The Media Loved Whistleblowers. Until They Were Blowing the Whistle on Joe Biden.
The media celebrated and defended whistleblowers in former president Donald Trump's administration. Not so much these days.
When two veteran IRS investigators testified before Congress on Wednesday that the Justice Department interfered in their probe of the president's son, major news networks had other places to be.
What coverage mainstream media gave the hearing was often dismissive of the whistleblowers—or critical of the Republicans once again pouncing on the president's beleaguered son.
Associated Press: "House Republicans raised unsubstantiated allegations Wednesday against President Joe Biden over his family’s finances as they summoned IRS whistleblowers to testify publicly for the first time about claims the Justice Department improperly interfered with a tax investigation into Biden’s son Hunter. ... Still, House Republicans are deepening their own investigation, making broad claims of corruption and wrongdoing by the Bidens, which they acknowledge have not been proven to be true."
CNN: "Throughout the six-hour hearing, Democrats poked holes in some of the whistleblowers’ claims and repeatedly noted that the Hunter Biden probe began under then-President Donald Trump and was overseen by a Trump-appointed prosecutor. They also accused Republicans of hypocritically focusing on the Biden family’s finances while ignoring possible conflicts tied to Trump’s business empire."
Washington Post: "Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Explicit Visuals at Hunter Biden Hearing Draw Rebuke":
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Wednesday showed what appeared to be sexually explicit images of Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, during a hearing of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, drawing immediate rebukes from Democratic members of the panel.
Flashback: It was just a few years ago that the media were hailing whistleblowers in the federal government as brave truth tellers.
New York Times: "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration":
The Times is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers. We invite you to submit a question about the essay or our vetting process here.
CNN: "Author of 2018 ‘Anonymous’ Op-Ed Critical of Trump Revealed":
The anonymous senior Trump administration official who wrote a 2018 New York Times op-ed and a subsequent book critical of President Donald Trump is Miles Taylor, he revealed in a statement to CNN on Wednesday.
Taylor, who was chief of staff to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, wrote a lengthy statement explaining why he penned the 2018 op-ed declaring he was part of the "resistance" inside the Trump administration working to thwart Trump’s worst inclinations. Taylor said that he wanted to force Trump to respond to the charges he was leveling without the ability to attack the messenger specifically. Trump called the op-ed treasonous.
Taylor joined CNN as a contributor in September 2020.
New York Times: "Meet Alexander Vindman, the Colonel Who Testified on Trump’s Phone Call":
He fled Ukraine at age 3 and became a soldier, scholar and official at the White House. That’s where, he told impeachment investigators, he witnessed alarming behavior by President Trump. ...
And on Tuesday, Colonel Vindman’s past and present converged as he became a star witness in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, which is centered on the president’s dealings with the colonel’s native Ukraine.
Ensconced in the secure hearing rooms of the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in a midnight-blue dress uniform, a bevy of ribbons pinned to his chest, Colonel Vindman testified privately from morning until night. He recounted for House investigators how he was so alarmed by the president’s request to enlist Ukraine to smear his political rivals, and similar efforts by Mr. Trump’s allies, that he reported them to his superiors—twice.
His heritage gave Colonel Vindman, who is fluent in both Ukrainian and Russian, unique insight into Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign; on numerous occasions, Ukrainian officials sought him out for advice about how to deal with Mr. Giuliani.
Colonel Vindman’s testimony was sprinkled with references to duty, honor and patriotism—but also his life as an immigrant and a refugee.
Daily Beast: "I Was a Whistleblower. The Trump Whistleblower Is About to Go Through Hell."
In my two decades of helping federal whistleblowers, I have never seen a professional and constitutional crisis of this magnitude. But now a whistleblower has effectively completed the task Special Counsel Robert Mueller failed to do: focus the public debate on the president. The American people now understand the question before the Republic, even if they have not provided the answer, yet.
Same energy: On Thursday, Republicans released evidence in another of their investigations of alleged Biden family corruption. But the FBI report detailing claims of a bribery scheme involving Joe and Hunter Biden failed to meet the media's suddenly lofty standards for scandalous intel about a president.
Here's the entirety of CNN & MSNBC's coverage of new, hard evidence implicating the president in a criminal bribery scheme
"The White House sharply criticized Republicans for pushing long-debunked claims." pic.twitter.com/x6bNbb6ZbO
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 21, 2023
Business Insider: "The FBI is Furious Chuck Grassley Released an Internal Document That Makes Unverified Claims About Hunter And Joe Biden Accepting Bribes"
All one needs to know regarding the document’s contents is that it reports that Hunter Biden is “not smart” and is “stupid” and that $10 million in bribes went to Hunter and Joe Biden. One thing is certain: Biden’s worst nightmare will be his 2018 boast regarding withholding $1 billion in U.S. aid until Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired. He came, he sniffed, he grifted.
Like a cat playing with a mouse before dispatching it, the GOP House is impeachment hunting
The cat plays with the mouse long before dispatching it. The Republican cat is impeachment hunting but is in no rush. Why would it rush when doing so only assists Democrats in removing their Biden problem sooner than later, clearing the field for other potential 2024 candidates to step forward? Why should it rush when the longer this plays out, the more free airtime is guaranteed? The question is not where the GOP House is heading, but what it knows and is holding back. There is no sense showing your cards until the hand is played. Those of us impatient for promised impeachments will be satisfied in due course. Given the number of whistleblowers known to have come forward, it can be assumed that GOP House members know everything they need to propel an impeachment forward. Once the whistleblowers speak, the threat to Democrats is that this turns into a flood -- something apparently only beginning. In such situations a steady drip, drip, drip strategy of dropping ever larger shoes would be the obvious means of running out the clock closer to November 2024. When ahead on points, forcing the other side to play defense fosters victory.
In May, the FBI was requested to provide a copy of their FD-1023 investigation report summarizing a confidential human source's meeting with executives of Burisma Holdings. Playing into Republican hands, the FBI predictably stalled and only relented in releasing the document after FBI Director Christopher Wray was threatened with a contempt citation. The joke was that Republicans were in possession of the document all along. The first rule of cross examination is to know the answers to all questions before asking them. Wray fell into the trap of not knowing he was under cross examination.
On July 20, 2023, 474 days before November 5, 2024, Senator Chuck Grassley finally released a copy of FD-1023 so “the American people can now read this document for themselves, without the filter of politicians or bureaucrats, thanks to brave and heroic whistleblowers.” A lot of political lifetimes can expire in 474 days. Countless Democrats will continue to self-immolate along the way. All one needs to know regarding the document’s contents is that it reports that Hunter Biden is “not smart” and is “stupid” and that $10 million in bribes went to Hunter and Joe Biden. One thing is certain: Biden’s worst nightmare will be his 2018 boast regarding withholding $1 billion in U.S. aid until Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired. He came, he sniffed, he grifted.
Aficionados of schadenfreude will have much to keep us entertained in coming months. The July 20 House hearing on the weaponization of government was a preview of coming attractions as the wheels fly off the Democrats’ bus. Whether it was Representative Daniel Goldman’s friendly-fire incident, Representative Debbie Wasserman Shultz attempting to have a Democrat censored during a hearing about censorship, various representatives competing for absurdity, or failed presidential nominee John Kerry drowning in hubris, there is so much more to look forward to. These are not smart people. The Democratic party is the world’s oldest political party. Its leaders did not rise to the top of that dungheap due to merit, competence, or intelligence, but because imploding regimes promote the worst elements. We are viewing slow-motion death throes in real time. To witness a party committing suicide, watch House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries attack a Kennedy. RFK Jr. is busy dismantling the Democratic party from the inside, while former Democrat Boy Wonder Anthony Weiner, doing his best Peewee Herman imitation, is contributing his part as only someone with an extensive Wikipedia page devoted to his underage sexting predilections can do. Once Democrats go full Bernie Sanders on RFK Jr. and deny him their nomination, he can either go third party or leave the race. In either scenario Trump receives a massive boost and yet more will permanently leave the party.
Meanwhile, Republicans are busy screening Sound of Freedom (on fire at the box office while the Left hurls tomatoes) and actor Jim Caviezel is comparing Trump to Moses, without any hint of irony. It is amazing to watch so many excuse child trafficking, but nothing is a surprise any longer. As congressional Democrats continue falling on their swords defending an indefensible lecherous crook, and drowning in their gender alphabet soup, now is the time to invest in popcorn stock. At least Republicans had the sense to distance themselves from Nixon once his downfall became obvious. Democrats are intent upon going down with the ship. Biden will act as the destroyer of his party, alongside plenty of accomplices. Mark Twain: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.”
Image: Pixabay
Joe Biden pokes and pokes the populace
I am among those tens-of-millions of Americans fearful of a new civil war. I despair of liberty's protracted endurance and deplore the ever-increasing likelihood that in my lifetime, I will bear witness to the end of this once-great nation.
Never in the history of these United States has the federal government more aggressively sought to deprive the citizenry of those inviolable rights enshrined in the Constitution. The First and Second Amendments — edicts essential to freedom's preservation — have been savaged by the sitting Executive and Legislative Branches and only feebly defended by the Judicial. We are a nation in decline, a nation in peril, a nation deeply, and I fear ineluctably, divided.
The Second Amendment exists for the purpose of ensuring that the people are able to stand against a tyrannical and corrupt government — such as that currently in power. Only a government intent on subduing and subjugating its citizens deprives them of arms. This is not the supposition of one man; it is a statement of historical fact.
As Hitler and his fanatics fomented enmity between German and Jew, as Lenin and his apparatchiks fomented enmity between proletariat and bourgeoisie, so Biden and his horde of postmodern leftist neo-Bolsheviks foment enmity between those who would preserve America and those obsessed with tearing her down. Likewise, as Hitler and Lenin hastened to disarm the populations of Germany and Russia, so Biden and the Democrats are attempting to disarm Americans by dressing lawlessness and gun violence born of their own lax criminal policies in the the raiment of a national public health crisis for purpose of seizing emergency powers and eradicating the Second Amendment. The methodology is old, tired, and patently obvious.
Censorship and propaganda, too — those proprietary tools of tyranny — have been adopted by Biden and his handlers. To actualize their aims, Democrats have conspired with Big Tech to subvert freedom of speech. They have suppressed dissent and penalized — even imprisoned — dissenters. They have appointed themselves the supreme arbiters of truth and invoked the power of a partisan Judiciary to prop up their ill-gotten and facile authority.
Consider the reflex to totalitarianism glimpsed in the COVID responses of functionally socialist states the likes of the U.K., Australia, and Canada. The selfsame aspiration to tyranny festers in the malignancy that is America's Democrat party.
As the sun sets on American unity and the battle lines between left and right are drawn, my family and I resign ourselves to the defense of liberty, the preservation of constitutionality, and the sustainment of those ideals for which our fathers — founding and familial alike — fought and died. That we will soon be called upon to live up to the examples set by our forebears is the great terror and glory of our lives.
Image: Don Hankins via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).
Getting Biden Wrong
Okay, I get it! From listening to Republican TV and reading Republican publications, I have learned that Joe Biden is a sleazy, mendacious, and demented chief executive. He has weaponized the entire Justice Department and the IRS against his real and suspected political opponents, thrown open our southern border to drug cartels, and reduced our armed forces and international posture to shambles. Moreover, Joe has a gangster son with whom he has engaged in illegal business ventures; and it’s entirely possible that the cocaine recently found in the West Wing of the White House came from son Hunter, who is a drug addict as well as many other bad things. Joe also keeps falling off platforms and saying ridiculous things, when he’s not weirdly sniffing the hair of little girls and hurling obscenities at his staff or reporters who dare to ask substantive questions.
If this information, which the MSM usually tries to hide from us, is intended to convince me that Joe is thoroughly unfit for his office, I no longer need convincing. Biden seems to be far and away the most incompetent, unprincipled, and verbally incoherent president of my lifetime, going back to the 1950s. It would be hard to think of any president who has disgraced his office to the same degree or who has unleashed more problems on this country. All the same, almost half the voters (and I know many such people) believe Biden or his handlers are doing a great job managing this country; and even those who think he may be growing cognitively incompetent love his policies and would like to see them continued.
Listening to Fox News and other “Republican news,” one may imagine that “the people” are about to revolt against our authoritarian leftist regime and can hardly wait to throw Biden and his party out on their ears. There also seems to be a firm belief among the same news analysts and announcers that by piling up more and more horror stories about Biden’s misdeeds or those of his subordinates, one assures his eventual defeat. Although I myself am profoundly disgusted with what this administration has gotten away with, thanks largely to its MSM handmaidens, I doubt there are many listeners out there who will be swayed by these shockers. It’s not that they’re untrue. It’s just unlikely there are many left who have not already taken sides. When we 
look at polls, Biden is running neck and neck with his Republican opponents. His supposed lack of popularity disappears when prospective voters are asked to choose between the incumbent and a challenger. That seems to be a more relevant factor than whether voters in an ideal world would want some hypothetical Democrat to run in Biden’s place. Democrat voters or supposed independents I’ve spoken to are so terrified by the MSM depiction of Republicans that they’re not paying any attention to Biden’s obvious shortcomings. They believe that permanent Democrat control of our government may be necessary to save us from a fascist dictatorship or from a second Spanish Inquisition that the Republicans are now preparing for the country.
What should be a priority for those who are working to defeat the present administration is a well-considered ground game. Telling us more about Democrat outrages will not likely help the GOP. What may help is avoiding a repeat of 2020. Getting the election to take place entirely on election day under bipartisan supervision would be ideal. If that’s no longer doable, then Republicans should make sure that all mail-in ballots are filled out and submitted according to strictly enforced rules. Drop boxes, where permitted, should only be used during a restricted time period. Ballots that have been dumped late at night should not be counted, and any mass dumping of ballots of the kind that took place in Philadelphia and Atlanta in 2020 should bring immediate investigation. Republican officials, if forced to play by the other party’s rules, must make sure they collect mail-in ballots as energetically as their adversaries. Needless to say, Republicans should fight to make sure that voter identification is in force everywhere.
Republicans must work to avoid a repetition of the election “rigging” that Molly Hemingway and Miranda Devine found in the last presidential race: e.g., meetings between electronic media heads and other corporate interests together with BLM representatives to discuss how they could use their combined influence to ensure a Democrat victory. In no way must the FBI be allowed to interfere again on behalf of the one-party state that it serves. This time the FBI must be forced to desist from election interference.
Finally, the GOP must be ready to inundate all battleground states with an army of lawyers to counter the one that the Democrats will likely mobilize. The next presidential race will probably end in multiple court cases that the Republicans should be prepared to fight.
One last piece of advice: If the Democrats charge the Republicans once again with trying to “suppress the vote,” then the Republican response should be an appropriate expletive.
Image: Gage Skidmore
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