Do you think the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is being conducted fairly?

I was born at the tail end of the baby boom. I remember going to schools from which children poured out like an enthusiastic tide. It was an oddity for a couple not to have children then – and even a minor source of embarrassment. It was also an oddity for people not to marry at a fairly young age. Of course, by this time a kind of stigma was already creeping in at the other end of the spectrum. Families of six or seven, not uncommon in my grandparents’ day, were more and more being seen as socially irresponsible – a throwback to a now distant time in which many babies and children didn’t survive.

Now we now live in a better world where people have been freed from the cultural burden of having big families – or families of any kind. Many young people live in random little groups – making a semi-permanent lifestyle of the arrangements one finds in college dorms. In our particular brave new world, people are free to lavish their attention either on themselves or, if they have some nagging concerns about posterity, on the latest attempt to save the planet. Banning of plastic straws is both easier and apparently more noble than nurturing new human beings. Though still shackled to some semblance of their animal desires through myriad and faddish varieties of sex, today’s young people are, at least, unshackled from the animal consequences. This is what is now called progress. People can hope to binge-watch some anesthetic pablum to the end of their days, uninterrupted by the squeal of their progenies’ voices or the irritating patter of their tiny unshod feet. Children are an inconvenience, and grandchildren are worse.

The West is dying. Our culture has become enchanted with its own self-satisfied and self-sterilizing disease. You cannot argue with the numbers. Any fertility rate below the replacement rate just factually means a dwindling of our kind. The replacement rate is 2.1. The fertility rate in the US is 1.9. In Europe and parts of Asia the rates are even lower. If some individual were responsible for such a decline, we would call it genocide. It would be a war crime.

There can only be one rational objection to the argument that we are marching steadily toward our own extinction. That argument is that the numbers will change. Maybe once we have saved the planet and gotten our population down to some conveniently sustainable level, the fertility rate will naturally rebound on its own. Unfortunately, we’ve become quite accustomed to having our way with nature, then discarding her as soon as we are done with her. Unless our culture fundamentally changes, a rebound of the fertility rate is out of the question. We didn’t decide on a low birth rate because we were running out of resources. Most of the world’s people are materially better off than their grandparents were in the 1950’s – and yet in every continent but Africa fertility rates continue to decline. People didn’t stop procreating as the result of a well-informed collective decision – some national, or international “conversation” we had in the 1960’s. People have stopped having children chiefly for two reasons. First, more and more effective contraception has become available. Second, the family as an institution has lost much, and in some cases all, of its cultural value. People can howl about personal choice, sexual freedom, and female empowerment all they want to – but we can see plainly both the cultural disruption and the hard statistical consequences of the road we’ve chosen. Facts, no matter how inconvenient – are facts.

Most Americans have become accustomed to their laissez-faire morality, their self-interested use of money, and their illusion of personal freedom. They love these things much more than they love posterity. In every generation from the beginning of the world, many people have loved themselves more than anyone else at heart. In the past, however, few whole cultures have wedded themselves so fervently to the god of the insatiable “me”. None that have done so have survived. Societies survive only because the people who constitute them are willing to believe in, and sacrifice for, things greater than their own passing interests. Real things. Things that patter around on tiny unshod feet. They’ve been willing to sacrifice. To make commitments. They’ve been able, somehow, to believe in something grander than veganism, and to look for wisdom from more plausible sources than Greta Thunberg. If our parents or grandparents fell short of our ideals – at least they had them. If they gave birth to less than perfect families, at least they had some solid notion of what a family was.

Everything about contemporary culture seems contrived to make us dwindle. If the left had deliberately planned to destroy humanity, they could hardly have done better. The encouragement of single motherhood creates children who, themselves, have no idea what a family is. They in turn, bring forth the next generation erratically and irresponsibly. What will happen to these pseudo orphans when the last of the grandparents die? Who will raise them? I do not think an army of daycare providers making minimum wage and barely speaking English will create anything but another generation of the confused and unloved. I do not think the morally neutral government schools they will later be warehoused in will help much either. It does not take a village to raise a child. It simply takes parents. We are running sadly short of adults really worthy of the name.

And what has our oh-so-sensitive and tolerant culture put on the pedestal the family used to occupy? Homosexuality, deviancy, and abortion on demand. Each of these chips away at the fertility rate. Homosexuals, obviously, do not breed – and adopting and corrupting other peoples’ children really doesn’t count. The weird transgenderism that has arisen from the “gay and lesbian community” is not a formula for stability or sanity either. What will become of a boy or girl whose gender-confused “parents” have decided to raise the luckless little creature as the opposite gender from what its reproductive organs indicate? Will it grow up to be a robust, psychologically healthy mother or father, or will it be more likely to commit suicide on the altar of its “parents” virtue signaling?

Abortion, of course, is the most direct assault on life of all. Since Roe v. Wade was judicially conjured into law in 1973, the total death toll has been at least 46 million according to CDC statistics. That’s more than 14% of the current US population. Even this number leaves out states like California, who refuse to keep statistics. Abortion has gone from what even liberals saw as an unhappy practice, to the left’s loudest and most militant rallying cry. What can one say about a culture whose most sacred institution is the right to murder its own children?

It would be a mistake to believe that conservatives can somehow coexist with what our enemies have become. We shouldn’t be complacent about out-breeding them. While traditional Christian families do have more children than demographically similar progressives, they still have fewer than they used to. Moreover, as the left propagates by conversion rather than by procreation, it effectively sterilizes a substantial fraction of conservative children sooner or later. I know many older Christians who lament the loss of an adult child to the general pathology of leftwing self-loathing and navel-gazing malaise. Children would interfere with their yoga, their social life, and their competitive consumption. Progressives not only murder their own children, they functionally sterilize as many other peoples’ children as they can. The culture war is, in the end, a fight to the death.

I was born at the tail end of the baby boom. I remember going to schools from which children poured out like an enthusiastic tide. It was an oddity for a couple not to have children then – and even a minor source of embarrassment. It was also an oddity for people not to marry at a fairly young age. Of course, by this time a kind of stigma was already creeping in at the other end of the spectrum. Families of six or seven, not uncommon in my grandparents’ day, were more and more being seen as socially irresponsible – a throwback to a now distant time in which many babies and children didn’t survive.

Now we now live in a better world where people have been freed from the cultural burden of having big families – or families of any kind. Many young people live in random little groups – making a semi-permanent lifestyle of the arrangements one finds in college dorms. In our particular brave new world, people are free to lavish their attention either on themselves or, if they have some nagging concerns about posterity, on the latest attempt to save the planet. Banning of plastic straws is both easier and apparently more noble than nurturing new human beings. Though still shackled to some semblance of their animal desires through myriad and faddish varieties of sex, today’s young people are, at least, unshackled from the animal consequences. This is what is now called progress. People can hope to binge-watch some anesthetic pablum to the end of their days, uninterrupted by the squeal of their progenies’ voices or the irritating patter of their tiny unshod feet. Children are an inconvenience, and grandchildren are worse.

The West is dying. Our culture has become enchanted with its own self-satisfied and self-sterilizing disease. You cannot argue with the numbers. Any fertility rate below the replacement rate just factually means a dwindling of our kind. The replacement rate is 2.1. The fertility rate in the US is 1.9. In Europe and parts of Asia the rates are even lower. If some individual were responsible for such a decline, we would call it genocide. It would be a war crime.

There can only be one rational objection to the argument that we are marching steadily toward our own extinction. That argument is that the numbers will change. Maybe once we have saved the planet and gotten our population down to some conveniently sustainable level, the fertility rate will naturally rebound on its own. Unfortunately, we’ve become quite accustomed to having our way with nature, then discarding her as soon as we are done with her. Unless our culture fundamentally changes, a rebound of the fertility rate is out of the question. We didn’t decide on a low birth rate because we were running out of resources. Most of the world’s people are materially better off than their grandparents were in the 1950’s – and yet in every continent but Africa fertility rates continue to decline. People didn’t stop procreating as the result of a well-informed collective decision – some national, or international “conversation” we had in the 1960’s. People have stopped having children chiefly for two reasons. First, more and more effective contraception has become available. Second, the family as an institution has lost much, and in some cases all, of its cultural value. People can howl about personal choice, sexual freedom, and female empowerment all they want to – but we can see plainly both the cultural disruption and the hard statistical consequences of the road we’ve chosen. Facts, no matter how inconvenient – are facts.

Most Americans have become accustomed to their laissez-faire morality, their self-interested use of money, and their illusion of personal freedom. They love these things much more than they love posterity. In every generation from the beginning of the world, many people have loved themselves more than anyone else at heart. In the past, however, few whole cultures have wedded themselves so fervently to the god of the insatiable “me”. None that have done so have survived. Societies survive only because the people who constitute them are willing to believe in, and sacrifice for, things greater than their own passing interests. Real things. Things that patter around on tiny unshod feet. They’ve been willing to sacrifice. To make commitments. They’ve been able, somehow, to believe in something grander than veganism, and to look for wisdom from more plausible sources than Greta Thunberg. If our parents or grandparents fell short of our ideals – at least they had them. If they gave birth to less than perfect families, at least they had some solid notion of what a family was.

Everything about contemporary culture seems contrived to make us dwindle. If the left had deliberately planned to destroy humanity, they could hardly have done better. The encouragement of single motherhood creates children who, themselves, have no idea what a family is. They in turn, bring forth the next generation erratically and irresponsibly. What will happen to these pseudo orphans when the last of the grandparents die? Who will raise them? I do not think an army of daycare providers making minimum wage and barely speaking English will create anything but another generation of the confused and unloved. I do not think the morally neutral government schools they will later be warehoused in will help much either. It does not take a village to raise a child. It simply takes parents. We are running sadly short of adults really worthy of the name.

And what has our oh-so-sensitive and tolerant culture put on the pedestal the family used to occupy? Homosexuality, deviancy, and abortion on demand. Each of these chips away at the fertility rate. Homosexuals, obviously, do not breed – and adopting and corrupting other peoples’ children really doesn’t count. The weird transgenderism that has arisen from the “gay and lesbian community” is not a formula for stability or sanity either. What will become of a boy or girl whose gender-confused “parents” have decided to raise the luckless little creature as the opposite gender from what its reproductive organs indicate? Will it grow up to be a robust, psychologically healthy mother or father, or will it be more likely to commit suicide on the altar of its “parents” virtue signaling?

Abortion, of course, is the most direct assault on life of all. Since Roe v. Wade was judicially conjured into law in 1973, the total death toll has been at least 46 million according to CDC statistics. That’s more than 14% of the current US population. Even this number leaves out states like California, who refuse to keep statistics. Abortion has gone from what even liberals saw as an unhappy practice, to the left’s loudest and most militant rallying cry. What can one say about a culture whose most sacred institution is the right to murder its own children?

It would be a mistake to believe that conservatives can somehow coexist with what our enemies have become. We shouldn’t be complacent about out-breeding them. While traditional Christian families do have more children than demographically similar progressives, they still have fewer than they used to. Moreover, as the left propagates by conversion rather than by procreation, it effectively sterilizes a substantial fraction of conservative children sooner or later. I know many older Christians who lament the loss of an adult child to the general pathology of leftwing self-loathing and navel-gazing malaise. Children would interfere with their yoga, their social life, and their competitive consumption. Progressives not only murder their own children, they functionally sterilize as many other peoples’ children as they can. The culture war is, in the end, a fight to the death.

In order to remove the U.S. president, the vice president, federal judges, and other federal officials from office, Article I, Section II of the U.S. Constitution gives the U.S. House of Representatives “the sole Power of Impeachment.”  Article I, Section III gives the U.S. Senate “the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”  In the history of the United States, the U.S. House has initiated impeachment proceedings dozens of times; however, only 19 individuals have faced actual Articles of Impeachment.

Most of these 19 were judges, and most were acquitted or resigned from office before facing trial in the Senate.  All, save two, were impeached for “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”  In addition to the charges of bribery and treason, George Mason, a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention who is known as the “Father of the Bill of Rights,” proposed adding the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” as cause for removing executive and judicial officials from federal office.

For a better understanding of how our founders viewed high crimes and misdemeanors, the Federalist Papers provide insight.  In Federalist 65, to explain impeachable offenses, Alexander Hamilton wrote of “those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust.  They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”

In other words — as just about any sentient adult who was alive in the late 1990s well knows — impeachment is a political, not a criminal, process.  A person or persons can be impeached, whether or not their actions are technically criminal.  And though the word “impeachment” almost always implies the removal of a public official from office, to “impeach” simply means “to challenge the credibility of; to bring an accusation against; to call into question; or to cast an imputation upon.”  (This is exactly what happens to an “impeached” individual at his “trial.”)

As Hamilton makes clear, those “public men” who have abused or violated the public trust, and whose actions are injurious to society itself, must be impeached.  I submit to you that no one in our society today is more worthy of impeachment than the liberal members of the mainstream media, whose offensive “misconduct” — almost always resulting in political injury — has grievously poisoned our culture.

For decades now, in violation of the public trust, liberals in the American mainstream media — including the news, information, and entertainment media — have willfully corrupted the values and institutions that made the United States of America into the greatest nation in the history of humanity.  Their lies and immorality have wrought havoc on families, churches, schools, businesses, corporations, governments, and so on.

Contrary to their sacred duty to provide what is truthful, they have willfully presented false and misleading information to the public at large concerning, but not limited to, the following:

1. The election of Democrats over Republicans.  This is especially disconcerting when it comes to the news media.  Violating the Journalist’s Creed where it declares that “a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all,” for over a half-century now, the liberal news media — which constitute the vast majority of the news media — have deliberately deceived the voting public in order to see Democrats elected.  This has never been more true and clear than with the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States.  Even after the historic Democrat losses in the 2016 election, for over two years now, in their lust to undo the 2016 election, the liberal news media have regularly engaged in malpractice and corruption and have well earned the title “merchants of propaganda.”  Barely 100 days into his term as president, the liberal American media were clamoring for the impeachment of President Trump, while for months and years they ignored or played down the corruption of his election opponent, Hillary Clinton.

2. The role of good government — especially in most every fiscal matter.  With the United States government over $20 trillion in debt, liberals in the media continue to promote an ever growing welfare state.  With regard to health care, housing, food, retirement income, education, cell phones, and so on, media liberals continue to misinform the electorate that such things are a “right” and thus we must demand them from our government.  In doing so, media liberals have trampled the Constitution and ignored the warning and instruction of men like President Grover Cleveland — a Democrat — in the late 19th century when he declared, “Once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again[.] … It is the responsibility of citizens to support their government.  It is not the responsibility of government to support its citizens.”

3. The nature and details concerning radical Islam and Islam in general.  In spite of the continued carnage (Nigeria provides a tragic constant reminder), liberals in the media continue to paint Islam as a “peaceful religion” and radical Islam as nothing much of a going concern.  As I’ve noted multiple times, with significant detail: Islam is an enforced religion with a violent founder, a violent founding, and a very violent past and present. Islam is generally repressive to women and to those of other faiths.  Islam is typically financially devastating and technologically backward.  Any politician, pundit, or journalist who attempts to paint Islam or Islamic nations in a positive light is at the least not giving the whole picture and is at the worst a political and moral coward.

4. The nature and details of the burning of fossil fuels as it relates to global climate change — specifically what is often referred to as “global warming.”  In addition to hyping the fake science of climate change, media liberals have aided and abetted what has been frequently deemed “the greatest scientific fraud of all time.”  This has led to what has been called “the greatest scandal in science” — where so-called “champions of science” have falsely declared that “the debate is over” and that a left-wing big-government agenda must be pursued in order to achieve what is humanly impossible: halting climate change.

5. The nature and role of sound immigration policy.  In order to elect more liberals to political office, the liberal American media have pushed an open-borders policy that threatens the safety, security, and economy of the United States of America.  Historically, the United States is the friendliest nation in the world toward immigrants.  However, far from simply promoting assimilation and the accurate idea that America is the “land of opportunity,” the liberal media have promoted the false notion that it is the responsibility of American citizens to provide immigrants and illegal aliens with “free” food, housing, education, and the like.

6. Whether through pornography or the promotion of fornication, adultery, promiscuity, homosexuality, and the like, media liberals have grossly misled the public when it comes to right and proper behavior in all things sexual.  The perverse lie that any sexual activity is permissible as long as it occurs between “consenting adults,” has resulted in widespread tragic consequences, including the rampant spread of sexually transmitted diseases, rampant divorce, over 40% of all U.S. births out of wedlock, and the deaths of tens of millions of helpless children in what should be one of safest places in the universe: the mother’s womb.

7. The nature and details of life in the womb.  In order to justify abortion (and, as logic dictates, the “right” to have sex without consequences), media liberals have aided and abetted the many lies of the abortion industry.  To justify the slaughter of tens of millions of children in the womb, abortion apologists in the American media have long used the de-humanizing language employed by no less than the Nazis.

8. The nature and details of what marriage is.  In defiance of the vast majority of the American electorate — in addition to sound science and clear, longstanding morality — and in support of the perverse homosexual (LGBT) agenda, the liberal American media helped bring about the legal redefinition of the oldest institution in the history of humanity.

9. The nature and details of what is a male and what is a female.  In further support of the madness and perversion that is the LGBT agenda, the liberal American media are engaged in perhaps their strangest effort yet.  In defiance of what is plain to most, they — including even the sports media (who, perhaps more than most, should know better), and aided by no less than the former president of the United States, Barack Obama — have promoted the insanely foolish notion that one’s sex (gender) is mutable.

The liberal American media, by such conduct, warrant impeachment; removal from their offices; and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office or position of information, entertainment, honor, trust, or profit under the United States.  Though there is no formal process for this to occur, each of us can certainly choose to personally impeach them in his own life.

Trevor Grant Thomas: At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America.
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

In order to remove the U.S. president, the vice president, federal judges, and other federal officials from office, Article I, Section II of the U.S. Constitution gives the U.S. House of Representatives “the sole Power of Impeachment.”  Article I, Section III gives the U.S. Senate “the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”  In the history of the United States, the U.S. House has initiated impeachment proceedings dozens of times; however, only 19 individuals have faced actual Articles of Impeachment.

Most of these 19 were judges, and most were acquitted or resigned from office before facing trial in the Senate.  All, save two, were impeached for “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”  In addition to the charges of bribery and treason, George Mason, a Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Convention who is known as the “Father of the Bill of Rights,” proposed adding the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” as cause for removing executive and judicial officials from federal office.

For a better understanding of how our founders viewed high crimes and misdemeanors, the Federalist Papers provide insight.  In Federalist 65, to explain impeachable offenses, Alexander Hamilton wrote of “those offences which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust.  They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.”

In other words — as just about any sentient adult who was alive in the late 1990s well knows — impeachment is a political, not a criminal, process.  A person or persons can be impeached, whether or not their actions are technically criminal.  And though the word “impeachment” almost always implies the removal of a public official from office, to “impeach” simply means “to challenge the credibility of; to bring an accusation against; to call into question; or to cast an imputation upon.”  (This is exactly what happens to an “impeached” individual at his “trial.”)

As Hamilton makes clear, those “public men” who have abused or violated the public trust, and whose actions are injurious to society itself, must be impeached.  I submit to you that no one in our society today is more worthy of impeachment than the liberal members of the mainstream media, whose offensive “misconduct” — almost always resulting in political injury — has grievously poisoned our culture.

For decades now, in violation of the public trust, liberals in the American mainstream media — including the news, information, and entertainment media — have willfully corrupted the values and institutions that made the United States of America into the greatest nation in the history of humanity.  Their lies and immorality have wrought havoc on families, churches, schools, businesses, corporations, governments, and so on.

Contrary to their sacred duty to provide what is truthful, they have willfully presented false and misleading information to the public at large concerning, but not limited to, the following:

1. The election of Democrats over Republicans.  This is especially disconcerting when it comes to the news media.  Violating the Journalist’s Creed where it declares that “a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all,” for over a half-century now, the liberal news media — which constitute the vast majority of the news media — have deliberately deceived the voting public in order to see Democrats elected.  This has never been more true and clear than with the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States.  Even after the historic Democrat losses in the 2016 election, for over two years now, in their lust to undo the 2016 election, the liberal news media have regularly engaged in malpractice and corruption and have well earned the title “merchants of propaganda.”  Barely 100 days into his term as president, the liberal American media were clamoring for the impeachment of President Trump, while for months and years they ignored or played down the corruption of his election opponent, Hillary Clinton.

2. The role of good government — especially in most every fiscal matter.  With the United States government over $20 trillion in debt, liberals in the media continue to promote an ever growing welfare state.  With regard to health care, housing, food, retirement income, education, cell phones, and so on, media liberals continue to misinform the electorate that such things are a “right” and thus we must demand them from our government.  In doing so, media liberals have trampled the Constitution and ignored the warning and instruction of men like President Grover Cleveland — a Democrat — in the late 19th century when he declared, “Once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again[.] … It is the responsibility of citizens to support their government.  It is not the responsibility of government to support its citizens.”

3. The nature and details concerning radical Islam and Islam in general.  In spite of the continued carnage (Nigeria provides a tragic constant reminder), liberals in the media continue to paint Islam as a “peaceful religion” and radical Islam as nothing much of a going concern.  As I’ve noted multiple times, with significant detail: Islam is an enforced religion with a violent founder, a violent founding, and a very violent past and present. Islam is generally repressive to women and to those of other faiths.  Islam is typically financially devastating and technologically backward.  Any politician, pundit, or journalist who attempts to paint Islam or Islamic nations in a positive light is at the least not giving the whole picture and is at the worst a political and moral coward.

4. The nature and details of the burning of fossil fuels as it relates to global climate change — specifically what is often referred to as “global warming.”  In addition to hyping the fake science of climate change, media liberals have aided and abetted what has been frequently deemed “the greatest scientific fraud of all time.”  This has led to what has been called “the greatest scandal in science” — where so-called “champions of science” have falsely declared that “the debate is over” and that a left-wing big-government agenda must be pursued in order to achieve what is humanly impossible: halting climate change.

5. The nature and role of sound immigration policy.  In order to elect more liberals to political office, the liberal American media have pushed an open-borders policy that threatens the safety, security, and economy of the United States of America.  Historically, the United States is the friendliest nation in the world toward immigrants.  However, far from simply promoting assimilation and the accurate idea that America is the “land of opportunity,” the liberal media have promoted the false notion that it is the responsibility of American citizens to provide immigrants and illegal aliens with “free” food, housing, education, and the like.

6. Whether through pornography or the promotion of fornication, adultery, promiscuity, homosexuality, and the like, media liberals have grossly misled the public when it comes to right and proper behavior in all things sexual.  The perverse lie that any sexual activity is permissible as long as it occurs between “consenting adults,” has resulted in widespread tragic consequences, including the rampant spread of sexually transmitted diseases, rampant divorce, over 40% of all U.S. births out of wedlock, and the deaths of tens of millions of helpless children in what should be one of safest places in the universe: the mother’s womb.

7. The nature and details of life in the womb.  In order to justify abortion (and, as logic dictates, the “right” to have sex without consequences), media liberals have aided and abetted the many lies of the abortion industry.  To justify the slaughter of tens of millions of children in the womb, abortion apologists in the American media have long used the de-humanizing language employed by no less than the Nazis.

8. The nature and details of what marriage is.  In defiance of the vast majority of the American electorate — in addition to sound science and clear, longstanding morality — and in support of the perverse homosexual (LGBT) agenda, the liberal American media helped bring about the legal redefinition of the oldest institution in the history of humanity.

9. The nature and details of what is a male and what is a female.  In further support of the madness and perversion that is the LGBT agenda, the liberal American media are engaged in perhaps their strangest effort yet.  In defiance of what is plain to most, they — including even the sports media (who, perhaps more than most, should know better), and aided by no less than the former president of the United States, Barack Obama — have promoted the insanely foolish notion that one’s sex (gender) is mutable.

The liberal American media, by such conduct, warrant impeachment; removal from their offices; and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office or position of information, entertainment, honor, trust, or profit under the United States.  Though there is no formal process for this to occur, each of us can certainly choose to personally impeach them in his own life.

Trevor Grant Thomas: At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America.
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

The current situation in Washington is, in the language of poker, a bluff.  The Democrats are bluffing; they have only weak cards in their hand.  They actually have nothing against Trump.  That’s all they have ever had.

As it is known, impeachment is simply a vote of no confidence.  A vote of no confidence exists in many countries where there is a political separation of powers.  In some countries, for example, the president has the right to dissolve parliament and call new parliamentary elections, and as a political counterbalance, the parliament can declare a vote of no confidence against the president.  In America, the president cannot dissolve Congress under any circumstances, but the price for such protection of the Congress is high: as a counterweight, both chambers — the Senate and the House of Representatives — must speak out against the president in case of impeachment.  This process of a vote of no confidence in the House of Representatives is called impeachment, and in the Senate, a trial.

What awaits the president after impeachment?  The answer is…nothing.  Impeachment is a purely political maneuver, and the president remains to fulfill his duties until the end of his term, knowing that the House is unhappy with him.  The last well known example is President Bill Clinton, who was impeached in 1998 (but acquitted by the Senate).  And so what?  Nothing — he continued to work.

The fact is that the second part of the vote of no confidence takes place in the Senate.  Here in the Senate, according to the US Constitution, a trial of the president occurs.  The trial takes place in a manner close to a real court proceeding — with lawyers, prosecutors, judges, prosecution witnesses, and defense witnesses.  Contrary to the House decision, the Senate’s trial considers whether or not there was a violation of the law by the president.  If a violation of the law has occurred, then the president could lose his post.

The current hysteria of the Democrats regarding impeachment is unusual.  Firstly, it is based on rumors.  That is why, secondly, the Democrats still have not decided which law Trump has violated.  Thirdly, there was no vote in the House of Representatives to initiate the impeachment procedure (more precisely, the House of Representatives, in which the majority belongs to the Democrats, in a 332-95 decision, chose not to bother with impeachment).

Therefore, what is happening now in the House of Representatives is an unauthorized (albeit with the verbal approval of Speaker Pelosi) political show of two congressmen with demonstrably low I.Q.s: the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Schiff, and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Nadler.  Since the current case of impeachment in the House is an unofficial media spectacle but legally does not exist, the Republican congressmen officially have no way to participate in this case: neither to interrogate witnesses nor to get acquainted with documents.  They are completely squeezed out of the process.

Why is all the talk about Trump’s impeachment a bluff?  The U.S. Constitution empowers only the entire House of Representatives with the impeachment authority, not just the speaker of the House or the chairmen of the committees of the House.  The Constitution refers specifically to the entire House of Representatives and never mentions any individual members of Congress.  The impeachment decision must be made by the entirety of the chamber’s vote, not by its high-ranking representatives. 

This backstage fuss over impeachment without the authorization of the entire House is a procedure on the verge of illegitimacy.  This conclusion follows both the letter and the spirit of the law.  The U.S. Constitution clearly shows that the Founding Fathers foresaw such situations in advance and tried their best to protect the institution of the presidency from frivolous accusations by individuals.

In fact, in any election, there are winners and losers, and the Founding Fathers deliberately established a system in which said losers would not have an opportunity to seek revenge on the winners.  In other words, impeachment can be initiated only by a public institution — the House of Representatives — and not by individual citizens, no matter how high they are in the public hierarchy.  If they do otherwise, the Democrats could well lead America to a constitutional crisis.

The Founding Fathers intentionally raised the bar for impeachment and the subsequent trial to unprecedented heights, demanding that the removal of the president from office be for a flagrant violation of the most serious laws by the president — such as, for example, betrayal.  The Founding Fathers tried their best to reduce the likelihood of settling political scores with the help of endless impeachment procedures.  That is why a Senate trial requires a constitutional two thirds of the vote.  Such a high level was supposed to cool the ardor of all those individuals who, instead of a constructive opposition, would decide to participate in a political vendetta.

The TV propagandists talk a lot about the fact that some senior White House officials have already been officially subpoenaed: Vice President Pence, Secretary Pompeo, Rudy Giuliani, and others.  This is a bluff.  There are no formal subpoenas — subpoenas can be sent only after voting in a committee of the House (for example, the Judiciary Committee or the Intelligence Committee).  So far, no committee has voted.

So what happened?  There were just letters sent to some members of Trump’s staff, signed by the chairmen of some committees of the House.  That’s all, folks.  The letters call Trump employees for voluntary testimony and the voluntary submission of documents, and a warning is made that if they do not agree to this, a subpoena may be issued.  That is the maximum that the chairpersons of committees of the House can do as individuals, without a vote, while remaining within the law.

Democrats and their ideological comrades in the mass disinformation media are recognized masters of the fake news.  No doubt, their next big project is a fake impeachment.

Why do Democrats behave in this manner?  To a large extent, because voting in the House of Representatives and its committees is never secret.  It is always out in the open.  So the Democrats do not want the voters to know who voted for impeachment and who is against it.  All Democrats — members of Congress from traditionally Republican states — watch this circus with horror.  They know very well that if they vote for impeachment, the 2020 elections will be their last.

We should not forget that impeachment is the only weapon left for the Democrats to at least somehow resist the investigation of the Department of Justice about the origins of the failed “Russiagate” palace coup and the role of the Obama administration in the widespread surveillance of Trump in 2016–2017.  The irony of the situation is that Trump’s political opponents — the Democrats and the disinformation media supporting them — have been complaining for more than three years that other states’ interference in the U.S. election is bad and not acceptable.  So now, when Trump decided to conduct a thorough investigation of such interference, they fell into hysteria.

The conclusion is unequivocal: the Democrats want Trump’s impeachment, but only in virtual form, only on a TV screen, since they are guaranteed to lose a rigorous legal or political trial.

Democrats went all in: they decided not to recognize the results of the 2016 elections and embarked on a new, unprecedented in America path — the path of a permanent palace coup.

However, an attempt to impeach the president responsible for the lowest unemployment rate in America in the last 50 years is political suicide.  Trump knows this well, so he constantly encourages and gently pushes the Democrats to impeach him.

Therefore, the Democrats are forced to roll this bluffpeachment process despite Trump not violating any laws (at least, the Democrats carefully do not mention any statute that Trump has presumably violated).  However, it is clear to everyone that Trump’s indictment, if brought forward, could only be for the worst — from the point of view of the Democrats — crime: the crime of winning the election.

Gary Gindler, Ph.D. is a conservative columnist at Gary Gindler Chronicles, and the founder of a new science — Politiphysics.  Follow him on Twitter and Quodverum.

The current situation in Washington is, in the language of poker, a bluff.  The Democrats are bluffing; they have only weak cards in their hand.  They actually have nothing against Trump.  That’s all they have ever had.

As it is known, impeachment is simply a vote of no confidence.  A vote of no confidence exists in many countries where there is a political separation of powers.  In some countries, for example, the president has the right to dissolve parliament and call new parliamentary elections, and as a political counterbalance, the parliament can declare a vote of no confidence against the president.  In America, the president cannot dissolve Congress under any circumstances, but the price for such protection of the Congress is high: as a counterweight, both chambers — the Senate and the House of Representatives — must speak out against the president in case of impeachment.  This process of a vote of no confidence in the House of Representatives is called impeachment, and in the Senate, a trial.

What awaits the president after impeachment?  The answer is…nothing.  Impeachment is a purely political maneuver, and the president remains to fulfill his duties until the end of his term, knowing that the House is unhappy with him.  The last well known example is President Bill Clinton, who was impeached in 1998 (but acquitted by the Senate).  And so what?  Nothing — he continued to work.

The fact is that the second part of the vote of no confidence takes place in the Senate.  Here in the Senate, according to the US Constitution, a trial of the president occurs.  The trial takes place in a manner close to a real court proceeding — with lawyers, prosecutors, judges, prosecution witnesses, and defense witnesses.  Contrary to the House decision, the Senate’s trial considers whether or not there was a violation of the law by the president.  If a violation of the law has occurred, then the president could lose his post.

The current hysteria of the Democrats regarding impeachment is unusual.  Firstly, it is based on rumors.  That is why, secondly, the Democrats still have not decided which law Trump has violated.  Thirdly, there was no vote in the House of Representatives to initiate the impeachment procedure (more precisely, the House of Representatives, in which the majority belongs to the Democrats, in a 332-95 decision, chose not to bother with impeachment).

Therefore, what is happening now in the House of Representatives is an unauthorized (albeit with the verbal approval of Speaker Pelosi) political show of two congressmen with demonstrably low I.Q.s: the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Schiff, and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Nadler.  Since the current case of impeachment in the House is an unofficial media spectacle but legally does not exist, the Republican congressmen officially have no way to participate in this case: neither to interrogate witnesses nor to get acquainted with documents.  They are completely squeezed out of the process.

Why is all the talk about Trump’s impeachment a bluff?  The U.S. Constitution empowers only the entire House of Representatives with the impeachment authority, not just the speaker of the House or the chairmen of the committees of the House.  The Constitution refers specifically to the entire House of Representatives and never mentions any individual members of Congress.  The impeachment decision must be made by the entirety of the chamber’s vote, not by its high-ranking representatives. 

This backstage fuss over impeachment without the authorization of the entire House is a procedure on the verge of illegitimacy.  This conclusion follows both the letter and the spirit of the law.  The U.S. Constitution clearly shows that the Founding Fathers foresaw such situations in advance and tried their best to protect the institution of the presidency from frivolous accusations by individuals.

In fact, in any election, there are winners and losers, and the Founding Fathers deliberately established a system in which said losers would not have an opportunity to seek revenge on the winners.  In other words, impeachment can be initiated only by a public institution — the House of Representatives — and not by individual citizens, no matter how high they are in the public hierarchy.  If they do otherwise, the Democrats could well lead America to a constitutional crisis.

The Founding Fathers intentionally raised the bar for impeachment and the subsequent trial to unprecedented heights, demanding that the removal of the president from office be for a flagrant violation of the most serious laws by the president — such as, for example, betrayal.  The Founding Fathers tried their best to reduce the likelihood of settling political scores with the help of endless impeachment procedures.  That is why a Senate trial requires a constitutional two thirds of the vote.  Such a high level was supposed to cool the ardor of all those individuals who, instead of a constructive opposition, would decide to participate in a political vendetta.

The TV propagandists talk a lot about the fact that some senior White House officials have already been officially subpoenaed: Vice President Pence, Secretary Pompeo, Rudy Giuliani, and others.  This is a bluff.  There are no formal subpoenas — subpoenas can be sent only after voting in a committee of the House (for example, the Judiciary Committee or the Intelligence Committee).  So far, no committee has voted.

So what happened?  There were just letters sent to some members of Trump’s staff, signed by the chairmen of some committees of the House.  That’s all, folks.  The letters call Trump employees for voluntary testimony and the voluntary submission of documents, and a warning is made that if they do not agree to this, a subpoena may be issued.  That is the maximum that the chairpersons of committees of the House can do as individuals, without a vote, while remaining within the law.

Democrats and their ideological comrades in the mass disinformation media are recognized masters of the fake news.  No doubt, their next big project is a fake impeachment.

Why do Democrats behave in this manner?  To a large extent, because voting in the House of Representatives and its committees is never secret.  It is always out in the open.  So the Democrats do not want the voters to know who voted for impeachment and who is against it.  All Democrats — members of Congress from traditionally Republican states — watch this circus with horror.  They know very well that if they vote for impeachment, the 2020 elections will be their last.

We should not forget that impeachment is the only weapon left for the Democrats to at least somehow resist the investigation of the Department of Justice about the origins of the failed “Russiagate” palace coup and the role of the Obama administration in the widespread surveillance of Trump in 2016–2017.  The irony of the situation is that Trump’s political opponents — the Democrats and the disinformation media supporting them — have been complaining for more than three years that other states’ interference in the U.S. election is bad and not acceptable.  So now, when Trump decided to conduct a thorough investigation of such interference, they fell into hysteria.

The conclusion is unequivocal: the Democrats want Trump’s impeachment, but only in virtual form, only on a TV screen, since they are guaranteed to lose a rigorous legal or political trial.

Democrats went all in: they decided not to recognize the results of the 2016 elections and embarked on a new, unprecedented in America path — the path of a permanent palace coup.

However, an attempt to impeach the president responsible for the lowest unemployment rate in America in the last 50 years is political suicide.  Trump knows this well, so he constantly encourages and gently pushes the Democrats to impeach him.

Therefore, the Democrats are forced to roll this bluffpeachment process despite Trump not violating any laws (at least, the Democrats carefully do not mention any statute that Trump has presumably violated).  However, it is clear to everyone that Trump’s indictment, if brought forward, could only be for the worst — from the point of view of the Democrats — crime: the crime of winning the election.

Gary Gindler, Ph.D. is a conservative columnist at Gary Gindler Chronicles, and the founder of a new science — Politiphysics.  Follow him on Twitter and Quodverum.

The hate, chaos, ignorance, and emotion being demonstrated by thousands of Americans is an accurate picture showing the results of years of paid for corrupt political leadership.

In the American mural, I see thousands of future Americans having their lives terminated every year.  I see debt so large that the average person cannot relate to it.  I see that our leadership spends billions on a drug war that has resulted in more government and more drugs, trillions on a war against poverty that has resulted in more government and more poverty.  I see a government-run retirement system called Social Security that has given us more government and a Ponzi scheme destined to fail and now an educational system that can’t tell the difference between boys and girls but provides some of the best babysitting and welfare services available in America.  And we have at least one political party providing “presidential” candidates unfit to serve in a public office who promise continued support and expansion of these failures if elected.

In the real world, seats at the corrupt government table are now so expensive that large PACs have been legalized to collect the necessary funding to continue buying those seats.  Those seats provide the power needed to control all aspects of the people’s lives and, as importantly, their money.  People who sit in those seats are in most cases “selected” by the political parties and presented to we the people as “candidates” qualified to represent us at the government table.  We end up voting for the lesser of two evils.

It’s time to realize that the New World Order is not a conspiracy theory.  Governments in Europe, North America, and South America are not responding to their citizens, but engaging in “political coups” designed to overthrow self-government.  Removal of firearms from their citizens is a basic requirement.  The illegal transfer of human beings and similar actions are efforts being coordinated worldwide, and in the long run, they will undermine the governments of the related countries.

As said by Democratic president Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Nothing happens in politics that isn’t planned.”  Continuing to vote for the same politician expecting different results is not a solution; it’s the problem.

The hate, chaos, ignorance, and emotion being demonstrated by thousands of Americans is an accurate picture showing the results of years of paid for corrupt political leadership.

In the American mural, I see thousands of future Americans having their lives terminated every year.  I see debt so large that the average person cannot relate to it.  I see that our leadership spends billions on a drug war that has resulted in more government and more drugs, trillions on a war against poverty that has resulted in more government and more poverty.  I see a government-run retirement system called Social Security that has given us more government and a Ponzi scheme destined to fail and now an educational system that can’t tell the difference between boys and girls but provides some of the best babysitting and welfare services available in America.  And we have at least one political party providing “presidential” candidates unfit to serve in a public office who promise continued support and expansion of these failures if elected.

In the real world, seats at the corrupt government table are now so expensive that large PACs have been legalized to collect the necessary funding to continue buying those seats.  Those seats provide the power needed to control all aspects of the people’s lives and, as importantly, their money.  People who sit in those seats are in most cases “selected” by the political parties and presented to we the people as “candidates” qualified to represent us at the government table.  We end up voting for the lesser of two evils.

It’s time to realize that the New World Order is not a conspiracy theory.  Governments in Europe, North America, and South America are not responding to their citizens, but engaging in “political coups” designed to overthrow self-government.  Removal of firearms from their citizens is a basic requirement.  The illegal transfer of human beings and similar actions are efforts being coordinated worldwide, and in the long run, they will undermine the governments of the related countries.

As said by Democratic president Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Nothing happens in politics that isn’t planned.”  Continuing to vote for the same politician expecting different results is not a solution; it’s the problem.

In July of this year, the U.S. House overwhelmingly passed H.R. 1044, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act.  The bill had broad bipartisan support, with Democrats voting 224-8 in favor of it and Republicans voting for the act by a measure of 140-57.  The legislation represents one of the most horrific acts of aggression against the American worker in decades.  It reveals that American immigration policy is really just a competition among various groups struggling for supremacy, with Congress ceding control of immigration to the most powerful foreign actors: India and China.

Currently, a cap is in place that limits the number of H-1B tech visas so that no more than 7% of the total number of those visas come from any one country.  H.R. 1044 eliminates this cap.  The primary benefactors of this removal are the Indian tech workers who have been brought over to this nation and face a backlog due to this cap as well as the workers in India who seek to come to the U.S.  It is estimated that once this legislation goes into effect, India will receive more than 90% of these visas for the next decade.  The legislation also increases the per-country cap on family-based immigrant visas from 7% to 15%. 

As if this were not enough, the legislation also alters the number of EB-5 investment visas that a nation can purchase — opening the door to mass migration from China.

In 2017, the U.S. issued roughly 180,000 H-1B Visas.  Assuming that each of those visa-holders brought over a wife and two children and 90% of those Visas came from India, this would mean an addition of roughly 6.5 million new Indian residents over the next decade.  This would more than triple the Indian population in the U.S. even before chain migration kicked in.

The average pay for tech workers in the US is $39,000 a year.  The effect this legislation would have on this already low salary as well as to the established culture of the nation will be catastrophic, to say the least.

The list of congressional representatives who support and oppose this legislation shows that politics does indeed make strange bedfellows.  Included among the narrow swath of opponents are the normal cadre who oppose mass migration as well as those who oppose the bill for personal reasons, such as Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from Minnesota and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib from Michigan.  Omar is an immigrant from Somalia, and Tlaib is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants. 

So why does an immigrant and the daughter of immigrants oppose legislation that would open a massive door to large numbers of immigrants?  The answer to this question is as simple as it is painful.  These representatives want immigration to come from their native lands, and H.R. 1044 reduces or eliminates immigrants from those nations in favor of India and China.  In effect, America is up for grabs, and Congresswoman Omar and Congresswoman Tlaib see this legislation as detrimental to their people’s ability to gain a larger foothold in America.

Ten of the 23 Republican representatives from Texas cosponsored the bill (the state with the highest Republican support).  A total of 16 of those 23 voted for the legislation.  Texas already has an immigration problem, and this legislation would exacerbate this problem for the Republican party.

Ernst and Young and Deloitte LLP are two of the largest recipients of H-1B Visas.  These two companies have donated an average around $10,000 to 16 or 17 Texas Republican congressional representatives in each of the last few election cycles.  The interesting part about this is that many of the representatives who received this money voted against the legislation, and some that received none of it voted in favor of the bill.

Newly elected congressman Dan Crenshaw (District 2) cosponsored the legislation.  He and Congressman Weber (District 14) are two notable exceptions to the list that received money from Deloitte and E&Y.  Congressman Crenshaw’s third highest donor is a firm that specializes in real estate known as Ilan Investments.  The company donated more than $11,000 to Congressman Crenshaw’s campaign and is owned by an Indian-American named Chowdary Yalamanchili.  Congressman Randy Weber (District 14) voted for the legislation and received more than $13,000 over two election cycles from the Azhar Chaudhary Law Firm — which specializes in H-1B visas.

In addition to this, there was a great deal of lobbying around this bill.  The examples of Crenshaw and Weber show that if you sorted through the maze of money around direct donations, PAC money, and lobbyists, you would eventually find something that could be seen as revealing a quid pro quo for every congressman who voted for the legislation.

What was needed in this case was for each congressman to explain why he feels the need to drastically alter immigration policy in this manner.  There was very little debate on this legislation, and this is the single most revealing aspect of it.  For reasons that no one can really nail down, Congress feels the need to alter immigration to heavily favor two nations in support of an employment field that is already overcrowded and should be a staple of the American middle class.  The fact that they seemed to feel no need to consult with the American people or explain this action reveals the true nature of the relationship between Congress and the American people.

Joshua Foxworth is a congressional candidate in Texas.  Facebook.  Twitter.

In July of this year, the U.S. House overwhelmingly passed H.R. 1044, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act.  The bill had broad bipartisan support, with Democrats voting 224-8 in favor of it and Republicans voting for the act by a measure of 140-57.  The legislation represents one of the most horrific acts of aggression against the American worker in decades.  It reveals that American immigration policy is really just a competition among various groups struggling for supremacy, with Congress ceding control of immigration to the most powerful foreign actors: India and China.

Currently, a cap is in place that limits the number of H-1B tech visas so that no more than 7% of the total number of those visas come from any one country.  H.R. 1044 eliminates this cap.  The primary benefactors of this removal are the Indian tech workers who have been brought over to this nation and face a backlog due to this cap as well as the workers in India who seek to come to the U.S.  It is estimated that once this legislation goes into effect, India will receive more than 90% of these visas for the next decade.  The legislation also increases the per-country cap on family-based immigrant visas from 7% to 15%. 

As if this were not enough, the legislation also alters the number of EB-5 investment visas that a nation can purchase — opening the door to mass migration from China.

In 2017, the U.S. issued roughly 180,000 H-1B Visas.  Assuming that each of those visa-holders brought over a wife and two children and 90% of those Visas came from India, this would mean an addition of roughly 6.5 million new Indian residents over the next decade.  This would more than triple the Indian population in the U.S. even before chain migration kicked in.

The average pay for tech workers in the US is $39,000 a year.  The effect this legislation would have on this already low salary as well as to the established culture of the nation will be catastrophic, to say the least.

The list of congressional representatives who support and oppose this legislation shows that politics does indeed make strange bedfellows.  Included among the narrow swath of opponents are the normal cadre who oppose mass migration as well as those who oppose the bill for personal reasons, such as Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from Minnesota and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib from Michigan.  Omar is an immigrant from Somalia, and Tlaib is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants. 

So why does an immigrant and the daughter of immigrants oppose legislation that would open a massive door to large numbers of immigrants?  The answer to this question is as simple as it is painful.  These representatives want immigration to come from their native lands, and H.R. 1044 reduces or eliminates immigrants from those nations in favor of India and China.  In effect, America is up for grabs, and Congresswoman Omar and Congresswoman Tlaib see this legislation as detrimental to their people’s ability to gain a larger foothold in America.

Ten of the 23 Republican representatives from Texas cosponsored the bill (the state with the highest Republican support).  A total of 16 of those 23 voted for the legislation.  Texas already has an immigration problem, and this legislation would exacerbate this problem for the Republican party.

Ernst and Young and Deloitte LLP are two of the largest recipients of H-1B Visas.  These two companies have donated an average around $10,000 to 16 or 17 Texas Republican congressional representatives in each of the last few election cycles.  The interesting part about this is that many of the representatives who received this money voted against the legislation, and some that received none of it voted in favor of the bill.

Newly elected congressman Dan Crenshaw (District 2) cosponsored the legislation.  He and Congressman Weber (District 14) are two notable exceptions to the list that received money from Deloitte and E&Y.  Congressman Crenshaw’s third highest donor is a firm that specializes in real estate known as Ilan Investments.  The company donated more than $11,000 to Congressman Crenshaw’s campaign and is owned by an Indian-American named Chowdary Yalamanchili.  Congressman Randy Weber (District 14) voted for the legislation and received more than $13,000 over two election cycles from the Azhar Chaudhary Law Firm — which specializes in H-1B visas.

In addition to this, there was a great deal of lobbying around this bill.  The examples of Crenshaw and Weber show that if you sorted through the maze of money around direct donations, PAC money, and lobbyists, you would eventually find something that could be seen as revealing a quid pro quo for every congressman who voted for the legislation.

What was needed in this case was for each congressman to explain why he feels the need to drastically alter immigration policy in this manner.  There was very little debate on this legislation, and this is the single most revealing aspect of it.  For reasons that no one can really nail down, Congress feels the need to alter immigration to heavily favor two nations in support of an employment field that is already overcrowded and should be a staple of the American middle class.  The fact that they seemed to feel no need to consult with the American people or explain this action reveals the true nature of the relationship between Congress and the American people.

Joshua Foxworth is a congressional candidate in Texas.  Facebook.  Twitter.