CNN has done an excellent job exposing the false statements made against Joe Biden at the impeachment inquiry hearing today. It is important to remember that Hunter Biden and business associates are not on trial. See link to their article.
In fact, the Chairman of the Oversight committee, Rep James Comer, began with a highly misleading statement. Republican Rep. James Comer, in his opening statement how “the Bidens and their associates created over 20 shell companies” and “raked in over $20 million between 2014 and 2019.” The phrase “the Bidens and their associates” obscures the fact that there is no public evidence to date that President Joe Biden himself received any of this money. And it’s worth noting that a large chunk of the money went to the “associates” – Hunter Biden’s business partners – not even Biden’s family itself.
Nancy Mace made the allegation of that as a known fact, Joe Biden received a bribe from Burisma. Per CNN: The claim about a bribe from Burisma is a completely unproven allegation. The FBI informant who relayed the claim to the FBI in 2020 was merely reporting something he said he had been told by Burisma’s chief executive.
The rest of the false or misleading statements are discussed in the CNN link. I think on this first day of hearings, the Chairman and others have destroyed their credibility with a series of false statements. Representatives Jim Jordan, Nancy Mace, Tim Burchett and Byron Donalds are noted as making highly misleading or false statements.
Representative Byron Donalds tried to show collusion between Joe Biden and his sons, through statements in an email, which were taken totally out of context.
How can so few right wing radical Republicans take extreme measures to disrupt government? They make a lot of baseless accusations at Committee meetings, like the recent attacks on Attorney General Merrick Garland. They lectured the Attorney General, and then interrupted him as he attempted to reply. The was a stunt made for television. They want to interfere in the legitimate role of the Department of Justice to investigate criminal activity.
Jim Jordan led the charge for Republicans. His central theme was that the Justice Department has systematically targeted Republicans, while they go easy on Democrats. Jordan and others carried this message from the hearing room to cable news or social media.
But, nothing was panning out like it should. It was totally contradicted when Democrat Senator Bob Menendez and his wife were indicted for bribery and conspiracy to commit fraud. The evidence was astounding. A search of his home found approximately half a million dollars stashed in various locations. I know he is innocent until proven guilty, but I personally this time, they have a great case against Bob and his wife Nadine. Part of the evidence comes from a wiretap of Nadine’s phone. Yes, a court authorized wiretap which will help secure a conviction. So, AG Merrick Garland proved exactly what he was testifying to- that they follow the law and the facts in each case.
I particularly like this opinion as posted on CNN:
It is much easier to block a road than to construct it. Another words, it is easier to block progress to solving a problem, than actually work to solve it. The fix must come from the electorate. Five members of Congress blocked action of Defense appropriations (Andy Biggs, Dan Bishop, Eli Crane, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Rosendale) . The one area where Republicans could always be counted on was support of the military. Now, as I began, the guard rails are off.
Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Laura Boebert will never put forward any legislation that has any chance of being passed. They enjoy frustrating progress. In fact, the 20 plus extreme radical Republicans have a certain unity, not in Congress but in the Freedom Caucus, which doesn’t really care about funding government, raising the debt ceiling or reducing carbon emissions. The New York Times provided this list of extreme Republicans in January 2023 as follows:
It is hardly all inclusive. A much longer list, is all the Republicans who supported Donald Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was rigged (election deniers).
It was no surprise to see Senator Tommy Tuberville listed as an election denier. A short biography of Senator Tuberville, shows he is totally off the rails, in blocking the normal promotion of our military leaders.
I believe that in not fixing what is not broken, which includes our military, our courts, the FBI, law enforcement, and the Department of Justice. Crashing our economy not raising the debt ceiling hurts everyone. False claims of a rigged election in 2020, damage our democracy.
There is a lot to be done going forward. Global warming is a huge problem. People have lost lives in Maui and California, and around the world in forest fires. This is real, and please don’t re-elect representatives who will do nothing. Russia can not be allowed to extend its borders. The US support of Ukraine is extremely important.
I believe in fixing what is broken, and that is the radical members of the Republican party. The next election will be critical in showing these out of control destructive members the door.
The Judiciary Committee is chaired by Republican Representative Jim Jordan. Jim Jordan is known for his very aggressive attacks on the Biden administration. He will conduct hearings to determine if President Biden committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” which warrant his removal through impeachment. It is almost certain that the committee will recommend impeachment although the supporting evidence will inconclusive. There is little justice in the Judiciary Committee under Republican control.
Obviously, Hunter Biden has legal problems. AG Merrick Garland will refuse to give details, as this is an ongoing legal matter, handled by a Special Counsel. Jim Jordan will likely refer to the shady or corrupt “Biden family” as if Hunter and Joe Biden shared a business together. There is zero evidence that Joe Biden was involved with Hunter Biden’s clients or profited from his consulting business. Jordan knows Garland can’t comment, as this is with the Special Counsel.
Rep. Jim Jordan is playing a game of deflection. If a fellow Republican is in trouble, to play the game of deflection, you accuse Democrats of doing much worse things. It seems really hard to deflect on this one, with Donald Trump charged with 91 criminal counts. The President’s son has been indicted on making a false statement on a gun application. Since he lied on the application, he is charged with possessing an illegal gun.
The New York Times got it right this morning (September 20, 2023) with the statement:
“The theory that President Biden intervened to protect his son, widely trumpeted by House Republicans and amplified by conservative news media, is central to the impeachment inquiry begun by Speaker Kevin McCarthy under pressure from the right flank of his party.”
You can be expected that Attorney General will be treated rudely. This is Jim Jordan’s style. He will spend as long as possible on the accusations, and then interrupt AG Garland as he attempts to provide an answer. In fact, Fox News frequently broadcasts just the accusations made by Rep. Jordan and other Republicans, then commentary in favor of Republican committee members.
The elephant in the room, is Trump’s legal charges. The classified documents case looks increasingly stronger, based on recent reports that Trump was actively trying to hide the documents from officials.
Garland’s opening statement will not be interrupted. Excerpts have already been given to the media. Garland will state:
“As the President himself has said, and I reaffirm here today: I am not the President’s lawyer. I will also add that I am not Congress’s prosecutor. The Justice Department works for the American people. Our job is to follow the facts and the law, wherever they lead. And that is what we do.”
I support Joe Biden in 2024. There is no better candidate.
Let me state that the chief criticism of Biden is his age, which is 80 years old. Donald Trump is 77 years old. Mitch McConnell is 81 years old. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is 75 years old. They all are putting in some very long work days and making vital decisions. Ed Meese, who recently helped former US Assistant Attorney General Jeffery Clark to remove Clark from state court, is 91 years old, and I have no doubt, with his decades of government experience including being Attorney General, provided excellent legal support to Clark.
I don’t worry about Joe. He may not be able to lift weights like Putin, but he definitely holds his own on the global stage.
Joe Biden has no serious opposition. Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Marianne Wilkerson are two announced candidates. Robert Kennedy is a weird blend of radical conspiracy public health issues and isolationist policies, like zero support for Ukraine. Marianne Wilkerson writes books on spiritualism. Kennedy and Wilkerson, are two off-the-wall candidates.
Now, the Republican candidates. Trump is the front runner by far, and this has me scared. He will return to the presidency with revenge in mind. The Director of the FBI won’t last a day, and Director Christopher Wray is his appointment. Of course, he detests the IRS, and will be pardoning every tax cheat, including himself, if he can. In fact, everyone Trump was working with in the last month of his term in office will be needing pardons. Do not vote for a twice impeached candidate who has been charged with 91 criminal counts. Your local criminal is probably more law-biding and honest than Trump.
If you are a die hard Republican, who else is there? Either Governor Asa Hutchison and Nikki Haley would be a well relief from the constant BS from the overblown Donald, and they have real government experience. I admit that I like Chris Christie but his polling numbers are way down. The rest, I hate to say this, but they are almost as bad as Trump.
I despise Ron DeSantis. He is forever on the attack. Yes, we have a drug problem in the US. A full blown invasion of Mexico isn’t the solution. Isn’t that why we are defending Ukraine, because their neighbor (Russia, I hope you know this) invaded them. DeSantis has picked fights with almost any organization in Florida, including Disney, public health, school curriculum and university programs, etc.
The rest are non-starters. See link below, breaking up the candidates into normalish, semi-normal and abnormal. The author gets to 3 candidates, by adding 1/2 Christie and 1/2 Burgum. I would consider Mike Pence normalish, except he accepted the vice presidency with Trump. A man with religion doesn’t do that!
Members of the off the wall gang include Robert Kennedy and Marianne Wilkerson on the Democrat side and Vivek Rameswany, Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis on the Republican side. The first three candidates have zero government experience. Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis are appealing to the most extreme faction of the Republican party.
So, I know many people do not like Joe Biden, but he is our best chance of working with other nations and making life better. The fires in California and in Maui, the terrible storm and floods in Derna, Libya and hurricane Idalia have one factor in common: Global Warming. Trump and the rest of the Republicans will do nothing to reduce carbon emission, because they know their base includes climate change deniers.
I am looking for problem solvers, not politicians. Global problems require global solutions. Putin is a threat to world stability. Same with North Korea and China. Stay with Joe.
The 213-acre Seven Springs property in Bedford, NY was bought by Donald Trump for 7.5 million dollars, in 1995 and belongs to the Trump Organization. The property lies about one hour drive outside of New York City, in Westchester county, close to Connecticut. This image is from the Trump’s organization website, and the mansion is truly opulent. At 7.5 million dollars, many consider this a real bargain.
The interior of the Seven Springs mansion is also stunning. It is also immaculate because no one lives there. Trump hasn’t visited the property in over four years. I’m certain there is a staff, keeping the place immaculate. He wanted this property as an investment, but every time he tried to develop the property, he ran into opposition.
It was used initially as a family get away location, where Donald and his family could get away during the hot summer months. His sons remember the property as children, where Donald Trump would have them do chores on the property and learn a bit about construction.
Trump wanted to build a golf course at Seven Springs and spent 9 years (I think 2005 to 2013) getting this approved. However, one little problem emerged, namely the golf course lawn would need fertilizer to be kept nice and green for the golfers. And the unspent fertilizer would run off into the Byram Lake, causing pollution. It’s a very common problem, as fertilizer is high in nitrates, and excessive vegetation will starve fish and other marine life of oxygen. The lake is used to supply drinking water to Mount Kisco and so real health issues were involved. So, this might explain why Trump deep down hates environmentalists. They stopped his golf course plans.
The property lies within 3 townships, Bedford, New Castle and North Castle, and residents vigorously protested the golf course on the basis of increased traffic and environmental issues. So by 2013, Trump gave up on the idea of the grand 18-hole golf course, and looked to subdivide the property and build houses on the property. More permits, more protests. Nothing really panned out.
In February 2019, Donald Trump’s lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, testified under oath in the Congressional Oversight Committee, accusing Donald Trump of inflating the value of his properties, to enhance his ability to secure loans. In his testimony, he specifically stated that the Seven Springs property had been valued at a whopping 291 million dollars. In his book in 2020, entitled Disloyal, he named other properties which the Trump organization would double or triple the value, in a very cavalier manner.
In March 2021, the Associated Press published a well researched article on the “sleepy NY estate” like a sleepy dog that you do not dare to disturb. The undevelopable property found a way to make money for Trump anyway, by making an arrangement with the state, not to develop it, and be paid for environmental conservation. Imagine that! The Donald who wanted to become rich by building another golf course, and pollute Lake Byram was now an environmentalist. Well a greedy and dishonest environmentalist who knew how to work the system was what he was.
There is more irony to this story. Donald Trump who claims to love his country so much, he wraps himself up in the American flag, was bilking millions from the government (and tax payers) with the conservation payments based on highly exagerrated property evaluation.
Axiom exposed the wide ranging valuation issues in September 2021.
It seems Eric Trump was really the one negotiating and approving these deals. The charges against Donald Trump are very long (222 pages). Everything is over appraised, apartment buildings, hotels and golf courses. A total of 23 properties are involved. See links at the end of this posting.
The court case begins on October 2, 2023 and is scheduled to go four months. It is a witch hunt in a sense that the skeletons of the Trump’s shady business deals are coming out of the closet. Actually, there is a warehouse full of skeletons. I pity the jury, who must go through all this, but it will prove again that Donald Trump and his sons have little respect for the law.
I suspect the IRS and the Justice Department will be closely following this case, and they have the authority to bring criminal charges against Donald Trump and likely Eric Trump as well. It still baffles me how Trump receives millions of dollars in contributions to defend his illegal actions, which in this case, hurt the taxpayers. Not the way to make America great.
“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth: persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. Mythology distracts us everywhere—in government as in business, in politics as in economics, in foreign affairs as in domestic affairs.” John Kennedy, Yale University commencement speech, 1962.
If it bleeds, it leads. If you want to get notice on Instagram or Facebook, just make stuff up. On Fox News, it’s usually blowing something totally out of proportion, and then blaming Biden for what some agency did or didn’t do.
Yes, there is no gas stove ban. This one began early in January 2023, and we are in September 2023. I don’t know how much longer Republicans can push this non-issue. But, honestly, there are a number of situations where electric is a better choice.
Now, a few facts. January 9, 2023, CNN news story headline, “A US federal agency is considering a ban on gas stoves.” It went on to state, “Richard Trumka Jr., a US Consumer Product Safety commissioner, set off a firestorm this week by saying in an interview with Bloomberg that gas stoves posed a “hidden hazard” and suggested the agency could ban them.” Yes, if something is really dangerous, like a toy that could injure a child, then this action is justified.
So, the Republicans went ballistic and soon it all became much more fiction than fact. “THEY are going to be sending in the FBI to seize your gas stoves, or maybe some documents like THEY did to poor Donald.”
Gas stove pollution can affect children with asthma. The pollutants given off by gas stoves can exacerbate repiratory problems, and cardiovascular illnesses.
So, I am grateful, not angry at Commissioner Richard Trumka, for raising this issue and good research. As much as I like cooking with gas, my electric range is just fine. And I’ve got an air purifier too.
Gas stoves significantly contribute to climate change. Massive heat waves occurred in the US and Europe this summer. Approximately 115 people died in the Maui fires. Wild fires are popping up all over Canada. Evacuation orders and alerts have been issued for British Columbia. Hurricane Lee is a product of warmer Atlantic Ocean waters, and I am so glad it turned. But, the people in Bermuda may not be so lucky. It is a monster.
Global warming is the inconvenient truth that was presented in the 2006 movie. So much of what was predicted in this film is a reality today 17 years later. I will post more on this later.
Bans are very limited. New York City banned gas stoves in new apartment in 2021. New York State is banning gas stoves and furnaces in new homes by 2026. They will be banned in apartments over 7 stories high by 2019. Restaurants and other businesses are exempt. Berkley, California banned gas stoves in 2019, but a recent court decision found the ban illegal.
It is unfortunate that Republicans at both the state and federal level have made such a big deal of this. What began as a health warning has suddenly become a rallying cry for Republicans. President Biden announced he has no plans to ban gas stoves.
So, all this is pure politics, all started in January when an agency director had the nerve to warn the public of health hazards associated with gas stoves.
Climate activists are right in that we have to take real action in our own country to bring down fossil fuel consumption. Global problems need global solutions, but if we don’t start in our own backyard, we’ve got no chance in convincing other countries to do the same.
Just as I completed the last posting on disqualification, a lawsuit was filed by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to disqualify Donald Trump from being on the ballot in Colorado. The lawsuit is filed against the Secretary of State of Colorado for accepting Donald Trump as a qualified candidate for the Colorado primary to be held on March 5, 2024.
In the prior posting, both conservative and liberal law professors have concluded that Donald Trump must be disqualified as a candidate because he “engaged in insurrection.” Other very well known law professors have concluded that Donald Trump is eligible to run for president.
The plaintiffs in this case are ordinary voters, who claim they have been harmed, along with the other voters in Colorado, because having an ineligible candidate on the ballot, will diminish the chances that other eligible candidates could win the primary.
Note at the bottom of this webpage, there is a link to the filed lawsuit.
I honestly don’t know if this lawsuit “has legs” meaning can it be accepted by the court as a valid legal challenge. Legal analysis by Northwest University Professor Steven Calabresi suggested that injury or harm could be claimed by one of the other Republican candidates running for president.
Another group called Free Speech for People are allied with Mi Familia Vota Educational Fund, has written letters to the secretaries of state of many states, urging them to invoke Section 3, and disqualify Trump from the ballot.
Professor Calabresi said those administrators must act. “Trump is ineligible to be on the ballot, and each of the 50 state secretaries of state has an obligation to print ballots without his name on them,” he said, adding that they may be sued for refusing to do so.
I would imagine if similar challenges succeeded in several states, the Supreme Court would accept to hear this issue. In this case, they may rule that he is eligible, given the Griffin precedent.
When Democrat secretaries of state disqualifies Donald Trump, making judgements on his actions and using their interpretation of Section 3 and case law, they are passing the will of the electorate in their state.
Professor McConnell writes: “We must not forget that we are talking about empowering partisan politicians such as state Secretaries of State to disqualify their political opponents from the ballot, depriving voters of the ability to elect candidates of their choice. If abused, this is profoundly anti-democratic.”
I agree, but would just say that this will be vehemently considered an abuse of voting rights by about half the country (Republicans), which the secretaries of state are sworn to uphold.
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