ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP

Two Sets of Laws for Two Americas

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

August 3, 2023

Two sets of laws now operate in an increasingly unrecognizable America.

Consider the matter of unlawfully removing and storing classified papers.

Donald Trump may go to prison for removing contested White House files to his home.

So far Joe Biden seems exempt from just such legal jeopardy.

But as a senator and Vice President with no right, as does a president, to declassify files, Biden removed and, as a private citizen kept for years classified files in unsecured locations.

Biden’s team strangely revealed the unlawful removals after years of silence.

It did so because the Biden administration found itself in the untenable position of prosecuting the former president for “crimes” that the current president committed as well—albeit far earlier and longer.

Impeachable phone calls?

Donald Trump was impeached by a Democratic House for delaying foreign aid until the Ukrainian government guaranteed that Hunter Biden and his family were no longer engaged in corrupt influence peddling in Kyiv.

In addition, the Left charged that Trump was targeting Joe Biden, his possible 2020 rival.

Yet Biden, with impunity, bragged that he had fired a Ukrainian prosecutor looking into his own son’s schemes by promising to cancel outright American foreign aid.

And the Biden administration’s Justice Department is now targeting Trump, currently the front-running challenger to Biden in 2024.

Election denialism?

Trump was indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith, in part for supposedly conspiratorially “unlawfully discounting legitimate votes.”

Will Smith then also indict Stacey Abrams? For years Abrams falsely claimed that she was the real governor of Georgia. She toured the country in hopes of “discounting” the state vote count.

Or maybe Smith was referring to the conspiracist and former president Jimmy Carter.

He alleged that Trump in 2016 “lost the election, and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf.”

Will Smith charge Hillary Clinton?

She serially libeled Trump as an “illegitimate” president.

Clinton hatched the Russian collusion hoax and bragged she joined the “Resistance” to continue her attacks on an elected president.

Or maybe Smith meant the Hollywood crowd.

Lots of actors cut commercials after the 2016 election—begging viewers to pressure the electors to ignore their constitutional duties to honor their states’ popular vote and instead swing their ballots to Hillary Clinton.

Was not that “insurrectionary?”

Or was Smith thinking of January 2005?

Then 32 Democratic House members and Sen. Barbara Boxer tried to nullify the legally certified vote in Ohio—to thereby elect the loser John Kerry.

How about destroying evidence?

Trump was also indicted for allegedly attempting to erase video material from his own cameras in his own house.

Yet Hillary Clinton with impunity eliminated subpoenaed communication devices and thousands of emails.

Violations of security? Trump was indicted for supposedly loosely talking about classified material to visitors at his home.

So will prosecutor Smith’s indictments also extend to Hillary Clinton? She sent classified documents illegally over her unsecure private server.

FBI Director James Comey memorialized a confidential presidential conversation.

Then he deliberately leaked what properly was a classified document to the media. It was all part of Comey’s Machiavellian gambit to prompt the appointment of a favorable special prosecutor.

What about subversion of the electoral process?

Donald Trump was indicted for supposedly undermining the election of 2020 by questioning the integrity of the balloting.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign illegally hired two foreign nationals Christopher Steele and Igor Danchenko to compile falsehoods about her opponent Trump.

Clinton hid her payments behind three paywalls.

Her team, along with the FBI, helped leak the counterfeit dossier to the media and high officials to undermine her opponent—and thus subvert the election itself.

Lying and perjury?

Two Trump aides and Trump himself are indicted for supposedly stonewalling federal investigators by claiming either amnesia or ignorance.

That tact is exactly what James Comey did 245 times while under oath before Congress.

What do former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Director of the CIA John Brennan, and former interim FBI Director Andrew McCabe all have in common?

All three admitted they flagrantly lied either under oath to Congress or to federal investigators.

The three were never indicted for their false and perjurious testimonies.

We have now serially devolved from the 2016 election “Russian collusion” hoax to the 2020 election “Russian disinformation” laptop hoax, and down to the 2024 election weaponized indictments.

Out of pathological hatred or fear of Donald Trump, the Left has crafted one set of laws for themselves and another for all other Americans.

They smugly believe their own moral superiority grants them such a right to apply laws unequally—or to ignore them altogether.

To retain power at all cost, and to destroy a political rival, leftwing Democrats are systematically dismantling the constitutional foundations of the United States as we once knew them.

Trumped Up

By: Judd Garrett

Objectivity is the Objective

August 3, 2023

In his Nobel Prize-winning book, The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote about how the leaders of the Soviet Union weaponized the judiciary against their political opponents – oftentimes, sending them to Siberian Gulags for the rest of their lives on spurious trumped-up charges. Most of the time, the charges against political prisoners were ambiguous ‘conspiracies’, ‘crimes against the state’, and ‘suspicion of espionage’. And there was rarely just one charge. It was usually three or four charges levied against their political opponents. There were speech crimes, thought crimes, and crimes of association. After experiencing life in the Soviet Gulags, Solzhenitsyn wrote, The old proverb does not lie: “Look for the brave in prison, and the stupid among the political leaders!”

Yesterday, Donald Trump was indicted for the third time during an election season in which the polls have him as the frontrunner over the incumbent President, Joe Biden. And not coincidently, it is Biden’s DOJ that has indicted Trump twice. Love him or hate him, you have to admit that Donald J Trump has courage. The man is facing over one hundred years in federal prison, and not by an impartial judiciary, but by rabid partisans whose only goal is to use their vast power to see to it that Trump dies behind bars. And the surest way for Donald Trump to avoid that fate is to drop out of the Presidential election for if he does, these indictments will surely go away and be forgotten. But Trump fights on. He is not fighting for his over-inflated ego. He’s already a billionaire. He already has the President of the United States’ skin on his wall. He already received 74 million votes, the most legal votes by any candidate in our history.

He is fighting, not for himself, and not exclusively for us, the people. He is fighting for our country and future generations of Americans. Regardless of what you think of Donald Trump, and regardless of whether he is re-elected in 2024, defeated, or spends the rest of his life in jail, his greatest accomplishment as President, beyond the economy, oil independence, the Middle Eastern peace deals or the Chinese tariffs, is that he exposed the corruption that is Washington, D.C. He has shown the world that our national politics are no better than Venezuela or Cuba or Russia or even China. We just know how to put on a better face. 

Our “elected” officials shroud themselves in the Constitution without the intent of following any of the principles to the letter or even the spirit in which they were written. They give grand speeches elucidating the high-sounding principles in our Constitution when it serves their purposes, and then completely ignore or defy those same principles when it’s politically expedient. Donald Trump has laid this all bare. He may be the least corrupt of the major political players in Washington, yet he is the one staring at over 40 indictments and 100 years in prison. That tells you everything you need to know. 

The Bidens and the Clintons have been selling political influence to foreign agents for decades and no indictments are coming their way. Mitch McConnell has sold out America to China and his wife’s family for over 20 years, amassing a fortune of over $50 million, and not a word is said about it. Paul Pelosi has been trading stock off of inside information from his wife, former Speaker of the House, Nancy for years, making him a better stock picker than Warren Buffet, and growing their wealth to over $100 million, yet everyone shrugs. When are they going to do an investigation on how Barack Obama has amassed over $135 million since entering the White House? 

Donald Trump is not part of the uni-party and is intent on exposing the uni-party, so he had to be destroyed. The uni-party puts up with Ted Cruz and Jim Jordan because they help to legitimize the facade of American democracy and debate, but if either gets too powerful or too popular or becomes a real threat, they will be crushed just like Trump. So, they will stay in their lane demanding change that will never come. Donald Trump could potentially bring that change or expose the corruption to a point that the change is inevitable, so he cannot be tolerated.

Special Counsel, Jack Smith’s recent indictment read just like some of those old Soviet indictments: 

ü “A conspiracy to defraud the United States, by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat, the lawful federal government function…”

ü “A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding…”

ü “Conspiracy against the right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted…”

Listen to the buzzwords that do not mean anything – “obstruct”, “conspiracy”, “impair”, “impede”, and “corrupt”. All words that sound like something important but are wide open to interpretation. None of these words point to an actual overt crime that Trump committed, an actual act. They are thought crimes and speech crimes. Due to their timing concerning the 2024 election, these indictments by Jack Smith could easily be interpreted as election interference, and since a Presidential election is a “lawful federal government function”, Jack Smith could easily be charged with the same crimes he is charging Trump with – “conspiracy to defraud the United States, by using dishonesty, fraud” or“conspiracy against the right to vote”.

Jack Smith wrote those words, “conspiracy to defraud the United States, by using dishonesty, fraud…” So according to Jack Smith, Trump wanted to defraud the government by fraud? That would be like writing, ‘he conspired to murder someone by murdering him.’ Or ‘he planned on robbing the store by robbing it.’ When the best way that he can articulate the charges is filled with this much ambiguity and double talk, there is a very good chance that the charges are simply made up.

Smith also wrote in the indictment, “A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding…”  Is there a non-corrupt way to obstruct and impede a congressional proceeding? Of course, there is, just do it as a Democrat. You will never be charged. Isn’t that what hundreds of pro-abortionists did in September 2018, when they broke into the Capital and were pounding on the Senate Chambers doors during Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings attempting to stop him from being confirmed? Not one of those people spent a day in jail for doing the same thing that Trump is falsely charged with and facing decades in prison for. 

Solzhenitsyn also wrote, “You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.” And that’s all we can do, live in the truth, not “our truth”, but the truth. There are too many liars in the world who are living “their truth.”

Two Sets of Laws for Two Americas

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

August 3, 2023

Two sets of laws now operate in an increasingly unrecognizable America.

Consider the matter of unlawfully removing and storing classified papers.

Donald Trump may go to prison for removing contested White House files to his home.

So far Joe Biden seems exempt from just such legal jeopardy.

But as a senator and Vice President with no right, as does a president, to declassify files, Biden removed and, as a private citizen kept for years classified files in unsecured locations.

Biden’s team strangely revealed the unlawful removals after years of silence.

It did so because the Biden administration found itself in the untenable position of prosecuting the former president for “crimes” that the current president committed as well—albeit far earlier and longer.

Impeachable phone calls?

Donald Trump was impeached by a Democratic House for delaying foreign aid until the Ukrainian government guaranteed that Hunter Biden and his family were no longer engaged in corrupt influence peddling in Kyiv.

In addition, the Left charged that Trump was targeting Joe Biden, his possible 2020 rival.

Yet Biden, with impunity, bragged that he had fired a Ukrainian prosecutor looking into his own son’s schemes by promising to cancel outright American foreign aid.

And the Biden administration’s Justice Department is now targeting Trump, currently the front-running challenger to Biden in 2024.

Election denialism?

Trump was indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith, in part for supposedly conspiratorially “unlawfully discounting legitimate votes.”

Will Smith then also indict Stacey Abrams? For years Abrams falsely claimed that she was the real governor of Georgia. She toured the country in hopes of “discounting” the state vote count.

Or maybe Smith was referring to the conspiracist and former president Jimmy Carter.

He alleged that Trump in 2016 “lost the election, and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf.”

Will Smith charge Hillary Clinton?

She serially libeled Trump as an “illegitimate” president.

Clinton hatched the Russian collusion hoax and bragged she joined the “Resistance” to continue her attacks on an elected president.

Or maybe Smith meant the Hollywood crowd.

Lots of actors cut commercials after the 2016 election—begging viewers to pressure the electors to ignore their constitutional duties to honor their states’ popular vote and instead swing their ballots to Hillary Clinton.

Was not that “insurrectionary?”

Or was Smith thinking of January 2005?

Then 32 Democratic House members and Sen. Barbara Boxer tried to nullify the legally certified vote in Ohio—to thereby elect the loser John Kerry.

How about destroying evidence?

Trump was also indicted for allegedly attempting to erase video material from his own cameras in his own house.

Yet Hillary Clinton with impunity eliminated subpoenaed communication devices and thousands of emails.

Violations of security? Trump was indicted for supposedly loosely talking about classified material to visitors at his home.

So will prosecutor Smith’s indictments also extend to Hillary Clinton? She sent classified documents illegally over her unsecure private server.

FBI Director James Comey memorialized a confidential presidential conversation.

Then he deliberately leaked what properly was a classified document to the media. It was all part of Comey’s Machiavellian gambit to prompt the appointment of a favorable special prosecutor.

What about subversion of the electoral process?

Donald Trump was indicted for supposedly undermining the election of 2020 by questioning the integrity of the balloting.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign illegally hired two foreign nationals Christopher Steele and Igor Danchenko to compile falsehoods about her opponent Trump.

Clinton hid her payments behind three paywalls.

Her team, along with the FBI, helped leak the counterfeit dossier to the media and high officials to undermine her opponent—and thus subvert the election itself.

Lying and perjury?

Two Trump aides and Trump himself are indicted for supposedly stonewalling federal investigators by claiming either amnesia or ignorance.

That tact is exactly what James Comey did 245 times while under oath before Congress.

What do former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Director of the CIA John Brennan, and former interim FBI Director Andrew McCabe all have in common?

All three admitted they flagrantly lied either under oath to Congress or to federal investigators.

The three were never indicted for their false and perjurious testimonies.

We have now serially devolved from the 2016 election “Russian collusion” hoax to the 2020 election “Russian disinformation” laptop hoax, and down to the 2024 election weaponized indictments.

Out of pathological hatred or fear of Donald Trump, the Left has crafted one set of laws for themselves and another for all other Americans.

They smugly believe their own moral superiority grants them such a right to apply laws unequally—or to ignore them altogether.

To retain power at all cost, and to destroy a political rival, leftwing Democrats are systemati

Two Sets of Laws for Two Americas

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

August 3, 2023

Two sets of laws now operate in an increasingly unrecognizable America.

Consider the matter of unlawfully removing and storing classified papers.

Donald Trump may go to prison for removing contested White House files to his home.

So far Joe Biden seems exempt from just such legal jeopardy.

But as a senator and Vice President with no right, as does a president, to declassify files, Biden removed and, as a private citizen kept for years classified files in unsecured locations.

Biden’s team strangely revealed the unlawful removals after years of silence.

It did so because the Biden administration found itself in the untenable position of prosecuting the former president for “crimes” that the current president committed as well—albeit far earlier and longer.

Impeachable phone calls?

Donald Trump was impeached by a Democratic House for delaying foreign aid until the Ukrainian government guaranteed that Hunter Biden and his family were no longer engaged in corrupt influence peddling in Kyiv.

In addition, the Left charged that Trump was targeting Joe Biden, his possible 2020 rival.

Yet Biden, with impunity, bragged that he had fired a Ukrainian prosecutor looking into his own son’s schemes by promising to cancel outright American foreign aid.

And the Biden administration’s Justice Department is now targeting Trump, currently the front-running challenger to Biden in 2024.

Election denialism?

Trump was indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith, in part for supposedly conspiratorially “unlawfully discounting legitimate votes.”

Will Smith then also indict Stacey Abrams? For years Abrams falsely claimed that she was the real governor of Georgia. She toured the country in hopes of “discounting” the state vote count.

Or maybe Smith was referring to the conspiracist and former president Jimmy Carter.

He alleged that Trump in 2016 “lost the election, and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf.”

Will Smith charge Hillary Clinton?

She serially libeled Trump as an “illegitimate” president.

Clinton hatched the Russian collusion hoax and bragged she joined the “Resistance” to continue her attacks on an elected president.

Or maybe Smith meant the Hollywood crowd.

Lots of actors cut commercials after the 2016 election—begging viewers to pressure the electors to ignore their constitutional duties to honor their states’ popular vote and instead swing their ballots to Hillary Clinton.

Was not that “insurrectionary?”

Or was Smith thinking of January 2005?

Then 32 Democratic House members and Sen. Barbara Boxer tried to nullify the legally certified vote in Ohio—to thereby elect the loser John Kerry.

How about destroying evidence?

Trump was also indicted for allegedly attempting to erase video material from his own cameras in his own house.

Yet Hillary Clinton with impunity eliminated subpoenaed communication devices and thousands of emails.

Violations of security? Trump was indicted for supposedly loosely talking about classified material to visitors at his home.

So will prosecutor Smith’s indictments also extend to Hillary Clinton? She sent classified documents illegally over her unsecure private server.

FBI Director James Comey memorialized a confidential presidential conversation.

Then he deliberately leaked what properly was a classified document to the media. It was all part of Comey’s Machiavellian gambit to prompt the appointment of a favorable special prosecutor.

What about subversion of the electoral process?

Donald Trump was indicted for supposedly undermining the election of 2020 by questioning the integrity of the balloting.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign illegally hired two foreign nationals Christopher Steele and Igor Danchenko to compile falsehoods about her opponent Trump.

Clinton hid her payments behind three paywalls.

Her team, along with the FBI, helped leak the counterfeit dossier to the media and high officials to undermine her opponent—and thus subvert the election itself.

Lying and perjury?

Two Trump aides and Trump himself are indicted for supposedly stonewalling federal investigators by claiming either amnesia or ignorance.

That tact is exactly what James Comey did 245 times while under oath before Congress.

What do former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Director of the CIA John Brennan, and former interim FBI Director Andrew McCabe all have in common?

All three admitted they flagrantly lied either under oath to Congress or to federal investigators.

The three were never indicted for their false and perjurious testimonies.

We have now serially devolved from the 2016 election “Russian collusion” hoax to the 2020 election “Russian disinformation” laptop hoax, and down to the 2024 election weaponized indictments.

Out of pathological hatred or fear of Donald Trump, the Left has crafted one set of laws for themselves and another for all other Americans.

They smugly believe their own moral superiority grants them such a right to apply laws unequally—or to ignore them altogether.

To retain power at all cost, and to destroy a political rival, leftwing Democrats are systematically dismantling the constitutional foundations of the United States as we once knew them.

Trumped Up

By: Judd Garrett

Objectivity is the Objective

August 3, 2023

In his Nobel Prize-winning book, The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote about how the leaders of the Soviet Union weaponized the judiciary against their political opponents – oftentimes, sending them to Siberian Gulags for the rest of their lives on spurious trumped-up charges. Most of the time, the charges against political prisoners were ambiguous ‘conspiracies’, ‘crimes against the state’, and ‘suspicion of espionage’. And there was rarely just one charge. It was usually three or four charges levied against their political opponents. There were speech crimes, thought crimes, and crimes of association. After experiencing life in the Soviet Gulags, Solzhenitsyn wrote, The old proverb does not lie: “Look for the brave in prison, and the stupid among the political leaders!”

Yesterday, Donald Trump was indicted for the third time during an election season in which the polls have him as the frontrunner over the incumbent President, Joe Biden. And not coincidently, it is Biden’s DOJ that has indicted Trump twice. Love him or hate him, you have to admit that Donald J Trump has courage. The man is facing over one hundred years in federal prison, and not by an impartial judiciary, but by rabid partisans whose only goal is to use their vast power to see to it that Trump dies behind bars. And the surest way for Donald Trump to avoid that fate is to drop out of the Presidential election for if he does, these indictments will surely go away and be forgotten. But Trump fights on. He is not fighting for his over-inflated ego. He’s already a billionaire. He already has the President of the United States’ skin on his wall. He already received 74 million votes, the most legal votes by any candidate in our history.

He is fighting, not for himself, and not exclusively for us, the people. He is fighting for our country and future generations of Americans. Regardless of what you think of Donald Trump, and regardless of whether he is re-elected in 2024, defeated, or spends the rest of his life in jail, his greatest accomplishment as President, beyond the economy, oil independence, the Middle Eastern peace deals or the Chinese tariffs, is that he exposed the corruption that is Washington, D.C. He has shown the world that our national politics are no better than Venezuela or Cuba or Russia or even China. We just know how to put on a better face. 

Our “elected” officials shroud themselves in the Constitution without the intent of following any of the principles to the letter or even the spirit in which they were written. They give grand speeches elucidating the high-sounding principles in our Constitution when it serves their purposes, and then completely ignore or defy those same principles when it’s politically expedient. Donald Trump has laid this all bare. He may be the least corrupt of the major political players in Washington, yet he is the one staring at over 40 indictments and 100 years in prison. That tells you everything you need to know. 

The Bidens and the Clintons have been selling political influence to foreign agents for decades and no indictments are coming their way. Mitch McConnell has sold out America to China and his wife’s family for over 20 years, amassing a fortune of over $50 million, and not a word is said about it. Paul Pelosi has been trading stock off of inside information from his wife, former Speaker of the House, Nancy for years, making him a better stock picker than Warren Buffet, and growing their wealth to over $100 million, yet everyone shrugs. When are they going to do an investigation on how Barack Obama has amassed over $135 million since entering the White House? 

Donald Trump is not part of the uni-party and is intent on exposing the uni-party, so he had to be destroyed. The uni-party puts up with Ted Cruz and Jim Jordan because they help to legitimize the facade of American democracy and debate, but if either gets too powerful or too popular or becomes a real threat, they will be crushed just like Trump. So, they will stay in their lane demanding change that will never come. Donald Trump could potentially bring that change or expose the corruption to a point that the change is inevitable, so he cannot be tolerated.

Special Counsel, Jack Smith’s recent indictment read just like some of those old Soviet indictments: 

ü “A conspiracy to defraud the United States, by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat, the lawful federal government function…”

ü “A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding…”

ü “Conspiracy against the right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted…”

Listen to the buzzwords that do not mean anything – “obstruct”, “conspiracy”, “impair”, “impede”, and “corrupt”. All words that sound like something important but are wide open to interpretation. None of these words point to an actual overt crime that Trump committed, an actual act. They are thought crimes and speech crimes. Due to their timing concerning the 2024 election, these indictments by Jack Smith could easily be interpreted as election interference, and since a Presidential election is a “lawful federal government function”, Jack Smith could easily be charged with the same crimes he is charging Trump with – “conspiracy to defraud the United States, by using dishonesty, fraud” or“conspiracy against the right to vote”.

Jack Smith wrote those words, “conspiracy to defraud the United States, by using dishonesty, fraud…” So according to Jack Smith, Trump wanted to defraud the government by fraud? That would be like writing, ‘he conspired to murder someone by murdering him.’ Or ‘he planned on robbing the store by robbing it.’ When the best way that he can articulate the charges is filled with this much ambiguity and double talk, there is a very good chance that the charges are simply made up.

Smith also wrote in the indictment, “A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding…”  Is there a non-corrupt way to obstruct and impede a congressional proceeding? Of course, there is, just do it as a Democrat. You will never be charged. Isn’t that what hundreds of pro-abortionists did in September 2018, when they broke into the Capital and were pounding on the Senate Chambers doors during Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings attempting to stop him from being confirmed? Not one of those people spent a day in jail for doing the same thing that Trump is falsely charged with and facing decades in prison for. 

Solzhenitsyn also wrote, “You can resolve to live your life with integrity. Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.” And that’s all we can do, live in the truth, not “our truth”, but the truth. There are too many liars in the world who are living “their truth.”

The Biden Presidency Is Unsustainable

By: Victor Davis Hanson

American Greatness

July 31, 2023

Imagine if Gavin Newsom was currently Vice President amid the final meltdown of the Biden family consortium.

Does anyone doubt that Biden would then either be forced to resign by Democratic politicos (for reasons in addition to his escalating dementia) or would be impeached and perhaps abdicate Nixon-style?

The presence of the now predictable mediocrity of Kamala Harris and the impossibility, given her race and gender, of removing her, for now, is about all that keeps a cognitively declining Biden still in office. The Left fears what she could do as president to the Democratic Party; conservatives are terrified of what she could do to the country.

Joe Biden’s bewilderment exempts his embarrassments from accountability in the way that Hunter Biden’s addictions excuse his past serial criminality. But the passes granted to both father and son would be now unsustainable with a viable Vice President in waiting.

Indeed, the Harris problem explains some of the current Democratic strategy.

Backroom leaks and growing insider rumors of Biden’s dementia confirm the portrait of an often befuddled president whom the public by now knows all too well.

The aimless House Democrats’ “how-dare-you-even-consider-an-impeachment inquiry” furor, coupled with their half-hearted efforts, along with the media, to refute the actual charges of corruption of the Biden family, suggest that he will not run for reelection—but also not be impeached much less convicted or removed under the 25th Amendment.

So the Harris dilemma explains a lot: finding a way to keep her out of current power until Biden somehow finishes his first term, and thus letting the Democratic 2024 primary candidates organically abort her presidential aspirations.

There are a few problems, however, with this strategy.

One, can Joe Biden finish his first term?

That would require his staff to shorten his already truncated workday for the next 18 months to about 2-3 hours of work per day.

He would have to be kept away from photo-ops with young (especially female) children, lest he turkey-gobbles the cheek of another victim to a worldwide audience.

He can no longer read off a teleprompter without slurring his words, losing his place, or going off extemporaneously on to topics such as “Vladimir” Zelenskyy, the “Iraq” war in Ukraine, or relief over the curing of cancer.

He cannot hold half-hour press conferences given his incoherence and his angry prevarications. He still insists incredulously that he never discussed the Biden family business with Hunter, although we may soon see transcripts, recordings, and affidavits that he was intimately involved in and profited from it. 

The Strange Case of Hunter in the White House

Hunter is toxic and capable of leaving behind incriminating evidence or engaging in surreal behavior anywhere and anytime. Why would a former crack cocaine addict be brought into the White House, after which a bag of cocaine was for the first time in presidential history found abandoned in the West Wing?

(Partial answer: why and how would an addict leave an incriminating crackpipe in a rental car, simply abandon a laptop at a repair shop with evidence of his felonious behavior on it, or allow his illegally registered handgun to turn up in a dumpster near a school)?

An outside, disinterested observer who read the contents of the laptop and Hunter’s wounded-fawn protestations about his unappreciated role in enriching his father and uncle, or digested his unhinged recent career as a quid-pro-quo, paint-by-the-numbers artiste, selling high-priced junk in exchange for presidential flavors, would conclude that the Bidens are apprehensive of the unpredictable Hunter. Keep your friends close, but your explosive son even closer.

Of course, they fear Hunter’s recklessness, addictions, and greed—but more perhaps his ability to take down the entire Biden clan should they distance themselves too far from him or leak that the family’s corrupt schemes were birthed by the fall-guy Hunter alone.

Aside from Joe’s cognitive decline and Hunter’s volatility, no one believes anymore Joe Biden’s patent lies that he never discussed with Hunter his lucrative grifting career. Already, the untruth has transmogrified into he never did business with Hunter—and soon perhaps he never profited from the business he did and discussed with Hunter.

No matter, by year’s end there will be witnesses and hard data showing that Joe himself discussed pay-for-play schemes with foreign entities, of the sort he long ago boasted with previous impunity before a Council of Foreign Relations event.

This is no Whitewater, Trooper-gate, or Stormy Daniels scandal, but bribery of the sort explicitly outlined by the Constitution for removal from office: 

“The President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Selling influence to foreign-government-related enterprises is, of course, not just bribery but perhaps treason as well. And it involves other “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” among them tax fraud on unreported foreign income.

Moreover, it is arguable that the Biden shake-down consortium has altered the very nature of U.S. foreign policy. We will never know the full effect of the false Russian disinformation/laptop narrative, following the fake Russian collusion hoax, on Kremlin thinking. Nor can we explain why Joe Biden once urged Putin to lay off hacking humanitarian U.S. targets or suggested that a minor invasion of Ukraine would not elicit a U.S. response, or offered to airlift Zelenskyy out of Kyiv in the first days of the war.

Nor can we explain why China was never held accountable by Biden after new information entailed the role of the Wuhan lab in birthing the Covid virus, or for sending a spy balloon across the continental U.S. with impunity. Meanwhile, the administration’s crazy talk of partnering with a supposedly non-bellicose China seems unhinged.

Finally, given the first Trump impeachment, what is the Left now going to say to House Republicans—“You cannot in this country impeach a president merely for threatening to cancel foreign aid unless Ukraine fired a prosecutor looking into his high-ranking family’s illegal influence selling?”

Equality Under the Law?

The Democrats in their Trump derangement fits so lowered the bar for impeachment and special prosecutions, that not impeaching or removing Biden under the Left’s new standards seems almost ridiculous.

If Trump earned hysteria about 25th Amendment removal (to the point of taking and acing the Montreal Cognitive Assessment) for a halting gait on an occasion descending a ramp, how could a non-compos-mentis and chronically falling Biden not be so examined?

Moreover, Trump was impeached for: 

1) asking a foreign leader to examine the corruption of the Biden family with Ukraine while he put a hold on approved foreign aid to Ukraine; 

2) and at the time, it was possible that Joe Biden could have been Trump’s likely future 2020 opponent.

But in contrast, note that Biden: 

1) issued an ultimatum that a Ukraine prosecutor would either be summarily fired, or aid would be ended. And he was fired!; and 

2) Biden was only a possible general-election presidential rival when Trump called Zelensky; Trump is currently the front-runner against a putative Biden candidacy in 2024.

Biden has also done far more than ask Ukraine to ensure a political opponent was not guilty of corruption but rather sicced a special DOJ prosecutor on Trump for taking out classified papers in the manner that Joe Biden himself did years earlier, without the prerogative as a senator or vice president of declassifying such papers.

Harris Paradoxes

The open disregard for Kamala Harris is not just a Republican phenomenon. Her dismal popularity reflects that such disappointment in her is bipartisan. And now the likely machinations mentioned to keep her out of the presidency are undoing all the racial and gender pandering that explain her otherwise inexplicable appointment in the first place. At some point, the Democratic identity-politics base is going to pressure the party’s hierarchy to back off and back Harris or face charges of racism.

Oddly, the Left’s tolerance of Biden’s cognitive impairment also strengthens Harris’s case, especially among her diversity base. Kamala utters incomprehensible sentences; Joe cannot finish them. Kamala’s public declamations are kindergarten stuff; Joe’s are more nursery school level. In theory, Kamala can be coached and improve; Joe’s declines are at a geometric rate that is irreversible.

So if someone so cognitively challenged is currently President with the full assent of the Democratic Party, for what reasons does it turn its animus on a Vice President who is still relatively young and hale?

How odd that the Left knows that both the current President and Vice President should not be in either job after 2024; and yet its own prior pandering and rank politicking have made both almost impossible to remove. And how odder that the extra-legal measures the Left took to emasculate the Trump presidency are now the low standards by which an utterly corrupt Biden can be investigated, indicted, impeached, or forced to resign.

Plea Bargaining

And

Guilty Pleas

By: Bill Schoettler

July 29, 2023

Before we get into what happened on July 26 when Hunter Biden’s “settlement” was thrown out, let’s consider the background. 

When there is a civil lawsuit or a criminal case, each side wants to win. In the criminal case, the prosecution wants to prove the defendant is guilty and have him either fined or sentenced to jail. In a civil suit, the plaintiff wants to win either a requirement the defendant do or not do something or that the defendant pay the plaintiff a bunch of money The winner in a trial is the side that presents evidence showing their position is correct and the opposition is wrong. 

In both criminal and civil cases, there are gradations of results. For example, the winner in a civil case might recover less than what was sought. In a criminal case, the prosecutor might get a conviction on a lesser included charge, resulting in a smaller fine or lesser jail time. Thus, from the outset in either type of case, there is room to bargain. The defendant can agree to pay less money or do less jail time in exchange for the plaintiff or prosecutor accepting a lesser “amount of justice”. 

The basic term referred to here is “settlement”. Any settlement calls for the two opposing parties reaching a settlement which is then put in writing and, certainly in a criminal case, presenting the settlement writing to the Court (i.e., the judge) for approval. In some civil cases, the same process is done, particularly in cases involving minors. 

In Hunter Biden’s case, he was charged with two basic crimes; one was failing to pay taxes on some particular income (not all, just some income) and purchasing a firearm without disclosing that he had a prior felony conviction (which, under the law, prevented a convicted felon from purchasing or owning a gun).

Back to the discussion of settlements. Any case may lend itself to a settlement based on factors not necessarily connected with the case. For example, in a criminal matter, if the defendant is thought to have been involved with fellow criminals, whether or not such involvement dealt with the same crime (for which the defendant was being charged), or with some other criminal matter, the prosecution might be willing to “make a deal” if the defendant is willing to provide information about either fellow criminals or the “other” crime.

In Hunter’s case, the public has heard about many items of his conduct which have a “criminal flavor” such as possibly involving shady deals with the Ukraine company or even the Ukraine government while Joe was Vice President [pause here to recall that Joe actually bragged about using his office as Vice President to withhold money from the Ukraine government unless they stopped an investigation into Hunter’s possible criminal conduct]. There are also stories in the public domain about Hunter receiving money from Chinese companies associated with the government of China in connection with his father’s position as VP and possibly even while his father was President.  Given this information, it is reasonable to consider that the prosecution would be interested in receiving information about these items in exchange for easing up on charges against Hunter for the matters discussed. Or, as an alternative, the prosecution might consider easing up on their attack in exchange for Hunter talking about the possible criminal activity of his father, failing to personally register as an agent of a foreign government, or even dropping any charges against Hunter if he were to “spill the beans” on what he knew/knows about these subjects.

Bottom line, with ample evidence to get a conviction against Hunter Biden on the IRS tax matter and the gun charges, the only reason to bargain or offer a settlement would be to receive something in exchange. The exchange of information could be evidence against fellow conspirators or other criminal activity. If a “win” is virtually certain based on currently available evidence, there is no reason to bargain for a settlement, except to possibly avoid an excessively long and complex trial. Neither condition would seem to exist in this situation. 

And to add frosting to the cake, the settlement agreement in Hunter Biden’s case, as presented to the Judge for approval (which was denied) included an agreement for the government to forego any further criminal complaints about potential criminal activity (not defined or even mentioned in this settlement agreement) for an extended period of past time (2014 to 2019)

The Court decided there were enough holes in the agreement to require a careful re-wording and perhaps a re-thinking on the part of the prosecution. The fact that the Judge threw out the settlement does not mean that another agreement with substantially similar wording might not be acceptable…only that this particular agreement was definitely inappropriate. 

The most beneficial result of this process was the public becoming aware of what took place and the wording the Judge found unacceptable. We can only hope that whatever agreement, if any there is, will be more realistic and, as far as the public is concerned, more equitable. After all, the hallmark of this Administration is equity. Sort of.If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.Plato

July 30, 2023

Special Edition

Reflections of the Judge

Something New, Something Blue

By: Bill Schoettler

July 26, 2023

When it becomes necessary in the course of human events, to examine the world as it seems to be, most of us turn to respected resources for our examination efforts. The trouble trying to accomplish this today is that respected resources aren’t respected anymore…which leaves us a bit out of sorts when it comes to research and investigation. 

Looking at facts, as they are reported by various news organizations is one way of going about this. The trouble, however, is that sometimes facts aren’t even being reported. And sometimes false facts are reported, real facts are so distorted by the method of reporting that reliability just doesn’t exist. 

We refer here to the Washington Post’s story about the pending case against Hunter Biden. We have heard that he is being charged with illegally purchasing a handgun and failing to pay taxes on $1.5 M income. Without any editorializing, these would seem to be straightforward charges. Sounds simple.

Most citizens know that earned income is subject to taxes. When we get paychecks, complete with information about hours worked, money withheld and the net proceeds we can use to buy at least one tank of gasoline, we are reminded that we have contributed our share to the cost of running the county. Then, as April 15 approaches every year, we are bombarded with tax preparers, people, and companies that will fill out the complicated paperwork that accompanies filing a 1040 tax form and file it, many times along with another financial contribution. Any citizen who has held a job during the year is required to go through this exercise. Then we wait for either a check-in-the-mail for our possible overpayment or at least hold our breath in fear of receiving a notice from the IRS that we have made a mistake and owe more money. But the experience is an annual one and is felt by most adults of any gender, mostly without any enthusiasm. 

Because Hunter Biden is the President’s son [and history tells us he was also the Vice President’s son in the recent past] the public’s attention has been drawn to this case. Questions have arisen as to how the son of a VP and subsequent Pres possibly failed to abide by firearms laws when his father has been one of the most vociferous critics of firearms ownership in the country. C’mon, folks. Joe Biden can see no reason for private ownership of firearms and his son goes out and purchases a gun…illegally? Gimme a break.

Oh yes, not to be forgotten is how Hunter Biden could possibly have failed to pay income tax on money earned from a shoe-shine stand, much less the sums about which he is now being challenged.

AND, this same kid, the one illegally buying a gun, this same kid somehow manages to acquire $1.5M. Stop here because this last statement raises the interesting question of how in the world a notorious drug-addicted, unemployed, untrained, and apparently unqualified individual with no apparent talent, somehow acquired $1.5 million. Very little has been said about this, but much has been said about how Hunter Biden was employed by foreign companies in, of all places, Ukraine, to work in a field normally requiring highly qualified and experienced people, this same Hunter Biden with no such qualifications, and is to be paid enormous sums of money. Then, without having to apparently spend any time in-house (speaking here of the “house” of the company which hired him) he manages to obtain further sums of money from Chinese nationals, in China, for something else. Don’t ask what the “else” is because that has yet to be explained.

AND, for whatever reason Hunter Biden is accused of failing to pay his fair share of the nation’s operating expenses out of his earnings. Why the IRS chose to go after taxes for $1.5 M instead of the much greater amounts reportedly received from Ukraine and China has not been explained. Perhaps this whole tax thingy is a reflection of the IRS’s gratification for receiving the appropriate amounts of taxes from all the other amounts of money Hunter received and the fact his math problems in calculating the other millions of income somehow caused a modestly acceptable amount of confusion over this relatively paltry sum.

Far be it for me to suggest that this relatively harmless Hunter Biden conflagration is merely a diversion to draw attention away from the almost-casual charges being thrown at Joe Biden concerning his equally nefarious dealings with the foreign governments of China and Ukraine, not to mention his continuing bumbling performance as the chief executive of this country. 

It is interesting how little is revealed by the many news organizations about the entire nature of the legal proceedings against Hunter and the current total absence of any proceedings against his father. While I have little doubt about adequate information being provided in future history books, it would be nice to have a little flavor of these subjects while they are occurring.

July 30, 2023

Special Edition

Reflections of the Judge

Something New, Something Blue

By: Bill Schoettler

July 26, 2023

When it becomes necessary in the course of human events, to examine the world as it seems to be, most of us turn to respected resources for our examination efforts. The trouble trying to accomplish this today is that respected resources aren’t respected anymore…which leaves us a bit out of sorts when it comes to research and investigation. 

Looking at facts, as they are reported by various news organizations is one way of going about this. The trouble, however, is that sometimes facts aren’t even being reported. And sometimes false facts are reported, real facts are so distorted by the method of reporting that reliability just doesn’t exist. 

We refer here to the Washington Post’s story about the pending case against Hunter Biden. We have heard that he is being charged with illegally purchasing a handgun and failing to pay taxes on $1.5 M income. Without any editorializing, these would seem to be straightforward charges. Sounds simple.

Most citizens know that earned income is subject to taxes. When we get paychecks, complete with information about hours worked, money withheld and the net proceeds we can use to buy at least one tank of gasoline, we are reminded that we have contributed our share to the cost of running the county. Then, as April 15 approaches every year, we are bombarded with tax preparers, people, and companies that will fill out the complicated paperwork that accompanies filing a 1040 tax form and file it, many times along with another financial contribution. Any citizen who has held a job during the year is required to go through this exercise. Then we wait for either a check-in-the-mail for our possible overpayment or at least hold our breath in fear of receiving a notice from the IRS that we have made a mistake and owe more money. But the experience is an annual one and is felt by most adults of any gender, mostly without any enthusiasm. 

Because Hunter Biden is the President’s son [and history tells us he was also the Vice President’s son in the recent past] the public’s attention has been drawn to this case. Questions have arisen as to how the son of a VP and subsequent Pres possibly failed to abide by firearms laws when his father has been one of the most vociferous critics of firearms ownership in the country. C’mon, folks. Joe Biden can see no reason for private ownership of firearms and his son goes out and purchases a gun…illegally? Gimme a break.

Oh yes, not to be forgotten is how Hunter Biden could possibly have failed to pay income tax on money earned from a shoe-shine stand, much less the sums about which he is now being challenged.

AND, this same kid, the one illegally buying a gun, this same kid somehow manages to acquire $1.5M. Stop here because this last statement raises the interesting question of how in the world a notorious drug-addicted, unemployed, untrained, and apparently unqualified individual with no apparent talent, somehow acquired $1.5 million. Very little has been said about this, but much has been said about how Hunter Biden was employed by foreign companies in, of all places, Ukraine, to work in a field normally requiring highly qualified and experienced people, this same Hunter Biden with no such qualifications, and is to be paid enormous sums of money. Then, without having to apparently spend any time in-house (speaking here of the “house” of the company which hired him) he manages to obtain further sums of money from Chinese nationals, in China, for something else. Don’t ask what the “else” is because that has yet to be explained.

AND, for whatever reason Hunter Biden is accused of failing to pay his fair share of the nation’s operating expenses out of his earnings. Why the IRS chose to go after taxes for $1.5 M instead of the much greater amounts reportedly received from Ukraine and China has not been explained. Perhaps this whole tax thingy is a reflection of the IRS’s gratification for receiving the appropriate amounts of taxes from all the other amounts of money Hunter received and the fact his math problems in calculating the other millions of income somehow caused a modestly acceptable amount of confusion over this relatively paltry sum.

Far be it for me to suggest that this relatively harmless Hunter Biden conflagration is merely a diversion to draw attention away from the almost-casual charges being thrown at Joe Biden concerning his equally nefarious dealings with the foreign governments of China and Ukraine, not to mention his continuing bumbling performance as the chief executive of this country. 

It is interesting how little is revealed by the many news organizations about the entire nature of the legal proceedings against Hunter and the current total absence of any proceedings against his father. While I have little doubt about adequate information being provided in future history books, it would be nice to have a little flavor of these subjects while they are occurring.

Plea Bargaining

And

Guilty Pleas

By: Bill Schoettler

July 29, 2023

Before we get into what happened on July 26 when Hunter Biden’s “settlement” was thrown out, let’s consider the background. 

When there is a civil lawsuit or a criminal case, each side wants to win. In the criminal case, the prosecution wants to prove the defendant is guilty and have him either fined or sentenced to jail. In a civil suit, the plaintiff wants to win either a requirement the defendant do or not do something or that the defendant pay the plaintiff a bunch of money The winner in a trial is the side that presents evidence showing their position is correct and the opposition is wrong. 

In both criminal and civil cases, there are gradations of results. For example, the winner in a civil case might recover less than what was sought. In a criminal case, the prosecutor might get a conviction on a lesser included charge, resulting in a smaller fine or lesser jail time. Thus, from the outset in either type of case, there is room to bargain. The defendant can agree to pay less money or do less jail time in exchange for the plaintiff or prosecutor accepting a lesser “amount of justice”. 

The basic term referred to here is “settlement”. Any settlement calls for the two opposing parties reaching a settlement which is then put in writing and, certainly in a criminal case, presenting the settlement writing to the Court (i.e., the judge) for approval. In some civil cases, the same process is done, particularly in cases involving minors. 

In Hunter Biden’s case, he was charged with two basic crimes; one was failing to pay taxes on some particular income (not all, just some income) and purchasing a firearm without disclosing that he had a prior felony conviction (which, under the law, prevented a convicted felon from purchasing or owning a gun).

Back to the discussion of settlements. Any case may lend itself to a settlement based on factors not necessarily connected with the case. For example, in a criminal matter, if the defendant is thought to have been involved with fellow criminals, whether or not such involvement dealt with the same crime (for which the defendant was being charged), or with some other criminal matter, the prosecution might be willing to “make a deal” if the defendant is willing to provide information about either fellow criminals or the “other” crime.

In Hunter’s case, the public has heard about many items of his conduct which have a “criminal flavor” such as possibly involving shady deals with the Ukraine company or even the Ukraine government while Joe was Vice President [pause here to recall that Joe actually bragged about using his office as Vice President to withhold money from the Ukraine government unless they stopped an investigation into Hunter’s possible criminal conduct]. There are also stories in the public domain about Hunter receiving money from Chinese companies associated with the government of China in connection with his father’s position as VP and possibly even while his father was President.  Given this information, it is reasonable to consider that the prosecution would be interested in receiving information about these items in exchange for easing up on charges against Hunter for the matters discussed. Or, as an alternative, the prosecution might consider easing up on their attack in exchange for Hunter talking about the possible criminal activity of his father, failing to personally register as an agent of a foreign government, or even dropping any charges against Hunter if he were to “spill the beans” on what he knew/knows about these subjects.

Bottom line, with ample evidence to get a conviction against Hunter Biden on the IRS tax matter and the gun charges, the only reason to bargain or offer a settlement would be to receive something in exchange. The exchange of information could be evidence against fellow conspirators or other criminal activity. If a “win” is virtually certain based on currently available evidence, there is no reason to bargain for a settlement, except to possibly avoid an excessively long and complex trial. Neither condition would seem to exist in this situation. 

And to add frosting to the cake, the settlement agreement in Hunter Biden’s case, as presented to the Judge for approval (which was denied) included an agreement for the government to forego any further criminal complaints about potential criminal activity (not defined or even mentioned in this settlement agreement) for an extended period of past time (2014 to 2019)

The Court decided there were enough holes in the agreement to require a careful re-wording and perhaps a re-thinking on the part of the prosecution. The fact that the Judge threw out the settlement does not mean that another agreement with substantially similar wording might not be acceptable…only that this particular agreement was definitely inappropriate. 

The most beneficial result of this process was the public becoming aware of what took place and the wording the Judge found unacceptable. We can only hope that whatever agreement, if any there is, will be more realistic and, as far as the public is concerned, more equitable. After all, the hallmark of this Administration is equity. Sort of.If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools.Plato