RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/dem-counsel-suggests-three-possible-articles-of-impeachment/

EXCERPT

“Democrats did not ask the only Republican witness Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, whether he thinks Trump committed impeachable offenses.

Turley cautioned Democrats about the speed at which the impeachment inquiry is moving, saying neither the case for bribery nor the case for obstruction against the president is airtight.

“The record does not establish obstruction in this case,” Turley said. “If you accept all of their presumptions, it would be obstruction. But impeachments have to be based on proof, not presumptions.”

He went on to reject the Democrats’ “boundless” definition of bribery, which he argued has been rejected by the Supreme Court.

“You can’t accuse a president of bribery and, then, when some of us note that the Supreme Court has rejected your type of boundless interpretation, say, ‘Well, it’s just impeachment; we really don’t have to prove the elements,’” Turley said. “This isn’t improvisational jazz. Close enough is not good enough. If you’re going to accuse a president of bribery, you need to make it stick, because you’re trying to remove a duly elected president of the United States.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/schiffs-partisan-report-will-not-attract-new-impeachment-supporters/

Democrats are in 2020 campaign mode, not engaged in a serious effort to remove the president.

T he most striking thing about the impeachment report filed Tuesday afternoon by the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) is how unapologetically partisan it is.

Don’t get me wrong. Chairman Schiff is fiercely partisan and no one would have expected him to call it down the middle. A serious impeachment effort, however, has to try to attract support from Republicans and independents. Schiff gives us not a feint in that direction. His narrative is the Democratic base’s political case against Trump. There is no pretense of at least presenting the other side of the story, even if only for the purpose of refuting it.

To repeat what I argued in Faithless Execution (2014), impeachment is counterproductive if there is no plausible chance of removing the president from power. To impeach under circumstances where the president is certain to be acquitted at the eventual Senate trial (where a two-thirds supermajority is required for conviction and removal) is only to encourage further executive excesses.

That is why impeachment is a historical rarity even when the House (where only a simple majority is needed to file articles of impeachment) is controlled by the president’s opposition party. Prudent lawmakers grasp that it is not merely a waste of time to pursue impeachment in futility; doing so fosters divisiveness in society and dysfunction in government.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/04/morning-greatness-nadler-hypes-he-wont-take-any-sht-during-todays-judiciary-pageant/
Good Wednesday morning.

Here is what’s on the president’s agenda today:

The president participates in an Official Welcome with the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
President Trump participates in a North Atlantic Treaty Organization Plenary Session
The president participates in a bilateral meeting with the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany
President Trump participates in a working lunch with the NATO 2%ers
The president participates in a bilateral pull-aside with the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Denmark
President Trump participates in a bilateral pull-aside with the Prime Minister of the Italian Republic
The president participates in a press conference

ImpeachmentTV: Season 2, episode 1- The House Judiciary Caper

Previously, on ImpeachmentTV, the Intelligence Committee Democrats held a parade of hearsay witnesses, followed by the media dutifully reporting “BOMBSHELLS.” The Intelligence Committee partisans produced a report comprised of the witnesses’ fairy tales and voted to adopt the impeachment report and send it to the Judiciary Committee.

One of the most notable parts of this report is that the Democrats obtained some phone records. The records “detailed previously unreported contacts between President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, the White House, top House Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, and Hill columnist John Solomon.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/12/04/the-impeachment-report-is-damning-all-right-for-democrats/

Amid falling support for impeachment and worries that it will backfire against Democrats, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff released a 300-page report he says proves that President Donald Trump committed high crimes and misdemeanors worthy of removing him from office.

And if you read only the summary, you might think they’ve got the goods.

The House impeachment report claims to have “uncovered a months-long effort by President Trump to use the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference on his behalf in the 2020 election.” (You can read the report here.)

It says that the “scheme subverted U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his presidential reelection campaign.”

And it argues that “To compel the Ukrainian president to do his political bidding, President Trump conditioned two official acts on the public announcement of the investigations: a coveted White House visit and critical U.S. military assistance Ukraine needed to fight its Russian adversary.”

So the Democrats’ entire impeachment case rests on two pillars. First, that Trump threatened national security by withholding an aid package to Ukraine. And, second, that he did so in order to get Ukraine’s new president to publicly announce investigations into two supposedly bogus scandals – Joe Biden’s son, and Ukraine’s efforts to keep Trump out of the White House – simply to wound Biden politically.

But read into the report, and then look through the Republican response, and you come to realize that the Democrats fail to support either claim. In fact, in some ways, they make Trump’s case for him.

The report never actually accuses Trump of engaging in bribery.

Despite all the foreboding tones and dark insinuation, the impeachment report never actually accuses Trump of bribery. In fact, the word “bribery” appears only four times in the entire 300-page document: once when it quotes the impeachment clause of the Constitution, twice in reference to accusations of bribery against Biden, and once in defending the impeachment inquiry itself.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mr-schiffs-impeachment-opus-11575418600?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

These columns warned that once the machinery of impeachment was up and running, it would be impossible to stop. And so on Tuesday Adam Schiff released his House Intelligence Committee report on Ukraine that finds President Trump guilty of playing domestic politics with foreign policy. But it’s clear the President’s real sin is being the willful, undisciplined Donald Trump voters elected.

The bulk of Mr. Schiff’s 300-page opus is a prosecutorial account of Mr. Trump’s four-month attempt to persuade new Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce investigations into corruption and Ukraine’s role in the 2016 election. It is not a flattering tale, and it would make a compelling plank in a 2020 campaign indictment of Mr. Trump’s character and poor judgment.

But Mr. Schiff’s report casts himself and his cause as much grander. He is Adam at the bridge of our republic, heroic defender of American democracy. His introduction is worth quoting at length to capture his pretensions to nonpartisan statesmanship.

“The decision to move forward with an impeachment inquiry is not one we took lightly. Under the best of circumstances, impeachment is a wrenching process for the nation. I resisted calls to undertake an impeachment investigation for many months on that basis, notwithstanding the existence of presidential misconduct that I believed to be deeply unethical and damaging to our democracy,” he writes.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15242/marijuana-accidents-michigan

During the new year… Gatestone will be empaneling experts to examine this emerging threat to motorists, pedestrians, those in the workplace, and young people.

We need to understand the implications of that on public health….

Marijuana has been listed as the most common drug involved in fatal car accidents, contributing to 12 percent of 2010 crashes compared with 4 percent in 1999, the last time such data was available.

Within hours of Michigan permitting the legalized sale of recreational marijuana this weekend, state police reported a driver found to be under the influence of marijuana crashed his truck into a police cruiser. The driver was arrested after admitting he had been smoking pot before the accident, and the state trooper was treated for minor injuries.

That incident is just a single snapshot of what the nation may be facing as more and more states move forward the legalization of recreational marijuana sales, underscoring the reason why Gatestone Institute will be conducting a series of symposiums in the coming year that will closely examine the potential impact of legalized pot on the wellbeing of our nation’s children, occupational safety, transportation, and the enormous potential for substance abuse.

Gatestone stated: “In 2020, we expect the momentum to legalize recreational marijuana will only increase. What deeply concerns us is that there has not been a thoughtful and comprehensive review of what this means. Should we have specific safeguards in place that will protect our society? Have states put the anticipated tax revenue from pot sales ahead of the safety of their constituents?”

During the new year, Gatestone will be empaneling experts to examine this emerging threat to motorists, pedestrians, those in the workplace, and young people. “In truth, there is not a segment of our nation’s population that will not be impacted by the arrival of legalized marijuana. We need to understand the implications of that on public health,” Gatestone added.

Marijuana has been listed as the most common drug involved in fatal car accidents, contributing to 12 percent of 2010 crashes compared with 4 percent in 1999, the last time such data was available. “Based on these statistics, that number will most likely increase exponentially in the coming year.”

In the wake of the Michigan accident state police were quick to remind the public in a tweet:

“This [accident] is a reminder that on the day legal marijuana can be purchased, do not smoke and drive. Just like alcohol use a ride service, designated driver or stay home.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/no-trump-isnt-threatening-our-constitutional-system/

Recently, Tom Nichols, a leading anti-Trump voice (and a former colleague), informed me that “Trump has already changed our constitutional system in ways that will outlast us both. You think it’s worth it. I don’t.”

I hear this claim all the time. Trump’s antagonists keep telling me that conservatives, unable to win through democratic institutions, have adopted extreme policies that are corroding the constitutional order. How is still a mystery.

When I point out that religious freedom, one of the issues social conservatives tend to worry about, doesn’t depend on democratic institutions, Nichols tells me: “I remember when conservatives swore to stop liberals from getting things through the courts as fundamentally inimical to our system of government.”

What policies have Trump-era conservatives conspired to push through the courts that are “fundamentally inimical to our system of government,” I wondered?

“Outlawing abortion, changing the meaning of the second amendment to mean Home Bazookas are two that come to mind,” he answered, “but you’re being slippery here: You want the courts, not the legislature or the public, to be the vessel of ideas. The same thing cons once hated about liberals.”

Now, I understand it’s become routine to scare the public about guns, but there’s never been any political desire or effort to make Home Bazookas, or even fully automatic weapons, more easily available. (Though Tom is free to a buy a Bazooka if he pleases.) In the Heller decision, decided long before Trump’s presidency, Justice Scalia defined protected firearms as weapons in “common use.” It’s the left that wants overturn settled law.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/impeachment-power-can-be-abused/

Democrats say Trump exploited his constitutional power for political purposes, but how is that different from what they are doing now?

I t is not a good look for Democrats, in purporting to respond to the president’s abuse of his constitutional power over foreign relations, to abuse the House’s power over impeachment. That, however, is exactly what they are doing in their unseemly zeal to impeach President Trump on a blatantly political deadline.

In a December 1 letter, White House counsel Pat Cipollone notified House Judiciary chairman Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) that the president will not participate in the committee’s first open hearing on Wednesday, December 4. Ordinarily — not that there’s anything “ordinary” about the potential impeachment of an American president — I’d be inclined to assess this as poor judgment.

After all, the lack of due process has been one of the president’s major complaints since late October, when the House belatedly voted to endorse the impeachment inquiry that Democrats have been conducting for months. Among the fundamental elements of due process is the opportunity to be heard. Having denied this opportunity to the president in Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff’s faux grand-jury phase of the proceedings, Democrats are now inviting the president to participate in the Judiciary Committee phase, where articles of impeachment are soon to be drafted and voted on. The president’s complaints are apt to ring hollow if he carps about the witnesses from the Twitter sidelines while forfeiting the right to question them at the formal hearings.

Abstaining now could also be problematic down the road. Eventually, there will be a Senate impeachment trial. Because the House is now giving the president an opportunity to examine witnesses, Senate Democrats will have a good argument that transcripts from Nadler’s hearings should be admitted as trial evidence — i.e., the president should not be heard to complain since he will have passed up his chance to confront his accusers.