I’ve gotten very far. The book is edited and formatted. I’m 90% finished with designing a website for selling the book, including deciding on all the methods for taking money. I have a book cover. I had decided on a publisher to do an initial print run of 300; hopefully I could sell more and do another run, but I’d start with that.
Note the past tense in that last sentence. I had decided on a publisher after doing a ton of research, and the company I chose seemed wonderful: responsive, polite, reasonable in price, and they even sent me free samples of paper types and a book or two they had published. Looked good.
Yesterday I was ready to order my test copy, and if that went well I’d order the print run.
Today I learned that within the last week the company has suddenly gone out of business. So it’s back to the drawing board on that.
This project is taking close to a year longer than I thought it would. But I still hope to issue the book at some point in June. We’ll see.
Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., formally filed articles of impeachment against President Biden on Friday over his recent comments about withholding offensive weapons aid to Israel, drawing parallels to House Democrats’ first impeachment of former President Donald Trump.
The first-term House Republican told Fox News Digital it was his “constitutional duty” to do so.
His legislative text, first obtained by Fox News Digital, accuses Biden of “abuse of power” and charges that he tried to force Israel into changing its own defense policies by leveraging lethal aid.
“In violation of his oath to faithfully execute the office of President and to uphold the Constitution, President Biden abused the powers of his office by soliciting a ‘quid pro quo’ with Israel while leveraging vital military aid for policy changes. This egregious action not only compromised the credibility of the United States but also undermined the interests of our longstanding ally, Israel. Therefore, President Biden’s conduct warrants impeachment, trial, removal from office, and disqualification from holding any future office under the United States,” Mills said in a statement.
I doubt much will come of it. Even if somehow the impeachment vote gets a majority, the Senate would just let it die. But it would get the Democrats on record as being okay with what Joe has done.
Plus, Kamala Harris is Biden’s impeachment insurance.
And that was supposed to be the strongest case against Trump.
Well, it turns out it may have seemed stronger than it was because of prosecutorial misconduct.
However, if the case had been brought in DC or NY instead of Florida, it would be soldiering on without interruption.
Here’s how CNN initially handled the news. Nothing much to see here, right?
Judge Aileen Cannon has indefinitely postponed former President Donald Trump’s classified documents trial in Florida, citing significant issues around classified evidence that would need to be worked out before the federal criminal case goes to a jury. https://t.co/xLTcCEDZd0
“Issues around classified evidence.” No actors; just evidence and “issues.” Big yawn, right?
Julie Kelly has more of the backstory. There are a host of reasons for Judge Cannon’s postponement, but these two are certainly among them:
On Friday night, in another shocking development, Special Counsel Jack Smith admitted materials contained in boxes seized during the August 2022 FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago are not in their original condition, raising serous questions as to how the case can proceed. …
We might next week see the unsealing and docketing of grand jury materials from Washington, D.C.; among the many corrupt facets of this case is the fact the DOJ conducted roughly 99 percent of the investigation in Washington rather than the proper jurisdiction of southern Florida. The reason why is obvious: the ex-chief judge of the D.C. District Court, Obama appointee and Trump hater Beryl Howell, rubber stamped every DOJ request including an egregious request to pierce attorney-client privilege between Donald Trump and his lawyer, Evan Corcoran.
Howell cited the “crime fraud exception” before forcing Corcoran to produce all of this records to Smith. Those records represent the basis for the obstruction counts against Trump and long-time personal aide Waltine Nauta in Smith’s 40-count indictment. Cannon recently expressed frustration during a court hearing last month about the fact grand jury files related to the case remain in Washington—some under seal.
A few weeks after the armed FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, the Department of Justice released a stunning photograph depicting alleged contraband seized from Donald Trump’s Palm Beach estate that day; the image showed colored sheets representing scary classification levels attached to files purportedly discovered in Trump’s private office. …
… the crime scene pic immediately went viral—just as Attorney General Merrick Garland, who authorized the unprecedented raid, intended. …
… An ex-CIA officer told ABC News the cover sheets indicated the highest level of secrecy, which in the wrong hands could have resulted in murder. …
New court filings in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s espionage and obstruction case against Trump and two co-defendants conclusively demonstrate that the government used the cover sheets to deceive the public as well as the court. The photo was a stunt, and one that adds more fuel to this dumpster-fire case. …
In what must be considered not only an act of doctoring evidence but willfully misleading the American people into believing the former president is a criminal and threat to national security, agents involved in the raid attached the cover sheets to at least seven files to stage the photo.
Classified cover sheets were not “recovered” in the container, contrary to Bratt’s declaration to the court. In fact, after being busted recently by defense attorneys for mishandling evidence in the case, Bratt had to fess up about how the cover sheets actually ended up on the documents. …
But now defense attorneys claim, and the special counsel concedes, that some placeholders do not match the relevant document. …
In other words, in their zeal to stage a phony photo using official classified cover sheets, FBI agents might have failed to accurately match the placeholder sheet with the appropriate document. This is a potentially case-blowing mistake, particularly if the document in question is one of the 34 records that represents the basis of espionage charges against Trump. …
After the boxes were transported from Florida to the hopelessly corrupt Washington FBI field office (another scandalous aspect of the case since the investigation should have been conducted in southern Florida not in another jurisdiction), a private company took scans of the inside of the boxes. But according to the defense team, the current condition of the boxes does not match the scans taken in August 2022.
As for the MSM, here’s how the Guardian and many other MSM sources have been covering the story: not a word about the possible misconduct; just the delay, and a strong insinuation that Judge Cannon is biased towards Trump. Here’s Politico, which covered it much the same way: very ho-hum, and no details of the new issues except to say there has been a “tangle of pretrial conflicts between special counsel Jack Smith and Trump’s attorneys.” Well, gee; sounds like a courtroom. PBS used a similar approach. Then I got tired of looking; I’m going to assume it would be hard to find an MSM outlet covering the developments properly.
Martha Pollack was the architect of Cornell’s disastrous race-focused DEI initiative that balkanized the campus, and inevitably led to targeting of Jewish and pro-Israel students. While I wish her well in her personal life, it is time for the Cornell Trustees to turn the ship around, to eliminate DEI programming as is taking place elsewhere, and to refocus the campus on the inherent dignity of each individual without regard to group-identity.
Way past time for Cornell and every other misguided university to return campuses to the pursuit of actual learning and fair debate governed by respect for individuals rather than leftist identity politics.
Here’s another informative video that offers in-depth commentary it’s hard to find elsewhere. If you’re impatient with podcasts, just go to “settings” and listen at higher speed:
And then there’s this (hat tip: commenter “miguel cervantes”):
Day Before Biden Admin Announced It Would Withhold Weapons From Israel, It Issued Sanctions Waiver To Allow Arms Sales to Qatar and Lebanonhttps://t.co/odOK77ORCS
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) May 9, 2024
Biden’s betrayal of Israel has so many dimensions, so many heinous ill effects, that’s it’s hard to contemplate them without falling into fury. One of the many aspects of it is his own naked ambition and lack of principle, which has always been his hallmark during his long life in the public arena.
And by the way, I continue to disagree with everyone who says he doesn’t know what he’s doing and merely recites the words of others. I have long said that although it’s very clear that Joe Biden is very cognitively challenged compared to just a few years ago, he still has plenty of agency and his brain is not so far gone that he’s unaware. Plus, he was Obama’s VP from 2009 to 2017, in full possession of whatever were his native faculties, and he did Obama’s bidding on this and on just about every other topic.
So this is not some recent thing nor is it the result of his age-related cognitive problems. It’s a result of who he is: a corrupt and ambitious viper – or weasel, if you prefer – who would sell out anyone for a dime or for career advancement.
Which brings us to a famous exchange from A Man For All Seasons. No, it’s not the one I often post here, about “cutting down” the laws. It’s this one:
That’s where I got the idea for the title of this post. Biden has betrayed Israel, the Jews, the US, the West, and Congress to win the presidency (he thinks) by winning the votes of the Muslims in Michigan who would dearly love to see Israel and the Jews destroyed, and the US and the West in their current forms as well.
But as I already wrote, this is nothing new for Biden; he earlier acquiesced to Obama’s anti-Israel and pro-Iran and anti-American policies and has been intent on implementing them in his own presidency. And yes, he’s got a lot of help and advice from both Obama and major players in the State Department and in both administrations. But I don’t let Joe off the hook; not at all.
Here’s a good summary [hat tip: commenter “sdferr”) of just how pernicious Biden’s current position on Israel/Hamas is. You might call his policy “stupid” also – and it is – but Biden and company are both knaves and fools. Some excerpts:
Biden says he wants a hostages-for-prisoners deal/ceasefire. But by pressuring Israel he emboldens Hamas to make unrealistic demands.
Biden says he wants a two-state solution with a “revitalized”Palestinian Authority (PA) in charge of Gaza. But by saving Hamas he ensures it will block Fatah (the ruling party in the PA) from gaining a foothold in Gaza. …
Biden says he wants to alleviate the humanitarian suffering in the Gaza Strip but by precluding a ceasefire deal and emboldening Hamas, he prolongs the war and therefore the suffering. …
Biden says he wants to free the hostages (some of whom are Americans) but his strengthening of Hamas’s negotiating hand ensures that Hamas will demand more in return for each hostage — at every step of the way. …
Biden says he wants to stop the Houthi attacks on commercial shipping, but by emboldening Hamas he emboldens the Houthis.
Biden says he wants to end the Israel-Hezbollah war, but his reduced support for Israel emboldens Hezbollah. …
Biden wants Tehran to help prevent a regional war, but by emboldening all elements of the “Resistance Axis,” his policy has the effect of widening the war. …
Biden says he stands against antisemitism, but by, in effect, accusing Israel of inexcusable brutality against innocent woman and children, he places the authority of his office behind the blood libel of the age.
Biden says he wants normalization between Israel and the Saudis, but by weakening Israel he makes it less attractive as a partner. …
… [Biden’s] personalized attacks on PM Netanyahu encourage the opposition to try to bring him down.
I would add that Biden’s betrayal of an ally in a time of great need undermines any remaining faith in America as an ally.
And Biden’s refusal to give Israel wartime aid that Congress has authorized is grounds for impeachment. Remember? And of course Ukraine wasn’t at war back then, nor was the pause permanent (see this):
Pausing congressionally approved weapons to an international ally for domestic political purposes was an impeachable offense 5 years ago. That happened.
They all know it. They all know what's happening. Now pay attention to why it's not being covered that exact same way. https://t.co/nKGbAVg5sq
Interestingly enough, even Newsweekhas published an opinion piece claiming that Joe’s refusal to arm Israel at this point is impeachable:
The Biden administration has put a hold on a shipment of military aid to Israel in a nakedly political attempt to win votes in key swing states. Presidents have been impeached for far less.
The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (ICA) governs the control of funds appropriated by Congress. It was enacted to reassert Congress’ power of the purse and prevent the president from simply substituting their own funding decisions for those of Congress. While it was once an obscure rule on governing spending, the masses may remember it for its brief starring role in the first impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. As the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry report explained:
President Trump ordered the suspension of $391 million in vital military assistance urgently needed by Ukraine, a strategic partner, to resist Russian aggression. Because the aid was appropriated by Congress, on a bipartisan basis, and signed into law by the president, its expenditure was required by law. Acting directly and through his subordinates within the U.S. government, the president withheld from Ukraine this military assistance without any legitimate foreign policy, national security, or anticorruption justification. The president did so despite the longstanding bipartisan support of Congress, uniform support across federal departments and agencies for the provision to Ukraine of the military assistance, and his obligations under the Impoundment Control Act.
And of course, as I already said, the Ukraine war hadn’t started (although there had been ongoing hostilities for years) and the pause was quite temporary. Biden’s behavior is far worse.
I doubt he’ll be impeached and if impeached I strongly doubt he’ll be removed – unless the Democrats want to be rid of him. I think many dearly would love to be rid of him if they could swing it, and if they could find a replacement they thought would garner more votes in November. Short of that, Joe’s staying – and doing more and more damage with every passing day.
I noticed a discussion in the comments about whether RFK Jr. was against vaccines more generally, or just the newer technologies (the latter of which I assume refers to mRNA vaccines like COVID). I’m highlighting my answer in this separate post because I want to point out something that some of you may not know about doing online searches.
If you’re researching a question like that – involving the past – in a regular search of course you’re going to get recent articles for the most part, and they will discuss the COVID shot. But you can do a custom search for earlier dates in order to filter the recent pieces out. In Google, this is done under “tools,” and in DuckDuckGo you’ll see an option that says “any time” and under that you’ll see you can do a custom search.
When I search between the year 2000 and January of 2019 for “RFK Jr. and vaccines,” plenty of articles pop up that seem relevant. Here’s one of them, for example. It’s from October of 2015, and it’s entitled, “Robert Kennedy Jr. warns of vaccine-linked ‘holocaust’.” An excerpt [emphasis mine]:
With lawmakers [in California] preparing to vote on a bill blocking parents from skipping vaccinations for their children, prominent vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. arrived at the Sacramento screening of a film linking autism to the vaccine preservative thimerosal and warned that public health officials cannot be trusted.
“They can put anything they want in that vaccine and they have no accountability for it,” said Kennedy, who walked onto and left a Crest Theater stage to standing ovations, of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Wednesday afternoon will see the first hearing for a bill eliminating the personal belief exemption parents can cite in order to avoid vaccinating their kids. Senate Bill 277 was prompted by soaring exemption rates in some schools districts and outbreaks of long-dormant diseases like measles and whooping cough.
Kennedy has credited the film Trace Amounts with helping to persuade lawmakers to halt a vaccination measure in Oregon. Advocates offered free Trace Amounts tickets to every California lawmaker, visiting offices in the State Capitol on Monday to drop them off. Three rows cordoned off for lawmakers sat empty on Wednesday evening, though some staff members attended.
The overwhelming scientific consensus supports vaccine use and dismisses any serious side effects. Multiple studies have rejected any link between the mercury-containing chemical thimerosal and autism. Nevertheless, vaccine manufacturers have removed thimerosal from nearly all childhood vaccines (some influenza vaccines are the exception) and a California bill further barred thimerosal content. In light of those facts, SB 277’s author called Kennedy’s continued activism disingenuous.
“I think it is dangerous that he is spreading misinformation about something that’s very important for public health,” Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, a pediatrician, said in an interview. “Autism rates have continued to rise even though we are not using thimerosal in vaccines for children,” he added. “We still haven’t figured out exactly what causes autism. We do know it’s not vaccines.”
The vaccine/autism connection is bogus. I have written several posts on the subject of autism; for example this one on the vaccine connection and this one on the rising number of diagnoses of autism and why this might be happening.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. experienced a series of health issues in recent years, including an abnormality that he said was caused by a worm that entered his brain and then died, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
In 2010, Kennedy, now 70, experienced severe memory loss and mental fog, he said in a deposition two years later. According to the Times, he consulted top neurologists familiar with the medical history of his uncle, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, who had died of brain cancer in 2009. A New York doctor, after reviewing a scan of his brain, told him that his health issues could be “caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” Kennedy said in the 2012 deposition, which concerned a divorce from his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy. Robert Kennedy said at the time that his earning power had been negatively affected by the cognitive issues, the Times reported.
So he said this during his divorce proceedings. Now he’s saying he’s fine.
And here’s more than you probably want to know about the brainworm situation:
But, speaking generally, [Dr.] Hotez said people with pork tapeworm infections in their brains — a condition known as neurocysticercosis — more commonly experience seizures and sometimes need to be on anti-seizure medication for a long time because when the worms die, they form a calcified cyst in the brain that can cause the brain to release inflammatory chemicals called cytokines.
The connection to memory problems and dementia is under study, Hotez said. Those symptoms are also associated with mercury poisoning, and Kennedy told the Times that at the time he was diagnosed with that ailment, he was consuming high quantities of tuna and perch.
“Yeah, the worms are not feeding the brain. They are living in the brain,” Dr. Hotez said. The worms get nutrients from the body, but they are not eating the brain tissue, he said.
I’ve never thought that RFK Jr. was playing with a full deck. But I doubt this worm thing has much to do with it.
I know; vipers don’t have hands and can’t stab you in the back, so it’s a mixed metaphor. But Biden – or his controllers – and the State Department are indeed backstabbing vipers.
You can find articles on the subject of what’s been going on with the fake “hostage deal” that Hamas says it agreed to: this gives many details, and this describes the Biden administration’s role. From the latter article:
[Biden] is doing everything he can, including threats of cutting off certain military weapons, diplomatic maneuvers at the United Nations and duplicitous efforts to push through an agreement with the terrorist group, to save Hamas from defeat just when Israel put it on the ropes.
Biden has essentially been playing a double game on the war with Hamas since Oct. 7. …
he’s put the full force of American influence behind an effort to broker a ceasefire deal with Hamas that will essentially hand the terror group a victory in the war it started.
The terms of the proposed deals that Washington has backed are appalling. They call for the release of some hostages, but only a percentage of those Hamas is still holding under who knows what horrible conditions. And the pressure that Washington has exerted on Netanyahu to take a deal on virtually any terms and conditions—along with the way it has coordinated this with Hamas’s ally, Qatar—has given the terrorists all the leverage. That’s why Hamas continues to turn down even the most lopsided of agreements; its leaders are convinced that Biden will not let them be defeated. That means they think they can hold out for a deal that will end the war and return the situation to the pre-Oct. 7 status quo in Gaza and still not give up all the hostages, let alone be held accountable for mass murder.
Even when it comes to the surge in antisemitism in the United States, the gap between Biden’s Holocaust speech rhetoric and the reality of his policies grows wider every day. He may have chided the pro-Hamas protests for their violence, rule-breaking and antisemitism. But the only people trying to hold the universities accountable are his Republican opponents.
Israeli officials claim the Biden administration knew about the changes during the negotiations process but didn’t brief Israel before Hamas announced it accepted it on Monday.
A senior U.S. official pushed back saying “American diplomats have been engaged with Israeli counterparts. There have been no surprises.”
I know which source I find more trustworthy.
And Caroline Glick has much to say, all of it worth listening to:
Meanwhile, the Rafah offensive begins. And the Biden administration continues to withhold arm shipments (probably unconstitutionally, since Congress voted to send them), acting as though Israel is the US’s wayward child needing guidance from the holier-than-thou Americans – who have had a higher civilian-to-military kill ratio in the US’s wars against jihadis than the Israelis do in this highly challenging war against Hamas.
The whole thing makes me think of the famous 1975 headline about Ford and NYC: “Biden to Israel: Drop Dead.” I would go further and say: “The world to Israel: Drop Dead.”
