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.

 

That VSG is a real piece of work

A number of fronts on which he's worked his unique brand of havoc in recent days.

There's the effect of his protectionist policy:

President Trump campaigned to get America a fair trade deal. Once in office, tariffs became his weapon of choice in a trade war aimed at negotiating better terms for the US.

The administration is still in the midst of that fight, but Americans have already felt its impact, according to paper in the Fall 2019 issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives. 

Authors Mary Amiti, Stephen Redding, and David Weinstein found that almost all of the 2018 tariffs were passed on to importers and consumers through higher prices.

By 2019, import tariffs were costing US consumers and firms that buy foreign goods $3.2 billion per month in added tax costs and another $1.4 billion per month in forgone trade.

The Trump administration raised tariffs in a series of six waves over the course of 2018. It started with relatively modest tariffs on solar panels and washing machines, and ended with a 10 percent tariff on more than $200 billion worth of Chinese imports.

There's the frenzy of vulgarity into which he whips his cult followers:

Trump on Americans' reaction to impeachment: “Everybody said that’s really bullshit.” Florida rally crowd now chanting "Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit!"

And speaking of the Florida rally, he perpetuated the idea of a vast and sinister "deep state," and claimed his pardoning of war criminals was a blow against it:

President Trump boasted at his Florida rally on Tuesday night of taking a stand against the “Deep State” by pardoning accused and convicted war criminals, apparently taking a thinly veiled jab at the military leadership he overruled to issue the pardons.
“Just this week, I stuck up for three great warriors against the Deep State,” the president exclaimed in Sunrise, Florida. “You know what I’m talking about. I had so many people say, ‘Sir, I don’t think you should do that.’”

Trump appeared to be referencing the backlash he faced from military leaders over the pardons he issued to Clint Lorance and Matthew Golsteyn and his reversal of the demotion of Eddie Gallagher, actions that eventually resulted in the termination of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer.
“People have to fight,” the president continued. “They shouldn’t say, gee whiz. They wanted to put him in jail for 25 years. One young man was in jail for seven years. He had 16 years to go.”
After mentioning Lorance’s jail sentence for the murder of unarmed Afghan civilians, Trump told the audience that “when you look at what they did to that man, you would have been very proud at what we ended up doing.”
“He came out and he hugged his parents,” the president added. “It was a beautiful thing. I will always stick up for our great fighters.”

Trump concluded by taking another shot at military leadership, declaring that “people can sit in air-conditioned offices and complain, but it doesn’t matter to me.” 

So much for respecting the internal military chain of command and the morale, discipline and order that it makes possible.

Then there's the chasm between the way he saw Rudy Giuliani's activities in Ukraine in July and the way he sees them in November:

President Donald Trump has now denied that he directed his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani to go to Ukraine and seek out investigations on his behalf, contradicting his own words to the Ukrainian President in the White House-released transcript of the July 25 call. 

Trump also contradicted sworn testimony from members of his administration and claims from his own White House acting chief of staff. 

Ahead of a Tuesday night rally in Florida, Trump was asked by conservative radio host Bill O'Reilly if the President directed Giuliani's involvement in Ukraine. 

"No," the President said, before launching into a tangent of flattering Giuliani's credentials, calling him "a great corruption fighter" and "the greatest mayor" of New York City.

O'Reilly asked once again: "Giuliani's your personal lawyer. So you didn't direct him to go to Ukraine to do anything or put any heat on them?" 

"No, I didn't direct him, but he's a warrior, Rudy's a warrior. Rudy went, he possibly saw something. But you have to understand, Rudy (has) other people that he represents," Trump said, adding that Giuliani has "done work in Ukraine for years." 

But according to the rough transcript of a phone call between Trump and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump repeatedly pressed for Giuliani's involvement.

Trump told Zelensky: "Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great." 

Trump later said: "I will have Mr. Giuliani give you a call and I am also going to have Attorney General Barr call and we will get to the bottom of it. I'm sure you will figure it out."

A third time, Trump referenced Giuliani: "I will tell Rudy and Attorney General Barr to call." 

And there's this tweet / photo that I'm going to include, although, even though it comes from the @RealDonaldTrump account, is so outrageous that I'm leaving open the possibility that somehow some kind of hoax is being perpetrated. It's not as likely as the possibility that his narcissism has corroded what little character he's ever had this badly, and that he's truly losing his marbles. We'll see.

Both things are true: Democrats are power-mad and Trump's foreign policy is a recklessly conducted mess

The whole concept of acknowledging several things to be true at once, even though each thing poses a threat to some tribe's agenda, has never been so important. Unless you're cheerleading for something other than full revelation of truth, and America's founding principles, you're acting out of fear that you're forfeiting points on the board to forces you've built up an emotional investment in holding a fixed image of.

The Left, and its political embodiment, the Democrat party, have been at this a long time. It's what identity-politics militancy is all about. Anything that can be blamed on some combination of white / male / heterosexual / Christian "privilege" can shut off any further inquiry into what's really at play in a given situation.

The Fusion GPS / Steele dossier / Mueller report crusade succeeded in getting a lot of people to see in Trump's erratic relations with foreign leaders, particularly Putin, evidence that Trump was somehow desirous of a Russian overshadowing of US global influence. (It's true that he sometimes seems not to care that his utterances stoke such a conclusion - to wit, his statement that Russia and Syria could "play in the sand" once there was no more US presence in the Kurdish area along the Turkey-Syria border.)

Adam Schiff clearly wants Trump gone by any means necessary. His over-the-top paraphrasing of the Zelensky call, his leaks and his constant preening make that clear. He's determined to see the impeachment process through to Senate conviction if he possibly can.

All that said, Trumpists would have us believe that that's the only set of developments on the national plate of any substance. That's not the case. Trumpist reaction to the statements by acting US ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor and Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council's top Ukraine expert, to the House committees involved in the impeachment inquiry has been equal parts whataboutism and character smear.

The whataboutism reflexively reverts back to the above-discussed Democrat machinations and such Obama-era figures as James Comey and John Brennan. This tack at least has a rootedness in truth to commend it, even though the truth is here being employed as a tool of distraction.

The smears of Taylor and Vindman are another matter.

Taylor's statement put the spotlight on what he called the "highly irregular" channels through which US-Ukraine relations were conducted, particularly the role of personal Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. It's worth recalling that he got that job because the previous, official ambassador, Masha Yovanovitch, was perceived to be insufficiently loyal to Trump. By July, "it was becoming clear" to Taylor that a Trump-Zelensky meeting was dependent on the Zelensky administration getting going on an investigation into Burisma, the energy company on whose board Hunter Biden sat.

And here's a glaring question: why did Taylor not hear about the July 25 Trump-Zelensky phone conversation until September 25?

For his trouble, Taylor has been called a "Never Trumper" - a term the meaning of which has morphed - especially since Trump's "human scum" tweet - from a catchall for anyone who deviates from a position of slavish devotion to an accusation of being somehow left-leaning - by Laura Ingraham, and a "deep state hack" by Bill Mitchell. Jack Posobiec accused Taylor of undermining US foreign policy. Trump himself has repeated Ingraham's "Never Trumper" charge and saying he didn't know Taylor.  Mr. President, does this mean Mike Pompeo didn't consult you about appointing Taylor to the position?

In his opening statement, Vindman, a decorated Army Lieutenant Colonel, said he was so alarmed by what he heard in the Trump-Zelensky conversation that he alerted a national security lawyer.

Vindman has also testified that Ukrainian officials frequently reached out to him in confusion over Giuliani's outsized role and demands, which has earned him the accusation of being a double agent by Ingraham. Sean Duffy has pretty strongly suggested that the fact that Vindman was born in the Ukraine has tempted him to embrace dual loyalty.

It's clear that the throne-sniffers don't want us talking about the use of Trump's personal attorney to conduct a shadow foreign policy concurrent with the shifting set of figures in official Ukraine-relations roles. Their idol is clean as a whistle as far as they're concerned, and the only big stories are Adam Schiff's laser-focus zeal for impeachment and the matters with which John Durham's criminal probes concerned.

One noteworthy aspect of their mindset is that it's devoid of any consideration of how to persuade anyone outside their ranks. The closest they come is this attempt to intimidate "Never Trumpers" into silence, or joining them is slavish fealty to the tribal line, if possible. It smacks of desperation, which is not a good look for those in control of a party with increasingly wobbly near-future prospects.  That party might take heed of how it participated fully into the probe of the Nixon administration circa 1973-74 and let the chips fall where they may. It meant a short-term rout, but by November 1980, a rebirth, with a true conservative standard-bearer at the helm, had been made possible.

Us "Never Trumpers" would never try to tell the Trumpists not to point out the fact that blind rage is what is motivating the Democrats. Go for it. But the time has come to acknowledge some other aspects of our present reality.

In other words, it's damn hard in late 2019 to find somebody who isn't up to his or her eyeballs in some flavor of Kool-Aid.

John Bolton knew it didn't smell good at all

It's no wonder he was given his walking papers by the Very Stable Genius. He understood fully what was happening and tried to counter it:

Former national security adviser John Bolton was so disturbed by the efforts to get the Ukrainians to investigate President Donald Trump’s political opponents that he called it a “drug deal,” former White House official Fiona Hill reportedly told Congress on Monday.

Hill, the former top Europe expert in Trump’s White House, testified that Bolton told her he wanted no part of the effort that involved acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, a person in the room for Hill’s testimony told NBC News. Bolton also was said to have referred to Rudy Giuliani as a "hand grenade."

Giuliani has acknowledged in recent interviews that he had asked a Ukrainian prosecutor for information about former Vice President Joe Biden.

The New York Times first reported details of Hill's testimony Monday night.

Trump fired Bolton in September.

Hill testified that Bolton told her to report the situation to the top lawyer at the National Security Council, John Eisenberg, according to the person in the room for Hill’s testimony during the closed-door hearing.

Hill told lawmakers she considered what was happening to be a clear counterintelligence risk to the United States, the person said.

Giuliani said that he was disappointed to learn about Bolton's reported comments.

"I always liked and respected John," the president's personal attorney said after hearing about the testimony. "I’m very disappointed that his bitterness drives him to attack a friend falsely and in a very personal way. It’s really ironic that John Bolton is calling anyone else a hand grenade. When John is described by many as an atomic bomb."

Rudy, before riding too far on your high horse, you might want to consider the value of some circumspection in this situation. Federal prosecutors are looking into your Ukraine dealings.