A glitch in the playlist

I was listening to classic Christmas carols on my Google Home speaker and they played "Shotgun" by Junior Walker & the All Stars.  Ho ho ho.

The new normal

Andrew McCarthy: "The Costs of Trivializing Impeachment."  "Trivializing impeachment gives us the worst of all worlds: Impeachment will become a less credible check on presidential misconduct, but it will still poison our politics and compromise our government’s effectiveness."

Making stuff up

Federalist: "Democrats Are Passing The Weakest Impeachment In American History."

I've been told that nobody is above the law

Washington Examiner: "Revealed: Hunter Biden 'possession of controlled substance' charge kept under wraps while father led drug war from Senate."  "Joe Biden’s son Hunter was arrested on Jersey Shore drug charges in 1988 and had his record expunged at a time when his father was pushing for the incarceration of drug offenders drawn disproportionately from minority groups."

This kind of hypocrisy kneecapped Kamala Harris.  Let's see how Joe handles it.  He's very calm and rational when asked about Hunter.

Presumption of guilt

The Atlantic: "Democrats Have Failed to Prove Their Case Against Trump" - "Republicans are still waiting for a convincing case that the president was acting to advance his own personal interests."

The sham articles

Alan Dershowitz in The Hill: "Two House articles of impeachment fail to meet constitutional standards."

House Democrats have announced the grounds of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress on which they plan to seek the impeachment of President Trump. Neither of these proposed articles satisfy the express constitutional criteria for an impeachment, which are limited to “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Neither are high or low crimes or misdemeanors. Neither are mentioned within the Constitution.

Both are so vague and open ended that they could be applied in partisan fashion by a majority of the House against almost any president from the opposing party. Both are precisely what the Framers had rejected at their Constitutional Convention. Both raise the “greatest danger,” in the words of Alexander Hamilton, that the decision to impeach will be based on the “comparative strength of parties,” rather than on “innocence or guilt.”

You can tell they're a farce because the Democrats struggled mightily to push quid pro quo until the focus groups told them to shift to bribery.  In the end, they had to settle on "abuse of power" which is a completely meaningless talking point that could have been used a dozen times on the previous resident of the Oval Office.

Move along, nothing to see here

Hot Air: "Cruz To Horowitz: Did An FBI Attorney Defraud The FISA Court? Horowitz: Yup." "Hey, here’s the FBI’s lawyer cooking a FISA warrant to surveil someone who they knew to be a confidential source for “another agency,” but … Republicans pounce! or something."

Extra - Let's take a stroll down memory lane where the mainstream media insisted the Steele dossier was real and not the source of the FISA application because they really wanted it to be true.

The House can impeach for any reason...

...and they sure did with these weak sauce so-called "articles of impeachment."  Joel Pollak has provided a real service with a loooong article debunking the entire silly document: "Line by line, a complete debunking of the Democrats' articles of impeachment"

Democrats released their two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Tuesday, and they are a complete joke.

Not only did the Democrats back away from charging Trump with bribery, obstruction of justice in the Mueller investigation, campaign finance violations, treason, or any of the other wild claims they floated, but the two articles themselves are fraudulent, based on blatantly false claims of law and fact.

No quid pro quo or bribery?  All that focus group money down the drain! 

For the record the articles were "abuse of power" and "obstruction of Congress"; both of these are so vague that "being bad" wouldn't be far off target either.  Ricochet nails it: "House Democrats admit they never had an impeachment case anyway":

This morning we are graced with “news” that House Democrats will present two articles of impeachment to the full House. The two “charges” are probably the two most vague, unspecific, unconstitutional things they could manage to throw out without dropping the whole thing altogether, proving that at this point mostly about the 2020 election and doing as little damage to their brand as possible.

If they fail to add to these two, they will be left with “charges” that not only have nothing to do with law or the Constitution but are flaming examples of exactly what the Founders/Framers were trying to prevent.

Speaking of trying to salvage their "brand," Nancy Pelosi waited all of a couple minutes to call a press conference announcing a USMCA deal with Trump.  See!  We're not all about impeachment!  Nancy is trying to get this train wreck over as possible which is why the impeachment hearings lasted a whole two days whereas Nixon's impeachment hearings stretched over months.  The whole thing is spinning out of control, the most recent polling shows more opposition to impeachment, and some red state Democrats are looking for a censure motion to avoid an impeachment vote. 

Now they're going to turn this over to the tender mercies of Mitch McConnell and the GOP-controlled Senate?  Well, things can only get better from here!

Mistakes were made

All in the same direction, for some unknown reason.  Hit and Run: "The IG Report Is a Huge Blow to the FBI's Credibility. Why Is It Being Treated Like Vindication?"

Sean Davis knows why:

Don't be surprised when media ignore or distort what the IG report says about rampant FISA abuses and the officials who perpetrated them. Democrat-affiliated media are deeply implicated in the Russia collusion hoax and desperate to avoid any accountability for it.

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) December 9, 2019

Impeachment 4ever

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Legacy of Low-Bar Impeachment."  "From now on, impeachment can be used against any first-term president with a record of success. It will be used solely as a political strategy by the opposition party that controls the House to weaken a president’s reelection chances. That’s the Democratic Party’s legacy and Democrats will live to rue it."

Democrats never think the standards they set for others will boomerang back on them.

Fast and furious impeachment

Jonathan Turley in The Hill: "'Fast and Furious' impeachment looks like a rush to a failed case." - "Of course, none of this matters. Pelosi will get a fast impeachment, and there is no shortage of fury. Ultimately, “Fast and Furious” amounts to little more than a rush to a failed impeachment."

Turley notes that the most discussed charge is Obstruction of Congress which does not address whatever underlying crime there might be and only exists because of the investigation.  Just like Obamacare, we have to pass the articles of impeachment to find out what high crime has been committed.

Look, fat

Bookworm Room: "Call me callous, but I’m enjoying watching Joe Biden decompensate." - "Some people deserve what the Fates throw at them. The fates knew what they were doing when they visited incipient dementia on Joe Biden, a man whose distinguished himself for the last 40 years by being incredibly mean, wrong, racist, and destructive." 

Oh no, they're on to us!

Hot Air link to NY Times article: "GOP Impeachment Tactic: Turn Ukraine Allegations Against Biden."

There is no evidence that the elder Mr. Biden, while serving as vice president, improperly intervened in Ukraine to benefit his son. But the president’s advisers are betting that many voters will ignore the complexities of the allegations and absorb a simple message about a father using his influence to help his son, a senior Trump campaign official said…

There's two things I suspect about the Biden story: 1) a lot of Americans aren't aware of the whole story behind Hunter and 2) they're going to react badly to the gaslighting that there's "no evidence" that the sitting Vice President did nothing to help his recently-discharged cocaine-addled son get a sweet no-show job.

It's going to be "those 30,000 emails were all yoga routines" all over again.

Colin Kaepernick unavailable for comment

Breitbart: "More black men have jobs than ever before, unemployment rate holds at lowest level ever."

Dude's never gonna make it

He can't stand the heat of an Iowan farmer.  He'll never be able to withstand a Senate subpoena: "Impeachment's Next Phase Could Hit Biden Worst of All."

Extra - "Biden can't stand the heat."  That's what I said.

Death Spiral 2: Healthcare Boogaloo

Hot Air (linking to paywalled Washington Post): "Biden And Buttigieg Say You Can Keep Your Health-Care Plan. They’re Lying — Just Like Obama."