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Mr. Trump: Speaking of Grace…
I’m a conservative. I don’t like chaos, I’m not attracted to nihilism and social destruction. I like things to proceed in an orderly manner, following sensible rules, and leading to understandable results that inspire confidence. Having said that…
For four years I’ve watched the Democrats and their cohorts in the media (which is to say, pretty much everyone in the media) make a farce out of politics. It started with Hillary Clinton paying for Russian-made dirt on candidate Trump. It continued with Hillary Clinton making up a Russian collusion narrative in order to save face after her unexpected defeat in 2016.
It continued with leading Democrats and, again, their pet news media (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NYT, etc.) spending three years (!) pretending to have evidence to justify their absurd Russian conspiracy. It continued with endless speculation of scandal, of “beginning of the end,” of “walls closing in,” of “another bombshell.”
For all his flaws, President Trump was never, unlike his critics, comprehensively wrong. He spent four years presiding over an astonishingly robust economy, restoring Constitutional integrity to the nation’s courts, slowing illegal immigration to a crawl, getting the US out of pointless (Paris) and dangerous (Iran) international agreements. He was right about law enforcement, right about keeping the nation open, right about dealing with foreign powers.
Unlike the last guy, Trump was right about America.
Finally, in the midst of an absurd impeachment by petty men who had exhausted every other cockamamie scheme for his removal, and largely thanks to the President’s boldness, he presided over the dawning of an historical peace in the Middle East, as Arab states established relationships with Israel and became unified in their opposition to a still-dangerous Iran.
Now, after being defeated by a once-in-a-lifetime epidemic, the censorship and mendacity of a malicious press and tech sector, and an election riddled with fraud and misconduct, the President is not acknowledging defeat quite as quickly as his critics would like.
That’s tough. He’s been cheated out of the credit he deserves for an extraordinarily successful four years by a leftist elite that thinks he and every one of the 70+ million Americans who voted for him are snaggle-toothed illiterate racist haters huddling in flyover country.
He’s been attacked by graceless harpies for four years. I won’t demand a lot of grace from him now.
I’m just thankful for the enormous good he did while in office.
Published in General
Bears repeating.
Indeed. At what point do we just throw in the towel?
Whenever he comments?
This reminds me of the “Hush Rush” campaign that liberals have repeatedly run. They could not address Rush’s points, so they tried to shut him up. Good luck with that.
Gary, people get tired of being told that they’re idiots.
The fact is that being “never-Trump,” no matter how much sense it seems to make to you folks, is a position considered and rejected by the vast majority of conservatives and Republicans. Yours is a tiny little minority view on the right, and you won’t win the rest of us by pointing out how foolish and/or morally bankrupt we are.
I’m sorry you get treated rudely here. But I think you can’t hear yourself. You’ve made your argument ad nauseum, it’s been rejected at great length, we disagree, it’s over.
Nonsense. I am attacking the content (what I termed the “load of utter crap”), which speaks to the author’s character. Even you must know that much of what was in the piece was untrue, and addressing each point for the thousandth time is not worth it. I and others have done so endlessly, but if people do not want to hear, well… At this point it is best for all if the likes of the Bulwark and Lincoln Project, et al. sink into the obscurity they deserve. I am only surprised they didn’t roll out the “Good people on both sides” slander. Maybe is was there and I missed it.
Gary,
This didn’t happen. There are many, many completely corrupt practices that happened during this election. That is why your candidate Sino-Hawk Joe Biden remained in his basement and didn’t bother to campaign. The fix was in. We haven’t as of yet been appraised of all of the dirty deeds that your Democrats did. Deeds that if they go unchallenged will put an end to this Republic. That is not just a cheap phrase like you misuse it, our Democracy was attacked directly by the most hideous election fraud in history. Soon you will see evidence of it. Your representative in Congress Adam Schiff claimed to have damning evidence against the President of the United State maybe 50 times over 3 years. He produced no evidence. Your favorite prosecutor the Mighty Mueller, with an unlimited budget and 2 years to work, couldn’t produce anything either as the reputation of the President of the United States was smeared over and over again.
That, at this stage, you could continue this hideous line of bs says a great deal more about your own lack of moral character than any imaginary flaw in President Trump.
Regards,
Jim
For the record, I am unfollowing this post. I don’t know what is worse–watching Gary try to ruin Hank’s post, or the rest of you engaging with him and keeping him going.
Bye-bye.
Completely understandable, Susan. Like most of what transpires on social media, it’s a tempest in a teapot. ;)
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Thank you for you substantive comment. It deserves a considered a response.
I don’t think that you, my sainted mother, or my Ricochet family are idiots at all. I do think that you are mistaken and I posted a mere two posts at Comments ##51 & 56 responding to the substance of your post and comments. Other than that I have been fending off brickbats aimed at me personally.
I do differ with you on the issue of if the NeverTrump contingent made a difference. Trump lost Arizona by .3% and Georgia by .2% and Wisconsin by .7%. That’s a total of 37 Electoral College votes, which would have resulted in a 269-269 tie, and, if memory serves, there are 26-27 Republican House Delegations, so Trump would have been selected by the House.
While I stopped giving money to The Lincoln Project (TLP) after hearing the strong views of my fellow Ricochetti, I note that their emphasis nationally, and especially in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin was to peel off 4+% of Republican votes. This was a hyper-focused campaign, aiming not at Democrats, but at Republicans (and Independents) would could and would not abide Trump.
You, my sainted mother, and most of Ricochet are not foolish or morally bankrupt. However, I think that you might be a bit myopic about the impact of (a) Trump not committing to a peaceful transition if he lost, (b) Trump calling for the Attorney General to arrest Biden in the couple of weeks before the election, (c) Trump’s first debate including his refusal to condemn violence on both sides and (d) the mob violence done on the Texas freeways. This has been reinforced after the election by (a) Trump refusing to concede, (b) refusing to agree to any transition for a couple of weeks, and (c) his flagrant attempts to have Republican Legislatures to override the will of the voters. No other Republican would ever have acted this way. Any other Republican would have won.
Ah, I see where the confusion on my part arose about this silly comment.
Not only that but the NT “Lincoln Project” has continued to harass and doxx Trump lawyers who are working on the perfectly legal and ethical investigation of vote fraud.
After reading Victor Davis Hanson’s recent piece in the Jewish World Review, here, I have to say that I’m impressed by how well President Trump has handled adversity during his administration. I’m a man with essentially no temper and a generally pleasant disposition (well, I think so, anyway), but I’m not sure I could have handled the injustice inflicted on the President as well as he has, never mind while getting so much done.
The man has, uh, fortitude.
I don’t know what jurisdiction you practice in, but in Arizona, since finality is essential in a election challenge, those cases are heard within hours and days after filing, and not in weeks or months. The Courts move with great speed and dispatch. It appears that the fact of the matter is that Trump “election fraud” cases are not supported by any evidence. If this is indeed “the most hideous election fraud in history,” surely there must be at least some evidence and some witnesses to back it up. But all I hear is Trump braying that he won by a landslide, and hearing that he is collecting massive donations from people who don’t realize that they are being conned by his argument that he was defrauded, just as he argued in 2016 that he really won more votes than Hillary, but the commission he appointed never came back with any evidence to back that up. This reminds me of the Birtherism controversy that he stoked over and over again, and used to build himself up based solely on repeating a lie over and over again.
I am not here to defend Adam Schiff or Robert Mueller. That is not my point, and I don’t want to be distracted. My focus is on Trump and his insistence that he won by a landslide, when there is no evidence to prove that.
Trump and Trump’s lawyers say that he was defrauded. Okay. Show your evidence. Or please stop and go home, and deal with the crushing sadness of losing. Both the 2016 and 2020 elections had convincing winners, but in both of them, they were very close in three states. Biden won Arizona by .3%, Georgia by .2% and Wisconsin by .7%. They could have gone the other way. But they didn’t. In 2016, Trump won Michigan by .3%, Pennsylvania by 1.2% and Wisconsin by .7%. It was close, but it was also decisive.
In other words, Trump needs to put up or shut up. And as Republicans we should reflect on if there are other candidates who can better represent our party, who have the emotional maturity that so far, Biden is showing and Trump is lacking.
Gary,
Of course, you aren’t here to defend Adam Schiff or Robert Mueller but you are more than happy to allow them to relentlessly defame the President without the slightest objection for 3 years. Now the Trump team required a little time to gather the evidence and you are ready to plunge the dagger in and finish him off. Et Tu Gary?
Actually, the question mark is quite unnecessary. We already knew what your lack of integrity would allow.
Regards,
Jim
Hi Jim,
I am not interested in “what about-ism” where the person questioning me wants me to defend others.” But I will take a quick shot at this
A. To remind you, with Mueller, he found evidence of collusion but not criminal conspiracy. See the Mueller Reporter, Introduction to Volume I:
The 3-page Introduction to Volume I, Collusion.
This is a 3-page introduction, on pages 1-3 of Volume I, related to Collusion. (It is on pages 9-11 of the PDF download.)
INTRODUCTION TO VOLUME I
This report is submitted to the Attorney General pursuant to 28 C.F.R. § 600.8(c), which states that , “[a]t the conclusion of the Special Counsel ‘s work, he … shall provide the Attorney General a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions [the Special Counsel] reached.”
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. Evidence of Russian government operations began to surface in mid-2016. In June, the Democratic National Committee and its cyber response team publicly announced that Russian hackers had compromised its computer network. Releases of hacked materials-hacks that public reporting soon attributed to the Russian government-began that same month. Additional releases followed in July through the organization WikiLeaks, with further releases in October and November.
In late July 2016, soon after WikiLeaks’s first release of stolen documents, a foreign government contacted the FBI about a May 2016 encounter with Trump Campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos. Papadopoulos had suggested to a representative of that foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. That information prompted the FBI on July 31, 2016, to open an investigation into whether individuals associated with the Trump Campaign were coordinating with the Russian government in its interference activities.
That fall, two federal agencies jointly announced that the Russian government “directed recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including US political organizations,” and, ” [t]hese thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.” After the election, in late December 2016, the United States imposed sanctions on Russia for having interfered in the election. By early 2017, several congressional committees were examining Russia’s interference in the election.
Within the Executive Branch, these investigatory efforts ultimately led to the May 2017 appointment of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III. The order appointing the Special Counsel authorized him to investigate “the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election,” including any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign.
As set forth in detail in this report, the Special Counsel’s investigation established that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election principally through two operations. First, a Russian entity carried out a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Second, a Russian intelligence service conducted computer-intrusion operations against entities, employees, and volunteers working on the Clinton Campaign and then released stolen documents. The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
* * *
Below we describe the evidentiary considerations underpinning statements about the results of our investigation and the Special Counsel’s charging decisions, and we then provide an overview of the two volumes of our report.
The report describes actions and events that the Special Counsel’s Office found to be supp01ted by the evidence collected in our investigation. In some instances, the report points out the absence of evidence or conflicts in the evidence about a particular fact or event. In other instances, when substantial, credible evidence enabled the Office to reach a conclusion with confidence, the report states that the investigation established that certain actions or events occurred. A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.
In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of “collusion.” In so doing, the Office recognized that the word “collud[e]” was used in communications with the Acting Attorney General confirming certain aspects of the investigation’s scope and that the term has frequently been invoked in public reporting about the investigation. But collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law. For those reasons, the Office’s focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law. In connection with that analysis, we addressed the factual question whether members of the Trump Campaign “coordinat[ed]”-a term that appears in the appointment order-with Russian election interference activities. Like collusion, “coordination” does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law. We understood coordination to require an agreement-tacit or express- between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government on election interference. That requires more than the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other’s actions or interests. We applied the term coordination in that sense when stating in the report that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
* * *
The report on our investigation consists of two volumes: Volume I describes the factual results of the Special Counsel’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and its interactions with the Trump Campaign. Section I describes the scope of the investigation. Sections II and III describe the principal ways Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Section IV describes links between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign. Section V sets forth the Special Counsel’s charging decisions.
Volume II addresses the President ‘s actions towards the FBI’s investigation into Russia ‘s interference in the 2016 presidential election and related matters, and his actions towards the Special Counsel ‘s investigation. Volume II separately states its framework and the considerations that guided that investigation.
_______________________________________________________
B. Now, on to Adam Schiff. Adam Schiff was the lead Impeachment Manager.
In the 1999 Clinton Impeachment, all of the Democrats came to the position that what Clinton had done was wrong, it did not rise to impeachment.
In the 2020 Trump Impeachment, only Lamar Alexander and Mitt Romney came to the conclusion that the House Managers had made their case that Trump had engaged in bribery of Ukraine’s President in the interests of promoting Trump by launching an investigation of Biden. Most Senators concluded that this was an issue for the voters to decide.
Well, the voters decided. Another post (https://ricochet.com/833709/house-gop-gains-more-votes-in-pennsylvania/) points out that in Pennsylvania,
GOP beat Dems in House races by 86,847 votes, yet Biden beat Trump by 80,555 votes.
Trump under performed House Republicans by 54,521 while Biden over performed House Democrats by 112,881 votes.
54,521 voters voted for a House Republican but didn’t vote for Trump???
112,881 voters chose Biden but didn’t vote for the congressional Democrat???
You compare the hopelessly trivial evidence that Mueller had of some bizarre vague idea like collusion to Sino-Hawk Joe Biden creating an investment corporation with Chinese Communist partners who put up all of the start-up capital and owned 50% of the corporation outright and whose business model talked about billions of dollars of investment to come.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
First, the Russian government’s interference was as muddy as can be. It was half pro-Trump and half pro-Hillary. Second, the entire Russian troll capability could never have moved the American public a millimeter. Meanwhile, the big tech “platforms” relentlessly censored right-leaning media and completely suppressed Sino-Hawk Joe Biden’s unbelievably stupid foreign entanglement with the Chinese. I would say that Trump’s Russian trolls if they even existed (no hard evidence), had the bite of a mosquito. Meanwhile, the internet platforms massively manipulating the internet to save Joe Biden and suppress Trump had the bite of a Tyrannosaur.
Of course, cry bullies whine about the mosquitos and ignore entirely the Tyrannosaurs.
How would you like to have Twitter, Facebook, and Google working you over? Russian trolls, that was supposed to be a joke wasn’t it?
Regards,
Jim
Deleted.
What a great clip. “Must go faster.” I love that in the rear view mirror it states that objects are larger than than they appear.
Well, gosh Gary, I should have used a clip that had a lawyer in it. Surely that would appeal to you even more.
Regards,
Jim
I knew that you couldn’t resist.
Gary,
Night night.
Regards,
Jim