RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/the-costs-of-trivializing

In the absence of public objection to the politicization of impeachment, it is apt to become the new normal.

Resorting to a vague “abuse of power” theory, the House Judiciary Committee Friday morning referred two articles of impeachment to the full House on the inevitable party-line vote. The full House will impeach the president next week, perhaps Wednesday, also on the inevitable party-line vote. The scarlet “I” will be affixed to Donald Trump in the history books. He will not be removed from power by the Senate, however, and he has a fairly good chance of being reelected by the voters.

In sum, then, we are exactly where the Framers hoped we would never be when they added the impeachment clauses to the Constitution: in a governing system in which impeachment has been trivialized into a partisan weapon for straitjacketing the incumbent administration, rather than being reserved as a nuclear option for misconduct so egregious that Congress must act, transcending partisan, factional, or ideological considerations.

What will be the cost of trivializing impeachment this way?

I do not think that question will be answered in the Senate. It will be answered in the election next November. I fear that the answer will be banana republic-style dysfunction in government and a chasm of divisiveness in the body politic that may not be bridgeable.

That is because I believe the voters may enable Democrats to retain control of the House. In the absence of public objection to the politicization of impeachment, it is apt to become the new normal.

That does not necessarily mean we will continue to have the level of dysfunctional governance impeachment now entails. Even now, although the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry has chewed up an inordinate amount of committee and floor time, the House appears to have reached agreement with the White House on a new trade deal with Canada and Mexico, as well as government spending for fiscal 2020. No one is taking impeachment all that seriously.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/12/13/pelosi-meets-with-islamist-groups-about-overturning-muslim-ban-impeaching-trump/

The meeting between Pelosi and the Muslim Advocates-led group represents yet more evidence of the alignment of Islamists as full members of the leftist political resistance to Trump.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took time out during the House’s ongoing impeachment effort to meet with a group of Muslim activists. The activists were seeking support for legislation to oppose the president’s executive order 13780, banning travel from countries of national security concern. Critics insist on identifying the executive order as a “Muslim ban” despite that it affects only seven countries, two of which—North Korea and Venezuela—are not Muslim. The executive order was upheld by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling.

Pelosi attended a meeting on December 10 organized by Muslim Advocates, which led lawsuits against the travel ban. The group is known for opposing even the most reasonable counter-terrorism efforts, and played a key role in undermining Customs and Border patrol efforts to screen for radical Islamists during the Obama administration.

Pelosi met with a number of Muslim organizers and politicians from around the country, with both Sunni and Shia groups represented. A representative of the Open Society Foundation was also present, according to pictures of the meeting provided by Muslim Advocates.

The meeting was organized to encourage Pelosi to support H.R. 2214, the so-called No Ban Act, introduced by Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif), which seeks to prevent the president from enforcing the travel ban and seeks to extend other limitations on the president’s authority to restrict immigration for national security reasons. Chu has a history of close ties to Islamist lobby groups. The bill currently has 205 co-sponsors, all Democrats.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/supreme-court-agrees-to-hear-appeals-over-the-release-of-trumps-financial-records_3173732.html?utm_source=pushengage&utm_medium=pushnotification&utm_campaign=pushengage

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear President Donald Trump’s appeals in cases requesting the top court to block the House and a Manhattan investigation from having access to his financial records.

The top court justices met in a private conference on Friday to discuss whether to hear Trump’s appeals of lower court decisions that require his accounting firm Mazars USA and two banks to comply with the subpoenas issued by the House and a New York District attorney in a grand jury probe.

Three cases relating to Trump’s financial records have reached the Supreme Court in recent weeks after appellate judges upheld the subpoenas. Two of the cases stem from subpoenas that were issued earlier in the year by three House committees as part of their investigations into the president’s dealings. Meanwhile, the third case—the one where the private conference was scheduled—deals with a criminal investigation in Manhattan.

Trump has asked the Supreme Court to reverse the lower courts’ decisions in all three cases.

The justices on Friday afternoon granted Trump’s request to hear the appeals for all three cases and consolidated two of the cases so that they could be heard together (pdf). Oral arguments for all three cases will be scheduled for March 2020.

The subpoenas are unrelated to the two articles of impeachment that were approved by the House Judiciary Committee on Friday morning and could continue to cause concerns for the president into 2020 even if he is acquitted by the Senate.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/12/13/take-note-democrats-the-uk-election-was-a-referendum-on-progressivism/

Last night, in a historic election, the UK Conservative Party celebrated its most sweeping victory since Margaret Thatcher, the original “Euroskeptic,” won the election for Prime Minister in 1987. The election had been regarded as particularly momentous, given the UK’s recent struggles to bring the much-debated Brexit to fruition. The Conservative Party won 364 seats in UK Parliament, compared to Labour’s 204, catapulting Conservative leader Boris Johnson to the position of Prime Minister. It was the worst defeat for Labour since 1935.

But in addition to Brexit woes, the election was also saddled with the baggage of the UK Labour Party and its controversial leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Over the past several years, Labour has been mired in accusations of anti-semitism, which seemed to plague both its members and leaders. The accusations culminated in nearly a dozen members of the party opting to defect in protest of Corbyn’s incapacity to deal with what many felt to be a rising culture of toxicity within Labour.

Just last week, a leaked memo written by Jewish Labour members to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the UK’s official regulatory body devoted to issues of discrimination, revealed the depths to which both the party and Corbyn had minimized, dismissed, or simply ignored accusations of anti-semitism within Labour, often identifying such criticisms to be a “right-wing smear.” Several times in an interview with BBC’s Andrew Neil last month, Corbyn failed to offer any sort of substantive apology, even when confronted with the statistic that nearly a half of British Jews were “seriously considering” leaving the UK, should Corbyn win the election.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/12/13/the_evidence_against_trump_vs_the_evidence_against_the_fbi_141950.html

The House of Representatives, if the pundits are right, is about to impeach Donald Trump for attempting to use his position as president of the United States for his personal political benefit. Everyone should agree that impeachment is a serious matter, simply — if not for any other reason — because it nullifies the votes that over 60 million people cast in 2016. Under these circumstances, what do we actually know about the conduct that has put the president in jeopardy of impeachment?

In a criminal trial — a trial that would send a person to prison, or worse — we insist on a proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s highly unlikely that any of those who believe impeachment is justified would say that the evidence is sufficient to conclude that the charges against him are true beyond a reasonable doubt.

In a civil case, where a person is sued for doing wrong to another, the standard is a preponderance of the evidence. That means the evidence should be examined and weighed to determine liability. That standard — preponderance of the evidence — would appear to be the minimum requirement for the finding of any wrongdoing, particularly when the question is the impeachment, conviction and removal of the president.

The full House is about to debate the impeachment of President Trump on a charge of putting his personal political interests ahead of the interests of the United States. There are reasonable grounds to debate whether this is an impeachable offense, but at this point the real question is whether the House has the evidence to take such a fateful step for the country.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/high-crime-nothing-deborah-weiss/

As most of you know, the House has announced that it will issue articles of impeachment this week. As of now, two have been determined, though there may be more to come. They are: 1) Trump’s “abuse of power” and 2) “obstruction of congress”.

ARTICLE 1: ABUSE OF POWER

1) This article of impeachment document uses the word “scheme” to describe Trump’s colloquy whereby he asked Ukraine President Zelensky to conduct investigations. This is consistent with the Democrat lawyer/witness Daniel Goldman’s “testimony” where he repeatedly referred to Trump’s request for investigations as a “scheme”. This word is a characterization of a fact, and not a fact in and of itself.

2) The article asserts that President Trump solicited an investigation that “would benefit his re-election, harm the political prospects of a political opponent and influence the 2020 elections to his advantage.” Note: here the Democrats are not attributing motive but simply stating that such investigations would benefit the President. So it appears that the Democrats believe anything which happens to benefit the president and harm an “opponent” is impeachable. If we accept the possibility that the proposed investigations were to root out corruption, as President Trump has indicated, then perhaps on some level, this article is acknowledges, in effect, that rooting out corruption is to Trump’s advantage and a Democrat opponent’s disadvantage in the 2020 election.

3) Subsequently, the article states that Trump did this for “corrupt purposes”. This language echoes Professor Feldman’s testimony as well as conclusions. Professor Feldman repeatedly, without any objective basis, used the adjective “corruptly” to describe President Trump’s neutral behavior, in order to attribute motive to him, despite the fact that he is not a mind-readers and has no direct evidence to support his conclusion.