Posts on Friday, January 17, 2020
The Florida Legislature’s annual session is barely under way, and the National Rifle Association’s Marion Hammer already is angry. That’s a good sign. It means Sen. Tom Lee of Thonotosassa is headed in the right direction with modest legislation that would require background checks of more gun buyers. The proposed requirements should be more robust, but they may reflect what is politically possible at the moment and they would be an improvement over the status quo.
Lee, who has an independent streak, was handed the unenviable assignment by Senate President Bill Galvano to come up with a response to the August mass shootings at a Walmart in El Paso,
Democrats took over both chambers of the Virginia legislature in November, and as expected, they’re pushing anti-gun laws through as quickly as they can.On Thursday, lawmakers in the state Senate passed an the first pair of bills in a wave of gun-control legislation that is set to come up for votes. One bill would restore the state’s previous one-handgun-a-month rule, while the second would allow local governments to ban guns in public buildings, parks and at permitted events — including political protests. The vote was straight party line, 21-19.
President Trump's reelection campaign hit Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) over his vote against the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) on Thursday, accusing the senator of turning his back on American workers. "Socialist Bernie Sanders just proudly voted AGAINST new jobs and higher wages for Americans workers," the Trump campaign wrote in an email to supporters. "Sanders is willing to sacrifice blue-collar jobs and better wages, even as he enjoys flying fossil fuel burning private jets on an almost daily basis," the email continued.
The Supreme Court said Friday it will hear a case over whether presidential electors have to vote in accordance with their states’ popular vote in the Electoral College.The court said it would take up the case of Chiafalo v. State of Washington, where three so-called "faithless electors" who were fined after voting in 2016 for Colin Powell are challenging whether a state can bind an elector to select the state's popular vote winner.In the faithless elector case, advocates for the court's intervention say the issue needs urgent resolution in an era of intense political polarization and the prospect of a razor-thin margin in a presidential election, although so-called faithless electors
Robert Hyde, the former landscaper-turned-congressional candidate at the center of a new Ukraine “scandal” about supposed surveillance of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, posted a video message Friday addressing the bizarre WhatsApp messages that inspired Democrats to demand new investigations and prompted Ukraine to announce it was officially looking into the matter.On Tuesday evening, House Democrats heading up the impeachment effort released new materials related to Ukraine that they say require “full investigation” and additional witnesses to be called for the impeachment trial in the Senate. Among the evidence is a series of typo-riddled, sometimes nonsensical WhatsApp messages sent in March 2019 by Hyde to Lev Parnas.
Latin American migrants eager to enter the United States but held in Mexico are praying for President Trump’s election defeat in 2020, believing that a Democratic president will open the borders again.
“I want Trump out,” said Honduran Katherine Cabrera, who is being held in Tapachula, Mexico, with her baby.
“Once Trump is defeated, and the Democrats take over, things are going to get better,” added El Salvadoran Brenda Ramos.
The comments from Ramos and Cabrera and others were included in a Center for Immigration Studies border report on the attitudes held by migrants under the U.S.-Mexico initiative to stop unchecked illegal immigration.
CNN The Lead host Jake Tapper on Thursday criticized Democrats for touting evidence brought forth by indicted Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas, reminding viewers that the former Trump supporter has a “serious credibility problem.” “We can’t ignore Parnas has a serious credibility problem,” Tapper said during a panel discussion on Parnas. “He’s under indictment for campaign finance charges. The foreign minister of Ukraine told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that he doesn’t trust a word Parnas is saying. And yet I see people out there on social media — Democrats — acting as if this guy is the second coming of Theodore Roosevelt or something.” CNN reporter Nia Malika-Henderson agreed
LSU quarterback Joe Burrow praised President Donald Trump after the team’s visit to the White House Friday, saying that the president showed everyone “so much love.”Burrow’s comments were reported by Bloomberg reporter Jordan Fabian who tweeted the player’s remarks.“Joe Burrow on Trump,” Fabian tweeted. “He showed so much love to everyone on our team. I don’t care if you’re a Republican, Democrat, don’t care about politics at all, that was an awesome experience for everybody.” (Tweet) The president joked with Burrow during the team’s White House visit.
The powers that be at CNN were in full outrage mode yesterday after Republican Sen. Martha McSally called Manu Raju, one of their congressional correspondents, a “liberal hack,” and refused to answer his questions.
After the incident, much of the minimal airtime left over from trashing Donald Trump all day was expended in defense of Raju and the network, which they clearly feel, has been unfairly besmirched. I’ve got two words for them: toughen up.
The United States Mexico Canada Agreement passed the Senate on Thursday, 89-10, replacing the 26-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement.
U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer praised the strong bipartisan support the trade deal received in both chambers, saying “a new chapter in U.S. trade policy has begun.”
“The USMCA is the first trade agreement that will result in more manufacturing jobs, not fewer. It is the first agreement that contains strong, enforceable labor and environmental standards that will help to level the playing field for American workers,” he continued. “ It is the first trade agreement that embraces the
Meet your new favourite actor Laurence Fox, currently trending on Twitter because of his shocking appearance on BBC’s Question Time last night.
It was shocking because instead of spouting the usual leftist pabulum, Fox boldly revealed himself as an anti-woke crusader.
The Trump administration on Friday announced plans to roll back school lunch standards on vegetables and fruits originally promoted by Michelle Obama, unveiling the proposal on the former first lady's birthday.
The new standards will allow schools more flexibility "because they know their children best," the Agriculture Department said in a press release.
“Schools and school districts continue to tell us that there is still too much food waste and that more common-sense flexibility is needed to provide students nutritious and appetizing meals. We listened and now we’re getting to work,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in a statement
Amid the dozens of A-list celebrities and social media Titans gathered in isolated splendour on the Sicilian coast last summer, the interaction between two of the more camera-shy guests went largely unnoticed.
Prince Harry was just one of the instantly recognisable world figures attending ‘Google Camp’, the VIP conference organised by the U.S. internet behemoth to tackle climate change
But few outside the Silicon Valley contingent will have identified the short, shaven-headed physicist with whom HRH was in conversation.
Still less would they have known he was wealthier than the Prince’s regal grandmother.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled Friday that children do not have standing to sue the Trump administration and the federal government for not adequately addressing climate change.Climate policy comes under the purview of Congress and the president, not the court system, the U.S. Court of Appeals decided in a split decision. Attorneys for the teenagers can ask the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the trial to continue in Oregon, where it was initially filed.“The panel reluctantly concluded that the plaintiffs’ case must be made to the political branches or to the electorate at large,” the panel of judges noted.
Barron Trump was dressed to impressed in an olive green bomber when he headed to Florida with his parents on Friday, and he seems to be taking style cues from this mother, Melania, who has worn a strikingly similar outfit. The 13-year-old, who now towers over his father, President Donald Trump, had on a $150 flight jacket from Alpha Industries over a black top and pants when he walked across the South Lawn of the White House and boarded Marine One with his family. Melania, 49, sported a similarly-colored bomber over an all-black outfit when she traveled to Texas with her husband in 2017
President Donald Trump’s economy continues to fly in the face of the liberal media and their recession hype. A new Jan. 17 report by CNBC showed that “U.S. homebuilding surged to a 13-year high [16.9%] in December as activity increased across the board” [emphasis added]. Housing starts spiked 16.9 percent to a “seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.608 million units last month, the highest level since 2006,” [emphasis added] noted CNBC. This follows a trend, as recent economic reports showed consumer confidence at the highest levels in nearly 20 years.
A Muslim Iraqi refugee who previously worked as a war journalist announced she is running for Congress in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District, meaning she will try to unseat Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar.
In her campaign announcement video, Dalia al-Aqidi said she was fortunate to be able to come to the United States as a little girl with her mother to escape Saddam Hussein, who she described as a "brutal dictator." Seeing how terror had affected her family, al-Aqidi says in the video she was happy President Trump ordered the death of Iranian general and terrorist Qasem Soleimani.
He put the fat in fatwa.
A morbidly obese ISIS fanatic dubbed “Jabba the Jihadi” has been captured by Iraqi forces — who loaded him onto a flatbed truck because he couldn’t fit in a police car.
The 560-pound mufti Abu Abdul Bari, also known as Shifa al-Nima, was nabbed Thursday by an elite SWAT team of the Nineveh regiment in the city of Mosul, according to Stars and Stripes.
The jumbo jihadist was known for “provocative speeches against the security forces” and is considered one of the top leaders of “ISIS gangs,” Iraqi security officials said in a statement.
Bari issued religious decrees — or fatwas —
President Trump on Friday welcomed the college champion LSU Tigers to the White House to celebrate their historic achievement — and cracked a couple of impeachment trial jokes along the way.
After summarizing the highlights of LSU’s season — which culminated in a 42—25 rout of Clemson for the national championship — the president invited team members and coaches to the Oval Office for photos at the Resolute Desk.
“It’s been there a long time — a lot of presidents, some good, some not so good. You’ve got a good one now, even though they’re trying to impeach the son of a bitch. Can you believe it?” Trump said,
The Brooklyn pimp who was convicted last year of dismembering his prostitute girlfriend and keeping her head in his freezer was sentenced to four to eight years in prison on Friday after hearing a statement from the victim’s family in which they branded him an “evil monster.” Somorie Moses, 43, was convicted in November of negligent homicide for the Jan. 12, 2017 killing of 32-year-old Leondra Foster and concealing her dismembered corpse—disposing of portions in a Bronx trash dump and keeping others in his freezer. But a Brooklyn jury let Moses, a registered sex offender who went by the handle “Sugar Bear,”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, 77, really is just as curmudugeonly as you’d expect.
According to a leaked campaign rider from his 2020 presidential campaign obtained by The Smoking Gun, the Democratic socialist from Vermont demands that his hotel rooms be cold and his bathrooms not have slow flushing toilets.
Called the “Senator Comfort Memo” — marked “Confidential: For Campaign Staff Use Only” — the document instructs the exact arrangements that must be met for Sanders’ hotels, food, drink, family and staff.
“After a hard day of campaigning, Senator Bernie Sanders likes to settle down in a frigid hotel suite with a cozy down comforter
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Thursday responded to reporters asking questions about the impeachment witnesses after she signed the articles of impeachment.
For Pelosi and the Democrat-media complex it’s not about proof of any crimes committed by Trump, it’s about smearing him with bogus allegations.
“It’s not a question of proof, it says what allegations have been made and that has to be subjected to scrutiny as to how we go forward, but it should not be ignored in the context of other events that could substantiate some of that,” said Pelosi.
About forty-five hundred years ago, not long after the completion of the Great Pyramid at Giza, a seed of Pinus longaeva, the Great Basin bristlecone pine, landed on a steep slope in what are now known as the White Mountains, in eastern California. The seed may have travelled there on a gust of wind, its flight aided by a winglike attachment to the nut. Or it could have been planted by a bird known as the Clark’s nutcracker, which likes to hide pine seeds in caches; nutcrackers have phenomenal spatial memory and can recall thousands of such caches. This seed, however, lay undisturbed.
Starbucks is launching a pivotal expansion of their community store initiative to add dozens of coffee shops to poor neighborhoods, the company revealed on Thursday. According to a press statement, the Seattle-based coffee chain plans to open or remodel 85 stores by 2025 in various rural and urban communities across the country. Each location will hire local staff, including construction crews and artists, and will have community event spaces. Starbucks has also partnered with United Way chapters to develop programs like youth training and mentoring.(Snip) John Kelly, executive vice president of Public Affairs, described the new move as a sort of civic duty.
“There’s a lot of hostility to religious beliefs,” says Joe Grogan, director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House.
“These views are protected by the First Amendment and people who are offended by public expressions of faith need to get over it,” he adds.
In this exclusive interview at the White House, Grogan outlines what the Trump administration is doing to ensure Americans remain free to live in accordance with their beliefs. (Snip) But let’s begin with the Religious Freedom Day announcements. … There are three of them, and let’s take them one at a time. We can start with prayer in school.
Measuring screen time doesn't cut it anymore, according to Stanford researchers who announced the launch of the Human Screenome Project this week.
The project, as described in the MIT Technology Review, will study digital screen time by taking screenshots of participants' devices at five-second intervals. "Mapping the human screenome can be a critical and cross-cutting part of solutions and theories about social challenges involving media – from fake news to smartphone addiction to social media and mental health," the authors wrote about the project, which they compare to mapping the human genome.
Consumer confidence is the highest its been in nearly 20 years. And yet, a recent MRC analysis showed that liberal media networks only gave President Donald Trump’s economy less than one percent coverage on their evening newscasts over a period of 100 days. Bloomberg News reported Jan. 16 that “U.S. consumer confidence advanced last week to the highest level in more than 19 years” [emphasis added]. Also, The Wall Street Journal reported on Jan. 14 that “A healthy U.S. economy pushed up profits at America’s biggest banks, allowing them to grow even though falling interest rates made lending less profitable.”
Washington- President Donald Trump is adding three seasoned lawyers to his impeachment legal defense team, people familiar with the matter said, including Kenneth Starr, the hard-charging prosecutor whose work led to President Bill Clinton's impeachment.
Alan Dershowitz, the constitutional lawyer, and Robert Ray, Starr's successor at the Office of Independent Counsel during the Clinton administration, are also joining the team, the people said.
The three are expected to join a legal team headed by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and outside attorney Jay Sekulow, who are still expected to deliver statements on the President's behalf on the Senate floor.
The retired appellate judge who successfully petitioned for a special prosecutor’s investigation of the Jussie Smollett case is objecting to the selection of a private law firm to represent the Cook County state’s attorney’s office in the probe.
The attorney general must represent Kim Foxx’s office in such matters, Sheila O’Brien alleged in a filing Thursday, not the politically-connected law firm that has been retained for months.
Ruben Castillo, the former chief judge of the Northern District of Illinois and now a partner at the high-powered firm Akerman, has been helping the office vet voluminous materials requested by special prosecutor Dan Webb.
Johannesburg—The United Nations World Food Programme said on Thursday that a record 45 million people in the 16-nation Southern African Development Community faced growing hunger following repeated drought, widespread flooding and economic disarray. Southern Africa is in the grips of a severe drought, as climate change wreaks havoc in impoverished countries already struggling to cope with extreme natural disasters, such as Cyclone Idai which devastated Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi in 2019. Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of southern Africa, is experiencing its worst economic crisis in a decade, marked by soaring inflation and shortages of food, fuel, medicines and electricity.
'People will sit at home': Sanders supporters
threaten to boycott vote if Democrats pick a centrist replies
threaten to boycott vote if Democrats pick a centrist replies
Bernie Sanders supporters in Iowa are warning that a lack of enthusiasm for Joe Biden could bring the same result the nomination of another milquetoast Democrat did four years ago: electing Donald Trump.
Sanders backers fret the socialist Vermont senator, 78, is being consistently ignored and underestimated by Beltway insiders and a Washington-based press corps. The same bunch, in their view, who failed to predict Trump's 2016 White House win and were sure Hillary Clinton, who beat Sanders for the Democratic nomination, would easily prevail.
They're particularly steamed Sanders, a socialist who has been in Congress since 1991, isn't getting his due though
In the impeachment hoax, Democrats are illegally using taxpayer funds to manipulate the 2020 election. We are watching a Democrat Party campaign event set in the U.S. Capitol. This is the best version of a Trump rally Democrats can manage.
Yet it requires a scramble to handle the latest surprises. I hate last-minute “bombshells” because the timing deprives the accused of the time and ability to properly respond. Springing last-minute surprises is fundamentally unfair.
On January 16, 2020, just as the U.S. Senate and the Chief Justice were kicking off an impeachment trial, GAO, an agency of the U.S. Congress, suddenly issued a false
A top Democratic senator discouraged the Justice Department and FBI from complying with a Republican demand for information about a former Democratic National Committee contractor.
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden warned that complying with the records request related to Alexandra Chalupa, who is alleged to have sought dirt from Ukraine about then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 election, would have dangerous consequences. Chalupa is a private citizen who claims she was the target of a state-sponsored cyberattack.
“The Senators’ request will have a chilling effect on the victims of nation state cyberattacks, and would discourage them from seeking law enforcement assistance, thereby jeopardizing our national security,
Democrats and journalists were excited Thursday when the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a legal opinion that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had violated the Impoundment Control Act by withholding congressionally appropriated aid to Ukraine last summer.
The non-binding opinion was disputed by the OMB, which released a memo last month arguing that the “programmatic” delay sought to fulfill, not oppose, congressional intent.
The GAO decision, which had been requested by Democrat Senator Chris van Hollen of Maryland, disagreed, concluding that the delay had been for “policy reasons,” (Snip)Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) cited the decision in her morning press conference —
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared to troll House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday as senators were sworn in for the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
McConnell had each senator sign the oath book with a single pen, a day after Pelosi came under fire for smiling and handing out special pens to members following the signing of the articles of impeachment. This is in contrast to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, where each senator signed the book with a different pen.
The move did not go unnoticed by pundits, who rushed to point out the contrast on social media.
"No souvenir pens here. Called up in alphabetical order,
There are a lot of statistics Mark A. Morgan, acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection commissioner, uses to show how Trump policies have helped to cut illegal immigration into the United States.
But there are two that he feels really make clear the victory his agency has had in the past year, and he highlighted them in a small meeting Tuesday.
First is daily apprehensions, a number that hit 4,600 at the height of the latest crisis in May. That has now dropped to 1,300.
(Snip) the 21-daily average is below 1,000, a 78% cut. “That’s a dramatic reduction,”
The House impeachment proceedings had a farcical element from start to finish. They began with Adam "Pencil Neck" Schiff making up facts; continued with secret hearings, something a prosecuting party would never do if the facts favored it; moved to a partisan vote on two made-up Articles of Impeachment; and finally, contradicting the Democrats’ earlier insistence that impeachment was an urgent necessity to preserve the nation, the House sat on the Articles of Impeachment for a full month.
Yesterday, with great fanfare, bizarrely slurred speech, strange poetic references, ceremonial pens, and giggles and grins belying Nancy Pelosi’s words about solemnity, the House finally transferred the Articles of Impeachment to the Senate.
The immigration debate in our country has been dominated by huge corporations who want more (and cheaper) workers and by liberal advocacy organizations who want America to take in as many people from developing nations as possible, partly for humanitarian reasons and partly to drive up the voter rolls for the Democrats. These dueling interests have dominated for decades and led to a permissive system with a large influx of new immigrants, both legal and illegal. In response, conservative voices have pushed back on what they see as overly open immigration policies. Lost in this policy debate is what we should really be focused on: what’s good for America.
Fake vs. real history
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Fake history is a lot like fake news -- left-leaning propaganda devoid of truth and substance. Wednesday’s impeachment display was truly one for the fake history books. Defying the narrative of a somber undertaking, cheery pink suit and all, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi barely suppressed, along with her colleagues, a demeanor of self-satisfaction and sheer delight worthy of the Academy Award. Of course, instead of the Oscar, there was the “Nancy,” a gold pen emblazoned with her name, given to the greatest political performers who act as if they have the best interests of the United States at heart.
A cynic might start to suspect that the current impeachment fervor roiling Capitol Hill is nothing more than a ruse by Washington’s aristocracy to camouflage revelations about their own incompetence, corruption, and abuse of power over the past few decades.
Could it be, a cynic might wonder, that all the accusations leveled against President Trump merely are projections to deflect from the bad behavior of Beltway royalty?(Snip)The very same collection of intelligence, national security, military, diplomatic, and political experts rubbing their hands in eager anticipation of Trump’s ouster, either by impeachment or defeat this November, is responsible for mismanaging our longest war,
What’s striking about this election cycle’s Democratic presidential primary debates is how much they’ve been absolutely dominated by a man who’s been dead for 90 years. That man is Herbert Croly, the intellectual godfather of the progressive movement and the first editor of The New Republic. Croly’s most influential work, The Promise of American Life (which would have been even more wildly influential had Croly only had a halfway decent editor to cut down his meandering, ponderous prose), provided the intellectual foundation for the Progressive Movement.
Croly’s main argument is found in chapter seven of the book; in substance, he advocates what I term “effective freedom”—the conditions under which a person
The articles of impeachment have finally been delivered to the Senate. The news media covered it with extra piety:
The resolution passed largely along party lines by 228 votes to 193.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signed copies of the articles alongside the team of Democratic lawmakers who will prosecute the case against Mr Trump.
The House, controlled by opposition Democrats, impeached the president last month.
The Senate, controlled by Mr Trump's Republican Party, will decide whether to convict and remove him from office.
At a press conference before the signing of the articles, Nancy Pelosi said: "Today we will make history.
As far as can be determined, the question of whether the Senate should conduct a trial or dismiss the spurious articles of impeachment as unworthy of trial by vote of the majority, is being addressed as a matter of President Trump’s political convenience.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is doubtless sincere and may be accurate in saying that the acquittal that is almost certain to result from a trial will clear the president more convincingly than the Republican majority determining at the outset that the charges are frivolous and vexatious harassment and simply should be rejected.(Snip)
the Democratic line will be they caught the president in wrongful acts but the trained
Believe it or not, the moment that people learn I run a financial planning company the discussion usually veers to how current events will affect their personal financial situation (I’m a lot of fun at parties).
Take, for instance, the recent tensions in the Middle East. After President Trump launched an attack that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, press coverage and financial markets panicked, thinking the United States and Iran stood on the brink of World War III. But after Iran launched a comparatively minor assault in retaliation, and the president responded with only economic sanctions, markets rose, sensing that both sides had stepped back from the brink.
The IG Report Documentary: “FISA and
Spying on Team Trump” – OAN Broadcast
7:00pm ET Tonight…. replies
Spying on Team Trump” – OAN Broadcast
7:00pm ET Tonight…. replies
Few people have read the entire inspector general report on the FBI’s FISA misconduct, and fewer still have an understanding of the depth of troubling findings within it. In an effort to provide information about the content, John Spiropoulos has produced a documentary going over many of the reports’ more important findings. The exceptionally well produced documentary called “FISA, Spying on Team Trump” is an hour long broadcast created by John Spiropoulos, a former MSM journalist and producer(Snip) John spent a month going through every page of the report, pulling out some of the key details and overlaying information from IG Michael Horowitz congressional testimony. The investigative report will premier tonight
Jan. 15, 2020, a date which will live in infamy on two continents. How oddly coincidental that the world witnessed massive abuses of constitutional power in both the United States and Russia on the same day.
In Moscow, Russian ruler Vladimir Putin suddenly unveiled changes to the Russian constitution that will for all practical purposes render his unrestrained rule permanent. He was prime minister from 1999 to 2000, president from 2000 to 2008, prime minister again from 2008 to 2012, and now president again since 2012. The changes will transfer to parliament Putin’s presidential powers,
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D. Somalia) exploded on the national political scene in 2018, when she ran for and won a seat in the House of Representatives. Born in Somalia, she and her family had escaped that war-torn country when she was a small child and spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya. Omar came to America in 1992, when she was 10. Omar was a perfect candidate to take over the seat that Keith Ellison vacated when he moved on to become Deputy Chair of the Democratic National Committee. As was Ellison, Omar is a Muslim representing Minnesota’s 5th congressional district
Attorney Victoria Toensing slammed Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas as a liar over comments aimed at implicating President Trump.Toensing called out the Soviet-born businessman in a tweet Thursday morning, clapping back at his claim that she and her husband and legal partner Jo DiGenova spoke with Attorney General William Barr about the topic of Ukraine corruption.(Photo) Referring to the MSNBC interview Parnas had with Rachel Maddow, Toensing declared he had “absolutely lied” about happenings in Ukraine that purport to show that Trump, Barr and others knew exactly what was going on.
With the election year now underway, President Trump is no doubt beatable — and yet, it’s starting to feel more and more like he’ll get reelected.
The obstacles to Trump winning in 2020 should not be ignored. To start, in 2016, he only beat the highly unpopular Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College by winning three key swing states by less than 1%. In 2018, all three of them, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan turned against Republicans. Trump also has historically low approval ratings and has been consistently trailing Democratic front-runner Joe Biden in general election matchups.
But at the same time, there are several factors
You have to pity the bombshell-shocked American citizen trying to take seriously all the “shocking,” “stunning” and “bombshell” news coming out of Washington these days.
It is a little maddening — though mostly amusing — watching Rachel Maddow and the breathless news wags on MSNBC and CNN contorting themselves during interviews with greasy “witnesses” to supposedly nefarious behavior in Ukraine as to why exactly what they are claiming is so important and damning.
Or, “bombshell!,” as they like to say. And, certainly, “impeachable!”
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Wednesday that he would consider former 2020 contenders Beto O’Rourke and Julián Castro as running mates or members of his Cabinet should he get the party’s nomination.
“I would consider either or both of them. I’ve spoken to each of them,” Biden told the Dallas Morning News. “My plea to both of them is that they stay engaged. They are talented, talented people.”
O’Rourke made headlines during the 2018 congressional elections when the former Texas congressman nearly ousted conservative Senator Ted Cruz in the deep-red state. He garnered early attention after launching his presidential bid but suspended his campaign in November
The crisis that has engulfed the royal family, sparked by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s bombshell announcement that they are jumping ship, is about far more than just their personal future. If that wasn’t the case, it wouldn’t be so important. Families fall out, scandals come and go and the monarchy marches on. But this announcement and the extraordinary Sandringham summit convened by the Queen was about something much more fundamental. The subject of discussion was what the monarchy does, who it is for and how much longer it will continue in its current form after the Queen’s reign. And, indeed, whether it should survive at all.
CNN debate moderator Abby Phillip asked Bernie Sanders in the Tuesday debate in Des Moines:
“CNN reported yesterday — and Senator Sanders, Senator Warren confirmed in a statement — that, in 2018, you told her you did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that?”
Not “did you say that,” but “why did you say that?”
Sanders denied it, then listed the many reasons the story makes no sense: He urged Warren herself to run in 2016, campaigned for a female candidate who won the popular vote by 3 million votes, and has been saying the opposite in public for decades.
World War II created untold carnage around the globe. The injustice, the tragedy, and the horror as a tsunami of violence washed over multiple lands. Yet some cases still stand out. Such as the fate of Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg.
Hungary was a reluctant ally of Nazi Germany. Onetime admiral and World War I hero Miklós Horthy became Regent of a kingdom without a king in 1920. He established authoritarian rule under which both communists and fascists were banned. Seeing his nation caught between the Third Reich and Soviet Union, Horthy chose the former. With Berlin’s support, he gained territory from Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Yugoslavia, effectively reversing the Treaty of Trianon,
Democrats’ strategy for the Senate impeachment trial is apparently to turn it into a never-ending Senate investigation — even though that was supposed to be the House’s job.
Start with the General Accounting Office opinion that Team Trump’s temporary hold on aid to Ukraine constitutes a violation of the law. Maybe — but the GAO is no kind of court or other legal authority. If this was a real issue, the House could’ve raised it long ago. “We forgot” is just an old Steve Martin joke.
Then there’s the claim that assertions by Rudy Giuliani crony — well, ex-crony — Lev Parnas just plain compel the Senate to consider “new evidence”
This Is How Bernie Wins
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Over the weekend Bret Stephens had a smart column arguing that people should not discount the possibility that Bernie Sanders could win both the Democrat nomination and the presidency.
He’s right.
I mean, he’s right in the cosmic, moral sense because if we’re going to be honest with ourselves, Trump versus Sanders is the choice this country clearly deserves.
But he’s also right in the arithmetical sense.
The easy part is seeing Bernie’s path to the Democratic nomination. Nate Silver’s primary model gives him slightly better than a 1-in-5 chance to win the nomination outright and a 1-in-4 chance of winning a plurality of delegates.
The Iowa caucuses, which have always provided rocket fuel to winning presidential candidates, may fail to achieve liftoff this time.
The media, whose usual fixation on Iowa has been eclipsed by their obsession with impeachment, are very likely to devalue the caucuses.
Much of the chatter has focused on how the impeachment trial will pull the Democratic senators—Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar—off the trail in the final two weeks of the contest. Instead of pressing the flesh in Des Moines and Dubuque, they’ll be trapped in the Senate chamber, six days a week, unable to speak in their role as jurors.
Those switching between coverage of the impeachment proceedings on Fox News and the signing of the Phase 1 China trade deal saw the stark election choice between the two parties and their priorities, between President Donald J. Trump and those Lilliputian Democrats who would remove him from power. Trump offers continued growth and prosperity freed from the power of government and the shackles of a command economy.
Lev Parnas has a credibility problem -- and so do some of the media outlets that have been covering him, Wall Street Journal columnist and editorial board member Kimberley Strassel said Thursday.
Parnas is the indicted associate of President Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani -- and this week his media blitz ahead of expected court appearances included interviews on MSNBC and CNN.
"The problem ... for the media is that this goes beyond the question of Lev Parnas' credibility," Strassel observed on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle." "I mean, that's a big first strike. But also the information that he claims to impart is irrelevant or unbelievable.
McSally rejects Wolf Blitzer's claim
she should apologize for calling CNN
reporter 'liberal hack' replies
she should apologize for calling CNN
reporter 'liberal hack' replies
Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., said Thursday evening she does not owe a CNN congressional reporter an apology for rebuffing his question and calling him a "liberal hack" -- after one of the network's veteran anchors said it would be appropriate to do so.
McSally was walking toward a room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building when she encountered reporter Manu Raju. Raju asked McSally if she and other senators should "consider new evidence" in President Trump's impeachment trial. The senator responded by saying she would not entertain the question, calling Raju a "liberal hack."