This is even better Randy!
During Friday’s public hearings, Yovanovitvh told Stewart, a Utah Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, that she could supply the panel with no information regarding criminal activity or bribes that President Trump may have been involved with.
Removing a respected corruption fighting ambassador exposes what motivated Trump’s effort to support Ukraine’s corrupt prosecutor in his call with Zelensky.
As so often FOX news anchors see exactly what I see.
In 1809, Thomas Charlton wrote, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” Today, vigilant citizens are witnessing a recrudescence of these three dangerous ideologies, due to the increasingly secular Left’s unholy ideological trifecta: employing fascist tactics to impose socialism administered by an unelected, elitist bureaucracy that has already abused the police powers of the state to rig the 2016 presidential election (unsuccessfully, thank heavens). They mean to continue to act similarly by redistributing wealth to their dependencies and cement a 50-percent-plus-one electorate that would ensure the perpetual hegemony of the administrative state over the sovereign people. - McCotter
Well said but 2 questions, who is McCotter and what does recrudescence mean? Is recrudescence remixing oil?
Who he is: The Hon. Thaddeus McCotter is the former chairman of the Republican House Policy Committee, current itinerant guitarist, American Greatness contributor, and Monday co-host of the “John Batchelor Show.”
What it means: hahaha, that was a good one!
Universalist Eric Reitan posted this conjectural piece today:
Now, this is interesting - from the BBC news today. 
Let me quote from the Patheos’ Catholic article today:
The Avengers: “Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.” Or my favorite REM song: ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know it (and I Feel Fine)’.
According to Rasmussan Trump’s approval is up 4% since impeachment hearings
You get it! The writer argues the whole point of looking next generation is that impeachment can help Trump right now, just as when the GOP impeached Clinton, and his approval sky rocketed (though it doesn’t necessarily make Clinton or Democrats a treasured asset during this present generation).
This great reflection, came from today’s CAC newsletter.
Politics: Old and New
Affirm or Critique
Sunday, November 17, 2019Politics is one of the most difficult and complex issues on which to engage in polite conversation. For many people, politics and religion are so personal that neither topic is deemed appropriate to discuss publicly. While separation of church and state is an important protection for all religions, it doesn’t mean we as people of faith shouldn’t engage in our civic duties and the political process. The idea of “staying out of politics” doesn’t come from God. My sense is that it arises from our egoic, dualistic thinking that has a hard time hearing a different perspective or learning something new. Well, this week’s meditations will invite us to ponder the forbidden together. (If you’re active on social media, we invite you to share your thoughts on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.)
In its first two thousand years, Christianity has kept its morality mostly private, personal, interior, fervent, and heaven-bound, with very few direct implications for our collective economic, social, and political life. For most Christians, politics and religion remained in two separate realms, unless religion was uniting with empires. Yes, church leaders looked to Rome and Constantinople for imperial protection, but little did they realize the price we Christians would eventually pay for such a compromise of foundational Gospel values.
This convenient split took the form of either the inner or the outer world. We religious folks were supposed to be the inner people; while the outer world was left to politicians, scientists, and workers. Now this is all catching up with us, as even the inner world has largely been overtaken by psychology, art, literature, and self-help. Fewer and fewer people now expect religion to have anything to say about either the inner or outer worlds!
If we do not go deep and in, we cannot go far and wide. In my opinion, the reason Christianity lost its authority is because we did not talk about the inner world very well. Believing doctrines, practicing rituals, and following requirements are not, in and of themselves, inner or deep. Frankly, Buddhism encouraged the inner life far better than the three monotheistic religions. We Christians did not connect the inner with the outer—which is a consequence of not going in deeply enough. We now have become increasingly irrelevant, often to the very people who want to go both deep and far. We so disconnected from the authentically political—God’s aggregated people, the public forum—that soon we had nothing much to say, except for one or two issues (abortion, homosexuality) where we presumed we had perfect certitude, although Jesus never talked about them.
But you know what? There is no such thing as being non-political. Everything we say or do either affirms or critiques the status quo. To say nothing is to say something : The status quo—even if it is massively unjust and deceitful—is apparently okay. From a contemplative stance we will know what action is ours to do, which words we are called to say, and how our spirituality must be fully embodied in our political choices.
Gateway to Presence:
If you want to go deeper with today’s meditation, take note of what word or phrase stands out to you. Come back to that word or phrase throughout the day, being present to its impact and invitation.Adapted from Richard Rohr, “Introduction,” “Politics and Religion,” Oneing , vol. 5, no. 2 (Center for Action and Contemplation: 2017), 11-12.
Image credit: The Good Samaritan (detail), Théodule-Augustin Ribot, before 1870, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau, France.
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Trump threatens now to testify against his impeachment.
We’ll see, but I’d guess this is the one thing his staff would risk challenging him on and try to prevent, just as they’ve done their best to keep anyone with first hand knowledge from presenting any testimony.
What’s new today from the BBC?
This is interesting
BLUISH TUCSON REJECTS ‘SANCTUARY’ STATUS
What happened is that Tucson, with a population 47.2 percent non-Hispanic white and 41.6 percent Hispanic, defeated a proposition to become a ‘sanctuary city’ for illegal immigrants with a landslide 71 percent of the vote. The Democrats’ key message — Trump put our immigrant ‘kids in cages’ — failed to resonate in a city with almost as many Hispanics as whites. (Those figures are from the 2010 census, and the city has probably become more Hispanic since then.) Tolerating illegal immigration might not be the winning issue Democrats have long assumed it to be.<<
California’s diversity is often a harbinger of the future, including ethnically and politically. Now its’ Republicans are mostly older whites, a shrinking base that can’t elect any state wide officials. Since the 90’s, GOP voters shrank from 39% to 23%, and white residents from 57% to 38% (in my L.A. county 26% are white, but Hispanics near twice that)!
In many minorities minds, the off-putting GOP sales pitch begins, We want to throw your hard working parents or grandparents in jail. Understandably, conservatives are now focused on how the base can keep Trump in power. But I sense a need to look at how the GOP can survive long term if we are to retain a vital competitive political arena.
Some minorities tend to sympathize with an offensive meme like this:
Hispanics are not monolithic and some certainly oppose the idea of a sanctuary city (as do many white Democrats). But where whites outnumber others this way and Hispanics are far less represented at the polls, the percentage of whites actually voting here would typically be about 71%, and even Hispanics voting with them to oppose an extreme proposition like sanctuary cities would not necessarily be in support of Trump, or his rhetoric and actions.
Devin Nunes took apart the entire impeachment fiasco in a reasoned and responsible way. It’s a shame that Democrats won’t respond to the questions that he raises>
My own impression in watching the hearings is that Devin Nunes has no idea how to deal with the witnesses and evidence being presented. Thus I think he was wise to delegate his opportunity to examine the witnesses to a lawyer who has done a gracious and fine job, but has been unable to shake any witnesses testimony or credibility.
My impression is that this is not his fault because (as I’ve repeatedly contended here) the basic evidence and facts are so clear and widely substantiated that tangential attacks on other personalities and their ‘sinister’ motives that Nunes often presents is the only thing the GOP can do.
Nunes was devastating, and shines light in a very dark place. People should read it and ask themselves: Why AREN’T the Democrat leadership answering these questions, and hiding the false whistleblower?
Joseph Klein does a good job also.
“The Democrats are trying to establish what some of their more outspoken members have charged variously as President Trump’s “abuse of power,” “extortion,” “bribery” and a “shakedown.” They base their accusations of presidential “crimes” on the shaky allegation that President Trump used the leverage of withheld security assistance and the dangling of a White House meeting to improperly advance the president’s personal political interests over the national security interests of the United States. What has emerged so far, and will likely continue, is a desperate attempt by the Democrats and their friends in the mainstream media to make a mountain out of a molehill, using mainly hearsay and circumstantial evidence from witnesses in the foreign policy and national security establishment who don’t like the direction of President Trump’s policy towards Ukraine.”
And Lloyd Billingsley came off the bench to hit a home-run
As I said, nothing Nunes presents changes the evidence presented at all. I actually think the GOP wisely compensated for Nunes inability to impress even the base by moving Jim Jordan in to lead the charge. I believe he is far more effective at rallying defenders of the president than is Nunes.
Of course the catch is that Jordan is typically reduced to ignoring the witnesses and yelling his accusations in a histrionic voice, while the other examiners and witnesses are calmly presenting what they know and engaging the substance.
(P.S. for heaven sakes, I repeatedly answered your constant refrain that the whistle blower is key to proving what Trump actually did. The whistle blower can’t confirm anything about what did or didn’t happen. He didn’t witness anything crucial. All of his reportage was second hand based on what the people in the hearing told him. If the facts are disputed, people like Nunes and Jordan need to challenges these persons who are the sources under oath of the charges.)