Common themes
Mitch!
Dinner table banter
At the intersection of impeachment and Christmas
Lefty Logic (Anticipated)
Wage growth in low-wage industries
A favorite of mine
https://youtu.be/p7N2KKciwTg
Watch this crackpot
https://twitter.com/rpetty/status/1207731143581347841
Tweet of the day
The FBI’s Systematic Dishonesty
JACOB SULLUM:
“…Former FBI Director James Comey initially portrayed last week’s damning report on the bureau’s investigation of alleged links between the Trump campaign and Russia as a vindication. This week Comey admitted that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered “real sloppiness,” which is “concerning.”
That characterization does not begin to cover the problems described by Horowitz, which yesterday prompted a highly unusual public rebuke from the court that reviews secret warrant applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The FISA court called the FBI’s conduct “antithetical to the heightened duty of candor” that applies in such cases.
The court cited Horowitz’s report, which found egregious and persistent omissions and misrepresentations in applications for warrants that otherwise probably would not have been sought, let alone approved. While Comey may take comfort from the fact that Horowitz “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI’s decision” to eavesdrop on former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page, the rest of us can hardly be reassured by the implication that the FBI is inept rather than corrupt.
Comey, who ran the FBI from September 2013 to May 2017, is not just self-interested but demonstrably untrustworthy on this subject. Last year he claimed information from former British spy Christopher Steele, which according to Horowitz “played a central and essential role” in the decision to surveil Page, was merely “part of a broader mosaic of facts” supporting the four warrants issued by FISA judges—”not all of it or a critical part of it.”
Comey also said he had “total confidence that the FISA process was followed and that the entire case was handled in a thoughtful, responsible way by DOJ and the FBI.” Yet Horowitz found that the first warrant application included “seven significant inaccuracies and omissions” that were not corrected in the three renewal applications, which were marred by “10 additional significant errors.”
Those “errors” included blatant exaggerations of Steele’s proven reliability, the failure to note that his work was opposition research commissioned by the Democratic National Committee even after that became clear, the omission of the fact that Steele himself was “desperate” to prevent Trump’s election, and a false denial of Steele’s contacts with the press. The FBI also neglected to mention that people who had worked with Steele questioned his judgment, that Steele’s “primary sub-source” had directly contradicted claims in his “dossier,” that Page had reported his contact with a Russian intelligence agent to the CIA, and that Page said he had never met key figures in the purported conspiracy described by Steele.
“FBI personnel fell far short of the requirement in FBI policy that they ensure that all factual statements in a FISA application are ‘scrupulously accurate,'” Horowitz concluded. Even that assessment is charitable, especially since an FBI lawyer deliberately doctored an email to conceal Page’s relationship with the CIA, which had deemed him truthful.
The pattern of these “errors” is not random, of course, since all of them served to bolster the appearance of probable cause. Horowitz told the Senate Judiciary Committee his investigators “did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or problems we identified,” and he allowed that they might reflect “intentionality,” saying “it’s fair” to “look at all of these 17 events and wonder how it could be purely incompetence.”…”
Obvious headline of the day
Impeachment farce
Nancy Pelosi Signals She May Freeze Impeachment After Vote So Trump Can’t Claim Senate Vindication
Peevish, misbehaving children
On the fight for civil rights
On the impeachment farce
Stephen Kruiser:
“…This very lengthy and good examination of the impeachment nonsense offers a perfect snippet about the ridiculousness of it all:
If we are to take the current “publicly voiced” cause at face value, then we may say that the entire Washington establishment, plus most of the country’s elites, are trying to remove the president from office on the basis of an anonymous individual’s private opinion of the content of one phone call he heard about second- or possibly even thirdhand.
I keep writing that history will not judge the Democrats kindly here. All of their window dressing doesn’t hide the purely partisan venom that’s led to this madness.
Many on the Left have remarked that this leaves a permanent stain on President Trump’s legacy. That stain can actually be washed out by re-election next year.
The Democrats won’t be getting rid of the blot on their credibility any time soon, however…”
Activist-Legal Complex Will Destroy American Science And Industry
Worth clicking over.
Alex Berezow and Josh Bloom:
“…American science and industry are under threat by this complex, known to be an unholy alliance of activists and trial lawyers who deploy various pseudoscientific tricks to score multibillion-dollar lawsuits against large companies. No industry is safe from these deceptions…”
Reelection after the farce
Matt Mackowiak:
“…Democrats have been pledging to impeach President Trump from the moment he was elected in 2016. And on Dec. 18, 2019, more than three years later, they finally succeeded.
But it will be a fleeting victory, as acquittal in the Senate is assured. The outcome was never in doubt and this entire endeavor has been an enormous waste of time.
Which raises the question: Why pursue a partisan impeachment that was doomed to fail?
Answer: Removal from office was never the goal.
Democrats have always had only one goal in mind: Defeating Mr. Trump for reelection. Their entire mission is to weaken the president’s political standing next year.
Doubt me? Then consider this: A sitting president has never been impeached in his first term.
While the case for impeachment has never developed, Democrats held hands and jumped off the cliff together, taking vulnerable members from Trump districts with them. Their votes to impeach him will make it impossible to run as independent, bipartisan members of Congress next year.
For Mr. Trump, while impeachment has surely been unpleasant and must feel deeply unfair, it has helped him politically. Republicans have never been more unified than they are right now. Democrats are somewhat divided, with vulnerable members not wanting to pursue impeachment but ultimately voting for it from fear of their base.
The Trump campaign has seen an astounding 600,000 new donors since impeachment began. There is new enthusiasm for Mr. Trump because of this impeachment debacle. Public polling has shown a decrease in support for impeachment and an uptick in the president’s job-approval rating.
As 2019 ends and the 2020 election year begins, Mr. Trump should put impeachment behind him and refocus on reelection, keeping one thing in mind: Success is the best revenge.
Voters have the final say on impeachment, and they will either ratify it by not reelecting Mr. Trump or invalidate it by reelecting him.
Demonstrating popular support for his agenda and an endorsement of the direction of the country will undermine the meaning of impeachment.
At the same time, Congressional Republicans should make Democrats own impeachment and hold them accountable for ignoring the problems facing the country in pursuit of a hyperpartisan goal.
The cost of impeachment is not insignificant…”
Trump Rallies With the People as Dems Try to Undo Their Votes
Liz Harrington:
“…It’s a fitting juxtaposition: As President Trump was out with the people in Battle Creek, Mich., Wednesday night, Democrats were in the swamp, trying to take away the people’s votes.
We’ve seen a lot of contrasts since Nov. 8, 2016. In the early hours that day, Donald Trump was also in Michigan, just north in Grand Rapids. He explained what the election was all about: “Do you want America to be ruled by the corrupt political class, or do you want America to be ruled by you, the people?”
Their voices were heard loud and clear. But Democrats refused to listen. Ever since, President Trump has worked day and night delivering on those promises he made. The corrupt political class? They’ve been clinging to their power trying to discredit, derail, and delegitimize the man whom the voters chose. First it would be “collusion” with the Russians, then it would be “collusion” with Russia’s nemesis Ukraine. (Hey, they never said it had to make sense.) No matter how many conspiracy theories the Democrats came up with, they never could change one simple fact: The people did decide that election.
Where was Hillary Clinton that day? Rallying with Hollywood celebrities and the political class whom her opponent had railed against. Then she was off to the Javits Center, where the “shard-like confetti” never fell from the ceiling and the fireworks never went off. But it’s that same arrogance that leads you to pop champagne on the campaign plane before the results are in, and leads campaign staffers in Brooklyn to tell union workers on the ground not to bother going to Michigan…”
Rand Paul
Impeachment Farce Headline of the Day
On Impeachment
Stephen Kruiser:
“…POTUS went old-school and sent a letter to Pelosi that set the Dems’ rears on fire and offended the bed-wetting editorial boards of every dying newspaper in America.
In what has to be the clearest sign that the Democratic elite will never learn, many of them have spent the past two days selling impeachment as the right thing to do because The New York Times, WaPo, and the rest of the journo editorial clown car are supporting it. Move fifty miles inland from either coast and you could spend an entire day looking for people who give a damn about the Times’s editorial board and not find a dozen. But Robert Reich and other Clinton and Obama flacks still believe that these vestigial wastes of space have relevance…”