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Impeachment Inquiry Canceled After 5 Episodes Due To Low Ratings
Via The Babylon Bee
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The exciting new TV show Impeachment Inquiry was poised to take the ratings by storm, promising to eclipse all the other shows in its time slot. But the show will be canceled after one season, like a lot of bad TV shows and also Firefly.
After just five rocky episodes that failed to deliver any major plot twists, producers pulled the plug on the impeachment inquiry due to lack of viewers.
“The showrunners promised all these big bombshells, shocking twists, and startling revelations, but they weren’t able to deliver,” said one reviewer writing in Hollywood Reporter. “When there are so many better options out there—rewatching The Office, checking out The Good Place, staring at paint as it slowly dries—why would people tune into this tepid, uninspired mess?”
22% of Americans said they were disappointed with the show so far, while 78% said, “Impeachment hearings are going on?”
At publishing time, sources had confirmed that J.J. Abrams had been in charge of writing the plot and simply forgot to tie up all the loose ends.
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2019/11/21/impeachment-inquiry-canceled-after-5-episodes-due-to-low-ratings/
Impeachment Inquiry Canceled After 5 Episodes Due To Low Ratings
Via The Babylon Bee
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The exciting new TV show Impeachment Inquiry was poised to take the ratings by storm, promising to eclipse all the other shows in its time slot. But the show will be canceled after one season, like a lot of bad TV shows and also Firefly.
After just five rocky episodes that failed to deliver any major plot twists, producers pulled the plug on the impeachment inquiry due to lack of viewers.
“The showrunners promised all these big bombshells, shocking twists, and startling revelations, but they weren’t able to deliver,” said one reviewer writing in Hollywood Reporter. “When there are so many better options out there—rewatching The Office, checking out The Good Place, staring at paint as it slowly dries—why would people tune into this tepid, uninspired mess?”
22% of Americans said they were disappointed with the show so far, while 78% said, “Impeachment hearings are going on?”
At publishing time, sources had confirmed that J.J. Abrams had been in charge of writing the plot and simply forgot to tie up all the loose ends.
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2019/11/21/impeachment-inquiry-canceled-after-5-episodes-due-to-low-ratings/
POLITICO reporters slam GOP for ‘fictional narrative’ on Dem-Ukraine 2016 election interference, but POLITICO REPORTED it in 2017
Posted on November 22, 2019
(TNS) Ahead of former east European expert Dr. Fiona Hill’s testimony before Adam Schiff’s impeachment show inquiry, a couple of “ace” POLITICO reporters mocked Republicans whom they were certain would bring up the connection between Ukraine, Democrats, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.
Specifically, POLITICO’S Jake Sherman mused over GOP lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee hearing Fiona’s testimony would react hearing Hill explain that it was just a “fictional narrative” that Ukraine interfered with the 2016 election.
today, fiona hill — a Russia expert who has worked for George W. Bush and Barack Obama — will say that the Republican theories you’ve heard about Ukraine interfering in the 2016 election is "a fictional narrative.”
And we’ll also see how Republicans react
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) November 21, 2019
POLITICO’s congressional correspondent, Kyle Cheney, also managed to get a copy of Hill’s opening statement.
He wondered similarly about the Republican reaction to the “fictional narrative.”
NEW: Fiona Hill is *not* going to take kindly to any suggestion Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. From her opening statement: pic.twitter.com/xdCginXB1q
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) November 21, 2019
Cheney added this glowing review of Hill as Democrats’ ‘star witness’ flavor of the week.
Hill is the closer for Democrats, a no-nonsense Russia expert who worked closely w/ Bolton and raised alarms about Sondland and Giuliani. The rundown, w/@AndrewDesiderio https://t.co/4uyDvp81RW
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) November 21, 2019
Where in the world could Republicans have gotten such a hair-brained idea that Ukrainian officials helped Democrats and Hillary Clinton undermine the 2016 Trump campaign?
Oh, from POLITICO.
Circa January 11, 2017: “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire: Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton.”
The report opened:
Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.
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.
Of course, there is dishonesty in that opening as well: Russia never backed a particular horse in the 2016 race, as Rush Limbaugh noted Thursday on his program. Hill said so herself on Thursday. Russia’s objective was simply to sow distrust and confusion in American politics, and Moscow was pretty successful thanks to all of the help the Kremlin got from the Democrats’ propaganda media(CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, POLITICO, etc.).
Finally, Hill did testify that indeed there were Ukrainian officials who “backed the wrong horse” in the 2016 race: Clinton.
USA Features News reported:
Former National Security Council official Dr. Fiona Hill told the House impeachment inquiry on Thursday that she understood why President Donald Trump was upset with officials from Ukraine who criticized him during the 2016 election cycle.
“Many officials from many countries, including Ukraine, bet on the wrong horse. They believed former [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton … was going to win,” she said. “And many said some pretty disparaging and pretty hurtful things about President Trump, and I can’t blame him for feeling aggrieved about them.”
In testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, Fiona also noted that in preparing state visits after President Trump was inaugurated, officials collected all statements from “senior officials” from other countries, including American allies, that were very critical of him.
…Hill noted that some Ukrainians were “trying to curry favor” with the Clinton campaign to collect information on Trump allies like his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort.
So did Cheney and Sherman just not know their own media outlet published the 2017 story linking Democrats and Ukraine to 2016 Trump campaign interference?
Of course they did. But it’s a different world now for the Garbage Party’s media; Trump remains in power and the objective among the Washington media elite remains the same…getting rid of him.
Hence the Thursday propaganda from two of POLITICO’s ‘finest.’
https://thenationalsentinel.com/2019/11/22/politico-reporters-slam-gop-for-fictional-narrative-on-dem-ukraine-2016-election-interference-but-politico-reported-it-in-2017/
Pelosi and Schiff are About to Walk Into a Senate Trial Trap
November 22, 2019 by David Blackmon
Here’s why it might now be advantageous for the Republicans to hold a long, full Senate trail if the Democrats, as expected, send over articles of impeachment:
In a Senate trial, the Republicans will control the process. They will control which witnesses get called, how the hearings are conducted, what will be considered relevant to the proceedings. They will be able to compel the fake whistleblower to testify, Hunter Biden to testify, and myriad others who Adam Schiff refused to allow into his circus process.
If they chose to, Republicans would even be able to call Schiff himself, along with his staff, to testify as fact witnesses about their pre-coordination with Eric Ciaramella, and how they and their Lawfare lawyers actually participated in the drafting of the complaint that kicked off this whole clown show.
A long Senate trail would disrupt the Democrat primary season. Republicans would be able to force Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar and Michael Bennet to sit in the Senate chamber, day after day, six days a week for as long as they want to keep them there, off the campaign trail. It would be a major disruption to the Democrat nomination battle, and would pretty much ensure that their nominee would either be a 77 year-old buffoon who doesn’t know what state he’s in most days or a 37 year-old neophyte who would be easy pickings next Fall.
A long Senate trial would allow the Republicans to publicly litigate the whole DNC server fraud. Maybe most damaging for the Democrats, Republicans would be able to compel testimony from Christopher Steele and witnesses from Crowdstrike and get them on the record on national television, testifying under oath about their activities during the 2016 election campaign and who paid for it all. They could even compel testimony under oath from John Podesta and Donna Brazile and Debbie Wasserman Schulz (remember, Schulz and Brazile were heads of the DNC during that time) and even Hillary Clinton if they want to. If it turned out to be politically advantageous, they could also compel testimony from James Comey and Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe and John Brennan and James Clapper and all the other Obama-era coup plotters who are now employed by MSNBC and CNN.
Remember, when this impeachment scam first started, how President Trump and Giuliani and others said that Pelosi and Schiff had walked into a trap? Well, there it is.
That is all.
https://dbdailyupdate.com/index.php/2019/11/22/pelosi-and-schiff-are-about-to-walk-into-a-senate-trial-trap/
ABC News reports that healthcare costs are ‘crushing’ middle class Americans but doesn’t note that Democrats promised Obamacare would lower expenses
Posted on November 22, 2019
(TNS) In 2010, the Garbage Party passed the wrongly-named “Affordable Care Act” a.k.a. “Obamacare” without a single Republican vote.
The Left and its propaganda media at the time were still a-gah-gah over our god-king president, Barack Obama, and thrilled that Democrats were able to wrest more control over our healthcare system from the private sector.
Boy, now prices were gonna come down! Everyone was going to have health insurance coverage. No more astronomical deductibles. And the god king said we could even keep are current doctors and insurance plans.
None of that turned out to be true. Obamacare never covered every single American.
Premiums skyrocketed. Deductibles followed.
Millions of people lost their health insurance plans and had to scramble to find new ones. They lost the ability to see doctors they’d seen for years.
Obamacare, in other words, was one big fat lie as well as a huge policy failure.
But that was 10 years ago and we’ve got another presidential election coming up. Oh, and Donald Trump is still president.
So the “mainstream media” must now dutifully rewrite history to blame the current state of high deductibles and monthly premiums on him — the guy who is least responsible for anything having to do with Obamacare.
Enter ABC News, the very same media outlet that deep-fixed the Jeffrey Epstein story because it implicated Democrats including Bill Clinton.
These media charlatans just published a piece on how “the middle class” is being squeezed by higher healthcare costs without ever once reporting that the entire ACA was brought to America by…Democrats and Barack Obama.
In 2008, middle-class workers spent about 7.8% of household income on premiums and deductibles.
By 2018, that figure had climbed to 11.5%. https://t.co/u1iaCkAfoA
— ABC News (@ABC) November 21, 2019
Trump and Republicans have at least managed to ditch the “individual mandate” — the requirement in Obamacare that forced people to buy a product (health insurance) for the first time in U.S. history. That went away with passage of the tax reform bill in 2017.
But that requirement never worked anyway. Before the mandate disappeared, millions of Americans still did not have health insurance — most of them young people who are never sick.
And why didn’t they buy it? Because Obamacare made it too expensive.
All of the leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidates are backing Obamacare on steroids: “Medicare for All” or some version of it. That’s complete government control over all healthcare.
That’s the last thing we should do. Not only will such a program be prohibitively expensive (tens of trillions of dollars per year) requiring massive new tax hikes, it’s foolish to believe a government that can’t even agree on a defense budget should be in completely control over all of our healthcare.
The better solution is to get Uncle Sam out of the healthcare industry as much as possible and allow the free market to work like it’s supposed to. Competition is what will produce lower prices and better services, not mandates from Washington — as we’ve seen with Obamacare.
ABC News is being completely dishonest with this story. There is someone to blame for the spike in health insurance prices since 2008, but it’s not Donald Trump and Republicans.
It’s Democrats.
https://thenationalsentinel.com/2019/11/22/abc-news-healthcare-costs-crushing-middle-class-americans-democrats-promised-obamacare-lower-expenses/
Trump’s Economy Hits Highest Confidence Level Ever
Warner Todd Huston Warner Todd Huston November 22, 2019
Americans are supporting Donald Trump’s economic policies more than ever, according to a new Gallup poll.
Americans now approve of President Trump’s handling of the economy by four more percentage points than the last poll, Gallup said. Today 57 percent have high confidence in the economy, up from 53 percent in August, and 50 percent in May.
Approval ratings are also dramatically higher than those from the early days of his presidency, when only 48 percent said they approved of Trump’s economy.
The number of those who disapprove of the president’s economic polices has fallen from 47 percent in 2017 to only 42 percent today. This is a good move in Trump’s favor considering he is attacked nearly every minute of every day by the left-wing media.
take our poll - story continues below
Will Democrats win the house and senate in 2020?
Approval of the president’s foreign trade policies, though are stagnant. In 2017 45 percent approved of his trade ideas and today it stands at 44 percent, a number that is virtually unchanged.
Interestingly, the Gallup poll also found that 56 percent of those between the ages of 18 and 34 approve of Trump’s economic policies. That is interesting because young people are said to hate Trump more than other ages.
Another age group that approves are those older than 55. A huge 62 percent of that age group approve of Trump’s policies.
On the other hand, the number falls to 49 percent in the 35 to 54 age group.
Naturally, those who claim to be Republican have the highest approval ratings. A whopping 93 percent of Republicans say they back the president’s economic policies.
In bad news for Democrats, 60 percent of independents also approve of the president’s economic ideas.
Without a doubt, Trump’s worst numbers are with the un-American Democrats of whom only 18 percent approve.
It is a fact that what is good for America, Democrats will hate.
https://godfatherpolitics.com/trumps-economy-hits-highest-confidence-level-ever/
Democrats have drawn the battle lines, and they are more deranged and anti-America than anyone imagined
Friday, November 22, 2019 by: JD Heyes
(Natural News) If you’ve managed to watch even some of the Democratic presidential debates that were held this week and last month, you may have been taken aback by the extreme Left-wing nature of many of the candidates’ proposals.
And if that’s your conclusion, you certainly aren’t the only one. In fact, seasoned political observers are increasingly finding leading Democrats adopting the Leftist/Marxist/socialism of the AOC faction of the party, not forcing them to adopt more centrist, moderate positions on issues.
Following Thursday’s Democratic debates, the second of two this week, seasoned pollster Frank Luntz, during an appearance on Fox News’ Laura Ingraham’s show, said he’s never seen anything like it from the Donkey Party before.
“I want to make this clear for the viewers. This is not a fight for the soul of the Democrat Party. That fight is over. And the hostility of these Democratic candidates, most of them, to corporate America, to CEOs, to those who have been successful, is significant,” he said.
“The language I’ve heard in the last 48 hours is language I’ve never heard from ANY mainstream Democrat… This is about changing the structure and the economy of the United States. And they’re determined to turn it upside down,” he continued.
“And, I gotta tell you, I’ve been following this since 1992, I’ve never heard candidates this extreme. I’ve never heard candidates this hostile to economic freedom and they got the base of the Democratic Party absolutely behind them,” Luntz noted.
That last observation — “They got the base of the Democratic Party absolutely behind them” — should scare the bejesus out of any American, regardless of political party, who still values freedom, liberty, and the founders’ vision of what America should be and was always supposed to be.
What is Luntz talking about? What are 2020 Democratic candidates proposing?
Democrats want to transform America into a massive socialist nightmare
— “Medicare for All,” a $32-$40-plus trillion boondoggle in which all healthcare will be managed and provided by the government. That means nearly 160 million people, by the latest estimate, who are currently covered by — and happy with — employer-provided health insurance would lose it. That’s right; a full-on, socialist, “Medicare-for-All” plan is complete government control of health care, so private insurance of all kinds, including employer-provided coverage, would go away. Extreme. (Related: What Democratic presidential contenders are REALLY proposing: Quadrillions in new spending and debt.)
— The Green New Deal, an ‘environmental justice’ scheme introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and embraced by the leading 2020 Dems that would cost so much they had to develop a new numerical measurement — “quadrillion” — to project it. The National Sentinel reported:
The study by the Competitive Enterprise Institute found that radically transforming energy consumption in the United States would have devastating economic effects on all Americans, as well as the U.S. economy, the driver of the global economy.
As for the implementation costs for GND in states like Pennsylvania, the costs are eye-watering. CEI estimated, for example, that in Pennsylvania alone, costs would soar to $2 quadrillion — with a ‘Q’ — while in Florida, those costs would be $1.4 quadrillion.
What else?
— Free healthcare for illegal aliens, while Americans would, of course, still have to pay for theirs, one way or the other.
— A ‘universal minimum basic income’ of $1,000 per month, or far less than the poverty rate — but just enough to keep Americans hooked on government.
— Decriminalizing activity that is currently against the law, which would only lead to more lawlessness.
— Free college tuition for a sizable number of Americans, at a cost of trillions.
— Forgiving student loan debt, at a cost of more than $1 trillion.
— Free housing to anyone who says they can’t afford it.
Combine these schemes with their “anti-corporate, anti-CEO, and anti-success” of their policies, it’s no wonder Luntz is shocked.
In short, the ‘new’ Democrat Party wants to destroy America as founded and turn our country into a giant Venezuela.
https://www.naturalnews.com/2019-11-22-democrats-battle-lines-more-deranged-than-anyone-imagined.html
Impeachment vote haunts 31 Democrats in Trump districts
2 who voted against inquiry feared divisive effort that 'will ultimately fail'
WND Staff By WND Staff
Published November 22, 2019 at 3:48pm
Donald Trump speaking at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona, in June 2016 (Gage Skidmore, Wikimedia Commons)
With independents and swing-state voters showing opposition to the Democrats' impeachment investigation, the 31 Democrats who represent districts won by President Trump in 2016 are faced with a dilemma.
Among them are the two Democrats who voted against the House resolution formalizing the rules of the impeachment inquiry, Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey and Collin Peterson of Minnesota.
After the Oct. 31 vote, Van Drew said in a statement he believed that without bipartisan support, the inquiry would "further divide the country."
The Democrat said it would tear the country "apart at the seams and will ultimately fail in the Senate."
"However, now that the vote has taken place and we are moving forward I will be making a judgment call based on all the evidence presented by these investigations," Van Drew said. "My hope is that we are still able to get some work done to help the American people like infrastructure, veterans' benefits, environmental protections, immigration reform, reducing prescription drug cost, and strengthening Social Security."
Peterson said the resolution was "unnecessary" and that he would "not make a decision on impeachment until all the facts have been presented."
"This impeachment process continues to be hopelessly partisan. I have been hearing from my constituents on both sides of this matter for months, and the escalation of calls this past week just shows me how divided our country really is right now," he said in a statement.
Peterson had "some serious concerns with the way the closed-door depositions were run, and am skeptical that we will have a process that is open, transparent and fair."
"Without support from Senate Republicans, going down this path is a mistake. Today's vote is both unnecessary, and widely misrepresented in the media and by Republicans as a vote on impeachment," he said.
Recent national polls indicate that support for impeaching and removing Trump has dropped over the past month as the investigation has escalated.
An NPR/PBS/Marist poll conducted Nov. 11-15 found 50% of independents did not support impeaching and removing Trump from office, with just 42% in support. In October, the same pollster found support for impeachment at 45%.
The list of Democrats in districts won by President Trump in 2016:
Tom O'Halleran of Arizona
Lucy McBath of Georgia
Lauren Underwood of Illinois
Cheri Bustos of Illinois
Abby Finkenauer of Iowa
Dave Loebsack of Iowa
Cindy Axne of Iowa
Jared Golden of Maine
Elissa Slotkin of Michigan
Haley Stevens of Michigan
Angie Craig of Minnesota
Collin Peterson of Minnesota
Susie Lee of Nevada
Chris Pappas of New Hampshire
Jefferson Van Drew of New Jersey
Andy Kim of New Jersey
Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey
Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey
Xochitl Torres Small of New Mexico
Max Rose of New York
Sean Patrick Maloney of New York
Antonio Delgado of New York
Anthony Brindisi of New York
Kendra Horn of Oklahoma
Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania
Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania
Joe Cunningham of South Carolina
Ben McAdams of Utah
Elaine Luria of Virginia
Abigail Spanberger of Virginia
Ron Kind of Wisconsin
https://www.wnd.com/2019/11/impeachment-vote-haunts-31-democrats-trump-districts/
Although I think it would be a big mistake on the dem's part exactly because of what could be brought out at a real trial in the senate, I believe they will go forward with it anyway. I can't find the article but I read a while back that there are many people that think if the house impeaches Trump that he will automatically be ousted. They are unaware of the trial portion. MSM doesn't help in educating them to a large extent. JMHO
........al
NYTimes Pans "Cult Leader" Gabbard's White Pant Suit After Praising Hillary For Same Outfit
by Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/22/2019 - 10:20
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
A New York Times writer who praised Hillary Clinton for wearing a white pantsuit called Tulsi Gabbard a “cult leader” for wearing exactly the same thing.
Style writer Vanessa Friedman had drooled over Hillary’s clothing back in 2016, calling her white pantsuit “presidential.”
However, when Gabbard, a fierce critic of Clinton, wore virtually the exact same outfit, Friedman said it made her look like a “cult leader” full of “combative righteousness” and that the white fabric has “connotations of the fringe, rather than the center” and even undermines “community building.”
Same author, same newspaper, completely different claim: pic.twitter.com/nXgnjOQUNr
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 22, 2019
Journalist Glenn Greenwald highlighted the fact that it’s normally considered sexist to judge women on their clothing, but that an exception had been made for Gabbard.
Yes, usually it’s misogynistic to attack a female politician for the clothes she wears but an exception will be made (for obvious reasons) in this case.
I’m just grateful the NYT didn’t claim white pants suits were Russian. I was waiting for a Kremlin or Putin link. https://t.co/GAO5e2cbvS
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 21, 2019
Another Twitter user pointed out that Friedman had also previously praised Democratic Congresswomen at Trump’s State of the Union for wearing white but lambasted Melania Trump for wearing the same color.
All four of these are from @VVFriedman. Imagine choosing something as patently stupid as white pantsuits to expose your rank hypocrisy and blind hatred over. pic.twitter.com/Zj94LQhDIp
— ???? ?? (@pragmatometer) November 22, 2019
“Imagine choosing something as patently stupid as white pantsuits to expose your rank hypocrisy and blind hatred over,” remarked the Twitter user.
“Only neoliberals and war hawks can wear white suites apparently,” added another.
Only neoliberals and war hawks can wear white suites apparently pic.twitter.com/DHvDQaV3fN
— K!LLA CAM ?? (@killa_cam214) November 21, 2019
Apparently, wearing white is a brave expression of purity and leadership, unless you challenge the Democratic establishment or the deep state, at which point it suddenly makes you a “cult leader.”
And people wonder why mainstream journalism is dying.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nytimes-pans-cult-leader-gabbards-white-pant-suit-after-praising-hillary-same-outfit
Bring It On! Trump Wants Senate Trial 'Of Some Length' If House Impeaches
by Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/22/2019 - 10:40
After two weeks of public testimony revealed that Democrats' impeachment case against President Donald Trump is largely made up of hurt feelings and foreign policy disagreements, the White House and allies say Trump is looking forward to a 'trial of some length' in the Senate if the House votes to impeach so he can expose what a flimsy case has been built against him.
Donald Trump says he wants an impeachment trial in the Senate, despite saying that "they should never, ever impeach." pic.twitter.com/ZAENby2hcA
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) November 22, 2019
"He wants to be able to bring up witnesses like Adam Schiff, like the whistleblower, like Hunter Biden, like Joe Biden," said Hogan Gidley, principal deputy press secretary for the White House.
Trump spent much of Thursday and Friday tweeting highlights from recent impeachment testimony:
SCHIFF'S "FACT" WITNESSES! pic.twitter.com/Pab2y1BVoN
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2019
pic.twitter.com/osezECwPO1
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2019
On Thursday morning, a group of Republican senators met with White House counsel Pat Cipollone, Kellyanne Conway, Jared Kushner and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney to discuss strategy for a potential Senate trial which would likely take place in January, according to Politico.
Two attendees said that the White House wants the Senate to hold a trial of some length and not immediately dismiss any articles of impeachment with the GOP's majority, as some Republicans have suggested.
The White House and Trump's GOP allies decided instead “they want some kind of factual affirmative defense on the merits," said one attendee.
One attendee noted that the White House wants to show a commitment to due process, particularly since Republicans have criticized House Democrats for how they've conducted their impeachment proceedings.
...
A White House official said the meeting "wasn't so much about the details, it was about the Democrats' weak case and we want to show just how weak it is." -Politico
President Trump, meanwhile, has been tweeting and retweeting highlights from the last week - and spent nearly an hour with Fox and Friends on Friday where he said he knows "exactly" who the Ukraine whistleblower is. Trump also said that he wants Schiff to testify more than Hunter Biden, and repeated his claim that former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was "not an angel" and that she was speaking poorly of him to others.
Trump repeated the claim that the hacked DNC server was given to Crowdstrike, "a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian."
Trump also praised Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) for her performance during the public impeachment hearings (23:40 in video above), as well as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) - tweeting and retweeting clips related to Schiff's hearings.
Thank you @EliseStefanik and @SteveScalise, GREAT JOB! pic.twitter.com/K8qQbCAXbj
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2019
Today we heard from Amb. Sondland that @realdonaldtrump told him: “No quid pro quo. I want nothing.”
No evidence of impeachable offenses, but the partisan process continues.
And Adam Schiff still won’t let us call the whistleblower or Hunter Biden to testify. pic.twitter.com/LAfwofDMQ3
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) November 21, 2019
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bring-it-trump-wants-senate-trial-some-length-if-house-impeaches
Maxine Waters said, “Trump’s shamelessness knows no bounds.”
And to that Ben Carson replied, “Shamelessness is a career politician of 30 years laying blame. Shamelessness is allowing more than 55,000 Americans to live on the very streets they represent.”
Man I love this guy.
7:07 AM - 21 Nov 2019
https://twitter.com/Education4Libs/status/1197531955019079680
When you're trying to overturn 63 million votes and take down a sitting president, you better come up with something more than the fact that you don’t like him.
11:24 AM - 21 Nov 2019
When you're trying to overturn 63 million votes and take down a sitting president, you better come up with something more than the fact that you don’t like him.https://t.co/KPXPQ99PQD
— Doug Collins (@RepDougCollins) November 21, 2019
Poll finds sharp swing in opposition to impeachment among independents
A new national survey finds independent voters leading a sharp swing in opposition to impeachment, the second major poll to produce those findings this week.
The latest national poll from Emerson College finds 45 percent oppose impeaching President Trump, against 43 percent who support it. That’s a 6-point swing in support from October, when 48 percent of voters supported impeachment and only 44 percent opposed.
More importantly, the poll shows more independents now oppose impeachment than support it, a significant change from Emerson's polling in October. The new poll found 49 percent oppose impeachment compared to 34 percent who support it. In October, 48 percent of independents polled supported impeachment, against 39 percent who opposed.
Since October, Emerson has found Trump’s job approval rating jump by 5 points, from 43 percent to 48 percent.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/471542-poll-finds-sharp-swing-in-opposition-to-impeachment-among-independents
Some Nasty Anti-President Quotes to Offer Perspective
“KEEP FIGHTING, PRESIDENT TRUMP”
by Seth Swirsky, ©2019, from American Thinker
(Nov. 22, 2019) — Here are just a few choice quotes leveled at the president (read to the end):
“The president has continued during the last week to make a fool of himself and to mortify and shame the intelligent people of this great nation.”
“He is evidently a person of very inferior character.”
“The president is a fungus from the corrupt womb of bigotry and fanaticism, a worse tyrant than has existed since the days of Nero.”
“Those who vote for the president’s re-election are traitors.”
“He is universally an admitted failure, has no will, no courage, no executive capacity.”
“There is a strong feeling among those who have seen the president, in the way of business, that he lacks practical talent for the job. It is thought that there should be more readiness.”
Yes. These nasty things were said about President…Lincoln. By Democrats and “NeverLincolns” of their day. All while he won the Civil War and ended slavery.
So keep fighting, President Trump. While your opponents try everything they can to demean, demoralize, and depose you, the decent people of this country appreciate your tireless efforts in giving us this great economy, a stronger military, better trade deals, and a restored sense of America’s true greatness.
https://www.thepostemail.com/2019/11/22/some-nasty-anti-president-quotes-to-offer-perspective/
Billionaires fund left-wing ‘resisters’ and schemers to abolish the electoral college, same-day registration and oppose voter ID
http://dailytorch.com/2019/11/billionaires-fund-left-wing-resisters-and-schemers-to-abolish-the-electoral-college/
By Richard McCarty
For years, Democrats have argued that they will soon have a permanent majority due to the country’s demographic changes. However, liberal billionaires, like George Soros and John and Laura Arnold, are not content to wait. To speed things along, they support left-wing organizations that constantly scheme to find ways to undermine the integrity of our elections and boost Democrats’ chances of winning.
To begin with, Soros and the Arnolds support the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Brennan Center for Justice. The ACLU has a long and sordid history of proudly defending the indefensible. These days, it brags that it has sued the Trump Administration more than 100 times. The Brennan Center was founded by former clerks for liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan; the Center is now run by a senior official in the Clinton Administration. In the early days of the Trump Administration, the Center was recognized as part of the “Resistance Network.”
Both the ACLU and the Brennan Center oppose voter ID laws. While these left-wing organizations do everything they can to make it easier to commit voter fraud, a 2016 Gallup poll shows just how out-of-touch they are on voter ID laws. Gallup found that 80% of voters support ID laws, including 95% of Republicans, 63% of Democrats, 83% of independents, 81% of whites, and 77% of nonwhites. Furthermore, although the ACLU and the Brennan Center claim that voter ID laws disenfranchise minority voters, they disregard evidence that shows that these laws do not suppress minority voter turnout.
Of course, there is much more to these group’s agendas than just blocking voter ID laws. For example, the ACLU opposes efforts to clean up voter rolls that would reduce chances of voter fraud. Not to be outdone, the Brennan Center supports having at least two full weeks of early voting (including nights and weekends), allowing people to register and vote on the same day, and having the government automatically register voters.
Why is it that the ACLU is so desperate to ensure that voter rolls are filled with dead people and those registered in multiple states? Good government? Doubtful. What the ACLU refuses to recognize is that, while some efforts to maintain the integrity of our elections might inconvenience some voters from time to time, the broader voting public has a right to expect that the government is taking reasonable steps to ensure that only those eligible to vote are allowed to do so. After all, no in their right mind wants their vote cancelled out by a non-citizen or someone who votes twice.
Despite the Brennan Center’s claims, there is very little justification for weeks of early voting. If a voter cannot find any time to vote on Election Day during the 12 or so hours that polls are open and cannot submit an absentee ballot, many would reasonably conclude that that voter is not sufficiently motivated to vote. In addition, despite liberal groups’ advocacy for early voting, the evidence suggests early voting does not increase turnout – and could even result in lower turnout. Early voting does, however, increase work for county workers, increase costs for taxpayers, and increase work for volunteers handing out sample ballots to voters.
Soros and the Arnolds, along with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, support FairVote. FairVote is run by Rob Richie, a former campaign staffer for a liberal Democrat Congresswoman. FairVote supports same-day registration and voting, automatic voter registration, and even allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to vote.
All three of these organizations, the ACLU, the Brennan Center, and FairVote, support the National Popular Vote interstate compact. Under this scheme, states with 270 electoral votes would agree to cast their electoral votes for whichever candidate wins the popular vote regardless of whether that candidate actually won the states giving that candidate their votes. Although a number of states have signed on, this end-run around the Constitution may well be unconstitutional and could even spark a constitutional crisis.
When Soros and the Arnolds are not funding the abortion industry, trying to impose a carbon tax, or trying to erode your Second Amendment rights, they are trying to rig our elections. This is why we need more conservative donors and activists – as well as more cooperation between right-leaning organizations – to push back on these fronts.
Richard McCarty is the Director of Research at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
You can buy a BullSchiff tee here:
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Schiff’s impeachment hearings wasting time when Congress must do real work
By Post Editorial Board November 21, 2019 | 7:47pm
Rep. Adam Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee has now heard all its announced public-hearing impeachment witnesses, yet all those hours of televised testimony plainly failed on their announced goal: to change Americans’ minds.
Part of the problem is that Democrats had already released (or leaked) the best evidence they had, so the public hearings brought zero drama, unless you count the grandstanding on both sides.
More important: Not one witness offered any direct evidence that President Trump did anything clearly impeachable. No one heard him order a quid pro quo, in which Ukraine would gin up “dirt” on Joe Biden in exchange for US aid or a White House meeting.
Not one offered a convincing reason why Trump’s interest in having Ukraine probe potential corruption warrants impeachment, even if it was part of quid pro quo.
Fact is, Ukrainians were involved in the 2016 election, particularly in the investigation into Paul Manafort. And payments to Biden’s son Hunter by notoriously corrupt Ukrainian energy company Burisma do reek.
Schiff’s top witness, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, even admitted Trump warned against linking US actions to Ukrainian probes: “I want no quid pro quo,” Sondland said Trump told him.
Thursday’s hearings offered more irrelevant testimony: Ex-National Security official Fiona Hill called for bipartisan opposition to foreign interference in US elections yet slammed what she called a “fictional narrative” about Ukrainian meddling. A US embassy official in Kiev, David Holmes, shared his “impression” that Trump froze aid to push for Ukrainian probes, yet the only time he heard the prez mention “investigations” was in a phone call he overheard.
None of this will move the needle for anyone on the fence. And now Dems in swing districts head home for Thanksgiving to hear from voters who must be wondering about the point of it all.
Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi just said she doubts Congress has the time to pass the North American trade deal this year. And lawmakers can barely even keep the government funded; this week’s continuing resolution just kicks the can to Dec. 20.
For all their talk of high purpose, it sure looks like Pelosi & Co. are putting on a show to appease the Democratic base instead of doing the work all Americans need done.
https://nypost.com/2019/11/21/schiffs-impeachment-hearings-wasting-time-when-congress-must-do-real-work/
Call of Doody by Stilton Jarlsberg
We feel like we're being somewhat derelict in our duty to report on the Schiff hearings, but to the best of our knowledge, the cartoon above sums things up pretty accurately.
The mainstream media keeps breathlessly announcing that one bombshell after another is dropping, any one of which could see Trump dragged screaming from the White House to a maximum security prison.
But when we consider the actual testimony, we're not hearing "bombshells" - we're hearing straining efforts to produce occasional plops and splashes...with exactly the accompanying scent you'd expect.
Apparently no one ever heard Trump say any of the things he's being accused of...but many people are still willing to go on record to say that they think Trump probably committed misdeeds, based on what these "witnesses" have heard from the media (which currently stands at 96% against Trump) rather than what they personally heard from the President's own lips.
The whole "impeachment hearing" process is a huge farce. And everyone knows how quickly farce can escalate into sharts.
Think we're overstating the scatological quality of these hearings? Then check out this actual video of Schiff's closing remarks from Thursday...
IG Horowitz found that an FBI agent allegedly altered a document in the FISA probe of the Trump campaign
Even CNN had to admit this will provide "ammunition" for President Trump
An FBI agent is reportedly being investigated for allegedly altering a document in the controversial probe of Trump campaign aides.
Ditch the fake news ==> Click here to get news you can trust sent right to your inbox. It's free!
CNN published the exclusive report on Thursday based on sources familiar with the matter.
According to the report, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz turned over evidence of the altered document to federal prosecutor John Durham.
The document was altered in a "substantive" manner, but it is unclear whether it would have changed the origin of the FISA probe.
Durham was appointed by Attorney General William Barr to investigate the origins of the FISA probe into the Trump campaign in 2016.
The controversial investigation of Trump campaign aide Carter Page has come under intense scrutiny as Republican allies of the president accused former members of the Obama administration of inappropriately using the power of the government to surveil the campaign.
Former Obama era national security advisor Susan Rice are among those claiming that there was no political motivation involved in the investigation, and that the probe was conducted appropriately.
Details of the allegedly altered document will be included in the report from Horowitz to be released in December.
CNN admitted in its report that the altering of documentation would help "fuel" claims from the allies of the president that the FBI was improperly abusing their power to target then-candidate Trump.
"This is exactly what people close to the president have been saying, that the FBI committed wrongdoing in starting this investigation," said CNN's Manu Raju.
Here's CNN's video on the report:
This is the real bombshell from the Sondland testimony the media wants buried
Published 9 hours ago
on November 21, 2019
By JD Rucker
President Trump just flipped the 11th circuit (AL, FL, GA) to majority Republican appointed judges with the confirmation of Barbara Lagoa.
November 20, 2019 by IWB
?? BREAKING >> President Trump just flipped the 11th circuit to majority Republican appointed judges with the confirmation of Barbara Lagoa.
— The Article III Project (A3P) (@Article3Project) November 20, 2019
www.floridasupremecourt.org/Justices/Justice-Barbara-Lagoa
This right here is exactly why the President is constantly tweeting about impeachment. I makes everyone focus on something that will never happen. And while their attention is focused, he flips another court with minimal resistance.
His strategy isn’t complicated, yet somehow his opponents can’t beat it!
https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/president-trump-just-flipped-the-11th-circuit-al-fl-ga-to-majority-republican-appointed-judges-with-the-confirmation-of-barbara-lagoa/
Executive Order 6102 Led to the Fall of America’s Money System
November 20, 2019 by IWB
by Bill Bonner
Today, we woke up with a disagreeable headache… and a depressing hypothesis:
The Supreme Court has been derelict in its duty for the last 80 years. For years, the Court has looked the other way as the feds robbed one class of citizen (ordinary, working people) and rewarded another (the elite).
As a result, the American empire faces a catastrophic money crisis… probably accompanied by internal schisms, social breakdowns, and dangerous political scuffles.
Let’s begin by looking again at the connection between time and money.
Losing Time
If you work by the hour, the guy with money can buy your time. That’s what it really means to say someone is “rich” – he has more time because he can control not only his own, but yours, too.
The guy who had $1,000 worth of stocks in 1971 could buy approximately 260 of the average working man’s hours. Today, that $1,000 worth of stocks is worth about $32,000… which, at today’s $28-per-hour average, will buy 1,140 hours of the typical working man’s time – about four times as much as in 1971.
In other words, compared to the wage earner, the capitalist is four times as rich.
Invert it, and you see about the same thing. A working man would have had to labor for 224 hours to buy the 30 Dow stocks in 1971. Today, his time is much less valuable; he has to sweat for 1,000 hours to buy the Dow.
That’s why the liberals whine about “inequality”… and probably why Donald J. Trump was elected. Few people may have done the math, but a lot of people suspected a rat.
And they were right.
Many – including the president – pointed their fingers… but at the wrong rat!
They thought it was the foreigners who had done them dirty: the Chinese with their “unfair trade practices” and the Mexicans “pouring across the border, stealing our jobs,” was the jingo.
For their part, investors, the rich, and the cronies and insiders thought they were smart. They earned their wealth fair and square, they believed, by funding America’s enterprises… and by carefully allocating precious capital to worthy businesses run by able corporate champions.
But the fix was in.
Executive Order 6102
How exactly was the fix put in place?
In 1933, the matter first came before the Supreme Court. Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 6102 made it illegal for citizens to own gold, except in the smallest of quantities.
It came to the Supremes in a series of disputes called the Gold Clause Cases. “Where in the Constitution did the president get that power?” people wondered.
Back then, some investors recalled that the feds can play fast and loose with the dollar, as Lincoln had during the War Between the States.
Gold clauses in contracts protected them by insisting on gold as a means of settling up. Eliminating the gold clause meant taking away the ability to protect against inflation… and substantially altering the terms of the deal.
But the Supremes went along with it. Colleague Dan Denning, our coauthor on The Bonner-Denning Letter, tells the tale:
First, let me quote a few brief passages from [Justice James] McReynolds’ dissent. They capture the spirit of his objection and the relationship between sound money and political liberty. McReynolds writes that:
“Just men regard repudiation and spoliation of citizens by their sovereign with abhorrence; but we are asked to affirm that the Constitution has granted power to accomplish both.
“No definite delegation of such a power exists; and we cannot believe the farseeing framers, who labored with hope of establishing justice and securing the blessings of liberty, intended that the expected government should have authority to annihilate its own obligations and destroy the very rights which they were endeavoring to protect.
“Not only is there no permission for such actions; they are inhibited. And no plenitude of words can conform them to our charter.”
McReynolds went on to make the point that when you buy a bond or make a loan, “the creditor agrees to accept and the debtor undertakes to return the thing loaned or its equivalent.”
Because Roosevelt’s Executive Order meant companies could be paid back in depreciated dollars instead of gold coins or gold equal to the value of the original loan, McReynolds recognized that this was a de facto default.
The gold clause guaranteeing creditors be paid back in gold or something of equal value “prevents the borrower from availing itself of a possibility of discharge of the debt in depreciated currency.”
Congress went along with it, too. And then, still in the minority, McReynolds saw the handwriting on the wall: The feds themselves might be the main beneficiaries. Congress would be able to borrow… and then wipe out its own debt by inflation. McReynolds:
We are dealing here with a debased standard, adopted with the definite purpose to destroy obligations. Such arbitrary and oppressive action is not within any congressional power heretofore recognized. The authority of Congress to create legal tender obligations in times of peace is derived from the power to borrow money; this cannot be extended to embrace the destruction of all credits. […]
For the government to say, we have violated our contract but have escaped the consequences through our own statute, would be monstrous. In matters of contractual obligation the government cannot legislate so as to excuse itself. […]
Whatever may be the situation now confronting us, it is the outcome of attempts to destroy lawful undertakings by legislative action; and this we think the Court should disapprove in no uncertain terms. […]
Loss of reputation for honorable dealing will bring us unending humiliation; the impending legal and moral chaos is appalling.
Humiliation Afoot
With the gold clause out of the way, the coast was clear. The feds floated out one program after another, meddling in every aspect of human life.
There was now a third party in almost every transaction – the federal regulator.
By the 1950s, the fake wars had begun, too – major wars – with no declaration or funding from Congress.
By the 1960s, the Johnson team had a full-scale war in Vietnam (a country with no capacity or intention to harm the U.S.).
In addition, it launched a War on Poverty, too… intended to create a Great Society, where the lambs would lie down with the wolves and fruit would hang from every ghetto palm.
But humiliation was afoot. It was soon clear that the feds were going to run out of money.
And this time, it was the Nixon team that shirked its duty. Rather than admit that it had overspent, President Richard Nixon repudiated the last link with real money and the ability of foreign governments to exchange their dollars for gold at the promised rate.
Now, the feds had gone Full Paper. Their money was nothing but pieces of paper backed by what was soon to be the world’s biggest debtor.
And now, there was nothing stopping them… There was nothing to stop the chaos McReynolds foresaw.
https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/executive-order-6102-led-to-the-fall-of-americas-money-system/
Schwab To Buy TD Ameritrade For $26 Billion, Creating $5 Trillion Retail Brokerage Giant
by Tyler Durden
Thu, 11/21/2019 - 07:03
One month after brokerages, prompted by money-losing competitor Robinhood, dropped all transaction fees in hopes of gaining market share - a move which has yet to generate any material new users - this morning Fox Business reported that in a giant move amid discount online brokerages, Charles Schwab would buy TD Ameritrade for $26 billion. Both shares of TD Ameritrade and Schwab were sharply higher on the news, up 18% and 2.4% respectively, with other brokers up as well on the news (ETFC +2.5%, IBKR +2.1%).
TD Ameritrade CEO Tim Hockey, who announced in July that he would leave by the end of February, acknowledged last month that his firm's decision to adopt zero commissions would prompt speculation about mergers.
"We will take a look at anything that makes financial and strategic sense," he said in October outlining the company's plans to make up for lost revenue of as much as $240 million a quarter from the new commission structure. "Scale is important. We have scale. We're very comfortable with our earnings power now, even in this new environment."
Last month, Schwab started a revolution in the retail brokerage space, when it announced it would eliminate almost all commissions for online trades, causing rivals E-Trade and Fidelity to follow suit. Eliminating the $4.95 per trade commission will cost Schwab $90 million to $100 million in quarterly revenue, or about 3 percent to 4 percent of its total.
Schwab stock had risen 7.8% this year, while TD Ameritrade has fallen 15.5%, although it appears set to erase losses with today's move.
TD Ameritrade, which began as First Omaha Securities, was founded by Joe Ricketts in1975. In 1988, it became the first firm to let clients make trades by touch-tone phone, then went public three years later. TD bought Scottrade in a $4 billion cash-and-stock deal in 2016, tying up two major players in the industry.
NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOST
While the news that Schwab is buying TD Ameritrade will be positive for possible acquisition target E*Trade, it may weigh on some asset managers as the combined company would be able to exert even more pressure on industry fees, according to Vital Knowledge’s Adam Crisafulli.
“The key for this industry is asset aggregation and that’s SCHW’s ultimate goal – it had $3.768t of client assets as of the last quarter and adding AMTD’s $1.3t would take the combined company to >$5t," he said.
And while E*trade may be considered more of a deal target now, there aren’t many obvious buyers left if SCHW, AMTD combine, Crisafulli said, noting that industry consolidation “isn’t shocking,” and that AMTD was thought to be a potential buyer, perhaps of ETFC.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/schwab-buy-td-ameritrade-26-billion-creating-5-trillion-retail-brokerage-giant
In keeping up
Do you believe Trump will be impeached?
I do, but he will not be removed in the senate. JMHO
.........al
Sadly gotta run.
When my #Benghazi whistleblower @GregoryNHicks revealed lack of HRC security for not preventing attack and criticized Susan Rice for blaming attack on video, he was recalled, put in DOS broom closet, and smeared by Dems at hearing. Where was MSM sympathy? #maga2020
3:33 AM - 16 Nov 2019
When my #Benghazi whistleblower @GregoryNHicks revealed lack of HRC security for not preventing attack and criticized Susan Rice for blaming attack on video, he was recalled, put in DOS broom closet, and smeared by Dems at hearing. Where was MSM sympathy? #maga2020
— Victoria Toensing (@VicToensing) November 16, 2019
MSNBC or CNN?
Ukrainian Indictment Claims $7.4 Billion Obama-Linked Laundering, Puts Biden Group Take At $16.5 Million
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 11/20/2019 - 12:25
An indictment drawn up by Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General against Burisma owner Nikolai Zlochevsky claims that Hunter Biden and his partners received $16.5 million for their 'services' - according to Ukrainian MP Alexander Dubinsky of the ruling Servant of the People Party.
Dubinsky made the claim in a Wednesday press conference, citing materials from an investigation into Zlochevsky and Burisma.
"Zlochevsky was charged with this new accusation by the Office of the Prosecutor General but the press ignored it," said the MP. "It was issued on November 14."
"The son of Vice-President Joe Biden was receiving payment for his services, with money raised through criminal means and money laundering," he then said, adding "Biden received money that did not come from the company’s successful operation but rather from money stolen from citizens."
According to Dubinsky, Hunter Biden's income from Burisma is a "link that reveals how money is siphoned [from Ukraine]," and how Biden is just one link in the chain of Zlochevsky's money laundering operation which included politicians from the previous Yanukovich administration who continued their schemes under his successor, President Pyotr Poroshenko.
"We will reveal the information about the financial pyramid scheme that was created in Ukraine and developed by everyone beginning with Yanukovich and later by Poroshenko. This system is still working under the guidance of the current managerial board of the National Bank, ensuring that money flows in the interest of people who stole millions of dollars, took it offshore and bought Ukrainian public bonds turning them into the Ukrainian sovereign debt," said Dubinsky, adding that "in both cases of Yanukovich and Poroshenko, Ms. Gontareva and companies she controls were investing the stolen funds."
Franklin Templeton named
According to Interfax-Ukraine, MP Andriy Derkach announced at the same press conference that deputies have received new materials from investigative journalists alleging that the 'family' of ex-President Yanukovych funneled $7.4 billion through American investment firm Franklin Templeton Investments, which they claim have connections to the US Democratic party."
"Last week, November 14, the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO), unnoticed by the media, announced a new suspicion to the notorious owner of Burisma, ex-Ecology Minister Zlochevsky. According to the suspicion, the Yanukovych family is suspected, in particular, with legalizing (laundering) of criminally obtained income through Franklin Templeton Investments, an investment fund carrying out purchases of external government loan bonds totaling $7.4 billion," said Derkach, adding that the money was criminally obtained and invested in the purchase of Ukrainian debt in 2013 - 2014.
"The son of Templeton's founder, John Templeton Jr., was one of President Obama's major campaign donors. Another fund-related character is Thomas Donilon. Managing Director of BlackRock Investment Institute, shareholder Franklin Templeton Investments, which has the largest share in the fund. It is noteworthy that he previously was Obama's national security advisor," Derkach added.
Derkach then demanded "President Zelensky must pick up the phone, dial Trump, ask for help and cooperation in the fight against corruption and fly to Washington. The issue of combating international corruption in Ukraine with the participation of citizens, businessmen and U.S. officials should become a key during the meeting of the two presidents."
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ukrainian-indictment-reveals-hunter-biden-group-made-165-million-mp
BREAKING: NSC Officials Attempted to Remove Leaker Vindman but Were Blocked by Obama Deep State HR Head in White House Latesha Lewis
Joe Hoft by Joe Hoft November 19, 2019
Jesse Watters outed the White House Human Resources leader who kept the NSC’s Alex Vindman on after others in the White House thought that he was leaking classified information from the Trump White House. Both Vindman and the HR representative by the name of Latesha Lewis, were holdovers from the Obama Administration.
Paul Sperry noted tweeted this morning that an HR representative in the White House kept Alex Vindman in the White House after complaints of his being a leaker –
BREAKING: NSC officials attempted to remove Alex Vindman due to security concerns but were blocked by an Obama holdover, an official in the White House who still controls human resource management inside the NSC, an African-American woman closely tied to the Obama family
— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) November 19, 2019
The HR lady who kept leaker Vindman on was named by Stephanie Grisham and Jesse Watters at the 3:40 mark – Latesha Lewis – in the attached video.
As they hang on every word-
When the villain is Obama, not Trump, news suddenly becomes not worth reporting
By Kyle Smith November 20, 2019 | 2:48pm
So the United States has “the world’s highest rate of children in detention.” Is this worth reporting? Maybe, maybe not. Nevertheless, Agence France-Presse, or AFP, and Reuters did report it, attributing the information to a “United Nations study” on migrant children detained at the US-Mexico border.
Then the two agencies retracted the story. Deleted, withdrew, demolished. If they could have used one of those Men in Black memory-zappers on us, they would have. Sheepishly, the two news organizations explained that, you see, the UN data was from 2015 — part of a border crackdown that had begun years earlier.
We all know who the president was in 2015. It wasn’t evil, child-caging monster President Trump. It was that nice, compassionate, child-caging monster President Barack Obama.
Zap. The story made Obama look bad. Hence the story was removed. Not updated or corrected, removed.
I know it’s a heavy news environment. Who can keep up? But try to remember this one, because it’s instructive. People think news organizations flat-out fabricate stories. That isn’t often the case. Fake news is a problem that pops up here and there, but the much more systematic and deeply entrenched attack on truth is the casual, everyday bias of reporters.
AFP and Reuters deleted a story that was, in a narrow sense, true — that a UN study claimed the United States had some 100,000 children in migrant-related detention. The United Nations is horribly biased against America and the West. Still, on the level of lazy, news-release-driven journalism, the locked-up-kids story was minimally valid.
At any rate, what the agencies didn’t seem to like was the story’s changed implication: That Obama, rather than Trump, locked up a lot of children. This is what’s important: Not that AFP and Reuters deleted a story, but that the implication of the story meant everything to them.
Every time you read something from AFP and Reuters (and CNN and the Washington Post), you should be thinking not “This is fake news” but: “What’s the agenda?” To paraphrase Chuck Schumer’s infamous, and instructive, comment on the CIA, news outlets have six ways from Sunday of getting you to think what they want you to think, none of which involve making up stuff.
One is simply not reporting things. News that isn’t mentioned didn’t really happen to that outlet’s consumers. Obama’s approval ratings were mostly really low, comparable to Trump’s, typically in the low to mid-40s. Polls would come out saying this, and the Ron Burgundys would simply not report it.
Trump doesn’t enjoy this courtesy. Nor can he be associated with good news. A recent Newsbusters survey found that, over a recent six-week period, not even 1 percent of network news reporting on the Trump administration even mentioned the nation’s record-low unemployment.
Another trick is soberly reporting the policy proposals of Politician One but focusing entirely on the miscues and petty controversies of Politician Two. You might, if you are a news consumer, be under the impression that Sen. Elizabeth Warren has a sober, well-reasoned set of plans. These plans are, however, so far-fetched as to be breathtaking. She has vowed $20.5 trillion in new federal spending, an increase of 40 percent on top of current levels. Yet Warren isn’t the candidate the media habitually portray as unhinged.
Meanwhile, the gaffes of Democrats attract very little interest; network news basically ignored the mini-scandal involving Pete Buttigieg, who promoted a list of black supporters, many of whom either were not black or did not support him. The networks declined to cast Buttigieg as racially insensitive.
Still another trick is deciding that a matter that advances the wrong narrative is simply “local news,” hence not worthy of attention from the major outlets. Any crimes committed by illegal immigrants can be safely ignored by CNN, but any crimes associated with right-wingers become cause for national dismay and soul searching.
CNN did a massive story this week involving the talents of five reporters after someone at Syracuse University sent out a white supremacist manifesto to “several” cellphones and racist graffiti was discovered in a residence hall. Previously, similar outbreaks of campus fear turned out to be based on hoaxes. Yet if this story dissolves, CNN can accurately claim, hey, we were just reporting that students were scared.
The impression created by a thousand stories like this — that America in 2019 is a white supremacist nightmare — will linger all the same. Using, or ignoring, facts in accordance with whether they create the desired impression is the principal agenda of today’s media.
https://nypost.com/2019/11/20/when-the-villain-is-obama-not-trump-news-suddenly-becomes-not-worth-reporting/
Gordon Sondland says Trump wanted ‘nothing’ from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky
By Bob Fredericks November 20, 2019 | 1:56pm
Ambassador Gordon Sondland testified under cross-examination from Rep. Devin Nunes and staff counsel that President Trump told him during a September phone call that Trump “wanted nothing” from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“President Trump, when I asked him the open-ended question, as I testified previously, ‘What do you want from Ukraine?’ His answer was, ‘I want nothing, I want no quid pro quo. Tell Zelensky to do the right thing.‘ That’s all I got from President Trump.”
Asked if he knew that Rudy Giuliani was pushing the investigations on Trump’s behalf, he referred to his previous, closed-door testimony.
“I’m not going to dispute what I said in my deposition. I made the call and I asked as I said the open-ended question: ‘What do you want from Ukraine?’ That’s when I got the answer. He was unequivocal, ‘nothing.'”
https://nypost.com/2019/11/20/gordon-sondland-says-trump-wanted-nothing-from-ukraine-president-voldymer-zelensky/
BREAKING: Ukraine Prosecutor Office Indicts Burisma Owner, Accuses Biden Group of Laundering $16.5 Million
MP Dubinsky says that Prosecutor General Office has indicted Burisma owner Zlochevsky and that indictment says that Hunter Biden and associates received $16.5 million of laundered money.
From tass.com
The Ukrainian Office of the Prosecutor General has drawn up an indictment against the owner of the Burisma Holdings energy company, ex-Ecology Minister Nikolai Zlochevsky, that contains information that the son of former US Vice President Joe Biden, Hunter, as a Burisma board member along with his partners received $16.5 million for their services, Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada MP from the ruling Servant of the People party Alexander Dubinsky told a press conference on Wednesday, citing the investigation’s materials. According to him, the money came from duplicitous criminal activity.
"Zlochevsky was charged with this new accusation by the Office of the Prosecutor General but the press ignored it," the MP said. "It was issued on November 14."
According to the politician, "the son of Vice-President Joe Biden was receiving payment for his services, with money raised through criminal means and money laundering." He also clarified that "Biden received money that did not come from the company’s successful operation but rather from money stolen from citizens."
Dubinsky stressed that the information on Hunter Biden’s income under his contract with Burisma is a "link that reveals how money is siphoned [from Ukraine]."
The MP explained that this information makes up a part of a large-scale scheme of Zlochevsky’s money laundering that involved politicians from the time of ex-President Viktor Yanukovich who continued this scheme under another (now former) President Pyotr Poroshenko, with the backing of former Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine Valeria Gontareva.
"We will reveal the information about the financial pyramid scheme that was created in Ukraine and developed by everyone beginning with Yanukovich and later by Poroshenko. This system is still working under the guidance of the current managerial board of the National Bank, ensuring that money flows in the interest of people who stole millions of dollars, took it offshore and bought Ukrainian public bonds turning them into the Ukrainian sovereign debt," Dubinksy claimed. He then added that "in both cases of Yanukovich and Poroshenko, Ms. Gontareva and companies she controls were investing the stolen funds."
Another Verkhovna Rada MP, Andrei Derkach, claimed that the US Franklin Templeton Investments management company was also involved in the scheme. "The investigation suggests that the Yanukovichs illegally obtained $7.4 billion and laundered it through an investment fund close to the US Democratic Party as government domestic loan bonds," he pointed out.
http://redstateobserver.com/article.asp?id=154998&fbclid=IwAR14sKSobYQl9yk96VtZ30Tojexogh45k1A8vVk143YdUgrJzddhGM6h7Yc
Sondland implicates top officials on Ukraine, but says he ‘never heard’ quid pro quo from Trump
By Alex Pappas
European Union ambassador Gordon Sondland tied top officials to the “potential quid pro quo” involving U.S. military aid to Ukraine and investigations desired by President Trump during his highly anticipated impeachment hearing testimony on Wednesday – yet said he never heard that link from the president himself.
One of the key witnesses in the Democrat-led impeachment inquiry against Trump, Sondland claimed he kept Secretary of State Mike Pompeo aware of what was going on and said he specifically told Vice President Pence he "had concerns" the military aid to Ukraine "had become tied" to investigations -- though a Pence aide denied it. And he repeatedly lambasted Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s leading role in the administration’s Ukraine dealings.
"Everyone was in the loop," Sondland testified. "It was no secret."
Still, in comments seized upon by Republicans, Sondland testified: “I never heard from President Trump that aid was conditioned on an announcement" of investigations. He said he never personally heard Trump discuss preconditions. And at one point, he confirmed Trump told him, "I want nothing."
Taken in their entirety, Sondland's statements Wednesday are likely to fuel the narratives of both parties. He was seen as a wild card going into the hearing, given he has offered testimony that conflicted with others' and recently amended his statements to acknowledge he did talk to Ukraine about investigations after initially indicating otherwise.
The impeachment inquiry was sparked by a whistleblower’s complaint about Trump's July 25 call when he asked Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky for political investigations – including involving former Vice President Joe Biden's family -- at the same time U.S. military aid for the ally was stalled.
Sondland made clear Wednesday he merely presumed the aid was linked to investigations, at one point referring to this as a "guess."
But he suggested he had his reasons, agreeing that the conclusion was like "two plus two equals four." He stressed he never got a clear answer on why the aid was held up, saying in the absence of an explanation he came to believe that the aid and the investigations were linked.
“I shared concerns of the potential quid pro quo regarding the security aid with Senator Ron Johnson,” Sondland said at one point, referring to the Republican senator involved in Ukraine policy. “And I also shared my concerns with the Ukrainians.”
Further, his testimony name-dropped a slew of other top Trump officials, which is likely to pique Democrats' interest.
Sondland, throughout the inquiry, has been portrayed as a key player in an irregular channel of diplomacy led by Giuliani. On Wednesday, Sondland repeatedly expressed his displeasure with Giuliani's involvement in Ukraine policy but said they were working with him at Trump's direction. He also claimed the “suggestion that we were engaged in some irregular or rogue diplomacy is absolutely false.”
“We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani,” Sondland said, explaining he believed State Department officials should take the responsibility for Ukraine matters. “Simply put, we played the hand we were dealt. We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine. So we followed the president’s orders.”
While couching his language regarding the aid hold-up, Sondland was more explicit when it came to the link between investigations and a White House meeting and call between Trump and Zelensky. He bluntly described Giuliani's requests linking the two as a quid pro quo.
He told the committee: “I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo? ... As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.”
Sondland also said he and other officials “disagreed with the need to involve” Giuliani but they “did not believe that his role was improper at the time.” He said that "as a presidential appointee, I followed the directions of the president.”
“If I had known of all of Mr. Giuliani’s dealings or of his associations with individuals now under criminal indictment, I would not have acquiesced to his participation,” Sondland said. “Still, given what we knew at the time, what we were asked to do did not appear to be wrong.”
Giuliani on Wednesday pushed back against Sondland’s testimony, tweeting he “came into this” at the request of then-Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker. “Sondland is speculating based on VERY little contact," Giuliani tweeted. "I never met him and had very few calls with him, mostly with Volker."
Meanwhile, Sondland described a Sept. 1 meeting between Zelensky and Pence in Warsaw. “I mentioned to Vice President Pence before the meetings with the Ukrainians that I had concerns that the delay in aid had become tied to the issue of investigations,” Sondland said.
But on Wednesday, Pence’s office flatly denied the accusation, saying, “This alleged discussion recalled by Ambassador Sondland never happened.”
He also repeatedly connected the secretary of state to the Ukraine efforts.
Sondland testified that Pompeo, as late as Sept. 24, was telling Volker to speak with Giuliani. He said Volker sent him a WhatsApp message that said, “Spoke w Rudy per guidance from S.” Sondland said “S” was in reference to the secretary of state.
He also described another conversation on Sept. 1 in Warsaw with Zelenksy’s senior aide, Andriy Yermak, saying he expressed concerns that the resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine took some kind of action on the public statement about investigations. “Based on my communications with Secretary Pompeo, I felt comfortable sharing my concerns with Mr. Yermak,” he said.
State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus later denied that the secretary of state talked with Sondland about the aid link: "Gordon [Sondland] never told Secretary Pompeo that he believed the president was linking aid to investigations of political opponents. Any suggestion to the contrary is flat out false.”
On Wednesday, Sondland said he was not on the July call and didn’t read a transcript until it was publicly released in September. He called it “very odd” that he never received a detailed read-out of the call with the Biden references. Sondland also repeatedly made clear he did not support preconditions on the aid.
“We had no desire to set any conditions on the Ukrainians,” Sondland said. “Indeed, my personal view -- which I shared repeatedly with others -- was that the White House meeting and security assistance should have proceeded without pre-conditions of any kind.”
Sondland on Wednesday said his goal, at the time, was to do what was necessary to get the aid released. Asked if it's true he told Trump at one point that Zelensky "loves your ass," the diplomat replied "sounds like something I would say" to laughter in the hearing room.
Republicans dismissed the proceedings as they have done during previous sessions. California Rep. Devin Nunes, the GOP’s top member on the committee, told the witness: "Ambassador Sondland, you are here today to be smeared.”
Nunes also reiterated calls for the committee to subpoena Hunter Biden, the whistleblower who wrote the complaint against Trump and Democratic National Committee documents – something Democrats have not granted.
Republicans on the committee also defended Trump by emphasizing how Ukraine got what they wanted without ever announcing an investigation. “They didn’t have to do anything,” Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan said, adding “they get the call, they get the meeting, they get the money."
Jordan accused Sondland of getting all three of those "wrong": “It’s not two plus two, it’s 0 for 3.”
Sondland later expressed frustration when a Democratic congressman, Sean Maloney on New York, repeatedly tried to get him to say Trump would benefit from an investigation of the Bidens. He eventually said, "I assume President Trump would benefit."
The diplomat added: “I’ve been really forthright, and I really resent what you’re trying to do.”
Maloney mocked Sondland for having to previously amend his testimony. “We appreciate your candor, but let’s be clear what it took to get it out of you,” he said.
Meanwhile, the top committee Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, in his opening remarks accused Trump and Pompeo of making "such a concerted and across-the-board effort to obstruct this investigation and this impeachment inquiry." Schiff added, "They do so at their own peril."
Sondland's appearance at Wednesday morning's hearing, and his closeness to Trump, is of particular concern to the White House as the historic impeachment inquiry reaches closer to the president, pushing through an intense week with nine witnesses testifying over three days in back-to-back sessions. But Trump, talking to reporters outside the White House on Wednesday, referenced Sondland's comments that he wanted nothing from Ukraine and argued, “That means it’s all over.”
Schiff: Trump sought to condition aid to Ukraine in exchange for politically-motivated investigationsVideo
Among the details that other witnesses have filled in are those concerning a call he placed to Trump from a busy Kiev restaurant the day after the president prodded Ukraine's leader to investigate the Bidens. After another diplomat witness revealed this, Sondland confirmed Wednesday they had the call -- saying Sondland doesn't remember much of it but has no reason to doubt other accounts, which said the conversation dealt with the topic of investigations.
Sondland, who has had to amend his testimony related to his conversations with Ukraine, told lawmakers he has had hundreds of meetings and calls with individuals in his role but is not a note-taker. He said he has requested documents from the State Department and the White House for documents phone records to help refresh his memory. “In the absence of these materials, my memory has not been perfect,” he said.
Sondland's appearance follows the testimony Tuesday of four national security and diplomatic officials, including Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a career Army officer, who described Trump's call with Zelenskiy as "improper." Also testifying later Wednesday are Pentagon official Laura Cooper and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs David Hale.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/sondland-denies-rogue-diplomacy-in-ukraine-talks-acknowledges-potential-quid-pro-quo-with-aid-holdup
Arizona Is Thriving Under President Trump
By Tommy Hicks
Published November 19, 2019 at 3:04pm
When I traveled to Phoenix last month for an event with the Arizona Republican Party, I was thrilled by what I saw: hundreds of dedicated volunteers energized to re-elect President Donald Trump and Republican candidates up and down the ballot — all prepared to fight against the Democrats’ big government socialist policies.
Arizonans trusted President Trump with their vote in 2016, and if my time here last month is any indication of what’s to come next year, they will overwhelmingly re-elect him in 2020.
And why wouldn’t they? Since Trump was elected, he has delivered for the Grand Canyon State, adding over 211,000 jobs — including over 20,000 manufacturing jobs. Additionally, the state has seen its unemployment rate decrease to 4.9 percent.
Arizonans are also feeling the benefits of President Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which gave a tax cut of $1,354 to Arizona families and generated over 4,000 new jobs in the last year. The opportunity zones created in the tax legislation are also helping to develop new areas and affordable housing options, create new jobs and offer new local services.
Residents in every corner of the state are seeing the positive results of these policies in their daily lives.
Just this past August, business owners gathered for economic roundtables in Scottsdale and Flagstaff as part of the nationwide Open for Business Tour to discuss how President Trump’s economy continues to work for Arizona’s business community and families alike.
The stories they shared demonstrated the commitment Trump has made to working Arizonans: from bonuses for workers to steady revenue, rising wages and increased confidence in the economy, the Grand Canyon State is thriving.
But we can’t take anything for granted. Arizona Democrats like Tom O’Halleran and Ann Kirkpatrick — who ran on bipartisanship and working across the aisle — are dead-set on obstructing President Trump’s agenda and erasing his progress.
Rather than address the issues that matter to their constituents, like ratifying the USMCA, securing the border, or lowering prescription drug costs, O’Halleran, Kirkpatrick and the Democrats have chosen to focus on an endless impeachment witch hunt because they know they can’t beat President Trump at the ballot box.
It’s madness.
The Democrats’ policies would hurt Americans, cost them jobs and reverse all the progress made under President Trump. They won’t tell you this, of course. They’re too busy searching for any excuse to try to derail this president and take him out of office.
Take Bernie Sanders’ “free” government-run health care legislation for instance — here in Arizona it would kick over 3.4 million people off their health insurance.
Democrats across the board have also said they would reverse the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that has been an economic boon to the state, and House Democrats like O’Halleran and Kirkpatrick refuse to bring the USMCA trade agreement to the floor, even though it would raise wages for hardworking Americans, create thousands of new jobs in Arizona, and add $68.2 billion to the U.S. economy.
Not to mention the great interest to Arizona as a border state, Democrats are stonewalling any progress to rein in illegal immigration and secure our southern border — a stance that residents in Tucson recently proved is not very popular here when they overwhelmingly rejected the Democrats’ push to make Tucson the first sanctuary city in Arizona.
I don’t blame them. Open borders is like an invitation for criminals to come in to your backyard.
It’s clear that voters in the Grand Canyon State will stand up to these socialist policies and won’t fall for the act put forth by Democrats like Tom O’Halleran and Ann Kirkpatrick. President Trump is working day and night for the American people, and the results seen in Arizona speak for themselves.
While the Democrats continue their incessant search for more ways to thwart President Trump’s agenda and proceed with their ridiculous impeachment witch hunt, Trump is delivering on his promises.
With this president in office, Arizona is thriving, and voters here will help keep it that way by voting red in 2020.
https://www.westernjournal.com/arizona-thriving-president-trump/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=rightalerts&utm_campaign=dailyam&utm_content=ttp
Poll: Majority Want Impeachment Hearings To Continue As Long As Possible So Congress Will Be Too Busy To Meddle With Our Lives
Strictly satire but me thinks more than a small grain of truth contained therein, JMHO.........al
November 20th, 2019
U.S.—A new poll released Wednesday revealed that the majority of the nation want impeachment hearings to continue as long as possible so that Congress will be too busy to meddle with our lives.
70% of the nation agreed that the House was doing a "fine job" on the impeachment hearings, saying that it's great that Congress is doing something other than pass terrible laws for once. 5% responded to the survey by saying they would prefer Congress stop the hearings and do their jobs, while a strong 25% said they weren't even aware impeachment hearings were going on. This latter group is the happiest of the bunch.
The impeachment inquiry has even sparked something of a revival, as people across the country are praying that impeachment hearings will go on indefinitely so that politicians in Washington will be too distracted by them to bother us very much.
"Lord, please let Adam Schiff and his people take as long as they need," said one man in California during his nightly prayers. "May they call millions of witnesses, investigate every lead, and leave no stone unturned. May they speak slowly. May they investigate all the way through Trump's second term and---dare I ask too much?---his third and fourth terms too."
"Please, Lord---the more distracted Congress is, the better for all of us."
https://babylonbee.com/news/poll-majority-want-impeachment-hearings-to-continue-as-long-as-possible
Poll: Majority Want Impeachment Hearings To Continue As Long As Possible So Congress Will Be Too Busy To Meddle With Our Lives
Strictly satire but me thinks more than a small grain of truth contained therein, JMHO.........al
November 20th, 2019
U.S.—A new poll released Wednesday revealed that the majority of the nation want impeachment hearings to continue as long as possible so that Congress will be too busy to meddle with our lives.
70% of the nation agreed that the House was doing a "fine job" on the impeachment hearings, saying that it's great that Congress is doing something other than pass terrible laws for once. 5% responded to the survey by saying they would prefer Congress stop the hearings and do their jobs, while a strong 25% said they weren't even aware impeachment hearings were going on. This latter group is the happiest of the bunch.
The impeachment inquiry has even sparked something of a revival, as people across the country are praying that impeachment hearings will go on indefinitely so that politicians in Washington will be too distracted by them to bother us very much.
"Lord, please let Adam Schiff and his people take as long as they need," said one man in California during his nightly prayers. "May they call millions of witnesses, investigate every lead, and leave no stone unturned. May they speak slowly. May they investigate all the way through Trump's second term and---dare I ask too much?---his third and fourth terms too."
"Please, Lord---the more distracted Congress is, the better for all of us."
https://babylonbee.com/news/poll-majority-want-impeachment-hearings-to-continue-as-long-as-possible
The north/south think was plausible. In order to get the southern states to ratify the new constitution they have to make some compromises. Hence this and the 3/5 compromise. Not being an historical scholar I may have missed several other things going on at the time.
........al