Donald Trump

Now The Iranians Are Promising More Military Action Against U.S. Forces, And That Would Definitely Start World War 3

January 9, 2020 by Michael

What in the world are the Iranians thinking? After President Trump decided not to respond militarily to the rockets that the Iranians fired at U.S. bases in Iraq, it appeared that a major war had been averted. People all over the world celebrated this unexpected turn of events, and global stock markets soared. But now the Iranians are changing their tune again. Instead of “standing down”, top Iranian leaders are warning that “harsher revenge” is on the way and that there will be more attacks against U.S. forces. I think that Iran correctly perceives that Trump does not want a war, but if Trump gets pushed too far he will hit the Iranians extremely hard. And once the Iranian homeland starts getting pummeled by U.S. missiles, the Iranians will start firing some of the 200,000 missiles that they have stockpiled at Israel, and needless to say the Israelis will respond with even greater force. In other words, any escalation of this conflict at this point has the potential to spark World War 3.

So the Iranians would be wise to stop this nonsense while they still can, but apparently they have no intention of doing so.

On Thursday, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Aerospace Force claimed that the missile attacks the other night were just “the first stage of a major regional operation aimed at expelling U.S. forces from the Middle East”…

Iran’s missile strikes on Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops were the first stage of a major regional operation aimed at expelling U.S. forces from the Middle East, the Iranian commander responsible for the attack said Thursday.

Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who as commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s Aerospace Force oversees most of Iran’s missile arsenal, stopped short of threatening further concrete military action. He also said Iran hadn’t intended to kill anyone in Wednesday’s attack but only to cause material damage.

And Revolutionary Guard commander Abdollah Araghi is promising that “harsher revenge” is coming soon…

A senior Iranian military commander has promised further action against the United States, a day after Tehran launched missiles at two bases housing US troops in Iraq.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Abdollah Araghi said that Iran would take “harsher revenge soon,” without specifying what that might entail, Tasnim news agency reported on Thursday.

Do they actually believe that Trump will allow them to repeatedly attack our forces without responding?

If any American had been killed during the missile strikes the other night, it is quite likely that Trump would have responded already.

And when Trump acts, he likes to make a major statement.

Iran is playing a very dangerous game, and if they miscalculate just a little bit there will be disastrous consequences.

Unfortunately, they are so blinded by rage that they don’t appear to be thinking rationally. At this point, the Iranian media is reporting that the recent missile attacks were “only the beginning of the strikes”…

Tasnim News Agency reported on Thursday that the missiles that hit U.S. interests in Iraq were only the beginning of the strikes. The deputy head of the IRGC, Ali Fadavi, described Iran’s missile attacks on US forces as a display of the Islamic Republic’s military capabilities, claiming that the Americans “couldn’t do a damn thing” about the strikes.

Many of us had been hoping that cooler heads would prevail, but at least on the Iranian side that does not appear to be happening.

And Iranian proxies are already lobbing rockets at U.S. targets. For example, on Wednesday a couple of “small rockets” were launched toward the Green Zone in Baghdad…

Small rockets hit the area in or around the Green Zone in Iraq’s capital of Baghdad late Wednesday, a day after Iran launched missiles at bases housing U.S. and other coalition forces in Iraq, American military officials said.

There was no casualties to U.S. or other coalition forces in the area, and no damage to facilities in the Green Zone, which contains the American embassy and other Western diplomatic posts, officials said.

Subsequently, there was a rocket attack on Balad Air Base in Iraq on Thursday…

Another day, another rocket (alleged) rocket attack on a US airbase in Iraq.

Al-Sumaria reports that rockets hit the Balad Air Base, about 40 miles north of Baghdad, where US troops are stationed.

The source said in an interview with Alsumaria News, “A missile, whose type was not specified, fell this evening, to the Fadlan area of the Dujail district near Balad Air Base,” without giving further details.

Iranian proxies would not be doing this if they did not have permission from Tehran.

Perhaps President Trump is waiting until there are American casualties to respond, and he certainly is not eager to get the U.S. involved in a major war during an election year, but at some point his patience is going to run out.

Meanwhile, the IDF has just conducted a stunning attack on Iranian-backed militia targets “on the border between Syria and Iraq”…

According to reports by domestic and western media, the Israeli air force carried out an attack against an Iran-backed militia reportedly headquartered on the border between Syria and Iraq.

Tribal sources in Iraq apparently told reporters that the Israeli shelling targeted trucks and individuals associated with Iranian-backed militias near the Iraqi-Syria border. Artillery and shelling was also reported, though it’s unclear who fired those shots. The weapons are believed to have been destined for Hezbollah.

In the end, even if President Trump is absolutely determined to keep the U.S. out of a major conflict there will still be a war between Israel and Iran.

The Iranians have restarted their nuclear program, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged that Iran will never be allowed to finish it.

The clock is ticking, and Israel is going to do whatever it takes to keep the psychopaths in Iran from being able to build their own nuclear weapons.

So one way or another, war is definitely coming, and it will change all of our lives in a major way.

But many were hoping that World War 3 was at least delayed for a while after Trump showed such great restraint on Wednesday.

Unfortunately, the Iranians seem determined to press their luck, and we are all going to pay a great price for their complete and utter recklessness.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I need those that republish my articles to include this “About the Author” section with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

Everybody In America Should Stand Up And Applaud President Trump, Because He Just Changed The Course Of History

January 8, 2020 by Michael

If someone else had been in the White House, this crisis could have easily turned out much differently. Sadly, most Americans have no idea that we were literally on the brink of the beginning of World War 3 this week. In fact, our population is so clueless about the rest of the world that 75 percent of all registered voters can’t even find Iran “on an unlabeled map of the globe”. We literally live in an “idiocracy” where a third of the country can’t even name a single branch of government. For most Americans, the alarming headlines about Iran will soon fade from memory, and they will just go on with their lives as if nothing really happened. But the truth is that we were right on the precipice of a cataclysmic war that could have resulted in millions upon millions of deaths. And a major war in the Middle East could still start at literally any time, but President Trump’s brave decision has at least delayed it for now.

When Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at U.S. bases in Iraq, it would have been so easy for President Trump to order an immediate military response.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he waited for an accurate damage assessment to be completed, and it turned out that no Americans had been killed or injured.

The Iranians possess very accurate weapons, and so at first a lot of people were quite puzzled by this. But then later on it started to become obvious that the Iranians “may have intentionally missed” their targets. In other words, this attack was essentially the equivalent of “a warning shot”…

Iran may have intentionally missed targets on bases in Iraq to avoid significant U.S. casualties and damage to infrastructure, according to U.S. government sources.

Iran appears to have fired the missiles into vacant areas where they were unlikely to cause significant harm, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly. The attack, the official said, was designed mainly for a domestic audience to show Iranians that the regime was responding to the killing last week of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani.

Iranian leadership had to show the Iranian people that they were “taking revenge” for the death of Soleimani.

But by choosing not to spill any American blood, they presented Donald Trump with an opportunity to walk away without escalating the conflict into a full-blown war.

And the Iranians made doubly sure that no American blood would be spilled by issuing a warning in advance…

PM Adel Abdul Mahdi received a call from Tehran warning him an attack was imminent in retaliation for the US killing of its highest ranking general, his spokesman said.

CNN, citing an Arab diplomatic source, said that Iraqi officials then passed the information on to US troops before the attack began.

Subsequently, when the missile strikes were over the Iranians notified the U.S. government “through at least three back channels” that there would be no more attacks…

Iran initiated contact through at least three back channels starting late Tuesday, including through Switzerland and other countries. There were “multiple messages and they were all the same,” a person familiar with the matter said. Iran wanted to convey their retaliatory action had ended — and was waiting to see how the US would respond.

If Hillary Clinton had been in the Oval Office during these very tense moments, we would probably be at war with Iran right now.

But Donald Trump is not Hillary Clinton.

In both of my articles yesterday, I explained that this was a golden opportunity for President Trump to avert a major war, and I was hoping that his advisers were telling him this. Since no American blood was spilled, both sides could still walk away and claim victory, and that is precisely what happened on Wedensday…

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that there would be increased sanctions but no retaliatory strikes for Iran’s ballistic missile assault on U.S. bases in Iraq. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said, “For the time being, the Americans have been given a slap,” but no other attacks were coming soon. Both sides have relaxed tensions, and the threat of war has receded.

In the end, President Trump is coming out of this looking really good. Soleimani is dead, and Iran’s “revenge” did not take a single American life.

But if Trump had recklessly ordered a retaliatory strike against Iran, the Iranians had already warned that they were going to launch missiles at Israel.

And once the first missile landed in an Israeli city, the Israelis would have responded with overwhelming force. Just check out what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday…

Israel will strike back hard if Iran attacks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned at the Kohelet Policy Forum’s conference on Wednesday.

“The state of Israel is the stable anchor in the stormy [Middle East] waters,” Netanyahu said. “We stand firm in the face of those who seek to destroy us. Anyone who tries to attack us will suffer the most overwhelming blow.”

When we get to the point where missiles are flying back and forth between Iran and Israel, nobody is going to be able to stop the madness.

And we are still on the brink of global chaos, but at least President Trump has given us a chance to avoid a worst case scenario.

In the aftermath of the events of the past two days, Franklin Graham posted the following message of gratitude to President Trump on Facebook…

Thank you Mr. President for addressing our nation today and for giving peace a chance. I’m sure there are millions of Iranians who would like to thank you too, if they could. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a dangerous government and is responsible for exporting the Islamic revolution to many countries around the world. They have also repeatedly vowed to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. I know you probably had lot of pressure from some to respond quickly and with a heavy hand; but thank you for showing restraint. A former premier of France once said, “It is far easier to make war than peace.” I also appreciate the fact that you made it clear that as long as you are president, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. Please be assured of my prayers and those of many Christians across the country and around the world.

You know, for once it would be nice for the Democrats to also acknowledge that President Trump has done something right.

Yes, we understand that this is an election season and that the Democrats are going to look for every opportunity to criticize Trump.

But we are all Americans, and this week we were just moments away from the start of a cataclysmic war with Iran.

President Trump’s wise decision has kept us out of such a war for now, and for that he should be greatly applauded.

By Impeaching Trump, The Democrats Are Destroying Both Our Political System And Their Chances Of Winning In 2020

December 17, 2019 by Michael

The Democrats probably never imagined that this effort to remove Donald Trump from office would backfire so spectacularly. Yes, it was always a foregone conclusion that they would be able to impeach Trump in the House, but they were expecting that a majority of the American people would rally around them and that simply has not happened. In fact, we just got some brand new numbers that are incredibly good news for President Trump. As you will see below, public support for impeachment continues to fade, and a brand new survey just found that President Trump would beat all of the major contenders for the Democratic nomination if the 2020 election was held today. At one time, it appeared that the Democrats were likely to win the 2020 presidential election in a historic landslide, but now thanks to this impeachment debacle the numbers have shifted dramatically in Trump’s favor. And if Trump does ultimately end up winning, the Democrats are going to be kicking themselves for ever going down this road in the first place.

Meanwhile, the heavily slanted and exceedingly bitter coverage of this impeachment process by the mainstream media is deepening the very painful political divisions that have been tearing America apart. This week, there will literally be hundreds of pro-impeachment protests in cities all across the nation, and the anger that we see on the left is rising to a level that is absolutely frightening.

If President Trump does win again in 2020, everyone already knows what is going to happen. Key Democratic leaders and the mainstream media have been stirring the pot day after day, and all of the frustration that they have been fueling will reach a crescendo if Trump is not defeated next November.

In order for any political system to operate successfully, most of the population must be willing to accept the outcomes that system produces. But now we have gotten to the point where a large portion of the population is ready to start burning things down if election results don’t go their way.

If the Democrats truly believed that President Trump did something that warranted impeachment, they should have gone out of their way to make the impeachment process in the House a fair, bipartisan effort. But instead, they alienated their Republican colleagues at every turn, and that was a tragic mistake. After the sham that we just witnessed in the House, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sees no reason to take an impartial stance in the Senate…

McConnell on Tuesday made clear he’s not interested in giving in to any demands from Democrats. He said that the partisan House impeachment would result in “an almost entirely partisan outcome in the Senate as well.”

“I’m not an impartial juror,” McConnell said. “This is a political process.”

McConnell’s strategy relies on keeping Democratic requests on procedures, documents and witnesses bottled up and maintaining pressure on any wavering Republicans who might agree with Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s push for more evidence.

Can anyone blame McConnell? If the Democrats had tried very hard to conduct things fairly in the Senate, McConnell would have been forced to at least maintain a pretense of objectivity.

But now all of that is out the window, and the stage has been set for President Trump to potentially turn the Senate trial into his own version of “show and tell”, and many on the left are fearing the worst.

For example, the following is what one USA Today reader is anticipating from the upcoming trial…

President Donald Trump is not satisfied with avoiding conviction in a Senate trial. He wants a spectacle and platform to humiliate the Democrats, former Vice President Joe Biden and Biden’s son, Hunter. If Trump gets his way with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a World Wrestling Entertainment event will replace a serious impeachment trial.

After all that Trump has been through in recent months, it is quite understandable that he would be eager to “humiliate the Democrats”.

In particular, I think that Trump is quite keen on telling the whole world about what Joe and Hunter Biden were really up to in Ukraine.

According to a new survey, 62 percent of Americans believe that Trump will be treated fairly in the Senate. And since Republicans control the Senate, things are likely to proceed a whole lot differently than they did in the House.

Once the Senate trial begins in January, you might want to grab some popcorn, because it promises to be quite entertaining.

The Democrats were apparently hoping that by tightly controlling the process in the House that they would be able to get the American people on their side. But instead, a CNN poll that was just released found that public support for impeachment has fallen substantially…

A CNN poll released this week, conducted by SSRS December 12-15, among 1,005 adults, found that 45 percent support impeaching the president. That reflects a 5-point drop from November’s results, which showed support for impeachment at 50 percent.

Support for impeaching the president, even among Democrats alone, is dropping. In November, 90 percent of Democrats supported impeaching the president. The most recent results show the number falling to 77 percent — a 13-point drop in one month.

A 13 percent shift in one month among Democrats is absolutely catastrophic for Nancy Pelosi and her minions.

This is a failure of epic proportions, and Pelosi’s political future is looking exceedingly grim at this point.

Meanwhile, things have never looked better for President Trump’s political future. According to another new poll that was just released, Trump would beat every single one of the top contenders for the Democratic nominaton if the election was held today…

The national survey, taken as the House of Representatives planned an impeachment vote and the Senate a trial, showed Trump defeating former Vice President Joe Biden by 3 percentage points, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by 5 points, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren by 8 points.

In hypothetical head-to-head contests, Trump also led South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg by 10 points and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg by 9.

But before this impeachment saga ever began, all of the polls showed all of the Democratic contenders defeating Trump quite soundly.

Since it was never likely that Trump would be removed from office by the Republican-controlled Senate, many believed that Pelosi launched this impeachment process as a way to damage Trump and the Republicans for the 2020 election, but if that was her goal she is failing spectacularly.

At one time, it appeared that the 2020 election was potentially going to be a landslide for the Democrats.

You can forget all about that now. By impeaching Trump, the Democrats may have just given him the edge that he needs to win in 2020, and for many on the left that is the worst possible outcome imaginable.

“Abuse Of Power” And “Obstructing Congress”? Is This Really The Best That The Democrats Could Come Up With?

December 9, 2019 by Michael

Are you kidding me? After weeks of hearings, endless hours of testimony and consultations with hordes of lawyers, this is all that the Democrats can come up with? Originally, Democrats were accusing President Trump of bribery, extortion and various campaign finance violations, but the facts didn’t fit any of those crimes, and so they were abandoned. Instead, Democrats have drafted articles of impeachment focusing on “abuse of power” and “obstructing Congress”, and if this process was not so serious there would be howls of laughter all over the nation. I think that a bunch of five-year-old kids on a sugar high could have probably come up with something better than this. For the Democrats, this is a failure of epic proportions, and history will not remember them kindly.

The U.S. Constitution sets a very high standard for impeaching a president. In Article II, Section 4 it says the following: “The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

So in order for President Trump to be impeached and removed from office, he must be convicted of treason, bribery or some other crime.

But nowhere in federal law is “abuse of power” defined as a crime. And that is a huge problem, because how can you convict someone of “abuse of power” when there is no law against it?

Ultimately, “abuse of power” is a very vague phrase that could mean just about anything. After all, is there any president in modern American history that has not abused his power at some point?

And if President Trump does get impeached by the House, that is going to set an extremely dangerous precedent. In the future, are we going to start impeaching presidents for “abuse of power” whenever an opposition party gets control of the House of Representatives?

As for the charge of “obstructing Congress”, at least there is some precedent for that. It is actually properly called “contempt of Congress”, and the following is what Wikipedia has to say about it…

Contempt of Congress is the act of obstructing the work of the United States Congress or one of its committees. Historically, the bribery of a U.S. Senator or U.S. Representative was considered contempt of Congress. In modern times, contempt of Congress has generally applied to the refusal to comply with a subpoena issued by a Congressional committee or subcommittee—usually seeking to compel either testimony or the production of requested documents.

Yes, President Trump has instructed members of his administration to refuse to comply with congressional subpoenas. But is this really something that we should be impeaching a sitting president for?

In the end, these are matters that can be easily sorted out by the courts. If the President or members of his administration continued to refuse to comply with Congress after a court had ordered them to do so, then the Democrats might have an argument, but that has not happened in this case.

And most Americans simply do not care that President Trump may have been “obstructing” Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler.

If any president is going to be impeached and removed from office, it needs to be for something very serious, and it needs to be a matter that generates a large national consensus.

The Democrats should have dropped this impeachment inquiry a long time ago, but at this point they can’t turn back without looking exceedingly foolish. Debate will begin on the articles of impeachment on Thursday, and according to the Washington Post, those articles of impeachment could “be voted on by the full House next week”.

Since the Democrats have a solid majority in the House, and since they are so obsessed with taking down Trump, the outcome of the vote is already a foregone conclusion.

They are going to vote to impeach President Trump, and that means that there will be a trial in the Senate.

If the Democrats had come up with something more substantial in their articles of impeachment, there would have been a chance that they could have swayed some moderate Republicans in the Senate, but as it stands now that does not appear to be too likely.

This entire impeachment process has been a comedy of errors by the Democrats. No matter how many breaks go their way, they just can’t seem to do anything right.

Of course they still believe that they are doing “the right thing”. During a hearing on Monday, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler made it sound so simple…

Walking through the evidence and testimony so far in the impeachment inquiry, Nadler observed, “the President welcomed foreign interference in our elections in 2016. He demanded it for 2020. Then he got caught.”

In doing so, Trump “violated his most basic responsibilities to the people” and broke his “oath” of office, Nadler concluded.

But in reality, the Democrats are not winning over the American people with their arguments.

In fact, they could actually be alienating the very voters that they desperately need to defeat Trump in November 2020. The following comes from an opinion piece by Liz Peek…

Here’s what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has done by undertaking a reckless and partisan drive to impeach the president: absolutely guaranteed that anyone who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 will vote for him again next year. Guaranteed, as a result, that Trump will be reelected.

Across the United States, tens of millions of Americans are furious that Donald Trump, a man they respect, has been bullied and bloodied by hate-filled, crazed political antagonists who mock him, lie shamelessly about his policies, obstruct his every move and, most disgusting of all, savagely demean his wife and children.

We’ll see what happens. But as things stand today, the Democrats do not seem to have a prayer of being successful in removing Trump from office.

However, they sure are stirring up a lot of anger and frustration on the left, and that could have very serious implications as we approach the next election.

If President Trump wins next November, the Democrats are going to be kicking themselves for ever going down this path. All of the polls taken before this impeachment process began looked really good for them, but it is entirely possible that they could blow yet another election that they could have easily won.

In politics, it never hurts to have a little luck. And even though this impeachment process has been very painful for President Trump, it may just be the stroke of luck that he needs to win another term.

Is The Impeachment Effort Simply A Political Ploy To Win Votes For Democrats In 2020?

December 5, 2019 by Michael

Could it be possible that Nancy Pelosi and her minions in the House of Representatives had a completely different goal than we thought this entire time? As you will see below, the Democrats in the House plan to impeach President Trump, and it could potentially happen by the end of this month. But there appears to be zero chance that Trump will be removed from office by the Senate, and many will consider that to be a major victory for the Republicans. So why is Nancy Pelosi pushing ahead when she knows that this impeachment effort is going to fail? Could it be possible that this entire drama has simply been a political ploy to win votes in November 2020?

Many have assumed that a backlash against impeachment will greatly benefit Trump during this election season. But history has not been kind to other presidents that have gone through an impeachment process.

In 1868, President Andrew Johnson was impeached by Republicans in the House of Representatives. Johnson was not convicted by the Senate, but Republicans went on to win the next presidential election.

In 1974, Republican Richard Nixon resigned rather than face almost certain impeachment. Democrats won the next presidential election even though they had a relatively weak candidate (Jimmy Carter).

In 1998, Republicans in the House of Representatives impeached Bill Clinton, but the Senate did not remove him from office. However, Republicans did end up winning the presidential election in 2000.

So that means that the opposition party is three for three in cases similar to what we are facing now.

Could that actually be the key number that top Democrats are looking at?

On Thursday, Nancy Pelosi announced that the House is moving forward with articles of impeachment, and one CNN article sounded almost giddy that this is actually happening…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moved the House much closer to impeachment Thursday when she officially directed the Judiciary Committee to draw up articles of impeachment. (As if it wasn’t already.)

But her announcement all but guarantees that President Donald Trump will be impeached. This is happening, people.

But Trump is not going to be removed from office, and millions of Democrats are going to be deeply disappointed when that does not happen.

Of course Nancy Pelosi has never suggested that her effort will be successful, and she continues to insist that her hand was forced by Trump…

“I’m really sorry the president made this necessary by his complete disregard for the vision of our founders,” she told reporters Thursday. “An impeachment is not a pleasant experience. It can be divisive. We don’t take any glee in this at all. It’s heartbreaking. But the president gave us no choice.”

What Pelosi is trying to do is to take the moral high ground. Her intended audience is voters in the middle of the political spectrum, because they are the ones that will decide the 2020 election.

And it appears that things could move along quite rapidly in the House from this point forward. In fact, NBC News is reporting that House Democrats are being told “not to make plans” for the weekend just prior to Christmas…

Pelosi did not say whether she had set a deadline for committees to write the articles of impeachment or when a full House vote would take place. Members who attended a closed-door Democratic caucus meeting on Wednesday, however, said they understood that the House would vote on articles before the holiday recess. One member said they were told to “not make plans” for Dec. 21 or 22, the weekend before Christmas.

I have been warning for months that the Democrats were going to impeach Trump, but at first a lot of people didn’t believe me.

But at this point even Donald Trump appears to be resigned to the fact that he will be impeached…

“If you are going to impeach me, do it now, fast, so we can have a fair trial in the Senate, and so that our Country can get back to business,” the president said in a pair of tweets shortly before Pelosi spoke.

It will only take a simple majority to impeach Trump in the House, and Democrats currently control 233 of the seats.

Of course there is still a possibility that some Democrats could actually vote against Pelosi, and one Democrat has already made it clear that he plans to do just that…

Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, one of two Democrats to vote against formalizing the impeachment inquiry, said he plans to vote against all the articles of impeachment “unless there’s something that I haven’t seen, haven’t heard before.”

He warned Democrats to “be careful what you wish for” and he added that impeachment “is tearing the nation apart. … And I want to bring people together.”

But a whole lot more Democrats are going to have to defect in order for the impeachment vote to fail, and right now there is absolutely no indication that is likely to happen.

In fact, most Democrats can’t wait to impeach Trump. On Thursday, Representative Al Green actually suggested that they could try to impeach Trump again if the first attempt does not work…

Thursday on C-SPAN, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) discussed impeachment, saying “there is no limit” to how many times the House and Senate can try to impeach President Donald Trump.

Green said he suspects Trump will have additional offenses in the future, so he believes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will “move forward” with a vote to impeach Trump for his alleged quid pro quo demand with Ukraine and then try again “at a later time” if they find more during their investigations.

Sadly, most of the Democrats in Congress don’t seem to understand that they are tearing the country apart, and that could have very serious implications in the not too distant future.

But in Washington, winning is everything, and Democrats are absolutely obsessed with November 2020 right now.

Just consider what Nancy Pelosi told a CNN town hall on Thursday…

“Let’s not even contemplate that,” Pelosi said at a CNN town hall Thursday evening in response to an audience question about what checks will exist in the House of Representatives if Trump is reelected and the impeachment process is over.

“Civilization as we know it today is at stake in the next election, and certainly our planet,” Pelosi said.

Nancy Pelosi knows that the Senate will not vote to convict Trump, but that is not what she is after.

Her grand plan has always been to damage Trump for the 2020 election, and only time will tell if her gamble was successful.

The Mainstream Media Is Filled With Conspiracy Theories Regarding Trump’s Mysterious Visit To The Hospital

November 18, 2019November 18, 2019 by Michael

On Saturday, President Trump made an unscheduled visit to Walter Reed Hospital. According to White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, Trump went through “a routine checkup as part of his annual physical”, and after about two hours he departed. If it was anyone else, this wouldn’t even be news. But when it comes to Trump, if there is any potential sign of weakness the mainstream media is going to jump all over it. Even though the White House insists that Trump is in perfect health, the mainstream media refuses to believe it. In fact, a CNN article about this incident claims that we can’t take anything that the Trump administration tells us at face value because of the “thousands of lies and deceptions” that the Trump administration has supposedly already promulgated…

Like a weekend worrier who shows up at the emergency room, President Donald Trump went to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center unannounced for what the White House says were supposedly routine tests. “He’s in good health and it was a routine checkup as part of his annual physical,” insisted White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham.

Another administration might get the benefit of the doubt in such a case, but after thousands of lies and deceptions, this one deserves nothing of the sort.

Of course that article didn’t actually identify any examples of past “lies and deceptions” by the White House.

A reporter for the Los Angeles Times also accused the Trump administration of a “long history of false statements”…

“Perfect example of how the long history of false statements from White House has worn away any presumption of truthfulness,” David Lauter, the Los Angeles Times’ Washington bureau chief, tweeted. “Maybe Trump’s hospital visit was routine, but burden of proof is on WH to show evidence.”

What we are witnessing is extremely bizarre. The mainstream media is regularly accusing the president of the United States and those around him of being blatant liars, and they are making it very clear that we shouldn’t believe anything that they tell us.

Could you imagine if they had treated Barack Obama this way?

In order for our system of government to function properly, we need to be able to trust that our leaders are telling us the truth. If they are not telling us the truth, or if we feel like we are no longer able to trust them, our system is ultimately doomed to fail.

And with each passing day, the mainstream media is working very hard to erode our trust in the White House. NBC News seems to think that we should be suspicious of what happened at Walter Reed because it deviated from what Trump had done in the past…

Trump, 73, had no public events on his calendar Saturday and no advance guidance was given that he would be getting any kind of medical exam. Trump’s prior two physical exams as president were on the public schedule and advance warning was provided. In addition, those exams did not take place in multiple “phases.” Trump’s most recent physical was in February.

Trump arrived at the hospital at 2:45 p.m. Saturday and spent slightly more than two hours there. He was seen leaving with a tan envelope tucked in his arm. The full annual presidential physical typically takes several hours and is unlikely to be described as a “quick exam and labs,” which is how White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham explained the visit afterward.

And Jonathan Wackrow of CNN pointed out that the medical unit at the White House “could easily accommodate most of what is needed in an annual physical“…

This does not add up; the White House Medical Unit has very comprehensive facilities at the White House complex that could easily accommodate most of what is needed in an annual physical. As a fmr USSS Agent assigned POTUS, I have never seen the annual formality occur in stages.

But just because Trump did something a certain way a couple of times in the past does not mean that he is always going to do things that way in the future.

Trump is known to suddenly change course based on what he is feeling in the moment. Perhaps he got up on Saturday and decided that getting checked out by a doctor would be a good thing to do, and there wouldn’t be anything wrong with that.

Unfortunately, many in the mainstream media continue to speculate that there must have been some sort of “medical issue” that caused the sudden visit to Walter Reed. For example, just check out what Joe Lockhart tweeted…

“The one thing you can be absolutely sure of is this was not routine and he didn’t go up there for half his physical,” tweeted Joe Lockhart, a press secretary under President Bill Clinton, who was himself impeached for perjury and obstruction. “What does it mean? It means that we just won’t know what the medical issue was.”

And NBC News actually speculated on the air that President Trump may have a heart problem…

NICHOLS: But at his last check-up, doctors noted a higher coronary calcium score.

TORRES: The calcium score he had from 2018 showed he already had plaque buildup around his heart. That’s a bit concerning.

When Hillary Clinton was literally collapsing in public during the 2016 campaign season, the mainstream media insisted over and over that she was perfectly fine.

But Trump makes one unscheduled visit to the hospital, and all of a sudden the conspiracy theories are running rampant in the mainstream media.

Some outlets are even promoting the theory that this hospital visit was made so that Trump can resign for health reasons…

According to Cheri Jacobus, Trump’s hospital visit was setting up an excuse “so he can quickly resign for alleged ‘health reasons.’”

According to Jacobus, Trump may simply quit, as evidence grows in the impeachment inquiry against him. Vice President Mike Pence would then become president — and would hand Trump a pardon for any crimes he may have committed, due to “compassion” for Trump’s alleged “health issues.”

What a bunch of nonsense.

After everything he has been through, President Trump is definitely not going to resign. Every time the mainstream media spreads such nonsense they lose even more credibility.

In the old days, the mainstream media would simply report the information that they received from the White House, and what the White House is telling us is that President Trump is “perfectly healthy”…

As Trump was at the hospital, Grisham said, “Anticipating a very busy 2020, the president is taking advantage of a free weekend here in Washington, D.C., to begin portions of his routine annual physical exam at Walter Reed.” Afterward, she said Trump “remains healthy and energetic without complaints, as demonstrated by his repeated vigorous rally performances in front of thousands of Americans several times a week.”

Later in the evening, Grisham told NBC News in a statement that Trump “is fine — perfectly healthy.”

But what isn’t healthy is the relationship between the Trump administration and the mainstream media.

During previous administrations, the mainstream media at least attempted to maintain a pretense of objectivity, but those days are long gone.

At this point it is exceedingly apparent that they absolutely hate Trump, and they are going to do their very best to help get a Democrat elected in 2020.

The Democrats Really Think That They Have Finally Got Trump This Time

October 28, 2019 by Michael

It seems like the Democrats have been trying to figure out a way to remove Donald Trump from office forever. Trump was under investigation even before he won the election, and it has literally been a miracle that his presidency has been able to survive for as long as it has. But now the Democrats think that they have finally got him. A parade of witnesses has come forward testifying that Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, and that Trump withheld key military aid from Ukraine as leverage. Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and other top Democrats believe that this constitutes an “abuse of power”, and that this “abuse of power” qualifies as a “high crime or misdemeanor”. Other than Fox News, the mainstream media is solidly behind the Democrats on this, and we have seen a shift in public opinion polls in favor of impeachment. Many conservatives continue to doubt that an impeachment trial will actually happen, but Nancy Pelosi would have never let things get this far if she didn’t know for sure that she has the votes that she needs to impeach Trump in the House. At this point, it appears extremely likely that Trump will be impeached, and that will set up a historic trial in the U.S. Senate.

On Tuesday, House impeachment investigators will hear testimony from Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, and according to a draft of his opening statement he plans to tell them that he notified his superiors twice regarding his concerns that military aid to Ukraine was being withheld in order to pressure the Ukrainians to investigate the Bidens…

The White House’s top expert on Ukraine twice notified superiors about concerns that the president and those working for him were linking foreign aid to Ukraine with investigations that would help President Donald Trump politically, a push that he said could undermine U.S. national security, according to an opening statement obtained by USA TODAY.

The testimony of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman before the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight committees Tuesday will mark the first time lawmakers investigating the impeachment inquiry will hear from someone who listened to Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — the call at the center of the impeachment investigation that included a Trump’s request that Ukraine investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.

This is likely to be bombshell testimony, but the American public won’t get a chance to hear from Vindman firsthand because the Democrats made a critical strategic mistake.

At the outset of this process, the Democrats decided to keep the proceedings shielded from the American public. This has opened them up to tremendous criticism from Republicans, and it has resulted in them missing opportunity after opportunity to move public opinion more dramatically.

For the past month, the Democrats have looked like they are trying to hide what they are doing, and the process has been deeply unfair to President Trump.

Finally realizing that they have massively screwed up, the Democrats now plan to hold a vote in the House later this week that will make the next phase of the impeachment inquiry more open to the public. In a letter to her fellow Democrats in the House, Nancy Pelosi explained why this move is being made at this time. The following is an excerpt from her letter…

This week, we will bring a resolution to the Floor that affirms the ongoing, existing investigation that is currently being conducted by our committees as part of this impeachment inquiry, including all requests for documents, subpoenas for records and testimony, and any other investigative steps previously taken or to be taken as part of this investigation. This resolution establishes the procedure for hearings that are open to the American people, authorizes the disclosure of deposition transcripts, outlines procedures to transfer evidence to the Judiciary Committee as it considers potential articles of impeachment, and sets forth due process rights for the President and his Counsel.

‘We are taking this step to eliminate any doubt as to whether the Trump Administration may withhold documents, prevent witness testimony, disregard duly authorized subpoenas, or continue obstructing the House of Representatives.

If the Democrats are going to be successful, they need to get somewhere around 60 percent of all Americans on their side, because it is at that level where certain Republicans in the U.S. Senate would feel comfortable betraying Trump.

In order to do that, the Democrats desperately need to get these proceedings on television, and this resolution will finally authorize that.

But will this be a case of too little, too late?

We shall see.

Ultimately, the Democrats never should have gone down this road, and even if everything they are alleging is true there is nothing that Trump has done that represents a “high crime or misdemeanor”.

And with Republicans in control of the U.S. Senate, you would think that Trump should be feeling quite safe.

Unfortunately, so far only seven Republicans have publicly stated that they have ruled out removing Trump from office, and most Republican Senators are purposely refusing to take any sort of a public stand. Here are a few examples…

Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho): “I’m a juror and I’m comfortable not speaking.”
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.): “I’d be a juror, so I have no comment.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.): “I don’t need a strategy for impeachment because I may be a juror someday.”
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine): “I am very likely to be a juror so to make a predetermined decision on whether or not to convict a president of the United States does not fulfill one’s constitutional responsibilities.”

So much for loyalty. President Trump recently endorsed Senator Risch, and this is how he is repaying Trump?

If the Republicans in the Senate came together and released a public statement in which they pledged not to remove Trump from office, that would immediately suck all the life out of the impeachment process.

But they are not going to do that. In fact, there are persistent rumors that quite a few Republican Senators are ready to stab Trump in the back.

Whether you support Donald Trump or not, the truth is that every American should be deeply alarmed by what is happening in Washington right now. In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville warned us that this might happen someday: “A decline of public morals in the United States will probably be marked by the abuse of the power of impeachment as a means of crushing political adversaries or ejecting them from office.”

The scenario that he warned about is playing out right in front of us, and if Donald Trump is removed from office it is going to cause irreparable damage to our system of government.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. My name is Michael Snyder and I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I can only allow this to happen if this “About the Author” section is included with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

Most Americans Do Not Believe That This Chapter Of American History Is Going To End Well

October 23, 2019 by Michael

This is a very difficult article for me to write. America is more divided today than it has ever been in my entire lifetime, and the very deep divisions that now exist are getting deeper with each passing day. In particular, the animosity between the political left and the political right has risen to an extremely frightening level. Instead of learning to love those that we disagree with, we are constantly being trained to absolutely loathe them, and the pot is constantly being stirred by the mainstream media and many of our national leaders. And as both sides go at it like cats and dogs, irreparable damage is being done to our political system. At this point, we are not too far away from a point where this country will not be governable by anyone. Our federal government has degenerated into a bad soap opera featuring an endless parade of insults, threats, petty stunts, scandals and investigations. All of this drama may be entertaining at times, but it is not any way to run a country.

And now all of the political strife and discord in this country has been given a focal point. I have repeatedly warned that Democrats should have never gone down the road of impeachment, because either way this process turns out it is going to be very bad for America.

If Trump is impeached by the House but protected by the Republicans in the Senate, the left is going to go absolutely ballistic.

But if Trump is impeached by the House and then removed from office by the Senate, the right is going to go absolutely ballistic.

Either way, this story is going to have a very negative end.

And even if Trump wasn’t in the White House, the seething hatred between the left and the right would still be there. In fact, things have gotten so bad that a new survey found that 67 percent of all Americans believe that we are “on the edge of civil war”…

Partisan political division and the resulting incivility has reached a low in America, with 67% believing that the nation is nearing civil war, according to a new national survey.

“The majority of Americans believe that we are two-thirds of the way to being on the edge of civil war. That to me is a very pessimistic place,” said Mo Elleithee, the executive director of Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service.

I was stunned to see such a high number.

Obviously most Americans don’t actually want a “civil war”, but this is what most of them see coming.

Earlier today, I came across an article about a Major League Baseball umpire named Rob Drake that is now in hot water for posting about “civil war” on Twitter…

Major League Baseball is looking into a now-deleted tweet from umpire Rob Drake warning of a civil war if president Donald Trump is impeached.

According to a copy of the tweet obtained by ESPN, Drake tweeted that he planned to buy an assault rifle “because if you impeach MY PRESIDENT this way, YOU WILL HAVE ANOTHER CIVAL WAR!!! #MAGA2020″.”

Is that really how this chapter in American history is going to end?

Are we destined to see utter chaos in the streets?

I am not saying that we should all try to find a way to agree on everything. When it comes to our most fundamental values, there are certain things that I will never, ever, ever agree on with my political opponents.

And the fact that our nation no longer has a cohesive set of values is definitely a big part of the problem. With various national leaders constantly touting their own value systems and trying to pull us in a whole bunch of different directions simultaneously, it is certainly not surprising that we have ended up at this point.

But nobody should want a fractured nation where we are literally fighting with one another in the streets.

Of course when you ask people about who should be blamed for this mess, Democrats point at Republicans and Republicans point at Democrats. If you doubt this, just check out these numbers…

Among Democratic voters, 63 percent say GOP leaders are “very responsible” for the decline in civility and 86 percent say Trump is “very responsible.” Only 10 percent of Democratic voters place a large degree of blame at the feet of their party leaders.

Among Republicans, those numbers are flipped – 67 percent of GOP voters say Democratic leaders are “very responsible” for the decline in today’s politics, easily the largest culprit among those voters.

Frustration and anger have been building in this country for a very long time, and now this impeachment process threatens to be a flashpoint. No matter what happens, tens of millions of Americans are going to be deeply, deeply upset by the result, and you don’t want to be there when their anger is unleashed.

A number of years ago I wrote a novel which envisioned absolutely massive protests in Washington D.C., but at that time I had no idea that Donald Trump would become president or that the Democrats would one day try to impeach him. And now it looks like the Democrats want to have articles of impeachment ready by the end of this year, and that means that a Senate trial is coming soon.

And once a Senate trial starts, the eyes of the entire world will be on Washington.

Many on the right are assuming that a Senate trial will be a slam dunk for Trump, but it is not necessarily safe to make that assumption. On Wednesday, the number two Republican in the Senate said the following about this process…

“The picture coming out of it, based on the reporting that we’ve seen, I would say is not a good one,” Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, told CNN. “But I would say also that until we have a process that allows for everybody to see this in full transparency, it’s pretty hard to draw any hard and fast conclusions.”

That certainly doesn’t sound like someone that already has his mind made up about how he will vote.

There are going to be a lot of twists and turns to this drama in the weeks ahead, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the end result will not be a good one for America.

And as I just detailed above, a large percentage of the population shares my pessimism regarding how this chapter in American history will end.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep. I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned) By purchasing those books you help to support my work. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but due to government regulations I can only allow this to happen if this “About the Author” section is included with each article. In order to comply with those government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished. This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of the websites where my work is republished. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.

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