More Lies

And Trump is the liar!

Dueling Conspiracies (Part 3)

Parnas and Giuliani

Stayed up last night to watch more Lev Parnas on the Rachael Maddow Show. Her interview only made this whole Ukrainian farce even murkier. Here are a few takeaways:

- Rudy Giuliani has lost a lot off of his fastball to have trusted this man who, at the drop of an indictment, switched sides. The motto of the Ukraine must be “duplicity” ... for everyone there seems infected. Rudy once knew how to handle the New York mafia. But they were pikers next to the Ukrainians.

- My guess was that Parnas was lying about every third utterance. But, like any good liar, he said enough credible things to be convincing. He clearly was playing to the prosecutors in the Southern District of New York for leniency in his money laundering and illegal political contributions charges,

- It is very doubtful that Ambassador Marie Yovanovich was ever in any physical jeopardy. Maddow neglected to mention that she was recalled the very night before Zelensky was inaugurated as the Ukraine’s new president. This obviously was significant.

- Parnas did say ... believably, and because of dirt supplied by him ... that Trump tried to fire Ambassador Yovanovich a number of times only to be thwarted by the Deep State at the State Department. How Trump has prevailed in all that he has accomplished ... against the entrenched bureaucracy, disinclined to even get him a cup of coffee ... tells me he is a remarkable manager.

- Last observation: If the Senate calls witnesses like Parnas and opens up this whole Ukraine corruption can of worms, Trump’s impeachment trial will last at least until June ... in order to sort through all this bleep.

Fooling Themselves?

MSNBC shows like the Rachael Maddow Show and Morning Joe have been climbing the cable TV ratings charts ever since they moved to the vanguard of the never-Trump movement. CNN on the other hand is emulating the Hindenburg. What's the diff? I think that the audience expectation for CNN is for news ... an area where it has lost great credibility ... whereas MSNBC is looked at for opinion which it offers in abundance ... mostly rabidly anti Trump and anything he stands for.

The question is: Is MSNBC and other "resistance TV"  channels fooling themselves? Surely, many Hillary voters are finding solace in the anti-Trump spittle spewing on these channels. But those on the right, like myself, also tune-in to see how over-the-top the rhetoric can go on these channels. The fact that Fox News has also moved leftward has also freed up some conservative viewership looking for comic relief.

Bottom line: If the liberal cable channels think that these ratings bumps are permanent, they may be disappointed once the American psyche adjusts to Trump's unorthodox style ... and these opinion rants become hyperbolic, like too much rich food ... and it's time for a diet.

Headlines

All these headlines were found on Internet news sites. Guess which ones came from Politico?

Report: Kushner tried to set up secret communication with Kremlin

Russian scandal casts a uncertainty over Kushner's future role

Flashback -- Report: Obama campaign opened back channel communication with Iran

Pentagon plans ICBM intercept test ...

Rex Tillerson declines to host Ramadan celebration at State Department

USAA yanks ads from Rachael Maddow show

Reports: At least three  anti-Trump leakers identified, expected to be fired soon

Mattis: Trump is 'wide open' on Paris climate deal

D.C. Sniper has life sentence overturned

Clinton launches new campaign against Trump

Trump tells confidant he's pulling out of Paris climate agreement

Not 3,000, but 23,000 jihadists in Britain

The Constitution

The U.S. House of Representatives will commence its 112th session tomorrow by reading the U.S. Constitution. This act has been called a “dog-and-pony show” (Alan Colmes on his blog), “meaningless political theater” (the National Examiner), a “gimmick” (Ezra Klein, on MSNBC ), a “stunt … arrogant” (the Fort Lauderdale SunSentinel), an “empty, pompous, self-righteous act … racist” (the New York Times), “ritualistic … total nonsense … propaganda” (Jerry Nadler, congressman from New York City), a “tea-party fetish” (Rachael Maddow on her blog), a “symbolic sop to the tea party” (LA Times), “a total waste of time” (Time Magazine), an “air-kiss to the tea party” (Barney Frank), and “a bit of pageantry” (The Daily Kos). And I found these numerous brick bats in only about 20 minutes of searching on Google.

Does the majority of the Democrat party hate the Constitution? I certainly hope not. But, if in fact many of them do, may I suggest that they refuse to take their oaths of office when they are sworn into federal office. After all they then do swear (right hand raised and left hand on the Bible) “to preserve, defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States.” And, if they do refuse this oath, then they should not be allowed to take their elected offices. So there! … simple enough?

Addendum: Speaker Boehner did a brilliant thing yesterday. He made all the members of the House reswear their oath of office. See: HERE. I wonder how many Democrats actually followed his direction ... or had their fingers crossed?

The Bear Trap

Let me start by saying that I am not a Libertarian. Libertarians too often take stands that are so pure and theoretical that they appear loopy ... and thus fall into rhetorical traps. But, without agreeing, I do think I halfway understand Libertarians. Yesterday Rand Paul, the newly selected Republican candidate for the Senate from Kentucky, fell into one of these bear traps set by Rachel Maddow from MSNBC. Ms. Maddow asked Rand Paul whether the civil-rights decisions of the 1960's were right in removing the then-prevalent Southern exclusion of blacks from sitting at lunch counters (a clever semantic twist recalling Selma, Alabama sit-ins ... can we call this Rachel-profiling?). Mr. Paul, with typical Libertarian naïveté did not directly answer this question by first vigorously decrying such segregation (as do I) but, instead, replied with some twisted logic about whether restaurant owners had the right to exclude gun-toting patrons from their "private" premises.

I think I know what Rand Paul meant to be saying (but didn't). To whit: although it was proper for the federal government to force the integration of public accommodations, now governments of all ilks have taken this prerogative to increasing anti-Libertarian extremes ... first smoking was banned in restaurants, then trans-fats, now some localities are even trying to exclude the use of salt. Even the EPA has recently decreed that carbon dioxide, which all of us exhale and which is essential for plant survival, is an air pollutant ... of all things. I do think Libertarians justly rankle at such extreme governmental intrusion into our private lives and thus lumber into such semantic pitfalls as Rachael Maddow set for Rand Paul yesterday. Unfortunately, our knee-jerk video media does not allow for explanations that take more than two sentences ... and thus, politicians, who take principled positions, are continually snared.

It will be interesting to see whether Rand Paul today is given the time and leeway to better make his Libertarian case by the media talking heads, particularly those on MSNBC.