Posts Tagged ‘Democrats’

Trump is indicted.

Friday, March 31st, 2023

In an obvious political move, Manhattan NY District Attorney, Alvin Bragg has succeeded in getting a grand jury to indict former president Trump on what are supposedly 34 counts of something. The indictment seems related to the Stormy Daniels case where a porn actress, represented by felon lawyer Avenatti, succeeded in extorting $130,000 from Trump during the election season. Her only evidence was a photo taken at a public golf tournament. Trump, of course, denied the accusation. He is a well known germaphobe who does not even shake hands with people. That he would have sex with such a likely STD source is ridiculous but in the midst of a campaign he paid her off with a Non-disclosure agreement which, she of course violated.

Great hilarity is, of course, widely seen in the leftist media, like the LA Times. At least they do admit the concerns of many.

The larger share — the “maybe Trumpers,” as Ayres calls them, make up 55%-60% of the party. “They’re exactly the kind of people who will want to know if this is a credible case or a trumped up vendetta by a liberal New York, Democratic prosecutor who is out to get Trump,” Ayres said.

No kidding. Nancy Pelosi has weighed in with what she thinks the law is. She thinks he has to “prove his innocence.”

Alan Dershowitz disagrees.

Dershowitz said on the Sean Hannity program on Fox News that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is playing with fire.

[W]hen you’re a democratic elected prosecutor who ran on the campaign pledge of getting Trump and you’re going to indict, forget about the former president, the man who may become the future president if he beats the incumbent who is the head of your political party. Prosecutor, you’d better have the strongest case imaginable, not a case that depends on stitching together two inapplicable statutes and using Michael Cohen.

Powerline blog also has a different opinion.

While politics has always been a scrappy arena, former President Donald Trump has radicalized Democrats and brought them to a level of derangement that few could have imagined. The full-court press to ruin Trump began the moment he descended the golden escalator to announce his candidacy in June 2015 and continues to this day.

It started with the Russiagate hoax, which was manufactured by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and carried out by the top ranks of the FBI and DOJ. The FBI falsified information on a FISA court warrant application in order to spy on Trump’s campaign, pushed the debunked Steele dossier as fact knowing full well that its sourcing was bogus, and openly boasted about trying to stop Trump from becoming president.

Now what ?

The Wall Street Journal agrees this is making history.

President Bill Clinton in 1998 was impeached by the House of Representatives for perjury and obstruction of justice related to his attempted coverup of his relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The Senate voted against conviction, but the threat of criminal charges persisted until the final hours of Mr. Clinton’s presidency, when he struck a deal with independent counsel Robert Ray. The prosecutor agreed not to pursue a grand jury indictment after Mr. Clinton admitted to giving false testimony under oath, surrendered his law license for five years and accepted a $25,000 fine.

Clinton committed perjury as well as sexual misconduct in the Oval Office, of all places.

When compared with practices in other countries, Mr. Trump’s prosecution is less unusual, even among liberal democracies. In the last decade alone, sitting or former heads of state in France, Italy, Israel, Brazil and South Korea have been charged with crimes including illegal campaign financing, bribery and tax fraud.

The Israel prosecution is the closest comparison to Trump’s. It has been pushed by Netanyahu’s enemies on the left.

Here is an analysis of that case.

The corruption charges facing him, meanwhile, are problematic. It does look as if he and his wife have been living extravagantly, and they look grasping and a bit unethical in accepting expensive gifts, such as copious amounts of rare cigars and fine champagne, from people they call “friends” but who could be seen as supplicants.

I claim no expertise in Israeli law concerning gift limits, but judging from most coverage I’ve read, the gifts in themselves seem at worst a minor violation. The major allegation against Netanyahu would have to be that the gifts were accepted as a bribe for specific official action. If the gifts weren’t just an extravagance, but actually changed Israeli government policy, that would amount to a crime under the laws of most republics.

What is chilling about the charges against Netanyahu, though, is that the alleged “bribery” involved no change in policy at all. Instead, he is alleged to have influenced media outlets friendly to him to also be friendly to those who provided the gifts.

The similarity to Trump’s case is that the legal issues are murky but the opposition is determined to drive him from office. That link is to 2019 so the campaign did not work but Natanyahu is trying to reform the corrupt Israeli courts and the left has taken to the streets in protest.

In both cases the left is using the legal system to try to destroy a political rival. The recent incident at Stanford Law School shows that the left is in firm control of law schools. In time, not so long, the legal system will be controlled by the left.

Behind the bank failures

Thursday, March 16th, 2023

I want to recommend a good piece at Conservative Tree House, which I read every day.

It is this post which connects a few dots.

This is where we need to keep the BRICS -vs- WEF dynamic in mind and consider that ideologically there is a conflict between the current agenda of the ‘western financial system’ (climate change) and the traditional energy developers. This conflict has been playing out not only in the energy sector, but also the dynamic of support for Russia (an OPEC+ member) against the western sanction regime. Ultimately supporting Russia’s battle against NATO encroachments.

The war in Ukraine, which probably would not have begun if Trump was president, led to a war of economic interests. The western democracies have invested their future in “climate change,” which used to be “global warming” before the failure to warm made that slogan obsolete. Climate change has evolved into a war on energy production. The Biden regime now has even gone after gas stoves. Since I just bought one, I have an interest. Now, they seem to be going after washing machines. Ours has failed recently so I had better be quick to replace it.

The recent Credit Suisse bank crisis is complicated by the refusal of its largest shareholder, the Saudis, to help with a bail out. Why would this be ? This brings up the topic of BRICS. This is a new financial combination made up of Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa.

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The culture wars.

Sunday, March 5th, 2023

I am pretty much a non-combatant in the culture wars these days but the gulf between decriminalizing homosexuality and the trans gender thing is just too vast for an old guy to grasp. I am pretty much a libertarian on most of this but the sexualization of children is a reach too far. I have no problem with gay marriage although Civil Union seemed more appropriate. I have worked with gays for many years and always was tolerant of them. The vicious backlash by gay “activists” after the California prop 8 was approved by a large majority was appalling. The federal judge who ruled it unconstitutional retired soon after and married his gay lover. The state attorney general did not appeal that ruling. Gay activist groups were able to retaliate by identifying those who donated to the proposition’s supporters.

Boycotts were also a feature of public response to the outcome of the election. LGBT rights groups published lists of donors to the Yes on 8 campaign and organized boycotts of individuals or organizations who had promoted or donated to it.[159][160][161] Targets of the boycotts included the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, El Coyote Cafe, California Musical Theatre, and the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel.[161][162][163]

Some supporters of Proposition 8 reported receiving death threats, some of which claimed to be “stemming from Prop 8”.[164][165] Some LDS churches were vandalized with spray paint.[166][167]

The boycotts and threats cost a few waitresses their jobs. More significantly, Brenden Eich, the founder/CEO had to resign from Mozilla.

The new chief executive of Mozilla, the firm behind the Firefox web browser, has resigned following a furore over a donation he made in support of a ban on gay marriage in California.

Brendan Eich has “chosen to step down” after less than two weeks in the job, Mitchell Baker, executive chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation, which owns the company, announced in a blogpost on Thursday.

“We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves,” said Baker. “We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.”

Thus, the “Woke” movement and “Cancel Culture” got an early start.

The “Racism” theme got a big boost from Barak Obama as he decided to use racism as a weapon to tie blacks to the Democrat Party.

First, there was the Henry Gates kerfuffle where he had lost his keys and tried to force his front door. A concerned neighbor called 911.

Gates found the front door to his home jammed shut and, with the help of his driver, tried to force it open. A local witness reported their activity to the police as a potential burglary in progress. Accounts regarding the ensuing confrontation differ, but Gates was arrested by the responding officer, Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, and charged with disorderly conduct. On July 21, the charges against Gates were dropped. The arrest generated a national debate about whether or not it represented an example of racial profiling by police.

Of course, Obama inserted himself into this local matter.

On July 22, President Barack Obama said about the incident, “I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home, and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there’s a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”

Racial relations, which had been improving since 1964, were set back almost 50 years by what followed.
Next came Ferguson, MO where a black who had just committed a robbery tried to wrest a policeman’s gun from him. Hysteria, fed by Obama, followed.

Brown was accompanied by his 22-year-old male friend Dorian Johnson, who later stated that Brown had robbed a convenience store before the shooting occurred.[3] Wilson, a white male Ferguson police officer, said that an altercation ensued when Brown attacked him in his police vehicle for control of Wilson’s service pistol. The struggle continued until the pistol fired.[4] Johnson said that Wilson initiated a confrontation by grabbing Brown by the neck through Wilson’s patrol car window, threatening him and then shooting at him.[5] At this point, both Wilson and Johnson state that Brown and Johnson fled, with Wilson pursuing Brown shortly thereafter. Wilson stated that Brown stopped and charged him after a short pursuit. Johnson contradicted this account, stating that Brown turned around with his hands raised after Wilson shot at his back. According to Johnson, [ the co-robber] Wilson then shot Brown multiple times until Brown fell to the ground.

The controversy was fueled by Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, Obama’s black former college radical “Wing Man” as he put it.

The Department of Justice investigation into the shooting determined witnesses who corroborated Wilson’s account were credible while those who contradicted Wilson’s account were not.

The officer was not indicted but riots still took place.

Peaceful protests and civil disorder broke out the day following Brown’s shooting and lasted for several days. This was in part due to the belief among many that Brown was surrendering, as well as longstanding racial tensions between the minority-black population and the majority-white city government and police.[149] As the details of the original shooting event emerged from investigators, police grappled with establishing curfews and maintaining order, while members of the Ferguson community demonstrated in various ways in the vicinity of the original shooting.

“Peaceful protests” included burning down much of the town.

The Ferguson riots were preceded by the 2012 shooting of teenage thug Trayvon Martin. who had been kicked out of her house by his mother and sent to live with his father. He was shot by a local resident who was on neighborhood patrol and who had reported him to police. The media version of the story has many distortions. One of many was that the shooter, named George Zimmerman, was white. In fact he was of mixed race, largely Hispanic. Apparently, Martin saw Zimmerman watching him and attacked. In the struggle, Martin was shot to death.

As Martin was returning from the store to the Twin Lakes neighborhood, George Zimmerman, a volunteer Neighborhood Watch person, spotted Martin, who was 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m) tall and weighed 158 pounds (72 kg) at the time of his death.[9] Zimmerman called Sanford police to report Martin, who he said appeared “suspicious”. There was an altercation between the two individuals in which Zimmerman shot Martin, killing him. Zimmerman claimed self-defense[1] and was eventually charged in Martin’s death. On June 10, 2013, Zimmerman’s trial began in Sanford and on July 13, a jury acquitted him of second-degree murder and of manslaughter charges.

Among other items omitted from the media version was that Martin was attempting to buy a drug called Dextromethorphan, which is a component of a popular drug cocktail called “Purple drank.”

As usual, Obama inserted himself into the controversy.

At a White House press conference in March, President Obama was asked about the Martin shooting, and said, “If I had a son he would look like Trayvon and I think they [his parents] are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves. Much of the media coverage had used an old photo of Martin in which he was a child.

What came next and led to the grandfather of all riots was the George Floyd case.

Floyd was a career criminal who attempted to pass counterfeit 20 dollar bills. The Minneapolis police were called and they attempted to arrest him. He resisted and may have swallowed his drugs to conceal them.

In a call to 911, made at 20:01, the employee told the operator he had demanded the cigarettes back but “he [Floyd] doesn’t want to do that”, according to a transcript released by authorities.

The employee said the man appeared “drunk” and “not in control of himself”, the transcript says.

Shortly after the call, at around 20:08, two police officers arrived. Mr Floyd was sitting with two other people in a car parked around the corner.

It was when officers tried to put Mr Floyd in their squad car that a struggle ensued.

The first two officers were rookies. In a fatal moment, they called for help and Derek Chauvin, a senior policeman arrived.

That’s when witnesses started to film Mr Floyd, who appeared to be in a distressed state. These moments, captured on multiple mobile phones and shared widely on social media, would prove to be Mr Floyd’s last.

Mr Floyd was restrained by officers, while Mr Chauvin placed his left knee between his head and neck.

For more than nine minutes, Mr Chauvin kept his knee on Mr Floyd’s neck, the prosecutors say. The duration was initially given as eight minutes and 46 seconds but Minnesota prosecutors have since revised the time.

The argument is about Chauvin kneeling on his neck but note he was in “distress” before Chauvin arrived. Like the Rodney King incident, the public for the first time saw a video of a violent arrest. Floyd died with a lethal level of drugs in his system but Chauvin was accused of murder. Chauvin was convicted after being denied a change in venue. Jurors were obviously intimidated, including attempts to follow the bus taking them to and from the courthouse which was barricaded like a fortress. When Chauvin attempted to appeal his conviction, he could not find a lawyer to represent him.

Massive riots followed. Racial harmony will not recover for decades, if ever. The installation of old racist Joe Biden and his crime family will prolong any attempt at recovery.

The Raid on Mar-a-Lago.

Thursday, August 11th, 2022

The FBI raid on Trump’s residence is unprecedented in American history. The pretext for the raid and the refusal to allow TRump’s lawyers to witness what was done is also a gross deviation from normal behavior.

Conservative Treehouse a pretty good theory of the reasons.

The motives of the DOJ and FBI are clear when you have a full comprehension of the background. However, it’s the threats and betrayals against President Trump that most people have a hard time understanding. Why he was blocked is clear, but how Trump was blocked is where you realize the scale of the threat that exists within this corrupt system.

Trump has for years been promising to declassify documents showing how the “Russiagate” conspiracy developed, including the FBI role in it.

By the time we get to September of 2018 the basic outlines of the Trump-Russia targeting operation were clear. However, the Robert Mueller investigation was at its apex, and anyone in/around Donald Trump was under investigation for ancillary issues that had nothing to do with Russia.

It was into this fray of constant false narratives that President Trump first made statements that he would declassify documents related to his targeting. It was after Trump made those statements when the real motives of putting Robert Mueller as a special counsel became clear.

With Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused from anything to do with the Trump-Russia investigation, it was Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who delivered the message to President Trump in September of 2018, shortly before the midterm election, that any action by him to release documents, now under the purview of the Mueller special counsel, would be considered an act of “obstruction” by the DOJ/FBI people charged with investigating him.

What he might have done is to bring some of those documents with him when he left the White House. Of course, that is speculation since the warrant was never disclosed to the Trump lawyers.

In essence the DOJ and FBI, along with white house counsel and a collaborating senate and media, kept President Trump from declassifying and releasing documents by threatening him with impeachment and/or prosecution if he defied their authority. The threats created a useful Sword of Damocles, and blocked Trump from acting to make documents public.

In the months that followed President Trump frequently made public statements and tweets about the frustration of documents not being declassified and released despite his instructions to do so. Many Trump supporters also began expressing frustration.

The external debate and consternation surrounded how the Administrative State has seemingly boxed-in President Trump through the use of the Mueller/Weissman counterintelligence probe, authorized by Rod Rosenstein, where President Trump was the target of the investigation.

A widely held supporter perspective was that President Trump could expose the fraudulent origination of the counterintelligence investigation; of which he is now a target; if he were to declassify a series of documents as requested by congress and allies of his administration. This approach would hopefully remove the sword of Damocles.

I had a suspicion that Trump might have been in contact with the FBI whistleblowers mentioned by Senators Grassley and Johnson. That is also a reasonable theory.

Newsweek has a typical left wing excuse.

The raid on Mar-a-Lago was based largely on information from an FBI confidential human source, one who was able to identify what classified documents former President Trump was still hiding and even the location of those documents, two senior government officials told Newsweek.

This is ludicrous as the FBI with full cooperation by Trump, searched these boxes of records in June. They even required their own padlock to seal the room.

Both senior government officials say the raid was scheduled with no political motive, the FBI solely intent on recovering highly classified documents that were illegally removed from the White House.

I doubt a 10 year old child would believe this rot.

A threshold has been crossed. Many on the left seem to cheer this on as their obsessive hatred of Trump and his voters is unending. I just hope Trump has good personal security. I don’t trust the Secret Service any more than I trust the FBI.

The Sussman verdict.

Tuesday, May 31st, 2022

Today, a DC jury packed with Democrat donors and friends acquitted Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann. The judge and jury were stacked and, I suspect it took the jury longer to choose a foremen than a verdict. As Law Professor Turley put it “You could not come up with a worse jury” for the prosecution.

This was expected but it is interesting how brazen they were, not even pretending to deliberate. Drawing a jury pool from a city that voted 98% for Hillary Clinton and for Democrats is an example of futility. A DC jury also acquitted, Gregg Craig of the same charge.

Prominent Washington lawyer Greg Craig was found not guilty of lying to the Justice Department about work he did for the government of Ukraine in a case that arose from the special counsel’s Russia investigation and that centered on the lucrative world of foreign lobbying.

The jury deliberated for less than a day before clearing Craig, a White House counsel in the Obama administration, of a single count of making false statements to federal investigators.

Paul Manafort was convicted of the same charge by a DC jury. Almost identical facts, by the way.

Nick Sandman wisely filed his defamation lawsuit in Kentucky where he lives. There is no way a DC jury would have found in his favor. His MAGA hat would have been enough to doom his chances.

Is the Biden regime risking war to hide its domestic failures ?

Saturday, January 29th, 2022

There is considerable talk in the media right now about Russia and Ukraine. Russia has moved troops close to the Ukrainian border. The Biden regime, which has no interest in the US southern border, has expressed alarming determination to stop a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Why are they so interested in a corrupt country that has no strategic importance to us ? Certainly the Biden family has profited from Ukraine. Hunter Biden, who seems to be the family bagman, was paid $50,000 a month by the Ukraine Burisma gas company.

It was in April 2014 that Hunter became a board member for Burisma with at least $50,000 per month compensation, and $83,000 by some accounts.

The board appointment for someone who had no experience in the energy industry or in Ukraine came just months after Hunter was discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserves after testing positive for cocaine.

Burisma’s board chairman, Alan Apter, said, “This is totally based on merit.” Apter added: “The company’s strategy is aimed at the strongest concentration of professional staff and the introduction of best corporate practices, and we’re delighted that Mr. Biden is joining us to help us achieve these goals.”

Recently, the president of Ukraine, in a phone call from Biden, is alleged to have told Biden to “calm down.” The transcript of the call has not been released.

Why the threats, including moving 8500 US troops to eastern Europe ? Back in the 1990s, there was a movie called “Wag the Dog.” The plot was “Shortly before an election, a spin-doctor and a Hollywood producer join efforts to fabricate a war in order to cover up a Presidential sex scandal.” Is that what is going on now ?

Biden’s poll numbers keep going down.

At 33% approval last week. The 2022 election is coming in a few months and prospects for Democrats are poor. It is known in history that authoritarian governments, like this one, have been known to create war fever and even war to conceal weakness in domestic affairs.

Tucker Carlson had a show last night on this topic. He shows the left leaning TV shows all cheerleading the Biden threats. In fact, they are accusing Carlson of being pro-Russian. Sound familiar ?

I think, with the people around Biden, there is a real risk of major errors. These people belong in the Harvard faculty club, not the White House.

The rioting is part of a plan.

Sunday, May 31st, 2020

Patriot_Prayer_vs_Antifa_protests._Photo_11_of_14_(25095096398)

The present rioting, which is occurring in cities that have leftist Mayors and administrations, is part of a plan. We have seen this slowly coming together. The “Black Lives Matter” theme goes back for years. It is increasingly radicalized. The election of Donald Trump made everything about politics.

An article in Bazaar from a few days ago: If you are married to a Trump Supporter, Divorce Them:

Supporting Trump at this point does not indicate a difference of opinions. It indicates a difference of values…You do not need to try to make it work with someone who thinks of people as “illegals.” Just divorce them

This would be amusing if it were not behind the latest attack on civilization. Are we becoming the Weimar Republic ?

In 2002, a pro-Israel event at San Francisco State University was interrupted by ‘protestors’, screaming things like “go back to Russia!” and “get out or we will kill you!’ and shoving Hillel students against a wall. Laurie Zoloth, a campus Jewis leader “turned to the police and to every administrator I could find and asked them to remove the counter demonstrators from the Plaza, to maintain the separation of 100 feet that we had been promised. The police told me that they had been told not to arrest anyone, and that if they did, ‘it would start a riot.’ I told them that it already was a riot.”

That, of course, was San Francisco, ground zero in the war on civilization, which is being directed from walled compounds in rich areas.

The insurrection, which is going on now, is an attempt to create another Kent State event, which would radicalize more young people as that event did. The Governor of Minnesota, who daughter seems to be a participant in the riot direction is desperate to find a “white supremacist” to blame.

So far, he has been blaming “outsiders,” a claim that has been proven false. Few of those arrested gave other than Minnesota addresses.

KARE11 reviewed 36 arrests on the Hennepin County Jail roster and found that 86% of the arrests they reviewed had a Minnesota address.

Following the revelation, Mayor Carter and Mayor Frey said that the information about rioters being from out of the area was inaccurate, according to KARE11.

Mayor Carter blamed the police for providing bad information.

Minneapolis Police spokesman John Elder said that he believes many of those arrested gave false addresses.

Oh, OK.

More on the plan.

The first thing to understand about the destructive mob riots sweeping the country is that they are not race riots. The death of George Lloyd in Minneapolis last week while being arrested by the police is merely the pretext for the violence. The cause is hatred. Hatred of America, first of all, but ultimately hatred of civilized order itself.

Many of the thugs looting and destroying property are white. So what we are witnessing is not a battle between black and white. It is a battle between the forces of civilization, on the one hand, and the forces of anarchy, on the other.

But no—that is not quite right. To speak of a battle between two things implies that there are two active sides. That is not, not yet, the case with the tsunami of destruction and murder we are watching on nightly television. Rather, what we are witnessing is an assault by the forces of barbarism on a supine establishment that has been pretending to represent the authority of civilization.

This is insurrection. Plan and simple.

The mayor of Minneapolis blamed “white supremacists” and “outsiders” for the violence.

Unfortunately for that assertion, there are no white supremacists to be found, only members of Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and kindred groups. An analysis of the zip codes of those arrested shows that they are overwhelmingly from the Minneapolis area.

There are no “White Supremacists,” just white anarchists and their black allies and stooges.

Even the story is now complciated by the coroner’s report.

The official complaint submitted to a Minnesota district court answers some questions, but raises others.
Things are often more complicated than they appear at first blush. That is certainly the case with the murder of George Floyd, with which former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was charged in a complaint filed on Friday.

For one thing, contrary to most people’s assumption, Mr. Floyd appears not to have died from asphyxia or strangulation as Chauvin pinned him to the ground, knee to the neck. Rather, as alleged in the complaint, Floyd suffered from coronary-artery disease and hypertensive-heart disease. The complaint further intimates, but does not come out and allege, that Floyd may have had “intoxicants” in his system. The effects of these underlying health conditions and “any potential intoxicants” are said to have “combined” with the physical restraint by three police officers, most prominently Chauvin, to cause Floyd’s death.

As I’ve noted in a column on the homepage, Hennepin County prosecutors have charged Chauvin with third-degree depraved-indifference homicide. Now that the complaint has been released publicly, we see that a lesser offense was also charged: second-degree manslaughter. This homicide charge involves “culpable negligence creating an unreasonable risk” of serious bodily harm, and carries a maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment.

This is not murder, based on the facts. The appearances were bad but maybe not so bad after all videos are seen.

Will the anarchist left be satisfied with less than a lynching of the cop ? I don’t think do. They want another Kent State but Trump is more media savvy than Nixon was under similar pressure.

What is going on with China?

Tuesday, May 12th, 2020

China was admitted into the World Trade Organization in 2001 with the understanding that they would participate in free trade and to international norms.

Until the 1970s, China’s economy was managed by the communist government and was kept closed from other economies. Together with political reforms, China in the early 1980s began to open its economy and signed a number of regional trade agreements. China gained observer status with GATT and from 1986, began working towards joining that organization. China aimed to be included as a WTO founding member (which would validate it as a world economic power) but this attempt was thwarted because the United States, European countries, and Japan requested that China first reform various tariff policies, including tariff reductions, open markets and industrial policies.

That has not happened. China has followed a mercantilist trade policy, stealing intellectual property, requiring companies selling to the Chinese to share ownership wioth often corrupt entities owned by the Peoples Liberation Army and relative of regime principals.

Mercantilism is a policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports for an economy. It promotes imperialism, tariffs and subsidies on traded goods to achieve that goal. These policies aim to reduce a possible current account deficit or reach a current account surplus. Mercantilism includes an economic policy aimed at accumulating monetary reserves through a positive balance of trade, especially of finished goods. Historically, such policies frequently led to war and also motivated colonial expansion.[1] Mercantilist theory varies in sophistication from one writer to another and has evolved over time.

America has been largely passive in tolerating this behavior until Donald Trump became president. Some of this passivity may reflect Chinese influence with US politicians.

While it may seem politics as usual in Washington today, some are alarmed.

“Nobody in the 1980s would have represented the Russian government. And now you find so many lobbying for the Chinese government,” said Frank Wolf, a retired U.S. representative from Virginia who long served as the co-chairman of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. “I served in Congress for 34 years. I find it shocking.”

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The Corona Virus Timeline.

Wednesday, April 1st, 2020

It is now becoming a theme on the left that Trump was not quick enough to recognize the coming epidemic.

For that reason, I think it valuable to keep a record of the time line.

Here is the January 12, 2020 WHO report on the virus epidemic in China.

The evidence is highly suggestive that the outbreak is associated with exposures in one seafood market in Wuhan. The market was closed on 1 January 2020. At this stage, there is no infection among healthcare workers, and no clear evidence of human to human transmission. The Chinese authorities continue their work of intensive surveillance and follow up measures, as well as further epidemiological investigations.

Here is the January 30, 2020 report by WHO on the epidemic in China.

The Committee believes that it is still possible to interrupt virus spread, provided that countries put in place strong measures to detect disease early, isolate and treat cases, trace contacts, and promote social distancing measures commensurate with the risk. It is important to note that as the situation continues to evolve, so will the strategic goals and measures to prevent and reduce spread of the infection. The Committee agreed that the outbreak now meets the criteria for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and proposed the following advice to be issued as Temporary Recommendations.

The Committee emphasized that the declaration of a PHEIC should be seen in the spirit of support and appreciation for China, its people, and the actions China has taken on the frontlines of this outbreak, with transparency, and, it is to be hoped, with success.

Trump stopped incoming flights from China on January 31, 2020.

At this point, sharply curtailing air travel to and from China is more of an emotional or political reaction, said Dr. Michael T. Osterholm, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

“The cow’s already out of the barn,” he said, ”and we’re now talking about shutting the barn door.”

A Minnesota epidemiologist’s opinion.

Nancy Pelosi tours Chinatown on February 24, 2020.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a point of taking a walk through San Francisco’s Chinatown on Monday to show that it is safe, after some merchants have seen a 50% drop in business as some fear they could be exposed to the coronavirus.

As her visit began, a large portion of Chinatown had lost power. That didn’t deter the Speaker from walking along Ross Alley and Grant Avenue.

“I’m here,” she said. “We feel safe and sound with so many of us coming here. It’s not only to say it’s safe but to say thank you for being Chinatown.”

On March 16, 2020, Mayor de Blasio was still enouraging people to attend crowded events.

For most of last week, as Mayor Bill de Blasio continued to urge New Yorkers to mostly go about their daily lives — sending their children to school, frequenting the city’s businesses — some of his top aides were furiously trying to change the mayor’s approach to the coronavirus outbreak.

There had been arguments and shouting matches between the mayor and some of his advisers; some top health officials had even threatened to resign if he refused to accept the need to close schools and businesses, according to several people familiar with the internal discussions.

So much for the urgency in dealing with the epidemic.

The fake impeachment comes to an end.

Saturday, February 1st, 2020

The hysteria that began when Donald Trump won the 2016 election has labored and brought forth a mouse that was dealt with today in the Senate. There are still a few blows to administer, as the State of the Union speech Tuesday before a humiliated Democrat Congress, and the final vote to end the farce Wednesday. The Mueller “Investigation” which ended the Russia Hoax, was anticlimax. Then came the Ukraine manufactured crisis.

The level of corruption by the Biden family, explored in Peter Schweizer’s book, Profiles in Corruption. All the Bidens, not just Hunter the coke addled son, but the brothers and even the sister, are riddled with corruption. The Ukraine matter is just one of the tales in the book.

The Russia collusion was largely based on a “dossier” paid for by the Clinton campaign and probably the product of Russian disinformation. Thus, the political campaign that colluded with Russia was that of Hillary Clinton, not Trump. The Russia collusion was largely based on a “dossier” paid for by the Clinton campaign and probably the product of Russian disinformation. Thus, the political campaign that colluded with Russia was that of Hillary Clinton, not Trump.

I had my doubts about Trump in the beginning.

I am not a Trump supporter but I am intrigued at the steady progress he is making toward success. I have been a fan of Angelo Codevilla’s characterization of America’s Ruling Class.

The recent collapse of Republican Congressional resistance to the left’s political agenda as noted in the surrender of Paul Ryan to the Democrats in the budget, has aggravated the Republican base and its frustration.

Ryan went on Bill Bennett’s radio show on Tuesday to tell his side of the story, which involves the fact that he inherited from outgoing Speaker John Boehner an unfavorable budget framework, as well as some of the tradeoffs involved (especially defense spending). He also laid out the argument I’ve heard elsewhere, which is that he needed to “clear the decks” so that a real return to “regular order” budgeting next year will be possible. You may or may not be persuaded, but the contrast with Boehner is fairly plain, I think.

Ryan, after the election, was a disgrace.

In spite of Democrat and some Republican hysteria, Trump has moved along, cancelling crippling regulation and negotiating trade reforms with Mexico, Canada and China. Meanwhile the hysteria grew.

Then Mueller flamed out with no payoff for the millions spent.

Mueller’s anti-Trump staffers knew they were never going to be able to drive Trump from office by indicting him. The only plausible way to drive him from office was to prioritize, over all else, making the report public. Then, perhaps Congress would use it to impeach. At the very least, the 448 pages of uncharged conduct would wound Trump politically, helping lead to his defeat in 2020 — an enticing thought for someone who had, say, attended the Hillary Clinton “victory” party and expressed adulatory “awe” for acting AG (and fellow Obama holdover) Sally Yates when she insubordinately refused to enforce Trump’s border security order.

Next came the ridiculous Ukraine matter.

It seems that Burisma, a Ukraine oil and gas firm, =was a piggybank for Democrats.

The memos raise troubling questions:
1.) If the Ukraine prosecutor’s firing involved only his alleged corruption and ineptitude, why did Burisma’s American legal team refer to those allegations as “false information?”
2.) If the firing had nothing to do with the Burisma case, as Biden has adamantly claimed, why would Burisma’s American lawyers contact the replacement prosecutor within hours of the termination and urgently seek a meeting in Ukraine to discuss the case?

Ukrainian prosecutors say they have tried to get this information to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) since the summer of 2018, fearing it might be evidence of possible violations of U.S. ethics laws. First, they hired a former federal prosecutor to bring the information to the U.S. attorney in New York, who, they say, showed no interest. Then, the Ukrainians reached out to President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

The memos refer to Hundreds of pages of never-released memos and documents — many from inside the American team helping Burisma to stave off its legal troubles — conflict with Biden’s narrative.

It is clear that Ukraine participated in the Clinton/DNC efforts to defeat Trump in 2016 and damage his administration after the election.

Ukraine provided the damaging material on Paul Manafort and his ten year old relationship with its government.

In February 2014, the Ukrainian Euromaidan uprising finally forced the flight to Moscow of Manafort’s client, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. With American attention intensifying as tensions boiled over in Kiev, Manafort reentered the FBI’s investigative cross-hairs, as did other American political consultants who did work that benefitted the Party of Regions.

Yanukovych’s abdication delighted the Obama administration, which was quick to back the new administration of President Petro Poroshenko. Kiev became so dependent on Washington for desperately needed financial support that, by threatening to withhold funds, Vice President Joe Biden pressured Poroshenko into firing Viktor Shokin, one of his top prosecutors. Shokin just happened to be investigating a natural gas company called Burisma, which just happened to have placed Hunter Biden, the vice president’s son, on its board of directors.

It was easy for the Obama people to force Ukraine to participate in the plot to take down Trump.

In 2014, NABU alerted the bureau to a ledger said to have belonged to Yanukovych, bête noire of the new Ukrainian government. The ledger purports to show $12.7 million in cash payments to Manafort. The FBI used the information to interview Manafort, but the authenticity of the ledger has not been established. Manafort dismisses it as fake, contending that the Party of Regions paid him by wire transfer, not cash. Ukrainian officials have conceded that they cannot prove the payments reflected in the ledger were made. The case was thus reportedly closed with no charges. (Perhaps not coincidental to the Obama Justice Department’s decision not to pursue the case: Manafort had brought influential Democrats into his Ukrainian work, such as former Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig and the consulting firm started by Obama and Clinton adviser John Podesta — a firm that is still run by Podesta’s brother.)

Gregg Craig was later prosecuted for the same FARA violations that landed Manafort in prison. A DC jury quickly acquitted him. Manafort is still in prison.

The impeachment caper ended this week with the final end to be posted next week with the Senate vote but it is all over but the next attempt by Democrats to take down Trump.

According to Devin Nunes, that will continue with the next ginned up scandal.

The only thing that would really bring this to an end will be an electoral spanking similar to that administered to that of the Labour Party last fall after the BREXIT affair.