State of the Union: then and now

In the aftermath of the SOTU speech yesterday evening (some are reporting it as a comedy routine), A.F. Branco's cartoon about "the good ol' days" seems apropos:

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The Government From Hell

 

David Solway at PJ Media is writing about Canada, but his words apply to America today as well:

. . . The fact is that the government from hell is working to transform a democratic nation into a police state and normalize totalitarian rule without having to mobilize the military and scramble its jet fighters. It moves subtly, insidiously, through legislation, decree, deception, legal subterfuge, financial penalties, and targeted defamation. It divides a country into sectarian belligerents, employs tested techniques of misinformation and disinformation, prevents the free expression of opinion (Bill C-11), and impoverishes and segregates its perceived adversaries. It manipulates a strategy of covert control which, in the long run, may be more effective than overt physical repression. It doesn’t need tanks; a few RCMP horses will do. Slander and sanctimony are excellent weapons.

The truckers were never a menace, bore no resemblance to the volley of epithets hurled against them: white supremacists, racists, misogynists, antisemites, and the like. A Liberal MP is convinced that “honk honk” is code for “Heil Hitler.” Reviewing Paul Gottfried’s must-read Antifascism: The Course of a Crusade in American Greatness, Christopher Zeeman writes, “Organizing a state around a nonexistent threat is a novel approach to governing…the lack of proof is confirmation that they must redouble their efforts to thwart the threat”—a threat, be it said, not to the nation but to the impious power of the managerial elect. In other words, our political elites must conjure their enemies in order to maintain their own compromised existence. The dumbing down of a supine population, still wearing their badges of conformity across their faces, completes the task.

Of course, as noted, there will be the inevitable casualties. The truckers who protested the draconian and useless vaccine mandates have been crushed and their lives ruined. And the majority of Canadians do not care. Some believe the truckers got what they deserved, gloating over the misfortune of their betters. Others do not give them a second thought. The feeble-minded claim to be suffering from “phantom honking.” Some hover over the top like a helicopter pilot surveying rush hour traffic and move on: nothing very significant to see here. Their sympathies go out to the Ukrainian victims of Russian aggression. The victims of government oppression in their own country are an afterthought. Stupefying indifference to the fate of their nation is the order of the day. The government from hell remains solidly entrenched. . . .

Mr. Solway’s entire column is here. 

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Big Tech Election Interference

 

The headline is scary enough: “Election interference: YouTube is suppressing videos about Joe, Hunter, and Ukraine.”  Michio Hasai provides ugly details in his posting at The NOQReport:

Good luck finding a video on YouTube that details ANYTHING other than positive spin and fake debunking of the Hunter Biden laptop story.

This news will be shocking to none of our readers. If you’ve followed us for a while, you know that we’ve documented dozens of cases of censorship and suppression on Big Tech publishers like Facebook, Twitter, Google, and their video giant YouTube, among others. We’ve also shown how they’ve all placed various “fact-check warnings” on content, including ours, even when the facts detailed in the content are beyond reproach.

The latest as well as one of the most consequential moves by YouTube as it pertains to the election is their suppression and fact-checking of videos searched for through keywords like “Hunter Biden Ukraine” and “Joe Biden Ukraine.” As far as YouTube and its unsuspecting visitors know, there’s nothing afoul with the Bidens’ suspicious and likely treacherous dealings with Burisma and the Ukrainian government. . . .

 . . .

YouTube has gone to great lengths to “fact-check” and often suppress content that runs counter to their accepted political agenda. If it could possibly hurt Democrats, they suppress. If it can hurt President Trump or Republicans, they amplify. That’s their modus operandi.

The full report is here.  We all know people who are blissfully unaware that the information they see or read is censored.  So spread the word.

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Joe Biden, corruption, and fiduciary duty

If you don’t have time to read Peter Schweizer’s excellent Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite (HarperCollins), Christopher Roach has a column at American Greatness that summarizes the corruption in the Biden family.  Here’s a brief extract:

Hunter Biden’s self-enrichment in Ukraine, far from being a “conspiracy theory” or “discredited allegation,” is, in fact, textbook corruption.

Biden was making money from a shady Ukrainian natural gas company, and his father was pressuring the Ukrainians to fire the prosecutor looking into it. The sleight of hand dismissal from the Bidens’ defenders arises because they have demanded a higher burden of proof to show wrongdoing here than we do in other contexts.

The proper evidence is not a “quid pro quo” or an admission of wrongful intent, but a violation of fiduciary duty.

In business partnerships, boards of directors, and other positions of trust, people are expected to treat those whom they are serving as well as they would treat themselves. They are to disclose any conflicts and recuse themselves from decisions when those conflicts exist. When other considerations arise—helping oneself, helping a family member, or trying to serve the interests of two opposing entities—we assume that wrongdoing is afoot.

. . .

Because of difficulties with proof and the possibility of “wink and a nod” conspiracies, the law uses common sense and asks “Who benefits?” to determine wrongdoing when transactions benefiting insiders are involved. The same principles apply to self-dealing by corporate officers and insider trading.

If there is not already a law against the Biden family’s self-dealing, there should be. It isn’t unique, and the fact that it’s met with a shrug by many of our lawmakers suggests a much bigger problem in their attitude about public service. We are not a banana republic. Public service is not there for people to get rich indirectly by shepherding money, contracts, access, and the like to family members, whether domestically, in Ukraine, or anywhere else.

The full column is here.

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OANN re-broadcasts Ukraine documentary today

One America News Network’s 3-part investigative report

Revealed: Ukrainian Witnesses Destroy Schiff's Case :

Exclusive With Rudy Giuliani: Part I

will be re-broadcast this evening Dec. 15 starting at 9am and again at 8pm.    Part 3 premiered this weekend. Our household watched the Part 3 premiere last night. Hoping it goes viral.

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OANN investigative report on Ukraine with Giuliani

Reminder: One America News Network’s 3-part investigative report

Revealed: Ukrainian Witnesses Destroy Schiff's Case :

Exclusive With Rudy Giuliani: Part I

will be broadcast this evening Dec. 14.    Part 1 starts at 8pm.  Part 3 premieres at 10pm

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Ukraine and Washington corruption: re-broadcast schedule on OAN

image credit: the DefuniakHerald

Yesterday, I posted a report about One America News Network’s (OAN) special investigative reports. Reporter Chanel Rion interviewed Rudy Giuliani and several witnesses from Ukraine, all of whose testimony undermines the framework for the “impeachment” process. The report did not break through today to the MSM, but OAN will be re-broadcasting parts 1 & 2 as well as premiering part 3 this weekend.   Mark your calendars or set your recording devices.  The programming is not showing up yet on the TV schedule for this weekend on ATT-TV, but the OAN website has this:

Catch All 3 Parts of One America News Investigates with Chanel Rion THIS SATURDAY Starting at 9am ET/6am PT

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Ukraine and Washington corruption exposed

image credit: the DefuniakHerald

Most of the blogging here concentrates on local and state level developments as well as national news that affects core Tea Party values.  But this is so newsworthy that I decided to post anyway.  It was Sundance at Conservative Treehouse that tipped us off to the program.  Our household watched OAN’s 2-part investigative report this evening, with reporter Chanel Rion interviewing Rudy Giuliani and several witnesses from Ukraine. It was an eye-popper, and I hope it is picked up by headlines all over the place tomorrow.  Mark Tapscott at Instapundit was on it this evening:

ONE AMERICA NEWS (OAN) GOES WHERE MSM WON’T: Former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko tells OAN all about former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovich’s “untouchables” list. If OAN can go to Ukraine and interview principals in the impeachment scandal, why can’t ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post, New York Times, etc. etc.?

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Answer: Because they’re not interested in knowing what actually happened.

ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I’m bumping this up because it’s very important, undercutting the thesis of the whole impeachment endeavor. And this is the evidence that the House prosecutors will be confronted with if there’s a trial in the Senate.

I did not see that OAN was re-running the two-hour broadcast this coming week, so I have emailed them to see if it will re-run the two programs or make them accessible at their website. If you’ve been frustrated by the “impeachment” testimony and all the scandals that never lead to indictments, you’ll be glued to this. Meantime, I will be on the lookout for excerpts and footage. And you can read Sundance's report here.

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If it's not close, they can't cheat

Brian C. Joondeph at American Thinker is as impatient as any of us – where oh where are the indictments?

Where is the IG report on FISA abuse? Where is the promised declassification of the documents which originated this coup? This has all been imminent every week for the past year, yet it remains as elusive as bigfoot. 

However, and also at American Thinker, Patricia McCarthy has a take on the Russia Hoax, the Ukraine hoax, and now the Impeachment Circus that offers a glimmer of hope. Here are a few extracts:

It is all backfiring since they are trying to impeach Trump for what Obama/Biden actually did.  We have all seen Biden's little bit of bragging about threatening Ukraine that $1B would be withheld unless a certain prosecutor was fired within six hours.  That prosecutor was charged with investigating the corrupt Burisma energy company on whose board sat Hunter Biden.  Biden intervened in Ukraine's state government to protect the bribery that was blatantly making his own family fabulously wealthy.

And Ukraine was not the only foreign nation that the Bidens, the Kerrys, the Pelosis, the Clintons, and the Feinsteins tapped for millions of dollars that went directly into their own pockets.  See Peter Schweizer's books, Clinton Cash and Secret Empires. [Aside: I’ve read both books and they are documented to a fare-thee-well. –D]

. . .

It is almost impossible to believe that Trump has not been on to this cabal's fraudulent scheme for a long time now.  Adm. Mike Rogers clued him in to the Obama administration's listening in (wiretapping) on his phones at Trump Tower in 2015.  That was when he moved his campaign headquarters to New Jersey.  He has known since then what they were up to, so isn't it possible that he has been setting them up for the past three years?  Could he be manipulating Pelosi, Schiff, and their henchmen into a world-class implosion?  It is beginning to seem that this may be true.  As the actual transcripts of Schiff's not-witnesses are released and when actual journalists read them, it becomes clearer and clearer that they have nothing.  This attempt to impeach is all about covering up their own crimes.  If this is true, then Trump will have kept his ultimate and most important promise: to drain the swamp.

The swamp is much, much muddier and more corrupt than any of us knew. That Trump has withstood their three-plus-year calculated attack on him, his family, his friends, and his presidency is a testament to his phenomenal strength of character.  That is why he was elected and will be re-elected if the Left can't cheat enough. The Left always cheats, as they did to elect JFK.

This 2020 election will be consequential. They will cheat in 2020 too. That is what open borders and no voter ID is all about. All Americans who love this country and our Constitution must vote to defeat these criminals. As Hugh Hewitt has always said, "If it's not close, they can't cheat." 

Read Ms. McCarthy’s entire column here.

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Kasich: our former Governor on impeachment

A.F. Branco cartoons at Legal Insurrection

Being the son of a mailman does not inoculate you from corruption. Here’s The Hill on Kasich and impeachment:

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) said Friday he would back President Trump's impeachment if he were in the House. 

“Look, I fought with people on air over, ‘Is there a quid pro quo’ and ‘Does this rise to the level of impeachment.’ I now believe that it does,” Kasich said during an interview on CNN. “And I say it with great sadness. This is not something I really wanted to do.”

Such a surprise.  And he is relying on bad reporting by the media on Mick Mulvaney's press conference. The link to The Hill report is here.  

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Impeachment theater

image credit: the superfins.com

Some pundits see this feeding frenzy over the House’s plan to Impeach President Trump as a deliberate attempt to distract from anticipated indictments and now the Biden Ukraine/China scandal.  Neither Adam Schiff nor Nancy Pelosi is specifying what might be presented formally as Articles of Impeachment, which is why Andy McCarthy calls the whole thing an “impeachment show for television.”  David Catron at the Spectator has another take:

It should by now be obvious to the meanest intelligence that the Democrats are determined to impeach President Trump with or without credible evidence that he has committed any act resembling “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The “whistleblower complaint” that Nancy Pelosi used as the pretext for launching her ersatz impeachment inquiry contains little but hearsay and fabrication, while her claim that it proves Trump has “violated the Constitution” fails the laugh test. In the end, however, impeachment is less about offenses committed by the president than the desire of the Washington establishment to put down what they see as a peasants’ revolt.

Impeachment is, in other words, an attempt to restore the old order that the voters overturned in 2016. It seeks to annul that election and return us to the nascent totalitarianism of the Obama era, an incipient autocracy the Democrats expected to be nurtured during the presidency of Hillary Clinton. Thus, when the hoi polloi got above themselves and put Donald Trump in the White House, his removal from office became the primary objective of Washington’s self-appointed Optimates. They began planning Trump’s impeachment before he was inaugurated because he is the leader of the insurrection, and they know full well that it can’t be put down until he is gone.

House Democrats must impeach the president despite the near impossibility of securing a conviction in the Senate. Indeed, their need to do so is more urgent now than ever because of the booming Trump economy and the weakness of their Democratic presidential candidates. As Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who has introduced several abortive impeachment resolutions, put it in May, “I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected.”

Mr. Catron's full article is here.

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Peter Schweizer on Joe Biden

Secret Empires: 

How the American Political Class 

Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends

(image credit: Washington Times)

Trent Baker had three paragraphs at Breitbart summarizing Peter Schweizer’s appearance on Mark Levin’s show last night:

Breitbart News senior contributor and Secret Empires author Peter Schweizer joined Life, Liberty & Levin Sunday on Fox News Channel to explain Joe and Hunter Biden’s Ukraine connections.

Schweizer told host Mark Levin that the former vice president’s son was being paid by Ukraine despite not having expertise in the energy sector while Joe Biden was the “point-person” on former President Barack Obama’s administration in dealing with Ukraine.

“The key question here that nobody seems to want to ask in the media is: What was he being paid for? He wasn’t being paid for his expertise. What was he being paid for? And what were the Ukrainians expecting to get in return?” Schweizer stated. “I think when you overlay the financial payments with the fact that Joe Biden as point person on Obama administration policy to Ukraine was steering billions of dollars of Western money to Ukraine it becomes crystal clear exactly why they were paying him money. They wanted access and they wanted to influence Joe Biden. And Joe Biden has been around a long time here, and he had to know exactly why his son was being paid.”

Schweizer’s book Secret Empires is an excellent resource. If you are interested in his column-length reports, click here.

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