President Trump’s job approval rating has ticked up 6 percentage points since the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry began, according to a new survey.
The Gallup poll released early Wednesday found Trump’s approval rating at 45 percent, up from 39 percent when the inquiry was launched in the fall. The new findings mark the third-consecutive increase in Trump’s approval rating, Gallup noted.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/several-democrats-defect-impeachment-gop-holds-together
While the votes to impeach President Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress fell mostly along party lines, three Democrats bucked their party on Wednesday evening to vote against impeaching the president on at least one of the articles.
Reps. Jeff Van Drew, D-N.J., and Collin Peterson, D-Minn., voted against both articles of impeachment. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, voted in favor of impeaching Trump on abuse of power, but not on obstruction of Congress.
Another Democrat, presidential candidate and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, voted “present” on both impeachment resolutions.
The result helped GOP lawmakers make the case that the only bipartisan vote on the floor Wednesday evening was the vote against impeachment — as all Republicans held together in opposition.
“Not a single Republican broke ranks,” GOP Rep. Greg Steube of Florida told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson minutes after the vote.
Rep. Justin Amash, I-Mich., who left the Republican Party earlier this year, voted “yea” on both articles.
All three Democrats who voted against impeaching Trump come from districts that Trump won in the 2016 election and are expected to face difficult reelection campaigns in the swing districts.
http://swtotd.blogspot.com/
In a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (“I’m Partial to Impartiality,” December 12, 2019) Joseph Epstein wrote, “I happen to be someone who, in politics, yearns for impartiality.” I suspect that that desire for impartiality is common to most Americans – in the current environment, it “is a consummation devoutly to be wished,” as Hamlet would say. Most recognize we live in a pluralistic society, comprised of people from every nation on earth, representing all religions and races. In our homes, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates, we speak 350 languages. Nevertheless, we have in common a love of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We favor a middle road, which accommodates all travelers. But, in recent times, with our biases, real and imagined, we struggle for a common purpose and a common morality. Where I disagree with Mr. Epstein, whose mind and writing style I admire and envy, is that he puts principal blame on Donald Trump for the discord that has disrupted our lives. I would certainly agree that Mr. Trump has accentuated the divide, but real blame is more widely distributed.
Politicians have compartmentalized the electorate – youth versus age, urban versus rural, rich versus poor, people of color versus Caucasians, immigrants versus nativists, gays versus straight, globalists versus nationalists. As well, there are those in the industrialized (and former industrialized) parts of the Country who have seen coastal elites become wealthy, while their incomes have fallen or grown stagnant. There are a few immigrants who have chosen not to adapt to the culture of their adopted country, and there are people who have been here for generations who fear a breakdown in the social unity they have enjoyed. A culture of victimization, identity politics and moral relativism accentuates these divides. There are secularized elites on the coasts who cannot understand why folk in rural areas cling to religion and guns. There are those who have hated Mr. Trump from when he first ran for the Presidency, people who will do anything to remove him from office. (Last week, Nancy Pelosi, in a slip-of-the-tongue, said she had been working on impeachment for two-and-a-half years. Yet, hypocritically, she claims it is with great sadness she has advanced articles of impeachment.) And, of course, social media allows factions to gather in greater numbers, with more intense focus. And there are those like me who fear that the decades-long tilt in Washington toward statism, with the acquiescence of mainstream media, risks the fundamentals of personal liberty and economic liberty on which this nation was founded. In good conscience, I cannot remain silent.
DPS Note: I don’t understand why the newspapers have to refer to people filmed committing violent crimes as “suspects” when they could say “perpetrators.” The guy in the film referred to in this article really can’t be “suspected” of punching the 21 year old lady in the face when you can actually see him do it.
Weird, huh? But not as weird as the fact that not a single person in the article is identified by race. I wonder if police reports are written this way. Also, keep in mind that under the new NYS law to go into effect on January 1st, 2020, this “suspect” will be required to be released without putting up any bail to assure that he’ll return for his next required appearance but might well be given Mets tickets to encourage him to do so because the system is being nice to him. Brave new world. The market for bodyguards is getting tight.
****************************************December 18, 2019 | 12:10am |
https://nypost.com/metro/
Cops are looking for a maniac who launched a string of violent outbursts Monday on the Upper East Side — including a random slugging of a woman looking at her cellphone.
The suspect can be seen on surveillance video gingerly walking on East 85th Street near Park Avenue around 11 a.m. when he suddenly strikes the 21-year-old woman in the face without notice, according to police.
The victim suffered bruising and swelling to the face but refused medical attention. The suspect simply walked away.
Minutes earlier, the suspect approached a man sitting in his car in front of 960 Park Ave., cops said.
“I know you are talking about me!” the suspect said before brandishing a knife and chasing the man around his car.
The suspect in the Upper East Side attacks
After the assault captured on video, the suspect approached his next victims at East 87th Street and Third Avenue around 11:13 a.m., when he deliberately walked into a man and woman, cops said.
He then brandished a knife and threatened the couple.
Cops were looking for the individual, who was described as about 25 years old and around 5 feet 6 inches tall.
https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/insight
The United Nations General Assembly (GA) doesn’t take itself seriously. Unlike U.N. Security Council resolutions, GA pronouncements have no enforcement mechanism and often serve only to permit countries to vent — mostly at Israel. But this travesty helps determine the allocation of general U.N. funds — American tax dollars among them, albeit fewer under the Trump administration. So, it is worth parsing the activity of the GA last week.
Thirty-five resolutions were proposed in the GA by the U.N. Special Political and Decolonization Committee. The Committee, which includes Syria, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Bolivia, and Venezuela, has no North American, Western European, or Scandinavian members. Twenty-seven resolutions used general language and named no specific country; eight targeted Israel.
If you thought this would be a good time for the U.N. to recognize the desperate efforts of the people of Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran to throw off repressive and kleptocratic governments — and specifically, to rid themselves of the destructive machinations of the mullahs of Iran — the GA didn’t agree with you.
If you were waiting for the U.N. to condemn horrific violations against the people of Syria by its own government and aided by Russia and Iran, or to stand up for the Rohingya who have been forced out of Myanmar, or to consider the plight of the Muslim Uighurs of China herded into camps, you’re still waiting.
Slave labor in Qatar; Venezuelans reduced to eating garbage; North Koreans with no discernible human rights; Palestinian-Arab children taught that the highest form of life is death — their own and that of as many Jews as possible; civil war in Libya; increasing repression of the press and of dissent in Russia — all ignored. Turkey, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, and Saudi Arabia — ignored.
https://quillette.com/2019/12/05/tensions-in-nato-and-the-looming-end-of-pax-americana/
As NATO leaders gathered in London this week to mark the 70th anniversary of history’s most venerable military alliance, it has been widely forgotten that not so long ago the specter of armed conflict haunted the European continent. When the Washington treaty establishing NATO was signed in April 1949, the Soviet Union occupied the captive nations of Eastern Europe and an invasion of Western Europe by the Red Army was not a remote possibility. On current trends, the Atlantic alliance may well suffer a premature demise as the world moves into another great power rivalry that is also an ideological contest between democracy and autocracy.
A terse review of the historical record is in order here. In the aftermath of World War Two, the United States committed itself to a revolutionary foreign policy. The extraordinary task of maintaining some semblance of international order after two global conflagrations was premised on a controversial but compelling notion of enlightened self-interest. The guiding principle of U.S. statecraft was that the peace of the world was in grave and permanent jeopardy, and thus that it needed to be imposed and kept by force, or at least the credible threat of it. This momentous undertaking required that American power remain second to none, and for it to be deployed in outposts far from the American mainland. It was only through this forward engagement, providing moral and material succor to vulnerable allies and international norms, that would prevent a breakdown in order that would draw the world into yet another violent maelstrom.
America’s reluctant but immense decision to take the lead in upholding a decent international order did not enjoy a long honeymoon. It rapidly came under ferocious challenge by Soviet power pressing to extend its imperium from Berlin to Baghdad, from Helsinki to Havana, and from Seoul to Saigon. The containment doctrine that flowed from the novel understanding of America’s self-interest aimed to thwart Soviet expansion. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, set up in 1949 as a key pillar of containment, upheld the principle of anticipatory self-defense. However, the “self” that was being defended, as was pointed out by isolationists of the day, was not exactly the American homeland, but the sovereignty of American allies and the security (as well as the prevalence) of the American way of life.
https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/18/chinese-woman-gets-10-months-in-prison-for-birth-tourism-scheme/
The New York Post reports, “A judge on Monday sentenced a Chinese woman to 10 months in prison for her role in a business that helped wealthy pregnant Chinese women lie on visa forms and to immigration authorities and travel to Southern California, to give birth to children who would automatically receive US citizenship.”
US District Judge James Selna issued the sentence to Dongyuan Li, who was expected to be released on Monday due to time served, New York Post writes.
Federal prosecutors opposed the sentence and said they believed Li should be sentenced to years in prison to deter others from helping women lie on visa applications and hide pregnancies in these so-called birth tourism schemes.
“I just think it sends the wrong message,” Charles Pell, the federal prosecutor, told the judge.
Li pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy and visa fraud for running a birth tourism company in Southern California known as “You Win USA.”
Federal authorities said the company helped more than 500 Chinese women travel to the United States to deliver American babies, and that Li used a cluster of apartments in Irvine, California, to receive them.
Authorities said the company coached the women to lie on their visa applications and hide their pregnancies when moving through customs in U.S. airports.
https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/18/hulu-documentary-to-feature-global-warming-alarmist-greta-thunberg/
Hulu will premiere a documentary chronicling the rise of 16-year-old climate alarmist Greta Thunberg in 2020. The film with the working title, Greta, will follow Thunberg from her August 2018 school strike in Stockholm to her chastising world leaders. Nathan Grossman is directing, and Cecilia Nessen and Fredrik Heinig produce via B-Reel Films. It’s set to premiere sometime in 2020, according to a report by Deadline,
Deadline added that sources say Hulu had joined the project “awhile back and had been involved behind the scenes while deals were being made.” The team behind the documentary has been following the activist from when she was allegedly just a student skipping school in Stockholm, Sweden. Thunberg began her climate activism in August of 2018 by staging a school strike every Friday.
“Her question for adults: if you don’t care about my future on earth, why should I care about my future in school?” reports Deadline.
Breitbart writes, “not too long after that, Thunberg’s public profile exploded as her so-called activism went from skipping school to scolding world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly, at which she proclaimed, ‘I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean, yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you?’”
https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/17/we-three-kings-of-america-are-soros-steyer-and-bloomberg/
This Christmas season, decorate your trees and hang your stockings, and know that three kings come again, bearing gifts. But this time, 2,020 years later, these three kings bear gifts not for the baby Jesus, but for the Democratic Party.
The biggest lie in American politics today is that Republicans are the party of the wealthy elite, and the Democrats are fighting for the little guy.
While corporate political spending is split roughly down the middle between Democrats and Republicans, in all other categories the Democrats are way in front. Labor unions, which collect and spend at least $14 billion per year in the United States, are almost exclusively committed to Democratic candidates. And while Republicans still have some mega-donor individuals, most of them only contribute to candidates who espouse the same agenda as the Democrats—open borders, “free” trade, and endless wars.
The Democratic mega-donors, however, not only outspend their Republican counterparts, they know how to get results. Which brings us to the first of our Three Kings of the 2020 political season.
Tom Steyer
Even with an estimated net worth of $1.6 billion, as a presidential candidate, Tom Steyer has no chance. But behind his hopeless campaign is a deeper strategy. The California hedge fund manager is bringing visibility and building support for political organizations he’s founded, already powerful forces in national politics.
Steyer may not be the wealthiest mega-donor on the scene, but he’s willing to spend what he’s got. As cited in Ballotpedia, Steyer “spent more money on the 2014 and 2016 elections—$73 million and approximately $100 million, respectively—than any other individual donor.” According to Forbes, Steyer spent an incredible $123 million to influence the 2018 midterm elections.
While 2016 didn’t go the way Steyer had hoped, 2018 was a different story. Control of the House of Representatives flipped to the Democrats, and Steyer’s political action committee, NextGen, provided significant capital and political influence. For example, his NextGen Rising voter registration operation signed up more than 250,000 voters.
https://freebeacon.com/politics/lincoln-project-trump/
President Donald Trump’s reelection efforts in 2020 and beyond received a significant boost Tuesday with the announcement of the Lincoln Project, a new anti-Trump super PAC started by a group of failed Republican strategists and George Conway, a spouse of middling renown.
The brain trust powering the Lincoln Project includes Steve Schmidt, who worked on the late senator John McCain’s (R., Ariz.) failed presidential campaign in 2008; John Weaver, former chief strategist for failed presidential candidate John Kasich; Rick Wilson, a “digital assassin” who regularly posts on the popular social networking website Twitter; and Kellyanne Conway’s husband. The project was originally named “Rough Riders for America,” federal election records show.
The peculiar quartet announced its new endeavor in a New York Times op-ed of prohibitive length. The super PAC will pursue a “common effort” with national Democrats driven by a “shared fidelity to the Constitution,” says the op-ed. The goal is to save the soul of America by “defeating President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box.”
David Rutz breaks down the most important news about the enemies of freedom, here and around the world, in this comprehensive morning newsletter.
The Lincoln Project will endeavor to “ensure a victory in the Electoral College” for the Democratic nominee and seek to install “congressional majorities that don’t enable or abet Mr. Trump’s violations of the Constitution, even if that means Democratic control of the Senate and an expanded Democratic majority in the House.”
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