The United States has allies across the globe. Sometimes they are enemies of each other. That can give us a chance to broker the peace. Or we can cut and run and let wars start. We have just seen President Trump choose the latter course.
Turkey is a member of NATO. They have been moving toward radical Islam. Obviously, we want to do what we can to prevent that. The Syrian Kurds were very helpful in our fight against ISIS. We had a small force there to advise and support. They also served as a deterrent to prevent Turkey from launching an attack. Rather than trying to diffuse the situation, Trump pulls the troops out. This, in effect, gave Turkey a blank check to kill, rape and torture anyone they wanted. That’s exactly what happened. He proudly announced a permanent ceasefire. Calling anything in that region permanent is utterly ridiculous. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds are forced to flee their homes and places of businesses. Apparently, Trump doesn’t have a problem with ethnic cleansing. In the short run, Turkey is the big winner and the Kurds are the loser. In the long run Russia, Iran and ISIS come out ahead. This has been a disaster for us. We lose any influence in that region. Our friends know they can’t depend on us and our enemies know we won’t do anything to stop them. President Obama pulled out of Iraq and dithered in Syria. That led to the growth of ISIS. Now we are making the same mistake again.
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Potomac Fever is a political “disease” in which a person has a greatly enhanced view of their importance once they get to Washington. I believe I have found another one. The main symptom is a frantic desire to stay in the limelight despite losing all political relevance. I think I will call it Palinitis. This is named for Sarah Palin, who had one of the worst cases on record.
I believe Hillary Clinton has an advanced case of Palinitis. She spent a quarter-century in the public eye. Her time is up but she doesn’t seem to realize it. For some time, she got attention by offering dozens of excuses for losing to Donald Trump. Her attacks on President Trump and Republicans in general have been drowned out. She apparently decided she needs to be more outrageous. She claimed she would win the nomination if she ran. Now she had viciously attacked presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard by claiming she is a Russian asset. Gabbard has served her country both in the military and political office. She doesn’t deserve this malicious smear. Clinton is overstaying her welcome. It’s time for her to get off the stage. The gloves are coming off. Bernie Sanders just called Elizabeth Warren the C word. That’s right. He called her a capitalist. I guess that’s about the worst insult you can hurl at a far leftist.
Lots of people are calling themselves socialists. I’m not sure they know what that means. Sanders talks about Scandinavia but it’s just as capitalist as we are. The classic definition of socialism is a system in which the government controls the means of production. It’s really a question of freedom. If someone wants to sell a product or service, they are free to come to the marketplace. Their potential customer is free to buy the product or not. Sometimes we may not agree with decisions others make. I would never spend the money to buy Air Jordans. I could care less whether there is an athlete’s name or a swoosh on my shoes. Under socialism, there really isn’t a marketplace. People aren’t allowed to start a business. The buying decision is made by somebody in the government. If they decide everyone should wear army boots, people have to live with that choice. We often talk about the freedoms that are guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. We should treasure them. We should also treasure the right to buy any damn show we want. Joe Biden is out of office so he obviously can’t be impeached. Since he is running for president, his behavior should be examined using the same standards I applied to Donald Trump.
First, I would like to say a word about his son Hunter. He isn’t running for office yet his name is being dragged through the mud. He is very accomplished, having had successful careers in law, finance and public relations. George W. Bush put him on the board of directors for Amtrak. Undoubtedly the Ukrainian company considered his political connections when naming him to their board. However, they kept him on when Trump became president. There is not a shred of evidence that he is guilty of any wrongdoing. After the way his family has been attacked, you wouldn’t expect Trump to go after a rival’s family. The man obviously has no class. He tried to tie Ted Cruz’s father to the Kennedy assassination. Biden was the point man for all matters relating to Ukraine. I’m sure he knew about his son’s position. Not recusing himself was certainly an error in judgment. Corruption was widespread in Ukraine. The United States and other countries were working to clean it up. They were putting pressure on Ukraine to fire their lead prosecutor. Biden threatened to pull some aid. There had been an investigation relating to the company his son was associated with. I seriously doubt Biden was even aware of it. Both Trump and Biden exercised poor judgement. Of the lapses, I believe Trump’s was the more serious of the two. Based on what we know now, neither man did anything that approaches high crimes and misdemeanors. Today I will take a look at whether President Trump should be impeached. This is based on what we know today. It is certainly possible that there is incriminating evidence that has not seen the light of day.
I am certainly not one of his fans. However, we need to ignore any personal or political biases. Anyone, regardless of party or personality, should be treated fairly. The big question is what constitutes an impeachable offense. The Constitution uses the phrase high crimes and misdemeanors. Some set the bar really low. One of the committee heads investigating Trump said calling the Mueller investigation a witch hunt was obstruction of justice, presumably an impeachable offense. To me, someone has to commit a serious crime or grossly abuse the powers of their office. There are three activities we need to focus on. The first is the effort to get negative information about Joe Biden. Every campaign does opposition research on their opponents. Having a president involved is unseemly. It is definitely inappropriate for him to talk to other heads of head about it. He deserves to be roundly criticized but I don’t believe it is an impeachable offense. Next was his decision to slow down aid to Ukraine. This is a perfectly legal action unless there was a quid pro quo. Finally, there is the phone call with President Zelenskyy. It was a very friendly call. Nothing is mentioned about the aid package. A high-level Ukrainian official said they didn’t know about it for a month. If Zelienskyy knew about it, I think he would have said something. Perhaps it was Trump’s intent to tie the aid for getting information on Biden. However, I see no evidence to prove it. In short, I don’t see anything approaching an impeachable offense. Past impeachments have been designed to be fair to both sides. The House chooses a committee to review the evidence. This is similar to a preliminary hearing. Both sides gather evidence and call witnesses. If they vote in favor of articles of impeachment, then the matter goes to the House as a whole.
The current approach is like a kangaroo court. Several committees are preceding without a House vote. Only Democrats can introduce evidence or call witnesses. In at least one case, Republicans were given less time to question witnesses. The prize for most outrageous behavior goes to Adam Schiff’s Intelligence Committee. Staffers were working with the so-called whistleblower before the complaint was filed. He gave misleading statements about the contact. Even worse, he introduced a phony version of the phone call President Trump had with the Ukrainian president. He later called it a parody. It shouldn’t matter if people hate Trump and think him guilty. They should still want him to be treated fairly. Sadly, many Democrats are abandoning their belief in our democratic values. Camilla Harris called on Twitter to shut down Trump’s account. She seems to believe that our constitutional rights should only be given to people that think like her. There is little in the news other than talk of impeaching Donald Trump. I have taken a look at past impeachments to see what they can tell us.
We need to remember that an impeachment is the equivalent to an indictment. If someone is impeached, the Senate holds a trial. It takes a 2/3 vote to remove them from office. Such extreme action has been rare. There have been only 19 times that the House has adopted a resolution and assigned a committee to begin an inquiry. Three were against presidents and one against a senator. The others involved judges. There have been two impeachments in the 21st century. They involved judges and both were removed from office. The most interesting ones involve presidents. Efforts against Truman, Bush 43 and Obama went nowhere. John Tyler was the first president to be involved. Congress was upset over some vetoes but the attempt to impeach failed. A committee was formed to investigate charges of corruption against James Buchanan. It cleared him of any wrongdoing. Andrew Johnson was the first president to be impeached. His refusal to work with Congress led to a disastrous election in which both houses had vetoproof majorities. They passed the Tenure of Office Act. It required congressional approval for the president to fire a member of their cabinet. They were trying to force Johnson to keep cabinet members who were disloyal. He fired Edmund Stanton, the secretary of war. The House impeached him. The effort to remove him from office failed by one vote. The House authorized the Judiciary Committee to do an impeachment inquiry against Richard Nixon. They hired a large staff to do research. Among them were Hillary Rodham (now Clinton) and William Weld who is challenging Trump in the 2020 election. Watergate was a massive scandal. Many high-level appointees ended up in prison. The big question was the degree to which Nixon was complicit. They eventually drew up five articles of impeachment. The committee approved three of them. The most serious one related to his role in covering up the Watergate burglary. Nixon was fighting the release of his presidential tapes. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously against him. One tape showed that he clearly was part of the coverup. He then resigned his office. Had he not done so, he most certainly would have been impeached and convicted. Bill Clinton became the second president to be impeached. He was sued by a woman named Paula Jones for sexual harassment when he was a governor. While president, he had a relationship with Monica Lewinsky. She told a friend about it. The friend taped the conversations and notified Jones’s attorney. Clinton took steps to conceal the relationship and suggested Lewinsky not tell the truth. In a deposition he said they didn’t have a sexual relationship and denied that they were alone together. The judge ruled that the Lewinski information was immaterial. The case was thrown out of court because Jones didn’t show any damages. It was later settled out of court. The House impeached him on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. After the Senate trial, there were insufficient votes to remove him from office. His behavior with Lewinski and attempts at a coverup were appalling. Had he behaved that way in a criminal trial, it would certainly have been obstruction of justice. I don’t believe irrelevant testimony on a case that was thrown out constitutes obstruction. The perjury charge depends on whether or not the activity they engaged in constitutes sex. I don’t believe his behavior met the constitutional requirement. Eight presidents have been involved with impeachment in one form or another. I believe that Nixon is the only one guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. Next time I will take a look at charges that are being made against Trump. Most Democratic presidential candidates want to massively increase the income tax rate on the rich. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders want to start to start confiscating their assets. They euphemistically call it a wealth tax. Sanders made it clear that he wants nobody to be a billionaire.
Obviously, it’s hard to be sympathetic with the ultrarich. If these policies are put into effect, future Apples, Googles, Amazons and Facebooks won’t be American companies. The millions of jobs will be created elsewhere. Warren and Sanders talk about the trillions of dollars that will be raised. They assume that those affected will quietly pay the money. They will find loopholes. A couple can get divorced and pay less taxes. Some may elect to move out of the country. This has been going on in Europe for decades. This tax would be extraordinarily hard to administer. It’s easy to value publicly traded stocks and bonds. Coming up with a value for privately held businesses, real estate and collectibles is virtually impossible. Margaret Thatcher said “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”. Once the wealth in a country is destroyed, you end up with places like Venezuela. Capitalism is certainly not perfect but socialism would put us on a road to ruin. Dealing with Iran is one of our greatest foreign policy challenges. They consider us to be infidels. They wish to harm us and some of our key allies. They want to be the leading power in the Middle East. Developing nuclear weapons and supporting terrorists is part of this strategy.
As we all know, Saudi Arabia suffered a devastating attack on its oil infrastructure. Fingers are pointed at Iraq. They would certainly be the most likely culprit. This was an act of war against Saudi Arabia and economic war against countries that depend on Saudi oil. Thankfully, we are energy independent. Responding to the attack should be left to those countries affected. If they want to consult with us, that’s fine. We should not play the role of trying to right all wrongs in the world. Getting involved militarily would be a huge mistake. This week we have seen a lot of confusion among House Democrats over what the impeachment investigation is all about. It was called an inquiry. However, the House needs to approve a formal inquiry that could lead to impeachment. Since that hasn’t happened, it’s now being called an investigation to determine if there should be an inquiry.
this is a ridiculous investigation that likely will go nowhere. The only reason for it is to satisfy the extreme Left. it looks like they will follow three paths. Some are still convinced there was collusion with Russia. Others want to pursue obstruction of justice for interfering with the Mueller investigation. Trump waived all executive privilege. The investigation lasted nearly two years without being interfered with. Besides, how can there be obstruction of justice when there wasn’t a crime? The last group want to dig into Trump financial records hoping to find something. Next year House Democrats have to face the voters. When asked what they have accomplished, saying they focused on harassing Donald Trump is not a good answer. |
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