Tag Archives: President Bill Clinton

When You Just Don’t Have Principles

Posted on by

Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article noting that after President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of former adviser Roger Stone, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she would support a bill that would limit a president’s pardoning abilities. First of all, President Trump commuted the sentence–he did not pardon.Secondly, Roger Stone is not in good heath, and a prison sentence would probably result in his death. Seems like a rather high price to pay for lying to Congress and witness tampering. Particularly since many others who lied to Congress have never been charged–James Comey, James Clapper, etc. Finally, some states are currently letting murderers and rapists out of prison because of the coronavirus. How is Roger Stone a threat to anyone?

The article notes:

Pelosi and Democrats, however, want to make sure presidents can’t pardon allies, calling Trump’s actions “an act of staggering corruption.”

“Congress will take action to prevent this type of brazen wrongdoing. Legislation is needed to ensure that no president can pardon or commute the sentence of an individual who is engaged in a cover-up campaign to shield that President from criminal prosecution,” Pelosi said, as reported by The Times-Union.

The outlet noted, however, that such a bill would never become law with a Republican-controlled Senate and White House. “The bill would also likely face legal challenges were it to become law,” the Times-Union reported.

Trump had every right to pardon Stone, even if some don’t like it. Two former prosecutors – Brett L. Tolman and Arthur Rizer – penned an op-ed for Fox News saying Stone was “a relative bit player” sentenced to justify Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation.

The article mentions some pardons by past Presidents:

Journalist and author Andrew McCarthy, too, defended Trump’s actions and pointed out multiple pardons from Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama that Democrats defended.

“President Bill Clinton pardoned his own brother for felony distribution of cocaine. And a key witness in the Whitewater scandal for which he and Hillary Clinton were under investigation. And three others convicted in independent counsel Ken Starr’s probe. And Marc Rich, in what was a straight-up political payoff. And his CIA director. And his HUD secretary. And eight people convicted in an investigation of his Agriculture Department,” McCarthy wrote.

Obama also commuted the sentence of a U.S. soldier who passed top-secret information to WikiLeaks. He pardoned his former Joint Chiefs of Staff vice chairman, who’d been convicted of making false statements about a leak of classified information to The New York Times,” McCarthy added.

Nancy Pelosi was in the House of Representatives during these pardons and never questioned them. Now, when commuting a man’s sentence could possibly save his life, she is going to attempt to pass an unconstitutional law.

I Did It–But You Can’t!

Posted on by

This is not news to anyone who has been paying attention in recent years, but the Democrats have a habit of criticizing Republicans for things that Democrats also do. The Jewish World Review posted an article today about the most recent example of that principle.

The article reports:

At least five House Democrats talked about a “lynching” or “lynch mob” as pertaining to Clinton, according to a Fix review.

…Then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., called the impeachment proceedings against Clinton a “partisan lynching” during an October 1998 appearance on CNN. On Tuesday, Biden called Trump’s tweet “abhorrent.”

“Our country has a dark, shameful history with lynching, and to even think about making this comparison is abhorrent. It’s despicable,” Biden tweeted.

On three occasions in 1998, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who now chairs the committee that would consider articles of impeachment against Trump, called the impeachment process against Clinton a “lynch mob.”

“We shouldn’t participate in a lynch mob against the president,” Nadler told Newsday on Sept. 13, 1998.

Five days later, Nadler said he saw “no evidence that the Republicans want to do anything other than organize a lynch mob,” according to the South China Morning Post.

And on Oct. 4, 1998, Nadler told the Associated Press that Republicans were “running a lynch mob” against Clinton.

Then-Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., who served nearly 20 years in the House, slammed the impeachment proceedings against Clinton during an interview with the Baltimore Sun on Sept. 12, 1998.

“This feels today like we’re taking a step down the road to becoming a political lynch mob,” McDermott said at the time. “Find the rope, find the tree and ask a bunch of questions later.”

Criticism came fast from Democrats, President Donald Trump critics and some Republicans on Tuesday after Trump compared the impeachment inquiry into him to a “lynching.” But by the afternoon, Trump allies were pointing out that variations of that word had been invoked several times by House Democrats to describe the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton in 1998.

I am posting this article to show how ridiculous the media (and the Democrat party) have become. It’s only a lynch mob when Republicans do something. When Democrats do something, it’s a necessary constitutional move. Yeah, right.

A Little Background On Recent Events

Posted on by

On September 25th, DC Whisperers posted the following:

DOH! Did You Know There’s a Treaty Between the USA & Ukraine Regarding Cooperation For Prosecuting Crimes?

Posted on by DCWhispers

My goodness. It was passed when Joe Biden was a member of the U.S. Senate and then signed by then-President Bill Clinton. 

A comprehensive treaty agreement that allows cooperation between both the United States and Ukraine in the investigation and prosecution of crimes. 

It appears President Trump was following the law to the letter when it comes to unearthing the long-standing corruption that has swirled in Ukraine and allegedly involves powerful Democrats like Joe Biden and others.

“To the Senate of the United States: With a view to receiving the advice and consent of the Senate to ratification, I transmit herewith the Treaty Between the United States of America and Ukraine on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters with Annex, signed at Kiev on July 22, 1998. I transmit also, for the information of the Senate, an exchange of notes which was signed on September 30, 1999, which provides for its provisional application, as well as the report of the Department of State with respect to the Treaty. The Treaty is one of a series of modern mutual legal assistance treaties being negotiated by the United States in order to counter criminal activities more effectively. The Treaty should be an effective tool to assist in the prosecution of a wide variety of crimes, including drug trafficking offenses. The Treaty is self-executing. It provides for a broad range of cooperation in criminal matters. Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes: taking of testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; serving documents; locating or identifying persons; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to restraint, confiscation, forfeiture of assets, restitution, and collection of fines; and any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the requested state. I recommend that the Senate give early and favorable consideration to the Treaty and give its advice and consent to ratification.”

WILLIAM J. CLINTON.

President Trump’s phone call was in accordance with this treaty. Joe Biden’s threat to withhold money if a prosecutor was not fired was not. Why are we investigating the wrong person?

In Case You Were Wondering If It Was Political…

Posted on by

On Monday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the Democrats’ calls to make the entire Mueller Report public, including source information, Grand Jury testimony, etc. Well, there are some pretty strict rules protecting the secrecy of Grand Jury testimony, and it is quite possible that disclosing other information could be a problem for our intelligence services (and possibly some foreign intelligence services). It should be noted that in their calls for transparency I haven’t heard them ask that the FISA warrants and background information on those warrants be made public. However, this call for transparency on the part of the Democrats is an interesting contrast to their reactions to previous Special Counsel reports.

The article reports:

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is the leading Democrat demanding the release of the Mueller Report “in its entirety” without redactions.

His committee is planning to subpoena the Justice Department for the full report.

But back in 1998, as a member of the same committee, he vociferously opposed the release of the full Starr Report, saying that “as a matter of decency and protecting people’s privacy rights, people who may be totally innocent third parties, what must not be released at all.”

Ken Starr, the independent counsel investigating then-President Bill Clinton, delivered his report to Congress on Sept. 9, 1998. That night, Nadler went on Charlie Rose’s show to push back against the Republican demand that the voluminous report should be made public. “It’s grand jury material. It represents statements which may or may not be true by various witnesses,” Nadler said. “Salacious material. All kinds of material that it would be unfair to release,”

What Nadler, 71, said in 1998 echoes what Attorney General William Barr told Congress last week. Barr, 68, wrote that he might redact grand jury testimony, information related to ongoing investigations, sensitive or classified information, and “information that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties” from the report that he provides to Congress and the public.

Representative Nadler does not want the entire report made public–he wants the Democrats to get the entire report so that they can leak misleading parts of the report and make the scandal last until the 2020 election. The is a political game.

The article concludes:

Special counsel Mueller declined to charge anyone associated with the Trump campaign of coordination with the Russians, but did not reach a decision on obstruction. Attorney General Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that Trump had not obstructed justice.

How can you have obstruction when there was no crime?

 

Hasn’t Anyone Read The U.S. Constitution?

Posted on by

Yesterday The New York Times posted an op-ed piece titled, “The Inevitability of Impeachment” by Elizabeth Drew. It is an opinion piece, so I guess facts don’t really matter, but it is still an amazing work of fiction.

The piece states:

An impeachment process against President Trump now seems inescapable. Unless the president resigns, the pressure by the public on the Democratic leaders to begin an impeachment process next year will only increase. Too many people think in terms of stasis: How things are is how they will remain. They don’t take into account that opinion moves with events.

Whether or not there’s already enough evidence to impeach Mr. Trump — I think there is — we will learn what the special counsel, Robert Mueller, has found, even if his investigation is cut short.

I can see the talking point already–if the House begins impeachment proceedings and the Mueller investigation is ended because of that, the cry will be that he would have found something if he had had more time. The man has been supposedly looking for Russian collusion for two years at taxpayers’ expense and so far all he has come up with is a legal contract asking someone to remain silent.

The piece continues:

The word “impeachment” has been thrown around with abandon. The frivolous impeachment of President Bill Clinton helped to define it as a form of political revenge. But it is far more important and serious than that: It has a critical role in the functioning of our democracy.

Impeachment was the founders’ method of holding a president accountable between elections. Determined to avoid setting up a king in all but name, they put the decision about whether a president should be allowed to continue to serve in the hands of the representatives of the people who elected him.

So the impeachment of Bill Clinton was frivolous even when he lied to a Grand Jury and tried to influence others to do the same, but the impeachment of Donald Trump would not be frivolous. Wow. Please explain the logic here.

It always seemed to me that Mr. Trump’s turbulent presidency was unsustainable and that key Republicans would eventually decide that he had become too great a burden to the party or too great a danger to the country. That time may have arrived. In the end the Republicans will opt for their own political survival. Almost from the outset some Senate Republicans have speculated on how long his presidency would last. Some surely noticed that his base didn’t prevail in the midterms.

But it may well not come to a vote in the Senate. Facing an assortment of unpalatable possibilities, including being indicted after he leaves office, Mr. Trump will be looking for a way out. It’s to be recalled that Mr. Nixon resigned without having been impeached or convicted. The House was clearly going to approve articles of impeachment against him, and he’d been warned by senior Republicans that his support in the Senate had collapsed. Mr. Trump could well exhibit a similar instinct for self-preservation. But like Mr. Nixon, Mr. Trump will want future legal protection.

Mr. Nixon was pardoned by President Gerald Ford, and despite suspicions, no evidence has ever surfaced that the fix was in. While Mr. Trump’s case is more complex than Mr. Nixon’s, the evident dangers of keeping an out-of-control president in office might well impel politicians in both parties, not without controversy, to want to make a deal to get him out of there.

Just for the record, Article II Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution reads:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

As far as anyone knows, that standard has not been met. You can’t impeach a President just because you don’t like him or you are mad because your candidate did not win the election.

A Step In The Right Direction

Posted on by

The Washington Free Beacon is reporting today that the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services reinstated work requirements for people who receive taxpayer-funded food assistance. The change in the law will impact about 70,000 people in 69 Michigan counties.

The article reports:

Wheaton (Michigan Department of Health & Human Services Public Information Officer Bob Wheaton) said that these work requirements had been in effect before 2002, but were lifted because of high unemployment. With the economy improving, Wheaton said, the MDHH decided it was time to reinstate the policy.

Holly Wetzel, communications coordinator at the Michigan-based, free-market think tank the Mackinac Center, supports reinstating work requirements.

“Work requirements benefit the individual, taxpayers and the economy because they realign incentives within our welfare system that encourage, reward, and restore the dignity of work,” Wetzel told Watchdog.org.

Former Democratic President Bill Clinton incorporated work requirements in his welfare reform package in the 1990s, which Wetzel said were a great success. These policies, she said, preserve the food stamp system and ensure access to the most needy while incentivizing a sustainable lifestyle. Along with a more sustainable food stamp system, she said she expects that employers will see “a more vibrant and enterprising labor market,” which will help them fill positions in an economy that has brought more jobs to the country.

“[Food stamps] exist to help the truly vulnerable,” Wetzel said.

In addition to food stamp work requirements, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is currently seeking to add work requirements to his Medicaid expansion program, called the Healthy Michigan plan. If Snyder succeeds, this will have the same work requirements as are currently required for food stamp recipients.

Putting a work requirement on food stamps provides incentive for those receiving food stamps to find employment. The fact that the state is referring people to programs where they can receive job training is also helpful. Part of human nature is not to appreciate things that you didn’t have to work for. Putting a work requirement of public assistance and training people for jobs helps the recipients of food stamps climb out of the poverty they are in. This worked in the 1990’s when it was first tried, and it will work successfully again.

Pictures From The Opening Of The U.S. Embassy In Jerusalem Today

Posted on by

This are two pictures from Israel today as America opens its Embassy in Jerusalem.

In December 2017, The Washington Post reminded us:

Ten days before he was assassinated in Tel Aviv, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin gave a speech in Washington about the city of Jerusalem.

“Jerusalem is the heart of the Jewish people and a deep source of our pride,” Rabin said at an event recognizing the 3,000th year of the city’s existence.

“We differ in our opinions, left and right,” he said as the speech concluded. “We disagree on the means and the objective. In Israel, we all agree on one issue: the wholeness of Jerusalem, the continuation of its existence as capital of the State of Israel. There are no two Jerusalems. There is only one Jerusalem. For us, Jerusalem is not subject to compromise, and there is no peace without Jerusalem.”

That speech was given Oct. 25, 1995. On Nov. 4, a far-right student fatally shot him.

The evening before his speech, the Congress of the United States passed a law echoing Rabin’s assertions about the city. Spurred by the desire to act before Rabin’s visit, the House and Senate passed a bill called the “Jerusalem Embassy Act,” which formally recognized the city as the country’s capital and called for the U.S. Embassy in Israel to be moved there from Tel Aviv by 1999. Support for the bill was overwhelming. It passed the Senate by a 93 to 5 vote, with four Republicans and one Democrat voting no. It passed the House 374 to 37, with 153 Democrats joining most of the new Republican majority that had swept into power in 1994.  (the underline is mine)

So why wasn’t it done? The article explains:

The bill was not signed into law by then-President  Bill Clinton. Clinton had made an early effort to craft a new peace agreement in the Middle East, forging the Oslo accords between Israel and Palestinians, signed in 1993 and September 1995. (Rabin’s support for the accords was apparently one of the things that motivated his assassin.) The Embassy Act, Clinton said in a statement, “could hinder the peace process. I will not let this happen and will use the legislation’s waiver authority to avoid damage to the peace process.”

That waiver authority was a critical escape valve for Clinton and his successors. Initially, the legislation introduced by then-Kansas senator Bob Dole (R) mandated that groundbreaking on a new embassy in Jerusalem begin in 1996. To quell concerns from Clinton allies on the Hill, Dole added a provision that allowed the president to postpone implementation of the move for six months if “such suspension is necessary to protect the national security interests of the United States.”

Every President since Clinton has taken advantage of that waiver to avoid moving the Embassy. Why? Because up until now America has been almost totally dependent on Arab countries in the Middle East for our energy supply. Now that we are on the road to energy independence, we are free to make decisions on the basis of what is right rather than how much oil we need.

Thank you, President Trump, for having the courage to move the Embassy.

About That Last Republican Debate

Posted on by

I will confess that I did not watch the entire Republican debate. I don’t deal well with cage fights. However, I did see the part of the debate where Donald Trump attacked Jeb Bush for the actions of George W. Bush in Iraq. Aside from the fact that it was totally tacky to attack George Bush on his brother’s record, all of the charges made were simply false.

Donald Trump seems to have forgotten that there were a number of reasons why we went into Iraq. Saddam Hussein was consistently violating a United Nations established no-fly zone–therefore, the credibility of the UN was at stake (I would just as soon get rid of the UN, but that was the situation). Saddam Hussein had already used poison gas on the Kurds (WMD). Saddam Hussein had previously fought with Iran and invaded Kuwait, and was not a stabilizing force in the region, and Saddam Hussein was training terrorists (google the airliner frame that was used to practice hijackings).

In 2006, Fox News posted a story about the discovery of WMD’s in Iraq. The Bush White House decided not to make a big deal of the discovery. I think this was a mistake, but you can follow the link to read the article.

Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article that sheds some light on the fact that we were not ready for 9/11.

Some excerpts from The Washington Times article:

As Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump hammers away at former President George W. Bush for not stopping the September 11 attacks, another factor could be added to the debate: Mr. Bush inherited from Bill Clinton an intelligence community in terrible shape.

This fact comes not from a Republican partisan but from George Tenet, President Clinton’s CIA director, a post that at the time made him the country’s top intelligence officer.

…In addition to Mr. Tenet’s book, other intelligence sources have told The Washington Times that the CIA in the 1990s dramatic cut the number of case officers — the people who recruit spies — from 1,600 to 1,200. The CIA closed operating bases, even the one in Hamburg, Germany, where September 11 Islamists plotted the attack. The NSA, the nation’s listening post, was not keeping up with the Internet revolution and was stymied at times by cell phone technology.

Mr. Bush reversed that trend by pouring billions of dollars into the CIA to hire new officers and into the NSA to set up new technology development units.

Mr. Tenet wrote that he personally asked President Clinton for billions more, but received no increase.

…“Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake, all right?” Trump said Saturday at a debate in South Carolina.  “They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none, and they knew there were none.”

With that line, Mr. Trump is picking up the slogans of the left wing which said, “Bush lied, troops died.”

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a special blue-ribbon panel looked into the claim, and both unanimously concluded the WMD finding was solely the product of the intelligence community, free of White House interference. Neither Mr. Bush nor the CIA lied, the panels said.

So I have a few questions about this attack. Why was Donald Trump spouting Democratic talking points? He also failed to mention that because of the actions of Al Gore and Bill Clinton, President Bush was not able to put his security team in place in a timely manner–his election was declared later than usual and he was delayed in putting his people in place. Donald Trump also failed to mention that Iraq was on its way to being a stable ally before President Obama prematurely withdrew his troops.

I am not a supporter of Jeb Bush, and I believe that his response to this attack was totally ineffective, but the attack was totally out of line and inappropriate. If I were a supporter of Donald Trump (which I am not) his actions during this debate would cause me to reconsider.