Posts on Monday, January 27, 2020
Fred Fleitz, former CIA official and former National Security Council chief of staff, urged his friend and former boss, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, to withdraw his tell-all book from his publisher “immediately.”
Fleitz, who served as Bolton’s chief of staff twice, said it was “crushing” to read weekend press reports that Bolton planned to publish a book on his time in the Trump White House. Those reports included a bombshell New York Times report on Sunday that alleged Bolton’s leaked manuscript draft said Trump told Bolton he wanted to withhold aid from Ukraine until its government agreed to investigate his political rivals.
HOUSTON — Among those killed in the California helicopter crash with retired NBA star Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gigi, was former University of Houston baseball player and assistant coach John Altobelli.His wife Keri, and their daughter Alyssa also perished on board.On Monday, the baseball scoreboard at the Cougar baseball field displayed Altobelli’s photo from his playing days.Alto, as he was affectionately known, coached at Orange County College for 28 years, he remained close to the UH program.Just before Sunday’s flight, Alto was texting with a UH coach about prospective players. Last year, he’d sent Houston Ryan Randel, who later signed with the Angels.
Fox News anchor Bret Baier had to tell fellow anchor Chris Wallace on Monday to tone it down after Wallace got in a testy exchange with Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich over President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial.Wallace, who at least formally appears to have been a registered Democrat, took issue with comments that Pavlich made in comparing the Clinton impeachment trial to Trump’s impeachment trial.“Get your facts straight!” Wallace yelled.“Okay, okay, let’s tone it down here,” Baier responded.WATCH:
The twin brother of controversial anti-Trump NSC aide Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman may have seen a draft of former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s controversial new book, raising the possibility that he or someone who works with him leaked key passages to the New York Times. A draft of Bolton’s book, “The Room Where it Happened,” was submitted to the NSC for pre-publication review on Dec. 30, 2019.The Times reported on Sunday that Bolton claims in his book that he heard President Trump explicitly say that he would withhold military aid to Ukraine
Fox News cut away from President Donald Trump’s defense in his Senate impeachment trial several times on Monday in favor of panel discussions or interviews rather than the live feed of the proceedings.Fox spent much of the 5 p.m. EST program hour with its popular panel discussions show, The Five. Later, it cut away during The Story with Martha McCallum for interviews with former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Ranking Member on the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), among others. Video footage of President Trump’s legal team making their arguments continued to play, but the audio was muted. Other, competing cable news networks
This report by Chris Stewart of Brightbeam is a blockbuster. It is titled: “The Secret Shame: How America’s Most Progressive Cities Betray Their Commitment to Educational Opportunity For All.” Stewart is a liberal activist from Minnesota who undertook to find out why the Twin Cities’ left-wing public schools have some of the country’s worst achievement gaps between white and minority (black and Indian) students.
Stewart compared achievement by race in a number of cities that he classified as progressive or conservative. The results didn’t surprise me, but they shocked Stewart. Conservative cities (Snip) consistently did a better job of closing student achievement gaps–sometimes, to zero–than progressive cities.
'Attacking a nine-year-old:' Ted Cruz
snaps at reporter for comparing Hunter
Biden to his children replies
snaps at reporter for comparing Hunter
Biden to his children replies
Sen. Ted Cruz engaged in a back-and-forth with a reporter while arguing that President Trump was justified in asking leaders in Ukraine to launch investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
"The House [impeachment] managers built their entire case on the proposition that investigating Burisma corruption, investigating the Bidens for corruption was baseless and a sham," Cruz said during a press conference on Monday. "That proposition is absurd ... We've just seen two hours of evidence."
A reporter pressed Cruz, saying, "But senator,
A new bill filed in the Vermont house of representatives would allow state residents to create customized license plates featuring emojis. If passed, the bill would make Vermont the first state in the US to allow emojis as an option for car license plates. The bill was introduced by state representative Rebecca White, a Democrat who represents a district in east central Vermont, along the border with New Hampshire.
Former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi made the White House’s case to the Senate on Monday afternoon that President Donald Trump had good reason to ask Ukraine to investigate the conflict of interest involving former Vice President Joe Biden; his son Hunter Biden; and the corrupt Ukraine gas company, Burisma.Using clips of testimony from Democrats’ own witnesses, and reports from the mainstream media — including an ABC News interview with Hunter Biden — Bondi argued that Hunter Biden was paid handsomely for little reason other than that he was the vice president’s son. The company was under investigation at the time —
Select Democrat presidential hopefuls sat down with the New York Times this week for a series of questions, such as which celebrity they have a crush on. Those that took part in answering the Times‘ “Do you have a celebrity crush” question included former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg; former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN); Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA); tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, and billionaire Tom Steyer. (Tweet/Video) Question 5. Do you have a celebrity crush? This one was just for fun. https://nyti.ms/2TXcGvd
Fox News host Chris Wallace got real testy with Townhall.com editor Katie Pavlich, also a contributor on the network, in a fiery exchange comparing President Trump’s impeachment to Bill Clinton’s impeachment.At one point, a perturbed Wallace snapped at Pavlich, “Get your facts straight!” The two were participating in a segment that also featured Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. The discussion centered on a timely New York Times story on former national security adviser John Bolton’s yet to be released book that allegedly claims President Trump linked a hold on Ukrainian aid to an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
Wonder How the NYT Got the Leak From
Bolton's Unpublished Book? Look Who's
Reportedly Vetting It. replies
Bolton's Unpublished Book? Look Who's
Reportedly Vetting It. replies
Over the weekend the New York Times leaked a newsy item reportedly from former National Security Council Adviser John Bolton's as yet unpublished book. The book reportedly includes information about President Trump's desire to hold up aid for Ukraine – aid that was, in fact, given to the troubled country.President Trump made that point in a series of tweets on Monday: (Tweets) News of Bolton's alleged reason behind the hold-up, that Trump wanted a Biden investigation, has now resulted in a couple of Republican senators, Collins and Romney, saying they may want Bolton to testify
At a recent campaign event, South Bend Mayor and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg (D-Ind.) told a woman who identified as a pro-life Democrat that her views on abortion are not welcome in the Democratic Party, as the Daily Wire reports.Describing herself as a “pro-life Democrat,” Kristin Day addressed Buttigieg by asking him if he wanted “the support of pro-life Democrats,” of which she said there are about 21 million in the country. She also asked if would support “more moderate platform language in the Democratic Party to ensure that the diversity and inclusion really does include everybody.”
In a telling moment on Sunday morning, House impeachment manager Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) said House Democrats didn't wait for the courts to compel witnesses and documents in their impeachment case because the 2020 election would be over by the time the courts ruled.Her comments reflect what President Trump's defense team told the nation on Saturday. Attorney Pat Cipollone said the Democrats – not President Trump – are the ones trying “to perpetrate the most massive interference in an election in American history.”
Supreme Court Allows Trump To Enforce
Rule Barring Green Cards For Migrants
Using Social Services replies
Rule Barring Green Cards For Migrants
Using Social Services replies
The Supreme Court Monday allowed the Trump administration to enforce a new rule that will deny green cards to foreign nationals who use taxpayer-funded social services, lifting lower court injunctions that blocked the change.The 5-4 vote followed familiar ideological lines, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan in dissent. The justices did not give reasons for lifting the injunctions — as is typical of orders of this nature — though Justice Neil Gorsuch released a concurring opinion urging the Supreme Court to curtail the use nationwide injunctions, which Justice Clarence Thomas joined.
TEHRAN, Iran — An aging Iranian passenger airliner carrying 144 people crash-landed on a runway and skidded onto a major highway next to an airport Monday, the latest crash in the Islamic Republic as U.S. sanctions bar it from parts or new aircraft. (Snip) The plane involved in Monday's crash-landing in Iran, registered as EP-CPZ, was more than 25 years old. It had flown for airlines in France, Canada, the U.S., Colombia, Burkina Faso and Ukraine before being registered to Caspian Airlines in August 2012. The incident comes as Iran is still coping with the aftermath of the accidental downing
Hunter Biden, the son of leading Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden, has agreed to pay an undisclosed amount of monthly child support to an Arkansas woman who bore him a baby out of wedlock, avoiding a hearing Wednesday that put him at risk of being held in contempt of court. The support is retroactive to November 2018, three months after the child was born to Lunden Alexis Roberts, according to a judge’s order filed Monday in Independence County Court, Arkansas. And Biden must pay Roberts, 28, an undisclosed amount for her attorneys’ fees and costs, according to the order. The
Is it really a surprise that a liberal billionaire who spent $120 million on a “Need to Impeach” campaign is touting impeachment? Steyer told “America’s Newsroom,” “‘What I have been pushing for from the very beginning is a televised testimony from all the people who are directly involved — members of the administration in particular” [emphasis added]. Steyer continued: “[M]y goal in this always was to get the facts directly in front of the American people and trust their judgment about what’s happened’ [emphasis added].
Rep. Elise Stefanik blamed House impeachment manager Adam Schiff for the lack of testimony from John Bolton after leaks from the former national security adviser's new book alleged that the president withheld Ukrainian aid in exchange for a Biden investigation.Calls for Bolton, 71, to testify were amplified after he alleged that President Trump told him that he would block military aid to Ukraine if officials would not announce an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter in leaked portions of Bolton’s new book, The Room Where it Happened. During a press conference on Monday, Stefanik explained why she believed testimony from Bolton was unnecessary.
This Is Historic! First Daughter-in-law Lara Trump broke the news on Monday that 175,000 TICKETS WERE REQUESTED to see President Trump in Wildwood, New Jersey on Tuesday night. (Photo) Last week Republican Jeff Van Drew told Maria Bartiromo that more tickets had been requested for the upcoming New Jersey rally than for any previous Trump rally! The rally on January 28th is being held at the Wildwoods Convention Center which can hold a group as large as 10,000.
Cops have nabbed a suspect wanted for terrorizing a transgender person on a subway in Manhattan, the NYPD tweeted Monday morning. “Great job by Manhattan Warrants apprehending this suspect in NJ,” the tweet posted to the account of Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison said.(Snip) Police sources identified the suspect as Pablo Valle, 26. “He also goes by the name Pablo Escobar,” one police source said. Valle has 27 prior arrests, including busts for drugs, assault, grand larceny and robbery, the source said. The disturbing incident occurred around 8 p.m. Friday while the 26-year-old woman, Serena Daniari, was waiting for a southbound
As my colleague Bonchie reported earlier, the New York Times dropped a “bombshell” about what supposedly was in a draft of John Bolton’s new book that supposedly has President Donald Trump saying to Bolton that he wants to withhold aid in exchange for investigations.
There are of course many other questions about this last minute drop just as Republicans are destroying the Democrats’s impeachment case. It’s all about breaking the wall to get in witnesses and damage Trump.
But the basic response is a simple one: no actual quid pro quo was ever asked for, the transcript and President Volodymyr Zelensky confirm that.
Former independent counsel Kenneth Starr told the Senate impeachment trial Monday afternoon that President Donald Trump had been denied due process, and that the Senate should therefore oppose impeachment for that reason.Starr, who led the investigation of President Bill Clinton that led to his impeachment, was the leadoff speaker for the White House as the president’s lawyers continued their opening arguments.Starr began by warning that the country was entering an “Age of Impeachment” in which the House abused its power to impeach presidents of the opposing party
When the news broke about the death of NBA legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna, most responded with expressions of grief, offering their condolences to his family. The city of Los Angeles mourned the loss of one of its most prominent celebrities. Current and former professional basketball players also joined in, highlighting Bryant’s accomplishments and his relationship with his family.
But in the midst of the widespread grieving, others saw an opportunity to use Bryant’s untimely passing to launch cynical political attacks against President Donald Trump. Among some of the other garbage takes on this tragedy,
People may forget the Obama administration’s scandals and appreciable foreign policy failures.
However, we’re still have to deal with the consequence of all the mess that they left.
Former Obama Secretary of State John Kerry has been on the road, campaigning for former Obama Vice President Joe Biden in Biden’t effort for the Democratic 2020 presidential nomination.
Both have a habit of opening mouth and inserting foot. Kerry was at it again during a campaign event. [Tweet]
“The reason they’re trying to use this Ukraine thing,” Kerry said waving his hand dismissively, “Is purely to do a Benghazi, to do an email kind of thing. Whatever.
Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), who was sworn into the Senate earlier this month, hit her colleague Mitt Romney, former GOP presidential nominee and sitting Republican senator from Utah, for his stance with regard to the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.In a viral tweet, Sen. Loeffler blasted Romney for wanting to “appease the left” over his support of impeachment witnesses, when, according to the senator, there is “no case for impeachment.”“After [two] weeks, it’s clear that Democrats have no case for impeachment,” Loeffler posted
Everything old is new again. If you liked Julie Swetnick in the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing TV movie, you’ll love John Bolton in the impeachment TV movie.
John Bolton has a book coming out. Can you believe that the week the president’s team gets a platform to respond to the Democrats’ wild accusations, the details of Bolton’s book somehow make it to the pages of New York Times? If this tactic seems familiar, it’s because it is. This is the Comey maneuver. Remember, when Comey’s memos and positive spin showed up in the Times? It’s almost as if James Comey and John Bolton have the same book publicist.
Supreme Court allows Trump to implement
plan to bar more immigrants who get federal
assistance replies
plan to bar more immigrants who get federal
assistance replies
The Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to implement new rules that would make it easier to deny immigrants residency or admission into the U.S. if they have or might use public assistance programs.
The court on Monday voted 5-4 to remove a nationwide injunction imposed by a judge in New York.
John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney don't need to
testify because we already know what they
have to say replies
testify because we already know what they
have to say replies
No matter how many times CNN refers to the new report about John Bolton as a “bombshell,” it doesn’t change that everything we need to know about President Trump, Ukraine, and the delay in foreign aid, we already know and have known for a month.
Calling in Bolton to testify to the Senate that Trump has a long-standing grudge against Ukraine sheds precisely no new light on anything.
The New York Times on Sunday said that it has spoken with people who reviewed the manuscript of Bolton’s forthcoming book about his time as national security adviser in the White House. Without directly quoting a single thing from the manuscript,
John Bolton Sells Out
replies
Revenge, the saying goes, is a dish best served cold, but John Bolton’s strike back at President Trump after being fired as National Security Adviser is the hottest thing in the news today. According to a report in The New York Times, Trump told Bolton “that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens.” Nor is this simply the Times trying to rally the dispirited pro-impeachment troops for one last charge in their multiply discredited impeachment case: Fox News reported that “Bolton’s representatives made clear he was not denying the Times’ claim
Pelosi Warns Republican Senators: Allow
Witnesses in Impeachment Trial Or “Pay a
Price” (VIDEO) replies
Witnesses in Impeachment Trial Or “Pay a
Price” (VIDEO) replies
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi fired off a warning shot to Republican senators on Sunday: allow witnesses in the impeachment trial or “pay a price.”
“It’s about a fair trial. They take an oath to have a fair trial. We think that would include witnesses and documentation. The ball is now in their court, so either do that or pay a price,” warned Pelosi. How is this ‘threat’ different from what President Trump said about Adam Schiff? Leftie hypocrites, unite!
WATCH: [video]
Last week Republican senators blocked nine amendments from Democrats requesting witnesses and documentation.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) on Saturday drafted motions to subpoena impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff,
Berkeley—Just after 8 on a warm evening in September, Janae Bell was shooting the breeze with two friends at the Hearst Avenue railroad crossing, sharing some pastries and talking bikes. Over the clanging bells of a Union Pacific freight train rumbling past on the opposite track, they didn’t hear the Amtrak barreling toward them. With seconds to spare, Bell, 41, looked up, screamed “Train!” and dove off the tracks. But when he turned to look for his friends, he said, “They were gone.”(Snip) California’s railroad tracks are now lined with men and women sleeping in tents or under cardboard boxes,
When President Trump tweeted on Sunday that Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., was a “CORRUPT POLITICIAN” who “has not paid the price, yet, for what he has done to our Country!” the media and Democrats loudly protested, as they do, that this was a threat.
“Schiff ‘has not paid the price’ for impeachment, Trump says in what appears to be veiled threat,” said a Washington Post headline. “Schiff, Calling Trump ‘Wrathful and Vindictive,’ Sees Tweet as a Threat” (Snip)What a ludicrous spin that Democrats and the media pushed in lockstep.When Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Republicans would “pay a price” for not acquiescing to her demands regarding
The timing, purpose and narrative engineering here are transparent in the extreme.
Tonight the New York Times (Schmidt and Haberman) write an article claiming to have exclusively gained portions of a transcript of a John Bolton book manuscript that was given to the White House National Security Council for pre-publication review.(Snip)However, setting aside the nothing-burger details of the book as leaked, the leak itself might now reconcile an earlier event.
Remember the issue a little more than a week ago when the National Security Council senior director for European and Russian affairs, Andrew Peek, was escorted from the White House grounds and is said to be under a security-related investigation?
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the United States was “formed” by immigrants and thus Americans must not think of the immigration issue “narrowly.” During an interview with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait, Nadella described the U.S. as “a country of immigrants” and said his corporation supports “enlightened immigration policy.”(Snip) That “enlightened immigration policy” has translated to Microsoft lobbying heavily for legislation that will flood the U.S. labor market with more foreign workers to provide Silicon Valley’s tech conglomerates with cheaper labor costs and more profits for executives. In the corporation’s most recent lobbying, Microsoft hired lobbyists to push Republicans and Democrats
Officials in Los Angeles said late Sunday that dense fog in Southern California likely played a role in the deadly crash in Calabasas that claimed the lives of nine people, including NBA great Kobe Bryant and his teenage daughter.
Several experts pointed to the poor flying conditions in the area and said fog will likely play a key part in the investigation, the Los Angeles Times reported. Dense fog covered the area and continued to hang low on the Santa Monica mountain range hours after the crash.
Laredo Sector Border Patrol agents disrupted a human smuggling attempt when they found 63 migrants locked in a tractor-trailer at an immigration checkpoint on Interstate 35.
Laredo North Station agents assigned to the Interstate 35 immigration checkpoint observed a white tractor-trailer approaching for inspection on the night of January 21. During an initial interview with the drier, a Border Patrol K-9 alerted to the possibility of drug or human cargo located in the trailer, according to information obtained from Laredo Sector Border Patrol officials.
The agents referred the driver to a secondary inspection station. The driver failed to stop and continued north until stopping in a nearby field.
A common belief among conservatives is that Democrats have blundered in their impeachment trial argumentation, that they've shot themselves in the foot. Perhaps so. But we should remember that their goal cannot, logically, be to win over the Senate so President Trump can be ousted from office before November.
It would have to be that they want to win the Senate for Democrats in November.
It's easy believing that the world's Adam Schiffs and Jerrold Nadlers are ill intended Inspector Clouseaus (without his luck), and no great genius should be ascribed to them.
Alan Dershowitz is one of the attorneys Trump selected to represent him in the impeachment hearing before the Senate. Saturday Night Live responded by running a skit showing Dershowitz as the Devil's handmaiden. It wasn't funny, and it degraded the important constitutional space Dershowitz occupies, not just because he's one of the most famous criminal law and constitutional lawyers in America, but also because he's willing to take on disfavored cases.
Dershowitz has taught at Harvard Law School for fifty-five years. He is considered one of America's premier criminal and constitutional lawyers. Because of his rarefied position, Dershowitz can pick and choose clients. At his level,
The Taliban has claimed it shot down an American military plane in Afghanistan, killing everyone on board. Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the militant group, said that high-ranking officers were among the dead after the aircraft was brought down in Dih Yak district around 1.10pm local time. U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there were no indications so far that the plane had been brought down by enemy activity.(Snip) The plane could be a Bombardier E-11A aircraft, which the U.S. military uses for electronic surveillance over Afghanistan. The highly-specialised aircraft work alongside drones to provide 24/7 support
The helicopter that crashed yesterday in Calabasas, California, was operating under “Special Visual Flight Rules,” according to an air traffic control audio conversation with the pilot, captured by website LiveATC.net.
What that means: A SVFR, Special Visual Flight Rules, clearance is given to pilots to allow them to fly in weather conditions worse than those allowed for standard Visual Flight Rules (VFR).
The Burbank Airport control tower allowed the helicopter to proceed northeast following the I-5 highway using the SVFR clearance.
“Maintain special VFR at or below 2,500” the pilot confirmed to the controller.
Later in the flight, the pilot apparently asked for “flight following,” a service where controllers
Chiefs Owner Clark Hunt Is Bringing
Around 2,000 Staff Members, Family
And Friends To The Super Bowl replies
Around 2,000 Staff Members, Family
And Friends To The Super Bowl replies
The Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt is pulling off a great move for his team for the Super Bowl.According to Herbie Teope, the Hunt family is bringing “close to 2,000 staff members, friends and families” to the game against the 49ers in Miami. (Tweet) This is an awesome gesture from Hunt and his family. They’re obviously very wealthy. They own an NFL team. That generally means you’re very rich. When you have the opportunity to use your money for good, you should do it. You lose nothing by helping people less fortunate than yourself, especially when you have NFL money.
OSWIECIM, Poland — Survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp gathered Monday for commemorations marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the camp, using the testimony of survivors to warn about the signs of rising anti-Semitism and hatred in the world today.In all, more than 200 survivors of the camp are expected, many of them elderly Jews who have traveled far from homes in Israel, the United States, Australia, Peru, Russia, Slovenia and elsewhere. Many lost parents and grandparents in Auschwitz or other Nazi death camps, but today were being joined in their journey back by children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren.
Kobe Bryant's helicopter pilot was told he was 'too low' as he flew through thick fog moments before slamming into a hillside in a crash which killed all nine on board. The NBA legend and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna died along with seven others yesterday when the Sikorsky S-76 (seen left) came down in Calabasas, California.They had flown from John Wayne Airport near his home in Newport Beach and were on their way to Thousand Oaks to Bryant's Mamba Basketball Academy when they crashed. The flight took off shortly after 9am. At around 9.20am, pilot Ara Zobayan circled above Burbank Airport for 15 minutes.
Senate Republicans on Sunday defended President Donald Trump and panned calls for witnesses to testify in the Senate impeachment trial, ahead of the start of the second week.
In interviews on major networks, Republicans appeared unmoved by House Democrats’ opening arguments for Trump’s removal and reiterated that the Senate should not seek new evidence.Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a strong Trump ally, warned on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo” that calling in witnesses would create only more havoc.
“What do we do?” Graham said. “Delay the trial so the president can go to court?
What caused the Australian fires?
Global warming? Obstruction
of fire prevention burns? Arson? replies
Global warming? Obstruction
of fire prevention burns? Arson? replies
With at least 27 people killed and 18 million acres incinerated as of last week, the worst bushfire season Australia has seen in decades is a bad one, no doubt about it. Reproduced with permission of the Western Australian Land Information Authority, the FireWatch map below shows the location of individual fires as of Jan. 14, 2020. Disclaimer: The size of the icons on the map relates to the location of the fire and not to the size of the fire on the ground. Any opinions expressed herein are mine and were not arrived at in consultation with the Western Australian Land Information Authority.
TAMPA — A Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputy shot and killed a dog along the Gasparilla Parade route Saturday evening after it attacked a patrol horse, authorities said.
Deputies called for backup outside the high-rise 345 Bayshore Condominiums at about 6:30 p.m., shortly after the Parade of Pirates wound past the spot near the exit ramp for Tampa General Hospital.
Large crowds were still gathered along the Bayshore Boulevard route at the time of the attack and watched as the dog, believed to be a pit bull, charged at a team of horses carrying mounted patrol deputies from both the Sheriff’s Office and the Tampa Police Department. According to a spokesperson
Hard to say what fired and now former National Security Advisor John Bolton is up to these days now that the Senate impeachment trial is on.
The latest news is here on the front page of the New York Times, reporting an anonymous "leak":
WASHINGTON — President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.
It’s a shame that so many Republicans are calling for a quick impeachment trial and the inevitable acquittal of Donald Trump. It seems more than a bit shortsighted. Why should Republicans settle for an acquittal when we can accomplish so much more?
The Democrats have laid a trap for themselves with this absurd impeachment farce and their demand for witnesses in the Senate trial. Let’s oblige them in their efforts to destroy themselves.
In early October, Chuck Todd stared stone-faced into MSNBC's living rooms and intoned gravely, "I don't say this lightly, but let's be frank — a national nightmare is upon us. The basic rules of our democracy are under attack from the president[.] ... [T]hat all but ensures his impeachment in the House of Representatives. ... This moment should arguably be a national emergency. The Founding Fathers would have considered it a national emergency — if the president publicly lobbied multiple governments to interfere in the next election. It's tough to say lightly, but this is the moment we're at."Said lightly or not,
Has the Trump impeachment drama reached its Brett Kavanaugh or Clarence Thomas moment? That would be the moment when, after the hearings are more or less done and it looks like the target will survive, the Democrats confect a last ditch scandal to block, in the case of the two justices, Senate confirmation or, in the case of President Trump, acquittal.
We confess we’ve been expecting something to be brought up at the last minute. It is, after all, the Democratic Party’s modus operandi. In the case of Clarence Thomas, it looked like the hearings were done and the nominee on the way to confirmation,
Saturday’s performance by Trump’s defense lawyers served to enlighten the public and, of course, exasperate Adam Schiff. He tweeted thus:
After listening to the President’s lawyers opening arguments, I have three observations:
They don’t contest the facts of Trump’s scheme.
They’re trying to deflect, distract from, and distort the truth.
And they are continuing to cover it up by blocking documents and witnesses. The “facts” of Trump’s “scheme” were not only contested, but utterly deflated in the White House lawyers’ two-hour presentation. Deflecting the truth is, as articulated by the Trump defense team, a favorite pastime of Schiff and Co
This is a parody. This is not meant to reflect any beliefs or statements of ESPN or the personalities named in this parody, nor any of the actual mannerisms of such people.
Scott Van Pelt: So one of the most eagerly awaited moments of the 2020 election year has finally arrived. The selection committee revealed its brackets for the Comfortably Smug #LiberalHack tournament, sponsored as always by the private equity firm Smug Enterprises. It’s Smug Enterprises—making an impact on communities all across America.
Jay Bilas, take us through the first bracket—Liberal Activist. What jumps out at you?
Jay Bilas: The committee has set up a potential all-time matchup in the round of eight,
“Evidence and witnesses!” is the constant refrain from the House impeachment managers like Rep. Adam “Shifty” Schiff and Rep. Jerry “Jabba” Nadler even as Schiff had hidden evidence in the form of the transcript for his star-chamber interview with ICIG Michael Atkinson and block witness in the person of himself and the Ukraine phone call whistleblower. The hypocrisy of it all is underscored by the fact that by hiding the whistleblower and the details of his initial contacts with Schiff and the ICIG, Schiff and the House managers are denying President Trump a basic constitutional right -- the right to confront one’s accuser.
Deep state players in the Obama administration wove an elaborate tapestry of collusion, subterfuge, and electoral chicanery. While better suited for a Robert Ludlum novel, it played out in real time over the past four years. (snip) Aside from the illegality of deceiving the FISA court, and the seditious efforts to remove a duly elected American president, it blows up all downstream Democrat, media, and deep state efforts to overturn the 2016 election.
There is a legal doctrine called the “fruit of the poisonous tree.” To summarize:
A doctrine that extends the exclusionary rule to make evidence inadmissible in court if it was derived from evidence that was illegally obtained.
It is an old rule of journalism that it is better to get it right than to get it first.
But after seeing how reporters reacted Sunday to news of retired NBA star Kobe Bryant's death, you could be forgiven for thinking that such a rule no longer exists, if it ever existed at all.
The former Los Angeles Laker was among nine people killed Sunday morning in a helicopter crash in Southern California. The other victims include Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter Gianna, one of her teammates on her basketball team, the teammate’s parent, and the pilot.
Those are the facts. Everything else you may have heard
During Elizabeth Warren’s campaign stop in Iowa on Monday, a man asked the presidential hopeful whether her student-loan debt-forgiveness plan would also reimburse people who had already paid for school.
“My daughter is getting out of school,” he told Warren, while standing in her (what else!) selfie line. “I’ve saved all my money.”
“She doesn’t have any student loans,” he continued. “Am I going to get my money back?”
Warren immediately replied: “Of course not.”
The man, unsurprisingly, was not satisfied with her answer.
“So you’re going to pay for people who didn’t save any money and those of us who did the right thing get screwed?” he said.
Columbia University continues to deny students accused of sexual assault their due process rights, going out of their way to ignore exculpatory evidence in order to find accused men responsible no matter how thin the allegations.
The latest example is Ben Feibleman, who is using his real name to fight the allegations against him, made by a woman who, as usual, gets to keep her anonymity and is only referred to as Jane Doe in court documents. The Daily Caller’s Betsy Rothstein recently published an exclusive interview with Feibleman regarding the $25 million lawsuit he filed against the university last May. I encourage you to read her full story
On Sunday morning, President Trump took to Twitter to attack the Democrats' impeachment efforts again.
“The Impeachment Hoax is a massive election interference the likes of which has never been seen before. In just two hours the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats have seen their phony case absolutely shredded,” Trump tweeted just after 8 a.m.
The Impeachment Hoax is a massive election interference the likes of which has never been seen before. In just two hours the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats have seen their phony case absolutely shredded. Shifty is now exposed for illegally making up my phone call, & more
The Democrats are clearly frustrated by their failure to convince congressional Republicans that President Trump has committed any act approaching an impeachable offense. This was made plain when House managers Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) resorted to the bizarre and self-defeating tactic of insulting the integrity of the very Senators who will ultimately decide the President’s fate. The Democrats obviously believed their relentless attacks on all things Trump, combined with impeachment, would eventually cause Republicans to abandon him just as they did President Nixon in 1974. Instead, their three-year smear campaign has only strengthened the President’s support among Republicans in both houses of Congress.
Why?
Joe Biden doesn’t sound very moderate when he says there is “no room for compromise” on “transgender equality.”
It is the “civil rights issue of our time,” he tweeted last week, elevating it above women’s equality, racial equality, and even climate “justice,” an issue he once told us was an “existential threat.”
The tweet was rather baffling, other than as an exercise in identity pandering.
Maybe Biden thought he could win over a segment of the 0.3 percent transgender voters who are irate that Bernie Sanders accepted an endorsement from libertarian podcaster and pronoun purist Joe Rogan.
Democrats are really gonna do this, huh? I’m imagining Barack Obama looking at these new polling numbers and contemplating his legacy: A wipeout of Democrats in federal and state races by 2016, the election of a Republican president whom O himself allegedly describes as a “fascist,” and the increasing likelihood that his own party will choose an out-and-out socialist as its next nominee. In time, the Obama/Romney contest of 2012 may come to be seen as the last non-“European” election America had for many years. The well-respected NYT/Siena poll finds that everything’s coming up Bernie in Iowa:
The U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad was hit by multiple rockets on Sunday, two U.S. officials told ABC News.
This is the first time the compound has been hit directly in years and comes just weeks after pro-Iranian militia members and their supporters assaulted the compound in Iraq. Rocket attacks on the Green Zone are very common. Last week three rockets were fired into Baghdad's Green Zone, the heavily fortified area of the capital that houses the embassy, government buildings and U.S. service members. Iraqi officials said Monday that there were no injuries.
No one can deny that the United States is facing a student debt crisis.
With more than $1.6 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, tens of millions of Americans are forced to pay huge sums of money every month – this writer included – to private and government lenders, slowing down growth in other important areas of the economy, like the housing industry.
As usual, Democrats’ plans to fix this important problem is to throw even more money at it and give greater power to the very same government agents and politicians that messed the system up in the first place.
A girls’ basketball coach was identified as one of the fatal victims in the crash that killed Kobe Bryant and his daughter on Sunday, officials said.Christina Mauser — who worked at a private school in Orange County, California — was among nine people killed instantly when their helicopter crashed in Calabasas, according to Costa Mesa mayor Katrina Foley.“My kids and I are devastated,” Christina’s husband, Matt Mauser, wrote on Facebook.“We lost our beautiful wife and mom today in a helicopter crash. Please respect our privacy.
Michelle Obama joined such music legends as Crooked Hillary, Al Gore and her husband Barack Obama and won a Grammy Award on Sunday for reading her book.
She really read it well.It was very moving.(Photo/Tweet) It was her first. (Tweet)
On January 27, 1945, the Red Army took control of Auschwitz away from the Nazis, where more than one million Jewish victims were liquidated that comprised roughly 1/6 of all the murders committed during the Holocaust. Unlike the Operation Reinhard death camps of Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Majdankek, and Chelmo, which saw almost two million murders combined, Auschwitz functioned as both a concentration and a death camp. After the Operation Reinhard death camps had largely exterminated Polish Jewry by 1943, and since they had started to become a liability with the war effort swinging in favor of the Red Army, Auschwitz, located farther to the west, began killing more
Chuck Cooper, an attorney for former National Security Adviser John Bolton, said that Bolton’s book manuscript was submitted to the National Security Council for a standard review for classified information, but its contents appear to have been leaked to the New York Times.Cooper was reacting to a story in the Times that alleges President Donald Trump told Bolton that he wanted to withhold aid to Ukraine until it completed investigations Trump had requested. Cooper said in a statement: On December 30, 2019, I submitted, on behalf of Ambassador Bolton, a book manuscript to the National Security Council’s Records Management Division for standard prepublication security review
An Animal rescue service in Georgia says a good Samaritan last week spotted a mama dog dragging a crate filled with her pups on the side of the road.
The mama dog was tied to the crate with a blue belt, while her four puppies were crammed inside, Savannah’s WTOC 11 reported.
“This was a new one. New things happen all the time,” said Marianna Hagan, director of the McIntosh County Animal Services. “I’ve never had a dog pulling a crate full of puppies down the road before.” [tweet]
A father and son had spotted the mama dog dragging the crate in Townsend, a community near Georgia’s east coast,
Senate GOP leaders are mulling a quick end to the impeachment trial if the vote to call witnesses fails.
Politico is reporting that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may use some procedural moves to bring an end to debate and vote for Trump's acquittal. If, as expected, the vote to call witnesses fails and Democrats are unable to introduce more evidence or depose more witnesses, the vote to acquit could come as early as Friday, says Senator Tim Barrasso.
“The question is going to come to ‘Have you heard enough to make a decision or do you want witnesses?’ If people say, ‘We’re ready to vote,’ we’re going to vote right then,”
While presenting the Democrats' case for impeachment on the Senate floor, lead impeachment manager Adam Schiff (D-CA) kept referencing 17 witnesses who testified during the House impeachment inquiry. But there were 18 of them. Schiff and the Democrats are refusing to release the testimony of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, and according to Republicans who were present during Atkinson's closed-door testimony, the reason the transcript hasn't been released is because it proves both the whistleblower and House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff did not tell the truth about their contact with each other.