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John Meredith, of Huntsville, is a former Capitol Hill lobbyist who was recognized as one of the countrys 100 most influential Black Republicans.

In a nation claiming reverence for the Lord, an oath before God cannot be meaningless.

In a nation claiming to respect the rule of law, breaking those laws can never be excused, even if it furthers the cause of a political party. In a nation where trial and punishment are only visited upon ones political enemies and those without means, justice is impossible.

Ignoring the role of Attorney General William Barr in orchestrating the demise of the rule of law in America, three actions taken by POTUS in particular have forever stained the legacy of American jurisprudence and symbolize the end to the unbiased administration of justice.

John Meredith is a contributing columnist for AL.com.John Meredith

First, and arguably the most nefarious, was granting a pardon to Arizonas disgraced xenophobic Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Convicted of disobeying a federal judge's order to stop racial profiling in detaining people thought to be in the U.S. illegally, President Trump pardoned Arpaio before he was even sentenced for his crime. What makes this act so detrimental to our criminal justice system is that POTUS used the constitutional power of his office to block a federal judge's effort to enforce the Constitution itself.

The next action taken by the President threatening the rule of law was his instructing recipients of duly served subpoenas not to honor the compulsion of their appearance. Investigation is indispensable to addressing crime. Subpoenas compel those with knowledge of a crime to share that knowledge with law enforcement or the courts. Without the knowledge gained through subpoenaed testimony, the majority of crime in America will not be prosecuted due to lack of evidence and our streets would soon teem with unaccountable felons.

The latest presidential act to redefine American justice involves the sentencing memo for convicted felon, Roger Stone. Since the 1980s, every federal criminal case resulting in conviction employs the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines for determining punishment. In Stones case, POTUS has defied his own Department of Justice by preemptively encouraging leniency to his friend, regardless of the standard to which others violating the same laws are held.

The aforementioned trifecta of judicial breaches affects both pretrial and trial viability. In addition, it mitigates findings of guilt both before and after sentencing. As a result, we now have trials without proper evidence or fact witnesses. As a result, convicted criminals may well escape punishment if their crimes benefited the rich or powerful while granting no recourse for the falsely accused.

In other words, the faithful administration of justice is functionally impossible in America today. What remains is the illusion of justice. The weight of that illusion is borne entirely by those without influence and administered by the unaccountable hands of those without mercy.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the attack on law and order in America is the failure to protect those who come forward after witnessing blatantly illegal acts. They are the bedrock of American jurisprudence. They must be protected from retaliation, not terrorized for bearing witness to the truth.

Upon further reflection, the plethora of openly brazen political payoffs to partisan Senate jurors for the willful violation of their impeachment oaths, is the worst element of Donald Trumps assault on truth and justice. One documented example of this flagrant miscarriage of justice occurred only days after the vote for acquittal when Senator Lisa Murkowski miraculously landed a $20 million U.S. Department of Transportation grant for port infrastructure development in her home state of Alaska.

A Christian nation that fails to embody biblical teachings is an anathema to God. A democracy that does not administer justice blindly is destined for autocracy. Before the Founding Fathers roll over in their graves ashamed of what we have done with their greatest gift, citizens must summon the courage to demand the restoration of the rule of law in America. Until then, those who have paid the ultimate price for our freedom will have done so in vain.

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Donald Trumps assault on truth and justice - al.com

Philippines President Rodrigo Dutertethreatened in Januaryto end his countrys Visiting Forces Agreement with the United States if Washington would not reinstate the visa of his former drug war chief. Last Tuesday, Dutertesgovernment announcedthe agreement permitting U.S. troops to train in the Philippines is done. Its about time we rely on ourselves. We will strengthen our own defenses and not rely on any other country, Dutertes representative quoted him saying.

Well, maybe or maybe notPhilippine Foreign Secretary Teddy Locsin Jr., who tweeted the initial announcement, alsoindicated on Twitterthat Manilas endgame is forcing Washington to negotiate on trade and security issues, not actually ousting U.S. troops. And it seems likely the visa revocation is merely a convenient excuse for a move Duterte wanted to make regardless.

But whatever Dutertes intent, the Trump administration should take his announcement seriously and bring our troops home. And he might be taking it seriouslyReuters reports that Trump said hewouldn't mindif the agreement was terminated, making the point that, "it will save a lot of money." However, putting aside financial concerns, there's good reason to end the U.S. military presence in the Philippinesand beyond.

The United Statesmaintains about800 overseas military bases in 70 nations and territories around the world. Some house only a few dozen American troops, but at many, U.S. forces number in the tens of thousands. No other country has anything like this global military presence: The U.K., France, and Russia together have a mere 30 or so foreign bases, and two of them are close U.S. allies.

This worldwide sprawl of American military might is expensive, risky, and counterproductive to U.S. security. It costs taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars every yearmoney which functionally subsidizes the host nations governments, which too often respond to our military presence by avoiding responsibility for their own defense. Thats bad enough in Europe, where wealthy NATO allies perfectly capable of defending themselves are freed up to spend more on their domestic welfare states instead. Its worse in countries like the Philippines, where Dutertes brutal regime can claim the credibility of alliance with the United States while oppressing its own people. In war zones like Iraqanother nation, incidentally,which has askedU.S. troops to leaveprolonging U.S. presence there puts Americans in harms way on behalf of a country that does not want them there.

Battlefield risk is not the only danger these foreign bases occasion. In ocean trade lanes near the Philippines, for example, the U.S. conducts Freedom of Navigation Operationsto push back on Chinese regional dominance. But as Chinas power grows in its near abroad, such operations increasingly chance unwanted encounters between U.S. and Chinese forces, like thelate 2018 near-collisionbetween warships. The risk of stumbling into a shooting war is real. Open war between the U.S. and China would be catastrophic even if it never turned nuclear; maintaining an inherently antagonistic presence in the Philippines is short-sighted and reckless.

Fortunately, this network of foreign military bases in the Philippines and elsewhere are not necessary to secure vital U.S. interests. The U.S. military isfar and awaythe most powerful on the planet. Our country enjoys friendly neighbors, considerable geographic advantages, and no peer rivals militarily. Spreading our forces thin to defend and meddle in foreign countries is at best a distraction from core defense priorities and more typically a wasteful, counterproductive use of limited defense resources.

We more and more are not wanting to be the policemen of the world, President Trumphas saidof U.S. foreign policy. Were spending tremendous amounts of money for decades policing the world, and that shouldnt be the priority. His impulse here is correct, but it is difficult to stop policing the world when you have 800 police stations. Shutting down these bases is necessary if we are ever to move toward what Trumpclaims hewants: a prudent, realist foreign policy that prioritizes diplomacy in pursuit of peace. Taking the Philippines Duterte at his word here would be a good place to start.

Bonnie Kristian is a fellow at Defense Priorities and contributing editor atThe Week. Her writing has also appeared at CNN,Politico,USA Today, theLos Angeles Times,Defense One,andThe American Conservative, among other outlets.

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The Philippines Wants U.S. Military Forces Gone? Donald Trump Should Do It. - The National Interest Online

Whether you're ready for it or not, election season is now in full swing. Roughly a dozen candidates still remain in the field to become president, including incumbent Republican Donald Trump, and quite a few Democratic contenders.

While there are a number of issues that'll be debated during this election season, it's liable to be the first presidential election cycle where marijuana really takes center stage. After all, a record-tying 66% of Americans favor legalizing cannabis nationally, according to Gallup, with an April 2018 poll from the independent Quinnipiac University finding that better than 9 in 10 Americans supports patient access to medical marijuana.

Knowing exactly where the candidates stand on cannabis is going to be important for cannabis users, workers, and pot stock investors. With that being said, let's take a closer look at current President Donald Trump's views on marijuana.

President Trump at the State of the Union, with Vice President Mike Pence in the background. Image source: Official White House Photo by D. Myles Cullen.

As you're probably well aware, marijuana has firmly remained a Schedule I substance at the federal level in the three-plus years that Trump has been in the Oval Office. As a Schedule I substance, it's illicit, prone to abuse, and is not recognized as having any medical benefits. This classification has proved a hindrance in terms of obtaining nondilutive forms of financing for U.S. pot stocks, and it allows Section 280E of the U.S. tax code to come into play, thereby allowing for few, if any, corporate tax deductions.

Yet in spite of keeping marijuana's scheduling unchanged, Trump has firmly offered his support for states having the right to legalize and regulate their own weed industries. In August 2019, Steven Nelson of DC Examiner asked Trump whether marijuana would be legalized under his presidency, to which he replied, "We're going to see what's going on. It's a very big subject and right now we are allowing states to make that decision. A lot of states are making that decision, but we're allowing states to make that decision."

As a reminder, 33 states have legalized medical marijuana since 1996, with 11 of those states also allowing the consumption and/or retail of adult-use pot. This includes Illinois, which became the first state to approve the consumption and sale of recreational marijuana entirely at the legislative level.

What this suggests is that Trump is liable to maintain the status quo if reelected to a second term. Although he stated that he was "100 percent" behind the idea of medical marijuana being prescribed by a physician during his 2015-2016 campaign, the president seems perfectly fine side-stepping the issue at the federal level in its entirety and allowing individual states to make their own decisions.

President Trump giving remarks in front of the White House. Image source: Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian.

While there's certainly some solace in Trump's statement that he plans to allow states to continue to decide their future with regard to legalizing marijuana, the president has also made a number of questionable decisions that suggest he might be more anti-cannabis than he lets on.

As an example, Trump initially hired former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to be his attorney general. It was no secret at the time of the hiring that Sessions was an ardent opponent of cannabis. While as attorney general, Sessions tried to convince fellow lawmakers in Congress to repeal certain cannabis protections that would allow him and the Justice Department to use federal funds to prosecute medical marijuana businesses in legal states. Though Sessions resigned following the 2018 midterm elections, his selection as Attorney General by Trump is a head-scratcher for marijuana enthusiasts.

Another questionable decision came as recently as December 2019, when Trump attached a signing statement to a federal funding bill that was signed into law. Presidents typically attach signing statements to legislation that they believe could impede their executive authority. In this instance, the signing statement, while vague, suggests that President Trump would have the authority to uphold federal law in accordance with his constitutional responsibilities. Again, while it's unlikely that Trump would ignore previously passed protections for medical marijuana businesses, this signing statement, in theory, would allow him to do exactly that.

Image source: Getty Images.

So, what exactly would a Trump reelection mean for the U.S. cannabis industry and investors? The answer is probably more of the same.

There is a possibility that cannabis banking reform could work its way down the pipeline, even if marijuana remains illicit at the federal level. However, for this to happen, we'd need to see Republican leaders in the Senate soften their stance. For example, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) has offered a number of counterproposals to the Safe and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act that'd severely limit its benefits. Meanwhile, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has routinely blocked any cannabis legislation or riders from reaching the floor for vote. Without significant changes in the political make-up of the Senate, or at least a softening of the upper house's stance on pot, banking reform is probably off the table.

But even with these challenges, we should see quite a few states legalizing medical and/or recreational marijuana. In the November 2020 election, I'd be surprised if New Jersey and Arizona failed to legalize adult-use cannabis, with Florida and New York likely candidates to do the same by or before 2022.

For some vertically integrated multistate operators (MSO) in the U.S., the status quo isn't such a bad thing. Curaleaf Holdings (OTC:CURLF), for instance, has secured traditional financing and looks to be well on its way to being a leading MSO. Curaleaf, assuming it completes its acquisition of privately held Grassroots, should be the first pot stock to hit $1 billion in annual sales. Not to mention, Curaleaf's 53 operational dispensaries is the current high-water mark among MSOs. A continuation of the status quo would be just fine.

Meanwhile, the status quo wouldn't be as well-received for Canada's Canopy Growth (NYSE:CGC), which has offered $3.4 billion to acquire MSO Acreage Holdings. Although the deal has a 90-month time frame with which to be completed, Canopy has been clear that it has no intention of entering the U.S. pot industry without the drug being legalized at the federal level. Canopy Growth will soon have a hemp-processing/cannabidiol presence in the U.S., but will effectively be locked out of the lucrative American weed industry until the federal government changes its tune. Under Trump's watch, this seems unlikely to happen.

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Donald Trump and Marijuana: Everything You Need to Know - The Motley Fool

Every year since 1896, on or near George Washingtons birthday, a member of the U.S. Senate has read aloud the first presidents farewell address on the Senate floor. The party of the reader alternates every year.

Lets hope the assembled senators are particularly attentive this year.

We cant know, of course, what George Washington would make of our current president or the state of partisan politics in America. But we can make a pretty good guess.

Lets start by considering Washingtons farewell address. The first presidents final message to the American people is among the most eloquent statements of American values and our political culture ever written. It is not as widely taught today as it was during the first century of the nations history, and when it is thought of, it is most often remembered for Washingtons admonition against foreign entanglements. But perhaps even more important today are his arguments against despotism and factionalism, or what today we would call party loyalty.

At the time Washington wrote his address, the presidency wasnt constrained by term limits. Yet, immensely popular as he was, he decided to retire and not seek a third term He was humble about his considerable contributions to building the new nation.

Washington thought that both patriotism and a due regard for the peculiar value of his services should lead him to the shade of retirement from public life. And his wisdom on the need for a norm of presidential retirement has echoed through our history so much so that Washingtons judgment has now been enshrined in the Constitution as a mandate. There can be little doubt that Washington would see the push by President Trumps most rabid supporters for his perpetual service (as in the hashtags #Trump4Eva or #KingTrump) as anathema.

Republican Senators, also, would be targets of his ire. Before the Senate trial Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made it clear that he didnt intend to be an impartial juror in the impeachment trial of Trump. As he said, I am trying to give a pretty clear signal I have made up my mind. Im not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here. His performance during the trial was true to his word.

To some degree, this sort of partisanship is not unexpected. But can we not hope for anything better? Facing much the same question at the end of his career, it is striking how prescient George Washington was and how sternly he warned against the raging partisanship he feared.

When Washington delivered his final address, political parties were in their infancy. Even then, he saw the dangers of division. As Washington put it, parties serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community.

Washington seems especially prescient in his warning against demagoguery and its link to factions and political parties, which he worried would over time become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

It wasnt a single party Washington condemned: It was the party system and the competition for power that he feared. As he put it, the alternate domination of one faction over another would eventually lead to despotism. He feared greatly [t]he disorders and miseries which result [and] gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Washington also predicted how a party leader would gain and keep power. At worst, he said, a party head agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, [and] foments occasionally riot and insurrection. [This] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Surely that, too, echoes in todays heated Twitter-filled rhetoric.

Washingtons predictive pessimism was eerily accurate. But he also offered hope, calling us to our better natures and envisioning a government adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, [and] uniting security with energy.

Today, I think Washington would look at the party system and see his fears rather than his hopes realized. He would see a small minority faction of one of the parties, led by an unprincipled man dedicated to his own elevation and built on the ruins of public liberty. Were Washington to speak to the leaders of the Republican Party, to which I formerly belonged, he would warn: That way lies despotism.

Paul Rosenzweig was a deputy assistant secretary of Homeland Security in the George W. Bush administration. He is a senior fellow at the R Street Institute.

Link:
Op-Ed: George Washington has a warning for Donald Trump and all of us - Los Angeles Times

President Donald Trump said he will travel to South Carolina before the state's Feb. 29 Democratic presidential primary,setting up a potential messaging war between the White House and his Democratic rivals ahead of the vote.

Trump made the announcement Tuesday afternoon at Joint Base Andrews, where he took questions on the tarmac from Washington reporters before boarding Air Force One with U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

"I'll be going to South Carolina. They're working that out now," the president said of the potential visit, saying it will probably be Feb. 28, the day before the Saturday primary.

"Look, we have a big voice and we might as well use it," Trump said.

Joe Jackson, theRepublican National Committee'sSouth Carolina spokesman, could not confirm details of the trip but said Republicans would welcome the appearance.

"We're always happy to have the president in South Carolina," Jackson told The Post and Courier. "South Carolina went big for President Trump in 2016 and will do so again in 2020."

Trump has made a habit of making appearances in the early states holding Democratic presidential nominating contests as a means of both turning the spotlight on himself and upstaging his potential challengers.

So far, the president has made stops in both Iowa and New Hampshire. On Friday, Trump plans to travel to Nevada, which will be holding its caucus Saturday.

"We got more votes than any incumbent president in history, in Iowa and in New Hampshire," Trump said, adding, "I went the day before in both cases."

Trump's hints of a potential Palmetto State visit come one week after Vice President Mike Pence made a multi-stop swing through South Carolina on Thursday, which included headlining a Trump campaign fundraiser in Columbia and addressing The Citadel Corps of Cadets.

"I'm here for one reason, and one reason only: And that is that South Carolina and America need four more years of President Donald Trump," Pence said to applause at The Citadel Republican Society's annual Patriot Dinner.

During his public remarks in South Carolina last week, Pence made no mention of Trump's possible visit, but Pence did say he knew Trump would be "jealous" that he got to make the S.C. stop.

Should Trump be able to travel to South Carolina, he will arrive in a state that has all but cleared the way for him to receive all of the state's nominating delegates without contest.

The South Carolina Republican Party's executive committee in September voted to forgo their Republican presidential primary, citingcost as the top reason for scrapping it.

South Carolina is a traditionally Republican state. The governor, both chambers of the state Legislature, fiveof the states seven congressional districts, and both of its U.S. Senate seats are held by Republicans.

In the 2016 general election, Trump won 55 percent of the vote here.

Trump was also the victor in South Carolina's 2016 Republican presidential primary.

Reach Caitlin Byrd at 843-937-5590 and follow her on Twitter @MaryCaitlinByrd.

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Donald Trump says he will travel to South Carolina before Democratic presidential primary on Feb. 29 - Charleston Post Courier