RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trumps-the-bidens-and-china-11570210513

“With apologies to Captain Obvious, the plain fact is that the Trumps had a big real estate business long before the 2016 election. Is there any Biden history in Ukrainian natural gas or Chinese finance prior to Joe Biden’s vice presidency?”

Even Hunter Biden doesn’t deserve the Chinese judicial system. But there is a silver lining to Donald Trump’s suggestion that foreign governments scrutinize unusual financial arrangements involving relatives of people at the center of American political power. There is value in a U.S. President telling the world that the Clinton Foundation will not be the model for how this country conducts its foreign affairs.

“China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine,” the President told reporters on Thursday at the White House.

Was it really that bad? The Journal’s James Areddy reports:

Hunter Biden, a 49-year-old lawyer and the second son of the former vice president, owns 10% of a private-equity firm called Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Co.
Over the past roughly six years, it has channeled $2.5 billion or more on behalf of its financial backers into automotive, energy, mining and technology deals, according to interviews with people familiar with the private-equity firm and a review by The Wall Street Journal of financial filings and other official business records.
Hunter Biden is one of nine directors of the firm, known as BHR Partners, which is controlled and funded primarily by large Chinese government-owned shareholders.

In 2014, the Journal’s Chao Deng reported from Shanghai that this esteemed group was raising a fund to invest outside China, “with the yuan-denominated portion of the fund to be converted to U.S. dollars through Shanghai’s free-trade zone.” Mr. Deng noted:

https://amgreatness.com/2019/10/05/anti-trump-fraternity-and-nevertrump-sorority-collude-in-impeachment-scam/

Donald Trump asked President Zelensky to help with the Justice Department’s investigation of efforts to subvert the 2016 election. Donald Trump is the president of the United States. It is part of his responsibility to see that our elections are open and fair. Bottom line: not much to work with there for the anti-Trump fraternity.

How stupid does the anti-Trump fraternity think the American people are? By “anti-Trump fraternity” I mean not only the increasingly frantic Democrats who, like Belshazzar at that memorable dinner party many years back, can see the writing ever more clearly on the wall for 2020, but also the NeverTrump sorority who just cannot get over the fact that someone was elected president of the United States without their permission, indeed, over their explicit objections. How dare they!

I ask how stupid they think the American people are because it has long seemed to me that they must have a very low opinion of our intelligence given the preposterous anti-Trump narrative they keep trying to foist off on us.

At the same time, it must be said that they have a touching trust in our patience. Fans of P.G. Wodehouse may recall that in the preface to Summer Lightning old Plum adduced the “nasty remark” of one critic who complained that a previous novel contained “all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.” Ever looking on the bright side, Wodehouse mused that that critic had probably by then been eaten by bears “like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha.” But if, he noted, said scribe was still among us he would not have been able to make the same objection to Wodehouse’s new novel because this time he put in all the old Wodehouse characters “under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/impeachment-inquiry-house-must-vote-or-its-just-democratic-stunt/

It is not for the Speaker and her adjutants to decree that there is an inquiry.

‘The House of Representatives . . . shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.”

It’s right there in black-and-white: In article I, section 2, clause 5, our Constitution vests the entirety of the power to call for removal of the president of the United States in a single body — the House.

Not in the Speaker of the House. In the House of Representatives. The institution, not one of its members.

To be sure, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a very powerful government official: second in the line of succession to the presidency; arguably, the most powerful member of Congress. She wields decisive influence on the business of her chamber. She even has the power to induce the House to vote on whether to conduct an impeachment inquiry.

But she does not have the power to impeach on her own.

In the end, Speaker Pelosi is just one member, a representative elected biannually by one district (in her case, the 12th district of California, centered in San Francisco and not particularly representative of the nation at large). Sure, she enjoys primus inter pares status because she is chosen by a majority of the House’s 435 members. But like each of those other members, her vote counts as just one — in a body that generally requires 218 votes to get the important things done.

She is the Speaker. She is not the House. She does not have the authority to call for the president’s removal. She can argue for it, like the other members. She can vote on it, like the other members. But she cannot do it by herself. Only the House, acting as an institution, can do that.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/off-her-meds-aoc-says-trumps-attacks-on-schiff-are-targeted-anti-semitism/

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) probably says and tweets more remarkably ignorant things than anyone in Congress — perhaps more than anyone in the United States. Her latest attack on President Trump regarding his attacks on California Democrat Adam Schiff may be her dumbest hot-take yet.

Yes, the Democrats work from an identity politics-based playbook all of the time, but this is a stretch even when applying their ever-changing rules.

The post she’s tweeting here as a source for her charge is from The Intercept, and was written by Mehdi Hasan, a noted Iran and Ilhan Omar apologist.

Speaking of Omar, the most outrageously laughable aspect of this concern-trolling by AOC is the fact that half of her “Squad” are openly raging anti-Semites. Omar is so awful that she inspired a condemnation resolution by her own party after she had been in office only a month.

This is Barack Obama’s legacy. White males who are Catholic, Protestant, or atheist are the only people subject to public criticism. Democrats hide their lunacy behind identity shields.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/04/report-anti-trump-whistleblower-concealed-contacts-with-house-democrats-from-inspector-general/

The anti-Trump whistleblower whose allegations against President Donald Trump sent Congress into an impeachment frenzy concealed his interactions with House Democrats from the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) and failed to disclose them as required, Fox News reported on Friday.

According to Fox News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge, ICIG Michael Atkinson testified before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) that the anti-Trump complainant, whose identity has not been made public, did not inform the ICIG in his complaint that he or his team had already contacted Democratic staff working for Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the House intelligence committee.

The complainant’s failure to disclose his interactions with Schiff or his staff could put him in legal hot water, as the whistleblower form he submitted requires individuals to disclose “other actions you are taking on your disclosure” under penalty of perjury. An entire page of the whistleblower form is dedicated to collecting information about previous disclosures so the ICIG can take appropriate action in response to the complaint.

“I have previously disclosed (or am disclosing) the violations alleged here to (complete all that apply),” the form requires the complainant to attest. The form includes checkboxes for disclosures to other inspectors general, other agencies, the Department of Justice, the Government Accountability Office, the Office of Special Counsel, other executive branch departments, Congress and its respective committees, and media. It also includes a separate question asking the complainant to detail those previous disclosures to the ICIG.

“Before going to Congress, the C.I.A. officer had a colleague convey his accusations to the agency’s top lawyer,” The New York Times reported earlier this week. “Concerned about how that avenue for airing his allegations was unfolding, the officer then approached a House Intelligence Committee aide, alerting him to the accusation against Mr. Trump.”

The New York Times noted that the anti-Trump complainant only notified the committee’s Democrats of his allegations.