Judd Gregg, Senate author of TARP bank bailouts which picked bank winners, calls Trump conservative in name only

Judd Gregg's idea of a conservative president is one who abandons free market principles in order to save the free market system.

Pot, meet kettle, kettle, pot:

There is probably nothing short of runaway inflation that does more damage to a market economy than to have the government pick who is going to be successful and who is not. It perverts the fundamental purpose of a free market, which is to allow the forces of private exchange to decide the winners and losers in commerce.

Democrats' impeachment show has increased opposition to it among independents

Emerson national overall: 45% against 43% for right now vs. 44% against 48% for in October.

Emerson Independents: 49% against 34% for right now vs. 39% against 48% for in October.

Marquette Wisconsin: 53% against 40% for right now vs. 51% against 44% for in October. 

Marquette Independents: only 36% for impeachment.

Reported here.

It's Trump statements like this on Hong Kong and Xi Jinping which keep me from supporting his re-election

"We have to stand with Hong Kong, but I'm also standing with President Xi," Trump said. "He's a friend of mine. He's an incredible guy. We have to stand, but I'd like to see them work it out."

Why stand with these brutal oppressors of freedom? Just so that we can trade with them?

Peggy Noonan thinks the purpose of conservatism is merely the preservation of the free market system, yet she supports Trump's impeachment.

She and Trump have more in common with each other than either of them does with real conservatism.

They are both thimble deep and symptomatic of the poverty of America's two party system.

More here.

Marie Yovanovitch, Obama's US Ambassador to Ukraine, blocked visas for Ukrainian law enforcement in 2018 before Trump fired her in 2019

Ukrainian law enforcement officials believe they have evidence of wrongdoing by American Democrats and their allies in Kiev, ranging from 2016 election interference to obstructing criminal probes. But, they say, they’ve been thwarted in trying to get the Trump Justice Department to act.

Kostiantyn Kulyk, deputy head of the Prosecutor General’s International Legal Cooperation Department, told me he and other senior law enforcement officials tried unsuccessfully since last year to get visas from the U.S. Embassy in Kiev to deliver their evidence to Washington.

“We were supposed to share this information during a working trip to the United States,” Kulyk told me in a wide-ranging interview. “However, the [U.S.] ambassador blocked us from obtaining a visa. She didn’t explicitly deny our visa, but also didn’t give it to us.”

One focus of Ukrainian investigators, Kulyk said, has been money spirited unlawfully out of Ukraine and moved to the United States by businessmen friendly to the prior, pro-Russia regime of Viktor Yanukovych.

Ukrainian businessmen “authorized payments for lobbying efforts directed at the U.S. government,” he told me. “In addition, these payments were made from funds that were acquired during the money-laundering operation. We have information that a U.S. company was involved in these payments.” 

That company is tied to one or more prominent Democrats, Ukrainian officials insist.

In another instance, he said, Ukrainian authorities gathered evidence that money paid to an American Democrat allegedly was hidden by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) during the 2016 election under pressure from U.S. officials. “In the course of this investigation, we found that there was a situation during which influence was exerted on the NABU, so that the name of [the American] would not be mentioned,” he said.

More here.

Reminder: Story from May claims DNC was actively working to gather dirt on Trump from Ukraine using Alexandra Chalupa

In written answers to questions, Ambassador Valeriy Chaly's office says DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa sought information from the Ukrainian government on Paul Manafort’s dealings inside the country in hopes of forcing the issue before Congress. ...

Andrii Telizhenko, a former political officer who worked under Chaly from December 2015 through June 2016, told me he was instructed by the ambassador and his top deputy to meet with Chalupa in March 2016 and to gather whatever dirt Ukraine had in its government files about Trump and Manafort. ...

“She said the DNC wanted to collect evidence that Trump, his organization and Manafort were Russian assets, working to hurt the U.S. and working with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin against the U.S. interests. She indicated if we could find the evidence they would introduce it in Congress in September and try to build a case that Trump should be removed from the ballot, from the election,” he recalled.

After the meeting, Telizhenko said he became concerned about the legality of using his country’s assets to help an American political party win a U.S. election. But he proceeded with his assignment.

Telizhenko said that as he began his research, he discovered that Fusion GPS was nosing around Ukraine, seeking similar information, and he believed they, too, worked for the Democrats.

Read the whole thing from John Solomon, here.

Republican traitors in US Senate AGAIN help Democrats pass bill ending border emergency

Senate again votes to end Trump emergency declaration on border wall:

Senators voted 54-41 on a resolution to end the declaration, which Trump used to shift billions of dollars from the military toward wall construction. ...

GOP Sens. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Susan Collins (Maine), Mike Lee (Utah), Jerry Moran (Kansas), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rand Paul (Ky.), Rob Portman (Ohio), Mitt Romney (Utah), Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Roger Wicker (Miss.) voted to end the president's declaration. ...

The Senate previously voted to end it in February, with 12 Republicans voting with Democrats, but the House was unable to override a veto.

Trump pokes Ukrainian nest, Democrat wasps come flying out crying impeachment

Let's get real: Democrats were first to enlist Ukraine in US elections:

Politics. Pressure. Opposition research. All were part of the Democrats’ playbook on Ukraine long before Trump ever called Zelensky this summer. And as Sen. Murphy’s foray earlier this month shows, it hasn’t stopped.

The evidence is so expansive as to strain the credulity of the Democrats’ current outrage at Trump’s behavior with Ukraine.

Which raises a question: Could it be the Ukraine tale currently being weaved by Democrats and their allies in the media is nothing more than a smoke screen designed to distract us from the forthcoming Justice Department inspector general report into abuses during the Democratic-inspired Russia collusion probe?

Cuckservatism: Rush Limbaugh's hero Andy McCarthy also waves the white flag for the red flag

'Red-flag' gun laws are constitutional and sensible

65% of voters oppose impeachment proceedings, think immigration is Congress' number one job right now

Poll: Two-thirds of voters oppose impeachment proceedings:

The latest Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey found that 65 percent of respondents oppose impeachment proceedings.

Well, well, well, Justin Amash hung out to dry by the billionaire DeVos family, concerned MI-03 not getting representation

DeVos family of Michigan ends support for Amash:

A family spokesperson added that the family had made the decision to cut ties with Amash before his controversial tweets suggesting Trump should be impeached.

“Family members have expressed increasingly concerns about a lack of representation for their district, the third congressional, and I would say an inability to advance efforts connected to important policy matters," the spokesperson told the newspaper

Bernie's support among 18-29s drops 12 points between March and May in Morning Consult poll

Poll: Sanders support among young voters drops sharply

The Hill's John Solomon drops a bomb on Alexandra Chalupa's head, reports she may be source of Trump-Russian collusion narrative even as she spearheaded DNC/Clinton-Ukraine collusion

Ukrainian Embassy confirms DNC contractor solicited Trump dirt in 2016:

In its most detailed account yet, the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington says a Democratic National Committee (DNC) insider during the 2016 election solicited dirt on Donald Trump’s campaign chairman and even tried to enlist the country's president to help.

In written answers to questions, Ambassador Valeriy Chaly's office says DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa sought information from the Ukrainian government on Paul Manafort’s dealings inside the country, in hopes of forcing the issue before Congress.

Chalupa later tried to arrange for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to comment on Manafort’s Russian ties on a U.S. visit during the 2016 campaign, the ambassador said.

Chaly says that, at the time of the contacts in 2016, the embassy knew Chalupa primarily as a Ukrainian-American activist and learned only later of her ties to the DNC. He says the embassy considered her requests an inappropriate solicitation of interference in the U.S. election. ...

Reached by phone last week, Chalupa said she was too busy to talk. She did not respond to email and phone messages seeking subsequent comment. ...

Andrii Telizhenko, a former political officer who worked under Chaly from December 2015 through June 2016, told me he was instructed by the ambassador and his top deputy to meet with Chalupa in March 2016 and to gather whatever dirt Ukraine had in its government files about Trump and Manafort. ...

“She said the DNC wanted to collect evidence that Trump, his organization and Manafort were Russian assets, working to hurt the U.S. and working with Putin against the U.S. interests. She indicated if we could find the evidence they would introduce it in Congress in September and try to build a case that Trump should be removed from the ballot, from the election,” he recalled. ...

Though Chaly and Telizhenko disagree on what Ukraine did after it got Chalupa’s request, they confirm that a paid contractor of the DNC solicited their government’s help to find dirt on Trump that could sway the 2016 election.

John Solomon: Joe Biden in March 2016 pressured Ukraine to fire prosecutor investigating company paying Hunter Biden, bragged about it to CFR audience in 2018

Joe Biden's 2020 Ukrainian nightmare: A closed probe is revived:

But Ukrainian officials tell me there was one crucial piece of information that Biden must have known but didn’t mention to his audience: The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings that employed Biden’s younger son, Hunter, as a board member.

U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden’s American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts — usually more than $166,000 a month — from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia.

The general prosecutor’s official file for the Burisma probe — shared with me by senior Ukrainian officials — shows prosecutors identified Hunter Biden, business partner Devon Archer and their firm, Rosemont Seneca, as potential recipients of money.

Shokin told me in written answers to questions that, before he was fired as general prosecutor, he had made “specific plans” for the investigation that “included interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden.” ...

The timing of Hunter Biden’s and Archer’s appointment to Burisma’s board has been highlighted in the past, by The New York Times in December 2015 and in a 2016 book by conservative author Peter Schweizer. ...

According to Schweizer’s book, Vice President Biden met with Archer in April 2014 right as Archer was named to the board at Burisma. A month later, Hunter Biden was named to the board, to oversee Burisma’s legal team.

But the Ukrainian investigation and Joe Biden’s effort to fire the prosecutor overseeing it has escaped without much public debate. ...

Between April 2014 and October 2015, more than $3 million was paid out of Burisma accounts to an account linked to Biden’s and Archer’s Rosemont Seneca firm, according to the financial records placed in a federal court file in Manhattan in an unrelated case against Archer.

Foreign Affairs Issue Launch with Former Vice President Joe Biden

Tuesday, January 23, 2018:

I was—not I, but it just happened to be that was the assignment I got. I got all the good ones. And so I got Ukraine. And I remember going over, convincing our team, our leaders to—convincing that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12^th, 13^th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t. So they said they had—they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to—or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said—I said, call him. (Laughter.) I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.

 

The Hill's John Solomon: Obama administration had January 2016 meeting in DC with Ukrainian officials to pursue Manafort

How the Obama White House engaged Ukraine to give Russia collusion narrative an early boost:

U.S. officials “kept talking about how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united,” said Andrii Telizhenko, then a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington tasked with organizing the meeting.

 

Telizhenko, who no longer works for the Ukrainian Embassy, said U.S. officials volunteered during the meetings — one of which was held in the White House’s Old Executive Office Building — that they had an interest in reviving a closed investigation into payments to U.S. figures from Ukraine’s Russia-backed Party of Regions. ...

Kostiantyn Kulyk, deputy head of the Ukraine prosecutor general’s international affairs office, said that, shortly after Ukrainian authorities returned from the Washington meeting, there was a clear message about helping the Americans with the Party of the Regions case.

“Yes, there was a lot of talking about needing help and then the [Manafort] ledger just appeared in public,” he recalled.

Kulyk said Ukrainian authorities had evidence that other Western figures, such as former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig, also received money from Yanukovych’s party. But the Americans weren’t interested: “They just discussed Manafort. This was all and only what they wanted. Nobody else.”

 

Joe Biden Jan 2018: Give me a break, millennials don't have it tough

Biden on young people complaining they have it tough: 'Give me a break':

"The younger generation now tells me how tough things are. Give me a break. No, no, I have no empathy for it. Give me a break," Biden, 75, told The Los Angeles Times earlier this week.

Joe Biden 2014: 11 million illegal aliens are already Americans

Biden: Illegal immigrants are 'already Americans':

"You know, 11 million people live in the shadows. I believe they're already American citizens," Biden said Thursday at a Washington gathering of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. "These people are just waiting, waiting for a chance to contribute fully. And by that standard, 11 million undocumented aliens are already Americans, in my view."

 

Déjà Vu Boo Boo, 'cause they're not journalists but advocates

AP deletes tweet on Trump's 'animals' comment: 'It wasn't made clear he was speaking' about MS-13

I reported on this, what, like in July 2017, how POLITICO already in Jan 2017 tried to spin Hillary's collusion with Ukraine

Here, where the exploits of one anti-Russian pro-Ukrainian Alexandra Chalupa may ultimately be the origin for the whole Trump-Russia collusion narrative of the last two years.

She really ought to be investigated and deposed. Maybe she knows more than she's letting on about how the New York Times got the information it published causing Manafort to resign from the Trump campaign.

In the article below John Solomon appears to be completely oblivious to this POLITICO article excerpted at the link above, which outlined how long time Clinton ally and Ukrainian-American activist Alexandra Chalupa was instrumental in siccing Democrats on Paul Manafort for his alleged Russian ties immediately after Manafort became Trump's campaign manager in 2016. The DNC and Marcy Kaptur in particular are named as very interested parties who gave Chalupa a hearing, as were Ukrainian diplomats. Chalupa also notably claims to have been a major source on Ukraine for the reporter Michael Isikoff.

The upshot is that the Hillary campaign as the pro-Ukrainian in the 2016 race (along with John McCain!) was the intended principal beneficiary of the effort to destroy Manafort for his alleged pro-Russian activities.

As Russia collusion fades, Ukrainian plot to help Clinton emerges:

Ukraine’s top prosecutor divulged in an interview aired Wednesday on Hill.TV that he has opened an investigation into whether his country’s law enforcement apparatus intentionally leaked financial records during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign about then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in an effort to sway the election in favor of Hillary Clinton.

The leak of the so-called black ledger files to U.S. media prompted Manafort’s resignation from the Trump campaign and gave rise to one of the key allegations in the Russia collusion probe that has dogged Trump for the last two and a half years.

Ukraine Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko’s probe was prompted by a Ukrainian parliamentarian's release of a tape recording purporting to quote a top law enforcement official as saying his agency leaked the Manafort financial records to help Clinton's campaign.

Bush 43 appointed federal judge voids North Carolina law outlawing abortions after 20 weeks

Federal judge strikes down North Carolina post-20 week abortion ban

Trump as state capitalist: Once was a one-off, twice is a Freudian slip

Trump's brain has no room for the individual qua individual, only for the individual as representative of a brand. The higher reality, the organizing principle of society is the group and the corporation, without which the individual doesn't exist. In that sense he's a good Aristotelian:

Tim Cook is Tim Apple, Marillyn Hewson is Marillyn Lockheed.