RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/trump_years_bring_real_hope_and_change_making_america_great_again.html

Although former president Barack H. Obama (D) campaigned and won the presidency twice on a slogan of hope and change, he left his office leaving Americans “frustrated and angry” according to an AP survey analyzed in Fortune, full of “fear and loathing,” deemed Michael Goodwin of the New York Post — both admittedly not Obama fans.  However, even the Obama-friendly Public Broadcasting System (PBS) could only sum up the two Obama terms with “achievements and setbacks.”

That was then; this is now.  Three years into the Donald J. Trump (R) presidency, ABC News, another media outlet hostile to Trump, reports: 

US life expectancy rose in 2018 for 1st time in 4 years: Study

Drug overdose deaths are declining for the first time in decades.

Life expectancy in the U.S. rose in 2018, the first such increase in four years, according to a report the National Center for Health Statistics published on Thursday.

The average American man will live to be 76, and the average woman will live to be 81.

Those gains were driven by declines in 6 of the 10 leading causes of death between 2017 and 2018, and a notable drop in drug overdose deaths.

Overdose deaths, after increasing for decades, fell for the first time in 28 years, from 70,237 in 2017 to 67,367 in 2018, according to the report.

“It’s really the drug overdose deaths that are driving that trend,” said Robert Anderson, chief of the mortality statistics branch at NCHS.

Drug overdose deaths, Anderson explained, have a profound impact on average life expectancy because many occur at younger ages than other leading causes of death — cancer, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/01/a_ten_point

The Jewish community is experiencing an explosion of anti-Jewish attacks, both physical and ideological. Jews have been gunned down or stabbed in Pittsburgh, San Diego, Jersey City, and Monsey, and are being pushed, beaten, and cursed on the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan. The attacks are happening against the community and individuals, in Jewish institutions and on subways, on almost a daily basis.

Though neo-Nazis, leftist anti-Zionists, and Jew haters within the Black and Islamic communities often disagree, they are united in their animus toward Jews. There are today powerful forces arrayed against the Jewish people, not simply from the right but predominantly — and with greater cultural influence –from the political Left.

Thus far, those in major establishment Jewish organizations have been unable or unwilling to stop the daily harassment of Jews on campus and on New York City streets. Many in the Jewish community now rightfully acknowledge that we have a crisis in Jewish organizational leadership. Our major organizations, be it the ADL, the JCRC, or the many Federations, are failing us.

Furthermore, the loyalty and simpatico of these cash-laden organizations with liberal/left ideology renders them unwilling to combat the pernicious negativity against Jews coming from members within certain minority groups. Similarly, they are reluctant to condemn the anti-Jewish rhetoric coming from groups within the Democrat Party.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/crying-wolf-on-impeachment-11580428689?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

The impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump is coming down to one big question: Will Democrats, by crying wolf, drown out the more legitimate Republican cry of foul?

“Foul” has served as the GOP’s most powerful and honest argument from the first days of these impeachment maneuverings. Democrats broke every standard of due process, transparency and fairness in their House investigation, making a mockery of their constitutional duty.

They hid the identity of the original accuser, denying Republicans and the country the ability to judge his motives. They held secret depositions, barring more than three-quarters of House members, as well as the press and the American public. They called 18 witnesses, but blocked the president from calling any in his defense. The White House legal team was excluded from the proceedings—prohibited from cross-examining witnesses, denied the ability to introduce any evidence that spoke to the central question of the president’s focus on Ukrainian corruption.

House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff secretly obtained and published the communications records of the president’s private attorney, a member of Congress and a reporter. Democrats withdrew their court challenge to compel a key witness, depriving the White House of the ability to defend its executive-privilege claim in court. And the legitimacy of the first portion of the House inquiry—including numerous subpoenas—is in doubt, since it was conducted before the House voted to open it.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wrapping-up-impeachment-11580430769?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The Senate will acquit President Trump on both House articles of impeachment. That much even Adam Schiff knows. The Senate trial is now all about the election and impeachment precedents, which are two of many good reasons for cleaning up the trial distortions and wrapping up the show this week.

Start with the media claim that defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz said a President can do anything to further his re-election as long he thinks it is in the national interest. This isn’t what he said. The Harvard professor said explicitly that a President can be impeached for criminal acts. He could be impeached for soliciting a financial bribe, for example, or seeking a campaign contribution from a foreign source. He could also be impeached for exceeding his constitutional authority.

Mr. Dershowitz differs from the press in believing that a President cannot be impeached for acts of foreign policy that may be in his personal political interest but aren’t themselves impeachable acts. Presidents conduct foreign policy in what they think is the national interest, but they also hope it will be in their political interest. Presidents typically act from “mixed motives,” as Mr. Dershowitz put it, that are difficult to discern or to separate the high-minded from the self-interested.

It is thus too low a constitutional bar for the House to claim, as it does, that Mr. Trump can be impeached because Democrats think his motives were corrupt. The acts themselves must qualify as “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Mr. Trump’s acts don’t qualify—because asking aid recipients to investigate corruption isn’t illegal, and in any case the aid to Ukraine was delivered on time and no investigation of Joe Biden was started. This does not condone Mr. Trump’s request, which was reckless and dumb, but it isn’t an impeachable offense.

 Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., announced Thursday night he will vote against calling witnesses to the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump, likely ending the last real suspense of the trial and opening the door for a speedy conclusion Friday or Saturday.

“There is no need for more evidence to prove that the president asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter,” Alexander said late Thursday in a statement, after another day-long session in the Senate, the ninth day of the trial overall.

Alexander said the charges against the president – that he inappropriately pressured Ukraine to investigate the Bidens – had been “proved” by the House managers, and that the president had acted improperly.