The Dems’ impeachment mania is a sign, not of Dem strength, and certainly not necessarily of offenses warranting nullifying an election (and maybe two), but rather a sign of desperation and weakness.

Victor Davis Hanson:

Aside from the emotional issue that Democrats, NeverTrumpers, and celebrities loathe Donald Trump, recently Representative Al Green (D-Texas) reminded us why the Democrats are trying to impeach the president rather than just defeat him in the 2020 general election.
“To defeat him at the polls would do history a disservice, would do our nation a disservice,” Green said.  “I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach the president, he will get re-elected.”
Translated, that means Green accepts either that Trump’s record is too formidable or that the agendas of his own party’s presidential candidates are too frightening for the American people to elect one of them. And that possibility is simply not permissible. Thus, impeachment is the only mechanism left to abort an eight-year Trump presidency—on a purely partisan vote to preclude an election, and thus contrary to the outlines of impeachment as set out by the Constitution.

It’d explain a lot of the Democrat tactics; declining to hold hearings, relying on “evidence” gleaned from the results of their changes to the law permitting pure hearsay, and fighting the battle almost exclusively in media aimed at their three most important opinion constituencies; Entitled Americans, Dim Americans and Outrage-Addicted Americans.

Hanson has a lot of analysis – read it. Pullquote:

We are starting to see the outlines of a progressive fantasy on the horizon: Biden will be sacrificed. The party will unite around Warren. The left-wing media narrative will be, “We took out one of our own, now it is your turn to depose Trump.” Chaos overload for two or three weeks might keep Trump’s polling low.
Long-term, however, Trump wins.
We still have a number of government audits coming from Michael Horowitz, John Durham, and John Huber—and the targets are not Trump. The Senate will not convict the president under any foreseeable circumstances. The full story of the whistleblower has not been told, but there are a lot of narratives to come about the sudden rules allowing hearsay, DNC involvement, and who knew far in advance about the complainant’s writ. Once the Democratic debates continue, the candidates’ screaming and hysterics return, and the impeachment hearings descend into a Kavanaugh-esque farce, the public will begin to get scared again by the Left’s shrieking Jacobins…Voters soon will surmise that the only thing between their 401k plans and socialism is Donald J. Trump.

And they’ll be right.

My hunch: Dem polling is showing that even the more “moderate” Democrats terrify Main Street, and there are no other options coming out of the woodwork, and their base will having nothing but a Trump inquisition, so this is the best way forward they have.

It’s not about evidence. It’s about having “Disgraced and Impeached” as a chanting point for 2020.

It’s about 23 months.

Mayor Frey, 2017; tribalism bad:

There is often a deviation of strategy in getting there, and that’s OK. We need to stop villainizing one another over slight differences of strategy and policy. You want to disagree? Go for it. That’s great. But the villainizing and the personal attacks? They are counterproductive and will have no place in my administration. There has been a real push to divide and conquer. I’m biased, but I think I’ve been the brunt of it. The mayor has too. Everybody. It’s got to stop. It’s been really nasty.

Mayor Frey, 2019: Get off my [er, collective] lawn.

Officials in Minneapolis were quick to blast the visit. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said while he would typically welcome a visit from a sitting president, Trump’s “actions have been reprehensible and his rhetoric has made it clear that he does not value the perspectives or rights of Minneapolis’ diverse communities.”
“Our entire city will stand not behind the President, but behind the communities and people who continue to make our city — and this country — great,” Frey said. “While there is no legal mechanism to prevent the president from visiting, his message of hatred will never be welcome in Minneapolis.”

They’re willing to eschew “tribalism” – with the right people. Not the opponents they actually have, of course. The imaginary ones that Lori Sturdevant keeps reacing across the aisle to.

You want to lose, and lose huge, next year?

Go wobbly on guns.

Dance with the ones that brung you, or accept the consequences.

That is all.

Still not tired of the winning
Joe doakes

“Faster, please”
— Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds

California professor hears that Garden Restaurants has contributed to the Trump campaign.

Tweets demanding a boycott of Olive Garden.

Demand goes viral among “progs” who would normally never be caught dead at an Olive Garden anyway.

Unknown, apparently, to that particular member of the “elite”: Olive Garden is in no way relatecd to “Garden Restaurants”.

Also an apparent surprise: corporations can’t donate directly to presidential campaigns.

Some people read this story – about a “psychiatrist” taking umbrage at people calling Trump “crazy” to avoid stigmatizing the mentally ill – and taking it as a sign of the growing intellectual frivolity of our society’s putative elite and the left in general.  

I”m going to add emphasis:

“Second, calling Trump crazy hides the fact that we’re crazy for having elected him and even crazier for allowing his crazy policies to persist,” Frances went on. “Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin, Mao in the last century. He may be responsible for many more million deaths than they were.”

Someone looking to get headlines for their book, consulting practice or media brand by making a big, stupid headline? 

But of course.

But let’s not sell the little fella short. Remember – Berg’s Seventh Law never sleeps.

Why are “progressives” blaiming Trump for millions of deaths he never committed (note to my progressive readers: the guy’s making it all up)?

It’s no secret that Democrats like Ilhan Omar are openly anti-Semitic and actively seek to destroy Israel.
President Trump says Jews who support such Democrats are betraying their own people and the nation of Israel. 
Paul Mirengoff, writing at Powerline, is upset the President would point this out. Trump is not a Jew.  It’s “inappropriate” for him to speak out.  He “slanders” Jews.
Mirengoff says there are lots of reason Jews might prefer Democrats over Trump, policy reasons or domestic issues.  True, but irrelevant.  If Candidate A says he will give you everything you ever dreamed of, for free, and also will destroy Israel, then voting for Candidate A means you are voting to destroy Israel. 
Mirengoff is the perfect stereotype of the Dave Durenberger – Arne Carlson style of Republican.  It’s no wonder conservatives were sold out time and again while liberals advanced their agenda. 
Being nice is not more important than telling the truth.
Joe Doakes

I suspect Mirengoff (whom I’ve interviewed) is speaking more or less clinically about Jews’ reasons for preferring Democrats, but Joe is correct. It’s easy to “clinical” your way into despotism.

Let’s not be coy about it – Jason Lewis lost the 2nd District congressional election because Angie Craig floated to a close win on a tsunami of out-of-district money during a first-term midterm that was bound to bring out the knee-jerks and the soccer moms. The Bloomberg fortune alone pumped seven figures of filthy anti-gun lucre into the district – testimony to how much Big Left hated the most articulate conservative in the House.

But it’s a whole ‘nother election, and Angie Craig has exactly as much to show for her time in office as you’d expect an “HR Executive” to have accomplished – the same as they accomplish in the real business world. Bupkes.

Or – rematch? Nah. Maybe a swing at the Butcher of Vandalia, Tina Smith.

I’d go for that.

So one dares not criticize “Progressive” establishments – like all major cities, especially the failed ones, like Baltimore – because racism.

But one dare not actually put one’s skin in the game and try to fix, or even tidy up after, the mess progressivism created, because…racism.

The Baltimore Sun bags on conservatives helping clean up the mess for which they’ve been a cheerleader for generations.

And by “clean up”, that’s literally what we’re talking about:

Brandon Morse wrote Tuesday about the inspiring story of conservative activists who stepped up to the plate to help citizens in the poverty-stricken areas of Baltimore. The effort was organized in the aftermath of the uproar over President Trump’s criticisms of the city and of Rep. Elijah Cummings, whose Congressional district runs through Baltimore.
[Scott] Presler, who said he is an ardent supporter of Trump, is a grassroots conservative activist who has an enormous social media following. Presler said one tweet last week launched 1,000 trash bags in Monday’s efforts.
Presler, who also told the news outlet that the gathering was not meant to be “pro-Trump” or “anti-Elijah Cummings”, posted numerous photos and videos of the clean-up day on his Twitter page.

Not good enough for the the Democrat party’s pro bono PR firm, the Baltimore Sun:

In a condescending piece titled “We assume it was pure motives that led a Trump supporter to launch a cleanup in Cummings’ district, right?”, here’s what they wrote (bolded emphasis added by me):
The effort was organized by pro-Trump activist Scott Presler. He claimed the event was not political. Yes, he was inspired to come by tweets from President Donald Trump describing the area, represented by U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, as a “rodent infested mess.” But the visit wasn’t about showing support or animosity for either man, he said.

Call us skeptical.

Call me unsurprised.

Progressives, being fundamentally miserable people, see misery as a tool to their ends.

Big Left today is exercising “Recession Porn”, hoping for an economic downturn to get rid of Trump.

Bill Maher:

It’s amazing what liberals daydream about. While many of us might imagine wealth, fame, or attractive women (sorry, Zsu-Zsu), Bill Maher dreams of a recession that would lead to massive job losses and foreclosed homes.

Maher: “I’ve been hoping for a recession – people hate me for it – but it would get rid of Trump.”
Josh Barro: “Recessions are really bad. People lose their jobs and homes and we shouldn’t wish for it.”
Maher: “I know. It’s worth it.”

Actually, it’s only “worth it” if Maher loses his job.

And Maher isn’t even the most depraved among ’em.

Usually.

They called MItt Romney a “racist” and “literally Hitler”.

Before that, they called John McCain a “racist” and “literally Hitler”.

Dubya, of course, they called a “racist” and “literally Hitler”.

Bob Dole, on the other hand, was “racist” and “literally Hitler”.

Ditto his dad. Don’t lie about it, ‘progs’ – they called 41 a “racist” and “literally Hitler”, too.

Reagan? Ford, Nixon, Goldwater? All “racist” and “literally Hitler”.

Might wanna think of another bit of logrolling and gaslighting.

President Trump’s “go back where you came from” Twitter jape against The Four Horsewomen of the Derpocalypse (hat tip to Sean Sorrentino), Reps. Omar, Pressley, Tlaib and Ocasio Cortez may be his dumbest yet.

But let me ask you this:

Let me describe someone who is:’

• Not really cut out for their office
• Given to petulant ranting on social media
• Elected by people whose politics and logic I frequently don’t respect a lot
• Supported by a lot of people, staff, and a narrative intended to logroll and gaslight skeptics into silence and submission
• Does, seemingly, little but jab back at their many, many critics, to the point where you wonder if you’re watching someone in junior high

Which of the five am I describing?

By the way – if you’re a Democrat, it is your duty to rally around the Four Horsewomen, to the exclusion of all else (except working toward impeachment). If you do not, the ghost of Wellstone will cry.

To: Sen Klobuchar
cc: the entire Minnesota DFL party
From: Mitch Berg, obstreporous peasant
Re: Impeachment Now!

All,

What Senator Klobuchar said.

You owe it to progressivism, to the children, and to all the hopey changey to start working on impeachment now, to make it your only priority, and to spend your every waking moment between now and November 2020 working for it with your every waking breath, and some of the sleeping ones.

Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar says she would support impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump “beginning now.”
The Minnesota senator’s comment to CNN Friday followed Trump’s statement this week that he’d take information from a foreign power that offered dirt on an opponent.

Accept nothing less than impeachment!

NOW!

The Ghost of Paul Wellstone will cry if you waste any time or effort on lesser causes!

The Left is united in denouncing President Trump’s comment that he’d listen to opposition research, even if it came from overseas.
Andrew Napolitano says it’d be a felony.
Excellent.  Now do Hillary.
Joe Doakes

Rules are for peasants.

The media and the political establishment plays checkers. It’s a perfectly honorable game, with well-established rules that haven’t changed in generations. There’s only one way to play checkers.

Trump plays…

… Well, not chess. To say that would be to claim he plays a similar, more sophisticated game than the establishment and media.

Trump plays poker. He may play it well, he may not, it may vary from hand to hand in situation to situation. He may bluff while holding fours over deuces with all the grace of a German jazz band, and he may drop a straight flush on you while you’re doing the “I’ve got a full house!” dance…

… but whether he’s playing it well or like an amateur after 12 cocktails, it’s a completely different game, with different rules, goals and expectations, than checkers. .

And the media – or at least the “elite“ media that the establishment does business with – Watch his hand after hand of poker, good or bad, and keeps yapping about how bad Trump is at checkers, and how much better off we’d all be if he played checkers as well as Andrea Merkel does…

Florida woman stabs self.

Blames Trump.

Officers found the unidentified woman standing outside her home in Palmetto, Fla., bleeding from her hands, legs, and face, according to a partially redacted report obtained by the Smoking Gun.
After being asked what was wrong, the woman responded, “I’m tired of living in Trump’s country, I’m tired of Trump being president.”

Oh, the wise I must not crack…

There are some facts about the gun control debate in this country that are pretty dead-lock cut and dried.

“Gun Safety” advocates don’t care about crime – they care about control.

White liberal gun control activists only really care about crime that affects white liberals – emotionally.

You can tell Nancy Nord Bence is lying when you see her lips moving.

But the fact is, if you dig deep, there really aren’t any good guys in the debate. The gun grabbers and Democrats, of course – but even the Republicans, at least at a national level. never faill to disappoint.

I’m going to drop the beginning of a Twitter thread – this is just the first, but please read the whole thing:

This is something I might be able to shed a little light on. Buckle up, kids, for a brief thread https://t.co/XuUCPdSx51

— Son of Spengler (@spengjr) May 10, 2019

It’s the sort of thing that led me to leave the GOP 25 years ago – out of general disgust more than any actual ideological differences.

Paul Krugman – who worshipped Barack Obama like a ’90s high school girl worshipped the Back Street Boys – twote:

I'm old enough to remember when Presidential Medals of Freedom were given for showing courage and making sacrifices on behalf of the nation and the world. Tiger Woods … hits golf balls for money https://t.co/dYmWPVljL9

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) May 7, 2019

Andrew Stiles notes Barack Obama’s list of PMoF’s:

• Michael Jordan
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
• Meryl Streep
• Steven Spielberg
• Robert Redford
• Robert De Niro
• Tom Hanks
• Yo-Yo Ma
• Bob Dylan
• Stevie Wonder
• Gloria Estefan
• Barbara Streisand
• James Taylor
• Diana Ross
• Bruce Springsteen
• Warren Buffett
• Tom Brokaw
• Lorne Michaels
• Joe Biden

To which a committed Dem might point out “Hey, no golfers!”.

And to which someone with honesty and integrity would add “And Paul Krugman is a travesty”.

It’s depressing that anybody would fall for such an obvious diversion. Trump was a rich man during the entire Obama administration, whose IRS was famous for auditing people Democrats didn’t like.  The holdover liberals who make up the Deep State have no problem leaking damaging information.  If Trump had any possible secrets in his tax returns, they would have been leaked and investigated long ago.
Democrats know that, they know there’s nothing to find, they don’t care. They simply want Trump to deny the demand so they can complain that he’s obstructing justice, which diverts attention away from the Attorney General’s investigation into Hillary colluding with the Russians to influence the 2016 Presidential election.
But you know Minneapolis liberals will swallow it, hook line & sinker.  Depressing
Joe Doakes

They’re holding on to the idea that there’s “something” out there like an eight-year-old holding onto Santa.

I’m old enough to remember when the American political and media establishment wracked itself into knots over the fact that the executive branch had been using the CIA and Hoover’s FBI to spy on domestic political opposition.

Among my earliest memories of politics and news – after Watergate, naturally – were the Church Commission hearings, which clamped down on the use of intelligence and law enforcement for domestic shenanigans.

For a while, anyway.

Seems like everything old is new again:

Following months of angry claims by journalists and Democratic operatives that the Obama administration never spied on Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, The New York Times admitted Thursday that multiple overseas intelligence assets were deployed against associates of the Republican nominee. It is not the first time the Times has revealed widespread spying operations against the campaign.

In addition to noting that long-time informant Stefan Halper was tasked with collecting intelligence on the Trump campaign, the Times story details how a woman was sent overseas under a fake name and occupation to oversee the spy operation. The woman’s real name is not mentioned in the article, though the Times says she went by “Azra Turk” and has a relationship with an unidentified federal intelligence agency.

As a longtime Trump skeptic, I have been impressed in general with the caliber of his Cabinet.

I’ve been a little depressed at the turnover in that excellent cabinet.

The WSJ contrasts the quality and integrity of Attorneys General between Bob Barr, Trump’s AG, and Obama’s Loretta Lynch:

Democrats and the media are turning the AG into a villain for doing his duty and making the hard decisions that special counsel Robert Mueller abdicated.
Mr. Barr’s Wednesday testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee was preceded late Tuesday by the leak of a letter Mr. Mueller had sent the AG on March 27. Mr. Mueller griped in the letter that Mr. Barr’s four-page explanation to Congress of the principal conclusions of the Mueller report on March 24 “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the Mueller team’s “work and conclusions.” Only in Washington could this exercise in posterior covering be puffed into a mini-outrage…Contrast that to the abdication of Loretta Lynch, who failed as Barack Obama’s last Attorney General to make a prosecutorial judgment about Hillary Clinton’s misuse of classified information. Ms. Lynch cowered before the bullying of then FBI director James Comey, who absolved Mrs. Clinton of wrongdoing while publicly scolding her. That egregious break with Justice policy eventually led Mr. Comey to re-open the Clinton probe in late October 2016, which helped to elect Mr. Trump…This trashing of Bill Barr shows how frustrated and angry Democrats continue to be that the special counsel came up empty in his Russia collusion probe. He was supposed to be their fast-track to impeachment. Now they’re left trying to gin up an obstruction tale, but the probe wasn’t obstructed and there was no underlying crime. So they’re shouting and pounding the table against Bill Barr for acting like a real Attorney General

Repeating a Big Lie even after it’s collapsed? I’m not sure Goebbels even went that far…

Forget “conspiracy theories” – the public record shows that the Nixon Administration spied on the Trump campaign…

…sorry. Obama Administration. Obama. No similarity. Perish the thought.

At this point in time, at least six different methods that the Obama administration used to spy on the Trump campaign have been made public:
1. FISA Warrant: Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was targeted with a FISA warrant by the FBI in October 2016. The warrant was subsequently renewed three times for 90-day periods. Other members of the Trump campaign might have had FISA warrants on them, as well.
2. Unmasking: Hundreds of so-called unmasking requests were made for the identities of members of the Trump campaign in intelligence reports. The House Intelligence Committee has so far identified Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice, Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power, and former CIA Director John Brennan, as having filed such requests.
3. Undercover Informant: The FBI used Stefan Halper, an undercover agent, to infiltrate the Trump campaign. He contacted Trump campaign associates Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. Halper has ties to the CIA, as well as MI6.
4. National Security Letters: The use of national security letters to target the Trump campaign was first revealed by officials to The New York Times in a May 16, 2018, article. National security letters allow the FBI to secretly subpoena customer records from banks, phone companies, internet service providers, and others.
5. Foreign Intelligence: British intelligence agency GCHQ provided officials within the CIA with information on the Trump campaign as early as late 2015, The Guardian reported in April 2017. Then-head of GCHQ Robert Hannigan also provided Brennan with sensitive information on the Trump campaign on a “director level” in the summer of 2016.
6. Reverse Targeting: Brennan admitted in an Aug. 17, 2018, interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that the CIA had obtained the communications of Americans associated with the Trump campaign through what appears to have been the use of reverse targeting. “We call it incidental collection in terms of CIA’s foreign intelligence collection authorities,” Brennan said.

Nixon’s use of federal law-enforcement, and less institutional private entities, to spy on his political opponents was a national scandal.

LBJ’s and Kennedy’s, and everyone who presided over J. Edgar Hoover’s reign at the FBI, less so, for some weird reason.

Ever have a friend who’s pinned their hopes on something that, to the outside observer, seemed unlikely if not impossible? A “big investment opportunity”, the “house flip that’s gonna set ’em up on easy street”, the “girl way out of his league saying yes”, the “can’t miss deal”, or any one of life’s hail mary plays?

You’re not an animal – so you may have some sympathy, or at least empathy, for them – but that’s tempered with the realization that the dumbass pinned all his hopes in life on a long shot.

I’m reminded of that watching my Democrat friends responses to the collapse of the expectations of the Mueller Report.

I saved a dozen file-gallon jerry cans of tears to water my “Hahahaha” plants this spring from the opening day alone:

I know, I know – too much Hannity. Work with me, here.

The impact on their psyches, as manifested on social media at any rate, seemed to be…

…disproportionate?

Democrats seem both angry and frightened, and their kneejerk and perhaps even somewhat panicked response right now is to try to destroy Barr.
You can feel the frisson of fear they emanate. They waited two years for the blow of the Mueller report to fall on Trump, and now other investigative blows may fall on them. The Mueller report combined with Barr’s appointment could end up being a sort of ironic boomerang (whether or not boomerangs can be ironic I leave to you to decide).
How could this have happened? they must be thinking. How could the worm have turned? But they are spinning in the usual manner, hoping that—as so often has happened in the past—their confederates in the press will work their magic to make all of it go away and boomerang back to Republicans instead.
But whatever comes of it all, if anything, Democrats cannot believe that at least right now their dreams have turned to dust and they taste, instead of the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.

I try to stay sympathetic, on one level – but on another, it’s hard to cut too much of a break for people who put that much of their emotional well-being in long shots, especially the ones that seems so transparently stretchy, over and over and over.

Why did Prohibition fail?  The Hammerheads weren’t tough enough?  They didn’t incarcerate enough people? 
No.  It failed because ordinary citizens resented being told they couldn’t engage in activities that seem normal and harmless, so they quietly rebelled in a nation-wide fit of non-compliance.
Same reason the drug war is failing, particularly the war on marijuana.  Repeal federal prohibition.  Leave it up to the states.  This bill might be a good start.
Joe Doakes

It’s true – ending the “war” would end the black market, which would give us an opportunity to deal with the chaos on the border and in our inner cities.

Of course, there are wide swathes of our government that profit from that chaos.

We’ll see.

When you’re a Republican, especially in a bluish-purple place like Minnesota, you hope you can vote for Republicans who’ll hold the line on taxes – even to the minimal level of not proposing new ones.

Sadly, we’re disappointed – as I discussed with Liz Mair on the show over the weekend. Senator Howe is proposing a tax on electric vehicles.

Here’s the interview:

I get the logic, sort of – it’s to replace some of the gas tax revenue lost by the increasing efficiency of cars the greater number of people driving electrics, and the people dropping out of the commuting force as telecommuting picks up speed.

But a Republican should be proposing fewer, not more, taxes.

And if we could see to some of that unsustainable spending, that’d be a cherry on the sundae.