Posts on Thursday, January 30, 2020
House Intelligence Committee chair turned House impeachment manager Adam Schiff tried to pull a fast one Wednesday by accusing President Donald Trump of “bribery” and “extortion.”
“[W]e think there is a crime here of bribery or extortion, conditioning official acts for personal favors; that is bribery, it’s also what the founders understood as extortion,” he said while trying to rebut an argument from the president’s legal team that only actual criminal acts such as bribery are impeachable offenses.
But neither “bribery” nor “extortion” were included in the articles of impeachment filed against the president last month. Instead, the articles centered on two highly nebulous charges: “abuse of power” and “obstruction of justice.”
Rep. Jerry Nadler sparked immediate backlash for a “terrifying” remark during the Senate impeachment trial in which he declared President Donald Trump must be “brought to heel.”
The New York Democrat also gave a melodramatic warning Wednesday that the country has to be “saved” from the president’s attempts to “rig our elections.” [video]
Nadler was responding to a question posed by Supreme Court Justice John Roberts who was reading questions in the Senate chamber submitted on note cards and addressed to either House Democratic managers or Trump’s defense team.
“If President Trump were to actually invoke executive privilege in this proceeding,
An 18-year-old car-jacker who left a young woman partially blind in one eye following a hammer attack as he tried to steal her Audi has been jailed for nine years. Majid Ali repeatedly struck Blythe Mason-Boyle across the head before taking her Audi A1 from Coventry Road, Sheldon, Birmingham, in March last year. The 24-year-old victim suffered cuts to her face and a fractured eye socket shortly after leaving a gym. West Midlands Police have shared a shocking image of her injuries following the sentencing of Ali. Miss Mason-Boyle now struggles to see clearly through one eye
Senator Elizabeth Warren’s got a plan for that.
The Massachusetts Democrat’s signature phrase, “I’ve got a plan for that” now appears to include a policy that would create a Justice Department task force to target “violations” committed by the Trump administration.
The corruption and immigration infractions will be investigated and prosecuted after President Trump has left office, of course, with Warren firmly planted in the Oval Office. The 2020 Democratic hopeful unveiled her new campaign plan which accused Trump of running the “most corrupt administration in history.”
“If we are to move forward to restore public confidence in government and deter future wrongdoing,
House impeachment manager Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told the Senate on Thursday that the so-called “Steele dossier” paid for by Democrats against then-candidate Donald Trump was not improper foreign interference in the 2016 election because they “purchased” it.
Jeffries was responding to a question from Republicans about Democrats’ argument that the president had invited improper foreign interference in U.S. elections by seeking, or being willing to accept, information from abroad on a potential political opponent.
The question asked: “Under the House managers’ standard, would the Steele dossier be considered as foreign interference in a U.S. election, a violation of the law, and/or an impeachable offense?”
A Long Island man arrested after a fatal drunken wreck Jan. 12 bragged to cops, “The laws changed, I’ll be out tomorrow,” thanks to new bail reform measures, prosecutors said Thursday. Jordan Randolph, 40, who did walk free the next day, also told cops the deadly crash was “just a DWI.” Details of the boozy bust were revealed Thursday as Randolph was hit with a 24-count indictment for vehicular manslaughter, aggravated vehicular homicide and a slew of other charges in the crash that killed 27-year-old Jonathan Flores-Maldonado. “As Jonathan Flores was left taking his last breaths and dying, this defendant was hurling expletives
European countries on Thursday stepped up efforts to contain the virus infecting central China, sending a plane to evacuate hundreds of Europeans from the country and halting even more flights to China. Italian authorities kept some 7,000 people on a cruise ship while they checked for a possible infection.
An A380 plane took off from a former military airport at Beja, 200 kilometers (120 miles) southeast of Lisbon carrying just its pilots and crew.
Captain Antonios Efthymiou said the flight was going first to Paris, to pick up a team of doctors and extra crew, before heading to Hanoi and then China.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi railed against President Donald Trump’s legal team on Thursday, asking “how they can retain their lawyer status.”
“I don’t know how they can retain their lawyer status, in the comments that they’re making,” Pelosi told reporters on Thursday afternoon.
“Some of them are even lawyers,” Pelosi said, castigating the idea in a statement to D.C. journalists:
Imagine that you would say — ever, of any president, no matter who he or she is or whatever party — if the president thinks that his or her presidency … is good for the country, then any action is justified — including encouraging a foreign government to have an impact on our elections.
Prince Harry has lost an Ipso complaint over a Mail on Sunday story that revealed he had photos taken with a 'drugged and tethered' elephant. The Duke of Sussex complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation saying the paper had breached Clause 1 of its Editors' Code of Practice, 'Accuracy', regarding the article published on April 28 last year. Harry had posted wildlife pictures on the Sussex Royal Instagram page for Earth Day—images used by The Mail on Sunday for a story with the headline: 'Drugged and tethered… what Harry didn't tell you about those awe-inspiring wildlife photos'.
President Donald Trump appears to be on easy street when it comes to his potential re-election. In fact, his chances are so good that even liberal talking-head Chris Matthews was forced to admit that the president is sitting pretty leading up to November.During MSNBC’s day-long coverage of the impeachment trial, the “Hardball” host decided to take a moment to “put it all together” for the audience. Unfortunately, it may not be what the left-leaning group of listeners wants to hear. First, Matthews pointed out the increasing popularity of self-avowed Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, who was recently involved in a short-lived spat
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has released the question that was blocked Wednesday and Thursday by Chief Justice John Roberts in the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. Paul’s question deals with the origins of the impeachment inquiry and employs the name of the alleged whistleblower, not in that context but with regard to his relation with a NSC co-worker who moved on to the staff of Lead House Manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and whether they plotted to impeach Trump before the House impeachment proceedings started.(Photo) The question and answer sessions of the impeachment trial involve senators submitting written questions to Roberts who then reads them aloud
Republican Utah state Rep. Tim Quinn has introduced a bill in that state's legislature that would allow voters to recall U.S. senators -- a possible swipe at Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, despite Quinn saying the bill isn't targeted at anyone in particular.First reported by Deseret News, the bill would create a process by which a recall vote could go on the ballot after a petition by voters.“I know that’s what’s going to be the narrative,” Quinn told the Deseret News when asked if the bill was aimed at Romney, the sitting GOP senator whose current term doesn't expire until 2025. “If it were,
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) made a bizarre announcement at a campaign stop in Iowa last Sunday, telling the crowd that, when she selects her cabinet, she’ll only consider candidates for the Secretary of Education who have taught in public schools, and the final candidate will only take office after passing an interview with a “young trans person.”One of the attendees at Warren’s weekend stop in Cedar Rapids asked the Massachusetts Senator and hopeful 2020 Democratic presidential nominee whether she would support more education on LGBT and transgender issues for school-aged children. In response, Warren suggested that LGBT and transgender issues
Former Vice President Joe Biden cut into President Trump's character in an Iowa address that was meant to serve as an opening punch before the president headlines a Des Moines rally Thursday night. Biden called out Trump for a laundry list of things: lying, dog-whistling racists, trying to scrap Obamacare - even being mean to climate activist Greta Thunberg.
'Welcome to Donald Trump's world: up is down, lies are the truth, allies are enemies, everything is through the looking glass,' Biden told a crowd gathered in a school gym in a Des Moines suburb. Biden made no mention of impeachment. He previously said his role in the impeachment saga
Democrats Kill Amendment Protecting
Americans from Credit Discrimination
Based on Politics, Religion replies
Americans from Credit Discrimination
Based on Politics, Religion replies
Democrats in the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday against an amendment to a proposed bill that would prevent the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from forcing credit reporting agencies to evaluate Americans based on political opinions or religious beliefs. Without such an amendment, Republicans warn, the powerful CFPB would have the legal authority to make nearly any criteria mandatory for a private credit evaluation company to take into consideration, paving the way for a system in which the federal government has the power to assign numerical scores to individuals based on their loyalty to a certain political party, membership in civil society groups that
Forget that embarrassing CNN segment with Don Lemon, “Republican political strategist” Rick Wilson and contributor Wajahat Ali laughing like hyenas over Wilson’s insulting “Boomer Rube” comment against Trump supporters. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough decided it was a good idea to tout an attack ad against Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) made by the Wilson-led anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project just three days later. The Lincoln Project is a PAC created by anti-Trump Republican George Conway and advised by fellow anti-Trumpers Rick Wilson, John Weaver and Steve Schmidt.
Senators will have eight more hours on Thursday to ask questions in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.(Snip)2:00 PM: Brown and Wyden ask the House managers about Trump’s team failure to give an adequate response about foreign interference in elections and whether it should be reported to the FBI and is a violation of law. They ask if Trump stays in office, what signal would that send to other countries that want to interfere in elections.
Jeffries says it would send “a terrible message to autocrats and dictators and enemies of democracy and the free world.”
1:55 PM: Portman and other GOP Senators as Trump’s team about Jonathan Turley’s testimony.
Liberals notice Drudge flipped
replies
Matt Drudge turned his coat on Donald John Trump last year. Liberals have begun noticing. Guess what? They do not want him either.
To be sure, conservatives have had it with him. On October 9, I wrote my most popular post of 2019, "Post Drudge conservative news."
I said, "Matt Drudge's foray into respectability has made him an unreliable -- indeed, downright misleading -- source of news. But the good news is there are alternatives to the Alternative Left Reality the Drudge Report now calls home."
Readers overwhelmingly agreed that Drudge sold out.
AP says Trump supporters pumped
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Who autographs hardhats? I mean besides President Donald John Trump. Come to think of it, is there anyone other autograph they would want?
The Associated Press reported, "AP-NORC poll: GOP more fired up for 2020, Democrats anxious."
The story was a mess. No one at the Associated Press political desk writes a straight lead anymore. Paragraph 7 was a quote from Clinton Adams, a 39-year-old custodian in the Florida Panhandle.
The poll asked voters about the election. 43% of Republicans and 33% of Democrats are excited.
46% of Republicans and 66% of Democrats are anxious.The story said, "A party usually wants its voters excited rather than anxious,
Lawyers representing Lt. General Michael Flynn have filed a motion to dismiss [pdf here] citing “government misconduct”. Additionally Mr. Flynn has filed a declaration [pdf here] requesting to remove his prior guilty plea and take the case to trial. Hours later the DOJ revised their sentencing memo, dropped their request for jail time and offered probation.
Within the motion to dismiss (full pdf embed below) Flynn’s legal team point out several issues with the prosecution of Mr. Flynn and highlight the recent findings, admissions and briefs amid the IG report, DOJ notifications to the FISA Court, and FISC orders therein.
Last week when it was announced that Alan Dershowitz was joining President Trump’s legal team, I warned in these pages that his complex argument in the alternative, in which he claims that even if proven what Democrats allege regarding Ukraine does not rise to the level of impeachment, was ripe for mischaracterization. The news media has not disappointed on that score.
(Snip)
Yesterday the deceptive coverage of Dershowitz got even worse.
Alan Dershowitz, one of President Trump's defense lawyers, argued that anything a president does to get re-elected could be considered in the nation's interest and is therefore not impeachable.https://t.co/ptlmibuTni
— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 29, 2020
A civil rights group is calling on Roman Catholic church leaders to reject a sermon in which a Minnesota priest described Islam as a threat to the U.S. and Christianity.
The Rev. Nick VanDenBroeke is pastor of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the small town of Lonsdale.
He said during a Jan. 5 sermon that large numbers of Muslims should not be allowed to seek asylum or immigration to the U.S.
The homily that was posted for the public on the church's website has since been deleted.
"I believe it is essential it is to consider the religion and the world view of the immigrants or refugees.
A man known as Mexico’s most prominent butterfly activist was found dead in a well, and his family fears he may have been a casualty of cartel violence, according to new reports.
Homero Gómez González, a former logger who became one of the most vocal defenders of central Mexico’s monarch butterfly population, disappeared Jan. 13 — alarming environmental activists throughout the country and the US, the Washington Post reported.
All Eyes On Susan Collins
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Senator Susan Collins’ speech announcing her vote for Justice Kavanaugh was so memorably principled and well put that her fans — the Sun included — will grant her license to vote however she wants in respect of President Trump. Not that she needs anyone’s license. Yet we don’t mind saying that the principles the senator articulated in the Kavanaugh case beckon in the case of Mr. Trump for an early acquittal.
The principal principle Ms. Collins marked in the Kavanaugh case was due process. Here’s how she put it in what we predicted would become famous words:
Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg ignited a backlash on Twitter, particularly among people of color, after he claimed that the country’s next president needed to embody the values of “the American Heartland.” “In the face of unprecedented challenges, we need a president whose vision was shaped by the American Heartland rather than the ineffective Washington politics we’ve come to know and expect,” Mr. Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, tweeted to his 1.6 million followers Wednesday afternoon. As of Thursday morning, the tweet racked up only 1,300 retweets and a whopping 10,600 replies, with some users accusing Mr. Buttigieg of casual racism
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House intelligence committee, has released all but one of the transcribed interviews his committee conducted privately as part of their impeachment process.At the impeachment trial on Wednesday, Republicans asked why Schiff is still withholding the transcript of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who testified about the whistleblower and his complaint in closed, executive session on Oct. 4. (Video) Schiff has released the other 17 witness transcripts. But not Atkinson's. Why?Schiff explained to the Senate:
Scientists recently published images of brain scans on young children that demonstrate the effects of reading versus using screens. In the scans of children who spent more time with books than screens (less than an hour of screen time a day), there was a concentration of white matter focused in the center of the brain. For the scans of children who spent more time with screens (more than an hour a day), this white matter was scattered. (Snip)As one would expect, concentrated white matter invariably results in better cognitive performance in the kids who stay off screens: they focus better, learn faster, and show greater mental flexibility and creativity.
Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court against the Democratic National Committee, law firm Perkins Coie and its partners tied to the funding of the unverified dossier that served as the basis for highly controversial surveillance warrants against him.
The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois’ Eastern Division Thursday morning, and was described by his attorneys as the “first of multiple actions in the wake of historic” Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse. “This is a first step to ensure that the full extent of the FISA abuse that has occurred
Dem Sen. Casey: After Day One of
Questioning, ‘Probably Less Likely’
That There Will Be Witnesses replies
Questioning, ‘Probably Less Likely’
That There Will Be Witnesses replies
During CNN’s impeachment coverage on Wednesday, Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) stated that after the first day of questioning in the Senate’s impeachment trial he thinks it is “probably less likely that the votes will be there for witnesses.”Host Chris Cuomo asked Casey, “Do you believe that today, after this, witnesses are more or less likely?”Casey responded, “I think it’s probably less likely that the votes will be there for witnesses. But I guess I’m being purposefully pessimistic. Because of the way their caucus has operated for a long while. But I hope I’m wrong. Because if they vote yes on witnesses, we’re going to have a different chapter,
Life expectancy in the United States increased in 2018 for the first time in four years, driven largely by a drop in cancer-related deaths and a historic decline in fatal overdoses.
New CDC data released Thursday provides hope that the major contributors to three years of stagnant or declining life expectancy may be relenting. Still, other factors such as suicide ticked up in the past year. The data confirms fatal drug overdoses dropped in 2018 for the first time in nearly 30 years — a bright spot for President Donald Trump, who has made the opioid crisis a key issue of his presidency. The decrease could indicate
In a blog post published in November, a year before the 2020 election, Brian Burch, the president of CatholicVote.org, a socially conservative advocacy group, announced that in Wisconsin alone his organization had identified 199,241 Catholics “who’ve been to church at least 3 times in the last 90 days.”
Nearly half of these religiously observant parishioners, Burch wrote, “91,373 mass-attending Catholics — are not even registered to vote!” CatholicVote.org is looking for potential Trump voters within this large, untapped reservoir — Republican-leaning white Catholics who could bolster Trump’s numbers in a battleground state.
One of Britain’s most popular and respected newsreaders has been sacked after using on Twitter a Shakespeare quotation that a black activist complained was ‘racist’.
Alastair Stewart, who had been a newsreader at Independent Television News (ITN) for 40 years, was engaged in a Twitter debate with a vexatious nonentity called Martin Shapland, a former Liberal Democrat activist of no known distinction.
Dave Rubin, who hosts “The Rubin Report” talk show, joins the podcast to discuss the differences between political liberalism and classical liberalism, his recent encounter with Antifa, and the “cancel culture” phenomenon. Read the lightly edited interview below or listen to the podcast: (Snip) So you believe in the individual above the group. So you believe in the individual above collectivism, let’s say, and that you want the light touch of government.
I know that doesn’t sound very far from conservatism. And by the way, it’s actually not very far from conservatism, which is why I always say now that defending my liberal principles is becoming a conservative position.
Republicans won control of a closely watched congressional district in the Houston, Texas, suburbs in a special election on Tuesday. Gary Gates defeated Democrat Eliz Markowitz, garnering 58% of the vote in a district President Trump won by double digits in 2016. Several prominent Democrats, including presidential candidates Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, endorsed Markowitz, a teacher. Former congressman Beto O'Rourke also spent time campaigning for Markowitz. "I’m from a family of teachers, and I know the real deal: Not only is Eliz an educator and activist — she’s the kind of fighter who will bring heart and smarts
House impeachment manager Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) repeatedly told the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on Wednesday night that the House case was “proven beyond any doubt at all.”Nadler’s odd, and repeated, claim seemed to undermine claims by Democrats that they needed to see more witnesses and documents in the trial. The House Judiciary Committee chairman played an unusually understated role in the first day of the question-and-answer session in the Senate.
Republicans have asked that if Democrats are so confident in their case
My article about Pop Kern, an 89-year-old kind white gentleman and how Democrats seek to punish him for bogus “white privilege” received a tremendous amount of positive response. A young relative of Pop Kern wrote informing me that Pop Kern is a loyal Democrat. This is not surprising. My black dad who passed away at age 90 was also a lifelong Democrat. Dad drilled into my head that Democrats are for the working man and Republicans are for the rich.Respectfully, I tried to gently convince an elderly family member that her Democratic Party has dramatically changed. It is now the party of all things amoral, anti-Christian, anti-freedom, and anti-American.
One-party blue city San Francisco has a corruption problem.
Turns out the sewage on the streets isn't the only thing filthy about San Francisco. Its man in charge of that clean-up, Mohammed Nuru, was busted with a septic tank full of corruption charges.
According to the San Francisco Examiner:
In the biggest public corruption scandal to shake City Hall since 2015, [San Francisco Public Works Director Mohammed] Nuru and local entrepreneur Nick Bovis of famed Union Square sports bar Lefty O’Doul’s have each been charged with one count of wire fraud.
Nuru, 57, and Bovis, 56, allegedly attempted to bribe an airport commissioner to help win a bid for a restaurant
There's a great line from the movie I, Robot that often springs to mind when it comes to politicians. (snip) "You are the dumbest smart person I know!"
"Dumbest smart person" should be engraved on an award. Mitt Romney and the three other Republicans considering calling witnesses in President Trump's impeachment trial would be the final four.
Clearly, Romney, Collins, Murkowski, and Alexander are all smart people. They're successful. They've managed to get elected to the Senate. Romney himself is a near-billionaire in his own right. But they are willfully blind to the obvious-to-everyone-else tactics of the Democrats.
I
It was the late 1880s in the city of Rajkot, India. The meeting was to take place on the banks of the local river – and discretion was essential. Mahatma Gandhi, who was just a teenager at the time, hadn’t told his parents where he was going; if they had found out, they would have been shocked to death.
As it happens, Gandhi was having a picnic. And on this occasion, India’s future national hero – and one of the most famous vegetarians in history – wasn’t planning to dine on cucumber sandwiches. No, for the first time in his life, he was going to eat meat.
Over the weekend, Washington Post columnist Max Boot had a novel take on President Trump’s impeachment. According to Boot, what Trump said on the phone call with Ukraine’s president was in some ways worse than Andrew Jackson’s forced relocation of Native Americans or FDR’s internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
“Other presidents — from Andrew Jackson with the Trail of Tears during the 1830s, to Franklin D. Roosevelt with the internment of U.S. citizens and noncitizens of Japanese descent during World War II — have trampled our values, but they always had a public purpose and usually had congressional support,” Boot wrote.
Either Boot or someone at the Post
Republican Rick Scott, the freshman U.S. senator from Florida, has clearly not been a fan of the impeachment process that has played out before the nation these past two weeks.A process that comes courtesy of the Democratic Party and their hatred of President Donald Trump, and desire to cover for former Vice President Joe Biden’s corruption, according to the lawmaker.Scott posted a video on social media claiming he was being held hostage during the Senate impeachment trial, noting the rigid restrictions placed on senators“As you may have heard, I’ve been taken hostage along with 99 other people in the U.S. Capitol,” Scott begins.
The longest known Southwest drug-smuggling tunnel into the United States has been discovered at the Mexican border, officials said Wednesday.The intricate underground pathway is more than three-quarters of a mile long and features a rail system and an elevator, according to US Customs and Border Protection.One tunnel entrance is in an industrial area in Tijuana, Mexico, and stretches more than 4,300 feet into a San Diego neighborhood, CBP said.“The sophistication and length of this particular tunnel demonstrates the time-consuming efforts transnational criminal organizations will undertake to facilitate cross-border smuggling,”
The unnamed "whistleblower" who launched the investigation that became the impeachment of President Donald Trump may himself be implicated in the Obama administration's decision to ultimately overlook the conflict of interest involving then-Vice President Joe Biden (administration point man on Ukraine) and his son Hunter, who served on the board of the notoriously corrupt Ukrainian gas firm Burisma. The fact that key questions about the "whistleblower" have been shut down from the start is a serious violation of Trump's due process, according to Patrick Philbin, deputy counsel to the president.
Philbin listed three key due process concerns: a lack of authorization, the Democrats not allowing Trump
There probably isn’t a human being alive who mentions the name Barack Obama more often than Joe Biden. At the same time, there probably aren’t two politicians more dissimilar.
In addition to being, as Biden put it, the “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” Obama has always been personally popular, even when his ideas didn’t go over particularly well. Obama engendered passion and loyalty from his idealistic fans and was rarely baited into saying anything impolitic or damaging.
Needless to say, Obama is all the things Biden isn’t.
When asked by an Iowa voter earlier this week if he would support
They are getting themselves terribly worked up about that new 50 pence coin commemorating our departure from the European Union. By ‘they’ I mean those people in the Brexit Derangement Syndrome intensive care ward, wired up to saline drips, attended to day and night, occasionally afforded a few thousand volts of ECT when things get really bad, but still foaming, still beside themselves with apoplexy. Alastair Campbell has announced that he will not accept the coin if given it in change. Lord Adonis, who was perhaps already in the antechamber of derangement even before June 2016, said: ‘I am never using or accepting this coin.’
There’s a reason Mitch McConnell has been Senate Majority Leader for the past 13 years: He gets the job done.
And the biggest part of that job is keeping the GOP caucus, however necessary. At this point, he appears to have pulled off the feat once again.
On Wednesday, McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) — always a wavering and unreliable GOP vote — met in the morning. After that meeting, The Hill reported, it was clear “that the question of having additional witnesses is settled, and the Senate will vote Friday to wrap up the impeachment trial of President Trump.”
From the beginning, nearly every Republican and most Democrats knew that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), passed in 2010, would need to be changed. The Republicans always thought a complete repeal and replacement would be necessary, while Democrats thought they could tweak the law over time. The United States Supreme Court, however, has just dealt a knockout punch to the Democrats when it comes to their ability to write a replacement health care law. Most opponents of the ACA believed the law would not withstand a challenge to its constitutionality. Surprisingly in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the law in 2012.
Mitch McConnell set up the rules for the Senate’s current impeachment hearing so that there would be an early vote on whether to call witnesses, or simply proceed to an up or down vote on impeachment. Either way, the result is foreordained, just as the impeachment process itself was foreordained when the Democrats captured the House in 2018. The president will be exonerated.
The vote on whether to proceed with witnesses apparently will take place on Friday. I assume that McConnell thought it would be easy to get 51 votes in favor of terminating the Senate proceeding, but John Bolton’s ill-timed and ill-advised tell-all book
This is a winning strategy.
Joe Biden, 77, told an Iowa crowd that he needs a strong Vice President because he’s old and may die in office.
“Whomever I pick” for VP, must “be capable of being president, because I’m an old guy — no I’m serious!” Biden said.
Cringe.
Biden also said there’s “8 women and least 4 or 5 people of color” that he believes are “totally qualified” to be his vice president.
Old Joe also said earlier this week that he would like to have Michelle Obama has his running mate.
Next November, when most voters are trying to forget the partisan antics of President Trump’s impeachment, they will decide his fate based on the same criteria they always use to determine if a president deserves reelection. Committed Republicans will vote for Trump, of course, and committed Democrats will vote against him. But party loyalists are about evenly split among only 54 percent of the electorate. Fully 45 percent of Americans now identify as Independents, and their votes will hinge on more pragmatic concerns. This is good news for the president. A new Gallup survey shows very significant increases in public satisfaction on eight key issues since Trump took office:
Donald Trump tweeted a resurfaced video of John Bolton calling the notorious call to Ukraine's Volodymr Zelensky 'warm and cordial' on Wednesday afternoon and crowed: 'GAME OVER!' The president's defense against impeachment has been rocked by revelations that Bolton's book will say he explicitly tied Ukraine aid to a probe into Joe and Hunter Biden. He seized on the interview Bolton conducted with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty while he was still the national security advisor, in which he said that the Trump administration was concerned with corruption, and that the president's two calls with the newly-inaugurated Zelensky were 'warm and cordial.'
On Tuesday, at the White House, President Trump formally enshrined his administration’s full-scale tilt toward Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians with the release of his “vision to improve the lives of the Palestinian and Israeli people.”
This document views the conflict through new eyes in a new century in a new millennium. It takes serious account of the efforts Israel has made, beginning in the early 1990s, to do what Bill Clinton once called “taking risks for peace.” It recognizes the rueful lessons those efforts have taught us and builds on them.
Three times — twice in 2000 and once in 2008 — Israel offered Palestinians
Joe Biden has said that if he becomes president in this year's election, he would need to appoint a vice president capable of taking over the job at a moment's notice in case he dies while in office. 'I can think of at least eight women, at least four or five people of color, that I think are totally qualified to be vice president of the United States,' the former vice president said during a campaign event in Clinton, Iowa. 'But for me, it has to be demonstrated that whoever I pick is two things: One, is capable of being president because I'm an old guy,' the 77-year-old Biden said.
Can’t Make This Up… New York State Is Now
Mandating “Stargazing Permits” For Looking
At The Sky replies
Mandating “Stargazing Permits” For Looking
At The Sky replies
Imagine this: You’re out with your family in one of the parks in New York state where you can actually see the stars when it gets dark. You look up in the sky, see a constellation, and you point upwards to show your kids. Along comes a park ranger demanding to see your Stargazing Permit, and issues you a citation because you didn’t know you needed such a permit.
That’s right, the state of New York is now demanding us peasants give them money so we can look up at the sky. [Tweet]
This is totally a real thing, as it shows up on the state’s permitting
Longest-ever border smuggling
tunnel found stretching between
Tijuana and San Diego, officials say replies
tunnel found stretching between
Tijuana and San Diego, officials say replies
U.S. authorities discovered the longest smuggling tunnel ever found along the southwest border.
The tunnel originates in Tijuana, Mexico, near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry and extends a total of 4,309 feet long -- more than three-quarters of a mile. The next longest tunnel in the U.S., discovered in San Diego in 2014, was 2,966 feet long.
"While subterranean tunnels are not a new occurrence along the California-Mexico border, the sophistication and length of this particular tunnel demonstrates the time-consuming efforts transnational criminal organizations will undertake to facilitate cross-border smuggling,” Cardell Morant, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) San Diego, said in a press release.
President Trump's impeachment trial continued Wednesday with a media spectacle as Lev Parnas, an indicted Rudy Giuliani associate, showed up at the Capitol volunteering himself as a trial witness to senators.
“Call me,” Parnas said as he arrived on Capitol Hill.
Parnas said he came to Washington to make the case for witnesses in the impeachment trial and urged Republicans to vote in favor of allowing more evidence rather than ending the trial on Friday.
Free on bail on federal criminal charges in Manhattan, in recent weeks Parnas started a media tour that's created headaches for the White House and Trump allies.
They’re the people Hillary Clinton called deplorable. They’re the people Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg call racist. They’re the people CNN’s Don Lemon and Republican strategist Rick Wilson laugh at and name-call like mean high school girls on national television. They are the reason for Trump rallies. Tens of thousands of people gathered in Southern New Jersey this week to see President Donald Trump in person. Americans the political professionals and pampered media-types loathe. Average, middle-class citizens who work hard and love their county shouldn’t be something to mock, but this is where we are.
The Mexican government announced it has so far deported more than 2,000 members of the latest migrant caravan, demonstrating the seriousness of the country’s newfound enforcement of illegal immigration.
Mexico deported roughly 2,303 Honduran migrants between Jan. 18 and Jan. 27, the National Migration Institute — the department in Mexico that manages immigration — reported Monday. The Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C.,-based immigration think tank, translated and flagged the recent numbers.
The deportations pertained to the most recent U.S.-bound migrant caravan.
Chief Justice Roberts blocked Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul from posing a question during the Senate impeachment trial that would have named the alleged whistleblower at the center of the episode, Fox News is told--and Paul may try to force the issue during the question-and-answer session that begins Thursday afternoon. (Snip) But, Fox News has learned Roberts may soon lose his grip on the proceedings amid a torrent of criticism both inside and outside the Senate.