Tag: congress

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And Just Like That, The Wall Around the Capitol Will be Made Permanent

Hey, nobody could’ve seen this one coming! Oh, wait… – During my weekly Saturday morning interview on NewsTalk 93.1 FM in Montgomery, AL, last week, I told host Greg Budell that we should expect the National Guard troop presence and fencing around the Capitol Building to become permanent fixtures in the nation’s capital. That prediction was based on a number of factors, including my 20 years as a lobbyist and having been in D.C. on business the day after the Clinton Administration shut down the stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue that runs in front of the White House.

That action was taken in September 1994 after a man flew his Cessna 150 airplane into the White House, and was viewed at the time as a reasonable safety measure that all the talking heads on television initially assured the public would be temporary in nature. After all, shutting down that stretch of Pennsylvania Ave. caused an amazing amount of disruption to the city’s traffic patterns given that it was one of the most heavily-trafficked paths between the government part of the District and Georgetown.

But the D.C. cabbies knew different. Every cabbie I rode with on that 3-day trip told me with absolute certainty that they would never be able to drive that stretch of road again. Even though the members of congress and staff I met with that week all assured me that the road would eventually be re-opened, the cabbies uniformly reminded me that once such barriers to public access go up in D.C., they never come down. Indeed, within a year the temporary concrete barriers were removed from the street and replaced with permanent barriers – a Democrat-ordered security wall, for all intents and purposes – and remain in place 27 years later.

Even more, the security measures spread.  Using the plane crash and the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center as justification, within another year metal detectors had sprung up at all executive branch buildings, the Capitol Building, the Supreme Court Building and in all congressional office buildings as well. More barriers to public access.

The January 6 riot at the Capitol will now be used to limit public access to their elected representatives even further in our burgeoning Orwellian police state. The Chief of the Capitol Police – whose members were caught on tape voluntarily allowing rioters to waltz into the Capitol building on that day – kicked off the latest move on Thursday by urging Congress to allocate funds to make the barbed-wire topped prison wall constructed around the Capitol in the wake of that riot permanent.

Because of course he did.

From a story at Reuters:

Acting Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman noted a 2006 security assessment specifically recommended the installation of a permanent perimeter fence around the Capitol.

“I can unequivocally say that vast improvements to the physical security infrastructure must be made to include permanent fencing, and the availability of ready, back-up forces in close proximity to the Capitol,” Pittman said.

But Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, told CNN it was “premature to determine what are the appropriate steps that need to be taken to better secure the Capitol.”

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser wrote on Twitter that “we will not accept extra troops or permanent fencing as a long-term fixture in DC,” but said “potentially volatile events” would require temporary extra security.

The Department of Homeland Security did not cite specific threats in its bulletin, which was issued Wednesday, but said some “domestic violent extremists” may feel emboldened by the Capitol rampage.

[End]

Congress will easily overrule the tepid objections from Mayor Muriel Bowser, a fellow Democrat who will do what the DC Swamp tells her to do in order to be allowed to continue getting rich by holding her office. Note also she says she will not accept “extra troops” and not “any troops”, giving her the ability to say what she meant was that she would not accept any more on a permanent basis than are currently in the District, which by all reports remains in the thousands.

Indeed, the National Guard presence there is being beefed-up yet again due to a claim of a “heightened security threat” issued by Homeland Security. The Chicago Sun-Times reported yesterday that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker alone is sending another 500 National Guard personnel to DC as a result of that suspect claim:

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Thursday he’s activated 500 Illinois National Guard members for a “security mission” in Washington, D.C., that will last until mid-March.

“The U.S. Department of Defense has asked Illinois to assist federal and local agencies in this continued effort, and Major General Neely and I are ready to ensure that the state of Illinois continues its proud legacy of protecting our democracy,” Pritzker said in a statement.

“Ultimately, we must root out the dark forces of racism, white supremacy and disinformation that have created this moment, but until we do that, our extraordinary troops will deploy with honor.”

[End]

I added the bolding there myself, because that justification – an effort to “root out dark forces of racism, white supremacy and disinformation” – is what today’s Democrats and Swampy Republicans believe they can use to justify literally any action they wish to take against the people of this country.

Here is the current expansive footprint of the Capitol fence the Swamp is about to make into a permanent security wall:

May be an image of map

So, walls along the border designed to protect our nation from invasion are, in the minds of the DC Swamp, bad.

But a wall around the Capitol and all of the congressional office buildings designed to limit the public’s ability to petition its elected representatives? That kind of wall is good.

Welcome to Prison State America.

 

That is all.

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever before. Whatfinger.com is the only real conservative alternative to Drudge. It’s the tool I use to help keep up with all the day’s events, and it should be your tool, too.

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Thursday News Roundup: The Trump Administration is Officially Over

Here we see (l to r) Gerrold Nadler, Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi responding to the news yesterday that the barbarians are at the gate:

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Ok, that isn’t really them, but it might as well be.

Isn’t it interesting that the same DC Swamp class of politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists and corrupt journalists who have allowed Big Tech to censor our free speech, just gave $700 billion away to foreign countries while awarding the little people with $600 for their troubles, deprived millions of Americans of jobs and small businesses and shut down our churches and schools under the false pretense of fighting a virus have no suddenly formed a consensus that it’s all Trump’s fault? Funny how that works.

Why, even the former presidents weighed in on the matter:

Hey, remind me what they all got together to say when this happened:

MSNBC on Twitter

That was October 4, 2018, when the Hart and Russell buildings were mobbed by Democrats protesting the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. Members of the Senate like Rand Paul were accosted and physically threatened by these activists in the halls of the Russell building. Wonder what the presidential trio said then. Oh, nothing? Well, of course.

Someone should really let Mitt know that congress has a public approval rating in the low-teens among American adults. – In his self-serving speech during yesterday’s DC Swamp Kabuki theater rubber stamping of the electoral vote, Mitt Romney told his fellow senators that they’re “an extraordinary group of people” & “he’s proud to serve” with all of them. That got a round of applause, because of course it did.

Here’s the biggest tragedy of the day:

The woman shot in that video was Ashli Babbit, a 14-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force. Rabble rousers on social media this morning are squealing either that a) she was a violent criminal who deserved to be shot or b) that her shooting by the lone Capitol Police officer on the scene was a completely unjustified “assassination” of an innocent person.

As is always the case, the video shows that the truth lies somewhere in the middle, doesn’t it? That looks to me like a Capitol Police officer who is being confronted with an angry crowd. He doesn’t know if that crowd is carrying guns, knives or other deadly weapons, but he does know that his job is to prevent the rioters from entering further into the Capitol Building.

Shamefully, some pro-Trump agitators on Twitter and Facebook are spreading the lie that Ms. Babbit was not trying to climb through the window that the video clearly shows her trying to climb through, and that she was murdered by the officer in cold blood while she was just standing around, minding her own business. That’s gaslighting on a CNN scale, folks. If you are helping to spread this and myriad other lies being spread around right now by the rabble rousers on either side, you are part of the problem and you need to stop.

Here is more about Ms. Babbit, from a report at Newsweek:

Ashli Elizabeth Babbit, one of four people who died in connection with the violent riots at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, was a 14-year U.S. Air Force veteran and resident of Ocean Beach, a neighborhood in San Diego, California.

She was “transported to a local hospital where, after all life-saving efforts failed, she was announced deceased,” said Police Chief Robert Contee of Washington, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

The woman began climbing through a broken window near the Speaker’s Lobby at the Capitol building before a single gunshot was heard and she fell back to the ground.

Babbit, who was a high-level security official throughout her tenure with the Air Force, was a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, her husband told KUSI News.

Her previous husband, Timothy McEntee, noted the pair were married from April 2005 to May 2019 and they served in the Air Force together.

Describing her as “a wonderful woman with a big heart and a strong mind” McEntee told The San Diego Union-Tribune: “I am in a state of shock and feel absolutely terrible for her family. She loved America with all her heart. It’s truly a sad day.”

[End]

RIP, Ashli Babbit.

Here’s what needs to happen now if America is to remain a truly civil society: The organizers and leaders of yesterday’s riots need to be identified by law enforcement and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, including being held accountable for Ms. Babbit’s death. It is crystal clear now that at least some of the organizers and leaders of the riot were Antifa terrorists who infiltrated yesterday’s enormous crowd. It is equally clear, however, that many who broke into the Capitol Building were, like Ms. Babbit, Trump supporters.

All of them must be relentlessly hunted down by local, state and federal law enforcement officials and brought to justice.

But I won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen, and none of you should, either.

Meanwhile, in Riot City USA… – Oh, hey, guess what was happening in Portland, Oregon last night?

It was the city’s third officially-declared riot in the first six days of 2021. But, see, that riot’s ok, because it was conducted by “peaceful” Antifa and BLM terrorists. Nothing to see here, folks, move along.

That is the state of today’s America, like it or not.

And this is how it all ends for President Donald Trump, not with a whimper, but with a bang. His presidency still has 13 days to run, but it ended for all intents and purposes when several thousand of his supporters decided to bust through the perimeter fencing that surrounds the Capitol grounds and hundreds of them stormed the building itself along with a group of obvious Antifa agitators.

If the President is lucky and behaves himself, he will be allowed to serve out his remaining 13 days and leave the White House voluntarily. Or, his cabinet and/or might decide to remove him from office using the 25th amendment should he continue to make (rightful) claims of a stolen election.

Like it or not, rightly or wrongly, President Trump and his supporters yesterday handed his enemies the opening they’ve spent the last four years fruitlessly searching for to use to end his presidency. Make no mistake about it: They will use it.

That is all.

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever before. Whatfinger.com is the only real conservative alternative to Drudge. It’s the tool I use to help keep up with all the day’s events, and it should be your tool, too.

Who’s to Blame for the Storming of the Capitol Building? Everyone.

US Capitol building invaded for first time since War of ...

So, where to begin? I suppose the first thing to say is that none of what happened in Washington DC on Wednesday could have come as a surprise to anyone, and there is plenty of blame to be spread around to everyone.

There is blame to be laid at the feet of President Donald Trump for giving a speech to an enormous crowd of Americans who are rightfully angry at what they see as an election that has been stolen from them and their President. Certainly, the President could have ended his speech with an admonition to go in peace, and he didn’t. He is the President of the United States, after all, and he needs to be willing to take responsibility for his own actions.

The President had to know that any violence that took place would be blamed on himself by the media, by the Democrats and by the Swamp creatures in his own Republican Party, regardless of who committed it. It matters not to Trump’s detractors that the ring leaders of yesterday’s assault on the federal Capitol Building were obvious Antifa: The only thing that matters is that several thousand Trump supporters when through the barricades around the Capitol with them.

There is plenty of blame to be laid at the feet of those people as well. We spent the entire summer and most of the fall arguing that rioting and violence is never a justifiable response to injustice as we watched an array of formerly great American cities be looted and burned on national television by Antifa and BLM rioter while the talking heads of cable news assured us it was all “mostly peaceful.” We ridiculed those talking head for that while arguing that these were not protesters, they were domestic terrorists.

Well guess what? You don’t get to argue that when the rioters are the opposition and then forget all about it when the rioters are made up mostly of your allies. Life doesn’t work that way for rational people of good will.

Upon waking up this morning, the radio station I listen to was playing a tape of some NBA basketball player who was absurdly being asked what he thought about yesterday’s events by some doofus sports reporter, and his answer was “Why do y’all keep calling them protesters? F*** that, man, they’re terrorists.”

Sound familiar? Yes, that guy’s a raging hypocrite since he no doubt spend the entire summer and fall referring to the people burning down the local WalMart and looting the Dick’s Sporting Goods next door as heroes.

But here’s the deal: This works both ways.

There is no question that several thousand actual, real Trump supporters breached those barricades around the Capitol Building along with the obvious Antifa agitators. Those people don’t get a pass here. They can’t in a civil society.

But here’s the other side of this: Take a look at this photo:

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That’s Washington, DC. Not from yesterday, but from May 31, 2020. That’s what Antifa and BLM domestic terrorists did to the nation’s capital just 7 months ago, and we all remember how the Democrats and their pals in the corrupt news media portrayed that day, twisting themselves into pretzels of illogic and dementia as they praised the “peaceful protesters” who were “speaking out against injustice” even as cars and buildings burned behind the intrepid fake reporter on the ground.

Those Democrats and corrupt journalists are the exact same people who last night and today have been venting their righteous anger at the President and the Trump supporters who participated in the events at the Capitol Building. If you say they are raging hypocrites, well, you’re right, no question about it.

But if you’re not at the same time condemning the thousands of Trump supporters who really did breach the barricades around the perimeter of the Capitol grounds, then you’re a hypocrite, too. You can’t run around wearing t-shirts that proudly proclaim “Back the Blue” then look the other way when at least two Capitol Policemen had to be taken away from the scene in ambulances. Those folks are Americans with families just like we all are, and they were there just trying to do their jobs.

Joe Biden is also to blame. He came out as the riot was ending and read a speech expressing his own righteous indignation about the riot, saying violence is never the answer and pleading for peace and civility. It was a speech that would have been wonderful if he had had the courage the deliver it 7 months ago as Minneapolis and Chicago and New York City and Washington and Portland and Seattle were being burned and looted by members of his own party, but that didn’t happen, did it? Delivered yesterday, it just rang hollow as it came from a hollow sock puppet who long ago surrendered any moral authority to even speak on the subject.

One of the biggest problems we have now as a society is that there is no one we can trust to tell us the truth. The mainstream news media has invested so much of its time and energy gaslighting the public over the last five years that we cannot believe that anything they report is actually accurate. The same is true of our politicians in both parties and, sadly, of the people who staff the raging dumpster fire of incompetence and deceit that is the FBI and the Department of Justice.

We certainly can’t trust Congress, which very predictably used the riot as an excuse to just speed up the process of declaring China Joe Potato Head Biden as the next POTUS, with Vice President Mike Pence using his gavel to get the deal done. It was all very carefully choreographed, with RINO’s like Mitt Romney getting standing ovations from the Democrats after they spoke.

Naturally, the media started reporting stories based on “sources” that Trump’s cabinet officials were working behind the scenes to build consensus for having him removed from office using the 25th Amendment. You should expect similar messages to come from members of congress today.

In fact, you should probably prepare yourselves for the possibility of that actually happening, given that Republicans like Romney and Elizabeth Cheney would no doubt support the notion. With his speech yesterday, President Trump gave the Swamp a rationale for finally getting what it has pursued endlessly for the last four years: a soft coup d’etat on his presidency.

That is all.

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever before. Whatfinger.com is the only real conservative alternative to Drudge. It’s the tool I use to help keep up with all the day’s events, and it should be your tool, too.

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Do These Nitwits Look Like Trump Supporters To You? [UPDATED]

These are the clowns who led the storming of the House Chamber today and took the dais for awhile:

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Here’s the clown wearing the fur hat with horns at the dais:

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Also, note the tattoo on the hand of the clown dressed in the tan sweatshirt:

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How many Trump supporters have you ever seen with a modified hammer and sickle Antifa tattoo on their left hand?

UPDATE: Oh, hey, horn guy was photographed at a BLM/Antifa rally last summer:

I know, shocking, right?

Riiiiiigggghhhht.

These are not Trump supporters, as the media is uniformly claiming. They are obvious, stereotypical Antifa, who were instructed by organizers to infiltrate today’s protest and dress in this manner:

Image may contain: 1 person, text that says '@KatherineGarth2 Replying to THE_OG_G_Mand @MeidasTouch But just in case. spoke to my Antifa operative in Portland and she said the ones going to DC are going to wear camouflage, cut-offs, and Trump 125 paraphernalia to blend in, but turning their MAGA hats backward for indentification, so feel free to pass along. @onehappyfish 1h ago #millionmagamarch 10, 2020 Twitter #trump2 #holdtheline #conservativehypehouse 23'

That’s what is really happening here. The real Trump supporters marched peacefully down Pennsylvania Avenue and then either milled around or proceeded to disperse.

As is always the case, nothing you are being told by TV news is true. Literally none of it.

As I type this, China Joe Biden is on TV condemning these people under the pretense they are Trump people. You will note that he never one time made any similar statement at any point over the past four years condemning the thousands of incidents of Antifa/BLM violence and destruction.

That failure by not just Biden, but every Democrat and media outlet in America is what leads directly to what we are seeing today. An absolutely inevitable outcome that could have all been prevented had anyone in the Democrat Party delivered a similar speech at any point since their Party literally created and funded Antifa in the wake of the 2016 election.

Anyone who believes that Biden now has some sort of moral authority to calm the waters is living in a dream world.

That is all.

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever before. Whatfinger.com is the only real conservative alternative to Drudge. It’s the tool I use to help keep up with all the day’s events, and it should be your tool, too.

 

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Pence Will Not Object to Fraudulent Biden Electors [UPDATED]

Well, I do hate to say I told you so, but I did tell you this would happen:

Pence released his statement moments after President Trump had delivered his speech to the enormous throng of supporters in Washington DC today. Again, the Veep didn’t really have a choice here: He simply does not possess any such authority under the Constitution or the law. As I pointed out last week, if any vice president truly possessed such powers, John F. Kennedy, George W. Bush and Donald Trump would have never served in the presidency.

Meanwhile, some really angry people are doing this at the Capitol Building:

Are they Trump supporters, as the media will undoubtedly claim? Or are they Antifa?

Good question. If they’re Trump supporters, they’re doing their movement terrible harm.

UPDATE: And here is the result of this insanity – multiple capital police injured by the idiot rioters:

Stop this madness, now.

 

That is all.

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever before. Whatfinger.com is the only real conservative alternative to Drudge. It’s the tool I use to help keep up with all the day’s events, and it should be your tool, too.

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Wednesday News Roundup: Trump Disrupts the Swamp With Veto Threat, Pardons

[After a week in the dumpster with technical issues, DBDailyUpdate is back up and running this morning thanks to the sterling efforts of an excellent firm that provides an array of fully-managed hosting services. I have retained their services going forward, so the days of me struggling to try to get these problems figured out myself are over. 

I had previously considered just taking the rest of this terrible year off, but let’s face it: There’s just too much going on for that to really happen. So, enough small talk: Let’s go to the Wednesday News Roundup.]

Dear Congress: Donald Trump is still your President. Deal with it. – At least, he’s still the President until January 20th, a fact that is causing a great deal of consternation among the Democans and Republicrats in congress this morning, after the President released a 4-minute video clip promising to veto the atrocity of a $900 billion COVID spending bill they sent over to his desk on Tuesday.

That clip and a full transcript of the President’s remarks are contained in a separate post this morning. Suffice it to say, congressional Democans and Republicrats are not real happy this morning as they awake to the reality that their own planned two-week vacations are being interrupted by a POTUS who won’t just sign off on their latest effort to loot the American taxpayer.

President Trump is also threatening to veto the separate, $1.4 trillion defense/spending bill congress also passed on Monday evening. Lindsey Graham tweeted last night that the President would reconsider both vetoes if the bills were amended to include a larger payment to U.S. citizens and to include repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, language that enables the big tech social media monopolies to engage in rank discrimination:

The problem the Democans and Republicrats in congress have here is that, at this point, the President has nothing to lose by vetoing these bills, given the current “official” status of the election outcome, in which China Joe Potato Head Biden has been declared the “winner” by Dominion Systems and corrupt election officials in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada.

President Trump doesn’t have to worry about ever standing for re-election again, and hey, what’s one more bad media day for this man? Yes, unemployment benefits are scheduled to expire on Saturday unless a bill is signed into law to extend them, but the President has placed that ball squarely back in Congress’s court.

So, senators and representatives who rushed out of DC on Monday evening and during the day on Tuesday are probably going to have to rush back out to the Swamp to do a little damage control, and that will not make them happy, not at all.

Cool.

Pardon me? – No, but the President did issue pardons for 15 Americans on Tuesday, including George Papadopoulous, who was one of the main subjects of the illegal spying operation mounted by Obama’s FBI and Intelligence Community against the 2016 Trump Campaign. This is great news, as Papadopoulous did nothing wrong, but was bullied by the Mueller Gestapo into pleading guilty to a meaningless perjury charge back in 2018 in order to avoid his family members being targeted, just as they did to General Mike Flynn.

Other Trump pardons included former GOP congressmen Duncan Hunter and Steve Stockman, demonstrating that even Trump himself is not immune to the political demands of the Swamp. Those pardons were definitely undeserved.

The President also pardoned two former Border Patrol officers who were subjected to an entirely political prosecution over the killing of an illegal alien during the George W. Bush administration. Their sentences were previously commuted by Bush, but these full pardons finally give them some real justice, although nothing can ever undo the harm caused to their lives by the corrupt Department of Justice.

The rest of the pardons are detailed in this Business Insider piece:

Among the former lawmakers Trump pardoned was Duncan Hunter, who pleaded guilty last year to one count of misusing campaign funds. He was sentenced to 11 months in prison but has not yet begun serving out his sentence.

Also on the list was former GOP congressman Steve Stockman, who was convicted in 2018 on 23 felony counts of fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, and false statements. Stockman was sentenced to ten years in prison and ordered to pay more than $1 million in restitution. Trump commuted the remainder of Stockman’s sentence on Tuesday, citing his age, his pre-existing health conditions, and the fact that he contracted COVID-19 while in prison.

…

Trump also granted a pardon to former Rep. Chris Collins, who pleaded guilty last year to making false statements to the FBI and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. He is currently serving out a 26-month sentence.

The four Blackwater guards Trump pardoned on Tuesday were found guilty in connection to a deadly shooting in Baghdad that killed 17 Iraqi civilians. One of the former contractors, Nicholas Slatten, was convicted of first-degree murder and is serving out a lifetime prison sentence. The other three defendants were convicted of multiple counts of voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, and firearms offenses.

…

The two former Border Patrol agents the president pardoned, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, were convicted in 2006 for shooting and injuring an unarmed undocumented immigrant. Their sentences were later commuted by President George W. Bush, and Trump granted them full pardons on Tuesday.

[End]

The real shame in all of this is that Papadopoulous had to wait so long to have his name fully cleared. But that’s how the DC Swamp works.

Fantastic! How can I help? – The corrupt news media will be all verklempt about it, but this is wonderful news for America: Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz are trying to convince President Trump to submit both the Obama Iran Nuclear deal and the Paris Climate Accords to the Senate for ratification:

Graham and Cruz know without any doubt at all that neither deal – which Obama executed as “executive agreements” during his 8-year reign of terror against the American Republic – could possibly garner the 2/3rds approval of the senate needed for ratification, thus killing them completely dead before China Joe Potato Head can assume office and re-implement them as executive agreements.

It’s a fantastic plan, and we should all hope that President Trump takes advantage of it.

Here’s an excerpt from a story at the UK Independent:

Republican senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham have reportedly urged Donald Trump to submit both the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Climate Agreement to the Senate, in a last-minute attempt to stop the US rejoining the accords once the president leaves office.

In a letter obtained by RealClearPolitics, Mr Cruz, from Texas, urged Mr Trump and US secretary of state Mike Pompeo to submit the accords to the Senate before President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on 20 January.

Mr Cruz said that submitting the international agreements would trigger votes to ratify them, which are unlikely to pass with a tight Senate, as they would need the support of two-thirds of senators, according to iran-nuclear-deal-republicans-aim-to-block-biden-rejoining”>The Guardian.

The senator claims that if the accords fail to be ratified, it would effectively block Mr Biden from rejoining them, as he would have to contradict a recent decision from the Senate.

A senior congressional aide told RealClearPolitics that submitting the accords to fail in the Senate “would be the final nail in the coffin.”

In his letter to the president, Mr Cruz wrote: “I urge you now to remedy the harm done to the balance of powers by submitting the Iran deal and the Paris agreement to the Senate as treaties.”

He added: “Only by so doing will the Senate be able to satisfy its constitutional role to provide advice and consent in the event any future administration attempts to revive these dangerous deals.”

[End]

Understand that all Cruz and Graham are advising President Trump to do is to subject these two treasury-looting deals to the normal course of order that Obama should have been required to follow. Constitutionally, this is the process required to commit the United States of America to such international agreements, a process that has been bastardized and corrupted by decades of horrible Supreme Court decisions enabling Obama’s betrayals.

Do it, Mr. President. After all, what have you got to lose?

That is all.

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever before, and Whatfinger.com is the tool I use to help keep up with all the day’s events. Whatfinger.com is the only real conservative alternative to Drudge, and deserves to become everyone’s go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time.

Video/Transcript: Trump Promises to Veto Covid/Defense Bill

Last night, President Donald Trump (I never tire of typing those three glorious words) released a 4-minute video in which he promised to veto the atrocious, $3.3 trillion spending bill sent over to his desk on Tuesday. Congress has already fled Washington, DC in the hopes the President would ignore its mendacity and betrayal of the American public and just sign the bill under the assumption that he plans to concede the election and allow his presidency to wind down.

The President, as has been his habit for the past four years, has other plans.

Below is a video clip of that speech, followed by a transcript of its text.

Transcript:

Throughout the summer, Democrats cruelly blocked COVID relief legislation in an effort to advance their extreme left wing agenda and influence the election. Then a few months ago, Congress started negotiations on a new package to get urgently needed help to the American people. It’s taken forever. However, the bill they are now planning to send back to my desk is much different than anticipated. It really is a disgrace.

For example, among the more than 5,000 pages in this bill, which nobody in Congress has read because of its length and complexity, it’s called the COVID Relief Bill, but it has almost nothing to do with COVID. This bill contains $85.5 million for assistance to Cambodia, $134 million to Burma, $1.3 billion for Egypt and the Egyptian military, which will go out and buy almost exclusively Russian military equipment. $25 million for democracy and gender programs in Pakistan, $505 million to Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. $40 million for the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, which is not even open for business. $1 billion for the Smithsonian and an additional $154 million for the National Gallery of Art. Likewise, these facilities are essentially not open.

$7 million for reef fish management, $25 billion to combat Asian carp, $2.5 million to count the number of amberjack fish in the Gulf of Mexico. A provision to promote the breeding of fish in federal hatcheries, $3 million in poultry production technology, $2 million to research the impact of down trees, $566 million for construction projects at the FBI.

The bill also allows stimulus checks for the family members of illegal aliens, allowing them to get up to $1,800 each. This is far more than the Americans are given. Despite all of this wasteful spending and much more, the $900 billion package provides hardworking taxpayers with only $600 each in relief payments and not enough money is given to small businesses. And in particular, restaurants, whose owners have suffered so grievously.

They were only given a deduction for others to use in business, their restaurant, for two years. This two year period must be withdrawn, which will allow the owners to obtain financing and get their restaurants back in condition. Congress can terminate it at a much later date, but two years is not acceptable. It’s not enough.

Congress found plenty of money for foreign countries, lobbyists and special interests while sending the bare minimum to the American people who need it. It wasn’t their fault, it was China’s fault. Not their fault.

I am asking Congress to amend this bill and increase the ridiculously low $600 to $2,000, or $4,000 for a couple. I’m also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation and to send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package, and maybe that administration will be me, and we will get it done.

Thank you very much.

[End]

That is all.

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever before, and Whatfinger.com is the tool I use to help keep up with all the day’s events. Whatfinger.com is the only real conservative alternative to Drudge, and deserves to become everyone’s go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time.

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Pelosi, Fellow Dems Prove that Cultural Appropriation is Not a Thing Anymore

The Mid-Day Campaign Update

There comes that “T” word again. – Democrats in congress unveiled their own plan for de-funding the nation’s police departments, couching the plan to create societal chaos all across the nation in the warm and fuzzy language they always use to surround their plans to bring creeping Soviet-style communism to America. Check out this video clip:

There’s that word again: Transform. It was Obama’s code for implementing communism used throughout his 2008 presidential campaign, and it has been repeatedly used by Democrats and their corrupt media toadies ever since.

The Democrat plan is to “transform” local police departments in the very same way that they “transformed” the public schools over the past 40 years: By eliminating excellence and dumbing them down to the lowest common denominator.

You don’t have to believe me: All you have to do is listen closely to what they say themselves. Here, for example, is Minneapolis city council member Lisa Bender this morning on CNN:

“Yes, I hear that loud and clear from a lot of my neighbors. And I know — and myself, too, and I know that that comes from a place of privilege.”

Did you catch that? The basis for deconstructing and de-funding local police departments is that the expectation of excellent community policing comes from a place of “white privilege.” Now, any sane and rational and patriotic American who actually cares about this country would attempt to address any inequality in community policing by raising the standards in the neighborhoods who are currently being under-served.

But not the Democrats – oh, no. That is just not the Democrat way, after all, thanks to their allegiance to the teachings of Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky.

No, the Democrat approach is to instead implement policies designed to ensure that literally no part of their communities are in any way safe or secure – thus, making all parts of the community equally awful. It’s all about demonic notions of “fairness” and “equality.”

See how that works?

By the way, that CNN clip is a tailor-made 30-second ad for this Fall’s Trump Campaign. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had an ad up using it by the end of today.

Hey, I’m old enough to remember when the social media outrage mob would have called this “cultural appropriation.”

A bunch of privileged, mostly-white members of congress, most of whom have never set foot in Ghana – where the kente cloth garments they are wearing orginated – taking a knee for 8 minutes and 46 seconds to “honor” George Floyd, a man who also never set foot in Ghana.

So, “cultural appropriation” is obviously not a thing anymore in the wake of the past 2 weeks of demonstrations and looting and burning and rioting. You know, kind of like that whole “social distancing” deal that was all the liberal rage 15 days ago.

By the way, all those members of congress taking the knee? They all live behind walls in high-end communities, have security details and are driven to and from work in limousines. So, if you think that anything they’re planning on doing to you and your communities will have the slightest impact on their personal lives, well, think again.

That is all.

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever. Whatfinger.com is my go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time.

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Congress Declares Itself a Non-essential Entity

The Mid-Day Campaign Update (Because the Campaign Does Not Break For Lunch)

Tell us something we didn’t already know. – Every American should take note of the fact that the United States Congress chose to leave Washington D.C. for well over a full month in the midst of the most severe national and global crisis since September 11, 2001.

This represents absolute dereliction of duty on a grand and unprecedented scale.

Congress has basically classified itself as a non-essential entity. But hey, we’ve kind of known that all along, haven’t we?

Wait. We needed MIT to conduct a study to figure this out? – The New York Post carried a story this morning headlined “MIT study: Subways a ‘major disseminator’ of coronavirus in NYC”.

Excerpt from the report:

The paper, by MIT economics professor and physician Jeffrey Harris, points to a parallel between high ridership “and the rapid, exponential surge in infections” in the first two weeks of March — when the subways were still packed with up to 5 million riders per day — as well as between turnstile entries and virus hotspots.

“New York City’s multitentacled subway system was a major disseminator — if not the principal transmission vehicle — of coronavirus infection during the initial takeoff of the massive epidemic,” argues Harris, who works as a physician in Massachusetts.

You don’t say. Wonder what tipped them off?

Speaking of utter absurdities… – The corrupt news-fakers at Reuters carried a story this morning with this real, actual headline: “China says WHO has said no evidence coronavirus was made in a lab”.

Ok, so, Reuters quotes China, which quotes the corrupt WHO, which Reuters knows is just reciting China’s talking points. The article itself consists of 2 paragraphs containing maybe 75 words, with zero constructive analysis.

No hydroxychloroquine for her! – Just when Fredo gets towards the end of his own alleged recovery period from the Wuhan Virus, his wife allegedly comes down with it:

After demonizing hydroxychloroquine on-air for weeks solely because President Donald Trump has endorsed its use, Fredo mysteriously refuses to discuss what medications he has been treated with to fight the illness. Perhaps his wife will eventually be more forthcoming.

And now a message from your favorite budding James Bond villain:

Texas’s stellar Senator Ted Cruz saw this plaintive tweet from Gates, and responded as only Ted Cruz can do:

Brutal.

That is all.

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever. Whatfinger.com is my go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time.

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The China Virus’s Side Effects: The 2020 Election

The China Virus’s Side Effects: The 2020 Election

Guest Contribution by Larry Schweikart, America’s History Teacher

In September 2019 I wrote that the suicide of the House was complete when it began pursuing a meaningless and infantile impeachment of President Donald Trump. This suicide was, I argued, largely due to the fact that throughout the Bush and Obama years, the House had yielded much of its constitutional authority over it’s greatest stipulated power: the budget. Once that was gone, its very purpose for existing was called into question. When Nancy Pelosi and her Democrat hatchet gang spent the entire first year in power in a game of “get Trump”—while Trump continued to issue executive order after executive order and/or make end runs through the court system he had largely packed by then, the House’s historic role was pretty much finished.

I argued that the wave of Republicans resigning or not running for reelection was a sign that even though they may have held out hopes of winning, it would be meaningless. The House could no longer really do much. It had become the American version of the House of Lords, while, inversely, the US Senate—with its confirmation powers—had become the true place where “it’s happening.”

Now we approach the 2020 elections in the midst of the Corona Virus, better known as the China Virus or Wuhan Flu. Even in the wake of the Democrat House meltdown, not a great deal has changed. Republicans can point to evening the generic ballot, and even leading in some surveys—which in normal times would mean a landslide House victory. And there have been solid candidates recruited for many of the races that flipped in 2018, including both TX seats, OK5, the NJ seats, and the NM seat. Collectively (by my math) these races with candidates who stand to win amount to at most 10 seats.

That would leave the Republicans about eight short of flipping. One piece of extremely encouraging news comes from the CA38 race, where a Republican will win and flip that California state house seat, thanks to that state’s “jungle primary” where the top two vote getters run off in the general. In this case, the Democrats bungled it and allowed the GOP to place 1-2. In November, up to five of the CA US House seats look flippable.

But there are broad headwinds against the GOP. The lesser of these, fundraising, is lagging because of two factors. First is the fact that in most races, candidates aren’t decided yet, and fundraising for a primary is usually harder than against a Democrat. But the second involves the China Virus.

By pushing back so many primaries—as occurred in Virginia this week—Republicans won’t get those candidates until still later in 2020. But the China Virus also slams fundraising. Who can give to House candidates if you are unemployed, concerned about the mortgage, etc.?

On a broader scale, however, the Republicans have a bigger problem. How do you campaign against a House that has done nothing? In “normal” times, that might be an easy task. But in impeachment/China Virus times? It becomes difficult for candidates to say what they would have done differently. Of course, not vote for impeachment. But what else? Since there have been no major issues on which to take a stand (as contrasted with 1994 when the House Bank, term limits, and bringing items to the floor for a vote were key voting issues), it becomes almost impossible to define a candidate differently than the incumbent. Will “I wouldn’t have voted to impeach President Trump” be enough? Probably not.

How do you campaign for a seat that has been rendered nearly meaningless by Pelosi? This is why dog-catcher races are won with totals in the hundreds—because the position is in the overall big picture so insignificant that only family and friends vote. Over a one and a half year period—again, working from a foundation already handed her by the Republicans in the Obama era—Pelosi has made voting for a House seat less meaningful than ever.

There is a little light at the end of the tunnel. Most Democrat incumbents in the “flipped” seats are underwater in their polling. In the Senate races, John James in Michigan is polling better than his opponent. But all incumbents will fare better in this shutdown as their opponents are pre-empted from campaigning at all. For Martha McSally and Cory Gardner, that is good news. The GOP should keep the Senate, and it is entirely possible now that the balance will not change even if both McSally and Gardner lose due to flips from Alabama and Michigan.

It is, ironically, also good news for President Trump. Joe Biden is in lockup—although it is unclear if he is hurt by being in front of people or not—and his approval ratings in handling the crisis are, so far, extremely good. Last week, he went up in every major poll ranging from a whopping 54% approval in the best to 46% in the worse, for an average of over 47%. (He was elected in 2016 with a 46% approval.) Campaigning against Trump’s handling of the China Virus policies is tricky, and Biden already has seen how difficult it is to claim Trump should be doing something different.

Which brings us to “a” likely scenario for 2020: Trump will win convincingly, if not with an outright landslide (probably in the neighborhood of 320-340 electoral votes, adding Minnesota and New Hampshire to his 2016 list). The Republicans will hold the Senate at close to the present margin. But it is entirely possible the Democrats will narrowly hang on to the House. If that happens, they will be incapable of restraining themselves from once again seeking to impeach President Trump on baseless charges. It’s all they know. And they cannot present any true legislation that would in any way advance the nation’s interests because that would rebound to Trump.

Look for two more years of stonewalling from a House seeing its influence and power eroding; more confirmations from the Senate for Trump judges (because, without the House, that’s all the Senate will have); and Trump continuing to work through executive orders and the judiciary with a split House/Senate incapable of stopping him. It is absolutely not what our Founders wanted. But when one branch of government completely abdicates its role, it’s what we get.

Larry Schweikart is a retired professor of history, the co-author with Michael Allen of the New York Times #1 bestseller, A Patriot’s History of the United States, and the president of the Wild World of History, a history curriculum site for homeschoolers and educators (www.wildworldofhistory.com)

 

That is all.

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever. Whatfinger.com is my go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time.

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Good News: Boris out of ICU; Japan De-Coupling From China

The Evening Campaign Update

Great news for a great nationalist leader. – After what was for a while a nip-and-tuck battle with the Wuhan Virus, an improving British PM Boris Johnson was released from the ICU earlier today:

In a statement, a spokesman at 10, Downing Street said Johnson “has been moved this evening from intensive care back to the ward, where he will receive close monitoring during the early phase of his recovery.”

Johnson had been in intensive care for three days after his symptoms for coronavirus worsened. He tested positive for the virus two weeks ago and at first had only “mild” symptoms.

Britons braced Thursday for several more weeks in lockdown as Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s condition improved in a London hospital after three nights in intensive care for treatment of his coronavirus infection.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Johnson was “making positive steps forward” in the ICU at St. Thomas’ Hospital and was in good spirits.

[End]

Bully for Boris, a father of four children with another baby on the way.

Here is what a congress with no Democrats or Chamber-of-Commerce RINOs in charge would be doing right now. – Japan’s parliament included billions of yen in its Wuhan Virus stimulus package that will go towards helping that country’s manufacturing firms to repatriate their factories and operations out of China. From a report at the Daily Wire:

Japan has earmarked hundreds of billions of yen of its coronavirus stimulus relief to go toward helping its manufacturing companies move their production plants out of communist China and back to Japan or to other countries.

“The extra budget, compiled to try to offset the devastating effects of the pandemic, includes 220 billion yen (US$2 billion) for companies shifting production back to Japan and 23.5 billion yen for those seeking to move production to other countries, according to details of the plan posted online,” Bloomberg News reported. “That has renewed talk of Japanese firms reducing their reliance on China as a manufacturing base. The government’s panel on future investment last month discussed the need for manufacturing of high-added value products to be shifted back to Japan, and for production of other goods to be diversified across Southeast Asia.”

The move comes after communist China lied to the world about the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in their country and tried to cover it up, which led to the outbreak spreading like wildfire throughout China and eventually the rest of the world.

“China is Japan’s biggest trading partner under normal circumstances, but imports from China slumped by almost half in February as the disease closed factories, in turn starving Japanese manufacturers of necessary components,” Bloomberg News added. “Japan exports a far larger share of parts and partially finished goods to China than other major industrial nations, according to data compiled for the panel. A February survey by Tokyo Shoko Research found 37 per cent of the more than 2,600 companies that responded were diversifying procurement to places other than China amid the coronavirus crisis.”

[End]

Once all the dust has settled from this COVID-19-caused economic destruction and human misery, the nations of the world, especially the United States, must move to decouple their economies and national security from the inherently dishonest communist Chinese government.  President Trump has made his stance on this matter crystal clear, advocating for decoupling for many years before he ever ran for the presidency.

Any member of congress, regardless of party affiliation, who stands as a roadblock to measure designed to ensure our nation becomes independent of the pernicious influence of the government whose dishonesty caused this current crisis should not only be defeated at the ballot box, but shunned from decent society. This represents an existential moment for the future our country: We can either be a free and prosperous nation, independent of Chinese influence, or we can continue down to the road to becoming a vassal state subject to ChiCom masters.

This is a true moment for choosing, and ordinary American should keep close score on the positions taken by their elected representatives.

The Japanese government led by President Shinzo Abe is setting the early example: There is no valid excuse for America to be left behind.

Japan's Abe to face Trump trade challenge after likely win in party vote | ABS-CBN News

That is all.

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever. Whatfinger.com is my go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time.

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America Needs A Recall Process For Governors, Mayors And Congress

Guest contribution by Gregg Updike

Back in WWII, when we were still looking to win wars and solve things, our military and civilian leadership recognized that a certain number of peacetime generals and admirals were going to fail when the bullets started flying.  History is replete with leadership failures on all levels when push comes to shove.  Even taking out the subversive nature of many of today’s politicians, many otherwise good people are better than others at certain things.

In WWII when military leaders failed, or didn’t meet expectations, basically two things happened:  Culpable inefficiency was eliminated by the complete removal of the deficient officer; others, who fell short, were shifted to positions where their talents were better suited to overall success.  Failed combat leaders often failed because they were “casualty adverse”, or myopic, but they often excelled in training or logistics for example.

Since WWII our military gradually became more bureaucratic, technical, robotic, and political; we have more political (butt kissing first) officers than military (win first) officers.  Consequently, we can win tactical victories against any enemy, but we lose strategically due to politics (political correctness) at the pentagon and on the national civilian leadership level.

Thus we have what is going on when our nation faces new and heretofore unknown threats.  Think of it this way:

Our fifty states represent fifty army divisions led by fifty governors with the mayors being the lieutenants in charge of the various components within the division.  All, by necessity, have a certain amount of autonomy, but they must all fall under a certain overreaching controlling doctrine (set of laws, rules and guidelines/structure) to ensure a relatively uniform response to most anticipated crisis/problems that emerge from time to time.  Some leaders are destined to succeed to various degrees, some are destined to fail to various degrees, in their positions – it is as simple as that.

Unfortunately, in the political spectrum there is – with a few state exceptions – no mechanism to remove or transfer failed or marginal governors, mayors and others in positions of leadership, authority, or responsibility.

For example, the citizens of New York State and New York City must now endure the consequences of electing such marginal leadership and cannot remove it until the next election which is years away.  This China pandemic shows why it is so vital to elect good solid people rather than hacks just because they have certain name recognition, or belong to a certain political party.

Take the NY Governor:

A constant Trump critic who neglected to adequately stock a reserve of medical equipment in past years so he could address (“combat”) the dubious threat of climate change by funding “green energy”.  He probably had problems with Trump’s early Chinese travel ban, then for sure criticized the president for NOT being a dictator and mobilizing the military soon enough.  Now as the actual facts have come out and as certain areas of his state have suffered greatly, he has become one of Trump’s greatest fans – we’re all in this together…

Now politics comes into play: With the disaster that is the Democratic presidential nominating process, the DNC desperately needs a competent (looking) alternative to their current candidates.  Suddenly the New York Governor becomes “gubernatorial”, and praises Trump’s response and actions ON A NATIONAL LEVEL.

Now he is griping and moaning that the TWO TRILLION DOLLAR economic “cure” doesn’t have enough funding (pork) to help New York.  Which is it governor?  Is Trump and Congress doing a good job, or not. Make up your mind.

Take the NYC Mayor:

Bloomberg’s successor, and a marginal mayor to begin with, he actually felt he had a real shot at running for president, until his embryotic campaign crashed and burned.  Also a major critic of the president, he and his health department early on discounted the threat of the China virus and called for massive celebrations in the city’s Chinatown district to celebrate the Chinese New Year.  Now we have this infected cluster in and around HIS city.  Naturally he calls on the federal government (Trump) to fix it, yet still undermines that effort with words and deeds.

To conclude:  There have been many political leaders who have stood up and have tackled this head on and are doing very well, some are doing ok, and some are absolutely failing their citizens.  This threat allows for a very short learning curve, and some leader’s poor decisions are quickly rectified; others are not.  Hopefully, the deficient ones will be removed at their next election.

In the interim, the failed leaders, if they had any decency, would either learn from their mistakes, put politics aside, and get on board and unite for the common good and accept shared sacrifice.  They could also do the right thing and admit that they are not up to the task and resign.  However, in most cases, pride and ego will not allow them to do that.

To conclude, like in the military, we need a recall mechanism to be put in place that would allow for the recall and removal of failed or incompetent leaders and judges, nationwide.  In the past, we could sort of survive poor political leaders and their actions when the threats moved more slowly, or happened very quickly in an episodic nature (9-11 for example), or were known.  That is not the case today.  Many things just move too quickly and need for calm and competency in needed more now than ever.

We need to make sure that we elect the best people to important positions and have the means to remove people for cause when they fail in their duties to protect and serve their citizens.  However, the removal process cannot be for frivolous reasons and recall mechanisms must be put in place that are fair and allow for mistakes and unpopular decisions.

I realize this could become a slippery slope, but our nation cannot continue to be held hostage by individual and near permanent members of congress, judges, and other officials who completely defy the will of the vast majority of the people for years on end.  Several states have recall provisions in their constitutions and occasionally recall attempts are made and some succeed (Gov. Davis of CA) and some fail (Gov. Walker of WI).

The point is, just having a recall mechanism would force politicians and judges to be more aware of and responsive to the needs and desires of the people.  In the states that allow for recall we do not see massive or frequent recall efforts, or political chaos, so, if done right, a recall system could become an important safeguard to liberty and be a big benefit to the country.  It would need to be a constitutional amendment to ensure fairness and consistency.

 

That is all.

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever. Whatfinger.com is my go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time.

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Why Senator Richard Burr May be in Deep Doo-doo

Today’s Campaign Update, Part II (Because the Campaign Never Ends)

Congress’s seamy underbelly floats up to the surface. – On his Fox News show last night, host Tucker Carlson lambasted Senator Richard Burr – chairman of the corrupt Senate Intelligence Committee – and demanded his resignation for off-loading millions of dollars in stock investments immediately after learning of the threat of the coronavirus.

Here’s a clip, followed by a transcript:

Transcript:

You may have seen the news reports this afternoon that the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee sold more than a million dollars in stock in mid-February after learning how devastating the Chinese coronavirus could be. He had inside information about what could happen to our country – which is now happening – but he didn’t warn the public. He didn’t give a prime-time address. He didn’t go on television to sound the alarm.

He didn’t even disavow  the op/ed he’d written just 10 days before, claiming that America was “better prepared than ever for coronavirus.” He didn’t do any of those things. Instead, what did he do? He dumped his shares in hotel stocks so he wouldn’t lose money, and then he stayed silent.

Now, maybe there’s an honest explanation for what he did; if there is, he should share it with the rest of us immediately. Otherwise, he must resign from the Senate and face prosecution for insider trading. There is no greater moral crime than betraying your country in a time of crisis, and that appears to be what happened.

[End]

Now, that’s all great: I have long been a critic of Burr, a useless RINO who has used his chairmanship of the Senate Intel Committee to literally cover up crimes committed against the Trump Campaign and Administration by the Obama-era coup cabal within the DOJ and the Intelligence Community. If he did engage in insider trading then he should resign and be prosecuted.

But let’s be honest here: If you think Burr is the only member of congress who has engaged in this kind of action over the past couple of months, you live in a fairy tale world.

The New York Times ran a report yesterday documenting similar actions by several other senators, including Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). That report is based on financial disclosure statements that members of congress must periodically file. Members are regularly tardy in filing these disclosures, and you can bet the shrinking balance in your 401(k) that we will soon discover that many more members did the same thing.

Some members, when they assume office, shield themselves from this kind of accusation by placing such investments in blind trusts, giving them the plausible deniability of saying that they take no active part in managing their investments. Inhofe, Feinstein and Loeffler all claim that is the case with their investments.

Interestingly, no one from Sen. Burr’s office has made a similar claim at this point. Here’s the statement his spokesperson put out yesterday evening:

“His message has always been, and continues to be, that we must be prepared to protect American lives in the event of a pandemic or bio-attack,” Caitlin Carroll, a spokeswoman for Mr. Burr, said in a statement. “Since early February, whether in constituent meetings or open hearings, he has worked to educate the public about the tools and resources our government has to confront the spread of coronavirus.”

Burr himself took to Twitter to issue a series of tweets about an NPR report covering a speech he made to a group of constituents in February, warning them of the potential impacts of coronavirus on the U.S. economy. Nowhere in those tweets does he attempt to defend his stock divestments.

If Burr does play an active role in managing his own trading, then this is a real problem for him, and helps to explain why Carlson went after him last night, but gave the others a pass.

That is all.

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever. Whatfinger.com is my go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time.

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129 Republicans Disgrace Themselves in House Show Vote on Syria

Today’s Campaign Update, Part II
(Because The Campaign Never Ends)

Remember those Republicans who supported Nancy Pelosi and betrayed the American voters with this vote. – I have very often been thoroughly disgusted with the behavior of spineless, disloyal Republicans in the U.S. Congress, but seldom as disgusted as I felt on Wednesday afternoon.

That was when we got news that 129 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives joined with Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat caucus in a vote to condemn President Trump’s decision to pull U.S. military personnel out of harm’s way as the Turkish military invaded Northern Syria on Sunday. That decision involved about 50 U.S. military advisors who would have otherwise been trapped between the Turkish and Kurdish forces, and another 1,000 or so U.S. personnel who were already well away from the front.

This vote was a shameful act, and I’m frankly embarrassed to see the names of Texans like Kevin Brady, Dan Crenshaw and John Ratcliffe on the list of “yea” votes for this despicable, non-binding resolution. Here is why these were shameful votes: The U.S. Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war on another country. If these posturing, blustering politicians truly feel so horrified by the President’s decision to keep our country’s military personnel safe, and so strongly about siding with the Kurdish forces – who, by the way, regularly make incursions into Turkey against U.S. advice – then they need to man-up and hold a vote on a declaration of war.

Doing what they did on Wednesday is simply political posturing designed to allow them to go tell their voters that they bravely defied the President in a vote that in reality does nothing but provide political support for the Democrat Party. It’s disgusting, and I had hoped that I would not see the three men listed above – whom I have held in high regard – engaging in this sort of political cowardice.

Most Americans have no regard at all for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is a despicable, brutish thug. But the centuries-old conflict between the Turks and the Kurds is every bit as unsolvable as all the myriad other centuries-old conflicts involving various peoples and religious factions in the Middle East. These conflicts existed long before the United States of America was born, and will persist long after the Democrats succeed in dividing the U.S. into two or more separate nations.

They are, in other words, not our problem, and if the last 28 years have taught us nothing else, they should have taught every American that neither our country nor any other nation on earth, no matter how well-intentioned or powerful, is capable of resolving them peacefully. All we are capable of doing is ensuring the ongoing killing takes place in a reorganized fashion.

Donald Trump was elected to the presidency in large part to get our military personnel out of the middle of never-ending conflicts like this one, and that is what he decided to do on Sunday.  He inherited a set of quagmires from his four predecessors in office, holding a mandate from the voters to get our country out of them.

For members of congress, for warmonger John McCain disciples like Lindsey Graham, who are currently wringing their hands about the supposed “rebirth of ISIS,” the way to prevent that being a threat to America is to act on the other main reason why Donald Trump won the 2016 election and pass legislation designed to get control of our damn borders.

In other words, instead of going on Fox News and CNN to channel John McCain and lecture the President about “abandoning our allies,” Graham and Brady and Ratcliffe and Chrenshaw need to be going on those channels and others to pound the Democrats for abandoning the American people.

But that would take political will, something that is always in short supply among Republican members of congress.

Again, here is the link to the roll call on Wednesday’s show vote. Memorize those 129 Republican names, and if one of them represents your district, do something to let them know about your displeasure with yesterday’s abandonment of the American people. Because the 2016 election was a referendum on this very issue, and their side lost.

That is all.

 

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever. Whatfinger.com is my go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time.

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Trump Should Sign the Bad Border Deal and Finish the Wall on His Own

Today’s Campaign Update
(Because The Campaign Never Ends)

Ok, the whole “black face” thing  just very predictably veered off into the theater of the absurd. – Semi-tone deaf pop singer Katy Perry fell into the “black face” controversy on Monday for no good reason at all, because of course she did.  Social media always takes any real issue like the one swirling around Virginia Democrats to the most ridiculous extremes possible.

Ms. Perry has attached her name to a line of shoes, and some, like those pictured above, have little eyes, nose and mouth glued onto them.  Sort of like something your 6 year-old granddaughter might design (trust me, I know about this first hand). Anyway, because the shoes pictured above happen to be black in color, a bunch of nitwits on Twitter desperate to be offended accused the singer of being a racist yesterday.

Never mind the fact that the line of shoes come in a variety of different colors – it’s only the black ones that are somehow offensive. Ms. Perry has yet to apologize, something she should never even consider doing in a million years. Because the truth is this: Had her line of shoes included a variety of colors, but not black ones, she’d have then been accused by the very same nitwits of discrimination. You all know that is true.

The people who know “Beto” best would rather go see Trump. Take this as an object lesson. – When the White House announced last Thursday that President Donald Trump would travel to El Paso for a political rally on Monday, Irish Bob O’Rourke, an El Paso native, quickly announced he would hold a “counter-rally” of his own.

Hearts began to flutter throughout our fake news media – as they always do whenever the cute ex-sheep suit-wearing punk rocker opens his mouth – as the wags began to rampantly speculate that their precious “Beto” would surely draw more people to his rally than the President would. After all, El Paso was his home town!  Why surely the people who know and love “Beto” best would turn out in mobs to hear his immaculate pronouncements!

Uh, well, no. That didn’t happen. Not even close. The fake news media did its best to cover it up, but the reality is that the President had an overflow crowd of 8,000 or so inside the arena in which he spoke, and another 20,000 or so standing out in the elements watching on large TV screens. Here’s a shot of a small part of that outdoor crowd:

Meanwhile, a few blocks down the road, only a couple of thousand showed up to listen to the city’s fake favorite son. It turns out that familiarity really does breed contempt.

But the reality won’t stop the fake news media from lying about it all anyway. The shameless fake newsers at The Week have a piece out this morning with this headline:  “Trump Seemed Very Interested in Beto O’Rourke’s Evidently Larger Crowd During His El Paso Rally,” thus deceitfully implying that Irish Bob actually drew more people than Trump did, something not even the most biased fake reporters on the scene attempted to claim.

How false is that headline?  Despite massively inflating O’Rourke’s actual turnout by a factor of seven or so, The Week’s own piece admits the Trump crowd was far larger:

Trump’s audience inside the coliseum was 6,500, at capacity, El Paso Fire Department public information officer Enrique Aguilar told the El Paso Times. “It might be 10,000 with the people outside,” watching on monitors. The rally O’Rourke spoke at, following a mile-long march, drew at least 7,000 people, The Texas Tribune reports.

Um, last time I looked, 10,000 is more than 7,000, even when those absurdly-faked numbers appear in a fake news publication like The Week.

Another bad deal on the border. – The very Swampy congressional negotiators announced a very, very, very bad “bi-partisan” deal on border security funding as President Trump was flying out to Texas on Monday. The “deal” includes just $1.375 for “border barrier” funding – because we mustn’t say “wall”, you know – far below the President’s $5.7 billion demand. It’s a lousy deal, negotiated by lousy Republican swamp rats and open-borders Democrats. The outcome was thus predictable.

If this smelly “deal” passes both houses of congress and is sent to his desk, the President has only three options that would preserve his electoral viability going into 2020:

  • Reject the bill, which means another fake partial government shutdown; or
  • Sign the bill and immediately announce either a national emergency declaration or, as White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney laid out on Sunday, that he will use his presidential authority to reallocate unused funds from the Defense, Homeland Security and other departmental budgets to fund the wall.

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Mulvaney said:

“Any president can do this…There are certain funds of money that he can get to without declaring a national emergency and other funds that he can only get to after declaring a national emergency. The whole pot is well north of $5.7 billion.”

That is the path the President should take. The Democrats are desperate to force another shutdown in order to change the subject from racist, baby-murdering, women-assaulting Virginia Democrats, disastrous Green New Deals and anti-Semite Minnesota congresswomen. So they’ll be all too thrilled to deny more paychecks to those same 800,000 federal workers and cry their crocodile tears over them.

The President should not give them that gift when he has them so clearly on the defensive.

What President Trump cannot do is sign this atrocity of a “deal” and do nothing else on border security. More than any other element of his 2016 campaign, his promise to secure our Southern border is why he was elected. He cannot leave that promise unaddressed any longer and expect to be re-elected in 2020.

The time to act is now.

That is all.

Follow me on Twitter at @GDBlackmon

Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever. Whatfinger.com is my go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time.

Open post

Post-Harvey: Will Texas Repeat Louisiana’s 2005 Money Grab?

Today’s Campaign Update

(Because The Campaign Never Ends)

  • Now that Hurricane Harvey has finally passed, leaving behind in Houston and East Texas a level of devastation unprecedented in U.S. history, the political games around securing taxpayer money at the local, state and national levels to help pay for the rebuilding effort will begin.  Given that Harvey wrought destruction from Corpus Christi all the way up the coast through the Beaumont/Port Arthur/Orange Golden Triangle and into the Piney Woods communities of East Texas, we are talking about an area that is home to at least 8 million Texans.  Contrast this to Katrina, which, as terrible as it was, impacted New Orleans and surrounding areas that were home to just over 1 million Louisianans.
  • Normally in such situations, the most heated politics revolve around federal funds.  The federal government does have a disaster relief budget in its normal funding, but it will only be able to scratch the surface of a recovery and rebuilding effort that will be required for the nation’s 4th largest city and surrounding areas.  So, it will be up to the Texas congressional delegation to develop a proposal for a supplemental funding bill to shepherd through congress.  As we have seen in the past, such supplemental appropriations bills can become controversial, and vehicles for all members of congress to try to attach their own pet pork-barrel spending proposals.
  • In the wake of Katrina in 2005, the Louisiana congressional delegation, led by then-Senators Mary Landrieu andDavid Vitter, swung for the fences, bringing forward an initial proposal for a massive $250 billion appropriation that included funding for things like $35 million in marketing funds for the state’s seafood industry, $8 million for alligator farms and a $40 billion request for the Army Corps of Engineers, which normally spends about $400 million in the state.  This breathtaking money grab came after the George W. Bush Administration had worked with congressional leaders to push through $62 billion in Katrina-related recovery funding.
  • Twelve years later, now comes Hurricane Harvey, and a trail of devastation that is many times the size of the impact of Katrina.  Partisan politics in the nation’s capital were already polarized in 2005, but the situation today makes the politics of a dozen years ago seem like patty-cake by comparison.  A Texas delegation dominated by Republican members will have their work cut out for them in securing a supplemental appropriation that is sizable enough to truly help, and will need its Democrat members to work to secure vote from their own party, as many, many budget hawks in the GOP caucus will refuse to support any proposed legislation.
  • The Texas delegation will also need to strongly oppose efforts to turn a supplemental bill into a pork-barrel vehicle, as the national news media will be looking for any excuse to demonize members who represent a state that voted heavily for President Donald Trump.  Things could get especially uncomfortable for Senator Ted Cruz if he decides to become a sponsor for a supplemental, as he strongly opposed the supplemental bill for relief efforts for the Northeastern U.S. in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.
  • But as is the case related to any disaster such as Harvey, opportunities present themselves as well.  For example, the Texas delegation will have an opportunity to ally itself with the Louisiana delegation related to a supplemental, given that Harvey also caused widespread damage to the Eastern half of the Pelican State.  Care will have to be taken not to revive some of the hair-brained pork barrel stuff that made its way into the Landrieu/Vitter Katrina bill in 2005, but the alliance of the two state delegations would help to build a strong base of support in congress.
  • For the Trump Administration, the opportunity relates to the President’s campaign promise of a national infrastructure spending bill.  The President has often spoken of his desire for a bill in excess of $1 trillion over ten years to help rebuild the country’s decaying system of roads, bridges and other key infrastructure.  The scale of the devastation in Texas and Louisiana from Harvey could serve as an anchoring point to the building out of a comprehensive national proposal.
  • Never have so many major “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects presented themselves in any region of this country at any single time as we are about to see manifesting themselves in Texas and Louisiana in the weeks to come.  It’s still a little too soon for the politicians to begin talking about all of this now, but as the flood-waters recede and the true scope and scale of the devastation becomes visible to television cameras, the political gamesmanship will and should begin in earnest.

Just another day in everything is politics America.

That is all.

Open post

John McCain’s Right Mind Has Always Been Wrong

Today’s Campaign Update 

(Because The Campaign Never Ends)

  • The Democrat Party left him. – West Virginia Governor Big Jim Justice announced yesterday that he will be changing his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican.  This move is most likely motivated by simple political survival instincts, as Donald Trump won the state in 2016 by an enormous margin over Hillary Clinton.  Justice’s shift means that the GOP now controls 34 of the 50 governor’s offices in the country, and controls both the governorship and legislatures in 26 of 50 states.  This is the legacy of the abuses of the Obama years.  Thanks, Barack!
  • Et tu, Joe? – One can only wonder how much longer it will take WVA’s Senator Joe Manchin to make a similar political calculation.  Manchin is without doubt the most moderate Democrat in the senate today, and would likely vote with the Republicans well over half the time were he left to his own devices and not often held hostage to hardcore partisan politics.  He’d better think fast, since he’s up for re-election next year in what has become one of the reddest red states in the country since his last election bid in 2012, thanks mainly to public reaction against Barack Obama’s aggressive efforts to kill the state’s coal industry.
  • Are we past the Senatorial trading deadline? – Speaking of party switchers, nominally Republican Sen. From the News Media John McCain told the Arizona Republic on Thursday that he is in talks with one party’s senate leader about reviving the whole Gang of 8 Immigration “Reform” (i.e. open borders and amnesty) plan!  Of course, that party leader is Chuck Schumer, not Mitch McConnell.  Hey, here’s an idea, how about the Republicans just offer to trade John McCain for Joe Manchin, and call it even?  At least then, both men would be inhabiting their natural environments.
  • McCain logic 101. – Oh, but the Senator From the News Media wasn’t done.  He also has decided that the whole 16 year ongoing fiasco in Afghanistan is all the fault of …wait for it…DONALD TRUMP!  Yes, Senator, because everything was always great in Afghanistan for the 15 years prior to January 20, right?  My goodness.
  • By the way, if you are sitting there thinking that McCain’s latest bits of mendacity might mean that he is not in his right mind due to his fight against a very aggressive form of brain cancer, think again.  This is McCain in his right mind – it’s just that his right mind has always been wrong.
  • Bloomberg is reporting that National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster has concluded all by himself that Susan Rice is just a wonderful person whose national security top secret clearance needed to be renewed, and taken action to unilaterally renew it himself.  Isn’t that great?  Just further proof that some folks just need firing, and John Kelly needs to get busy.
  • They’re a determined bunch. – A year ago today, congressional Republicans were the single most hated segment of the Washington DC establishment.  They got lucky, though, as the Trump Campaign bailed them out of what otherwise would have been a major defeat at the polls.  But they have squandered that good fortune, and are now, a year later, right back into the same situation, thanks in large part to their refusal to move on the major elements of the Trump agenda.  In its latest poll released yesterday, Quinnipiac places congressional public approval at a record low 10%, down from 18% in March.  It wasn’t easy to squander such a golden opportunity, but it is impossible to overestimate the ability of a bunch of Republicans to screw up a good thing.  Great work, guys and gals!
  • Oh, yeah, and Special Swamp Creature Robert Mueller leaked that he has convened a grand jury so he can start issuing subpoenas now.  The Swamp is intent on taking this President down, and perfectly willing to take the country down with him if need be.  Don’t kid yourselves otherwise.

Just another day feckless Republicans America.

That is all.

 

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