Who believes that President Obama didn't know what his FBI was doing?

The FBI used evidence it knew was questionable to launch and then continue a clandestine investigation into a candidate for President of the United States. They obtained warrants through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act courts--venues that were created to allow U.S. counterintelligence officials monitor suspected terrorists--to tap the telephones of people who worked for the Donald Trump Campaign. Even when information they developed plainly told them that there was nothing there, they continued to eavesdrop and leak, eavesdrop and leak some more, and so forth and so on until Robert J. Mueller took over in spring 2017. And all this time, then Attorney General Loretta Lynch didn't know about it?

Moreover, what did President Barack Obama know about this unprecedented and potentially explosive investigation into the affairs of Donald Trump? There were lurid, salacious rumors about videotaped nudity, bizarre sex acts that even I blush about. Obama heard about none of this? After all, Obama made his first splash onto the national political stage in part because his opponent in the Illinois U.S. Senate seat withdrew from the race. His opponent bailed out because a media investigation revealed...  allegations of lurid, salacious rumors about videotaped nudity and bizarre sex acts. Who put the Chicago Tribune and WLS-TV onto the scent of a Republican sex scandal?

And whose Department of Justice used sketchy evidence to launch a similarly sex-tinged deep dive into President Trump's campaign?

Obama didn't use the IRS to harass his political opponents, did he? Well...

Strangely enough, the IRS did target organs of the opposition party during the last administration, but the episode has largely faded from public memory without resolution. May 10 marks the fifth anniversary of the revelation that President Obama’s IRS targeted conservative groups for more than two years prior to the 2012 presidential election.

While some of the faces at the IRS have changed, the law that enabled their misuse of power has not. Congress’s failure to address the problem leaves the U.S. democratic process vulnerable to further abuses.

Lois Lerner, the career official at the center of the IRS scandal, retired on full pension after invoking her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination before Congress. John Koskinen, appointed IRS commissioner by Mr. Obama to lead the agency “in difficult times,” served his full term, spending the better part of four years stonewalling congressional requests for information. On his watch, the IRS destroyed evidence subject to subpoena.

And his State Department wouldn't run interference on a former Secretary of State's embarrassing run-in with Congress over tens of thousands of compromised Top Secret emails, would it? Umm...

The development on Capitol Hill came the same day the Associated Press reported the existence of a personal email server traced back to the Chappaqua, New York, home of Clinton. The unusual practice of a cabinet-level official running her own email server would have given Clinton – who is expected to run for president in the 2016 campaign – significant control over limiting access to her message archives.

The practice would also complicate the State Department’s legal responsibilities in finding and turning over official emails in response to any investigations, lawsuits or public records requests. The department would be in the position of accepting Clinton’s assurances she was surrendering everything required that was in her control.

Congress said it learned last summer about Clinton’s use of a private email account to conduct official State Department business during its investigation of the Benghazi attacks on a US mission in which four Americans died.

“It doesn’t matter if the server was in Foggy Bottom, Chappaqua or Bora Bora,” the House speaker, John Boehner, said. “The Benghazi select committee needs to see all of these emails, because the American people deserve all of the facts.”

"I think Michael Horowitz was surprised to learn... and I cannot believe that there is an investigation that would take you inside a presidential campaign and four people who were targeted within that campaign and that doesn't require some kind of supervisory review and initiation beyond simply the inner-reaches of the FBI?"

Too bad you can't impeach a former President. If only to change his 'honorific' from 'Former President' to 'Disgraced ex-President' Barack Hussein Obama.

When will Democrats give up on impeaching the President?

We thought the closed door, classified depositions were a bad idea. After two weeks of open public 'testimony,' we now see exactly why Democrats wanted to do all this in secret. If this impeachment inquiry had been a circus, half the town wouldn't pay to see it and the curious half that did pay for it would demand a refund. To compare the Democrats' display of high crimes and misdemeanor evidence to a clown show would offend real clowns and trigger Pennywise into a national killing spree.

The question now is, when do the Democrats admit defeat, pull up the stakes and take the circus tents home?

Not one of the Democrats' witnesses offered a shred of evidence that President Trump corruptly withheld aid to a foreign government in exchange for that government doing something that they could have done, would have done or should have done anyway.

Not one witness claimed that President Trump himself made it clear to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that unless he publicly began investigating corruption Trump wanted uncovered, $400 million in U.S. military aid was being withheld.

Not one witness claimed that President Trump acted outside of the plenary power of Article II of the United States Constitution, which grants sole authority to conduct foreign policy to the President. Not Congress. Not the Judiciary. Not the Foreign Service that serves at the arbitrary discretion of the President.

What almost every one of the Democrats' witnesses did was convince us that there is an entrenched bureaucracy in Washington DC. There is indeed a Deep State. This bureaucracy has convinced itself and the press that they, not the President, formulate and execute U.S. policy. They believe that when the President goes 'off the reservation' and tries to circumvent their desires and beliefs, it is their duty to block or impede the President. This is the arrogance of insulation. They see themselves as indispensable and believe that this country cannot succeed without them.

President Trump was elected to rid our country of these well-groomed, well-connected and well-paid elites. Every one of them should be fired. Today. Not one of them should be allowed to return to their offices on December 1 except to clear out their belongings, turn in their badges, CAC cards and government smartphones and vacate the premises.

If Democrats had any sense (LOL.. IK,R?) they would quit now. Instead of voting on Articles of Impeachment, they should introduce a House Resolution censuring the President for whatever 'violation' they can cook up that might pass the lower chamber along partisan lines. It's their only hope of escaping this political disaster.

They'd better hurry. Independents are deserting this fiasco like viewers fleeing CNN and MSNBC. When the allegedly 'biased' Fox News beats even broadcast TV networks in instant ratings, the gig is up, y'all. Americans are also tuning out of Democrats' pony show of Presidential debates. And now, Republicans are raising money hand over fist due directly to the impeachment circus.

Whether Nancy Pelosi decides to censure or impeach, there is no escaping judgment on November 3, 2020. Barring an act of Providence, Donald Trump's reelection is a cinch. The only uncertainty is whether his coattails give him a simple majority or veto-proof domination.

I would prefer the latter because that might be the only way to truly drain the swamp. Democrats can deny us that satisfaction by giving up. They won't though, will they?

President Trump was hired by the American people to rid the Beltway of these impeachment 'witnesses'

Good bye, and good riddance to George Kent, Bill Taylor and Marie Yovanovitch. Thank you for your service to the country and your employment here has ended. You are no longer needed, so please collect your things and turn in your badges at the front desk.

They deserve to be fired because they attempted to circumvent or curtail Trump Administration policy with regards to Ukraine.

Article II of the United States Constitution grants the President sole and exclusive power to appoint 'ambassadors,' which in 1787 meant 'anyone who speaks to foreign governments on behalf of the United States of America.'

The U.S. Supreme Court decided in 1936 that the executive branch has "plenary and exclusive power of the President as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations" U.S. v. Curtiss-wright Corp, 299 U.S. 304, 320 (1936).

Though it is not explicitly mentioned anywhere in the Constitution that the President has plenary power over foreign affairs, the Supreme Court ruled that the need for tact and secrecy necessitated the President to be able to make decisions without being constrained by the other governmental branches. The Supreme Court ruled that the only limit to the President's plenary power over foreign affairs was that they "must be exercised in subordination to the applicable provisions of the Constitution". U.s. v. Curtiss-wright Corp, 299 U.S. 304, 320 (1936). In other words, the Supreme Court ruled that the President had unlimited power over foreign relations as long as he did not do anything which explicitly violated the Constitution. It is important to note that the Supreme Court was very willing to give the President vast amounts of power at the time of Wright, which was just before the outbreak of World War II. This does not seem like much, but over the years a clear pattern has been established wherein the President's powers over foreign relations are greatly expanded during troubling times.

After the Iranian hostage crisis in 1981, the President made an executive order to seize all Iranian assets in the United States without the approval of Congress. Normally, Congress would have to approve of such an action, but in Dames Moore v. Regan the Supreme Court ruled that "though those settlements have sometimes been made by treaty, there has also been a longstanding practice of settling such claims by executive agreement without the advice and consent of the Senate." Dames Moore v. Regan, 453 U.S. 654, 679 (1981). The Supreme Court allowed the President to make an executive order based on an assumption that Congress would have approved based on similar legislation that it had previously passed. This shows another broadening of the President's power over foreign affairs, as the Supreme Court allowed the President to make an executive order that was not permitted by the Constitution. The Supreme Court's reasoning for allowing the President's power to be broadened was that the Iranian hostage crisis was an emergency situation and that in order to be able to handle the situation quickly and efficiently, the President's power over foreign affairs needed to be expanded. This is yet another example of the President's foreign affairs powers being increased during turbulent times.

Historians may debate when today's 'foreign service' morphed from the apolitical profession envisioned in the Rogers Act into the pit of vipers it is today, but no one can dispute that it has now become too big for its britches. If the 'foreign service' does not execute the President's explicit orders and carry out his foreign policy to his sole satisfaction, then they can be circumvented, fired or otherwise told to STFU and come home.

The foreign service does not formulate foreign policy. The President does. The foreign service may interpret his policy, but if it misinterprets that policy the President has sole and plenary authority to replace or remove the misguided people who don't get it.

What the American people watched on November 13 and 15 was the testimony of three members of the foreign service who don't get it. They also lack the humility required to understand that they serve at the pleasure of the President, even if they find it distasteful that their world view and President Trump's world view are worlds apart. That's too bad. Be the professionals you claim to be and do your job as your President has determined it to be.

There is similar bureaucratic entrenchment with regards to heatlthcare, transportation, environmental regulation, food safety, agriculture even tax policy. All of those are being dealt with too, but Trump has only been President for 33 months and dismantling the federal behemoth is taking a bit longer than expected, ok?

In 2016, Donald Trump made a campaign promise to drain the swamp of Washington DC. How this country dealt with both allies and adversaries was part of the quagmire and the system was broken in the eyes of the electorate. So they elected Donald Trump to do what he said he'd do.

That includes ridding the federal government of people like George Kent, Bill Taylor and Marie Yovanovitch.

Good bye, and good riddance. Who's next?

The media is pushing a false narrative that Republicans are pushing a false narrative

No wonder the American public is confused, disengaged, or both. It's even hard for people following this impeachment circus to figure out which ring the show is in.

In the hearing held today, Republican Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes went into considerable and well informed detail on how Russia wasn't the only former Soviet state to meddle in the 2016 election and how Democrats cooperated with corrupt Ukrainian officials.

The biased media jumped on this, calling it unsubstantiated and a false narrative. It is neither.

Here's what the Associated Press presented today in a meek attempt at a 'fact check:'

Trump himself was told by his officials that the theory was “completely debunked” long before the president pressed Ukraine to investigate it anyway, according to Tom Bossert, Trump’s first homeland security adviser. In testimony at the closed-door hearings that preceded Wednesday’s public session, Fiona Hill, a former special assistant to Trump on the National Security Council, said it was bogus.

“It is a fiction that the Ukrainian government was launching an effort to upend our election,” Hill testified. “I’m extremely concerned that this is a rabbit hole that we’re all going to go down in between now and the 2020 election, and it will be to all of our detriment.”

Broadly, the theory contends that a hack of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 was a setup designed to cast blame on Russia but actually was cooked up by or with the help of Ukrainians. The evidence points conclusively to Russia, not Ukraine.

If that's what Fiona Hill really told Congress last month, she should join all of the folks Robert Mueller successfully prosecuted for lying to Congress. The Ukrainian government in power as of 2016 absolutely sought to prevent Trump's election and I'm not alone in knowing this.

It is no 'theory' that Ukrainians were elbow-deep in election interference and it wasn't the DNC server hack AP (and the New York Times) seems to think it is. It was a direct attempt to get dirt on the Trump campaign and keep Democrats happy with Ukraine.

In a subscribers only post on his site taibbi.substack.com, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi (no friend of Donald Trump) wrote:

Still, it’s an undeniable fact that Ukraine worked to help Democrats oppose Trump in 2016. A Ukrainian court has ruled that its government “meddled” illegally in the American election, among other things by providing information about payments made to former Trump campaign manager Manafort.

This was after a veteran Democratic operative named Andrea Chalupa traveled to Ukraine in search of Trump oppo, which, not that anyone cares, is a similar story to Ukrainegate, the difference being that Chalupa was not president of the United States when she asked a foreign government for dirt about a presidential candidate. Even making the simple factual observation that the Chalupa/Ukraine transaction took place, however, has become an impossibility in the current media landscape.

The Chalupa story was originally broken by Politico reporter Ken Vogel in 2017 (“Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire”). But Politico now describes Trump being committed to “unsubstantiated allegations… a conspiracy theory that Ukraine aided Democrats in the 2016 election.”

Politico originally reported that conspiracy theory!

Ken Vogel's story from 2017:

Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.

A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia. But they were far less concerted or centrally directed than Russia’s alleged hacking and dissemination of Democratic emails.

Taibbi's story, "The New York Times sinks below Fox," is a serious and saddening takedown of what used to be one of the great institutions of American journalism. His site is well worth a subscription, despite the fact that Taibbi is an avowed liberal who detests Donald Trump but has the professional courage to call shitty journalism what it is.

The Financial Times' story is also behind a paywall, but it's entitled "Ukraine’s leaders campaign against ‘pro-Putin’ Trump" and goes into detail how the 2016 Ukraine government worked against Trump, providing the information to DNC contractor, Alexandra Chalupa, that eventually got Paul Manafort caught in an FBI trap.

FT.com and Politico's Ken Vogel puts the AP 'fact check' in a very bad light. Are they being dishonest, or just being shitty journalists?

The Hill's Investigative Reporter John Solomon also documented the pre-Zelensky Ukrainians attempts to influence the 2016 election. Solomon presents evidence that shows:

Sworn statements from two Ukrainian officials admitting that their agency tried to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election in favor of Hillary Clinton. The effort included leaking an alleged ledger showing payments to then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort;

Contacts between Democratic figures in Washington and Ukrainian officials that involved passing along dirt on Donald Trump;

Financial records showing a Ukrainian natural gas company routed more than $3 million to American accounts tied to Hunter Biden, younger son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, who managed U.S.-Ukraine relations for the Obama administration. Biden’s son served on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings;

Records that Vice President Biden pressured Ukrainian officials in March 2016 to fire the prosecutor who oversaw an investigation of Burisma Holdings and who planned to interview Hunter Biden about the financial transfers;

Correspondence showing members of the State Department and U.S. Embassy in Kiev interfered or applied pressure in criminal cases on Ukrainian soil;

Disbursements of as much as $7 billion in Ukrainian funds that prosecutors believe may have been misappropriated or taken out of the country, including to the United States.

The information shown in italics is hotly disputed by Democrats and Democrat-friendly media, but their disputes are made without evidence (they just don't 'believe' them). Solomon has said on the air that he has the records and that the Dept of Justice has them as well.

Solomon also has sworn statements that Ukrainian officials tried to come clean, offering reams of evidence to U.S. State Dept officials, only  to be turned down. WT everlovin' F was that?

It is very easy to lump what Republicans are doing in the impeachment hearings with what's being uncovered by John Durham in an ongoing DOJ investigation. They may be covering the same thing, but to claim that Durham's probe and Republican lines of attack in the hearings are a defense against impeachment is backwards.

The Democrats have been in a panic since May, when Durham started digging. Their impeachment circus is a preemptive strike against the potential criminal indictments Durham is probably going to produce.  They're trying to poison the well and prejudice the jury pool. The jury pool is of course the American public. Last month, AP was deliberately dishonest in its characterization of the July 25 phone call between President Trump and new Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky. Again, poisoning the well.

The media--from the Associated Press through the NY Times--are just carrying the Democrats' water.

Yikes! Thousands of actual witches set to cast a spell on President Donald Trump

Was it the President's constant "witch hunt" complaint about the ongoing impeachment circus that set'em off? Or was it some specific policy initiative that has spurred these thousands of prestidigitators to weave their magic?

The ritual calls for the use of an unflattering photo of Trump, a tarot card, a stub of an orange candle, a pin, and a feather. Participants then call on the “heavenly hosts, demons of the infernal realms, and spirits of the ancestors” to bind Trump “so that his malignant works may fail utterly.”

Demons of infernal realms? What infernal realms? There's more than one? This is supposed to happen at midnight on October 25. Of course it is--nothing good
happens when you're out and about after midnight.

Just in time for Halloween, too. The good news is that it's supposed to rain Friday night. That's good because we all know that a wet broom is bad luck--it dampens the spirits.

This is the Gulf Coast. We kinda have history with Voodoo and other dark pagan-like practices. There's actually a website or three that have a complete list of all eyes of newt and tails of oxen components, along with the proper steps and the actual ritual. I'm not linking that schtuff up because some of y'all might be just deranged enough to try it. Not necessarily on our beloved POTUS but maybe on some other poor soul against whom you carry an irrational grudge.

If you're worried, and you're wondering if there might be a way of warding off the spells of those teaming up with infernal realm demons, St. Patrick has you covered. And you thought St. Paddy's Day was just about green beer.

Thumbnail origin for those not old enough to remember is from the Monty Python Holy Grail classic:

What's in your wallet?

The title is a trick question. The answer of course, is "More!"

The American people tend to vote with their wallets. If things are going well and people are better off, they don't tend to make leadership changes. The only recent exception to this tendency was 2000 when a third Clinton term via Al Gore was bungled away by the man whose hubris was exceeded only by the speed of his sprint away from the economic record of the 1990's. In the mother of all ironies, the regime that got elected by the phrase "it's the economy, stupid!" was beaten because Gore forgot that... it's the economy, stupid.

Please spare the argument over the Obama economy "going well" in 2016. A two-term President who actually has a shit to give about the well-being of the average American family could have at least one year of real GDP growth over 2%. He didn't and he's the only once since the Great Depression to claim that distinction. Democrats commandeered nearly one-fifth of the U.S. economy with the Obamacare debacle and they couldn't produce a single year that the economy outran population growth?

My, how things have changed.

We're still just over a year until the 2020 Election so there's still time for the worst wishes of Donald Trump's worst critics to come true. A lot of economic change could change the facts, which would likely make people change their minds. But right now, in October 2019, here are the facts.

Watch @JesseBWatters share his #WattersWords on remembering what’s really important ahead of this election season. Check it out! pic.twitter.com/9FzDLEDePp

— Watters' World (@WattersWorld) October 20, 2019

The prediction Watters is referring to here is the Moody's Analytics 2020 Presidential Election Model (PDF). Moody's is non-partisan.  The authors/creators of the model aren't political hacks or media shills. They're data geeks and their market-driven data don't come from popular opinion polls (which are a lot easier to fiddle with than data from bureaus and market stats). Their consumer targeted website is www.economy.com and it contains a wealth of insight into U.S. and global economic patterns. Some of it is free and some of it is expensive but it's always good stuff. 

The Average Joe is absolutely better off today than he was four years ago. We have a very strong pattern of seeing voters cast their ballots based on their financial condition and we have an incumbent who has a demonstrated record of economic success.

The economy has never been better.

In his brief segment, Watters doesn't mention how segments of the electorate long-forgotten by Democrats are faring. African-American unemployment has never been lower. Hispanic unemployment has never been lower. Unemployment among women hasn't been this low since Rosie the Riveter won World War II. The lowest fifth, lowest quarter and lowest half of all income earners have seen more consecutive increases in real income than anytime since 2007, the first full year of data before the housing crisis tanked the economy. Real people that have heard promises of prosperity since Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" are seeing real benefits of Trumponomics.

What's in your wallet? "More." That is unless you live in a blue state that has a high income tax rate.

Leftists' hopes for a recession spoiled AGAIN by U.S. consumers

'Comedian' Bill Maher is spttin' nails today, as the American consumer continues to defy expectations and drive expectations to new highs.

Sentiment among American consumers rose more than expected this month, boosted by expectations for low inflation and rising incomes, according to preliminary data released Friday by the University of Michigan.

The October print on consumer sentiment climbed to a three-month high of 96 from September's 93.2, the new figures showed. The current economic conditions also rose to 113.4 from 108.5 ...

Optimism about the possibility of a trade deal between the world's two largest economies also rose this week, when top diplomats met in Washington, D.C. for negotiations.

President Trump, who will have a key meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on Friday, said "good things" are happening at the talks, noting there are "warmer feelings than in recent past."

Maher stirred some controversy last August when he openly wished for an economic crisis, stating his belief that the country could survive that turmoil but not a second Trump term as President:

The exchange began with commentator Tom Nichols remarking about Trump's trade policies, saying "I'm not wishing for a recession, but if the farmers want to keep touching the hot stove."

“Well, you should be," Maher interjected. "Because that will definitely get him unelected."

"But Bill, you don’t really want a recession," shot back Anthony Scaramucci, Trump's former White House communications director and a now occasional critic of the administration.

“I really do. We have survived many recessions. We can’t survive another Donald Trump term,” Maher responded.

Apparently, consumers are smarter than comedians and investors seem to be, too. The S&P 500 is in the middle of a technical breakout on the consumer sentiment and trade deal prospects and could test new highs for capital valuation next week and through the holiday season.

This begs the question: Why are average Americans bullish on the economy? Isn't there a Trump Trade War going on? What about that (fake) impeachment inquiry? What about the big auto worker strike? Why shouldn't consumers do what Democrats want them to, and trash the economy?

Leftist darling and NY Times op-ed star Paul Krugman has been pining for a crash since Trump's election in 2016. It hasn't happened. The primary reason Maher, Krugman (and a buttload of other wackos) have been wrong is partly explained in yesterday's post on the fundamentals of U.S. economic growth. The average American is better off today than he was in 2018, 2017 and 2016.

Another big part of consumer confidence is that the average American has more take home pay thanks to the Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017, which helped little guys a lot more than big guys, regardless of how the media screech about "tax cuts for the rich." It wasn't and liberals are not happy about that at all.

American consumers have driven growth in the wealth of this nation since World War II. When you put more money in their pockets, they're better off. Duhh... When they're better off, they spend more. Double-sized Duhh...

Whether you love President Trump, hate President Trump, or really don't gaf about him... you can't deny that YOUR President keeps his promises.