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FEBRUARY 14,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT

FASCINATING – FROM THE HILL:    Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) predicted former President Trump's daughter-in-law Lara will benefit from his second acquittal in an impeachment trial this weekend.   "The biggest winner of this whole impeachment trial is Lara Trump," Graham said on "Fox News Sunday." "My dear friend Richard Burr, who I like and have been friends to a long time, just made Lara Trump almost the certain nominee for the Senate seat in North Carolina to replace him if she runs, and I’ll certainly be behind her because she represents the future of the Republican Party.”  Burr, a Republican senator who is retiring,  voted to convict Trump on Saturday on the sole article of inciting an insurrection on the U.S. Capitol earlier this year.  I've seen and heard Lara Trump in speechmaking mode.  She's terrific.  Bright, articulate, knowledgeable.  She could win, but much depends on how the Trump name will play in North Carolina.

I'M SO SHOCKED – FROM FOX:   Minneapolis on Friday backtracked on its original push to defund the city’s police department in the wake of George Floyd’s police custody death after residents begged the city to hire more officers, citing longer response times and increased violent crime.  The City Council on Friday voted unanimously to approve $6.4 million in additional funding that police had requested.  The department says it only has 638 officers available to work — roughly 200 fewer than usual. An unprecedented number of officers quit or went on extended medical leave after Floyd's death and the unrest that followed.  With new recruit classes, the city anticipates it will have 674 officers available at the end of the year, with another 28 in the hiring process, the Star Tribune reported.  I'm shocked that fewer officers have resulted in higher crime.  Why, what true intellectual would think that?

February 14, 2021       Permalink

THE TRIAL IS OVER, THE MADNESS CONTINUES – AT 4:30 P.M. ET:  The Democrats will move on to find some new way to hate Donald Trump.  The Republicans will try to keep their party together.  From Fox: 

There was a palpable sense of relief in Washington as the Trump impeachment trial came to a chaotic but final end. The verdict is in so now the vilification can begin.

Both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., immediately weaponized the verdict and demonized those who voted to acquit. While the Democrats insisted that all senators should "vote their conscience," that only meant if their conscience supported their side. Pelosi denounced opposing senators as cowards while Schumer lashed out at them for holding an opposing view of the evidence or the process.

While groups are targeting members on both sides, our leaders should be calling for unity and civility after the trial. Instead, they are fueling the politics of division.

CNN and other media followed suit. While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., denounced former President Trump and said that he could still be held accountable for any crimes, CNN hosts Wolf Blitzer and Dana Bash immediately followed his speech by denouncing him as hypocritical.

There was nothing hypocritical in denouncing Trump's conduct as "unconscionable" while also maintaining that the trial was unconstitutional. What Democratic members and commentators would not accept is that anyone could hold opposing views on these questions and not be a shill or coward.

Welcome to unity in 2020. It remains unity on our terms or else. The "or else" was made clear to Trump's defense counsel soon after the verdict. Attorney Michael Van der Veen's home was vandalized. Other lawyers have faced harassment and threats after campaigns targeting them by groups like The Lincoln Project for representing Trump or Republicans.

The media quickly reinforced the rejection of any possibility that senators could have voted their conscience. CNN reporter Abby Phillip stated as a fact that there is no real argument that a former president cannot be tried for impeachment. Thus, any vote on that basis was dishonest and craven.

As with past coverage, the hosts simply ignored professors, judges and legendary figures like Justice Joseph Story who have argued against retroactive trials. Moreover, many academics who have studied this issue (including myself) have said that it is extremely close. While we all reach conclusions, most of us have stated that people of good faith can disagree on where the default should be on the question.

That however is not what CNN viewers were told. Phillip and her colleagues insisted that there is no real debate – as did the House managers. Thus, anyone voting with the view of figures like Justice Story are liars or cowards or lying cowards. You choose.

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  The author, Jonathan Turley, a law professor, has been a perceptive and fair-minded observer of the impeachment process, and once participated in an impeachment trial.

February 14, 2021         Permalink

FEBRUARY 13,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

HAVE YOU NOTICED? – FROM TRENDING POLITICS:  After four years of stable gas prices under President Donald J. Trump, Americans may have to get used to some pain at the pump.  Former Vice President Joe Biden hasn’t even been in the White House for a month and gas prices are already up a whopping 18 percent with at least one analyst predicting that they could hit $4 per gallon in the near future.
Biden’s ideologically-driven decision to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline and the expectation that his Green New Deal policies will place onerous regulatory burdens on domestic energy producers in the fossil fuel industry is already hitting Americans in their pocketbooks. Sadly, the worst may be yet to come.  I assume the Republicans are aware of this.  They should be screaming it from the rooftops.

MADNESS – FROM FOX:   The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) recently encouraged teachers to register for training that encourages "ethnomathematics" and argues, among other things, that White supremacy manifests itself in the focus on finding the right answer.  An ODE newsletter sent last week advertises a Feb. 21 "Pathway to Math Equity Micro-Course," which is designed for middle school teachers to make use of a toolkit for "dismantling racism in mathematics." The event website identifies the event as a partnership between California's San Mateo County Office of Education, The Education Trust-West and others.  Part of the toolkit includes a list of ways "white supremacy culture" allegedly "infiltrates math classrooms." Those include "the focus is on getting the 'right' answer," students being "required to 'show their work,'" and other alleged manifestations.  Nothing more than an enormous excuse machine.  No foreign enemy could do more damage to our kids than these "educators" are doing.

February 13, 2021       Permalink

SHE'S NUTS, AND TWO HEARTBEATS AWAY FROM THE PRESIDENCY – OVERNIGHT:  Nancy Pelosi makes Joe Biden look sane.  She's was out on patrol, or parole, right after the acquittal today breathing fire, and losing her mind.  From The Hill: 

After the Senate voted to acquit former President Trump, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Saturday ruled out censuring the former president — an idea that several Republicans had floated in recent days.

“Censure is a slap in the face of the Constitution. It lets everybody off the hook, it lets everybody off the hook,” Pelosi told reporters following the Senate impeachment trial at the Capitol. 

“Oh, these cowardly senators who couldn’t face up to what the president did and what was at stake for our country are now going to have a chance to give a little slap on the wrist?” Pelosi said while slapping her own wrist. 

“We censure people for using stationery for the wrong purpose," said Pelosi, referring to an episode that led Republicans to censure former Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.). "We don’t censure people for inciting insurrection that kills people in the Capitol.”

Moments earlier, the Senate voted 57-43 to acquit Trump, short of the two-thirds needed to convict him.

Seven Republicans voted with all 50 Democrats that Trump was guilty of inciting a violent insurrection against the Capitol on Jan. 6 in a failed bid to halt the certification of President Biden’s election victory.

COMMENT:  It might be nice if Nancy returned to the business of government, rather than constantly kowtowing to the most radical leftist members of her party.

February 13, 2021       Permalink

TRUMP ACQUITTED, DEMS LOOK TO SOME OTHER GIMMICK – AT 3:57 P.M. ET:  President Trump, as expected, was acquitted today.  He has now been acquitted in two impeachment trials, although the constitutionality of this one is still widely questioned.  The Dems will now move on to try some other device to punish the former president and keep CNN's ratings high.  From Fox: 

Former President Trump was acquitted in an unprecedented second impeachment trial on the charge of inciting an insurrection for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, making him the first and only president to impeached and acquitted twice in history.

A majority of senators found Trump guilty on Saturday in a 57-43 vote, but the number fell short of the supermajority needed to convict the president. Had Trump been convicted, the Senate would have moved to bar the 45th president from holding federal office ever again.

The seven GOP senators who joined with all Democrats in finding Trump guilty were: Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Utah, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

The acquittal means that as of now Trump can leave the door open to another White House bid in 2024, though senators have hinted they may still try to bar him from office in a separate 14th Amendment measure.

Trump's second impeachment trial spanned just five days of arguments, making it the shortest in presidential history. The previous record was held by Trump in 2020 when his trial related to inviting foreign interference into the election spanned 21 days.

The trial surrounded the Jan. 6 riot when pro-Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, beat police officers, chanted "Hang Mike Pence" and forced lawmakers to take shelter. The mayhem temporarily stopped Congress' certification of President Biden's Electoral College win.

House impeachment managers accused Trump of inciting the insurrection by spreading a "big lie" the election was stolen from him, summoning his supporters to Washington on Jan. 6, telling them to "fight like hell" and then refusing to call off the attack once the mob violently took over the Capitol.

Trump legal's team denounced the proceedings as an unconstitutional "sham impeachment" against a private citizen, driven by Democrats' "hatred" for Trump and desire to silence a political opponent.
Trump lawyers also argued the former president's political speech is protected by the First Amendment and his words on Jan. 6 to his supporters to "fight like hell" were not meant literally. To drive home that point during the trial, Trump's defense played an 11-minute video of nearly every Democrat in the chamber using the words "fight" in their past speeches and interviews.

COMMENT:  So we've now had an attempt to impeach and remove a man who is no longer in office.  What a concept.  Next, Democrats will try to impeach George Washington for cutting down that cherry tree.  Cherry trees matter! 

February 13, 2021       Permalink