Mediaboss Marketing

We have a special place in history. Never have Americans been so experienced in presidential impeachment as we. Two impeachments in just more than a single year.

Nonetheless, experience does not yield understanding. Impeachment is a rare and confusing process. This is just the fourth presidential impeachment in history. And each impeachment process and set of arguments is slightly or dramatically different from the last.

With that in mind, we asked for your questions about impeachment. And happily you sent us boatloads. Thank you. Lets tackle them.

Brilliant first question! (If planted.) This is key to understanding impeachment. Each Congress has the power to set up its own impeachment process.

Similarly, each Senate defines the criteria for conviction of high crimes and misdemeanors. Precedent plays a role, but it can be easily crushed by the will of the Senate at any time. Witnesses? Allowed (via video) in 1999, not in 2020. Committee hearings first? Sure, in 1973, 1999 and 2020. But nope, not in 1868 or in 2021.

Essentially, the way the founders laid it out in the Constitution, impeachment is whatever and works however each Senate wants. The Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous 1993 decision, U.S. v. Nixon, that impeachment is nonjusticiable. That means it cannot be handled or defined by judges but instead must be crafted and sculpted by Congress itself. Unique in our system, Congress here is law and court both.

One of the only criteria set in stone is constitutional. It takes a two-thirds Senate vote to convict.

Perfect question. Now to the roadmap.

Think of this impeachment trial in the Senate as having six phases, in this order.

More process! And succinct. I will reply in turn. The likelihood of witnesses is so slim it is almost invisible.

All sides are highly motivated to have a fast trial. Democrats, to move on the Biden agenda. Republicans, to just move on. In addition, some senators consider themselves to be witnesses in this particular trial.

As with much about the U.S. Senate, the answer is yes, if the Senate allows it.

House managers, who are prosecuting the case here, can request to call witnesses. But, as above, the Senate then must approve that idea. Complicating matters in your question, those who broke into the Capitol could use their Fifth Amendment rights and refuse to give testimony that could self-incriminate.

Regardless, we do expect House managers to show these individuals virtually, by playing some social media clips and other videos from the day of the riot.

Wow this was a popular question. And a good one.

Can the Senate hold a secret ballot vote on Trumps impeachment? Yes, but only if more than 80 percent of the Senate wants it to happen.

This is not flexible. Its in the Constitution, not in the slightly more elastic volume of Senate rules.

Article I, Section 5 states, the Yeas and Nays on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.

Thus, if one-fifth, or 20 members, of the U.S. Senate want a public vote, they will get it. Additionally, it is the default position that the impeachment vote will be public.

Now to a related question.

Yes, each senator is expected to stand and announce their vote, by saying aye, nay or present. No, senators are not required to give their reasoning.

Some may do that, but there is relatively little time for remarks or speeches by senators in this trial. The most likely insight into why senators vote will come in either their own press releases or conversations with reporters afterward.

Sure thing. The Article of Impeachment, as passed by the House of Representatives, is House Resolution 24. You can read it here.

If the Senate convicts Mr. Trump, it would then face another decision: how to penalize him. The most likely direction would be to ban Trump from running for federal office again, since removing him from office is off the table. That would be a separate vote, requiring only a majority of Senators, not two-thirds.

Yes, he absolutely could attempt an appeal.

But, that is uncharted territory and past court rulings do not indicate a high likelihood of success. Most federal courts have punted on cases dealing with power battles between the first and second branches of government. They often revert back to initial rulings or the status quo.

Moreover, there is that 1993 U.S. v. Nixon case that set the precedent that impeachment exists outside the federal court system.

Youve opened a fascinating question.

The Constitution, in Article I, Section 5, gives each chamber the power to punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member. At this point, 1994 individuals have served in the U.S. Senate. Of those, just 15 have been expelled and 14 of those were expelled for supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War.

In other words, Senate expulsion is possible, but incredibly rare.

Senate impeachment, meaning an impeachment trial for a senator, is rarer still, having occurred only once, with Sen. William Blount of Tennessee in 1797. But the Blount trial left an open question as to whether impeachment of a Senator is possible.

Blount was expelled for attempting to help the British take over part of Florida, in a scheme where he stood to profit. After he was expelled, Congress additionally held an impeachment trial. The Senate voted that it did have the power to impeach him, but it remains unclear if senators believed that was because he had been a senator or if it was because he had already been expelled.

We spent a minute on this here because Mr. Blount is certain to come up in this impeachment trial more than 200 years later.

I have a nerdy spreadsheet but its far from a formal whip count (a tally of how each senator is likely or committed to vote). For that I highly recommend this one by the Washington Post.

The issue here is that the Constitution does not clearly state whether a former official can be impeached after leaving office. Each side of the debate sees implications one way or the other, but it is not clearly spelled out.

Those who say impeachment is not possible for ex-officials point to this clause. The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

They stress shall be removed indicates the person must be in office.

But not so fast, say their opponents, who argue that the clause simply spells out why a person should be removed not that it limits the impeachment power.

They point to this clause, also in Article 1, that says Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor The concept here is that the Constitution provides explicitly for the ability to bar someone from holding future office and that, this logic goes, applies to current and former office holders.

What is the answer? Again, it is whatever the Senate at the time says it is. By simple majority vote.

Not exactly. But there are two important cases that are similar and will come up a lot.

As the founders were writing the Constitution, the British parliament was holding an impeachment of a former governor of India, a man named Warren Hastings. James Madison noted that fellow founder George Mason brought this up as they created the American version of impeachment. Democrats will argue this shows that the founders absolutely understood and endorsed the idea of impeaching former officials.

During the tumultuous year of 1876, an unhappy Congress moved to impeach President Ulysses S. Grants secretary of war, William Belknap.

Belknap resigned first. But the Senate moved ahead with the trial nonetheless, actually voting that it had the power to do so despite the fact that Belknap was no longer in office. Democrats argue this is a clear and strong precedent. President Trumps team does not dispute that vote, but argues that the outcome a vote NOT to convict indicates that the Senate was unsure about its power in the case.

Senators are required by the rules to be present and at their desks. However, because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Senate is making some adjustments to this. Senators will be allowed to sit in the balconies of the chamber as well as in an adjoining room where there will be television monitors

Impeachment is a political process, meaning it affects a persons status politically: whether they stay in office or can hold future office. It does not have any direct impact on whether an individual faces criminal repercussions, like jail time.

That is a separate prosecutorial process.

Thus, Trump could lose his ability to hold future federal office if convicted in impeachment, but that is the extent of possible punishment.

In this case, the president is acquitted.

But the final number may have short-term meaning politically.

Democrats will certainly highlight how many Republicans vote to convict, especially if it is greater than the single conviction vote, by Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, in 2020.

Link:
Your guide to the Trump impeachment trial of 2021 - PBS NewsHour

JEFFERSON CITY - Retired healthcare providers are now added to the list of those authorized to administer the two currently approved COVID-19 vaccines, according to a Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services press release.

DHSS Director Dr. Randall Williams issued amended standing orders detailing who in Missouri is authorized to administer the vaccines, following a move by federal partners to increase the available workforce.

Dr. Randall Williams, Director of the Missouri Dept. of Health and Senior Services testifies before theHouse Special Committee on Disease Control and Prevention Tuesday, Nov. 10.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently issued a fifth amendment to the Declaration under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) to add additional categories of qualified persons authorized to prescribe, dispense, and administer COVID-19 vaccines authorized by the U.S. FDA.

Missouri's revised standing orders will:

We value our all-hands-on-deck approach as we continue implementing our vaccine plan, and partnerships will become especially vital as vaccines become more widely available in the future, Williams said in the press release. We have been listening to feedback from our colleagues from throughout the state, and we are so grateful to those recently retired healthcare workers who are willing to help their fellow Missourians as we anticipate the arrival of more vaccines as they become approved for use.

Those authorized based on the standing orders are encouraged to communicate with their local public health agency regarding the current need for vaccine administrators and register as a volunteer at ShowMeResponse.org. The Show-Me Response Program works to recruit and coordinate health care staffing volunteers as necessary to assist with vaccinations or other operational duties.

Read the rest here:
Missouri to allow retired healthcare providers to administer vaccine - KOMU 8

Democrats on the Legislatures Joint Finance Committee sought changes Wednesday to more narrowly focus a $450 million state income tax break for businesses that received COVID-19 help from the federal government. But the Republican-controlled committee rejected all of them before sending the measure to the full assembly.

The overall bill, AB-2, primarily consisted of routine, bipartisan changes to the state tax code, mostly to bring it into line with various changes in the federal code.

Since I first got elected to the Legislature. I have argued for simplicity, to federalize our Wisconsin tax code as much as we possibly can to make things simpler, said Sen. Howard Marklein (R- Spring Green), co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee. And thats one thing that this bill does. We essentially bring our Wisconsin statutes up to date.

The most controversial element, however, was formally added to the legislation Wednesday: a measure that allows businesses with grants from the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) to deduct business expenses from their income taxes, even though those expenses were paid for by the tax-free PPP money rather than from taxable income.

That amendment also is in line with federal tax law a point that some supporters noted after several lawmakers spoke in opposition to the provision.

Theres good things here, and theres things that make it easier for people in Wisconsin to do their taxes and advantages that have been set in place by the feds for your tax law, said Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam), the other committee co-chair. And were conforming to that.

Although the expense deduction is allowed on federal business taxes, because of the mid-December Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA), some analysts have questioned the hit that state revenues would take if the deduction is allowed on state income taxes as well.

Peter Barca, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR), has told legislators that allowing businesses to take the deduction on expenses that were already paid for by tax-free federal aid amounts to a double benefit.

THE MORNING NEWSLETTER

Subscribe now.

Democrats on the committee criticized the Republican majority for moving so quickly to add the PPP expense deduction to the otherwise routine Assembly Bill 2 without more deliberation.

There has been no public hearing since the amendment was introduced, said Rep. Greta Neubauer (D-Racine).

Democrats offered four amendments to the legislation to narrow the focus of the tax break to businesses that they argued would be more deserving of the largesse while also reducing the revenue shortfall it would create. A fifth amendment would have waived the state income tax on grants from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. to small businesses hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic. All five amendments failed on party-line votes, 4-11.

The rejected amendments would have:

Ninety percent of the businesses in Wisconsin who received a PPP loan, approximately, received less than $250,000, Neubauer said. So they would be able to claim the full deduction equivalent to their loss.

Neubauer, along with Rep. Evan Goyke (D-Milwaukee) and Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee), voted against the final bill.

Im voting no today because we could provide better, more meaningful immediate relief to small businesses in Wisconsin that need it, Goyke said.

Sen. Duey Stroebel (R-Saukville) crossed over to vote with the three Democrats.

Strong state revenues are a great reason to reduce the tax burden, Stroebel said in a statement to the Wisconsin Examiner. Allowing the recognition of expenses while ignoring the taxpayer-funded forgivable PPP loan revenue is certainly not standard accounting principles. Only PPP recipients that made money have any state tax liability. Rather than grant profitable PPP benefactors a $457 million tax write-off, I would prefer a more broad and equitable tax reduction for all Wisconsin taxpayers.

Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-West Point), the only Democrat to vote for the measure, said he did so after hearing from owners of small businesses who were disappointed by the possibility of having to pay taxes on the underlying expenses that the PPP had covered.

Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) noted that Wisconsin Democrats in Congress had supported the legislation granting the federal tax break. A sign in La Crosse that he saw after the bill passed in December offered thanks to U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, Kurtz said. The last I looked, theyre on the other side of the party, he added, and they voted to make [expenses deductible on] these PPP loans at the federal level, so I think we need to make this at the state level as well.

Visit link:
Tax break on business costs covered by PPP clears committee - Wisconsin Examiner

Amid arguments in the U.S. Senate over whether the impeachment of former President Donald Trump is constitutional, and in the U.S. House over whether $1.9 trillion is enough money to borrow and distribute to select taxpayers and institutions, there have been rumblings among Democrats to make it more difficult for the Supreme Court to invalidate or permit states to gnaw away at Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

Roe is the 1973 Supreme Court opinion that essentially establishes within the privacy of the patient-physician relationship the right to choose to abort a baby in the womb.

The opinion holds that during the first trimester of pregnancy, the states have no interest in regulating abortion beyond the health of the mother. During the second trimester, the states can regulate the procedures used, but they may not ban or interfere with abortions. During the third trimester, the states may ban or permit abortions.

Roes medical cornerstone is viabilitythe ability of the baby to live outside the womb. In 1973, viability, generally, was at the beginning of the third trimester. Today, viability is closer to conception.

Hence, state regulations protecting post-viable pre-third trimester babies.

Roes legal cornerstone is the absence of personhood.

The opinion offers that because philosophers, theologians, scientists and physicians cannot agree on when personhood attaches, then neither will the justices of the Supreme Court. Thus, Roe declares that the baby in the womb is not a person.

Yet, legally, if the baby in the womb is a person, then a host of constitutional protections insulate the baby from being killed by her mother and her physician.

The Fifth Amendment prevents the federal government which gives millions a year to Planned Parenthood from impairing life, liberty and property of people without due process. The 14th Amendment prohibits the states from impairing life, liberty and property without due process, compels them to treat persons within their borders similarly what is an unlawful killing for me is an unlawful killing for theeand compels the states to guarantee privileges and immunities; foremost among which is the right to live.

I offer this brief constitutional explanation of Roe as a background to discuss what is coming our way.

Coming our way is a massive effort by pro-abortion rights forces at the state and federal levels to shore up Roe to insulate it from interference by the Supreme Court and thereby make abortions more available and, in some states, performed at taxpayer expense.

President Joseph R. Biden has stated that he wants Congress to enact a statute that will put into positive law the right of every woman to kill her unborn child at any time, irrespective of what various states have enacted to preserve the lives of unborn children.

Is the baby in the womb a person?

Biden does not want to answer that question. I dont know how conversant he is in philosophy or constitutional law, or common sense, but he wont go near this.

Last week, the Senate defeated a measure that would have protected the lives of babies whosurviveabortions. Some abortions involve the slaughter of the baby in the womb and the methodical removal of her remains.

Some involve the chemically induced expulsion of the baby from the womb, which usually kills the baby, but not always. The Senate vote was not only humanly repulsive it permitted the states to permit the mother and the abortion provider to let the surviving baby dieit violated the obligation of the government to uphold the Constitution.

Is the baby in the womb a person?

Many states are wanting here as well, as they will not answer this question. They know the constitutional obligations imposed upon them by the 14th Amendment. Yet like their federal counterparts they are on the cusp of advancing the killing of more unborn children.

In New Jersey, for example, where abortion is lawful up to the moment of birth not because of legislation but by a rule established by the Board of Medical Examiners and upheld by the courts, and where it is taxpayer-funded, also mandated by the courts proposals are making their way through the legislature to codify into law the right to take the life of an unborn child at any time at state expense, along with a prohibition on autopsies for the aborted babyso it will be unknown if the mother and her physician starved the baby to death.

Is the baby in the womb a person?

Here we are in 2021 talking about killing babies by scalpels, chemicals and starvation.

We are, and we will be for some time. Even if the Supreme Court invalidates Roe v. Wade and the states are free to go their own way New Jersey, all killing all the time; Pennsylvania, no killing at any time we still have a Constitution that imposes profound restraints upon the power of the states to permit killings, and which gives Congress the power to enforce state compliance.

Is the baby in the womb a person? Of course, she is.

The baby has human parents, and her body contains all the genomic materials to grow into human childhood and adulthood. The denial of personhood to babies in the womb is akin to the judicial denial of personhood to Blacks before the Civil War. In the very essence of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote that our right to life is inalienable.

The right to live is the highest right there is.

Any society that can impair the right to live by declaring any groups to be nonpersons has rejected the self-evident concepts of right and wrong and cannot long endure.

Negating personhood is the most dangerous thing the government can do. It is a one-way slippery slope. Whose personhood will the government negate next?

Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, a graduate of Princeton University and the University of Notre Dame Law School, was the youngest life-tenured Superior Court judge in the history of New Jersey. He sat on the bench from 1987 to 1995. He taught constitutional law at Seton Hall Law School for 11 years, and he returned to private practice in 1995. Judge Napolitano began television work in the same year. He is Fox News senior judicial analyst on the Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Network. He is the host of Freedom Watch on the Fox Business Network. Napolitano also lectures nationally on the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law, civil liberties in wartime, and human freedom. He has been published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and numerous other publications. He is the author of five books on the U.S. Constitution. Read Judge Andrew P. Napolitanos Reports More Here.

Creators Syndicate Inc.

Here is the original post:
'Personhood' Still at the Heart of Abortion Wars - WBAP News/Talk

To the editor:

The Bruni project is unfortunate. The collective response is shameful.

There seems scant evidence that anyone is enthusiastic about the proposed project. The undesirable implications have been covered ad nauseam and bear no further explication.

The collective response, however, does.

Please Support Local Advertisers

The Bruni family has worked hard for years, contributing to the town, enriching its character, and providing products that were valued.

Theyve paid taxes on the property and maintained it. It is theirs to do with as they please within the established regulations. Period.

And yet the progeny of many folks who shopped at the market and benefited from the familys hard work are now joined by ideological newcomers, all intent on violating the Constitutions Fifth Amendment by depriving the Brunis of their property rights.

Anyone who rubs their chin and opines sagely and in a grave tone about how some bylaw or regulation might be creatively interpreted to stop the project is fundamentally a collectivist an adherent of the practice or principle of giving a group priority over each individual in it.

I doubt any of them were present to help Joe build the shop, run the bakery at 0-dark thirty long before most were up, pay the bills for past-date food that had to be thrown out, etc.

And Im certain that none have lobbied to reduce the property taxes in the meantime.

So heres my challenge. If you can comfortably wear the mantle of collectivist, so be it.

If, however, youre startled (maybe even horrified) to realize what destructive ideologies weve allowed to become normalized to the point that they seem reasonable to many, then heres your chance to swallow the bitter pill, agree that the project is undesirable, but support the familys right to do with their property what they wish within a reasonable interpretation of existing regulations.

The only moral alternative is the private collection of enough money to create a private entity, support ongoing maintenance and other costs, and acquire the property at a price agreeable to both entities (which, at this point, will reflect the huge sums the owner has had to put into simply exercising their rights, but perhaps offset by some discount to reflect the sigh of relief to be done being harassed and pilloried.)

Ed MarshWoods LaneIpswich

Like Loading...

Read the original:
Letter: Bruni has right to do as he pleases within the law - The Local Ne.ws