Posts on Tuesday, November 19, 2019
A theme song and affiliated dance moves can say a lot about a political campaign. For Barack Obama, the soundtrack of 2008 was the classic cool of Motown.(Snip) And for Pete Buttigieg, well, the newly minted Iowa caucus frontrunner’s campaign is jazzercising its way toward 2020 with all the style of one of those videos of a flashmob in a midwestern mall that your parents wouldn’t stop sharing on Facebook in 2011. The South Bend, Indiana, mayor running for president in 2020 has embraced Panic! at the Disco’s High Hopes as his campaign walk-on song and his followers have enthusiastically jumped onboard,
The Rev. Al Sharpton’s troubled charity, the National Action Network, has dodged scrutiny paid other nonprofits—despite paying him $1 million last year—thanks to his political clout, insiders and experts say. “There are certain things that are universally true in New York: the sun rises in the east, it sets in the west, the subway is late and no one wants to pick a fight with Al Sharpton,” said one top Democratic insider. “Where’s the political benefit to doing it?”(Snip) The Reverend’s streak of luck stretches back years. In July 2008 prosecutors dropped a criminal probe of Sharpton and NAN after he
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council aide, said Tuesday that he has no political motivations in appearing before the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearing and that he considers himself “never partisan.”Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) questioned Vindman about his military service and his political motivations in agreeing to testify before the committee’s despite a directive from the White House against doing so.HIMES: Lieutenant Colonel, you previously testified that you’ve dedicated your entire professional life to the United States of America.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman admitted he made up elements of President Donald Trump’s call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an official summary.
Prior to the call, Vindman included a discussion about corruption in the talking points provided to the president but Trump did not use them in the call.
The summary Vindman wrote after the call read:
President Trump (Snip) expressed his commitment to work together with President-elect Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people to implement reforms that strengthen democracy, increase prosperity, and root out corruption.
But Vindman clarified during his testimony that the president did not bring up the topic rooting out corruption
GOP lawmaker slams Schiff during impeachment
hearing, demands proof of whistleblower 'immunity' replies
hearing, demands proof of whistleblower 'immunity' replies
House Intelligence Committee member Mike Conaway, R-Texas, criticized Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., as Conaway completed his questioning of witnesses during Tuesday's impeachment inquiry hearing. Conaway made a "personal request" that Schiff clearly state the legal reasoning for keeping the Ukraine phone call whistleblower "immune" from testifying, even in a secure, closed-door environment that would protect his identity. "[I want] you and/or one of the members of the committee that are lawyers to put into the record the federal statute that provides for the absolute immunity or right to immunity that you've exerted over and over and over," Conaway told
Watch: Texas Republican: Here’s How Many
Times Impeachment Witnesses Have Even
Mentioned ‘Bribery’ replies
Times Impeachment Witnesses Have Even
Mentioned ‘Bribery’ replies
During the impeachment hearing Tuesday, Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe addressed the elephant in the room, or more appropriately, the elephant conspicuously not in the room. The Democrats are accusing President Trump of “bribery,” yet, as Ratcliffe highlights emphatically, after six weeks of witness interviews in the Democrat-led inquiry, not one witness has even so much as uttered the word “bribery” or “bribe” in reference to Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine.“At a press conference last Thursday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said that President Trump committed the impeachable offense of ‘bribery,’ evidenced in his July 25th call transcript with President Zelensky,”
Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, whom progressives have blamed for the president's hard-line immigration agenda should be removed from his position."Every day Stephen Miller remains in the White House is an emergency," Clinton tweeted before promoting a letter calling for Miller's removal, signed by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and NAACP.The letter was produced by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a nonprofit coalition of "more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the civil and human rights of all persons
The Tuesday confirmation of Judge Robert J. Luck created a majority for Republican-appointed judges on the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the third such party flip in a federal court of appeals during the Trump presidency. President Trump has also created GOP majority courts in the Third Circuit, which flipped in March, and the Second Circuit, which flipped last week with the confirmation of Steven Menashi. Since Trump assumed office in 2017, 163 title III judges have been confirmed to the bench, including Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The confirmation of Barbara Lagoa to the 11th Circuit
The Democrats’ star impeachment witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman refused to characterize former Vice President Joe Biden’s (D) threat — to withhold aid from Ukraine unless it fired a prosecutor investigating Burisma Holdings — as “wrong,” admitting that he viewed the video showing Biden bragging about his threat but refraining from condemning it. During his line of questioning, Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) noted that Vindman’s concerns of the July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky were based on “moral, ethical, and policy differences” rather than legal concerns.
Well she’s impressive but she’s not that impressive. Conspiracy theorists are at it again over a 120-year-old photo depicting a girl who bears an uncanny resemblance to teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg. The photo, unearthed from archives at the University of Washington, shows three children working at a gold mine in Canada, including a girl wearing Thunberg’s signature braid and stoic expression. Historians believe it was taken around 1898. Thunberg, 16, took the world by storm when she arrived to the UN Climate Action Summit from her native Sweden this year via sailboat—having sworn off airplanes
Jordan methodically narrows possibilities
of who may have tipped whistleblower
during Vindman grilling replies
of who may have tipped whistleblower
during Vindman grilling replies
While questioning Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman on Tuesday, Rep, Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, worked to narrow where the whistleblower may have gotten his information from. Vindman, a National Security Council expert on Ukraine, was testifying in the second week of the Democratic Party’s dog and pony impeachment show trial and the matter of who he spoke with about President Trump’s call with Ukraine was a central focus for Republicans. Citing an earlier deposition, Jordan spoke about concerns from Tim Morrison, the departing senior director of European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council,
This was stunning. During Tuesday’s Schiff show trial witness and leaker Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman stopped Rep. Devin Nunes and requested that he address him by his military rank.During subsequent testimony Rep. Chris Stewart asked Vindmann if he demanded all civilians to address him by his rank. Vindman told him that he was upset because Twitter was mean to him! Lt. Col. Vindman: Rep. Stewart I’m in uniform wearing my military rank I just thought it was appropriate to stick with that… The, the attacks that I’ve had in the press, in Twitter have kind of eliminated the fact
Obama's Signature Achievement: Obamacare is an alleged Warren Buffet-style and Deep State corruption-driven self-dealing swindle, for choosing winners Obamacare and its proposed variants never worked anywhere in the world, and could never work. Government-mangled, er, managed, health care is failing everywhere< around the globe. These do provide “care,” however.
Care substandard next to America’s and what is possible. For example, a common knee replacement surgery for a woman in her sixties could take a wait for over six years in Norway
As the House moves into its second week of public impeachment hearings, Democrats are struggling to find incriminating evidence to justify the removal of the elected president, and the American people are not buying into their latest conspiracy theories to undo the 2016 election.
Last week, the House Intelligence Committee heard from three of the Democrats’ star witnesses on impeachment, including former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, the current U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent.
An initial glimpse at the coverage of the proceedings from the corporate media presents a startling situation for the White House.
LGBTQ activists are still unhappy with Chick-fil-A after the fast-food chain announced Monday it was ending donations to The Salvation Army and other Christian charities following years of backlash. Chick-fil-A caused a stir after announcing it would no longer donate to Fellowship of Christian Athletes, The Salvation Army or Paul Anderson Youth Homes following years of criticism for donating to faith-based groups that support traditional marriage.(Snip) “Chick-fil-A Still Isn’t LGBTQ-Friendly, Despite Pledge on Donations,” reads a headline by The Advocate magazine. “Remember, Chick-fil-A isn’t LGBTQ-friendly yet,” reads another by LGBTQ
HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes questioned NSC official Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman about whether he had shared the contents of the phone call between President Trump and Ukraine President Zelensky with anyone outside the White House.
In responding Vindman stated “two people”, and then named State Dept George Kent, and a person from the intelligence community. Then things get interesting. Vindman refused to name the intelligence agency because it would likely expose the CIA “whistle-blower”.
This non-answer makes Alexander Vindman the source for the CIA “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella.
The Trump administration fired a top homelessness official last week, the latest in a series of supposed omens that the president plans to do more on the issue. While the prospect of more federal assistance would be welcome in California, home to a quarter of the nation’s homeless and nearly half those without shelter, President Trump’s record does not suggest that help is on the way.
Matthew Doherty, an Obama administration holdover who was executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, wrote on Twitter Friday that he was leaving “at the administration’s request.” No further announcement followed, but an unnamed administration official told the Washington Post
Some of Barack Obama's departing White House aides left biting notes for their successors in the Trump administration including messages that read 'You will fail,' according to the president's press secretary. Stephanie Grisham told a Virginia radio host at the White House on Tuesday about finding the notes, and office cabinets brimming with Obama-authored books. 'We came into the White House—I'll tell you something, every office was filled with Obama books. And we had notes left behind that said "You will fail," "You aren't going to make it."
TAMPA — Chase Corley played violin as a teenager in Los Angeles.
Then he heard Jimi Hendrix.
“Suddenly, there wasn’t a day when I didn’t listen to him," said Corley, 23. “It got to the point that listening wasn’t enough. I wanted to play his music, too.”
For his 17th birthday, Corley’s parents gave him a Fender Stratocaster guitar, the same model Hendrix played. Musically, he never looked back.
Corley later enrolled in the University of Tampa and founded the school’s Guitar Club, where he and others often jammed on Hendrix tunes. Earlier this year, Corley learned that Hendrix had played across the Hillsborough River from campus at the old Curtis Hixon Hall —
The testimony of National Security Council official Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman grew tense Tuesday under questioning from Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. -- as the impeachment hearing witness eventually scolded the top intelligence committee Republican for not addressing him by his military title. (Snip) "Mr. Vindman, you testified in your deposition that you did not know the whistleblower," Nunes stated. "Ranking member, it's Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, please," the witness responded. Nunes corrected himself and repeated the statement, which followed questions regarding who Vindman had spoken with about Trump's phone call.
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a member of the National Security Council who testified against President Trump at Tuesday's impeachment inquiry, said Trump didn't "request" an investigation into a political opponent -- he demanded it. "[M]y impression is that in order to get the White House meeting, President Zelensky would have to deliver these investigations," Vindman said. In his opening statement, Vindman said he listened to the now-famous July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Zelensky. I listened in on the call in the Situation Room with White House
Most of us live within what we consider to be a republic.(Snip)
what's being revealed in the Impeachment Theater is that there exists a confederation of interests--both within the government as well as outside (but very much connected with) the government--that view America as an empire. These interests are broadly bi-partisan--think: Uniparty, as sundance at CTH famously says. They are also broadly "progressive," even among the non-Dem members. Their focus on Empire is designed to "fundamentally transform" the world in the interests of a global order of their making, just as the progressive project on the domestic front is to transform American society in fundamental ways.
Some media are already describing the president as the oldest one in American history—without mentioning that some of the presidential hopefuls trying to unseat him are even older.
The giddy, hysterical, over the top media response to President Donald Trump’s supposed “unplanned” visit to Walter Reed National Medical Center on Saturday is, more than anything else, proof of the impeachment-obsessed Democrats’ attempt to force the OTHER SHOE to drop—a loud shoe drop—the Democrats sorely need to replace the failing LIVE Adam Schiff Impeachment Show ASAP.
POLITICO's Tim Alberta got his start writing for National Review, which means that the Democratic National Committee is pretty sure that he is radioactive, a brain-eating zombie, and quite possibly a carrier of the deadly Ebola virus. Now that POLITICO wants to bring Alberta on as a debate moderator, the Dems are throwing another self-defeating hissy-fit.
It's their way.
Let's give POLITICO due credit here because they believe that Alberta's record of covering both sides of an argument would make him the perfect moderator for next month's presidential debate, scheduled for December 19. But the DNC is
National Security Council official Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his family are reportedly ready to move to a military base if the Army determines they are in “physical danger” following Vindman’s public impeachment hearing testimony.(Snip)But in a sobering development, the Army is concerned for the safety of Vondman and his family once he testifies publicly for the first time Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal: The U.S. Army is prepared to move Col. Vindman and his family onto a military base in the area to ensure their security if it is determined that they are in physical danger, according to U.S. officials.
Two corrections officers tasked with guarding Jeffrey Epstein at the time of his suicide are expected to be taken into custody Tuesday, according to sources familiar with the investigation. The two officers are expected to face charges related to accusations of falsifying prison records at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, where Epstein died on Aug. 10 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking. Both guards were working overtime at the time of the financier’s death and allegedly failed to check on Epstein every half-hour as they were required to do. The charges stem from the duo falsifying forms to claim
Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg's night-and-day campaigns in Iowa and South Carolina clearly show both why he's such a formidable opponent and also why he remains a longshot to win the nomination. In Iowa, he surged into first place after hitting Elizabeth Warren hard on how she would pay for her massive Medicare expansion. In South Carolina, he's navigating troubling accusations that his campaign grossly overstated black support for his sweeping platform for African Americans. Here's what it means in the short term. For the first time, he's going to have a target on his back when he walks onto the
Eric Ciaramella, whom Real Clear Investigations suggests is the likely so-called whistleblower, received emails about Ukraine policy from a top director at George Soros’s Open Society Foundations.
The emails informed Ciaramella and a handful of other Obama administration foreign policy officials about Soros’s whereabouts, the contents of Soros’s private meetings about Ukraine and a future meeting the billionaire activist was holding with the prime minister of Ukraine.
A primary recipient of the Open Society emails along with Ciaramella was then-Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who played a central role in the anti-Trump dossier affair. Nuland, with whom Ciaramella worked closely, received updates on Ukraine issues
One Life Is the Whole World
replies
Israel fascinates China. I spent most of last week in Israel with a group of Chinese experts visiting under the auspices of SIGNAL, an Israeli non-profit that sponsors dialogue with China. I've served on SIGNAL's Board of Advisers for the past five years and visited China several times in the company of prominent Israeli experts. This year's discussion was tense. As SIGNAL's executive director Carice Witte told Israel HaYom, “Our conference on Israel's China policy indicates that small and medium countries like Israel, Germany and South Korea, with representatives at the events are all feeling the challenge of the U.S. - China rivalry.
In an inexplicable move, Sprite has released a new commercial that has nothing to do with soda and everything to do with force-feeding the public transgender theology dressed up as love and acceptance. What this has to do with quenching thirst, I have no idea. [Tweet] Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire makes an interesting point. "Someone please explain the ethical difference between an ad that promotes breast binding and an ad that promotes anorexia. I bet you can't." First, both conditions are mental disorders. Body dysmorphia is nearly indistinguishable from gender dysphoria. Both people look into a mirror and see something that is not there,
Coup plotters know that a war with Russia will cost many lives, damage the U.S., world economies. It is a cynical, dangerous ploy that is unfolding before our eyes. They are prepared to risk war with Russia for the chance to deny Trump a second term.
In what was called a “strong message” to President Trump, the House of Representatives earlier this year passed the “NATO Support Act” by a vote of 357 to 22. That’s the template for what follows impeachment – voting Ukraine into NATO, provoking Russia, and sending American soldiers off to fight and die
As an outcome of the ridiculous wrongful termination lawsuit filed by former FBI Agent Peter Strzok, the DOJ provides the internal Office of Professional Responsibility report as part of their responsive filing.
The OPR report is the culmination of a two-month long internal investigation conducted in 2018. The OPR report contains several embarrassing details, including new text messages, about Peter Strzok during his FBI employment. The report is only public because it is part of a filing connected to his public lawsuit.Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Here’s the report:
Fresno police look into gang connection after
shooting at football party leaves 4 dead, 6 wounded replies
shooting at football party leaves 4 dead, 6 wounded replies
FRESNO, Calif. – Police are investigating whether there's a connection between an increase in local gang activity and the shooting Sunday night that left four people dead and six wounded at a backyard football-watching party. Law enforcement officials are attempting to prevent retaliation after an attack by at least two unidentified assailants in a residence populated by members of the Southeast Asian Hmong community, who have a large representation in the part of Fresno where the shooting occurred. There have been no arrests and the gunmen remain on the loose, police said. Fresno Police Chief Andrew Hall said there were 16
While intoning pious flapdoodle about his sacred duty to impeach and remove President Trump from office, it seems that God or else Eric Swalwell's digestive system had other plans for him. He let 'er rip, and it wasn't subtle. No one heard a thing he said either before or after that impressive digestive demonstration.
Which was fitting reminder to voters just how lightweight the first Democratic presidential debate dropout is, now that he's achieved a new reason to get his name in the news.
Swalwell seems to have done it with little effort to hold it in, which raises questions for the ace investigative reporters
Joe Biden leads most polls; Elizabeth Warren has sometimes been considered the real frontrunner; Pete Buttigieg is surging in Iowa. Where does that leave Bernie Sanders? I spoke with politics editor Ezekiel Kweku and senior writer Eric Levitz about whether the Vermont senator has been underestimated in recent weeks, and what his path to the nomination might look like. Ben: Just a few weeks ago, Bernie Sanders suffered a heart attack and told a reporter he’d be cutting back on his vigorous campaign schedule — a remark he quickly took back. Since then, he has shown no sign of physical
During the heyday of American vaudeville, the answer to the question “Will it play in Peoria?” determined whether a show would be a hit or a flop. It was generally understood that if the production wasn’t acceptable to those in heartland America, there was no chance it would succeed anywhere else in the country. So how is the Nancy Pelosi vaudeville production of “The Impeachment Follies” starring Adam Schiff and his merry mélange of marionettes playing in Peoria? Polling, which took place two weeks prior to the opening act of the public impeachment performance and more facts favorable to Trump thus being exposed, revealed some interesting results
Amid months of speculation, Stacey Abrams said that she would be “happy” to run for vice president alongside the Democratic nominee. Abrams is the 45-year-old former Democratic nominee for Georgia governor who lost a close race against Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in 2018. She has repeatedly tamped down rumors that a meeting she held in March with Joe Biden, 76, was to discuss running as his number two. Speaking at an event in Iowa on Monday, Abrams said that she would consider joining the ticket of whoever wins the nomination, according to the Daily Iowan. “You do not run in
Let’s be honest here. These impeachment hearings are a total waste of time. Even as a show trial. Not because President Donald Trump did nothing wrong. Actually, these days that doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? People know they know everything they want to know. This so-called “impeachment inquiry” is a waste of time because most Americans — especially House Democrats — have already made up their minds. Who needs evidence now when the real verdict on Trump won’t come down until
Common heart procedures such as stents and bypass surgery don't prevent heart attacks or deaths more often than cholesterol-lowering drugs and lifestyle changes for millions of Americans with stable heart disease, a new federally funded study shows.
Cardiologists often use invasive measures such as inserting stents to open clogged arteries or bypass operations to reroute blood around a blocked artery. But findings from the ISCHEMIA study, unveiled Saturday at the American Heart Association's annual meeting, found these procedures do not prevent heart attacks or deaths more effectively than medication and lifestyle changes.
The Supreme Court temporarily blocked a subpoena from the House Oversight Committee for President Trump’s financial records, Chief Justice John Roberts announced Monday.
Trump’s legal team had appealed a ruling from the D.C. Circuit appeals court allowing the April congressional subpoena to go into effect on Wednesday. The Supreme Court’s decision delays impeachment investigators’ request for the records while the high court weighs whether to take up the case.
The subpoena requires Trump’s longtime accounting firm Mazars USA to release eight years of the president’s financial documents.
That term refers to a controversial concept — and a salient one, given the Trump administration’s efforts to make it harder for immigrants to use welfare in the U.S. A new study finds that there’s something to it: Immigrants were more likely to come to Denmark when they could get more welfare there.
10
From the abstract:
We study the effects of welfare generosity on international migration using a series of large changes in welfare benefits for immigrants in Denmark. The first change, implemented in 2002, lowered benefits for immigrants from outside the EU by about 50%, with no changes for natives or immigrants from inside the EU
The Impeachment Clock
replies
Adam Schiff’s impeachment inquiry is incoherent. Given the impossibility of a senatorial conviction, the only strategy is to taint the president with the brand of impeachment and weaken him in the 2020 election.
Yet Schiff seems to have no sense that the worm has already turned. Far from tormenting Trump and the Republicans by a long-drawn-out Schiff extravaganza, Trump’s supporters are beginning to feel that the longer the farce, the better the optics. Polls show that Trump is almost back to where he was in popularity when Schiff unleashed his late-September Ukrainian caper. And the point, after all, was again to drive down Trump’s popularity and render him politically inert.
This is a time of great forgetting, and one of the things that has been forgotten is why we have a federal government and what it is there to do.
From Senator Marco Rubio and his “common-good capitalism” to Senator Elizabeth Warren and her “accountable capitalism,” politicians right and left who want politicians to have more power over private economic decisions assume a dilemma in which something called “capitalism” must be balanced against or made subordinate to something called the “common good.” This is the great forgetful stupidity of our time.
Capitalism is not a rival to the common good. Capitalism, meaning security in one’s own
When Students Can’t Get Emergency
Contraception From Vending Machines,
Sometimes There’s No Plan B replies
Contraception From Vending Machines,
Sometimes There’s No Plan B replies
In the spring of 2017, Emma Donnelly, a junior at the University of Southern Maine, read an article that inspired her to take action. Students at the University of California, Davis, had organized to get a vending machine on their campus that sold emergency contraceptives for half of what they cost at a typical drug store. To Donnelly, this seemed like a simple solution to a persistent problem on college campuses: how to get convenient, discreet, and affordable access to a potentially life-altering product. What she didn’t know was that bringing one of these machines to her school would take two years, a surprise
Rep. Matt Gaetz celebrated the news on Monday that the woman who threw a sports drink at him had been sentenced to 15 days in prison for the attack.
"Physical assault has no place in our political discourse," Gaetz said. "I am grateful that law enforcement and our judicial system recognized this principle today."
My statement in response to Amanda Kondrat'yev being sentenced to 15 days in jail and one year of probation: pic.twitter.com/RG8BuGWK40
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) November 18, 2019
During a campaign event in June, Amanda Kondrat'yev threw a red
Steve Bannon, Trump's former White House chief strategist, says he worked to remove alleged Ukraine whistleblower Eric Ciaramella from the National Security Council in 2017.
Bannon, who was fired by Trump in August 2017, said he shared Trump’s daughter Ivanka's views about the whistleblower’s identity not being particularly relevant but added that he had worked to kick Ciaramella off the NSC during Trump’s first year in office. Bannon did not name Ciaramella, a career CIA analyst, but clearly referred to him.
“I agree with Ivanka. I don’t think the individual naming of the whistleblower is important, although there was a story in the
On Thursday, thousands of guests gathered in Union Station to kick off the Federalist Society’s annual conference in an event famously coined the “Scalia Dinner,” a thoughtful nod to the late Supreme Court justice whose writings have served as the foundation of modern conservative jurisprudence.
But this year’s dinner was different from recent iterations. In addition to marking the inception of the National Lawyer’s Conference, it featured the first public speaking engagement of Justice Brett Kavanaugh since his contentious confirmation hearings last fall.
The Swamp’s Swingline Stapler
replies
In December 2008, Barack Obama summarily fired every ambassador appointed by George W Bush.
The media did not care for four reasons. First, it was Barack Obama. Second, they recognized that the president controls the executive branch. Third, it was a parting shiv to Bush. Finally, it was Barack Obama.
Whether any of the ousted diplomats cried is unknown.
But now in the Trump era, as Obama-era somnambulists awake every day to a new outrage that heretofore had been considered standard operating procedure inside the Beltway, a dismissed ambassador is given hours to vent her thoughts and feelz in front of one of Capitol Hill’s most powerful committees.
Questions of foreign policy, particularly those of war and peace, are among the most critical in politics. A lost war can destroy an empire and erase a nation. Victory can attain safety, security, and prosperity for many generations. An inconclusive campaign—such as our neverending stalemate in Afghanistan—can sap national confidence and shatter the minds and bodies of a generation of veterans.
Reasonable minds will differ about what the nation should do overseas and how it should be done. Facts, loyalties, priorities, and predictions all play a part. There are no guaranteed formulas for success. This is the fundamental nature of political questions.
Last week the public was treated to a show where long term bureaucrats and diplomats disagreed with Trump’s foreign policy and told us how they felt. What we didn’t hear was evidence of a crime, extortion, corruption or bribery which we have been told occurred.
It appears that only recently have journalists, bureaucrats, diplomats and other Democrats became concerned with the rule of law, national security, bribery, dissing allies, Ukraine, Russia, intimidation and abuse of power among other things of which they accuse Trump. Therefore, I have compiled a list of easy common-sense questions:
When President Obama backed out of our commitment to Poland and the Czech
Trump is 100% on His Game
replies
I thank God that President Trump is not like other Republicans.
It truly amazes me that many high-profile conservatives and Republicans still wish Trump would dial it back, not be so confrontational, and behave more presidentially. I feel like saying, “Are you guys nuts? Have you not been paying attention?” Desperate times require desperate measures. Donald Trump is God's perfect man in the White House for such a time as this.
Do these people who are supposedly on our side not understand what is at stake? If Trump is not reelected in 2020, Democrats will kill healthy babies even after they are born.
Only Trump can save the US now
replies
Americans need to acknowledge that impeachment is not about impeachment. It is about politically damaging Trump to the point where he will lose his bid for re-election in 2020.
Should they succeed, understanding the damage Democrats' impeachment fever will have wrought to the foundation of this nation is not something only supporters of the president need acknowledge. The Democrats must do so as well, because there will be repercussions that will rock the foundations of this nation. They need to see what's coming just as much as conservatives because what they have done to overthrow a duly elected president will reverberate throughout history.
Students at Grand Valley State University in Michigan voted last week to stop reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at student government meetings over concerns that it is discriminatory and oppressive.
According to a report by The College Fix, Grand Valley State University students voted last week to end their tradition of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before student government meetings. Student activists argued that the pledge was oppressive and discriminatory against international students. The students voted last week 22-10 in favor of the Pledge ban.
New focus group data collected by a key group supporting President Donald Trump show that Democrats are losing ground with swing voters when it comes to their impeachment agenda—and when it comes to presidential candidates’ leftist policies.
America First Policies, the president’s official Super PAC, gave Breitbart News on Monday an exclusive sneak peek at findings from its focus group work nationwide in the last month. The organization has now conducted 18 separate focus groups in nine different American cities since late October.
Those cities include Des Moines, Iowa, Orlando, Florida, Charlotte, North Carolina, Phoenix, Arizona, Miami, Florida, Atlanta, Georgia, Columbus, Ohio,
Democrats’ efforts to impeach President Donald Trump are going over with the public like a juicy, wet fart.
Seriously. Such wind was broken live on MSNBC on Monday night on the eve of the Democrats’ next round of impeachment hearings on Tuesday, where a Democrat Congressman helping lead the charge for impeachment was being interviewed by a network host. Then, mid-interview, a loud fart broke out on air.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) denied Monday evening that it was he who ripped the massive fart live on MSNBC during an interview with Chris Matthews on Hardball.
Meanwhile, Matthews and MSNBC remain silent on whether they are owning up to the blast of flatulence
GOP Targeting Vulnerable Pro-Impeachment
Democrats in Trump-Won Districts with $7
Million Ad Blitz replies
Democrats in Trump-Won Districts with $7
Million Ad Blitz replies
The GOP is aiming to expose the Democrat impeachment inquiry as a partisan bust, launching a coordinated, multimillion-dollar ad blitz targeting pro-impeachment lawmakers serving in districts that President Trump won in 2016.
The GOP is, figuratively, dropping bombs on House Democrats, launching a $7 million coordinated anti-impeachment campaign spanning across 37 vulnerable districts. The massive campaign, which brands impeachment as a “politically motivated charade,” is coordinated by the American Action Network. The group works with other “like-minded groups” and describes its mission as putting “center-right ideas into action by engaging the hearts and minds of the American people and spurring them into active participation in our democracy.”
Does anyone really believe the conclusion of Democrats’ impeachment “inquiry” isn’t predetermined? President Trump was guilty the moment he won the 2016 election — guilty of denying Democrats the massive spoils of federal power. Every moment since has just been searching for a pretext to remove him from office without an actual election. First Spygate, now the “impeachment inquiry.”
So it’s no surprise that just 13 million viewers tuned in for the first day of televised impeachment hearings last Wednesday, many fewer than for the Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford hearings last fall (20 million viewers) and for James Comey’s Russiagate testimony
The Clinton Foundation reported a loss of more than $16 million in 2018, according to newly released tax records, marking the second consecutive year of losses since Hillary Clinton's humiliating defeat to President Donald J. Trump in 2016.
The foundation reported total revenue of just $30.7 million, including $24.2 million worth of grants and contributions, a record low for the alleged "charity." That figure was well short of the foundation's total expenses for the year—$47.5 million— resulting in a net loss of $16.8 million.
The previous year, the Clinton Foundation reported a net loss of $16.1 million. In total, the organization has lost a staggering $32.9 million
An illegal alien living in Pennsylvania is accused of killing a Vietnam War Veteran the day before Veterans Day, according to law enforcement officials.
Nemias Perez Severiano, a 31-year-old illegal alien from Mexico, is accused of killing Samuel Jackson, a disabled 69-year-old who served as a Marine in the Vietnam War, the day before Veterans Day this year in Norristown, Pennsylvania, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office.
On November 10, police said Severiano was driving drunk when he hit and killed Jackson before fleeing the scene of the accident. According to court records obtained by CBS Philly,
Who Owns FedEx?
replies
You may have seen (or heard on a podcast) that Fred Smith so vehemently objects to the New York Times report contending that FedEx paid nothing in federal taxes that he’s challenged New York Times publisher A. G. Sulzberger to a public debate and pointed out that “the New York Times paid zero federal income tax in 2017 on earnings of $111 million, and only $30 million in 2018 – 18% of their pretax book income.”
Notice the Times article implicitly argues that company revenue going to shareholders is inherently something bad or unjust:
Much of its [tax cut] savings have gone to reward shareholders:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared today that the U.S. does not regard Israeli settlements on the West Bank as illegal. He thus reversed the position taken by former Secretary of State John Kerry in the dying days of the Obama administration.
Pompeo explained that, after carefully studying the issue, he concluded that President Reagan got it right when he found that the settlements are not illegal. Reagan had reversed the position taken by the Carter administration.
Both important sides of the political divide in Israel applauded Pompeo’s decision. Prime Minister Netanyahu said:
This policy reflects an historical truth – that the Jewish people
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s suggestion that President Trump emulate President Nixon and resign is, in our opinion, a shocking démarche unworthy of her office. And a glimpse into the predicament of the Democrats, who, though they began beating the drums for impeachment more than three years ago, still don’t seem to know what charges to lay against the president.
Mrs. Pelosi hauled out Nixon in her interview on the Columbia Broadcasting System, where Margaret Brennan asked the speaker whether the President would get, “as he says,” to “confront his accuser.” The question was met with a slippery evasion that began with Mrs. Pelosi snapping, “What do you mean
The Democratic National Committee and the news organization Politico are locked in an argument over the ideological credentials of a proposed moderator for next month's Democratic debate, sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.
Politico and PBS are scheduled to co-host the sixth Democratic primary debate on Dec. 19 in Los Angeles.
At the behest of its publisher, Robert Allbritton, Politico is pushing for Tim Alberta, the chief political correspondent for Politico Magazine, to join journalists from PBS Newshour at the moderators' desk. The top PBS journalists under consideration are Judy Woodruff, Yamiche Alcindor and Amna Nawaz.
As I’ve written repeatedly in this space, President Obama not only honored traitors at the White House but also pardoned those who would betray our nation’s secrets. Yet the Obama-Biden administration, while asking our young soldiers to make split-second life-and-death battlefield decisions hampered by absurd rules of engagement, had no qualms about zapping terrorists from the sky via drone-launched missiles, risking the lives of nearby civilians and killing an American citizen. During it all, Joe Biden was silent.
Burger King was sued on Monday by a vegan customer who accused the fast-food chain of contaminating its meatless “Impossible” Whoppers by cooking them on the same grills as its traditional meat burgers. In a proposed class action, Phillip Williams said he bought an Impossible Whopper, a plant-based alternative to Burger King’s regular Whopper, at an Atlanta drive-through, and would not have paid a premium price had he known the cooking would leave it “coated in meat by-products.”
The lawsuit filed in Miami federal court seeks damages for all U.S. purchasers of the Impossible Whopper, and an injunction requiring Burger King to “plainly disclose”
President Donald Trump has been relying on well-timed tweets to counter developments in the House impeachment inquiry. Perhaps Trump should follow the approach of the 42nd president to overshadow events on Capitol Hill.
The full release of the Hollywood film Wag the Dog occurred on January 9, 1998, several days before the American public learned that President Bill Clinton had been carrying on a sexual affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Starring Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, Wag the Dog was the story of a presidential sex scandal that was certain to derail the president’s reelection. A White House dirty trickster, played by De Niro,
State Attorney General Letitia James was quite proud of herself for winning a $2 million judgment against President Trump for misusing his Trump Foundation charity. But surely the Rev. Al Sharpton’s nonprofit merits similar scrutiny.
As The Post’s Melissa Klein and Georgett Roberts reported last weekend, Sharpton sucked in more than $1 million last year from his National Action Network charity: salary of $324,000, a $160,000 bonus and $563,000 in “other compensation” — which NAN says it owed him for a stretch from 2004 to 2017 when it supposedly underpaid him.
NAN claims it hired an executive-compensation firm that found it shorted him $1.25 million over those years.
The United States has warned its citizens to stay away from the lawless border state of Tamaulipas, assigning the area in Mexico the same alert level given to war-torn countries such as Afghanistan and Syria.
It’s here where many migrants who made it to the United States to ask for asylum have been kept in limbo.
Tamaulipas is both the location of most illegal crossings and the state where the United States has returned the most asylum seekers — 20,700 as of early October.
Migrants have remained there at the crossroads of Tamaulipas for weeks and sometimes months awaiting their U.S. court dates.
DOJ outlines slew of Strzok
'security violations,' says
wife learned of affair
through unsecured phone replies
'security violations,' says
wife learned of affair
through unsecured phone replies
The Department of Justice released documents Monday outlining a slew of what it called "unprofessional conduct" and overt "security violations" committed by anti-Trump ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok -- including his alleged practice of keeping sensitive FBI documents on his unsecured personal electronic devices, even as his wife allegedly gained access to his cell phone and discovered evidence that he was having an affair with former FBI attorney Lisa Page.
The DOJ was seeking to dismiss Peter Strzok’s lawsuit claiming he was unfairly fired from the FBI and deserves to be reinstated. In its filing, the DOJ included an August 2018 letter to Strzok from the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility
We like to think of military officers as political eunuchs, but that fairy tale is a smug myth. No American government institutions, including the military services, thrive or survive in Washington without vigorous internal and external political engagement.
Outspoken flag officers have several things in common. Soldiers with integrity, vision, and conscience honor the wall between political and partisan, the ethic that allows for a distinction between policy differences, honorable service, and sedition. That ethic has been eroded by the post-Vietnam era class of flag officer. Consider a sampling of contemporary military officers whose behavior today is a toxic echo of George McClellan’s ugly Civil War sedition,