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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

COVID-19 Relief Bill Stalled Over Payments to Illegal Aliens By Stephen Green

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2021/02/09/covid-relief-bill-stalled-over-payments-to-illegal-aliens-n1424190

A trillion or two dollars in the COVID-19 relief bill has been stalled by Senate Democrats insisting on payments to illegal aliens, while millions of Americans remain unnecessarily unemployed and hopeless.

POLITICO reports that Democrats are “split” as “progressives rage” in their effort to send more borrowed money to illegal aliens.

“Split” might be putting it all too nicely.

Whatever the case, it took two POLITICO infotainment writers, Burgess Everett and Marriane Levine, to come up with this awful paragraph:

An effort to restrict stimulus checks to undocumented immigrants is blowing a hole in Democrats’ unity in the Biden era, after a bloc of Democrats sided with Republicans over their more progressive colleagues last week. The immigration status of those seeking new stimulus payments is shaping up as a major point of contention among Democrats as the House and Senate write their coronavirus relief bills, presaging the tough fights ahead among the party’s tight majorities in Congress on a politically volatile issue.

The effort is to restrict stimulus checks from illegal aliens, not to them, and “undocumented immigrants” isn’t the correct legal terminology.

Whatever.

Manchin pushes Biden to reverse Keystone XL pipeline rejection by Josh Siegel,

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/manchin-pushes-biden-to-reconsider-keystone-xl-pipeline-rejection

Joe Manchin, the most centrist Democrat in a split Senate, is calling on President Biden to reconsider his decision to cancel a permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline.

Manchin, the chairman of the powerful Energy and Natural Resources Committee, asked Biden in a letter on Tuesday that was shared with the Washington Examiner to consider what rejecting the pipeline means for safety, jobs, and energy security.

Biden’s decision, part of a day-one climate change executive order, has drawn backlash from union leaders who endorsed him and some centrist Democrats who say the cancellation will kill thousands of construction jobs.

The Biden administration is facing questions from these traditional allies on how its clean energy and infrastructure spending agenda will create new jobs that can replace lost work in the fossil fuel industry.

Manchin, who represents fossil fuel-intensive West Virginia, has been among the Democrats who have criticized Biden’s move to cancel the 2,000-mile Keystone XL pipeline that would have run from Alberta in western Canada to Texas.

But by going directly to Biden and calling for him to reverse the decision, Manchin is going a step further.

Reckless rhetoric is a reckless standard in this impeachment By Jonathan Turley

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/537952-reckless-rhetoric-is-a-reckless-standard-in-this-impeachment

“James Comey used such rhetoric when he said, “The Republican Party needs to be burned down. It is just not a healthy political organization.” Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin likewise claimed, “We have to collectively in essence burn down the Republican Party. We should level them because if there are survivors, if there are people who weather the storm, they will do it again.”

Little more than one year since the first impeachment of Donald Trump, the Senate is poised to pass judgment on him again. There is, however, one notable difference in the trial that starts today. In 2020, his conduct when it came to Ukraine turned on his words alone. This time, a vote to convict could be seen as implicating a host of others in using similarly reckless rhetoric, including some of these Senate jurors.

The search for moral clarity will be lost if Americans cannot distinguish between the behavior of the accused and that of his jury. Polls show half the country favors conviction, so this trial could end up as an indictment of both sides for fueling our divisions. Impeachment was intended to be used in the clearest cases to secure a supermajority vote for conviction. However, Congress itself could wind up appearing like an unimpeached conspirator, not in the riots, but with our national discord.

BDS: Boycott, Divest and Sanction is out to destroy America by Diane Bederman

https://dianebederman.com/bds-boycott-divest-and-sanction-is-out-to-destroy-ameri

There is an attack on America, today, coming from BDS, Boycott, Divest and Sanction, with the sole intent of destroying the country by attacking her at her very foundation, the Judeo/Christian ethic, which promotes freedom, free speech and free will and underpins the American Constitution.

Remember when Obama derided people who hold on to their guns and religion?

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them… They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion…”

Religion?

This was a direct salvo against the ethic that is meant to tie Americans, together.

This revolutionary, evolutionary ethic states all people are born with equal intrinsic value and all life is sacred.  That means we never judge people based on their race, colour, creed, religion or sexual orientation; their characteristics, but rather their character. The ethic that came out of the desert 3500 years ago taught us that we are the subjects of our destiny, not the object of our fate. We are neither born into the manor nor to be subservient.  We have what Jason D. Hill, author of We Have Overcome, professor of philosophy and Honors Distinguished Faculty at DePaul University in Chicago, calls moral agency: free will.  And that same ethic promoted free speech. It was the prophet, Jeremiah, who died defending free speech.

What Happened to Officer Brian Sicknick? No one should discount the idea that Democrats and the news media would intentionally promote a totally fabricated story to destroy Donald Trump and vilify his supporters. By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/08/what-happened-to-officer-brian-sicknick/

The claim is so pervasive as not to be questioned: Five people died as a result of the January 6 “insurrection” at the Capitol building, killed by blood-thirsty Trump voters at the president’s behest, out for revenge over a stolen election.

Even though only one death—the shooting of Ashli Babbitt by a still-unidentified police officer—is provable by video evidence, the other fatalities nonetheless are accepted as an article of faith to stoke public outrage about what happened that day.

The most tragic death, the media and lawmakers lament, is that of United States Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick. The 42-year-old New Jersey native was a 12-year veteran of the Capitol police force and himself a supporter of Donald Trump.

Before details about his death could be confirmed, the media quickly insisted Sicknick died after he was attacked at the Capitol. 

“A United States Capitol Police officer died Thursday night from injuries sustained when he engaged with a pro-Trump mob that descended on the U.S. Capitol the day before,” the New York Times reported January 8. The officer, according to the Times, had been “struck . . . in the head with a fire extinguisher, according to two law enforcement officials. With a bloody gash in his head, Mr. Sicknick was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support.”

Sicknick died on January 7. A statement released by the police department later that night vaguely supported the media’s emerging narrative.

Black Lives Matter Wants to “Dismantle the Zionist Project” (VIDEO) Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/02/black-lives-matter-wants-dismantle-zionist-project-daniel-greenfield/

This comes from Marc Lamont Hill, courtesy of an intrepid online researcher of antisemitism. Hill had previously gotten into trouble for combining his CNN gig with support for murdering Jews. But even though CNN parted ways with him, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are always happy to give an antisemites a forum, whether it’s Corbyn’s rep or Hill.

In 2014, Hill had claimed on CNN that the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teens, Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah,  one of them an American citizen, wasn’t “terrorism”, but “resistance”.

Earlier this year, Hill had insisted that “occupied people have a legal and moral right to defend themselves” and that the idea that Israel has a “right to exist” is “propaganda”. In May of last year, he had argued that Trump’s “call for Palestine to ‘reject hatred and terrorism’ is offensive.”

“We have allowed this nonviolent thing to become so normative that we’re undermining our own ability to resist in real robust ways,” he complained.

A month after the Pittsburgh massacre, Marc Lamont Hill addressed a UN event in support of the terror colonialists occupying parts of Israel, endorsed BDS, called for the destruction of Israel and justified the murder of Jews.

Moral Narcissism and the Show Trial of Donald Trump Roger L. Simon

https://www.theepochtimes.com/moral-narcissism-and-the-show-trial-of-donald-trump_3690218.html

Discussing the Democrats’ impeachment trial in legal terms is a ludicrous waste of time. Anyone literate in the English language can see that the concept of impeaching a post-president is entirely absent from the U.S. Constitution.

Removing someone from office who is no longer in office in the first place is a serio-comic oxymoron straight out of the Theater of the Absurd.

What is actually going on is Trump Derangement Syndrome taken from a neurosis to some kind of bizarre psychosis with overtones of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The level at which this “trial” is worth examining therefore has a psychoanalytic, not a legal, tilt. It raises, once again, the question of why the Democrats and their media cohorts despise Donald Trump so much.

Yes, I know they fear his political comeback above all things and wish to extinguish it, but what is it, on a deeper level, that makes them believe this man to be such a monster that they are going full Stalinist in conducting what Rand Paul aptly called a “Show Trial”?

Dems’ Sham Trump Impeachment: An Unconstitutional Abuse Of Power

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/02/09/dems-sham-trump-impeachment-an-unconstitutional-abuse-of-power/

With the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump looming, it can’t be said enough: This entire farce is an unconstitutional act, which has the sole purpose of silencing a political opponent and the more than 74 million who actively supported him in the last election.

Most people won’t recognize the dangerous precedent this sets. Nothing could stop a future Congress in the hands of a permanent Democratic majority from setting up political kangaroo courts for their political enemies. Nothing.

The goal of course is to come to a pre-ordained judicial conclusion, similar to the Soviet show trials of the 1930s. Then the Democrats will demand what prophetic George Orwell called, in his classic dystopian novel “1984,” “two minutes hate.” That’s when citizens of the totalitarian police state Oceania were expected to direct their rage at the government’s enemy.

For that reason, it’s important to repeat what we’ve stated before: America is a constitutional republic. That means the Constitution that has successfully guided our country for 234 years defines both our rights and the limits of our own government.

Why Democrats Want a Trump Trial They already know the result, but they think it will hurt the GOP.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-democrats-want-a-trump-trial-11612828183?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The Senate on Tuesday begins the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, now the former President. Democrats say the trial is crucial to punishing Mr. Trump for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, but it seems more likely to do the opposite by acquitting him. It also looks like a needless partisan exercise that will further polarize America’s political factions.

***

As we’ve said several times, Mr. Trump’s actions that day and after the November election were disgraceful. He made false claims about a stolen election and later about overturning the Electoral College count. He also misled his supporters about Vice President Mike Pence’s solely ceremonial role in presiding over the vote count.

By rallying his supporters to march on the Capitol in the false hope of overturning the election result, and then refusing for hours to ask them to stand down, Mr. Trump tolerated an assault on a constitutional branch of government. Republicans who think this is impeachable conduct will get no criticism from us.

Yet the House impeachers don’t limit themselves to that charge. In their single and sloppy impeachment article, they accuse Mr. Trump of “incitement of insurrection.” This is a stretch, not least because Mr. Trump called on the marchers to behave “peacefully.” The House managers mention this only in passing in their trial brief. It is doubtful that Mr. Trump’s Jan. 6 remarks would qualify as incitement under the criminal code.

The Political Logic of the Trump Trial Democrats seek to divide Republicans and see little downside. That may turn out to be a miscalculation Charles Lipson

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-political-logic-of-the-trump-trial-11612827029?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

What do Democrats hope to gain from Donald Trump’s impeachment trial? A conviction could prevent him from holding federal office again, but it isn’t clear they benefit from keeping him off the ballot. They beat him in 2020, and his looming presence could impede a new generation of Republican candidates.

But a trial will galvanize and unify the Democrats. It keeps the hated Mr. Trump in the spotlight and distracts from the central issue dividing Democrats: How progressive will President Biden’s agenda be? Even more important, they expect the trial to split the other party. Divide and conquer—pit pro- and anti-Trump Republicans against each other, not only now but for coming elections.

To recapture Congress next year and the White House in 2024, the GOP needs not only to retain Mr. Trump’s voters but to add to them. Republicans seen as anti-Trump fear losing contested primaries. In the general election, Trump supporters could lose swing voters. For the Democrats, by contrast, trying Mr. Trump seems a low-cost gesture. The only price, they believe, will be a brief delay in approving Mr. Biden’s nominees and momentary distraction from his agenda.

This isn’t to deny the bipartisan outrage over the assault on Capitol Hill, or the Democrats’ genuine belief (shared by many Republicans) that Mr. Trump’s actions after Nov. 3 breached the bounds of constitutional propriety. It is simply to recognize that Democrats and Republicans are political creatures who must make hard-nosed political calculations.