The Morning Briefing: Bring on the Impeachment

Good Tuesday morning.

Here is what’s on the president’s agenda today:

The president participates in a photo opportunity with the White House News Photographers Association award recipients
President Trump has lunch with the vice president
The president participates in a swearing-in ceremony of the secretary of the Interior

Bring on the impeachment

The Democrats’ 2020 pageant continues with battle cries of impeachment. This may be a smooth move for the primary, where each one is trying to out “woke” the other, but in the general election, it’s an anchor that the eventual nominee will drag around as they try and sell themselves to the voters.

But for now, candidates are making their stand. Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) announced yesterday that she is on the impeachment train.

“I believe Congress should take the steps towards impeachment. But I want to say this, because it doesn’t end there,” the California senator said on a CNN-hosted town hall Monday. “I’m also a realist. … I have also witnessed folks in the United States Congress, and in particular in the GOP, who have been presented with many reasons to push back against this president and they have not.”

Notice how she tries to moderate her position? Her real message is that the Democrats don’t want to own the impeachment of the president because her party will certainly lose the House in 2020. Another one of the Democrats’ female candidates of color, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), has come out in favor of impeachment.

“The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States,” Warren wrote.

On the other hand, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) was more circumspect about impeachment. “If for the next year or year and a half, going right into the heart of the election, all that Congress is talking about is impeaching Trump, Trump, Trump and Mueller, Mueller, Mueller, and we’re not talking about healthcare or raising the minimum wage… or combating climate change… and all of the issues that concern ordinary Americans, I worry that works to Trump’s advantage,” Sanders said. It does Bernie, it does.

Speaker Pelosi, who wants to keep her job, is not charging forward on the impeachment issue. In a conference call with her caucus, she said. “We can investigate Trump without drafting articles,” according to sources on the call. “We aren’t going to go faster, we are going to go as fast as the facts take us.” Chicken.

Adam Schiff not terribly interested in finding out if Steele dossier was Russian misinformation

After Mueller, Nobody Has Changed Their Views on Trump

The continuing congressional hearing harassment

The Democrats are continuing their harassment of the president by conducting an almost constant assault of congressional hearings asking for all sorts of things for which they have no business asking. One issue they are “investigating” is related to the security clearance process that was leaked by one of the numerous #resistance cells ensconced in the administration. As soon as the Democrats won the House, the cells were activated and all the sleazy cell members scurried to the chairs of the House committees to unload all the “intelligence” they had been gathering since Trump took office. I think Trump is getting hip to this.

The White House has instructed a former official who was in charge of the security clearance process to not comply with a House subpoena demanding his appearance for an interview, the latest move by the Trump administration to thwart Democratic-led investigations into all aspects of the presidency.

After a day of tense negotiations, the White House late Monday told the former official, Carl Kline, who now works at the Defense Department, to not appear at Tuesday’s deposition, contending that Democrats were seeking access to confidential information that should be off limits.

The deputy counsel to Trump argued that Cummings’ subpoena of Kline “unconstitutionally encroaches on fundamental executive branch interests.”

The backstory on Cummings’ effort is that #resistance mole “Tricia Newbold, told the committee that at least 25 individuals had been greenlighted for security clearances despite serious concerns raised during the vetting process — and alleged that Kline retaliated against her for speaking out.”

Cummings would not allow Kline to appear with a White House representative to safeguard “Executive Branch confidentiality interests.”

What do the voters who elected Democrats to the House think? The Democrats aren’t really doing any work for the people, they are simple enacting heir revenge fantasies because they lost the last presidential election. The only “solutions” coming from the Democrats are ridiculous: the Green New Deal, student loan forgiveness, voting rights for violent rapists and murderers, open borders and Medicare for all. I guarantee you the seats that won the House for the Democrats were not won on these policy platforms.

SCOTUS hears arguments about the census citizenship question

Today, the Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether the U.S. census can ask the people living in this country if they are citizens. One of the purposes of the census is to apportion congressional seats based on each state’s total population relative to the rest of the country, including illegal aliens and other non-citizens. This is an important issue.

Democratic states and city governments are challenging the citizenship question, fearing that diminished noncitizen participation will deprive them of federal funding and seats in Congress. The Justice Department, on the other hand, says citizenship questions have regularly appeared on past census forms and enhance the enforcement of federal law.

“Citizenship and other demographic questions have long been a part of the decennial census despite their potential effect on response rates,” Solicitor General Noel Francisco told the justices in court filings.

You can imagine who the opposition to the citizenship question might be. Groups with a certain interest.

The plaintiffs sued the administration in April 2018, warning that the citizenship question will substantially decrease minority participation in the census. Since federal aid and seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned on the basis of population, left-leaning jurisdictions fear the loss of political representation and federal monies.

It might decrease minority participation if the minorities in question are not citizens. If states want to harbor illegal immigrants, let them pick up the tab, but they can’t have more seats in Congress because they are counting people who are not legal voters.

In high-stakes census case, Supreme Court will dissect Trump’s effort to catalogue noncitizens

President Donald Trump orders crackdown on ‘visa overstays’ in latest push against illegal immigration

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Your daily WTF:

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