Literacy
I have a simple theory about Trump and his followers. It's all about reading. Trump doesn't read, and his followers don't read.
That's all. You can divide America into two halves, the half that reads and the half that doesn't read.
Do you think any Trump voter at all read the Mueller report? No, of course, he didn't read it either, but announced that it exonerates him and they believe him, though it explicitly does not. How about the six pages of dotardic whining he sent to Nancy Pelosi yesterday? His followers will think it says whatever he tells them it says.
Trump is not very smart but he knows how to manipulate people. When he doesn't want his people to know what is in a document, he tells them what he wants them to believe the document says.
The greatest example is the incriminating transcript of his phone call with the Ukrainian president, which by the way isn't even a transcript, it's some notes. But still, Trump released them and said, see, it proves I'm innocent. And so his followers believe the so-called transcript proves his innocence. Trump has made it a kind of mantra: "Read the transcript, read the transcript." The more he says it, the more people who can't read think it must say something that is good for him. It doesn't.
The transcript is an admission of guilt. He is quoted breaking the law, violating the Constitution and the people's trust. But you'd have to, actually, read it to know that. The Daily Show went to a Trump rally and talked to people about this. (Warning, they use the word "bullshit" sometimes.) The relevant part starts at about 4:05 into it.
To me, the question is not whether there is quid pro quo or pressure applied, none of that. As far as impeachment goes, I know this is hard to quantify but if you read this transcript or quotes of any Trump speech or comments, you come to the certain conclusion that the guy doesn't know anything, he cannot think logically, he can barely manage to form a sentence. He watches TV and ... that's it. I do not mean he is handicapped with an inferior brain or a low IQ, I mean that he nurtures his own ignorance by avoiding exposure to facts and reason and diverse perspectives.
I think this was the part of the phone call that got me: "I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation ..." Listen, who talks like that? The "whole situation with Ukraine," That is a country and he is talking to the President of it; the "whole situation" is Zelensky's job and it includes everything from pedestrian casualties and food safety to extortion in the oil industry. "Your wealthy people?" What? Which ones? What about them? "The server--" how could Zelensky possibly know what he is talking about? "The whole situation..." again, he is assuming this Ukrainian politician knows what he means and this is just the way a stupid person talks. This is definitive. It is incoherent. Never mind quid pro quo, a person whose thoughts are this loosely connected should not be running any country.
Unfortunately, it seems that Republicans think this is normal conversation between two presidents, Archie Bunker and his Ukrainian counterpart grunting in monosyllables.
Yesterday's letter to Pelosi will go into the history books. It demonstrates over and over that Trump has no idea what impeachment is, how it works, what is in the Constitution, what his duties and responsibilities are as President, and he has no idea what he has done wrong. He just thinks Democrats are picking on him for political gain. He watches Fox and accepts whatever they say as fact, instead of consulting his experts or reading for himself what others have written. The letter proves that he is simply mentally unqualified to preside.
Reading is a direct way to learn about points of view that might not follow from your own personal experience. An author may live very differently from you and have insights you would not have discovered on your own. The facts, for instance, the facts of electoral interference by foreign countries, are well documented from many perspectives, and if you read thoroughly you can see when someone is trying to fool you, and you can read other points of view and put the pieces together yourself. You can form your own conclusions based on facts and consideration of many sources of information. It is not actually hard to "know who to believe," as we hear people complaining now. Read a lot, learn a lot, the facts will be clear to you.
That's all. You can divide America into two halves, the half that reads and the half that doesn't read.
Do you think any Trump voter at all read the Mueller report? No, of course, he didn't read it either, but announced that it exonerates him and they believe him, though it explicitly does not. How about the six pages of dotardic whining he sent to Nancy Pelosi yesterday? His followers will think it says whatever he tells them it says.
Trump is not very smart but he knows how to manipulate people. When he doesn't want his people to know what is in a document, he tells them what he wants them to believe the document says.
The greatest example is the incriminating transcript of his phone call with the Ukrainian president, which by the way isn't even a transcript, it's some notes. But still, Trump released them and said, see, it proves I'm innocent. And so his followers believe the so-called transcript proves his innocence. Trump has made it a kind of mantra: "Read the transcript, read the transcript." The more he says it, the more people who can't read think it must say something that is good for him. It doesn't.
The transcript is an admission of guilt. He is quoted breaking the law, violating the Constitution and the people's trust. But you'd have to, actually, read it to know that. The Daily Show went to a Trump rally and talked to people about this. (Warning, they use the word "bullshit" sometimes.) The relevant part starts at about 4:05 into it.
To me, the question is not whether there is quid pro quo or pressure applied, none of that. As far as impeachment goes, I know this is hard to quantify but if you read this transcript or quotes of any Trump speech or comments, you come to the certain conclusion that the guy doesn't know anything, he cannot think logically, he can barely manage to form a sentence. He watches TV and ... that's it. I do not mean he is handicapped with an inferior brain or a low IQ, I mean that he nurtures his own ignorance by avoiding exposure to facts and reason and diverse perspectives.
I think this was the part of the phone call that got me: "I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation ..." Listen, who talks like that? The "whole situation with Ukraine," That is a country and he is talking to the President of it; the "whole situation" is Zelensky's job and it includes everything from pedestrian casualties and food safety to extortion in the oil industry. "Your wealthy people?" What? Which ones? What about them? "The server--" how could Zelensky possibly know what he is talking about? "The whole situation..." again, he is assuming this Ukrainian politician knows what he means and this is just the way a stupid person talks. This is definitive. It is incoherent. Never mind quid pro quo, a person whose thoughts are this loosely connected should not be running any country.
Unfortunately, it seems that Republicans think this is normal conversation between two presidents, Archie Bunker and his Ukrainian counterpart grunting in monosyllables.
Yesterday's letter to Pelosi will go into the history books. It demonstrates over and over that Trump has no idea what impeachment is, how it works, what is in the Constitution, what his duties and responsibilities are as President, and he has no idea what he has done wrong. He just thinks Democrats are picking on him for political gain. He watches Fox and accepts whatever they say as fact, instead of consulting his experts or reading for himself what others have written. The letter proves that he is simply mentally unqualified to preside.
Reading is a direct way to learn about points of view that might not follow from your own personal experience. An author may live very differently from you and have insights you would not have discovered on your own. The facts, for instance, the facts of electoral interference by foreign countries, are well documented from many perspectives, and if you read thoroughly you can see when someone is trying to fool you, and you can read other points of view and put the pieces together yourself. You can form your own conclusions based on facts and consideration of many sources of information. It is not actually hard to "know who to believe," as we hear people complaining now. Read a lot, learn a lot, the facts will be clear to you.
posted by JimK at 1:20 PM
274 Comments:
President Trump argues he is above the law. A thousand prosecutors say he's wrong
More than 1,000 former federal prosecutors have signed a statement explaining that, in their professional judgment and based on the facts described in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report, President Trump would have been criminally charged with obstruction of justice if he were not the president.
This public outcry from such a large group of prosecutors — who have served under Republican and Democratic presidents — is unprecedented and indicative of overwhelming expert agreement on the evidence and law supporting charges against Trump.
And remember, that letter signed onto by over 1000 federal prosecutors that says Trump would certainly be in jail for obstruction of justice was written based solely on the 140 pages of Trump/Russia collusion the Mueller investigation found. - that was before it was revealed Trump had used $400 million in taxpayer funds to try and get himself re-elected and harmed a NATO ally and U.S. national security while aiding America's number one global adversary Russia.
Every day Trump is in office he reveals more classified information to Russia. This is documented, he's revealed sources and methods to Russia and has exposed critical intelligence sources resulting in their no longer being able to provide information needed to keep the country safe from terrorists.
Republicans demanded Hillary be imprisoned merely on the hypothetical that it was possible Russians hacked her email server with out a trace of evidence left behind. A private email server just like Bush administration officials had used. In tragic hypocrisy Republicans now look the other way as it is documented again and again that Trump has actually revealed classified intelligence to Russia.
Again we see the double standards with Republicans - Hillary does what previous republicans have done and they want to imprison her on a hypothetical security breech but Trump leaks classified information to America's enemies every day and they cover it up.
Trump used 400 million in congressionally approved taxpayer funds for his personal benefit.
The Constitutional law experts have all testified that if this is not grounds for impeachment, then nothing is.
Trump will be above the law if he is not held accountable for trying to rig the 2020 election.
Trump is begging foreign countries to attack the 2020 election to get him elected. If American democracy is to survive, he must go.
Moscow Mitch McConnell has already said he won't consider any evidence of Trump's guilt, he's not open to being an honest judge.
Russia built a big aluminum plant in Moscow Mitch's home state and no doubt is funneling further bribes to him just like they did to Trump's hired gun in Ukraine, Lev Parnas. Parnas received $2 million in payments from Russia while he was doing Trump's bidding and pressuring Ukraine to publicly announce a fake investigation into Ukraine.
Moscow Mitch McConnell has already said won't consider any evidence of Trump's guilt, he's not willing to be an honest judge. Mitch McConnell is a traitor to the ideals America was founded on.
Moscow Mitch said he won't be impartial in judging the evidence against Trump, he won't consider any of it.
The only honest thing for him to do now is recuse himself from the impeachment trial and let the American people have transparency into what Trump has done.
No honest judge would participate in the cover-up with the defendant as McConnell has announced he will do.
No honest judge would side with the defendant before even considering the case.
Correction to my previous post.
I posted "Trump's hired gun in Ukraine, Lev Parnas. Parnas received $2 million in payments from Russia while he was doing Trump's bidding and pressuring Ukraine to publicly announce a fake investigation into Ukraine."
I meant to type:
"trump's hired gun in Ukraine, Lev Parnas. Parnas received $2 million in payments from Russia while he was doing Trump's bidding and pressuring Ukraine to publicly announce a fake investigation into Joe Biden"
The question that needs to be put to Trump is "What do you say to Russian state television referring to you as Moscow's "agent" and Moscow's "puppet""?
Jim said "I know this is hard to quantify but if you read this transcript or quotes of any Trump speech or comments, you come to the certain conclusion that the guy doesn't know anything, he cannot think logically, he can barely manage to form a sentence. He watches TV and ... that's it. I do not mean he is handicapped with an inferior brain or a low IQ, I mean that he nurtures his own ignorance by avoiding exposure to facts and reason and diverse perspectives."
It goes beyond Trump being willfully ignorant, he just fabricates a story he likes about his corrupt actions and blindly asserts its true. He blindly asserts he is all powerful, that he IS the state, a king, ignoring that the American Constitution created 3 co-equal branches of government with checks and balances going each way. Trump claims checks and balances don't apply to him. Trump says "Article II of the constitution says I can do whatever I want." when it says no such thing.
Trump's game plan is to do whatever he thinks will benefit him, the law and Constitution be damned. He is exactly the sort of person the founding fathers were envisioning when they gave Congress the power to impeach and remove a corrupt president from power.
Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell have announced they cannot be impartial honest judges of Trump's conduct. Any real judge that said this about an upcoming trial and refused to recuse himself would be removed from office without question or delay.
President for life, I like that. Maybe we'll have to try that here.
"To me, the question is not whether there is quid pro quo or pressure applied, none of that. As far as impeachment goes, I know this is hard to quantify but if you read this transcript or quotes of any Trump speech or comments, you come to the certain conclusion that the guy doesn't know anything, he cannot think logically, he can barely manage to form a sentence."
here, Jim admits they are no impeachable offenses committed by the President
alleged illiteracy or low IQ is not grounds for impeachment
and, for such a dumb guy, Trump seems to have had quite a bit of success
decades of brilliant Dems did less for the economy than three years of Trump
I wonder why Trump wasn't impeached for at that stuff that Mueller gave Congress a "road map" for...
LOL!!!!
Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham want to make Congress subordinate to the will of president Trump.
Senators should consider the danger of failing to convict Trump of the high crimes and misdemeanors every honest legal professional says he is clearly guilty of.
"I wonder why Trump wasn't impeached for at that stuff that Mueller gave Congress a "road map" for..."
How stupid are You? Republicans refused to hold Trump accountable, that's why he wasn't impeached.
Wyatt and Regina and the standard Republican propaganda attack - fail to act, block Democrats from acting and then blame Democrats for failing to act.
They are gaslighting America.
Fox News Analyst: Impeachment Is “Acutely Needed”
“James Madison, the author of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, feared a government that was strong enough to protect the people would become too strong for the people to control.
“It would use its powers not for the nation’s betterment but its own. When the government fails to control itself, he argued, when the president becomes a law unto himself by violating the laws that pertain to all others, the remedy is impeachment.
“The framers’ greatest fear was a president who would unlawfully put his own needs above the nation’s or who would drag a foreign government into our domestic affairs.
“Mr. Trump has tried to do both and threatened to repeat those attempts. That’s why the remedy of impeachment is acutely needed.” – Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano.
A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate runs afoul of the Constitution now that it is no longer a tax.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, remanded the case back to the lower court to evaluate whether other parts of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, can stand.
“There is no other constitutional provision that justifies this exercise of congressional power,” wrote Judge Jennifer Elrod.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "homosexuality doesn't yield life and two of 'em ain't ever a marriage"
When Wyatt and Regina post this, what they are really saying is "We want society to punish harmless gays so we can feel better about ourselves."
So,Wyatt and Regina are clearly jazzed that Trump is taking away health care insurance from more people.
Just like I've been saying, 100 million Americans have pre-existing health conditions and Obamacare has given those people the right to health insurance at the same cost as everyone else.
Trump repeatedly promised throughout the 2016 presidential campaign "I will replace Obamacare on day one with something terrific. Everyone will be covered.
Now Trump and the Republicans are taking away the right to health care insurance from 100 million Americans.
Its just one gigantic deception and broken promise after another with Trump and the Republicans.
Its no wonder that Canadians have a longer life expectancy and lower infant mortality than in the United States - everyone gets health care here.
Republicans are doing everything in their power to make health care something only the rich have access to.
Let's not forget that Obamacare was originally a Republican plan. It was based directly off the healthcare plan Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney implemented when he was governor of Massachusetts.
In their grasp for power at any cost Republicans and Mitt Romney then argued that their own healthcare plan was crap and while it was great for Massachusetts somehow it wouldn't work for the United States.
Its just the constant gaslighting of America by Republicans, unconditionally opposed to anything a Democrat tries to do to help the country, even if it was their own idea they were just enthusiastically promoting.
First, Jim admits that there is no case for impeachment other than that Trump is dumb because he doesn't agree with liberals.
Now, Chuck Schumer is admitting the House found no facts as a basis for impeaching Trump:
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made a startling admission Tuesday when he said President Trump is about to be impeached “without the facts coming out.”
The Senate Minority Leader accidentally told the truth while whining in the hopes of violating 200 years of impeachment precedent during Trump’s upcoming senate trial.
Schumer confessed:
So, to engage a trial without the facts coming out is to engage in a cover-up. To conduct a trial without the facts is saying: we’re afraid, we have something to hide. To conduct a trial without relevant witnesses who haven’t been heard from, to just rehash the evidence presented in the House just doesn’t make any sense.
So here’s Schumer openly admitting the impeachment case coming from the U.S. House is one “without the facts.”
Well, no shit.
Everyone knows this. But House Democrats are going to go ahead and impeach the president anyway.
What Schumer is pushing for is testimony from people the House did not bother to get testimony from, including former national security adviser John Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, as well a couple of others.
But the only way Schumer can push for this unprecedented request for more witnesses is to make the admission that not all the facts are known, and he is doing so in a desperate bid to galvanize a public already opposed to impeachment.
Believe me, if the House had produced anything resembling a prosecutable case, Schumer would not be asking for the unprecedented right to keep digging for evidence against Trump, and would sure not be admitting that this is an impeachment “without the facts.”
It is the House’s job to investigate and present evidence to the Senate.
It is the Senate’s job to hold a trial based on that evidence.
Period
Trump has run up a trillion dollar deficit this year and is forecast to run another trillion dollar deficit next year.
You just watch, when a Democrat is likely elected in 2020 Republicans will immediately scream that the deficit must be immediately eliminated and use that as an excuse to oppose anything Democrats try to do, while demanding Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security spending be slashed to deal with the deficit they exploded with the tax cuts for the rich.
The Republicans couldn't care less about the gigantic deficits they run up while in power because as soon as a Democrat is elected they'll blame Democrats for it and use that as an excuse to blindly oppose any action on anything - even their own proposals Democrats take up.
As Mitch McConnell said when Obama was elected "Our highest priority as Republicans is to prevent this Democratic President from accomplishing anything."
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem"
When Republicans say that, what they mean is that they want to eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security and force people to pay for their own police and fire protection if they want a response when their house is on fire.
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) made a startling admission Tuesday when he said President Trump is about to be impeached “without the facts coming out.”
There's nothing startling about it, he was making the matter of fact statement that Trump had refused to hand over any of the information the constitution gives Congress the right to in order to perform its oversight role.
It shows how dishonest Wyatt and Regina are trying to claim its point in Trump's favour when Adam Schiff points out the obvious - Trump is hiding relevant documents and blocking the testimony of witnesses to his attempt extort the Ukrainian president for his own personal gain.
Trump and Moscow Mitch McConnell are blocking Congress from getting all the facts. Its Republicans fault they're forcing a trial to happen without the facts Trump is Constitutionally obligated to provide.
It's the Republican gaslighting of America;
Hide additional evidence of Trump corruption from Democrats and then use that as an excuse to not hold Trump accountable despite his admission he demanded the Ukrainian President publicly announce a fake investigation into the Bidens to get the funds it needs to protect itself from the war Russia is waging on our NATO ally.
The question before Senators is:
Are you prepared to look the other way while president Trump and Russia do everything in their power to take away democratic choice from the public in 2020?
Germany's Cabinet approves ban on gay, transgender 'conversion therapy'
"The German Cabinet approved a bill to ban the advertising or offering of "conversion therapy" to transgender and gay people. The proposed legislation was expanded to include 16- to 18-year-olds."
The right side of history is leaving American evangelical Christians behind.
"I wonder why Trump wasn't impeached for at that stuff that Mueller gave Congress a "road map" for..."
In remarks lasting about nine minutes Wednesday, the special counsel cited a long-standing Justice Department policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president for a federal crime.
“That is unconstitutional,” Mueller said. “Charging the president with a crime was, therefore, not an option we could consider.”
But he also noted, “if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”
"A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate runs afoul of the Constitution now that it is no longer a tax."
By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court held the law's mandate requiring Americans to carry health insurance or pay a penalty valid under Congress's constitutional authority to levy taxes. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Supreme Court's four liberals Thursday to uphold the linchpin of President Barack Obama's plan to expand health coverage to nearly all Americans.
"the House found no facts as a basis for impeaching Trump"
Rump ensured no "facts" but those he orchestrated would come out when he obstructed Congress by ordering his employees to not cooperate with the House probe in any way.
“Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path,” said Nancy Pelosi in March 2019.
In December 2019, all Democrats except 4 voted to impeach the President. No republicans voted to impeach the President.
So, add "bipartisan" to a list of English words that liberal Democrats have redefined.
btw, one of the Democrats who had enough courage to defy Pelosi is running for President. Tulsi Gabbard has been accused by Hillary Clinton of colluding with the Russians on her campaign.
Which, of course, is what Hillary accused Trump of and even paid a foreign spy to make up lies about.
All debunked by Robert Mueller's report.
While Mueller clearly exonerated Trump of colluding with Russia, he did specifically say he didn't exonerate him of obstructing Mueller's fruitless two-year investigation.
Liberal Dems say that Mueller gave them a "road map" to impeach the President for obstructing him. The Mueller report was public, anyone can read it.
So, why did Dems not follow the road map and impeach Trump for obstructing him?
There is no case to do so. There is no evidence that Trump obstructed Mueller. If there were, House Dems would have impeached Trump for it.
Hence, the ridiculous charge of "obstructing Congress".
Don't waste your time looking up that law.
It doesn't exist.
Neither does "abuse of power".
Presidents are free to engage in foreign relations. Trump requested an investigation of a situation that calls for investigation, in the jurisdiction where the suspicious activity occurred. He asked the foreign country to do this for the best interest of the U.S., and he specifically said so. The Ukraine has treaties with the U.S. agreeing to assist with this type of investigation.
It is in the interest of the U.S. to know whether Joe Biden is corrupt.
"The right side of history is leaving American evangelical Christians behind."
if the government can make illegal for a religion to try to convince people that they should repent of something the religion considers sin, all religious freedom has been lost
it is actually part of Christian prophecy that "history" will leave it behind
current developments don't give any reason to doubt that prophecy
"Try reading, you won't sound so stupid"
I actually read much more broadly than the average TTFer, who gets most of their information from blogs that reinforce their already concluded deusions.
Try reading, you won't be so stupid
"In remarks lasting about nine minutes Wednesday, the special counsel cited a long-standing Justice Department policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president for a federal crime.
“That is unconstitutional,” Mueller said. “Charging the president with a crime was, therefore, not an option we could consider.”
But he also noted, “if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”"
It is not unconstitutional for Congress to impeach a President for committing a crime. Mueller listed instances where the case for obstruction could be made. The House Dems, anxious and eager to impeach Trump, would have done so if they thought there was any proof.
They didn't.
"By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court held the law's mandate requiring Americans to carry health insurance or pay a penalty valid under Congress's constitutional authority to levy taxes. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Supreme Court's four liberals Thursday to uphold the linchpin of President Barack Obama's plan to expand health coverage to nearly all Americans."
Congress has since rescinded the penalty that Roberts called a "tax" so this ruling no longer applies. The individual mandate has now been ruled unconstitutional by the courts.
I don't think the Trump administration will appeal, do you?
LOL!!
"Trump ensured no "facts" but those he orchestrated would come out when he obstructed Congress by ordering his employees to not cooperate with the House probe in any way."
well, then you agree that there are no facts behind the "abuse of power" charge
it doesn't matter why there are no facts, you can't make a charge without any facts
you could say he "obstructed Congress" but that's not a crime
all Presidents have opposed Congress at times
all Presidents, every single one, has had disputes with Congress over sharing information
the Dems have no case, and they now have no power to make crap up, because the trial will take place in the Senate
not one Republican voted to impeach our fabulously successful President and they control the Senate
The House of Representatives voted to impeach President Trump on two articles of impeachment. He is only the third president to receive that black mark on his record. Understandably, he hates it. His fury is uncontrolled. He coughed up a warped, incoherent letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that all but the most deluded Trump sycophants view as disturbing.
Even Trump knows he will be lumped in with the “losers” in the presidential history rankings such as Richard Nixon and Andrew Johnson. Impeachment will define his presidency, dwarfing any other foreign or domestic action. No wonder he rages against a speaker he is powerless to stop. His worst nightmare is to be humiliated, and if not now, history certainly will regard him as a pitiful, damaged man utterly unfit for the role he won through a series of improbable events (thanks to a hostile foreign power and an undisciplined FBI director).
The facts Trump now dismisses and contorts (in contrast to the propaganda delivered to him by the Kremlin via right-wing media and useful idiots on the right), are as easily verified and as unassailable as the details of Watergate. In comparison to Nixon’s impeachable acts, Trump’s are likely to be viewed more harshly. Trump betrayed the country’s national security and continued his affront to the Constitution by authorizing Rudolph W. Giuliani’s ongoing effort to scrounge up “evidence” from Russian-backed operatives to use against a political rival.
The transcript of Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky preserves Trump’s multiple references to “Biden” in black and white. (“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it...”) It has become and will be seen historically as Trump’s smoking gun.
Also preserved in the transcript is Trump’s demand to a foreign leader to assist his political interests — “I would like you do us a favor though” — which will be reproduced in history books along with the testimony of witnesses such as former White House expert on Russia Fiona Hill, who called out Republicans’ parroting of Russian propaganda. Trivia contests will feature such memorable phrases as former national security adviser John Bolton’s remark: “I am not part of whatever drug deal [U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon] Sondland and [acting White House chief of staff Mick] Mulvaney are cooking up.” (History may come faster than you think, as Bolton cashes in on his book advance in what is sure to be a self-righteous recounting of the scandal and, ironically, a reminder of Bolton’s cowering behavior, emblematic of those unwilling to tell the truth in service of the Constitution.)
Just as Watergate figures then-Sen. Sam Ervin (D-N.C.) and then-Reps. Barbara Jordan (D-Tex.) and Peter Rodino (D-N.J.) were lionized as defenders of the Constitution, so too will Pelosi and House Democrats Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), Eric Swalwell (Calif.) and Jamie B. Raskin (Md.) be among those admired for their lucidity, intellect and character. There is no shortage of patriots, if you know where to look. If ever you needed an illustration for your children, here is an episode vividly demonstrating that doing the right and difficult thing, sacrificing for a cause greater than oneself, has its own rewards. (We have no doubt which side the late senator John McCain would venerate and which he would disdain.) For every clownish, contemptible, screeching and dishonest House Republican, there is a sober, admirable, restrained and honest Democrat.
Meanwhile, in hundreds of gatherings around the country on Tuesday night, American citizens turned out to defend the Constitution and support impeachment. The same day, a band of Republicans unveiled the Lincoln Project to work on dislodging Trump and his accomplices from office in 2020. One after another, brave freshmen Democrats decided duty to the Constitution was far more important than political calculation and announced their support for impeachment. They put to shame Republicans such as Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) who know all too well the danger Trump poses yet cannot muster the courage to put country above party.
Unlike Republicans of the past who are credited with getting Nixon to resign — including Barry Goldwater, House Minority Leader John Rhodes and Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott — no Republican save for ex-Republican Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.) and the Never Trumpers outside of Congress has secured a place in history. So far, out of political cowardice or calculation or both, we lack even one Republican willing to denounce Trump’s actions let alone support impeachment or a lesser penalty. (No matter how badly House members conduct themselves in the future, at least we will be able to say, “Hey, he’s no Jim Jordan — or Devin Nunes — or Doug Collins.”)
No letter, no tweet, no Fox News spin can repair the reputations of Trump enablers. The right-wing media that cheered them on will, like outlets that rooted for Jim Crow and demonized Freedom Riders, be shunned by decent, freedom-loving people who reaffirm objective reality. The Republican Party will be known not as the Party of Lincoln but the Party of Trump, a quisling party that lost its bearings and its soul to defend an unhinged narcissist. Psychologists and sociologists will study a mass cult phenomenon, seeking to explain how a con man and his greedy media accomplices duped millions of Americans.
Perhaps some small number of Senate Republicans will decide to separate themselves from the pack of Trump worshipers. Some might demand a real trial with witnesses or even vote for impeachment. And if not, they, too, will join the other moral weaklings who failed their country when it needed them to do their jobs.
I do not mean to make light of the real and lasting damage Trump and his henchmen have inflicted on our institutions and national psyche, but we survived a Civil War, economic calamities and eras dominated by corrupt and disloyal politicians. As scarred as our democracy is, we now have a new pantheon of patriots to inspire and teach Americans about honor, courage and intellectual rigor. When your children or grandchildren attend Nancy Pelosi Elementary School or win a Jamie Raskin scholarship, they will remember who distinguished themselves. When they see Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, Hill and Marie Yovanovitch receive accolades and honors, they will know what gallant public service looks like.
As demoralizing and infuriating as this presidency has been, it is now within our power to wipe it all away and to vindicate the heroes, punish the villains and reset our democracy. We have 321 days until Election Day.
"Trump is impeached and joins the ‘losers’ of presidential history"
well, Trump is the fourth President whose impeachment has been approved by House Committees
but, three of those were in our lifetime so it's just a symptom of our partisan era rather than a reflection on the individuals
I have issues with Clinton but I don't think his impeachment proves my point
Pelosi has now said she won't send the impeachment articles to the Senate until she agrees with the rules of the impeachment trial
hope McConnell calls her bluff
this will look real bad for Dems!!
BATTLE CREEK, Mich. – During his Merry Christmas rally at Kellogg Arena on Wednesday, President Donald Trump singled out U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Michigan, after she voted for impeachment.
"You have Dingell from Michigan, have you ever heard of her?" Trump said to his charged-up crowd of supporters. "Debbie Dingell, that’s a real beauty."
Trump was upset because he said that he gave her the "A-plus treatment, not the B treatment or the C treatment" after her husband, longtime U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Michigan, died in February. He called for flags to be lowered and said he offered up the Capitol Rotunda for his memorial.
Trump seemed to say the word “Rotunda,” as if he had something to do with John Dingell’s lying in state at the U.S. Capitol. But Dingell didn’t lie in state before a funeral in Washington and his burial at Arlington National Cemetery and, even if he had, control of the Rotunda belongs to the Congress, not to the president.
"She called me up and said it was the nicest thing and John would have been so pleased," Trump said, adding that Dingell said John would be happily looking down from heaven at the ceremony.
"Maybe he's looking up," Trump said, intimating that Dingell ended up in hell, instead. "I don't know. Let's assume he's looking down."
The crowd cheered the insult.
Debbie Dingell responded to the comment via Twitter Wednesday night: "Mr. President, let’s set politics aside. My husband earned all his accolades after a lifetime of service. I’m preparing for the first holiday season without the man I love. You brought me down in a way you can never imagine and your hurtful words just made my healing much harder."
John Dingell was one of the longest-serving members of Congress, serving from 1955 until his retirement in 2015.
After Trump's comment, someone resurrected a 2017 tweet from John Dingell: "I signed up to fight Nazis 73 years ago and I'll do it again if I have to. Hatred, bigotry, & fascism should have no place in this country."
Rep. Debbie Dingell✔
@RepDebDingell
Mr. President, let’s set politics aside. My husband earned all his accolades after a lifetime of service. I’m preparing for the first holiday season without the man I love. You brought me down in a way you can never imagine and your hurtful words just made my healing much harder.
9:54 PM - Dec 18, 2019
As the process moves to the Senate, Republican senators threaten the ultimate cheapening and trivialization of Congress’s constitutional obligations: holding a “trial” that would be nothing but a sham.
Specifically, they threaten to conduct a trial without witnesses, which wouldn’t be a trial at all. In civil or criminal litigation in a jury case, the only way for a defendant to avoid a trial is for a judge to rule that there was no evidence from which the jury could find for the other side. However much the Republicans may pretend otherwise, that isn’t the case here — the president isn’t entitled to summary judgment. The evidence against him is far too strong. No doubt that is the real reason they wish to avoid a full-blown trial.
In addition, judicial trials traditionally give parties the right to subpoena all relevant witnesses, even witnesses who haven’t given evidence before. Indeed, the Senate’s standing impeachment rules provide for the issuance of subpoenas at the request of either side. Even at the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, which involved much simpler facts, and where a complete evidentiary record had been developed by an independent counsel before a federal grand jury that heard the testimony of all witnesses, including Clinton, the Senate allowed videotaped deposition testimony to be taken and introduced into evidence.
In any event, the fact that senators swear an oath to “bear true faith” to the Constitution, and the fact that the Constitution requires the Senate to “try all Impeachments,” should require them to hold a real trial with live witnesses. But if that isn’t enough to persuade them, Republican senators should consider at least two significant practicalities.
The first is that the Ukraine investigation is only three months old. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has cited this as evidence that the impeachment was rushed and unsupported. Actually, the opposite is true: A remarkably strong case was assembled in an unusually short time, even in the face of extraordinary obstructionism from the administration, which directed numerous witnesses not to testify. The Watergate investigation, by contrast, spanned roughly two years; the Starr investigation and Clinton impeachment proceedings, 11 months.
What that tells us is that plenty more evidence remains to be unearthed. We know already of the witnesses whom Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) proposes should testify, but whose testimony was blocked by Trump: acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; Robert Blair, a senior adviser to Mulvaney; former national security adviser John Bolton; and Michael Duffey, a top official at the Office of Management and Budget. No doubt there are volumes of electronic and physical documents that remain to be produced.
One way or another, the gist of that evidence will seep out, as truth inevitably does. The president’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, will continue to make admissions, and, if he were to be criminally prosecuted, evidence would come out in his prosecution. Others — most notably Bolton — will write books. There will be more leaks to intrepid journalists. Perhaps more whistleblowers will step forward.
Meanwhile, the House can still investigate, if it so chooses. In fact, it should. After all, not only does the House have a continuing obligation of oversight, but also there is no double-jeopardy prohibition on impeachment: If more damning evidence surfaces, there is no constitutional reason Trump couldn’t be impeached again.
So common sense should tell senators that, even if Trump is acquitted in a short-circuited trial, that won’t prevent the evidence from revealing whether an acquittal was a just one. If Republican senators cut the trial short, they run the risk of being refuted and shamed on the pages of history by the very evidence they sought to suppress.
"As much as Donald Trump deserves to be removed from office, the U.S. Senate has no intention of holding a fair trial. As members of the House, you must withhold articles of impeachment until the Senate is ready to do so."
https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/petitions/sign-the-petition-impeach-trump-but-dont-send-articles-to-senate-for-a-sham-trial
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "IF GLOBAL WARMING THREATENS LIFE ON THE PLANET WHY DO DEMS OPPOSE NUCLEAR ENERGY AND FRACKING?!?"
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're disingenuous rather than just really stupid.
Burning natural gas is also creates the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Also, fracking releases high levels of methane which traps heat in the atmosphere 20 times as strongly as carbon dioxide. So, of course if you want to stop global warming you have to oppose fracking.
Nuclear energy does not produce any green house gases but does produce radioactive waste that takes tens of thousands of years to become safe for humans. We have no way of disposing of this waste. Just look at the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. Russians didn't believe in regulations, just like Trump doesn't and the thing exploded making a vast portion of the surrounding area uninhabitable. Now they are spending billions to try to contain the nuclear blast site contamination and none of the efforts solve the radiation problem, they just temporarily contain it.
Renewable energy, wind, solar, water are free from greenhouse gas emissions and radioactive waste. It makes no sense to go with nuclear and fracking when these disasterless options are available to us.
Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham have stated that they won't be honest and impartial when asked to judge Trump's high crimes and misdemeanors.
They took an oath to be honest and impartial when judging impeachment, the only honest thing for them to do now is recuse themselves from the process as any real judge would do or be forced to do if he refused to.
The Trump administration is hiding all manner of relevant documents to Trump's extortion attempt and illegally blocking people from testifying who heard him try to extort.
Trump's corruption goes way beyond his immediate attempt to use taxpayer funds for his personal benefit to the destruction of American national security. Trump and his henchmen are hiding evidence of much broader wrongdoing and Moscow Mitch McConnell is aiding in the cover up.
It would be a gross disservice to the country if Nancy Pelosi agreed to forward articles of impeachment to Moscow Mitch McConnell before he agrees to an honest and impartial process.
The constitution requires an honest and impartial trial. Moscow Mitch is sh*tting all over the constitution because he's on the take from Russia just like Lindsey Graham and Trump.
The American public deserves transparency into what the Trump administration is doing and the American Constitution demands it.
Trump is constitutionally mandated to provide regular information updates to Congress, instead he has withheld everything he possibly can and tried to block everyone from talking about his actions as president, even going so far as to hide what should be routine public conversations with foreign leaders on the country's most secure computer server reserved for the greatest intelligence secrets the country has.
Over 14,000 lies told by president Trump since taking office. Now he's refusing to provide any information whatsoever to Congress and the people and Mitch McConnell is helping the president keep everyone in the dark about the extent of his betrayals to the safety and security of the American public.
Democrats have asked for common sense protections for the integrity of the upcoming 2020 election, like backup paper records of voting so everyone can be sure the Russians haven't changed the actual vote count.
Every electoral computer system in the 50 states has been probed for security holes by the Russians and several were taken under control by Russia in 2016 although there is no evidence (as far as I recall) that they changed vote counts or voter registrations in 2016
Now Mitch McConnell is blocking common sense 2020 election protection to secure the vote count.
Senators need to take a long look in the mirror and ask themselves if they are willing to leave this up to the people and look the other way while Mitch McConnell, Trump, and Russia do everything they can to take away democratic choice from the people in 2020 and keep Trump in power no matter what.
It's Republican supporting business owners who make almost all of the electronic voting machines state governments plan to use for counting the 2020 vote.
The potential for the subversion of democracy in 2020 is very high and Mitch McConnell is violating his oath to be a check and balance on the executive branch and announced he will do whatever the president asks, without question, and without hesitation.
Demand that Mitch McConnell bring up for a vote one of the bills the House passed requiring a paper backup to the vote count on 2020 electronic voting machines!
Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Garland, Goresuch & Kavanaugh...two outta three ain't bad"
Yeesh, looks like Wyatt and Regina have been drunk posting in anger.
When Wyatt and Regina said that, what they meant was:
Not that they're happy they got their way, but happy that they got their way through deception and immoral behavior rather than using the democratic process.
A bit of a nitpick here:
Their comment doesn't make even sense in that there is no "two out of three" in it - Republicans got 2 out of 2 confirmed, Democrats got zero out of one. None of it adds up to "two out of three" but that's what their "thinking" came up with.
It just shows they're taking too many mental shortcuts in their thinking to have an accurate understanding of reality.
More transgender totalitarianism:
J.K. Rowling has sparked backlash after offering support to Maya Forstater, a researcher who lost her job after tweeting that a person cannot change their biological sex.
Rowling took to social media herself Thursday morning, writing, “Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill”
Rowling’s comments in support of Forstater, who was a visiting fellow at the Centre for Global Development, came after the researcher lost a court challenge against her termination at the CGD. According to the Guardian, Judge James Tayler ruled that Forstater’s termination was valid since her “absolutist” beliefs regarding biological sex includes referring to a person “by the sex she considered appropriate”
Forstater’s initial tweet read, “What I am so surprised at is that smart people who I admire, who are absolutely pro-science in other areas, and champion human rights & womens rights are tying themselves in knots to avoid saying the truth that men cannot change into women (because that might hurt mens feelings).”
Rowling’s stance quickly received widespread criticism. The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group, were among the many who were vocal on social media to condemn Rowling’s position on the subject.
“Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Non-binary people are non-binary. CC: JK Rowling,” the company wrote on Twitter.
Casey McQuiston, author of the queer romance novel “Red, White and Royal Blue,” also offered support on social media to the LGBTQ community.
“Hi. breaking my hiatus real quick just to say: f— what your childhood heroes say. if that infringes on your idea of feminism, you’re not actually a feminist at all. you’re a bigot.”
Face it, the transgender delusion is evil and leads to totalitarianism.
"Face it, the transgender delusion is evil and leads to totalitarianism."
Right... because history is full of armies and nations being taken over by transgender totalitarians.
Why, in the first century, there was:
Nobody.
And in the 2nd century,
Nobody.
And in the 3rd century,
Nobody...
... and in the 20th century,
Nobody.
Totalitarians have the peculiar habit of being homicidal, cisgendered men.
Let me guess, you get scared by communist chipmunks and socialist unicorns as well.
Some useful info for you: Scientists have discovered a link between marijuana use and psychosis - especially in those with a particular AKT1 gene:
https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/there-link-between-marijuana-use-psychiatric-disorders
Several studies have linked marijuana use to increased risk for psychiatric disorders, including psychosis (schizophrenia), depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders, but whether and to what extent it actually causes these conditions is not always easy to determine.32 Recent research suggests that smoking high-potency marijuana every day could increase the chances of developing psychosis by nearly five times compared to people who have never used marijuana.114 The amount of drug used, the age at first use, and genetic vulnerability have all been shown to influence this relationship. The strongest evidence to date concerns links between marijuana use and psychiatric disorders in those with a preexisting genetic or other vulnerability.62
"Face it, the transgender delusion is evil and leads to totalitarianism."
You'll know it has started when drag queens start dragging people out their homes, tying them up, and giving everyone a FABULOUS manicure.
Work it, girl!
"Right... because history is full of armies and nations being taken over by transgender totalitarians"
no, it isn't because were never tolerated before
now, that transgenders have been granted full tolerance by society, it is clear that transgenders can't tolerate others who don't accept their view that biological males can become women
and they insist government endorse and assist their intolerance
science actually makes it clear that a guy who has himself mutilated in an attempt to become a woman is still a guy
guys who have SRS and go through all the treatments to pretend they are female still have ten times the testosterone of an average woman
"You'll know it has started when drag queens start dragging people out their homes, tying them up, and giving everyone a FABULOUS manicure.?
no, we know it has already started when people are fired from jobs for not observing the gay agenda
Christianity Today, a prominent evangelical magazine, called for President Trump to be removed from office in an editorial, a day after Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives.
watched the talking heads on CNN and MSNBC ramble on about the impeachment today
they talked endlessly on all the things about Donald Trump they hate
not one word was spoken about Abuse of Power or Obstruction of Congress
that tells you all you need to know
"no, it isn't because [sic] were never tolerated before"
Indeed, intolerant and bigoted religious people on several continents have harassed and even murdered trans people for centuries. It must be a real disappoint for people like you that it's illegal now. Of course religious people have been sending armies to kill different religious people on other continents for centuries, so it's not like trans people were the only targets of the homicidally inclined religious fanatics.
Where are you going to direct all your incompetent rage and disgust now?
It's sort of ironic that one of the first persons converted to Christianity was an Ethiopian eunuch. How did they know he was a eunuch? There's no indication they asked this eunuch about their reproductive status - or fertility, which they had little scientific way of determining back then. It makes you wonder if they didn't decide he was a eunuch because he looked like a guy in a dress. It seems Christians would be more welcoming of modern eunuchs, but that clearly isn't the case.
"now, that transgenders have been granted full tolerance by society"
Some laws have been passed that can help them out in certain cases, but society as a whole is still infected by the enforced ignorance of fanciful religions. Those people will be a continuing threat to LGBT people for the foreseeable future.
"no, we know it has already started when people are fired from jobs for not observing the gay agenda"
Not to worry. I've been assured by other religious people that the Rapture will be upon us soon. The gays taking over is a sure sign of it. Pretty soon dead people will be crawling out of their graves for the zombie apocalypse and all the righteous people will be saved.
"guys who have SRS and go through all the treatments to pretend they are female still have ten times the testosterone of an average woman"
So, do you have a reference to a scientific paper for this, or is it more "truthiness" you're making up to try and annoy people?
Go ahead, tell us where you pulled this little "factoid" out of context.
Oh, and maybe you can fill us in on all the damage the gays have done to the military since they've been allowed to serve openly. Because for years you guys were incessantly crying about how terrible it was going to be and how our military would be destroyed.
Still waiting for that to happen, Chicken Little.
Oh, and for marriage to be destroyed too.
It seems to me that the biggest part of modern Christianity is predicting the imminent collapse of all sorts of institutions that never come to pass.
Keep praying though.
Apparently talking heads at MSNBC tell you all you need to know, which tells us all we need to know about you.
I suggest you read this:
Trump Should Be Removed from Office
n our founding documents, Billy Graham explains that Christianity Today will help evangelical Christians interpret the news in a manner that reflects their faith. The impeachment of Donald Trump is a significant event in the story of our republic. It requires comment.
The typical CT approach is to stay above the fray and allow Christians with different political convictions to make their arguments in the public square, to encourage all to pursue justice according to their convictions and treat their political opposition as charitably as possible. We want CT to be a place that welcomes Christians from across the political spectrum, and reminds everyone that politics is not the end and purpose of our being. We take pride in the fact, for instance, that politics does not dominate our homepage.
That said, we do feel it necessary from time to time to make our own opinions on political matters clear—always, as Graham encouraged us, doing so with both conviction and love. We love and pray for our president, as we love and pray for leaders (as well as ordinary citizens) on both sides of the political aisle.
Let’s grant this to the president: The Democrats have had it out for him from day one, and therefore nearly everything they do is under a cloud of partisan suspicion. This has led many to suspect not only motives but facts in these recent impeachment hearings. And, no, Mr. Trump did not have a serious opportunity to offer his side of the story in the House hearings on impeachment.
But the facts in this instance are unambiguous: The president of the United States attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of the president’s political opponents. That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is profoundly immoral.
The reason many are not shocked about this is that this president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone—with its habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders—is a near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.
Trump’s evangelical supporters have pointed to his Supreme Court nominees, his defense of religious liberty, and his stewardship of the economy, among other things, as achievements that justify their support of the president. We believe the impeachment hearings have made it absolutely clear, in a way the Mueller investigation did not, that President Trump has abused his authority for personal gain and betrayed his constitutional oath. The impeachment hearings have illuminated the president’s moral deficiencies for all to see. This damages the institution of the presidency, damages the reputation of our country, and damages both the spirit and the future of our people. None of the president’s positives can balance the moral and political danger we face under a leader of such grossly immoral character...
This concern for the character of our national leader is not new in CT. In 1998, we wrote this:
The President's failure to tell the truth—even when cornered—rips at the fabric of the nation. This is not a private affair. For above all, social intercourse is built on a presumption of trust: trust that the milk your grocer sells you is wholesome and pure; trust that the money you put in your bank can be taken out of the bank; trust that your babysitter, firefighters, clergy, and ambulance drivers will all do their best. And while politicians are notorious for breaking campaign promises, while in office they have a fundamental obligation to uphold our trust in them and to live by the law.
And this:
'Unsavory dealings and immoral acts by the President and those close to him have rendered this administration morally unable to lead.'
Unfortunately, the words that we applied to Mr. Clinton 20 years ago apply almost perfectly to our current president. Whether Mr. Trump should be removed from office by the Senate or by popular vote next election—that is a matter of prudential judgment. That he should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments.
To the many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we might say this: Remember who you are and whom you serve. Consider how your justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump’s immoral words and behavior in the cause of political expediency. If we don’t reverse course now, will anyone take anything we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come? Can we say with a straight face that abortion is a great evil that cannot be tolerated and, with the same straight face, say that the bent and broken character of our nation’s leader doesn’t really matter in the end?
We have reserved judgment on Mr. Trump for years now. Some have criticized us for our reserve. But when it comes to condemning the behavior of another, patient charity must come first. So we have done our best to give evangelical Trump supporters their due, to try to understand their point of view, to see the prudential nature of so many political decisions they have made regarding Mr. Trump. To use an old cliché, it’s time to call a spade a spade, to say that no matter how many hands we win in this political poker game, we are playing with a stacked deck of gross immorality and ethical incompetence. And just when we think it’s time to push all our chips to the center of the table, that’s when the whole game will come crashing down. It will crash down on the reputation of evangelical religion and on the world’s understanding of the gospel. And it will come crashing down on a nation of men and women whose welfare is also our concern.
Mark Galli is editor in chief of Christianity Today.
I wasn't suggesting society should not tolerate transgenders, depending how you define "tolerance". I just said that past intolerance is why the totalitarian nature of transgenderism has never been apparent before.
btw, you're right that Christian scripture makes salvation available to all, including transgenders, but eunuchs in the 1st century were forcibly castrated because royalty and nobles didn't trust their servants with their wives and daughters. The eunuchs of the time continued to present as males.
"So, do you have a reference to a scientific paper for this, or is it more "truthiness" you're making up to try and annoy people?"
I posted some links last month. If you are saying it's untrue, I'll dig them up. Let me know.
"I suggest you read this"
not only have I read it, I posted about here yesterday
a point I've repeatedly made here is that the characterization TTFers make of evangelicals is false
aside from their core beliefs, they are much more open-minded than the average TTFer, not narrow-minded as you so often say
under the Constitution, the House needs to orward any articles of impeachment "presently"
McConnell should give her until the 31st
in reality, the Dems want to avoid a trial
they have no idea what might come up
Donald J. Trump Verified account
@realDonaldTrump
A far left magazine, or very “progressive,” as some would call it, which has been doing poorly and hasn’t been involved with the Billy Graham family for many years, Christianity Today, knows nothing about reading a perfect transcript of a routine phone call and would rather.....
4:12 AM - 20 Dec 2019
....have a Radical Left nonbeliever, who wants to take your religion & your guns, than Donald Trump as your President. No President has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close. You’ll not get anything from those Dems on stage. I won’t be reading ET again!
Like he ever read anything in it, other than this editorial.
Reading is not his forte.
Dummy-In-Chief Requests Fewer Words And More Pictures Be Used In Intelligence Briefings
Rump has done much for the evangelical community like his stated feeling of entitlement for pussy grabbing.
"...And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything..."
Looks like Trump hasn't been impeached after all.
Noah R. Feldman, a witness called by Democrats in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, cautioned Thursday against the House of Representatives not sending its findings to the Senate.
Reacting to the House not having formally notified the Senate of the two articles of impeachment passed this week, the constitutional scholar said that could be a “serious problem” if the articles remain in limbo.
“Impeachment as contemplated by the Constitution does not consist merely of the vote by the House, but of the process of sending the articles to the Senate for trial,” Mr. Feldman wrote in an editorial. “Both parts are necessary to make an impeachment under the Constitution: The House must actually send the articles and send managers to the Senate to prosecute the impeachment. And the Senate must actually hold a trial.
btw, Dems say that Trump abused power by not sending money to Ukraine as soon as it was passed, and he did so to aid hos re-election.
Aren't they doing the same with impeachment?
"aren't they doing the same with impeachment?"
No. There are no deadlines in the Constitution limiting the time required to send over the articles. Anyone who considers themselves an "originalist" should already know this.
The deadline is the very precise word: "presently".
btw, Trump had a deadline to deliver aid to Ukraine and met it.
here's the other evangelical POV from Franklin Graham:
My Response to Christianity Today:
Christianity Today released an editorial stating that President Trump should be removed from office—and they invoked my father’s name (I suppose to try to bring legitimacy to their statements), so I feel it is important for me to respond. Yes, my father Billy Graham founded Christianity Today; but no, he would not agree with their opinion piece. In fact, he would be very disappointed. I have not previously shared who my father voted for in the past election, but because of this article, I feel it is necessary to share it now. My father knew Donald Trump, he believed in Donald Trump, and he voted for Donald Trump. He believed that Donald J. Trump was the man for this hour in history for our nation.
For Christianity Today to side with the Democrat Party in a totally partisan attack on the President of the United States is unfathomable. Christianity Today failed to acknowledge that not one single Republican voted with the Democrats to impeach the President. I know a number of Republicans in Congress, and many of them are strong Christians. If the President were guilty of what the Democrats claimed, these Republicans would have joined with the Democrats to impeach him. But the Democrats were not even unanimous—two voted against impeachment and one voted present. This impeachment was politically motivated, 100% partisan. Why would Christianity Today choose to take the side of the Democrat left whose only goal is to discredit and smear the name of a sitting president? They want readers to believe the Democrat leadership rather than believe the President of the United States.
Look at all the President has accomplished in a very short time. The economy of our nation is the strongest it has been in 50 years, ISIS & the caliphate have been defeated, and the President has renegotiated trade deals to benefit all Americans. The list of accomplishments is long, but for me as a Christian, the fact that he is the most pro-life president in modern history is extremely important—and Christianity Today wants us to ignore that, to say it doesn’t count? The President has been a staunch defender of religious freedom at home and around the world—and Christianity Today wants us to ignore that? Also the President has appointed conservative judges in record number—and Christianity today wants us to ignore that? Christianity Today feels he should be removed from office because of false accusations that the President emphatically denies.
Christianity Today said it’s time to call a spade a spade. The spade is this—Christianity Today has been used by the left for their political agenda. It’s obvious that Christianity Today has moved to the left and is representing the elitist liberal wing of evangelicalism.
Is President Trump guilty of sin? Of course he is, as were all past presidents and as each one of us are, including myself. Therefore, let’s pray for the President as he continues to lead the affairs of our nation.
"I wasn't suggesting society should not tolerate transgenders, depending how you define "tolerance". I just said that past intolerance is why the totalitarian nature of transgenderism has never been apparent before."
The example you gave of transgender "totalitarianism" (i.e. the Maya Forstater incident) is no more or less "totalitarian" than the 1 Million Moms group trying to get Ellen Degeneres fired for being in a TV commercial.
Somehow though you've never brought that up as an example of Christian totalitarianism. Why is that?
Throughout history, Christians have shown a far, FAR greater bent for totalitarianism through the genocide of Native Americans, the Nazi genocide of Jews, and centuries of funding armies to go to the Middle East to kill Muslims. Then there is the centuries long commercial slave trade by Christian countries of those from non-Christian countries. Then of course there is the forced conversions, and those that Christians kicked out of their country for not converting.
The "totalitarian" slur you like to throw at trans people simply doesn't compare to the centuries of harm Christians have brutalised societies with.
And as you're fond of pointing out, business owners should be able to choose who they employ. From your previous posts it's quite clear that you don't have a problem with employers kicking out trans people. But if a company kicks out someone who harrasses trans people, why that's evidence of transgender "totalitarianism."
Double standard much?
Why yes. Yes you do.
A woman who lost her job after saying that people cannot change their biological sex has lost an employment tribunal.
Maya Forstater, 45, did not have her contract renewed after posting a series of tweets questioning government plans to let people declare their own gender.
Ms Forstater believes trans women holding certificates that recognise their transgender identity cannot describe themselves as women.
But that view is "not worthy of respect in a democratic society", a judge said.
Gender passport rules 'unlawful', court hears
Ms Forstater, who had worked as a tax expert at the think tank Center for Global Development, was not entitled to ignore the rights of a transgender person and the "enormous pain that can be caused by misgendering", employment judge James Tayler said.
Ms Forstater was "absolutist" in her view, he concluded in a 26-page judgement.
"It is a core component of her belief that she will refer to a person by the sex she considered appropriate even if it violates their dignity and/or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment," he continued.
"The approach is not worthy of respect in a democratic society."
"I know a number of Republicans in Congress, and many of them are strong Christians. If the President were guilty of what the Democrats claimed, these Republicans would have joined with the Democrats to impeach him"
That's because nearly the entire Republican Party has devolved into a cult of personality that will blindly acquiesce to anything the Rumpster decides to do - even shoot someone on Fifth Avenue:
Richard Wolf
USA TODAY
"One of President Donald Trump's private attorneys told a federal appeals court panel Wednesday that Trump could not be investigated or prosecuted if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue.
The assertion from William Consovoy, who is trying to block a New York City prosecutor from examining Trump's tax returns in a criminal investigation, came in response to a hypothetical question about a president's immunity.
"What's your view on the Fifth Avenue example?" Judge Denny Chin asked. "Local authorities couldn't investigate? They couldn't do anything about it?"
Consovoy said Trump no longer would be immune once he leaves office. "This is not a permanent immunity," he said.
Chin persisted, asking what would happen to a sitting president.
"Nothing could be done? That is your position?" he asked.
"That is correct. That is correct," Consovoy responded."
Yet somehow Christians are more concerned about transgender "totalitarianism" than what the Rumpster can get away with as a de facto King of the U.S.
Calls for immediate and ambitious action to tackle the climate emergency piled up Thursday in response to preliminary analysis from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology that Wednesday smashed the nation's temperature record by a full 1°C just one day after the previous all-time record.
The first record was set Tuesday, when Australia's national average maximum temperature reached 40.9°C (105.6°F), eliciting alarm from climate and fire safety experts. Wednesday, the average rose to 41.9°C (107.4°F), sparking a fresh wave of warnings and demands for bold efforts to battle the planetary crisis.
"On Wednesday, Australia's heatwave reached incredible proportions," tweeted Kees van der Leun, a director at the American consultancy firm Navigant who works with energy sector clients in Europe and the Middle East.
"I think this is the single loudest alarm bell I've ever heard on global heating," added van der Leun. "Red lights flashing all over. Politicians not taking this as a call for climate action will probably never act at all."
Amid the mounting alarm, meteorologists warned Thursday that the record-smashing heat in Australia is set to continue. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that "the national temperature record could be broken for the third day in a row when it is analyzed on Friday."
New South Wales—which is Australia's most populous state and home to Sydney, the country's largest city—has been battling high temperatures and devastating bushfires for the past few months.
"While other parts of the country will cool down, NSW is bracing for deteriorating conditions on the weekend," according to the Herald. Saturday, the temperature could soar to 47°C (116.6°F) in Western Sydney.
Alongside higher temperatures in the coming days, Neil Bennett of the government's meteorology bureau told the newspaper, "the other thing that's similar to today is that there will be a southerly change during the day. So once again the fires will be impacted, and that's just going to exacerbate problems."
In response to over 100 wildfires raging across NSW—only half of which are under control—the state government on Thursday declared a seven-day state of emergency and announced a statewide total fire ban that will run through midnight Saturday.
The FBI had operational informants inside the Trump campaign and among Trump associates, according to the Justice Department’s inspector general report.
The finding appears to be the first official confirmation that there were FBI-paid spies, called confidential human sources (CHS), close to President Trump.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report tends to downplay his finding. But he does say that one informant reported information directly to Crossfire Hurricane, the code name for the FBI probe into Trump-Russia connections led by agent Peter Strzok.
"One of President Donald Trump's private attorneys told a federal appeals court panel Wednesday that Trump could not be investigated or prosecuted if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue."
pointless rhetoric since he hasn't shot anyone on Fifth Avenue
as a matter of fact, he must be extraordinarily considering Dems have been scouring his entire life looking for a chink
He is the first President in history to be impeached without a crime being cited
"You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role. Impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office."
Lindsey Graham, January 1999
“What’s a high crime? How about if an important person hurts somebody of low means? It’s not very scholarly. But I think it’s the truth. I think that’s what they meant by high crimes. Doesn’t even have to be a crime.”
Graham also acknowledged the gravity of Clinton’s impeachment trial, noting that all presidents to come after Clinton would be held to the same standards.
Clinton committed a crime
he also sexually took advantage of a young girl, hired with taxpayer money, in the Oval Office
Trump has done neither
The Democrat impeachment report is an even bigger nothing-burger than the highly anticipated Mueller Report was in June, exposing the politically motivated effort to remove President Trump from office as the farce it really is.
Contrary to the liberal media’s portrayal of the report as an open-and-shut case against the president, the Democrats have produced the weakest rationale for impeaching a U.S. president in history. The “radical Republicans” of the Reconstruction era are rightly condemned by history for contriving the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson on purely political (and unconstitutional) grounds — but at least they bothered to contrive an actual crime to justify their partisan effort to remove a president from office, which is more than can be said of today’s Democrats.
Here are four key takeaways from their impeachment report that are worth considering now that the House has voted to send its flimsy articles of impeachment to the Senate.
1. “Collusion” with Russia is the hoax that just won’t die
If you thought that former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would be the end of the Democrats’ obsession with the Russia collusion hoax, you were mistaken. House Democrats revived the long-debunked collusion myth to argue that “Trump has fallen into a pattern of behavior: this is not the first time he has solicited foreign interference in an election.”
In support of that ridiculous claim, the report references President Trump’s joke about Russia releasing the hacked Hillary Clinton emails during the 2016 campaign, completely ignoring the fact that Mueller and his team “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
2. Abuse of power is nonexistent
Despite its length, the 658-page impeachment document doesn’t present much in the way of direct evidence and substance. In fact, the Democrats were so starved for evidence that they were forced to draft only two articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Neither, notably, relates to either the “quid pro quo” allegation that served as the original basis for the impeachment inquiry or the “bribery” allegation that Democrats concocted in hopes of swaying public opinion in their favor. Instead, they are relying on subjective allegations designed to create the perception of wrongdoing without the need to present any evidence of an actual crime. “Abuse of power” is a very grave accusation, but the impeachment report reveals that it’s based on nothing more than the Democrats’ insistence that President Trump should never have been elected in the first place.
According to the Democrat Party, President Trump abused his constitutional power by asking his Ukrainian counterpart to get dirt on his political opponent — but that is just their partisan interpretation of the phone call that took place between the two leaders. As the transcript of the conversation clearly shows, President Trump asked President Volodymyr Zelensky to do “us” (i.e., America) a favor by looking into a potential corruption scandal involving Joe Biden and his son, as well as examining Ukraine’s possible role in the election interference perpetrated against “our country” in 2016 — requests that were completely consistent with Donald Trump’s commitment to fighting corruption, both in Washington and in countries that receive American taxpayer dollars.
“I said to President Zelensky: ‘would like you to do us a favor, though, because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it,’” President Trump explained in a recent letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, adding that “Every time I talk with a foreign leader, I put America’s interests first, just as I did with President Zelensky.”
If the Democrats followed that approach of putting America’s interests first, they would realize that impeaching the president for “abuse of power” sets a dangerous precedent. If it’s an impeachable offense to take an official action that might ultimately boost a sitting president’s reelection prospects, then the presidency carries no real power at all whenever the opposition party holds a House majority.
3. Obstruction of Congress is a contrived charge
The preposterous claim that President Trump “obstructed Congress” is even weaker than the claim that he abused his power. In their report, the impeachment-crazed Democrats argue that “President Trump did everything in his power to obstruct the House’s impeachment inquiry,” citing his refusal to participate in his own political crucifixion as evidence.
As every member of Congress knows, the president has a right to claim executive privilege under certain circumstances. When disputes arise between the White House and Congress over whether a given invocation of privilege is legitimate, as often happens, the appropriate remedy is to let the courts decide. When President Trump asserted executive privilege with regard to the House impeachment inquiry, the Democrats explicitly refused to challenge him in court — thereby implicitly accepting his rationale.
With this article of impeachment, they’re seeking to bypass the judiciary branch altogether and essentially criminalize executive privilege. Under their theory, anytime a president challenges the legitimacy of any congressional request on any basis, a slim majority in the House of Representatives can simply declare the challenge itself an impeachable offense. Talk about tyranny of the majority!
4. Moderate Democrats are being thrown under the bus
Democrats who campaigned as moderates in districts that voted for President Trump in 2016 will be the most obvious collateral damage from Pelosi’s impeachment debacle. Polling shows that widespread disgust over the politically motivated farce is enhancing Donald Trump’s appeal, especially among swing-state voters, and vulnerable Democrats who side with party leaders on this issue will undoubtedly face a backlash at the polls next November. Honoring the will of their constituents is equally risky, though, since any Democrat who votes against impeachment will likely be defeated by a primary challenger who reflects the unhinged Trump-hatred of the party’s radical base.
“This is the lightest, weakest impeachment that our country’s had,” President Trump said as he mocked the Democrats during a recent Keep America Great rally. “Everybody says this is impeachment lite, this is the lightest impeachment in the history of our country by far.”
That might even be underselling it. The only thing the Democrats proved with their impeachment manifesto is the illegitimacy of their own partisan witch hunt.
“I am concerned that if we do not impeach this president, then he will get reelected,” Democratic Representative Al Green of Texas said this spring, explaining his support for impeaching President Trump, long before the phone call with the Ukrainian President Zelensky that is at the heart of the current saga. Given all the accomplishments of the White House to date, it is easy to see why so many Democrats share that sentiment with Green.
Start with the state of the economy. Ronald Reagan, in his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter, famously suggested people ask themselves before casting their votes, “Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago?” He understood what political scientists and campaign operatives have known for decades. When it comes to deciding factors at the polls, perceived economic health stands, for many voters, at the top of the list.
Since Trump took office, more than seven million new jobs have been created. Unemployment has fallen from 4.8 percent to 3.5 percent, with African American and Hispanic unemployment at historic lows. In sharp contrast to the Obama era, the labor force has been growing rather than shrinking. More Americans are now working than ever before. Even with the largest workforce in our history, there are more job openings looking for employees to fill them than prospective employees looking for jobs.
Given that no president running for reelection in the postwar era has been defeated with unemployment less than 7.4 percent, the record of Trump on the jobs front alone sets him as a formidable candidate for reelection. However, job creation and labor market growth are not the only measures of economic success. Gross domestic product growth has risen from the 2 percent average of the Obama years to 2.5 percent, with two quarters of the Trump years significantly clocking in above 3 percent.
Moreover, Trump signed into law the Tax Cut and Jobs Act two years ago. Though Democrats derided it as a sop to the wealthy, a study showed that an average family of four, earning the median annual income of $73,000, received a cut in federal income taxes of more than $2,000. To the coastal elites who populate the modern Democratic Party, that may not be much more than their annual coffee bill, but to average families in the heartland, that is almost a 60 percent drop in their annual federal income tax bills.
Since Trump was elected, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has soared by more than 50 percent to more than 28,000 points. The S&P 500 Index has climbed by more than 50 percent to more than 3,200 points. The Nasdaq Composite has risen by more than 70 percent to more than 8,800 points. If you think those gains go only to elites, think again, as about 100 million people have 401(k)s and 42 million households have individual retirement accounts. They know who is putting more money in their wallets and who is making it easier to save for retirement and pay for college for their kids.
So the answer to the question posed by Reagan is simple and obvious. It is also most troubling to Democrats, who know they have nothing and no one to offer Americans to beat Trump. It is easy to see what is really going on here. Democrats have weaponized the impeachment process and are using it as another political tool against an opponent they cannot beat.
That is not why the Founders established impeachment. Indeed, they feared that impeachment could be used by one party in control of the House against a president of the other party. But the good news is that Americans see through this. The polls are swinging against Democrats, and this charade of an impeachment is simply benefiting the reelection campaign of Trump. The charade will then move to the Senate, where it will end with a failure to convict and exoneration for Trump as it should
When will the Washington media correct the record and publicly burn their sources in the Obama FBI, the intelligence community and the political class who lied to them for years about that now-discredited Trump-Russia hoax?
That hoax served as pretext for President Barack Obama’s FBI and CIA and others to investigate, and spy upon, the presidential campaign of a rival.
As if by design, the now discredited Trump-Russia story consumed President Donald Trump’s White House and our politics for three years. And from the fetid cauldron of lies and spin grew the wholly partisan Democratic impeachment of the president
Now, U.S. Attorney John Durham is pursuing a criminal investigation. And the presiding judge of the secret FISA court, which gave the Obama FBI the warrants to investigate and spy on the Trump campaign, is publicly demanding answers.
But when will reporters who carried water for this crew of whisperers admit they’ve been lied to and expose the liars?
Glenn Greenwald of the Intercept and Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone are not conservatives. They are of the left. And they are pushing for answers.
Washington is too fancy for me. I’d get lost in that modern Versailles, a company town of smooth courtiers and Kemalist bureaucrats who protect the state from the people.
But in the heartland, if an anonymous source lies to you, and that leads to bogus reporting, if you’ve been used, you have an obligation to your readers, viewers and your craft.
The Russia hoax caused great damage to the credibility of institutions essential to a functioning republic, including the the FBI, the intelligence services, the presidency, Congress and, yes, even journalism.
Trump is no angel. He’s a transactional man, a dealmaker, a man of questionable ethics and disposition. And if there is any time journalism is required to cover and challenge him, it is now. But after three years of over-the-top cheerleading for “The Resistance,” and soiling itself in the Russia hoax, does the media have any credibility?
Reporters carried water for now discredited former FBI Director James Comey, and for now discredited U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, who served as the Democratic Inspector Javert of the impeachment, and many others.
So, who lied and who told the truth? Who spun political news stories that were believed as fact and became talking points for partisan jabbering?
Some of the more witless pundits mock all this as mere conspiracy theory. Clearly, they do not read Taibbi and Greenwald. And they did not read the Horowitz report. They might have read the early partisan spin, the stuff mushrooms are fed, but they didn’t read the report.
Rosemary Collyer, presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, wants the FBI to come clean about the lies Horowitz found, the lies the FBI told the court that led to search warrants used to spy on Trump and his campaign.
The FISA court is secret, and I don’t like secret courts. But people I respect — people in the FBI and others who revere the Constitution — say FISA is an invaluable tool against foreign spy networks and terrorists who seek to do America harm.
Recently, Judge Collyer issued an order to the FBI to get answers. She called the FBI’s actions — as revealed by Horowitz — to be “antithetical to the heightened duty of candor” that government agents owe the court.
Collyer wrote: “The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable.”
Comey and his deputy Andrew McCabe, a TV pundit on CNN, acted as if they didn’t know what happened, and were stunned and dismayed that mistakes were made.
They investigated a presidential campaign, but apparently left all the details to low level staffers and mistakes were made.
As Greenwald wrote in a recent piece in The Intercept, “The revelations of the IG Report are not merely a massive FBI scandal. They are also a massive media scandal, because they reveal that so much of what the U.S. media has authoritatively claimed about all of these matters for more than two years is completely false.”
In Washington, journalists attend formal dinners and literally sing and dance in musical skits to amuse the establishment ruling class.
They give themselves awards — including Pulitzer Prizes for reporting the Russia-Trump story — that have not been, as yet, returned.
Former GOP Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) on Friday warned his Republican former colleagues in the Senate that none of their triumphs in public office “will matter more than your actions in the coming months.”
In an open letter published by The Washington Post, Flake said President Donald Trump “is on trial” over the Ukraine scandal and “in a very real sense, so are you. And so is the political party to which we belong.”
Flake, who served in the Senate from 2013 until January of this year, urged Republican senators who have so far staunchly defended Trump against impeachment to “remember who we are when we are at our best.”
“And I ask you to remember yourself at your most idealistic” when weighing the evidence against Trump in a Senate impeachment trial, he added.
Flake acknowledged that, regarding the two articles of impeachment (abuse of power and obstruction of Congress) the House is yet to transmit to the Senate, senators could legitimately argue for or against Trump’s removal from office.
“There is no small amount of moral hazard with each option, but both positions can be defended,” he wrote. “But what is indefensible is echoing House Republicans who say that the president has not done anything wrong. He has.”
“If there ever was a time to put country over party, it is now,” Flake concluded the op-ed. “And by putting country over party, you might just save the Grand Old Party before it’s too late.”
Don't hold your breath Jeff. Republicans are going to follow the Rumpster over the cliff like a hoard of lemmings.
“If there ever was a time to put country over party, it is now,”
that's true
Dems need to stop this and end the damage they have done to our country
You can't blame Democrats for the Rumpster. That was Republicans' fault.
what you can blame Dems for is what they've done:
manufacture a farcical rationale for overturning the last election
this has done extensive damage to many of our institutions
Trump is exactly the kind of President he promised to be when campaigning and Americans elected him on that basis
I realize Dems are sick of losing free and fair elections but, sooner or later, they have to face it:
America isn't buying what they are selling
Republicans can keep trying to gaslight American voters and pretend that the orange one hasn't been undermining our Constitution and putting his personal gains above that of our country, but that simply isn't a strategy that's going to work in the long run.
Eventually even some of the dimmer voters are going to figure things out - like when their little tax breaks expire, but the big corporate ones don't.
Or when the national debt gets so big that it undermines our economy, and in the next downturn there isn't any levers left for the government or the Fed to get things moving again.
Or when the accumulating corporate debt bubble collapses and it looks like 2008 again.
Or when folks realize that while he was making xenophobic remarks about Mexicans taking their jobs and killing people, his family's business interests in China and Russia are doing just fine.
Or that Rump's ill-advised and unnecessary trade war and all those tariffs he slapped on products only worked for a very short term, and now business (like US Steel) are starting to lay people off, and farmers are losing their farms.
Just how long do you think you can keep spitting out propaganda for a compulsive liar before people start realizing they're getting shafted?
Things looked great in 2007 before Bush ran the US economic train off the rails. Rump's lining up to do the same thing again.
"Republicans can keep trying to gaslight American voters and pretend that the orange one hasn't been undermining our Constitution"
that will tend to happen until Dems can stop arguing by insult and explain how the President is "undermining our Constitution"
so far, he has filled the courts with judges who will protect the Constitution
he has over a year before his term ends and then, likely four more
"and putting his personal gains above that of our country,"
again, give us some details
if he did that, it sure isn't what he impeached for
in reality, Trump has lost a lot of money becoming President, which doesn't jive with this Dem lie
"but that simply isn't a strategy that's going to work in the long run."
in the long run, telling the truth in the face of media lies is the only working strategy
like when they didn't collapse in the face of media enabling of the Russian hoax that Robert Mueller debunked
"like when their little tax breaks expire, but the big corporate ones don't"
everyone knows the tax cuts will be extended if the GOP controls the Congress
"Or when the national debt gets so big that it undermines our economy, and in the next downturn there isn't any levers left for the government or the Fed to get things moving again"
don't worry, spending cuts are coming
vote GOP in November if you want that
Dems will raise taxes and still not cut the deficit
"Or when the accumulating corporate debt bubble collapses and it looks like 2008 again."
is that happening?
"Or when folks realize that while he was making xenophobic remarks about Mexicans taking their jobs and killing people,"
he never said all Mexicans were illegal immigrants
Dems and the press did
"Just how long do you think you can keep spitting out propaganda for a compulsive liar before people start realizing they're getting shafted?"
it's becoming more obvious every day who is spitting out propaganda
"Republicans can keep trying to gaslight American voters and pretend that the orange one hasn't been undermining our Constitution"
"that will tend to happen"
Well, at least you admit to it.
"he has over a year before his term ends and then, likely four more"
I wish I could see that smugness drain from your face come next November... it would be a delight to see.
"and putting his personal gains above that of our country,"
"again, give us some details"
Why not:
President Donald Trump has pushed his taxpayer-funded golf tab past $118 million on his 26th visit to Mar-a-Lago, his for-profit resort in Palm Beach, Florida, with a Saturday visit to his course in neighboring West Palm Beach.
The new total is the equivalent of 296 years of the $400,000 presidential salary that his supporters often boast that he is not taking.
And of that $118.3 million, at least several million has gone into Trump’s own cash registers, as Secret Service agents, White House staff and other administration officials stay and eat at his hotels and golf courses.
The exact amount going into Trump’s pocket cannot be determined because the White House refuses to reveal how many Trump aides have been staying at his properties when he visits them and the administration will not turn over receipts for the charges incurred.
Trump’s White House on Saturday also ignored queries regarding Trump’s golf partners, continuing its practice of keeping that information secret unless he plays with a celebrity or with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.). Previous administrations routinely disclosed the president’s golf partners.
At this exact point in former President Barack Obama’s first term, he had spent 88 days on a golf course. Saturday was Trump’s 227th day as president on a course that he owns. If Trump continues golfing at the pace he has set in his first three years, he will surpass in just one term the total number of days Obama spent golfing over two full terms — despite having repeatedly criticized Obama for playing too much golf and having promised, as a candidate, that he would be too busy to play any golf at all.
Just three years into his presidency, Trump’s travel and security expenses for his golf hobby exceed an estimate of eight years worth of expenses incurred by Obama’s family travel by millions of dollars.
The conservative group Judicial Watch said in 2017 that its tally of Obama’s travel costs, based on documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, had hit $105.7 million. That total, though, appears to include official trips by Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, as well as some campaign-related travel that was partially reimbursed by the Democratic Party.
Trump’s costs are so much higher than Obama’s because Trump insists on playing golf at his own courses — primarily in Bedminster, New Jersey, and Florida — during which he greets and spends time with paying club members whose dues continue to enrich him. Each trip to Bedminster costs taxpayers about $1.1 million, while each Mar-a-Lago trip costs about $3.4 million. Trump has also visited his courses in Los Angeles; Doral, Florida; Turnberry, Scotland; and Doonbeg, Ireland — all on the taxpayer dime.
In contrast, while Obama typically took expensive vacations twice a year — one to Martha’s Vineyard and one to his home state of Hawaii — the vast majority of his golf outings were to courses on military bases a short drive from the White House.
Trump’s trip to Turnberry in 2018 cost taxpayers an extra $3 million beyond what it would have cost had he remained in London prior to his summit in Helsinki with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. His trip to Ireland this summer cost taxpayers $3.6 million more than if he’d simply returned to Washington following his visit to London and Normandy, France.
"in reality, Trump has lost a lot of money becoming President, which doesn't jive with this Dem lie"
Your ignorance of the facts and difficulties with basic math don't make Democrats liars. Stop projecting. The Rumpster's golf courses made him millions more than the puny $400k a year presidential salary.
"everyone knows the tax cuts will be extended if the GOP controls the Congress"
Really? What are they waiting for? They easily could have done it before they lost the House due to their incompetence.
"don't worry, spending cuts are coming
vote GOP in November if you want that"
I used to vote for the GOP, but somehow all their spending cuts got cancelled out by increases in military spending and bigger tax breaks for corporations and rich people. And all their claims that "the tax cuts will pay for themselves" has NEVER happened.
"Dems will raise taxes and still not cut the deficit"
The last Republican to actually LOWER deficits any appreciable amount was a guy named "Ike." The Dems have done a far better job of getting close to a balanced budget than the Republicans - who have just kept pushing deficits up:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gross_US_Federal_Debt_as_a_Percentage_of_GDP,_by_President.png
"he never said all Mexicans were illegal immigrants"
I never claimed he said "all Mexicans were illegal immigrants." And he doesn't need to say "all of them" in order to slander them.
"Dems and the press did"
Really? Which ones? Surely you have some quotes or videos of this slander.
I seem to recall the press playing video of Trump's remarks about Mexicans "as-is," without editing. Do you find some modified versions of what he said to support your dubious claim? Were those fake videos put out by "the deep state" that fooled everyone?
"it's becoming more obvious every day who is spitting out propaganda"
Wait! -- Did you finally get a mirror?
"I wish I could see that smugness drain from your face come next November... it would be a delight to see"
am I smug?
must be, if I see through the media propaganda
Trump will win because he has maintained support among those who voted for him, because the same issues he addressed still exist, because he is making inroads among enough minority voters to disrupt the traditional Dem constituency, because he has delivered on his promises, and because he has put America back to work
and the genius of the founding fathers, who created the brilliant electoral college system, that prevents one populous state from ruling over the vast heartland
in contrast, Dems will either give us a socialist nominee, or someone whose son sold his influence with his father, as VP, to corrupt overseas interests
you think I'm smug now?
wait until November
I'll be gloating and smirkin' up a storm about the stupidity of Dems
"President Donald Trump has pushed his taxpayer-funded golf tab past $118 million on his 26th visit to Mar-a-Lago, his for-profit resort in Palm Beach, Florida, with a Saturday visit to his course in neighboring West Palm Beach"
this is what you're talking about when you say he "put his personal gain above the country"?
I was expecting some more substantive fake news
c'mon, guys
at least make this a little fun
every President is entitled to do what he wants in his spare time
we know we'll be providing protection for any President
they aren't expected to sit in the private quarters at 1600 Pa Ave to save us money
"And of that $118.3 million, at least several million has gone into Trump’s own cash registers, as Secret Service agents, White House staff and other administration officials stay and eat at his hotels and golf courses."
when Trump is in Washington, security and staff don't sleep in the White House
when the Secret Service takes a lunch break, they are free to go to McDonald's for lunch
"Trump’s White House on Saturday also ignored queries regarding Trump’s golf partners, continuing its practice of keeping that information secret unless he plays with a celebrity or with Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.). Previous administrations routinely disclosed the president’s golf partners."
yeah, this is like the tax return thing
the press thinks they are entitled to be fed irrelevant information
"At this exact point in former President Barack Obama’s first term, he had spent 88 days on a golf course. Saturday was Trump’s 227th day as president on a course that he owns. If Trump continues golfing at the pace he has set in his first three years, he will surpass in just one term the total number of days Obama spent golfing over two full terms"
and, amazingly, accomplishing more every year than Obama did over 8 years
you don't hear the Dem candidates bringing up the economy
LOL!!
boy oh boy, am I smug, or what?!?!?!?!?!!??
"Your ignorance of the facts and difficulties with basic math don't make Democrats liars. Stop projecting. The Rumpster's golf courses made him millions more than the puny $400k a year presidential salary."
Trump has lost millions more because his brand name has become part of the intense partisan division Dems have created
"Really? What are they waiting for?"
for the expiration date to get close
"They easily could have done it before they lost the House due to their incompetence."
they lost the House because the Mueller report had not yet come out to debunk the lies of Dems and their media co-conspirators
"I used to vote for the GOP, but somehow all their spending cuts got cancelled out by increases in military spending"
if we don't protect ourselves, everything else is meaningless
"and bigger tax breaks for corporations and rich people."
corporations shouldn't be taxed at all
their shareholders pay tax when dividends are disbursed
rich people literally fund most of our government and private charities
"And all their claims that "the tax cuts will pay for themselves" has NEVER happened."
you do realize that tax receipts for the first full year of the Trump tax cuts exceeded those of the year before, right?
sounds like they're paying for themselves
"The Dems have done a far better job of getting close to a balanced budget than the Republicans"
Obama borrowed more than all the previous Presidents combined
"I never claimed he said "all Mexicans were illegal immigrants." And he doesn't need to say "all of them" in order to slander them."
actually, to slander all Mexicans, he does indeed have to slander all Mexicans
it's a logical imperative
a dozen of the top stories the media majorly messed up in 2019:
January: Covington Catholic
The media ripped apart a 16-year-old student seen in a video smirking at a Native American activist on the National Mall during a school trip with Covington Catholic High School to Washington D.C. for the March for Life.
The release of added context however, reveals that Nick Sandmann, a junior at the school who is depicted in the viral image was being harassed along with his peers by members of the Black Hebrew Israelites (BHI).
That didn’t stop the media however, from vilifying Sandmann who has since launched legal challenges to media outlets who falsely reported the story.
February: Jussie Smollett
Television star of the popular series “Empire” was offered a plethora of sympathetic media coverage throughout February after suffering from an alleged racist and homophobic Jan. 29 attack.
It was later revealed however that Smollett faked the crime and faced 16 charges for lying to police. The Chicago Cook County prosecutor’s office however, dropped the charges while maintaining it did not “exonerate him.”
The episode illustrates the societal double-standard that it’s okay to lie if it’s in the name of left-wing social justice.
March: The Mueller Report
In perhaps one of the media’s most magnificent mistakes this year, special counsel Robert Mueller unveiled his findings from a two-year unlimited resource investigation completely exonerating President Donald Trump of being a Russian agent after years of the media’s peddling of the Russia hoax.
Mueller found not one person from the Trump campaign, let alone Trump himself, colluded with the Russian government in 2016 to defeat Hillary Clinton. Mueller’s report also acquitted Trump of any obstruction of justice charges for firing one of the most corrupt directors of the FBI, James Comey.
April: White House Correspondents Dinner
The White House Correspondents Dinner in April this year opted to forgo a comedian this year to instead just attack Trump openly, complaining that the president might start rounding up journalists and putting them in jail.
May: Media Defends Joe Biden’s Manhandling Of Young Girls
While the #MeToo era has brought down powerful men for alleged inappropriate conduct in recent years, the media exposed its double-standard when it comes to men they want to protect.
Former Vice President Joe Biden sparked criticism this year for his interactions with young girls earning the Democratic frontrunner the nickname “Creepy Uncle Joe.”
While the media will eviscerate any man the progressive movement attempts to bring down with allegations of sexual harassment, most notably Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, the media went to bat to defend Biden who has been leading the Democratic primary field ever since.
June: Media Standing Up For Antifa
Antifa, a left-wing movement to counter the fascist “alt-right” by conducting acts of domestic terrorism has been defended by the media as principled individuals united in their common valor to resist the pro-Trump forces threatening to destroy the country.
Exactly how Antifa is pursuing their mission? By destroying the country. Throughout the year the left-wing militant group has interrupted events and viciously attacked journalists covering their hate resulting in one reporter suffering a brain injury.
“It says it right in the name. ‘Antifa,’ which means ‘anti-fascism,’ which is what they were there fighting. Listen, no organization is perfect, there is some violence,” CNN’s Don Lemon said.
“They have taken a principled stand to stand against white supremacists and white nationalists wherever they may show up,” said a guest on MSNBC.
July: 50th Anniversary Of Moon Landing Celebrates Inequality
While America celebrated one of human civilization’s greatest accomplishments of world history by landing a man on the moon in 1969, the media condemned the event as a mostly white male dominated event… Ok.
August: Chris Cuomo Goes Berserk After Being Called ‘Fredo’
In a viral moment caught on a phone camera, a man began berating CNN’s Chris Cuomo and called the primetime anchor “Fredo.”
“Don’t f***ing insult me like that… It’s like I call you punk b***h, you like that?” Cuomo scolded.
While Cuomo took great offense to the word as an Italian slur, the word is actually a reference to a character in “The Godfather.”
Cuomo even once referred to himself as Fredo in a radio interview.
September: Media Makes A Puppet Of Greta Thunberg
It’s a true tragedy, really. A 16-year-old climate activist on the autism spectrum kicked off a campaign to save the world from climate change, sailing across the Atlantic and lecturing the world at the United Nations of its imminent threat to humanity.
“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” Thunberg declared to world leaders.
What’s sad is the left’s puppeteering of Thunberg as their principle activist to prop up their efforts to enact radical climate legislation, using Thunberg as their flag-bearer to avoid criticism of their proposals labeling anyone who might dare question her demands as bigoted and cruel.
Time Magazine even picked Thunberg as their person of the year. The Federalist has chosen the Hong Kong protestor instead.
October: Washington Post Pens Glowing Obituary For ISIS Leader
While Grabien lists media coverage condemning a violent meme video shown at a Trump resort as October’s most mortifying moment, media reaction to the video wasn’t entirely unjustified given the nature of the video depicting Trump of murdering his opponents and members of the press. Instead, the media’s coverage of the president’s successful war on ISIS is far more worthy of condemnation.
After Trump announced the successful execution of the world’s most dangerous terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Washington Post published an astonishing obituary for the ISIS leader, branding the dead anti-American warmonger as an “austere religious scholar” in the headline.
Further, the Post spent the first half of the article chronicling al-Baghdadi’s rise in academia, waiting until the 40th paragraph to mention al-Baghdadi was also a serial rapist.
The Post’s glaring mistake is illustrative of the wider media coverage on Trump’s battle with ISIS.
November: ABC Buried The Jeffrey Epstein Story
A leaked recording obtained by Project Veritas shows ABC anchor Amy Robach complaining that the network refused to run with her story on Jeffrey Epstein before the revelations surfaced of the hedge fund manager’s vast sex trafficking network.
“I’ve had the story for three years…We would not put it on the air. Um, first of all, I was told, who’s Jeffrey Epstein? No one knows who that is. This is a stupid story,” Robach said. “It was unbelievable what we had, Clinton, we had everything. Now it’s all coming out and it’s like these new revelations and I freaking had it.”
ABC has since declared war on the whistleblower who leaked the recording instead of coming down on the executives who buried the story.
December: DOJ IG Blows Up Steele Dossier Upheld By The Media
Earlier this month, the Justice Department inspector general released a long-anticipated report on the FBI’s FISA abuses of four warrants used to conduct surveillance on the Trump campaign.
One of the major revelations to emerge from the report was the confirmation that the sources from the discredited Steele Dossier were relied upon to re-issue the warrants from the FISA courts to continue its deep-state operations. FBI officials knew as early as January of 2017 that the sources were providing junk intelligence and did not include that information in their warrant applications.
The media however, spent years defending the credibility of the Steele Dossier in peddling the Russia hoax.
The best of times, the worst of times. Your instinct of which one we’re living through depends on how well you’re observing, and quantifying, things in the world around you.
Trump opponents, including almost the whole of the Democratic Party and a tattered but still loudly chirping fragment of the Republican Party, assure us that we are entering the dark night of Nazism, racism, and violent suppression of all dissenting opinion.
To which I say: nonsense. And so does, in more elegant terms, the science writer and British House of Lords voting member Matt Ridley in the British Spectator. “We are living through the greatest improvement in human living standards in history,” he writes of the decade just ending.
Olden times may look better in warm memories — think of multiepisode dramas about Edwardian noblemen or carefully curated statistics showing narrower pay gaps between 1950s CEOs and assembly-line workers. But the cold, hard numbers tell another story.
“Extreme poverty has fallen below 10 percent of the world’s population for the first time. It was 60 percent when I was born,” Ridley writes, referring to the year 1958, a time that some of us can actually remember.
Of course, you may say, the economic progress made since China and India discovered the magic of free markets has helped people over there; but over here, in advanced countries, we’re not growing. We are just gobbling up and wolfing down more of the world’s limited resources, aren't we?
Not so, replies Ridley. Consumers in advanced countries are actually consuming less stuff (biomass, metals, minerals, or fossil fuels) per capita, even while getting more nutrition and production out of it. Thank technological advancement.
We’re also experiencing, as a world and in advanced countries, less violence and more in the way of peace, international and domestic. That’s the argument of Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker in his book The Better Angels of Our Nature. Wars are more infrequent and less deadly than in the past.
So too has violent crime abated in the U.S. and other advanced nations. It used to be taken as given that disadvantaged young males, especially those minorities discriminated against, were hugely likely to commit violent crimes. Now, thanks to improved policing and changed attitudes, far fewer do so.
The natural tendency of most people is to ignore positive trends. They are not the lead stories on your local newscast, nor are they mentioned in the shouting matches on cable news. People usually focus on complaints and grievances. And there are indeed worrying negative countertrends, such as the opioid abuse that has cut life expectancies down for some demographic groups.
We tend to focus on negative trends, though, even after they’ve been reversed. Illegal border crossings peaked just before the 2007-08 financial crisis and are much fewer, though not zero, today. Wages for low-skilled workers for years rose little or not at all, as politicians of both parties complained. Since 2016, they’ve been rising faster than average, but only Trump’s fans seem to have noticed.
One can even make the case that in places where we lament sluggish economic growth — Japan since 1990, continental Europe since 2001, the U.S. from 2007 up through 2017 — living standards still remain more than comfortable, judged by any historic perspective.
That’s a reminder that the positive force of democratic politics tends to produce the negative force of cynical partisanship, visible today not just in Trump’s America, but in most of Europe and much of Asia. But nationalistic politics has not undermined civil liberties, and the center-Left’s fumbling attempts to sell economic redistribution suggest that people are actually better off than their grumbles to pollsters suggest.
Of course bad things can happen in even the best of times, and a minor cloudburst can spoil a bright summer day. But at year’s and decade’s end, our grumbling society is closer to the best than to the worst of times.
After pushing through a quick, partisan impeachment, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a grievous strategic miscalculation.
The California Democrat decided not to forward the two articles of impeachment to the Senate, believing she could pressure the Senate to require witnesses as part of the trial.
Let’s set aside the absurd demands for fairness that House Democrats are making. Their partisan House process was unprecedented and earned bipartisan opposition as the White House was denied due process and leaks and secret hearings were regularly utilized. Democratic requests for fairness now are laughable.
Beyond the fairness issue, there are several problems with Mrs. Pelosi’s approach now that the House has acted.
First, the Republican-led Senate doesn’t want to take up the impeachment and would be delighted if Mrs. Pelosi pocket-vetoed her own measure indefinitely. That floor time can be used to confirm 15-20 more federal judges with lifetime appointments.
Second, the House has no leverage in the Senate as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell answers not to Mrs. Pelosi but to the 53 Republican senators who make up his conference. This is not like a conference committee where two bills must be reconciled. The Senate did not try to manipulate the House impeachment inquiry — attempting to do so would have been pointless.
Third, decisions on witnesses are not entirely up to him. He can negotiate a bipartisan agreement with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, but ultimately the trial process and agreements on witnesses are subject to a 51-vote threshold.
Fourth, Mrs. Pelosi’s position is entirely incoherent. She apparently believes impeachment was necessary and urgent because the president is such a threat to democracy and national security, but that impeachment can wait until the Senate’s trial procedures meet her approval. She can’t have it both ways.
Fifth, a demand for specific witnesses undermines the strength of her own case. Why did Democrats pass the two articles if the case she presented in the House requires these fresh witnesses? Democrats have repeatedly said they had a strong case, so why do they need more witnesses at trial? These witnesses could have been available to the House had they been willing to battle the executive privilege claim in the courts. But time was of the essence for House Democrats and they did not want to wait.
Sixth and finally, the calendar is a matter of concern for Senate Democrats. Even a short trial held in January would be profoundly inconvenient for the four sitting senators running for president, with the Iowa caucuses to be held Feb. 3. In a trial, senators are required to be sitting quietly at their desks for hours at a time for several weeks. Mrs. Pelosi’s pointless delay increases the odds that the trial will be held at the most inconvenient time possible.
Mr. McConnell is not rejecting witnesses without consideration. He is suggesting that the process used in the trial of President Bill Clinton be used here as well. Both sides present their case, and then a majority vote is held on witnesses.
Mrs. Pelosi may understand the House, but this unforced error has proven that she does not understand the Senate.
She faces two bad options in the new year. She can fold and gain no concessions from Mr. McConnell or she can effectively prevent the Senate from ever holding a trial. In the latter case, Mr. McConnell may well hold an acquittal vote in the Senate, which would require 51 votes.
Mrs. Pelosi has a weak hand and decided to bluff. Mr. McConnell then called the bluff. In early January, the cards will be turned over and the pot will be awarded.
This was all entirely foreseeable. How did the “brilliant tactician” Pelosi so badly misjudge this situation?
No one can be sure what her intent is. I'm not sure she even knows but her decision to wait before transmitting the articles of impeachment to the Senate is setting a bad precedent that puts politics ahead of the U.S. Constitution.
For all the work that's gone into addressing the charges against President Donald Trump, it's hard to argue they rise to the level of impeachable offenses. The charge of obstruction of Congress could just as easily be presented as a justifiable defense of executive power for which ample precedent exists. The allegation he abused the power of his office is likewise flawed. While U.S. policy toward Ukraine is legitimately a subject for congressional oversight it is hardly the stuff of which previous presidents were threatened with removal from office.
Remember, early on, how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opined on the gravity of impeachment and the need for bipartisanship? She got the latter at least, but not as she hoped. It was the Democrats who split their votes. Not a single Republican voted for impeachment. Three Democrats did along with Hawaii's Tulsi Gabbard, who wants to be president and who voted "Present."
Oklahoma Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, a cool-headed senior member of the House of Representatives, may have put it best when he recently tweeted: "After running a totally partisan and closed impeachment process in the House, [Pelosi] now wants an open and bipartisan process in the Senate? That is the height of political hypocrisy!"
He's right. The process leading to the president's impeachment was manifestly unfair, with the minority party in Congress's right to mount a defense of the president routinely impeded by the process the Democrats devised.
Now Pelosi is sitting on her hands, waiting for Senate to approve rules for a trial to which she can agree because they will be, as she put it, "fair." She's entitled to her opinion, one supposes, but she's failing to carry out her duties as leader of the House by doing so. She's also creating a problem she's not aware of for, if Harvard's Noah Feldman is right and the president is not deemed to have been impeached until the articles are forwarded to the Senate, why should anyone be planning for a trial? Wouldn't that be premature?
Democrats hoped the Mueller Report would show collusion with the Russians but that went nowhere. They had to settle for an innovative interpretation of a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The Democrats allege Trump proposed a quid pro quo—military aid for Ukraine in exchange for a public announcement of an investigation into alleged corruption by Hunter Biden and, by extension, his father, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden who, the polls suggest, is most likely to be the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee.
It's a stretch, but the case was made anyway even though both Trump and Zelenskiy deny any such arrangement was ever on the table. And without the Democrats willing even to acknowledge the younger Biden's paid membership on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma while his father was the point man for the U.S. government on Ukraine policy looks suspicious. Even the elder Biden has a hard time grappling with the question when it's been put to him. But who among us won't say, at least in their heart of hearts, that payments of a million dollars a year to the well-connected son of an important U.S politician by an energy company operating in a country with all the political integrity of Chicago, Illinois isn't worth looking into?
What Pelosi wants is at least one more bite at the apple, maybe more. Her minions have been trying to impeach the president for most of his administration. The votes taken just prior to Christmas on articles of impeachment were not the first and, if you can believe what's being said over the holiday recess, may not be the last. As Politico is reporting, "The House is open to the prospect of impeaching President Donald Trump a second time, lawyers for the Judiciary Committee said Monday."
Will it ever end? Probably not. Just as Bill Clinton gave us what came to be called "the permanent campaign," Nancy Pelosi and her allies are giving America "the permanent impeachment." For all her high-minded talk about the gravity of the situation and the steps being taken by the House, she's messing around with the Constitution while trying to overturn the results of the last election and influence the outcome of the next. She might succeed, at least as far as the latter effort is concerned, but not in the way she intends
It looks like someone has been rather lonely this holiday. Sad.
A case testing abortion access in Louisiana will come before the Supreme Court early next year, giving President Trump’s two appointees their first chance to leave a mark on the topic.
Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh were not on the court in 2016 when its justices last grappled with hospital admitting privileges and requirements for medical professionals administering abortions in Texas.
This time, the pair of Trump appointees help create a conservative majority on the high court for its second go at those types of restrictions imposed by a Louisiana law.
Penny Nance, president of the pro-life Concerned Women for America, said her side welcomes the opportunity for the Supreme Court to weigh in again.
“It’s definitely the biggest abortion case that has been in front of Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh,” Ms. Nance said.
The legal battle scheduled for oral arguments on March 4 will give the full bench a chance to take a look at a Louisiana law requiring doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital no farther than 30 miles from the women’s clinic.
I have a theory about liberals. They have no idea that America is doing so well because they only read experts who they know will reinforce their predetermined conclusions,
It's time to fire the so-called experts.
You know the ones -- the liberal economists with overpriced Ivy League degrees who told us that if Donald Trump were to get elected president in 2016, the economy would crash.
Fast-forward to today: More than $17 trillion in value has been added to the global stock market in 2019, with the U.S. reaping the biggest gains, according to a recent analysis by Deutsche Bank. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Russell 2000 have all seen massive growth in the Trump economy -- more than 20% this year -- with American tech companies leading the pack.
This is a sharp contrast to what a gamut of left-leaning "experts" predicted including The New York Times chief economist Paul Krugman, who told us after Trump won the 2016 election: "So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight. I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened."
Huh? Krugman ought to take a bite of this apple: One of the world's most valuable companies, Apple Inc., saw an 80% increase in its stock value in 2019. While Amazon announced a record holiday shopping season. Software giant Microsoft reaped a 55% increase this year, while Facebook soared 57% in value -- just to name a few U.S. companies whose employees and shareholders are enjoying a golden age of prosperity under the current administration.
Same goes for all Americans who are benefitting from historically low unemployment -- including minorities and women -- and the jobs bonanza, which is lifting millions out of poverty and revitalizing the American dream.
Under the current administration, we've seen a rate increase of 3.1% for wages year over year. Fox Business reported, "Average hourly earnings are $28.29 with a week of take-home pay averaging $973.18 compared to $943.59 in November 2018."
That means labor workers and the middle class are benefitting -- not just the 1% -- like Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders falsely claim on the campaign trail.
We've also seen the creation of 500,000 manufacturing jobs, new and better trade deals on the horizon with China, and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the last of which is estimated to create 176,000 jobs and add $68.2 billion to the U.S. economy, according to a study by the U.S. International Trade Commission this year.
If that's not enough winning for you, also consider the relentless surge in consumer optimism. Bloomberg's Consumer Confidence Index reported an increase to 62.3% in the week ending Dec. 22, up from 61.1%. "Record stock prices, unemployment at a five-decade low and steady wage gains continue to lift spirits, putting the 2019 average sentiment level on track for the best since the 1999-2000 dot-com boom," reported Bloomberg the day after Christmas.
Translation: It's time to uncork the champagne and celebrate America's unrivaled prosperity.
Needless to say, it's a good thing that the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump in the last presidential cycle didn't listen to the "experts" -- or the bottomless pit of naysayers in the media -- whose predictions about the economy and other topics proved worthless.
After all, these are some of the same "experts" who told us Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 election, Brexit wouldn't happen, and that Trump and his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia, a conspiracy theory that's since been debunked by multiple congressional and Department of Justice investigations including a 22-month special counsel probe that found no such evidence.
Bottom line: With the 2020 election approaching, the American people should continue to trust their own instincts, pay stubs and 401(k)s, rather than the "experts." That's a far more reliable barometer, wouldn't you say?
for the last few years, winter has been pretty cold in mots of the Northern hemisphere, except up near the Arctic Circle, where it has been balmy
this has made average global temperatures relatively high
looks like this phenomenon, which gave the appearance of global warming is over:
KOTZEBUE – Much of Alaska had been in a deep freeze this week, with temperatures as low as minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
Temperatures in the Northwest Arctic villages of Ambler and Buckland reached minus 42 degrees on Thursday morning. The Interior village of Allakaket had the coldest temperature in the state Thursday at minus 56 degrees, and it was minus 65 in Manley Hot Springs near Eureka. That’s one of the lowest temperatures for anywhere in Alaska in years.
that's right!
it's just like Hillary!
those damn liberal fruitcakes think she won the popular vote just because she got so many votes in California
and they thought the globe was warming just because it was nice in Alaska
but the truth is, someone tilted the country and all the fruits and nuts wound up in California
House Republicans are feeling good about their defense of President Trump in this month’s impeachment vote, and now want to use the divisive fight to cut into the Democratic majority in next fall’s elections.
Republicans would need to gain about 20 seats to win back the House majority.
A Trump victory would offer some coattails for Republicans. The GOP has pretty good odds in seeking to end Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) second Speakership.
Gains by the GOP are likely, and Republicans are confident they can use the impeachment votes by many House Democrats against them — starting with those representing districts won by Trump in 2016.
There are 30 such seats following Rep. Jefferson Van Drew’s (N.J.) decision to switch parties and become a Republican.
“For the Democrats running in those 30 Trump districts, they now need to tell their constituents why they voted against their vote for president, and I think that's going to be a very difficult argument to make, especially with President Trump on the ballot,” National Republican Congressional Committee Spokesman Michael McAdams told The Hill.
McAdams argues Democrats will be in a “tricky position” given GOP voters are energized by an impeachment they oppose. He also noted polling that shows independents opposed to impeachment.
My Semester With the Snowflakes
At 52, I was accepted to Yale as a freshman. The students I met there surprised me.
https://gen.medium.com/my-semester-with-the-snowflakes-888285f0e662
"In May of 2019, I was accepted to the Eli Whitney student program at Yale University. At 52, I am the oldest freshman in the class of 2023. Before I was accepted, I didn’t really know what to expect. I had seen the infamous YouTube video of students screaming at a faculty member. I had seen the news stories regarding the admissions scandal and that Yale was included in that unfortunate business. I had also heard the students at Yale referred to as “snowflakes” in various social media dumpsters and occasionally I’d seen references to Ivy League students as snowflakes in a few news sources.
I should give a bit of background information. I was an unimpressive and difficult student in public schools. I joined the military at 17 and spent close to 26 years in the US Navy. I was assigned for 22 of those years to Naval Special Warfare Commands. I went through SEAL training twice, quit the first time and barely made it the second time. I did multiple deployments and was wounded in combat in 2009 on a mission to rescue an American hostage.
Every single day I went to work with much better humans than myself. I was brought to a higher level of existence because the standards were high and one needed to earn their slot, their membership in the unit. This wasn’t a one-time deal. Every time you showed up for work, you needed to prove your worth.
The vetting process is difficult and the percentage of those who try out for special operations units and make it through the screening is very low.
In an odd parallel, I feel, in spite of my short time here, the same about Yale..."
The rest of the article is at the link above. Enjoy.
Just a week after enduring one of its hottest December heat waves on record, much of Australia is bracing for another round of punishing, dry heat and bush fire dangers through the weekend and into next week.
The new heat wave is forecast to be “extreme,” the most severe designation on the Australian Bureau of Meteorology’s forecast scale. Such heat waves pose a health “risk for anyone who does not take precautions to keep cool, even those who are healthy,” the BOM states on its website.
The hottest areas will be in inland South Australia on Friday and Saturday, while southeastern Australia, which has been severely affected by deadly bush fires that have burned an area nearly twice the size of Connecticut, is forecast to heat up by Sunday into Monday.
In Sydney, the high temperature is forecast to be close to 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 Celsius) on Sunday, although inland regions closer to the fire’s front lines could soar into the 100s.
The Rural Fire Service in New South Wales is predicting “very high” fire danger over the weekend, with “deteriorating weather conditions” early next week as hot, dry weather takes hold.
“Extreme intensity” heat wave conditions are probable for northern parts of Western Australia, the southeast portion of New South Wales, and far eastern Victoria during the three-day period starting Saturday, the BOM forecasts. For example, Canberra, the nation’s capital, is forecast to reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) over the weekend.
The typical high temperature in Canberra during the month of December is 81.5 degrees (27.5 Celsius)...
"I had also heard the students at Yale referred to as “snowflakes” in various social media dumpsters and occasionally I’d seen references to Ivy League students as snowflakes in a few news sources."
I'm so glad someone is finally standing up for the most beleaguered members of our society: students at Ivy League colleges.
Just to fill you in: the "snowflake" concept over-arches most liberal arts school, not just the Ivy League. It's the new extrapolation of political correctness where students are protected, by extreme liberal professors, from any concept that doesn't support an extreme liberal worldview. It's a Marxist paideia.
And don't worry about insulting members of our military by saying their decades of service and sacrifice is comparable to being coddled at an Ivy League school for four years. They can handle it.
"In Sydney, the high temperature is forecast to be close to 95 degrees Fahrenheit
“Extreme intensity” heat wave conditions are probable for northern parts of Western Australia, the southeast portion of New South Wales, and far eastern Victoria during the three-day period starting Saturday, the BOM forecasts. For example, Canberra, the nation’s capital, is forecast to reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit over the weekend.
The typical high temperature in Canberra during the month of December is 81.5 degrees"
It's summertime in the Southern hemisphere. We have some hot days here in July.
Always have, always will.
Former NFL player Jack Brewer once campaigned for Barack Obama but now rejects the Democratic Party after "awakening" to the way it abandoned African Americans, he said Saturday.
"For me, once I saw the policies that President Obama pushed in the back half of his presidency just -- it left a bad taste in my mouth," he said.
Brewer predicted that a "black awakening" would lead to President Trump garnering more than 20 percent of the black vote in 2020.
"And then I really started being awakening to what was happening with the Democratic Party -- making so many promises but then abandoning the community that I worked so hard in."
Brewer also expressed frustration with the 1994 crime bill, a point of contention others have raised surrounding former Vice President Joe Biden's relationship with the black community.
"I said enough was enough," he added, "and I really started putting aside what my parents and my grandparents taught me about sticking to the Democratic Party because they were the party for African Americans."
"You know all that rhetoric sounded good back in the '60s, but the facts are that the policies just don't help our families," Brewer said.
Brewer's comments came as Trump battled House Democrats over impeachment and touted his economic record, which includes record-low unemployment for African Americans. Trump has accused Democrats and members of the "deep state" -- including the FBI -- of unfairly targeting him in the Russia investigation and other matters.
African Americans, Brewer indicated, should sympathize with Trump given their history with the FBI.
"You got the FBI blatantly going after the president in targeting him, changing emails, and going after him in the same corrupt way that they went against Martin Luther King and many black leaders," Brewer said
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard spoke candidly on Saturday about her courageous decision to note vote "yes" during last week's formal impeachment vote, adding she feared the impeachment of President Donald Trump would increase his chance for reelection.
"I think impeachment will only further embolden Donald Trump, increase his support and the likelihood that he'll have a better shot at getting elected while also seeing the likelihood that the House will lose a lot of seats to Republicans," Gabbard said, in a one-on-one interview with ABC News.
Gabbard -- a 2020 president candidate -- noted that the prospect of a second term for Trump and a Republican-controlled House is a "serious concern" of hers, adding that she's worried about the potential ramifications that will be left if Trump is acquitted.
She told ABC News that it could leave "lasting damage" on the country as a whole.
The Democratic congresswoman -- who is known to be an outspoken critic of her own party -- did not choose to impeach, and has faced intense criticism for her choice.
Following the vote, Gabbard defended her decision in a public statement released by her campaign, calling her actions an "active protest" against the "terrible fallout of this zero sum mindset" between the two political parties.
In the weeks prior to the vote, Gabbard had been notably vague when asked about her stance on impeachment, claiming she wanted to fully review both sides of the argument before she made a final decision.
Gabbard told ABC News that in her vote, she was "standing up for the people of this country and our ability to move forward together."
She added, "Thinking about what's politically advantageous does not enter into my mind around these decisions that have really great consequence."
On the eve of the full House vote on impeachment, Gabbard introduced a resolution to censure the president. The resolution suggested that Trump had put personal political gain over national interest.
In her written statement, Gabbard added that she based her vote on what she felt was the right thing to do -- not the political fallout.
The public and political fallout, however, was swift, with many political pundits, lawmakers and voters from both sides of the aisle taking to social media to offer praise or criticism of the her decision.
The congresswoman has also been critical of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, especially as she continues to hold off sending articles of impeachment to the Senate.
Pelosi has said she will wait until the Republican-led Senate works out the details of the trial in a way that makes conviction inevitable.
According to legal experts, until she forwards the articles of impeachment, Trump has not been impeached.
In the last century, the Democratic Party was known as the party of liberals – but a staunch opponent of socialists and communists.
No more. Radicals have taken over the party and called for policies that would make Karl Marx smile.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., proudly calls himself a socialist as he campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination. Fellow socialist Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., also seeks the Democratic nomination while pretending she is a capitalist, just as she pretended for years that she was a Native American.
There are plenty of reasons to believe that President Trump will be reelected in 2020 and that Republicans will hold onto their Senate majority and gain House seats. But anything can happen in politics – so supporters of individual liberty and free markets need to be armed with as much information as possible to refute the far-left campaign rhetoric Democratic candidates are engaging in.
Socialists are clever marketers. They pitch their proposals as necessary to advance justice, equality, prosperity and the very survival of life on Earth in the face of impending environmental disaster. None of these things are true, but they sound good and have a certain appeal.
The following are the three most potentially destructive proposals promoted by many of the leading Democrats – as well as important information you need to know about the dangers of these policies.
1. The Green New Deal
The Green New Deal is the most dangerous and socialistic policy ever embraced by a major political party in American history.
In addition to completely eliminating the fossil fuel industry – destroying millions of jobs in the process – the Green New Deal would also require that everyone replace their gasoline- and diesel-powered cars, tractors and trucks with electric vehicles; mandate every home and commercial and industrial building in America be “upgraded” by the federal government to comply with extreme new environmental regulations, and could even phase out air travel.
The Green New Deal would also force all Americans to buy more expensive wind and solar energy, and create massive energy shortages and power outages that would cripple our economy and leave many of us quite literally in the dark.
The Green New Deal would also impose a long list of socialist programs that have nothing to do with the alleged purpose of the plan – stopping climate change. These include creating a “free” college program, a federal jobs guarantee, a program providing universal access to “healthy foods,” and a whole new system of publicly-owned banks, among many other provisions.
The American Action Forum estimates these policies could cost more than $90 trillion over their first 10 years – about four times the current national debt.
If you asked our foreign enemies to come up with a plan to destroy the American economy and plunge our country into another Great Depression, they couldn’t come up with anything that would do the job as well as the Green New Deal.
In addition, the Green New Deal would directly or indirectly put the federal government in charge of virtually every aspect of our lives.
But there are a few inconvenient truths that socialists like Warren, Sanders, and the queen of climate alarmism – Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. – don’t want you to know.
First, even if you believe humans are entirely responsible for climate change – and there are many scientists who say we aren’t – nothing we do in the United States will stop global carbon dioxide emissions from rising in the coming decades.
If Americans were to do exactly what Green New Deal supporters have called for – committing economic suicide in the process – increased carbon dioxide emissions in growing countries like China and India will push total emissions well beyond their current levels. This is because less than 5 percent of the world’s population lives in the United States.
In fact, in 2018 and 2019 alone, China increased its coal power capacity by enough to provide electricity to more than 31 million homes. And experts now say China’s current efforts to build new or revive existing coal power plants will soon surpass the entire coal generating capacity of the European Union.
Even more importantly, the provisions of the Green New Deal would cause immense environmental harm. For example, because wind and solar facilities consume significantly more land than nuclear or natural gas plants, running America on these renewables would require destroying, at minimum, tens of millions of acres of land, animals and animal habitats.
And this doesn’t even include the land needed to mine the massive amount of natural resources required for billions of new wind turbines and solar panels.
If you asked our foreign enemies to come up with a plan to destroy the American economy and plunge our country into another Great Depression, they couldn’t come up with anything that would do the job as well as the Green New Deal.
Despite all this environmental damage, the Green New Deal has been backed by many of the leading Democratic Party presidential candidates, including Warren and Sanders. Modified versions have been proposed by every other leading candidate.
2. A Just Society
Although Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal received more attention this year than just about any other Democratic Party proposal, the long-term impacts of her Just Society plan could be even worse.
The Just Society is a package of radical bills that have been endorsed by many of the leaders of the Democratic Party.
Among other things, it would prevent government agencies from denying access to any federal program on the basis of a prior criminal conviction or immigration status. This means that millions of people now in America illegally would be eligible for countless social welfare programs and government aid – costing untold billions of dollars every year.
Even more troubling, however, is that the Just Society would redefine the meaning of poverty, dramatically increasing the number of people eligible for social welfare programs like Medicaid and food stamps.
3. “Medicare-for-all”
At the top of many progressives’ and socialists’ wish list for 2020 is the creation of a national single-payer health care program.
Not every Democratic Party presidential candidate supports immediately forcing the roughly 150 million people who are currently enrolled in private health insurance plans out of those plans and into a government-run program. But all of them have at the very least said they support a public option that would over time end up having the same effect.
There’s no denying that the current health insurance system is a mess. But putting government in charge of Americans’ health care would be catastrophic.
Every “Medicare-for-all” plan now being proposed would mandate sharp cuts to the payment rates provided to health care providers. That would drive up wait times – increasing pain and suffering, and resulting in the deaths of some patients who would have otherwise found necessary care.
Importantly, Democrats have absolutely no plans for expanding the supply of doctors, hospitals and other health care professionals – all while calling for providing tens of millions of additional Americans with access to specialty health care services.
The cost of a national single-payer health care plan has been hotly debated, but most experts believe it would require at least $32 trillion in additional federal spending over the first decade. It’s likely that the real estimate is closer to $36 trillion.
Of course, Democrats have absolutely no way to pay for “Medicare-for-all” – at least not without huge tax increases on the middle class and far more rationing. And they have no way to pay for their Just Society or Green New Deal proposals, either.
This is an especially important point considering the United States is already running trillion-dollar deficits.
If socialists and progressives have it their way, the 2020 elections will force America down the road to economic and societal ruin. Our children and grandchildren would be saddled with tens of trillions of dollars of debt they won’t be able to pay back. And our highly dysfunctional federal government would be granted the authority to control our lives, from the womb to the tomb.
I love Emma Thompson’s acting. I wish somebody would tell her about Skype.
The great English actress is a climate-change activist, “activist” here meaning “a celebrity who cares about popular causes in public.” When she recently was accused of hypocrisy for jumping on a jet to attend a climate-change rally — international air travel is one of the most carbon-intensive things a person can do — she attempted to justify herself, saying: “For decades now we have been asking for clean energy, and this has been ignored.”
That is some grade-A magical thinking: The constraints involved in the problem of moving x pounds of people or freight y distance at speed z are questions of physics, not questions of ethics. “Asking for” things to be different does not remove those constraints; for decades now, I have been asking for a way to live off bourbon and cheeseburgers without getting fat and unnecessarily dead but, so far, no dice. Physics always wins.
Thompson argues that she simply must travel: “I have to when I’m working,” she says. But she is as rich as Croesus — she has Harry Potter money, for Pete’s sake — and does not “have to” work at all. And if by “work” she means “seeing some friends and basking in the warm glow of public approval while enjoying some champagne and canapés in support of a very popular cause,” then she could teleconference in if her voice is really so irreplaceable.
It isn’t, of course. If Emma Thompson fails to show up for the party, there are a thousand celebrities ready to take her place, to say nothing of ordinary schmucks. Climate change is one of the most popular causes in the world. There isn’t anybody who hasn’t heard about it and is just waiting on that nice lady from Nanny McPhee to share the grim news.
But nobody really believes in the apocalyptic story that celebrity activists such as Emma Thompson and Greta Thunberg tell. Emma Thompson does not have to travel. Greta Thunberg does not have to sail in a boat made from petroleum to perform a publicity stunt and then fly crew around the world on a big-ass jet to fetch the silly thing. We have the Internet. We have TikTok. Got something to say? Twitter is ready when you are.
If you want to know how deeply people really believe in this stuff, look at the real estate. New York is a national and world leader in building energy-efficient “net zero” office buildings — and, as of summer, it had . . . four of them. The celebrities keep promising us rising seas, but real-estate prices remain quite high in Malibu, Miami Beach, and the Hamptons. Jane Fonda recently lectured readers of the New York Times: “We have to live like we’re in a climate emergency.” Apparently, “live like we’re in a climate emergency” means living in a 7,100-square-foot mansion with an elevator, pool, fountains, motorized blinds, etc.
“Alarmism and catastrophic thinking are valuable,” writes David Wallace-Wells, also in the Times. He has a book on climate change he’d very much like to sell you. Available in both hardcover and paperback. Don’t ask what it is printed on.
He should send a copy to Jane Fonda, at one of her expansive, energy-hogging homes.
It’s not just the real estate. Gulfstream sales were up 31 percent in the first quarter of 2019 — and some of those private jets are taking greenie-weenie activists to climate-change conferences, to be sure . . . or to Cannes, or shuffling them between Beverly Hills and London, etc. An activist’s work is never done.
My point here is not the hypocrisy and stupidity of celebrities, Leonardo DiCaprio sailing around on the world’s fifth-largest yacht and all that. I don’t mind hypocrisy all that much — it is right up there with alcohol among the most valuable social lubricants.
I just wish DiCaprio would pay more attention to his own movies: You know that scene in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in which Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt at his best) walks a gauntlet of hysterical, screaming acolytes of Charles Manson? That’s modern celebrity-activist culture in concentrated form. You think Quentin Tarantino cast Lena Dunham of all people as the subaltern of that sorry little cult for no reason? Everybody seems to have been in on that joke except her.
There are many, many cult members who know in their hearts that the cult and its beliefs are bullsh*t. But they need something to which to submit and do not have the strength of mind or character to face up to the facts.
But everybody apparently needs an apocalyptic story to get them through the tedium of these prosperous and peaceful days, this “weak, piping time of peace.” For some people, that need is filled by actual apocalyptic fiction, The Walking Dead or The City Where We Once Lived. For right-wing talk-radio hosts, it’s a story about the coming American civil war. For nice urban progressives, it’s climate change. Why all the doom and gloom? Because the end of the world is the ultimate moral permission slip, the all-trumping “desperate times call for desperate measures” ethical get-out-of-jail-free card. Antifa goons aren’t putting on black masks and engaging in political violence because they’re convinced that the United States is about to turn into a neo-Nazi hellhole — they’ve convinced themselves that the United States is about to turn into a neo-Nazi hellhole because they want to put on black masks and engage in political violence.
And what does the global-warming gang want? There isn’t any mystery about that. You can ask them. They want political power. They want the power to reorder economic and social life along the lines they see fit, rewarding their friends and punishing their enemies, and they want to enjoy the ultimate pleasure that they can imagine — self-righteousness — while they are doing it.
I myself have more or less conventional views of climate change and believe that adapting to it will be a challenge that imposes real costs. But I’ll believe that the celebrity activists believe in it when they start acting like it and the general-aviation section of the Pitkin County Airport looks like Rick Husband Amarillo International (!) Airport. I’ll believe they think we’re in an emergency when they start acting like we’re in an emergency.
What they act like is people who want power. Because that is what they are.
I'm sure glad Nancy Pelosi rushed that impeachment through the House
every day Trump is in office, he is a mortal threat
to Ivy League snowflakes
they already have endure training similar to Navy Seals
but the nasty tweets from Trump are more than these precious orchids can be expected to take
it crosses a line only impeachment can solve
Nancy?
LOLOLOLOLLOLOLOLOLOLLLOLROFLhahahaahaaahaahahahahaahhohohohoohoheeheeheeee!
Congregants shot and killed a man who opened fire in a church near Fort Worth, Texas, on Sunday, killing the attacker, police said.
A person shot by the suspect also died and a second parishioner has life-threatening injuries following the attack at the West Freeway Church of Christ, White Settlement Police Department Chief J.P. Bevering said during a news conference Sunday afternoon.
The assailant fired once before the “heroic actions” of the congregants retaliated to cut his assault short, Bevering said.
“Unfortunately, this country has seen so many of these that we’ve actually gotten used to it at this point. And it’s tragic and it’s a terrible situation, especially during the holiday season,” Jeoff Williams, a regional director with the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at the news conference. “I would like to point out that we have a couple of heroic parishioners who stopped short of just anything that you can even imagine, saved countless lives, and our hearts are going out to them and their families as well.”
Let's remember 2019 as the Democrats’ last stand. The party of Thomas Jefferson was given the keys to the nation’s future and told, simply, don’t drive it off the road. Instead, the Democrats honored their Southern roots and decided to go mud bogging! Might have been fun if they had four-wheel drive, but they were stuck with the antique transmission of the Constitution. Voters were sure to notice when the yee-haw Democrats covered them with dirt, ground the gears to dust, and spun the engine into oblivion.
But just in case you’ve forgotten, here’s the roadmap of how we got here:
Jan. 3: Democrats took over the Animal House of Representatives and immediately pledged to take down President Trump in the mistaken belief that he is really Dean Vernon Wormer. Nancy Pelosi auditioned for the role of chapter president, but was told she was born to play the John Belushi part of “Bluto,” the pathological sergeant-at-arms. That big nasty gavel sure does make power go to one’s head — and you don’t have to be a good ol’ boy to understand that!
Jan. 15: An apparent messiah complex leads Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to join dozens of other Democrats offering themselves as the Chosen One to defeat DJT. Political spin doctors warn that the delusion could spread rapidly and, indeed, before the year is half over, it has infected Jay Inslee, Marianne Williamson, John Hickenlooper, Beto O’Rourke, Bill de Blasio, Julian Castro, Steve Bullock and other non-entities. It appears, however, that although non-politicians were for the most part immune, a related condition resulted in uncontrollable laughter whenever two or three people gathered to discuss the state of the Democratic primary.
Jan. 29: Democrats encountered a detour on their road to ruin when “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett claimed to be the victim of a hate crime on the streets of Chicago in the middle of the coldest night of the year. The noose still hanging around his neck when police came to his door later may have seemed like the perfect prop to TV star Smollett, but to everyone else it seemed like a giant neon light shouting, “Give me attention!” Did I say everyone? Oops. Not Democrats, who have mastered the marriage of victimhood and hagiography. To them, St. Jussie was the second coming of Tawana Brawley. Oh, wait. This is getting way too uncomfortable! It’s almost like Democrats specialize in phony attacks and disingenuous outrage. Hmmm. On Feb. 21, Smollett was arrested for filing a false police report, but thanks to a corrupt system in Chicago, he walked away without even a slap on the wrist for his staged hate crime. Did I mention Chicago?
March 22: I know Democrats thought that Robert Mueller was the Easter Bunny, but when he delivered his report on Trump and Russia, it turned out to be a big goose egg. Attorney General Bill Barr tried to warn the nation that there was “no there there,” but we didn’t know he was talking about the space between Mueller’s ears until July 24 when the special counsel testified before the House Judiciary Committee. Turned out that Mueller doesn’t even recognize the name of Fusion GPS, the company that hired Christopher Steele to write the dossier that was behind the entire phony Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy sham. Case closed. But the Democrat conspiracy elves cobbled together a new hoax that was ready to go 24 hours later — the Ukrainian extortion quid pro quo bribery scandal. This time, surely it would be the beginning of the end for that impostor president!
March 25: CNN’s preferred candidate for president, porn-star lawyer Michael Avenatti, is arrested for a real extortion scheme he allegedly plotted against Nike. Over the next month, Avenatti, the darling of the Never Trumpers, would be indicted and charged with north of 40 federal crimes. The presidency would have to wait for a better con man.
April 25: Enter Joe Biden. Ignoring former boss Barack Obama’s wise counsel that “You don’t have to do this, Joe,” Biden commits professional suicide by announcing his candidacy for president, thus ensuring he will leap from comfortable irrelevancy to irrelevant corrupt con-man politician who will eventually have to answer for his bragging about a quid pro quo in Ukraine. Talk about poetic justice!
May 3: Unemployment falls to 3.6% in the United States, the lowest in 49 years. By October, it is down to 3.5%, setting the 50-year record, and jobless numbers for blacks, Latinos and other minorities are at all-time lows. Not surprisingly, the Democrats blame Trump for the horrible economy because — well — there was nothing else they could do.
June 27: Wait, there actually was something else the Democrats could do. All 10 Democrat candidates in the first presidential primary debate on NBC raised their hands when asked if they would guarantee health-care coverage for illegal aliens. Democrats swooned, but the rest of us just felt sick.
Aug. 24: At their summer convention in San Francisco, the Democrats voted against holding a climate-change presidential debate. Three days later, 16-year-old climate phenom Greta Thunberg arrived in New York City propelled only by her own hot air across the Atlantic from her native Sweden. Told she is too early to appear as a teenage blimp in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, she decides instead to testify at the U.N. on gaseous emissions, of which she has become an expert. Somehow she never gets around to telling the Democrats what she thinks about their decision to sidetrack the climate debate. How dare they!
Aug. 28: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand withdraws from the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. LOL.
Sept. 3: The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passes a resolution calling the National Rifle Association a “domestic terrorist organization.” In response, the NRA passes its own resolution calling the San Francisco Board of Supervisors “a lime Jell-O salad with marshmallows.” At least that’s what I think they did. Reporting on this is somewhat vague.
Sept. 8: Disgraced former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford announces his primary challenge to President Trump. As part of his doomed bid for attention, Sanford simultaneously announces he will be departing the race on Nov. 12, but because he is not wearing a noose around his neck, the media misses the story altogether.
Sept. 9: The inspector general of the intelligence community, Michael Atkinson, draws the short straw and is forced to launch a third unsuccessful coup attempt against President Trump by the CIA involving the “urgent” and “credible” whistleblower complaint that turned out to be “irrelevant” and “partisan” a few days later when President Trump released the consensus transcript of his call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. When will they ever learn? Oh, well, after Trump is reelected, they will have four more years to get their impeachment-coup machine in working order. If at first you fail to smear, try, try again.
Sept. 20: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announces his withdrawal from the presidential race. New Yorkers tremble in fear at the prospect of his return to work.
Sept. 24: In a legacy-building move, Nancy Pelosi announces she will go after the Guinness Book of World Records title for shortest successful impeachment proceeding in history. In a surprise, she also added a last-minute bid to win the title for the impeachment with the least evidence, and Guinness decided to award her that one summarily. As one Guinness judge was overheard to remark about Trump’s call with President Zelensky, “That was a perfect call. How the hell does she impeach with that call? Damn, she’s good.”
Then, in a shocking turn of events, the entire fourth quarter of 2019 was canceled on account of impeachment. Speaker Pelosi, who had been holding the nation hostage since September, is expected to free the impeachment sometime early in 2020, but the nation itself will remain a prisoner throughout most of the year as Pelosi and her henchmen in the media continue to pretend that the other shoe is about to drop, leading to a bombshell revelation that this is the beginning of the end of President Trump, who will nonetheless breeze to reelection on his pledge to Keep America Great and to keep the socialist Democrats at bay.
I, for one, can’t wait for 2020, but it will be hard to top 2019 if you enjoy a good laugh at the expense of liberals.
Pete Buttigieg said Monday that he “would not have wanted to see” his son serving on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company while he was leading anti-corruption efforts in the country, a direct criticism of the swirling controversy that has ensnared his doomed 2020 Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden.
Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, said in an Associated Press interview that his administration would “do everything we can to prevent even the appearance of a conflict. That's very important because as we see it can create a lot of complications even when there is no wrongdoing.”
Remember when Democrats reflexively accused President Donald Trump of being a racist when he said illegal immigrants steal American jobs? Turns out, he was right, as evidenced by the aftermath of the massive summer raid that rounded up hundreds of illegals working at chicken processing plants in Mississippi.
In early August, some 600 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents surrounded seven plants operated by five companies in six different cities. They rounded up 680 “undocumented” immigrants, in what was described as the largest raid in a single state.
This is part of a larger effort by Trump to target companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. Last year, it raided a landscaping company near Toledo, Ohio, and a meatpacking plant in eastern Tennessee. A Government Accountability Office report issued in early December found that arrests, detentions, and removals were all up in Trump’s first two years in office compared with Obama’s last two.
Nevertheless, the reaction to the Mississippi raid from Democrats was swift and furious. Joe Biden said the raid was a sign that “Trump is morally unfit to lead this country.” Sen. Bernie Sanders called it “evil.” Beto O’Rourke – who dropped out of the race two months after the raid – said Trump’s “cruelty knows no bounds.” The media, naturally, lent Democrats a hand by playing up the disruption and crying children, while playing down the fact that those workers were in the country illegally.
In fact, the raid was the furthest thing from cruel or evil or immoral to American citizens living in the area – many of them black people – who flocked to get the jobs those illegals had held.
This week, the New York Times, to its credit, went to Morton, Mississippi – where a third of the illegals rounded up in those raids had worked – to see what’s become of the town months after Trump’s “evil” act.
And in a shocking display of honest reporting, the Times shows how American workers – particularly black people – benefited as a result.
The Times notes that before the raid, managers had been recruiting Hispanic workers “by the thousands” to work in those chicken plants because they were “cheaper and more exploitable.”
The Times story focuses on Juan Grant, a young black man two years out of high school who landed a job at the plant and boosted his wage by $4 an hour. He “strode into the Koch Foods chicken processing plant for his new job on a Wednesday morning, joining many other African Americans in a procession of rubber boots, hairnets, and last cigarettes before the grinds.”
It quotes Cortez McClinton, who got a job at the plant after the raids, which he said, “gave the American people their jobs back.”
The Times goes on to say that, despite the experience in Morton, “the belief that native-born Americans are not sufficiently motivated to work persists.”
To be sure, the Times sheds plenty of crocodile tears for the poor illegal immigrants affected by the raid, and it tries mightily to get the newly employed Americans to wring their hands about “stealing” those jobs.
But the inescapable conclusion is that the chicken companies had been exploiting cheap illegal immigrant labor to do jobs that Americans are clearly willing to take, if they have the chance.
Yet here we have the country’s leading Democrats – who constantly bleat about being on the side of the little guy and the downtrodden – siding with greedy companies that were exploiting illegal immigrants to fatten their bottom lines, and were doing so at the expense of low-income black people in the area who were shut out of those jobs.
Tell us again which is the party of compassion?
America stands on the cusp of a new decade that promises to unfold as the new “Roaring Twenties.”
A review of President Trump’s 2019 achievements, building on the successes of 2017 and 2018, provides context for the year and decade ahead, and reasons to expect a resounding Trump reelection next November. Here are my top 10:
1. Jobs –
The stunning recent news on employment proves, more than any other metric, the efficacy of President Trump’s growth doctrine of economic nationalism and the diffusion of power. Defying globalist skeptics from Wall Street, academia, and the corporate media, payrolls surged in America in 2019. The most recent jobs report revealed a plethora of records and extended the wage-growth winning streak to 16 straight months above a 3% pace, a mark seen only three months total during the sluggish Obama years. In addition, the fastest wage gains now flow to those groups that formerly lagged badly in the slow-growth recovery following the Great Recession. For example, the lowest 10% of earners saw income grow at an astounding 7% rate over the last year. Similarly, those without a high school diploma welcomed 9% wage acceleration in 2019.
2. Broadening the Movement –
2019 represented a seminal breakout year for the America First movement as the Republican Party changes to a workers’ party. This new focus translates, already, into significant signs of ethnic, racial, and geographic diversity for the GOP. For example, a recent CNN poll in deeply blue California reported 32% minority support for Trump vs. current Democratic front-runner Joe Biden. Similarly, recent polls by The Hill and Emerson show Latino approval for the president at nearly 40%. It is difficult to overstate the importance of this kind of minority support, both for politics and, more importantly, for the overall cohesion of our society.
3. Confronting China –
Though a near-term détente in trade tensions was reached, Trump proved to the world in 2019 that tariffs can be effectively deployed to force the Chinese Communist Party into a bargaining posture. The soaring economy in America demonstrated that tough trade policy can indeed coincide with growth.
4. Trade Deals With Allies –
In contrast to the mostly contentious trade chess match with Beijing, Trump proved that America First hardly means America alone. The USMCA was finally ratified by the House of Representatives this year and points to a new era of prosperity with our neighbors as the global supply chain reorients from the Far East back to the Americas. Similarly, a breakthrough agreement was signed with Japan and the new U.S.-Korea trade pact took effect in early 2019.
5. Judges –
While Nancy Pelosi dithers and corporate media obsess over the sham impeachment inquest, President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell quietly pile up a historic pace of judicial confirmations. Trump in 2019 secured his 50th federal appeals court judge in only three years, compared to just 55 for President Obama over eight years. Over the long term, remaking the federal judiciary into an originalist, constitutionalist branch of government may create Trump’s most enduring legacy.
6. Remain-in-Mexico Policy –
Our country still needs to drastically reform its inane asylum laws and provide vastly more border wall funding, but nonetheless President Trump found a fair and effective near-term solution for border control by requiring asylum seekers to apply from Mexico rather than trespassing across our sovereign border. Not surprisingly, according to NPR, less than 1% of the economic migrants who apply actually qualify as refugees. Trump’s 2019 move, therefore, provides a deterrent and averted a full-scale crisis at our border.
7. Mueller Exoneration –
Though admittedly not an active achievement, nevertheless the long-awaited Mueller report validated the president on two key topics. First, that no one in the 2016 Trump campaign actively cooperated with Russia or with any other foreign power. Secondly, Democratic Party chieftains such as Rep. Adam Schiff, along with a complicit media, repeatedly fed the public demonstrable lies for years about supposed “proof” of conspiracy.
8. Al-Baghdadi Killing –
The October special forces raid that eliminated the terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proved that America can aggressively hunt down terrorists and dispense with enemies without nation-building and concomitant large-scale troop commitments. Some brave U.S. fighters, along with a terrific dog, highlighted that surgical strikes can protect our homeland without the massive outlays of blood and treasure employed by Trump’s predecessors.
9. Natural Gas Exports Soar –
Early in the Trump presidency, America became a net natural gas exporter for the first time since the Eisenhower administration. In 2019, this trend expanded in earnest, with an astonishing 60% growth rate of liquefied natural gas exports for the year. Establishing America as an energy superpower drives domestic prosperity, particularly in heartland energy regions, and facilitates affordable energy to power the on-shoring manufacturing renaissance that has produced 500,000 new factory jobs under Trump. In addition, American energy dominance benefits the geopolitical security of the entire globe.
10. Space Force –
Establishing the sixth military service branch in 2019 was pure Trump: imaginative, bold, forward-looking, and – predictably – roundly derided by establishment critics. In alignment with his outsider perspective, Trump correctly ascertains the potential of space as a warfighting domain, and that America must dominate there. As satellites increasingly guide the behaviors of our everyday lives, the U.S. Space Force will protect our security and economy far into the future, forming a lasting legacy for this most unorthodox president.
These 10 achievements build a foundation for our nation to flourish in the New Year. In addition, these accomplishments exhibit his leadership skills, in spite of a near-totally obstructionist House of Representatives and a consistently biased media establishment.
Such accomplishments make the president the prohibitive favorite to win reelection over an unimpressive Democratic presidential stable of candidates.
Looking bigger picture, the first three years of the Trump presidency have established the policy framework and upward momentum for a truly amazing decade ahead – the new Roaring Twenties.
2019 may, with luck, go down as the year when the tide began to turn against the bizarre worldview of transgender activists. In the run-up to the General Election, Jo Swinson found herself flummoxed by the question ‘What is a woman?’. Days later, she was unceremoniously dumped by voters. Meanwhile, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was busy introducing himself to the crowd at the Pink News Awards: ‘My name is Jeremy Corbyn, pronouns he/him.’ That was met by a big fat ‘no’ from the electorate, too.
Despite this recent pushback, 2019 has also shown what happens when senior members of the medical, educational and legal professions not only succumb to the demands of trans activists, but use transgender ideology to shore up their own moral authority. The victims are children. Figures released this year revealed a huge increase in the number of children seeking medical help over concerns with their gender. The number of 13-year-olds referred to the NHS’s gender-identity service rose by 30 per cent on the previous year, while the number of 11-year-olds was up by 28 per cent. The youngest patients were just three years old. Three-quarters of all children seeking help to change their gender are girls.
Gender self-identification – that is, treating someone who simply says they are female as if they are female – has also had a disastrous impact on the lives of many women. One in 50 prisoners – 1,500 inmates – now identifies as transgender. This is massively more than the number in the general population. Transgender prisoners not only get perks, such as being able to shower alone or have their own cell – crucially, they can also apply to switch between male and female jails. One woman prisoner – assaulted by a transgender inmate while incarcerated in the same institution – is now taking the government to court over this policy.
Women’s sport has also suffered from acquiescence to the demands of trans activists. Maxine Blythin became Kent’s first trans-woman cricketer. Maxine had a batting average of 15 when playing on the men’s team, but averages 124 playing in the women’s team. Kelly Morgan has had similar success playing for a Welsh women’s rugby team. Concern has been expressed that, despite taking drugs to artificially lower his testosterone levels, Kelly’s superior physical strength could inadvertently injure his female opponents.
Underpinning all of this is a sense that women – adult human females – and their concerns are being quietly erased from public life at the behest of transgender activists. Fear of being labelled transphobic seems to override every other concern – including, for businesses, making money. One tweet was all it took for Flora margarine to pull its advertising from the popular parenting site, Mumsnet. Always, the manufacturer of sanitary pads, removed the female symbol from its packaging.
Tragically, women are still prevented from freely discussing the impact of gender self-identification upon their lives. In universities, debates and conferences have been shut down following threats from transgender activists. Gender-critical professors have spoken out about the threats and abuse they have received for raising concerns that sex is being conflated with gender. Posie Parker, a women’s rights activist and leading critic of the transgender movement, was permanently banned from Facebook. The social-media giant cited ‘safety and security reasons’ for kicking her off the platform and, in the process, denying thousands of people an opportunity to discuss Posie’s views.
Worse still, trans-sceptical tweets can now cost you your job. Earlier this month, an employment judge ruled that a charitable organisation was well within its rights to sack Maya Forstater, a tax expert, because she tweeted that transgender women cannot change their biological sex. Her opinions were deemed to be ‘absolutist’ and not protected in law. When author JK Rowling defended Forstater on Twitter, she was viciously attacked.
The police have got in on the act, too. In October, police in Oxford treated the appearance of stickers – stating ‘Woman: noun. Adult human female’ and ‘Women don’t have penises’ – as a serious crime. Thames Valley Police appealed for witnesses and announced that those responsible could be charged with a public-order offence. Elsewhere, a man was quizzed by police for half-an-hour after merely ‘liking’ a tweet deemed to be offensive to transgender people. The deputy chief constable of Cheshire police, Julie Cooke, took to Twitter to warn about the dangers of misgendering on ‘Pronouns Day’. Knife crime, meanwhile, hit a five-year high.
Yet, despite all the attempts to curtail debate, common sense has – on occasion – won out in 2019. Two major BBC programmes, Newsnight and Radio 4’s File on 4, reported on the experiences of people who detransition, as well as raising serious questions about the treatment of children who question their gender identity and the dangers of doctors prescribing puberty-blocker hormones. Parents raised concerns about changes to school sex and relationships classes that will mean very young children are taught that gender is how they think and feel. To challenge this, author Rachel Rooney has written an excellent book, My Body is Me, which aims to teach children to be comfortable with their bodies as they are, rather than looking to change their bodies to bring them in line with their brains. Inevitably, this benign message has been labelled ‘anti‑trans extremism’. Elsewhere, the High Court ruled that a woman who gave birth could not be named as the father on her child’s birth certificate despite having transitioned to a man post-partum.
In 2020, we need to hold police chiefs, medical professionals, MPs and education policymakers to account for the impact of decisions they make around gender. They must not be allowed to hide behind the moral shield of the over-exposed voice of the transgender community. Thankfully, as the election showed, those unable to define what makes someone a man or a woman, or who feel the need to declare their pronouns in public, are seriously out of kilter with the rest of society. Let’s hope we hear a lot less from them next year.
WASHINGTON, Jan 2 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's re-election campaign raised $46 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, a major haul that was boosted by a surge of donations in the wake of the Democrats' impeachment bid.
The sum gives Trump a fundraising edge over a host of Democrats battling for their party's nomination, with the first contest to be held in Iowa in little more than a month. The Democratic nominee will face Trump in the November election.
The Trump campaign begins the 2020 re-election year with cash on hand of $102.7 million, an amount that will help his bid to compete in more states beyond those that carried him to his smashing victory in 2016.
The $46 million for the fourth quarter was the amount raised only by the Trump re-election campaign. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence typically headline fundraising events that benefit both the campaign and the Republican National Committee.
The amount raised by the RNC for the fourth quarter of 2019 is expected to be released soon.
In the third quarter, Trump and the RNC had together raised $125 million.
Trump's re-election campaign raised a total of $143 million in all of 2019 and banked $83.4 million of it. It had begun the year with $19.3 million cash on hand.
The $102.7 million in cash on hand exceeds the $81.8 million the campaign of Democratic President Barack Obama had when he began his re-election year at the end of 2011, the official said.
The $46 million raised represented the best fundraising quarter for the Trump campaign in the 2020 cycle, a clear indication that the phony political impeachment will backlash in favor of Trump.
Trump's strong quarter "is testament to his wide grassroots support and his stellar record of achievement on behalf of the American people," his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said in a statement.
"Democrats and the media have been in a sham impeachment frenzy and the president’s campaign only got bigger and stronger with our best fundraising quarter this cycle," he added.
"The president’s war chest and grassroots army make his re-election campaign an unstoppable juggernaut."
that's right!!
un...
stop...
pable
Looks like those Ivy League elites have missed up again!
The only thing that rivals President Trump’s tally of kept promises is the endless list of inaccurate predictions his critics have made about the U.S. economy.
Of course, we heard these apocryphal predictions even before Donald Trump won the 2016 election. For instance, in October 2016, the far-left publication Politico boldly declared that “Wall Street is set up for a major crash if Donald Trump shocks the world on Election Day and wins the White House.”
The ability of Trump’s critics to predict our economic future hasn’t improved with age. Throughout 2019, numerous so-called “economists” and “experts” have taken a swing at the president's economic policies, warning Americans that the next stock market crash was right around the corner.
In January, the uber-liberal Huffington Post published a typically baseless piece titled “4 Signs Another Recession Is Coming ― And What It Means For You.” Vox published a similar fear-mongering prediction over the summer, arguing that Wall Street “is at a point where it can’t — or won’t — ignore President Donald Trump’s trade antics and Twitter tirades like it used to.”
And who could forget some of the most recent warnings that slam Trump’s trade policy, such as Investor’s Business Daily’s headline: “Stock Market Reaction To Tariffs: Wall Street Has Seen This Before; The End Is Not Good.”
Despite the doom and gloom, as 2019 came to an end, the president inched ever-closer to a revolutionary trade deal with China, completing negotiations on what has been called phase one of that agreement. The Trump administration also successfully campaigned to get the U.S.-Mexico-Canada-Agreement approved by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, further instilling confidence and optimism in entrepreneurs that the ongoing economic renaissance is here to stay.
The Democrats love to make predictions about President Trump’s policies, but they don’t seem to learn from their own mistakes.
Not surprisingly (unless you suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome), investors responded. The S&P 500 finished 2019 up 29 percent, its best year since 2013. The Nasdaq finished the year up 35 percent, shattering the 9,000 level for the first time in history. The Dow’s listing of blue-chip stocks rose an impressive 22 percent. These results leave little doubt that investors are fully confident in the U.S. economy – despite the droning criticism from the Left.
In fact, under Trump, the benchmark S&P 500 has already returned over 50 percent and is performing well above the average under past administrations.
These returns aren’t just for the millionaires and billionaires you heard so much about if you listened to the millionaires and billionaires who participated in the Democratic presidential debates describe how they would tank the economy – for our own good. Rather, according to Gallup, about 55 percent of American workers own stocks either individually or through mutual funds or retirement savings accounts, like a 401(k) or an IRA. They have all been positively impacted by stock market growth under Trump and I can guarantee you they noticed. That’s a lot of voters.
No wonder Democrats have so aggressively pursued an obviously futile attempt to remove the president from office. At this point, it's all they’ve got – and it isn’t much.
The Democrats love to make predictions about President Trump’s policies, but they don’t seem to learn from their own mistakes. As Trump said in response to the latest stock market surge, “With new trade deals, and more, THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”
BAGHDAD — President Trump ordered the killing of the powerful commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, in a drone strike on the Baghdad International Airport early Friday, American officials said.
“General Suleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “General Suleimani and his Quds Force were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more.”
“This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans,” the statement added. “The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world.”
The killing of General Suleimani was a major blow for Iran and a major escalation of President Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, which began with economic sanctions but has steadily moved into the military arena.
The strikes followed a warning on Thursday afternoon from Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, who said the United States military would pre-emptively strike Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria if there were signs the paramilitary groups were planning more attacks against American bases and personnel in the region.
“If we get word of attacks, we will take pre-emptive action as well to protect American forces, protect American lives,” Mr. Esper said. “The game has changed.”
In Iran, state television interrupted its programing to announce General Suleimani’s death.
The news anchor recited the Islamic prayer for the dead — “From God we came and to God we return” — beside a picture of General Suleimani.
American officials consider General Suleimani, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers during the Iraq War and hostile Iranian activities throughout the Middle East.
“This is devastating for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the regime and Khamenei’s regional ambitions,” said Mark Dubowitz, chief executive of the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank that supports a hard line against Iran, referring to the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“For 23 years, he has been the equivalent of the J.S.O.C. commander, the C.I.A. director and Iran’s real foreign minister,” Mr. Dubowitz said, using an acronym for the United States Joint Special Operations Command. “He is irreplaceable and indispensable” to Iran’s military establishment.
The American drone strike hit two cars carrying Mr. Suleimani and several officials with Iranian-backed militias as they were leaving the airport.
American officials said that multiple missiles hit the convoy in a strike carried out by the Joint Special Operations Command.
The strike killed five people, including the pro-Iranian chief of an umbrella group for Iraqi militias, Iraqi television reported and militia officials confirmed. The militia chief, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was a strongly pro-Iranian figure.
The public relations chief for the umbrella group, the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, Mohammed Ridha Jabri, was killed as well.
Two other people were killed in the strike, according to a general at the Baghdad joint command, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.
According to the Iraqi general, General Suleimani and Mr. Ridha, the militia public relations official, arrived by plane at Baghdad International Airport from Syria.
Two cars stopped at the bottom of the airplane steps and picked them up. Mr. al-Muhandis was in one of the cars.
As the two cars left the airport, they were bombed, the general said.
The strike was the second attack at the airport within hours.
An earlier attack, late Thursday, involved three rockets that did not appear to have caused any injuries.
The strikes come days after American forces bombed three outposts of Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-supported militia in Iraq and Syria, in retaliation for the death of an American contractor in a rocket attack last week near the Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
The United States said that Kataib Hezbollah fired 31 rockets into a base in Kirkuk Province, last week, killing an American contractor and wounding several American and Iraqi servicemen.
The Americans responded by bombing three sites of the Khataib Hezbollah militia near Qaim in western Iraq and two sites in Syria. Khataib Hezbollah denied involvement in the attack in Kirkuk.
Pro-Iranian militia members then marched on the American Embassy on Tuesday, effectively imprisoning its diplomats inside for more than 24 hours while thousands of militia members thronged outside. They burned the embassy’s reception area, planted militia flags on its roof and scrawled graffiti on its walls.
No injuries or deaths were reported, and the militia members did not enter the embassy building.
They withdrew late Wednesday afternoon.
The Pentagon statement Thursday night said that General Suleimani “had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months,” including the one that killed an American contractor last Friday.
General Suleimani also “approved the attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad,” the statement said.
President Trump said on Tuesday that Iran would “be held fully responsible” for the attack on the embassy, in which protesters set fire to a reception building on the embassy compound, which covers more than 100 acres. He also blamed Tehran for directing the unrest.
Washington and Tehran appear intent on ratcheting up both their messaging and their forces, raising concerns of a larger conflict. In the past several months, Iranian-supported militias have increased rocket attacks on bases housing American troops. The Pentagon has dispatched more than 14,000 troops to the region since May.
Caught in the middle is the Iraqi government, which is too weak to establish any military authority over some of the more established Iranian-supported Shiite militias.
On Thursday, Mr. Esper said the Iraqi government was not doing enough to contain them. The Iraqis need to “stop these attacks from happening and get the Iranian influence out of the government,” Mr. Esper said.
General Suleimani was long a figure of intense interest to people in and out of Iran.
He was not only in charge of Iranian intelligence gathering and covert military operations, he was regarded as one of Iran’s most cunning and autonomous military figures. He was also believed to be very close to the country’s supreme leader, Mr. Khamenei, and seen as a potential future leader of Iran.
His presence in Iraq would not have been surprising.
General Suleimani led the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds Force, a special forces unit responsible for Iranian operations outside Iran’s borders. He once described himself to a senior Iraqi intelligence official as the “sole authority for Iranian actions in Iraq,” the official later told American officials in Baghdad.
In his speech denouncing Mr. Trump, he was even less discreet — and openly mocking.
“We are near you, where you can’t even imagine,” he said. “We are ready. We are the man of this arena.”
My reasons for thinking Trump was going to be elected in 2016 were entirely unscientific. One of my Hoover Institution colleagues recently reminded me of my data-free, amateurish and bothersome predictions. I teach for three weeks at Hillsdale College every September during my vacation from the Hoover Institution. Each morning I try to ride a bike 15-18 miles out into the Michigan countryside. I have been doing that since 2004. Over the previous 12 years even this conservative rural Michigan county had showed no real excitement over George W. Bush, John McCain or Mitt Romney. But in 2016, Trump signs — both professionally made and hand-painted — had sprouted everywhere, on barns, lawns and sheds. Whatever Trumpism was, lots of southern Michiganders seemed ready for it. Six weeks ago, I rode the identical rural Michigan routes. Sometimes I stopped and talked to a few people. The script was almost predictable. After the requisite throat-clearing — ‘Trump should cut back on the tweeting,’ they said — they were even more eager to vote for him this time than last.
In my hometown near my central California farm, I spent autumn 2016 talking to mostly Mexican American friends with whom I went to grammar or high school. I had presumed then that they must hate Trump. Remember the speech in 2015 announcing he was going to stand, when he bashed illegal immigration, or his snide quip about the ‘Mexican judge’ in the Trump University lawsuit, or his expulsion of an interrupting Univision anchor, Jorge Ramos, from one of his campaign press conferences? But I heard no such thing. Most said they ‘liked’ Trump’s style, whether or not they were voting for him. They were tired of gangs in their neighborhoods and of swamped government services — especially the nearby Department of Motor Vehicles — becoming almost dysfunctional. I remember thinking that Trump of all people might get a third of the Latino vote: of no importance in blue California, but maybe transformative in Midwest swing states?
During the last two weeks I made the same rounds — a high-school football game at my alma mater, talks with Mexican American professionals, some rural farm events. Were those impressions three years ago hallucinations? Hardly. Trump support has, if anything, increased — and not just because of record low unemployment and an economy that has turned even my once-ossified rural community into a bustle of shopping, office-construction and home-building, with ‘Now Hiring’ signs commonplace. This time I noticed that my same friends always mentioned Trump in contrast to their damnation of California — the nearby ‘stupid’ high-speed rail to nowhere, the staged power shutoffs, the drought-stricken dead trees left untouched in flammable forests, the tens of thousands of homeless even in San Jose, Fresno and Sacramento, the sky-high gas prices, the deadly decrepit roads, the latest illegal-alien felon shielded from ICE. Whatever Trump was, my friends saw him as the opposite of where California is now headed. His combativeness was again not a liability but a plus — especially when it was at the expense of snooty white liberals. ‘He drives them crazy,’ Steve, my friend from second grade, offered.
One academic colleague used to caricature my observations in 2016 that Trump’s rallies were huge and rowdy, while Hillary’s seemed staged and somnolent — and that this disconnect might presage election-day turnouts. ‘Anecdotes!’ I was told. ‘Crowd size means as little as yard signs.’ If anything, Trump’s rallies now are larger, the lines longer. Maybe the successive progressive efforts to abort his presidency by means of the Electoral College, the emoluments clause, the 25th Amendment, the Mueller investigation and now Ukraine only made him stronger by virtue of not finishing him off.
When I talked to a Central Valley Rotary Club in November 2016, I assumed on arrival that such doctrinaire Republicans would be establishment Never Trumpers. But few were then. When I returned this week to speak again, I found that none are now. These businesspeople, lawyers, accountants and educators talked of the money-making economy. But I sensed, as with my hometown friends, that same something else. There was an edge in their voices, an amplification of earlier fury at Hillary’s condescension and put-down of deplorables. ‘Anything he dishes out, they deserve,’ one man in a tailored suit remarked, channeling my grade-school friend Steve. I take it by that he meant he and his friends are frequently embarrassed by Trump’s crudity — but not nearly so much as they are enraged by the sanctimoniousness of an Adam Schiff or the smug ‘bombshell’ monotony of media anchors.
It is easy to say that 2020 seems to be replaying 2016, complete with the identical insularity of progressives, as if what should never have happened then certainly cannot now. But this time around there is an even greater sense of anger and need for retribution especially among the most unlikely Trump supporters. It reflects a fed-up payback for three years of nonstop efforts to overthrow an elected president, anger at anti-Trump hysteria and weariness at being lectured. A year is a proverbial long time. The economy could tank. The president might find himself trading missiles with Iran. At 73, a sleep-deprived, hamburger-munching Trump might discover his legendary stamina finally giving out. Still, there is a growing wrath in the country, either ignored, suppressed or undetected by the partisan media. It is a desire for a reckoning with ‘them’. For lots of quiet, ordinary people, 2020 is shaping up as the get-even election — in ways that transcend even Trump himself.
Democrats have been obsessed with the year 2020 — for its promise of redemption, revenge and a return of power — ever since Donald Trump won the presidency in November 2016.
Now the election year has arrived. But after a midterm rebuke of Trump at the polls, the House's impeachment of him last month and a year of campaigning by the contenders for the party's nod to take him on, his opponents find themselves no closer to their goal of ousting him than they were when he was inaugurated a little less than three years ago.
And they're spotting him a big messaging advantage, because to the extent he can stay on topic, he can make the case for himself and against them while they are still trying to figure out what they're going to sell to voters.
With voting beginning in little more than a month, they are in danger of wasting valuable time as they struggle to pick a captain and a course, still uncertain whether to go modest and moderate or big and bold in making their case for a change in the Oval Office. Trump's approval rating has rebounded to 45 percent, according to Gallup, which is where it sat on Inauguration Day in 2017, and some polls show him leading or in close competition with top Democratic contenders in battleground states that are widely considered to be the keys to victory this year.
"As difficult as it is to hear, Trump is and will be a formidable 2020 opponent," said Chris Kofinis, a veteran strategist who has worked on Democratic presidential campaigns. "Regardless of the nominee, he's going to be tough to beat, arguably tougher than in 2016, because his base is rock solid and independents remain more split than we realize."
Of course, the official selection of a Democratic nominee won't happen until the party meets this summer for its convention in Milwaukee, but the sustained relative strength of four candidates — former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg — has more party insiders contemplating the possibility that the battle could end in a floor fight for the nomination.
But even in the absence of a consensus standard-bearer, Democrats might be able to start making the case for their policies if they could agree on a direction, other than away from Trump. For now, they are unified primarily in their opposition to him, and he has proven to be the inelastic man of American politics, equally incapable of gaining or losing much support regardless of events, his public relations efforts or the attacks that come his way.
The problem for Democrats, as it has been, is that the party is roughly divided into thirds: A little less than a third back the moderate Biden, who is essentially promising a return to calmer times and incremental change; a little more than a third support Sanders or Warren, who have been all but locked at the hip in arguing for massive systemic changes that would tax higher-income and wealthier Americans to create new benefits for everyone else; and a little more than a third support someone in the rest of the field.
Buttigieg, 37, the only one of the top four not in his 70s, has positioned himself as a next-generation politician somewhere between Biden and Warren who, like Biden, can appeal to swing voters.
The value of swing voters lies at the heart of the Democratic divide. Sanders and Warren contend that the party must offer — and the country needs — bold changes to health care, financial and other systems. They argue that their prescriptions will bring enough new voters to the polls to win at the presidential level and to effect changes in Congress, while also attracting swing voters who are fed up with the Washington establishment. But many Democrats are wary that expensive programs and new taxes will turn off swing voters in key states and hand the election to Trump.
The differences among the candidates have been on display in half a dozen debates and in countless televised forums and town hall meetings in the early states, as well as through their campaign websites and social media accounts.
Unlike in 2008, when the policy distinctions between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were minor or backward-looking — as in the case of Clinton's vote in the Senate to authorize the Iraq War — or in 2016, when Clinton was the clear front-runner throughout the primary, the divisions among the leading Democratic candidates are wide, deep and multi-directional, both in broad approaches and in specific prescriptions.
Over the last year, a handful of candidates have risen and fallen: There was a period during the summer when Warren took off before she stumbled explaining how she would pay for her version of a "Medicare for All" plan. Buttigieg sprung from anonymity up to about 12 percent briefly in national polling averages before trailing off a bit.
But the two leaders stand essentially where they did a year ago. Biden is at 28.3 percent in the Real Clear Politics average of polls, and Sanders is at 19.1 percent. On Jan. 1, 2019, they were at 27 percent and 17 percent.
No one expects Democrats to pick a nominee before Iowans caucus Feb. 3, and a long process did not prevent them from winning the White House in 2008, when Obama beat Republican Sen. John McCain. But for a party that was shell-shocked in 2016, the level of anxiety will only rise over time.
Former Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., said the longer the Democratic primary lasts, the better it is for Trump, especially as the four front-runners, as well as billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer and businessman Andrew Yang, spend money to differentiate themselves in a battle for convention delegates.
"It's likely the only way a candidate can emerge from this is to go negative," Kingston said, allowing Trump to raise and spend money for the general election while Democrats' cash "will all have to be spent on fellow Democrats."
And Trump will have a messaging advantage, wielding the ability to say both what he's against and what he's for, until Democrats at least find common ground on what they're promising.
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
In order to get elected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran.
21.7K
2:48 PM - Nov 29, 2011
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Now that Obama’s poll numbers are in tailspin – watch for him to launch a strike in Libya or Iran. He is desperate.
19.8K
4:39 PM - Oct 9, 2012
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Polls are starting to look really bad for Obama. Looks like he'll have to start a war or major conflict to win. Don't put it past him!
9,443
9:30 AM - Oct 17, 2012
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Don't let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected--be careful Republicans!
7,324
11:43 AM - Oct 22, 2012
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
I predict that President Obama will at some point attack Iran in order to save face!
4,954
4:23 PM - Sep 16, 2013
sad, now lame TTF points are these days
Trump was saying Obama might start a war with Iran to win the election
Trump is applying pressure to prevent Iran from starting the war it was attempting to start
Iran has a history of succumbing to pressure
if Iran will behave and stop meddling in Iraq, Iran will be OK
the Ayatollah knows it, everyone knows it
Australia fires intensify as prime minister calls up army reservists to help contain crisis
SANCTUARY POINT, Australia — Australia on Saturday began calling up 3,000 army reservists to conduct evacuations and help people in remote areas affected by the country's wildfire emergency, as extreme weather fueled blazes that imperiled homes and lives across a swath of the continent.
Clouds of smoke blotted out the sun and stretched hundreds of miles across the country's southeast, where fires that began months ago have forced thousands of residents and summer vacationers to flee. Some 23 people have been killed, including 12 in the past week.
Horrendous conditions confronted firefighters. Temperatures on Saturday broke records, reaching 120 degrees Fahrenheit on the forest-fringed outskirts of Sydney and 111 degrees in the capital, Canberra, while strong winds fanned more than 200 wildfires....
And closer to home:
The 2010s were D.C.’s hottest decade as warm became the new norm
Over the past decade, temperatures in Washington took a giant leap, with warm weather more persistent and intense than previously recorded. The 2010s featured eight of the District’s warmest 11 years, seven record warm months, and dozens of record warm days and nights — more than before.
As in many other parts of the world, the decade was a turning point in which climate change went from a future projection to something residents routinely endured...
And worldwide:
Five Warmest Years (Anomalies)
1st. 2016(+0.45°C), 2nd. 2019,2015(+0.42°C), 4th. 2017(+0.38°C), 5th. 2018(+0.31°C)
"Hmmmm, what's going on here?"
in Australia, it's summer
in Washington, nothing dramatic
we have a various weather, like always
globally, temperatures are marginally warmer over the last 150 years
but life expectancy is way up and poverty has declined dramatically
so warming as an extinction level event seems unlikely
Dems seem to agree since they oppose technologies, namely fracking and nuclear energy, which have local risks but don't pose glocbal catastrophe potential
also, the overall numbers are skewed by extreme warming in the polar region, which is likely the result of solar activity
"Five Warmest Years (Anomalies)
1st. 2016(+0.45°C), 2nd. 2019,2015(+0.42°C), 4th. 2017(+0.38°C), 5th. 2018(+0.31°C)"
look at that, the warmest year was four years ago
Hmmmm, what's going on here?
When Iran took over our embassy in 1979, Dem Jimmy Carter read "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" to the ayatollah and, after crashing an American helicopter in the Iranian desert, gave up.
When our embassy in Libya was attacked and Americans killed, Dems Hillary and Barack lied about it and took no action against the perpetrators.
When Iranian allies attacked our embassy in Baghdad this week, Trump killed the top Iranian terrorist.
See the difference?
Qassem Soleimani was a violent man who lived a violent life. The Iranian major general lived by the sword and died by the drone. Soleimani’s death was a long time coming, and it is chiefly mourned by those who are seeking a similar end.
We can dispense with questions over whether the attack that killed Soleimani was an illegal assassination as opposed to a legitimate act in the war on terrorism. The United States has been conducting such strikes for years, and President Barack Obama faced no serious pushback for using drones to prosecute the conflict.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force that Soleimani commanded was a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, which gave its members the same status as al-Qaida, the Islamic State or any other terrorist group. According to the Pentagon, Soleimani was actively planning attacks against American forces, something he had done many times. Those politicians who question whether President Donald Trump had the legal right to conduct the strike can suggest adding it as another article of impeachment, if they dare.
The criticism that this move was escalatory ignores the fact that Iran has been escalating conflict in the Middle East for years. Iran supports insurgent and militia groups in Yemen, Afghanistan, Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, among others. Iran, using Soleimani’s Quds Force as its spearhead, was responsible for more than 600 American deaths in Iraq from 2003 to 2011, 17% of all U.S. dead in that conflict. President George W. Bush's administration never adequately made Tehran pay, and the Obama administration was more interested in paying Tehran.
Trump had been a model of restraint in the face of increasingly aggressive moves against American allies and interests by Iran and its proxies. These included attacks on Saudi oil refineries and tankers in the Persian Gulf, as well as aggressive moves against Israel in Syria, which the Jewish state has been responding to ably with strikes of its own. Trump even called off a planned retaliatory mission last June, after Iranian forces downed a U.S. drone, so it’s difficult to argue Trump was looking for pretexts for war.
"look at that, the warmest year was four years ago"
Correction:
look at that, the warmest year SO FAR was four years ago
Your crystal balls are fuzzy if you think we've already reached the hottest year.
Anoither big storm:
Indonesia floods triggered by torrential rain kill 17, displace thousands
"...The floods inundated thousands of homes and buildings and forced authorities to cut off electricity and water and paralyzed transport networks, Wibowo said. He said more than 31,000 people were in temporary shelters after floodwaters reached as high as 2.5 meters (more than 8 feet) in places...."
"Correction:
look at that, the warmest year SO FAR was four years ago
Your crystal balls are fuzzy if you think we've already reached the hottest year."
well, I stand corrected
apparently only your crystal ball is accurate
let's just make policy based on guesses about the future rather than facts about the past
we all knew you never serious about that whole "teach the facts"
"Anoither big storm:
Indonesia floods triggered by torrential rain kill 17, displace thousands"
yep, anoither one
just like throughout human history
Dems are whimpering and scurrying
Donald Trump's approval rating just hit a two-year high
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html
looks like that whole impeachment game was a dud
After weeks of televised hearings, in late December the U.S. House officially impeached President Trump. While those lawmakers were bickering over their trivial vote that is unlikely to remove the president, the Senate was busy accomplishing the more permanent task of confirming Trump’s judicial nominees. It’s a striking contrast of priorities -- and the statistics are staggering -- as Trump is remaking the federal judiciary at a historic rate.
Two weeks ago, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell got 13 federal district court nominations through the Senate, 11 of which were part of a deal to expedite appointments reached with Democrats on Dec. 18. Prior to the deal, McConnell had scheduled procedural votes roughly every two hours, reported CNN.
Consequently, with 187 total judges confirmed Trump came close to confirming more judges in 2019 than in 2017 and 2018 combined.
As of late November, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit was the third circuit court to flip from a majority of Democrat appointees to a majority of Republican appointees under President Trump (not counting the many courts that had an even split that have also tipped Republican). In an interview with Hugh Hewitt on Dec. 18, McConnell said, “One of every four of the U.S. circuit judges in the country have been put on the bench in the last three years.”
This is an astonishing figure when you consider the importance of the federal circuit court. While the U.S. Supreme Court garners all the headlines, the overwhelming majority of federal court cases never make it there. Because the Supreme Court accepts around 1% of cases, the Court of Appeals — divided into 13 circuit courts — has the final say on matters of the law and Constitution.
If conservatives of any stripe need a reason to see the silver lining of his presidency, this would be it.
It matters for the conservative movement that Trump and McConnell have prioritized judicial appointments. Trump, according to the White House, has focused on “appointing judges who set aside their personal views and political prejudices to do what the Constitution and the law demand,” a welcome change from activist judges who deviate from the text of the Constitution and law.
So much for the taunt from Iran’s “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Khamenei, that America “cannot do a damn thing” about Iran’s attack on our embassy in Baghdad. It took President Trump but a day after that jibe to wheel on the Iranians. He launched a drone attack that found and killed the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, General Qassim Soleimani. It is likely to mark a turning point in the not-so-quasi war that Iran has been levying against us — and, among others, Israel.
This is not a situation in which responsibility is being debated on murky evidence. The Pentagon itself put out a straightforward statement saying that our military had acted “at the direction of the president.” It characterized the attack as a “decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel.” The Pentagon pointed out that Soleimani’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force is an American-designated foreign terrorist organization.
“General Soleimani and his Quds Force,” the Pentagon noted, “were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American and coalition service members and the wounding of thousands more. He had orchestrated attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months — including the attack on December 27th — culminating in the death and wounding of additional American and Iraqi personnel.” It was Soleimani also approved the attacks this week on our embassy in Baghdad.
Our “counterstrike” today was, the Pentagon said, “aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.” That aim was underscored by reports that among those slain in the strike were Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who commanded an Iranian backed terrorist militia called Kata’ib Hezbollah. America, the Pentagon said, would “continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests.” Our attack was, among other things, a product of remarkable intelligence.
As astounding as the attack may be on the order of battle in the Middle East, it may be even more of a game-changer politically, including here at home. The attack, after all, lands in the middle of not only an American presidential impeachment but also a presidential election. So far, the Democrats have barely focused on foreign policy, except as part of their efforts to portray Mr. Trump as improperly trying to dragoon the Ukrainians into investigating Vice President Biden.
Yet the smell of cordite was still over the Baghdad Airport when the Democrats started caviling. The attack on Soleimani, Vice President Biden complained, was a “hugely escalatory move in an already dangerous region.” Senator Warren called the attack “reckless” and said that “our priority must be to avoid another costly war.” Senator Sanders said that Mr. Trump had “promised to end endless wars” and asserted that this “puts us on the path to another one.”
We’ll see what Iran wants. Our own view is that Mr. Trump has shown as much forbearance as anyone could expect of a responsible leader in the face of repeated Iranian aggression, over a long period of time, against us, the Saudis, and Israel. The President even reached out to the Iranian camarilla diplomatically, which was more than they deserved. Mr. Trump clearly grasped that any failure to respond to Iranian aggression would have carried its own risks.
This is a moment to remember that Iran’s regime holds power by main force. It has been facing riots and protests from millions of its own people. Is it too much for at least one of the Democrats to stop the politicking at the water’s edge and suggest that all Americans stand together in the face of what Iran is doing? If it turns out that Iran has precipitated a wider war, what will the Democrats do to help America win it?
Supporters of Joe Biden are unlikely to be persuaded by most of the common criticisms. They know he can be rambling and unintelligible. They know his record is unimpressive and that he doesn’t really have “policy proposals”. None of this matters, though, because to them he has the most important quality of all: he can beat Donald Trump. Nothing you can say about the former vice-president’s record, platform or mental state matters next to the argument that he is the best hope Democrats have of getting Trump out of office.
There’s just one problem: it’s a myth. It is a myth just as it was a myth that Hillary Clinton was a good candidate against Trump. Biden is not, in fact, the pragmatic choice. He would not beat Trump. He would lose. And we must say this over and over again. Forget his flubs. Forget his finger-nibbling. Biden would be crushed by Trump. If you want Trump out of office, don’t support Biden.
Last time round, Clinton supporters lived in a strange kind of denial. Anyone could see she had unique vulnerabilities Trump could exploit. She was a Wall Street candidate, and he was running to “drain the swamp”. She was under investigation by the FBI, and his pitch was that Washington was corrupt. She had supported the catastrophic Iraq war, and he portrayed himself as an outsider opponent of those wars. Trump could “run to her left” and make criticisms she would be unable to respond to, because they were accurate. Clinton’s attempts to attack Trump as an out-of-touch, reckless billionaire sex criminal would fail, because Trump would point out that she herself was out of touch, bought by billionaires and had an unrepentant alleged sex criminal as her husband and chief campaign surrogate.
Joe Biden will face many of the same problems. He has been in Washington since the age of 30, representing Delaware, the “capital of corporate America”. He is infamous for his connections to the credit card industry, and he has lied about his degree of support for the Iraq war. Even Matthew Yglesias of Vox calls Biden the “Hillary Clinton of 2020” for his corporate ties and war support. It is worth remembering what being the “Hillary Clinton” of anything means in an election against Trump.
Consider the Ukraine scandal, which is far worse for Biden electorally than usually acknowledged. Democrats have made this the centerpiece of their impeachment case against Trump, setting aside Trump’s most consequential crimes in order to focus on the charge that Trump tried to force the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden. For Democrats, the scandal is clear-cut: Trump was abusing the power of his office to “damage a political rival”. And they believe that the American people will agree, and will be disturbed by Trump’s unethical behavior. They insist there was “no evidence” that Joe Biden did anything wrong, and that Trump and his associates have been unfairly trying to smear Biden.
Democrats who think this way are walking into a buzzsaw. Let us recall: Hunter Biden was paid up to $50,000 a month by a Ukrainian oil company. Officially, the chief Ukrainian prosecutor had an open investigation into that company. Joe Biden bragged about pressuring Ukraine to fire that prosecutor, which they did. Hunter Biden says he told his father about his position in Ukraine, and Joe Biden did not ask him to step down. Joe Biden contradicts his son’s story, saying they never discussed Hunter Biden’s “work” in Ukraine. One of them is not telling the truth.
Defenders of the Bidens like to point out that the prosecutor was fired for reasons that had absolutely nothing to do with Hunter Biden. In fact, there was widespread pressure to fire the prosecutor because he wasn’t doing enough on corruption investigations, and there was a consensus among experts that this was the case. Biden’s actions had absolutely nothing to do with his son and it is ridiculous to suggest that they did.
All this is true. But the important question is: does it sound good? And the answer is: no. It sounds terrible.
One reason Democrats are bad at politics is that they concern themselves too much with facts and not enough with impressions. With Clinton’s “emails scandal”, they tried to show Clinton had not technically violated the law, but having Barack Obama’s FBI actively investigating Clinton for possible criminal wrongdoing looked terrible regardless of the facts.
Left-leaning journalists and pundits love to “fact-check” Trump, as if proving that he has lied is in itself persuasive. But 2016 should have showed us how powerless “debunking” is next to “optics”. If you have a Democratic candidate who looks really corrupt, it doesn’t matter if they’re not. People don’t trust the press and they don’t trust politicians.
Imagine Biden running against Trump. Trump will run ads like this, over and over. Good luck responding. Remember that time you have to spend defending yourself against Trump’s accusations is time not spent talking about issues that affect people’s lives. And Biden has already shown little interest in drawing people’s attention to the areas where Democrats should run strong against Trump, such as healthcare, taxation, working conditions and the climate crisis.
His slogan is “no malarkey”, but since Biden himself is a longtime spewer of malarkey, Trump will successfully paint Biden as a hypocrite. Biden’s central case is that he is “not Trump”, that he will return the country to virtuousness and decency. But if Biden doesn’t actually look virtuous and decent – because he isn’t – the argument that he has made for himself collapses completely.
Biden does have some strengths against Trump that Clinton did not. We mock his his rambling and tendency for “gaffes”, but these do mean he never sounds like a “scripted politician”. Clinton was criticized as robotic and focus-grouped. Biden is anything but focus-grouped; whatever pops into his head comes out his mouth.
At the same time, compared to Trump, Biden has:
No money
No voter enthusiasm
No organization
No agenda
No real argument for himself
Ask yourself: how likely is such a candidate to win? Is such a person really the one you want to run against Trump? Look at the enthusiasm Trump gets at his rallies. It is real. Trump has fans, and they’re highly motivated. How motivated are Biden’s “fans”? Is Biden going to fill stadiums? Are people going to crisscross the country knocking on doors for him? Say what you want about Clinton, but there were some truly committed Clinton fans, and she had a powerful base of support. By comparison, Biden looks weak, and Trump is savagely effective at preying on and destroying establishment politicians.
Complicated factchecks that attempt to explain the nuances of the Ukrainian criminal prosecution system will not help Biden. People’s already limited enthusiasm for Biden will further wane, and Trump will point to his “strong economy” and “job creation” as evidence Obama and Biden were weak failures. Biden will look tired and irrelevant, and possibly forget why he is even running in the first place. Trump will be re-elected comfortably.
If there are Biden supporters in your life, you need to have serious conversations with them. Do not dwell on things that do not matter to them, like Biden’s record on bussing, or his latest nonsensical comment. Instead, keep the focus on the main argument that is sustaining his campaign: the idea that he is the best candidate to beat Trump. He isn’t. His electability is a myth, and when we look honestly at the facts we can see that Biden is actually a dangerously poor candidate to run.
Honestly, a homosexual mayor of a small midwestern town appears to be the guy with the best chance to beat Trump.
Which just shows how dismal the prospects of Dems are in 2020 !!!!
The journalism industry has much in common with the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals. Both had horrendous seasons in 2019 and have disintegrating fan bases. The Bengals, fortunately, get a No. 1 draft pick for their futility. The news media get no such reward for ineffectiveness. The journalism world just keeps digging a deeper credibility hole, seemingly unable to generate the professionalism that citizens demand and the nation surely needs.
Some corners of the journalism industry still strive to serve the mission of holding the powerful accountable and providing for the information needs of a democracy. The Washington Post’s extensive investigation of failings in Afghanistan is evidence of such work. Reporters in small-town America routinely cover city council meetings and school boards, all for little pay and prestige. Such work often goes unappreciated as it is overwhelmed by the higher-profile journalistic blunders made by big media in corporate towers on the East Coast.
Media credibility has declined steadily for the last 20 years, and journalism’s recent performance won’t turn that trend around. News consumers are more likely to remember journalism’s missteps than its successes. Sadly, the journalism industry made too many high-profile blunders in 2019, and those mistakes became engrained in the public assessment.
Frantic, misguided coverage of the Covington Catholic students in the nation’s capital last winter was a terrible way to start the media year. That was quickly followed by more media frenzy covering the ridiculous Jussie Smollett situation which, amazingly, was taken seriously and garnered much more space on the news agenda than was warranted.
The Mueller investigation was characterized by rampant speculation and few facts until the report was released in mid-April, at which time the media allowed party spin-lines to dominate coverage before largely dropping the matter as yesterday’s fashion. Then there was the New York Times changing a headline in response to the social media mob. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell had to retract a report that Donald Trump once obtained loans co-signed by Russian oligarchs. ABC used video from a Kentucky gun range in its reporting of Turkish battles in Syria with the Kurds.
Coverage of the Democratic presidential candidates has been devoid of depth or policy analysis, but long on exaggerated treatment of flimsy polls and vacuous televised “debates.” Impeachment news has demonstrated how easy it is for partisan politicians on the left and right to snooker the media into reporting party talking points. Non-nuanced impeachment coverage has been characterized by scattered facts and wishful thinking. It has served largely to make the public confused and angry, while opportunistic politicians grandstand to raise their national profiles.
The problem here is that these journalistic snafus are not just mistakes caused by human frailty. They are the kinds of blunders created when journalistic culture breaks away from the culture of its audience. Careless and needless mistakes happen when accountability and accuracy are devalued in favor of pushing ideological high-horses or generating shrill headlines to get clicks and ratings.
Objectivity, proportion and fairness are valued by news consumers. Citizens can sort out for themselves what to make of the information they receive from the media. They don’t want to be worked — or lectured to — by a news industry that increasingly mixes reporting with agenda-pushing. Socio-political analyst G.K. Chesterton warned the public 100 years ago that journalists think they are smarter than the public for whom they report, which eventually leads to journalism becoming “barbaric and unintelligible.”
A Rasmussen Reports survey this fall found that almost two-thirds of Americans are “angry at the media.” An Economist/YouGov poll reported by Ballotpedia indicates that 41 percent of Americans consider the media either unfriendly to or an enemy of the American people. Regular citizens of today are declaring that the journalism establishment no longer serves their needs. Executives in the news industry should start listening.
Legendary ABC anchor Frank Reynolds went live on the air in March 1981 to broadcast the assassination attempt on President Reagan. Reynolds reported some information that later turned out to be incorrect, at which point Reynolds became visibly upset on air and demanded of the producers and reporters, “Let’s get it nailed down … let’s get it right.” Reynolds’ insistence should become part of every national newsroom’s culture.
The journalism industry must look deep inside itself to understand why the public has turned on it and take steps to reestablish a mission that fits with public expectations. Otherwise, the industry will continue its insane descent into self-destruction. With the upcoming national election, deep societal divisions, and dangerous international conditions, the year 2020 would be a great time for the news industry to begin its reinvention.
I found this on Reddit where they like to compare the size of things by saying "Banana for scale." In this case they used the United States for scale of the Australian fires
How to help:
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/bushfire-relief-how-you-can-help-those-in-need/news-story/a0476ac3538b8c373f281ea6be204421
Rock musician Meat Loaf thinks Greta Thunberg has been brainwashed into thinking climate change is real. The singer, 72, said he “feels” for the 17-year-old, whom he thinks has “been forced” into her beliefs. “I feel for that Greta,” he told Mail Online. “She has been brainwashed into thinking that there is climate change and there isn’t.” He continued: “She hasn’t done anything wrong, but she’s been forced into thinking that what she is saying is true.” Meat Loaf’s comments come after global leaders and activists warned the bushfires currently ravaging Australia are an environmental emergency that must be tackled urgently.
Somebody's been brainwashed but it isn't Greta Thunberg. I guess I can at least understand why politicians beholden to the fossil fuel industry pretend like climate change is a hoax. Their salaries depend on it. But why ordinary people are so eager to believe it stuns me. Do they not love their children?
Bolton’s announcemen on Monday that he is "prepared to testify” if called as a witness by the Senate put Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), not to mention other persuadable Republican senators, in a box. Facts subsequent to the House impeachment have become known that directly pertain to Trump’s conduct and, to boot, a critical witness is now suddenly available. Do Senate Republicans try to sweep all that under the rug, risking that Bolton will later tell his story publicly and incriminate a president whose misdeeds the Senate helped cover up? That would seem intensely unwise.
“This means that only McConnell and his GOP caucus stand between what Bolton says he’s ready to testify under oath in a Senate trial and the American people,” tweeted constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe. “Your move, Mitch.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is in the driver’s seat because she wisely held up the articles of impeachment. She can now turn to the Senate and say: Agree upon rules for the trial that guarantee Bolton’s and other key witnesses’ appearance or we will hold on to the articles and subpoena Bolton ourselves.
Former Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller tells me, “There is no legal difference between a subpoena issued by the House and one issued by the Senate, and if Bolton is willing to comply with one, the same should be true for the other.” He adds, “As a political matter, however, it probably makes sense for the House to delay any subpoena to keep the pressure squarely where it belongs — on Senate Republicans.” Vowing to call Bolton in the House could actually make the pressure that much more intense.
Matters never should have gotten to this point. The bogus assertion of “absolute immunity," already knocked down in the case of former White House counsel Donald McGahn by a district court judge, does not give current or former administration figures the right to avoid showing up or the administration the right to withhold documents and instruct witnesses not to testify.
It is now time for all of them, including Bolton, Mulvaney, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Office of Management and Budget official Michael Duffey (who told the Pentagon to put a hold on Ukraine aid) and White House national security aide Robert Blair, who all have direct knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the effort to extort Ukraine, to do their civic duty and step forward. Moreover, it’s time for senators to do their duty and uphold their oaths as senators and as jurors.
"So much for climate change denial"
Australia's burning?
Why didn't you say so?
Throw another shrimp on the barbie!
"Rock musician Meat Loaf thinks Greta Thunberg has been brainwashed"
kinda true
this is the latest liberal game
make their stupid points and use some young kid as a shield
they tried the same thing with the Parkland kids
HOW DARE THEY?!?!?!?
"Bolton’s announcemen on Monday that he is "prepared to testify” if called as a witness by the Senate"
so what?
"Facts subsequent to the House impeachment have become known that directly pertain to Trump’s conduct"
one would have to assume that the House would have already assembled sufficient evidence to convict him if they took the extraordinary step of impeaching a person elected by the citizens of our country
but that would make an ass outta u and me
they found no crime to impeach him for
they impeached him for daring to suggest a corrupt Dem be investigated
"tweeted constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe: “Your move, Mitch.”"
OK, Laurence the Loser
the next move is to change Senate rules to allow a majority to dismiss impeachment charges if the House doesn't forward them ASAP
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is in the driver’s seat because she wisely held up the articles of impeachment"
oh yeah, she's in the drivers' seat now
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
whenever I see a TTFer make a stupid post like this, I get a big ol' smile
you might even call it a smirk!!
"Rock musician Meat Loaf thinks Greta Thunberg has been brainwashed"
kinda true
this is the latest liberal game"
Right... because who could possibly imagine a teenager learning about science and believing what scientists have to say over a bunch of conspiracy theory believing nutjobs who would rather believe the "science" bought and paid for by oil companies?
"make their stupid points and use some young kid as a shield
they tried the same thing with the Parkland kids
HOW DARE THEY?!?!?!"
Right... because who could possibly imagine a bunch of teenagers who watched their classmates get gunned down by a wacko with a weapon might think gun control is a viable option to letting any asshole who wants one get a military grade killing machine?
HOW DARE THEY??? Don't they know multiple random senseless killings every year is the price of "FREEDOM?" And no other country on the planet has ever managed to reduce mass killings by guns?!?!!?
Oh, wait a minute...
It's those damn liberal elites and the scientist pointing out evidence and facts again!
Don't they know those are all TRUMPED by CONSERVATIVE BELIEFS?!?!?
Somebody has to properly propagandize these kids before they go to college!!!
"Right... because who could possibly imagine a teenager learning about science and believing what scientists have to say over a bunch of conspiracy theory believing nutjobs who would rather believe the "science" bought and paid for by oil companies?
Right... because who could possibly imagine a bunch of teenagers who watched their classmates get gunned down by a wacko with a weapon might think gun control is a viable option to letting any asshole who wants one get a military grade killing machine?"
most kids in rich white districts in America have similar views as the obnoxious kid frim Scandinavia and kids from Parkland
the NEA has protected from the idea that there is any other point of view
but that's not the point
why has the media so promoted these kids?
liberals are using these kids as shields to avoid any rational discussion
they prop these kids up in the national debate and if anyone dissents from anything the kids say, the liberals howl that conservatives are picking on these poor little children
it's really pathetic
"And no other country on the planet has ever managed to reduce mass killings by guns?!?!!?"
as we saw in Texas last week, when citizens have guns to defend themselves, lives are saved
"It's those damn liberal elites and the scientist pointing out evidence and facts again!"
oh yeah, liberals just love facts
like all the facts about Russian collusion that Robert Mueller said were wrong
"Somebody has to properly propagandize these kids before they go to college!!!"
someone did
they went to public schools under the NEA regime
question of the day"
why was Trump not impeached for committing any actual crimes?
why did Dems not impeach him using the road map Robert Mueller gave them?
remember when the stupid TTFer said:
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is in the driver’s seat because she wisely held up the articles of impeachment"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
Chuck Schumer demanded Tuesday morning that Republicans allow witnesses to testify during President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. But Mitch McConnell already knew he had the votes to roll over his adversary.
It took just a few hours for McConnell and Senate GOP leaders to clinch a final whip count in support of moving forward with a trial framework that ignores Democratic requests. And all 53 Republicans — even moderates such as Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Mitt Romney of Utah — have agreed to the majority leader’s proposal.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!
“We have the votes,” McConnell declared, meaning Republicans can start the Trump trial with no Democratic input.
Under the tentative rules package, which is the same as those used in President Bill Clinton’s 1999 Senate trial, the House will be allowed to present its case against Trump and then the president’s defense team will respond. At that point, McConnell or any GOP senator could move to end the trial and call for a final vote on the charges against Trump. Or Democrats could try to seek witness testimony or the introduction of new documentary evidence. It will be up to a majority of the Senate to decide.
And the majority is with McConnell.
It's called democracy!
"And the majority is with McConnell.
It's called democracy!"
It's called rank partisanship.
"why did Dems not impeach him using the road map Robert Mueller gave them?"
The Rumpster would just pardon himself.
Don't worry, the AG of New York is doing a fine job and the pussy grabber can not pardon himself there.
There’s a constitutional showdown heating up over equal rights for women, somehow still a contentious issue in 2020.
That’s because the Equal Rights Amendment, which passed Congress in 1972 and would amend the Constitution to give women equal standing under the law, is on the verge of ratification. Within the next few weeks, Virginia is expected to become the 38th state to ratify the ERA, clearing the Constitutional threshold for ratification, which is three-fourths of the states.
Already, Republicans are in court trying to block the ERA’s inclusion in the Constitution. At the end of December, three GOP attorneys general filed a suit in a federal court in Alabama to block the ERA’s ratification, arguing that it’s not constitutional.
On Tuesday, activists at the women’s rights group Equal Means Equal and the young women’s group Yellow Roses filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court, seeking to make sure the amendment makes its way into the Constitution after Virginia ratifies, pushing back on the arguments in the GOP lawsuit.
The litigation marks the start of a new chapter in the decadeslong fight to get women’s rights into the Constitution.
ERA advocates knew finally getting women into the Constitution would be a struggle, but the timing of the GOP’s Alabama lawsuit still was surprising.
“We didn’t anticipate any states being opposed to women’s equality,” said Wendy Murphy, the Boston-based professor and lawyer who represents Equal Means Equal and filed the Massachusetts suit. She said advocates didn’t expect to be in court so soon.
“It’s kind of disturbing that in 2020 that any state would spend resources trying to maintain women’s second-class citizenship in this country,” she said.
Some Democratic attorneys general also put out a strong statement on Tuesday, lambasting their Republican counterparts for being on the wrong side of history.
“This preemptive lawsuit is a blatant effort to thwart our democracy and block women from gaining Constitutional equality, which is already long overdue,” reads the statement, released by the executive committee of the Democratic Attorneys General Association. “We urge our colleagues from across the aisle to reconsider this wrongheaded waste of taxpayer dollars. It’s 2020, not 1920.”
"It's called rank partisanship"
this describes the impeachment by the House, which held a kangaroo court process, didn't allow Republicans to call witnesses, and passed without a single GOP vote
currently, all Republcan Senators, four Dems Senators and an Independent oppose Pelosi's game of withholding impeachment articles
the Senate is chosen by democratic elections in each state
And the majority is with McConnell.
It's called democracy
"The Rumpster would just pardon himself"
TTFers have a continual need to humiliate themselves with ignorant statements
a President can't overturn an impeachment conviction with a pardon
LOL!!!!!
hahahahaaaaahahaaahaaahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I ask you again
TTFers claimed after the Mueller report that he gave Congress a "road map" to impeachment
if so, why didn't they impeach on the things that road map pertained to?
“It’s kind of disturbing that in 2020 that any state would spend resources trying to maintain women’s second-class citizenship in this country,” she said.
most of the states ratifying the ERA did so almost fifty years ago
the ERA passed Congress in the early 70s and applied an deadline of seven years for states to pass it
24 of that states that passed it decades ago explicitly referred to the deadline
the ERA would eliminate many societal protections for women
"didn't allow Republicans to call witnesses"
You mean the witnesses Rump will not allow to testify?
"if so, why didn't they impeach on the things that road map pertained to?"
Because none of the witnesses to Rump's impeachable actions have been permitted to testify.
Mike Pence
Mike Pompeo
Rudy Giuliani
Mick Mulvaney
John Bolton
Charles Kupperman
Donald McGahn
"the ERA would eliminate many societal protections for women"
Sure, just like the Civil Rights Act eliminated many societal protections for African Americans.
Rick Wilson✔
@TheRickWilson
1/ The assertion by Lindsay Graham that today’s bizarre performance by Sniffles The Clown was on par with “Tear Down This Wall” is part of the Saddamification of the GOP.
What are the new rules?
2/
- Never be the first guy to stop clapping when Trump speaks.
- It is always the Year Zero; memory and consistency is the enemy of loyalty in the Trump world.
- Your superlatives are insufficient. Praising Trump properly demands a new vocabulary of obsequiousness.
3/ - Your humiliation in his service will asymptotically approach infinity, with the pain and shame mounting but never reaching the sweet release of death.
- Never tell him the truth. He is the tallest, most handsome, brilliant, and richest man in the room.
4/ - Even when he’s wrong (and he’s almost always wrong), race for the TV cameras to proclaim that you and everyone else was simply unable to grasp the sublime complexity of his 47-dimensional chess game.
5/ - If he wants to mount your spouse, let him. You let him screw your reputation, honor, dignity, principles, and political priors. Why not your wife?
- Always give the Trump Crime Family a cut of your consulting contracts for the campaign and the RNC.
"He will let you die in prison. Prepare accordingly.”
"You mean the witnesses Rump will not allow to testify?"
obviously not, stupid-ass
I mean the witnesses Repubs wanted to call who didn't support the Dem farce
Adam Schiff, a man in dire need of a psych, wouldn't hear of it
"Because none of the witnesses to Rump's impeachable actions have been permitted to testify"
gee, that's a new one
you had previously been claiming that Mueller didn't indict because of DOJ policy
now, you say it's because he had no evidence
every person that Mueller or the FBI asked to interview did so, save the President himself
Congress had the report
there was no proof
"Sure, just like the Civil Rights Act eliminated many societal protections for African Americans."
African Americans didn't have any special protections
women do
btw, have you ever been tested to find the cause of your low IQ?
"he’s almost always wrong"
interesting observation from a guy who supports economic theories that have never worked
and yet, Trump has been right on the economy
he was also right that blue-collar Midwesterners were sick of being ignored in favor of illegal aliens
he's also right that blacks and Hispanics are waking up to the empty promises made by Dems to them for decades
he was also right that Iran would be scared to retaliate when Trump killed their chief terrorist
he's also right that China was systematically attacking our economy for decades and it had to end
no, he's not a very nice guy
yes, America could use a more eloquent and dignified leader
and yet, the number of things that he's wrong about and Dems are right about round to zero
"If he wants to mount your spouse, let him. You let him screw your reputation, honor, dignity, principles, and political priors. Why not your wife?"
this is straight out of the TTF manual
when TTFers start to worry that someone will notice how inane their positions are, the TTF code specifies one should use some appalling vulgarity in hopes no one will notice
what do you expect?
they are anti-woman
the comment above is a perfect example of their crass bias against females
In the immediate aftermath of Nancy Pelosi’s decision to hold the Articles of Impeachment rather than send them to the Senate, not even the most pro-Pelosi hacks in existence could make the case for the strategy. The same question ping-ponged through DC greenrooms: “Is she really doing this?”
It was a telling moment. For more than a decade, all of Washington’s media corps has advanced the idea that Pelosi is a leader who can do no wrong, a consummate tactician who guided her conference through thick and thin. Perhaps that was true in the past, but since taking back the gavel after the midterms, Pelosi has been trapped by the vibrant progressive wing paired with a rabid donor base that actually guides the priorities of the Democratic House today. Before, she had control – now, just the illusion of it.
Impeachment is the result, one she sought wisely to avoid, but botched in the end in execution: allowing the Schiff show to take control, having a middle ground that neither moved fast enough nor was thorough enough to achieve their aims, and leaving the moderates who wanted to speed past impeachment out to hang. Pelosi lost control, the Democrats lost ground because of it, and she’ll still end up with the blame in November if all this backfires at the ballot box.
On CNN Thursday morning, Democratic Rep. Adam Smith, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, was even saying it’s time to send the articles to the Senate:
"I think it is time to send the impeachment to the Senate and let Mitch McConnell be responsible for the fairness of the trial. "
The spin today is hilarious in how desperate and unbelievable it is: the opening of Politico’s Playbook this morning includes this:
The left was clamoring for Pelosi to hold the articles, in an attempt to get Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to agree to witnesses. He didn’t — and most people realized he never would. Pelosi allies, though, say they forced a weekslong public discussion on impeachment trial witnesses, and whether McConnell should be forced to guarantee them. Here’s what a senior Dem aide told us: “The hold was clearly successful. We didn’t get everything we wanted, but a huge part of what we wanted was a national spotlight on the fairness of the trial. There’s no question we achieved that.
Yeah, I have some questions.
To have Dianne Feinstein – her fellow Californian and the most respected woman in the Senate – break with Pelosi so vociferously was the poison on the blade.
“The longer it goes on the less urgent it becomes,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). “So if it’s serious and urgent, send them over. If it isn’t, don’t send it over.”
“Several other Senate Democrats also showed their impatience with the Democratic leaders’ strategy. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Wednesday morning that Democrats “should move on” and send the articles to the Senate, and Sen. Jon Tester of Montana said he’s “ready” for the trial to start.
“I’m ready,” Tester said. “I don’t know what leverage we have. It looks like the cake is already baked.”
“I do think it is time to get on with it,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.).”
Pelosi is as outsized a figure for Washington Democrats as Mitch McConnell is for Republicans. McConnell has several potential Republicans who could conceivably take up a leadership role in the future, having learned from his methods. Who is Pelosi’s successor? Should Democrats lose the House in 2020, who steps up to the plate considering the age of the leading Democrats at the moment? And if this is the last major strategic decision she made, how does that impact Pelosi’s legacy?
Perhaps that question will be answered in the multiple biographies planned for the Speaker at the moment. But for now, if you were only reading the front-facing mainstream press, it remains a mystery as to why Pelosi chose this pointless gambit which ended up dragging this impeachment process out without any apparent benefit to her conference. It’s only when you understand who’s really in charge that things start to make sense.
In his address to the nation this morning, Donald Trump asserted that the ballistic missiles that targeted the al-Assad and Erbil bases in Iraq yesterday were paid for using “funds made available by the last administration.” Few things irritate media fact checkers more than Trump’s accusation that Obama helped fund the Iranian regime and its terror apparatus. Probably because it’s completely true.
Now, we don’t really know that Obama’s ransom payments to Iran in 2016 subsidized those specific ballistic missiles, but we do know that money is fungible — especially when you have access to small denominations of European cash — and that the military, IRGC, and Hezbollah were the major beneficiaries of the replenished coffers of the Iranian state. Distinctions over the details of the exact allocation of funds would be completely irrelevant in any conversation not involving Donald Trump. Yet Andrea Mitchell and CNN, and all the usual suspects, immediately rallied to Obama’s defense to also explain that actually Trump is talking about money we owed Iran.
We never “owed” the Islamic Republic any money. This is a myth. In 2016, the United States was in the middle of an unresolved dispute in front of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at The Hague over cash advanced by the Shah for military equipment we refused to deliver after the 1979 revolution. You might recall, this is when Iran began prosecuting its war against the United States, taking hostages, and killing service members.
It is unlikely that U.S. would ultimately have been obligated to hand over a single deutschmark to the mullahs. For one thing, the U.S. had its own counterclaims over Iran’s many violations — which, in total, exceeded the amount supposedly “owed” to it. Obama, in his obsessive goal of placating Iran to procure a deal, unilaterally dismissed a stipulation held by the previous administration that the United States wouldn’t release funds until other court judgments held against Iran for its terrorist acts on American citizens were all resolved.
Let’s remember, until the Wall Street Journal reported that the administration had secretly airlifted $400 million in ransom payments for four Americans detained in Tehran — seven months after the fact — we were never informed about the cash transfers. And Obama never offered any legal justification or accounting for the billions he transferred. Nor did Obama ever explain the fiscal calculation of tacking on an extra $1.3 billion in interest payments. The president, in fact, risibly claimed that the agreement had saved “billions of dollars.”
Reporters like to point out that “$150 billion,” the amount Trump likes to claim Obama transferred to the Iranians, is almost surely the high-end estimate, or likely an exaggeration. But we don’t know for sure because institutional media didn’t mobilize its considerable resources to find out. If reporters had spent as much time talking about the ransom payments — or the 600 soldiers murdered by Iran — as they do fact checking Trump’s ransom assertions, the public would be a lot better informed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=28&v=MmSz7HqkI9s&feature=emb_logo
Hear from the witnesses to the rampant sexual harassment at FOX NEWS, the pussy grabber's favorite.
Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling in Roe & Voe v. Esper that halted efforts by the Trump administration to discharge members of the Air Force because they are living with HIV. The decision will allow two active-duty Airmen living with HIV, identified pseudonymously as Richard Roe and Victor Voe, to continue serving in the U.S. Air Force as well as prevent the discharge of any other Airmen living with HIV.
“We’re thrilled with the court’s decision upholding the injunction that prevents the Trump-Pence administration from wrongfully discharging these Airmen living with HIV,” said Modern Military Association of America (MMAA) Legal and Policy Director Peter Perkowski. “In light of major advancements in medical treatments, there is no legitimate reason these servicemembers cannot or should not be able to continue to serve their country. It’s past time for the Department of Defense’s outdated policies to catch up with modern science.”
The court ruled that the government’s justifications “fail to account for current medical literature and expert opinion about current HIV treatment and transmission risks.” The opinion, written by Judge Wynn and joined by Judge Diaz and Judge Floyd, stated:
“A ban on deployment may have been justified at a time when HIV treatment was less effective at managing the virus and reducing transmission risks. But any understanding of HIV that could justify this ban is outmoded and at odds with current science. Such obsolete understandings cannot justify a ban, even under a deferential standard of review and even according appropriate deference to the military’s professional judgments.”
“I am extremely relieved to learn that I can continue to serve this country like any other servicemember. Serving in the U.S. military has been the greatest honor of my life and I’m thrilled to see this court affirm the lower court ruling in our favor. No one should be discharged or discriminated against because of HIV when it does not interfere whatsoever with our capacity to serve,” said plaintiff Victor Voe.
In February, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction halting implementation of the administration’s discriminatory discharge policies while the lawsuit proceeded, finding that the Airmen had a likelihood of success on their claims at trial. Today, the Fourth Circuit affirmed that ruling.
“This is the second federal court to find that the Trump administration’s attempt to discharge these individuals is unlikely to pass legal muster,” said Scott Schoettes, Counsel and HIV Project Director at Lambda Legal. “At the root of these discharge decisions and other restrictions on the service of people living with HIV are completely outdated and bigoted ideas about HIV. Today’s ruling clears the way for us to definitively prove at trial that a person living with HIV can perform the job of soldier or airman as well and as safely as anyone else. We are confident Roe and Voe will succeed because the Government is unable to offer a reasonable justification for their discriminatory treatment of servicemembers living with HIV.”
"Hear from the witnesses to the rampant sexual harassment at FOX NEWS, the pussy grabber's favorite."
we know you won't see any movies made about NBC and its indulgence of Matt Lauer or PBS and its enablement of Charlie Rose
Harvey Weinstein could have made the movie but he's on trial for rape and sexual harassment of dozens of women
NBC, PBS, Harvey Weinstein: all favorites of the only sexual predator to occupy the Oval Office, none other than Dem icon, Bill Cliiiiinton!!!!
let's not forget Hillary
her and her gal-pal Huma both were good wives giving aid and comfort to sexual predators
you messed-up TTFers have a lot of nerve bringing up Trump
Victory!
Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in Roe & Voe v. Esper that the Trump administration can't discharge members of the Air Force just because they are living with HIV and costing the taxpayers enormous medical fees from their completely preventable illness.
“Modern Military Association of America (MMAA) Legal and Policy Director Peter Perkowski stupidly said, “In light of major advancements in medical treatments, there is no legitimate reason these servicemembers cannot or should not be able to continue to serve their country. It’s past time for the Department of Defense’s outdated policies to catch up with modern science.”
Peter, you fool, the advances are what is so expensive.
These gays should find a line of work they are suited to.
“I am extremely relieved to learn that I can continue to serve this country like any other servicemember."
and cost ten times as much in medical costs
"Serving in the U.S. military"
if you really want to serve, drop the lawsuit and find a more suitable occupation
A former high school football player who admitted to fatally stabbing a classmate because she was six months pregnant with his child has been sentenced to 65 years in prison.
Aaron Trejo, 18, was sentenced in an Indiana courtroom on Tuesday for the 2018 killing of 17-year-old Breana Rouhselang in an alley behind her Mishawaka house. He pleaded guilty to murder and feticide in October.
Rouhselang’s mother, speaking to WNDU following the sentence, likened her family’s suffering to a nightmare she lives “every day.”
“All I just want to say is I’m glad we got justice for Bre, but no amount of time will ever replace what he took from me,” Melissa Wallace told the South Bend station.
Trejo, who was 16 at the time of Rouhselang’s murder, told investigators he plotted to kill the cheerleader and manager of the Mishawaka High School football team because she didn’t tell him she was pregnant until she was too far along to get an abortion.
Trejo said he was armed with a knife from his kitchen and asked Rouhselang to meet him behind her house on the night of Dec. 9, 2018. Once there, he strangled and stabbed her in her heart and then disposed of her body in a nearby restaurant’s dumpster with a garbage bag covering her head, according to a criminal indictment.
Trejo initially denied knowing what happened to Rouhselang when Wallace confronted him about her daughter’s whereabouts but then confessed to the killing under police questioning.
“I took action,” Trejo was quoted as telling a detective. “I took her life.”
St. Joseph County Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Hurley, who handed down Trejo’s sentence, said the teen will likely serve at least 75% of his sentence, meaning he’ll be around 67 years old when released.
Maybe someone should have taught these kids about condoms.
A Department of Justice inquiry into Hillary Clinton that began after conservatives demanded more investigations into the former Democratic presidential candidate is reportedly ending with no actual results.
Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed U.S. Attorney John Huber in 2018 to look into concerns raised by President Donald Trump and his Republican allies that the FBI did not properly look into Clinton’s involvement in a uranium deal while she was secretary of state in the Obama administration.
Huber allegedly reviewed documents and spoke with federal law enforcement officials in Arkansas who were handling an investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Though the inquiry has not formally ended and no official notice has been sent to the Justice Department or to Congress, Huber has effectively finished his assignment and found nothing worth pursuing.
Canadian mining company Uranium One, which had major U.S. holdings, was sold in 2010 to a Russian firm while Clinton was secretary of state. The sale required approval from nine U.S. agencies, including the State Department, before it could proceed. Conservative media and critics of the 2016 Democratic nominee have falsely claimed that the sale was a quid pro quo for donations to the nonprofit Clinton Foundation.
The State Department did not have the power to unilaterally approve or reject the sale, and Clinton was not actually directly involved in the approval process. The original FBI investigation into whether Clinton had ties to the deal found no evidence of wrongdoing, but Sessions revived the inquiry in late 2017 after facing pressure from Trump.
Huber’s effective conclusion of his review is likely to anger many Republicans who hoped the top prosecutor from Utah would validate their long-held conspiracy theories about Clinton.
Attorney General William Barr, a Trump nominee who succeeded Sessions, has previously supported the president’s call to investigate Clinton and has questioned the need for Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
But Trump has largely shifted his focus away from Huber’s investigation and toward U.S. Attorney John Durham’s review of the origins of the Russia investigation, which concluded with a report that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election in order to help Trump win. Barr appointed Durham to the review last year, though he allegedly sees no evidence so far that the Russia probe was a setup by intelligence officials, as Trump claims.
"A former high school football player who admitted to fatally stabbing a classmate because she was six months pregnant with his child has been sentenced to 65 years in prison."
sounds just like the type of story that people who live in trailer parks love so much
there's probably a cable channel just for anti-social people like you
"A Department of Justice inquiry into Hillary Clinton that began after conservatives demanded more investigations into the former Democratic presidential candidate is reportedly ending with no actual results.
Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed U.S. Attorney John Huber in 2018 to look into concerns raised by President Donald Trump and his Republican allies that the FBI did not properly look into Clinton’s involvement in a uranium deal while she was secretary of state in the Obama administration.
Huber allegedly reviewed documents and spoke with federal law enforcement officials in Arkansas who were handling an investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Though the inquiry has not formally ended and no official notice has been sent to the Justice Department or to Congress, Huber has effectively finished his assignment and found nothing worth pursuing."
well, she was allowed to delete all her emails, which is where the evidence lies
"The State Department did not have the power to unilaterally approve or reject the sale, and Clinton was not actually directly involved in the approval process."
an ignorant statement
"The original FBI investigation into whether Clinton had ties to the deal found no evidence of wrongdoing,"
was that run by James Comey?
"Huber’s effective conclusion of his review is likely to anger many Republicans who hoped the top prosecutor from Utah would validate their long-held conspiracy theories about Clinton."
this is called media bias
instead of reporting facts, they make an unsubstantiated negative supposition about the future
I doubt any Republicans will be "angered"
certainly not as angered as Dems are at Nancy Pelosi
"Attorney General William Barr, a Trump nominee who succeeded Sessions, has previously supported the president’s call to investigate Clinton"
it was suspicious and worth looking into
much like why Biden's son was paid over a million a year by Ukrainian interests while his father was VP and the point man in Ukraine
"and has questioned the need for Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election."
there was never any justification for the investigation
the whole thing was the fault of the slimy Jeff Sessions
"But Trump has largely shifted his focus away from Huber’s investigation and toward U.S. Attorney John Durham’s review of the origins of the Russia investigation, which concluded with a report that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election in order to help Trump win."
"interfere" is a purposely ambiguous term
running ads is something anyone is permitted to do under the Constitution, even people who lie
Russia has always done it
it's treated with such gravitas by the media now because, for the first time since WWII, the Russians favored the GOP rather than the Dems
"Barr appointed Durham to the review last year, though he allegedly sees no evidence so far that the Russia probe was a setup by intelligence officials, as Trump claims."
this statement has no basis whatsoever
remember when the Dems were telling everyone all the things Mueller was going to discover?
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha !
"they make an unsubstantiated negative supposition about the future"
I see, but making unsubstantiated negative suppositions about the past are perfectly fine.
When are you idiots ever going to learn your conspiracy theories have more holes than a machine gun shooting victim?
"it was suspicious and worth looking into"
That's why a bunch of people Mueller investigated ended up in jail - funny how that works.
"it's treated with such gravitas by the media now because, for the first time since WWII, the Russians favored the GOP rather than the Dems"
That's just another one of your half-baked conspiracy theories. The Russians have never liked liberals, much less liberal Democrats. They have never been big on the whole "democracy" thing. Intellectuals and independent thinkers are the hated "elites" of their country they like to suppress just like Republicans want to do here. They're much more comfortable with authoritarians like the ones Evangelicals put into office.
Russians know what everyone knows about authoritarians - authoritarians don't give a damn about their country or their people - they're in office to make the most profit for themselves. Trump's business makes millions of dollars every time he needs "executive time" at one of his golf courses. Emoluments, schmoluments.
Those are just the right kind of people that Russia has perfected the art of the deal with - money talks - liberals and democracies can walk.
"this statement has no basis whatsoever"
That's never stopped you from posting your drivel.
I hear Clinton's e-mail server is in the basement of a Pizza Parlor. It probably has boatloads of info in Biden's Ukrainian dealings. Sounds suspicious. You should investigate it.
The number of Veterans with PTSD varies by service era:
Operations Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Enduring Freedom (OEF): About 11-20 out of every 100 Veterans (or between 11-20%) who served in OIF or OEF have PTSD in a given year.
Gulf War (Desert Storm): About 12 out of every 100 Gulf War Veterans (or 12%) have PTSD in a given year.
First-year treatment alone for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans treated through the VA costs more than $2 billion, or about $8,300 per person. Health care costs for veterans with PTSD are 3.5 times higher than costs for those without the disorder.
"I see, but making unsubstantiated negative suppositions about the past are perfectly fine"
apparently, you don't see
first, can we assume that you are conceding that your negative supposition was unsubstantiated?
as far as "unsubstantiated negative suppositions about the past" goes, here's an idea:
give us some f'ing specific examples of what you're referring to in this demagogic generalization
it's as bad as your unsubstantiated negative suppositions about the future
"When are you idiots ever going to learn your conspiracy theories have more holes than a machine gun shooting victim?"
how does someone who completely bought in to the Russian collusion hoax have the nerve to criticize anyone else's conspiracy theories?
fact of the matter is I don't possess any "conspiracy theories"
"That's why a bunch of people Mueller investigated ended up in jail - funny how that works."
people who wound up in jail were not convicted of doing anything that Mueller was charged with investigating
"That's just another one of your half-baked conspiracy theories. The Russians have never liked liberals, much less liberal Democrats."
the current Dem front-runner in Iowa and NH honeymooned in Moscow
Russia paid Bill CLinton a million dollars to give a speech while his wife ran the State Dept
"They have never been big on the whole "democracy" thing."
neither are Democrats
they advocate the same governmental social engineering that Russia tried for so long
"Intellectuals and independent thinkers are the hated "elites" of their country they like to suppress just like Republicans want to do here."
the idea that anyone's view in America is suppressed is ludicrous
go in to any museum book store in Washington and you will find tons of propaganda pushing liberalism
"They're much more comfortable with authoritarians like the ones Evangelicals put into office.
Russians know what everyone knows about authoritarians - authoritarians don't give a damn about their country or their people - they're in office to make the most profit for themselves. Trump's business makes millions of dollars every time he needs "executive time" at one of his golf courses. Emoluments, schmoluments."
this is all a bunch of hollow assertions that will be dismissed by Americans next November when either authoritarian Bernie or authoritarian Pocahontas advocates governmental confiscation of Americans' wealth and governmental control of every moment of our lives
hey, did you read the latest Gallup poll?
in 2018, 26% percent of Americans called themselves "liberal" and 35% called themselves "conservative"
in 2019, 24% percent of Americans called themselves "liberal" and 37% called themselves "conservative"
this in a year when the Dems and the media went on an all-out blitz against the GOP, demonizing prominent Republcians, and even impeaching the President without any accusation of criminality
furthermore, this trend is happening in every group, including the Dem Party itself
the move to conservatism is broad-based and beginning to unite our country
when will the media catch on?
"That's never stopped you from posting your drivel."
to be clear, you admit your statement was without basis, right?
"I hear Clinton's e-mail server is in the basement of a Pizza Parlor. It probably has boatloads of info in Biden's Ukrainian dealings. Sounds suspicious. You should investigate it."
Clinton's server was destroyed by James Comey's FBI
although, obviously, hostile foreign governments worldwide have copies of her emails
"Larry Craig, Joe Barton, Newt Gingrich, Bob Livingston, Denny Hastert, Rob Porter, Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump and his FOXY friends Bill O'Reilly, Roger Ailes"
yes, these scandals affects both sides
I never said otherwise
I simply countered your implication that Trump is uniquely abusive
"First-year treatment alone for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans treated through the VA costs more than $2 billion, or about $8,300 per person. Health care costs for veterans with PTSD are 3.5 times higher than costs for those without the disorder."
I suppose this is a lame attempt to rationalize the costs of AIDS treatments for HIV-positive soldiers
the difference is that soldiers with PTSD acquired it serving their country
soldiers with AIDS acquired it. let's say, in another way
Never put a time limit on your doomsday predictions.
This rookie error has been the undoing of charlatans, cultists and false prophets through the ages, from Martin of Tours, who predicted that the world would end by 400, to Harold Camping, who claimed it would happen on Sept. 6, 1994.
The latest poor saps to join the oops club are the authorities in charge of Montana’s Glacier National Park. For years they’ve been warning on their visitor signs that their main attraction, the glaciers, would be “gone by 2020.” Instead, it’s those misleading signs that have had to go, because 2020 has now arrived and those pesky glaciers, all 29 of them, remain stubbornly unmelted by climate change.
You can tell that the National Park Service is secretly embarrassed because it has been trying to replace the signs by stealth. It began doing so last year but was rumbled by a visitor, Roger Roots, who reported the skullduggery at the website Watts Up With That?
Glacier National Park recently confirmed the changes to CNN but is maintaining a defiant public face. Its signs will now say: “When they [the glaciers] will completely disappear depends on how and when we act. One thing is consistent: The glaciers in the park are shrinking.”
But in truth the new signs are no more accurate than the old ones. First, some of the glaciers have expanded, not shrunk, in the last decade.
Second, “how and when we act” will not make much difference to the world’s glaciers. They have been retreating since 1820 — long before the 20th-century explosion in man-made CO2 emissions. This strongly suggests that glacial retreat is the result of natural causes — the end of the Little Ice Age — rather than of so-called “anthropogenic global warming.”
The National Park Service is not the only institution to have been caught out by the failure of “man-made climate change” to accord with the alarmists’ predicted time schedules. Also left red-faced this year was the Pentagon, which in 2004 warned that by 2020, major European cities would be under water, Britain would experience a “Siberian” climate and the world would be on the brink of famine and anarchy — all because of our old friend “climate change.”
Spectacularly wrong forecasting, of course, is nothing new. In 1968 Paul Ehrlich warned in his bestseller “The Population Bomb” that by the end of the ’70s “hundreds of millions of people” would have starved to death. This didn’t happen. Nor did he do any better with his famous wager with economics professor Julian Simon about the scarce resources that would dwindle to dangerously depleted levels by 1990. Ehrlich lost.
Plenty of green (or proto-green) and other doomsday predictors — have been proved similarly wrong through the ages: from third-century Carthaginian priest Tertullian and 18th-century economist Thomas Malthus (both of whom predicted population growth would outstrip the planet’s ability to feed humanity) to Rachel Carson (who warned of a cancer epidemic due to pesticides); from Peter Wadhams, the Cambridge professor who predicted summer Arctic ice would be gone by 2015 (it’s still there) to the Prince of Wales, who warned in 2009 that there were just “100 months” to save the world from climate change (but then had to extend the deadline, Harold Camping-style, when doomsday failed to materialize).
Given all this, you might be tempted to wonder why any of the supposed experts predicting imminent environmental catastrophe still get taken seriously. Part of the reason, I suspect, is that the mainstream media has an insatiable appetite for doomsday predictions (however ridiculous) — and less enthusiasm for stories about how we’re all doing pretty OK.
Mainly, though, it’s because we’re living through an era of green groupthink when even institutions that ought to know better have been overwhelmed by enviro-doom scare narrative.
Perhaps, after so many embarrassments, 2020 will be the year the tide finally turns
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump suggested in a Fox News interview Friday that he would invoke executive privilege if former national security adviser John Bolton was subpoenaed for the Senate impeachment trial.
Bolton said earlier this week that he is "prepared to testify" in the trial – if he's subpoenaed by the Republican-controlled chamber.
"I have concluded that, if the Senate issues a subpoena for my testimony, I am prepared to testify," Bolton stated.
Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham asked the president in an interview whether he would block Bolton from testifying.
"You can’t be in the White House as president — future, I’m talking about future, any future presidents — and have a security adviser, anybody having to do with security, and legal, and other things," Trump said.
"Are you going to invoke executive privilege?” Ingraham asked pointedly.
“Well I think you have to for the sake of the office,” Trump replied.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that the House will send articles of impeachment against Trump to the Senate next week, paving the way for a trial in the Senate to begin...
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he plans to move quickly to begin a trial once he has received the articles from the House. He has rejected demands from Democrats to approve witnesses before the trial.
----------
Moscow Mitch, majority leader of the Republican-led Senate, said he is working in “total coordination” with the White House on the Senate impeachment upcoming trial.
"Moscow Mitch, majority leader of the Republican-led Senate, said he is working in “total coordination” with the White House on the Senate impeachment upcoming trial."
that would make sense, considering the partisan actions of Tehran Nancy, "leader" of House Dems
there are no facts in dispute for Senators to get to the bottom of here
it's simply a policy dispute
everyone agrees what happened
1. Trump suggested to the Ukraine that they should investigate the suspicious actions of a son of a Dem running for President
Dems say that is an abuse of power, the GOP says it isn't
2. Trump made an appeal to the Supreme Court of Dem subpoenas
Dems say that is "obstruction of Congress", the GOP says it isn't
neither of these is a crime
since there are no criminal allegations, it is perfectly acceptable that McConnell has followed the trial followed the House hearings and read the Articles and has already concluded on the policy disputes, as has any thinking American
Pelosi tried to delay the inevitable but has lost big-time, folding without getting any of her demands fulfilled
ox News host Sean Hannity on Friday threatened to give out phone numbers as he warned Republican senators against allowing witnesses to be called during President Donald Trump’s Senate impeachment trial.
“They now get to present their case to all of you Republican senators, don’t make me start giving out the phone number,” he warned on his radio show in audio published online by progressive watchdog group Media Matters for America.
The primetime anchor, who is a staunch supporter of the president, has repeatedly urged his viewers and listeners to call up elected officials to echo his views in the past.
Hannity continued:
You need to understand here that their sole constitutional role is they get to impeach. They have decided in their insanity and psychosis and rage to abuse that power and bring up what is a noncase. And just politicize this because they’re just obsessed and Nancy Pelosi needed to appease the radicalism rising within her base. That is not what your role is in the U.S. Senate. Your role is also very, very clear: You are to run the trial. That’s it. That’s what your job is. It is not your job, at all, to redo their corrupt investigation.
The House voted to impeach Trump over the Ukraine scandal in December.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) held off from transmitting the two articles of impeachment (abuse of power and obstruction of Congress) to the Senate amid fears of Republican bias in the trial and the White House’s blocking of key witnesses from testifying. On Friday, she announced the articles would be transmitted next week.
"hey, did you read the latest Gallup poll?"
If you want others to read something, you should consider including a link or URL.
Apparently you didn't read the latest Gallup poll either as you cited data from 2018 and 2019. It's 2020.
"there are no facts in dispute for Senators to get to the bottom of here"
If facts are not in dispute, why won't Rump let witnesses to what he did and said testify and why is Moscow Mitch saying there's no need for witnesses?
Because they colluding to COVER UP Rump's impeachable all crimes.
"Trump suggested to the Ukraine that they should investigate the suspicious actions of a son of a Dem running for President"
But we now know there are emails showing that aid was ordered withheld from Ukraine 91 minutes after Rump’s supposedly “perfect” quid pro quo phone call with President Volodymyr Zelenski.
"first, can we assume that you are conceding that your negative supposition was unsubstantiated?"
Nope.
"give us some f'ing specific examples of what you're referring to in this demagogic generalization"
I thought that would be pretty f'ing obvious, but apparently the light level is very low wherever you have you head stuck.
How 'bout Obama's birth certificate for starters, and then the Uranium One "scandal" that turned out to be uranium none. And then maybe you can chime in on how the Parkland shooting survivors were "crisis actors."
"how does someone who completely bought in to the Russian collusion hoax have the nerve to criticize anyone else's conspiracy theories?"
While you were here blasting this website on a daily basis about how liberal media was pushing a collusion "hoax," some of us pointed out that collusion wasn't actually a crime and were quietly waiting for Mueller to finish his investigation. But somehow that is "evidence" to you that I bought into a "Russian collusion hoax."
You have no f'ing clue what you're talking about.
"people who wound up in jail were not convicted of doing anything that Mueller was charged with investigating"
When a cop spots somebody doing something suspicious they don't always know what they're going to find. If he pulls you over for speeding and he sees you trying to hide something under your seat, you may be embarrassed by how messy your car is and are just trying to hide some of the mess. Or you could be trying to hide a gun or illicit drugs. He can't just ignore you acting suspicious when it looks like you could be breaking the law, and a gun could put his life in danger.
When the IRS audits you, it could have been an honest mistake, or you could be trying to hide income - either way, it looks suspicious and they need to investigate. There's no telling what they might uncover - legal or not.
That's part an parcel of how investigations work. You must not get out much because it seems I keep having to explain stuff to someone who has the knowledge of child.
"the current Dem front-runner in Iowa and NH honeymooned in Moscow"
The "honeymoon" was actually a political trip and was arranged by Republican David F. Kelley and included journalists.
The trip to the Soviet Union was, at that time, Sanders’s most significant foreign venture. U.S. relations with the Soviet Union were in the midst of transformation. Just before Sanders departed, Reagan traveled to Moscow for a summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who was pushing for openness and reform. As a result, Sanders muted his criticism of Reagan, praising the summit as “a major step forward for humanity. . . . What we are doing is actually the same thing at a lower level.”
"they advocate the same governmental social engineering that Russia tried for so long"
Actually they don't, but you've never let facts get in your way before.
Why don't you "give us some f'ing specific examples of what you're referring to in this demagogic generalization."
"the idea that anyone's view in America is suppressed is ludicrous"
Then maybe you'll stop your incessant whining about how Christians and conservatives are being silenced by the fascist gay agenda and liberal colleges. But I won't hold my breath.
"the move to conservatism is broad-based and beginning to unite our country"
Somehow I don't think commending white nationalists for being "very good people" is actually uniting this country. Call me old-fashioned, but that's the way I roll.
"Clinton's server was destroyed by James Comey's FBI"
"although, obviously, hostile foreign governments worldwide have copies of her emails"
"to be clear, you admit your statement was without basis, right?"
- You have some evidence right? And not just another conspiracy theory?
If you have more info than this, do let the DOJ know:
"Russian spies began trying to hack Hillary Clinton’s personal email server on the very day Donald Trump urged the Russian government to find emails Clinton had erased, prosecutors said on Friday.
An indictment filed by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, said Russian hackers attempted “for the first time” to break into email accounts used by Clinton’s personal office “after hours” on 27 July 2016.
That day, at an event in Florida, Trump invited the Russian state to search for the approximately 30,000 emails that Clinton was found to have deleted from her private server on the grounds that they were not related to government work."
Iran has admitted its military shot down a passenger jet by mistake. Some members of the Republican party of Canada are calling for sanctions on Iran for this mistake, that would only make the situation worse.
Iran has taken the first steps to being a responsible member of the international community by admitting guilt - something that to this day the United States has refused to do for its shooting down of an Iranian passenger jet in 1988.
Let's place blame for this where it belongs. Donald Trump set the events in motion that led to this passenger jet being shot down.
In a move intended to help his failing bid for re-election Trump decided he'd start a war by killing the #2 in command of the Iranian government, knowing Iran would be obligated to respond and be on high alert for an American counter-attack. If Trump hadn't forced Iran's hand and put them on high alert, this jet would never have been shot down.
Its been impulsive move after another by Trump on the world stage that has destroyed the credibility of the United States and created more enemies of the USA. The United States is a great deal less safe since Trump became president and every day his impulsive and reckless moves intended to help get him re-elected further endanger the United States, and the world itself.
Hillary Clinton has a unique distinction: She has been exonerated twice after extensive federal investigations, the latest entirely unjustified and the result of a politicized Justice Department. President Trump of course was NOT exonerated in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, which found 10 or so categories of conduct that but for the present policy of Justice Department guidelines would serve as the basis for obstruction-of-justice charges. If Trump is defeated in November he can still be criminally charged the moment he leaves office.
But back to Clinton. It may be hard to remember given then-FBI Director James B. Comey’s voluminous investigative report in the midst of the 2016 election, his testimony before Congress and his intrusion into the campaign 11 days before Election Day, but he found no basis she committed a crime. His subjective comments about poor judgment and negligence were entirely irrelevant (and frankly inappropriate for the FBI, which is charged with finding or not finding criminal conduct). The bottom line: Clinton committed no crimes.
That was not enough for Trump. Based on no new evidence but rather on an undisguised personal vendetta, Trump opened up another investigation. The Post reported:
"John Huber, the U.S. attorney in Utah, was tapped in November 2017 by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to look into concerns raised by President Trump and his allies in Congress that the FBI had not fully pursued cases of possible corruption at the Clinton Foundation and during Clinton’s time as secretary of state, when the U.S. government decided not to block the sale of a company called Uranium One.
As a part of his review, Huber examined documents and conferred with federal law enforcement officials in Little Rock who were handling a meandering probe into the Clinton Foundation, people familiar with the matter said. Current and former officials said that Huber has largely finished and found nothing worth pursuing — though the assignment has not formally ended and no official notice has been sent to the Justice Department or to lawmakers, these people said."
The coverage of her exoneration has been minimal. The number of stories such as Clinton cleared in witch-hunt probe or Right-wing accusations debunked has been underwhelming. The legitimate media does not seem interested in asking Trump or other Republicans to acknowledge that their accusations were baseless. You would think legitimate media outlets at the very least would self-reflect on their coverage that often treated long-ago disproved accusations as still unsettled.
The hordes of right-wing media pundits and columnists will not fess up for pushing a blatantly false narrative. Because they are held to such a low standard by legitimate media outlets, the voices in the right-wing echo chamber pay no price for joining in the persecution of Trump’s nemesis.
“One of the most common tools of autocrats around the world is to use law enforcement as a weapon to go after political opponents,” explains Ian Bassin, executive director of the nonpartisan organization Protect Democracy, which has litigated against Trump’s unconstitutional actions. “That this misguided investigation has been brought to an end is a sign the walls of our system are still holding; that it was allowed to happen at all is a sign that Trump’s constant pounding at those walls is producing cracks." Bassin adds, “With a president who has boasted wrongly that he can do ‘whatever he wants’ with the Justice Department, we can’t afford to just hope that sanity prevails the next time — and there will be a next time.”..
Former Clinton adviser (herself a victim of the WikiLeaks email hacks) and president of the Center for American Progress Neera Tanden says, “The full exoneration of Hillary has been a long time coming. But apparently, we have longer to wait for full accountability for the media’s coverage and entire lack of proportion of these ‘scandals.’” She added, “This isn’t academic as we already see signs of the same kind irresponsible coverage again in 2020. It’s ironic that institutions that demand accountability of others offer so little of it for their own mistakes.”
Let’s not forget the Justice Department itself went along with a baseless investigation. DOJ, as even Comey did, should have the decency to affirm publicly the absence of criminal conduct. However, this is the Trump Justice Department, so Clinton should not hold her breath.
“It’s deeply concerning that DOJ may have been used as a political tool for the president-conducting yet another investigation into Hillary Clinton, absent predication,” says former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance. “When the time comes to do the work necessary to restore and strengthen democratic institutions, defining DOJ’s independence from political interference in conducting criminal investigations will be a priority.”
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James Comey's decision-making on the Clinton probe
Here's what we know about former FBI director James B. Comey's decisions about how to end the Clinton email probe. (Meg Kelly/The Washington Post)
Congress is unlikely to see fit to add this instance of abuse of power to the stack of additional offenses that might be the basis for future articles of impeachment. That does not mean Congress should shy away from oversight hearings in which this gross misuse of the apparatus of government was used for purely political purposes.
Simply put, Trump used the Justice Department to conduct a baseless investigation of a political opponent, and no one seems to have been held accountable. Legal analyst and professor Maya Wiley observes: “Targeting power of the state on a person you hate or just simply to distract is absolutely abuse of power and a danger to democracy.”
When the time comes under a future president for a housecleaning at the Justice Department and for referrals to state bar organizations, the Clinton investigation should be included. Lawyers have a responsibility to refuse to initiate or to conduct spurious investigations, as occurred with Trump’s inquest into Clinton. That said, at least Clinton can tout her two exonerations. Trump doesn’t have even one.
"Hillary Clinton has a unique distinction: She has been exonerated twice after extensive federal investigations, the latest entirely unjustified and the result of a politicized Justice Department. President Trump of course was NOT exonerated in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, which found 10 or so categories of conduct that but for the present policy of Justice Department guidelines would serve as the basis for obstruction-of-justice charges."
Congress isn't bound by "present policy of Justice Department guidelines." So, why didn't they didn't they impeach Trump on "obstruction-of-justice charges"?
When Mueller made this statement in his report, he was on his crazed interpretation of term. Truth is, Trump cooperated with Mueller probe to an ordinary extent. Hillary, on the other hand, destroyed emails and was not exonerated by Comey, as you recall. She was guilty of mishandling classified information. He simply chose not indict, although that was never his call to make.
Truth is, Trump has been the subject of two major probes: the unjustified Russian collusion hoax and the misguided Ukraine farce. And Congress has not uncovered any criminal charges with which to impeach him. And, it wasn't for lack of trying.
Sounds like exoneration.
“Situation quiet. The captain has been put away for the night.” The words from the movie “The Caine Mutiny” came to mind on Friday when House leaders announced that Speaker Nancy Pelosi would not move until next week in submitting the impeachment of President Trump to a Senate trial. While various Democrats have publicly grumbled about the delay, going into its fourth week, without any sign of success in forcing the Senate to call witnesses, Pelosi continued a strategy that could jeopardize not just any trial but the rules governing impeachment. Indeed, Pelosi may force the Senate into a couple of unprecedented but well deserved rulings.
From the outset, the ploy of Pelosi withholding the House impeachment articles was as implausible as it was hypocritical. There was no reason why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would make concessions to get an impeachment that he loathed. More importantly, just a couple of days earlier, House leaders insisted that some of us were wrong to encourage them to wait on an impeachment vote to create a more complete record. Pelosi previously insisted that House committees could not pursue direct witnesses like former national security adviser John Bolton because there was no time to delay in getting this impeachment to the Senate. She then waited a month and counting to send the articles over to the Senate.
The delay now seems largely driven by a desire to preserve the image of Pelosi as a master strategist despite a blunder of the first order. Senator Dianne Feinstein expressed the frustration of many members in saying, “The longer it goes on, the less urgent it becomes. So if it is serious and urgent, send them over. If it is not, do not send it over.” But she and other members were quickly pressured to “correct” their earlier statements by stating the exact opposite and praising the brilliant strategy of Pelosi.
Perhaps the most pathetic change was House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, who correctly stated, “At the end of the day, just like we control it in the House, Mitch McConnell controls it in the Senate. It does not look like that is going to happen. I think it is time to send the impeachment to the Senate and let Mitch McConnell be responsible for the fairness of the trial. He ultimately is.” It took just a few hours for Pelosi to get Smith to say that he “misspoke” and praise her inspired strategy.
Now what started as a demand to guarantee Senate witnesses has been downgraded to a demand to “know the rules” while waiting for the Senate to take a vote that it indicated weeks ago. In the alternative, sympathetic media figures insisted that Pelosi succeeded in “forcing a discussion” of Senate witnesses despite the fact that we had the same discussion in the trial of Bill Clinton without the House deciding to withhold the articles.
The fact is that Pelosi played into the hands of McConnell by first rushing this impeachment forward with an incomplete record and now giving him the excuse to summarily change the rules, or even to dismiss the articles. Waiting for the House to submit a list of managers was always a courtesy extended by Senate rules and not a requirement of the Constitution. By inappropriately withholding the articles of impeachment and breaking with tradition, Pelosi simply gave McConnell ample reason to exercise the “nuclear option” and change the rules on both majority voting as well as the rule for the start of trials. That is a high price to pay for her vanity.
It could get even worse for the House case. The Senate has an excuse to simply declare that a trial will start next week and either the House will appear with a team of managers or the case will be summarily dismissed. McConnell is now moving toward a summary vote in the Senate, in light of the House failing to comply with its own procedural obligations. That is what happens when prosecutors defy a court and fail to appear for a trial. It is known as “dismissal for want of prosecution.”
The Senate also is faced with two threshold problems that could create lasting damage to this process. First, the obstruction of Congress count raises a troubling position that a president can be impeached for going to the courts rather than turning over evidence, even when the House set a ridiculously brief period for an investigation. The Senate could summarily reject that article as making the request for judicial review into a high crime and misdemeanor while allowing little time for deliberation. Second, if the Senate agrees to the Democratic demand for witnesses, it invites future rush impeachments where the House sends woefully incomplete and inadequate cases and demands witnesses it never bothered to subpoena, let alone compel to appear.
The Senate is, therefore, caught in a tough position of enabling the House in such slipshod impeachments or refusing to hear witnesses who, unlike the witnesses called by the House, could have direct evidence to share on the allegations. One possibility is that, as in a real court, the Senate could allow witnesses but give the House a set trial schedule. If the House wants to belatedly go to court to try to enforce a subpoena, the Senate will hear the testimony of witnesses like Bolton when that expedited litigation is complete. However, it will not extend the trial schedule of the Senate.
Trials will usually last a fraction of the time of an investigation, but few investigations are as hurried or heedless as the House investigation was. The House wasted four months after the whistleblower complaint without issuing a subpoena to Bolton or Rudy Giuliani or others. Had it sought to compel such subpoenas, it would have had rulings from the courts by now. Indeed, it took only three months for the appeal over the Watergate tapes to be ruled on by the Supreme Court in the case of Richard Nixon.
The Senate could set a generous period for the trial of three weeks. That is in addition to the four weeks the House wasted on the poorly conceived ploy by Pelosi. If the House is ready to present these witnesses, they can be heard. But if those witnesses are not ready to testify due to ongoing litigation, they will not be called and the Senate will proceed to its verdict. In that way, future Houses are now on notice that it is in their interest to complete their records before sending an impeachment to the Senate.
It would send a message for future impeachments, as the author Herman Wouk wrote, “Remember this, if you can. There is nothing more precious than time. You probably feel you have a measureless supply of it, but you have not. Wasted hours destroy your life just as surely at the beginning as at the end, only in the end it becomes more obvious.” It is now obvious.
The central theme to any version of christianity or islam is their god eternally tortures people for finite crimes.
When that kind of infinite injustice is the bedrock of your religion its pretty tough to make your religion a positive influence on the world.
what a difference a weekend makes!
last week, uninformed morons were accusing Trump of setting us on the path to WWIII
now, events have revealed the nature of the evil Iranian state
a crazed SAM operator shot down a jet full of innocent Canadians by accident
imagine what kind of accident might happen if they had nukes
the British ambassador was arrested when he went to a vigil for the victims
Iran called that anti-government activity
now, Europe is denouncing Iran
Iranians citizens are marching in the streets to demand regime change because the Ayatollah lied about the cause of the plane crash
the Iranian government is livid because the US is strangling them with crippling sanctions
but they have no friends
China? they have their own Trump problems
which will be over when they clean up their act
U.S. health system costs four times more to run than Canada’s single-payer system
In the United States, a legion of administrative healthcare workers and health insurance employees who play no direct role in providing patient care costs every American man, woman and child an average of $2,497 per year.
Across the border in Canada, where a single-payer system has been in place since 1962, the cost of administering healthcare is just $551 per person — less than a quarter as much.
100 million Americans have pre-existing health conditions. Obamacare gives these Americans the right to health insurance at no additional charge despite their pre-existing conditions.
Republicans are fighting tooth and nail in court to take away the right to health care insurance for those with pre-existing conditions.
Last week, they wouldn't stop fulminating about the risk of war resulting from President Trump's ultimately resolved and successful strike against the Iranian regime.
Then, over the weekend, Democratic leadership went radio silent as democratic protesters took to the streets of Iran.
George Stephanopoulos attempted to challenge Nancy Pelosi on the party's about-face, asking the nation's most powerful Democrat if she supported the protesters and if "it would be a good thing" if they succeeded in overthrowing their oppressors.
"Well, the regime — the protesters are — are protesting, as I understand it, this brand of protesters, about the fact that that plane went down. And many students were on that plane. And these are largely students in the street," Pelosi said. "I think the Iranians should have not had commercial flights going off when there was."
When the ABC News anchor pushed back on her apparent dismissal of those challenging the regime, Pelosi doubled down.
"Taking down this plane is a terrible, terrible tragedy. And they should be held accountable for letting commercial flights go at a time that was so, so dangerous," Pelosi said. "But there are different reasons why people are in the street. Of course, we would love to see the aspirations of the people of Iran realized with a better situation there, but escalating the situation — unless we’ve exhausted every other remedy ..."
Pelosi's prevarication is Orwellian, in that it both denies reality and expresses approval of authoritarianism. As journalist Yashar Ali pointed out in a thread calling out Democratic silence, Iranians are hardly livid about Trump taking out Qassem Soleimani, a man responsible for the oppression and murder of countless Iranians and their Syrian and Yemeni neighbors.
Democrats were right to be wary of war, but that question has already been resolved. Trump successfully took out one of the most successful terrorists on the planet and then allowed the Iranians to save face with an ineffective retaliatory attack. So, while they focus on the rightful legislative limitation of executive war powers, Democrats ought to redirect their Iranian efforts to express solidarity with the courageous protesters calling out the Iranian regime's lies.
Yet, they refuse to.
Over the weekend, the only Democratic presidential contenders to publicly pledge support to the protesters — who, again, are risking their lives in the pursuit of liberty — were Joe Biden and long shot, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
So, we got one tweet that included a dig at a domestic political adversary and another that sounds like it was written with a Glock to the head. Support for democratic protesters should be instinct, not something that comes only with reluctance. And yet the authoritarian Left's stranglehold over Democratic leadership mixed with the party-wide Trump derangement syndrome has culminated in half of the nation's political leadership all but turning their backs on one of the most passionate pro-democracy movements on the planet right now.
Where is New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the supposed Democratic superstar who refuses now to back a democratic movement abroad? Where is Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who backs the boycott, divest and sanction movement against Israel because it's "driven by the people," but not a democratic movement quite literally driven by the people of Iran?
And where are all the other presidential hopefuls who want to unseat this guy?
Yes, Trump spent Monday morning retweeting a string of nonsensical and petty boomer memes and smears about his challengers. But the rest of the world will simply hear the silence of his competitors, Democrats in name only.
The sorry descent of former Vice President Joe Biden into identity politics on the campaign trail signals that the Democratic Party of Tip O’Neill and Bill Clinton is over and done with forever.
The pull of group resentments in the party is too strong.
Last summer, Biden staked his place in political correctness, and he hasn’t let up since then.
When Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) charged Biden with flirting with racism in his rejection of busing many decades ago, a clear line was there for him to draw. Would Biden fall on the defensive and back off on his former opposition to busing, or at least soften and rationalize it?
Or would he reassert his position against busing on the grounds that the policy interfered too much in the private lives of families (a position well in line with pre-Obama liberalism)?
The first choice would accept the terms of Harris’s accusation. It would also veer into leftist social engineering. The second choice would stick with the standard liberal compromise that favors equality in social affairs but holds back from intruding too far into the private sphere.
This was a key moment in the Democratic campaign. Would anyone resist the identity politics side of the party, which had claimed all the other leading candidates? Would Biden offer voters an alternative to the fixation on race and victimhood that the others were advancing on the stump?
Here is what Harris said after an opening statement about her own experience of being bused to school in Berkeley when she was a child:
But Vice President Biden, do you agree today, do you agree today that you were wrong to oppose busing in American then? Do you agree?
And here is how Biden responded:
I did not oppose busing in America. What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education. That’s what I opposed.
When Harris brought up the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), Biden maintained his self-defense:
I have supported the ERA from the very beginning when I ran—I supported the ERA from the very beginning. I’m the guy that extended the Voting Rights Act for 25 years. We got to the place where we got 98 out of 98 votes in the United States Senate doing it. I have also argued very strongly that we, in fact, deal with the notion of denying people access to the ballot box. I agree that everybody wants the—anyway, my time is up, I’m sorry.
His response amounted to one thing: “No, no, I’m not a bad guy—I’m a good guy, really I am.” It was hard to watch. This was a time for vigor and conviction, which Harris certainly possesses, not dithering and explanation. But Biden couldn’t hold firm. He forgot a fundamental rule of debate: when someone attacks you, don’t explain yourself; you must turn the allegation back upon the accuser.
Here is what Biden might have said: “Senator Harris, while you were a child, I was supporting the very programs that gave you the opportunities that brought you to the Senate. To push for busing back then would only have increased public reaction against programs of racial justice and hurt you and your family. Busing was one of the most unpopular policies ever devised. I opposed it then, I oppose it today, and I’ll oppose it tomorrow.”
Had he done so, Biden would have jumped 10 points among Democrats. He might also have peeled off working-class white voters from President Trump who are sick and tired of being condemned as bigots. But he couldn’t do it. His forgettable reply proved that the old liberalism from which Biden took his politics is in permanent retreat.
Democrats can’t be Martin Luther King-style, content-of-character liberals anymore. They can’t hold to the liberal premise of individual rights, not when group identity has become the first determination of who and what a person is. Liberalism has succumbed to leftism.
Joe Biden has gone so far as to say that males who identify as female and who commit crimes should be jailed in women’s prisons.
That's insane, and enabling insanity!
Biden was Clintonian liberalism’s last chance to hold off progressive zealots Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
He catapulted to the top of the field as soon as he entered the race precisely because many Democratic voters wanted a liberal politician who hadn’t plunged so deeply into identity politics.
They preferred a figure who came off as normal, an answer to erratic characters taking up airtime—Nancy Pelosi bumbling through press conferences, Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) as Spartacus, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) shrieking about impeachment, and Beto O’Rourke on tabletops.
They could only have shaken their heads when they heard what Biden said in an interview in August: “White folks are the reason we have institutional racism. There has always been racism in America.”
This was more like Stokely Carmichael than Bill Clinton. It failed the Democrats in 1972, and it likely will fail in 2020.
Nevertheless, the outcome is clearer every day: the old fashioned liberal has no more fight in him. He is a victim of his own liberal guilt, pressed by relentless leftists to show his fealty to the cause. It is impossible to imagine any Democratic candidate having a Sister Souljah moment, named for the time when Bill Clinton rejected the militant black denunciation of white people—and found it helped him with the voters.
Michael Bloomberg, another 20th-century liberal, couldn’t do it, either.
He joined the race in November, but not before apologizing for the stop-and-frisk policies he continued in New York City after succeeding Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
It was not enough to say that stop-and-frisk was a misconceived program of crime-fighting. He had to show penance:
"Over time, I’ve come to understand something that I long struggled to admit to myself: I got something important wrong, I got something important really wrong. Today, I want you to know that I realize back then I was wrong, and I’m sorry."
It’s the wrong calculation, a loser’s choice, but that’s not the main problem.
As liberals cave to leftists, they inch American society ever further into tribalism. They are destroying what’s left of the civic realm, making everything political, everything a competition of identities. And nobody in the Democratic Party has the will or the power to stop them.
On Friday, Nancy Pelosi caved, again, saying she will send the articles of impeachment to the Senate in a few days.
Iran on Saturday admitted to shooting down a Ukrainian passenger plane while confirming that its response to President Trump's strike on terror chief Qassem Soleimani has concluded.
Here's things at the end of a momentous week for the Trump presidency and the start of what could be another defining seven days. There's not been proper recognition of the substance and significance of what this president is doing.
It's completely different from what we've seen before. It doesn't fit into the establishment's traditional ideological boxes and that's why they waste our time with pointless political games like impeachment.
We saw the new approach clearly with Iran.
The Democrats, never-Trumpers and their media lackeys lurched wildly from calling Trump weak to branding him a warmonger.
But his strategy has been consistent from day one. He is anti-war, but he is also anti-weak. No, he doesn't want to invade deserts of sand like the neocons, but he doesn't want to put his head in the sand, like the isolation nuts, either.
It was the same over Syria -- withdrawing troops from a conflict that is someone else's business, but a missile strike if you use chemical weapons.
You saw it with North Korea -- fire and fury and then historic negotiations.
The same with China. Tough tariffs, but look at what's happening this week. They're coming here to sign a deal.
This is the Trump Revolution: Pragmatic, non-ideological. He approaches issues as a problem-solving businessman.
It's actually a revolution in ideas and it goes way beyond foreign policy. He is combining the best of traditional conservative ideas with positive populism, appointing conservative judges and leading the way on criminal justice reform, cutting taxes and boosting family leave.
Cutting regulations, by the way, given a massive boost last week with new plans to reform the environmental bureaucracy that's blocking infrastructure construction and cutting low wage immigration.
The result? Well, we know the story by now, but we see new chapters every month.
The establishment Republican Party is not coming back. It is dead, killed by their policy failure and Donald Trump's policy success.
Another positive jobs report on Friday. Unemployment again at a 50-year low.
And here's the most important part: earnings rising, not just for everyone, but fastest for the lowest-paid, ending nearly 50 years of stagnation.
So, how are the establishment Republicans reacting?
Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post columnist: Donald Trump ran as a celebrity and has become the worst president in history.
George Will, columnist: Normal, walking around Americans are sad and embarrassed and exhausted.
Steve Schmidt, MSNBC analyst: The vast majority of Americans don't think he is doing a good job, think he is a bad president, think he is compromised by a foreign power, think he is dishonest, which he is, of course, think he is corrupt, which he is, of course, and thinks he is lawless, which of course he is.
Rick Wilson, political strategist: He is an awful representative not only of the Republican Party, but the human race.
Just before the holidays, the never-Trumpers published a manifesto in The New York Times: "As Americans, we must stem the damage he and his followers are doing to the rule of law, the Constitution and the American character."
Who backed the human and economic catastrophe of the Iraq War?
Who brought in the disastrous 1986 Immigration Reform, creating the broken system that Trump is trying to fix?
Who let China into the World Trade Organization, devastating American manufacturing to the point where we literally can't even print Bibles in America?
Who pushed ruling class trade globalism that spawned the disastrous NAFTA, putting so many Americans out of work in the heartland?
And who assaulted the American family with policies that collapsed marriage rates and family stability?
No, not the evil Trump -- it was you, the Republican establishment who did this to America.
These never-Trumpers are apologists for an elitist ideology that is anti-worker, anti-family and anti-community.
So they can write whatever pompous, self-righteous nonsense they want in The New York Times. The establishment Republican Party is not coming back. It is dead, killed by their policy failure and Donald Trump's policy success.
There is no constituency for their ideas, except a handful of opportunists who traded their principles for a contract with the Democrats' cable news networks, where they poop off about the president's tweets while ignoring his policies.
They're like pampered aristocrats in pre-revolutionary France in powdered wigs and fake beauty spots as they witter to each other, "My dear, Trump is so vulgar!"
Well, maybe he is. But if you're someone who has finally got a job after years on the scrap heap, you'll take that over elegant failure.
If you're a patriot who is finally seeing America stand up to China and defend our borders, you'll come to the same conclusion.
After Trump, it will be a different Republican Party. And for American workers, families, and communities, that is fantastic news.
Last week, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department had wound down a Hillary Clinton-related inquiry after finding “nothing of consequence.”
That set off a series of Hosannas from the allegedly non-partisan press, which seems to notice quid pro quos only when they involve a Republican.
A quick review of the flagrantly corrupt dealings of the Clinton Foundation is in order.
When Hillary took the job of secretary of state under President Barack Obama, she promised that the foundation wouldn’t accept foreign donations.
It took in money from at least seven foreign governments.
Documents showed that 85 of the 154 private interests who met with Clinton at the State Department had donated money to the foundation.
Emails unearthed by Judicial Watch showed that Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin – who worked for both the State Department and the foundation – gave “special expedited access to the secretary of state” for those who gave $25,000 to $10 million.
Peter Schweizer’s book “Clinton Cash” exposed other unsavory entanglements between the foundation, government policy, and the Clintons’ pocketbooks.
As the late great columnist Charles Krauthammer put it, the foundation was “a massive family enterprise disguised as a charity” that was intended to help restore the Clintons to power.
All the evidence you need that the Clinton Foundation was a corrupt enterprise is to look at grants and contributions each year, along with relevant developments in Hillary Clinton’s career.
Donations hit $134 million in 2010, the year after she became secretary of state.
They stayed close to that level through 2016.
The moment Clinton lost the election, donations cratered.
They went from $217 million in 2016 to $26 million in 2017.
Just months after Clinton’s loss, the foundation fired 22 staffers and shuttered the Clinton Global Initiative part of the foundation.
As soon as political access to the Clintons became worthless, so did the foundation.
The fact that Obama’s highly politicized Justice Department and the partisan mainstream press didn’t aggressively investigate the foundation on public corruption grounds is hardly surprising.
When Trump took office, he pushed the Justice Department to see why the probe of the foundation went nowhere.
The Washington Post described it as nothing more than an attempt to “mollify conservatives clamoring for more investigations of Hillary Clinton” about “vague corruption allegations” involving the Clinton Foundation.
Vague?
There wasn’t anything vague about it. Compared with the accusations against Trump, the corruption is crystal clear.
What is vague, however, is what the Post was reporting.
While it says that the inquiry by U.S. Attorney John Huber found nothing to pursue, it adds, without explanation, that “the assignment has not formally ended and no official notice has been sent to the Justice Department or to lawmakers.”
Then, buried deep in the story, the Post reports that Huber’s inquiry was limited by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to determining “whether any matters not currently under investigation warrants the opening of an investigation, whether any matters currently under investigation require further resources or further investigation, and whether any matters would merit the appointment of a special counsel.”
The fact that Huber apparently decided that neither a new investigation nor a special counsel was needed, and that Justice didn’t require additional resources for matters “currently under investigation” hardly amounts to a vindication of Clinton.
Nor should it.
Can anyone look at the numbers and honestly say that the foundation was not an influence-peddling machine?
Does anyone believe that the Clintons weren’t aware of this?
Does anyone want to argue that this isn’t a textbook case of public corruption?
Well, yes. Reporters do.
Immediately after the Post story ran, we saw headlines such as:
“Surprise, Surprise: The DOJ’s Hillary Clinton Investigation Has Been a Bust,” and “Clinton investigation was baseless from beginning,” and “Another vindication for Clinton as probe reportedly hits dead end.”
The mainstream press has become a less reliable dispenser of facts and arbiter of truth than the public relations department of the Democratic National Committee.
PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) - France, Britain and Germany formally triggered the dispute mechanism in Iran’s nuclear deal on Tuesday, the strongest step the Europeans have taken so far to enforce an agreement that requires Iran to curb its nuclear program.
Triggering the dispute mechanism amounts to formally accusing Iran of violating the terms of the agreement and could lead eventually to the reimposition of U.N. sanctions that were lifted under the deal.
Iran has gradually rolled back its commitments under the accord. Tehran argues that it has the right to do so.
“We do not accept the argument that Iran is entitled to reduce compliance with the JCPoA,” the three European countries said in a joint statement, using the formal name of the agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Iran has long accused the Europeans of reneging on promises to protect its economy from U.S. sanctions. Foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi dismissed the “completely passive action” of the three countries.
To trigger the dispute mechanism, the three European countries notified the European Union, which acts as guarantor of the agreement.
After months of announcing gradual steps to reduce compliance, Iran said on Jan. 6 it would scrap all limits on enriching uranium.
The nuclear diplomacy is at the heart of a broader confrontation between Iran and the United States, which killed Iran’s most powerful military commander in a drone strike on Jan. 3. Iran has since seen an outpouring of domestic unrest after imcompetently shooting down an airliner of Canadians.
The European countries said:
“Given recent events, it is all the more important that we do not add a nuclear proliferation crisis to the current escalation threatening the whole region,”.
Eight posts in a row after mine - Wyatt and Regina are running scared from what I write.
Hahahahahahahahaha!
"What is the Partnership System?"
Key Guidelines
The partnership/domination lens helps us see where to focus our energies to build better lives and a for a better world.
No society is a pure partnership system or domination system.
The core configuration of the domination system is starkly visible cross-culturally and historically in brutally repressive and violent societies – whether like rightist Nazi Germany in the West or Kim Jong Un’s leftist North Korea in the East, religious, like ISIS in the Middle East or Boko Haram in Africa. More equitable and peaceful societies – whether ancient such as much of our deep nomadic forager past and Çatalhöyük and other prehistoric cultures, or modern such as Sweden, Norway, and Finland – adhere more to the partnership system’s core configuration.
Our brains are shaped by partnership- or domination-oriented environments.
Findings from psychology and neuroscience show that the degree of partnership or domination in our foundational human relations — between women and men, and between parents and children — directly affects how our brains develop.
Partnership- or domination-oriented families are a template for politics, economics, and other social institutions.
Our experiences as children with either partnership or domination relations impact our whole society. They shape what we believe is “natural” in all spheres, from family and education to politics and economics. These connections explain why a top priority of regressive leaders (whether secular or religious, Eastern or Western) is pushing women into subservient roles in rigidly male-dominated, highly punitive “traditional” families. In these families, children learn it is painful to question orders, no matter how unjust, and that abuse and violence by those in power are normal and moral.
Domination systems are not inevitable.
For millennia in our prehistory partnership systems were primary...
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