Good morning! Here is your news briefing for Wednesday January 29, 2020

THE EPOCH TIMES

“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

THOMAS PAINEGood morning,

The Trump administration on Jan. 28 revealed the details of its Middle East peace plan.

The plan would give Palestinians a path to a future state that will cover 70 percent of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Under the plan, Hamas would be disarmed and Gaza demilitarized.

Read the full story here.

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Chipotle Fined $1.37 Million for Massachusetts Child Labor Violations

Homeowners Hit With $20,000 Bill to Clean Up Homeless Camp

U.S. orders of durable goods—products designed to last at least three years—rebounded by 2.4 percent in December 2019, driven by a boost in military spending, data released by the Commerce Department on Jan. 28 shows. Read moreIowa voters head to the state’s presidential caucus in less than a week, but none of the multiple Democratic candidates seeking their endorsement have tapped a federal program that offers millions of tax dollars to seekers of the nation’s highest office. Read moreFederal authorities have charged a Harvard professor, a Chinese military official, and a Chinese researcher, in three unrelated cases, with offenses related to aiding the Chinese regime, the Justice Department announced on Jan. 28. Read moreChinese citizens say that the new coronavirus outbreak is spreading quickly to other parts of the country outside the epicenter of Wuhan City, the capital of Hubei Province. Read moreU.S. lawmakers and experts have expressed concern over the United Kingdom’s decision to allow Huawei a limited role in its 5G network, saying it endangers national security. Read more
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Every Wednesday morning, James McDaniel sits along the South Main Street portion of U.S. Highway 11 with a healthy stack of The News-Gazette beside him. He keeps a small, folded tarp tucked away to protect the paper… Read more
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In 2011, most people still thought China, as a nation, had less debt than Europe or the United States because of its relatively low government debt levels. Then came Fraser Howie’s seminal book Red Capitalism… Read moreIn the secretive labs of the Pentagon, top military minds are working on a new fighting style. Their novel vision for warfare isn’t about making bigger, faster, or even higher-tech kit. It is about getting numerous smaller, cheaper, perhaps lower-tech systems and deploying them in a radically new way.
Pentagon Working on Radical New ‘Lego’ Style Fighting System Copyright © 2020 The Epoch Times, All rights reserved.
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POLITICO PLAYBOOK

POLITICO Playbook: Another Kushner enterprise finally goes public

By JAKE SHERMAN and ANNA PALMER

01/29/2020 05:57 AM EST

Presented by

DRIVING THE DAY

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP’S ADMINISTRATION said the peace deal it proposed between ISRAEL and the PALESTINIANS would enjoy great support from the Arab world. The Palestinians immediately blasted it. And while THE SAUDIS spoke favorably of TRUMP ADMINISTRATION-brokered negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, they didn’t endorse the plan. As the NYT notes on A10, the response to it from Arab governments as a whole has been “muted.”

IN AMERICA, leading Democratic foreign policy thinkers say it represents an abandonment of long-held American principles in the Middle East.

WHILE WE WERE ALL IMPEACHMENT-ING, THE UNITED STATES unveiled this long-awaited peace plan, which most analysts believe is a non-starter because it pushed the Palestinian government aside, but the White House believes to be shape-shifting because it pushes the Palestinian government aside.

JARED KUSHNER, the president’s son-in-law who led the planning as a top White House adviser, indicated as much, saying: “It’s a big opportunity for the Palestinians. They have a perfect track record of blowing every opportunity they’ve had in their past. But perhaps maybe their leadership will read the details.”

AND ISRAELI PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU then called for the Knesset to declare sovereignty over parts of the West Bank with the blessing of the White House, a move previous administrations believed to be an impediment to peace, and this administration seems to believe is the kind of recognition necessary to achieve it.

DAVID SANGER with a news analysis on A1 of the NYT: “‘Strip away the domestic and Israeli political considerations that determined the timing of the plan’s release,’ said Robert Malley, the president of the International Crisis Group and a former Obama administration official, ‘and the message to the Palestinians, boiled down to its essence, is: You’ve lost, get over it.’

“That message, implicitly or explicitly, rewrites the art of the Middle East deal. By tilting the map of a future Palestinian state so precipitously in Israel’s direction, Mr. Trump has embraced a plan that essentially dismantles 60 years of bipartisan support for a negotiated process between Israelis and Palestinians, in which both make concessions and land swaps that would define the lines of a new map.” Malley with his own take in POLITICO Magazine… The WSJ editorial board: “Art of the Deal, Palestine Version”

— HALLEY TOOSI: “President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace proposal may be dead on arrival, as critics like to say. But the plan could also have the long-term effect of seriously circumscribing — at a minimum — future U.S. attempts to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” POLITICO

Good Wednesday morning.

WHAT’S NEXT ON IMPEACHMENT: THE SENATE today will begin its question-and-answer period, and it’s expected to last two days. Republicans and Democrats will alternate sides posing the inquiries. The questions need to be written down and signed, and they will be read aloud by Chief Justice JOHN ROBERTS. The inquiries must be directed to one side or the other.

WHAT WILL PEOPLE ASK? … NYT’S MICHAEL SHEAR: “Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, wants to ask the leading House manager about the whistle-blower whose confidential complaint about Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine touched off the impeachment inquiry, and about Hunter Biden, whom the president asked Ukraine’s president to investigate.

“Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, plans to question the defense lawyer Alan M. Dershowitz’s criteria for impeachment. Senator Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, is seeking more information about the president’s personal lawyer, who played a central role in his pressure campaign on Ukraine. ‘I’m a little bit curious about Rudy Giuliani,’ Mr. Cramer said.” NYT

12 QUESTIONS that will be asked, per Darren Samuelsohn and Marianne LeVine.

THE QUESTION-AND-ANSWER SESSION WILL ALMOST certainly line up the very important witness vote on Friday. If that fails, the trial could wrap up Friday evening.

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TO UNDERSTAND the state of play, we will kick it over to JOHN BRESNAHAN, MARIANNE LEVINE, BURGESS EVERETT and HEATHER CAYGLE: “Senate Republicans have regained their footing and are once again pushing for a quick end to President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, newly confident they can squash the question of whether to hear new evidence.

“The GOP conference emerged cautiously optimistic from a critical meeting on whether to defeat the call witnesses on Tuesday afternoon, the first real chance for GOP leaders to conduct a survey of where the 53-member conference stands. The meeting marked the caucus’ first gathering since Trump’s defense finished its opening arguments on the Senate floor. …

“In the closed-door meeting in the Strom Thurmond Room, a location where Republican have endured tough internal debates over the years, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Republicans they were currently short of the votes to block new witnesses from the trial, according to people briefed on the matter. But the remarks amounted only to an admission that there are several undecided senators, not that the party is on a trajectory to lose the vote.

“In fact, Republicans feel increasingly confident about prevailing. In the meeting, critics of hearing from witnesses made a ‘strong’ case against voting for new evidence, according to two attendees. A third attendee who opposes new witnesses said the meeting seemed to solidify the position against new witnesses and documents: ‘I feel good.’” POLITICO

TUESDAY WAS ANOTHER DAY where there was no jailbreak toward supporting witnesses among Republican senators. This seems to be a good sign for the TRUMP WHITE HOUSE and MCCONNELL’S leadership team, both of which are trying to stop witnesses. The GOP will have to hold the line over the next two days.

ANTICIPATE REPUBLICANS to continue making the argument that Sen. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-S.C.) made publicly Tuesday: that one witness means many witnesses — in fact an unending number of witnesses, and that would drag this trial on forever.

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THE ‘BIPARTISAN ACQUITTAL’ TRUMP IS LOOKING FOR … BURGESS EVERETT: “Trio of Dem senators considering vote to acquit Trump”: “A trio of moderate Senate Democrats is wrestling with whether to vote to convict Donald Trump in his impeachment trial — or give the president the bipartisan acquittal he’s eagerly seeking.

“Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Doug Jones of Alabama are all undecided on whether to vote to remove the president from office and agonizing over where to land. It’s a decision that could have major ramifications for each senator’s legacy and political prospects — as well shape the broader political dynamic surrounding impeachment heading into the 2020 election.

“All three senators remain undecided after hearing arguments from the impeachment managers and Trump’s defense team. But they could end up with a creative solution. One or more senators may end up splitting their votes, borrowing a move from Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who voted for the abuse of power charge but against the one on obstruction of Congress.” POLITICO

GUILTY BUT NOT IMPEACHABLE … CNN’S MANU RAJU: “GOP concedes Trump may have withheld aid for probes but says it’s not impeachable”

NEW … THE NRSC has fresh polling, which shows that they believe impeachment has fired up the GOP base, and is a net negative for Democrats in key states.

— INTERESTING, ON SUSAN COLLINS: “In Maine, which has given the collective media a nosebleed as they attempt to put Susan Collins in a box, 59% of voters agree Congress should focus on top issues instead of impeachment and 55% agree that we should let voters decide in November. Perhaps most telling, a whopping 62% of independents in Maine say that we should focus on other issues instead of impeachment, and 58% of independents think we should let the voters decide at the ballot box in November.” The polling memo

NO IMPEACH ON THE BEACH … “Trump rally in South Jersey mostly steers clear of impeachment,” by Matt Friedman in Wildwood, N.J., and Matthew Choi: “President Donald Trump came to the Jersey Shore on Tuesday night for a campaign rally in which he slammed Democrats for what he called ‘demented hoaxes,’ while boasting of a growing economy and seeking to help a local congressman who just switched parties after opposing his impeachment.

“But in the 62-minute speech — considerably shorter than recent such campaign events — the president didn’t dwell on his trial playing out in the Senate, instead focusing largely on the nation’s low unemployment rate, health care, terrorism and immigration.

“‘While we are creating jobs and killing terrorists, congressional Democrats are obsessed with demented hoaxes, crazy with hunts and deranged partisan crusades,’ Trump told thousands of supporters here.” POLITICO

WAPO’S ISAAC STANLEY-BECKER: “Anatomy of a ‘smear’: How John Bolton became a target of the pro-Trump Internet”

BIG MEDIA NEWS — “BuzzFeed News editor Ben Smith to join New York Times as media columnist,” by NBC’s Dylan Byers: “Ben Smith, editor in chief of BuzzFeed News, who built a respected news organization alongside the website’s lighter content, will leave the company and join The New York Times as the newspaper’s top media columnist …

“Smith will serve as the writer of the publication’s ‘Media Equation’ column, which became a must-read for media industry insiders under David Carr, who died in 2015. … BuzzFeed News will now begin a formal search for its next editor-in-chief.” NBC … Smith’s note to staff

NPR’S MARY LOUISE KELLY SPEAKS — NYT OP-ED: “Pompeo Called Me a ‘Liar.’ That’s Not What Bothers Me.”

KATHRYN MURDOCH SPEAKS — ANNA sat down with KATHRYN MURDOCH for the latest Women Rule podcast. Listen and subscribe herefor more on her efforts to influence the 2020 election, why she’s spending $100 million on politics and how she navigates having a different opinion at times than her high-profile father-in-law, RUPERT MURDOCH.

— ON THE MURDOCH FAMILY DYNAMICS: “There’s always a difference between what gets seen out in the public, and what is actually happening in a family or behind the scenes. … I would say there’s a diversity of opinion on all of those things within the family, as there are in many families. There’s no line that everyone has to adhere to, or cross, or anything like that.”

— ON WHY SHE’S SPEAKING OUT NOW: “Right now is a moment where we’re going to make it or break it on a number of different issues. I think that’s true for our democracy, and I think that’s true for our climate. The decisions we make in the next few years are going to have an impact on coming generations, and I need to know that I’ve done everything that I can possibly do.”

— ON THE 2020 FIELD: Murdoch said she likes what Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Mike Bloomberg have said about the need to reform government. During a recent Democratic debate, Murdoch recalled that Buttigieg “said he would do political reform because then he could get everything else done, and I stood up and whooped at that answer.”

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THE BERN FACTOR … ALEX ISENSTADT: “Trumpworld torn over Bernie”: “President Donald Trump and his top political advisers were huddling in the Oval Office earlier this month discussing the state of the Democratic primary when they arrived at an increasingly pressing topic: What to do about Bernie Sanders?

“Sanders was surging, and some of the Trump advisers were salivating at the thought of a self-described democratic socialist as their general election opponent. As the president listened, they argued for taking steps to elevate him in the primary to boost his prospects.

“But others warned that Sanders wouldn’t necessarily be the pushover he might seem. They told the president, who was joined in the meeting by top officials including campaign manager Brad Parscale and pollster Tony Fabrizio, that the Vermont senator’s authenticity and populist appeal could draw some of the blue-collar voters who propelled the president to the White House.

“With the Iowa caucuses less than a week away, Trump advisers and supporters are split over whether to wage an effort to bolster Sanders. While proponents think Sanders would be an ideal opponent, others are wary that the liberal firebrand could make for a dynamic challenger — with the ability to make inroads in the Rust Belt states likely to decide the outcome of the election.” POLITICO

POPPING IN IOWA … “Biden Aides Weigh Pursuing an Iowa Caucus Alliance With Klobuchar,” by NYT’s Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns: “Aides to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. are discussing the possibility of seeking an alliance with Senator Amy Klobuchar in next week’s Iowa caucuses, a plan that would involve a pledge to help each other in precincts where one of them does not have enough support to win delegates.

“Three staff members for Mr. Biden’s Iowa campaign tentatively floated the idea to a top Klobuchar adviser at a meeting this week, according to Democrats briefed on the meeting. People in both the Biden and Klobuchar camps played down the discussion, which took place at a Des Moines restaurant, and aides for Ms. Klobuchar said they did not regard it as a serious overture. But there is little doubt among Mr. Biden’s allies in the state that his campaign is contemplating such steps, with an eye toward preventing a messy split among moderate candidates on Monday.” NYT

ELENA SCHNEIDER in Ottumwa: “Buttigieg dogged by low black support in Iowa homestretch”

BEN SCHRECKINGER: “Trump allies target African American voters with new tactic: Cash giveaways”: “Allies of Donald Trump have begun holding events in black communities where organizers lavish praise on the president as they hand out tens of thousands of dollars to lucky attendees.

“The first giveaway took place last month in Cleveland, where recipients whose winning tickets were drawn from a bin landed cash gifts in increments of several hundred dollars, stuffed into envelopes. A second giveaway scheduled for this month in Virginia has been postponed, and more are said to be in the works.

“The tour comes as Trump’s campaign has been investing its own money to make inroads with black voters and erode Democrats’ overwhelming advantage with them. But the cash giveaways are organized under the auspices of an outside charity, the Urban Revitalization Coalition, permitting donors to remain anonymous and make tax-deductible contributions.

“The organizers say the events are run by the book and intended to promote economic development in inner cities. But the group behind the cash giveaways is registered as a 501(c)3 charitable organization. One leading legal expert on nonprofit law said the arrangement raises questions about the group’s tax-exempt status, because it does not appear to be vetting the recipients of its money for legitimate charitable need.”

TRUMP’S WEDNESDAY — The president will participate in the signing ceremony of the USMCA at 11 a.m. on the South Lawn.

PLAYBOOK READS

**PHOTO DU JOUR:** Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) snowboards with supporters and staff at Cranmore Mountain Resort, in North Conway, N.H., on Tuesday, Jan. 28. | Mary Altaffer/AP Photo

KURT VOLKER in FOREIGN POLICY: “How Ukraine Vanished in the Fog of Impeachment”: “Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly posed a rhetorical question to an NPR reporter: ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ By scheduling his own visit to Ukraine on Friday, Jan. 31, Pompeo is demonstrating that they should. Indeed, his visit is a timely reminder that this vast European country’s success in overcoming Russian aggression and reforming a corrupt politico-economic system is far more important to the United States than merely serving as a backdrop for U.S. domestic political battles.” FP

HALLEY TOOSI: “Democrats are already bracing for a ‘hostile’ Trump transition”: “One center-left organization, National Security Action, is already coordinating more than a dozen working groups focusing on specific areas — such as climate change, China, and defense policy – with the goal of producing transition-related information for the eventual Democratic nominee.

“The organization, which is led by former top officials in the Obama administration, declined to give many details about the initiative. But its leaders say the goal isn’t to endorse particular policy positions for a future Democratic president; each candidate running now presumably already has those.

“Rather, what the nominee can hope to get from the working groups is a layout of what awaits them: for instance, compilations of various regulations rolled back under Trump; paths to recommitting to international pacts that Trump has abandoned; and what options – executive order? legislation? nothing? — a new president has to overturn other Trump moves.”

CORONAVIRUS LATEST — AP/BEIJING: “Deaths rise to 132 in China outbreak as foreigners leave”: “Countries began evacuating their citizens Wednesday from the Chinese city hardest-hit by an outbreak of a new virus that has killed 132 people and infected more than 6,000 on the mainland and abroad.

“A Japanese flight carrying evacuees home included four people with coughs and fevers, two of whom were diagnosed with pneumonia. The three men and one woman were taken to a Tokyo hospital in separate ambulances for treatment and further medical checks. Another woman developed nausea at the airport and was also hospitalized.

“It wasn’t immediately known whether they were infected with the new type of coronavirus that appeared in the central city of Wuhan in December. Its symptoms, including cough and fever and in severe cases pneumonia, are similar to many other illnesses.” AP

— JOANNE KENEN: “What the best public health minds know — and don’t know — about Wuhan coronavirus”

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CNN’S BARBARA STARR: “50 US service members diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries after Iranian missile strike”: “Fifty US military personnel have now been diagnosed with concussions and traumatic brain injuries following the Iranian missile attack on US forces in Iraq earlier this month, according to a statement Tuesday from the Pentagon. That’s an increase of 16 from late last week when the Pentagon said 34 cases had been diagnosed.

“‘Of these 50, 31 total service members were treated in Iraq and returned to duty, including 15 of the additional service members who have been diagnosed since the previous report. 18 service members have been transported to Germany for further evaluation and treatment,’ [a spokesman said.] … Several Pentagon officials told CNN that the number of diagnosed cases is likely to continue to change.” CNN

MEDIAWATCH — “Washington Post Says Reporter’s Kobe Bryant Tweets Did Not Break Rules: After more than 300 Post employees rallied to her defense, the paper relented and allowed Felicia Sonmez to go back to work,” by NYT’s Rachel Abrams and Marc Tracy

— SONMEZ RESPONDS: “I believe that Washington Post readers and employees, including myself, deserve to hear directly from Marty Baron on the newspaper’s handling of this matter.” WaPo

IN MEMORIAM — “Remembering Xana Antunes, our singular colleague and friend,” by Quartz’s Kevin Delaney: “Few people have had as much impact on the practice of financial journalism in the US as Xana Antunes. She did so quietly, leading newsrooms at CNBC, Crain’s New York Business, Fortune, the New York Post, and Quartz, putting journalists out in front and making it possible for them to do their best work.

“Xana joined Quartz in December 2014 as editor for new initiatives, and served as executive editor since 2016. … We’re deeply saddened by her passing on Jan. 27, close to three years after an initial diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.” Quartz

PLAYBOOKERS

Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at politicoplaybook@politico.com.

SPOTTED: D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser at Cafe Milano on Tuesday. … Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at Georgia Brown’s on Tuesday night.

TRANSITIONS — Jeff Byard will be VP of government relations and emergency management at Team Rubicon. He previously was associate administrator for FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery and Trump’s nominee to head the agency. … Catharine Cypher is now director of media affairs for the office of the first lady. She previously was director of external affairs for Kellyanne Conway. She remains a special assistant to the president.

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. A fun fact about her: “I’m a huge Phish fan. While my days of summer tours, New Year’s runs and tape trading are behind me, I still catch shows whenever they come through town.” Playbook Q&A

BIRTHDAYS: Former Speaker Paul Ryan is 5-0 … Oprah is 66 … Robyn Bash of the American Hospital Association … Gaby Hurt, White House press assistant (h/t Judd Deere) … Bethany Hudson … Geoff Smith of the Transportation secretary’s office … Kim Ghattas … Denielle Sachs (h/ts Ben Chang) … CNN’s Lauren Dezenski … Jocelyn Frye … Kristy Schantz … Monica Melton … Steve Hagenbuch … Tarah Donoghue … Seth Appleton … Edelman’s Mary Kate McCarthy and Aaron Guiterman … Thomas DiFonzo, Endeavor Strategies creative director … Jonathan Fischer, tech editor at Slate (h/t mom Linda Adler) … Kristine Grow, SVP of comms for America’s Health Insurance Plans (h/t Cathryn Donaldson) … Jesús Rodríguez …

… Tom Collamore, founder of Collamore Consulting Group … Brian Donahue,founder and CEO at CRAFT | Media/Digital … Kara Van Stralen, COS for Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) (h/t Mitchell Rivard) … Holyoke, Mass., Mayor Alex Morse, who’s running for Congress, is 31 (h/t Max Clermont) … Barbara Fiala … Henry Ross … Google’s Stephanie Gunter … Gavin Proffitt, principal at the Bockorny Group, is 27 (h/t Scott Bennett) … Michael Duga … Rich Rubino is 42 … Emily Tara Weberman … Eric Roston, sustainability editor for Bloomberg … Sean Walsh … Michael Bassik is 41 … Sam Conchuratt … former Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) is 58 … Ahmad Pathoni … Shirley Krug … Karen Showalter … Kyle Miskell … Mike Gronstal

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THE FLIP SIDE

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Wednesday, January 29, 2020Editor’s Note: The Flip Side is teaming up with Civic Spirit to launch our first-ever Media Literacy Challenge! Calling all students ages 13-19: here’s your chance to create your very own edition of The Flip Side! Are you up to the task? #MediaLiteracyChallengeMideast Peace PlanOn Tuesday, President Trump unveiled his long-awaited Middle East peace plan. White House

See our prior coverage of Israeli settlements here. The Flip SideFrom the LeftThe left is critical of the plan, arguing that it is biased towards Israel and thus unlikely to gain Palestinian support.“Instead of coming up with a plan that would see [the settlers in the West Bank] relocated or finding some other solution, Kushner’s plan just takes the huge chunk of land where most of the settlements are located and gives it to Israel. In return, Palestinians get some pockets of land far away in the desert on the border with Egypt and not much else… the proposal reveals the fundamental problem at the heart of the plan itself: the administration’s tacit endorsement of Israel’s continued illegal settlements in Palestinian territory.”
Alex Ward, Vox

Under the plan, “The Palestinian ‘state’ would lack many conventional aspects of sovereignty, including control over its borders, airspace, territorial waters and international relations. Israel would retain ‘overriding security responsibility,’ including the right to send its own forces into Palestinian territory. [Over ten thousand] Israelis would go on living in settlements inside the new Arab state and would be governed by Israel. And Israel would have full sovereignty over Jerusalem, except for a few areas already outside the city’s security barrier…

“Those who actually favor [a two-state resolution], as we do, will have to hope that the remainder of the plan is soon forgotten. Otherwise, it may provide a new set of benchmarks that will make peace impossible and from which future Israeli and U.S. governments will find it hard to retreat.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post

“Another condition for statehood is the creation of a ‘a governing system with a constitution or another system for establishing the rule of law that provides for freedom of press, free and fair elections, respect for human rights for its citizens, protections for religious freedom and for religious minorities to observe their faith, uniform and fair enforcement of law and contractual rights, due process under law, and an independent judiciary’…

“In other words, to become recognized as a sovereign state, the Palestinians will have to achieve levels of governance achieved by no country in the Middle East other than Israel itself. None of America’s Arab allies — from Egypt to Saudi Arabia — meet these criteria. But while the promise of Palestinian statehood is contingent on fantastic conditions, the plan sets no conditions for allowing Israel to annex the Jordan Valley and all Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Netanyahu can do that tomorrow — and very well may… What was unveiled on Tuesday was a PR campaign, not a peace plan.”
Max Boot, Washington Post

“I’m quite sure the White House knew that this plan would be immediately dismissed by the Palestinians. So why bother? There are a couple of reasons. First, Trump said he was going to come up with a peace plan and gave the task to his son-in-law; if nothing else, he can say that he followed through. Second, by coming up with something so incredibly skewed toward the interests of Israel, he can demonstrate to domestic constituencies — particularly evangelical Christians, many of whom are devoted to a right-wing vision of Israel’s future in which Palestinian rights are ignored — that he continues to be on their side…

“And finally, the inevitable rejection of the plan by the Palestinians can be used as an excuse to continue denying them self-determination. ‘See, we offered you a peace plan,’ Trump and Netanyahu will say, ‘and you didn’t want it! It’s clear you aren’t ready for self-determination.’ And nothing will change.”
Paul Waldman, Washington Post

“The timing gives the game away. Trump is facing impeachment, and Netanyahu is facing indictment, and both of them are relying on reelection to avoid serious legal threats… Trump got to pose as a peace-making statesman and pander to his evangelical base. And Netanyahu got to pose as the man who could deliver the occupied territories and annexation at last to Israeli voters.”
Hussein Ibish, BloombergFrom the RightThe right applauds the plan, arguing that it offers realistic proposals that will necessarily be part of any deal.“Critics are already indicting the Trump plan for not meeting all Palestinians demands. That is certainly true, but the plan also does not meet all Israeli demands. It is a compromise, requiring concessions from both sides… Hundreds of groups seek statehood, and some – like the Kurds – seem to deserve it. But almost none get it… The Palestinians are perhaps the only national independence movement in the modern era that has ever rejected a genuine offer of internationally recognized statehood, even if it falls short of all the territory they had sought.”
Eugene Kontorovich, Fox News

“Far from bowing to the demands of Israel’s settlers, the plan provides for a four-year settlement freeze on construction in the West Bank, and settler groups are criticizing it. More important, the plan gives a political boost to the two-state solution that Mr. Netanyahu’s base has been abandoning. It also anticipates a high-speed rail link between Gaza and the West Bank that is sure to raise objections from Israeli security hawks…

“The recognition of some of Israel’s territorial expansion since 1967 simply reflects changes in political realities as the Palestinians rejected peace deal after peace deal. No one serious in Israel expects the major settlement blocks to be demolished. Meanwhile, Israel has unprecedented support from the Gulf Arab states, which are united with Israel against Iran and have grown tired of Palestinian rejectionism.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal

“Anyone who’s followed this issue understands the historic significance of Bahrain, UAE, and Oman sending envoys to White House unveiling of Trump’s peace deal. Arab nations are coming to terms with the reality of the Jewish State in ways that Americans progressives have not…

“No major Israeli party on either the right or the left is going to agree to a right of return, a return to pre-1967 lines, or a surrender of Jerusalem. In the past, Palestinian negotiators, who have never once crafted a peace plan of their own — or any deal that wasn’t contingent on the complete capitulation of Israel — sat back and rejected one concession after the next. They offered ever-growing lists of grievances while American leaders tried to pacify them. It’s about time someone injected a dose of this reality into this situation. Trump’s plan allows Palestinians to have a state in the world that exists. Or not.”
David Harsanyi, National Review

“Three times — twice in 2000 and once in 2008 — Israel offered Palestinians a state in exchange for a declaration of peace. What’s more, in 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Palestinian territory of Gaza and left it to the Gazans to rule themselves. The Palestinians met both the offers and the withdrawal with multiple wars… the United States is no longer demanding that Israel place itself in existential jeopardy by giving up vital security territory alongside the Jordan River — or that it redefine its own Zionist cause by unilaterally surrendering part of Jerusalem.”
John Podhoretz, New York Post

The freeze on Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank “is a significant concession that will aggravate the Israeli hard-right. Muslims would also be assured of access to the al Aqsa Mosque under continuing Jordanian-led custodianship. And Trump is promising that Palestinian-controlled territory will double in size under this deal…

“On the Israeli side, the Jewish state will gain control over the Jordan River valley: a prerequisite of Israel’s long-term security strategy. In return for land swaps, Israel would also receive sovereignty over major settlement blocs in the West Bank. This was always going to be a part of any deal, and everyone who cares to be honest knows it.”
Tom Rogan, Washington ExaminerOn the bright side…

Emoji license plates could become a real thing if this Vermont bill passes.
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THE WASHINGTON TIMES

MORNING EDITION

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

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Trump embraces Democratic defector Jeff Van Drew in raucous N.J. rallyRep. Jeff Van Drew embraced President Trump’s endorsement in front of a raucous Jersey crowd late Tuesday, sealing his decision … more

The Morning Dispatch: Boris Goes With Huawei

Plus, the White House releases its plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—with no buy-in from the Palestinians.

The Dispatch Staff

4 min

Happy Wednesday! “I think you did a good job on her” is both the feedback on the Morning Dispatch we hope to hear from our editors when we wake up, and how President Trump praised Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday for berating NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly after she asked him a question about the State Department and Ukraine.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

The Department of Justice arrested and charged the chair of Harvard University’s chemistry department with making a fraudulent statement about his ties to China.
The deficit is projected to surpass $1 trillion in 2020, according to a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
President Trump’s impeachment defense team wrapped up its case on Tuesday. There will now be eight hours of questioning from senators both today and tomorrow, followed by a Friday vote on whether or not to call additional witnesses.
Mitch McConnell reportedly told Republican senators in a private meeting Tuesday that he did not currently have the 51 votes necessary to block impeachment witnesses, but the situation remains fluid and could very well change before Friday.
Eddie Gallagher, the Navy SEAL whose war crimes trial President Trump intervened on behalf of, posted a video on social media attacking his former Navy SEAL peers. Gallagher “highlighted names, photos and—for those still on active duty—their duty status and current units, something former SEALs say places those men—and the Navy’s mission—in jeopardy,” per the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The Tory U.K. Folds on China’s Huawei

In last Wednesday’s Morning Dispatch, we took a look at a hugely consequential national security decision facing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Tory coalition: Whether or not to freeze Chinese telecom giant Huawei out as the country begins to upgrade its cell networks to 5G technology. On Tuesday, Johnson announced their decision: to the chagrin of the White House, many in Congress, and anyone with concerns about Chinese spying, the U.K. will allow Huawei to play a role building and maintaining its 5G network.

The concession to China comes with a few caveats designed to mollify critics. Huawei equipment will be kept out of “core” areas and those areas processing sensitive information—data storage facilities, military bases, etc.—and the company will not be permitted to purchase a controlling market share in the network. On Tuesday, British officials hastened to downplay the significance of the decision to America’s ongoing campaign to limit Huawei’s reach, with Digital Secretary Nicky Morgan calling it “a U.K.-specific solution for U.K.-specific reasons” in a statement.

But all that is unlikely to placate China hawks in Congress and the Trump administration, who argue that companies like Huawei don’t operate independently from China’s authoritarian regime.

“This is national security 101: You don’t want sensitive information crossing compromised networks,” Sen. Ben Sasse told us, adding that the decision would hurt America’s efforts to convince the world that “the distinction between so-called ‘private-sector’ companies like Huawei and the Chinese Communist Party is pure fiction.”

One major sticking point for the U.S. is that relegating Huawei to non-critical infrastructure, while sounding nice in theory, is likely to be much harder to put into practice in a 5G network. There are a couple related reasons for this. One has to do with how centralized a cell network’s data is. Speaking simplistically, older generations of mobile technology relied on a central flow of information, which individual devices tapped into to access.

But 5G technology does away with much of that centralization, relying much more heavily on direct device-to-device communication and data transfers over whole constellations of interconnected networks and devices. This means the matter of keeping devices from accessing content they shouldn’t will be more than ever a question not of hardware but of software—leading experts to worry that malicious actors involved in building the network could easily insert backdoors to snoop on data transfers across the network undetected.

“They are saying that Huawei will not be allowed into the core, they will only be allowed into the periphery,” said Dean Cheng, an expert on China policy for the Heritage Foundation. “But an awful lot of the technical writings seem to suggest that you won’t have that distinction … The extent to which Huawei is going to have access to this data, no matter where it is, so long as it is part of the system, is not something that seems easily managed by saying, well, they’ll only have a minority stake and they won’t be allowed to do X, Y, and Z.”

These questions—of whether and to what extent the U.K. is opening itself up to Chinese spying by relying on Huawei—will be critically important in the years ahead, as the British actually build out their 5G network. But in the short term, the greatest impact of the decision is likely to be its effect on U.S.-British relations, for both intelligence purposes and trade.

As things stand now, the U.S. shares an enormous amount of intelligence information with the U.K., which, along with Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, make up the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. But if the British go forward with a plan that Washington believes will jeopardize their ability to safeguard that information, America might find it necessary to cut the U.K. out of that network. In fact, there are already bills before both houses of Congress proposing exactly that—cutting intelligence ties with any countries relying on Huawei to operate their 5G networks.

“My concern is that, if this keeps going this direction and we aren’t able to reverse the decision, [those bills] will pick up steam,” Rep. Mike Gallagher, a former Marine Corps intelligence officer, told The Dispatch. “And then, at a broader level, I think it’s going to complicate, it might completely eliminate the possibility of getting a gold standard post-Brexit trade agreement with the UK, which would be a huge missed opportunity for both our countries. So both of those things I think just tell you how high the stakes are with this decision.”

All that is bad enough. But as Gallagher pointed out, it may get worse if other countries see the U.K.’s decision as a tacit green light to pencil Huawei into their own 5G plans—such that, far from freezing the company out of Western markets, the U.S. suddenly finds itself pursuing its Huawei blockade alone.

“Think about the legitimacy this will convey on Huawei,” Gallagher said. “They can point to the U.K. and say, look, the U.S.’s closest partner went with Huawei. There’s no concern here, you don’t need to be worried, the U.K. says everything is cool. That’s going to dramatically enhance Huawei’s business case as they try and get the Germans to follow suit, every country in Africa, which may not be as security-minded and just want cheap internet. I think the implications of this are going to be not only huge domestically, but huge internationally.”

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It Takes Three Wheels to Make a Tricycle

Flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the East Room of the White House on Tuesday, President Trump announced his administration’s long-discussed “Peace to Prosperity” plan to bring calm to the “seemingly interminable conflict” between Israelis and Palestinians. No Palestinian leaders attended the ceremony.

In what he referred to as “the most detailed proposal ever put forward by far,” Trump unveiled a two-state solution that he called “a ‘win-win’ opportunity for both sides.” The proposed blueprint—which ultimately needs to be negotiated between Israeli and Palestinian officials—would formally recognize both a State of Israel and a State of Palestine. (Elsewhere at The Dispatch, Danielle Pletka offers a detailed analysis of the plan’s specifics.)

In a call with reporters, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman called the plan a “huge advancement,” saying that, for the first time in 52 years, “the state of Israel has delineated the terms under which it is prepared to make territorial compensations for the creation of a Palestinian state.”Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrumpThis is what a future State of Palestine can look like, with a capital in parts of East Jerusalem. January 28th 20207,223 Retweets22,599 Likes

Because Palestinian territory under the proposal would be detached and non-continuous, the plan “provides for a high speed rail connection between Gaza and the West bank,” according to Friedman.

Jerusalem would remain Israel’s “undivided capital,” Trump said, before adding that because he has “done a lot for Israel,” it is “only reasonable that I have to do a lot for the Palestinians, or it just wouldn’t be fair.”

The plan, Trump contended, would “more than double the Palestinian territory and provide a Palestinian capital in eastern Jerusalem where America will proudly open an embassy.”

As part of the proposal, Israel agreed to freeze development on the land it would cede to a Palestinian state for four years, giving the two sides time to further negotiate.

“We confront an important issue here, which is the asymmetry between Israel and the Palestinians,” Friedman told reporters. “On one hand, you have a modern, first-world, strong, democratic nation trying to make peace with a highly divided and challenged people and series of different governments.”

“We bridge this asymmetry,” he continued, “by providing certain benefits to Israel up front, in exchange for Israel keeping the option open to the Palestinians for a very lengthy period of time.”

Both Netanyahu—who was formally indicted yesterday on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust—and Benny Gantz—the leader of Netanyahu’s more-centrist opposition party who is running to replace him—support Trump’s blueprint. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, unsurprisingly, does not.

“We say a thousand times, no, no, no to the deal of the century,” Abbas announced following Trump and Netanyahu’s joint appearance. “We will not kneel down,” he added, clearly disagreeing with Trump’s characterization of the deal. “Annexation of 30% of our territory is nonsense.”

“This plan was negotiated with no one but the Israelis, and thus it’s not a peace plan at all,” Democratic senator Chris Murphy argued. “Peace can only be achieved through agreement between Israel and the Palestinian people.”

Speaking to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, 36-year-old presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, one of the plan’s main architects, promised American respect if the Palestinians come to the negotiating table. And if they don’t? “If they screw up this opportunity—which again, they have a perfect track record of missing opportunities—if they screw this up, I think that they will have a very hard time looking the international community in the face, saying they’re victims, saying they have rights.”

Worth Your Time

Federal paid family leave is an idea that’s been gaining steam on both sides of the aisle. This harrowing piece from The Guardian’s Miranda Bryant tells the stories of a few of the women for whom such a policy would have been a godsend—women without a financial safety net with no choice but to drag their battered bodies back onto the job days after giving birth just to keep the lights on.
Elizabeth Warren talks a big game about getting America out of its foreign wars. But would she actually operate any differently from the last three presidents, all of whom did the same on the campaign trail—before each got the U.S. tangled in still more conflicts abroad? National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty takes a look at the proud U.S. presidential tradition of candidates who run like doves and govern like hawks.
Writing in the Atlantic, Lydia Denworth has a fascinating deep-dive piece about the middle-school brain—why seventh-graders form the social groups they do, do the crazy things they do, frustrate and frighten their parents, have social anxiety at lunch, and so on. There’s lots of engagingly written stuff on neuroscience and lots of kids-do-the-darndest-things anecdotes, and it’s all great. Give it a read!

Presented Without Comment

Christopher J. Hale@chrisjollyhaleI regret to inform you that Mike Bloomberg attempted to shake a dog’s mouth. January 28th 20209,952 Retweets57,706 Likes

Something Fun

Valentine’s Day is coming up, and you know what that means—naming cockroaches after your ex!

The El Paso Zoo will afford those seeking closure the opportunity to feed the namesake of a past lover—in the form of an arthropod—to primates and/or meerkats. Just don’t try this with your current significant other.

Toeing the Company Line

If you’re sick and tired of the impeachment back and forth, David’s Tuesday French Press is for you. Before turning to the plight of pro-life Democrats, he looks at two viral cable news clips to explain how “our media environment constantly provides each side with actual fuel for the raging fire of mistrust and mutual loathing.”
Jonah bade farewell to longtime podcast sidekick (and AEI research assistant) Jack Butler on the latest episode of The Remnant. Best of luck at National Review, Jack!
On the web today, Jonah explains all the reasons (and there are many) that an offense must rise to the level of criminal violation to be impeachable. Paul D. Miller, who devoted 10 years to the war in Afghanistan between the Army, the CIA, and the National Security Council, takes issue with the Washington Post series detailing all the mistakes the U.S. made. And we have the aforementioned piece by Danielle Pletka on the Middle East peace deal.

Let Us Know

Negotiations between three parties magically become much simpler if you only need to appease two of them. Which of these pacts would make the most sense ignoring one of the participants?

The Yalta and Potsdam Conferences: Exclude Joseph Stalin and that whole Cold War thing might’ve been a whole lot easier to win.
The Anthony Davis Trade: If the Pelicans and Wizards just didn’t give the Lakers the superstar they wanted in this three-team deal, New Orleans could have added Lonzo, Ingram, Hart, and draft picks without having to part with AD.
Tomorrow’s Morning Dispatch: Divide the responsibility of the different segments evenly, and then give them all to Steve. Declan and Andrew are ecstatic!

Reporting by Declan Garvey (@declanpgarvey), Andrew Egger (@EggerDC), and Steve Hayes (@stephenfhayes).

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DAYBREAK

Your First Look at Today’s Top Stories – Daybreak InsiderHaving trouble viewing this email? View the web version.SPONSORED BYDaybreakInsider.com  @DaybreakInsiderWEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 20201.McConnell May Have Votes to Avoid More Witnesses
It appears Republicans are close to having the votes to move on (Hot Air). From Katie Pavlich: There is potential Joe Biden starts making phone calls to his former Senate colleagues to vote against new witnesses in the impeachment trial to protect himself and Hunter Biden from testifying (Twitter). Trump legal team member Pam Bondi took on the Hunter Biden angle yesterday (Hot Air). And in the middle of all of this, Trump’s approval ratings match an all-time high (Townhall).

2.Trump Plan Gives Hope for Middle East Peace
From the Wall Street Journal: This is a pro-Israel plan by historical standards. It envisions Palestinians controlling much less territory than they would under the 1967 borders, including as much as 80% of the West Bank. It would not require the evacuation of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and it demands that Hamas, the terrorist group that controls Gaza, be disarmed. Israel would control the Jordan River valley that it says is vital to security on its eastern border. Later:  The U.S. norm has been to arm-twist the Israelis and bribe the Palestinians with cash. Instead the Trump Administration has supported Israel unapologetically—including by moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem—and wants the rest of the world to persuade the Palestinians to confront reality (WSJ). From David Harsanyi:  It’s worth noting that some of the harshest critics of Donald Trump’s new Israeli–Palestinian peace plan — many of them Middle East “experts” who’ve worked in the Clinton and Obama administrations — are the same people behind catastrophic efforts that resulted in more hopelessness, intifadas, and extremism. These professional peace-processors have managed to harden the Israeli public against even the most abstract negotiations because, inevitably, all of them end in violence (National Review). From Hugh Hewitt:  Ben Rhodes et al have been telling us President Trump was breaking apart the Middle East, recklessly courting war, destroying a carefully laid plan. In fact Trump has brought Israel and the Arab states closer together than ever before (Twitter).

Advertisement3.Sanders Now Has Democrats Worried He Could Win Nomination
Byron York examines the many concerns coming from key Democrats (Washington Examiner). From Jonathan Chait: …the totality of the evidence suggests Sanders is an extremely, perhaps uniquely, risky nominee. His vulnerabilities are enormous and untested. No party nomination, with the possible exception of Barry Goldwater in 1964, has put forth a presidential nominee with the level of downside risk exposure as a Sanders-led ticket would bring. To nominate Sanders would be insane (New York Magazine). From Jim Geraghty: A lot of stuff that was either no big deal or dismissed as “just Bernie being Bernie” in Vermont will look really bad in GOP attack ads in all of those swing states. I still can’t believe we haven’t seen a single commercial that even mentions Sanders’s otherworldly op-ed about women’s rape fantasies. The Sanders campaign will insist it was the foolish ramblings from a confused young man, written many decades ago. The Trump campaign will point out, accurately, that Sanders was 30 years old when he wrote it (National Review). From NBC News: The greatest trick Bernie Sanders ever played was convincing the world the chance he could win didn’t exist  (NBC News). Meanwhile, among Hispanic voters, Sanders is way out front while Warren is tied with Bloomberg for third (Morning Consult). Biden is on camera telling a voter to “go vote for someone else” (Twitter). Buttigieg continues to dodge tough questions on abortion (National Review).

4.Hundreds of Americans Evacuated from China Due to Coronavirus
Many are on their way home (Fox News). About 1000 Americans are stuck in the Chinese city of Wuhan (NY Post).

5.Hillary: “I Certainly Feel the Urge” to Run Against Trump
In context, it doesn’t appear she’s seriously thinking about it.

Variety

Advertisement6.Documentary Details Racism Against Justice ThomasFrom Thomas: “We were told that, oh it’s going to be the bigot in the pick-up truck, it’s going to be the Klansman, it’s going to be the rural sheriff. And I’m not saying that there weren’t some of those who were bad, but it turned out that through all of that, ultimately the biggest impediment was the modern-day liberal.”

PJ Media

7.Project Veritas Releases More Shocking Videos of Sanders’ Workers
From Sanders field organizer Daniel Taylor: “You know, we were talking about more extreme organizations and stuff like antifa, you were talking about the ‘yellow vests,’ all that, but we’re kind of keeping that on the back burner for right now.”

Washington Times

8.How the Left has Taken Over CorporationsIn one example, Jerry Bowyer explains “In just over a decade, using shareholder proposals, activists were able to shift the health-care industry significantly to the left.”

Townhall Finance

Advertisement9.U.S. Debt Continues to SkyrocketEven in this good economy as spending continues out of control.

WSJ

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AXIOS

Axios AMSubscribe

By Mike Allen

⚡ Breaking: China, with 5,974 cases of coronavirus, now has more infections than it did during the SARS outbreak of 2002-03; death toll still lower. (AP)

1 big thing: ❓ Question time! What senators will ask?

Republican senators during defense arguments yesterday. Sketch: Dana Verkouteren via AP

The Trump trial will enter a hot new phase today when senators grill House managers and White House lawyers with a series of pointed questions, Axios’ Alayna Treene reports.

Why it matters: The 16-hour Q&A session, which is expected to be split over two days, will solidify whether senators feel satisfied with the evidence they have, or if they will vote to bring in additional witnesses and documents.
This period has become even more significant in the past 24 hours, after the Bolton revelations made some Republicans more inclined to allow witnesses.

How it works: Each party will alternate submitting written questions to Chief Justice John Roberts, who will read them.

The questions must be signed by the senator or group of senators asking it, and they can be directed to either House managers or Trump’s defense team.
Senators can’t ask each other questions.
There’s no official time limit restricting House managers’ or the White House team’s response.

What I’m hearing: This could be quite a show.

Senators have been antsy to participate, and they’ve been cooking up some doozies.
Both Democratic and Republican senators have been coordinating internally with members of their party to ensure they hit all of the most important topic areas and that there’s no overlap.

What they’ll ask:

Democrats say they’re eager to ask questions that expose the Trump defense team’s “gaps in direct knowledge and facts,” as one senior aide described it, and underscore the need to hear from witnesses who could provide a firsthand account of Trump’s diplomacy with Ukraine.
Many of the president’s fiercest Republican allies are interested in asking questions about corruption in Ukraine, attempting to elicit answers that justify Trump’s desire to investigate the Bidens.
They’ll also ask some that are designed to poke holes in House Democrats’ impeachment process.

Sneak peek, from Alayna’s conversations at the Capitol:

Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), who faces a competitive re-election fight in the fall: “I want to confirm that Rudy Giuliani was working personally for the president and not on the behalf of the United States of America.”
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.): “I’ve called constitutional law professors and trial attorneys to elicit from them what they think would be the best questions.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told reporters he’d like to ask about the whistleblower complaint, and whether there was inappropriate communication with lead House manager Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). He’s also eager to ask about Hunter Biden.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) wants to ask about the White House memo of the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “Trump’s attorneys fairly forcefully said, ‘In an unprecedented act of transparency, he released the full transcript.’ Did he? … Are we sure we’ve got the whole thing?”

2. ⚖️ McConnell scrambles to hold back witness push

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) takes the Senate subway Monday. Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

In a surprise, Mitch McConnell told Senate Republicans he currently lacks the votes needed to block witnesses from the Trump impeachment trial, but hopes they can get there by Friday, Axios’ Alayna Treene reports.

The big picture: Most Republicans have tried to avoid calling witnesses, and just a few days ago it looked like they’d succeed. But bombshell revelations from former national security adviser John Bolton’s forthcoming book have swayed some GOP senators.

What we’re hearing: During the meeting, GOP leaders emphasized that a vote for witnesses would drag out the proceedings and could impact the races of senators up for re-election.

🐦 Josh Holmes, president of Cavalry LLC and a former McConnell chief of staff, tweets: “I’m still betting that if you see the whites of John Bolton’s eyes in the Senate, you’ll see the glassy gaze of Hunter Biden’s alongside of him. I don’t think they’re going to vote to launch this Hindenburg. At least not yet.”

📊 Five recent polls show that a majority of Americans (55-72%) favor calling new witnesses.

But Holmes notes: “The crosstabs on most polling in favor of witnesses includes a heavy Trump base support for calling Hunter Biden.”

💬 From my inbox … Top Republican source: “This is the first time McConnell has not been captain of the ship … uncharted waters ahead.”

Source close to McConnell: “MM always seems to have another card to play that no one expects.”

3. Why we panic about coronavirus, but not flu

If you’re freaking out about coronavirus but didn’t get a flu shot, you’ve got it backwards, Axios’ Bob Herman writes.

Why it matters: A novel outbreak will always command more attention than a common illness, and the coronavirus is a serious health threat. But our newfound hyper-vigilance about infections might be more helpful if we could redirect some of it toward influenza — a significantly deadlier virus that strikes every year.

By the numbers: This new strain of coronavirus has killed 132 people so far, all of them in China. More than 6,000 total cases have been reported worldwide, although experts believe that total is underestimated.

By comparison, this year’s flu season has killed 8,200 people, with at least 15 million cases — and that’s just in the U.S.

Between the lines: James Lawler, an infectious disease physician at the University of Nebraska, said pandemic viruses like the coronavirus cause more anxiety because, unlike the flu, there are not any initial countermeasures like vaccines, antivirals, diagnostic testing and monitoring systems.

4. 🗳️ Hot on the 2020 trail

Joe Biden speaks yesterday in Muscatine, Iowa. Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

Elizabeth Warren builds long game … 600 miles away from Des Moines at Warren’s Michigan headquarters in Detroit, the Boston Globe’s Jess Bidgood reports, “Quentin Turner had an urgent message for the dozen or so volunteers”:

“The Michigan primary is 46 days away … and every day counts.”

5 days to Iowa caucuses … Amy Klobuchar took a last-minute, late afternoon flight to western Iowa yesterday after the Trump trial to make a campaign stop at a bar in Council Bluffs, AP’s Margery Beck reports.

Klobuchar was met by a standing-room-only crowd of more than 100 people.

5. 🎬 Video: 5G, as seen from two Georgia cities

The fate of the national race to build 5G wireless service depends on how effectively the guts of the network — namely, hundreds of thousands of bulky antennas — are placed in cities, Axios’ Kim Hart writes.

Why it matters: While global tensions mount over pressure to build 5G networks as fast as possible, U.S. cities are in their own fight with telecom carriers and federal regulators over how new 5G antennas will be scattered throughout downtowns and neighborhoods.

On the ground: Two Georgia towns, 10 miles apart in the suburbs of Atlanta, have drastically different reactions to the realities of deploying 5G networks:

Peachtree Corners, a city of 45,000, invested in early deployment of 5G in hopes it will bring new economic activity.
Brookhaven, a city of 57,000, is fed up with telecom companies’ demands and is among the cities suing the FCC.

Video: Axios visited both. See what we found.

Sign up for Kim Hart’s weekly newsletter, Axios Cities.

6. Trump peace plan already matters on ground

Trump and Netanyahu in the East Room yesterday. Photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

President Trump is nowhere near a deal on Middle East peace, but the long-awaited and hyper-detailed plan he released yesterday — shepherded by Jared Kushner — has immediate and dramatic implications for the reality on the ground, write Axios’ Dave Lawler and Barak Ravid, an Axios contributor and senior diplomatic correspondent for Israel’s Channel 13 News

The White House gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a green light to immediately annex about 30% of the West Bank, a step every previous U.S. administration vehemently opposed. Netanyahu plans to act on that opportunity as soon as Sunday.

Our thought bubble: If Israel does annex the Jordan Valley, it will entrench Israel’s control and fundamentally change the equation for any future negotiations.

Green-lighting annexations is an even more dramatic step from Trump than moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem or recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
It could also ultimately be the least reversible of those steps.

For Netanyahu, this could be the biggest moment in a political career that has been remarkable for its longevity but not for landmark accomplishments.

He stood alongside Trump during the announcement — just hours after surrendering immunity from three corruption indictments, and one month before an election that could bring his political career to an end.

Reality check: None of the officials Axios’ Jonathan Swan has spoken to in the region are optimistic that peace can be accomplished while Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are in power.

Go deeper: Details of the plan. Read the White House’s 181-page plan.

Source: White House plan

7. 📺 Impeachment ratings

Fox News averaged 3.32 million in prime time last week, MSNBC had 1.96 million, ESPN had 1.22 million, TLC had 1.2 million and CNN had 1.18 million, per AP.

ABC’s “World News Tonight” won the evening news ratings race, averaging 9.1 million viewers. NBC’s “Nightly News” had 7.9 million viewers and the “CBS Evening News” had 5.9 million.

🌞 Breaking: “NBC News has considered the prospect of creating a fifth hour of ‘Today’ on weekdays.” (Variety)

8. 🎥 1 film thing

Another effect of China’s coronavirus outbreak, per The Hollywood Reporter: “Nearly every cinema in the country, totaling about 70,000 screens, has shut down.”

Why it matters: That could drive down “2020 global box office revenue by $1 billion to $2 billion” — and have a cascading effect on other entertainment sectors with huge China investments, like theme parks, esports, and theater.

Closer to home … 2011’s “Contagion,” centered on “a deadly China-born virus that goes global and leads to mass chaos,” hit the top-10 on iTunes’ movie chart this week. (THR)

📬 Thanks for starting your day with us. Please tell a friend about AM/PM.

THE HILL

© Getty Images Welcome to The Hill’s Morning Report. Happy Wednesday! Our newsletter gets you up to speed on the most important developments in politics and policy, plus trends to watch. Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver are the daily co-creators, so find us @asimendinger and @alweaver22 on Twitter and recommend the Morning Report to your friends. CLICK HERE to subscribe! President Trump’s legal team wrapped up its opening arguments on Tuesday, urging senators to end their impeachment trial rather than prolong it with debates about hearing from witnesses. The president’s team took only two hours on Tuesday to wind up its defense of Trump against charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, urging senators to move swiftly to acquittal. But a vote to debate witnesses could prolong the proceedings. As Morgan Chalfant and Brett Samuels write, Trump’s lawyers portrayed the president as the target of a partisan attempt to overturn the 2016 election and argued he should not be removed from office in defiance of the Constitution. “Overturning the last election and massively interfering with the upcoming one would cause serious and lasting damage to the people of the United States and our great country,” White House counsel Pat Cipollone (pictured above) said to rest the defense’s case. “The Senate cannot allow this to happen. It is time for this to end, here and now.” The president’s attorneys also argued that the claims made by former national security adviser John Bolton in a manuscript for his upcoming book would be inadmissible in a normal trial and denied that the claims are true, echoing comments made by the president in recent days. “It is not a game of leaks or unsourced manuscripts,” Jay Sekulow (also pictured above), one of the president’s lead attorneys said on the Senate floor. “I mean, that’s what the evidence — if you want to call that evidence — I don’t know what you’d call that. I’d call it inadmissible — but that’s what it is” (The Washington Post). The Hill: GOP scrambles to sidestep messy witness fight. The Hill: Trump allies throw jabs at Bolton over book’s claims. With opening arguments in the rearview mirror, the Senate will now move into two days of question for both the prosecution and the defense, with up to eight hours of questions being asked per day. The questions will alternate between the GOP and Democratic senators and will be read aloud by Chief Justice John Roberts (The Hill). However, the main focus will be on the issue of witnesses. According to The Wall Street Journal, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) does not have the needed votes to block a push for witnesses. While most of the conference is behind McConnell and leadership members are confident they can avoid calling for more testimony, as Jordain Carney and company report, there remains a lot to hash out in the coming days before the expected witness votes. According to multiple GOP senators, no decisions were made during a caucus meeting on Tuesday. It was “just a broad discussion like we had at all the meetings. No clear conclusions,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) as he left the meeting. At least five GOP senators — including Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine), Mitt Romney (Utah), Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) and Jerry Moran (Kan.) — have not said how they will vote on witnesses. Ultimately, as Alexander Bolton reports, the GOP remains confident it will be able to muster sufficient votes by Friday to block a motion to call witnesses, which would clear the way for Republicans to conclude the trial with Senate votes on the two articles against Trump. The Hill: House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) floats John Kelly as potential impeachment witness. The Washington Post: Senate Republicans seize on Alan Dershowitz’s constitutional law argument that Trump’s actions are not impeachable. The Hill: Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) says the Senate should get a copy of Bolton‘s unpublished manuscript. © Getty Images LEADING THE DAYCAMPAIGNS & POLITICS: By next Tuesday morning, political analysts will be dissecting the first voter-driven preferences in the 2020 presidential race. Yet, reliable predictions about the November elections will be tough. That’s because: > Iowa caucus-goers — those passionate participants from a small, rural and mostly white state who face a large and well-financed Democratic field — are presented with a distinct voter experience compared with other states. Iowans choose first during presidential primaries, eye candidates in person and often take their measure multiple times; > This year, the Democratic contenders are bunched in a pack, polls show, meaning Iowans will winnow the field, but White House wannabes will continue serious campaigning, some for many months; > Iowa caucuses can point to a Democratic nominee but don’t always predict the next president. Since the caucuses began in 1972, 7 of 10 Democrats who won ultimately became their party’s nominee. (Just 3 of 8 Republican caucus winners became the GOP nominee.) The Iowa upshot: Fewer than 1 in 3 caucus winners from either major party captures the presidency (Des Moines Register). With only five days until the first-in-the-nation caucuses, the latest questions in the Democratic primary continue to circle around Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has taken a slight but clear lead in polls of Hawkeye State Democrats. As Sanders continues to spend his week in Washington, former Vice President Joe Biden indicated Tuesday that it remains an open question whether the Vermont Independent will be able to unite the party if he takes home the party’s nomination, but added that uniting as a party will be a necessity. “We have to unite. I’m not going to make judgments now but I just think that it depends upon how we treat one another between now and the time we have a nominee,” Biden said after an event in Muscatine, Iowa (NBC News). © Getty Images Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a top supporter of Biden, echoed the remark, saying that he isn’t sure if anyone outside Biden could do so. “I think at the end of the day, people are not just looking for someone who can unite our party, but someone who can unite our country. And after the impeachment we’re going through, we’re going to be looking for someone who can heal our country,” Carper said. When pressed by The Hill on whether Sanders could do just that, Carper said, “I know Joe Biden can do it. I’m not sure who else can.” Dan Balz: Iowa opens the fight to be the last Democratic presidential candidate standing. While all eyes are fixated on Iowa, an equally-as-important contest in New Hampshire sits just around the corner. As The Hill’s Cate Martel (along with Amie Parnes) reports from the Granite State, only months ago, Biden had written off winning New Hampshire given that Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) hold a big advantage in hailing from neighboring states. However, Biden has ranked in the top two in a string of recent polls, and his campaign has a renewed interest in performing well in the state. While Sanders has held a consistent lead in polls of New Hampshire, the Biden campaign is arguing that state remains within its reach. “We feel good in New Hampshire,” said a senior Biden aide. “We feel like we’re in a very strong position to win New Hampshire.” The Hill: Sanders under increasing pressure on funding for “Medicare for All.” The Hill: Rep. Doug Collins’s (R-Ga.) Senate bid threatens a GOP rift in Georgia. Jonathan Chait, New York magazine: Running Sanders against Trump would be an act of insanity. “Whatever evidence might have supported a Sanders-esque populist strategy for Democrats after the 2016 election, it has since collapsed. But in the ideological hothouse of the Sanders world, no setbacks have been acknowledged, no rethinking has taken place, and the skeptics are dismissed as elitist neoliberal corporate shills, as ever.” > Down the shore: The Associated Press: Trump shores up support for newest GOP congressman in New Jersey. “Jeff had the guts to defy the left-wing fanatics in his own party.” Trump highlighted the economy during much of his speech, noting that 7 million jobs have been created since his election. He also continued to boast of the U.S. drone strike in Baghdad that killed Iran’s most powerful general, Qassem Soleimani, on Jan. 3. He cited the strike while attacking his political rivals with language that was incendiary even for a Trump rally. “We stopped him cold, yet Washington Democrats like crazy Bernie Sanders and nervous Nancy Pelosi, they opposed our actions to save American lives. They opposed it,” Trump asserted to a roar of boos. The New York Times: A primary from the right? Not in Trump’s GOP. The Hill: GOP leader warns lawmakers on fundraising: ‘We’re getting our ass kicked.” Thomas B. Edsall, The New York Times: Trump’s digital advantage is freaking out Democratic strategists. IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKESWHITE HOUSE & ADMINISTRATION: With embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing by his side in the East Room on Tuesday, Trump unveiled a long-promised Middle East peace plan that Palestinians immediately condemned as largely one-sided. The president proposed creating a Palestinian state under strict conditions and advocated Israel’s control of long-contested West Bank settlements coupled with a four-year freeze on new settlement activity. Protesting what they see as Trump’s pro-Israel stance, Palestinians are keeping their distance from the administration. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas mocked what Trump has called the “deal of the century,” describing it as the “slap of the century.” White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, one of the architects of the plan, told Reuters Television the Palestinians “look quite foolish” for immediately rejecting the ideas and recommended they take some time to consider “a very strong opening offer” (Reuters). Abbas held an emergency meeting with other Palestinian factions, including Hamas, to discuss a unified response (The Associated Press). The Associated Press: Netanyahu on Tuesday said Israel will annex large parts of the occupied West Bank, including dozens of Jewish settlements. The International Criminal Court prepared to launch a war crimes probe of the settlements policy. Politico: How Trump’s Middle East peace plan could matter, by tying future presidents’ hands. The New York Times: U.S. plan’s first result: Israel will claim sovereignty over part of the West Bank. David E. Sanger: Two allies draw a map with voters in mind. © Getty Images OPINIONKobe Bryant has left this earth — but his life lessons linger, by Sandeep Gopalan, opinion contributor, The Hill. https://bit.ly/310nwC6 China’s biological ‘Chernobyl’: Different country, same lies, by Bradley A. Thayer and Lianchao Han, opinion contributors, The Hill. https://bit.ly/36ynPFp Pompeo called me a `liar.’ That’s not what bothers me, by Mary Louise Kelly, co-host of NPR’s “All Things Considered,” opinion contributor, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/2vt0FU1 WHERE AND WHEN📺 Hill.TV’s “Rising” program features Noah Weinrich, Heritage Action for America spokesman, who is unhappy about CNN’s recent coverage of Trump supporters; Democrat Richard Goodstein, a former Clinton adviser, who sees some danger in Hillary Clinton’s personal digs at Sanders; and Lee Drutman, senior fellow with the political reform program at New America, who has written a book titled “Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multi-party Democracy in America.” Coverage at http://thehill.com/hilltv or on YouTube at 10:30 a.m. ET at Rising on YouTube. The House meets at 10 a.m. The Senate convenes today at 1 p.m. to continue the impeachment trial. The president at 11 a.m. on the South Lawn will sign the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact, which was ratified by Congress on a bipartisan basis. Vice President Pence will join the president this morning, then travel to Sioux City, Iowa, for political events in Iowa on Thursday. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flies to London, where he will meet with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab. The Federal Reserve concludes a two-day meeting this afternoon at 2 p.m.. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will hold a news conference to discuss the central bank’s outlook for stable interest rates and take questions about its heavy balance sheet (MarketWatch). The Hill’s Sylvan Lane reports that new economic headwinds could put the Fed in a tough position before the November elections.You’re invited to The Hill’s Thursday newsmaker event, “A More Perfect Union?” from 8 to 11 a.m. in Washington. Speakers include Reps. Will Hurd (R-Texas), Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) and Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.). Information is HERE. ELSEWHERE➔ Coronavirus: The Trump administration offered to send medical researchers and health experts to China to help Beijing tackle the coronavirus epidemic there, and the World Health Organization said its own such offer was accepted by China on Tuesday. While the virus has spread far beyond China to numerous countries, medical experts say the 132 known deaths from pneumonia and respiratory illness all occurred there. Japan (pictured below) and Germany reported cases of the virus on Tuesday, while France reported its fourth infected patient. The first known case emerged in the Middle East today (Reuters). U.S. and Japanese officials evacuated personnel from Wuhan, China, today and continue to screen for the coronavirus infection at airports and entry points. With airlines halting flights to China and private companies restricting employee travel into China, worries are mounting about the global economic impact tied to the contagion. U.S. medical specialists want to enter China to help confirm details about the virus, including the incubation period between infection and the development of symptoms and to clarify whether someone infected with the new virus but without symptoms of illness poses a risk of transmission. The number of known, confirmed cases of the virus appeared to leap dramatically again percent overnight, but because thousands of ill people have not been tested in China, experts worry the number of actual cases is higher than the 5,974 reported today (The New York Times). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest information about the new coronavirus is HERE. © Getty Images ➔ Congress watch: In the House, Democrats today will champion legislation intended to attract White House and GOP support for infrastructure spending. How to pay for any such plan in an election year remains a major divide (The Hill). … The Congressional Budget Office offered more bad news in a report on Tuesday describing the government’s ocean of red ink. Today, the House Budget Committee holds a hearing to learn more (The Hill). ➔ Huawei: The British government’s decision on Tuesday to allow limited involvement of Chinese telecom group Huawei in its 5G networks raised concerns over intelligence sharing between the United States and Great Brain, particularly in light of ongoing American bipartisan opposition to the use of Huawei equipment (The Hill). ➔ Law enforcement & intellectual property: Federal prosecutors on Tuesday arrested Harvard chemistry department chairman Charles Lieber, a nanoscale electronics expert, and charged him with making false statements about money he received from a Chinese government-run program, part of a broad FBI investigation focused on theft of biomedical research from laboratories in the United States. Lieber is one of three Boston-area scientists accused by the government on Tuesday of working on behalf of China (The New York Times). ➔ 3M sheds more workers: A contraction in U.S. manufacturing and a trade war that slowed economic growth in China led to a second round of layoffs at Minnesota-based 3M. The decision to cut 1,500 jobs (or about 1.5 percent of the company’s global workforce) is in addition to 2,000 jobs the company shed less than a year ago (The Associated Press). ➔ News media: A Washington Post reporter’s tweet about Kobe Bryant this week did not break the company’s rules, the Post determined (The Hill). … A CNN analyst panel with Don Lemon that mocked Trump supporters as uneducated was a magnet for criticism after going viral (Fox News). … BuzzFeed News editor Ben Smith jumps from the site he built in 2012 to The New York Times as a media columnist, following in the footsteps of the late David Carr (The New York Times). THE CLOSERAnd finally … With science, it’s clear there’s always a new marvel. Today’s more upbeat headline is about synthetic biology, or what innovators are calling “living concrete.” Dr. Frankenstein would have loved a self-replicating primordial stew that springs from photosynthetic bacteria, a little Knox brand gelatin from the grocery store and the innovative minds at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The researchers there came up with a new material that uses a photosynthetic process, plus bacterial microbes and gelatin for structure, which, when poured into molds, hardens into blocks or bricks within days but remains alive and able to build on itself for weeks. Researchers in synthetic biology believe such building material could one day automatically detect its own structural defects, raise the alarm about contact with toxic chemicals and be pretty darn handy on Mars (The New York Times). © Twitter The Morning Report is created by journalists Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver. We want to hear from you! Email: asimendinger@thehill.com and aweaver@thehill.com. We invite you to share The Hill’s reporting and newsletters, and encourage others to SUBSCRIBE! TO VIEW PAST EDITIONS OF THE HILL’S MORNING REPORT CLICK HERETO RECEIVE THE HILL’S MORNING REPORT IN YOUR INBOX SIGN UP HERE MORNING REPORT SIGN UP FORWARD MORNING REPORT Privacy Policy | Manage Subscriptions | Unsubscribe Email to a friend | Sign Up for Other NewslettersThe Hill 1625 K Street, NW 9th Floor, Washington DC 20006©2020 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

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Senate to Begin Questions for Legal Teams in Trump Impeachment TrialBy Reuters, Wednesday, January 29, 2020 7:24 AM“A fair trial involves witnesses and it involves documents.” More Comments » Trump Tailgate: New Jersey Republicans Pack President’s 2020 RallyBy Reuters, Wednesday, January 29, 2020 7:24 AM“It’s very family-like.” More Comments » Where the 2020 Democratic Presidential Hopefuls Differ on Foreign PolicyBy Reuters, Wednesday, January 29, 2020 7:23 AMHere is a look at the foreign policy positions of the top eight Democratic candidates in the race. More Comments » Background Checks and Bump Stock Bans: 2020 Democrats on Gun ControlBy Reuters, Wednesday, January 29, 2020 7:23 AMHere is a look at gun control positions taken by Trump and the Democrats vying to unseat him. More Comments » China Vows to Beat ‘Devil’ Virus as Countries Rush to Evacuate CitizensBy Reuters, Wednesday, January 29, 2020 7:22 AM“All options for dealing with infectious disease spread have to be on the table, including travel restrictions.” More Comments » Trump Jokes About Pompeo’s Spat With NPR Reporter While Announcing Middle East Peace PlanBy Bradley Cortright, Tuesday, January 28, 2020 3:06 PM“That reporter couldn’t have done too good a job on you yesterday.” More Comments »You Might Like HELP CENTER•SUPPORT 24/7•ACCOUNT Copyright © 2019 IJR. All Rights Reserved.
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Share with a friend you think would love this!Wednesday, January 29, 2020

CNN Beclowns Itself Mocking 63 Million Americans
CNN decided to take it upon itself to cut an early commercial for Donald Trump’s re-election campaign. Don Lemon “moderated” a conversation between Never Trump hysteric (and I say that as a person who wrote in a dead guy in 2016) “strategist” Rick Wilson and Wajahat Ali in which the self-labeled elitists viciously mocked American voters as idiots and rubes.

“WILSON: Your math and your reading!
ALI: Yeah, your reading, you know, your geography, knowing other countries, sipping your latte!
WILSON: All those lines on the map!
ALI: Only them elitists know where Ukraine is!”

Pertaining to the ongoing impeachment “bombshell” saga, but fully applicable to the CNN clip, I wrote via Twitter:

“If you can’t understand why Trump’s voters seem to stick with him no matter what, consider that every single US institution – save one, the military – has well under 50% approval from Americans.

Voters think the whole thing is rotten, so they care less about Trump’s faults.”

CNN and other media outlets might want to meditate on why trust in the media is in the toilet – and was so long before Trump ever came down the escalator – before they unwittingly create any more perfect Keep America Great commercials. Also, if you’re going to make super-offensive jokes, you should at least ensure that they’re funny.

More from Emily Jashinsky over at The Federalist.

“Preventing Suicide By Higher Education”
The most important piece on higher education in years, from The Heritage Foundation’s Arthur Milikh in National Affairs:

“America’s universities have been progressivism’s most important asset, its crown jewel. For over half a century, they have served as the left’s R&D headquarters and the intellectual origin or dissemination point for the political and moral transformation of the nation, especially through the sexual revolution and the identity-politics revolution. Universities have trained the new elites who have taken society’s helm and now set its tone through the other institutions thoroughly dominated by the left: the mainstream press, mass entertainment, Fortune 500s, and tech companies…

A nation that publicly funds institutions must obtain something beneficial from them…

America’s taxpayers also continue to fund the corruption of the nation by footing the bill for student loans. Federal student-loan funding pays for the indoctrination of students and builds up the wealth, reach, and prestige of these institutions. Cumulative outstanding student-loan debt currently sits at over $1.5 trillion. Today, the federal government originates and services 90% of all student loans…

The purpose of such proposals is not punitive. It is simple sense. Universities that spread poisonous doctrines no longer believe in the purpose of the university. While it is their right to disagree with this purpose, they should not be the beneficiaries of public funds. No society should be expected to subsidize its own corrosion.”

I have nothing to add to this fantastic piece of scholarship other than that it is worth reading in full.

Gorsuch Scorches Nationwide Injunctions
ICYMI, on Monday, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to reverse a stay in the lower courts on the Trump administration’s “public charge” immigration regulations. While the battle over the regulations themselves will proceed once again in the lower courts, Justice Neil Gorsuch issued what could become an important broadside against controversial nationwide – or “cosmic” – injunctions, which have been heavily used to thwart this administration.

From The Wall Street Journal editorial board:

“Justice Gorsuch doesn’t point out, as he might have, that these have become rife in the last three years as judges seek to block Trump policy even at the risk of being overturned on appeal. But he lays out the many legal, and practical, problems with rule-by-injunction. ‘By their nature, universal injunctions tend to force judges into making rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions,’ he writes.

They encourage forum shopping as plaintiffs file suit in several of the 94 federal district courts and 12 appellate courts to stop a policy. ‘A single loss and the policy goes on ice,’ he says. ‘What’s in this gamesmanship and chaos can we be proud of?’”

Fashion Moment of the Week
Allegedly, there were best dressed people at the Grammy’s, although tbqh I didn’t see many (Lana Del Rey’s $400 off-the-rack gown was a rare exception). Vogue did though, so you can see which one of us is correct.

To wash out your brain, here’s some lovely street style snaps of fashion week attendees in Copenhagen.

Wednesday Links
OK, OK, here’s your impeachment stuff, guys. I couldn’t bring myself to pull-quote any more pieces about this boring abomination for the main section but here’s a roundup of updates:Andy McCarthy: Bolton blows up a silly Trump team defense but leaves more substantive arguments untouched. (National Review)Trump team argues against calling Bolton. (AP News)Some Republicans want to hear from Bolton – but not at the Senate trial. (Washington Examiner) Meanwhile, Trump’s approval ratings are pretty close to his best (at his inauguration). (FiveThirtyEight)

Huge 7.7 magnitude earthquake hits between Jamaica and Cuba, triggering a tsunami watch despite initial reports of minimal damage. (Reuters)

Trump’s “surprisingly reasonable” Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. (Washington Examiner)

Americans advised not to travel to China because of coronavirus outbreak. (CNBC)

Another day, another egregiously-handled, enraging Title IX “sexual assault” case on a university campus, this time with audio evidence of innocence. (Daily Wire)

Kobe Bryant and the importance of redemption. (The Federalist)

You know you’re a Millennial when you don’t who Alex P. Keaton is (sorry!), but Gen X-er Dave Marcus writes about how he predicted the new conservative movement. (The Federalist)

Never forget: the beautiful letter a man’s mother wrote him moments before she was murdered at Auschwitz. (Sky News)BRIGHT is brought to you by The Federalist.Today’s BRIGHT Editor
Inez Feltscher Stepman is a senior policy analyst at the Independent Women’s Forum and a senior contributor to The Federalist. She is a San Francisco Bay Area native with a BA in Philosophy from UCSD and a JD from the University of Virginia. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, Jarrett Stepman, her puggle Thor, and her cat Thaddeus Kosciuszko. You can follow her on Twitter at @inezfeltscher and on Instagram (for #ootd, obvi) under the same handle. Opinions expressed on this website are her own and not those of her employers. Or her husband.Copyright © BRIGHT, All rights reserved.

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President Trump on John Bolton: ‘If I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now’Posted: 29 Jan 2020 05:12 AM PSTWarmonger. Neoconservative. Liar. John Bolton has been accused of many things over the years, and he’s never backed down from his perspectives, even in light of the truth. To this day, he believes invading Iraq and Afghanistan were great ideas. He believes we should have invaded Iran and Cuba long ago. And he believes his perspectives are so far above everyone else’s, he’s willing to pursue vendettas even if doing so will only hasten the spread of socialism in America.When President Trump brought him on as his National Security Adviser, he did so against the advice of many surrounding him. Admittedly, I liked the idea, not because I agree with Bolton’s stances but because I thought he would be an aggressive counterbalance to the isolationists the President also has whispering in his ear. I’m a fan of appropriate isolationism; protecting America’s interests doesn’t mean no intervention at all. Limited engagements are necessary to prevent the spread of evil that could make its way back to the United States. Our presence in South Korea is an example of a proper use of our military assets abroad.Nevertheless, Bolton’s presence in the White House was a debacle. When he invoked the “Libya Model” before talks with North Korea, he essentially ended negotiations before they could begin. It was a boneheaded move; considering what happened to Muammar Gaddafi, did Bolton believe Kim Jong un was going to jump on the opportunity to share the former Libyan leader’s fate? Bolton blew the best chance we’ve had at denuclearizing North Korea and it could be years before we have a similar opportunity.Now that Bolton is in full-vendetta (and at least partial book-selling) mode, he’s ready to spill the beans on President Trump’s operations in Ukraine. Sadly, his testimony will be damaging if it matches what has been reported about excerpts in his upcoming book. It will manufacture a case for the Democrats where none has existed to date and help their socialist agenda rise in America. I know there are people who loved the Iraq War and believe Bolton is a hero for being the primary catalyst for starting it, but I’m not one of them. Neither is President Trump.….many more mistakes of judgement, gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 29, 2020There isn’t much the President can do to prevent John Bolton from harming the nation as he’s done so many times with his lies. Hopefully, the American people will remember Iraq, remember North Korea, and realize Bolton’s perspectives are driven by animus.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.First Name Last Name Email Address Comments SubmitMixi.Media NewsThe post President Trump on John Bolton: ‘If I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now’ appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes.

In the numbers game, there is a lot of good news for Team TrumpPosted: 29 Jan 2020 04:32 AM PSTElection season brings with it a flurry of polling which can be interpreted in a number of ways. During the 2016 election, polling did not bear out in the November election very well. Even now, if you look at some of the numbers being put out, whether it is the President’s approval numbers or potential head to head match-up, they seem to be different than what you might expect.The President and the GOP have hit record fundraising numbers for the past few reporting periods. President Trump can still pack stadiums. The economy is humming along and we are back on the world stage with authority. Yet the President remains with lower approval numbers than you might expect and the head to head match-ups with potential Democrat nominees are all over the place.The CampaignTrump Campaign Manager, Brad Parscale, regularly offers some insight for why the numbers may not resonate. First he often references the GOP data operations. Having seen some of the data offered to campaign volunteers, he is not overselling.However, even if you just look at Parscale’s summary tweets after a rally, you get some insight into why the polls and other assessments may sound different then what you hear in your community. Here is a typical rally summary:Big Rally tonight in Hershey, PA! Strong data . 23,207 voters identified (82.5% from PA) 20% have only voted in 1 of last 4 elections (9% in zero) 20.3% Democrats 18% non-whiteThis data will propel @realDonaldTrump in Pennsylvania in 2020!— Brad Parscale – Text TRUMP to 88022 (@parscale) December 11, 2019It is the second stat in the tweet that is really important. Infrequent voters are often excluded from polls. Conventional wisdom says that assessing “likely voters” will lead to more accurate results. This information is taken from voter files for pollsters to use. If someone hasn’t voted or only voted once, it is not likely they will be polled. In all of the data sets Parscale has shared have this statistic around the 20% mark. President Trump appears to be motivating new voters.Each data set also indicates the number of registered Democrats that register to attend rallies. Again, the typical percentage is high-teens. The numbers posted for minority voters also generally fall higher than the share the president won in 2016 and shy of some of the recent polling has indicated.Rallies are just one place the Trump campaign collects data. Online polls advertised on YouTube and other outlets are also collection points. Voter registration drives utilizing creative techniques to identify issues-based voters are also utilized. As a voter that receives campaign notifications from Trump 2020, they communicate regularly and local events within driving distance are held frequently. It is a full court press that touches those identified frequently without being irritating.American SatisfactionIn addition, a Gallup poll released yesterday showed that American’s satisfaction on 27 issues is higher than at the end of the Obama presidency. In fact, overall satisfaction is the highest it has been since 2005. The economy alone has seen a 22-point increase in the three years of Trump’s term. Even the satisfaction with race relations has increased 14-points, despite what you see in the media and the pandering you hear from potential nominees.Democrat DisarrayThese are not numbers that indicate a change election at the Presidential level. Democratic strategist James Carville once said “The economy, stupid”. Yet Democrat proposals that raise the top tax rate and increase spending are the norm. Even the three items that indicate increased dissatisfaction are too vague to understand which perspective individuals are coming from. For example, satisfaction with “The level of immigration into the country today” has fallen six points. The item does not tell you whether respondents think the level is too high or too low.If you look at these numbers and look at the fracture in the Democrat party, it is painting an encouraging picture for November. Even The New York Times is beginning to worry the disparate coalitions will cause a problem in the general. The headline reads:A Major Fear for Democrats: Will the Party Come Together by November?Even the goal of defeating President Trump isn’t enough for some voters to commit to backing the eventual Democratic nominee, expressing a clear aversion to a candidate who is too liberal or centrist for their tastes.Get ActiveEven with these positive indicators, it is not time to get comfortable. In your own districts and communities it is imperative we use these positives to win back the House and get voters to the polls to support the President. Make sure you and all of you like-minded family and friends are registered. Carpool to the poll. Make plans to celebrate your vote. Even if you are in a blue state, get everyone you can to pull the lever.Let’s take the popular vote this time and leave no questions.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.First Name Last Name Email Address Comments SubmitMixi.Media NewsThe post In the numbers game, there is a lot of good news for Team Trump appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes.

Rudy Giuliani’s new show, Common Sense, is a must-watchPosted: 29 Jan 2020 04:10 AM PSTA YouTube video sat in my tray for a few days. It came from a Tweet that caught my eye that didn’t say much about what was on the video, but enough to make me interested. This Tweet from Republican strategist and communications guru Jason Miller brought me to a video that, at 34-minutes long, ended up in my cue to watch later.Go get ‘em, @RudyGiuliani!“Rudy Giuliani’s Common Sense EP. 1: Since No Crimes Exist, It Must Be Dismissed” https://t.co/43gK0axXm8— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) January 24, 2020Videos that go to my cue have about a 50/50 chance of ever being watched. Time is critical and in demand, so I usually watch or listen to them based on the length. Last night, GPS told me I had a 30-minute drive, so I popped Rudy Giuliani’s video onto my phone and played it through my car speakers. Within 5-minutes, I was tempted to pull over to take notes.Going in, I figured it would be the standard rhetoric we often hear from commentators giving their pro-Trump campaign pitch and/or anti-impeachment diatribes. I should have known better because unlike the vast majority of commentators, Giuliani exists in both worlds. He’s an expert on both the legal and political aspects of impeachment and he’s a participant who has first-hand knowledge of the events that led up to it. He’s been in the Democrats’ closets and seen what skeletons lie within. Moreover, his unique ability to to sniff out corruption within the framework of the law pays tribute to his history fighting for the people he represents, whether as an attorney, a mayor, or an investigator into the biggest corruption scandal that the media loves to ignore.His comparison of Adam Schiff and Joseph McCarthy is spot on, but more importantly the way their respect parties handled their malfeasance is sharply contrasted. Schiff is loved by his party for breaking the rules to take down their shared enemy. McCarthy was rebuked by his party despite being motivated by similar concerns. Facts matter. At least they do to Republicans. With the modern Democratic Party, it seems that the only thing of substance is their feelings.When I heard Rudy Giuliani was doing a show, I thought, “hmm, sounds interesting.” When I finally listened to it, I was absolutely blown away. America needs to take notice and watch this. Well done, sir!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.First Name Last Name Email Address Comments Submit

Mixi.Media NewsThe post Rudy Giuliani’s new show, Common Sense, is a must-watch appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes.

Project Veritas: Exposing the radicals for Bernie Sanders who are gunning for AmericaPosted: 29 Jan 2020 01:31 AM PSTProject Veritas has released another explosive video that will be ignored by the media again. This time around it’s two Bernie Sanders staffers in South Carolina talking about ‘extreme action’ and the possibility of armed conflict.It’s not just the usual authoritarian leftist boilerplate on the possibility of executing landlords, or downplaying leftist oppression of the past. It’s that these radical ideas are being discussed out in the open to the agreement of other staffers in the area.These tapes also have a disturbing consistency, ranging from downplaying of past horrors or the idea of armed conflict right up to the imprisonment and execution of their political opponents. These are all too familiar themes because authoritarians all have the same method of operation.One man, one vote, once.The latest video featured the words of one Bernie staffer who admitted that it’s “Thinking less about persuading people and more about mobilizing the people we already have”. This means having a small cadre run the show instead of convincing the majority to their way of thinking.This is typical behavior of the left in that while they talk big on democracy, it’s really about control of society for the socialist elite on the extreme left. As we are witnessing in the ‘commonwealth’ of Virginia, they ignore the will of the people once they attain power.The Bottom Line: This is who they are.There is no sugar coating the truth here. We’ve seen several and possibility more video exposés of the people behind Bernie Sanders. Videos of staffers for Bernie Sanders campaign openly talking about the imprisonment and execution of their political enemies. Discussions on arming up and of ‘extreme action’ along with admonitions about keeping it all quiet until after the election.There is a reason why the nation’s socialist media avoids this subject. Were it a few outliers, they could dismiss it out of hand, but they know more have to be on the way just as they know that these views are commonplace among Bernie’s comrades.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.First Name Last Name Email Address Comments SubmitMixi.Media NewsThe post Project Veritas: Exposing the radicals for Bernie Sanders who are gunning for America appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes.

It looks like AOC has outmaneuvered Speaker Nancy PelosiPosted: 28 Jan 2020 10:24 AM PSTIt seems the corporate and left-wing media is starting to worry about the Democrat Civil War. It is actually pretty funny to see them wringing their hands now, since I have been writing about the crop of Justice Democrats being an obvious challenge to the Democrat establishment since they were elected in November of 2018. It is also part of a longer term strategy articulated by Democrat Socialists of America founder Michael Harrington in 1988. He clearly states he has no intention of starting a new party. Rather the goal was to transform the existing Democrat party.The modern face of this movement, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, has recently remarked that she cannot believe she and Joe Biden are members of the same party. She went further to say that it is the moderate and conservative members of the Democrat party that don’t belong. She also put her money where her mouth is and is funding progressive challengers to sitting members of the House rather than paying her dues to the party.However, the most effective thing AOC and the other members of the Democrats left flank may have done is push impeachment. Ostensibly, they did this to attack Donald Trump. However, I have to wonder if their insistence was not simply another method of taking down the establishment of their own party. And I called it back in September:It seems the Democrats are willing to throw Joe Biden & Barack Obama under the bus as a sacrifice to their progressive base.An impeachment trial focused on Ukraine will bring tons of evidence of corruption & abuse of power during the 2016 election. On live TV.— Stacey – A.K.A The Liberty Gypsy (@ScotsFyre) September 26, 2019There was simply no way that the President was going to mount a defense of the Ukraine call without detailing the prima facia evidence of corruption surrounding Burisma and the Bidens. That timeline and evidence was detailed yesterday during the impeachment trial. Now, you can almost smell the panic.Socialist Bernie Sanders is rising in the early primary state polls and has a legitimate shot at winning Iowa and New Hampshire. History tells us that when a primary candidate of either party does this, they are the eventual nominee. Faux socialist Elizabeth Warren and small-town Mayor Pete are sinking fast. Either may have been acceptable to the Establishment of the DNC but seem to have had their time at the top. The other moderate, Amy Klobuchar, does not seem to have gotten much lift from her New York Times endorsement.This was the case before yesterday’s outline by Trump’s attorney Pam Bondi. Her outline included the testimony of Democrat witnesses and coverage from corporate media outlets about Hunter Biden’s involvement in Burisma expressing concern. It was also before the likelihood of witnesses increased with the leak of John Bolton’s manuscript. According to Senator Ted Cruz, if the Democrats call Bolton, it is highly likely that Republicans will move to call Hunter Biden.Even more interesting, if Hunter is called, he can be compelled to testify by the Senate. In spite of the 5th Amendment, the Senate by statute can compel testimony by giving immunity. If this happens, the miasma of corrupt behavior is going to stick to the Biden’s. This is enhanced by recent interviews with Peter Schweitzer who details the financial rewards reaped by the entire Biden family during the years Joe Biden held office in his new book Profiles in Corruption.It is very possible by pushing impeachment and threatening dozens of incumbents with primary challengers, AOC and the Squad may give their preferred candidate an advantage for the nomination. Seriously wounding the candidacy of Joe Biden compounded with Elizabeth warren sinking in the polls all give a boost to Bernie Sanders. So, they may win this battle.The good news is the chances of them winning the war with their aging comrade in November has a number of skeptics. Perhaps the most interesting commentary is from pollster Frank Luntz:If @AOC successfully splits the Democratic electorate between a center-left and further-left party, it would be a godsend to the @GOP for the next decade. https://t.co/Uw6seLUlG2— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) January 20, 2020Psychologist and author Dr. Jordan Peterson has remarked:We’ve kind of figured out when the right-wingers go too far. Right-wing identity politics devolves into claims of ethnic and racial superiority and moral justification for actions based on those categories. When do the left-wingers go too far? Oh, we don’t know.”Luckily, the last person I heard praising Richard Spencer was Joy Behar on The View. And mainstream right-wing politicians reject identitarian politics and do not let those who espouse them power. Peterson goes on to articulate his views on when the left-wing crosses the line. If AOC and her socialist hoard win the primary, the Democrats may spend the next decade trying to figure it out.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.First Name Last Name Email Address Comments SubmitMixi.Media NewsThe post It looks like AOC has outmaneuvered Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes.

The Middle East peace plan is good for the Palestinians, but they preemptively rejected itPosted: 28 Jan 2020 09:46 AM PSTPresident Trump unveiled his Middle East peace plan, dubbed the “Deal of the Century,” at a press conference at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side. The plan has components that are favorable to each side and will mark a starting point for serious negotiations if the Palestinians are willing to come to the table. But even before the deal was unveiled, the Palestinian Authority called a meeting with both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to show unity in opposing the deal they hadn’t seen.Now that it’s out there, will the Palestinians negotiate? That remains to be seen as many of their leaders vowed to reject the plan long before it was unveiled. Reactions on Twitter were mixed, as can be expected from anything that pertains to President Trump, Israel, or the Palestinians. In this case, all three topics converged to spark contention on social media.Trump’s peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a unique opportunity — and also a strategic milestone for Israel.— Joel B. Pollak (@joelpollak) January 28, 2020“In truth, Jerusalem is liberated”Very powerful line from #DealOfTheCentury press conference— Annika H Rothstein (@truthandfiction) January 28, 2020Trump: Peace requires compromise, but we will never ask Israel to compromise its security. #DealOfTheCentury— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 28, 2020Outline of ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ Middle East Peace Plan pic.twitter.com/spUJTbt8Ja— John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox) January 28, 2020The Trump peace plan essentially acknowledges facts on the ground: Israel is not going to dismantle major Jewish settlements, nor should they; the Palestinians are not going to get a divided Jerusalem, nor should they; the right of return is a fantasy designed to destroy Israel.— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) January 28, 2020I suspect it is important that Trump said “Eastern Jerusalem” and not “East Jerusalem” in reference to Pal capital. “Eastern” probably means slightly outside the city, preserving united Jerusalem— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) January 28, 2020Extremely important time for Palestinian leadership to prove it wants better for its people by accepting a deal that’ll encourage peace, incentivize good behavior & ultimately improve the quality of life for Palestinians currently used as pawns by their leaders #DealOfTheCentury— Lisa Daftari (@LisaDaftari) January 28, 2020Trump: Palestinians must stop malign activities of Palestinian terror groups and incitement and permanently halting financial compensation to terrorists.#DealOfTheCentury— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) January 28, 2020The genocidal “Palestinians” will never accept peace plan. For 72 years they have rejected every plan that offered them them a country. Because its not about statehood, it’s about annihilating the Jewish State. That’s their goal. https://t.co/KnueqD1HIt pic.twitter.com/eO4Y1NqEC5— Pamela Geller (@PamelaGeller) January 28, 2020At question is whether or not the Palestinians can accept giving Israel full control over Jerusalem as well as annexed territories in the West Bank and Golan Heights. The White House backed both options last year, marking a break from past official U.S. policies. But as tension escalates in the region regarding Israel whether they’re taking land that is lawfully theirs or not, the prevailing notion is that we may as well back the annexations and help Israel properly defend its borders.“I was not elected to do small things or shy away from big problems,” the President said. The plan is 80-pages long, much more detailed than previous attempts at a peace plan. Palestinians would get their capitol in eastern Jerusalem and would more than double their land under the deal.The plan does call for a four-year freeze in new Israeli settlement construction, during which time details of a comprehensive agreement would be negotiated. Palestinians have to reach certain benchmarks to achieve a state. The benchmarks include rooting out terrorism, stopping “pay to slay,” implementing steps toward free speech, and political reforms.The Palestinians do not get the shaft in this deal. In fact, this will be the most lucrative and prosperity-driven offer ever made to the disparate groups that comprise what is today called “Palestinians.” A “New Palestine” would allow them to have nearly full autonomy without being beholden to Israel for much. They will continue to rely on Israel for defense and many utilities, but their economy will be driven by other Middle Eastern nations, the European Union, and the United States. It’s an opportunity to pull their people out of poverty. All they have to do is embrace peace.There may be some wiggle room for tweaks, but the deal is solid for all parties involved. The Palestinians would be foolish to pass up the opportunity to make their people whole and give them the resources to advance in the world. It’s a great starting point.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.First Name Last Name Email Address Comments SubmitMixi.Media NewsThe post The Middle East peace plan is good for the Palestinians, but they preemptively rejected it appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes.

Don Lemon and Rick Wilson exemplify President Trump’s unhinged oppositionPosted: 28 Jan 2020 06:39 AM PSTDon Lemon and Rick Wilson believe we’re idiots. This is not a unique perspective. This is not a one-off example of lone wolf intellectual terrorists insulting us just because we believe President Trump is the right man for the job. This is a common belief among leftists and the “Never Trump” Republicans who still think the 2016 election was an unfortunate anomaly that they’re tasked with correcting.Trump supporters weren’t happy with the clip, which oddly received very little comment until the President retweeted it. Could it be that so few people actually watch CNN, nobody noticed this attack on our intelligence until it was given a wider audience?America, this is what CNN thinks of you…
pic.twitter.com/puuVjRLlw1— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 28, 2020ASININE: Don Lemon, Rick Wilson, and some other guy openly mock and insult Trump-supporting Americans on CNN.This is what the LEFT really thinks of Americans with conservative values.And this will be remembered on Election Day. pic.twitter.com/ThowzvNGTx— Alana Mastrangelo (@ARmastrangelo) January 28, 2020Insulting @realDonaldTrump supporters is a surefire way to ensure his re-election this fall. You can call us a “basket of deplorables” or accuse us of not liking geography, but there’s no doubt that the #MAGA army knows how to mobilize and win. https://t.co/OrgTNbTKUI #gapol— Kelly Loeffler (@kloeffler) January 28, 2020CNN is a total joke, Don Lemon is a FOOL.The American people stand with you, not low ratings Don!— Brigitte Gabriel (@ACTBrigitte) January 28, 2020Are Don Lemon (who’s plummeted to the lowest primetime viewership in almost 3 yrs,) Rick Wilson (a failed Evan McMuffin stooge) And some Muslim-American I’ve never heard of really in a position to be laughing at anyone?https://t.co/95JUSWwLhC— Jon Miller (@MillerStream) January 28, 2020Even a filmmaker I couldn’t have scripted better footage than CNN’s Don Lemon (accused in court of being a sexual predator) provided.If you want people to hate the media, this is exactly the scene you would set and stage. pic.twitter.com/EGOQBR1rHh— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) January 28, 2020The most telling thing about the Don Lemon segment is no one commented on it when it aired. No one watched it.— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) January 28, 2020Don Lemon at the end, “oooo, that was good.” They’re not laughing because they’re happy. They’re laughing because they’re miserable, and misery loves company. https://t.co/yRnDkFLD05— Annie Frey (@anniefreyshow) January 28, 2020I hope CNN keeps Don Lemon on forever. He is doing great work!— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) January 28, 2020More Proof that CNN is utter trash, and hates half the country.Rick Wilson: those dumb southern guys liking trump hur durr durrDon Lemon: laughing out of controlpic.twitter.com/y3U7Zaw8Sh— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) January 28, 2020Because of Rick Wilson and Don Lemon’s mockery of Trump supporters… @realDonaldTrump’s base just grew 10 times strongerKeep it up and let history repeat itself – make fun of us all you want but you won’t be laughing when we come to the polls in masses this November— Students For Trump (@TrumpStudents) January 28, 2020During a discussion regarding the impeachment show trial, Don Lemon and a pair of talking heads devolved into imitating southern accents and declaring that anyone who can read or spell is an elitist, in an effort to mock Trump voters as stupid rednecks. https://t.co/9Ri91j91gI— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) January 28, 2020I am not an elitist, but I can also assure CNN’s Don Lemon and Never Trump conservative Rick Wilson that I am not stupid. I, too, was not happy with Donald Trump’s nomination in 2016. But over the last three years, I’ve come to acknowledge just how wrong I was about him and his policies. Nevertheless, these funny little men and their holier-than-thou attitudes are indicative of the way the President’s opposition view those of us who support him.Since he announced his candidacy, I have never been to a rally. I’ve never even watched one on television other than a handful of clips that make the news. I am not a sycophant. In fact, I’ve called him out many times over the last three years for policies and proposals with which I disagreed. But it takes a moron to look at the economic indicators and still believe his policies are failing.I would happily challenge Don Lemon or Rick Wilson to contests of spelling, math, geography, history, or political science. I would do so confidently knowing that my support of President Trump is based on reason, not a lack of intelligence.There are some calling for Don Lemon to be fired and for Rick Wilson to be deplatformed. These are misguided desires. As supporters of President Trump, we want the unhinged sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome to be on air as much as possible.The post Don Lemon and Rick Wilson exemplify President Trump’s unhinged opposition appeared first on NOQ Report – Conservative Christian News, Opinions, and Quotes.

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REDSTATE

Ilhan Omar Condemns Trump’s ‘Theft’ of Palestine, and Tuesday Looks Like She’s Got More Disappointment in Store

READ STORY

We’re Gonna Need Shovels: Joe Biden Names His Dream VP, and It’s Probably the Smartest Idea I’ve Heard From Him

    READ STORY    Opinion: The Senate Should Censure the House Over Impeachment

    READ STORY    Lindsey Graham Says There Are at Least 51 Votes for More Witnesses and the Democrats Aren’t Going to Like Them

    READ STORY    Chris Wallace Clowns Jerry Nadler Somethin’ Fierce as Everyone Looks Like a Bunch of Goons

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Trust Her, She’s Not a Doctor: Elizabeth Warren Masterminds the Coronavirus, So Get out Your Unicycles and Pedal to the Cure

    READ STORY    Ted Cruz Crafts Impeachment Narrative By Starting A Podcast (And Immediately Knocks Joe Rogan Out Of First Place)

    READ STORY    Everyone Hates Bernie: The Latest to Pile On Is Joe Biden

    READ STORY    Pat Cipollone Wraps Up Trump Defense With Brilliant Ending, Using Dems’ Words Against Themselves

    READ STORY

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REALCLEARPOLITICS

01/29/2020Share: Carl Cannon’s Morning NoteSmith Project; Kobe’s Redemption; W.C. Fields

Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2020. Today is birthday of William Claude Dukenfield, known to his friends as “Uncle Claude” — and to the early 20^th century moviegoers as comedian W.C. Fields.I’ve written about this comedic genius previously, but owing to my fear that he is forgotten by Americans whose taste in humor has been blunted by Hollywood bean-counters, I’m reprising the old vaudevillian once more. First, though, I’d point you to RealClearPolitics’ front page, which presents our poll averages, videos, breaking news stories, and aggregated opinion pieces spanning the political spectrum. We also offer original material from our own reporters, columnists, and contributors, including the following:* * *Mr. Smith and the Quest for a Perfect Candidate. I kick off a series in which RealClear Opinion Research updates the prescient modeling first begun more than three decades ago by pollster Pat Caddell.The Cali Contagion Infecting Entrepreneurism Elsewhere. In RealClearPolicy, Luke Wake laments the new slates of regulations state governments are enacting.Kobe Bryant’s Dark Night of the Soul. In RealClearReligion, Steven Howard spotlights the redemptive role Catholicism played when the late NBA player’s life was in disarray.The Biggest Myth About Willpower. In RealClearScience, Suzannah Lyons offers insights regarding self-discipline and the complementary practice of self-compassion.* * *W.C. Fields was born on Jan. 29, 1880, in Darby, Pa., a working-class borough five miles southwest of Philadelphia. His parents appear to have been normal people, but their boy was a restless lad. He ran away repeatedly, taught himself to juggle, dropped out of school young, and was off to Vaudeville by the time he was 18 years old.His career as a juggler — he was quite talented — took off when Fields discovered that what really got audiences into his act were the snarky asides that made them laugh. He occupied a niche as a comedic juggler, but what he craved was to be considered, well, a serious comedian, an oxymoron that would have delighted Fields’ sense of the absurd.It took him awhile, but with the help of the motion pictures Fields honed his act into one of surpassing comedic genius. The role he is most famous for was the pompous, hard-drinking misanthrope.The drinking part was real enough — booze helped kill “Uncle Claude” at age 66. The misanthrope schtick was more nuanced. The line often attributed to Fields — “any man who hates dogs and babies can’t be all bad” — was actually said in jest about Fields by humorist Leo Rosten at a 1939 roast.In real life, Fields owned dogs at various points in his life and was known to dote on the children of his friends. Fields biographer James Curtis also said that he answered all the fan letters sent by kids, and was invariably encouraging to boys who wrote about their interest in juggling.Likewise, W.C. Fields’ politics were hard to pin down. He poked merciless fun at blue noses, censors, and busybodies. He clearly despised what we might call the “social conservatives” of his day, namely the pro-temperance crowd. Yet he also bristled at political correctness, and nanny-state types, which would have put him at odds with today’s “woke” liberalism. Most of all, he detested high taxes, and occasionally needled New Deal excesses in his films, which took some gumption at the height of Franklin Roosevelt’s popularity.Fields’ politics today could best be described as libertarian. In 1940, he announced his whimsical presidential campaign, one built around a slogan that combined actual U.S. campaign history with one of his best-known films: “A Chickadee in Every Pot.”“When, on next November 5, I am elected chief executive of this fair land, amidst thunderous cheering and shouting and throwing of babies out the window, I shall, my fellow citizens, offer no such empty panaceas as a New Deal, or an Old Deal, or even a Re-Deal,” he vowed.“No, my friends, the reliable old False Shuffle was good enough for my father and it’s good enough for me!” He then added this: “The major responsibility of a president is to squeeze the last possible cent out of the taxpayer.”In his most overtly political skit, Fields also took aim at a type we might call the Curmudgeonly Conservative. In this bit, a cranky man is asked by a drug store clerk (Fields himself) if he wants to buy a stamp. The customer says yes, and then requests a purple stamp. When the clerk says he doesn’t have purple stamps, the curmudgeon replies, “A person hasn’t got any rights in this country anymore. The government even tells you what color stamps you gotta buy. That’s the Democratic Party for you!”The crank then requests a stamp out of the middle of the booklet, and when asked by the clerk for three cents payment, he asks for change — for a hundred-dollar bill. When told the store doesn’t have that much cash, he growls, “I’ll pay you the next time I come in,” and walks out without paying. Carl M. Cannon
Washington Bureau chief, RealClearPolitics
@CarlCannon (Twitter)
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NBC

From NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann. FIRST READ:  The nine events that have defined the 2020 Dem raceWith five days until the first nominating contest, Bernie Sanders is your slight favorite in Iowa and New Hampshire. Joe Biden is the slight national favorite. And Elizabeth Warren has lost altitude, while Pete Buttigieg has held his ground in Iowa and New Hampshire – but appears to be less of a player outside those two states.(Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP)So how did we get here? Here’s a look at the nine events over the past year that have defined the Democratic presidential race: 1. Biden and Sanders deciding to run for president – again It wasn’t necessarily predetermined that Biden and Sanders would run in 2020. But when the two men with the highest name ID (and arguably the clearest ideological positioning) jumped in, it effectively sucked up the oxygen for the other alternatives, especially for the candidates who announced earlier (like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and even Beto O’Rourke).
2. Sanders’ heart attack and rebound in the polls For any other candidate, a heart attack while on the campaign trail could have ended their candidacy. (Can you imagine had Biden had a heart attack? Or Hillary Clinton in 2016 – instead of her pneumonia?) But immediately after Sanders’ heart attack in October, the campaigned rolled out endorsements by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. And his national poll numbers have tilted upward ever since.
3. Warren’s “I’m with Bernie on Medicare for All” Heading into the first Dem debate, it wasn’t 100 percent clear that Elizabeth Warren would side with Bernie Sanders on eliminating private insurance. But in that Miami debate, she raised her hand when asked if she would abolish private health insurance in favor of a government-run plan, allying herself with Bernie Sanders on the ultimate issue that has defined the 2020 Dem race. She later modified her health care plan, but it’s worth asking if the contest would have been different had Warren not raised her hand.
4. Harris’ clash with Biden in the first debate Also in the first round of Dem debates, Kamala Harris sparred with Biden over the issue of race. (“I do not believe you are a racist, and I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground. But I … it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.”) Harris’ poll numbers took off after that debate performance, but started to decline weeks later. And afterward, Biden never lost his overwhelming lead with African-American voters.
5. The Warren-versus-Sanders fight over gender It started with an anonymously sourced claim that Sanders had told Warren a woman couldn’t defeat Trump; it turned into a question in the last debate; and it eventually resulted in Warren refusing to shake Sanders’ hand after the debate. And the entire episode sure looks like it moved the horserace numbers: Sanders’ standing is up afterward, while Warren’s is down.
6. Pete Buttigieg’s CNN town hall in March 2019 Out of the 20-plus candidates in the Dem race, it was Buttigieg – the mayor of South Bend, Ind. – who emerged as the outsider/fresh face in the contest. And it was his televised town hall on CNN, and the viral moments from it, that catapulted his campaign and fueled his fundraising machine. “Frankly, when I first got into politics, elected politics at the beginning of this decade, in Indiana, in Mike Pence’s Indiana, I thought you could either be out or you could be in office, but you couldn’t be both,” he said in the town hall.
7. Beto’s rise and fall One of the candidates who COULD have been the fresh face in the 2020 – Beto O’Rourke – started strong on his first day, raising $6 million in his first 24 hours. But it went downhill after that. He wasn’t “born to be in it,” after all.
8. Enter the billionaires Both Tom Steyer (in July) and Michael Bloomberg (in November!) got into this race pretty late, but you can’t deny they’ve had an impact – at least over the airwaves. The two men, combined, have shelled out nearly $400 million in TV ads. And Bloomberg could very well be a factor after Iowa and New Hampshire.
9. The Ukraine scandal It’s hard to see how this story – “Rudy Giuliani Plans Ukraine Trip to Push for Inquiries That Could Help Trump” – isn’t the biggest event of the 2020 Dem race. It led to the impeachment of the nation’s 45th president; it kept Biden’s name in the news (both hurting and helping his campaign); and the impeachment trial has forced Sanders, Warren and Klobuchar away from the trail in the final days before Iowa. Where things stand with impeachment witnessesOur Capitol Hill team reports that, as of last night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell acknowledged to GOP senators behind closed doors that he does not currently have the votes to avoid calling witnesses in the impeachment trial. But even though the votes aren’t locked in yet, the situation remains fluid and Republicans seem confident that they’ll ultimately succeed in blocking those witnesses, the team writes. One reason we see for that? As we wrote yesterday, the fault lines in the party (and in the conservative media landscape) have become almost entirely about being with Trump or being against him. Just look at how Trump’s supporters are attacking people like Sen. Mitt Romney and John Bolton. It’s as much about sending a message to other lawmakers who may be on the fence as it is about impugning the motives of those who have already criticized the president.DATA DOWNLOAD: And the number of the day is… 75 percent 75 percent. That’s the share of registered voters who say witnesses SHOULD be allowed to testify in the impeachment trial, according to a new Quinnipiac national poll. That includes 49 percent of Republicans, 95 percent of Democrats and 75 percent of independents. Just 20 percent of voters say witnesses should not be allowed to testify.Impeachment trial update: Question timeToday’s the day that senators will start asking questions of the House managers and Trump’s defense lawyers. The lawmakers will submit questions in writing to either Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Chief Justice John Roberts will read each question out loud along with the name of the questioners. Both sides have a total of 16 hours to answer questions over two days, starting when the Senate gavels in today at 1:00pm ET.
Where are we?
Last Tuesday: procedural jousting over the organizing resolution; rules passed around 2:00 am ET
Last Wednesday: prosecution opening arguments, 8 hours
Last Thursday: prosecution, 8 hours
Last Friday: prosecution, 8 hours
Last Saturday: White House defense
Sunday: off
Monday: White House defense
Yesterday: White House defense
Today: Senators’ questions
Tomorrow: Senators’ questions
Friday: Deliberations?
Saturday: Vote on witnesses?
Sunday: off
Monday: Iowa caucuses
Tuesday: State of the Union TWEET OF THE DAY: NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly speaks up on Pompeo2020 VISION: Total Eclipse of the Heart (Attack)? NBC’s Alex Seitz-Wald reports that a Democratic pro-Israel group will start running ads in Iowa today that take explicit aim at Bernie Sanders over his electability and his health. “I like Bernie, I think he has great ideas, but Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa — they’re just not going vote for a socialist,” says one man who appears in the ad from the group Democratic Majority for Israel. “I do have some concerns about Bernie Sanders’ health considering he just had a heart attack,” another woman adds. The spot is the second recent ad in Iowa that directly references Sanders’ health. A new ad from conservative group Club for Growth states that “even [Sanders’] age is extreme.” In a video message tweeted last night, Sanders responded to the “political establishment and the big money interests, who are now running attack ads against us in Iowa.” “Our opponents, they have endless amounts of money. But we have the people and our grassroots movement will prevail,” he said. On the campaign trail today: With five days to go, here’s the activity in Iowa: Joe Biden stumps in Sioux City and Council Bluffs… Pete Buttigieg holds town halls in Jefferson, Ames, Webster City Mason City and New Hampton… Elizabeth Warren husband Bruce Mann and Julian Castro campaign for Warren in the Hawkeye State… Tom Steyer is in Knoxville, Ottumwa and Fairfield… Andrew Yang hits Iowa City, Burlington and Davenport… Elsewhere, Mike Bloomberg campaigns in Houston and El Paso… And Tulsi Gabbard is in New Hampshire.Dispatches from NBC’s campaign embeds: While Joe Biden has been the perceived frontrunner in national polls, he’s setting expectations a bit lower for the Iowa caucuses, as several polls show him lagging behind candidates like Bernie Sanders in the state, NBC’s Marianna Sotomayor reports: “Biden has often mentioned the caucuses as the ‘starting gun,’ the state that determines not necessarily the nominee but that winnows the field of candidates. He acknowledged that the results would be very close, pointing to recent polls that show the race in ‘basically a dead heat.’ ‘The last couple polls we’re ahead at 25 and Bernie is at whatever and so on and so forth, but it’s basically a dead heat,’ Biden said. ‘And it’s going to be a really, it’s going to be a close, close race. It’s going to be a big deal how we come out of here.’” And Pete Buttigieg, who has long discussed his faith on the campaign trail, leaned into a quick bible study while answering a question on immigration policy in Iowa, NBC’s Priscilla Thompson reports: “I ‘was a stranger and you welcomed me’ that’s supposed to be a core element of faith. At least of the Christian tradition that I belong to,” Buttigieg said. “I mean the Good Samaritan, not to get into Bible study, but the Good Samaritan you know to people in that period, many of them that would be a contradiction in terms because they were trained not to like Samaritans. There’s so many stories in Scripture that are about seeing past these boundaries to see the humanity in others.” Talking policy with BenjyThe deficit has fallen off the radar as a political issue in the Trump Era, but that doesn’t make it go away, NBC’s Benjy Sarlin writes. The Congressional Budget Office released its long-term forecast, and it’s trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. The nonpartisan agency expects the deficit to rise to $1 trillion this year for the first time since 2012 – thanks to a mix of increased spending and tax cuts approved by Congress under President Trump.   Deficits will then average $1.3 trillion through 2030, which will bring the ratio of total public debt to GDP from 81% now to 98% in 2030 and a whopping 180% in 2050, which the CBO report notes, “is 75 percentage points higher than it was in 1946, when federal debt reached its peak.” Rising health care costs and retiring boomers are the big factors driving the increase on the spending side, likely setting up decades of coming policy fights over whether the government should intervene to force down prices or scale back retiree benefits to cut costs. But in the short term, there’s some good news for the president’s re-election campaign: Growth is projected to hit 2.2 percent this year, well below his stated goal of 3 percent, but still desirable territory for an incumbent. Without more rising adults and immigrants to replace aging workers, however, the CBO projects economic growth will stay below historic averages at 1.7 percent over the next decade.THE LID: Thumbs upDon’t miss the pod from yesterday, when we asked how much endorsements matter for the 2020 Democratic primary.ICYMI: News clips you shouldn’t miss NBC’s Josh Lederman and Anna Schecter have an exclusive look into the Dutch Trump supporter who claimed to have Marie Yovanovitch under surveillance. Here’s what to expect from the Senate Q&A sessions in the impeachment trial. The Washington Post looks at how the pro-Trump internet is going after John Bolton. POLITICO writes that Democrats are already worried about Trump not cooperating in a presidential transition if they do win the White House. The Republican establishment isn’t happy with Doug Collins for challenging a new sitting GOP senator.Thanks for reading.

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ROLL CALL

Morning Headlines

Trump trial enters the question-and-answer phase

Senators will finally get to actually participate — at least by proxy — in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on Wednesday after long days and nights of just listening to presentations from House impeachment managers and the president’s own attorneys. Read More…

View from the gallery: Lots of cross-party talk — and cross-contamination — at Senate trial

Tuesday was the seventh day for the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history, and the 100 U.S. senators had a shorter day as President Donald Trump’s team wrapped up their defense. The day’s only recess, about 15 minutes long, provided plenty of opportunity for bipartisan discussion. Read More…

Impeachment trial, like much of Trump’s presidency, is unprecedented

President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial lacks definitive answers on key issues, either from federal courts or the Senate itself, which has fed an undercurrent of uncertainty about what happens next in an institution usually steeped in precedents and traditions. Read More…Click here to subscribe to Fintech Beat for the latest market and regulatory developments in finance and financial technology.

Adam Schiff throws the ballot box under the bus

OPINION — One of the biggest challenges to the impeachment crusade has been the lingering belief by the electorate that Democrats refuse to accept the outcome of the 2016 election. But not only does it seem like Democrats still haven’t gotten over 2016, they don’t accept the potential outcome of an election that hasn’t even happened yet. Read More…

House of accommodations: Impeachment managers find ways to vote

Rep. Sylvia R. Garcia has never missed a vote — not in her first term so far in the House and not in six years in the Texas Senate. Her perfect attendance could’ve been in jeopardy this week since she is a House impeachment manager, but Democratic leaders are keeping the floor schedule flexible so that managers can participate in votes. Read More…

Momentum on marijuana moves to statehouses

A bill in the House to legalize marijuana faces an uncertain future, and the Senate has not moved legislation that would allow marijuana businesses to bank. Meanwhile, opportunities to legalize marijuana through state ballot initiatives have winnowed. The result is state legislatures will be the main arena for legalization debates. Read More…

Roll Call is tired of Congress’ weak sports bets

Heard on the Hill’s Clyde McGrady has seen it all when it comes to members making “friendly wagers” for big championship games. But Clyde is ready for something bigger. Watch the video here…

Some senators from trade-heavy states opposed US-Mexico-Canada pact

Democrats felt comfortable supporting President Trump’s renegotiated trade agreement with Canada and Mexico because labor unions, mostly, did. When the Senate approved the deal, the vote was 89-10, and many of the opponents put their concerns for the environment ahead of the economic benefits the deal provides their home states. Read More…

Shelby skeptical of nascent House discussions on earmarks

Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard C. Shelby said it’s unlikely Republicans in his chamber will bring back spending bill earmarks, regardless of what the House decides. Nonetheless, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer hinted he’s already talking with Republicans in both chambers about bringing back earmarks in some form. Read More…

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CAFFEINATED THOUGHTS

Connect: Facebook Twitter YouTube View this email in your browser “Righteousness guards him whose way is blameless, but sin overthrows the wicked,” (‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭13:6‬, ESV‬‬).Kim Reynolds Appoints Dana Oxley to the Iowa Supreme CourtBy Shane Vander Hart on Jan 28, 2020 06:11 pm
Gov. Kim Reynolds appointed attorney Dana Oxley of Swisher to the Iowa Supreme Court to fill a vacancy left by the death of Chief Justice Mark Cady.
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Episode 93: A Conversation With Joe Walsh and Dave DicksBy Caffeinated Thoughts on Jan 28, 2020 03:41 pm
Shane Vander Hart speaks with Republican presidential candidate Joe Walsh and Iowa National Republican Committeeman candidate Dave Dicks on the Caffeinated Thoughts Podcast.
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What the Loss of Kobe Bryant Teaches UsBy Miles McPherson on Jan 28, 2020 02:12 pm
Miles McPherson: If there is anything that can be taken from the loss of Kobe Bryant, it is that life offers no one the surety of tomorrow.
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New WOTUS Rule is Welcome News for Iowa FarmersBy Joni Ernst on Jan 28, 2020 10:56 am
Joni Ernst: I’ve introduced the Define WOTUS Act to make a reasonable definition for WOTUS – just like this new rule – permanent and to provide more predictability and workability.
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Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig Endorses Ashley Hinson for CongressBy Caffeinated Thoughts on Jan 28, 2020 09:34 am
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig endorsed State Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Marion, in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District race.
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Recent Articles:
Joni Ernst to Release a Book in May
Buttigieg Pressed On Abortion During Fox News Town Hall
Joe Walsh Criticizes Republicans for Climate Change Denial
Eight Texas Towns Become Sanctuaries for the Unborn
Cindy Axne Promotes Universal Background Checks and Assault Weapons BanLaunched in 2006, Caffeinated Thoughts reports news and shares commentary about culture, current events, faith and state and national politics from a Christian and conservative point of view. Caffeinated Thoughts
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CONSERVATIVE DAILY NEWS

CDN’s Daily News Blast delivers the day’s news first!View this email in your browserCDN Daily News Blast01/29/2020Excerpts:President Donald Trump’s Schedule for Wednesday, January 29, 2020By R. Mitchell -President Donald Trump will sign the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement during a historic ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House Wednesday. The agreement is a long-needed fix for NAFTA which has, for decades, been sending American jobs overseas. Keep up with Trump on Our President’s Schedule Page. President Trump’s Itinerary …President Donald Trump’s Schedule for Wednesday, January 29, 2020 is original content from Conservative Daily News – Where Americans go for news, current events and commentary they can trust – Conservative News Website for U.S. News, Political Cartoons and more.
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Holy Impeachment – A.F. Branco CartoonBy A.F. Branco -President Trump’s Legal team has eviscerated the House managers’ case for impeachment using facts and constitutional law. Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2020. See more Branco toons HEREHoly Impeachment – A.F. Branco Cartoon is original content from Conservative Daily News – Where Americans go for news, current events and commentary they can trust – Conservative News Website for U.S. News, Political Cartoons and more.
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Impeachment Hell – Grrr Graphics – Ben Garrison CartoonBy Ben Garrison -The Snake with the Mustache Trump Defense Counsel Ken Starr said impeachment Is ‘Hell,’ and like war, it is a bad habit to be kicked. That was enough to inspire this cartoon. War is a bad habit, and John Bolton is a warmonger. He wanted war with Iran in particular and was frustrated when President …Impeachment Hell – Grrr Graphics – Ben Garrison Cartoon is original content from Conservative Daily News – Where Americans go for news, current events and commentary they can trust – Conservative News Website for U.S. News, Political Cartoons and more.
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Watch: CNN Doesn’t Think Very Highly of You – At AllBy Peter Hasson -The feeling is mutual @CNN -> Watch: CNN Doesn’t Think Very Highly of You – At AllWatch: CNN Doesn’t Think Very Highly of You – At All is original content from Conservative Daily News – Where Americans go for news, current events and commentary they can trust – Conservative News Website for U.S. News, Political Cartoons and more.
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Watch Live: President Trump Holds KAG Rally in New Jersey Tuesday – 1/28/20By R. Mitchell -President Donald Trump ventures into deep blue New Jersey to hold a Keep America Great rally on Tuesday. Live Streams of President Trump’s Rally in Wildwood, NJ – 1-28-20 RSBN Golden State Times Fox News <updating> Content created by Conservative Daily News and some content syndicated through CDN is available for …Watch Live: President Trump Holds KAG Rally in New Jersey Tuesday – 1/28/20 is original content from Conservative Daily News – Where Americans go for news, current events and commentary they can trust – Conservative News Website for U.S. News, Political Cartoons and more.
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Watch: President Trump Delivers Joint Remarks with the Prime Minister of the State of IsraelBy R. Mitchell -President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel hold a joint press conference Tuesday. Content created by Conservative Daily News and some content syndicated through CDN is available for re-publication without charge under the Creative Commons license. Visit our syndication page for details and requirements.Watch: President Trump Delivers Joint Remarks with the Prime Minister of the State of Israel is original content from Conservative Daily News – Where Americans go for news, current events and commentary they can trust – Conservative News Website for U.S. News, Political Cartoons and more.
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See all breaking news, conservative commentary, political cartoons and more posted to CDN at our Home Page. Follow on Twitter Friend on Facebook Add on Google PlusCopyright © 2020 Conservative Daily News, All rights reserved.

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THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Washington Examiner’s Examiner Today NewsletterView this as website ADVERTISEMENT
HIGHLIGHTS‘The interests of our economy’: Theresa May praises Boris Johnson for Huawei 5G approval ‘Go vote for someone else’: Biden confronted by climate activist he assumes supports Bernie Sanders Hugo Gurdon: The Left’s ugly prejudices on display Ashley Biden organization received $166K federal grant while father was vice president A Delaware nonprofit organization received a $166,000 federal grant about the same time it appointed then-Vice President Joe Biden’s daughter as executive director, according to government and tax records. Trump auto tariff threat at risk of being undone by a technicality President Trump’s renewed threat to hit the European Union with auto tariffs if it doesn’t agree to a trade deal is weakened by the fact that the deadline to impose the tariffs technically passed last year. Healthcare access has declined in past two decades, despite Obamacare: Study Financial access to healthcare services has declined over the past two decades, despite the implementation of Obamacare and other government insurance programs, according to a new study. Trump offers Palestinians a chance for peace and statehood — if they’ll take itPresident Trump unveiled a long-awaited Middle East plan on Tuesday that offers Palestinians the opportunity to achieve their own state and live in peace side by side with a secure Israel. It’s now up to Palestinians to decide whether they’re ready to get off the sidelines and play ball. ADVERTISEMENT
‘It’s asking a lot’: Never Trump Republicans draw the line at Bernie SandersThe rise of socialist Bernie Sanders is frustrating Never Trump Republicans who are hoping the Democratic Party nominates a consensus, center-left presidential candidate they are comfortable supporting in November. If Sanders is the Democratic nominee, many will sit out the election and be deprived of the opportunity of voting against President Trump, they said. ‘I don’t believe in belittling people’: Don Lemon claims he ‘didn’t catch everything’ during viral Rick Wilson exchangeCNN anchor Don Lemon attempted to explain why he and his guests appeared to scoff at Trump supporters on Saturday, claiming he “didn’t catch everything that was said.” Diversity complaints create last-minute distraction for Buttigieg before Iowa After a day campaigning in Iowa where potential caucusgoers quizzed him on his inability to connect with minority voters, Pete Buttigieg was forced to respond on Tuesday to twin news stories on how his team has failed to create an inclusive work environment where its nonwhite staff members feel valued and heard. New California bill prohibits charging anyone under 20 as an adult A new California bill would prohibit prosecutors from charging anyone under the age of 20 as an adult. ‘I’m doing my job, now go do yours’: Klobuchar rallies supporters at Iowa stop amid impeachment trial Amy Klobuchar begged supporters to buoy her long-shot White House bid a week out from Iowa’s kickoff caucuses on Feb. 3 during a last-minute campaign stop in the far-western part of the state. Federal judge rules Giuliani associate Lev Parnas can attend Trump impeachment trial with ankle monitor A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas can attend the impeachment trial of President Trump, but is not permitted to remove his ankle monitor. British ex-ambassador who alerted John McCain to anti-Trump dossier stands by Christopher Steele A former British diplomat who made headlines for discussing an anti-Trump dossier with Sen. John McCain does not believe its author, British ex-spy Christopher Steele, made up the allegations it contained. RNC launches ad off CNN personalities mocking Trump supporters as uneducated and illiterate The Republican National Committee launched a new ad on Tuesday in response to CNN personalities Don Lemon, Rick Wilson, and Wajahat Ali mocking President Trump’s supporters as uneducated and illiterate. THE ROUNDUPUpside-down world for John Bolton McConnell lacks votes to block witnesses Three Democrats who might vote to acquit TrumpADVERTISEMENT

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THE FEDERALIST

Your daily update of new content from The Federalist
Be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray
January 29, 2020
Michael Bloomberg Isn’t Really Running For President, And That Should Worry YouBy Christopher Bedford
The staff, the ad spending, the campaigning — Michael Bloomberg was going to do all of this to defeat President Donald Trump already. Doing it as a ‘candidate’ excempts him from limits on PACs and political donations.
Full articleBrexit Coin Commemorates A Revolutionary Conservatism And Shift In The World OrderBy Sumantra Maitra
As a reforged connection to the rest of the Anglosphere beckons, Britain now feels the same shaky optimism its former colony once felt — trying to chart an independent way ahead, coming out of an empire.
Full articleFrom Iraq To Ukraine To The Pentagon: On The Front Lines Of Ukraine’s Travel To ImpeachmentBy Alex Plitsas
The United States and her Western allies have been engaged in reactive opposition to Russian actions across the globe for far too long.
Full articleIf Democrats Really Thought Trump Was An Existential Threat, They’d Moderate Their ExtremismBy Bobby Jindal
If Democrats actually believe Trump is a danger to democracy, they will act accordingly and put aside petty partisan goals for the good of the country.
Full articleYes, Jewish Lives MatterBy Moshe Krakowski
Like those in every other mainstream newspaper, Zachary Evans’s article recycled many tropes about Chassidim. More concerning is National Review’s institutional response.
Full articleTrump’s Peace Plan Is A Rejection Of Obama’s Anti-Israel PivotBy Erielle Davidson
Unsurprisingly, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has already said ‘a thousand nos’ to Trump’s plan, and Palestinian-Arabs have begun the usual playbook of rioting in the streets.
Full articleWhy The Senate Shouldn’t Call More Impeachment WitnessesBy Elad Hakim
Democrats should not be permitted to ambush the president with information they failed to obtain as a result of their oversight, neglect, or unquenchable thirst to impeach.
Full articleHow Kobe Bryant’s Mamba Mentality Influenced The WorldBy Evan Berryhill
Being a source of inspiration for the next generation is how Kobe wanted to be remembered, and he can rest easy knowing the Mamba mentality burns stronger than ever.
Full articleWhy The Year Of The Rat Is Your Time For A New BeginningBy Helen Raleigh
The Chinese zodiac sign of the rat represents wealth and abundance, primarily due to rats’ amazing ability to multiply their offspring.
Full articleThrough ‘Star Trek: Picard’ And Beyond, Patrick Stewart Chases ‘Something Bigger’By Libby Emmons
Not much is bigger than the Star Trek universe. ‘Picard’ is more than the continuation of one man’s journey. It’s the movement of a narrative that spans and inspires generations.
Full articleNo, The Government Can’t Buy You Happiness With Other People’s MoneyBy Katya Sedgwick
Jill Filipovic says the words ‘pursuit of happiness’ in the Declaration of Independence mean that ‘government must facilitate the ability of the individual to seek happiness,’ which to her means redistributing people’s labor.
Full articleHawley: If Senate Calls Witnesses, Schiff, Biden, And Whistleblower Should TestifyBy Chrissy Clark
“This should be about the whistleblower, Adam Schiff, Hunter Biden — let’s hear from them all,” said Sen. Josh Hawley.
Full articleGrassley, Johnson Demand Declassification Of Four Key Footnotes In IG Report On FISA AbusesBy Tristan Justice
GOP Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson are demanding the DOJ declassify footnotes in the groundbreaking IG report on FBI FISA abuses.
Full article‘Ya’ll Elitists Are Dumb’: CNN Creates Yet Another Unintended Ad For TrumpBy Emily Jashinsky
To Wilson, Ali, and Lemon, it’s far more important to engage in self-satisfied mockery than advance any cause other than the cause of feeling cute on cable.
Full articleUnfunny CNN Panel Ridicules Trump Supporters As ‘Credulous Boomer Rubes’By Tristan Justice
A New York Times columnist and ex-GOP Never Trump strategist joined CNN’s Don Lemon Saturday night to mock those who might dare vote for Donald Trump.
Full articleThe Totality Of Kobe Bryant’s Legacy Is Complicated, And That’s OKBy Emily Jashinsky
It is both fair and necessary to remember the full arc of Bryant’s career. It makes his redemendation and rehabilitation all the more powerful.
Full articleKobe Bryant Was A Catholic Philly Guy Who Made GoodBy David Marcus
Kobe Bryant had a complicated relationship with his hometown, but where it counted most he was pure Philly.
Full articleWomen Aren’t As Gullible As The Left Wishes. The March for Life Proves ItBy Kylee Zempel
A powerful movement is not grounded not on the self, but on others. Not on hatred of a president, but on love for womankind and compassion for the life they carry inside them.
Full article

JOHN BOLTON ROILS IMPEACHMENT PLANS
Democrats are demanding that John Bolton be called to give testimony after leaks concerning is upcoming book have roiled the conversation. http://vlt.tc/3v8n But it isn’t necessarily going to have any big impact on the outcome – just the schedule and the performance art of the coming week leading up to Iowa and the State of the Union. Bolton doesn’t shake loose the Republican coalition, but he does exact more pain for the president in the process.

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ARRA NEWS SERVICE

ARRA News Service (in this message: 19 new items)

Radical Muslims And Leftists Are A ThreatPosted: 28 Jan 2020 05:50 PM PSTBill DonohueBill Donohue – who is attacking Christians: Attacks on Christianity, throughout the world, emanate from two principal sources: radical Muslims and leftists. The role played by radical Muslims is detailed in the 2020 World Watch List published by Open Doors; the Gatestone Institute cites radical Muslims as well, but it also mentions the role played by radical left-wing groups.

By using the data provided by Open Doors, of the 50 most oppressive nations for Christians to live in, 38 are run by Muslims and 4 are Communist controlled; the other 8 are neither Muslim nor Communist states.

For all the talk about an Islamic Reformation, it appears that nothing has changed. The violence against Christians is epidemic, yet there is little in the way of Christian persecution of Muslims.

If Muslims run three out of four of the most violent places in the world for Christians to live, radical left-wing groups are responsible for the lion’s share of anti-Christian attacks in the secular nations of Western Europe. The Gatestone Institute’s research shows that approximately 3,000 Christian churches, schools, cemeteries and monuments were defaced or destroyed there in 2019.

France and Germany are the most anti-Christian nations in Europe; Spain is also notorious for its assaults on Christianity. That these nations are beacons of secularism cannot be denied. Theirs may be a softer persecution than is true in Islamic nations—the left-wing activists favor arson, defecation, looting, mockery, profanation, Satanism, theft, urination, and vandalism to armed attacks on individuals—but it is no less menacing.

Muslim nations that persecute Christians have their origins in the most extreme interpretations of Islam. But what accounts for the anti-Christian assaults by radical secularists?

The Gatestone researchers sought to understand the motives of the anti-Christian acts in Western Europe. Vandalism and theft were two of the four listed in the report; there was nothing extraordinary about these findings. The other two motives were more revealing: they were grounded in politics and religion.

“Some attacks” they said, “especially those against Roman Catholicism, which some radical feminists and radical secularists perceive to be a symbol of patriarchal power and authority, are political in nature. Such attacks include defacing churches and religious symbols with political graffiti, much of it anarchist or feminist in nature.”

“Many attacks that appear to be religious or spiritual in nature reflect a deep-seated hostility toward Christianity. Such attacks include smearing feces on representations of Jesus Christ or statues of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Other attacks involve the defilement of or theft of Communion wafers…[which] may be the work of Satanists, who use the consecrated host in a ritual called the Black Mass.”

Radical feminists, radical secularists, anarchists, and Satanists. What do they have in common? They are all aligned with the politics of the left.

No one doubts that radical feminists and radical secularists are among the most influential left-wing activists in the western world. More contentious is the proposition that anarchists and Satanists are also associated with left-wing politics.

Historically, some extremists on the right have been anarchists, but today anarchists more typically resemble Antifa in the United States. “Anarchists and antifascists, often called the antifa, are factions of the far left who feel they are not represented by the mainstream Democratic Party.” That description, offered by a reporter for the Washington Post, is accurate.

The Church of Satan says it has no “official” political position. Yet a look at the positions staked out by The Satanic Temple are squarely on the left: for instance, their support for abortion-on-demand is so extreme that it is impossible to go beyond it.

Many who have followed the litany of anti-Christian offenses in Western Europe have noted how left-wing the perpetrators are.

Ellen Fantini, director of The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, says her organization has documented that “churches and other symbols of Christianity in Europe are targets for many groups—from Islamists to radical feminists, LGBT activists to anarchists and self-proclaimed Satanists.” Four of the five groups mentioned (the last four) are clearly in the camp of leftists.

The bishop of Fréjus-Toulon, Dominique Rey, agrees, but goes one step further. “We are witnessing the convergence of laicism—conceived as secularism, which relegates the faithful only to the private sphere and where every religious denomination is banal or stigmatized—with the overwhelming emergence of Islam, which attacks the infidels and those who reject the Koran.”

It is striking to note that radical Muslims and radical left-wing activists prefer to attack Christianity, but not each other. Yet in terms of their respective worldviews, they could not be more different, particularly on matters governing marriage, the family, and sexuality. Moreover, as Bishop Rey observes, Christianity is being privatized while Islam is expanding in Western Europe. How can this be?

There is no cabal at work. What conjoins the two radical wings, one religious and the other secular, is hatred of Christianity. But the source of their animosity is not the same. Radical Muslims want to conquer the West but cannot do so without attacking the Christian roots of Western civilization. Radical secularists want a full-blown libertine society—a sexual Shangri-La—but cannot do so without also attacking the Christian roots of Western civilization.

Christians are fighting for their lives against radical Muslims, and are fighting for their heritage against radical left-wing activists. They are the only sane players in this very sick development. More important, Christianity is the only tonic that can save us from their ravages.
——————–
Bill Donohue (@CatholicLeague) is a sociologist and president of the Catholic League.
Tags: Bill Donohue, Catholic League, Radical Muslims And Leftists, Are A Threat To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

Clarence Thomas in His Own WordsPosted: 28 Jan 2020 05:37 PM PST by Star Parker: It has been said that the very moment a man finds himself, he finds God.

This captures the story of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, a man of deep faith whose youthful struggles with racism caused that faith to be shaken but who later returned to it, more deeply and more resolutely because of his great character and refusal to settle for anything but truth.

The new film “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words” will be released in theaters nationwide Jan. 31, exquisitely timed with Black History Month. But this is also a time of great tensions and divisions in our nation, with race continuing to be one of the main issues dividing us.

Thomas published his memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son,” in 2007, which tells the story of his journey from beginning life dirt-poor in Pinpoint, Georgia, to his confirmation as U.S. Supreme Court associate justice in 1991.

Now filmmaker Michael Pack delivers Thomas’ remarkable story to us in his own words, bringing to the screen exclusive interviews with Thomas and his wife, Virginia Thomas, in which they speak their minds.

Judge Thomas strikes a strong personal note with me because I know well what he means when he talks about being attacked for being black by not acting and saying what is expected from a black person.

I was in the early days of my own work in policy activism when Democrats brought Anita Hill into Thomas’ confirmation hearing. I helped organize a large group of black pastors to come to Washington from around the country and demonstrate support for him.

When Branch Rickey, president and general manager of the then-Brooklyn Dodgers, recruited Jackie Robinson to be the first black in Major League Baseball, Rickey warned Robinson that he would be challenged to focus on the game and not react to the racist jeers that would come not just from the stands but from his own white teammates.

“They’ll taunt you and goad you,” Rickey warned. “They’ll do anything to make you react. They’ll try to provoke a race riot in the ballpark.”

Justice Thomas had to stand the same test.

Except this time, it was not whites trying to drive a black man off the field. It was liberals, black liberals and white liberals, trying to drive a black conservative off the field.

Thomas describes what he had to endure: “(Y)ou’re not really black because you’re not doing what we expect black people to do.”

And with regard to what the left was trying to achieve with Anita Hill, he said: “People should just tell the truth: ‘This is the wrong black guy. He has to be destroyed.'”

This circles back to Thomas’ similarities with Jackie Robinson. Both men drew their strength from their deep faith to stand with integrity in the face of merciless attacks.

Thomas talks about the restoration of his Catholicism after his youthful rebellion and black radicalism: “I asked God, ‘If you take anger out of my heart, I’ll never hate again.'”

Anger and hate are just other forms of slavery. Other people are controlling you.

Thomas became a free man once his faith was restored.

Thomas is now the most senior associate justice on the Supreme Court and has become one of America’s great conservative elder statesmen. His opinions over these years have already created a legacy of finely and rigorously reasoned jurisprudence, faithful to the core principles on which America was founded.

When Thomas was sworn in, after enduring what no man or woman should have to endure in his confirmation hearings, in his speech he alluded to Psalm 30, which reads: “I will praise you, Lord, for you have rescued me. You refused to let my enemies triumph over me. … Weeping may go on all night, but joy comes with the morning.”

What better way to pay tribute to America and black history than going to see this important new film?
—————–
Star Parker (@UrbanCURE)is an author at and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. CURE is a non-profit think tank that addresses issues of race and poverty through principles of faith, freedom and personal responsibility.
Tags: Star Parker, Center for Urban Renewal and Education, CURES, Clarence Thomas, in His Own Words To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

Deal Of The Century, The Real Problem, Dershowitz vs. The DemocratsPosted: 28 Jan 2020 05:22 PM PSTGary Bauerby Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: The Deal Of The Century
I just returned from a historic event in the East Room of the White House where President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a new peace plan.

The room was electric, filled with Christian and Jewish leaders, as well as key administration officials who worked on the plan, including Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Ambassador David Friedman.

There were also several ambassadors from Arab nations in the audience, a hopeful sign that others in the region are eager to work with Israel and the United States to advance peace in the Middle East.

The president received more than a dozen standing ovations, and Prime Minister Netanyahu received nearly as many as they outlined their vision for lasting peace. This is not a “pie in the sky” deal. Nor does it force Israel to do anything that will hurt its security. Here are some of the key elements of the Trump plan:
Jerusalem remains the undivided capital of Israel. This is essential from Israel’s stand point, and something that Pastor John Hagee of Christians United for Israel and I worked very hard to guarantee.The Palestinians must recognize Israel as the Jewish state.Hamas must be disarmed, and the Palestinians must reject terrorism.The so-called “refugee problem” will be settled outside the boundaries of Israel.Israel will suspend construction in disputed territories for four years to give both sides time to implement various aspects of the deal.The president pledged $50 billion of investment to provide hope and economic opportunity to the Palestinian people.Trump spoke directly to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, saying, “If you choose the path of peace, America will be there to help you every step of the way.”

Netanyahu praised Trump as “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House.” He hailed the Trump peace plan as “a realistic path to a durable peace,” that recognizes Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and other strategic areas of Judea and Samaria.

The prime minister vowed, “If the Palestinians are genuinely prepared to make peace with the Jewish state. . . Israel will be prepared to negotiate peace right away.”

The Real Problem
Almost every American president and Israeli prime minister has tried and failed to negotiate a lasting peace between Israelis and the Palestinians. The problem is not Israel or the United States.

The real obstacle to peace is the refusal of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Hezbollah and others to recognize the right of Israel to exist at all. Their so-called “leaders” have rejected every peace deal ever offered to them. They have to want peace with Israel.

As I noted above, President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu expressed the hope that the Palestinian leadership would not be stupid and reject this deal out of hand. Unfortunately, Mahmoud Abbas has already done just that.

Another major problem is that the Palestinian people are themselves divided between Abbas and his Fatah Party in the West Bank and Hamas, which rules Gaza. It’s not at all clear who speaks for the Palestinian people.

The 84 year-old Abbas is now in the 15th year of his four-year term of office and is expected to step down sometime this year. Polls show that Hamas, a terrorist organization funded by Iran and dedicated to Israel’s destruction, could easily prevail in a new election.

How do you compromise with an opponent who wants you dead? Nonetheless, Prime Minister Netanyahu has once again joined with President Trump to try to find a way forward.

Dershowitz vs. The Democrats
Yesterday, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz dismantled the Democrats’ impeachment arguments. He argued that the two articles of impeachment do not rest on identifiable crimes, much less impeachable offenses. I’ll spare you his historical lecture and summarize his main points.

Democrats are attempting to impeach President Trump for “Obstruction of Congress” because he refused to comply with many of their demands during the course of their impeachment investigation.

But what they see as “Obstruction of Congress,” others see as “Separation of Powers.” If defending the authority of the executive branch is a crime, then the founders were criminals. But the left probably believes that anyway.

When disputes arise over the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches, they go to the courts to decide the issue. But if it’s a crime for a president to resist Congress when it overreaches, then every president is going to be impeached.

The president is also being impeached for “Abuse of Power.” But that charge is what critics always say about their opponents. Even George Washington, the most admired of our founders, was accused of abusing his power.

Professor Dershowitz went on to cite 20 presidents, from Washington to Obama, who were accused of abuse of power. For example:
Thomas Jefferson dramatically expanded the size of the country through the Louisiana Purchase without congressional authorization.Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War.Franklin Roosevelt interned Japanese Americans during World War II due to concerns about national security.Ultimately, Donald Trump is being impeached because he defeated Hillary Clinton, which the left considers a “high crime.” He’s also being impeached because he is doing what he said he would do.

He’s putting the interests of the country first with trade deals and immigration policies that put American workers first. He’s defending the sanctity of life and religious liberty by breaking the left’s stranglehold over our courts. Those are Trump’s “crimes,” which our political elites cannot tolerate.

Sadly, there is a group of Republicans who still think the New York Times is a legitimate news outlet. They should forget about John Bolton’s book. As Professor Dershowitz made clear, there is no impeachable crime here regardless of what is or is not in Bolton’s book.

By the way, Fred Fleitz, Bolton’s former chief of staff, published an excellent opinion piece yesterday calling on Bolton to withdraw his book until after the 2020 election.

Fleitz argues, rightly in my opinion, that high-level officials should not cash-in on their service with “tell-all” books that threaten to expose the private advice and communications between presidents and their advisers. Sadly, that’s how the Swamp operates.

At today’s White House announcement for the Middle East peace plan, many of John Bolton’s old friends were angry and disappointed in his conduct since he left the administration. More than once, I heard the rhetorical question, “What in the world is wrong with Bolton?!”

Speaking Of The Swamp. . .
Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi exposed the potential corruption of Hunter Biden’s sweetheart deal with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which she described as “nepotistic at best, nefarious at worst.”

She defended President Trump’s decision to raise Burisma and the Bidens with Ukraine’s president because the media had raised the issue in 2014, because Chris Heinz, Hunter’s business partner, raised concerns about it and because Obama State Department officials raised concerns about it.

Bondi’s presentation made it clear that the president was looking to address past issues of corruption rather than exploiting his office to influence the next election.
——————-
Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer) is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families
Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Deal Of The Century, The Real Problem, Dershowitz vs. The Democrats To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

Under Bolton Shadow, 6 Big Moments From Day 6 of Trump Impeachment TrialPosted: 28 Jan 2020 04:53 PM PST“Every witness who was asked about
Hunter Biden’s involvement with Burisma
agreed there was a potential appearance
of a conflict of interest,” argues Pam Bondi,
a member of Donald Trump’s legal team,by Fred Lucas: President Donald Trump’s lawyers hit the Senate floor Monday for the second day of defense arguments in his impeachment trial, amid what Democrats called a bombshell from a forthcoming book by the president’s former national security adviser, John Bolton.

The Bolton book wasn’t a direct topic during the arguments. But the president’s lawyers addressed the underlying allegation that Trump withheld military aid from Ukraine for weeks to pressure the former Soviet republic to investigate dealings there by former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

The president’s lawyers also made their strongest case yet as to why Trump had reason to inquire about the Bidens and Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company where the younger Biden had a lucrative job from 2014 to 2019.

Democrats’ allegation that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy by putting a hold on the $391 million in aid was the basis for the House’s Dec. 18 impeachment of the president on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress—neither of which is a federal crime.

Here are highlights from the sixth full day of the Senate impeachment trial, in which House Democrats are asking the Senate to convict Trump and remove him from office.

1. Bolton Book Fallout
The New York Times reported Sunday that Bolton’s upcoming book will say Trump told his national security adviser that he would keep a hold on military aid to Ukraine until that country investigated the Bidens’ dealings there.

Portions of the Bolton book apparently were leaked to the Times. The White House has had a copy of the book since Dec. 30 for a national security review and clearance.

Titled “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir,” the book is set to be released March 17.

Trump responded shortly after midnight on Twitter, asserting at one point early Monday: “I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book.”
I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book. With that being said, the…— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2020…transcripts of my calls with President Zelensky are all the proof that is needed, in addition to the fact that President Zelensky & the Foreign Minister of Ukraine said there was no pressure and no problems. Additionally, I met with President Zelensky at the United Nations…— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2020Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer had a far different take Monday morning, before the Senate convened for the impeachment trial at 1 p.m.

“This is stunning. It goes right to the charges against the president. Ambassador Bolton essentially confirms the president committed the offenses charged in the first article of impeachment,” Schumer told reporters, adding:
It boils down to one thing. We have first-hand evidence of the president’s actions for which he is on trial. [Bolton] is ready and willing to testify. How can Senate Republicans not vote to call that witness and request his documents? Anyone, anyone who says the House case lacks witnesses and then votes to prevent eyewitnesses from testifying is talking out of both sides of their mouth.
Schumer said the excerpt of Bolton’s book is evidence of a widespread cover-up and shows the need to call acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney as a witness at the impeachment trial.

“There seems to be a giant cover-up among so many of the leading people in the White House who knew and said nothing about it, let alone tried to stop it,” Schumer said, later adding: “If Senate Republicans are not going to vote to call Mr. Bolton and Mr. Mulvaney and the other witnesses now, if they are not going to ask for notes and emails, they are going to be part of the cover-up too. We have this out in the open. It’s up to just four Senate Republicans [to join Democrats in voting to hear from witnesses].”

A few minutes later, during an arrival ceremony Monday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House South Portico, Trump took a question about whether the manuscript of Bolton’s book would make it more likely his former national security adviser would testify to the Senate.

“I haven’t seen the manuscript, but I can tell you nothing was ever said to John Bolton.” Trump said. “But I have not seen a manuscript.”

Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told reporters that the Senate shouldn’t be distracted from the defense of the president being presented Monday.

“Do not get distracted by the shiny objects of saying ‘We need witnesses’ or Bolton’s new manuscript or anything else,” Collins said. “Don’t lose sight of the fact that the facts haven’t changed.”

The Senate is expected to vote on witnesses Friday.

2. ‘Acting Under Constitutional Authority’
The president’s lawyers hit back both directly and indirectly on the Bolton manuscript.

“Nothing in the Bolton manuscript would rise to the level of an abuse of power or impeachable offense,” said Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor and Democrat who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, but is now part of the Trump legal team.

“That is clear from the history, that is clear from the language of the Constitution,” Dershowitz said, adding:
You cannot turn conduct that is not impeachment into impeachable conduct simply by using words like quid pro quo and personal benefit. It is inconceivable that the framers [of the Constitution] would have intended so politically loaded and promiscuously deployed a term as ‘abuse of power’ to be weaponized as a tool of impeachment. It is precisely the kind of vague, open-ended, and suggestive term that the framers feared and rejected.Other lawyers tackled the underlying allegation that Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate the Bidens—as well as possible Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election—in exchange for getting the $391 million in congressionally approved security assistance.

“The president wasn’t ‘caught,’ as the House managers allege. The managers are wrong,” deputy White House counsel Mike Purpura said. “All of this, together with what we discussed on Saturday, demonstrates that there was no connection between security assistance and investigations.”

This assertion appeared to take on directly news reports of what a section of the Bolton book will say.

Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow, didn’t address the Bolton book at all when he took the microphone. But he did argue that Trump was acting within his rights as president.

“It is our position as president’s counsel that the president was at all times acting under his constitutional authority, under his legal authority, in the national interests pursuant to his oath of office,” Sekulow told senators.
“Asking a foreign leader to get to the bottom of issues of corruption is not a violation of an oath,” he said.

3. The Bidens and Burisma
Former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, now on Trump’s defense team, laid out a timeline for potential conflicts of interest entangling Joe Biden, who oversaw the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, and his son, Hunter Biden, who held a lucrative seat on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company.

“The United Kingdom’s Serious Frauds Office opens a money laundering investigation into the oligarch [Mykola] Zlochevsky and his company, Burisma,” Bondi said. “The very next month, April 2014, according to a public report, Hunter Biden quietly joints the board of Burisma. Remember, early 2014 was when Vice President Biden began leading Ukraine policy.”

Bondi noted that public records show the younger Biden’s business partner Devon Archer, also a Burisma board member, met with the elder Biden at the White House two days before the company announced Hunter Biden had joined the board.

“Not even 10 days after Hunter Biden joins the board, British authorities seize $23 million in British bank accounts connected to the oligarch Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma,” she said, adding:
Did Hunter Biden leave the board then? No. The British authorities had also announced that it had started a criminal investigation into potential money laundering. Then, only then, did the company choose to announce that Hunter Biden had joined the board.In 2016, Biden, as vice president, threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid from Ukraine unless the Eastern European nation fired Viktor Shokin, the state prosecutor who was investigating Burisma while Biden’s son was on the board.

Bondi noted that news coverage of the appearance of a conflict over the younger Biden’s employment in Ukraine began to pop up in 2014. She read from news clips from The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The New Yorker, and showed part of a story from ABC News about Hunter Biden’s seat on the Burisma board.

Hunter Biden, Bondi said, was paid “significantly more” than most members of corporate boards before leaving Burisma in October 2019.

“Hunter Biden [was] paid over $83,000 a month, while the average American family of four during that time each year made less than $54,000,” Bondi said, adding:
Hunter Biden had no experience in natural gas, no experience in the energy sector, no experience with Ukrainian regulatory affairs. As far as we know, he doesn’t speak Ukrainian. So naturally, the media has asked questions about his board membership.Bondi also showed a clip of Obama press secretary Jay Carney getting a question about Hunter Biden’s role on the Burisma board, and a later clip of the younger Biden being asked in a TV interview whether he would have gotten the job on the board if his last name weren’t Biden. “I don’t know, probably not,” he responds.

Bondi referred to the House Intelligence Committee’s impeachment hearings, which Rep. Adam Schiff, one of the House impeachment managers, chaired.

“Every witness who was asked about Hunter Biden’s involvement with Burisma agreed there was a potential appearance of a conflict of interest,” she said.

She read the portion of the official transcript of the Trump-Zelenskyy call that pertained to the Bidens. She then referred to House prosecutors’ claim that any suspicions about the Bidens and Burisma had been “debunked.”

“The House managers talked about 400 times, but they never gave you the full picture,” Bondi said, adding:
Here are those who did: The United Kingdom Serious Fraud Unit, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent … “ABC Good Morning America,” The Washington Post, The New York Times, Ukrainian law enforcement, and the Obama State Department itself. They all thought there was cause to raise the issue about the Bidens and Burisma. …

You’ve heard from the House managers. They do not believe that there was any concern to raise here, that all of this was baseless. All we are saying is that there was a basis to talk about this, to raise this issue, and that was enough.Eric Herschmann, one of Trump’s private lawyers on the team, also questioned whether impeachment was a means to distract from the Biden conflict.The House managers say that President Zelenskyy did not want to get mixed up in U.S. politics, but it precisely the Democrats who politicized the issue. Last August, they began circling the wagons trying to protect Vice President Biden and they are still doing it in these proceedings. They contend that any investigation into the millions of dollars in payments by a corrupt Ukraine company, owned by a corrupt Ukraine oligarch, to the son of the second highest officeholder in our land, who was supposed to be in charge of fighting corruption in Ukraine, they are calling that kind of inquiry a sham, debunked. But there has never been an investigation. So how can it be a sham? Simply because the House managers say so?4. Schiff’s ‘Mob, Gangster-Like Fake Rendition’
In September, at the first public hearing on the Ukraine matter, Schiff, D-Calif., who is leading the House impeachment managers, mischaracterized the Trump-Zelenskyy phone call and when criticized for it, called it a parody.

During his presentation to the Senate, Herschmann was not going to let the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee off easily.

“Remember the fake transcript that manager Schiff read when he was before the Intelligence Committee?” Herschmann asked senators. “His mob, gangster-like fake rendition of the call?”

“Well, I’ve prosecuted organized crime for years,” Herschmann said. “The type of description of what goes on, what House manager Schiff tried to create for the American people, is completely detached from reality.”

He continued:
It is as if we are to believe that mobsters would invite people they do not know into an organized crime meeting to sit around and take notes to establish the corrupt intent. Manager Schiff, our jobs as prosecutors—I know you were one—would have been a lot easier if that were how it worked.

Think about what he is saying. Think about the managers’ position. That our president decided with corrupt intent to shake down—in their words—another foreign leader. And he decided to do it in front of everyone in a documented conversation in the presence of people he didn’t even know just so he could get this personal benefit that was not in our country’s best interest.

The logic is flawed. It is completely illogical, because that is not what happened.

That is why manager Schiff ran away from the actual transcript. That is why he created his own fake conversation.5. Ken Starr’s Warning and History Lesson
Ken Starr, whose investigation as independent counsel led to the 1998 impeachment of President Bill Clinton, gave a mixture of a law professor’s lecture and a warning of what the power of impeachment has wrought.

“Like war, impeachment is hell, or at least presidential impeachment is hell,” Starr told senators, sitting as jurors in the trial.

Starr noted that this was not the first House resolution of impeachment against Trump, only the first to pass.

Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, pushed three impeachment resolutions to a floor vote, all of which were defeated. Other Democrats pushed an impeachment resolution that never came to a vote.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., began in 2017 to promote the “Impeach 45” movement.

Most of the seven House impeachment managers, or prosecutors, supported either impeaching Trump or beginning an impeachment inquiry against him long before the call with Ukraine’s leader that prompted the current case.

“We are living in what can aptly be described as the age of impeachment,” Starr said, adding:
In the House, resolution after resolution, month after month, has called for the president’s impeachment. How did we get here? With presidential impeachment invoked frequently in its inherently destabilizing as well as acrimonious way.

Presidential impeachment has become a weapon to be wielded against one’s political opponent.Most of the seven House impeachment managers, or prosecutors, supported either impeaching Trump or beginning an impeachment inquiry against him long before the call with Ukraine’s leader that prompted the current case.

“We are living in what can aptly be described as the age of impeachment,” Starr said, adding:

In the House, resolution after resolution, month after month, has called for the president’s impeachment. How did we get here? With presidential impeachment invoked frequently in its inherently destabilizing as well as acrimonious way.

Presidential impeachment has become a weapon to be wielded against one’s political opponent.

Starr said impeachment should be a “very important protection against serious wrongdoing.”

Despite having brought the case against Clinton that led to his acquittal, Starr said: “Presidents are to serve out their terms unless there is a national consensus for their removal.”

In 1998, Starr was operating under the now-expired independent counsel law that required the prosecutor to submit a report to Congress.

During his impeachment trial, Clinton was in his second term as president with another two years remaining, and would not face voters again for that office. By contrast, voters can hold Trump accountable when he seeks reelection in November 2020.

“There is a huge prudential factor that this trial is occurring in an election year, when we the people in a matter of months will go to the polls,” Starr said.

Both of the articles of impeachment against Trump, he said, are “dripping with process violations” in the House’s case.

Starr said the type of case the House has brought against Trump would be thrown out of court.

“The Constitution speaks in terms of establishing justice. Courts would not allow this,” Starr said. “Because why? They knew and they know that the purpose of our founding instrument is to protect our founding liberties, to safeguard us as individuals against the powers of government.”

Starr argued that the second article of impeachment, alleging obstruction of Congress, is evidence of a “runaway House.”

“If there is a dispute between the people’s House and the president of the United States over the availability of documents or witnesses, and there is in each and every administration—then go to court,” Starr said. “It really is as simple as that.”

6. Trump Program Notes and Other Reaction
Before his legal team resumed its case Monday morning, Trump sent several tweets. But he mostly retweeted during the arguments.
READ THE TRANSCRIPTS!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2020At one point, Trump inquired why Schiff, who is leading the impeachment managers, hasn’t made public the full transcript of testimony by Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community’s inspector general, to the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors.

Atkinson took the anonymous whistleblower’s complaint that arose out of Trump’s July 25 phone call to Ukraine’s president.
Schiff must release the IG report, without changes or tampering, which is said to be yet further exoneration of the Impeachment Hoax. He refuses to give it. Does it link him to Whistleblower? Why is he so adamant?— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2020

Later, the president gave a programming note to his Twitter followers:
Senate hearing on the Impeachment Hoax starts today at 1:00 P.M.— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2020———————-
Fred Lucas (@FredLucasWH) is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal. Ken McIntyre contributed to this report, which has been modified to correct the amount of Burisma-related assets seized by the United Kingdom.
Tags: FRed Lucas, The Daily Signal, Under Bolton Shadow, 6 Big Moments, From Day 6, Trump Impeachment Trial To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

Gorsuch Rebukes Lower Courts’ Nationwide InjunctionsPosted: 28 Jan 2020 03:17 PM PST… The Supreme Court justice appropriately and sternly addressed growing judicial overreach.
by Nate Jackson: In yet another 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court displayed that too many cases are decided by the ideological divide among the justices rather than Rule of Law. Fortunately, it’s not the five who got this one wrong.

The originalist wing of the Court granted the Trump administration’s request for a stay against an injunction blocking its policy to deny U.S. entry to any alien who is “likely at any time to become a public charge.” America’s astounding level of generous benefits attract illegals. Democrats know it, which is why they try so hard to stop the administration’s work to rein in the flow of illegals.

But it was less the merits of the ruling than the importance of comments made by Justice Neil Gorsuch that got our attention. In a blistering five-page concurrence, joined by Clarence Thomas, Gorsuch blasted judges in lower courts who routinely issue nationwide injunctions to obstruct the administration’s agenda. There have been 40 such injunctions during Donald Trump’s first three years in office — twice the number that were issued during Barack Obama’s entire eight years.

“Today the Court (rightly) grants a stay, allowing the government to pursue (for now) its policy everywhere save Illinois,” Gorsuch wrote. “But, in light of all that’s come before, it would be delusional to think that one stay today suffices to remedy the problem. The real problem here is the increasingly common practice of trial courts ordering relief that transcends the cases before them. Whether framed as injunctions of ‘nationwide,’ ‘universal,’ or ‘cosmic’ scope, these orders share the same basic flaw — they direct how the defendant must act toward persons who are not parties to the case.”

He continued, “When a district court orders the government not to enforce a rule against the plaintiffs in the case before it, the court redresses the injury that gives rise to its jurisdiction in the first place. But when a court goes further than that, ordering the government to take (or not take) some action with respect to those who are strangers to the suit, it is hard to see how the court could still be acting in the judicial role of resolving cases and controversies. Injunctions like these thus raise serious questions about the scope of courts’ equitable powers under Article III.”

“It has become increasingly apparent that this Court must, at some point, confront these important objections to this increasingly widespread practice,” Gorsuch argued. “As the brief and furious history of the regulation before us illustrates, the routine issuance of universal injunctions is patently unworkable, sowing chaos for litigants, the government, courts, and all those affected by these conflicting decisions. … By their nature, universal injunctions tend to force judges into making rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.”

Gorsuch concluded, “A single loss and the policy goes on ice — possibly for good, or just as possibly for some indeterminate period of time until another court jumps in to grant a stay. And all that can repeat, ad infinitum, until either one side gives up or this Court grants certiorari. What in this gamesmanship and chaos can we be proud of? I concur in the Court’s decision to issue a stay. But I hope, too, that we might at an appropriate juncture take up some of the underlying equitable and constitutional questions raised by the rise of nationwide injunctions.”
————————
Nate Jackson is managing editor at The Patriot Post.
Tags: Gorsuch Rebukes, Lower Courts, Nationwide Injunctions, Nate Jackson, The Patriot Post To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

The Economy’s Unsung Hero Is Low Interest RatesPosted: 28 Jan 2020 03:16 PM PSTStephen Moore, Economistby Steve Moore: At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, President Donald Trump again talked positively about negative interest rates. That’s not a very good idea considering negative interest rates are a warning signal of deflation, which can be as bad for an economy as runaway inflation.

But Trump was right to herald this era of low nominal interest rates and inflation. If you want to understand how the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen from a low of 800 to a high of 29,000 in four decades, look at the Federal Reserve’s graph of the 10-year treasury rate showing the sharp and relentless decline in interest rates between 1980 and 2020. Think about how the world has changed. In 1981, 10-year Treasury bills paid an interest rate of 16%. Now they are at 2%.

It may be the biggest unsung story of economic success — a gift that just keeps on giving.

I remember in the early 1980s, my local bank was trying to lure depositors by offering lifetime certificates of deposit paying 10% to 12% interest rates. Many of the banks that made such foolish offerings failed in the years to come. What happened? Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker teamed together with Ronald Reagan in a political partnership that slew inflation, bringing it down from 12% to 4% in about 18 months.

The high nominal interest rates back then were simply the price we all paid for runaway inflation, which rose to 12% in 1980. The consensus among economists and leading financiers was that double-digit inflation was with us for decades to come — as Paul Samuelson warned about in his weekly Newsweek column.

Whoops. What was not foreseen was that Reagan and Volcker would start a new economic regime to kill inflation that prevails to this day. We now live in an era with interest rates lower than at any time in decades, and the forecast is for borrowing costs, which are driven primarily by inflation and inflationary expectations, to remain microscopic for years and decades to come.

Why do these low rates matter to the economy? Let’s start by imagining the added cost to buying or selling a home today if we still had mortgage rates as high as they were back then. Homeowners would be paying thousands of dollars of extra mortgage payments a year, and real estate values would crash, as would homebuilding.

Second, low interest rates raise stock values and wealth. Inflation and high interest rates are the thieves of the stock market. The towering inflation of the late 1960s through 1980 corresponded with a near-60% collapse in the after-inflation return on stocks. It was one of the greatest liquidations of wealth in U.S. history — a bloodbath. Disinflation and falling interest rates combined with a stable dollar have helped resurrect growth while U.S. assets (owned by the public) have reached $100 trillion in value.

Third, low interest rates reduce the cost of borrowing costs for businesses and allow small firms that might not have access to equity markets to expand investment through loans. By the way, real (inflation-adjusted) interest rates rise when there is a higher demand for credit, which happened in the 1980s even as nominal rates plummeted.

The biggest winner of all from low rates is, of course, Uncle Sam. Every 1-percentage-point reduction in interest rates reduces federal borrowing costs by at least $1 trillion over a decade. A sudden spike in rates by, say, 200 basis points, which would still be below the historical average in the post-World War II era, means $2 trillion to $3 trillion of higher interest expenditures on top of $20 trillion of publicly traded debt.

A final point: I keep hearing senior citizens and financial advisers complain that low interest rates hurt retirees on fixed incomes. That’s nonsense. Seniors tend to hold more stocks than young people, so the surge in stock values has disproportionately benefited older people in the United States. Seniors who complain about today’s low returns on bonds should be taking a look at how their stock portfolios are performing. In just three years under Trump, index funds have seen better than a 50% return. Some $60 trillion of wealth is held by seniors today and will soon be passed on to the younger generations thanks to this 40-year surge in the stock market.

In the 1970s, seniors living on fixed incomes were supposed victims of high inflation and interest rates because it cost them more to buy food, medicine and energy. Higher interest rates would correspond with a higher cost of living, so seniors should be careful of what they wish for.

So should Trump. His administration is benefiting mightily from low rates and tame inflation — to which his supply-side policies, including tax cuts, have contributed. But negative rates would mean falling prices, and the last time that happened, the nation found itself heading into the Great Depression.
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Stephen Moore, (@StephenMoore) is a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with Freedom Works. He is the co-author of “Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy.” Moore encouraged the ARRA News Service editor at SamSphere Chicago 2008 to blog his articles. His article was in Rasmussen Reports.
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Impeachment: The Left’s Ultimate WeaponPosted: 28 Jan 2020 02:18 PM PST by Patrick Buchanan: To save “our democracy,” to which they pay tireless tribute, the impeachers want to ensure that the people, in a supposedly free election in 2020, are not allowed to make the same mistake they made in 2016

In 1868, President Andrew Johnson was impeached for violating the Tenure of Office Act that had been enacted by Congress over his veto in 1867. Defying the law, Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, without getting Senate approval, as the act required him to do.

In his 1956 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, John F. Kennedy made Edmund Ross one of the Senate’s “Profiles in Courage” for his decisive and heroic vote not to convict and remove Johnson.

Repealed in 1887, the Tenure of Office Act was later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

But while the act was the lethal instrument to be used in the political assassination of a president whom the Radical Republicans meant to terminate, Stanton’s ouster was not the primary cause of their fury.

What truly enraged the Radical Republicans was Johnson’s resolve to be more magnanimous toward the defeated South than they meant to be. Johnson had in mind an earlier end to the military occupation of the South and a more rapid return of the seceded states to the Union.

The story is told in the 1942 Hollywood film “Tennessee Johnson,” starring Van Heflin, which has since gone down the memory hole along with Woodrow Wilson’s White House favorite, “Birth of a Nation.”

As historians concede, the impeachment of Johnson was about Reconstruction and who would remake the South. Would it be the Southern majority that fought and lost the war, or the victorious Yankees and the “scalawags” and “carpetbaggers” laboring alongside them?

The triumphant Radical Republicans were not about conciliation. So severe were aspects of the occupation that Gen. Robert E. Lee reportedly said if he had known what was coming, he might not have quit fighting.

So, too, the impeachment of Donald Trump is not really about his 10-week delay in shipping arms to Ukraine or his postponing of a visit by Ukraine’s president until he announced an investigation of Burisma Holdings and Joe and Hunter Biden.

Even before the 2016 election, Democrats, collaborating with a like-minded media, were using the instruments of power they possess, to first prevent and then to overturn the election results of 2016.

Russiagate, the James Comey FBI investigation, the Mueller probe — aborting a Trump presidency has always been the goal.

Saturday, White House counsel Pat Cipollone succinctly described to the Senate the bottom line:

“They’re asking you to remove President Trump from the ballot in an election that’s occurring in approximately nine months. … They’re asking you to tear up all of the ballots across this country on your own initiative, take that decision away from the American people.”

To save “our democracy,” to which they pay tireless tribute, the impeachers want to ensure that the people, in a supposedly free election in 2020, are not allowed to make the same mistake they made in 2016.

To save our democracy, the House and half the Senate want to deny the America electorate one of the most important roles the people play in this republic — the exercise of their right to choose the head of state and commander in chief of the United States.

Disqualifying presidential candidates whom populists favor but elites abhor is a quite common practice — in Third World countries.

Over the weekend, we learned that John Bolton, who has offered to testify in the Senate trial, claims in his coming book that Trump made a direct link between sending military aid to Ukraine and Ukraine’s opening an investigation of the Bidens.

This has caused some Republican senators to reconsider calling witnesses, particularly Bolton, in the impeachment trial.

If four Republicans vote for witnesses, they will be doing the work Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler and Nancy Pelosi’s House failed to do in their haste to get Trump impeached by Christmas. They will be prolonging a trial set up to burn and bury their president.

The Senate should let Trump’s defenders complete their case, as the House managers and impeachers have already done. Then allow 16 hours of questioning. Then call for the verdict.

There is no treason, no bribery and no high crime in what the House managers allege. There is nothing in the articles of impeachment voted that rises to a level to justify removing a president.

Harry Truman dropped atomic bombs on defenseless cities and sent 2 million POWs back to the tender mercies of Stalin in Operation Keelhaul after World War II.

JFK greenlighted the overthrow of an ally, President Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam, in a coup that ended in the murder of Diem.

LBJ ordered the wiretapping of Martin Luther King, and his White House shared the fruits of that FBI surveillance with a friendly press.

No one was impeached.

Why? Because Truman, JFK and LBJ were establishment favorites.

For Trump, a phone call with a Ukrainian president saying, “Send us your Biden file and we will have a meeting,” is a political capital crime justifying democracy’s version of a death penalty.
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Patrick Buchanan (@PatrickBuchanan) is currently a blogger, conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior adviser to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000.
Tags: Patrick Buchanan, conservative, commentary, Impeachment, ,Left’s Ultimate Weapon To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

Virginia’s Recent Extremism a Warning Sign for Other StatesPosted: 28 Jan 2020 02:08 PM PSTGov. Ralph Northam delivers the State of the
Commonwealth address at the Virginia
State Capitol on January 8, 2020by Jarrett Stepman: The Old Dominion is trending in an ominous direction, and it’s a problem for the whole country.

On Monday, the Virginia General Assembly ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. Advocates of the ERA have argued that Virginia is the 38th and final state needed to add it to the Constitution, though the legal argument for that is dubious.

Nevertheless, if the ERA were to become law, it would almost certainly provide the legal basis to enshrine left-wing social dogmas nationwide, among other negative consequences.

Though the ratification is unlikely to pass legal muster, it generally shows the direction Virginia is heading.

Other states should take note: No matter how conservative your state has been in the past, you’re just one leftist legislature away from radical change.

But there are signs of hope.

The massive pro-Second Amendment protest in Richmond, Virginia, on Jan. 20, which drew more than 20,000 people, signaled that many Virginians are waking up to the radicalism of the newly empowered Democratic majority in the state legislature.

It would be wrong, however, to suppose that gun owners are the only Virginians in the crosshairs of the new powers that be.

The reality is that tussles between large swaths of Virginians and their lawmakers may become more frequent as the state moves sharply to the left—which has occurred for a variety of reasons. Among them is the phenomenal growth of the Washington “blob” that continues to ooze out farther and farther into suburban Virginia.

The values of the Washington, D.C., progressive elites are simply becoming pervasive and now dominate in Richmond. And the result of this blue takeover has been a tidal wave of policies that signal Virginia’s new direction.

But gun control isn’t the only initiative on the liberal agenda.

A Virginia House subcommittee recently passed the Virginia Values Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to state anti-discrimination law. These laws have often been a threat to religious liberty.

Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Gregory S. Baylor, who testified against the law, said in a statement:
Whether they intend to or not, Virginia lawmakers who support sexual orientation and gender identity bills are choosing to coerce uniformity of thought and speech on beliefs about marriage, sex, and gender. That’s a dangerous path, and we respectfully ask Virginia lawmakers to exercise tolerance and respect for the good-faith disagreements we hold across the commonwealth.The Virginia Values Act would have other specific consequences, too.

The law stipulates that small businesses with fewer than 15 employees would have to abide by strict anti-discrimination laws that require the business to pay for the legal fees of a worker who wins a case, but the workers wouldn’t have to pay the employer’s legal fees if the employer wins the case.

As lawyer Hans Bader wrote, this is a potentially enormous financial burden for a small business and could encourage frivolous lawsuits. It could do significant damage to Virginia’s economy.

Another idea on the table is a new gas tax proposed by Gov. Ralph Northam.

The proposal would add 4 cents per gallon of gas every year for three years to fund his nearly $4 billion rail and transportation plan.

This may just be the garden variety tax-and-spend liberalism, but it mirrors the trend in many blue states that treat taxpayers like a bottomless well for spending on various pet projects.

That all of these laws and initiatives have happened in such a short time frame should be a warning for the rest of the country. Virginia is now getting the California treatment, where a stream of aggressively left-wing laws come streaming through the pipeline the moment Democrats take power.

The protests perhaps demonstrate that Virginia still has an enduring gun culture that does not mesh well with a movement whose leaders insist that the citizenry, law-abiding or not, should be disarmed for its own good.

The diverse and peaceful protest in support of a constitutionally protected right, which the national media depicted so shamefully, is a hopeful sign that the people of Virginia will respond to absurd new laws with counteraction.

At the same time, it’s telling that the new powers that be in Richmond aren’t concerned with the opinions of a huge swath of the commonwealth and are willing to push ahead with their ideas whether the people like them or not.

It’s gotten so bad that some West Virginia legislators are now inviting adjacent rural Virginia counties to come join their state.

It’s a novel idea, but the reality is that it’s hard to win on a battlefield or in the realm of ideas if you are always in retreat.

The rapid pace of the Californization of Virginia should be a wake-up call to people in other states around the country. Strident progressivism now drives the Democratic Party, and the pace of its efforts to remake and fundamentally transform American society will happen at a breakneck pace if it’s given power.
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Jarrett Stepman (@JarrettStepman) is a contributor to The Daily Signal and co-host of The Right Side of History podcast.
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Democracy and TyrannyPosted: 28 Jan 2020 01:46 PM PSTDr. Walter E. Williamsby Dr. Walter E. Williams: During President Donald J. Trump’s impeachment trial, we’ll hear a lot of talk about our rules for governing. One frequent claim is that our nation is a democracy. If we’ve become a democracy, it would represent a deep betrayal of our founders, who saw democracy as another form of tyranny.

In fact, the word democracy appears nowhere in our nation’s two most fundamental documents, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The founders laid the ground rules for a republic as written in the Constitution’s Article IV, Section 4, which guarantees “to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.”

John Adams captured the essence of the difference between a democracy and republic when he said, “You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.” Contrast the framers’ vision of a republic with that of a democracy.

In a democracy, the majority rules either directly or through its elected representatives. As in a monarchy, the law is whatever the government determines it to be. Laws do not represent reason. They represent power. The restraint is upon the individual instead of the government. Unlike that envisioned under a republican form of government, rights are seen as privileges and permissions that are granted by government and can be rescinded by government.

Here are a few quotations that demonstrate the contempt that our founders held for a democracy. James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 10, wrote that in a pure democracy, “there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.”

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Edmund Randolph said that “in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.” Alexander Hamilton agreed, saying: “We are now forming a republican government. (Liberty) is found not in “the extremes of democracy but in moderate governments. … If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.”

John Adams reminded us: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

John Marshall, the highly respected fourth chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court observed, “Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.”

Thomas Paine said, “A Democracy is the vilest form of Government there is.”

The framers gave us a Constitution replete with undemocratic mechanisms. One constitutional provision that has come in for recent criticism is the Electoral College. In their wisdom, the framers gave us the Electoral College as a means of deciding presidential elections. That means heavily populated states can’t run roughshod over small, less-populated states.

Were we to choose the president and vice president under a popular vote, the outcome of presidential races would always be decided by a few highly populated states, namely California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania, which contain 134.3 million people, or 41% of our population. Presidential candidates could safely ignore the interests of the citizens of Wyoming, Alaska, Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Delaware. Why? They have only 5.58 million Americans, or 1.7% of the U.S. population. We would no longer be a government “of the people.” Instead, our government would be put in power by and accountable to the leaders and citizens of a few highly populated states. It would be the kind of tyranny the framers feared.

It’s Congress that poses the greatest threat to our liberties. The framers’ distrust is seen in the negative language of our Bill of Rights such as: Congress “shall not abridge, infringe, deny, disparage, and shall not be violated, nor be denied.” When we die and if at our next destination we see anything like a Bill of Rights, we know that we’re in hell because a Bill of Rights in heaven would suggest that God couldn’t be trusted.
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Dr. Walter Williams (@WE_Williams) is an American economist, social commentator, and author of over 150 publications. He has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from the UCLA and B.A. in economics from California State University. He also holds a Doctor of Humane Letters from Virginia Union University and Grove City College, Doctor of Laws from Washington and Jefferson College. He has served on the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics, since 1980. Visit his website: WalterEWilliams.com and view a list of other articles and works.
Tags: Walter Williams, commentary, Democracy, Tyranny To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

Crime CostsPosted: 28 Jan 2020 01:39 PM PST by Kerby Anderson: Crime costs both victims and society a great deal. But the cost is much more than we realize. Professor Walter Williams documents the “Unappreciated Crime Costs” that especially hit black residents in low-income neighborhoods.

Thousands of black Americans are murdered each year in cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis and Philadelphia. He documents that over 90 percent of the time the perpetrator was also black.

Crime also imposes a hefty tax on people in these neighborhoods, who can least afford it. Residents must bear the time cost and other costs of having to shop outside their neighborhoods. There are few supermarkets in high-crime, low-income neighborhoods that are often referred to as “food deserts.”

Delivery companies (like FedEx and UPS) routinely leave packages on the doorsteps of homes in low-crime neighborhoods. They wouldn’t dare do that in these high-crime neighborhoods. Taxi drivers, fearing robberies in these dangerous neighborhoods, often refuse to accept telephone calls for home pickups.

You might wonder why black people in these areas often fail to report crime to law enforcement. First, many of them have a deep mistrust of police. Second, there is also the real fear of reprisals by black criminals. He calls it the “stop snitching” principle. Reporting a crime or criminal can have serious repercussions. Criminals often have little fear of being brought to justice. He reports that less than 1 percent of murderers are ever charged.

Walter Williams concludes that many of the problems in the black community in previous decades were due to racial discrimination. He concludes that the problems today are due to “high illegitimacy, family breakdown, and unsafe communities.” That’s why I believe the best solutions must come from churches and faith-based organizations.
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Kerby Anderson (@kerbyanderson) is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network (@PointofViewRTS) and is endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service.
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Holy Impeachment . . .Posted: 28 Jan 2020 01:26 PM PST. . . President Trump’s Legal team has eviscerated the House managers’ case for impeachment using facts and constitutional law.
Editorial Cartoon by AF “Tony” BrancoTags: Editorial Cartoon, AF Branco, Holy Impeachment, President Trump’s Legal team, has eviscerated, House managers’ case, for impeachment, using facts, constitutional law To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

Tough but also Tender: Phyllis SchlaflyPosted: 28 Jan 2020 01:16 PM PSTPhyllis Schlafly and Dr. Bill Smith
(ARRA News Service – 2011)
Discussing Threats To America!
Photo by Julie McKinney (NC)by Anne Schlafly Cori: Phyllis Schlafly intimidated people who did not know her, mostly because she spoke with firm conviction. She was tough and relentless in a debate. She excelled and rose to the occasion when she had opposition.

“Tough” was a word she liked to use. As a mother, she would answer her children with the word “tough” whenever we tried to squirm out of doing a chore. In other words, “tough” because she was in charge and you will do what she tells you. Or “tough” as in, you ought to toughen up and not whine or be a cry-baby.

Her toughness was tempered with a genuine graciousness and her likeability served her well when she lobbied legislators. Everyone knew where Phyllis stood on issues and that she would stick to her principles. Phyllis’s advocacy could not be purchased. She liked that no one ever doubted where she stood on issues.

She was cool under fire and never let her emotions get the better of her speech. While her opponents would cry — as Democratic Congressman Patricia Schroeder famously did — Phyllis Schlafly would no more cry in public than she would undress. She was certainly passionate about her causes, but she made her arguments dispassionately. She was more interested in facts than emotions. I only saw my mother cry once: on her deathbed. She viewed the public display of uncontrolled emotion as a weakness.

Because of her inner strength and the way she radiated confidence, some women did not consider her female. Betty Friedan called her “a traitor to her sex” — as if all women should have the same opinions. Gloria Steinem called her “the perfect enemy: wrong on every subject.”

My mother always admired and donated to missionaries, because she recognized that missionaries had the strength and confidence to go alone to a place and preach the truth. Phyllis Schlafly chose to do her missionary work at college campuses. She spoke to hundreds of hostile college audiences and was frequently booed or hissed at. She was energized and excited by these events. That’s toughness. When she spoke at Georgetown University while I was a student, a group of female students dressed up in chains (to show the oppression of women) and rattled their chains throughout the speech. She was unflappable.

Eunie Smith (president of Eagle Forum and Eagle Forum of Alabama) attended the first debate that Phyllis did on the Equal Rights Amendment against former Texas Lt. Gov. Sissy Farenthold in Birmingham, Alabama. The hour-long debate was moderated by the speaker of the Alabama House. When Phyllis had her turn for a two-minute response, the feminists in the audience hissed; but Phyllis, without missing a beat, said, “Mr. Moderator, please note the side from which the disruption comes.” They hushed. Sissy was so thoroughly beaten that she did not attend the dinner reception planned after the debate.

The courage and toughness of Phyllis Schlafly was contagious to Eunie and all the Eagles. Phyllis did not intimidate those who knew her. None of her family, friends, employees, or volunteers found her intimidating. Her admirers found her elegant toughness to be an inspiration.

Strong women can be exhausting because tough people demand excellence from everyone. Phyllis rejected excuses. The dog never ate her homework. She liked hard work; in fact, she did not know how to play or vacation. The work she had to do never left her mind from waking up to going to sleep. She did not know how to have conversations on subjects that did not interest her. Yes, Phyllis had a big ego, but it gave her the tough skin she needed to be successful in a hostile environment and the drive and determination to succeed.

One of her attributes that aided her tenacity was efficiency. She called herself “industrious.” Phyllis got things done, a lot of things. She multitasked. When she attended law school at Washington University in St. Louis, she had a 45-minute commute each way from home. So she utilized the time efficiently. At that time, there were no phones in the car. Her state leaders would use a cassette tape to record questions and comments for Phyllis. During her commute, Phyllis would listen to the tapes, then record her comments on the same cassette and mail the tape back to her lieutenant.

I well remember the anger and ugliness of my mother’s opponents. On June 30, 1982, CBS’s “Cagney and Lacey” scheduled a drama on the same night that Phyllis planned a celebration for the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment. The fictional drama showed the attempted assassination of Phyllis Schlafly during a political speech. The script was an attack on conservative women. After a lobbying campaign to CBS, the network did not air the show on that big night and no assassination attempt occurred. Even so, a bomb threat was made during the program. My mother held her cool and the dinner was a spectacular success.

Phyllis Schlafly is a role model for all women because she was both tough and winsome.

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Anne Schlafly Cori is Chairman of Eagle Forum and has served on Eagle Forum boards of directors since 2008. Phyllis Schlafly was a national leader of the conservative movement since the publication of her best-selling 1964 book, A Choice Not An Echo. She created the pro-family movement in 1972, when she started Eagle Forum. Phyllis Schlafly was a heroine, a role model, and a mentor to many Americans and a friend.
Tags: Anne Schlafly Cori, Phyllis Schlafly, Tough, Tinder To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

Arizona’s Longest-Living Veteran Dies in Tucson at Age 105Posted: 28 Jan 2020 01:12 PM PSTSophie Yazzie With USAF Honor Guardby Military.com via AP: Navajo Nation officials say a 105-year-old woman who served in World War II and was Arizona’s longest-living veteran has died.

They say Sophie Yazzie died Saturday in Tucson.

Yazzie, who was born in 1914 in the Arizona town of Canyon de Chelly, enlisted with the U.S. Army Air Corps at age 28 and served until she was honorably discharged.

Following her military service, Yazzie returned home and worked at Wingate Boarding School while raising her children with her husband before retiring.

Tribal officials say she had four children, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren with her late husband Jordan B. Yazzie.

A list of Sophie Yazzie’s survivors wasn’t immediately available Sunday and a her funeral services were pending.
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Shared by Military.com.
Tags: Military.com, AP, Navajo Nation, Arizona’s Longest-Living Veteran, Sophie Yazzie, Dies in Tucson at Age 105 To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

Virginia Gun Owners Have Just Begun Their FightPosted: 28 Jan 2020 12:59 PM PST by Cam Edwards: Now that the tens of thousands of Virginia gun owners and Second Amendment supporters have returned home from the incredible Lobby Day rally on January 20, what do we do now? Kurt has some pretty good answers.

What now is that you continue with the momentum from the rally and before. This is an insurgency – a peaceful one, despite the “de-escalate” crap your Jazz Singing’ chief executive is shoveling – and you need to keep up the pressure. This is about guns, which are the backstop of freedom but the liars and losers of the media want to pretend you don’t think so. They want to pretend you are looking for a chance to commit violence. They want to pretend you want to hurt people. That’s how they plan to delegitimize you.

Don’t fall for it.

First step: resolve that these garbage people, whether liberal pols, the media, Twitter blue checks, or Fredocon sissies who would have been all in with the Redcoats in 1776, can kiss your sweet Northam. When you don’t ignore them, mock them. They want to shame you into the shame of submission. They have zero moral authority. They are lying trash and worthy only of your contempt. Treat them accordingly.
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Gun Dynamics via Cam Edwards.
Tags: Virginia Gun Owners, Have Just Begun, Their Fight, Gun Dynamics, Cam Edwards To share or post to your site, click on “Post Link”. Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and “Like” Facebook Page – Thanks!

Defamed by the DevilPosted: 28 Jan 2020 12:48 PM PST by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: Challenged to a push-up contest at a town hall campaign meeting in New Hampshire, Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) hit the floor and won.

The presidential candidate (polling at 5.4 percent in the Granite State) probably will not win the nomination, alas.

Or her lawsuit against Hillary Clinton.

Lawsuit?

Yes, a slander suit against the author of What Happened.

It is one thing to publicly call out Mrs. Clinton for her prevaricative snipes — but sue her?

Boldness, at the very least.

Would you dare to stand directly in Hillary’s way?

Not to give credence to old #ClintonBodyCount conjectures, which connected a number of strange deaths in close proximity to her and her husband’s transit through the firmament of power, including old and more recent “suicides” . . . but the hashtag #TulsiDidntKillHerself is now trending on Twitter.

The lawsuit — dubbed a publicity stunt by David Frum in The Atlantic — involves Hillary’s public speculations (or conspiracy theory, if you will) that Tulsi is a “Russian agent.”

“Tulsi Gabbard is running for President of the United States, a position Clinton has long coveted, but has not been able to attain,” explains the lawsuit, filed in the State of New York. “In October 2019 — whether out of personal animus, political enmity, or fear of real change within a political party Clinton and her allies have long dominated — Clinton lied about her perceived rival Tulsi Gabbard. She did so publicly, unambiguously, and with obvious malicious intent.”

I am not a lawyer, but . . . while Mrs. Clinton’s insinuations-and-worse were malicious and almost certainly untrue, perhaps even diabolical, in our politics lying is the norm and hardly legally actionable.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Paul Jacob (@Common_Sense_PJ) is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacob is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.
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Coronavirus: How Worried Should We Be?Posted: 28 Jan 2020 12:13 PM PST by James Gallagher: A virus – previously unknown to science – is causing severe lung disease in China and has also been detected in other countries.

More than 100 people are known to have died from the virus, which appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December.

There are already more than 4,500 confirmed cases, and experts expect the number will keep rising.

A new virus arriving on the scene, leaving patients with pneumonia, is always a worry and health officials around the world are on high alert.

Can this outbreak be contained or is this something far more dangerous?
Coronavirus: Your questions answeredWuhan: The London-sized city where the virus beganChina coronavirus: What we know so farWhat is this virus?
Officials in China have confirmed the cases are caused by a coronavirus.

These are a broad family of viruses, but only six (the new one would make it seven) are known to infect people.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), which is caused by a coronavirus, killed 774 of the 8,098 people infected in an outbreak that started in China in 2002.

“There is a strong memory of Sars, that’s where a lot of fear comes from, but we’re a lot more prepared to deal with those types of diseases,” says Dr Josie Golding, from the Wellcome Trust.

How severe are the symptoms?
It seems to start with a fever, followed by a dry cough and then, after a week, leads to shortness of breath and some patients needing hospital treatment.

Around one-in-four cases are thought to be severe.

Notably, the infection rarely seems to cause a runny nose or sneezing.

The coronavirus family itself can cause symptoms ranging from a mild cold all the way through to death.

“When we see a new coronavirus, we want to know how severe are the symptoms. This is more than cold-like symptoms and that is a concern but it is not as severe as Sars,” says Prof Mark Woolhouse, from the University of Edinburgh.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is an emergency in China, but decided not to declare an international public health emergency – as it did with swine flu and Ebola.

How deadly is it?
More than 100 people are known to have died from the virus – but while the ratio of deaths to known cases appears low, the figures are unreliable.

But the infection seems to take a while to kill, so more of those patients may yet die.

And it is unclear how many unreported cases there are.

Where has it come from?
New viruses are detected all the time.

They jump from one species, where they went unnoticed, into humans.

“If we think about outbreaks in the past, if it is a new coronavirus, it will have come from an animal reservoir,” says Prof Jonathan Ball, a virologist at the University of Nottingham.

Many of the early coronavirus cases were linked to the South China Seafood Wholesale Market, in Wuhan.

But the earliest documented case, which has been traced back to 1 December, had no connection to the market.

Sars started off in bats and then infected the civet cat, which in turn passed it on to humans.

And Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), which has killed 858 out of the 2,494 recorded cases since it emerged in 2012, regularly makes the jump from the dromedary camel.

Which animal?
Once the animal reservoir (where the virus normally camps out) is detected, then the problem becomes much easier to deal with.

While some sea-going mammals can carry coronaviruses (such as the Beluga whale), the South China Seafood Wholesale Market also has live wild animals, including chickens, bats, rabbits, snakes, which are more likely to be the source.

Researchers say the new virus is closely related to one found in Chinese horseshoe bats.

However, this does not mean wild bats are the source of the outbreak – they could have passed the virus onto another species sold at the market.

Why China?
Prof Woolhouse says it is because of the size and density of the population and close contact with animals harbouring viruses.

“No-one is surprised the next outbreak is in China or that part of the world,” he says.

How easily does it spread between people?
At the beginning of the outbreak, the Chinese authorities said the virus was not spreading between people – but now, such cases have been identified.

Scientists have now revealed each infected person is passing the virus on to between 1.4 and 2.5 people.

This figure is called the virus’ basic reproduction number – anything higher than 1 means it’s self-sustaining.

We now know this is not a virus that will burn out on its own and disappear.

Only the decisions being made in China – including shutting down cities – can stop it spreading.

While those figures are early estimates, they put coronavirus in roughly the same league as Sars.

When are people infectious?
Chinese scientists say people are infectious even before their symptoms appear.

The time between infection and symptoms – known as the incubation period – lasts between one and 14 days.

Sars and Ebola are contagious only when symptoms appear. Such outbreaks are relatively easy to stop: identify and isolate people who are sick and monitor anyone they came into contact with.

Flu, however, is the most famous example of a virus that you spread before you even know you’re ill.

Prof Wendy Barclay from the department of infectious disease at Imperial College London said it was common for lung infectious to spread without symptoms.

The virus is “carried into the air during normal breathing and talking by the infected person,” she explained.

“It would not be too surprising if the new coronavirus also does this.”

We are not at the stage where people are saying this could be a global pandemic like swine flu.

But the problems of stopping such “symptomless spreaders” will make the job of the Chinese authorities much harder.

What is not known is how infectious people are during the incubation period.

How fast is it spreading?
It might appear as though cases have soared. But this is somewhat misleading.

Many of these seeming new cases will have come to light as a result of China improving its ability to find infected people.

There is actually very little information on the “growth rate” of the outbreak.

But experts say the number of people becoming sick is likely to be far higher than the reported figures.

A report last week by the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London said: “It is likely that the Wuhan outbreak of a novel coronavirus has caused substantially more cases of moderate or severe respiratory illness than currently reported.”

And over the weekend, researchers at Lancaster University estimated the number of cases suggesting 11,000 have been infected this year. If true, that would be more than Sars.

Could the virus mutate?
Yes, you would expect viruses to mutate and evolve all the time. But what this means is harder to tell.

China’s National Health Commission has warned the coronavirus’s transmission ability is getting stronger, but they were unclear on the risks posed by mutations of the virus.

This is something scientists will be watching closely.

How can the virus be stopped?
We now know the virus will not stop on its own; only the actions of the Chinese authorities can bring this epidemic to an end.

There is also no vaccine to give people immunity to the virus.

The only option is to prevent people who have become infected from spreading the virus to others.

That means:
Limiting people’s movementEncouraging hand-washingTreating patients in isolation with healthcare workers wearing protective gearA massive feat of detective work will also be needed to identify people whom patients have come into contact with to see if they have the virus.

Scientists in China have been using medication that they hope may help coronavirus patients in their recovery. It is too soon to say whether the two antiviral drugs (lopinavir and ritonavir) either together or in combination with other agents will work. They were also used by doctors during the Sars and Mers outbreaks.

How have Chinese authorities responded so far?
China has done something unprecedented anywhere in the world – by effectively putting Wuhan into quarantine.

Travel restrictions have also been imposed on a dozen other cities with 36 million people affected.

Some mass gatherings have been banned and tourists sites, including part of the Great Wall, have been closed.

And a ban on the sale of wildlife, a possible source of the infection, has been imposed.

Wuhan – the centre of the outbreak – is building a two new hospitals with beds for a total of 2,300 people.

How is the world responding?
Most Asian countries have stepped up screenings of travellers from Wuhan and the WHO has warned hospitals worldwide a wider outbreak is possible.

Singapore and Hong Kong have been screening air passengers from Wuhan and authorities in the US and the UK have announced similar measures.

However, questions remain about the effectiveness of such measures.

If it takes up to two weeks for symptoms to appear, then someone could easily be halfway round the world and have passed through any screening checks before starting to feel ill.

How worried are the experts?
Dr Golding says: “At the moment, until we have more information, it’s really hard to know how worried we should be.

“Until we have confirmation of the source, that’s always going to make us uneasy.”

Prof Ball says: “We should be worried about any virus that explores humans for the first time, because it’s overcome the first major barrier.

“Once inside a [human] cell and replicating, it can start to generate mutations that could allow it to spread more efficiently and become more dangerous.

“You don’t want to give the virus the opportunity.”

Are there any vaccines or treatments?
No.

However, the work to develop them is already under way. It is hoped that research into developing a vaccine for Mers, which is also a coronavirus, will make this an easier job.

And hospitals are testing anti-viral drugs to see if they have an impact.

A combination of two drugs – lopinavir and ritonavir – was successful in the Sars epidemic and are being tested in China.
——————-
James Gallagher @JamesTGallagher is a BBC health and science correspondent.
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Lies, Damned Lies and Adam Schiff’s Moving LipsPosted: 28 Jan 2020 11:25 AM PST by Frank Miele: You can take your pick for the most famous liars in history — people who are willing to say anything for the sake of gaining and keeping power — but surely Rep. Adam Schiff has earned a place on that list.

I won’t call Schiff a “congenital liar” — as Fox News personality Sean Hannity does nightly — but only because the term excuses Schiff of personal responsibility for his behavior. I don’t think it was his genes that made Schiff into a consummate liar but rather his narcissistic personality.

Watching Schiff spin his yarns as chief House manager for the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump reminds me of the great dissemblers of Shakespeare, such as “Honest Iago,” who is only comfortable in his own skin when he is making the skin of others crawl. The “motiveless malignity” that poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge ascribed to Iago is writ large in the perfunctory perfidy that Schiff practices with unassuming ease. He would destroy a king, but he assures us he takes no pleasure in it, wink-wink, nod-nod.

Perhaps I am giving Schiff too much credit. He might be more akin to Monsieur Parolles of “All’s Well That Ends Well,” the arrogant know-it-all whose own words come back to haunt him: “He will lie, sir, with such volubility, that you would think truth were a fool.”

That, of course, is the problem, because the senators hearing the impeachment trial might also be giving Schiff too much credit. If they are not familiar with the facts of the case, then they might lend credibility to the pompous utterances emanating from the well of the Senate by Schiff and the other House managers. Since the rules of the Senate allowed Schiff to make his argument for 24 uninterrupted hours, it gave him the opportunity to frame the case against President Trump in fully partisan and factually deficient terms. The only word that accurately describes what Schiff did to Trump in his presentation of the case is to say that he “framed” him. To use a legal term of art, Schiff argued “facts not in evidence,” and without anyone to object, the senators were left to assume that these facts were true when time and again they were false and misleading.

Start with Schiff opening his argument by quoting Alexander Hamilton on the dangers to the republic of unprincipled men, and you will begin to appreciate the Shakespearean scope of the irony at play last week. Schiff meant to castigate Trump, but the words are better directed at Schiff himself — for it is he who is “seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity.” It is he who has joined in the “cry of danger to liberty.” It is he who has taken “every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion.” It is he who has fallen in with “all the non sense of the zealots of the day.”

It is appropriate therefore to apply Hamilton’s warning against unprincipled men of bold temper to the chief House manager himself: “It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”

We got plenty of sturm und drang as Schiff began to lay out the case against the president to an audience of virginal senators who were hearing only one side of the story for three straight days. The danger was laid out accurately by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, although as usual he missed the point:

“It may have been the first time that many of my Republican colleagues heard the full story, the complete narrative from start to finish, uninterrupted and not filtered through the kaleidoscope lens of Fox News where at best things are left out and at worst things are terribly distorted. It may have planted the first seed in their minds that, yes, perhaps the president did something very wrong here.”

Do you spot the logical fallacy in this statement? It is the key to the entire impeachment hoax. Schumer believes that Schiff delivered “the full story, the complete narrative” when, in fact, he just delivered the same argument we have heard since September. It cannot be the “full story” because at that time last week we had still not heard “the rest of the story,” as Paul Harvey used to say. Namely, we had not heard the president’s defense team make any rebuttal of the unchallenged assumptions of Schiff and the Democratic coup crew. It was in the House managers’ presentation, not Fox News, that we saw how “at best things [were] left out and at worst things [were] terribly distorted.”

I cringed as I listened to Rep. Schiff make repeated assertions of fact that were nothing but opinion and wondered how the senators could possibly not recognize the trick. Forget about the Senate being the greatest deliberative body in the world — hadn’t any of them at least been debaters in high school? How hard is it to spot a red herring when you are shooting fish in a barrel?

I started trying to catalog Schiff’s lies as soon as he played the Hamilton card. As the House Intelligence Committee chairman explained, the Hamilton quote was from 1792 when George Washington was finishing up his first term of office. The quote comes from a document in which Hamilton was defending himself against politically motivated charges that he was operating against the public interest as secretary of the Treasury. It should thus be seen as a parallel of President Trump defending himself against the petty and scurrilous attacks of his political opponents, not as an indictment of Trump.

When Hamilton wrote elsewhere in the same document that, to his opponents, “every man of a different opinion from your own [seems] an ambitious despot or a corrupt knave,” he might well have been talking of the hubristic approach of Monsieur Schiff as he defames the duly elected president of the United States. Consider for instance how Schiff conflates Hamilton’s fear of “a man unprincipled in private life” with the framers’ impeachment mechanism as a means to remove a president who has committed “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” They, of course, have nothing in common.

Hamilton was confronting a movement of agitators who, as he notes, were taking “every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion.” Schiff is himself that enemy whom Hamilton confronted, yet to the innocent ears of the Senate, perhaps unfamiliar with Hamilton’s text on “Objections and Answers Respecting the Administration,” it may seem entirely reasonable to apply Hamilton’s warning to Trump. Such is the devious nature of these distortions. We can only hope that the president’s lawyers were taking careful notes and can remind the senators of the casual disregard for truth that Schiff exhibits almost every time he opens his mouth in public.

After months of dry runs, Schiff started to lay out his case in earnest on Wednesday last week — except he didn’t. The facts that he presented (while damnable) were not impeachable; and the opinions that he presented (while impeachable) were not factual. For those of us who have been watching the Schiff Show since September, the legerdemain was easily spotted within the first five minutes.

According to Schiff, “President Trump solicited foreign interference in our democratic elections, abusing the power of his office to seek help from abroad to improve his reelection prospects at home.”

This is the central argument of the first article of impeachment, and yet it is entirely without substantiation. Trump did ask President Zelensky of the Ukraine to look into allegations of corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. He also did ask for Zelensky’s help in investigating whether or not a computer server was located in the Ukraine that contained evidence of election interference in 2016. In other words he did not solicit interference in an election, but rather sought a commitment to assist in finding out whether interference had already illicitly taken place.

Neither Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president, nor Rudy Giuliani’s prior or subsequent investigations, were ever founded on a premise of soliciting foreign interference in an election. That is strictly the surmise of Democrats who do not like the idea of President Trump investigating corruption involving Joe Biden, the potential future standard-bearer for their party. Any claim that Trump’s motive is known to be corrupt is strictly a guess, no matter how loudly Schiff and his colleagues proclaim it to be so.

Same thing goes for the CrowdStrike server. Schiff opines that Trump was promoting the idea that Ukraine, to the exclusion of Russia, interfered in the 2016 election. That conjecture by Schiff in entirely without evidence. The reason why the missing server is important is because it might explain what really happened in 2016 and how Democratic emails were purloined to the detriment of Hillary Clinton. Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election had nothing to do with the server, but was an entirely separate issue related to official government opposition to Trump’s election.

The second article of impeachment was neatly summed up in Schiff’s next sentence about the president’s response after the whistleblower’s complaint was made public: “When he was caught, he used the powers of that office to obstruct the investigation into his own misconduct.”

Not exactly. He wasn’t “caught” doing anything other than being president, but since the whistleblower law was actively abused by both the intelligence community’s inspector general and Schiff himself in his role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, it wasn’t surprising that Trump used the powers of his office to push back against a coup attempt by members of Congress, intelligence agents and disgruntled bureaucrats who despise the outsider presidency foisted upon them by a rebellious electorate. Only in the minds of spurned “masters of the universe” does the lawful exercise of presidential power look like “obstruction of Congress.”

I could go on, point by point, to demonstrate how Schiff’s rhetoric masks his empty arsenal of facts, but why bother? If we learned anything last week from the wall-to-wall coverage of the impeachment trial, it is this — facts do not matter, nor does the truth. Adam Schiff has driven the country into a dark place where dissent is not allowed, where investigation of wrongdoing is abuse of power, and where self-defense is obstruction. I wish I could say that Alexander Hamilton would not recognize such a country, but in his genius he anticipated petty, deceitful minds such as that of Adam Schiff, who thought to hang his case against Trump on a quote by Hamilton, but instead is hung by him with this eloquent indictment:

“You bring everything to the standard of your narrow and depraved ideas, and you condemn without mercy or decency whatever does not accord with it. Every man who is too long or too short for your political couch must be stretched or lopped to suit it. … As to the love of liberty and Country you have given no stronger proofs of being actuated by it than I have done. Cease then to arrogate to yourself and to your party all the patriotism and virtue of the Country. Renounce if you can the intolerant spirit by which you are governed — and begin to reform yourself instead of reprobating others, by beginning to doubt of your own infallibility.”
———————–
Frank Miele (@HeartlandDiary), the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell MT, is a columnist for RealClearPolitics. His “Why We Needed Trump” trilogy is available at Amazon. H/T Real Clear Politics
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Life in the AdministrationPosted: 28 Jan 2020 11:06 AM PST by Tony Perkins: Last Friday, President Trump made history by becoming the first sitting U.S. president to speak in-person at the March for Life, the nation’s largest gathering of pro-life supporters and advocates. Speaking before hundreds of thousands assembled on the National Mall, President Trump declared, “All of us here today understand an eternal truth: Every child is a precious and sacred gift from God. Together, we must protect, cherish, and defend the dignity and sanctity of every human life.” Evoking imagery from Psalm 139:13, he continued, “When we see the image of a baby in the womb, we glimpse the majesty of God’s creation.”

The president’s historic address is just the latest example of the administration’s commitment to protecting children and limiting abortion. Thankfully, this commitment to life extends beyond just rhetoric. In fact, the Trump administration has taken significant action to advance the pro-life movement. For example, in President Trump’s first week in office, he reinstated the Mexico City Policy to ensure that no taxpayer money would go to foreign non-governmental organizations that provide or actively promote abortion. However, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explained on Friday’s edition of Washington Watch, the Trump administration not only reinstated the Reagan-era policy but expanded it to cover about $9 billion of federal aid.

This expansion was necessary, Secretary Pompeo said, because “There’s always risk that when you provide resources to [foreign non-governmental organizations], they will sub-contract it, or they will flow that money to some other entity and thereby be able to certify that they didn’t do it [use funds to promote abortion] but have enabled someone else to use those American dollars for that purpose. We’ve put in place programs and certification processes to prevent that from happening.”

In addition to expanding the Mexico City Policy, the Trump administration has sought to limit abortion in other ways including introducing a new regulation through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that prohibits recipients of Title X family planning funding from providing or referring patients for abortions (which effectively defunding Planned Parenthood of $60 million in annual revenue), calling on states to join a coalition of countries that seek to advocate against pro-abortion policies at the World Health Organization and the United Nations, and vowing to veto any legislation that weakens pro-life policies or that encourages the destruction of human life.

More evidence of the unprecedented commitment to the sanctity of life and religious freedom was seen at an event hosted by Family Research Council on Friday. Alex Azar, Secretary of HHS, announced that the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) at HHS will enforce the Weldon amendment (which prohibits federal funds from going to states that discriminate against any health care entity which does not pay for or provide coverage for abortions) by issuing a notice of violation against California for their mandate forcing every health insurance carrier to cover elective abortion.

The Trump administration’s work against the culture of death represented by the abortion lobby is grounded in a biblical and moral worldview shared by America’s founders. As Secretary Pompeo explained, “These are the fundamental rights that each human being is granted by our creator and who are enshrined in international human rights.” Pompeo explained that these values guide him and his team at the State Department to protect the unborn wherever the United States government has a role. As Pompeo told me, “We have done our level best to make sure that no taxpayer dollar ever goes to fund an abortion. Abortion isn’t a human right. In fact, it takes a human life.”

The administration’s stalwart defense for the human rights of all people stands in stark contrast to the values of the cultural left. Although ignoring the March for Life and continuing to oppose the human rights’ of unborn children, Joe Biden found time over the weekend to conflate human rights with the far left’s push to normalize transgender ideology, tweeting, “Let’s be clear: Transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time. There is no room for compromise when it comes to basic human rights.”

The former vice president’s “no room for compromise” comment is reminiscent of the heavy-handed approach taken by President Obama who often sought to use the State Department to export radical gender ideologies around the world (despite the offense this caused many of America’s poorer allies). In fact, in 2015, under then-Secretary John Kerry, the State Department created a “Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI Persons.” The sole job of the Special Envoy was to advance the agenda of far-left activists.

By contrast, the State Department under Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s leadership has focused on real human right’s issues, holding the first-ever Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in 2018. Dozens of countries participated, and the United States along with others signed a statement condemning terrorism and the abuse of religious believers by non-state actors. At the 2019 Ministerial, the United States led a group of 46 countries to condemn attacks on places of worship.

Whether on abortion or their advocacy for human rights or religious freedom, the contrast between the two parties could not be starker. Over the weekend, NARAL’s president, Ilyse Hogue, boasted on Twitter that she successfully lobbied for the 2016 Democratic platform to include the “strongest language in history” on abortion. Ominously, she added “And I am honored to be nominated for that committee again this cycle.”

Going into November, American Christians will need to think carefully about how their faith informs their approach to elections and their responsibility to vote. Remembering that over 80 percent of the time politicians vote in line with their party platform, Christians need to take a close look at the party platforms (which will be released this summer) and understand how these platforms represent contrasting worldviews.

————–
Tony Perkins (@tperkins) is President of the Family Research Council . This article was on Tony Perkin’s Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
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Survivors Return to Auschwitz 75 Years After LiberationPosted: 28 Jan 2020 09:55 AM PSTSurvivors carry a wreath at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp.by Vanessa Gera: OSWIECIM, Poland — Survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp gathered Monday for commemorations marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the camp, using the testimony of survivors to warn about the signs of rising anti-Semitism and hatred in the world today.

In all, some 200 survivors of the camp are expected, many of them elderly Jews who have traveled far from homes in Israel, the United States, Australia, Peru, Russia, Slovenia and elsewhere. Many lost parents and grandparents in Auschwitz or other Nazi death camps, but today were being joined in their journey back by children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren.

Most of the 1.1 million people murdered by the Nazi German forces at the camp were Jewish, but among those imprisoned there were also Poles and Russians, and they will also be among those at a commemoration Monday led by Polish President Andrzej Duda and the head of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder.

Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet army on Jan. 27, 1945.

World leaders gathered in Jerusalem last week to mark the anniversary in what many saw as a competing observance. Among them were Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, French President Emmanuel Macron and Britain’s Prince Charles.

Politics intruded on that event, with Duda boycotting it in protest after Putin claimed that Poland played a role in triggering World War II. Duda had wanted a chance to speak before or after Putin to defend his nation’s record in face of those false accusations, but he was not giving a speaking slot in Jerusalem.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is expected at the event at Auschwitz, which is located in southern Poland, a region under German occupation during the war.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan was guided through the camp by museum director Piotr Cywinski and viewed a plaque that now includes the name of his city after it recently pledged a contribution of 300,000 pounds for the site’s preservation.

Organizers of the event in Poland, the Auschwitz-Birkenau state memorial museum and the World Jewish Congress, have sought to keep the spotlight on survivors.

“This is about survivors. It’s not about politics,” Lauder said Sunday as he went to the death camp with several survivors.

Lauder warned that leaders must do more to fight anti-Semitism, including by passing new laws to fight it.

On the eve of the commemorations, survivors, many leaning on their children and grandchildren for support, walked through the place where they had been brought in on cattle cars and suffered hunger, illness and near death. They said they were there to remember, to share their histories with others, and to make a gesture of defiance toward those who had sought their destruction.

For some, it is also the burial ground for their parents and grandparents, and they will be saying kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead.

“I have no graves to go to and I know my parents were murdered here and burned. So this is how I pay homage to them,” said Yvonne Engelman, a 92-year-old who came from Australia, joined by three more generations now scattered around the globe.

She recalled being brought in from a ghetto in Czechoslovakia by cattle car, being stripped of her clothes, shaved and put in a gas chamber. By some miracle, the gas chamber that day did not work, and she went on to survive slave labor and a death march.

A 96-year-old survivor, Jeanette Spiegel, was 20 when she was brought to Auschwitz, where she spent nine months. Today she lives in New York City and is fearful of rising anti-Semitic violence in the United States.

“I think they pick on the Jews because we are such a small minority and it is easy to pick on us,” she said, fighting back tears. “Young people should understand that nothing is for sure, that some terrible things can happen and they have to be very careful. And that, God forbid, what happened to the Jewish people then should never be repeated.”

In Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron paid his respects at the city’s Shoah Memorial and warned about rising hate crimes in France, which increased 27% last year.
“That anti-Semitism is coming back is not the Jewish people’s problem: It’s all our problem — it’s the nation’s problem,” Macron said.
———————-
Vanessa Gera writes for the Military.com & Assoc Press. Thomas Adamson in Paris contributed to article shared via Fair Use Doctrine.
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Phyllis Chesler marches out of step with most of her feminist sisters. Read More…
Ruling Class Held Hostage by Trump’s ImpeachmentJan 29, 2020 01:00 am
Being relegated exclusively to the Democrat party means that the ruling class must accommodate and adopt the radical tenets of the much larger Marxist/socialist wing of the Party if they wish to win the Party’s nominations for elective offices.   Read More…

Recent Blog Posts

Pierre Delecto would like you to know how important he is
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
Mitt Romney is joining the Democrats in calling for John Bolton to testify as a witness.  Read more…
What that CNN clip of Don Lemon, Rick Wilson and Wajahat Ali tells us about the election ahead
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
Rick Wilson, Don Lemon and Wajahat Ali’s brand of bitter mockery has been nearly wholly the province of the Left. That Trump has adopted some of their tactics is why his supporters love him.  Read more…
Cancel Yale
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
I take this opportunity to renounce myself as an alumnus in good standing.  Read more…
The key to Democratic victory in November!
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
At least, this seems to be what Democrats think will be most effective.  Read more…
When it comes to the self-styled Democrat ‘elite,’ they hate you, they really hate you.
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
CNN’s Don Lemon presided over an impromptu “Trump voter roast,” with his guests cackling about the exquisite stupidity of Trump’s “boomer rube” supporters.  Read more…
Think there isn’t a uniparty ruling class? Exhibit A: John Bolton
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
Arrogant, self-serving panjandrums like John Bolton are why Mitch McConnell ought to scrap this impeachment show fast.  Read more…
If Bolton gets called, why not others?
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
Republicans should forcefully move away from the Democrat-created concept of witness bartering.  Read more…
Diversity by subtraction
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
The cultural Marxists who dominate academia are not interested in adding to the Western canon.  Read more…
We live in a visual age and these videos capture today’s Zeitgeist
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
From crowds at a Trump rally, to a triumphant impeachment closing argument, to a perfect Animal House impeachment remix, sometimes a video’s the only way to go.  Read more…
As Bernie soars, some Democrats are worried he might win the primary.
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
These Democrats are right to be worried as another video from Project Veritas showcases two more Bernie Bros who dream of a communist takeover.  Read more…
Warming and open debate
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
We need less strident defenders of the anthropogenic view, more neutral scientific inquiry and debate.  Read more…
Sen. Dianne Feinstein indicated that she might vote to acquit Trump – and then recanted.
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
Possibly concerned about Joe Biden’s exposure, Feinstein fell back on nonsensical “constitution babble” to put out feelers for whether she could acquit Trump.  Read more…
The NEA goes all in on abortion
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
The bureaucrats running our schools are committed left-wing activists.  Read more…
President Trump releases his Middle East “Peace to Prosperity” plan
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
Trump introduced a plan for Israeli security and Palestinian prosperity, one that Israelis support and that Palestinians preemptively rejected.  Read more…
Trump Doctrine protects U.S. against nuclear missile threat
Jan 29, 2020 01:00 am
Deep state has a lot to do to catch up with our president.  Read more…
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THE WASHINGTON POST MORNING MIX

Sign up for this newsletter Read online Stories from all over. (Mark Blinch/AP)‘I’m a girl dad’: Kobe Bryant’s words inspire proud fathers to celebrate daughters in viral movement“#girldad” went viral Tuesday after ESPN anchor Elle Duncan’s tribute to the NBA legend highlighted his devotion to his daughters.By Allyson Chiu ● Read more » Ice cream vendor denied Swiss citizenship because he didn’t know bears and wolves shared an enclosure at the zooSwitzerland’s supreme court overruled the decision on Monday, calling it arbitrary.By Antonia Farzan ● Read more » No more Punxsutawney Phil? It’s ‘long overdue’ for an AI groundhog instead, PETA says.“Today’s young people are born into a world of terabytes,” the group said, “and to them, watching a nocturnal rodent being pulled from a fake hole isn’t even worthy of a text message.”By Teo Armus ● Read more » Jason Polan, an artist who set out to draw every person in New York, has died at 37Jason Polan drew everyday scenes of everyday people and changed how some of them saw the world.By Meagan Flynn ● Read more » Dylann Roof’s lawyers appeal death sentence for Charleston church massacre, arguing the trial was ‘tainted’ by mental health issuesJurors sentenced Dylann Roof to death for slaying nine black worshipers in a Charleston, S.C., church in 2015. His lawyers argue the court made mistakes during the trial.By Katie Shepherd ● Read more » A tech company gave doctors free software — rigged to encourage them to prescribe opioids, prosecutors sayPractice Fusion accepted $1 million in kickbacks from a major opioid manufacturer in exchange for boosting their sales, according to court documents filed Monday.By Antonia Farzan ● Read more » A cooler in the water led investigators to an alleged ‘serial’ baby killer, now charged in five deaths over nine yearsPolice say Paul Allen Perez killed five infants between 1992 and 2001, going entirely undetected until a fisherman’s grim discovery put investigators on his trail.By Meagan Flynn ● Read more » We think you’ll like this newsletter Check out By The Way for tips and guides that will help you travel better and make you feel like a local wherever you go. Delivered every Thursday. Sign up »

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DESERET NEWS

View this email in your browser Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2020Fear of coronavirus a good time to talk to kids about keeping fears realistic and manageable Romney wants to call witnesses; McConnell short on votes to block it — for now The top 13 Super Bowl performances from players with Utah ties 5 fantastic northern Utah winter activities for families (Sponsored)New money for air quality? Why there’s a quandary at the Utah Legislature WWII veteran shares his story of survival in shark-infested waters that left hundreds dead in 1945 MORE NEWSLarry Krystkowiak laments Kobe Bryant’s death, hopes world can become better place Mayors from southwest Salt Lake County make their case against the Olympia Hills development Jillian Hoffman, Abby Paulson and Missy Reinstadtler among Utah gymnasts pushing for spots in lineups
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CBS

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Eye OpenerAn overnight flight carried U.S. diplomats and other Americans out of the Chinese city at the center of the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Also, Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, challenges former national security adviser John Bolton’s claims about President Trump and Ukraine in a “CBS This Morning” exclusive interview. All that and all that matters in today’s Eye Opener. Your world in 90 seconds.Watch Video +

Some Americans evacuated from WuhanWatch Video +

Clues found at Kobe Bryant’s crash site as new video emergesRead Story + Giuliani says he “never ever” discussed Ukraine aid with TrumpRead Story +

U.S. cracking down on social security fraudWatch Video + Sneak peek at Super Bowl LIV adsWatch Video +

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THE DAILY SIGNAL

Jan 29, 2020

Good morning from Washington, where lawmakers begin asking questions today in the Senate impeachment trial now that President Trump’s defense team is done with its arguments. Fred Lucas has what you need to know, as well as details on the president’s new Middle East peace plan. Plus: the return of the Equal Rights Amendment, double voting in elections, and the tyranny of democracy. On this date in 2002, in his first State of the Union address since the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush calls Iraq, Iran, and North Korea an “axis of evil.”

	NEWS‘Danger, Danger, Danger’: 4 Highlights From Final Day of Defense Arguments in Impeachment Trial By Fred Lucas “You cannot impeach a president on unsourced allegations,” says Jay Sekulow, one of President Trump’s lawyers.MoreCOMMENTARYThe Double Voting Problem By Hans von Spakovsky Paul Pate, Iowa’s secretary of state, referred nine Iowans to Polk County prosecutors for double voting in 2018—that is, voting in Iowa and another state in the same election.MoreANALYSISWhat You Need to Know About the Equal Rights Amendment’s Legal Fight By Rachel del Guidice Heritage Foundation’s Tom Jipping explains why it’s not true that the Equal Rights Amendment has now been ratified by enough states to become a Constitutional amendment.MoreNEWSTrump Offers Middle East Peace Deal: ‘We Have an Obligation to Humanity to Get It Done’By Fred Lucas The Trump administration’s plan would recognize a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem where the United States would open an embassy, and would “more than double the Palestinian territory,” the president said.MoreSPECIAL FEATUREWhy These 8 Americans Attended the March for Life By Virginia Aabram “I had an abortion when I was younger, and I feel very strongly that it was a mistake,” Gisele Flores says of why she was at the March for Life. “You live with that for the rest of your life.”MoreCOMMENTARYDemocracy Is Another Form of Tyranny By Walter E. Williams The word democracy appears nowhere in our nation’s two most fundamental documents, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.More

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GATEWAY PUNDIT

Web version Busted: Democrats Caught Sending Out Cookie-Cutter Form Letters to US Senators to Astroturf Impeachment Support The leftists and their shills are at it as usual, this time using form letters to give an illusion of support for impeaching Trump…. Read more… Larry C. Johnson: FBI Lied to a Federal Court Regarding Seth Rich Thanks to Judicial Watch, a new batch of emails have surfaced that put the FBI in a whole lot of trouble with at least two… Read more… *ZING* Jared Kushner on John Bolton: ‘The People Doing the Real Work, They’re Not Writing Books’ (VIDEO) President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner joined FOX and Friends on Wednesday morning to discuss the proposed Mideast Peace Plan that was announced… Read more… BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Anti-Trump CIA ‘Whistleblower’ in Ukraine Hoax Was the Leaker in the Russia Hoax!… And Much, Much More! The leaker in the Ukraine Hoax is also a key contributor to the Russia Hoax. His treasonous actions began after he worked with the Bidens… Read more… BIG CHINA UPDATE: Airlines Cancel More Flights, Borders Closing – Mayor of Wuhan Says Government Was Warned in December But They Kept it Secret Live report from Hong Kong China is devastated by coronavirus. The government is shutting down most of the country. Major cities look like ghost towns…. Read more… CNN’s Don Lemon Gives Non-Apology Excuses for Laughing Hysterically During Segment Mocking Trump Voters CNN’s Don Lemon addressed a viral clip in which he laughed hysterically as his two guests trashed supporters of President Donald Trump during his show… Read more… Can’t Make This Up… New York State Is Now Mandating “Stargazing Permits” For Looking At The Sky Imagine this: You’re out with your family in one of the parks in New York state where you can actually see the stars when it… Read more… THIS Should Scare the Hell Out of Every American: Democrats Promise to Persecute Trump Supporters if They Take White House… AND THEY MEAN IT! Far left Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) unveiled a new campaign plan Tuesday. She must have come up with this idea while sitting through hours of… Read more… Ted Malloch and Felipe Cuello: Trump’s World: GEO DEUS Guest post by Prof. Nic Capaldi, Loyola University This is the most significant publication to date on Trump. It is a refreshing explanation of Trump… Read more… You Might Like Advertisement

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CENTER FOR SECURITY POICY

Highlighted Articles/InterviewsThe “Deal of the Century”: The first viable peace plan Understanding the deal of the century from a Muslim perspective Fleitz: Ambassador Bolton, withdraw your book New report says radical Islam driving rise in Christian persecution Putin picks the man to build Russia’s high-tech police state Did Wuhan coronavirus escape from a lab in China?The deadly Wuhan Coronavirus, dubbed “2019-nCoV” by the World Health Organization (WHO), is spreading farther and faster than the SARS virus (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) did at a similar point in its outbreak, although this corona virus’ lethality rate is still lower than for SARS at around 4% so far. The pathogens are the same — both are corona viruses — but something has changed with the Wuhan variant that has allowed the rate of transmission to increase significantly over SARS.

Read the article by Center Vice President for Research and Analysis, Clare Lopez.LIVE STREAM TOMROROW at 12:00pm EST – Socialism and American National Security Tomorrow, the Center will host a live stream featuring Center Vice President for Government Affairs, J. Michael Waller and Senior Fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, Dr. Juliana Geran Pilon.

Watch the live stream on Secure FreedomYouTube and Facebook.The one-state solution to Middle East peace – IsraelPresident Trump has made the Palestinians an offer he hopes they can’t refuse. The “Vision for Peace” he unveiled yesterday at the White House offered them the prospect of a state of their own and $50 billion in exchange for recognizing the State of Israel and committing to live peacefully side-by-side with it.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, his chief rival in their nation’s past and upcoming elections, have endorsed the President’s vision.What passes for the leadership of Palestinians – an unsavory assortment of thugs, corrupt politicians and jihadists – have, however, categorically rejected it. It seems a safe bet that many other Palestinians might be more favorably disposed, but they lack the power and physical security to have any impact.Consequently, for now, there is a one-state solution for Mideast peace and it’s called Israel. This is Frank Gaffney.With Gordon ChangGORDON CHANG, The Daily Beast contributor, Author of The Coming Collapse of China and Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes on the World, Latest book: Losing South Korea (2019):Implications of Xi Jinping’s ‘China Dream’How does the outbreak of the coronavirus play into Xi’s rule?Could the coronavirus be a product of the Communist Party of China?(PART TWO):Why is more information about the coronavirus not known?Why the Chinese Communist Party is controlling the narrative of this diseasePossible origins of the coronavirus(PART THREE):The UK’s decision to allow Huawei to handle their 5G networkWhy the US needs a Huawei competitorA shocking development from the Defense Department with respect to Huawei(PART FOUR):An overview of the social credit system in ChinaHikvision’s role in surveilling the Chinese peopleTWEET OF THE DAY Retweet, like, and comment!DONATE View this email in your browser Copyright © 2020 Center for Security Policy, All rights reserved.

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BERNARD GOLDBERG

A new post from Bernie.Off the Cuff: The Dems Who Cried Wolf …On ImpeachmentBy Bernard Goldberg on Jan 29, 2020 02:00 am

Below is a sneak peek of this content! Impeaching a president is a serious measure. But if you’ve been listening to the Democrats, you might have a hard time believing that. That’s the topic of today’s Off the Cuff audio commentary. You can listen to it by clicking on the… CONTINUE
Read More »

More to read:Bernie and Donald – Not As Different As You May Think
Bernie’s Q&A: Jeff Zucker, Warren vs. Sanders, NFL Concussions, and more! (1/24) — Premium Interactive ($4 members)
Off the Cuff: A Democratic Impeachment Conspiracy to Hurt Sanders?
(Not Exactly) Breaking News: CNN Has Become a Journalistic Embarrassment
Bernie’s Q&A: Impeachment, CNN Debate Bias, the Robach Video, and more! (1/17) — Premium Interactive ($4 members)Become A Fan Follow on Twitter Forward to a FriendWant emails sent directly to you?SIGN UP NOW
In this issue:Off the Cuff: The Dems Who Cried Wolf …On Impeachment
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Forward this Email!About BernieBernard Goldberg, the television news reporter and author of Bias, a New York Times number one bestseller about how the media distort the news, is widely seen as one of the most original writers and thinkers in broadcast journalism. He has covered stories all over the world for CBS News and has won 13 Emmy awards for excellence in journalism. He won six Emmys at CBS, and seven at HBO, where he now reports for the widely acclaimed broadcast Real Sports. [Read More…]

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MORNING NEWS BRIEFING – JANUARY 29, 2020

POLITICO Playbook: Another Kushner enterprise finally goes public

DRIVING THE DAY

POLITICO Playbook newsletter

PLAYBOOK READS

PLAYBOOKERS

The Morning Dispatch: Boris Goes With Huawei

Plus, the White House releases its plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—with no buy-in from the Palestinians.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

The Tory U.K. Folds on China’s Huawei

It Takes Three Wheels to Make a Tricycle

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Ready for more?

1 big thing: ❓ Question time! What senators will ask?

2. ⚖️ McConnell scrambles to hold back witness push

3. Why we panic about coronavirus, but not flu

4. 🗳️ Hot on the 2020 trail

5. 🎬 Video: 5G, as seen from two Georgia cities

6. Trump peace plan already matters on ground

7. 📺 Impeachment ratings

8. 🎥 1 film thing