Northeastern University student deported back to Iran over family’s ties to jihad terror groups

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“A U.S. official familiar with information reviewed by authorities told CBS News that Dehghani himself does not have ties to terroristic groups, but ‘some very close to him’ do.”

Many in the U.S. think Shabab Dehghani is an innocent victim of official “Islamophobia.” And it is certainly true that no one should be punished for someone else’s misdeeds. At the same time, how can anyone be certain that he doesn’t hold the same views that his family members hold? To how much of a risk is Northeastern University required to expose its students?

“Northeastern Student Was Deported Back To Iran Over Family’s Ties To Terroristic Groups,” CBS, January 22, 2020:

BOSTON (CBS) – Shabab Dehghani, a Northeastern University college student who was detained at Logan Airport and sent back to Iran before an immigration hearing was held, was deported because of his family’s ties to terroristic groups, CBS News reports.

A U.S. official familiar with information reviewed by authorities told CBS News that Dehghani himself does not have ties to terroristic groups, but “some very close to him” do.

Dehghani is studying economics at Northeastern. He’s been studying in Boston for two years, but was stuck at home in Iran in December 2018 after visiting his family as he waited for his student visa to be renewed.

Dehghani’s attorney, Susan Church, told WBZ-TV he was detained starting Sunday night despite having a legal F1 Student Visa, as he tried to get back to school – and said at the time she didn’t know why.

An immigration hearing was scheduled for Tuesday morning, but Dehghani was deported before it began.

Judge Richard Stearns said during the brief hearing that there was nothing he could do because Dehghani had already been deported. Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey tweeted Wednesday that he still hadn’t heard from U.S. Customs and Border Protection about why Dehghani was turned away….

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Exceptionless Moral Rules

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David Carlin: Morality declines when exceptions are made for “hard cases” and collapses when the fundamental rules become merely unobtainable “ideals.”

One of the distinctive things about Catholic moral doctrine is that it has a number of absolute or exceptionless rules, many of them involving or at least associated with sexual matters.  For example:

  • One must never perform or undergo an abortion.
  • One must never commit adultery.
  • One must never engage in fornication.
  • One must never engage in marital contraception.
  • One must never divorce and remarry.
  • One must never commit suicide.

Most people, I believe, including most people who are on the whole sympathetic to the prohibitions just outlined, feel that some exceptions should be made to the above prohibitions. But their sympathies are partly misguided, and warrant serious clarification:

(1) Divorce.  Almost everybody agrees that marriage should be a permanent and lifelong thing.  Once you’ve promised to remain married “till death do us part,” you should make every effort to keep that promise.  You should bear with your spouse’s shortcomings as long as they are bearable.  But sometimes they are not bearable.  In that case, you may resort to measures to remove those conditions that are making you miserable.

Of course, Catholicism agrees with this, after a fashion.  It is willing to tolerate, if there is sufficient cause, divorce from “bed and board” – that is, a permanent separation.  What it is not willing to tolerate is a divorce from “the chains of matrimony” – it is unwilling, in other words, to tolerate the kind of divorce that allows for remarriage.

Most people find this unreasonable.  “Why,” they ask, “should a man or woman who made a foolish mistake early in life, the foolish mistake of marrying a very unsuitable partner, be barred from ever enjoying the many benefits and consolations of marriage, these including children, a shared marriage bed, shared values, shared ownership of property, and so on?”

The Catholic Church itself seems to share these misgivings as to the no-remarriage rule.  And so the Church makes annulment available, allowing that the parties involved in an immature decision that was no real marital union the possibility of a declaration of nullity. Annulment is not divorce.  It is simply a declaration that the apparent first marriage was not in fact a real marriage.

By maintaining this theory of annulment the Church remains faithful to Jesus’s ban on divorce-and-remarriage.  Unfortunately, in practice annulment is, at least in many cases, little more than a legal fiction that allows Catholics to divorce and remarry just like their non-Catholic neighbors.  It is then, as it has often been called, “Catholic divorce.”

(2) Adultery.  Suppose you’re a married man or woman working for the CIA as a counter-spy, and suppose that by engaging in an adulterous relationship with a spy from Russia or China or Iran you will very probably gain information that will save hundreds or thousands of American lives – Catholicism says you mustn’t do this.  As for the hundred or thousands of lives that may be lost as the result of your remaining faithful to your wedding vows, well. . .regrettable, but not to be saved by immoral means.

Or suppose, less dramatically, you’re a healthy young woman with normal sexual appetites, but your husband (like Lady Chatterley’s husband) is incapable of performing the sexual act; and let’s also suppose that your husband (again like Lady Chatterley’s husband) has given you permission to go to bed with other men – provided these men treat you with kindness and respect, and provided precautions are taken against pregnancy and disease.  Again, Catholicism says: NO.

Even if aliens from a distant galaxy turn up and tell you, a married woman, that they will destroy the planet Earth and every person on it unless you have sex with, say, Brad Pitt or Tom Hanks, Catholicism will still say NO. As St. Paul warned when the Faith was still young, we cannot “do evil that good may come” (Rm. 3:4)

(3) Fornication.  Suppose you’re an elderly widow, and you and an elderly man, likewise widowed, are in love with one another.  You’d both be happy to marry one another.  However, your late husband, who left you many millions, provided that in the case of your remarriage all these millions would go to the SPCA or, worse still, to Planned Parenthood.  Would it be morally okay for you and your boyfriend, while remaining unmarried, to have sexual relations with one another?  Catholicism says NO.

I’ve given enough hypotheticals to make my point.  Readers can easily imagine what other hypotheticals I might offer about abortion, contraception, and suicide.  In all these imaginary cases Catholicism would say, “No exceptions may be made,” while the average non-Catholic would say, “Surely some exceptions may be made.”

What justification can a Catholic offer for these exceptionless rules?  I think there are three.  Given space limitations, I won’t elaborate, at least not today.

First, the Catholic can say: “This is what divine Revelation tells us.  These absolute rules have been revealed to us by God, speaking through Jesus, through the Bible, and through the Church.  We dare not disagree with God.”

Second, the Catholic can say:  “This is what natural law tells us, and by natural law I mean a moral law that is the common law of the human race, a law that all humans understand, at least in its fundamental principles.  We must listen to the voice of nature.”

Finally, the Catholic can say: “Once you allow for a few exceptions, you’ll soon have to allow for more, and then more and more, until, finally, the rule collapses altogether.  Make a few exceptions for divorce, and soon people will divorce for trivial reasons.  The same with abortion, suicide, adultery, etc.”

In fact, as we’ve seen in recent decades, that’s precisely what has happened. The process begins with hard cases and has within it no limiting principle. And so the norms themselves essentially evaporate except as “ideals.”

I hope to analyze this problem, which has now gotten entry even in Church circles, in the near future.

COLUMN BY

David Carlin

David Carlin is a professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island, and the author of The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America.

RELATED ARTICLE: Sex is for married heterosexual couples only, says Church of England

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2020 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

7 Big Moments in Democrats’ Final Arguments to Remove Trump

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In their final day of arguments that the Senate should remove President Donald Trump from office, House Democrats questioned the president’s character and defended former Vice President Joe Biden.

The seven House Democrats who are impeachment managers, acting as prosecutors, finished their allotted 24 hours on their third day of arguments on the Senate floor.  The Senate adjourned just before 9 p.m.

Trump’s legal defense team is scheduled to begin counterarguments Saturday at 10 a.m., but is expected to use only a few hours of the allotted 24 hours. The team includes White House counsel Pat Cipollone; Trump personal lawyer Jay Sekulow; constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz; and former independent counsel Ken Starr.

After each side presents its case, the Senate will vote on whether to call witnesses to testify. It takes a two-thirds majority, or 67 senators, to remove a president from office.

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 >>

Here are highlights from Day 3 of the Democrats’ arguments:

1. ‘Imagine It Wasn’t Joe Biden’

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., leader of the House managers, made an impassioned plea to the senators to put themselves “in someone else’s shoes,” in this case, those of Joe Biden.

“Let’s imagine it wasn’t Joe Biden. Let’s imagine it was anyone of us,” Schiff said, adding:

Let’s imagine the most powerful person in the world was asking a foreign nation to conduct a sham investigation into one of us.

What would we think about it then? Would we think that’s a good U.S. policy? Would we think he has every right to do it? Would we think that’s a ‘perfect’ call?

In 2016, Biden, as vice president, threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid from Ukraine unless the Eastern European nation fired Viktor Shokin, the state prosecutor who was investigating the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.

Hunter Biden, the vice president’s son, held a high-paying job on the board of Burisma at the same time his father was the Obama administration’s point man for Ukraine policy.

In a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the two men briefly discussed Trump’s interest in Ukraine’s investigating the matter along with Ukraine’s possible meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

At the time, unknown to Zelenskyy, Trump had put a hold on $391 million in congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine to counter Russian aggression, which he would lift in September.

Both presidents say there was no pressure on Ukraine to begin investigations.

During his argument Friday on the Senate floor, Schiff brought up former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who Trump recalled to the United States on May 20, the day of Zelenskyy’s inauguration. Yovanovitch continues to work for the State Department.

“Would you think he [Trump] was abusing the power of his office? And if you would, it shouldn’t matter that it wasn’t you,” Schiff continued. “It shouldn’t matter that it was Marie Yovanovitch. It shouldn’t matter that it was Joe Biden. Because I’ll tell you something; The next time, it just may be you.”

Schiff warned that Trump likely wouldn’t be loyal to his own Republican allies in the Senate if it didn’t benefit him.

“Do you think for a moment, no matter what your relationship with this president, no matter how close you are to this president, do you think for a moment that if he felt it was in his interest, he wouldn’t ask you to be investigated?” Schiff said.

“If somewhere deep down below, you realize that he would, you cannot leave a man like that in office when he has violated the Constitution. It shouldn’t matter that it was Joe Biden. It could have been any of us. It may be any of us,” he said.

Schiff later added, referring to the elder Biden: “Yes, he’s running for president. He’s still a U.S. citizen, and he deserves better than that.”

2. Attack on American Character

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Trump’s conduct represented an assault on the character of the country.

“There’s a toxic mess at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and I humbly suggest that it’s our collective job on behalf of the American people to try to clean it up,” Jeffries said. “President Trump tried to cheat. He got caught, and then he worked hard to cover it up.”

Jeffries went so far as to talk about impeachment in the context of the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War II, the Jim Crow era, and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“America is a great country. We can handle adversity better than any other nation in the world, but what are we going to do about our character?” Jeffries asked, adding:

President Trump tried to cheat and solicit foreign interference in an American election. That is an attack on our character.

President Trump abused his power and corrupted the highest office in the land. That is an attack on our character.

President Trump tried to cover it all up and hide it from the American people and obstruct Congress. That’s an extraordinary attack on our character.

Schiff later made a similar point.

“You don’t realize how important character is in the highest office in the land until you don’t have it, until you have a president willing to use his power to coerce an ally to help him cheat, to investigate one of our fellow citizens,” Schiff said.

3. President Disparaged as ‘Dictator’

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., an impeachment manager who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, called Trump “a dictator” who must be removed for not cooperating with the House’s impeachment inquiry.

“President Trump is an outlier. He’s the first and only president to declare himself unaccountable and to ignore subpoenas backed by the Constitution’s impeachment power,” Nadler said, adding:

If he is not removed from office, if he is permitted to defy the Congress entirely, categorically, to say that subpoenas from Congress in an impeachment inquiry are nonsense, then we will have lost, the House will have lost, the Senate certainly will have lost, all power to hold any president accountable.

Nadler, not mentioning that House Democrats didn’t try to enforce their subpoenas through the courts, also said:

This is a determination by President Trump that he wants to be all powerful. He does not have to respect the Congress. He does not have to respect the representatives of the people. Only his will goes. He is a dictator. This must not stand. That is another reason he must be removed from office.

4. Military Consequences 

Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., a former Army Ranger, pushed that military role in buttressing Democrats’ national security argument.

“This defense would be laughable if this issue wasn’t so serious,” Crow said on the Senate floor, in anticipation of an argument the president’s lawyers will make. “No, the delay wasn’t meaningless. Just ask the Ukrainians sitting in trenches now.”

Crow suggested that former national security adviser John Bolton, who Democrats want as a witness in the trial, might have quit because of the hold on aid to Ukraine.

“Ambassador Bolton could shed light on that himself if he were to testify,” Crow said.

Schiff also noted, while on the Senate floor, the huge reliance Ukraine had on the United States, which provides 10% of the country’s military budget.

“Withholding aid has real consequences on real soldiers and their families,” Schiff said, adding the hold only “emboldened Russia.”

Trump ultimately followed through on military aid to Ukraine to defend itself from Russia, while President Barack Obama did not, Trump’s defenders note.

5. Drawing Roberts Into Case

Chief Justice John Roberts is presiding over the trial, as is his constitutional duty. Going back to his confirmation hearing, Roberts generally has said he only calls balls and strikes.

However, on Friday, Schiff broached the subject of having Roberts make the final decision on calling witnesses. Most reports indicate the 45 Senate Democrats and two independents will have a tough time getting four Republicans to join them for a majority to vote for calling witnesses.

Schiff cited Senate precedent from the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, which ended in acquittal. In that trial, Chief Justice Salmon Chase cast a tie-breaking vote.

“We have a very capable justice sitting in that Senate chamber empowered by the Senate rules to decide issues of evidence and privilege,” Schiff told reporters. “So if any of these witnesses have a colorable claim that they wish to make or the president on their behalf, we have a justice that is able to make those determinations.”

6. Prepping for Trump Lawyers

Crow said he was anticipating the arguments of the president’s defense team, set to begin Saturday.

“Now since we won’t have an opportunity to respond to the president’s presentation, I want to take a minute to respond to some of the arguments that I expect them to make,” Crow said.

The Colorado Democrat said the president’s lawyers likely will say that Ukraine eventually got the $391 million in security assistance from the U.S.

“Regardless of whether the aid was ultimately released, the fact that the hold became public sent a very important signal to Russia that our support was wavering,” Crow said. “The damage was done.”

Crow warned senators that the Trump defense team will “cherry-pick” evidence and advised: “Don’t be fooled.”

Ukraine received the $391 million in military aid only after news broke of a whistleblower complaint about the Trump-Zelenskyy phone call, he said.

“The scheme was unraveling. He only released it after he got caught,” Crow said of Trump.

Schiff dismissed the often-repeated line from Trump defenders that the president had sought to address corruption in Ukraine before delivering the aid.

“He was not trying to end corruption in Ukraine,” Schiff said. “He was trying to aim corruption in Ukraine at Joe Biden.”

7. Making the Case for Obstruction

Trump’s refusal to cooperate with impeachment investigators could set a dangerous precedent, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., told senators, in arguing for removing the president from office for obstruction of Congress.

“All presidents after him with have veto power over Congress’ ability to conduct oversight and the power of impeachment,” Lofgren said.

“The House was not prepared to accept that, and that’s why the House approved Article 2,” she said, referring to the House’s second article of impeachment.

Lofgren was a member of the House Judiciary Committee during the 1998 impeachment hearings of President Bill Clinton and a congressional staffer during the 1974 impeachment inquiry of President Richard Nixon.

Over two days of arguments, the seven House impeachment managers prosecuted the case for abuse of power against Trump. The first three hours of Friday’s proceedings closed out their arguments for that first article of impeachment.

Just before 5 p.m., Democrats began arguing that the Senate should remove Trump from office for obstruction of Congress, charging that the president didn’t cooperate with the House’s impeachment investigation.

The House sent several subpoenas during the investigation. Cipollone, the White House counsel, wrote a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in October saying that the White House would not provide any documents or witnesses.

The letter asserted that the impeachment investigation was an attempt both to overturn the results of the 2016 election and to influence the outcome of the 2020 contest.

Republicans, criticizing the second impeachment article, say House Democrats didn’t even attempt to enforce their subpoenas in court.

The House subpoenaed White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and various other officials, but not Bolton.

Still, Lofgren accused Trump of ordering nine witnesses to defy House subpoenas.

“In the history of our republic, no president ever dared to issue an order to prevent even a single government witness from testifying in an impeachment inquiry,” Lofgren said.

“President Trump abused the power of his office by using his official power in an attempt to prevent every single person who works in the executive branch from testifying before the House,” she said.

In fact, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which led the investigation, identified 17 current and former Trump administration officials who either were deposed behind closed doors or gave public testimony.

Trump made no attempt to cooperate with the House investigation, said Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, a former state judge.

“At President Trump’s order, agencies and offices refused to produce documents in response to the committee’s request,” Garcia said. “They refused to allow individual witnesses to do so either.”

“So let’s recap. No documents. Zero, goose eggs, nada, in response to over 70 requests and five subpoenas.”

Garcia continued:

No attempt to negotiate. No genuine attempt to accommodate. Categorial, indiscriminate, and unprecedented stonewalling. Again, never in my time as a lawyer or as a judge have I seen this kind of total disrespect and defiance of a lawfully issued subpoena, and all on President Trump’s orders.

This report was updated to include later developments.

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Lucas is also the author of “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections.” Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

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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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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

DECADENT DEMOCRATS: From the Party of Abortion and Allah Akbar to the 2020 Right to Life March and death of terrorist Soleimani

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EDITORS NOTE: This is the sixth in a series titled Decadent Democrats. You may read the previous installments here:

DECADENT DEMOCRATS — From Pedophilia to Sex with Animals

DECADENT DEMOCRATS — From Electing a Dream ‘Queer Latina’ Candidate to No Incarceration For Drug Use of Any Kind

DECADENT DEMOCRATS: The Enemies of America are Our Best Friends Forever

DECADENT DEMOCRATS — From Ricky Gervais’ Golden Globe Diatribe to Abortion to Climate Change [+Videos]

DECADENT DEMOCRATS: From Creating Weak Men and Disorderly Women to Making Sex a Biological Reality Illegal

“If a mother can kill her own child – what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me – there is nothing between.” ― Mother Teresa

“…kill not your children because of poverty – We provide sustenance for you and for them.”  – Quran 6:151

ABORTION – A Godless Act

Today,  February 24th, 2020, is the 46th annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. For the first time in history a sitting President spoke at this annual event. In October 1973 a group of 30 pro-life leaders gathers in Nellie Gray’s home in Washington, D.C. to discuss how to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Roe v. Wade. In January 1974 the first March for Life walks on Washington to lobby Congressional leadership to find a legislative solution to the Supreme Court’s decision. Soon after realizing congressional protection of the unborn was not on the horizon, Nellie Gray decides to hold a March for Life every year until Roe v. Wade is overturned.

The 2016 Democratic Party Platform states:

Appointing Judges
We will appoint judges who defend the constitutional principles of liberty and equality for all, and will protect a woman’s right to safe and legal abortion, curb billionaires’ influence over elections because they understand that Citizens United has fundamentally damaged our democracy, and believe the Constitution protects not only the powerful, but also the disadvantaged and powerless. [Emphasis added]

In The Atlantic article 2020 Candidates Are Going All In on Abortion Rights Emma Green wrote:

Kirsten Gillibrand has made abortion the central issue of her presidential campaign. The senator from New York has consistently led the field of 2020 candidates on abortion policy, moving first and going the furthest to embrace an expansive vision of abortion rights. Her approach is a bellwether of where the Democratic Party is heading on this issue: Abortion is guaranteed to be a key topic in the 2020 election, especially following major policy battles at the state and federal levels. Gillibrand and other Democrats have warned that Donald Trump and the conservative-leaning justices he has appointed to the Supreme Court are working to overturn Roe v. Wade, the decision that established a constitutional right to abortion in 1973. Because of this, they argue, now is the time for Democrats to take a definitive stance, rather than try to compromise or telegraph discomfort over the issue.

The Democratic Party has gone beyond protecting a “woman’s right to a safe and legal abortion” to fully embracing abortion up to and even after birth.

According to The Religion of Islam website:

These unique rights mentioned in Islam also include the rights of children.  Children’s rights are not guaranteed by the actions of their parents, their communities, or even their governments.  God Himself guarantees children’s rights.

The Party of Allah Akbar

The Democratic Party is the party of Allah Akbar. Among the Democratic Party’s Progressive Caucus are two Muslim women – Reps. Ilan Omar and Rashida Talib and Socialist Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Both have been highly critical if President Trump. But most recently they have been especially enraged by President Trump ordering the elimination of Iran’s Al Quds General Qassem Soleimani.

According to the Times of Israel:

In a 2013 profile of President Trump during his press conference after the termination of , New Yorker reporter Dexter Filkins wrote that as head of the Quds Force, which he took control of in 1998, Soleimani “sought to reshape the Middle East in Iran’s favor, working as a power broker and as a military force: assassinating rivals, arming allies, and, for most of a decade, directing a network of militant groups that killed hundreds of Americans in Iraq.”

Ryan Saavedra from The Daily Wire reported:

Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) responded to the U.S. military killing top terrorist targets in Iraq on Thursday [January 2, 2020] by ignoring the facts of the situation and going all in to stop the Trump administration from further targeting enemies of the United States that have killed Americans.

“Last night the President engaged in what is widely being recognized as an act of war against Iran, one that now risks the lives of millions of innocent people,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “Now is the moment to prevent war & protect innocent people – the question for many is how, publicly & Congressionally.”

During President Donald J. Trump’s January 3rd, 2020 remarks the termination of  Soleimani, he stated:

Under my leadership, America’s policy is unambiguous: To terrorists who harm or intend to harm any American, we will find you; we will eliminate you.  We will always protect our diplomats, service members, all Americans, and our allies.

[ … ]

Soleimani made the death of innocent people his sick passion, contributing to terrorist plots as far away as New Delhi and London.

[ … ]

We took action last night to stop a war.  We did not take action to start a war. [Emphasis added]

Women’s March vs. Right To Life March, Washington, D.C.

Here’s a video of the 2020 Women’s March:

President Donald J. Trump made history when he addressed the 2020 Right to Life March in Washington, D.C. Watch:

President Trump stated:

All of us here today understand an eternal truth: Every child is a precious and sacred gift from God. Together, we must protect, cherish, and defend the dignity and sanctity of every human life. When we see the image of a baby in the womb, we glimpse the majesty of God’s creation.

What a difference a party can make. 2020 will clearly be a choice between the Decadent Democrats and the Republican President Donald J. Trump.

© All rights reserved.

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RELATED VIDEO: Worthless

A Cause, Not a Country: Iran’s Islamic Republic by Andrew Harrod

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“The Iranian state serves the revolution, not the other way around,” concluded Iran analysts at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (IGC) in a series of 2019 studies four decades after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution. As this series has previously indicated, in the name of pursuing an Islamic new world order, the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has gone to extreme lengths to suppress any contrary indigenous, independent Iranian culture.

Iranian-Canadian political analyst Shahir Shahidsaless has noted that the IRI’s founding father and first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, had “viewed the concept of nationalism as un-Islamic.” “Like many other pious Muslims,” for him nationalism meant “opposition to the concept of ummah (Muslim worldwide community), which fundamentally rejects borders that divide Muslim societies.” “Those who, in the name of nationalism, factionalism, etc., create schism and disunity among Muslims are armies of Satan, opponents of the Holy Quran, and helping agents of the superpowers,” Khomeini had stated. He believed that “nationalism is designed by the plotters to create discord among the Muslims and it is being propagated by the agents of imperialism.”

Shahidsaless contrasted the “secular rule of the Shah,” Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, overthrown in 1979, whose “vast propaganda empowered nationalist fervour.” “In a glaring move,” the shah eliminated in 1976 the Islamic calendar, which begins with the 622 migration (hijrah) of Islam’s prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina. As replacement came the Iranian royal calendar based upon the 559 BCE coronation of Achaemenid king Cyrus the Great. From Najaf, Iraq, where Khomeini had fled from the shah into exile in 1963, Khomeini labeled the new calendar a “preamble to the elimination of Islam.”

Ascending to power in 1979, Khomeini presented a dramatic reversal with the statement “Islam in fact is an ideology, in which religion represents one aspect.” The IGC analysts have noted that the “constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran makes clear the expansionist and Islamist nature of the country’s 1979 revolution” with a “centrality of ideology.” “Iran’s Islamist ideology is therefore at the crux of the Islamic Republic and cannot be detached from the Iranian state” while “for Iran’s leaders, the creation of an Islamic state in Iran was a first step to establishing a broader pan-Islamic order.” “The revolution does not exist to perfect the state; the state—the republic—is simply a means to support and perfect the revolution. Where the two conflict, the revolution is prioritized,” the IGC experts have summarized.

“All of Iran’s leaders are Islamists and claim their mandate to implement an Islamic order on the nation derives from God,” the IGC analysts have detailed. The “supreme leader is the leader of the revolution, not of the republic,” and the “Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is sworn to defend the purity of the revolution from enemies both within and without.” In public addresses, Iranian leaders have typically “opened with a prayer in Arabic, something that was not a regular feature of Iranian political culture before 1979.”

The IGC reports have especially noted that the

Green Movement protests against the 2009 Iranian presidential election results were a rude awakening to many Iranians who had believed the revolution was about political emancipation, when it was abruptly announced that obedience to the supreme leader and his appointees was the equivalent of obedience to God. No modern Iranian monarch could have made such a claim.

As Israeli Iran expert Raz Zimmt has explained, the IRI has tried to inculcate such loyalty by purging Iranian culture of nonconforming elements from the shah’s ancien régime in an attempt to create a new Iranian homo Islamicus. The “Islamic regime sought to place religion at the center of Iranian national identity, as a reaction to the blatant secularism of the royalist regime, and its efforts to emphasize Iran’s pre-Islamic past.” The national security and Middle East analyst Sarah Katz has concurred that the IRI “spurned Iranian nationalism in favor of a world conquering Islamist vision; and dissociated itself from Iran’s pre-Islamic past.”

Katz has elaborated that,

in the wake of the 1979 revolution, the government in Tehran has smothered the country’s rich, diverse, and ancient culture beneath a theocratic dictatorship. The regime is openly contemptuous of Iran’s history, its ethnic and religious minorities, and its secular-minded citizens.

In this diversity’s place, the IRI has indoctrinated a monoculture reflecting the Arab-Islamic seventh-century conquest of Iran, as the Iranian-American expatriate Amil Imani has noted. Since 1979 a “proud people with an enviable heritage have been systematically purged of their sense of identity and forced to think and behave like barbaric and intolerant Muslims.” His fellow Iranian expatiate Sheda Vasseghi has observed that the “Islamic Republic’s political and social agenda is to dilute Iranian culture and heritage with Islam to facilitate its Arabization.”

Public place names have served as one reeducation means. Khomeini gave Khalid al-Islambouli, the jihadist leader of the 1981 assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, martyr status and named a Tehran street after Islambouli after his 1982 Egyptian state execution. Katz particularly noted that the IRI has been “Arabizing many Tehran street names from their classical Persian.”

Much more egregious, a “concerted effort was made to demolish historical monuments,” Imani noted, including previously examined attempts to destroy remains of the ancient Achaemenid Empire such as Persepolis and Cyrus the Great’s tomb. “The Islamist zealots ruling Iran for the past 40 years have undertaken a systematic campaign of endangering and destroying the cultural sites of pre-Islamic Iran, ignoring the numerous petitions and pleas of the Iranian people.” Imani stated that:

History is repeating itself. When the original Arabs conquered Iran, the first thing they did was destroy Persian books, heritage and artifacts, as we have witnessed similar actions by ISIS [Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] in both Iraq and Syria. The Islamic Republic of Iran also despises anything and everything Iranian, and has been gradually obliterating Iranian antiquities while no one notices.

Yet Vasseghi found “no better evidence regarding the Islamic Republic’s cultural genocide of Iran than its own textbooks.” Imani elaborated that the

animosity toward Iranian pre-Islamic culture and history and became the hallmark of the Islamic Republic’s regime. De-Persianization and adulation of the Arabic tribal culture entered elementary school books. In schools, instead of teaching Persian history, culture and geography and history, they taught culture and geography of the Bedouins of another land. In schools, children were brainwashed by a type of ideological indoctrination no longer acceptable by modern society and taught a Persian language obliterated by unfamiliar jargon. Purging of our institutions of higher education of scholars, top professors and researchers caused lowering of educational standards relative to international standards and flight of the best and the brightest of our country.

The views of Imani and others, along with recent Iranian events, indicate that the IRI’s revolution is backfiring. Iranians naturally reject abandoning their national identity for the costly, cosmic claims of an Islamic ideology perceived by many Iranians as a foreign imposition. Rather than fomenting totalitarian religious zeal, the IRI has ultimately highlighted Iran’s conflicted history between native and Arab-Islamic elements, as the next part of this series will analyze.

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

7 Highlights From Day 3 of the Trump Impeachment Trial

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House Democrats on Thursday, in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, argued that a crime isn’t necessary to remove a president from office and doubled down on their defense of Joe and Hunter Biden.

The seven House Democrats who are the impeachment managers, including Reps. Adam Schiff of California and Jerry Nadler of New York, have three days, with up to 24 hours, to make their arguments.

On Saturday, the president’s legal defense team, which includes White House counsel Pat Cipollone; Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow; and former independent counsel Ken Starr, begin their counterarguments.

After each side presents its case, the Senate will vote on whether to call witnesses to testify. The rules are similar to those used in the 1999 impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, who was acquitted.

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 >>

It takes a two-thirds vote, or 67 senators, to remove a president from office.

1. Lighthearted Schiff

After a deeply partisan fight over Senate trial rules on Tuesday and speaking for about two hours in Wednesday’s opening argument, Schiff, the lead impeachment manager, was more lighthearted Thursday.

After Chief Justice John G. Roberts opened the day’s session, he said House impeachment managers have 16 hours and 42 minutes left to make their case to the Senate “jurors.”

Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, spoke first for his team.

“I am not sure the chief justice is fully aware of just how rare it is, how extraordinary it is, for the House members to be able to command the attention of senators sitting silently for hours—or even for minutes, for that matter,” he said. “Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the morning starts out every day with a sergeant-at-arms warning you that if you don’t, you will be imprisoned.”

2. Defending Joe and Hunter Biden

Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, spent much of her floor time defending former Vice President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, and his son Hunter Biden.

“Common sense will tell us that this allegation against Joe Biden is false,” Garcia said, adding, “President Trump asked for the investigation into Biden, based on a made-up theory that no one agreed with—no one.”

In 2016, Joe Biden, as vice president, threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid from Ukraine unless the Eastern European nation fired Viktor Shokin, the prosecutor investigating Burisma Holdings. Hunter Biden held a high-paying job on the board of  Burisma at a time when his father was the Obama administration’s point man for Ukraine.

Garcia said Shokin was corrupt.

“Calling for Shokin’s replacement would, in fact, increase the chances that Burisma would be investigated,” she said. “In other words, Shokin was corrupt and not investigating allegations against Burisma. So, Vice President Biden was calling for Shokin’s removal, advocating for a replacement, would actually increase the chances of Burisma’s investigation.”

Garcia said Trump wasn’t interested in the Biden allegations in 2017 or 2018, but only became interested in 2019, after Joe Biden became a presidential candidate.

“Vice President Biden’s conduct was uniformly validated by the witnesses in the House investigation, who confirmed his conduct was consistent with U.S. policy,” she said.

Garcia’s adamant defense of the Bidens opened the door to call them as witnesses, tweeted Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., so the Senate can get answers.

“WOW, House managers make extended argument that Hunter Biden’s work w/ Burisma entirely appropriate & no conflict of interest w/ Joe Biden getting rid of prosecutor that had jurisdiction over Burisma,” Hawley said. “If we call witnesses, gonna need to hear from both Bidens.”

3. George Washington, Nixon, and Trump

Democrats spent most of Thursday homing in on the first impeachment article; specifically, abuse of power.

Nadler said Trump’s conduct “captures the worst fears of our Founders.”

“Since President George Washington took office in 1789, no president has abused his power in this way,” he said. “Let me say that again: No president has ever used his office to compel a foreign nation to help him cheat in our elections. Prior presidents would be shocked to the core by such conduct.”

Trump has made frequent references to his record, reaching all the way back to George Washington, albeit typically in a more favorable way.

A July 25 phone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy led to the Democrat-controlled House’s voting, without support from a single Republican, to impeach Trump for alleged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

During their call, Trump and Zelenskyy referred to Hunter Biden’s highly paid role on the board of Burisma at a time when his father, then the vice president, was the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine policy.

According to a White House transcript of the call released by the president, Trump asked Zelenskyy “to look into” Joe Biden’s admission that he forced the firing of a Ukrainian state prosecutor—Shokin—who was investigating Burisma.

“This conduct is not ‘America First,’” Nadler said, taking a swipe at Trump’s 2016 campaign theme. “This conduct is Donald Trump first.”

Nadler followed with another presidential comparison.

“This presidential stonewalling of Congress is unprecedented in the 238-year history of our constitutional republic. It puts even President [Richard] Nixon to shame,” Nadler said. “Taken together, the articles and the evidence conclusively establish that President Trump has placed his own personal political interests first. He has placed them above our national security, above our free and fair elections, and above our system of checks and balances.”

4. Abuse of Power and Prior Impeachments

Nadler later defended the history of the term “abuse of power,” a charge often criticized as being too vague.

“All prior impeachment considered of high office have all included abuse of power,” Nadler said, and referred to the impeachment investigations of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Nixon, and Bill Clinton.

However, even left-leaning CNN fact-checked that comment and noted that abuse of power was not one of the 11 impeachment articles against Johnson in 1868. The House Judiciary Committee passed three articles of impeachment against Nixon in 1974, one of which was abuse of power. Nixon resigned the presidency before the full House voted.

The House Judiciary Committee, then run by Republicans, voted out four articles of impeachment against Clinton, a Democrat, in 1998, which included one for abuse of power. The full House only approved two impeachment articles, rejecting the abuse of power charge. The Senate acquitted Clinton in a 1999 trial.

5. ABCs of Impeachment

Nadler focused heavily on what he called the “ABCs of impeachment.”

“Abuse. Betrayal. Corruption. Here are each of the core offenses the Framers [of the Constitution] feared most,” Nadler said. “The president’s abuse of power, his betrayal of the national interest, and his corruption of our elections plainly qualify as great and dangerous offenses.”

Nadler said Trump abused his power by using the clout of his office to “solicit and pressure Ukraine to meddle in our elections.”

Regarding betrayal, the New York Democrat said, “He betrayed vital national interests; specifically, our national security, by withholding diplomatic support and military aid from Ukraine even as it faced armed Russian aggression.”

Regarding corruption, Nadler said, “President Trump’s intent was to corrupt our elections to his personal political benefit.”

“Article One thus charges a high crime and misdemeanor that blends abuse of power, betrayal of the nation, and corruption in elections into a single, unforgivable scheme,” he said. “That is why this president must be removed from office, especially before he continues his effort to corrupt our next election.”

6. Graham and Dershowitz Videos

Nadler explained that some Trump defenders note that neither article of impeachment is based on a criminal statute.

“In a last-ditch legal defense of their client, the president’s lawyers argue that impeachment and removal are subject to statutory crimes or to offenses against established law, that the president cannot be impeached because he has not committed a crime,” he said.

“This view is completely wrong. It has no support in constitutional text and structure, original meaning, congressional presence, common sense, or the consensus of credible experts. In other words, it conflicts with every relevant consideration,” he continued.

During his presentation, Nadler showed video from one of Trump’s chief advocates, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and one of the president’s lawyers, Alan Dershowitz.

According to several reports, Graham had left the Senate chamber before a 1999 video clip in which he was featured was displayed.

The clip showed Graham, then a member of the House, on the Senate floor, acting as a House manager in the Clinton impeachment trial, explaining what he thought a “high crime” was.

“What’s a high crime? How about if an important person hurts somebody of low means? It’s not very scholarly, but I think it’s the truth. I think that’s what they meant by high crimes,” Graham said in the 1999 video. “Doesn’t even have to be a crime. It’s just when you start using your office, and you’re acting in a way that hurts people, you have committed a high crime,” Graham said in the clip.

Nadler also showed a clip of Dershowitz.

“It certainly doesn’t have to be a crime,” Dershowitz said of impeachment. “If you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty, you don’t need a technical crime.”

7. Phone Calls, Ambassador’s Recall

Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., laid out the case about an alleged conspiracy by Trump’s inner circle and his personal lawyer, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, who was indicted and recently spoke out against Trump.

She attempted to play a recording of a voicemail between Giuliani and Parnas, but the audio didn’t work.

“Well, I was going to say it’s difficult to hear, but I’m sure you cannot hear that at all,” Demings said.

“According to phone records, Mr. Giuliani had a one-minute, 50-second call,” Demings, a former Orlando, Florida, police chief said. “Fifteen minutes after they hung up, the records also show that Mr. Giuliani placed three short phone calls to the White House. Shortly thereafter, the White House called Giuliani back. Giuliani spoke with someone at the White House for eight minutes and 28 seconds.

“I will just quickly note that at the time … the Intelligence Committee issued its report in mid-December, we did not know that eight-minute, 28-second call was from the White House.”

She said neither the White House nor Giuliani provided a recording or transcript of the call.

Demings said that Trump recalled Marie Yovanovitch from her job as ambassador to Ukraine out of fear that Yovanovitch, a holdover from the Obama administration, would stop the investigations of the Bidens and into suspected Ukraine election meddling in 2016.

Yovanovitch remains employed with the State Department at no change in pay and teaches at Georgetown University. But Demings said the ambassador’s removal created uncertainty among U.S. diplomats and State Department officials.

“So, why did President Trump remove a distinguished career public servant and an anti-corruption crusader and a top diplomat in the State Department?” she asked rhetorically.

“We know why. The answer is simple. President Trump removed Ambassador Yovanovitch because she was in the way,” Demings said. “She was in the way of the sham investigations that he so desperately wanted. Investigations that would hurt former Vice President Biden and undermine the Mueller investigation into Russia election interference, investigations that would help him cheat in the 2020 election.”

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Lucas is also the author of “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections.” Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

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!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

5 times Adam Schiff just totally made it up today

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Democrats have based their whole impeachment sham on the word and judgement of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who pleaded the left’s case for 2 ½ hours before the Senate today. Spoiler alert: That wasn’t a good idea.

Schiff is the worst choice to put in front of Americans fed up with Washington’s partisan circus. His only real priority is attacking President Trump, and he’s more than happy to resort to lies, leaks, and whatever else it takes to do it.

In September, during a House Intelligence Committee hearing, Schiff made headlines by fabricating a completely made-up version of the July 25th phone call between President Trump and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. Then, news broke that Schiff’s staff had behind-the-scenes contact with the “whistleblower” at the center of the impeachment probe before that complaint was ever even filed.

“We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower,” Schiff had claimed before the truth caught up with him. Oops—not the best person to stake Democrats’ credibility on.

Today was no different. Schiff’s one-sided impeachment report—the document that serves as the basis for Democrats’ entire case—is nothing but a partisan hatchet job. Rather than draw more attention to their flimsy, fake “investigation,” Schiff chose to deflect and make up more lies about President Trump. Here are a few of the biggest ones:

  • Schiff claims that President Trump endorsed the theory that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election. FACT: President Trump has publicly said, very clearly, that he accepts the conclusion of the intelligence community that Russia interfered in 2016.
  • Schiff says that President Trump withheld an Oval Office meeting from President Zelenskyy. FACT: President Trump invited President Zelenskyy to the White House—with no preconditions—on THREE occasions: April 21, May 29, and July 25. They met at the first opportunity, at the UN General Assembly.
  • Schiff once again brought up claims of a “quid pro quo.” FACT: Notice what’s not in Democrats’ articles of impeachment? Allegations or accusations of a quid pro quo. They couldn’t include that claim—because no such arrangement existed.
  • BONUS: Schiff completely misrepresented what Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said about foreign policy, Chris Wallace says.

For years, Schiff lied about the Russia hoax, claiming there was evidence of collusion only to be proven wrong by the Mueller Report. This time, House Democrats learned their lesson: Why risk letting the facts get in the way? Impeach first, investigate later—or beg the Senate to do it for them.

In better news: The great American comeback story!

President Trump traveled to Davos, Switzerland, this week for the World Economic Forum. The annual meeting brings together leaders from across the globe to discuss improving economic stability and unleashing prosperity for more people worldwide.

As he always does on the world stage, President Trump made his priority clear: The needs of the American people come first. His meetings with leaders from the European Union, Iraq, Afghanistan, and more will help America continue to protect its citizens and secure better trade deals for its workers.

America also has a story to tell. “When I spoke at this forum two years ago, I told you that we had launched the great American comeback,” President Trump said. “Today, I’m proud to declare that the United States is in the midst of an economic boom the likes of which the world has never seen before.”

Watch President Trump’s full speech at Davos.

Promise Made, Promise Kept: NAFTA replacement coming to POTUS’ desk! 

© All rights reserved.

5 Flash Points From Impeachment Trial’s Opening Arguments

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House prosecutors claimed Wednesday that President Donald Trump is trying to “cheat” to win the 2020 election, as opening arguments from each side commenced in the Senate impeachment trial of the president.

The seven House Democrats who are impeachment managers, acting as prosecutors, made their case against Trump. They include House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff of California and House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler of New York.

Presenting the other side was the president’s legal defense team, which includes White House counsel Pat Cipollone; Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow; and former independent counsel Ken Starr.

Under rules approved late Tuesday, each side has a total of 24 hours of speaking time on the Senate floor to make their case, a time allotment that may be spread over three days.

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 >>

After each side presents its case, the Senate will vote on whether to call witnesses to testify. The rules are similar to those used in the 1999 impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, who was acquitted.

It takes a two-thirds vote, or 67 senators, to remove a president from office.

For now, the seven House impeachment managers have up to 24 hours over three days to persuade senators to convict Trump and remove him from office.

Schiff opened the proceedings with a presentation lasting more than two hours. He used video and text messages to support his case, including 2016 campaign footage and clips from sworn witnesses at the House impeachment hearings in November.

Here are five dramatic scenes from the second full day of the Senate impeachment trial, which began shortly after 1 p.m. and continued into the night.

1. ‘Cannot Be Decided at the Ballot Box’

A July 25 phone conversation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy led to the Democrat-controlled House’s voting, without support from a single Republican, to impeach Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

During their call, Trump and Zelenskyy referred to Hunter Biden’s highly paid role on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma at a time when his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, was the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine policy.

According to a White House transcript of the call released by the president, Trump asked Zelenskyy “to look into” Joe Biden’s admission that he forced the firing of a Ukrainian state prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.

Schiff told the Senate, sitting as a jury, that impeachment and removal of Trump is not about a policy disagreement.

“We are here today to consider a much more grave matter, and that is the attempt to use the power of the presidency to cheat in an election,” Schiff said.

Ahead of a presidential election in November, when Trump seeks a second term, Schiff rejected the notion that the matter should be left to voters.

“The president’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box,” Schiff said, adding:

For we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won. In corruptly using his office to gain a political advantage and abusing that office in such a way to jeopardize that national security and the integrity of our elections, in obstructing the investigation into his own wrongdoing, the president has shown he believes that he is above the law and scornful of constraint.

2. Resurrecting the Russia Narrative

Although one impeachment article alleges Trump was soliciting Ukraine to meddle in the 2020 election, the House impeachment managers brought up Russia again.

This comes despite the conclusion by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team that neither Trump nor his campaign conspired with Russian government operatives to influence the 2016 election.

Before Schiff became chairman when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 elections, the House Intelligence Committee reached a similar conclusion prior to release of the Mueller report.

Nevertheless, Schiff wasn’t ready to let the subject of Russia go.

“This is not the first time the president solicited foreign interference in our elections,” Schiff said. “In 2016, then-candidate Trump implored Russia to hack his opponent’s email account—something the Russian military did only hours later. Only hours later.

“When the president said, ‘Hey Russia, if you’re listening,’ they were listening. Only hours later, they hacked his opponent’s campaign.”

In 2016, Trump’s Democratic rival for the presidency, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was under FBI investigation for conducting State Department business over an unsecure private email server.

Weeks after then-FBI Director James Comey announced that he wouldn’t recommend prosecution of Clinton, despite thousands of “missing” emails, Trump talked about the issue on the campaign trail.

This also came after news that Russia was believed to have hacked the Democratic National Committee.

“If it is Russia, it’s really bad for a different reason,” Trump said at a rally on July 27, 2016. “Because it shows how little respect they have for our country when they would hack into a major party and get everything.”

“But it would be interesting to see—I will tell you this, Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens. That will be next.”

Later in the House impeachment managers’ arguments in the Senate, a video clip showed a Trump interview with ABC News after the Mueller investigation concluded, in which Trump was asked if he would report to the FBI if Russia or China offered him negative information on his opponent, or would take the information.

“I think maybe you do both,” Trump told the network in June. “I think you might want to listen; there isn’t anything wrong with listening. If somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said,] ‘We have information on your opponent’—oh, I think I’d want to hear it.”

Arguing on the Senate floor, Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, proclaimed of the clip: “Shocking video.”

3. Trump’s Real-Time Response

Trump apparently weighed in on Schiff’s arguments from the economic conference he was attending in Davos, Switzerland. He took the time for a short tweet, in all capital letters: “NO PRESSURE.”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1220073313768099840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1220073313768099840&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailysignal.com%2F2020%2F01%2F22%2F5-flash-points-from-impeachment-trials-opening-arguments%2F

The president was making the point that he did not pressure Zelenskyy to conduct investigations of the Bidens and possible Ukrainian meddling in the 2016 election in order to get $391 million in congressional approved military aid.

Zelenskyy also has said repeatedly that there was no pressure from Trump.

4. Citing an Actual Statute

Trump defenders and independent legal analysts frequently note that after House Democrats failed in their effort to show Trump had engaged in bribery or extortion, they had to rely on vague charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress—neither of which are crimes in federal statutes.

However, Schiff pointed to a Government Accountability Office opinion last week that said Trump violated a law called the  Impoundment Control Act in delaying the congressionally approved assistance to Ukraine.

The California Democrat said the president’s lawyers “pooh-poohed” the GAO’s finding.

“They are a nonpartisan organization that both parties have come to rely upon, but I’m not surprised they don’t like the conclusion of the GAO because the Defense Department warned them that this was going to be the conclusion,” Schiff said. “And that conclusion was that a hold on aid was not only wrong, it was not only immoral, it was also illegal.”

The GAO provided a legal opinion, not a legally adjudicated decision, and the White House Office of Management and Budget disputed the finding.

The 1974 Impoundment Control Act provides the executive branch only narrow and limited discretion in spending money appropriated by Congress and signed into law by the president in the budget process.

“It violated the law, a law that we passed, so that presidents could not refuse to spend money that we allocated for the defense of others and for ourselves,” Schiff said.

The GAO and a federal court determined that President Barack Obama violated certain laws regarding congressionally approved expenditures, The Wall Street Journal noted.

5. Defending the Bidens

Senate Democrats spent most of Tuesday asserting that they were committed to having witnesses testify in the Senate trial. However, before the trial began Wednesday afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., threw that desire into question.

During a press conference, Schumer was asked about a possible deal to have testimony from Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, in exchange for testimony from Hunter Biden about his lucrative board position with Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company, while his father was vice president and Obama’s point man on Ukraine policy.

“That trade is not on the table,” Schumer told reporters. “This isn’t like some fantasy football trade. Trials aren’t trades for witnesses.”

Viktor Shokin, then Ukraine’s prosecutor general, was investigating Burisma in 2016, when Biden visited the country.

Biden boasted on camera at a 2018 event that he had threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine unless the government fired Shokin. He was fired.

Biden defenders say his threat had nothing to do with the Burisma probe.

Nadler delivered a strong defense of the former vice president on the Senate floor.

“It is true that Vice President Biden helped remove Mr. Shokin, who was widely believed to be corrupt,” Nadler said, adding:

It was official policy of the United States, the European community, and others—in order to fight corruption in Ukraine—to ask that Shokin and [former Ukraine prosecutor Yuriy] Lutsenko be removed. So Vice President Biden, in fulfilling U.S. policy, pressured Ukraine to remove Shokin, not to secure some personal benefit, but to advance the official policy of the United States and its allies.

Nadler invoked the Watergate scandal that enveloped President Richard Nixon as he talked about Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, who pursued the president’s interest in investigations in Ukraine.

“Who benefited from this scheme? Who sent Mr. Giuliani to Ukraine in the first place?” Nadler said.

“Of course, we could rephrase that question, as the former Republican leader of the Senate, Howard Baker, asked it in 1973: What did the president know and when did he know it?”

Ken McIntyre contributed to this report.

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Lucas is also the author of “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections.” Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

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‘Obviously Pornographic’: Tucker Carlson Mocks Media’s ‘Surging Waves Of Ecstasy’ Over Adam Schiff

RELATED VIDEO: Mark Levin Delivers His Opening Statement on Impeachment to Senate!

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!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Islamic Republic of Iran: MP offers “$3 million reward in cash to whoever kills Trump”

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“U.S. disarmament ambassador Robert Wood dismissed the reward as ‘ridiculous’, telling reporters in Geneva it showed the ‘terrorist underpinnings’ of Iran’s establishment.”

Indeed. And if anyone succeeds in doing this, there will be great rejoicing in Washington and mourning all over Iran. It’s a topsy-turvy world.

“Iran MP offers reward for killing Trump, U.S. calls it ‘ridiculous,’” by Parisa Hafezi, Reuters, January 21, 2020:

DUBAI (Reuters) – An Iranian lawmaker offered a $3 million reward to anyone who killed U.S. President Donald Trump and said Iran could avoid threats if it had nuclear arms, ISNA news agency reported on Tuesday amid Tehran’s latest standoff with Washington.

U.S. disarmament ambassador Robert Wood dismissed the reward as “ridiculous”, telling reporters in Geneva it showed the “terrorist underpinnings” of Iran’s establishment.

Tensions have steadily escalated since Trump pulled Washington out of Tehran’s nuclear agreement with world powers in 2018 and reimposed U.S. sanctions. The standoff erupted into tit-for-tat military strikes this month.

“On behalf of the people of Kerman province, we will pay a $3 million reward in cash to whoever kills Trump,” lawmaker Ahmad Hamzeh told the 290-seat parliament, ISNA reported.

He did not say if the reward had any official backing from Iran’s clerical rulers.

The city of Kerman, in the province south of the capital, is the hometown of Qassem Soleimani, a prominent Iranian commander whose killing in a drone strike ordered by Trump on Jan. 3 in Baghdad prompted Iran to fire missiles at U.S. targets in Iraq.

“If we had nuclear weapons today, we would be protected from threats … We should put the production of long-range missiles capable of carrying unconventional warheads on our agenda. This is our natural right,” he was quoted as saying by ISNA….

This month, Iran announced it was scrapping all limits on its uranium enrichment work, potentially shortening the so-called “breakout time” needed to build a nuclear weapon….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Britain Commits Suicide to Avoid Being Called Racist

Khamenei says Islamic Republic of Iran is “religious democracy” that is “image of resistance” to “highway bully” US

Arab Countries Say “We Miss the Jews”

RELATED AUDIO: Robert Spencer on Iran in context

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

FLORIDA: Cop suspended for liking his wife’s social media posts criticizing Tlaib and Omar

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Lost in the fracas here is the fact that what Annabelle Lima-Taub wrote is largely true. Tlaib really is demonstrably an anti-Semite who is friendly with several open supporters of jihad terror. See, for example, all the evidence here and here. That she might “blow up Capitol Hill” is hyperbole, but of course J. C. Jimenez never for a moment considered the possibility that Anabelle Lima-Taub may actually have been on to something, or that Ilhan Omar really might be a hatemonger and that Rashida Tlaib may really be an anti-Semite who is sympathetic to jihad terror groups and jihadis themselves. And no establishment media journalist would dare ask Tlaib or Omar themselves for a statement on their obvious closeness to anti-Semites and supporters of the jihad against Israel. Establishment media journalists only ask tough questions to those who dissent from the Leftist agenda, not to those who support that agenda.

Pablo Lima should immediately be reinstated, and Jimenez should apologize to him. But that would require this to be a sane world.

“Bay Harbor Islands cop suspended for social media post on wife’s anti-Muslim comments,” by Aaron Leibowitz, Miami Herald, January 16, 2020:

The husband of a Hallandale Beach commissioner who was condemned for anti-Muslim comments was placed on administrative leave by the Bay Harbor Islands police department Thursday for social media posts appearing to show support for his wife’s views.

Pablo Lima, a corporal in Bay Harbor Islands and a former vice president of the Miami-Dade police union, submitted an application Tuesday to become the town’s next police chief.

On Thursday morning, after the Miami Herald asked town officials about comments and posts that Lima “liked” on Facebook and Instagram, the department placed him on paid leave and opened an internal affairs investigation.

“The content of the social media posts that were brought to our attention are not consistent with our Town’s values and policies,” Town Manager J.C. Jimenez said in a statement. “Corporal Pablo Lima is currently on administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal affairs investigation. State law prohibits us from discussing details of an open internal affairs investigation.”…

In January 2019, the Hallandale Beach City Commission voted 3-2 to condemn Commissioner Anabelle Lima-Taub for a Facebook post saying that Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman elected to the U.S. Congress, might become “a martyr and blow up Capitol Hill.”

The post was denounced as hate speech by numerous Muslim and Jewish human rights organizations, but Lima-Taub remained unapologetic, saying Tlaib’s support for boycotting Israel equated her with terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

The day of the commission vote, dozens of supporters of Lima-Taub held Israeli flags and signs calling Tlaib a terrorist outside Hallandale Beach City Hall. The group included people with a wide range of politics, including those who support Israel and denounce the boycott movement against it, and far-right Internet personality and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.

On Jan. 30, 2019, one week after the vote to condemn the Israeli-born Lima-Taub, Pablo Lima shared a story on his Facebook page from WLRN.org titled, “Why A Hallandale Beach Panel Condemned A Commissioner For Anti-Islamic Language.”

Lima proceeded to “like” five comments showing support for Lima-Taub, including multiple comments that appeared to espouse anti-Muslim sentiments. One comment that Lima “liked” included the line: “This [piece of s—] took her oath on the Koran.”

“Screw these liberal commisioners and mayor,” the comment said. “When will these politicians grow some cohones and start supporting America and it’s Americans. They talk about [Lima-Taub] being a racist and spewing hate. These [expletive] forget that this muslim [Tlaib] supports the people who flew planes into our NY twin towers and killed over 5000 people and more dying from exposure still 18 years later.”

The comment continued: “This [piece of s—] took her oath on the Koran. She openly hates Jews and talks about how they should all die or be killed. Remind me again why you would not support Lima-Talib [Lima-Taub]?”

Lima also “liked” comments on the post that said: “I applaud her”; “Complete BS….”; and “free speach fk them.”

Another comment that Lima “liked” said: “But Talib [Tlaib] gets to spew her hatred of Jews and others not of the Islamic faith and it’s ok not to defend yourself ? I’m with the commissioner, awaiting the next terrorist plot to open eyes again only when something happens.”

Lima did not post any comments below the Facebook post himself.

The Herald also made Bay Harbor Islands officials aware of an Instagram post by Lima-Taub that was “liked” by Lima’s personal account.

In a post on Sept. 11, 2019, Lima-Taub quoted a statement by U.S. Rep Ilhan Omar ⁠— one of the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress, along with Tlaib ⁠— that “some people did something” in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Lima-Taub, using her Instagram account “@theroguecommissioner,” called Omar a “hate monger” and said the United States was “founded on Judeo-Christian values.”

“#NeverForget #911 ‘Some people did something,’ as per America’s vitriolic hate monger, @repilhan!” Lima-Taub wrote. “Those 19 Jihadi terrorists massacred over 3,000 innocent men and women, encroached on our constitutional rights and caused several billion in loss to dollars with the deliberate action to destabilize our economic stability.

“This country was founded on Judeo-Christian values and we must never let the deaths of those who perished on 9/11 be in vain.”…

The Bay Harbor Islands police department’s social media policy prohibits any speech that “ridicules, maligns, disparages, or otherwise expresses bias against any gender, race, religion, or any protected class of individuals.”…

RELATED ARTICLES:

Britain Commits Suicide to Avoid Being Called Racist

Khamenei says Islamic Republic of Iran is “religious democracy” that is “image of resistance” to “highway bully” US

Islamic Republic of Iran: MP offers “$3 million reward in cash to whoever kills Trump”

RELATED AUDIO: Robert Spencer on Iran in context

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

China’s underground Christian communities: Unwitting forerunners of the Benedict Option?

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Both Catholics and Protestants have survived decades of persecution.

In early 2017, conservative American pundit Rod Dreher published a bombshell of a book called The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation.

He argued that conservative Western Christians should give up their futile war over the cultural mainstream and withdraw into tightly-knit communities centred around their faith and their church. This would be the only way to survive a coming persecution of conservative Christian values.

Many articles have been published about Dreher’s controversial proposals, most of them centred on the West.

But what about the East? For more than a century the “Benedict Option” has worked in China, a nation which has never been overly friendly to Christianity. These communities in China pre-date Mr Dreher by many decades. Christians in the West will do themselves a favour by pondering their brethren’s experience of survival.

Who are these Chinese communities? Catholics and Protestants in China can be roughly divided into two camps: a faction loyal to the government and an independent faction.

Protestants can worship in the government-sanctioned Protestant “Three-Self Patriotic Movement” (三自爱国运动). Or they can join defiant house churches, which have been long subject to persecution and produced many heroic examples of resistance. Pastor Wang Yi of the Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, for instance, was sentenced to nine years in prison late last year for “inciting subversion of state power and illegal business operations”.

For Catholics, the underground movement loyal to the Pope has long suffered harsh persecution and has had a bitter relationship with the official Catholic Patriotic Association (天主教爱国会). Its government-approved bishops were even excommunicated by the Pope until the recent controversial Sino-Vatican agreement.

All of the above has been well covered by Western media — but what has it to do with the Benedict Option? Well, Dreher believes that in an age where anyone who does not toe the progressive line of thinking is at risk of being excluded from the cultural mainstream, minority Western Christians must huddle together for warmth.

Newsflash, guys! Chinese Christians were never in control of the cultural mainstream. Ever since the days of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 and even in the years before that, Chinese who converted to Christianity were brutally oppressed and many were murdered. Catholics, who outnumbered Protestants before the 1900s, had to endure the wrath of not only the Qing Empire but also of their ancestor-worshipping neighbours.

It was the Boxer Rebellion that marked the emergence of Chinese “Benedict option” communities. The Boxers were virulently anti-West and anti-Christian, and thousands of Chinese faithful were slaughtered along with Western priests. Many Catholics had to retreat to places deep in the mountains and build settlements which were easier to defend and harder to attack; they formed militias of their own to protect themselves.

Thousands fled to communities like these throughout northern China and especially in the Shanxi and Hebei Provinces. To this day they make up the bulk of northern Chinese Catholics. This is the origin of the so-called “Catholic laity villages” (教友村)，hundreds of which still exist. Even today, the Provincial Religious Bureau monitors these villages and publishes lists to help local party cadres to increase surveillance of these areas.

Many of these communities unwittingly mirror Dreher’s vision. Life centers around the Church and all the villagers are raised as Catholics, in stark contrast to most of the neighbouring villages. Fortifications (many still visible) were built to defend themselves from the wrath of their fellow countrymen, who viewed them as traitors to the Chinese nation. From a point of weakness, these early Chinese Catholics gathered together in a vision of strategic retreat and managed to survive years of violence.

Some of these communities thrive today, even after 70 years of Communist rule. During the Cultural Revolution, many Catholic villagers in Hebei, Shanxi and other Chinese provinces hid statues of the Virgin Mary which they venerated in secret, at a time when religious eradication was government policy and churches and pilgrimage sites were being bulldozed.

After enjoying a brief revival, the Chinese Catholic faithful are once again at the crossroads. Many regard the Vatican negotiation and eventual agreement with Beijing as a betrayal. But as a Hong Kong media (RTHK) documentary broadcast in February 2019 shows, the rural villagers in Hebei show amazing resilience. They set up makeshift altars and chapels in decrepit village factories and fields. Defiant underground priests performed services in the most unremarkable of rural courtyards. Hundreds of villagers came to worship in bitterly cold nights after the police and party cadres have gone.

Chinese Catholics also have larger families. Many young children can be seen even in the makeshift chapels — yet another act of defiance against a law banning all minors from attending religious services or activities, as well a snub to China’s population control.

This is the true resilience of faith. Westerners accustomed to freedom of religion may be shocked at the sacrifices Chinese underground Catholics have endured. But Catholics in China are benefitting from adversity. It only strengthens their faith, at a time when Westerners seem to have lost their way. It is very similar to Rod Dreher’s strategy.

Protestant house churches fill in the other half of the picture. Unlike Catholics, whose strength is in rural strongholds, Protestant house churches draw their strength from urban China. The recently jailed Pastor Wang’s Early Rain Covenant Church is one of the best examples.

Started barely a decade ago, Early Rain grew and challenged the Chinese government’s authority. The church held commemorative services for the June 4 crackdown, a huge taboo in China. It had a pro-life department which openly went onto the street every Children’s Day (June 1) rolling out banners protesting abortion. Early Rain also aggressively planted churches in its native city of Chengdu and beyond and sought to form a “Calvinist association” of sorts in Southwestern China, a direct snub and rejection of the Chinese government sanctioned Three-Self Association.

Early Rain is another facet of the “Benedict Option”. Even though it is urban and its followers do not necessarily live in the same compound, it is an amazingly tight-knit community in a country where everyone feels that he has to fend for himself and the government is omnipotent and omnipresent.

Early Rain was a pioneer in establishing unsanctioned church schools catering for its congregants’ children (illegal according to Chinese law). It operates a seminary of its own instead of sending people to government sanctioned seminaries (again, illegal). It even operates its own online video and radio channels with recorded footage of Mr. Wang and other pastors preaching.

At its peak, Early Rain had more than 700 congregants.

Of course, this was never going to be tolerated by Beijing’s mandarins. Thus in December 2018, the church was raided (the last of many raids), Mr. Wang and his wife, together with key congregants, were arrested, and the church was shut down for good.

But in a true show of strength, many congregants continue to form prayer groups and still attempt to worship together in apartments, backyards and bathrooms. The faith still lives on.

In short, something very much like the “Benedict Option” has worked to the advantage of the Chinese faithful, both Catholic and Protestant. The difference between them and American Christians like Dreher is that Dreher can still ponder his options for a survival strategy.

For many Chinese Christians, the Benedict Option is their only option.

COLUMN BY

WILLIAM HUANG

William Huang is a product of the one-child policy as he is the only son in the family. Born and raised in China, it is only when he went overseas to study that he had an epiphany, realizing just how much damage this policy has done to the Chinese nation and his generation of peers. Now he is an avid researcher in China and East Asia’s looming demographic crisis and he also aims to raise his voice for the sanctity of life wherever and whenever he can. Mr. Huang is an avid researcher into China and East Asia’s looming demographic crisis. He also aims to raise his voice for the sanctity of life wherever and whenever he can.

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

The Media’s Shameful Depiction of Pro-Second Amendment Protests in Virginia

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It’s the tea party all over again.

Way back in 2009 the press, followed by a gaggle of left-wing commentators and politicians, did a number on tea party protests, often portraying them—with little evidence—as driven by racist rage against President Barack Obama rather than principled opposition to his administration’s policies.

These same tactics were on full display Monday in the coverage of pro-Second Amendment protests that took place in Richmond, Virginia.

The protests were a response to the gun control policies of Gov. Ralph Northam and the state’s Legislature, which is now controlled by Democrats.

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 >>

Northam called for a “state of emergency” in response to the protest, and numerous media outlets predicted it would be marked by “hate” and violence, and overall would be a menacing and sordid affair.

Jim Geraghty at National Review gave an excellent rundown of the most absurd headlines and statements from various national media outlets.

NBC reporter Ben Collins said in a now-deleted tweet on Sunday that the gathering in Richmond would be a “white supremacist” rally.

MSNBC anchor Craig Melvin said of the rally on Monday: “Right now thousands of gun-rights activists, white nationalists, militia groups—all swarming the Virginia state capitol in Richmond.”

But no violence took place, and it appears that only one person was arrested for violating an anti-mask prohibition put in place by the governor.

Pretty impressive, given that the crowd reached an estimated size of 20,000 on a very cold day.

Though there were some reports that racist groups were planning to attend and infiltrate the event, there was little sign of them when it took place, if it took place at all.

It seems the protesters were aware of how they were being portrayed.

Tristan Justice, who covered the protest, wrote for The Federalist:

Dozens of protesters throughout the rally were sure to remind the public that Northam wore blackface, carrying signs of the Virginia governor’s infamous high school yearbook photo showcasing Democrats’ double-standard regarding racism.

Some media commentators claimed that the pro-Second Amendment demonstrators were insulting Martin Luther King Jr. by holding the event on a holiday celebrating his legacy.

Rev. Al Sharpton even said on MSNBC said that this was putting “salt in the wound” of King’s legacy.

He then doubled down, saying the protesters getting in the way of MLK Day celebrations “are in effect canceling them to have their event. That in and of itself is symbolic of a country that seems to be bent on accommodating the wrong side of the equation of peaceful coexistence and racial justice and fairness.”

King was indeed nonviolent, as the protests were, but to claim that being in favor of gun rights is an affront to his legacy is absurd.

In fact, the right to bear arms was often an essential element to black civil rights, especially when local authorities were doing little to protect black citizens from violence.

Ida B. Wells, one of the founders of the NAACP, once said in 1892—a year in which a massive number of lynchings of black Americans took place—that “a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.”

To that very point, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a 2018 interview with “The View” that she saw firearm ownership as essential when growing up.

“Let me tell you why I’m a defender of the Second Amendment,” Rice said. “I was a little girl growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, in the late ’50s, early ’60s. There was no way that Bull Connor and the Birmingham police were going to protect you.”

“I’m sure if Bull Connor had known where those guns were, he would have rounded them up,” she said. “So I don’t favor some things like gun registration.”

The bottom line is that associating the right to bear arms with anti-black racism is out of step with modern history. It was, in fact, an essential component of the civil rights movement.

The fact remains that the Richmond event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day was a large, entirely peaceful demonstration in defense of a right protected by the Constitution. That seems like a pretty solid justification for a protest.

Contrast all of this coverage and commentary with, for instance, the way media outlets treated the Women’s March protests, which also occurred over Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.

Though many noted the waning interest in these mostly anti-Trump protests, little attention was given to the movement’s troubling ties to anti-Semitism. Any mention of this association—if it was mentioned at all—was buried in the story, not slapped in the headline.

Whether the difference in coverage between the two events was the result of willful bias or the simple cultural norms of those who work in elite media—or both—the fact is, it was obvious and noticeable.

Just like with the tea party movement and even the annual March for Life, America’s national media seems hopelessly biased and one-sided.

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: .

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!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

The Senate Impeachment Trial: 8 Things You Need to Know

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The House of Representatives has chosen members to participate in the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, and they have presented the articles of impeachment to the Senate.

This is only the third impeachment trial of a president in our nation’s history, with the others occurring in 1868 for Andrew Johnson and 1999 for Bill Clinton.

Here are eight things you need to know as the Senate prepares to begin Trump’s impeachment trial.

1. When Will the Trial Begin, and How Long Will It Last?

Senate President Pro Tempore Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, administered the oath Thursday to Chief Justice John Roberts, who will preside over the trial.

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 >>

Roberts, in turn, administered the oath to all senators. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced that the trial itself will begin at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

The Clinton impeachment took five weeks, and Johnson’s lasted 11 weeks. The Senate’s impeachment trial rules, adopted in 1986, mandate that the trial should begin at noon and last until the Senate decides to adjourn, Monday through Saturday, “until final judgment shall be rendered.”

2. What Happens at the Trial?

An impeachment trial is not like a run-of-the-mill trial, but it does have some similarities. House managers will act as the prosecution, presenting the case for impeachment to the senators, whose role is a combination of judge and jury.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced the seven members of the House who will serve as the managers, including Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y.

A team of lawyers will put on the president’s defense, including White House counsel Pat Cipollone; Trump’s personal attorney, Jay Sekulow; and former independent counsel Ken Starr, whose investigation into the Whitewater controversy led to Clinton’s impeachment.

Roberts will preside over the trial, consistent with Article 3, Section 6 of the Constitution, although it is mostly a ceremonial role.

After presiding over Clinton’s impeachment trial, then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist said, “I took a leaf out of [Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera] ‘Iolanthe’ … ‘I did nothing in particular, and did it very well.’”

When the trial begins, the Senate will adopt a resolution establishing the specific timetable, including the time allotted for each side to present its case, senators to ask questions, and the Senate to consider motions.

At that point, if the Senate follows the general pattern of the Clinton trial, the Senate will vote on a motion to dismiss the impeachment and, if that motion fails, on whether additional witnesses or evidence should be considered.

During Johnson’s impeachment trial, the prosecution and defense called a total of 41 witnesses. During the Clinton trial, three witnesses provided videotaped testimony.

McConnell and several other Senate Republicans have indicated they think the Senate should rely on transcripts of the testimony of witnesses who appeared before the House, while Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and several other Democrats have demanded that witnesses be called to testify.

3. Does the President Have to Appear Before the Senate?

No. While the Senate does issue a summons to the individual being tried, its impeachment trial rules allow for an appearance by the defendant or by his attorney.

The Senate tried, unsuccessfully, to force Johnson to appear for his impeachment trial. The New York Times published an account of how Chief Justice Salmon Chase asked the Senate sergeant-at-arms to summon the president.

“In a loud voice, and amid the stillness of the whole chamber, he called three times, ‘Andrew Johnson, Andrew Johnson, Andrew Johnson!’” but instead the president’s legal team, including Attorney General Henry Stanbery (who resigned the day before) and former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Curtis, arrived.

Clinton likewise did not appear before the Senate during his trial.

Trump previously indicated he would “strongly consider” testifying or providing a written statement to the House during its impeachment inquiry, but that didn’t happen. Odds are, Trump won’t be present at the Senate trial.

4. What Are the Rules the Senators Will Follow?

Senators are not required to employ a specific standard of proof. During the 1986 impeachment trial of U.S. District Judge Harry E. Claiborne, he made a motion to designate “beyond a reasonable doubt”—the standard in criminal trials—as the standard for his trial.

After the presiding officer ruled that “the question of standard of evidence is for each senator to decide individually,” the Senate voted 75 to 17 against establishing a mandatory standard.

Similarly, the rules of evidence used in criminal trials do not apply in an impeachment trial. The Senate’s impeachment trial rules state that the Senate’s presiding officer has the authority to rule on questions of evidence.

Any senator, however, may ask that the full Senate vote on such matters. That reflects the Constitution’s assignment to the Senate of “the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”

5. Can Senators Be Disqualified for Showing Bias?

Senators have taken an oath to “do impartial justice, according to the Constitution and laws” in all things pertaining to the impeachment trial.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the minority whip, argued that some senators have already failed to meet the “independent and dignified” standard the Constitution envisioned.

There have already been calls for the House managers to move to disqualify senators whose impartiality is in question. There is no basis in the Constitution, Senate rules, or history for such an attempt.

The only qualification for participating in a Senate impeachment trial is to be a senator.

6. What Happens After the Trial?

While the trial itself will be open to the public, the Senate’s deliberations after its conclusion will not be.

The Senate will then come back into public session to vote on each article of impeachment. Senate impeachment trial rules say that the Senate must vote on each article in its entirety, and the Constitution requires the vote of “two-thirds of the [senators] present” for conviction.

Removal from office is automatic upon conviction, and the Senate may vote separately whether to disqualify the defendant from serving in any other federal office.

The Constitution explicitly provides, however, that these consequences by the Senate do not, if the defendant’s conduct is also criminal, prevent “Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.”

7. If the Vote Fails in the Senate, Can the President Be Retried?

In theory, he likely could be retried in the future. Although neither the Constitution nor Senate rules address this issue, and no precedent exists for it, a few legal scholars, such as former Obama administration official Neal Katyal, have pointed out that the Fifth Amendment Double Jeopardy Clause does not apply to impeachment proceedings.

A retrial on the same charges, however, would seem highly unlikely, and such a retrial would certainly run counter to the general principle of double jeopardy that someone cannot be tried twice for the same offense.

What is more plausible and likely is that the House would introduce new articles of impeachment, which it could do.

8. Will the Senate Conduct Other Business During the Trial, and Will It Interfere With the Supreme Court’s Work?

Senate committees may hold hearings in the morning of each trial day, but doing any business such as sending bills, nominations, or other matters to the full Senate would require the consent of all senators.

The Senate impeachment rules provide that the chamber must suspend its legislative and executive business while the trial is under way.

The trial should not affect the Supreme Court’s oral argument schedule. The court has arguments scheduled Tuesday and Wednesday, but those will conclude by 11 a.m.

The court won’t meet again for arguments until Feb. 24. Aside from taking up some of Roberts’ time in the afternoon, the trial is unlikely to otherwise affect the court.

COLUMN BY

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,

Elizabeth Slattery

Elizabeth Slattery writes about the proper role of the courts, judicial nominations, and the Constitution as a legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Read her research. She hosts SCOTUS101, a podcast about everything that’s happening at the Supreme Court. Twitter: @EHSlattery.

RELATED ARTICLES:

House’s Prosecutors Supported Impeachment Well Before Trump’s Ukraine Call

Impeachment Diary Day 1: Battle Lines Drawn

Republicans Vote Down Chuck Schumer’s Amendment Requesting White House Documents

RELATED VIDEO: Marsha Blackburn: Senate can only review, not expand Impeachment

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!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Dalia Al-Aqidi Challenges Ilhan Omar for House Seat

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American Muslim Dalia Al-Aqidi has formally launched her campaign to oust Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from Minnesota’s 5th district. Her campaign, Dalia for Congress, is rooted in her life experience as an Iraqi refugee, a veteran journalist with a distinguished track record and in her desire to protect America from becoming another country to escape from.

“I’ve seen up close the consequences of what radical Ilhan Omar is doing. Conflict. Division. Oppression. I escaped that world once, and I won’t let it happen here. I’m running for Congress because we’re not as divided as Ilhan Omar and the far-left would have us believe. I’m running to bring us closer together.” – Dalia Al-Aqidi

Born in Iraq, Dalia  and her family fled the country in 1988 due to harsh persecution by Saddam Hussein, leaving almost every possession behind. Her family created a new life for themselves and became U.S. citizens.

Prior to Dalia and her family’s immigration to the U.S., with the help of late U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, she was politically active against Hussein’s brutality and oppression of the Iraq people.

Dalia has seen the consequences of Omar’s version of an ideal government—she’s seen the kind of hatred it inspires and what it has done to the Middle East. That’s why Dalia felt that it was her responsibility to stop her—to stop the widening rift among Americans and instead unite our country under the values that she immigrated here for.

Immediately, her campaign received tremendous support, including from distinguished anti-Islamists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, also of Somali heritage.

After formerly living in Washington, D.C. Dalia Al-Aqidi moved to Minnesota’s 5th district a few months ago during which time she worked to better understand the community. Speaking with the New York Post, Dalia shared,

“I’ve done my homework for months and months before I decided to move here. On Thanksgiving, I helped feed more than 250 homeless people in Minneapolis, which [Ilhan Omar] doesn’t remember. She doesn’t even talk about homeless situation in Minneapolis, which is extremely cold and there are not enough places of shelters for them to sleep in. It’s a very, very important problem in Minneapolis, and it’s getting very cold.”

Some in the Somali community are quietly supporting Dalia. Speaking with a Post reporter, one member of the Somali community confided,

“It’s just one crisis after another. She [Ilhan Omar] could have done so much more for our community with immigration and education, but she’s not. She’s picking fights.”

The fights spoken of are a barrage of anti-Semitic comments and targeted attacks against progressive Muslim women serving the broader global community as human rights activists, including Muslim for Progressive Values founder, Ani Zonnvelde.

Omar most recently smeared the leading Iranian women’s rights activist, Masih Alinejad, after Soleimani’s killing.

In July 2017, Clarion’s National Correspondent Shireen Qudosi called Ilhan Omar a failed American experiment. At the launch of Dalia for Congress, Qudosi said,

“Dalia Al-Aqidi vs. Ilhan Omar is the most important race second to the presidency. But we’ve also already seen Trump win once. The entire nation will be locked in on this congressional race. This is a battle between American Muslims vs. Islamist Muslims.

“As an American Muslim, this is the most defining and historic confrontation of our generation. Dalia defeating Ilhan represents Americans striking a blow against Islamism. If you don’t love America, if you can’t defend it, you have no business representing Americans. Being American means something; it’s a philosophy that transcends a piece of paper.”

On the same day that Dalia for Congress launched, news also broke that at least three federal departments are reviewing Ilhan Omar for what is being described as the worst-ever crime spree by an elected U.S. official.

RELATED STORIES:

Dalia Al-Aqidi: The Interview Ilhan Omar Refused to Accept

Ilhan Omar vs. Miss Iraq: The Feud

Ilhan Omar Bashes Progressive Muslim Leader 

EDITORS NOTE: This Clarion Project column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Sidney Powell Files Motion Withdrawing General Flynn’s Guilty Plea

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VIDEO: Hannity: The moment of truth on General Flynn

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”  – Thomas Jefferson

“There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men.” –  Ludwig von Mises

“A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves, and traitors are not victims, but accomplices.”  – Eric Arthur Blair, nom de plume George Orwell, Author of 1984

During Black History Month in February of 1998, national radio host Roger Fredinburg interviewed attorney Fred D. Gray author of The Tuskegee Syphilis Study.  After the truth was revealed when the U.S. Public Health Service study ended in 1972, attorney Gray represented the approximately 20 survivors led by Charlie Pollard in a lawsuit against the government.

The Tuskegee Syphilis experiment has been compared to the experiments on Jewish people by the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (Nazis).  Most of the Tuskegee experiment men died, their wives were infected as well as children during childbirth. Even after penicillin was available to cure them, the men were purposely not treated.

Roger Fredinburg asked attorney Gray why the compensation from the lawsuit was so small, and his answer was telling.  He said, “You can’t expect proper remuneration when the judge hearing the case works for the people you are suing.”  I’ll never forget Gray’s poignant statement and Roger’s long pause of dismay.

We have another diabolical and evil situation, not by the U.S. Health Department, but by the federal government’s intelligence community.  The DOJ knows Lt. General Michael Flynn is innocent of lying, but they have purposely set out to destroy the man.

Attorney Sidney Powell

Forty-eight years after Tuskegee, we are watching another gigantic battle against the federal government and the case is being heard by Federal District Court Judge, Emmet Gael Sullivan who receives his paycheck from his employer, the federal government.

Sidney Powell, a skilled and powerful attorney, is the author of Licensed to Lie, a book exposing the corruption of justice in the Department of InJustice.  It was Judge Sullivan who actually restored faith in the rule of law when he commenced criminal contempt proceedings against the original prosecution team in the case against Senator Ted Stevens, a highly decorated WWII veteran.  He ordered an independent investigation of the Department of Justice, which revealed its corrupted prosecution of Stevens who lost his Senate seat when the prosecution failed to give the defense exculpatory Brady evidence that would have cleared the Senator of any wrongdoing.

In that trial, the prosecutors, the same group of people who were on Mueller’s team, suborned perjury from the star witness against Ted Stevens, the contractor…a home repair guy. They got Ted Stevens kicked out of the Senate for supposedly accepting a kickback of $150,000 for a remodeling job at his house that he didn’t pay for, in exchange for what Ted Stevens could do for the contractor as a Senator. That’s what the Senator was charged with, right before his next election.

Judge Emmet Sullivan found out about this and he raised Cain with these prosecutors. He overturned the conviction of Ted Stevens after Stevens was gone from the Senate.  Sullivan lambasted the misconduct of the Department’s “Public Integrity Section” lawyers in the Stevens prosecution, saying, “In nearly 25 years on the bench, I’ve never seen anything approaching the mishandling and misconduct that I’ve seen in this case.” By the time Judge Sullivan uncovered the flagrant misconduct, he was livid.

Eric Holder was the U.S. Attorney General in the Obama administration at the time of Steven’s trial.  Mr. Holder was compelled to dismiss the Stevens indictment because, among other violations, the Department had concealed the horrible record of its key witness, including his involvement in sex-trafficking of minors and subornation of perjury. That same witness had testified in two previous prosecutions of politicians in Alaska.

The Enron Case

In the Enron case, the same prosecutors destroyed the innocent, Andrew Weissmann was in the midst of this.  Convicted of conduct that was actually lawful were Merrill Lynch employees and the 89-year-old accounting firm, Arthur Anderson, whose 85,000 employees lost their jobs because of corrupt government prosecutors.  There is no remedy for a wrongful prosecution. Prosecutions and imprisonment cost millions of dollars, and a concocted crime, over-reaching prosecution, and the conviction of an innocent person serve no one.

Those corrupt prosecutors were not fired or disbarred, they were promoted, just like Lon Horiuchi who shot and killed Randy Weaver’s wife, and wounded both Randy and his friend Kevin Harris.  Randy’s 14-year-old son, Sam and his dog were killed the previous day after an encounter with federal marshals.  This tragedy happened in 1992 when William Barr was still the attorney general for the George H. W. Bush administration.

Innocence Project’s work speaks to the ravages of wrongful convictions.  For in-depth information, please read Sidney Powell’s many articles in the Observer.  If you haven’t read Licensed to Lie, please buy a copy; it reads like a thriller fiction novel.  And her new book, Conviction Machine: Standing Up to Federal Prosecutorial Abuse will be out in February.  You can pre-order this magnificent book documenting abuse.

General Flynn’s Former Attorney

In December of 2018, Judge Sullivan made it clear to all that he hadn’t done any homework on the Lt. General Michael Flynn case when he called this highly decorated intelligence officer and military hero a traitor.  We were appalled.  Attorney Sidney Powell was in the courtroom with the Flynn family and was horrified.

At the time, the General’s attorney was still Rob Kelner, partner of Covington & Burling LLP.  The DOJ’s Trisha Anderson went to work for Covington in September of 2018 while they were representing the General.  We don’t know if the information that Anderson was a key player in the counter intelligence investigation in Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was disclosed to Michael Flynn.  Trisha Anderson was the number two attorney at the agency’s Office of General Counsel despite having no specific experience in counter intelligence before coming to the FBI.  She told members of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committee that she was one of only about ten who had known about the Trump-Russia investigation prior to its official opening.

Anderson had read all of the FBI’s 302 forms (comments written by FBI agents of their interviews) detailing information that the author of the Steele dossier, former British spy, Christopher Steele, had provided to a high-ranking justice official, Bruce Ohr.  She also signed off on authorization to spy on former Trump campaign official, Carter Page.  This indicates a conflict of interest for the firm and questions whether General Flynn was notified.

The General’s original plea is tainted for many reasons…General Flynn never lied to anyone, and then there’s the conflict of interest with his previous attorneys, and now the move to withdraw his plea of guilty because the government has engaged in bad faith and vindictive conduct, and has breached the plea agreement pursuant to which he has cooperated for two years.  Sidney Powell rightfully has filed the motion to withdraw General Flynn’s original plea.

Countless exculpatory documents were requested by attorney Sidney Powell from the DOJ’s FBI, and Judge Sullivan demanded them.  Yet, none were forthcoming and the judge allowed the lack of exculpatory evidence from the FBI to remain hidden. It has even been reported that dirty cop, FBI agent Joe Pientka and his wife are being hidden. Joe was involved with everything corrupt involving the Russia Collusion Hoax and his wife is an attorney for a company involved with Fusion GPS.

Why is the FBI allowed to hide exculpatory evidence and not respond to Judge Sullivan’s order?  Where the hell is AG Barr?  Where the hell is FBI Director Christopher Wray?  And why the hell hasn’t the Judge seen to it that his orders were followed?  The buck stops with President Trump…he is in charge of the DOJ.

Conclusion

At January’s Phyllis Schlafly Gathering of Eagles in St. Louis, we heard from attorney Sidney Powell with an update.  They are working feverishly to gather all information to secure the withdrawal of the General’s guilty plea before their next appearance in front of Judge Emmet Sullivan in late February.  This magnificent gathering was highlighted by many superb speakers, but when Sidney Powell spoke to us via video, she told us that they now had one of the original 302s of the FBIs interview with Michael Flynn on January 24, 2017.  That 302 shows that Michael Flynn never lied to the FBI.  We already knew that, but now there is more documented in-hand proof.

She also told us what she needed, and that is for a million folks to give two to five dollars to the Michael Flynn Legal Defense Fund, to help free this innocent man from the clutches of the corrupt and vindictive Department of Justice.   Please help this innocent veteran who has given his life to protect and defend America.  And pray for Sidney Powell, and General Flynn’s entire family.

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