RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/a-secret-ballot-for-impeachment-would-be-a-terrible-idea/

Over at Politico, Juleanna Glover, a former adviser for several Republican politicians, floats the idea that President Trump could be removed from office if three Republican senators insist upon a secret ballot for the vote on removal, and stand with Democrats to block any rules for impeachment that would involve on-the-record votes.

It is hard to describe just how terrible an idea this is. It would represent senators trying to avoid accountability for their votes, during an exercise that is supposed to be a legislative effort to hold the president accountable for his actions. This country has never forcibly removed a president from office. For such a consequential and historically important vote, the idea of senators being able to not tell the public how they voted — or to publicly claim they voted one way when they secretly voted the other — is unthinkable.

We all know why some senators would want a secret ballot; plenty of Republican senators who privately can’t stand Trump and who would strongly prefer a President Pence would vote to remove Trump from office if they knew they wouldn’t face punishment in a subsequent GOP primary. In a 75-25 vote in favor of removal, all 53 Republican senators could insist they were among the “no” votes, with no official record to contradict them. (This might apply to relatively Trump-friendly red state Democratic senators like Joe Manchin, too.)

If Trump really is an unconstitutional menace who is abusing the power of the presidency for his personal interests, stopping him ought to be worth losing a Senate seat. And if this action isn’t worth losing a Senate seat over, then it’s hard to see how it is worth removing a president. In 1998, this country established the precedent that a president suborning perjury did not warrant removal from office. The bar is set high, and it ought to be set high. If a senator wants to say, “we’re less than a year from a presidential election, let the people decide if this justifies ending Trump’s presidency,” they’ve got that option, too.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/prediction-no-impeachment/

I’m afraid I’ve run out of metaphors for the “impeachment inquiry.” “Clown show” — I like clowns. The ad vendors and corporate won’t let me spell out “(excrement) show” without bowdlerization. “Death march,” maybe.

In any case, you know what I’m talking about — the ongoing kangaroo court inquiry in which the main complainant “whistleblower” is anxious to testify until his long-time connections with the people who are pushing the inquiry, as well as his long-time connections with the corrupt inner circle Trump would like Ukraine to investigate became known — at which point he became so scary that you can’t name him on Facebook, as if Eric Ciaramella were Voldemort in the children’s books.

Of course, if Ciaramella was not the whistleblower, his attorney — the one who was bragging that the “#coup” was on in January 2017 — could just say “Eric Ciaramella is not the whistleblower” instead of threatening people with meretricious legal arguments to suppress his name.

Which is “Eric Ciaramella.”

In fact, one of the most curious aspects of the “inquiry” has been just who may, and may not, testify — along with the fact that the fabled Adam Schiff is the only decider of who is called to testify.

Why, it’s almost as if there’s something that worries the Democrats about cross-examination of the guy that was their star witness a couple of weeks ago.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/andy-puzder-ah-the-irony-of-impeachment-look-how-trump-policies-work-for-dem-voters

While Democrats pursue their partisan crusade to impeach President Trump, their own constituents continue to benefit from his policies in the form of new jobs and better wages, reduced income inequality, a more equitable criminal justice system, and — at long last — real progress toward curbing the opioid crisis.

Perhaps that’s why 27 percent of those who signed up for tickets to the Trump pre-election rally in Mississippi were registered Democrats, and n Kentucky, 23 percent were Democrats.

Let’s start with the undeniably strong (and still growing!) Trump economy. The latest employment data are solid across all socio-economic groups, but especially for minorities.

African American unemployment reached an all time low of 5.4 percent in October, resulting in the smallest gap between black and white unemployment rates ever recorded. The Hispanic unemployment rate likewise reached an all-time low of 3.9 percent in September, and the Hispanic-American labor force participation rate reached its highest level in a decade the following month.

The left is fanatical about enforcing equal outcomes, and yet Democrats are trying desperately to get rid of a president whose policies have reduced economic disparities between racial groups to the lowest level in American history.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/impeachment-resolution-democrats-pelosi-reporter

“It’s not an impeachment resolution,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Pelosi had just announced the House would, in fact, hold a vote to formalize the impeachment probe and establish parameters for the investigation late last month.

The House speaker had argued for weeks such a step wasn’t necessary. Congressional Republicans and members of the administration countered that the White House shouldn’t cooperate because the House never codified the inquiry.

“They would much rather discuss process,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., when asked about the GOP demand for a vote. “They can’t defend the president’s conduct.”

So, in mid-October, I asked Pelosi, “why not call the administration’s bluff?”

Pelosi was having none of it.

“Why?” replied an incredulous Pelosi. “Because we’re not here to call bluffs. We’re here to find the truth, to uphold the Constitution of the United States. This is not a game for us. This is deadly serious.”

When I followed up, Pelosi cut me off.

“We’re not going there,” Pelosi said of a prospective impeachment process vote.

Some moderate and conservative Democrats from battleground districts breathed a sigh of relief. Some have been skeptical of impeachment and would prefer to avoid the topic altogether. They’d rather discuss health care and infrastructure issues, maybe adoption of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement [USMCA] trade package.

These Democrats wouldn’t deny they may have to vote on impeaching President Trump. But, these lawmakers seemed to know the less they’d have to deal with impeachment, the better off they were. So, holding off on impeachment as long as they could was fine with them.

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/topic/politics/

If, like me, you are an educated senior who watches the news on t.v. more than once a day, you may be as bewildered as I am at some big pharma commercials and their casual use of esoteric language. I used to pride myself on spelling and vocabulary but here are some examples that baffled me before I turned to google.

Ozempic, a drug for diabetes that sounds like a merger between Olympic and the miraculous land of Oz, warns against usage by anyone who has multiple neoplasia syndrome type 2. I hadn’t even heard of type 1 and wondered how many people were affected by this – turns out to be 1 in 35,000 or less than .0003% Humira, perhaps suggesting something to put you in a good mood, is a drug used for several diseases including psoriatic arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. If you use this, be sure not to take it if you also use orencia, kineret or cimzia. Another drug for similar use is Xeljanz, anomalously pronounced as if that Z was at the front of the word. It should never be used if you are allergic to tofacitinib, a tongue-twister I yearn to use the next time a waiter routinely asks “any food allergies?” Although I doubt it’s a food, who knows where it might originate or lurk?

My guess is that Big Pharm is well schooled in all sorts of advertising cues and that giving drugs exotic names turn basic ingredients into magical potions that are meant to justify inflated prices But I wonder, as our culture becomes more and more fixated on the evils of racism and sexism, why we tolerate ageism – discrimination against the elderly. Most of us struggle to remember where we put our keys and the names of our nephew’s twins – do we really need to contend with crazy spelling and unfamiliar language at the pharmacy? How about drugs called Fixit, Nopane or Mobetter? And how about eliminating the pretense of Pharma concern in favor of reminding people that all prescription drugs must be ordered by a doctor, someone who would know whether you had multiple neoplasia syndrome type 2 and would not be ordering Ozempic for you. Surely liability can’t be determined by a two minute fast-talking commercial with more information than a smart 30 year old could absorb.

Just tell the oldsters Fixit works well for diabetes unless you’ve got one of the 30 other diseases listed on the package. Ask your grandson to read those to you and if you do or think you do, call your doctor or ask google – despite her name, that lady is really smart.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/english-language-important-america-source-of-social-cohesion/

There’s no substitute as a source of social cohesion 

I  wouldn’t have thought the importance of the English language in America would be controversial, but our era is full of surprises.

When I was on Morning Joe the other day talking about my book, The Case for Nationalism, the Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson asked, in a skeptical tone, if we should be protecting the status of the English language in our culture.

My emphasis on English was also a bee in the bonnet of Charles King, the book’s reviewer at Foreign Affairs, who said I make “the strangest arguments, which collapse upon the slightest interrogation.” He includes in this category my statement that English is a “pillar of our national identity.”

He further says, accusingly, that one of the things I can’t imagine America without is a dominant role for the English language. In his view, a genuinely inclusive nationalism has to jettison “the idea that liberty is somehow less American if you call it la libertad.”

I never suggested, as you might expect, that saying the word “liberty” in a foreign language somehow negates the value of liberty or makes liberty less American, which would be absurd (I’ll return to all the other preposterous things in the King review at another time). I do, though, spend a lot of time discussing the importance of a common language as a source of social cohesion. Why?

https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/09/move-washington-out-of-washington/

Anything that can be done to dismantle the Leviathan of administrative overreach should be done. A plan by Senators Marcia Blackburn and Josh Hawley to move federal departments to the states is not the end of the story. But it might mark the beginning of a sunny new chapter.

What do you suppose the Alliance for American Advertising has in common with the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, the American Society of Civil Engineers, or American Apparel and Footwear? Apart from beginning with the letter “A,” they are among the nearly 3,500 trades or firms that have dedicated lobbying operations in Washington, D.C.

And that doesn’t count the union headquarters located in D.C., from AFSCME (“We make America Happen”) to SEIU (“the nation’s most diverse union”) and beyond, they’re all there, hands out, telephones working overtime to get a little bigger slice of the government pie, made with 100 percent locally sourced materials, namely your tax dollars.

Have you noticed the odd feeling you get when walking around downtown D.C.? I used to think that it was because of the stately government buildings, the imposing aura of edifices like the Supreme Court (with its ironic motto, “Equal Justice Under Law”) or the Capitol or the White House. That’s part of it, no doubt, but for the daily pedestrian, an essential reality of life in Washington is brought home by the ubiquity of the lobbying efforts. They’re all there, the people that want something, and the people who get paid to articulate those wants to lawmakers, their gargantuan staffs, and the media. (I say “lawmakers,” though the House has pretty much given up on making laws for the sake of continuing their hit mini-series, “At Home with Impeachment.”)

https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/09/petri-dish-leftists/

As most of my Generation X cohorts were too young at the time to process fully the abysmal political reasons why the 1970s sucked, network television did its part to ensure we kids realized some of the pop-cultural reasons.

I enter into evidence Exhibit 3,471,983: ABC’s 1976 “made-for-television” movie, “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.”

“Based on a true story,” or so it was billed, the flick starred the most popular Sweathog in Mr. Kotter’s class, John Travolta, in the lead role with Mr. Brady (a.k.a., Robert Reed) as his dad; Glynnis O’Connor as his love interest; and, in the golden daze of disco and glitz, spaced out viewers rubbed their bloodshot eyes with Cheeto covered fingers at a cameo by none other than Buzz Aldrin. With a thank you to IMDB for dredging up from my memory hole where I buried it long ago, the fact that the storyline revolved around one Tod Lubitch (Travolta), being born with a deficient immune system. This causes Tod to “spend the rest of his life in a completely sterile environment. His room is completely hermetically sealed against bacteria and virus, his food is specially prepared, and his only human contact comes in the form of gloved hands.”

Talk about a feel-good movie. But, wait for it: “He falls in love with his next-door neighbor, Gina Biggs, and he must decide between following his heart and facing near-certain death, or remaining in his protective bubble forever.” And this being Hollywood, bubble boy meets girl; bubble boy loses girl; bubble boy ditches rubber suit and gets girl again, literally riding off with her on horseback into the sunset.

Some have decried the movie for advocating unprotected sex. I disagree. Instead, the flick was but another riff on breaking out of one’s self-imposed isolation to risk everything for love (which, in hindsight, may not have been the best advice given that we were on the cusp of a herpes outbreak).

https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/07/neverending-foreign-wars-are-keeping-the-united-states-from-fixing-the-border-crisis/

What good is our powerful military stationed all over the world if on our very border there is a failing state?

It’s time for an overhaul of the U.S. national security establishment. No subjects of failed policy are more evident than Afghanistan and our southern border.

Afghanistan cost us $45 billion last year with little to show for it. Meanwhile, our southern border is awash with desperate human beings trying to make a better life in our great country. All the while narcotics are flowing across to feed our insatiable habit.

An incident just this week illustrated the violence escalating across the border in Mexico — this time against Americans, when a drug cartel ambushed the LeBaron family in broad daylight, killing at least three women and six children. All the while, the Mexican government fails to act.

Abraham Lincoln said as a young man:

From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia … could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

“Impeachment is a distraction to a people who must decide what sort of country they want – Socialism, with its costs in dollars and lost freedoms, or free market capitalism, which offers the social and economic escalator of opportunity that takes people up and down. For all of our sakes, I hope they choose the latter.”

The American journalist and satirist H.L. Mencken once wrote: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the people alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” And the granddaddy of all hobgoblins is impeachment, at least here in the fourth quarter of 2019, a year from a presidential election that will see the most vilified President we have ever had run against one of the most far-left leaning candidates ever nominated. “Fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be a bumpy night,” said Bette Davis in the 1951 movie “It’s All About Eve.”  For us Americans, it will be a bumpy year.

Cynicism fills the air. Politicians live by scruples known only to themselves. Their concern is their own welfare and that of their party. Their goal is power. That end justifies whatever means or processes are felt necessary to achieve it. Yet, they wrap themselves in cloaks of righteous indignation. “Every member should support allowing the American people to hear the facts for themselves…this is nothing less than our democracy.” Stirring but hypocritical words spoken by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as she allowed Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to conduct impeachment hearings – hearings held in secret, where Republicans were not allowed to call witnesses and to which Mr. Trump’s lawyers were banned from attending. Schiff and the media have made much of diplomats fired, like the former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Do they forget that elections have consequences? Foreign policy is the responsibility of the President and changing ambassadors is expected and common.