RUTHFULLY YOURS

amgreatness.com/2019/10/07/icig-atkinson-refuses-to-tell-congress-why-whistleblower-rule-changes-were-backdated/

Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG), reportedly refused to answer a key question during testimony before the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) on Friday.

Atkinson met with members of the committee in a closed meeting to to answer questions related to the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump.

When asked to explain why his office made changes to its whistleblower forms in September and backdated those changes to August when the anti-Trump “whistleblower” complaint was filed, Atkinson had no answer, Sean Davis reported at the Federalist on Monday. He also reportedly admitted to lawmakers that the anti-Trump complainant had improperly concealed his previous secret interactions with House Democratic staff prior to submitting the complaint.

The Federalist first reported late last month that the ICIG secretly changed its whistleblower forms and internal rules in September to do away with a requirement that complainants provide first-hand evidence to support their allegations of wrongdoing.

The IC watchdog disclosed in a press release last week that the rule change was in response to an anti-Trump complaint filed on August 12. The whistleblower complaint was based on second-hand information, much of which was shown to be false after President Trump ordered the declassification and release of his telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

During Friday’s HPSCI committee oversight hearing, Atkinson admitted that the whistleblower forms and rules changes were made in September, even though the new forms and guidance state that they were changed in August, sources told the Federalist.

Despite having a full week to come up with explanations for his office’s decisions to secretly change its forms to eliminate the requirement for first-hand evidence and to backdate those changes to August, Atkinson refused to provide any explanation to lawmakers baffled by his behavior.

Graham: If Dems Move Forward With Impeachment, the Identities of Anonymous Whistleblowers Will Be Revealed

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2019/10/07/graham-if-dems-move-forward-with-impeachment-the-anonymous-whistleblowers-will-be-exposed-n2554258

Ratcliffe: DOJ Inspector General’s Report On FISA Abuse Will Be Released Within Next “Week Or Two” Posted By Tim Hains 

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/cm-punk-jokes-rock-should-call-him-friday-while-

https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/07/one-year-after-kavanaughs-confirmation-protestors-gather-outside-supreme-court/

One year ago, then Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court after facing unsubstantiated allegations of sexual assault and weeks of vicious Senate confirmation hearings. Although the hearings concluded, the smears against Kavanaugh’s character did not.

The New York Times promulgated a story that sparked calls for Kavanaugh’s impeachment. Nearly every 2020 Democratic candidate called for Justice Kavanaugh to be impeached amid media attention of more unsubstantiated allegations.

Marking the anniversary Kavanugh’s swearing in, angry protestors gathered at the Supreme Court on Monday. Julio Rosas, a senior writer at Townhall, documented the displays of insanity. Here’s what he saw:

Warning: explicit language displayed in signs below. 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/10/whistle-joseph-klein/

The House Democrats’ urgency in moving ahead to impeach President Trump over the so-called Ukraine “scandal” is turning into a sequel to Lewis Carrol’s Through the Looking Glass. “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less. The question is which is to be master—that’s all.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is following Humpty Dumpty’s advice. She believes that she has the unilateral power, as master of the House of Representatives, to wave her magic wand and convert ordinary legislative oversight investigations into an “official” impeachment inquiry by just declaring it to be so.

“I’m announcing the House of Representatives is moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry,” Pelosi declared on September 24th without introducing a resolution for adoption by the full House of Representatives to formally launch an impeachment inquiry. With her Democrat cohorts, she is hoping that Ukrainegate will turn into the decisive gotcha moment that finally checkmates President Trump and leads to his removal from office before next year’s presidential election. 

A second whistleblower, who supposedly has first hand knowledge to back up the first whistleblower’s second hand account, has reportedly come forward. More whistleblowers may follow. Mere coincidence or an orchestrated attempt by Trump-haters to build up public pressure to impeach him by inflicting a thousand cuts with drip by drip leaks? Almost certainly the latter, considering that the first whistleblower’s attorney, who said he is also representing the second whistleblower, “co-founded Whistleblower Aid, a small nonprofit that blasted advertisements around D.C. actively seeking whistleblowers during the Trump administration,” as reported by Breitbart. “Whistleblower Aid is heavily tied to far-left activist organizations and Democratic politics.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/pelosi_defends_schiffs_version_of_trumpzelensky_phone_call_he_did_not_make_it_up.html

Nancy Pelosi appears to have shocked even George Stephanopoulos of ABC news yesterday. The Speaker of the House claimed that Rep. Adam Schiff did not invent his own version of the telephone call between President Trump and the (then) newly inaugurated President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, during a September 26th hearing of the House Intelligence Committee, which he chairs.

Schiff himself later in the hearing characterized his version of what he initially called “the essence” of the call as a “parody.” But the purported humor sailed right over the head of the Speaker.

Here is the entire  ABC News transcript.  This is the relevant exchange with emphases added by me:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You talk about the dignity with which you handle this. You’ve seen the president’s tweets. You’ve heard Republican’s– Leader McCarthy wants to censure Adam Schiff. I know you support Chairman Schiff. But– was it– was it right for him to have that dramatic– reading of the president’s– interpretation of the president’s– transcript of the phone call at the hearing last week? Did that follow the kind of process you want?

NANCY PELOSI: I want the American people to know what that phone call was about. I want them to hear it on their– on their iPhone or whatever. I want them to see it visually. Because this was an absolute betrayal of the American people, this phone call. It was a betrayal of our national security, it was a betrayal of the integrity of elections, it was a betrayal of our Constitution. So yeah, it’s fair. It’s sad. But it’s using the president’s own words. So if he’s–

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-10-5-the-bidens-stone-cold-crooked

The phrase “stone cold crooked” was used on October 2 by President Trump to describe Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Watch the YouTube video here.

Meanwhile, in the Democratic-side press, almost all have been standing up for Joe Biden in the face of large profit-making ventures of his son and brother in countries where Biden as Vice President led U.S. diplomacy. Specifically as to Ukraine, the New York Times on October 5 called President Trump’s charges as to Biden’s misconduct “unfounded” and “wild.”

So which is it: Are Biden and his family “stone cold crooked,” or are such charges “unfounded” and “wild”?

This piece will look specifically at the facts regarding then-Vice President Joe Biden and the dealings of Hunter Biden in Ukraine.

My conclusion: the claim of “stone cold crooked” has been proved.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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