Good morning! Here is your news briefing for Thursday February 27, 2020.
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THE FLIP SIDE
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LARRY J. SABATO’S CRYSTAL BALL
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KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE— If Democrats nominated Bernie Sanders, they would, initially, start off with somewhat of a penalty in our Electoral College ratings. — Sanders’ policy prescriptions and rhetoric may complicate Democratic prospects in the Sun Belt, where the party’s recent growth has been driven by highly-educated suburbanites. — Given the composition of the 2020 Senate map, which features more Sun Belt states, Sanders’ relative strength in the Rust Belt — assuming that even ends up being the case — nonetheless doesn’t help Democrats much in the race for the Senate. The Sanders path might be a narrower oneAlmost exactly a year ago, we debuted our first ratings of the 2020 Electoral College. Those ratings were based on Donald Trump as the Republican nominee and an unknown Democratic candidate. Since we rolled out these ratings, we’ve tweaked them only mildly. Our current ratings are shown in Map 1. Map 1: Crystal Ball Electoral College ratings But as Bernie Sanders has ascended to the top of the Democratic pack, and as party elites are starting to sound the alarm about Sanders’ general election prospects, we’re considering how we might change our ratings if Sanders became the presumptive nominee. The Vermont senator’s campaign of course argues that he would expand the Democratic electorate, as Sanders’ pollster told the Washington Post’s Greg Sargent. Meanwhile, there are reasons to think that the Sanders path is built on a goal, expanding youth participation, that has historically been very difficult to achieve, as David Broockman and Joshua Kalla argued in Vox. Additionally, Sanders does not seem to have as much appeal to white voters with a four-year college degree as some other Democrats. In our view, we think a Sanders nomination would tilt the election more toward Trump, to the point where the ratings would reflect him as something of a favorite. However, we would not put Trump over 270 electoral votes in our ratings, at least not initially and based on the information we have now. But these ratings changes would force Democrats to sweep the two Toss-ups, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and also hang onto the Leans Democratic states, specifically Michigan, that if Sanders proves to be weak will be very much in play. Here’s what we’re thinking we would do. Map 2 shows hypothetical revised ratings. To be clear, these are not changes we are making to our ratings now, but if Sanders seems to grab ahold of the nomination in the coming weeks, we likely will make most if not all of them. Map 2: Hypothetical Sanders vs. Trump ratings Arguably we could or should move Iowa, ME-2, and Ohio into Likely Republican, too, but we’ll give Sanders a little bit of a benefit of the doubt initially as he tries to claw back some working-class white support. If he is able to turn back the clock a bit to an electoral alignment that looks more like 2012, these electoral votes may be more competitive. That does seem unlikely, though, especially as we seem to be constantly reminded of Democratic suburban strength and rural weakness: Just on Tuesday in a pair of special elections, Kentucky Democrats easily held a state House seat in the Cincinnati suburbs, but lost an ancestral Democratic seat in the rural eastern part of the state. So realistically, these electoral votes (Iowa, ME-2, and Ohio) could shift further toward Trump too. What we’re doing here is giving the Republicans a boost in places where recent Democratic gains have been fueled by growth in affluent, highly-educated suburbs. Sanders may ultimately replicate Hillary Clinton’s numbers in places like metro Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and Phoenix. Still, there are reasons to believe that his left-wing economic and governing philosophy, particularly as contrasted with many Americans’ positive views of the economy, may cost the Democrats some support in these places. Furthermore, in states like Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas, the Democratic nominee just matching Clinton’s 2016 showing in these big metro areas would not be sufficient to win any of those states — after all, Clinton lost all four by 3.5 points or more. Significant overall improvement is required for the Democrats to flip any of these states. This sort of thinking also guides what we would do with the single electoral vote in NE-2, a vote that could be important in a very close Electoral College vote. Trump won the district by about two points in 2016, and it was one of the few marginal swing seats that Republicans held in the 2018 House elections, notably in part because the Democratic nominee was more liberal than many other House Democratic candidates in the midterm. In one of the Crystal Ball’s first articles of 2020, guest columnist Seth Moskowitz looked at various Democratic paths to 270 electoral votes. Specifically, using 2016’s results as a template, Moskowitz’s analysis hinged on the average raw vote “cost” per electoral vote. Among the takeaways was that Democrats’ most efficient route to 270 was through the Rust Belt. Though some aforementioned Sun Belt states, such as Texas and Georgia, have emerged as increasingly attractive Democratic prospects, they’d require the Democratic nominee to pick up considerably more raw votes compared to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 showing. Given the thin collective margin that Trump carried Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan by in 2016 — fewer than 80,000 votes out of the nearly 14 million they cast — flipping them back into the blue column would require closing a relatively small gap. By contrast, despite the promising trendline there, Clinton’s deficit in Texas was still a daunting 807,000 votes. In this sense, if Sanders were to be the Democratic nominee, he would push the Democrats towards their most logical route to 270 electoral votes. While Sanders may be helpful in guiding Democrats towards their path of least resistance in the Electoral College, it’s less useful when it comes to the Senate. Aside from winning back the presidency, one of the prime goals of Democratic partisans is to limit the power of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), so the battle for the Senate will be a relevant subplot to the presidential contest. Thirty-four states will feature Senate races this fall, and a disproportionate number of those states are in the south and west — in other words, states that wouldn’t compliment the coalition Sanders would likely rely on at the top of the ticket, as we suggested last week. If Sanders flips the trio of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, he’d win the presidency with 278 electoral votes (assuming no states that Clinton carried in 2016 defect to Trump), but at the senatorial level, this path could yield meager returns. Only one of those three, Michigan, has a Senate race — and it wouldn’t even be a pickup opportunity, as freshman Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) is running for reelection. By contrast, both Senate races that the Crystal Ball currently rates as Toss-Ups fall in Sun Belt states, Arizona and North Carolina. In fact, with a Sanders nomination looking like a more realistic possibility, Democrats’ likely nominee in the Arizona Senate race, former astronaut Mark Kelly, already seems be distancing himself from his party’s frontrunner. In terms of the Senate, we likely would keep Arizona a Toss-up given Kelly’s strengths as a candidate, but Sen. Martha McSally’s (R-AZ) path to victory might get clearer. We also likely would shift North Carolina to Leans Republican and push both Georgia Senate races from Leans Republican to Likely Republican. The potential for Sanders to run behind Clinton might also endanger Democratic Senate odds in places like Colorado, Iowa, and Maine, but as of now we wouldn’t make changes in those states just based on a Sanders nomination. We also have to be cognizant of the potential of ticket-splitting even if Sanders does do poorly — something we addressed in a New York Times column earlier this week (we leave the House unaddressed in this piece, but see the column for what Sanders might mean for that chamber). Considering its perception as the quintessential swing state in presidential contests since 2000, seeing Florida rated as Likely Republican might seem crazy. But Sanders really does not seem like a good fit for that state, and for what reason should we give Democrats the benefit of the doubt in Florida? The state is perpetually close, but the party’s losses there for governor and senator in 2018 in the midst of a great Democratic electoral environment represented one of the more counterintuitive electoral results in recent memory (Democratic Senate losses elsewhere in much redder states made more sense). State analyst and mapper Mathew Isbell attributes the Democratic losses in Florida in 2018 to their underperformance in Miami-Dade County. In 2018, then-Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), and the Democrats’ gubernatorial nominee, then-Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, gained over Clinton elsewhere in the state, but they couldn’t match her showing in the Miami area. Instead of Clinton’s 29 percentage point margin there in 2016, Nelson and Gillum each carried it by a smaller 21 percentage point spread. Rather astoundingly, they each flipped four large Trump counties — St. Lucie, Pinellas (St. Petersburg), Seminole (Orlando suburbs), and Duval (Jacksonville) — but both came up short because of their weaker margins in Miami-Dade County. One-third of the county’s electorate is Cuban; Sanders’ comments praising some aspects of Fidel Castro’s regime could be uniquely toxic with this bloc, and may effectively push Florida out of reach. Sanders is also a candidate whose strongest appeal is with the young, whereas Florida has an older electorate. According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, Florida’s median age is 41.8 years, and only four states rank higher. Interestingly, other comparatively old states include Maine, New Hampshire, and Sanders’ home state of Vermont, but retirees who can afford to move to Sun Belt states like Florida have typically voted Republican — and perhaps more importantly, they turn out. In 2016, senior citizens powered Trump’s coalition in the Sunshine State. Over 80% of voters 65 and older turned out, and exit polling showed Trump winning this group in a 57%-40% vote. Voters under 30 favored Clinton, but turned out at just 56%; Sanders likely would inspire higher turnout with millennials, but the GOP’s dominance with seniors in Florida has proved to be a potent electoral force. ConclusionTo be clear, the race for the nomination is not over, and in recent days, Joe Biden has seemed to reassert himself in South Carolina, which may be suggestive of brightening prospects for Biden not just in Saturday’s primary — which at this point we would be extremely surprised if he lost — but in the South more broadly on Super Tuesday. That said, Sanders still finds himself in a better position than any of his rivals overall as the delegate-rich contests of the first three Tuesdays of March loom. Overall, if Sanders does become the presumptive nominee, we plan to keep an open mind about his candidacy, and the president of course has his own liabilities. But we do think we know enough about the potential weaknesses of Sanders that our reaction to his nomination, if it happens, would be to shift some of the Electoral College against him and also to look at Trump as a small favorite for November. It would then be up to Sanders to prove the doubters wrong — just like Trump did in 2016. Read the fine printLearn more about the Crystal Ball and find out how to contact us here. Sign up to receive Crystal Ball e-mails like this one delivered straight to your inbox. Use caution with Sabato’s Crystal Ball, and remember: “He who lives by the Crystal Ball ends up eating ground glass!” |
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| © Copyright by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia |
This message was sent to rickbulow1974@gmail.com from goodpolitics@virginia.edu
Larry J. Sabato
UVA Center for Politics
PO Box 400806
Charlottesville, VA 22904
AXIOS
🌞 Happy Thursday! Today’s Smart Brevity™ count: 1,171 words … 4½ minutes.
Photo illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios. Photo: Chris Graythen/Getty Images
A poor response to the coronavirus could be politically devastating for President Trump, but the administration is still scrambling as the risk of a pandemic mounts, Axios’ Alayna Treene and Sam Baker write.
- Reality check: There’s only so much a president can do to stop a virus. And for now, the coronavirus is still very much under control within the U.S.
Trump’s coronavirus press conference last evening was all over the map:
- Trump said he was surprised at how deadly the annual flu virus is, but accurately emphasized public health officials’ advice to treat the coronavirus like the flu.
- He downplayed the likelihood of a widespread U.S. outbreak, even though public health officials, including the CDC, have said such an outbreak is pretty likely.
- A new U.S. case — one that may have been transmitted locally (not abroad, or from someone who had been abroad), a key indicator of a potential pandemic — was confirmed while Trump spoke.
Trump surprised some in the administration when he announced that Vice President Mike Pence would coordinate the administration’s response, especially given Pence is heavily involved in Trump’s re-election campaign.
- What we’re hearing: Sources familiar with the decision tell Axios that the call to put Pence in charge was made just yesterday.
Between the lines: Trump wants the panic over the virus to end as soon as possible to return normalcy to the markets.
- That helps explain why his statements were so upbeat compared to what public health officials have been saying.
President Trump has warned HHS Secretary Alex Azar, along with other officials, not to criticize China’s response to the virus.
- “They have enough problems without you going out and saying they’re not doing enough,” Trump said to Azar recently, a source familiar with their conversation tells Axios’ Jonathan Swan.
Many U.S. hospitals have been stocking extra supplies and refreshing disaster preparation plans over the past month in the event the coronavirus became more prominent domestically, Axios health care business reporter Bob Herman writes.
- The CDC warned this week that this infectious disease could spread more in the U.S., and hospitals have anticipated such scenarios.
The American Hospital Association told its members last week that they “should be prepared for the possible arrival of patients with COVID-19,” directing them to use a CDC checklist for coronavirus patients and to monitor protective equipment needs.
- The University of California San Francisco health system, which has already treated patients who had the coronavirus, said it has 40 airborne infection isolation rooms and can “adapt additional rooms” if needed.
The bottom line: Hospitals handled Ebola and Zika in recent years, and have already weathered a busy flu season.
- Occupancy statistics show hospitals have enough beds to treat coronavirus patients, although preparedness varies by hospital and is more likely to be regimented in urban facilities.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Economists are rethinking projections about the broader economic consequences of the coronavirus outbreak after a surge of diagnoses and deaths outside Asia, and heightened warnings from U.S. officials, Axios Markets editor Dion Rabouin writes.
- “The spillover to confidence is a much bigger issue than temporary interruptions to activity that can be made up later,” Julia Coronado, president and founder of Macropolicy Perspectives, tells Axios.
- “It’s a psychological thing and that feedback loop is an essential element of every recession.”
The coronavirus quickly went from an also-ran concern to the most talked-about issue at the National Association for Business Economics policy conference in Washington.
- Most Asian economies are expected to either slow down significantly, halt or shrink outright in the first quarter, according to Reuters consensus polls.
Fed Vice Chairman Richard Clarida told the conference and asserted in prepared remarks that the central bank was evaluating the outbreak and did not want to overreact.
- But he also said that decisions about monetary policy now will be made on a “meeting-by-meeting basis,” a notable change from the Fed’s previous stance that it plans to remain on the sidelines for 2020.
A CDC survey puts the obesity rate for U.S. adults at 42%.
- In the 2017-18 survey of more than 5,000 adults, the severe obesity rate was more than 9%, AP reports.
Why it matters: The findings suggest that more Americans will get diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
- A half-century ago, about 1 in 100 American adults were severely obese. Now it’s 10 times more common.
For the second straight week, Bernie Sanders has hit the high watermark for online attention in the Democratic primary, generating 24 million interactions (likes, comments, shares) on social media last week, according to data from NewsWhip provided exclusively to Axios’ Neal Rothschild.
- The sentiment of the top stories about Sanders has been more positive than his top Democratic rivals — particularly Michael Bloomberg, whose recent online attention has been overwhelmingly negative.
Worth noting: Sanders’ numbers don’t come close to those of President Trump, who generated 64 million interactions last week — which wasn’t particularly newsy by Trump standards.
- See past editions of the 2020 Attention Tracker.
At the Capitol, Democratic lawmakers openly expressed anxiety that self-proclaimed democratic socialist Bernie Sanders could cost them House control if he’s the nominee, and questions abounded over what party leaders should do, AP reports.
- Why it matters: Of the 42 House seats Democrats gained in 2018 when they captured the majority, 29 are from districts that President Trump either won in 2016 or lost by a narrow five percentage points or less. Most of them are moderates.
It’s the same story with party officials out in the country … “[D]ozens of interviews with Democratic establishment leaders this week show that they are … willing to risk intraparty damage to stop his nomination at the national convention in July if they get the chance,” the N.Y. Times reports.
- Since Sanders’ Nevada victory Saturday, the Times interviewed 93 superdelegates — party officials who could have a say if one candidate doesn’t have a mathematical lock on the nomination.
- They voiced “overwhelming opposition to handing the Vermont senator the nomination if he arrived with the most delegates but fell short of a majority.”
Speaker Pelosi told a closed-door caucus meeting, per an aide:
- “I would hope that everyone would say, no matter who the nominee is for president, we wholeheartedly embrace that person. … We cannot show any division. This has to be about unity, unity, unity.”
Photo: Rick Wood/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via Reuters
“A Molson Coors Beverage Co. employee has shot five co-workers to death before taking his own life at the company’s beer-brewing complex in Milwaukee, the latest episode in a rising tide of gun violence already reverberating in the U.S. presidential race,” Reuters reports.
- The plant, with 1,400 workers, is in the largest city in the key swing state of Wisconsin.
Amazon Go Grocery store in Seattle. Photo: Ted S. Warren/AP
With the opening of its first large-format cashier-less grocery store in Seattle this week, Amazon is on its way to further expanding its physical footprint across the U.S., Axios’ Erica Pandey writes.
- Why it matters: Amazon wants to win a bigger share of the whopping $700 billion per year American grocery industry — currently led by Walmart.
The bottom line: Walmart’s ubiquitousness in American life is thanks to the relationship it has built with its shoppers through groceries — and now Amazon may begin to shake that dominance.
A Broadway play was performed in Madison Square Garden for the first time yesterday, with an electric performance of “To Kill a Mockingbird” for 18,000 students, AP’s Mark Kennedy reports.
- The play’s usual Broadway home is the 1,435-seat Shubert Theatre, where it’s routinely sold out.
- But the middle and high school students from all five boroughs got to see it for free, courtesy of the Scott Rudin-led production and James L. Dolan, executive chairman and CEO of The Madison Square Garden Company.
📬 Thank you for reading! Please tell a friend about AM/PM.
POLITICO PLAYBOOK
POLITICO Playbook: Washington staring down pair of crises
Presented by
DRIVING THE DAY
IF THE END OF IMPEACHMENT WAS THE BEGINNING OF WASHINGTON’S ELECTION-SEASON SLUMBER, a pair of crises is marching into the capital city’s bedroom, clanking pots and threatening to rustle the drowsy town to life.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE CORONAVIRUS on U.S. soil and the rapidly approaching expiration of the nation’s surveillance laws have suddenly refocused the Congress and administration on governing, thrashing their plan to spend the bulk of their time fundraising, campaigning and passing meaningless, small-bore, partisan bills.
LEGISLATIVE SKIRMISHES DURING ELECTION YEARS ARE NOTHING NEW. But combine a mercurial president with a legislative body that opposes him almost reflexively and you can see why Washington might be more comfortable asleep.
IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, a divided Congress will have to pass — and President DONALD TRUMP will have to sign — a spending bill to help prepare the United States for the widespread arrival of the deadly virus that’s sweeping through Europe and Asia, and a renewal of FISA laws that allow the government to conduct surveillance operations.
AT THIS MOMENT, neither seems teetering on the brink of failure. But both present Congress and the TRUMP administration with challenges 250 DAYS before Election Day.
AFTER DENYING THE PRESIDENT FUNDING for various priorities and self-declared emergencies, Congress is now poised to give TRUMP far more money than he asked for to fight the coronavirus. The administration suggested Congress allocate $2.5 billion. Then, Senate Minority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER raised the ante, putting his total at $8.5 billion for the burgeoning public health crisis. House Minority Leader KEVIN MCCARTHY — who has been in very close contact with the administration — suggested the number should be closer to $4 billion, which seems to be close to the consensus level. At this point, it seems likely Congress will find a happy medium in the coming weeks.
“WE THINK THAT’S A LOT,” Trump said from the White House on Wednesday night, “but the Democrats and I guess Sen. Schumer wants us to have much more than [$2.5 billion]. … If they wanna do more, we’ll do more.” More from Nancy Cook and Meridith McGraw on Trump’s coronavirus response
THERE ARE LINGERING QUESTIONS, however. Senior Democratic aides were disheartened by the president’s decision to name VP MIKE PENCE as the point person for the crisis instead of a noted public health expert. They pointed to the well-publicized breakout of HIV in Indiana during Pence’s governorship, which they say calls into question whether he is the right man for the job. These same Democrats said there is concern that the president could retaliate against scientists who disagree with him. It was unclear how — and whether — the Democrats would attempt to tie the president’s hands in the legislation they pass. And if the Democrats look to push the president in one direction or another, that risks diminishing Republican support, which is critical in the Senate.
TRUMP’S WEDNESDAY EVENING NEWS CONFERENCE from the hardly used White House briefing room was intended to calm nerves. But Trump seemed to underplay the severity of the virus, and wrongly stated that non-Americans are currently banned from coming into the U.S. from China. He said a vaccine should be developed soon, but experts say it’s likely close to a year away.
ADD TO THAT: After TRUMP’S news conference, the CDC announced that one American who had not traveled abroad or had contact with anyone who had contracted the virus. And, inside the administration, there’s increasing frustration with Robert Redfield, the head of the CDC.
THE FISA FIGHT is proving a bit more tricky. An internal scuffle among Democrats stopped the bill in its tracks Wednesday, as the House majority pulled the legislation from consideration. And on Wednesday evening in the Capitol, some conservatives grumbled that Congress was getting ready to renew a law that they believed has been abused by the president’s adversaries to spy on his election campaign. NYT’s Nick Fandos and Charlie Savage on the FISA fight
CONGRESS HAS GROUND TO A HALT on lesser items before. During Christmastime in 2012, the Republican majority stayed in Washington, fighting with Barack Obama over his proposal to suspend the payroll tax. Shortly before the 2014 midterm elections, the GOP tussled with Obama over how to deal with the Ebola virus.
IF THE LAST DECADE has taught anything, it’s that if futility is an option, Congress often takes it.
MORE CORONAVIRUS FALLOUT … WSJ: “Coronavirus Causes U.S., South Korea to Call Off Joint Military Exercises,” by Timothy Martin in Seoul: “The Seoul government raised the virus-alert status to its maximum level over the weekend, and at last count reported 1,595 coronavirus cases—nearly 20 times the number just a week before. On Tuesday, a 23-year-old American soldier stationed in South Korea became the first U.S. service member to contract the coronavirus.
“The main clusters of coronavirus are around Daegu, the country’s fourth-largest city, where both the U.S. and South Korea have military bases. Seoul has put its facility on virtual lockdown, as around 20 soldiers have contracted the virus and nearly 10,000 are quarantined. The American military has told soldiers to avoid traveling off base.”
— AP: “For the first time, the coronavirus has caused more new cases outside China, the epicenter of the outbreak, than inside the country.”
— LAT: “Flight attendant diagnosed with coronavirus might have serviced trips between Seoul and Los Angeles,” by Victoria Kim: “South Korea’s Center for Disease Control said Wednesday local time that a female flight attendant who serviced a flight Feb. 15 from Tel Aviv to Seoul had tested positive for the virus. On board the flight was a church group returning from a pilgrimage to Israel; 30 other infections have been connected to the group so far, according to local authorities.
“The South Korean media outlets reported that the same flight attendant had serviced flights KE017 and KE012 on Feb. 19 and 20 to and from Los Angeles International.”
— BOSTON GLOBE: “As CDC warns of coronavirus’s spread in U.S., officials reveal that more than 600 in Mass. have been monitored for illness,” by Felice Freyer: “So far, 377 have completed the quarantine without falling ill, and 231 are still being monitored, Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel said. Only one Massachusetts resident — a Boston student — contracted the illness, and he is recovering well in isolation at home, Bharel said.”
FT: “European markets fall heavily on spreading coronavirus,” by Hudson Lockett in Hong Kong and Katie Martin and Philip Georgiadis in London: “Intense market stress stemming from the growing coronavirus crisis has spilled into the fourth consecutive day, with European stocks following Asia’s lead with heavy declines at the start of trading.
“The Euro Stoxx 600 index of European shares fell by more than 2 per cent when trading got under way, with similar declines in the FTSE 100 and the German Dax. Since its January peak, the FTSE All World index has shed around $5tn in value.
“US Treasury bond yields touched a record low of 1.2905 per cent in Asian trading after US health authorities confirmed the first likely case of community transmission of the deadly coronavirus on American soil, fuelling concern over the outbreak’s spread. Yields fall when prices rise, demonstrating strong demand for this haven asset. Futures pointed to a decline of 0.8 per cent in the US benchmark S&P 500 index when it opens later in the day.”
Good Thursday morning.
FIVE DAYS UNTIL SUPER TUESDAY … BIG PICTURE … NYT’S NICK CORASANITI and JEREMY PETERS in Fargo: “The 2020 Democratic Primary Is Giving Some Republicans Déjà Vu”: “The no-end-in-sight nature of the contest for the Democratic nomination is alarming those in the party who are hoping to blunt the momentum of the front-runner, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The most likely way they believe that could happen — a critical mass of the senator’s rivals drop out so voters can coalesce around a single alternative — seems like the least likely outcome.
“The irony is thick. Mr. Sanders, the candidate many establishment Democrats fear would have the most trouble beating President Trump in November, is benefiting from some of the same dynamics that helped Mr. Trump stampede to the Republican nomination four years ago.”
— WITHER BLOOMBERG? … CHRIS CADELAGO and SALLY GOLDENBERG: “Bloomberg goes from savior to goat in a week”: “Bloomberg, who spent months ignoring his Democratic opponents and focusing his firepower on Donald Trump, is still counting on a big delegate haul next week. But several sources close to and involved in the campaign have acknowledged concerns about his recent internal and public polling.
“They said they were relieved by Bloomberg’s improved debate performance in South Carolina Tuesday night, including his opening attack on Sanders and his handling of a repeat grilling from Elizabeth Warren on his private company’s treatment of women. (After Warren tore into him in the first debate, he agreed to allow women who signed non-disclosure agreements related to him to speak freely.)” POLITICO
— “Buttigieg plots risky delegate strategy to survive Super Tuesday,” by Elena Schneider in Charleston, S.C.: “Pete Buttigieg is going delegate hunting. Despite a brutal Super Tuesday map unlikely to hand him any statewide wins, the former South Bend mayor is looking to reinforce his claim as a Democratic alternative to Bernie Sanders by racking up delegates in individual congressional districts on Super Tuesday.
“It’s a national version of Buttigieg’s path to first place in Iowa’s state delegate race — crossing the viability threshold everywhere, pending a recount — which Buttigieg hopes to replicate on Tuesday, when 14 states weigh in on the Democratic primary, despite a splintered field and limited resources.
“Buttigieg’s campaign said in a memo that its objective on March 3 is to ‘minimize’ Sanders’ margins and maximize ‘delegate accumulation by [congressional] district, not states.’ Anticipating a drawn-out primary process, Buttigieg is looking to survive deeper into the calendar, making it to mid-March contests in the Midwest that might provide more opportunities for him.” POLITICO
— “Joe Biden meets his make-or-break moment in South Carolina,” by WaPo’s Matt Viser and Cleve Wootson Jr. in North Charleston: “This is a make-or-break moment in a political career that began 48 years ago, and has taken him to the heights and back down again. Biden has run three presidential campaigns and has yet to win a primary or caucus. In three contests this year, he has finished fourth, fifth and second. His hopes are poured into turning his campaign around by winning South Carolina and rocketing into the Super Tuesday contests next week.
“Not everything is as upbeat as [Jim] Clyburn’s [endorsement]. Even as he holds a small lead in polls, Biden is being vastly outspent on television and radio ads here. While the Clyburn endorsement could prove influential, Biden also secured the top endorsements in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, and that helped little. And there is no certainty that even a convincing win could translate to victory when 14 other states and American Samoa vote on Super Tuesday three days later.”
— WHAT THEY’RE READING IN S.C. … THE STATE: “Palmetto Poll: Before Clyburn endorsement, Biden had wide lead in SC presidential primary,” by Emily Bohatch
— POST AND COURIER’S JAMIE LOVEGROVE in Georgetown, S.C.: “Former Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that some of his 2020 Democratic primary rivals will have to consider exiting the race if they are unable to demonstrate an ability to win over minority voters in the upcoming South Carolina primary.
“‘They would have to consider dropping out, not because I want them to or anybody else does, but because the victories and losses are going to dictate it,’ Biden said in a brief interview with The Post and Courier. ‘How do you stay in if you have demonstrated you can’t get any African American support? … How do you stay in if you don’t get support in South Carolina? So I just think the process is going to take care of that. I don’t think it requires anybody to say, “get out of the race.”’”
FEELING THE BERN — “Cops called on Bernie backers after bullhorn protests at officials’ homes,” by Alex Thompson and Holly Otterbein
— SARAH FERRIS and MARIANNE LEVINE: “Bernie and Dems brace for superdelegate showdown”
THE PRESIDENT’S THURSDAY — Trump and first lady Melania Trump will participate in an African American History Month reception in the East Room at 6 p.m.
PLAYBOOK READS
HE MAY PLAY THE OUTSIDER, BUT … “Inside Bernie’s relationship with Chuck and Nancy,” by Burgess Everett and Heather Caygle: “When Harry Reid needed to clinch a deal to save the beleaguered Veterans Affairs Department in 2014, he left much of it to Bernie Sanders. Three years later, when Chuck Schumer sought a powerful ally to build public support to save Obamacare, the new Democratic Senate leader teamed up with Sanders to hold a rally in Michigan.
“Despite his anti-establishment rhetoric and a handful of high-profile breaks with his party over 29 years in Congress, the Vermont independent is typically not the headache for his Democratic leadership that Ted Cruz and Rand Paul once were for the GOP. Sanders, it’s often forgotten, actually serves on Schumer’s leadership team.
“Sanders has known both Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi for decades — relationships that will become pivotal if Sanders wins the Democratic nomination and the party is fractured. And if Democrats do win the White House and control of Congress, their ability to work together will be crucial.
“The resistance to Sanders’ support for the ‘Green New Deal’ and ‘Medicare for All’ suggests major friction ahead in the campaign and on Capitol Hill. But there’s also little animosity and a feeling of mutual respect between Sanders and the leaders, according to interviews with a dozen Democrats on Capitol Hill this week.” POLITICO
THE LATEST IN MILWAUKEE — “Gunman kills 5 at Milwaukee brewery before taking own life,” by AP’s Carrie Antlfinger and Gretchen Ehlke in Milwaukee
BACKSTORY — “Pentagon policy chief’s firing was part of White House purge,” by Lara Seligman and Daniel Lippman: “The White House demanded the ouster of Pentagon policy chief John Rood last week after the former industry executive opposed the administration on plans to pull U.S. troops from Syria and its policy toward Chinese tech giant Huawei, six current and former Trump administration officials tell POLITICO. …
“Trump’s campaign to root out ‘anti-Trump’ members of his administration following his impeachment acquittal provided the NSC the perfect opportunity to finally oust Rood, current and former officials said.” POLITICO
VALLEY TALK — “Tech Platforms Aren’t Bound by First Amendment, Appeals Court Rules,” by WSJ’s Jacob Gershman: “A federal appeals court in California on Wednesday ruled that privately operated internet platforms are free to censor content they don’t like.
“Though not unexpected, the unanimous decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco marks the most emphatic rejection of the argument advanced in some conservative circles that YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and other giant tech platforms are bound by the First Amendment.
“The case concerned a YouTube channel operated by Prager University, a nonprofit founded by talk-radio host Dennis Prager that produces short explainer videos promoting conservative ideas.” WSJ
MEDIAWATCH — “Trump campaign sues New York Times for libel,” by Caitlin Oprysko
PLAYBOOKERS
Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at politicoplaybook@politico.com.
WHITE HOUSE ARRIVAL LOUNGE — Claire Nance is now a government communications adviser in the White House communications office. She most recently was a press assistant at the Department of Energy.
TRANSITION — Mandi Merritt is now national press secretary for the RNC. She previously was regional communications director for the RNC
WEEKEND WEDDING — Jennifer Thibodeau, public policy manager for Western states at Amazon Web Services, and Thomas Scanlon, who works in comms at Boeing, got married Saturday in Taos Ski Valley, N.M. Pic … Another pic
BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Greg Speed, president of America Votes. What he’s reading: “I’m reading ‘The Queen’ by Josh Levin. It’s been a great read about the life and crimes of Linda Taylor, the woman demonized by Ronald Reagan as the original ‘welfare queen.’ Her story is fascinating, but it’s more deeply about how racial politics bias our perception. Also some great detail about my hometown of Chicago in the 1970s.” Playbook Q&A
BIRTHDAYS: Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) is 62 … Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) is 42 … Chelsea Clinton is 4-0 … Ralph Nader is 86 … Robbie Aiken … Maureen Bunyan … Greta Kreuz … Sasha Johnson, United Airlines’ managing director of regulatory and policy … Rebecca Sinderbrand, NBC News senior Washington editor … former Rep. Luke Messer (R-Ind.) is 51 … Gary Knell, chairman of National Geographic Partners … Greg Lubar (h/ts Jon Haber) … POLITICO’s Mike Irwin, Joe Kamali and Kelsey Wessels … Nils Bruzelius (h/t wife Lynne Weil) … Vincent Polito, principal at mdg … Kathy Gasperine … Brian Malte … David Baumann, Washington correspondent and columnist at the Credit Union Times …
… Emma Nelson, director of development at American Action Network/Congressional Leadership Fund … Kelly Olsen … David Merritt, EVP for public affairs and strategic initiatives for AHIP … Kate DePriest … Massachusetts state Sen. Eric Lesser … Julie Merz … Steven Robinson … Sara McIntosh … investigative journalist and author Dan Moldea is 7-0 … Antoine Sander … Tony Mitson … Jill Chappell … Tim Morris is 42 … Adam Elkington … Nick Minock … John Fluharty … Matt Herman … Mary Walsh … Blanquita Cullum … Adrienne Morrell … Maria Koklanaris Bonaquist … Eddie Reeves is 58 … Jim Javinsky is 5-0 … Dan Hull … Craig Kennedy … Trevor Kolego … Mark Blumenthal … Justin Thiltgen … Jove Oliver is 41
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THE DISPATCH
The Morning Dispatch: The White House Shakes Up Its Coronavirus Response
Plus, FISA reauthorization is already getting messy.
| The Dispatch Staff | 23 min |
Happy Thursday! We here at The Dispatch—well, at least Steve, Jonah, David, and Declan—spent most of Wednesday converting our non-CDC-compliant facial hair into much more manageable “walrus” mustaches. Can never be too careful nowadays.
Just a reminder: You are receiving this edition of The Morning Dispatch as a non-paying member. To receive the longer version, with full versions of our reported items and way more fun stuff, please join!
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- President Trump has announced he’s putting Vice President Pence in charge of the U.S.’s coronavirus response.
- A Molson Coors employee shot and killed five of his co-workers and then himself at the Milwaukee brewery Wednesday afternoon. It was America’s deadliest mass shooting since one at a kosher grocery store in Jersey City last December.
- Joe Biden landed a coveted South Carolina endorsement ahead of this weekend’s primary: Rep. James Clyburn, the majority whip in the House who has represented South Carolina’s 6th District since 1993.
- In a symbolic gesture, the House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to make lynching a federal hate crime. Only four lawmakers opposed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, a version of which the Senate passed last year.
The Latest on COVID-19
On Tuesday, we wrote about the latest developments of COVID-19, the coronavirus originating in the Chinese city of Wuhan that has spread to more than 80,000 people worldwide. The human toll is staggering—at least 2,800 have died from the virus thus far across the globe—and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has warned Americans the pathogen is likely to disseminate throughout the United States. The first American case of the virus unrelated to foreign travel or known contact with a confirmed patient was found in northern California last night, per the CDC.
“It’s not so much of a question of if this will happen anymore but rather more of a question of exactly when this will happen,” National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases director Nancy Messonnier said of COVID-19’s spread. “We are asking the American public to work with us to prepare, in the expectation that this could be bad.”
FISA Reauthorization Is Already Getting Messy
In yesterday’s Morning Dispatch, we discussed the deep disagreements that remain among congressional Republicans regarding the broad surveillance powers granted to the state by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. We also talked about how the coming fight over reauthorizing key parts of FISA would provide a good opportunity to survey whether the intraparty battle lines had shifted: in particular, the FISA markup that was scheduled for yesterday afternoon in the House Judiciary Committee.
What we didn’t expect is that Republicans wouldn’t get the opportunity to display those disagreements—because they would be precluded by a FISA breakdown among the Democrats. But that’s exactly what happened Wednesday, as the markup was canceled mere minutes before it was scheduled to begin.
This postponement was a big deal. The House isn’t working with unlimited clock here: Several of the government’s key counterterrorism surveillance authorities are set to expire March 15, and even small delays make getting reauthorization done by then dicey.
Worth Your Time
- Many Americans are freaked out by the prospect of Russia meddling again in the 2020 election—so much so that many have seemingly adopted a “Whatever Russia Wants, We Want The Opposite” approach to domestic politics. Reporting that the Kremlin is gearing up to support the Trump and Sanders campaigns this year is treated by some as proof positive that those candidacies are bad for America. But what if that sort of simplistic knee-jerk response helps do the Russians’ work for them? That’s what Charlie Warzel argues in this piece for the New York Times: “If we don’t adapt to this information war, our panic over election meddling could become self-fulfilling. And we will become useful idiots in the undermining of our own electoral legitimacy. That, more than electing any one leader, is the true goal of Russian interference.”
- The electoral strategy of Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign can be summarized this way: Trying to win by playing to the middle is a fool’s errand for Democrats. A message of revolutionary change that’s keyed to the needs of working people might alienate moderates and suburbanites, but it can more than make up for it by tapping into populations of people who are new to the political process. That such habitual nonvoters tend to favor leftist politics is taken as a given. But as Yascha Mounk writes for The Atlantic, the numbers don’t appear to support this theory: “Many advocates of what I have called the ‘progressive theory of mobilization’ assume that the typical nonvoter is young, brown or black, and very progressive. But while, of course, some nonvoters fit that description, an overwhelming majority don’t.”
Presented Without Comment
Toeing the Company Line
- We’re still getting used to this whole “Wednesday G-File” thing (or whatever he decides to call it), but Jonah pumped out another one for paying members (🔒) yesterday. Come for the debate analysis (“I’m not gonna dwell on the debate because the market is so glutted with debate takes that homeless people aren’t even putting them in their shopping carts”), stay for an explanation of the Democratic Party’s position on Fidel Castro and why praising Cuban literacy programs is barking up the wrong tree. (“ But the most annoying thing about this literacy garbage isn’t that it’s wildly exaggerated or that it doesn’t justify the authoritarianism. No the most annoying thing is that the literacy program itself was a tool of authoritarianism.”) This is what you’re missing out on!
- Two podcasts for the price of one: Check out the latest Dispatch Podcast to get the gang’s thoughts on the Democratic race, Trump’s post-impeachment emboldening, Harvey Weinstein, and coronavirus. Then head over to the Advisory Opinions feed, where Sarah and David discussed Bernie Sanders, religious freedom, and nondiscrimination statutes, and emergency hockey goalies.
- Today on the web site, Scott Lincicome writes he was a little surprised to see Oren Cass’s new group, American Compass, complain that U.S. trade policy is too libertarian: “To the extent that U.S. policy has fostered import liberalization, it has done so not because of a blind, idealistic embrace of Adam Smith but instead due to the cold reality of protectionism’s costs and myriad failures.”
- Have you been paying attention to the crisis in Idlib? Danielle Pletka has. She writes today, “How is it possible that in this day and age, half a million people can die, 7 million can be internally displaced, with almost as many having fled, and yet the killing can go on and on, as the great powers of the world stand by?”Reporting by Declan Garvey (@declanpgarvey), Andrew Egger (@EggerDC), Sarah Isgur (@whignewtons), and Steve Hayes (@stephenfhayes).
Top posts
THE HILL
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ROLL CALL
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Morning Headlines
The Architect of the Capitol is facing allegations of sexual harassment from an employee who contends supervisors continued to denigrate her despite previously agreeing to resolve her complaints. The complaint by Donna Blake alleges she was harassed dating back to 2014 by supervisors based on her sex and protected activity. Read More…
Four months ago, Rocio Dumey was in Iowa, volunteering for former Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s ill-fated campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Now she’s back in Texas, thinking about volunteering for another candidate who’s trying to finish what O’Rourke started two years ago, when he tried to oust Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Read More…
Could a short-term Bloomberg solution doom Democrats in the long term?
OPINION — The fact that so many Democrats are looking to former Republican Mike Bloomberg as a savior of sorts proves how desperate voters and party leaders are to defeat the president and how afraid they are of nominating a candidate not up to the job. Read More…
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He wrote jokes for Hollywood comedians. Now he wants to write Jim Jordan out of Congress
Former Hill staffer Mike Larsen, one of three Democrats competing in the March 17 primary for the chance to take on Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan this fall, is a professional comedian who spent years as a stand-up performer and a writer for comedy shows, including “Ellen,” “Real Time with Bill Maher” and “The Drew Carey Show.” Read More…
‘We just went at it hard’: Rep. Greg Walden on his early Hill days
After 22 years in Congress, Oregon Rep. Greg Walden is retiring at the end of this term, but he insists he’s not “one that’s leaving cranky and grumpy and down on the system.” Read More…
Double-booked: Busy budget season highlights scheduling woes
Even the best scheduler on Capitol Hill can’t make a lawmaker be in two places at once. A CQ Roll Call analysis of committee schedules and rosters shows that at least 10 House appropriators are expected to be at two simultaneous hearings on Thursday. Read More…
Trump open to higher price tag for emergency coronavirus funds
President Donald Trump says he’s willing to accept whatever spending level Congress deems appropriate to combat the spread of the deadly coronavirus disease that federal officials now say is inevitable in the United States. Read More…
Interior official: Border wall helps environment, sacred sites
An Interior Department official defended the Trump administration’s construction of the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico as an environmental good, arguing that erecting that barrier will help at-risk plants, animals and Native American cultural sites from damage even as lawsuits allege otherwise. Read More…
Louisiana Rep. Ralph Abraham won’t seek reelection
Louisiana Rep. Ralph Abraham announced on Twitter on Wednesday that he will not seek a fourth term in 2020. Abraham, a Republican from the 5th District, said President Donald Trump asked him to consider staying in the House for another term. Read More…
CQ Roll Call is a part of FiscalNote, the leading technology innovator at the intersection of global business and government. Copyright 2020 CQ Roll Call. All rights reserved Privacy | Safely unsubscribe now.
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Several headed to some of the Super Tuesday regions.
The risk from coronavirus remained “very low.”
Trump has a steep hill to climb winning over black voters.
Clinton claimed he donated to “every” Democrat.
It’s a big get for the Massachusetts senator.
It’s a risky offer to turn down.DESERET NEWS
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February 27, 2020 Trending now
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NOQ REPORT
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- Glenn Beck turns spotlight to ‘Bernie’s radicals’ like David Sirota
- Sanctuary buses?
- Mike Bloomberg’s environmental extremism takes Hillary and multiplies her times AOC
- Breaking: GAO calls on IRS to investigate Mike Bloomberg using charities for political gain
- 2nd Circuit rules Trump administration can withhold funds from sanctuary states, cities
- Bernie Sanders is winning, but his Cuba comments make the DNC more resolved to stop him
| Glenn Beck turns spotlight to ‘Bernie’s radicals’ like David Sirota
Posted: 27 Feb 2020 01:28 AM PST Conservative media leader Glenn Beck took aim at Senator Bernie Sanders last night. But he didn’t go directly after the presidential candidate or his policies. He focused on, as he hashtagged, #BerniesRadicals—the people within the Sanders campaign whose histories and ideologies should be examined when considering the candidate. Politicians tend to surround themselves with like-minded people, especially those closest to him. One such radical is David Sirota, the senior adviser and speechwriter for the Democratic Socialist. For full transparency, I must note that I prefer Sanders to be the Democratic nominee. It isn’t that I support him or any of his beliefs, but the rise of radical progressives within the Democratic Party is a concern I believe must be addressed on a national scale as soon as possible. We need to have the conversation and debate the policies as far and wide as we can reach. The best way to put a focus on Democratic Socialism and educate the masses about what it truly represents is to have a head-to-head battle between the Senator and President Trump, as well as between surrogates for both. I can imagine such a battle spawning a debate between Sirota and Beck (or me if Beck’s not available—I love a fun debate over socialism). With that said, let’s take a brief look at Sirota. From what I’ve read about him, he’s a strategic genius who has an “instinct for the jugular,” as former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta once said. According to Wikipedia, he’s even willing to entertain getting down in the mud and fighting dirty against opponents: “In 1999, Sirota served as Dwight Evans’ deputy mayoral campaign manager in Philadelphia but was let go for ‘overzealous behavior’ related to the creation of a fake website with damaging racial comments attributed to their opponent John White, Jr. Evans said he believed that Sirota had not created the bogus page but had discussed it with the person that created it.” In a clip that Beck shared on Twitter, we see the makings of a true authoritarian during a speech in 2007:
We also know that Sirota strongly believed in Hugo Chavez’ advancement of socialism in Venezuela, as Beck highlighted. The article referenced is like a loving obituary of Venezuela’s former leader, but more importantly it’s an endorsement of the socialism he brought to the nation.
As is invariably the case with socialism, things started off very well in Venezuela. But there’s no lesson to be learned about what went so terribly wrong between the time the article was written when Venezuela’s economy was flourishing (or so we thought) and the modern Venezuela with people literally eating out of garbage trucks. It was as predictable as the results of Pinocchio going to Pleasure Island. Socialism in a thriving economy will continue to thrive—and even improve conditions for a short while—until the inevitable effects of authoritarianism and nationalization come full circle. The benefits of socialism are real, but they are always short-lived because the ideology stipulates an impossible symbiosis between government’s needs and people’s desires. Socialism could work only within a group that is universally dedicated to collectivism. Universal dedication to collectivism erases, by necessity, the natural human urges for individualism. If it cannot, then the foundation of socialism is impossible to sustain in the long-term. Sirota was premature when he (and Sanders) sang the praises of Venezuela socialism:
That was in 2013. Fast-forward just two short years and the signs of economic collapse were already evident. Those who defended Chavez’ vision will say it was Nicolás Maduro and other leaders in the nation who failed through their own greed and thirst for power. But had Chavez lived another decade, the results in Venezuela would not have changed. If anything, Maduro inherited an economy that was already in the process of collapsing, though at the time Chavez had disguised their fiscal woes to the point that the people didn’t realize how much trouble they were in until their currency started buying less and less. Store shelves emptied. People waited hours in line in hopes of getting a loaf of bread and some sort of spread to put on it. The downfall came suddenly, not because it wasn’t there before but because Chavez had shrouded it. As a Sanders nomination seems more likely (if the DNC doesn’t steal it from him), it’s important for conservatives to heed Sun Tzu and know your enemy. Glenn Beck is sounding the alarms. We are as well. Will you start looking into #BerniesRadicals? Image via Zach Lipp Photography. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
The post Glenn Beck turns spotlight to ‘Bernie’s radicals’ like David Sirota appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| Sanctuary buses?
Posted: 27 Feb 2020 12:04 AM PST ANALYZING AN IMPORTANT ISSUEMy appreciation goes out to Lt Col Allen West, former Congressman from Florida, currently running for Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, for framing this issue for discussion. I consider Lt Col West to be a true patriot and a very prominent conservative voice in America today. He is a man I could actively support and campaign for as POTUS in 2024. I agree with what he writes 99% of the time. However his article of February 24, 2020, Sanctuary Buses brings up some issues that I feel compelled to address. My own background is in border security as a retired Supervisory Customs Inspector / Supervisory CBP Officer. As such, I worked my entire career in official Ports of Entry [POE] and at HQ. U.S. Border Patrol is a unit of the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service [INS], now a U.S. Customs and Border Protection unit distinct from the CBP Officers who function inside the POEs. Border Patrol protects American borders by operating beyond and between the POEs. PERTINENT DEFINITIONSFunctional Equivalent of the Border [F.E.B.]There are physical demarcations on the northern landborder between the United States of America and Canada as well as on the southwestern border with Mexico. But if you are on an international flight that lands at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in Texas, you are several hundred miles into United States territory away from the Rio Grande River. Your flight may have come Non-Stop from Asia, or Europe, for instance. But because you were in the air with no opportunity to interact with anyone on the ground, you are now at the Functional Equivalent of the Border. You are subject to U.S. Immigration and Customs formalities by CBP Officers at DFW who have the Constitutional right to warrantless border search authority which can only be conducted only by a “prudent Customs Officer at the border”. Case law has upheld this authority throughout American history. I will say that it has been based directly upon Customs searches, not Immigration per se, which was a separate agency before 2003 in a different department of the U.S. government. All those of us who came from legacy Customs or INS or Agriculture at the time of the merger are founding members of the Department of Homeland Security just as was recently deceased whistleblower Philip Haney. It is my own personal opinion that the name of U.S. Customs and Border Protection was intended to emphasize this warrantless border search authority as the successor to the late, great United States Customs Service, which dated back to 1789 and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. In fact, Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner moved seamlessly to become CBP Commissioner, with HQ remaining in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC, just a few blocks from the White House. I distinctly recall a directive that the new agency would not be referred to under the official name Bureau of Customs and Border Protection but rather as U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Unfortunately, those who came up with the name didn’t anticipate the confusion that future generations of government officials and the media would have in not understanding the role of the Border Patrol. I still grimace everytime I hear people who should know better saying or writing U.S. Customs and Border Patrol instead of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The “P” in the agency name stands for “Protection”, folks. Within CBP, the Office of Field Operations manages CBP Officers within official POEs, many of which are within the heartland far distant from landborders with Canada or Mexico and from the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. Honolulu is over 2,300 miles out in the Pacific Ocean offshore from San Francisco. All these international airports are Functional Equivalents of the Border, however. Before I outline the role and jurisdictional authority of the Border Patrol, there are other terms that we need to define and thoroughly understand. Extended BorderI will try to make this simple by just giving you an example of how it works. If illegal contraband is discovered or known to be within a shipment that crosses the physical landborder, very often from Mexico, then Customs and assisting federal and state/local law enforcement personnel can surveil the shipment to see where it is going and who will try to pick it up to make additional apprehensions. But, the key is that it be kept in sight and not interfered with on the way by outside entities. In other words, the illegal drugs are known to have come into the United States from foreign territory. Nexus With the BorderThis term is extremely important but must be carefully articulated to uphold. For example, Customs Officers also have warrantless border search for outbound shipments leaving the United States, including to enforce export statutes passed by Congress and signed into law by the President along with regulations of U.S. Departments of State and Commerce. Without going into too much detail, this includes items on the U.S. Munitions List [USML]. Coordinating such cases is what I did at the U.S. Customs Service HQ Operation Exodus Command Center between 1989-1991. It must be articulated that a shipment has a nexus with the border before it comes under the authority of border officers. The precise ramifications of that are beyond our scope here. But this concept, I believe, is key when we consider what U.S. Border Patrol is doing now in a new combined agency with both Immigration and Customs missions. While Border Patrol does confiscate drugs, undoubtedly their priority is to stop illegal aliens from entering the United States. Entering Without Inspection [EWI]This is a term more relevant to the Immigration mission of Border Patrol whereas the Customs mission would fall more under anti-smuggling. Title 8 of the United States Code contains the Immigration statutes and Title 19 USC is the Customs statutes. BORDER PATROL MISSION AND AUTHORITYIf a Border Patrol Officer sees a person swim or wade across the Rio Grande, or cross illegally through the desert farther west toward the Pacific Ocean, then the matter is very clear-cut. I’m just using the Mexican border as an example, but this also occurs up north from Canada. However, when a Border Patrol Officer encounters that person within a hundred miles or so away from the physical frontier, other factors determine whether he or she is suspected of having entered without inspection. Or, conversely, whether that person arrived at that location domestically from within the United States and did not just cross the border. In the latter case, there would be no immediate nexus with the border. We must remember there is another agency that plays a significant role. Plain clothes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] Agents are tasked with investigating those who may be in the United States illegally using all domestic law enforcement techniques, including court-ordered warrants to conduct searches when there is no immediate nexus with the border. There are well-established Border Patrol checkpoints in such places as San Clemente, California and near Las Cruces, New Mexico, which screen both private and commercial vehicles on public highways. Living in Southern California years ago, I passed the one on I-5 between San Diego and Orange County many times, actually wishing to be pulled over just to see what they would say, but they have their own criteria and it never happened. GREYHOUND AND CONSENT SEARCHESWhich brings us to the point of Lt Col West’s heartfelt article. A warrantless border search is a very different thing from a consent search away from the border. I want at this point to state that I very much admire Lt Col West. I never gratuitously compliment anyone. Never. If you read my previous articles you see that I try to hold both sides of the political aisle equally accountable. But I admire Allen West as a man of great credibility with an enduring love for this country who embodies an understanding of the American traditions and history that this country is all about which virtually all other politicians lack today. He has put his life on the line as a United States Army officer who made a tough decision to protect the lives of his soldiers over any personal career aspirations. He also understands the ideology of Islamic jihad better than most, with a an impressive command of history. SO…Should Greyhound give consent to board any of their buses anywhere in the United States for Border Patrol to identify illegal aliens? Recall what I just outlined above about the definitions of Functional Equivalent of the Border, the Extended Border and Nexus with the Border. Lacking any of those, my answer to the question is that Greyhound is NOT honor bound to give such consent. I am confident that Allen West fully respects the protection of civil liberties of everyone. If a person crosses the landborder into the United States either on foot or in a private or commercial conveyance, he or she is subject to inspection. Within a Port of Entry, that is the function of CBP Officers. Elsewhere, that is the function of the Border Patrol. But, for instance, if you boarded a bus from Bellingham to Seattle, what nexus is there with the border? There is none. Unless you can articulate how they got into Bellingham and can conduct a border search. Otherwise, you need consent as we will discuss now. Travel within the United States is domestic. As I live in Hawaii, some folks don’t quite understand that as the 50th State, you can come here without clearing Customs or Immigration directly from any of the other 49 states, yes, including Alaska as well as the 48 contiguous States. When you arrive here, the State of Hawaii, not federal, Agriculture will ask you some question about food and plants. When you depart back to the Mainland or CONUS, Federal USDA wIll check for plants, due to agricultural quarantines. That is not the U.S. border nor is CBP involved in either of those functions, neither CBPOs nor Border Patrol. The very fact that there is an issue with Greyhound as a private company giving consent is indicative that border search authority is not present, because at the border there is no choice but to be subject to inspection. I’m not just concerned about protecting Greyhound’s financial interests. Rather, I’m concerned that neither Border Patrol nor ICE nor any other government agency be allowed to go on fishing expeditions on Greyhound buses anywhere in the country. That is bringing us very close to a police state. If they get consent, do they look at the documents of each and every person, particularly when U.S. citizens are not required to carry identity documents? If not, what criteria do they use to determine whom to focus on and whom not? That is the crux of the issue in my estimation. As I said earlier, I was never stopped at Border Patrol inspection points on either I-5 or I-10. Why not? How exactly do they determine which vehicles to stop and scrutinize the driver and passengers? But for now, we’re talking about Greyhound buses. Not just at such an official inspection point apparently. I would recommend that Greyhound deal with this at the corporate level and not empower their individual drivers to decide on a case-by-case basis what to do. It is not a wise policy to refuse to stop for a law enforcement vehicle of any level of government. I will insert here another personal anecdote as I am wont to do. For the first time in nearly 42 years since I came to Hawaii, which utilizes some unmarked vehicles as official Honolulu Police Department cars, one with flashing lights came up behind me this afternoon that was not clearly identifiable as HPD or otherwise. I’ll save the details of that for some other time, but civilians have the right to understand law enforcement authorities and their own rights. There is nothing wrong whatsoever in asserting those rights. If I’m on a Greyhound from Laredo to San Antonio and a Border Patrol Agent asks me for my identification, I will definitely want to know what authority he or she has away from the border. If they just say Greyhound gave me consent to come and talk to you, I’m going to be very unpleased with Greyhound for violating my Constitutional rights. I do know something about consent which is given by private industry related to border security. FedEx and other express couriers have been known to give law enforcement agencies consent to search packages in their possession. I’ll leave that matter at that but I just want to demonstrate that Greyhound isn’t the only company that has an issue with whether or not to give consent for law enforcement within their own business operations. A VERY SIMPLE TESTCBPOs do not need consent to do inspections at the landborder, airports, seaports, express courier hubs or within specific parameters at international mail branches. Border Patrol does not need consent when there is a nexus with the border between Ports of Entry. If Border Patrol asks a company for consent, then the agents are not acting upon a nexus with a border which would not require consent. If a federal agent of any agency comes to your door and asks for consent to search your house, you are within your Constitutional rights to deny that consent and say: come back with a warrant. I can also tell you that giving consent, any evidence found will most definitely still be used against you and you will not benefit from having given that consent. But I’m not trying to protect guilty people here, rather the overwhelming majority of American law-abiding citizens who have done nothing wrong. You do not want to give Greyhound the ability to usurp your right whether or not to grant consent. It is not in the price of the ticket you buy to board the bus. You must reserve that decision for yourself. Of course, I strongly believe in border security, having spent my whole career helping to enforce it. But I also firmly believe that things must be done 100% according to law. My personal opinion is that giving consent to a law enforcement officer to do something that he or she cannot do without your consent is never in your own best interests and you most definitely do not want to default that decision to Greyhound or any other external entity. We want to protect our country from hostile invading forces, but we must never erode our own civil liberties in the process. Otherwise, we wind up destroying that which we are attempting to defend. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
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| Mike Bloomberg’s environmental extremism takes Hillary and multiplies her times AOC
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:27 PM PST Bernie Sanders talks about the Green New Deal all the time. Elizabeth Warren invokes it regularly at events that feature known environmentalists. All of the Democratic candidates try to flash their green credentials from time to time. But Mike Bloomberg is the biggest climate change extremist of them all, as his own words demonstrate. As we’ve talked about multiple times on this site, the Green New Deal is actually an economic policy, not environmental policy. It uses climate change as the backdrop to promote radical economic postures like Modern Monetary Theory. Bloomberg’s take on it is reversed. He actually wants to use economic policy as the backdrop for extreme environmentalism. In a recent interview, he “pulled a Hillary” by declaring his war on coal. But he’s taken it much further than Hillary Clinton’s threats in 2016. He’s actually in the process of killing coal in America.
Notice at the end he mentioned the widely debunked notion that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez often invokes by saying we need to treat the climate change “crisis” like an event that must be addressed this decade. But unlike AOC and her peers, Bloomberg is pushing for drastic changes in America that will take down entire industries. We should expect this from the ultimate nanny-stater since he’s largely responsible for the current war on plastic straws that so many far-leftists fight every day. The Green New Deal really is an existential threat to the United States, but for very different reasons than Bloomberg’s proposals. The Green New Deal pushes for economic upheaval, and in the details lies the reality that America will never adopt such radical policies as long as there are enough conservatives on Capitol Hill to block it. Of all the threats that Sanders or Warren present if they were ever in the Oval Office, the Green New Deal isn’t a realistic target for anyone to fear. Bloomberg’s ideas are definitely realistic targets. He would have the power with or without Congress to change energy policy that makes it impossible for the coal industry to survive. And despite the popularity of “green” thinking in the United States on both sides of the political aisle, his ideas would create such an upheaval in the way the nation operates that the effects would be felt decades before we ever saw a significant decrease in the nation’s carbon emissions. In other words, his attack on the economy would be stealthier than the Green New Deal, but the effects would be just as dramatic. In many ways, Mike Bloomberg is the Greta Thunberg of American politics. Other radicals use climate change to hide their economic agenda. Bloomberg is a true believer in climate change hysteria. He is the bigger threat to industry than any other candidate. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
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| Breaking: GAO calls on IRS to investigate Mike Bloomberg using charities for political gain
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:47 PM PST The non-partisan Government Accountability and Oversight, P.C. (GAO) has its sights set on a Democratic candidate for president. They’ve accused Mike Bloomberg of breaking IRS rules surrounding his various non-profit organizations, saying they’re being used not only to benefit his for-profit businesses, but more importantly they’re giving him a boost for his presidential campaign. In a letter sent to IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig, the watchdog group called on the IRS to investigate Bloomberg Family Foundation Inc. and “Bloomberg Philanthropies,” both of which the GAO believes “may be operating in violation of the Internal Revenue Code.”
The ironic part is some of the media reports the GAO references were intended to paint the Trump Foundation as doing what Bloomberg’s various charities have done. The cases against the Trump Foundation have been weak despite Herculean efforts to make something out of nothing. The organization operated essentially the same over the years. Meanwhile, Bloomberg’s various charities seem to have been inherently political, even before he was officially a presidential candidate, with their efforts to promote their founder ramping up around his campaign announcement late last year. The letter states, “As one former White House counsel and lawyer for the Democratic National Committee writes, ‘The law governing the activity of charitable organizations can be complex, but on the question of whether 501 (c)(3) charities can engage in political activity, it could not be more straightforward. They cannot. The IRS enforces an ‘absolute’ prohibition on any intervention in political campaigns.’” If the IRS finds Bloomberg’s charities have been helping him secure the Democratic nomination for president, the potential repercussion could be to remove their tax exempt status. But the real damage will come to the perception of his campaign and his integrity. Using charitable donations to advance one’s political ambitions is generally deemed highly inappropriate. This is big news. Mainstream media likely won’t report it until there’s a groundswell of awareness that makes their cover up too conspicuous. They want Mike Bloomberg as the Democratic nominee. How far will they go to hide the truth for him? Image via Gage Skidmore American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
The post Breaking: GAO calls on IRS to investigate Mike Bloomberg using charities for political gain appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| 2nd Circuit rules Trump administration can withhold funds from sanctuary states, cities
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 01:55 PM PST Grant money designated for local and state law enforcement may be withheld by the Attorney General from sanctuary jurisdictions, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today. This reverses previous injunctions against withholding grants that were imposed by lower courts. Seven states—Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington—plus New York City had won previous lawsuits against the administration, but this ruling reverses those victories. Now, the Department of Justice can withhold grant money from jurisdictions that fail to cooperate with federal law enforcement, particular Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in attempts to take criminal illegal immigrants into custody. Previously, jurisdictions only had to demonstrate they were communicating with federal law enforcement about criminal illegal immigrants taken into custody. But the new rules say they must also allow federal law enforcement to enter and take illegal aliens into custody, following the edicts of “detainers” sent by the Department of Justice. Sanctuary jurisdictions choose to ignore these detainers and release the criminal illegal immigrants before they can be apprehended and deported. But even the old rules were not always being kept as ICE was not being informed of apprehensions. As The Daily Wire reported:
Sanctuary cities represent a false federalism. The tenets of federalism, which establish that local, city, county, and state jurisdictions have power to operate as they see fit regardless of what the federal government tells them, are not in play with sanctuary jurisdictions. Because criminal illegal aliens often roam freely around the country as a result of their release in sanctuary jurisdictions, the effects of their policies unfairly hit surrounding areas. The sins of one jurisdiction cannot be allowed to negatively impact others. This is a big win for the Trump administration in its fight against illegal immigration. Preventing illegal border crossings and visa overstays are two facets, but the ability to remove criminal illegal aliens is essential to the safety of American citizens. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
The post 2nd Circuit rules Trump administration can withhold funds from sanctuary states, cities appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
| Bernie Sanders is winning, but his Cuba comments make the DNC more resolved to stop him
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:15 PM PST “OMG why is this happening,” said a text message from a staffer at the DNC. I had sent him a clip of Bernie Sanders defending his comments about Fidel Castro, comments that started coming out in a 60 Minutes interview and continued throughout the week. He’s not backing down. He’s clarifying without retracting. Bernie Sanders truly believes there were benefits to Cubans who lived under the Castro regime. Going into the South Carolina primary on Saturday and Super Tuesday a few days later, Sanders is the clear favorite. He’s first or second in just about all of the polls, including a big lead in California and a virtual tie for first in Texas. But his recent Cuba comments came at a time when many Establishment Democrats and even a handful of NeverTrumpers were trying to make the case that perhaps Sanders wouldn’t be so bad as a nominee. Now, they’re truly scared. The last thing Sanders needed was more attention given to his Cuba comments at last night’s debate, but there was no chance he’d make it through the debate without being called out. His responses were acceptable to his base, perhaps enough to not sway supporters against him, but they’ll do nothing to help him expand. If he can somehow catch Joe Biden in South Carolina, the race may be over. But that seems very unlikely at this point. Right now, the best thing Sanders has going for him is victimhood. It’s hard to imagine a frontrunner being a victim, but negative ads by Mike Bloomberg and constant attacks by mainstream media have only served to strengthen the resolve and enthusiasm of his base. They’re crying foul. They’re calling it a repeat of 2016, only worse since this time he’s in the driver’s seat. Will he be able to ride victimhood to the nomination? He may need to if he has a real chance of securing it. The stage is already being set for a contested convention, a scenario that most believe favors Bloomberg or whichever “moderate” ends up on top when the convention rolls around. If Sanders doesn’t outright win the nomination, it may be impossible for him to be the plurality nominee. Things are about to get dirty. Okay, so the DNC has been playing dirty since before the Iowa caucus, but now they’re going to get REALLY dirty. The oppo research teams are working overtime. Can the DNC stop their top candidate? Probably not. American Conservative MovementJoin fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. We have two priorities until election day: Stopping Democrats and supporting strong conservative candidates. We currently have 7500+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
The post Bernie Sanders is winning, but his Cuba comments make the DNC more resolved to stop him appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes. |
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ARRA NEWS SERVICE
ARRA News Service (in this message: 19 new items) |
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- Pained by Choice
- The Far Left’s Strategy to Control Your Community
- President Trump’s India vs. the Democrats’ South Carolina
- The Left’s Hate, Don’t Panic, Debate Disaster
- Sharyl Attkisson Explains Why Trump Merits 2nd Term
- ‘Gray Matter’–Deficient Americans
- There Is No American Worker Shortage
- Bloomberg the Nanny
- Trump’s Successful India Trip
- D is For Disease . . .
- Democrats and Abortion
- Mark Zuckerberg Funds a Plan to Turn California Into a Silicon Valley Ghetto
- Trump Towers Over The Democrat Candidates
- In New Supreme Court Case, Religious Liberty Is at Stake
- Illegal Immigrant Charged With Raping Maryland Girl, 11
- Buttigieg: Tax the Bible-Believers!
- Bloomberg’s Signature Gun-Control Policy Takes a Beating
- Federal Appeals Court Rules Against Sanctuary Cities
- The Geopolitics of the Coronavirus
| Pained by Choice
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 07:43 PM PST  by Tony Perkins: After a while, even the most hardened doctors would admit it gets to them. For Dr. Anthony Levatino, it happened suddenly. He was in the middle of a dismemberment abortion — holding the first piece of the baby he’d torn apart — when he abruptly stopped. “I didn’t want to continue,” he said. “But I had to, because… if we don’t get all of the parts out, the woman will get sick, get an infection, [or] even die.” He kept working. But by the end, when he looked at the pile of little body parts he’d removed — a pile similar to the dozens he’d made before — something was different. “I didn’t see the woman’s ‘right to choose’ or the $800 cash I’d made in 15 minutes. I saw somebody’s son or daughter.” It’s a barbaric procedure — one that 44 members of the U.S. Senate want you to believe is “health care” or “choice” or any number of euphemisms that distract from the real-life torture they’re supporting. If the baby is lucky, she’s lethally injected before being cut apart piece by piece in the womb. If she’s not, Senate Republicans argued, she feels every second of her excruciating death. It’s a kind of suffering so cruel that we don’t subject animals to it or death row inmates or wanted babies. And yet, it is an agony that members of the most powerful legislative body in America will do anything to protect. “There are only seven nations left in the world where an unborn child can be killed by elective abortion after 20 weeks,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told his colleagues Tuesday, “and the United States of America is one of them.” And we allow it despite the fact that babies can feel the unbearable pain. When Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) first introduced his 20-week abortion ban years ago, he did it because the science agreed: the fifth-month mark is when the nerve endings have spread to all parts of the skin and tissue. (Other studies argue it’s much earlier.) Believe it or not, babies at that stage have the highest number of pain receptors per square inch. So if they’re aborted, Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand has warned, the suffering will be severe, and it will be excruciating. That’s the kind of unimaginable cruelty we wouldn’t allow on most living creatures. And yet, it’s the most common second trimester abortion there is, making up 96 percent of the procedures after 12 weeks. Maybe that’s why, of all three doctors in the U.S. Senate, not one supports the Democratic view that ripping a child limb from limb after 20 weeks is an acceptable “choice.” Neither, Senator McConnell pointed out, do the American people. You won’t catch the media highlighting it, but according to polling, 80 percent of Americans want to limit abortion to the first trimester — including 65 percent of “pro-choicers.” “Do our Democratic colleagues really believe that what our country needs is a radical fringe position on elective abortion that we only share with China, North Korea, and four other countries in the world?” he asked. And please, spare us all the liberal argument, conservatives like Ramesh Ponnuru write, that late-term abortions almost never happen. They do. Thanks to 44 senators, we are not. Senator Graham’s pain capable bill couldn’t even get the 60 votes it needed for debate. The message from that, McConnell shook his head, is “chilling and clear: The radical demands of the far-Left [have drowned] out common sense.” Tony Perkins (@tperkins) is President of the Family Research Council . Article on Tony Perkins’ Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers. Tags: Pained by Choice, Tony Perkins, Family Research Center, FRC, Family Research Council, To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| The Far Left’s Strategy to Control Your Community
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 07:17 PM PST
by Kay C. James: Why are wealthy left-wing donors across the country, the abortion industry, and national gun control groups more interested in your local school board and city council races than most of the people who live in your own town? Because they’re funding efforts to ensure their far-left agenda pervades our entire society—from getting their abortion curricula into our schools to changing our election laws—and they want to make sure that no city, no town is left to stand against them. National left-wing organizations are collecting and funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to flip local city councils, school boards, and county prosecutors’ offices to the left. They are flooding small elections with big money, and it’s giving them unprecedented influence over our local affairs and greater access to our children. We’re witnessing the election of leftist local prosecutors who are refusing to prosecute whole classes of crimes. Rather than working with their state legislatures or city councils to reform the criminal justice system the right way, they are choosing to ignore the laws they took oaths to uphold and are single-handedly nullifying laws they don’t like. luding in Philadelphia and Chicago, cities with two of the highest crime rates in the nation. Their campaigns have been supported by wealthy out-of-state billionaires, one of whom spent millions just last November backing candidates in several Virginia counties. It’s not only prosecutors’ offices, though. In one example, community organizers from national organizations descended on one county in Tennessee to take over the school board and county commission. They ran left-wing candidates for the school board and gained control of the school curriculum. Newsweek reported on one teacher training session that included a talk on “white privilege” that asserted: “Even when minorities express or practice prejudice against whites, they are not racists.” National abortion groups have donated millions to elect state and local candidates who vow to weaken abortion laws and give the abortion industry access to our schools. Those groups use their influence to get officials to adopt their sex education curriculum in local schools. One group even created high school “clubs” where it trains students in abortion activism. Another part of the takeover agenda is gun control. In last fall’s Virginia elections, one anti-Second Amendment group spent $2.5 million to elect gun control advocates to the Virginia General Assembly. It was the largest out-of-state spender in Virginia’s elections, and its candidates have helped push the unprecedented gun control legislation we’re now seeing. These far-left groups aren’t going to stop, and they have the money and the people on the ground to insert themselves in communities across the country. Fighting them is going to require local citizens working together, and national organizations such as The Heritage Foundation and others working to expose them. We’ve all heard the story when, as he was leaving the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked whether America had ended up with a republic or a monarchy. He replied, “A republic—if you can keep it.” The same character and sacrifice that were required to found this republic are now desperately needed to keep her. Our Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of a free nation. We must do the same. Fortunately, we don’t have to die for this cause, but we do have to give our lives in the sense that we must dedicate our time and a portion of our treasure to defending this nation—community by community—against those who would destroy it from within. That means calling and writing your elected officials about proposed legislation, attending city council and school board meetings to prevent them from adopting these agendas, and volunteering for and giving money to candidates who will forward limited government, free market principles, and traditional American values. Then we must multiply our voices by getting 10 of our like-minded friends registered to vote and to turn out on Election Day. Conservatives must do more than complain. We must be willing to stand up and fight. We must engage in the battle, otherwise, we will cede the battlefield and, ultimately, our country. I don’t want to leave my children and my grandchildren an America that’s less free than the one I inherited. Protecting our hard-fought American way of life is one of the greatest gifts we can pass on to the next generation. Tags: Kay C. James, Heritage Foundation, The Daily Signal, The Far Left’s, Strategy to Control, Your Community To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| President Trump’s India vs. the Democrats’ South Carolina
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:51 PM PST  by Newt Gingrich: As I watched the two-hour food fight disguised as the South Carolina Democratic Presidential debate, what really hit me was the enormous contrast between President Trump and the first lady in India this week and the Democrats’ bickering. The visual of the presidential couple being greeted enthusiastically by more than 120,000 cheering people in India’s largest soccer stadium was so much more impactful than the shrinking respect and declining seriousness of the Democrats’ squabbling. It may be my age or my partisan bias, but Bernie Sanders seems as he repeats his mantra again and again. At any given time, he’s attacking Israel, defending Cuban dictators, proposing to take away everyone’s private health insurance, announcing new programs which would cost $10 trillion to $70 trillion dollars, and explaining everything could be paid for by taxing the rich. In a Broadway play, you would cast Sanders as the comic interlude. However, in the real world of the modern radical Democratic party, Sanders is the most likely person to be their presidential nominee. A number of the other candidates tried to warn last night that a Sanders radical socialist ticket would cost Democrats the House (making Republican leader Kevin McCarthy the speaker) and give Majority Leader Mitch McConnell several new Republican senators. But, when the party activists decide that purity is more important than practicality, no rational warning of the coming disaster has any impact. I remember in 1964 when I was a young Barry Goldwater conservative. None of us believed the warnings that Goldwater would take the GOP down to a disastrous defeat. Eight years later, in 1972, none of the radical George McGovern supporters believed their candidate would be crushed in one of the worst electoral landslides of modern time. Sanders can cite current polls that show him doing well against President Trump as much as he likes. Unfortunately for the Democrats, none of the current polls reflect detailed information about how radical and how unpopular his policies are. Sanders and Democratic Socialism do fine as a bumper sticker. However, when the Sanders program is explained in terms of the cost to people’s lives, it is a disaster. Ideologically, this disaster will be compounded by the stature gap between the Democrats and the President of the United States. This was the real message of Tuesday night. The Republican president is a genuine world leader, who is heartily welcomed by the leader of the world’s most populous Democracy. The Democratic contenders are simply not ready for prime time. The leap from quarrelling on the stage in South Carolina, to landing in New Delhi in Air Force One is simply too great. President Trump’s stature advantage is increased dramatically when First Lady Melania Trump accompanies him on world trips. The picture of the two of them at the Taj Mahal beat anything the Democrats said or did in the debate on Tuesday. It was a good week for team Trump, and a terrible week for Team Democrat. The elephant is happy. The donkey is panic stricken. Tags: Newt Gingrich, commentary, President Trump, India vs. the Democrats, South Carolina To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| The Left’s Hate, Don’t Panic, Debate Disaster
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:40 PM PST
by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: The Left’s Hate They are attempting to stoke panic and they are promoting the baseless narrative that the president has failed to take appropriate steps. Senate Democrat Leader Charles Schumer kicked off the attack yesterday on the Senate floor. He declared that the administration had been “caught flat-footed” with “no plan to deal with the coronavirus” and “seemingly no urgency to develop one.” I have no idea what alternative reality Schumer is living in. Here are the facts:
Is it likely to remain 57 people? Of course not. It seems that the coronavirus is like a flu on steroids. Imagine trying to prevent the yearly flu from arriving here. We’d have to build a wall around the entire country and ban all ships and planes, shutting down all travel. In short, it would be virtually impossible. We will have more cases of coronavirus. We have excellent healthcare and medical research institutions. So I am reasonably optimistic that we will be able to limit the impact. But we don’t know for sure. Of course, everyone is hoping we will limit this. Whoops. I have to correct that. Unfortunately, I have no doubt that many in the fevered swamps of the left — the same folks who tried to blame George W. Bush for Hurricane Katrina and Trump for the devastation Hurricane Maria caused in Puerto Rico — are hoping for the worst now. That is beyond disgusting. And here’s a final point to keep mind: It wasn’t that long ago when the left accused President Trump of being a racist for trying to stop hundreds of thousands of people from crossing our southern border, including many who were sick and a surge of Chinese nationals. If anyone is to blame for leaving our country exposed, it is the radical left. Don’t Panic The talking heads on CNBC reacted by setting their hair on fire. The financial markets crashed again. There is no reason for this panic. We will learn more at 6:00 PM when President Trump holds a press conference with CDC officials. Debate Disaster “The loser Tuesday was everybody on stage. The Democratic Party. Any hope for sensible, coherent debates.” “What a mess. It was exhausting.” “The Charleston debate was . . . an irritating mess. . . Any Democrats who watched this debate to make up their minds about whom to vote for might wish there were a category on their ballot labeled ‘None of the These Candidates.'” “Let’s first establish the debate’s losers, to get it out the way: the CBS moderators.” “This was not a great night for the Democratic Party. The moderating was not strong; there was a lot of shouting and cross-talk; it was unpleasant to behold.” “The last Democratic debate before Super Tuesday sounded like a fork caught in a blender — all smashing and crashing noise with no substance at all.” “That debate was a downer. Nobody won, but somehow all of us at home lost. That’s two hours of our lives we’ll never get back.” MSNBC’s left-wing “Morning Joe” co-hosts agreed, calling the debate a “wreck,” “a mess” and “a slugfest that spun wildly out of control.” One final thought: Bernie Sanders got the “frontrunner” treatment last night with every candidate taking shots at him. But the general consensus is that he survived the night and remains the party’s frontrunner in spite of doubling down on his defense of communist regimes, which left Van Jones “disappointed.” Yet while Sanders defended the “good things” done by Cuba and China, he saved his harshest criticism for Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him “a reactionary racist” for keeping his nation safe from radical Islamic terrorism. Once again, Sanders drew a clear redline for anyone who cares about the U.S.-Israel alliance. The world knows that under the leadership of President Trump and Vice President Pence, the United States stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel. Under “President Sanders,” Israel’s enemies would be emboldened and the Jewish state would be in grave danger. Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, The Left’s Hate, Don’t Panic, Debate Disaster To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Sharyl Attkisson Explains Why Trump Merits 2nd Term
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 06:05 PM PST  by Free Press International News Service: Whoever the Democrats eventually pick as their 2020 candidate won’t matter. President Donald Trump has already secured a second term, journalist Sharyl Attkisson wrote. In a Feb. 18 analysis for The Hill, Attkisson noted: “Obviously, anything can happen, and I am not suggesting that those who support other candidates shouldn’t bother to vote. But as Democrats narrow down their array of personalities and preferences, I think Trump’s path to a second term has far more to do with him than with them.” Attkisson offered seven reasons why Trump has earned re-election: More experience. Trump is the only candidate who has served as president and commander in chief for four years. Extreme vetting. Trump has been as thoroughly vetted as any political figure in American history, if not more so. There are few stones that remain unturned except, arguably, his tax returns, which will not make any difference to his supporters. On the other hand, all of his opponents — from former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg to former Vice President Joe Biden — are fending off new criticisms of their policies and actions. The sky didn’t fall. Some Republicans worried that Trump would be too liberal in practice; some independents were wary. Economists predicted the stock market would immediately crash. Critics said Trump would ship out illegal immigrants on trains, expel Muslims from the U.S. and start a nuclear war. With some of the most cataclysmic predictions not coming to pass, some of those who held back in 2016 are coming aboard the Trump train. No surprises. Trump has proven to be exactly as he advertised. He has gone from being an unknown to being quite predictable, like him or not. Track record. While Trump’s critics find much of his track record is objectionable, that same record is just what many of his supporters hoped for — and then some. From record-high employment for African Americans and other minorities, to a new trade deal with China, replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, unbuckling the regulatory environment, moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, progress toward building a border wall and draining the Washington swamp, Trump is picking up some independents, Democrats, blacks and other minorities. He’s a proven survivor. Not much new can be thrown at Trump that will shake his support. He’s overcome impeachment and a special counsel investigation; he’s survived being called a rapist, racist, liar, tax-evader, Putin stooge, clown, mentally ill, traitor — you name it. It’s hard to imagine he cannot survive more of the same. In fact, by Democrats pursuing the strategy of attacking everything President Trump does as the-end-of-the-world-as-we- Height. Trump is taller than any of the likely Democrat nominees. “The beauty of American elections is that anything can happen,” Attkisson noted. “There is plenty of time for Democrats to coalesce around a strong candidate who capitalizes on Trump’s perceived weaknesses and unpopularity among a large segment of the population. But today, if I were betting, all my money would have to be on another Trump victory.” Tags: Free Press International, News Service, Sharyl Attkisson, Explains Why Trump, Merits 2nd Term To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| ‘Gray Matter’–Deficient Americans
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 03:33 PM PST
by Dr. Victor Davis Hanson: The billionaires and bureaucrats depend on the skilled workers they mock — and that makes them more than a little uneasy. Former New York mayor and multi-billionaire Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, four years ago at Oxford, England, dismissed farming, ancient and modern. He lectured that agriculture was little more than the rote labor of dropping seeds into the ground and watching corn sprout — easy, mindless, automatic. “I could teach anybody,” Bloomberg pontificated, “even people in this room, no offense intended, to be a farmer.” He contrasted such supposedly unintelligent labor of the past (and present) with the “skill set” of the current “information economy” that requires “how to think and analyze.” In this new economy, he said, “you have to have a lot more gray matter.” Gray matter? For all his later denials and efforts to contextualize those remarks, Bloomberg seems to see both ancient and modern agriculture, and farmers, as either unskilled or not very smart, as if the genetically inferior gravitate to muscular labor far from the “skill sets” of those like Mike Bloomberg. He certainly has no idea about either the sophistication of ancient agriculture or the high-tech savvy of contemporary farmers — much less just how difficult it is, and always was, to produce food, much less that history is so often the story of mass famine rather than bounty and plenty. He contrasted such supposedly unintelligent labor of the past (and present) with the “skill set” of the current “information economy” that requires “how to think and analyze.” In this new economy, he said, “you have to have a lot more gray matter.” Gray matter? For all his later denials and efforts to contextualize those remarks, Bloomberg seems to see both ancient and modern agriculture, and farmers, as either unskilled or not very smart, as if the genetically inferior gravitate to muscular labor far from the “skill sets” of those like Mike Bloomberg. He certainly has no idea about either the sophistication of ancient agriculture or the high-tech savvy of contemporary farmers — much less just how difficult it is, and always was, to produce food, much less that history is so often the story of mass famine rather than bounty and plenty. Bloomberg’s apparent dismissal of rural people might seem odd, given that Democrats profess allegiance with the working classes and muscular labor. But, in fact, his disdain is perversely logical and indeed predictable. In the earlier 2008 campaign, then-progressive candidate Barack Obama wrote off the rural voters of Pennsylvania, a state he lost in the primaries to Hillary Clinton. Of those who apparently did not vote for him, he claimed: “They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” A contrite Obama knew relatively little about rural Pennsylvania other than the stereotypes he had embraced about country life from his Hawaiian prep-school cocoon, Occidental College, the Ivy League, and his subsequent elite, identity-politics cursus honorum. His then-opponent Hillary Clinton pounced and attacked Obama as “elitist and out of touch” — and she soon transmogrified, as Obama put it, into “Annie Oakley” Hillary. Remember that, in those few days of her failed first bid to capture the Democratic nomination, Hillary drank boilermakers, talked guns, bowled, and bragged about her solid support among the “white” working classes. Of course, eight years later Hillary herself wrote off the base of her 2016 opponent Donald Trump as “a basket of deplorables.” And after smearing them as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic — you name it,” she boasted that some of them were “irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.” When candidate Clinton went to impoverished West Virginia, she lectured poor and often out-of-work coal miners, promising, “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” This from someone who gave inane 20-minute talks to Wall Street grandees for over $12,000 a minute — on their expectation that she’d be a compliant quid pro quo political investment. Former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden said of Trump’s working-class voters, “They’re a small percentage of the American people, virulent people, some of them the dregs of society.” Biden, by 2019, had also metamorphosed from good ole Joe Biden of rural and coal-mining Scranton, Pa., to the grandee who could advise doomed coal miners to learn how to program computers: “Anybody who can throw coal into a furnace can learn how to program, for God’s sake!” A coal miner might have replied to Joe Biden: “Anybody who cannot do much of anything other than get mired in drugs and illicit affairs can certainly learn how to make $80,000 a month as a consultant to a foreign energy company.” The disdain for the working and middle classes shown by wealthy liberals who supposedly champion labor is matched by the disdain of progressive government bureaucrats, media, and left-wing Hollywood celebrities. In one amorous exchange to his paramour Lisa Page, fellow FBI agent and Trump hater Peter Strzok said, “Just went to a Southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support.” Strzok, who was the highest-profile FBI employee in most of the major scandals of the past four years — the Clinton email fiasco, the setup of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, the Crossfire Hurricane FBI investigation of “Russian collusion,” and the Mueller special-counsel investigation — was apparently representative of the FBI hierarchy. One anonymous attorney wrote to another in a text disclosed by the inspector general, “Trump’s supporters are all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS.” Marquee reporters often got caught expressing the same sort of disdain felt by progressive politicians and the federal bureaucratic elite. Describing the crowd at a Trump rally, Politico reporter Marc Caputo tweeted, “If you put everyone’s mouths together in this video, you’d get a full set of teeth.” The locus classicus of elite progressives’ disdain for working-class Trump supporters was a recent panel on the show of CNN host Don Lemon. Pundits Rick Wilson and Wajahat Ali took turns ridiculing the accent and intelligence of the supposedly Neanderthal rural voter. Or as Wilson put it, Trump plays to “the credulous Boomer rube demo that backs Donald Trump that wants to think — ” and here Wilson adopted a faux-Southern accent — “‘Donald Trump is the smart one and y’all elitists are dumb.’” Then, as host Lemon doubled over in laughter at their impressions of supposed white trash, his two guests adopted “redneck” accents and indulged in an extended parody of the allegedly stupid Trump voter: Ali: “You elitists, with your geography and your maps and your spellin’ . . . ” Wilson: “Your math and your readin’ . . .” Ali: “Yeah, your readin’, your geography, knowin’ other countries, sippin’ your latte.” Wilson: “All those lines on the map.” Ali: “Only them elitists know where U-kraine is!” Progressive derision of the working class, and especially lower-middle-class white America, pre-dated Trump. Remember the decade of hatred that Hollywood expressed for Sarah Palin, her family, and her supposed class, both during and after the 2008 campaign. Late-night talk-show host David Letterman joked on his show that Sarah Palin’s 14-year-old daughter Bristol had been “knocked up” in the dugout by star Alex Rodriguez during a New York Yankees game — as if rural, stupid, and inbred Alaskans are eager to be statutorily raped in their groupie eagerness to seek out celebrities, even in dirty dugouts amid a crowd of thousands. The list of disparagement could be expanded — do we remember how the media assured us that Harvard Law graduate Adam Schiff was to destroy his counterpart, supposedly hick farmer Devin Nunes — at least until Inspector General Michael Horowitz found the information in the Nunes majority report factual, and by implication found that the Schiff minority version was an assemblage of falsehoods and half-truths? Why do so many liberal journalists, politicians, and celebrities harbor such contempt for, and show such snobbery about, the white working, and often rural, classes of the American heartland? The most obvious answers are that the media, elite politicians, and government hierarchy are liberal or left-wing, and the objects of their hatred are mostly conservative. Just look at any election map, color-coded by either congressional districts or Electoral College states, and the nation, geographically, is a sea of red, bookended by two long blue corridors on the coasts, the home of the nation’s tony universities, network news, media hubs, the bureaucratic borg, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and Wall Street. Second, there is no cultural, career, or political downside in stereotyping millions of Americans as stupid, crude, and culturally repugnant. Had Don Lemon’s two guests mimicked the dialect of inner-city youths and suggested they were uneducated and thus gullible supporters of Barack Obama, they would have been banned from CNN for life. Or had Peter Strzok suggested that he could smell Obama supporters at Walmart, federal attorneys would probably have found a way to have him indicted by now. Third, politics, academia, the media, and entertainment don’t necessarily draw in particularly wise people, especially if knowledge is broadly defined as social skills, empirical education, common sense, and pragmatic experience. According to the rules of the elementary playground, one becomes exalted by ridiculing others. High-school dropouts such as Robert De Niro and Cher seem to appear sophisticated by ranting about Trump and his supposedly ignorant supporters. Don Lemon’s skills seem mostly limited to reading a teleprompter — when he ventures into commentary and analysis, he usually sounds either banal or adolescent. Howling at stupid jokes about the supposed ignorance of the red-state drawler apparently lend the insipid Lemon an air of cosmopolitan sophistication. Michael Bloomberg, for all his billions and cunning, cannot fathom in a debate that, by joking about TurboTax, he only further alienates millions who use it because they cannot hire his legions of attorneys to reduce their tax exposure. Finally, there is also a psychological explanation for why coastal elites negatively stereotype the churchgoers, farmers, gun owners, and Walmart shoppers of the nation’s interior. Our elite, especially those of our white elite establishment, are not especially comfortable with either poor people or minorities — at least not in the sense of living among them, working alongside them, schooling their children with them, or marrying among them. They sense that such concrete unease — their fear and insecurity — is at odds with their well-meant desire to help the underprivileged in the abstract. Elites help square that circle of wishing to aid the Other while not being anyway near the Other through the use of medieval-style virtue-signaling. That is, they deplore white racism and privilege by attributing it to supposedly ignorant and less enlightened poor white people, whose illiberality and un-wokeness they can lazily stereotype as responsible for the plight of the underclass. Our best and brightest cannot be the good white people unless there are plenty of the bad white people. Smearing the latter is a convenient — and cheap — way of showing abstract solidarity with the nonwhite. In reductionist terms, those with undeniable white privilege damn as privileged those who have never been near it, thereby erasing their own privilege and spiritually placing them at the virtual barricades beside those they otherwise keep carefully distant. Of course, there is also an element of fear, even apprehension, in such demonic generalization, a result of segregation from and ignorance about the physical world. Barack Obama, who once complained about the price of arugula and either had never heard or never spoken the word “corpsman,” knew that he knew nothing about farming or guns or clinging working people. Did he realize that his food, his safety, the maintenance of his home and car depended on others who could do things to keep his world viable that he not only could not do but also could not even imagine? Ask Obama and his class to replace a 30-amp breaker, or prune a peach tree, or drive a semi, and one could see that he assumes others who are supposedly less gifted provide his power, food, and consumer goods, using skills he lacks. Ditto Hillary Clinton and Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg claims he could teach anyone on an Oxford stage how to be a farmer. But he knows that he has no knowledge of farming, ancient or modern, and has no detailed notion of where or how his fruits, vegetables, grains, and choice cuts arrive at his various estates and hence his table. He may even sense that while the world could do without Bloomberg News, it could not survive without skilled farmers. So he is a bit edgy when he thinks about the physical world of muscle that allows him to be Mike Bloomberg, multibillionaire Socratic dunce. We need to move beyond the idea that the elite caricature the deplorables because they are insensitive and arrogant. True, they are, but they also do it because they are insecure — and terribly afraid of those they don’t like, but also sense they desperately need. Tags: Victor Davis Hanson, ‘Gray Matter,’ Deficient Americans To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| There Is No American Worker Shortage
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:51 PM PST
by Michelle Malkin: “We’re full, our system’s full, our country’s full!” That was President Donald Trump last year at our southern border. “Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit American workers and American families.” That was Trump in January 2017 at his inaugural address. “The influx of foreign workers holds down salaries, keeps unemployment high, and makes it difficult… to earn a middle class wage.” That was presidential candidate Trump in 2016. Contrast those clarion “America First” statements with the apparent hysteria of Trump’s current acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who was caught on tape telling a private audience of elites in England last week: “We are desperate — desperate — for more people. We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth that we’ve had in our nation over the last four years. We need more immigrants.” Mulvaney reportedly went on to push for “expanding” merit- and employment-based immigration to fill all the high-skilled jobs that Americans purportedly aren’t capable of filling. By how much, for how long, in which visa categories and under what conditions this “expansion” should happen, Mulvaney is not reported to have detailed. (He will be featured at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday morning. It would be nice if someone asked him to elaborate, wouldn’t it?) “Running out of people” is typical Beltway swamp talk from a big business lobbyist trafficking in open borders “Chicken Little” alarmism. Has Mulvaney opened a newspaper or browsed the internet in the last 10 years? How about the last week? Over a 48-hour period, I compiled a Twitter thread of more than 50 stories of tens of thousands of recent U.S. worker layoffs in tech and other high-skilled industries. Among the U.S. corporations and institutions responsible for laying off, replacing, offshoring, and outsourcing tens of thousands of American jobs: Wayfair, TripAdvisor, LogMeIn, Inc., Zume Pizza, VMWare, Shutterfly, Intel, Comcast, Xilinx, 23andMe, NortonLifeLock, AT&T, Macy’s, Walgreens, Uber, Lyft, UCSF Medical Center, Baptist Health, Sysco, WeWork, American Family Insurance, Tennessee Valley Authority, Amway, UPS subsidiary Coyote Logistics, Comcast, Lime, Bird, Unicorn, Getaround, Cerner, Oracle, Samsung US, Edmunds.com, Textron Aviation, Morgan Stanley, Spirit AeroSystems, Mozilla, UiPath, Plexus, Cisco, Ancestry.com, Clover Health, State Street Corporation, Anthem, Transamerica, Verizon, MassMutual, Disney, Carnival, Abbott Labs, EmblemHealth, Harley Davidson, Cargill, Eversource Energy, Best Buy, Southern California Edison and Qualcomm. The most recent entry in my U.S. worker layoffs thread came in Monday from Expedia, which announced it is laying off 12% of its information technology workforce (roughly 3,000), including 500 employees at its Seattle headquarters. Tip of the iceberg. As leading American workers’ employment attorney and Protect US Workers advocate Sara Blackwell points out, “so many companies are able to conduct this awful business model under the radar.” And they get away with it because it’s legal, workers are silenced, and most Americans “just do not care because it does not yet touch them personally.” Do we “need more immigrants,” as Mulvaney claims? Marie Larson, an American mom who founded the American Workers Coalition with Barbara Birch and Hilarie Gamm, told me: “I talk to Americans almost daily who are being discriminated against, who keep getting laid off by Indian managers, who have to train their foreign replacements to get the much-needed severance packages, who have to pull kids out of college because they can’t afford it, even having to sell their houses. These are STEM workers, who got the ‘right’ degrees and did everything they were supposed to do, only to have our government turn their back and sell out to big businesses push for even more H-1Bs.” Tech firms cut 64,166 American jobs in 2019, up 351% from 14,230 in 2018. Are we so “desperate” for more bodies to “fuel economic growth?” Let’s recap the demographic math: We live in a nation of 330 million, 44 million of whom are foreign-born. Upward of 30 million immigrants are currently living, working and going to school here illegally. One million new legal immigrants are granted green cards every year. An estimated 600,000 temporary worker visas are issued annually, including the H-1B, H-2A, H-2B and H-4 programs. That doesn’t include spousal visas or the more than half a million foreign “students” now working through the stealth guest worker plan known as the Optional Practical Training program, which allows foreign students to work with little monitoring, no wage protections, no payment of Social Security payroll taxes and no requirement for employers to demonstrate labor market shortages. “We” ordinary Americans don’t need more immigrants. Corporations (and their trusty house organ, the Wall Street Journal) want higher profits, lower wages, and endless pipelines of cheap foreign labor. They’ve been cooking up manufactured worker shortage crises since World War II and crying apocalypse since the 1980s, when the National Science Foundation’s Erich Bloch hyped a STEM shortage based on groundless projections to crusade for agency budget increases. Remember: The only persistent tech worker shortage in America is a shortage of workers at the wage employers want to pay. Beltway swampers gnashing their teeth over barren American worker recruitment pools are full of it. Tags: Michelle Malkin, There Is No American Worker Shortage, commentary, Rasmussen Reports To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Bloomberg the Nanny
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:41 PM PST
by John Stossel: Good for Mike Bloomberg. During his first debate, he slammed Bernie Sanders by saying: “We’re not going to throw out capitalism. We tried that. Other countries tried that. It was called communism, and it just didn’t work!” Exactly right. It’s safe to say Bloomberg is not a communist. I wonder if that means there’s still room for him in the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, Bloomberg is no principled, limited-government capitalist, either. Like his fellow New York billionaire Donald Trump, he’s used to getting his own way at his own company. Unfortunately, he assumes government should function in a similar fashion. Instead of a predictable governing philosophy, Bloomberg has whims — lots of them. The Media Research Center’s Craig Bannister tallied “32 Bloomberg Bans” (some were overturned). While he was mayor of New York City, Bloomberg targeted smoking, flavored tobacco products, fattening sodas, cars on certain Manhattan streets, loud music, grass clippings, cellphones in schools, salt, guns, Styrofoam, restaurant menus without calorie counts and restaurants without extra bathrooms for women. When challenged about how his ban on big soft drinks inconvenienced consumers, Bloomberg contemptuously replied that you could always buy two smaller containers. “Could be that it’s a little less convenient to have to carry two 16-ounce drinks to your seat(, but) I don’t think you can make the case that we’re taking things away.” But he was taking something away — freedom of choice. It’s hard to do what we choose if nannies like Bloomberg control parts of our private lives. During his tenure as mayor, police expanded crowd-control cordons at public events like parades and marathons. Now, it’s harder to see the parade. And sometimes, to cross one street, you have to walk a long way. If Bloomberg ends up in the White House, he’d bring his nanny approach to the whole planet. Still, in my state’s primary, I’ll vote for him over Bernie Sanders. He knows how to manage people. He was a pretty good mayor of my city, much better than the political hack we have now. He sometimes even cut spending to pull the city out of debt. He criticizes some of the Democrats’ ruinously expensive proposals, saying “Medicare for All” “would bankrupt us!” He recognizes the value of work. “In America, we want people to work… to set the alarm clock and punch the time clock. That’s what America’s all about.” Unfortunately, now that Bloomberg’s a Democrat, he says “the free market is not always perfect,” and he wants paid family leave, a higher minimum wage and higher taxes. Although he criticized the “Green New Deal” as “pie in the sky,” now Bloomberg has his own expensive “solutions.” He would cut greenhouse gases by half by doing things like banning new natural gas plants. There’s no way to do that without making it much harder for people to heat their homes and buy gasoline. He spends millions pushing more gun control while issuing groveling apologies for tough-on-crime programs he once believed in. Five years ago, he bragged about putting “a lot of cops… where the crime is, which means in the minority neighborhoods.” Now he apologizes “for the pain that (statement) caused.” But it was accurate, and most of his policies made life better for people in minority neighborhoods. Bloomberg thinks he can have it both ways, being a Republican or a Democrat depending on which is most convenient for his ambition — and his autocratic tendencies. That leads him to admire places like China, where dissent is not allowed. As CEO, he was quick to cooperate with the Chinese government. Sociologist Leta Hong Fincher writes how Bloomberg’s company tried to ruin her financially when she tweeted about corruption in Beijing. Her husband had a nondisclosure agreement with Bloomberg. That meant the company could stop him — not her — from saying anything that might upset Chinese Communist authorities. Bloomberg’s love of power even led him to get a special exception to New York City’s term limits on mayors. He got the city council to let him run for a third term — not all future mayors, just Bloomberg. Trump jokes about running for a third term, but Mike actually did it. Bloomberg, unfortunately, is yet another unprincipled power-hungry political egomaniac. I think Nanny Bloomberg has given enough orders for one lifetime. Tags: John Stossel, Bloomberg the Nanny , commentary, Rasmussen Reports To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Trump’s Successful India Trip
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:34 PM PST . . . Signing an arms deal and laying groundwork for a trade deal with the world’s largest democracy.  by Thomas Gallatin: President Donald Trump spent the last two days in India, where he was cheered at a massive rally in his honor and inked a $3 billion arms sale with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “You have done a great honor to our country,” Trump told the cheering crowd. “We will remember you forever. From this day onwards India will always hold a special place in our hearts.” “As we continue to build our defense cooperation,” Trump continued, “the United States looks forward to providing India with some of the best and most feared military equipment on the planet.” The arms deal includes the U.S. selling India roughly $3 billion in military helicopters. It was a largely successful trip for Trump, who is seeking to exploit the growing regional tension between China and India by working toward solidifying a long-term trade deal with the latter. “We will be making very, very major — among the biggest ever made — trade deals,” Trump pledged. “We are in the early stages of discussion for an incredible trade agreement to reduce barriers of investment between the United States and India. And I am optimistic that working together, the prime minister and I can reach a fantastic deal that’s good and even great for both of our countries — except that [Modi] is a very tough negotiator.” India is one of the few foreign countries where Trump enjoys a high favorability rating, and he is clearly looking to use his popularity to develop a closer relationship with India. As Power Line’s John Hinderaker observes, “The main news to emerge from Trump’s visit so far is a $3 billion helicopter sale, part of a move toward making the U.S. ‘the premier defense partner of India.’ While it has been lost in the minutiae of political press coverage, this military purchase reflects one of the most important global developments of recent years. During its early years of independence and throughout most if not all of the Cold War, India was a socialist-leaning and Russia-oriented ‘nonaligned’ nation. More recently, India has adopted more progressive, free-market economic policies, and has turned decisively toward the West. Its alliance with the United States is one of the most positive geopolitical developments of recent years, and it is properly being celebrated by President Trump.” Tags: Thomas Gallatin, The Patriot Post, President Trump, Successful India Trip To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| D is For Disease . . .
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:27 PM PST . . . The Democrats and the Mainstream Media seem almost giddy at the possibility of the coronavirus making Trump look bad.
Tags: Editorial Cartoon, AF Branco, D is for Disease, Democrats, Mainstream Media, giddy about, coronavirus making Trump look bad To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Democrats and Abortion
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:20 PM PST  by Kerby Anderson: Kristen Day asked former mayor Pete Buttigieg an important question. She is the executive director of Democrats for Life. She explained that there are 21 million pro-life Democrats and wanted to know if he would support “more moderate platform language in the Democrat Party to ensure that the party of diversity, of inclusion, really does include everybody.” He was not interested in changing the language. None of the other Democrat candidates for president show any interest in returning to a more moderate perspective. Not so long ago, the platform followed the phrase used by Bill Clinton, who wanted abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare.” Alexandra Desanctis reminds us that eight years ago, the party removed the word “rare” from its platform. Four years ago, the party platform called for the repeal of the Hyde amendment, which has been added to spending bills on a bipartisan basis since 1976. By the way, this shows the fallacy of the common statement by pundits that both parties have become more extreme. The Republican platform language on abortion hasn’t changed in decades. The Democratic platform became more extreme during each presidential election of the last decade. The increased extremism on abortion may not help Democratic candidates. A recent Gallup poll discovered that nearly one-third of self-identified Democrats also describe themselves as pro-life. Even Democrats who don’t identify themselves in this way still favor restricting abortion much more than these candidates would allow. I doubt that the 2020 Democratic Party Platform will include moderate language. If anything, the platform will probably have stronger statements about abortion. The passage in the New York legislature of the Reproductive Health Act that allows late-term abortions illustrates the extreme party attitudes on abortion. Tags: Kerby Anderson, Viewpoints, Point of View, Democrats and Abortion To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Mark Zuckerberg Funds a Plan to Turn California Into a Silicon Valley Ghetto
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 02:09 PM PST
by Daniel Greenfield: Unlike a lot of blue states where property taxes make home ownership all but impossible for working class and even middle class families, California has the 16th lowest property taxes in the country. These low rates have allowed California homeowners and businesses who predated the dot com boom to survive in a state and in municipal areas that are rapidly becoming unaffordable to all but a small few. While housing prices are skyrocketing, property taxes are fixed at the time of sale with assessments limited to 2% increases a year due to Proposition 13 or the People’s Initiative to Limit Property Taxation. The 1978 proposition dates back to a time when the state’s taxpayers protected their own financial interests. After a string of successful tax increases and debt hikes, Proposition 13 is on the chopping block. The choppers have been clever enough to introduce a partial repeal that will remove protections for commercial real estate while, for now, promising to preserve them for homeowners. But, it goes without saying, that Proposition 13 protection for homeowners will be the final stage of the assault. Splitting the assault on commercial and residential real estate in two divides the opposition and allows it to be picked off separately by the oligarchy of unions, non-profits and dot coms that run California. That’s why every other commercial on local television is either for Michael Bloomberg or the push to tax commercial properties at market value. The commercials are almost comically misleading, the most frequent offender features a supposed firefighter with a soul patch who claims that the money is needed to stop natural disasters from affecting schools. There are also ridiculous claims that the $11 billion in projected revenue is needed to save children from school drinking fountains tainted with lead. Seven years ago, the Los Angeles Unified School District spent $1.3 billion to hand out 650,000 iPads to all its students, but, for some reason, didn’t get around to removing those lead pipes. California schools keep blowing through enough billions to finance a dozen small countries while always crying poverty. And the guy behind many of those ads, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, is the 4th richest man in the world. With a net worth of over $79 billion, Zuckerberg could replace every pipe in California and not even notice the cost. But instead the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, the name of the charity and political organization of one of the world’s wealthiest couples, has spent $2.1 million to raise other people’s taxes even after Facebook had used Ireland as a tax shelter to avoid paying taxes in the United States. Zuckerberg’s assault on Proposition 13 could wipe out small businesses in California as the tax increases from commercial real estate get passed down to small business tenants. Meanwhile Facebook is fighting the IRS in court over its Irish tax scam to avoid paying the $9 billion in taxes that it owes. Facebook falsely claimed that its international headquarters was in Dublin even as an email by Sheryl Sandberg, its COO, admitted that it was a tax shelter and the “international headquarters” would be “tiny.” Instead of paying its taxes, Facebook’s CEO wants to raise taxes for small businesses. Despite claims that this initiative is philanthropic, shifting the tax base from income tax to property tax would be personally profitable. The Facebook IPO was big enough to have had a significant impact on California’s budget. Zuckerberg was personally on the hook for $200 million. Other employees and investors were good for over $2 billion in state taxes. Additional stock sales the next year reportedly cost the Facebook boss billions in federal and state taxes. The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative gets its funding from Zuckerberg’s Facebook shares. CZI is going to war against small business for its own profit. So much for Mark’s charity. California’s middle class gets wiped out while Mark Zuckerberg gets closer to that fabled $100 billion. Schools and Communities First, the PAC funded by millions in dirty Facebook money, touts the backing of unions, the ACLU, Joe Biden, Cory Booker, and assorted radical leftist groups, but CZI is the one that really matters. The unions and politicians, two sides of the same crooked coin, are obviously in it for all the money that they can squeeze out of embattled California taxpayers. And, in its own way, so is CZI. Wiping out property tax protections won’t hurt the big dot com firms like Facebook. But it will make it even harder for any prospective rivals to function in an area with impossible rents and the highest housing costs in the country. That’s why one startup was charging $1,200 in rent for bunk beds for aspiring Zuckerbergs who “want to focus on their startups”, but can’t actually afford to live there. The pressures of commercial rents are already catastrophically punishing. Zuckerberg’s move to crush commercial real estate protections will significantly raise the cost of doing business for competitors without Facebook’s deep pockets, potentially reduce future income tax impacts on his own vast fortune and those of many Facebook employees, and leave behind chaos as Facebook expands elsewhere. The dot com has shifted its strategy in the last two years from massive expansion in Menlo Park and San Francisco to Zuckerberg’s announcement to Facebook employees last year that the area is “tapped” and that the company would be expanding outside the Bay Area. And now that the area is “tapped”, Zuckerberg can nuke it from orbit and make sure that other companies will have trouble affording it. Meanwhile Zuckerberg and Facebook get props for their social justice. That’s CZI’s mission statement. The collateral damage from this Silicon Valley civil war will extend far beyond helping Zuckerberg’s net worth hit eleven figures, and the pressure cooker of the Bay Area which is on the verge of exploding. The downward pressure of commercial property tax hikes will turn much of the rest of California into the Bay Area with impossible rents squeezing out small businesses and the people that depend on them. If you want to see the future of California, imagine a handful of dot coms, satellite startups, and the businesses owned by them, from Whole Foods to the leftovers of the entertainment industry, and gig economy delivery services making up the leftovers of the economy. And a whole lot of poor people living in housing subsidized by dot coms like Facebook, which dumped $1 billion into affordable housing, and taking tech vans for hundreds of miles to do grunt work for the tech masters of the universes. The California Schools And Local Communities Funding Act is a dot com trojan horse that would turn the state into a Silicon Valley ghetto while wiping out the protections that made a middle class life possible. Facebook has already transformed the virtual geography of social relationships. The Proposition 13 modification would have an equally devastating effect on the physical geography of California. And it’s a potential testbed for Zuckerberg’s initiatives that will extend far beyond California’s borders. The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative draws on nearly limitless funding and its subset, Chan-Zuckerberg Advocacy, has seen only limited use of its power to back a pro-crime initiative in Ohio and tax hikes in California. But fully unleashed, CZI could fundamentally reshape states and cities for the power and profit of one of the wealthiest men in the world. It’s already reshaping California. For the worse. Tags: Mark Zuckerberg, Funds a Plan, to Turn California, Into a ,Silicon Valley Ghetto, Daniel Greenfield, Sultanknish To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Trump Towers Over The Democrat Candidates
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 01:57 PM PST  by Mario Murillo Ministries: Joe Biden began by telling us that 150 million Americans have died due to gun violence since 2007. Who knew almost half of our population had been wiped out? That hyperbole was just the opening salvo. And none of the other candidates called him out for it because they relish the doomsday scenario. The panel of screeching cats that stood before America tried desperately to out-whine each other. Meanwhile, the shadow of President Donald Trump and his achievements towered over them. Trump is so amazing that he wins debates he doesn’t even attend. You would have assumed from the rhetoric that our nation was on its last leg. You would have thought that viruses, heat waves, and Russians were about to destroy the pitiful remnant who have survived the gun violence. You would have thought that Black and Latino voters needed to be rescued from their better jobs, higher pay, and brighter futures. Have you ever seen so many politicians compete to see who is best at getting Americans to feel sorry for themselves? “WHAT WILL BECOME OF AMERICA IF WE LET THIS CONTINUE?!” they cried.  You mean if we keep winning? If we keep increasing manufacturing? If we stand with Israel and innocent babies? What indeed will become of us???? For starters, we will see the blessing of God return to law abiding, God fearing families. We will continue to see our enemies fear us and our allies respect us. Tonight proved that this election is about being either strong or weak. Each Democrat made the case for weakness. ‘You need government. You need us to change the weather back. Racism is so bad you can’t even see it!’ The battle lines have been clearly drawn for all to see. If you are for Trump, you are for a strong economy, strong families, strong morals, and strong national defense. You are for trading with other nations from strength. You are for conducting foreign policy from strength. You are for strong personal responsibility, privacy and a private sector that is free from suffocating regulations. You are for productivity, not dependence. You want a paycheck, not a hand out.  Trump thinks you ought to keep your money—he thinks you know better than big government how make your finances grow. Trump believes you have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The other side believes in only one thing: getting rid of Donald Trump. And you could lose 150 million brain cells trying to figure out why anyone would want to do that. ———————– Mario Murillo is an evangelist Mario Murillo, minister, blogger. Tags: Mario Murillo, President Trump, Towers Over, The Democrat Candidates To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| In New Supreme Court Case, Religious Liberty Is at Stake
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 01:28 PM PST
by Kassie Dulin: In recent years, local and state governments have forced numerous faith-based adoption and foster care agencies out of business because of their religious beliefs about marriage. While some of those agencies closed with little protest, Catholic Social Services chose to fight back in the courts. Catholic Social Services filed a lawsuit alleging that the city of Philadelphia discriminated against the agency by refusing to place children with the agency because of its beliefs. On Monday—after two years of legal battles — the Supreme Court agreed to hear Catholic Social Services’ case later this year. The outcome will not only affect the future of faith-based adoption and foster care agencies nationwide, but the religious freedom rights of all Americans. More Than 100 Years of Service When Thomas was 5 years old, he was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. He was living with his aunt and uncle while his mom battled a drug addiction. During an explosive argument with his aunt, Thomas’ uncle threw boiling water on him. The 5-year-old was in the hospital for weeks receiving treatment for his severe burns. After the boy was discharged from the hospital, the city of Philadelphia assigned his case to Catholic Social Services. The agency placed Thomas with Sharonell Fulton, a Catholic foster mom devoted to making her home a safe harbor for traumatized children. Thomas stayed with Fulton for the next 14 years. He says that Fulton was like a mother to him, providing him with the safe, loving home his parents couldn’t offer. Today, at the age of 31, Thomas is thriving in a successful career—a life outcome very different from what his 11 siblings have experienced. Fulton says Catholic Social Services’ workers have been a lifeline to her over the past 25 years as she has cared for more than 40 children. The agency even provided wrapped Christmas presents hours after Fulton welcomed four foster children into her home on Christmas Eve. Catholic Social Services’ staff became “like family” to her and her foster children. City Forces Agency to Shut Down City Forces Agency to Shut Down In March 2018, a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter asked Catholic Social Services what it would do if a hypothetical same-sex couple sought to foster a child through the agency. It responded that, because of the Catholic Church’s long-held belief that children do best when raised in a home with a married mother and father, it would refer the hypothetical couple to one of the dozens of other foster care providers in the city. When the city heard about Catholic Social Services’ response, it immediately launched an investigation into the agency’s alleged “discrimination”—even though no same-sex couple had asked to foster a child or been prevented from fostering a child. The city then gave the agency an ultimatum: agree to certify same-sex couples as foster parents or end its foster care services. Catholic Social Services could not violate its religious beliefs, so the city ended its contract with the agency, effectively shutting down its foster care program. As a result, dozens of Catholic Social Services foster families have been denied the ability to foster children through the agency they know and trust, even as the city faces an unprecedented foster care crisis and has put out a call for more foster families. The agency sued the city, alleging religious discrimination. The agency lost at the federal district and appellate levels. But on Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. How This Case Affects All Americans First, the outcome will determine whether governments can force faith-based adoption and foster care agencies out of business because of their religious beliefs. This is an especially important question as the United States faces a major foster care crisis due to the opioid epidemic. A Supreme Court ruling in the faith-based agencies’ favor would ensure that they can keep their doors open to serve children in need. Second, this case will allow the court to revisit Employment Division v. Smith, one of the most problematic religious freedom precedents in Supreme Court history. The ruling in that 1990 case gave the government considerable leeway in restricting the free exercise of religion through laws that are “neutral” or “generally applicable.” For decades, that opinion has resulted in the restriction of Americans’ rights to freely exercise their faith. Several Supreme Court justices have expressed concern about Employment Division v. Smith, including Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, and Chief Justice John Roberts. The court could use Catholic Social Services’ case to overturn Employment Division v. Smith and reaffirm that religious freedom is a fundamental right deserving of robust legal protection. Finally, although this case centers on the interaction between a single city and a foster care agency, it points to a bigger issue of state and local governments struggling to balance Obergefell v. Hodges’ 2015 legalization of same-sex marriage with the Constitution’s guarantee of religious liberty for all. With Catholic Social Services’ case, the justices could clarify that the First Amendment requires the government to respect the diverse beliefs of all Americans in matters involving marriage. The Supreme Court will hear the case, Fulton v. Philadelphia, later this year. The outcome will affect not only agencies such as Catholic Social Services and foster children such as Thomas, but religious liberty nationwide. By revisiting the Employment Division v. Smith precedent and clarifying First Amendment rights in the same-sex marriage debate, the court’s opinion will play a crucial role in determining the religious freedom rights of all Americans. Tags: Kassie Dulin, First Liberty Institute, The Daily Signal, Supreme Court Case, Religious Liberty Is at Stake, Catholic Social Services To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Illegal Immigrant Charged With Raping Maryland Girl, 11
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 01:05 PM PST  by Louis Casiano: A man charged with raping an 11-year-old girl in Maryland was living in the United States illegally, authorities said. Jonathan Coreas-Salamanca, 20, was arrested along with Ivan Reyes Lopez, 19, earlier this month at the high schools they attended in Montgomery County, Md., WJLA-TV reported. Both men are charged with second-degree rape. Coreas-Salamanca, a citizen of El Salvador living in the U.S. illegally, faces additional charges of sexual abuse of a minor and a third-degree sexual offense. “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) lodged a detainer for Jonathan Coreas-Salamanca, an unlawfully present Salvadoran national, with Montgomery County Detention Center on Feb. 14, following his arrest by Montgomery County Police for sex abuse of a minor and second-degree rape,” ICE spokeswoman Kaitlyn Pote said in a statement to the Daily Caller on Tuesday.
ICE did not immediately respond to a Fox News for comment. Coreas-Salamanca was arrested Feb. 13 at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring where he is enrolled and Lopez was taken into police custody at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School. Coreas-Salamanca is accused of exchange explicit text messages and photographs with the 11-year-old girl, in addition to arranging meetups for sexual encounters. Her father found the phone on Christmas Eve last year and called the police, the news station said. “[The victim’s father] described a text message where Suspect Coreas-Salamanca advised Victim A that she bit his penis the last time she performed fellatio,” court documents state. “Suspect Coreas-Salamanca’s purpose in sending the text message was to teach Victim A how to better perform fellatio.” The Washington Examiner reported that Montgomery County is allowing ICE to place detainers on undocumented immigrants, which allows agents to pick them up from jail to begin deportation proceedings. The report said that if ICE agents don’t arrive on time or miss an appointment to pick up the undocumented immigrants, they are released. The county has seen a spike in crime committed by undocumented immigrants in recent years. Last year, it rolled back its sanctuary policy after following the arrests of several undocumented immigrants for alleged rape or sexual abuse. Tags: Illegal Immigrant, Jonathan Coreas-Salamanca, Charged With, Raping, Maryland Girl, age 11 To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Buttigieg: Tax the Bible-Believers!
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:49 PM PST  by Tony Perkins: Pete Buttigieg has spent 10 months trying to run as a Christian for president. Granted, it’s been a heavy lift for an infanticide supporter with a same-sex husband. But after Monday, it should be downright impossible after the former mayor announced his contempt for something all of America values: religious freedom. The man who loves to quote Scripture to support his unorthodox views will have a tough time finding one to support his latest target — the First Amendment. But then, Mayor Pete has never let a little thing like biblical integrity get in the way of distorting Christianity. When a woman asked Buttigieg how he would handle the debate over things like faith-based adoption, he replied it was simple. He’d just cut religious groups out of the process. And not just out of the process, but out of government altogether. Religious freedom, he insisted, “ends” where the LGBT agenda begins. To be clear, Buttigieg is talking about a lot more than elbowing Catholic Charities out of foster care. He’s suggesting ending the tax-exempt status for churches and religious groups all together — a far more aggressive and hostile approach than most liberals are willing to admit out loud. Beto O’Rourke tried the idea back in October, and it practically sunk his candidacy. “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone, or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us,” the Texan had argued. Ironically, Mayor Pete pushed back then — still trying to paint himself as the moderate we all know now he’s not. “That means not only going to war with churches, but also with mosques and a lot of organizations that may not have the same view of various religious principles that I do,” he countered. Now, just five months later, going to war with churches and organizations seems to be exactly what Pete has in mind. And while the mayor feigned outrage last fall, the reality is: this isn’t exactly new territory for liberals. President Obama’s solicitor general told Justice Samuel Alito in 2015 that Christian institutions could lose their tax-exempt status for holding biblical views in a post-Obergefell world. “It’s certainly going to be an issue,” Donald Verrilli admitted. “I don’t deny that. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito. It is — it is going to be an issue.” And a campaign one at that. Pete is only giving voice to a deeply-held view in the Democratic Party — which is that tolerance is a one-way street. And the only way to maintain it is if Christians, conservatives, and orthodox faiths are forced to put their beliefs in park. There’s just one problem: it’s the very definition of unconstitutional. “To even try to compare sincere and widely-accepted religious beliefs to socially disruptive behavior like yelling ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater is not only misinformed,” FRC’s Travis Weber argued, “but insulting to the millions of Americans who hold these beliefs, and just want to be left alone to live them out in peace.” Despite the smear campaign underway by the liberal media and candidates, faith-based groups aren’t harming anyone. On the contrary, they’re the reason hundreds of thousands of people in this country have food in their stomachs and roofs over their heads. They serve the needy regardless of who they are with everything from free counseling and health care to legal aid. The fact that they try to find the most stable homes for adoptive kids — which, research tells us, is with a married mom and dad — shouldn’t be insulting. It’s encouraging that they care enough about these children to put them in the best possible position for success. They aren’t telling other organizations how to run their adoption agencies — or taking away options for same-sex couples. They’re just saying they shouldn’t have to surrender their biblical beliefs to provide a social service to their neighbor. And for that, this Democrat thinks they should be treated like pariahs in the public square. Fortunately for everyone, Pete’s word won’t be the last one. The Supreme Court is making sure of that, announcing Monday that the justices will hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a hugely important faith-based adoption case. And thanks to Donald Trump, two men who understand the constitutional importance of religious liberty — Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch — will be on the bench when they do. No city can tie a government partnership to the “surrender of constitutional rights.” And no presidential candidate, for that matter, should either. Tags: Tony Perkins, Family Research Center, FRC, Family Research Council, Buttigieg, Tax the Bible-Believers! To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Bloomberg’s Signature Gun-Control Policy Takes a Beating
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 12:19 PM PST  by Frank Miniter: Was that Michael Bloomberg on stage in the Democrat’s debate in Las Vegas on Feb. 19? The 78-year-old man up there all the way on the left, next to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), sure looked like the former New York City mayor and billionaire backer of what we might as well call Gun Control Inc. But he just didn’t act like the presidential candidate we see in the endless TV commercials and Facebook ads … and that we hear about in the paid-for endorsements. The politician in those narratives is supposed to be an earthy man of the people, a guy who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. The guy on stage, however, seemed more like an out-of-touch billionaire, a Wall Street tycoon used to moving with security details between the gated walls of his life. On stage, he seemed as clueless and as smug as Tom Wolfe’s elitist character “Sherman McCoy” from the satirical novel The Bonfire of the Vanities. Right, he seemed that way in person because that is precisely who Bloomberg really is. Bloomberg’s gun-control bona fides, meanwhile, sure didn’t make his first debate any easier. “I’d like to talk about who we’re running against—a billionaire who calls women fat broads and horse-faced lesbians. And no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump; I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg,” said Warren. “Democrats are not going to win if we have a nominee who has a history of hiding his tax returns, of harassing women and of supporting racist policies like red-lining and stop-and-frisk.” Right from the start, the other candidates aimed for the stop-and-frisk hole in Bloomberg’s record. With no emotion in his face or in his voice, Bloomberg said he regretted letting stop-and-frisk go on for so long, claiming it “got out of control.” Bloomberg’s explanation was blood in the water for the other candidates. “It’s not whether he apologized or not; it’s the policy,” said former Vice President Joe Biden. “The policy was abhorrent. And it was … a violation of every right people have.” Later, Pete Buttigieg, who was until recently the mayor of South Bend, Ind., said that a two-person race between Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Bloomberg would feature “the two most polarizing figures on this stage.” “We’ve got to wake up as a party,” Buttigieg said. “Let’s put forward someone who’s actually a Democrat.” This line from Buttigieg was designed to point out that Bloomberg was once a Republican of convenience, and for a while after that an “Independent.” Sanders also called Bloomberg’s use of stop-and-frisk “outrageous.” Biden would say that Bloomberg’s policies threw “close to five million black men up against a wall….” Evidently, all of Bloomberg’s well-paid political experts just couldn’t prepare him with any one-liners to parry these obvious attacks. Or perhaps it was just that Bloomberg doesn’t have the wherewithal, the personality, or the capacity to deal with people who are critical of his views and past actions. Usually, he just fires people who disagree with him, or buys them off and has them sign non-disclosure agreements. Bloomberg’s performance was much like one of those American Idol contestants who just can’t sing, but who has no real friends to tell him so before he shows up for the televised auditions. He is certainly used to telling others how to live—from big things, like whether people can defend their own lives, to little things, like what beverages people should be allowed to drink—but he clearly has no clue how to respond to personal criticism. At one point Bloomberg did show a little emotion. He said in what seemed like an off-script moment: “This is ridiculous, we’re not going to throw out capitalism … that’s been tried. It’s called communism.” He got boos for that comment from the crowd of Nevada Democrats and promptly shut up. Bloomberg might have liked it if one of the other candidates did more than talk about stop-and-frisk. Maybe Bloomberg would have liked to talk about his many schemes for taking away Americans’ Second Amendment rights. But then, all of the politicians on the debate stage are in step with his desire to take away our right to keep and bear arms, so none of them was going to give Bloomberg a chance to talk about his lifelong quest to disarm law-abiding Americans. Tags: Frank Miniter, Bloomberg’s Signature Gun-Control Policy, Takes a Beating To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| Federal Appeals Court Rules Against Sanctuary Cities
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:49 AM PST  NumbersUSA: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s decision today that will allow the Trump Administration to withhold certain funds from jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The ruling allows the Justice Department to withhold Byrne JAG federal grants from hundreds of local governments across the country if they continue to protect criminal illegal aliens. The ruling is a significant victory for Pres. Trump and those who oppose sanctuary policies. The Court ruled that:
In response to the ruling, the Justice Department issued the following statement: ———————- Contributed by NumbersUSA. Tags: NumbersUSA, Federal Appeals Court, Rules Against, Sanctuary Cities To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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| The Geopolitics of the Coronavirus
Posted: 26 Feb 2020 11:22 AM PST
by Joseph V. Micallef: Geopolitics refers to the study of how physical geography influences the political and economic landscape and, in turn, the national power and foreign policy of a state. The concept isn’t new. Aristotle wrote about geopolitics, as have a host of political theorists since then. The subject was particularly in vogue at the beginning of the 20th century when strategists like Alfred Thayer Mahan and Halford Mackinder explored the consequences of new technologies on national power. Their conclusion was that, even in the age of railroads, the internal combustion engine and far-ranging ships, geography still mattered and still shaped national outlooks and state power. Even today, in an age of intercontinental-range ballistic missiles, long-range bombers and remotely controlled drones, the conclusion remains the same: Geography still matters. Technology may shape how we interact with it, but geography still exerts a powerful influence on how national power is created, expressed and projected. We don’t normally think of disease as a matter of geopolitics. Medical technology and pharmaceuticals are ubiquitous and highly transportable. Other than for very remote locations or the absence of the appropriate infrastructure, medical services are not typically constrained by geography. On the other hand, the extent that particular regions are more susceptible to outbreaks of disease, are more likely to be a source of transmission, or are more severely affected by its consequences makes, at least some diseases, a topic of geopolitical concern. Globalism and Disease The most spectacular example of this phenomenon is what historian Alfred Crosby termed the Columbian Exchange. The arrival of Europeans to the Americas represented the commingling of three distinct gene pools: Nordic/North European and Hispanic/Mediterranean with West African and Native American ones. That genetic exchange brought, among other things, corn, cacao and turkeys to the Old World and coffee, wheat and horses to the New World. It also brought yellow fever and malaria from Africa; smallpox, measles, diphtheria and influenza from Europe; and syphilis and polio from the Americas. That exchange made the Caribbean, whose different range of climates created a genetic hot zone, a lethal, disease-prone environment. That 95% of native Americans succumbed to mistreatment and Old World pathogens is well-known, but 70% of Europeans and Africans also died within two to five years of arriving in the Americas. Moreover, since the European and African populations in the New World were predominantly young to middle-aged males, and did not have a large component of very young or old who were more susceptible to disease, the disease lethality between the different groups was actually much closer. Nor was this phenomenon limited to the exploration of the New World. Throughout history, the commingling of disease organisms facilitated by long-distance exchanges has been associated with outbreaks of disease and, often, deadly pandemics. It is not a coincidence that the pandemic of plague that ended the Pax Augustana in the 2nd century AD, crippling Rome, occurred at a time when fleets of Roman ships were routinely traveling to Asia to trade, or that the recurring plagues that decimated Medieval Europe, especially the 14th century Black Death, occurred at a time when the Mongol conquest of central Asia made trade along the Silk Road trade routes between Asia and Europe more prevalent. What today we term globalization is not the cause of disease, but it makes the consequences of disease outbreaks that much more far-reaching. In doing so, it creates a geopolitical dimension. The comparative advantage of global trade and cost-effective international supply chains is in part offset by the comparative disadvantage that outbreaks of new diseases can create around the globe and the consequences on both health and international trade. The Coronavirus Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that cause respiratory illnesses ranging from the common cold to influenza. The physical structure of the virus resembles a crown, hence the term corona. In recent years, they have also been the cause of more severe respiratory diseases such as SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) or MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome). In November 2019, reports emerged of a new coronavirus-induced disease in the Chinese city of Wuhan. The Covid-19 virus has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it is a zoonotic disease: an infectious disease caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites that spread from non-human animals (usually vertebrates) to humans. Many of those initially infected either worked or frequently shopped in the Wuhan seafood wholesale market. The market also sells large quantities of wild animals. The origins of the virus are still disputed. The original case, termed patient 0, does not appear to have had any contact with the seafood market. Those who have fallen ill report suffering coughs, fever and breathing difficulties. In some cases, it can lead to pneumonia and, in a small number of severe cases, to organ failure. As this disease is viral, antibiotics are of no use. Moreover, as it is genetically different from other coronaviruses, the existing antiviral drugs against flu/influenza will not work. Recovery depends on the strength of the patient’s immune system. Many of those who have died were old or already in poor health. As of Feb. 24, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), there had been a total of 77,042 confirmed cases in China, which had resulted in 2,445 deaths. An additional 1,769 cases had been reported across 28 other countries, which had resulted in 17 deaths. Six hundred and thirty-four of those cases, and two of those deaths, are associated with the cruise ship Diamond Princess currently docked in Japan; 602 cases are in the Republic of Korea; and 76 in Italy. The U.S. currently has 35 cases. There have been reports on social media of an outbreak in Iran, but Tehran has officially reported only 28 cases. When developing models of disease outbreaks, epidemiologists focus on two principal factors: the transmission rate and lethality. The transmission rate refers to the number of additional people an infected person will transmit the disease to. Lethality refers to the number of patients that will die from the disease. These factors are expressed as R0 and R1. Hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola, for example, have a very high lethality, as much as 90%, but have a low transmission rate — partly because they require an exchange of body fluids to spread, cannot exist for very long outside the body, and because they are so fast acting and so deadly that carriers die before they have much opportunity to infect others. Measles or the common cold, on the other hand, have a very high transmission rate because they can be spread by aerosols created when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Moreover, they can live outside the body for several hours, so it is possible to get infected even if you are nowhere near someone who is sick. The transmission rate for measles, for example, is R18. That means, on average, someone with the measles will infect another 18 people. That’s why measles epidemics in schools, for example, can wreak such havoc. The R0 for influenza is 1.3, while Covid-19 is estimated at 2.2. In the case of Covid-19, the lethality is 2%. Virtually everyone who comes down with the disease will recover, although those who come down with pneumonia will require extended medical treatment. To date, victims have mostly been the old or those whose immune system was already compromised in some way. Medical personnel involved with treatment can be particularly vulnerable, both because of the potential for repeated exposure and because many are working long hours with little sleep, a condition that can compromise the effectiveness of their immune systems. SARS, in comparison, had a lethality of 10%. There is some question, however, on the reliability of the data that the Chinese government has released. In the case of SARS, it is quite likely that the number of reported cases was significantly underreported. The lethality of SARS was likely less than 10%. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, which is working closely with its counterparts in China to stem the outbreak, has expressed satisfaction with Beijing’s current disclosure, but doubts persist. The incubation period for Covid-19 is approximately two weeks. An infected person can transmit the disease over this period without showing any symptoms of being ill. How long the virus can exist outside the body is unclear. There have been reports that it can survive for up to 24 hours. Not surprisingly, the outbreak of Covid-19 has given rise to no shortage of conspiracy theories that the virus is manmade. The presence of the Wuhan Institute of Virology at the epicenter of the outbreak, which is the only Level 4 facility in China and works with infectious diseases, has reinforced those theories. To be clear, there is no concrete evidence that the Covid-19 virus is manmade, or that the outbreak was caused by its “escape” from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. There is, however, some circumstantial evidence suggesting that possibility. Zoonotic diseases are quite common. Disease pathogens jump from animals to humans all the time. In many cases, the consequences are minimal. On occasion, however, they can be far-reaching and deadly. The source of the SARS virus was civet cats. The source of the MERS virus was camels. A recent study identified more than 400 different coronaviruses carried by bats in China. What effect any of these viruses would have on humans is unknown. Moreover, it is not just the viruses themselves that are of concern. It is also how the genetic material they embody could get transferred into another coronavirus to create a new, deadly pathogen. Take influenza, for example. Most years bring new, hitherto unseen influenza viruses. Many of these viruses incorporate genetic material from avian influenza viruses. In general, avian influenza does not affect humans and is not carried by them, limiting the opportunity for the transfer of genetic material. Pigs, however, can be a host for both avian and human influenza, even though neither virus affects them. The proximity of both types of virus in pigs makes it more likely that genetic material will be exchanged and a new influenza virus capable of infecting humans will be created. Those parts of the world where fowl, pigs and humans live in proximity to one another are particularly prone to be the source of new influenza viruses. Precisely such conditions are found in many areas of rural east Asia, especially in China. That’s why Asia has been the leading source of new influenza viruses in recent years. Since 2010, according to the CDC, influenza has resulted in between nine million and 45 million illnesses; between 140,000 and 810,000 hospitalizations; and between 12,000 and 61,000 deaths annually. The hospitalization rate of the typical influenza epidemic is around one percent and its lethality is around .13%. So far, this season, there have been an estimated 29 million illnesses, 280,000 hospitalizations and 16,000 deaths from flu in the U.S. To be clear, Covid-19 is just a particularly severe form of an influenza-like disease. The public panic surrounding Covid-19 would have been far worse had it been called the Wuhan flu. Calling it the coronavirus makes it seem different from the yearly flu epidemics, but it is caused by the same type of virus. That doesn’t mean that Covid-19 isn’t dangerous. A 2% lethality rate still means that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people could die from a global pandemic. Moreover, there is always a risk that an outbreak could simply overwhelm existing medical facilities. Pneumonia doesn’t typically lead to death, but if left untreated, as would happen if the medical system simply runs out of available beds (as has happened in Wuhan’s hospitals), it can easily result in death, especially among the young and very old. The U.S. has around 900,000 hospital beds. With a population of 350 million people, it wouldn’t take much to overwhelm hospitals. The Geopolitics of Coronavirus It’s not that Asia is a particularly rich reservoir of disease organisms. Rural Africa or the Amazon basin is likely just as rich, maybe richer. Consider that the African hemorrhagic fevers are also zoonotic. But rural Africa or the Amazon basin do not attract a lot of visitors, nor are they a source of many tourists or the location of many international supply chains. Does disease and, specifically coronavirus-linked influenzas, have a geopolitical consequence? The answer is yes. A variety of factors: rural farming practices in China and east Asia, local consumption of wild animal species, the number of visitors both to and from China, and the presence of global supply chains centered in east Asia all mean that the risk of local disease outbreaks morphing into global pandemics is higher in east Asia than elsewhere. That’s not a reason to abandon Asian supply chains or to stop going on Asian cruises. It is a reason, however, to acknowledge that the region poses a higher level of risk and to make sure that individuals, companies and governments have a fall-back plan should another Covid-19-like outbreak occur. What the recent experience with the Covid-19 virus clearly demonstrates is that most companies do not have a Plan B for dealing with such outbreaks or the impacts on their supply chains and operations. There is insufficient coordination between different countries on how to respond and, notwithstanding the advisory role of the World Health Organization, WHO lacks authority to enforce its recommendations. SARS was a warning, as was MERS, to the potentially devastating effects of an influenza-like/coronavirus pandemic. Covid-19 is another reminder. Tags: Geopolitics, Coronavirus, Joseph V. Micallef, Military.com To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks! |
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CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY
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BERNARD GOLDBERG
NBC
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From NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann
FIRST READ: Biden’s banking big on South Carolina. But his real challenge will be on Super Tuesday.
Joe Biden has enjoyed, easily, his best week of 2020 – a second-place finish in Nevada, a relatively strong debate performance, Jim Clyburn’s endorsement and polling showing him poised to win South Carolina on Saturday.
His challenge comes after South Carolina, since his campaign is hardly a player in the 14 Super Tuesday states, which vote just three day later on March 3.
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
The Biden camp just announced a six-figure ad buy in the Super Tuesday states targeting African-American voters.
But Michael Bloomberg has already spent $172 million in TV and radio ads in these same states; Tom Steyer has spent $35 million; and Bernie Sanders’ $11 million, per data from Advertising Analytics.
And when it comes to boots on the ground, NBC’s Ben Kamisar and Jeremia Kimelman say the Biden camp has roughly 500 staffers on the payroll, according to the personnel estimates from January’s FEC report.
That’s compared with about 1,300 for the Warren camp, 1,000 for Team Sanders and 950 for Bloomberg (though his campaign says he has way more now).
Even look at today’s campaign schedule: Biden, once again, spends his day in South Carolina.
But Bernie Sanders also hits North Carolina and Virginia; Michael Bloomberg makes stops in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas; and Amy Klobuchar makes stops in the Tar Heel State.
“He hasn’t been here. Of all the campaigns, the least organized in Arkansas is Biden,” the chair of Arkansas’ Democratic Party told the New York Times.
Biden is banking on a big victory in South Carolina on Saturday, which could give his campaign momentum heading into Super Tuesday.
And he could very well get it.
But any momentum might be offset by a lack of preparation, manpower and spending ability when Super Tuesday arrives just days later.
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TWEET OF THE DAY: Objects in the South Carolina polling may appear closer than they actually are
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The coronavirus buck stops with … Mike Pence?
“President Donald Trump on Wednesday tried to ease growing fears over the spreading coronavirus, saying at the White House that his administration has the situation under control and is ‘ready to adapt’ if the virus spreads,” per NBC News.
“Trump, speaking from the Brady Briefing Room, said he was putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of his administration’s response to the potential pandemic.”
The Hill’s Reid Wilson says this is a huge risk for Pence.
“The decision to hand Pence authority – and responsibility – for what could be the most significant crisis of Trump’s three years in office reflects both the president’s aversion to bucks stopping on his desk and his level of trust in a partner he had viewed with skepticism at the beginning of their relationship,” he writes.
“[I]f the virus does begin spreading widely within the United States, Pence risks taking the blame,” Wilson adds.
Trump is trying to Purell his political hands from the virus.
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DATA DOWNLOAD: And the number of the day is … at least a year to 18 months.
At least a year to 18 months.
That’s how long it will likely take for a vaccine for the coronavirus to be developed into a final product, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci added during a news conference at the White House yesterday that the vaccine is in rapid development now, but that it takes months to complete trials to determine that vaccine works and is safe to use.
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2020 VISION: Cease and desist
“Former President Barack Obama is demanding that a pro-Trump group stop airing a ‘despicable’ ad that uses a recording of Obama’s voice to attack former Vice President Joe Biden — a rare intervention in a race that Obama has largely avoided so far,” NBC’s Mike Memoli and Dareh Gregorian write.
“The ad from the Committee to Defend the President, which aired on a South Carolina CBS affiliate multiple times before and during Tuesday night’s debate, borrows from an Obama audiobook to suggest that the former president is criticizing his VP.”
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On the campaign trail today: Joe Biden stumps in Conway, S.C., with Viveca Fox… Tom Steyer also is in the Palmetto State, hitting Orangeburg and Summerville… Bernie Sanders holds rallies in North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina… Amy Klobuchar spends her day in North Carolina, stopping in Greensboro and Raleigh… Pete Buttigieg meets with the Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus in DC before campaigning in South Carolina… Mike Bloomberg stumps in Houston, Oklahoma City and Arkansas… And Tulsi Gabbard is in Virginia.
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Dispatches from NBC’s campaign embeds: Mike Bloomberg faced his first real questions from voters during his first televised town hall, NBC’s Maura Barrett reports. Bloomberg said he disagreed with the premise of supporting the Democratic nominee regardless of who they were: “I always thought it’s ridiculous to say I will support the candidate no matter who it is because you might not agree with him. That’s how we got Donald Trump. The party supported him no matter how bad he was. They shouldn’t have done that. It’s easy to make the commitment to support any of the Democratic candidates if they get the nomination. But it’s easy to do it because the alternative is Donald Trump, and that we don’t want.”
And Bloomberg had to answer for why Democrats should trust him to lead the party when he served for several years as an elected Republican: “Bloomberg defended himself, saying he’s spent a lot of time working on Democratic causes, but also said that he comes from ‘Massachusetts where there are no Republicans, so I was a Democrat there for sure. I moved to New York City, where there are no Republicans, so I was a Democrat there.’”
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Talking policy with Benjy
If you’ve watched the last two Democratic debates, you probably heard a lot about Michael Bloomberg’s unprecedented campaign spending and his record as mayor and CEO.
What’s often left out of the conversation, though, is what he actually says he’ll do as president.
NBC’s Benjy Sarlin takes a look at his policy proposals so far and finds there’s a reason the Bloomberg 2020 platform hasn’t gotten much attention: Bloomberg’s ideas are pretty conventional by 2020 Democratic standards.
On most issues, they tend to mirror center-left Democrats in the race like Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar. His health care plan, for example, is roughly the same as Buttigieg’s – add a public option, increase Obamacare subsidies, and restrict how much health care providers can charge for their services. And while rivals have bashed his mayoral record on race and policing, his 2020 plans consist of now-standard Democratic ideas like ending cash bail, increasing oversight of police, and decriminalizing marijuana.
Bloomberg used to be a Republican and later an independent, and he’s changed his position (or at least his rhetoric) on a variety of issues for his 2020 run. Once a critic of minimum wage increases, he’s now on board with typical Democratic calls for a $15 an hour floor. Once a critic of Obamacare, he now wants to build on it. Once a critic of President Obama’s Wall Street regulations, he now wants to enforce them even harder and slap a tax on financial transactions.
There’s nothing unusual about a candidate “evolving” toward party consensus and even left-wing stalwart Sen. Bernie Sanders acknowledged some “bad votes” at Tuesday’s debate. But part of Bloomberg’s 2020 message is that his vast fortune makes him immune to pressure from donors and interest groups.
So it’s maybe worth asking why his policy proposals look a whole lot like his rivals who are taking donations and courting interest groups.
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THE LID: Winner winner chicken dinner
Don’t miss the pod from yesterday, when we looked at new data about which Americans feel like they’re “winning” these days.
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ICYMI: News clips you shouldn’t miss
SEIU is launching a $150 million campaign to help defeat Trump.
Five people and the gunman are dead after a shooting at the Molson Coors headquarters in Milwaukee.
What the heck is Tom Steyer’s plan?
House GOP leaders want to force a vote on Bernie Sanders’ comments about Cuba.
MANHATTAN INSTITUTE
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THE RESURGENT
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NATIONAL REVIEW
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February 27 2020
Today’s Morning Jolt is all about the coronavirus. A fact that doesn’t help anyone score any partisan points, and thus will be largely ignored, disregarded, or forgotten: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the broader Trump administration could make all the right choices regarding how to handle the coronavirus, and it could still be a serious and disruptive problem. |
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“Makes an original and compelling case for nationalism . . . A fascinating, erudite—and much-needed—defense of a hallowed idea unfairly under current attack.” — Victor Davis Hanson
Episode 108: Industrial-Scale Porn 
San Francisco State Of… 
19 West 44th Street, Suite 1701, New York, NY, 10036, USA
NATIONAL JOURNAL
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