Where does the list begin? With Utah’s carpetbagger from Massachusetts, Mitt Romney; the warmongering shill of a foreign country, John Bolton; the rabid partisan Nancy Pelosi; the always-despicable “Tweedledee and Tweedledum” of American politics, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, who are the heirs of Joe McCarthy; . . . and of course with the un-American racist and anti-Semite Barack Obama, who must spend the rest of his life in prison for treason, at the very least—or no American should believe in the rule of law anymore.[2]
The impeachment of our great President Donald Trump has ended, for now. He was acquitted yesterday, but Pelosi made it crystal clear that his impeachment “will last forever,” and that it will go on and on until he leaves the presidency.[3] And she must be taken at her word. After all, she tore up the President’s State of the Union speech in front of the nation, right after he delivered it. A more brazen and classless act—and moment—in American history escapes this writer.
The Congressional Democrats are ruthless trailer trash. After all, the American criminal Robert Mueller came after Trump with a pack of totally-partisan prosecutors bent on destroying this presidency, and they came up with nothing. A big fat Z-E-R-O. If they had anything at all, after spending more than $14 million, surely they would have used it. Then, along came Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler, who produced nothing too. Instead of investigating the actual criminality of the Clintons, Obama, Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and so many others, they targeted Trump like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan had been targeted previously.
Clearly, the Democratic Party and America’s far-Left must be decimated, never to rise again.[4] And yes, lots of us began as Democrats, but will never vote for one in the future. Again, the Democrats’ attempted coup has been in the works for at least three years. It has been and continues to be the goal of the thoroughly-evil Democrats to reverse the election results of 2016. This is treason, punishable by death.[5] Nancy Pelosi was correct and refreshingly candid when she admitted that impeachment in one form or another will never stop. This tells us all that we need to know . . . and where to go from here.
[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (seewww.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-20-1-1.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com
This is the conclusion of Pat Buchanan—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and a former GOP presidential aspirant himself. Again, the Democratic Party and America’s far-Left must be decimated, never to rise again. And yes, lots of us began as Democrats, but will never vote for one in the future.
Buchanan has written an article entitled “Impeachment: The Left’s Ultimate Weapon,” which states:
In 1868, President Andrew Johnson was impeached for violating the Tenure of Office Act that had been enacted by Congress over his veto in 1867. Defying the law, Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, without getting Senate approval, as the act required him to do.
In his 1956 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, John F. Kennedy made Edmund Ross one of the Senate’s “Profiles in Courage” for his decisive and heroic vote not to convict and remove Johnson.
Repealed in 1887, the Tenure of Office Act was later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
But while the act was the lethal instrument to be used in the political assassination of a president whom the Radical Republicans meant to terminate, Stanton’s ouster was not the primary cause of their fury.
What truly enraged the Radical Republicans was Johnson’s resolve to be more magnanimous toward the defeated South than they meant to be. Johnson had in mind an earlier end to the military occupation of the South and a more rapid return of the seceded states to the Union.
The story is told in the 1942 Hollywood film “Tennessee Johnson,” starring Van Heflin, which has since gone down the memory hole along with Woodrow Wilson’s White House favorite, “Birth of a Nation.”
As historians concede, the impeachment of Johnson was about Reconstruction and who would remake the South. Would it be the Southern majority that fought and lost the war, or the victorious Yankees and the “scalawags” and “carpetbaggers” laboring alongside them?
The triumphant Radical Republicans were not about conciliation. So severe were aspects of the occupation that Gen. Robert E. Lee reportedly said if he had known what was coming, he might not have quit fighting.
So, too, the impeachment of Donald Trump is not really about his 10-week delay in shipping arms to Ukraine or his postponing of a visit by Ukraine’s president until he announced an investigation of Burisma Holdings and Joe and Hunter Biden.
Even before the 2016 election, Democrats, collaborating with a like-minded media, were using the instruments of power they possess, to first prevent and then to overturn the election results of 2016.
Russiagate, the James Comey FBI investigation, the Mueller probe — aborting a Trump presidency has always been the goal.
Saturday, White House counsel Pat Cipollone succinctly described to the Senate the bottom line:
“They’re asking you to remove President Trump from the ballot in an election that’s occurring in approximately nine months. … They’re asking you to tear up all of the ballots across this country on your own initiative, take that decision away from the American people.”
To save “our democracy,” to which they pay tireless tribute, the impeachers want to ensure that the people, in a supposedly free election in 2020, are not allowed to make the same mistake they made in 2016.
To save our democracy, the House and half the Senate want to deny the America electorate one of the most important roles the people play in this republic — the exercise of their right to choose the head of state and commander in chief of the United States.
Disqualifying presidential candidates whom populists favor but elites abhor is a quite common practice — in Third World countries.
Over the weekend, we learned that John Bolton, who has offered to testify in the Senate trial, claims in his coming book that Trump made a direct link between sending military aid to Ukraine and Ukraine’s opening an investigation of the Bidens.
This has caused some Republican senators to reconsider calling witnesses, particularly Bolton, in the impeachment trial.
If four Republicans vote for witnesses, they will be doing the work Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and Nancy Pelosi’s House failed to do in their haste to get Trump impeached by Christmas. They will be prolonging a trial set up to burn and bury their president.
The Senate should let Trump’s defenders complete their case, as the House managers and impeachers have already done. Then allow 16 hours of questioning. Then call for the verdict.
There is no treason, no bribery and no high crime in what the House managers allege. There is nothing in the articles of impeachment voted that rises to a level to justify removing a president.
Harry Truman dropped atomic bombs on defenseless cities and sent 2 million POWs back to the tender mercies of Stalin in Operation Keelhaul after World War II.
JFK greenlighted the overthrow of an ally, President Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam, in a coup that ended in the murder of Diem.
LBJ ordered the wiretapping of Martin Luther King, and his White House shared the fruits of that FBI surveillance with a friendly press.
No one was impeached.
Why? Because Truman, JFK and LBJ were establishment favorites.
For Trump, a phone call with a Ukrainian president saying, “Send us your Biden file and we will have a meeting,” is a political capital crime justifying democracy’s version of a death penalty.[2]
Again, this coup has been in the works for at least three years.[3]
It is the goal of the thoroughly-evil Democrats to reverse the election results of 2016. This is treason, punishable by death. Indeed, as stated previously:
The un-American racist and anti-Semite Barack Obama and his fellow co-conspirators sought to destroy the candidacy and then the presidency of Donald Trump from Day One, and they continue to do so. In the history of our great nation, it is doubtful that there have been any acts that rose to this level of sedition and treason except during our Civil War, when many or most of the traitors paid with their lives. The same thing must happen now, beginning with Barack Obama. Nothing less will suffice.[4]
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was correct and refreshingly candid when she admitted that impeachment in one form or another will never stop.[5]
The bottom line is that it is a colossal waste of time and effort. The un-American racist and anti-Semite Barack Obama must be imprisoned, not Impeached, for the rest of his life, at the very least. He and his fellow co-conspirators tried to destroy the candidacy and then the presidency of Donald Trump, which is treason. And it continues to this day in the form of the bogus impeachment efforts.[6]
Until Barack Obama and his co-conspirators are bought to justice, no American should believe in the rule of law, or that justice exists. We live in a lawless America today.
[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (seewww.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-20-1-1.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com
The Democratic Party and America’s far-Left must be decimated, never to rise again. And yes, lots of us began as Democrats, but will never vote for one again.
Jennie Taer has written at saraacarter.com:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is moving forward with the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump[,] announcing Wednesday the House managers who will transmit the articles to the Senate in what she called “an impeachment that will last forever.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), House Administration Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Rep. Val Demings (D-FL), Jason Crow (D-CO), Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX) will assume the managerial roles.
“The emphasis is on litigators, the emphasis is on comfort level in the court room, the emphasis is on making the strongest possible case to protect and defend our constitution, to seek the truth for the American people,” Pelosi said.
“I’m very proud and honored that these seven members, distinguished members, have accepted this serious responsibility, again, to protect and defend for the people defending our Democracy.
The House is also set to hold a vote later Wednesday on finalizing the transmission of the articles to the Senate for a full trial.
In anticipation of Pelosi’s move today, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday that the trial will likely begin next Tuesday in the Senate.
“The House is likely to finally send the articles over to us tomorrow and we’ll be able to . . . in all likelihood go through some preliminary steps here this week which could well include the chief justice coming over and swearing in members of the Senate and some other kind of housekeeping measures,” Sen. McConnell said.
“We hope to be able to achieve that by consent which would set us up to begin the actual trial next Tuesday.”[2]
This coup has been in the works for at least three years.[3]
Every one of the House managers must wear a target on his or her back. It must be “open season” with respect to each of them, as well as all Democrats in the Congress who are pursuing the farce of President Donald Trump’s impeachment. After all, he was cleared by former FBI Director Robert Mueller and his staff of zealous, Leftist, senior prosecutors. However, it is the goal of the thoroughly-evil Democrats now to reverse the election results of 2016. This is treason, punishable by death.
Indeed, the un-American racist and anti-Semite Barack Obama and his fellow co-conspirators sought to destroy the candidacy and then the presidency of Donald Trump from Day One, and they continue to do so. In the history of our great nation, it is doubtful that there have been any acts that rose to this level of sedition and treason except during our Civil War, when many or most of the traitors paid with their lives. The same thing must happen now, beginning with Barack Obama.[4] Nothing less will suffice.
[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (seewww.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-20-1-1.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com
[2] Seehttps://saraacarter.com/an-impeachment-that-will-last-forever-pelosi-announces-impeachment-managers/ (“‘An Impeachment That Will Last Forever’: Pelosi Announces Impeachment Managers”); see also https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7895585/Donald-Trumps-trial-begins-Articles-impeachment-read-Senate.html (“Donald Trump’s trial begins: Senate hears impeachment articles”) and https://buchanan.org/blog/a-malicious-indictment-mitch-should-toss-out-138043 (“A Malicious Indictment Mitch Should Toss Out”—“The impeachment of Donald Trump is the fruit of a malicious prosecution whose roots go back to the 2016 election, in the aftermath of which stunned liberals and Democrats began to plot the removal of the new president. This coup has been in the works for three years. . . . [T]he articles of impeachment on which the Judiciary Committee and the House voted do not contain a single crime required by the Constitution for impeachment and removal. There is no charge of treason, no charge of bribery or ‘other high crimes and misdemeanors.’ . . . [T]here is no debate on how the Senate Democrats intend to vote — 100% for removal of a president they fear they may not be able to defeat. . . . [T]he forum to be entrusted with the decision of ‘should Trump go?’ is not a deeply polarized Senate, but with those the Founding Fathers entrusted with such decisions — the American people. . . . Mitch McConnell should let the House managers make their case, and then call for a vote to dismiss, and treat this indictment with the contempt it so richly deserves”) and https://www.newsmax.com/politics/lindsey-graham-senate-trial/2020/01/16/id/950054/ (“Lindsey Graham Predicts ‘Bipartisan Acquittal’ in Impeachment Trial”)
Perhaps an even more important and obvious question is when will Barack Obama go to prison—at the very least—for his many crimes including treason, which is punishable by death?[2]
He is an un-American racist and anti-Semite, who has done more damage to our great nation than any other president.[3] Most egregious is that he is responsible for the efforts to destroy the candidacy and then the presidency of Donald Trump, which continue to this day in the form of farcical impeachment proceedings on Capitol Hill.
Until Obama is brought to justice, no American should believe in our system of justice again. It is a joke, and nonexistent.[4] The Clintons—Bill and Hillary—proved that in spades as they scoffed at the system, and effectively ignored it.[5] And yes, lots of us began as Democrats but will never vote for one again.
Having brought down Richard Nixon’s presidency, America’s Left—in the form of the Democratic Party and their so-called “mainstream media” cohorts—tried desperately to destroy the presidency of Ronald Reagan as a result of Iran Contra hearings and investigations. Now they have moved on to their third GOP president, Trump.
Having produced nothing as a result of Robert Mueller’s extensive investigations[6], they have shifted their avenues of attack to one issue after another, hoping desperately to destroy the Trump presidency—or at least wound it fatally before next year’s elections.
They are the “Pigs” that George Orwell wrote about in his prescient Animal Farm, where all of the animals were equal until the “Pigs” accreted power and control, and reigned supreme, and were masters over—and subjugated—the other animals.[7] They must be stopped in their tracks and destroyed, like Abraham Lincoln ended the lives and efforts of those who would have torn asunder our great nation and left it in ruins.
We are in a battle for the “soul” of America, which will determine whether it will survive or not. The stakes are every bit as high as those facing Lincoln, and his two key generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. Lincoln went through lots of military commanders until he found the right two; and the three of them saved our nation from certain destruction.[8]
[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (seewww.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-19-9-27.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com
Some of us have lived through this period of time before. Only the faces change.
We were in Berkeley for the “Free Speech” and anti-Vietnam War riots. We were in Washington, D.C. when the city was set ablaze after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed in Memphis. We were there when Watergate broke, and we lived through that too. We lived with 9/11, and watched Iraq turn into a graveyard for so many Americans and their dreams, while still others were maimed for life, and trillions of dollars were wasted . . . for nothing.[2]
The title of this article is the rallying cry of Pat Buchanan—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and a former GOP presidential aspirant himself—who has written:
Sunday morning, President Trump announced that the world’s worst terrorist, the head of the ISIS caliphate who had raped an American woman, had received justice.
About to be captured and carried off in a helicopter by U.S. special forces, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi blew himself up with an explosive vest in a compound in northwest Syria. The long search for the sadist and fanatic had ended in triumph. No U.S. troops were lost.
That evening, Trump went out to the fifth game of the World Series between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros. As his face was flashed on the big screen, the stadium erupted with people booing and chanting, “Impeach Trump!” and “Lock him up!”
That Trump is not cheered at a D.C. baseball game is not odd, for the spectators are not working-class Trumpians. Series tickets cost hundreds, even thousands, of dollars, and the spectators are drawn from a town that gave Donald Trump 4% of its votes in 2016.
The mutual distrust in this city was on display when Trump told the press yesterday morning that he had not alerted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the impending U.S. raid, because he was afraid of leaks.
“I wanted to make sure this kept secret,” said Trump. “I don’t want to have people lost. … We were going to notify them last night, but we decided not to do that because Washington leaks like nothing I’ve ever seen before. … A leak could have cost the death of all of them.”
The Russians, however, were alerted we were coming, as they control the airspace over the compound we were targeting. And Trump thanked the Russians for their cooperation.
Also left out of the loop was the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, one of the “Gang of Eight” that is almost always given a heads-up about major military operations. Schiff is conducting secret hearings to drum up support for Trump’s impeachment and removal for “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
It is imprecise to say this city is divided over Trump. It is rather almost solidly united behind what millions of Middle Americans believe to be a deep state-media conspiracy to overturn the 2016 election and effect a coup d’etat against a president whom this city detests but fears it cannot defeat in 2020.
A week ago, this writer noted the astonishing number of foreign capitals that were on fire with protests that go beyond marching and demonstrating — to riot, rebellion and even revolution. As with the “yellow vest” protests that shut down Paris on many weekends this past year, and the disorders in Hong Kong, the epidemic had spread to Beirut, Barcelona and Santiago, Chile.
In Iraq, over 200 have been killed and thousands injured in protests this month against the Baghdad regime. In Algeria, now six months after President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was forced to step down, rioters still battle the army.
The thread common to these uncivil, often-violent disruptions?
A conviction that the cause the protesters are advancing is so critical, noble and necessary that democratic rules may be dispensed with and law and order suspended in pursuit of the cause.
Saturday’s Washington Post describes the mindset that is taking hold in D.C. among militants, using as an example the Extinction Rebellion group’s dragging of a boat into the street at 16th & K to block traffic for hours to call attention to rising sea levels.
“Blocking traffic may only be the beginning,” wrote Marissa Lang. “As protests in the District continue at a rate of about two a day, activists looking to stand out from crowds that march near the White House or the Mall have resorted to more disruptive measures in recent weeks — a tactic that experts said will probably escalate.”
She cites sociology professor Dana Fisher: “There has been a lot of discussion among people on the left who use protests as a tactic that peaceful, traditional protests may not be enough. … That could mean … more people blocking traffic. … I think we’re going to see a lot more people coming into D.C. to get arrested.”
Fisher continues: “When activists don’t feel like their grievances are being heard or responded to … the natural progression is to get more confrontational and, sometimes, to get more violent. … I’m … surprised it’s taken so long.”
Who wins when leftists go lawless — in liberal citadels like D.C.?
This thinking echoes the famous “bodies upon the gears” speech of Mario Savio at the famous 1964 University of California, Berkeley campus riot: “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that … you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop!”
After Berkeley came civil disobedience; the burning of ROTC buildings; and urban riots marked by looting, shooting and arson. Out of that came Richard Nixon’s 49-state landslide, Ronald Reagan, and Republican triumphs in five of six presidential elections starting in 1968.
Bring it on.[3]
To those at the stadium in our nation’s capital who booed the President—and chanted, “Impeach Trump!” and “Lock him up!”—they are the dregs of society, without a purpose in life. Pat Buchanan is right: they are not working-class Americans, but the privileged elite; and they occupy a town that gave Donald Trump only four percent of its votes in 2016. They do not relate to you and me. They are like the Hollywood-do-nothings who prance around spouting meaningless platitudes, and feeling entitled.
Trump is right not to trust any Democrats, or those on the far-Left, or their media lackeys—or the RINOs in the Republican Party such as the despicable Mitt Romney. Yes, lots of us are ashamed that we voted for him and the equally-despicable Paul Ryan and others.[4] And yes too, Russia’s killer and dictator-for-life Vladimir Putin whom I despise is more trustworthy than the un-American racist anti-Semite Barack Obama and his co-conspirators who have engaged in sedition, such as Adam Schiff, Maxine Waters and Jerry Nadler.[5]
A rising number of Americans are understanding, finally, that we are in the midst of this great nation’s second Civil War: a fight for the soul of America, which will determine its destiny for years and generations to come. Abraham Lincoln stood at a similar precipice, and stared into the abyss, and he destroyed the enemy. While it took generations to heal, he saved our great Republic. Had he failed, we might not be one nation today.[6] Donald Trump is his worthy successor.
[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (seewww.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-19-9-27.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com
The United States has the purest form of democracy in the world. Does this mean that it is perfect, and without flaws? Certainly not. But we are blessed by our Founders’ inherent wisdom, which has stood the tests of time. Years ago, I wrote:
I believe in this country, and I believe in Americans of all colors, faiths and backgrounds. The United States is the only true melting pot in the world, with its populace representing a United Nations of the world’s peoples. Yes, we fight and we even discriminate, but when times are tough—like after 9/11—we come together as one nation, which makes this country so great and special. Also, all of us or our ancestors came here from somewhere else. Even the American Indians are descended from those who crossed the Bering Strait—or the “Bering land bridge”—according to anthropologists.[2]
Pat Buchanan—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and a former GOP presidential aspirant himself—has asked the question that is the title of this article:
What happens when democracy fails to deliver? What happens when people give up on democracy?
What happens when a majority or militant minority decide that the constitutional rights of free speech, free elections, peaceful assembly and petition are inadequate and take to the streets to force democracy to submit to their demands?
Our world may be about to find out.
Chile is the most stable and prosperous country in Latin America.
Yet when its capital, Santiago, recently raised subway fares by 5%, thousands poured into the streets. Rioting, looting, arson followed. The Metro system was utterly trashed. Police were assaulted. People died. The rioting spread to six other cities. Troops were called out.
President a Sebastian Pinera repealed the fare hike and declared a national emergency, stating, “Chile is at war against a powerful, implacable enemy who does not respect anything or anyone and is willing to use violence and crime without any limits.”
How does a democracy that has spawned within itself a powerful and implacable enemy deal with it?
Last week, tens of thousands of Lebanese of all faiths and political associations rioted in Beirut and Tripoli to demand the overthrow of the regime and the ouster of its president, speaker of parliament and Prime Minister Saad Hariri. All must go, the masses demand.
In Barcelona, Friday, half a million people surged into the streets in protest after the sentencing in Madrid of the secessionists who sought to bring about the independence of Catalonia from Spain in 2017.
In all of China, few enjoy the freedoms of the 7 million in Hong Kong. Yet, for five months, these fortunate and free Chinese, to protest a proposal that would have allowed Hong Kong residents to be extradited to China, stormed into the streets to defy the regime and denounce the conditions under which they live.
These protests have been marked by riots, vandalism, arson and clashes with police. “Hong Kong streets descended into chaos following an unauthorized pro-democracy rally Sunday,” writes the Associated Press. Protesters “set up roadblocks and torched businesses, and police responded with tear gas and a water cannon. Protesters tossed firebombs and took their anger out on shops with mainland Chinese ties.”
What are the Hong Kong residents denouncing and demanding?
They are protesting both present and future limitations on their freedom. The appearance of American flags in the protests suggests that what they seek is what the agitators behind the Boston Tea Party and the boys and men at Concord Bridge sought — independence, liberty and a severing of the ties to the mother country.
Yet, because the Communist regime of Xi Jinping could not survive such an amputation, the liberation of Hong Kong is not in the cards. The end to these months of protest will likely be frustration, futility and failure.
Perhaps it is that realization that explains the vehemence and violence. But the rage is also what kills the support they initially received.
In 1960s America, the first civil rights demonstrations attracted widespread sympathy. But the outburst of urban riots that followed in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and 100 cities after Martin Luther King’s assassination sent millions streaming to the banners of Gov. George Wallace in the campaigns of 1968 and 1972.
When the “yellow vest” protests broke out in 2018 in Paris, over a fuel tax, the demonstrators had the support of millions of Frenchmen.
But that support dissipated when protesters began smashing windows of boutique shops on the Champs-Elysee, assaulting police and desecrating monuments and memorials.
This reversion to violence, ransacking of stores and showering of police with bricks, bottles and debris, is costing the protesters much of the backing they enjoyed. In the trade-off between freedom and order, people will ultimately opt for order.
Yet, one wonders: Why are these outbursts of violent protests and rioting taking place in stable, free and prosperous societies?
Chile is the most stable and wealthy country in South America. Catalonia is the most prosperous part of Spain. Paris is hardly a hellhole of repression. And Hong Kong is the freest city of China.
If the beneficiaries of freedoms and democratic rights come to regard them as insufficient to produce the political, economic and social results they demand, what does that portend for democracy’s future?
For, despite the looting, arson and attacks on cops in Hong Kong, Xi Jinping is not going to order his satraps to yield to popular demands for autonomy or independence. Nor is Madrid going to accept the loss of Barcelona and secession of Catalonia. Nor is the conservative Chilean government going to yield to the street rebels and revolutionaries. Nor is Paris going to back down to the “yellow vests.”
Yet, one wonders: If the “end of history” and worldwide triumph of democratic capitalism thesis has, as most agree, been disproven, is it possible that the Age of Democracy is itself a passing phase in the history of the West and the world?[3]
Americans have not given up on democracy at all. While many are at odds with their fellow citizens about the direction that our great nation should take, they are exercising their rights of free speech dramatically, for an often-troubled world to see. Is it a pretty sight? Is democracy in action an edifying experience? Not always, but it is a sign that our great democracy is functioning.
The rifts in our body politic cut across lots of fracture lines: Donald Trump or no Trump[4]; abortions or no abortions[5]; foreign wars or no foreign wars[6]; the admission of illegal immigrants or none[7]; man-made “global warming,” or one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated on Mankind by the “eco-Nazis”[8]; — . . . and the list goes on and on.
If one person could be said to have been at the very heart of the cleavages in our society today it is the racist and anti-Semite Barack Obama, who did more than any other president to resew the seeds of racism in America today, and to divide this country along fault lines that are “fragile” in the best of times.[9] By leading the treasonous efforts to destroy the candidacy and then the presidency of Donald Trump, there is no doubt that Obama engaged in sedition, which is consistent with his character.[10]
Pat Buchanan was correct when he observed that “the rage is . . . what kills the support they initially received”—and we have seen all of this before (e.g., during the Vietnam War era), and survived. George Orwell warned about it in his prescient Animal Farm, where all of the animals were considered equal until the Pigs accreted power and control, and subjugated the other animals (or “disbelievers”) until they reigned supreme.[11]
Abraham Lincoln and his trusted generals, Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, dealt with the harsh realities of divisions within our great nation that might have torn it asunder—and they prevailed.[12] At times, the forces of division (and of evil and darkness) must be destroyed, not simply defeated. Nothing less will suffice. This was certainly true of Adolph Hitler and his “Thousand-Year Reich.”
Lastly, Pat Buchanan was mistaken in the conclusion of his article above. In the United States, the Left is being given enough rope to hang itself, like its alter egos did before. And most Americans are myopic: they are focused on their own lives, and do not really care what goes on in the world outside—as long as it does not affect them—which is understandable.
[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (seewww.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-19-9-27.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com
God love him, Ronald Reagan destroyed the Soviet Union’s Evil Empire, and brought down Communism, and made the world safer for democracy—and the United States into the world’s preeminent and only superpower that it is today, with no peers. Yet, he was maligned and hated from Day One; and the same forces that are seeking to destroy Donald Trump tried desperately to destroy Reagan’s presidency too. Their appetites, and perpetual and insatiable thirst for blood, were whetted by having destroyed one conservative president, Richard Nixon. Reagan was their next target; and Iran Contra was their preferred means of taking him down. However, they failed. Much to their everlasting contempt, disgust and dismay, Reagan is lionized today.
The script is repeating itself with Trump. And there are RINOs in the GOP (or Republicans In Name Only), such as the despicable Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan—two losers, with respect to whom lots of us are ashamed of having voted for them—who are aligned with the Democrats’ efforts, and with those of other radical far-Leftists and their “fellow travelers” in the media.[2] Clearly, this is a war, every bit as sinister as the prospects for war that Abraham Lincoln faced. Yet he stood tall and faced down our enemies, foreign[3] and domestic[4], and it changed the course of America forever.[5]
There are reasons to believe that Donald Trump will follow Lincoln’s path, and prevail. The “Pigs” of George Orwell’s Animal Farm are trying to take over, and subjugate all of the others animals—which are us—and they must be stopped . . . and yes, destroyed.[6] They are a threat to our great Republic, and to our way of life. Gregg Re and John Roberts have written at Fox News:
The White House outlined in a defiant eight-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats on Tuesday why it will not participate in their “illegitimate and unconstitutional” impeachment inquiry, charging that the proceedings have run roughshod over congressional norms and the president’s due-process rights.
Trump administration officials called the letter, which was written by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and obtained by Fox News, perhaps the most historic letter the White House has sent. The document tees up a head-on collision with Democrats in Congress, who have fired off a slew of subpoenas in recent days concerning the president’s alleged effort to get Ukraine to investigate political foe Joe Biden during a July phone call with Ukraine’s leader.
“President Trump and his administration reject your baseless, unconstitutional efforts to overturn the democratic process,” the letter stated. “Your unprecedented actions have left the president with no choice. In order to fulfill his duties to the American people, the Constitution, the Executive Branch, and all future occupants of the Office of the Presidency, President Trump and his administration cannot participate in your partisan and unconstitutional inquiry under these circumstances.”
The document concluded: “The president has a country to lead. The American people elected him to do this job, and he remains focused on fulfilling his promises to the American people.”
Responding to the letter, Pelosi accused Trump of “trying to make lawlessness a virtue” and added, “The American people have already heard the President’s own words – ‘do us a favor, though.’” (That line, from a transcript of Trump’s call with Ukraine’s leader, in reality referred to Trump’s request for Ukraine to assist in an investigation into 2016 election interference, and did not relate to Biden.)
Pelosi continued: “This letter is manifestly wrong, and is simply another unlawful attempt to hide the facts of the Trump Administration’s brazen efforts to pressure foreign powers to intervene in the 2020 elections. … The White House should be warned that continued efforts to hide the truth of the President’s abuse of power from the American people will be regarded as further evidence of obstruction. Mr. President, you are not above the law. You will be held accountable.”
Substantively, the White House first noted in its letter that there has not been a formal vote in the House to open an impeachment inquiry — and that the news conference held by Pelosi last month was insufficient to commence the proceedings.
“In the history of our nation, the House of Representatives has never attempted to launch an impeachment inquiry against the president without a majority of the House taking political accountability for that decision by voting to authorize such a dramatic constitutional step,” the letter stated.
It continued: “Without waiting to see what was actually said on the call, a press conference was held announcing an ‘impeachment inquiry’ based on falsehoods and misinformation about the call.”
Despite Pelosi’s claim that there was no “House precedent that the whole House vote before proceeding with an impeachment inquiry,” several previous impeachment inquiries have been launched only by a full vote of the House — including the impeachment proceedings concerning former Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
White House officials told Fox News the vote opening the proceedings was a small ask, considering the implications of potentially overturning a national election.
The letter went on to note that “information has recently come to light that the whistleblower” who first flagged Trump’s call with Ukraine’s president “had contact with [House Intelligence Committee] Chairman [Adam] Schiff’s office before filing the complaint.”
And Schiff’s “initial denial of such contact caused The Washington Post to conclude that Chairman Schiff “clearly made a statement that was false,” the letter observed.
Multiple reports surfaced this week that the whistleblower had a prior “professional relationship” with one of the 2020 Democratic candidates for president. On Friday, lawyers for the whistleblower did not respond to questions from Fox News about the whistleblower’s possible previous relationship with any currently prominent Democrat.
The letter added: “In any event, the American people understand that Chairman Schiff cannot covertly assist with the submission of a complaint, mislead the public about his involvement, read a counterfeit version of the call to the American people, and then pretend to sit in judgment as a neutral ‘investigator.'”
The White House was dinging Schiff for reciting a fictional version of Trump’s call with Ukraine’s leader during a congressional hearing. Schiff later called his statements a “parody.”
“Perhaps the best evidence that there was no wrongdoing on the call is the fact that, after the actual record of the call was released, Chairman Schiff chose to concoct a false version of the call and to read his made-up transcript to the American people at a public hearing,” the letter stated. “The chairman’s action only further undermines the public’s confidence in the fairness of any inquiry before his committee.”
Ukraine’s president has said he felt Trump did nothing improper in their July call, and DOJ lawyers who reviewed the call said they found no laws had been broken. The White House released a transcript of the conversation last month, as well as the whistleblower’s complaint, which seemingly relied entirely on second-hand information.
Separately, the letter asserted multiple alleged violations of the president’s due-process rights. It noted that under current impeachment inquiry proceedings, Democrats were not allowing presidential or State Department counsel to be present.
Democrats’ procedures did not provide for the “disclosure of all evidence favorable to the president and all evidence bearing on the credibility of witnesses called to testify in the inquiry,” the letter noted, nor did the procedures afford the president “the right to see all evidence, to present evidence, to call witnesses, to have counsel present at all hearings, to cross-examine all witnesses, to make objections relating to the examination of witnesses or the admissibility of testimony and evidence, and to respond to evidence and testimony.”
Democrats also have not permitted Republicans in the minority to issue subpoenas, contradicting the “standard, bipartisan practice in all recent resolutions authorizing presidential impeachment inquiries.”
The letter claimed that House committees have “resorted to threats and intimidation against potential Executive Branch witnesses,” by raising the specter of obstruction of justice when administration employees seek to assert “long-established Executive Branch confidentiality interests and privileges in response to a request for a deposition.”
“Current and former State Department officials are duty bound to protect the confidentiality interests of the Executive Branch, and the Office of Legal Counsel has also recognized that it is unconstitutional to exclude agency counsel from participating in congressional depositions,” the letter stated.
Additionally, the letter noted that Democrats reportedly were planning to interview the whistleblower at the center of the impeachment inquiry at an undisclosed location — contrary, the White House said, to the constitutional notion of being able to confront one’s accuser.
According to a White House official, the bottom line was: “We are not participating in your illegitimate exercise. … If you are legitimately conducting oversight, let us know. But all indications are this is about impeachment.”
The document came as the White House aggressively has parried Democrats’ inquiry efforts. One of the administration’s first moves: the State Department on Tuesday barred Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, from appearing before a House panel conducting the probe into Trump.
“I would love to send Ambassador Sondland, a really good man and great American, to testify, but unfortunately he would be testifying before a totally compromised kangaroo court, where Republican’s rights have been taken away, and true facts are not allowed out for the public to see,” Trump tweeted.
The strategy risked further provoking Democrats in the impeachment probe, setting up court challenges and the potential for lawmakers to draw up an article of impeachment accusing Trump of obstructing their investigations. Schiff said Sondland’s no-show would be grounds for obstruction of justice and could give a preview of what some of the articles of impeachment against Trump would entail.
But, as lawmakers sought to amass ammunition to be used in an impeachment trial, the White House increasingly has signaled that all-out warfare was its best course of action.
“What they did to this country is unthinkable. It’s lucky that I’m the president. A lot of people said very few people could handle it. I sort of thrive on it,” Trump said Monday at the White House. “You can’t impeach a president for doing a great job. This is a scam.”
House Democrats, for their part, issued a new round of subpoenas on Monday, this time to Defense Secretary Mark Esper and acting White House budget director Russell Vought. Pelosi’s office also released an open letter signed by 90 former national security officials who served in administrations from both parties, voicing support for the whistleblower who raised concerns about Trump’s efforts to get Ukraine to look into Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine.
“A responsible whistleblower makes all Americans safer by ensuring that serious wrongdoing can be investigated and addressed, thus advancing the cause of national security to which we have devoted our careers,” they wrote. “Whatever one’s view of the matters discussed in the whistleblower’s complaint, all Americans should be united in demanding that all branches of our government and all outlets of our media protect this whistleblower and his or her identity. Simply put, he or she has done what our law demands; now he or she deserves our protection.”
The House Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committees were investigating Trump’s actions alleging he pressured Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son, potentially interfering in the 2020 election. The former vice president, for his part, has accused Trump of “frantically pushing flat-out lies, debunked conspiracy theories and smears against me.” And, Biden’s campaign has sought to have Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who has accused Biden of possible corruption, removed from the airwaves.
Biden has acknowledged on camera that in spring 2016, when he was vice president and spearheading the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire top prosecutor Viktor Shokin. At the time, Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings — where Hunter had a lucrative role on the board despite limited relevant expertise. Critics have suggested Hunter Biden’s salary bought access to Biden.
The vice president threatened to withhold $1 billion in critical U.S. aid if Shokin, who was widely accused of corruption, was not fired.
“Well, son of a b—h, he got fired,” Biden joked at a panel two years after leaving office.[7]
Bravo. Never has an American president stood taller, to fight off the efforts of barbarians and to protect our great Republic, for future generations of Americans. Lincoln did this. Reagan did too. And now Trump. All were besieged from almost every quarter; and ultimately the great Lincoln paid with his life. But the United States survived; and it will this time too. The barbarians at our gates must be spurned and, yes, destroyed. They have not left any other choices.
And the instigator of all of this—the un-American traitor, racist and anti-Semite, Barack Obama—should pay with his life for his sedition.[8]
[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (seewww.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-19-9-27.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com
Like it or not, this is what the far-Left Democrats and their kindred spirits in America’s so-called “mainstream media” have wrought. They are the party that gave us the senseless and tragic Vietnam War during which more than 55,000 Americans died—and many more were maimed, and to this day are “walking wounded”—and the party that gave us Watergate. And yes, lots of us began as Democrats, but will never vote for one again.
Today, they have a blood thirst for destroying the presidency of Donald Trump; and the father and progenitor of this is the un-American traitor, racist and anti-Semite, Barack Obama. Instead of healing racial divisions in this great nation, he exacerbated them and fed them. Few Americans took time to read his book before his election as our president in 2008, “Dreams from My Father.”[2] If they had, they would have realized fully his un-American and racist views.
Having grown up in Hawaii and Indonesia, he never lived on the U.S. mainland until he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, and later Columbia University in New York City, during which time he admitted to being a “druggie.” A direct quote:
Junkie. Pothead. That’s where I’d been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man.[3]
He attended the church of the racist Jeremiah Wright for many years[4]; and he openly embraced the notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan.[5] Because Obama smiled, and seemingly supported American values, many in the United States were fooled by who he was and really is. Deceit may be the hallmark of his life.
Perhaps the once-respected New York Times has put these issues in their starkest form, in the following article by Alexander Burns and Nick Corasaniti, albeit not intending to do so:
After the 2016 election, Democratic leaders reached an all but unanimous conclusion: To defeat President Trump in 2020, they would have to do more than condemn his offensive behavior and far-right ideology, as Hillary Clinton had done. They would need, above all, to promote a clear and exciting agenda of their own.
They took that lesson to heart in the midterm elections and afterward, capturing the House of Representatives with a focus on health care and then attempting to impress the electorate by passing legislation on matters like campaign finance reform and the minimum wage. As Democratic presidential contenders pushed campaigns built on big ideas, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi resisted a chorus of calls for impeachment, even from some of her party’s leading 2020 candidates.
Yet 13 months before the next election, Democratic leaders are now steering into a protracted, head-on clash with Mr. Trump. By seeking the Ukrainian government’s help in tarring former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Mr. Trump left them no choice, they say, but to pursue an impeachment inquiry that could consume the country’s attention for months.
Ms. Pelosi has indicated she aims to move the process along with haste, in part to avoid an election-year conflagration, but the exact course of the inquiry is impossible to foresee.
All 19 Democratic presidential candidates now support the impeachment inquiry, and many Democrats are optimistic that voters will as well, because Mr. Trump is so unpopular and the allegations against him are grave and easily grasped. For now, Republicans are the party on the defensive, flummoxed by the cascading disclosures about Mr. Trump that have threatened to upend his re-election campaign.
But there is also a general recognition, at every level of the Democratic Party, that impeachment could complicate their candidates’ efforts to explain their policy ideas to the country and persuade voters they have a vision beyond ousting Mr. Trump. The party has been disappointed too many times, its leaders say, by betting that Mr. Trump’s violations of political and cultural norms would bring about his downfall.
On Friday evening, Ms. Pelosi declared at a conference of New Jersey Democrats in Atlantic City that she would not allow the 2020 election to become a campaign about impeachment. Insisting the inquiry “has nothing to do with the election,” she said the campaign would be fought on other terms.
“That’s about facts and the Constitution,” Ms. Pelosi said of the impeachment process. “The election is about all of the issues and policies that we have a difference of opinion with the Republicans on, and they are very drastic — and they have nothing to do with impeachment.”
Ms. Pelosi has already advised the newest members of her caucus — the ones who secured the majority last year — that they will have to execute a careful balancing act in the coming weeks, to show voters in their districts that they can continue to pass important legislation. She is said to be particularly focused on a proposal to lower prescription drug prices that she unveiled last week, before the Ukraine saga began.
But even before impeachment, House Democrats were gaining little traction with policy bills that withered in the Republican-controlled Senate. Polls have shown their proposals to be popular, but they have been routinely overshadowed in the news by Mr. Trump.
There is little doubt that impeachment will become a singular obsession in the political world and dominate news coverage for as long as the inquiry is underway. A few early polls on impeachment suggest that public support for the inquiry is somewhat stronger than opposition to it, but those numbers could easily change in either direction as the process unfolds.
Diane Feldman, a Democratic pollster, said it would be difficult for the party to communicate with voters on issues besides impeachment for the duration of the process. But candidates up and down the ballot had to try to drive a message about policy all the same, she said.
“I think it’s worth the effort, but it’s a long shot,” Ms. Feldman said. “That we not put all of our eggs in the impeachment basket seems to me extremely wise.”
However, Ms. Feldman said, the impeachment process could also “add some clarity to risks that Trump presents to our national security and foreign policy” and sharpen the overall Democratic case against his re-election.
The task of balancing impeachment against policy priorities will be especially delicate for lawmakers elected last year, including dozens who won narrow victories in historically Republican districts. Democrats are defending a sizable number of seats that Mr. Trump carried in 2016, in parts of the country like upstate New York, Oklahoma City and northern Maine, where the impeachment issue is likely to stir backlash.
Congressional Republicans are likely to struggle in a different way, as they face pressure from their party’s conservative base to defend Mr. Trump even as he behaves in erratic or legally questionable ways.
Democratic presidential candidates are attempting their own juggling act, mixing denunciations of Mr. Trump’s actions on Ukraine with detailed policy promises. Mr. Biden, the candidate most directly connected to the impeachment uproar, has repeatedly denounced Mr. Trump but has declined to reorient his activities around responding to the president. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Mr. Biden’s leading competitor in the primary, has reminded voters this week that she was the first major Democratic candidate to demand Mr. Trump’s impeachment. But she, too, has not dwelled on the subject in her speeches, and she has indicated she would prefer to avoid a sprawling, open-ended process.
And at the same Democratic gathering in New Jersey where Ms. Pelosi spoke on Friday, Senator Cory Booker urged his party to avoid “partisan glee” about the prospect of impeaching Mr. Trump. Talking to reporters outside the event, he said Democrats should keep campaign considerations separate from impeachment: “It’s just something that I need to deal with in a very sober way,” he said, “away from politics.”
But Mr. Biden and Ms. Warren may be among the only Democratic candidates who can count on breaking through the din of impeachment with regularity, along with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and perhaps Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind. For the rest of the Democratic field, strategists say, the next stage of the primary race may have less to do with delivering high-minded policy arguments on the national level than courting voters in the early primary and caucus states with personal appeals — as an impeachment battle rages in the foreground.
Meredith Kelly, a Democratic strategist, said the experience of the last presidential race had not faded in the party’s thinking. A veteran of the 2018 campaign to seize the House, Ms. Kelly said Democratic candidates would have to both build a “methodical” case against Mr. Trump during the impeachment inquiry and also keep detailing “a proactive vision of what you stand for.”
“It was a lesson from 2016: You couldn’t only call out Donald Trump without your own positive vision for the country,” said Ms. Kelly, who advised Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s presidential campaign. “You cannot stop talking about kitchen-table issues and your vision for the country.”
Democratic voters this week expressed a combination of enthusiasm for impeachment and anxiety about potential political complications — and, at times, a desire to stay focused on policy.
At Mr. Biden’s campaign stop in Las Vegas on Friday, Rick Carter, 74, a voter from Henderson, Nev., said he had been highly skeptical of impeaching Mr. Trump until the recent revelations about Ukraine. The newest allegations, he said, were “pretty clear, to the point.”
Still, Mr. Carter said he hoped candidates would continue training their attention on subjects like the cost of prescription drugs.
“I want to start focusing on what the American people need,” he said.
Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, said that even in the tumult of impeachment there were opportunities for Democrats to emphasize policy. He pointed to Ms. Warren’s campaign as one that was plainly “breaking through on policy” even amid Mr. Trump’s constant provocations.
“The House has passed a lot of bills that have gotten very little news coverage,” he noted. “But when members go home and have interactions with their constituents, they’re going to spend a lot of time talking about their legislation to have Medicare negotiate for lower prices and give all people the benefit of lower drug prices.”
And while the impeachment process unfolds, Mr. Garin added, Democrats could likely count on Mr. Trump not to deliver a broad, policy-based message of his own.
“Trump’s not really making any effort to do anything but rally his base on this,” Mr. Garin said. “And in doing that, I think he’s probably aggravating his situation with voters in the center.”[6]
If anyone is dazzled by or believes the current crop of far-Left Democrats, one need only hark back to the words and tragic deeds of Germany’s Adolf Hitler, the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin and China’s Mao Tse-tung, who killed millions.[7] Or read (or reread) the words of George Orwell in his prescient “Animal Farm,” where all of the animals were equal until the “Pigs” reigned supreme and were masters over—and subjugated—the other animals.[8]
The Pigs of today have taken over and reside in the Democratic Party; and to mask their evil intentions, they coined the title “progressives,” which is the farthest thing from who and what they really are. The Times‘ article is correct: “[T]he exact course of the [impeachment] inquiry is impossible to foresee.” Having lived through the Watergate saga and tragedy, which was unfolding just as I was leaving the U.S. Senate, I know that impeachment assumes a life of its own, and consumes and sucks out the air from everything else.
The Times‘ writers add:
All 19 Democratic presidential candidates now support the impeachment inquiry, and many Democrats are optimistic that voters will as well, because Mr. Trump is so unpopular and the allegations against him are grave and easily grasped.
President Trump is loved by vast numbers of dedicated American supporters; and his poll numbers exceed those of Obama at this point in their respective presidencies. And the allegations against the President with respect to Ukraine do not remotely compare with the corruption of Joe Biden and his son Hunter vis-à-vis that country.[9]
For Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to assert that “she would not allow the 2020 election to become a campaign about impeachment”—and “[i]nsisting the inquiry ‘has nothing to do with the election,'” and that “the campaign would be fought on other terms”—is laughable, absurd and pathetic. She was first elected to Congress in 1987, while Watergate was breaking wide-open fifteen years before, in late 1972 and early 1973, just as I was leaving the Senate. At best, she is naïve or duplicitous, but more likely she is engaged in outright lying.[10] All other issues are buried and consumed by impeachment, period . . . unless, God forbid, there is a direct attack on the United States or some other national tragedy.
The Times’ writers are correct:
There is little doubt that impeachment will become a singular obsession in the political world and dominate news coverage for as long as the inquiry is underway.
And the Democratic pollster, Diane Feldman, was correct when she said it would be difficult for the party to communicate with voters on issues besides impeachment for the duration of the process. Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, was mistaken when he said that Democrats could likely count on President Trump not to deliver a broad, policy-based message of his own. The President will tout his accomplishments far and wide, to the long-neglected—and taken for granted by the Democratic Party—African-Americans, and others who have benefited.
Again, my sense today is that what we will witness in the months to come may be very similar to the Vietnam War and Watergate eras. The fabric of our great nation will be ripped wide-open, pitting friends and loved ones against each other. I love this country, and no other. I want to see it flourish, and all Americans benefit. However, I am very concerned about the months to come, and the effects they will have on America—and how our enemies abroad view us and our vulnerabilities, which they may seek to exploit.
Political pundit Dick Morris believes that many Democrats in Congress are fearful of attacks from their Left, and losing in their primaries; and hence, Nancy Pelosi has embarked on impeachment to give them cover. He may be correct. However, the larger issue—which they seem blind to see—is that the country may be ripped apart to a much greater extent than even during the Vietnam War and Watergate. The Democrats and their captive far-Left media and the “Deep State” are determined to end the presidency of Donald Trump.
However, they do not realize, much less fully, how strongly other Americans feel about him and his presidency. Abraham Lincoln was hated by a large segment of America, yet he persevered and saved the nation. The United States today may be approaching a similar juncture, pitting brothers against brothers and sisters against sisters. The Trump faithful have watched Obama and his fellow co-conspirators attempt to destroy the candidacy and then the presidency of Donald Trump—which is an attempted coup, and treasonous and seditious. Yet, no one has been indicted, convicted and gone to prison.
The rule of law in America has been turned on its head; and vast numbers of Americans are very angry. Some are angry that Trump was ever elected in the first place, while others—in vast numbers—are angry that the Left has tried to destroy the Trump presidency and nullify their votes. I am deeply concerned that the United States is heading toward its second Civil War. Also, I do not see anything on the horizon that will bring us together again as one nation. If we are moving toward a new Civil War, will it become a shooting war? Quite possibly. I do not discount that outcome at all.
Lastly, this is not like a football game or other sporting event, where if our favored team loses we are disappointed or even “heartbroken,” but we move on to another day. This is about the future and survival of our great nation, and of the American people. Get it wrong, and our offspring’s future may be dark beyond comprehension. We have enemies who would like to destroy us, in an instant.[11] Perhaps all of this is what Obama meant when he envisioned a “fundamental transformation” of America[12]—to be completed in 2020—because the Trump presidency is a repudiation of the un-American traitor, racist and anti-Semite, and his presidency.[13]
[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (seewww.naegele.com and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/timothy-d.-naegele-resume-19-9-27.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com
During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus. John Merryman, a state legislator from Maryland, was arrested for attempting to hinder Union troops from moving from Baltimore to Washington, and he was held at Fort McHenry by Union military officials:
Federal judge Roger Taney, the chief justice of the Supreme Court . . . issued a ruling that President Lincoln did not have the authority to suspend habeas corpus. Lincoln didn’t respond, appeal, or order the release of Merryman. But during a July 4 speech, Lincoln was defiant, insisting that he needed to suspend the rules in order to put down the rebellion in the South.[2]
We may be approaching a series of crises in which President Donald Trump will have to act boldly and defiantly, and adopt harsh measures similar to those of Lincoln.
President Trump was elected by the American people. There are a myriad of persuasive arguments why his opponent, Hillary Clinton, should be indicted, convicted and imprisoned for the rest of her life.[3] Yet, the drumbeat among Democrats, so-called “progressives” and the far-Left is to destroy the Trump presidency before it has begun.[4]
Many Americans felt just as strongly about the black racist Barack Obama[5], but they did not try to destroy his presidency or advocate his assassination as many in the anti-Trump camp have. Their seditious, subversive and treasonous conduct strongly suggests that they pose a danger to our system of government. They should be arrested, tried, convicted and imprisoned.
Pat Buchanan—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and a former GOP presidential aspirant himself—has written:
Trump is hated by [Washington, D.C.], which gave him 4 percent of its votes, as much as Nixon was. And the deep-state determination to bring him down is as great as it was with Nixon. By 1968, the liberal establishment had lost the mandate it had held since 1933, but not lost its ability to wound and kill [Republican] presidents. Though Nixon won 49 states, that establishment took him down. Though Ronald Reagan won 49 states, that establishment almost took him down in the Iran-Contra affair. And that is the end they have in mind for President Trump.[6]
The United States and the American people are facing threats to our existence, which are unprecedented in our history, far surpassing 9/11 and Pearl Harbor.[7] We cannot permit the seditious, subversive and treasonous conduct of some to pose a danger to our system of government and way of life.
[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). He and his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, specialize in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (seewww.naegele.com and http://www.naegele.com/documents/TimothyD.NaegeleResume.pdf). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com
[5] If anyone has any doubts whatsoever that Obama is a racist, please read his book “Dreams from My Father” that sets forth his core black racist beliefs in his own words, which have undergirded his presidency.
Democrat party hack and Bill Clinton sycophant, Lanny Davis, has the chutzpah to assert in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece: “We liberals need to reclaim the Democratic Party.”[2] Davis defends Clinton today as he did during the former president’s impeachment saga, despite the fact that Clinton was and is the equivalent of Tiger Woods morally. Davis and his ilk are the problem, not the solution. He and Obama chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, are birds of a feather. They are the worst of the Democratic Party.
I began as a Democrat, yet I am proud to be an Independent today, as I have been for more than 20 years. The ranks of Independents are growing dramatically with each election, as they abandon the Democratic Party.[3] It is people like Davis and Emanuel who have turned lots of us away from our former party. He and his leftist Democrats do not represent us, and never did. As Ronald Reagan said—who was a former Democrat too: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.”[4]
Davis has the gall to say: “[W]e allowed the party of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to morph into the party of George McGovern.” This is hypocrisy at its lowest. The party of Clinton and Obama is the party of McGovern. While I did not vote for McGovern—and I never voted for his opponent either, Richard M. Nixon, even though I hail from his home state of California[5]—at least McGovern is a decent and honorable person, and I respect him. For Davis to defame him simply underscores what a low-life Davis is.
The U.S. Senate triumph of Scott Brown in Massachusetts marked the beginning of the end of Barack Obama as an American politician. Assuming the elections of 2010 and 2012 follow suit, the president is at best a lame duck. With the demise of ObamaCare, he will simply wait for the end of his presidency in January 2013, and little more—like Lyndon Johnson did as the elections of 1968 approached. Both Obama and Johnson share the common heritage of failed presidencies and unwinnable wars, in Vietnam and Afghanistan.[6]
The “Change We Can Believe In” is the end of the Obama presidency. He has lied to us repeatedly, and he has deceived us—like Johnson and Bill Clinton did—and it is time for him to go. The handwriting is on the wall: the Obama presidency is unsalvageable. Its far-Left tenets are not in step with mainstream America. The root causes of this lie with the president’s character and his core beliefs. He is a disciple of the far-Left; and Weather Underground co-founder Bill Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. are truly his “soul brothers.” He has lied to us about them too. What most Americans care about, and believe in, are an anathema to these people.
There is nothing positive that Obama has done since he assumed the presidency; and things are likely to get a whole lot worse before he leaves office. It has been said: “Jimmy Carter may be heading to #2 on the [list of] all-time worst presidents in American history, thanks to ‘O.’” This is an understatement. When history is written, Barack Obama may be hated more than George W. Bush has been by the Democrats, more than Bill and Hillary Clinton have been hated by the Republicans, more than Nixon was hated by the Democrats, and even more than Johnson was hated by a broad swath of the American electorate . . . and the list goes on and on. Obama may emerge as the most hated president in history.
Read (or reread) his book, “Dreams from My Father.” The president’s beliefs are set forth in his own words, which were written before political “handlers” filtered those words for public consumption. He has never denounced what he wrote.[7] He grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia, and he does not share traditional American values. With the election of Scott Brown, and the earlier election victories of Robert F. McDonnell and Chris Christie to the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey, the American people are saying no to Obama and the Democrats. Soon, it will be time to ride them out of town on a rail, politically.[8]
[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass), the first black senator since Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War. He practices law in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles with his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates (www.naegele.com). He has an undergraduate degree in economics from UCLA, as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He is a member of the District of Columbia and California bars. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal. Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years. See, e.g., www.naegele.com/whats_new.html#articles
Davis’ comments can be best understood by recognizing that he has been a consistent shill for the Clintons. In his article, he may be simply staking out Hillary’s position vis-à-vis Obama in the elections to come.
[5] In later years, I came to admire the former president immensely though, as he demonstrated his mastery of foreign policy and other issues, both in his books and speeches.
[6] While I believe in and admire Generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal, Afghanistan seems to be a morass politically and militarily. Yet, I hope and pray that we can succeed in our efforts there, if for no other reason than the future of the courageous Afghan women. See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/26/obama-in-afghanistan-doomed-from-the-start/
[8] Last but not least, having written what amounts to a political obituary of Barack Obama, I am mindful of the fact that after his obituary was mistakenly published, Samuel Langhorne Clemens—better known by the pen name Mark Twain—sent a cable from London stating: “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”
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