid their world of Donald Trump, now you do. He may be rough and he may mix it up like no other politician. But he’s in the corner of everyday Americans. And he always wears a white hat. And he continually fights political corruption. He’s looking under rocks, around corners, and even in the swamp. Someone certainly needs to.

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It’s Groundhog Day — Again!

October 17, 2019

What’s the groundhog fable? If on Groundhog Day the groundhog emerges from his den and he immediately sees his shadow, he will retreat, and Winter will continue for six more weeks. I don’t know how many days have been American voters’ Groundhog Day. Each day we emerge to see the shadow of Washington on the ground in front of us. So we go back into our lives, and the crud in Washington continues. The only difference is the D.C. crud will undoubtedly last longer than six more weeks.

While the House with a multitude of new scheduled hearings is scratching for anything to fuel Trump impeachment, the Grand Groundhog — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) — keeps coming out to a microphone saying, “There’s no requirement that we have a vote. We’re not here to call bluffs. We’re here to find the truth to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Doing so is not a game for us. This is deadly serious.” The House Speaker then retreats to wherever it is she stays while nothing gets done for another day, another week, but hopefully NOT another year, in Congress.

Americans know full well what members of the Democrat side of the aisle in the House ARE doing: “Impeachment Inquiry.” But what are House members NOT doing?

“They’re Not Doing Any of This”
  1. The House is NOT taking up legislation to reform immigration law.
  2. The House is NOT a taking up legislation to take care of the Dreamers that are not citizens but are young Americans who were brought to the U.S. by their illegal parents and have lived here — many of them — for years.
  3. The House is NOT taking up legislation to honestly examine and debate options with the intent to complete a border barrier on our Southern border to curb illegal crossings.
  4. The House is NOT taking actions to repair the Healthcare debacle that they with Democrats in the Senate created with Obamacare — a health finance program that without serious editing and revisions will bankrupt America.
  5. The House is NOT taking up legislation to curb the opioid crisis that is killing thousands of Americans each month.
  6. The House is NOT taking up legislation to address the nation’s homeless problem that is concentrated in the largest U.S. cities.
  7. The House is NOT taking up real budget issues with long term projections and agreement on government spending tackling waste with honesty to balance the budget.
  8. The House is NOT taking up legislation to support efforts of the Trump Administration that have proven successful in attracting significant corporations that previously abandoned the U.S. for other countries with more favorable economics. President Trump has shown the restructuring of Obama-era corporate taxing and regulation assists in attracting new business with existing U.S. companies while attracting foreign-based companies to relocate to the U.S.
  9. The House is NOT taking up legislation to tackle the deadly graft and corruption among elected officials and unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.
  10. The House is NOT taking up legislation to assure federal and state elections are operated honestly and without foreign interference.
  11. The House is NOT taking up legislation to eliminate election fraud in all 50 states in spite of assurances by former President Obama that there have been NO frauds committed in previous elections.
  12. The House is NOT taking up legislation to rein-in the unfairness of federal election campaign finance.
  13. The House is NOT taking up legislation to regulate or to altogether eliminate federal lobbying, which would remove much of the financial corruption running rampant among members of Congress and members of special interests.
  14. The House is NOT taking up legislation regarding federal and private partnerships for critical infrastructure programs across the country.
  15. The House is NOT taking up legislation regarding the restructuring of the federal tax system to make it fairer and simpler so that every American contributes at some level with personal and corporate investment in its government operations.
  16. The House is NOT taking up legislation to assist our allies in the Middle East in the development of policies to stem terrorist attacks by ISIS and other organizations.
  17. The House is NOT taking up legislation to assure all international agreements between the U.S. and other governments are treaties that require confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
  18. The House is NOT taking up legislation to correct issues that resulted from the federal takeover of the management of college student loans.
  19. The House is NOT taking up legislation to eliminate some House recesses and shorten others to process more legislation that is passed-over because of session time restrictions.

Here’s the big reason the House is not doing more: their work schedule. (click on the hyperlink to go to the 2019 Full House Legislative Calendar) https://truthnewsnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019-House-Schedule.pdf

If you look through the calendar as compared to yours, here’s how many days in each month the House was in session as of October 15, 2019, and how many workdays they have not worked (“workdays are M-F minus federal holidays):

  • January they were in session 19 of 24 workdays
  • February they were in session 16 of 20 workdays
  • March they were in session 16 of 21 workdays
  • April they were in session 14 of 22 workdays
  • May they were in session 17 of 22 workdays
  • June they were in session 17 of 20 workdays
  • July they were in session 17 of 23 workdays
  • August they were in session 9 of 22 workdays
  • September they were in session 16 of 20 workdays
  • October 1 thru October 15 they were in session 5 of 12 workdays

That means in 2019, of 206 possible workdays (Monday through Friday of each week minus Federal Holidays), the House has been in session so far just 146. That means they worked only 71% of the time they could have worked conducting legislative tasks.

In fairness, these Representatives will maintain that they took time to meet with their constituents in their districts during the year and took time with their families for vacations. No one loves family vacations more than I. But taking one week for a family vacation during each of the two years of their two-year-term seems fair. Allowing two weeks per year to campaign in their home districts while meeting with constituents still means they would have worked 156 days of the possible 206 they could have been in session or just 76% of their time while taking a week for vacation and two weeks for meeting with and campaigning among their constituents in their respective districts.

I agree with the premise that the Congressional job is tough. I agree that being away from home while living in a pressure-packed political environment with weighty expectations for job performance is robust. But they each knew all of this when they chose to campaign for the job.

In my professional career, I have had hundreds, if not thousands of employees. Each of those during their job interview received in writing what their job expectations were, work schedule, and a full list of benefits. Each of those hired was expected to abide by the requirements of their job that were revealed and agreed to when they accepted employment. Why should it be different for members of Congress? How can we expect less and allow less than we do from any non-political employee of our own?

Americans have during the last decade lived in a nonstop news environment. That 24/7 news cycle is the “new” norm. Subsequently, Americans are learning more details of government operations. Americans are now as never before understanding the specifics of accomplishments by our elected officials in passing legislation. Therefore Americans know better than ever how the bureaucracy of Washington D.C. was created and has been perpetuated to facilitate working conditions, compensation, and benefits for members themselves that are not as were intended. Americans are angry.

Summary

D.C. is not working. Congressional operations must be changed. Members of Congress must work smarter, harder, and longer in their present jobs. If their Congressional job is too harsh, they should resign.

One might consider that an unrealistic expectation. But we all know to live and work in Washington is harder and more demanding than in Hometown America. That is why just a few can do so successfully. Based on the Congressional favorability ratings of Americans, members of Congress are felt to be less than expected and accomplishing far less than expected by Americans. And Americans who see all that is left unfinished are more than ever demanding changes to be made. Congress must complete those essential tasks that are pushed to the back of the line in each Congressional session and never finished.

If you’ve wondered why the Democrat-controlled House has essentially one agenda only — Impeachment — wonder no more. It is because the Democrat Party has only one plank in their party platform for the 2020 election. If Donald Trump is re-elected, it will obliterate their historical operating methods, shine the light of truth in the Swamp, and expose the waste and lack of fulfillment of necessary tasks by each Congress. They cannot allow that to happen.

Expect the angst, bitterness and vocal haranguing to only worsen the closer we get to November of 2020. Don’t expect much legislative progress either. Democrats refuse to allow Mr. Trump any new legislative triumphs until they hopefully vote him out of office.

In the meantime, expect another Ground Hog Day or two often in the next year or so.

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Context or Soundbites?

October 16, 2019

The most shocking thing about the current House Democrat closed-door hearings is that by locking-down those hearings, Dems are locking-out Congressional Republicans who are responsible for Congressional actions to the citizens they represent. In Monday’s 9-hour House Joint Committee hearing with Fiona Hill— a former State Department employee — reams of testimony from Ms. Hill are out there somewhere in the “blogosphere,” but in a place which is taboo to Republicans.

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz attempted to enter the hearing but was told he could not. A Congressional parliamentarian who controls hearing access stated that because Rep. Gaetz is not a member of any of the three committees that joined together for this hearing, House rules precluded him from being in the room.

The House Intelligence Committee, chaired by California Democrat Adam Schiff, is running the meetings, but the investigation also includes the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as well as the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Gaetz IS a member of the Judiciary Committee, which has the sole power to instigate impeachment proceedings against a president. Here’s what Gaetz said about that: “Judiciary Chairman [Nadler] claimed to have begun the impeachment inquiry weeks ago,” he wrote. “Now, his own Judiciary members aren’t even allowed to participate in it.”

So why all the secrecy? After all, these interviews and testimony are expressly for one purpose: to find evidence to use in the impeachment of the president of the United States. It is safe to say the Democrat game plan is to control all the information released about these hearings — including “their” version of testimony given. Why? They must control the context.

Context

“Context” defined by Merriam-Webster: “the parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw light on its meaning.”

Words on their own cannot be allowed outside the committee hearing walls. Democrats must filter all testimony and edit it down to just a few sentences — a few sentences that supposedly encompass all of the nine-ten hours of testimony.

That isn’t possible. Context — especially that in such a lengthy meeting replete with Q & A of members of Congress and a key witness — is necessary to capture the meanings of events and people investigated along with their testimony.

But Democrats cannot afford for the light of truth to be seen and heard by Americans outside of Washington. Democrats are afraid of the truth! In the case of President Trump, the truth is that there was no wrongdoing on his part — indeed, not anything impeachable. And what has been “leaked” to the media from these hearings is certainly benign at its worst and supportive of the President at its best. Neither of those narratives is what Democrats want to discuss in Breitbart, in the Wall Street Journal, or on FOX News. So what do they do? Simply delete any context.

Context in these hearings is required. Here’s a sample news story that illustrates the necessity of context:

”A six-year-old Salt Lake City child died in a horrible car crash on Nevada’s I-15 yesterday afternoon. The mother was the driver of the car. She lost control of her vehicle at mile marker 456, leaving the road running head-on into a bridge abutment. Blood tests are inconclusive as to the possible role  of alcohol in the wreck.”

Here’s the same story in context:

”A young girl riding in a car with her mother died in a car crash north of Las Vegas. The woman, who police say was driving below the speed limit, was driving north on Interstate 15 late yesterday afternoon. She along with her daughter who was in her booster chair were the only ones in their car. At mile marker 456, the driver of a late model Chevrolet pickup southbound on I-15 lost control, crossed the median striking the car occupied by the Salt Lake City mother and daughter. The young girl was pronounced dead at the scene while her mother is reported to be in serious condition at Valley Hospital in Las Vegas. She is expected to make a full recovery. Tests for possible alcohol influence of the truck driver is being investigated.”

You see, context can dramatically change the narrative given to those who have no firsthand knowledge of an event. The presentation is everything.

In all of these hearings conducted by Congressional Democrats behind closed doors are supposed to be either classified or purposely kept secret to “protect the witnesses from outside threats and harassment.” We all know now that it is nothing but nonsense. Their purpose is singular: to trap Americans with out-of-context narrative to paint a picture of facts that are NOT factual but are to make Democrats and their agenda appear palatable, accurate and truthful — even when they are anything but that.

Without Context What Do We Get?

Here’s the problem with the “Adam Schiff Hearing Plan:”

  • It is impossible to know what questions were asked in the hearing. Who asked what? What were the witness’ answers?
  • What exactly did the witness say in their answers to the questions?
  • What was the demeanor of the witness? Did he/she get rattled? If so, as a result of which question? What exactly was their response?
  • Who from the committee asked what questions?

Without the answers to these specific questions, it is impossible to put anything we are told from that hearing in context to give the full story, just like in the car wreck story given above. But in a natural setting, it is far less likely and much more secretive.

Do you remember the cries from Democrats when President Trump had the transcript of his conversation with Ukraine’s President Zelensky released to the media? The call transcript was ripped to shreds because “it was partisan, opinionated, and in snippets rather than being the actual phone call to allow House members to hear conversations to ascertain what was being asked and answered.”

So what is different from the Zelensky call transcript and the actions of the Democrats running these closed-door hearings? From the average American’s perspective, there is NO difference.

Details from House Committee Hearings

They held a nine-hour hearing with former State Department employee Fiona Hill. What have you heard about the content of that hearing? After all, it was a confidential hearing of which NO ONE had the authority to leak hearing contents. Are you surprised details were leaked — to CNN?

Washington (CNN) Some of the White House’s most senior foreign policy officials were trying to raise the alarm about the administration’s potentially illegal activity in Ukraine well before President Donald Trump’s now notorious call with his counterpart in Kiev, according to stunning new testimony in the impeachment inquiry.

Fiona Hill, Trump’s former top Russia adviser, said in a startling deposition Monday that then-national security adviser John Bolton told her to tip off White House lawyers about the activities of Giuliani and others, according to sources familiar with her testimony. Bolton’s advice followed a meeting two weeks before the call between the two presidents on July 25, one source said.
Is it any surprise that the private, secret, confidential testimony at a hearing in which no Republican members participated and that CNN immediately released a story about? No confirmation, no interviews with Hill allowed, and no way for any American to factually counter details released.
Does that sound like part of the legal process in the Nation that guarantees  access to question one’s accuser and the protection of human rights in such matters? What is going on? Answer: Democrat response in made-for-media edited and faceless soundbites that cannot be verified for accuracy. The fingerprints of Adam Schiff are all over this hearing.
Why were Democrats so hell-bent on keeping Ms. Hill’s testimony away from Republican scrutiny? That answer is in this story:
House Democrats’ interest in Hill’s testimony goes beyond the Ukraine whistleblower issues. She’s an associate of Christopher Steele, the British ex-spy who produced the 2016 dossier on then-presidential candidate Trump, which included salacious allegations about his past activities in Moscow as a businessman. House Democrats hope that with Hill’s front row seat to Russia-related events, she can provide details about Trump’s conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the May 2017 Oval Office meeting between Trump and two top Russian officials.

Summary: Soundbites

Here’s what is happening: Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Eric Swalwell (D-CA), with the approval of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) are presenting an orchestrated fiasco in which secret hearings conducted in which they attack current and former Trump associates in desperate attempts to induce one or several to turn on Mr. Trump and provide dirt on the President. Even if there continues to be no dirt exposed about the President, you can bet Democrats have offered some deals if they’ll flip and even if they’ll say something negative even if not authentic!

Their primary interest in Fiona Hill is that she was an associate of Christopher Steele, who was the author of the Steele Dossier, used as THE evidence that prompted the electronic surveillance of Carter Page and the justification for the investigation of the Trump Campaign. They still feel they can tie the President to Russians, which will give them leverage in the 2020 election. To that end, they are using anything they can to confuse Americans.

Who had Russian dealings in the 2016 election? Not Donald Trump; it was Hillary Clinton! Her campaign funded the Steele Dossier. They depend on young Americans and their naïveté to overcome the tired and ineffective policies of the  “old folks” from the Great Old Party. That’s why Republicans are not allowed to attend these hearings. They’d see everything and would know the truth firsthand.

Democrats want to with soundbites only not present facts or quotes or even snippets of witness testimonies. They want Americans to “just trust us” and believe what they claim to be a factual hook, line, and sinker. And, sadly, there is a large number of Americans who will believe all that. After all, these are members of Congress. Surely they would not mislead the American public, right?

It all boils down to this: Securing and maintaining the viability of the Deep State is all that matters to Democrats and their publicity department — CNN and MSNBC. The question is: “Will it be a successful exercise, or will it destroy the small amounts of American trust and belief in Congress.”

Let’s hope that President Trump and his staff can keep themselves above the fray. If so, there will be a resounding beat-down in 2020 that will flood the streets of Washington with conservatives and also in cities across America.

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House Oversight Committee: What are They Hiding From Americans?

October 15, 2019

According to Bill Shakespeare, “The eyes are the windows to the soul.” Looking at Adam Schiff, (picture to the left) one would think his soul is full of some pretty nasty stuff!

An almost universal feeling for political savvy Americans is distrust of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) who chairs the powerful House Oversight Committee. That Committee is charged with looking into operations of every department of every government entity in operation including financial and actual operating procedures.

As the makeup of Congress changes, so does the constitution of every committee. The majority party has a very attractive chore that House leadership gets to use to give their party legislative power over those in the minority party. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as do all Speakers carefully chose those to chair the most important  committees. For the House Judiciary Committee — where “real” impeachment must be initiated according to the U.S. Constitution — Pelosi appointed as chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). The arguably second most powerful committee — the House Oversight Committee — is led by the Democrat Party “Witchhunt Bulldog” Rep. Adam Schiff of California. Both committees since Democrats won House control have concentrated almost solely on getting rid of President Trump. (Forget about legislation: “Let’s Get Trump!) Both Schiff and Nadler have walked through the fields of harvested evidence ignoring the “real” crop of facts to daisy-pick any piece of evidence they think they can use to use against President Trump. Their problem has been that there are not very many pieces showing Trump wrongdoing. Never mind: they’re really good at manufacturing “evidence” to say what they need it to say.

Having no factual evidence against President Trump should end their nonstop committee hearings, one would think. Not so. They both continue to dominate the focus of the House with some new piece of “evidence” that requires virtually every minute of their committees’ time to investigate rather than to conduct the normal business of the House of Representatives.

Schiff is without question the most partisan, the angriest, and most vile member of House leadership. He’s so vile, he makes fellow Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) look like a kindergarten school teacher. We will not chronicle all the lies he has told through the last few years — we’ve done that before. But what we will do is ask some questions in an attempt to discover if he is hiding and what he is hiding from Americans. Why would we think he is hiding something? Just follow this line of reasoning:

  • The House is contemplating pursuing the most impactful act to our nation’s political institution and its structure: the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
  • The House of Representatives is known as the “Peoples’ House” — they are supposedly chosen to serve a short term of two years and while doing so representing those like-minded other citizens from their communities. They are to speak “our” minds not their own.
  • Following that line of reasoning, one’s expectation should be they are to reflect the people of one’s own district in writing bills and passing bills into law, strictly for the betterment of their districts first but put into the context of what’s best for the Nation.
  • Impeachment is not a legal issue. The House is constitutionally required to investigate a president when applicable for the commitment of “High crimes and Misdemeanors.”  The House does not conduct a trial for impeachment. The House investigates, gathers evidence, and determines if the evidence is sufficient to pass Articles of Impeachment that then go to the Senate which holds the sole Constitutional authority to try those impeached.

So why does this House of Representatives (led by Schiff rather than House Speaker Pelosi) insist on privately conducting what are called “classified” hearings with witnesses rather than conduct these hearings with full television and radio coverage so that Americans can see and hear the testimony of witnesses? Both Schiff and Nadler have continually maintained they have “sufficient evidence to justify the impeachment of President Trump.” That’s the question we are working to answer for you — hopefully today.

What Does it Take to Justify Impeachment?

“Treason, High Crimes and Misdemeanors.” According to Article II Section IV of the Constitution, these elements must in whole or even in part be evident and verifiable to successfully impeach a President. So what does that phrase actually mean?

The charge of high crimes and misdemeanors covers allegations of misconduct by officials, such as dishonesty, negligence, perjury of oath, abuse of authority, bribery, intimidation, misuse of public funds or assets, failure to supervise, dereliction of duty, unbecoming conduct, refusal to obey a lawful order, chronic intoxication, or tax evasion. Offenses by officials also include ordinary crimes, but perhaps with different standards of proof and punishment than for non-officials, on the grounds that more is expected of officials by their oaths of office. The word “High” refers to the offense and not the office. Any elected government official may be impeached. There are some who posit that “High” refers to the level of office. But that interpretation is false, and lowers a standard of similarity, whereby the US Constitution refers to Treason and Bribery, and other crimes that are “High”—of equivalence to Treason and Bribery. Some also akin “Misdemeanors” as current lower crimes in many jurisdictions. At the founding there was no reference to a misdemeanor in criminal law. High Crimes and Misdemeanors provides for other malfeasance at a level similar to Treason and Bribery. Indeed the offense may not even be a breach of criminal statute. (See Harvard Law Review) The majority view is that a president can legally be impeached for “intentional, evil deeds” that “drastically subvert the Constitution and involve an unforgivable abuse of the presidency — even if those deeds didn’t violate any criminal laws.”

Just to be totally transparent, President Trump to be impeached does not have to have broken any laws of any kind. That means, of course, no American president should break any laws. That is troubling to millions of Americans, as it should be. The conclusion for all of us should be that President Trump can be impeached for committing an act or acts that do not reveal any criminal wrongdoing.

Members of Democrat Party leadership in the House have exhibited not a single choke or filter on their stated and obvious plans to impeach President Trump. We previously showed you a live report from a sitting member of the House who two days before Donald Trump had even taken the oath of office stated he would vote for articles of impeachment of Donald Trump as President.

But back to Adam Schiff. So far, the Oversight Committee hearings, for the most part, have been held behind closed doors. The reasoning provided by Schiff for the secrecy is to both protect the identities of those who testify, and to make certain that those who would “literally attack these witnesses will not have possible ammunition for any attacks. We know they are out there,” said Schiff.

Any reasonable person who has watched Schiff’s actions since 2o16 know he and his cohorts have one purpose for their anti-Trump rhetoric and now with House power are fulfilling: Stop Donald Trump!

Rep. Adam Schiff: “Full Speed Ahead!”

Schiff did not just get started with impeachment. Schiff impeachment calls began in earnest shortly after Mr. Trump moved into the White House. Republicans pointed to a March 2017 appearance on MSNBC in which Schiff said “there is more than circumstantial evidence now” of a relationship between Russia and Trump’s associates. In December of that year, Schiff said on CNN: “The Russians offered help, the campaign accepted help. The Russians gave help and the president made full use of that help. That is pretty damning, whether it is proof beyond a reasonable doubt of conspiracy or not.”

And in May of 2018, Schiff said on ABC that the Russian trolling of Democratic National Committee emails is “like Watergate in the sense that you had a break-in at the Democratic headquarters, in this case, a virtual one, not a physical break-in, and you had a president as part of a cover-up,” he said. Schiff said later that the Russia investigation is “size and scope probably beyond Watergate.”

On numerous occasions, Schiff said publicly that he had plenty of evidence of Mr. Trump’s wrongdoing that was sufficient to impeach him and successfully try and convict him in the Senate. So why has that not happened until these latest attempts? There’s a simple answer: Schiff lied; there’s no “irrefutable evidence” that supports impeachment; he’s pushing forward in hopes of finding someone from the White House to turn on President Trump and provide damning evidence against him. That did not happen in 2018 or so far in 2019. But Adam Schiff has made it abundantly clear: he will not quit until he drives Donald Trump from office.

What’s Hidden?

One must first believe there really is something hidden that Schiff and Company are desperately keeping from Americans.  The “and Company” (of “Schiff and Company) would be the likes of James Clapper, John Brennan, Andrew McCabe, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, and many officials in the former Administration. It appears that much of the investigatory findings of such wrongdoing that occurred before and during the Russia Collusion investigation are about to be dumped on the American public — in fact as early as Friday, October 18th. Like most Americans who are waiting for that information certain to be included in the Inspector General’s report, one would think members of the House of Representatives would be psyched— psyched that the truth will finally be released. It should include details of the matters surrounding 2016 election tampering and the alleged wrongdoing by government employees accused of illegal investigations against Mr. Trump. It is safe to say that Rep. Adam Schiff is not one of those Americans hoping to get to the truth. In fact, Mr. Schiff is trying to hide the truth. Let me explain.

  • There’s MUCH at stake for MANY people. John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strozk, and others who were operatives whose communications have shown extreme animus for Mr. Trump will certainly be fingered in this report. Any of those who have been exposed for committing illegal activities should and probably will be referred to the Justice Department for prosecution. Those could very well be the list of those included in the previous sentence and even others. And there probably will be trials and prison sentences for some of those exposed and referred for prosecution.
  • How could the 2.5 year Mueller investigation with 30 fulltime investigators and staff who spent $30 million dollars investigating these claims against the President be so inept as to miss any Trump wrongdoing? Obviously, there was none. But that’s not good enough for Mr. Schiff.
  • Remember the “Ukraine-Gate” Schiff initiated investigation? Remember that first whistleblower who certainly had dirt on the President regarding that phone call with Ukraine President Zelensky? “The American people need to hear from that Whistleblower who has evidence of pressure put on President Zelensky to investigate President Trump’s leading opponent in 2020’s election,” said Rep. Schiff. Guess what — Schiff said this on CBS October 13th: “Our primary interest right now is making sure that that person is protected,” Schiff stated. “Indeed, now there is more than one whistleblower, that they are protected. And given that we already have the call record, we don’t need the whistleblower, who wasn’t on the call, to tell us what took place during the call. We have the best evidence of that.” Schiff could not care less about the whistleblower. He, some from his staff, and probably other committee members met with the first whistleblower long before the claim was made. There is actually evidence that Schiff and Company assisted in the preparation of the whistleblower filing. We already know that the whistleblower is a former CIA operative who was loyal to former CIA Director John Brennan who is alleged to have taken part in this whistleblower action. Schiff is just concerned about being implicated in his own actions.

Summary

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) is treading water as hard and fast as possible. What are he and other members of his committee hiding? The answer to that is apparently their personal involvement in cover-ups and lies for which they are personally responsible. They are petrified that the Friday October 18 release of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’ report on wrongdoing in the 2016 Trump election investigation will implicate them in multiple ways.

Their evidence of wrongdoing must be significant. Why? D.C. politicians have historically been able to hide most of their wrongdoing — especially political corruption. With this President and his commitment to “draining the Swamp,” they are really nervous — and they should be. Mr. Trump has pulled the plug on the tub these swamp creatures have called their own for decades. And when the water that they have used for cover is drained away, the critters in the swamp are fighting for survival.

But what is the purpose — the single purpose — of Democrats closing of the hearings to the public? They must control the narrative of what comes to the public from these hearings. What we’ve seen so far in their endeavors is only couched stories that are incomplete replete with cherry-picked tidbits when taken out of context of the full hearings can make the President look bad. They do not want the American to see and hear any of this testimony in context. They MUST control the narrative to have any hope of getting Mr. Trump.

Their attacks on their “foe” of three years have apparently been unsuccessful. Why? Because Mr. Trump has apparently kept his nose clean. Their actions since 2016, however, have been exactly opposite of President Trump’s.

They should be nervous — maybe even more than just nervous. With the information that has oozed out of the IG report, some of them should be concerned about who will be their cell mates!

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New Collusion Exposed: It’s NOT Trump

October 9, 2019

We’ve spent the last three years looking for the “Boogie Man” that Donald Trump used to unethically and illegally win Mr. Trump the 2016 presidency. After all, his election victory certainly is not because Americans chose him to be their president.

Immediately after the Trump inauguration, the Russia Collusion story was initiated. We know much now that many suspected but could not be proven at the time: that the Collusion story and subsequent investigation was a sham — a diversion pitched to Americans by a posse of unethical politicians and top-level Intelligence officials who for not-yet verified reasons desperately needed Hillary Clinton in the White House.

The Mueller Investigation from the day Mueller was named Special Counsel for the Russian probe was thought to be simply a diversion instigated by those in that “posse.” They were desperate to find that Donald Trump had some way and somehow reached out to Russia for election help and that they could uncover and expose it. They needed Donald Trump out of the picture.

Mueller exonerated Mr. Trump with his final report. That is factual in spite of the cries from the Media that the Mueller findings did not do so. Subsequently, there was a “Muller Probe-Lite” that lasted a minute or so as the Left ramped up charges of Trump’s obstruction of justice. It quickly faded away.

Here came Ukraine! President Trump was stated to have in a telephone conversation with the newly elected Ukrainian President asked President Zelensky to open a corruption investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden. Those allegations were made and immediately became headlines in every newspaper, online news outlet, television and radio talk show: “President Trump Seeks Ukraine Help for 2020 Assistance.” Of course, those headlines were lies.

You now know the truth: Pelosi and Co. had already announced an “impeachment inquiry.” They were in a panic to find justification to initiate impeachment proceedings against the President. When this fake-news was released, that was their proverbial “straw” needed for “more formal” impeachment proceedings. And it’s on!

Trump blew their minds when he immediately released the transcript of the phone call. They were shocked that he did so without any formal subpoena for the mud they could use against him. The call transcript vindicated the President for his alleged attempt to receive election help from Ukraine to find dirt on a Trump 2020 election opponent: former VP Joe Biden.

There was NO collusion between Donald Trump and Ukraine.

But it has been revealed there MAY be some collusion with Ukraine by a very important U.S. politician that does not live in the White House but works on Capitol Hill: Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).

Schiff hates Donald Trump. He’s spent every waking minute since the 2016 election saying and doing anything and everything he can do to possibly assist him to get Trump out of office. We don’t need to list those for you — they’ve been all over the news. The leftist media fawn at his every word, most of which are false as they pertain to the President. But now, Mr. Schiff has been exposed as being in the tank for a very wealthy and very politically connected billionaire oligarch from Ukraine!

Mr. Schiff May Really Be “Shifty Schiff”

Have you before heard the name, Igor Pasternak? Before we’re done today, you’ll know quite a bit about this Ukrainian gun dealer, business mogul and a major contributor to politicians in the U.S. As long ago as 2014, we have been able to find links between Pasternak and multiple U.S. politicians.

Pasternak, who was raised and educated in Ukraine before immigrating to the United States, is a passionate promoter of Ukrainian culture and business. He has been active in both Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. to support increased ties between the two countries and has been especially active in building awareness of Ukraine’s strategic economic importance among Members of Congress. Since political protests broke out across Ukraine in late 2013, Pasternak has worked to personally inform and educate Members of Congress about the importance of Ukraine to European and US security.

That’s the good stuff.

Igor is an arms dealer who sells arms that include fully automatic M4, M16 rifles as well as much more sophisticated and “serious” military arms. He’s armed the armies and militia of many countries in the Middle East, Europe, and Southeast Asia. And, more importantly, he is very connected to those on the “dark side” of politics in Ukraine.

He’s been in the U.S. for some time. And while here, he quickly learned the importance of obtaining and nurturing relationships with heavyweight U.S. politicians. He quickly found a willing candidate to fill such a role: Adam Schiff.

Hmm… This is Rep. Adam Schiff — the California Democrat who is in front of television cameras and radio microphones daily in his quest to kick Donald Trump out of the White House. His latest ploy is to attempt to connect President Trump with Ukraine’s president Zelensky alleging the President has attempted to pressure Zelensky to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden for apparent corruption with other Ukrainians using Congressional approved foreign aid for Ukraine as a tool. But it seems Schiff may be leveraging Ukraine from another direction for some other purpose.

How are Schiff and Pasternak Connected?

It started this way: Pasternak emigrated to the U.S. in 1994 where he started a company: Aeroscraft. Pasternak then reached into the U.S. political atmosphere to find some friendly politicians who could help him assist the Ukrainian government on a really big project: transitioning their military firearms away from those previously used and relied on from Russia. Pasternak suggested the M16 American rifle. Introducing Adam Schiff.

Newsweek followed the Ukraine small-arms problem as a Ukrainian arms company — Ukroboronservis — sought to partner with an American company for the project: Aeroscraft.

Aeroscraft, the American firm owned by Pasternak partnered with Ukroboronservis to produce M16s, is a California-based aviation company specializing in lighter-than-air aircraft—including airships intended for U.S. military use.

As most Americans know, there have been for decades amazing foreign business opportunities for foreign companies through partnerships and joint-ventures with American companies to reach world markets. Aeroscraft sought those opportunities using Pasternak’s Ukraine connections and with political assistance in the U.S. As a Californian, the obvious place to start was with California politicians. He met Adam Schiff and the two clicked. One thing led to another and Pasternak became a major fundraiser for Schiff.

I’m not sure you can read the picture on the left, but it’s an invitation to a “Taste of Ukraine Reception” held by Pasternak at his home for a $2500 contribution per person. The recipient of the proceeds was “Adam Schiff for Congress.” That was in 2013.

There have been other fundraisers held by Pasternak for politicians other than Schiff. But Schiff has been the most involved. Even this year (2019) Schiff during one Congressional recess made a trip to Ukraine. Under the current circumstances, that’s really not surprising. He was part of a group that was sponsored by Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. See Schiff’s name underlined in red on the flight manifest shown on the right side of the story. The trip for that group happened from August 24 to August 31, 2019.

Who is The Atlantic Council? The Atlantic Council is an American Atlanticist think tank in the field of international affairs. Founded in 1961, it provides a forum for international political, business, and intellectual leaders. It manages ten regional centers and functional programs related to international security and global economic prosperity. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C. It is a member of the Atlantic Treaty Association.

Summary

So what does this association between Congressman Schiff and Igor Pasternak mean? Is it on its face somehow evil? Does it portend unethical or evil behavior on the part of either Schiff or Pasternak? Not necessarily. But, in the words of those on the left at the release of the Mueller Report, while this association does not implicate either gentleman for any wrongdoing, it does NOT exonerate either.

It’s humorous that if we are to use the definitions, thought processes and practices that the Left have sold-out to, Schiff, in this case, would not only be evil, but in cahoots with a Ukranian billionaire oligarch who’s in the tank with an element of the Ukraine government that is corrupt and they’ve found a way to manufacture American-made M16’s and sell them to the Ukranian government. What’s that old saying I’ve shared with you many times: “If it quacks and waddles it’s probably a duck.”

In all sincerity, I have no factual information about this relationship. We did reach out to Rep. Schiff’s office for comment. I expect someone will call me back to comment when Hell freezes over! Nevertheless, we have and will stick with the legitimate, righteous, and Constitutional way to approach the possible relationship of Mr. Schiff and Mr. Pasternak being to somehow be for criminal purposes — you know: “Innocent until proven guilty.” It just seems in the environment created by Schiff in the witchhunt of Donald Trump that Mr. Schiff may be able to at least shed light on how one conducts such activities, even if he is not personally part of any illegalities. By his measure, however, we would be guilty if you or I was in such a relationship.

By the way: in the picture below, that’s Igor Pasternak…with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi1

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I’m Sick and Tired!

October 3, 2019

Ten years ago I created a website titled “SickAndTired.com.” Its sole purpose was to allow me to vent regarding craziness in government and in life in general that had very little if any plausible explanations for existing. After six months or so I discontinued it. Why? Certainly not because instances of craziness stopped or lessened in number. It was because documenting the craziness I saw around me did nothing but give me more heartburn and fury when I recalled and wrote about them! But as much as I’d like, it’s impossible to ignore craziness in the governance of our country. It is never more obvious than in tracking Congressional actions on a day-to-day basis. And this “impeachment inquiry” as House Speaker Pelosi and friends have termed it falls into the category of the same craziness that prompted me to start that website.

There is no doubt that impeachment plays a large and vital role in the U.S. government. It was devised by a group of guys who had just fled a European government in which the ultimate authority was always a King and his cohorts. Honesty, fairness, truthfulness, and integrity were necessary for everyone under that government and its laws — except the King and others of his posse. The average guy on the street who worked hard to just feed a family had to abide by different rules. Our forefathers righted that with the finest and longest-lasting nation’s constitution: ours.

The Constitution sets the framework for 100% of the operations of our government — PERIOD! There are guidelines for every part of government operation. In the case where items pop-up that were not anticipated in the late 1700s when it was written, the Constitution includes provisions for altering the original existing rules. Just as important as are the rules themselves are the rules that govern the process to change those rules. That is called “amending” the Constitution.

My angst today centers around the current House of Representative’s actions initiated regarding impeachment. But it’s not for impeachment itself. It is a result of the process for doing so that has consumed the Nation. We saw it first with the Mueller Investigation. We saw the process of an elite class of people who wrestled control of governing away from the core process from the Constitution that was non-existent in those European governments but necessary for the success of America. Let’s dig in.

The Rule of Law

The Rule of Law is the complete structure of the process of creating laws by and for the people of a nation, implementing those laws evenly across the entire body of its citizens, holding every person in the country governed by those laws equally according to the law, and a process for each time there are disputes by either the government or its constituents to address those disputes fairly and impartially. That’s how our founders came up with the three co-equal branches of government: The Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches, each with specific tasks.

So what’s the problem today? Primarily, one segment of the Legislative branch has seized control of the process for enforcing laws fairly and equally among all Americans. And they are without authority, re-writing the “Rule of Law” as it is set forth in the Constitution.

Make no mistake about it: there have been and always will be disputes among lawmakers and those who live by laws and those who are legally obligated to enforce laws. But it has never been more obvious than it is now. This “impeachment inquiry” initiated in the House by Speaker Pelosi and a close circle of her fellow Democrats is the most egregious example of the abuse of the Rule of Law I have ever witnessed. It is best described in this manner:

  • Ordinarily, when a crime is committed, law enforcement is empowered to and then responsible to find any wrongdoers, then to bring those people to the Judicial branch to be held accountable for their wrongdoing. Of course, the wrongdoer who is guaranteed “equal treatment under the law” is entitled to a legal defense to present evidence and witness testimony that disputes the claim or claims of wrongdoing. The Constitution guarantees that every person is “innocent until proven guilty,” called the presumption of innocence.” 
  • Then members of the Judicial branch — attorneys and/or juries comprised of ordinary citizens randomly selected — examine all the evidence, ask questions and obtain answers, and then reach a conclusion, or a verdict.
  • In the case of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt,” punishment, as defined in applicable laws for that wrongdoing, is meted out and the wrongdoer receives the legal sentence. Sometimes sentences are fines, sometimes jail, sometimes both, and sometime exoneration.

It sounds simple, doesn’t it? The framers of the Constitution purposely made it that way so as to protect citizens against the type of top-down unfairness they had lived under in Europe. The premise is that in a fair society, no government or representative of the government should hold a right that supersedes the rights of citizens over which they govern. That is what has been turned inside out by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and other Democrats in leadership in the House of Representatives. What we are witnessing is a copycat — albeit updated historically — of the Salem Witch Trials. What were they?

The infamous Salem witch trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a special court convened in Salem to hear the cases; the first convicted witch, Bridget Bishop, was hanged that June. Eighteen others followed Bishop to Salem’s Gallows Hill, while some 150 more men, women and children were accused over the next several months. By September 1692, the hysteria had begun to abate and public opinion turned against the trials. Though the Massachusetts General Court later annulled guilty verdicts against accused witches and granted indemnities to their families, bitterness lingered in the community, and the painful legacy of the Salem witch trials would endure for centuries.

Don’t get me wrong: no one is demanding the burning at the stake of anyone — yet. But the hatred and animus for President Trump has deteriorated daily since the day of the 2016 election. The question that must be asked and then answered is simple: Why the hatred from Democrats for Donald Trump?

The Crime

A crime committed is required to initiate any legal investigation regarding finding a perpetrator or perpetrators who commited that crime, their motives, and the crime’s details. In this case, let’s list the crimes that have been committed that have implicated President Trump that could instigate an impeachment process. Here they are:

  1. He’s not “presidential!
  2. He’s a narcissist!
  3. Democrats don’t like him!
  4. He’s arrogant!

There never was a crime by Mr. Trump or any member of his campaign that had anything to do with him that was discovered by the exhaustive investigative team compiled by Robert Mueller in a 3-year, $30-$40 million investigation!

Democrats in locked-step have sniffed for 2+ years to find some dirt sufficient in content to justify impeachment. The more they investigate, the angrier they get. They cannot find Donald Trump wrongdoing.

The latest ploy on their part is a telephone call between the President and Ukriaine’s President Zelensky. Dems were shocked when President Trump released the full call transcript to the public immediately. We all saw and read it. There was absolutely no wrongdoing by Mr. Trump in any part of that call — period. But that only prompted radical Democrats to turn up the heat. In the aftermath of the transcript release, they have gone wild.

I personally believe they planned on using the whistleblower claim from someone who appears to not be a whistleblower at all based on the statute defining it, but is apparently a plant to implicate the President in the interactions with the president of Ukraine. When they drew a blank on that, they not only didn’t stop with their rhetoric and claims, but they increased the lies about the call’s content and the veiled obstruction actions by our President.

Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff— the two impeachment sycophants —held a press conference on Wednesday in which they laid out a case to justify their actions in their unrealistic impeachment “inquiry.” It was easy to see that in Pelosi’s case, she was rattled in the presser because she struggled in her attempts to chide media members to ask her questions that would show she is intent on other legislative matters besides impeachment. She finally achieved getting one such question asked. All the media wanted to discuss was impeachment.

Not long after that press conference, FOX News reported this:

A spokesman for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., acknowledged Wednesday that the whistleblower alleging misconduct in the White House had reached out to Schiff’s panel before filing a complaint — prompting President Trump, in an extraordinary afternoon press conference at the White House, to directly accuse Schiff of helping write the document.

It shows that Schiff is a fraud. … I think it’s a scandal that he knew before,” Trump said, as the president of Finland stood at an adjacent podium. “I’d go a step further. I’d say he probably helped write it. … That’s a big story. He knew long before, and he helped write it too. It’s a scam.”

Summary

Before I summarize today’s story, let me say this: until further notice, TruthNewsNetwork will present on a specific schedule. There is NO doubt that Democrats are hell-bent on impeachment and will dominate national news each day until the impeachment threats die away just as did their Russian collusion and Trump Obstruction of Justice contrived stories have. Therefore, each weekday until further notice, we will concentrate on all daily news items you may have missed surrounding this impeachment process. Our Saturday headline bulletpoints will continue each week. Sundays we will either post a story and podcast about some other important to you topics OR — if current news demands it — we’ll do another impeachment update. I hope that will asist you in managing your time, knowing how our reporting schedule will go.

To quote President Trump, this impeachment inquiry is nothing but another chapter in the “Do-nothing Democrat Party Witch Hunt.” It’s amazing that the Media still thumb their noses at real news that includes the great progress that has been made in the U.S. in just three years of the Trump presidency opting to cover “dirt” on Mr. Trump that is “dirt” that does not even exist. It makes me ask this question: “Who watches, listens, and absorbs their non-stop fact-vacant news reports? Based on CNN’s ratings, they have fewer than a million evening viewers. That’s one million or less from a country of 350 million people. That’s not a wide reach by anyone’s definition.

Where will this all go? The facts are being revealed hour by hour. Even as you read or listen to this, new information has been revealed that is all relevant to the facts regarding the sham investigation the Democrats keep alive.

Yes, I think (barring some unforeseen upsetting horror about Mr. Trump being released) the House will push through with his impeachment. No, the Senate will absolutely not in an impeachment trial find President Trump guilty of any wrong-doing. But they’ll certainly keep it ramped-up.

As a side note, I have a thought as to why they have pushed this so hard to be initiated and completed in such a short period of time. Aparently the Inspector General’s report on his findings of all of the unlawful and/or unscrupulous spying on the Trump Campaign during the 2016 election is to be released any day. Further, it is rumored to be full of damning evidence on many from the Obama Administration, including former Obama Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice, several Democrat members of Congress, former CIA Director John Brennan, DNI Director James Clapper, a gaggle of high level FBI and DOJ people, Hillary and Bill Clinton and staff at the Clinton Foundation, and various others. Democrats want the angst against Trump to be at a fever pitch when that IG report is released to distract from the information contained in that upcoming report.

Buckle in: It is already and will only increase in intensity and drama in Washington. It’s going to be a wild ride!

 

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House Intel Adam Schiff Zoo

September 27, 2019

If you see the Audio Player button here, do NOT listen to this file until the end of today’s story. On some viewer’s browser the Play button is at the end of the story. This short audio file should be listened to last.

That’s exactly what it was. It became apparent in Schiff’s opening statement that reeked of political bias, to fuel Democrat’s Trump impeachment process, but, most importantly, extreme hatred for President Trump. We’ll visit Mr. Schiff’s exposed hatred for the President in an audio file later in this story.

Today’s offering, will not be lengthy, will not (as normal) be an opinion piece. As promised we have released it in bullet point format. I felt going into a weekend, you deserved to receive the truth of this important story but with as little negative perspective as possible.

It was meaningless to listen to any of the Democrat committee members as they questioned the DNI Acting Director Admiral Joseph Maguire who is the former Counter-Terrorism Chief. They all stayed on script, all parroted Schiff’s narcissistic demeanor, and accused Director Maguire continuously of failure to comply with statutes that purportedly require the referral to Congress all Intelligence Agency Whistleblower complaints when the Inspector General finds the allegations credible and “urgent.” Schiff, however, disregarded the details of that statute that require any such referral to Congress to be exclusively for the wrongdoing of someone within the Intelligence agencies. This claim is not about an Intelligence Agency individual. Additionally, Maguire received an opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel that the complaint does NOT allege wrongdoing on the part of an Intelligence Agency employee and therefore does not fall under the requirement to forward this claim to Congress.

  • Here’s the problem with this: Congress writes ALL federal laws. Congress created the applicable federal statute, including its restrictions. Congress determined the DNI Director had no authority to give Congress that complaint! Maguire basically was “damned if he did-damned if he didn’t” turn it over to Congress. Yet Schiff and his Democrat Intel Committee lapdogs treated Admiral Maguire like a criminal, yet every step of his actions was taken with the complete knowledge and direction of the Department of Justice. The big problem? No such whistleblower in these circumstances had ever in U.S. history happened previously. And Congress did NOT anticipate this type of whistleblower claim.
  • It was obvious throughout the hearing that Democrats had no interest in the facts of the process used by Admiral Maguire, the Inspector General, the counsel of the Department of Justice, the process required to ascertain any conflict regarding Executive Privilege according to the White House Counsel. Intel Committee Democrats continually pushed Acting Director Maguire for his opinions on various issues, many of which did not apply to this particular complaint at all. Adam Schiff continuously twisted the wording of his questions of Maguire to obviously try to elicit a specific response from Maguire.
  • Schiff and others in numerous questions demeaned Maguire, stating that the actions of President Trump in that phone call with Ukraine’s president should have immediately upon Maguire’s decision to not refer the matter to Congress referred it to the FBI for investigation. None would ever allow Director Maguire to answer the question! The Admiral tried to answer to that question asked by at least three Democrats but was shut down. What he tried to tell them is the Justice Department received a criminal referral from the DNI Inspector General regarding the possibility of the Presidents actions in that phone call being a campaign finance violation. the DOJ declined to take action after a review. It was simultaneously referred to the FBI. That referral was determined to not contain valid reasons for any criminal prosecution.
  • The universal thread contained in every question asked by Intel Committee Democrats was the assumption that President Trump was guilty of tampering with another presidential election colluding with a foreign government. That was not a new allegation against Mr. Trump by Democrats. We just completed a three-year, $40 million Mueller investigation of President Trump for alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 election by Mr. Trump and members of his campaign: Deja Vu.

In just a moment I want you to listen to the audio of a phone call between Congressman Schiff and two persons he was told (and he believed) were Russian intelligence agents who had evidence of significant and illegal wrongdoing by Candidate Trump during the 2016 campaign. The specifics of that “evidence” in the call comported with details included in the infamous Steele dossier. At that point — early in the Mueller investigation — Schiff had on numerous occasions on numerous television news shows gleefully proclaimed he possessed factual evidence of collusion with Russia by Mr. Trump to assist his victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. The conversation with these two Russians was viewed by Schiff as a way for him to grasp the proof of Trump wrongdoing sufficient to initiate impeachment proceedings.

Little did Mr. Schiff know that the two on that phone call with him were radio announcers that told Schiff’s assistants about the Trump dirt. The call was not just recorded for later dissemination, it was aired live on their radio program. Before you listen to it, know this: this action taken by Schiff was a REAL attempt on his part to illegally use to obtain evidence against Donald Trump. According to his insistent admonition to Admiral Maguire, Schiff himself should have immediately contacted the FBI and referred the matter to investigators. Rather than doing the legal and right thing with an FBI referral, Schiff chose to get the news himself. He envisioned it as his chance to give the world the proof of Trump collusion that he and others (including his fellow California cohort Rep. Eric Swalwell) untruthfully had reported again and again they already possessed!

Late-Breaking News:

Reliable yet anonymous sources have identified who the whistleblower “probably” is. A very reliable source has stated to TruthNewsNetwork the secret Washington whispers heard and fingers point to Edward “Ned” Price as the whistleblower who came forward with the accusation that President Trump “abused his office” during a phone conversation with the Ukrainian president. Edward “Ned” Price (born 1982) is a Fellow at the New America Foundation and a political analyst for NBC News. Price is also a former American intelligence officer who worked at the United States Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 until February 2017. On February 20, 2017, Price published an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, outlining his decision to retire from the CIA rather than work in a Donald Trump administration.

Price certainly fits the profile of what has been rumored about the whistleblower: former intelligence officer, supportive of a Trump political rival, etc. But that’s not the half of it, though. Sources also report that Price was not only a CIA deep state agent but was also one of the spies that John Brennan used in the 2016 election to spy on the Trump campaign.

I’ll leave this breaking news segment with this: if the President’s conduct was so egregious, then why on Earth didn’t State Department officials who were privy to the conversation first-hand register a complaint? Price only learned about the incident second- or third-hand!

The Wrap-Up

You know my feelings about Adam Schiff, his role in House leadership and the way he handles himself, and his vitriolic animus for Donald Trump. He in that hearing accused Admiral Maguire of being incompetent, unpatriotic, and incapable of carrying out his role as Acting DNI Director.

Schiff has on many occasions assured American that President Trump was/is a Russian operative with deep ties directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin and that Trump’s 2016 actions were actively soliciting and participating with Russian operatives to steal the election from Hillary Clinton. Schiff constantly in interviews denigrated Mr. Trump for being so un-American.

We’ll close with this audio of Mr. Schiff in a phone call with whom he thinks are two Russian government operatives who have dirt of various kinds that implicate President Trump directly with illicit and illegal activities in Russia. Schiff did not know they two guys were radio disc jockeys tricking Schiff live on-air to attempt to do exactly what Schiff has continuously accused the president of doing in 2016!

Listen to this phone call by clicking this link. It’s exactly like listening to one of our podcasts. On your browser, it may be located at the top of this page. Click on the audio player in either location you see it to play:

 

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“Impeach 45!”

September 26, 2019

This is the political rally mantra of Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA): “Impeach 45! Impeach 45! Impeach 45!” Those have been her cries since the election of Donald Trump. They initially fell on deaf ears: not so much now. Yes, we’re there!

House Speaker Pelosi announced the House has initiated “a formal Impeachment investigation.”

What is that?

There’s no Constitutional authorization for a “formal Impeachment Investigation,” no House rules allowing a Speaker to unilaterally launch any action involving the entire House. That requires a full vote of the House on the floor. There is no authority for any House Speaker to launch unilaterally a joint investigation using all six of the applicable House committees. Yet Pelosi has done it, all the while obliterating Constitutional instructions for initiating impeachment AND ignoring jointly passed House rules.

Remember this: in this House of Representatives, there have already been two formal votes on motions made to begin “real” impeachment proceedings. Both motions failed miserably in House votes. For that reason, Pelosi decided to ignore the Constitution AND jointly approved House rules. “I’ll just pander to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and ‘The Gang’ and start this thing myself.” So she has!

Here’s how impeachment is supposed to occur:

In The House of Representatives

An impeachment proceeding is a formal process by which a sitting president of the United States may be accused of wrongdoing. The articles of impeachment are the list of charges drafted against the president. The vice president and all civil officers of the U.S. can also face impeachment. The process begins in the U.S. House of Representatives, where any member of the House may make a suggestion to launch an impeachment proceeding. It is then up to the speaker of the House, as leader of the majority party, to determine whether or not to proceed with an inquiry into the alleged wrongdoing.

Next, the House Judiciary Committee will investigate; there is no time limit placed on their investigation and a likely public hearing would be scheduled at the discretion of the committee chair to vote on the articles of impeachment. A simple majority of the members of the committee would have to vote in favor of approving an article or articles of impeachment in order to proceed to a vote by the full House. The House Judiciary Committee currently consists of 24 Democrats and 17 Republicans; 21 votes in favor would be necessary.

In The U.S. Senate

The Senate is tasked with handling the impeachment trial in which there is a higher threshold that must be reached in order for an impeachment to go forward. What that means is that in the Senate, a higher percentage of the body has to vote in favor of conviction than in the House of Representatives. In the House, a simple majority is needed, and in the Senate, they need a two-thirds majority or 67 percent.

If the Senate fails to convict, then the president]will have been impeached but not removed. Presidents Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson are examples of this. In neither Clinton nor Johnson’s Senate trials was a two-thirds majority reached. According to the Constitution, at least two-thirds of the Senate have to concur to convict and remove the president from office. Once the president is removed, the vice president typically succeeds him or the normal course of the line of succession will be followed.

While the Senate trial has the power to oust a president from office, it does not have the power to send a president to jail.

Where We Stand Today  Regarding Impeachment

As mentioned above, two House motions have already been voted on in the House, the first in December of 2017. In that vote, an unexpected large number of Democrats voted in favor to launch impeachment proceedings against President Trump, revealing the growing agitation among liberals to remove him from office. The House, however, voted overwhelmingly 364-58 to table a resolution from Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) laying out articles of impeachment against Trump, with four Democrats voting “present.” “Tabling” a resolution means simply a vote against the motion.

All Republicans voted with 126 Democrats to defeat the resolution. Those Democrats included Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who announced ahead of the vote they would vote against the effort. They cited the ongoing investigations by congressional committees and the FBI special counsel. “Now is not the time to consider articles of impeachment,” Pelosi and Hoyer said.

The second bill to impeach the President occurred two-and-one-half months later, on January 19, 2018. Every Republican again voted against the bill, but twelve Democrats changed their votes to “Yes.”

Obviously, neither bill passed so no House impeachment process was implemented. If the majority of House members approve the articles of impeachment, those articles will go to the Senate where each article will be considered separately. (In President Clinton’s impeachment, the House considered four charges separately against him. He was impeached based on the agreeing on two of the four: his conviction for lying under oath, and also for witness tampering). At the presentation conclusion, a vote will be taken regarding confirmation of each of the impeachment articles. As mentioned above, two-thirds of the 100 U.S. Senators would have to vote in favor of at least one of the charges against him approved by the House before that would occur. The Senate would then immediately remove the President from office.

How Did We Get Here?

If you’ve been on the back 40, you may think this is all brand new. No way. As shown above, House member Al Green (D-TX) offered a bill to initiate impeachment December 2017. But way before that, Democrats in Congress had already sowed “impeachment seeds” for Trump impeachment. That actually began before Trump was even inaugurated — he wasn’t even President!

That freshman House member just said he would support the impeachment of Donald Trump: that was January 18, 2017 — three days before Donald Trump was even sworn in as President!

There has been an underlying thread through everything the Democrat members of Congress have done since 2016. That thread is to somehow, in some way, use every tool they can find to drive this man they hate from office. They have proven they’ll do anything. And in doing so, at least so far they have been unsuccessful. They ignore the dozens and dozens of accomplishments by this Administration for the sole benefit of Americans. I won’t waste your time by listing them all here. You know what they are: Americans from every economic, social, racial, ethnicity, country of origin and no matter of what age can easily (if they choose) peer through the fog of deceit wafted into the air by angry Democrats to cloud Americans’ vision and see what Donald Trump has accomplished for them, their families, and their fellow Americans. And you know what? Don’t listen to or believe me, find out for yourself. The truth is there. The problem is that most Democrats and others even further left politically don’t want to see or accept that truth. And they don’t want anyone else to see. They want more than anything for Donald Trump to fail — even so desperately that some are publicly sharing their hopes that the economy will crash on Trump’s watch!

Rep. Al Green (D-TX) who filed articles of impeachment against Donald Trump, twice voiced Democrats struggle with “all things Trump” best when he said this: “We cannot beat him at the polls. So we must impeach him!” That statement summarizes the Democrats plans.

The Latest

The telephone conversation between President Trump and Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy has been Democrat’s apparent “final straw” necessary for Speaker Pelosi to give-in to her Socialist mob segment and to start an “official impeachment inquiry.” She announced it in a public appearance stating that contents of that Ukranian telephone conversation made it happen. She did this before anyone — Democrat or Republican — even knew the substance of the call. (You know the whistleblower story and its details regarding the call. We won’t go through it again)

What’s craziest in this bizarre Pelosi action is that the President had stated he would release the transcript of the call the next day so all could know its contents. I find it incomprehensible that Pelosi would put any chance of Democrats winning the White House and even the Senate in 2020 in jeopardy simply to launch her inquiry without first knowing the call’s contents. But she did. The call transcript was released, its contents were benign — nothing like Democrats had demanded would confirm impeachable Trump wrongdoing. Mr. Trump purportedly pressured the Ukrainian President to investigate former VP Biden and his son, all the while holding Congressionally approved financial aid to Ukraine hostage if Zelenskyy did not restart that investigation. The transcript proved those things didn’t happen, no demands of any kind were placed on Zelenskyy, and there was nothing in the call but several company presidential topics the two discussed.

(Here’s the call transcript. Click on the link to download. Feel free to share it)

https://truthnewsnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/427409665-Ukraine-Call-Transcript.pdf

Pelosi and Democrats are sunk!

I will stick my neck out here and say that two things are now certain: the House will go through the impeachment process now — they have no other choice. And, Donald Trump — who I think was going to win the 2020 race anyway — will win in a landslide!

Americans see through all this hoo-hah. And the more Democrats scream and holler and blame and allege through “anonymous sources” and “a highly-placed source,” the more Americans who may have been on the fence because of non-stop allegations of Trump wrongdoing are seeing that Democrats are NOT doing what they all promised to do. They are trying to foil the so-far successful attempts of a never-before politician to bring truth, common sense, hard work — without any political perspectives or objectives — to put in place as many (and hopefully all) of the promises to Americans he made in his campaign for which he was elected. Democrats have never seen that before…and they cannot and will not stand for it!

I’ll close with this: “Quid Pro Quo”

We’ve said often at TruthNewsNetwork that very often when any politician screams loudly about something a political opponent is doing, they often are guilty of doing that very same thing themselves. It happens that way more often than not. I have looked closely to find out if there was any quid pro quo going on regarding the Ukraine that could fit into that scenario. And guess what? I found some:

In May of 2018, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) wrote a letter to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were critical to the Mueller probe. In the letter, they implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake. Describing themselves as “strong advocates for a robust and close relationship with Ukraine,” the Democratic senators declared, “We have supported [the] capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these [democratic] principles to avoid the ire of President Trump,” before demanding Lutsenko “reverse course and halt any efforts to impede cooperation with this important investigation.”

“Donald Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter so it would throw dirt on Trump’s chief presidential 2020 rival!” These three senior Democrat Senators had themselves done exactly what they are accusing Donald Trump of doing!

By the way, the Constitution’s “take care” provision requires the president to ask any foreign government — in this case Ukraine — to investigate potential corruption in their country that may reach into ours. In this case, that would V.P. Biden’s mafia-like withholding of defense dollars unless Ukraine fired the prosecutor investigating Biden’s son’s corrupt energy company.

It’s a long time until the 2020 election. And this bogus impeachment process is intended by Democrats to perpetuate a cloud of question over Donald Trump sufficient to cause former and current Trump supporters to vote for the Democrat 2020 candidate. I’m pretty sure this current tactic will fail. But don’t be tempted to sigh in relief: they never give up and will not here. There are plenty of opportunities for Democrats to toss out more “fake dirt” on Mr. Trump again and again before election day. And I promise you, They Certainly Will!

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