“The truth is the truth is the truth and people should dig down within themselves and think about it. If you’re a Trump supporter, how would you feel if Barack Obama had done the same thing or Bill Clinton or even George W. Bush?”
“If ” Obama or Bill Clinton had done the same thing; what does he mean, “IF“?!? Either Don has an incredibly short memory…
…or it’s he that is playing fast and loose with the truth.
What shocks us even more than Lemon suggesting Obama and Clinton were truthful is his inclusion of Dubya in the same sentence, as the infamous fabrication “Bush People/People Died”…
…is the stuff of Liberal legends.
Though Bush sometimes pushed the envelope of complete disclosure, we’re hard pressed to remember him being caught in even one manifest misrepresentation of the truth, whereas Obama and Clinton…or, perhaps more accurately, the Clintons…hardly uttered a word which wasn’t untrue.
Considering these are the biggest Bush whoppers David Corn could come up with at a website whimsically entitled AttackonAmerica.net Injustice and Danger to America, we’re confident our recollection Bush didn’t share the failings of his predecessor and successors is accurate.
And one other thing: Lemon displays the same ignorance of the nature of many Trump supporters shown by Jonah Goldberg and others on the right side of the aisle.
As we observed when he was just another candidate, Donald Trump is bellicose, boorish and distasteful. But given the names being bandied about for the 2020 Dimocratic nomination, we’ll vote for him again without hesitation, if for only two reasons: Gorsuch and Kavanaugh…though the list is far longer. And there are many, many like us.
Say what you will about his tweeting, manners and deportment; we’ll probably agree with you. But Trump at his worst is infinitely preferable to Hillary at her best. We shudder to consider the impact on the Constitution and rule of law had she rather than he nominated the replacements for Scalia and Kennedy.
For those die-hard Never Trumpers who still cannot appreciate what was at stake in 2016, nothing we can write will enlighten you…though we won’t cease trying.
Now, here’s The Gouge!
First up, courtesy of FOX News, another view on the campaign finance canard from veteran campaign counsel Dan Backer, who emphatically asserts…
“Federal prosecutors alleged Friday that President Trump violated campaign finance law – but in fact, he didn’t.
…According to the Justice Department, Cohen described the payments as “election-related expenses” and “sought reimbursement” for them, illegally tapping into President Trump’s campaign funds.
But in fact, as President Trump told “Fox & Friends,” in August, the payments weren’t illegal because “they came from me,” rather than his presidential campaign.“They weren’t taken out of campaign finance, that’s the big thing,” the president said in August. “That’s a much bigger thing. Did they come out of the campaign? They didn’t come out of the campaign; they came from me.”
Not surprisingly, the #Resistance is now exploiting the Justice Department’s allegations as cause for impeachment of the president. In the words of Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.: “They would be impeachable offenses,” if proven true.
Of course, proof is in short supply. Outrage aside, the new memorandum supplies us with no new facts. All of the allegations in the document were already made by Cohen months ago, when he pleaded guilty to save himself at the expense of his former client, President Trump.
The bottom line remains this: Trump did not violate federal campaign finance laws.Why?Because the payments to Daniels and McDougal amounted to a “private transaction,” as the president himselfacknowledged, for a purpose he believed to be unrelated to politics…”
“False”: not because over $17 million in taxpayer funds hasn’t been spent on settling sexual harassment claims against Congress, but because…
“Although there is a U.S. Treasury fund devoted to paying settlements, it is not a “slush fund” which implies it is secret and utilized for illicit purposes.The fund is administered by the Office of Compliance (OOC), which was established in 1995 with the Congressional Accountability Act and is used for the payment of awards and settlements.The OOC is overseen by the House Administration and Senate Rules committees.“
In other words, the story was true…but we’re going to label it false because of one inconsequential detail.
Sorry, but from where we sit, any “fund” established by Congress and administered by Congress which funds the settlement of sexual harassment claims with no requirement to disclose the names of those responsible is the very definition of a slush fund.
Echoing Backer’s contention is Ken Starr, hardly a fan of The Donald’s:
“We’re nowhere near an indictable offense from what we know, assuming that the president could be indicted. And I don’t think we’re anywhere near an impeachable offense, given what we now know.“
In two related items, Stephanie “Stormy” Clifford continues to rue the day she ever darkened Michael Avenatti’s door…
“Yesterday the Supreme Court made headlines — but for the wrong case…
The case is called Kisor v. Wilkie, and it’s a veteran’s-benefit case involving a Marine seeking retroactive benefits for his PTSD. The case hinged on the VA’s interpretation of the word “relevant” in the applicable federal regulations. In his petition for Supreme Court review, Mr. Kisor submitted two questions:
(1). Whether the Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock and Sand Co.
(2). Alternatively, whether Auer deference should yield to a substantive canon of construction.
The Court granted review on Question 1 only.
Asleep yet?Well, wake up because I’m going to explain now why this is a Big Deal in the battle against the metastasizing administrative state.Auer and Bowles are the Supreme Court cases that “direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.” It’s the Little Satan that works with the Great Satan — Chevron deference — to fuel the explosive growth in the power of executive-branch agencies.
Here’s how it works.As I’ve explained before, the core holding of Chevron is that when a court confronts an executive agency’s “construction of the statute which it administers,” then it will defer to the agency so long as Congress hasn’t “directly spoken” to the issue and the agency has engaged in a “permissible construction” of the statute. Auer builds on the Chevron framework by requiringcourts to defer to the agency when even its own regulation is ambiguous. The result is a regime of deference upon deference that gives regulatory agencies enormous authority to craftand then interpret their own regulations.
This deference permits executive-branch agencies to expand their constitutional role and essentially combine all three constitutional functions under a single bureaucratic tent. It’s the lawmaker as it drafts regulations, the judge as it interprets its own laws, and the executive as it enforces the laws that it has drafted and interpreted. Deference supercharges the executive branch. It’s a cornerstone of the imperial presidency and the root of much modern presidential authoritarianism…”
Again, for those die-hard Never Trumpers who still cannot appreciate what was at stake in 2016, nothing we can write will enlighten you…though we won’t cease trying.
Which brings us to The Lighter Side:
Finally, we’ll call it a day with this timely tip from Mark Foster:
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