Posts on Friday, December 6, 2019
Fashion Notes: Melania Trump Brings Holiday
Smiles to Children’s Hospital in
Leopard Stilettos replies
Smiles to Children’s Hospital in
Leopard Stilettos replies
First Lady Melania Trump brought holiday smiles as she visited the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. on Friday to read a Christmas story to children with various illnesses. Melania Trump wore a simple dark brown knitted turtleneck with an eye-popping Prada turquoise skirt and a thick brown leather belt — a mix of Bottega Veneta and Ralph Lauren. On her feet, Mrs. Trump chose a pair of stand-out leopard print pointed toe stilettos by Christian Louboutin. Children gathered around Mrs. Trump as she shook hands and read the book “Oliver the Ornament Meets Belle” alongside kids like Sammie Burley and Declan McCahan whom she greeted with smiles and hugs.
Thou shalt not covet
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Not many people think of the Ten Commandments these days, unless some group is trying to fight a legal battle to place them on public property.(Snip)When considering the "wealth tax" proposed by presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, the 10th Commandment is particularly relevant: "Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's."One definition of "covet" is: "to desire wrongfully, inordinately, or without due regard for the rights of others: to covet another's property."
Trump Job Numbers vs Trudeau’s
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Trump Job Numbers vs Trudeau’sWe all have been inundated by the left’s unpatriotic crowing about the alleged disrespect European leaders have for our President. As covered by Red State’s T. LaDuke, Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada appeared to be making fun of President Trump as he engaged with the media.Various platforms have carried the story, using it to advance the meme that Trump is incompetent and causing the World to lose respect for America. At the same time, others have continued to decry the “Trump Trade War” with China. It looks like a number of folks continue to get it wrong.
The Supreme Court has taken up the question of whether homeless people have the constitutional right to sleep on the sidewalk. The justices on Friday were scheduled to hear an appeal of a controversial ruling last year by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, according to the Los Angeles Times. In the ruling, Judge Marsha Berzon banned cities from prosecuting homeless people for living on the streets. Berzon ruled that charging homeless people with a crime for sleeping on the sidewalk is cruel and unusual punishment if the city in which homeless people live does not offer enough shelters as an alternative.
The Supreme Court on Friday blocked the Trump administration from resuming federal executions in an attempt to put to death four convicted murderers. The executions were slated to begin next week. The justices upheld a lower court ruling imposed last month after inmates claimed executions by lethal injection would violate federal law. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, D.C., had imposed a temporary injunction on executions, saying they would conflict with federal law. That ruling was upheld Monday by a three-judge federal appeals court.
Four people are dead, including the assailant, after a shooting at a U.S. Navy base in Pensacola, Fla., on Friday. According to anonymous officials and Gov. Ron DeSantis, the suspect was a Saudi Arabian national in the U.S. for flight school.
That sounds familiar... Nineteen of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian nationals, and most came to the U.S. for flight training. Three hijacker-pilots, Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah flew to south Florida for fight training about a year before the horrific September 11, 2001 attacks.
Sean Davis, co-founder of the Federalist, noted the eerie similarity. "Just spitballing here, but maybe it’s time
Greta Thunberg, the famous 16-year-old Swedish activist, attended COP25 before a scheduled climate change protest in Madrid and Santiago, Chile's captial. Thunberg, along with three other activists, spoke at a news conference before thousands of people were expected to march in the streets of both cities. (Snip) "The only thing we want to see is real action and real action has not been happening, so of course we have achieved a lot, but if you look at it from a certain point of view, we have achieved nothing," she said. She pointed to the fact that CO2 emissions haven't decreased despite growing awareness of the issue.
Six Saudi nationals have been arrested after an Air Force trainee - also from Saudi Arabia - opened fire at a naval base in Florida, killing three people and injuring eight.
The men were detained near the scene of the shooting, which took place at Naval Air Station in Pensacola early Friday morning. It is currently unclear why they have been arrested.
Three of the six Saudis were seen filming the entire incident as it unfolded, a source told The New York Times on Friday evening.
(Snip)
Authorities are probing whether the incident is terror-related. The shooter, who was shot dead by police, was first identified
US President Donald Trump earlier considered designating as terrorist organizations Mexican drug cartels operating near the US border and reportedly engaging in the human-trafficking of Central American migrants.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador earlier asked his American counterpart to halt a decision to add drug criminals to the US list of terror organizations. Trump said Friday that he would suspend the enactment of his earlier decree. (Tweet) (Snip) Earlier, Trump argued in separate statements that US forces were available to "help in cleaning out these monsters" adding that Washington only waited for Mexico's invitation.
President Trump has been granted a temporary victory in his effort to shield his financial records from House Democrats, and by an unlikely source — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
Ginsberg on Friday temporarily blocked a subpoena for President Trump’s financial records issued by a lower court, a report said.
The stay granted by Ginsberg will hold the release of Trump’s records held by Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp (Snip) The stay issued by Ginsberg on Friday will now go under full review by the Supreme Court. Ginsberg’s decision does not mean the finance records will be permanently hidden from House investigators.
Washington - Congress is nearing a deal on paid parental leave for federal employees, according to four sources familiar with the negotiations. It's a significant development for government workers but one that highlights the disparity with most American workers, who still aren’t given paid leave.
The agreement would give 2.1 million non-military federal workers 12 weeks of paid leave to care for a newborn or adopted child or to care for a family member, according to sources familiar with the details of the discussions. If passed, the bill would the become first time the federal government has guaranteed civilian employees access to paid parental leave.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has faced criticism from prominent Republican lawmakers and President Donald Trump for the way she has led the impeachment inquiry, but her daughter said that her mother’s actions are an attempt to tell women to “define yourself.”
“That is what she is now — telling women ‘reclaim yourself. Don’t be defined by other people’s expectations or mischaracterizations of you,’ ” Christine Pelosi said to CNN’s Brooke Baldwin on “Newsroom” Friday.
Christine Pelosi’s comments come a day after the speaker pushed back a Sinclair reporter who asked whether she hates Trump, issuing a scathing warning: “Don’t mess with me.”
Joe Biden’s challenger at an Iowa town hall turned out to be a Marine veteran who thinks the Democratic presidential candidate has a “wet noodle for a backbone.”The 83-year-old was called a “damn liar” by the former vice president at a forum in New Hampton after he confronted him about his son Hunter’s job at a Ukrainian gas company. (Photo) “I’m positive 90 percent of the people there didn’t know about his son working on the board in Ukraine. I wanted it brought out there,” Merle Gorman said of the exchange.“If it educated them a little bit, so be it,” the Marine Corps veteran and retired farmer added. “I’m glad
Fans are raving over this local
hardware store’s $130 commercial:
‘Best Christmas ad of the year’ replies
hardware store’s $130 commercial:
‘Best Christmas ad of the year’ replies
Fans couldn’t get enough of a local hardware store’s holiday commercial and are dubbing the adorable spot the “best Christmas ad of the year.”
Spending less than $150 to create the viral ad, Hafod Hardware -- a family-owned business in Rhayader, Wales --premiered the ad on Monday and was immediately inundated with praise for its quality and creativity, given its budget.
The ad shows two-year-old Arthur managing the hardware shop owned by his father, Tom Jones; it follows the boy as he goes about the day-to-day duties operating the family business as the shop’s “owner.”
Arthur wakes up and gets himself ready for the day ahead
Former Vice President Joe Biden conceded Friday that he should not have challenged an Iowa voter to a push-up contest during an angry exchange in which he mocked the man as a “damn liar” and “fat.” During a town hall in New Hampton, Biden became angry when a farmer pressed him about allegations of corruption against his son, Hunter Biden, whose lucrative board membership at Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy firm, is the center of a Senate investigation. The voter, who declined to give his name, pressed Biden on why it was acceptable for Hunter to capitalize
An impeachment trial in the Republican-led Senate is largely expected to fail but that may not stop some Democrats from pushing for another impeachment after President Trump's would-be reelection in 2020.
"If the Senate doesn’t vote to convict Trump, or tries to monkey w his trial, he could of course be retried in the new Senate should he win re-election," tweeted Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general under former President Obama.
"Double jeopardy protections do not apply," he added, referring to the principle that suspects can't be tried twice for the same crime. "And Senators voting on impeachment in the next months know this."
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump said on Friday he has directed his environmental regulators to find answers to what he considers a big problem - water-conserving showers, faucets and toilets that restrict their flow to a dribble. (Photo) “We have a situation where we’re looking very strongly at sinks and showers and other elements of bathrooms ... where ... you don’t get any water,” Trump told a meeting of small business leaders at the White House in a complaint about low-water flow.He said the Environmental Protection Agency was looking “very strongly at my suggestion.”
On Dec. 18, 1998, when the House of Representatives was debating whether to impeach President Bill Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) declared on the House floor that the impeachment was “a punishment searching for a crime that does not exist” and was happening “because the Republicans in the House are paralyzed with hatred of president Clinton.”“I urge my colleagues to vote no, stop this hatchet job on the presidency,” Pelosi said then. “Stop this hypocrisy. Stop this hatred. Vote no on all four counts.”
The White House told House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler on Friday that neither President Donald Trump nor his attorneys will participate in Monday's blockbuster impeachment hearing, according to two U.S. officials.Trump's team drove the point home with a letter to Nadler and the commmittee's ranking Republican, Doug Colline. 'Your impeachment inquiry is completely baseless and has violated basic principles of due process and fundamental fairness,' White House Counsel Pat Cipollone wrote.Cipollone blasted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for telling her caucus on Thursday to proceed with articles of impeachment before Judiciary members
It seems as if every month we have at least one news cycle dedicated entirely to singing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s praises, lauding her all the way as a fierce icon of style and politics.You can practically set your watch to it. We are seeing another round of Pelosi hero-worship this week from our firefighting news media following her announcement that she had asked the “chairman to proceed with the articles of impeachment” against President Trump.“The president has engaged in abuse of power, undermining our national security and jeopardizing the integrity of our elections,” the speaker maintained during a news conference.Members of the press wasted no time
When the global elite are aligned against him and laughing like the immature cool kids you hated in middle school, President Donald Trump is winning
When the liberal law professors are neglecting their Thanksgiving turkeys to read congressional transcripts and snarking about Trump's 13-year old son, Trump is winning.
When the politicians are mad — so mad that they have shut down all policymaking to impeach the President of the United States on what constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley called "wafer thin" evidence —Trump is winning.
The United States Military Academy has ditched an acronym used by the Army Black Knights over the phrase’s ties to white supremacist gangs, officials said. The acronym GFBD—“God forgives, brothers don’t”—was removed from merchandise and a team flag after West Point officials and athletic department administrators were alerted to the issue in September, ESPN reports. Head football coach Jeff Monken was “mortified” when he was told of the phrase’s origin and addressed the team after learning of the connection, telling players it would immediately be removed from the program. “It’s embarrassing, quite frankly,” Lt. Gen. Darryl Williams, the US Military Academy’s superintendent,
Pundits have a ready explanation when one of their favorites loses or ends a campaign: The voters just didn't get to know the candidate the way media do. He or she was too wonky, or eager to please, or insular, or revealing, or uncertain for the masses. The electoral process made it impossible for him or her to connect with voters. The classic example is Hillary Clinton, who has reintroduced herself to the public umpteen times over the decades. A friend who knows her once told me I would like Clinton if only I got to meet her informally. I had a good laugh at that one.
A similar lament
Surf the conservative websites, and you'll find endless articles and comments asking, "Why do the Democrats hate Trump so much? Why are they so hell-bent on impeaching him?" Until the past year, there really wasn't any explanation out there, but with what we've learned since 2018 from FBI texts, tapes, and emails, as well as other disclosures, a wide, sweeping campaign to undermine a Trump presidency was in the works well before he was even elected. Why is that?
To answer that, we need to consider what it was about Hillary Clinton winning in 2016 that was so crucial to Democrats that the Obama administration's CIA
An 18-year-old Riverside Brookfield High School student charged with sending bomb and shooting threats to school staff told investigators he did it because he was “bored,” police say.
The student was arrested at school Tuesday and charged with felony counts of disorderly conduct, cyberstalking and harassment, Riverside police said in a statement.
“While these threats were ultimately found to be groundless, they were not only criminal in nature but also created a great deal of stress (Snip) Police said they had trouble finding a suspect because of the student’s “vast knowledge of computer systems,” and enlisted the expertise of the FBI, which last week traced the messages to the teen’s home
More than 500 legal scholars have signed on to an open letter asserting that President Trump committed “impeachable conduct” and that lawmakers would be acting well within their rights if they ultimately voted to remove him from office. The signers are law professors and other academics from universities across the country, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan and many others. The open letter was published online Friday by the nonprofit advocacy group Protect Democracy. “There is overwhelming evidence that President Trump betrayed his oath of office by seeking to use presidential power to pressure a foreign government
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg referred to New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, a black opponent for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, as "well spoken," a comment that, like Joe Biden's 2007 faint praise of rival Barack Obama as "articulate and bright," drew criticism. Bloomberg, 77, addressed the presidential prospects of Booker, 50, in a CBS interview aired Friday morning. Before winning his Senate seat in a 2013 special election, Booker was mayor of Newark, just west of New York City.
“Cory Booker endorsed me a number of times, and I endorsed Cory Booker a number of times. He’s
The show is over. Articles of impeachment are about to be drafted.
The House’s televised public impeachment inquiry has been a long, painful and sometimes funny — as in “laugh until you cry” funny — slog. Now it’s time for The People to decide. At least, that’s what would happen in a scripted series with no basis in reality: TV justice, meted out by folks just like us, and in under an hour, is way sexier than a party-line vote.
But as senators prepare for the trial that would follow a House vote, it’s still unclear whether the viewers — sorry, citizens — in our televised democracy were persuaded one way or
Chairman Nadler Schedules Next
Impeachment Hearing Dec. 9th –
Same Date IG Report is Released… replies
Impeachment Hearing Dec. 9th –
Same Date IG Report is Released… replies
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler has announced the date for the next impeachment hearing. The date is Monday, December 9th – 2019 It appears from the announcement the HJC hearing will be set up to receive the impeachment recommendation(s) from Adam Schiff and the House Intelligence Committee: (Snip)
Monday December 9th, is also the same date that IG Horowitz is expected to release the results of the 21-month-long FISA investigation.
Two days later on Wednesday December 11th, Michael Horowitz will be testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his investigation…. Therefore we can expect Nadler, Pelosi and Lawfare to schedule another House event for Wednesday Dec. 11th.
After the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the Trump administration is planning on sending as many as 14,000 additional troops to the Middle East, Department of Defense officials made contradictory statements on the Pentagon’s plans.
The Department of Defense Press Secretary Alyssa Farah tweeted Wednesday that the reporting is wrong. “The U.S. is not considering sending 14,000 additional troops to the Middle East,” (Snip) The direct answer I’d give you, Senator, is that we’re always considering and in fact based on the threat situation in the Middle East are watching that and as necessary the Secretary of Defense has told me he intends to make changes
Washington - A U.S. official says the Florida Naval station shooting suspect was an aviation student from Saudi Arabia and authorities are investigating if the shooting was terrorism-related.
Military from around the globe attend the Naval Air Station in Pensacola.
The shooter opened fire in a classroom building on Friday morning. The attack that left four people dead, including the assailant, and multiple people wounded.
The shooting was the second at a U.S. Navy base this week. (More to follow.)
Bernie Sanders unveiled a plan Friday to expand broadband internet access as part of a push to boost the economy and reduce corporate power over Americans.
In his sprawling “High-Speed Internet for All” proposal, the Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate calls to treat internet like a public utility. His campaign argues that the internet should not be a “price gouging profit machine” for companies such as Comcast, AT&T and Verizon.
Sanders’ plan would create $150 billion in grants and aid for local and state governments to build publicly owned broadband networks as part of the Green New Deal infrastructure initiative.
This week in the impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, released his report on the inquiry to date. The report included records of telephone calls of President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and another man, Lev Parnas, who was reportedly assisting Giuliani in his investigation of alleged activities in Ukraine or by Ukrainians to interfere in the 2016 election. These records included calls allegedly with Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the ranking minority member on the Intelligence Committee, and John Solomon, a prominent journalist.
Americans began querying how Schiff could have obtained the phone call records for the report.
Former President Barack Obama’s “body man” Reggie Love endorsed Mayor Pete Buttigieg for president on Thursday.
“A lot of what is said about Pete echoes what critics said about presidential candidate Barack Obama — too young, too different, maybe another time — but I believe there is never a better time to fight for change than right now,” Love said in a statement reported by CNN.
Donald Trump denied Thursday night that he plans to deploy 12,000 uniformed servicemen and women to Saudi Arabia, refuting a specific set of facts that no one in major news media had laid out. (Snip) The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the Pentagon was considering a plan to send 14,000 troops and dozens of U.S. Navy ships to the Middle East—part of a strategy to counter regional threats from Iran.
The news cycle evolved Thursday. Testifying before Congress, John Rood, the under secretary of defense for policy, denied the Journal's report but didn't present an alternative number. By day's end, unnamed officials were telling reporters to expect
As the House impeachment of President Donald Trump becomes more of a forgone political conclusion it’s worth considering what terms and conditions Senate Leader Mitch McConnell will extract in order to preserve a Trump Presidency.Most political pundits will not correctly outline the status of the possibilities, because most political pundits are willfully blind to the structure of the McConnell Senate.
First, McConnell doesn’t care about holding a majority position in the Senate. Whether he is a majority leader or a minority leader doesn’t matter to McConnell. In fact McConnell’s political skill-set does better in the minority than the majority.
An on-duty NYPD officer suffered injuries Thursday after chomping on a razor blade stuffed inside a sandwich he’d just bought from a Queens deli, sources told The Post.
The nasty surprise was tucked inside the sandwich he’d purchased around 4:30 p.m. from Bon Appetit Specialty Food Store on Beach 129th Street in Belle Harbor. The officer, who was in plainclothes at the time and assigned to the critical response command in the counter-terrorism bureau, suffered a small cut in his mouth and was treated at Nassau University Medical Center.
House Judiciary Committee ranking member Doug Collins, R-Ga., says he has tried in vain to get an idea of how the panel will proceed in the impeachment process -- but claims the committee's Democratic chairman won't keep him informed. In fact, Collins told Laura Ingraham Thursday on "The Ingraham Angle" that Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., even hung up on him when he called Nadler to get information. "He never gets back to me," Collins said. "I'm trying to get a definition of what's going on -- 'Don't worry Doug, we'll talk to you.' Just the other day as I was trying to get information from him,
A family thought thought their home had been ransacked by burglars — but it turns out it was an inside job.
A Cocker Spaniel puppy named Dory trashed the joint while her humans were out shopping, turning the “when the cat’s away” cliché on it’s head. (Snip) That’s when they noticed the “nibble marks” on everything — and realized Dory had quite the afternoon. The 11-month-old pup had emptied the kitchen cupboards and garbage can, littering the home with trash, biscuits, assorted chocolates and cooking utensils. “Dory is just a full-time nutcase who enjoys causing havoc,” Dylan, a 21-year-old medical biochemistry student, told Caters News.
Nancy Pelosi is going to impeach Donald Trump, the duly-elected president of the United States, based on what we now know is a hoax.
This is unbelievable.
Because there are no witnesses to anything close to any kind of presidential wrongdoing — and no, sorry, but a mob of smug and bitter bureaucrats — even in full-dress uniform — do not count as witnesses…
Because there is no actual evidence of anything close to any kind of presidential wrongdoing — and no, sorry, but Judge Napolitano’s hairline and Jake Tapper’s resting bitchface do not count as evidence…
Because Democrats have exactly squat to impeach Trump with…
The policy that allowed Virginia prison officials to strip search minors has been suspended by Gov. Ralph Northam.
“I am deeply disturbed by these reports — not just as governor but as a pediatrician and a dad,” he said in a statement to The Virginian-Pilot. “I’ve directed the Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security to suspend this policy while the department conducts an immediate investigation and review of their procedures.”
An 8-year-old girl was strip searched in late November (Snip) The girl was accompanied by her father’s girlfriend, who is not her legal guardian. If they refused to be searched, they could have been banned from the prison.
Teachers Ask SCOTUS to Review Law
Allowing Union to Condition Say in
Workplace Rights on Membership replies
Allowing Union to Condition Say in
Workplace Rights on Membership replies
The National Right to Work (NRTW) Legal Defense Foundation has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case of four Massachusetts teachers who are asking the high Court to review a state law that allows a union to block non-members from having a voice in workplace conditions (tweet) Branch v. Commonwealth Employment Relations Board involves lead plaintiff Dr. Ben Branch, a finance professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and three other educators. According to NRTW, the teachers are “challenging the application of the state’s monopoly bargaining law for its educational system as a violation of their Constitutional rights.”
Oscar-winning actress and climate activist Emma Thompson has seen the future and behold, it is grim. She warned Thursday the “climate crisis” means Britons must prepare for “crop failures” and the prospect of eating their own pets to survive a future of cataclysmic weather events, great suffering and injustice.
The star, 60, spoke outside the BBC Broadcasting House in central London at an Extinction Rebellion protest to deliver her warning to followers, claiming “general consensus does suggest there is an imminent crisis forecast.”
As she braced herself in front of two maps, held up by activists in swimming cap and goggles, that showed areas at risk of flooding by 2030,
Don’t bet against the attractiveness of platitudes, sanctimony, and a vague promise of refreshing the American spirit. It worked in 2008. But Barack Obama had a global financial crisis and war weariness to run against. He also had a way with the electorate. Does Pete Buttigieg? His elevator pitch to American voters is essentially “Obama, But Gay.” Some recent polls have him leading in both Iowa and New Hampshire. His strength seems mainly an indicator of the comically obvious weaknesses of the party’s three stumblin’ septuagenarian front-runners, yet his base of college-educated white Democratic-primary voters were the first ones to get really excited about Obama, even before black voters did.
The imaginary recession of 2019 is over.
The U.S. economy added 266,000 jobs for the month and the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent, matching the lowest level in 50 years.
Economists had expected the economy to add 180,000 jobs and for unemployment to remain unchanged at 3.6 percent, according to Econoday.
Adding to the picture of strength for the labor market, previous jobs numbers were revised up. September’s figure was revised up by 13,000 to 193,000. October was revised up by 28,000 to 156,000. Together, that adds 41,000 more jobs than previously reported.
The Friday report on nonfarm payrolls makes it clear that the economy is much stronger than
Three people are dead including the suspect after an active shooting incident at a naval base in Pensacola, Florida, police said.
Authorities responded to reports of a shooting at Naval Air Station Pensacola on Friday morning, officials said. ATF and FBI also responded to the scene. (Tweet) “There was an active shooter incident at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Pensacola, Florida this morning. The base remains on lockdown. The shooter is confirmed deceased, and two additional fatalities are confirmed," the Navy said in a statement. "Multiple injured personnel have been transported to local hospitals. We will continue to work closely with law enforcement agencies."
Two House Democrats who represent Trump districts voted against formalizing the House impeachment probe back in October. Jeff Van Drew, 66, a freshman who represents New Jersey’s 2nd Congressional District, and Collin Peterson of Minnesota, 75, a conservative Democrat who represents Minnesota’s 7th District, were the only two lawmakers from either party to cross the aisle.President Trump carried Rep. Collin Peterson’s district by nearly 31 points in 2016.On Thursday Michigan Democrat Dan Kildee signaled he may abandon Pelosi’s sinking ship. Kildee said his constituents
House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has done almost exactly what he and fellow Democrats accuse President Donald Trump (falsely) of doing: he abused his power to ask an outside entity to investigate political opponents. Schiff subpoenaed phone records from AT&T that he then used to claim his Republican counterpart, Ranking Member Rep. Devin Nunes (D-CA), was part of a plot to smear a U.S. ambassador.What Schiff did is arguably worse than what he claims Trump did in his telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The imaginary recession of 2019 is over.The U.S. economy added 266,000 jobs for the month and the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent, matching the lowest level in 50 years.Economists had expected the economy to add 187,000 jobs and for unemployment to remain unchanged at 3.6 percent, according to Econoday.Adding to the picture of strength for the labor market, previous jobs numbers were revised up. September’s figure was revised up by 13,000 to 193,000. October was revised up by 28,000 to 156,000. Together, that adds 41,000 more jobs than previously reported.The Friday report on nonfarm payrolls makes it clear that the economy is much stronger
A village in Russia's Far North has been overrun by more than 50 polar bears.
All public activities have reportedly been called off in Ryrkaypiy, in the Chukotka region, and schools are being guarded so that the bears don't wander inside. Tatyana Minenko, head of Ryrkaypiy's bear patrol program, told Ria Novosti, a Russian state news agency, that they had counted 56 polar bears in the village.
The animals were "both adult and young... there were females with cubs of different ages," she said, adding that almost all of them appeared to be thin.
Joe Biden is probably the unfittest candidate out there.
Confronted by a skeptical independent voter about his corrupt dealings with Ukrainian gas company Burisma, and the icky spectacle of his son with his hand out following him in his capacity as vice president wherever he went, Biden flew into a rage against the man, an 83-year-old retired Iowa farmer with the central casting name of Merle Gorman. Biden not only failed to answer the man's question, his response was to attack him, not once, but three times, for being fat.
Sen. Kamala Harris would have been an excellent president. But it was never going to happen. The elephant in the room was just too big.
She is a woman and she is black. And in the aftermath of Donald Trump, she never had a chance at gaining the kind of broad support needed to keep her campaign financially viable. That’s why she abruptly withdrew from the race on Tuesday.
America isn’t progressive enough to elect a black woman as head of state, any more than it was when Shirley Chisholm ran in 1972. It’s questionable whether our country can elect a woman, period.
Nancy Pelosi transparently announced a coup against President Trump on Thursday morning, Dec. 5, 2019, a date which will live in political infamy.
There was never any doubt that the House of Representatives will vote on a strictly partisan basis to impeach the president, but it could not have been foreseen that Pelosi would frame that approaching act as a naked power grab. Yet that is exactly what she did.
In opening her announcement to draft impeachment charges by quoting the Declaration of Independence, she acknowledged more plainly than ever before that she is taking a revolutionary act, that she is overthrowing the established order
If you are planning to donate to Austin’s less fortunate this winter, you might want to reconsider your gift selections to avoid spreading Christmas waste in place of holiday cheer.
It’s true those living on the streets have many needs during the winter, such as blankets, gloves, jackets and hats, but some local nonprofits say many of the presents passed out of car windows at stoplights become burdens for those to whom they are given.
"We know it comes from good intentions and kindhearted people, but if you have to carry everything you own with you every day, you really have to make a decision
Trump Negates A Nasty Narrative
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Remember journalism? This was an archaic art form once practiced by investigative reporters who tried to discover the truth and then inform others of what they found. While true objectivity is a mirage or an historian’s joke, once upon a time there were people who attempted to present the facts and then allow readers, viewers, or listeners to decide for themselves. We called them jour·nal·ists. In today’s hyper-partisan world of Spy vs. Spy corporate tit-for-tat attack media, true journalism has been abandoned. People like James O’Keefe of Project Veritas who actually investigate and report are treated as tinfoil hat wearing denizens of the fringe by the hacks infesting the corporations Once Known as the
An Oregon FBI field office is warning that hackers could use smart televisions to spy or cyber-stalk, encouraging users to up their security around the devices.
“Beyond the risk that your TV manufacturer and app developers may be listening and watching you, that television can also be a gateway for hackers to come into your home,” the Portland, Oregon FBI office said Tuesday in a report.
Kids in Defense of the Culture
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The shock troops against Conservatism, Inc. have arrived. Witness the rise of the groypers.
These cowboys sent people ducking beneath barstools the moment they set a spurred boot in the Culture War saloon. It has been amusing, to say the least, but not everyone is laughing. Some have even warned that the pale rider of fascism trots alongside them, evidenced by the irreverent humor of YouTube host Nicholas Fuentes—the Steven Colbert of reactionary youth.
If we are being honest, however, we seem to be confusing deliberately incendiary comedy schtick with political policy.
In her “prayerful” hatred of President Donald Trump, sanctimony-signalling Nancy Pelosi is downright loathsome
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn’t hate President Donald Trump—she only wants is to impeach him.
And “she’s working overtime to get the job done with as much feigned sanctimony as she can muster.
Unfortunately the feigned sanctimony of Pelosi is of a kind that sours the human soul. Self-bestowed sanctimony, like seething hatred of another, is something that should never be put out on public display.
Pelosi’s grab-bag sanctimony was on full display today when journalist James Rosen asked the one question millions of people longingly need answered: “Do you
Okay, I admit that I’m not all that conservative when it comes to entertainment. And by that, I mean I enjoy films with tons of nudity, gratuitous violence, gore, dismemberment, and mutilation. Horror films are some of my favorites. "Braveheart" is a must-see every year. I’ve tried to get into "Game of Thrones." I can’t, though they do know how to knock off its characters in a bloody and brutal fashion. The point is that after months of watching films with brutal violence, Hallmark is a place to get into the Christmas spirit. Okay, that’s a bit of a lie. I watch "Die Hard" every Christmas
The "Our diversity is our strength!" Party is starting to look rather monochromatic in its upper echelons these days.
The four leading candidates for its presidential nomination — Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg — are all white. The six candidates who have qualified for the Dec. 19 debate — the front four, plus Amy Klobuchar and Tom Steyer — are all white.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer are both white, as are Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Whip Dick Durbin.
On the same day she asked House Democrats to write articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took part in a CNN town hall that focused on her momentous and controversial decision.
A student who identified himself as a registered Republican asked Pelosi Thursday night how she plans to unify the nation, as one side demands impeachment and the other side calls it a witch hunt.
“I myself think that one of the ways that America will heal is through the arts,” Pelosi answered.
On Thursday – the same day House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Democrats will proceed with articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump – the president’s approval jumped to 52%, its highest level in more than two months.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 52% of likely U.S. voters approve of President Trump’s job performance, while 47% disapprove. This represents a three percentage point improvement from the previous day, when 49% approved and 50% disapproved.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday night insisted that she does pray for President Trump, and said it doesn’t bother her if he doesn’t believe her.
She also voiced the hope that the Democrats’ push to impeach the president would be carried out in a way worthy of the Founders’ vision for a unified nation.
During a CNN town hall in Washington on the day she told the House committees investigating Trump to proceed with articles of impeachment, Jake Tapper
The Justice Department’s inspector general has concluded that the FBI omitted crucial details in its requests for warrants to surveil Trump campaign associate Carter Page, saying the agency neglected to mention that some of the information the warrant applications were based on was shaky.
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s yet unpublished draft report found that the FBI did not inform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the controversial Steele dossier, cited in applications to spy on Page, was unreliable, according to the Washington Post.
John Kerry Endorses Joe Biden for
President to Fix ‘the World that
Donald Trump has Smashed Apart’ replies
President to Fix ‘the World that
Donald Trump has Smashed Apart’ replies
Former secretary of state John Kerry endorsed Joe Biden for President on Thursday, citing Biden’s performance serving as vice president in the Obama administration as proof that he has what it takes to defeat President Trump.
“The world is broken,” Kerry told The Washington Post. “Our politics are broken. The country faces extraordinary challenges. And I believe very deeply that Joe Biden’s character, his ability to persevere, his decency and the experiences that he brings to the table are critical to the moment. The world has to be put back together, the world that Donald Trump has smashed apart.”
As USMCA negotiations drag on, Texas Democrats Vicente Gonzalez and Filemon Vela urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to press Mexico for firm security commitments in the war on Mexican cartels to protect U.S. trade and tourism.
“We can no longer afford to be silent. This trade pact is critical to our economy and we need to get this right or risk standing in the way of our own economic success,” Gonzalez said in the release. The representatives, who serve in districts that border Mexico, warned Pelosi in the letter that “while business and individuals alike have taken steps to mitigate the risks, including paying a protection fee to criminal
Who Watches the Watchmen?
replies
One symptom of a society in crisis is the unreliability or even corruption of its own auditors.
After all, when the watchmen have lost moral authority to watch, who can be believed or trusted? Or, as the Roman satirist Juvenal famously put it, “Who will guard the guardians?”
It was recently reported that FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith altered an email to bolster a suspicious FBI effort to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrant authorizing the surveillance of Carter Page, a onetime employee of the Trump campaign.
Michael Bloomberg may be one of the wealthiest men in the world, but that doesn’t mean he can’t empathize with the little guy.
The former New York City mayor and Democratic candidate for president spoke for all Americans when, speaking at a Mexican restaurant in Arizona, he said America needs an “awful lot more immigrants rather than less.”
In Bloomberg’s moral universe, America shouldn’t just welcome immigrants on principle. They are needed to “take all the different kinds of jobs that the country needs—improve our culture, our cuisine, our religion, our dialogue and certainly improve our economy.”
According to John Brennan, the former CIA chief, I am about to commit a public act of treason. I’ll write quickly before he can summon his allies to kick in my door and arrest me. Here goes: We’re still not sure that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election.
Brennan similarly accused the president of “treason” when Trump refused to buy into the Intelligence Community’s consensus that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election. Brennan tweeted, “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors.’ It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he
As House Democrats invited Ivy League shrews to publicly grind their Trump-hating axe during Wednesday’s disastrous impeachment charade, President Trump returned home after confronting our allies again about their lagging financial support of NATO. The stale pact turns 70 this year and like too many Boomers these days, NATO is out of fresh ideas and still listening to worn tracks of “Back in the U.S.S.R.” while the rest of the world is listening to Drake.
Also like so many Boomers, NATO members have made financial promises they won’t keep, stacking up IOUs for someone else to pay and hoping no one notices.
Why the elites really hate Trump
replies
President Trump is not a buffoon or a blowhard or an egomaniac, even though his tweets can sometimes make all three descriptions seem accurate. This is certainly the way much of America sees President Trump.
The president demonstrates he's not a narcissist every time he shows compassion to a child or to a wounded warrior, or to the family of a fallen warrior. His critics never seem to notice his compassion, the sincerity of his concern for others, and how it should make clear that he is not the narcissist he sometimes appears to be.
His strategic decisions have shown that the president is not the buffoon he is
Has there ever been a bigger assembly of scolds and nattering nabobs of nonsense than those gathered at the United Nations Conference Of The Parties 25 this week in Madrid? Spare us another of these hootenannies of insufferable elitism.
Before the party even started, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres showed up in Spain to tell us “the point of no return is no longer over the horizon,” and “is in sight and hurtling toward us.”
How long have we been hearing this? Prince Charles has been predicting imminent doomsday for more than a decade, as has Al Gore. Before the conference began, Vice was trying to convince the world that “The Collapse
Up to now, the Democrats have had the best of all worlds. As they say in baseball, they've been swinging against the batting practice pitcher. As any major leaguer will tell you, the pitches break a little different when there is a guy on the mound trying to get you out.
Well, that's where we are now that the Democrats have decided to proceed with articles of impeachment. In other words, they will need a lot more than partisan hacks pretending to be scholars to persuade the American people.
President Trump is already calling their bluff: "Trump Challenges ‘Do Nothing Democrats’:
Academia dies on the Hill
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The Democratic-controlled Congress convened a panel of legal experts on Wednesday to inform the debate on the case for impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. Opinions will differ as to the value of this testimony insofar as the impeachment debate is concerned, but there can be no real question that this is a microcosm of what is wrong with academia today. Four academics showed up on the Hill, but only one scholar was present and -- Jonathan Turley of the George Washington University School of Law. The other three, Karlan, Feldman, and Gerhardt, were merely Democratic activists masquerading as objective academics. Unfortunately, what the country observed on Capitol Hill
The venomous careers of Hitler and Stalin provoked the study of totalitarian regimes as the very epitome of evil, depriving their citizens of freedom and of life itself. A state captured by a demagogue is considered a sure sign of danger ahead -- hence the alleged justification by the Left for their hysteria over “rabble rouser” Donald Trump’s election. Overlooked until more recently are the unelected, bloated bureaucratic fiefdoms and regulatory encroachments of both national and global government and non-governmental institutions, which have created the opportunity for a sinister, large scale violation of political power.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump could imperil many vulnerable freshman Democrats, such as Rep. Kendra Horn (D-OK), according to a poll released Thursday.
As House Speaker Pelosi moves toward impeaching President Trump, Parscale said that impeachment will imperil many freshman swing district Democrats’ chances of winning reelection in 2020, according to a poll released by Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale.
“Nancy Pelosi is marching members of her caucus off the plank and into the abyss. Impeachment is killing her freshman members and polling proves it,” Parscale wrote.
During a town hall on CNN on Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stated that “Civilization as we know it” is “at stake” in the 2020 election, and that she doesn’t know if America can “sustain” a second term of President Trump.
Pelosi said, “[T]he damage that this administration has done to America, America’s a great country. We can sustain. Two terms, I don’t know.”
She later added, “Civilization as we know it today is at stake in the next election, and certainly, our planet.”
Civil war becomes likelier with every passing day.
With the failure of the doddering Mueller’s Democrat-inspired coup attempt, the disaster of Schiff’s impeachment hoax, and Nadler’s Wednesday hearing comprised of angry leftist academics, the country has learned a valuable lesson; the Democrats will never accept Trump as the duly elected president -- no matter how much of a landslide he wins by in 2020. And as Michael Walsh has pointed out. “They never stop, they never sleep, they never quit.” (snip) When Trump wins reelection, look for the “smart” party -- “smart” like Fredo (both the mobster and the media moron) -- to redouble their efforts to depose the president
Polish politician Donald Tusk on Thursday tweeted a photo of him pointing a pair of fingers toward President Trump’s back, a gesture some alarmed Twitter users likened to a gun.
“Despite seasonal turbulences our transatlantic friendship must last #Trump #NATO,” wrote Tusk, whose term as president of the European Council ended at the start of this month.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday directed the Democrat Chairmen to proceed with articles of impeachment against President Trump.She said it was a solemn occasion. She was prayerful.Pelosi then immediately lost it and lashed out at Sinclair’s James Rosen after he asked her if she is moving forward with impeachment because she “hates” President Trump.Then on Thursday night Speaker Pelosi held a friendly town hall event with her partners at CNN on impeachment.One audience member (not sure if this was staged) asked Speaker Pelosi about Trump’s second term.
The Democrats Face the Bayonets
replies
So Nancy Pelosi has apparently decided to go all-in with her call for an impeachment vote. The standard wisdom on Pelosi is that she is not of the radical left, but she’s cunning, a master tea leaf reader and Swamp survivor, and so she doesn’t make rash moves. She’s evidently decided this is the right move at the right time. We’ll soon see.There’s something about the timing of Pelosi’s announcement relative to next Monday’s release of IG Horowitz’s report that makes it seem very possible she’s going for a grand bargain with President Trump. She’s on record saying there will be a House vote because the facts of
Queen Pelosi's Abuse of Power
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It was fascinating to see to see Speaker Pelosi, fresh from a congressional jaunt to a climate change conference in sunny Spain, explain to us the urgency of impeaching President Trump after, as Rep. Andy Biggs points out, the equivalent of two months of congressional recesses in which none of the American people's business was done.
When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi greenlighted the impeachment proceedings in September, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy made a key tactical decision: He would not to worry about blocking it but focus instead on shaping public opinion and influencing lawmakers poised to sit as jurors in a Senate trial.
The California Republican spent four-plus years as whip, his party’s chief House vote-counter. He intuitively understood that if a previously reluctant Pelosi had opted to put her political muscle behind impeachment, there was a little Republicans could do to stop her 233 Democrats from voting for it.
McCarthy began huddling with his leadership team and top committee lieutenants, while consulting closely
In 1858, Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln debated the nature of America’s soul. Douglas argued that the Founders believed that the claim in the Declaration of Independence—“all men are created equal”—applied only to whites. They were indifferent to the perpetuation of slavery, he said. Lincoln argued that the Founders foresaw an end to slavery, that the words in the Declaration meant what they said, and that no one before Douglas had ever suggested otherwise.
After a bloody civil war and a decades-long civil rights struggle were fought to vindicate Lincoln’s position, the New York Times and the Pulitzer Center are urging teachers, with the 1619 Project and attendant K-12 curriculum,
A Washington Post fact check gave Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg three Pinocchios on Thursday for cherry-picking data to suggest he "cut the black poverty rate by more than half" in South Bend, Ind., during his tenure as mayor.
The Post found that Buttigieg, who made the statement during a campaign stop in Allendale, S.C., used a selective estimate of poverty rates to support his claim. Using another data set preferred by experts, he determined the black poverty rate in South Bend only fell by 6 percent during Buttigieg's time as mayor.
ATLANTA — The pin was small, and rusted on the back. Sharon Wood had packed it away in 1973 as a relic of a battle fought and won: the image of a black coat hanger, slashed out by a red line.
Then this spring, her home state, Georgia, joined a cascade of states outlawing abortion at the earliest stages of pregnancy. Ms. Wood did what she never imagined she would need to do again. She dug it out, and pinned it on.
“Don’t ask me how it all happened,” Ms. Wood, 70, a retired social worker northeast of Atlanta, said one Sunday afternoon, the pin on her dress.
The most dangerous place for an academic is often between the House and the impeachment of an American president. I knew that going into the first hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on the impeachment of Donald Trump. After all, Alexander Hamilton that impeachment would often occur in an environment of “agitated passions.” Yet I remained a tad naive in hoping that an academic discussion on the history and standards of it might offer a brief hiatus from hateful rhetoric on both sides.
In my testimony Wednesday, I lamented that, as in the impeachment of President Clinton from 1998 to 1999, there is an intense “rancor and rage” and “stifling intolerance”
France's largest nationwide strike in years has severely disrupted schools and transport.
Workers are angry about planned pension reforms that would see them retiring later or facing reduced payouts.
More than 800,000 workers from a wide range of professions demonstrated against the changes. Some cities saw clashes between protesters and police.
President Emmanuel Macron wants to introduce a universal points-based pension system.
In a months-long investigation, we learned that no one really knows just how many buildings the federal government has — not even the feds themselves [here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here]. In recent years, the government’s own estimates have ranged from about 120,000 to 400,000. And these figures do not even include the Defense Department and Intelligence agencies. According to its most recent reporting, DoD has about 280,000 buildings in the U.S. and abroad. All totaled, the federal government may own and lease about two-thirds of a million buildings.
Maintenance expenditures for government facilities are also not fully known. Government estimates range as high as $21 billion spent annually
Michael Bloomberg vowed Thursday to re-institute a federal assault weapons ban and require more rigorous background checks and licensing to obtain firearms if he’s elected president.
The billionaire former mayor, who recently launched his 2020 Democratic primary bid, laid out the gun control agenda during an event in Aurora, Colorado — where a deranged man killed 12 in a movie theater in 2012.
In addition to the assault weapons ban, Bloomberg called for raising the age to buy a gun from 18 to 21, the same for purchasing booze.
Conservative commentator and author Mark Steyn mocked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's fiery news conference appearance Thursday, where she cited her Roman Catholic faith as proof that she doesn't "hate" President Trump, adding she continues to pray for him.
"I know that observing the ritual niceties of American politics requires making a boatload of industrial-strength hokum," Steyn said on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Thursday. "But you and I and 300 million people across the country know that Nancy Pelosi isn't praying for the president." At the news conference, Sinclair reporter James Rosen had asked Pelosi: "Do you hate the president?"
Washington Post blasted over column
urging journalists to 'reach the
undecided' on impeachment replies
urging journalists to 'reach the
undecided' on impeachment replies
The Washington Post is taking heat over a column urging journalists to "reach the undecided" in the country who have yet to be swayed on the topic of impeachment.
In a piece titled, "Wall-to-wall impeachment coverage is not changing any minds. Here’s how journalists can reach the undecided," Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan argued Thursday that "not much has changed" during the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Trump in recent weeks despite all the media attention it has received.
"So, is the media coverage pointless? Are journalists merely shouting into the void?" Sullivan asked.
With all eyes on the latest on Democrats’ impeachment circus show, it seems that attention turned away from House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff “snooping” on members of the press.The California Democrat came under fire after the release of the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment inquiry report which included phone records for Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and others, including the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Devin Nunes and members of the press like John Solomon. (Photo) Schiff would not disclose how Democrats obtained the call logs but Republicans were not about to let it slide.“I want to know all the people Adam Schiff is spying on.
Pelosi says Clinton was impeached for
'being stupid,' downplays House Democrats
effort against Trump replies
'being stupid,' downplays House Democrats
effort against Trump replies
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to move on from questions about impeachment during a televised town hall Thursday night, even as she insisted she wasn't bothered at all by polls showing sagging support for the probe against President Trump. Pelosi, who also claimed former President Bill Clinton was impeached only for "being stupid," made her comments at the CNN event just hours after she appeared at a fiery news conference to direct the House Judiciary Committee to begin drafting articles of impeachment against Trump. "Can we not have any more questions about impeachment?" Pelosi asked at one point. "I don't mind questions, but to ask me questions
Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, one of two Democrats to vote against formalizing the impeachment inquiry, said he plans to vote against all the articles of impeachment "unless there's something that I haven't seen, haven't heard before."He warned Democrats to "be careful what you wish for" and he added that impeachment "is tearing the nation apart. ... And I want to bring people together." Van Drew, whose district voted for Trump in 2016, said he would have preferred a censure vote on Trump so they could "move on."
Democratic efforts to impeach President Donald Trump were supposed to help them politically in 2020. In moments of unguarded honesty, a few Democrats admitted as much publicly, saying the quiet part loud and the loud part quiet. (Video) It’s a great example of how this particular impeachment push keeps backfiring on Democrats. They claim, without evidence, that Trump was trying to get Ukraine to meddle in the 2020 election by asking for their cooperation in investigating Ukrainian efforts to meddle in the 2016 election.