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October 2019

Ignore the hype — this is not an impeachment inquiry By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/464140-ignore-the-hype-this-is-not-an-impeachment-inquiry

There is no impeachment inquiry. There are no subpoenas.

You are not to be faulted if you think a formal inquest is under way and that legal process has been issued. The misimpression is completely understandable if you have been taking in media coverage — in particular, reporting on a haughty Sept. 27 letter from House Democrats, presuming to direct Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on pain of citation for obstruction, to cooperate in their demands to depose State Department officials and review various records. 

The letter is signed by not one but three committee chairmen. Remember your elementary math, though: Zero is still zero even when multiplied by three.

What is portrayed as an “impeachment inquiry” is actually just a made-for-cable-TV political soap opera. The House of Representatives is not conducting a formal impeachment inquiry. To the contrary, congressional Democrats are conducting the 2020 political campaign. 

The House has not voted as a body to authorize an impeachment inquiry. What we have are partisan theatrics, proceeding under the ipse dixit of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). It raises the profile, but not the legitimacy, of the same “impeachment inquiry” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) previously tried to abracadabra into being without a committee vote.

RASMUSSEN – 69% of Independent Voters Are ‘Angry’ at Media; 61% of All U.S. Voters Angry at Media

www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/rasmussen-69-independent-voters-are-angry-media-61-all-us-voters-angry-media

RASMUSSEN – 69% of Independent Voters Are ‘Angry’ at Media; 61% of All U.S. Voters Angry at Media
Craig Bannister, CNSNews.com

More U.S. voters (including 69% of independents) are angry at the media than are angry at either President Donald Trump or his political opponents, survey results released by Rasmussen Reports on Wednesday show.

“How angry are you at the media?”:

Angry: 61% (of which, 40% are Very Angry)
Not Angry: 38% (of which, 19% are Not at All Angry)

The 61% expressing anger at the media is up from 53% in June of last year, but off from its high of 66% in June of 2010.

Voters’ anger at the media is also greater than their anger at either President Donald Trump (53%) or his political opponents (49%) and far more Republicans (83%) than Democrats (33%) say they’re angry at the media.

More than two-thirds (69%) of unaffiliated voters say they’re angry at the media.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on September 29-30, 2019 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Hong Kong to Invoke Emergency Powers to Ban Masks at Protests Move to ban masks first time emergency law has been used in more than half a century By Neil Western and Natasha Khan

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kong-to-invoke-emergency-powers-to-ban-masks-at-protests-11570089982

Hong Kong’s cabinet will meet Friday to invoke emergency powers to tackle spiraling protests and lawlessness, starting with a ban on people wearing masks that are used to protect themselves from tear gas or hide their identities, people familiar with the plan said.

The city’s leader, Chief Executive Carrie Lam called the special meeting of her executive council to propose the ban, which, if agreed, would become law Friday, one of the people said. The measure is almost certain to be approved as the cabinet comprises mostly pro-government figures.

Police and pro-Beijing groups ramped up calls for the British colonial-era law to be used for the first time in half a century after the city was rocked by the worst day of violence in 50 years during China’s National Day celebrations on Tuesday. Protesters and riot police clashed in more than a dozen districts, leaving more than 100 injured. Police shot one protester in the chest.

The shooting brought people back into the streets to condemn the city’s police force Wednesday evening, targeting subway stations. Police were mostly absent from the streets until about midnight. Officials, who fear similar scenes this coming holiday weekend, have been running out of options to contain the unrest that has increasingly taken over the city and has sent the economy tumbling toward a recession.

The government is taking the unusual step of invoking the Emergency Regulations Ordinance to “end the violence and restore law and order to the streets,” one of the people familiar with the plan said. It would be the first time it has been used since the British colonial government invoked it to suppress 1967 leftist riots that shook the city during China’s Cultural Revolution.

Warriors Wanted (Not the Social Justice Variety) James Allan

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/

Take a look at the photo above.  I managed to overcome my usual ineptitude with technology the other day to snap that picture as I was walking into a barbershop in the Californian city of Coronado.  Actually, although Coronado is classified as its own city (of barely 25,000) it is in reality part of San Diego. Across a large curving bridge that was opened by Ronald Reagan back in the late 1960s sits the home of US naval aviation, the huge airbase of Coronado, on a peninsula that forms the magnificent San Diego harbor.

This harbor is the home of the third- or fourth-biggest US naval base in the world (depending on how and what you count), the biggest being in Norfolk, Virginia.  And even though this peninsula – which is so long you can’t help thinking it’s an island – is dominated by the naval airbase, by a separate Navy Seals base, and by other parts of the US Navy, there is also a chunk of the peninsula that constitutes the civilian town of Coronado.  Given how many people either live in, commute to or work for the US Navy, you won’t be surprised to hear that it is the safest city in the United States.  Any police officers who want only to investigate bicycle thefts should immediately put in their applications to the Coronado Police Department. There are basically no parking fines handed out because the metres in Coronado charge 25 cents per hour – yes, a quarter is all it takes to park for an hour – so you’d have to be brain dead not to pay up.

My wife and I stumbled on Coronado purely by chance back in 2013 when we were here for an earlier sabbatical of mine.  Purely by luck we ended up renting a house on the beach in this amazing place, and we loved it.  So when the offer came to return to the University of San Diego School of Law – the most conservative law school in the US, let me note, which means maybe one-third of the law professors would be right of centre, and why I can find a spot here – both my wife and I knew we’d be renting again in Coronado.  It is magnificent, and quite a contrast to London, where we spent the first half year of my sabbatical.

Don’t get me wrong.  For both us, London is our favourite city on earth.  But Coronado is right up there.  Furthermore, if you ever find yourself in San Diego let me strongly recommend that the first touristy thing you must do is to take the two-hour boat tour of the harbour.  You’ll see a stunning array of top-of-the-line US Navy vessels – destroyers, battleships, weird looking stealth ships, helicopter carriers, two or three of the big Nimitz class aircraft carriers, and at the far outlet end of the harbour the docking zone for  nuclear submarines.  San Diego is home to the killer attack subs, but once in a while you will see the “big banger” missile-launching Tridents come in for a visit.  They are magnificent.

“Anti-Normalization” With Israel: The True Goal by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14943/anti-normalization-israel

If greeting a Jew on his or her holiday, cleaning the beach with an Israeli, or working in Israel are considered by many Arabs a “crime,” what will be the fate of any Arab who makes peace with Israel?
Those who are calling for boycotts of Israel — and are threatening and inciting their people against any Arab who dares to host a Jew or send him or her greetings — are also emphatically opposed to peace with Israel. For them, making peace with the “Zionist entity” is considered an act of treason.
They are worried that an Arab who greets a Jew may one day make peace with Israel. They are worried that an Arab state that hosts Israeli athletes may one day make peace with Israel. They are worried that Arabs who go to work in Israel may fall in love with Israelis and stop thinking of ways to kill them or destroy Israel.

Arabs who dare to greet Jews in public on the Jewish New Year are being denounced by their fellow Arabs as traitors. Arabs who dare to engage in sports activities with Jews are also being condemned by their fellow Arabs as traitors.

In the past week, many Arabs have taken to social media to express outrage over a Jewish New Year greeting by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

On September 29, the minister posted on his Twitter account “Shana Tova” (“Good Year” in Hebrew). His greeting to Jews celebrating the Jewish New Year has triggered a wave of condemnations from many Arabs, including Palestinians, who accused the minister of promoting normalization with Israel.

France: President Macron Must Stop Appeasing Iran’s Mullahs by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14941/macron-appeasing-iran

Has French President Emmanuel Macron forgotten that he is helping and appeasing a state leading in human rights violations? In 2018, according to Javaid Rehman, the UN expert on human rights in Iran, at least 273 people were executed in Iran, and 6,000 over ten years, according to Iran Human Rights.

In addition, the use of cruel and inhuman punishment is also on the rise in Iran; according to Amnesty International, the use of various forms of torture such as amputation and flogging has been increasing at an alarming rate.

Macron also fails to recognize that the nuclear deal never contained or adequately addressed Iran’s multifaceted threats, which include but are not limited to: The arming and financing of terror and militia groups in the region; intervening in the internal affairs of regional countries; pursing a sectarian agenda by pitting Shiites and Sunnis against each other; carrying out cyber attacks against other nations; and committing human rights violations inside Iran and abroad through its proxies.

French President Emmanuel Macron appears to be following the footsteps of former US President Barack Obama when it comes to appeasing the top state sponsor of terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In a recent development, the French government offered $15 billion to bail out the Iranian government from US sanctions, and a plea to “restart negotiations.” The Iranian government was most likely thrilled; a headline of a major Iranian state-controlled media outlet, Abrar Eqtesadi read: “Iran to receive $15 billion line of credit!”

Schiff’s Deep State Collusion NY Times accidentally suggests the intelligence committee chairman’s fingerprints are all over the so-called whistle blower’s report.Matthew Vadum

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/10/schiffs-deep-state-collusion-matthew-vadum/

Leftist conspiracy-monger Adam Schiff was aware of select details of the Ukraine-Biden allegations against President Donald Trump before a lying CIA snitch reportedly involved in the case filed a complaint under a whistleblower law, according to the intermittently reliable New York Times.

It has been widely reported that the CIA official’s complaint was based on a July 25 telephone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the said stoolie somehow learned about.

Rep. Schiff is the California Democrat, now the laughably unqualified chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, a Trump-hater who spent the last three years smearing anyone who doubts the existence of his Trump-Russia electoral collusion conspiracy theory as traitors and agents of the Russian government while apparently leaking secret details of congressional investigations to his friends at CNN and elsewhere in the media at every opportunity.

Trump stands accused by Democrats without any credible evidence whatsoever of trying to muscle the government of Ukraine into investigating a potential 2020 opponent, Joe Biden, in order to discredit his campaign.

This, of course, is the exact opposite of what actually happened. Three Democrat senators urged Ukraine to investigate Trump and a Democratic National Committee operative named Alexandra Chalupa went on a dirt-digging expedition hoping to get usable opposition research on Trump from Ukrainian officials.

The New York Times makes the claim about Schiff’s foreknowledge of the whistleblower report citing “a spokesman and current and former American officials,” so take the report with a grain of salt. The Old Gray Lady lies habitually nowadays so trusting the once-respected media outlet is a risky enterprise.

The Senate Should Change Its Rules on Impeachment By John Yoo

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.

The NYT and ‘shooting migrants’ By Silvio Canto, Jr.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/the_nyt_and_shooting_migrants.html

The crazy story of “getting Trump” is like a modern episode of “The Twilight Zone.”    

This is the latest:    

The Times report, published on Tuesday, included an excerpt from a book by two of the paper’s reporters. 

It read: “Privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate.   

“He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal.

“But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That’s not allowed either, they told him.”

A source who was in the room at the time confirmed the conversation about shooting migrants in the legs to Fox News late Tuesday.

Where is Rod Sterling when we really need him?

It’s hard for me to believe that a story like this makes it out of a newsroom.   

A serious editor would have looked the reporters in the eyes and said: “Are you (expletive deleted) me?”

So the ‘resistance’ goes on and now has alligators and “shooting migrants in the legs” to entertain the crazy left with!

The Whistleblower Executive Every call with a foreign leader is now subject to congressional review.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-whistleblower-executive-11570056633

The impeachment process is barely underway and already some constitutional norms are being trampled without a note of media notice or political concern. To wit, can a whistleblower inside the intelligence bureaucracy override a President’s right to executive privilege merely with an accusation?

That seems to be the default view among Democrats and the press as they luxuriate in news about Donald Trump’s conversations with foreign leaders. First it was the call with Ukraine’s President. Then on Monday the leak was what Mr. Trump told Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Now Democrats want to see the transcripts of other phone calls with other leaders.

“This is a coverup,” declared Nancy Pelosi last week, but if that’s true it is the most incompetent coverup in presidential history. Mr. Trump can’t seem to have any conversation that doesn’t leak, in part or whole, or that can’t be demanded by Congress as if everyone in the executive branch works for the House Speaker. Mr. Trump has released the Ukraine transcript and the whistleblower complaint, and he’s still accused of a coverup.

Last week’s inquisition of acting director of national intelligence Joseph Maguire by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff captures the prevailing disdain for the separation of powers when Mr. Trump is the political target. Mr. Maguire, who has an impeccable reputation, had received the whistleblower complaint as part of his duties. He then acted responsibly by seeking legal advice about whether the document was subject to executive privilege.

Mr. Schiff berated him for even waiting to turn the document over to Congress: “At any time over the last month that you held this complaint, did the White House assert executive privilege?”