What Election? Republicans Have Already Handed Congress to the Democrats

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We hear a lot of talk about Russians interfering with the 2016 election results, but really, Republicans did the job for them.

What if I had told you during the 2016 elections that Republicans would pass a short-term budget bill funding the government and all its vices in a way that is absolutely indistinguishable from a bill Democrats would pass, merge it with a long-term bill funding the worst aspects of immigration, abortion, everything we hate about the Department of Education and Obamacare, massively increase spending, and then pair it with a bill funding the troops? What if I had told you we were about to lose the next election as severely as the 1974 “Watergate” election because Republicans were busy accomplishing the other side’s goals?

It’s bad enough that the Senate passed a “minibus” funding the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor, and Education, attached to defense spending. It’s bad enough that Republicans planned on passing a stopgap continuing resolution (CR) locking in last year’s spending increase through December 7 without addressing the border crisis. Now they have introduced a final bill merging the two.

With every budget bill, Republicans find a way to up the ante on their perfidy and give Democrats more than they could get when they were in control. In 2015, when Republicans didn’t even control the veto pen, Chuck Schumer expressed shock that the GOP Senate gave away the farm. “If you would’ve told me this year that we’d be standing here celebrating the passage of an omnibus bill, with no poison pill riders, at higher [spending] levels above sequesters than even the president requested, I wouldn’t have believed it, but here we are,” said the Democrat senator in December 2015. “Almost anything the Republican leadership in the Senate achieved this year, they achieved on Democratic terms. … Democrats had an amazingly good year.”

And here we are today, with Republicans in control of the White House as well, and spending is several hundred billion dollars more.

A Republican Party that was committed to its platform would have passed a stand-alone defense and homeland security bill long ago with conservative priorities. Instead, Republicans sabotaged conservatives by holding defense spending hostage for a Democrat bill that fully funds the asylum invasion but not border security.

The HHS-Labor-Education component appropriates $178 billion for fiscal year 2019, $10.7 billion more than Trump requested. HHS would receive a 2.6 percent increase over the current record levels I decried in the March bill for fiscal year 2018. The bill also contains $286 million for Title X abortion funding, as well as $100 million for Obama’s “teen pregnancy prevention program.” They also removed a provision from the House version allowing adoption agencies the discretion not to place children in homes without a father and mother.

Rather than barring HHS from settling phony “unaccompanied” minors fueling the MS-13 and drug crisis, the bill requires HHS to “develop a strategy” for “reunifying” the invaders who self-separate from their kids to empower the drug cartels and endanger our country. We now have a Congress of, by, and for foreign invaders. It’s surreal. Out of 25 ideas that I proposed to protect Americans from the emergency of illegal immigration and all its cascading effects – from gangs and drugs to identity theft, crime, and the strain on schools – not a single conservative provision was put into the bill.

The increase in spending was totally gratuitous, because agencies were already scrambling to binge-spend an extra $140 billion they never anticipated at the start of the last fiscal year. Republicans agreed to massively increase spending halfway through the fiscal year in February and March after agencies already budgeted for much less.

With just 11 months of data from this fiscal year, we now know the deficit is $900 billion, already $233 billion more than the 12 months of fiscal year 2017. And remember, last year, which was the first year of full GOP control, already saw a $128 billion increase in spending over Obama’s final year. You will hear the media blame the tax cuts for most of the deficit, but the reality is that, for August, revenues were down $7 billion compared to August 2017, while outlays were up $100 billion! Interest on the debt is soaring. This is simply astounding given the condition of the economy.

Think about this for a moment. Could you imagine going back to 1996, when even moderate Republicans thought government was too big and our social values were decrepit? We would now give anything to go back to those levels of spending and policy values on health care and education. The Department of Education now costs $71 billion in discretionary spending alone, compared to $24 billion in 1996. HHS was $33 billion compared to $90.3 billion today, in discretionary spending alone. Back in 1996, the total cost of HHS, including the entitlement and welfare programs, was $333 billion. Now it’s well over $1.2 trillion.

That was when the entire federal budget was $1.5 trillion; now it’s $4.2 trillion. That was when we passed welfare reform. That was when we passed a massive immigration enforcement bill. And yes, that was without controlling the White House.

Now we have all three branches, and yet the Republicans are light-years to the left of Democrats of the ’90s.

At its core, this is the mentality that GOP voters despised when they voted for Trump, yet he has signed every budget betrayal and has declined to threaten a veto of this bill every day, even though he promised he’d never get owned in another budget bill and saw this coming a mile away.

At some point, phony conservative organizations and commentators need to step out of the soap opera and ask the question: All this for what? Perhaps a Watergate-style loss in November – all so we can die on left-wing policy hills – is what it will take for conservatives in this industry to finally wake up and reassert control over this party or start and new one. American citizens or legal immigrants who aren’t on the dole, don’t plan on getting a sex change operation or abortion, just want a fair chance in a free market, and want safety from external threats just don’t matter to either party. Faced with the current disquiet and a lack of alternatives, many voters will simply choose the party that is currently out of power to lodge their protest, even though Democrats are really in power in all but name only. (For more from the author of “What Election? Republicans Have Already Handed Congress to the Democrats” please click HERE)

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Marco Rubio Praises NFL Player Notorious for Kneeling for the Anthem

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Republican Senator Marco Rubio is making headlines this week for his praise of NFL player Kenny Stills.

“No @NFL player does more community service than @KStills of the @MiamiDolphins,” Rubio tweeted Wednesday morning.

The controversy surrounding this endorsement stems from Stills’ participation in the NFL national anthem protests last season.

The Florida senator also retweeted one of Stills’ tweets which featured pictures of some of his charity work with his team, the Miami Dolphins.

“You don’t have to agree with how or why he has chosen to exercise the 1st Amendment before every game to acknowledge the hours he gives voluntarily, on his day off, to serve his fellow Americans,” Rubio said in his tweet.

The Hill reported that Stills continued his anthem protest this season, as one of just a few players who protested while The Star-Spangled Banner was played over last weekend’s games.

Undoubtedly, one of the reasons that Rubio congratulated Stills was because part of the charity work that he chose to highlight on Twitter Tuesday was directed toward veterans, calling it “powerful to be with them on this day.”

This isn’t the first time that the Florida senator has found common ground with an NFL player protesting the anthem.

“Look, I support his right to stand for what he does. I don’t agree with what he did but I support his right to do it,” Rubio told TMZ of Kaepernick’s kneeling in protest of police violence and racial discrimination.

At the time, Rubio said that he believed Kaepernick would “get a shot” at playing again “if he wants one.”

Kaepernick has certainly made it seem like he would like to play, considering that he leveled a lawsuit against the NFL team owners for not signing him after he was let go by the San Francisco 49ers.

Following his failure to obtain a spot on an NFL roster, Kaepernick recently became the face of Nike, causing a stir among conservatives who called for a boycott.

President Donald Trump, who was a competitor of Rubio’s in the 2016 presidential election, has made no secret of his opinion on the national anthem protests, making his own headlines ripping into NFL players, teams and Nike following their controversial campaign launch.

“Just like the NFL, whose ratings have gone WAY DOWN, Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts. I wonder if they had any idea that it would be this way?” Trump tweeted after the campaign launch. (For more from the author of “Marco Rubio Praises NFL Player Notorious for Kneeling for the Anthem” please click HERE)

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Local Official Calls Situation ‘Very Desperate,’ People Trapped in Cars and on Roofs

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As Hurricane Florence slowly approached the East Coast on Thursday, officials in New Bern, North Carolina, reported that roughly 150 residents were awaiting rescue.

Officials had warned for days of the possibility that the storm could bring catastrophic flooding to areas in its path. The threat prompted widespread mandatory and voluntary evacuations along the coast of Virginia and the Carolinas.

By Thursday evening, however, the window for evacuation had closed for many residents, including those trapped and awaiting rescue in New Bern. The Craven County city was placed under a mandatory evacuation order on Tuesday.

According to ABC News, officials tweeted that emergency response crews had already arrived and more were on the way to handle the crisis.

“Currently ~150 awaiting rescue in New Bern,” the city said. “We have 2 out-of-state FEMA teams here for swift water rescue. More are on the way to help us. WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU. You may need to move up to the second story, or to your attic, but WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU.”

Assistant County Manager Gene Hodges said a total of five rescue teams were in the area and officials were busy scouring neighborhoods in search of locals in need of assistance.

“We’re working as hard as we can,” he said.

As NPR reported, there were already a number of obstacles reported in addition to rising flood waters. Some areas of New Bern were blocked due to fallen trees and power lines, officials said.

Craven County Public Information Officer Amber Parker warned that the peripheral hazards associated with this storm might not be as obvious as flooded roads.

“You never know where there are active downed power lines that could cause an electric situation,” she said. “We just want people to be careful.”

Parker described some areas of the city as “very desperate,” adding that locals “can be trapped in water, in vehicles, on roofs.”

WUNC-FM’s Jeff Tiberii cited Gov. Roy Cooper in a Friday morning tweet confirming that no hurricane-related deaths had been reported.

“We have learned a lot from previous storms that have hit NC,” Cooper said. “The planning and strategy in place is helping us right now. I know long-term recovery is an arduous process, with lots of bureaucracy and red tape.”

In an interview with NPR’s Morning Edition, the governor said that state authorities are “working very hard to save lives.” (For more from the author of “Local Official Calls Situation ‘Very Desperate,’ People Trapped in Cars and on Roofs” please click HERE)

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Chelsea Clinton: ‘as a Deeply Religious Person’ I Believe It’s ‘Unchristian’ to End Legal Abortion

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In response to a question about how she stayed optimistic about her fight to keep abortion legal, Clinton replied that “every day I make the moral choice to be optimistic that my efforts and my energies, particularly when I’m fortunate enough to be in partnership with fellow travelers, hopefully will make a difference.”

“And when I think about all of the statistics — that are painful — of what women are confronting,” she continued, “today in our country, and what even more women confronted pre-Roe and how many women died and how many more women were maimed because of unsafe abortion practices, we just can’t go back to that.”

“That’s unconscionable to me, and also, I’m sure that this will unleash another wave of hate in my direction, but as a deeply religious person, it’s also unchristian to me,” she concluded.

The former first daughter mentioned that she faced a lot of hatred last month for linking the legalization of abortion to economic improvement. (Read more from “Chelsea Clinton: ‘as a Deeply Religious Person’ I Believe It’s ‘Unchristian’ to End Legal Abortion” HERE)

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Eerie Video Shows Hurricane Whip, Beat, Rip American Flag That Refuses to Give Up

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As Hurricane Florence was barreling toward the Carolinas on Thursday, one of the most dramatic displays of the storm’s power was the Frying Pan Tower webcam.

The Frying Pan Tower is a former Coast Guard lighthouse that also served as a housing platform.

Nowadays, it serves a significantly different purpose. According to its website, the tower has “been turned into a unique adventure bed & breakfast like no other” and serves as a nonprofit, kept alive by donations.

It’s located roughly 30 miles off the North Carolina coast, where visitors can visit the Atlantic Ocean’s most interesting B&B (for all I know, it’s the only one) by boat.

On Thursday, however, the only visitor was Florence, whose fury was captured on the Frying Pan Tower webcam.

As you can see from the above footage, the American flag that hangs above the rig took quite a beating — but, like the flag from Francis Scott Key’s most famous work, it was still there. It might have been whipped and beaten by the winds and the rain, but the stars and stripes still held on as the storm gave it all it had.

It’s worth noting that the Flag Code advises that Old Glory “should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored in such a manner as to permit it to be easily torn, soiled, or damaged in any way.” Hurricanes certainly qualify under the aegis of that.

However, it’s also worth noting that on an offshore lighthouse-turned-hotel, there are more significant things that need to be done in order to ensure the safety of everyone involved. This includes getting everyone off the rig as soon as possible without necessarily following the Flag Code to the letter.

Florence was downgraded to Category 1, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a potent storm, as the video clearly evinces. For residents of the Carolinas, many of whom have seen a massive storm surge and over 20 inches of rain in some places, the danger isn’t past. The threat from flooding lingers.

This isn’t the first time that a flag has gone viral during a hurricane. Back in 2017, Martin County, Florida, Sheriff’s Deputy Lt. Danny Cunningham became a national name after he rescued a wind-battered flag during Hurricane Irma.

“I couldn’t watch it get blown apart,” Cunningham was quoted as saying.

During Hurricane Harvey, Texas police Officer Jack McCarty became a viral sensation for a similar reason.

To those who have felt Hurricane Florence’s wrath, our thoughts and prayers are with you. Hang in there — like the flag at the Frying Pan Tower. (For more from the author of “Eerie Video Shows Hurricane Whip, Beat, Rip American Flag That Refuses to Give Up” please click HERE)

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FBI Yawns at Democrat Dianne Feinstein’s Pathetic Smear of Brett Kavanaugh

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By Townhall. Yesterday Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Dianne Feinstein announced she had received a letter from an unnamed woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of wrongdoing. She didn’t reveal what was in the letter, didn’t share it with Republican colleagues on the Committee for review and referred Kavanaugh to the FBI for investigation.

“I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities,” Feinstein released in a public statement.

(Read more from “FBI Yawns at Democrat Dianne Feinstein’s Pathetic Smear of Brett Kavanaugh” HERE)

_____________________________________________________

Believe Brett Kavanaugh

By Washington Examiner.

Let’s start off with the obvious: Attempted rape, no matter from how long ago, is immediately disqualifying behavior for any candidate for the highest court in the land. Even if presidents from both parties have failed to clear this extremely low bar, we should continue to demand moral decency from the literal arbiters of justice in society.

This is what Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s establishment superstar nominee to the Supreme Court, stands accused of in a secret letter sent to Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and then forwarded to Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

For at least two months, Feinstein kept the letter to herself. As she had multiple opportunities to question Kavanaugh under oath, both in public and private, she remained mum on the issue. One of the most senior female Democrats in Congress knew of a sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh and did not consider the allegation serious enough to question him about while he was under oath. This alone calls the allegation’s intentions and credibility into question. . .

The accuser refused to speak to the press, the Senate, and the FBI. Both Kavanaugh and his male colleague in the room with him at the time categorically denied the assault. So we have two straightforward denials and one anonymous accuser refusing to let anybody independently vet her claims, let alone explain them. . . .

Between the evidence (nonexistent) and the timing, the letter screams partisan animus. At worst, the letter is a shameless smear against a man with an unimpeachable record, clearly timed as a Hail Mary attempt to keep a conservative stalwart from the Supreme Court. And with the woman unwilling to provide an iota of corroboration to her account, the worst-case scenario seems like the likeliest. (Read more from “Believe Brett Kavanaugh” HERE)

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Imam Who Recruited for ISIS Is About to Get Released From Prison Early

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In September 2016, infamous and dangerous Imam Anjem Choudary was sentenced to five years in prison for recruiting individuals to join ISIS and carry out jihad against “infidels” in the west. Before his loyalty to ISIS, Choudary praised Osama bin Laden for carrying out the September 11 attacks.

Next week Choudary will be released from prison early on a technicality. He’s served less than half of his sentence and is still considered a serious threat.

(Read more from “Imam Who Recruited for ISIS Is About to Get Released From Prison Early” HERE)

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Sixty-Five Women Who Went to High School With Brett Kavanaugh Write Their Own Letter About His Character

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Five dozen women who went to high school with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have written a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein backing his character.

“We are women who have known Brett Kavanaugh for more than 35 years and knew him while he attended high school between 1979 and 1983. For the entire time we have known Brett Kavanaugh, he has behaved honorably and treated women with respect. We strongly believe it is important to convey this information to the Committee at this time,” the letter states. “Brett attended Georgetown Prep, an all-boys high school in Rockville, Maryland. He was an outstanding student and athlete with a wide circle of friends. Almost all of us attended all girls high schools in the area. We knew Brett well through social events, sports, church, and various other activities. Many of us have remained close friends with him and his family over the years.”

“Through the more than 35 years we have known him, Brett has stood out for his friendship, character, and integrity. In particular, he has always treated women with decency and respect. That was true when he was in high school, and it has remained true to this day,” the letter continues. “The signers of this letter hold a broad range of political views. Many of us are not lawyers, but we know Brett Kavanaugh as a person. And he has always been a good person.”

The letter comes one day after Senator Feinstein referred Kavanaugh to the FBI for investigation after receiving a letter from an unnamed woman. In a statement released by Feinstein Thursday, the Democrat implied wrongdoing by Kavanaugh without offering any evidence or transparency. (Read more from “Sixty-Five Women Who Went to High School With Brett Kavanaugh Write Their Own Letter About His Character” HERE)

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The Trump Presidency – When Excellence Is Punished

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There was a girl in my high school who was excellence personified. She was tall, beautiful, modest, honest and a very nice person. She was a straight-A student and would help anyone in need. But she sat alone in the cafeteria, walked the halls alone, had no friends, was never invited to parties and never had a date.

When time came to vote for “Senior Queen,” a teacher who recognized the girl’s excellence nominated her as a candidate. She was everything a Senior Queen should be — but she only received five votes out of 900 students.

Her problem was she was too excellent, in every way, and the other girls hated her for it. She was better than any one of them in every way. This angered the other girls and they wanted to punish her for it. Not only did they shun her but warned every boy in the school that if any of them “cozied up” to her, they could forget about ever “getting lucky” with any girl in the school and it worked as intended.

President Donald Trump is very much like this girl. In a short period of time, he has shown the country he is better at getting things done and making the United States safer, more prosperous, more respected, happier, and more hopeful than it has been in a long time. He is much better at being president than any president in modern history, and maybe even before.

Trump is not afraid to undertake the difficult tasks that other presidents promised to do but never did. And he successfully solved them. He has succeeded in areas where other presidents failed. Most Americans love him, are happy for him, and pray for his continued success.

With all his accomplishments in making the United a far better place than he had found it, everyone should be happy. Why wouldn’t they be?

In what is clearly counterintuitive, almost half the country hates him.

If someone came to America right now, knowing nothing about it, he would look around and see that nearly everyone had a job, people are becoming more affluent, they feel safe from hostile foreign powers, they are proud of their country, and they are happy and hopeful.

If he were to ask, “Has it always been like this in America?” he would be told, “No, it has not always been this way.”

It would be explained to him that for quite a while things were actually very bad in the country.

People couldn’t find jobs or had to work several part-time jobs just to pay the bills. The country was viewed as weak in the world and other countries felt free to do as they pleased, regardless of the U.S. position. The past president would talk tough to other countries and warn them not to cross his line, then do nothing when they did. It had become embarrassing to be an American.

The stranger would likely respond that everyone must love the new president.

And the answer would be, “You would think so, but half the people — those known as “the left” — hate him.”

The stranger would be baffled and would likely say, “That makes no sense.”

And the people would simply shrug and shake their heads.

This stranger would eventually come to learn that the people who hate the current president have personally benefitted from his presidency in many ways, from increased 401Ks to better and cheaper health care.

Regardless, they still hate him because they were a member of the party that controlled the government before the new president. The new president took away their power and they hate him for it.

They want their party back in power — even if it meant all the good done for the country by the new president would vanish and the country would return to the terrible conditions of the previous presidency.

Just like, “all the other girls” in my high school, the left has warned other members of their party — that if they dare “cozy-up” to the new president, they will be made to regret it.

Just ask Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor who came to the new president’s defense when the left overreacted to Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, claiming he and the president both violated a minor and murky campaign election law.

The left claimed this was “high crimes and misdemeanors” and clearly an impeachable offense while Dershowitz called their reaction “nonsense.”

Dershowitz had always been one of the left’s darlings and during his traditional summers at Martha’s Vineyard, he would be greeted with open arms, welcomed in every left-wing home, invited to all the left’s parties, and asked to be an honored speaker at their academic seminars.

As punishment for “cozying up” to Trump, instead of treating him as one of their darlings, the left shunned Dershowitz and he quickly went from a darling to a pariah.

All the members of the left took notice of this public shunning and even more than before carefully minded their political “P’s and Q’s” to avoid this same terrible fate.

My grandmother would have described this strange and ironic behavior of the left this way: “They’re cutting off their nose to spite their face.”

But such is the depth of the American political divide. The left would rather starve than take food from the hand of Donald Trump. It is eerily similar to those who set themselves on fire to protest what they hate.

Thus, as a nation, we have arrived at a place where almost half the country feels presidential success and excellence is worthy of nothing but scorn and punishment.

Not only is this bizarre, it is also sad and disheartening. (For more from the author of “The Trump Presidency – When Excellence Is Punished” please click HERE)

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Why President Trump Is Keeping Those Classified DOJ Docs in His Back Pocket

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President Trump’s allies in Congress and the media have long wondered why he doesn’t declassify documents withheld by the Department of Justice that could vindicate him in the Russia probe. What’s stopping him from exercising his constitutional authority, they ask? Doesn’t he recognize the growing danger of inaction with the midterm elections at hand, which could spell his impeachment if he loses his Republican congressional majority?

RealClearInvestigations sought insight into the president’s thinking from current and past senior U.S. officials, most of whom spoke only on condition of anonymity. The picture of Trump that emerges plays against type.

On declassification, the president is not the impulsive hothead major media portray, as epitomized by his “witch hunt” bluster on Twitter. Rather, the sources characterized him as a deliberative, strategic executive inclined to keep his powder dry now for possible detonation later. (Because his supporters—some of whom have seen the documents—are pushing for declassification and his opponents are not, the assumption is that the documents would help the president.)

Trump told Fox News last week that while he didn’t want to interfere with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, he may have no choice but to declassify. “At the right time, I think I’m going to have to do the documents,” the president said.

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, for one, would be pleased with that step. Nunes told Fox recently that false “media narratives” are burying the real story of anti-Trump machinations within the government. “That’s why the sooner the president declassifies the better,” he said, with an eye toward the November midterm elections that—if Democrats win—would likely place Trump nemesis Rep. Adam Schiff as chairman of the committee. (Read more from “Why President Trump Is Keeping Those Classified DOJ Docs in His Back Pocket” HERE)

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