We are the drain the swamp people

• Of course we have an answer

The media is all abuzz with the ‘news’ that Barack Obama has scolded leftist Democrats for being too ‘radical’! the former has emerged as the true ‘moderate’ and has urged his fellow Democrats, including the current crop of candidates for the nomination and the party’s rabid base that they are just too liberal for him.

Many political observers are wondering what has happened to the far left’s sainted champion?

“Former President Barack Obama, Cautions Democrats About ‘Going Too radical’ “

“Former President Barack Obama is facing a new wave of criticism from the Democratic Party’s left flank after cautioning Democrats about going too radical with their policy proposals — in the latest sign of a growing rift between the popular 44th president and the party’s activist base.

“Obama on Friday warned 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls to pay attention to what voters actually think, claiming at a gathering of Democratic donors that most of them don’t want to “tear down the system” and that many Democrats “just don’t want to see crazy stuff.” Members of his party soon turned on him, using the hashtag #TooFarLeft.”

Bet you’re wondering what we think. Well,here it is:

IS THIS THE ‘MICHELE GAMBIT’?

Why is Obama warning his party not to get ‘too radical’ when his agenda has always been to “fundamentally transform America” (how much more ‘radical can you get)?

Answer: The “Obama Strategy”… to prepare the way for Michele to become the nominee at the ‘deadlocked’ Democrat Convention.

Appearing Saturday on CNN, former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) predicted the 2020 Democrat presidential primary is heading toward a brokered convention and suggested delegates could nominate former first lady Michelle Obama to face off against President Donald Trump in 2020.

To our knowledge, Richardson is the first Democrat to opine exactly how Ms. Obama’s candidacy might come about.

As readers are aware, we have predicted that Michele will be the Democrat presidential candidate in 2020. We believe the former First Lady will be “pressured” into entering the race as a “moderate” with the best chance to beat Donald Trump.

It has been no secret that the Democratic Party’s base has not been ‘blown away’ by the current stable of would-be nominees…and the likely addition of Devon Patrick and Michael Bloomberg will not change that.

The question that is bound to be asked is, “if Barack is trying to sell Michele as the wildly popular, but ‘moderate’ Democrat, will the radical base accept a ‘moderate’ as the nominee? The answer, of course, is, ‘the base knows Barack and Michele, and it knows that these two are anything but ‘moderate’; it also knows that what Barack says is often not the truth, but rather something the Obamas believe American voters are gullible enough to believe.” Just ask Jonathon Gruber*.

Michele, however, is an altogether different prospect than the current crop: “Most Admired Woman of 2018, according to Gallup (beating out Oprah); Best selling author whose autobiography, “Becoming”, has Democrats and liberals everywhere ‘swooning’, “fashion setter’ (readers with a strong stomach can go to THE “Fashion” Magazine to learn the “7 Fashion Trends She Started”

And, if you want to know all 16 of Michele’s ‘accomplishments’ as Flotus, you can read about it here:

https://blackdoctor.org/483712/job-well-done-first-lady-16-accomplishments-of-michelle-obama/

(Hint: Accomplishment #5. The First Lady launched MyPlate and MiPlato, an easy to understand icon to help parents make healthier choices for their families. More than 6,100 community groups and 100 national organizations and corporations have partnered with the USDA to give families across the country access to this important nutritional information.)

Now, we believe, Barack has officially opened the “Michele in 2020” campaign…”The “moderate’ Radical who will crush Donald Trump”!    dlh
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*Regarding Jonathon Gruber — Forbes Magazine,  ACA Architect: ‘The Stupidity Of The American Voter’ Led Us To Hide Obamacare’s True Costs From The Public 

You’ve got to hand it to MIT economist Jonathan Gruber. The guy dubbed the “Obamacare architect” is a viral YouTube sensation. A few months back, he was caught on tape admitting that Obamacare doesn’t provide subsidies for federally-run insurance exchanges; it’s now the topic of a new case before the Supreme Court. Today, new video surfaced in which Gruber said that “the stupidity of the American voter” made it important for him and Democrats to hide Obamacare’s true costs from the public. “That was really, really critical for the thing to pass,” said Gruber. “But I’d rather have this law than not.” In other words, the ends—imposing Obamacare upon the public—justified the means.

The new Gruber comments come from a panel discussion that he joined on October 17, 2013 at the University of Pennsylvania’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. He was joined on the panel by Penn health economist Mark Pauly. Patrick Howley of the Daily Caller was the first journalist to flag Gruber’s remarks, which were unearthed by Rich Weinstein.

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Beyond the acceptable norm

Here is an article from RedState presenting some very serious responses to Admiral McRaven’s diatribe against his Commander-in-Chief President Trump (to refresh yourself on the matter a link to our V’PAC commentary is immediately below).

Of course the NYT quotes McRaven — evermore the Trump basher

RedState had this extensive article which contains devastating critiques from military sources.

https://www.redstate.com/stu-in-sd/2019/11/14/adm-mcraven%e2%80%99s-disgraceful-nyt-editorial/

We call your attention in particular to this excerpt from the material quoted in the RedState article:

VADM Pete Heckman drafted the following comments about McRaven: “McRaven is a loose cannon of the worst kind and should have been fired long before he achieved Flag Rank, while thereafter he was protected by Obama and his crowd. President Trump saw to it the guy did not get another tour and sent him into retirement. He has never shut up, and bears a big-time grudge. He surely lusted after the CNO job, as did Obama’s four-star black woman Admiral and the reason Navy moved Richardson over from SEA 08 to the CNO job. McRaven’s present actions and commentary fall far outside established protocol. Would be interesting to see if he was retired at the four-star rank officially. This takes an appointment by the Senate. Normally all Flag retirees officially retire at the 2-star rank, but may, for social purposes, be addressed at their highest rank. I was retired with a Senatorial appointment as a permanent Vice Admiral, subject to recall at any time. I will bet he was retired as a permanent 2-star. He should go somewhere and spend his time fishing.” [end of VADM Heckman’s comments]

Fascinating reading really as it implicates the incredible extent of the deep state’s maniacal attacks on Trump. The link below we offer as an embellishment to some of the links provided in the RedState article. For the record, we believe retired officers are and should be afforded great political speech latitude after retiring. Those at flag rank are a special category and should exercise discretion.

The Law of Retired Military Officers and Political Endorsements: A Primer
By Rick Houghton

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An excerpt of some of AG Barr’s speech last week are set forth below the introduction and video of it that we have embedded.  The video/speech runs about an hour. We recommend at least rolling through it but it is well worth the time to listen to it all.

Via Gary Bowers at American Values

In an address to the Federalist Society Friday night, Attorney General William Barr took the swamp to task and blasted the left for “shredding constitutional norms.”

While much of his speech served as a treatise on the Constitution and executive authority, Barr devoted a significant portion of his remarks to how left-wing politicians and judges have abused their authority at the expense of the presidency, and most especially this president. Barr warned that progressives “treat politics as their religion,” using the “coercive power of the State to remake man and society in their own image.”

Here are some excerpts of the attorney general’s remarks:

“Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called ‘The Resistance,’ and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver available to sabotage the functioning of his administration. . .

“A prime example of this is the Senate’s unprecedented abuse of the advice-and-consent process. . . As of September of this year, the Senate had been forced to [limit debate] on 236 Trump nominees — each of those representing its own massive consumption of legislative time . . . How many times was cloture invoked on nominees during President Obama’s first term? 17 times. . .

“One of the ironies of today is that those who oppose this president constantly accuse this administration of ‘shredding’ constitutional norms and waging a war on the rule of law. . . The fact of the matter is that, in waging a scorched earth, no-holds-barred war of ‘Resistance’ against this administration, it is the left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law. . .

“Since President Trump took office, district courts have issued over 40 nationwide injunctions against the government. By comparison, during President Obama’s first two years, district courts issued a total of two nationwide injunctions. . .

“It is no exaggeration to say that virtually every major policy of the Trump Administration has been subjected to immediate freezing by the lower courts. No other president has been subjected to such sustained efforts to debilitate his policy agenda.”

Attorney General Barr also ripped the legacy of former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote key decisions granting constitutional rights to terrorists captured on foreign battlefields. Referring to one of Kennedy’s rulings, Barr said, “The idea that the judiciary acts as a neutral check on the political branches to protect foreign enemies from our government is insane.”

This commentary at Americans for Limited Government defends Barr’s comments from some attacks by the usual suspects using a Hamiltonian understanding.

Attorney General Barr is right, the left is deconstructing the Constitution and the Presidency  (excerpt)

Barr is right. The revolution we are witnessing today by the so-called resistance is the deconstruction of the Constitution and the Article II presidency writ large by courts implementing nationwide injunctions on clearly constitutional presidential acts like the travel ban or building the wall using reprogrammed monies, and Congressional attempts to usurp executive power away to unaccountable administrative state agencies. . . .

And, the executive power was meant to be separate and distinct from the judicial and legislative powers. Per Barr, “Just as the great separation-of-powers theorists — Polybius, Montesquieu, Locke — had, the Framers thought of Executive power as a distinct specie of power.”

This includes “carrying into effect the laws passed by the Legislature — that is, applying the general rules to a particular situation”; “the power to handle essential sovereign functions — such as the conduct of foreign relations and the prosecution of war — which by their very nature cannot be directed by a pre-existing legal regime but rather demand speed, secrecy, unity of purpose, and prudent judgment to meet contingent circumstances”; . . .

We would add the observation that the legislative can have its supremacy even within a separation of powers understanding but it takes a display of national moment by a super conglomeration of such representatives, reflecting something to challenge what a nationally elected president presumes.

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Whether or not significant dismantling will come to pass, the apparat is certainly scared

Their umbrage, disdain, hypocrisy, sense of entitlement was insufferable in response to Trump’s nomination. And then he won and their world is starting to unravel.

They have now turned to the use of selective leaks, lies, distortion, hypocrisy, manipulation, lawbreaking, a virtue-less coup d’état through phony impeachment hearings. Thanks to alternative media some political push-back and because people see through them they have not been able to insure their nemesis Donald Trump and his supporters are put in their place.

Things are not going well but it is necessary to keep it all going in order to at least skew the narrative and thus limit damage should thorough exposure be forthcoming. Who is going to believe an impeached president just being vindictive  . . . so they hope.

https://www.redstate.com/stu-in-sd/2019/11/17/democrats-deep-doo-doo-according-rep.-john-ratcliffe?bcid=825ab02ab91bc4acf6d77a78005cf085

This interview by Maria Bartiromo with Congressman John Ratcliff  (link above story at RedState)  is more extensive and of entire interest but the concluding remarks below we found particularly compelling in light of Senator Grassley’s recent comments about continued delays regarding the IG’s FISA report.  Bold our emphasis.

Bartiromo: Schiff sent a letter to ranking member Devin Nunes (R-CA) stating that the impeachment hearing is only to be about Ukraine, nothing about Hunter Biden, or supposedly debunked interference in the 2016 election. What exactly is “debunked” about 2016 interference given that John Durham has opened a criminal investigation?

Ratcliffe: It’s not debunked, and the IG report is going to validate the Nunes memo about the FISA abuses. There was some exculpatory evidence about George Papadopoulos that was not delivered to the FISA court in a timely manner. I promise you that the IG report is going to address that. When that is confirmed in the IG report, you’ll probably see a shifting narrative from the Democrats that it didn’t make any difference. There are legitimate questions who have seen the classified documents about the origin of the 2016 election investigation. It’s unraveling, and that’s why they’re rushing to impeach the President. They failed to impeach him for being a “Russian agent” because that was a joke, they failed to impeach him for obstructing justice because it was a joke, and this impeachment charade based on a phone call with a Ukrainian president who said he’s not a victim and nothing happened is also a hoax.

Bartiromo: What are your expectations for when the House will vote to impeach President Trump?

Ratcliffe: Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff are racing the clock; they want to get it done before information comes out damaging to the Obama-Biden administration from the IG report or from John Durham’s criminal investigation.

RedState commentary

Reminder: Rep. Ratcliffe is a former federal prosecutor and is one of the most effective cross-examiners of the witnesses who have been paraded during the charade, both behind closed doors in the SCIF, as well as during the public hearings last week. In this interview, he clearly stated that there has been no criminality or impeachable crimes attributed to the President by ANYONE. And, by the way, that would almost certainly include the witnesses whose transcripts we’ve not seen yet.

He also inferred that this impeachment star chamber is in reality a political charade on the part of Democrats, who wish to rush to an impeachment vote before the release of the DoJ IG report that looked into the predicate for the 2016 Russian counter-intel investigation which will disclose damaging information on DoJ and FBI officials (and others?) in the Obama-Biden Administration. They want to get the impeachment vote out there for political reasons in order to deflect from that IG report.

This is typical Democrat modus operandi – everything is sacrificed on the altar of Democrat political gain. Never mind doing the country’s business, or actually working toward any bipartisan solutions. And they know they’re in deep kimchi with the DoJ IG report coming out soon.

I love this answer from Rep. Ratcliffe, as this sums up the impeachment charade. Based on Schiff’s tyrannical and one-sided control of the process, “an impeachment should be clear, egregious, and bipartisan, and it’s none of those things.” That’s your takeaway, folks! I expect that this week’s hearings should be more of the same.

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An accurate description of Kaepernick…NFL can be characterized as a “Yovanovitch”, as in ‘easily intimidated’ (like the ex-ambassador).

This piece in PowerLine is by Paul Mirengoff, the left-of-center member of that blog’s team. As far as Kaepernick is concerned, he nails it.

Who could disagree?

WHY COLIN KAEPERNICK MIGHT NOT GET AN NFL JOB  (excerpt)

During a recess late in a trial where the plaintiff alleged he had been fired due to his race and/or his age, a federal district court judge said to his law clerk:

Sure, this guy was discriminated against. But he wasn’t discriminated against because he’s black and he wasn’t discriminated against because he’s over 40. He was discriminated because he’s an ass***e.

Mirengoff goes on to expand on the application to Kaepernick.    We believe, however, that he could add that the NFL is joined by another sports organization just as cowardly and greedy…the NBA. The difference, however, is that the NBA is intimidated by an entire communist country, while the NFL is willing to grovel before just one a–hole!      dlh

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I think it is time to bring in the ‘journalistic medical examiner’, and officially call the time of death of Peggy Noonan’s credibility as a journalist.

Time of death: 7:05 PM, Nov. 14, 2019

In our humble opinion, Peggy’s punditry career has been on life support for quite awhile…rightfully. As the most overrated columnist in the business today, Peggy has officially become ‘unreadable’.

‘Nuff said. Read it yourself. dlh

Republicans and ‘Anonymous’ Get It Wrong  
GOP panelists didn’t know what to do at the hearings, and the author seems not to be playing it straight.

“…watching the first day of hearings I thought…There was something grave in it, and a kind of reckoning. This was due to the dignity and professionalism of the career diplomats who calmly and methodically told what they had seen and experienced. They were believable. It didn’t feel embarrassing to have faith in them.

“Republicans on the panel didn’t know what to do. They know what this story is, and I believe they absolutely know the president muscled an ally, holding public money over its head to get a personal political favor. But they’re his party, they didn’t want to look weak, they had to show the base they had his back. In their interruptions and chaos-strewing they attempted to do some of what the Democrats did during the Kavanaugh hearings, only without the screaming meemies of Code Pink.”

The testimony was all about thoughts regarding a couple of phone calls between Trump and the President of Ukraine. THE TRANSCRIPTS OF WHICH HAVE BEEN RELEASED.  Ms Peggy does not /cannot answer what was in them that is any way improper.

The hag part has been for awhile but when you loose your eyesight in her profession its over.

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• Clearly shares V’PAC frustration, suspicions
• Reiterates displeasure and suspicions expressed in tweets in a phone interview on local morning radio talk show
• Intends to be back at helm on judiciary for two years (presuming Republicans keep the Senate)

Listening to the morning WOC radio radio talk show of November 13th we heard Senator Grassley reiterate his frustrated tweets of earlier that morning and the previous day regarding the still unseen Inspector General Horowitz report regarding FISA abuse and the “Russian collusion” matter.  See them below.

On Friday it was reported that Horowitz’ office is now saying they have asked witnesses to review his report “a final step before its release”.  We doubt Grassley shook them loose as that could still mean weeks to who knows how long. We wonder it is standard practice to let “witnesses” perhaps revise their remarks as in possibly sanitize or alter or nuance or better coordinate them?  Do you get to revise or negotiate a transcript of what you said in a law enforcement interview? If that is the case, you would think many a copped-plea or other negotiated matter would be up for revision “upon further reflection.”

Regarding Grassley’s desire to return to chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee (his comments on tape here) he attributes his departure after the 2018 election to Republican caucus rules about successive chairmanships (a quasi nod to term-limits and pork-barrelling, and power aggrandizement critiques as we remember, but which of course Democrats do not operate by in the Senate). He changed committee chairmanships in order to preserve his options regarding being ranking member (of the minority) or chair after the 2020 election. There are more intricacies to the rule but that is much of it.

We suspect Senator Grassley or one or two others would be more aggressive if they were at Judiciary Committee helm compared to Graham. Would we see hearings to counter the Schiff Show in the House?  On the serious potential down side would we see Grassley not fill a SCOTUS vacancy in a presidential election year (If his return to the Judiciary Chair was prior to the 2020 election)? We presume he means this would take place after the 2020 election.

These are official Grassley “tweets”, from his office and his campaign accounts

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At American Thinker (excerpt)

The silly sanctification of Marie Yovanovitch

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• Media’s selective outrage over Poor Marie
• Big girls don’t cry…even when they get fired. But, she does.

“I don’t understand why it was necessary to smear my reputation”.

Uh, well, we don’t understand why you are even a “witness” in this “impeachment inquiry”… except to smear President Trump.  Failing that after cross examination, it is pretty clear you were a lying witness (also here) . That being the case you have served to further discredit the Democrat impeachment Schiff show
dlh

WE REMEMBER WHEN:

OBAMA FIRED ALL BUSH APPOINTED AMBASSADORS IN 2008; PRESS UPSET THAT TRUMP FIRED YOVANOVITCH *

CLINTON FIRED ALL 93 FEDERAL PROSECTORS APPOINTED BY G H WBUSH; PRESS UPSET THAT G W BUSH FIRED 8 **

Flashback: Obama Fired All Bush Appointed Ambassadors In 2008

By Daily Caller, Shelby Talcott on November 15, 2019

*The former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testified Friday about President Donald Trump firing her amid an alleged “smear campaign,” but firing ambassadors appointed by former presidents is commonplace.
Former President Barack Obama fired all ambassadors appointed by former President George W. Bush in 2008, the Washington Post previously reported. Yovanovitch testified Friday that the Trump administration, including the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, “kneecapped” her. She said that she was not supported by State Department leaders after being recalled in May.

“Political ambassadors sometimes are permitted to stay on briefly during a new administration, but the sweeping nature of the directive suggests that Obama has little interest in retaining any of Bush’s ambassadorial appointees,” WaPo’s 2008 article about Obama’s decision to fire all political ambassadors reads.

Yovanovitch was appointed by Obama in 2016, and newly-elected presidents typically re-vamp the positions with their own choices once taking office. Yovanovitch was allowed to stay on for three years after Trump took office, but has testified that senior officials “declined to acknowledge” the “smear campaign” against her leading up to her firing, Politico reported.

**Networks Ignored Clinton Firing 93 U.S. Attorneys, Fret Over Bush’s 8  

The broadcast network evening newscasts, which didn’t care in 1993 about the Clinton administration’s decision to ask for the resignation of all 93 U.S. attorneys, went apoplectic Tuesday night in leading with the “controversy,” fed by the media, over the Bush administration for replacing eight U.S. attorneys in late 2006 — nearly two years after rejecting the idea of following the Clinton policy of replacing all the attorneys.

Anchor Charles Gibson promised that ABC would “look at all the angles tonight,” but he skipped the Clinton comparison. Gibson teased: “New controversy at the White House after a string of U.S. attorneys is fired under questionable circumstances. There are calls for the Attorney General to resign.”

CBS’s Katie Couric declared that “the uproar is growing tonight over the firing of eight federal prosecutors by the Justice Department” and fill-in NBC anchor Campbell Brown teased: “The Attorney General and the firestorm tonight over the controversial dismissal of several federal prosecutors. Was it political punishment?” Brown soon asserted that “it’s a story that has been brewing for weeks and it exploded today” — an explosion fueled by the news media.

Related reading about Princess Ambassador Yovanovitch (via RedState)

Benghazi Mom Blasts Marie Yovanovitch for Comparing Herself to Benghazi Victims During Testimony: ‘They Don’t Care’    (graphic not part of excerpted article)

Three others were similarly “recalled”

As we noted earlier this week, former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was one of the witnesses who Democrats were likely going to put on and try to use for emotional effect. MSNBC even discussed using Democrats using her for that very purpose, as a possible strategy for Democrats to make more people interested in what they were selling.

Yovanovitch hadn’t heard the July 25 Ukraine call, she was long fired. She had no knowledge of it. So there was no real point other than they thought she might sell that President Donald Trump was a mean boss for firing her, despite the fact that an ambassador serves at the pleasure of the president. He can fire her for any reason or no reason, especially given she was an Obama-holdover appointee.

But Yovanovitch may have oversold her part a bit, comparing herself to those who served and died in Benghazi.

Jesse Watters: So What If Yovanovitch Was Fired, ‘Under Obama, Ambassadors Were Coming Back in Body Bags

Jim Jordan Reveals Ambassador Yovanovitch as a Partisan Hack and Gets in a Good Shot at Adam Schiff in the Process

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Indeed we did

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, super star, now probably pondering whether hellfire is sufficient punishment for using incandescent light bulbs!

Never mind that market economies (inseparable from freedom) and fossil fuels have produced:

• Greater standard of living across the globe
• Health care advances and longevity
• Sustainable agriculture for growing population

And yet this current Pope proclaims —

“. . .  global warming a major threat to life on the planet and called for a reduction in the use of fossil fuels. He also blamed the global market economy for plundering the earth at the expense of the poor and future generations.”  Wall Street Journal, 11/16/19

Pope Francis Weighs Adding ‘Ecological Sin’ to Church Teachings
Pontiff considers introducing an abiding concern—environmental protection—into Catechism

By Francis X. Rocca at the Wall Street Journal

VATICAN CITY— Pope Francis, who has made the environment a signature cause of his pontificate, said he was strongly considering adding the category of “ecological sin” to the Catholic Church’s official compendium of teachings.

Pope Francis has stressed the importance of environmental protection since his election in 2013. He dedicated an entire encyclical, “Laudato Si,’” published in 2015, to the topic.

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