Democrat House manager Adam Schiff wrapped up the House's case on Day 4 of the Senate impeachment trial.

Schiff told the Senators, "CBS News reported last night that a Trump confidant said that key senators were warned, ‘Vote against the president and your head will be on a pike. I don’t know if that’s true."

It wasn't.

Beginning and ending with lies

It is fitting for Schiff to conclude his arguments for the impeachment and removal of the president of the United States with an untrue statement. He opened the Intelligence Committee impeachment inquiry hearing with a statement that was also not true.

Schiff infamously interpreted with a mobster persona, reminiscent of The Godfather, the transcript of President Trump's call to Ukraine's President Zelenskiy, on national television, and left it like that in the congressional record, without reading the actual transcript into the record.

It reads like a classic organized crime shakedown. Shorn of its rambling character and in not so many words, this is the essence of what the president communicates. We’ve been very good to your country, very good. No other country has done as much as we have. But you know what? I don’t see much reciprocity here. I hear what you want. I have a favor I want from you though. And I’m going to say this only seven times so you better listen good. I want you to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand. Lots of it. On this and on that. I’m going to put you in touch with people, not just any people, I am going to put you in touch with the attorney general of the United States, my Attorney General Bill Barr. He’s got the whole weight of the American law enforcement behind him. And I’m going to put you in touch with Rudy. You’re going to love him. Trust me. You know what I’m asking. And so I’m only going to say this a few more times. In a few more ways. And by the way, don’t call me again. I’ll call you when you’ve done what I asked.

This is in sum and character what the president was trying to communicate with the president of Ukraine. It would be funny if it wasn’t such a graphic betrayal of the president’s oath of office. But as it does represent a real betrayal, there’s nothing the president says here that is in America’s interest after all.

Schiff put words in President Trump's mouth, words, that if true, would get him in a lot of trouble. That was the intent. But President Trump did not say those words, and Adam Schiff is a liar.

Washington Post lie tracker

The Washington Post keeps track of Trump's exaggerations and calls them lies. Things like, "My tax cut is the biggest tax cut ever," which they have tracked 181 times. They claim he has lied thousands of times because they track the same exaggeration every time he utters it, and he does repeat himself. Here's another "lie" the president told.

"Eighty times, Trump has claimed his phone call with the Ukrainian president was “perfect." Another "lie" the president told 242 times — "is that the U.S. economy today is the best in history." These rhetorical exaggerations are what the Washington Post tracks and calls "lies." Who is really lying?

Schiff's lies vs. Trump's exaggerations

Now, exaggeration about how good the economy is or how big the tax cut is has its problems, but it doesn't really hurt anyone. Lying about what was said to another head of state in a telephone call has far greater consequences, such as the divisive effort to remove a president from office and the disturbance of the peace of the country that has brought.

Where is the WaPo lie tally for Schiff? I would argue that in comparison, Schiff's lies are more of an existential threat than Trump's exaggerations.

Senator Marshal Blackburn on Schiff and the Democrats

Sen. Marsha Blackburn commented on Schiff's words in his closing statement and said that he should have retracted the statement as it was not true. She also pointed out the other insulting things the House managers said during their opening arguments. The Democrats have called the senators liars, accused them of participating in a cover-up, and called the president a dictator and a monarch.

It seems that Senator Blackburn has seen through Schiff's lies; let's hope all the senators have.

Watch:

On Day 3 of the Senate trial of President Trump, Sylvia Garcia, a Democrat House manager, presented arguments designed to debunk the idea that Joe and Hunter Biden were involved in corruption in Ukraine. It was surprising to hear so much about the Bidens and Ukraine during the impeachment trial.

In fact, it is puzzling that Russia and Ukraine have loomed so large over Trump's time in office. The career bureaucrats, the Biden's, and career congressmen and women seem to know so much of what is going on in Ukraine, but President Trump and the American people are just finding out now.

It is getting to the point that when folks hear the names Russia or Ukraine, they get a bad taste in their mouths since these two countries have been coupled with all the divisiveness, acrimony, and antagonism directed toward President Trump and anyone that supports him.

A tale of two Ukraines

Even the most unpolitical American must be wondering what is going on over there in Ukraine. President Trump surely stirred up a hornet's nest. Most Americans are probably in shock over the role Ukraine is playing in our lives, now.

Perhaps this is really a tale of two Ukraines, the permanent progressive international political class's Ukraine that works like an ATM, US aid in and then right back out into the pockets of the politically connected, and President Zelenskiy's Ukraine that is tired of being the playground of corrupt international progressives (Soros) and oligarchs, that wants to function like a real democratic republic.

Why are the Democrats willing to tear apart the US over Ukraine?

One has to wonder why the House Democrats and others are so furiously worked up about President Trump's request to Ukraine President Zelensky for help investigating what went on in Ukraine during the 2016 election? Why the relentless bombardment? Morning, afternoon, evening, in the House, on cable news, on the campaign trail.

Why are they so furiously denying Joe Biden's role in firing the Ukraine prosecutor that was investigating the company, Burisma, on which's board, Hunter Biden sat? What are they hiding?

If, as Biden says, there was no corruption, how would an investigation hurt him? Wouldn't a thorough investigation exonerate him? 

Corrupt anti-corruption activities

If Biden and our embassy were involved in corruption in Ukraine, what better way to deflect attention than touting your "anti-corruption" activities?

The president's personal lawyer, Rudy Guliani, has an explanation. He asserts that the Democrats are fomenting this impeachment so vociferously to cover up their own corrupt dealings in Ukraine. There is evidence that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US election, and there is evidence that our US ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, was meddling in Ukraine affairs issuing "Do Not Prosecute" lists to Ukrainian prosecutors, among other things.

John Solomon

Guliani is not the first to uncover the shady dealings of Obama administration officials. Investigative reporter John Solomon has been writing about Ukraine, Burisma, and the Bidens for several years. He's written for Politico and The Hill (which describes him as a former employee) and posts on his own website.

On the Burisma investigation, Solomon wrote:

This may be the single biggest under-reported fact in the impeachment scandal: four months before Trump and Zelensky had their infamous phone call, Ukraine law enforcement officials officially reopened their investigation into Burisma and its founder.

The Democrats "spike" Rudy Guliani's arguments in a two-pronged attack

The House Democrats and the Biden campaign conducted a two-pronged pre-emptive attack. House manager Garcia ran interference in the Senate impeachment trial and the Biden campaign took on the press.

House manager Sylvia Garcia made an impressive presentation intended to prove that Biden was just helping to rid Ukraine of a corrupt prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, a man that all of Europe considered corrupt. Why were the Democrats risking bringing up the topic of Biden when they don't want him as a witness in the impeachment trial?

Guliani has been pretty vocal about what he has been uncovering in Ukraine, so it stands to reason, if he has damning evidence of Biden corruption, that the Democrats would like to take out the argument before it is made.

But Guliani is ready to spill the beans, and Biden's campaign is also preemptively striking by issuing a memo to news agencies, warning them not to push a "debunked" theory about him in Ukraine.

Biden Memo orders media to stop spreading "misinformation"

Biden, who has told the media more than once what they can say about him, issued a memo recently, to inform the media what they should be saying about him, Hunter, and Ukraine.

According to Politico, "The memo, released a day before the start of Trump’s Senate impeachment trial, says there is “no evidence” for disproven claims pushed by the president that Biden sidelined a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating an energy company that his son, Hunter, held a high-paid position with."

The memo goes on,

“To fail to make clear that the conspiracy theory and false accusations about Joe Biden have been comprehensively disproven, to artificially prop-up these egregious lies based on the 'principle' that if partisans make accusations, they have to be treated as legitimate regardless of the facts, is to make you an enabler of misinformation,” the memo warned reporters and media outlets.

John Solomon has responded with an article of facts that Biden and his campaign must have forgotten when they wrote the memo.

Watch:

The House Democrats are only on day 2 of presenting their case to the Senate, so we haven't seen much of the president's dream team in action, yet.  They will start presenting their defence of the President on Saturday, and we already have some ideas of the strategy they will be pursuing in bringing the impeachment trial to an acquittal.

Yesterday, in Part 1, we covered the first half of President Trump's legal defense team. Now, for Part II.

Alan Dershowitz Constitutional Law expert and Harvard professor

Alan Dershowitz is not a conservative. He voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and in the summer of 2019 he was ready to "enthusiastically" support Joe Biden. During an interview on "The Dan Abrams Show," Dershowitz said, "I’m a strong supporter of Joe Biden. I like Joe Biden. I’ve liked him for a long time and I could enthusiastically support Joe Biden.”

Dershowitz has been a vocal voice defending the president since the Mueller investigation, even publishing a book in 2018 titled, "The Case Against Impeaching Trump." He is often seen on Fox News shows defending the president from his Democrat accusers. He has plenty of TV experience which is important in what is definitely a TV event.

Dershowitz is a controversial choice for the Dream Team because of his past clients and his own legal troubles. He has defended men like OJ Simpson,  Jeffrey Epstein, and Harvey Weinstein.  He is currently defending himself against accusations of sexual assault by a Jeffrey Epstein victim.

Robert Ray, Former Independent Counsel

Robert Ray succeeded Kenneth Starr on the Clinton investigation in the special counsel's office and issued the final reports at the end of the investigation. He is a frequent contributor on Fox News, maintaining that the impeachment is unconstitutional.

Pam Bondi

Pam Bondi served as Florida's Attorney General for eight years. She supported the president's 2016 campaign and now works for the White House.

Jane Raskin

Jane Raskin, of Raskin and Raskin, joined President Trump's legal team in 2018. She is known as a tough litigator.

Mike Purpura

Mike Purpura joined the White House legal staff in 2019. He also worked in George W. Bush's administration. According to Politico, "As associate counsel in the Bush White House, he worked on the administration’s response to congressional investigations."

He argues strongly for executive privilege. "Executive privilege is not a partisan issue. It’s important to protect the principle of allowing the president to receive candid, full, frank advice from his top advisers without fear that those deliberations and communications will become public.”

President Trump's legal team jumped into the fray in the Senate on Tuesday, and their strategy to defend the president is taking shape on national television for all to see. Most obviously, they are not allowing the House Managers to get away with calling the president or them liars.

Who are the members of the team?

White House Counsel Pat Cipollone

White House Counsel Pat Cipollone graduated from the University of Chicago Law School. Cipollone worked for then-Attorney General Barr in 1992-93. He replaced Don McGahn in the Trump administration in 2018.

He is considered the chief strategist in handling the July 25th, 2019 call to Ukraine's President Zelenskiy, suggesting that the president release the transcript of the call. He wrote a combative letter to the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee Jerrold Nadler about the president's participation in a hearing on December 4th, 2019:

Your letter asked that the President notify the House Committee on the Judiciary ("Judiciary Committee" or
"Committee") by December 1, 2019, whether the Administration intends to participate in a hearing scheduled for December 4, 2019. You scheduled this initial hearing-no doubt purposely-during the time that you know the President will be out of the country attending the NATO Leaders Meeting in London. 

Cipollone displayed the same combativeness in the Senate when responding to Adam Schiff, Jerrold Nadler, and other Democrat House Managers during the debate to establish the rules that will govern the impeachment trial.

Cipollone's combativeness should be an asset in this impeachment battle as the Democrats like Schiff, Nadler, and Senator Chuck Schumer are relentless in their attacks against the president, the Senate, and the Constitution.

Nadler accused Cipollone of lying, Cipollone responds and then Chief Justice Roberts admonished them.

Deputy Counsel to the president, Patrick Philbin

Patrick Philbin joined the Trump administration in 2019 and assists Cipollone in the legal office of the White House. He also served in the Bush II administration. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Philbin attended Yale and earned his law degree at Harvard.

He spoke during the rulemaking debates, and excoriated the House Democrats for not allowing the president to have lawyers present during the impeachment inquiry in the House. He explains why the case should be rejected just because of that.

Watch:

Jay Sekulow, President Trump's personal lawyer

Sekulow has been assisting President Trump since the Mueller investigation. He has also been assisting the president in the matter of his financial records, a case that will go to the Supreme court in March.

Sekulow has extensive experience arguing before the Supreme Court, but his primary expertise has been in the area of religious liberty and the first amendment.

Sekulow addresses the issue of the withholding of aid to Ukraine. He pointed out that President Obama had done something similar regarding aid to Egypt.

Watch:

Former Independent Counsel, Kenneth Starr

Starr has the most experience with impeachment as his investigation and subsequent report of Bill Clinton's scandals e.g. Whitewater, perjury, and Vince Foster's suicide led to the impeachment of Clinton in 1998.

On Martin Luther King day, 2nd amendment defenders, many of them armed, marched on the Capitol in Richmond, Virginia. They wanted to let Governor Ralph Northam and the Democrat majority legislature know that they would not comply with the gun-control laws they consider unconstitutional.

Democrats cause the problem

After the Democrat election victories in November in Virginia, one draconian bill, SB16, was introduced which will designate shotguns that hold more than seven shells and other long guns with certain features as assault weapons.

Handguns that meet certain criteria would be considered assault weapons, too. If the bill becomes law, it will be illegal to own or possess these weapons. Many Virginians will become criminals when and if this bill passes.

In response, the majority of Virginia's counties have become 2nd Amendment sanctuaries where the sheriff's say they won't enforce unconstitutional gun laws.

Senate Bill 16 was struck from consideration and "died" in committee last week, but three more gun-control laws just passed the Virginia Senate last Thursday.

Governor declares a state of emergency

Governor Northam, in anticipation of violence at the rally, declared a state of emergency and banned guns around the Capitol. Thousands of armed citizens remained outside the cordons.

Fearmongering MSNBC and CNN

The mainstream media spent a lot of on-air time trying to portray the rally as a racist event. They all but told their viewers that the rally would turn into another "Charlottesville," with armed violence.

 MSNBC and CNN ran many stories asserting that there were thousands of white nationalists, militias, extremists, far-right extremists and white supremacists "swarming"  the state capitol.

But at the end of the day, their fearmongering fell flat as the armed protestors were not violent. In fact, the whole rally was law-abiding and peaceful. Was the media really worried or were they hoping for violence?

Watch the montage below:

No violence at the rally, Democrats disappointed

The Associated Press reported: "that the rally concluded uneventfully and the mood was largely festive. An estimated 22,000 people attended, authorities told AP, and one woman was arrested on a felony charge of wearing a mask in public."

According to the Washington Post, there was almost no sign of counter-protests, and no appearance of Antifa was reported.

Blaze TV was on the ground to capture what the rally was really about.

The Babylon Bee offers its take on the msm and the Virginia gun rally.

In all of the noise surrounding impeachment, it is easy to lose sight of the facts. Here are some important ones to keep at the forefront of your mind as we move into week one of the Senate impeachment trial.

No crimes in the articles of impeachment

The House Democrats did not charge President Trump with a crime in either of their two articles of impeachment. A constitutional impeachment would be based on at least one high crime, bribery or misdemeanors. There are none. That makes the impeachment unconstitutional. If the Senate treats this impeachment as legitimate they will be setting precedents that the Democrats can use again and again against Republican presidents.

A Democrat Impeachment

This impeachment is a Democrat impeachment. No Republicans voted to adopt the articles.

Impeachment was always the Democrat plan

Many of the Democrats in the House, the media, and the DOJ have been trying to impeach the president long before President Trump ever made the July 25 call to Ukraine President Zelenskiy. In fact, Nancy Pelosi admitted that the Democrats have been working on impeachment more than 2 1/2 years. The call to Zelenskiy just gave them a new opportunity after the Mueller investigation failed to produce any impeachable crimes.

So-called "evidence" is no evidence

All of the "evidence" that the House Democrats have is either hearsay, or "expert" opinions, or opinions of career government bureaucrats, e.g. Marie Yovanovitch, Bill Taylor, Gordon Sondland, Noah Feldman, Alexander Vindman, et al.

They have the whistleblower letter which is full of second-hand information, as the whistleblower was not a witness to the call. The only real evidence is the transcript of that July 25th call to the Ukraine president that Trump released himself. None of this so-called "evidence" would be sufficient to convict anyone in a court of law.

Kellyanne Conway points out in the video below that the House inquiry was not like a trial at all, with Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, the "judges," verbally abusing the president from the "bench." They were not impartial, and that was obvious to anyone who watched.

The House Republicans on the Intelligence and Judiciary committees did a great job defending the president during the House inquiries, but does anyone need reminding that the president did not receive due process in the House? President Trump will finally get his turn in the trial in the senate and the whole world will hear from the president's lawyers.

President Trump has assembled a team of high-powered lawyers: Jay Sekulow, Ken Starr, Alan Dershowitz, Pat Cipollone, Robert Ray, Pam Bondi, and Jane Raskin. They have already urged the Senate to reject the charges, writing,

The articles of impeachment submitted by House Democrats are a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president. This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election — now just months away.

Watch:

If you are not a Democrat in charge of California, you might have noticed the sad decline of the once-great state. Most of the decline can be tied to Democrat policies. If you don't want your state to look like California, don't vote Democrats into office.

That's right. The state of Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein and Maxine Waters is an unmitigated disaster.

Newsom, Brown and the Democrats

If you listen to Governor Gavin Newsom or former Governor Jerry Brown, you might think that California is the best state in the country.

Brown and Newsom and many Democrats like to crow about all that California is doing to stop climate change. They have taxed gasoline more, established cap and trade, and set goals to make California "carbon-neutral" by 2040. They have pushed for electric cars, wanting 5 million of them on the road by 2030.

But here's a dirty little secret. The electricity used to charge the cars is still being largely produced using fossil fuels. In 2018, Governor Brown signed a bill mandating that 100% of California's electricity grid would be powered by "green"  sources by 2045. And of course, while the state is transitioning to greener sources of energy, the cost of electricity is much higher in most of California than in other states.

High energy costs

Meanwhile, the people in California are bearing the brunt of the pet policies of the Democrat leadership. The governor is a Democrat, and both the Assembly and the Senate are majority Democrat, so these policies are passed even though they hurt the state's economy.

If you don't qualify for home energy subsidies, you are spending a lot of money on electricity. Californians that rely on PGE for their power can spend $400-$500 a month if they are heating or cooling their homes. Price per kWh can be almost $0.40. Gas prices range from $3-$4 throughout the year.

Devastating wildfires and climate change

For all the talk about the dangers of climate change, Gov. Brown and Gov. Schwarzenegger (a Republican and an environmentalist) before him really didn't prepare California for the devastating wildfires that have burned throughout the state the last five years. and it's not like they hadn't been warned.

In 2006, the Western Governors Association proposed that the overgrowth in western forests could be used to produce electricity cheaply at about 8 cents per KWH, and reduce not only carbon emissions but also the undergrowth that could fuel devastating wildfires.

As the vast forests of the Western United States have become overgrown over the past century, dramatic wildfires have become more common, putting vital habitats, watersheds, and communities at risk. The biomass energy industry offers a low environmental impact, productive use for dead wood that would otherwise require open burning or – more likely – serve as fuel for a future wildfire. Use of woody biomass for energy production provides an important economic incentive for fuel treatment.

If only Schwarzenegger and Brown had acted back then.

But, instead of cleaning up the forests, both state and federal, they spent a lot of time getting legislation into place to change our energy production grid. (After the devastating Camp Fire in 2018, Brown, just before leaving office, did sign two bills that address forest management.) The fires have cost hundreds of billions of dollars. It makes one wonder if the Democrats really believed what they were saying about the urgency of climate change.

These recent wildfires have hurt people in the rural areas of California as insurance companies refuse to renew policies and people have to pay thousands more for the California Fair plan to insure their homes. Home values are starting to decline, too, which, for most folks, is their biggest asset.

Power outages

PGE, the state-sponsored utility monopoly,  has been responsible for starting many of the recent wildfires. They have chosen to try to avoid sparking more fires by improving their infrastructure, but while they are doing that, they are also shutting off the power if there is an impending wind event in an area.

This policy has led to many rolling blackouts in the fall of 2019, which has led to many businesses, schools, and households to go without the electricity needed to run pretty much everything. PGE plans on using this policy for several more years.

A laundry list of problems making the state less livable

Many Californians moved into the rural/wildland interface to escape the urban areas of the state which have become intolerably crowded, and more lately, crime-ridden, dirty, dangerous and depressing. The state population continues to grow, but water storage, and housing remain inadequate for the new residents.

California's sanctuary state law SB54, income taxes (top at 13%), energy taxes, gas taxes (47.3 cents/gallon), building restrictions (low growth, no growth policies), criminal justice reform laws, and the homelessness epidemic have combined to make living in the state intolerable for many now.

Small businesses and farms struggling

Small businesses struggle to remain open as new minimum wage laws make labor too expensive. Income taxes take a large chunk of everyone's earnings. Healthcare costs are high.

Farmers in the big valley, the country's most productive farmland, have been struggling over water rights for years, now, as it seems our leaders value wild and free rivers and fish over our agricultural economic engine and the families that farm.

Many farmers have sold their farms and moved to other states or quit farming altogether. A decline in California's agricultural output will affect the whole country as a large majority of the nation's fruit and vegetables are grown there.

Dirty cities

Visiting our once beautiful and desirable cities has become a health hazard as the streets in San Francisco and Los Angeles are littered with human excrement, drug paraphernalia, and mentally unstable and often drunk or high homeless people. Many other cities in the state have the same problems, as California has the highest homeless population in the country.

Big budget small results

California has a huge state budget, nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars, but our infrastructure continues to crumble, and the state agencies seem powerless and moneyless to fix anything. Californians drive on roads that are so bad that their cars fall apart faster.

California spends hundreds of millions of dollars on the homeless problem, but it continues to grow worse. The press will only run stories lauding the homeless, but first-hand accounts from first responders tell a different story.

Hospitals and first responders are spending a lot of time and resources on the homeless, and they are even putting their lives in danger to aid the homeless, frequently being attacked as they render services.

Don't let your state look like California

Though some people, like Democrat candidate Michael Bloomberg, want the rest of the country to look like California, many Californians have read the writing on the wall, so to speak, and are voting with their feet to find states that don't.

WATCH:

Lev Parnas, associate of Rudy Guliani, is the latest Democrat darling on whom the impeachment crowd are pinning their hopes to remove President Trump. The House Democrats want the Senate to allow witnesses in the impeachment trial of President Trump and Parnas is on the list.

Who is Lev Parnas?

Lev Parnas was born in Odessa, Ukraine in 1972 when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union. He didn't live there long as his parents brought him to the United States in 1975.  They lived in Detroit and then in New York.

He founded a company called Global Energy Producers, and then in 2013 a company named Fraud Guarantee. The Wall Street Journal reported that the name Fraud Guarantee was chosen to put help Parnas with Google searches.

Apparently, his name was already associated with fraud in a negative way, so he "fixed" that with a company that supposedly helped people who had been defrauded.

Parnas and Igor Fruman were arrested at Dulles Airport back in October 2019 for election finance violations, conspiracy, making false statements and falsifying records.

So it's a legitimate question: is Lev Parnas a credible witness?

Pelosi on Parnas

At the end of her press conference recently, Nancy Pelosi was asked if Lev Parnas would be a credible witness. She quickly brought up the documents that were released and said it seemed that the documents would support what Parnas has been saying about working for the president.

The reporter pressed and asked if Parnas could be credible since he was under a federal indictment? Pelosi said he could be in relation to the impeachment. In other words, she did not say that Parnas was credible.

Watch Pelosi respond to questions about Parnas.

Adam Schiff on Parnas

Foreign Minister of Ukraine Vadym Prystaiko on Parnas

Foreign Minister of Ukraine Vadym Prystaiko, familiar with US aid to Ukraine, said that he doesn't trust a word that Parnas is saying. (He also said the withholding of US aid was not unusual.)

Jake Tapper on Parnas

CNN's Jake Tapper had this to say,

We can’t ignore Parnas has a serious credibility problem. He’s under indictment for campaign finance charges. The foreign minister of Ukraine told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that he doesn’t trust a word Parnas is saying. And yet I see people out there on social media — Democrats — acting as if this guy is the second coming of Theodore Roosevelt or something.”

Parnas on Parnas

Last November, Parnas said he spoke with the president in a private meeting about Ukraine. Now, Parnas has said he never spoke privately to President Trump about Ukraine.

"In the interview with The Times, Mr. Parnas said that although he did not speak with Mr. Trump directly about the efforts, he met with the president on several occasions and was told by Mr. Giuliani that Mr. Trump was kept in the loop."

The rest of the usual suspects, Rachel Maddow, Anderson Cooper, Joe Scarborough, etc. are absolutely certain that Parnas is credible and that his interviews on their shows have been absolute bombshells, even though Parnas, like all the other Democrat witnesses, has no first-hand knowledge of what the president said about Ukraine.  No surprise there.

But one has to wonder why Pelosi and Schiff want Parnas to testify?

The impeachment of President Donald Trump officially moved to the United States Senate, today. It is reasonable to expect that the antics of the House will be very much present as the lead House manager is Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

The Democrats continue, with one voice, to verbally bully the president and the Senate and pre-emptively accuse them of a cover-up if the House managers don't get their way. 

Pelosi and Schiff weave a tangled web to deceive

In a stunningly hypocritical moment, Pelosi quoted the familiar "What a tangled web we weave when we first practice to deceive" and applied it to President Trump.

An "infallible, undeniable" case

Pelosi said the House Democrats saw a strong case for impeachment, an "infallible undeniable case." But the House and Senate Republicans have been poking a lot of holes in the "infallible" case even as it was presented on national television. The case that has been sent to the Senate was definitely weak and fallible. That is why Pelosi and her "henchmen and women" want more witnesses and evidence admitted to the Senate trial.

Nancy Pelosi called Senate leader Mitch McConnell the grim reaper. She called AG William Barr "the rogue Attorney General"  who should but wouldn't appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the claims made by Lev Parnas. because he, Barr, is implicated in "all of this." She then said he was an example of all the president's "henchmen," and hoped that senators would not become his "henchmen." She then called Barr a puppet!

When asked if Lev Parnas, under federal indictment for campaign finance violations, would be a credible witness, Pelosi wasn't as confident and clear. She did seem to want to believe Parnas as she said that Barr was implicated in Parnas's testimony.

Watch Lindsey Graham respond to Lev Parnas and "new" evidence:

Pelosi accused President Trump of violating the Impowerment [sic]Control Act during her weekly press conference, which makes it seem as if this might be the first time she ever heard of the ICA. But the "I" in ICA stands for Impoundment, not "Impowerment" which is not actually a word.

Did President Trump violate the Impoundment Control Act?

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) said that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) violated the law,

"Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law.[The Office of Management and Budget] OMB withheld funds for a policy reason ... not a programmatic delay. Therefore, we conclude that the OMB violated the ICA [Impoundment Control Act]."

The non-partisan GAO issued an opinion about the deferring of funds for Ukraine, which seems to help the House Democrats at this point.

Did the president violate the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), an act passed by Congress in 1974 during Richard Nixon's administration? One wonders why a president wouldn't veto an act that effectively ties his hands when it comes to funds and foreign policy?

According to the ICA, Congress can appropriate funds and mandate that they be spent in a foreign country and the president has to comply, even if it conflicts with his own foreign policy agenda as in the case of aid to Ukraine. This is obviously a problem for the president now and going forward.

For a full analysis of the Impoundment Control Act, go here. 

How important is the GAO opinion that Trump broke the law?

At first, the GAO opinion seems like the absolute end of Trump, but let's get a little perspective. The GAO issued letters of at least seven violations during President Obama's administration, including one for the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner exchange. Here's what the Washington Post had to say about that back in August, 2014.

The Government Accountability Office released a review Thursday stating that the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap broke a law mandating that Congress be informed of prisoner transfers from Guantanamo. The review handed opponents of President Obama powerful reinforcement of two of their key critiques: that Obama routinely oversteps his executive authority, and that his maneuvers on foreign policy make the country less safe. But the actual effect of the letter from the nonpartisan agency may be only that —  that it becomes a political talking point.

Now, the Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap was far more serious in nature as the Taliban 5 (all five had ties to Al Qaeda) that were released are now negotiating the US exit from Afghanistan. But, the press gave President Obama a pass and he was not impeached for not informing Congress that the prisoners from Guantanamo were being released.

Watch Pelosi's press conference:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi named her seven impeachment house managers on Wednesday, January 15 in a signing ceremony. She also handed out special "impeachment" pens to commemorate the occasion.

The White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham tweeted,“Nancy Pelosi’s souvenir pens served up on silver platters to sign the sham articles of impeachment... She was so somber as she gave them away to people like prizes.”

Stateswoman Pelosi

In a sad attempt at statesmanship, Pelosi tried to wax poetic about how the times have charged the House Democrats with the duty of impeaching the President of the United States. I am afraid that history will not find her very statesmanlike.

Talking about time, one cannot help but think about how unimportant time has been the last few weeks as she held the articles of impeachment. Pelosi and the House Democrats seem to be satisfied that President Trump will be "impeached forever."

Pelosi did try to justify the delay by blaming the Senate for not letting her know how the trial would be conducted, although  Senate Leader Mitch McConnell let the world know that the trial would follow the precedent of the Clinton impeachment trial. She also said that"Time has been our friend" as she brought up more things she would like the Senate to incorporate into the trial.

Pelosi still insists that the hold on aid to Ukraine was illegal and wants new evidence admitted to substantiate that. She also wants to bring in new information from John Bolton.

Voters Not Vadimir Plootin

In one particularly cringey moment, Pelosi said that "Voters should decide who the president is, not Vadimir Plootin." She seemed to have trouble enunciating during the announcement.

As far as letting Putin choose our president, apparently, the 63 million people that voted for President Trump the first time had nothing to do with putting Donald Trump in the White House, it was all Putin! Such is the alternate universe Pelosi lives in.

The House Managers

The House managers are all litigators: Adam Schiff (CA), Jerry Nadler (NY), Zoe Lofgren (CA), Jakeem Jeffries (NY), Val Demings (FL), Jason Crow (CO), Silvia Garcia (TX). Pelosi said they were chosen for their courtroom experience and "The emphasis is on comfort in the courtroom."

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