Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
- Whistleblower
- Ukraine
- Telcon
- Trolling
- Lisa
- Laddie
- Greta
- Boris
- Whistleblower. The latest deep state assault on President Trump is a whistleblower complaint about a phone call last July with the newly elected president of the Ukraine. The call was ostensibly to congratulate him on his election and in the course of the discussion he expressed concern about corruption in the Ukraine and discussed investigation into both Ukraine’s participation in the 2016 Clinton campaign and Joe Biden and Biden’s son payoffs. The “whistleblower” complaint was filed August 12. It apparently was in the hands of democrats on the House Intelligence Committee a day or two after it was filed, as Chairman Schiff (D, CA) started tweeting about it a couple weeks later. Last week, the story blew up and was used by House democrats as a vehicle to announce an impeachment inquiry into President Trump playing quid pro quo with Ukraine. Important point here is that there was no formal vote taken by the House for the inquiry. I don’t know how that is going to work for subpoenas of information, as a formal impeachment vote by the House allows legal subpoenaing of transcripts of a wide variety of transcripts of Trump phone calls with other national leaders, which would allow them to mine the calls for more excuses to impeach. OTOH, an informal process, not so much. Indeed, Pelosi made her announcement before the White House even released the transcript of the phone call, kind of a Red Queen approach, announcing the verdict before the trial. As the week progressed, pieces of the whistleblower complaint started to hit the public and it was increasingly odd, as the 9-page complaint reads like a legal brief rather than an actual complaint. The complainant is CIA, the same agency that worked hand in glove with the FIB to surveil the Trump campaign during the last election and afterwards. Worse, the complaint is nothing but hearsay, as the complainant neither listened directly to the call nor had any direct knowledge of what was discussed. Previously no whistleblower complaint was possible unless the complainant had any direct knowledge of whatever it was that actually happened. The intel community changed the whistleblower requirements to allow hearsay evidence in late August and uploaded the new form to their web site on August 24, nearly 2 weeks AFTER the complaint was filed. This smells a lot like an orchestrated, coordinated hit, just another round of Russia collusion hoax. For their part, Pelosi’s House plans on an impeachment vote by November.
- Ukraine. For their part, the Ukraine has been investigating corruption for years. In some ways, they have to, as the US is the only thing standing between them and a successful engulf and devour invasion by Putin’s irregular green men. The Ukraine worked with both the Clinton campaign and the DNC to gather intel and participate in the entrapment attempt for Trump campaign officials. They have been trying to get that information to the FIB and the Justice Department, neither of whom have been interested in getting that information. Joe Biden famously threatened the former Ukrainian president with the US withholding over a billion in loan guarantees if they wouldn’t fire a prosecutor investigating his son’s presence on the Board of Directors of a large natural gas company in Ukraine. The prosecutor was quickly fired. Biden’s son made at least $3 million over the years as the oligarch paying him believes he has purchased access to the former VP and (hopefully) future president. Biden was stupid enough to run his mouth and get recorded telling the story afterwards as he bragged what sort of big man he was. It is this corruption that Trump was asking the Ukraine to assist investigations in the US with. And it is this corruption that House democrats and their water carriers in the media want to bury just as deeply and completely as possible. Final happy thought, all of this is perfectly legal (asking for help investigating), as the US and the Ukraine have a current treaty, passed during the Clinton years, requiring this sort of cooperation. Trump was following the law, House democrats, the media and the Bidens, not so much.
- Telcon. Nobody in all this discussion seems to mention or care about the great damage the ability of the intel community to listen in on presidential phone calls and then leak the contents of that phone call is doing to the ability of the president and in turn this nation to conduct foreign policy. This is at least the third phone call the intel community leaked since Trump has been inaugurated. Trump speaks with a lot of foreign leaders. Some are friendly. Many are not. These self-officious, self-righteous democrats in the intel community are putting the interests of their political party above the good of the nation. Several nations have reportedly expressed their concerns privately. And several leaders have publicly stated that they are much less likely to talk with the US after this event. Democrats don’t seem to care a lot about the international damage they are causing, as Schiff’s House Intel Committee over the weekend demanded transcripts of all presidential calls between Trump and Putin. There is still a lot of swamp to drain, particularly in the intel community, which appears to be as corrupt as the FIB and (In)Justice Department. I expect in the very near future, there will be no more intel monitoring of presidential phone calls or contact with any other world leader.
- Trolling. President Trump is one of the Great Tolls ever to hold political office. A couple weeks ago, he took his road show to California. While there, he autographed the border wall, revoked state authority over setting fuel emissions standards, and blamed California’s policies for the homelessness crisis while there. After he returned, the EPA started talking about citing San Francisco for Clean Water Act violations due to runoff from the homeless encampments. This is truly world class trolling, and nicely infuriates the democrat leadership in California. Limbaugh several weeks ago called for Trump to go to California. Appears someone was listening, as he made the trip. While there, he held fundraisers in the Bay Area, LA and San Diego, raising over $15 million. California democrat leaders despise the border wall, which was why he went there and autographed a newly renovated section of it. California democrats wrap themselves in concern for the environment and have for years gotten away with ratcheting down emissions standards and vehicle MPG standards to the point that they are driving what they demand Detroit manufacture. That now stops. Finally, we see the claims of heartfelt concern for the homeless, and Trump is blaming the very people who claim to care about the homeless for creating the problem. Finally, when the EPA swoops in and cites San Francisco for Clean Water Act violations, we will have reached trolling nirvana. Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals documents this nicely:
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.
Perhaps the left are not the only people who can play that game.
- Lisa. When Alaska’s senior US Senator sticks to business, energy and Alaska issues, she does very well. When she wanders off into other topics, things get dicey at best, as her natural liberalism comes out. She had herself quite a couple weeks, unfortunately for the rest of us. First, she stepped off into the anti-vaping hysteria, co-sponsoring legislation banning flavored vapors. As with all stupid ideas, she chose to work with senate democrats. Of course, Lisa hasn’t publicly said anything about the fact that vaping illnesses have been clustered in locales with black market THC, oils, and other non-water based vaping products. Instead, Lisa is out to help The Children from the scourge of vaping. If she isn’t careful, she is going to make a great case for a return to Smoking in the Boy’s Room. Brownsville Station will be very proud. Second bit of Lisa foolishness was a statement that she wasn’t really happy with the science that the Army Corps of Engineers is doing in their permitting process on the Pebble Mine. The anti-Pebble forces have been trying mightily to drag her into opposing the mine. So far, she has mostly behaved herself. Of course, as Chairman of the Senate committee overseeing the EPA, she was completely silent on the fraud upon the public the EPA committed preparing their anti-Pebble watershed assessment. Apparently, the EPA can commit fraud right and left but if the Army Corps arrives at the wrong solution, they aren’t doing proper science. Final Lisa event was when she tapped into her inner Orange Man Bad and voted for a democrat senate resolution opposing DoD money swung for border wall construction. The resolution passed the Senate 54 – 41 with 11 Republicans voting for it. As I understand the festivities, there are not enough votes to override a presidential veto. Still, Lisa Murkowski hasn’t lifted a finger to stop the invasion from the south other than dabble with the amnesty lobby.
- Laddie. Republicans in the Alaska Senate rejected Governor Dunleavy’s nominee to replace the sadly departed Chris Birch in the state Senate. The procedure is for party officials in the district to come up with a list of three names to send to the governor who has 10 days to make the selection. As this was a same party affair, there was supposedly no problem. But there was a problem, as the senate Republican majority has decided that the Permanent Fund Dividend no longer belongs to the citizens of Alaska. The nominee was former Navy Seal and current House member Laddie Shaw. He has a different opinion on the PFD, believing that the yearly payout should be per Alaska state law rather than some arbitrary number out of the Senate majority. The vote to confirm split at 6 – 6 which was not enough to confirm the nomination. There were several attempts to justify the eyebrow-raising vote, none of which carried much weight with the rest of us. The other sitting representative in that senate district, Josh Revak also a veteran was nominated following the rejection. This time around, two thirds of the Alaska congressional delegation weighed in supporting the new nominee. We will see what sort of guts ball the free money senate majority wants to play, if they want to tell both sides of Senate District M their House representatives aren’t up to their august newly defined standards of political deliberation.
- Greta. Latest child mascot for the totalitarian left was a Swedish 16-year-old named Greta Thunberg who rode a yacht funded by Euro-climatistas to come to the US, speak to congress and afterwards the General Assembly of the UN. She was quite angry, as those of us who have attempted to make the world better for our children and grandchildren have not performed up to her lofty standards. Not only did she lecture the assembled, but she posed a list of demands. At the risk of violating Godwin’s Law, I do want to note the number of times totalitarians surrounded themselves with children, particularly blond children with braids. Someone posted a photo of Stalin and Hitler with little girls in braids. Today’s wannabee totalitarians are doing the same things, hiding behind children in their quest to impose a climate solution on all of us. Anyone notice that the political left, being unable to make their case to the general public now hides behind children, preferably aggrieved teens like Greta and David Hogg, casting them with absolute moral authority? The left is making our children miserable over the destruction of their world. This was bad enough that Scott Adams wrote a piece on the Dilbert Blog apologizing for their angst, ending with “we got this.’
- Boris. Looks like the leaders of my three favorite nations, the US, Great Britain and Israel are all under attack by the political left in their respective nations. The democrats are working on a Trump impeachment. Israel is threatening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with prosecution over a variety of corruption charges. In the UK, the anti-Brexiters took their case to the UK Supreme Court, which ruled that his dissolving Parliament and the Queen’s approval of that unconstitutional, injecting the UK Supremes squarely in the middle of the Brexit fight and trashing the remaining authority of the Queen on the side of the Remainers. Note how the political left in all three nations is using and abusing the legal system in each nation to overturn the legitimate vote and interests of the people who actually won elections – lawfare. Parliament passed a number of laws before Prime Minister Johnson dissolved their session intended to obstruct and delay his promise to leave the European Union by October 31 as promised. 25 members of his Parliamentary majority voted for these laws. Normally when this happens, someone in Parliament call a no confidence vote and an election is held. One of the laws Parliament passed prohibited calling that sort of election. Now that the UK Supremes have entered the fray, things are going to get a lot more interesting in the UK. There will eventually be an election. And the Remainers who continue to obstruct the will of the people who put them into office will be defeated. But it is going to be ugly for the next month.
More later –
– AG