The Increasing Weight of Health Care Spending on American Taxpayers

Few factors are more critical to economic growth than health care. And few threaten future economic growth more than health care spending.

That conundrum lies behind continued political agitation over health care, both in the U.S. and throughout the highly developed world.

Advances in medicine have eradicated diseases, extended life expectancy, reduced infant mortality, and increased productivity. But rising medical spending also has suppressed wages, pressured government budgets, and siphoned public resources from infrastructure, education, and other investments.

Health spending constituted 17.9% of U.S. economic output in 2017 and will continue its inexorable growth.

There is a silver lining. Five-year cancer survival rates have improved, mortality rates for heart disease have declined, and chronic diseases are better managed.

More people are employed in the health sector than in any other segment of the economy, and the growth in health care jobs appears to be recession-proof. The U.S. is the global leader in biomedical research and development, strengthening the domestic economy.

But there are ominous signs.

Perhaps most ominous is the growing burden health spending has placed on taxpayers. Health entitlements are the largest and fastest-growing component of the federal budget and the leading cause of long-term fiscal instability.

Health entitlement programs are crowding out other government spending. In 1989, the federal government spent 57% more on nondefense discretionary programs like education, job training, and transportation than it did on health entitlements. Since then, health spending has tripled in real terms and is now twice what Washington spends on nondefense discretionary programs.

An aging population accounts for much of that increase. Medicare has 61 million enrollees and is adding an average of 1.6 million beneficiaries annually. Spending per beneficiary exceeds $14,000, a figure projected to compound at an average annual rate of over 5% during the next decade.

But an older population doesn’t completely explain the spending increase. Congress has expanded existing federal programs and created new ones. Federal spending on Medicaid and other income-related health programs has more than tripled in real terms over the past 30 years and will continue growing.

This year, the government will spend 6% more on health entitlements than on Social Security. In 30 years, that gap will grow to 50%.

America’s fiscal crisis, in short, is a health spending crisis.

Private health spending also has grown, burdening businesses and workers. More than 178 million Americans have job-based coverage, the leading source of health insurance in the U.S.

This coverage is the fastest-growing component of employee compensation, depressing wages. A study by the Council for Affordable Health Coverage found that rising health insurance premiums caused earnings to decline between 1999 and 2015 for workers in the bottom 40 percentiles of earnings.

Total public and private health spending is the highest in the world. Per capita U.S. spending on medical care was $10,586 in 2018, compared with an average of less than $4,000 among nations that are part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Some use that figure to argue in favor of turning all health financing over to the federal government. Other countries, the reasoning goes, centrally finance health care and spend less than Americans do. Therefore, health spending would decline if the U.S. government adopted the policies of other governments.

The argument is flawed. First, a Rand Corp. analysis of “Medicare for All” found that the plan would increase health spending, enlarging the gap between the U.S. and other countries.

Second, the U.S. is hardly unique in struggling with rising health spending. U.S. health spending is projected to grow more slowly than the OECD average through 2030, meaning it will outperform many countries with centralized financing.

Shifting the entire burden of health financing onto the U.S. government is more likely to worsen fiscal strains than to relieve them.

A more promising avenue is to pursue reforms that provide privately and publicly insured patients, as well as employers who sponsor coverage for their workers, with information and incentives to use medical services more efficiently.

Public and private health insurance arrangements typically do the opposite: concealing prices from patients and making medical care appear free (or nearly so). Such arrangements render patients bystanders and feed a perverse dynamic in which medical prices rise without reference to value.

In virtually every other sector of the economy, innovation gives us more for our money (think mobile phones, computers, cars and appliances). Applying those same forces to health spending would put downward pressure on prices while preserving quality.

Price disclosure and financing structures that incentivize consumers may not be sufficient to contain the health care spending spiral, but they are essential to its success.

Originally published by Fox Business

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Top House Conservative Derides ‘Secret’ Impeachment Proceedings

The chairman of the Republican Study Committee criticized the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, deriding them for being conducted “in secret.”

“The problem right now is they’re doing this all in secret,” says Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., “They’re having these secret depositions and these top secret hearings in a basement somewhere.”

“I’m on the House Judiciary Committee, for example. I’m the committee [with] jurisdiction over impeachment. I am not allowed to review any of the documents, any of the testimony that’s been presented this far,” Johnson added during the fourth episode of the caucus’ “Elephants in the Room” Facebook discussion with lawmakers.

The episode was shot shortly before the House voted 232-196 to pass a resolution outlining the details of the impeachment process. 

Johnson says he’s reached out to Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who is spearheading Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, to try to set up a time to review the impeachment proceedings. 

“I sent a letter … to Chairman Schiff and the chairman of the other two committees, Democrat chairmen who are engaged in this, and I said, ‘Here’s the House rule. It says I have a right to review these,’” Johnson said. “’I want to know a date and time when I can come do that.’ Nothing. It’s crickets.”

Rep. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who joined Johnson for “Elephants in the Room,” told The Daily Signal that Congress will have to answer to the American people for the impeachment probe process.

“If we’re going to undo the results of the 2016 election, if we’re going to go against the votes of 64 million Americans, it should be a higher bar, not a lower bar [for the impeachment process],” Marshall said. 

Johnson added that the impeachment process has been an abuse of power. 

“It allows Adam Schiff to be basically the counsel, the judge, and the jury over this,” Johnson said.

He also discussed that the impeachment push seemed “predetermined,” saying:

We all know they [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats] started working on impeachment of the president the day he took his oath of office. … They changed the narrative several times along the way, but they’ve always been trying to get to this desired end. This is very Machiavellian. The means justify the end, I guess, and if they have to steamroll over all the Republicans in Congress, over the will of the American people, over due process, over the rules … That’s what we’ve gotten. 

So, at the end of the day … people will make up their minds about the legitimacy of that process.

The Republican Study Committee recently released a new health care plan that, among other provisions, would increase how much people could contribute pre-taxes to health savings accounts, and would create guaranteed coverage pools designed to help Americans with preexisting conditions. 

Johnson says the new plan would help drive down health care costs and help Americans with “preexisting conditions, … with chronic illnesses, and serious health concerns” get access to care. 

Marshall, a doctor, said the Republican Study Committee plan “empowers people by giving them more choices.”

“It personalizes health care by putting decisions for health care back in the hands of those who know best. And that’s the patient and the physician, not the federal government,” says Marshall. 

The Kansas Republican said the plan was “180 degrees opposite” from Democrats’ health care proposals. “They’re proposing complete takeover of your health care by the federal government,” he said. 

Johnson also mentioned he and other Republican Study Committee members had met with Trump at the White House to discuss the health care plan.

“I showed him some of the headlines, one from Fox News that said the Republican Study Committee’s health care plan is the fulfillment of President Trump’s challenge and his promise to make the Republican party the party of health care,” Johnson said. “He was grateful for that and encouraged by it.”

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Impeachment Push Bares Ugliness of Washington Establishment

In those monster movies so popular at Halloween, it usually takes a while for the killer to be revealed. But when he is, the terror he inspired among his targets often comes to a frightening conclusion for viewers.

This analogy perfectly fits the impeachment scenario now playing out in Washington. The nation is beginning to see the ugliness of the establishment, people who believe they have a divine right (if they believed in the divine) to run the federal government.

If that right is ever challenged, that’s when the long knives come out.

Secret testimonies, barring Republicans from calling their own witnesses or cross-examining the ones Democrats have subpoenaed, and now a federal judge’s ruling that secret grand jury records from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation must be turned over to House Democrats—this is how the establishment fights back.

A Wall Street Journal editorial called it “political damage control” when Democrats criticized a decision by the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into the genesis of the allegation of Russian “collusion” with the 2016 Trump campaign:

Democrats know that the Hillary Clinton campaign paid Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Mr. Trump, and Fusion hired former British spook Christopher Steele, who compiled a dossier of allegations about Mr. Trump from Russian sources that turned out to be false.

Worse, Fusion funneled the dossier to the FBI, which used it to persuade the secret FISA court to issue a warrant to eavesdrop on Trump official Carter Page. Democrats now want to discredit any attempt to hold people accountable if crimes were committed as part of this extraordinary dirty trick.

If the trail of the Russian collusion fraud leads back to Democrats and the Clinton campaign, it will undermine the credibility of what Democrats are trying to do with Ukraine and President Donald Trump’s phone call to its president during which he allegedly demanded Ukraine’s help in digging up dirt on Joe Biden and his overpaid son, Hunter Biden.

It is a charge the president has repeatedly denied.

U.S. Attorney John Durham, at Attorney General William Barr’s behest, is heading a criminal probe. It appears the goal of the Democrats is to advance impeachment to a vote in the House before it comes out.

To hurry the process along, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the full House will vote Thursday to begin the public phase of the inquiry. This will include the establishment of rules and due process rights for the president.

On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh got to the heart of the matter, saying:

I think what [Rep. Adam] Schiff and Pelosi and this entire so-called impeachment inquiry is really all about is derailing the Barr investigation. And I think that’s why they’re in such a hurry … they’re trying to convince the American people that Trump is guilty and should not be president before Barr and Durham and [Justice Department Inspector General Michael] Horowitz have time to reveal anything.

And there’s one downside to what happened here. We now have an official criminal investigation. That means that Durham and Barr can impanel a grand jury. And this is why the McCabes and the Brennans and the James Clappers are running around today in a near panic.

[Andrew McCabe is the former deputy director and acting director of the FBI, John Brennan is the former CIA director, and James Clapper is the former director of national intelligence.]

The unfairness of it all is what strikes many people. Polls are fluid; some indicating a majority favor the investigation, but oppose impeachment and the president’s removal from office, especially this close to the next election. Let the people decide is the mantra one hears in some voter interviews.

Trump’s greatest weapon, other than truth, is what he has done for the economy, judges, and the pro-life movement. Perhaps no Republican could have done it better.

These are winning issues. The establishment knows it and that’s why this horror movie continues to play out. Call it trick or trick.

(c) 2019 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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An Un-American Impeachment

We are now knee-deep in the throes of the constitutionally directed authority of the U.S. House of Representatives, the people’s chamber, to call into question the behavior of the most well known sitting public official, the president of the United States.

In the history of our great republic, the House has completely executed this power and impeached an officeholder in just 19 instances—17 of the federal judiciary and two sitting American presidents, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Two other U.S. presidents have faced impeachment inquiries: Richard Nixon and now Donald Trump.

It’s important to recall this history lesson because the framers of our Constitution intended that the removal of a sitting federal official of high office be particularly, if not excruciatingly, difficult.

The Founders were well aware of bitter partisanship, even in 18th-century America, and so they wanted to insulate officeholders as best they could from the flimsy political whims of the people’s house in Congress.

That being said, I do disagree with the president and his supporters when they call the current proceedings unconstitutional and when they suggest that Democrats have no authority to act.

This process is one of the most powerful instruments an institution of government can wield. It is a necessary check, in our system of checks and balances, to maintain the proper balance of power between all branches of government in our great democracy. It is an instrument that deserves to be hallowed through all time if we are to guarantee that no one person can set themselves above the law.

Yet the actions of House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are running counter to the spirit and even the letter of the authority they swore to uphold. As a result, they are making this current impeachment attempt decidedly un-American.

Let’s begin with the impeachment process itself. It goes without saying that something is wrong if the chamber has not yet been able to officially inaugurate these proceedings, as the House has been able to successfully do so many times before, with a full vote of the body.

Why have they not held a vote to officially begin the inquiry? The failure to do so may seem petty or inconsequential to the average observer. However, the act of formally tallying the voice of every sitting member of that body should be heard and recorded for all Americans to see. After all, the framers wanted to make it difficult to remove a sitting president, to “undo” an election by the people.

With this intention in mind, shouldn’t these 435 individuals stand up and be counted on the critical question of whether they should unring the bell of liberty that called for Trump to hold office in the first place?

This dilemma brings us to the only logical conclusion as to why Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Adam Schiff don’t want to hold a vote: to protect those rank-and-file members in vulnerable pro-Trump districts.

Yes, the House Democratic Caucus is divided on the question of removing a sitting president, even one as controversial as Trump. Pelosi knows this. Unfortunately, the most liberal in her party have pushed and pushed for this, so she has had no choice but to acquiesce.

Still, Pelosi must protect those 30 to 40 Democrats, which means there will be no formal vote launching the inquiry. Instead, there has been cloak-and-dagger closed-door interviews of the president’s very accusers and alleged whistleblower. Is that American? What happened to the writ of habeas corpus—the right to face one’s accuser?

Pelosi’s “protection at all costs” approach toward her party’s vulnerable members is costing the speaker and the Democrats. It unnecessarily leaves those Obama-Trump swing voters doubting Democrats’ sincerity in trying to find actual high crimes and misdemeanors that this president may have committed. Furthermore, it gives Romney-Clinton voters a reason to return to the Republican fold.

Perhaps the worst element of House Democrats’ actions is the dangerous precedent they set for future Congresses.

How many times has the House of Representatives been controlled by a different party than the sitting president’s? Scores. Do future House majorities now have complete license to pursue impeachment on shaky evidence, without a formal vote and with inquiries led behind closed doors? Is that the instrument of impeachment the American republic needs or wants? I think not.

History will not be kind to this Congress. Its track record will speak of no major legislative wins, even fewer federal basics such as spending bills to keep the government running, anemic judicial appointments, and an outsized obsession with sinking this president on political grounds. That’s not what Americans voted for, and this obsession will not be helpful to the Democrats come the 2020 election cycle.

To use the sacrosanct tool of impeachment in such a constitutionally cavalier way betrays everything that the House Democrats signaled they stood for when Pelosi took the gavel. Her caucus knows better, and she’ll spend the rest of her speakership trying to justify using a uniquely American protection in such an un-American manner.

COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM

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HUGE! Suspected ‘Whistleblower’ Ciaramella May Be CIA Spy Planted in Trump White House Identified as “Charlie” in Strzok and Page Texts!

Whoa!  This is earth shattering.  No wonder Lying Adam Schiff and his Democrat cohorts don’t want their suspected whistleblower Eric Ciaramella outed to the public.  This is because they all know that Ciaramella was in President Trump’s White House and his purpose was specifically to spy on the Trump Administration.

Dan Bongino put this all together yesterday in his great podcast –

(At about the 10 minute mark Bongino unveils this entire twisted plot.)

In April of this year, Senators Grassley and Johnson sent a letter to Attorney General Barr asking him for any information on the following (or perhaps this was their way of encouraging him to look into something).  What they specifically asked about was related to some text messages from corrupt FBI Agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page referring to a “CI guy” in the White House –

Next Grassley and Johnson provide the exact text messages they wanted Barr to look into.  The text from Peter Strzok says “Do we want Joe to go with Evania instead of Charlie for a variety of reasons?” –

A footnote at the bottom of the Grassley and Johnson memo says “At this time it is unknown who “Charlie” is”.

On the beginning of the next page of their memo Grassley and Johnson share some more texts from Strzok and Page referring to “the CI guy” again in the White House –

Grassley and Johnson ask Barr some shocking questions (highlighted below) –

The nature of these communications , and the precise purpose of any attempts to “develop relationships” with Trump or Pence transition team staff are not immediately clear.  Were these efforts done to gain better communication between the respective parties, or were the briefings used as intelligence gathering operation?  Further, did any such surveillance activities continue beyond the inauguration, and in the event they did, were those activities subject to proper predication?  Any improper FBI surveillance activities that were conducted before or after the 2016 election must be brought to light and properly addressed.”

Strzok and Page in their texts were likely referring to fired FBI Director Andy McCabe and Bill Priestap per footnotes on that page.  The reference to the “CI guy” is unclear.

Finally Grassley and Johnson discuss the leaks coming from the FBI and the Mueller gang and how Barr should look into those as well.

Who was ‘Charlie’ in the Trump White House and is he the CI guy referred to in other Strzok and Page texts?  This leads us back to Bongino who tied the Grassley and Johnson letter together with some more recent information. 

On Wednesday Paul Sperry announced at RealClearInvestigations.com in a post that the so-called ‘whistleblower’ in Lying Adam Schiff’s fake impeachment sham is none other than Eric Ciaramella.  This is old news to us at TGP as well as Bongino and others on the web.  (We first reported on Ciaramella on October 11th.)

But in Sperry’s post, he notes the exact pronunciation for Ciaramella’s name – (pronounced char-a-MEL-ah) –

Bongino suspects that Sperry is trying to hint at something as the pronunciation of a name is not usually included in posts like Sperry’s.  What Bongino suggests is that there is a connection between Sperry’s article and the Grassley and Johnson letter – Char-a-MEL-ah is the same ‘Charlie’ in the Strzok and Page communications.

Now this all makes sense.  This is why Schiff wanted to keep his identity hidden.  Not only because Ciaramella is a clearly a leaker and is culpable for crimes due to his leaking but because he was spying on President Trump in the White House.

As we reported on October 11th, in a hit piece on conservatives in July, 2017, Yahoo reported that Mike Cernovich targeted an individual who worked for former National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster, claiming the individual wanted to ‘sabotage’ President Trump and also claiming he is ‘pro-Ukraine and anti-Russia’.

Cernovich reported in June, 2017, that McMaster promoted Ciaramella in spite of being connected to Susan Rice in Obama’s White House –

West Wing officials confirmed to Cernovich Media that Eric Ciaramella, who worked closely with Susan Rice while at NSC, was recently promoted to be H.R. McMaster’s personal aide. Ciaramella will have unfettered access to McMaster’s conversations with foreign leaders.

(Ciaramella’s old boss, McMaster, was in the news recently by siding with the whistleblower.)

Politico shared this about Ciaramella, in a hit piece claiming Trump supporters in the White House claimed people like Ciaramella were ‘deep state’ – it looks like they were right – [emphasis added below]

Trump political appointees were believed to frequently talk to journalists who worked for conservative media outlets. For months, those outlets published names of career Civil and Foreign Service officers in the NSC and other government agencies whose loyalties they deemed suspect. Career staffers who had joined the U.S. government many years, sometimes decades, earlier were suddenly cast as Obama loyalists determined to derail Trump’s agenda as part of a “deep state.” The people targeted included a State Department civil servant of Iranian descent who’d joined government under the George W. Bush administration; a highly respected Foreign Service officer who dealt with Israeli issues; and an NSC staffer who dealt with European and Russian issues. The latter, Eric Ciaramella, reportedly left the NSC after receiving death threats. Another staffer targeted by conservative outlets was Fernando Cutz, a Latin America expert and top aide to McMaster; at one point he had to temporarily get police protection. (Cutz was maligned by conservative websites in part because he earned a master’s degree from the University of Arkansas’ Clinton School of Public Service, thus supposedly linking him to another Democratic president.)

Also, others have noted Ciaramella was Obama’s NSC Director for the Ukraine.  This connects him and his team at the NSC to Joe Biden.  Biden was Obama’s lead in the Ukraine so it’s implausible that Ciararmella and his team were not connected to Biden.  Schiff’s leakers are connected to Biden also.

According to Politico Ciaramello quit the NSC in the past couple of years and returned to his ‘home agency’ – many suspect this must be the CIA because any other agency would be named outright.  Fool Nelson on Twitter was one of the first to out Ciaramella –

Another Internet sleuth, Greg Rubini, noted that Ciaramella was in the White House at an event and was seated directly behind Melania Trump  –

According to Rubini the above picture was from April 24, 2018, after Ciaramella was fired in June 2017 thanks to Mike Cernovich.  But then McMaster brought Ciaramella back into the White House and McMaster was fired on April 8, 2018.  In what capacity was Ciaramella still in the White House?

Rush Limbaugh noted that Trump’s White House was full of Deep State spies and crooks –

No wonder Adam Schiff doesn’t want this traitor’s name exposed.  The suspected whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, worked with the Obama Administration in the Ukraine, spied on President Trump in the White House for Obama’s CIA and FBI and was apparently doing all he could to sabatoge the Trump White House while he was there.

It’s against the law to spy on our President in an effort to have him impeached.  I thought the CIA was not allowed to spy in the US period.

Creepy and corrupt Adam Schiff used the whistleblower’s memo to start his corrupt and criminal impeachment sham investigation taking place in the House.  It sure looks like Eric Ciaramella is no hero, he is more likely a traitor and a crook.  Hang him high!

Hat tip D. Manny

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October Jobs Report Smashes Expectations as Wages Also Move Upward

The Trump economy defied expectations in October, adding 128,000 jobs despite the effects of a since-settled General Motors strike. Experts had been predicting that the economy would add no more than 75,000 jobs. In fact, MarketWatch on Thursday told its readers that the report would be “a big dud” due to the impact of the…

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NR Scoop: New York Times Reporter Sat on Warren’s Pregnancy-Firing Lie Story for Months

It’s always interesting when people who tout the "people’s right to know" decide to sit on information that they don’t want the people to know. Jack Crowe and Tobias Hoonhout at National Review discovered a reporter who now works for The New York Times sat on public records which he obtained in April that cut against Elizabeth Warren’s continuous claim that she was dismissed from a teaching job for being visibly pregnant: 

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Lying Schiff’s Star Witness Alexander Vindman Tied to Ukrainian Arms Dealers, Ukrainian Oil and Gas and the Atlantic Council

We just keep getting more and more pieces to the corrupt puzzle involving the Democrats, the Deep State, foreign actors and the media.  Here’s some more about Alexander Vindman, Lying Adam Schiff’s start witness two days ago.

We reported yesterday that Yesterday Colonel Alexander Vindman was a witness in Adam Schiff’s basement chamber of secrets.  During questioning on Tuesday Colonel Vindman admitted he shared the read-outs of President Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Zelenzky with several other secret operatives.

When Rep. Jim Jordan asked him who he shared the readouts with — Rep. Adam Schiff SHUT DOWN the questioning!

FOX News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge reported that Colonel Vindman may have violated the federal leaking statute 18 USC 798 when he leaked the president’s classified call to several other operatives.

Vindman also admitted during testimony that he tampered with and tried but failed to alter the transcript of President Trump’s call to the Ukrainian President.

Yesterday we tied Vindman to Obama’s former Russian Ambassador Michael McFaul who spoke out in support of Vindman.  The fact that Vindman is connected to McFaul is alarming. McFaul was one of the first to attack President Trump’s attorney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for investigating Ukrainian corruption involved in the Russia collusion scam. During his work, Rudy identified the crimes committed by the Bidens in their pay-for-play scam in the Ukraine.

McFaul is no stranger to controversy or corruption. It goes without saying he was Obama’s Ambassador to Russia, for example.

McFaul has a storied past. D. Manny wrote at Politics Central that McFaul was one of the first individuals to discuss the never verified Russian hack of the DNC –

There is a 06/14/2016 article on Politico written by Daniel Strauss entitled, “Russian Government Hackers Broke into DNC Servers, Stole Trump Oppo; The Hackers had Access to the Information for Approximately One Year.” In that article, Strauss includes a comment attributed to Michael McFaul:

Michael McFaul, who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, called the hack “meddling in our personal affairs.”

“I am sure they intended to do this without being caught,” he told POLITICO. “They wanted to obtain the information without it being detected. That’s a kind of target that would make sense — in terms of them wanting to know things about what is going on here. Whether they were doing it to try to try to [sic] manipulate our political process, I’d have to think about that.”

He added: “Russia has tremendous capabilities, both the Russian government and their proxies and people somewhat affiliated with the government. We always underestimate their capabilities.”

First, such an odd choice from whom to seek a comment. What qualifications or expertise render McFaul an authority on matters such as Russian hacking? A search of Michael McFaul’s history shows he served as US ambassador to Russia two years prior to the Politco article, and what’s more, he previously made the news because Obama assigned McFaul to be an ambassador without having any prior diplomatic skills, to a major country like Russia too.

Manny goes on to state that soon after McFaul was appointed Ambassador in Russia he was visited by a number of Communist leaders from Russia at the US Embassy.

Perhaps the most shocking observation of McFaul is related to his invitation in front of Congress at a Foreign Affairs Committee. Pictures of the event are telling, not necessarily because of McFaul, but rather because of the individual he has sitting directly behind him, Natalia Veselnitskaya.

McFaul’s Congressional hearing occurred eight days after the now famous Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr. This meeting resulted in Donald Jr. being interrogated for hours by Congress over his meeting with Veselnitskaya.

What is more shocking is that Veselnitskaya met with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, before and after her meeting with Donald Jr. Fusion is the firm behind the phony Trump-Russia dossier that was never confirmed and very possibly all made up but nevertheless was used by Obama’s Deep State to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on President Trump.

Vindman is also connected to Glenn Simpson. Vindman was in Eurasia, specializing in Russian affairs, at the same region as Glenn Simpson, who was also specializing in Russian affairs was there, as well as Christopher Steele, who was also specializing in Russian affairs at the time. Trey Gowdy uncovered this in Simpson’s testimony in front of Congress –

Today we have more on Vindman, Shifty Schiff’s star witness ==>>

Yorktown Solutions is a lobbying firm that represents some questionable Ukrainian arms companies and the Ukrainian Oil and Gas industry, interested in undermining the Nordstream 2 Project. (Kiev Post)

Daniel Vajdich is listed as the registered agent for the lobbying firm Yorktown Solutions. He just so happens to be a member of the Atlantic Council. The same Atlantic Council Burisma donated heavily to and welcomed Volker, now a Senior Advisor, after he resigned. (Which opens a whole other can of worms regarding his meeting with Burisma board members at the Atlantic Council Event.)

Yorktown Solutions lists Alexander Vindman in its FARA filing –

On what appears to be their first day of U.S. operations, Vindman received his first email from Yorktown, he then met with them in March, and is listed as corresponding with Yorktown Solutions through email every few weeks since. Important to note, March of 2019 is also when Lutsenko began making allegations against Biden per WAPO’s timeline.

In addition, Chairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Stanislav Shevchuk met with the Special Advisor to the President of the USA, Head of the Russian and Eurasian Section of the US National Security Council Fiona Hill, Head of the Eastern Europe and Russia Division of the US National Security Council Alexander Vindman, former US Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Director of the Eurasian Center at the Atlantic Council of the United States John Herbst, partner of Baker McKenzie law firm Thomas Firestone during which a number of urgent issues were raised, in particular, the protection of the Constitution as part of the stability of the legal system and guarantee the effective functioning of democratic institutions.

What the hell were Hill, Vindman and Firestone doing together in Novermber 2018?   No doubt wasting more tax payer dollars working to overturn the 2016 election and the US Constitution.  This whole Schiff Sham is a disgrace.  Let’s hope and pray for justice.

Happy Halloween from the Schiff Sham and its basement chamber of secrets!

Hat tip D. Manny

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New Resolution Boxes Out Impeachment Critics, Gives Schiff Even More Power

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New Resolution Boxes Out Impeachment Critics, Gives Schiff Even More Power

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) arrives for a news conference following the passage of a resolution formalizing the impeachment inquiry centered on U.S. President Donald Trump Oct. 31, 2019, in Washington, D.C.Chip Somodevilla / Getty ImagesHouse Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) arrives for a news conference following the passage of a resolution formalizing the impeachment inquiry centered on U.S. President Donald Trump Oct. 31, 2019, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Democrats are supercharging their attempt to impeach President Donald Trump with a resolution that would shuffle powers around, boxing out impeachment critics while giving Rep. Adam Schiff even more power.

Democrats passed House Resolution 660 Thursday.

The resolution’s stated objective is “directing certain committees to continue their ongoing investigations as part of the existing House of Representatives inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its Constitutional power to impeach Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America, and for other purposes.”

In actuality, the move only puts more power into Schiff’s hands while apparently denying Republicans the right to call their own witnesses without approval.

According to the Washington Examiner’s assessment of the resolution, it strips the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees of their power of investigation.

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From now on, only the Adam Schiff-led Intelligence Committee will be asking the questions.

Impeachment critics Reps. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows, as well as other Republicans on the committees no longer allowed to interview witnesses, are effectively being boxed out of a major part of the investigation.

“It’s totally one-sided,” Meadows told the Washington Examiner. “They can continue to do secret depositions. They have noticed depositions for John Bolton and others next week in anticipation of a positive vote Thursday. All it does is limit the committees that will be involved in the depositions.”

As for those in the Intelligence Committee, Schiff will have to approve any witness Republicans want to call forward.

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“There’s no guarantee we can call any witnesses,” GOP Rep. Brad Wenstrup told the Examiner.

Republicans on the committee are now expected to submit a written request for any witnesses they wish to interview, along with their reasons for wanting to do so. Schiff has the final approval on all of these requests.

Under the guise of an apparent push for transparency, the resolution also allows Schiff to release redacted and censored transcripts of the committee’s actions but stops short of requiring it.

“It says they are authorized to disclose depositions, which means they can pick and choose which depositions they will release,” Meadows said.

In effect, Schiff not only has power over which witnesses are interviewed but what information is released. If he’s allowed to pick and choose like this, impeachment may be a breeze for Democrats.

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Considering how his office coordinated with the original whistleblower in the Ukraine scandal, this may be the bit of power the lawmaker was hoping for.

Not every Democrat is completely on board with these new rules, however.

Two members of the party, Reps. Jeff Van Drew and Collin Peterson both voted against the resolution, signaling that cracks may be forming in the seemingly united push for impeachment at all costs.

Under Schiff’s partisan lead, this impeachment debacle is bound to get much messier.

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via The Western Journal

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