You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘election’ tag.
On March 28, 2021 an hour-long interview with General Thomas McInerney appeared online.
I do not know of the interviewer Nino, but the two seemed to get on well. Both support President Trump and both are sceptical of coronavirus vaccines.
General McInerney, 84, began his career in the Army then joined the Air Force. He completed his initial pilot training in 1960. In 1962, he flew escort missions in the West Berlin Air Corridor during the Berlin Crisis and escort reconnaissance missions over Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
In April 1963, he was one of the first forward air controllers assigned to South Vietnam with a Vietnamese army division. He was sent to South East Asia on three additional deployments.
After the Vietnam War, he completed studies at the Armed Forces Staff College and graduated from the National War College.
In 1974, he was stationed in London as the air attaché to the U.S. Embassy. Between November 1976 and October 1977, he was assigned to the Royal Air Force Station in Upper Heyford, England, where he was vice commander of the 20th Tactical Fighter Wing.
In 1979, he was stationed in Asia, first in the Philippines, where he commanded the 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing at Clark Air Base, then in 1981, in Japan, where he commanded the 313th Air Division at Kadena Air Base.
In 1983, he was transferred to Hawaii, where he served as deputy chief of staff for operations and intelligence, Headquarters Pacific Air Forces at Hickam Air Force Base.
In 1985, he returned to Europe. He became commander of 3rd Air Force, Royal Air Force Station in Mildenhall, England. The following year, he became vice commander in chief, Headquarters US Air Forces in Europe, Ramstein Air Base, West Germany.
In 1988, he was reassigned to the United States, serving as commander of Alaskan Air Command, Alaskan NORAD Region, and Joint Task Force Alaska. In July 1989, when Alaskan Command was activated, he became its commander. In 1990, he commanded the 11th Air Force, the redesignation of Alaskan Air Command.
His last active duty assignment was as assistant vice chief of staff, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Washington, DC. He retired from the Air Force in 1994, with the rank of Lieutenant General. Afterwards, he served on the boards of directors for several military contractors.
General McInerney endorsed Donald Trump both in 2016 and 2020. After the 2020 election, he supported the use of the Insurrection Act and all additional powers available. He was quoted as saying that he wanted President Trump:
to declare a national emergency, use the Insurrection Act, declare martial law, suspend habeas corpus, set up military tribunals, and suspend the electoral college [vote for president and vice-president] on December 14 and the presidential inauguration on January 20.
A summary of the General’s interview with Nino follows. As one would expect in a conversation, the subjects ran together, so I have separated them below.
2020 election
At the 13-minute point, he said that Trump had 79 million votes to Biden’s 68 million. At the 15-minute mark, he mentioned the recount in Maricopa County and two more recounts in two other states. He believes that the Supreme Court did not want to hear any cases about the election because Chief Justice John Roberts is ‘compromised’ in some way.
He also thinks that coronavirus was engineered to steal the election and that someone cut a deal with the C C P.
The General said that President Trump should have appointed Sidney Powell as special legal counsel in December.
He said that, as nothing has been done:
Americans have got to take control over their country.
As to why Cyber Command did not report election irregularities on the night to the President, he said
I believe we have a Deep State.
He would like to know the reasons why Trump did not contest the election and made this assertion:
Trump had a lot of the Deep State around him.
He repeated later in the interview that Trump was surrounded by:
Deep Staters.
When asked about his former Vice President, Mike Pence, he said:
I think he is Deep State. He is part of the problem.
He was disappointed that the military did not do anything with regard to the election. He believes that Germany intercepted Dominion votes but took no action:
I think the military’s asleep at the switch.
He said that the United States needs:
a transparent audit that we’re all comfortable with.
He asserted:
Biden did not win.
He explained that votes exceeded voter rolls in all suspect states, a situation that, on a national level, was previously:
unheard of … a stolen election.
He said that Biden did not win through properly cast votes and that one would have to throw out mail-in votes as well as:
get the right people to look at them.
He thinks the focus needs to be on clean elections for 2022:
We’ve got to just keep banging away at it …
and if done fairly, Trump gets in for 2024.
As for the Q movement, he said:
I don’t know anything about the Q movement.
Coronavirus
With regard to coronavirus, at the 17:30 mark, the General said:
Do not take the vaccine.
He revealed that has already had one shot.
He explained that the vaccine is a prophylactic mRNA and that there will be no built-in immunity to COVID-20 and COVID-21.
Whether all the military have had it is still unconfirmed, he said.
He was and is clearly against lockdown. He added that a proper hydroxychloroquine protocol would have been sufficient and also suggested ivermectin. He believes that the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) lied to President Trump.
He mentioned a Dr Northrop, whom he described as a well renowned physician, who says that Americans should stop taking the vaccine.
The General has strong feelings on this subject:
This is our Normandy, this is our Iwo Jima.
He believes that Dr Fauci:
has been part of this cabal.
He mentioned New York’s Governor Cuomo and deplored the nursing home deaths in that state.
On the other hand, he added, COVID-19 has a 99.2% survival rate and said of the American response:
We over-reacted.
Potentially, he said, Americans could go to ‘camps’ for refusing vaccines.
Conclusion
General McInerney said that Americans need to be realistic and resolute:
Hope is not a strategy.
He also foresees difficulties later in 2021, with serious problems starting:
this winter.
My readers wonder why President Trump is not doing more to oppose the Biden administration’s agenda. I am not sure that he can do much, if anything, at this point.
I will have more on the concluding days of the Trump administration next week which might help explain his current circumstances. I haven’t written about those final weeks. They have been too painful to consider.
Parliament is entering Easter recess on Thursday, March 25, 2021.
A few notable news items follow from both Houses — and the Scottish Parliament.
Scottish Parliament — MSPs standing down
A number of MSPs are standing down from their seats in Holyrood. Scots will elect new MSPs in May.
The Scotsman has a useful list, complete with photos, cited below. Emphases mine:
While all 129 of Holyrood’s seats will be contested at this year’s ballot, more than a quarter of the current crop of MSPs are standing down – including high profile figures like Ruth Davidson, Iain Gray and Jeane Freeman.
Highlights follow.
Independent
I will miss Ken Macintosh, who was a faultless convener presiding over fractious debates during the past year:
Ken Macintosh has been an MSP since the opening of the parliament in 1999, before unsuccessfully seeking the Labour leadership twice. He was elected as the parliament’s fifth presiding officer in 2016, but announced in September that he would not be seeking re-election as an MSP.
Scottish Conservatives
Ruth Davidson will be elevated to the House of Lords:
The former Scottish Tories leader took over the party’s reins at Holyrood once more when MP Douglas Ross was elected as the new leader last year. Ms Davidson will now take up a seat in the House of Lords.
Scottish Labour
Iain Gray is ending a long career as an MSP:
Former Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and is currently Labour’s education spokesman at Holyrood.
SNP
Here is the list of SNP MSPs who are standing down. Many have been in Holyrood for a number of years:
Jeane Freeman was in charge of health during the coronavirus crisis. Many residents of Scottish care homes died during that time.
One wonders what she will do next:
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman confirmed she will not seek re-election. The Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley MSP said she had “more she wanted to do” outside of politics.
The Scotsman has an interesting article from 2018 about her career history at that time:
Jeane Freeman, for it was she, has moved on to greater things as Health Minister in the Scottish Government. In the first half of this decade, she was a useful cog in the SNP machine as a former Labour apparatchik who, when the wind changed, discovered she was really a Nationalist.
Long a habituée of the quango circuit, Ms Freeman’s new appointments included the disastrous Scottish Police Authority. In her peak year of 2013-14, she pulled in £57,000 from that source alone. There were a couple of NHS roles, not forgetting the Judicial Appointments Board.
All this added up to 376 paid days in the financial year. One might have thought the Scottish Commissioner for Public Appointments (for such a person exists) might have done the arithmetic and asked questions but that is to over-estimate the vigilance of our non-barking watchdogs.
At the same time, Ms Freeman fronted “Women for Independence” and ran a lobbying firm which targeted the public sector. When a member of the public tabled a Freedom of Information request in 2015 about her business meetings with Scottish Ministers and officials, he was given the classic brush-off – the question would cost too much to answer.
Not unreasonably, he then wondered how lobbying activity could be monitored if ministers refused to provide information about their contacts on such implausible grounds. Another of our civic protectors, the Freedom of Information Commissioner, dismissed his complaint. Scotland really is a village …
There are still individuals floating around the Scottish quango circuit who were being put up for every chairmanship that occurred 20 years ago. The qualifications are that they challenge nothing, remain anonymous and nod their heads when directed by ministers. Political influence is as prevalent as it ever was – just much less transparent. Ask Ms Freeman.
This all fits into the wider pattern of centralisation which has systematically downgraded every other centre of influence within Scotland – public bodies, local government, police boards, funding-dependent third sector organisations – in order to create a closely integrated structure which brooks no challenge.
There is a powerful political agenda waiting to be created around the need to restore diversity and scrutiny within Scotland in order to challenge the power of the centre. Some might see that requirement as a paradoxical outcome of devolution while others recognise it as depressing – but largely predictable.
Linda Fabiani was the convener for the Holyrood inquiry examining the way Alex Salmond’s case was conducted. Hmm. Interestingly, The Scotsman makes no mention of this:
Ms Fabiani was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 as an MSP for Central Scotland, but since 2011 she has represented East Kilbride.
Then there’s Mark McDonald:
The Aberdeen Donside MSP resigned from the SNP after sending a woman an inappropriate text message which referenced a sex act.
House of Commons news
Historic Westminster by-election in Scotland
A historic by-election will be taking place in Scotland as the SNP’s Neil Gray announced he would be standing down. He made his final speech in Westminster — the mother of all Parliaments — on Tuesday, March 23:
An arcane parliamentary point needs to be explained:
Although the actual Manor of Northstead in Yorkshire no longer exists, the estate has been redeveloped as a park.
In political terms, this is a temporary position for MPs who have resigned and is given out at the pleasure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Wikipedia explains:
By virtue of the fact that it became and was retained as a Lordship of the Crown beyond the sale and eventual disappearance of the estate, since the nineteenth century the post of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead has played a role in the procedure for effecting resignation from the British House of Commons by Members of Parliament (MPs). While no longer having any actual role or responsibility, it remains a nominal paid office of the Crown, a sort of sinecure, appointment to which is one of the things that by law disqualify an MP from the House. This principle goes back to the Act of Settlement 1701, and is now regulated by the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975. Since 1624, MPs have not been permitted to resign their seats directly. While several such offices have been used for this purpose in the past, in the present day only two are used: the Northstead post and that of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham.[1][2]
… Appointments to the posts are made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Using two posts allows more than one MP to resign simultaneously, although more commonly, single resignations are effected by alternating appointments to the Northstead and Chiltern Hundreds offices. One of the most recent MPs to be appointed to the Northstead office was former Prime Minister David Cameron, who announced his decision to resign from his Parliamentary seat of Witney on 12 September 2016.[5]
Neil Gray was praised again in the House of Commons today during Business Questions, including by Leader of the House Jacob Rees-Mogg. Here are more compliments from Tuesday:
This means there will be a by-election in Gray’s former constituency of Airdrie and Shotts:
This is the first time there will be a Commons by-election in an SNP-held seat:
Boris reasserts his position as Prime Minister
On March 24, Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared before the Liason Committee, comprised of heads of the parliamentary Select Committees.
The session lasted around 90 minutes and covered several topics, one of which was devolution.
Scotland and Wales are trying to whittle away the significance of the UK government.
Stephen Crabb (Conservative, Preseli Pembrokeshire) asked Boris how he saw his position. He confirmed that he is the Prime Minister of Scotland as well as the United Kingdom:
Part of the answer is to employ civil servants with the ability to accommodate the interests of the United Kingdom as well as those of the devolved nations:
House of Lords news
Two notable things happened in the House of Lords this week.
Unusual tie vote
The Lords voted on an amendment to a Government bill, only to find the result was tied. As such, the amendment failed, meaning that the Government won that round:
Hereditary peer says old biscuits perfectly edible
The House of Lords still has 90 hereditary peers.
One of them is Lord Palmer, whose family part owns the famous biscuit manufacturing firm Huntley and Palmers Ltd.
If anyone in the Lords should know when a biscuit is past its best, it would be he.
I’m bookmarking this for future reference:
With Parliament in recess, I’ll be able to do some springtime projects around the house. If I find a stale biscuit, I’ll let you know.
President Trump appears relaxed at home in Palm Beach, Florida.
At Mar-a-Lago, someone spotted him doing what he does brilliantly — handing out tips to his staff.
Here he is, flanked by his Secret Service detail, early in February 2021:
On Friday, February 12, the day before his second impeachment acquittal, radio talk show host Howie Carr took his wife — ‘the mailroom manager’ — and a guest, Joe Piantedosi from the Piantedosi Baking Co. in Malden, Massachusetts, to the resort for dinner. Howie is a member of the club, which is conveniently located, as he now lives in Palm Beach, having moved from Massachusetts a few months ago.
On Presidents Day, February 15, Howie wrote and talked about his dinner. His article includes a photo.
In ‘Monday Musings: President Trump’s getting back to his old self’, he says:
I spoke with President Trump Friday night at Mar-a-Lago. He seemed like he’s in a better mood, and this was even before the ridiculous impeachment “trial” ended Saturday with his acquittal, and his lawyer demolishing the media in a liveshot with See BS News (more below).
After my radio show Friday night, Joe Piantedosi and I drove back to Palm Beach from Boca and met the mailroom manager at Mar-a-Lago. Our table for dinner was right next to POTUS’, and he came down at about 8 with Corey Lewandowski, Dave Bossie and Pam Bondi, the former AG of Florida who also worked as one of his lawyers.
Dave Bossie was Trump’s deputy campaign manager in 2016. Corey Lewandowski was his campaign manager in early 2016, then made way for Paul Manafort so that the latter could mastermind the delegate debacle and win the Republican nomination for Trump.
Howie continues:
As POTUS entered, the dining room, Joe, the mailroom manager and I all stood up and said hello. I extended my hand to shake and POTUS said, “No, we’ll get in trouble!” So I shook Corey’s hand.
Anyway, an hour or so later, we had finished dinner and were leaving.
How can anyone go out to eat and finish dinner in an hour? It’s evident that Howie’s stomach op for weight control is still working.
The Trumps’ table is always cordoned off:
Usually, I look over his way and wave goodbye, and if he wants to talk, he calls me over. He was looking away, so we just walked on. I don’t want to impose myself on him (or anybody else).
So we were walking out through the lobby when I heard a voice behind me: “Mr. Carr, Mr. Trump would to speak with you.”
Trump, understandably, was still preoccupied by the election:
The mailroom manager was ahead of us, so Joe Piantedosi and I walked back into the dining room. One of the waiters moved the rope so we could walk into the private area. The president looked up and said, “Do you think I won New Hampshire, Howie?”
“Absolutely!” I said.
He thinks a lot about New Hampshire, about what happened both in 2016 and last year. In 2016, he blamed the “buses from Massachusetts,” but I think it was more the same-day registrations in the college towns. If you subtract the impossibly high turnouts in Durham, Hanover, Keene, Plymouth, etc., instead of losing by 3700 or so votes he wins the state, and so does Sen. Kelly Ayotte, for sure.
The reason POTUS asks me about this is that he associates me with New Hampshire. He was on my show, I was at his rallies. I was the host of the town hall in Sandown which was his dress rehearsal for the one in St. Louis where he cleaned Hillary’s clock.
To POTUS, I’m not so much the guy from Boston, or the guy who was born in Portland. I’m the guy who’s on seven radio stations in New Hampshire.
So I told him, how could you have lost when the NH GOP took over the legislature in Concord in absolute landslides – 67 House seats, 4 Senate seats. He knows this, I’m sure, so I asked him, did you hear what just happened in Windham?
“What happened in Windham?” he asked. I really had his attention now.
I told him – the town just did a hand recount, after all this time, of the legislative races in Rockingham House District 7. The four Republican candidates were each undercounted on the machines – in the hand recounts each GOP candidate picked up, respectively, 297, 299, 303 and 298 votes.
Isn’t that peculiar, how each Republican was undercounted by almost the exact same number?
“Has this been reported anywhere?” Trump asked, looking over at Corey Lewandowski, who lives in Windham.
“Not in the Union Leader,” I said. “At least I haven’t seen it.”
Corey looked at him. “I’ll get you the numbers,” he said.
The Union Leader reported on the story by the time Howie’s show aired on Presidents Day. One of the Republican candidates was sure she received more votes — and she had. The discrepancy, however, did not affect the final outcome. The Gateway Pundit and The Daily Fodder have more on the story.
Talk turned briefly to Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate:
The president briefly mentioned the trial – “I thought it was a good day,” he said, and no one said much of anything in response, because, let’s face it, it was such a ridiculous kangaroo-court farce that who wanted to waste time watching and getting pissed off about it, even if you’re headed to Mar-a-Lago for dinner.
Finally, Trump asked how dinner was:
and that was like the old days, before he was even running, when during dinner he’d move from table to table like a super maître d’.
“I had the lobster risotto,” I told him. “It was great.”
Howie concludes:
It was great to see him in such a positive mood, and I can only imagine how pleased he must have been the next day when the travesty came to its pitiful end, and then his lawyer Michael van der Veen demolished some bimbo on See BS News.
I will have more on that and the impeachment trial next week.
Although Trump’s acquittal is well known, a few rather interesting events and analyses did not make mainstream news.
Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series show what a diverse party the Conservatives have become in England.
More black and ethnic minority Conservatives entered Parliament during the years when David Cameron was Prime Minister between May 2010 and June 2016.
The list continues.
James Cleverly (Braintree)
James Cleverly is a Londoner, born and bred.
He has served the Essex constituency of Braintree since 2015. He also was the London Assembly member for Bexley and Bromley between 2008 and 2016, during which time Boris Johnson was Mayor of London.
Prior to entering politics, Cleverly worked in publishing, both print and digital.
He has also been a member of the Territorial Army since 1991 and is currently a Lieutenant Colonel.
James Cleverly’s father is white British. His mother is originally from Sierra Leone. In 2020, at the height of last summer’s protests, to which he firmly objected, Cleverly told a BBC Question Time panel that he grew up at a time when interracial marriages were unusual. He said that the early 1970s for him were unpleasant and hurtful as a child as people sometimes made open remarks to or about his parents as they walked down the street.
One of his pet peeves is the biased BBC:
Cleverly is the first black to be appointed as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party (2018-2019) and Co-Chariman (2019-2020). Ben Elliot was the other Co-Chairman:
He laid out the Party manifesto in this short video:
Prior to that appointment, he worked on Brexit as a junior minister for the Department for Exiting the European Union:
Later that autumn, he campaigned tirelessly for the Conservatives before the December 12 general election, in which they routed Labour …
… including in constituencies that had never before had a Conservative MP, such as Bishop Auckland (near Durham) and North Stoke (Stoke on Trent):
Early in 2020, he enjoyed posting this video in which Prime Minister thanked Labour voters for their support:
He was also able to get his Brexit countdown clock back on the wall:
Cleverly is currently the Minister for State for the Middle East and North Africa, to which he was appointed on February 13, 2020.
He is married and has two children.
Nus Ghani (Wealden)
Nus Ghani has served the constituency of Wealden, East Sussex, since 2015.
She was born in Kashmir to Pakistani parents in 1972. Her parents later moved to Birmingham, where she grew up.
Ghani worked in the charity sector before becoming an MP.
Since 2015, she has held a variety of posts on parliamentary committees and all-party groups.
She was Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, serving under Theresa May (2019) and was also Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Aviation and Maritime under May and Boris Johnson (2018-2020).
Ranil Jayawardena (North East Hampshire)
Ranil Jayawardena is the son of a Sri Lankan father and Indian mother.
He has served the North East Hampshire constituency since 2015. He knows Hampshire well, having spent most of his life there. His parents moved there from London when he was a boy.
He graduated from the London School of Economics and worked as a senior manager for Lloyds Banking Group in capital markets, corporate banking and group executive functions.
Between 2008 and 2015, Jayawardena was a councillor of the borough of Basingstoke and Deane.
Since becoming an MP in 2015, he has held a number of positions on All-Party Parliamentary Groups. He has also served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Department for Work and Pensions as well as to the Ministry of Justice.
He was Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party in the early part of 2020.
Jayawardena is currently the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Trade and helped to formulate Britain’s new trade deal with Japan:
He is now working on enhancing Britain’s trade with India:
Jayawardena is a Christian and was a trustee/director of the Conservative Christian Fellowship.
He is married and has two daughters.
Alan Mak (Havant)
Alan Mak has been the MP for Havant, Hampshire, since 2015.
His parents were born in Guangdong then lived in Hong Kong before moving to England. Alan was born in Leeds in 1983.
He is the first MP of Cantonese and Asian origin. However, he wants to be known for representing all of Havant, as he told the South China Morning Post‘s Post Magazine:
It’s a stupid story. I am not standing for the Chinese population of Britain. I am standing for the people of Havant and my country.
Mak is a high achiever. He read Law at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he won the coveted ECS Wade Prize for Administrative Law. He then completed a post-graduate law and business diploma at Oxford, where he was runner-up for the Oxford Leadership Prize.
Before entering politics, he practised law as a solicitor for a large firm in the City of London and, in 2010, won the award of Young City Lawyer of the year in Square Mile magazine’s 30 under 30 awards.
Suella Braverman (Fareham)
Suella Braverman was first elected in 2015 to represent the constituency of Fareham in Hampshire.
Born in 1980, she is the daughter of Christie and Uma Fernandes, both of Indian origin, who migrated to England from Kenya and Mauritius.
Suella Fernandes grew up and attended schools in North West London.
She read Law at Queens’ College Cambridge, where she was Chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association.
Afterwards, she completed a master’s degree in European and French Law at Pantheon-Sorbonne University. She was an Entente Cordiale Scholar.
She was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 2005 and was a barrister until 2015.
She married Rael Braverman in 2018 and took his name. The couple have one child and are expecting a second this year.
Braverman is a practising Buddhist.
A firm Brexiteer, she came to prominence in 2018, being one of the MPs who objected to Theresa May’s Chequers agreement with the EU:
She also said that Britain could survive a no-deal Brexit:
She further objected to May’s deal in early 2019, when it went through a series of unsuccessful votes:
During that time, she came under fire for using the term ‘C u l t u r a l Marxism’. It turned out that many of her critics thought she was white because she was a ‘Conservative Brexiteer’:
It took some time for the dust to settle.
Suella Braverman is currently Attorney General for England and Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland.
I wish her and all the aforementioned MPs continued success.
——————————————————————————
Rishi Sunak, Chancellor to the Exchequer, who also began his term as an MP in 2015, will be the subject of a post next week.
Recently, I’ve been featuring a bit more about Kevin McCarthy (R-California), the GOP Leader of the House of Representatives.
In my December 15 post, I’d doubted whether he’d been on the Trump Train since 2016, but, according to my ancient bookmarks, he took his first step on board in March that year.
By the way, this is still my favourite tweet from the 2020 election. Well done:
Looking back, as early as March 2016, McCarthy, House Majority Leader at the time (Paul Ryan was Speaker of the House), believed that Candidate Trump could galvanise the Republican Party. On March 10 that year, the venerable Sacramento Bee reported (emphases mine):
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Thursday rejected the possible calamitous effects a Donald Trump nomination could have on the Republican Party, arguing instead that the businessman and political newcomer may improve the chances of GOP House challengers in November …
He also outlined his hopes for the House:
“Our desire (for) the House is to become the place of ideas,” he said. “Whoever becomes president, make the debate about policy, so when the election is over we can solve the problems. But the American people decided which way they wanted to go.”
He walked alone.
On May 9 that year, he made the risky move of signing up to be a Trump delegate. Politico reported:
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy has signed up to serve as a delegate for presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump at this summer’s national convention in Cleveland.
McCarthy’s move is notable in part because House Speaker Paul Ryan has said he is “not ready” to endorse Trump, even though he is the lone Republican remaining in the contest …
Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech venture capitalist who was an early investor in Facebook and a past backer of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, signed up as a Trump delegate in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district.
David Horowitz, a conservative activist, and Richard Grenell, a former spokesman for past U.S. ambassadors to the United States, also are slated to be Trump delegates.
Other notable Trump delegates from the California congressional delegation include Reps. Darrell Issa and Duncan Hunter, who was one of the earliest House members to endorse the Manhattan billionaire.
Late in 2019, Kevin McCarthy strongly supported President Trump through his first impeachment in the House:
Sadly, his optimism was misplaced on the House votes. Fortunately, the Senate acquitted the American president.
In December 2020, he spoke out against election fraud:
Around Christmas, he fought against approving billions in foreign aid when Americans were unemployed because of the coronavirus crisis:
Just after Christmas, PJ Media thought McCarthy had a good chance of replacing Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. Oh, if only.
The fragrant Judge Jeanine Pirro was equally hopeful. However, McCarthy dampened her enthusiasm by telling her that Nancy Pelosi was calling back a Democrat congresswoman who had coronavirus to vote in person (true, it happened)! He also said that the Democrats were going to stop freedom of speech as guaranteed under the First Amendment (that also happened). He also thinks that California governor Gavin Newsom will be recalled (I certainly hope so):
Only a few days later, when the break-in of the Capitol building took place and a woman was shot just as electors’ votes were to be tabulated (news of the policeman came later), McCarthy, according to John Solomon’s Just the News, asked President Trump to make a statement:
“This is not the direction we should go,” McCarthy told Fox News.
McCarthy was one of the first to say he heard police saying that shots were fired. To this day, Nancy Pelosi has not said a thing.
Then came calls for President Trump’s second impeachment, which McCarthy rightly objected to, saying that the United States would recover her rightful place as ‘our shining city on a hill’:
Then, the anti-Trump Lincoln Project waded in. How they can use President Lincoln’s name in vain is repulsive, to say the least.
The Lincoln Project objected to Trump defenders such as McCarthy, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and junior Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri):
Unbelievable.
This is what Kevin McCarthy said when the House held their brief impeachment hearing for President Trump. It’s pretty clear that he objected to a kangaroo court (my words) impeachment with no due process and that is why he said such a move would be divisive for America (around the 3-minute mark):
Not every Trump fan was happy with his speech, but, as GOP Leader, his speech had to be balanced, speaking to both sides of the aisle.
Another Trump fan objected to McCarthy’s opposition to Joe Biden’s push for yet another amnesty. Why is unclear. Perhaps they do not have as many McCarthy bookmarks as I do.
However, everything Kevin McCarthy has said is consistent with his support for President Trump.
The Lincoln Project thought so, too:
At the end of January, Kevin McCarthy visited Mar a Lago to work with President Trump on a strategy to take back the House of Representatives in 2022:
On January 30, the Lincoln Project posted an egregious video aimed at McCarthy. Words fail me. This is a must watch:
On a brighter note, tomorrow’s post will look at some of the newest shining stars in the Republican Party. Kevin McCarthy introduces them one by one.
Thanks to James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, Michael Beller, who was at the time Principal Counsel — head lawyer — for the partly publicly funded PBS network in the United States, freely aired his views about America and Donald Trump supporters.
This video was filmed before the November 3, 2020 general election. Gosh:
One of his statements was particularly snobbish. Beller is grateful for being able to live in Washington, DC, because (emphases mine):
Could you imagine if you lived in one of these other towns or states where everybody’s just … stupid?
An aghast Howie Carr, who hails from Maine, Boston and Palm Beach, played that clip on his talk radio show on Tuesday, January 12.
Beller thinks the only solution for Trump supporters is to confiscate their children and put them in re-education camps.
You cannot make this up.
He also advocated circling the White House and throwing Molotov cocktails in the event that Trump stays in office:
Good grief.
Beller has no respect for those who partly fund the PBS network:
Americans are so f**king dumb. You know? Most people are dumb …
That was nice (not).
James O’Keefe managed to track Beller down in DC earlier this week. Before Beller slipped into a restaurant, he claimed that his reference to Molotov cocktails meant a new ‘drink’. Sure, pull the other one. We all know what they are:
Fortunately, shortly after Project Veritas released their videos, Michael Beller lost his job:
Well, I hope so for America’s sake.
James O’Keefe said that this was the quickest reaction ever to a Project Veritas exposé.
Well done, PBS:
The news made the Associated Press:
I wish Project Veritas many more successes as the year unfolds.
Monday’s edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight on Fox Business Network was an eye-opener for those who had hoped for the best.
Earlier in the day, we saw the guest list, most prominently Leo Terrell, a well known civil rights lawyer:
These are the segments in order of his January 11 show.
Watch them and weep.
As the old saying in Europe goes, ‘When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold’.
Lou began by reporting that, along with social media, ‘corporate America’ is repudiating President Donald J Trump:
Hmm. Interesting.
Many of us learned in history class — perhaps long ago — that fascism involved government co-opting corporations to do its will.
Tom Fitton from Judicial Watch was up next. He said that the Left’s — Democrats’ — main goal was to remove Trump from office:
Investigative journalist Sara Carter was interviewed, citing a tweet from former CIA director John O Brennan, who has been keen to get rid of Trump since 2016:
She called attention to his tweet from January 9:
Note the words ‘seeking national redemption’, ‘total denunciation of a despot’s legacy’ and ‘eradicate any remaining malignancy’.
Those are words I never expected to see in a communication from an American official.
Clouthub CEO Jeff Brain followed:
Speaking personally, Leo Terrell’s short segment was the best. He came right out and defended President Trump. I wish he had more time to speak:
The closing few minutes featured Lou Dobbs asking for short conclusions from everyone on the show:
In conclusion, the next four years could be very dangerous for the 74+-million people who supported President Trump.
Anyone doubting the possible peril can read John Brennan’s recent tweets:
Brennan reposted a video from Arnold Schwarzenegger, who looks really mean. Perhaps plastic surgery went wrong. He doesn’t look right, which doesn’t lend much credence to his argument against the president:
The next CIA director should be interesting:
Meanwhile, back at the Capitol building, members of the House of Representatives were struck by coronavirus. These seemed to be Republicans only:
The chief of the Capitol Police was dismissed last week. He warned about future security in the building:
A Massachusetts congressman objected to Trump’s award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to his friend, the Patriots’ (American football) coach Bill Belichick. Wow. Suddenly, everything Trump touches, so to speak, is tainted:
Belichick will not be accepting the award.
Jake Sherman reports for Punchbowl. He had a series of tweets about the Dems’ moves to impeach President Trump for a second time. It is rumoured that Nancy Pelosi could sit on this for months and try to impeach him after he leaves office. This is a first:
This creates a problem for Republicans. This is evidence that corporate America is cutting off funds to the Republican Party. I feel sorry for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California):
It gets worse. Democrats propose to not recognise any Republican who moved to question the Electoral College vote. That is not very democratic, is it?
Looking back to Epiphany, Wednesday, January 6, while the president’s rally progressed in various parts of Washington, DC, the first lady was busy with a photo shoot of White House furnishings. She also appeared to distance herself from the very public gathering:
Hmm.
Returning to the Dems and the president, here is a draft of the House impeachment resolutions. I can’t see this proceeding, especially on the grounds of ‘insurrection’. No one loves the United States more than President Trump:
The seasoned congressman Steny Hoyer is fully behind the impeachment motion:
I do not understand how a trial can begin ‘right away’. They have to get a whole committee lined up. Good grief.
That said:
It’s unclear whether the Department of Justice will go along with the Dems on claims that the president incited unrest. PJ Media reported:
A senior Justice Department official says there are no plans to indict Donald Trump or anyone else who spoke at a rally just before the Capitol building was breached by a pro-Trump mob.
Ken Kohl, a senior prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, said, “We don’t expect any charges of that nature.”
This will no doubt be enormously unsatisfying to Democrats who long to see Donald Trump do a perp walk into the federal courthouse.
Elsewhere in the nation’s capital, pro-Trump lobbyists are being shunned:
It’s worth remembering what happened last Wednesday into the early hours of Thursday. This is a concise summary from a commenter on the British political site Guido Fawkes (sorry, no permalinks available on his site):
Also, Trump’s public polling is unchanged, despite negative media coverage and his social media ban. The National Pulse reports:
Numbers from Rasmussen Reports show that following both of these events, his approval rating has shifted either one or two percentage points – exclusively trending upwards.
In conclusion:
In 2016, around the time of Trump’s election, I wrote that the Left — Democrats — were aping the Bolsheviks of the Russian Revolution.
I didn’t get much traction with that suggestion then.
What about now?
Somehow, a majority of the world’s population — and 99% of the media-political class — find it entirely believable that Russians interfered in the 2016 presidential election but equally incredulous that election fraud could have taken place in 2020.
Why that is I do not know.
All I can say is that the vitriol heaped upon President Trump after his huge rally in Washington DC on Wednesday, January 6, 2021 was meant equally for his supporters: Deplorables, Irredeemables, as Hillary Clinton labelled them four and a half years ago.
Last Friday, most of the world rejoiced as the American president was banned permanently from Twitter as well as all the other social media on which he had a presence.
Trump has been universally accused of inciting violence, when his final tweets — which Twitter deleted on Wednesday — urged his base to remain peaceful and to return home.
Twitter said they deleted those so that he would not foment further violence. Okay, sure.
It never occurred to Trump loathers that the invasion of the Capitol building was an infiltration of Trump supporters by what we in Europe would call a ‘bloc’, intended to cause mayhem and destruction. We know they exist, because they disrupt peaceful demonstrations here, most notably those of the ‘yellow jackets’, France’s gilets jaunes.
Instead of offering more of my own opinions on the matter, I am borrowing from other sources.
A comment on one of Guido Fawkes’s articles describes concisely what took place last Wednesday. Hundreds of thousands of Trump supporters gathered in the US capital. Unfortunately, Guido’s comment system has no permalinks, but here is the comment, which begins with a complaint against a conservative pundit, Daniel Hannan (emphases mine):
Very disappointed in Daniel Hannan accusing POTUS Donald Trump of treason in the Telegraph .
Trump was not responsible for the mayhem at the US Capitol building. He called for a peaceful demonstration demanding free and fair elections and told people to go home when things got out of hand.
Utah BLM activist John Sullivan was filmed inside the Capitol building encouraging others and persuading the police to leave their posts. Before entering the building he is heard saying ” Lets burn this ****** down “ He organised an Antifa protest near the US Capitol on Wed 6th January and tweeted about BLM buses in DC. He is known for taking part in riots , making threats of violence and criminal mischief and took part in a riot which resulted in the shooting of a motorist ..
Police arrested him on Friday. He was subsequently released. UPDATE — January 14: Gateway Pundit posted a video of Sullivan — Jayden X — bragging he had disguised himself as a Trump supporter on January 6; he was arrested in Utah on January 14, and Gateway Pundit has a photo of his mug shot, courtesy of Tooele County Sheriff’s Office.
Here is the rest of the comment:
It was inevitable that the Democrats would use their Antifa and BLM people to infiltrate the Trump protest and cause trouble for which the Trump supporters would be blamed. They hated Trump because he stated openly that he intended to expose the corruption within government and ‘ drain the swamp’. Unfortunately the corruption was far deeper than even he realised.
This was one of Trump’s final tweets, which Twitter quickly suppressed:
It is most unfortunate that, despite hundreds of affidavits and video evidence showing election interference and fraud, the president of the United States was unable to get legal ‘standing’ in his own re-election. The Supreme Court had backed away weeks earlier.
On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence backed away, rewarded later with an elbow bump and a commemorative coin from Nancy Pelosi. Only a handful of Republican legislators objected to the Electoral College vote tally in the disputed states.
Yes, it’s so much easier to appease the Democrats than fight for the truth.
The Democrats enjoy protests, just not truly largely peaceful ones by Trump supporters. The only trouble was at the Capitol.
Last summer’s fiery, but ‘mostly peaceful’, protests resulted in a new plaza in Washington, DC: B L M Plaza.
Last week’s rally resulted in universal condemnation by the world’s main leaders, including Boris Johnson, who called it ‘completely wrong’ (see around the 29-minute mark here).
Our Speaker of the House, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, a Labour MP, sent an empathetic letter to his US counterpart, Nancy Pelosi:
It reads as follows (H/T Guido Fawkes):
Dear Nancy
I just wanted to express my shock at last night’s events in the Capitol, and to offer you my solidarity against such unprovoked violence.
Seeing your office trashed in that way and its occupation by one of the rioters was particularly outrageous. I am just so relieved you were not hurt, although I can only imagine how violated you must feel after having a protester at your desk.
I hope none of your personal effects were damaged, particularly the lovely picture you so proudly showed me of Churchill’s address to the joint session of US Congress in 1941, which was witnessed by your father.
Suffice to say, you are in my thoughts and prayers – and I look forward to welcoming you to the UK later this year.
With warmest wishes
Lindsay
Sir Lindsay Hoyle Speaker of the House of Commons
I hope that everyone will be happy with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. They did not mind last year’s protests. They want to transform America totally, including renaming military bases.
On January 6, Mark Steyn appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight to discuss the hypocrisy that Democrats display. Kathy Gyngell, editor of Conservative Woman, had a good article on what he had to say, ‘Sensational Mark Steyn: This IS who we are’.
The Capitol building, apparently, is known as the People’s House. I’d always thought that name was reserved for the White House, but what do I know, having been educated in the US so many decades ago?
Steyn said:
Congress has an approval rating that falls somewhere between Isis and child pornographers. Pundits and politicians can wax mawkish about “the people’s house” but you’d be hard-pressed to find one in a thousand citizens who’s ever used those words in a non-contemptuous sense – and most of the other 999 would assume that the phrase referred to some long-term care facility Andrew Cuomo moves the old folks into for his Covid express checkout.
He touched on the hypocrisy when he implied that it’s okay if one group protests but not another:
People are surprised when a tactic that’s proved effective by one group of people, is taken up by another group . . .
People say “this is not who we are”. Have you not turned on the TV since Memorial Day? This is exactly who we are . . .
Nancy Pelosi told us she didn’t care about old statues. Mitch McConnell said he didn’t care about the names of military bases. But suddenly this old building is important now?
Last June, CNN’s Chris Cuomo — New York State governor Andrew Cuomo’s brother — said, when covering the urban protests, ‘Citizens have no duty to check their outrage’.
Tucker Carlson’s editorial on Friday included Chris Cuomo’s soundbite in a review of last summer’s riots, in which innocent people lost their businesses because their premises were set on fire.
Carlson made it clear that he opposes all violent protests but pointed out that last year’s protests were viewed as acceptable yet this year’s — with minor damage and only in the Capitol building — were not. Again, I am sure the Trump supporters were infiltrated.
You’ll see Mark Steyn after Tucker shares his thoughts. Worth watching, as it’s only around six minutes long:
Something to think about.
I’ll have more on this later in the week.
On Monday, December 14, while the London area worried about moving into severe coronavirus tiers on Wednesday, electors from the 50 US states voted for the next leader of the free world.
Joe Biden won the Electoral College vote 306-232 with no faithless electors, however, the vote still has to be ratified on January 6, 2021, by the new Congress.
Biden gave an acceptance speech, riffing Margaret Thatcher’s of many years ago which featured the Prayer of St Francis:
Guido Fawkes reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) acknowledged Biden’s December 14 win:
Our country has officially a President-elect & a Vice President-elect… The Electoral College has spoken… Today, I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden.
Newsmax, the new network for disgruntled Fox News viewers, will now refer to the Democrat as President-elect Biden, even though reporters and presenters will continue to cover Team Trump’s election battles.
It will be interesting to see what happens on January 6:
That is what the Trump supporters’ Stop the Steal coalition hopes will happen. They said as much in their press conference after the electors voted and Mitch McConnell announced his congratulations to Biden and Harris:
McConnell doesn’t want any Republicans countering the Electoral College result:
However, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) is ready:
Brooks explained his position as follows:
I’m quite confident that if we only counted lawful votes cast by eligible American citizens, Donald Trump won the Electoral College, and we should not be counting illegal votes and putting in an illegitimate President of the United States.
President Trump is not wrong:
Would Mike Pence be ready to defend the Republic on January 6? He has that power, if he chooses to use it:
But, let’s go back to Monday. A lot happened.
Earlier that day …
President Trump’s adviser and speech writer Stephen Miller (with the dark tie below) spoke about an ‘alternative slate’ of electors:
Miller probably meant this:
I do not know if this would work or not, but former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik says:
The New York Times has a map that shows the result from each state.
In Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania, the electors’ votes went to Biden.
However, Right Side Broadcasting (RSBN) showed a different result for Nevada:
Gateway Pundit reported that Georgia and Pennsylvania — much larger votes — also voted for the incumbent (emphases mine):
Electors in Georgia and Pennsylvania also cast procedural ballots for Trump while the states continue to be contested.
Procedural ballots are cast in states where the result is contested.
Yet, as I mentioned above, the NYT map shows that Biden won those states.
Trouble for Michigan’s Republican electors
Meanwhile, appointed Republican — GOP — electors in Michigan were not allowed to vote. They could not even get in the building.
Gateway Pundit reported and included tweets:
A group of GOP electors on Monday arrived at the Michigan State Capitol to cast their votes for President Trump …
The police would not allow the Republicans in:
‘The electors are already here, they’ve been checked in,’ the police said as they blocked access to the Capitol.
The police told the Republican electors:
If you have a problem, you can contact the Governor’s office.
Gateway Pundit stated that a Trump elector asked for the Sergeant at Arms. The police replied that he was in a meeting.
With that, the police directed the electors to Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s office. She’s a Democrat, by the way:
The Republican electors explained that they wanted to vote because Michigan’s result is in dispute and under investigation (see below):
Meanwhile — Michigan: audit of Antrim County voting equipment
However, other big news took place in Michigan that day. A state judge, Kevin J Elsenheimer, ordered the release of the results of the December 4 audit of Dominion voting machines in Antrim County. (If you’ve ever visited Traverse City, famed for its annual Cherry Festival held in July, you’ve been in Antrim County.)
This is a big victory for Team Trump. As The Election Wizard explains:
The results had been shielded by a protective order, but this morning, Judge Elsensheimer removed that order, clearing the way for the audit results to go public.
The judge further ordered that the case move to the discovery phase and mentioned the case could go to trial by April of 2021.
The hearing was conducted by ZOOM and streamed live on YouTube this morning.
The release of the report is a major victory for President Trump and his supporters, who have called into question the Dominion machines.
However, the journey from December 4 to the 14th was an uneasy one for Constitutional Attorney Matthew DePerno of the DePerno Law Firm, who represented William Bailey, a member of the team who audited the county’s voting equipment.
Gateway Pundit reported that Bailey and his team looked at everything:
the 16 Dominion voting machines, tabulators, thumb drives, related software and the Clerk’s ‘master tabulator’ used in the November elections in Antrim County, MI.
The audit — inspection — resulted in a ‘collection’ and took eight hours:
With 16 CF cards (similar to SIM cards), 16 thumb drives, and forensic images of the Dominion voting machines in hand, the IT team was escorted to the local Antrim County Airport by two Antrim County Sheriff vehicles, where they boarded their jet plane with evidence in hand.
On the morning of December 5 — the following day — Matthew DePerno received a worrying phone call about a previous legal case about which he’d never had a complaint:
Mr. DePerno received a call from the MI State Bar warning him that they have opened an investigation into a case he tried over a year ago in Lapeer, MI.
In case anyone wonders if Lapeer is near Antrim County, it is in the opposite direction: south east central. Antrim County is in the north west.
The caller told DePerno that the State Bar of Michigan had requested 6,000 pages of documents related to the case that had never had a single complaint filed about it. DePerno told Gateway Pundit that the call might have been ‘an act of intimidation’ on the part of Michigan’s Attorney General, Dana Nessel.
On December 9, DePerno and his client William Bailey awaited the forensic results from the election equipment inspection. While they awaited the outcome, DePerno discovered that he was named in a legal motion regarding Antrim County. It was a protection order filed by AG Dana Nessel to prevent the results of the investigation being made public.
The following day, DePerno filed an emergency order with the aforementioned state judge, Kevin J Elsenheimer, to lift the protection order, which the judge granted on Monday, December 14.
What an ordeal.
Here’s a tweet with a summary of the findings:
Also, on the same topic:
One can only hope that Team Trump can use this information in their legal pursuits.
Georgia Dems gear up for January state run-off
Democrats in Georgia are gearing up for the state senate run-off in early January 2021.
On December 14, Newsmax reported that failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams was ready:
Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, now the founder of the voting rights organization Fair Fight, said that Democrats are prepared to win the Senate runoff race in January, and that 1.2 million absentee ballots have already been requested.
“We know from the numbers that we’re in a good place; 1.2 million absentee ballots have been requested thus far,” Abrams told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.” “Just to put that into context, 1.3 million were requested for all of the general election.”
It is so sad that the United States has sunk this low. I never would have expected it.
Ongoing violence has its part to play
Political violence has been part of America’s urban life since the summer. Granted, it hasn’t been taking place everywhere, but it’s been endemic in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. Other sporadic outbursts of violence have occurred in other American cities, including Washington, DC, and towns, such as Kenosha, Wisconsin.
A former Democrat, who is a retired lawyer, commented on this year’s violence on a website for ex-Dems, ex-Hillary supporters. While I disagree with most of it, the first two lines reminded me of what the Bolsheviks must have thought a little over a century ago:
For violence solves nothing, so they say.
But it does change the status quo, in ways words never can…
Think about that, then consider one possibility why the Supreme Court might not want anything to do with defending President Trump. This tweet comes from someone who seems to have an inside track on the election:
However, there is no need to be as senior as a Supreme Court Justice to receive threats:
Therefore, it seemed almost natural that the election would have gone to Joe Biden, because those committing the violence are like so many neighbourhood bullies. Sadly, they are much more serious.
Conclusion
For nearly a century, there has been a saying in Europe:
When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.
Good grief, please keep this corruption away from our shores. Thank goodness we have handwritten paper ballots and far fewer mail-in ballots.
Millions of us support President Trump even if we are thousands of miles away.
The irony is that it was Antifa creating the spectacle of violence, Antifa, you remember, whom the corrupt fraudster called “just an idea”, and who on this occasion wore Trump fancy dress. The police escorted them into the heart of the Capital and then let them into the building. The Left, including our broadcasters, are now saying there was no security on the door because the Trump people were trusted, because they were “white” – actually no, Trump people are everything, but the left never lose an opportunity to stoke up hatred against people of European descent.
If Antifa hadn’t “stormed” the Capitol, the debate would have proceeded and we would all have heard a bit of the mountains of evidence the courts have refused to look at. Then Pence might have felt constrained to accede to the request of the defrauded states to be allowed to review their results in the light of further evidence. The Left could not risk that. But why would any Trump person want to stop the proceedings which were the first and last chance to hear some of the evidence? As it was, the weak Republicans were turned and Biden was endorsed in secret at dead of night.