November 22, 2019

Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano has claimed that evidence presented against President Donald Trump in the impeachment inquiry is "overwhelming."
Napolitano made the remarks during a video interview taped Thursday with Reason's Nick Gillespie, which was uploaded the following day to the libertarian media outlet's ReasonTV channel on YouTube. In the interview, Napolitano said Democrats had produced "overwhelming" evidence of Trump's "impeachable behavior."

"The Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have unearthed enough evidence, in my opinion, to justify about three or four articles of impeachment against the president," said Napolitano. "We have to start this conversation by underscoring the fact that impeachment is not legal, it is political. Its only constitutional base is treason, bribery, or other hard crimes and misdemeanors."
Napolitano added that the impeachment process House Democrats are engaging in is being done entirely within legal bounds, as congress is explicitly given the "sole power of impeachment" by the U.S. Constitution. The judge also said the constitution demands "each house to write its own rules," and Democrats are operating under rules written by Republicans, who drafted the rules when they controlled congress in 2015.

"Congressman Schiff, whether you like him or not, whether you agree with him or not, he's following rules that the Republicans authored four and a half years ago," Napolitano said.
Gillespie then asked the judge what he predicts will be included in the articles of impeachment, yet to be formally presented at the inquiry.
"Here's what I think they will advance. Charge one is bribery," said Napolitano. "The technical definition of bribery is the failure to perform an official duty until a thing of value comes your way, and they will argue that the president's failure to disperse funds that the Congress ordered be dispersed until the recipient of the funds agreed to investigate a potential political opponent is an act of bribery. That is enough, in my opinion, to make it over the threshold of impeachable off**g--mean nothing anymore to the republican party which is really now the trump party. enses. I don't think it's enough to convict of bribery, but it's enough to allege it for the purpose of impeachment."

"The second charge will be high crimes and misdemeanors, e******n law violation," he continued. "The third crime will be obstruction of justice, the fourth will be interference with the witness and the fifth may be lying under oath."

The remainder of the interview covered constitutional issues, along with the political and legal history of impeachment and additional details of the Trump inquiry. The judge appears to believe many of the allegations against the president are credible but says he "can't imagine" Trump will be removed by Republicans in the senate despite overwhelming evidence.
Napolitano is a senior legal analyst for Fox News, having joined the network in 1998. Although Trump previously praised the judge, his opinion soured after being criticized by Napolitano, who called the president's behavior "criminal and impeachable" earlier in the year.

Bernie Sanders Wants to Control How Much Landlords Can Charge for Rent

Like most far-left politicians, Sen. Bernie Sanders seems to think that government involvement will make all the problems go away. Given this fact, it’s not surprising that he has proposed a national rent control plan that forbids landlords from raising rents more than 3% — or 1.5 times the rate of inflation. However, contrary to socialist expectations, capping rents would not provide affordable housing for those who need it; rather, it would make affordable housing scarcer than ever before.

Ironically, it’s a comedian who points out one of the main problems with the national rent control plan. Hannibal Buress recently noted on Twitter that he owns a three-unit building in Chicago that he rents out via Airbnb. Buress stated that, as a property owner, he is far more concerned about the state of his property than the people he rents his property out to. It’s worth noting that this point doesn’t just apply to short-term Airbnb tenants. Even long-term tenants who love the home they happen to be living in aren’t going to be as committed to the house.

One way that landlords weed out tenants who may cause costly property damage is to raise rents so that only responsible people who care about the property can afford to live there. However, Sen. Sanders’ new law would allow careless tenants to rent costly homes and destroy them. When coupled with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent proposals to make it extremely difficult for landlords to evict tenants, the rent control proposal would utterly destroy a landlord’s costly investment. It would also destroy home values in entire neighborhoods as one or two rowdy tenants would make life miserable for law-abiding people who will then move out.


Naturally, most landlords aren’t going to allow a socialist law to rob them of their investments. They will take measures to protect their homes and these measures aren’t going to make affordable housing widely available to the masses. Some landlords may charge a very high initial rental price since the rent can’t be raised much on an annual basis. Middle class and upper-middle-class tenants would have no problem finding a home, but those with limited financial resources would be out of luck.

Other homeowners may remove their homes from the rental market, and instead sell them while still others will only rent their homes on Airbnb instead of allowing regular tenants to move in. In any case, the end result will be that affordable housing will become scarcer than it already is. At the same time, those who are considering buying homes and then renting them out as a way to earn a living will choose another business option instead, decreasing demand for home construction and resulting in layoffs.

In short, no one wins when the government decides how much rent a landlord can charge. Unfortunately, left-wing activists are unwilling to see the obvious fact that the U.S. government can’t force businesspeople to forgo the right to turn a profit on their investments.

Granted, the cost of housing has risen exponentially in many areas. In Sen. Sanders’ own hometown, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is over $1,600. In Los Angeles and Manhattan, one-bedroom apartment rents are well over $2,300. However, a federal government that truly cares about providing affordable housing for the masses will find that there are alternatives to Draconian rent control laws. Changes in zoning laws, experimenting with low-cost home construction methods, or even investing in the
property.

A new way to immediately create slums.