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Ruth King

Two Reasons Why Continuing A Little With Impeachment Might Not Be Such A Bad Thing  Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-1-30-two-reasons-why-continuing-a-little-with-impeachment-might-not-be-such-a-bad-thing

As of this writing it looks like the impeachment farce in the Senate may end as early as tomorrow. The Democrats’ “more witnesses” gambit appears to be fizzling out — although that is not a certainty until the vote is taken. I suppose that ending this thing is for the better. However, I do have a couple of reasons why having it continue for at least a little while longer may not be so bad.

The first is that there is an obvious witness for the President’s side to call, someone whose testimony could be the first real “bombshell” in this whole matter. No, it is not Joe or Hunter Biden. I have seen the Bidens mentioned dozens of times as potential witnesses to be called by the President, and it doesn’t make any sense to me. As indefensible as the Bidens’ conduct in Ukraine may be, calling them as witnesses would likely turn into a net negative for the President. As a general matter, if you can avoid it, you never want to call a well-prepared hostile witness who is devoted to defeating your case. When you start questioning such witnesses, they will almost certainly follow the strategy of ignoring whatever questions you may ask and delivering pre-prepared self-serving monologues justifying their own position. Rarely will a judge give you any meaningful relief to get the testimony focused on what you want.

The President’s counsel calling Joe or Hunter Biden would be like the House managers seeking to call the President himself, or somebody like William Barr or Mike Pompeo. Those people are just not going to say anything unfavorable to the President if they can possibly avoid it. Instead you call people like Alexander Vindman and Marie Yovanovich. People who think that their stellar performance in office has been ignored. Even better, people (like Yovanovich) who have been fired by your target, and maybe have also been insulted by your target and have a powerful motive to use their testimony to get revenge.

Misuse of Whistleblower Law Created Impeachment Farce Roger L. Simon Roger L. Simon

https://www.theepochtimes.com/misuse-of-whistleblower-law-created-impeachment-farce_3222948.html

Who is the whistleblower, the man or woman who launched a thousand Schiffs?

Okay, bad joke. In any case, anyone with the slightest interest already knows who he or she is, although some pretend they don’t, like the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts and the very Adam Schiff.

Nevertheless his (let’s be at least that honest) identity is being hidden because that is allegedly required by the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989. It’s unclear whether that is true.

But let’s be honest a second time. Congress (if it’s still awake) and legal scholars should look immediately into revising the Whistleblower Protection Act because it appears to have been turned on its head and used as a weapon for some of the most despicable behavior in American history. Something’s drastically wrong with its language that it could be exploited that way.

The misuse of this act is the proximate cause of the embarrassing impeachment charade that has been numbing minds across our republic for weeks, almost always ignoring the sublime and going straight to the ultra-ridiculous—Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar debating the law with Alan Dershowitz on “The View.”

America deserves to know how [name redacted] was able to manipulate this law for such egregious ends, who manipulated it with him (was it the inspector general? Schiff personnel? Schiff himself? Others?), and when did it start? That last may take us way back into 2015-2016, back to the days of the Steele dossier. So many things are connected now.

We need to know the answer. Was [name redacted] really a whistleblower or just another low rent, stomach-turning political operative, the kind of people who—while assuming they know better than the rest of us—are like termites undermining the fabric of our republic?

Winston Churchill speaking on the dangers of socialism in 1945, just as relevant today Mark Perry

https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/winston-churchill-speaking-on-th

From Winston Churchill’s first election broadcast on June 4, 1945:

….there can be no doubt that Socialism is inseparably interwoven with Totalitarianism and the abject worship of the State. …liberty, in all its forms is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of Socialism. …there is to be one State to which all are to be obedient in every act of their lives. This State is to be the arch-employer, the arch-planner, the arch-administrator and ruler, and the arch-caucus boss.

A Socialist State once thoroughly completed in all its details and aspects… could not afford opposition. Socialism is, in its essence, an attack upon the right of the ordinary man or woman to breathe freely without having a harsh, clumsy tyrannical hand clapped across their mouths and nostrils.   

But I will go farther. I declare to you, from the bottom of my heart that no Socialist system can be established without a political police. Many of those who are advocating Socialism or voting Socialist today will be horrified at this idea. That is because they are shortsighted, that is because they do not see where their theories are leading them.

No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.

And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of Civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil. And where would the ordinary simple folk—the common people, as they like to call them in America—where would they be, once this mighty organism had got them in its grip?

Democracy Dies In Diverse Societies Ilana Mercer

https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/30/democracy-dies-in-diverse-societies/

By using their police powers to swamp their already fractious populations with alien nations, governments have undermined existing ethnic balance in Western democracies and the fellow feeling so essential to democracy’s endurance.

Dissatisfaction with democracy within developed countries is at its highest level in almost 25 years,” say researchers at the University of Cambridge. “The UK and the United States had particularly high levels of discontent.”

No wonder. Certainly, America is a severely divided country. “Severely divided societies are short on community,” and “community is a prerequisite for majority rule,” argues Donald L. Horowitz, a scholar of democracy, at Duke University.

Having studied “constitutional engineering” in divided societies like South Africa, Horowitz has concluded,

In societies severely divided by ethnicity, race, religion, language, or any other form of ascriptive affiliation, ethnic divisions make democracy difficult, because they tend to produce ethnic parties and ethnic voting. An ethnic party with a majority of votes and seats can dominate minority groups, seemingly in perpetuity.

ELECTIONS ARE COMING: THESE ARE ALL THE INCUMBENT SENATORS

Maine
Susan Collins
1996 36.2
Massachusetts
Ed Markey
2013 22.8
Michigan
Gary Peters
2014 13.3
Minnesota
Tina Smith
2018 10.6
Mississippi
Cindy Hyde-Smith
2018 7.2
Montana
Steve Daines
2014 17.7
Nebraska
Ben Sasse
2014 32.9
New Hampshire
Jeanne Shaheen
2008 3.3
New Jersey
Cory Booker
2013 13.5
New Mexico
Tom Udall
2008 11.2
North Carolina
Thom Tillis
2014 1.5
Oklahoma
Jim Inhofe
1994 39.5
Oregon
Jeff Merkley
2008 18.8
Rhode Island
Jack Reed
1996 41.4
South Carolina
Lindsey Graham
2002 15.7
South Dakota
Mike Rounds
2014 20.9

Yes, the Senate Should Call Witnesses Republicans should keep pulling this thread until they get to the first stitch. We may never get this chance again. Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/30/yes-the-senate-should-call-witnesses/

The prevailing opinion of Republican lawmakers and most pundits on the Right is that the Senate impeachment trial should end without calling witnesses. Time to get back to the business of the American people, fair-minded people argue in defense of that view. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), especially, appears ready to move on.

But Democrats, led by their resident rock star, Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), have no intention of getting back to any other business than continuing their scorched earth crusade against Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, Schiff hinted at his next move. “There are going to continue to be revelations that members of both sides of the aisle will have to answer a question each time it does,” Schiff told the trapped senators. “We are going to continue to see new evidence come out all the time.”

Schiff claimed the tell-all book by former National Security Advisor John Bolton, set for a March release, will disclose more damaging evidence against the president.

Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama’s former chief of staff, was characteristically blunt about the Democrats’ pre-election strategy. Emanuel explained that an incomplete impeachment trial would not just be used against Trump but is central to the Democrats’ effort to win back the Senate.

“A vote to acquit . . . will force every senator to own Trump’s emboldened rhetoric of being exonerated,” the former Chicago mayor wrote in the Washington Post on Thursday. “Which means they’ll have to defend Trump when the next embarrassing audio recording hits the airwaves, or when another witness surfaces to speak, or when John Bolton’s book comes out, or when internal memos about the ‘drug deal’ come out via the Freedom of Information Act.”

Gallup Reports Americans’ Satisfaction with Race Relations Has Increased 14 Percent Since Trump’s Inauguration By Tobias Hoonhout

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/gallup-reports-americans-satisfaction-with-race-relations-has-increased-14-percent-since-trumps-inauguration/

A new Gallup poll released Monday found that Americans have become considerably more optimistic about the state of race relations since Trump took office, with a 14-point increase over just three years.

Satisfaction on “the state of race relations” in the country rose from a mere 22 percent in January 2017, just before Trump took office, to 36 percent in January 2020, just weeks before Trump’s State of the Union address.

Race relations optimism still remains 8 points lower than it was in 2001, and a survey of the population from January 2 to January 15 showed that 58 percent of Americans were still dissatisfied with the state of race relations.

Respondents’ satisfaction with “the position of blacks and other racial minorities in the nation” also rose nine points over three years to 46 percent in 2020, as part of a larger trend which showed that Americans overall satisfaction with the direction of the country was at its highest point since 2005.

Coronavirus and Xi Jinping’s Crisis of Legitimacy By Matthew Continetti

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-and-xi-jinpings-crisis-of-legitimacy/

China faces many crises. Coronavirus makes them worse.

The epidemic is the latest blow to the legitimacy of China’s ruling Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping. When the party’s Central Committee ended term limits in March 2018, Xi emerged as China’s strongest leader since Mao Zedong. He ruled an authoritarian AI-powered surveillance state that global media hailed as the wave of the future. Or so it appeared.

The years since have not been kind to Chinese autocracy. Trade war with the United States slowed the Chinese economy and exposed divides within the nomenklatura. In March 2019, pro-democracy protests broke out in Hong Kong. They have not abated. Last November the New York Times published a stunning exposé of China’s prison-camp system in Xinjiang Province. Last month China lost face when it agreed to some of President Trump’s demands as part of a “Phase One” trade deal. A few days later Taiwan’s pro-independence president, Tsai Ing-Wen, won reelection in a landslide.

Now comes this nasty bug. Chinese officials, in classic authoritarian fashion, responded to the outbreak by downplaying its significance and hiding its magnitude. “Partly because the government covered up the epidemic in the early stages,” writes Nick Kristof, “hospitals were not able to gather supplies, and there are now major shortages of testing kits, masks, and protective gear. Some doctors were reduced to making goggles out of plastic folders.” The bill for this negligence and corruption was paid in lives lost.

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The economy also suffers. Nor do the niceties of diplomacy override the fact that China is isolated. No one has reason to take its government’s disclosures at face value. Several countries have suspended travel to China. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas has called on the United States to do the same. A de facto ban may wind up taking effect as airlines and cruise ships cancel Chinese itineraries and passengers stay home rather than risk infection.

Among Xi’s initiatives is “Made in China 2025.” He wants to export supercomputers. What has he given the world instead? A public-health emergency.

Trump Middle East Plan: Last Chance for the Palestinians? by Alain Destexhe

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15503/trump-middle-east-palestinians

Israel and the future Palestinian state could sign bilateral agreements and cooperate for their mutual benefit in many areas where Israeli expertise is recognized: agriculture, water, scientific research, technology, medicine. Why should the Palestinians be the only people not benefiting from it? The Trump deal could provide a dazzling future for those Palestinians who prioritize their economic situation over ideology.

It is also highly unlikely that any potential Democrat administration would come up with a more Palestinian-friendly plan that could also be accepted by Israel. And… there is little chance that the Palestinian cause will return to the center of the international agenda and find new allies, except on European and American university campuses.

Instead of openly supporting the Trump Plan, the European Union has already reacted in its usual way: by saying nothing substantial — which is tantamount to preferring the current impasse and encouraging the Palestinians in their rejection of the Trump Plan and Israel. Cynicism will continue to prevail in European diplomatic circles.

Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority may remain self-righteous and draped in their claims, but it would unmask their real role as corrupt and autocratic leaders, intent on keeping their people as destitute and unempowered as possible.

President Donald Trump just unveiled his long-awaited Middle East peace plan, “Peace to Prosperity”, a strategy offering the Palestinians a state, $50 billion in international investment, and a US embassy in the newly-created state. This is a major step forward that the Palestinian Authority would be smart to accept as a starting point for discussions with Israel.

The Future Doesn’t Belong to China The People’s Republic has no future. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/future-doesnt-belong-china-daniel-greenfield/

In the 1980s, movies like Die Hard and Back to the Future 2 showed off a Japanese takeover of America. Turning Japanese was bound to be playing on the radio every hour. Japan had leveraged unfair trade policies, currency manipulation, and government subsidies to buy up American companies (it’s still happening, but few are paying attention) and was the wave of the future sweeping over America.

Everyone was driving Japanese cars, using Japanese electronics, and buying “Made in Japan.” And Japan got there by stealing massive amounts of American intellectual property and reselling it to Americans.

By 1991, George Friedman’s book, The Coming War With Japan, was flying off the shelves.

Why doesn’t the future belong to Japan? There are economic answers. But there’s also a demographic answer. Japan entered the 1980s with an acceptably healthy 14 births per 1,000 people birth rate. The Japanese rate back then was only a little below America’s own 15 births per 1,000 people number.

But throughout the 80s, while Japan was supposed to be taking over America, its economy was impressive, but its birth rate was cratering at an even more impressive rate. By 1991, the future not only didn’t belong to Japan, but at a rate of 10 births per 1,000 people, it didn’t even have a future of its own.

Japan had entered the 1980s with a median age of 32. It left the decade with a median age of 37. By 2000, the median age was 40. Today, it approaches 50. The median Japanese age had passed fertility.

The Japanese had foreclosed their own future.