RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/467079-quid-pro-quo-in-ukraine-no-not-yet

Quid pro no.

The current impeachment debate is being framed in terms of whether or not there was a “quid pro quo”— as if that is the bar that will determine whether or not President Trump did something egregious.

There are big flaws with this framing, as well as with the use of the term. 

Diplomatic quid pro quo — requiring certain actions, behavior or “conditions” in return for U.S. aid — is common, according to current and former diplomats I spoke with, and foreign policy guidance. “Under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the President may determine the terms and conditions under which most forms of assistance are provided.”

The notion that there’s something inherently wrong with this sort of foreign-aid diplomacy is raising concern among some career diplomats. A former Obama administration State Department official told me that, by controversializing this common practice, “the Democrats are basically hamstringing any future president.” He adds: “That’s why this is a constitutional moment.”

It is true that few Americans would think it’s appropriate for a U.S. president to use his foreign aid diplomacy to set conditions to receive “dirt” on a political opponent. But the available information is proving to be a far cry from the original “whistleblower” allegations that Trump “solicit[ed] interference from a foreign country” in the 2020 presidential election, in quid pro quo fashion. 

Foreign aid is widely considered a tool to allow the U.S. “access and influence in the domestic and foreign affairs of other states,” particularly “national security policy.” It also “helps governments achieve mutual cooperation on a wide range of issues.”

https://spectator.org/the-case-for-indicting-john-brennan/

Former CIA director John Brennan calls the Justice Department’s widening probe into Spygate’s origins “bizarre.” It has no “legal basis,” he bleats.

What’s bizarre is that the expanding inquiry didn’t happen earlier. Brennan’s responsibility for criminal leaks during the Obama administration’s investigation of Trump has been obvious for at least two years. Even Trump hater Peter Strzok, the FBI liaison to John Brennan, couldn’t believe the leaks coming out of his shop. Referring to Brennan’s agents as “sisters,” Strzok said to his mistress Lisa Page, “our sisters have begun leaking like mad. Scorned and worried and political, they’re kicking in to overdrive.”

The “leaking like mad” began in the thick of the 2016 campaign, as the feverishly partisan John Brennan sought to sabotage Donald Trump before Election Day. Has John Durham, the U.S. attorney assigned to the probe of the Obama administration’s spying on Trump, talked to Harry Reid about Brennan’s leaking? He should. Recall Brennan’s blatant disclosure of classified information about the investigation to the former Nevada senator in the late summer/early fall of 2016. Reid has told reporters that Brennan used him as the conduit for that leak against Trump during the campaign: “Why do you think he called me?”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15069/impeachers-new-crimes

The search for the perfect impeachable offense against President Trump is reminiscent of overzealous prosecutors who target the defendant first and then search for the crime with which to charge him. Or to paraphrase the former head of the Soviet secret police to Stalin: show me the man and I will find you the crime.

All civil libertarians should be concerned about an Alice in Wonderland process in which the search for an impeachable crime precedes the evidence that such a crime has actually been committed.

Under our constitutional system of separation of powers, Congress may not compel the Executive Branch to cooperate with an impeachment investigation absent court orders.

Conflicts between the Legislative and Executive Branches are resolved by the Judicial Branch, not by the unilateral dictate of a handful of partisan legislators. It is neither a crime nor an impeachable offense for the president to demand that Congress seek court orders to enforce their demands. Claims of executive and other privileges should be resolved by the Judicial Branch, not by calls for impeachment.

The effort to find (or create) impeachable offense against President Donald Trump has now moved from the subjects of the Mueller investigation — collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice — to alleged recent political “sins”: “quid pro quo” with Ukraine and obstruction of Congress.

The goal of the impeach-at-any-cost cadre has always been the same: impeach and remove Trump, regardless of whether or not he did anything warranting removal. The means — the alleged impeachable offenses — have changed, as earlier ones have proved meritless. The search for the perfect impeachable offense against Trump is reminiscent of overzealous prosecutors who target the defendant first and then search for the crime with which to charge him. Or to paraphrase the former head of the Soviet secret police to Stalin: show me the man and I will find you the crime.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/10/23/while-demo

In the upside-down world of Washington politics, President Donald Trump appears to be fixing Obamacare, while Democrats are running around the country dismissing it as a horrible failure.

The latest evidence of the former is that Obamacare premiums are set to drop 4% next year, after declining 1.5% last year, according to a report released by the Health and Human Services Department this week. This comes after five straight years of huge increases, during which Obamacare premiums more than doubled.

The news is so remarkable that even the Washington Post had to admit that “Obamacare is getting more affordable under the Trump administration.”  Oh, and the Obamacare markets are becoming more competitive, too, with the number of plans climbing by 13%, giving nearly 70% of the country access to at least three plans.

The Post even acknowledges that these improvements come “despite dire predictions by Democrats that the Trump administration would destroy the insurance marketplaces.”

“Dire predictions” is right.

When Trump signed the tax cut law into effect, he zeroed out the much-hated individual mandate tax. Critics said it would destabilize Obamacare markets because the young and healthy, freed from the tax penalty, would drop coverage, leaving the Obamacare insurance pool sicker and more expensive.

http://thedailychrenk.com/2019/10/23/im-deep-state-im-help/

It’s 2019, so it’s perhaps time to update Ronald Reagan’s famous dictum that “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

The media and the left (but I repeat myself) have spent the past three years ridiculing the concept of the “Deep State” and those who subscribe to its existence. We have been told it’s a crazy right-wing conspiracy theory to believe that some public servants, mostly in the fields of intelligence, law enforcement and diplomacy, might cooperate in informal cabals to pursue their preferred policies regardless of who is in power and to protect their fiefdoms from oversight, interference and the executive, legislative and judicial control. To wonder whether some influential people in the federal bureaucracy, connected through a revolving door with the progressive establishment, might have contemplated preventing the election of their bete noire and his removal from office once their initial efforts proved unsuccessful invited accusation of delusion and paranoia.

This narrative is now officially old and busted. The new and hot one: the Deep State exists and it’s good.

As Michelle Cottle, member of “The New York Times” editorial board, writes in her op-ed “They Are Not The Resistance. They Are Not a Cabal. They Are Public Servants: Let us now praise these not-silent heroes”:

President Trump is right: The deep state is alive and well. But it is not the sinister, antidemocratic cabal of his fever dreams. It is, rather, a collection of patriotic public servants — career diplomats, scientists, intelligence officers and others — who, from within the bowels of this corrupt and corrupting administration, have somehow remembered that their duty is to protect the interests, not of a particular leader, but of the American people.

Fiona Hill, Michael McKinley and the whistle-blower who effectively initiated the impeachment investigation — when these folks saw something suspicious, they said something. Their aim was not to bring down Mr. Trump out of personal or political animus but to rescue the Republic from his excesses. Those who refuse to silently indulge this president’s worst impulses qualify as heroes — and deserve our gratitude.

Throughout the Trump presidency, there has been a trickle of fed-up individuals willing to step up and protest the administration’s war on science, expertise and facts.

Is that what it is! Just patriotic public servants trying to save the people from a democratically elected President of their own country.

http://thedailychrenk.com/2019/10/23/im-deep-state-im-help/

It’s 2019, so it’s perhaps time to update Ronald Reagan’s famous dictum that “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

The media and the left (but I repeat myself) have spent the past three years ridiculing the concept of the “Deep State” and those who subscribe to its existence. We have been told it’s a crazy right-wing conspiracy theory to believe that some public servants, mostly in the fields of intelligence, law enforcement and diplomacy, might cooperate in informal cabals to pursue their preferred policies regardless of who is in power and to protect their fiefdoms from oversight, interference and the executive, legislative and judicial control. To wonder whether some influential people in the federal bureaucracy, connected through a revolving door with the progressive establishment, might have contemplated preventing the election of their bete noire and his removal from office once their initial efforts proved unsuccessful invited accusation of delusion and paranoia.

This narrative is now officially old and busted. The new and hot one: the Deep State exists and it’s good.

As Michelle Cottle, member of “The New York Times” editorial board, writes in her op-ed “They Are Not The Resistance. They Are Not a Cabal. They Are Public Servants: Let us now praise these not-silent heroes”:

President Trump is right: The deep state is alive and well. But it is not the sinister, antidemocratic cabal of his fever dreams. It is, rather, a collection of patriotic public servants — career diplomats, scientists, intelligence officers and others — who, from within the bowels of this corrupt and corrupting administration, have somehow remembered that their duty is to protect the interests, not of a particular leader, but of the American people.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/kevin-mccarthy-claims-republican-lawmaker-destroyed-latest-trump-impeachment-inquiry-argument

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said a fellow Republican lawmaker deconstructed a key part of the latest Trump impeachment inquiry witness testimony in Tuesday’s closed-door session.

“In 90 seconds, we had John Ratcliffe destroy [acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill] Taylor’s whole argument,” McCarthy said.

The questioning by Ratcliffe, a Texas Republican and member of both the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, was an important moment in the hearing, McCarthy claimed.

“We can’t really talk about it,” he said.

Ratcliffe appeared on Fox News after the testimony and said there were new details brought to light, but said nothing “worthy of impeachment.”

McCarthy added House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., is not allowing lawmakers to speak too specifically about the proceedings, in an interview Tuesday on “The Ingraham Angle.”

“Adam Schiff won’t let us talk about what happened,” he said regarding U.S. diplomat to Ukraine Bill Taylor’s closed-door hearing on Capitol Hill. “There is no quid pro quo.”

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-10-22-a-serious-contender-for-stup

From time to time here at this blog I have considered candidates for the title of “Stupidest Litigation in the Country.” For example, in this post in December 2017 I considered the candidacy of the litigation titled Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana v. United States, et al., brought in Oregon by a group of minor children claiming a “constitutional right” to a “stable climate,” and seeking a nationwide injunction forcing the phase-out of all use of fossil fuels in the United States. (That case is currently awaiting a decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.) Shortly thereafter, in January 2018, I evaluated the candidacy of various litigations around the country, including some in California and one in New York, brought by municipalities seeking to hold a collection of major oil companies responsible for a variety of future environmental calamities supposedly to be caused by “climate change.” (Many, but far from all of those cases have since been dismissed; others remain pending.)

Today I have a new candidate for the coveted title. I actually spent most of the afternoon today attending the opening statements in the trial of this case, so I can assure you that there is some serious stupidity going on here. The title of the case is People of the State of New York v. ExxonMobil Corp., currently pending in the New York State Supreme Court, New York County. (This is state rather than federal court. For those with access to the court electronic records system, the index number is 452044/2018.) Yes, it is another of the now many, many cases somehow accusing Exxon of destroying the world by causing climate change. But what is the case about, and what is the New York AG trying to accomplish? Excellent question.