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In Opposing Impeachment, Pulosi Is Trying to Protect Democrats From the Lunatic Left
Marc A. Thiessen
Marc A. Thiessen
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Tuesday Top News Executive Summary
Media Editors: “Whether or not to expand the Supreme Court is emerging as a key litmus test in the crowded 2020 Democratic primary field,” declares The Hill. “Once dismissed as a fringe idea, reforming the nation’s highest court is gaining traction with a growing number of Democratic 2020 candidates as progressive outside groups and high profile officials … have vaulted the idea into the national spotlight.” There is no constitutional proscription on expanding (or shrinking) the Supreme Court, but the Democrats’ timely political play is solely for the purpose of further empowering the rule of men.
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And while we’re on the subject of litmus tests: “Sen. Elizabeth dinky-Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday called for abolishing the Electoral College and moving to a national popular vote for presidential elections. … South Bend, Indiana Mayor and fellow Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has also called for getting rid of the Electoral College, saying earlier this year that it has made the U.S. ‘less and less democratic.’ Sen. commie-Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) … in 2016 called for a ‘reassessment’ of the Electoral College.” (The Hill)
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According to Fox News, “California GOP Rep. Devin Nunes filed a major lawsuit seeking $250 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages against Twitter and a handful of its users on Monday, accusing the social media site of ‘shadow-banning conservatives’ to secretly hide their posts, systematically censoring opposing viewpoints, and totally ‘ignoring’ lawful complaints of repeated abusive behavior.” Furthermore, “Although federal law ordinarily exempts services like Twitter from defamation liability at all levels, Nunes’ suit said the platform has taken such an active role in curating and banning content — as opposed to merely hosting it — that it should face liability like any other organization that defames.” Shadow-banning is of course disgraceful, but a court will have to determine the merits of Nunes’ argument.
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“Undocumented [read: illegal] immigrants who use false Social Security numbers to get jobs would be easier to prosecute under a case the Supreme Court agreed to hear Monday,” USA Today reports. “The justices will hear Kansas' appeal of a lower court’s decision that the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over such cases — a ruling the Trump administration agrees should be overturned.” Kansas Solicitor General Stephen McAllister stated, “The victims of identity theft can face devastating consequences. This nationwide, indeed worldwide, problem and its consequences are more than the federal government alone can address.”
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#MeToo II: “A second top adviser to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has made advocacy for women and the #MeToo movement central to her 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, departed over an allegation of sexual harassment,” according to the Washington Examiner, which adds that the pervert, who stepped down in 2017, “continued to be paid despite his misconduct. He was not dismissed and was kept on Gillibrand’s staff. He remained on the senator’s payroll ‘for about three months after the incident, even though he didn’t do any work,’ one former aide said. Details of the exit … emerged after Gillibrand’s military adviser was fired for sexually harassing a junior female aide in July 2018.”
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Good start: “The Trump administration on Monday proposed placing limits on federal student borrowing programs as part of a series of initiatives to amend the Higher Education Act. … A senior administration official said the White House wants to institute a limit on loans through the PLUS program, which graduate students and parents of undergraduates use to help pay for college or trade school. … The administration is also calling for Congress to simplify loan repayment programs, in part by condensing five income-driven repayment plans into one plan that would cap monthly payments at 12.5 percent of the borrower’s discretionary income.” (The Hill)
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More fallout from SCOTUS’s narrow ruling in the Jack Phillips case: “On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from a Christian bed and breakfast owner who was found at a lower court to have violated an anti-discrimination law by turning away a lesbian couple from her establishment. … Phyllis Young, owner of Aloha Bed & Breakfast in Honolulu, Hawaii, refused to rent a room to Diane Cervilli and Taeko Bufford in 2007 due to her Christian beliefs with regard to sexuality. While Young pointed to the First Amendment to evidence her protection in practicing her religion without government prohibition, a state court found the business owner in violation of Hawaii’s Civil Rights Commissions’ public accommodation law.” (The Daily Wire)
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The lone voice of reason: “Fox News announced Monday that former Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile has signed on to be a contributor to the network,” Mediaite reports. “In a statement via press release, the former head of the DNC acknowledged that she expects blowback from progressives, but argued that the left cannot afford to abandon the Fox News audience.” Brazile astutely noted, “If we’ve learned anything from the 2016 election, it is that we can’t have a country where we don’t talk to those who disagree with our political views.”
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Anti-vaxxers — not just an American problem: “Eleven people have died and more than 30,000 have been infected this year in a major measles outbreak in Ukraine, the European country worst hit by the disease, Kiev said Monday. … Some 30,500 people, including 17,000 children, have been infected so this year. Authorities said shortages of vaccine in previous years and anti-vaccination sentiment, often driven by online campaigns spreading false information about the alleged risks, were the main reasons behind the outbreak.” (Agence France-Presse)
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“Theresa May’s Brexit strategy was dealt a major blow by House of Commons Speaker John Bercow when he effectively banned her from bringing her deal back to Parliament for a third time, unless it changes significantly. Government officials conceded that another vote on the agreement is now unlikely before Thursday’s European Union summit and the U.K. will have to seek an extension to its EU membership, potentially giving time to May’s opponents to force a rethink of the divorce.” (Bloomberg)
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Dark humor: Pulosi: “Any child who somehow escaped both abortion and infanticide has earned the right to vote" (The Babylon Bee)
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Policy: Should teenagers be allowed to vote? No, says The Daily Signal’s Jarrett Stepman, and the reason is simple: "The fact is, socialism attracts widespread support from millennials and members of Generation Z who at the same time are ignorant about socialism.”
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Policy: “The latest fashion that’s captured the political left is Modern Monetary Theory (MMT),” writes economist David Youngberg, adding: “MMT extrapolates from a series of accounting identities with reckless abandon. By leveraging America’s infinite ability to print its own currency, MMTers think they can sidestep the need to balance budgets. They are wrong.” Read more at the Foundation for Economic Education.
~The Patriot Post
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Sorry, commie-Sandy, Capitalism
Needs No Redemption
by William Sullivan
{americanthinker.com} ~ Addressing an audience at Austin’s South by Southwest conference, Rep. commie-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called capitalism an “irredeemable system.”... “Capitalism is the ideology of capital,” she says. “The most important thing is the concentration of capital and to seek and maximize profit.” One should easily be able to point out the practical failings in such rudimentary arguments for socialism. In fact, it would be incredibly easy to argue, as a recent Vox article does, that nearly every advancement in human well-being has taken place in the short blip of human history since the Industrial Revolution. That article miraculously neglects to mention free markets or capitalism once, but it should be obvious to any reasonable observer what the observed trend means. The Industrial Revolution did, in fact, lead to the concentration of capital in the hands of some more successful and innovative individuals, which allowed some of them to create large businesses that flourished and many more that failed, particularly in places like America. The country's framework of laws allowed free markets to exist relatively unimpeded. Without this “ideology of capital,” where the profit motive drove success for many individuals and companies, there would have been no mechanism to create the economies of scale necessary for producers to provide larger quantities of higher quality goods and services. That, in turn, led to the lower prices which made those goods and services more desirable and attainable among more consumers in a competitive marketplace. The net effect of this economic system has been wealth creation such that the world has never seen, a more robust economic marketplace, and the exponential betterment of human well-being. To grasp this doesn’t require an economics degree, but only the most basic understanding of how the principles of supply and demand guide economic progress in a free market of voluntary, reciprocal exchanges of value...
Iran Building Two New Nuclear Plants
by Adam Kredo
{freebeacon.com} ~ Iranian leaders announced on Monday the construction of two new nuclear plants, and it remains unclear if the Trump administration views this as crossing a red line... since its abandonment of the landmark nuclear deal, which included provisions permitting Iran to work on heavy water nuclear reactors that could provide a plutonium-based pathway to a bomb. On the same day it announced these new nuclear reactors, which are being built in conjunction with Russia, Iran announced it would be filing papers accusing the United States of "crimes against humanity." The new nuclear moves are rattling congressional Iran hawks, who have been critical of a series of waivers issued by the Trump administration permitting Iran to continue engaging in nuclear research, including at an underground site that once housed the regime's nuclear weapons program. It remains unclear if the Trump administration will move to block this activity and sanction any international company that aids Iran in the construction of the new nuclear reactors. "If the State Department is even considering waivers for Iran to expand its nuclear program, if those are even a little bit in play, you have to ask yourself what else is already a done deal and why that isn't public yet," one veteran Republican official, reflecting the views of many Iran hawks, told the Washington Free Beacon... https://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-building-two-new-nuclear-plants/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=c23fb70ae3-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_03_18_08_44_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-c23fb70ae3-45611665.
Jewish voters are furious
at Dems’ defense of Ilhan Omar
by Mary Kay Lange and Doree Lewa
{foxnews.com} ~ Jewish voters furious at Democrats’ defense of Rep. Ilhan Omar say they’re done with the party that has held their support for generations... “We felt we had a home there,” said Mark Schwartz, the Democratic deputy mayor of solidly blue Teaneck, NJ. “And now we feel like we have to check our passports.” Jordan Manor of Manhattan, who calls himself a “gay Jewish Israeli-American,” laments, “The party I thought cared about me seems to disregard me when it comes to my Jewish identity.” Mark Dunec, a consultant in Livingston, NJ who ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2014, says, “I’m physically afraid for myself and for my family,” adding, “I see my own party contributing to the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States.” Omar, a freshman congresswoman from Minnesota, sparked the firestorm in February for using anti-Jewish tropes: saying that support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins” and accusing Jewish-American legislators of “dual loyalty.” Many, including some fellow Democrats, deemed her comments anti-Semitic — but the party’s lefty activists pushed back....
Consumerism and the Push for Socialism
by Larry Alton
{americanthinker.com} ~ It’s hard to believe that we’re entering into another presidential campaigning season, but it’s right around the corner. And one of the big calling cards of the left will be a push towards socialism. But why?... Identity politics have always played a powerful role within the Democratic Party. What was once a party of predominantly white males over the age of 40 has now become an eclectic mix of different genders, races, and religious backgrounds -- a real hodgepodge of 21st-century American culture. But in the push towards identity politics, the Democratic Party has found itself in the middle of its own identity crisis. It’s no longer simply about skin color and sexual orientation. For better or worse, it’s about eclectic ideology. And in many cases, this ideology runs counter to the foundational principles of America. Last June, Democratic Party voters elected commie-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez -- a self-proclaimed Democratic socialist -- into office. Two years before that, Senator commie-Bernie Sanders – another self-described democratic socialist -- came very close to winning the party’s nomination for the presidency. Look around and there are a handful of other prominent Democrats and rising stars who are openly rallying around socialistic ideas. It’s no longer a hushed conversation behind closed doors -- it’s an overt push in the public eye. “There’s clear leftward movement among Democratic voters on a range of issues, and there are more progressive candidates running than ever,”... https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/03/consumerism_and_the_push_for_socialism.html.
Trump’s Bad Deal with the Taliban,
by Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio
{fdd.org} ~ Last week, Afghanistan’s national security adviser, Hamdullah Mohib, launched into a broadside against Zalmay Khalilzad, the chief American diplomat responsible for negotiating with the Taliban... Addressing reporters in Washington, Mohib insinuated that Khalilzad is seeking to install himself as the “viceroy” of a new “caretaker government.” The State Department quickly issued a sharp rebuke, saying that any condemnation of Khalilzad was really a critique of its leader, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. While Mohib’s specific charge may have been hyperbole, it almost certainly wasn’t a slip of the tongue. Mohib has been around Washington for years, including as Afghanistan’s ambassador to the U.S., so he knew how his words would be received. His harsh critique of Khalilzad reflects the Afghan government’s deep mistrust of the Trump administration’s plans. Everyone knows that President Trump wants out of Afghanistan, and the Afghans know that the State Department’s dealings with the Taliban will not deliver “peace.” Instead, Khalilzad’s talks have further empowered the same jihadists America has been fighting for nearly two decades. The Taliban has repeatedly dismissed the elected Afghan government as an illegitimate “puppet” of the U.S. and refused to talk with President Ashraf Ghani’s representatives. Khalilzad’s diplomacy has validated the Taliban’s claim. The State Department long maintained that the talks must be “Afghan-led” and “Afghan-owned,” but nobody seems to have told Khalilzad. He caved to the Taliban’s demand for unilateral negotiations with the U.S. early on, holding extensive two-party talks without any preconditions. Incredibly, though the Afghan government has never been invited to the negotiating table, Khalilzad has already announced that a “draft” agreement is in place. Only after this accord with the Taliban is “finalized” can the Afghan government hope to participate in “intra-Afghan negotiations.” But meaningful peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government are not likely to happen. The Taliban is fighting to resurrect its totalitarian Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and has already established a shadow government throughout parts of the country. The jihadists’ rulers-in-waiting do not intend to share power with the elected Afghan government—they quite openly plan to usurp it. And they are closer to achieving that goal today than at any time since the U.S.-led invasion in October 2001. With American and NATO forces preparing to leave, why would the Taliban suddenly get serious about peace? Indeed, the jihadists know that one of the last major obstacles to their victory is about to be removed...
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In Opposing Impeachment, Pulosi Is Trying to Protect Democrats From the Lunatic Left
Marc A. Thiessen
Marc A. Thiessen
House Speaker Nancy Pulosi’s, D Calif., announcement that she is “not for impeachment” has caused resistance on the left. Pelosi is not trying to protect President Trump. She is trying to protect the Democratic Party from its lunatic fringe. It’s an increasingly difficult challenge.
Pulosi is the first House speaker in six decades to return to the job a second time. But the Democratic majority she now presides over is much different from the one she led in 2007. Since the 2018 midterm elections that gave her back the speaker’s gavel, her party has gone off the rails.
First, Rep. commie-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., hijacked Pulosi’s agenda by announcing her Green New Deal — an upward of $90 trillion-plus miasma of government spending that proposes to provide everyone with health care, a government jobs guarantee, free education, medical leave, job training, retirement security and universal basic income to support those who, as she put in her infamous talking points, are “unwilling” to work. And that’s before we even get to the energy and environmental policies.
After that troubled rollout, Pulosi tried to dismiss the plan as the “green dream or whatever they call it” and declared it “will be one of several or maybe many suggestions that we receive.” Pulosi favors a more modest, realistic agenda of bolstering scumbag/liar-nObamacare, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, building infrastructure, passing gun restrictions and other conventional Democratic priorities. But many Democrats do not share her lack of enthusiasm for full socialism. Virtually every Democratic presidential candidate has some kind support for the Green New Deal, making a socialist takeover of the American economy the centerpiece of the Democratic Party’s agenda.
That’s bad enough. But Pulosi has also had to deal with the mess created by another left-wing insurgent, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., whose anti-Semitic remarks have exposed a virulent strain of anti-Jewish hatred that is gripping the left. A resolution condemning Omar’s anti-Semitism faced such intense internal opposition that Pulosi had to replace it with a watered-down version that condemned not just anti-Semitism but also all forms of hate — including “anti-Muslim discrimination and bigotry against minorities” — rendering it meaningless.
Pulosi’s next move was to try and head off a suicidal impeachment drive gaining strength on her left flank. Anticipating that special counsel dirty cop-Robert Mueller may not find incontrovertible evidence that Trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia to steal the 2016 election, Pulosi announced that “unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path.” That won’t stop Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who vowed on taking office “to impeach the motherf — er” and has announced she plans to introduce a resolution to start impeachment proceedings.
Pulosi knows that such an impeachment effort would divide Democrats and might not even pass the House. And even if it did, there is zero chance that two-thirds of the Senate would vote to convict Trump for something other than a criminal conspiracy with Russia. A failed impeachment would energize Trump’s base, raise Trump’s approval ratings and alienate the very suburban voters Democrats just peeled away from the GOP to win the House majority in the 2018 midterms. Most important, she knows it would distract Democrats from the agenda Pulosi wants to pursue. “It’s an opportunity cost in terms of time and resources,” she told Rolling Stone magazine.
During a private meeting this week, Pulosi reportedly asked House Democrats, “Do we want to drag him down or do we want to lift people up?” The answer from the Resistance is becoming clear: Drag him down!
Pulosi wants to do more than resist; she wants to govern. She wants to enact legislation. To do that, Democrats need to win back the Senate and the White House in 2020.
But the commie-Ocasio-Cortez-Omar-Tlaib wing of the party seems determined to undermine that strategy by pursuing a platform of socialism, anti-Semitism and impeachment. If they prevail, not only will Trump not be impeached — he’ll also likely become a two-term president.
~The Patriot Post
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/61793?mailing_id=4135&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.4135&utm_campaign=snapshot&utm_content=body
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