After a week of interesting news, I decided to go behind enemy lines to see how Rachel Maddow spun the impeachment proceedings in particular on her low-rated show Friday night on MSNBC. It was like visiting an alternative universe or the “Twilight Zone.” She discussed “four burning questions” about impeachment going forward during her opening monologue. Her first question – “How will the Senate impeachment trial be run?” – was dissected in Part I of this series here. Let’s continue with her second big question.

Maddow: It’s about the substance of the allegations against President Trump. The substance of the articles of impeachment against him that were just passed in the House.

Me: Her intensity and eagerness in saying those words were tells on what she thinks. She takes the articles at face value and believes the articles are definitive proof of the President’s “guilt” despite the fact that the articles do not refer to ANY crimes committed and are based entirely on hearsay and the personal opinions of witnesses during the “Adam Schiff impeachment start chamber.”

Maddow (continuing): The House has made clear that, even though they passed the articles of impeachment against the President, their investigation of impeachment is ongoing. For example, we’ve got the Intelligence Committee chasing Vice President Mike President’s office about a piece of classified evidence that apparently pertains to Mike Pence’s own communications with the Ukrainian government during the time period that’s at the center of the scrutiny in this.

Me: The House Democrats know that the two articles they passed are bogus, and that they have no direct evidence of impeachable crimes. Rather than doing the country’s business, they are continuing their fishing expedition and are now targeting the Vice President. Gee, I wonder where that “classified evidence” came from? Another Obama holdover on the National Security Council? Maddow is just fine with that because it supports the ever-changing Democrat impeachment narrative.

Maddow (continuing): There’s also of course the still open source journalistic reporting that’s happening on the core issue at the heart of the impeachment scandal, including the Washington Post reporting last night that White House officials believe President Trump may have been advised directly by Russian President Vladimir Putin on this conspiracy theory the President Trump has been pushing that it was Ukraine that interfered in the 2016 election and not Russia. President Trump reportedly told at least one senior White House official that he believed the conspiracy theory about Ukraine because “Putin told me.”

Me: “Open source journalistic reporting.” Translation: it is axiomatic that there are NO investigative journalists in the legacy media anymore. All of their stories are based on leaking, and we are living in an age of “leak wars.” The challenge is to find out who is doing the leaking and why. We have suffered through 2.5 years of circular leaker-media fake news associated with first the Russia hoax and how the Ukraine hoax, all of which has been debunked first by the Mueller report and then by the Horowitz FISA abuse report. The leakers were trying to “get Trump” by seeding their media allies with false leaks. Maddow has been a card-carrying member of the Democrats’ agit-prop campaign, and here she seeks to carry on the process. The Washington Post has been at the center of that leak campaign, too, using the usual “unnamed sources,” and she quotes a new article that revives the debunked Trump-Russia collusion hoax. Furthermore, the President has never said that it was “Ukraine not Russia” that interfered in the 2016 election. That is Democrat spin, as well as their false claims that “Ukrainian meddling” has been “debunked.” Nope. There’s ample evidence that BOTH countries meddled, and Maddow is trying to deflect from that fact.

Maddow (continuing): And that’s just coming out now, so the second big question following this impeachment Wednesday is, “What happens to additional evidence in the impeachment scandal”? How will that new information get aired? Is just aired to the public and affects public opinion? Is the Senate going to have any way to process any new important information and evidence that crops up between now and whenever they’re going to put on whatever trial they’re going to put on for President Trump? Does the prospect of additional new information and evidence affect the discussions in this fight about what the process will be in the Senate as they manage this part of it?

Me: Please. The Democrats rushed to impeach the President without direct evidence. They know it, and Maddow knows it. They could have pursued a deliberate and fair investigative process while waiting for the courts to determine whether executive branch witnesses could be forced to testify, or whether separation of powers and executive privilege prevailed, but they chose not to do so. The Democrats ran a Soviet-style impeachment star chamber, and now Maddow wrings her hands about how the Republican-run Senate will proceed? Pound sand.

Maddow (continuing): The third question about what happens in the impeachment process has to do with the President himself. And this is not very comfortable territory for me I will admit. I don’t pay a lot of attention to the President’s apparent “frame of mind;” I don’t pay a lot of attention to his statements. And therefore, I’m not sort of tracking his perceived well-being. I know a lot of people do that. It’s just not my bag.

Me: She’s kidding, right? Her entire show for months has been focused on every POTUS utterance, tweet, and the deciphering of his intent from the Democrat point of view. A false disclaimer.

Maddow (continuing): That said, he hasn’t seemed particularly even-keeled or in control for him in the lead up to this week’s impeachment. It would be stressful for anybody.

Me: She still doesn’t understand the President’s modus operandi. He doesn’t “turn the other cheek” when falsely attacked; he goes on the offensive and attacks the attacker(s). Maddow and the Democrats can’t handle a Republican president – and now his congressional allies – who actually fight back. The President knows he’s been falsely accused and is calling out that fact in his public appearances. His demeanor hasn’t changed one iota.

Maddow (continuing): But given his history of behavior, one of the outstanding and potentially important questions now that he has been impeached is how he personally might react to this punishment – to being held accountable for this behavior. That is not something that has happened a lot in his life. Do we know how he reacts to adversity like this?

Me: Maddow refers to the articles of impeachment as “punishment.” The better definition is a partisan lynching by the Democrats in the House, aided by their legacy media allies such as her. And the President and his supporters – in particular the House Republicans – know the truth because we watched the 3 weeks of the Democrats’ impeachment charade.

Maddow (continuing): Last night I interviewed Barbara Res (former executive vice president in the Trump organization); she worked for years in the Trump organization and has a lot of personal experience working alongside President Trump in his real estate business long before he got involved in politics. I wanted to speak to Barbara last night because I wanted to ask her, based on all the years she worked for President Trump and all the different circumstances she has seen him in, can she give us any advice … is there anything that we in the country should watch out for in terms of how he might react (garbled) to an accountability moment like this? And her advice on that front was kind of a showstopper. I mean I’ll tell you from my own standpoint … for own purposes, I thought the interview was going to go on … but when she told me this, all I could think of was “good night, let’s go to commercial.” Here is what she told me: “…when he gets through this – and he probably will – he will exact revenge on a LOT of people … a LOT.” (Maddow repeated what Res said, and then commented:) Okay; good night! (and laughed out loud) Think about that. I mean that seems like a potential consequence of impeachment that we should start thinking about. We should at least be talking about … wondering about? … starting to make plans for how the President might behave in these circumstances.

Me: In short, the President extracts revenge on those who wrong him. A normal reaction from a normal person. If Maddow had bothered to read the President’s 2007 book, “Think Big and Kick Ass,” in which he devoted an entire chapter to the subject of “revenge.”

It’s old news, Rachel, and a variation on the revenge theme that has been dispensed to his foes over the past three years is called “Trumpenfreude,” with one excellent list of the recipients maintained by Don Surber here. In a way, Maddow already made the list, as her viewership went in the tank after the Mueller report debunked the Russia collusion nonsense that she had been breathlessly pushing on her show for the entire two years before the report was released.

Maddow (continuing): Then here’s my last question about impeachment and what happens next. Throughout the debate over whether or not to impeach President Trump in the House, Democrats argued consistently that while it is unusual to bring impeachment proceedings against the President in his first term, right? … a year away from him facing the voters for his potential reelection … Democrats argued there is good reason to do that in this case because of what they are impeaching him for. (My fourth question:) “What about foreign interference in 2020?” What they caught him doing was trying to corrupt the next election. No, not just inviting, but trying to extort and force foreign interference in that next election on his behalf.

Me: Here is the Democrat impeachment narrative on full display. It’s all about the 2020 election to them. Nancy Pelosi stated that she’s been working toward impeaching the President for “over 22 months.” That predates the Ukraine hoax by over a year! And they seek to impeach him for alleged future crimes, knowing full well that they have nothing but false allegations toward that end. They twist the phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky to fit their false narrative. Investigating past Ukraine corruption through 2016, especially related to the Bidens, is entirely appropriate and within the President’s legal authority.

Maddow (continuing): Democrats said, because of that, that’s gotta be the propulsive force for why this impeachment has to happen now … why this has to happen quickly. Why we can’t just wait for the next election because this is about the next election. We need to act now to head off the damage that he got caught trying to cause in the next presidential election in the United States. And I don’t know if that argument was more persuasive than any of their other arguments, but the Democrats did impeach him.

Me: The Democrat narrative again – “he got caught.” No, he didn’t. Where’s the direct evidence, Rachel? Why are you still pushing for the admission of new evidence in a Senate trial if you believe the House developed an air-tight case of presidential crimes warranting impeachment? You’re just carrying the Democrat’s water.

Maddow (continuing): He is now impeached. Unless the Senate convicts him and votes to remove him from office though, he will still be in office, and he will still be the Republican Party’s candidate in the next election – ignoring how he invited and even tried to extort and force foreign intervention in that next election to help him win. And so, how is that dynamic changed now? Do we know if impeaching him over him trying to get Ukraine involved in the next election – do we know if that impeachment is going to have any impact on the threat of foreign intervention in the next election – on his side or on anybody’s side?

Me: “Extort and force foreign intervention.” If the Democrats had any real evidence of that, then the crime of extortion would have been cited in the articles of impeachment. But of course, no crimes were cited. “Trying to get Ukraine involved in the next election.” Another throwaway phrase that is part of the Democrat narrative. Just because the Democrats and their lickspittle media like Maddow endlessly repeat these phrases doesn’t make them true.

Maddow’s “four burning questions” are pretty ice cold, in my opinion, and filled with lies of commission and omission throughout her commentary. It’s amazing the woman has any audience left at all after two years of schlepping the Russia hoax nonsense that the Mueller report debunked. Her show is simply agit-prop on behalf of the Democrat Party, and her monologue opening Friday night’s episode was a perfect example.

The end.