Washington Is One Of The Sickest Cities On Earth

 By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

It is Sodom and Gomorrah, combined.[2]

As I wrote nine years ago:

When I left Capitol Hill after working there for three and a half years, there was one four-letter word that stood out in my mind, and it still does today: “S-I-C-K.” I vowed that neither of my kids would ever work there. I had seen raving narcissists and demagogues who were not nice people—and equaled or surpassed those in Hollywood where I had grown up.

I saw senators and congressmen chasing and bedding female staffers between the ages of about 22-26, and wrecking their lives in the process. When the women reached about 28, they were considered “over the hill,” and a new batch of fresh young faces would replace them. I saw attractive young female staffers flock to the politicians like groupies are attracted to rock stars and other celebrities. I saw lobbyists providing women for sex to important committee chairmen.

I saw power trips that were way out of proportion to the actual power wielded. I saw senators and members of Congress pontificate on empty chamber floors, and pass legislation that often did not help anyone, but merely “congested” and “polluted” government for both the regulators and public alike. Laws were put on the books almost ceremoniously to display motion and activity, even if they were truly bad laws that made little or no good sense—and none were ever taken off the books. Programs were still being funded even though they had outlived their usefulness years if not decades before.

I saw lobbyists literally run Washington, because they had the skills and knowledge that the politicians did not have. House staffs were small unless the member had seniority. Hence, the input of lobbyists was essential to the passage of legislation. They wrote it; and they got it passed and their clients benefited; and somehow—by hook or by crook—the politicians benefited financially or in other ways. It was dirty, but those participating simply looked the other way.

In short, the American people, God love them, are waking up bigtime to the mess that is Washington, D.C.—a corrupt, politically-polarized toxic city.[3]

This is the “Deep State” at its worst, except for treachery that aids our enemies.  Today, Washington is plunging into impeachment investigations[4], and the circus is continuing.  The Democrats lost the last presidential election to Donald Trump; and ever since then, they have been trying to destroy his presidency.  Their efforts began well before the 2016 elections, when Barack Obama and his co-conspirators launched their efforts to destroy the Trump candidacy, and then his presidency—which is treasonous and seditious, and continues to this day.  Each of them should be prison, at the very least, but so far they are not.  No American should believe in or respect the rule of law until this happens.[5]

The Republicans in Washington are weak and spineless; and the Democrats routinely roll over them and outsmart them.  Former presidential contender, Massachusetts governor and now senator from Utah, the carpetbagging RINO Mitt Romney, is a perfect example of this.[6]  And yes, lots of us began as Democrats, but will never vote for one again.  As the party veered farther and farther to the Left, they lost us.  And the Republican Party has not earned our respect or votes either, which is why more and more Americans may be Independents today, or vote as if they were.  Donald Trump may be America’s first Independent president, beholden to neither party and attacked by elements in both—as well as by far-Left vestiges of the United States’ once-respected media.  As I have written: “His very presence has been and continues to be a threat to Washington’s ‘establishment’ and power structure, and to the goals of globalists in the United States and abroad.”[7]

Ukraine-gate, as Pat Buchanan—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and a former GOP presidential aspirant himself—has dubbed it, may end the candidacy of former Vice President Joe Biden.  He is knee deep with his son Hunter in corruption.[8]  And it is simply the latest attempt by America’s Left to divert attention from their presidential candidates, who consist of misfits, freaks, racists and anti-Semites.  Conrad Black—the Canadian-born, British former newspaper publisher, author and life peer—has described the situation as follows in The New York Sun:

In the United States as in Great Britain, the political system has been so strained by issues of such immense controversy that they cross party lines, immobilize the system, and can only be settled by the voters as a whole. There will be no other determination of whether President Trump gets to finish his task of grinding to powder and replacing the ruling bipartisan elite that he believes grievously mis-governed the country in the post-Reagan years.

In 2016, Mr. Trump neither won a mandate for revolution nor incurred a cause to be denied or removed from office. Almost half the voters substantially agreed with the president in 2016, and this remains the principal issue: that the previous four presidents and their Congresses mis-governed the country.

This view holds that the elder President Bush allowed the Republican Party to be split by a charlatan (Ross Perot), bringing in the Clintons, who brought on, with George W. Bush, the subprime mortgage debacle and the world’s greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression; and that Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama produced a series of Middle East-related foreign policy disasters.

There was a faulty intelligence response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a completely misconceived war in Iraq, an immense humanitarian disaster generating as many as 10 million refugees, the premature departure from Iraq which helped produce ISIS, and the abandonment of nuclear non-proliferation with respect to Iran and North Korea (where all four presidents were swindled).

According to this view, the Bushes allowed the Republican Party to be shamed and jostled into insane notions of self-impoverishment over completely speculative notions of climate management, and President Obama was allowed to get away with a defeatist and corrupt economic policy that provided slightly more survivable welfare arrangements and a flat-lined “new normal” of 2% economic growth despite immense deficits and a shrinking workforce, though the Obamas’ rich chums on Wall Street, in Hollywood, and in the Silicon Valley were well taken care of fiscally.

And all four previous presidents are accused of pursuing trade policies that imported unemployment into the United States and doing nothing while up to 20 million illiterate peasants poured into the country illegally or while oil imports increased and the manufacturing sector was farmed out to other countries by companies that repatriated unemployment but not profits.

It is a powerful indictment of bipartisan policy and while sometimes overstated, as often happens in politics, it cannot easily be refuted. Instead, the president’s opponents in both parties have described him as a boorish mythmaker, a crook, and a pathologically dishonest egomaniac who is tarnishing the whole constitutional process by abuses of office.

The thunderbolt of the Trump assault on the whole system is an unprecedented victory by a disruptive political outsider. Some have tried to invoke Andrew Jackson as a precedent, but he had been a drummer-boy in the Revolutionary War, a famous citizen-general, briefly a United States senator, and was deprived of apparent victory in his first charge for the presidency in 1824 by the House of Representatives, though he led the popular and electoral vote in the election (but lacked an Electoral College majority).

No one has seriously tried to defend the presidents and Congresses in the seven preceding terms since Ronald Reagan. No one defends the endless Mideast wars or the bad trade deals or the legislative and executive imposition of commercially unsound mortgages (the political free lunch of expanding family home ownership at no cost to the taxpayers, that reduced almost the entire world banking system, except Canada’s, to insolvency).

The climate terror is now supported by confected waves of child-demonstrators and the same tired academics who are the leaders or the chief useful idiots of the international climate-activist Left. They were defeated in the Cold War, beat their swords into thermometers, and assaulted capitalism from a new angle, militarizing the Sierra Club and Greenpeace and the birdwatchers and butterfly collectors, all in the name of saving the planet. It has been a formidable improvisation, but is a long way from Al Gore’s “settled science,” much less the Prince of Wales’ somewhat tedious assertions that the end is nigh.

The Democrats, apart from a ritual defense of the Obama era in general, have just moved farther leftward, recommitting themselves to sharply higher taxes on middle- and upper-incomes, more open borders, the green terror, socialized medicine, and an ardent flirtation with vast reparations for African and native Americans.

And they have united with their press echo chamber to greet each new unfledged anti-Trump allegation as an impeachable presidential offense, chanting as if in hypnosis the confected group-faith that the president is an evil man awaiting from one week to the next the proof of his criminality.

The New York Times spurred most of the Democratic presidential candidates with any measurable support to demand the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Yet the Times knew there was no truth to the allegation of sexual abuse 35 years before.

The Washington Post took its turn last week with hearsay from a “whistleblower” about a conversation the president had, overheard by dozens of listeners, with the president of Ukraine. The spavined fire-horses charged out of the station again: Maureen Dowd hoping this would be the “Big One,” and Nicholas Kristof saying “It stinks,” (both in the Times).

It is almost inconceivable that any such conversation could produce a serious legal problem for President Trump. It cannot be ruled out that the Trump entourage has generated this round to discredit the Democratic press mobs again, and to get the murky business of the Biden family’s collateral profits from the vice presidency into the public square.

The president has substantially succeeded with respect to the economy, the southern border, trade, and energy production, and he will strive on to “drain the swamp.” His enemies are so envenomed, only the election next year can resolve the question whether the political establishment Mr. Trump attacked survives in recognizable form or he creates a new policy orthodoxy, as FDR did in the 1930s, when he entered office at the bottom of the Great Depression with a mandate to rebuild the country.

The system is substantially gridlocked between two alternatives that cannot be bridged; the people must choose the way forward. But they will, and that is why democracy works; the people ultimately decide and that is the one incontestable political legitimacy.

The United Kingdom has suffered a comparable drought of good government since the departure of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister in 1990. Debt has increased, taxes have risen, and the country has wobbled between the attractions of plunging headlong into the supranational European Union or revitalizing itself as an important sovereign nation, close, as always, with kindred European spirits, but also close to its Commonwealth relatives in Canada and Australasia, and the United States.

The Euro-integration option would mean largely emasculating institutions that the British have worked out gradually over 800 years with relatively little civil strife, and practically none (apart from the former province of Ireland) since 1685, a third of a millennium, in favor of government from Brussels by commissioners very tenuously responsive to the constituent governments and to the talking shop of the European Parliament.

The impasse has become so sharp that parties are divided and a bare parliamentary majority of Remainers, drawn from seven parties, is trying to dictate to a government that no longer has the confidence of the House of Commons and wishes a general election. The Remainers are trying to direct government by legislation, in defiance of the public’s vote three years ago to leave the European Union, and to deny the government an election.

It is the worst shambles of British government since Oliver Cromwell dismissed the legislators, had the king decapitated, and made himself Lord Protector, an arrangement that only survived him by a few months and was followed by the return of the son of the late king.

Instead of any such extremities, in the U.K. as in the United States, the people will decide. Prime Minister Boris Johnson presumably will concede a request for an extension of Britain’s departure from the European Union from Halloween to New Year’s Eve in exchange for an immediate election. Only the people can decide, and they will, in the one country as in the other, almost certainly in favor of the incumbent. Any alternative now visible is completely implausible.[9]

Time will tell.  But surely our enemies around the globe are salivating over the latest machinations in America’s “Sodom and Gomorrah.”

 

 

© 2019, Timothy D. Naegele

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[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 (see www.naegele.com and Timothy D. Naegele Resume-19-4-29). 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]  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah (“Sodom and Gomorrah”)

[3]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/ (“Washington Is Sick And The American People Know It”)

[4]  See, e.g., https://apnews.com/9a57d80e32904356874bbe090e159694 (“Washington plunges into Trump impeachment investigation”) and https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/09/26/the-move-towards-impeachment-marks-a-dangerous-shift (“The move towards impeachment marks a dangerous shift”)

[5]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/24/when-will-the-actual-shooting-begin-in-americas-second-civil-war/ (“When Will The Actual Shooting Begin In America’s Second Civil War?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/08/24/americas-left-is-vile-and-evil/ (“America’s Left Is Vile And Evil”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/29/barack-obama-is-responsible-for-americas-tragic-racial-divide/ (“Barack Obama Is Responsible For America’s Tragic Racial Divide”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/10/will-the-trump-presidency-conclude-in-2025/ (“Will The Trump Presidency Conclude In 2025?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/02/is-putin-right/ (“Is Putin Right?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/the-democrats-are-evil-but-smart-while-the-republicans-are-neanderthals-and-dumb/ (“The Democrats Are Evil But Smart, While The Republicans Are Neanderthals And Dumb”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/18/the-mueller-report-a-monumental-travesty/ (“The Mueller Report: A Monumental Travesty”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/02/06/the-state-of-our-union-2019/ (“The State Of Our Union, 2019”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/07/29/it-is-time-for-trump-supporters-to-fight-back/ (“It Is Time For Trump Supporters To Fight Back”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/07/20/the-american-lefts-feeding-frenzy/ (“The American Left’s Feeding Frenzy”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/06/15/the-department-of-injustices-inspector-general-is-complicit-in-the-deep-state-cover-up/ (“The Department Of Injustice’s Inspector General Is Complicit In The Deep-State Cover-Up!”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/should-barack-obama-be-executed-for-treason/ (“Should Barack Obama Be Executed For Treason?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/11/robert-mueller-should-be-executed-for-treason/ (“Robert Mueller Should Be Executed For Treason”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/20/the-real-russian-conspiracy-barack-obama-the-clintons-and-the-sale-of-americas-uranium-to-russias-killer-putin/ (“The Real Russian Conspiracy: Barack Obama, The Clintons, And The Sale Of America’s Uranium To Russia’s Killer Putin”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/americas-newest-civil-war-2017-and-beyond/ (“America’s Newest Civil War: 2017 And Beyond”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/justice-and-the-law-do-not-mix/ (“Justice And The Law Do Not Mix”) (see also the extensive comments beneath each of these articles) and http://www.dickmorris.com/no-cause-for-impeachment-lunch-alert/ (“No Cause For Impeachment”)

[6]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/24/when-will-the-actual-shooting-begin-in-americas-second-civil-war/#comment-19961 (“The Totally-Despicable Mitt Romney: Shame”)

[7]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/09/24/when-will-the-actual-shooting-begin-in-americas-second-civil-war/ (“When Will The Actual Shooting Begin In America’s Second Civil War?”)

[8]  See id.; see also https://buchanan.org/blog/joe-biden-impeachments-first-casualty-137542 (“Joe Biden: Impeachment’s First Casualty”-“[Nancy Pelosi] has just put her own and her party’s fate and future on the line.  . . .  By making Ukraine the focus of the impeachment drive in the House, Pelosi has also assured that the questionable conduct of Biden and son Hunter Biden will be front and center for the next four months before Iowa votes.  . . .  This is bad news for the Biden campaign.  And the principal beneficiary of Pelosi’s decision that put Joe and Hunter Biden at the center of an impeachment inquiry is [Elizabeth] Warren [who] . . . steadily emerges as the probable nominee”)

[9]  See https://www.nysun.com/national/only-the-voters-can-end-the-crisis-in-us-britain/90848/ (“Only the Voters Can End Crises In U.S., Britain”)

When Will The Actual Shooting Begin In America’s Second Civil War?

 By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

The title of this article is a “loaded question,” which we hope and pray never happens.  However, the Democrats have launched impeachment against our President, which moves us one step closer to a bloody internal war.[2]  And yes, Trump supporters—including law enforcement and our military—are armed to the teeth, like they were when Abraham Lincoln was the president and our last Civil War began.

Acts of sedition have been underway since before our national elections in 2016.  Barack Obama and his fellow treasonous co-conspirators embarked on a concerted effort to destroy the candidacy and then the presidency of Donald Trump, which continues to this day.  When will they be held accountable, and imprisoned at the very least?  Until this happens, no American should believe in our system of justice, because it does not exist.  It is a fable and a fantasy, and a tragedy of epic proportions.[3]

On two other occasions in my lifetime, similar events have happened, when our great nation was torn asunder.  One involved the Vietnam War and the hatred leveled at former President Lyndon Johnson.  There were bumper stickers on cars in the District of Columbia that asked: “Where is Lee Harvey Oswald now that we really need him?—referring to John F. Kennedy’s assassin, and suggesting that Johnson should be killed too.  The second event involved Richard Nixon and Watergate, where the hatred of him reached a fever pitch.

Today, the country is polarized in a manner approaching that of our last Civil War, when America was torn apart and barely survived.  If Abraham Lincoln had not been our president, it likely that the United States would not exist as a nation today, but might be two or more countries, occupying North America.  Lincoln and his generals, Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman[4], turned the tide and won the war, at an enormous cost in human lives.  For decades after that. America’s South functioned as a defeated nation within the United States, much like East Germany—or the DDR—existed in a united Germany after the fall of the Soviet Union.

From the moment that Donald Trump began his presidential campaign, he has been attacked by the Left and despicable RINOs like Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan on the right[5], and by the Left-leaning American media.  The attacks have been relentless, without ceasing.  In a very real sense, Trump is America’s first truly Independent president, who is beholden to neither political party, and attacked by elements in both.  His very presence has been and continues to be a threat to Washington’s “establishment” and power structure, and to the goals of globalists in the United States and abroad.  As I have written, the Democrats are “evil” but smart, while the Republicans are “Neanderthals” and dumb.  This was my conclusion when I left the U.S. Senate, and it has never changed and continues to this day.

I began as a Democrat in a devoutly-Republican household, where my parents “idolized” Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon.  However, working on and with Capitol Hill for most of my adult life led me to the conclusion that I did not want to be a member of either political party.  I have been an Independent ever since.  Lots of Americans in our great nation’s “Flyover States” have felt disenfranchised; and Donald Trump has captured their beliefs and been their leader since his presidential campaign began.  Is the man perfect?  No one is, but he embodies the hopes and dreams of vast numbers of Americans who elected him in 2016 and may reelect him in 2020.  Will his enemies, domestic and foreign, accept that result; or will his presidency be besieged until it runs its course?

The latest attacks on the President have been discussed by Pat Buchanan—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford, and a former GOP presidential aspirant himself—in an article entitled “Will ‘Ukraine-Gate’ Imperil Biden’s Bid?”:

With the revelation by an intel community “whistleblower” that President Donald Trump, in a congratulatory call to the new president of Ukraine, pushed him repeatedly to investigate the Joe Biden family connection to Ukrainian corruption, the cry “Impeach!” is being heard anew in the land.

But revisiting how this latest scandal came about, and how it has begun to unfold, it is a good bet that the principal casualty could be the former vice president. Consider:

In May 2016, Joe Biden, as Barack Obama’s designated point man on Ukraine, flew to Kiev to inform President Petro Poroshenko that a billion-dollar U.S. loan guarantee had been approved to enable Kiev to continue to service its mammoth debt.

But, said Biden, the aid was conditional. There was a quid pro quo.

If Poroshenko’s regime did not fire its chief prosecutor in six hours, Biden would fly home and Ukraine would get no loan guarantee. Ukraine capitulated instantly, said Joe, reveling in his pro-consul role.

Yet, left out of Biden’s drama about how he dropped the hammer on a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor was this detail.

The prosecutor had been investigating Burisma Holdings, the biggest gas company in Ukraine. And right after the U.S.-backed coup that ousted the pro-Russian government in Kiev, and after Joe Biden had been given the lead on foreign aid for Ukraine, Burisma had installed on its board, at $50,000 a month, Hunter Biden, the son of the vice president.

Joe Biden claims that, though he was point man in the battle on corruption in Ukraine, he was unaware his son was raking in hundreds of thousands from one of the companies being investigated.

Said Joe on Saturday, “I have never spoken to my son about his various business dealings.”

Trump and Rudy Giuliani suspect not, and in that July 25 phone call, Trump urged President Volodymyr Zelensky to reopen the investigation of Hunter Biden and Burisma.

The media insist there is no story here and the real scandal is that Trump pressed Zelensky to reopen the investigation to target his strongest 2020 rival. Worse, say Trump’s accusers, would be if the president conditioned the transfer of $250 million in approved military aid to Kiev on the new regime’s acceding to his demands.

The questions raised are several:

Is it wrong to make military aid to a friendly nation conditional on that nation’s compliance with legitimate requests or demands of the United States? Is it illegitimate to ask a friendly government to look into what may be corrupt conduct by the son of a U.S. vice president?

Joe Biden has an even bigger problem: This issue has begun to dominate the news at an especially vulnerable moment for his campaign.

Biden’s stumbles and gaffes have already raised alarms among his followers and been seized upon by rivals such as Cory Booker, who has publicly suggested that the 76-year-old former vice president is losing it.

Biden’s lead in the polls also appears shakier with each month. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has just taken a narrow lead in a Des Moines Register poll and crusading against Beltway corruption is central to her campaign.

“Too many politicians in both parties have convinced themselves that playing the money-for-influence game is the only way to get things done,” Warren told her massive rally in New York City: “No more business as usual. Let’s attack the corruption head on.”

Soon, it will not only be Trump and Giuliani asking Biden questions ab[o]ut Ukraine, Burisma and Hunter, but Democrats, too. Calls are rising for Biden’s son to be called to testify before congressional committees.

With Trump airing new charges daily, Biden will be asked to respond by his traveling press. The charges and the countercharges will become what the presidential campaign is all about. Bad news for Joe Biden.

Can he afford to spend weeks, perhaps months, answering for his son’s past schemes to enrich himself through connections to foreign regimes that seem less related to Hunter’s talents than his being the son of a former vice president and possible future president?

“Ukraine-gate” is the latest battle in the death struggle between the “deep state” and a president empowered by Middle America to go to Washington and break that deep state’s grip on the national destiny.

Another issue is raised here — the matter of whistleblowers listening in to or receiving readouts of presidential conversations with foreign leaders and having the power to decide for themselves whether the president is violating his oath and needs to be reported to Congress.

Eisenhower discussed coups in Iran and Guatemala and the use of nuclear weapons in Korea and the Taiwan Strait. JFK, through brother Bobby, cut a secret deal with Khrushchev to move U.S. missiles out of Turkey six months after the Soviets removed their missiles from Cuba.

Who deputized bureaucratic whistleblowers to pass judgment on such conversations and tattle to Congress if they were offended?[6]

Next, award-winning investigative journalist John Solomon has written an article for The Hill, which is entitled “Let’s get real: Democrats were first to enlist Ukraine in US elections”:

Earlier this month, during a bipartisan meeting in Kiev, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) delivered a pointed message to Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

While choosing his words carefully, Murphy made clear — by his own account — that Ukraine currently enjoyed bipartisan support for its U.S. aid but that could be jeopardized if the new president acquiesced to requests by President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate past corruption allegations involving Americans, including former Vice President Joe Biden’s family.

Murphy boasted after the meeting that he told the new Ukrainian leader that U.S. aid was his country’s “most important asset” and it would be viewed as election meddling and “disastrous for long-term U.S.-Ukraine relations” to bend to the wishes of Trump and Giuliani.

“I told Zelensky that he should not insert himself or his government into American politics. I cautioned him that complying with the demands of the President’s campaign representatives to investigate a political rival of the President would gravely damage the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. There are few things that Republicans and Democrats agree on in Washington these days, and support for Ukraine is one of them,” Murphy told me today, confirming what he told Ukraine’s leader.

The implied message did not require an interpreter for Zelensky to understand: Investigate the Ukraine dealings of Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and you jeopardize Democrats’ support for future U.S. aid to Kiev.

The Murphy anecdote is a powerful reminder that, since at least 2016, Democrats repeatedly have exerted pressure on Ukraine, a key U.S. ally for buffering Russia, to meddle in U.S. politics and elections.

And that activity long preceded Giuliani’s discussions with Ukrainian officials and Trump’s phone call to Zelensky in July, seeking to have Ukraine formally investigate whether then-Vice President Joe Biden used a threat of canceling foreign aid to shut down an investigation into $3 million routed to the U.S. firm run by Biden’s son.

As I have reported, the pressure began at least as early as January 2016, when the Obama White House unexpectedly invited Ukraine’s top prosecutors to Washington to discuss fighting corruption in the country.

The meeting, promised as training, turned out to be more of a pretext for the Obama administration to pressure Ukraine’s prosecutors to drop an investigation into the Burisma Holdings gas company that employed Hunter Biden and to look for new evidence in a then-dormant criminal case against eventual Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a GOP lobbyist.

U.S. officials “kept talking about how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united,” said Andrii Telizhenko, the former political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington who organized and attended the meetings.

Nazar Kholodnytsky, Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor, told me that, soon after he returned from the Washington meeting, he saw evidence in Ukraine of political meddling in the U.S. election. That’s when two top Ukrainian officials released secret evidence to the American media, smearing Manafort.

The release of the evidence forced Manafort to step down as Trump’s top campaign adviser. A Ukrainian court concluded last December that the release of the evidence amounted to an unlawful intervention in the U.S. election by Kiev’s government, although that ruling has since been overturned on a technicality.

Shortly after the Ukrainian prosecutors returned from their Washington meeting, a new round of Democratic pressure was exerted on Ukraine — this time via its embassy in Washington.

Valeriy Chaly, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States at the time, confirmed to me in a statement issued by his office that, in March 2016, a contractor for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) pressed his embassy to try to find any Russian dirt on Trump and Manafort that might reside in Ukraine’s intelligence files.

The DNC contractor also asked Chaly’s team to try to persuade Ukraine’s president at the time, Petro Poroshenko, to make a statement disparaging Manafort when the Ukrainian leader visited the United States during the 2016 election.

Chaly said his embassy rebuffed both requests because it recognized they were improper efforts to get a foreign government to try to influence the election against Trump and for Hillary Clinton.

The political pressure continued. Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in crucial U.S. aid to Kiev if Poroshenko did not fire the country’s chief prosecutor. Ukraine would have been bankrupted without the aid, so Poroshenko obliged on March 29, 2016, and fired Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

At the time, Biden was aware that Shokin’s office was investigating Burisma, the firm employing Hunter Biden, after a December 2015 New York Times article.

What wasn’t known at the time, Shokin told me recently, was that Ukrainian prosecutors were preparing a request to interview Hunter Biden about his activities and the monies he was receiving from Ukraine. If such an interview became public during the middle of the 2016 election, it could have had enormous negative implications for Democrats.

Democrats continued to tap Ukraine for Trump dirt throughout the 2016 election, my reporting shows.

Nellie Ohr, the wife of senior U.S. Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, worked in 2016 as a contractor for Fusion GPS, the same Hillary Clinton–funded opposition research firm that hired Christopher Steele, the British spy who wrote the now-debunked dossier linking Trump to Russia collusion.

Nellie Ohr testified to Congress that some of the dirt she found on Trump during her 2016 election opposition research came from a Ukrainian parliament member. She also said that she eventually took the information to the FBI through her husband — another way Ukraine got inserted into the 2016 election.

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

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

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

It’s a question worth asking.[7]

“Ukraine-gate” and impeachment are simply the latest attempts by America’s Left to divert attention from their presidential candidates, who consist of misfits, freaks, racists and anti-Semites.

As these attacks on President Trump continue unabated and get even worse before next year’s elections, the country may be ripped apart and become more polarized than ever.  When will the actual shooting begin, and open warfare commence like our last Civl War?  Is it merely a matter of time?  Can our great nation heal and survive from such trauma?  If the past is any indicator of the future, the answer is “yes,” a resounding “yes,” but it will take time, perhaps lots of it—and there may be bloodshed aplenty.

And what are America’s enemies abroad thinking and doing?  Like our last Civil War, they would be wise not to get involved, or to take any actions that would be adverse to those of the United States.  This is true of China and North Korea; and it is especially true of Russia’s brutal dictator-for-life Vladimir Putin’s designs for all of Ukraine: “a key U.S. ally for buffering Russia,” to quote John Solomon.[8]

 

 

© 2019, Timothy D. Naegele

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[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 (see www.naegele.com and Timothy D. Naegele Resume-19-4-29). 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]  See https://apnews.com/a9a0bed9f81343b7a725a9adcd84e01b (“Pelosi orders impeachment probe: ‘No one is above the law'”)

[3]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/08/24/americas-left-is-vile-and-evil/ (“America’s Left Is Vile And Evil”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/29/barack-obama-is-responsible-for-americas-tragic-racial-divide/ (“Barack Obama Is Responsible For America’s Tragic Racial Divide”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/10/will-the-trump-presidency-conclude-in-2025/ (“Will The Trump Presidency Conclude In 2025?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/07/02/is-putin-right/ (“Is Putin Right?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/the-democrats-are-evil-but-smart-while-the-republicans-are-neanderthals-and-dumb/ (“The Democrats Are Evil But Smart, While The Republicans Are Neanderthals And Dumb”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/18/the-mueller-report-a-monumental-travesty/ (“The Mueller Report: A Monumental Travesty”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2019/02/06/the-state-of-our-union-2019/ (“The State Of Our Union, 2019”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/07/29/it-is-time-for-trump-supporters-to-fight-back/ (“It Is Time For Trump Supporters To Fight Back”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/07/20/the-american-lefts-feeding-frenzy/ (“The American Left’s Feeding Frenzy”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/06/15/the-department-of-injustices-inspector-general-is-complicit-in-the-deep-state-cover-up/ (“The Department Of Injustice’s Inspector General Is Complicit In The Deep-State Cover-Up!”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/should-barack-obama-be-executed-for-treason/ (“Should Barack Obama Be Executed For Treason?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/11/robert-mueller-should-be-executed-for-treason/ (“Robert Mueller Should Be Executed For Treason”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/20/the-real-russian-conspiracy-barack-obama-the-clintons-and-the-sale-of-americas-uranium-to-russias-killer-putin/ (“The Real Russian Conspiracy: Barack Obama, The Clintons, And The Sale Of America’s Uranium To Russia’s Killer Putin”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/americas-newest-civil-war-2017-and-beyond/ (“America’s Newest Civil War: 2017 And Beyond”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/justice-and-the-law-do-not-mix/ (“Justice And The Law Do Not Mix”) (see also the extensive comments beneath each of these articles)

[4]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/ulysses-s-grant-an-american-hero/ (“Ulysses S. Grant: An American Hero”)

[5]  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_In_Name_Only (“Republican In Name Only”).  Lots of us are ashamed of the fact that we voted for Romney and Ryan in the past.

[6]  See https://buchanan.org/blog/will-ukraine-gate-imperil-bidens-bid-137533 (“Will ‘Ukraine-Gate’ Imperil Biden’s Bid?”); see also https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7492969/The-story-Bidens-son-Ukraine-Trumps-claims.html (“Hunter Biden got millions from overseas biz while his father was VP. Did Joe intervene to save him?”) and https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/sep/23/donald-trump-flips-ukraine-furor-joe-biden-son-hun/ (“Trump flips Ukraine furor on Biden, son”) and https://pagesix.com/2019/07/01/hunter-biden-started-dating-brothers-widow-right-after-crack-binge/ (“Hunter Biden started dating brother’s widow right after crack binge”) and https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/06/12/hunter-biden-married-los-angeles-woman-after-split-with-his-brothers-widow/ (“Hunter Biden’s messy personal life is back in the news. Will it cause political headaches for his dad?”)

[7]  See https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/462658-lets-get-real-democrats-were-first-to-enlist-ukraine-in-us-elections (“Let’s get real: Democrats were first to enlist Ukraine in US elections”)

[8]  See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/the-death-of-putin-and-russia-the-final-chapter-of-the-cold-war/ (“The Death Of Putin And Russia: The Final Chapter Of The Cold War”) (see also the extensive comments beneath the article)

Will Kavanaugh Prove Disastrous For The Democrats?

 By Timothy D. Naegele[1]

The confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as the newest Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court has sent shock waves through America[2]; and its effects may be most pronounced for the Democrats—who lost.  And yes, lots of us began as Democrats, but will never vote for one again.

Something similar may be true of the Left’s stalwarts who demonstrated across this country, first for Bernie Sander’s candidacy as the Democrats’ nominee for president in 2016—which was co-opted and “buried” by Hillary Clinton and her thugs—and then to defeat Kavanaugh’s confirmation.  They may feel that they were cheated and sold down the river by the Democrats, who failed to deliver . . . again.

The wind may go out of their sails, while the Republicans—and especially the Trump “faithful”—may be energized almost like never before.  “How sweet it is” (they may say or think) that their efforts proved successful, as they did in the 2016 election.  With the U.S. economy seemingly purring along[3], they may be convinced of their righteousness and of the certitude of their actions, which may propel them on to other and even greater victories.

In retrospect, Kavanaugh may have been a flawed candidate, and perhaps even more of a flawed Justice.[4]  What his elevation to the Court may mean—along with Neil Gorsuch before him, and soon the feeble Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s replacement—is that Donald Trump’s political and legal flanks will be protected against the Democrats’ efforts to remove him from the presidency.  If so, then the elevation of a flawed Kavanaugh to the Court will have served its purpose and satisfied Trump’s faithful.[5]

Aside from possibly defusing the Left’s zeal, the Kavanaugh confirmation fight has exposed its underbelly for all Americans to see.  Dianne Feinstein of California was shown to be an ineffectual, lying senator, who had kept a Chinese spy on her staff for approximately 20 years, despite the fact that she was entrusted with the nation’s most sensitive secrets.[6]  Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut was tarnished again for lying about his military service in Vietnam[7]; and the list goes on and on[8].

The Kavanaugh fight may have served another purpose.  It seems to have strengthened the spine of weak-kneed and often pathetic Republican “Neanderthals.”  They rose to the occasion and defeated the onslaught of the Democrats’ lies and normally-astute political skulduggery, which had been so successful in the past.  The departure of the totally-inept and ineffectual Paul Ryan from the House of Representatives may further this progression.[9]

 

© 2018, Timothy D. Naegele

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[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 (see www.naegele.com and Timothy D. Naegele Resume). 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]  See https://www.apnews.com/8234f0b8a6194d8b89ff79f9b0c94f35 (“Kavanaugh is confirmed: Senate Oks Supreme Court nominee”); see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/americas-newest-civil-war-2017-and-beyond/#comment-14894 (“KAVANAUGH: A DRESS REHEARSAL FOR IMPEACHMENT?”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/americas-newest-civil-war-2017-and-beyond/#comment-14821 (“A Hail Mary Pass With 00:07 On The Clock In The Fourth Quarter”)

[3]  See, e.g., https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/05/us-nonfarm-payrolls-september-2018.html (“[U]nemployment rate hits the lowest level since 1969”) and https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/craig-bannister/hispanic-unemployment-rate-hits-lowest-level-record-september (“Hispanic Unemployment Rate Hits Lowest Level on Record in September”) and https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/business/manufacturing-confidence-nears-all-time-high-despite-workforce-shortage (“Manufacturing confidence at all-time high despite workforce shortage”) and https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/federal-government-cut-1000-jobs-september-16000-under-trump (“Federal Government Cut 1,000 Jobs in September; -16,000 Under Trump”) and https://www.marketwatch.com/story/construction-hiring-is-booming-and-there-still-are-plenty-of-available-jobs-2018-10-05 (“Construction hiring is booming — and there still are plenty of available jobs”) and http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/political_updates/prez_track_oct05 (“The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance”)

[4]  See, e.g., https://www.yahoo.com/news/sinister-battle-brett-kavanaugh-over-202425923.html (“My sinister battle with Brett Kavanaugh over the truth – by [the international business editor of the UK’s Daily Telegraph] Ambrose Evans-Pritchard”—”[Patrick Knowlton] had been the first person at the Fort Marcy death location [of Vince Foster, next to the Potomac River]. . . . He said the FBI had tried repeatedly to badger him into changing his story on key facts. Each time he refused. . . . Before testifying, he suffered two days of what appeared to be systematic intimidation by a large surveillance team. . . . When Mr Knowlton appeared at the grand jury – thinking he was doing his civic duty – he says he was subjected to two and a half hours of character assassination. . . . There was little attempt to find out what he knew about the Foster death scene. . . . Few people are aware that the US federal prosecutor handling the death investigation at the outset, Miquel Rodriguez, had resigned earlier from the Starr investigation after a bitter dispute. His resignation letter – later leaked [Rodriguez materials] – said he was prevented from pursuing investigative leads, that FBI witness statements did not reflect what witnesses had said, that the suicide verdict was premature, and that his grand jury probe was shut down just as he was beginning to uncover evidence. An informed source told me his work had been sabotaged by his own FBI agents. The nub of the dispute was over compelling evidence of a wound in Foster’s neck, which contradicted the official version that Foster shot himself in the mouth and had essentially been suppressed. The key crime scene photos had vanished and the FBI labs said others were over-exposed and useless. Mr Rodriguez, by then suspicious, slipped them to the Smithsonian Institution and had them enhanced. One showed a black stippled ring like a gunshot wound in the side of Foster’s neck. This remains secret but I have seen it. The photo was pivotal. It confirmed what several people who handled the body had originally stated. I interviewed the first rescue worker on the scene and when I asked him about the mouth wound, he grabbed me, and said with frightening intensity: ‘listen to me buddy, Foster was shot right here,’ jabbing his finger into my neck. He said the FBI had pressured him too into changing his story and that official narrative was a pack of lies”) (see also https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/#comment-7185 (“Clinton Fatigue”—”[Was Vince] Foster killed at the Clinton’s behest[, and did Brett Kavanaugh participate in the cover-up]?”))

. . .

Many Americans believe that Chief Justice John Roberts never should have been appointed to the Court; and that he constitutes the second worst decision that former President George W. Bush made, aside from launching our great nation into the tragic Iraq War.  Among other things, he cast the deciding vote with respect to the constitutionality of Obamacare.

See, e.g., https://dailycaller.com/2012/06/28/in-6-3-decision-supreme-court-rules-obamacare-constitutional/ (“IN 5-4 DECISION, SUPREME COURT RULES OBAMACARE CONSTITUTIONAL”)

[5]  See, e.g., https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6245887/Kavanaugh-U-S-Supreme-Court-sparks-harmony.html (“The GOP dream for decades to come: How Kavanaugh could reshape abortion restrictions, gay rights – and may even rule on whether Trump can be prosecuted when he replaces Scotus swing vote”)

[6]  See, e.g., https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2018/08/01/details-chinese-spy-dianne-feinstein-san-francisco/ (“Details Surface About Sen. Feinstein And The Chinese Spy Who Worked For Her“)

[7]  See, e.g., https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/nyregion/18blumenthal.html (“Richard Blumenthal’s Words on Vietnam Service Differ From History“) and https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fact-check-trump-says-blumenthal-lied-he-did-bragged-he-n915096 (“Fact check: Trump says Blumenthal [or “Da Nang Dick” as the President calls him] lied (he did)”—”Senator Richard Blumenthal must talk about his fraudulent service in Vietnam, where for 12 years he told the people of Connecticut, as their Attorney General, that he was a great Marine War Hero. Talked about his many battles of near death, but was never in Vietnam. Total Phony!”—”Blumenthal did lead voters to believe he was a Vietnam veteran when, in fact, he was never deployed to Vietnam”)

[8]  See infra n.2.

[9]  See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2018/07/29/it-is-time-for-trump-supporters-to-fight-back/ (“It Is Time For Trump Supporters To Fight Back”)

The American Legal System Is Broken: Can It Be Fixed?

By Timothy D. Naegele[1][2]

I have been an American lawyer for 44 years.  I am a member of the bar of the United States Supreme Court, the District of Columbia Bar, the State Bar of California, and the bars of other federal courts.  I have been a U.S. Senate lawyer and a lawyer at the Pentagon, and have represented more than 200 banks and other financial institutions.  I have purchased banks for our clients, and advised two States; and I testified as an expert on behalf of the FDIC in a failing bank case.  I have done essentially everything that I ever wanted to do in the law, except work at the White House; and I have attended meetings there.  In these and countless other ways, I have seen the American legal system “up close and personal.”[3]

I have two law degrees, from Berkeley and Georgetown, at opposite ends of this great country.[4] I can say without any hesitation, reservation or equivocation that the finest education I received was at Berkeley’s law school par excellence, Boalt Hall.  I was taught—to think analytically, and to write—by outstanding professors[5] who instilled in my fellow students and me a belief that the law is sacred, sacrosanct and pristine, “a shining city upon a hill.”  Since then whenever I have encountered what I perceived as legal injustices and incompetence, I have taken umbrage and railed against them, albeit generally in my own quiet ways.

John Lennon probably said it best: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”  I never truly wanted to become a lawyer; that was not my life’s ambition.  I wanted to be a businessman instead, and buy and sell companies, but the Vietnam War intervened and changed my life forever.[6] I never dreamed of being a lawyer, like so many of my law school classmates at Berkeley did, which may explain why I view the profession—which so many Americans have come to despise—with a certain degree of detachment and healthy skepticism.  For example, I would not recommend the practice of law to anyone.  Among other things, the time demands and stress on young lawyers are a “family-killer,” which is why there is a high rate of divorces among members of the profession.

When my son wanted to attend law school, I encouraged him to get both a JD and an MBA, to “hedge his bets” and give him options.  When he was nearing graduation with both degrees in hand, I did my best to talk him out of practicing law.[7] Friends of mine, who have practiced law for many years and have been very successful at doing it, feel much the same way and have told their kids and others not to pursue a legal career.  Indeed, some of these friends and I have joked that we should give lectures to graduating college seniors and entering law school students, telling them what the practice of law is really all about.  If we told them the unvarnished truth, many might decide not to enter the profession.

Despite a healthy contempt for many lawyers, and judges—who are often egotistical, callous, mean-spirited, power-hungry, arrogant, self-righteous, condescending and incompetent—I have had wonderful friends over the years who are lawyers and even judges.  I have worked with them, and some have represented me, and I will always respect and be deeply indebted to them.  They are special people, who stand head-and-shoulders above others in the profession; and they are nice people as well—which may be what distinguishes them from the others.

Perhaps the most disturbing qualities about lawyers and judges are their arrogance and abuse of power, and their lack of empathy and innate legal and life skills to deal with vital human issues that come before them.  For example, lawyers who are prosecutors are often less interested in fairness and justice than they are in winning at all costs, and exercising their raw power and hurting others in the process—such as those who are innocent but are convicted anyway.[8]

Similarly, lawyers are trained in law schools to be advocates.  When they represent clients in divorce proceedings, the last things that estranged couples need are their respective lawyers “stirring the pot” to earn greater fees, and increasing the acrimony that already exists.  Also, male lawyers prey sexually on their distraught and vulnerable female clients, which should give rise to immediate disbarments but it does not.  The American legal system is broken today, inter alia, because it has often attracted the wrong type of people.[9]

Can our legal system be fixed, and will the American people come to trust and respect lawyers and judges again, and believe that justice not only exists but prevails in this great nation?  Maybe . . . if the profession is restructured, and if it attracts those people who believe that the law is sacred, sacrosanct and pristine—truly a shining city upon a hill—and they put such principles into practice.  The profession does not require saints, but it does need something different than “Law West of the Pecos by Judge Roy Bean.”  And it needs people who are different than it has been attracting: who are often driven, ruthless, unprincipled, money-hungry, and power-hungry.

© 2011, Timothy D. Naegele

[See also (1) https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2013/07/15/justice-and-the-law-do-not-mix/ (“Justice And The Law Do Not Mix”), (2) https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/the-united-states-department-of-injustice/ (“The United States Department of Injustice”), (3) https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/the-state-bar-of-california-is-lawless-and-a-travesty-and-should-be-abolished/ (“The State Bar Of California Is Lawless And A Travesty, And Should Be Abolished”)]

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[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 practices law in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles with his firm, Timothy D. Naegele & Associates, which specializes in Banking and Financial Institutions Law, Internet Law, Litigation and other matters (see www.naegele.com and http://www.naegele.com/naegele_resume.html).  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), and can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com

[2] The issues addressed in this article are discussed further in a partially-completed book of mine entitled, “Never Become A Lawyer.”  Its chapters include but are not limited to the following subjects: law schools, law firms, divorces, bar associations, Congress, lobbying, mergers and acquisitions, litigation, law enforcement, state governments, the federal government, judges, federal courts, the U.S. Supreme Court, politics, abuse of power, justice, lawyer scams, and other careers.

The book’s last chapter starts with the words:

I began writing this book with the idea of thoroughly trashing the legal profession of which I have been a member for more than 40 years, as well as the American “system of justice”—and God knows there is plenty of support for that approach.  However, the United States has many fine lawyers, including former classmates of mine at Berkeley and friends who have tried to do their very best to help others, such as those lawyers who have helped me.  Thus, in the final analysis, I endeavored to present a somewhat objective view of the profession. . . .

I assume my assessment will remain the same, or close to it, when the book is finished and published.

[3] See, e.g., http://www.naegele.com/naegele_resume.html

[4] See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/america-a-rich-tapestry-of-life/

[5] They included but were not limited to Edward C. Halbach Jr. (see, e.g.,  http://www.law.berkeley.edu/php-programs/faculty/facultyProfile.php?facID=44), who became dean of the law school and gave me an “A” in Conflicts of Law during my last year at Boalt, which I will remember always; Sanford H. (“Sandy”) Kadish (see, e.g., http://www.law.berkeley.edu/php-programs/faculty/facultyProfile.php?facID=61), who taught Criminal Law and became dean of the law school too; Barbara N. Armstrong, who was the first woman law professor at a major American law school (see, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Berkeley_School_of_Law); Richard W. Jennings (see, e.g., http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/inmemoriam/richardwjennings.htm), who taught Securities Law and came to Washington when I was a young attorney with the Senate Banking Committee, and we shared stories; and Michael (“Mike”) Heyman (see, e.g., http://www.law.berkeley.edu/php-programs/faculty/facultyProfile.php?facID=52), from whom I never took a class, but I will always remember his smiling face, and that he was a “force” for excellence at the law school and beyond (e.g., he ran the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. for many years).  A giant in the law of Torts, William L. Prosser (see, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Prosser), was at Boalt too; however, he left shortly before I arrived—although his spirit was still there.

[6] As a result of enrolling in Army ROTC as an undergraduate, I had a commission as an officer when I graduated from UCLA in January of 1963.  I wanted to attend a business school; however, I needed to work from January to September at two jobs, to earn enough money so I could afford any graduate school.  Even though UCLA’s business school had classes that I could begin right away, in January—whereas, law school classes only began in September—my choice became a law school.  The Vietnam War was raging; and the Army would defer me for law school, but would not let me work for the same amount of time before entering a business school, which is the graduate education that I really wanted to pursue.

Having become a lawyer, however, I have always tried to do my very best, and believe that I have done so.  Also, reading endless legal decisions at Boalt Hall and later at Georgetown, I learned the English language in ways that were unfathomable at the time, but have proved to be quintessentially-invaluable with respect to any skills that I have today as a writer.

The great American poet, Robert Frost, wrote a wonderful poem about life choices entitled, “The Road Not Taken,” which perhaps says it all:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken_(poem)

[7] I was adamant that neither of my kids would work on Capitol Hill, because of what I had witnessed there.

See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/washington-is-sick-and-the-american-people-know-it/

[8] A federal official with reason to know told me that between 15-20 percent of the indictees in federal courts are probably innocent.  Some are seniors who have been charged with cheating the Social Security program, and they are scared to death, so they agree to plea bargains rather than fight for their innocence.

[9] This is true of many judges, who serve for life and cannot be removed if they are federal judges.