Conservative: Dems Boost Impeachment Secrecy

Democrats’ “excessive secrecy” in their impeachment inquiry has gotten worse, the Washington Examiner’s Byron York reports, with Friday’s interview of the former US ambassador to Ukraine marking “a low point” in efforts to keep information out of public view. With previous impeachment interviews, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff “decreed that transcripts not be released to the public,” but Schiff upped the ante for Friday’s interview, with “serious penalties” for committee members who even just talk about it. In the end, the former ambassador’s opening statement leaked to the press anyway, but “without any rebuttal from Republicans” — proving that the Dems’ inquiry has been unfair not only to its “target,” President Trump, but also to the American people.

Foreign desk: In Syria, Focus on Turkey

In the Syria-Turkey crisis, “all eyes really ought to be on Turkey,” not Trump, advises James Jay Carafano at the Detroit News. Turkish troops, trying to take control of a border area between their country and war-torn Syria, are invading territory controlled by “primarily Kurdish” groups — American allies in the fight against ISIS. “In practical terms, there was little the U.S. could do” to stop it “without becoming more directly embroiled in the Syrian conflict.” But now we need to hold Turkey accountable for its actions, making sure it holds on to ISIS fighters, prevents the territory from becoming a terrorist base, protects innocents and keeps Iranians out. “In short, the U.S., all of Turkey’s NATO allies, indeed, all of the free world should demand that Ankara be a responsible international actor.”

Court watch: Justices Aren’t Debating Kids’ ‘Humanity’

“Be especially kind to your LGBTQ students this week,”a teacher-aimed meme reads. “School can seem pretty pointless when your humanity is up for debate in the nation’s highest court.” The meme, as Walter Olson notes at the Bulwark, refers to three Supreme Court cases that will decide if existing civil-rights law, which bans sex-based discrimination, also bans “private employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.” And while “no one seriously argues that 1964 legislators intended to do either of those things,” how the law is interpreted is key — and that is what the case is over. However the court rules, “no one’s humanity hangs in the balance.”

From the right: Elizabeth Warren Is Jussie Smollett

“Elizabeth Warren has a moving story about being fired from a teaching job because she was pregnant,” but it simply isn’t true, National Review’s Kevin D. Williamson points out. Like Jussie Smollett, the actor who falsely claimed that Trump-supporting white supremacists attacked him, Warren, who has “long pretended to be a person of color,” told her lies for the larger anti-Trump cause. And, as in Smollett’s case, it was clearly a lie: Local school-board minutes “document that Warren was offered a contract for further employment, which she declined.” Trump isn’t “what one would call excessively scrupulous with the facts, but to resort to lies and inventions in the race against him is a confession of sorts.”

Tech beat: Apple’s Fans’ Fury on China Sellout

“Apple’s under-the-table dealings with China’s communist bosses have some of the company’s biggest and most public supporters angry as hell,” notes Steven Green at PJMedia. The company last week banned an app used by protesters to avoid massed police, and CEO Tim Cook’s explanation for the move “doesn’t add up,” as a top tech blogger noted. This follows Apple banning Skype, the Quartz news app and The New York Times app at Beijing’s request, among other craven moves. Apple, says Green, “seems to have one set of rules for the rest of the world, and another for China. And the rules for China seem to consist of: Do what Beijing wants, do it quickly, and make lame excuses for it.” It’s time for the company “to make an honest assessment of its practices, make real changes to how it conducts its business, and dare I say it, ‘think different.’ ”

— Compiled by Karl Salzmann & Mark Cunningham