Editor’s note: House Democrats’ drive to impeach President Donald Trump sparks some strong sentiments from The Daily Signal’s audience. Here’s a sampling.—Ken McIntyre
Dear Daily Signal: I just read Katrina Trinko’s podcast interview with Heritage Foundation legal expert Hans von Spakovsky on House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, and found it to be very enlightening (“Impeachment Evidence Not Even Close to Bribery, Heritage Legal Expert Says”). This Trump impeachment process is being handled exactly as von Spakovsky pointed out.
The problem I see is that the people of this country don’t know the legal powers of the president to do the kinds of things he is being accused of. I talked about this very thing with von Spakovsky at Heritage Action for America’s Regional Sentinel Summit a few weeks ago in Atlanta.
I always have depended on the vision and insight of our Founding Fathers to address any issue or problems this country has faced in the past and faces today. I have found that they already anticipated what the future would bring, but in the case of the impeachment process I think they made a mistake.
Our judicial system has someone in place who is supposed to be impartial, to make sure the laws are followed and that everyone gets a fair trial by judge and/or jury. In this case, however, we have the leader of the prosecution in charge of initiating a (fair) hearing and the defense being denied due process.
Hans von Spakovsky is right about what the Democrats are doing and right about what the president is doing. I just hope people recognize that these Democrats, while saying we must stand by our Constitution and support the principles our Founding Fathers established, are doing everything in their power to overturn our Constitution and replace it with a form of democratic socialism.
As president, Barack Obama pushed us toward socialism as no other president has, and the socialist Democrats would have really advanced if Hillary Clinton had been elected.—James V. Burnette, Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Dear Daily Signal: I want to thank Fred Lucas for his daily summary report in The Daily Signal on the House impeachment hearings. I can’t force myself to suffer through this third-rate circus.
I also think Lucas deserves a long vacation once this is over. Call it PTSD prevention. Sitting and listening to this all day is like being forced to ride It’s a Small World at Disney World continuously all day long.—Stephen Regan, M.D., Lancaster, N.H.
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As a practicing attorney for over 50 years, I have been deeply concerned about due process in reading and watching about the House’s impeachment proceedings.
Your podcast interview with Thomas Jipping (“Everything You Need to Know About What’s Happening in Impeachment Process”) helped clear up some confusion on my part, but much remains. Thank you.—Alan J. Steinberg, St. Louis, Mo.
https://twitter.com/AIIAmericanGirI/status/1195341908392005632
Dear Daily Signal: President Trump’s following on Twitter reached 66.6 million early this month. Given the apocryphal interpretation of this number, it might not hurt to ground its significance in some basic facts.
A few months ago, the size of Trump’s Twitter following broke his popular vote total in the 2016 election. Ever since, that number has been growing at a rate of over 34,000 a day.
Like clockwork, the number ticks up by 100,000 new followers every three days. Or a million a month. This has been happening regardless of the news of the day.
No matter what the latest impeachment accusation, charges of foreign policy incompetence, or cries of unpresidential behavior, Trump’s Twitter followers keep coming.
They show no signs of stopping, so if this trend continues, he will have over 78 million followers by Election Day 2020.
I
am a retired software engineer, a former entrepreneur, and a writer of novels
for middle-graders and young adults.
Not all of the president’s Twitter followers will be voters, or even Trump
supporters, but the bulk of them probably are. Which means that every day, tens
of thousands of voters are joining Trump’s coalition and are interested in
hearing what he has to say.
No matter how they spin it, this is not good news for Democrats. Trump already has more Twitter followers than voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Those numbers did no good for Hillary, since evidently no one bothered to tell her about the Electoral College.
But it’s a good bet that Trump’s supporters are representative of the overall population, rather than the main population centers where Hillary focused her campaign.
Aside from sheer numbers, this trend highlights another fact. People like to read Trump’s tweets. They must, or they would not be subscribing to his Twitter feed at this staggering rate.
Maybe it is because Trump is giving them the real news. Every day. Without spin. Without hedging. Without lying. Without scripting.
He’s the first president in history to do this. Now we sometimes get the news before The New York Times or The Washington Post.
You know what? This is real freedom of speech. And we love it.—Rudy Vener, North Haven, Conn.
Dear Daily Signal: Nancy Pelosi is the queen of impeachment. The Trump impeachment process is often compared to the Nixon or Clinton impeachments. It is, however, more similar to the Bush impeachment effort.
Pelosi has been the House speaker or the Democratic leader for three years with President Donald Trump, and for every one of those years her caucus has tried to impeach the president. She may seem to be a reluctant impeacher, but prayers and exhibitions of inner turmoil aside, she is a politician who has determined that impeachment is a legitimate political tool.
It is not the first time she has used this tool. She used impeachment against President George W. Bush, and is now using it against Trump. That constitutes a pattern.
Pelosi’s first voted impeachment effort came when she was House speaker and Bush was in the White House. That vote, referring articles of impeachment (House Resolution 1258) to the House Judiciary Committee, occurred June 11, 2008.
The referral of articles of impeachment to the Judiciary Committee has yet to occur in the Trump impeachment effort.
Pelosi had been House speaker since January 2007, when the impeachment of Bush was already in high demand.
In 2005, Rep. John Conyers introduced House Resolution 635 to investigate wartime issues to determine whether impeachment was warranted. It failed, and further efforts were not supported by Pelosi, then the minority leader.
Democrats continued efforts to impeach Bush until Pelosi approved the vote on HR 1258 vote. The pattern of reluctance before approval was at work then and is at work now.
The Constitution’s provision for impeachment has been interpreted by Democrats and Republicans as appropriate for high crimes and misdemeanors, but not for political goals. The Bush impeachment effort speaks to a different interpretation.
The 35 articles of impeachment for Bush included articles on 9/11, the Iraq War, Medicare, global warming, use of signing statements, wiretapping, war with Iran, obstruction of justice (Valerie Plame), imprisoning children, and others.
It was a laundry list of points of disagreement that Democrats had with President Bush, not high crimes and misdemeanors. Pelosi presided over this vote, once again reluctant and once again moving forward despite her reluctance.
It seems she is not so reluctant to use impeachment after all.—James Smith, Virginia
Dear Daily Signal: What a scam. We have the best president we’ve ever had, who follows his heart, listens to the people, has done what he promised or is attempting to with all the distractions and hatred toward him by those in our government who want to rule the people, not lead the people.
To destroy our nation with lies, deceit, injustices, all the things that “We the People” have had to endure with nearly every other president in our history.
If President Trump were allowed to actually do his job instead of fighting the indignities of these people who are distracting our nation from realities, he could do some incredible things to make our country look great again, instead of being the laughingstock of the world.—Kacee Hayden
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Dear Daily Signal: As chief point man for President Barack Obama in U.S. energy policy, Vice President Joe Biden used taxpayers’ money in the form of a $1.2 billion loan guarantee as leverage to interfere in the internal affairs of a foreign nation, Ukraine.
We saw the forced firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor who apparently was investigating Biden’s son, Hunter, and his relationship with a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch’s energy company, Burisma.
Biden’s act of extorting influence from Ukrainian officials is on tape. His mandate: Either fire the prosecutor or no loan guarantee.
Yet both the mainstream media and many Democrats continue their collective state of denial of this pressurized wrongdoing in spite of a treaty between the United States and Ukraine to investigate corrupt practices.
This entire Ukraine mess fails to even begin to pass the smell test.
And all President Trump wanted in that July 25 call to Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was a favor: that Zelenskyy “look into” this corruption thing. Looking into something is not tantamount to digging up dirt. When does a favor become a threat?
Before releasing almost $400 million of taxpayers’ money to a Ukrainian government reputed for corruption, Trump wanted due diligence. There was no quid pro quo, as the transcript of the call manifests.
House Democrats’ entire impeachment process can only be characterized as one of the most colossal examples of legislative malfeasance perpetrated upon the American people in the history of the republic.
The clowns on Capitol Hill have yet to legislate fiscal year 2020 spending levels for agencies, departments, and programs of the federal government. These should have been in place and signed into law by the president by no later than Oct. 1.
A week before Thanksgiving, these politicians had yet to do anything toward completing the authorization and appropriations process, including funding for the armed forces.
As the House played its ongoing impeachment games, the Senate considered sending a stopgap spending bill back to the House for a vote to avoid another moronic government shutdown as the money runs out.—Earl Beal, Terre Haute, Ind.
Dear Daily Signal: No one seems to notice that the Drudge Report has been moving to the left on President Trump for a couple of months—the viewpoints/links lead to stories that favor the “resistance.”
One example is Drudge links on Nov. 17. There was no story that says that, so far, there is no evidence of impeachable offenses. Drudge was reporting anti-Trump stories, but seemed to be spiking viewpoints that counter the left’s bashing.
Either Matt Drudge has been letting someone else edit his page, or he has moved left in an effort to be more objective. Which is it? If the latter, he’s gone too far, by spiking conservative voters’ viewpoints.—Lanelle Bracher Samms
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The Democrats have decided they will prevail in taking over the government through a constant barrage of accusations and proceedings.
The American people are not interested. However, the average person on the street parrots the BS he or she has been fed. Very few ask important questions such as “Why doesn’t this add up?”
The long-term goal is to sacrifice a few Democrats in vulnerable places and take over the government by solidifying the stupidity everywhere else. Keep the focus on how bad President Trump is, and communism will prevail.
Barack Obama had a childhood mentor with a KBG handler, and remained chummy with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Hillary Clinton has close ties to those in the former Soviet Union. Nonetheless, the cry against Trump is “Russian collusion.”—Arthur Solvang, Willow, Alaska
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As we heard in EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland’s testimony Wednesday in the House impeachment inquiry, he clearly stated that President Trump told him he wanted “no quid pro quo” from Ukraine.
So why did The Wall Street Journal indicate the opposite in its lead story the next day? The sub-head states: “Sondland cites ‘quid pro quo’ between Ukraine probes and a meeting with the president.”
Why the biased coverage?—Kay Carson, Florida
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Why can’t we impeach Nancy Pelosi? Surely real reasons can be found, including incompetence, obstruction of government functions, mental and moral insufficiency, and constitutional ignorance.
This tiresome and vicious interference with the smooth running of our country requires more than a timid pushback. A strong offensive is required, not martyrdom.—Elizabeth Ward Nottrodt, Baltimore
Chick-fil-A’s New Charities
Dear Daily Signal: Thank you for Daniel Davis’ outstanding commentary article with regard to Fortune 500 companies “driving” the culture war, and trying to out-virtue signal each other (“Chick-Fil-A, Your Compromise is Demoralizing”).
That’s exactly what’s happening, and its poisoning our culture and making it unfit for children. Davis’s analysis is accurate and his use of words to describe it excellent. Maybe it will convince Chick-fil-A to reconsider.—Randy Malcom, Limon, Colo.
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I expect The New York Times or CNN or MSNBC to put words in the mouths of others, but the news article about Chick-fil-A [from The Daily Caller News Foundation] is not up to the normal standards of The Heritage Foundation (“Chick-Fil-A to Stop Donating to Charities Criticized by LGBT Activists”). I believe I will reconsider my giving patterns.
I am disappointed in the headline; the article was better, but the headline is eerily similar to all elements of the mainstream media. Sad.
How about a headline like “Chick-Fil-A Reevaluates Charitable Giving” or “Chick-Fil-A Foundation Announces New Charitable Giving Plans”? Or many other options.
My point, in part, is that Heritage normally avoids such; it shares clear facts without mixing emotional content or making editorial comments.
In this case, in my opinion, the word choice was not totally accurate, as the refocus of Chick-fil-A’s giving priorities may include educational entities that hold to values aligned with those of, say, the Salvation Army. Think: Will all entities supported at some point by Chick-fil-A’s giving never be opposed by the LGBT activists?—John Bole
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Thank you for Daniel Davis’ commentary, “Chick-Fil-A, Your Compromise is Demoralizing.” The compromise Chick-fil-A made because of pressure brought by LGBT activists saddened me greatly.
I immediately recalled Genesis 19:4-11, the account of homosexual men coming to Lot’s house for the two men (angels) who were in the house. The homosexual men pressed hard against Lot to have the two men brought out to them so they could “know” them.
One of the angels pulled Lot back into the house and caused blindness to strike the men, making them weary of trying to find the door to Lot’s house.
I think that Scripture accurately depicts LGBT activists’ push against Chick-fil-A. However, neither the president or chief financial officer know Ezekiel 3:8-9, in which God states that he will make their face strong against the faces of their adversaries, and their foreheads strong as adamant stone against the flint faces of their adversaries.
As Davis pointed out in his article, Chick-fil-A has chosen to serve mammon rather than God. Unfortunately, mammon will not serve the company well. It is a huge mistake to run to the world for help. God is the only source of help we need. He never fails to provide for all of our needs in accordance with his riches in glory through Christ Jesus.
Therefore, God can meet the growth goals Chick-fil-A desires if management will seek him. God can put the company’s outlets in places that appear to be impossible to go and make them successful there.—Homer Crothers
How Are We Doing?
Dear Daily Signal: I read your work on a regular basis. It is clear, precise, informative, and enjoyable to read. I do enjoy reading.
I especially appreciate your journalists, unlike the rest of the organizations that receive scripts that are written for them by their editors. (No investigation needed.)
You investigate, you hold yourselves accountable. You write clearly in the English language.—Rexford Ames
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The term “conservative judges” is a misnomer. President Trump more accurately refers to appointees as judges who will interpret the Constitution as written.
“Conservative” implies the introduction of a bias in interpretation.—R.S. Overstreet
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I’ve been getting your daily emails for about several months now. It’s great to get the “right” news every day. Keep it coming. We have to save our country before the leftists take it over.—Rob Kaiser, Victorville, Calif.
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Kudos. I really appreciate your concise, accurate news and commentary in the Morning Bell email.
I’m able to get daily highlights and click for more information on subjects that I need to delve deeper into. Keep up the great work.—Elizabeth C. Ferrari, Buffalo, Texas
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Thank you for your researched and rational examination of today’s issues. Your site is indispensable to understanding what is happening in our country today.—Mary Ritzmann
Great job. A+++. Keep it up.—Neal McKinley
I sincerely appreciate your help in sorting out the details of our political issues in such a concise fashion.—Damian Neeld
You beat around the bush too much, get to the point. I don’t have time for your long, drawn-out stories.—Danny Owen
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We truly appreciate being made aware of issues and news that the rest of the media won’t cover.—Craig Cuddy
The headlines and articles Nov. 19 lacked encouragement.—Robert Sherrill
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A letter about the Salvation Army and Chick-fil-A has been removed since publication.
