Bill Maher Claims Christianity Is To Blame For Capitol Riot

During Friday’s episode of “Real Time With Bill Maher,” host Bill Maher blamed Christianity for the Capitol riots last month.

Maher Blames Christianity For Capitol Riots

Maher, 65, claimed that a belief in Christianity is comparable to a belief in conspiracies like QAnon, and he said this led in part to supporters of former President Donald Trump storming the Capitol last month.

“As long as we’re going to go to the trouble of another impeachment trial, we might as well be honest about what it’s really about: The events of Jan. 6 were a faith-based initiative,” he said.

Not stopping there, Maher alleged that Trump supporters who believe in a “Christian nationalist movement” are firm in their beliefs that God “literally sent [Trump] from heaven to save them.”

He cited comments made by Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who once said that God personally chose Trump for president of the United States of America.

“There’s a lot of talk now in liberal corners about how Republicans should tell their base who still believe the election was rigged that they need to grow up and move on and stop asking the rest of us to respect their mass delusion,” Maher said.

“And, of course, it is a mass delusion. But the inconvenient truth here is that, if you accord religious faith the kind of exalted respect we do here in America, you’ve already lost the argument that mass delusion is bad,” the HBO host continued. 

Related: Bill Maher Panics Over Trump’s ‘Radio Silence’ After Leaving White House. – ‘Does That Not Alarm You A Little?’

Maher Compares Christianity And QAnon

He then directly compared Christianity and QAnon.

“It’s fun to laugh at QAnon, with the baby-eating lizard people and the pedophile pizza parlors, but have you ever read the book of [Revelation]? That’s the Bible,” he said. “That’s your holy book, Christians. And they’ve got seven-headed dragons and locusts that have the face of men and teeth of lions and other stuff you see after the guy in the park sells you bad mushrooms.”

Maher went on to say that “magical religious thinking,” such as faith in Jesus’ resurrection, is not dissimilar to a “current mutation” of the QAnon “virus.”

“All the armies of the world will gather and Jesus will come down on a flying horse, shooting swords out of his mouth, and have a thousand-year cosmic-boss battle with Satan, the Beast, and the antichrist. … It’s like 10 ‘Avenger’ movies plus 10 ‘Hobbit’ movies plus a night out with Johnny Depp,” Maher said.

Related: Bill Maher Hits Biden Campaign For Blaming 254,000 U.S. Coronavirus Deaths On Trump

“Please, magical religious thinking is a virus and QAnon is just its current mutation,” he insisted. “That’s why megachurches play QAnon videos. It’s the same basic plot. ‘Q’ is the prophet and Trump is the messiah. There’s an apocalyptic event looming, ‘The Storm.’ There’s a titanic struggle of good versus evil, and if you want good to win, just keep those checks coming in.

“We need to stop pretending there’s no way we’ll understand why the Trump mob believes in him. It’s because they’re religious! They’ve already made space in their heads for s**t that doesn’t make sense,” Maher concluded. “When you’re a QAnon fanatic, you’re also a fundamentalist Christian. They just go together like macaroni and cheese.”

This piece was written by James Samson on February 8, 2021. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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Rand Paul Roasts Hypocrisy Of Impeaching Trump, Doing Nothing About Chuck Schumer, Waters, And Omar

On Sunday, Republican Sen. Rand Paul said that if Democrats insist on claiming that former President Donald Trump’s rally speech incited the January 6th Capitol Hill attack as a basis for impeachment, then Senator Majority Leader Chuck Schumer along with Democratic Congresswomen Maxine Waters and Ilhan Omar should be held accountable for similar language.

Paul made his comments on “Fox News Sunday.”

Watch his entire interview below.

RELATED: Newt Gingrich Predicts Democrats Will Throw Away Congress ‘Once Again’ With ‘Radical’ Budget Agenda

Sen. Paul: Democrats Have Used Violent Language With No Consequences

The GOP senator referenced Schumer’s rhetoric before a protest at the U.S. Supreme Court in early March 2020.

“I opposed the notion of — which I think was a misguided notion, a voting to overturn the election either with Congress or with the vice president,” Paul told Fox News Chris Wallace.

Paul continued, “But I think if we are going to criminalize speech and somehow impeach everybody who says, oh, ‘go fight to hear your voices heard,’ really we ought to impeach Chuck Schumer then.”

“He went to the Supreme Court, stood in front of the Supreme Court, and said specifically, ‘hey Gorsuch, hey Kavanaugh, you’ve unleashed a whirlwind, and you’re going to pay the price,'” Paul reminded viewers.

“You won’t know what hit you if you continue with these awful decisions,” Paul recalled Schumer saying.

Sen. Paul wanted to know why this speech did not qualify for potentially inciting violence.

“This inflammatory wording, this violent rhetoric of Chuck Schumer was so bad that the chief justice, who rarely says anything publicly, immediately said this kind of language is dangerous as a mob tried to invade the Supreme Court,” Paul continued.

Paul added, “So if people want to hold President Trump accountable for language, there has to be a consistent standard, and to my mind, it’s a partisan farce because they’re not doing anything to Chuck Schumer, not doing anything to Representative Omar, not doing anything to Maxine Waters.”

“It’s just not fair,” Paul finished. “It’s just partisan politics under a different name.”

Chief Justice Roberts Chastised Schumer’s Violent Rhetoric

The senator has a point, and Schumer was even accused of trying to incite physical violence at the time he made his controversial remarks.

As the Supreme Court was weighing a case about abortion, Schumer said at a rally in March 2020, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price.”

“You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions,” Schumer said.

Chief Justice John Roberts publicly rebuked Schumer, saying: 

“Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous.

All Members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.”

Some Senate Republicans called on Schumer to apologize or face possible censure.

Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso said, “To me, this sounds like he is talking about a physical price, violence.’

Waters Encouraged Physical Intimidation Against Trump Administration

Rep. Maxine Waters appeared to encourage physical violence and intimidation against members of the Trump administration at a political rally in June 2018.

“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up,” Waters told a crowd. “And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd.”

“And you push back on them,” Waters added. “And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

RELATED: Trump Voices Support For Lou Dobbs After Fox Cancels His Show – ‘Nobody Loves America More’

Omar appeared to endorse further violence when she retweeted Hollywood actor Tom Arnold’s comments about an incident in which Rand Paul’s neighbor severely injured him in an attack in 2017.

Paul told Fox News Sunday that Omar was “wishing and celebrating the violence that happened to me when I had six ribs broken and part of my lung removed.”

Watch Rand Paul’s comments below:

The post Rand Paul Roasts Hypocrisy Of Impeaching Trump, Doing Nothing About Chuck Schumer, Waters, And Omar appeared first on The Political Insider.

Newt Gingrich Predicts Democrats Will Throw Away Congress ‘Once Again’ With ‘Radical’ Budget Agenda

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich spoke out on Friday to predict that Democrats will throw away their control of Congress with a “radical” budget agenda.

He said this on Fox News after they passed the $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus package.

Gingrich Comments On Democrats

Gingrich said that Democrats “have clearly decided” that they will “go for broke on a radical agenda,” adding that this “almost certainly guarantees” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) will take over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) role.

“[L]et me start and point out this is the third time they’ve done this,” Gingrich said. “Bill Clinton passed a huge tax increase with no Republicans, and in 1994, they lost 54 seats in the House. Pelosi and others rammed through bills with no Republicans, and in 2010, they lost 63 seats in the House.”

“What the Democrats have now clearly decided is that they are going to go for broke on a radical agenda,” he added.

“They’re going to do everything they can without any Republicans, and that means that they are going to own everything in the election of 2022, and [that] almost certainly guarantees that Kevin McCarthy is the next Speaker and that the Democrats will, in fact once again for the third time have thrown away control of the Congress,” Gingrich said.

Related: Gingrich: Pelosi Impeachment Push Is Because She’s Scared Trump Might Run Again – And Win

Gingrich Says Pelosi Is ‘Hysterical’

Later in this interview, Gingrich said that Pelosi is “hysterical” because she is losing a grip on her speakership.

“That five-vote margin is going to break down sometime this spring as members start to say, ‘Hey, I can’t go back home if I keep voting like a radical.’ And at that point, McCarthy will be the functional leader of the House,” he claimed.

This comes weeks after Gingrich blasted Pelosi as the “most destructive Speaker in history.”

“First off, she keeps violating the Constitution,” Gingrich said of Pelosi. “The latest impeachment is just a simple example.”

“She uses her power ruthlessly and she has really pushed through the most radical positions ever taken by an American Speaker, including abolishing mother and father and uncle and aunt and son and daughter as words, literally trying to strip out any gender reference from the House of Representatives,” he added. “I think she’s very dangerous.”

Read Next: Newt Gingrich Eviscerates Pelosi – ‘Most Destructive Speaker In History’

This piece was written by James Samson on February 6, 2021. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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Hiding Biden: How Democrats Crafted First Impeachment, Helping Defeat Trump With Media Help

By Mark Hemingway for RealClearInvestigations

By the numbers, Joe Biden is president of the United States because he won the swing states of Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin by a combined total of some 43,000 votes.

But he also owes his victory to the groundwork laid by Democrats and their media allies one year before, during the first impeachment of Donald Trump over his supposedly strings-attached demand that the Ukrainian government investigate alleged corruption involving Biden’s son, Hunter.

The first impeachment failed to oust Trump from office, but it helped secure the White House for Biden.

It shielded him from scrutiny, enabling him and his supporters to cast allegations during the campaign about dubious Biden family business ties as rehashed Trumpian conspiracy theories.

RELATED: Democrats Are The Party Of Make Believe

Biden’s razor-thin swing state victories might not have materialized if the Trump campaign had been able to gain traction from its October Surprise – a series of articles it helped orchestrate in the New York Post that reported information from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden suggesting corrupt foreign business deals that may have involved his father.

As many as 45% of Biden voters said they were unaware of Hunter’s financial scandals before the election.

That’s likely because Democrats and much of the media discredited or did not report the accusations in the final weeks of the campaign – accusations that were bolstered after the election when Hunter admitted that he has been the subject of an ongoing federal corruption probe since 2018.

Once the Post ran its first laptop article on Oct. 14, Democrats and their allies immediately turned to the narrative they had long used against Trump: foreign interference.

Without evidence save for the claims of Democrat partisans and anonymous official sources — like those commonly relied upon during the debunked Trump-Russia affair — the New York TimesWashington Post, and Politico ran stories suggesting the laptop could be Russian disinformation.

Joe Biden said the laptop was a “Russian plan” at the first presidential debate.

The FBI, which was a main driver of the Trump-Russia collusion investigation, added to the narrative when word was leaked that the bureau was investigating whether the laptop emails were Russian disinformation.

Twitter and Facebook reacted by actively censoring the Hunter Biden story. Twitter went so far as to lock the New York Post out of its own account.

As the Senate prepares next week to take up a second impeachment of Trump, Republican objections to the Democrats’ handling of the first go-round loom large.

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The record of those proceedings shows that they were conducted in a highly unusual manner. In retrospect, it seems clear that they were designed not just to target Trump – but to protect Biden.

Taking Early Aim

Some Democrats were bent on impeaching Trump from the moment he took office, on Jan. 20, 2017. Just 19 minutes after Trump was sworn in, the Washington Post published a piece headlined, “The Campaign to Impeach President Trump Has Begun.”  

Those early efforts were spearheaded by Texas Rep. Al Green, who drew up articles of impeachment for alleged misdeeds ranging from Trump’s insulting kneeling professional football players to his firing of former FBI Director James Comey.

Green’s effort led to three different unsuccessful impeachment votes — one in 2017 and two more in 2019 after Democrats gained a House majority in the 2018 election.

Publicly, Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders said they did not approve of Green’s efforts.

“Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country,” the House speaker told the Washington Post in March 2019.

Privately, Democratic leaders were betting Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump-Russia collusion would produce a clearly impeachable offense.  

They were wrong.

RELATED: New Evidence Implicates FBI Higher-Ups In Anti-Trump Lawyer’s Document Falsification

After three years of thorough investigation – as well as thousands of breathless articles and untold hours of TV coverage keyed toward Trump’s prospective guilt – Mueller’s final report, issued in March 2019, concluded that the probe “[did] not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

Mueller did not make a determination of whether Trump had tried to obstruct his investigation. Looking at the evidence, Attorney General William Barr determined he had not.

Nevertheless, some powerful Democrats sought to use the Mueller report as the basis to impeach Trump, only to be rebuffed by Pelosi. 

The speed of what happened next blindsided Republicans. 

The Ukraine Affair

In early August, a CIA employee filed a formal whistleblower complaint against President Trump aimed at forcing Congress to address the matter.

He alleged that Trump had pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a July 25 phone call to investigate the Bidens for political purposes, and subsequently made aid to Ukraine contingent on the probe.

Trump reportedly raised the issue because he believed there had never been any serious inquiry into why Hunter Biden, a lawyer with no experience in the energy sector, had been paid upwards of $80,000 a month to serve on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma.

RELATED: Intelligence Panel Republicans: Swalwell ‘Compromised’ by Fang Ties

Hunter received the appointment in 2014, shortly after his father was asked to oversee Ukrainian affairs as Barack Obama’s vice president. In 2016, Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in aid to Ukraine unless it fired a prosecutor widely considered to be ineffective.

The fired prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, testified that he was driven from office because he was investigating Burisma.

“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son,” Trump told Zelensky, “that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it. … It sounds horrible to me.”

At the time of the whistleblower complaint, Biden was favored to win the Democratic nomination for president.

However, the allegations regarding the Trump phone call with Zelensky were problematic from the start. The man who brought the complaint was not really a whistleblower as the term is commonly understood.

He had no direct knowledge of the phone call but had been leaked details of it by one of the seven American officials who were on the call with the president.

The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, whose legal opinions are normally binding on these matters, soon concluded the whistleblower complaint did not meet the requirements of an “urgent concern”  for it to be forwarded to Congress.

Meanwhile, Adam Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, worked to surface the details of the complaint publicly. He recast obstacles to legitimizing the whistleblower’s complaint as attempts to hide Trump’s malfeasance.

When the White House ultimately made a transcript of the call public, Trump’s rhetorical style, an odd combination of obliqueness and bluntness, made the idea of a quid pro quo – no Biden investigation, no aid — open to interpretation.

Officials from Ukraine, which did not open an investigation, said they never felt pressured by Trump

Despite the procedural problems with the whistleblower complaint, it provided a semblance of formal process to buttress an all-new impeachment attempt. 

RELATED: Hunter Biden News Should Shame Dismissive Media Outlets

Progressives and much of the media cast the call as an abuse of power by Trump who, they claimed, tried to extort a foreign leader to kneecap a political rival. A formal House impeachment inquiry was launched on Sept. 24, 2019, with the full support of Democratic House leadership.

From the beginning, the impeachment inquiry was rife with episodes suggesting Democrats had a larger strategy. To begin with, they took an unprecedented amount of control over the process.

With the 2020 election and the prospect of a second Trump term looming, there would be no years-long special counsel or nonpartisan investigation of this matter.

While the Judiciary Committee, led by Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, was the traditional venue for impeachment, Democrats decided that Schiff would guide the impeachment inquiry through the Intelligence Committee.

Schiff, who had raised his national profile during the Mueller probe by repeatedly claiming that he had seen more than circumstantial evidence that Trump had colluded with Russia, had already acquired a reputation for fierce partisanship.

In early October, shortly after the impeachment inquiry began, the  New York Times reported that Schiff’s office had helped shepherd the alleged whistleblower’s complaint.

The Washington Post fact-checker gave Schiff “four Pinocchios” for repeatedly denying his office’s contact with the man. Nevertheless, Schiff received glowing press coverage for his impeachment efforts.

The mainstream press further enabled impeachment by refusing to publish the whistleblower’s name, in line with Democrat admonitions, even though he wasn’t formally protected by any whistleblower laws.

RELATED: Why The 2020 Election Was Neither Free Nor Fair

News organizations disclosed no agreements of source confidentiality with the man, and his identity was common knowledge in Washington.  

When Paul Sperry of RealClearInvestigations reported the evidence that the whistleblower was a then-33-year-old CIA employee named Eric Ciaramella, this news blackout by major media allowed them to ignore his history of partisan ties and anti-Trump statements.

Sperry reported that Ciaramella had served as an adviser on Ukraine to Vice President Biden and had been overheard in 2017 discussing with another staffer how to “take out,” or remove, the new president from office.

That colleague was Sean Misko, who left the White House in the summer of 2019 to join House impeachment manager Schiff’s committee, where, sources say, he offered “guidance” to the whistleblower. 

Aside from Schiff’s backstage dealings with Ciaramella, the Intelligence Committee chairman publicly tried to spin Trump’s alleged wrongdoing.

On Sept. 26, the day after the Trump-Zelensky transcript was released, Schiff gave an opening statement before acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire testified before his committee.

During the statement, Schiff, who had once been an aspiring screenwriter, characterized the president’s behavior on the Zelensky call as being like “a classic organized crime shakedown.” Instead of reading the plain text of the call, Schiff paraphrased what happened in hyperbolic and lurid terms.

“I have a favor I want from you,” Schiff said while seeming to read from a transcript. “And I’m going to say this only seven times, so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand? Lots of it, on this and on that.”

Republicans were appalled.

“He makes up a conversation supposedly between the president and Ukraine which sounds like a script from a cheap comic book. Lies and innuendo. He was called out on it and said, well, I meant it as a parody. Geez, that’s great. The fun begins,” Utah Congressman Chris Stewart would record in his journal, as quoted in “Obsession,” Washington Examiner reporter Byron York’s book on Democrats’ years-long quest to remove Trump from office.

RELATED: The FBI Spying Denial That Never Grows Cold

Leaking Testimony

To make the case for impeachment, it was crucial for Democrats to demonstrate the existence of a quid pro quo between Trump and Zelensky, which was ambiguous because Trump never mentioned aid on the call.  

Schiff responded to the Volker testimony by taking even more unprecedented steps for Democrats to control the impeachment proceedings. Volker had sat for what was known as a “transcribed interview,” which allowed Republicans to speak about the testimony afterward.

After Volker, Schiff made sure all the witnesses in the impeachment inquiry were deposed, forbidding committee members from discussing what was said publicly.

But the secrecy rules had a convenient and glaring exception – the witnesses themselves could speak about what happened. “The sessions settled into a pattern of secret testimony accompanied by quick leaks of witnesses’ opening statements,” York observes in “Obsession.”

The leaked, one-sided testimonies allowed press speculation to run wild, while House Republicans who knew the particulars were subject to ethics charges if they told the public what had actually been said. 

The DNC-Ukraine Nexus

For Democrats, Biden was a fraught issue in the impeachment proceedings. One obvious defense of Trump was for Republicans to argue that the president’s questions about Biden family corruption in Ukraine were legitimate and necessary to protect national security.

Under questioning, multiple witnesses called by Democrats conceded that Hunter Biden’s role with Burisma was concerning, leading to calls for Hunter to testify in the proceedings. (During the subsequent Senate impeachment trial, one Democratic senator, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, said Hunter Biden was a relevant witness.)

RELATED: Biden’s Dilemma: Unify The Country Or Impeach President Trump?

Democrats rejected calls to question Hunter Biden, Ciaramella, and others.

“I think we really could have torpedoed impeachment by making the whistleblower detail all of his prior contacts with Schiff and also his prior contacts with Biden as well,” said a Republican House staffer with intimate knowledge of the proceedings who requested anonymity because he did not want to speak for elected officials.

Democrats also shut down Republican attempts to probe the Democratic Party’s own troubling connections to Ukraine during impeachment. 

A Politico investigation published in January 2017 “found evidence of Ukrainian government involvement in the [2016] race that appears to strain diplomatic protocol dictating that governments refrain from engaging in one another’s elections.”

The article, written by David Stern and Kenneth Vogel, the latter now at the New York Times, reported that Ukrainian officials had helped Hillary “Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers,” including his campaign manager, Paul Manafort.

Key to this effort was a Democratic National Committee operative, Alexandra Chalupa, who met with Ukrainian officials and American journalists in Washington and was invited to the White House by Biden’s Ukraine pointman – the future “whistleblower” Ciaramella.

(Chalupa wasn’t the only Democratic operative pushing Manafort dirt originating in Ukraine at about the same time. So was Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, the Democratic contractor behind the discredited Steele dossier on Trump-Russia collusion. He has acknowledged feeding the media Ukraine tips in “Crime in Progress,” the book he co-wrote with his Fusion co-founder Peter Fritsch.) 

But even though Politico’s reporting on Ukraine and the DNC was largely unquestioned for three years, the media once again sprang to Democrats’ defense as Republicans sought to make an issue of it.

In the end, Schiff’s secrecy and tight control over who got to testify allowed House Democrats to sidestep any explosive questions about the chairman’s role in instigating impeachment, the DNC’s involvement with Ukraine, and Biden’s potential role in his son’s corruption.

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Ultimately, the Senate refused to convict Trump and many Republicans believed that it did little to harm him politically.

“Not a single Democrat speaker referenced impeachment during any of the convention, which is a really amazing thing,” the GOP staffer noted. “That just shows me they didn’t get a whole lot of political benefit out of it.”

Shielding Joe

But if impeachment failed to tarnish Trump as much as Democrats hoped, it appeared successful in delegitimizing valid questions about alleged Biden corruption.

After impeachment, the mainstream media showed almost no interest in investigating Biden family business ties, which were largely characterized as a series of unsubstantiated and debunked allegations.

Christiane Amanpour of PBS expressed the prevailing view in an interview with Republican National Committee spokesperson Liz Harrington when she said “there has never been any issues in terms of corruption” with the Bidens.

After Harrington disagreed and urged journalists to look into the story, Amanpour responded: “We’re not going to do your work for you.”

Some coverage transformed the potential scandals into a positive for Biden. At a campaign event in Iowa, a Democratic voter asked the candidate in December 2019 about allegations of his son’s corruption.

In response, Biden called the voter a “damn liar” and challenged him to an IQ test. CNN national political reporter Maeve Reston characterized the exchange this way: “In a human moment defending his son, Biden showed the authenticity, emotion and readiness for a fight that appeals to so many Democrats as they look for someone who can take on Trump.”

Last September, when a Senate intelligence panel report revealed that a firm co-founded by Hunter Biden received a $3.5-million wire transfer from the wife of a Russian politician, the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC did not cover the story.

When Trump raised the issue at the first presidential debate, Biden claimed it had been “totally discredited” even though its existence was confirmed by Treasury Department documents.

This news blackout may have helped propel Biden to victory, but questions regarding the Bidens have not gone away.

There is the laptop, which, far from Russian disinformation, did indeed belong to Hunter Biden, who in December admitted he has been the subject of a federal corruption probe since 2018.

RELATED: To Win The Narrative Battle, Conservatives Should Learn From The Left

Other evidence and testimony implicate President Biden. Tony Bobulinski, a former naval officer and business partner with Hunter Biden, asserted in October that he met with the senior Biden as part of a plan to secretly give the future president a 10% stake in a deal with a Chinese conglomerate with ties to the country’s communist government.

Bobulinski has provided documents to back up his account and news outlets such as the Wall Street Journal have confirmed they are authentic.

President Biden seems aware of the danger of family embarrassments, including from a January 2020 FBI raid involving allegations of financial fraud at a company where Biden’s brother James was listed as “principal.” 

Politico reported last week that the president had pulled his brother Frank aside last summer to tell him, “For Christ’s sake, watch yourself. Don’t get sucked into something that would, first of all, hurt you.”

On Inauguration Day, a law firm’s ad promoting Frank Biden’s relationship with the president caused a new stir.

Such Biden family matters, and Republicans’ awareness that their concealment may have helped seal Trump’s defeat, color Democrats’ long-shot efforts next week to convince at least 17 senators of the opposite party to join their legally and politically fraught effort to convict a president in an impeachment trial after he has left office.

Republicans think the Democrats’ handling of the first impeachment poisoned the well.

“Republican fence sitters are probably already on the record denouncing the unfairness of the House process last time around, since both GOP House members and senators were doing that,” says a GOP staffer who insisted on anonymity. “So if that process was unfair, how can you trust Democrats enough to sign off on impeachment 2.0, when there wasn’t even any process to speak of at all?”

A number of House Democrats involved in the first impeachment declined to comment on their Republican colleagues’ concerns.

In a recent vote, 45 Republican senators went on record saying they did not believe impeaching a former president was constitutional.

Even prominent Senate Democrats, such as 2016 vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine, are advocating censuring Donald Trump for fear that a bitter and drawn out impeachment trial is not only futile but will hamper Biden’s ability to get his administration up and running during the crucial early months of the presidency.  

Congressional Republicans, for their part, have shown no signs of dropping efforts begun in the first impeachment to investigate what they see as clear Biden family corruption – even after Trump’s second impeachment.

Prominent Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lindsey Graham and Charles Grassley, recently told Fox News they plan to ask Joe Biden’s nominee for attorney general, Merrick Garland, about the Hunter Biden corruption probe during his nomination hearing. 

Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.

The post Hiding Biden: How Democrats Crafted First Impeachment, Helping Defeat Trump With Media Help appeared first on The Political Insider.

Dr. Ben Carson’s Plan For National Unity: American Cornerstone

By Ben Carson for RealClearPolitics

We have painted our fellow Americans as “​deplorable​,” “stupid,” and worse. It is this type of malicious, political rhetoric fueled by opportunistic politicians and profit-driven media organizations that has roiled our deeply divided nation.

We are better than this. Words such as compromise, compassion, and civility are twisted, maligned and tainted as somehow being dirty, or have magically disappeared altogether.

We must do better than this.

I miss the days when Americans fought united for freedom and justice for all — equally.

I miss when compromise, compassion, and civility were not only encouraged but celebrated, where individuals accepted the consequences of their actions, when politicians pursued the public good, not just their own good.

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My time serving as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development over the last four years taught me many things, none more important than the necessity for collaboration and mutual understanding.

I saw first-hand that, when we work together as one nation, the American Dream becomes attainable for all and opportunity becomes limitless.

It is for these reasons — and many others — that I am launching a nonprofit conservative think tank with the goal of providing common-sense solutions to some of our nation’s biggest problems. The first step in healing is to start talking to one another again.

The American Cornerstone Institute will be dedicated to creating dialogue and smart discourse.

ACI will focus on promoting and preserving individual and religious liberty, helping our country’s most vulnerable find new hope, and developing methods to maximize government’s efficiency and effectiveness to best serve all our nation’s citizens.

ACI will focus on a diverse set of issues that influence important policy discussions. We will engage with local governments and work with communities to find solutions to our nation’s problems.

Related: Democrats Demand Trump Testify At Senate Impeachment Trial

We must work to improve American cities. While many of the country’s large cities face similar problems — homelessness, a higher cost of living, and rising crime, to name a few — the causes of these problems, and the best ways to address them, will vary from place to place.

The institute will study in detail some of America’s largest cities, identifying the key drivers of their current issues and potential solutions that take into account the unique characteristics of each urban area.

We will serve as a check on political power in Washington. ACI will actively push and remind the powers that be to allow and even empower local communities to govern their own affairs.

Washington may be home to our political arena, but it is seldom a place for finding solutions; for those we must look to the American people.

For the preservation of this great nation, for ourselves, and the next generation, we will foster a renewed focus on education.

If there’s one thing I know to be true, it’s that education is the key to prosperity. Without it, our communities will falter and our institutions will crumble.

Related: Poll: 64 Percent Of Republican Voters Would Join Trump If He Started A New Party

We are one nation, under God. We must not forget that. The United States of America is seen as a beacon of freedom and hope across the world, a place where the practice of one’s faith should be encouraged and protected, without trepidation.

ACI will promote the value of self-sufficiency and the idea of creating equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.

Providing individuals with opportunities to transform and improve their lives leads to better outcomes than subsidies and welfare programs.

We are a compassionate nation, the greatest civic experiment in history, the world’s guiding light of freedom and opportunity.

The Bible says, if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

There have been many calls to heal the divide that has polarized our great nation. The American Cornerstone Institute will be a leader and part of the solution. Our goal is simple: heal, inspire, and revive America.

Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.

Dr. Ben Carson is the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

The post Dr. Ben Carson’s Plan For National Unity: American Cornerstone appeared first on The Political Insider.

MSNBC Cuts Away From GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy To Tell Audience ‘What You Are Watching Now Is Not True’

On Thursday, MSNBC personality Nicolle Wallace broke away from coverage of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s floor remarks concerning Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to claim to her viewers that “what you are watching right now isn’t true.”

Wallace made her comments during her show “Deadline.”

McCarthy was speaking before Democrats held a vote to remove Greene from her committees over controversial comments she made before being elected to office.

Watch the video below.

McCarthy Blasts Democrats

McCarthy said on the House floor, “The rushed impeachment threw without a shred of due process just like today. Reducing this tool from the highest constitutional remedy to just another opportunity to fund raise and go on TV.”

“Now they are declaring the majority has veto power over the minorities members selection for committee,” McCarthy said. “We reviewed this with the parliamentarian.”

“Never before in the history of this House has the majority abused its power in this way,” he added.

RELATED: Tucker Carlson Rips NYU Over Study Claiming That There’s No Censorship Of Conservatives On Social Media

The House Minority Leader then turned his sights on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“But it is clear that Speaker Pelosi’s caucus think differently,” McCarthy said. “They are blinded by partisanship and politics. It’s the American people who will suffer the most because of it.”

McCarthy then roundly condemned Greene’s comments before she became a congresswoman.

He said, “As far as the member in question, let me be very clear, Representative Greene’s past comments and posts as a private citizen do not represent of values of my party.”

“As a Republican, as a conservative, as an American, I condemn those views unequivocally,” McCarthy said. “I condemned them when they first surfaced and I condemn them today.”

McCarthy then focused on the QAnon conspiracy theory itself.

“This House overwhelmingly voted to condemn the dangerous lies of QAnon last Congress, and continue to do so,” McCarthy insisted. “I also made this clear when I met with representative Greene.”

Wallace: ‘Most Of What Kevin McCarthy Is Saying… Is Not True’

“I also made clear that we as members have a responsibility to hold ourselves to a higher standard,” McCarthy said. “She acknowledged this during or conversation and apologized for her past comments.”

He emphasized, “I will hold her to her words and her actions moving forward.”

That is when Wallace cut away to tell her viewers what was ‘really’ happening.

Wallace said, breaking from covering McCarthy, “We’re going to come out of it because most of it is not true.”

Wallace then doubled down, “Most of what Kevin McCarthy is saying, while he appears to believe it as it comes out of his mouth, is not true.”

RELATED: Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls Out Media As Dems Prepare To Kick Her Off Congressional Committees

“Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee appointments are not in the air and up for a vote today because of Democrats,” Wallace said. “It’s up in the air and up for a vote today because Kevin McCarthy can’t clean his own house.”

Then she backed Liz Cheney and continued to dump on McCarthy.

Wallace said, “He led 61 of his colleagues to vote against Liz Cheney’s leadership post because she had the audacity to call an insurrection incited by Donald Trump an insurrection inspired by and incited by Donald Trump. So what you are watching right now isn’t true.”

Wallace’s argument isn’t a set of facts. It’s her own opinion. 

It’s her opinion that Democrats were kicking Greene off her committees because “Kevin McCarthy can’t clean his own house.” 

It’s unclear what Wallace means by this. What action, exactly, is McCarthy supposed to take? Marjorie Taylor Greene was duly elected by the people of Georgia’s 14th Congressional District – by 75%.

And what does the Liz Cheney vote have to do with Democrats kicking Greene off her committees?

There’s nothing in the Constitution, or the law, or even the House rules that requires Democrats to remove someone from their committees because the other party held a vote in their caucus about their leadership.

The truth is, Wallace wanted to cut away from McCarthy to editorialize. 

Watch the extraordinary segment here:

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Marjorie Taylor Greene Calls Out Media As Dems Prepare To Kick Her Off Congressional Committees

Embattled pro-Trump Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene slammed the media Thursday prior to a vote by the House on whether or not to strip her of her committee assignments.

Greene has come under fire for statements she made prior to being elected to Congress, many of which were deemed by Democrats and the media as racist and anti-Semetic. 

In her speech, Greene was quick to call out the media and turn the tables on her accusers, saying, “Will we allow the media, that is just as guilty as QAnon, of presenting truth and lies to divide us?”

She began her speech saying that she had not really had a chance to get to know most of her colleagues, and they may have a warped view of her due to extensive media narratives: “You only know me by how Media Matters, CNN, MSNC, and the rest of the mainstream media is portraying me.”

“Any source of information that is a mix of truth and lies is dangerous,” Greene went on to say, “Big media companies can take tiny bits of what we say, and portray us as someone we are not.”

She spoke of wanting to work with all members of Congress, but stated, “it should always be America first, there is nothing wrong with that.”   

Greene also expressed regret over some of her past comments in support of QAnon.

“I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true and I would ask questions about them and talk about them, and that is absolutely what I regret.”

Currently, Rep. Greene sits on the Education and Labor and Budget committees.

Watch her entire speech below.

RELATED: Democrats Demand Trump Testify At Senate Impeachment Trial

Greene Had Previously Apologized To Her Colleagues

Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has taken heat recently for Greene’s comments, and Democrats have demanded some sort of reprimand of Greene by McCarthy.

Leader McCarthy and the freshman member of Congress held a 90 minute meeting on Wednesday, but little is known about what was discussed.

Democrats had stated that if McCarthy was unwilling to take action regarding Greene, that they would consider voting to strip her of her committee assignments.

RELATED: Marjorie Taylor Greene Blasts ‘Hate America’ Democrats’ As Vote To Remove Her From Committees Is Confirmed

Several GOP members rose to her defense at the meeting, such as House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Biggs (R-AZ).

Still, Greene wasn’t believed with what she viewed as a lack of support from her own party’s leadership.

RELATED: Marjorie Taylor Greene Fires Back After Mitch McConnell Calls Her ‘Cancer’ To The GOP

Greene Actually Gets Help From Democrats

Marjorie Taylor Greene may get stripped of her committee assignments, but she can safely say that she has gotten help from her Democrat colleagues.

Because of the Democrats’ threatened punishment, Greene has gotten a steep boost in fundraising.

As of Wednesday, Greene had raised $175,000. In a tweet, she thanked all who had donated. And in yet what may be described as yet another controversial comment, Greene stated that, “They are attacking me because I am one of you. We will not back down. We will never give up!”

Watch Greene’s entire speech here: 

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House GOP Meets For Decisions On Liz Cheney, Marjorie Taylor Greene

Republicans in the House of Representatives gather for a crucial meeting on Wednesday to discuss the future of two House members. Liz Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who represent a growing division between factions of the Republican Party with two very different visions.

Republicans will debate whether or not to remove Liz Cheney (R-WY) from her position as GOP Conference Chair.

Cheney has come under fire from fellow Trump-supporting Republican members of the House for her vote to impeach the former president on charges that he incited the riot that took place at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Also at issue is freshman member of Congress Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and whether or not she should be removed from her congressional committee assignments.

Controversial comments made by Greene prior to her being elected to Congress have surfaced on social media.

RELATED: GOP Pushes Omar Ouster From Committee Assignments In Response To Marjorie Taylor Greene Measure

Major Issues On The Table For The GOP

According to a CNN report, in 2019, Greene “liked” a comment that stated “a bullet to the head would be quicker,” in a thread that discussed the removal of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). 

There are other other claims that she has espoused QAnon conspiracy theories and confronted political opponents such as Parkland High School shooting survivor and gun activist David Hogg on video. 


RELATED: Liz Cheney Censured By 10 Wyoming Republican Parties Over Impeachment Vote

On The Hot Seat, Kevin McCarthy

The eyes of all GOP House members will be on Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

On Tuesday, McCarthy had a long anticipated, well-publicized 90 minute meeting with Greene, however, aides disclosed little about what was discussed. 

The possible removal of Greene from her committee assignments will be the subject of another separate meeting, also on Wednesday.

Several Republicans are calling foul on Democrat double standards that ignore past anti-Semetic remarks that have been made by Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and the incendiary comments of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA).

Politico reports that McCarthy may try to broker a deal with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), but it is not know whether or not Hoyer will agree to any such deal.

RELATED: Mitch McConnell Voices Support For Liz Cheney As Calls Grow For Her To Be Expelled From GOP Leadership

The Future Of The Republican Party?

The push to remove Cheney began with her ‘yes’ vote on impeachment. On the heels of that vote, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) was one of the first to call for her ouster as Conference Chair. Nine other Republicans had also voted to impeach Trump. 

Cheney is also in trouble at home. Recently, ten Wyoming Republican County Parties have voted to censure Cheney for her vote.

She already has a primary opponent for 2022. Wyoming State Senator Anthony Bouchard will challenge Cheney.

Gaetz recently also traveled to Cheyenne Wyoming to call on Trump supporters to back Cheney’s removal from Congress. 

Cheney enjoys much support by those who are seen as the “establishment,” the old guard of the Republican Party.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said of Cheney, “Liz Cheney is a leader with deep convictions and the courage to act on them.”

Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) called her, “a strong and reliable voice of the conservative party.”

Greene, as a newly elected member of Congress, has not even been on Capitol Hill long enough to put forth much legislation. But already the establishment wing of the Republican Party seems very threatened by her. 

Mitch McConnell called her “a cancer” for the GOP in a reference to her “loony lies and conspiracy theories.”

“Somebody who has suggested that perhaps no airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, that horrifying school shootings were pre-staged, and that the Clintons crashed JFK Jr’s airplane is not living in reality. This has nothing to do with the challenges facing American families or the robust debates on substance that strengthen our party.”

Sen. Mitt Romney called for distance. “I think we should have nothing to do with Marjorie Taylor Greene, and I think we should repudiate the things she said and move away from her.”

Greene responded to McConnell that, “the real cancer for the Republican party is weak Republicans who only know how to lose gracefully.”

https://twitter.com/mtgreenee/status/1356442381491593218    

There are clearly two wings of the Republican party forming. The McConnell, Romney, Cheney wing of graceful losers, and the new faces of Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who are tired of establishment business as usual. 

Make no mistake, the American people will decide the winner.  

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Whoopi Goldberg Claims Joe Manchin’s Attack On Kamala Harris Was ‘Bigoted’ – ‘Really Disrespectful’

Over the weekend, Senator Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) spoke out to criticize Vice President Kamala Harris for going on a local television station in West Virginia to try and drum up support for the Joe Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.

This did not sit well with “The View” cohost Whoopi Goldberg, who said on Monday that she thought Manchin’s attack on Harris was “bigoted.”

Goldberg Slams Manchin

“Vice President Kamala Harris did an interview with the local West Virginia TV station to make the pitch for the new COVID stimulus package, and moderate Democrat Senator Joe Manchin was not happy he didn’t get a heads-up about it. Take a look,” Goldberg said on Monday’s episode of “The View.”

“I saw it. I couldn’t believe it,” Manchin said of Harris’ interview. “No one called me.  We’re going to try to find a bipartisan pathway for it. I think we need to, but we need to work together. That’s not a way of working together, what was done.”

“OK, so let me just point this out, Joe, she is the vice president,” Goldberg fired back. “She does not work for you. She doesn’t need your permission to go do this. When you talk like that, it sounds a little bigoted, like you think you have the right to tell her when she can and cannot come someplace. I think it’s really disrespectful politics myself.”

Related: Whoopi Goldberg Goes Off On Republicans Who Voted Against Impeachment – ‘You’re Scared’

Joy Behar Disagrees With Goldberg

In a surprising twist, Goldberg’s cohost Joy Behar actually saw this differently.

“Well, you know, Joe Manchin is a Democrat, but he swings to the right,” she said. “At this moment in time, the Democrats need Joe Manchin more than Joe Manchin needs the Democrats because he will always win in West Virginia taking middle of the road positions.”

“He’s got an ego problem, I’ll grant you that,” Behar added. “But the guy voted for impeachment, he voted for the ACA, he’s on the Democratic team — so I don’t think it’s a great idea alienating Joe Manchin, no matter how big his ego is.”

“I’m sorry, do you think she needed to speak to him before she went and gave this interview?” an incredulous Goldberg asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what the protocol — probably not,” Behar explained, at which time Goldberg interrupted her to say, “No, because she’s the vice president.”

When asked for her thoughts on this, conservative cohost Meghan McCain said, “I completely agree with Joy.”

Read Next: Joy Behar Warns Gaetz To ‘Watch’ Himself In Feud With Liz Cheney – ‘She’ll Eat Him For Breakfast’

This piece was written by James Samson on February 1, 2021. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
Tulsi Gabbard Torches Pelosi For Describing GOP As ‘Enemy Within The House’ – ‘Like Throwing A Match Into A Tinderbox’
Melania Trump Reveals Her Post-White House Plans – She’s Going To Maintain ‘Be Best’
Ana Navarro Claims McCarthy’s Mar-a-Lago Trip Was ‘White Slavery’ – Says He’s Owned By His Master, Trump

The post Whoopi Goldberg Claims Joe Manchin’s Attack On Kamala Harris Was ‘Bigoted’ – ‘Really Disrespectful’ appeared first on The Political Insider.

Melania Trump Reveals Her Post-White House Plans – She’s Going To Maintain ‘Be Best’

The former First Lady Melania Trump has revealed some of her post-White House plans, as she is reportedly starting an office in Palm Beach, Florida, in part to “maintain ‘Be Best.'”

Melania’s Post-White House Plans

This was revealed in a CNN report, which stated that Melania’s post-White House staff will include three familiar staffers: Hayley D’Antuono, who previously served as her director of operations and trip supervisor; Mary Finzer, who previously managed Melania’s “gift closet;” and Marcia Kelly, a former unpaid senior adviser in the White House.

Sources said that the team is planning to initially work remotely and out of the Trumps’ private Mar-a-Lago Club, though Melania, 50, is looking for a separate office space in Palm Beach.

This comes days after former President Donald Trump announced that he is launching his own post-White House office.

Related: Melania Trump’s Final Words Before Leaving White House – ‘Being Your First Lady Was My Greatest Honor’

Palm Beach Residents Attack Trumps

This also comes after the town of Palm Beach confirmed it was reviewing whether the Trumps could legally make their residence at Mar-a-Lago, in light of an agreement that the former president signed back in 1993, according to People Magazine.

This agreement, which Trump signed after he converted his former residence into the private club, stated that no members would stay there for longer than seven days at a time.

Residents of Palm Beach have been calling on local officials to examine the issue.

“It’s a legal matter. It’s a contract,” said Palm Beach Town Manager Kirk Blouin. “We have attorneys that prepared [the use agreement] for the town … obviously it was prepared many, many years ago. So because it’s a legal matter, it is being reviewed.”

Related: Melania Trump Condemns Capitol Violence – Leftist Media Pounces On First Lady’s Response

After launching “Be Best,” Melania said that she was alright with criticism, explaining in 2018, “It is not news or surprising to me that critics and the media have chosen to ridicule me for speaking out on this issue, and that’s okay.”

“I remain committed to tackling this topic because it will provide a better world for our children,” she continued. 

“And I hope that, like I do, you will consider using their negative words as motivation to do all you can to bring awareness and understanding about responsible online behavior,” Melania added. 

This piece was written by James Samson on January 30, 2021. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

Read more at LifeZette:
RNC Chair McDaniel Lays Out Mundane Agenda
Schumer Unloads On Republicans Refusing To Support Impeachment – Vows To Hold Trial
Ilhan Omar Says If Republicans Won’t Remove ‘Dangerous And Violent’ Marjorie Taylor Greene, Then ‘We Must Do It’

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