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Tim Blair:
“…By modern standards, my grandfather would probably be considered an environmental criminal. To clear land for his farmhouse in northeast Victoria — and for his milking sheds, pig pens, chicken sheds, blacksmith shop and other outbuildings — he cleared hundreds of trees. And he cleared thousands more for his wheat fields, cattle paddocks and shearing sheds.
Old man Hobbs would probably be found guilty of cultural appropriation too, because he adopted the Aboriginal method of land-clearing. He burnt all of those trees. He also established fire-delaying dirt paths through surrounding bushland…”
Charlie Martin:
“…Donald Trump published the most consequential tweet of his presidency on March 4, 2017. “How low has President Obama gone to tapp [sic] my phones during the very sacred election process,” the chief executive pondered. “This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
The response from Trump’s opposition was outrage. The Washington Post fact checker gave it four Pinocchios. The director of the FBI, James Comey, rebuked Trump and said such a thing had never happened. James Clapper, Obama’s director of national intelligence, assured NBC’s Meet the Press that no warrants had been issued in 2016 to surveil members of the Trump campaign.
In a narrow sense, the pushback against Trump’s tweet was correct; Trump himself was never personally the target of an FBI wiretap. In any case, the president doesn’t order such a thing; the FBI applies for a warrant to eavesdrop on Americans from a secret court. No such warrant was issued to bug the president’s offices.
But the furious denials were misleading. To paraphrase a cliché from 2016, Trump’s tweet should have been taken seriously, not literally. Obama did not tap Trump’s phones. But his FBI did spy on Trump’s campaign. That fact is no longer in dispute. The question is whether the FBI was justified in treating the Trump campaign itself as a suspect in this crime against the 2016 election…
…I’d quibble with a couple of points — for example, it does appear FBI was monitoring phones in Trump’s campaign HQ and transition team, which sure sound like “Trump’s phones” to me — but it’s a good review…”
MATT TAIBBI:
“…Just a few elections ago, the national press policed the boundaries of both Democrat and Republican politics. You couldn’t sniff either party’s nomination without media assent.
After more high-profile crackups, including a few over the weekend, the press might be months from being pushed all the way to the outside of a general election campaign. Having declared war on Donald Trump and his voters years ago, news outlets are committing to a similar pile-on of Bernie Sanders.
Maybe this will end as an inspirational unity story, like Independence Day, when an invasion of gross aliens brought America together. At present, it just seems short-sighted.
The low point came Saturday, when Joy Reid on MSNBC’s AM Joy show had on a “body language expert” named Janine Driver to declare Sanders a liar, because his posture reminds her of a turtle. There’s not much to say about this except it’s the same combo of junk forensics and yellow journalism that Bill O’Reilly made infamous.
Times columnist David Brooks, meanwhile, blew up the Internet last Friday comparing Sanders to Trump. The onetime author of a book about the superior taste of America’s urban rich took aim against the politics of class resentment, ostensibly as practiced by both:
‘People Do Things. Things Happen,’ GOP Senator Says of Trump Soliciting Foreign Election Interference This is a golden age for “Theyism.” This is the belief that there is some malevolent, elite “they” out there and “they” are destroying life for the rest of us.
Brooks self-identifies as “they.” In Bobos in Paradise, he wrote that the term “establishment” too often comes across as sinister. “I’m a member of this class… we’re not so bad,” he said, adding: “All societies have elites, and our educated elite is a lot more enlightened than some of the older ones.”
The Times has been trafficking in the Trump-Sanders comparison for a while, most explicitly in a bizarre interview with Sanders on January 13th.
That piece was part of a series in which candidates “interview” for the Times endorsement with a panel of “opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate, and certain longstanding values.” Drawing upon his “certain longstanding values,” Times panelist Nick Fox asked Sanders about plans to keep his “revolution” going after election:
Given what we’ve gone through over the last three years when Democrats hear about the president flying around the country holding rallies, they might cringe. And I’m wondering how you flying around the country in 2021 rallying the people would be different than what Donald Trump has been doing?
Because Bernie Sanders threatens to use airplanes and draw big crowds, he is Trump…”
Paul Sperry:
“…Barely two weeks after Donald Trump took office, Eric Ciaramella – the CIA analyst whose name was recently linked in a tweet by the president and mentioned by lawmakers as the anonymous “whistleblower” who touched off Trump’s impeachment – was overheard in the White House discussing with another staffer how to remove the newly elected president from office, according to former colleagues.
Sources told RealClearInvestigations the staffer with whom Ciaramella was speaking was Sean Misko. Both were Obama administration holdovers working in the Trump White House on foreign policy and national security issues. And both expressed anger over Trump’s new “America First” foreign policy, a sea change from President Obama’s approach to international affairs.
“Just days after he was sworn in they were already talking about trying to get rid of him,” said a White House colleague who overheard their conversation.
“They weren’t just bent on subverting his agenda,” the former official added. “They were plotting to actually have him removed from office.”
Misko left the White House last summer to join House impeachment manager Adam Schiff’s committee, where sources say he offered “guidance” to the whistleblower, who has been officially identified only as an intelligence officer in a complaint against Trump filed under whistleblower laws. Misko then helped run the impeachment inquiry based on that complaint as a top investigator for congressional Democrats…”
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1219417898332119044
Victor Davis Hanson:
“…Since at least 2016, CNN has mostly ceased being a news agency, but that hasn’t stopped it from being an active participant in #TheResistance. The network is so caught up in the fervor of this movement that many of its guests and regular hosts have been fired, reprimanded, or apologized for threats to the president or general obscene references (e.g., Reza Aslan, the late Anthony Bourdain, Kathy Griffin).
Many of its marquee reporters have resigned, were fired, or reassigned for fake-news bias (e.g., Thomas Frank, Eric Lichtblau, and Lex Haris), or came under fire for false reporting (Jim Sciutto, Marshall Cohen, and Carl Bernstein) or have had to offer retractions and/or apologies (Gloria Borger, Eric Lichtblau, Jake Tapper, and Brian Rokus.)
Its anchors have apologized for obscenity (Anderson Cooper) or simply making up false statements (Chris Cuomo), while analysts have been caught in a number of contradictions about their own role in on-going scandals (James Clapper).
The common denominator has been the new journalistic ethos that aborting the Trump presidency justifies any means necessary to achieve such noble ends. Throughout CNN’s descent into parody, progressives still smiled at the usefulness of CNN for the larger project of delegitimizing the Trump presidency. Few understood the Thucydidean concept that once nihilists destroy norms and protocols of ethical behavior for perceived short-term advantage, they usually rue the loss when they themselves become victims of their own biased zealotry and are in dire need of the civilizational help they recently ruined…”
MICHAEL GOODWIN:
“…For much of the last three years, the impeachment of President Trump seemed inevitable. The left refused to accept his 2016 victory and remained determined to end his tenure.
When he made mistakes or said dumb things, the frenzy boiled over. When his tax and regulation cuts unleashed the great American jobs machine, the resistance grew more determined.
After Democrats seized the House in 2018, Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the firewall against impeachment. By the time she surrendered last fall, Pelosi had adopted the fiery zeal of a convert.
She now displays her hatred of Trump without reservation and accuses him of being a Russian agent, notwithstanding that special counsel Robert Mueller concluded otherwise. Anyone who disagrees with her is accused of being part of a criminal coverup, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Attorney General Bill Barr.
Given Pelosi’s position, these extraordinary accusations are unprecedented in modern times. Yet such vile extremism is the new normal on the left, which uses Trump as an excuse for its own abnormal conduct…”
Grayson County Sheriff Richard Vaughan:
“If the bills go through as proposed, they will not be enforced. They are unconstitutional.” pic.twitter.com/Id6hsyWt8j
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 20, 2020
I don’t understand who the Democrats think is the group of voters that support this
Kane:
“…Surveillance footage showed Jay Vazquez-Paulino as he confronted the young woman inside the Superior Package Company, where he worked, and began to hit her, according to Mid Hudson News.
At one point in the video, Vazquez-Paulino went outside the facility and appeared to hide a large knife in his shirt sleeve. Once he reentered the building, he allegedly threw something at the victim and punched her several times.
Moments later, the suspect tried to kick the woman as she talked on the phone. He then appeared to throw the knife onto the roof after he exited the building. Following the incident, Harriman Village Police Chief Dan Henderson expressed his concern that New York’s criminal justice laws were protecting defendants and not the victims.
“My fear is there will be a lot of recidivism and that the victims will no longer be protected if we are not able to not only arraign, but to get bail on these subjects and put them in jail right after the incident happens,” Henderson said.
Thanks to the state’s bail reform laws that provide immediate release from jail without posting bond.
Vazquez-Paulino was charged with menacing, criminal possession of a weapon, attempted assault, and harassment.
“The fact that it is captured on video goes further showing the strength of the case and the fact that he did have an intention to do harm here,” said Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler, adding that the suspect should have been put in jail.
“The real issue here is that this gentleman was released with a ticket and given an order of protection and again is free to terrorize this woman, which in domestic cases there should be bail and situations are often used for a cooling off period to allow parties to cool off,” he concluded…”
Unhinged, compulsion to the extreme
Matthew Continetti:
“…Pelosi is more than happy for additional evidence to be disclosed and for the Senate to call witnesses, even after the House has impeached and when the resolution of the trial is foreordained. It’s not justice she’s after. It’s victory in November. Expect leaks of damaging information before key procedural votes just as happened during the Kavanaugh confirmation fight. When Trump is acquitted or the charges against him dismissed, Democrats will pronounce the verdict illegitimate and accuse Republican senators of involvement in a cover-up. No charge is too outlandish. Pelosi and impeachment manager Hakeem Jeffries have advanced the ridiculous conspiracy that McConnell has “Russian connections” of his own. “It’s a win-win,” Chuck Schumer told the New York Times.
There’s a cautionary lesson for Democrats in the Kavanaugh episode. As the allegations against Kavanaugh grew more absurd, and the D.C. climate more inhospitable, Republicans found themselves more unified. The senators that Democrats hope will side with them on procedural motions might demur…
…After the House Intelligence Committee dropped a trove of documents from Lev Parnas, the former Giuliani associate under indictment for campaign finance violations, the day before senators were sworn in as jurors, Collins said, “I wonder why the House did not put that into the record and it’s only now being revealed.” Good question!
House Republicans voted in unison against impeachment not because they fear President Trump but because the Democratic case was weak. A similar dynamic might take shape once senators who haven’t been paying attention to the scandal listen—in silence—to the House managers and the president’s attorneys. How the House managers such as Adam Schiff behave on the Senate floor might also sway jurors.
The test of Republican unity will be a motion to call witnesses. Republican senators will have to ask why they would want to make Schumer’s job—winning the Senate for Democrats in 2020—any easier by crossing party lines. Prolonging the trial would legitimize a flawed and politicized investigation. Republicans understand by now that Pelosi and Schumer aren’t engaged in an honest fact-finding mission. They are the leaders of an impeachment that will never end…”
