RUTHFULLY YOURS

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

Is it an impeachable offense?

That is the question of the hour. On “Fox News Sunday,” Chris Wallace pressed it on Republican Congressman Will Hurd of Texas. It is a question every Republican supporter of President Trump should be prepared to answer. Democrats, by contrast, determined that the president was impeachable before he ever darkened the Oval Office door; it’s not worth asking them since their answer preexisted any real or imagined occasion for posing the question.

It is, of course, the question that must be asked. That does not make it a fair question. It is unfair because it assumes a fact that is not in evidence, namely: that we have a working definition of an impeachable offense on which there is agreement – or at least something close to consensus. We don’t.

In fact, even that explanation of the problem is misleading. To have a “working definition” in this context implies that we are dealing with a legal reality – as if the question were, Is it a contract?  Or, Is it a homicide? A contract or a homicide is a legal designation with a settled definition applicable in all circumstances.

President Donald Trump kicked off New York City’s Veterans Day Tribute on Monday by saying the nation’s veterans “risked everything for us. Now it is our duty to serve and protect them every single day of our lives.”

Trump spoke at the opening of the 100th annual parade organized by the United War Veterans Council in Madison Square Park. He is the first sitting president to accept the group’s invitation to speak at the event.

As Trump spoke, more than 100 protesters gathered and could be heard with whistles and booing. Some chanted “lock him up” and “shame, shame, shame.”

Trump told the crowd that the nation’s veterans often came face to face with evil and did not back down.

“You returned from war and you never forgot your friends who didn’t return,” Trump said. “But your greatest tribute of all is the way you lived your lives in the years since.”

Trump also used the event to tout the strength of the U.S. military and the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, saying “al-Baghdadi is dead. His second in charge is dead. We have our eyes on number 3.”

Trump has been a longtime supporter of the parade. The New York Times reported that during the 1990s he pledged $200,000 and offered to raise money from friends in exchange for being named the parade’s grand marshal.

Trump is a lifelong New Yorker but recently changed his official residence to Florida , complaining about his treatment by the heavily Democratic city’s elected officials.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/nonwitnesses-for-impeachment-11573417743?cx_testId=30&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=0#cxrecs_s

House Democrats open the public phase of their impeachment hearings this week, but the process isn’t gaining credibility with their decision to limit witnesses.

On Saturday Republicans offered their list of preferred witnesses to Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, who was given veto power in a partisan resolution vote last month. The GOP list includes the still-unidentified whistleblower; Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden ; Nellie Ohr, who worked for opposition research outfit Fusion GPS; and Trump Administration officials who dealt with Ukraine on foreign aid.

Mr. Schiff said he’d consider the list though he all but ruled out calling anyone who might shed light on corruption in Ukraine or Ukraine’s involvement in the 2016 election. Yet it’s impossible to understand Mr. Trump’s concern about Joe and Hunter Biden and corruption in Ukraine without that context.

Meanwhile, Democrats seem to have given up their desire to interview former Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton and his former deputy Charles Kupperman. Democrats subpoenaed Mr. Kupperman to much media fanfare last month but then abandoned the subpoena last week, and they said they wouldn’t call Mr. Bolton though the lawyer for both men says they’d gladly testify.

The White House has barred both from testifying on grounds of national-security and presidential-adviser immunity, which Democrats claim is illegitimate. But suddenly Democrats don’t want to fight in court to prove their case, perhaps because they think they might lose but also because they want to rush to an impeachment vote within weeks. As Charles Cooper, the lawyer for Messrs. Kupperman and Bolton, put it in a Nov. 8 letter to the House general counsel: “If the House chooses not to pursue through subpoena the testimony of Dr. Kupperman and Ambassador Bolton, let the record be clear: that is the House’s decision.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cold-welcome-for-veterans-on-campus-11573411754

‘But don’t you ever feel like a sucker for serving?”

A fellow military veteran asked me this question a couple of years ago, when I was a senior at Yale. Like me, he had recently completed his service and was studying at a top university.

He said he was mystified, observing that the predominantly working- and middle-class people in the military swear an oath to defend with their lives the U.S. Constitution, including the First and Second amendments. Meanwhile, affluent college students regularly trash the First and seek to dismantle the Second. Are veterans being duped, he questioned, into believing they are upholding American values while the richest kids in the world—the ones being groomed for success and power—try to undermine them?

He’s not the only one who feels that way. Many veterans I know who enter college are bewildered by what they see: students from the top income decile expressing derision for the values that service members signed up to defend. Perhaps they could be forgiven for feeling like suckers.

Seeing our peers question the Constitution isn’t the only jarring experience for veterans. For many, the treatment of race on campus is a major culture shock. The military is perhaps the most meritocratic institution in the U.S. Women and men of all backgrounds come together, united in their purpose to defend this great country. The best research we have shows that women and nonwhite service members report greater job satisfaction and quality of life than do white male members. Arbitrary physical features like race and sex were treated as inconsequential because we were evaluated primarily on rank and performance. In college, however, there are clear social incentives to disparage people for their race.