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Former Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz:
"The presiding officer of the Senate can set a trial date, convene the chief justice and begin the trial. So I don't think that Pelosi has the power that she thinks she has, or that my colleague Larry Tribe thinks she has.
"I can imagine nothing more unconstitutional than a House impeachment without sending it to the Senate. It's just unheard of. The Constitution provides that it is a two-step process, not a one-step process. It doesn't say the president may be impeached, period, that's the end of the matter. It says the president may be impeached, and if he's impeached by the House, the Senate then gets to decide whether he should be removed.
"The idea that a stain would remain on the books, that the president would remain impeached, without an opportunity for the president to get acquitted by the Senate, is plainly unconstitutional. It would be as if a prosecutor decided he had insufficient evidence to get a conviction, so he went after an ordinary citizen and said, 'Look, I'm just going to indict him. Let the public know he's indicted. For the rest of his life, he will stand indicted. But I have no intention of bringing him to trial. I will deny him his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. I'm going to let the indictment just hang out there.' Obviously, no judge would tolerate that.
"Could the president now go to the courts and say, 'Look, while the constitution says the House is the sole judge of impeachment, they have now violated the Constitution'? The president's legal team could theoretically go before the chief justice and seek to dismiss.
"The option that will probably be decided on is to make legal arguments, probably no witnesses, probably no experts, and leave it to the Senate whether to acquit or convict. It's likely, based on the evidence that's been presented thus far to the House, that there would be a vote of acquittal. Remember, you need two-thirds to convict. The reason we need two-thirds to convict is the framers did not want a partisan impeachment. They wanted an overwhelming consensus in favor of removing a president."
"We are very concerned that this ruling for now permits MI5 to continue to authorize informant or agent involvement in serious crime. This could include crimes that constitute human rights violations. There were such experiences during the Northern Ireland conflict of informant-based paramilitary collusion, with agents of the state involved in acts as serious as murder and torture."During that conflict (1969-98), British military intelligence are known to have been involved in systematic levels of collusion with paramilitary agents and informers as part of a counterinsurgency campaign. The outcome was hundreds of extra-judicial killings carried out with the covert consent of British state agencies. One of the most notorious was the murder of Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane in 1989. Former British Prime Minister David Cameron admitted before parliament in 2012, following the publication of a government report into the Finucane killing, that the collusion in the case represented "shocking" abuse by Britain's military intelligence.
The $11-billion pipeline, which extends from Russia to Germany across the bottom of the Baltic Sea, will be finished "in the second half of the next year," Peter Beyer, the government's Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation, told Deutschlandfunk radio station on Monday.RT, 23/12/2019 US Sanctions on pipeline a declaration of 'economic war' that will backfire on American business interests
Some in US-Russian business circles agree with the standpoint. "It's obvious that the project will be finalized," Alexis Rodzianko, the president and CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, told RIA Novosti.
"Therefore, the sanctions look more like an expression of discontent, I don't think that they [the US] can somehow stop it. If some fines or penalties are to follow, they will be very unpopular among us allies."
It may be "quite favorable for Russia" to finish the Nord Stream 2 construction by itself, says German business newsletter publisher Dr Eike Hamer, as European companies participating in the project are targeted by US sanctions. The costs of completing the pipeline will definitely be much higher after the Swiss-Dutch company Allseas announced it is quitting the project. The delay could be a few months but what's "more important is that the pipeline is going to be finished."See also:
According to the economist, the Russian energy major Gazprom, which is leading the Nord Stream 2 project, could "surely" sue European companies for winding up operations "unless it was excluded in the contracts."
"The sanctions and promises for additional contracts by the Russians could be much more favorable and be a better deal for Allseas than the US sanctions, which are against international law."
"Afterwards, all costs can be saved from sending less oil and gas via the US-puppets Poland and Ukraine, or increase local taxes on US oil firms in Russia or Anglo-American shareholders of Russian companies. In the end, benefits will overwhelm the costs in the project by far."
"This is an economic war the US has started already." The Russian gas pipeline "will cause inconvenience but not a severe problem."
"The problem arises for the Anglo-American forces that made up the sanctions because they will be regarded as a difficult and dangerous business partner. Who trusts an Anglo-American firm in future when you never know if you are sanctioned, threatened of not completing your work? In that sense the US has much more to lose than the rest of the world."
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the Cabinet on Monday to think over Russia's possible response to Washington's sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 project.
"The relevant U.S. actions are a serious violation of the international consensus on the peaceful use of outer space, undermine global strategic balance and stability, and pose a direct threat to outer space peace and security."His remarks come just days after President Trump signed the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, which contained provisions officially authorizing the Space Force first touted by the president in 2018.
Comment: Kudos to the Grayzone for bringing the Uyghur propaganda war against China to the fore.
What the MSM isn't telling you about China's Uyghur problem