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Pelosi Is Realizing Impeachment Was a Mistake

January 11, 2020/in Elections, Featured, News, Policy, Politics/by The Daily Signal

America is the midst of an imaginary impeachment standoff between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “Both have drawn firm lines in the sand. Someone’s got to give,” one reporter recently declared.

There is, of course, nothing to “give.” Pelosi has no standing to dictate the terms of a Senate trial; no constitutional right or political leverage. Why she has put herself in a position that will ultimately end, one way or another, with her surrendering to McConnell is perplexing.

A new piece in Time magazine does shed some light on the thought process behind Pelosi’s decision to refuse to hand over articles of impeachment to a Senate whose majority doesn’t want them.

One of the most interesting nuggets in the piece isn’t that Pelosi—portrayed as courageous risk-taker—had gotten the bright idea from CNN; it’s that she specifically got it from noted felon John Dean, Nixon’s former White House lawyer.

In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>

Now, Dean is often portrayed as a patriotic, whistleblowing impeachment expert—which is true insofar as he planned the Watergate coverup, and then informed on everyone whom he conspired with after they were caught.

His real expertise is cashing in on criminality for the past 50 years.

Surely Pelosi, blessed with preternatural political instincts, wouldn’t rely on Dean’s advice? Surely Pelosi wasn’t browbeaten into doing this by podcast bros and talking heads on America’s least popular major cable news network?

Because whatever you make of the case against President Donald Trump, it’s getting increasingly difficult to argue that this amateurish, constantly shifting effort by the House has been effective.

After two dramatic emergency impeachment hearings, a pretend standoff, and massive cooperative coverage from the media, poll numbers haven’t budged. They may even have ticked back toward Trump.

Yet, to hear Time tell it, Pelosi has micromanaged every step of this process, from signing off on every committee report and press release— “aides say she caught typos in the Intelligence Committee’s final report before it went out”—to picking furniture that would make Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and the more diminutive Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., look like equals.

My working theory is this: Pelosi realized that impeachment was a mistake. She didn’t want the president to be able to tell voters that he had been exonerated by the Senate.

The only way to mitigate the damage was to undertake a ham-fisted effort to attack the Senate trial and dampen, or perhaps circumvent, that inevitable moment.

In the process, however, Pelosi destroyed the Democrats’ justification for rushing impeachment in the first place. Nadler and Schiff both argued that Trump’s tenure in office constituted a national emergency, and that the only way to save the republic from another stolen election was to move quickly.

McConnell, on the other hand, had to take only a short break from confirming judges to inform the House that the Senate would treat the impeachment of Donald Trump the same way it treated the impeachment of Bill Clinton—with a rules package that passed 100-0 in 1998.

Under the Clinton precedent, the Senate would allow both the House impeachment managers and Trump’s lawyers to make their case, with questions from the Senate to follow.

Pelosi’s defenders are running out of arguments. Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin now says that acting on the Clinton precedent means that moderate Republican senators such as Susan Collins of Maine “will face the real possibility that conclusive evidence of Trump’s wrongdoing will come to light after a sham trial. That would make for a disastrous, humiliating legacy.”

The gaping hole in this argument, and the reason Democrats are losing the debate, is that they’ve already claimed to have conclusive evidence of Trump’s wrongdoing. They claimed they had proof of bribery, but they didn’t include it in the impeachment articles. They claimed to have proof in the Mueller report that Trump obstructed justice, yet it’s not in the articles of impeachments either.

Rubin herself has alleged, dozens of times, that we already have definitive proof Trump has committed an impeachable offense.

In truth, if the House had made a persuasive case, there would be public pressure on Republicans to act in a different manner. That the House did not is the only reason Pelosi embraced Dean’s silly idea—which has drastically backfired.

COMMENTARY BY

David Harsanyi

David Harsanyi is a senior writer at National Review and the author of “First Freedom: A Ride through America’s Enduring History With the Gun, From the Revolution to Today.” Twitter: @davidharsanyi.

A Note for our Readers:

This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.

The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

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NY Times Embarrasses Itself Again – On Iran-9/11 Ties. No wonder the president calls them ‘fake news.’

January 9, 2020/in Elections, Featured, National Security, News, Policy, Politics/by Kenneth R. Timmerman

The sloppy New York Times is once-again embarrassing itself. In a prominent “fact-check” piece appearing on Friday, cub reporter Zach Montague ripped into Vice President Mike Pence for a series of tweets that described the terror-drenched record of the ex-Quds Force commander, Qassem Suleymani.

At issue was Pence’s account of Suleymani’s links to the September 11, 2001 attacks on America. In one tweet, the vice president noted that Suleymani and his terrorists “assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the Untied States.

Assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) January 3, 2020

This prompted the NY Times to snipe, “How Mr. Pence arrived at this number and this account is unclear” since there was nothing in “public United States intelligence” [sic] linking the two, or indeed, anyone in Iran to the 9/11 attacks.

Montague could have consulted former NY Times Philip Shenon, whose 2008 book about the 9/11 Commission reprised a story I revealed several years earlier about the discovery by Commission staff of some 75 highly classified NSA intercepts that spelled out in great detail the help Iran offered al Qaeda in furtherance of the 9/11 plot.

If he had just Googled, “Iran 9/11 ties,” he would have discovered a July 18, 2004 article by Shenon stating that the final report of the 9/11 Commission would include “information drawn from intelligence reports about Iran’s ties to the al Qaeda hijackers.”

He also would have found another New York Times article, this one dated May 20, 2011, about significant new evidence presented to a federal district court in Manhattan by attorneys on behalf of 9/11 victims about Iran’s direct, material assistance to the al Qaeda hijackers and the 9/11 plot.

While still on Google, he would have found additional articles on Iran’s ties to 9/11 in such pro-Trump publications as Time magazine. And others here, here and here.

(Disclosure: I provided expert testimony in the Iran 9/11 case based on debriefings I conducted with defectors from Iranian intelligence who had personal knowledge of Iran’s ties to al Qaeda and specifically to the 9/11 conspiracy; I also provided historical testimony on Iran’s ties to Sunni terrorist groups.)

Ace reporter Montague could have consulted the 9/11 Commission Report itself. On p. 240 he would have read, “we now have evidence suggesting that 8 to 10 of the 14 Saudi “muscle” operatives traveled into or out of Iran between October 2000 and February 2001.”

But Montague is fixated on the numbers. “To start, many observers were quick to point out that 19 terrorists, not 12, were involved in the attacks.”

You read that right: a New York Times reporter really is suggesting that the vice president has no clue how many hijackers were involved in 9/11.

My book, Countdown to Crisis: the Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, details what the U.S. knew at the time and what was later learned about Iran’s involvement in the 9/11 plot. In addition to the 8 or 10 muscle hijackers who traveled to and from Afghanistan from Iran under the protection of the Quds Force, other operatives cited in the 9/11 Commission report also traveled to Iran, including a Tawfiq bin Attash, aka “Khallad,” and a German-based operative named Ramzi bin al-Shibi. (Hint: that makes 10 to 12).

How do we know this activity was linked to Qassem Suleymani? Because their travel into and out of Iran was coordinated by an individual identified in the 9/11 Commission report as “a senior operative of Hezbollah,” but who we now know was Imad Mugniyeh, a top lieutenant of Suleymani’s from Lebanon. (Mugniyeh was killed in Damascus in February 2008 and has a rap sheet almost as long as Suleymani’s and Osama bin Laden’s).

Mugniyeh never lifted a finger – not in Iraq, not in Lebanon, or in Syria, or Afghanistan or Iran – without Suleymani’s approval. I wrote about Mugniyeh and his role in the 9/11 plot in a 2006 profile that appeared in Reader’s Digest, here.

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Suleymani and his men established a “rat line” to exfiltrate al Qaeda fighters from Afghanistan to Iran.

Hundreds of al Qaeda fighters lived in Iran for many years after 9/11, including top al Qaeda financiers and members of Osama Bin Laden’s own family, under Suleymani’s control.

The Department of Treasury began exposing Iran’s ties to al Qaeda in 2003, when it sanctioned six al Qaeda members working with Abu Musab al-Zarkowi, who headed al Qaeda in Iraq, another group aided by the Quds Force. On the next-to-last day of the Bush 43 administration, Treasury spelled out al Qaeda’s working relationship with Iran in detail.

So there is lots of evidence that Vice President Pence was 100% right – just none of it accessible to the phony newsmen wearing ideological blinders at the New York Times.

When someone pointed out the Times article to me over the weekend, there was a button labeled “suggest a correction,” so I suggested that the reporter look at p. 240 of the 9/11 Commission report, and to be helpful, included a brief quote.

Since then, the Times has removed the correction button, but has not made any corrections. No wonder the President calls them “fake news.”

IRAN’S ISLAMIC REPUBLIC – 40 YEARS OF TERROR AND CRIME

VIDEO: President Trump’s message to terrorists — ‘If you value your own life, you will not threaten the lives of our people.’

January 8, 2020/in Featured, National Security, Policy, Politics/by 1600 Daily - The White House

TRANSCRIPT
Remarks by President Trump on Iran

Grand Foyer
January 8, 2020
11:28 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: As long as I am President of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.

Good morning. I’m pleased to inform you: The American people should be extremely grateful and happy no Americans were harmed in last night’s attack by the Iranian regime. We suffered no casualties, all of our soldiers are safe, and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases.

Our great American forces are prepared for anything. Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world.

No American or Iraqi lives were lost because of the precautions taken, the dispersal of forces, and an early warning system that worked very well. I salute the incredible skill and courage of America’s men and women in uniform.

For far too long — all the way back to 1979, to be exact — nations have tolerated Iran’s destructive and destabilizing behavior in the Middle East and beyond. Those days are over. Iran has been the leading sponsor of terrorism, and their pursuit of nuclear weapons threatens the civilized world. We will never let that happen.

Last week, we took decisive action to stop a ruthless terrorist from threatening American lives. At my direction, the United States military eliminated the world’s top terrorist, Qasem Soleimani. As the head of the Quds Force, Soleimani was personally responsible for some of the absolutely worst atrocities.

He trained terrorist armies, including Hezbollah, launching terrorist strikes against civilian targets. He fueled bloody civil wars all across the region. He viciously wounded and murdered thousands of U.S. troops, including the planting of roadside bombs that maim and dismember their victims.

Soleimani directed the recent attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq that badly wounded four service members and killed one American, and he orchestrated the violent assault on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. In recent days, he was planning new attacks on American targets, but we stopped him.

Soleimani’s hands were drenched in both American and Iranian blood. He should have been terminated long ago. By removing Soleimani, we have sent a powerful message to terrorists: If you value your own life, you will not threaten the lives of our people.

As we continue to evaluate options in response to Iranian aggression, the United States will immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime. These powerful sanctions will remain until Iran changes its behavior.

In recent months alone, Iran has seized ships in international waters, fired an unprovoked strike on Saudi Arabia, and shot down two U.S. drones.

Iran’s hostilities substantially increased after the foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2013, and they were given $150 billion, not to mention $1.8 billion in cash. Instead of saying “thank you” to the United States, they chanted “death to America.” In fact, they chanted “death to America” the day the agreement was signed.

Then, Iran went on a terror spree, funded by the money from the deal, and created hell in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration. The regime also greatly tightened the reins on their own country, even recently killing 1,500 people at the many protests that are taking place all throughout Iran.

The very defective JCPOA expires shortly anyway, and gives Iran a clear and quick path to nuclear breakout. Iran must abandon its nuclear ambitions and end its support for terrorism. The time has come for the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China to recognize this reality.

They must now break away from the remnants of the Iran deal -– or JCPOA –- and we must all work together toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer and more peaceful place. We must also make a deal that allows Iran to thrive and prosper, and take advantage of its enormous untapped potential. Iran can be a great country.

Peace and stability cannot prevail in the Middle East as long as Iran continues to foment violence, unrest, hatred, and war. The civilized world must send a clear and unified message to the Iranian regime: Your campaign of terror, murder, mayhem will not be tolerated any longer. It will not be allowed to go forward.

Today, I am going to ask NATO to become much more involved in the Middle East process. Over the last three years, under my leadership, our economy is stronger than ever before and America has achieved energy independence. These historic ~~accompliments~~ [accomplishments] changed our strategic priorities. These are accomplishments that nobody thought were possible. And options in the Middle East became available. We are now the number-one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world. We are independent, and we do not need Middle East oil.

The American military has been completely rebuilt under my administration, at a cost of $2.5 trillion. U.S. Armed Forces are stronger than ever before. Our missiles are big, powerful, accurate, lethal, and fast. Under construction are many hypersonic missiles.

The fact that we have this great military and equipment, however, does not mean we have to use it. We do not want to use it. American strength, both military and economic, is the best deterrent.

Three months ago, after destroying 100 percent of ISIS and its territorial caliphate, we killed the savage leader of ISIS, al-Baghdadi, who was responsible for so much death, including the mass beheadings of Christians, Muslims, and all who stood in his way. He was a monster. Al-Baghdadi was trying again to rebuild the ISIS caliphate, and failed.

Tens of thousands of ISIS fighters have been killed or captured during my administration. ISIS is a natural enemy of Iran. The destruction of ISIS is good for Iran, and we should work together on this and other shared priorities.

Finally, to the people and leaders of Iran: We want you to have a future and a great future — one that you deserve, one of prosperity at home, and harmony with the nations of the world. The United States is ready to embrace peace with all who seek it.

I want to thank you, and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

END

11:37 A.M. EST

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Obama stopped Israel from killing Soleimani in 2015, threatened to shoot down IAF strike on Iran

January 6, 2020/in Featured, National Security, News, Policy, Politics/by Jihad Watch

Just whose side was this man on? Yes, of course, he was just trying to avoid a costly war with Iran. That’s why he gave the mullahs billions that they used to finance jihad terrorist groups.

“Report: Obama Administration Stopped Israel From Assassinating Soleimani in 2015,” by Tyler O’Neil, PJ Media, January 3, 2020:

When President Donald Trump gave the order to kill Iran’s Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani, he not only made an arguably proportionate response to the invasion of the U.S. Embassy this week but he also reversed a policy of the Obama administration. According to a report from 2018, Israel was “on the verge” of assassinating Soleimani in 2015, but Obama’s officials foiled the plan. In fact, they reached out to Iran with news of Israel’s plans.

The Trump administration, on the other hand, gave Israel a green light to assassinate Soleimani, according to a January 1, 2018 report from the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida. The paper quoted a source in Jerusalem as saying that “there is an American-Israeli agreement” that Soleimani is a “threat to the two countries’ interests in the region.” According to Haaretz, Al-Jarida is generally assumed to be a platform for the Israeli government to disseminate its message to other Middle Eastern governments.

According to the report, the agreement between Israel and the U.S. came three years after Washington thwarted an Israeli attempt to kill the Iranian general.

“The report says Israel was ‘on the verge’ of assassinating Soleimani three years ago, near Damascus, but the United States warned the Iranian leadership of the plan, revealing that Israel was closely tracking the Iranian general,” Haaretz reported.

The incident “sparked a sharp disagreement between the Israeli and American security and intelligence apparatuses regarding the issue.” That sounds like an understatement.

President Barack Obama frequently snubbed Israel, considered by many to be America’s best ally in the Middle East. Yet the news that the Obama’s administration prevented Israel from assassinating the Quds Force leader seems particularly significant, since the Obama administration also kept a list of approximately 500 American soldiers who were murdered by Iranian IEDs. Since the Quds Force spearheads Iran’s operations outside the Islamic Republic, Soleimani would arguably be responsible for all of those deaths.

When Trump finally gave the order to kill the Quds Force leader, it came after multiple attacks against Americans and American facilities in Iraq — attacks that arguably traced back to Soleimani himself….

There is much more. Read the rest here.

We had this news back in 2015. “‘Obama Threatened to Shoot Down IAF Iran Strike,’” by Mark Langfan, Israel National News, January 3, 2015:

The Bethlehem-based news agency Ma’an has cited a Kuwaiti newspaper report Saturday, that US President Barack Obama thwarted an Israeli military attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2014 by threatening to shoot down Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran.

Following Obama’s threat, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was reportedly forced to abort the planned Iran attack.

According to Al-Jarida, the Netanyahu government took the decision to strike Iran some time in 2014 soon after Israel had discovered the United States and Iran had been involved in secret talks over Iran’s nuclear program and were about to sign an agreement in that regard behind Israel’s back.

The report claimed that an unnamed Israeli minister who has good ties with the US administration revealed the attack plan to Secretary of State John Kerry, and that Obama then threatened to shoot down the Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran.

Al-Jarida quoted “well-placed” sources as saying that Netanyahu, along with Minister of Defense Moshe Yaalon, and then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, had decided to carry out airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear program after consultations with top security commanders.

According to the report, “Netanyahu and his commanders agreed after four nights of deliberations to task the Israeli army’s chief of staff, Benny Gantz, to prepare a qualitative operation against Iran’s nuclear program. In addition, Netanyahu and his ministers decided to do whatever they could do to thwart a possible agreement between Iran and the White House because such an agreement is, allegedly, a threat to Israel’s security.”

The sources added that Gantz and his commanders prepared the requested plan and that Israeli fighter jets trained for several weeks in order to make sure the plans would work successfully. Israeli fighter jets reportedly even carried out experimental flights in Iran’s airspace after they managed to break through radars.

Brzezinski’s idea

Former US diplomat Zbigniew Brzezinski, who enthusiastically campaigned for Obama in 2008, called on him to shoot down Israeli planes if they attack Iran. “They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?” said the former national security advisor to former President Jimmy Carter in an interview with the Daily Beast.

“We have to be serious about denying them that right,” he said. “If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a ‘Liberty’ in reverse.’”…

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Canada: Demonstrators screaming “Down with USA and Israel” build shrine to “heroes of Islam” Soleimani and al-Muhandis

“An Entire World Will Avenge You”: Pro-Soleimani rally in Molenbeek, Muslim area of Brussels

SECOND U.S. Airstrike North of Baghdad – Three Vehicle Convoy of Iran-backed Shia Militia Leaders . . .

January 4, 2020/in Featured, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Vlad Tepes Blog

From the Conservative Treehouse:

Reports of new late-night U.S. airstrikes north of Baghdad are starting to be confirmed. According to developing reports a convoy of two or three vehicles carrying Iran-back Shia Militia leaders was targeted near Taji in Northern Baghdad.

From Citizen Free Press

Trump Does It Again – Second Terrorist Convoy Carrying High-Value Targets Just Obliterated In Iraq…

Shibl al-Zaydi, leader of the PMU has been confirmed dead after the US conducted another air strike targeting his convoy in Taji. Two vehicles hit. Story is developing.

6 killed in airstrike north of Baghdad targeting convoy carrying Shia militia members – report

A convoy carrying members of the Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias, was hit by an airstrike while traveling in Baghdad, media report.

The three-car convoy was struck in the northern outskirts of the Iraqi capital in the district of al-Taji, according to an Iraqi military source cited by Reuters. Six militiamen were reported killed in the attack, with three others critically injured. It remains unclear who carried out the strike.

The six killed in the strike have yet to be named, but early reports suggesting they hit two paramilitary commanders – Shibl al-Zaydi, secretary general of the Kataib al-Imam militia, as well as Qais al-Khazali, leader of Asaib Ahl al-Haq – were refuted by the PMF in a statement.

The U.S. unofficially denies this strike.

VIDEO: Did Ambassador to Ukraine Order State Dept. to Monitor Journalists/Trump Allies?

January 3, 2020/in Courts & Law, Elections, Featured, News, Policy, Politics, Video, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Judicial Watch

On this special edition of “Inside Judicial Watch” Amelia Koehn sits down with One America News Network Correspondent, Jack Posobiec, to discuss how former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine from the Obama Administration, Marie Yovanovitch, ordered the State Department to monitor conservative journalists, as well as Trump allies.

VIDEO: Eva Vlaardingerbroek’s Controversial Speech About the Dangers of Modern Feminism — English subtitles

January 2, 2020/in Culture War, Featured, News, Policy, Politics, Video, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Vlad Tepes Blog

This video is a list of good and at this point, courageous observations. But misses the big point. And that is that Feminism has been hijacked, if it wasn’t created in the first place for this purpose, by Marxists as a weapon of attack on Western culture, peoples and thought overall.

To understand how this works, watch pretty much anything produced by Netflix. Communists have been steadily hijacking and re-purposing every legend, myth and story of the West, understanding the power of a narrative far better than we, and re-purposing these stories to incept the communist dialectic negation of all things Western.

The Gay Jesus story is a top of the heap example. But we see it in and through everything like a virus hijacks a healthy cell.

To be blunt, she, like most people who understand what is going on, in a way become controlled opposition. Because they see a tactic but not the strategy. This means they can be negated easily because they do not point the light quite in the right direction.

Feminism is one of many institutions if you will, that has been re-purposed. Much of the Catholic Church, entire Churches like the Unitarian are nothing but a Lenin’s beard.

Reform Jewish temples, most of major media, all now are agencies of re-purposing existing truths to force a Neo-Marxist agenda.

I used to ask why various groups, African-Americans, Feminist etc. etc. did not make their own legends and stories but instead had to create Ghostbusters 3 and ruin our own existing cannon.

The answer is obvious now. Because the purpose was not to create new legends with politically correct plots and characters, it was literally made to destroy our own. Not to make a good movie, but to ruin good movies of the past. To Winston Smith the culture. Put the classics and genius of the past into the incinerator and replace it with the new horrible and unwatchable replacements but push the ‘right’ message.

We were never at war with Oceana.

We have always been at war with Oceana.

RELATED TWEET:

https://twitter.com/imamofpeace/status/1212325132447825920?s=11

Clarion’s 2020 Predictions: Bernie, Jew Baiters and Western Insanity

January 1, 2020/in Culture War, Featured, National Security, Policy, Politics, Religion, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Clarion Project

As 2020 makes its entrance, Clarion editor Meira Svirsky makes predictions on five trends will can expect to see:

Democrats Go Left (Before Heading South)

Joe Biden will self-destruct his “front-runner” candidacy in 2020. It won’t be difficult as all he has to do is open his mouth. Elizabeth Warren, already on a steady road down, will continue to fall out of favor due to her manifold lies and hypocrisy. From her false narratives of (1) being a native American, (2) getting fired from a job because she was pregnant, (3) that her children went to public schools to railing against the rich when she is a millionaire and accepts huge donations from the same, Democrats are waking up to the fact that Trump would make mincemeat of her on the campaign trail.

That leaves Bernie Sanders, the favorite tortoise among the bevy of hares vying for the Democrat nomination. Bernie might have garnered it last time if not for the rigging of the vote by Hillary through her super delegates.

Yet, with Bernie, we would not only get socialism (the kind that turned Venezuela from a promising country to a hellhole), we would also get his “surrogates,” who are already out stomping for him. These are the likes of Islamists and anti-Semites such as Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Linda Sarsour, as well as plain old wacky millennial AOC (which is not to underestimate her own pro-BDS version of anti-Semitism).

Clarion predicts Bernie and his triple trio may get the nomination but they will go south fast in 2020.

Anti-Semitism Becomes the New Fashion of Macho Violence

This is a scourge on the soul of America that will not abate in 2020.

The Left’s inability to accept that Donald Trump was actually elected to be the president of the United States, egged on by the mainstream media and their constant churning of fake news, the Left’s willingness to lie to the American public and cheat their way through a faux impeachment process to get him out of office has contributed to the extreme polarization of American society – a state which makes the Left’s demonization of Republican politicians from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush look (almost) like fairy tale.

Who gets caught in the crossfire of this polarization? The Jews.

On the Left, Jews are accused of being everything from white colonialists (by the BDS, Palestinian chic and campus crowd) to slum lords and blood suckers (witness the spate of black-on-Jew crimes in the last months and listen to Black Muslim preacher Louis Farrakhan).

While the Left still cozies up to Farrakhan as well as the likes of Jew-baiting racists like Al Sharpton, the U.S. Congress can’t even muster the votes to censure the likes of Ilhan Omar for trolling us all with her anti-Semitic tropes on Twitter.

This is not to mention how, in New York, many of those who are committing violent anti-Semitic offenses are simply receive a “Get Out of Jail Free” card (along with metro cards to ride around on the subway, two debit cards with $25 each and a burner cell phones.)

I’m not making this up.

Take the case of Tiffany Harris, a young black woman, who admitted to slapping three Jewish women while hurling at them anti-Semitic epithets. She was quickly released from jail without having to post bail (due to the early implementation of NY’s new bail reform) and got all those goodies mentioned above.

Once out on the street, she punched a woman in the face in front of the woman’s two children, was arraigned yet again and released (this time with “supervision,” which doesn’t mean much).

While a man in Iowa was charged with a hate crime for burning a LGBT flag (which resulted in a 16-year sentence due to his prior two felony convictions), NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio is defending letting Ms. Harris out of jail:

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and his legislature passed a “bail reform” measure that Bill de Blasio *implemented early.* It let Tiffany Harris, who attacked Jewish women, out instantly today. De Blasio somehow defends his support for it: pic.twitter.com/l3QAaUhpEB

— Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) December 30, 2019

Jew hatred on the Far Right has always existed and didn’t need much of push to bring it out in the open and even manifest in violence. The classic Far Right tropes about Jews as socialists out to destroy our country or, alternatively, as rich capitalists feeding on the poor are now back in fashion thanks to the Left.

The increasing frequency of anti-Semitic attacks in America will bring many other Jew haters out of the woodwork to claim their day of “fame” in the news.

Case in point: As I write, this just in from the largely Orthodox Jewish community of Lakewood, New Jersey:

BREAKING Lakewood police arrest an armed man outside the a Jewish shopping center. The Suspect was carrying three guns and a knife

Via: @LakewoodScoop pic.twitter.com/GJreZI4VMa

— Zwetchkenstiel (@zwetchkenstiel) December 31, 2019

The Life Gets Sucked Out of Iran by Trump

Some potential good news for 2020 is on the horizon. Rather than initiate a new foreign war (a concept to which Trump is ideologically opposed and which would ruin his chances of reelection), Trump will respond to the latest aggression against the U.S. embassy in Iraq by Iranian-backed militias with new and crushing sanctions on Iran.

Will that mean the collapse of this failed and brutal Islamist state? We’ll be following that story.

Western Insanity Rolls Over for Islamist Supremacy

If the stories coming out at the beginning of 2020 are an indication of how political correctness is careening Western countries into the hands of Islamists (without them lifting a finger to gain control through jihad), we are embarking on a course of civilizational suicide.

This week in the UK, 11 armed officers burst into the home of cancer-victim Paul Newey in the wee hours of the morning and threw him in a top security cell reserved for the worst terrorists. Newey’s crime? Sending $200 to his son Dan, who decided to quit his job as an insurance salesman and do something noble. Dan joined the Kurdish forces in Syria fighting against ISIS. Those forces were not only backed by Britain, but they were trained by the SAS, UK’s special forces.
Also in the UK, under the nose of British authorities, Pakistani Muslim sex grooming gangs victimized 19,000 children in 2019 alone. For over a decade, this exploitation was known to local government officials, social workers and law enforcement officials. Yet, for fear of being called racists, authorities took no steps to prevent the horrific abuse of young, white British girls.Excuses still abound. Just a year ago, Sarah Champion, a Labour MP from Rotherham where the story broke in 2012 and a tireless campaigner for the victims of these gangs, was forced to resign from her position as shadow (opposition) secretary for women and equalities after writing an article in The Sun telling the facts about the sex grooming gangs: “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls … There. I said it. Does that make me a racist? Or am I just prepared to call out this horrifying problem for what it is?” Champion wrote.
In Switzerland, child marriage (which often is arranged by Muslim families for their underage daughters) is essentially recognized. It works like this: A girl can be married off at any age by her family. When she reaches the age of 18, her “marriage” becomes legally binding. This rule holds for those born both inside and outside of Switzerland. Due to this law, there is no recourse for girls often forced into marriage as early as the age of 14.

American Universities Continue to Get Rich by Taking Islamist Money

Foreign donations — to the tune of over $10 billion since 2012 – continue to flow in to U.S. universities. With that money comes influence ops to try to mold public opinion and policy.

In some cases, the funding comes via government-tied entities with known links to subversion, spying, terrorism and extremist ideology. For example, the terror-linked Qatar Foundation donated $33 million to Georgetown University in 2018 alone.

Over the years, Iran used a well-known front to send donations to about 30 universities in the U.S. and Canada. These donations, for example, don’t even show up U.S. records.

The Department of Education is currently investigating funding from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China and (presumably) other countries. We are, too. Stay tuned for Clarion’s next film in 2020 on foreign funding of U.S. universities.

Northwestern University Partners with Al Jazeera

Qatar Scam to Gain More Influence on US Universities

Have Ilhan Omar & CAIR Bred Acceptance of Today’s Rampant Anti-Semitism

TOP 10: President Trump’s biggest accomplishments of 2019!

December 31, 2019/in Elections, Featured, News, Policy, Politics, Regulation/by 1600 Daily - The White House

Americans saw plenty of Washington at its worst this year, with one party in Congress obsessed with a partisan impeachment stunt and obstructing progress at every turn. But despite getting no help from the far left, America today is soaring to new heights.

It’s tough to pick only 10 accomplishments from such an extraordinary year, but here are just a few of the biggest things President Donald J. Trump has gotten done for the American people in 2019:

The Trump Boom is going strong. The unemployment rate recently hit its lowest mark in 50 years. All told, since President Trump’s election, our economy has added more than 7 million jobs—over half a million in manufacturing alone.
The stock market keeps breaking records: The Dow Jones and S&P 500 hit record closes again on Friday.
The working class is thriving, as are previously forgotten communities. Wages are now rising the fastest for low-income workers, and poverty rates for African Americans and Hispanic Americans have reached all-time lows.
Accountable government is back. Since taking office, President Trump has rolled back nearly 8 regulations for every new one, saving American taxpayers more than $50 billion in the process—with bigger savings still to come.
Better trade deals are putting America back in the driver’s seat. Congress approved President Trump’s USMCA this month—a huge win for U.S. workers, farmers, and manufacturers that will create 176,000 new jobs.
Trade with China in particular is about to get a whole lot fairer. As part of a historic “phase 1” deal, Beijing has agreed to structural reforms in its trade practices and to make substantial purchases of American agricultural products.
Securing the border is paying off and making our country safer. President Trump struck new agreements with Mexico and Central American countries this year to help stop the flood of illegal immigration. Thanks to this swift action, border apprehensions fell by more than 70 percent from May to November.
On health care, President Trump is fighting to give our patients the best system on Earth. While Democrats try to take away choice, the President’s focus on affordability led to the largest year-over-year drop in drug prices ever recorded.
American interests are taking center stage abroad. In just one example: After years of not paying their fair share, NATO Allies will have increased defense spending by $130 billion by the end of next year.
Our great military took out the world’s top terrorist in October. (Meet Conan, the hero dog who helped them do it!) Our troops are now getting the support they deserve. President Trump recently signed the National Defense Authorization Act for the 2020 fiscal year, which includes the biggest pay raise for our military in a decade.

On behalf of President Trump and his entire Administration, have a blessed and wonderful New Year!

WATCH: “Our best days are yet to come!”

2020 The Year that Changed Everything

December 30, 2019/in Culture War, Elections, Featured, Policy, Politics/by John Michael Chambers

Happy New Year my friends and fellow patriots. I embrace 2020 as a realist and my realism coupled with quality information and intuition, tells me to buckle up and just know this, we are indeed winning. Please read on.

If you are not yet aboard, if you cannot yet see but do in fact feel some internal change taking place, fear not. Start here, breaking free from the matrix. Maybe this will help. There is a plan to save the world. It’s happening. We are that plan. We are moving from dark to light. This will be much easier on you if you can free yourself from controlled thought. You will. I know you will. The President is preparing us and the world. Dark secrets and evil activities are now being revealed. Nothing is as it seems. This is the tip of the iceberg. Watch what unfolds in 2020 and beyond. Get comfortable being uncomfortable until you safely and stably join us in truth. Then you are grounded beyond words. WWG1WGA.

2020 will be the year that changed everything. It will be an amazing year. It will be an eventful year and that is the understatement of the century. “The Secret of Change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new” – Socrates. We are clearly fighting the old but what many do not realize is that for the past three years, team Trump and we the patriots have already begun building the new. The death of Globalism and the resurrection of America is already in motion with massive progress on both fronts. Everything we see occurring at this unprecedented time in history is falling under three broad banners. The first banner is of course the Great Awakening. The second banner is the Rule of Law Reset and the third is the Global Financial Reset. This is how we resurrect America. This is how we redirect the course for humanity. Life after Trump? We’ll get to that a bit later. Having said that, there is a long way to go. First a bit of a recap and then from a 30,000 foot view, this is what I believe will occur in 2020, the year that changed everything.

Impeachment – Trump will not be impeached.

The so called articles of impeachment (should be called the “articles of no impeachment”), may be dismissed either by the Senate or by the Supreme Court due to the unconstitutional procedure and the fact that there are no impeachable offenses in the articles that Pelosi as of present is withholding from the Senate. There could be a no trial quick Senate vote or there could be a trial with witnesses. And if this fake, phony and false impeachment somehow remains on the Presidential record for President Trump, I say it will be dismissed and removed a bit down the line. At the end of the day, President Trump will not be impeached and will not be removed from office. Carry on patriots. Carry on.

De-class – The de-class exposes. Path to justice begins.

The de-class has already begun. It began with IGI which cited over 20 violations made by former FBI Director James Comey. Exposure. Drip, drip. The world now knows that James Comey is a liar and a leaker. There are reasons for this and timing is everything.

IGII was devastating to the deep state and its operatives. Although the Obama appointed Horowitz failed to fully deliver the goods by not accurately addressing bias and pre-meditation of the FISA abuse etc, but know this-the buck stops with AG Barr and John Durham and each have expressed their disagreement with certain aspects of the IGII report. With IGII, serious major damage was inflicted.

Then there is Rudy. Rudy Giuliani’s investigative work will expose the Biden’s and much more. We have most if not all of the 33,000 e-mails that Clinton tried to get rid of. Let us not forget the Jeffrey Epstein case. This is also underway. AG Barr said this about Epstein, “Let me assure you that this case will continue on against anyone who was complicit with Epstein. Any co-conspirators should not rest easy.” Epstein leads us to Royalty, the CIA and the Mossad. Then of course an extensive list of politicians, the global elite, corporate execs, and Hollywood. There are films, witnesses, pictures and other devastatingly awful evidence. Pedophilia is the achilies heel of the deep state.

Julian Assange is set for another Wikileaks data dump that will be devastating watch for this in 2020. All things indicate that Julian Assange will see his day in a US Court later in 2020. This is an asset for us. We shall see steady exposure of the deep state. I once again refer us to steps 6, 7 and 8 on the “Scale of Discovery and Action“. With this now here in 2020, this is what will make 2020 the year that changed everything.

We are in the beginning stages of a pendulum shifting moment of magnitude. Yes as stated all along, all roads lead to Obama and Clinton as far as US politicians are concerned. So we may very well see, Comey, Page, Strzok, McCabe, Brennan, Clapper, Schiff, Biden and many others begin to face the music. There are well over 100,000 Federal sealed indictments. It’s a drip system. Step by step. The plan is in motion. Get ready for the world to be rocked. Oh and China has met its match in Trump. Here too, we are winning. Oh yes and remember that AG Barr reinstated the Federal Death penalty for a reason and all indications are that the tribunals coming up in 2020 and beyond will be live streamed. I’ve written about this with sourced links. Remember the marines were activated to protect the President and we the people, This too I have written about with sourced links. Remember this, the punishment for treason is death. The President names names here in this clip.

Disruptions – Frenzied Panic no longer concealed.

We are already seeing the enemy hidden in plain sight. The deep state, the media and the Dems. are panicking. Breaking laws, lying, stealing cheating, bribing, blackmailing and making a million mistakes along the way trapping themselves and convicting themselves further and further. They know the fuse has been lit. There is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Their time is up. They will do whatever it takes to remove Trump and or see that he is not re-elected. Newsflash-they will lose.

Here are some highly probable disruptions, distractions and horrific events we can expect to see in 2020 as their days are numbered and they are in full scale meltdown and panic mode. God forbid, but additional assassination attempts. Expect more impeachment hoaxes and approaches. Suicides and suicideds. Others becoming “gravely ill” then passing away. Rising tensions in America. Civil unrest. False flags of all kinds. Failed attempts to bring the stock market down. Voter fraud, election theft. Further impingement upon the second and first amendments. Endless attempts to bring Trump and all of us down. Attempts to escalate hot spots and to start new wars as Trump is working on ending endless wars. Impeachments, tax returns, law suits and who knows what else they will be throwing at the wall to see if anything sticks. This is America’s second revolution and we are in the heat of the battle in 2020.

Election of 2020 – Historical landslide for Trump

I do not believe that Joe Biden will be the nominee. In fact, I’m not sure that anyone we see on the platform today will be the nominee. Time will tell. I do believe and I have said this all along, that we may see Hillary or Michelle as the nominee. If so, bring them on. Hillary will be mid AG Barr and Durham investigations and I sure would love to unpack Michelle’s (Michael’s) suitcase as she debates Trump. Bring it on. Fair and square, no one will be Trump in 2020. More and more Blacks, Hispanics and Democrats will be voting for Trump. We may even win back the house in 2020. The two party system as we know it is coming to an end. Big change will be here come 2024 election process and parties.

The President is working on the Census question, E-Verify, Voter ID and counting paper ballots as a back-up to the rigged computers of which I have written about in my book and articles and spoke about quite often over the past nearly 4 years. The white hats saved the election of 2016 by launching a counter AI attack to prevent the full theft. The chapter in my book was among the first to document this revealing information about what really happened. I trust they are preparing for 2020 just the same. If relatively un-rigged, Trump wins his second term in an absolute landslide, electoral college and popular vote. We are taking our country back. This battle will rage on for years and years to come.

Economy – Global Financial Reset Underway

After failed attempts to bring down the markets in 2020 as an attempt to derail Trump’s voter base, the markets will continue to maintain these new and lofty levels through 2020 and perhaps beyond for a bit. But big change is on the horizon and not without disruption. Trump is in control and has been since January 4, 2019 as the Fed is essentially is under the control of the President to some extent. This is a subject that gets no media attention and yet will prove to be among the biggest stories of the century come 2020 and beyond. Far too much to write in context here in this article, but in short – Trump and team are ending globalism. Ending the Central Bank Federal Reserve IMF petrodollar system. Ending endless wars. A reset of multiple sorts will occur. Check out this brief talk on Trump dismantling the system en-route to a full global financial reset beginning in 2020 and beyond. The death of globalism is happening. Power is to be restored to the people. With Trump and now BREXIT and Boris, we will see more and more countries coming aboard. The return of sound money is underway. The Fed and the IRS will cease to exist as we know it from 2020 and beyond but not without a fight. A serious fight.

Great Awakening

Although there is an increasing amount of people who can see what is really going on, most are still asleep and unknowingly owned by the system in terms of their own perceptions of reality. This will change. This is changing. There is a great awakening taking place within the human spirit and it is global. For anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear, or for anyone who is courageous enough to step outside the box and be intellectually honest, the facts are clear and unambiguous. A raised understanding is needed as to the realization that a major paradigm shift is now-right now, under way and that we have been living in a web of deceitful lies designed to entrap us and move us away from the spirit and from truth as we march blindly like useless idiots down the road to serfdom. The opposite of love is not hate, it is fear. So, choose love. As you obtain more and more truths, then take the correct steps in implementing change, the fear subsides. Check out this talk I gave. Learn about Q.

Many of us have become a part of what I call the robotic hypnotic flock. Ignorant followers, so to speak. Now, being a follower is a good thing as most of us are not leaders, yet we rely on leadership. When being a follower, be a wise and discerning one and not an ignorant one. Be aware of who or what ideology you are following and ask yourself if this is pro-survival with the greatest benefit to the many without hurting the one. Then proceed. The leadership that was nowhere to be found, arrived and by no accident. That leadership is through President Donald Trump and team. Get on board. Observe the obvious, trust but verify, practice critical thinking, question authority, question everything, and think for yourself. Surround yourself with people of like-mind who do indeed truly understand the times in which we live and expand those circles of relationships.

Summary

The challenges we all face are enormous but the scales are tipping. This is our time; we have a chance. The time for action is now. You are nothing more than an accomplice should you stand by idly as the culture and planet declines rapidly into a very, very unpleasant condition. It is my hope that we begin to come to realize these misconceptions and begin the much needed course corrections, both personally and collectively. This has begun.

We must stop and take a look around us to re-asses ourselves, others, life, living, and the systems and structures that make this world go round. If you are tired of spinning around in the hamster wheel called your life, then it’s time to look at who is spinning that wheel and what you can do to stop this circular insanity. The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. It is time to adjust the sails. Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones. Get on board.

The human race and the universe itself are becoming more and more conscious of itself. This is a good thing as we are a culture and civilization in serious decline, a planet in peril. A full course correction is needed, and has indeed begun and soon the masses will see this. In this, there is hope. You can’t change people. They change themselves by their own decisions. You can influence them and guide them. Meanwhile the blissfully ignorant go along as though it was business as usual. It’s not business as usual, and I can assure you of this.

Yes the great change for humanity is underway. It is the battle of all battles. It will rage on for years and years to come. Life after Trump? I will save this critical discussion at a later date. I have insights.

These things cannot be long hidden, the sun, the moon and the truth. Peace and love shines bright in the light. Let’s brighten this light all around the world while there is still a chance to do so. Won’t you join us?

“There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” – Robert F. Kennedy

In Israel and America — Choreographed Coups with the Law as a Prop

December 29, 2019/in Courts & Law, Elections, Featured, News, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Dr. Martin Sherman

Despite the dramatic physical, societal and political differences between Israel and the US, in both countries a very similar—and disturbing—assault on the fabric of democracy is taking place

We cannot rely on an election to solve our problems. – Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Dec. 11, 2019, on the need to impeach President Donald Trump.

Every legal precedent must begin at some point…So, just because it involves the prime minister, we should delay the precedent for another time? – Shai Nitzan, Israel’s State Prosecutor, May 8, 2019, on the decision to indict PM Benjamin Netanyahu for bribery, on grounds unprecedented in any Western democracy.

Israel and the US are very different in many ways. Geographically, they are separated by the width of an ocean and the breadth of a continent. The population of the US is almost 40 times that of Israel’s and its land mass over 450 times bigger than that of the Jewish state. Israel was founded on an ethos of socialist collectivism; the US on an ethos of capitalist individualism.

There are also wide differences in the political systems of the two countries. The US has a bicameral legislature (the Senate and the House) while Israel has a uni-cameral one (the Knesset). In Israel, the composition of the legislature is determined by a nationwide multi-party election, in which the number of seats allotted each party is proportional to the number of votes it won, out of the total number cast; in the US it is determined on a state by state basis in which the winner takes all, and all votes for the loser are discarded. Israel has a parliamentary system in which the head of the executive branch is selected from the ranks of the legislature; the US has a presidential system in which the head of the executive branch is not a member of the legislature…

Clearly contrived and contorted

Yet despite the dramatic physical, societal and political differences between the two countries, a very similar—and disturbing—process is taking place in the polities of each of them.

In both countries, we are witnessing a blatant, thinly veiled attempt by a frustrated Left-of-Center opposition, fearing itself unable to unseat a duly elected Right-of-Center head of the executive branch via the polls, resorting to clearly contrived and contorted legal machinations to do so.

In Israel, the head of the executive branch, Prime Minister Netanyahu, has been submitted to an unrelenting drive to bring an indictment — any indictment — against him that has long exceeded the bounds of reasonable law enforcement.

This perverse and perturbing syndrome was succinctly portrayed by veteran pundit, Isi Leibler, in a piece entitled Dysfunctional Politics and Disgraceful Behavior. “Ever since he [Benjamin Netanyahu] was elected to lead the Likud and especially after he became prime minister, the mainstream media has ceaselessly sought to besmirch him and his family. No other democratic leader has been continuously vilified to such an extent. The liberal Israeli media has had more front-page coverage of Netanyahu’s alleged personal failings and vague accusations of corruption than coverage of the turbulent and bloody events in the region that threaten our very survival.”

Dogged for decades

Ever since his unexpected, razor-thin 1996 victory over Shimon Peres (then the left-leaning liberal establishment candidate for the premiership), Netanyahu has been hounded and harassed by his political rivals within Israel’s entrenched civil society elites—and subjected to a maelstrom of allegations that range from the petty to the preposterous.

For two decades, he has been assailed by the self-appointed bon-ton set, who saw him as an impudent upstart usurper of their divinely ordained right to govern.

As their astonished disbelief morphed into visceral rage, a cavalcade of charges was unleashed, admonishing him (and/or his spouse) for irregular use of garden furniture, the employment of an electrician, the proceeds from the sale of recycled bottles; payments to a moving contractor, an inflated ice cream bill (no kidding), the cost of his wife’s coiffure, meals ordered for the official PM residence from restaurants; and expenses involving the care of his ailing 96 year old father-in-law…

Significantly, the recriminations against him rarely — if ever — related to the way he discharged the duties of the office to which he was elected.

Finally, in November of this year, Netanyahu was indicted on three counts of breach of trust and one count of bribery. As I have pointed out elsewhere, prima facie, the charges seem anything but compelling and indeed have been excoriated by an impressive array of internationally renowned legal experts as being wildly inappropriate and posing a serious danger for democratic governance in the future.

But not only legal experts appear dubious as to the substantive merit of the indictments. Indeed, as the continuing widespread support for Netanyahu underscores, many in the general public remain unconvinced on this matter. Understandably, for a layman, one’s sense of puzzlement and skepticism is inevitably increased by the fact that the State Prosecution has as good as admitted that Netanyahu could not be indicted on the basis of well-established legal practice—and to do so, new legal precedents needed to be invoked—see introductory excerpt.

Similar sentiments were expressed recently by Aharon Gerber, deputy head of the Kohelet Policy Forum’s legal department. He writes: “The prime minister’s opponents are willing to disregard the Basic Laws as they try to set legal precedent that will send him home; it’s no wonder that public confidence in the rule of law has been greatly diminished.”

He goes on to note: “The widespread support awarded to Netanyahu despite his indictment exposes an issue that will not go away when his legal battles are over.”

According to Gerber: “Most of his supporters … have already lost their faith in the justice system. Deviation from the Basic Laws and the creation of a legal precedent fuels public rage”.

He suggests: “The solution is to apply the natural boundaries of legal discourse”, and warns: “…Any attempt to deviate from the norm by creating ad-hoc legal standards will not lead to a model society, but rather an anarchic one.”

Impeachment preordained

On the other side of the Atlantic, a very similar farcical fiasco has been unfolding.

In the US, the duly elected Right-of Center head of the executive branch, President Donald Trump, has also been under sustained assault by his Left-of-Center opposition, which is attempting to remove him from office by means other than the ballot box.

Of course, since Trump has not been involved in politics as long as Netanyahu, he has not been hounded and harassed for decades as has the Israeli prime minister. However, he has had the specter of impeachment brandished at him almost from the moment he stepped into the political arena.

Indeed, as early as April 2016 (some seven months before the elections and almost ten months prior to his inauguration), Politico reported: “Donald Trump isn’t even the Republican nominee yet. But “Impeachment” is already on the lips of pundits, newspaper editorials, constitutional scholars, and even a few members of Congress.”

It thus appears that an endeavor to unseat Trump was virtually preordained—even before he could commit any act as president —whether praiseworthy or pernicious—that could even be remotely considered meriting impeachment.

Similarly, on the very day of his inauguration (January, 20, 2017), the Washington Post ran a piece headlined, The campaign to impeach President Trump has begun, in which it cited Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union as saying: “We think that President Trump will be in violation of the Constitution … on day one…”

Rashida’s “refined” rhetoric

The premature pursuit of impeachment continued virtually unabated thereafter.

For example, just two weeks after Trump taking office, Democrat Congresswoman Maxine Waters tweeted: “Today, I told @cheddar [a video news service] that my greatest desire was to lead @realDonaldTrump right into impeachment.”

Likewise, barely six months into his presidency, Democratic Representatives Brad Sherman (California) and Al Green (Texas) initiated formal impeachment charges against Trump (see here and here).

Then there was radical freshman, Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), who shortly after being sworn in to the House of Representatives following the November 2018 elections, set out the mission to which she had dedicated herself. With her uniquely “refined” rhetoric, she told a cheering crowd: “… we’re gonna go in there and impeach the motherfucker.”

As time passed, the clamor for impeachment persisted. Tlaib’s cronies in the infamous radical “Squad of Four”, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) joined in the witch-hunt . Similarly, in April 2019, the current contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, Elizabeth Warren called for the impeachment of Trump—after opposing it only several months previously, in the hope that the Mueller Report would produce damning proof of impeachable offences, hopes that were soon to be dashed.

“…compelling, overwhelming and bipartisan”???

To be fair to the Democrats, initially, the party’s mainstream establishment was loath to pursue impeachment—as illustrated by the reluctance of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca). In a wide-ranging Washington Post interview in March this year, headlined, “Nancy Pelosi on Impeaching Trump: ‘He’s Just Not Worth It’, she excoriated Trump, pronouncing: “I don’t think he’s fit to be president of the United States. [He is] ethically unfit. Intellectually unfit. Curiosity-wise unfit”.

However, despite all this, she shied away from endorsing impeachment as being too divisive. She stated explicitly: “I’m not for impeachment. Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country”, adding dismissively: “And he’s just not worth it.”

In this regard, it is intriguing to compare Rep. Jerold Nadler’s (D-N.Y.) reticence regarding the prudence of impeachment prior to his selection as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee with his current zeal in pursing it (see opening excerpt). Thus, in December 2017, Nadler warned against doing precisely what he later embraced with such partisan fervor: “There’s not much point in impeaching a president and having him acquitted in the Senate as happened with Clinton.”

He added: “If you are actually going to remove a president from office, you are in effect nullifying the last election”, cautioning: “Certainly the people who voted for him will think you’re nullifying the election…”

According to Nadler: “It may be necessary to do that —as long as you have persuaded a sufficient fraction of the president’s former supporters, the people who voted for him, that you have to, that it’s necessary.”

Uncompelling, underwhelming, and partisan

However, with the passage of time and the accumulation of Trump’s policy successes, the Democrats began to despair—and, the more sober elements began to cave into pressure from the more radical ones in the party—eventually adopting the very path they advocated avoiding.

Thus, Pelosi embraced an impeachment endeavor that was anything but “compelling, overwhelming and bipartisan” as she prescribed, while Nadler rode roughshod over the very caveats he himself articulated—attempting to nullify elections without enlisting an iota of support from the Trump electorate or the Republican Party. Moreover, there is no realistic prospect that the president will be ousted by the Republican-dominated Senate—rendering the entire impeachment initiative, headed by Nadler, pointless by the self-same criterion he himself laid out.

Accordingly, any fair-minded analysis of the motivations behind the Netanyahu indictment and the Trump impeachment will swiftly reveal them to be far more a pursuit of power rather than a pursuit of justice –in which political rivals, frustrated by a recalcitrant electorate, turn to the disingenuous and manipulative use of the law to achieve what their political platforms, personalities and performance could not.

In this sense, both are little more than a blatant attempt to choreograph a coup, with the law as no more than a prop on their political stage.

Here’s When Kelly Loeffler Will Be Sworn In As A US Senator

December 28, 2019/in Elections, Featured, News, Policy, Politics/by The Daily Caller

A date has been announced for the swearing-in of businesswoman Kelly Loeffler, who is set to become the newest Republican in the Senate.

Loeffler will be sworn in as a United States senator on Jan. 6, a spokesperson confirmed to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The soon-to-be junior senator from Georgia is replacing outgoing GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson, who announced earlier this year that he’d be leaving office due to his ailing health.

The financial executive — who was chosen by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp after months of reviewing applications — has pledged to enter office with a fierce conservative agenda.

“I’m a life-long conservative, pro-Second Amendment, pro-Trump, pro-military, and pro-wall,” Loeffler said during an event at the state capitol earlier this month, where Kemp formally announced her as his pick for the Senate. “I make no apologies for my conservative values, and I look forward to supporting President Trump’s conservative judges.”

The swearing-in date likely means Loeffler will be entering the Senate just as the entire country begins to watch the upper chamber of Congress: Jan. 6 is the first official work day of the Senate, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already set the entire month open in preparation for President Donald Trump’s impeachment hearings. Impeachment could be the businesswoman’s first consequential vote.

Loeffler — a co-owner of Georgia’s WNBA team, the Atlanta Dream, and CEO of Bakkt — has already indicated that she will vote against the Democratic-led effort to remove Trump from the White House.

“Kelly Loeffler will stand with our president, Senator Perdue, and their allies in the House and Senate to keep America great,” Kemp said at the introduction ceremony. “She will end this impeachment circus in Washington, and get Congress back to working for the people of our country.”

The upcoming senator is expected to serve on the Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committees. Her appointment will make David Perdue, also a Republican, the senior senator of the state.

Loeffler’s navigation through the Senate hallways will just be her first hurdles as she enters the political scene. She will have to immediately prepare for election in 2020, as Democrats have become increasingly aggressive in Georgia, and Republican Rep. Doug Collins has not yet ruled out a primary challenge.

However, Kemp chose Loeffler because he believes she is the best individual to win back many of the suburban female voters in the state who have left the GOP since the beginning of the Trump-era. The successful businesswoman is also ready to drop millions of her own money to support her candidacy.

COLUMN BY

JASON HOPKINS

Follow Jason on Twitter.

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Pelosi’s Impeachment Gamble Is Unconstitutional

December 27, 2019/in Courts & Law, Culture War, Elections, Featured, News, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Signal

One of the Constitution’s clearest provisions is also one of its least-used: the process for removing the president for serious misconduct. Some politicians and lawyers, however, are trying to complicate this straightforward constitutional process, inventing things that simply aren’t there.

The Constitution’s impeachment process has two steps: Article 1, Section 2 gives the House of Representatives the “sole power of impeachment” and Section 3 gives the Senate the “sole power to try all impeachments.”

The House did its part on Dec. 18, adopting two articles of impeachment. All that’s left is for the House to appoint a few members to act as the prosecutors and, as the Senate’s trial rules put it, notify the Senate that these impeachment “managers” are “directed to carry articles of impeachment to the Senate.”

If this sounds a little familiar, it’s not really different from the indictment and trial you might have watched on any episode of “Law & Order.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., however, appears to be making up a process of her own. She says she won’t appoint impeachment managers or send the articles to the Senate until the Senate agrees to conduct its trial the way she dictates.

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In other words, Pelosi is holding the impeachment for ransom, keeping the count[r]y in impeachment limbo.

The House has impeached, but the Senate cannot conduct a trial unless it agrees to Pelosi’s demands or is able to change its impeachment trial rules (which requires a two-thirds vote) so it can at least start a trial on its own.

In response, Harvard law professor Noah Feldman, who argued strongly for impeachment as one of House Democrats’ hearing witnesses, wrote an article objecting to Pelosi’s gambit. President Donald Trump, Feldman insists, is not actually impeached until the House sends formal notice to the Senate.

Feldman is wrong. He claims that, in the past, “‘impeachment’ occurred—and occurs—when the articles of impeachment are presented to the Senate for trial.” But asserting this is all he does. He offers nothing to suggest that America’s Founders designed impeachment this way. His claim actually contradicts the language of the Constitution. While the House has the “sole” power of impeachment, Feldman says that impeachment cannot occur without the Senate.

Feldman tries to blur the lines by saying that “impeachment is a process,” but that’s not really true either. Just like there is a process that results in an indictment, there is a process for producing an impeachment, a process that occurs entirely within the House of Representatives.

But an impeachment itself, like an indictment, is a thing. The Constitution, after all, gives the Senate the power to “try all impeachments.” The Senate’s impeachment trial rules refer to “managers of an impeachment” and their first trial responsibility as “exhibit[ing] articles of impeachment.” In other words, the articles of impeachment adopted by the House are the impeachment.

The House itself agrees. Its website includes a list of “individuals impeached by the House of Representatives.” The first name on the list is Sen. William Blount of Tennessee. The Senate literally refused to recognize the impeachment as valid, choosing instead to expel him. The House still says he was impeached.

The list also includes U.S. District Judge Mark Delahay, who is listed as being impeached even though the House appointed no impeachment managers and the Senate conducted no trial at all.

Feldman’s claim is like saying that, though a grand jury has voted to indict, a criminal defendant is not really indicted until that action is presented to the trial jury.

To his credit, Feldman is correct that an indefinite delay in appointing managers and sending notice that they are ready to participate in the impeachment trial “would pose a serious problem.”

The House impeachment process, and the impeachment itself, were purely partisan. Now that the impeachment is finished, however, trying to manipulate how the Senate conducts its trial would only taint this whole drama even more and further distort the Constitution’s impeachment framework.

Since Feldman is such a strong Trump critic, he likely came up with this novel theory to push the process ahead toward, he hopes, Senate conviction and Trump’s removal from office. His ends, however, do not justify his means.

The House has done its part by impeaching Trump. The House must appoint managers and notify the Senate not because doing so is necessary to complete the impeachment, but because it’s the House’s clear obligation under the Constitution.

Originally published by Fox News

COMMENTARY BY

GianCarlo Canaparo

GianCarlo Canaparo is a legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Twitter: @GCanaparo.

Thomas Jipping

Thomas Jipping is deputy director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Twitter: @TomJipping.

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Next year, absolutely everything is on the line. The Left won’t pull any punches. They stand ready to trade the principles of the American founding for the toxic European socialism that has failed so many times before.

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These Historians Challenge New York Times’ Dubious 1619 Project

December 26, 2019/in Culture War, Featured, News, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Signal

What makes America exceptional?

Undoubtedly, most Americans would say our long-term commitment to self-government and the rule of law, and our extraordinary embrace of liberty.

Not so, according to The New York Times’ 1619 Project—named for the year in which African slaves were first brought to the English colonies in North America. The various New York Times authors apparently believe America’s unique quality is slavery.

The 1619 Project defines itself as an effort to “reframe” America’s history to define the nation’s “true founding” as one rooted—at its heart—in slavery rather than liberty.

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It’s 1619 pitted against 1776.

America, according to this narrative, has been and always will be exceptionally and perhaps irredeemably racist.

As I wrote in my book, “The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past,” this is a deeply misleading description of our history, but one that is becoming all too common in both popular culture and in American classrooms.

Yes, there was slavery and racism in our country’s history, and certainly the American people and our leaders have not always done the right thing. That’s something we should acknowledge and learn from, today and in the future.

And yet, America is still worth celebrating and taking pride in.

You don’t just have to take my word for it.

Historians from across the political spectrum have come out against the 1619 Project as bad history wrapped in a destructive ideology.

Allen Guelzo, a renowned historian and professor at Gettysburg College, called the 1619 Project a “conspiracy theory” based in part on the drive to “tarnish capitalism.”

In a recent appearance at The Heritage Foundation’s annual President’s Club meeting, Guelzo explained that the 1619 Project aims at rewriting the narrative of American slavery:

Not as an unwilling inheritance of British colonialism, but as the love object of American capitalism from its very origins. Not as a blemish, which the Founders grudgingly tolerated with the understanding that it must soon evaporate, but as the prize the Constitution went out of its way to secure and protect. Not as a regrettable chapter in the distant American past, but the living, breathing pattern upon which all American social life is based, world without end.

Guelzo is hardly alone in his criticism.

Two of the most prominent critics are Gordon Wood, a famed historian of the American Revolution, and James McPherson, a highly respected Civil War historian.

Both criticized the 1619 Project in recent interviews.

Wood said he was surprised that a major project from The New York Times could be “so wrong in so many ways.”

The interviewer noted that the authors of the 1619 Project seemed to be taking up the ethos of pro-slavery radicals who also denounced the Declaration of Independence as little more than fraudulent hypocrisy.

Wood responded:

That points up the problem with the whole project. It’s too bad that it’s going out into the schools with the authority of The New York Times behind it. That’s sad because it will color the views of all these youngsters who will receive the message of the 1619 Project.

McPherson was equally skeptical, saying that the project “left most of the history out” and he was “unhappy with the idea that people who did not have a good knowledge of the subject would be influenced by this and would then have a biased or narrow view.”

What’s particularly interesting about this criticism of the 1619 Project is both the prominence of the critics as well as the origin of the interviews.

Both were posted on the World Socialist Web Site, which is published by the International Committee of the Fourth International, a Trotskyite socialist organization.

They haven’t just published these interviews, but also offered their own blistering critiques.

A recent article on the World Socialist Web Site called the 1619 Project “a racialist falsification of American and world history,” adding:

Despite the pretense of establishing the United States’ ‘true’ foundation, the 1619 Project is a politically motivated falsification of history. Its aim is to create a historical narrative that legitimizes the effort of the Democratic Party to construct an electoral coalition based on the prioritizing of personal ‘identities’—i.e., gender, sexual preference, ethnicity, and, above all, race.

The Trotskyites appear to be unhappy that traditional Marxist ideas about class conflict have been replaced by racial and identity conflict; they are even more unhappy that this ethos has been melded into Democratic Party politics with what they see as little more than the nihilistic ends of categorizing Americans into immutable and hostile racial groups.

Despite the sudden attack from a wing of socialism, it would be a mistake to think that the 1619 Project and identity politics as a whole are not being used for traditionally socialist ends.

As I observed at a major socialist conference in July, mainstream socialists have merged identity politics with traditional socialist ideas in spite of this leading to philosophical contradictions.

Undoubtedly, one can see the socialist influence in the 1619 Project itself, which published one essay specifically linking capitalism and slavery as inherently intertwined.

And that’s certainly not all.

One of the more bizarre and wildly inaccurate claims from the project’s headline essay is that the American Revolution was fueled by the colonists’ desire to preserve slavery.

This peculiar theory has been linked to historian Gerald Thorne, a pro-Soviet apologist who once wrote a letter to the editor in The Chronicle of Higher Education that was headlined “Stalin Was No Worse Than the Founding Fathers.”

So, should Americans now embrace the Trotskyites to counter the Stalinists?

Elliot Kaufman, writing in The Wall Street Journal, explained that the Trotskyites have some extreme ideas as well—their positive spin on the Russian Revolution, for instance—but these ideas are less likely to be “turned into lesson plans for schoolteachers.”

And the message that The New York Times is spreading across the country is that America is not only unexceptional, but exceptionally bad. This is deeply misguided.

America is exceptional not because it was simply perfect at creation; it’s exceptional because generations of imperfect human beings created and cultivated a nation that has brought genuine human flourishing to millions.

Despite those who say otherwise, the United States continues to be a shining city upon a hill, especially for those who see the world at its darkest and long for the pursuit of happiness that we take for granted.

Today, as new and potent threats to liberty emerge in our world, it is essential that Americans come to understand and deepen their appreciation of our history, reject the noxious identity politics that threatens to shatter the concept of e pluribus unum, and embrace an inclusive Americanism that can unite this country in the face of its challenges.

The war on American history—escalated by the deeply flawed 1619 Project—is a lost cause and provides little but dead ends.

COMMENTARY BY

Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman is a contributor to The Daily Signal and co-host of The Right Side of History podcast. Send an email to Jarrett. He is also the author of the new book, “The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past.” Twitter: @JarrettStepman.

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A Note for our Readers:

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Republicans Head Into Election Year With Seven Times The Cash Democrats Have, FEC Filings Show

December 23, 2019/in Elections, Featured, News, Policy, Politics/by The Daily Caller

The Republican National Committee heads into the 2020 election year with more than seven times as much cash on hand as the Democratic National Committee, the parties’ FEC filings show.

FEC filings from both parties show the RNC has $63 million in cash on hand compared to the DNC’s $8.3 million, Bloomberg reported. This is more than seven times as much cash on hand as the DNC has, according to Axios.

The RNC in November raised $20.6 million compared to the DNC’s $8 million, FEC filings show. The DNC did not immediately return the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

News of these funds came after the RNC reported more than 600,000 new donors since Democrats began attempting to impeach President Donald Trump.

As the House Judiciary Committee adopted articles of impeachment earlier in December, the Trump campaign and the RNC received over $10 million in small donations, Axios reported. Republicans raised $15 million during the 72 hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in September that the impeachment inquiry would begin.

A quarter of those who register at Trump rallies are either self-described Democrats or independents, an official told Axios, adding that about a quarter of Trump rally registrants are low-propensity voters.

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