Amorality

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Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate and ex-Vice President Joe Biden says he had no idea his son’s position as a board member of Ukrainian energy company Burisma while he, the father, sat as Vice President of the United States presented a conflict of interest because no one told him so.

Nobody warned me about a potential conflict of interest. Nobody warned me about that[.]
…
They should have told me[.]

Yeah.  And Charlie Malloy shoulda looked out for his baby brother. Joey Biden coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is….

Terry Malloy wasn’t very bright; he had that excuse. Joey doesn’t have that excuse; his excuse is all too typical of Progressive-Democrat politicians: it’s always someone else’s fault.

Larger than that is this: Joe Biden didn’t figure out for himself the existence of the conflict of interest. He was completely oblivious to the problem.

Is this the level of integrity or the sense of morality we want in the White House?

Impeachment

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The House Progressive-Democrats have settled on two Articles of Impeachment.

The first article is on abuse of power. Democrats allege that Mr Trump took advantage of his position as president to pressure Kyiv to investigate a political rival. The second article is on obstruction of Congress, related to the president’s moves to block aides from participating in the impeachment investigation.

In conjunction with this, The Wall Street Journal asked a question:

Do you think President Trump will be impeached in the House under these two articles?

Of course he will. It’s long since become politically impossible for the Progressive-Democrats to step back from this. They’re wholly committed; even stepping back to a vote of Censure, as some have suggested, would be a confession that they’ve just been engaged in a smear campaign.

Never mind that they insist, with straight faces, that it’s an impeachable offense for a President to move to defend himself against Congressional accusations, including this Congress’ empty ones.

Never mind that the Progressive-Democrats’ hearings, even as one-sided as they’ve constructed them to be, completely failed to reveal a shred of evidence of anything—only 2nd- and 3rd-hand, even some 4th-hand, hearsay and suppositions and presumptions.

And Fiona Hill’s being “quite cross” that she was being bypassed in foreign policy development vis-à-vis Ukraine.

And the Progressive-Democrats putting more stock in an ad hoc “interagency coordination group”—which has no existence in law or Executive Order—than it does in the policies of the person Constitutionally in charge of foreign policy.

The trial in the Senate will be interesting, and not only for the trial itself. It’ll be interesting to see whether Congressman Adam Schiff (D, CA) will answer a summons to testify, or whether he’ll hide behind his (likely) role as prosecutor in that trial, just as he hid behind his role as House Intelligence Committee Chairman to refuse to testify before the House Judiciary Committee.

It’ll be interesting to see what the Senate does about Schiff’s likely refusal.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Senate handles its summons of the whistleblower and that one’s refusal to appear.

“Peace” in Donbas

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Russia and Ukraine say they have agreed a ceasefire, to be effective by year’s end, in eastern Ukraine, currently occupied by Russia (along with Crimea) and Russia-instigated and -backed “rebels.”  It’s an unsatisfactory ceasefire.

There is no agreement on a timetable for free elections in the occupied eastern oblasts, even assuming the dubious need at all for elections there separate from the regular national elections. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wants Russian troops out of those oblasts before the elections; Russia’s President Vladimir Putin insists merely that Ukraine should give those oblasts autonomy before the elections. Zelenskiy is right: elections have no possibility of being free with Russian troops occupying the region.  It’s an unsatisfactory ceasefire.

Zelenskiy had hoped for more from these…discussions…among Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany.

Many questions were tackled, and my counterparts have said it is a very good result for a first meeting. But I will be honest, it is very little; I wanted to resolve a larger number of problems[.]

Not only was Russian occupation of eastern Ukraine given short shrift, the subject of the Crimean Oblast didn’t even come up. I suspect that was one of the larger number of problems Zelenskiy wanted resolved. Unfortunately, Germany, though an actual signatory to the Budapest Memorandum, which guaranteed Ukrainian territorial integrity if it gave up its nuclear weapons after the dissolution of the USSR (which Ukraine did), long ago utterly betrayed Ukraine with its decision to walk away from that agreement. Merkel reinforced her government’s perfidy with her decision to ignore the fate of the Crimean Oblast in the just concluded talks.  Russia also is a signatory, but dishonesty and betrayal are the norm with that nation.  The Crimean Oblast will continue to be partitioned off and occupied by Russia.

It’s an unsatisfactory ceasefire.

It Doesn’t Matter

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Vice President Mike Pence doesn’t think it’s a done deal that the Progressive-Democrats have the votes in the House to impeach President Donald Trump.

He’s operating from a misunderstanding of the Progressive-Democrats’ purpose. Their move has nothing to do with impeachment—they know they have no case based on what they’ve leaked from their secret hearings and what’s been exposed in both their committees’ public hearings—and everything to do with smearing Trump and poisoning the upcoming election.

As Al Green (D, TX) has made clear.

There is no limit on the number of the times the Senate can vote to convict or not [convict] a president. No limit to the number of times a House can vote to impeach, or not….

And

I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach the president, he will get re-elected.

The Progressive-Democrats will just keep the “impeachment” effort alive and ongoing through the campaign season.

Subpoenas

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Congressman Jim Banks (R, IN) wants to subpoena Congressman Adam Schiff’s (D, CA) telephone records in retaliation for Schiff’s releasing the personal call records of a fellow Congressman, journalists, and President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers.

This is why I’ve called for a tit for tat.

Banks’ anger is understandable, but his proposed retaliatory move is misguided.  The Congressman whose call record was so dishonestly publicized by Schiff, Devin Nunes, has the better response: deal with Schiff’s dishonesty and his abuse of subpoenas in court, not with revenge.

Nor Republicans nor Conservatives are Progressive-Democrats; there’s no need to stoop to their level. There’s no need for honest men and women to weaponize the subpoena process or the subpoenas themselves as the Progressive-Democrats are so dishonestly trying to do. Subpoenas are legitimate only if there is legitimate probable cause.