Three Dems Balking at Impeachment

Posted on January 29, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 29, 2020

The last news cycle was all about GOP rebels on the witness question. But three Democrat senators, Sinema, Manchin, and Jones, are also publicly saying, or letting be known through staff leaks, that they are thinking of voting to acquit the president on one or both of the articles of impeachment before the Senate.

Regardless of witnesses or not, the GOP will likely lose 2-3 out of 53 on the votes to acquit or convict. If three Democrats break ranks it could give the GOP 52-53 for the president.

The Democrats need 67 to win. Right now and likely ahead, that is a very far away number for them.

The telegenic Kyrsten Sinema has played it smart so far during her time in the Senate. She has a reputation as a reasonable moderate that is playing well in light red Arizona, a state that used to be deep red in its Goldwater days. If she cut the baby in half and voted to acquit on one article and guilty on the other it keeps her moderate creds and gets nobody too ticked at her.

Joe Manchin of West Virginia has been courted by the GOP to switch parties for years. On energy and cultural issues he votes GOP. On other issues he votes with Trump about a third of the time. He’s got better GOP loyalty numbers than some northeast U.S. GOP members of the House.

He is saying, and his office is spreading it loud and wide, that he could vote for the president on both articles. He could be doing this to leverage a price from the Democrats for staying in their column or doing the same with the GOP for voting to acquit. West Virginia is a deep red state, one of the deepest red in the nation. Manchin thus knows how his constituents would feel if he abandoned the president.

Though, he still has to think of his Democrat base in WV. At least, what remains of it that isn’t already supporting Trump.

Doug Jones in deep red Alabama cannot afford to vote to convict the president on impeachment and hope to stand a chance at reelection this year. He was elected on a fluke and would lose in a landslide. He is the most likely vote for the president on both counts.

The only thing that could give him pause would be the thought that he will probably lose in the fall anyway, why not vote against Trump now and hope Democrats will reward him for services when he is out of office.

That is typically how it is done in DC.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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Senate Impeachment Trial Moves Coming Fast and Furious, Biden Livid

Posted on January 29, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 29, 2020

Since the gavel went down in the Senate Tuesday afternoon the Hill has been abuzz with activity, plots, and counterplots. Here are the latest developments:

The Biden campaign is hopping mad with House managers and the Democrat Senate for possibly setting up a scenario where Joe Biden or his son Hunter would have to testify at the impeachment trial of President Trump.They know what it would do to their poll numbers and they have seen that Hunter is notoriously bad under pressure. His recent personal issues also do not play well with women. The Biden effort is putting tremendous pressure on Democrats not to permit witnesses at all, arguing that the numbers are just not there to remove Trump, why drag down Biden in a losing cause?

Word out of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office is that they may try a poison pill defense on witnesses. Oh sure, we’ll have witnesses, they say.And every one will be one the Democrats don’t want on the stand. Not only the Bidens, but Ciaramella, Comey, Brennan, Holder, Schiff, Nadler, and maybe even Hillary or Obama. With that prospect, they think the Democrats will think twice about witnesses.
Also, if witnesses are to be called, plots the McConnell office, they will be called at the same ratio they were called in the House. So, the GOP would have four witnesses to every one Democrat witness. Another poison pill gambit.
The White House may try to block any Bolton testimony by exerting executive privilege and then watch it play out in the courts. Bolton could testify anyway, but he may not want to go though the legal headaches of doing it.

Internal GOP polling numbers say this process is helping them with swing voters, as the swings cannot believe the Democrats are blindly defending the Bidens when the evidence of corruption on Burisma and other issues is so overwhelming.
Rumor is that Senators Warren and Sanders have grown happy with the trial and the effect it is having on the Biden campaign. They want the trial to end, but not too quickly.

Correction: In a recent piece we stated “54 Republicans” are in favor of witnesses being called. There are only 53 Republicans in the Senate. It should have read “54 senators”. Mea culpa- DK

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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GOP Trial Defense Team Wraps Up, Scores Big

Posted on January 28, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 28, 2020

Tuesday, the last day of the GOP case to the Senate in defense of President Trump, was marked by scholarly analysis and low key appeals to basic integrity by presidential attorneys Pat Cipollone, Patrick Philbin, and Jay Sekulow.

Philbin led off the day, after an intro by Cipollone, expounding on points made Monday by Alan Dershowitz. He specifically warned of the expansive nature and vague context of the “abuse of power” impeachment charge against the president, likening it to a Bill of Attainder.

That kind of bill, legislation targeting a single individual, was prohibited by the Founders in Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution.

The podium was then taken by Jay Sekulow who, eschewing his usual tough manner, moderately emphasized that elections, not impeachments, are the proper way to change presidents in this nation.

He did castigate Democrat manager Jerry Nadler for referring to executive privilege as “other nonsense.” In warning of Nadler’s attitude and impeachment itself, Sekulow oddly channeled the robot from “Lost in Space” as he intoned “danger, danger, danger” more than once.

Will Robinson could not be reached for comment.

Pat Cipollone concluded the active defense case with a subtle, yet hard-hitting, strike against the Democrats by playing videos showcasing their own words from the Clinton impeachment against them.

Nadler, Lofgren, and even Chuck Schumer had to sit there mortified while their on-screen selves from over 20 years ago warned against partisan impeachment and the negative future effects of it on the nation and the presidency.

Schumer even predicted then that Democrats would want “payback” in the future and would unfairly target a GOP president.

Upon seeing that, Cipollone simply responded, “You were right.”

Pat Cipollone closed with a sincere appeal to the Senate, “It is time for this to end here and now.” His manner and tone were agreeable, even gentle, as he asked the 100 members of the U.S. Senate to look to the better angels of their natures and defend the Constitution by rejecting these articles of impeachment. His pitch seemed to be convincing and effective, as opposed to the bombast of the Democrat legal team.

The Senate reconvenes Wednesday at 1pm to begin two days of senatorial questions to opposing legal teams. Chief Justice Roberts asked that responses be brief.

Whether the legal teams will act as such remains to be seen.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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Toomey Proposes One Witness Deal in Senate Trial

Posted on January 28, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 28, 2020

Pennsylvania GOP Senator Pat Toomey, a Trump supporter but not particularly close to the White House, is reportedly floating a plan that would permit the Democrats and the Trump defense team one witness each during the impeachment trial of President Trump in the Senate.

He bills it as a compromise that would limit the time spent on witnesses and would avoid a potential Trump loss on the question when it comes up soon to a Senate vote.

The vote could be won with a simple majority of 51 and several Senators out of the 53 member GOP caucus, to include Alexander, Collins, Romney, Murkowski, McSally, and Gardner, are said to be thinking about supporting the current Democrat proposal for unlimited witnesses.

The Democrats would need four GOP turncoats to win that vote.

Collins, McSally, and Gardner are up for reelection this year in light red to purple states and they may be thinking they need to vote for the Democrat measure to keep swing and moderate support. Toomey believes this gambit will keep them and the other possible rebels on board.

LifeZette has learned that Toomey has spoken directly with Romney and Collins on the issue and they have not shot it down out of hand.

Who would those witnesses be?

According to Capitol Hill staffers on both sides of the aisle the Democrats would go with John Bolton and the GOP defense team is leaning towards informer Eric Ciaramella or Adam Schiff.

If Bolton testified against Trump and said the president directly linked Ukrainian military aid to a political hit on Biden it would mark the greatest case of political betrayal DC has seen in a while. It would also be the Fort Sumter in outright political warfare between the Warhawk and America First wings of the GOP.

Putting Ciaramella on the stand could expose his partisan nature and his lack of direct knowledge of everything he alleges, thus undercutting the entire Democrat case.

Watching Schiff squirm under cross examination from Jay Sekulow, Eric Herschmann, or, please God, Alan Dershowitz, would not only be spiritually satisfying on the order of a Bach High Mass but would set forth the firm case that the entire House process was a sham from the beginning.

Witnesses would also add to the drama of the proceeding and the media feeding would only get more frenzied.

The vote on the issue could happen this week.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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GOP Brings Out Three Big Guns in Senate Trial of Trump

Posted on January 28, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 28, 2020

Monday was a banner day for the GOP in the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump as three members of the Republican legal team, even by some liberal estimations, ran circles around the Democrat case for removal of the president.

Pam Bondi handled the myriad legitimate allegations against Joe and Hunter Biden. Eric Herschmann focused on the massive double standard being applied against Trump in this case.

Batting cleanup the famed Alan Dershowitz engaged in a historical tour de force and urged senators, some of them his former students, to rise above partisan concerns and do what is right for the country. Clinton impeachment figure Ken Starr also spoke for the defense, as did Patrick Philbin.

The low key Starr made a workmanlike appeal against a partisan impeachment, using his work in and knowledge of the Clinton drama to make his case.

Then it was Bondi’s turn and the extremely telegenic former Florida Attorney General point by point laid out the corruption at the heart of the Burisma affair. She detailed how the cozy relationship between the then veep’s son and other scions of wealth and power enabled Hunter Biden to leverage his status into a position he was completely unqualified for with Burisma. By the end of her time at the podium she had eviscerated both Bidens.

This was bound to happen when the Democrats opened the door to this line of attack on Friday.

Bondi will be heard from again on the national scene.

She was followed by the powerful arguments of Eric Herschmann, who launched a devastating strike on the double standards involved in the Trump impeachment. He showed graphic evidence of past misdeeds by Democrat presidents, most notably the infamous Obama hot mike moment with Russian leader Medvedev, that rose to the level of impeachment. Yet Democrats never uttered a peep about those. Fancy that.

Herschmann made a point of using the Democrat’s own words against them and when he was done their obvious hypocrisy was laid bare.

Alan Dershowitz then made the day’s final detailed presentation. Dershowitz used his brilliant knowledge of history and impressive courtroom manner to nail down the historical precedent against impeachment.

Citing the vague nature of the charges against the president, he noted that the Founders had made the bar for impeachment high, lest the president, as in the British parliamentary model, serve at the will of the lower house and be subject to removal from office by a virtual vote of no confidence.

At the day wrapped up, many noted the last day of the GOP case on Tuesday looks to be the finale of a very good defense for the president.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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Bolton Manuscript Leaked, Romney and Collins May Vote Against the President

Posted on January 27, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 27, 2020

Reports out of DC, on the heels of the selective leaking of John Bolton’s new book, is that Republican Senators Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine are likely to go south on the GOP trial process and vote to bring in witnesses.

If that happens the trial won’t be over by late this week/early next week. It could go on for weeks. If the duo votes against the president’s trial agenda the Dems would still need two more votes to win on the subject. They are targeting GOP Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.

The pressure to vote for witnesses was ratcheted up over the weekend with leaks from John Bolton’s new book that claim that the president directly told Bolton that the delay in military aid to Ukraine was tied to Biden.

Bolton is using the same team and strategy as has James Comey and the leak was coordinated to coincide with the impeachment trial, a vote on witnesses and, most importantly to Bolton, the availability to preorder his book online.

But bringing on witnesses is a two-edged sword for the Dems. Yes, the Dems may get Bolton. But the GOP could call Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Adam Schiff, and Eric Ciaramella. As spiritually satisfying at it would be to watch Jay Sekulow munch on their still warm legal carcasses for lunch, the sooner this charade is over is the sooner the president can get back to undistracted work and the Congress can get back to whatever it does on a daily basis aside from fundraisers and hitting on lobbyists.

Bolton’s move can not only be seen as revenge for being fired by Trump, but as another chapter in the intramural GOP fight over a Cold War national security stance or the America First approach of the president.

If Collins and Murkowski vote for witnesses it is likely to throw some meat to their moderate supporters. Alexander is a lame duck and can vote the way he chooses without electoral repercussions.

Though if he desires an appointment in a second Trump administration this would not be the way to get it. And then there’s Mittens.

This would be a way for him to play to the press and shiv Trump at the same time. Given Romney’s notorious sanctimony and ego, it may be a temptation he is unable to resist.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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Trump Defense Goes for Broke on Monday

Posted on January 27, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 27, 2020

Saturday saw the Trump defense team embarrass the Democrat House managers. With a carefully devised message and personality calibration they laid out their case in a concise yet powerful manner.

But Jay Sekulow, the Trump attack dog, said Saturday was but a mere preview. That sets a serious expectation level. What’s the movie going to look like? Here are some possible PR and legal scenarios.

The kitchen sink- The Democrats want it? They get it. After bringing up Hunter Biden and his dad repeatedly on Friday the Democrats have left the door open for the GOP team to walk right through it. Is it a trap? Will they pull a Battle of Cowpens? Unlikely.

It very well could be an invitation from the hard left of the Democrat party to do their dirty work for them and implicate Biden just before the Iowa caucuses.

Just as there are those who say the Pelosi delay was an effort to help Biden by keeping Sanders and Warren out of Iowa close to the election. Either way, Team Trump has said they’re going for it and the possible consequences are devastating for the Democrat legal team.

It will not be too hard to prove that this impeachment effort is but a distraction operation to set aside notice from a myriad number of Democrat scandals, the Bidens among them.

There is no there, there- Pat Cipollone’s team has already shown us this in an entertaining trailer. The main feature looks quite popcorn worthy. The basic premise is, where’s the crime? A phone call? A missed meeting? As Mike Purpura said, “There can’t be a quid pro quo without a quo.”

They could expose the big lie behind the entire Democrat case, that this is a political operation and not a legal argument. It is an attempt to refight the 2016 election by way of impeachment and Senate trial.

It will likely have the same outcome as that election: Donald Trump is the president.

Where is the victim? – If the Ukrainians say they felt no pressure and they didn’t even know about the defense aid delay during the time in question, just who exactly was victimized?

These and other gambits will be featured on Monday by Team Trump. It promises to be a good day for the president’s defense.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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Pence and Prince Mark Solemn Occasion, Battle Domestic Anti-Semites

Posted on January 26, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 26, 2020

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and heir to the British throne Prince Charles of Wales both attended the World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem on Thursday.

Press reports mistakenly said the Prince snubbed Pence. But they met before the main reception and thus had no need to speak at length again during it. That’s when the media said they saw the snub.

This is not true. VP and Prince Charles spoke prior to entering the event floor and after his remarks as well. https://t.co/Qr79TN42Ax pic.twitter.com/LhsQVtHMRF

— Katie Waldman (@VPPressSec) January 23, 2020

The two men face interesting scenarios in their own nations in regards to anti-semitism.

In the UK the far left Labour Party, the main opposition to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s strong and popular Conservative Party, is rife with anti-semitism. It got to the point in the recent UK election campaign that Labour party members and office holders left it in the middle of the hustings, so as not be associated with such a vile grouping.

Labour’s anti-Israel views, its cozying up to Middle East terrorists, and its fear to fight Islamist extremism is considered a large contributing factor to its tremendous bashing by the Tories at the polls.

Here we see Democrat leaders like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib take a once pro-Israel party and drag it to the edge of reflexive anti-Israeli stands and associated anti-semitism.

Thus both men have challenges on their hands.

RELATED: The Broken Down Caravan

Pence has pro-Israel President Trump’s ear. Also, as a possible successor to Trump, Pence may have to navigate his own way through these treacherous geopolitical and ethnic waters. For the sake of both nations he dare not run aground now or later.

As a constitutional royal with family issues that would drive any father to distraction, Prince Charles does have a role to play in the UK’s social and political debates. But he can not exert himself too strenuously in this regard. That would violate the constitutional settlement that took place after the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In that most British of coup de tats, King James II, who tried to rule, was overthrown by his son in law and daughter, William and Mary, who agreed to reign but not rule. That has since been the practice.

At any rate, both the U.S. and the U.K. face internal anti-semitic political movements. It is good to know that leaders of each nation are fighting against the pernicious doctrine.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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Nadler Calls Trump a “Dictator”

Posted on January 26, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 25, 2020

It is a very strange type of despot who allows his political opponents to remain out of jail, much less publicly criticize him in front of a free national legislature where one house of that body has also been given permission by said dictator to try and remove him from office.

But then, President Donald Trump is unique in many ways.

Yes, the Democrats closed up their trial arguments on Friday with the gem of Democrat House manager Jerry Nadler accusing Trump of being a “dictator.”

Now we have put up with many flights of fancy from the Democrats. But the claim that they live under a dictatorship, while they flagellate President Trump in front of a global audience, is surely one of their most absurd lines.

What the Democrats are doing, as previously noted in this space, is a move their ideological ancestors perfected in their heyday in the mid part of the last century. It is the “big lie.”

Repeat the most ridiculous lines often and loud enough, as long as you control the great part of the press, and there are those out there who will buy them regardless of the concept’s strident advocacy for cocoa puffs.

Combine that with the Democrat preference for arbitrary emotion over logic or facts and you have the kind of scenario where adult pundits on various cable news outlets will term Adam Schiff’s trial strategy and delivery as “brilliant” and “inspiring.”

Team Trump states that they did not intend to bring up Hunter Biden to any significant extent in their presentation. But since on Friday the Democrats obsessed on the Bidens, now in rebuttal the GOP has little option but to answer their forward defense on Monday.

Why the Democrats would do this, knowing full well the GOP would respond and thus put the Bidens center stage, is an interesting question to ponder.

And the plot gets curiouser and curiouser.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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Why Do Democrats Suddenly Hate Russia?

Posted on January 25, 2020 by LifeZette

By David Kamioner | January 25, 2020

There was a time, it feels like centuries ago, when the Democratic Party fought America’s enemies all over the globe. During a good part of that time the main adversary was the communist Soviet Union.

After unsuccessfully ridding itself of communist influence in the 40s and 50s, Dems like Harry Truman fought the communists in Korea, John Kennedy fought them very badly in Cuba, and Lyndon Johnson fought them in Vietnam. We know how that turned out.

But after the Johnson era in the Dem party it was taken over by appeasers and blatant communist sympathizers like George McGovern, Frank Church, and Ted Kennedy.

For two decades starting in the 1970s the Dems urged patience and caution with the Soviets. They championed every Soviet “peace” initiative that came down the pike. They openly sided with communist forces in the field in Vietnam, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. At the very least they wanted “peaceful coexistence.” At the most, a Soviet parity then superiority to American influence around the world.

But in the 1980s President Ronald Reagan seemed to use the Dems as a reverse barometer. He executed everything they despised from labeling the Soviets an “evil empire” to confronting them behind their own lines. It worked and the Soviets bit the dust on Christmas Day of 1991.

And soon, the Dems fell out of love with Russia.

True, during the Boris Yeltsin era of the 90s the Clinton administration was close to them. But when Putin took over in 1999 the Dems began actively opposing the country. Why?

I would stipulate, because the Russians were no longer communist.

When the Russians were powerful geopolitical rivals they were just fine to Dems. When they were Marxist Leninists, no problem. But have Putin wrap Russia in the Greek Orthodox faith and go bonkers for wild west capitalism and the Dems lose their long term crush on the nation.

This is not an apology for Putin’s Russia. I would not want to live there. But then, I’m not Russian.

What has happened is that the long dormant, then influential, and now dominant authoritarian socialist faction of the Dems, as evidenced in the popularity in that party of Bernie Sanders and AOC, hates Russia for turning its back on communism.

And worse for the Dems, the Russian people like America, Americans, and Donald Trump.

Enough to drive the Dems to barking madness.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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