Day 3 Nothing To See, A More Important Hearing, Settlements Are Not The Obstacle

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Day 3, Nothing To See
The House Intelligence Committee resumed its sham impeachment hearings today. A parade of witnesses will pass through the committee this week. I predict that just like last week, there will be nothing new to see, no major bombshells or revelations.

If you're confused by what this spectacle is all about, I recommend Rep. Devin Nunes's strong opening statement today, which you can watch here.

But right now, I want to focus on a very telling aspect of this battle. Contrast the way Rep. Elise Stefanik is being treated by the left and its media allies to the way Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was treated.

Both are very accomplished women in public life. The ambassador has been in the foreign policy establishment for decades. Rep. Stefanik was elected to Congress in 2014. At the time, she was the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. Surely breaking that glass ceiling should count for something, right?

Ambassador Yovanovitch was presented at last week's hearing almost as a childlike victim who had been bullied by the president. We were told that she was intimidated and threatened -- by a tweet. We were told that we should be shocked that the president would dare to question, much less disagree, with her foreign policy expertise.

Yovanovitch was carefully presented to the American public as yet another woman hurt by this president and his thuggish administration.

Rep. Stefanik, in contrast, was repeatedly interrupted by Rep. Adam Schiff. She was shouted down by the chairman, told to "suspend her remarks," which translated means "Shut up."

The grassroots left jumped all over Rep. Stefanik too. Her Democrat opponent raised $1 million in 48 hours, more than she had raised all year long.

No one on the left or in the media defended Stefanik or her right to speak. There was no praise for her courageous stand against Schiff's abusive patriarchy. Instead, left-wing activists and Hollywood celebrities called her "trash."

Remember the Kavanaugh hearings? We were told over and over that we must believe women -- except those who defended Brett Kavanaugh and Donald Trump.

To the left women's rights means only liberal women's rights. If you're a conservative, pro-life woman, you don't get the benefit of the doubt or the right to be heard. You're a closet fascist who must be silenced.

The left's blatant hypocrisy is obvious to most Americans. A recent Rasmussen poll found that 53% of voters believe reporters are biased in favor of Trump's impeachment, while just 32% believe they are simply reporting the facts.

A More Important Hearing
Yesterday, Senator Lindsey Graham announced that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on December 11th to "deliver a detailed report of what he found" regarding the Deep State's abuse of the FISA court and potential spying on the Trump campaign.

Obviously, Sen. Graham would not make that announcement unless he knows for certain that the Horowitz report will be released before then. There are persistent reports that it could be released next week.

Reacting to suggestions that the Horowitz report is 500 pages long, Rep. John Ratcliffe, a former federal prosecutor, said, "It doesn't take an inspector general 500 pages to say that everything was done correctly and properly."

Settlements Are Not The Obstacle
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced yesterday that the United States would no longer recognize a controversial legal opinion from the Carter Administration known as the Hansell Memorandum. The memorandum suggested that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria were illegal. However, every subsequent administration, Republican and Democrat alike, refused to act on it. Until December 23, 2016.

That's when the Obama Administration, literally in its final month in office, betrayed Israel at the United Nations Security Council. Then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power was ordered by Obama to abstain, rather than veto, a resolution that condemned Israeli settlements as a "a flagrant violation" of international law.

Such resolutions had been repeatedly vetoed by the United States. But not this time. Obama wanted to stick it to Israel one more time. With Donald Trump and Mike Pence in office, the days of bashing Israel are over!

There was wide praise for Pompeo's announcement in Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said:

"Today, the United States adopted an important policy that rights a historical wrong when the Trump administration clearly rejected the false claim that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria are inherently illegal under international law.

"This policy reflects an historical truth - that the Jewish people are not foreign colonialists in Judea and Samaria. In fact, we are called Jews because we are the people of Judea. . .

"Israel is deeply grateful to President Trump, Secretary Pompeo and the entire U.S. administration for their steadfast position supporting truth and justice, and calls upon all responsible countries who hope to advance peace to adopt a similar position."

Moshe Ya'alon, a former Israeli defense minister and member of the opposition Blue and White coalition, also applauded the decision. In a series of tweets, Ya'alon wrote:

"I salute the United States administration's historic stance and acknowledgment regarding the legality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and their consistency with international law.

"It is important to set the record straight and receive an endorsement of what we have known all along. . . An aboriginal people cannot be considered an illegal settler in its ancestral homeland."

Betrayal At Yale
The Wall Street Journal recently ran a disturbing column about the anti-American culture that prevails on our elite university campuses. It was written by Rob Henderson, an Air Force veteran who studied at Yale.

He and many of his fellow veterans feel like "suckers" for risking their lives to defend the Constitution while privileged young adults and professors repeatedly trash the First and Second Amendments and routinely undermine the values of this country and the military.

"On campus, [veterans] learn to blend in, even at the cost of feeling betrayed," Henderson lamented. "We keep our love for America to ourselves." How sad.

Henderson added that in the military, merit is the only thing that matters -- everyone in the military is "united in their purpose to defend this great country." Yet on our college campuses today, progressives constantly use race and gender to divide us.

Of course, the cultural rot on our college campuses extends well beyond Yale and the Ivy League. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos recently revealed that 200 colleges and universities censor speech in various ways.

She noted that the University of Michigan employs more than 75 diversity-related administrators who cost taxpayers more than $10 million per year. "They focus on every kind of diversity except a diversity of ideas," DeVos said.

I know the Trump Administration is fighting hard on many fronts. But confronting the anti-Americanism that is so prevalent among our institutions of "higher learning" must be a top priority if we are ever going to make America great again.

The Buttigieg Boomlet
Mayor Pete Buttigieg is enjoying his moment in the political spotlight. The latest Des Moines Register poll, the gold standard of Iowa polling, finds Buttigieg is now leading the 2020 Democrat race in the Hawkeye State.

Buttigieg is at 25%, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (16%), Sen. Bernie Sanders (15%) and former Vice President Joe Biden (15%). No other candidate received double digit support.

But is Mayor Pete ready for prime time? His campaign recently unveiled its "Douglass Plan" to tackle racial inequality. It's named after famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass (who was a Republican, by the way).

The Buttigieg campaign, however, is getting blasted for using a stock photo of a Kenyan woman to promote the Douglass Plan. And several black leaders in South Carolina are alleging that his campaign inappropriately used their names to imply an endorsement when they don't support him.

That's a problem for Buttigieg because black voters dominate the South Carolina Democrat primary, and one new South Carolina poll finds Buttigieg at 0% with black voters there.
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Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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