RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/12/06/trumps-unexpected-jobs-boom-leaves-dems-incoherent/

Job growth in November came in 79,000 higher than economists had expected, something that has become a regular occurrence under President Trump, where the economy has repeatedly defied what the “experts” forecast.

Just how big that gap is becomes clear when you look at longer-term forecasts these same experts made.

Take that jobs number. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are now a total of 152.2 million jobs in the U.S.  That’s an increase of 6.8 million since Trump took office. Backers of President Obama will say that during the same 35-month stretch of Obama’s last term in office, the economy created 7.7 million jobs, so Trump is actually doing worse.

That’s misleading, at best. The economy was still coming back from a deep recession, which is when job growth should be robust.  (In truth, post-recession job growth under Obama was one of the worst on record since the Great Depression.)

What matters is where economists saw the economy heading when Trump took office.

The Congressional Budget Office provides the answer. At the start of 2017, it released its 10-year economic forecast, which the CBO always boasts is right in the meaty part of the consensus of economists.

When it made its forecast, which assumed that nothing would change in terms of tax, regulatory, spending or any other policies, the CBO figured that the number of jobs created between January 2017 and today would be 2 million.

So Trump is doing better than expected on jobs by 4.8 million.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/trump-impeachment-inquiry-democrats-abuse-of-power-standard/

We know an impeachable offense when we see one — or do we?

T o put it mildly, the 1960s were not notorious for juridical modesty. They might compare favorably, though, to Wednesday’s episode of “The Lawyer Left Does Impeachment” at the House Judiciary Committee. Oh, I have no doubt that the three progressive constitutional scholars spotlighted by Democrats yearn in their hearts (and their classrooms) for the Warren Court, that apex of make-it-up-as-you-go-along lawyering. But even those jurists had the occasional convulsion of modesty.

The most instructive one for present purposes belonged to Justice Potter Stewart. The question before the High Court in the 1964 case of Jacobellis v. Ohio was how to define hard-core pornography for purposes of setting the elusive boundary where protected free expression transmogrifies into criminal obscenity. Assessing the terrain, Justice Stewart confessed that he could not “intelligibly” provide a workable definition … “but I know it when I see it.”

Impeachment has an eye-test, too.

You would never know that from listening to the law profs. Not that it matters much: The most memorable moment in the hearing turned out to be the mind-bogglingly moronic decision by Stanford’s Pamela Karlan to use 13-year-old Barron Trump in one of her many snarky jabs at the president. This, naturally, ignited an explosion of indignation from the pro-Trump right, whose sensibilities did not seem quite so tender when the president was tweeting about 16-year-old Greta Thunberg. That, just as naturally, inspired an even more embarrassing performance by Professor Karlan: So advanced is her Trump derangement that she is incapable of apologizing for her own poor judgment without taking another snide shot at the Bad Orange Man, lest we forget how morally superior she is.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15247/trump-congress-checks-balances

The president, as head of the executive branch, is entitled to challenge in court legislative subpoenas that demand material that may be subject to claims of privilege. He is also entitled to insist that the legislature obtain a court order before the executive branch complies. That is how checks and balances work.

Even if the president were wrong in challenging these subpoenas, his being wrong would not come close to being an impeachable offense. What do the Democratic experts claim it is? Treason? Bribery? A high crime? A high misdemeanor? It is none of the above and is, therefore, not a basis for impeachment.

For Congress to impeach President Trump for abuse of Congress would be an abuse of power by Congress. So despite the partisan opinions of the Democratic academic experts, Congress should not include abuse of Congress among its list of impeachable offenses. Nor should it include any counts that do not fit the specified Constitutional criteria. Since the evidence adduced thus far fails to establish treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors, Congress should not vote to impeach. If it does vote to do so along party lines, it will be acting unconstitutionally and placing itself above the supreme law of the land.

Congress is not above the law. It cannot simply ignore the words of the Constitution even if a majority of its members want to impeach the president. Pictured: Members of the House Judiciary Committee in a hearing on December 4, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images)

Among the grounds for impeachment being considered by the House Judiciary Committee is that President Trump obstructed Congress by refusing to have members of the executive branch comply with Congressional subpoenas without orders of the court. This ground was given the imprimatur of the academic experts who testified for the Democrats. These experts, however, were not only wrong; their opinions pose a real danger to civil liberties and checks and balances. Moreover, it is highly questionable that these experts would have said that citizens must always comply with Congressional subpoenas without a judicial order if the political shoe were on the other foot.