RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/the-senate-should-change-its-rules-on-impeachment/

The Constitution gives the Senate flexibility on whether and how to hold an impeachment trial.

Now that the House has launched an impeachment probe of President Donald Trump, the Senate should reform its antiquated rules for the looming trial. Under current procedures, a trial produces the worst of both worlds. If the House has a flimsy case, the Senate must still put the country through the wrenching, divisive political spectacle without any opportunity to dismiss the case. But if the House has a strong case, senators must sit silently by without any chance to participate directly in the trial. Allowing a real trial will improve the decision-making over whether to fire Trump and will make the Congress more responsive and accountable to the American people.

With House Democrats suggesting a swift march to impeachment by the end of the year, senators can attend to the defects revealed by President Bill Clinton’s 1998 trial. Those rules give senators a passive role: They cannot reject the House’s decision to send an impeachment over, they must sit and listen to House prosecutors and White House defense lawyers without making a peep, they never see witnesses or documents, and they never make arguments over the facts or the law of conviction, particularly the meaning of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell announced this week that the Senate will automatically hold the trial if the House impeaches. Some conservative commentators argue that Senate Republicans should instead slow-walk the process. Perhaps they could repeat their success in holding open the seat of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia by refusing to schedule a vote. If Republicans could delay indefinitely, or at least until after the 2020 elections, Trump might never face removal from office at all.

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/forget-the-impeachment-circus-republicans-need-to-worry-about-the-economy/

Below is an open letter to Larry Kudlow I posted here on July 19, 2018. I warned that Trump’s trade war would backfire. Today we heard that the National Association of Purchasing Managers’ industrial production index had fallen to the lowest level since June of 2009. We are in a manufacturing recession, according to the Federal Reserve. Factory output is contracting. Trump won in 2016 by carrying key manufacturing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconson. This blunder could lose him the election. This is MUCH more dangerous than the impeachment masquerade. Americans really don’t care about Ukraine but they do care about their jobs. The president is trying to deflect blame onto the Federal Reserve, but he’s not fooling anybody.

Otherwise, we’re getting our heads handed to us by the Chinese. After a year of twisting the arms of our allies to boycott Huawei’s rollout of 5G broadband, the Chinese national champion will ship 600,000 5G base stations this year, and the latest batch has zero U.S. components. All of our attempts to jawbone their customers and cut off their access to U.S. technology have failed.

I hate being right about this sort of thing, because I want to see Trump re-elected, and I’m horrified at what a Democratic victory in 2020 would do to this country. Nonetheless, I’m going to tell you I told you so. Tariffs don’t work. We need a JFK- or Reagan-style mobilization of our technological and human resources to force the advancement of U.S. technology and maintain our preeminent position before the Chinese pull past us. That’s what won the Cold War. It’s what we’re good at. And it’s the only policy that will work.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/do-republicans-see-the-strategy-to-discredit-the-barr-investigation/

Democrats and their media friends are attempting to paint the Barr investigation, in the public mind, as a corrupt extension of a down-and-dirty Trump 2020 political campaign.

In the weekend column, I observed the media-Democrat complex’s politicized reporting of the July 25 conversation between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart:

Trump detractors hyper-focus on the president’s request that President Zelensky provide Attorney General Barr with any information Ukraine might have about Biden twisting arms to quash an investigation involving his son’s cashing in on dad’s influence. I say “hyper-focus” because there was a lot more to it than that. Long before the conversation came around to the Biden topic, the “favor” that Trump asked for was Zelensky’s assistance in Barr’s ongoing investigation of the genesis of the Trump-Russia investigation. 

Virtually all mainstream-media reporting and Democratic commentary on the conversation now fits this pattern. It is noted that Trump, immediately after the “quid pro quo” set-up — “I would like you to do us a favor though” — invoked the attorney general, the nation’s top federal law-enforcement official. Studiously omitted is the context of this invocation: a wholly appropriate request by the president, to the head of state of a country in possession of relevant evidence, for cooperation with a legitimate investigation being conducted by our country’s Justice Department.

Instead, the coverage skips a few hundred words. It cuts directly to Trump’s suggestion that Zelensky look into whether there was any impropriety in former vice president Biden’s having purportedly “stopped the prosecution” that might have arisen out of a Ukrainian investigation involving his son.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/…/jews_fight_back_.html

The rash of physical attacks against Jews in Brooklyn and even Manhattan began almost a year ago. We have cell phone and street camera footage of many of the attacks, and they are coming from assailants bellowing Alah Akbar and from younger Black and Hispanic men often yelling dirty Jew. They sneak up on Jewish-garbed citizens using bricks, stones, breaking bones, smashing eyes and do so, at times, as groups. There was no mainstream media discussion about any of this until a few weeks ago and the major Jewish establishment organizations were basically silent as well. Even now, none of these Jewish organizations are flexing their muscles or evincing anywhere near the type of outrage we should expect.

You can be sure that if the attackers were white or Jewish or if the victims were Black, Muslim or Hispanic, the establishment alphabet Jewish organizations (ADL, AJC, NYF, JCRC, Conference of Presidents, and Federations) would be the very first organizing protests against racism, accusing America of systemic racism, and pontificating about something rotten within American society. Thus far, their response has been tepid and without any passion or urgency.

My grievance is not why general society is doing little, since most American citizens have no clue about what is happening in places called Boro Park, Williamsburg or Crown Heights. But the major secular Jewish organizations do know! Nor am I perplexed about why this is not at the top of the bucket list of many office holders and politicians. After all, the “machers” from the Jewish organizations are not knocking down their doors nor raising Cain, something Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, CAIR, and Ocassio-Cortez would certainly do if their people were being assaulted by outsiders.

In the case of the President Trump and impeachment, a verdict has been rendered without a trial. A visceral hatred for Mr. Trump, an outsider who campaigned on cleaning the swamp that was (and is) Washington, D.C., is all that Democrats need as prima facie evidence.

Outside this maelstrom of malice, the West faces stark alternatives. But instead of debating issues that will affect us, our children and grandchildren, specifically capitalism and sovereignty, politicians have chosen to throw up red herrings, like climate change, white supremacy, equality, gender identity, immigration, etc. Progressives have tried to undo the will of the people, i.e. to deny Brexit to the people of the UK and to declare fraudulent an election in the U.S. Debate is impossible when personal, venal hatred replaces deliberative and respectful disagreement. An intentional consequence has been unprecedented scrutiny of Mr. Trump and his appointees. With individuals vilified and high legal expenses incurred, lives have been destroyed for some and bankrupted for others. Is it any wonder so many have left the Administration?

This is not meant to trivialize these other issues. The constant effect of an ever-changing climate is something we must monitor and do what we can to alter and/or adapt, but we shouldn’t let emotions substitute for reason, or use children to score political points. No real conservative denies the existence of white oppression and privilege, but we question its ubiquity. Where it exists, it must be confronted and addressed. Equality is tricky and subject to interpretation – are we referring to equality of opportunities or equality of outcomes? Conservatives believe in the former, while progressives desire the latter. Conservatives are mindful that the favored should bear some responsibility for those less fortunate, but they believe that concern should be manifested in the actions of individuals, not diktats of the state, for morality and compassion are characteristics of people, not bureaucracies. Al genders deserve respect. As for immigration, politicians believe this crisis unresolved is better than were it resolved.

Posting will resume tomorrow.

amgreatness.com/2019/09/28/the-little-engine-that-couldnt/

The Democrats think the very fact that a president is impeached is enough to tarnish his reputation and diminish his chances of success in the election. Don’t bet on it.

Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make ridiculous. Has it happened to the Democrats yet? I think so, yes. I think so.

“Whistleblower” is already being enrolled in the lexicon of political disasters, and not just on account of pictures of the priapic Bill Clinton with Monica Lewinsky and featuring a rude joke about “whistleblowers” (“You know how to whistle don’t you? You just put your lips together and blow”).

No, “whistleblower” has entered the joke book of American politics because of the wild discrepancy between aspiration and reality that it represents.

Just last week, an all-points bulletin was blaring from the Get Trump media and the assorted fantasists in the Democratic Party. “Now we’ve got him, lads. Impeachment is just around the corner.” The New York Times said so. So did CNN and MSNBC. So did Nancy Pelosi, soon-to-be-former speaker of the House. Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) was so certain of it that he thought he could get away with pretending to read the transcript of Donald Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president while actually just making stuff up.

Really. There he was, piece of paper in hand, addressing the House Intelligence Committee (and millions of viewers at home), exuding his signature “the-President-is-not-above-the-law-deer-in-the-headlights-automaton” countenance. The whole thing, Schiff said, was a “mafia-like shakedown.”

“I want you,” he pretended to read, “to make up dirt on my political opponent, understand, lots of it, on this and on that. I’m going to put you in touch with people, not just any people, I’m going to put you in touch with the attorney general of the United States, my attorney general Bill Barr. He’s got the whole weight of the American law enforcement behind him.”

The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

The entire 2020 lineup of leftist Democrats and their Congressional sycophants have assured the nation that impeachment of President Trump is necessary to protect the nation. It is an odd assertion considering that President Trump has been wildly successful by pro-America standards. Let’s review.

In less than three years President Trump has added 6 million jobs to the workforce, unemployment is the lowest it has ever been for the black, Hispanic, and Asian communities. The United States is energy independent and we are now the leading exporter of energy in the world. So, what exactly do the Democrats mean when they say that YOU, the nation, will be safer without POTUS? Let’s find out.

It appears there is pervasive pronoun confusion in the Democrat assertion! The corrupt pay-to-play Democrats would definitely be safer without America-first President Trump in charge, but YOU, the American taxpaying voter, will definitely not be safer. Let me explain.

In 1994, ice skater Tonya Harding stunned the world with her participation in the unprecedented and shocking physical attack against competitor Nancy Kerrigan. Fans were familiar with anabolic steroid doping schemes in athletics, but a physical assault intended to break Nancy Kerrigan’s leg?? The attack was simply beyond the threshold of public tolerance. Fans want a fair fight – a fair competition between athletes who perform and compete fairly for the competition prize – no cheating or dirty tricks allowed.

So it is with politics. The radical leftist Democrat party has pushed the public past the threshold of tolerance. Americans voters want a fair fight – a fair competition between politicians who present their positions and compete fairly for the election prize – no cheating or dirty tricks allowed.

https://www.steynonline.com/9755/hunted-biden

Joe Biden is not Bill Clinton in his artful prime; indeed, Hunter Biden does not even rise to Chelsea Clinton at her dopiest. The Dems can accuse Trump of trying to “dirty up” the Bidens, but it’s hard to dirty up an overflowing sewer:

The defense of Democrats is that Joe Biden may have said he got rid of this prosecutor, but all the governments, every government in Europe wanted this prosecutor gone. That may be true. But the foreign minister of Germany and the foreign minister of France didn’t go on TV and brag about how he gave a six-hour ultimatum to a foreign government to fire its prosecutor-general. The only politician on earth who did that is Joe Biden – and then you’re surprised that suddenly people are excited about why Hunter Biden is getting 50 grand a month in a country where the average wage at that time was $200 a month.

In April 2014, a sleazy Ukrainian oligarch called Mykola Zlochevsky put Hunter Biden and Hunter’s business partner, Devon Archer, on the board of Ukraine’s biggest oil-&-gas company, Burisma.

How did it get to be so big?

Well, Mr Zlochevsky and his business partner Nikolay Lysin were respectively Minister of Natural Resources and the chairman of the Natural Resources parliamentary committee for much of the previous twelve years. There is a rule in Kiev that no Member of Parliament should have any business beyond his parliamentary responsibilities – so, as Messrs Zlochevsky and Lysin’s parliamentary responsibilities included oil and gas, they happily spent their terms of office handing out oil and gas licenses to companies they personally controlled (for which Burisma is the overarching holding company).

Mr Lysin did not live to enjoy his oil-gotten gains. A healthy fortysomething, he swerved to avoid a rabbit in the road one night and ploughed his Lamborghini at 150mph into (appropriately) a set of gas pumps. That’s the official story. So now Mr Zlochevsky owns all of Burisma.

That said, it is not, technically, a Ukrainian company. It’s registered in Limmerssol, the second biggest city in Cyprus but one that the locals now call Limmerssolgrad, because it’s the preferred destination for Russian money-launderers. As to how preferred it is with Ukrainian launderers, by the time Hunter Biden joined Burisma’s board virtually the entire national economy was Cypriot: In 2014 92 per cent of Ukraine’s outward investment went to Cyprus.

This from a Sky News Australia reporter who go it from an unknown source on Facebook!

To all the school kids going on “strike” for Climate Change.
You are the first generation who have required air-conditioning in every classroom.
You want TV in every room and your classes are all computerised.
You spend all day and night on electronic devices.
More than ever, you don’t walk or ride bikes to school but arrive in caravans of private cars that choke suburban roads and worsen rush hour traffic.
You are the biggest consumers of manufactured goods ever and update perfectly good expensive luxury items to stay trendy.
Your entertainment comes from electric devices.
Furthermore, the people driving your protests are the same people who insist on artificially inflating the population growth through immigration, which increases the need for energy, manufacturing and transport.
The more people we have, the more forest and bush land we clear and more of the environment is destroyed.
How about this…
Tell your teachers to switch off the air-con.
Walk or ride to school.
Switch off your devices and read a book.
Make a sandwich instead of buying manufactured fast food.
No, none of this will happen because you are selfish, badly educated, virtue signalling little turds, inspired by the adults around you who crave a feeling of having a “noble cause” while they indulge themselves in Western luxury and unprecedented quality of life.”
Wake up, grow up and shut up until you are sure of the facts before protesting.