Why No Investigation into Biden? Thank a Hero in Ukraine


 

The world sometimes seems to have too few heroes. America has one. He is a minor official in Ukraine.

Between the infamous telephone conversation between two presidents, and the congressional investigation into that conversation, Ukraine had two months to get dirt on Joe Biden. Why did they not even begin?

I know there are more polite ways to put this, but speaking plainly, my president called the head of another country and, while talking about maybe, perhaps, who knows, helping them to survive attacks by Russia, pressured them to manufacture dirt on his main political opponent.

I would like you to do us a favor though.

Congress had authorized $400 million in aid to Ukraine to help them in their struggle to maintain independence from Russia. Putin’s puppet ruler of Ukraine had been overthrown in a popular revolt just a few years ago, and Putin had annexed part of Ukraine shortly after.

Trump ordered those funds held up until he could talk with the newly elected leader of Ukraine. Ukrainian officials were made to understand why the vital assistance was being held up. Donald Trump wanted an investigation into Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Years back, Hunter had worked for a company doing business in Ukraine.

So why was there no investigation into Biden?
Continue reading “Why No Investigation into Biden? Thank a Hero in Ukraine”

Trump U (Ukraine this time), NRA, Greta, Economy, Better POTUS, God

Pelosi’s Announcement

found online by Burr Deming

 

Donald Trump as President

From Infidel753:

Pelosi’s declaration of an impeachment inquiry is a good move both practically and politically. On the practical side, it will broaden the House Democrats’ legal powers to investigate Trump — which is why I’ve always supported it. On the political side, it should, at least for a while, take some of the pressure off of House Democrats to proceed to an actual impeachment.

For anyone not familiar with my objections to an impeachment, here’s a summary:

(a) Impeachment can’t remove Trump from office. Removal would take at least 20 Republican votes in the Senate, which isn’t going to happen because Senate Republicans are afraid to anger Trumpanzees whose votes they depend on for re-election.

(b) After “acquittal” by the Senate, Trump would bleat endlessly that he had been exonerated and that all the accusations against him had been exposed as fake news, a dastardly Democratic plot, etc. This would sound plausible to millions of swing voters who don’t pay close attention to politics. Thus an impeachment would probably make Trump’s re-election more likely.

(c) Impeachment would threaten our House majority. Many House Democrats represent purplish districts in which a vote to impeach would be a definite liability next year. Impeachment is generally unpopular with the voters — including with many Democrats and independents, not just Republicans.

It’s clearly (c) which has loomed largest in Pelosi’s resistance to impeachment. She’s been accused of doing the politically expedient thing rather than the right thing, but keeping that Senate majority is important. A lot of lives will be ruined or lost if Republicans recover full control of the government.

– More –
 

Ukraine, Omar Smear, Racism, Guns, Climate, Blackface, God on Trial

  • North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz describes himself as a newly retired optimist who once believed in checks and balances and the capacity of people to do the right thing. Now he still has some theoretical hope of coming out of retirement and becoming an optimist again.
     
  • So today’s outrage is Trump’s bullying of Ukraine to get them to smear his, at this point, likely Democratic opponent. Green Eagle goes to a bubbleheaded headline in the Washington Post to illustrate the inherent problem with mainstream campaign coverage.
     
  • Tommy Christopher reacts as my President is unable to deny he spoke with the head of Ukraine and demanded an investigation into Biden, insisting It doesn’t matter what I discussed.
     
  • News Corpse calls out my President for yet another lie, this one dangerous for his target, as he retweets a message accusing Representative Ilhan Omar of gleefully dancing in celebration of the anniversary of the 9/11 attack. My President includes a video of the celebration, but it turns out the dancing actually occurred on a different day for a different reason. Ilhan Omar was attending a Congressional Black Caucus event on September 13. Fox News covers the whole thing as a clash of different opinions.
     
  • Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger listens as President Trump complains that attacks against him are unfair, and answers with a simple quote from President Obama about attacks against him.
     
  • Frances Langum watches Republican conduct during a hearing on Violent White Supremacy, as they recruit a Black conservative, Candace Owens, who explains that the entire issue is no big deal and not worth looking into. Move along, folks. No White Nationalist inspired killings worth watching here.
     
  • Scotties Toy Box brings personal, very personal, testimony from victims of unanticipated medical costs. After the fact, people get horrific bills for treatment they had been led to believe was covered.
     
  • Beto O’Rourke says we will take your AR-15, and assault weapons enthusiasts react, well, explosively. Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged notes the unusually personal commonality of the responses. It’s almost as if they are being asked to amputate an important part of the anatomy, the intense personal nature of which would strike at the core of masculine identity, if you get my circumloquacious drift. This is a family blog, after all.
     
  • Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara repeats the familiar charge that a major climate change crisis is nothing more than propaganda from the collectivist left media. Joining with those damn scientists with their damn measurements. All in on the plot.
     
  • Michael John Scott of MadMikesAmerica takes a close look at the blackface controversy engulfing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and suggests the man is being condemned for having fun twenty years ago.
     
  • Prime Minister Boris Johnson supposedly lied to Queen Elizabeth in order to get her to dissolve Parliament. Andy Borowitz reports the Queen is preparing for the PM’s next visit to the palace by training the royal dogs to attack.
     
  • Two of the most troublesome issues for thoughtful Christians, at least in my experience, are suffering and evil in the world and evil in ourselves. I have never heard, or expressed, a compelling answer to either, beyond evasion. That doesn’t keep me from my beliefs, but I feel some fidelity to truth, including that truth.
     
    In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce takes that first issue, suffering in the world, and argues eloquently against the existence of an all-powerful, beneficent God.
     
    Most of what I have learned about being human came from one individual who angrily rejected the idea of God on exactly that basis. I suppose, had he known, he would have regarded as unforgivably arrogant my private thought that God just may be holding a place of special honor and love for those who reject him out of compassion.
     
  • Infidel753 argues against modern Christian reinterpretation of ancient scripture to explain away slavery, genocide, bigotry, and other horrors. The Bible means what it says and religious beliefs that flow from it should be embraced or rejected on that basis.
     
  • M. Bouffant at Web of Evil goes all Dali with an acerbic headline as his own commentary on Christianity.
     
  • Hamilton! finally came to a cramped, rundown theatre in Omaha. Max’s Dad came to hate and to mock in his always-entertaining style of rant. Then he stayed to love and praise in …well… an entertaining rant. I haven’t seen the play, but the review is worth the read.
     
  • For what it’s worth, The Journal of Improbable Research found an actual conference on cannibalism at the University of Leeds. The schedule included an hour for lunch. No clarity on whether the irony was conscious.
     

Heroic Future President on the Day of the Attacks


 

Each time President Trump tells us what he saw and did on the day of the attacks, his actions in the aftermath become even more courageous.

This year offered a new milestone in the saga of 9/11. Someone born on that day can now register to vote. It has been 18 years.

At a Pentagon ceremony, President Trump was modest about his own heroic actions on the day of the attack.

Soon after, I went down to Ground Zero with men who worked for me to try to help in any little way that we could. We were not alone. So many others were scattered around trying to do the same. They were all trying to help.

This seemed to contradict the version presented on that day, as Mr. Trump was interviewed in the hours after the second tower of the World Trade Center fell. He made no mention then of having been at the scene. After a reference to one of his own properties, he relayed to television anchors information he said he was getting by telephone from an employee who was a few blocks away from the collapsed buildings.

And then when they built the World Trade Center it became known as the second tallest. And now it’s the tallest.

And I just spoke to my people, and they said it’s the most unbelievable sight. It’s probably seven or eight blocks away from the World Trade Center, and yet Wall Street is littered with two feet of stone and brick and mortar and steel.

Donald Trump Calls Into WWOR/UPN 9 News on 9/11

Richard Alles was a Fire Department battalion chief who later became deputy chief with the New York City Fire Department. He was at the scene within 20 minutes after the attack, supervising rescue efforts. He was asked about how Mr. Trump and his crew had helped at that dangerous time.
Continue reading “Heroic Future President on the Day of the Attacks”

Trump’s Bad Weak Week, Sharpie, Bolton Bolts, Ireland Stops, 9/11

  • At MadMikesAmerica, Gregory Gonzolez takes a look at category 5’s, sharpies, Taliban meetings, tweets and concludes that all this represents more than just a bad week for my President.
     
  • tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors takes it from there, with a weird counter-announcement by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration contradicting their own Birmingham forecast office in Alabama, which turns out to be because of threats from Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, which turn out to be on orders from President Trump’s Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, which turn out to be at the direction of his boss, which scientists say is Donald Trump his own self. OH! And, guess what? It’s all fake news! My President don’t know nothin’ about no orders to anybody. So draw a line through it. With a sharpie.
     
  • After the Dorian Category 5 sharpie adventure, our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit has an idea for an Alabama historical marker.
     
  • News Corpse watches Fox News so you don’t have to. Seems Donald Trump fired John Bolton, but then he didn’t. Maybe. Bolton texted Fox News live to say he actually resigned and can prove it.
     
    Maybe they are both correct? Bolton resigns. Trump is furious at the rejection. Nobody rejects him and gets away with it. So “You can’t resign! I reject your resignation!……Now then, You’re fired!”

Continue reading “Trump’s Bad Weak Week, Sharpie, Bolton Bolts, Ireland Stops, 9/11”

Reflections on the Death of bin Laden


What sort of individual would have offered thousands of innocent people the choice of burning to death in an inferno or jumping from buildings famous for their height? At first, bin Laden denied involvement in, or even prior knowledge of, the attacks of a decade ago. But videotapes of this comic book villain were soon discovered as he gloated in the aftermath, boasting that the attacks had exceeded his expectations. He only expected the topmost floors of the towers to collapse, he said on tape to a confidant. He and cronies dined and cheered as entire buildings fell, thrilled as those killed multiplied.

Just as Japanese Americans bore the brunt after Pearl Harbor, unjustly conflated with the militarists of the Empire of Japan, so Muslims became identified by many Americans as terrorists.
Continue reading “Reflections on the Death of bin Laden”

Ivanka Puffery, Cat 5 Sharpie Storm, Wack-a-Dem, Boris, Pence, Bedbug

Ivanka in the wind
  • Of all the petty, immature, so-called “humor”: making fun of Ivanka’s unintentional windblown look? …Okay, guilty. Maybe she instinctively puffs her arms when feeling threatened. [Stop, Burr! Just stop! – Aunt Tildy]. driftglass speculates on what Ivanka will wear tomorrow. I’m so … very … ashamed.
     
  • Category 5 hurricanes are epic in their destructive force. Several have hit the United States since my President took office. Mr. Trump has been publicly befuddled each time. M. Bouffant at Web of Evil follows the terrible history of Category 5 hurricanes as they howled through the mind of Donald Trump.
     
  • PZ Myers tracks hilarious internet reaction to my President’s increasingly shrill double downs, triple downs, quadruple and quintuple and on and on downs to his sharpie down dumb defense of what started as a simple, innocent verbal stumble. Just … can’t … admit … a mistake. Ever.
     
  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit has discovered, within Category 5, the elusive particle that physicists have suspected might exist: someone on the left as wacky as our current President.
     
  • Andy Borowitz reports on US reaction as the British Parliament moves against Boris Johnson. Americans are shocked by the spectacle of a legislative body taking action.
     
  • After Mike Pence’s visit, Dorian de Wind at The Moderate Voice reports that Irish eyes are not smiling.
     
  • Scotties Toy Box finds one interesting contrast as America’s Vice President goes wayyyy out of his way to stay, and have his official entourage stay, at a Trump (that would be Donald Trump) property, thereby pushing US taxpayer dollar’s into the owner’s pockets.
     
  • Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post is angry about the latest anti-immigrant cruelty by the Trump administration: sending a new official order to desperately ill people, mostly children, who are here temporarily for medical treatment unavailable elsewhere in the world. They, and their families, are ordered to drop all treatment and leave the country within 33 days. Not all are children. Jack reports on one severely disabled young adult woman, who will likely not live long after her forced return to Guatemala.
     
  • Michael John Scott, at MadMikesAmerica, points to the warm embrace of religiosity by the Republican Party, and the epically callous nature of the party and of the version of Christianity it now represents. Some Christians have expressed similarly harsh criticisms.
     
  • In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, a Christian evangelist feels sorry for Bruce and Bruce’s hate filled atheism. Bruce responds.
     
  • nojo watches, and laughs at, the drama. Conservative columnist Bret Stephens discovers some obscure criticism by a distant professor and goes all how-dare-he. Looks up the fellow’s boss and his boss’s boss and writes to them. THEN obsesses in print about it: A true competitor to Donald Trump for the Philip Queeg Strawberry Award. Great fun is had by all, with the exception of Bret Stephens. Calling Bret’s reaction an overreaction is an underreaction.
     
  • John Scalzi writes science fiction. He writes with enough talent to win the coveted Campbell Award, originally named after influential editor John W. Campbell. It has recently been renamed. The Gunn Center of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas also is renaming their annual Campbell conference. It is now the Gunn Conference. John Scalzi defends that decision, and similar decisions by other institutions. Seems Campbell was a fascist jerk who used his editorial position, attempting to impose his horrible views on writers of science fiction everywhere.
     
  • Frances Langum reports as Sarah Huckabee Sanders reports on her first day reporting to Fox television. Seems she is surprised and disappointed to discover so many feminists don’t like her. After all, she is a woman.
     
  • Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara suggests that our annual celebration of Labor Day is absurd. Labor has minimal value. It’s skill and intellect and merit that are valuable. Besides, Labor Day is, well, kind of marxist.
     

Serene Sanctuaries Where We Can Comfortably Lose Our Souls


 

As so many of our brothers and sisters in Christ endorse, with great enthusiasm, new attacks by our government on desperately ill children, we may as well be overt about it.

What would Satan do?

I think of my continuing inner debate about good and evil as I hear of the latest policy change. It was made quietly, behind the curtain, with no public announcement. The secret came out as families of very ill children showed official letters to news outlets. I first heard of it from a clip of a town hall meeting held by Joe Biden in North Carolina. The news took me back to the history lessons I learned as a child: history from nineteen and a half centuries ago: 64 AD.
Continue reading “Serene Sanctuaries Where We Can Comfortably Lose Our Souls”

Trump G7 Hotel, Trump Economy, Trump Outlaw, Trump China Lies

  • Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post is not surprised at the corruption as the President of the United States becomes an in-person commercial, all but passing out leaflets begging heads of state to hold the next G7 summit at his hotel.
     
    Or is it a motel? Statesmanship is confusing these days.
     
    Of course, they agree and stuff the rental fees into his pockets. Jack has his own suggestion for the next summit.
     
  • Obama did some heavy lifting to get America out of the Bush recession, keeping it from becoming a depression, all the while swimming upstream against Republican obstruction. The new upward trend continues today. Our current President tries to take credit.
     
    Jon Perr at PERRspectives watches the trend possibly coming to a Republican end. President Trump blames Obama nineteen months after the recovery architect has left office.
     
  • Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit is impressed that Republicans are not impressed with the illegal strings my President is pulling to get his southern wall.
     
  • tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors looks at the phone calls from China begging President Trump to resume negotiations. Background: Trump officials conceded calls were uh … conflated … projected … didn’t quite happen that way … uh. tengrain suggests the possibility that just maybe my President made stuff up again. You know: lying.

Continue reading “Trump G7 Hotel, Trump Economy, Trump Outlaw, Trump China Lies”