Tuesday roundup

A New York high school tries to weasel out of recognizing a Christian club, but the Liberty Institute is on the case:

A New York school district violated federal law when it rejected a Christian student's request to start an on-campus Christian club, according to a nonprofit legal group representing the student.

The First Liberty Institute sent a letter to Wappingers Central School District on Wednesday demanding that it approve freshman Daniela Barca’s application to form the “OMG! Christian Club” at Roy C. Ketcham High School. 

The aim of the club, according to First Liberty Institute, is to offer “faith-based support” during biweekly student-initiated meetings where students have “discussions about living for God in a godless society.”

First Liberty Institute has accused school officials of stonewalling and slow walking approval of Barca’s proposal.

Ultimately, the student's request was denied on grounds that a Christian club was too “exclusive” and that a public school could not support a religious club. 

“[T]he discrimination toward Daniela’s religious speech has prevented OMG from pursuing their community-wide goals of ‘food drives, clothing drives, Operation Christmas Child’ and other charitable endeavors,” the letter from First Liberty Institute counsel Keisha Russell states. 

Eli Lake lays bare Adam Schiff's agenda-driven disingenuousness:

Eli Lake‏Verified account @EliLake

Schiff says on @FoxNewsSunday “there were serious abuses of FISA” but then says it wasn’t apparent two years ago. He had the same information as Nunes. Nunes called out those abuses. Schiff chose to attack Nunes instead of performing his oversight duties.

7:43 AM - 15 Dec 2019 

Excellent Maureen Mullarkey piece at The Federalist entitled "No, I'm not Buying A Little Boy A Tea Set For Christmas." A taste:

 . . . the saleswoman in an upscale toy store recommended one to me. I had told her the age and sex of the giftee when I asked her to point me to a suitable section in a tumble of displays. Reluctant to let me browse alone through fake mustaches, wooden puzzles, and Fisher-Price gear, the clerk insisted on being helpful.

She held up a boxed tea service. Inside was a round-bellied polypropylene pot and four miniature cups and saucers in watery pastels. Considering the sex of the recipient, even the washed-out color seemed emblematic.

“It’s quite adorable,” she purred.

“No, thank you. Not for a boy.”

“My son has one.”

Poor kid! Did I imagine it, or did she deliver that in a tone that signaled superior consciousness? Tea sets are paraphernalia for playing house, the hallowed pastime for girls. Was this mother of a son taking a stand against “gender apartheid,” the still-kicking bugbear of Gloria Allred and co.? The whiff of it rankled me.

I'm no Chris Cillizza fan by any stretch, but he has done yeoman's work here by archiving the VSG's 199 wildest lines of 2019, each with either a little commentary or the truth that stands in contrast to what the VSG uttered. A taste:

129. "We had 14 seasons, think of that. The Apprentice. I proudly signed four bipartisan human trafficking laws securing $400 million to support victims of human trafficking." July 17 (North Carolina rally) 

These were two sentences that the President said back-to-back. And, no, I have no idea what he believed the connection to be -- or if he believed there to be one.

108. "One person has a higher percentage than your favorite president, Donald Trump. Do you know who that president is? He's got a higher percentage than me and it's devastating. His name is George Washington." June 18 (Trump Orlando kickoff rally) 

First, Trump is saying his record of appointing federal judges is behind only that of America's first president. Second: "Your favorite president, Donald Trump."

81. "This is one of the true, in terms of war, in terms of, probably you can also say, in terms of peace, because this led to something very special." June 6 (Ingraham interview in Normandy) 

A real, unedited sentence from the President of the United States.

Uri Friedman piece at The Atlantic entitled "Under Trump, the U.S. Has Become A Leading Source of Instability":

 

For years, the Council on Foreign Relations has asked hundreds of U.S. government officials and foreign-policy experts to rate the potential security crises that could most threaten the United States in the coming year. Typically the respondents have focused on the world’s hot spots. More top of mind this year, it seems, was the destabilizing force at home.

Yes, there is “rising anxiety about the state of the world,” Paul Stares, who oversees CFR’s annual poll, told me. And that anxiety, he added, “probably has a lot to do with the policies of the Trump administration,” and the “turbulence” and “instability” it has created around the globe.

Over the past several years, as Donald Trump took the reins of American statecraft from Barack Obama, the United States as an actor in the world morphed from a known quantity to an unknown one to a “known unknown,” Stares observed, channeling Donald Rumsfeld.

“In the early months of [Trump’s] administration, there was some hope—call it wishful thinking—that he would become more appreciative of the U.S. role in the world, its contributions to international stability and peace and so on, and would essentially then follow the long-standing playbook of U.S. foreign policy,” said Stares, an expert on conflict prevention. “But that hasn’t been true. So we now are more prepared [for the] unexpected, or more cautious about how we project future U.S. policy.” 

China and Russia reach out to North Korea, saying, "We're forming a strategic alliance to serve as a foil to the US-led array of nations. Want to get on board?" 

While most everyone in America is obsessing over the impeachment follies, the situation on the Korean peninsula has gone from bad to worse, at least in terms of the goals of the United States and the west. Russia and China have prepared a UN resolution that would lift many sanctions on North Korea. The stated goal is to “enhance the livelihood of the civilian population.” But as admirable as such a goal might be, it would effectively take the handcuffs off of Kim Jong-un, leaving America and her allies nothing to go on but Kim’s promises to be a better actor on the world stage. And history has shown us repeatedly what his promises are worth. 

In March 2018, the VSG vowed never to sign another omnibus spending bill like the one he was signing at the time. Today, in a floor speech about how atrocious the current spending bills are, Texas Representative Chip Roy said he looks forward to the VSG getting out his veto pen. He also asked why the recent revelations about how utterly failed the US mission in Afghanistan has been aren't affecting spending on that.

In early 2019, Rudy Giuliani was just a private citizen - albeit the president's personal attorney - and Maria Yovanovitch was a government employee, the US ambassador to Ukraine. Still, Rudy knew what he had to do to further his client's aims:

In a long conversation with me this past November, Giuliani largely confirmed Lutsenko’s account of their relationship. He, too, saw Yovanovitch as an obstacle, hindering his attempt to dig up dirt against his client’s rival in advance of the 2020 election. “I believed that I needed Yovanovitch out of the way,” he said. “She was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody.” Giuliani compiled a dossier on the Bidens and Yovanovitch, which he sent to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and which was shared with the F.B.I. and with me. John Solomon, a journalist, had interviewed Lutsenko for the Washington-based publication The Hill. Giuliani promoted the project. “I said, ‘John, let’s make this as prominent as possible,’ ” Giuliani told me. “ ‘I’ll go on TV. You go on TV. You do columns.’ ”

Former Pakistani general and president (he assumed that latter position in a coup) Musharraf has been sentenced to death. But it's in absentia. He's been living in Dubai for years.