Bookworm Room

Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.

Bookworm Beat 10/16/19: debates, impeachment theater, and European attitudes

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In this Bookworm Beat, I admit I skipped the Democrat candidate debate, and instead focus on anti-democratic impeachment and snotty European attitudes.

Bookworm Beat Obama Brennan double standards insane leftists impeachment(This is a companion post to the No. 25 Bookworm Podcast which I uploaded yesterday. The content is mostly the same, although not identical. It won’t matter much, I think, whether you prefer to read or listen.)

Ignoring the candidates debate. As a rather silly aside, am I the only one who, whenever I hear or see the phrase “candidates debate,” suddenly has a switch turn in my mind, followed by the lilting harmonies of Simon & Garfunkel’s Mrs. Robinson?

I actually skipped last night’s candidates debate. After struggling through the first two Democrat candidates debate, I decided that I didn’t have the stomach for a third.

CNN is manipulating things to push the station’s preferred candidate (as we long suspected, but Project Veritas confirms); each of the candidates’ statements is heavily scripted, and they’re all pushing one form or another of socialism, from Warren’s and Biden’s hardcore desires to the socialism “lite” from Buttigieg and Gabbard. At this point, Democrat voters may still be deciding between six of one versus half a dozen of the other, but I know that it will be a cold day in Hell before I vote for any one of them. [Read more…]

Schiff Moves The Impeachment Goalposts & Hides The Whistle Blower

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As the Pelosi-Schiff progressive impeachment push falls apart, it seems ever more likely that the “whistle blower complaint” and the IC IG’s handling of it was a deep state hit — a seditious act of unlawful manipulation of the law.

Impeachment Nancy Pelosi Adam SchiffThe Left’s impeachment narrative is falling apart.  This was supposed to be about a “quid pro quo” that saw Trump telling the Ukrainians that any future aid would be conditioned on providing “dirt” on Joe Biden.  How do we know today that even this one-sided Star Chamber proceeding, being conducted in secret, is not producing the narrative Schiff and Pelosi want?  Just watch Adam Schiff on Face the Nation Sunday, moving the goal posts on what constitutes an impeachable offense, saying now that proof of a quid pro quo of military aid for dirt on Biden is no longer needed to impeach the President:

Schiff, a deeply unethical man who claimed to have proof of Trump’s conspiracy with Russia for years, is not a man given to cautious understatement. If he had any information that he could possibly dress up as evidence of a quid pro quo, he would be screaming about it.  So to see Schiff now preparing the ground for a push to impeachment on something far less and different, then that means that his case has fallen apart. The only thing keeping his case afloat at the moment is that it is being run in secret, and thus his failures aren’t being pointed out in public daily. [Read more…]

No. 25 Bookworm Podcast: Dem debates, impeachment theater, Euro snobbery

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In this very short Bookworm Podcast, I take a quick look at the Democrat debate, democratizing impeachment, and European elitism versus American values.

Bookworm PodcastMy latest podcast is up and running. You can listen to it through the audio embed below, or at LibSyn, or through Apple Podcasts.

I’ll be publishing a companion post sometime Tuesday morning, which will include relevant videos and hyperlinks. In the meantime, here’s a brief summary of the subjects I cover in the podcast: [Read more…]

Bookworm Beat 10/15/19: Warren, Modern Art, Project Veritas, LGBT craziness and more

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Elizabeth Warren’s hubris, the decline of Modern Art, Project Veritas videos, radical LGBTQ and the church, and urban Leftism — it’s all discussed here.

Bookworm Beat Obama Brennan double standards insane leftists(This is a companion post to the No. 24 Bookworm Podcast which I uploaded yesterday. The content is mostly the same, although not identical. It won’t matter much whether you prefer to read or listen.)

Elizabeth Warren’s dangerous hubris. The other day, during my No. 23 podcast, I noted that success has gone to Elizabeth Warren’s head. She’s no longer the soft-spoken, mousy law professor I remember from the mid-1980s. Instead, she’s a nasty, aggressive, anti-conservative politician. Even Saturday Night Life has figured out that Warren is no longer Ms. Sweet Granny, but instead thinks she’s the Don Rickles of politics:

I had in the back of my mind when I mentioned this change the fact that Elizabeth Warren reminded me of a movie character undone by her own hubris. I just couldn’t remember which character. [Read more…]

No. 24 Bookworm Podcast: Warren, Modern Art, Project Veritas and more

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A Bookworm Podcast looking at Elizabeth Warren’s hubris, the decline of Modern Art, Project Veritas videos, radical LGBTQ and the church, plus more.

Bookworm PodcastMy latest podcast is up and running. You can listen to it through the audio embed below, or at LibSyn, or through Apple Podcasts.

I’ll be publishing a companion post sometime Tuesday morning, which will include relevant videos and hyperlinks. In the meantime, here’s a brief summary of the subjects I cover in the podcast: [Read more…]

Trump: Vulgar president or great president? Or both?

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Democrats who gave Obama a pass are shocked by Trump’s vulgarity — but Trump, vulgar or not, will go down as one of America’s greatest presidents.

Pearl clutching Democrats shocked Trump vulgarity(This is a companion post to the No. 23 Bookworm Podcast which I uploaded yesterday. The content is mostly the same, although not identical. It won’t matter much whether you prefer to read or listen.)

As you all know by now, Trump had a rip-roaring rally in Minneapolis. The attendees adored it, despite Mayor Jacob Frey’s efforts to block it by charging grossly inflated security fees and then by removing Porta-Potties and messing with temperature controls. Apropos that inflated security fee, and given the ugly mob scene the Left presented outside the venue, I’m reminded of this wonderful Iowahawk tweet:

One other thought that just occurred to me about the unpleasant and unseemly riots outside the venue: In 1968, when Democrats rioted outside the Chicago convention center, the mainstream media — indeed, back in the day, the only media — fully covered Democrat behavior. Fast-forward to 2019 and the mainstream media — i.e., the Democrat Party’s official media outlet — has ignored, downplayed, or lied about the riots. But back to my main point. [Read more…]

No. 23 Bookworm Podcast: Vulgar Presidents and Great Presidents

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This podcast examines hypocritical media claims about Trump’s unique vulgarity and the fact that, vulgar or not, Trump is one of our greatest presidents.

Bookworm PodcastMy latest podcast is up and running. You can listen to it through the audio embed below, or at LibSyn, or through Apple Podcasts.

I’ll be publishing a companion post sometime Monday morning, which will include relevant videos and hyperlinks. In the meantime, here’s a brief summary of the subjects I cover in the podcast: [Read more…]

An educated guess identifying the leaker behind the Ukraine whistleblower

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Reading the Ukraine transcript with an eye to the subtext and metadata, brings us close to determining who leaked to the friend-of-Biden whistleblower.

Whistleblower Leaker UkraineWe’ve learned that the so-called “whistleblower” — in actuality, someone who merely relayed hearsay information — is a former Biden associate. However, we still don’t have much information about the identity of the person who leaked to the whistleblower information about the phone call between Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy.

I think I can fill that information vacuum by looking to the only clue we have: The whistleblower’s own description of the leaker. While the whistleblower doesn’t name s/he/it, the whistleblower does describe that person’s thought processes — and, as the novels/movies tell us about FBI profilers, if you understand the thought processes, you know the person. Here, according to the New York Times, is what the leaker was thinking (hyperlinks omitted, emphasis mine):

A White House official who listened to President Trump’s July phone call with Ukraine’s leader described it as “crazy,” “frightening” and “completely lacking in substance related to national security,” according to a memo written by the whistle-blower at the center of the Ukraine scandal, a C.I.A. officer who spoke to the White House official.

The official was “visibly shaken by what had transpired,” the C.I.A. officer wrote in his memo, one day after Mr. Trump pressured President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in a July 25 phone call to open investigations that would benefit him politically.

(As an aside, it shouldn’t really matter, but it does: The New York Times misspells President Zelenskyy’s name. Alternatively, the Times thinks it knows more about spelling President Zelenskyy’s name than Zelenskyy himself does on his official website.)

When uninitiated people read the transcript, they see only a friendly call between allies during the course of which President Trump makes a request without stated conditions that Ukraine look in Crowdstrike’s role in the 2016 election. Much later in the conversation, they see President Zelenskyy mention Rudy Giuliani, with Trump responding with a “by the way” request that Ukraine might want to examine Hunter Biden’s business dealings insofar as Joe Biden boasted about getting a prosecutor fired. This is a very shallow interpretation. [Read more…]

Can Pelosi & Schiff Get Away With Running a Star Chamber Impeachment?

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What are the issues at the heart of the impeachment farce, and, as between the President and the progressives in the House, who has the superior legal argument?

Everything wrong with progressives today is playing out in the Star Chamber that Democrats are running as an “impeachment inquiry” in the House of Representatives.  The Democrats’ have dispensed with due process, precedent, and Constitutional limitation to create a juggernaut designed not to reach a just conclusion, but to ensure a vote impeaching the sitting President and bringing this nation half way to overturning the 2016 election.  Today’s progressives feel themselves above the law and believe the rest of us, including very much President Donald Trump, are unworthy of its protection.  Nowhere is that more apparent at the moment then in this impeachment farce.

The issues are two-fold.  First, may the House exercise the power to conduct an impeachment inquiry without formal authorization voted upon by the full House?  Second, is Nancy Pelosi constitutionally able to manipulate the House rules of impeachment to deny any due process or procedural protection to President Trump and to the minority members of the House?  In other words, is it true that Impeachment is nothing more than a particularly one-sided Grand Jury investigation?

A bit of background first.  A formal decision to investigate for impeachment is not a meaningless decision or a mere label.  At a minimum, once the House formally decides upon impeachment, the House accrues powers beyond that which it normally possesses.  Thus, it is a substantive legal question whether a House impeachment inquiry requires a House vote or whether the Speaker of the House can unilaterally announce the beginning of an impeachment inquiry. I know of no precedent in American or British history supporting Nancy Pelosi’s contention that she can accrue these formal powers of impeachment by simple fiat.  More on that below.

The House of Representatives normally only has “legislative” authority.  Thus House members are limited to investigating and holding hearings on matters that relate directly to producing legislation. As with so much in our Constitution, this is not a thing of bright line clarity.  But as is almost always the case, the fact that there’s no bright line does not mean that there is no line.  Perhaps the clearest example of line drawing outside of the impeachment context comes from recent House efforts to use a subpoena to force the IRS to release Trump’s tax returns.  When Trump refused to honor the subpoena, his attorneys pointed out that the House, while its members may have a political interest in reviewing Trump’s tax returns, have no legitimate legislative interest.

[Read more…]

More news about Trump “abandoning” the Kurds

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Don’t get carried away with the claim that Trump is abandoning the Kurds. “The Kurds” are not a single homogeneous people aligned with American values.

KurdsIn an earlier post, I argued that Trump is retreating from the Wilson Doctrine (America must use her blood to bring democracy to other lands) and the Obama Doctrine (America is toxic and can remedy that only by fighting wars against her interests) and instead creating a Trump Doctrine: In any war to which America sends her troops, there must be an immediate and obvious benefit to America. To this end, he’s withdrawing troops from Syria because America cannot endlessly police the internecine warfare that is endemic in the Muslim world.

The objection to America’s withdrawal is that America is abandoning the Kurds. That objection went into overdrive when Turkey instantly bombed “the Kurds.”

Except it’s not that simple, at least according to one source. There are no generic “Kurds.” As with every other region in the Middle East, there are Kurdish factions and not all of them are our friends.

Take a look at this information from a retired Special Forces officer and see if it makes you see things differently (emphasis mine): [Read more…]

A modest proposal for dealing with criminals

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While prisons remove criminals from society, they aren’t much of a deterrent for future crimes. I may have a better idea (or, at least, a creative one).

A modest proposal for dealing with criminalsI was touring a colonial era site in South Carolina when I came to the spot at which a jail once stood. Although the building was long gone, the foundations still remained, showing that the jail was about ten feet by ten feet when it was operational.

If you’re familiar with historic sites across America, this is the norm: jails were small, very, very small. I idly wondered aloud if people were more law-abiding back in the day or if the jails were packed in cattle car fashion.

Both were possible said my guide, but the real reason for the small jails was that they were not meant to be places in which people served out their post-trial punishment. Instead, they were merely holding cells before trial. Because long-term prisons are a resource hog (as we well know), the real punishments following a guilty verdict involved anything but jail time: hanging, the stocks, bodily mutilation, whipping, fines, forced military enlistment (a gamble with death), and exile. [Read more…]

Trump refuses to participate in the Democrat’s Star Chamber impeachment

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Nancy Pelosi is not conducting an impeachment.  She has turned the House into a modern day Star Chamber.

Wittes Impeachment Trump Derangement SyndromeThe President’s attorney sent the House a letter yesterday notifying them that Trump will not participate in the wildly unconstitutional Star Chamber like proceedings that Nancy Pelosi has misnamed an “impeachment inquiry.”  I’ve included the text of the entire letter at the bottom of this post.  I recommend that you read the entire letter.

The original “Star Chamber” was a dedicated Court that operated outside of the common law in Britain.  It became infamous as a place of corrupt and secret proceedings running roughshod over individual rights in order to achieve the King’s desired ends rather than to administer justice.  Parliament finally shut down this obscene “Star Chamber” of history in 1641, at the start of the English Civil War, which pitted Parliament against the King.

The spirit and lessons of the Star Chamber, however, are very much with us today.  The Star Chamber served as a cautionary tale for our Founders when they were drafting the Constitution and Bill of Rights.  And it seems to be serving as a script for Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats as they busily produce their impeachment theater.

The Star Chamber proceeding that Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff are running is not a search for the truth.  This proceeding, which is without Constitutional predicate or due process protections, and is shrouded in secrecy, is designed, like the Star Chamber, to produce a desired result, truth and justice be damned.  Don’t take my word for it, though. Below the fold you can find the full text of Pat Cippolone’s letter on behalf of the President, noting all of these issues and refusing to take any farther part in these farcical proceedings.  I recommend that you read it the whole thing.

[Read more…]

Trump’s Syria decision perfectly reflects the Trump doctrine

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Regarding Syria, Trump is fulfilling a prediction I made two years ago about the Trump Doctrine, a repudiation of Wilsonian and Obama foreign policies.

Syria Coup Trump Racism Overton WindowMore than 2 years ago, in April 2017, I wrote a post entitled Trump has a pro-American foreign policy that owes nothing to either Wilson or Obama. Although Trump had yet to articulate a policy, I concluded looking at his statements and actions during the campaign and the first three months of his presidency, that he was not only walking away from Obama’s foreign policy, but was also turning his back on 100 years of the Wilson Doctrine (a doctrine that even Obama, in his weird, inverted way, had embraced).

What follows in this post is a shorter version of that 2017 post, along with Obama’s own words about Syria which prove (to my own satisfaction at least), that I nailed the Trump Doctrine. It is, incidentally, a doctrine with which I agree. (If you’d prefer to listen, rather than read, you can find information about the companion podcast here.) [Read more…]

No. 22 Bookworm Podcast: Trump’s Syria decision represents the Trump doctrine

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Regarding Syria, Trump is fulfilling a prediction I made two years ago about the Trump Doctrine, a repudiation of Wilsonian and Obama foreign policies.

Bookworm PodcastToday’s podcast looks at President Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops from Syria. While many people are upset at the president for doing so, especially because they feel he is abandoning the Kurds, I see him fulfilling a prediction I made more than two years ago.

Back then, I compared Trump’s unstated foreign policy agenda to the Wilson Doctrine, which held America responsible for making the world safe for democracy, and the Obama Doctrine, which held Obama responsible for making the world safe from America. I concluded that Trump believes that his primary responsibility is to keep America safe, with a secondary responsibility to help our allies . . . but only up to a point. America’s interests must always come first.

I’ve embedded the podcast below. Alternatively, you can listen to it at LibSyn or through Apple Podcasts. If you prefer reading to listening, please go here. [Read more…]

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