RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/an-impeachment-that-will-last-forever/90976/

Why did the Speaker of the House go before the press to declare that the charges against the president are “an impeachment that will last forever?” Mrs. Pelosi used the phrase just before sending the charges over to the Senate. She was flanked by the two key managers who will prosecute the case, Congressmen Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff, who showed no emotion. Yet the more we rolled her phrasing over in our mind, the more it struck us as peculiar — off — and even an abuse.

For, at least to us, Mrs. Pelosi spoke as if she doubts her impeachment managers can win a conviction. What she was saying was that she comprehends she is likely to lose but is proceeding anyhow for the purpose of marking the President’s reputation and tarnishing his legacy (and damaging his election chances 10 months hence). She mightn’t gain a conviction, she seemed to be saying, but it is enough to make the charge. The charges themselves will last forever.

Even, the Speaker was suggesting, if there is an acquittal. And that is something to think about. It sent us back to our dog-eared copy of Robert Jackson’s famous speech called “The Federal Prosecutor.” The future Supreme Court justice was attorney general when he delivered his remarks to a gathering of United States attorneys. His aim was to mark for them the need for humility, objectivity, fairness, and decency. And warn of the lurking temptation to abuse of power.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trump-impeachment-trial-framers-andrew-mccarthy

“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law.” That is the reasoning of the Government Accounting Office, which has just concluded that President Trump’s budget office violated federal law in freezing U.S. aid to Ukraine.

It certainly would have been nice to hear this from the GAO when President Obama was imposing his own immigration policy priorities by executive edict and as a substitute for contrary priorities Congress had enacted into law.

In any event, the finding is in an eight-page report by which the reputedly non-partisan CBO has plunged itself headlong into the deeply partisan impeachment controversy just hours before the Senate impeachment trial is to commence (at least ceremonially; the substantive commencement of the trial will occur next Tuesday).

So … what is the upshot? Are Democrats preparing the ground for another article of impeachment? Obviously, the law that President Trump is said to have violated is not a criminal statute. And it is simply not true that the president never has the authority to countermand a congressional statute prescribing foreign aid; Article II of the Constitution gives the president nigh plenary power over the conduct of foreign relations; and other congressional statutes (such as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act) confer sweeping power on the president to regulate foreign commerce if the nation is under threat or in a state of emergency.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/rashida-tlaib-and-r

Following the founding of Hamas in 1987, the Muslim Brotherhood set up worldwide committees to assist the newly formed terrorist group. In the US, it was called the Palestine Committee, and by the end of 1994, it would consist of four organizations, all falling under the leadership of then-global head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook. Of the four, only one remains, CAIR. However, remnants of the others came together in the form of a more recent group, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). Given AMP’s connection to a terrorist organization, why would Democrat officials, including US Representative Rashida Tlaib, go out of their way to aid and abet the group, and why isn’t the Democratic Party doing anything to stop this?

AMP was established, in 2006, with the goal of vilifying and delegitimizing Israel. True to its Hamas roots, AMP’s message is laced with support for violence. The Executive Director of AMP is Osama Abu-Irshaid. Prior to AMP, he served as editor of Al Zaytounah, the official newsletter of the Palestine Committee’s Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP). This month, Abu-Irshaid stated at an AMP event, “Palestinians, if they don’t take what they want willingly, they will take it forcefully. We promise you this, we’re going to liberate our land and we’re going to liberate our people, whether they like it or they don’t like it. Well, they have picked the wrong enemy!”

Last month, AMP celebrated, on its Facebook page, the 32nd anniversary of the First Intifada, the violent uprising against Israel from which Hamas was created. During its January 2018 ‘JERUSALEM IS A RED LINE’ rally, AMP repeatedly led chants of “Long live Intifada.” AMP’s Chairman, Hatem Bazian, who is also the founder of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), at an April 2004 rally held in San Francisco, called for an intifada in America. He stated, “Well, we’ve been watching intifada in Palestine, we’ve been watching an uprising in Iraq. And the question is what are we doing? How come we don’t have an intifada in this country?”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pelosis-impeachment-offenses-11579134502?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

House Democrats have finally vouchsafed to deliver their impeachment articles to the Senate, a month after they claimed their rushed votes were essential to save the republic. The Senate can now do better by the Constitution by holding a trial that judges President Trump without validating the partisan House process and its weak case.

Nancy Pelosi’s delay in appointing House managers further exposes how Democrats have defined impeachment down. The House hearings blocked GOP witnesses and limited cross-examination. Despite selective leaks and a pro-impeachment media, they failed to move public opinion or persuade Republicans that Mr. Trump committed impeachable offenses.

And now the Speaker admits she withheld the articles to intimidate Republicans into calling witnesses that the House wouldn’t call. “We think we accomplished in the past few weeks is that we wanted the public to see the need for witnesses, witnesses with firsthand knowledge of what happened, documentation which the president has prevented from coming to the Congress,” Mrs. Pelosi said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “Now the ball is in their court to either do that or pay a price.”