monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

In particular there is no basis on which to believe Hunter Biden had any credentials, or useful experience to offer, in the governance of any large organization of any kind.

Nikki Haley has a hell of a lot more experience to offer a U.S. corporation than has Hunter Biden...

Hunter's well-paid role in Burisma was, given then VP Biden's, assigned role as leader of our relations with Ukraine, as a minimum, a gross appearance of a serious conflict of interest on the VP's part.

instead we just have a long record of Trump's supporters trying to imply guilt by association.

Where have we seen that before?

It's common human behavior and it predates recorded history.

Trump derangement syndrome is an imaginary illness

Why Is Amazon Alexa Telling People the Wrong Date for Trump's State of the Union Address?

"Alexa, when is the next State of the Union?" I asked.

"The next State of the Union will occur on Wednesday, February 5, 2020 at 9 p.m."

Sorry, Alexa, but that is the wrong answer. The next State of the Union is actually on Tuesday, February 4, 2020. You can watch video of Alexa giving me the incorrect response here:

Trump's agenda was voted down at the polls in 2016.

Islamophobia on the other hand is xenophobic and racist.

Nolte: Let’s All Thank President John Roberts for Outing the Fake ‘Whistleblower’

Eric Ciaramella, a CIA analyst and raging partisan who falsely accused President Trump of impeachable crimes, who has a history of working with former Vice President Joe Biden, and who might have had his own agenda in wanting Biden’s corruption in Ukraine covered up… Yep, that’s him.

After much speculation that Ciaramella is the guy, Roberts confirmed it Thursday through his unconstitutional act of commission.

Justice Cuck refused to read an impeachment question submitted by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

Watching the Russian delusional sites again?

Al Walaa wal Baraa - a scholarly version

The memorandum below was sent by Robert Frankling to all Canadian members of parliament and senators before the discussion and vote on a motion, M-103, scheduled for February 16, 2017. M-103 was recognized by many Canadians as an important step toward the Islamic goal of criminalizing criticism of Islam. The motion condemns Islamophobia without defining it - even without looking at Islam, and why someone might well respond with fear.

MEMORANDUM TO THE HONOURABLE SENATORS AND PARLIAMENTARIANS OF CANADA

by Robert Frankling

It is ironic for Parliamentarians to even consider banning Islamophobia, which is undefined, theoretical, nebulous, and unofficial.

Yet Parliamentarians are patently disregarding that Islam contains a doctrine that is intolerant and discriminatory. This doctrine, furthermore, is 'ESSENTIAL 'within Islam. That is, it is, unlike "Islamophobia," CLEARLY DEFINED, LEGALLY BINDING, PRECISE and OFFICIAL.

‘Al Walaa wal Baraa’ – (Allegiance and Disassociation) is an Islamic doctrine that is very similar to apartheid.
‘Al Walaa wal Baraa’ is an 'essential doctrine' (usul ud-deen). ‘Essential’ means that all Muslims must believe and practice al Walaa wal Baraa as a condition of being admitted to paradise.
‘Al Walaa wal Baraa’ is a highly developed, well-supported and canonical part of Islam approved by the consensus of Islamic jurists.
‘Al Walaa wal Baraa’ is legally binding and obligatory upon all Muslims.
‘Al Walaa wal Baraa’ is precisely defined by Islamic jurists and is not a nebulous idea
‘Al Walaa wal Baraa’ is an official Islamic doctrine and considered the second most important doctrine in Islam.

Definition of ‘Al Walaa wal Baraa’ from Islamic sources:

from The Islamic Concept of al-Walaa' wal-Baraa' by Khalid El-Gharib: "to show enmity to those who show enmity to Allaah and His Messenger.” (i.e. Muslims are to visibly demonstrate their enmity towards the kufaar - non-Muslims)
https://www.kalamullah.com/manhaj14.html

from a lecture given by Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal (H.A.): "The implication of al-Baraa is that one HATES for the sake of Allah (SWT)…Al-Baraa means to recognize who your enemies are and to HATE them and EXTERMINATE them in their Endeavour to get rid of your Deen, al-Islam…Al-Baraa is to HATE the people who propagate Baatil (falsehood)—the Muslim should HATE them and (at least desire to) KILL them when the time comes." (i.e. the hatred of Muslims toward the kufaar is for the purpose of ethnic cleansing)
https://youtu.be/jUgDJmpmj14?t=855

Examples of Baraa from Historic Islamic Leaders:

from Ahmad Sirhindi (1564-1624): "The honour of Islam lies in insulting kufr and kafirs. One who respects the kafirs dishonours the Muslims... The real purpose of levying jiziya on them is to humiliate them to such an extent that they may not be able to dress well and to live in grandeur. They should constantly remain terrified and trembling. It is intended to hold them under contempt and to uphold the honour and might of Islam." (letter No. 163)

from Book of Emaan, by ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328): "... true believers show animosity and hatred towards disbelievers and never support them.”
(The Book of Faith ("Kitab al Iman") - ISBN: 9781615842872)
https://islamhouse.com/en/books/438889/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ibn-Taymiyyah

from Abd-Allaah al-Ashqar, "Belief in Allah," by Umar Sulayman: "The Muslim should regard the Kuffaar as enemies and hate them because of their kufr, just as he hates their kufr (disbelief) itself."
http://www.kalamullah.com/belief-in-allah.html (English, 2002)

from Al Walaa wal Baraa According to the Aqeedah of the Salaf, by Sheikh Muhammad Saeed al Qatani, authoritative Saudi Sharia lawyer and imam at the Abu Bakr and Al Furqan Mosques in Mecca: "The doctrine of al Wala wal Baraa is the real image for the actual practice of this faith."

WASHINGTON — During a meeting with Donald Trump at Trump Tower in June of 2016, with the opéra bouffe builder improbably heading toward the nomination despite a skeletal campaign crew on a floor below, I asked when he would pivot.

We all assumed he would have to pivot, that he would have to stop his belittling Twitter rants, that he would have to cease attacking fellow Republicans like John McCain, that he would have to get more in line with the traditional stances of his party, that he would have to be less of a barbarian at the gates of D.C.

He crossed his arms, pursed his lips and shook his head — a child refusing vegetables.

How naïve he was, I thought to myself. But I was the naïve one. Trump has forced the world to pivot to him.

The state of the union is upside down and inside out and sauerkraut. Trump has changed literally everything in the last three years, transforming and coarsening the game. On Friday night, he became, arguably, the most brutishly powerful Republican of all time. Never has a leader had such a stranglehold on his party, subsuming it with one gulp.

As the Senate voted 51 to 49 to smother the impeachment inquiry, guided by the dark hand of Mitch McConnell, it felt like the world’s greatest deliberative body had been hollowed out, diminished.

McConnell let Mitt Romney and Susan Collins vote to allow documents and witnesses such as John Bolton, knowing two could strain at the leash safely.

The rest of the senators fell into line as sycophantic clones of Mike Pence. The impeachment trial amounted to one side being earnest and one pretending to be. It was exactly what Nancy Pelosi feared would happen before she was reluctantly drawn into the show trial.

“Now the State of the Union is going to be the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man coming down the street and standing in the rubble of what’s left of the Congress,” keened one Democrat on Friday night. “The Republican Party has now lost whatever control they could exert over this president, any oversight they could have. It’s gone. The state of the union is there is no union. How can there be, when one side is petrified of their Godzilla?”

Senator Chris Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat, dismissed Republicans as “a cult of personality” around Trump.

“This trial in so many ways crystallized the completely diametrically opposed threats that Democrats and Republicans see to the country,” Murphy told The Times’s Nicholas Fandos. “We perceive Donald Trump and his corruption to be an existential threat to the country. They perceive the deep state and the liberal media to be an existential threat to the country.

“That dichotomy, that contrast, has been growing over the last three years, but this trial really crystallized that difference. We were just speaking different languages, fundamentally different languages when it came to what this trial was about. They thought it was about the deep state and the media conspiracy. We thought it was about the president’s crimes.”

I feel like I have spent my career watching the same depressing dynamic that unspooled Friday night: Democrats trying, sometimes ineptly, to play fair and Republicans ruthlessly trying to win.

I watched it with the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings. I watched it in the 2000 recount with Bush versus Gore. I watched it with the push by W., Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to go to war in Iraq. I watched it with the pantomime of Merrick Garland.

Democrats are warning Republicans that they will be judged harshly by history. But in the meantime, the triumphant Republicans get to make history. And a lot of the history that Republicans have made is frightening: the endless, futile wars, the obliviousness to climate change, the stamp on the judiciary.

As Carl Hulse writes in his book, “Confirmation Bias,” about the Garland fiasco: “The success in naming judges was the signal achievement of Trump’s first two years. In the coming years, those judges will be among the members of the federal bench called to rule on Trump’s policies and practices in cases arising from challenges initiated by increasingly confrontational Democrats and other legal adversaries around the nation. Mitch McConnell made a snap decision one night in 2016. The consequences will reverberate for decades.”

For hours on Friday, the House managers made their vain final arguments. Pressing for Bolton’s testimony, Val Demings implored Republican senators: Aren’t you worried that, if left in office, Trump will harm America’s national security, seek to corrupt the upcoming election and undermine our democracy to further his own personal gain? Don’t you want to hear the witnesses and see the documents that would give the full story and make this a fair trial rather than a mock one?

“This is the American way and this is the American story,” Demings told the Republican senators as they looked back at her, impassive or impatient.

But, of course, they didn’t want that. As he voted against witnesses and documents, Lamar Alexander, McConnell’s pal, said Trump did something inappropriate but they just did not accept that it was impeachable, and they did not want to tear up ballots and “pour gasoline on cultural fires that are burning out there.”

So why not shut it down and cover it up? The books were cooked from the start.

As with so many other pivotal moments in modern history, Republicans wanted to win, not look for the truth. And history, God help us, is written by the winners.