Jan. 3, 2020
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
2020 won't be all impeachment and elections, keep watch on economy, judges
Pay attention in
2020. While impeachment and the election will provide the caps for 2020, other
issues could make this a generationally transformative year, including the
booming economy, big trade deals, pensions, infrastructure and judges. And if
there ends up being a Supreme Court vacancy, the confirmation fight in the
Senate will make a WWE steel cage match look like an afternoon tea party.
Cartoon: Badge of Honor
Getting
impeached by this Congress is a badge of honor.
Video: The Senate should take the House at its word on impeachment and get started with the trial
President Donald Trump must be allowed to present
his own witnesses on his behalf in the Senate impeachment trial.
America needs to move on from impeachment
Americans for
Limited Government President Rick Manning: “It has been two weeks since the
Democrats in the House of Representatives chose to vote for impeachment of
President Donald Trump. Subsequently,
they have spent their time threatening to not present their ‘case’ to the
Senate because of disputes with the Executive Branch over whether Congress can
compel testimony of high ranking officials.
While they and Senator Chuck Schumer have been complaining it is
important to note what they haven’t done – actually file suit in federal court
challenging the White House assertions of executive privilege. In fact, prior
to the impeachment vote, the House chose not to pursue legal avenues when
former National Security Advisor John Bolton asked the federal court to decide
whether he should comply with the executive branch’s privilege claim or a House
subpoena. The simple fact is that the current whining about not being able to
call the President’s Chief of Staff or his former National Security Advisor are
nothing but a smokescreen designed to create agreement that the President will
not be allowed to call witnesses like the former Vice President, his son, Rep.
Adam Schiff and the leaker who started the Ukraine farce. The President needs
to be able to present his case to the Senate. If the House wanted to be taken
seriously about their need for other witnesses, they should have gone to court
and fought that out prior to voting for impeachment. Clearly, they think they have a case to be
made, the Senate needs to force them to make it, so the country can move on
from this charade."
Victor Davis Hanson: Why Trump will win again in 2020
“It is easy to
say that 2020 seems to be replaying 2016, complete with the identical
insularity of progressives, as if what should never have happened then
certainly cannot now. But this time around there is an even greater sense of
anger and need for retribution especially among the most unlikely Trump
supporters. It reflects a fed-up payback for three years of nonstop efforts to
overthrow an elected president, anger at anti-Trump hysteria and weariness at
being lectured. A year is a proverbial long time. The economy could tank. The
president might find himself trading missiles with Iran. At 73, a
sleep-deprived, hamburger-munching Trump might discover his legendary stamina
finally giving out. Still, there is a growing wrath in the country, either
ignored, suppressed or undetected by the partisan media. It is a desire for a
reckoning with ‘them’. For lots of quiet, ordinary people, 2020 is shaping up
as the get-even election — in ways that transcend even Trump himself.”
2020 won't be all impeachment and elections
By Richard Manning
Election year is here. But before we vote in November and after impeachment dominates the first few weeks of 2020, Congress and the administration will likely do battle over a number of issues to gain political favor.
One issue that is guaranteed to dominate Washington is trade. President Trump is the most international trade-oriented president since the Cold War and his intention of remaking the global trading agenda will become a reality at least partially in 2020.
The Senate will almost certainly move forward with the passage of the Trump rewrite of NAFTA, passing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.
Transformative shifts in intellectual property rights protections, curtailing currency manipulation to gain trading favor, and moving dispute resolutions to the courts of the country of origin – restoring sovereignty to each of the three nations – are key elements of the deal. About $68.2 billion is expected to be added to the U.S. economy with 176,000 new jobs created, according to a study by the International Trade Commission. This is particularly good news for autoworkers, with the White House saying that 76,000 new auto jobs will be created.
It is also likely that Congress will be presented with and pass a new trade deal with the United Kingdom in the wake of their exit from the European Union on Jan. 31. Followed up with the already negotiated phase one of a deal with Japan, which may need congressional approval, and the possibility of a deal with the EU later in the year, trade is likely to dominate much of the D.C. calendar in 2020.
Ironically, the fast-track trade legislation pushed through Congress by those who backed the Trans-Pacific Partnership means Trump faces a simple majority vote in both houses of Congress, with no filibuster in the Senate, as he finalizes a series of bilateral trade agreements cementing U.S. interests for decades to come.
Another certainty is that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will continue his policy of restoring balance to our nation’s judiciary. Already, in the first three years of the president’s administration, the Senate has confirmed 187 judges, more than one-fifth of the federal judiciary. And this won’t stop. There are 50 more federal judicial vacancies to be filled in 2020.
Infrastructure is always an election year bipartisan favorite. With many post-impeachment House Democrats looking for accomplishments as they careen toward a potentially hostile electorate, some form of infrastructure deal becomes possible in mid- to late spring. Whether it be a “just throw money at it” bill or the more orderly creation of a private infrastructure bank, it is possible that the current consensus that money does grow on trees will lead to an agreement on funding bridges, roads and other critical technologically and economically significant systems.
Congress may also address the dire state of our nation’s defined benefit pension plans, with a particular emphasis on private-sector union multi-employer pension funds, as well as provide additional support for the underfunded Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., which backstops the private pension system.
Details are not final, with competing plans in both the House and Senate, but the just passed funding bill spent $6 billion to bail out pension funds covering United Mine Workers that were effectively put underwater by the Obama administration’s war on coal, sets the stage for the debate. This precedent puts pressure on Congress to implement legislation forcing structural reforms for all multi-employer pension plans, including increased transparency for funds’ internal operations, requirements that funds only invest in transparent enterprises based upon Sarbanes-Oxley standards and rules set by the Labor Department, and a focus on returns rather than political or social welfare agendas.
There will be much discussion of immigration, gun control and tax cuts as politicians jockey for advantage in advance of the election, but don't expect congressional action on these fronts. The one exception may be immigration, depending on how the Supreme Court rules on President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy. Congress may choose to enter into this thicket, with any legislation that results likely to anger all sides of the debate.
On top of it all, the Trump team will be ramping up efforts to finalize regulations by mid-April that would protect changes he has made should Democrats win back the White House and gain full control of Congress in November. These actions would ensure that the administration's important regulatory reforms wouldn't be washed away using the same Congressional Review Act the GOP utilized to end more than a dozen Obama regulations adopted late in 2016.
While impeachment and the election will provide the caps for 2020, other issues could make this a generationally transformative year. And if there ends up being a Supreme Court vacancy, the confirmation fight in the Senate will make a WWE steel cage match look like an afternoon tea party.
Pay attention in 2020. There will be more than impeachment and the elections to watch.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
Cartoon: Badge of Honor
By A.F. Branco
Click here for a higher level resolution version.
Video: The Senate should take the House at its word on impeachment and get started with the trial
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-clPsqO3hI
America needs to move on from impeachment
Jan. 2, 2020, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement blasting the House for attempting to delay the Senate trial of President Donald Trump:
"It has been two weeks since the Democrats in the House of Representatives chose to vote for impeachment of President Donald Trump. Subsequently, they have spent their time threatening to not present their ‘case’ to the Senate because of disputes with the Executive Branch over whether Congress can compel testimony of high ranking officials. While they and Senator Chuck Schumer have been complaining it is important to note what they haven’t done – actually file suit in federal court challenging the White House assertions of executive privilege. In fact, prior to the impeachment vote, the House chose not to pursue legal avenues when former National Security Advisor John Bolton asked the federal court to decide whether he should comply with the executive branch’s privilege claim or a House subpoena. The simple fact is that the current whining about not being able to call the President’s Chief of Staff or his former National Security Advisor are nothing but a smokescreen designed to create agreement that the President will not be allowed to call witnesses like the former Vice President, his son, Rep. Adam Schiff and the leaker who started the Ukraine farce.
"The President needs to be able to present his case to the Senate. If the House wanted to be taken seriously about their need for other witnesses, they should have gone to court and fought that out prior to voting for impeachment. Clearly, they think they have a case to be made, the Senate needs to force them to make it, so the country can move on from this charade."
To view online: https://getliberty.org/2020/01/america-needs-to-move-on-from-impeachment/
ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured column from the American Spectator, Victor Davis Hanson makes the case for why President Donald Trump will get reelected this year:
Why Trump will win again in 2020
There is a growing wrath in the country, either ignored, suppressed or undetected by the partisan media
By Victor Davis Hanson
My reasons for thinking Trump was going to be elected in 2016 were entirely unscientific. One of my Hoover Institution colleagues recently reminded me of my data-free, amateurish and bothersome predictions. I teach for three weeks at Hillsdale College every September during my vacation from the Hoover Institution. Each morning I try to ride a bike 15-18 miles out into the Michigan countryside. I have been doing that since 2004. Over the previous 12 years even this conservative rural Michigan county had showed no real excitement over George W. Bush, John McCain or Mitt Romney. But in 2016, Trump signs — both professionally made and hand-painted — had sprouted everywhere, on barns, lawns and sheds. Whatever Trumpism was, lots of southern Michiganders seemed ready for it. Six weeks ago, I rode the identical rural Michigan routes. Sometimes I stopped and talked to a few people. The script was almost predictable. After the requisite throat-clearing — ‘Trump should cut back on the tweeting,’ they said — they were even more eager to vote for him this time than last.
In my hometown near my central California farm, I spent autumn 2016 talking to mostly Mexican American friends with whom I went to grammar or high school. I had presumed then that they must hate Trump. Remember the speech in 2015 announcing he was going to stand, when he bashed illegal immigration, or his snide quip about the ‘Mexican judge’ in the Trump University lawsuit, or his expulsion of an interrupting Univision anchor, Jorge Ramos, from one of his campaign press conferences? But I heard no such thing. Most said they ‘liked’ Trump’s style, whether or not they were voting for him. They were tired of gangs in their neighborhoods and of swamped government services — especially the nearby Department of Motor Vehicles — becoming almost dysfunctional. I remember thinking that Trump of all people might get a third of the Latino vote: of no importance in blue California, but maybe transformative in Midwest swing states?
During the last two weeks I made the same rounds — a high-school football game at my alma mater, talks with Mexican American professionals, some rural farm events. Were those impressions three years ago hallucinations? Hardly. Trump support has, if anything, increased — and not just because of record low unemployment and an economy that has turned even my once-ossified rural community into a bustle of shopping, office-construction and home-building, with ‘Now Hiring’ signs commonplace. This time I noticed that my same friends always mentioned Trump in contrast to their damnation of California — the nearby ‘stupid’ high-speed rail to nowhere, the staged power shutoffs, the drought-stricken dead trees left untouched in flammable forests, the tens of thousands of homeless even in San Jose, Fresno and Sacramento, the sky-high gas prices, the deadly decrepit roads, the latest illegal-alien felon shielded from ICE. Whatever Trump was, my friends saw him as the opposite of where California is now headed. His combativeness was again not a liability but a plus — especially when it was at the expense of snooty white liberals. ‘He drives them crazy,’ Steve, my friend from second grade, offered.
One academic colleague used to caricature my observations in 2016 that Trump’s rallies were huge and rowdy, while Hillary’s seemed staged and somnolent — and that this disconnect might presage election-day turnouts. ‘Anecdotes!’ I was told. ‘Crowd size means as little as yard signs.’ If anything, Trump’s rallies now are larger, the lines longer. Maybe the successive progressive efforts to abort his presidency by means of the Electoral College, the emoluments clause, the 25th Amendment, the Mueller investigation and now Ukraine only made him stronger by virtue of not finishing him off.
When I talked to a Central Valley Rotary Club in November 2016, I assumed on arrival that such doctrinaire Republicans would be establishment Never Trumpers. But few were then. When I returned this week to speak again, I found that none are now. These businesspeople, lawyers, accountants and educators talked of the money-making economy. But I sensed, as with my hometown friends, that same something else. There was an edge in their voices, an amplification of earlier fury at Hillary’s condescension and put-down of deplorables. ‘Anything he dishes out, they deserve,’ one man in a tailored suit remarked, channeling my grade-school friend Steve. I take it by that he meant he and his friends are frequently embarrassed by Trump’s crudity — but not nearly so much as they are enraged by the sanctimoniousness of an Adam Schiff or the smug ‘bombshell’ monotony of media anchors.
It is easy to say that 2020 seems to be replaying 2016, complete with the identical insularity of progressives, as if what should never have happened then certainly cannot now. But this time around there is an even greater sense of anger and need for retribution especially among the most unlikely Trump supporters. It reflects a fed-up payback for three years of nonstop efforts to overthrow an elected president, anger at anti-Trump hysteria and weariness at being lectured. A year is a proverbial long time. The economy could tank. The president might find himself trading missiles with Iran. At 73, a sleep-deprived, hamburger-munching Trump might discover his legendary stamina finally giving out. Still, there is a growing wrath in the country, either ignored, suppressed or undetected by the partisan media. It is a desire for a reckoning with ‘them’. For lots of quiet, ordinary people, 2020 is shaping up as the get-even election — in ways that transcend even Trump himself.
