It has been a very tough week in
the White House. Impeachment proceedings
have gone from mild rumblings to loud roars.
Whether or not they have anything that is actually impeachable, however,
hasn’t changed. They do not. Theo is an employee at the White House and
has been dealing with this. As his co-workers ask him what he thinks, he merely
states, “I thought they’d impeach him when the Democrats won the house. I’m surprised it’s taken them over a year. I still don’t think they have the votes in
the Senate so I don’t think he’ll be removed.
It will piss off and motivate his base and they’ll come out to vote in
2020.”
The latest thing under the
title, “We got him now” is a whistleblower complaint about a conversation that
President Trump had with the Ukrainian President Zelensky. The transcript has been released and it came
out that everything the media reported on was a lie. There was no quid pro quo, there were no
promises made, it wasn’t a threat, there was no pressure and it wasn’t to get
the notes of a pre-existing investigation.
President Trump simply asked for a favor to look into Joe Biden meddling
in a Ukrainian investigation into his son and the company he worked for,
Burisma. Theo leaves work and goes to a
bar in the Georgetown area. He enjoys
debating liberals and now that the Whistleblower story is a week old, it’s
fresh on everyone’s minds. He goes in
and orders a drink. Usually, people
don’t pay any attention to him but today, students have conniving smiles on
their faces. He smiles back and is
unsure what joke he’s missing. He writes
it off as being the oldest person in the bar, which he’s become used to as he
trolls college bars to challenge college students. As he looks around, however, he starts
noticing that he actually is not the oldest person in this bar. A girl walks up to him with the same sinister
smile as everyone else and charmingly says, “Hi”
“Hello” Theo responds
nonchalantly
“How do you feel now that we got
your boy Trump dead to rights?”
“I think this is like the 204th
time someone has claimed that.”
“You don’t think the
Whistleblower story is open and shut?”
“Not by a long shot. It was a pre-planned hit and is just one more
indication of the deep state’s effort to perform a soft coup on President
Trump”
To Theo’s surprise the girl
smiles even widen. She giggles a little
bit and turns around. A man older than
Theo’s 35 approaches him. He extends his
hand and remarks, “Hello, I’m Professor Vikas.
I teach political science at Georgetown University”
Theo shakes his hand, “Hi, I’m
Theo. I work for your sworn enemy Donald
Trump”
Theo doesn’t know Professor
Vikas. For all he knows, he’s not even a
professor. Theo merely assumes that
every college professor’s enemy is President Donald Trump. Professor Vikas smiles with his mouth but it
doesn’t reach his eyes. “My students
have been telling me that you frequent this bar a lot and spout your
propaganda”
“No, I lay down some truth. In the old days, people encouraged
debate. That used to be the point of University
but you people ruined all that by suppressing conservative thought. I merely come in and give them the opposing
view. Usually I’m grossly outnumbered
yet apparently I’ve made an impact since they got back up.”
“It’s not hard to convince
impressionable college students. I won’t
have you corrupting their minds and exploiting that they are away from their
parents so have their first taste of freedom.
You take advantage of their alcohol affected brains and insert filth in
their drunken stupors.”
Theo burst out laughing, “Wow, I
knew liberals were masters of projection but that was brilliant. I mean, you’re entire existence is lecturing
to a bunch of those same kids you mentioned in the exact same predicament.”
“I don’t do it at bars”
“Make no mistake about it; some
of your students go to your class drunk or hungover. What time are you lectures?”
“Some are in the morning, some
are in the evening”
“The ones in the morning, some
are hung over, the ones in the evening, some are drunk”
“You seem to love stereotyping”
“As do you. I know you’re not a psychology of biology
professor but let me tell you how the human brain works. Your mind processes information in categories
call schemas. These schemas have basic
characteristics of something essential to that item. It then fills in the rests as context
provides. The way it is normally
described is the ‘grandmother’ neuron.
Now, you know what your grandmother looks like. Your grandmother, however, looks differently
depending on what angle you’re looking at her.
Since the amount of angles is infinite, you can’t have a neuron for
every possible position your grandmother is in.
Therefore, you have core characteristics you look for and identify her
that way. Now, if she changes her
clothes, gets her hair cut or whatever it may be, you can still recognize her
because you use your schema. This is
what people call generalities and stereotypes.
You do it with other people too.
That’s why older people usually can understand things quicker because
their experience has seen a similar situation or group and they have a head
start in understanding. To vilify
generalities and stereotypes is to vilify the way your mind processes
information. If you do that, you’re just
retarded.’
The professor frowned. He was used to people respecting him and this
punk just called him a ‘retard.’ Now, he
wanted more than ever to do what he was going to do. “Finish your drink. We have set up a room. I challenge you to an impromptu debate. Just so you know it will be recorded”
“Can we have a live feed to the
internet?”
“Are you that confident?”
“Yes”
“How about a wager?”
“No”
“Why? If you’re so confident?” There was a smug
expression on his face
“Because these are your
students. Their grade depends on
you. If they were to vote against you,
even anonymously, they can be punished whereas I can’t do anything to punish
them.”
“Why do the debate at all if you
think you’re going to lose? This is an
open school event, they’re not all my students.”
“Because even if they vote for
you, they know in their hearts who really won the debate. My goal is information not to win over some
asshole I don’t know”
“Why the name calling?”
“Because I hate college
professors for all the reasons you indicated about why I come here. I believe that professors are too afraid of
the real world so they go to their one safe space where they manipulate college
students. I don’t have to tell you how
because you very eloquently described it before.”
“Well then let’s go.”
Theo finished his drink and
follows a crowd of people to the classroom.
A student queries, “Is there anything you need?”
“A lab top linked to some sort
of projector screen”
“Right, all our rooms have
that.”
“Are you over 21?”
“Yes” the expression on his face
made Theo think that he wasn’t but he just had a fake iD.
“Do you have Venmo? I’ll send
you $30, get a bottle of Sapphire gin and tonic water and then you can do what
you want with the rest”
The student gave him his Venmo
name and Theo sent the money doubting that he would do it. They set up the monitors and a crowd of
students gathered. Theo looked out into
the crowd and was shocked he made that much of an impression on them. As everything was set up, the moderator,
quickly introduced Professor Vikas and Theo.
The moderator explained, “This is not a formal debate. No candidate can speak more than five minutes
and then the opposing side gets to retort.
Theo, you start first”
Theo was a little unnerved by
all the phones on him right now but he stated, “First, I want to talk about why
the whistleblower is coming out. The
inspector general report is coming out soon and it will be devastating for the
Democrats and the DOJ, which encompasses the FBI and CIA. They are covering up the Democrats collusion
with the UK, Ukraine and Russia.
Basically everything they pretend President Trump did, they are guilty
of themselves. Democrats are projection
artists nothing more. The whistleblower
scandal was a pre-planned professional hit job”
Theo hears snickers from the
crowd. There’s a brief silence and the
moderator declares, “If you’re not going to use the full five minutes, say ‘I
yield my time’”
“I yield my time” Theo announces
Professor Vikas responds, “Thank
you for being here students and fellow faculty members. What you just heard is completely
fabricated. It’s not Theo’s fault as
he’s been influenced by Fox News. There
is absolutely no evidence that Democrats spoke to any foreign power about
Trump. I yield my time”
Theo furiously types on his
laptop and pulls up an article in Politico, “This is an article from Politico,
which is a left wing fake news outlet trusted and respected by liberals and
Democrats. Look at the subtext on the
headline, ‘Kiev officials trying to make amends after openly advocating for
Hillary’ I’ve highlighted certain parts of the article in which the Ukrainian
officials say not to bother with Trump because Hillary is going to win. When the good professor says that Fox News
made it up, he forgets that the fake news has changed their story so many times
that things that were covered up or taboo to report on, weren’t just a couple
months ago. If you want a CNN clip,
here’s Katie who had Mark Short on.” Theo
plays a clip where Katie accuses him of Russian propaganda when he mentions
Hillary and Obama colluding with Ukraine and Short interrupts ‘Actually it’s a
Mark Vogle piece from politico” and holds it up ‘and he now writes for the NY
times’ Theo continues, “Here is a Daily
Caller piece entitled, “Steele indentified Russian Dossier sources notes
reveal. Here’s a highlighted excerpt
where it says that Steele’s sources are Russians Surkov & Trubnikov.. Tell me something. What is the name of the Russian President
Trump colluded with? I gave you names
and notes from Kavalec speaking with Steele.
As for the final claim I made, here is a CNN article, “British
intelligence passed Trump Associates’ communications with Russians on US
Counterparts.’ Theo runs the mouse over
to highlight parts where it says UK’s GCBQ (Their DOJ) and Mi5 (Their FBI)
spying on President Trump. So, my
question to you professor is when you say I have no basis to make these
accusations, what do you mean?”
“This debate is not about Obama
or Hillary. We are here to talk about
the Whistleblower. You called it a
pre-planned hit but all of this came out a week ago. There is no deep state. This is just a
concerned citizen who doesn’t like pay for play deals made by the president.”
“Biden is on tape withholding a
billion dollars in aid if they don’t fire their prosecutor general”
“He was corrupt. The EU said he was corrupt. Various Ukrainian officials said he was
corrupt”
“Why would Biden care that the
Ukrainian prosecutor is corrupt? Isn’t
that a Ukraine problem?”
“We don’t like working with
corrupt politicians”
“He’s not a politician, he’s a prosecutor general”
“He’s not a politician, he’s a prosecutor general”
“Biden was still concerned”
“Because Inspector General
Shokin was investigating Burisma and their hiring and paying Hunter Biden
$50,000 a month when he had no experience at all. Burisma is an energy company and Hunter had
no energy experience. He was kicked out
of college for doing too much drugs.
That was his qualification”
“The investigation was over when
he was fired”
“False. Shokin has sworn in an
affidavit that he was still investigating Burisma and was only fired because of
Biden. Don’t you think that Biden
should’ve at least recused himself since it involved his kid? There were three
investigations open, only one was closed.”
“We are getting off topic. This is about the Whistleblower. California Democrat Adam Schiff, who is very
hesitant to say anything he can’t back up, was shocked by these revelations and
has claimed he just heard about this.
He’s an impeccable source. Why
would you believe this guy who you only know from a bar over a respected
congressman?”
Theo laughed, “Adam Schiff lied
to you for three years about the Russian collusion hoax. He is anything but hesitant to say
things. You claim that everyone found
out a week ago. Well here’s a tweet from
Adam Schiff, who you have told us is an impeccable source, this tweet is from
8/28/19, which was more than two weeks ago.
It’s actually a month ago, ‘Trump is withholding vital military aid to
Ukraine while his personal lawyer seeks help from the Ukraine government to investigate
his political opponent.’ What does that
sound like to all of you? Oh yea, the
whistleblower report! Let’s move on from
Schiff as I already told you he’s not credible.
Here’s 60 minutes with Pelosi that was taped over two weeks ago. Pelosi says, ‘But I know what was in the
call.’ I ask you, ‘How did she know what
was in the call?”
“Pelosi’s next statement is that
it’s public information”
“Was it though? You just told me that nobody knew about until
two weeks ago. If it was public
information, then you’re story can’t be true.
Pelosi can’t be right that it was in the public domain if congress
didn’t know it about it at the time she said that. Right?”
The student came back with a
bottle of gin, tonic and ice. Theo
thanked him and Professor Vikas snapped, “What are you doing?”
“You said it was informal.”
“You’re drinking. This is a mockery of this proceeding”
“Yes it is. You told me at the bar that I take advantage
of people with alcohol affected brains.
You ignore that my mind is also affected with alcohol. This debate isn’t going well for you by
objective reasons. I want to make it
fairer by drinking”
The professor shook his head and
opined, “You mention Trump’s personal lawyer.
That is Rudy Giuliani. Every time
he gets on TV, he hurts Trump by spouting his lies. He humiliates Trump and there’s internal
pressure to shut him up.”
“I work in the White House. I am on the inside. There is no internal pressure. Of course, if you don’t believe me, here’s a
letter that Joe Biden sent to various news outlets like Fox News, ABC, MSNBC
and CNN demanding that Rudy Giuliani is kept off the air.”
“If you read the letter, Biden
admits several times that the media does a good job debunking Giuliani’s points
in real time. It is not a confession”
“Your point to me was that
Giuliani is hurting Trump. If that were
true, why would Biden want Giuliani off the air? Wouldn’t it help Biden if someone who’s damaging
to Trump stays on the air? I’m an
economist, we study incentives. Ask
yourself, what would be Biden’s incentive for sending that letter? Does it make sense that it’s because he’s
doing damage to the president or is Giuliani hurting Biden and the Democrats? What seems more plausible?”
”Biden understands the integrity
of the office of the president. Giuliani
hurting the office, not the man, is why he wants him off the air.”
“That doesn’t even resemble a
rational thought.”
There’s laughter from the crowd
and the professor sternly cries out, “I want to know how he was so
prepared. You have all these articles
ready for you. You somehow had them all
saved on your e-mail. What student
prepared you? Someone set me up.”
“I keep notes on my phone. A lot of people do. But, you challenged me. You came to the bar and told me about this debate. Obviously, you knew about it. The question isn’t how was I prepared, it’s
how were you not?”
“I have refuted everything you
said.”
“The crowd will be the judge of
that. Back to the Whistleblower. Here’s a piece where Sean Davis reveals that they
recently changed the rules on what constitutes a Whistleblower. They removed the rule that you have to have
firsthand knowledge of the conversation.
This reminds me of Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix. Remember when Dumbledore scolds Professor Umbridge
for doing something she’s not legally allowed to do. She then calls the ministry of magic and gets
the law changed so she can do it. The
walls of Hogwarts castle is filled with all the new ministry decrees based on
things that Umbridge wanted to do to undermine Dumbledore but wasn’t
allowed. This is the same concept”
“The piece says some time
between last year and August 2019. The
rule could’ve been changed a year ago.
Not necessarily right after the conversation between Trump and
Zelensky.”
“Why would they secretly change
it? Almost like they didn’t want Trump
to know that the law had been changed.
Why would they want that? Maybe
to catch him off guard and set him up?”
“That’s speculation. Sometimes the person with firsthand knowledge
is afraid to come forward”
“A lot of people had firsthand
knowledge of the call. Don’t you find it
suspicious that none of them came forward?
If the initial person who heard it wasn’t bothered enough, why would
someone that heard it from someone else be so bothered? This is called hearsay and, as of right now,
hearsay is not admissible in court but they may change that rule next because
they can’t get Republicans with the rules now.”
“Hearsay is an outdated
principle”
“Our constitution says you have
a right to face your accuser. That’s why
it’s not admissible. The person that
heard it from your accuser is not your accuser”
“Who cares of the reason? The
bottom line is they changed the rule so new rule applies”
“Does it though? Here’s the 9/23/19 change to the urgency
requirement, which is what the Whistleblower referenced. Odd that he wrote it with legal footnotes and
references. Usually whistleblower
complaints are just a description of what happened. You don’t have legal cases referenced. This addendum, four days before this
controversy, they changed the guidelines.
There’s a suspicious footnote that it only refers to senior intelligence
officials. For those of you who don’t
know, that doesn’t include the President.
It also provides how it can be shared with congress. Here is the exemption for POTUS.”
“We are in unprecedented
times. I thought we had to yield to each
other. What happened to decorum?”
The moderator looked confused,
“Ummm, you guys have been doing a good job going back and forth. You’re not even really interrupting each
other so I’m just letting it slide”
The professor blurted out,
“These are unprecedented times. We need
transparency”
“This president has been the
most transparent president in American history”
“We need the transcripts of all
his conversations”
“Absolutely not. It was a mistake the first time. You guys still pretend he said things he
didn’t and the transcript is out. Trump
is under no obligation to tell the media anything. Schiff wants the transcripts with Putin so he
can twist more things around just like he did with Zelensky. The only precedent is this week. You can’t release the transcript. There are two things done best behind closed
door; sex and diplomacy”
“If he has nothing to hide, why
be against it?”
“If the Whistleblower is so
legitimate, why hide his identity?”
“60 minutes reports that the
Whistleblower fears for his life.”
“Yea, speaking about precedent;
we heard this a couple years ago. A man
named Stefan Halper. He set up George Papadopoulos,
Mike Flynn and Carter Page at his Cambridge campus in London. As I told you earlier, it was England that
did all the spying on Trump and his team and passed it to US counterparts. Everyone said he can’t be questioned because
his life is in danger. Three years
later, he’s still alive.”
“We aren’t looking for all of
the conversations; just the ones that he put on the top-secret server. Never before have presidents decided their
conversations with foreign leaders were top-level classification.”
“Unfortunately, our professor is
lying again. Here’s Susan Rice of the
Obama administration saying that Obama put calls on the top secret server too.”
“She also claims it was rare”
“Well, people didn’t leak things
like they do in the Trump administration.
The intelligence community isn’t against the president like they are
Trump. When you have as many enemies as
Trump, you need to be more careful with classification.”
“Donald Trump is the president
of the rich. Obama championed the middle
class”
“Median income has risen $ 4,144
since Trump took office. That’s
6.8%. After 8 years of Obama, the median
income raised $1,000, or 1%. Who
champions the middle class again?”
“Obama had an economy that had
collapsed so bad they called it ‘the great recession.’ It was the worst collapse since the Great
Depression. You can’t blame a slow
recovery on Obama”
“What are you talking
about? If you hit rock bottom, you have
a long way to go up when you’re at the bottom.
Even if he gets to even, that’s a huge increase. He didn’t do that though. Trump had to rise to new highs and break
records. Obama just had to get to even
but he couldn’t even do that.”
“I will not standby and listen
to your racist attacks on Barack Obama”
“Why is it racist? Because it’s not worshipping him? When is criticizing, racist? When the president is black?”
“Yes”
“No, you can criticize people’s
performance regardless of their race.
Blacks aren’t little kids. You
don’t need kid gloves. They can handle
criticism”
“Don’t justify your racism in
this Ivy League bastion of intellectual excellence”
“You are ruining that
reputation. I can’t even do that because
I don’t represent the university.”
“You even look like a racist
with your bald head”
Theo laughed, “Wow, attacking my
looks. DIdn’t you yell at me for
generalizing and stereotyping? Didn’t
you just stereotype bald people?”
“I’ve said all I wanted to
say. Do you have any most lies you want
to profess?”
“No, I’m done laying down
truth.”
“Then let’s put this to a vote
on who won the debate”
The moderator announced, “Okay,
so if you logon to the website barfight.Georgetown.com, you can vote on the
winner. We’ll give you two minutes to
vote. Voting is open now.
The screen lit up with the
website. After two minutes, the
moderator called, “Alright voting is closed”
Theo poured himself another
drink and took a long sip. He knew he
was going to lose. It was enemy
territory. The moderator stated,
“Alright, let’s find out if the alcohol affected Theo was able to take down the
respected professor.”
Theo snickered. He didn’t care about the results. When arguing with liberals, it wasn’t about
convincing the liberal, it’s a third person who may be on the fence listening
in. The screen lit up and a bar graph
was shown. Theo hardly paid attention
but was alerted when the professor scoffed and stormed out of the room. Theo looked up and saw that 70% of people
voted for Theo. His eyes went wide and
he turned to the crowd. He gave them a
nod and mouthed “Thank You”
The moderator could tell Theo
was shocked so he chimed in, “Congratulation Theo. Seems like you need to give young
impressionable college students more credit in their ability to judge
objectively”
Theo responded, “I’m just glad
you don’t think ‘objective’ is a dirty word.
“Yea, maybe you can give us more
credit.”
“I appreciate you judging
fairly. Now, I need to go home.”
Theo got up and shook hands with
the moderator. As he walked out, he
shook a lot of hands as people congratulated him. He left the building and went to the metro to
go home. Although it was over an hour
train ride, he was stunned the whole way home.
He couldn’t believe he won. He
knew his information was better and his argument was far superior as he backed
up his statements with articles but he really thought they would side with a
Georgetown representative rather than an outsider. He wrote it off that the drinking while
debating endeared him to the younger crowd.
As he thought this, it crossed his mind that maybe he needs to give
these college kids more credit. It was
just one example though. The jury was
out if it would be sustained. Still
though, he decided there was hope for the future. He got home and went to sleep
with a smile. The debate had cheered him
up from a very stressful week at the White House.