Impeachment from the "Star Chamber"

The Star Chamber (Latin: Camera stellata) was an English court which sat at the royal Palace of Westminster, from the late 15th century to the mid-17th century  The vote to impeach President Trump last week was the culmination of
a trend in the Democratic Party that is just plain weird.

The vote to “formalize” Adam Schiff’s one-sided, secret Star Chamber impeachment hearings in the basement of the House and send the process to the House Judiciary Committee took place on Halloween. One Democratic member, Katie Porter of California, wore a Batman costume to cast her vote that day.

Then the vote by the House Judiciary Committee to recommend impeachment and send the matter to the full House for a vote took place on December 13. That was a Friday. As in Friday the 13th.

Now I am not the superstitious sort. The votes had to take place on one day or another, and Rep. Jerry Nadler had apparently originally planned to hold the House Judiciary Committee vote on Thursday, December 12, but the hearings ran late into the night. Not wanting to take a vote at 10PM, which would miss the zenith of the daily news cycle, he opted to adjourn and hold the vote the next day, when a whole panoply of cameras and microphones would be available for Democratic congressmen to gloat before the world. Still, that makes the timing of the event on Friday the 13th even eerier, since it was seemingly less planned.

When you consider these two events in light of other surreal happenings on the Left, I think I’d be running from the Democratic Party like a teenage girl on Elm Street running from a guy in a hockey mask holding a blood-drenched butcher knife.

Take the recent story about the Texas pro-abortion group called Texas Equal Access Fund, which held a holiday party this month in which the party favors consisted of votive candles with the image of a unicorn and the words “Abortions are Magical!” on them. Seriously. These were given out by an abortion group at a “holiday party” – what us old-school folks call Christmas parties, designed to celebrate the birth of the Savior of the World. They actually posted a photo of their candles on social media, saying, “Getting our holiday party favors ready! Every year we honor our volunteers and make sure they get a token of appreciation at our annual holiday party.” That’s some honor.

Yes, the group was perhaps trolling right-wingers with their stunt. But at what price to their souls? Or do they have any?

That question isn’t just rhetorical when you consider that Democrats in 2019 passed a shockingly liberal abortion law in New York, to the point where a full-term baby can be murdered (sorry, “aborted”) for virtually any reason right up to its entry into the birth canal.

And in what has to be among the creepiest political interviews ever conducted, Virginia’s governor Ralph Northam, a pediatrician no less, actually endorsed infanticide. That is not hyperbole. He told Washington, D.C. radio listeners in his most soothing bedside manner voice, how in third trimester abortions if a baby to be aborted survives its trip through the birth canal, the doctor and the mother can have a “discussion” about that baby’s fate, with the implication being that if mother and doctor decide that baby will not live, it will be dispatched in one form or another. That is infanticide.

Even more shockingly, that interview did not end Governor Northam’s political career. In fact, Governor Northam was able to weather revelations shortly after that interview that he appeared in his medical school yearbook in a photo depicting someone in blackface standing next to someone in Ku Klux Klan regalia (which character Gov. Northam depicted – blackface wearer or KKK guy – was never definitively determined, although Dr. Northam did later confess to having worn blackface in the past, helpfully advising people not to use shoe polish to achieve the effect, since it’s so hard to remove).

Gov. Northam survived all of these scandals, while his Democratic lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, stood credibly accused of having sexually assaulted two women, also without having to resign. Not to be outdone, the third in line in Virginia’s state government, Democrat Attorney General Mark Herring, admitted himself to having work blackface. He also survived this scandal, which would unquestionably have finished the career of any Republican.

All of these Democratic politicians continue in office to this day. And what is most concerning is that, notwithstanding these bombshell disclosures, the Old Dominion would see the Democrats take control of both the State Senate and House of Delegates six months later. Incredibly, Lt. Governor Fairfax has just announced that he plans to seek the governorship, despite the allegations of the two very serious women who accused him of sexual assault.

Finally, as 2019 neared its end, we saw the Democrats and progressives worldwide loft to stardom a young Swedish girl named Greta Thunberg who, at the ripe old age of 16, stood before presumed adults around the world and scolded them for not doing enough to address global warming, or climate change, or whatever the term du jour is for man’s alleged sins against the planet.

This young lady could easily have been cast in a starring role in the 1960 British sci-fi shlock flick, Village of the Damned, or its 1964 sequel, Children of the Damned. In this Cold War horror story, teenagers in the idyllic English village of Midwich have been experimented on by the military and – oops – things go awry, with the kids developing psychic powers that their military experimenters can’t control. Maybe the scariest part is their glowing eyes and zombie-like stares, not unlike Greta’s.

Presciently, the writers of the sequel had the cast of creepy kids representing countries from all over the world. How diversity-conscious of them. No doubt Greta would approve. But I’m not kidding about Greta resembling these kids. Watch a trailer for Village of the Damned here, and then watch Greta’s “How dare you!” speech at the U.N. I think Greta has a shot for a lead role in a 2020 remake.

But really what’s creepier than some poor brainwashed Swedish teenager spouting programmed talking points about so-called climate change are the number of adults who actually listen to her, or even revere her, such as those at Time Magazine who named her Person of the Year.

That is creepy. What is wrong with the Democratic Party and leftists generally who embrace this stuff?

Let 2019 be remembered as the year the Democrats went full-on creepy. Let’s hope 2020 pulls them back to somewhat sane.

William F. Marshall has been an intelligence analyst and investigator in the government, private, and non-profit sectors for more than 30 years. He is a senior investigator for Judicial Watch, Inc., and a contributor to Townhall, American Thinker, and The Federalist. (The views expressed are the author’s alone, and not necessarily those of Judicial Watch