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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If you like René Magritte

If you like René Magritte, then you’ll love this by Tom Stiglich at Townhall:

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Your Weekend Must Read: AG Bill Barr on the Executive branch

Quite a few blogs are linking to AG William Barr’s recent speech at the Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture at the Federalist Society, and with good reason.  It is excellent for his insights into the present political landscape, and also in tracing the provisions in our founding documents as influenced by earlier European history. A short extract:

I wanted to choose a topic for this afternoon’s lecture that had an originalist angle. It will likely come as little surprise to this group that I have chosen to speak about the Constitution’s approach to executive power.

I deeply admire the American Presidency as a political and constitutional institution. I believe it is, one of the great, and remarkable innovations in our Constitution, and has been one of the most successful features of the Constitution in protecting the liberties of the American people. More than any other branch, it has fulfilled the expectations of the Framers.

Unfortunately, over the past several decades, we have seen steady encroachment on Presidential authority by the other branches of government. This process I think has substantially weakened the functioning of the Executive Branch, to the detriment of the Nation. This evening, I would like to expand a bit on these themes.

. . .

Let me turn now to what I believe has been the prime source of the erosion of separation-of-power principles generally, and Executive Branch authority specifically. I am speaking of the Judicial Branch.

In recent years the Judiciary has been steadily encroaching on Executive responsibilities in a way that has substantially undercut the functioning of the Presidency. The Courts have done this in essentially two ways: First, the Judiciary has appointed itself the ultimate arbiter of separation of powers disputes between Congress and Executive, thus preempting the political process, which the Framers conceived as the primary check on interbranch rivalry. Second, the Judiciary has usurped Presidential authority for itself, either (a) by, under the rubric of “review,” substituting its judgment for the Executive’s in areas committed to the President’s discretion, or (b) by assuming direct control over realms of decision-making that heretofore have been considered at the core of Presidential power.

Read the full speech here. I hope Mr. Barr’s words are followed soon by indictments.

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Tom Stiglich's "Pencil Neck" cartoon

Tom Stiglich’s cartoon on Townhall

Click to embiggen or click on the link above. Extra funny bit with a No. 2 pencil . . .

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Veteran's Day

Today is Veteran’s Day.

Veterans Day (originally known as Armistice Day) is a federal holiday in the United States observed annually on November 11, for honoring military veterans, that is, persons who have served in the United States Armed Forces 

Remember those who served. The photos above are my late father (U.S. Navy) and late father-in-law (British 8^th Army), both of whom served in WW2.

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Veteran’s Day weekend: a feel-good report

Photo via Don Surber

Via Don Surber at his blog:

Trump will lead the NYC parade he saved

In August 1995, organizers for the annual Veterans Day Parade in New York City looked at how much money they had three months before the big day.

$1.21.

The New York Times reported, "A request to airlines to donate blankets for aging veterans was turned down because logos might not be visible on television."

Wow.

The Times reported, "Then Donald Trump, a non-veteran, agreed to throw in $200,000 as well as raise money from his friends, in exchange for being named grand marshal."

In short order, they had $2.4 million, saving the parade and the city's honor.

On Veterans Day 1995, United Press International reported, "More than 500,000 people jammed the sidewalks of Manhattan's Fifth Avenue Saturday to watch three generations of veterans march in the Nation's Parade. The crowd cheered as 25,000 veterans marched in one of the last national events marking the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. The mood of the parade was festive despite the blustery weather, with marching veterans smiling and onlookers shouting 'Thank you.'"

The story also said, "Organizers, who placed the turnout at closer to a million, said the parade would not have been a success if it hadn't been for real estate developer Donald Trump, who contributed $200,000.

"'Donald Trump saved the parade,' said parade director Tom Fox, himself a Vietnam veteran. 'We had asked for donations from 200 corporations, and none of them came through,' he said.

"'This donation is the single most important thing I've ever done,' said a beaming Trump. 'This is more important than all of my buildings and my casinos. This is my way of saying thank you to all the men and women in the armed services who have made it possible for me to become a success. Without them freedom and liberty would be gone.'"

24 years later, hounded by politicians and high taxes, President Trump has moved to Mar-a-Lago.

But he'll be back on Monday in the city he saved to lead the parade he saved.

I like the quote "This is my way of saying thank you to all the men and women in the armed services who have made it possible for me to become a success. Without them freedom and liberty would be gone." Amen. Read the full report here.

Big Tech – and now Huawei

The censorship on Facebook, Twitter, and Google is bad enough. Yesterday, Gordon Chang (a regular guest on Lou Dobbs) has somber warnings on another front -- Huawei:

China, with control of 5G, will be in a position to remotely manipulate the world's devices. In peacetime, Beijing could have the ability to drive cars off cliffs, unlock front doors, and turn off pacemakers. In war, Beijing could paralyze critical infrastructure.

There is no mystery to how Beijing thinks it will grab control.... The Chinese will use Huawei Technologies.... Huawei is a dagger aimed at the heart of America, and as the unnamed adviser... suggests, the threat is a mortal one.

. . .

"A prominent Republican who advises President Donald Trump called America's 5G strategy 'the biggest strategic disaster in U.S. history,'" wrote China-watcher David Goldman recently.

Many people will regard that as an exaggeration, but America's failure to have a 5G strategy will almost certainly prove to have historic consequences.

"5G" is shorthand for the fifth generation of wireless communication.

"In the very near future, dominating the wireless world will be tantamount to dominating the world," wrote Newt Gingrich in Newsweek in February. That is not an exaggeration.

Why not? With speeds 2,000 times faster than existing 4G networks, 5G will permit near-universal connectivity to homes, vehicles, machines, robots, and everything plugged into the Internet of Things (IoT).

Full article is here.

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