Hugo Gurdon:

“…So, what’s the real reason for today’s misdirection and secrecy? It is that sunlight is an excellent disinfectant and Democrats therefore have a vested interest in concealment? They want Trump ousted either by impeachment or by caking him with enough dirt to make him repellent to 2020 voters. Those voters should be allowed to know who started the Ukraine narrative, what political bias came into play, and how much it was shaped by Schiff, who has already been caught falsifying what he knew and when. After all, if the alternative to Trump is the Democrats, shouldn’t the public know what the Democrats have been up to?

This brings me back to mirror telexing. I suspect Ciaramella — let us continue the hypothesis — was involved in a role reversal with Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. Vindman is the Ukraine director on the National Security Council, the same position Ciaramella had in 2017, and he recently testified to the impeachment committee. Vindman was on the July 25 call. Ciaramella was not. Ciaramella, if he’s the whistleblower, probably got his ideas about the call from Vindman; they’re bound to have known each other. It seems likely that they arranged for Ciaramella to step forward as the whistleblower and for Vindman to follow up by testifying to the truth of a story of which he himself was the author.

If Vindman is the source of the whistleblower account, that would certainly undermine the force of Vindman’s supposed corroboration of the whistleblower account.

If Vindman was not the starting point for the whistleblower’s view of the phone call, who was? The public deserves to know. Let’s not keep this secret…”

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Coverage of a new poll out from Monmouth beautifully illustrates how Trump Derangement destroys what should be simple political analysis. The poll was brutal for impeachment fans in the media, but they didn’t report that.

Mollie Hemingway:

“…The last four years of political punditry and analysis have been objectively wretched. Regardless of your feelings about the present political moment, precisely no one can defend the quality of the analysis that dominates the airwaves and pages of our corporate media.

They told us throughout the 2016 campaign that the notion of Donald Trump winning the presidency was a joke. The mockery increased as election day drew near. From the Washington Post: “Donald Trump’s chances of winning are approaching zero.”

While failing to understand the country you’re paid big bucks to understand is humiliating, admitting their failure would have been a better alternative to the spiral of Trump Derangement that grips many of our media and continues to make their political analysis a sad joke.

Our low quality of punditry and analysis is on display in the crime-less impeachment that they are currently pushing to mixed success. Democrats and other Resistance members are absolutely on board. The rest of the country? Not so much.

Coverage of a new poll out from Monmouth beautifully illustrates how Trump Derangement destroys what should be simple political analysis. The poll was brutal for impeachment fans in the media. Just less than 60 percent of respondents agreed that “people who want Trump out of office should just vote him out next year instead of going through impeachment.” Seventy-three percent have little or no trust in the impeachment process. And 60 percent say Democrats are more interested in bringing down Trump than in learning facts…”

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Or for a simpler description, “Journalism”

JOHN KASS:

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds

The Democrats top witness sounds like a Kavanaugh accuser.

A top anti-Trump witness for House Democrats admitted he wasn’t on the July 25 phone call and had never even spoken with Trump about Ukraine military aid.

Sean Davis:

“…A key Democratic witness against Trump admitted in congressional testimony last month that he was not part of the July 25 phone call between the U.S. and Ukrainian presidents, that he didn’t see a transcript or readout of it until late September when it was declassified and released, and that he has never even spoken to President Donald Trump…

…When asked who exactly he had spoken to about the brouhaha, Taylor confirmed that his only contacts about the matter were with John Bolton, the former national security adviser who was fired by Trump, Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman, and Tim Morrison. Both Hill and Vindman are rumored to have been sources for the so-called whistleblower who filed a complaint against Trump in August.

Taylor also testified that his knowledge of the phone call between Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymr Zelensky wasn’t first-hand knowledge.

“And this isn’t firsthand. It’s not secondhand. It’s not thirdhand,” Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., said to Taylor. “But if I understand this correctly, you’re telling us that Tim Morrison told you that Ambassador Sondland told him that the president told Ambassador Sondland that Zelensky would have to open an investigation into Biden?”

“That’s correct,” Taylor admitted.

Zeldin noted that the only reference to Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden in Taylor’s opening statement stemmed from that convoluted game of telephone. The New York lawmaker hammered Taylor for relying on third-hand information about the state of mind of an elected official to whom he had never spoken.

“So do you have any other source that the president’s goal in making this request was anything other than The New York Times?” Zeldin asked.

“I have not talked to the president,” Taylor said. “I have no other information from what the president was thinking.”

Under questioning from Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, Taylor also testified that the Ukrainian government wasn’t aware U.S. military funding had been temporarily suspended until late August, and then only after the information was leaked to the news media, meaning an alleged quid pro quo would have been impossible.

“So, if nobody in the Ukrainian government is aware of a military hold at the time of the Trump-Zelensky call, then, as a matter of law and as a matter of fact, there can be no quid pro quo, based on military aid,” Ratcliffe, a former federal prosecutor, said. “I just want to be real clear that, again, as of July 25th, you have no knowledge of a quid pro quo involving military aid.”

“July 25th is a week after the hold was put on the security assistance,” Taylor testified. “And July 25th, they had a conversation between the two presidents, where it was not discussed.”

“And to your knowledge, nobody in the Ukrainian government was aware of the hold?” Ratcliffe asked.

“That is correct,” Taylor responded…”

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Another hat tip to Glenn Reynolds

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds

Washington Examiner Editorial:

“…After Project Veritas released the video, Robach walked her comments back and said the undercover journalist “caught” her in a “private moment of frustration.” She added that since the Epstein allegations broke, ABC News has “continued to aggressively pursue this important story.”

Additionally, ABC News has claimed it refused to run Robach’s reporting because it did not meet their editorial standards. Apparently, there wasn’t enough corroborating evidence, despite the fact that Robach says in the video that she had multiple witnesses who confirmed her story. Still, ABC News decided that the allegations, despite the corroboration, were just allegations unworthy of airing. And they killed the story that would eventually land Epstein behind bars, triggering his death.

It should be added here that Page Six, the New York Post‘s gossip column, had reported on ABC’s George Stephanopoulos attending parties at Epstein’s townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. This not only gives the lie to the excuse that Epstein was insignificant, but it also offers a motive for top brass at ABC to do what they did.

ABC News, ostensibly a news organization, sat on one of the biggest and most consequential stories of the past decade. By the company’s explanation, this was for the sake of an editorial standard, a standard that was strangely missing from its coverage of another significant moment in recent United States history.

ABC News, along with just about every other outlet, gladly ran the allegations of sexual assault against then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh, even though corroborating evidence was nonexistent and most of the stories being told were quite clearly lies. In fact, some of the allegations published by ABC were so outlandish that the FBI and the Senate Judiciary Committee didn’t even consider them.

Between Sept. 13 and 24 of last year, ABC News, CBS, and NBC devoted nearly 6 hours to the accusations against Kavanaugh, and only 8% of that coverage included Kavanaugh’s denials and lack of evidence behind the accusations. Yet ABC News couldn’t be bothered to give Robach a few minutes to cover credible and substantiated accusations against a pedophile and sex trafficker who had been living it up with the rich and famous on both sides of the pond.

And it’s worth pointing out again that one of ABC’s considerations in spiking Robach’s story was the potential loss of a chance to interview Prince William and Kate.

Thus, the reporting of corroborated facts works so long as it fits the media’s agenda; as soon as it doesn’t, the mask comes off.

Also, maybe Kavanaugh should have married a member of the British royal family…

…For many, this incident connects the dots between left-wing media bias and distrust of journalists. It helps explain why people increasingly reject the role of the media as wise gatekeepers, capable of deciding what is newsworthy. And it explains why so many people cheer when Trump calls the media “the enemy of the people” only to turn and sneer when lectured about this behavior by sanctimonious journalists (emphasis added)…”

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Another piece from the best reporter in America

Mollie Hemingway:

“…Impeachment is going so poorly for the media and other Democrats that “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd was forced to broadcast false information to support it.

A graphic was posted on Sunday’s show that purported to identify how many people in the president’s party voted in support of an impeachment inquiry in the cases of Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. It accurately noted that 31 Democrats voted in favor of impeachment proceedings for Clinton. But it inaccurately claimed that a single Republican had voted in favor of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment rules last week.

There are multiple problems with this graphic. For one thing, zero Republicans voted with House Democrats last week. Zero point zero. Zilch. Nada. None. For another, Todd’s team is hiding the bipartisan nature of the opposition to the vote last week. Not only did not a single Republican vote with Democrats, two Democrats voted with Republicans in opposition…

…The impeachment inquiry, such as it is, has tremendous struggles. It’s been conducted in secret, with heavy control from Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the man who falsely claimed for years he had evidence of Trump’s treasonous collusion with Russia to steal the 2016 election. The inquiry is being handled by him because the more appropriate committee chair, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., made a mess of the previous impeachment efforts by mismanaging his hearings with Robert Mueller, John Dean, and Corey Lewandowski. In fact, the Mueller hearing was such a disaster for impeachment efforts that it more or less killed a multi-year effort put in place by Resistance bureaucrats and their supporters.

Schiff has told witnesses not to answer questions when those questions would help Trump, and has badgered witnesses who were deemed insufficiently supportive of his efforts to undo the 2016 election. He and the whistleblower both lied about their coordination prior to the complaint being filed. And while he originally demanded the whistleblower’s testimony, after that coordination was revealed, he has attempted to prevent the testimony during which difficult questions would be asked.

Worse, the witnesses thus far can not point to a single crime, much less a high crime, for which to impeach the president. Instead, the witnesses either broadly support the president’s handling of foreign policy or are livid with rage over his disagreement with their foreign policy views…

…Inside of newsrooms, broadcast studios, and Twitter, impeachment is going according to plan. Outside of those bubbles, it’s not. Republicans are handling efforts to unseat Trump much in the way that Democrats would handle efforts to unseat Barack Obama or Republicans would handle efforts to unseat George W. Bush. They’re not finding them remotely compelling. And until they do, even the more feckless Republican politicians aren’t going to fall for impeachment unless they’re heavily incentivized to do so by outside interests…”

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Lessons from Kentucky, Mississippi and Virginia elections may not be what you think

The overriding theme seems to be 2020 will be a tough fought election that may be close. My gut tells me Trump wins a lopsided electoral college victory.

James A. Gagliano:

“…Setting aside valid arguments that the FBI acted inappropriately — treating the Trump White House differently than they would have treated Bush’s or Obama’s, as the hubristic Comey proudly admits — Powell’s charges of egregious government misconduct are certainly deserving of the court’s consideration. The withholding of clearly exculpatory material related to revelations that “important substantive changes were made to the Flynn 302” may well be central to the findings of Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Durham, as well.

Here’s me, acknowledging my mistake. I was dead wrong. It now seems there was a concerted effort, though isolated, within the upper-echelons of the FBI to influence the outcome of the Flynn investigation. By “dirtying up” Flynn, Comey’s FBI headquarters team of callow sycophants shortcut the investigative process. Arm-twisting Flynn through the “tweaked” version of his interview afforded him criminal exposure. The cocksure Comey team felt supremely confident that would inspire him “flipping” and give them the desperately sought-after evidence of Trump-Russia collusion that the wholly unverified Steele dossier was never remotely capable of providing.

I am physically nauseous as I type these words. I have long maintained that innocent mistakes were made and that the investigators at the center of this maelstrom were entitled to the benefit of the doubt.

No more.

They have tarnished the badge and forever stained an agency that deserved so much better from them. I am ashamed. The irreparable damage Comey’s team has done to the FBI will take a generation to reverse…”

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A short snippet from an article on the insanity that pervades Washington and the media. This article further clarifies and cements my opinion that we currently have the worst media and political class since the American Civil War.

Conrad Black:

“…I have no standing to judge Peggy Noonan (and I like and admire her very much). But she has given us another demonstration of how fraught these times are, like Hillary Clinton accusing Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein of being “Russian agents.” Sane partisans become insane and the most open-minded of commentators become white-washers of the unspeakable Schiff-Nadler outrages. This impeachment controversy is a sham from A-to-Z and the sooner it is thrown out by either house of Congress the better, for the Democrats as much as for the Republicans…”

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Charles Lipson:

“…The Democrats’ activist base considers Donald Trump fundamentally unfit to hold office. Their impeachment drive is really about this damning judgment, not about any specific act such as withholding Ukrainian aid or wanting to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. They say Trump is erratic, narcissistic, self-serving, and unforgivably gauche. He cozies up to dictators and would like to become one himself. Every day, he tramples the presidency’s historic norms. Surely the voters who put him there made a catastrophic error, or, rather, the antiquated Electoral College did. In short, Trump is not just a bad president — the worst in modern history — he is an illegitimate and dangerous one, at home and abroad.

Their harsh view is no masquerade. It is sincere, deeply held, and shared by most elected Democrats. Many, perhaps most, career civil servants agree and consider the president only nominally their boss. That’s why they consider it their constitutional duty to hold him in check. That’s why former heads of the CIA openly praised the “Deep State,” why former FBI Director James Comey wanted his agents to monitor the president in the White House itself. If that means targeting Trump and his key aides for disguised FBI interviews or leaking classified phone calls, so be it. The fight over the Deep State is partly about this profound distrust of Trump (and his distrust of them) and partly about the president’s rising opposition to a century of progressive legislation, executive orders, and court decisions, which grant extensive power to government bureaucrats.

This revulsion is the backdrop to the Democrats’ impeachment effort and the earlier appointment of a special counsel. The crucial point is this: Democrats see the actions they have investigated for three years less as specific crimes and more as steadily accumulating evidence of Trump’s unfitness for office and his repeated violation of his oath, as they understand it. “Democrats of all stripes look at Donald Trump’s business and personal history and see a man who serially does not follow laws and therefore should not be president,” said one well-informed Democrat. For his party, “Ukraine is a big deal because it confirms this view.”…

…It’s not hard for Republicans to attack this whole process as fundamentally unfair. They say, rightly, that it violates the most basic tenets of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence:

• • Accusations must be specific and backed by clear evidence;
  • All evidence and accusations must be presented in open court;
  • Rules of procedure must be fixed and unbiased, not arbitrary and ad hoc;
  • The accused is presumed innocent and must be given full rights to see all the evidence, confront the accusers, and rebut all charges, including cross-examining witnesses, challenging documents, and presenting exculpatory evidence. None of these rules has applied to this impeachment inquiry, at least not yet…”

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Who would have guessed Vindman was a political animal?

Jim Hickman:

“…He was apologetic of American culture, laughed about Americans not being educated or worldly, & really talked up Obama & globalism to the point of (sic) uncomfortable.

He would speak w/the Russian Soldiers & laugh as if at the expense of the US personnel. It was so uncomfortable & unprofessional, one of the GS [civil service]employees came & told me everything above. I walked over & sat w/in earshot of Vindman, & sure enough, all was confirmed.

One comment truly struck me as odd, & it was w/respect to American’s falsely thinking they’re exceptional, when he said, “He [Obama] is working on that now.” And he said it w/a snide ‘I know a secret’ look on his face. I honestly don’t know what it meant, it just sounded like an odd thing to say.

Regardless, after hearing him bash America a few times in front of subordinates, Russians, & GS Employees, as well as, hearing an earful about globalization, Obama’s plan, etc., I’d had enough. I tapped him on the shoulder & asked him to step outside. At that point I verbally reprimanded him for his actions, & I’ll leave it at that, so as not to be unprofessional myself.

The bottom-line is LTC Vindman was a partisan Democrat at least as far back as [2013]. So much so, junior officers & soldiers felt uncomfortable around him. This is not your professional, field-grade officer, who has the character & integrity to do the right thing. Do not let the uniform fool you…he is a political activist in uniform. I pray our nation will drop this hate, vitriol & division, & unite as our founding fathers intended!…”

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Brian Stelter Investigates Trump’s Twitter Typos

STEPHEN KRUISER:

“…The Washington Nationals went to the White House on Monday to celebrate their World Series win with the President of the United States and in a sane world, a champion baseball team and the president hanging out on a sunny day would just make for a nice story.

For the sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome, it was a cause of great distress…

…Obviously, it was bad enough for these poor dears that the event happened at all. The Nationals players who did show up really spoiled things by enjoying themselves. Catcher Kurt Suzuki practically caused an international incident by wearing a Make America Great Again hat, a.k.a. the universal trigger for every American liberal whose daddy never said: “I love you.”…

…The Twitter hashtag #KurtSuzuki reveals an array of fragility, mental instability, and fundamental misunderstandings of just what a hat is capable of. If I were a better person I would feel bad for these people.

Instead, I spent a fair amount of time scrolling through and thoroughly enjoying their angst and online histrionics. They are suffering from toxic emotional weakness and it’s more entertaining than having cable for me.

To his credit, Suzuki didn’t back down and defended his ability to have a good time…”

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I don’t agree with much that Matt Taibbi says, and I don’t agree with all of this current piece. Some of it rings true to me; however.

Matt Taibbi:

“…The unnamed person at the center of this story sure didn’t sound like a whistleblower. Our intelligence community wouldn’t wipe its ass with a real whistleblower.

Americans who’ve blown the whistle over serious offenses by the federal government either spend the rest of their lives overseas, like Edward Snowden, end up in jail, like Chelsea Manning, get arrested and ruined financially, like former NSA official Thomas Drake, have their homes raided by FBI like disabled NSA vet William Binney, or get charged with espionage like ex-CIA exposer-of-torture John Kiriakou. It’s an insult to all of these people, and the suffering they’ve weathered, to frame the ballcarrier in the Beltway’s latest partisan power contest as a whistleblower….

…Actual whistleblowers are alone. The Ukraine complaint seems to be the work of a group of people, supported by significant institutional power, not only in the intelligence community, but in the Democratic Party and the commercial press…

…In 2016 we saw a pair of electoral revolts, one on the right and one on the left, against the cratering popularity of our political elite. The rightist populist revolt succeeded, the Sanders movement did not. Ukrainegate to me looks like a continuation of Russiagate, which was a reaction of that defeated political elite to the rightists. I don’t feel solidarity with either group…”

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Steve Cortes:

“…“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…” So begins Charles Dickens’ classic novel “A Tale of Two Cities.” The political reality in America reflects a sort of Dickensian dichotomy at present.

On the one hand, the figurative “city” of America exemplifies the “age of wisdom” of a country emboldened and busy: eliminating terrorists, protecting our streets, and growing wealthy. On the other hand, the literal city of Washington embraces an “age of foolishness” as an insular cabal is transfixed with impeachment…”

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Nitwits in Iceland can’t figure out why a burger doesn’t decompose.

Iceland livestreams 10-year-old McDonald’s cheeseburger

Germany Readies Further Restrictions On Guns And Speech

Fight for your rights, vote!