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Ruth King

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This Republican Wants To Impeach Trump :Thomas McArdle

By on May 20th, 2019

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/05/20/michigans-amash-lets-the-stupid-be-the-enemy-of-the-good/

In a series of tweets on Saturday, Amash declared that “Contrary to Barr’s portrayal, Mueller’s report reveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment.”

In opining that President Trump has committed impeachable offenses, Amash is all alone among GOP members of Congress, disgracefully echoing the very worst, most socialistic Democrats. And it gets worse, with Amash accusing Attorney General William Barr of lying to protect the President.

It’s ironic in the extreme for someone who fancies himself a purist libertarian, with an absolutist interpretation of First Amendment freedom of speech, to call a distinguished, two-time AG’s considered opinions lies, simply because it suits his purposes to disagree.

So absolutist is Amash on speech that shortly after Trump’s election he couldn’t restrain himself from responding to the President-elect’s tweet condemning flag burning. “Nobody should burn the American flag,” Amash wrote, repeating Trump’s words exactly, then adding: “but our Constitution secures our right to do so. No president is allowed to burn the First Amendment.”

The ratifiers of the Bill of Rights in 1791 would have held open the door of the prison cell as law enforcement incarcerated someone desecrating Old Glory. No doubt Amash would accuse them too of burning what they brought into being.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Australia’s Election Did Not Involve a ‘Populist Wave’ By Douglas Murray

By on May 20th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/australias-election-did-not-involve-a-populist-wave/

The term is merely a way to put scare-quotes around any electoral victory for a conservative.

Regular readers will know that I am not a fan of the term ‘populism’. As I mentioned here in January, over the last three years the term has been turned into one more way to insult the decisions made by the general public in country after country.

In Britain, the “Brexit” vote was derided as a “populist” vote. The U.S. election of 2016 have repeatedly been described as a victory for “populism.” And in Europe, every time anybody on the political right looks set to achieve any electoral success, this is whipped up as being yet another victory for this amorphous, ill-defined but unarguably dark force.
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This has rarely been made clearer than in the New York Times coverage of the results of last week’s Australian elections. This was not a contest between Matteo Salvini and the Left. It was not even a debate about sovereignty. It was merely an election — of the kind Australia tends to have — between a party to the left of center, and one slightly to the right. But the New York Times managed to write it up as follows: “Scott Morrison, Australia’s conservative prime minister, scored a surprise victory in federal elections on Saturday, propelled by a populist wave.”

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POLITICS Comments turned off

The Great Misdirection By Rich Lowry

By on May 20th, 2019

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/mueller-report-democrats-impeachment-theater/

T he House Democrats are frustrated, very frustrated.

They’ve gotten themselves entangled in procedural disputes with the Trump administration that no one particularly cares about and that might be litigated for a very long time.

A Washington Post report over the weekend spelled out how stymied Democrats feel and that they are considering, via the power of inherent contempt, fining or arresting people who are defying their subpoenas.

This is very unlikely to happen, obviously. A New York Times report a few days ago on the Democrats’ exasperation said they might consider having hearings with empty chairs. Oh, the drama.

Jerry Nadler, per the Times, “conceded that the White House strategy had thus far succeeded in tamping down energy around the Mueller report and investigations.”

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HOMELAND SECURITY, IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Sanctuary state of Oregon releases illegal alien who raped a dog to death after serving only 60 days in jail By Thomas Lifson !!!!????

By on May 20th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/05/sanctuary_state_of_oregon_releases_illegal_alien_who_raped_a_dog_to_death_after_serving_only_60_days_in_jail.html

People who abuse animals are sick and dangerous to rest of society.  Something is very wrong with the mental and moral wiring.  When the abuse involves sex and is such violent sexual assault that death results, the dangers are acute.

Now, consider what the sanctuary state policy in Oregon has released into society, even though the perp is not legally entitled to be in this country, free to express his sick urges again, next time possibly with a human victim.  John Binder reports at Breitbart:

As Breitbart News reported, illegal alien Fidel Lopez, 52-years-old, was convicted last month and sentenced to 60 days in prison after raping his girlfriend’s small Lhasa Apso which led to the dog’s death. The judge in the case said he would have given the illegal alien more prison time but that 60 days is the maximum sentence allowed in Oregon.

Following his sentence, Lopez was immediately released because he had already served 60 days while waiting to stand trial. Despite his illegal alien status, Multnomah County, Oregon officials released Lopez back into the community.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Uprooting the EPA’s climate fraud By Thomas Lifson

By on May 20th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/05/uprooting_the_epas_climate_fraud.html

During the Barack Obama presidency, a poisonous seed was planted by bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency to enable radical regulation of CO2 emissions, eventually strangling the economy. That seed was an official “endangerment finding” (E.F.) that declared CO2 a “dangerous pollutant” — absurd on its face, since CO2 is necessary for life.

Writing at Townhall, Paul Driessen explains how the roots that have sprouted from the poisonous seed can and must be pulled up by action from President Trump:

[T]here has never been any formal, public review of the EF conclusion or of the secretive process EPA employed to ensure the result of its “analysis” could only be “endangerment” — and no awkward questions or public hearings would get in the way.

Review, transparency and accountability may finally be on the way, however, in the form of potential Executive Branch actions. If they occur — and they certainly should — both are likely to find that there is no valid scientific basis for the EF, and EPA violated important federal procedural rules in rendering its predetermined EF outcome. (One could even say the EF was obtained primarily because of prosecutorial misconduct, a kangaroo court proceeding, and scientific fraud.) Failure to examine and reverse the EF would mean it hangs like Damocles’ sword over the USA, To the consternation and outrage of climate alarmists, keep-fossil-fuels-in-the-ground radicals, and predictable politicians and pundits, President Trump may soon appoint a Presidential Committee on Climate Change, to review “dangerous manmade climate change” reports by federal agencies awaiting the next climate-focused president.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

What’s Mitt Romney’s problem? By Monica Showalter

By on May 20th, 2019

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/05/whats_mitt_romneys_problem.html

After taking President Trump’s endorsement to get himself elected senator, Mitt Romney has made quite a show of turning on Trump.

The last two incidents have been notable:

He declared GOP “maverick” congressman Justin Amash “courageous” for joining the Democrats and calling for the impeachment of President Trump in the House.

He also made this ad hominem attack on Trump over the weekend, playing Puritan for us:

On Sunday, Romney was back at it, attacking the president’s character. “I think he could substantially improve his game when it comes to helping shape the character of the country,” Romney said on CNN.

“I think young people, as well as people around the world, look at the president of the United States and say, ‘Does he exhibit the kind of qualities that we would want to emulate?’ And those are qualities of humility, of honesty, integrity, and those are things where I think there’s been some call, where the president has distanced himself from some of the best qualities of the human character.”

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BOOKS, HISTORY Comments turned off

Why Herman Wouk’s ‘War’ Novels Deserve Remembrance Today by Warren Henry

By on May 20th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/20/herman-wouks-war-novels-deserve-remembrance-today/

The best way to remember—or discover—the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Herman Wouk may be his World War II epics.

Best-selling author Herman Wouk passed away last week, ten days short of his 104th birthday. Wouk is probably best known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Caine Mutiny” (1951), if only for Humphrey Bogart’s portrayal of the cowardly and paranoid Capt. Queeg in the movie adaptation (of which Wouk was not a fan).

However, the best way to remember—or discover—Wouk may be his World War II epics: “The Winds of War” (1971) and “War and Remembrance” (1978). As a writer whose Jewish faith often informed his work, Wouk set out to write a novel about the Holocaust. It is a doubly impressive achievement that he first wrote another highly entertaining novel just to provide the context for the second.

The “War” novels are melodramas told through the lives of two families. The first is led by a U.S. naval officer, Victor “Pug” Henry, the other by a Jewish-American scholar and author, Aaron Jastrow (paralleling Wouk, Jastrow found popular success when his book, “A Jew’s Jesus,” became a Book-of-the-Month Club selection). The families become connected when Pug’s youngest son Byron goes to work for Jastrow in Italy and falls in love with Jastrow’s niece, Natalie.

The chief conceit of the books is that Pug, while serving as a naval attaché in Berlin, becomes an informal errand-runner for President Roosevelt. As a result, Pug finds himself dispatched to Washington, London, Rome, Moscow, Tehran, and the Pacific. Pug’s brushes with historical figures—Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill, to name a few—may give modern readers a Forrest Gump feeling, but there are historical examples of FDR using these sorts of emissaries.

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EDUCATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Reporters Should Press Presidential Candidate Bill De Blasio On ‘Toxic Whiteness’ New York City is being sued for discriminating against white educators under Bill de Blasio’s watch. Will the white mayor defend this discrimination? by David Marcus

By on May 20th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/19/reporters-press-presidential-candidate-bill-de-blasio-toxic-whiteness/

According to The New York Post, four white women who work as administrators in the New York City school system are preparing a discrimination lawsuit against the city. They allege that under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s handpicked school chancellor, Richard Carranza, they have been demoted and marginalized solely on the basis of their race, and that the idea of whiteness has become “toxic” in the Department of Education.

“These decisions are being made because DOE leadership believes that skin color plays a role in how to get equity – that white people can’t convey the message,” one source told the Post. The Department has given a $775,000 contract to Pacific Education Group, Inc., a consulting firm that claims to help institutions fight racism but has some rather racist ideas about how to achieve that goal.

According to Pacific’s materials, racism is “any act that even unwittingly tolerates, accepts, or reinforces racially unequal opportunities or outcomes for children to learn and thrive.” “Outcomes” is the key word here. Apparently if there are any aggregate differences in grades or academic achievement between racial groups, it is simply a result of racism. As if, with no evidence to support it, we should believe that without racism, everyone would get exactly the same grades.

Pacific goes on to define “whiteness” as “The component of each and every one of ourselves that expects assimilation to the dominant culture.” According to sources that have been through this DOE racial training course, whiteness, or white supremacy, because, of course, are described as “characterized by perfectionism, a belief in meritocracy, and the Protestant work ethic.”

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Merit-Based Immigration Reform Is Precisely What America Needs By Helen Raleigh

By on May 20th, 2019

https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/20/merit-based-immigration-reform-precisely-america-needs/

It’s time to acknowledge that the current family reunion system is broken. So a good question for Democrats is: Why would they reject changes to this system?

President Trump announced an immigration overhaul proposal on Thursday. He wants to maintain the current number of legal immigrants we admit annually at about 1.1 million, but he proposes to change our immigration system from emphasizing family re-unification to emphasizing skill-based immigrants. This is truly the best way forward to fix our broken immigration system.

For decades, our immigration laws have given overwhelming preference to applicants with family already residing in the United States. More than 60 percent of annual immigration visas are allocated for family reunification, while less than 20 percent of the annual visa quota is allocated for skill-based immigrants.

This approach doesn’t serve our nation’s needs because (a) the quota for family reunion is not based on labor-market demand; and (b) the visa preference hierarchy favors the old (parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents) and the young (children younger than 21 years of age) but discriminates against the most likely productive potential citizens, people who may not have family connections, but do have knowledge, skills, and experiences that can contribute to our country.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Byron York: Mueller changed everything

By on May 20th, 2019

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/byron-york-mueller-changed-everything

From now on, the Trump-Russia affair, the investigation that dominated the first years of Donald Trump’s presidency, will be divided into two parts: before and after the release of the Mueller report. Before the special counsel’s findings were made public last month, the president’s adversaries were on the offensive. Now, they are playing defense.

The change is due to one simple fact: Mueller could not establish that there was a conspiracy or coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign to fix the 2016 election. The special counsel’s office interviewed 500 witnesses, issued 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search-and-seizure warrants, and obtained nearly 300 records of electronic communications, and still could not establish the one thing that mattered most in the investigation.Without a judgment that a conspiracy — or collusion, in the popular phrase — took place, everything else in the Trump-Russia affair began to shrink in significance.

Of course, TV talking heads are still arguing over obstruction. But with the report’s release, the investigation moved from the legal realm to the political realm. And in the political realm, the president has a simple and effective case to make to the 99.6% of Americans who are not lawyers: They say I obstructed an investigation into something that didn’t happen? And they want to impeach me for that?

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