Category: Impeachment

Trump’s ‘victory speech’ turns into a rambling ego trip divorced from both reality and time

Posted on by Mark Sumner

Well, that was something. What it was isn’t clear, but it was … something. For an hour and a half, Donald Trump stood in front of a hand-selected collection of his most sycophantic sycophants and wandered through time and space to talk about the “scum” at the FBI, how he refuses to believe that Nancy Pelosi prays, and how Ivanka Trump could really make some money if she was only allowed to work with foreign companies.

In the process, Trump shared some love with his favorite members of Congress, including praising Devin Nunes for his work “in dungeons” and telling Steve Scalise that being shot had improved his looks. But most of the love Trump held for himself, as he flipped between parts of his normal rally speech and … indefinable weirdness. Mostly Trump seemed out to prove that in between his plodding, slow-motion appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast and his hyper-loopy sniffle-fest at noon had come a whole, whole lot of chemicals for better living.

Throughout the hour, Trump pointed out Republicans who had been particularly useful to him—here’s Mitch McConnell! Here’s Chuck Grassley! Here’s Mark Meadows! This included going off on an extended discussion of Jim Jordan’s ears. A good case of cauliflower ear on Jordan’s part apparently reminded Trump of his time play-acting with the Wrestlemania crew. Which made Jordan one of his favorites.

At another point, in addition to talking about how amazing it was that Steve Scalise’s wife actually stayed with him at the hospital after he was shot—something that “a lot of wives” would not do, according to Trump, who has experience with a lot of wives—Trump went through a dramatic reenactment of the shooting. He also mentioned that the bullet that hit Scalise was one especially designed to cause more damage on impact. He didn’t mention that Republicans, including Scalise, have voted to keep that particular kind of bullet available to the public. 

It was during this time talking about a shooting that happened on a softball field that Trump’s pinballing thought process took him back to his youth. Remembering a former Yankees second baseman, Trump asked the room if they remembered Bobby Richardson. It’s not likely that many did, because Richardson retired from baseball in 1966.

On the other hand, Richardson is only 84. Chuck Grassley is 86. He probably thinks of Richardson as an upstart.

Between sniffles, Trump found time to criticize everyone who ever suggested that selling out the White House was a bad thing. But strangely enough, most of these attacks seemed to be fixed on James Comey. Had he not fired the former FBI director, said Trump, it was likely “I would not be here today.” Which is … interesting. Trump paused to make fun of Robert Mueller, Christopher Steele, and of course Lisa Page—it would not be a Trump speech without his fixation on Lisa Page. 

But at a speech that was supposed to be about his acquittal after impeachment, Trump seemed to forget to mention anything about that impeachment, except that Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi are “vicious.” Oh, and that Mitt Romney only voted against him on one count, so he got “almost 53” votes. 

Earlier in the day, Trump was promising a speech full of retribution. But whatever substance brings him from ploddy to sniffy apparently left him unable to stop stroking his ego—and Ivanka—long enough to get his vengeance full-venging. Instead he settled for throwing out a lot of “sleaze” and “slime” and “dirty cop” references, without telling us just what kind of thumbscrews he’s ordering in bulk.

It wasn’t a news event. It wasn’t a speech. It’s was just a thing.

Oh, and twice Donald Trump insisted that the plural of “apprentice” is “apprenti.” Apparently he believes that he spent several seasons on The Apprentus.  

Trump Holds Up ‘Acquitted’ Headlines Next to Pelosi Attending Prayer Breakfast

Posted on by Guest Author

On Thursday, President Trump proudly held up two newspapers featuring “Acquitted” headlines, parading them them before a National Prayer Breakfast audience in his first appearance since his Senate impeachment trial, where he was declared not guilty.

He Did It Right Next to Nancy!

The president showed off the headlines very close to where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was after both she and the President arrived at the breakfast.

Trump picked up a USA Today newspaper and showed it to the audience. Then he did the same with a copy of the Thursday edition of the Washington Post, which had a similar headline.

RELATED: The Whole Impeachment Process Was A Hoax Against The American People; Covers Up Dems Have No Real Candidate

Trump also took a few shots at Pelosi.

Payback

“I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong, nor do I like people who say ‘I pray for you’ when you know that is not so,” Trump said. During the impeachment process, Pelosi had said that she was “prayerful” concerning the President.

Trump described impeachment as a “terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people.”

But for the President, his newspaper bragging was not just payback for the impeachment mess, but also for Pelosi’s behavior at the end of Tuesday’s State of the Union address where she tore up the pages of his speech.

RELATED: New Video Shows Pelosi Practicing Ripping Up Trump’s State Of The Union Speech

Impeachment Finally Over

On Wednesday, the Senate, acquitted Trump on both articles of impeachment against him, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, following a long trial.

In the deciding vote, all Democratic senators voted in unison to convict the president on both articles. With Republicans, the only party defection was on the abuse of power charge from Senator Mitt Romney, who claimed Trump had engaged in as “destructive an attack on the oath of office and our Constitution as I can imagine.”

The post Trump Holds Up ‘Acquitted’ Headlines Next to Pelosi Attending Prayer Breakfast appeared first on The Political Insider.

The Democratic’s Party Mask Has Been Removed And They Are Just As Ugly As We Told You

Posted on by Wayne Dupree

The long, winding road of impeachment has dominated the conversation in Washington since allegations that President Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine as a political tactic to harm Joe Biden became public in September.

Or that is what the media wants us to believe as they will rewrite the narrative. No, it started the day after Trump was elected. Tell the truth. Democrats said they found collusion? I agree, but not like you think.

MORE NEWS: Now That Trump Has Been Acquitted, Are We In Agreement The Dem’s Future Is On Fumes?

  • Collusion is when the Attorney General in charge of investigations, has a secret meeting on the tarmac with the spouse of someone that’s under investigation.
  • Collusion is when the media provides the questions to a presidential debate in advance, to one of the candidates.
  • Collusion is when a political party conspires with one candidate to rig their primary against the other candidate.
  • Collusion is when a sitting President wiretaps a candidate from an opposing party, to help their party.
  • Collusion is when government officials leak classified information to the media in an attempt to smear a sitting president.
  • Collusion is when the FBI Director gives immunity to persons involved in a criminal investigation, that destroyed critical evidence.

Now that I showed you the craziness that is the Democratic Party let’s talk about what their latest failed attempt has resulted in.

Trump’s base of loyal voters and supporters just dug in deep for the election run, and there’s nothing the media can do to stop or change it. Not only did impeachment strengthen Trump’s chances for re-election, but it also showed that any president could be impeached when the opposition party won the majority in the House of Representatives, whether or not a justification for impeachment exists.

MORE NEWS: Gingrich: Pelosi Should be Censured for “Viciously Partisan” Actions

The impeachment process, no matter how one looks at it, has divided the country beyond anything I’ve ever seen in nearly 60 years. The press wants to blame Trump because they don’t like him. The Democrats blame Trump because they don’t like him.

In other words, the Democrats were not concerned with what Trump did; they were using all of their investigations to affect change in the upcoming election, just what they accused Trump of doing. Anyone with a brain will recognize this and will not vote for any of the Democrats. Of course, Democrats do not care about reality, they only care about their entitlements.

What other results has impeachment accomplished? It has shown us the insidious side of the Democrats. They think that they are doing this for the greater cause of this country, which they truly believe they are the chosen ones to see things through. It’s really about power and the swamp. And they’re doing this with all of our money. Unfortunately, the Obama years put the Democrats in Lalaland, thinking that all the vote-buying measures he put in place would cement their control forever, then along came Trump. At a time when, under Obama’s watch, only a semblance of this country was left.

MORE NEWS: New Video Shows Pelosi Practicing Ripping Up Trump’s State Of The Union Speech

The impeachment process was also about voter manipulation. The Democrats have poisoned the election process and will be held responsible in years to come. I blame the media and democrats for dealing with the situation and not doing their job. There is no longer fair news reporting.

The Democratic Party is in freefall, and they don’t have one leader who knows how to fix it or wants to. The mask as been taken off, and America has seen just how ugly and evil that party is.

Most of us in the United States are pretty moderate, but our nominees from both sides may not be in recent years. I think the primary system is broken. The most extreme on either end tend to vote in the primaries disproportionately since the people who care the most about politics are the ones who are paying attention this early. That means that the moderate candidates have a harder time getting nominated, even if they are the ones that most Americans would prefer to vote for.

Please read up on the candidates this year and get out and vote in the primaries.

What Others Are Reading On WayneDupree.com

 

The post The Democratic’s Party Mask Has Been Removed And They Are Just As Ugly As We Told You appeared first on The Political Insider.

Diplomats who risked their careers to tell the truth about Trump face life in a post-cover-up world

Posted on by Laura Clawson

One after another, career foreign service professionals came forward to testify about what they saw of Donald Trump’s pressure campaign against Ukraine. They did so, they repeatedly stressed, not out of partisan motives but out of concern for national security. And they’re getting hung out to dry. In interviews with CNN, many of them expressed concern about their careers going forward, after Senate Republicans vote to acquit Trump, and about the damage done to U.S. foreign policy.

“All the carnage for something that doesn't mean very much,” said one. “Our domestic political battles have just trampled over what our national interests are.”

Some, CNN reports, are especially angry with former national security adviser John Bolton, who protected his own future in Republican circles by refusing to testify right up until Senate Republicans could block him from even being asked. Bolton was “trying to have it both ways,” said one of the officials who did testify. “Great. So our lives are ruined, our names dragged through the mud, but [Bolton] gets to wash his hands of it,” said another.

Looming over them is the concern that Trump, with his ever-growing enemies list, will retaliate against anyone who testified. “It would be bad politics for Trump to be seen as going after mid-level folks. And it would take effort,” said one. But “If he is reelected, he will feel emboldened, and this is where he could go after what he deemed the 'Deep State.’”

Rep. Mike Johnson Offers Nancy Pelosi Some Fancy Souvenir Acquittal Pens

Posted on by Rusty Weiss

Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson offered Nancy Pelosi some souvenir acquittal pens after the Senate voted ‘not guilty’ on articles of impeachment Wednesday.

Johnson, a member of President Trump’s impeachment defense team, can apparently troll with the best of them.

“Just in case Speaker Pelosi is too torn up to hand out acquittal pens, I went ahead and picked some up for our exceptional impeachment defense team,” Johnson tweeted.

First off – a ‘torn up’ pun referencing the House Speaker’s staged temper tantrum at the State of the Union is a thing of beauty.

Second, Johnson is subtly blasting Pelosi for her not-so-subtle impeachment signing ceremony last month, an event which was decidedly not somber, serious, or prayerful.

RELATED: Trump Acquitted By U.S. Senate On All Charges

Pelosi’s Impeachment Ceremony

Nancy Pelosi was heavily criticized for holding an elaborate signing ceremony in which the articles of impeachment were passed to the Senate, despite insisting that it was a very somber thing the House had undertaken.

The event featured a myriad of golden pens handed out as mementos, smiles, picture taking, and fist pumps.

Senator Ted Cruz joked about the shiny, candy-like pens, deadpanning: “Given the circus in the House, I’m surprised she didn’t use crayons.”

Johnson celebrated not just with acquittal pens, but in an interview with NPR mocked the articles of impeachment as “weak on their face.”

“There was no real evidence or facts to back it up,” he said. “They [the House] did a shoddy job with it, and this was the ultimate result. And I think the record speaks for itself.”

RELATED: Ted Cruz Just Torpedoed Pelosi For Her Elaborate Impeachment Signing Ceremony

Acquitted For Life!

Pelosi has earned every last drop of the condescension and mockery she has flowing in her direction right now.

In an interview with ABC News, prior to her impeachment pen debacle, Pelosi said: “Let’s be optimistic about the future, a future that will not have Donald Trump in the White House one way or another.”

“(In) ten months we will have an election if we don’t have him removed sooner,” she predicted. “But, again, he’ll be impeached forever.”

Conservatives ran with that comment and created their own trending hashtag on Wednesday, ‘#AcquittedForever.’

“Today, the sham impeachment attempt concocted by Democrats ended in the full vindication and exoneration of President Donald J. Trump,” White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. “As we have said all along, he is not guilty.”

We sure hope she wrote that statement using those fancy acquittal pens.

The post Rep. Mike Johnson Offers Nancy Pelosi Some Fancy Souvenir Acquittal Pens appeared first on The Political Insider.

Romney made history. He also changed the news cycle and the anti-GOP ads to come in 2020

Posted on by Kerry Eleveld

Donald Trump woke up on Wednesday morning believing Senate Republicans would provide him a unanimous acquittal vote on impeachment. Weeks earlier, White House ally Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina had even promised the vote would be bipartisan, drawing some Democrats over to Trump's side.

But that wasn't to be. Instead, the White House—completely blindsided by Sen. Mitt Romney's declaration—abruptly blocked reporter access to Trump's meeting with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó that the press corps had originally been invited to attend.

In an instant, Romney's vote to convict changed the entire trajectory of how the history books would be written, the headlines that would flow from acquittal in the days that followed, and the way ads would be written in the 2020 cycle as the general election heats up. Instead of impeachment being an entirely partisan affair—a Democrat-driven witch hunt, as Trump likes to call it—Romney affixed a permanent asterisk to Trump's acquittal, making him the only president in history to draw bipartisan support for his conviction. 

Just below the Washington Post's giant "Trump Acquitted" banner topping its site Wednesday night, Romney's vote of conviction attracted no less than four headlines that wouldn't have otherwise been there. One read, "No senator ever voted to remove a president of his party from office. Until Mitt Romney."

But Romney didn't just change the story and the way the story would be told, he also changed how that story would reverberate through the 2020 election cycle. Trump, who will target Romney incessantly between now and November, will deprive himself of the talking point that it was Democrats and Democrats alone who took issue with his so-called "perfect call" and voted to convict. In addition, Democrats' discipline as a caucus which included some brave votes from Sens. Doug Jones of Alabama and Joe Manchin of West Virginia robbed Trump of declaring his acquittal was a bipartisan consensus.

Romney's Senate floor speech also included some attack-ad friendly phrases like "appalling abuse of public trust" and "flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security, and our fundamental values." Those damning assessments will surely make their way into some ads aimed at unseating Romney's vulnerable GOP colleagues.

Romney may only be one person, but on Wednesday he provided an unexpected and much-needed crack of light in an otherwise very dark episode in the nation's history. Perhaps it was the beginning of a reckoning for the GOP.