An Open Letter

This is an open letter to House Democrats that I share here, hoping it will be read and shared by anyone who cares about the future of our country.

Dear House Democrats,

I ask that before you vote on impeachment next week that you put on your objective thinking caps.  I realize that this entire impeachment is the culmination of 3+ years of hatred directed at the President, but I ask that you stop and consider what your vote will mean.

I understand that many people find Donald Trump’s style to be abrasive and unconventional as far as the politicians and leaders that we are used to.  They dislike his direct and colorful speaking style, his tweets, his ability to say what he thinks in plain language without the niceties and falsities of typical politi-speak.  This may be enough for some people to hate him.  It is not, however, enough or a justifiable reason to impeach him.

I understand that he embarrasses many Democrats, first because he, an outsider, bested them in the 2016 election.  On top of that he continues as president to do things that they have only perhaps promised or dreamt of:  keep his campaign promises; improve the economy; record low unemployment; improved standing in the world; prison reform; equal and consistent enforcement of laws; standing up to the deep state; refusing to let unelected bureaucrats make policy and other decisions that it is his responsibility as the people’s elected choice to make.  He is doing what the people elected him to do, and his success embarrasses many Democrats. 

I understand that the feeling of embarrassment alerts one to one’s own failures.  It hurts and it can lead to a hatred of the one who has embarrassed you.  It is not, however, enough or a justifiable reason to impeach that person.

I understand that most Democrats do not like many of the President’s policies.  That is not abnormal:  the losing party usually advocates for different policies than the winning party.   That is what elections are all about:  the people side with one set of policies or another and in the instant case the policies of Donald Trump won.   That the people did not side with your policies does not make them stupid as many of your fellow Democrats assert.  The President, elected by the people, has both the power and the duty to enforce his policies; it is not an abuse of power for him to do so.  You may hate those policies and hate him for the way in which he enforces them, but that is not a justifiable reason to impeach him.

I understand that you cannot wait until the day that this President is no longer in office.  The way to accomplish that is to present to the people a reason why they should vote for policies that you are presenting rather than for his.  The office of president should not be based upon some sort of likeability/personality contest.  And dislike of personality is not a valid basis for impeachment.

I understand that the Democrats have seized impeachment as a way to rid themselves of this strong president, but there really is no valid basis to do so; its use here is a violation of every core value upon which this country is based.  

I listened to the hearings (both Intelligence and Judiciary committees) and it struck me that your Democrat colleagues all spoke with passion and emotion along with personal narrative about their distaste of the President and his actions.  But if you listened to the more rational and logical presentations of the minority, you cannot deny that there simply are no facts upon which to base these impeachment charges aside from personal distaste for the President, his personality and style, and his policies.  

The Democrats like to call personal opinion and hearsay “fact” and in a sense it is – there is a fact that person X has an opinion.  But that opinion is not a fact of what happened.  And the actual event facts necessary for impeachment are simply not there.

Indeed, many of the facts on which the Democrats base their more general hatred of the President and his supporters are nothing more than opinions or their interpretations or predictions or speculations of what words meant, not what they actually were.  The hatred stems from negative labeling or interpretation of actions or policies that do not conform with those that your party approves.  

It is this dislike of someone who behaves and believes differently than what is endorsed by Democrats that has led to a 3+ year campaign of daily attacks against the President and his supporters.  And, as Democrats realize that they may lose the 2020 election, they bring their dream of impeachment to the House floor in their desperate attempt to subvert the will of the people, not only in 2016 but in 2020 as well.

As you cast your vote on impeachment next week, you have the opportunity to not only halt the farce that this impeachment has become, you can also show this country that you have an objective and clear mind, that you can think rationally and for yourself, that you can overcome personal emotion and stand for what is not only right, but necessary to preserve the future of our country.

I know that the Democrats love to assert that they are somehow protecting the country and Constitution with this impeachment.  But that is a false and frightening talking point.  The Democrats have already displayed a shameful disregard of the Constitution in the manner in which the impeachment inquiry and committee hearings were held.  Not only has the disregard of Constitutional mandates and protections been rampant along with disregard and disrespect for laws, rules, and procedures, but also underlying the entire impeachment charade is an egregious disregard of the core principle of our democracy that it is the people who choose, via their vote for president, what policies they want pursued. 

A vote for these sham articles of impeachment is a vote to overturn the will of the people and with it our democracy itself, for such a vote will forever destroy the ability of the office of president to truly represent the people who have elected its inhabitant.

So, I urge you to put your personal (or party) hatred of Donald Trump aside, to put aside your dislike of his policies or your belief that you have better ideas and policies.  I urge you to look objectively at the evidence or lack thereof.  I urge you to consider what your Democrat party is doing to the country with this absurd impeachment crusade.   You took an oath not to your Party but to our country and our Constitution.  I believe that if you put emotion aside, clear your head, and use your thoughtful brain that you will understand how misplaced a vote for impeachment would be. 

For the good of the country you simply must vote NO.

Articles of Impeachment – Some Initial Thoughts

So the Democrats have drafted their Articles of Impeachment, charging the President with Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Justice.  They continue, like children, to act out their anger and hatred of the President.  Indeed, other than their hatred of the President with which they twist facts and their own impressions to create evidence of their complaints, the Democrats have little support for such charges.

Let us, however, consider where these charges should really lie.  There is far more evidence against the Democrats.

Here are just some of the Democrats’ Abuses of Power:

• Charging someone with a crime without evidence and only for political gain.
• The Democrats now admit that their impeachment of the President is a political move.
• The Democrats have had the charge of impeachment on the table since Jan. 2017; they have simply been searching for a crime and still do not have the evidence, but do have the need to impeach to try to keep the President from being reelected (many have stated that if they do not impeach him, Donald Trump will be re-elected).

• They are ignoring and violating laws, rules, and the Constitution.

• They deny due process to the President during their impeachment “investigations.”
• For example, Adam Schiff hides evidence, denies Republicans the ability to call witnesses,  and subpoenas the phone records of his Republican opponents without any reasonable reason for doing so.

• The Inspector General report released yesterday tells us that Adam Schiff’s  2018 memo vilifying Republican Devin Nunes and others and defending the Steele dossier and FBI tactics (and adored by media) was riddled with lies and false statements.

• Refusal, since the 2016 election results were declared, to accept the will of the people and abide by their electoral decision. Refusal to do their sworn Constitutional duty and respect and support that decision along with the executive branch of government and the office of president.

• This is a show trial to destroy an opponent, nothing more.

And, some examples of the Democrats’ Obstruction of Justice:

• Again, refusal to allow witnesses and minority presentations at their impeachment “investigations.”

• Meeting with the “whistle blower” before he came forward in an attempt to use him to create a case against the President, then refusing to call the whistle-blower as a witness, falsely stating that to do so would violate laws, and then stating that he and his testimony are not relevant (to a charge based upon allegations by the whistle-blower!)

• Repeatedly leaking various and often misleading information to the press in an attempt to sway public opinion in their favor and against the President.

• Refusal of Adam Schiff to testify or to release full transcripts of his secret “witness” interviews regarding impeachment.

• Adam Schiff’s reading and entry into the House record of a fake transcript of the Ukraine phone call.

• The many FISA abuses outlined in the just released Inspector General report, all attempts to create a crime where one did not exist so as to be able to charge and convict the President.

• The rush to impeachment itself – denying the ability to have full investigations in what is a serious matter for the country.

• This is not justice but another act in the continuing endeavor to effect a coup and overturn the results of an election.

The above lists only begin to scratch the surface of the abuses by the Democrats.

This is now all out war.  The blood thirsty Democrats move in for the kill – not only of the man they hate but also, with him, of America as we know it. It is not Constructional. This is not right.  It is not fair.  It is not justice.      

The Democrats are playing a dangerous game.  A game that can easily destroy America.

I don’t know if Democrats really believe their press statements.  I can’t believe that any rational person would.  I don’t know if they are simply overcome with hatred as it seems, so that their sole obsession is to remove a man they hate simply because he bested them in 2016, giving the country and the people who elected him policies that are making America strong in so many ways, accomplishing so much that Democrats have promised for years but been unable to deliver.  I don’t know if it is simply about power and their insatiable thirst for it.  I don’t know if they really hate America and its greatness.  I just don’t know what or why they are doing this.  But what I do know is that they must be stopped.

This is no longer about Donald Trump.  It is about our country and whether or not we want it to continue to survive along with its Constitutional values and protections that have given greatness not only to the people of America but as a shining example to the world. 

Presidents come and go.  We the people see to that via our voices in the election booths.  But our principles, our laws, our Constitution, our values all remain.  Allowing the Democrats to subvert that system for their own hate and power subverts our entire system and moves us far closer to a form of dictatorship than democracy. 

The Impeachment Show is a selfish presentation by selfish people who think they are better than the rest of us and therefore should be given the power to decide for us whom we should have elected.  I stand firmly against that view and I hope that others do the same.

Two Worlds

That we in America are co-existing in two different worlds is really no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention at all for the last few years, and certainly since Donald Trump was elected to become President Trump (President for at least one of those worlds; the other refusing to accept him as President).   But, this all really struck me again today as I listened to the House Judiciary Committee’s latest episode of the Impeachment Show.

Today we had staffers – staff counsel – commenting on the hearsay and opinion testimony that had been provided to Adam Schiff’s Star Chamber segment of the Impeachment Show.  It was so clear as I listened to the two different interpretations of the evidence (which we will remember is not first hand accounts of the “offense” under consideration, but accounts of what someone was told by someone else who heard it from someone else who may or may not have first hand evidence).  So, rather than coming closer to the truth we become further and further removed from reality.

But, it is interesting to listen to how both sides hold some of the same buzz words and phrases dear and use them to explain what is wrong with the other side.  For example, each side proclaims how the other does not care about America and is destroying our country by disregarding the Constitution. 

In my opinion, it is ludicrous for the Democrats to proclaim that President Trump does not care about America.  Who in recent memory has done more for our country and its people?  The economy is good, unemployment is low, those disaffected groups whom the Democrats have always pandered to are experiencing far better conditions than under the Democrats who would keep them dependent and depressed. 

There is hope in the country for many who have lost or at least not seen hope for many years.  America is blossoming after having been told for years that we should be ashamed and hopeless.  This is the President’s doing, so it is hard for me to understand how people can say he does not care about America.  But, they live in a different world where they look at life through different glasses.  Glasses that are a complete mystery to me.

The Democrats proclaim that President Trump is all about using his position for self-gain.  Again, I do not see what they see.  The President is trying his hardest to make America great again, for all its people.  He donates his entire salary, making nothing for the hard work he puts in.  His businesses as well as those of his adult children are if anything losing due to being under constant attack by Democrats and the media.  I do not see the self-gain that they see in their world.

As far as disregarding the Constitution, I see the Democrats as the ones who are shredding it daily and since the moment that President Trump was elected.  It is they who refuse to accept the will of the people, who believe that they have a right to overturn the results of an election because the people’s choice is seen by them as not the one that the people should have made.  Indeed, they are disdainful not only of the choice, but of the people themselves.  They have sought since 2016 to overturn the election and remove the President.  Yet, in America, under our Constitution, the losers must accept the will of the people if our democracy is to continue.  At least, that is the reality I know, though apparently not theirs.

Beyond overturning the people’s electoral voice, the Democrats have consistently attacked the President and his supporters and appointees with star chamber like proceedings that deny fairness and due process to those involved whom the Democrats are attacking.  We witnessed this in the Russia probe, in the FISA warrants, and most disgustingly in the Kavanaugh hearing to name just a few.  And, of course, in the current proceedings in which Adam Schiff seems to think he is a king who can do as he pleases, violate House rules, and deny all due process in order to reach a goal that he has already chosen.

Moreover, it is the Democrats who would silence every voice that opposes them.  It is they who are not tolerant and supportive of the diverse views that our democracy demands.  It is they who spew hate at everyone who does not join them in their hatred of the President while at the same time claiming that it is he who is hateful.

Meanwhile, how has the President thwarted the Constitution?  In our system of laws, he has gone to the courts, not made proclamations by fiat in response to seemingly unfair and unjust demands by the likes of Adam Schiff and his gang of Impeachers.  He follows the process.  Perhaps that is why so many of the unelected diplomats who thought they were in charge were so infuriated when the President removed them or at least some of their power.  Apparently, they had forgotten that the people elect the President whose duty it is and who holds the power to make the policy decisions that they thought it was their right to make.  Again, they seem to live in a different reality than do I.

What I see are politicians set in their ways and in love with their power who are angry that President Trump is not willing to support their continued disregard of the country and its people.  They are now dug in and determined to remove him.  Removal is their only goal and they are willing to shred the Constitution and even the country to do so. 

And so, they tell their stories of how the President is destroying America.  How?  Perhaps by not leaving so that they will stop their destruction?  They tell stories of the President’s (and his supporters’) evils – racist, hateful, etc.  How?  The President’s economy is helping minorities, raising them out of the depressed, hopelessness that has been their gift from Democrats.  He enforces laws equally, not based for or against someone on their identity. 

And, returning to the specifics of the current Impeachment Show,  the president has a duty to investigate fraud that may have been perpetrated on this country by another nation or by individuals within this nation who held power and used it for their own personal or family gain.  So, when the President told Ukraine that we (our country) wanted them to investigate both the 2016 election interference and the possibility that the then Vice President’s son had in some way benefited from the Vice President’s power and position, President Trump was doing his job.  That the then Vice President happens to now be a presidential candidate should not preclude an investigation into what might be at best an unethical act during his vice presidency. 

And, here is what I really don’t understand:  it is pretty clear that the then Vice President in some way used his position for his or his family’s personal gain.  There is no evidence that the current President has done so.  Yet the Democrats would have us ignore the facts, ignore possible ethical violations by the Bidens, and instead claim that it is President Trump who is doing so.  It is like the pop psychology assertion that we see others through our own eyes.  That is, the Democrats seem to be projecting their own behavior upon the President.

It is like Truth and Untruth in 1984: “Reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else.”  And, we clearly have two realities coexisting in this country.  I would label them as follows:  The one based on emotion and the belief that if you say and believe it enough, then it will be true.  I assign this to the Trump-haters and the Impeachers.  The other reality based on reason and logic I assign to those who demand real facts and evidence, not innuendo, supposition, and narrative based upon personal feelings.

For some Truth is simply what they want it to be.  They ignore real facts that contradict their fanciful and personal narrative.   This is the approach of The Impeachers.   They, in my opinion, are not rational.  Theirs is not Truth, but UnTruth, an UnTruth designed to suit their own personal ends.   Orwell writes in 1984, “There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”  I hope that there are enough of us willing to cling to the reasonable, rational, and factually supportable Truth so that we can keep the country from not only going mad, but from the destruction that the continuing attacks of the Impeachers will cause.

Stacking Opinions

Just a few quick notes on the House Judiciary Committee hearing held today, Dec. 4.   I am not going to again go into lengthy discussion about the ridiculous nature of this Impeachment Show, but rather simply reflect on what we saw today.

First, today we saw not just opinion vs. opinion, but rather opinion based upon opinion vs. opinion based upon opinion.  That is, we had four law professors who have heard no evidence but who have heard or read opinions of others about what they feel about various actions of the President, give their legal opinions about whether those opinions they read/heard about those facts create a basis for impeachment.  Yes, it is ridiculous, isn’t it?

Let’s understand:  lawyers and especially law professors enjoy examining the law and rendering their opinions about it.  OPINION is the operative word here.  In the law, issues are issues because they have more than one possible solution.  Legal minds form opinions and put that opinion forward.  It may or may not be the opinion that will be adopted in a particular case.  Think of any simple court case.  The plaintiff or prosecution puts forth its opinion that the defendant has done something wrong.  The defense puts forth its opinion that defendant is innocent or not at fault.  Opinion vs. opinion.  A legal decision – guilt, acquittal, liability, or no liability will require fact, not opinion.

Opinions cannot be proven.  They are simply one person’s view about events.  They are not necessarily right or wrong.  As one of my law professors was fond of saying, there are no right answers, only wrong ones.  The wrong ones he referred to were those that were not well supported by facts and by clear and logical reasoning.

Legal scholars will not all agree on the meaning of a law nor on the proper resolution of a case.  This is why, for example, so many Supreme Court decisions are not unanimous.  More than one well-reasoned interpretation can be put forward.  So, while a law professor may sound very authoritative in proclaiming his or her opinion, it is not a fact, it is not a law, and it is not even necessarily correct.  If not grounded in evidence or if not soundly and logically supported, it might very well be wrong.

At the hearing today, however, we saw many Democrats asking their witnesses what was their opinion about the law (remember, that is not a definitive definition but simply one opinion about the law), then taking that law as fact, then asking the witness if the “facts” as defined by one of the earlier Intelligence Committee witnesses’ opinions, met the current witness’s interpretation of “impeachment.”  So, we have the Democrats starting with an opinion and calling it fact, then taking a professorial interpretation of law and calling it actual law, and then getting a professor to assert that the fact/opinion that he has only been told about meets his definition of law (which is really just his interpretation/opinion) and using that as a basis to impeach the President.  Yes, it really is that ridiculous.

But what troubled me today more than anything is what the appearance of these four professors told me about the future of the law and justice in this country.  Three of the four have well documented biases against the President and have been actively and monetarily involved in various campaigns against President Trump since he has been in office.  They clearly were letting their own biases color and determine their legal opinions about impeachment.  If that is what they are teaching their students, then there is little hope for the future of fairness and justice.  Witness Turley was the only one of the four who was able to render objective opinions that happened to not favor impeachment even though he himself is not a Trump supporter and is critical of many of his policies and actions.

It is that ability to divorce one’s own feelings from one’s legal analysis that is critical to justice.  To be clear, Professor Turley’s opinions are, just as those of the other witnesses, nothing more than opinion.  They are not fact.  They are not law.  But the difference is that they are based on objective examination of the relevant source materials and supported by sound legal reasoning.  While I am sure that the other professor-witnesses are also capable of such reasoning, it was fairly clear that they had not engaged in such objective analysis in this case.  There may well be logical support for their opinions, but that was lacking here because those opinions were so obviously based upon their personal hatred of President Trump. 

Professor Turley urged us all to “divide rage from reason.”  That is, there is so much hate that it is preventing the reasoned approach that is necessary for an impeachment consideration.  But it goes beyond that.  The rage, the hate that consumes the Democrats is preventing a reasoned approach to nearly anything in this country and especially to the continuation of our form of government.

So, I was deeply saddened to see the hatred overcome the three Democrat professor witnesses whose credentials should have made them able to distinguish rage from reason and hold heir personal opinions at bay while considering scholarly legal analysis, especially when that analysis may be used to affect the future of our nation and whether or not an election should be overturned.

These are legal scholars.  I expect them to understand the gravity of the undertaking when they are asked to testify about impeachment.  I expect them to understand that when they engage in scholarly discourse about the Constitution or law or past cases that they are expressing their opinions only and that they are not judges rendering decisions on facts that they have not even examined.  Yet if they are willing to accept and engage in such over biased reasoning then Lady Justice has surely lost her blindfold and the concept of a fair and unbiased hearing within the justice system is at serious risk.  This is simply not OK – for those who seek justice and for our Country which depends upon our judicial branch of government as one of the three pillars that sustain us and our freedoms.

So, the Impeachers have now built a case by stacking opinion upon opinion with no clear factual foundation.  Such a structure must surely collapse – hopefully before it takes the entire country with it.

The Impeachers also seem to be perhaps moving away from their focus group determined term of “bribery” and back toward the Mueller report – the report that took 2 years along with taxpayer dollars to investigate another ludicrous charge.  It was determined there was no obstruction there.  Yet obstruction seems to be back again.  Along with idiotic analogies to Nixon, suggestions that the President wants to be king (using the President’s minor son as the butt of a joke about this), and most anything else the President has done or said as meeting their witnesses’ opined definition of impeachment. 

Really, the only thing that is constant, the only thing that is substantiated by clear and convincing evidence, is the continuing rage and hatred of the Democrats toward Donald Trump.  It is time that everyone follows Professor Turley’s advice and “divide rage from reason.”  Then, and only then, can we move forward with the business of the country.

Just One Point as We Enter the Next Installment of The Impeachment Show

The next installment of The Impeachment Show begins Wednesday.  The continuing saga of an elite group obsessed with the fact that they lost to a man they hate, a man who is actually performing for the country and doing things that those elite have only promised for decades or simply written off as impossible.

In this episode, like the previous installments, you will be told over and over that the President is evil.  You will be told he is destroying America.  You will be told that if you support him you too are evil and if you don’t join the Impeachers then you will likely go to Hell (assuming you are still archaic enough to still believe in such foolish Biblical concepts that the elite have rejected). 

The Impeachers of course follow the belief that if they simply repeat something often enough then you will believe it to be true.  They see no need for facts or evidence.  Their narrative will control, even if it has no basis in reality. 

The episode will continue to show us how the Democrats’ obsession with destroying the President supersedes all else in their lives, including their job which is to represent the people, pass laws that benefit the country.  It has been a year since the President agreed to a new and better trade agreement with Mexico and Canada.  The Impeachers have still not found time to bring it before Congress for a vote.  They are obsessed instead with holding hearing after hearing designed to remove the President from office.

The Impeachers scheduled the current episode while the President will be abroad, conducting the country’s foreign affairs.  Their invitation to him to participate shows their focus is only on catching and destroying the President, for if he were to accept it would mean forgoing the business of the country, yet if he does not accept, they condemn him for that. 

They are focused on one thing and one thing only.  Destroying the President because he beat them in the 2016 election and is likely to win again in 2020.  Because their sole focused goal is destruction of a man they hate, they are blind to the fact that they are destroying the country in the process.  Not only sewing discord daily among the people, but actually encouraging the disregard and ultimate destruction of our Constitution, our laws, our traditional values, and our very way of life.

So, in this episode the Impeachers will bring in selected witnesses, including professorial types who will comment on the Constitution.  Of course it is doubtful that the witnesses will profess anything that is counter to the narrative of the Democrats, despite the fact that there are many Constitutional experts and scholars who do not stand with the Impeachers and whose testimony could surely reveal the many faults in their hateful narrative game that they are playing.

The Impeachers do not seem to understand that opinion vs. opinion does not result in some sort of guilty verdict.  For that one needs hard facts.  Indeed, America is all about people being tolerant of differing opinions, debating them and the policies they reflect, and speaking their support for those policies in the voting booth.  The Impeachers do not understand that a difference of opinion or hurt feelings that such difference may cause are not grounds for removing a president who was voted into office by the people.  In their obsession to remove the President, they ignore the fact that to do so overturns the will of the people, silences them, and directly contravenes our system of government.

This installment of the Impeachment Show is no different from its predecessors – fake dossier, campaign interference, collusion with Russia, Russian agent, etcetera, etcetera.  Those were just the stage trappings.  And this installment is not about quid pro quo or bribery or coercion or campaign interference or use of office for political gain.  It is about the same old thing and one thing only – getting rid of the President so that those elites, who think they know what is good for the people and should therefore be allowed to silence the voice of the people, can take power.

For that is what the Impeachers truly want.  Power to enforce their narrative upon each and every one of us, to silence those of us who disagree.  The destruction of the President is just one step in their ultimate quest for power.  With that destruction can come the destruction of the office of president and with that the destruction of three equal branches of government while at the same time it will destroy the very government of/for/by the people which is the cornerstone of our democracy.

So, the Drama returns on Wednesday.  The Impeachers vs. America.  Watch hard as they work to convince you that mere opinion without fact must control your life – as long as it is their opinion  Watch hard as they try to implant their narrative in your brain by cunning, and repetition, and by disrespecting your individual thoughts and values. 

Remember as you watch this show that this is your country, not theirs.  That is the one point around which this entire show centers.  The real question is will you cede your power and independence to the power hungry, or will you stand with the people and not let their many voices, the voices that are America, be silenced. 

Comments on the End of this Phase of the Impeachment Show

Schiff’s public impeachment hearings have concluded.  I watched the entire show.  I have a few comments, but first, I would refer everyone to Devin Nunes’ closing argument which pretty well summarizes the context of these hearings and what is really going on.  Here is the LINK.  

Now, my comments.  It’s pretty clear that these hearings are changing no one’s opinions about the President.  The Democrats will twist and turn bits and pieces of evidence until they think they have something to justify in their own minds the fact that they are trying to overturn the will of the electorate and remove a president they don’t like from office.

The real problem is that the Democrats’ actions are enabling the belief that if you don’t like the person who wins an election, if they are not whom you voted for, or if you simply don’t agree with their policies, then you can simply remove them from office.  I think the enabling is intentional, for that is exactly what the Democrats seek to do.

Democrats claim that they are defending the Constitution, but in reality their very actions thwart not only the Constitution but essentially all the core principles upon which this country is based.  They are, and have been since 2016, trying to overturn the results of an election – results that they did not like.  They seem not to understand that in America we have elections.  Some people are disappointed with the outcome; they may be upset that the person who won has different priorities or policies than did their candidate.  But, disappointed as we may be, we support the President and the Office, even while voicing our dissent to polices we do not like.  And, we remove a President not by calculated coup, but by voting.

That is America.  Refusal to acknowledge the President as President is not American.  Nancy Pelosi calling the President an “imposter” is not American; it is not the proper exercise of her oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of the United States of America.  The untold thousands who refuse to call Donald Trump “President Trump” because they state “he is not my president” do not understand how our democracy works.  Rather than exploiting that lack of understanding, the Democrats should be educating and setting an example of how we respect elections in this country.

The Democrats also disrespect our Constitution and our laws in the manner in which they handle these hearings.  Schiff, we know, is not uncomfortable lying to the American people with a straight face, but the entire Democrat party is behind the unfairness of these hearings.  Key witnesses who have actual facts are not allowed to appear, selective transcripts (mostly only favorable to Democrats) are released, Republican requests for key witnesses are denied, hearings are held in secret, laws and rules are not followed.  Instead, Schiff has set himself up as some sort of king who will run things along, overrunning all semblance of a fair and just hearing, until he reaches his goal which is to destroy the President and with him the will of the electorate.

I also want to comment generally on the witnesses who appeared at the hearings.  What we had was a parade of opinion and feelings and hearsay and individual interpretations of hearsay.  That was the “evidence” presented by the Democrats.  Incomplete testimony has been reported by the Democrat PR department (also known as the mainstream media) that seems to imply the President to be guilty of something, but if complete and full answers of witnesses are examined, one sees that any evidence of guilt is completely lacking.

The witnesses to varying extents all seemed to be upset or hurt because they no longer held the same power that they did before the current administration.  Sad they were re-called; sad their friend was re-called, upset they were no longer included in this or that meeting, upset that they were not listened to as they had been in the past, sad that their opinion about this or that policy was not adopted.   What they don’t seem to understand is that the President, not the career public servant, sets policy.  Again, this is why we have elections – so that the people can express which policy they favor by electing the person who represents that policy.  We are a government of/by/for the people and the way the people express their will is through elections.  We expect those who work for our President to understand that and not to think that we elected them instead.

Finally, the hypocrisy of the Democrats is stunning.  They want to investigate this President for every move he takes; yet they do not want an investigation of anyone else.  They seem to think that the entire Biden family should have some sort of immunity just because Joe Biden is a candidate.  The fact that Ukraine and Burisma may have used his son to seek some leverage when Biden was vice president cannot be investigated; the Republicans cannot call Hunter Biden as a witness, even though every witness said there was possible corruption involving Hunter Biden during the time that Joe Biden was vice president.

The Democrats claim it is their duty to investigate a phone call in which the actual evidence shows nothing untoward happened, but object to the President’s attempt to investigate actual corruption in a country to which we give a wealth of taxpayer dollars.  Whether the President’s concerns about the connection between Ukraine and the 2016 election or the possible Burisma corruption turn out to be accurate or not does not mean that he does not have the right as well as the duty to investigate.  That the Burisma corruption investigation might lead to questionable actions by a vice president who now happens to be a candidate for president does not mean that the investigation cannot or should not occur. Nor does it mean that the request to investigate was for political purposes, especially when every witness said there was at least an appearance of impropriety in the Burisma-Biden connection.  And, there is absolutely no evidence of any kind of quid pro quo or bribery or extortion on the part of the President.

The Democrats claim that the President was trying to influence an election.  It is they who are actually trying to influence two elections.  First, they are trying to overturn the legitimate results of the 2016 election, something they have been trying to do since before President Trump was sworn in.  Second, they are trying to influence the 2020 election with this ridiculous impeachment show.  Indeed, several Democrats have asserted that “If we don’t impeach the President he will be re-elected.” 

This impeachment show is nothing more than a political campaign strategy by a party that has nothing else to campaign on.  The current President’s policies and actions are helping ALL the people of this country and improving our status in the world while in many ways making it a safer place.  His style is not soft but often abrasive and that seems to be all that the Democrats can attack.  And so they do.  They make up stories and try to convince the American people that our vote was a mistake and we should defer to the Democrats who claim to have superior knowledge and intelligence than do we (they make their perceived inferiority of those who voted for or who plan to vote for President Trump clear by the names that they call us).   The Democrats seem to think that because they are better than we are, that we should therefore simply allow them to overturn our will and our vote, allow them to remove a duly elected President from office based on rumor, innuendo, and hurt feelings, and place themselves in power – they, the people who have no policy to run on, who rather than do the work of the American people have frittered away hours and dollars on ridiculous investigations and hearings.

The thing I find most amazing is that so many are allowing this to happen, to move forward.  That so many are allowing their voice to be stolen.  That may be the most frightening revelation of this whole process.  And, if President Trump is not reelected then I truly fear we will be facing the end of all that has made this country the shining star of the world for over 200 years.

The Impeachment Show

So, tomorrow the Impeachment Show begins – live TV entertainment.  You may watch if you like that sort of thing – a crusade based on hatred of an individual, not unlike the bullying by the “in-crowd” against a successful outsider. This is a not so good sequel to the Russian Collusion show.  If you don’t realize that this is all just part of the ongoing coup/now revolution jihad then you have not been paying attention.

Yes, it is really that ridiculous, and if it weren’t so frightening for the survival of America and all for which it stands, then it would simply be a rather poor comedy.   But it is not.  Last month I wrote about how we were no longer in a coup, but now a revolution (LINK).  My final words (before quoting “Revolution) in that post were

America is under attack.  What was an angry outburst against election results has moved from a childish outburst to a coup and now a revolution - a full out challenge to the established political order, government, culture, and their related associations and structures.   This matters.  This is a challenge to every American.  And every American who is involved in this revolution needs to be very clear on what they are doing while those of us not involved need to do everything we can to educate those warriors and defend our country from their attack.

The revolution is going full force ahead.  The frightening results that we face as both individuals and as a nation are made woefully clear in an excellent piece by historian and scholar Victor David Hanson; LINK  .  His final lines in this essay read, “One side will say, “”Just give us more power and we will create heaven on earth.”” The other says ““Why would anyone wish to take their road to an Orwellian nightmare?”” The 2020 election is that simple.”

Why, you may ask, am I quoting something about the 2020 election when this post’s title and beginning are focused on impeachment?  The answer is very simple:  the Impeachment Show is nothing more than a Democrat campaign strategy to keep Donald Trump from being re-elected.  Anyone who examines the alleged evidence realizes there is just nothing there – nothing other than innuendo and gossip and perhaps some actual disagreement about policy.  But nothing impeachable.  Let me repeat that: NOTHING.  Just as there was nothing there in the Russian collusion show; nothing there in the Kavanaugh #metoo show, nothing there is the daily diatribes against the President.  NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING.

The Impeachment Show is a campaign strategy and part of the overarching campaign to remove the president from office (the original coup attempt) and now the broader campaign to completely remake this country (the ongoing revolution).  As a campaign strategy it allows the Democrats to justify not doing what the people sent them to Washington to do (things like pass laws that benefit the people and the country, debate important issues, etc.).  They are too busy with impeachment to do anything else, and so they justify a failure to serve the people who elected them.  And, by their doing nothing, the President’s agenda becomes stalled, so they can argue that he did not accomplish what he should.  Further, it allows Democrats to throw all sorts of dirt at the President and the Republican party – the sort that you see and usually object to in the ugliest campaign ads – claiming that they must release this hearsay and innuendo as part of an open impeachment.

Of course, you must realize that this is anything but an open and fair process.  The key witnesses are avowed anti-Trumpers who consult with Democrats before coming forward.  Adam Schiff (who salivates every time he even thinks about removing Trump from office) has been running and continues to run a Star Chamber sort of process.

For those not familiar with Star Chamber, it was a court process that existed in England from the 15^th to mid-17^th centuries.  While it was originally created to fairly enforce laws against socially and politically prominent and powerful people whom ordinary courts were reluctant to convict, it became synonymous with social and political oppression through the abuse of the power it wielded.  Its proceedings were secretive and its judgments arbitrary.  It became an instrument of oppression rather than justice.

One can see why Schiff’s impeachment show is often linked to Star Chamber.  He is using what in the past has been generally a fair process and corrupting it to his purposes of removing the President from office, or failing that objective, of destroying his chances for re-election.  This is in effect both social and political oppression as it attempts to remove a duly seated president and overturn the will of the people with absolutely no valid legal basis for doing so. 

Until tomorrow the hearing has been in secret with even Republicans (and through them the people they represent) denied access.  Questions by Republicans have been disallowed.  Schiff met with the “whistleblower” before he became a whistleblower, and both are avid anti-Trumpers.  Schiff determines what witnesses can be called and which can be cross-examined.  He suggests written questions to the whistleblower instead of live testimony.  Yet it is a basic principle of American justice that one is allowed to face his accuser.  No one knows what went on in Schiff’s secret hearings – what Schiff may have said or how he may have coached witnesses.  His selectively leaked information must be viewed as tainting any future testimony and his ability to selectively allow or prevent witnesses and testimony makes the who process more of a show trial than an actual quest for justice.

The list goes on; you need only consult the daily outpouring of information.  The problem is, however, that the mainstream media fails to report much of what is happening if it even sounds, let alone is, averse to the Democrats’ position.  This is not surprising since they also fail to report the many positive accomplishments of the President for our country, or, when they do, they couch them within something portrayed as negative.

Those who hate the President will simply accept without question the narrative of the Democrats.  Yet, anyone who gives it the slightest thought will see how weak and contrived this impeachment claim is.  First, we don’t just give away taxpayer money to other countries without expecting something in return.  Any taxpayer who thinks we do should be screaming in objection. There is always some sort of exchange (“quid pro quo”) and hence that alone is certainly not an impeachable offense.

Second, the country has a valid interest in learning about foreign interference in our elections, and the President’s request that Ukraine investigate that was valid.  Similarly, if a sitting Vice President used his influence to benefit himself or a family member financially or to demand the firing of someone within a foreign country who was investigating his son, the country has a right to know about that and the President was within his right and it was his duty to ask the Ukraine to investigate. 

Third, if a sitting Vice President might now become a candidate for President, that does not negate the justification of investigating questionable acts made during his Vice-presidency. 

Fourth, there is absolutely no evidence of direct request for “quid-pro-quo” of aid for investigation, and certainly not simply for political reasons.  Indeed, not only the transcript reveals no quid pro quo, but also some very credible witnesses have clearly asserted there was no quid pro quo.

The bottom line is clear.  There is absolutely no evidence (unless you consider someone’s addition of their own narrative to actual concrete fact to be “evidence”) that the President asked for an investigation of his possible opponent in return for our foreign aid.   It just didn’t happen. 

What is happening is a group of people, led by Schiff, want to unseat a sitting president that they think the people should not have elected.  This has been their goal since 2016.  And the Impeachment Show is just their latest episode in their on-going drama.  Watch it for entertainment if you wish; but, understand that the underlying concept is based on hatred and malice the intent of which is to overthrow that which we know as America.  The Impeachment Show may look like a comedy, but if it is allowed to reach its sought-after conclusion, we will see that it was really both a horror show and a tragedy.

Coup or Revolution? Does it Matter? And Do You Really Want a Revolution Anyway?

America, its way of life and its governmental structure, is clearly under attack.  This post addresses three questions about that attack:  1. Is it a coup or a revolution? 2. Does It matter? And 3. Do the warriors even understand what they are doing?

Anyone who doesn’t see that America as we know it is under attack from within has been asleep for at least 4 and probably more than 12 years.  That attack has been called a witch hunt and a coup.  I would add another possible label: a revolution. 

A coup or coup d’etat (literally blow to state) is usually defined to include both suddenness and violence in the overthrow of an existing government.  One of the chief prerequisites for a coup is that those waging the coup have control of a major part of the peacekeeping and military elements of the government.  

A coup generally does not alter the country’s fundamental social or economic policies; rather, its purpose is to either remove a leader by force or to maintain a current leader or his successor by force.  It is a change in power from the top that merely results in the abrupt replacement of leading government personnel.

A revolution, in contrast, is a challenge to the established political order, government, and its related associations and structures.   It is generally radical and profound, establishing a new order that is radically different from the preceding one.  For example, both the French and Russian revolutions changed both the system of government as well as the economic and social structures and the cultural values of those societies.

Historian Clarence Crane Brinton in 1938 wrote the Anatomy of Revolution, likening a revolution’s dynamics to the progress of a fever.  He described a pre-revolutionary society as having both social and political tensions caused by a breakdown of the values of the society.  He saw that as leading to a fracture of political authority.  As the existing political order loses its grasp on authority, diverse forces of opposition band together to topple the existing authority. 

Socialist doctrine believes that social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes to society.  That is, socialism believes that revolution is a necessary precondition for the transition form capitalism to socialism.  Socialism does not believe that revolution is necessarily violent; rather, it is seen as a seizure of political power by mass movements. 

I would argue that while the political battles that we see going on may have started out as a coup attempt by Democrats and Never-Trumpers simply to remove President Trump from office and replace him (and the will of the people) with someone of their own choosing, the battle they are waging is becoming, if it has not already become, more in the nature of a revolution.  That is, there is a war being waged against our fundamental system of government with the hope of replacing our society with a radically different one.

We now see not just the attempts to remove the President from office.  We see attacks on our very system of government.  Our Constitution is no longer valued by those waging this war.  The First Amendment, and especially free speech, is easily dismissed when ideas expressed are not those of the revolutionaries.  The second amendment is being similarly dismissed.  Constitutional protections such as freedom from unreasonable searches, privacy rights, the belief in innocence until proven guilty are all ignored when it serves the revolutionaries’ purposes.  Hence, we have significant violations of such things as protections against wiretapping or other surveillance of U. S. Citizens; we have political assassinations being staged based on testimonies unsupported by any real facts (not unlike the encouragement of the Soviet regime of neighbors to inform on neighbors without any factual investigation or regard for truth). 

We have the continuing attempts to overturn the results of an election, not by vote but by investigation upon investigation, the current one being conducted in secret by Adam Schiff and his cronies with hearings to which he bars Republican members of his committee and, other than telling us what he chooses and claims is true, he keeps all evidence secret from any and all who are not on his team; he denies the people’s right to know. 

We have attacks on our Supreme Court:  threats that if it does not render decisions acceptable to the revolutionaries that they will “pack the court” – that is, add enough justices of their own persuasion that any and all contrary voices will be silenced.

Silencing the opposition, ignoring the facts, making up the narrative as they choose.  These are key tactics of the revolutionaries.  Their intolerance has no exceptions.  While America has always demanded tolerance while allowing individual and diverse views, the revolutionaries would deny the holding of any view, value, or belief contrary to that which they approve.  And, their attacks on many traditional values, the mere right to hold such values, is increasing every day.

Yes, this is a revolution, not just a coup.  It’s intent, whether there at the beginning or not, is now to fully replace our government and our culture with something new.

Brinton, in his study of revolutions, also observed the different stages of a major revolution.  After the government is overthrown, there is usually a period of optimistic idealism; however, this phase does not last long.   A split usually develops between moderates and radicals which ends in the defeat of the moderates, the rise of extremists, and the concentration of all power in their hands. For one faction to prevail and maintain its authority, the use of force is almost inevitable. The goals of the revolution fade, as a totalitarian regime takes command.   Again, one can see this pattern played out historically in both the French and Russian revolutions.

Hence, it is significant that this initial anti-Trump movement has now morphed into an all-out revolution.  It would have been bad enough to witness a coup in which unhappy Democrats wrested the presidency from the people and took it for their own.  But, if that had been all they accomplished or sought to accomplish, the country could have been put right again at the next election.  With a revolution on the other hand, things cannot and will not be rectified so easily or so quickly.  The Russian revolution began in 1917, the resulting Soviet Union did not fall until 1991, and Russia still feels its effects today.

America can survive a coup; it cannot survive a revolution.

The final question posed at the start of this essay is whether these revolutionaries even understand what they are doing.  That is, did the warriors enter this revolution blinded by a hatred of Donald Trump and now are being pulled along by those who do truly seek the demise of America as we know it to fight the revolution?  Do these warriors even realize what they are fighting for? 

I come back to the description of a revolution as the progression of a fever.   When President Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, many people were angry; this anger was ginned up into a hatred.  That hatred is the fever which continues to progress; its flames are fanned by those who do truly hate America as we know it and would happily see it destroyed.  This fever, this illness, was simmering before 2016 as identity politics and challenges to those holding traditional values were being used by astute politicians to begin tearing the country apart into warring factions.  Those factions and their fever are now uniting into a dangerously combustible whole, encouraged to band together to topple the existing form of government and the very fundamentals of our society.

America is under attack.  What was an angry outburst against election results has moved from a childish outburst to a coup and now a revolution - a full out challenge to the established political order, government, culture, and their related associations and structures.   This matters.  This is a challenge to every American.  And every American who is involved in this revolution needs to be very clear on what they are doing while those of us not involved need to do everything we can to educate those warriors and defend our country from their attack.

So, you say you want a revolution?  Perhaps we should end by reconsidering the lyrics of the 1968 Beetles song “Revolution”:

You say you want a revolution

Well, you know

We all want to change the world

You tell me that it's evolution

Well, you know

We all want to change the world

But when you talk about destruction

Don't you know that you can count me out

Don't you know it's gonna be

All right, all right, all right

You say you got a real solution

Well, you know

We'd all love to see the plan

You ask me for a contribution

Well, you know

We're doing what we can

But if you want money for people with minds that hate

All I can tell is brother you have to wait

Don't you know it's gonna be

All right, all right, all right

You say you'll change the constitution

Well, you know

We all want to change your head

You tell me it's the institution

Well, you know

You better free your mind instead

But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao

You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow

Don't you know it's gonna be

All right, all right, all right

All right, all right, all right

All right, all right, all right

All right, all right

Columbus Day; Indigenous Peoples Day

Today I am celebrating Columbus Day.  It is a Federal holiday.  It celebrates the courageous feat of a daring and persistent explorer Christopher Columbus who, with his 3 small ships the Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa Maria, discovered or rediscovered the land we now call America.  He found this place that the people of Europe did not know existed.

His discovery was enormous and something to be lauded in the same way that we laud the manned moon landing.  The consequences of this discovery were not all positive, and those people who were living here already, their ancestors having discovered it much earlier, suffered many negative consequences as the result of European exploration that one can argue would not have occurred but for Columbus’s journey.

But that does not diminish Columbus’s feat itself.  And, I celebrate his courage and ability to seek beyond what is known and to fearlessly go where he believed no one had previously been.  

Most every action has both foreseen and unforeseen consequences.  I do not believe that many of the negative consequences experienced by Native Americans were  foreseen or intended by Columbus.  For example, how would he have known that people living in this country would contract smallpox?  How is he responsible for the actions of Spaniards 100 or more years after his journey?

My state, like some others, has replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day.  The intent is to celebrate those peoples that we refer to as Native Americans who believe that Columbus’s journey resulted in a variety of negative consequences for them.  I have no problem with the concept behind this.  I believe that Native Americans can and should express their perceptions of and feelings about Columbus and his consequences and should educate those of us who are not Native American about those views.

But, why do we have to blot out Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day?  Why not have both?  We can celebrate and learn about the feat of a great explorer on one day, and on another day we can celebrate and learn about the people who were living here before Christopher Columbus.  Both are a part of our country’s history.  And history is important not only as a way to understand the past, but to understand why the past unveiled itself as it did and what effects that past still has on us in the present.  And history can also help us to make more thoughtful and better decisions in the future.

Moreover, I think that the use of the word Indigenous is erroneous.  In my state we have several Pueblo Peoples as well as other Indian Reservations, all inhabited by people whose ancestors were in this country before Columbus, but who, it is believed, originally came to this country from elsewhere – mostly from Asia across the land bridge that once existed during the Ice Age. 

Indigenous means something that occurs naturally in a given place or environment.  Merriam Webster clarifies the difference between the terms NATIVE, INDIGENOUS, ENDEMIC, ABORIGINAL, all of which refer in one way to something or someone belonging to a locality. NATIVE implies birth or origin in a place or region and may suggest compatibility with it.  INDIGENOUS applies to that which is not only native but which, as far as can be determined, has never been introduced or brought from elsewhere.  ENDEMIC implies being peculiar to a region.  ABORIGINAL implies having no known others preceding in occupancy of a particular region.   

I would argue that the Native Americans whom the Indigenous Peoples Day is intended to honor, are not indigenous since they originally migrated to this country from elsewhere.  The better term would be Native or Aboriginal.  I think that this misnomer does not cloud the current understanding of the purpose of the day.  But, it does blot out another key fact of history – the fact that while the Native Americans were likely the first to settle in this country, they are not indigenous but simply arrived well before any others.

Many years ago, when I was in elementary school, I learned about Columbus and his great voyage of discovery.  I learned about the negative impact that his discovery had on many native peoples.  I learned about the Asian origins of our Native American populations.  I learned about the positive and the negative consequences of European settlement of this country.  But, this fuller version of history is no longer acceptable.  Instead we seem to want good guys and bad guys and no grey area in between.  We blot out those whom we have determined to be “bad” (in this case Columbus, making him the representative for every perceived evil of European exploration and conquest in this country).  We ignore facts that don’t fully fit our purposes or our narrative (for example,  that Native Americans are ultimately not indigenous, having migrated here from Asia centuries ago). 

History, like life, is complicated.  We can celebrate Columbus, his exploratory feat and the fact that without his introduction of this part of the world we likely would not have the United States of America, probably the greatest country ever and a shining beacon of democracy for the rest of the world.  And, we can understand that other consequences of Columbus's journey brought great pain to those people already living here; we can listen to their stories and try to understand their feelings and why they may not want to rejoice in Columbus and his “discovery.” 

But, that is the beauty of America.  We allow and are tolerant of many viewpoints.  We can have Columbus Day and we are free to celebrate or not.  We can also have Indigenous Peoples Day as a time to celebrate and understand those who lived here first.  We can have both.  America does not blot out one view, one piece of history, in favor of another.  It accepts all.  And we should too.  So, while I am not opposed to Indigenous Peoples Day, I am opposed to it replacing Columbus Day.  Both Columbus and our indigenous or native peoples are a part of our history to be both celebrated and understood.  Our feelings or judgments about one should not and cannot eradicate the other.

So, happy Columbus Day and happy Indigenous Peoples Day.  May you celebrate one or both or neither as you choose, but may you learn about the people and the history of both.