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Schiff Warns of Acquittal Precedent: Trump ‘Could Offer Alaska to the Russians’ By Mairead McArdle

Posted By on February 4th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-impeachment-adam-schiff-warns-of-acquittal-precedent-trump-could-offer-alaska-to-russians/

Representative Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) said Monday that “a whole range of utterly unacceptable conduct in a president would now be beyond reach” if the Senate acquits President Trump in his impeachment trial.

Schiff, the lead House impeachment manager, said during closing arguments in the trial that “Trump could offer Alaska to the Russians in exchange for support in the next election, or decide to move to Mar-a-Lago permanently and let Jared Kushner run the country, delegating to him the decision whether to go to war.”

Schiff also accused Trump’s legal team of employing the “dangerous” and “absurd” argument that a president cannot be impeached for anything other than a violation of federal criminal law.

According to Trump’s lawyers, “abuses of power that would help the president get reelected were permissible and therefore unimpeachable, and only those for pecuniary gain were beyond the pale,” Schiff argued. “Under this theory, as long as a president believed his reelection was in the public interest he could do anything and no quid pro quo was too corrupt, no damage to our national security too great.“

 

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PIERS MORGAN: The Democrats’ smug, sanctimonious Schiff Show impeachment debacle has gifted President Trump a Super Bowl-sized touchdown just as Election 2020 kicks off – and left them needing a Hail Mary in November

Posted By on February 3rd, 2020

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7961369/Sanctimonious-Schiff-impeachment-left-Democrats-needing-Hail-Mary-November.html

The Democrats’ smug, sanctimonious Schiff Show impeachment debacle has gifted President Trump a Super Bowl-sized touchdown just as Election 2020 kicks off – and left them needing a Hail Mary in November
DailyMain.co.uk

‘The definition of insanity.’ said Albert Einstein, ‘is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.’

Clearly, Adam Schiff didn’t get the memo.

Which is a shame, because Einstein was arguably the most intelligent human being to ever exist.

Though one person who might question that claim is Mr. Schiff, a man whose stratospheric ego is only matched by his astonishing superciliousness.

HE thinks he’s the smartest guy in America.

I think he’s the dumbest, and I’ll explain why.

Schiff, the Lead Impeachment Manager for Donald Trump’s impeachment, was asked on CBS’ Face The Nation yesterday morning if he would have done anything differently given the Senate has now voted to reject more witnesses and will inevitably vote to acquit the President on Wednesday.

‘There’s nothing that I can see that we could have done differently,’ he replied, with that curiously smug bug-eyed smirk Schiff pulls whenever he thinks he’s saying something particularly clever.

Sanctimonious: Adam Schiff’s obsession with Trump will cost the Democrats dearly this election year by handing President Trump a huge Super Bowl-sized win

Really, Adam?

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

I May Have Gender Dysphoria. But I Still Prefer to Base My Life on Biology, Not Fantasy written by Debbie Hayton

Posted By on February 3rd, 2020

https://quillette.com/2020/02/02/i-may-have-gender-dysphoria-but-i-still-prefer-to-base-my-life-on-biology-not-fantasy/

Feelings and opinions have displaced facts and evidence in many areas of the liberal arts. This is nothing new. A more recent phenomenon, however, is the extension of this trend into the realm of biology, which has fallen victim to the idea that men can become women—and vice versa—merely by reciting a statement of belief. It is an insidious movement that combines the postmodern contempt for objective truth with pre-modern religious superstitions regarding the nature of the human soul.

The subordination of science to myth was exemplified in the recent British case of Maya Forstater, who’d lost her job after pointing out the plain truth that transgender people like me cannot change our biological sex by proclamation. “I conclude from…the totality of the evidence, that [Forstater] is absolutist in her view of sex and it is a core component of her belief that she will refer to a person by the sex she considered appropriate,” concluded Judge James Tayler at her employment tribunal. “The approach is not worthy of respect in a democratic society.”

I’m not sure where that leaves me, a British transgender person who agrees with Forstater. As I know better than most, sex is immutable. I may have transitioned socially, medically and surgically, but I am as male now as I was the day I was born (and the days I fathered each of my three children). As a scientist, I know this to be a fact. It’s Judge Tayler who’s the absolutist here: Under the guise of tolerance, he’s put the force of law behind a cultish movement that treats biological reality in much the same way that the Catholic Church once treated Galileo and his heliocentric ideas. Just like its medieval forbears, this neo-religious crusade demands that adherents chant an absurdist liturgy—in this case, “Transwomen are women. Transmen are men.”

In July 2019, before the Forstater controversy broke, I made up a t-shirt with my own slogan: “Transwomen are men. Get over it.” It caused considerable outrage. But my question was sincere: Why can’t we, as trans people, just get over it? It’s merely another political slogan. What does it matter if we are men or women in some technical sense, so long as we can live our lives in peace, free from abuse, harassment and discrimination?

In recent months, I have been accused of hate speech and reported to my professional colleagues, while newspaper reports suggest that I am at risk of being banned from an LGBT committee connected to my trade union.

By now, many readers will be familiar with the basic elements of the officially enforced system of dogma that sometimes is referred to as “gender ideology,” and which is now legally encoded in many jurisdictions under the policy known as “self-identification” or “self-declaration”:

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Energy Policy That Wins How the Trump administration’s policies have unleashed American energy production. Robin Smith

Posted By on February 3rd, 2020

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68311-energy-policy-that-wins-2020-02-03

Every president since Richard Nixon has promised energy independence to Americans as a measure of national security. Promises and pledges have come and gone from the White House since the 1970s — but now, the United States of America is an exporter of crude oil as well as natural gas and, yes, Americans can be declared energy independent.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (USEIA), “In November 2019, the United States became a net exporter of all oil products, including both refined petroleum products and crude oil.”

For the very reasons eight presidents prior to Donald Trump promised this energy autonomy, it’s now evidenced with the stability of oil prices that no longer wildly fluctuate with every world event.

Middle East policy has become more shaped by those drilling in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, and Texas. Yet leftists still declare, “We just can’t drill our way out of the problem.” Well, that’s exactly what happened.

Despite, not because of, the policies of the Obama administration, exploration, drilling, and fracking for natural gas and oil expanded with no appearance of turning back as the Trump administration approved last week the Keystone Pipeline right of way for a crucial 46-mile stretch controlled by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Keystone was first proposed in 2008, but faced repeated rejections during the Obama years. This approval permits the $8 billion construction project expected to move up to 35 million gallons of crude oil every day from western Canada to terminals on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

What does this mean to average Americans?

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Now That Brexit Is Complete, It’s Time To Strengthen the Anglosphere By Sumantra Maitra

Posted By on February 3rd, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/03/now-that-brexit-is-complete-its-time-to-strengthen-the-anglosphere/

A new world order demands new geopolitical thinking and new leadership. An informal trade, research, and defense bloc that values national sovereignty would be a good start.

As the Big Ben gong struck 11 p.m. GMT on January 31, marking the moment the United Kingdom left the European Union, thousands of people started singing “Rule Britannia” in Parliament Square. Next to the statue of Winston Churchill was a British Army Parachute Regiment flag—apt, given that the EU is German-dominated—and a few large American flags.

Churchill was half American, and Americans in London clearly love a good independence party. A world where British people are free to vote and kick out their representatives might be hard in the days to come, but it is far, far better than one that was inexorably going towards a European empire. As one of the most striking placards read, “Britain isn’t supposed to be one of the many stars in someone else’s flag.” The period from 1973 to 2020 was a historical aberration.

Perhaps this is why Brexit vexes liberals so much. Brexit is important in ways more than the simple freedom and slavery dichotomy. It ruins a much vaunted and hitherto untouchable narrative. A recent IPSOS-MORI poll shows that Remainers, those who preferred to live in the EU, are less tolerant than Leavers of other people’s opinion. A earlier survey from 2016 found U.S. Democratic women block people on social media far more than do Republican women.

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Why Impeachment Failed By David Harsanyi

Posted By on February 3rd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/why-impeachment-failed/

House Democrats rushed through a botched process and then complained bitterly and endlessly that Senate Republicans wouldn’t do their work for them.

Unless more incriminating evidence emerges to dramatically alter public perception, the impeachment trial of Donald Trump is effectively over.

It’s comforting, no doubt, to believe that Trump has survived this entire debacle because he possesses a tighter hold on his party than Barack Obama or George W. Bush or any other contemporary president did. But while partisanship might be corrosive, it’s also the norm. In truth, Trump, often because of his own actions, has likely engendered less loyalty than the average president, not more.

It’s difficult to recall a single Democratic senator throwing anything but hosannas Obama’s way, which allowed the former president to ride his high horse from one scandalous attack on the Constitution to the next. In 1998, not a single Democrat voted to convict Bill Clinton, who had engaged in wrongdoing for wholly self-serving reasons, despite the GOP’s case being methodical and incriminating. Attempting to impeach a president for lying under oath to a federal grand jury in a sexual-harassment case in an effort to obstruct justice was, as Alan Dershowitz and many others argued, “sexual McCarthyism.” Few Democrats, though, claimed Clinton was innocent, because no one could credibly offer that defense; they merely reasoned that the punishment was too severe for what amounted to a piddling crime.

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Karin McQuillan The White Field Spells Disaster for Democrats The Democratic Left is losing the black vote. The paradigm-bashing President Trump is going all-out to win it.

Posted By on February 3rd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/02/the-white-field-spells-disaster-for-democrats/

The takeaway from the Democrats’ 2020 field of white politicians is right in front of us. Black Democrats have become less racist, and young Democrats have become more radical.

No one backed the black candidates, not even black voters. Most black voters are not buying woke politics, not from Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), not from Cory Booker (D-N.J.), not from anybody. This presents an opening for President Trump.

There are more black primary voters this year than ever before. They could have turned Harris or Booker into leading contenders. Instead, they chose the old white guy. This is change.

Racial identity alone was a ticket to nowhere. Harris went nuclear and called Joe Biden a racist and all she got was a lousy three-day blip.

It’s the black voters’ choice, but the all-white field is still bad news for Democrats. Very bad news. It is a shocking image. From the first black president to this? Democrats are terrified that too many blacks will stay home on Election Day. That’s more good news for Trump.

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Democrats’ Total Failure and Utter Humiliation Delights All Real Americans Kurt Schlichter

Posted By on February 3rd, 2020

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2020/02/03/democrats-total-failure-and-utter-humiliation-delights-all-real-americans-n2560542

Now that the Democrats’ dream of stealing the 2016 election through the power of MSNBCNN-fueled outrage, and through plots by fussy lib bureaucrats, lies in ruins, some people might argue that we should be gracious in our total victory and not mock the stinging pain that accompanied this latest agonizing failure. Some people are sissies. Hoist a stein overflowing with the tears of these losers and chug chug chug away.

Then tap another keg. This party is finally getting started, and it’s going to rage on until January 2025. 

Maybe even longer, if you listen to the Bozos, Pennywises, and Krustys they find for those CNN panels. Their genius takeaway from their soul-crushing defeat in trying to impeach Donald Trump for the crime of revealing the massive corruption of Senile Joe and his son Snorty Strippertap is that Trump might decide to never leave office. That’s a good point. What would they do if he didn’t? Take up arms like real men would? Yeah, right.

They will take what they are given and like it.

Perhaps the best thing about this ridiculous kabuki act was how it forced the unwoke Republicans to stop pretending that these antics are legitimate, that we need to treat this crap seriously, and that we need to act like these games are not just another bogus ploy designed to disenfranchise us and re-empower the sorry pack of weirdos, losers, and mutations that make up the Democratic Party. Even Senator Igloo (R?-Frigidaire) got tired of it. Of course, not all Republicans got it. We can forgive Susan Collins because she’s from Maine and maple syrup and moose make you weird. 

But Mitt Romney, aka Thin Jeb!, that simpering goof…who else is about done with that carpetbagging preppie tool? What is Utah thinking? Give us back our 2012 votes. How can someone with so many kids – I believe the nicknames of these Stepford sons are Skippy, Muffy, Bilbo, Tugg, Torpp, Ting, Jipper and Sneep – be so incredibly impotent? 

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Up Schiff’s Creek Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on February 3rd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/02/up-schiffs-creek/

Just as the off-putting California Democrat sought to take credit for taking out President Trump, so too will he be blamed for only further empowering him.

Adam Schiff is starting to wear on his own. He may be the darling of leftwing cable news. But like a moth to a candle, the California congressman is sucked into the camera lights, without realizing how he is scorched and consumed. He hijacked the Democratic House impeachment effort and then did the same in the Senate. As the inspiration for the entire farce, he is the man most responsible for the ensuing damage to the country and his party.

Remember, Schiff wanted to rush through impeachment in the House before the holidays and, in part, was responsible for not getting proper authorization to issue subpoenas to witnesses. He then politicized the calling of witnesses, and selectively leaked testimonies taken in the House basement—only to whine about partisanship when he wanted to slow down the impeachment trial in the Senate. In other words, he objected to the same sort of partisanship that he had introduced into the inquiry.

But what will be the status of a post-impeachment Schiff, once the impeachment farce has lost its luster? 

Thanks in part to Schiff, President Trump is polling more strongly now than when Schiff began the circus in September. 

Thanks in part to Schiff, the erstwhile frontrunner and best Democratic presidential chance, Joe Biden, is left hemorrhaging from impeachment’s never-ending embarrassments about Hunter Biden. 

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Europe Cowers in Front of Iran and Hezbollah by Soeren Kern

Posted By on February 3rd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15510/europe-iran-hezbollah

“Hezbollah itself has publicly denied a distinction between its military and political wings. The group in its entirety is assessed to be concerned in terrorism…” — The British Treasury, January 17, 2020.

Britain joins the Netherlands, Canada, the United States, Israel, the 22-member Arab League, the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council as well as Argentina, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Paraguay in making no distinction between Hezbollah’s military and civilian wings. In all, more than 30 countries have banned the group in its entirety.

In Germany, the EU’s largest member state, a foreign ministry official, Niels Annen, said that a complete ban of Hezbollah would be counterproductive because “we focus on dialogue.” His comment has been understood to mean that the German government does not want to burn bridges with Hezbollah’s main patron, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism.

In other EU member states, government officials appear worried that a total ban of Hezbollah could jeopardize the safety of European troops deployed to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL. EU member states contribute more than 3,650 troops to UNIFIL — mostly from France, Italy and Spain.

“Hezbollah is a single large organization, we have no wings that are separate from one another. What’s being said in Brussels doesn’t exist for us.” — Ibrahim Mussawi, Hezbollah spokesman, interview in Der Spiegel, July 22, 2013.

The British finance ministry has added the entirety of the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah — Arabic for “The Party of Allah” — to its sanctions list and has ordered a freeze on any assets it may have in the United Kingdom.

The move, aimed at cracking down on Hezbollah’s fundraising activities in Britain, adds increased enforcement teeth to the British government’s February 2019 decision no longer to distinguish between Hezbollah’s military and political wings and to classify the entire organization as a terrorist group.