Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
- Acquittal
- Aftermath
- SOTU
- Iowa
- Coronavirus
- Bloomie
- Depp
- Rush
- Acquittal. The best news of the week was the acquittal of President Trump Wednesday by Republicans in the US Senate of both charges in his impeachment trial, a fitting partisan conclusion to a partisan effort by democrats to install a parliamentary system here in the US. Former Republican Pierre Delectro (R, UT) (Mitt Romney) cast the lone vote to convict on the Abuse of Office charge, making the impeachment vote in the House more bipartisan not to impeach that the senate vote to convict. Romney as usual hid behind his religion as an explanation of his vote. What is he really after? Who knows? Who cares? Either way, he has just removed his name from serious consideration for future political success at least with Republicans. OTOH, there was at least one suggestion over the weekend that he would be a potential democrat VP nominee, something he would leap at. Democrats are very insistent that impeachment is forever, something they are very proud of and looking forward to using against Republican senators up for reelection this November. With this in mind, Scott Adams has suggested a response to be used every single time it is brought up. Adams suggests we troll the democrats and simply deny that he was impeached, as an acquittal renders an impeachment moot. Even Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz has stated that an acquittal makes an impeachment go away, in much the same way that a not guilty verdict makes an indictment disappear in the criminal prosecution world. Do it. Keep doing it. And enjoy trolling the Other Side.
- Aftermath. The aftermath of the acquittal has been quite interesting, with President Trump taking steps to solve some personnel problems.
- For example, the current National Security Advisor last week started talking about downsizing (or right sizing) the NSC staff working in the WH. Under Bush 43, it was around 110 people. O’Bama grew it to around 236, two of which were Vindmans, who were marched out of the WH Friday and sent back to the Pentagon. At least one of them is scheduled to attend Army War College in residence, an honor usually reserved for those on the Fast Track to higher rank, likely selected due to his high-level appointment in the NSC. As the assignment happens this summer, it is not outside the realm of possibility that assignment will be cancelled as the Army finds something else and far more pressing for him and his brother to do. Liaison officer at Shemya for the next 5 years would be one such plum (/sarc) assignment. Expect more of the co-conspirators to make the trip out of the WH and other intel agencies as the days continue to pass.
- For his part, Trump made a raucous speech in front of his legal team and Republican supporters in both housed of congress in the WH. On one hand, it was remarkably blunt, and he tore into the people who tried to remove him, like only he can do. On the other, it was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in years. The President has a remarkable sense of humor, and great comedic timing. Finally, he went around the room and sincerely thanked everyone who stood by him and helped.
- Roger Simon wrote in the Epoch Times that the nation was in the midst of splitting into three political parties: The Trumpertarians (conservative, working and middle class), the Bolivarians (Socialists – Bernie and AOC), and the Deep Staters which include the old guard democrat party plus the remaining never Trumpers. The more success Bernie has, the more at risk are the deep staters, as the democrat party threatens to split in two. They rightfully view him as a greater threat than Trump, which is why they have turned on the election fraud machine (more on this later) to ensure he gets nowhere near the nomination.
- Final observation comes via one of Scott Adams Periscopes. He points out that these festivities have not changed Trump at all. He continues to be just as blunt, profane, and focused as he ever was. OTOH, it has changed Nancy Pelosi, forcing her to become Trump. She was always a viciously cunning political operative. Today, the viciousness is no longer hidden.
- SOTU. President Trump gave his State of the Union speech Tuesday night. It was one of the better speeches I’ve seen, a ringing celebration of what he sees as the positives of his three years in office. While he did not mention impeachment at all, it was never far from one’s mind. House Speaker Pelosi spent most of the speech making various faces and celebrated the end of it by tearing up the copy of the speech Trump gave her, highlighting Scott Adams’ earlier observation that dealing with Trump changed Pelosi while dealing with Pelosi didn’t change Trump at all. I started watching these things during the Reagan years and came to enjoy them, the ones with Clinton and O’Bama, not so much. The biggest surprise in the speech was the award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh during the speech. Limbaugh knew he was going to get the award in the WH in the next month or so. This was a huge surprise and triggered yet another round of Rush is a racist commentary from the Usual Suspects of the media. All in all, a very good speech.
- Iowa. The democrat primary in Iowa turned into an unmitigated disaster, with the failure to get results for days afterwards. As with all things democrat, the placing of the blame started early and often, with fingers being pointed at an app created by an outfit called Shadow, Iowa organizers, and even Iowa itself (too white, insufficiently diverse). As the goat breeding session continued into the weekend, Mayor Pete finally declared victory (at least in the delegate count) and decamped to New Hampshire. The Bernie Bros were livid, and rightfully so, for it appears at this writing that he may end up with the majority of votes and Buttigieg with most delegates. Pay close attention to this, as it is one of the first demonstrations that I can find of the way democrats intend to install and operate proportional voting, aka instant runoffs, nationwide. A cynic would note that all they are doing is implementing incomprehensible rules, turning things into a mess, which will make election fraud and eventual theft all the easier. Both Vox and the American Thinker published pieces on just this point. It is very clear that the democrat establishment doesn’t want Sanders anywhere near the nomination. Following the Iowa caucuses, it appears that at least for the time being, they have anointed Mayor Pete as their designated winner. Interestingly, Shadow, Inc that created the app used to tally votes in caucus is run by three Clinton campaign operatives. And Buttigieg has a connection to Shadow. Sounds like Shadow is the public facing piece of a new democrat elections non-profit called Acronym. One would wonder how this rat’s nest of companies was capitalized, as we already know why (to help democrats steal elections). I wonder how much longer the Bolivars (Bernie Bros) are going to allow this to happen.
- Coronavirus. Coronavirus continues to rage across China, with reported cases and deaths far below anything of the wild rumors raging both inside and outside China. American Thinker wrote a piece a week ago asking if the Coronavirus outbreak was China’s Chernobyl. Remember, that Gorbachev himself blamed the fall of the Soviet Union on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, where the Soviets initially chose to hide everything. Bloomberg disagrees with that conclusion. There are some interesting things about the outbreak. First is that there is an 86% match between Coronavirus and SARS. There appears to be an animal vector in its spread, civet cat consumption for SARS and pangolin / bat consumption for Coronavirus. The new virus has some pretty bad capabilities. One is that its incubation time and course of infection and healing is long – up to 14 days for incubation, and 21 days to run its course. It appears to have a disturbing ability for the occasional infected person to spread the infection far faster and wider than others, especially in clinical environments. Finally, it will reportedly percolate along with a respiratory infection with a sudden and unexpected turn for the worse. If the ChiComs are unable to contain this outbreak, they are in huge trouble. So might the rest of us.
- Bloomie. Steve Bannon laid out a scenario that describes what he believes to be Michael Bloomberg’s $2 billion investment in defeating Donald Trump. Bannon believes that Bloomberg has no interest in being president. Rather, he wants to be totally and completely in charge of the democrat party. Think of the spending as a leveraged buyout of the party. Bloomberg even made it to Anchorage a week ago, donating $1 million to the Anchorage Museum. In return, he got the endorsement of Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz. If Bloomie is paying attention to a little 330,000 community of Anchorage, purchasing a democrat mayor via donations to one of the Mayor’s favorite shiny objects, I can guarantee he is going to be a huge player in the down ballot races – congress, governors and legislators at a minimum. And we conservatives are going to drown in the flood of money into state and local campaigns from Bloomberg, just like Virginia Republicans were. Bannon believes Bloomberg was setting himself up to be an oligarch, in complete control of the democrat party. He already has over 500 political operatives on salary through the end of November.
- Depp. As yet another reminder that domestic violence is a two-way street (men and women participating in the festivities on an equal basis), comes a leaked audio conversation between Johnny Depp and his ex, Amber Heard. Heard confesses physical violence aimed at Depp, anger when he runs away and tries to defend himself from thrown and swung objects. Heard accused Depp of domestic abuse, leading to Depp being dropped from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series in 2018. The audio also records her slapping him, justifying it because she didn’t punch him. Women lie just as much as men do. The problem is that the courts do not treat them equal, assuming instead that the man is always the aggressor.
- Rush. I have been listening to Rush Limbaugh since the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991. He was the first guy reacting with the outrage at what democrats in the senate and the media were doing to him that I felt. Have been a listener for nearly 30 years. Last Monday, he announced he had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer and was about to undergo treatment. We will hope that treatment is successful and will pray for his successful treatment. Go with our prayers, Rush.
More later –
– AG