Thanks to IG report, FBI Had Its Worst Week in Modern History

by Kimberley A. Strassel: The Federal Bureau of Investigation has had its worst week in modern history. The Justice Department’s inspector general found that the bureau had deceived a federal court and abused Americans’ civil liberties. It was equally humiliating for the crew that gulled the FBI into its excesses: Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele and their media acolytes.

Fusion is the opposition-research firm the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign hired in 2016 to kneecap Donald Trump. Fusion in turn hired Mr. Steele, a British former spy, to compile the infamous “dossier” that the FBI used to obtain surveillance warrants against former Trump aide Carter Page. Mr. Simpson, a onetime Wall Street Journal reporter, tapped a network of media buddies to provide the operation cover.

For years, Mr. Simpson spun a tale of how his firm—a team of “professionals”—had hired the “extremely well-regarded” former “lead Russianist at MI6.” Mr. Simpson told the Senate in August 2017 that he wanted Mr. Steele to look into Mr. Trump’s Russia business dealings. So it was “alarming” when Mr. Steele instead found a “political conspiracy” between the Trump campaign and Russia. Especially because Mr. Steele had “a sterling reputation as a person who doesn’t exaggerate, doesn’t make things up, doesn’t sell baloney.” The duo felt “obligated” to report this “national-security threat” to the FBI. The media would later assert that Mr. Steele had proved a valuable source to the FBI in the past; many claimed the FBI corroborated the dossier.

Now Mr. Horowitz has exposed the many fictions. His report notes that Mr. Steele was hired from the start to find Trump-Russia collusion. Mr. Steele told the inspector general that Mr. Simpson asked him in May 2016 to determine “whether there were any ties between the Russian government and Trump and his campaign” and “whether Russia was trying to achieve a particular election outcome.” The timing is notable: Mr. Simpson was talking about collusion months before the FBI was—and even before Mr. Steele reported it to him. . . . Read More at Wall Street Journal
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Kimberley Strassel @KimStrassel is a Fox News contributor and writes the Potomac Watch column for the Wall Street Journal where she is a member of the editorial board.

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Forget Impeachment: This was President Trump’s Big Week

by Newt Gingrich: Historians may look back and mark this week as a remarkable turning point in the Trump presidency.

While the liberal media was mesmerized by the dull Judiciary Committee meetings (so boring at least one Democrat was caught watching a golf match while seated in the committee) big things were happening.

However, they are the kind of big things which the adversarial media has a hard time covering intelligently. In fact, several of the big events of this past week will further discredit the news media and force it even more toward the defensive (more than half of Americans already don’t trust the mass media).

To start, this week we learned from reports that for 18 years American military and national security leaders had been lying about progress in Afghanistan. As these reports are expanded on and more is published the Trump position that the war was a mistake – and we have lost thousands of lives, had tens of thousands severely wounded, spent over a trillion dollars and still have no plan for victory – will seem more and more wise.

The balance of the tension between the traditional military establishment and the Trump White House will shift more and more to the President’s advantage. If next year the House and Senate armed services and foreign affairs committees hold serious hearings and dig into the degree to which senior officials in both parties simply lied to the American people, the resulting reforms may dramatically reshape how the United States operates in the world.

Second, the inspector general’s report that the FBI has methodically lied about the Russian collusion case – and clearly broke the rules and the law in its effort to get President Trump — opens a new window on how sick the establishment bureaucracies and the deep state in both the Justice Department and the intelligence community truly are. The upcoming reports from United States Attorney John Durham will apparently open even bigger windows into just how dishonest, partisan, and sick the Justice Department has become. It is turning out that President Trump was telling the truth all along and his opponents were lying. This is a significant historic breakthrough.

The Horowitz Report went on to assert that everything Congressman Devin Nunes had reported about the FBI’s activity was true, and everything Congressman Adam Schiff had said was a lie. The nation must confront the fact that the man Democrats chose to lead the impeachment inquiry is a proven liar. Every one of Schiff’s Russian collusion assertions were found to be false by the inspector general.

This week, we also saw Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s slip of the tongue (it can’t have been deliberate) that she had been working on impeachment for two and a half years. This puts the entire impeachment process into such a blatantly dishonest and political framework that it guarantees historians will treat the House Democrats roughly. Historians will note the Democrats’ willingness to undermine the Constitution and reduce the standard of impeachment from high crimes and misdemeanors to simply a question of a no confidence vote against a president they dislike. This admission of more than 30 months of effort to impeach President Trump (virtually from the time he won the election) will haunt every swing district Democrat who votes in favor of it. It also exonerates President Trump and makes clear he is in a political fight – not a legal one.

While the impeachment circus has been going on – and in spite of it – the Trump-McConnell team continued to set new records in approving federal judges in the Senate. President Trump, with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s brilliant leadership of the Senate, will have appointed more than one fourth of the entire federal judiciary by the end of the year. Their insistence on younger judges means they will have shaped the judiciary as a conservative constitutional system for an entire generation. By itself this would justify a Trump presidency.

Across the Atlantic, the British election has three great advantages for President Trump. First, it gives him a political ally in Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The speed during the night with which the President responded to the Johnson victory with talk of a US-UK free trade zone is a good signal of how comfortable President Trump feels with his equally tousle-haired colleague in No. 10 Downing Street.

Second, the depth of the Labour Party defeat (the worst since 1937) gives a big boost to the Trump campaign desire to paint the Democrats as being as strangely left as Jeremy Corbyn and the Labourites. On the other side, it has to really worry the non-extremist, centrist Democrats that continue to allow the radical left to define the Democratic Party, which could lead to a catastrophic outcome.

Finally, the style of Boris Johnson’s campaign, with its constant sense of humor and refusal to take itself too seriously, is a good parallel to Trumpism.

This was a big week with big events. The news around the House Judiciary Committee may have been the most over-covered and least important of those events.

Historians may record that this was the week the Trump re-election became probable and the historic implications of the Trump commitment to reform began to be clear.
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Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. This commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions.

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Ralph Benko, The Capitalist League

by Ralph Benko, Contributing Author: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." —H.L. Mencken
Ever wonder why Washington is stuck? It just can’t seem to get a grip on adopting practical policies for the common good. The Constitution directs Uncle Sam to “promote the general Welfare.” Instead he promotes a whole lot of Army generals and stokes a few welfare programs.

Welcome to the “warfare/welfare” state. But… why so?

Wonder no longer. Here comes John Tamny. He’s an old Washington hand, editor of Real Clear Markets and a long time Forbes.com contributor who recruited me into 8 years of writing columns there. (Now, I’m here.) Tamny has distilled what he has learned into a new book, "They’re Both Wrong: A Policy Guide for America’s Frustrated Independent Thinkers."

It’s my new secret decoder ring. Follow along.

It’s my new secret decoder ring. Follow along.

Tamny nails both major political parties as engaged in scorched-earth hyperbole. Both parties are living inside of some kind of faith-based ideology. Or mania. Tamny, unsportsmanlike, introduces them to actual facts.

That politics has a lot of muggery is not exactly new news. Some of the wittiest, wisest, writers — Bastiat, Swift, Voltaire, Mencken, O’Rourke — made mincemeat of politicos. Tamny here joins this merry canon.

Actual score?

Politicos, 100.

Literary wits, 0.

Mencken’s still my favorite:

"Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary."Still, “Lost causes are the only ones worth fighting for.”

So, Tamny? Bring it on.

Tamny now joins in with the most enjoyable inventory of political folly in many years. Steve Forbes calls it a "must-read masterpiece" and O’Rourke says “Politics is the idea that all of society’s ills can be cured politically. … Tamny argues that you’re better off doing your own ideological home cooking.”

So what does Tamny, say?

Basically, “Don’t panic.”

Things are not nearly as dire as the political class, and their handmaidens — the liberal media — would have you believe. The endless series of hobgoblins are, indeed, mostly imaginary.

So what hobgoblins does Tamny slay? Tamny is a sure-enough conservative, a center-right libertarian. Notwithstanding his conscientious efforts to even-handedly proclaim “a pox on both your houses” his right hook leaves bruises but his left hook doesn’t leave enough of the left’s arguments to bury. As myself a man of the right perhaps I am biased. But Tamny slays a slew of silly leftist pieties.

If you are a conservative (or libertarian) who enjoys merry argument between us Neanderthals and them Snowflakes you will find abundant ammo here. Those who relish drinking the tears of progressive snowflakes will find themselves exceptionally well hydrated.

Tamny summons powerful evidence that the left is showing poorly grounded hysteria over climate change, corporate myopia, tax policy, the minimum wage, and “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects. And much more. Conservatives get mocked for worship of Big Oil, idolatry of school choice, and deranged opposition to free trade and immigration (the latter two populist, not conservative, shibboleths). And more.

The solution? Tamny proposes the panacea of decentralizing government from the Big Uncle to the cities and states.

This does not go quite far enough. I have elsewhere called for the wholesale repeal of the Constitution and restoration of the Articles of Confederation (whilst keeping the Bill of Rights). The Articles were replaced by the Constitution because the powers of taxation and regulation they gave the federal government thought were too weak.

Back then the tiny former colonies were threatened by Old World imperialism. We needed a stronger central government. Now conservatives find Uncle Sam too big, feral, and overbearing. Time to return to America’s original status as Swiss-style confederacy with a domesticated federal government. But yes, Tamny’s distributing powers to the states and cities would be a step in the right direction.

Will it happen? Unlikely.

Withal I take solace from Mencken:

"I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing. Does it exalt dunderheads, cowards, trimmers, frauds, cads? Then the pain of seeing them go up is balanced and obliterated by the joy of seeing them come down. Is it inordinately wasteful, extravagant, dishonest? Then so is every other form of government: all alike are enemies to laborious and virtuous men."John Tamny’s "They’re Both Wrong: A Policy Guide for America’s Frustrated Independent Thinkers" will delight you. Even better, give it as a wonderfully mischievous holiday gift for that crazy progressive (but I am being redundant) uncle in your attic.
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Ralph Benko is Chairman, The Capitalist League and contributor to the ARRA News Service. H/T NewsMax.

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Pastor Jeffress Says God Has Blessed America Because We’ve Stood With Israel

by Todd Starnes: Dr. Robert Jeffress, appearing on the Todd Starnes Show, praised President Trump for signing an executive order designed to cut off aid to universities that tolerate anti-Semitism.

“This is our message to universities: If you want to accept the tremendous amount of federal dollars that you get every year, you must reject anti-Semitism,” Trump said when he signed the executive order.

Dr. Jeffress said the president is trying to bring healing to the nation by signing the historic order. But critics say it’s a crackdown on free speech. Listen below to the entire interview.

“Universities have become hotbeds of anti-Semitism,” Jeffress said on the Todd Starnes Show. “This executive order isn’t an effort to control people’s speech. It’s saying under Title XI six that the government is not going to keep shoveling money to universities that promote this very dangerous belief.”

Jeffress said anti-Semitism is not just wrong, but it’s also evil.

“When people speak against Israel they are speaking against the people God calls the apple of His own eye,” the pastor said.

He commended President Trump for being on the right side of history and the right side of God when it comes to Israel.

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Todd Starnes (@toddstarnes) is A Christian Conservative, the host of Fox News & Commentary and heard daily on 250+ radio stations and on his iTune podcasts.

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The Day the Congress Died

by Tom Balek, Contributing Author:
A long, long time ago I can still remember
How our Congressmen were honest guys.
The candidates all seemed so good,
Whoever got elected would
Try to keep our nation on the rise.
But then Obama got elected,
And crooked people were selected,
To redesign our nation –
Fundamental transformation.
I can’t remember if I cried
When the brave men in Benghazi died
But a smell fell over the countryside
The day the Congress died.

Oh why, why do you Democrats lie?
Just because you hate our president you all voted “aye”.
You insist on impeachment but you can’t explain why,
Oh, this will be the day Congress died.
This will be the day Congress died.

Did you read the constitution?
Is impeachment really a good solution
If elections go awry?
And do you think that it’s just fine
That the FBI got a judge to sign
A fakey FISA warrant so they could spy?

Well, the DNC and Hillary
Hired Fusion GPS to see
If they could build a scandal
That Trump’s guys couldn’t handle
So Fusion bought from Christopher Steele
A dossier that wasn’t real.
Why did the judge believe that deal
The day the Congress died?

Why, why do you Democrats lie?
Just because you hate our president you all voted “aye”.
You insist on impeachment but you can’t explain why,
Oh, this will be the day Congress died.
This will be the day Congress died.

Now for three years they’ve investigated
And all of the Democrat haters hated
Especially on CNN . . .
Then for Schiff and Nadler and Pelosi
Things weren’t looking quite so rosy
When “Russia, Russia, Russia” didn’t win

Then the Mueller report was falling through
And the Ukraine phone call cratered too
They couldn’t find corruption
So they came up with obstruction

And while Biden’s kid was allowed to skate
Strzok and Page went on a date
And Nadler said “this can not wait!”
The day the Congress died.

Why, why do you Democrats lie?
Just because you hate our president you all voted “aye”.
You insist on impeachment but you can’t explain why,
Oh, this will be the day Congress died.
This will be the day Congress died.

With Nancy running out of time
She got her Democrats in line
And set up her impeachment fight.
She knows that she’s in trouble now
No witnesses or defense were allowed
With Trump’s economic numbers out of sight.

And in the streets Trump’s approval grew
There was nothing the Dems could do
The Senate and Mitch McConnell
Said they would support the Donald

The Democrats all hung their heads
As they realized their brand was dead
While Trump just laughed and shook his head
The day the Congress died.

So why, why do you Democrats lie?
Just because you hate our president you all voted “aye”.
You insist on impeachment but you can’t explain why,
Oh, this will be the day Congress died.
This will be the day Congress died.---------------------
Tom Balek is a fellow conservative activist, blogger, musician and contributes to the ARRA News Service. Tom resides in South Carolina and seeks to educate those too busy with their work and families to notice how close to the precipice our economy has come. He blogs at Rockin' On the Right Side

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Impeachment Clears Committee, Britain Votes For Boris, How Dare You!

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Impeachment Clears Committee
This morning, the House Judiciary Committee voted 23-to-17, along party lines, to approve articles of impeachment against President Trump for alleged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

The vote came after a marathon hearing yesterday that went well into the night, and was abruptly shut down after 11:00 PM. The full House is expected to vote on the articles of impeachment next Wednesday at the earliest.

Maybe now Chairman Jerry Nodler (I know, it's really Nadler) can finally get some desperately needed sleep. He's fallen asleep twice during his own hearings in recent days.

He's not the only one not paying attention. Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) was more interested in golf than impeachment. Meanwhile, Rep. Adam Schiff is taking impeachment so seriously, he went on Stephen Colbert's comedy show last night.

Democrats may not think impeaching the president is serious, but it is. They know they are tearing the country apart. Jerry Nadler said so himself!

Britain Votes For Boris
Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister of Great Britain in 1979. A year later, Ronald Reagan was elected president of the United States. The two leaders enjoyed a special relationship, just as our nations have over our long history. Together, Reagan and Thatcher lead the free world, defended free markets and brought down the Soviet Union.

Three years ago, in spite of all elite opinion and the polls, the British people said they were sick and tired of taking orders from Brussels and being unable to control their own borders.

They stunned the global establishment by voting for Brexit -- to leave the European Union. The vote cost Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, who opposed Brexit, his job.

Not long after, in spite of all elite opinion and the polls, the American people stunned the establishment by voting for Donald Trump, who promised to put America First.

But for the last three years, British and American voters have been thwarted and resisted by elites on both sides of the Atlantic who think they know better than the people.

Like much of President Trump's agenda, Brexit was repeatedly blocked by left-wing progressives and rebel Tories who wanted to remain in the European Union. The impasse cost Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May her job.

Into this leadership void stepped the populist former mayor of London, Boris Johnson. He called for a snap election to break the gridlock. It worked.

Last night, British voters again defied the polls and elite opinion. They gave Johnson, who campaigned on the theme of "Get Brexit Done," the biggest Conservative majority since Margaret Thatcher.

Some areas that had voted for the left-wing Labour Party since the 1930s swung to the Conservatives, who now control 365 seats in Parliament to 203 for Labour.

There are other parallels too. In Britain, there was something called "Independent Tories," meaning Conservative sellouts who refused to follow Johnson in support of Brexit. Here we have "Never Trumpers." Last night, every Independent Tory lost.

In many respects, Britain is now divided between those who want to be European and those who want to be British.

There was also something called the "shy Boris vote" -- voters who wouldn't tell pollsters they supported Johnson. Pre-election polls suggested this was going to be a cliffhanger. It wasn't even close.

I think something similar is happening in our polls as well. That was certainly the case in 2016, when most polls proved to be terribly wrong.

President Trump hailed Johnson's smashing win and promised to pursue a massive trade deal with the United Kingdom after Boris gets Brexit done.

Here's to hoping that Johnson's big conservative victory in 2019 heralds another big conservative victory in America in 2020, just like Thatcher and Reagan 40 years ago.

The Corbyn "Bullet"
It's worth noting that Britain just dodged a bullet -- a Marxist, anti-Semitic bullet.

In the closing days of the campaign, Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn was crisscrossing the country promising to nationalize virtually every major industry, radically expand the welfare state and raise taxes through the roof. To describe his platform as just socialism is a gross understatement.

Worse, Corbyn and his party have been dogged by anti-Semitism scandals for years. Several members of the Labour Party resigned earlier this year in protest. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair and others have repeatedly warned against rising anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, and for good reason.

Corbyn once referred to Hamas and Hezbollah as "friends." He has also attended conferences with known terrorists, and even attended a wreath-laying ceremony for Palestinian terrorists.

Under Corbyn's leadership, the British government launched a hate crimes investigation of the Labour Party over dozens of alleged anti-Semitic crimes. Corbyn once even tried to downplay the significance of the Holocaust. (By the way, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez actually endorsed Jeremy Corbyn yesterday. Birds of feather flock together!)

Late last month, Ephraim Mirvis, Britain's chief rabbi, stunned many observers when he published a frank opinion piece warning against the rampant Jew-hatred that has become so prevalent within the Labour Party. His remarks were supported by Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the Church of England.

Last night's results were not just a win for Brexit, they were also a crushing defeat for Corbynism and a resounding rejection of anti-Semitism.

Corbyn announced last night that he would not lead the Labour Party in another general election, but that he intended to remain as the party leader during a "process of reflection." We'll see what happens in the days ahead, but there are growing calls for his immediate resignation.

How Dare You!
Time has named teenage environmental crusader Greta Thunberg as 2019's Person of the Year. Of course they did. It wasn't enough that we had to be lectured and shamed for stealing her dreams and ruining her childhood. Now we have to celebrate her too.

One person who isn't genuflecting to Saint Greta is President Trump. In response to Time's pathetic pandering, Trump tweeted:

"So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!"

The left is going crazy, of course. They are accusing the president of bullying a 16 year-old. That tweet wasn't bullying. In fact, Greta's parents should be giving her the same advice!
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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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Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Impeachment Clears Committee, Britain Votes For Boris, How Dare You! To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

The (Sometimes) Bizarre Democratic Nomination Race

Michael Barone

by Michael Barone: Some recent news stories verge on the bizarre -- the House Democrats' futile fuss over impeachment, Speaker Nancy Pelosi's acceptance of President Donald Trump's U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade treaty. But they're not as bizarre, or possibly as consequential, as unanticipated developments in the Democrats' presidential nomination contest.

Consider the role of money, which Democrats are always saying plays too big a role in politics. This year, it plainly isn't. Their two billionaire late entrants, Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg, aren't running away with the contest.

Steyer is at 1.7% in the RealClearPolitics average, and Bloomberg's 5.5% surely owes as much to his formidable three terms as New York mayor -- and his groveling apology for his successful stop-and-frisk policy -- as his $30 million Thanksgiving week ad buy.

Internet technology has made big money less important. Twitter and Facebook are orders of magnitudes cheaper than TV ads, which used to be the only way to reach voters post-Iowa/New Hampshire. And the internet has enabled seemingly long-shot candidates like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Mayor Pete Buttigieg to substantially outraise former Vice President Joe Biden, who relies on traditional Democratic big contributors.

If money doesn't work the way it did, neither do ethnic or racial identity. John Kennedy could count on Irish Catholic voters and Barack Obama on blacks; Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton ran well with white Southerners back when they cast a big share of Democratic primary votes.

But this year, half of black Democrats, about one-quarter of primary voters, are supporting Biden, and only handfuls have supported the three black candidates. Sen. Kamala Harris ended her candidacy earlier this month. Sen. Cory Booker has bemoaned the lack of diversity among the candidates qualifying for the December debate (he's not one of them). Late entrant and former Gov. Deval Patrick has made no perceptible impact beyond canceling one Iowa event when only two people showed up.

Historically, black voters tend to give near-unanimous support for one candidate. It's a rational strategy if you identify as a member of a group systematically discriminated against, and black candidates have been among the beneficiaries.

But that impulse may be fading. The first black president has been elected and re-elected, one of only four presidents in the last century to clear 50% in two elections. Even as The New York Times' The 1619 Project argued that slavery was just as relevant as ever, many black voters may not feel as beleaguered or oppressed as in the past, particularly as black Americans' unemployment rate is a record low and blacks' incomes are rising faster than average.

Similarly, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro has not won significant support from Hispanics (a category invented by the Census Bureau in 1970). It's not clear what a part-time mayor of San Antonio has in common with Puerto Ricans in Florida, Dominicans in New York or Mexican Americans in California.

The third thing that seems bizarre, or at least surprising, about the Democratic race is that left-wing policies are proving not nearly as popular as media coverage of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her Green New Deal would suggest. Elizabeth Warren's embrace of and then backing away from "Medicare for All" is the prime example, and Tom Steyer's crusade against climate change is not winning votes from many of the Democrats who tell pollsters it's on their list of important issues.

In early debates and campaigning, Democratic candidates seemed eager to endorse left-wing policies -- a wealth tax, racial reparations, racial quotas and preferences, ninth-month abortions, open borders -- unlikely to appeal to majorities of general election voters. Now they seem more skittish. Policies advanced on the Democratic Twitterverse by clever young staffers but lacking any significant, popular yearning turn out to be duds.

This may be due to a disjunction between what animates the Democratic Party and its vision of what it once was. The Democratic Party, always a coalition of out-groups, is united these days by fear and loathing of the cultural style and populist proposals of Donald Trump. But the Democrats' self-image, rooted in history, is that of tribunes of the economically deprived, and they are drawn to advance redistributionist policies in the hope of regaining the working-class whites who were their largest constituency 50 years ago.

That hope is probably vain, and the result has pitted current Democratic constituencies against one another. Gentry liberals are attracted to Elizabeth Warren (but not her taxes) and Pete Buttigieg; seniors like Joe Biden; low-income Gen Zers and Hispanics (there's considerable overlap here) dig Bernie Sanders. And, undoubtedly, there are more surprises, maybe bizarre surprises, to come.
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Michael Barone is a Senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner and a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel  and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics Shared by Rasmussen Reports.

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Where Are the ‘High Crimes’?

by Patrick Buchanan: Nowhere in the articles of impeachment is “treason” mentioned. Nor is “bribery” or “extortion,” the other crimes alleged. Where are the “high crimes” in this impeachment resolution? There are none.

“Quid pro quo” was the accusatory Latin phrase most often used to describe President Donald Trump’s July 25 phone call asking for a “favor” from the president of Ukraine.

New Year’s prediction: The Roman poet Horace’s Latin depiction: “Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus” — “The mountains went into labor, and brought forth a mouse” — will be used to describe the articles of impeachment drawn up by Nancy Pelosi’s House.

Article II is titled “Obstruction of Congress.” What does it allege?

That Trump “directed the unprecedented, categorical, and indiscriminate defiance of subpoenas issued by the House of Representatives pursuant to its ‘sole power of Impeachment.'”

Undeniably, there is truth here.

Trump did direct the Executive branch not to provide witnesses and documents subpoenaed by the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, both of which are partisan, pro-impeachment and chaired by unapologetic Trump-haters Jerrold Nadler and Adam Schiff.

But what the substance of Article II is really about is the eternal conflict between the first and second branches of the government over their respective rights and powers.

Such clashes are usually decided by the third branch, the Supreme Court. But Pelosi, Nadler and Schiff are unwilling to wait for the court to decide. They are declaring the issue decided and settled in the House’s favor, and treating Trump’s recourse to the courts as a new impeachable offense: “Obstruction of Congress.”

Can Pelosi seriously expect a Republican Senate to convict and remove a Republican president for defending what that president is claiming in open court are the constitutional rights of the Executive Branch that he, as its present occupant and leader, is obligated to defend?

Trump would be derelict in his duty if he allowed a rogue House to run roughshod over the White House.

Consider Article I, “Abuse of Power.”

The heart of this charge is that Trump briefly held up delivery of $391 million in “vital military and security assistance to oppose Russian aggression.” So doing, Trump “compromised the national security of the United States.”

Is the House serious? It was the Trump administration that began the transfer of the lethal aid — sniper rifles, Javelin missiles — that President Barack Obama had denied to Ukraine for three years.

If Trump’s brief hold on a second tranche of lethal aid to Ukraine imperiled our “national security,” was not Obama’s yearslong denial of lethal aid to Ukraine a far greater peril to our national security?

Still, it is absurd to declare U.S. national security as threatened by a Russian presence in Crimea or in the Russian-speaking Donbass.

Russia has been in Crimea since Catherine the Great’s reign in the 18th century. When FDR visited Yalta in Crimea in 1945, and when Richard Nixon visited Crimea during his 1974 summit, Ukraine was a Soviet republic ruled from Moscow.

When did a Russian presence or Russian flag flying over Crimea or Luhansk and Donetsk become a threat to U.S. national security?

Soon after the victory of Lenin’s revolution, and from then, for seven decades, to the end of the Cold War, Ukraine was one of 15 Soviet republics.

When did Ukraine’s territorial borders become a U.S. vital interest?

George H. W. Bush in 1991 implored the Ukrainians not to indulge a “suicidal nationalism” by declaring independence. Stay with Russia, said Bush. Was Bush 41 committing an impeachable act and imperiling U.S. national security?

Under the Constitution, a president shall be impeached and removed on conviction by the Senate of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

During the years of the Mueller investigation, Trump was accused of “treason,” of being a Kremlin ally and asset.

With Trump, said Pelosi, “All roads lead to Putin!”

Yet nowhere in the articles of impeachment is “treason” mentioned. Nor is “bribery” or “extortion,” the other crimes alleged. Where are the “high crimes” in this impeachment resolution? There are none.

Were the Democrats demagoguing? Did they have nothing to back up the charges of criminal conduct? Were the charges just designed to smear Trump, whom Democrats fear they cannot defeat in 2020?

Trump’s offense is that he asked Ukraine’s president to investigate the Bidens and Burisma Holdings, which paid son Hunter Biden $50,000 a month while Vice President Joe was the White House point man for rooting out corruption in Ukraine.

But if Trump had no justification for his suspicions about Joe and Hunter, why is the press corps traveling with candidate Biden demanding more answers than Joe seems prepared to give?

And is it truly impeachable to ask Ukraine’s president to look into the smelly Biden-Burisma deal before being awarded an Oval Office meeting?

In Article I, Trump is accused of taking actions in Ukraine “that would help his election.”

But when did it become a crime to consider the probable electoral consequences of decisions taken in foreign policy?

Admirers of JFK tell us he was ready to pull out of Vietnam, but only after the 1964 election, so as not to increase his vulnerability to the hawkish Republicans of the Goldwater era.

If true, was JFK guilty of impeachable inaction?
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Patrick Buchanan (@PatrickBuchanan) is currently a blogger, conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior adviser to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000.

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Boy, Have the Democrats Ever Overplayed Their Hand!

David Limbaugh

by David Limbaugh: If cosmic justice were to prevail, Democrats would drop their impeachment sham in confessed disgrace and move to give President Donald Trump a second term by acclamation for having ceaselessly abused their power in trying to nullify his first term.

Though cosmic justice won’t prevail, the Constitution will, including its prescribed Senate check on impeachment and its provision for election of presidents through the Electoral College.

The Democrats have given new meaning to the term “overplaying your hand,” and their witch hunt will continue to backfire. They will fail to remove Trump from office and, through their egregious overreach, will have probably ensured his re-election.

Given the timely release of the inspector general’s report on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses, their bogus impeachment crusade has been further exposed as an appalling partisan travesty.

It cannot be repeated too often that the thrust of the Democrats’ complaint against Trump is that he is a walking high crime and misdemeanor. They consider him so heinous that they needn’t produce evidence of actual treason, bribery or other “high crimes.” They’ve been trying to unseat him from the moment he was sworn in, and they’re still trying, despite the failure of their previous efforts. Democrats talked of impeachment before he took office, and Democratic Reps. Al Green, Brad Sherman and Steve Cohen initiated a formal impeachment effort the first year of Trump’s presidency.

These shysters have wanted to impeach him over his tweets, the Emoluments Clause, his tax returns, collusion with Russia to interfere with the election, obstruction of justice, quid pro quo, extortion, bribery and obstruction of Congress. They wasted weeks in formal impeachment proceedings, first in an underground Star Chamber in the House and then out in the open before the House Intelligence Committee. In those proceedings, the Democratic accusers paraded hearsay witness after hearsay witness to show that Trump had engaged in bribery in a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In raising the Ukraine issue, they didn’t even bother to prove Trump’s intent; they unilaterally declared that it was to cripple his likely 2020 Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden, when in fact, it was more likely about Trump’s desire for past Democratic corruption to be investigated.

But after putting half the country asleep in trying to make a painstaking case for “bribery” and enraging the other half, they came up with nothing, and so they told the country, in essence: “Never mind. Don’t hold us to our monthslong charade alleging bribery. Just like all the other times when we were caught bearing false witness against this duly elected president, we’re just going to find different words. But this time, we’re going to use ones that you can’t say are too narrow (‘abuse of power’)” — because they are meaninglessly vague.

Impeachment is a gravely serious remedy that the framers intended to be used sparingly and only when there was such a threat to the republic that a bipartisan effort would ensue. Here the Democrats don’t even have a legitimate, non-serious basis; they have highly contested thirdhand evidence, and they have no bipartisan support. If their impeachment grounds were genuine, they wouldn’t have changed them like fashion models change clothes.

Though they’ve been trying to impeach Trump for years now, his alleged actions hadn’t even taken place when they began their efforts. House Leader Nancy Pelosi recently admitted that impeachment had been a Democratic project for 22 months — well before the notorious phone call with Zelensky.

Consider the richness of the Democrats’ lusting for Trump’s ouster over his alleged interference with an election when they have been trying to interfere with the 2016 election (and now the 2020 election) for three years. It would be outrageous enough if they had just endlessly mounted false charges against Trump via the impeachment process. But their political apparatus — the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign — coordinated with foreign actors and abominable, partisan crooks at the FBI to frame President Trump for conspiring with Russia. Can you even imagine what hell there would be to pay if Trump and the Republican National Committee had been accused of doing what these Democrats actually and undeniably did?

Moreover, Rep. Adam Schiff, his corrupt colleagues and their media co-conspirators ridiculed and demonized Rep. Devin Nunes for exposing this corruption. Schiff filed a report to refute Nunes’ report, and they’ve been calling Nunes a liar and a kook ever since. But whatever games people want to play about Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s disclaimer that he found no documentary or testimonial evidence of political bias (despite the plethora of emails and other real evidence of bias at the FBI), no sane person can deny that the IG report vindicates Nunes and exposes the sanctimonious Schiff as an unconscionable liar. Yet Schiff has quarterbacked this entire Democratic impeachment farce.

Horowitz’s disclaimer as to discovery of bias is not only misleading because we know of undeniable anti-Trump bias at the highest levels of the FBI. It is also misleading because we are talking about matters far worse than bias. This was abject corruption. An FBI agent doctored evidence; the FBI tricked Trump into an interview disguised as a briefing; and high-ranking FBI personnel deliberately defrauded the FISA Court multiple times to incriminate a sitting president. This is stuff right out of a Robert Ludlum novel, and these Gestapo felons must be held to account.

One supposes that given the breadth and depth of their own corruption going to the very democratic processes they pretend to adore, the Democrats will keep ratcheting up the volume on their false claims against Trump, hoping, as usual, to dupe the voting public into restoring them to power in 2020.

But as I said, they’ve overplayed their hand. If justice prevails, they will rue the day they went down this sinister road, and Trump not only will not be removed; he will be reelected, and the Republicans will regain their majority in both houses of Congress.
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David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book is "Jesus is Risen: Paul and the Early Church." Follow him on Twitter& @davidlimbaugh and his website at davidlimbaugh.com.

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Swamp Creature - Comey . . .

. . . IG Horowitz says that Comey has NOT been vindicated in the IG report contrary to Comey’s statement that he has been.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Party-Line Impeachment for Day-Time TV

. . . Jerry Nadler postponed a vote until this morning so Americans could watch.

by Nate Jackson: Donald Trump was inaugurated president 1,056 days ago, which, coincidentally, is exactly how long Democrats have been trying to impeach him. Well, if you don’t include their rumblings before he even took office. Today brings a major marker: The House Judiciary Committee voted 23-17 along party lines to advance two articles of impeachment to the full House for a vote next week.

That vote came after more political theater last night, as House Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler abruptly ended a hearing and announced the committee would not vote until this morning. “It is now very late at night,” Nadler declared shortly before midnight. “I want the members on both sides of the aisle to think about what has happened over these last two days, and to search their consciences before we cast their final votes. … Let history be our judge.”

Hearing Democrats talk about “consciences” is pretty amusing.

Rep. Doug Collins, the ranking Republican on the committee, complained that Nadler’s move was a violation of the rules and “the most bush-league stunt” he had ever seen. Collins also aptly noted what really matters to Democrats: “They know it’s all about games. It’s all about the TV screens. They want the primetime hit.” The flip side of that coin is that Democrats knew they couldn’t hold a vote at midnight under the cover of darkness without leaving themselves open to new Republican attacks. Now they’ve set up the weekend TV talking heads while giving the rest of America a Friday news dump.

One major factor for Democrats in their delay is that there are 31 “moderate” Democrats who won districts Trump won in 2016. Most of them have declined to indicate how they’d vote when the full House takes up the issue. (Notably, the six Democrats who took the stage earlier this week to “somberly” announce impeachment articles were all from California and New York. (This is why we have the Electoral College.) Those 31 Democrats could be waiting for their own quid pro quo. What will their district receive in exchange for their impeachment vote?

Democrats can lose only 16 of their members and still succeed in impeaching Trump. They will almost certainly gain no Republicans, and the Senate is a virtual lock to acquit the president. So House Democrats are about to spend a lot of political capital on a losing proposition.

Footnote One: During Judiciary debate, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) named the alleged whistleblower, reported to be Eric Chiaramella. Gohmert rattled off a list of people who should have testified but were prevented from doing so by Democrats. Chiaramella was among them. Leftmedia outlets who name and make famous every mass shooter have stubbornly refused to name the whistleblower, though by reporting that Gohmert named him they’ve effectively confirmed it.

Footnote Two: The one thing members of both parties can seem to agree on is more spending. Congressional negotiators just announced a deal for $1.3 trillion in discretionary spending for 2020, avoiding a government shutdown for Christmas. Reason notes, “The deficit for fiscal 2019, which ended in September, was $984 billion. Total outlays clocked in at $4.447 trillion, with revenues reaching $3.462 trillion, both record amounts.” Moreover, “The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is now projecting annual deficits in excess of $1 trillion in each of the next 10 years.”
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Nate Jackson is managing editor of Patriot Post.

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Bernie Sanders Wants to Nationalize the Internet

. . . He claims more government control is the only "solution" to the "problem."

by Political Editors: It should come as no surprise that Bernie Sanders wants the government to control … well, just about everything — including the Internet. Yes, the socialist senator from Vermont has a plan dubiously entitled “High-Speed Internet for All.” Too many Americans lack access to high-speed Internet, Sanders says, which is unacceptable for something he considers “a basic human right.” (“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Netflix”?) Sanders’s plan would solve this “crisis” by classifying the Internet as a public utility, effectively giving Washington total control of a “publicly owned and democratically controlled, co-operative, or open access broadband network.”

So, how bad is this high-speed Internet crisis? Well, currently only 94% of people living in the U.S. have access to broadband. That might explain why the Federal Communications Commission doesn’t see it as a crisis at all. Last year, the FCC concluded that “broadband services are now being deployed to all Americans on a reasonable and timely basis.” Furthermore, rapid expanse of broadband services has come about almost entirely via private enterprise. Got that, Bernie?

In fact, far from quickly delivering broadband access to that remaining 6%, nationalizing the Internet would only serve to slow it down. As the Washington Examiner notes, “The unnecessary Obama-era internet regulation misleadingly dubbed ‘net neutrality’ led to a massive decline in private sector broadband investment during the brief period while it was in place. According to the FCC, ‘In the following two years, after [net neutrality] was adopted, new developments dropped 55 percent.’ But after its repeal, investment has ticked back up by a whopping $1.5 billion.”

Leave it to socialists like Sanders to conjure up crises for which Big Government is the only solution.
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Patriot Post political editors.

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Unfettered Capitalism

by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: Lately politicians on both the left and the right have been criticizing capitalism. Senator Elizabeth Warren calls for “accountable capitalism.” Senator Marco Rubio proposes what could be called “common-good capitalism.” Senator Bernie Sanders proposes “democratic socialism as an alternative to unfettered capitalism.”

By the way, they aren’t the only ones using the term. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz argues in his book, A Bit of Everything, for a new social contract. He says we need to get rid of “the kind of selfish, unfettered capitalism” we have had for the last 40 years.

Jonah Goldberg, in a recent column, asks the same question I have been asking. “What on earth are these people talking about?” Decades ago, during the Progressive Era, presidents did all they could to restrain capitalism. Teddy Roosevelt broke up the trusts and Franklin D. Roosevelt created dozens of government restraints during the New Deal.

Jonah Goldberg then asks another good question. “If you think there are no restraints on the market or on economic activity, why on earth do we have the Department of Labor, HHS, HUD, FDA, EPA, OSHA, or IRS?”

Yes, our economy sometimes benefits certain people and organizations more than others. That isn’t because of unfettered capitalism. It’s due to the fetters government puts on certain sectors to the benefit of others. That’s called crony capitalism. Laws and bureaucratic regulations benefit select businesses and industries in agriculture, manufacturing, banking, and a variety of other fields.

If you think the government needs to spend more or regulate more or tax more, then make your case for doing so. But let’s stop arguing against the straw man of unfettered capitalism.
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Kerby Anderson (@kerbyanderson) is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network (@PointofViewRTS) and is endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service.

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'The Law Is The Law': Virginia Democrats Float Prosecution, . . .

. . . National Guard Deployment If Police Don't Enforce Gun Control

by Kerry Picket: Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill say local police who do not enforce gun control measures likely to pass in Virginia should face prosecution and even threats of the National Guard.

After November's Virginia Legislature elections that led to Democrats taking control of both chambers, the gun control legislation proposed by some Democrats moved forward, including universal background checks, an “assault weapons” ban, and a red flag law.

Legal firearm owners in the state, however, joined with their sheriffs to form Second Amendment sanctuary counties, which declare the authorities in these municipalities uphold the Second Amendment in the face of any gun control measure passed by Richmond.

Over 75 counties in Virginia have so far adopted such Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions in the commonwealth, the latest being Spotsylvania County. The board of supervisors voted unanimously to approve a resolution declaring that county police will not enforce state-level gun laws that violate Second Amendment rights.

Virginia Democratic officials, however, already say local law enforcement supporting these resolutions will face consequences if they do not carry out any law the state Legislature passes.

“I would hope they either resign in good conscience, because they cannot uphold the law which they are sworn to uphold, or they're prosecuted for failure to fulfill their oath,” Democratic Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly told the Washington Examiner of local county police who may refuse to enforce future gun control measures. “The law is the law. If that becomes the law, you don't have a choice, not if you're a sworn officer of the law.”

Democratic Virginia Rep. Donald McEachin suggested cutting off state funds to counties that do not comply with any gun control measures that pass in Richmond.

“They certainly risk funding, because if the sheriff's department is not going to enforce the law, they're going to lose money. The counties' attorneys offices are not going to have the money to prosecute because their prosecutions are going to go down,” he said.

McEachin also noted that Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam could call the National Guard, if necessary.

“And ultimately, I'm not the governor, but the governor may have to nationalize the National Guard to enforce the law,” he said. “That's his call, because I don't know how serious these counties are and how severe the violations of law will be. But that's obviously an option he has.”

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring blamed the numerous Second Amendment resolutions in the state on the “gun lobby” as a tactic to frighten state residents.

“The resolutions that are being passed are being ginned up by the gun lobby to try to scare people. What we’re talking about here are laws that will make our communities and our streets safer,” Herring told CBS 6.
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Kerry Picket writes for the Washington Examiner, H/T Gun Dynamics!

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Why American Jews Slander President Trump

by Caroline Glick: The past week has clarified a lot of things about the state of the American Jewish community — and its antagonists.

The two assailants who walked into the kosher supermarket in Jersey City Tuesday and opened fire intentionally targeted the Jews. They killers belonged to the black supremacist, virulently anti-Semitic “Black Hebrew Israelite” movement which claims its members are the true children of Israel and the Jews are satanic imposters.

The shooting in Jersey City marked a predictable escalation of the anti-Semitic attacks being carried out against Orthodox Jews in the New York area. The focal points of the attacks to date have been the ultra-Orthodox communities in Brooklyn. Over the past two years, the frequency of the assaults has increased sharply. Most of them have been perpetrated by black anti-Semites. None have been carried out by white supremacist anti-Semites.

This is an important distinction because progressive politicians like New York Mayor Bill De Blasio and Senator Bernie Sanders routinely present the anti-Semitic violence in Brooklyn as the product of white supremacists.

And while it is true that to date, white supremacist anti-Semitism has been the most lethal form of anti-Semitism in America, from a political and social perspective it is poses a smaller danger to Jewish life in America than the three other forms of active anti-Semitism in America today: progressive/socialist anti-Semitism, Islamist anti-Semitism and black anti-Semitism.

These forms of Jew hatred pose a greater threat to Jewish life in America than white nationalist anti-Semitism for two reasons. First, whereas white supremacists are political orphans, with no political party willing to embrace them, progressive, Islamist and black anti-Semites are deeply embedded in the political left. Over the past 15 years, they have become powerful actors in the Democratic Party capable of bending the party to their will.

The second reason they pose a greater danger to Jewish life in America than white nationalists is because while socialist, Islamist and black anti-Semites will not cooperate with white supremacist anti-Semites, they are more than happy to work with one another to achieve their common goals. They cover for one another – as Sanders and De Blasio cover for the black anti-Semites in Brooklyn. They support one another, as both men embrace Islamist anti-Semite Linda Sarsour. Thursday Cong. Rashida Tlaib claimed that white supremacists were responsible for the attack in Jersey City.

The place where the three types of anti-Semites converge most powerfully and so present the greatest threat to Jewish life in America is on college campuses. In campuses throughout the U.S., Jewish Americans are compelled to keep their heads down or face abuse and harassment due to their common efforts to ostracize Jewish students and professors who fail to actively condemn Israel.

The most direct way to handle the problem is by applying the protections of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to Jews. Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of color, race and national origin in programs and activities receiving Federal financial assistance.

Over the past several years, Congress made several attempts to amend Title VI to include anti-Jewish discrimination. These efforts enjoyed broad bipartisan support. But they were all blocked by members of the progressive camp inside the Democratic Congressional caucus. Like the anti-Semitic boycott activists ostracizing Jews on campuses, the progressive lawmakers claimed that expansion of the protections of Title VI to include anti-Jewish discrimination would undermine the free speech rights of anti-Israel activists on campuses. That is, they said the rights of anti-Semites to preach anti-Semitism superseded the rights of Jewish students not to be harassed.

Wednesday, President Donald Trump put an end to this madness by signing an executive order requiring federal agencies dealing with allegations of anti-Semitism on campuses to consider the complaints in light the “working definition of anti-Semitism…by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.”

The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism was adopted by several governments and the State Department. It provides examples of manifestations of anti-Semitic behavior including “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor; applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation; using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism…to characterize Israel or Israelis; drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis;” and “holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the state of Israel.”

These are, of course, the standard practices of anti-Semites on college campuses and beyond. So by ordering the Federal government to use the IHRA definition as their framework for determining the validity of Title VI complaints of anti-Semitic discrimination on campuses, Trump provided Jews with the means they have lacked to defend themselves from that discrimination. He also carved a path to expose and fight the fastest growing and most politically and socially potent anti-Semitic forces in America.

Rather than report what he did, the New York Times seemingly deliberately mischaracterized Trump’s actions.

In its Twitter feed, the New York Times reported Trump’s action thus: “President Trump will sign an executive order defining Judaism as a nationality, not just a religion, thus bolstering the Education Department’s efforts to stamp out “Boycott Israel” movements on college campuses.”

This tweet was so off-base that it is impossible to view it as a mere misunderstanding by the paper of record for the liberal establishment. The assertion that Trump’s move “defined Judaism” smacks of cultural appropriation, and as such, it sounds like an act of aggression against Jews.

By falsely claiming Trump defined Judaism as a nationality, the Times made it sound like Trump was saying that Jews aren’t American nationals.

And by writing the purpose of the effort was to “stamp out ‘Boycott Israel’ movements on college campuses,” rather than protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment, the Times made the order seem like a political ploy rather than a civil rights action long supported by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Liberal Jews pounced on the message and ran with it. Halie Soifer, the executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America accused Trump of being “partially responsible” for the rise of anti-Semitism in America.

“If President Trump truly wanted to combat anti-Semitism,” she said, “he would accept responsibility for his role in perpetuating anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and emboldening white nationalism.”

“We said it before and we’ll say it again – Donald Trump is the biggest threat to American Jews,” she added.

J-Street’s executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami echoed the criticism of BDS advocates in Congress and on campuses by claiming that the executive order harms the free speech rights of anti-Israel activists. In his words, “The executive order, like the stalled congressional legislation it is based on, appears designed less to combat anti-Semitism than to have a chilling effect on free speech and to crack down on campus critics of Israel.”

Undoubtedly, Soifer and Ben Ami were directing their statements towards the “a-political” Jewish establishment in the hopes of mobilizing them against the pro-Jewish executive order.

In the event, they failed. The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee both applauded Trump’s executive order.

But Soifer and Ben Ami had grounds to think the ADL and AJC would join them in characterizing Trump’s friendliness and support for Jewish people as anti-Semitism. Earlier this week they did.

Last Saturday night, Trump delivered the keynote address at the Israeli-American Council’s annual conference in Miami. Trump’s hour-long event was a love fest. Trump exuded warmth and respect towards his audience and towards Israel and they returned the sentiments.

He promised to fight anti-Semitism in America with the same energy with which he defends Israel and brought people onto the stage to outline the work the administration has done to combat anti-Jewish bigotry in America and throughout the world.

Yet, immediately after Trump completed his remarks, the floodgates of hatred opened up on him from the Jewish establishment. Everyone from Soifer to Jennifer Rubin from the Washington Post and Paul Krugman from the New York Times, accused Trump of delivering an anti-Semitic rant. The ADL and AJC jumped on the bandwagon and tweeted angry denunciations.

What was it that Trump said that made them so angry?

Trump said, “A lot of you are in the real estate business because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers. (Laughter) Not nice people at all. But you have to vote for me; you have no choice. You’re not going to vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. (Laughter and applause.) You’re not going to vote for the wealth tax. ‘Yeah, let’s take 100 percent of your wealth away.’ No, no. Even if you don’t like me; some of you don’t. Some of you I don’t like at all, actually. (Laughter.) And you’re going to be my biggest supporters because you’ll be out of business in about 15 minutes, if they get it.”

The royal host of the American Jewish establishment hissed that in speaking thus, Trump reinforced the anti-Semitic stereotype that Jews love money.

Such twaddle.

As he said, Trump was addressing his fellow real estate developers in the crowd. He was talking to them as his friends and competitors, not as his enemies. When he said, “You’re brutal killers” he was paying them a compliment. They understood, which is why they laughed.

Trump’s claim that they would vote for him even if they didn’t like him because they feared the Democrats’ confiscatory tax policies is his standard line on Democratic tax policy. He says it to everyone, not just to Jews. The audience knew this too – which is why they laughed and applauded.

The Jewish establishment types joined the bandwagon and agreed Trump’s playful, friendly statement was anti-Semitic because they want to believe Trump is an anti-Semite. If Trump is an anti-Semite then it’s reasonable for them to remain loyal to the Democratic party which, led by “the squad” is leaping towards the anti-Semitic cliff that Britain’s Labour Party jumped off when it elected Jeremy Corbyn its leader.

In other words, they slander Trump as an anti-Semite because they prefer their partisan interests to the interests of the Jewish community in America and the Jewish people throughout the world.

Luckily, as Trump’s consistent record of support for Israel and the Jews in America and worldwide and as his warmth for Jewish people makes clear, the President doesn’t have an anti-Semitic bone in his body. And he won’t become an anti-Semite no matter how poorly the American Jewish establishment treats him.

Trump’s Jewish critics said he was trafficking in anti-Semitic “tropes” when he told the IAC, that in the U.S. “you have people that are Jewish people, that are great people – they don’t love Israel enough.” But he was doing no such thing. He was telling the truth. Those Jewish people love neither Israel nor the children of Israel, the Jewish nation enough.

Thankfully, President Trump loves the Jews and Israel so much that he makes up for them.
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Caroline Glick is the Senior Contributing Editor of The Jerusalem Post and the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com. First shared on IsraelHayom

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