Below is my column in The Hill Newspaper on the increasingly disconnected elements in the investigations by the House of Representatives. The question is whether there is a true strategy behind these moves other than an investigation for investigation’s sake.
Here is the column:
Watching Congress this week brought back vivid memories of my first encounter with “atonal music” in college. It was not a good memory. Atonal music dispenses with the traditional concepts of harmony or tonal center. I have a certain bias, in both musical and constitutional works, for a harmonic connection of notes — and that’s what’s missing in the legal controversies building on Capitol Hill. While Democratic presidential candidates and members of Congress insist impeachable offenses are clearly established, their legal positions are becoming increasingly disconnected.
Seeking the full report
For weeks, Democrats have insisted that Attorney General William Barrmust release special counsel Robert Mueller’s “full and unredacted report.” They dismissed objections that some information such as grand jury evidence, called Rule 6(e) material, cannot be legally released by Barr. The House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena for “a complete, unredacted copy, including exhibits and attachments.” It maintained that “neither Rule 6(e) nor any applicable privilege barred disclosure of these materials to Congress.”
Yet, in holding Barr in contempt this week, the committee stated that, despite a subpoena demanding the unredacted report, it was not demanding the release of grand jury material. Instead, it wanted Barr to ask a federal court to release the information —something Congress can do on its own. Not only would such a request be a departure from the long-standing position of the Justice Department in protecting Rule 6(e) material, but it would run into a ruling last month from the D.C. Circuit Court rejecting such releases.
The change in the committee’s position creates a disconnect between the subpoena and the contempt sanction, on the one hand, and the position of the House in a court. It also means the House now recognizes what Barr and many of us have said for weeks: Barr cannot release Rule 6(e) information without a court order. This leads to the second atonal note of delaying impeachment.
Delaying impeachment
For months, I have written about the dilemma facing Democrats who won control of the House in part with calls to impeach President Trump. The House leadership never showed any interest in actually impeaching Trump as opposed to appearing to want to impeach him. Yet, House members have told constituents that the Mueller report confirms impeachable acts. While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) maintains Trump is goading them to impeach him, her argument hardly resonates with voters who were told to wait for the report for any moves on impeachment.
This week a new explanation has emerged: We would love to impeach but Barr is withholding necessary information in these redactions. That point was stated by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) who was asked on CNN why Democrats have cited impeachable offenses but refused to initiate the impeachment process. When Deutch proceeded to again describe the “constitutional crisis” caused by Trump’s obstruction, host Alisyn Camerota replied: “If it’s an impeachment proceeding, then somebody should call it that.”
Camerota is right. If House members truly believe Trump committed criminal or impeachable acts, they should commence an impeachment proceeding. If they truly wanted to get this information, they would do so as a matter of impeachment, not oversight authority. Congress is more likely to win the conflict over executive privilege — and do so more rapidly — under an impeachment inquiry. Deutch’s response was tellingly adamant: “This isn’t impeachment.” He suggested that Congress needs to fight over the redactions and underlying documents before it decides to impeach.
Of course, House members are entitled to seek such additional information in an impeachment process. Moreover, Barr released 98 percent of the report to select members of Congress, and more than 92 percent to the public. Two percent of the redacted material is believed to be grand jury information, which the House Judiciary Committee now acknowledges might have to be released not by Barr but by a federal court. That leaves just 6 percent — which already is available to select members of Congress. Some of that information is evidence under seal in ongoing prosecutions of figures like Trump associate Roger Stone. Again, a court — not Barr — must release that.
The key to appreciating atonal music is listening between the notes. This is not about less than 6 percent of withheld material or supporting documents. The disharmonious point here is not to impeach. By triggering a variety of court challenges, the House can wait for the information until it runs out of time to impeach. The truly wicked aspect to all of this is that both the White House and the House leadership are working for the same end in running out the clock.
Demanding testimony
Democrats have legitimately demanded to hear from key witnesses, including Mueller and former White House Counsel Don McGahn. President Trump has declared they should not testify, and Congress should prevail on that fight — but conflicting positions have emerged. Consider the disappearance of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who once was at the top of any witness list. Suddenly, no one seems to want to hear from him. That may have to do with his conclusion that the evidence in the Mueller report did not support a criminal charge of obstruction.
For two years, Democrats heralded Rosenstein as essential to the supervision of the Russian investigation. They pledged to resist any effort to remove or fire him before a conclusion was reached in the investigation. Rosenstein could confirm critical facts raised by Barr. For example, Barr testified that Mueller refused to identify grand jury information to allow for a rapid public release of the report. Barr said both he and Rosenstein — Mueller’s superiors — requested that he do so, and Mueller’s refusal delayed the report’s release. Likewise, Rosenstein can confirm that both he and Barr told Mueller there was no policy preventing him from reaching a conclusion on obstruction, and encouraged him to reach one.
Yet, Rosenstein is now being publicly “dehabilitated.” For the last two years, I raised concerns about Rosenstein’s conflict as a key witness to the obstruction allegations. And, for two years, Democrats dismissed such concerns. Yet, after he decided there was no evidence to support an obstruction charge, Democrats suddenly raised his conflict of interest. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) confronted Barr in his Senate hearing over “the appropriateness of Rod Rosenstein being a part of making a charging decision on an investigation which he is also a witness in.” She demanded to know the ethical basis for his role in the investigation — a concern that eluded Harris and her colleagues the previous two years.
The problem for Congress is that courts expect some tonal center or coherence in constitutional claims. From a constitutional standpoint, none of this looks like a plausible effort to build an impeachment case in the limited time before the 2020 elections. Indeed, members have denied this is an impeachment effort and left their actions to be viewed as disconnected oversight challenges. It increasingly looks like investigation for investigation’s sake – notes without harmony. The Encyclopedia Britannica concluded that “atonality proved unable to sustain large-scale musical events.” The same is true for large-scale constitutional events.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
Turley wrote, “Barr cannot release Rule 6(e) information without a court order.”
That’s true. It’s also true that Barr could request a court order to release Rule 6(E) information. But he won’t. Because, amongst other things, Barr’s redactions for “peripheral privacy concerns” are so thoroughly bogus that, when Judge Beryl Howell finally does release that grand jury information, AG Whitewash Barr is going to have a really hard time avoiding impeachment proceedings against himself.
For instance, there are redactions in Volume II of The Mueller Report for “peripheral privacy concerns” that purportedly protect the delicate sensibilities of Donald Trump Jr., but which actually cover up the true motives and intent behind President Trump’s ten areas of obstructive conduct outlined and described in Volume II of The Mueller Report.
There’s a name for that. It’s called obstruction of justice. And I’m talking about AG Whitewash Barr now. The redactions for peripheral privacy to protect Donald Trump Jr. are clearly and distinctly obstructive conduct committed by the AG Whitewash Barr.
Turley, Turley, Turley . . .
Wait.
What’s the destruction of 30K e-mails?
Chopped liver?
May we have the tax records of the Clinton Foundation since inception, plllllleeease???
Oh, and could we have all the related records of that “cattle futures” accounts that “Red Bone” transacted for his “clients,” Tyson Chicken and the Arkansas Governor’s Wife, Hillary Clinton, you know, the accounts from 1978 wherein Tyson Chicken lost $100K and Hillary Clinton, just coincidentally, gained $100K? I think Hillary took Cattle Futures 101 at Yale, no, they taught that at Wellesley, right?
“Constitutional Or Conceptual Crisis? The Atonal Strategy of the House Investigations”
– Professor Turley
______________
It’s zealous obfuscation (i.e. obstruction of justice as dems would refer to it) with an exponent, derived from the knowledge that the hammer is coming down on the Obama Coup D’etat in America. The industrious Nellie Ohr just revealed that the FBI, Mueller et al. knew that the Steele Dossier was false 2 weeks before it was fraudulently submitted to the FISC. That can’t be good!
Nice definition or defining description. If only the Socialists could read….
The reason. Come on it’s transparent. So they don’t have to work for a living. They have nothing to say, nothing to offer, no reason to exist and most are in open violation of their oath of office. What else is left… pun intended.
My previous in whatever order refers to the McBeth Quote. But a comment from Mespo works too!
Everything JT says here presupposes good faith by the Democrats in their role as opposition party. That they have none answers all JT’s questions and tell us everything we need to know about them.
Yet, Rosenstein is now being publicly “dehabilitated.”
Dehabilitated? Is that like Democrats found guilty of being antisemitic deflect by accusing their critics of incitement? Oh to save the English language from Amurikuns
🖕🏾
Dems are running out of theatrics and realizing the smell of dirty dung is coming from their Jimmy Chooz!
GOP investigators say classified docs will expose misuse of Steele dossier
Attorney General William Barr has said he is “working very closely” with Horowitz to examine the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation and alleged FISA abuse. That inquiry is expected to be completed in late May or June.
During an interview on Fox News, Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, said now that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report is out and found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, there will be “justice” for individuals behind a counterintelligence investigation he views as being based on false pretenses.
“There are classified documents that I believe prove that there will be accountability on all fronts, Maria, for a couple of reasons,” Ratcliffe, a former U.S. attorney, told host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. “You know, there’s an old saying that justice delayed, is justice denied. But I think there’s a Mueller exception to that rule. We’ve had to wait two years on Bob Mueller, but now that his report is out and there is no collusion, we can move forward.”
Bartiromo said she is being told the alleged misconduct stems all the way to former CIA Director John Brennan.
“Well, here’s what we know about John Brennan in August of 2016. He briefed then Democratic Sen. Harry Reid on the Steele dossier,” Ratcliffe said. “Brennan later testified under oath that the Steele dossier played no part of the intelligence community assessment, and that was a demonstrably false statement.”
Ratcliffe listed Brennan, former FBI Director James Comey, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper as ex-officials who he believes will face accountability.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/gop-investigators-say-classified-docs-will-expose-misuse-of-steele-dossier
J.T., you really have to reach to come up with some way to criticize Democrats in view of Trump’s lack of fitness and assisting the Russians to help him cheat to “win the victory”. We have an AG who campaigned for the position by promising not to indict, which then forces Congress to act. Congress has the right and duty to investigate, and they could impeach, but not without investigating first. NO ONE, including Rosenstein, said there is NO evidence of obstruction of justice. Mueller spelled out multiple instances of obstruction and made very clear that he was leaving the decision on how to proceed on this conduct to Congress. Secondly as to collusion, which should really be called conspiracy because there is no crime of collusion, Mueller did not have the privilege of deposing any of the Trumps or any Russians. How could the crime of conspiracy be proven beyond a reasonable doubt without any of the major players being deposed and without any of them producing records? Eric Trump admitted in an interview some time ago that the Trump companies are financed mainly by Russians. This is because Trump has defaulted on so many loans that no US bank will loan him any money. Now Trump is doing everything possible to prevent Congressional investigation into his finances. The American people gave Congress a mandate last fall–they want Congress to get to the bottom of Trump and his ties to Russia. How any American could criticize this in view of the facts is beyond me. We have never had an American President beholden to a Communist dictator before.
The Donald continues to refuse to acknowledge that his campaign fed key polling information to Russians that was used to spread lies about HRC, and he still has done nothing to prevent it from happening again, yet you criticize Congress, which is all the American people have left to preserve our democracy, since The Donald controls the DOJ. We are really at risk in this country of outrage overload.
How’s your last two years gone, trying undo the 2016 election? Making any progress, hun?
Cue definition of insanity.
Natacha repeats the same things over and over again. If you leave the blog and return in a year his posts won’t change one bit.
if you leave the blog….posts won’t change one bit
true. Emotional control and decision making are compromised in the brains of trolls. Their reward circuitry is fried…toast.. blown to smithereens
——
Addiction: beyond dopamine reward circuitry.
Dopamine (DA) is considered crucial for the rewarding effects of drugs of abuse, but its role in addiction is much less clear. This review focuses on studies that used PET to characterize the brain DA system in addicted subjects. These studies have corroborated in humans the relevance of drug-induced fast DA increases in striatum [including nucleus accumbens (NAc)] in their rewarding effects but have unexpectedly shown that in addicted subjects, drug-induced DA increases (as well as their subjective reinforcing effects) are markedly blunted compared with controls. In contrast, addicted subjects show significant DA increases in striatum in response to drug-conditioned cues that are associated with self-reports of drug craving and appear to be of a greater magnitude than the DA responses to the drug. We postulate that the discrepancy between the expectation for the drug effects (conditioned responses) and the blunted pharmacological effects maintains drug taking in an attempt to achieve the expected reward. Also, whether tested during early or protracted withdrawal, addicted subjects show lower levels of D2 receptors in striatum (including NAc), which are associated with decreases in baseline activity in frontal brain regions implicated in salience attribution (orbitofrontal cortex) and inhibitory control (anterior cingulate gyrus), whose disruption results in compulsivity and impulsivity. These results point to an imbalance between dopaminergic circuits that underlie reward and conditioning and those that underlie executive function (emotional control and decision making), which we postulate contributes to the compulsive drug use and loss of control in addiction.
https://www.pnas.org/content/108/37/15037.long
“Their reward circuitry is fried…toast.. blown to smithereens”
The dopamine respone has been known for years. The left doesn’t understand. All it does is make them more dopa.
No one is “trying to undo the 2016 election”. That’s an oft-repeated phrase from Faux News, which tries to soothe its disciples by telling them that the “left”, the “Dems” and the “libs” are socialists who are trying to steal away their choice for President.
What MOST Americans DO want is the truth–to what extent is Trump in bed with Russians, what did Russians do to help him, and how do we stop it from happening again. The 2018 midterms were a referendum on Trump, and Congress has its marching orders. The American people have a right to know these things because: 1. Trump’s campaign did feed polling data to Russians on where to direct their social media misinformation campaign where it would have the most effect; 2. for the specific purpose of helping him “win” the Electoral College. Trump knew he couldn’t win the popular vote, even with Russia’s help, but he could “win” by directing social media misinformation to key precincts in certain states to sway the vote there. That is what happened, so if anyone stole the Presidency, it was Trump. 3. Trump is deferential to Putin, a Communist dictator who murders his critics, and even publicly sided with Putin and against American intelligence that found overwhelming evidence of Russian interference. Trump has tried to carry out Putin’s agenda, which includes undermining NATO and the EU; 4. Trump won’t admit the interference, much less do anything to stop it from happening again.
Investigating the ties of an American President to a hostile foreign Communist government and taking steps to ensure the validity of future elections is the patriotic duty of Congress. We have an unfit person who cheated to win the White House with the help of a Communist country and who won’t admit this, much less take steps to stop it from happening again. Barr has proven that Trump owns the DOJ. That leaves only Congress to keep America and its values alive and well and to preserve free elections.
ha ha mandate please
Russia-Centered Probes Have Reached the ‘Aw Shut-Up Point’
I remember when former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was asked why the Clinton impeachment drive failed, he responded by saying that somewhere along the way it reached an ‘Aw Shut-Up Point’. That is the public arrived at a point where they had heard all they wanted to hear and no longer cared to hear any more. Years earlier, the Iran-Contra investigation fizzled in a very similar fashion.
The Russia-Centered probes regarding Donald Trump have more than likely reached the “Aw Shut Up Point”. That doesn’t mean for a moment that The Mueller Probe was a waste of time. Nor does it mean that Trump has been ‘cleared’ or ‘exonerated’. It simply means the public has heard all they want to hear on this subject.
I do believe, however, that Democrats should stay focused on trying to obtain Trump’s tax returns. The office of New York’s Attorney General might lead way on this matter. They stand a good chance of revealing Trump’s New York tax returns, if not his Federal.
California may do its part by passing a bill that bars candidates from state ballots who refuse to release their tax returns. Similar legislation is underway in other so-called ‘Blue States’. If such legislation gains traction, and stands up to legal challenges, it could be more damaging to Trump than an eleventh hour impeachment drive. If Trump’s name is missing from ballots in big blue states, that would be deadly for him in a close election.
It seems the biggest thing for Peter, the NYTimes and Democrats to focus on are Trump’s taxes. The recent article by the NYTimes was a revision of a decade old piece in the Times. I expect the NYTimes and Peter to be focussing in on the fall of the Berlin Wall soon. They count on the ignorance of left wingers along with historical ignorance.
What will the Democrats have if they ever get the tax returns. They have already concluded and written about the returns in such a negative fashion that the release will likely be a relative positive just like the release of the Mueller Report. Democrats don’t learn and therefore Peter can’t learn either.
don’t hold your breath. trump will be gone and other Democrat billionaires from CA won’t like that kind of law. very unlikely to pass.
also there is always questions of constitutionality on state restrictions to ballet access. very complicated stuff
Kurtz, if you know of any sound legal challenges to such a law, let’s hear them. That law sounds completely reasonable to me. If your taxes are too complicated to explain to the average Joe, than you probably shouldn’t be running for President.
“If your taxes are too complicated to explain to the average Joe, than you probably shouldn’t be running for President.”
A fifty year old stock clerk at Walmart probably has very simple taxes that are easy to understand. That is the type of pick for President Peter is looking for. He wants the President to be at his level so that intellectually he will be able to understand most of what the stock clerk tells him
Yeah, and Alan is stupid old fool.
Face it Peter. You’ve got nothing on Trump. He’s going to hold his coalition of conservatives and working class together and the economy will roll along. The Dems are running someone so far Left that they know he/she can’t win a’ la McGovern in ’72. You’ve got 5 more years of Trump and like Billy Jack says “there’s not a damn thing you’re going to be able to do about it.”
Mespo, you seem like a bright guy. Why are you making ridiculous predictions for which there is virtually no evidence. Are you under the illusion that Trump is popular and that he has ever had a 50% approval rating? Are you aware that Biden – not an extreme leftist – is killing it in the polls of Democratic voters right now and that a recent poll of Trump vs various democrats had him losing to 6 of them – including the gay mayor of S Bend – and tied with Warren? I think this stuff is way to early and doesn’t mean a whole lot, but then I’m not the guy pretending that bold predictions are a substitute for a strong argument.
Anon:
You’re a guy not reading the polls.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html
Meapo, so your bragging about another poll where your not fails to break 50¡? What is in this that leads you to make rash pronouncement on his future triumph?
I guess what I said rang a bit of truth about your life, Peter. What happened? Were you refused employment at Walmart as an apprentice stock boy?
Constructive, as usual.
Were you let go as a Walmart stock girl?
Hey Joe Biden, you caught someone messing around town. Where you going with that gun in your hand.
This is how Democrats sell America down the drain.
—
Last week, Biden raised eyebrows when he shrugged off concerns over the China threat. “Come on, man,” Biden said. “I mean, you know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what, they’re not competition for us.”
Perhaps Biden’s insouciant attitude toward the Chinese government has to do with the fact that his family does not consider them competitors but business partners.
In 2013, then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden flew aboard Air Force Two to China. Less than two weeks later, Hunter Biden’s firm inked a $1 billion private equity deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China. The deal was later expanded to $1.5 billion. In short, the Chinese government funded a business that it co-owned along with the son of a sitting vice president.
continued: https://nypost.com/2019/05/11/the-troubling-reason-why-biden-is-so-soft-on-china/
The Chinese people are a great and noble people held captive by socalled Communist party which is actually just a pack of kleptocrats trickling down favors to their lower strata who are bought off not to buck the system, all run by a big alpha wolf at the top. The rest of them are slaves. It’s a very dismal situation there for regular folks who face arbitrary shakedowns from police and officials at every turn.
Hu Jintao was a better leader. from wiki
“Moral guidance
In response to the great number of social problems in China, in March 2006, Hu Jintao released the “Eight Honors and Eight Shames” as a set of moral codes to be followed by the Chinese people, and emphasized the need to spread the message to youth.[37] Alternatively known as the “Eight Honors and Disgraces”, it contained eight poetic lines which summarized what a good citizen should regard as an honor and what to regard as a shame. It has been widely regarded as one of Hu Jintao’s ideological solutions to the perceived increasing lack of morality in China after Chinese economic reforms brought in a generation of Chinese predominantly concerned with earning money and power in an increasingly frail social fabric.[citation needed]
It has become a norm for Chinese communist leaders to make their own contributions to Marxist theory.[citation needed] Whether this is Hu’s contribution to Marxist theory is debatable, but its general reception with the Chinese public has been moderate.[citation needed] Its promotion, however, is visible almost everywhere: in classroom posters, banners on the street, and electronic display boards for the preparation of the 2008 Olympics, and World Expo 2010 in Shanghai. The codes differ from the ideologies of his predecessors, namely, Jiang’s Three Represents, Deng Xiaoping Theory, and Mao Zedong Thought in that the focus, for the first time, has been shifted to codifying moral standards as opposed to setting social or economic goals.
Legacy
Most external observers agree that Hu presided over a decade of consistent economic growth, led China through the storm of the global financial crisis relatively unscathed, and increased China’s international stature immensely.[38] Hu’s tenure is also credited with modernizing China’s infrastructure, the launch of China’s first manned spaceprobe, and the success of two international events: the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai Expo.[38] In addition, Hu’s “soft approach” to Taiwan, coinciding with the election of a Kuomintang government in Taipei, was credited for having improved relationship between mainland China and Taiwan. Trade and contact between the two sides increased significantly during Hu’s tenure. In addition, Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao’s populist policies have resulted in the elimination of agricultural taxes for farmers, more flexible policies towards migrant workers living in cities, more balanced development between the coastal regions and the hinterlands, enforcing minimum wage in cities and the promotion of sustainable and affordable housing developments. The response to the SARS public health crisis and the massive expansion of health insurance coverage for middle- to low-income citizens earned Hu accolades domestically. Generally speaking, these policies have been well received by the Chinese public.[39]
WINNIE THE POOH XI JINPING, A BELLICOSE, GRANDIOSE LEADER WHO ARRESTED THOUSANDS OF BANDITS FOR CORRUPTION — BUT — LEFT TENS OF THOUSANDS STILL IN PLACE. Firing squads for corrupt officials is what’s really needed there.
Kurtz, people from all countries are both good and bad. China was moving in what we would call a positive direction but the government has changed to more combatative and repressive position. I’ve been to China but instead of using a tour bus I used translators and drivers and travel deep for over a month at a time. Sometimes one has to push the driver to go certain places and at times I had to leave the translator back in the car or leave the car altogether. The state closely regulates what these people are permitted to show you and say so one doesn’t see all the bad things and has to do it on their own. One has to read between the lines a skill people like Anon do not have. My Chinese friends that have their own businesses in the US and China recognize the repressive nature of their government but don’t express it verbally.
People think the Hondurans have it bad and perhaps they do, but in certain areas of China people actually disappear and are killed and many are locked up. I don’t hear our American friends advocating that we take those people into our country and those people have it worse than the ones that come in illegally from our southern border
My take on China is that the more repressive they become and the more backward they look the more likely their economy will slow. They produce a lot of technology today but that is because they steal Intellectual Property and what they steal today means America loses in GNP for the future, big time. They have severe problems and major splits in their society. Posters of Mao are placed in prayer corners of many Chinese in the middle of the country. The eastern portion being used to the benefits of trading with America looks towards capitalism and continued friendship with the west.
yep that’s about what i gather too
the interior has a terrible time with kleptocrats and public officials corruption. the development zone from HK to Shanghai has a lot more laowei on the streets and the public officials are on better behavior because of it. Westerners are key to foreign investment and the opportunity to steal technology so we can come and go unmolested.
for the average Chinese citizen, life is not too bad, with the exception of when they occasionaly run afoul of a corrupt cop or official, then it’s shakedown time and they can kiss their savings goodbye
their surveillance state is immense and terrifying in scope and depth. Silicon Valley is their willing collaborator and would like to subject Americans to the same kind of regime. beware the Silicon Valley collaborators with the Chinese communist party!
they would stick us under a version of the “social credit score” if they could, and then we would really be screwed
“the development zone from HK to Shanghai has a lot more laowei on the streets and the public officials are on better behavior because of it. ”
Kurtz, if you don’t know about the attachment of the individual to a province you might want to read about it. An individual is born to a province and pays taxes to that province and is entitled to the benefits from the province but none when they move from one province to another. They have to be invited to partake in the total benefits of that province.
It is very confusing but explains alot when one travels past provincial borders.
If you have travelled on a tour or even with their translators to major visitor areas the likelihood of you having pictures of some of the same people I have in those areas is high if in a similar time frame. My daughter was on a tour at a different time and had a picture of the same person I had. That is why I try and move well past the tour spots and walk into places one wouldn’t normally go.
It’s amazing, but most frequently when away from translators I was able to bump into someone that could speak English and was happy to show me around.
do you mean this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system
Yes, that is related.
You know what’s really ironic and funny Allan?
The American left is always boo hooing about the poor Muslim refugees from where-ever
in the meantime the Chinese communist have about a million Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province locked up in retraining centers (lol) and worse
They are also not fans of “Ethnic diversity” are are aggressively trying to “Sinicize” the that Turkic ethnic group into a more uniform cultural mass withthe rest of the Han Chinese.
But the supposed champions of “human rights” religious tolerance and “Diversity” the American Democrats have NOTHING to say about it. Far as I know Marco Rubio is the only one who’s even mentioned this
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/09/asia/xinjiang-china-kazakhstan-detention-intl/index.html
“The American left is always boo hooing about the poor Muslim refugees from where-ever in the meantime the Chinese communist have about a million Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province locked up in retraining centers (lol) and worse”
Kurtz, you are exactly right. The left is taught to focus on things that promote the left’s ideological agenda. It has little to do with the suffering of people as we can easily see in the mideast where Christians are killed on a regular basis and nothing is said. It appears the left has a war against Judeo Christian and ancient Greek and Roman tradition brought to this country by Europeans that early on were mostly English.
Yes the PRC is no big friend of Christians either
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jun/6/chinas-christian-persecution-highest-level-mao/
the thread that ties together Islam, Christianity, and the goofy yet popular New Age cult Falun Dafa, is this: they presume a higher authority than the Chicom party! hence they must be opposed.
Read Buchanan’s book Re. Churchill and WW2. Churchill gave the world Mao. Thanks, Winston!
Pat Buchanan compares actual history to what he thinks could have happened if his type of ideology was followed. I think Buchannan has a lot of blindspots
Bingo.
I won’t waste my time looking for the link. Did you see Tucker Carlson positively OWN “meathead” Rob Reiner? Reiner’s going on and on how PUTIN! and RUSSIA! are destroying the West. Tucker lists about a dozen items Re.China’s efforts to destroy the West, which Meathead ignores, followed by Tucker nailing Meathead with the fact that Reiner censors his movies to sell in China, and Meathead won’t say anything bad about China because China is his business partner with which Meathead makes millions of dollars. Meathead: crickets.
I don’t see any television news on a daily basis, but I do browse different news channels to understand the points of view. I use TIVO and scroll through very quickly shortening a one hour shows to twenty minutes, sometimes less while responding to this blog. Most of it is the same except for the spin and I am interested in the facts that are sent to me from good sources. I like some of the online news articles because they make things easier to understand when posting on this blog.
I think Tucker is quite good because he frequently is dealing with important things that need to be managed but aren’t discussed. The actual news can be written in a few paragraphs and changes the next day so I don’t consider it as important to receive news as soon as it happens.
Socialists Keep Lying
Socialist politicians said we need to know if foreigners interfered in our elections. We thought that meant that elections should be fair and honest. Socialists meant that they can conduct a witch hunt against political Conservatives, but the Socialists then voted to let foreigners vote in our elections.
Socialists said walls don’t work. We heard that everyone has human rights. What Socialists politicians meant is that walls work around their mansions, but a secure border keeps out the new voters that Socialists need to stay in power.
Socialist politicians said everyone deserves free healthcare. We thought that meant cheap insurance. Socialists meant babies can be killed at any time before or after birth. Socialists healthcare doesn’t include medical aid to sick people in Venezuela.. aid which the Socialists Venezuelan government burned at the border.
Socialists said we need open immigration. We heard that America is the land of opportunity. Socialists meant that Socialist Hondurans are welcome, but not Venezuelan refugees who hate communism, and definitely not German homeschooling families who want a government small enough to leave them alone.
Socialists said that education should be free. We heard that student loans would be interest-free. What the Socialists meant is that we’d have to go to government-controlled schools.
Socialists said they support the first amendment, the right to assemble, to petition the government, and right of free speech. We heard that they support the right of open debate. Socialists meant that they get to decide who may speak on campus, in the news, and on social media. Hate speech is anything the Socialists don’t like. The victims of illegal immigrants were threatened with arrest when then gathered in the halls of Congress.
Socialist politicians said they respect the Second Amendment. We heard that our rights were safe. Socialists politicians meant they want guns for them, but not for ordinary citizens.
Socialists politicians said we need more gun control. We heard that criminals wouldn’t get firearms. Socialists meant that a government employee could confiscate your guns, but that a gun shop owner couldn’t call the cops when an illegal alien tried to buy a gun illegally. Funny that the feds will prosecute us for a paperwork error, but the feds ignore tens of thousands of felons who try and buy guns illegally.
Socialists said we need to confiscate guns to stop the “national emergency” of violence. We heard that all guns would go away. Socialist politicians meant they’d take away our firearms, but would have guns to protect them and their families. No one talked about how we’d get guns away from criminals.
https://www.ammoland.com/2019/03/i-cant-trust-socialists-when-they-keep-lying-to-me/
I dint know Trump was a Socialist!
I hat automistake! It should be I didn’t know Trump was a socialist!
“Socialist politicians said we need to know if foreigners interfered in our elections. We thought that meant that elections should be fair and honest. ….but the Socialists then voted to let foreigners vote in our elections.”
YES THAT ONE REALLY MAKES ME MAD!
THAT IS WHAT THE LARGEST PURPOSE OF THEIR “IMMIGRATION REFORM” ALWAYS IS – LEGALIZE MORE DEMOCRAT VOTERS
(music)
Little David Susskind, shut up!
Little David Susskind: Shut Up!
Three spots on the wall. Who flung the foo? Trump? Dems? The media? The expensive press? Jack Mehoff? Harold Rectum? Lonnie Ringer? When Pelosi gets done we can say: That’s all she wrote.
Investigate this: Son, Hunter Biden rides on daddy’s coat tails. That would be VP Joe Biden
China’s deal:
“In December 2013 Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden, travels with his father aboard Air Force Two to Beijing. … Shortly after they return to the U.S., Hunter Biden’s firm receives a $1 billion private equity deal from the Chinese government. It later gets increased to $1.5 billion.”
Ukraine deal:
The episode involved his son Hunter Biden’s work on behalf of a Ukrainian energy company at a time when the Joe Biden was vice president and a key figure in U.S. policy on Ukraine. Is it true, that Hunter Biden was serving as “a director to Ukraine’s largest private gas producer” when the Joe Biden “threatened to withhold $1 BILLION in U.S. aid to Ukraine if they didn’t fire a prosecutor looking into” the gas company.
The position with Burisma came at a time when the younger Biden had joined with Christopher Heinz (the stepson of then-Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.) and Devon Archer (a Kerry family friend) in a string of investment and consulting firms. Firms run by Biden and Archer “pursued business with international entities that had a stake in American foreign policy decisions, sometimes in countries where connections implied political influence and protection.”
Burisma was owned by Mykola Zlochevsky, a minister under Russia-friendly President Viktor F. Yanukovych who subsequently went into exile after a popular revolution. After Yanukovych was ousted, Zlochevsky faced a variety of corruption-related investigations involving his business.
Sure:
“Timeline in Ukraine Probe Casts Doubt on Giuliani’s Biden Claim
President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer is raising the specter that Joe Biden intervened in Ukrainian politics to help his son’s business.
But if that was Biden’s aim, he was more than a year late, based on a timeline laid out by a former Ukrainian official and in Ukrainian documents…..”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-07/timeline-in-ukraine-probe-casts-doubt-on-giuliani-s-biden-claim
Then after that investigation, let’s investigate the President using the power of the US government to intimidate foreign governments into helping undermine anyone who challenges him for office.
I recall trying to feign liking atonal music during my college years. The things we did to appear hip.
How could anyone fake that!
The left is totally incoherent and unable to dismiss any of Turley’s arguments. Since Turley seems to be left of center this makes this inability even more striking.
The question is whether there is a true strategy behind these moves other than an investigation for investigation’s sake.
If it’s still a question in your mind, you’re in the gray area between charity and fantasy.
For the most part, partisan Democrats have no interest in policy. Harold Pollack and Mark Kleiman do, but they’re odd in that nexus. Mostly, what they have an interest in is playing status games and power moves. The object is to harass and dispossess the defined enemy: ordinary non-exotic Americans who are satisfied with their country and don’t have any ready sources of alienation (other than the reality that much and perhaps most of the metropolitan professional-managerial stratum despises them).
Actual respect for procedural norms and ordinary courtesies among partisan Democrats is now nil. Lawfare, vote fraud, news organizations as lying agitprop producers are the order of the day (as well as orchestrated harassment of people going about their daily business). They fully deserve to be hit with an equal and opposite disrespect. Good and hard.
I always laugh when I see these comments that Democrats are this and they are not that. Many Democrats are interested in polices and principles. One of those principles is that no person is above the law.
Talk about respecting procedural norms, I don’t think there is a norm of any kind that Trump hasn’t broken or healed with disrespect.
“One of those principles is that no person is above the law.”
Like Jessie Smollett?
WELL SAID
what absurd said was well said i mean
I also would not bunch in a lot of the Democrat rank and file with their corrupt leadership. lots of good Democrat voters out there, small town people, even state level reps
the federal group of Democrat apparatchiks and honchos are the worst
JT continues his nit picking running of interference for the elephant in the room he won’t address. Apart from worrying asides on his concerns , he continues to avoid the GOP’s near complete surrender to a man without regard for legalities of any kind which may restrict his self centered impulses. Yesterday Sen Graham advised a person subpoenaed by a Senate Committee that he not show up, thus undercutting the powers of Congress yet again, just as most Republicans did the matador on the Presidents end run around the Congresses power of the purse. Meanwhile, JT frets about “atonal” confusion among Democrats trying to deal with that kind of nonsense.
you got that wrong. no legalities of any kind would mean newspaper doors locked, reporters thrown in prison, and stacking bodies like cordwood. that is what Lincoln did.
The crisis is not limited to the constitution but to Americans in general. The Demosocialist decided the night they lost “resist”, spy, lie, do whatever it takes to disrupt the results. For two years they have done nothing positive for the nation but create problems. They said we can’t investigate we need a special counsel now they don’t like the results so it’s “We” must investigate. Yes, there’s a crisis and if we don’t expose those who conspired to overturn a legal election our nation is lost, there’s your crisis. It’s a crisis for every American no matter your political allegiance, color or creed.
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.” – Macbeth