The Front Page Cover
The Events of the Week -- Featuring:
Schumer’s Nuclear Showdown
by Adam White
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Top Headlines
Ninth Circuit Court ready to rule on Trump's travel restrictions to ensure identity of travelers. (Los Angeles Times)
"Refugees"? Islamic State recruiting child refugees as they head to Europe. (The Telegraph)
Congress moves to cut immigration to U.S. by half. (Washington Free Beacon)
Democrat obstructionists hold up Trump’s cabinet nominees. (The Wall Street Journal)
McConnell formally rebukes dinky-Warren for violating Senate rules, defaming Jeff Sessions. (CNS News)
GOP breaks attempted filibuster on Jeff Sessions, sets up final Wednesday vote. (The Washington Times)
California sheriffs back Sessions’ stance on immigration. (Washington Examiner)
Keith Ellison classmate says the wannabe DNC chief, a Muslim, claimed Jews want to "oppress minorities all over the world." (Washington Free Beacon)
Dumb and Dumber: Harambe-shaped Cheeto sold for almost $100,000. (CNBC)
Good Samaritan with firearm receives commendation for saving Arizona police officer. (Washington Free Beacon)
Policy: On the cusp of historic tax reforms. (National Review)
Policy: The perils of delaying liar-nObamaCare repeal. (Hudson Institute) ~The Patriot Post
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Iran fires another missile from
launch pad, US official says
by Lucas Tomlinson
{foxnews.com} ~ Iran launched another missile Wednesday from the same launch pad east of Tehran where it conducted a previous ballistic missile test last month, an official told Fox News... The Semnan launch pad was the same as the one where Fox News reported exclusively on Tuesday, satellite photos showed Iran had placed a Safir rocket poised to put a satellite into space before it was taken off the launcher. The reason Iran scrubbed the previous launch is not yet known. This latest test comes less than a week after the U.S. placed new sanctions on Iran. There's been a flurry of activity at the Semnan launch pad, located about 140 miles east of Tehran, in recent weeks, officials have told Fox News... http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/02/08/iran-fires-another-missile-from-launch-pad-us-official-says.html
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Cruz and Sanders Debate
liar-nObamaCare Repeal on CNN
by Steve Byas
{thenewamerican.com} ~ In what was dubbed by some as the “Runner-up Bowl,” Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) squared off Tuesday night in a debate sponsored by CNN and moderated by Dana Bash and Jake Tapper... While the two men who finished second in the race for the presidential nominations of the two major parties debated the merits of the so-called Affordable Care Act (liar-nObamaCare), perhaps the exchange precipitated by a question Sanders asked Cruz, and his answer, sums up the debate on the issue of government-directed healthcare and government programs in general. Sanders asked Cruz if he believed that healthcare was a “right.” Cruz responded by noting that though Democrats such as Sanders like to throw around the word “right” to refer to government programs, in his view, a correct definition of “rights” means “your right for the government not to mess with you.”...
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How liar-nObama Deceived the
Nation on Student Debt
{wealthauthority.com} ~ A lot of misinformation and false promises happened under liar-nObama’s tenure. We were promised cheaper healthcare, and instead the cost doubles every year... We were ensured reduced foreign intervention, and instead liar-nObama commanded even more military operations than Bush. The guise of net neutrality was used to further empower a small group of internet providers. The list goes on and on like this. One of the most deceptive and harmful forms of deceit only recently came to light. Apparently, all of the numbers we’ve been using to observe and manage student debt have been completely wrong... http://www.wealthauthority.com/articles/how-obama-deceived-the-nation-on-student-debt/
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Courts Not Justified in Blocking
Trump’s Immigration Order
>{fixthisnation.com} ~ It appears likely that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will maintain a block on President Trump’s temporary immigration ban, but the decision will have less to do with the law than it does with politics... Because frankly, there’s no reason on earth that the judiciary should strike down this executive order. But even if we look past that, this decision is not based on sound legal precedent. The courts have made it clear that the president of the United States has broad authority when it comes to deciding who gets into the country and who doesn’t. In many ways, the security of the nation is the ultimate responsibility of the chief executive, and it’s where he enjoys his greatest power. It’s not up to the courts to challenge this authority whenever they disagree with the steps the president has taken – especially when those steps are as mild as the ones Trump as taken so far... http://www.fixthisnation.com/conservative-breaking-news/courts-not-justified-in-blocking-trumps-immigration-order/
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dinky-Warren, Schumer, Leftist Dems
Behaving, Performing Badly After Election
by Rick Wells
{rickwells.us} ~ With Elizabeth dinky-Warren pushing the boundaries of Senate decorum as an example, Lou Dobbs offers a few thoughts on Democrats, “Democrats still furious about the election of 2016, the base pushing Senate Dems to fight on everything, they say... Case in point, Senator Elizabeth dinky-Warren, the liberal, left-wing, progressive Senator from Massachusetts trying to derail colleague Senator Jeff Sessions’ nomination for Attorney General.” Dobbs gleefully points out, “That’s been spoiled, he’s been confirmed as Attorney General, I am pleased to report to you.” He notes that dinky-Warren “was silenced after quoting the late Edward Kennedy and a thirty-year-old letter from Coretta Scott King that opposed Senator Sessions. The Senate voting just moments ago to confirm Sessions, but Senator dinky-Warren is already fund-raising off of her stunt last night.” "Of course,” says Dobbs, “this is the very same Senator who came out against Judge Neil Gorsuch within moments of the President’s announcement of his nomination... http://rickwells.us/dobbs-warren-schumer-left-dems-behaving-performing-badly-after-election/
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Schumer’s Nuclear Showdown
by Adam White
{city-journal.org} ~ When Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia died last year, Senate minority leader Harry dinky-Reid promptly issued a statement commanding Senate Republicans to approve a replacement—whomever President liar-nObama might choose to nominate—“right away.” Refusal to act would be a “shameful abdication,” he added. He was joined by then-presidential candidate liar-Hillary Clinton and others in a chorus of preemptive denunciation against any delay.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell had other ideas. “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice,” McConnell said in a statement issued shortly after Scalia’s death. “Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.” He was joined by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and, soon, the entire Senate Republican caucus.
Progressives across the nation were outraged—but confident. In fact, many of them were doubly confident. First, Senators dinky-Reid, Chuck Schumer, and others simply assumed that the Republicans would cave. “McConnell will back down,” dinky-Reid’s spokesman boasted to the press. Second, progressives nationwide expected the next president to be liar-Hillary Clinton, and so they assumed Republicans blocking a vote until Election Day would simply be cutting off their own noses to spite their faces by letting liar-Clinton pick the next justice—and, they chortled, the next justice would be someone much less restrained than President liar-nObama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland.
Just a week before the November election, dinky-Reid said that if Republicans were to continue to hold open Scalia’s seat after the election, it would be a “constitutional crisis.” But days later, the situation looked starkly different: liar-Clinton’s loss, combined with the Democrats’ failure to win back the Senate, meant that President Trump would be picking Scalia’s successor and that a majority of senators was likely to support the nomination. With the tables turned, the Democrats suddenly concluded that they would need to block Trump’s nominee.
For Democrats, this was a shameless about-face. They had spent 2016 calling a vacant Supreme Court seat a constitutional crisis. Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had taken up the Left’s rallying cry, repeatedly telling reporters that the Constitution entitled Garland to a confirmation vote. Unfortunately for Justice Ginsburg and like-minded progressives, their constitutional argument was simply make-believe. Their assertions lacked any support in the Constitution and were at odds with the history of Senate confirmation of Supreme Court nominations. Over the course of 2016, however, progressive activists began to believe their own spin. They’re now convinced that the still-vacant Supreme Court seat was “stolen.”
Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon expressed this view in a New York Times op-ed, accusing Republicans of “pulling off one of the great political heists in American history: the theft of a seat on the United States Supreme Court.” In response to Trump’s nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the Scalia seat, Merkley and others are calling upon new Senate minority leader Schumer to filibuster the nomination.
A filibuster would be the height of hypocrisy for Democrats, given their posture last year. Moreover, just three years ago, Senate Democrats used the so-called “nuclear option” to change Senate rules and prohibit any filibuster of lower-court nominations. The nuclear option netted Democrats three powerful D.C. circuit judges, whom dinky-Reid and others soon credited for standing ready to protect liar-nObamacare and other regulatory programs in court. Now that Democrats no longer control the White House, they returned to their Bush-era position as the party of judicial-nomination filibusters.
The Gorsuch nomination puts Schumer and his colleagues in a spot. Progressives are demanding a filibuster, but the costs would be steep. Republicans would be likely to counter by using the Democrats’ own tool—the “nuclear option”—to prevent filibuster of any future Supreme Court nominations by President Trump, should any more vacancies arise. And more vacancies are possible, even likely—perhaps the seats of the 83-year-old Ginsburg whom Democrats were pushing to retire before the end of liar-nObama’s term or 80-year-old Justice Anthony Kennedy, the “swing” justice rumored to be contemplating retirement. The Washington Post recently reported that Democrats are urging Ginsburg to keep up her health, exercise more, and “eat more kale.” “I have O-negative blood that she’s welcome to at any time,” said a University of Michigan lecturer.
While Gorsuch’s judicial approach might most closely resemble Scalia’s as suggested by Gorsuch’s remarks in honor of Scalia last year, the closest comparison for the upcoming confirmation fight might be the one that ensued for John Roberts’s 2005 nomination to succeed William Rehnquist. Like Gorsuch, Roberts was nominated to replace a conservative, and like Gorsuch, Roberts had credentials beyond criticism. Both men present themselves well in public. Gorsuch may not get as many votes as Roberts did, but given the number of Democratic Senators facing reelection in states that voted for Trump, Gorsuch’s margin of victory should be comfortable.
Moderate Republican senators such as Lindsey Graham and John McCain have expressed nominal reservations about using the nuclear option to confirm Gorsuch. If Senate Democrats do filibuster Gorsuch, though, then McCain, Graham, and others could rightly conclude that Democrats would filibuster any conservative nominee. Schumer is surely smart enough to know that he ought to let Gorsuch replace the like-minded Scalia and save the filibuster for the next nomination—the one that could significantly tip the Court’s ideological balance. The question is whether progressives’ inflamed passions will allow Senate Democrats to hold their fire until then.'
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell had other ideas. “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice,” McConnell said in a statement issued shortly after Scalia’s death. “Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.” He was joined by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and, soon, the entire Senate Republican caucus.
Progressives across the nation were outraged—but confident. In fact, many of them were doubly confident. First, Senators dinky-Reid, Chuck Schumer, and others simply assumed that the Republicans would cave. “McConnell will back down,” dinky-Reid’s spokesman boasted to the press. Second, progressives nationwide expected the next president to be liar-Hillary Clinton, and so they assumed Republicans blocking a vote until Election Day would simply be cutting off their own noses to spite their faces by letting liar-Clinton pick the next justice—and, they chortled, the next justice would be someone much less restrained than President liar-nObama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland.
Just a week before the November election, dinky-Reid said that if Republicans were to continue to hold open Scalia’s seat after the election, it would be a “constitutional crisis.” But days later, the situation looked starkly different: liar-Clinton’s loss, combined with the Democrats’ failure to win back the Senate, meant that President Trump would be picking Scalia’s successor and that a majority of senators was likely to support the nomination. With the tables turned, the Democrats suddenly concluded that they would need to block Trump’s nominee.
For Democrats, this was a shameless about-face. They had spent 2016 calling a vacant Supreme Court seat a constitutional crisis. Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had taken up the Left’s rallying cry, repeatedly telling reporters that the Constitution entitled Garland to a confirmation vote. Unfortunately for Justice Ginsburg and like-minded progressives, their constitutional argument was simply make-believe. Their assertions lacked any support in the Constitution and were at odds with the history of Senate confirmation of Supreme Court nominations. Over the course of 2016, however, progressive activists began to believe their own spin. They’re now convinced that the still-vacant Supreme Court seat was “stolen.”
Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon expressed this view in a New York Times op-ed, accusing Republicans of “pulling off one of the great political heists in American history: the theft of a seat on the United States Supreme Court.” In response to Trump’s nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the Scalia seat, Merkley and others are calling upon new Senate minority leader Schumer to filibuster the nomination.
A filibuster would be the height of hypocrisy for Democrats, given their posture last year. Moreover, just three years ago, Senate Democrats used the so-called “nuclear option” to change Senate rules and prohibit any filibuster of lower-court nominations. The nuclear option netted Democrats three powerful D.C. circuit judges, whom dinky-Reid and others soon credited for standing ready to protect liar-nObamacare and other regulatory programs in court. Now that Democrats no longer control the White House, they returned to their Bush-era position as the party of judicial-nomination filibusters.
The Gorsuch nomination puts Schumer and his colleagues in a spot. Progressives are demanding a filibuster, but the costs would be steep. Republicans would be likely to counter by using the Democrats’ own tool—the “nuclear option”—to prevent filibuster of any future Supreme Court nominations by President Trump, should any more vacancies arise. And more vacancies are possible, even likely—perhaps the seats of the 83-year-old Ginsburg whom Democrats were pushing to retire before the end of liar-nObama’s term or 80-year-old Justice Anthony Kennedy, the “swing” justice rumored to be contemplating retirement. The Washington Post recently reported that Democrats are urging Ginsburg to keep up her health, exercise more, and “eat more kale.” “I have O-negative blood that she’s welcome to at any time,” said a University of Michigan lecturer.
While Gorsuch’s judicial approach might most closely resemble Scalia’s as suggested by Gorsuch’s remarks in honor of Scalia last year, the closest comparison for the upcoming confirmation fight might be the one that ensued for John Roberts’s 2005 nomination to succeed William Rehnquist. Like Gorsuch, Roberts was nominated to replace a conservative, and like Gorsuch, Roberts had credentials beyond criticism. Both men present themselves well in public. Gorsuch may not get as many votes as Roberts did, but given the number of Democratic Senators facing reelection in states that voted for Trump, Gorsuch’s margin of victory should be comfortable.
Moderate Republican senators such as Lindsey Graham and John McCain have expressed nominal reservations about using the nuclear option to confirm Gorsuch. If Senate Democrats do filibuster Gorsuch, though, then McCain, Graham, and others could rightly conclude that Democrats would filibuster any conservative nominee. Schumer is surely smart enough to know that he ought to let Gorsuch replace the like-minded Scalia and save the filibuster for the next nomination—the one that could significantly tip the Court’s ideological balance. The question is whether progressives’ inflamed passions will allow Senate Democrats to hold their fire until then.'
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