NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Lawyer Left Impeachment Trial to Totally Trash the Democrats’ Entire Narrative Matt Vespa

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/02/11/trump-impeachment-you-only-act-like-this-when-you-know-you-have-the-votes-in-the-bag-n2584616

This trial is over. It’s done. And Donald J. Trump will not be convicted. We all knew this. The preview to this trial was showcased in the resolution Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) brought up which denounced this effort as unconstitutional. The Democrats who wish to convict Trump and bar him from running again are many, many miles shy of the 67-vote threshold. What’s odd in that vote is that Mitch McConnell, who has reportedly walked away from Trump and is supportive of Democrats’ efforts in this trial, voted in favor of dismissing the trial. If he wants to purge Trumpism from the GOP, which he reportedly said he wants to do—then this is the first step. Maybe he saw the polling that showed how the GOP is Trump’s party now. Period. 

The second vote on the constitutionality of this impeachment trial was another preview showing that Democrats are well shy of their 67-vote threshold to convict. Of course, it passed—but conviction is an entirely different animal. That’s why I couldn’t care less if Bruce Castor, one of Trump’s lawyers, had a garrulous argument against this whole circus. We’ve won. It’s over. It’s a total waste of time. Democrats won’t have the votes. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) even phoned Trump to tell him he’s going to be just fine. All this did was remind voters how Congress does nothing. It’s all show. It’s all talk, no action. And why populism is rising. This city is killing this country. 

When you know you have the votes to protect your client, you can simply walk out of the arguments to have an interview with Fox News and trash this whole exercise as an entertainment spectacle, which is exactly what Doug Schoen, another Trump attorney, did today (via Mediaite):

During arguments from the Democrats, Fox’s John Roberts and Sandra Smith cut away from the trial for an interview with Trump’s defense attorney, who was apparently in the Russell Rotunda instead of witnessing the case against his client. As CNN and MSNBC stuck with the ongoing trial against the former president for incitement of insurrection, Roberts kicked off the Schoen interview by asking if it was true the Trump defense team will conclude after one day of arguments instead of two.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, ELECTIONS Comments turned off

THEY GOT CAUGHT: Dominion Owned Machines Removed 6% of Votes from Each Windham, New Hampshire GOP Candidate – Same Machines Used in 85% of Towns By Jim Hoft

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/till-murder-do-us-part-the-ongoing-tragedy-of-domestic-violence-opinion-658687

(VIDEO REPORT FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE)

Here is a major update to our report on Wednesday on voter fraud in New Hampshire.

As we previously reported —
A recent hand recount in the Rockingham District 7 NH House Race in Windham, New Hampshire, found that the Dominion-owned voting machines shorted EVERY REPUBLICAN by roughly 300 votes.

Via Facebook

The Dominion machine counted results were wrong for all 4 Republicans in Windham by almost exactly 300 votes.

Granite Grok reported:

The Town of Windham used Dominion machines to count paper ballots and upon a believable hand recount, it was confirmed each Republican was machine-cheated out of roughly 300 votes.

You would think this would have been solved by the Dominion machine company, the Secretary of State, the Elections Unit of the AG’s Office, or the laughable Ballot Law Commission. (Kathy Sullivan, d (Term expires July 1, 2024)

Nope.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Stop Calling It an ‘Insurrection’ Kurt Schlichter

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/02/11/stop-calling-it-an-insurrection-n2584502

So, I was out at dinner with my old battalion commander – literally outside, because dining inside apparently is super deadly if you live under blue tyranny – and we were laughing at this whole “Muh Insurrekshun” nonsense. What happened January 6 was no “insurrection” in any meaningful sense of the word, especially not to those who survived the riots of 2020, and not to us either. See, I was my old battalion commander’s assistant operations officer and I was riding with him in his HUMVEE driving through Los Angeles as it burned in April 1992.

That was a riot. What happened on Capitol Hill was a few dudes dressed like Conan the Fauxbarian acting like fools and occasionally fighting with the cops while a few hundred other dudes took selfies in the Rotunda.

We were in the 3rd Battalion, 160th Infantry, the first combat arms unit on the street during the LA Riot, a riot brought to you by Maxine Waters and other idiots, by the way. There was burning and looting and dozens we can say with absolute certainty were murdered by the LA rioters, unlike at the Capitol. It lasted for days. You wouldn’t know it from Rep. Stolen Cower, who seems to claim she suffered PTSD from being at the far end of the same ZIP code as the bruhaha, but what happened on January 6 was no “insurrection,” and Republicans need to stop playing along with the Establishment talking point that it was.

The idea of an “insurrection” is to delegitimize all resistance to the garbage Establishment’s reign of error, and to play along is to give credence to its lie and to empower its propaganda.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The World Goes On While America Sleeps While we are busy devouring each other, China is smiling that once-feared American running-dog capitalists have become laughable Keystone Cops. By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/10/the-world-goes-on-while-america-sleeps/

The Democratically-controlled Senate spends thousands of collective hours conducting an impeachment trial against a president who is no longer president. 

The acquittal is predetermined, as in the first impeachment effort a year ago—and known to be so to the Democratic prosecutors. 

The constitutionally mandated presiding judge—the chief justice of the United States—refused to show up.  

Chief Justice John Roberts apparently believes an impeachment trial of a private citizen is either a waste of time or unconstitutional—or both. 

The Democratic House of Representatives is busy ferreting out purportedly extremist Republican members. For the first time in memory, one party now removes committee members of the other. 

Yet for each Republican outlier, there is a corresponding Democratic firebrand member who has either called for violence or voiced anti-Semitic slurs—and yet will not be removed from House committees. 

So the asymmetrical tit-for-tat continues. 

The subtext to this madness is that the Democratic Congress, the new administration, the administrative state, and the political Left are obsessed with dismembering the presidential corpse of now citizen Donald Trump.  

Apparently, they fear that one day he will rise from the infernal regions to wreak his revenge.  

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Speaking of incitement… By Harry White

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/02/speaking_of_incitement_.html

“Words that incite insurrection aren’t protected by the First Amendment.  Words that don’t are.  Listen to Trump’s words. Then listen to Maxine Waters.”

We are a nation of laws, including one prohibiting insurrection.  A citizen charged with and arrested for the crime of inciting insurrection (a felony) in Washington DC would be tried under Title 18 of the US code, with insurrection punishable by a fine, a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, or both.

A sitting president can’t be arrested for the crime of inciting insurrection; he can’t be incarcerated and tried for any crime whatsoever, under a long-standing legal precedent against indicting a sitting president.  Rather, he is charged (impeached) in the House, should our representatives want to remove him from office, and tried in the Senate, where he faces the punishment of removal from office only (no fine or jail sentence).

While some people were dying to see President Trump arrested and incarcerated, forget impeached and removed from office, that’s not how things work in America.  A president is protected from arrest and incarceration: the U.S. Department of Justice has long held that arrest and incarceration “would essentially incapacitate the executive branch, undermining its ability to ‘perform its constitutionally assigned functions.’”  Protecting a president makes perfect sense.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The need for civics and U.S. history teacher certificate programs By Zachary D. Rogers

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/02/the_need_for_civics_and_us_history_teacher_certificate_programs.html

The 2020 election and the events of January 6th, 2021 have convinced many of the need for better civics and U.S. history teaching in K-12. Bolstering this feeling is how poorly students perform in multiple tests and studies when it comes to U.S. history and government. Unfortunately, teachers are inadequately prepared to educate pupils in these subjects. Rigorous, coherent, and carefully structured certificate programs can provide the training teachers need to successfully instruct the next generation of American citizens.

In a 2019 RAND study, 80% of teachers did not think they were “very well prepared” to teach a course on the United States government. The same study also showed that “between a third and just over half of both elementary (K–5) teachers and secondary (grades 6–12) teachers who taught social studies reported they had not received any training on civic education.” These numbers are troubling and indicate the need for professional development programs to address this lack of preparedness. 

Teachers are not the only ones struggling when it comes to civics and history. Students are failing to learn American history, or its founding principles, including their roots in the Constitution. The 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showed that, when it comes to civics, 36% of students tested did not test at a basic attainment level. Eight years later, the 2018 assessment showed only 24% of students performed at or exceeded a proficient level. Worse, there was no significant improvement compared to 2014 or 1998. 

The situation is worse when it comes to U.S. history. The 2018 scores decreased from 2014, from a meager 18% of students performing at or above NAEP proficient down to 15%. The grim reality of student performance when it comes to history requires action.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The International Criminal Court Threatens Middle East Peace by Richard Kemp

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17051/international-criminal-court-threatens-peace

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has long had its sights on what it no doubt considers an unholy trinity: Israel, the US and Britain…. First, these are the three Western democracies most active in using legitimate military force to defend their interests. This is anathema to the left-liberal doctrine of ICC officials and their soul-mates in such morally dissipated places as the UN Human Rights Council. Second, they wish to virtue signal, deflecting criticism that the court is biased against African states….

Yet by its charter, dealing with countries that lack the will or capability to bring their own to justice is the sole purpose of the ICC. This does apply to some states in Africa and elsewhere but demonstrably does not apply to Israel, the US or Britain, each of which have long-established and globally respected legal systems.

The ICC’s design against Israel is the latest in a long history of endeavours to subjugate and scourge unwilling Jewish people deemed incapable of regulating themselves. When you examine the unexampled contortions the court has gone through just to get to this point, you have no choice but to question whether antisemitism is the motive.

The effects of the ICC’s decision will be profound. This is only the end of the beginning. Unless halted, investigations into spurious allegations of war crimes will go on for years, perhaps decades, creating a global bonanza for all who hate Israel, including at the UN, the European Union, various governments and in universities and so-called human rights groups.

But the most detrimental effect of the ICC’s decision will be felt by Palestinian Arab people who, for decades, have been abused as political pawns by their leaders and who would be the greatest beneficiaries of any peace agreement with Israel. The ICC’s ruling makes such a deal even more remote today.

In an unprecedented move early last year Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Australia, Canada, Uganda and Brazil petitioned the ICC, of which all are members, arguing that a formal investigation could not be launched as the Palestinian Authority does not meet the definition of a state under the Rome Statute that established and governs the court.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) waited until after US President Joe Biden took the oath of office before unilaterally handing itself territorial jurisdiction over Israel — more than a full year since the pre-trial chamber was asked to rule on the matter. Mindful of President Donald J. Trump’s sanctions against ICC staff, including revoking Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s US entry visa, and his warnings against efforts to brand Israel and other allies as war criminals, court officials lacked the steel to make an announcement while he remained in the Oval Office.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Turkish Reforms: From Imperial Repression to Thuggish State by Burak Bekdil

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16978/turkish-reforms-repression

The Turks’ political journey toward the West began a century and a half ago, but Turkey now remains as distant from universal democratic values as the Ottoman Empire was at its collapse.

Modern Turkey’s darkest years came between 1976 and 1980, when a campaign of political violence, wrought by a multitude of far-left and far-right urban guerilla groups, killed more than 5,000 people. That era only came to an end when the military took over the country in a completed coup d’état and the violence subsided.

Twenty years later, a militant Islamist, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, pledged radically to reform Turkish democracy and make it an inseparable part of Europe — via full membership in the European Union. Two decades after that pledge Turkey’s democracy remains as remote from Europe’s civil liberties, democratic culture and checks and balances as Abdulhamid’s empire was in 1876.

The Turks’ political journey toward the West began a century and a half ago, but Turkey now remains as distant from universal democratic values as the Ottoman Empire was at its collapse. The parallels between failed Ottoman and Turkish reforms are worth a look.

During that 150-year period, in addition to building railway systems on imperial soil, systems for registering the population and control over the press were established, along with the first local modern law school in 1898. The most far-reaching reforms occurred in education: many professional schools were established for fields including the law, arts, trades, civil engineering, veterinary medicine, customs, farming and linguistics.

It was Sultan Abdulhamid II who was under Western pressure to reform his ailing empire. On December 23, 1876 the Ottoman constitution was solemnly promulgated with the aim of winning the hearts and minds of the Great Powers of Europe, only to be suspended when external pressure abated, and its author sent to exile. At the beginning of the 20th century, another constitutionalist reformer group, the Committee of Union and Progress, threatened the sultan with a coup d’état, ending Abdulhamid’s reign.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

The ‘Five Million Palestinian Refugees’ A profitable hoax that keeps on growing. Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/five-million-palestinian-refugees-hugh-fitzgerald/

Mitchell Bard has provided a detailed look at the data surrounding the claims of refugee status for five million “Palestinian refugees” here: “The Palestinian refugee hoax,” by Mitchell Bard, Israel Hayom, January 31, 2021:

The negotiation affairs department of the PLO tweeted on May 15, 2020, “Every nakba commemoration day, we mark the catastrophe that befell our people in 1948, when 957,000 Palestinians became refugees.” The truth is that number was concocted, as is the current figure of 5.7 million used by the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). The actual number is more likely less than 30,000.

Palestinians typically claim that 800,000 to 1,000,000 Palestinians became refugees between 1947 and 1949. The last census was taken in 1945. It found only 756,000 permanent Arab residents in Israel. On Nov. 30, 1947, the date the United Nations voted for partition, the total was 809,100. A 1949 Government of Israel census counted 160,000 Arabs living in the country after the war, which meant no more than 650,000 Palestinian Arabs could have become refugees. A report by the UN Mediator on Palestine (as of September 1948) arrived at an even lower figure: 360,000. The CIA estimate was 330,000. In 2011, historian Efraim Karsh analyzed the number of refugees by city and came up with an estimate of 583,000 to 609,000.

When the United Nations created UNRWA to assist the Palestinians, a refugee was defined as “a needy person, who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood.”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Real Socialism The big utopian lie that brings nothing but misery. John Stossel

Posted By on February 11th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/real-socialism-john-stossel/

People hate America’s big disparities in wealth. It’s a reason why, among young people, socialism is as popular as capitalism.

The Democratic Socialists of America want a country based on “freedom, equality and solidarity.” That sure sounds good.

But does socialism bring that?

My new video debunks several myths about socialism.

One reason for socialism’s continued appeal is linguist Noam Chomsky. For generations, his work has taught students that capitalism is “a grotesque catastrophe.”

I assumed the fall of the Soviet Union would put an end to such misinformation. It did — for about a month.

But since then, the lust for socialism has come back strong. Today, Chomsky says that the Soviet Union “was about as remote from socialism as you could imagine.”