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January 2020

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Key GOP senator to vote against impeachment witnesses Jon Ward

By on January 31st, 2020

 Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., announced Thursday night he will vote against calling witnesses to the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump, likely ending the last real suspense of the trial and opening the door for a speedy conclusion Friday or Saturday.

“There is no need for more evidence to prove that the president asked Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter,” Alexander said late Thursday in a statement, after another day-long session in the Senate, the ninth day of the trial overall.

Alexander said the charges against the president – that he inappropriately pressured Ukraine to investigate the Bidens – had been “proved” by the House managers, and that the president had acted improperly.

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Every Time Palestinians Say ‘No,’ They Lose Things rarely go well for those who try to live history backward.By Bret Stephens

By on January 31st, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/opinion/middle-east-peace-plan.html?emc=rss&partner=rss

egarding President Trump’s peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the instant conventional wisdom is that it’s a geopolitical nonstarter, a gift to Benjamin Netanyahu and an electoral ploy by the president to win Jewish votes in Florida rather than Palestinian hearts in Ramallah.

It may be all of those things. But nobody will benefit less from a curt dismissal of the plan than the Palestinians themselves, whose leaders are again letting history pass them by.

The record of Arab-Israeli peace efforts can be summed up succinctly: Nearly every time the Arab side said no, it wound up with less.

That was true after it rejected the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan, which would have created a Palestinian state on a much larger footprint than the one that was left after Israel’s war of independence. It was true in 1967, after Jordan refused Israel’s entreaties not to attack, which resulted in the end of Jordanian rule in the West Bank.

It was true in 2000, when Syria rejected an Israeli offer to return the Golan Heights, which ultimately led to U.S. recognition of Israeli sovereignty of that territory. It was true later the same year, after Yasir Arafat refused Israel’s offer of a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem, which led to two decades of terrorism, Palestinian civil war, the collapse of the Israeli peace camp and the situation we have now.

It’s in that pattern that the blunt rejection by Palestinian leaders of the Trump plan — the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, denounced it as a “conspiracy deal” — should be seen. Refusal today will almost inevitably lead to getting less tomorrow.

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Trump’s game-changing speech of the century Those of us who trusted Trump not to pull such a stunt – since nothing in his behavior indicated he would – were not worried about the contents or upshot of the deal. Ruthie Blum

By on January 31st, 2020

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Trumps-game-changing-speech-of-the-century-616005

US President Donald Trump’s speech on Tuesday in which he outlined the “Deal of the Century” that has been three years in the making, was nothing short of Earth-shattering. The fact that Israelis across the political spectrum have been arguing over the proposal – called “Peace to Prosperity” – is thus as understandable as it was inevitable.

Unfortunately, however, much of the debate has been focused on the details and viability of the plan, rather than on the significance of how Trump presented it, and why his words were revolutionary. In an effort to downplay the momentousness of the event, his left-wing detractors ridiculed his mispronunciation of “al-Aqsa Mosque” and “United Arab Emirates” with memes and tweets.These are the same haters who have been accusing Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of conspiring to bolster each other’s chances of electoral success, the former in November and the latter on March 2.

These are the Israelis with the moral and occasional financial support of their counterparts abroad who blame the Jewish state for the plight and antisemitism of the Palestinians. Luckily, such people are in the minority, albeit a vocal one.

The majority of the populace came to realize long ago that the “land for peace” formula is nothing but a recipe for an escalation of the ongoing war against the very Jews begging to resolve the conflict through self-flagellation and appeasement.

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Richard Baehr on Impeachment and Politics

By on January 31st, 2020

There was never any chance that the Senate was going to convict Donald Trump.  In the House, the Democrats could not persuade a single  Republican and lost a few of their own members on the impeachment vote. What chance was there to persuade 20 Republican Senators, even assuming the Democrats could get all of their own 47 Senators to convict (which may not happen)? The entire process from start to finish was theater- designed by the Democrats to weaken Trump before the November election, and force some Republican Senators in competitive races,  to cast difficult votes (Collins, Gardner, Tillis, McSally, Ernst, among others). The case itself was the weakest presidential impeachment case ever considered in Congress.

The Democrats, buoyed by the 2018 midterm results, and two governors elections and the Virginia legislative elections in 2019, were confident that 2020 was going to be their year- win the White House, take control of the Senate, hold the House, and win control of  a bunch of state legislatures so as to manage redistricting after the census results were announced.  It is still over 9 months before the November elections, and anyone who thinks that the results are already baked in, is kidding himself or herself. Even Nate Silver says it is hazardous to predict the Iowa caucus results, which have been heavily polled, and are only 4 days away.  One state legislative race  in Texas was seen as a  possible harbinger of how Texas was changing, a state critical to the fortunes of the GOP, and whether Democratic electoral momentum in the suburbs was continuing.  Democrats spent a bunch of  money on the race,  and had a lot of big name surrogates campaign, and the results were to put it mildly, disappointing . In an open seat race, the GOP candidate won by a much bigger margin than Ted Cruz, who carried the district in 2018, or Trump, who won it in 2016.

https://pjmedia.com/election/bellwether-to-blowout-texas-house-district-gets-redder-to-lead-off-2020-elections/

Nate Silver on Iowa: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-iowa-caucuses-are-in-4-days-almost-anything-could-still-happen/

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The Democrats’ dirty secret? They don’t want witnesses Getting John Bolton to testify might only prolong their political misery Charles Lipson

By on January 31st, 2020

https://spectator.us/democrats-dirty-secret-dont-want-witnesses/

The Senate leaders have stated their positions clearly and constantly. Chuck Schumer, who leads the Democratic minority, is demanding that John Bolton testify.

Mitch McConnell, who leads the Republicans’ narrow majority, responds that the Senate already has enough evidence to vote. If more was needed, the House should have gotten it when it had the chance. Anyway, the House managers have repeatedly boasted they have ‘overwhelming evidence’. The president’s lawyers add that, if any witnesses are called, they want to call some, too.

They want to hear from former Vice President Biden, his son Hunter, the whistleblower whose complaint started the impeachment, and Rep. Schiff and his staff, who apparently worked with the whistleblower. That’s really a threat, meant to deter the Democrats in two ways. A parade of witnesses would prolong the trial. It would introduce new evidence that might damage the House managers’ case and perhaps to Schiff and Biden personally.

Those are the declared positions. What about the political calculations below the surface? Actually, neither side wants witnesses. The Republicans say so openly. The Democrats cannot. It’s not just that they have been clamoring to hear from John Bolton and other Trump aides. It’s not just because their base wants satisfaction. It’s because their best political move now is to blame Trump’s near-certain acquittal on a ‘Republican cover-up’.

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In San Francisco, the smell of poop overpowered by the stench of leftist corruption By Monica Showalter

By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/in_san_francisco_smell_of_poop_overpowered_by_stench_of_leftist_corruption.html

One-party blue city San Francisco has a corruption problem.

Turns out the sewage on the streets isn’t the only thing filthy about San Francisco. Its man in charge of that clean-up, Mohammed Nuru, was busted with a septic tank full of corruption charges.

According to the San Francisco Examiner:

In the biggest public corruption scandal to shake City Hall since 2015, [San Francisco Public Works Director Mohammed] Nuru and local entrepreneur Nick Bovis of famed Union Square sports bar Lefty O’Doul’s have each been charged with one count of wire fraud.

Nuru, 57, and Bovis, 56, allegedly attempted to bribe an airport commissioner to help win a bid for a restaurant lease at San Francisco International Airport in exchange for an envelope full of cash and an apparent vacation.

The alleged kickback scheme was just one of five that federal authorities described in a complaint released Tuesday after surveilling Nuru and Bovis with FBI wiretaps and undercover operators since at least 2018.

The allegations against Nuru also involve sharing a $2,070 bottle of wine with a billionaire developer in China and having city contractors work on his vacation home near the Mendocino National Forest.

The detailed descriptions of the string of corruption crimes Nuru was involved in must have made him a lawman’s dream, given the large number of violations they were able to demonstrate, a veritable sewage pit of systemic corruption. 

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Really Bad Things the Media Is Ignoring Because of Impeachment Derek Hunter

By on January 30th, 2020

https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2020/01/30/really-bad-things-the-media-is-ignoring-because-of-impeachment-n2560369

“All of these things are happening now, none are getting the attention they deserve because all focus is on the Democrats’ 2020 campaign strategy masquerading as a Constitutional crisis on the Senate floor. If you weren’t outraged already, now would be a good time.”

Have you heard that the president has been impeached? Seriously, the trial is happening right now in the U.S. Senate.

I’m kidding. Of course, you can’t escape the news because it’s the only thing the “news” is talking about. We’re in the middle of the most choreographed foregone conclusion in history and the media is treating it like a whodunit. But the suspense is akin to a murder mystery where there are two people in a room and one of them ends up dead. We know the outcome. It’s time to move on.

But while the press is single-minded in their attempt to smear the president and help Democrats in this year’s election, there are other things happening, more important things, that aren’t getting the attention they should. In some cases, the timing is fortuitous – a distracted media means blunders and whatnot fly under the radar. In other cases, maybe the timing is deliberate, used for cover for things that otherwise would have been opposed were they to happen in a sane time because they would be known.

That’s why I thought it was worth taking a look around the rest of the world while the media world is stuck in impeachment mode. These stories are just as important, if not more so, than what the liberal industrial media complex is fixating on.

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Patrick Philbin Nails Adam Schiff on Whistleblower Contact and for Hiding Evidence Beth Baumann

By on January 30th, 2020

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2020/01/29/patrick-philbin-nails-schiff-on-whistleblower-contact-and-for-hiding-evidence-n2560358

Deputy White House Counsel Patrick Philbin shredded House Intelligence Committee Chairman and lead Impeachment Manager Adam Schiff (D-CA) for his contact with the Ukranian whistleblower, which led to the impeachment inquiry, and eventually the current trial. As it currently sits, we are still in the dark about what role Schiff and his staff played in the whistleblower’s inquiry. 

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) presented the question on behalf of Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO).

“Is it true that Shawn Misco and Abigail Grace and the alleged whistleblower were employed by or detailed by the National Security Council in the same time period of January 20, 2017 and the present? Do you have reason to believe they knew each other and have any reason to believe that alleged whistleblower and Misco did everything they could to ‘take out the president’?

“Mr. Chief Justice, Senators, the only knowledge that we have of this comes from public reports. I gather that there is a news report in some publication that suggests a name for the whistleblower and suggests where he worked and that he worked at that time while detail of the NSC staff for Vice President Biden and others who worked there,” Philbin explained. “We have no knowledge of that other than what is in the public reports, and I don’t want to get into speculating about that.”

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YORAM ETTINGER: THE DEAL OF THE CENTURY

By on January 30th, 2020

US policy:

*The Deal of the Century (DoC) demonstrates the US independence of diplomatic action rather than subordinating its interests to the whims of the UN, Europe and the 3rd World.

*The DoC proves that the US is not trapped in the fallacy of moral equivalence and distorting neutrality, which misrepresent reality, undermining US interests.

*The DoC may reveal that the US has realized that the Palestinian issue is not a core cause of Middle East turbulence, is not a crown jewel of Arab regimes, nor the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

*The DoC confirms that the US recognizes Israel as a unique ally, a battle-tested laboratory for the US armed forces and defense industries, and a force multiplier in the face of the threats posed by Islamic Sunni terrorism and Iran’s Ayatollahs’ ballistic, nuclear and terrorist capabilities.

*All prior US peace plans crashed against the rocks of the Middle East. Is the DoC consistent with the ruthlessly uncontrollable and unpredictable Middle East?

Middle East reality:

*In pursuing the DoC, one should be aware that Western values – including democracy, negotiation, adherence to agreements and peaceful coexistence – do not apply to theArab/Muslim Middle East, which is characterized by the following 14-century-old intra-Muslim features: no intra-Muslim peaceful coexistence, unpredictability, instability, religious and ethnic fragmentation, violent intolerance, terrorism and subversion, Islam-driven goals and values (including the unacceptance of an “infidel” entity in the “abode of Islam”).

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We May Never See his Like Again Peter Smith

By on January 30th, 2020

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2020/01/we-may-never-see-his-like-again/

Greg Gutfeld is a conservative host on Fox News. He started off some years ago when Donald Trump was first elected as being something of a Trump sceptic. He has been won over. I think there are two ways to be won over, if you need be won over. First, consider Trump’s policies and his achievements.

To mention a few: lower business taxes; massive and continuing deregulation; 6.7 million new jobs created; unemployment rate down to 3.5 per cent; the lowest unemployment rate on record for African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans; real earnings up 2.5 per cent; poverty down; stock prices and home prices way up; energy sufficiency; the ISIS caliphate destroyed; the US embassy in Israel moved to Jerusalem; new trade deals negotiated with South Korea, Mexico, Canada and first-phase deals with Japan and China, with Europe and the UK to come; border security tightened; over 180 new (literalist) federal judges appointed and two supreme court justices; freeloading NATO countries heavied to pay more for their own defence; extracting the US from the flawed Iranian nuclear deal and imposing tough sanctions on Iran, opting out of the ineffective Paris (climate) Agreement designed to penalise Western industrial countries while giving those countries whose emissions are growing the fastest – China and India prominently – a free pass.

It would be possible to go on and on but my drift is clear. This is a presidency without precedent. He will go down as the most successful president ever, particularly if, as seems certain in view of the calibre of those jockeying to oppose him, he is given another four-year term. And all this, so far, while being continuously pelted with rotten eggs by the rampantly biased and dishonest media and being continually investigated for non-crimes, ending up with the current hollow impeachment trial.

The likes of him we have never seen before, unlike any previous president or political leader in the history of the world. And this provides a bridge into the second way to be won over by Trump.

He is a billionaire, the president and yet the common man. What you see is what you get. And how refreshing it is.

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