Victor Davis Hanson on the impeachment inquiry/coup
Victor Davis Hanson lists 10 reasons why the ongoing impeachment is really a coup. I’m particularly interested in the following items on his list, which all seem quite obvious to me and yet the MSM has been somewhat successful at protecting the public from either knowledge of them or understanding of their significance:
(2) False whistleblowers. The “whistleblower” is no whistleblower by any common definition of the noun. He has no incriminating documents, no information at all. He doesn’t even have firsthand evidence of wrongdoing…
He wasn’t disinterested but had a long history of partisanship…
3) First-term impeachment. The Clinton and Nixon inquiries were directed at second-term presidencies, when there were no more electoral remedies for alleged wrongdoing. By contrast, Trump is up for election in less than a year. Impeachment, then, seems a partisan exercise in either circumventing a referendum election or in damaging a president seeking re-election.
4) No special-counsel finding. In the past, special counsels have found felonious presidential behavior, such as cited in Leon Jaworski’s and Ken Starr’s investigations. By contrast, special counsel Robert Mueller spent 22 months and $35 million, and yet his largely partisan law and investigative team found no “collusion” and no actionable presidential obstruction of that non-crime…
7) Thought crimes? Even if there were ever a quid, there is no quo: Unlike the case of the Obama administration, the Trump administration did supply arms to Ukraine, and the Ukrainians apparently did not reinvestigate the Bidens.
That last one, number 7, is especially troubling. It’s something I’ve thought about quite a bit, and it seems to have become common when Trump’s opposition talks about him. Mind-reading has substituted for evidence, and not just during the impeachment inquiry. Courts have now institutionalized it, most obviously in a decision I wrote about here as well as here. From the latter:
In other related news, the legal reasoning several judges used to invalidate Trump’s immigration EOs – that his campaign statements were extremely relevant and indicated his supposedly discriminatory intent in issuing the orders as president – leads inevitably to preposterous conclusions such as these:
“ACLU lawyer Omar Jadwat, arguing today before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, told the court that President Trump’s travel order ‘could be constitutional’ if it had been written by Hillary Clinton…
“The last part of the audio is rather funny. Jadwat, asked whether the order on its face is valid, says No. Why? ‘I don’t think so, Your Honor, because the order is completely unprecedented’ To which one of the Fourth Circuit judges replies, with astonishment that seems mostly genuine: ‘So the first order on anything is invalid?'”
In his post, John Hinderaker calls that kind of legal argument “lawless nonsense.” But such lawless nonsense follows directly from the judicial decisions handed down against Trump’s EO. As the rulings were issued it became clear – because of the liberal judges’ reliance on Trump’s supposed thoughtcrime, as evidenced in some of his campaign statements – that no subsequent EO of Trump’s on immigration that involved any majority Muslim country would ever be held constitutional by these judges, no matter how carefully and fairly drafted. Trump had committed the original sin during the campaign, and all the perfumes of Arabia cannot sweeten that little hand.
Now we have an entire impeachment drive predicated on the idea that Trump committed another thoughtcrime. He didn’t tie the withholding of financial aid to the investigation of Hunter Biden, Ukrainian officials didn’t even know aid was being withheld at the time, and in fact the aid was given without the investigation occurring. But the Democrats get around the obvious flaws there but saying what they think Trump meant to do or wanted to do whether he actually did it or not.
Dangerous, dangerous high-stakes game the Democrats are playing.
As i have pointed out, its a velvet coup…
i know this is correct since Google is blocking finding the references in Neo’s site
and this artfldgr site:www.thenewneo.com
will only pull up four links
neo is being deplatformed..
revolution site:www.thenewneo.com also brings up only four hits
femnist site:www.thenewneo.com brings up five
feminist site:www.thenewneo.com documents only brings up five
i guess Neo in all her pages never used that word… ever
write all you want, Stalin will make sure no one sees it.
Hanson site:www.thenewneo.com
if you do a search with the link to the omitted results
You are now irrelevant, and erased…
Though i am sure they have a great and good reason as all who do that kind of thing do!!!!!!
Ah.. as always, its the person being erased fault…
I knew it was a good and just reason that i am sure Neo will agree is ok…
I guess robots.txt is claimed to be hiding the truth..
AG Barr agrees about the “mind-reading” neo (from his address to the Federalist Society yesterday):
Why I do not use Google for searches.
My lawyer/FBI agent daughter was over last weekend. She told us in September 2016 that she would NOT vote for Hillary, which suggested she was not wholly owned by the left. Last weekend she was watching TV Sunday morning and Schiff’s picture came up. I made a comment about him, fairly neutral for me.
She began a rant about how “incompetent” Trump is. I asked, :”Does 28,000 Dow Jones and 3% unemployment mean anything ?”
“NO” she answered, I did not pursue the conversation. I did not ask her what she would call “competence.” Probably letting bureaucrats set policy.
I now use DuckDuckGo, am satisfied with it. Also Edge (from Microsoft), tho not as fully happy; wasn’t happy with Brave.
Google should be broken up – probably will be regulated by some Digital Utility Commission after 2020 votes.
There is no crime, thus can not be a real “whistleblower”. But an anti-Trump career gov’t worker who wants to complain, yes.
Like VDH says, this is a coup attempt, without the military. But it could succeed, if enough Reps in the Senate vote to impeach Trump for whatever words Schiff uses when the kangaroo court is over.
It probably will soon end after DoJ officially has some indictments – with the claim by the Dems that it’s political revenge. I’m actually moving towards wanting a LOT more political revenge than we’re seeing — like prosecuting the Bidens for bribery. Let a jury decide if it’s not. It looks like it was.
AG Barr has some great words in a speech to the Federalist Society
(I’m sure Neo will cover it soon)
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/11/15/ag-bill-barr-speaks-about-the-damage-to-our-nation-from-the-resistance/
Mike K,
At least she didn’t say the economy being good is still because of Obama like my sister said a couple months ago. I just sighed. Not worth the argument
Let’s call it a Orange Velvet Revolution…
Let’s call it a Orange Velvet Revolution…
Orange for homage to the Ukraine and Trumps hair
Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution, which ushered Pres. Viktor Yushchenko into power.
and
Velvet for soft in homage of the Czech revolution
Which started November 16 and was over by December 10
Dont ya love when that happens?
as said by Whittni Wright in I’ll Do Anything
[This was right after she had to cry because all the children hated the little redneck who did love the black woman]
sdferr on November 16, 2019 at 4:05 pm said:
AG Barr agrees about the “mind-reading” neo (from his address to the Federalist Society yesterday)
today
Calls for AG Barr’s Impeachment Intensify After ‘Lunatic Authoritarian’ Federalist Society Speech
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/calls-for-ag-barrs-impeachment-intensify-after-lunatic-authoritarian-federalist-society-speech/
DuckDuckGo only shows 14 hits for: [ site:www.thenewneo.com and “artfldgr” ] which included at least one hit for a topic where art didn’t comment.
Over time I’ve searched for my blog comments and noticed the results getting skimpier and skimpier. An alternate explanation to deplatforming is that the web is growing faster than it can be captured. Google and Duck therefore make drastic and quick-and-dirty selections of blog comment searches.
Fact check: A list of 45 ways Trump has been dishonest about Ukraine and impeachment
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/16/politics/fact-check-trump-dishonesty-ukraine-and-impeachment/index.html
In this way, they solidify hearsay as the new reality…
32. A video of Joe Biden speaking in 2018 about his past dealings with Ukraine is evidence of “corruption.” (The tape does not show corruption. It shows Biden talking about his effort, in accordance with the policy of the US and its allies, to pressure Ukraine into firing a prosecutor widely considered unwilling to fight corruption.)
Huxley, this week the wall street journal covered that google is doing this after saying they werent..
last week i could find more…
and we are talking about things that used to be found, but now cant be
ie. indexed then de-indexed?
this one is really interesting from TIME
Trump reportedly overheard asking EU ambassador if Ukraine’s president was ‘going to do the investigation’
https://theweek.com/speedreads/879021/trump-reportedly-overheard-asking-eu-ambassador-ukraines-president-going-investigation
So an overheard conversation is evidence that proves that an overheard different conversation was valid
if THIS is our lawmakers… then the game is over..
I still dont know if he overheard how far the phone was, or saw it in some way
by far, this is allowing external people to be able to manipulate internal outcomes by how they choose to answer!
i sure hope Trump uses his power to declassify everything after they are done..
in the interest of complete and total transparency of course..
and i dont mean summaries because that turned out to be a mistake
(or a trap depending on what happens in the near future)
Artfldgr: I’m aware Google slants against conservative sites. Cite your link.
Nonetheless, Google locates 4 of your neo comments and Duck locates 14 (although one link doesn’t include you).
Is Duck deplatforming neo too?
Yep artfldgr, Barr’s not just over the target, he’s already released his bomb load. The Dems just haven’t felt impact yet ’cause the stick is still falling towards ’em.
On another note, we have Russian Nationals coming over the border:
During the second half of questioning at Friday’s impeachment inquiry hearing on Capitol Hill, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff shut down questioning of former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch from Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik. Schiff did so after Ranking Member Devin Nunes yielded his time to Stefanik.
“The gentlewoman will suspend,” Schiff asked.
“What is the interruption for this time?” Stefanik asked. “This is the fifth time you’ve interrupted duly elected members of Congress.”
“You’re gagging the gentle lady from New York?” Nunes asked. “Mr. Chair, we control the time. It’s been customary in this Committee that whoever controls the time can yield to whoever they wish. It seems appropriate that we let Ms. Stefanik ask her question.”
WATCH:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNRcieqljBg&feature=emb_logo
this is a clip to LOVE… or is that the other thread?
Stefanik pounded Schiff with his own mendacity [she posted it on facebook]:
The Google story Artfldgr is talking about is probably this one:
I’ve linked it on a couple of different threads since it came up.
https://hotair.com/archives/ed-morrissey/2019/11/15/wsj-google-actively-blacklists-interferes-control-search-outcomes/
From the number of times Barr has been quoted at Neo’s place since the speech, he appears to have hit a number of targets.
I didn’t see anything he said that I disagreed with.
Now: will he put principles into action and indict some of the blatant criminals?
will he put principles into action and indict some of the blatant criminals?
I think there are Easter eggs in the speech that tell us that’s what is coming. He ain’t joking around. He means to bring down the hammer, and the Dems’ reaction seems to indicate they know it.
Artfldgr on November 16, 2019 at 5:36 pm said:
…
Calls for AG Barr’s Impeachment Intensify After ‘Lunatic Authoritarian’ Federalist Society Speech
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/calls-for-ag-barrs-impeachment-intensify-after-lunatic-authoritarian-federalist-society-speech/
* * *
So, I’m guessing the Federalist Society members and Law & Order writers are kind of experiencing different realities….
https://www.thenewneo.com/2019/11/15/culture-war-2-0/#comment-2465465
Mac on November 16, 2019 at 10:12 am said:
I had a very disheartening conversation a while back with a woman, a very intelligent and capable woman in her mid or late 30s, about postmodernism. The great thing about it, she said, is that it acknowledges a multiplicity of truths, that everyone has a different truth based on their experiences etc. I replied that to say we all see one reality in different ways is not the same thing as saying that we all see different realities. She didn’t seem to see the distinction.
Artfldgr on November 16, 2019 at 5:04 pm said:
Let’s call it a Orange Velvet Revolution…
* * *
Can we have Red Velvet Cake with that?
Artfldgr on November 16, 2019 at 5:43 pm said:
Fact check: A list of 45 ways Trump has been dishonest about Ukraine and impeachment
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/16/politics/fact-check-trump-dishonesty-ukraine-and-impeachment/index.html
In this way, they solidify hearsay as the new reality…
* * *
I’ve noted the program of the MSM and Democrats to assert their conclusions as known facts, rather than as accusations of alleged conduct; they practice the same method in all cases, not just the impeachment imbroglio.
BTW, a lot of CNN’s complaints were really nit-picking (as in, rooting around to find the larva and eggs of lice).
They still treat Trump literally but not seriously.
Which is why we now have people like Jordan and Stefanik: they fight too.
AesopFan,
How about the time CNN fact checked the presidents Syria red line policy and all those lies.
Oh yeah, that was Obama never mind.
In fact I think VDH did a very clever piece where he changed the story to outgoing Bush admin people undermining the incoming Obama admin. Maybe we need another one where we apply the same super nitpicky tactics to some Obama policy.
Artfldgr on November 16, 2019 at 5:43 pm said:
Fact check: A list of 45 ways Trump has been dishonest about Ukraine and impeachment
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/16/politics/fact-check-trump-dishonesty-ukraine-and-impeachment/index.html
In this way, they solidify hearsay as the new reality…
32. A video of Joe Biden speaking in 2018 about his past dealings with Ukraine is evidence of “corruption.” (The tape does not show corruption. It shows Biden talking about his effort, in accordance with the policy of the US and its allies, to pressure Ukraine into firing a prosecutor widely considered unwilling to fight corruption.)
* * *
Talk about seeing reality differently!
To CNN: Helloooo! The phone call does not show corruption. It showsTrump talking about his effort, in accordance with the laws and treaties of the US and itsls allies, to pressure Ukraine into enabling a prosecutor willing to fight corruption!
A reminder that the Democrat’s witnesses are vetted and coached.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/11/15/adam-schiffs-first-witness-today-was-herself-accused-of-obstruction-of-justice-and-perjury/
https://spectator.org/resisting-the-resistance-kimberley-strassel-receives-the-barbara-olson-award-at-the-american-spectators-annual-gala/
https://nypost.com/2019/11/15/why-democrats-still-need-secret-hearings/
By grilling witnesses behind closed doors — as Yovanovitch had been earlier — they get to find out what subjects to try to avoid at the public show, or if there even should be a public hearing. And they have an advantage in doing that since they control the process.
Friday’s public hearing followed one Wednesday where two witnesses also testified almost exclusively to things everybody already knew, thanks to transcripts of their previous closed-door testimony.
…
Fact is, Democrats applauded themselves thunderously for moving to the public hearings stage of the impeachment process, but we are right back to having them audition witnesses behind closed doors before allowing the American people to hear what they claim to know.
Talk about kangaroo courts.
…
Democrats can decide whether they want to give Holmes a starring role on their impeachment TV show or not. Republicans, on the other hand, will have little say in the matter, because Adam Schiff has total control over who does and does not testify.
What a charade. Democrats have yet to present any significant hard evidence for impeaching a sitting president. So they’re orchestrating a bizarre TV show to convince their American audience, complete with secret rehearsals and Republicans hamstringed.
Enough. Let’s be done with secret testimony now, with secret interviews in basement bunkers in the Capitol. Let Democrats prove they really do want a fair and open process by bringing everyone with knowledge of these events to testify, in the open.
And yes, that includes bringing Hunter Biden into the public process. They don’t get to force everyone to shove all their chips into the center of the table with grand bravado and then refuse to show their cards.
The hearings so far have produced only evidence that the Dems and bureaucracy find Trump is not following the “regular” policies and procedures that have been the norm. (At least during the Obama years.) They opine that he is doing so out of a desire for personal gain – getting re-elected. Yet, they follow impeachment procedures that are outside the “norm” of those of Nixon and Clinton. And there is no evidence that an investigation of Biden was dependent on foreign aid to Ukraine. The “Schiff Show” implies it, but no witness so far has openly opined that there was an impeachable offense in any of this.
The Dems seek to criminalize differences of political opinion. That is Banana Republic stuff. Jail your political opponents is a primary tactic in a Banana Republic. I have expressed my outrage about this to my Congressional reps – Dems all. I intend to keep expressing it until this “Schiff Show” is shut down.
I pray the Danger is greater to the tyrannical Democrats than it is to the nation and its Constitution.
I pray.
One can but pray.
Re #7:
1. The original “quid” was for a white house meeting, not aid. The Ukrainians knew this.
2. The “quo” was a public announcement of an investigation into Biden. Thus we have various Ukrainian officials on record about it being a bad idea for Ukraine to get involved in American politics.
3. This was changed to “everything”, as Ambassador Taylor testified. Sondland and others have first hand knowledge of this. At this point, Bolton calls it a “drug deal”.
4. Ukraine was scheduled to go on CNN and announce the investigation into Biden. By now they knew the “quid” had been upped to “everything”.
5. Then Trump got caught. They whistleblower report was forwarded to them and Congress, who had been looking into this for some time and were met with lies, forced their hand, much like they did with Russian Sanctions.
6. Then Trump released the aid.
1. The original “quid” was for a white house meeting, not aid. The Ukrainians knew this.
None of what you’ve written is derived from the actual communications between Trump and the President of the Ukraine. No surprise there.
The Ukrainians
knewdeny this.Manju, where is the “pro”?
That is the link between the quid and the quo. Without a “pro” the two are unlinked,
An investigation into the Bidens’ corruption is long overdue but that injustice and violation of law seems to elude you.There are many quid pro quos in the Biden playpen about Ukraine.
It really staggers one to think about the actual argument being made here. The argument, plainly and simply, is “The President of the United States may not seek the truth about possible corruption involving his political enemies or possible interference with an election because that truth may be to his political benefit.”
Mike
In 2012, a Pew Foundation study found that 24 million voter registrations in the United States, about one in eight, were either “no longer valid or significantly inaccurate”– a number exceeding the current population of Florida or New York State (!). Pew’s total included at least 1.8 million cemetery citizens plus an indeterminate number of precinct ballot-stuffers and 2.75 million registered in at least two States. Through November 2016, now approaching 2020, that absurdly fraudulent 12.5% can only have increased.
Since passage of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), many States have simply ignored its enforcement-and-maintenance provisions, while others have sought legal workarounds. Meantime, eight States as well as the District of Columbia tally voter registrations exceeding 100% of Census Bureau figures, while 38 States have one or more [typically metropolitan, therefore Electorally influential] counties reporting similarly excess numbers.
On this basis, a historically accurate rule-of-thumb (beautifully applicable from Super Tuesday to Election Day 2016) discounts mass-media/TV polls by 15%– for example, where Rat propaganda alleges Trump support at (say) 47%, his actual tally approaches 62%. In context, we thus project a nationwide Trump vote of minimum 67.3 on 126.0 million (53.41%) in November 2020, a net 8.60 million legitimate ballots, deriving an overall popular margin of 6.83% with a commensurate Electoral Vote nearing 343 : 188 vs. 2016’s 304 : 227 (33.9%).
Czech artfldgr site:www.thenewneo.com doesn’t bring up DDG results either, not imputing a reason for that
Trevor Loudon’s 2019 list of socialists and communists in Congress
https://www.trevorloudon.com/2019/02/trevor-loudons-2019-list-of-socialists-and-communists-in-congress/
Here’s my (Trevor’s) list of 50 of the most obvious socialists in the House
I am waiting for Trump to decide he’s had enough and send in MPs and Federal Marshals to clear out the House, arrest Schiff, Nadler, Green, Pelosi, Hastings, and company, drag them off to Fort Leavenworth for “rigorous interrogation,” followed by further arrests, courts-martial, and hangings.
The Left has already made a mockery of representative democracy. Maybe it is time to put it out its misery.
Mostly what this is so far is un-elected, but very entitled State Department government employee weenies whining about how President Trump is not in line with the State Department’s own preferred view of the world and it’s foreign policy, and is not doing things the way they want him to do them.
President Trump isn’t “taking direction” from them, he has the audacity to have his own view of what U.S. foreign policy should be, and wants–as the Constitution says is his sole prerogative as the duly elected Chief Executive of the United States–to direct them! Oh, the horror!
One upcoming “impeachment inquiry” witness from State went on TV, and whined about how “morale at State is very low” and that, in fact, State no longer has its oh, so very necessary “swagger.”
I’d rather take fidelity to our Constitution, adherence to their proper subservient role and knowing their place, and competence over self-important “swagger” any day.
I hope that Trump cuts the budget and personnel of State even further, for it seems quite obvious that there is a great deal of useless deadwood there, and far too much “swagger.”
“…quid…”
Quite obviously, there’s been seismic misunderstanding; that is, what Schiff is REALLY doing is suggesting, implying, hinting that Trump should be impeached precisely because there was no crime, no bribery, no quid pro quo, no nuthin’.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/15/marie-yovanovitch-admits-there-was-no-crime-no-bribery-from-trump-on-ukraine/
In other words, Trump (that &^%#$%) has conned us ALL into believing that he committed an impeachable offense. That is simply unpardonable; and for that, he is not deserving to be POTUS. Tro da bum out!!! NOW!
(Yes, it’s counter-intuitive; but it just may be crazy enough to work—they’ve tried practically everything else.)
File under: Thinking outside the box.
“…the quid…” (Another view.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNseEVlaCl4
Meanwhile, Beijing’s Communists are violently ousting university students who have “occupied” their campuses in protests against the CCP, an un-elected elitist bureaucracy. But NPR, CNN and our “democratic” House of Representatives is AWOL on this topic.
Remember the American “Occupy” movement and its hamfisted take-over of the capital building in Madison, WI? University doctors wrote fake sick notes so students and teachers could all attend the riots. CNN et al proclaimed it was “Democracy in Action.” As with Trump’s election, the WI Democrats wanted to deny the newly elected Republican Governor his rightful office then, too.
Savor the contrast: In America our Democrats “occupy” – essentially trespass – with no consequences from law enforcement officers – to “protest” the outcome of a domestic election result. They poop in the halls and litter the place with their lazy bodies for months, unmolested by the powers that be. But in China, the Dems’ supposed allies in the Universities get no support from Pelosi’s cadres, even while their siblings in protest suffer violent eviction from their dorms and departments by armed LEO’s.
The disconnect here is deafening. The American Democrat Party is bereft of ideas, and sinking under the weight of its fatal internal contradictions. It should never be allowed near the levers of power, especially those governing foreign relations, until it undergoes top-to-bottom reform, a transformation that this reader considers is highly unlikely at this point.
“Savor the contrast…”
Interesting point but easily answered:
1. The Chicoms are antagonistic towards Trump.
2. The enemy of our enemy is our friend (and if not exactly our friend, then someone we should not antagonize).
3. Ergo….
Cf. The mullahcracy (but then, the mullahs were “our” friends way before Trump appeared on the scene—and of course Kerry, along with others, especially Eurotrash sophisticates, has been scurrying around reassuring them of “our” support…or at least “our” indulgence).
MBunge on November 18, 2019 at 1:53 am said:
It really staggers one to think about the actual argument being made here. The argument, plainly and simply, is “The President of the United States may not seek the truth about possible corruption involving his political enemies or possible interference with an election because that truth may be to his political benefit.”
* * *
Indeed.
I am quite sure that Mr. Obama and his virtuous investigators never (what, never?) considered that showing Donald Trump to be a corrupt minion of the Kremlin would be to their political advantage.
/sarc