Going Out On A Limb

It is a bit early to make predictions. Surprises will surely come. Based on what we know today it is not difficult to anticipate a Trump victory in 2020. 

I don’t believe that my take on the situation will sway anyone. People are pretty much locked into their position on both sides, and they are not ready to further examine the issue.

You might ask why then bother? The fun might come anticipating events clearly and with few if any pre-conceived notions.

After reading my piece, you might suggest that I must be smoking some funny cigarettes. Some of my best friends have accused me of being in denial or too biased to be objective.

We are all victims of our own paradigms but I am not the only one, I might add. Paradigms have a way of filtering out data that does not fit pre-existing notions.

My predictions are based on my personal and possibly flawed analysis of current events. I live in California where only one reality is permitted. Others be damned! It is quite possible that my own paradigm is making me blind to a more popular alternative.

Critical Incidents

Democrats began watching the 2016 election results with keen interest and anticipation. Arrangements had been made for glorious celebrations. Self-congratulatory messages were exchanged amongst the elite. It was in the bag! Hilary would win hands-down.

As results started to come in, Democrats could not believe what they were seeing. Trump had demolished the firewall in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. He would be the victor and Hillary the loser. Although the winner of the popular vote, Clinton would lose in the Electoral College. Clinton won the popular vote thanks to California and New York – two large states with a supermajority of Democrats.

Americans do not elect their presidents through a national popular vote. They elect their president on a state-by-state basis. Many Democrats see this as an undemocratic process, forgetting that America is a federation of states. Framers wanted to limit the power of more populous states over less populous states.

Democrats started attacking Trump immediately. He had not taken office yet … Resist at all costs was the battle cry. All kinds of allegations about Trump’s personal life started to dominate the evening news. Trump’s business dealings were assailed.  His character shredded into smatterings. Trump contributed to the brouhaha with his undisciplined twitting.

President Obama said prior to the election that Trump would never be president. Why did he say that? I suspect that he knew fully well that the Administrative State, AKA the Deep State, would not permit it.  He knew that the FBI, CIA and the ND apparatus would fight the result and cast doubt on Trump’s legitimacy and competence to hold office.

We now know that members of the Administrative State set in motion a variety of steps indented to delegitimize Trump’s election and to boot him out of office. Several high level members of the FBI have been either fired or quit after emails surfaced about an “insurance policy” to take down the newly elected president.

To start, the FBI relied on ill-gotten FISA warrants and upon the ill-gotten and manufactured phony Steele Dossier to cast doubts on Trump. This dossier was compiled at the behest of the Clinton camp. The Clinton campaign paid for the manufactured dirt.

The charge of Russian interference in our election came next. Even though the FBI concluded that it had no material effect on the election results, the Administrative State saw it as a means to bring into question Trump’s loyalty and motives. Trump’s attempt to quash this narrative was used to justify the appointment of a Special Counsel to get to the bottom of the allegations.

Diehard Democrat operatives rallied around the so-called resist, resists, resist camp, convinced that obstruction of justice had been committed and that the Trump campaign had coordinated with the Russians. He could not be trusted with the office of the Presidency. Former FBI Director Mueller was brought in as Special Counsel to investigate the whole affair.

Recent disclosure of statements by partisan attorney Mark Zaid illustrate that as early as January 2017 a cabal was in the making to attack Trump and eventually impeach him.

Zaid and his business partner are currently representing the whistleblower that accused Trump of a quid pro quo with the Ukraine President. That is, Trump asked for an investigation (the quo) of Joe Biden and his son in exchange for military assistance funds (the quid).  No such investigation has been launched prior or since the release of the assistance to Ukraine (no quo).

Democrats have been talking about impeachment prior to Trump taking office. Fishing expeditions have been launched hoping to find crimes and misdemeanors that justify articles of impeachment. Three House Committees have been busy working toward this objective: Oversight, Judicial and Intelligence. No smoking gun to date … only partisan witnesses who disagreed with the Administration’s policies or career staff not wanting to be shut out the policy making process.

Duds and Boomerangs

Almost everybody is acknowledging that the Steele Dossier was false. It was used improperly to secure warrants of Trump’s associates. Several FBI senior officers have already been fired or have resigned, following the Inspector General’s investigation.

The Mueller Report has debunked the Russian collusion and obstruction of justice charges.  Representative Schiff’s assertion that he had incontrovertible evidence of collusion has not materialized, thus leading many critics to accuse Schiff of lying.

The whistleblower’s story of the Ukraine quid pro quo has started to unravel. Representative Schiff lied that he or his committee had no prior contact with the whistleblower. We all know now that coordination did take place between Schiff’s office and the whistleblower.

The whistleblower has been unmasked for supposedly violating the protocol of contacting Congress before filing the charges with the Inspector General. Schiff’s credibility and veracity are in question again. Democrats point out that other whistleblowers have also consulted with Congress prior to filing charges with Inspector General. Voters are skeptical of the Democratic logic that two wrongs make one right

We have since learned that the whistleblower, a CIA operative, is a partisan Democrat who served in the Biden camp and who was booted out of the intelligence apparatus for alleged leaks. It turns out that the whistleblower has no first hand evidence of the phone call between Trump and the President of Ukraine.

Many other witnesses to the affair have indicated pretty much the same. Listening to the excerpted testimonies leaked to the press by Schiff one gets the impression that there was and still is a fight raging between the Administrative State (career civil servants) and the Trump Administration about policy changes and the degree to which the Administrative State should be involved or participate in policy formulation.

To debunk the accusations by the whistleblower and other partisan witnesses the White House released a transcript of the conversation between Trump and the President of Ukraine. It is obvious from the transcript that no condition (quo) was placed on the release of the economic aid (quid). Trump merely asked that an investigation be launched into Biden’s and his son’s actions back in 2016. 

Joe Biden’s son had managed to get an $ 80,000 per month retainer to serve on the board of a gas company, although he had no qualifications for such assignment. The Trump camp has made similar charges about Biden’s son involvement with companies in China. He is also mentioned regarding a $ 135 million loan he received while his dad was in office from the federal government.

We are told that a quid pro quo in economic assistance is a recurring practice to ensure that funds appropriated by Congress for foreign aid are used for their intended purpose and are not syphoned off by corrupt politicians or government officials.

Some legal experts believe that this practice is not an impeachable offense. Hence we are now witnessing the morphing of the impeachment language to bribery and extortion. Democrats look desperate. It seems that they are trying to find something more solid. To many their findings to date appear to be exaggerated and concocted.

Representative Schiff has become the villain in the impeachment process. Holding secret meetings has given the appearance of a Stalinist kangaroo proceeding. Schiff is conducting the inquiry as if it were a grand jury rather than what many believe is a political investigation. The GOP laments its inability to call witnesses that Schiff does not approve and the denial of fundamental due process steps.

The first public session of the impeachment inquiry featured two star witnesses, Kent and Taylor, who admitted that they had no first hand evidence of what was said during the phone call by Trump to the new president of Ukraine, but they had heard about it from people who had heard it from others.

The definition of a witness is “a person who sees an event, typically a crime or accident, take place.” Merriam-Webster suggest that someone who testifies that he or she has personal knowledge of something. Neither of the two so-called star witnesses fit either definition.

The second public session features a former ambassador to Ukraine who feels she was recalled unfairly. Never mind that the constitution permits the President to dismiss any ambassador with or without cause. Never mind that she was not involved in the July phone call that is the centerpiece of the investigation.  Representative Stewart asked the ambassador point blank if she had any proof that President Trump had committed any crimes. She answered: No!

One more time we heard from a witness who might have heard something from someone who heard from someone else. A subordinate of Taylor is also scheduled to testify that he heard Ambassador Sondland speak with Trump on the phone.

In the Kavanaugh fashion, when plan A (Taylor’s testimony) fails here comes plan B (a last minute witness) to the rescue. The allegation is that Sondland was speaking on the phone with the President in a noisy restaurant. Many question whether it was possible for the new “witness” to hear what the person on the other end of the conversation said.

In anticipation of the hearing on Friday Speaker Pelosi accused Trump of having committed bribery. The Supreme Court in a 1999 decision regarding a case of bribery “concluded that a person did not violate the law merely by giving a gift to a public official.” Prosecutors must show that there was a connection between a specific official act in the past and in the future and the act.” Ukraine did not investigate Joe Biden and his son or Burissma. In other words there was no quid for the quo (economic assistance). 

It looks like Pelosi is using words that more easily express what the legal term in Latin means. Most voters are not lawyers and do not know Latin. Or she might be trying to disconnect the quid from the unproved quo.

The last day of the Schiff teams’ inquiry featured two witnesses: Fiona Hill and Holmes (the person who heard Sondland speak with Trump). Hill’s testimony was not first hand. She was there to share her views about a variety of issues with which she had a bone to pick. As an expert witness Ms. Fiona failed to impress those on the right about her own versions of the events.

Recent news accounts describing the alleged whistleblower’s Go Fund Me activities are casting a potential violation of U.S. laws that prohibit members of the CIA to accept gifts of any kind. So far, it has been reported, that $ 250,000 has been raised from contributions from 6,000 donors. Republicans are using the revelation as an example of duplicity and corruption.

The Rashomon Effect

Rashomon is a 1950 film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It received many awards (Golden Lion in Venice, Best Foreign Film and the Academy Honorary Award). It is considered one of the greatest films ever made.

The plot involves various characters providing subjective, alternative, self-serving, and contradictory versions of the same incident.  The Rashomon Effect is named after the film. The stories in the film are mutually contradictory and even the final version may be seen as motivated by factors of ego and saving face.

The spectacle we are witnessing on TV will not change minds. Democrats will be all-in on impeachment while Republicans will stubbornly cling to the cabal theory.

What Happens Next?

Polls reveal that the public is not buying into either of the two narratives. Diehard Democrats will continue to portray Trump as an incompetent and out-of-control buffoon. Republicans will stick to their view that Trump is the victim of a hatchet job concocted by poor-loser Democrats and an unhappy Deep State keen on protecting its turf and privileges.

Trump’s approval rates are surging. Of considerable aghast for the Democrats, 35% amongst African Americans and about half of Hispanic Americans told the pollsters recently that they opposed impeaching the President. This is an ominous sign for the Democrats because African Americans and Hispanic Americans are supposedly their constituency. To make things worse, polls in the battle states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania show that most voters do not favor impeachment.

Looking ahead at least three possibilities emerge. 

Democrats will not come up with solid evidence of bribery and extortion, using the latest lingo, but insist on impeaching Trump anyway with the Senate rejecting the House’s conclusions. 

Voters realize that the impeachment inquiry is a politically concocted ruse to damage Trump’s chances for reelection and will give him a landslide win in 2020.

There is a face-saving alternative for the Democrats. Declare Trump’s action improper and censure him.

Based on your own political inclination, you can pick your choice.