Table of Contents:
Joe Biden Ready To Stand For Whatever You Want Him To: David Harsanyi, NY Post, Oct. 2, 2020
Victor Davis Hanson: Myopic Democrats See Only Short-Term Benefit In Gutting Governing Traditions, Customs: Victor Davis Hanson, Waco Tribune-Herald, Aug. 14,2020
Nancy Pelosi’s Insanity Plea: Editorial Board, WSJ, Oct. 9, 2020
One Step Closer to Despotism?: Lee Smith, American Greatness, Oct. 8, 2020
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Joe Biden Ready To Stand For Whatever You Want Him To
David Harsanyi
NY Post, Oct. 2, 2020
Lost in the blinding gaslighting over President Trump’s remarks about white supremacists during this week’s presidential debate was the fact that Joe Biden proved again that he’s little more than a stand-in propped up by a compliant political press.
Biden was unable to answer even the most rudimentary queries about his beliefs, never mind specifics about policy. Apologies to the Twitter expert class, but opposing Donald Trump is neither a moral doctrine nor a policy agenda.
There is plenty to dislike about the president, but you rarely have to guess where he stands. Biden, on the other hand, says, “I am the Democratic Party,” and yet, after a half-century in American politics, we have virtually no idea what his presidency would look like.
Biden’s already put a lid on his past, and the press has obliged. The same reporters who will comb over 15 years of Trump’s tax returns have shown zero curiosity in nearly 40 years of Senate papers Biden has buried somewhere in a University of Delaware basement. Then again, there’s not a single significant piece of legislation Biden sponsored in his 36 years in the Senate that he still supports, so maybe it doesn’t matter.
Thanks to the media, though, I know more about some flaky QAnon candidate in Georgia than I do about the presidential front-runner’s foreign-policy positions. Or much else.
If Republicans were threatening to destroy the constitutional order by packing the courts and throwing out the legislative filibuster — one that Biden’s mentor Barack Obama once argued was an indispensable tool of a representative democracy — there would be massive pressure on the head of the party to stake out a public position.
This, incidentally, isn’t a case of forcing Biden to answer for the ravings of some fringe activists — as the media is constantly demanding Republicans do. No, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer continues to tell us that “everything is on the table” if Republicans confirm Amy Coney Barrett using the prescribed method provided by the Constitution. Voters don’t even know if one of the candidates will blow up the integrity of the American court system in retaliation. I’m not sure there has ever been a comparable situation in post-war American politics.
Instead, we hear how Biden’s feckless opportunism is moderation. Biden himself likes to drop a prefabricated line contending he was the one who beat Bernie Sanders, signaling to moderates that his candidacy prevailed over extremism. Why would someone whose campaign stemmed the scourge of collectivism co-sign a 110-page Menshevik-Bolshevik Unity Pact? (I exaggerate only slightly.) … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Victor Davis Hanson: Myopic Democrats See Only Short-Term Benefit In Gutting Governing Traditions, Customs
Victor Davis Hanson
Waco Tribune-Herald, Aug. 14 ,2020
Several of the 2020 Democratic primary candidates favored abolishing the Electoral College. Or, as once-confident candidate Elizabeth Warren put it, “I plan to be the last American president to be elected by the Electoral College.”
Furor over the Electoral College among the left arose from the 2000 and 2016 elections. Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, respectively, won the popular votes. But, like three earlier presidents, they lost Electoral College voting — and with it the presidency.
The Founding Fathers saw a purpose in the Electoral College. It ensured that small, rural states would retain importance in national elections. The Electoral College lessened the chance of voting fraud affecting the outcome of a national vote by compartmentalizing the outcome among the various states. It usually turns the presidential election into a contest between two major parties that alone have the resources to campaign nationwide.
The college is antithetical to the parliamentary systems of Europe. There, a multiplicity of small extremist parties form and break coalitions to select heads of state, often without transparency.
Yet changing the U.S. Constitution is hard — and by intent. Historically, an amendment has required a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress and an additional ratification by three-fourths of the states through votes of their legislatures.
6 things to watch for as Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings begin Monday
There is a chance that some states could render void the Electoral College without formally amending the Constitution. To circumvent the Constitution, Democrats have pushed “The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact,” an agreement among a group of states that would force state electors to vote in accordance with the national popular vote and ignore their own state tallies. Already, 15 states totaling 73 percent of the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency have joined.
Liberal academics have an array of proposed constitutional changes. Why do two Wyoming senators each represent about 290,000 voters while each California senator represents 20 million?
Forget that the founders established a constitutional republic, not a radical democracy, in order to check and balance popular and often volatile public opinion. One way was by creating an upper-house Senate that would slow down the pulse of the more populist House of Representatives.
Nevertheless, there is an ongoing effort to dream up ways to create more, and apparently liberal, senators — to change the rules rather than the hearts and minds of the voters. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Nancy Pelosi’s Insanity Plea
Editorial Board
WSJ, Oct. 9, 2020
You might think the Democrats’ procedural extremism to oust President Trump would wind down as the election gets closer with polls showing a large Joe Biden lead. But that underestimates their fanatic animosity. Now they’re invoking the Constitution’s 25th Amendment to declare the President non compos mentis.
On Friday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced legislation that would pave the way for an unelected committee to work with the opposition party to strip a President of his powers under the 25th Amendment. Mrs. Pelosi said the legislation, written by Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, “is not about President Trump.” She also said, 25 days before the election, that “it’s not about the election at all.”
Mrs. Pelosi wants to distance this 25th Amendment ploy from her party’s years-long effort to overturn the 2016 election results, but even the press corps was skeptical. Mrs. Pelosi said later in her presentation that “any of us who is under medication of that seriousness”—referring to President Trump’s coronavirus treatment—“is in an altered state.”
We’re tempted to ignore this idea as insane, but you have to inspect the details to see just how nuts it is. Mr. Raskin’s legislation is based on Section IV of the 25th Amendment, which provides that the Vice President and a majority of the President’s cabinet or “of such other body as Congress may by law provide” can declare the President “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” The President is then temporarily stripped of his powers pending Congressional intervention.
Mr. Raskin’s trick is to create a “bipartisan” 16-member committee for declaring the President incapacitated. Half of the members would be appointed by Democratic and half by Republican Congressional leadership. Eight would be doctors, including four psychiatrists, and another eight would be “former high-ranking Executive Branch officers.”
These 16 committee members would appoint a 17th member. If asked by a majority in both houses of Congress, they would “carry out a medical examination of the President.”
Why not cut the bureaucratic pretense and simply call this committee the Presidential Sanity Tribunal?
The 25th Amendment was a serious attempt to manage genuine presidential incapacity, and Presidents Reagan and Bush invoked it voluntarily when they underwent medical operations. But the Pelosi proposal would make the 25th Amendment a weapon for political scheming and abuse. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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One Step Closer to Despotism?
Lee Smith
American Greatness, Oct. 8, 2020
Donald Trump’s order on Twitter Tuesday night to declassify documents related to the FBI’s investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign suggests that he’s lost faith in Attorney General William Barr and John Durham, the prosecutor tapped to investigate the origins of Crossfire Hurricane.
Previously, the rationale for Barr’s failure to declassify Crossfire Hurricane documents en masse was that Durham needed to keep a close hold on them to build his case. But with less than a month to go before the 2020 election, the U.S. Attorney’s 18 month-long investigation has only secured one plea deal from an FBI lawyer. In the meantime, corrupt U.S. officials who spied on the Trump campaign and framed him as a Russian agent are basking in the sun. Former FBI agent Peter Strzok and former CIA Director John Brennan are on book tours; Showtime made a mini-series about former FBI Director James Comey; and the Democratic candidate for president is Joe Biden, an avatar for a potential third Barack Obama term.
A subsequent presidential retweet featuring a photo-shopped image of the late comedian Chris Farley shouting at a complacent-seeming Barr confirms that the commander-in-chief has lost his patience—“For the love of God,” the caption reads, “ΑRREST SOMEBODY.”
Trump knows that at least one of his senior officials is fighting him. CIA Director Gina Haspel reportedly is refusing to turn over documents that may further illuminate the Agency’s role in the anti-Trump plot. Haspel was London station chief in 2016 as Crossfire Hurricane agents and their confidential sources moved in and out of the British capital to target Trump campaign officials visiting the United Kingdom.
A senior U.S. intelligence official tells me she would have known what the FBI was up to in London. “There’s very little in terms of intelligence and law enforcement matters the station chief is not aware of.”
Haspel appears to be protecting herself as well as her former boss. “She had an unusually close relationship with Brennan,” says the intelligence official. “He handpicked her for the London station chief job, which is a plumb position. It’s regarded as the best job a career CIA official can get.”
Brennan’s Role in the Plot Uncovered
Documents declassified over the last several days have shed light on the role Brennan played in the anti-Trump plot. Last week Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe released a letter about information U.S. spy agencies obtained in late July 2016 regarding an assessment made by Russian intelligence. Brennan briefed Obama and other senior officials on the finding: Moscow had assessed that Hillary Clinton approved “of a plan concerning U.S. Presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private mail server.” … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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For Further Reference
Trump Announces Declassification of Russia Collusion, Clinton Email Probe Documents: Jack Phillips, The Epoch Times, Oct. 6, 2020 — President Donald Trump announced in a Twitter post late on Tuesday he has authorized the “total” declassification of all documents relating to the Russia collusion and Hillary Clinton email probes/
Beyond Court Packing: Here’s How Dems Plan To Create A One-Party State: Editorial Board, I & I, Oct. 12, 2020 –– Joe Biden has so far refused to answer the question of whether he’d pack the Supreme Court with leftist justices. But he hasn’t even been asked about a more worrisome scheme he and his party are cooking up to ensure Democrats’ election victories well into the future.
Trump Announces Declassification of Russia Collusion, Clinton Email Probe Documents: Jack Phillips, The Epoch Times, Oct. 6, 2020 — President Donald Trump announced in a Twitter post late on Tuesday he has authorized the “total” declassification of all documents relating to the Russia collusion and Hillary Clinton email probes.
Yes, Hillary Clinton Orchestrated the Russia-Collusion Farce: Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review, Oct. 10, 2020 — Did she or didn’t she? Of course she did. In late July 2016, Hillary Clinton, in an effort to divert attention from the email scandal that was haunting her presidential bid, directed her campaign to peddle a political narrative that Russia’s suspected hacking and leaking of Democratic Party emails was in furtherance of a conspiracy between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump to swing the election to Trump.
WSJ Opinion: The James Comey Election: Kimberley Strassel, WSJ, Oct. 1, 2020 — Potomac Watch: The Comey hearing was a reminder that Americans will be voting this election on more than candidate personalities. They’ll be deciding if they want a return to that swamp.
Barrett Vows to Interpret Constitution ‘As Written,’ Says Courts ‘Should Not Try’ to Make Policy: Zachary Evans, National Review, Oct. 12, 2020 — Judge Amy Coney Barrett presented her judicial outlook as drawing on that of former Justice Antonin Scalia, during her opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday
WATCH: Overwhelming Majority of Israelis Prefer Trump, Poll Shows: World Israel News, Oct. 12, 2020 – “A clear majority of Israelis favor the re-election of US President Donald Trump come November’s presidential elections,” reports i24NEWS, based on a new poll it conducted.
