Impeaching Trump Was The Right Thing To Do

Last night the House of Representatives voted to impeach Donald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. As an independent conservative, I believe that the vote to impeach the president was richly deserved, a position which I realize is not held by a great many other conservatives, including many of my fellow Resurgent contributors. Even though I believe that the vote was justified, it is difficult for me to celebrate what is undoubtedly a dark day for my country.

While it’s true that some Democrats set out to impeach Donald Trump from his first day in office. It’s also true that Trump’s actions provided them with a heckuva lot of ammunition in their effort.

People will accuse me and others of opposing Trump and favoring impeachment because we don’t like him, but that’s a chicken and egg argument. I opposed Trump because I saw him as unfit. Like many others, I hoped when he was elected that he would rise to the occasion. He did not. The impeachment is a mess of his own making. Even though I’ve never been a Trump fan, I didn’t support impeachment until there was strong evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors as well as a significant shift toward impeachment in public opinion.

Few remember that when an impeachment resolution was introduced in the House earlier this year, it was killed in July thanks to the votes of 137 Democrats as well as Rep Justin Amash, the Michigan congressman who left the Republican Party last spring. If Democrats just wanted to impeach Trump without cause, they have had almost a year to do so. But they didn’t until now. Something happened in the past six months to shift the votes of more than 100 congressmen.

The something was the whistleblower and the other witnesses who came forward to testify to Mr. Trump’s efforts to use foreign aid, paid for by the taxpayers, to induce a foreign country to investigate his political opponent. The phone call at the heart of the matter was made the day after former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testified to Congress about his investigation into the first set of allegations Donald Trump conspired with a foreign government to interfere in an election.

That more direct evidence of his abuse of power has not become public is due entirely to the fact that the Trump Administration has stonewalled Congress, ignoring subpoenas and refusing to allow officials to testify. The Administration apparently hoped that congressional Democrats would fight the obstruction in the courts and that the matter would not be resolved before the election. This obstruction became the second article of impeachment.

Finally, as the House prepared to vote to hold Mr. Trump accountable, his shadow diplomat, Rudy Giuliani, a man I once admired, returned to Ukraine to carry out his mission of finding dirt on Hunter Biden with the help of the Ukrainian government. Even at this late date, there has been no grand jury indictment or formal federal investigation of Biden.

Given these facts it is difficult to reach a conclusion other than that the president is both shameless and utterly unafraid of facing any consequences for his actions. Since the president was previously accused of seeking foreign help in the 2016 election and then obstructing the investigation, it seems obvious that the president either cannot learn from past mistakes, is utterly unrepentant for his actions, or both.

Even though the facts were on the side of Trump’s critics, the Democrats made a hash of the process. Self-imposed deadlines pushed Pelosi and company towards a vote when the country was split with a slight plurality favoring impeachment. If the Democrats had kept digging and subpoenaed more witnesses (Lev Parnas, the indicted Ukrainian-American who assisted Giuliani, for example), they might have increased public opinion to the point where Senate Republicans would have to take the matter seriously.

Regardless of the outcome in the Senate, the digging won’t stop. President Trump is likely to claim “TOTAL EXONERATION” in an all-caps tweet, but investigative journalists, and possibly congressional Democrats as well, will keep keep unraveling the loose threads of the Ukraine and other Trump scandals. There is likely to be a steady drip of revelations of Trump corruption from now until Election Day.

None of this makes me happy. I’m not happy that a president had to be disgraced with impeachment. I’m not happy that we have a corrupt president. I’m not happy that Republicans, my former party and many people I used to respect, are so in the tank for Trump that none can admit his faults publicly.

I’m not happy, but I do appreciate House Democrats and Rep. Amash for stepping up to the plate and doing their constitutional duty. President Trump needed to be rebuked and Republicans have fallen far short of their promise to hold him accountable.

In fact, Republican acquiescence and fear of challenging the president was a factor in both their 2018 midterm disaster and last night’s impeachment vote. Americans voted to restrain Trump last year and Democrats have done that where Republicans did not.

However, the worst part is that becoming the third president in American history to be impeached is unlikely to make Donald Trump mend his ways. If and when the Senate acquits him, he will be emboldened rather than chastened. A second-term Trump who never has to face voters again will be even more dangerous to American institutions than the first-term Trump who has labeled impeachment “unconstitutional” and a “coup.”

Ultimately, preserving our balance of powers and a limited presidency is going to be up to the voters. If we still believe in the rule of law and the idea that presidents are not kings, then President Trump must be defeated. If conservatives and libertarians want our Republican Party back, he must be beaten badly.

But the battle doesn’t end there. Voters need to be engaged and party nominating processes need to be reformed to ensure that we never have a choice as horrific as the one we had in 2016 between two corrupt, incompetent candidates. And both parties in Congress need to take back the authority that they have delegated to presidents of both parties who have become increasingly lawless.

Originally published on The Resurgent

2019 Brought A Bumper Crop Of UFO Stories

Most of us probably see 2019 as a banner year for weirdness. We’ve had a string of Florida man stories, a $120,000 banana, and the third year of the Trump presidency. As if that weren’t enough, it turns out that 2019 also yielded a bumper crop of UFO sightings and news.

If you’re like me, you probably figured that UFOs became an endangered species when cellphone cameras became ubiquitous. “Pics or didn’t happen” is enough to kill many tall tales, but UFO sightings seem to be persisting even though photographic evidence is often lacking.

As the New York Post reported this week, credible UFO sightings represented a veritable bumper crop in 2019. Among the credible UFO stories this year were:

·        The revelation that the navy is studying UFOs and has captured them on video

·        The claim by naval officers that “unknown individuals” confiscated videos and data of a 2004 UFO sighting involving the USS Nimitz

·        An announcement that the army is partnering with the founder of Blink-182 to study “alien metals”

·        A Sept. 21 Ohio sighting by former law enforcement officer and his scientist wife who came within 50 feet of a mysterious light that was estimated to be 20 feet in size. The husband experienced paralysis when he tried to grab his gun.

·        A Sept. 1 sighting in New Mexico in which elk hunters saw 7-foot tall “figures” and an apparent spacecraft that resembled a circus tent

·        An August 12 sighting on the Garden State Parkway near Atlantic City, N.J. in which a married couple reported seeing a “40-foot triangle craft”

·        A viral video of a strange cluster of lights filmed off North Carolina’s Outer Banks in September

You might be tempted to think that the surge in UFO sightings is par for the course in a country where large numbers of people think the moon landing was fake, that vaccines cause autism, and reject the evidence on the lack of Russian collusion and Deep State conspiracies. However, simply writing off all sightings as fantasies ignores the fact that there is compelling data, such as pictures from naval targeting systems, in a number of the cases.

I’ve always had a curiosity about UFOs and aliens, going back to the 1970s television series based on the air force’s Project Blue Book, a show that really creeped me out, if I’m to be totally honest. However, I’m also a UFO skeptic. The small likelihood of life arising elsewhere in the universe combined with the even smaller likelihood of an extraterrestrial species developing interstellar travel present long odds against alien visitors. The vast majority UFO sightings – probably 99.9 percent -can be explained away as misidentified aircraft, natural phenomena, or hoaxes.

But that still leaves the difficult tenth of a percent that aren’t easily explained away. After the revelations of 2019, however, one thing is certain: The US government is taking UFO sightings seriously. If naval aviators can lock onto “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP),” the navy’s preferred term for UFOs with advanced targeting systems such as the F/A-18 Hornet’s forward-looking infrared radar (FLIR), it is strong evidence that some sort of physical object is out there.

These flying objects that are unidentified aren’t necessarily flying saucers or alien spacecraft. We don’t know what they are and alien technology is simply one explanation. Another interesting theory is that UFOs are spiritual. Hugh Ross, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, proposed in his book, “Lights In The Sky And Little Green Men,” that UFOs could come from other dimensions and may be connected with angelic and demonic beings. As evidence, Ross notes a link between UFO sightings and the occult.

You can use an online map of UFO sightings by state to see how plausible you think this and other theories are as well as to judge your own likelihood of a close encounter. Interestingly, the South has few UFO sightings compared with the rest of the country, challenging the stereotype of backwoods, Southern rednecks as the typical UFO witnesses.

You may wonder if I’ve ever seen any strange aerial phenomena in my primary occupation as a pilot. The only example that I can think of in my thousands of hours was a little over 15 years ago as I operated an airline flight over the northeastern US. It was a clear winter night and I think that we were over upstate New York when the other pilot and I both witnessed a vivid red streak in the sky above us. The streak lasted only for a second or so before it disappeared.

What was it? We weren’t sure, but our best guess was that it was a meteor, although it didn’t look like any meteor that I’ve seen before or since. It was both larger and more colorful. This may have been because of our altitude and the atmospheric conditions that night, although I’ve seen shooting stars from aloft since then and none resembled what we saw that night. Neither of us jumped to the conclusion that it was an alien spacecraft.

No one knows what the truth is behind UFOs but the new evidence that emerged in 2019 makes the phenomena a little more real. And while the government is cracking down on illegal immigration, a wall and ICE raids won’t deter these particular illegal aliens in their saucer, triangular, or circus tent craft.

Originally published on The Resurgent

NJ Democrat Van Drew To Switch Parties

Republicans are celebrating the rumored defection of Democrat Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey congressman and one of two Democrats who voted against authorization of the House impeachment inquiry. Van Drew’s decision to leave the Democratic Party became public on Saturday after the congressman met with President Trump on Friday.

As of this writing, Rep. Van Drew does not appear to have spoken publicly to confirm his plan to switch parties. The congressman’s website was last updated on Dec. 12 and he has not tweeted since Dec. 13 and neither references changing parties.  

While Republicans link Van Drew’s defection to impeachment, polling makes that connection questionable, at least as interpreted by Trump apologists. A recent Fox News poll shows 50 percent of voters in support of impeachment. That number is likely to be higher in deep-blue New Jersey. A poll from back in October showed that support New Jersey voters backed impeachment by 50-36 percent.

Van Drew, who was first elected to Congress last year, represents New Jersey’s second district. In 2018, he won the seat that was being vacated by the retiring Republican Frank LoBiondo with 52 percent of the vote.  The district voted for Trump in 2016 but sided with Barack Obama in the two prior presidential elections. LoBiondo, who was first elected in 1994, won the 2016 election with 59 percent of the vote.

Rep. Van Drew is among the most conservative Democrats per Govtrack’s ideology chart, but his voting record would still place him to the left of all House Republicans. Van Drew scores seven percent on FiveThirtyEight’s Trump scoring scale. Regarding his record on other hot button issues, he gets a 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood and zero from National Right to Life.  While he scores poorly on taxes with a nine percent rating from Americans for Prosperity, he did garner 80 percent from the National Rifle Association. On conservative issues, he gets 36 percent from the American Conservative Union and a zero from Conservative Review. If he was an established Republican, Van Drew would be listed among the “rinos.”

If Van Drew doesn’t fit well with Republicans, he also is not a typical Democrat. Politico reported that Democratic leaders were losing patience with the soon-to-be-runaway congressman over a number of votes that had angered the liberal base. As a state senator, he voted against gay marriage, increasing the minimum wage and numerous gun control bills. Progressives already considered Van Drew to be something of a Democrat-in-name-only, but it was his rogue vote on impeachment that caused the most trouble.

“The large majority of our party in Cumberland really isn’t or wasn’t happy with [Van Drew’s] approach on impeachment,” Doug Long, a former Cumberland County, N.J. Democratic chairman, said. “That really has little to do with local politics, until it becomes a part of local politics.”

Several Democrats were reportedly planning to primary Van Drew next year and Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, cited a recent internal poll which found that 58 percent of second district primary voters wanted a different candidate. Only 28 percent supported incumbent Van Drew.

“What he's reacting to is public polling that shows he can't get renominated,” Nadler said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Van Drew may not be able to secure the 2020 nomination as a Republican either. Even though New Jersey is a left-leaning state, Republican primary voters will be more conservative than the state as a whole. The liberal side of Van Drew’s record is likely to be a liability.

Three Republicans have already declared their candidacy for Van Drew’s seat. One, Brian Fitzherbert, accused the soon-to-be-former-Democrat of “trying to use South Jersey Republicans to cling onto his power.”

“How stupid does Desperate Jeff Van Drew think South Jersey Republicans are? Desperate Jeff knew exactly what Washington Democrats were about when he ran for Congress two years ago,” Fitzberhert said in a statement.

In the big picture, Van Drew’s defection is a win for Republicans and provides a welcome respite from the bad news of the Ukraine scandal, but, under the surface, his flight from the Democratic Party likely has less to do with moral qualms about Democratic positions than with the unpopularity of his stance against impeachment with second district Democrats.

Van Drew’s move may not be enough to preserve his seat. New Jersey Democrats will be angry at him and Republicans will look to more conservative candidates. Moderates and independents are unlikely to trust him after his party switch less than a year into his term.

If Van Drew is able to mount a successful re-election campaign, he may well become a thorn in the side of the GOP. He seems to sympathize with Republicans on a precious few issues aside from impeachment. However, in the modern Republican Party, loyalty to Donald Trump often seems to trump all else.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Fox Poll: Majority Favors Impeachment And Removal

A new Fox News poll released today found that a majority of registered voters now support impeachment and removal of President Trump. When voters who support impeachment but oppose removal are considered, voters favor impeachment by a double-digit margin.

The poll found that a total of 50 percent of voters want to see Trump impeached and removed. An additional four percent of voters wanted Trump impeached but opposed removal. Forty-one percent of voters opposed impeachment.

In comparison, public support for the impeachment of Richard Nixon hovered in the high 40s throughout the spring and early summer of 1974. Support for Nixon’s impeachment rose dramatically in late July after the Supreme Court ruled that Nixon had to turn over his secret tapes, reaching 57 percent by the time he resigned on August 8. In the case of Bill Clinton, a CBS News poll from December 1998 found that 60 percent opposed the House impeachment vote and 68 percent opposed Clinton’s removal. Approval for Trump's impeachment more closely resembles that of Nixon than Clinton.

As one would expect, there is a stark partisan divide on the impeachment question. Ninety percent of Democrats favor impeachment while 81 percent of Republicans oppose it. Fifty percent of independents want Trump impeached with only 40 percent opposed.

While one individual poll is possibly an outlier that is not a true representation of public opinion, there are now several months of data from polling on the impeachment question. A FiveThirtyEight average of polls shows that the average of recent polls is within the margin of error of the Fox poll. Respondents favor impeachment and removal by an average of 47.8-45.9 percent. Americans support the impeachment inquiry by an average of 52.3-41.9 percent.

Respondents in the Fox poll also believed that Democrats were running the impeachment inquiry fairly by a slim 45-42 margin. Voters were more convinced that President Trump was obstructing the inquiry. Fifty-two percent thought that Trump was not being “cooperative enough” with the inquiry compared with 36 percent who approved of Trump’s strategy of stonewalling.

With respect to the upcoming election, voters were split on how an impeachment vote would affect their preference for a congressional candidate. Thirty-eight percent said that voting for impeachment would make them more likely to vote for a candidate compared with 36 percent who would be less likely to support a candidate who voted for impeachment. Twenty-five percent said it would make no difference or didn’t know how it would affect their vote.

The poll also showed that Republican talking points are not resonating with voters. Only 37 percent were extremely or very interested in the allegations about Joe and Hunter Biden compared with 54 percent who only somewhat or not-at-all interested. Those numbers have barely changed since October.

The Fox poll also had bad news for Republicans on the policy front. The poll found that many Democratic policies are popular among voters. Sixty-eight percent favor a two-percent wealth tax on people with more than $50 million, 66 percent favor a public option to purchase Medicare, 63 percent favor marijuana legalization, and 53 percent want to keep Obamacare in place with only minor changes. The poll also showed that voters oppose the border wall by a 52-44 margin.

The best news for Republicans in the poll is that Americans reject Democrat calls for Medicare-for-all. Fifty-three percent oppose abolishing private health insurance while only 41 percent support the idea.

The Fox poll confirms that Americans are closely divided on the question of impeachment. While public opinion is against Trump, it is not strong enough to persuade Republicans to break ranks with the president. Nevertheless, polling data does not support the Republican notion that Democrats will pay a price next November for going through with impeachment. Republican defenses of Trump are falling flat outside the party faithful.

If Democrats delayed impeachment and continued to pursue the investigation, they might build public support for impeaching and removing the president in a scenario that followed the Nixon model. The conundrum for Democrats is that 1974 was a midterm election year while the clock is currently counting down to a presidential election. The longer Democrats wait, the more powerful the argument to let the voters decide will become.

Originally published on The Resurgent

McConnell Says ‘No Chance’ Senate Will Remove Trump

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Sean Hannity on Thursday that there was “no chance” that the Senate would vote to remove President Trump from office after he is impeached by the House.

“The case is so darn weak coming from the House,” McConnell said. “We know how it’s going to end. There’s no chance the president’s going to be removed from office.”

“My hope is that there won’t be a single Republican who votes for either of these articles of impeachment, and Sean, it wouldn’t surprise me if we got one or two Democrats,” McConnell added.

Earlier this week, McConnell raised the possibility of a brief trial in which no witnesses are called and the Senate votes summarily on evidence and arguments that would be presented by Democrats acting in the role of prosecutor against the president. At that point, McConnell suggested to Reuters that the Senate “could go down the path of calling witnesses and basically having another trial” or, he added, a majority of senators could decide “that they’ve heard enough and they believe they know what would happen and could move to vote on the two articles of impeachment sent over to us by the House.”

President Trump seems to have embraced the idea having a long trial and turning it into a spectacle in which his defense attempts to put Joe and Hunter Biden on trial. On Dec. 5, Trump tweeted that Democrats should impeach him “fast” so that he could “have Schiff, the Bidens, Pelosi and many more testify….”

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

 · Dec 5, 2019

The Do Nothing Democrats had a historically bad day yesterday in the House. They have no Impeachment case and are demeaning our Country. But nothing matters to them, they have gone crazy. Therefore I say, if you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair....

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

.....trial in the Senate, and so that our Country can get back to business. We will have Schiff, the Bidens, Pelosi and many more testify, and will reveal, for the first time, how corrupt our system really is. I was elected to “Clean the Swamp,” and that’s what I am doing!

123K

8:01 AM - Dec 5, 2019

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A White House spokesman told reporters last week that the president “wants his case fully made in the Senate,”  adding that, “We need witnesses as part of our trial and a full defense of the president on the facts.”

A vigorous defense could complicate matters for the Trump Administration. One of the articles of impeachment is obstruction on the grounds that the White House has refused to provide documentation and witnesses that were requested by Congress. Witnesses at the White House, the Pentagon, and even civilian attorney Rudy Giuliani all refused to comply with congressional subpoenas. In a long trial, these and other subpoenas might be renewed and enforced. At the very least, uncomfortable questions about why the president’s inner circle is not testifying on his behalf may be raised.

An extended trial would also give Democrats an opportunity to dig deeper and find more witnesses with information that is embarrassing for the president. By forcing a quick House vote, Democrats are passing up the opportunity to find more evidence against Mr. Trump, but a long trial in the Senate could mean that the president fails to benefit from their error.

Further, the Constitution specifies that the chief justice of the Supreme Court presides over an impeachment trial. Since John Roberts would control the proceedings, Senate Republicans will likely have fewer opportunities to score partisan points than Democrats did in the House where they controlled the committees conducting the impeachment process.

On the bench, Roberts has a history of avoiding partisanship and has a moderate record with one of his most famous (or infamous) decisions upholding Obamacare’s individual mandate as a tax. The chief justice is not a person who can be expected to toe the Republican Party line.

However, a summary vote to dismiss the impeachment has risks as well. The country is closely divided on impeachment with a slight plurality favoring the removal of Donald Trump. A rubber stamp vote to dismiss the charges against Trump is unlikely to win Republicans many friends among voters skeptical of the president. These voters would include many of the suburban voters who abandoned the GOP en masse in 2018.

In the end, Mr. McConnell seems correct that the Senate will vote to acquit Donald Trump. The numbers for removal just aren’t there. The Constitution requires a two-thirds majority to remove the president, meaning that 20 Republican senators would have to defect and vote with Democrats. The chances of such a mass desertion of the president are nil at this point.

On conducting a short trial, however, McConnell is on shakier ground. Both sides seem to be adopting self-defeating strategies for impeachment with Democrats rushing what they could shape into a public approval nightmare for Donald Trump with a slow drip of investigations over the next year and the Trump Administration pushing for a long trial that it is unlikely to be able to control.

No one knows where the impeachment trial will ultimately lead, but, if it concludes early in the year, I have to wonder if voters will even remember it by November. Such is the nature of the incredibly fast news cycles of the Trump era.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump, Pelosi Make Deal On USMCA

Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an agreement with President Trump to allow passage of the United States -Mexico-Canada trade treaty. The USMCA is an updated version of NAFTA, which was ratified in 1994.

“There is no question of course that this trade agreement is much better than NAFTA,” Pelosi told the Associated Press, calling it “infinitely better than what was initially proposed by the administration.”

It is unclear what changes have been made to the USMCA to secure passage in the House, but The Hill reported yesterday that some Republican senators were concerned that the president, desperate for a victory with impeachment looming, gave away too much to the Democrats.

“I just hope he hasn’t gone too far in Speaker Pelosi’s direction, and the AFL-CIO’s direction that he might lose some support here,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “My concern is that what the administration presented has now been moved demonstrably to Democrats, the direction that they wanted.” 

“I mean if they got the unions my assumption is that there are going to be a lot of things that were changed from the last time we’ve seen anything on this,” Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) agreed. “So yeah, I think there’s a potential that you could have in their … desire to try to satisfy Democrats in the House, labor unions cost you some Republican support depending on what those changes are.”

On Twitter, President Trump lauded Democrats for supporting the USMCA and called NAFTA “our country’s worst trade deal.”

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

America’s great USMCA Trade Bill is looking good. It will be the best and most important trade deal ever made by the USA. Good for everybody - Farmers, Manufacturers, Energy, Unions - tremendous support. Importantly, we will finally end our Country’s worst Trade Deal, NAFTA!

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In reality, the USMCA is an update to NAFTA which leaves much of the old trade agreement intact. The new treaty includes agreements on e-commerce, intellectual property, and mechanisms to resolve disputes among other things.

“There are those who I read about in one place or another that say, ‘why would you give President Trump a victory?’” Pelosi said at a corporate event on Monday. “Well, why wouldn’t we? This is the right thing to do for our trade situation, for our workers.”

If Nancy Pelosi is excited about revising a very successful free trade deal, I can’t help but worry.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Democrats Unveil Articles Of Impeachment

House Democrats have formally unveiled the articles of impeachment against Donald Trump. The list of charges includes two broad counts.

The AP reported this morning that the list of charges includes abuse of power and obstruction that stem from the president’s alleged attempts to exchange an Oval Office visit and aid to Ukraine for the announcement of an investigation into Hunter Biden’s association with Burisma.

President Trump responded with a tweet calling the impeachment process “sheer madness.”

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

To Impeach a President who has proven through results, including producing perhaps the strongest economy in our country’s history, to have one of the most successful presidencies ever, and most importantly, who has done NOTHING wrong, is sheer Political Madness! #2020Election

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There is substantial evidence for the abuse of power charge. A call summary released by the White House shows the president asking for a “favor” after Ukrainian President Zelensky requests anti-tank missiles from the US. The favor included an investigation of Crowdstrike, the company that investigated the DNC hack in 2016 and which does not have a presence in Ukraine, as well as a specific request to investigate the Bidens. Many Republicans have expressed concern about the call.

The obstruction article is less certain. House Democrats have not pursued legal action to back up requests for information and testimony by Trump Administration officials. The Trump Administration is claiming executive privilege.

President Trump has maintained that his call with Zelensky was “perfect.”

Originally published on The Resurgent