Category: Politics

Trump critic’s selective memory

Law school professor and frequent Trump critic Laurence Tribe appears to support Nancy Pelosi’s refusal to forward articles of impeachment to the Senate. From a Fox News article:

“Senate rules requiring the House to ‘immediately’ present its articles of impeachment to the Senate clearly violate the constitutional clause in Article I giving each house the sole power to make its own rules,” Tribe tweeted on Wednesday.

It’s interesting how this law professor has chosen to ignore that Pelosi’s withholding of the impeachment articles until her conditions for the trial are met violate the section of Article one that states:

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.

The House has no authority to make demands of the Senate with regards to the impeachment trial. The Constitution separates the authority for indictment (impeachment) and subsequent trial to prevent exactly the partizan circus over which Pelosi has presided. Her attempts to manipulate/circumvent the Constitution should be met with harsh criticism.

Whoa… talk about going too far…

Democrats now believe that the House of Representatives can tell the Senate how to run the impeachment trial of Donald Trump. They have indicated that they will accomplish this by withholding the articles of impeachment from the Senate until terms for the trail are negotiated.

This is the most grievous display of disdain for the Constitution that I have ever personally witnessed. The Constitution is clear: the Senate has sole power of trial over impeachments. The House of Representatives has no say in how the trial occurs – just as the Senate had no say in the development of articles of impeachment. By threatening this action Pelosi is thumbing her nose at the Constitution.

I do not know what long game the Democrats are playing, but I can’t help but wonder if this wasn’t the plan all along. They knew that the Senate would acquit (making impeachment pointless, except for political gain), and yet they went forward with proceedings anyway. They finished the impeachment quickly, with plenty of time for this matter to be resolved in the Senate and for the whole affair to be purged from the minds of voters long before the election, and yet they went forward anyway. The logical conclusion is that they never intended to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate. Instead, they prefer to play the victim while crying about how the system is unfair.

However, withholding the articles of impeachment and thus delaying the Senate trial is patently unfair to the President. Can you imagine having an indictment against you, but not being tried? Assumed guilty because of the charge, but unable to clear your name? To prevent such atrocities the framers of the Constitution included the 6th amendment, which reads:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Note that these are rights which Pelosi has denied the President by refusing to forward the articles of impeachment: no speedy trial, no trial by jury, no ability to call and/or confront witnesses – in short, no way to prove themselves innocent of the charges. This allows Pelosi to leverage these charges, like an open wound against Trump’s presidency, for political gain. It is both unconscionable and unconstitutional.

Want proof that this is their plan? Here’s what California Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said regarding withholding of the articles of impeachment in a recent NPR article:

… It’s leverage because [Trump] can’t say I’m totally exonerated by the Senate.”

This is either the greatest – or the worst – political move ever. Only time will tell. For now, though, I think that the best option for the Senate is to simply ignore any  negotiation requests regarding a trial, stating that there are no terms to negotiate until the articles of impeachment are actually delivered.

PS: I don’t care how much you dislike Trump; destroying our Constitution to unseat a duly-elected President is like throwing the baby (baby Trump?) out with the bathwater. It’s just plain dumb.

Bipartisan impeachment?

The most bipartisan event during Trump’s impeachment was the minority vote against (which included all Republicans and 3 Democrats). The majority vote for impeachment consisted of Democrats and one independent, which makes the vote pretty darn partisan.

Another interesting note from an NPR article on the impeachment:

“The argument, ‘Why don’t you just wait’ amounts to this — why don’t you just let him cheat in one more election?” Schiff said when Democrats announced the articles of impeachment. “Why not let him cheat just one more time? Why not let him have foreign help just one more time?”

Even with Democrat claims to the contrary, there is no evidence that Trump cheated in the 2016 election. In fact, a pretty strong argument could be made that the Democrats cheated through their abuse of the FISA system and their subsequent surveillance of the Trump campaign.

I’m very concerned about the precedent that this impeachment attempt sets. What is most troubling is that the Democrats are moving forward  even though they know that Trump will be acquitted in the Senate.  Since they can’t win, it seems that the House is only using its power for political gain – and yet that is one of the charges leveled at Trump.

Will this be the standard action taken for every President going forward?

Political double standard?

Sen. Richard Martinez, a democratic New Mexico state senator, was recently convicted of aggravated drunken driving and reckless driving. From a recent news story:

After his conviction, top Democrats in the state said they would recommend asking him to leave as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth and Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen said they would let Martinez or voters decide his fate in the Senate. They said they would deliver their recommendation next month.

Funny how the Democrats will let the voters decide when it is their ilk that run afoul of the law – but not a Republican president.

Bit of a double-standard, no?

And the truth comes out…

From an NPR article on the impeachment process underway in the House of Representatives:

“Given that House Democrats likely cannot remove Trump, the question they must ask themselves is what will do him the most political damage and themselves the least damage, mindful of the election next year.”

So it’s no longer about actually removing the President; it’s about an elected entity using its power to hurt a political opponent.

Hey, wait a minute…

Trump-induced nightmare

A quote from Juan Rodriguez, campaign manager for Kamala Harris (from the NY Times):

“Our team, from the candidate to organizers across the country, are working day in and out to make sure Kamala is the nominee to take on Donald Trump and end the national nightmare that is his presidency.” [italics mine]

Nightmare? Unemployment at a 50 year low. African-American unemployment at a 45 year low. Stocks hitting an all-time high. Manufacturing base up dramatically in the U.S. 

My nightmare? Donald Trump with a twitter account. Oh, wait…

Active Shooter Drills

Active shooter drills are not about protecting our children; their purpose is to traumatize children and their parents so as to increase their fear of school violence. And it works: A Pew Research report indicates that the majority of students and parents are now concerned about the possibility of a school shooting, even though such events are quite rare.

A recent U.S. Secret Service study investigated targeted school violence – excluding gang and drug-related events or events with an external criminal nexus – during the 10 year period from 20o8 through 2017. They found 41 targeted school violence events – of which only 25 involved a firearm – accounting for 79 injured and 19 killed. Considering that the U.S. has more than 95,000 k through 12 schools serving almost 50 million students, death or injury from such events are truly rare. Compare these numbers to the 2364 teen drivers killed and 300,000 injured in 2017 alone; on which do you think we should be concentrating our efforts?

Given the rarity of these events, why do some schools terrorize parents and students with active shooter drills using fake blood, mock injuries and simulated shooters firing blanks? Could it be that the political agenda driving these active shooter drills is more important to some than actually protecting children? Could it be that these drills are simply anti-gun political propaganda aimed at current (parent) and future (student) voters, possibly to gain support for anti-gun legislation?

It’s time we stop using our schools and children as political pawns to undermine the 2nd amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Instead, let’s start working on truly effective programs to eliminate school violence. Threat assessment, as promoted by the Secret Service and discussed in this article from NPR, is a much more effective method of preventing school violence.

Some excerpts from the Secret Service study:

  • Most attackers were victims of bullying.
  • 39% of attacks used bladed weapons; 61% used firearms.
  • Firearms were most often obtained from home or a close relative.
  • Many attackers had received some form of mental health treatment.

Hoda Muthana is not a citizen

Or so says U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton. You might remember Hoda Muthana: she left college in the U.S. to travel to Syria and support ISIS. She has now renounced her ISIS activities and wishes to return to the U.S.

One thing that is interesting about this story is how it is being portrayed in the media. Left-leaning sources portray this as an example of the evil, callous nature of the Trump administration, since they refuse to let Hoda return to the United States. Right-leaning sources, however, are quick to point out that it was not the Trump administration that cancelled Hoda’s passport claiming she was not a citizen – it was the Obama administration.

Here’s the meat of the story from a compilation of several sources (here, here and here, for starters):

Hoda was born in the U.S. to foreign parents. Her father was in the U.S. as a diplomat represented Yemen in the United Nations, but claims that his service for Yemen ended before Hoda was born. This is an important point because children born of diplomats enjoying diplomatic immunity are not “…subject to the jurisdiction…” of the United States and are therefor not beneficiaries of the 14th amendment’s citizenship grant to those born in the U.S.

Unfortunately for Hoda, the United States disagrees. According to the law, Hoda’s father enjoyed diplomatic immunity until the UN notified the U.S. that his service had terminated, which occurred after Hoda’s birth. Here’s where it gets interesting: While Hoda’s father claims that he was no longer a diplomat when she was born, and Yemen agrees that his service terminated prior to Hoda’s birth, the UN did not notify the U.S. until 1995. As a result, Hoda’s father still enjoyed diplomatic immunity under the laws of the United States (and thus his children born during this time are not afforded U.S. citizenship). It is important to note that diplomatic immunity for UN diplomats is terminated only when the UN notifies the Unites States, irrespective of the claimed date of termination by the originating country.

This method of determining diplomatic immunity for UN representatives – when the host state is officially notified by the UN – is critical for a fair and impartial system. If immunity was conferred solely on the claims of the originating country the system would be ripe for corruption. For instance, a foreign national arrested for a crime could be protected from prosecution simply by having his country make the claim that he was acting in a diplomatic position at the time. Alternatively, if a foreign national wanted the children born under his tenure as a diplomat to be considered U.S. citizens, he could request that his country back-date his service termination to a time before their birth. The only way to protect the system from such abuses is for a neutral 3rd party record keeper to be between the source and host countries – in this case, that 3rd party is the UN. This is why the dates for coverage of diplomatic immunity for UN diplomats are based solely on when the host state is notified of the status change by the UN.

An interesting read on the government’s case against Muthana (actually, against a case brought by her father) can be found here.

The terrorism of “active shooter” drills

The odds are estimated at 11 million:1 that you’ll die in an airplane accident. Yet we don’t make fliers run through accident drills where body parts are flying, people are laying in pools of blood, and fire abounds. We simply explain to them how to prepare for an emergency landing and how to operate the emergency doors. No need to terrorize fliers; that will only make people afraid of airplanes.

The odds are estimated at 614 million:1 that you’ll die in a shooting at school (any shooting at school, not just a mass school shooting); that’s almost 56 times less likely than dying in an airplane accident. And yet we make students go through “active shooter” drills where fake blood, mock injuries and mask gunmen firing blanks are used to terrorize anyone who hasn’t already fainted.

Extreme? Of course it is. But you have to understand that those promoting such drills are not trying to prepare students for the unlikely event of a school shooter. No, instead they are preparing students (and their parents) for the voting booth. By building in them a fear of firearms they are assured of future votes for gun control.

I am appalled that gun control advocates would go to such extreme lengths for political purposes, but I am not surprised. With an education system that leans liberal by a 2:1 margin, schools have become a tool for the propagation of liberal tenets – and it’s a very effective tool. However, these active shooter drills are simply blatant acts of terror against our impressionable youth designed to insure compliance with long-term political goals. Experts are now claiming that these “active shooter drills” have gone too far and are likely to do more damage than good, particularly given the rarity of these events.

It’s time to put an end to the use of our children as political pawns. Demand that your districts provide suitable security for their students so as to remove the soft-target status of schools. In addition, insist that more appropriate and effective training is developed that does not cause as much trauma to students as the event they purport to prevent.