Verbal Brawling, Part II

It was a long and messy debate Tuesday night. It has taken two rather long posts for me to debrief. Here is Part I. It covered attacks and lies. Today we’re covering a couple more lies, and then some of the better responses.

I’m hoping there are things we can learn from looking at the words that were said, apart from the emotions of the event.

 

A Couple More of the Lies

Biden Family Corruption

Hunter Biden travels with VP Joe Biden
image found here

One of the most contentious parts of the evening was related to President Trump’s disclosures about Biden family corruption.

DONALD TRUMP: China ate your lunch, Joe. And no wonder. Your son goes in and he takes out billions of dollars. He takes out billions of dollars to manage. He makes millions of dollars. And also, while we're at it, why is it, just out of curiosity, the mayor of Moscow's wife gave your son three and a half million dollars?

JOE BIDEN: That is not true.

DONALD TRUMP: What did he do to deserve it? What did he do with—

JOE BIDEN: None of that is true.

DONALD TRUMP: … to deserve $183,000?

CHRIS WALLACE: Sir, you've asked him a question, let him answer it.

Note that this interruption is unnecessary; Biden has answered. He repeats continually that none of it is true—but it does happen to be true.

DONALD TRUMP: Oh really, he didn't get three and a half million?

CHRIS WALLACE: Mr. President, it's an open discussion. Please— [crosstalk]

If a journalist were doing his due diligence, he would know the facts. Reports are coming out pretty regularly now. It shouldn’t be Trump bringing it up; it should be Chris Wallace. [If you need a review, try The Blaze and The Epoch Times.]

Glenn Beck: Ukraine Scandal Explained
screenshot from here

DONALD TRUMP: Did Burisma pay him $183,000 a month, with no experience in energy?

CHRIS WALLACE: Mr. President—

JOE BIDEN: My son did nothing wrong at Barisma—

DONALD TRUMP: I think he did.

CHRIS WALLACE: Mr. President, let him answer. [crosstalk]

JOE BIDEN: He doesn't want to let me answer, because he knows I have the truth. His position has been totally thoroughly discredited—

Chris Wallace tries to end the segment. Donald Trump isn’t finished.

DONALD TRUMP: He stood up-…and he threatened Ukraine—

CHRIS WALLACE: Sir—

DONALD TRUMP: … with a billion dollars—

JOE BIDEN: That is absolutely not true.

That is true. The video has been circulating for years, of Joe Biden bragging that he threatened loss of funding unless they fired the investigator into his son’s company. 

This isn’t over. Biden starts it up again, when he accuses—yet again—about the whole scam the President was impeached on, about Russian collusion. Talk about discredited.

DONALD TRUMP: Your son got three and a half million dollars—

JOE BIDEN: By the way, my son…. [Some back and forth, before coming back to this.] And speaking of my son, the way you talk about the military, the way you talk about them being losers and being and just being suckers. [This references an additional lie about Trump, from anonymous sources, discredited by those who were present, both friend and foe.] My son was in Iraq. He spent a year there. He got the Brown Star. He got the Conspicuous Service Medal. He was not a loser. He was a Patriot and the people left behind there were heroes.

DONALD TRUMP: Really?

JOE BIDEN: And I resent—

DONALD TRUMP: Are you talking Hunter? Are you talking about Hunter?

JOE BIDEN: I'm talking about my son, Beau Biden. You're talking about Hunter?

There isn’t a chance in the world Biden thought Trump was talking about Beau, when Trump was bringing up the $3.5 million from Russia. This was an attempt to both confuse and to get sympathy, because his son Beau died of cancer while Biden was Vice President.

DONALD TRUMP: I don't know Beau. I know Hunter. Hunter got thrown out of the military. He was thrown out, dishonorably discharged.

JOE BIDEN: That's not true; he was not dishonorably discharged.

DONALD TRUMP: For cocaine use. And he didn't have a job until you became Vice President.

JOE BIDEN: None of that is true.

It’s true. There’s this contemporaneous report.  Also fact checking by PJ Media this week. 

People who haven’t been paying attention can’t see the connection between Biden’s son’s business dealings and Biden’s run for the presidency, so let me spell that out clearly. Joe Biden’s business has always been about using his government position to profit his family—his brother, his son, multiple other family members. Government graft is the family business. If his son was making deals in China, Ukraine, and Russia—with nothing to offer but his family connection to VP Joe Biden—that is corruption fed by Joe Biden personally. [Some of it is in this documentary.]

 

Green New Deal

I had only planned on that one additional segment on the lies, but there’s this other one I want to cover. It has to do with the Green New Deal. President Trump points out how expensive the Green New Deal is going to be; Biden responds with a confusing and obfuscating lie.

DONALD TRUMP: He's talking about the Green New Deal. And it's not 2 billion [crosstalk] or 20 billion, as you said [crosstalk]. It's $100 trillion.

JOE BIDEN: I'm talking about the Biden plan [crosstalk]—

There’s some back and forth about rebuilding all the buildings, outlawing cars, outlawing cows, and other things we have read for ourselves in the Green New Deal, listed by Trump, denied by Biden. Chris Wallace is actually useful as a moderator at this point:

CHRIS WALLACE: Wait a minute, sir. I actually have studied your plan, and it includes upgrading 4 million buildings, weatherizing 2 million homes over four years, building one and a half million energy efficient homes. So the question becomes, the president is saying, I think some people who support the president would say, that sounds like it's going to cost a lot of money and hurt the economy.

JOE BIDEN: What it's going to do, it's going to create thousands and millions of jobs. Good paying jobs [crosstalk]….

Trump points out that other countries put out pollutants and nobody says a word. But we need to pay $100 trillion to hurt our economy, for things that wouldn’t even make a measurable difference to the climate in a century?

JOE BIDEN: That is not my plan [crosstalk]. The Green New Deal [crosstalk] is not my plan. [crosstalk]

And then a minute later, Chris Wallace returns the discussion to the economy and the costs of his plans, and Joe Biden refers to his plan:

JOE BIDEN: The Green New Deal will pay for itself as we move forward. We're not going to build plants that, in fact, are great polluting plants—

CHRIS WALLACE: So, do you support the Green New Deal?

JOE BIDEN: Pardon me?

CHRIS WALLACE: Do you support the—

JOE BIDEN: No, I don't support the Green New Deal.

DONALD TRUMP: Oh, you don't? Oh, well, that's a big statement.

JOE BIDEN: I support— [crosstalk]

DONALD TRUMP: You just lost the radical left.

JOE BIDEN: I support [crosstalk] the Biden plan that I put forward.

CHRIS WALLACE: Okay.

JOE BIDEN: The Biden plan, which is different than what he calls the radical Green New Deal.

Except that he still calls it the Green New Deal and doesn’t identify any differences, and the question referred to what Chris Wallace had read in Biden’s version on his website. Plus there’s the fact that he has brought in Green New Deal “author” Ocasio-Cortez to advise him, and Senator Harris, supporter of the original Green New Deal, as his running mate. So let's count that as a Biden lie.

 

Good and Better Answers

Transition of Power

My favorite response by President Trump was about the transition following an election. The question was designed to put Trump on the defense: will he leave office? The answer is, it depends on whether it’s a free and fair election result—because the Democrats have been going out of their way to cause election chaos. For a good review of this issue, check out The Blaze’s Wednesday night special. 

Glenn Beck special Election War Game
screenshot from here

Anyway, Trump discards the defense and goes on offense—with what we have actually all observed:

DONALD TRUMP: So, when I listen to Joe talking about a transition, there has been no transition from when I won. I won that election. And if you look at crooked Hillary Clinton, if you look at all of the different people, there was no transition, because they came after me trying to do a coup. They came after me spying on my campaign. They started from the day I won, and even before I won. From the day I came down the escalator with our first lady, they were a disaster. They were a disgrace to our country, and we've caught them. We've caught them all. We've got it all on tape. We've caught them all.

DONALD TRUMP: And by the way, you gave the idea for the Logan Act against General Flynn. You better take a look at that, because we caught you in a sense, and President Obama was sitting in the office. He knew about it too. So don't tell me about a free transition.

 

Denouncing Racism

There’s the “racist” lie, which ought to be disposed of by now. Nothing will work against this enemy, of course. But I’m going to suggest a way the Spherical Model can help.

CHRIS WALLACE: You have repeatedly criticized the Vice President for not specifically calling out Antifa and other left-wing extremist groups. But are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities, as we saw in Kenosha and as we've seen in Portland?

DONALD TRUMP: Sure, I'm willing to do that.

That’s just the first time this night that he disavows racist groups.

CHRIS WALLACE: Are you prepared specifically to do it?

He just did. Why are you asking again?

DONALD TRUMP: I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing.

CHRIS WALLACE: But what are you saying?

He’s saying “asked and answered,” so let’s go on to something actually relevant to the rioting. Yet it continues.

DONALD TRUMP: I'm willing to do anything. I want to see peace.

CHRIS WALLACE: Well, do it, sir.

He already did. Not just here, this night, multiple times; dozens of times on record. People are making compilations. Including the day they claim he said “good people on both sides” OF THE DEBATE ABOUT CIVIL WAR MONUMENTS! At which time he made it very clear he was not saying there were good people among white supremacists and any other racists, whom he soundly and clearly denounced. Who are, incidentally, a minor hiccup on the American landscape, not a movement.

JOE BIDEN: Say it! Do it! Say it!

DONALD TRUMP: What do you want to call them? Give me a name, give me a name. Go ahead. Who do you want me to condemn?

CHRIS WALLACE: White supremacists and white militia. [crosstalk, I believe from Biden, mentions others, including Proud Boys, which are a group, though not often at any rallies or riots, and not white-supremacist or racist]

DONALD TRUMP: Okay, boys, stand back and stand by. [He may have said Proud Boys, although this transcription didn’t catch it.]

This is their takeaway from the entire debate: “Trump is a white supremacist; he’s calling for them to stand and await his orders.” Or, he was just, yet again, saying he had nothing to do with whomever they listed—that he hasn’t been calling on them to do any violence.

But there has been violence. So he goes on to make a point about that:

DONALD TRUMP: But I'll tell you what, somebody's got to do something about Antifa and the left, because this is not a right-wing problem; this is a left wing.

Here’s where I’d like to step in and help with the Spherical Model. There’s no such thing as a right-wing extremist; also, there’s no such thing as a left-wing extremist. Because the right and left wing model doesn’t show the picture. Anybody who uses terrorist tactics, inciting riots and violence, is by definition tyrannical and savage. Maybe they have different ideas about who should rule over everybody, but they don’t have anything to do with our constitutional republic or civilization. Saying “They’re not our flavor/color of tyrant” doesn’t win the hearts of people who love freedom and civilization. So how about saying, “I’m against anyone who uses terrorist tactics, like inciting riots and violence. Those people all want tyranny. I’m here to protect America from that.” I can see Trump saying that. Not Biden.

 

Experts

I’ll offer help on two other types of attacks, which could use similar responses, because they both have to do with experts. One is on global warming. One is on COVID-19 response. Trump actually handles both pretty well. But both really just need this: “Of course I listen to the experts. But experts are, by definition, specialized in a narrow field. And it’s not the field of public policy. So I listen to experts in their fields, and then I listen to experts in economics, and in other areas required for human thriving, and I weigh the options and use my judgment to come up with policy, within the limits of the Constitution, that will be best for the American people.”

Trump has been listening to Dr. Atlas lately, on pandemic response. He was on Uncommon Knowledge this week. Worth hearing. 

Now, here’s the President’s exchange on climate:

CHRIS WALLACE: Mr. President, you said, “I don't think the science knows.” Over your four years, you have pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Accord. You have rolled back a number of Obama Environmental records. What do you believe about the science of climate change, and what will you do in the next four years to confront it?

DONALD TRUMP: I want crystal clean water and air. I want beautiful clean air. We have now the lowest carbon—  If you look at our numbers right now, we are doing phenomenally. But I haven't destroyed our businesses. Our businesses aren't put out of commission. If you look at the Paris Accord, it was a disaster from our standpoint. And people are actually very happy about what's going on, because our businesses are doing well. As far as the fires are concerned, you need forest management.

But that’s not good enough, apparently:

CHRIS WALLACE: What do you believe about the science of climate change, sir?

DONALD TRUMP: I believe that we have to do everything we can to have immaculate air, immaculate water, and do whatever else we can that's good. We're planting a billion trees, the Billion Tree Project, and it's very exciting for a lot of people.

CHRIS WALLACE: Do you believe that human pollution, gas, greenhouse gas emissions contributes to the global warming of this planet?

DONALD TRUMP: I think a lot of things do, but I think to an extent, yes. I think to an extent, yes. But I also think we have to do better management of our forest.

Asked and answered. Asked and answered. But what Wallace is aiming for is a way to promote the “science denier” lie. Hence my suggestion about how to respond on experts.

 

Summary

There’s one memorable line, which I expect will show up in memes and on T-shirts, that sums up any Trump/Biden debate:

DONALD TRUMP: In 47 months, I've done more than you've done in 47 years, Joe.

Have we learned anything by viewing and reviewing that messy debate? Yes. That our brawling President is a lot more civilized than his opponents, who all want to rule over us. I’m glad he’s willing to fight for us.

Will this debate have changed anyone’s minds? I don’t know. I don’t think like the average, uninvolved American. However, I’m heartened to learn that, following the broadcast of the debate on Telemundo, they did a survey, and a whopping 66% said President Trump won the debate. 

Incidentally, after news last night that the President and First Lady have tested positive for COVID-19, after an aide came down with it, we are praying for their quick and full recovery, and that their doctors will be wise and use the best treatments. And I pray we have the opportunity to support him for an additional four years.

Prosecution and Defense

What is that ancient curse? May you live in interesting times! We certainly do.

I didn’t tune in to hour-after-hour of the Senate impeachment hearings, but, as with many people, I’ve been playing catch up at the end of the day, to find out the key points that were made.

There are better sources than this blog for all those summaries. But I guess I’m the expert on what interests me and what I think about things. So that is what we’ll cover here today.

First, as we have noted for well over a month, the House has not charged President Trump with any crimes. No lawbreaking whatsoever. While in the hysteria leading up to the impeachment, they floated words like quid pro quo (meaning literally “this for that,” or an exchange, which is not necessarily illegal) and bribery. But that wasn’t what the evidence showed.

So the summary of the charges comes down to, President Trump asked the President of Ukraine to investigate corruption, which included a company called Burisma, which has Hunter Biden, son of former VP Joe Biden, on its board.

Those impeaching the president make the claim that there is no possible motive for this request other than to damage a political opponent in the upcoming election.

The impeachment prosecution must, therefore, prove not only that that was the motive, but that no other possible motive exists.

The House called 18 witnesses. They passed the testimony along to the Senate—except for one, which remains cloaked in secrecy somewhere in the recesses of Adam Schiff’s private lair.

While an impeachment is not exactly a court trial, it is analogous to think of the impeachment articles, and all that was done in the House, as the prosecution’s case. When they pass along the articles of impeachment, that is akin to the prosecutors saying, “The prosecution rests its case.”

Pam Bondi, of the White House defense team,
details Biden Ukraine connection
screenshot from here

When the Senate takes up the case, they have a couple of options beyond holding a further trial. One is to look at the evidence and say, “No, the evidence does not show beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant [the president] is guilty of these charges,” and they could rule not guilty.

Or they could look at the evidence and say, “He may have done these things he’s charged with but still not be guilty of something requiring his removal from office,” and they could rule not guilty.

Either of these they could do based on the prosecution only. If the prosecution presented an insufficient case, the Senate can dismiss without needing the White House team to mount a defense beyond their opening arguments. And let’s be certain we understand—no defense was allowed by the House. No defense witnesses were called. No testimony that contradicted the prosecution testimony has been allowed—which is probably why that one testimony is kept hidden. In an actual court trial, that and any other evidence must be disclosed to the defense. Nothing about Schiff and his process has been fair, or even anything close to resembling due process, which every person—including a president—is entitled to.

Speaking of Schiff, he is literally guilty of perjury. He claimed, during the answering of questions—while he is under oath—that he unequivocally does not know who the whistleblower is, that his team never met with, helped, or otherwise corroborated with the whistleblower. But we know that is factually false. His team had already admitted otherwise. Schiff, during House hearings, refused to have questions asked that were going to lead to identifying the whistleblower—questions that, if he didn’t know who the whistleblower was, he could not have known would lead to identifying him.

Can we charge Schiff with perjury—and impeach him for that crime? Son Political Sphere says, maybe the DOJ could charge him. The House could impeach him, but they would have to have to will to do so.

About that whistleblower. There has been blowback against Chief Justice Roberts for refusing to ask questions from Senator Rand Paul—two days in a row. The name of the whistleblower must have been revealed to Justice Roberts, or he would not know to prevent the question. Who revealed it to Justice Roberts, if not Schiff and team? Rand Paul says, in a tweet, that his exact question was,

Are you aware that House intelligence committee staffer Shawn Misko had a close relationship with Eric Ciaramella while at the National Security Council together, and are you aware and how do you respond to reports that Ciaramella and Misko may have worked together to plot impeaching the President before there were formal house impeachment proceedings? 

He points out in another tweet,

My question is not about a “whistleblower” as I have no independent knowledge on his identity. My question is about known Obama partisans within the NSC and House staff and how they are reported to have conspired before impeachment proceedings had even begun. 

Chances are high that Senator Paul has a strong suspicion of who the whistleblower is, since he has been identified in media for several months as Eric Ciaramella.

In a recent episode of Verdict, Senator Ted Cruz’s daily podcast on the impeachment, which showed up after late Wednesday night questioning, he talks about some of the questions that were asked. While he submitted a dozen ahead of time, only one of those got asked. He submitted another four from the floor, which is a sort of cross-examination, done by notecards handed in to be read by the Chief Justice. Three of these got asked, two of them were handed to other senators to submit. One of Cruz’s questions indirectly addressed the whistleblower. As Senator Cruz tells it, he asked,

Did the whistleblower ever work for Joe Biden? If so, did he work for Joe Biden on issues involving Ukraine? If so, did he assist in any material way with the quid pro quo that Joe Biden executed when he demanded that Ukraine fire the prosecutor that was investigating Burisma, the company paying his son a million bucks a year?

Ted Cruz, Verdict episode 8, screenshot from here

Schiff completely refused to answer. Instead he offered a prepared speech on preserving the sanctity of whistleblowers and protecting their identity.

Recall, when this first came out, Schiff couldn’t wait for the whistleblower to testify in an impeachment trial. That was his intention. I don’t know if there is a direct correlation, but Glenn Beck came out with an investigative report on corruption in Ukraine—and how players in that story were key in coming up with the false information used in the FISA warrant in the first place, allowing surveillance of presidential candidate Trump and some former staff. Suddenly Schiff turned on a dime and absolutely insisted no one should ever know the whistleblower’s identity (after his staff had already admitted their contact). Later Beck investigations noted that Ciaramella’s name kept popping up. They found his name on various documents prior to knowing he was the whistleblower.

Glenn Beck, explaining the Ukraine Scandal, October 4, 2019
screenshot from here

BTW, whistleblowers' identity is not sacred. Their jobs are protected, so they can’t be fired for coming forward. But they don’t get to accuse anonymously.

What Senator Cruz is pointing out is that the “whistleblower,” who had no first-hand knowledge of the president’s phonecall and was therefore in no position to blow a whistle, had a self-preservation motive to prevent the investigation into the Burisma-Biden connection from going forward, because he could personally be found guilty in that corruption. Let me repeat that: the whistleblower’s motive, when he heard that Trump was interested in investigating the Burisma-Biden connection, was to prevent discovery of the whistleblower’s own involvement in that prosecutable wrongdoing.

Was it corrupt, what Joe Biden did? In another question, Senator Cruz expanded—and made more accurate—a hypothetical that Schiff had put forward. Cruz’s version, as he retells it on his podcast, was handed to Lindsey Graham to ask:

Using Mr. Schiff’s hypothetical, if President Obama had evidence that Mitt Romney’s son was being paid a million dollars a year by a corrupt Russian company—Schiff’s hypo was Russian instead of Ukraine—and Romney had acted in his official capacity to benefit that company, would Obama have had the authority to ask that the potential corruption be investigated?

As Cruz adds,

It’s not randomly, “Hey, investigate this guy.” It’s if you’ve got evidence—that on the face of it looks pretty crooked.

As I’m writing, the decision on whether to call witnesses is getting close to be voted on. That vote may even take place today. (Maybe it has while I’m not tuned in.)

There are many Americans (as high as 70%) who think there should be witnesses called. But both sides have very different ideas of who those should be. The defense ought to have the right to call the whistleblower, because it is unthinkable that a person can be convicted in America without being allowed to face his accuser—to know who makes the accusation, and to explore that person’s motives and truthfulness.

Joe Biden brags about getting Ukraine prosecutor fired.
screenshot from here

And then there’s the possibility of calling Hunter Biden and maybe Joe Biden. I’d like to know from Joe Biden—who claimed he had to fire the prosecutor in that quid pro quo that he brags about on video—what evidence did he have that the Ukrainian prosecutor into his son’s corrupt business dealings was too corrupt to remain in office? What were the complaints about that prosecutor? Where did they come from?

Because, if that was the motive instead of what it looks like, there must be supporting evidence. If not, then probably it was what it looks like—abuse of power for personal purposes. The very thing, ironically, that the Democrats have been yelling from the rooftops is disqualifying for a president.

Do I care about hearing from John Bolton? Not really. The only possible contribution would be what his personal opinion is of President Trump’s motives. He can’t know those motives—the other witnesses could not either. The defense already had the opportunity to hear from Bolton. All they had to do was get a court to override the president’s claim of executive privilege. Rather than do that, they withdrew the subpoena, saying they did not need to hear from him. So their tearful cries for him now are disingenuous. And, I’ll add, they can’t claim the president “obstructed Congress” if he didn’t defy a court-ordered subpoena. Congress didn’t do its part to get legally obstructed. (And, as I’ve heard said, a lot of people voted for Trump so he would “obstruct” Congress, which is obviously not a crime; it’s a feature of the separation of powers.)

If there were to be witnesses, and along with that there’s some claim that there needs to be fairness, we need to remember that 18 witnesses have already testified for the prosecution. Until there have been that many witnesses for the defense, let’s not talk about any “you get one and we get one.”

Since I don’t trust the Republicans to adopt that hard line, I would prefer they hear from none.

The White House defense team has presented more than ample evidence that there was plenty of incentive for President Trump to care about corruption in Ukraine, where billions in aid had already disappeared into a corrupt black hole. The Burisma-Biden connection is in the middle of that, but it’s not by any means the whole corruption story.

What have we learned from this whole impeachment ordeal? These Democrats are corrupt. They lie. They do not believe in due process, truth, or the Constitution. They were unable to come up with anything treasonous, anything that could be called bribery, or any other thing that would similarly jeopardize the country—in other words, anything worthy of impeachment.

Ben Garrison cartoon

They couldn’t even come up with a misdemeanor. They started on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, and they haven’t stopped. They have found nothing to charge him with. Yet they have put the country through this attempt at a coup for their own selfish purposes.

The biggest takeaway is that, for someone they claim is evil on a Hitlerian scale, Trump sure is law-abiding.