I recently read a delightful article in The Wall Street Journal written by Andy Kessler, entitled Follow Michael Crichton’s Rule, which imparted the wisdom of the late author and physician who wrote such classics as The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park.  In a 2003 lecture he gave at Caltech, entitled Aliens Cause Global Warming, Crichton discussed what he called, “the uneasy relationship between hard science and public policy.”  What Crichton was lampooning was the increasing use of unproven scientific theories to advance desired governmental policies.  In his lecture, Crichton gave examples such as the fear of “nuclear winter” that were spread by the likes of astronomer Carl Sagan.  The story was that, in the event of a major nuclear exchange, dust rising into the atmosphere would block out the sun, stop photosynthesis, and effectively end life on Earth.  As Crichton noted, there was no empirical scientific evidence for that proposition, but it couldn’t be challenged without the doubter being accused of being in favor of nuclear war.  Concerns over second-hand smoke causing cancer spawned laws banning smoking in restaurants and offices.  Later studies have disproven the second-hand smoke link to cancer, but it didn’t matter.  “What, are you in favor of cancer?”  Anyhow, smoke kind of stinks, and many people don’t like it, so the cancer scare continues to be used to ban smoking, even in outdoor settings, such as on the beach, and some cities (run by liberal fascists) seek to ban smoking even in one’s own home.  It’s the same old National Socialist song, the government is just protecting you for your own good.  Michael Bloomberg knows all about that.  According to Michael Crichton, “Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible.” Andy Kessler posits what he calls “the Crichton Conundrum” which permits the zealots to adopt any untested theory which proves them right.  It’s akin to the Frank on Friday notion of liberal delusions of rectitude.  To paraphrase Rene Descartes’ quote, Credo Ergo Verum, “I believe it, therefore it’s true.”  Andy Kessler treats us to a number of examples of progressive policies, launched with good intentions, and bearing positive sounding names, that have gone awry.  The $15 minimum wage, or so-called “living wage.”  You would begrudge the poor a living wage?  Meanwhile hundreds of restaurants have closed or automated, putting thousands out of work.  But it’s the thought that counts, right?  Besides, creating more unemployment would permit the government to indulge another progressive pipe-dream, “guaranteed minimum income.”  As Harry Truman once said, “the minimumer the better.”  But I’m sure we’d succeed where the Soviet Union failed, prompting Soviet citizens to say, “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.”  We are beset by programs with innocuous sounding names, which are really designed to permit a socialist takeover of all aspects of our lives.  “Net neutrality” sounds fair, but would put the government (think Adam Schiff) in charge of what can and can’t be said on the internet.  I’ll pass on that.  “Natural Forest Management” was sold as a way to keep pesky humans from interfering with the natural processes of the forest by clearing trees and controlled burns.  How progressive!  It’s resulted in raging wildfires consuming large areas of California, and causing the State to shut off electric power to the pesky humans who pay the highest taxes and energy rates in the country for the privilege of living in a socialist worker’s paradise.  Good job!  Andy Kessler hits other aspects of liberal hypocrisy, “Free college, day care and medical care?  Didn’t Cuba try that?”  “Free or price-controlled goods always end up like subsidized bread in the Soviet Union.  You get less of it and empty shelves.”  The problem with the progressive imbeciles who keep claiming they “feel our pain,” is that it never occurred to them they’re also the ones who caused our pain.  Kessler pushed on, “And then there’s social justice.  No one is for injustice, but now campus mobs are threatening free speech.”  They’re not only threatening free speech, they’ve effectively cancelled the First Amendment on college campuses, because in the progressive mind (such as it is) they must destroy the constitutional system of government set up by the evil slave-owning Founders, in order to save the country.  The Founders had a simple name for this, treason.  And anyhow, save the country from what?  Full employment?  Prosperity?  Public safety?  National security?  They’re clearly nuts, and getting nuttier by the minute.  The point of Michael Crichton’s speech 16 years ago was that the mindless acceptance of hair-brained progressive schemes keeps us from hearing, or even acknowledging, that there is another side to the argument.  Since his speech in 2003, things have only gotten worse.

The moment Donald Trump was elected president, the Democrats transformed themselves from “the loyal opposition” into the disloyal resistance.  This is not to suggest that the Party out of office isn’t expected to and doesn’t oppose the president of the other Party.  That’s normal.  What’s abnormal is the notion that the out-of-office Party, in this case the Democrats, will abandon any sense of fair play, duty, and responsibility to resist any and all acts, words or proposals of the elected president just because they don’t like him.  That’s abnormal, not because it prevents the Democrats from conducting the business of Congress for which they were elected, although it does, not because it compels them to oppose even proposals which they previously supported, although they do, not because it keeps them from dealing with the crisis on the border, which exposes American citizens to harm, which it does, and not because it puts Democrats in a position from which they are forced to take positions which endanger our national security, which they do, but simply because it’s stupid.  There’s no other word for it.  We understand that Democrats don’t like Donald Trump, we get that.  We understand that they have legitimate disagreements on policy.  All well and good.  But when you zealously cling to a mindless opposition to the point where you jeopardize your own brand, sorry, but that’s plain stupid.  Don’t take my word for it, consider the wisdom of that great orator Al Sharpton, “But resist we much.  We must, and we will much- about that- be committed.”  Confused?  That’s understandable, but Sharpton’s gibberish makes more sense than what the Democrats are doing.  When Trump was elected the Democrats said the stock market would crash.  They were wrong, it’s up 50%.  They said Trump would plunge us into endless wars, not the endless wars given to us by Bush and Obama, but some new endless wars.  Instead, Trump has consistently worked to keep the peace and to withdraw U.S. troops from foreign lands.  Democrats, who formerly condemned U.S. intervention in civil wars abroad, even oppose this.  “Resist, we much!”  The very name of “the Resistance” is a fraud.  “The Resistance” derives from the French Resistance, the groups that opposed the Nazi German occupation of France and the collaborationist Vichy regime during the Second World War.  The French Resistance fighters put their lives at risk to oppose fascism.  Sadly, the Democrat Resistance really believes they’re doing the same thing.  They’re delusional.  It’s a sickness.  The sad fact is that, if we take them at face value, today’s Resistance must spring from the sincere albeit totally false, belief that Donald Trump is not the duly elected President of the United States.  Viewed through such deranged eyes, since Trump is not really the President, nothing he does is legal.  Following this psychosis to its illogical conclusion, therefore, any action taken by Donald Trump, even actions specifically delegated to the Chief Executive by our Constitution, are illegal, and thus impeachable.  Now it all makes sense, assuming insanity ever makes sense.  Am I jumping to conclusions here?  No, there’s proof.  The moment Trump won, the Resistance sprang to life.  Nobody ever heard of Congressman Al Green, nor should they have.  Since January 2017, Mr. Greasy Kid Stuff has been calling for Trump’s impeachment.  On October 31st, after the fake impeachment investigation vote, Nancy Pelosi once again lied through her false teeth, claiming no representative came to Washington to impeach the president.  I guess she never saw Rep. Rashida Talib’s election night 2018 speech, in which she screamed, “We’re going to impeach the M****r F****r!”  The totally deranged radical Left was driving the impeachment train, due to their delusional belief that Hillary should have won – because they thought she would.  The Loony Left saw resistance as their duty, because, after all Trump wasn’t supposed to win, he must have been helped by Putin, and worst of all, they disapprove of his “tone.”  Trump’s “tone” is also a concern of the Never Trumpers.  Permit me to translate.  Trump’s “tone” is unacceptable because he’s not like other Republicans.  The Left, which necessarily includes the media, and the Republican establishment (Never Trumpers) prefer Republicans with a more pleasant tone, who are good losers.  Think John McCain and Mitt Romney.  Now they were good losers.  The Left could bash them, lie about them and defame them every day, but they’d never fight back.  Kick them in the nuts, and they’d just keep smiling.  Good loser Republicans.  Donald Trump don’t play that.  Attack him at your own peril.  You hit him, he hits you, and it will hurt – bad tone.  Which brings me back to Mitt Romney, and the subject of this piece, La Resistance.  Mitt Romney masquerades as his French internet alter-ego Pierre Delecto.  Romney adopts this Twitter persona in order to bash (resist) the president of what is supposed to be his own Party.  Recall Romney denounced Trump before the 2016 election.  After Trump won, Romney, in true collaborator fashion, shamelessly tried to have Trump appoint him Secretary of State.  He didn’t get the job, so he turned on Trump again, becoming the leader of The Resistance in the Senate.  As one who is willing to change sides whenever it most benefits him, Romney does harken back to the days of the French Resistance, not as a resistance fighter, but as another Pierre.  Pierre Laval.  Laval was the Premier of the Nazi Puppet Vichy government, set up after the Nazis conquered France in 1940.  Laval was a collaborator.  He betrayed France, and tried to appease Germany by providing French citizens as slave laborers for German industries, and by deporting Jews, 90% of whom were killed by the Nazis.  After the war, the French executed Pierre Laval.  Pierre Delecto won’t face a firing squad, but if Donald Trump is reelected that collaborator may wish that he had.

When Hillary Clinton lost the nomination to Il Duce Obama in 2008, some thought her prospects of becoming president were done.  Of course, they weren’t.  She became Secretary of State, and from that position, the rest is history.  She set up her private server in the bathroom of some house, which permitted numerous foreign agents to hack her unsecure emails, which we now know included some 600 classified messages.  Her office also permitted Hillary to run her Family business on the side, extorting “contributions” to the Clinton Foundation from foreigners who stood to make lots of money from favorable decisions of the State Department.  As in the current Joe/Hunter Biden dispute, as any Democrat will tell you, “that’s unsubstantiated!”  Well, here’s how it works folks.  When you keep your eyes closed, ignore the evidence and never investigate, nothing is substantiated.  And that’s the way the Democrats like it.  After Hillary lost to Trump, most of us reasonably expected that she would go away.  She had her chance at the brass ring and her political career was over.  Or so we thought.  She raked in a few more millions of dollars from books, and has constantly appeared in public to make excuses about why she lost the election, and to bash Donald Trump.  Since 2016, Hillary has offered a seemingly never-ending list of excuses for her own failure:  Russian interference through either a disinformation campaign via WikiLeaks or Trump-Russia collusion; she’s blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin; former FBI Director James Comey’s criminal investigation of her use of a private email server while Secretary of State; poor voter data from the Democratic National Committee; voter suppression and voter ID laws;
sexism; racism (because she’s whiter than white?); Barack Obama; Bernie Sanders and his supporters; Jill Stein; the mainstream media (which bent over backwards to prop her up the whole time), specifically the New York Times for aggressively covering her email scandal; the Electoral College;
bad polling; all the people who assumed she would win; “gullible Americans” (that’s us folks) and “fake news.”  Hillary jumped right aboard the Russian collusion train, because it was her, Il Duce Obama, and her minions, both inside and outside the government who bought the phony dossier (from Russians) and launched the coup attempt still ongoing against Donald Trump.  “What Putin wanted to do was … influence our election, and he’s not exactly fond of strong women, so you add that together and that’s pretty much what it means.”  She’s accused her co-conspirator Il Duce Obama too, “It’s really difficult to succeed a president of your own party who has served two terms. That is a historical fact.”  So, Obama’s success caused Hillary’s failure?  Bernie Sanders was to blame too, “His attacks caused lasting damage, making it harder to unify progressives in the general election and paving the way for Trump’s ‘Crooked Hillary’ campaign.”  No, the fact that you’re a criminal paved the way for the Crooked Hillary campaign.  Low information voters also were blamed.  Just not smart enough to vote for Hillary, I guess.  Also, all the women who weren’t as strong as Hillary, and who voted the way their husbands ordered them to vote.  She still wasn’t done though.  She made so many excuses that she actually forgot that she lost in 2016, telling an interviewer, “Obviously, I can beat him again.”  That sparked speculation that Hillary might try to get into the 2020 presidential field, or more to the point, might offer herself at the 11th hour to save her Party from the Star Wars bar scene group of reprobates, malcontents and assorted Left-wing nuts currently running for the Democratic nomination.  Now she’s doubling down on the “Russians stole the election” nonsense.  Hillary recently gave an interview in which she accused Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard of being “a Russian operative.”  Gabbard is a Congresswoman, the first Samoan-American elected to Congress, a war veteran, and a practicing Hindu, hence “a Russkie.”   What’s more, she’s not the only one.  Hillary also labelled independent candidate Jill Stein a Russian operative.  And of course, Donald Trump is a Russian asset too.  That goes without saying.  The thought of Hillary running again in 2020 has not gone over well with Democrats from either wing of the Party.  Democrat Senators Durbin, Manchin, Bloomenthal, Jones, and Heinrich are against a Hillary 3.0 campaign.  Even crazy Maisie Hirono wants no part of her, “We have a lot of really fantastic candidates out there already.  Let’s leave it at that.”  All I can say about the Hillary in 2020 talk is, “Hillary, please run again.”  2016 was so much fun.  Who wouldn’t want to watch Hillary and daughter Chelsea, who always appears beside her nowadays, back on the campaign trail.  Who wouldn’t want to be treated to more “Crooked Hillary” from the President, instead of “Sleepy Joe” or “Pocahontas?”  So I think Hillary should definitely run again.  But let’s not stop there.  John Kerry – come on down!  You should run again.  Where’s Al Gore these days?  He should make a comeback.   Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton could add more allegations of race discrimination to the equation, spicing up what has been a lackluster primary season.  Billionaire Michael Bloomberg just entered the race.  He’s got 10 times the money that Trump has, so he’s qualified.  Let’s have more billionaire Bolsheviks and millionaire Marxists on the stage.  The more the merrier, and the more Democrats who get into the act, the more the field will split the political contribution pot, and the more the Democrat Party will splinter and divide itself.  So run, Hill run!  And if you can’t run fast, Chelsea will be beside you to push your big ass up onto the podium.

The impeachment of a President is a serious thing.  An attempt to remove a President amounts to the “undoing of a national election.”  Attempts to impeach make people angry. “one of the reasons we all feel so angry about what they are doing is that … they are ripping asunder our votes.”  That must be true because those words were spoken by Jerry Nadler (in 1998).  He must have changed his mind.  When such a serious matter is contemplated, it must be undertaken only when there is bipartisan agreement as to its necessity.  “It would have been wrong for Richard Nixon to have been removed from office based upon a purely partisan vote.  No president should be removed from office merely because one party enjoys a commanding lead in either house of the Congress …”  What’s more, “It is our constitutional duty to give the president the benefit of the doubt on the facts …”  These are the words of Joe Biden (in 1998).  He’s either changed his mind, or lost his mind.  I can’t decide which.  Another vintage 1998 lawmaker cautioned against one Party acting purely out of hatred of a President from the other Party.  “until the Republicans free themselves of this hatred, our country will suffer.” That was the wisdom of Nancy Pelosi, who today is the ringmaster of the impeachment circus.  After all, it should be remembered that the President has pressing duties which must not be disturbed except for the most grievous wrongdoing.  “Today we are here in the people’s House debating the partisan impeachment of the President of the United States of America while the Commander in Chief is managing a crisis and asking world leaders for support.”  So sayeth Maxine Waters in 1998.  Today, asking a world leader for help by itself is reason for impeachment.  And even when impeachment is undertaken after a finding of a high crime, such as perjury, as in 1998, some lawmakers still find the process detestable.  John Conyers was moved to observe, “I am witnessing the most tragic event of my career in the Congress, in effect a … coup d’etat, in process.”  Well John, if the shoe fits …  The Dems went nuts when Donald Trump recently said his impeachment inquiry was a “lynching.”  But I guess it depends on who’s ox is being gored.  Joe Biden and former Democratic Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy called Clinton’s impeachment “a political lynching.”  Democratic Rep. Danny K. Davis even condemned the impeachment trial itself as “a lynching.”  Someone should have explained to Congressman Davis that lynching victims don’t get any trial, much less a trial presided over by the Chief Justice of the United States.  If, as all the long-tenured Democrats quoted above have said, impeachment must be the result of bipartisan consensus, and if an election should be overturned only when the voters have been convinced that it is necessary, it would stand to reason that any legitimate impeachment investigation should be conducted in the light of day, for all the world to see.  The Washington Post has assured us, after all,  that “Democracy dies in darkness.”  They would never lie, would they?  The Democrats in 1974 hated Richard Nixon as much as today’s Dems hate Donald Trump.  Yet in 1974, and again in 1998, the President was afforded the rights to counsel, to call witnesses, and to confront the witnesses that were produced.  And the hearings were public, very public.  In 1974, at a time before cable TV and 24 hour news networks, the Watergate Senate hearings and the House Judiciary hearings were televised live every day.  With only a few available channels, you couldn’t escape them.  We all saw John Dean give his testimony and Alexander Butterfield’s revelation that there were tapes of White House conversations.  At the end of that process, the result was inescapable, Nixon had to go.  But not this time.  The House has resisted allowing a vote on the commencement of an impeachment investigation, until yesterday’s phony vote to continue the Star Chamber inquisition.  Adam Schiff (for brains) is conducting his “impeachment inquiry” in a closed basement room in the Capitol.  Access to the room is strictly controlled by the Dems, it’s almost as though they’re hiding something.  They are.  They’re hiding the fact that they have no evidence that might compel Republican lawmakers, or the voting public, to the conclusion that there is good reason why this President should be removed.  The President has not been afforded the right to counsel, to see the testimony of witnesses, to call or question witnesses.  Republicans on the Committee can’t call witnesses either, and Republican Congressmen can’t even review transcripts of testimony unless they’re monitored by Democratic Committee staffers.  What are they afraid of?  They don’t want the truth to leak out.  If they had any real evidence of wrongdoing, it would be televised 24 hours a day.   Meanwhile, Democrats, on a daily basis, cherry-pick snippets of testimony that they consider harmful to the President.  Adam Schiff (for brains) has consistently lied to the public.  I don’t mean good old-fashioned Bill Clinton “spin.”  They’re just lying, and the lapdog media swears to their lies.  The popular consensus is that the House will eventually impeach Trump, no matter what.  Based on what evidence?  We don’t know.  Will Republican House members be permitted to see the so-called evidence?  We don’t know.  Will voters be able to evaluate what the House relies on to make up their own minds?  We don’t know that either.  Democracy dies in darkness?  You bet it does.  What’s going on is not a legitimate impeachment investigation, it’s double secret impeachment.  It’s impeachment by rumor, lie and artifice, and it’s dangerous.  This goes far beyond whether you like Donald Trump or you hate him.  This undermines our system of government, and trashes our Constitution.  It sends the message that your votes don’t count.  That is unacceptable.  Let the sun shine in and show us your cards.  You can’t bluff a President from office.

Recent events have brought to mind the term “Kangaroo Court.”  It’s a term we’ve all heard many times.  Kangaroo courts are sham legal proceedings which give the impression of a fair legal process, but in reality, don’t offer impartial justice, but always render verdicts that are decided in advance, and which invariably are against the accused.  No one really knows the origin of the term “kangaroo court.”  Kangaroos are native only to Australia, but there’s no evidence that the term comes from that continent.  Some resourceful souls have attributed “kangaroo court” to claim jumping  disputes during the California Gold Rush – hence the kangaroos.  That’s just a guess, but the jumping abilities of kangaroos was known in the USA by the early 1800s, so that could be right.  Indeed, the first known reference to a “kangaroo court” was in an American magazine in 1853, so the timing fits.  The kangaroo court comparison nowadays applies to the disgraceful performance of House Democrats in their so-called “impeachment inquiry.”  The Democrats have been trying to impeach President Trump ever since his election.  They really haven’t come up with a good reason, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for them, as they are sure he must be guilty of something.  The whole sad episode is eerily reminiscent  of Franz Kafka’s 1925 novel, The Trial.  The Trial is the story of one Josef K., who wakes up one morning to discover that he’s been arrested on unnamed charges.  They keep insisting that he’s guilty, but they won’t tell him of what.  Throughout the novel, Josef struggles futilely against a secretive and tyrannical court system.  In the end, he’s executed by a knife to the heart.  Neither Josef K., nor the reader ever learns what crime he committed.  Fast forward to the 2019 House of Representatives, in the hands of  the secretive and tyrannical Democrats.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi knows that pursuing impeachment is liable to create a backlash that will jeopardize her control of the House, which was the result of the elections of more than 30 allegedly moderate Democrats in districts won by President Trump in 2016.  Democrats gained control in a mid-term election.  The expected greater turnout of Trump voters in 2020 could erase those gains if the phony moderates are forced to take sides on impeachment.  That’s why Tricky Nancy won’t allow a House vote to authorize an impeachment investigation.  Instead, Pelosi announced a continued “impeachment inquiry,”in other words a continuation of the witch hunt, based upon no evidence, or unspecified evidence, designed to damage the President.  Meanwhile, Pelosi has put the “inquiry” in the hands of Adam Schiff (for brains) and his Intelligence Committee, which operates behind closed doors.  It hears from witnesses chosen by Democrats, and questioned by  Democrats in secret, then has Democrat members leak selective portions of the testimony that make Donald T. seem guilty.  Guilty of what, you ask?  They won’t say.  They won’t permit Donald T. the right to counsel during the “inquiry,” they won’t permit him to call or question witnesses, nor have they given Donald T. the privilege of knowing precisely what he is to defend against.  For a group so dedicated to lecturing us on the need to preserve “American values,” the Democrats have gone out of their way to deny to the President every right upon which America was founded.  Even the most loathsome criminal (and I know this because I’ve defended a few of them) is guaranteed the right to counsel, the right to confront the witnesses against him, the right to call witnesses in his own behalf and procedural due process, that is the right to know what you are accused of and against which you must defend.  We afford these protections to terrorists, and even to foreign combatants, but according to the Democrats, not to the duly elected President of the United States.  You see, they tell us, this is not a legal proceeding, it political, so those rights don’t apply.  Not really.  Impeachment comes from the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land.   And although it gives the House “the sole power of impeachment,” that doesn’t permit the House to impeach for no reason, or for any reason it may cook up.  A President may be impeached and removed from office only for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.  Although the popular notion is that whatever the House decides is impeachable will suffice, that’s not the case.  Under the statutory interpretation doctrine known as ejusdem generis, when specific crimes (treason and bribery) are followed by general violations of law (other high crimes), the general violations are restricted to those of the type specified.  That’s been our history.  Andrew Johnson was impeached for violating a specific act of Congress.  Nixon would have been impeached for obstruction of justice, a high crime.  Likewise Bill Clinton – perjury and obstruction of justice.  Those charges were brought only after public hearings, during which the President was accorded all the rights mentioned above.  The Chief Justice of the United States presides over trials of the President.  Not a legal process, huh?  No Chief Justice of the United States would or should preside over a proceeding derived from a mockery of justice.  The bottom line is that the Democrats have no candidate who can beat President Trump in next year’s election, so they have decided to permit the intelligence community to stage a coup, and seek to inflict as much damage on him as possible.  For people who continue to decry perceived “threats to our democracy,” it is the Democrats who have a knife poised at the heart of our republic.