Tag Archives: Politico

Is Showing Up A Requirement For This Job?

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I realize that in the age of the Internet, many people are fortunate (or unfortunate depending upon your point of view) to be able to work from home. However, a lot of the people who work from home are required to show up at an office periodically just to show that they are still alive and breathing. I guess that rule does not apply to some federal employees or department heads.

Yesterday Hot Air posted an article with the following headline, “Why is Pete Buttigieg still the Secretary of Transportation?” I think that is a very good question.

The article reports:

Pete Buttigieg has been away from his desk at the Department of Transportation for two months and no one noticed until this week. He’s been home on paternity leave since the birth of his twins. Normally, we might just shrug our shoulders and say who cares? These are not normal times, though, and there is a transportation crisis going on that has to be handled. The supply chain is facing severe disruption and cargo ships are backed up trying to get their goods unloaded in American ports, especially in California. Where’s Pete?

Politico had a piece about Pete going missing, having only now realized it, too, apparently. The liberal site dragged conservatives for noticing Pete’s absence and questioning where the Secretary of Transportation is these days. The chaos in the supply chain and the difficulties facing shipping companies and trucking companies all fall under his department’s supervision. Perhaps conservative outlets and social media were asking questions on Pete’s whereabouts because, though he recently began turning up in liberal outlets for interviews, he was absent from conservative networks. In his political career pre-birth of the twins, Mayor Pete was a frequent guest on both liberal networks and on Fox News. He is or was a go-to person to speak for the Biden administration. Just as the pain from the supply chain disruptions was being noticed and felt by most Americans, suddenly Pete went missing.

The Politico piece went on to explain family leave policy in government jobs and compared Pete’s leave to others like a U.S. senator and the Acting Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Ok, but that’s an apples and oranges comparison. A cabinet secretary is in a different position. The country can function smoothly during the absence of a senator during maternity leave, the same with an acting OMB director. However, cabinet secretaries have certain responsibilities unique to being a member of a presidential cabinet. If he planned to go on a two-month paternity leave, why didn’t he make that announcement public and formally declare his deputy secretary of transportation in charge? He has one. Her name is Polly Trottenberg and she was sworn in back in April. She’s actually an experienced public servant in transportation who, at least on paper, looks like she could do the job.

The article concludes:

Here’s the thing – Pete Buttigieg is a member of the president’s cabinet. He is not an ordinary elected official and his presence on the job is required, especially during a national crisis. He’s inept but he has people around him, we hope, that know what to do to ease the situation. I don’t begrudge him the opportunity to spend some time with newborn babies. His lengthy paternity leave right now, and as the shipping crisis grew along with supply chain problems, shows a true lack of judgment. The economy is at risk while he stays home. He has to handle both roles as other parents do. A week home with the babies when he first got them? Ok. Put the deputy secretary in charge and go home for a week. Then come back and get back to work. That’s how this works. Pete is showing his inability to perform his role in the president’s cabinet and he needs to be held accountable, new parent or not. Fire him.

I would like to add one bit of information about the problems with the supply chain backup in California. Someone who knows more than I do mentioned that owner-operator truckers are not allowed to take cargo from the ports in California. One whole sector of the trucking industry is banned from helping ease the crisis. It was noted that the reason for this is that unionized truckers can be easily controlled through their unions. Non-union truckers cannot be controlled as a group–only individually. There are a number of layers to the supply chain problem, and it would be nice if someone supposedly in charge was addressing those problems.

When The Political Left Can’t Win At The Ballot Box, They Go To The Courts

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Yesterday Politico posted an article about the recall of California Governor Gavin Newsom.

The article reports:

A complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California argues that the state’s recall provision violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution by allowing sitting governors to be replaced by candidates who have received fewer votes. The plaintiffs, Rex Julian Beaber and A.W. Clark, want a court order either prohibiting the recall election or adding Newsom’s name to the replacement candidate list. Elections officials have already sent millions of ballots ahead of a state deadline today.

…Constitutional law expert Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, raised that precise scenario in a New York Times op-ed last week arguing California’s recall process is unconstitutional. Chemerinsky and law and economics professor Aaron Edlin argued for altering the rules to allow governors stand as candidates on the second question and advocated for a legal challenge compelling the courts to intervene.

“The court could declare the recall election procedure unconstitutional and leave it to California to devise a constitutional alternative,” Chemerinsky wrote. “Or it could simply add Mr. Newsom’s name on the ballot to the list of those running to replace him. That simple change would treat his supporters equally to others and ensure that if he gets more votes than any other candidate, he will stay in office.”

Beaber, a Los Angeles attorney and clinical psychologist, would not say in an interview if he’s a Democrat.

“I would prefer not to say, simply because I think it’s irrelevant,” he said Monday. “To me it would be unfortunate if party politics was the driving force behind the consideration of this lawsuit. This lawsuit seeks on its face to declare a current California remedy as unconstitutional and it would apply regardless of whether it was a Democrat or a Republican already in office.”

I wonder if there would be all of this constitutional concern if a Democrat were leading in the election to replace Governor Newsom.

The article concludes:

Elected Democrats have not publicly embraced Chemerinsky’s reasoning or backed such a legal challenge. But Attorney General Rob Bonta said Monday that he was monitoring both the lawsuit and the underlying legal debate.

“We’re aware of that argument and some of the other concerns and we’ll be making sure we stay abreast of this issue and monitoring it,” Bonta said, adding of the lawsuit, “We’ll be coordinating with the secretary of state’s office to determine next steps.

The recall process has been used in California on elected officials since 1913. According to the California Secretary of State website, there were four attempts to recall Governor Newsom in 2020. Only one qualified to move forward. In 1968 and 1972, there were attempts to recall Governor Ronald Reagan. Those attempts did not qualify to move forward. It’s interesting that this time the process is being challenged in court.

Something To Watch Very Closely

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Politico posted an article today about the election reform bill now making its way through the Senate.

The article reports:

Senate Republicans are set to block Democrats’ sweeping elections and ethics reform bill on Tuesday. Just hours before the vote, Sen. Joe Manchin, the last Democratic holdout, announced he would approve advancing the legislation.

The Senate will vote Tuesday afternoon on whether to consider the legislation, a top priority for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi. With the bill guaranteed to fail, the path forward is murky at best on an issue that Democrats say they need to resolve before the 2022 midterms. While Manchin’s vote won’t save the bill, the unified Democratic vote will both help the party’s political messaging that the GOP is stonewalling them and likely intensify progressives’ push to end the filibuster.

As I have said before, Joe Manchin only votes against the Democrat agenda when his vote doesn’t count (article here). It is a mistake to rely on him to protect the filibuster or to protect states’ rights in the voting process.

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today stating:

Progressive leftists will want Chuck Schumer to get rid of the filibuster and use a simple majority vote in the Senate to pass the “Take Away The Right to Vote” legislation.  However, if the Democrats fail in cheating on a massive scale in 2022, they could lose the Senate and House, and SB1 could be reversed and leave Biden to stand alone vetoing the bill to undo the election takeover.

It’s a calculating game of political scheme and fraud, where the DC elites (both parties) are trying to determine their odds of pulling off the plan while simultaneously keeping the American electorate from seeing what they are doing.   Pelosi has the military defenses around the Capitol prepared to keep back any revolting peasants; but that security only works if the politicians don’t leave DC.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid famously sequestered the Senate in December of 2009 to block any senator from returning to his/her state where they would face the fury of their electorate and likely recant support for Obamacare.  Unfortunately, Senate Majority Chuck Schumer doesn’t have the benefit of the calendar to jail the senators from leaving DC, and simultaneously tensions at home in every state are unseasonably hot.

There will be a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering in the Senate this week. If the Democrats get what they want, the voters lose. I wouldn’t count on Joe Manchin to save the country,

 

Bad News For Everyone

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The Conservative Treehouse is reporting today that President Joe Biden is freezing formerly approved military assistance for Ukraine.

The article reports:

Fast forward a little more than a year, Joe Biden meets with Putin, gets eviscerated and embarrassed by the diplomatic smack-down from the Russian President, and suddenly Joe Biden is freezing formerly approved military assistance for Ukraine.

Politico is reporting today:

The Biden White House has temporarily halted a military aid package to Ukraine that would include lethal weapons, a plan originally made in response to aggressive Russian troop movements along Ukraine’s border this spring.

The aid package would be worth up to $100 million, according to four people familiar with internal deliberations.

The National Security Council directed officials to put the package together, as Washington grew increasingly concerned over a massive Russian military buildup near the border with Ukraine and in the Crimean Peninsula, according to three of the people, who like the others asked not to be named in order to speak candidly about internal discussions. Officials at the State Department and Pentagon worked to assemble the proposal.

But officials on the National Security Council ended up putting the proposal on hold after Russia announced it would draw down troops stationed near Ukraine and in the lead-up to President Joe Biden’s high-stakes summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

President Trump was impeached because he was falsely accused of withholding military assistance from Ukraine because of a ‘special’ relationship with President Putin. It seems to me that it is time to take a closer look at some of the Biden family’s relationship with President Putin.

Mislabeled

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On May 3rd, The Bulletin (an Oregon newspaper) reported the following:

A Bend Police Department officer will be investigated for allegedly violating policy by wearing a keychain connected to a far-right group while in uniform on Saturday.

Bend Chief Mike Krantz did not identify the employee, though Cpl. Josh Spano is the officer seen in a photograph circulating on Reddit and Facebook. Attached to the front of Spano’s service vest is an item reading “molon labe” in Greek lettering, a phrase associated with the far-right Three Percenters militia.

The “molon labe” item and its letters appear to be larger than Spano’s name tag on his vest.

First of all, “molon labe” translates as “come and take [them].” The expression is used in reference to the government attempting to take guns away from citizens who have a lawful right to own them. Secondly, the Three Percenters is neither far-right or a militia group.

According to a 2018 article in USA Today:

It’s a diffuse, bottom-up militia, according to a Politico profile, with the group itself claiming inspiration from the “rough estimate” that only 3% of American colonists took up arms against the British forces. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, calls Three Percenters an “anti-government” group with chapters claimed nationwide. 

A statement explaining the movement claims it’s “not a militia” and “not anti-government,” but exists to “to reign in an overreaching government and push back against tyranny.”

Again, there is no militia made up of Three Percenters. I would not consider Politco an objective source.  I am afraid we have reached the point where supporting the Second Amendment makes you far-right.

The officer was wearing a keychain attached to his service vest with the slogan on it. I suppose that might be enough to investigate him, but this seems like more of the cancel culture to me.

Something To Watch Closely

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Yesterday Politico posted an article about President Biden’s executive order forming a commission to look into reforming the federal court system.

Please read the following excerpt from the article carefully and note the wording:

President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Friday empaneling a commission to examine possible reforms to the Supreme Court and federal judiciary, making good on a campaign trail promise sparked by his predecessor’s tilting of the federal bench.

Biden first floated the idea of such a commission last fall on the campaign trail following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — whose seat on the high court was quickly filled by Amy Coney Barrett, installing a 6-3 majority of justices nominated by Republican presidents.

Note the expression ’tilting of the federal branch.’ That statement is an example of media bias. Note that President Obama was never accused of tilting the federal bench despite the fact that his appointed justices were well outside the mainstream of the views of most Americans.

The article concludes:

The commission is likely to raise hackles among conservatives as a veiled attempt to reshape the court after Trump and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell prioritized installing federal judges over the past four years.

Its formation comes as Stephen Breyer, the Supreme Court’s eldest justice, faces pressure from liberal legal activists to step down during Biden’s term so that his successor would be appointed and confirmed while Democrats hold the White House and Senate.

Earlier this week, Breyer issued a warning to advocates of overhauling the Supreme Court that doing so risks eroding the trust in the institution and that they should think “long and hard” about the ramifications in a speech given virtually to Harvard Law School students.

The White House said the commission will complete its work within 180 days of its first public meeting, which it is required to do under federal law.

It will be interesting to see where this goes. Most Americans do not want to see more justices added to the Supreme Court–particularly to make it politically biased. Franklin Roosevelt attempted to do this during his term as President and was rebuffed by his own party. However, the current Democrat party does not necessarily have the scruples that the Democrat party of Roosevelt had.

This Seems Obscure, But Needs Watching

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We have just experienced a month-plus shutdown of the American economy (along with many Americans experiencing cabin fever and many children abruptly being home-schooled). It will take a while for the economy to open back up and recover. However, what we are currently experiencing is nothing like the disruption that would be caused by an electromagnetic pulse attack (also by a particularly strong solar flare). The American power grid is very vulnerable to attack from many sources. Our power grid provides power for the computers that route trucking, support supply chains, guide airplanes, keep grocery store coolers cold, etc. The power grid is all interconnected and computerized. It is an attractive target.

On May 1, Just The News reported the following:

The Energy Department said Friday that President Trump has banned the purchasing and installation of specific types of foreign gear for power plants and the transmission system. The move is a strategic effort to block the U.S. grid from falling victim to attacks from Russia and China.

The president’s executive order increases the secretary of Energy’s ability to prevent the use of select equipment that creates a national security risk. It also allows the secretary to determine which parts of the grid system are at risk and therefore in need of replacement.

Officials leading the effort will assess recent threats from abroad based on information from the U.S. intelligence community. They will then make a judgment on which elements of the power system need replacing. Agencies have been warning for several years that America’s electrical grid is an attractive and vulnerable target to foreign hackers.

This is a great move, but somehow electromagnetic pulse protection seems to be left behind.

In November 2019, Politico reported the following:

Turnover in President Donald Trump’s national security staff may be having a little-noticed side effect: Worries about nuclear weapons zapping America’s electric grid will return to the fringe.

Warnings about electromagnetic pulse attacks have long inspired eye-rolls or outright guffaws among national security experts, but advocates of the issue briefly found a home on Trump’s National Security Council, and the president himself issued an executive order on the topic in March. That respectability boom shows signs of fading, however, as those advocates leave the administration.

On Sept. 13, controversial physicist, self-declared climate skeptic and backer of the fight against EMPs William Happer left the White House. Three days earlier, Trump had ousted national security adviser John Bolton, who according to people close to the congressional EMP effort was also a backer of hardening power plants and the electric grid against the threat.

“With Bolton gone and some of the people he had brought in … this has disrupted the process,” said Peter Pry, executive director of the now-disbanded congressional advisory board that studied EMPs.

Trump’s executive order on March 29 was meant to aid coordination between the departments of Homeland Security, Energy and Defense, as well as numerous other federal agencies, to address the long-debated risk. The utility industry has resisted hardening the grid to EMP attacks because of the high cost of addressing what it considers an unlikely threat.

“The bureaucracy does not want this executive order,” Pry added, referring to the president’s order on EMP resilience. “What they’re trying to do is lowball the EMP threat … to such a level that basically industry will have to do little or nothing.”

I really don’t know if I should credit this bad advice to the deep state or just to general ignorance, but we need to get the emp protection program back up and running. This is an area where we are truly vulnerable to attack (or a natural phenomina such as a giant solar flare).

A Small Update On Some Of The Fake News You Are Hearing

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PJ Media posted a list today of the top ten lies the news media has told about President Trump’s response to the coronavirus. Please follow the link to the article to read the details–I am simply posting the list:

10. Trump downplayed the mortality rate of the coronavirus

 

 9. Trump lied when he said Google was developing a national coronavirus website

 8.  Trump ‘dissolved’ the WH pandemic response office

 7. Trump ignored early intel briefings on possible pandemic

 6. Trump cut funding to the CDC & NIH

 5. Trump ‘muzzled’ Dr. Fauci

 4. Trump didn’t act quickly and isn’t doing enough

 3. Trump told governors they were “on their own”

 2. Trump turned down testing kits from WHO

 1. Trump called the coronavirus “a hoax”

The sources for this misinformation vary. The sources include MSNBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico, Joe Biden, and Michael Bloomberg. If you are still depending on these sources for accurate reporting, you are being mislead. The article at PJ Media lists the source for each lie, so you can see where the lies came from.

Meanwhile stay safe, and be careful who you listen to.

Crooks Always Deny

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Honest people make mistakes, admit to them, and move on. Dishonest people continue to deny their mistakes even after the evidence becomes apparent. As we await the Inspector General’s report on Monday, we are watching those who know they are named in the report squirm. We are also watching facts come out that have previously been denied and that some politicians are attempting to deny even after evidence is disclosed.

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about recent information that has come to light about the Democrat party’s actions during the 2016 campaign. There is now little question that the Democrats worked with Ukraine to obtain information to damage the Trump campaign. To some extent they were successful.

The article reports:

Democrat lawmakers freaked after Republican Senators Chuck Grassley (IA), Lindsey Graham (SC) and Ron Johnson (WI) announced they are seeking “staff-led transcribed interviews” DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa had with Ukrainian officials during the 2016 election.

Recall, Alexandra Chalupa met with Ukrainian officials at the Ukrainian embassy and was given damaging information on Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Democrat lawmakers freaked after Republican Senators Chuck Grassley (IA), Lindsey Graham (SC) and Ron Johnson (WI) announced they are seeking “staff-led transcribed interviews” DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa had with Ukrainian officials during the 2016 election.

Recall, Alexandra Chalupa met with Ukrainian officials at the Ukrainian embassy and was given damaging information on Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Left-wing sites such as Politico reported on Alexandra Chalupa’s meetings with Ukrainian officials during the 2016 election in order to aid Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

“The interview and records requests are a continuation of an inquiry that Grassley launched in 2017 following news reports that a Democratic National Committee consultant solicited derogatory information on the Trump campaign from Ukrainian embassy officials prior to the 2016 election  According to those reports, elements of the Ukrainian government were actively working to undermine candidate Trump’s electoral prospects in favor of Hillary Clinton,” the Senators wrote.

The Democrat response to this is predictable:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer came unhinged and accused the Republican Senators of pushing Vladimir Putin’s talking points and conspiracy theories.

We will probably hear more references to Vladimir Putin’s talking points from the Democrats in the coming days. The Democrats are counting on the American voters not to know the story of Ukraine, as the major media has pretty much ignored it. Stay tuned. There is going to be a significant amount of mud flying through the air on both sides in the coming week.

 

 

Update On Hong Kong

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Politico posted an article today about the latest events in Hong Kong. The article is taken from the South China Morning Post. Please consider the source when reading the excerpts.

The article reports:

Embattled Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has formally withdrawn the much-despised extradition bill that sparked the nearly three-month long protest crisis now roiling the city, confirming the Post’s exclusive report earlier on Wednesday.

She will also set up an investigative platform to look into the fundamental causes of the social unrest and suggest solutions for the way forward, stopping short of turning it into a full-fledged commission of inquiry, as demanded by protesters.

The decision to withdraw the bill will mean that the government is finally acceding to at least one of the five demands of the protesters, who have taken to the streets over the past 13 weeks to voice not just their opposition to the legislation, but the overall governance of the city in demonstrations that have become increasingly violent.

Apart from the formal withdrawal of the legislation, the protesters have asked for the government to set up a commission of inquiry to investigate police conduct in tackling the protests, grant amnesty to those who have been arrested, stop characterizing the protests as riots, and restart the city’s stalled political reform process.

Whether they will view the investigative committee as adequate in meeting the call for a commission remains to be seen. On the bill withdrawal, a government source said that Lam will emphasize that the move was a technical procedure to streamline the legislative agenda, with the Legislative Council set to reopen in October after its summer break.

Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line Blog today about Hong Kong. In the article he quotes a Claudia Rosette article at The Wall Street Journal:

[T]he millions of protesters. . .have been doing the world a heroic service. Like their predecessors at Tiananmen, they are exposing on a world stage the brutality of the Beijing regime. From the only place under China’s flag where there is any chance to speak out, they are shouting the truth, day and night, in the streets and from the windows—while they still can.

During more than 13 straight weeks of protest, Hong Kong’s people have demanded the rights and freedoms—including free elections—that China, in a treaty with Britain, guaranteed to Hong Kong for 50 years after the 1997 handover. At a press conference last week held by Hong Kong’s Civil Human Rights Front, which has organized some of the biggest peaceful protests, spokeswoman Bonnie Leung observed that if the authorities would simply keep those promises, “the whole movement will end immediately.”

Instead, President Xi Jinping and his puppet, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, have defaulted to threats, propaganda and force. Ms. Lam’s administration has deployed riot police, tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons. Officers have made more than 1,000 arrests.

China has been pressuring Hong Kong companies, including Cathay Pacific Airways, to fire employees who join the protests. Chanting “Stand with Hong Kong! Fight for freedom!” the protesters have refused to back down. Some told me they are ready to die for their cause. Many of their predecessors did in Tiananmen.

Hong Kong police have begun firing warning shots with live ammunition. This weekend, police were caught on video beating unarmed civilians bloody on the subway. China has been conspicuously drilling troops of its People’s Armed Police across the border, and last week it sent fresh army troops to its garrison in Hong Kong, labeling this a routine rotation to ensure “prosperity and stability.”

(Emphasis added)

The article at Power Line Blog concludes with an UPDATE:

Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, has finally agreed to withdraw the extradition bill discussed above. She takes her order from Beijing, so it looks like China wants to avoid a Tiananmen Square style massacre and the worldwide condemnation it would bring.

Will this concession, absent the freedoms China promised Hong Kong in 1997, be sufficient to take the steam out of the protests? Perhaps.

Another possibility is that the protesters, if anything, will be emboldened by the concession and that China, having made it, will believe it can defend a crack down by claiming that the protesters couldn’t take “yes” for an answer.

 Stay tuned.

 

Name That Crime

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Yesterday Politico posted an article about a recent discussion among senior Democrats.

The article reports:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi told senior Democrats that she’d like to see President Donald Trump “in prison” as she clashed with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler in a meeting on Tuesday night over whether to launch impeachment proceedings.

Pelosi met with Nadler (D-N.Y.) and several other top Democrats who are aggressively pursuing investigations against the president, according to multiple sources. Nadler and other committee leaders have been embroiled in a behind-the-scenes turf battle for weeks over ownership of the Democrats’ sprawling investigation into Trump.

If Speaker Pelosi wants to see President Trump in prison, what crime would she charge him with? Deleting subpoenaed hard drives? Obtaining fraudulent FISA warrants to spy on opposing political parties? Violating the civil rights of American citizens by mass unmasking of wiretapped phone conversations? Doing S.W.A.T. raids on unarmed citizens accused of process crimes? Putting Americans in solitary confinement for financial misdeeds? Somehow I don’t think President Trump is the one who belongs in prison.

The goal of the Democrats is to keep a cloud over President Trump’s head until the 2020 election. Having the cloud of the Mueller investigation hanging over the President’s head during the mid-term elections probably helped the Democrats. They want to do that again. Meanwhile, the border crisis continues, Congress has not submitted a budget, and Congress rarely works a full week. What are we paying these people for?

If You Watch The Mainstream Media, You Are Not Uninformed–You Are Misinformed

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I understand that the mainstream media is biased. That’s not anything new. That bias  makes room for the alternative media, which can also be biased, but at least is not all marching to the same beat. If you watch the mainstream media, you can generally pick out the word of the day. The reason for the word of the day is that the mainstream media is so full of themselves that they believe the only way to get an idea across to the American public is to echo it all day on all mainstream media. If you watch mainstream media, recognizing the word of the day can be an enjoyable game. Media lies are annoying, but media lies about events that shouldn’t even be newsworthy are just inexcusable.

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about a misleading news story that should not have even been a news story. President Trump stopped at a church Sunday and asked the Pastor to pray for him. The Pastor did. That should have been the end of the story, but unfortunately it wasn’t.

The article reports:

Leave it Politico to LIE about the Pastor’s message.

Here’s there original headline: “Pastor Apologizes to Congregation Over Trump Prayer”

The only problem with Politico’s headline is that it was a lie. When you read the pastor’s statement, it’s clear that he’s merely trying to calm the members of his flock who might need to reconsider their lack of Christian welcoming to anyone who would require prayer, be they a prince or a pauper.

Please follow the link to read the entire article, which includes the Pastor’s comments.

The Pastor reminded his congregation:

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.”  1 Timothy 2:1-6

The Pastor closed his statement with the following:

I wanted to share all of this with you in part because I know that some within our church, for a variety of valid reasons, are hurt that I made this decision. This weighs heavy on my heart. I love every member of this church, and I only want to lead us with God’s Word in a way that transcends political party and position, heals the hurts of racial division and injustice, and honors every man and woman made in the image of God. So while I am thankful that we had an opportunity to obey 1 Timothy 2 in a unique way today, I don’t want to purposely ever do anything that undermines the unity we have in Christ.

In the end, would you pray with me for gospel seed that was sown today to bear fruit in the president’s heart? Would you also pray with me that God will help us to guard the gospel in every way as we spread the gospel everywhere? And finally, I’m guessing that all of us will face other decisions this week where we don’t have time to deliberate on what to do. I’m praying now for grace and wisdom for all of us to do exactly what we talked about in the Word today: aim for God’s glory, align with God’s purpose, and yield to God’s sovereignty.

That sounds like a great prayer to me!

 

How Is This Not Harassment?

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Yesterday Politico posted an article about the Democrats in Congress’ ongoing quest for all of President Trump’s financial records. The article reports that President Donald Trump and his family are suing Deutsche Bank and Capital One to block subpoenas issued by House Democrats seeking Trump’s financial records. The President’s attorneys argued that the subpoenas serve “no legitimate or lawful purpose.” The scope of the subpoenas is ridiculous.

The article reports:

The committees, the Trumps’ lawyers said, have refused to provide copies of the subpoenas to the Trump family, and their scope was learned from Deustche Bank and Capital One. But according to the lawsuit, the committees are seeking “all banking and financial records not just concerning the individual plaintiffs, but also their own family members.”

“This means the subpoenas request documents about accounts of the plaintiffs’ children (and in some cases, grandchildren),” the lawyers said.

For most of the documents, the lawyers added, the committees are demanding records from the last 10 years but, for others, the request is “unbounded,” going back to the childhoods of individual Trumps.

“The House of Representatives is demanding, among other things, records of every single checking withdrawal, credit-card swipe, or debit-card purchase — no matter how trivial or small — made by each and every member of the Trump family,” they said.

We have people in Congress who are seeking the bank records of children and grandchildren. This is harassment.

Prepare For A Very Ugly Year In The House Of Representatives

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You can tell a lot about what is going on in the House of Representatives by the committee assignments. Based on the assignments being given out now, this is going to be a very ugly year. We have already seen two news stories in the past week that were an indication that facts don’t matter. We are going to see many more of those stories in the near future; and those stories, whether true or false, will be the excuse for the Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump in the House of Representatives. The Democrats would do well to remember what happened to the Republicans after they tried to impeach President Clinton. What the Democrats need in order to avoid paying a heavy penalty for this move is to get President Trump’s approval ratings below 30 percent. They were able to do that with previous Republican presidents, but President Trump keeps fighting back (and the economy is providing jobs for people who might otherwise be disgruntled).

Yesterday Politico posted an article detailing some of the committee assignments that are relevant to the impeachment process.

The article reports:

The House Oversight Committee is adding a group of progressive flamethrowers to its ranks.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) won spots on the high-profile committee on Tuesday, two sources told POLITICO.

…The new members, all of whom are freshmen except Khanna, have been critical of President Donald Trump, and their addition to the committee comes as Democrats have pledged to launch wide-ranging investigations into the president and his administration.

Tlaib drew swift backlash when she vowed to “impeach the motherf—er,” referring to Trump. Republicans have discussed a censure for Tlaib for railing against Trump.

Not only did the Democrats not chastise Representative Tlaib–they rewarded her behavior!

The article continues:

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the chairman of the Oversight Committee, dismissed concerns about the outspoken freshman lawmakers.

“If I based the choices going on the committee based on what people said or their reputations or whatever, I probably wouldn’t have a committee,” Cummings told POLITICO. “I am excited — there were a lot of people that wanted to come on our committee.”

…Rep. Dan Kildee, a member of the Democratic steering panel, said he was excited about the progressive picks.

“I want people to be aggressive, especially on that committee. It’s good to have people who aren’t afraid,” the Michigan Democrat said in an interview. “They’re going to be dealing with some pretty important stuff.”

The Democrats are continuing their effort to bring down a duly-elected President and totally undermine our representative republic instead of actually passing laws that will continue our strong economic growth. How sad.

Getting Things Done

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Yesterday Politico reported that Senate Democrats have accepted an offer Thursday from Senate Republicans to confirm 15 lifetime federal judges in exchange for the ability to go into recess through the midterms, allowing endangered Democrats to campaign.

This was not the result of anyone’s great negotiating skills–this was the acknowledgement of a practical fact–the Democrats wanted time to go home and campaign.

The article explains:

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would be able to confirm roughly 15 judges if he kept the Senate in session for the next few weeks anyway. So Democrats OK’d an offer to confirm three Circuit Court judges and 12 Circuit Court judges as the price to pay to go home for election season.

Under Senate rules, even if Democrats fought the nominees tooth and nail and forced the Senate to burn 30 hours of debate between each one, McConnell would have gotten them all confirmed by Nov. 1. Democrats could have conceivably left a skeleton crew of senators in Washington to force the GOP to take roll call votes on the judges over the next few weeks, although that tactic is not typically employed by the minority.

The article reminds us:

McConnell and President Donald Trump will now have confirmed 84 judges over the past two years, including two Supreme Court nominees, after the deal. Democrats also allowed a package of judges to be confirmed in August as a condition of going home.

This is important because the Democrats have used to courts to get laws passed (which is not actually the duty of the courts) that they could not get through Congress. Changing the composition of the courts may slow down that process and bring us closer to the government our Founding Fathers envisioned.

And The Lies Keep Coming…

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Yesterday the Daily Caller posted an article with the headline, “Media Outraged After Trump Tricks Them To Cover Endorsements From Military Heroes.” The story explains that the media went to the Trump International Hotel expecting Donald Trump to take questions about whether he still questions President Obama’s birthplace. The media is trying very hard to make this an issue in the Presidential campaign (to illustrate that Donald Trump is not a good candidate?). When they got to the press conference, they were treated to a barrage of military endorsements for Trump. It wasn’t what they wanted or expected.

The article reports:

At the very end of the campaign event, Trump finally addressed the topic the media was there to hear. “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it.”

“President Barack Obama was born in the United States,” Trump said. “Period. Now we all want to get back to making America strong again.”

Many reporters, some standing on chairs, began shouting questions over the applause from the guests in attendance. But Trump, having accomplished what he wanted, took none.

Meanwhile, the media has tried very hard to hang the birther controversy on Donald Trump. Unfortunately, the age of google searches has made that impossible.

Yesterday Breitbart reported the following:

The mainstream media, from Bloomberg News to MSNBC to Politico to the Washington Post and more, have all confirmed: Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 campaign for president did substantially further the birther movement.

…It’s not just Hannity, who’s opposed to Clinton’s election and is a supporter of GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump, who has confirmed that Clinton’s 2008 campaign and its allies pushed this.

In fact, Politico, in 2011, published a piece from two of its top reporters at the time—Ben Smith and Byron Tau, who have gone on respectively to BuzzFeed and the Wall Street Journal—specifically detailing how the Clinton campaign was behind birther rumors spreading.

The birther thing is something the media tried to use to attack Donald Trump. It is totally irrelevant at this point. The problem is that most of President Obama’s personal records remain sealed–even after almost eight years in office. That is unusual. That is actually why the birther controversy has continued–there are some genuine questions about some documents relating to President Obama. The mainstream media is getting desperate. They have lost any objectivity or credibility that they might have had. This election will probably mark the end of their influence on the majority of Americans.

The article at Breitbart concludes:

“With Clinton’s 2008 campaign manager admitting on national television and on Twitter that they promoted the rumors surrounding now-President Obama’s heritage, Mr. Trump has been fully vindicated,” Miller (Trump campaign senior communications adviser Jason Miller) said. “Not only was a Clinton campaign worker blamed and fired over the activity, we have now been informed that Secretary Clinton was aware of what was going on, with Clinton’s campaign manager even apologizing to Obama’s campaign manager. This still does not explain why Hillary Clinton failed to fire her chief strategist Mark Penn on the spot over the memo he sent her advocating she portray Obama as ‘fundamentally’ foreign. Hillary Clinton didn’t tell the truth about her emails and she didn’t tell the truth about her campaign’s role in pushing these rumors in 2008. This pattern is never going to change, and it’s why nobody trusts Hillary Clinton.”

There will be people who will vote for Hillary Clinton regardless of how many lies she tells. That is their privilege. It is my hope, however, that Americans are tired of the lies that surround Hillary and her campaign and will make a different choice.

This Really Should Not Be A Campaign Issue

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Yesterday The Hill posted an article about Democrat campaign ads claiming that the Republicans cut funds to the Center for Disease Control and that is the reason we are not successfully fighting Ebola.

The article reports:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) launched an ad campaign on Monday blaming Republicans for cutting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC)  budget to fight diseases like Ebola.

“Republicans voted to cut CDC’s budget to fight Ebola,” the paid online ads state, citing a 2011 budget vote that included cuts to the agency’s spending. At the same time, the ads point to the most recent House GOP budget resolution and argue that “Republicans protect tax breaks for special interests.”

That is a rather serious charge. Thankfully, it is not true.

On Sunday, Politico posted an article by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal that explained that the CDC budget has not been cut–the problem is how the money going to the CDC has been spent.

The article at Politico explains:

Unfortunately, however, many of those funds have been diverted away from programs that can fight infectious diseases, and toward programs far afield from the CDC’s original purpose.

Consider the Prevention and Public Health Fund, a new series of annual mandatory appropriations created by Obamacare. Over the past five years, the CDC has received just under $3 billion in transfers from the fund. Yet only 6 percent—$180 million—of that $3 billion went toward building epidemiology and laboratory capacity. Especially given the agency’s postwar roots as the Communicable Disease Center, one would think that “detecting and responding to infectious diseases and other public health threats” warrants a larger funding commitment.

Instead, the Obama administration has focused the CDC on other priorities. While protecting Americans from infectious diseases received only $180 million from the Prevention Fund, the community transformation grant program received nearly three times as much money—$517.3 million over the same five-year period.

So where is the money going? The community transformation program pays for such things as “increasing access to healthy foods by supporting local farmers and developing neighborhood grocery stores,” or “promoting improvements in sidewalks and street lighting to make it safe and easy for people to walk and ride bikes.” So the problem is not how much money the CDC received–it has to do with how the money was spent. There is nothing wrong with helping communities, but it is not wise to do it at the expense of doing research on infectious diseases–the actual mission of the CDC.

Governor Jindal reminds us what the duties of our government are:

Our Constitution states that the federal government “shall protect each of [the States] against Invasion”—a statement that should apply as much to infectious disease as to foreign powers. So when that same government prioritizes funding for jungle gyms and bike paths over steps to protect our nation from possible pandemics, citizens have every right to question the decisions that got us to this point.

We need to get back to following the U. S. Constitution–it works very well when it is followed.

 

Where Did The Stimulus Money Go?

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Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article yesterday about Kay Hagan, who is running for a second term in the United States Senate. Senator Hagan is the junior Senator from North Carolina. At the present time, she leads her opponent, Republican Thom Tillis, by three to five points. However, it appears that Mrs. Hagan’s husband’s company benefited from the stimulus bill she supported.

The article reports:

But Hagan suffered a blow over the weekend when it was revealed that, by virtue of the 2009 Stimulus Bill for which she voted, her husband’s company received nearly $390,000 in federal grants for energy projects and tax credits.

Hagan’s response to this story is that she did not help her husband win the federal funding. She also disputes any suggestion they have profited from the Stimulus.

As to the first claim, it may be true that Hagan did not intervene directly on her husband’s behalf. But soon after voting for the Stimulus, she told a North Carolina newspaper that “there’s a lot of renewable energy-generating capacity in the stimulus package.” Her husband’s company was in the renewable energy business and Hagan knew that it was a potential direct beneficiary of the Stimulus.

As to the second claim, it’s implausible to believe that the husband’s business did not profit from receiving almost $400,000 in federal grants and tax credits. According to Politico, the Hagans’ income from JDC Manufacturing increased from less than $201 in 2008 to nearly $134,000 in 2013.

Crony capitalism anyone?

We need to elect people who will put the welfare of America ahead of their own personal gains. Obviously, Mrs. Hagan had a vested interest in voting for the stimulus.

Preparing The Field

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Unfortunately we are now living in a country where the presidential campaign is never ending. The latest example of this is the selective release of excerpts from Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming book “Hard Choices” by Politico. The excerpts deal with the attack on the Benghazi outpost on September 11, 2012.

Fox News posted a fact check of the excerpt by Catherine Herridge, their Chief Intelligence correspondent. Ms. Herridge provides a very logical analysis of Mrs. Clinton’s narrative.

One excerpt from the book as posted at Politico:

“There were scores of attackers that night, almost certainly with differing motives,” she writes. “It is inaccurate to state that every single one of them was influenced by this hateful video. It is equally inaccurate to state that none of them were. Both assertions defy not only the evidence but logic as well.”

Note to Mrs. Clinton–no one in Benghazi had seen the video.

Fox News reports:

An independent review of more than 4,000 social media postings, conducted by a leading social media monitoring firm in December 2012, also found the YouTube video was a non-event in Benghazi.

“From the data we have, it’s hard for us to reach the conclusion that the consulate attack was motivated by the movie. Nothing in the immediate picture — surrounding the attack in Libya — suggests that,” Jeff Chapman, chief executive with Agincourt Solutions (now Babel Street), told Fox News.

Chapman said his analysts reviewed postings in Libya, including those from Benghazi, over a three-day period beginning on Sept. 11, and saw “no traffic in Benghazi in the immediate lead-up to the attack related to the anti-Islam film.”

Please follow the link to the Fox News article to read the rest of the fact-check. The upcoming release of this book is the first step in clearing the way for Mrs. Clinton to run for President. The book provides talking points for the Democrats on the investigating committee and will also make the Benghazi scandal old news by the time the election campaign is fully operational.

 

 

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Upside Down Logic At Work

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On Wednesday Bill Bennett and Christopher Beach posted an article at Politico about the legalization of marijuana. The article points out the contradiction of a liberal philosophy that wants to legalize marijuana while banning large sodas, sugary foods, trans fat, smoking tobacco, etc.

The article points out:

In his recent New Yorker interview, President Obama remarked, “I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life.” But then he added, “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.” Of the legalization in Colorado and Washington—never mind the unresolved conflict between state and federal law—he said, “it’s important for it to go forward.”

Got that? The same president who signed into law a tough federal anti-cigarette smoking bill in 2009 now supports marijuana legalization.

The article concludes:

What explains this obvious paradox? Do these liberals think that marijuana is somehow less harmful than a Big Gulp soda or a bucket of fried chicken? It’s hard to believe that’s the case, given the vast amount of social data and medical science on the dangers of marijuana.

Marijuana is destructive, particularly when used by teenagers. Does the people who want to make it legal believe teenagers will not be able to get it and smoke it? That hasn’t worked real well with either cigarettes or alcohol. Most of us probably know a teenager who used pot and paid a price later on–either in his ability to learn, moving on to other drugs, or side effects from some of the things added to the marijuana. Are we willing to make this drug easier for teenagers to obtain? This sounds like a bunch of 60’s hippies who are finally in control wanting to mainstream their counterculture. This is not good for our children, and it is not good for our society.

 

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Protecting Americans From The Truth

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It isn’t news to say that the American media is biased. It is a surprise sometimes, however, to see how biased. Below are pictures of the September 16, 2013, cover of Time Magazine. The Daily Caller posted these pictures in an article about the magazine covers posted on Monday. The covers with Vladimir Putin on them are the foreign editions. The cover featuring the college athlete is the edition sold in America.

So what was the lead story in the magazines with Vladimir Putin on the cover?

The Daily Caller reports:

The foreign covers acknowledge Putin’s triumph over Obama, telling foreigners that Putin “doesn’t care what anybody thinks of him.”

The protective covers arrive as Time’s managing editor departs for a job working for one of the architects of the Syrian debacle, Secretary of State John Kerry.

In “early summer,” editor Rick Stengel was asked by Kerry, and immediately accepted, the job of running the department’s public diplomacy mission, according to Politico.

Months later, the appointment was leaked to two media outlets.

Throughout the summer, Stengel remained editor of Time while it covered U.S. politics.

Most often, the covers of Time magazine are uniform.

There is a reason the major media is dying–Americans cannot trust the major media to tell us the truth. The corroboration between Democrat politicians and the mainstream media is a scandal that the mainstream media is never going to report, but as more Americans become aware of the relationship, they will find other sources of news.

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Laws For Thee But Not For Me

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Hot Air is reporting today that President Obama has found a solution to the high cost of ObamaCare for some Americans. Strangely enough, those Americans are the Americans involved in the government on Capitol Hill. When ObamaCare was passed, Senator Chuck Grassley put an item in the bill that requires that both members and their aides must be covered by plans “created” by the law or “offered through an exchange” — in other words, if Congress was going to vote this thing in, then they were going to have to live with it, too. Congress panicked when its members realized how much the price of their health insurance was going to increase under ObamaCare.

Hot Air quotes Politico on the solution to the problem:

Lawmakers and staff can breathe easy — their health care tab is not going to soar next year.

The Office of Personnel Management, under heavy pressure from Capitol Hill, will issue a ruling that says the government can continue to make a contribution to the health care premiums of members of Congress and their aides, according to several Hill sources. …

Just Wednesday, POLITICO reported that President Barack Obama told Democratic senators that he was personally involved in finding a solution. …

Obama’s involvement in solving this impasse was unusual, to say the least. But it came after serious griping from both sides of the aisle about the potential of a “brain drain.” The fear, as told by sources in both parties, was that aides would head for more lucrative jobs, spooked by the potential for spiking health premiums.

The bottom line–taxpayers will be paying for Congress’s ObamaCare expenses. No one will be paying for the taxpayer’s ObamaCare expenses.

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If She Didn’t Do Anything Wrong, Why Does She Need Immunity?

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I will readily admit to being a simple person–black is black, white is white, to me life is pretty simple. But sometimes when I see what goes on in our legal system and political system, I just wonder who is making the rules and if anyone making the rules has any common sense. This article is an example of my simplicity coming up against the complexity of our legal system.

Yesterday Breitbart.com reported that Lois Lerner has told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that she will not testify before them without being granted full immunity. Hmm. If she didn’t do anything wrong, why does she need full immunity?

The article reports:

On Tuesday, William W. Taylor III, attorney for Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the Tea Party targeting scandal who invoked her Fifth amendment rights before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on May 22, set forward his client’s hard line conditions to return and testify openly before the committee.

“They can obtain her testimony tomorrow by doing it the easy way … immunity. That’s the way to resolve all of this,” he told Politico.

As I said–I am a simple person. If she didn’t do anything wrong, why does she need immunity?

 

 

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I’d Love To See The Guest List

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Yesterday Breitbart.com reported that the White House announced that it would hold a meeting to brief reporters on Benghazi. The meeting was initially referred to by Politico as ‘off-the-record,’ but the White House changed that to ‘deep background.’ I agree that the word deep is probably a good description, but background is not the word I would place after it.

Fourteen news organizations were invited to the closed-door meeting.

Politico reported yesterday:

The meeting was conducted on “deep background,” according to White House spokesman Josh Earnest, but sources told POLITICO that the existence of the meeting was “off the record.” The meeting began around 12:45 p.m. and postponed the daily, on-the-record White House press briefing until mid-afternoon.

The session was announced to reporters in the wake of an ABC News report showing that White House and State Dept. officials were involved in revising the now-discredited CIA talking points about the attack on Benghazi.

I would love to see which fourteen news organizations were invited to the meeting! Can you imagine what would have happened if Nixon had tried this with Watergate?

Breitbart.com tells us what to look for as a result of this meeting:

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, “Deep background means that the info presented by the briefers can be used in reporting but the briefers can’t be quoted.” So expect a fair number of “White House sources” to appear in reportage for the next few days.

Four people died at Benghazi because they did not have adequate security, and when they asked for help they did not get it. Later the Obama Administration lied about what happened. Also, remember that the man who made the video that was not responsible for the attack is the only person in jail as a result of the attack. He is still in jail. It’s time to stop playing games and explain what happened.

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We Might Eventually Get Answers To Benghazi

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Breitbart.com posted an article today stating that whistle blowers are speaking to Congressional investigators about the attack on Benghazi.

Power Line posted the following tweet from CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson:

Finding out the cause of this tragedy and the reasons America left people there to die will not bring the dead back to life, but contrary to what Former Secretary of State Clinton said, it does make a difference.

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