Monthly Archives: November 2019

A Thought on a Tweet

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President Donald Trump, during Friday’s “impeachment” hearing with erstwhile US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, tweeted in his inimitable style a critique of her job performance over the years.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump · Nov 15
Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.

Some are suggesting that Yovanovitch wouldn’t have known about the tweet had not House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D, CA) read it out to her during her testimony, and so there couldn’t possibly be any intimidation.  Others argue the so what aspect of that; Trump’s tweet would serve to intimidate future witnesses and to intimidate Yovanovitch were she to return for additional testimony.

Especially damning, Yovanovitch testified—under oath—in answer to Schiff’s question about the tweet, that she found it intimidating.

But damning to whom?

Yovanovitch, at the time of her ambassadorship in Ukraine (and elsewhere), was a high-level US Government representative, and she still is by extension from her “plum job” at Georgetown. Her confessing to being intimidated by petty (in several senses) criticism of her job performance tells other governments, including those of our enemies, that our government can easily be pushed around.

That emboldens our enemies to act overtly against our interests, even against us.  It tells our friends and allies that we’ll fold in a crunch, including theirs.

That’s a threat to our national security.

California’s Progressive-Democrats

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They have a homeless problem, and they seem oblivious to it.

Oakland has seen a 47% jump in homelessness—one of the largest surges of any California city, according to a one-night street count released in July. The count, which used federal guidelines, showed Oakland had 4,071 homeless people in 2019, up from 2,761 in 2017. The increase puts the city’s per capita homeless rate higher than neighboring San Francisco and Berkeley and comes at a time when several West Coast cities are struggling with a homeless crisis that’s being driven by rising rents, drug addiction, mental illness and pushback from progressives.

San Francisco, Berkeley, Palo Alto, Los Angeles—the list goes on—have a severe homeless crisis.

One could almost get the impression that Congress’ Progressive-Democratic Party politicians from California just don’t care about the plight of their constituents.

It’s not just California’s Progressive-Democrat-run cities, either.  San Antonio has one so bad that the State has had to move in and try to clean the streets and under-bridge areas for them.  Seattle is just as bad.  Chicago and New York City have the same thing, although they’re less publicized, and their respective State governments—Progressive-Democrat-run—don’t provide, or even offer, any help.  Baltimore is infamous for its terrible neighborhoods.

This is what those Progressive-Democrats in Congress should be working on instead of their smear sham impeachment election year campaign.  These folks are their constituents, not the lobbyists, pressmen, and reflectors in their DC echo chamber.

One could almost get the impression that Congress’ Progressive-Democratic Party politicians everywhere just don’t care about the plight of their constituents.

US Olympic Committee

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Now styled US Olympic & Paralympic Committee, the body objects to being held accountable for its abominable handling of the sexual abuse of so many of its athletes for so long—indeed for its active suppression of complaints about those abuses.  The Senate Commerce Committee voted to send to the floor for debate and vote a bill that would authorize

Congress to vote to dissolve [the USOPC] board of directors and terminate any national governing body, which run specific sports within the U.S.

USOPC Chief Executive Sarah Hirshland had sent the Committee a letter threatening objecting to that:

[USOPC Chief Executive Sarah] Hirshland had told members of the Senate Commerce Committee: “The International Olympic Committee has made clear that Congress assuming the power to dissolve the USOPC board would violate the Olympic Charter and endanger our recognition by the IOC as a National Olympic Committee.”

Hirschland had gone further:

The International Olympic Committee has made clear that Congress assuming the power to dissolve the USOPC board would violate the Olympic Charter and endanger our recognition by the IOC as a National Olympic Committee.

In the end, the Committee called her bluff.

One of Hirschland’s few supporters, though, was Senator Mike Lee (R, UT) who made his usual libertarian-esque argument that

Washington had no right to act as judge, jury and executioner over the committee…and that the US should hold itself to higher standards than China in the operation of its Olympic movement. He also said that passing the bill would heighten IOC scrutiny on the US committee.

Because the IOC is such a paragon of virtue, too.

I often agree with Lee, but here, he’s mistaken. The protection of our children from predators is one area where the Federal government must play a role, albeit not exclusive of the States’ equally necessary role. I do agree with him, though, that we should hold ourselves to higher standards than those the People’s Republic of China employs in the operation of its Olympic movement.  This bill is a step in that direction.

Naming Conventions

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The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a bipartisan body set up by Congress to look into our…economic and security relations…has become willing to begin calling a spade a spade, instead of hiding behind euphemisms. At least in one narrow area.

The group believes Mr Xi should be known by his party title, general secretary, as a more accurate description of his role.

General Secretary of the Communist Party of China is certainly apt.  I suggest, though, a title more consistent with Xi’s actions, which are throwback to, and repetitive of, an earlier period: Emperor.

If You’ve Got Nothing to Hide

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Congressman Eric “Nuke ’em” Swalwell (D, CA) has come up with yet another bit of his distortion of our Constitution.

If the president of the United States is innocent, he will send the firsthand witnesses, John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney, to Congress.  If he’s guilty, they’ll stop us from hearing it, hard stop.

Because Guilty. He’s accused.

This is precisely the sort of invasive, prurient, government arrogance against which our Founders, the authors of our Constitution, and us citizens led the fight against, wrote into our Constitution, and ratified—including the 4th Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Swalwell must get a warrant.  He doesn’t get to peek through our windows—even through an opposing politician’s or associates of an opposing politician’s windows—just because his prying mind wants to peek.  Nothing to hide? Our privacy is all we have to hide, and it’s sufficient that we choose to protect it.  If we’re innocent? We start out that way; it’s on Swalwell and his Government cronies to prove we’re not.

And this gem:

I wanted the American people to see that these [William Taylor and Gordon Kent]…share what they saw as far as wrongdoing….

Except by their own admission under oath during the Wednesday’s hearing they saw absolutely nothing as far as wrongdoing. All they could do was describe things they’d heard others say, through an often highly convoluted grapevine.

Even Congressman Nuke ’em knows this, or he wasn’t watching the hearing. This is a measure of the level of integrity that our Progressive-Democrat politicians hold.