RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/13/adam-schiffs-star-witness-just-admitted-burisma-should-be-investigated-for-corruption/

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent made the case for launching an investigation into the Bidens and their involvement in Ukraine related to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

Kent, the State Department’s top official on Ukraine, said during testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in the Democrats’ partisan impeachment proceedings Wednesday he was concerned about a, “perception of a conflict of interest,” related to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, serving on the board of the energy company while his father oversaw the Obama administration’s policy towards Ukraine.

Hunter Biden served on the board of the company for $50,000 a month despite having no prior experience in the energy industry while his father served as vice president deeply involved U.S.-Ukrainian policy.

Kent also testified in a private deposition that he voiced his discomfort over the situation to the White House in 2015 where administration officials brushed off Kent’s concerns.

“I raised my concerns that I had heard that Hunter Biden was on the board of a company owned by somebody that the U.S. Government had spent money trying to get tens of millions of dollars back and that could create the perception of a conflict of interest,” Kent told lawmakers behind closed doors in October. “The message that I recall hearing back was that the vice president’s son Beau was dying of cancer and that there was no further bandwidth the deal with family related issues at that time… That was the end of that conversation.”

https://pjmedia.com/trending/amb-taylors-awkward-silence-in-response-to-a-question-about-hunter-biden-was-very-telling/

During Wednesday’s impeachment hearings, Steve Castor, House Intelligence Committee counsel for the minority, asked Ambassador Taylor a rather simple question about Hunter Biden and his position at Burisma, that he couldn’t (or perhaps refused) to answer, resulting in perhaps the most awkward silence I’ve ever seen in such a hearing.

CASTOR: Ambassador Taylor, do you know whether Hunter Biden offers anything other than the fact that his dad’s the former vice president

AMB. TAYLOR: I don’t—

CASTOR: Or at the time was the vice president.

AMB. TAYLOR: I have no knowledge of Hunter Biden—

CASTOR: But you agree it raises questions?

AMB. TAYLOR: (five seconds of silence)

Here’s video of the exchange.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/mandatory-shortages/

Governments create problems. Then they complain about them.

“A public health crisis exists,” says Kentucky’s government, citing a report that found “a shortage of ambulance providers.”

Local TV stations report on “people waiting hours for medical transportation.”

“Six-year-old Kyler Truesdell fell off his motorcycle,” reported Channel 12 news. “The local hospital told (his mother) he should be transported to Cincinnati Children’s to check for internal injuries.” But there was no ambulance available. Kyler had to wait two hours.

Yet Kyler’s cousin, Hannah Howe, runs an ambulance service in Ohio, just a few minutes away. “We would’ve (taken him) for free,” she says in my new video. “But it would’ve been illegal.”

It would be illegal because of something called certificate of need (CON) laws.

Kentucky and three other states require businesses to get a CON certificate before they are allowed to run an ambulance service. Certificates go only to businesses that bureaucrats deem “necessary.”

CON laws are supposed to prevent “oversupply” of essential services like, well, ambulances. If there are “too many” ambulance companies, some might cut corners or go out of business. Then patients would suffer, say the bureaucrats.

Of course, Kentucky patients already suffer, waiting.

It raises the question: If there’s demand, then who are politicians to say that a business is unnecessary?

Phillip Truesdell, Hannah’s father, often takes patients to hospitals in Kentucky, “I drop them off (but) I can’t go back and get them!” he told me. “Who gives the big man the right to say, ‘You can’t work here’?!”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15158/alan-dershowitz-steve-cohen

For [Congressman Steve] Cohen [D-TN], the issues surrounding impeachment are one-sidedly simple, and there is no reason for anyone to express or listen to opposing points of view. Therein lies the true road to tyranny: when government officials like Cohen berate people for expressing contrary points of view, free speech and dissent are chilled.

Congressmen Steve Cohen, who has a long history of one-sided condemnation of Israel, recently called me a Nazi collaborator on MSNBC as the show’s host Alex Witt sat silently by. Here is the context: several days earlier, I had been on a Fox News show discussing impeachment when the host and another panelist began attacking Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, who was preparing to testify the next day regarding U.S. President Donald Trump’s call with Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of the Ukraine. When the attack on Vindman occurred, I had never heard of him and had no idea why he was being vilified. Since I had no knowledge to offer, I remained silent about Vindman and continued to discuss the subject at hand, namely impeachment.

As soon as I learned who Vindman was, I did three things: I tweeted a strong statement criticizing the accusation against Vindman and describing him as a patriot who served his country; I went on TV and publicly apologized for my silence, explaining that I knew nothing about the issue at the time; I then wrote an op-ed declaring Vindman to be a patriot and calling on Republicans to “stop their smears.”

It was several days after I offered these explanations and apologies that Cohen described the attack on Vindman and said that “Dershowitz sat there listening like a quisling.” He said nothing about my subsequent statements.

For those too young to remember who Vidkun Quisling was, let me remind you. Quisling was a Nazi collaborator and strong supporter of Hitler. The name quisling has become a descriptive noun meaning traitor, collaborator and Nazi. I assume that congressman Cohen knew all this when he threw that despicable term at me.

The crowning irony is that Cohen was criticizing me for remaining silent while someone else wrongfully called Lt. Col. Vindman a traitor. Yet, Cohen himself was prepared to call me — a patriotic American and a liberal Democrat — a quisling. The further irony is that Cohen went on to bemoan how divided we have become as a nation: “we are separated tremendously.” Of course, we are separated, and Congressman Cohen is part of the problem rather than part of the solution.