NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The ‘Corrupt Motives’ Doctrine Every President equates his re-election self-interest with the public interest. It isn’t grounds for impeachment.

Posted By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-corrupt-motives-doctrine-11580343258?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

The questions from Senators in the impeachment trial aren’t plowing much new ground, but they have been useful in underscoring some constitutional principles. To wit, it isn’t legitimate to toss a President from office because the House thinks otherwise legal acts were done with “corrupt motives.”

House managers concede that President Trump broke no laws with any specific actions. Instead, they claim that he abused his power because his motives for asking Ukraine’s President to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden were self-interested—to assist his re-election rather than as Mr. Trump claims to investigate corruption.

More than one Senator teed up the issue, and White House lawyers did an admirable job of explaining the constitutional point. “All elected officials, to some extent, have in mind how their conduct, how their decisions, their policy decisions, will affect the next election,” White House Deputy Counsel Pat Philbin said. “It can’t be a basis for removing a President from office.”

Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard professor and another defense lawyer, elaborated that every politician, every President, tends to equate his re-election interest with the public or national interest. If the House can impeach a President for what it claims are self-interested motives, then majorities will have cause to impeach any future President.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Civilization Is History at Yale Great art is too ‘white, straight, European and male,’ so it’ll have to give way to the latest agitprop. By Roger Kimball

Posted By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/civilization-is-history-at-yale-11580342259?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Yale announced last week that it will stop teaching its famous survey course, “Introduction to Art History: Renaissance to the Present.” Taught for decades by Vincent Scully, one of Yale’s most celebrated professors, the course was a riveting introduction to pulse of humanism.

It is being cashiered for all the usual reasons. Its focus is too white, too European, too male, too “problematic,” as Tim Barringer, chairman of the art history department, puts it. Mr. Barringer will substitute a course that challenges such Eurocentrism and promises to be very up-to-date. Mr. Barrginer says he’ll introduce a “global” perspective. Naturally, he writes, the course will consider art in relation to “questions of gender, class and ‘race.’ ” (Why the scare quotes around “race”? Is today one of those days when race is only a social construct?) It will also ponder art’s “involvement with Western capitalism.”

Globalism, gender, class, race, capitalism. Has Mr. Barringer neglected any trendy concern? How about the Greta Thunberg gambit? On it! Art’s “relationship with climate change will be a ‘key theme,’ ” the Yale Daily News reports.

The Daily News adds that the removal of “Introduction to Art History” is “the latest response to student uneasiness over an idealized Western ‘canon’—a product of an overwhelmingly white, straight, European and male cadre of artists.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Dion Nissenbaum Arab Leaders’ Support for Mideast Peace Plan Marks a Regional Shift Tentative backing of U.S. proposal reflects changing priorities, frustration with the Palestinians and more willingness to work with Israel

Posted By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.wsj.com/articles/arab-leaders-support-for-mideast-peace-plan-marks-a-regional-shift-11580325868

BEIRUT—President Trump’s Middle East peace plan has jolted regional dynamics, with Israel preparing to quickly annex West Bank land once expected to be part of a Palestinian state and key Arab leaders tentatively backing the U.S. initiative.

For decades, Arab and Muslim leaders have held fast to the view that any deal with Israel should include a withdrawal of Israeli forces from Palestinian land, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with parts of East Jerusalem as its capital.

While many Middle East leaders still support those goals, officials in Arab capitals have been frustrated by Palestinian leaders’ reluctance to compromise on those points, which has prevented them from strengthening ties with Israel, officials in the region said.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Understanding the World’s Greatest Source of Jew-Hatred A sober examination of Islam’s historical treatment of Jews. Allon Friedman

Posted By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/understanding-worlds-greatest-source-jew-hatred-allon-friedman/

During a public U.S. Congressional hearing held in April 2019, data was presented from a worldwide survey performed between 2014 and 2017 by the Anti-Defamation League that found the 16 nations with the highest prevalence of extreme antisemitism to all be Muslim countries in the Middle East. In response to the presentation of these data, the ADL’s Senior Vice President for Policy Eileen Hershenov had this to say: “vulnerable, marginalized communities have bigotry within them.” 

If explaining away Muslim Jew-hatred as somehow a result of vulnerability and marginalization in societies that are overwhelmingly Muslim strikes one as troubling, well it should; especially if the person doing the explaining represents an organization that claims “its timeless mission is to protect the Jewish people.” Any person with a healthy sense of self-preservation might ponder other questions that arise from this case. Like, for instance: Why is extreme antisemitism so ubiquitous in the Arab Muslim world? Or: Why is a prominent Jewish advocacy organization so intent on apologizing for Islamic Jew hatred? 

Unfortunately, anyone searching for answers to these timely questions is not going to find them anywhere in the public arena. In fact, a conspiracy of sorts has prevailed on college campuses, in Hollywood, in the establishment media, in think tanks, and in other cultural institutions, both Left and Right, where honest and open discussion of Islamic anti-Semitism is taboo because of the fear of social ostracism and professional suicide.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Why the Palestinians Rejected Trump’s Peace Plan The one aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that no one wants to talk about. Robert Spencer

Posted By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/why-palestinians-rejected-trumps-peace-plan-robert-spencer/

President Trump unveiled his long-awaited “Deal of the Century” plan Tuesday afternoon, offering Palestinians a state and fifty billion dollars. Predictably enough, the Palestinians and their supporters are enraged. The way they have expressed that rage is a new indication of why all peace plans up to now have failed, and why all future plans are doomed to fail.

An Islamic Republic press organ, the Tehran Times, reported that “Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani on Wed., in a letter sent to the Parliament speakers of the Islamic states, urged Islamic countries to counter US-proposed so-called ‘Deal of Century.’”’

According to the Jerusalem Post Tuesday, Islamic State (ISIS) caliph Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Quraishi “called on all Muslims worldwide to thwart US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, and added that ‘The Muslims who live in Palestine… will be at the forefront of the fight against the Jews [and] foiling the ‘Deal of the Century.’”

And in Turkey, according to Yeni Şafak, “Turkish demonstrators poured onto streets across the country on Tuesday to protest U.S. President Donald Trump’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan….Many protesters at the rally held placards bearing slogans reading, ‘Jerusalem belongs to Islam.’”

Even before the plan was announced, the official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida on Monday declared that the Palestinian National Council “again expressed its objection to every plan, project, deal, or attempt to harm the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights.” It called upon the PLO to “take all the necessary steps to encourage and escalate the resistance and the struggle against the occupation in all its forms and manners.” Jihad is “struggle” in Arabic.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Colorado Republican Cory Gardner Is a ‘No’ for New Impeachment Witnesses By Tobias Hoonhout

Posted By on January 30th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-impeachment-trial-senator-cory-gardner-does-not-believe-additional-witnesses-necessary/

Senator Cory Gardner (R., Colo.) said in a statement Wednesday that he does “not believe” additional witnesses in President Trump’s impeachment trial are necessary, casting doubt on a Tuesday claim that at least four Republicans were willing to call additional witnesses.

“I do not believe we need to hear from an 18th witness,” the Colorado Republican told Colorado Politics in a statement. “I have approached every aspect of this grave constitutional duty with the respect and attention required by law, and have reached this decision after carefully weighing the House managers and defense arguments and closely reviewing the evidence from the House, which included well over 100 hours of testimony from 17 witnesses.”

Gardner’s public stance comes after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) told his caucus that at least four Republicans wanted testimony from more witnesses. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, with 51 votes needed to call more witnesses.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Above the Law? Hillary Clinton Refuses to Get Served Tulsi Gabbard’s $50M Lawsuit By Tyler O’Neil

Posted By on January 30th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/trending/above-the-law-hillary-clinton-refuses-to-get-served-tulsi-gabbards-50m-lawsuit/

Last week, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a Democratic presidential candidate, sued former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton for defamation, requesting $50 million in damages. Yet Clinton has twice refused to accept the lawsuit, trying to weasel her way out of a legal battle.

Gabbard’s attorney, Brian Dunne, told The New York Post that Clinton’s staff twice snubbed a process server attempting to deliver the defamation lawsuit.

“I find it rather unbelievable that Hillary Clinton is so intimidated by Tulsi Gabbard that she won’t accept service of process,” Dunne told The Post. “But I guess here we are.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Cult of Western Shaming By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on January 30th, 2020

https://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-cult-of-western-shaming/

An ancient habit of Western elites is a certain selectivity in condemnation.

Sometimes Westerners apply critical standards to the West that they would never apply to other nations.

My colleague at the Hoover Institution, historian Niall Ferguson, has pointed out that Swedish green-teen celebrity Greta Thunberg might be more effective in her advocacy for reducing carbon emissions by redirecting her animus. Instead of hectoring Europeans and Americans, who have recently achieved the planet’s most dramatic drops in the use of fossil fuels, Thunberg might instead turn her attention to China and India to offer her “how dare you” complaints to get their leaders to curb carbon emissions.

Whether the world continues to spew dangerous levels of carbons will depend largely on policies in China and India. After all, these two countries account for over a third of the global population and continue to grow their coal-based industries.

In the late 1950s, many elites in the United States bought the Soviet Union line that the march of global communism would “bury” the West. Then, as Soviet power eroded in the 1980s, Japan Inc. and its ascendant model of state-sponsored industry became the preferred alternative to Western-style democratic capitalism.

Once Japan’s economy ossified, the new utopia of the 1990s was supposedly the emerging European Union. Americans were supposed to be awed that the Euro gained ground on the dollar. Europe’s borderless democratic socialism and its “soft power” were declared preferable to the reactionary U.S.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Impeachment Questions That Need Answering By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on January 29th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/impeachment-questions-that-need-answering/

Trump’s accusers and defenders need to think some things through.

We have at last reached the impeachment trial phase in which senators are given the opportunity to address questions to each side. Questions by the Republicans and Democrats are to be submitted and vetted by their respective leadership to avoid duplication and irrelevancy. They will then be submitted to Chief Justice John Roberts, who will pose them alternately to the House impeachment managers and President Trump’s defense team.

Each side presumptively has five minutes to answer, with the caveat that, on rare occasions when a question truly demands it, the party’s time to respond may be expanded slightly. This process will go on for no more than 16 hours – eight hours over the next two days.

Everyone who has been observing the Ukraine kerfuffle through the House impeachment inquiry and the Senate trial probably has some questions. I doubt close watchers will have very many, though.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Trump’s Peace Plan Is A Rejection Of Obama’s Anti-Israel Pivot Unsurprisingly, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has already said ‘a thousand nos’ to Trump’s plan, and Palestinian-Arabs have begun the usual playbook of rioting in the streets. Erielle Davidson

Posted By on January 29th, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/29/trumps-peace-plan-is-a-rejection-of-obamas-anti-israel-pivot/

Yesterday, President Trump announced his administration’s much-anticipated “Peace to Prosperity” plan, referring to the policy proposal as a “realistic two state solution” to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Accompanying the announcement came a 180-page document, detailing the political aspects of a plan that the administration had remained largely mum on since first announcing its existence last summer.

Despite the hysterics to which we will inevitably be subjected, this plan is an astute return to normalcy after the heretical anti-Israel pivot that had defined the Obama administration’s foreign policy approach in the Middle East. In fact, many of Team Obama’s policy choices involved an abandonment of our traditional allies in the region, combined with an empowerment of our historical adversaries, in an attempt to “rebalance” the Middle East (whatever that nebulous term means).

A statement released from Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) office captured this sentiment well, noting, “Today’s plan marks another important step by the Trump administration to undo the sad legacy of the Obama administration, specifically by rendering United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 null and void, and in doing so, advances the cause of peace in the Middle East.” UNSC Resolution 2334 declared Israeli settlements — or more simply, the presence of Jews — in Judea and Samaria, as well as in East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, to be a “flagrant” violation of international law.